people not onely by being exemplary to them but gracious and loved by God and those are spirituall graces of sanctification And therefore Ordination is a collation of holy graces of sanctification of a more excellent faith of fervent charity of providence and paternall care Gifts which now descend not by way of miracle as upon the Apostles are to be acquired by humane industry by study and good letters and therefore are presupposed in the person to be ordained to which purpose the Church now examines the abilities of the man before she lays on hands and therefore the Church does not suppose that the Spirit in ordination descends in gifts and in the infusion of habits and perfect abilities though then also it is reasonable to beleeve that God will assist the pious and carefull endeavours of holy Priests and blesse them with speciall ayds and cooperation because a more extraordinary ability is needfull for persons so designed But the proper and great aid which the spirit of ordination gives is such instances of assistance which make the person more holy And this is so certainly true that even when the Apostle had ordained Timothy to be Bishop of Ephesus he calls upon him to stirre up the gift of God which was in him by the putting on of his hands that gift is a rosary of graces what graces they are he enumerates in the following words God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power of love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of a modest and sober mind and these words are made part of the form of collating the Episcopall order in the church of Eng. Here is all that descend from the Spirit in ordination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 power that is to officiate and intercede with God in the parts of ministery and the rest are such as implie duty such as make him fit to be a Ruler in paternal and sweet government modesty sobriety love And therfore in the forms of ordination of the Gr. Church which are therfore highly to be valued because they are most ancient have suffered the least change been polluted with fewer interests the mystical prayer of ordination names graces in order to holiness We pray thee that the grace of the ever holy Spirit may descend upon him Fill him ful of all faith love and power sanctification by the illumination of thy holy life-giving Spirit the reason why these things are desir'd given is in order to the right performing his holy offices that he may be worthy to stand without blame at thy Altar to preach the Gospell of thy Kingdome to minister the words of thy truth to bring to thee gifts spiritual sacrifices to renew the people with the laver of regeneratiō And therefore S. Cyrill says that Christs saying receive ye the Holy Ghost signifies grace given by Christ to the Apostles whereby they were sanctified that by the Holy Ghost they might be absolved from their sins saith Haymo and Saint Austin says that many persons that were snatched violently to be made Priests or Bishops who had in their former purposes determined to marry and live a secular life have in their ordination received the gift of continency And therefore there was reason for the greatnesse of the solemnities used in all ages in separation of Priests from the world insomuch that whatsoever was used in any sort of sanctification or solemn benediction by Moses law all that was used in consecration of the Priest who was to receive the greatest measure of sanctification Eadem item vis etiam Sacerdotem augustum honorandum facit novitate benedictionis à communitate vulgi segregatum Cum enim heri unus è plebe esset repente redditur praeceptor praeses Doctor pietatis mysteriorum latentium Praesul c. Invisibili quadam vi ac gratia invisibilem animam in melius transformatam gerens that is improved in all spiritual graces which is highly expressed by Martyrius who said to Nectarius Tu ô beate recens baptizatus purificatus mox insuper sacerdotio auctus es utr aque autem haec peccatorum expiatoria esse Deus constituit which are not to be expounded as if ordination did conferre the first grace which in the Schools is understood onely to be expiatorious but the increment of grace and sanctification and that also is remissive of sins which are taken off by parts as the habit decreases and we grow in Gods favour as our graces multiply or grow Now that these graces being given in ordination are immediate emanations of the holy Spirit and therefore not to be usurped or pretended to by any man upon whom the holy Ghost in ordination hath not descended I shall lesse need to prove because it is certain upon the former grounds and will be finished in the following discourses and it is in the Greek Ordination given as a reason of the former prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For not in the imposition of my hands but in the overseeing providence of thy rich mercies grace is given to them that are worthy So that we see more goes to the fitting of a person for Ecclesiasticall Ministeries then is usually supposed together with the power a grace is specially collated and that is not to be taken up and laid down and pretended to by every bolder person The thing is sacred separate solemn deliberate derivative from God and not of humane provision or authority or pretence or disposition SECT VIII THe holy Ghost was the first consecrator that is made evident and the persons first consecrated were the Apostles who received the severall parts of the Priestly order at severall times the power of consecration of the Eucharist at the institution of it the power of remitting and retaining sinnes in the octaves of Easter the power of baptizing preaching together with universall jurisdiction immediately before the Ascension when they were commanded to goe into all the world preaching and baptizing This is the whole office of the Priesthood and nothing of this was given in Pentecost when the holy Spirit descended and rested upon all of them the Apostles the brethren the women for then they received those great assistances which enabled them who had been designed for Embassadors to the world to doe their great work and others of a lower capacity had their proportion as the effect of the promise of the Father and a mighty verification of the truth of Christianity Now all these powers which Christ had given to his Apostles were by some means or other to be transmitted to succeeding persons because the severall Ministeries were to abide for ever All nations were to be converted a Church to be gathered and continued the new Converts to be made Confessors and consigned with baptism sins to be remitted flocks to be fed and guided and the Lords death declared represented exhibited and commemorated untill his second coming
ΕÎΙΑΥΤΟΣ A COVRSE OF SERMONS FOR All the Sundaies Of the Year Fitted to the great Necessities and for the supplying the Wants of Preaching in many parts of this NATION Together with A Discourse of the Divine Institution Necessity Sacredness and Separation of the Office Ministeriall By JER TAYLOR D. D. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pindar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Commune periclum Omnibus Una salus LONDON Printed for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1653. XXV SERMONS PREACHED AT GOLDEN-GROVE Being for the VVinter half-year BEGINNING ON ADVENT-SUNDAY UNTILL WHIT-SUNDAY By JEREMY TAYLOR D. D. Vae mihi si non Evangelizavero LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivie-Lane M. D C. LIII To the right Honourable and truely Noble RICHARD Lord VAUHAN Earle of Carbery c. MY LORD I Have now by the assistance of God and the advantages of your many favours finished a Year of Sermons which if like the first year of our Saviours preaching it may be annus acceptabilis an acceptable year to God and his afflicted hand-maid the Church of England a reliefe to some of her new necessities and an institution or assistance to any soule I shall esteem it among those honors and blessings with which God uses to reward those good intentions which himselfe first puts into our hearts and then recompenses upon our heads My Lord They were first presented to God in the ministeries of your family For this is a blessing for which your Lordship is to blesse God that your Family is like Gideons Fleece irriguous with a dew from heaven when much of the voicinage is dry for we have cause to remember that Isaac complain'd of the Philistims who fill'd up his wells with stones and rubbish and left no beauvrage for the Flocks and therefore they could give no milke to them that waited upon the Flocks and the flocks could not be gathered nor fed nor defended It was a designe of ruine and had in it the greatest hostility and so it hath been lately undique totis Vsque adeo turbatur agris En ipse capellas Protenus aeger ago hanc etiam vix Tityre duco But My Lord this is not all I would faine also complaine that men feele not their greatest evill and are not sensible of their danger nor covetous of what they want nor strive for that which is forbidden them but that this complaint would suppose an unnaturall evill to rule in the hearts of men For who would have in him so little of a Man as not to be greedy of the Word of God and of holy Ordinances even therefore because they are so hard to have and this evill although it can have no excuse yet it hath a great and a certain cause for the Word of God still creates new appetites as it satisfies the old and enlarges the capacity as it fils the first propensities of the Spirit For all Spirituall blessings are seeds of Immortality and of infinite felicities they swell up to the comprehensions of Eternity and the desires of the soule can never be wearied but when they are decayed as the stomach will be craving every day unlesse it be sick and abused But every mans experience tels him now that because men have not Preaching they lesse desire it their long fasting makes them not to love their meat and so wee have cause to feare the people will fall to an Atrophy then to a loathing of holy food and then Gods anger will follow the method of our sinne and send a famine of the Word and Sacraments This we have the greatest reason to feare and this feare can be relieved by nothing but by notices and experience of the greatnesse of the Divine mercies and goodnesse Against this danger in future and evill in present as you and all good men interpose their prayers so have I added this little instance of my care and services being willing to minister in all offices and varieties of imployment that so I may by all meanes save some and confirme others or at least that my selfe may be accepted of God in my desiring it And I thinke I have some reasons to expect a speciall mercy in this because I finde by the constitution of the Divine providence and Ecclesiasticall affaires that all the great necessities of the Church have been served by the zeale of preaching in publick and other holy ministeries in publick or private as they could be had By this the Apostles planted the Church and the primitive Bishops supported the faith of Martyrs and the hardinesse of Confessors and the austerity of the Retired By this they confounded Hereticks and evill livers and taught them the wayes of the Spirit and left them without pertinacy or without excuse It was Preaching that restored the splendour of the Church when Barbarisme and Warres and Ignorance either sate in or broke the Doctors Chaire in pieces For then it was that divers Orders of religious and especially of Preachers were erected God inspiring into whole companies of men a zeal of Preaching And by the same instrument God restored the beauty of the Church when it was necessary shee should be reformed it was the assiduous and learned preaching of those whom God chose for his Ministers in that work that wrought the Advantages and persuaded those Truths which are the enamel and beautie of our Churches And because by the same meanes all things are preserved by which they are produc'd it cannot but be certaine that the present state of the Church requires a greater care and prudence in this Ministerie then ever especially since by Preaching some endevour to supplant Preaching and by intercepting the fruits of the flocks to dishearten the Shepheards from their attendances My Lord your great noblenesse and religious charitie hath taken from mee some portions of that glory which I designed to my selfe in imitation of St. Paul towards the Corinthian Church who esteemed it his honour to preach to them without a revenue and though also like him I have a trade by which as I can be more usefull to others and lesse burthensome to you yet to you also under God I owe the quiet and the opportunities and circumstances of that as if God had so interweaved the support of my affaires with your charitie that he would have no advantages passe upon mee but by your interest and that I should expect no reward of the issues of my Calling unlesse your Lordship have a share in the blessing My Lord I give God thanks that my lot is fallen so fairely and that I can serve your Lordship in that ministerie by which I am bound to serve God and that my gratitude and my duty are bound up in the same bundle but now that which was yours by a right of propriety I have made publick that it may still be more yours and you derive to your selfe a comfort if you shall see the necessitie of others serv'd
be sick among you let him send for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him meaning that God hath appointed them especially and will accept them in ordinary and extraordinary and this is that which is meant by blessing A Father blesses his childe and Solomon blessed his people and Melchisedec the Priest blessed Abraham and Moses blessed the Sons of Israel and God appointed the Leviticall Priests to blesse the congregation and this is more then can be done by the people for though they can say the same prayer and the People pray for their Kings and Children for their Parents and the Flock for the Pastor yet they cannot blesse him as he blesses them for the lesse is blessed of the greater and not the greater of the lesse and this is without all contradiction said S. Paul the meaning of the mysterie is this That God hath appointed the Priest to pray for the People and because he hath made it to be his ordinary office and imployment he also intends to be seen in that way which he hath appointed and chalked out for us his prayer if it be found in the way of righteousnesse is the surer way to prevaile in his intercessions for the people But upon this stock comes in the greatest difficulty of the text for if God heareth not sinners there is an infinite necessity that the Ministers of Religion should be very holy For all their ministeries consist in preaching and praying to these two are reducible all the ministeries Ecclesiasticall which are of divine institution so the Apostles summ'd up their imployment But we will give our selves continually to prayer and to the ministery of the Word to exhort to reprove to comfort to cast down to determine cases of conscience and to rule in the Church by the word of their proper Ministery and the very making lawes Ecclesiasticall is the ministery of the word for so their dictates passe into lawes by being duties injoyn'd by God or the acts or exercises or instruments of some injoyn'd graces To prayer is reduced administration of the Sacraments but binding and loosing and visitation of the sick are mixt offices partly relating to one partly to the other Now although the Word of God preached will have a great effect even though it be preached by an evill Minister a vicious person yet it is not so well there as from a pious man because by prayer also his preaching is made effectuall and by his good example his Homilies and Sermons are made active and therefore it is very necessary in respect of this half of the Ministers office The preaching of Word he be a good man unlesse he be much perishes to the people most of the advantages are lost But then for the other half all those ministeries which are by way of prayer are rendred extremely invalid and ineffectuall if they be ministred by an evill person For upon this very stock it was that St. Cyprian affirmed that none were to be chosen to the Ministery but immaculati integri antistites holy and upright men who offering their sacrifices worthily to God and holily may be heard in their prayers which they make for the safety of the Lords people But he presses this caution to a further issue that it is not only necessary to choose holy persons to these holy Ministeries for fear of losing the advantages of a sanctified Ministery but also that the people may not be guilty of an evill communion and a criminall state of society Nec enim sibi plebs blandiatur quasi immunis à contagione delicti esse possit cum sacerdote peccatore communicans the people cannot be innocent if they communicate with a vitious priest for so said the Lord by the Prophet Hosea Sacrificia eorum panis luctus their sacrifices are like bread of sorrow whosoever eat thereof shall be defiled The same also he sayes often and more vehemently ibid. lib. 4. ep 2. But there is yet a further degree of this evill It is not only a losse and also criminall to the people to communicate with a Minister of a notorious evill life and scandalous but it is affirmed by the Doctors of the Church to be wholly without effect their prayers are sins their Sacraments are null and ineffective their communions are without consecration their hand is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a dead hand the blessings vain their sacrifices rejected their ordinations imperfect their order is vanished their character is extinguished and the holy Ghost will not descend upon the mysteries when he is invocated by unholy hands and unsanctified lips This is a sad story but it is expresly affirmed by Dionysius by St. Hierom upon the 2. chapter of Zephaniah affirming that they do wickedly who affirm eucharistiam imprecantis facere verba non vitam necessariam esse tantum solennem orationem non sacerdotum merita that the Eucharist is consecrated by the Word and solemn prayer and not by the life and holinesse of the Priest and by St. Gelasius by the Author of the imperfect work attributed to St. Chrysostome who quotes the 8th book of the Apostolicall Constitutions for the same Doctrine the words of which in the first chapter are so plain that Bovius and Sixtus Senensis accuse both the Author of the Apostolicall Constitutions and St. Hierom and the Author of these Homilies to be guilty of the Doctrine of Iohn Hus who for the crude delivery of this truth was sentenced by the councell of Constance To the same sense and signification of Doctrine is that which is generally agreed upon by almost all persons that he that enters into his Ministery by Simony receives nothing but a curse which is expresly affirmed by Petrus Damiani and Tarasius the Patriarch of Constantinople by St. Gregory and St. Ambrose For if the holy Ghost leaves polluted Temples and unchast bodies if he takes away his grace from them that abuse it if the holy Ghost would not have descended upon Simon Magus at the prayer of St. Peter if St. Peter had taken money for him it is but reasonable to beleeve the holy Ghost will not descend upon the simoniacall unchast Concubinaries Schismaticks and scandalous Priests and excommunicate And beside the reasonablenesse of the Doctrine it is also further affirmed by the councell of Neocaesarea by St. Chrysostome Innocentius Nicolaus the first and by the Master of the Sentences upon the saying of God by the Prophet Malachic 1. Maledicam benedictionibus vestris I will curse your blessings upon the stock of these Scriptures reasons and authorities we may see how we are to understand this advantage of intercession The prayer and offices of holy Ministers are of great advantages for the interest of the people but if they be ministred to by evill men by vicious and scandalous Ministers this extraordinary advantage is lost they are left to stand alone
