commanded Solomon to be made King Benaiah said Amen the Lord do so Or when in Imprecations of evil as Numb 5.22 the Woman tried by the Water of Jealousie which sprinkled on the Curse it blotted out the Curse if she was Innocent if Guilty her Thigh presently rotted she was to say Amen Amen let it be so if I be Guilty and let it be so if I be Innocent So at the end of the Curses Deut. 27.10 and all the People shall say Amen they are loath to have the Curse come therefore they are commanded there to say Amen but they need no command to Seal the Blessings with Amen all are apt enough to Beleive and Wish them But here is a double Amen which hath the greater Emphasis and requires greater Attention and Intention of mind as Neh. 9.5 Bless the Lord your God for ever and ever and Blessed be his Glorious Name which is exalted above all Blessings and Praise Ever and Ever is answered by Amen Amen or let it be ratified in Heaven so on Earth And the Jews say that he that pronounceth this Amen as he ought is greater than he that Blesseth in the Name of the Lord he that pronounceth this Amen with all his might the Gates of Heaven flie open to him But there are Three evil Amens they call the 1. Abbreviated in the first Sillable or Letter and whoever so pronounceth it as to hasten his Amen his Days shall be soon passed 2. There is Amen cut off in the last Sillable suppressed 3. There is the Pupillar or Orphan Amen when it is pronounced at random impertinently and unseasonably without Understanding Prayer or Praise foregoing and so there is no Father to beget Devotion in them and so 't is an Orphan Amen and his Children shall be Fatherless that pronounceth such a lifeless Word and a Fatherless Amen But he that with knowledg and fervour pronounceth this Amen his Days shall be prolonged upon Earth as Buxtorff relates 2. Now I am to give you some considerations and arguments for the use of this Amen and the manner of it and they are Seven 1. It is lawful and laudable publickly to use it because it is connatural to Prayer and Praise I do not lay the lawfulness of it upon a Persian decree or a positive Injunction set on things no ways connatural to the Action for that is forced Meat and turns a Mans Stomack and his Conscience There is no need for a Rubrick by the Men of the great Synagogue or a Canon to command a Man to blush when it is only the natural passion that will command it So when the heart is warm in Prayer with serious and earnest affections a double Amen doth as naturally flow from us as Milk from a Mothers Breast to her Suckling and Amen comes from Amen which signifies to Nurse as if it were if not the Mother yet the faithful Nurse of lively Devotion Assent to Repetitions is essential unto Prayer and it is not signified publickly but by our Amen Not that we are obliged to speak it always and with a loud Voice quantis arteriis opus est si pro sono audiamur Tert. what Lungs had we need to have if God hear us for our loudness But when the heart is affected we see here how the People stood up and lift up their hands to Heaven naturally signifying they would lift the Name of God with all their might but they cast down themselves bowing down their Heads and worshipping the Lord with their Faces to the ground who can hold his Breath from a groan or sigh when matter and affection meet together The Israelites here could not withhold their hands nor Hannah hold still her Eyes when earnest in Temple Prayer nor can a zealous heart hold the Tongue from moving to an Amen at the end of Prayer and Praise There is no Child of God that can say our Father but lower or louder he must and will say Amen The Jews in time of Incense called themselves mutes in deep silent Prayer when they praised God on Instruments Semivocates but when in open Prayer and Praises then they were Vocates in their Amens 2. We have the practise of the Old and New Testament Beleivers for our example In Moses you had it in Numbers and Deuteronomy and David oft useth it in the Psalms yea this double Amen Psal 41.13 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting Amen and Amen God was Israels God accepting their Praises hearing Prayers fulfilling promises and this for Ever and Ever and be it Eternally ratified Amen and Amen to all Generations Psal 106.48 the same words are repeated with this exhortation let all the People say Amen Hallelujah And they had the same Praises and Petitions to offer therefore the same conclusion is suitable So the Prophet Jeremiah speaking of Gods Oath to give Canaan to the Jews says Oh Lord Amen or be it so Jer. 11.5 so Paul 1 Cor. 14.16 how can the Idiot the private Man who knows only his own private single Language say Amen to Prayer or Praise in another Tongue which not only imports the custom but the manner of saying Amcn to be with Faith and Understanding Eph. 3.21 to him be Glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all Ages World without end Amen Yea Jesus Christ a greater than Moses Prophets and Apostles adds this conclusion to his perfect form of Petitions in Matth. 6. so in his Book of Revelations chap. 5 14. the Four Beasts and Four and Twenty Elders who represented tho whole Church of Jews and Gentiles together cry Amen Yea that innumerable Company of those Triumphing Souls who had white Robes and Palms in their Hands as Victors over Temptations with the Elders and Angels fell on their Faces and worshipped God saying Amen Blessing and Glory and Honour and Wisdom and Thanksgiving and Power and Might be unto our God for Ever and Ever Amen Rev. 7.12 So at the fall of Babylon as the Voice of many Thunders and Waters the Church cries Amen Hallelujah The Lord God Omnipotent Reigneth and hath Avenged the Blood of his Servants Rev. 19.4 Yea it lasts unto the mariage of the Lamb Rev. 22.20 still when the Bridegroom comes the Church cries Amen come Lord Jesus come quickly 3. Amen after Prayer and Praise is the Mans consent judgment and approbation of what is offered unto God it is the setting to of our Seal to all and our putting our Hands to bear a part in the Praises and to have a share in the Petitions It imports the desire of our Soul which is the formality of Prayer now all these are essential to these Duties and the pronunciation is but the publication of our reward Sense which is very significant in publick Worship Hearing is but the formal Sense in conceiving the Petitions but Speech brings them forth and is a more open profession and a more Masculine expression of Devotion Lamen 3.41 let us lift up our hearts
such an Headship The Church is visible and it must they thought have a visible Head It was meet also that this Head should have some such Grandeur and Pomp in the World as became the Head of so Great and Glorious a Society as the Church is How to apply these things unto Christ and his Presence with the Church by his Word and Spirit they knew not Shall they then forgo the Principle That the Church is to have such an Head and Supream Ruler That must not be done but be sacredly retained not only because to deny it in general is to renounce the Gospel but because they had found out a way to turn it unto their own advantage they would therefore make an Image of Christ as this Head of the Church to possess the Place and act all the Powers of such an Head for the Church they say is visible and must have a visible Head as though the Catholick Church as such were any other way visible but as the Head of it is that is by Faith That there must be an Head and Center of Union wherein all the Members of the Church may agree and be united notwithstanding all their distinct Capacities and Circumstances and how this should be Christ himself they know not that without a Supream Head present in the Church to compose all Differences and determine all Controversies even those concerning himself which they vainly pretend unto they expresly affirm that there was never a Society so foolishly ordered as that of the Church And hereon they conclude the Insufficiency of Christ to be this fâ—le Head of the Church another they must have for these Ends. And this was their Pope such an Image as is one of the worst of Idols that ever were in the world Unto him they give all the Titles of Christ which relate unto the Church and ascribe all the Powers of Christ in and over it as unto its Rule to him also But here they fell into a Mistake for when they thought to give him the Power of Christ they gave him the Power of the Dragon to use against Christ and those that are his And when they thought to make an Image of Christ they made an Image of the First Beast set up by the Dragon which had two Horns like a Lamb but spake as a Dragon whose Character and Employ is at large described Rev. 13.11 12 13 14 15 16 17. This is the Sum of what I shall offer on this Head Those who called themselves the Church had lost all Spiritual Light enabling them to discern the Beauty and Glory of the Rule of Christ over the Church as its Head and hereon their Minds became destitute of all Experience of the power and efficacy of his Spirit and Word continually to order the Affairs thereof in the ways and through the use of Means by himself appointed they knew not how to acquiesce in these things nor how the Church could be maintained by them Wherefore in this case they helped every one his Neighbour and every one said to his Brother be of good comfort so the Carpenter encouraged the Goldsmith and he that sâ—â—â—teth with the Hammer him that smiteth the Anvil They set themselves in their several capacities to frame this Idol and set him up in the place and stead of Christ so fixing him in the Temple of God that he might shew himself from thence to be as God Neither will this Idol be ever cast out of the Church until the Generality of Christians become spiritually sensible of the Authority of Christ exerting it self in the Rule of the Church by his Spirit and his Word unto all the Ends of Unity Order Peace and Edification until that be done a Pope or somthing like him will be thought necessary unto these Ends. But never was there a more horrid deformed Image made of so beautiful and glorious an Head All the Craft of Satan all the Wits of men cannot invent any thing more unlike Christ as the Head of the Church than this Pope is A worse Figure and Representation of him cannot possibly be made This is he of whom nothing not great nothing common nothing not exceeding the ordinary state of Mankind on the one hand or the other is thought or spoken Some say he is the Head and Husband of the Church the Vicar of Christ over the whole World God's Vicegerent a Vice-God Peter's Successor the Head and Center of Vnity unto the whole Catholick Church endued with a plenitude of Power with other Ascriptions of the same nature innumerable whereon it is necessary unto every Soul under pain of Damnation to be subject unto him Others aver that he is Antichrist the Man of Sin the Son of Perdition the Beast that came out of the Earth with two Horns like a Lamb and a Voice like the Dragon the false Prophet the Idol Shepherd the evil Servant that beateth his fellow-Servants the Adulterer of a Meretricious and false Church and there is no Mean betwixt these He is undoubtedly the One or the Other The Lord Jesus Christ who hath determined this Controversie already in his Word will ere long give it its ultimate Issue in his own glorious Person and by the brightness of his coming And this is an eminent Idol in the Chamber of Imagery in the Roman Church But at present it is evident wherein lies the preservation of Believers from being inveagled to bow down to this Image and to worship it A due sence of the sole Authority of Christ in and over his Church with an experience of the power of his Word and Spirit unto all the Ends of its Rule and Order will keep them unto the Truth herein and nothing else will so do And if once they decline from this in any Instances seem they never so small so as to admit of any thing in the Church or its Worship which doth not derive immediately from his Authority they will be disposed to admit of another Guide and Head in all other things also SECT V. Again it is a Notion of Truth That the Church of Christ is beautiful and glorious There are many Prophesies and Predictions concerning it that so it should be and there are sundry descriptions given of it as such It s Relation unto Christ with his Love unto it and valuation of it do require that it should be so glorious yea his great Design towards it was to make it so to be Eph. 5.25 26 27. This therefore all do agree in who profess Christian Religion but what that Glory is and wherein it doth consist whence it is and is said to be glorious is not agreed upon The Scripture indeed plainly declares this Glory to be Spiritual and internal that it consists in its Union unto Christ his presence with it the communication of his quickning Spirit unto it the cloathing of it with his Righteousness in its Sanctification and Purification from the defilement of Sin with its fruitfulness in Obedience unto
up unto him in all things who is the head despiseth this Image and Dagon will fall to the ground when this ark is brought in yea though it be in his own Temple SECT VIII In the farther opening of this Chamber of Imagery we shall yet if it be possible see greater Abominations At least that which doth next ensue is scarce inferiour unto any of them that went before It is a principle in Christian Religion an acknowledged verity that it is the duty of the Disciples of Christ especially as united in Churches to propagate the faith of the Gospel and to make the doctrine of it known unto all as they have opportunity yea this is one principal end of the constitution of Churches and officers in them Mat. 5.13 14 15 16. 1 Tim. 3.15 This our Lord Jesus Christ gave in special charge unto his Apostles at the beginning Mat. 28.19 20. Mark 16.15 16. Hereby they were obliged unto the work of propagating the faith of the Gospel and the knowledge of him therein in all places and were justified in their so doing And this they did with that efficacy and success that in a short time like the light of the Sun their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world Rom. 10.18 And the Gospel was said to be preached unto every Creature which is under Heaven Col. 1.23 The way therefore whereby they propagated the faith was by diligent laborious preaching of the Doctrine of the Gospel unto all persons in all places with patience and magnanimity in undergoing all sorts of sufferings on the account of it and a declaration of its power in all those vertues and graces which are useful and exemplary unto mankind It is true their Office and the discharge of it is long since Leased Howbeit it cannot be denyed but that the Work it self is incumbent in a way of duty on all Churches yea on all Believers as they have providential Calls unto it and Opportunities for it For it is the principal way whereby they may glorifie God and benefit men in their chiefest Good which without doubt they are obliged unto This notion of Truth is retained in the Church of Rome and the work it self is appropriated by them unto themselves alone unto them and them only as they suppose it belongs to take care of the propagation of the faith of the Gospel with the conversion of Infidels and Hereticks Whatever is done unto this purpose by others they condemn and abhor What do they think of the primitive way of doing it by personal Preaching Sufferings and Holiness Will the Pope his Cardinals and Bishops undertake this work or way of the discharge of it Christ hath appointed no other the Apostles and their Successors knew no other no other becomes the Gospel nor ever had Success No they abhor and detest this way of it What then is to be done Shall the Truth be denyed Shall the work be wholely and avowedly laid aside neither will this please them because it is not suited unto their honour wherefore they have erected a dismal Image of it unto the horrible reproach of Christian Religion They have indeed provided a double painting for the Image which they have set up The first is the constant consult of some persons at Rome which they call congregatio de propaganda fide a Counsel for the Propagation of the Faith under the effect of whose consultations Christendom hath long grieved And the other is the Sending of Missionaries as they call them or a Surcharge of Fryars from their over numerous Fraternities upon their errands into remote Nations But the Real Image it self consists of these three parts 1. The Sword 2. The Inquisition 3. Plots and Conspiracies By these it is that they design to propagate the Faith and promote Christian Religion And if Hell it self can invent a more deformed Image and Representation of the sacred Truth and Work which it is a counterfeit of I am much mistaken Thus have they in the first way carried Christian Religion into the Indies especially the Western Parts of the World so called First the Pope out of the plenitude of his power gives unto the Spaniard all those Countreys and the Inhabitants of them that they may be made Christians But Christ dealt not so with his Apostles though he were Lord of all when he sent them to teach and baptize all Nations He dispossessed none of them of their Temporal Rights or Enjoyments nor gave to his Apostles a foot breadth of Inheritance among them But upon this Grant the Spanish Catholicks propagâ—ted the Faith and brought in Christian Religion amongst them And they did it by killing and murthering many millions of innocent persons as some of themselves say more than are alive in Europe in any one Age. And this savage Cruelty hath made the name of Christians detestable amongst all that remained of them that had any Exercise of Reason some few slavish Brutes being brought by force to submit unto this new kind of Idolatry And this we must think to be done in obedience unto that command of Christ Go ye into all the World and preach the Gospel unto every Creature he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned This is the deformed Image which they have set up of Obedience unto his holy Commands whereunto they apply that voice to Peter with respect unto the eating of all sorts of Creatures Arise Peter kill and eat So have they dealt with those poor Nations whom they have devoured But Blood Murder and unjust War as all War is for the Propagation of Religion with persecution began in Cain who derived it from the Devil that Murderer from the beginning for he was of that wicked one and slew his Brother Jesus Christ the Son of God was manifesâ— to destroy these works of the Devil Heb. 2. And he doth it in the world by his Word and Doctrine judging and condemning them And he does it in his Disciples by his Spirit extirpating them out of their minds hearts and ways so as that there is not a more assured Character of a Derivation from the Evil Spirit than force and blood in Religion for the propagating of it The next part of this Image the next way used by them for the propagating of the Faith and the conversion of them they call Hereticks is the Inquisition So much hath been declared and is known thereof that it is needless here to give a Portraicture of it It may suffice that it hath been long since opened like Cacus's Den and discovered to be the greatest Arsenal of Cruelty the most dreadful Shambles of blood and slaughter that ever was in the World This is that Engine which hath supplyed the Scarlet Whore with the blood of Saints and the blood of the Martyrs of Jesus until she was drunk with it And this is the Second way or means whereby they propagate the Faith