Christ descended from his Fathers bosome and contracted his divinity with flesh and bloud and marryed our Nature and we became a Church the spouse of the bridegroom which he cleansed with his bloud and gave her his holy Spirit for a dowry and heaven for a joynture begetting children unto God by the Gospel this spouse he hath joyn'd to himself by an excellent charity he feeds her at his own table and lodges her nigh his own heart provides for all her necessities relieves her sorrowes determines her doubts guides her wandrings he is become her head and she as a signet upon his right hand he first indeed was betrothed to the Synagogue and had many children by her but she forsook his love and then he marryed the Church of the Gentiles and by her as by a second venter had a more numerous issue atque una domus est omnium filiorum ejus all the children dwell in the same house and are heirs of the same promises intituled to the same inheritance Here is the eternall conjunction the indissoluble knot the exceeding love of Christ the obedience of the Spouse the communicating of goods the uniting of interests the fruit of marriage a celestiall generation a new creature Sacramentum hoc magnum est this is the sacramentall mystery represented by the holy rite of marriage so that marriage is divine in its institution sacred in its union holy in the mystery sacramentall in its signification honourable in its appellative religious in its imployments It is advantage to the societies of men and it is holinesse to the Lord. Diâ—o autem in Christo Ecclesiâ It must be in Christ and the Church If this be not observed marriage loses its mysteriousnesse but because it is to effect much of that which it signifies it concerns all that enter into those golden fetters to see that Christ and his Church be in at every of its periods and that it be intirely conducted and over-rul'd by Religion for so the Apostle passes from the sacramentall rite to the reall duty Neverthelesse that is although the former discourse were wholly to explicate the conjunction of Christ and his Church by this similitude yet it hath in it this reall duty that the man love his wife and the wife reverence her husband and this is the use we shall now make of it the particulars of which precept I shall thus dispose 1. I shall propound the duty as it generally relates to Man and Wife in conjunction 2. The duty and power of the Man 3. The rights and priviledges and the duty of the Wife 1. In Christo Ecclesia that begins all and there is great need it should be so for they that enter into the state of marriage cast a dye of the greatest contingency and yet of the greatest interest in the world next to the last throw for eternity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 life or death felicity or a lasting sorrow are in the power of marriage A woman indeed ventures most for she hath no sanctuary to retire to from an evill husband she must dwell upon her sorrow and hatch the egges which her own folly or infelicity hath produced and she is more under it because her tormentor hath a warrant of prerogative and the woman may complain to God as subjects do of tyrant Princes but otherwise she hath no appeal in the causes of unkindenesse And though the man can run from many hours of his sadnesse yet he must return to it again and when he sits among his neighbours he remembers the objection that lies in his bosome and he sighes deeply Ah tum te miserum malique fati Quem attract is pedibus patente portâ Percurrent mugilésque raphanique The boyes and the pedlers and the fruiterers shall tell of this man when he is carryed to his grave that he lived and dyed a poor wretched person The Stags in the Greek Epigram whose knees were clog'd with frozen snow upon the mountains came down to the brooks of the vallies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hoping to thaw their joynts with the waters of the stream but there the frost overtook them and bound them fast in ice till the young heardsmen took them in their stranger snare It is the unhappy chance of many men finding many inconveniences upon the mountains of single life they descend into the vallies of marriage to refresh their troubles and there they enter into fetters and are bound to sorrow by the cords of a mans or womans peevishnesse and the worst of the evill is they are to thank their own follies for they fell into the snare by entring an improper way Christ and the Church were no ingredients in their choice but as the Indian women enter into folly for the price of an Elephant and think their crime warrantable so do men and women change their liberty for a rich fortune like Eriphyle the Argive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 she prefer'd gold before a good man and shew themselves to be lesse then money by overvaluing that to all the content and wise felicity of their lives and when they have counted the money and their sorrowes together how willingly would they buy with the losse of all that money modesty or sweet nature to their relative the odde thousand pound would gladly be allowed in good nature and fair manners As very a fool is he that chooses for beauty principally cui sum eruditi oculi stulta mens as one said whose eyes are witty and their soul sensuall It is an ill band of affections to tye two hearts together by a little thread of red and white 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And they can love no longer but untill the next ague comes and they are fond of each other but at the chance of fancy or the small pox or childebearing or care or time or any thing that can destroy a pretty flower But it is the basest of all when lust is the Paranymph and solicits the suit and makes the contract and joyn'd the hands for this is commonly the effect of the former according to the Greek proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 At first for his fair cheeks and comely beard the beast is taken for a Lion but at last he is turn'd to a Dragon or a Leopard or a Swine That which is at first beauty on the face may prove lust in the manners 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Eubulus wittily reprehended such impure contracts they offer in their maritall sacrifices nothing but the thigh and that which the Priests cut from the goats when they were laid to bleed upon the Altars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said St. Clement He or she that looks too curiously upon the beauty of the body looks too low and hath flesh and corruption in his heart and is judg'd sensuall and earthly in his affections and desires Begin
were the Elei among the Grecians as being sacred to Jupiter safe from the hostility of a professed enemy the same which was observed amongst the Romans Quis homo est tantâ confidentiâ Qui sacerdotem audeat violare At magno cum malo suo fecit Herculè But this is but one instance of advantage The Gentiles having once separated their Priests and affixed them to the ministeries of religion thought nothing great enough either to expresse the dignity of their imployment or good enough to doe honour to their persons and it is largely discoursed of by Cicero in the case of the Roman Augures Maximum autem praestantissimum in Rep. jus est Augurum cum est authoritati conjunctum neque verò hoc quia sum ipse Augur ita sentio sed quia sio existimare nos necesse est Quid enim majus est si de jure quaerimus quà m posse à summis imperiis summis potestatibus comitia tollere concilia vel instituta dimittere vel habita rescindere Quid magnificentius quà m posse decernere ut magistratu se abdicent consules quid religiosius quà m cum populo cum plebe agendi jus aut dare aut non dare It was a vast power these men had to be in proportion to their greatest honour they had power of bidding and dissolving publick meetings of indicting solemnities of religion just as the Christian Bishops had in the beginning of Christianity they commanded publick fasts at their indiction onely they were celebrated Benè autem quod Episcopi universae plebi mandare jejunia assolent non dico industriâ stipium conferendarum ut vestrae capturae est sed interdum aliquâ sollicitudinis Ecclestasticae causâ The Bishops also called publick conventions Ecclesiasticall Aguntur praecepta per Graecias illas certis in locis concilia ex universis Ecclesiis per quae et altior a quaeque in commune tractantur ipsarepraesentatio totius nominis Christiani magna veneratione celebratur It was so in all religions the Antistites the presidents of rites and guides of consciences had great immissions and influences into the republick and communities of men and they verified the saying of Tacitus Deûm munere summum pontisicem etiam summum hominem esse non aemulatione non odio aut privatis affectionibus obnoxium The chief Priest was ever the chief man and free from the envies and scornes and troubles of popular peevishnesse and contumacy and that I may use the expression of Tacitus utque glisceret dignatio sacerdotum for all the great traverses of the republick were in their disposing atque ipsis promptior animus foret ad capessendas ceremonias the very lower institutions of their religion were set up with the markes of speciall laws and priviledges insomuch that the seat of the Empresse in the Theatre was among the Vestall virgins But the highest had all that could be heaped upon them till their honours were as sublimed as their functions Amongst the Ethiopians the Priests gave laws to their Princes and they used their power sometimes to the ruine of their Kings till they were justly removed Among the Egyptians the Priests were their Judges so they were in Athens for the Areopagites were Priests and the Druids among the Gaules were Judges of murder of titles of land of bounds and inheritances magno apud eos sunt honore nam fere de omnibus controversiis publicis privatisque constituunt and for the Magi of Persia and India Strabo reports 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they conversed with Kings meaning they were their counsellours and guides of their consciences And Herodotus in Eustathius tells us of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the divine order of Prophets or Priests in Delphos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they did eate of the publick provisions together with Kings By these honours they gave testimony of their religion not onely separating certain persons for the service of their Temples but also separating their condition from the impurities and the contempt of the world as knowing that they who were to converse with their Gods were to be elevated from the common condition of men and vulgar miseries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As soon as I was made a Priest of Idaean Jupiter all my garments were white and I declined to converse with mortals Novae sortis oportet illum esse qui jubente Deo canat said Seneca He had need be of a distinct and separate condition that sings to the honour and at the command of God thus it was among the Jews and Heathens SECT II. NOw if Christian Religion should doe otherwise then all the world hath done either it must be because the rites of Christianity are of no mystery and secret dispensation but common actions of an ordinary addresse and cheap devotion or else because we under value all religion that is because indeed we have nothing of it The first is dishonorable to Christianity and false as its greatest enemy The second is shame to us and both so unreasonable and unnaturall that if we separate not certain persons for the ministeries of Christianity we must confesse we have the worst religion or that we are the worst of men But let us consider it upon its proper grounds When Christ had chosen to himselfe twelve Apostles and was drawing now to the last scene of his life he furnished them with commissions and abilities to constitute and erect a Church and to transmit such powers as were apt for its continuation and perpetuity And therefore to the Apostles in the capacity of Church officers he made a promise That he would be with them untill the end of the world they might presonally be with him untill the end of the world but he could not be here with them who after a short course run were to goe hence and be no more seen and therefore for the verification of the promise it is necessary that since the promise was made for the benefit of the Church and to them as the ministers of the benefit so long as the benefit was to be dispensed so long they were to be succeeded to and therefore assisted by the Holy Jesus according to that glorious promise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not onely to the Apostles but absolutely and indefinitely to all Christs disciples their successors he promised to abide for ever even to the consummation of the world to the whole succession of the Clergy so Theophylact upon this place And if we consider what were the power and graces Jesus committed to the dispensation of the Apostles such as were not temporary but lasting successive and perpetuall we must also conclude the ministery to be perpetuall I instance first in the power of binding and loosing remitting and retaining sins which Christ gave them together with his breathing on them the holy Spirit and a
legation and a speciall commission as appears in S. John which power what sense soever it admits of could not expire with the persons of the Apostles unlesse the succeeding ages of the Church had no discipline or government no scandals to be removed no weak persons offended no corrupt members to be cut off no hereticks rejected no sins or no pardon and that were a more heresie then that of the Novatians for they onely denyed this ministery in some cases not in all saying Priestly absolution was not fit to be dispensed to them who in time of persecution had sacrificed to idols 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To these onely pardon is to be dispensed without the ministery of the Priest To these who were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sacrificers and mingled the table of the Lord with the table of devils Against other sinners they were not so severe But however so long as that distinction remaines of sinnes unto death and sinnes not unto death there are a certain sort of sins which are remediable and cognoscible and judicable and a power was dispensed to a distinct sort of persons to remit or retain those sins which therefore must remain with the Apostles for ever that is with their persons first and then with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with their successors because the Church needs it for ever and there was nothing in the power that by relating to a present and temporary occasion did insinuate its short life and speedy expiration In execution of this power and pursuance of this commission for which the power was given the Apostles went forth and all they upon whom this signature passed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 executed this power in appropriation and distinct ministery it was the sword of their proper ministery and S. Paul does almost exhibite his commission and reades the words when he puts it in execution and does highly verifie the parts and the consequence of this argument God hath reconciled us to himself by Christ Jesus and hath given to us the ministery of reconciliation and it followes now then we are Embassadours for Christ. The ministery of reconciliation is an appropriate ministery It is committed to us we are Embassadours it is appropriate by virtue of Christs mission and legation He hath given to us he hath made and deputed certain Embassadours whom he hath sent upon the message and ministery of reconcilement which is a plain exposition of the words of his commission before recorded John 20. 21. And that this also descended lower we have the testimony of S. James who advises the sick person to send for the Elders of the Church that they may pray over him that they may anoint him that in that society there may be consession of sins by the clinick or sick person and that after these preparatives and in this ministery his sins may be forgiven him Now that this power fell into succession this instance proves for the Elders were such who had not the commission immediately from Christ but were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were fathers of the people but sons of the Apostles and therefore it is certain the power was not personall and meerly Apostolicall but derived upon others by such a communication as gives evidence the power was to be succeeded in And when went it out when the anointing and miraculous healing ceased There is no reason for that For forgivenesse of sins was not a thing visible and therefore could not be of the nature of miracles to confirme the faith and christianity first and after its work was done return to God that gave it neither could it be onely of present use to the Church but as eternall and lasting as sin is and therefore there could be nothing in the nature of the thing to make it so much as suspicious it was presently to expire To which also I adde this consideration that the Holy Ghost which was to enable the Apostles in the precise office Apostolicall as it was an office extraordinary circumstantionate definite and to expire all that was promised should descend upon them after Christs ascension and was verified in Pentecost for to that purpose to bring all things to their minde all of Christs doctrine and all that was necessary of his life and miracles and a power from above to enable them to speake boldly and learnedly and with tongues all that besides the other parts of ordinary power was given them ten days after the Ascension And therefore the breathing the holy Ghost upon the Apostles in the octaves of the resurrection and this mission with such a power was their ordinary mission a sending them as ordinary Pastors and Curates of souls with a power to govern binding and loosing can mean no lesse and they were the words of the promise with a power to minister reconciliation for so S. Paul expounds remitting and retaining which two were the great hinges of the Gospell the one to invite and collect a Church the other to govern it the one to dispense the greatest blessing in the world the other to keep them in capacities of enjoying it For since the holy Ghost was now actually given to these purposes here expressed and yet in order to all their extraordinaries and temporary needs was promised to descend after this there is no collection from hence more reasonable then to conclude all this to be part of their commission of ordinary Apostleship to which the ministers of religion were in all ages to succeed In attestation of all which who please may see the united testimony of S. Cyrill S. Chrysostome S. Ambrose S. Gregory and the Author of the questions of the old and new Testament who unlesse by their calling shall rather be called persons interest then by reason of their famous piety and integrity shall be accepted as competent are a very credible and fair representment of this truth and that it was a doctrine of Christianity that Christ gave this power to the Apostles for themselves and their successors for ever and that therefore as Christ in the first donation so also some Churches in the tradition of that power used the same forme of words intending the collation of the same power and separating persons for the work of that ministery I end this with the counsell S. Augustine gives to all publick penitents Veniant ad Antistites per quos illis in Ecclesia claves ministrantur a praepositis sacrorum accipiant satisfactionis suae modum let them come to the Presidents of religion by whom the Keys are ministred and from the governours of holy things let them receive those injunctions which shall exercise and signifie their repentance SECT III. THe second power I instance in is preaching the Gospel for which work he not onely at first designed Apostles but others also were appointed for the same work forever to all generations of the Church This Commission was signed
here is purpose enough signified although they be not used to inferre an indistinction of officers in this ministery 2. These gifts were given extraregularly but yet with some difference of persons for all did not prophecy nor all interpret nor all speak with tongues they were but a few that did all this we finde but the daughters of one man onely and Priscilla among all the nations of the Jews that ever did prophecy of the women and of Laymen I remember not one but Aquila and Agabus and these will be but too straight an argument to blend a whole order of men in a popular and vulgar indiscrimination 3. These extraordinary gifts were no authority to those who had them and no other commission to speake in publick And therefore S. Paul forbids the women to speak in the Church and yet it was not denyed but some of them might have the spirit of prophecy Speaking in the Church was part of an ordinary power to which not onely ability but authority also and commission are required That was clearly one separation women were not capable of a clericall imployment no not so much as of this ministery of preaching And by this we may take speedier account concerning Deaconesses in the Primitive Church de Diaconissâ ego Bartholomaus dispono O Episcope impones ei manus praesentibus Presbyteris Diaconis Diaconissis dices Respice super hanc famulam tuam so it is in the constitutions Apostolicall under the name of S. Clement By which it should seem they were ordained for some Ecclesiasticall ministery which is also more credible by those words of Tertullian Quantae igitur quae in Ecclesiis ordinari solent quae Deo nubere maluerunt And Sozomen tells of Olympias Hanc enim cum genere esset nobilissimo quamvis juvenculam ex quo vidua facta erat quia ex praescripto Ecclesiae egregiè philosophatur in Ministram Nectarius ordinat and such a one it was whom S. Basil called impollutam sacerdotem whatsoever these Deaconesses could be they could not speake in publick unlesse they did prevaricate the Apostolicall rule given to the Corinthian and Ephesian Churches And therefore though Olympias was an excellent person yet she was no preacher she was a Philosopher not in her discourse but in her manner of living and beleeving Philosophata ex ecclesiae praescripto and that could not be by preaching but these Deaconesses after the Apostolicall age were the same with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the good women that did domestick offices and minister to the temporall necessity of the Churches in the days of the Apostles Such a one was Phoebe of Cenchrea but they were not admitted to any holy or spirituall office so we have certain testimony from antiquity whence the objection comes For so the Nicene councell expresly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deaconesses are to be reckoned in the Laity because they have no imposition of hands viz. for any spirituall office For they had imposition of hands in some places to temporall administrations about the Church and a solemn benediction but nothing of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Presbyteresses who were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the governesses of women in order to manners and religion but these though as Tertullian affirmes and Zonaras and Balsamo confesse they were solemnly ordained and set over the women in such offices yet pretended to nothing of the clericall power or the right of speaking in publick So Epiphanius There is an order of deaconesses in the Church but not to medle or to attempt any of the holy offices And in this sense it was that S. Ambrose reckons it amongst the heresies of the Cataphrygians that they ordained their Deaconesses viz. to spirituall ministeries but those women that desire to be meddling are not moved with such discourses they care for none of all these things therefore I remit them to the precept of the Apostle But I suffer not a woman to teach but to be in silence And as for the men who had gifts extraordinary of the Spirit although they were permitted at first in the Corinthian Church before there was a Bishop or a fixed colledge of Clergy to utter the inspired dictates of the Spirit yet whether they were Lay or Clergy is not there expressed and it is more agreeable to the usuall dispensation that the prophets of ordinary ministery though now extraordinarily assisted should prophecy in publick but however when these extraordinaries did cease if they were common persons they had no pretence to invade the Chaire nor that we finde ever did for an ordinary ability to speake was never any warrant to disturb an order unlesse they can say the words of S. Paul Whereunto I am ordained a Preacher they might not invade the office To be able to performe an office though it may be a fair disposition to make the person capable to receive it orderly yet it does not actually invest him every wise man is not a Counsellour of State nor every good Lawyer a Judge And I doubt not but in the Jewish religion there were many persons as able to pray as their Priests who yet were wiser then to refuse the Priests advocation apud Deum and reciting offices in behalfe of the people Orabit pro eo sacerdos was the order of Gods appointing though himself were a devout person and of an excellent spirit And it had need be something extraordinary that must warrant an ordinary person to rise higher then his own evennesse and ability or skill is but a possibility and must be reduced to act by something that transmits authority or does establish order or distinguish persons and separate professions And it is very remarkable that when Judas had miscarried and lost his Apostolate it was said that it was necessary for some body to be chosen to be a witnesse of Christs resurrection Two were named of ability sufficient but that was not all they must choose one to make up the number of the twelve a distinct separate person which shews that it was not onely a work for that any of them might have done but an office of ordinary ministery The ability of doing which work although all they that lived with Jesus might either have had or received at Pentecost yet the authority and grace was more the first they had upon experience but this onely by divine election which is a demonstration that every person that can doe offices clericall is not permitted to doe them and that besides the knowledge and naturall or artificiall abilities a divine qualification is necessary And therefore God complains by the Prophet I have not sent them and yet they run and the Apostle leaves it as an established rule How shall they preach except they be sent which two places I shall grant to be meant concerning
a distinct and a new message Prophets must not offer any doctrine to the people or pretend a doctrine for which they had not a commission from God But which way soever they be expounded they will conclude right in this particular For if they signifie an ordinary mission then there is an ordinary mission of preachers which no man must usurpe unlesse he can prove his title certainly and clearly derivative from God which when any man of the Laity can doe we must give him the right hand of fellowship and wish him good speed But if these words signifie an extraordinary case and that no message must be pretended by Prophets but what they have commission for then must not ordinary persons pretend an extraordinary mission to an ordinary purpose for besides that God does never doe things unreasonably nor will endure that order be interrupted to no purpose he will never give an extraordinary Commission unlesse it be to a proportionable end whosoever pretends to a license of preaching by reason of an extraordinary calling must look that he be furnished with an extraordinary message lest his Commission be ridiculous and when he comes he must be sure to shew his authority by an argument proportionable that is by such a probation without which no wise man can reasonably beleeve him which cannot be lesse then miraculous and divine In all other cases he comes under the curse of the non missi those whom God sent not they goe on their own errand and must pay themselves their wages But besides that the Apostles were therefore to have an immediate mission because they were to receive new instructions these instructions were such as were by an ordinary and yet by a distinct ministery to be conveyed for ever after and therefore did design an ordinary successive and lasting power and authority Nay our blessed Lord went one step further in this provision even to remark the very first successors and partakers of this power to be taken into the lot of this ministery and they were the seventy two whom Christ had sent as probationers of their future preaching upon a short errand into the Cities of Judah But by this assignation of more persons then those to whom he gave immediate commission he did declare that the office of preaching was to be dispensed by a separate and peculiar sort of men distinct from the people and yet by others then those who had the commission extraordinary that is by such who were to be called to it by an ordinary vocation As Christ constituted the office and named the persons both extraordinary and ordinary present and successive so he provided gifts for them too that the whole dispensation might be his and might be apparent And therefore Christ when he ascended up on high gave gifts to men to this very purpose and these gifts comming from the same Spirit made separation of distinct ministeries under the same Lord. So S. Paul testifies expresly Now there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there are different administrations differencies of ministeries it is the proper word for Church offices the ministery is distinguished by the gift It is not a gift for the ministery but the ministery it selfe is the gift and distinguished accordingly An extraordinary ministery needs an extraordinary and a miraculous gift that is a miraculous calling and vocation and designation by the holy Ghost but an ordinary gift cannot sublime an ordinary person to a supernaturall imployment and from this discourse of the differing gifts of the Spirit S. Paul without any further artifice concludes that the Spirit intended a distinction of Church officers for the work of the ministery for the conclusion of the discourse is that God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers and lest all Gods people should usurpe these offices which God by his Spirit hath made separate and distinguished he addes Are all Apostles are all Prophets are all Teachers If so then were all the body one member quite contrary to nature and to Gods Oeconomy And that this designation of distinct Church officers is for ever S. Paul also affirmes as expresly as this question shall need He gave some Apostles some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the work of the ministery till we all arrive at the unity of faith which as soon as it shall happen then commeth the end Till the end be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work of the Ministery must goe forwards and is incumbent upon the Pastors and Teachers this is their work and they are the ministers whom the holy Ghost designed 1. For I consider that either to preach requires but an ordinary or an extraordinary ability if it requires an extraordinary they who are illiterate and unlearned persons are the unfittest men in the world for it if an ordinary sufficiency will discharge it why cannot they suppose the clergy of a competency and strength sufficient to doe that which an ordinary understanding and faculties can performe what need they entermeddle with that to which no extraordinary assistance is required or else why do they set their shoulder to such a work with which no strength but extraordinary is commensurate in the first case it is needlesse in the second it is uselesse in both vain and impertinent For either no man needs their help or if they did they are very unable to help I am sure they are if they be unlearned persons and if they be learned they well enough know that to teach the people is not a power of speaking but is also an act of jurisdiction and authority and in which order is at least concerned in an eminent degree Learned men are not so forward and those are most confident who have least reason 2. Although as Homilies to the people are now used according to the smallest rate many men more preach then should yet besides that to preach prudently gravely piously and with truth requires more abilities then are discernible by the people such as make even a plain work reasonable to wise men and usefull to their hearers and acceptable to God besides this I say the office of teaching is of larger extent then making homilies or speaking prettily enough to please the common and undiscerning auditors They that are appointed to teach the people must respondere de jure give account of their faith in defiance of the numerous armies of Hereticks they must watch for their flock and use excellent arts to arme them against all their weaknesses from within and hostilities from without they must streng then the weak confirme the strong compose the scrupulous satisfie the doubtfull and be ready to answer cases of conscience and I beleeve there are not so little as 5000 cases already started up among the Casuists and for ought I know there may be 5000 times 5000. And
a new Ministery One will not be changed without the other God now no more comes in a mighty rushing winde but in a still voice in the gentle homilies of ordinary Prophets and now that the Law by which we are to frame our understandings and our actions is established we must not expect an Apostle to correct every abuse for if they will not hear Moses and the Prophets if one should come from the dead or an Angel come from heaven it is certain they will not be entertained but till the wonder be over and the curiosity of news be satisfied Against this it is pretended that Christ promised to be with his Church for ever upon condition the Church would do their duty but they being but a company of men have power to choose and they may choose amisse and if all should doe so Christs promises may fail us though not fail of their intentions and then in this case the Church failing either there must be an extraordinary calling of single persons or else any man may enter into the ordinary way which is all one with an extraordinary for it is extraordinary that common persons should by necessity be drawn into an imployment which by ordinary vocation they are not to meddle with Against this we can thanks be to God for it pretend the experience of 16 ages for hitherto it hath ever been in the Christian Church that God hath preserved a holy Clergy in the same proportion as he hath preserved a holy people never yet were the Clergy all Antichristian in the midst of Christian Churches and we have no reason to fear it will be so now after so long an experience to expound the promises of our Lord to the sense of a perpetuall Ministery and a perpetual Church by the means of ordinary ministrations And how shall the Church be supposed to fail since God hath made no provisions for its restitution For by what means should the Church be renewed and Christianity restored Not by Scripture For we have no certainty that the Scriptures which we have this day are the same which the Apostles delivered and shall remain so for ever but onely 1. the reputation and testimony of all Christian Churches which also must transmit the same by a continuall successive testimony to the following or else they will be of an uncertain faith and 2. the confidence of the divine providence and goodnesse who will not let us want what is fit for us that without which we cannot attain the end to which in mercy he hath designed us Now the same Arguments which we have for the continuation of Scripture we have for the perpetuity of a Christian Clergy that is besides the so long actuall succession and continuance we have the goodnesse and unalterable sweetnesse of the divine mercies who will continue such Ministeries which himself hath made the ordinary means of salvation he would not have made them the way to heaven and of ordinary necessity if he did not mean to preserve them indeed if the ordinary way should fail God will supply another way to them that doe their duty but then Scripture may as well fail as the ordinary succession of the Clergy they both were intended but as the ordinary ministeries of salvation and if Scripture be kept for the use of the Church it is more likely the Church will be preserved in its necessary constituent parts then the Scripture because Scripture is preserved for the Church it is kept that the Church might not fail For as for the fancy that all men being free agents may choose amisse suppose that but then may they not all consent to the corruption or destroying of Scripture yea but God will preserve them from that or will overrule the event yea but how doe they know that what revelation have they yet grant that too but why then will he not also over-rule the event in the matter of universall Apostasie for both of them are matter of choyce But then that all the Clergy should consent to corrupt Scripture or to loose their faith is a most unreasonable supposition for supposing there is a naturall possibility yet it is morally impossible and we may as well fear that all the men of the world will be vitious upon the same reason for if all the Clergy may then all the people may and you may as well poyson the Sea as poyson all the springs and it is more likely all the Ideots and the ordinary persons in the world should be cousened out of their religion then that all the wise men and Antistites the Teachers Doctors and publick Ministers of religion should And when all men turn Mariners or Apothecaries or that all men will live single lives and turn Monks and so endanger the species of mankind to perish for there is a great fear of that too that is when all the world choose one thing for if two men doe two thousand may doe it if they will and so may all upon this ground then also we may fear that all the Governours of the Church may fail because some doe and more have and all may till then there will be no need of an extraordinary commission but the Church shall goe on upon the stock of the first calling and designation which was extraordinary The Spirit issued out at first miraculously and hath continued running still in the first channels by ordinary conducts and in the same conveyances it must run still or it cannot without a miracle derive upon us who stand at infinite distance from the fountain Since then there is now no more expectation of an extraordinary calling and to do so were an extraordinary vanity it remains that the derivation of the ministeriall power be by an ordinary conveyance The Spirit of God in Scripture hath drawn a line and chalked out the path that himself meant to tread in giving the graces of Evangelicall ministrations At first after that Christ had named twelve one whereof was lost they not having an expresse command for the manner of ordination took such course as reason and religion taught them They named two persons and prayed God to choose one and to manifest it by lot which was a way lesse then the first designation of the other eleven and yet had more of the extraordinary in it then could be reasonably continued in an ordinary succession The Apostles themselves had not as yet received skill enough how to officiate in their ordinary ministery because the Holy Ghost was not yet descended But when the Holy Ghost descended then the work was to begin the Apostles wanted no power necessary for the main work of the Gospel but now also they received Commissions to dispense the Spirit to all such purposes to which he was intended They before had the office in themselves but it was not communicable to others till the Spirit the anointing from above ranne over to the fringes of the Priests