notitiae connotat affectum light and heat clearer views and dearer and stronger Loves must go together 3. The Persons who are to labour after a greater measure of Knowledg and those are real Christians who have attained to some degree of spiritual Understanding that Light which is as the Light of the Moon should be increased so as to equal the Light of the Sun and that which is as the Light of the Sun should be augmented so as to equal the light of seven days should grow more and more glorious 4. The Arguments to perswade and they are two Christ is their Lord Christ is their Saviour 1. Christ is their Lord a Lord most great most gracious the more this is understood the better will his Service be liked as honourable and advantageous and Obedience will be yielded with greater chearfulness and constancy 2. Christ is their Saviour a Saviour from the greatest Evils Sin and the miserable effects of it in time in eternity a Saviour to the greatest Blessedness an everlasting Kingdom and Glory a Saviour of that which is most pretious the Soul which if safe the whole man must needs be secured The Text may be considered with a double reference to what goes before to what follows after 1. To what goes before grow in Grace and Knowledg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hence we may observe That the way to increase in Grace is to increase in the Knowledg of Christ the means of Grace will be found inefficacious and empty will convey nothing if Christ be not with them and in them if he be not understood by those that use them All that fulness out of which the Church is replenished from the beginning of the world to the very end of it it has pleased the Father should dwell in Christ Col. 1.19 If a man know where a vast Treasure lies hid he may quickly go and enrich himself the way to have more Grace is to understand that Christ is the Fountain from whence all Grace is derived He is head over all things to his Church which is his Body and is called to shew the reality and plentifulness of Communication the fulness of him who filleth all in all Eph. 1. ult 2. The Text may be referred to what follows after To him be Glory both now and for ever Amen Hence observe thâ—t thâ— grâ—â—â—â—r Knâ—â—lâ—â—â—â—â—â— Christ we attain to the more we shall â—â—â—â—â—r and sâ—◠〈…〉 glorifie him his Godhead is the same with the Fathers his 〈…〉 Dominion equal and eternal The Church millitant muâ—◠〈…〉 begin to glorifie her Lord and Saviour and wheâ— she comes to be 〈…〉 praises will be vastly higher and to magnifie to love to aâ—â—ire and to rejoyce in him will be her everlasting business But I shall wave the Connexion and from the words themselâ—â—â— râ—â—se this Doctrine That it highly concerns all sâ—â—cere 〈◊〉 to grow and iâ—crease in the Knowledg of Christ The Gospel which revâ—â—ls Christ 〈…〉 mystery which the Angels themselves desire to 〈…〉 looking they admire the manifold wisdom of God the exceeding riches of his Grace and love and shall not the Saints search farthâ—â— into this Gospel shall they not look more unto and into Jesus what 〈…〉 him the nature of Angels but the Seed of Abraham The better Christ is understood the better will they understand how happy he has maâ—â—â— them and that Christ being theirs all is theirs The question that in this exercise I am to answer is this How 〈…〉 grow in the Knowledg of Christ and make use of and 〈…〉 Kâ—â—wledg Now that the Answer may be the more full I shall do theâ—â— four things First I shall tell you what it is to grow in the Knowledg of Christ 〈◊〉 the telling you this will tend to the advancement of this groâ—th Seâ—ondly What Properties are required in this Knowledg Thirdly The Directions are to follow that you may increase in the Knowledg of him Fourthly What Vse and Improvement you are to makâ— of tâ—is Kâ—â—wledg or of Christ known I begin with the first of these What it is to grow in the Kâ—â—wledg of Christ Here several Propositions are to be premised 1. The Knowledg of Christ is of the greatest Excellency The Apostle calls this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3.8 Yea doubtless and I câ—â—â—t â—ll things but loss for the Excellency of the Knowledg of Christ Jesus my Lord other kind of Knowledg is like Light from the Sâ—ars this like bâ—amâ— from the Sun Christ is called the Sun of Righteousness He is called Wisdâ—m in the abstract Sapientiae omnimoda sapientia Prov. 1.20 in the Hebrew it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wisdom in him iâ—â—he Sum the Perfection of Wisdom To know him does assimuâ—ate and make us like him and when we shall have a full view of him in glory we shall to our utmost capacity fully resemble him To know him is Life eternal and they that seek Life any other way will find death 〈◊〉 themselves mistaken in the end No wonder the Apostle glories in 〈◊〉 Knowledg and that an ancient Father said he was glâ—d he had sometâ—â—â—â— of value he meant Philâ—sophy to despise in comparison 2. This Knowledg of Christ is of absolute necessity Stat invicta haec rupe s. Ego sum Via nullus a in s quicquid ante m via haec non fuerit error lubricum te nebraesunt Luther Tom. 2. p. 507. In Scripture he is compared to those things which are so needful that we cannot be without them 〈◊〉 Mâ—â—t and Drink and Raiment Christ is the Bread of Life the fountain of Living Water we are to put on the Lord Jesus his righteousness is tâ—â— Garment which must cover and secure us To be totally ignorant â—f him must needs be death eternal for there is not Salvation in any other◠〈◊〉 4.12 3. The Knowledg of Christ is by supernatural revelation Much of God may be râ—â—d in the Book of nature his visible Works do make the wisdom pâ—wer and goodness of the Worker also visible But Christ is a mystery hâ—d from Ages and Genâ—rations and would have remained hid still if the Gospel had not revealed him Col. 1.26 Who could ever have thought of God his being manifested in the flâ—sh and redeeming the Church with his oâ—â—â— Blood if this had not been brought to Light by the Gospel Thâ—se are indeed the deep things of God which the Spirit reveals 1 Cor. 2.10 11. and power to discern them and believe them is from the same Spirit 4. The Knowledg of Christ was communicated in a degree under the old Testament The Prophets spake of him and if they had not what they had said besides had been insignificant The Law was a Schoolmaster to bring Israel to Christ Gal. 3.24 The Ceremonial Law requiring the blood of so many sacrifices 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shewed plainly that the Sacrificers themselves deservâ—d to die and therefore is said to be against them
with our hands to God in the Heavens When the heart is intensly elevated to God it carries the Hands and the Voice along with it it Acts all the Body from the Center as Tertullian Phraseth it bona conscientia eructat ad superficiem he lifts up his Soul Psal 143.8 and Body too to God as they lifted up the Mincah or Heav-Offering and waved it before the Lord the Soul will work the body into Simpathy when it is earnest indeed that which made the Veins of the Body to open their Mouths in drops of Blood as Christ his Prayer in his Agony did Luke 22.44 will certainly make us open our Lips Out of the abundance of the Heart the Mouth speaks Luke 6.46 4. This Vocal Amen is as it were the Epitome and summ of all our Petitions and Praises to God 't is the Center which all those Lines are drawn towards It is all the Duty vertually reduced to one word and point Yea it is the repeating and ecchoing or redoubling of all over again As the Mercury behind the Glass it reverterates the lively Image of all preceding Devotion It is a drawing the Arrow to the Pile by a strong ejaculation qua toto corde deum petimus in Bellarmines Phrase whereby the whole heart is darted up to God It is a stirring up our selves to take hold of God Isa 64.7 It is taking aim and directing our Prayer to him and looking up Psal 5.3 as if they would hand up Gods Praises to him and stand ready to receive his Mercies with open Hands and Mouths It winds up all together in one bundle many are willing to have God forgive their trespasses but cannot so readily forgive others we may be free for God to give us daily Bounty and Bread but cannot make it as Meat and Drink to do his Will Men will easily accept of Gods kindness not so roundly pay their tribute of Praises Such cannot roundly Pray nor say Amen Ah Lord and Amen are two long Prayers in few words managed by the whole Soul and thus it is an Amen with an Hallelujah when we seek God with all our hearts then we find him Jer. 29.13 5. Amen rightly pronounced is an intense Act of Faith or it involves a strong Faith The Hebrew Verb in Niphat signifies to be firm stable and strong and in Hiphil it signifies to beleive and trust and indeed we cannot beleive or trust to any thing but that which is stable invariable and immutable So that there are two Declarations made by this Amen 1. That God is firm and immutably true in himself and his word 2. That we will not only beleive his Truth but trust to his veracity and build upon it as the Prophet doth both Jer. 11.5 this is a laying hold on Gods Strength Isa 27.5 as we see Abraham Gen. 15.6 he beleived God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vehermen Gods Truth is beleived his veracity trusted to Israel twisted about both these as Abraham did he wrestled with God and prevailed The Jews say Amen habet tres nucleos hath Three Kernels the one is of an Oath the Second of Faith the Third of Confidence as Bunto says on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When we have confessed our Sins we do by our Amen say all is true and we have deserved Gods displeasure we beg pardon of them and so beleive God hath promised Pardon to the Penitent we trust our selves with God in Christ and beleive that he will Pardon our Sins as all others that cast themselves upon his promised Grace 6. The unanimous pronunciation of Amen is an assurance that God will accept our Praises and answer our Prayers So as the Soul comes off with Luther's Vicimus we have prevailed Mark 11.24 what things soever ye desire when you Pray beleive that ye receive them and ye shall have them nay 1 John 5.15 If we know that he heareth us whatsoever we ask we know that we have the Petitions we desired of him We ought to beleive we shall have them either in kind or value and infinite Wisdom and Goodness must be Judge in that Case alone Matth. 18.19 if two of you agree on Earth as touching any thing that they shall ask it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven If any single Soul Pray in Faith it shall be heard much more if two have a Symphony as the word imports they shall be answered how much more when the whole Congregation is in Harmony and unanimously cries Amen when the whole Congregation meets as one Man Ezra 3.1 and the multitude of Beleivers are of one Heart and Soul Acts 4.32 God will say Amen to such Amens They are as it were a bath col the Eccho and Voice of God from the Mercy-Seat Sanctorum vota sunt oracula Gods Spirit stirs up such Prayers and they shall not be denied The Soul like Luther says fiat voluntas mea as Men make their Wills in the Name of God Amen it shall be thus for once let my Will Oh Lord be done Heavens Gate is open to this united Knock. 7. And lastly This unanimous Amen of Faith strikes terror on the Enemies of the Church whether Devils or Men. When the Romans had Conquered Philip and the Grecians and Flaminius caused Peace to be proclaimed to the Grecians there was such a Shout says Plutarch that the very Crows and other Birds fell down to the ground the Air was so rent and shaken And when the Church of God Terrible as an Army with Banners gives her unanimous Voices of Amens not only Satan falls like lightning from Heaven Luke 10.18 but Simon Magus by Peters Prayer is fetch'd down when he attempted to flie in the Air as if he had been the Holy Dove and Power of God as Ecclesiastical Story relates And Socrates tells us that upon Theodosius his Prayers and his Armies the Barbarians Captain was smitten with a Thunderbolt and his Soldiers by Fire As the Turks Mined the Eastern Empire of the Romans by Fire Smoke and Brimston i e. by Guns and Gun-powder Rev. 9.17 when the Church is united in hearty Amens it is like the Shout that the Israelites gave when God and his Ark came into the Camp which was such a great sound that the Earth rang 1 Sam. 4.5 for then God is gone up with a Shout Psal 47.5 to answer the Prayers made for the Salvation of his People This makes the hearts of their Enemies to melt and tremble as the Philistins did As Hierom expresseth it the hollow Idols and their Temples that were empty did Eccho and Rebound the Churches Amens so as their Fabricks shaked Thus when the Shophar lovely Trumpet sounded the Seventh time upon the Seventh day Josh 6.20 the Walls of Jerico fell and so shall the Gates and Walls of Babylon by the Preaching of the Gospel on the Lords Days and the Prayers of the Saints The united Breath of Gods People sends a blast upon their Enemies the Trumpet blew and the
without 'em a Prov. 1.32 The Prosperity of Fools destroyes ' em What doth Religion in this Case The Truth is there needs a great exercise of Religion to carry us safe thrô Freedom from Affliction b Job 1.5 Jobs extraordinary devotion upon his Childrens ordinary rejoycing in their prosperous Condition may Convincingly instruct us that there 's more danger in Freedom from Affliction than we are willing to suspect and it is more difficult to love and fear and trust God when we have the world than when we want it so that without Serious Godliness 't is impossible to withstand the insinuating and pleasing Temptation of flattering Prosperity and unless Faith be in Exercise we cannot do it with it What then is an afflicted Condition to be preferr'd Some that have had experience of both say Yes they have been afraid to come from under their Afflictions some sick Persons have been even afraid of Health thô they desir'd it lest what they got in their Sickness they should lose in their Health But yet the continuance of Afflictions breaks the Spirits and hinders that chearful serving and praising of God which is or should be the Life of a Christian thô many are better'd by Afflictions yet none are allowed to pray for Afflictions but against them and use all good means to avoid or remove them 't is one thing makes Heaven desirable the putting an end to all our Afflictions In short c Heb. 12.11 no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous whatever be the after-fruit of it This therefore is clogg'd with Vanity But what doth Religion in this Case Serious Godliness by Afflictions becomes more Serious God makes great use of Afflictions for the working and promoting of Piety and in this I think all experienced Christians are agreed they reckon sanctified Afflictions among the choicest Providences of their lives I commend the enlargement of this by your own Thoughts out of your own experiences And thus including these three Cases as in a large Parenthesis there 's one Case more that I would cautiously speak to which the Church Catholick truly so called may have more cause than ever tremblingly to consider and to seek more satisfying resolution than I can give for it's determination VI. What man upon Earth can peremptorily assert whether Peace or Persecution be just at such a time infallibly best for the Church of Christ 'T is easily granted that we must at all times pray for and endeavour the universal both outward and spiritual Peace of the Church and this that we may at all times do any thing but Sin to avoid or put an end to Persecution but let 's consider each as in the former instances That the Peace of the Church is beyond Expression desirable he is no Christian that denyes it those that are the greatest troublers of the Churches Peace do usually proclaim their Friendship to it calling their Affection to a party Love to the Church and the welfare of their party the Peace of the Church Now thô their Charity is too narrow to contract the Church into a party their Notion of Peace is large enough they would have it commensurate with the Church So that I need not be large to prove what no body denies Outward Prosperity was so much the Blessing of the Old Covenant that some confine it to that but others upon better Grounds expect more under the Gospel for d Luk. 1.74 75. this was no inconsiderable end of Christs coming into the World to deliver us out of the hands of our worldly Enemies to serve him without affrighting fears of men in Holiness before God and Righteousness before men all the dayes of our Life Which Prosperity when the Church hath enjoyed according to Christs purchase and Promise then they have walkt in the filial fear of the Lord and in the encouraging e Acts 9.31 Comforts of the Holy Ghost were multiplyed in number of Converts and increase of their Graces that were formerly converted But here as we use to say of pleasant weather 'T is pity fair weather should do any harm so 't is pity the Churches Prosperity should do any harm But alas the Church of Christian as little bear continual Prosperity as long Adversity a Calm is sometimes as dangerous as a Storm Many are the Temptations and Snares of a Prosperous condition it breeds Hypocrites Errors and Heresies spring up like Weeds in rank ground Professors are apt to grow Remiss and Careless Wanton and Secure to be too fond of the Present and to hanker after more Temporal Happiness than God judges good for them How hardly were the very Apostles awakened from dreaming of Christs temporal Kingdom and the very best of 'em from suing for great Offices at Court O the Divisions among Brethren when Pride makes them quarrelsome When the World favours the Church the Church slides into the World then their worldliness spoils their Christianity and their Christianity palliates their worldliness and so those things are mixt which can never be compounded But now Serious Godliness is the best Preservative against Surfeiting on Prosperity 'T is Grace in the Exercise and Growth that powerfully enables and necessarily provokes to improve the Churches Peace to all Spiritual advantages The Church of the Jews was never in such a flourishing condition as in Solomon's Reign and is it not well worthy our observation that the Posterity of his Servants who became Proselytes to the Jewish Religion were several Ages after his death doubly recorded by a Neh. 7.57.60 the Spirit of God above the Proselytes of former Ages 'T is Serious Godliness that keeps them humble and always upon their Watch against flattering Temptations that keeps them low in their own eyes and from despising others and what on this side great Grace could make David who had a b 1 Chron. 