out and the noise shall mingle with the Trumpet of the Archangell with the thunders of the dying and groaning heavens and the crack of the dissolving world when the whole fabrick of nature shall shake into dissolution and eternall ashes But this generall consideration may be hightned with four or five circumstances 1. Consider what an infinite multitude of Angels and Men and Women shall then appear it is a huge assembly when the Men of one Kingdome the Men of one Age in a single Province are gathered togother into heaps and confusion of disorder But then all Kingdomes of all ages all the Armies that ever mustered all that World that Augustus Caesar taxed all those hundreds of Millions that were slain in all the Roman Wars from Numa's time till Italy was broken into Principalities and small Exarchats all these and all that can come into numbers and that did descend from the loins of Adam shall at once be represented to which account if we adde the Armies of Heaven the nine orders of blessed Spirits and the infinite numbers in every order we may suppose the numbers fit to expresse the Majesty of that God and the terror of that Judge who is the Lord and Father of all that unimaginable multitude Eritterror ingens tot simul tantorúmque populorum 2. In this great multitude we shall meet all those who by their example and their holy precepts have like tapers enkindled with a beam of the Sun of righteousnesse enlightned us and taught us to walk in the paths of justice There we shall see all those good men whom God sent to preach to us and recall us from humane follies and inhumane practises and when we espie the good man that chid us for our last drunkennesse or adulteries it shall then also be remembred how we mocked at counsell and were civilly modest at the reproof but laugh'd when the man was gone and accepted it for a religious complement and took our leaves and went and did the same again But then things shall put on another face and what we smil'd at here and slighted fondly shall then be the greatest terror in the world Men shall feel that they once laugh'd at their own destruction and rejected health when it was offered by a man of God upon no other condition but that they would be wise and not be in love with death Then they shall perceive that if they had obeyed an easie and a sober counsell they had been partners of the same felicity which they see so illustrious upon the heads of those Preachers whose work is with the Lord and who by their life and Doctrine endeavoured to snatch the Soul of their friend or relatives from an intolerable misery But he that sees a crown put upon their heads that give good counsell and preach holy and severe Sermons with designs of charity and piety will also then perceive that God did not send Preachers for nothing on trifling errands and without regard but that work which he crowns in them he purposed should be effective to us perswasive to the understanding and active upon our consciences Good Preachers by their Doctrine and all good men by their lives are the accusers of the disobedient and they shall rise up from their seats and judge and condemn the follies of those who thought their piety to be want of courage and their discourses pedanticall and their reproofs the Priests trade but of no signification because they prefer'd moments before eternity 3. There in that great assembly shall be seen all those Converts who upon easier terms and fewer miracles and a lesse experience and a younger grace and a seldomer Preaching and more unlikely circumstances have suffered the work of God to prosper upon their spirits and have been obedient to the heavenly calling There shall stand the men of Nineveh and they shall stand upright in Judgement for they at the preaching of one man in a lesse space then forty dayes returned unto the Lord their God but we have heard him call all our lives and like the deaf Adder stopt our ears against the voice of Gods servants charme they never so wisely There shall appear the men of Capernaum and the Queen of the South and the Men of Berea and the first fruits of the Christian Church and the holy Martyrs and shall proclaim to all the world that it was not impossible to do the work of Grace in the midst of all our weaknesses and accidentall disadvantages and that the obedience of Faith and the labour of Love and the contentions of chastity and the severities of temperance and self-deniall are not such insuperable mountains but that an honest and a sober person may perform them in acceptable degrees if he have but a ready ear and a willing minde and an honest heart and this seen of honest persons shall make the Divine Judgement upon sinners more reasonable and apparently just in passing upon them the horrible sentence for why cannot we as well serve God in peace as others served him in war why cannot we love him as well when he treats us sweetly and gives us health and plenty honours or fair fortunes reputation or contentednesse quietnesse and peace as others did upon gibbets and under axes in the hands of tormentors and in hard wildernesses in nakednesse and poverty in the midst of all evill things and all sad discomforts Concerning this no answer can be made 4. But there is a worse sight then this yet which in that great assembly shall distract our sight and amaze our spirits There men shall meet the partners of their sins and them that drank the round when they crown'd their heads with folly and forgetfulnesse and their cups with wine and noises There shall ye see that poor perishing soul whom thou didst tempt to adultery and wantonnesse to drunkennesse or perjury to rebellion or an evill interest by power or craft by witty discourses or deep dissembling by scandall or a snare by evill example or pernicious counsell by malice or unwarinesse and when all this is summ'd up and from the variety of its particulars is drawn into an uneasie load and a formidable summe possibly we may finde sights enough to scare all our confidences and arguments enough to presse our evill souls into the sorrowes of a most intolerable death For however we make now but light accounts and evill proportions concerning it yet it will be a fearfull circumstance of appearing to see one or two or ten or twenty accursed souls despairing miserable infinitely miserable roaring and blaspheming and fearfully cursing thee as the cause of its eternall sorrowes Thy lust betray'd and rifled her weak unguarded innocence thy example made thy servant confident to lye or to be perjur'd thy society brought a third into intemperance and the disguises of a beast and when thou seest that soul with whom thou didst sin drag'd into hell well maist thou fear to drink the dregs of thy intolerable
will therefore that prayers and supplications and intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men and this is a duty that is prescrib'd to all them that are concern'd in the duty and in the blessings of Prayer but this is it which I say if their piety be but ordinary their prayer can be effectuall but in easy purposes and to smaller degrees but he that would work effectively towards a great deliverance or in great degrees towards the benefit or eaâ—e of any of his relatives can be confident of his successe but in the same degree in which his person is gracious There are strange things in heaven judgments there are made of things and persons by the measures of Religion and a plain promise produces effects of wonder and miracle and the changes that are there made are not effected by passions and interests and corporall changes and the love that is there is not the same thing that it is here it is more beneficiall more reasonable more holy of other designes and strange productions and upon that stock it is that a holy poor man that possesses no more it may be then an Ewe-lambe that eats of his bread and drinks of his cup and is a daughter to him and is all his temporall portion this poor man is ministred to by Angels and attended to by God and the Holy Spirit makes intercession for him and Christ joyns the mans prayer to his own advocation and the man by prayer shall save the City and destroy the fortune of a Tyrant army even then when God sees it good it should be so for he will no longer deny him any thing but when it is no blessing and when it is otherwise his prayer is most heard when it is most denyed 2ly That we should prevaile in intercessions for others we are to regard and to take care that as our piety so also must our offices be extraordinary He that prays to recover a family from an hereditary curse or to reverse a Sentence of God to cancell a Decree of heaven gone out against his friend hee that would heale the sick with his prayer or with his devotion prevaile against an army must not expect such great effects upon a Morning or Evening Collect or an honest wish put into the recollections of a prayer or a period put in on purpose Mamercus Bishop of Vienna seeing his City and all the Diocese in great danger of perishing by an earthquake instituted great Letanies and solemn supplications besides the ordinary devotions of his usuall hours of prayer and the Church from his example took up the practise and translated it into an anniversary solemnity and upon St. Mark 's day did solemnly intercede with God to divert or prevent his judgments falling upon the people majoribus Litani is so they are called with the more solemn supplications they did pray unto God in behalf of their people And this hath in it the same consideration that is in every great necessity for it is a great thing for a man to be so gracious with God as to be able to prevaile for himself and his friend for himself and his relatives and therefore in these cases as in all great needs it is the way of prudence and security that we use all those greater offices which God hath appointed as instruments of importunity and arguments of hope and acts of prevailing and means of great effect and advocation such as are separating days for solemn prayer all the degrees of violence and earnest addresse fasting and prayer almes and prayer acts of repentance and prayer praying together in publick with united hearts and above all praying in the susception and communication of the holy Sacrament the effects and admirable issues of which we know not and perceive not we loâ—e because we desire not and choose to lose many great blessings rather then purchase them with the frequent commemoration of that sacrifice which was offered up for all the needs of Mankind and for obtaining all favours and graces to the Catholick Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God never refuses to hear a holy prayer and our prayers can never be so holy as when they are offered up in the union of Christs sacrifice For Christ by that sacrifice reconcil'd God and the world And because our needs continue therefore we are commanded to continue the memory and to represent to God that which was done to satisfie all our needs Then we receive Christ we are after a secret and mysterious but most reall and admirable manner made all one with Christ and if God giving us his Son could not but with him give us all things else how shall he refuse our persons when we are united to his person when our souls are joined to his soul our body nourished by his body and our souls sanctified by his bloud and cloth'd with his robes and marked with his character and sealed with his Spirit and renewed with holy vows and consign'd to all his glories and adopted to his inheritance when we represent his death and pray in vertue of his passion and imitate his intercession and doe that which God commands and offer him in our manner that which he essentially loves can it be that either any thing should be more prevalent or that God can possibly deny such addresses and such importunities Try it often and let all things else be answerable and you cannot have greater reason for your confidence Doe not all the Christians in the world that understand Religion desire to have the holy Sacrament when they die when they are to make their great appearance before God and to receive their great consignation to their eternall sentence good or bad And if then be their greatest needs that is their greatest advantage and instrument of acceptation Therefore if you have a great need to be serv'd or a great charity to serve and a great pity to minister and a dear friend in a sorrow take Christ along in thy prayers in all thy ways thou canst take him take him in affection and take him in a solemnity take him by obedience and receive him in the Sacrament and if thou then offerest up thy prayers and makest thy needs known if thou nor thy friend be not relieved if thy party be not prevalent and the war be not appeased or the plague be not cured or the enemy taken off there is something else in it but thy prayer is good and pleasing to God and dressed with circumstances of advantage and thy person is apt to be an intercessor and thou hast done all that thou canst the event must be left to God and the secret reasons of the deniall either thou shalt find in time or thou maist trust with God who certainly does it with the greatest wisdome and the greatest charity I have in this thing onely one caution to insert viz. That in our importunity and extraordinary offices for others we must not make our accounts by multitude
of words and long prayers but by the measures of the Spirit by the holynesse of the soul and the justnesse of the desire and the usefulnesse of the request and its order to Gods glory and its place in the order of providence and the sincerity of our heart and the charity of our wishes and the perseverance of our advocation There are some as Tertullian observes qui loquacitatem facundiam existimant at impudentiam constantiam deputant They are praters and they are impudent and they call that constancy and importunity concerning which the advice is easy Many words or few are extrinsecall to the nature and not at all considered in the effects of prayer but much desire and much holinesse are essentiall to its constitution but we must be very curious that our importunity do not degenerate into impudence and a rude boldnesse Capitolinus said of Antonius the Emperour and Philosopher sanè quamvis esset constans erat etiam verecundus he was modest even when he was most pertinacious in his desires So must wee though wee must not be ashamed to aske for whatsoever we need Rebus semper pudor absit in arctis and in this sense it is true that Stasimus in the Comedy said concerning Meat Verecundari neminem apud mensam decet Nam ibi de divinis humanis cernitur Men must not be bashfull so as to lose their meat for that is a necessity that cannot bee dispensed withall so it is in our prayers whatsoever our necessity calls to us for we must call to God for and he is not pleased with that rusticity or fond modesty of being ashamed to ask of God any thing that is honest and necessary yet our importunity hath also bounds of modesty but such as are to be expressed with other significations and he is rightly modest towards God who without confidence in himself but not without confidence in Gods mercy nor without great humility of person and reverence of addresse presents his prayers to God as earnestly as he can Provided alwayes that in the greatest of our desires and holy violence we submit to Gods will and desire him to choose for us Our modesty to God in prayers hath no other measures but these 1. Distrust of our selves 2. Confidence in God 3. Humility of person 4. Reverence of addresse and 5. Submission to Gods will These are all unlesse also you will adde that of Solomon Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter a thing before God for God is in heaven and thou upon earth therefore let thy words be few These things being observed let your importunity be as great as it can it is still the more likely to prevaile by how much it is the more earnest and signified and represented by the most offices extraordinary 3ly The last great advantage towards a prevailing intercession for others is that the person that prayes for his relatives be a person of an extraordinary dignity imployment or designation For God hath appointed some persons and callings of men to pray for others such are Fathers for their Children Bishops for their Dioceses Kings for their Subjects and the whole Order Ecclesiast call for all the men and women in the Christian Church And it is well it is so for as things are now and have been too long how few are there that understand it to be their duty or part of their necessary imployment that some of their time and much of their prayers and an equall portion of their desires be spent upon the necessities of others All men doe not think it necessary and fewer practise it frequently and they but coldly without interest and deep resentment it is like the compassion we have in other mens miseries we are not concerned in it and it is not our case and our hearts ake not when another mans children are made fatherlesse or his wife a sad widow and just so are our prayers for their relief If we thought their evils to be ours if wee and they as members of the same body had sensible and reall communications of good and evill if we understood what is really meant by being members one of another or if we did not think it a spirituall word of art instrumentall onely to a science but no part of duty or reall relation sure we should pray more earnestly one for another then we usually doe How few of us are troubled when he sees his brother wicked or dishonorably vicious Who is sad and melancholy when his neighbour is almost in hell when he sees him grow old in iniquity How many days have we set apart for the publick relief and interests of the Kingdome How earnestly have we fasted if our Prince be sick or afflicted What almes have we given for our brothers conversion or if this be great how importunate and passionate have we been with God by prayer in his behalf by prayer and secret petition But however though it were well very well that all of us would think of this duty a little more because besides the excellency of the duty it self it would have this blessed consequent that for whose necessities we pray if we doe desire earnestly they should be relieved we would when ever we can and in all we can set our hands to it and if we pity the Orphan children and pray for them heartily we would also when we could relieve them charitably but though it were therefore very well that things were thus with all men yet God who takes care for us all makes provision for us in speciall manner and the whole Order of the Clergy are appointed by God to pray for others to be Ministers of Christs Priesthood to be followers of his Advocation to stand between God and the people and present to God all their needs and all their desires That this God hath ordained and appointed and that this rather he will blesse and accept appears by the testimony of God himself for he onely can be witnesse in this particular for it depends wholly upon his gracious favour and acceptation It was the case of Abraham and Abimelech Now therefore restore the man his wife for he is a Prophet and he will pray for thee and thou shalt live and this caused confidence in Micah Now know I that the Lord will doe me good seeing I have a Levite to my Priest meaning that in his Ministery in the Ministery of Priests God hath established the alternate returns of blessing and prayers the entercouses between God and his people And thorough the descending ages of the synagogue it came to be transmitted also to the Christian Church that the Ministers of Religion are advocates for us under Christ by the Ministery of Reconciliation by their dispensing the holy Sacraments by the Keyes of the Kingdome of heaven by Baptisme and the Lords Supper by binding and loosing by the Word of God and Prayer and therefore saith St. James If any man