22.14 greater Summe of ready Money than ever any had in the World either before or since preferr that little of Scripture that was penn'd in his time before an innumerable Treasure c Psal 119.72 He had also a List of Worthies d 2 Sam. 23. never the like in the World yet he e Psal 16.3.119.63 preferrs the Communion of Saints before ' em To have our Conversation in Heaven when 't is best with us upon Earth this can only be effected by the Power of Godliness believe it Christians this is no easie matter What then Is a State of Persecution more Eligible Before I dare speak a word to this I must premise this Caution Let not Persecutors take encouragement to be more outragious in their Persecution and then scornfully tell you this is good for 'em their Pastors tell 'em 't is sometimes better for 'em than Peace This is like Julian who in every thing he did with a deep Reach and greater Malice than former Emperors to undermine and worm out the Christian Religion he still twitted the Christians with some advice
them with acting out of Fancy or humour or any thing but a fixed and stable Principle Besides what hath been spoken by way of Direction in answer to the Question some further Improvment of this Doctrine may be made Vse 2 1. By way of Information If true Christians may give an account of their Christianity 1. They then are no true Believers no true Christians of whose Religion no good account can be given either how they came by it or whereon it is grounded 1. How they came by it when they pretend to be Saints but cannot in the least tell how they came to be Saints have found no real change in themselves are the same they have alwayes been they have they think loved God and believed in Christ and had hopes of Heaven ever since they can remember but know not how any of these things were wrought in them or by what means such a Faith I dare say is but a Fancy and so is their Hope and their Love and whatever Grace they pretend to 2. Whereon it is grounded 1. When their Faith is not rightly grounded it is no better than a Fancy When it is built on the Authority of a Church or the Traditions of men and not on the Word of God or on the Word misunderstood or misapplied or divided or maimed when they believe Promises without respect to Commands believe Christ is their Saviour and yet never receive him to be their Lord believe they shall See God though they be not pure in Heart follow not after Holiness and such indeed is the Faith and Hope of Prophane Worldlings and whoever live in Contradiction to Gods Commands and yet expect the benefit of his Promises 2. When their Practice is not rightly grounded it is no better than Folly how fair soever and plausible it may seem When men set up a Religion meerly of mans devising contrive new wayes of Worshipping God which he himself never appointed and so indeed impose upon him and prescribe to him what they think must certainly please him This is unreasonable for men to think that their Inventions or others Traditions can be more acceptable to God than his own Institutions that Sacrifice can go further than Obedience would have done They would themselves be served according to their own minds and not their Servants pleasure and why should not God They would not have their Commands neglected that their Servants Will might be performed and how foolish is it then to adhere to their own Inventions though with the slighting of Gods Institutions and yet how few be there that are so addicted to Humane Observances but they are careless of Gods Appointments Gods Commands being the Great and only Warrantable reason of all Divine Worship whatever Worship is uncommanded cannot be but unreasonable 2. How great is their sin that Question nay Deride the Grace that is in Believers as not being a real thing count the most Serious powerfull Godliness to be no better than Humour of Fancy All the Religion they own consists but in a few outward Forms or some moral Actions and whatever is above this they look upon as not real and so they leave us a Lamentably empty Religion when they condemn our Faith as Fancy our Practice as Folly and casheer all our Comforts as meer Delusions This usually proceeds either 1. From the Atheism and Infidelity of such mens Hearts some Question all Religion and so the true Religion among the rest they are themselves for none and therefore Quarrel with all they think all Religion is but Fancy or Policy and so the Christian Religion too They do not really believe the Grounds of Christianity and therefore laugh at them that do 2. Or from Pride and Conceitedness of their own Wisdom and Reason they magnifie their own Notions are in love with their own Wisdom and so contemn all else like the Athenians Acts. 17.18.32 that laugh'd when they heard of Jesus and the Resurrection The high Opinion they have of their Reason makes them deny the reality of Faith what they cannot themselves comprehend they will not believe nor allow others to do it they will scarce allow of any thing between Demonstration and Fancy and this makes them Innovate so much in Religion and Scoff at the Faith by which they should be Saved 3. Or from Ignorance of Spiritual things and their not Experiencing the Power of Grace in their own Hearts They will believe nothing in Religion but what they have themselves felt They never found the Light of Divine Truths shining into their dark Minds and overcoming their Carnal Reason nor the Power of Grace renewing their Wills and subjecting them to Gods Will breaking the force of their sinfull Inclinations mortifying their Lusts regulating their Affections changing the habitual temper and disposition of their Spirits nor the Efficacy of Faith in the Purification of their Hearts their resting upon the Promises cleaving to Christ and fetching in supplies of the Spirit from him nor the Love of God shed abroad in their Hearts enlarging them in Duties quickning them in his wayes supporting them under Burthens strengthning them against Temptations and comforting them under Afflictions and therefore they Question all these things and take them to be nothing else but canting Phrases and unaccountable Fancies A man that never was at Rome or Constantinople might at the same rate deny there ever were such places one that never tasted Honey might deny it to be sweet or a blind man laugh at Colours because he never saw them though contrary to the Experience of thousands that had with as much reason as they who live meerly by Sense and never Experienced any better pleasures deny a higher Principle by which Believers are acted and more Spiritual Comforts which they enjoy Vse 2 Of Exhortotion 1. Labour to Experience the reality of your Religion in your selves So live as that you may not be deceived and may know that you are not So act Grace as that you may feel it working and from thence conclude the Principle to be in you and may tast the sweetness of the comforts it brings with it Labour to be fully satisfied that you do not live by Fancy and act by Fancy think you believe and hope when you do not that Grace in you is as real a Principle as Reason is 1. This becomes you as reasonable Creatures as such you should know the reason of your own Actings upon what Grounds you do what you do and believe what you believe You would think a man very weak and foolish in the concernments of this present Life that could give himself no account of his own Actions or expectations should have high hopes of great things but not tell why he entertained them How unreasonable then is it for a man to hope for greater things in the other Life to engage in a Religious Course be diligent in Duties deny himself as to his Worldly Interest and yet not know why he doth so 2. It
every such person whensoever such occasions do invite me to it And do we now need to be told what such an impartial truly Christian love would do to our common preservation and to prevent the ruine of the Christian Interest 1. How greatly would it contribute to the vigour of the Christian life for so we should all equally hold the head from which all the body by joynts and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together encreaseth with the increase of God As afterwards in this Chapter verse 19. Thus as it is in that other parallel text of Scripture Speaking the truth in love we shall grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body fitly joyn'd together and compacted by that which every joynt supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of it self in love Eph. 4.15 16. Obstructions that hinder the free circulation of blood and spirits do not more certainly infer languishings in the natural body than the want of such a diffusive love shuts up and shrivels the destitute parts and hinders the diffusion of a nutritive vital influence in the body of Christ 2. It would inspire Christians generally with 〈◊〉 sacred courage and Fortitude when they should know and even feel themselves knit together in love How doth the revolt of any considerable part of an army discourage the rest or if they be not entire and of a piece Mutual love animates them as nothing more when they are prepared to live and die together and love hath before joyned whom now their common danger also joyns They otherwise signifie but as so many single persons each one but caring and contriving how to shift for himself Love makes them significant to one another So as that every one understands himself to be the common care of all the rest It makes Christians the more resolute in their adherence to Truth and goodness when from their not-doubted love they are sure of the help the counsels and prayers of the Christian community and apprehend by their declining they shall grieve those whom they love and who they know love them If any imagine themselves intended to be given up as Sacrifices to the rage of the common Enemy their hearts are the apter to sink they are most expos'd to temptations to prevaricate and the rest will be apt to expect the like usage from them if themselves be reduc'd to the like exigency and be liable to the same temptations 3. It would certainly in our present case extinguish or abate the so contrary unhallow'd fire of our anger and wrath towards one another as the Celestial beams do the baser culinary fire which burns more fervently when the Sun hath less power Then would debates if there must be any be manag'd without intemperate heat We should be remote from being angry that we cannot convey our own Sentiments into anothers mind which when we are our business is the more remote we make our selves less capable of reasoning aptly to convince and because anger begets anger as love doth love render the other less susceptible of Conviction Why are we yet to learn that the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God What is gained by it So little doth angry contention about small matters avail that even they that happen to have the better cause lose by it and their â—dvantage cannot recompense the dammage and hurt that ensues to the Church and to themselves Our Famous Davenant k Sent. ad Dur. speaking of the noted controversy between Stephen Bishop of Rone who he saies as much as in him lay did with a Schismatical Spirit tear the Church and Cyprian who with great lenity and Christian charity professes that he would not break the Lord's peace for diversity of opinion nor remove any from the right of communion concludes that erring Cyprian deserv'd better of the Church of Christ than Orthodox Stephen He thought him the Schismatick whom he thought in the right and that his Orthodoxy as it was accompanied was more mischievous to the Church than the others Error Nor can a man do that hurt to others without suffering it more principally The distemper of his own Spirit what can recompense and how apt is it to grow in him and while it grows in himself to propagate it self among others Whereupon if the want of love hinders the nourishment of the body much more do the things which when it is wanting are wont to fill up its place For as naturally as love begets love so do wrath envy malice calumny beget one another and spread a poyson and virulency through the body which necessarily wastes and tends to destroy it How soon did the Christian Church cease to be it self and the early vigour of primitive Christianity degenerate into insipid spiritless formality when once it became contentious It broke into parties Sects multipli'd animosities grew high and the grieved spirit of love retired from it which is grieved by nothing more than by bitterness wrath anger c. as the connexion of these two verses intimates Eph. 4.30 31. Grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all Malice And to the same purpose is that 1 Pet. 2.1 2. Wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speaking as new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby By this means Religion once dispirited loses its majesty and awfulness and even tempts and invites the assaults and insultation of Enemies 4. It would oblige us to all acts of mutual kindness and friendship If such a love did govern in us we should be alwaies ready to serve one another in love to bear each others burthens to afford our mutual Counsel and help to one another even in our private affairs if called thereto especially in that which is our common concern the preserving and promoting the Interest of Religion and to our uttermost strengthen each others hands herein It would engage us to a free amicable conversation with one another upon this account would not let us do so absurd a thing as to confine our Friendship to those of our own Party which we might as reasonably to men of our own stature or to those whose voice and hair and look and meen were likest our own It would make us not be ashamed to be seen in each others Company or be shy of owning one another We should not be to one another as Jewes and Samaritans that had no dealing with one another or as the Poet notes they were to other Nations Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti not so much as to shew the way to one not of their Religion There would be no partition-wall thorough which love
mans Conscience in the sight of God Paul's Preaching this is the principal thing to be aimed at and it is the proper source of all profitable Preaching To conclude You that are Ministers suffer a Word of Exhortation Men Brethren and Fathers you are called to an high and holy Calling your Work is full of Danger full of Duty and full of Mercy You are called to the winning of Souls an Employment near a-kin unto our Lords work the saving of Souls and the nearer your spirits be in conformity to his holy temper and frame the fitter you are for and the more fruitfull you shall be in your work None of you are ignorant of the begun departure of our Glory and the daily advance of its departure and the sad appearances of the Lords being about to leave us utterly Should not these Signs of the times rowse up Ministers unto greater seriousness What can be the reason of this sad Observation that when formerly a few Lights raised up in the Nation did shine so as to scatter and dispell the darkness of Popery in a little time yet now when there are more and more Learned men amongst us yet the Darkness comes on apace Is it not because they were men filled with the Holy Ghost and with Power and many of us are only filled with Light and Knowledge and inefficacious Notions of Gods Truth Doth not always the Spirit of the Ministers propagate it self amongst the People A lively Ministry and lively Christians Therefore be serious at heart believe and so speak feel and so speak and as you teach so doe and then People will feel what you say and obey the Word of God And lastly for People It is not unfit that you should hear of Ministers Work and Duty and Difficulties you see that all is of your Concernment All things are for your sakes as the Apostle in another case Then only I intreat you 1. Pity us We are not Angels but men of like Passions with your selves Be fuller of Charity than of Censure We have all that you have to do about the saving of our own Souls and a great Work besides about the saving of yours We have all your difficulties as Christians and some that you are not acquainted with that are only Ministers Temptations and Tryals 2. Help us in our Work If you can do any thing help us in the work of Winning Souls What can we do say you O! a great deal Be but won to Christ and we are made Make haste to Heaven that you and we may meet joyfully before the Throne of God and the Lamb. 3. Pray for us How often and how earnestly doth Paul begg the Prayers of the Churches and if he did so much more should we begg them and you grant them for our Necessities and Weaknesses are greater than his 2 Thess 3.1 2. Finally Brethren pray for us that the Word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified even as it is with you and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men for all men have not Faith THE CHAMBER of IMAGERY IN THE Church of ROME laid open OR AN Antidote against Popery Quest How is the Practical Love of Truth the best Preservative against Popery SERMON X. 1 PET. II.III. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious WHen false Worship had prevailed in the Church of old unto its Ruine God shewed and represented it unto his Prophet under the name and appearance of a Chamber of Imagery Ezek. 8.11 12. For therein were pourtraied all the Abomination wherewith the Worship of God was defiled and Religion corrupted Things relating unto Divine Truth and Worship have had again the same event in the world especially in the Church of Rome And my present Design is to take a view of the Chambers of their Imagery and to shew what was the occasion and what were the Means of their Erection and in them we shall see all the Abomination wherewith the Divine Worship of the Gospel hath been corrupted and Christian Religion ruined Unto this end it will be necessary to lay down some such Principles of Sacred Truth as will demonstrate and evince the Grounds and Causes of that Transformation of the Substance and Power of Religion into a Lifeless Image which shall be proved to have fallen out amongst them And because I intend their benefit principally who resolve all their Perswasion in Religion into the Word of God I shall deduce these Principles from that Passage of it in the first Epistle of the Apostle Peter Chap. 2. and the three first Verses The first Verse contains an Exhortation unto or an Injunction of universal Holiness by the laying aside or casting out whatever is contrary thereunto wherefore lay aside all Malice and all guile and hypocrisie and envy and all evil speaking the Rule whereof extends unto all other vicious habits of Mind whatever And in the Second there is a Profession of the Means whereby this End may be attained namely how any one may be so strengthened in Grace as to cast out all such sinful Inclinations and Practises as are contrary unto the Holiness required of us which is the Divine Word compared therefore unto Food which is the Means of preserving Natural Life and of increasing its strength As new born Babes desire the sincere Milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby Hereon the Apostle proceeds to declare the Condition whereon our profiting growing and thriving by the Word doth depend and this is an experience of its Power as it is the Instrument of God whereby he conveys his Grace unto us if so be that ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious See 1 Thes 1.5 Therein lies the first and chief Principle of our ensuing Demonstration and it is this All the Benefit and Advantage which any men do or may receive by the Word or the Truths of the Gospel depend on an experience of its Power and Efficacy in communicating the Grace of God unto their Souls This Principle is evident in it self and not to be questioned by any but such as never had the least real sence of Religion on their own Minds Besides it is evidently contained in the Testimony of the Apostle before laid down Hereunto three other Principles of equal Evidence with it self are supposed and virtually contained in it 1. There is a Power and Efficacy in the Word and the Preaching of it Rom. 1.16 I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it 〈…〉 Pâ—â—â—r of God unto salvation It hath a divine Power the Power of God accompanying it and put forth in it unto its proper Ends for the Word of Gâ—d is quick and powerful Heb. 4.12 2. The Power that is in the Word of God consists in its efficacy to communicate Grace of God unto the Souls of man in and by it they taste that 〈◊〉 Lord is gracious that is is efficacy unto its proper Ends. These are Salvation with all things requisite
they may have thereby they will give them up to be an easie prey unto the other Designers And there are two Engines that are applied unto this purpose the one is Ignorance the other is Prophaneness or Sensuality of Life Whenever either of these prevails the Experience intended must necessarily be lost and excluded And the means of their prevailing are want of due Instruction by those who are the Leaders of the People and the encouragement of Sensuality by Impunity and great Examples This is the only formidable Conspiracy against the Profession of the Truth in this Nation without whose Aid all power and force will be frustrate in the Issue And as there is a great appearance in Divine Permission of such a state of things at present amongst us so if they be manag'd by Counsel also and that those ways of Ignorance and Sensuality are countenanced and promoted for this very End that the power of Truth being lost the Profession of it may be given up on easie terms there is nothing but Sovereign Grace that can prevent the Design For the Principle which we have laid down is uncontrollable in Reason and Experience namely That the loss of an Experience of the power of Religion will issue one way or other in the loss of the Truth of Religion and the Profession of it Whence is it that so many corrupt Opinions have made such an Inroad on Protestant Religion and the Profession of it Is it not from hence that many have lost an Experience of the power and efficacy of the Truth and so have parted with it Whence is it that Prophaneness and Sensuality of Life with all manner of corrupt Lusts of the Flesh have grown up unto the shame of Profession Is it not from the same Cause as the Apostle expresly declares it comes by 2 Tim. 4 2 3 4 5. One way or other the loss of Experience of the power of Truth will end in the loss of the profession of it But I proceed unto the Instance which I do design in the Church of Rome for the Religion of it at this day is nothing but a dead Image of the Gospel erected in the loss of an experience of its spiritual power overthrowing its Use with all its Ends being suited to the Taste of men carnal ignorant and superstitious This I shall make evident by all sorts of Instances in things relating to the Person and Offices of Christ the State Order and Worship of the Church with the Graces and Duties of Obedience required in the Gospel And in all my principal Design is to demonstrate what is the only way and means of securing our own Souls any Church or Nation from being insnared with or prevailed against by Popery 1. It is a general Notion of Truth that the Lord Christ in his Person and Grace is to be proposed and represented unto men as the principal Object of their Faith and Love He himself in his divine Person is absolutely invisible unto us and as unto his humane Nature absent from us For the Heavens must receive him until the time of the restitution of all things There must therefore an Image or Representation of him be made unto our Minds or he cannot be the proper Object of our Faith Trust Love and Delight This is done in the Gospel and the preaching of it for therein he is evidently set forth before our eyes as crucified amongst us Gal. 3.1 So also are all the other Concerns of his Person and Offices therein clearly proposed unto us yea this is the principal End of the Gospel namely to make a due Representation of the Person Offices Grace and Glory of Christ unto the Souls of men that they may believe in him and believing have eternal Life John 20.31 Upon this Representation made of Christ and his Glory in the Gospel and the Preaching of it Believers have an Experience of the power and efficacy of the divine Truth contained therein in the way before mentioned as the Apostle declares 2 Cor. 3.18 For we all with open face beholding as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Having a Spiritual Light to discern and behold the Glory of Christ as represented in the Glass of the Gospel they have experience of its transfoâ—ming power and efficacy changing them into the likeness of the Image represented unto them that is of Christ himself which is the saving effect of Gospel-power But this Spiritual Light was lost among men through th efficacy of their Darkness and Unbelief they were not able to discover the Glory of Christ as revealed and proposed in the Gospel so as to make him the present Object of their Faith and Love And this Light being lost they could have no experience of the power of Divine Truth concerning him changing them into his Image They could make no affecting discovery of him in the Scripture All things therein were dark and confused or at least seemed an inaccessible Mystery which they could not reduce to practice Hence those who had got the publick conduct of Religion drove the people from Reading the Scripture as that which was of no use but rather dangerous unto them What shall these men then betake themselves unto shall they reject the notion in general that there ought to be such a representation made of Christ unto the minds of men as to inflame their devotion to excite their Faith and stir up their affection to him This cannot be done without an open Renunciation of him and of the Gospel as a Fable Wherefore they will find out another way for it another means unto the same end And this is by making Images of him of wood and stone or Gold and Silver or painting on them Hereby they supposed he would be made present unto his Worshippers That he would be so represented unto them as that they should be immediately stirred up unto the embraces of Faith and Love And herein they found sensible effects unto their great satisfaction For their minds being dark carnal and prone to superstition as are the minds of all men by nature they would see nothing in the Spiritual Representation of him in the Gospel that had any power on them or did in any measure affect them In these Images by the means of sight and imagination they found that which did really work upon their Affections and as they thought did excite them unto the love of Christ And this was the true Original of all the Imagery in the Church of Rome as something of the same nature in general was of all the Image-worship in the World So the Israelites in the wilderness when they made the Golden Calf did it to have a representation of a Deity near unto them in such a visible manner as that their Souls might be affected with it so they expressed themselves Exod 32 1. Wherefore in this State under a loss of
conscientious respect unto it Force and Fear rule all This is that Discipline in whose execution the blood of an innumerable company of Holy Martyrs hath been shed that wherein all the vital Spirits of the Papacy do act themselves and whereby it doth subsist and although it be the Image of Jealousie or the Image of the first Beast set up by the Dragon yet it cannot be denyed but that it is very wisely accommodated unto the present State of the Generality of them that are called Christians amongst them For being both blind and carnal and having thereby lost all Sense and Experience of the Spiritual Power of the Rule of Christ in their Consciences they are become an Herd not fit to be governed or ruled any other way Under the Bondage of it therefore they must abide till the vail of Blindness be taken away and they are turned unto God by his Word and Spirit for where the Spirit of the Lord is there and there alone is Liberty SECT VII Unto the foregoing particular Instances with respect unto the Church I shall yet add one more general which is indeed comprehensive of them all or the root from whence they spring a root-bearing Gall and Wormwood And this is concerning the Catholick Church What belongs unto this Catholick Church what is comprized in its Communion The Apostle declares Heb. 12.22 23 24. It is the Recapitulation of all things in Heaven and Earth in Christ Jesus Eph. 1.10 His Body his Spouse or Bride the Lambs Wife the glorious Temple wherein God doth dwell by his Spirit An holy mystical Society purchased and purified by the blood of Christ and united unto him by his spirit or the Inhabitation of the same spirit in him and those whereof it doth consist Hence they with him as the body with its head are mystically called Christ 1 Cor 12.12 And there are two parts of it the one whereof is already perfected in Heaven as unto their spirits and the other yet continued in the way of faith and obedience in this world Both these constitute one family in Heaven and Earth Ephes 3.15 In Conjunction with the holy Angels one Mystical-Body one Catholick Church And although there is a great difference in their present state and condition between these two branches of the same Family yet are they both equally purchased by Christ and united unto him as their Head having both of them effectually the same principle of the life of God in them Of a third part of this Church neither in Heaven nor in Earth in a temporary State participant somewhat of Heaven and somewhat of Hell called Purgatory the Scripture knoweth nothing at all neither is it consistent with the Analogy of Faith or the promises of God unto them that do believe as we shall see immediately This Church even as unto that part of it which is in this world as it is adorned with all the graces of the Holy Spirit is the most beautiful and glorious effect next unto the forming and production of its Head in the Incarnation of the Son of God which Divine Wisdom Power and Grace will extend themselves unto here below But these things the glory of this State is visible only unto the eye of Faith yea it is perfectly seen and known only to Christ himself We see it obscurely in the light of Faith and Revelation and are sensible of it according unto our participating of the graces and privileges wherein it doth consist But that spiritual light which is necessary to the discerning of this Glory was lost among those of whom we treat They could see no reality nor beauty in these things nor any thing that should be of advantage unto them For upon their principle of the utter uncertainty of mens spiritual estate and condition in this world it is evident that they could have no satisfactory perswasion of any concernment in it But they had possessed themselves of the notion of a Catholick Church which with mysterious Artifices they have turned unto their own incredible secular Advantage This is that whereof they boast appropriating it unto themselves and making it a pretence of destroying others what lies in them both temporally and eternally Unto this end they have formed the most deformed and detestable Image of it that ever the world beheld For the Catholick Church which they own and which they boast that they are instead of that of Christ is a company or society of men unto whom in order unto the constitution of that whole society there is no one real Christian grace required nor spiritual Vnion unto Christ the Head but only an outside profession of these things as they expresly contend A Society united unto the Pope of Rome as its head by a subjection unto him and his rule according to the Laws and Canons whereby he will grant them This is the formal reason and cause constituting that Catholick Church which they are which is compacted in it self by horrid Bonds and Ligaments for the ends of Ambition worldly Domination and Avarice A Catholick Church openly wicked in the generality of its rulers and them that are ruled and in its State cruel oppressive and died with the blood of Saints and Martyrs innumerable This I say is that Image of the Holy Catholick Church the spouse of Christ which they have set up And it hath been as the Image of Moloch that hath devoured and consumed the Children of the Church whose cryes when their cruel step-mother pittied them not and when their pretended Ghostly Fathers cast them into the flames came up unto the ears of the Lord of Hosts and their blood still cries for vengeance on this idolatrous generation Yet is this pretence of the Catholick Church pressed in the minds of many with so many Sophistical Artifices through the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive proposed with the allurements of so many secular advantages and imposed oftimes on Christians with so much force and cruelty that nothing can secure us from the Admission of it unto the utter overthrow of Religion but the means before insisted on A spiritual light is necessary hereunto to discern the internal spiritual beauty and glory of the true Catholick Church of Christ Where this is in its power all the paintings and dresses of their deformed Image will fall off from it and its abominable filth will be made to appear And this will be accompanied with an effectual experience of the glory and excellency of that grace in the souls of those that believe derived from Christ the sole head of this Church whereby they are changed from Glory to Glory as by the spirit of the Lord. The Power Life and sweetness hereof will give satisfaction unto their souls to the contempt of the pretended order of dependance on the Pope as an head By these means the true Catholick Church which is the body of Christ the fulness of him that filleth all in all growing