were evill spirits who had seduced them and tempted them to such ungodly rites and yet they who were of the Pythagorean sect pretended a more holy worship and did their devotion to Angels But whosoever shall worship Angels do the same thing they worship them because they are good and powerfull as the Gentiles did the Devils whom they thought so and the error which the Apostle reproves was not in matter of Judgement in mistaking bad angels for good but in matter of manners and choice they mistook the creature for the Creator and therefore it is more fully expressed by St. Paul in a generall signification they worshipped the creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides the Creator so it should be read if we worship any creature besides God worshipping so as the worship of him becomes a part of Religion it is also a direct superstition but concerning this part of superstition I shall not trouble this discourse because I know no Christians blamable in this particular but the Church of Rome and they that communicate with her in the worshipping of Images of Angels and Saints burning lights and perfumes to them making offerings confidences advocations and vowes to them and direct and solemn divine worshipping the Symbols of bread and wine when they are consecrated in the holy Sacrament These are direct superstition as the word is used by all Authors profane and sacred and are of such evill report that where ever the word Superstition does signifie any thing criminall these instances must come under the definition of it They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cultus superstitum a cultus Daemonum and therefore besides that they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a proper reproof in Christian Religion are condemned by all wise men which call superstition criminall But as it is superstition to worship any thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides the Creator so it is superstition to worship God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 otherwise then is decent proportionable or described Every inordination of Religion that is not in defect is properly called superstition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Maximus Tyrius The true worshipper is a lover of God the superstitious man loves him not but flatters To which if we adde that fear unreasonable fear is also superstition and an ingredient in its definition we are taught by this word to signifie all irregularity and inordination in actions of Religion The summe is this the Atheist cal'd all worship of God superstition the Epicurean cal'd all fear of God superstition but did not condemn his worship the other part of wise men cal'd all unreasonable fear and inordinate worship superstition but did not condemn all fear But the Christian besides this cals every error in worship in the manner or excesse by this name and condemns it Now because the three great actions of Religion are to worship God to fear God and to trust in him by the inordination of these three actions we may reckon three sorts of this crime the excesse of fear and the obliquity in trust and the errors in worship are the three sorts of superstition the first of which is only pertinent to our present consideration 1. Fear is the duty we owe to God as being the God of power and Justice the great Judge of heaven and earth the avenger of the cause of Widows the Patron of the poor and the Advocate of the oppressed a mighty God and terrible and so essentiall an enemy to sin that he spared not his own Son but gave him over to death and to become a sacrifice when he took upon him our Nature and became a person obliged for our guilt Fear is the great bridle of intemperance the modesty of the spirit and the restraint of gaieties and dissolutions it is the girdle to the soul and the handmaid to repentance the arrest of sin and the cure or antidote to the spirit of reprobation it preserves our apprehensions of the divine Majesty and hinders our single actions from combining to sinfull habits it is the mother of consideration and the nurse of sober counsels and it puts the soul to fermentation and activity making it to passe from trembling to caution from caution to carefulnesse from carefulnesse to watchfulnesse from thence to prudence and by the gates and progresses of repentance it leads the soul on to love and to felicity and to joyes in God that shall never cease again Fear is the guard of a man in the dayes of prosperity and it stands upon the watch-towers and spies the approaching danger and gives warning to them that laugh loud and feast in the chambers of rejoycing where a man cannot consider by reason of the noises of wine and jest and musick and if prudence takes it by the hand and leads it on to duty it is a state of grace and an universall instrument to infant Religion and the only security of the lesse perfect persons and in all senses is that homage we owe to God who sends often to demand it even then when he speaks in thunder or smites by a plague or awakens us by threatning or discomposes our easinesse by sad thoughts and tender eyes and fearfull hearts and trembling considerations But this so excellent grace is soon abused in the best and most tender spirits in those who are softned by Nature and by Religion by infelicities or cares by sudden accidents or a sad soul and the Devill observing that fear like spare diet starves the feavers of lust and quenches the flames of hell endevours to highten this abstinence so much as to starve the man and break the spirit into timorousnesse and scruple sadnesse and unreasonable tremblings credulity and trifling observation suspicion and false accusations of God and then vice being turned out at the gate returns in at the postern and does the work of hell and death by running too inconsiderately in the paths which seem to lead to heaven But so have I seen a harmlesse dove made dark with an artificiall night and her eyes ceel'd and lock'd up with a little quill soaring upward and flying with amazement fear and an undiscerning wing she made toward heaven but knew not that she was made a train and an instrument to teach her enemy to prevail upon her and all her defencelesse kindred so is a superstitious man zealous and blinde forward and mistaken he runs towards heaven as he thinks but he chooses foolish paths and out of fear takes any thing that he is told or fancios and guesses concerning God by measures taken from his own diseases and imperfections But fear when it is inordinate is never a good counsellor nor makes a good friend and he that fears God as his enemy is the most compleatly miserable person in the world For if he with reason beleeves God to be his enemy then the man needs no other argument to prove that he is undone then this that the fountain of blessing in this state in which the
high Priest they kept Damascus with a Garrison they sent parties of souldiers to silence and to imprison the Preachers and thought they did God service when they put the Apostles to death and they swore neither to eat nor to drink till they had killed Paul It was an old trick of the Jewish zeal Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos They would not shew the way to a Samaritan nor give a cup of cold water but to a circumcised brother That was their Zeal But the zeal of the Apostles was this they preached publickly and privately they prayed for all men they wept to God for the hardnesse of mens hearts they became all things to all men that they might gain some they travel'd through deeps and deserts they indured the heat of the Syrian Starre and the violence of Euroclydon winds and tempests seas and prisons mockings and scourgings fastings and poverty labour and watching they endured every man and wronged no man they would do any good thing and suffer any evill if they had but hopes to prevail upon a soul they perswaded men meekly they intreated them humbly they convinced them powerfully the watched for their good but medled not with their interest and this is the Christian Zeal the Zeal of meeknesse the Zeal of charity the Zeal of patience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in these it is good to be zealous for you can never goe farre enough 2. The next measure of zeal is prudence For as charity is the matter of Zeal so is discretion the manner It must alwaies be for good to our neighbour and there needs no rules for the conducting of that provided the end be consonant to the design that is that charity be intended and charity done But there is a Zeal also of Religion or worshipping and this hath more need of measures and proper cautions For Religion can turn into a snare it may be abused into superstition it may become wearinesse in the spirit and tempt to tediousnesse to hatred and despair and many persons through their indiscreet conduct and furious marches and great loads taken upon tender shoulders and unexperienced have come to be perfect haters of their joy and despisers of all their hopes being like dark Lanthorns in which a candle burnes bright but the body is incompassed with a crust and a dark cloud of iron and these men keep the fires and light of holy propositions within them but the darknesse of hell the hardnesse of a vexed he art hath shaded all the light and makes it neither apt to warm nor to enlighten others but it turnes to fire within a feaver and a distemper dwels there and Religion is become their torment 1. Therefore our Zeal must never carry us beyond that which is profitable There are many institutions customes and usages introduced into Religion upon very fair motives and apted to great necessities but to imitate those things when they are disrobed of their proper ends is an importune zeal and signifies nothing but a forward minde and an easie heart and an imprudent head unlesse these actions can be invested with other ends and usefull purposes The primitive Church were strangely inspired with a zeal of virginity in order to the necessities of preaching and travelling and easing the troubles and temptations of persecution but when the necessity went on and drove the holy men into deserts that made Colleges of Religious and their manner of life was such so united so poor so dressed that they must live more non saculari after the manner of men divorc'd from the usuall entercourses of the world still their desire of single life increased because the old necessity lasted and a new one did supervene Afterwards the case was altered and then the single life was not to be chosen for it self nor yet in imitation of the first precedents for it could not be taken out from their circumstances and be used alone He therefore that thinks he is a more holy person for being a virgin or a widower or that he is bound to be so because they were so or that he cannot be a religious person because he is not so hath zeal indeed but not according to knowledge But now if the single state can be taken out and put to new appendages and fitted to the end of another grace or essentiall duty of Religion it will well become a Christian zeal to choose it so long as it can serve the end with advantage and security Thus also a zealous person is to chuse his fastings while they are necessary to him and are acts of proper mortification while he is tempted or while he is under discipline while he repents or while he obeys but some persons fast in zeal but for nothing else fast when they have no need when there is need they should not but call it religion to be miserable or sick here their zeal is folly for it is neither an act of Religion nor of prudence to fast when fasting probably serves no end of the spirit and therefore in the fasting dayes of the Church although it is warrant enough to us to fast if we had no end to serve in it but the meer obedience yet it is necessary that the superiors should not think the Law obeyed unlesse the end of the first institution be observed a fasting day is a day of humiliation and prayer and fasting being nothing it self but wholly the handmaid of a further grace ought not to be devested of its holinesse and sanctification and left like the wals of a ruinous Church where there is no duty performed to God but there remains something of that which us'd to minister to Religion The want of this consideration hath caus'd so much scandall and dispute so many snares and schismes concerning Ecclesiasticall fasts For when it was undressed and stripp'd of all the ornaments and usefull appendages when from a solemn day it grew to be common from thence to be lesse devout by being lesse seldome and lesse usefull and then it passed from a day of Religion to be a day of order and from fasting till night to fasting till evening-song and evening-song to be sung about twelve a clock and from fasting it was changed to a choice of food from eating nothing to eating fish and that the letter began to be stood upon and no usefulnesse remain'd but what every of his own piety should put into it but nothing was enjoyn'd by the Law nothing of that exacted by the superiours then the Law fell into disgrace and the design became suspected and men were first insnared and then scandalized and then began to complain without remedy and at last took remedy themselves without authority the whole affair fell into a disorder and a mischief and zeal was busie on both sides and on both sides was mistaken because they fell not upon the proper remedy which was to reduce the Law to the
flies and gnats upon the margent of a poole they doe not sting like an Aspic or bite deep as a Bear yet they can vex a man into a feaver and impatience and make him uncapable of rest and counsel 2. The second is Scurrility or foolish jesting This the Apostle so joyns with the former 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foolish speaking and jestings which are not convenient that some think this to be explicative of the other and that St. Paul using the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which all men before his time used in a good sense meanes not that which indeed is witty and innocent pleasant and apt for institution but that which fooles and Parasites call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but indeed is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what they called facetiousnesse and pleasant wit is indeed to all wise persons a meer Stultiloquy or talking like a foole and that kinde of jesting is forbidden And indeed I am induc'd fully to this understanding of St. Pauls words by the conjunctive particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he uses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and filthinesse and foolish talking or jesting just as in the succeeding verse he joynes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 uncleannesse so we read it or covetousnesse one explicates the other for by covetousnesse is meant any defraudation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fraudator so St. Cyprian renders it and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Hierom derives from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to take more then a man should and therefore when St. Paul said Let no man circumvent his brother in any matter he expounds it of adultery and in this very place he renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stuprum lust and indeed it is usuall in Scripture that Covetousnesse being so universall so originall a crime such a prolisick sin be called by all the names of those sins by which it is either punished or to which it tempts or whereby it is nourished and as here it is called uncleannesse or corruption so in another place it is called idolatry But to returne This jesting which St. Paul reproves is a direct 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the jesting of Mimics and Players that of the foole in the play which in those times and long before and long after were of that licentiousnesse that they would abuse Socrates or Aristides and because the rabble were the laughers they knew how to make them roare aloud with a slovenly and wanton word when they understood not the salt and ingenuity of a witty and usefull answer or reply as is to be seen in the intertextures of Aristophanes Comedies But in pursuance of this of St. Paul the Fathers of the Church have been very severe in their censures of this liberty St. Ambrose forbids all Non solùm profusos sed etiam omnes jocos declinandos arbitror Not onely the looser jestings but even all are to be avoyded Nay licèt interdum joca honesta suavia sint tamen ab Ecclesiâ horrent regulâ the Church allowes them not though they be otherwise honest and pleasant for how can we use those things we finde not in holy Scriptures St. Basil gives reason for this severity jocus facit animam remissam erga pracepta Dei negligentem and indeed that cannot be denyed those persons whose soules are dispersed and ungathered by reason of a wanton humour of intemperate jesting are apt to be trifling in their Religion St. Hierom is of the same opinion and adds a commandement of a full authority if at least the record was right for he quotes a saying of our blessed Saviour out of the Gospel of the Nazarens Nunquam laett sitis nisi cum fratrem vestrum in charitate videritis Never be merry but when you see your brother in charity and when you are merry St. James hath appointed a proper expression of it and a fair entertainment to the passion If any man be merry let him sing Psalmes But St. Bernard who is also strict in this particular yet he addes the temper Though jesting be not fit for a Christian interdum tamen si incidant ferendae fortassis referendae nunquam magis interveniendum cautè prudentèr nugacitati If they seldome happen they are to be borne but never to be returned and made a businesse of but we must rather interpose warily and prudently to hinder the growth and progresse of the trifle But concerning this case of conscience we are to remember these holy persons found jesting to be a trade such were the ridicularii among the Romanes and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Greeks and this trade besides its own unworthinesse was mingled with infinite impieties and in the institution and in all the circumstances of its practise was not onely against all prudent severity but against modesty and chastity and was a licence in disparagement of vertue and the most excellent things and persons were by it undervalued that in this throng of evill circumstances finding a humour placed which without infinite warinesse could never pretend to innocence it is no wonder they forbad all and so also did St. Paul upon the same account And in the same state of reproofe to this day are all that doe as they did such as are professed jesters people that play the foole for money whose employment and study is to unclothe themselves of the covers of reason or modesty that they may be laugh'd at And let it be considered how miserable every sinner is if he does not deeply and truely repent and when the man is wet with teares and covered with sorrow crying out mightily against his sins how ugly will it look when this is remembred the next day that he playes the foole and raises his laughter louder then his prayers and yesterdayes groans for no interest but that he may eat A Penitent and a Jester is like a Grecian piece of money on which were stamped a Helena on one side and a Hecuba on the other a Rose and a deadly Aconite a Paris and an Aesop nothing was more contrary and upon this account this folly was reproved by St. Hierom Verum haec à sanctis viris penitùs propellenda quibus magis convenit flere atque lugere Weeping and penitentiall sorrow and the sweet troubles of pity and compassion become a holy person much better then a scurrilous tongue But the whole state of this Question is briefly this 1. If jâ—sting be unseasonable it is also intolerable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. If it be immoderate it is criminall and a little thing here makes the excesse it is so in the confines of folly that as soon as it is out of dores it is in the regions of sin 3. If it be in an ordinary person it is dangerous but if in an eminent a consecrated a wise and extraordinary person it is scandalous Inter saeculares nugae sunt in ore Sacerdotis blasphemiae so St. Bernard 4. If the matter