of Jesus Christ THE CVRE of MELANCHOLY AND OVERMUCH-SORROW BY FAITH and PHYSICK Quest What are the best Preservatives against Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow SERMON XI 2 COR. II. VII Lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow THe Brevity of a Sermon not allowing me Time for any unnecessary Work I shall not stay to open the Context nor to enquire whether the Person here spoken of be the same that is condemned for Incest in 1 Cor 5. or some other nor whether Chrysostom had good Tradition for it that it was a Doctor of the Church or made such after his Sin nor whether the late Expositor be in the right who thence gathers that he was one of the Bishops of Achaia and that it was a Synod of Bishops that were to excommunicate him Dr. Hammond who yet held that every Congregation then had a Bishop and that he was to be excommunicated in the Congregation and that the People should not have followed or favoured such a Teacher It would have been no Schism or sinful Separation to have forsaken him All that I now intend is to open this last Clause of the Verse which gives the Reason why the censured Sinner being penitent should be forgiven and comforted viz. Lest he should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow as it includeth these three Doctrines which I shall handle all together viz 1. That Sorrow even for Sin may be overmuch 2. That overmuch Sorrow swalloweth one up 3. Therefore it must be resisted and asswaged by necessary Comfort both by others and by our selves In handling these I shall observe this Order 1. I shall shew you when Sorrow is overmuch 2. How overmuch Sorrow doth swallow a man up 3. What are the Causes of it 4. What is the Cure I. It is too notorious that overmuch Sorrow for Sin is not the ordinary Case of the World A stupid blockish Disposition is the common Cause of mens perdition The Plague of a hard Heart and seared Conscience keeps most from all due sense of Sin or Danger or Misery and of all the great and everlasting Concerns of their guilty Souls A dead sleep in sin doth deprive most of the use of Sense and Understanding they do some of the outward Acts of Religion as in a Dream they are vowed to God in Baptism by others and they profess to stand to it themselves they go to Church and say over the Words of the Creed and Lords Prayer and Commandments they receive the Lords Supper and all as in a Dream They take on them to believe that Sin is the most hateful thing to God and hurtful to man and yet they live in it with delight and obstinacy they dream that they repent of it when no perswasion will draw them to forsake it and while they hate them that would cure them and will not be as bad and mad as they who feel in them any effectual sorrow for what is past or effectual sense of their present badness or effectual resolution for a new and holy Life They dream that there is a Judgment a Heaven and a Hell but would they not be more affected with things of such unspeakable Consequence if they were awake would they be wholly taken up with the Matters of the Flesh and World and scarce have a serious thought or word of Eternity if they were awake O how sleepily and senselesly do they think and talk and hear of the great Work of mans Redemption by Christ and of the need of Justifying and Sanctifying Grace and of the Joys and Miseries of the next Life and yet they say that they believe them When we preach or talk to them of the greatest things with the greatest evidence and plainness and earnestness that we can we speak as to the dead or to men asleep they have Ears and hear not nothing goeth to their hearts One would think that a man that reads â—n Scripture and believes the everlasting Glory offered and the dreadful punishment threatned and the necessity of Holiness to Salvation and of a Saviour to deliver us from Sin and Hell and how sure and near such a passage into the unseen world is to us all should have much ado to moderate and bear the sense of such overwhelming things But most men so little regard or feel them that they have neither time nor heart to think of them as their Concern but hear of them as of some foreign Land where they have no interest and which they never think to see Yea one would think by their senseless neglect of preparation and their worldly minds and lives that they were asleep or in jest when they confess that they must die and that when they lay their Friends in the Grave and see the Skulls and Bones cast up they were but all this while in a Dream or did not believe that their Turn is near Could we tell how to waken Sinners they would come to themselves and have other thoughts of these great things and shew it quickly by another kind of Life Awakened Reason could never be so befooled and besotted as we see the wicked world to be But God hath an awakening day for all and he will make the most senseless soul to feel by Grace or Punishment And because a hardned Heart is so great a part of the Malady and Misery of the unregenerate and a soft and tender Heart is much of the New Nature promised by Christ many awakened Souls under the work of Conversion think they can never have Sorrow enough and that their danger lies in hard-heartedness and they never fear overmuch sorrow till it hath swallowed them up yea though there be too much of other Causes in it yet if any of it be for sin they then cherish it as a necessary Duty or at least perceive not the danger of Excess and some think those to be the best Christians who are most in doubts and fears and sorrows and speak almost nothing but uncomfortable Complaints but this is a great mistake 1. Sorrow is overmuch when it is fed by a mistaken Cause All is too much where none is due and great sorrow is too much when the Cause requireth but less If a man thinketh that somewhat is a Duty which is no Duty and then sorrow for omitting it such sorrow is all too much because it is undue and caused by errour Many I have known that have been greatly troubled because they could not bring themselves to that length or order of meditation for which they had neither Ability nor Time And many because they could not reprove sin in others when prudent instruction and intimation was more suitable than reproof And many are troubled because in their Shops and Callings they think of any thing but God as if our outward Business must have no thoughts Superstition always breeds such sorrows when men make themselves Religious Duties which God never made them and then come short in the performance of
noluerint Adamum adorare Hoc suum peccatum non potuit celare Satan Luther Tom. 3. p. 82. b. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us says the beloved Disciple Joh. 1.14 He had a true body and a reasonable soul which soul of Christ considering its nearest union to the Divine nature and the light and joy and glory it must needs be full of may be look't upon by Milions of Degrees as the highest of Creatures and the chief of all the ways of God The Holy Ghost took care in the conception of Christ that his human nature should not be in the least defiled and his whole life was perfectly free from sin he did no evil neither was guile found in his mouth and his heart was alwayes pure And having taken mans Nature God is well pleased with that nature in Christ The man Christ Jesus always did those things which were pleasing to the Father The Sons of men may come with boldness to this Mediatour who is bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh He bears good will to men as the Angels sang aloud at his Nativity Man may be confident of a kind reception since Christ is so near akin to them and was in all things excepting sinful infirmities made like unto them that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest to make Reconciliation for their Iniquities Heb. 2.17 Christ is man and this man is Gods greatest favourite far greater than Joseph to Pharaoh or Mordecai to Ahasuerus Extra Christum oculos aures claudatis Vbi Iesus est ibi est totus Deus seu tota divinitas ibi Pater Spiritus Extra hunc Christum Deus nusquam invenitur Deus in carâ—e illa sic apparet ut extra hanc carnem coll cognosci non possit Luther Tam. 4. p. 491. a. He has the highest place in Heaven as well as in his Fathers heart let Saints search into his truth and they will find matters of unspeakable encouragement Here is the way to know the Father to worship him acceptably and to attain to fellowship with him here and for ever 3. Growing in the knowledge of Christ implies a more plain discerning and ful perswasion that he was foreordained to be a Redeemer Christ was the person pitched upon from eternity to be the Saviour of the Elect of God 1 Pet. 1.20 Who verily was foreordained befoâ—e the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you He is therefore caled the elect One in whom Gods Soul delights There was a compact and agreement made between the Father and the Son The Son agrees in fulness of time to be made of a Woman to take a body to offer up himself without spot to God and the Father promises eternal Life and Salvation and that he should have a Church givâ—â— him out of the world though the world is faâ—â—en into wickedness upon which Church this eternal life is to be bestowed The Prophet Zachariah tells â—s of a Counsel of Peace between the Lord of Hâ—â—â— and Christ whose name is the Branch Zach. 6.12 13. And the Apostle speaks of the promise of eternal life which God who cannot lie promised before the world began Tit. 1.2 This promise may very well be conceived to be made to the Son that he should give eternal life to all that were given him of the Father And when the Saints behold that Christ is the Person from eternity designed to be a Saviour they may include that God hath a love to them a care of them and a purpose of Grace towards them from everlasting and how securely and sweetly may they rest upon the blessed Jesus not doubting but he is a person every way fit and sufficient to finish that work of Redemption which he undertook according to the appointment of his Father 4. Growing in the Knowledge of Christ implies a greater insight into his sufferings It is not without reason that the History of these is so largely penned by all the four Evangelists certainly there is much in his Crucifixion which it concerns Believers to pry into The sufferings of Christ were great and that both in his body and in his soul his body was in a bloody sweat and his soul was amazed sore and full of heaviness and sorrow and in an Agony before he was condemned and fastned to the Cross but then all the pain and shame which he did undergo his Death was violent and accursed and just before he breathed out his last his Father hid his face his sufferings were unconceivably increased by a dreadful desertion which made him roar out my God my God why hast thou forsaken me When Christ died the sins of the whole Church were laid upon the head of the Church how many stings then had the death of Christ Isa 53.6 All we like sheep have gone astray we haâ—e turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all And if all were laid upon him none shall be laid to the charge of them who believe in him But how came it to pass that Christ did not sink under such a burthen The first sin of the first man was enough to sink all the world into Hell how could Christ bear up under all the sins of so great a multitude The reason is because he is God the blood of Christ is the blood of God how loud does it cry for Pardon and Salvation and how easily does it drown the cry of sin for vengeance The blood and sufferings of Christ applied and relyed on by Faith justifie the sinner silence Satan the accuser purge the conscience from dead works and open a way into the holiest of all by the Cross of Christ we are to climb up to the Throne of Glory The more the death of Christ is studied the Spirit will be more contrite the heart more clean the conscience more calm and quiet The death of Christ puts the sin to death but delivers the sinner from it 5. Growing in the Knowledge of Christ implies a more fruitful eying of his Resuâ—rection and going to his Father Hark to the Apostle Phil. 3. 10. That I may kâ—â—â— him and the power of his Resurrection The Justice of God had Christ under an â—rrest and hath cast him into the Grave as â—nto a Prison and if he had not fully paid the debt of those whose surety he became it would have held him in prison to this hour If Christ were not risen faith would be vain the guilt and power of sin would refrain But being risen true believers are delivered from sins punishment and power Sin and death and Satan are triumphed over Know that there is a very great power and vertue to be derived from the resurrection of our Lord. A power to raise a drooping Spirit When Christ was riseâ— dâ—e sends this Message to his Disciples that they might be well assurâ—â— his God was theirs his Father their Father
John 20.17 Go in my Brethren and say to them I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God A power to spirituallize carnal affections Col. losâ— 3â— â— If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God set your affectiâ—n on things â—bove and not on things upon the earth Finally a power to conâ—â—rm and establish the soul in Grace for Christ being â—â—ised from the â—ead diâ—th no 〈◊〉 death hath no more dominion oâ—er him and they that are once really quickened by him shall never more become dead in sins and 〈◊〉 passes but shall continue faithful to the death and may confidently expect a joyful resurrection Christ is risen as the first fruits of them that slept 1 Cor. 15.20 Therefore there will be an Harvest at the end of the world when all the bodies of the Saints that were sown in Corruption shall be raised in Incorruption that were sown in dishonour shall be raised in Glory 6. Growing in the Knowledge of Christ implies greater satisfaction aboue his imputed righteousness The Apostle having spoken of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ presently declares his desire to be found in him not having his own Righteousness but that which is through the Faith of him the righteousness which is of God by Faith Phil. 3.9 This righteousness of Christ is called the righteousness of God Because 't is that which God accepts and upon the account of which he justifies the ungodly moreover Christ himself is Jehovah the true God else his obedience and sufferings would not have been sufficient to have been our justifying Righteousness * Cur insane Sophista assâ—ris dilectionâ—m spem alias virtutes scio has esse insignia Dei dona divinitus mandata per Spiritum sanctum in nostris cordibus excitari ali Scio fidem sine his donis non â—xistere Sed nunc nobis quaestio â—st quid cujusque proprium sit Tenes manu varia semina non autem quaero quae cum quibus conjuncta sint Sed quae cujusque propria virtus Hic aperte dic quid faciat sola fides non cum quibus virtutibus sit conjuncta Sola fides apprehendit promissionem credit promittenti deo deo porrigenti admovet manum et accipit hoc proprium soliuâ— fidei opus est Charitas spes patientia habent alias materias circaquas vâ—rsantur habent alios limites intra quos consistunt non enâ—m complectuntur promissionem sed mandata exequuntur Luther Tom. 2. in Gen. p. 57. a. This Righteousness is said to be imputed and imputed by the Lord himself and that without works and this Doctrine was preached in the Old Testament by David as well as in the New by the Apostle Paul Rom. 4.6 Nay as Christ is called the Lord our Righteousness Jer. 23.6 So Jerusalem the Church is called after her Husbands Name the Lord our Righteousness Jer. 33.16 to shew the reality of the imputation of this righteousness and the real and blessed benefits that follow upon it T is by this righteousness applyed by Faith that we are justifyed from all our Transgressions of the Law and from our sins against the Gospel That guilt which we have contracted by our impenitency and unbelief which are sins against the Gospel can be removed out of Gods sight only by the righteousness by the blood and death of his Son All Justification therefore before God whether our sins have been against the first or the second Covenant is purely meerly by this righteousness of Jesus Christ whereof Faith is medium applicationis a means to apply Oh the compleatness and perfection of this Righteousness of Christ there is no need of any addition He is called the Sun of Righteousness and therefore in the business of Justification all other righteousness should vanish as the Stars do at the Sun rising Let Satan rage let Rome deride and reproach this Article of imputed righteousness must stand or the Church will fall And the better Christ is known the more confidently shall we own his righteousness 7. Growing in the Knowledg of Christ implies a more constant and fiducial eying of his Intercession and the pity and compassions of him that intercedes Believers should better know this Friend and Advocate in the Court of Heaven who always appears for them there He presents to his Father what he did and suffered upon Earth and how effectual is this on the Churches behalf Though the head be in Heaven yet he is mindful of his Members on Earth and is ready to plead for them here is the ground of boldness in coming to the Throne of Grace for we have a great high Priest that is passed into the Heavens Jesus the Son of God Heb. 4.14 16. Here is the reason why the Saints Prayers are so mighty and prevalent they are backt with the Intercession of Christ nay 't is upon this that the Apostle concludes believers Salvation to the uttermost Heb. 7.25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him seeing he ever lives to make Intercession for them 8. Growing in the knowledg of Christ implies being better acquainted with his great Power and continual presence with his Church which is so nearly related to Him Behold All Power is given to him both in Heaven and Earth at his Name every knee does bow and every tongue if it will speak truth must confess that Christ is Lord. He is the blessed and only Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords The mightiest Monarchs are more under his Power then their meanest Slaves are under theirs He has all the reprobate Angels in a Chain the Key of Hell is in his hand he commands all there and in Heaven the elect Angels are his Ministers to fulfil his pleasure He is indeed exalted far above all Principality and Power and Might and Dominion and every name that is named not only in this World but also in that which is to come Eph. 1 21. Now this Lord who is so powerful has assured his Church which is his Spouse nay his Body that he will be with her always to the end of the world Mat. 28. ult The Church therefore in spight of Earth and Hell shall last while the world lasts Let fear give way and Faith increase Believers may contemn their proudest adversaries See Zions carriage towards Sennacherib the great King of Assyria Esa 37 22. The Virgin Daughter of Sion hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn the Daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at ther. 9. Growing in the knowledg of Christ implies a better understanding him as Mediatour of the new Covenant so he is called Heb. 12 23. On this Covenant pardoning mercy renewing grace and eternal glory are promised Earth and Heaven the Creature and the Creator himself by himself are made over to Believers Now you must know that
you sober and in patience possess your souls Oh that when it may be said here is the cursed hellish rage and Bedlam frantick Fury of Atheists and Papists it may also be said here is the Faith and Patience of the Saints When there are those that make it their design and business to destroy and confound all things do you rejoyce in this That God Governs all wisely powerfully graciously so that those things which have the most frightful aspect the most amazing passages which we hear of or meet with are the Products of an Eternal Counsel and shall at last it may be ere long issue in an happy close however affairs go now God hath bid us say to the Righteous it shall be well with him Do you evidence the powerful and comfortable influence that Gods Government hath upon your Spirits by these three things 1. First by the k eping up your spirits yet have need of Patience ye may find a little will not serve your turn lay up therefore good store of it and then fetch out of that store and let patience have its perfect work but withal cast not away your confidence for it hath great recompence of reward We will not fear such the Church though the Earth be removed and the Mountains be carried into the midst of the Sea let the wicked fear where no fear is but let the Saints be fearless in the midst of fears Why are ye fearful said Christ to his Disciples when the Ship was almost covered with Waves He sets men above God in his thoughts whose fear of man prevails against his faith in God that man either is altogether forgetful of God or his thoughts of him are low and unbecoming for certain he doth not sanctifie the Lord of Host in his heart let your faith be preserved in vigour and exercise What though the Beast have seven Heads and ten Horns great subtilty and no less power yet the Lamb shall overcome 2. Evidence it by your perseverance in Godliness hold on your way make not use of any sinful means neglect not any part of your duty to secure your selves and avoid danger do not offend God be not beholden to the Devil for your liberty and peace what though there be Lions in the way go on and proceed boldly so long as it is the way of God you may live by faith while you walk by rule you may walk believingly and cheerfully while you walk regularly the wound that a man gets by sin will put him to far greater smart and pain that all his sufferings for God and godliness would have done He than purchases the favour of men with the frowns of Conscience will find he hath made a very hard bargain every step from God is a step to ruin if any man draw back Gods soul will have no pleasure in him whereas he that walks uprightly walketh safely 3. Make it to appear by the Raisedness of your expectations so the Church did in her low condition Micah c. 7. v. 8. Rejoyce not against me O mine Enemy though I fall I shall rise when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me at midnight she looked for the dawning of a glorious day and so do you that is a very sweet place which you have in the 2d Joel of 20 21. where the Prophet speaking of the Northern Army saith his stink shall come up and ill savour shall come up because he hath done great things and then he adds fâ—â—â— not O Lord 〈…〉 rejoyce for the Lord will 〈◊〉 great things and so we may say â—t 〈◊〉 day God will do great things such as shall out do all that his â—n â—â—â—les have done Gods last works in the world will be his greatest works and by them he will get himself a glorious name and I hope he will speed it he that shall come will come and will not tarry therefore incourage your selves in the Lord your God do your duty and quietly wait for your expectation shall not be cut off Quest What are the hindrances and helps to a good Memory in Spiritual things SERMON XIV I. COR. XV. II By which also ye are saved if ye keep in Memory what I Preached unto you unless ye have believed in vain THere is no Complaint more common among Religious Persons than the weakness of their Memories thinking perhaps that defect doth imply least guilt or it may be mistaking their carelesness for forgetfulness or else there is really some special frailty in that faculty to heal which is the design of this Discourse For the Occasion and coherence of these words in the Text it is evident that the Apostle Paul in the Verse foregoing begins to recite and prove the Doctrine of the Resurrection from the Dead which he doth there declare to be a great point of that Gospel which he had preached unto them which also they had received and wherein they did stand And then he adds here By which Gospel also ye are saved if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you unless ye have believed in vain In which words we have a Discovery 1. Of mens utmost happiness viz. Salvation ye are saved that is not only rescued out of your Pagan State nor only that ye stand fair for salvation but ye are saved already For Heaven doth really begin upon Earth and every true Saint is at present a Citizen of the Heavenly Jerusalem 2. Of the only means for the Attaining of it viz. the Gospel by which ye are saved For that reveals the Object That directs lost Man which way to arrive at it That assures us that a passage is open'd into Heaven That incourages and inclines us seriously to endeavour after it 3. Of the special Grace necessary in respect of this Gospel viz. believing unless ye believe c. for hereby we credit what is revealed we imbrace what is offered and we rely on what is promised without which acts of Faith the Gospel signifies nothing to us And Hearing by which Faith comes is included in it for so the Apostle joyns them vers 14. then is our Preaching vain and your Faith is also vain 4. Of the particular Faculty that is requisite for this end viz. the Memory if ye keep in memory what I have preached unto you For though the main thing hereby intended be to keep in the heart a constant and effectual belief of the Gospel and particularly of this Article of the Resurrection yet to keep in memory the Form of sound Words is also necessary in order thereunto and therefore it is said in the TEXT that ye retain with what WORDS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quibusdam verbis Tremel Quâ— sermone Bez. Arab. Qua ratione Syr. Vulg. or REASONS I preached unto you 5. The Relation or Influence which this last of keeping in memory hath upon all the rest And this exprest 1. By way of Condition in the beginning of the Verse ye are saved if ye keep in
Actions and Accidents two things considerable 1. The Action for example such a Text was handled such a charitable Action done such a Man brake his Leg was drunk or the like 2. The Inference or Observation to be gathered from thence for all Events whether good or bad are intended by the wise God for mans Instruction Now the Memory lays up the former and can retain it a long time but the Lesson which we should learn from it that 's neglected that 's forgotten 2. Things Hurtful to us to wit Injuries These usually stick in the memory when better things slip out If any body hath spoke or done evil to us the memory is trusty enough about these As one says we can remember Old Songs and Old Wrongs long enough yea those whom we profess to forgive yet we declare that we cannot forget them Not but that a man may have a natural remembrance of an injury so that he have not an angry remembrance of it As our heavenly Father himself remembers all a Believers sins but puts away his anger so we may rationally remember them but we must spiritually forget them for else the remembrance of them generally doth us a great deal of hurt but no good at all it cools our love weakens our trust and prepares us for revenge as did Amnon towards Absolon 2 Sam. 13.32 3. Things Sinful thus we can remember a filthy Story seven years when we do forget a saving Sermon in seven hours And herein the Memory is the great Nurse of Contemplative wickedness and represents to the idle and sinful heart all the sins it wots of with renewed delight and so strengthens the impression and doubles the guilt Ezek. 23.19 She multiplyed her Whoredoms in calling to remembrance the days of her youth wherein she had played the Harlot in the Land of Egypt The depraved Memory is herein fitly compared to a Sive that lets the good Corn fall through and reserves only the chaff by which its plain that the Faculty is not lost but poyson'd So that in this respect we may say as Themistocles did to Simonides when he offered to teach him The Art of Memory rather says he teach me The art of Forgetfulness for the things which I would not I remember and cannot forget the things I would 2. The cortuption of the Memory stands in Forgetting those things which we should remember But these things being so exceeding many great and useful though I cannot enumerate them yet I shall comprize the chief of them in these following general heads 1. Our Creator and what he hath done and what he hath done for us Eccles 12.1 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth And yet whom do we more forget Jerem. 2.32 Can a Maid forget her Ornaments or a Bride her Attire yet my people have forgotten me days without number And our Forgetfulness here is most inexcusable because we may see taste and feel him every moment forasmuch as he is not far from every one of us seeing in him we live and move and have our Being and yet we can make shift to forget Him which shews the great Craze we had by the Fall And then the great things which he hath done to wit in the Works of Creation and Providence especially for his Church these we early forget but should remember Psal 77.11 I will remember the Works of the Lord surely I will remember thy wonders of Old And particularly what he hath done for us the many and great Mercies and Deliverances especially the most remarkable of them which every good Christian should have a Catalogue of in his mind or in his Book Deut. 8.2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy GOD led thee these Forty Years c. 2. Our Redeemer and what he hath suffered for us Never was there such an Instance of free and transcendent Love in the World as that the Eternal Son of God should give himself to be a Sacrifice to expiate our Sin and yet we that can profess of far less kindnesses from men that we shall never forget them can forget this else he had never instituted the Lords Supper on purpose to keep up the solemn and useful Remembrance thereof which Remembrance sets a work all our Graces our Faith Love Repentance Thankfulness c. And without the frequent Use of this Ordinance where it may be had a defect will be forced in these Graces for the greatest things wear off with time and Holy David himself found cause to charge it uopn his Soul Ps 102.3 Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits c. 3. The Truths of Religion especially the most weighty Malach. 1.4 Remember ye the Law of Moses my Servants which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel with the Statutes and Judgments And of these the Apostle Peter saith 2 Pet. 1.12 13 15. he would put the Christians in remembrance though they knew them that they might be established in present Truth yea he would stir them up by putting them in remembrance as long as he lived The Doctrine of God of Christ of the Creation of the Fall of the Covenant of Grace of Faith Repentance the Resurrection as in my Text and Judgment to come these things should be so ingrafted into the hearts of Christians that they should know and remember as well as their own Names or the rooms of their Houses and yet it is a shame to find how easily and almost utterly these things are forgotten by too many How few do we find that have been long Hearers of Gods Word that can give any tolerable account of the Nature of that Faith by which the Soul lives 4. The Duties of Religion The Scripture that so often requires us to remember them plainly implies that we are apt to forget them what 's the meaning of that Exodus the 20 Chap. Verse 8. Remember the Sabboth to keep it holy but that we easily forget it we are surprized by it it returns ere we are aware so that Heb. 13. Verse 2 3 16. which is called by some a Chapter of Remembrance be not forgetful to entertain Strangers Remember them that are in Bonds to do good and to Communicate forget not All which as they shew our duty so do they imply our defectiveness herein though to forget those and such like are as absurd as if we did forget to eat or sleep For as Christians we live by Faith and breath by Prayer so to forget to repent to believe to pray and to discharge the duties of our Relation Callings and all other duties toward God and toward men is to forget Christianity it self 5. Our Sins As there is a culpable so there is an useful and necessary remembrance of them when we remember sin to renew our love to it that 's damnable but when we remember it to loath it and to loath our selves for it that 's saving Ezek. 36.31 Then shall ye remember
whose faith and patience whose holiness and heavenly mindedness is so little as thine is Should that man admit of a proud thought whose Grace and Holiness is so small that he is uncertain whether he hath any at all in sincerity Surely the weakness and imperfection of your Graces should prevent the Prid and haughtiness of your hearts 2. Consider the imperfections of your Duties If you did all that was commanded you were but unprofitable Servants what are you then when you fall so short of your duty you neither do what God commands you nor as he commands it to be done How often are Duties neglected and how often are they negligently performed how listless are you to them how lifeless in them how quickly weary of them Can they be proud who consider how coldly they pray how carelesly they hear how distractedly they meditate how grudgingly they give Alms and the like Leave Pride to the Papists who vainly think their works are works of supererrogation let us be humble who know that our works are works of subtererrogation God may say of the best of us as he doth of the Angel of the Church of Sardis Rev. 3.2 that our works are not perfect or full before him oh no! the Lord knows they are full of gaps and imperfections 5. Reflect seriously upon the sinfulness of your hearts and lives Our Direct 5 defects in Grace and Duty may keep us low but our abounding in Sin and wickedness may keep us much lower Can that heart be proud and lifted up that considers the desperate wickedness and deceitfulness that dwells in it and proceeds out of it those Thefts Adulteries Murders Blasphemies and such like that appear abroad in the lives of others they lie lurking at home in your hearts How would it humble and shame you if others should know the one half nay the hundredth part of that sin and wickedness by you that you know by your selves In order therefore to the Cure of spiritual Pride be you much in self-reflection be not strangers to your selves and to the sinfulness of your own Hearts and Lives Should that man be proud that hath sinn'd as thou hast sinn'd and liv'd as thou hast liv'd and wasted so much time abus'd so much Mercy omitted so many Duties neglected so great Means that hath so grieved the Spirit of God so violated the Laws of God so dishonoured the Name of God Should that man be proud who hath such a heart as thou hast so full of Atheism Unbelief Ignorance Impenitency Hypocrisie Envy Malice Discontent Worldliness Selfishness c. Nay should not thy very Pride it self be a matter of great Humiliation to thee Surely it should greatly humble thee to think that a sin so odious in it self so mischievous in its effects should be still so predominant in thy Soul 'T is possible that a Christian may turn his Pride against its self and his very reflecting upon it may be a means of the subduing of it Direct 6 6. Labour after a more distinct knowledge of God and of his Excellencies 'T is helpful to cure Pride for a man to know himself his own nothingness and vileness but 't is a greater help to know God his Holiness and Greatness c. The Apostle Paul saith that some knowledge puffs men up but this pulls them down 'T is true by all our searching we cannot find out God unto perfection we can never come to a full understanding of all his Excellencies but so much may be known of God as may make us to admire him and to abhor our selves What is man the best