be not of an indifferent nature it becomes sinfull by giving countenance to a vice or making vertue to become ridiculous 5. If it be not watcht that it complies with all that heare it becomes offensive and injurious 6. If it be not intended to fair and lawfull purposes it is sowre in the using 7. If it be frequent it combines and clusters into a formall sinne 8. If it mingles with any sin it puts on the nature of that new unworthinesse beside the proper uglynesse of the thing it selfe and after all these when can it be lawfull or apt for Christian entertainment The Ecclesiasticall History reports that many jests passed between St. Anthony the Father of the Hermits and his Scholar St. Paul and St. Hilarion is reported to have been very pleasant and of a facete sweet and more lively conversation and indeed plaisance and joy and a lively spirit and a pleasant conversation and the innocent caresses of a charitable humanity is not forbidden plenum tamen suavitatis gratiae sermonem non esse indecorum St. Ambrose affirmed and here in my text our conversation is commanded to be such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it may minister grace that is favour complacence cheerfulnesse and be acceptable and pleasant to the hearer and so must be our conversation it must be as far from sullennesse as it ought to be from lightnesse and a cheerfull spirit is the best convoy for Religion and though sadnesse does in some cases become a Christian as being an Index of a pious minde of compassion and a wise proper resentment of things yet it serves but one end being useful in the onely instance of repentance and hath done its greatest works not when it weeps and sighs but when it hates and grows carefull against sin But cheerfulnesse and a festivall spirit fills the soule full of harmony it composes musick for Churches and hearts it makes and publishes glorifications of God it produces thankfulnesse and serves the ends of charity and when the oyle of gladnesse runs over it makes bright and tall emissions of light and holy fires reaching up to a cloud and making joy round about And therefore since it is so innocent and may be so pious and full of holy advantage whatsoever can innocently minister to this holy joy does set forward the work of Religion and Charity And indeed charity it selfe which is the verticall top of all Religion is nothing else but an union of joyes concentred in the heart and reflected from all the angles of our life and entercourse It is a rejoycing in God a gladnesse in our neighbors good a pleasure in doing good a rejoycing with him and without love we cannot have any joy at all It is this that makes children to be a pleasure and friendship to be so noble and divine a thing and upon this account it is certaine that all that which can innocently make a man cheerfull does also make him charitable for grief and age and sicknesse and wearinesse these are peevish and troublesome but mirth and cheerfulnesse is content and civil and compliant and communicative and loves to doe good and swels up to felicity onely upon the wings of charity In this account here is pleasure enough for a Christian in present and if a facete discourse and an amicable friendly mirth can refresh the spirit and take it off from the vile temptations of peevish despairing uncompâ—ying melancholy it must needs be innocent and commendable And we may as well be refreshed by a clean and a brisk discourse as by the aire of Campanian wines and our faces and our heads may as well be anointed and look pleasant with wit and friendy entercourse as with the fat of the Balsam tree and such a conversation no wise man ever did or ought to reprove But when the jest hath teeth and nails biting or scratching our Brother* when it is loose and wanton* when it is unseasonable* and much or many* when it serves ill purposes* or spends better time* then it is the drunkennesse of the soul and makes the spirit fly away seeking for a Temple where the mirth and the musick is solemne and religious But above all the abuses which ever dishonoured the tongues of men nothing more deserves the whip of an exterminating Angel or the stings of scorpions then profane jesting which is a bringing of the Spirit of God to partake of the follies of a man as if it were not enough for a man to be a foole but the wisdome of God must be brought into those horrible scenes He that makes a jest of the words of Scripture or of holy things playes with thunder and kisses the mouth of a Canon just as it belches fire and death he stakes heaven at spurnpoint and trips crosse and pile whether ever he shall see the face of God or no he laughs at damnation while he had rather lose God then lose his jest may which is the horror of all he makes a jest of God himselfe and the Spirit of the Father and the Son to become ridiculous Some men use to read Scripture on their knees and many with their heads uncovered and all good men with fear and trembling with reverence and grave attention Search the Scriptures for therein you hope to have life eternall and All Scripture is written by inspiration of God and is fit for instruction for reproofe for exhortation for doctrine not for jesting but he that makes that use of it had better part with his eyes in jest and give his heart to make a tennisball and that I may speak the worst thing in the world of it it is as like the materiall part of the sin against the holy Ghost as jeering of a man is to abusing him and no man can use it but he that wants wit and manners as well as he wants Religion 3. The third instance of the vain trifling conversation and immoderate talking is revealing secrets which is a dismantling and renting off the robe from the privacies of humane entercourse and it is worse then denying to restore that which was intrusted to our charge for this not onely injures his neighbors right but throws it away and exposes it to his enemy it is a denying to give a man his own arms and delivering them to another by whom he shall suffer mischief He that intrusts a secret to his friend goes thither as to sanctuary and to violate the rites of that is sacriledge and profanation of friendship which is the sister of Religion and the mother of secular blessing a thing so sacred that it changes a Kingdome into a Church and makes Interest to be Piety and Justice to become Religion But this mischief growes according to the subject matter and its effect and the tongue of a babbler may crush a mans bones or break his fortune upon her owne wheel and whatever the effect be yet of it self it is the betraying of a trust and by reproach oftentimes
Give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darknesse and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while ye look for light or lest while ye look for light he shall turn it into the shadow of death and make it grosse darknesse Sermon 7. 8. The deceitfulnesse of the heart fol. 80. 92. Jerem. 17. 9. The heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked who can know it Sermon 9. 10. 11. The faith and patience of the Saints Or the righteous cause oppressed fol. 104. 119. 133. 1 Pet. 4. 17. For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God and if it first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God 18. And if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear Sermon 12. 13. The mercy of the Divine judgements or Gods method in curing sinners fol. 146. 159. Romans 2. 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance Sermon 14. 15. Of groweth in grace with its proper instruments and signes fol. 172. 183. 2 Pet. 3. 18. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ to whom be glory both now and for ever Amen Sermon 16. 17. Of groweth in sin or the severall states and degrees of sinners with the manner how they are to be treated fol. 197. 210. Jude Epist ver 22 23. And of some have compassion making a difference * And others save with fear pulling them out of the fire Sermon 18. 19. The foolish exchange sol 224. 237. Matth. 16. ver 26. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul Sermon 20 21. 22. The Serpent and the Dove or a discourse of Christian Prudence fol. 251. 263. 274. Matth. 10. latter part of ver 16. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmlesse as doves Sermon 23. 24. Of Christian simplicity 289. 301. Matth. 10. latter part of ver 16. And harmlesse as doves Sermon 25. 26. 27. The miracles of the Divine Mercy fol. 313. 327. 340. Psal. 86. 5. For thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee A Funerall Sermon preached at the Obsequies of the Right Honourable the Countesse of Carbery fol. 357. 2 Sam. 14. 14. For we must needs die and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again neither doth God respect any person yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him A Discourse of the Divine Institution necessity sacrednesse and separation of the Office Ministeriall Sermon I. VVHITSVNDAY OF THE SPIRIT OF GRACE 8. Romans v. 9. 10. But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousnesse THe day in which the Church commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles was the first beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This was the first day that the Religion was professed now the Apostles first open'd their commission and read it to all the people The Lord gave his Spirit or the Lord gave his word and great was the company of the Preachers For so I make bold to render that prophesie of David Christ was the word of God verbum aeternum but the Spirit was the word of God verbum Patefactum Christ was the word manifested in the flesh the Spirit was the word manifested to flesh and set in dominion over and in hostility against the flesh The Gospel and the Spirit are the same thing not in substance but the manifestation of the Spirit is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and because he was this day manifested the Gospel was this day first preached and it became a law to us called the law of the Spirit of life that is a law taught us by the Spirit leading us to life eternal But the Gospel is called the Spirit 1. Because it contains in it such glorious mysteries which were revealed by the immediate inspirations of the Spirit not onely in the matter it self but also in the manner and powers to apprehend them For what power of humane understanding could have found out the incarnation of a God that two natures a finite and an infinite could have been concentred into one hypostasis or person that a virgin should be a Mother that dead men should live again that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ashes of dissolved bones should become bright as the Sun blessed as Angels swift in motion as thought clear as the purest Noone that God should so love us as to be willing to be reconcil'd to us and yet that himself must dye that he might pardon us that Gods most Holy Son should give us his body to eat and his bloud to crown our chalices and his Spirit to sanctifie our souls to turn our bodies into temperance our souls into mindes our mindes into Spirit our Spirit into glory that he who can give us all things who is Lord of Men and Angels and King of all the Creatures should pray to God for us without intermission that he who reigns over all the world should at the day of judgement give up the Kingdom to God the Father and yet after this resignation himself and we with him should for ever reign the more gloriously that we should be justified by Faith in Christ and that charity should be a part of faith and that both should work as acts of duty and as acts of relation that God should Crown the imperfect endeavours of his Saints with glory and that a humane act should be rewarded with an eternal inheritance that the wicked for the transient pleasure of a few minutes should be tormented with an absolute eternity of pains that the waters of baptisme when they are hallowed by the Spirit shall purge the soul from sin and that the Spirit of a man shall be nourished with the consecrated and mysterious elements and that any such nourishment should bring a man up to heaven and after all this that all Christian People all that will be saved must be partakers of the Divine nature of the Nature the infinite nature of God and must dwell in Christ and Christ must dwell in them and they must be in the Spirit and the Spirit must be for ever in them these are articles of so mysterious a Philosophy that we could have inferred them from no premises discours'd them upon the stock of no naturall or scientificall principles nothing but God and Gods spirit could have taught them to us and therefore the Gospel is Spiritus
patefactus the manifestation of the Spirit ad aedificationem as the Apostle calls it for edification and building us up to be a Holy Temple to the Lord. 2. But when we had been taught all these mysterious articles we could not by any humane power have understood them unlesse the Spirit of God had given us a new light and created in us a new capacity and made us to be a new creature of another definition Animalis homo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is as S. Jude expounds the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the animal or the naturall man the man that hath not the Spirit cannot discern the things of God for they are spiritually discerned that is not to be understood but by the light proceeding from the Sun of righteousnesse and by that eye whose bird is the Holy Dove whose Candle is the Gospel Scio incapacem te sacramenti Impie Non posse coecis mentibus mysterium Haurire nostrum nil diurnum nox capit He that shall discourse Euclids elements to a swine or preach as Venerable Bede's story reports of him to a rock or talk Metaphysicks to a Bore will as much prevail upon his assembly as S. Peter and S. Paul could do upon uncircumcised hearts and ears upon the indisposed Greeks and prejudicate Iews An Ox will relish the tender flesh of Kids with as much gust and appetite as an unspirituall and unsanctified man will do the discourses of Angels or of an Apostle if he should come to preach the secrets of the Gospel And we finde it true by a sad experience How many times doth God speak to us by his servants the Prophets by his Son by his Apostles by sermons by spirituall books by thousands of homilies and arts of counsell and insinuation and we sit as unconcerned as the pillars of a Church and hear the sermons as the Athenians did a story or as we read a gazet and if ever it come to passe that we tremble as Felix did when we hear a sad story of death of righteousnesse and judgement to come then we put it off to another time or we forget it and think we had nothing to do but to give the good man a hearing and as Anacharsis said of the Greeks they used money for nothing but to cast account withall so our hearers make use of sermons and discourses Evangelical but to fill up void spaces of our time to help to tell an hour with or without tediousnesse The reason of this is a sad condemnation to such persons they have not yet entertained the Spirit of God they are in darknesse they were washed in water but never baptized with the Spirit for these things are spiritually discerned They would think the Preacher rude if he should say they are not Christians they are not within the Covenant of the Gospel but it is certain that the spirit of Manifestation is not yet upon them and that is the first effect of the Spirit whereby we can be called sons of God or relatives of Christ. If we do not apprehend and greedily suck in the precepts of this holy Discipline as aptly as Merchants do discourse of gain or Farmers of fair harvests we have nothing but the Name of Christians but we are no more such really then Mandrakes are men or spunges are living creatures 3. The Gospel is called Spirit because it consists of Spiritual Promises and Spiritual precepts and makes all men that embrace it truly to be Spiritual men and therefore S. Paul addes an Epithete beyond this calling it a quiohening Spirit that is it puts life into our Spirits which the law could not The law bound us to punishment but did not help us to obedience because it gave not the promise of Eternal life to its Disciples The Spirit that is the Gospel onely does this and this alone is it which comforts afflicted mindes which puts activenesse into wearyed Spirits which inflames our cold desires and does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blows up sparks into live coles and coles up to flames and flames to perpetual burnings and it is impossible that any man who believes and considers the great the infinite the unspeakable the unimaginable the never ceasing joyes that are prepared for all the sons and daughters of the Gospel should not desire them and unlesse he be a fool he cannot but use means to obtain them effective hearty pursuances For it is not directly in the nature of a man to neglect so great a good there must be something in his manners some obliquity in his will or madnesse in his intellectuals or incapacity in his naturals that must make him sleep such a reward away or change it for the pleasure of a drunken feaver or the vanity of a Mistresse or the rage of a passion or the unreasonablenesse of any sin However this promise is the life of all our actions and the Spirit that first taught it is the life of our soules 4. But beyond this is the reason which is the consummation of all the faithful The Gospel is called the Spirit because by and in the Gospel God hath given to us not onely the Spirit of manifestation that is of instruction and of Catechisme of faith and confident assent but the Spirit of Confirmation or obsignation to all them that believe and obey the Gospel of Christ that is the power of God is come upon our hearts by which in an admirable manner we are made sure of a glorious inheritance made sure I say in the nature of the thing and our own persuasions also are confirmed with an excellent a comfortable a discerning and a reasonable hope in the strength of which and by whose ayde as we do not doubt of the performance of the promise so we vigorously pursue all the parts of the condition and are mabled to work all the work of God so as not to be affrighted with fear or seduced by vanity or oppressed by lust or drawn off by evil example or abused by riches or imprison'd by ambition and secular designes This the Spirit of God does work in all his Servants and is called the spirit of obsignation or the confirming spirit because it confirms our hope and assures our title to life eternall and by means of it and other it 's collateral assistances it also confirms us in our duty that we may not onely professe in word but live lives according to the Gospel And this is the sense of the Spirit mentiond in the Text ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you That is if ye be made partakers of the Gospel or of the spirit of manifestation if ye be truly intitled to God and have received the promise of the Father then are ye not carnall men ye are spirituall ye are in the Spirit if ye have the Spirit in one sense to any purpose ye have it also in another if the Spirit be