of men in comparison of him Job sometimes thought and spake overvaluingly of himself but when once he came to compare himself with God to set God before him then he is presently in the dust yea he abhors himself in dust and ashes Job 42.6 We never have such low thoughts of our selves as when we have the clearest discoveries of God When the Prophet Isaiah had a glimpse of the Glory and Holiness of God he presently cries out Isa 6.5 Wo is me for I am undone I am a man of unclean lips He had a deep sence upon him of his own vileness and wretchedness The true reason why mens hearts are so lofty and lifted up within them is because they have not right Notions and Apprehensions of God and do not consider that infinite distance that is betwixt him and them It might serve a little for the Cure of spiritual Pride to compare our selves with such men as are above us as it is a good means to keep down discontent to consider that many others are below us so 't is a good means to keep down pride to consider that many others are above us Our Knowledge is but Ignorance our Faith but Unbelief our Fruitfulness but Barrenness if compared with theirs But this will more subdue our Pride if we compare our selves with God and consider how infinitely he is above us We are no more to him than a drop to the Ocean than the small dust of the Balance to the whole Body of the earth our Wisdom is Foolishness to God our Strength is Weakness and our Holiness is Wickedness unto him Direct 7 7. Be well instructed in this that Humility and Lowliness of Mind is the great Qualification and Duty of all Christ's true Disciples and Followers They must be converted and become as little Children in two things especially they must be as such in Malice and in Humility instead of contending to be greater than others they must be servants of all Mat. 20.27 Rom. 12.10 John 13.14 Mat. 11.29 Col. 3.12 Eph. 4.1 2. Phil. 2.3 in honour preferring one another They must follow their Lords Example in stooping to wash one anothers feet and must learn of him to be meek and lowly in heart As the Elect of God they must put on bowels of Mercy and humbleness of mind They must walk worthy of the Vocation wherewith they are called with all lowliness and long suffering In lowliness of mind they must esteem others better than themselves These are all Scripture-Injunctions and they plainly shew how all Christians ought to be qualified Let me add that excellent Passage 1 Pet. 5.5 Be all of you subject one to another and be ye cloathed with humility The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to tie or fasten together Humility is the Ribond or string which ties together the Graces and Fruits of the Spirit if that fails they are all scattered and weakned Humility as well as Charity is the Bond of Perfectness The Noun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence the Verb is derived doth signifie a Knot 'T was the Usage of old and so 't is still for persons to adorn their Heads and other Parts with Knots The Apostle exhorts Christians to adorn themselves rather with Humility that is the great Ornament of a Christian therewith all Christ's Disciples must be cloath'd and adorn'd This
require much time in dressing and undressing No cost of Apparel is so ill bestow'd as that of precious time in apparelling And if common time be so ill spent what is the solemn sacred time laid out in such curiosity How many Sabbaths Sermons Sacraments Prayers Praises Psalms Chapters Meditations has this one Vanity devoured Let me recommend the counsel of holy Mr. Herbert to you Church-porch O be Dress't Stay not for t'other Pin why thou hast lost A Joy for it worth worlds Thus hell doth jest Away thy blessings and extremely flout thee Thy cloathes being fast but thy soul loose about thee O the wanton folly of our Times when as one expresses it it s almost as easie to enumerate all the Tackling of the Royal Soveraign as the Accoutrements of a capricious Lady and perhaps it requires not much more time to equip and rig out a Ship for the Indies as a whimsical Madam when she is to sail in state with all her Flags Streamers Pennons bound for a Court-Voyage With less labour did Adam give Names to all the Creatures in Paradise than an Attire-Herald shall give you the Nomenclature of all the Trinkets that belong to a Ladies Closet And yet all this is but to consume a whole Morning to put on which must waste the whole Evening to put off Direction VI. Suit your Apparel to the day of Gods Providence and to the day of his Ordinances There is a day wherein God calls aloud for baldness Isa 22.12 13. and do we cross his design with ranting Periwigs Does he bespeak Sackcloath and are we in our Silks and Sattins How absurd is it to appear in the high Rant like Zimri with his COSBI when the Church of Christ is mourning before the Lord And yet more incongruous when God calls and they that fear his Name answer his call in a day of solemn fasting and Prayer afflicting their souls before him and accepting the punishment of their sins for a Gallant to come ruffling into the Assembly as if he design'd only his diversion and to trifle out a tedious painful hour till he may adjourn his little self with all his splendid Equipage to the Devotion of the Play-house Thus did the builders of Babel answer each other when Vengeance had poured confusion on their Hearts and Tongues reaching the Hammer when his Fellow called for the Axe and thus do we answer our God who calls for Weeping and Mourning and we return Mirth and Jollity and gorgeous Apparel God by an express Law granted this Priviledg to the new married man That for a Twelve Month he should be exempted from the Wars Deut. 24.5 And yet tho this Indulgence held good when the Country was in danger of Invasion no exemption was to be pleaded when the Church was expos'd to Gods Indignation Then call an assembly sanctifie the people Joel 2.14 let the bridegroom come forth of his chamber and the bride out of her closet There was no discharge in this War But how well was it resented by Heaven when at the denunciation of the Divine displeasure against Israel that he would not go up with them Exod. 33.3 4. the people mourned and no man put on his ornaments Direction VII In all Apparel keep a little above contempt and somewhat more below envy He that will vere nigh either extreme shall never avoid offence either for sordidness or superfluity Let not your Garments smell either of Antiquity or Novelty Shun as much an affected Gravity as a wanton levity There may be as much pride in adhering to the antick Garbs of our Ancestors as there is in courting the Modern Fooleries A plain cleanliness is the true Medium between sluttishness and gaudiness Truth commonly lies in the middle between the hot contenders Virtue in the middle between the extreme Vices and Decency of Apparel in the middle between the height of the Fashion and a more running Counter and Opposition only because our corrupt hearts are more prone to the Excess than the Defect I laid the Rule to keep a little more below Envy than above Contempt Direction VIII Let the Ornament of the inward man be your Rule for the adorning the outward Take measure of your bodies by your souls That is Consider well what Graces Excellencies and Virtues will adorn a soul and let something Analogical be made the Trimming for the body The Apostle will have Women adorn themselves in modest Apparel 1 Tim. 2.9 Tit. 2.3 and especially the graver sort that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Tigurine Version renders in habitu qui Religionem deceat in such a habit as becomes Religion and Beza in habitu qui sanctimoniam deceat in such a habit as becomes holiness Now it may be enquired what is Apparel capable of modesty or immodesty of holiness or unholiness But the meaning is the Garment the manner of dressing or wearing must be such as indicates and discovers such qualities lodging in the soul And indeed if we could get the soul suitably adorned it would cut out make up put oâ—â— and wear suitable Ornaments 1 Pet. 5.5 The Apostle Peter commands us all to be cloath'd with humility Humility is a very proper wear for a sinner and if the soul be thus cloathed you may trust her to cloath the body When the Inward Man is new-framed and new-fashioned let it alone to frame and fashion the outward Attire The Platonists say That Anima format sibi Domicilium 'T is the soul that forms its house to dwell in And she that is so rare an Architect as to build the house will take care that it be conveniently tiled Direction IX Get the heart mortified and that will mortifie the habit Let Grace circumcise that and that will circumcise the long hair and sweeping Train with all the impertinent superfluities that wait on Vain-glory. Heal the heart of its inward pride and that will retrench the excesses of the outward I do not wonder that we find it so difficult to convince idle women that these Gayeties and Extravagancies of curled hair painting and patching are sinful when we cannot convince them of the evil of impenitency and unbelief The most compendious way of reforming Persons Families Nations and Churches is to begin at and deal with the heart as the shortest way to fell the Tree is by sound blows at the root Could we lay the Axe to heart-pride the Branches would fall the Leaves wither the Fruit fade with one and the same labour 'T is an endless labour to demolish this Castle of Pride by beginning at the top Undermine the Foundation and all the glory of the superstructure falls with it As a pure living Spring will work it self clean from all the accidental filth that 's thrown into it from without so the cleansing of the heart will cleanse the rest And when the Spirit of Christ shall undertake this work to convince the soul
breeding bearing and religiously bringing up their children shall work together by Gods infinite wisdom and benign influences for their Temporal safety so far as God sees that good for them y Rom. 8.28 and in the issue for their Eternal salvation Hence I infer to make a short Application of this Doctrine 1. That good Women Applicat when they are call'd to it for all are not call'd to it at all and some not at all times upon several accounts they are so far from hindring that they may forward their own salvation by entring into a marriage state And tho they may think subjection to their own Husbands z 1 Pet. 3.5 only in the Lord as is fit a Col. 3.18 for the Gospel requires no other subjection but in the Lord Christ to be some obstruction to their comfort and happiness yet they are much deceiv'd in such apprehensions For this Doctrine resulting clearly from my Text shews that this kind * Admonentâ— hoc genus obsequi sibi esse salutare Dâ—â— acceptum Calv. in Textum of willing submission and obedience to their own Husbands b Tit. 2.5 Heb. 6.9 is a better thing than they deem of accompanying salvation and acceptable to God being Marriage is honourable in all c 13.4 an Ordinance instituted by him who brings so many good Wives to Heaven to enjoy most contenting sweets there from their afflicting sorrows in Child-bed here Further I infer 2. That hypocritical pretences of Sanctity and unwarrantable vows of perpetual Virginity should not bring a disparagement upon the honourable state of marriage from the pains and perils which child-bearing Women pass through The Disciples of Christ were over hasty in saying d Mat. 19.10 'T is not good to marry But these of Antichrist who embrace the Doctrines of Demons and forbid marrying e 1 Tim. 4.1 2. to their Priests whether they have the gift of Continency yea or no and to such Virgins which for their gain they decoy into an irrevocable Vow as they call it is detestable Yet this is the common practise of the Papists how odious soever it be and in the consequents pernicious * Bernhardinâ—â— in Rosarioâ— as well as the practâ—ses of those before reproved who either to cherish covetousness or cover their wantonness seek to prevent Conceptions or procure Abortions are enemies to the propagation of Mankind and when the subtilties of School-distinctions ‖ Estius in Senten are laid aside will be found culpable of Homicide God deliver us from that mystery of iniquity which they who go a wondring after the Beast f Rev. 13.3 in contempt of Marriage labour to bring in following a wicked Pope * Syric Distinct 82. tho they incur the Anathema of a Council ‖ Concil Gangr c. 10. and tho as we may see some of our first Reformers detecting the Acts of the English Votaries * Bale Myst of Iniquit p. 17 18. Engl. Votar p. 18. cast it out with abomination in that they said the Whorish Papal Synagogue was a great blemish to godly marriage which hath already in our days been ridicul'd by some Atheistical Debauchees whose monstrous Immoralities make them contemptible Whereas Marriage derives its honourable Pedigree from the first pair when innocent in Paradise here below and is no way obstructive to an happy entrance into the Paradise of God above Hence I am at last come to the Obs III. IIId and Principal Observation from the words which will directly answer the Enquiry before us viz. By perseverance in Christian and Conjugal Graces and Duties child-bearing Wives may be best supported against in and under the hazard of their Travail This doth clearly result from the Text as I have explain'd it and needs not much proof By patient continuance in well-doing those who seek for glory and honour and immortality have eternal life saith the Apostle elsewhere g Rom. 2.7 and a prudent Wife abiding in faith charity holiness and sobriety may have such support from the strengthning-word of Promise here and elsewhere that travailing in birth and pained to be delivered h Rev. 12.1 as the borrow'd speech expresseth the Churches sorrow she may have good hope of being preserv'd and seeing a comfortable separation 'twixt her and the burden of her belly when her loins are filled with pain and pangs have taken hold on her i Isa 21.3 * Isa 43.6 The Lord will say as I may allude to that in the Prophet to the loins give up and to the womb keep not â—a k so that all shall be sanctified to her and in a proportion she may rejoyce in hope as Elizabeth from her own experience heartned her Cousin Mary k Luke 1.45 blâ—ssed is she that believeth for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord if not in kind yet in Equivalency or that which is better For tho as the most beloved Wife Rachel in her hard labour she should dye l Gen. 35.17 18. or tho the sad estate of the Church should multiply her groans as Phineas his Wife 's were for the the taking of the Ark m 1 Sam. 4.20 21. yet she may have good evidence from the clear shining of her Jewels and Chains which Christ her Husband hath put upon her as his Spouse * Cant. 1.10 I mean the exercise of her Graces that she shall be eternally sav'd her soul shall pass into that rest which remains to the people of God n Heb. 4.9 where there shall be neither sorrow nor crying nor any more pain for the former things shall be passed away o Rev. 21.4 and that may be written on her Tomb-stone which a Learned Doctor wrote on that of pious Mrs. Wilkinson * Dr. Reynolds in her Life She and her Child were buried together who with her child went to Heaven from her Child-bed viz. Here lyes Mother and Babe both without sins Next Birth will make her and her Infant Twins Those necessary and eminent Graces to perseverance or continuance wherein the promise of salvation is made by the Apostle unto child-bearing Women on which they live for support against and in their Travail are as you have heard these Four viz. Faith Charity Holiness Sobriety 1. Faith which we may distinctly conceive of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as comprehending both that which is Divine and Moral or Christian and Conjugal 1 A Divine Faith which is precious and saving p 2 Pet. 1.1 with Heb. 10.39 a Grace of the Holy Spirit whereby the enlightn'd heart being united to Christ doth receive him and resigns up it self to him as Mediator and so is espoused to that one Husband q 2 Cor. 11.2 depending entirely upon him By this Faith receiving the Son of God who is also the Son of Man born of a Woman is the good Wife to live in subjection to Christ her
Opinion or Practise especially if they are not imposed as necessary For this hath made such woful Divisions in the Church the making things unnecessary and doubtful the necessary terms of Church-Communion Was the Church of Rome it self the truly Ancient Catholick and Apostolick Church as she stiles her self I could have Communion with it They that leave the Apostles shake the Foundation of the Churches stability and forsake the center of its Unity The Lord help us all to understand the way of Peace and Union in this miserably divided Age. Vse VI Lastly And now from all that hath been said we may take a prospect of Heaven Heaven is not a Turkish Paradise it is Communion with God that is the very Heaven of Heaven as the loss of it is the very Hell of Hell And this makes Heaven not desirable to the Carnal Man who hath no desire after or delight in Communion with God but it doth commend it the more to the Spiritual Man that he shall then enjoy that in its highest perfection which he hath been pursuing and had the fore-tasts of in this World Quest What is the best way to prepare to meet God in the way of his Judgments or Mercies SERMON XXVIII 1 John XII 28. Beginning of the Verse Father Glorify thy Name IN this Chapter we find the Lord Jesus under two very different Exercises in the one attended with much Solemnity in the other under great Perplexity much Courted much cast Down highly Honoured and exceedingly Troubled and he beareth both with wonderful Equanimity He is Feasted at Bethany v. 1 2. Anointed with Oyle of Spiknard very costly v. 3. Rideth Tryumphantly into Jerusalem v. 12 13. c. His Disciples bless and entertain him upon the way with Hosannas v. 13. Matth. 21.8 9. Strangers desire to see him and give him their Acknowledgments v. 20. And the Multitude throng after him v. 12. And strow his way with Palm Branches v. 13. But immediately the Scene is changed As our blessed Lord was not much affected with these things so contrary to all Expectation he enters upon a discourse of another Nature v. 23. The hour is come that the Son of Man should be Glorified Why Had he not been Glorifying throughout this Chapter yea But not comparably to what he here intends q. d. my Feast my Tryumph my applause bear no Proportion to the glory I am hasting to These are but Dull low Glories to what is at Hand The hour is come i. e. is near That the Son of Man shall be Glorified upon the Cross by Expiating the Sins of his Elect Glorified thereupon in Heaven at the right hand of the Father Christ had his Eye upon an higher Glory which would redound to him upon the Performing and Finishing our Redemption And a true Christian frame overlook's present Comforts and Honours from Men and fixeth mainly upon the Honour to be received from God in the way of Obedience here and hereafter Nor will our Lord Jesus pass over this Meditation till he have improved it 1. Inferring thence the Fruitfulness of his Death Verrily Verrily I say unto you v. 24. Except a Corn of Wheat fall into the Ground and Dye it abideth alone but if it Dye it bringeth forth much Fruit. Alluding to the Propagation of his Church by his Death 2. The Proportionable advantage of the Death of his Saints for his Sake v. 25.26 and Testimony and the disadvantage of forbearing and refusing to suffer for his Name But passing thence to the consideration of his Dreadful Agony and Passion ensuing v. 27. beginning His Thoughts are at a Stand his Soul is Troubled yea the Extremity of his grief stopt his Mouth so Amazing so Astonishing was the Fore-sight of his Sufferings At last Prayer breaks out Father Save me from this Hour and is presently Corrected But for this cause came I to this Hour q. d. I would escape but must not resist thy Will I 'd save my self yet not without a Salvo to thy purpose and councel I am in a Strait between Nature and Faith between Fear and Subjection between Death and Duty First Meer Trouble is no Sin Christs Soul was Troubled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Water when it is Mudded Jo. 5.4 7. Not that thier was any mixture of Sin in his Trouble it was such as might consist with his pure unspotted Nature If grief be not groundless if not extravagant no Sainted with unbelief or effected of disobedience 't is but Natures Weakness Grace induceth no Stoical Stupidity 'T is no property of the Gospel to make Men Sensless Secondly Fear of Death and sense of the Wrath of God are of all things most Perplexing Now is my Soul Troubled Now I am to conflict with the Father's Anger Mens Malice and Death's Pains and Terrours and now not my Flesh only but my Soul is Troubled Thirdly Extream distress of Spirit is of an amazing Nature Christ had not the Freedom of Prayer What shall I say and then what he did say was corrected Matt. 26.39 42. Fourthly No Extremity can Ordinarily or should really put an Holy Soul by the Plea of or hope in his Relation to God Christ calls God Father My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Matt. 27.46 Fifthly Prayer must be suited to the Occasion Save me from the Hour c. A great Argument against most forms is that an Holy Soul cannot relish them nor can I see how God accepts them because they are impertinent or not full to the case Sixthly In our Extremitys we may be importunate must not be Peremptory with God in Prayer Our Saviour here Prayed not more Heartily then submissively Matt. 26.39 Our Text is the Result of the Lords Wrastling both with his own Soul and with his Father Here is first Christs Prayer Father Glâ—rify thy Name And the Fathers Answer in the next words but I meddle not with that now In the Text we have Two things 1. The Compellation Father 2. The Petition Glorify c. 1. The Compellation Father Prayer ought to be Ushered in with some Suitable Title of God which is expressive of his Supremacy our Reverence of him and Relation to him All these are Couched in the Single word Father Read Matt. 6.10 Malach. 1.6 Rom. 8.15 1. This Title expresseth God's Authority and Chirst's Allegiance both owned by him in this little Word 2. Relation The Lords Petitioners must ask so as to assure themselves of Acceptation which the Recognition of our Interest in God Read Isa 63 16. as our Father in Christ is very proper to Effect Hence the Rule of Prayer enters with Our Father And it is most Suitable to the Spirit of the Gospel that believers call God Father in Prayer having the Spirit of the Son poured out upon them to this End Gal. 4.6 2. The Petition Father Glorify thy Name q. d. Be thou rather Glorified then I Spared If I dye thy Glory will make amends for my Torment and
House of Jacob is a Fire and the House of Joseph a Flame and the House of Esau as Stubble Obad. 1.18 God takes notice of the least Injuries done to his Children by their Enemies nay of their very Omissions and Neglects Deut. 23.3 4. The Moabite and the Ammonite were not to enter into the Congregation of the Lord to the Tenth Generation because they met not the Children of Israel with Bread and with Water when they came out of Aegypt and what then will become of them that grudg Gods Children Bread that robs them of their Spiritual Bread and Water of Life would take from them the Allowance their Father hath given them and so would starve their very Souls 3. Whoever shew'd Kindness to the Godly in vain A Cup of Cold Water given to a Disciple in the name of a Disciple or because he belongs to Christ shall not wants its Reward Christ takes the least Respect shewn them as done to himself Visiting the Prisoners Clothing the Naked Releiving the Poor are acceptable Offices and usually followed with some Blessing even in this Life And I wonder wherein are they that this Day Persecute Gods Children the worse for them or for any Countenance they have shewn them Nor are they ever like to be if it be not their own fault by stirring up Gods Jealousie and pulling down his Vengeance upon their own Heads Were but Truth effectually beleived what an alteration would it make upon the Spirits of Men How would those that are at present so unkind to the truly Religious become their Friends and Favourers And the Governours of Judah would say in their Hearts the Inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my Strength in the Lord of Hosts their God Zech. 12.5 Quest Whether it be expedient and how the Congregation may say Amen in publick Worship SERMON XXXI The Text is Neh. 8.6 And Ezra Blessed the Lord the great God and all the â—â—ople answered Amen Amen OMnipotent and Eternal goodness never wants Instruments to deliver his Church from slavery or reform it from degeneracy All the Empires and Emperors in the World have served the Kingdom of God and been as Scaffolds set up about the House of God to be taken down when that is built up and finished They have been as Gibeonites and Nethamins to the Temple of the Lord. The Assyrian was Gods Rod upon Israels Back Persian was here Gods Shepherd whose Spirit was stirred up to raise up the Jews Alexander was a Servant and the Romans have been but Gods slaves to do his Will against their own The State of the Church at this juncture was the end of a desolation or beginning of a reformation The Jews had weathered out Seventy Years in Captivity wherein multitudes of them were wore off a Remnant being left God raised up Cyrus and moved him to set them free from Babylon according to the Prophesie of Isa 45.1 Two Hundred and Ten Years before Many of the People through lazy worldliness or despondency chose rather still to lie among the Pots in Caldea than return to Jerusalem to build their City and Temple though Cyrus gave them not only liberty by Proclamations but Accommodations for the Work But God raised up the Spirit of Zerobabel Joshuah Nehemiah and Ezra to carry it on This Ezra was a great Man of God one of the great Synagogue a Prophet a Scribe a Priest Some will have it that as Jehoiakim cut and burnt the roll Jer. 36.23 So the Caldeans burned all the Books of the Law and so Ezra restored them as a Prophet by Revelation or his Memory but this is false for Daniel 9.2 understood by Books the expiration of the Seventy Years and Cyrus himself read the Prophesie of Isaiah for Ezra 1.2 he says the Lord charged him to build his House at Jerusalem But he was a Prophet as he was directed by Gods Spirit to compose this History of his and a perfect Scribe living to Malachi's time he wrote the complete Old Testament and made a perfect Copy But here he Officiates as a Priest the Son of Seraiah Ezra 7.1 from Phineas Eleazar and Aaron to serve the Lord. When they had neither Temple nor Tabernacle they set up the worship of the God of Heaven in theopen Heaven which was neither Typical nor Topical but Natural and Evangelical Worship Upon the First Day of the Seventh Month in a Pulpit in the Street the People meeting as one Man Ezra 3.1 he read the Law of God and that distinctly giving the Sence of it verse 8. from Morning to Noon and all the Congregation stood attentively and at Noon probably he Dismissed them with a Blessing according to Numb 6.23 Gods command Bâ—â—â—re at the opening the Book Praying to God and praising him for his good hand over them and his good word before them he Blessed the Lord ere he Blessed the People and Ezra Blessed c. In which words there is 1. The Priests or Ministers Office Blessing And 2. The Peoples Office and all the People answered Amen Amen 3. The great God in the midst of this great Congregation the Object of the Priests Office and the Peoples also whence this Doct. That it is a lawful and laudable Practice for People in the conclusion of publick Prayer or Praysing God to pronounce an Amen This will answer the Question which is whether it be expedient and how the Congregation may say Amen in publick Worship 1. I will explain what is meant by Amen 2. Shew what warrant there is for the Practice 3. Deduce some inference from all 1. Then there is Amen Substantive and that is God himself who is what he is Alpha and Omega Truth it self Isa 65.16 he that blesseth himself in the Earth shall bless himself in the God Amen or of Truth Jesus Christ is God and the Amen the faithful and true Witness Rev. 3.14 he is that God in whom we may bless our selves his Being is of himself as God and he gives being to his Word 2 Cor. 1.20 all the promises of God being in him yeâ— and Amen whether Hebrew or Greek Old Testament or New Promises in him they are compleated and by him they are fulfilled 2. There is Amen Affirmative a Phrase used in the beginning of any momentous Truth as an asseveration what is Amen Matth. 16.28 Luke 9.27 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or verily Our Saviour hath this Phrsae peculiar to himself Amen Amen to give confirmation to the Doctrine and to raise our Attention and Faith or to show that not only Truth is spoken but by him who is Truth it self 3. There is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Optative Amen which is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let it be so Blessed be God by us and Blessed be we of the Lord or as Jer. 28.6 It is expounded Amen the Lord do so the Lord perform the words which thou hast spoken This Amen was used to be set to when good was spoken as 1 Kings 1.36 when David
People shouted and Jerico fell down to the ground Our Amens must not drop like a cold Bullet of Lead out of the mouth of a Musquet bowing to the ground but they must be Fired by preparations of the Heart and warm affections they must be Discharged and Shot off with the utmost valde of the Soul and fervency of the Spirit Samuel Thundred in Prayer and God Thundred upon Israels Enemies So David Prays Psal 144.5 that God would bow the Heavens and come down c. Ps 1.8 9. he did bow the Heavens and come down verse 13. the Lord Thundred in Heaven the highest gave his Voice Hailstones and coals of Fire When Gods People can unite in one Voice God gives his Voice with them and for them Use The First Inference then is of Reproof for our deep silence and too much neglect of this hearty Amen which proceeds from these Four ill Causes 1. From thence whence all ill things come in upon us even from Popish ignorance and darkness When Men grew dull and stupid and neither understood or cared to understand either the word of God to us or ours to him in Prayer Religion was looked upon as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a By-business or troublesome laborious and needless curiosity It was enough to Beleive as the Church Beleived and to Pray as the Church Prayed and so they devolved all their Devotions on a pack of idle Monks and Friers whom they called Religious Omers who should serve God supererogate and merit for them yea not only procure a freedom from Purgatory and Pardons but Paradice also for their Moneys And as soon as their Silver did chink in the Bason of the Priest out springs the Soul from Purgatory as if the sound of Money was powerful in Purgatory as true Amens are in Heaven 2. The Divisions among Christians of the reformed Religion is another Cause of this defect and neglect 1 Cor. 14.26 when ye come together every one hath a Psalm a Doctrine a Tongue a Revelation an Interpretation One was for Singing another for Reading a Third for Preaching one for Prophesying another for Interpreting the Apostle gives two Rules to oppose this and Womens talking in the Church let all things be done distinctly and in order to edification natural decency forbids all confusion In our days some have such Schismatical Phrases Notions and Doctrines in Preaching Praying and Praising that a sober Christian cannot say Amen Some so zealous for Forms that nothing else must be a Prayer but the Lords Prayer as if because Cyprian calls it a Legitimate Form all others were spurious when 't is the Sense that is the Prayer and not the words which are differently set down in Luke from Mathew as Chemitius well observes Others are so vehement against all Forms that they would reduce all Devotion to an invisible Spirituality as if they had drop'd their Bodies and were crouded within the Vail into the Triumphant Quire of Spirits in Heaven But certainly while we are in the Body we ought to glorifie God with our Bodies as well as our Spirits and with our Tongues as the Bodies Instruments in publick Worship Verbo deus laudandus quia deus verbum says Lactan God was made Flesh to speak to us therefore we ought to speak to him Psal 16.9 the Tongue is Mans Glory as it differenceth us from Beasts so it make us Priests to God Rev. 1.6 to offer up our own and the dumb Creatures Sacrifices of Praise to God to him be Glory and Dominion for ever Amen 3. Another rate of this defect is the degenerating of Assemblies from their first Constitution and Plantation For these as all Bodies contracted defilements both in Ministers and People Formality hath over-run that Zeal Piety and Charity which formerly burned among them So that many Assemblies are run down so into the Spirit of the World that they differ little from Papists How have some Ministers been thrust in upon the Assemblies by a secular hand who never understood how to preach or pray a live Prayer and many Congregations full of such ignorance and prophaness that the Arches and Vaults in the Building give as good an Eccho as their dead Amens One comes in his Drink another pipeing hot out of their Wordly Businesses a Third in huffing Finery and Bravery to be gazed on another is heavy laden with Sleep and comes for a Nap. How can they that are not concerned for Gods Glory his Church his Word the pardon of their Sins nor think themselves beholden to God for Daily-Bread or that they need daily Grace say either Our Father or Amen with any Sense When either Ministers or People Drink and Swill and Swear and roar with one another at the Tavern all the Week and yet will be the most Vocal and Loud in their responsals on the Lords Day it turns Mens Stomacks and Consciences from publick expressions as something to rankly of Hypocritical Formality That with the wise Heathen in the Ship when a Company of wicked Persons cried and prayed hold your peace sad he least the Gods know you are here and so destroy us D. Laer. Roaring at the Ale-house and bellowing at the Church are both alike beastly and ugly to be heard 4. Worldly Peace Plenty and Prosperity dirty and dull the Wheels of the Soul so as Activity and Fervency are Bird-limed 'T is unreasonable yet too true that those Tenants who have the best Farms pay God his Rent worst When Christians were kept warm by the Zeal of their Persecutors they met in Caves and Woods with the hazard of their Lives they had a Zeal for God and the Gospel they heard and Prayed as for their lives and for the life of Religion it might be their last Sermon or Prayer they might joyn in and so they had a fervent hearty love for one another which made them not only seal their Prayers with warm Amens but they sealed one another also with an holy kiss not knowing whether they should ever see one anothers Faces again in the Flesh or no they fell on one anothers Necks and kissed at parting Rom. 16.16 another expression springing naturally from strong affection truly Christian in those times which if practised in this dirty Age would be perhaps proved as well as judged a piece of wretched carnality But their Flesh was kept under by poverty and persecutions so as such filthy tentations were burnt up by the love of God and each other And we have cause to fear God hath some such Irons in the Fire to fear of that dead yet proud Flesh which in these days is bred in the hearts of many professors In the mean time this Flesh hinders our very lips from closing in a sound Amen Use 2. This then informs us that if ever the Church recover primitive purity and fervency it must have such administrations as 1. The whole Worship of God must be in a known Tongue that so all may say Amen in the