in you you are in it if it hath given you hope it hath also inabled and ascertain'd your duty For the Spirit of manifestation will but upbraid you in the shame and horrours of a sad eternity if you have not the Spirit of obsignation if the Holy Ghost be not come upon you to great purposes of holinesse all other pretences are vain ye are still in the flesh which shall never inherit the kingdom of God In the Spirit that is in the power of the spirit so the Greeks call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is possessed by a spirit whom God hath filled with a coelestial immission he is said to be in God when God is in him and it is a similitude taken from persons encompassed with guards they are in custodiâ that is in their power under their command moved at their dispose they rest in their time and receive laws from their authority and admit visiters whom they appoint and mus◠be employed as they shall suffer so are men who are in the Spirit that is they beleeve as he teaches they work as he inables they choose what he calls good they are friends of his friends and they hate with his hatred with this onely difference that persons in custody are forced to do what their keepers please and nothing is free but their wils but they that are under the command of the Spirit do all things which the Spirit commands but they do them cheerfully and their will is now the prisoner but it is in liber â custodiâ the will is where it ought to be and where it desires to be and it cannot easily choose any thing else because it is extreamly in love with this as the Saints and Angels in their state of Beatific vision cannot choose but love God and yet the liberty of their choice is not lessen'd because the object fils all the capacities of the will and the understanding Indifferency to an object is the lowest degree of liberty and supposes unworthinesse or defect in the object or the apprehension but the will is then the freest and most perfect in its operation when it intirely pursues a good with so certain determination and clear election that the contrary evil cannot come into dispute or pretence Such in our proportions is the liberty of the sons of God it is an holy and amiable captivity to the Spirit the will of man is in love with those chains which draws to God and loves the fetters that confine us to the pleasures and religion of the kingdom And as no man will complain that his temples are restrain'd and his head is prisoner when it is encircled with a crown So when the Son of God had made us free and hath onely subjected us to the service and dominion of the Spirit we are free as Princes within the circles of their Diadem and our chains are bracelets and the law is a law of liberty and his service is perfect freedom and the more we are subjects the more we shall reign as Kings and the faster we run the easier is our burden and Christs yoke is like feathers to a bird not loads but helps to motion without them the body fals and we do not pity birds when in summer we wish them unfeathered and callow or bald as egges that they might be cooler and lighter such is the load and captivity of the soul when we do the work of God and are his servants and under the Government of the spirit They that strive to be quit of this subjection love the liberty of out-laws and the licentiousness of anarchy and the freedom of sad widows and distressed Orphans For so Rebels and fools and children long to be rid of their Princes and their Guardians and their Tutors that they may be accursed without law and be undone without control and be ignorant and miserable without a teacher and without discipline He that is in the Spirit is under Tutours and Governours untill the time appointed of the Father just as all great Heirs are onely the first seizure the Spirit makes is upon the will He that loves the yoke of Christ and the discipline of the Gospel he is in the Spirit that is in the spirits power Upon this foundation the Apostle hath built these two propositions 1. Whosoever hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his he does not belong to Christ at all he is not partaker of his Spirit and therefore shall never be partaker of his glory 2. Whosoever is in Christ is dead to sin and lives to the Spirit of Christ that is lives a Spirituall a holy and a sanctifyed life These are to be considered distinctly 1. All that belong to Christ have the Spirit of Christ. Immediately before the ascension our blessed Saviour bid his Disciples tarry in Jerusalem till they should receive the promise of the Father Whosoever stay at Jerusalem and are in the actuall Communion of the Church of God shall certainly receive this promise For it is made to you and to your children saith S. Peter and to as many as the Lord our God shall call All shall receive the Spirit of Christ the promise of the Father because this was the great instrument of distinction between the Law and the Gospel In the Law God gave his Spirit 1. to some to them 2. extraregularly 3. without solennity 4. in small proportions like the dew upon Gideons fleece a little portion was wet sometime with the dew of heaven when all the earth besides was dry And the Jewes calld it filiam vocis the daughter of a voice still and small and seldom and that by secret whispers and sometimes inarticulate by way of enthusiasme rather then of instruction and God spake by the Prophets transmitting the sound as thorough an Organ pipe things which themselves oftentimes understood not But in the Gospel the spirit is given without measure first powred forth upon our head Christ Jesus then descending upon the beard of Aaron the Fathers of the Church and thence falling like the tears of the balsam of Judea upon the foot of the plant upon the lowest of the people And this is given regularly to all that ask it to all that can receive it and by a solemn ceremony and conveyed by a Sacrament and is now not the Daughter of a voice but the Mother of many voices of divided tongues and united hearts of the tongues of Prophets and the duty of Saints of the Sermons of Apostles and the wisdom of Governours It is the Parent of boldness and fortitude to Martyrs the fountain of learning to Doctors an Ocean of all things excellent to all who are within the ship and bounds of the Catholike Church so that Old men and young men maidens and boyes the scribe and the unlearned the Judge and the Advocate the Priest and the people are full of the Spirit if they belong to God Moses's wish is fulfilled and all the Lords people are Prophets in
God will forgive him and that repentance as it is now stated cannot be done At what time soever not upon a mans deathbed yet there are no such words in the whole Bible nor any neerer to the sense of them then the words I have now read to you out of the Prophet Ezekiel Let that therefore no more deceive you or be made a colour to countenance a persevering sinner or a deathbed penitent Neither is the duty of Repentance to be bought at an easier rate in the New Testament You may see it described in the 2 Cor. 7. 11. Godly sorrow worketh repentance Well but what is that repentance which is so wrought This it is Behold the self same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort what carefulnesse it wrought in you yea what clearing of your selves yea what indignation yea what fear ye what vehement desire yea what zeal yea what revenge These are the fruits of that sorrow that is effectual these are the parts of repentance clearing our selves of all that is past and great carefulnesse for the future anger at our selves for our old sins and fear lest we commit the like again vehement desires of pleasing God and zeal of holy actions and a revenge upon our selves for our sins called by Saint Paul in another place a judging our selves lest we be judged of the Lord. And in pursuance of this truth the primitive Church did not admit a sinning person to the publike communions with the faithfull till besides their sorrow they had spent some years in an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in doing good works and holy living and especially in such actions which did contradict that wicked inclination which led them into those sins whereof they were now admitted to repent And therefore we find that they stood in the station of penitents seven years 13 years and somtimes till their death before they could be reconciled to the peace of God and his Holy Church Scelerum si bene poenitet eradenda cupidinis pravi sunt elementa tenerae nimis mentes asperioribus Formandae studijs Horat. Repentance is the institution of a philosophical and severe life an utter extirpation of all unreasonablenesse and impiety and an addresse to and a finall passing through all the parts of holy living Now Consider whether this be imaginable or possible to be done upon our deathbed when a man is frighted into an involuntary a sudden and unchosen piety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hierocles He that never repents till a violent fear be upon him till he apprehend himself to be in the jawes of death ready to give up his unready and unprepared accounts till he sees the Judge sitting in all the addresses of dreadfulnesse and Majesty just now as he beleeves ready to pronounce that fearfull and intolerable sentence of Go ye cursed into everlasting fire this man does nothing for the love of God nothing for the love of vertue It is just as a condemned man repents that he was a Traytor but repented not till he was arrested and sure to die Such a repentance as this may still consist with as great an affection to sin as ever he had and it is no thanks to him if when the knife is at his throat then he gives good words and flatters But suppose this man in his health and the middest of all his lust it is evident that there are some circumstances of action in which the man would have refused to commit his most pleasing sin Would not the son of Tarquin have refused to ravish Lucrece if Junius Brutus had been by him Would the impurest person in the world act his lust in the market place or drink off an intemperate goblet if a dagger were placed at his throat In these circumstances their fear would make them declare against the present acting their impurities But does this cure the intemperance of their affections Let the impure person retire to his closet and Junius Brutus be ingaged in a far distant war and the dagger be taken from the drunkards throat and the fear of shame or death or judgement be taken from them all and they shall no more resist their temptation then they could before remove their fear and you may as well judge the other persons holy and haters of their sin as the man upon his death-bed to be penitent and rather they then he by how much this mans fear the fear of death and of the infinite pains of hell the fear of a provoked God and an angry eternall Judge are far greater then the apprehensions of publike shame or an abused husband or the poniard of an angry person These men then sin not because they dare not they are frighted from the act but not from the affection which is not to be cured but by discourse and reasonable acts and humane considerations of which that man is not naturally capable who is possessed with the greatest fear the fear of death and damnation If there had been time to cure his sin and to live the life of grace I deny not but God might have begun his conversion with so great a fear that he should never have wiped off its impression but if the man dies then dies when he onely declaims against and curses his sin as being the authour of his present fear and apprehended calamity It is very far from reconciling him to God or hopes of pardon because it proceeds from a violent unnaturall and intolerable cause no act of choice or vertue but of sorrow a deserved sorrow and a miserable unchosen unavoidable fear moriensque recepit Quas nollet victurus aquas He curses sin upon his deathbed and makes a Panegyrick of vertue which in his life time he accounted folly and trouble and a needlesse vexation Quae mens est hodie cur eadem non puero fuit vel cur his animis incolumes non redeunt genae I shall end this first Consideration with a plain exhortation that since repentance is a duty of so great and giant-like bulk let no man croud it up into so narrow room as that it be strangled in its birth for want of time and aire to breath in Let it not be put off to that time when a man hath scarce time enough to reckon all those particular duties which make up the integrity of its constitution Will any man hunt the wild boare in his garden or bait a bull in his closet will a woman wrap her childe in her handkerchiefe or a Father send his son to school when he is 50 yeers old These are undecencies of providence and the instrument contradicts the end And this is our case There is no roome for the repentance no time to act all its essentiall parts and a childe who hath a great way to go before he be wise may defer his studies and hope to become very learned in his old age and upon his deathbed as well as a vitious person may think to
deceive you The man deceives because he is false and the staffe because it is weak and the heart because it is both So that it is deceitful above all things that is failing and disabled to support us in many things but in other things where it can it is false and desperately wicked The first sort of deceitfulnesse is its calamitie and the second is its iniquity and that is the worst Calamitie of the two 1. The heart is deceitfull in its strength and when we have the groweth of a Man we have the weaknesses of a childe nay more yet and it is a sad consideration the more we are in age the weaker in our courage It appears in the heats and forwardnesses of new converts which are like to the great emissions of Lightning or like huge fires which flame and burn without measure even all that they can till from flames they descend to still fires from thence to smoak from smoak to embers from thence to ashes cold and pale like ghosts or the phantastick images of Death And the primitive Church were zealous in their Religion up to the degree of Cherubins and would run as greedily to the sword of the hangman to die for the cause of God as we do now to the greatest joy and entertainment of a Christian spirit even to the receiving of the holy Sacrament A man would think it reasonable that the first infancy of Christianity should according to the nature of first beginnings have been remisse gentle and unactive and that according us the object or evidence of faith grew which in every Age hath a great degree of Argument superadded to its confirmation so should the habit also and the grace the longer it lasts the more obiections it runs through it still should shew a brighter and more certain light to discover the divinity of its principle and that after the more examples and new accidents and strangenesses of providence and daily experience and the multitude of miracles still the Christian should grow more certain in his faith more refreshed in his hope and warm in his charity the very nature of these graces increasing and swelling upon the very nourishment of experience and the multiplication of their own acts And yet because the heart of man is false it suffers the fires of the Altar to go out and the flames lessen by the multitude of fuel But indeed it is because we put on strange fire put out the fire upon our hearths by letting in a glaring Sun beam the fire of lust or the heates of an angry spirit to quench the fires of God and suppresse the sweet cloud of incense The heart of man hath not strength enough to think one good thought of itself it cannot command its own attention to a prayer of ten lines long but before its end it shall wander after some thing that is to no purpose and no wonder then that it grows weary of a holy religion which consists of so many parts as make the businesse of a whole life And there is no greater argument in the world of our spiritual weaknesse and falsnesse of our hearts in the matters of religion then the backwardnesse which most men have alwayes and all men have somtimes to say their prayers so weary of their length so glad when they are done so wittie to excuse and frustrate an opportunity and yet there is no manner of trouble in the duty no wearinesse of bones no violent labours nothing but begging a blessing and receiving it nothing but doing our selves the greatest honour of speaking to the greatest person and greatest king of the world and that we should be unwilling to do this so unable to continue in it so backward to return to it so without gust and relish in the doing it can have no visible reason in the nature of the thing but something within us a strange sicknesse in the heart a spiritual nauseating or loathing of Manna something that hath no name but we are sure it comes from a weake a faint and false heart And yet this weak heart is strong in passions violent in desires unresistable in its appetites impatient in its lust furious in anger here are strengths enough one would think But so have I seen a man in a feaver sick and distempered unable to walk lesse able to speak sence or to do an act of counsel and yet when his feaver hath boild up to a delirium he was strong enough to beat his nurse keeper and his doctor too and to resist the loving violence of all his friends who would faine binde him down to reason and his bed And yet we still say he is weak and sick to death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for these strengths of madnesse are not health but furiousnesse and disease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is weaknesse another way And so are the strengths of a mans heart they are fetters and manacles strong but they are the cordage of imprisonment so strong that the heart is not able to stir And yet it cannot but be a huge sadnesse that the heart shall pursue a temporal interest with wit and diligence and an unwearied industry and shall not have strength enough in a matter that concerns its Eternal interest to answer one obiection to resist one assault to defeate one art of the divel but shall certainly and infallibly fall when ever it is tempted to a pleasure This if it be examined will prove to be a deceit indeed a pretence rather then true upon a just cause that is it is not a natural but a moral a vicious weaknesse and we may try it in one or two familiar instances One of the great strengths shall I call it or weaknesses of the heart is that it is strong violent and passionate in its lusts and weak and deceitful to resist any Tell the tempted person that if he act his lust he dishonours his body makes himself a servant to follie and one flesh with a harlot he defiles the Temple of God and him that defiles a Temple will God destroy Tell him that the Angels who love to be present in the nastinesse and filth of prisons that they may comfort and assist chast souls and holy persons there abiding yet they are impatient to behold or come neer the filthynesse of a lustful person Tell him that this sin is so ugly that the divels who are spirits yet they delight to counterfeit the acting of this crime and descend unto the daughters or sons of men that they may rather lose their natures then not help to set a lust forward Tell them these and ten thousand things more you move them no more then if you should read one of Tullies orations to a mule for the truth is they have no power to resist it much lesse to master it their heart fails them when they meet their Mistresse and they are driven like a fool to the stocks or a Bull to the slaughter-house And
the longest and latest before it be obtained A man does not begin to know him self till he be old and then he is well stricken in death A mans heart at first being like a plain table unspotted indeed but then there is nothing legible in it As soon as ever we ripen towards the imperfect uses of our reason we write upon this table such crooked characters such imperfect configurations so many fooleries and stain it with so many blots and vitious inspersions that there is nothing worth the reading in our hearts for a great while and when education and ripenesse reason and experience Christian philosophy and the grace of God hath made fair impressions and written the law in our hearts with the finger of Gods holy spirit we blot out this handwriting of Gods ordinances or mingle it with false principles and interlinings of our our own we disorder the method of God or deface the truth of God either we make the rule uneven we bribe or abuse our guide that we may wonder with an excuse Or if nothing else will do it we turn head and professe to go against the laws of God Our Hearts are blinde or our hearts are hardned for these are two great arguments of the wickednesse of our hearts they do not see or they will not see the wayes of God or if they do they make use of their seeing that they may avoid them 1. Our hearts are blinde wilfully blind I need not instance in the ignorance and involuntary nescience of men though if we speak of the necessary parts of religion no man is ignorant of them without his own fault such ignorance is alwayes a direct sin or the direct punishment of a sin A sin is either in its bosom or in its retinue But the ignorance that I now intend is a voluntary chosen delightful ignorance taken in upon designe even for no other end but that we may perish quietly and infallibly God hath opened all the windows of Heaven and sent the Sun of Righteousnesse with glorious apparition and hath discoverd the abysses of his own wisdom made the second person in the Trinity to be the doctor and preacher of his sentences and secrets and the third person to be his Amanuensis or scribe and our hearts to be the Book in which the doctrine is written and miracles and prophecies to be its arguments and all the world to be the verification of it and those leaves contain within their folds all that excellent morality which right reason pickt up after the shipwrack of nature and all those wise sayings which singly made so many men famous for preaching some one of them all them Christ gathered and added some more out of the immediate book of Revelation So that now the wisdom of God hath made every mans heart to be the true Veronica in which he hath imprinted his own lineaments so perfectly that we may dresse our selves like God and have the aire and features of Christ our Elder-Brother that we may be pure as God is perfect as our Father meek and humble as the Son and may have the holy Ghost within us in gifts and Graces in wisdom and holinesse This hath God done for us and see what we do for Him We stand in our own light and quench Gods we love darknesse more then light and entertain our selves accordingly For how many of us are there that understand nothing of the wayes of God that know no more of the laws of Jesus Christ then is remaining upon them since they learned the childrens Catechisme But amongst a thousand how many can explicate and unfold for his own practise the ten Commandments And how many sorts of sins are there forbidden which therefore passe into action and never passe under the scrutinies of repentance because they know not that they are sinnes Are there not very many who know not the particular duties of meeknesse and never consider concerning Longsuffering and if you talk to them of growth in Grace or the spirit of obsignation or the melancholy lectures of the Crosse and imitation of and conformitie to Christs sufferings or adherences to God or rejoycing in him or not quenching the spirit you are too deep learned for them And yet these are duties set down plainly for our practise necessary to be acted in order to our Salvation We brag of light and reformation and fulnesse of the spirit in the mean time we understand not many parts of our dutie We enquire into something that may make us talk or be talked of or that we may trouble a Church or disturb the peace of mindes but in things that concern Holy living and that wisdom of God whereby we are wise unto Salvation never was any age of Christendom more ignorant then we For if we did not wink hard we must needs see that obedience to supreme Powers Denying of our selves Humility Peacefulnesse and Charity are written in such Capital text letters that it is impossible to be ignorant of them And if the heart of man had not rare arts to abuse the understanding it were not to be imagined that any man should bring the 13. Chapter to the Romans to prove the lawfulnesse of taking up Armes against our rulers but so we may abuse our selves at noon and go to bed if we please to call it midnight And there have been a sort of wittie men that maintained that snow was hot I wonder not at the probleme but that a man should beleeve his paradox and should let eternity go away with the fallacie and rather lose heaven then leave his foolish argument is a signe that wilfulnesse and the deceiving heart is the Sophister and the great ingredient into our Deception But that I may be more particular the heart of man uses devices that it may be ignorant 1. We are impatient of honest and severe reproofe and order the circumstances of our persons and addresses that we shall never come to the true knowledge of our condition Who will endure to heare his curate tell him that he is Covetous or that he is proud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is Calumny and Reviling if he speak it to his head and relates to his person and yet if he speak onely in general every man neglects what is not recommended to his particular But yet if our Physitian tell us you look well Sir but a Feaver lurks in your spirits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drink Julips and abstain from flesh no man thinks it shame or calumny to be told so but when we are told that our liver is inflamed with lust or anger that our heart is vexed with envie that our eyes rowl with wantonnesse And though we think all is well yet we are sick sick unto death neer to a sad and fatal sentence we shall think that man that tells us so is impudent or uncharitable and yet he hath done him no more injury then a deformed man receives daily from his looking-glasse which
if he shall dash against the wall because it showes him his face just as it is his face is not so ugly as his manners And yet our heart is so impatient of seeing its own staines that like the Elephant it tramples in the pure streames and first troubles them then stoops and drinks when he can least see his huge deformitie 2. In order to this we heap up teachers of our own and they guide us not whither but which way they please for we are curious to go our own way and carelesse of our Hospitall or Inne at night A faire way and a merry company and a pleasant easie guide will entice us into the Enemies quarters and such guides we cannot want Improbitati occasio nunquam defuit If we have a minde to be wicked we shall want no prompters and false teachers at first creeping in unawares have now so filled the pavement of the Church that you can scarce set your foot on the ground but you tread upon a snake Cicero l. 7. ad Atticum undertakes to bargain with them that kept the Sybils books that for a sum of money they shall expound to him what he please and to be sure ut quidvis potius quam Regem proferrent They shall declare against the government of kings say that the Gods will endure any thing rather then Monarchy in their beloved republick And the same mischief God complains of to be among the Jews the Prophets prophecie lies and my people love to have it so and what will the end of these things be even the same that Cicero complain'd of Ad opinionem imperitorum fictas esse Religiones Men shall have what Religion they please and God shall be intitled to all the quarrels of covetous and Ambitious persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Demosthenes wittily complained of the Oracle An answer shall be drawn out of Scripture to countenance the designe God made to Rebel against his own Ordinances And then we are zealous for the Lord God of Hosts and will live and die in that quarrel But is it not a strange cozenage that our hearts shall be the main wheel in the engine and shall set all the rest on working The heart shall first put his own candle out then put out the eye of reason then remove the Land-mark and dig down the causeywayes and then either hire a blinde guide or make him so and all these Arts to get ignorance that they may secure impiety At first man lost his innocence onely in hope to get a little knowledge and ever since then lest knowledge should discover his errour and make him returne to innocence we are content to part with that now and to kow nothing that may discover or discountenance our sins or discompose our secular designe And as God made great revelations and furnished out a wise Religion and sent his spirit to give the gift of Faith to his Church that upon the foundation of Faith he might build a holy life now our hearts love to retire into Blindnesse sneak under the covert of False principles and run to a cheape religion and an unactive discipline and make a faith of our own that we may build upon it ease and ambition and a tall fortune and the pleasures of revenge and do what we have a minde to scarce once in seven years denying a strong and an unruly appetite upon the interest of a just conscience and holy religion This is such a desperate method of impiety so certain arts and apt instruments for the Divel that it does his work intirley and produces an infallible damnation 3. But the heart of man hath yet another stratagem to secure its iniquity by the means of ignorance and that is Incogitancy or Inconsideration For there is wrought upon the spirits of many men great impression by education by a modest and temperate nature by humane Laws and the customes severities of sober persons and the fears of religion and the awfulnesse of a reverend man and the several arguments and endearments of vertue And it is not in the nature of some men to do an act in despite of reason and Religion and arguments and Reverence and modesty and fear But men are forced from their sin by the violence of the grace of God when they heare it speak But so a Roman Gentleman kept off a whole band of souldiers who were sent to murther him and his eloquence was stronger then their anger and designe But suddenly a rude trooper rushed upon him who neither had nor would heare him speak and he thrust his spear into that throat whose musick had charmed all his fellows into peace and gentlenesse So do we The Grace of God is Armour and defence enough against the most violent incursion of the spirits and the works of darknesse but then we must hear its excellent charms and consider its reasons and remember its precepts and dwell with its discourses But this the heart of man loves not If I be tempted to uncleannesse or to an act of oppression instantly the grace of God represents to me that the pleasure of the sin is transient and vain unsatisfying and empty That I shall die and then I shall wish too late that I had never done it It tells me that I displease God who made me who feeds me who blesses me who fain would save me It represents to me all the joyes of Heaven and the horrours and amazements of a sad eternity And if I will stay and heare them ten thousand excellent things besides fit to be twisted about my understanding for ever But here the heart of man shuffles all these discourses into disorder and will not be put to the trouble of answering the objections but by a meer wildenesse of purpose and rudnesse of resolution ventures super totam materiam at all and does the thing not because it thinks it fit to do so but because it will not consider whether it be or no it is enough that it pleases a present appetite and if such incogitancy comes to be habitual as it is in very many men first by resisting the motions of the holy spirit then by quenching him we shall find the consequents to be first an Indifferencie then a dulnesse then a Lethargie then a direct Hating the wayes of God and it commonly ends in a wretchlessenesse of spirit to be manifested on our death-bed when the man shall passe hence not like the shadow but like the dog that departeth without sence or interest or apprehension or real concernment in the considerations of eternity and t is but just when we will not heare our king speak and plead not to save himself but us to speak for our peace and innocency and Salvation to prevent our ruine and our intolerable calamity certainly we are much in love with the wages of death when we cannot endure to heare God cal us back and stop our ears against the voice of the charmer charme
be filled up by his body the Church and happy are they that put in the greatest symbol for in the same measure you are partakers of the sufferings of Christ in the same shall ye be also of the consolation And therefore concerning S. Paul as it was also concerning Christ there is nothing or but very little in Scripture relating to his person and chances of his private life but his labours and persecutions as if the holy Ghost did think nothing fit to stand upon record for Christ but sufferings And now began to work the greatest glory of the divine Providence here was the case of Christianity at stake The world was rich and prosperous learned and full of wise men the Gospel was preached with poverty and persecution in simplicity of discourse and in demonstration of the Spirit God was on one side and the Devil on the other they each of them dressed up their city Babylon upon Earth Jerusalem from above the Devils city was full of pleasure triumphs victories and cruelty good news and great wealth conquest over Kings and making nations tributary They bound Kings in chains and the Nobles with links of iron and the inheritance of the Earth was theirs the Romans were Lords over the greatest parts of the world and God permitted to the Devil the Firmament and increase the wars and the successe of that people giving to him an intire power of disposing the great changes of the world so as might best increase their greatnesse and power and he therefore did it because all the power of the Romane greatnesse was a professed enemy to Christianity and on the other side God was to build up Jerusalem and the kingdom of the Gospel and he chose to build it of hewen stone cut and broken the Apostles he chose for Preachers and they had no learning women and mean people were the first Disciples and they had no power the Devil was to lose his kingdom and he wanted no malice and therefore he stirred up and as well as he could he made active all the power of Rome and all the learning of the Greeks and all the malice of Barbarous people and all the prejudice and the obstinacy of the Jews against this doctrine and institution which preached and promised and brought persecution along with it On the one side there was scandalum crucis on the other patientia sanctorum and what was the event They that had overcome the world could not strangle Christianity But so have I seen the Sun with a little ray of distant light challenge all the power of darknesse and without violence and noise climbing up the hill hath made night so to retire that its memory was lost in the joyes and spritefulnesse of the morning and Christianity without violence or armies without resistance and self-preservation without strength or humane eloquence without challenging of priviledges or fighting against Tyranny without alteration of government and scandall of Princes with its humility and meeknesse with tolerations and patience with obedience and charity with praying and dying did insensibly turn the world into Christian and persecution into victory For Christ who began and lived and died in sorrows perceived his own sufferings to succeed so well and that for suffering death he was crowned with immortality resolved to take all his Disciples and servants to the fellowship of the same suffering that they might have a participation of his glory knowing God had opened no gate of heaven but the narrow gate to which the Crosse was the key and since Christ now being our High Priest in heaven intercedes for us by representing his passion and the dolours of the Crosse that even in glory he might still preserve the mercies of his past sufferings for which the Father did so delight in him he also designes to present us to God dressed in the same robe and treated in the same manner and honoured with the marks of the Lord Jesus He hath predestinated us to be conformable to the image of his Son And if under a head crowned with thorns we bring to God members circled with roses and softnesse and delicacy triumphant members in the militant Church God will reject us he will not know us who are so unlike our elder brother For we are members of the Lamb not of the Lion and of Christs suffering part not of the triumphant part and for three hundred yeers together the Church lived upon blood and was nourished with blood the blood of her own children Thirty three Bishops of Rome in immediate succession were put to violent and unnaturall deaths and so were all the Churches of the East and West built the cause of Christ and of Religion was advanced by the sword but it was the sword of the persecutours not of resisters or warriours They were all baptized into the death of Christ their very profession and institution is to live like him and when he requires it to die for him that is the very formality the life and essence of Christianity This I say lasted for three hundred yeers that the prayers and the backs and the necks of Christians fought against the rods and axes of the persecutours and prevailed till the Countrey and the Cities and the Court it self was filled with Christians And by this time the army of Martyrs was vast and numerous and the number of sufferers blunted the hangmans sword For Christ first triumphed over the princes and powers of the world before he would admit them to serve him he first felt their malice before he would make use of their defence to shew that it was not his necessity that required it but his grace that admitted Kings and Queens to be nurses of the Church And now the Church was at ease and she that sucked the blood of the Martyrs so long began now to suck the milk of Queens Indeed it was a great mercy in appearance and was so intended but it proved not so But then the Holy Ghost in pursuance of the designe of Christ who meant by sufferings to perfect his Church as himself was by the same instrument was pleased now that persecution did cease to inspire the Church with the spirit of mortification and austerity and then they made Colleges of sufferers persons who to secure their inheritance in the world to come did cut off all their portion in this excepting so much of it as was necessary to their present being and by instruments of humility by patience under and a voluntary undertaking of the Crosse the burden of the Lord by self deniall by fastings and sackcloth and pernoctations in prayer they chose then to exercise the active part of the religion mingling it as much as they could with the suffering And indeed it is so glorious a thing to be like Christ to be dressed like the prince of the Catholick church who was so a man of sufferings and to whom a prosperous and unafflicted person is very unlike that in all ages
of hell and therefore that condition is also very blessed which God sends us to create and to confirm our hopes of that excellent mercy 17. The sufferings of the saints are the sum of Christian Philosophy they are sent to wean us from the vanities and affections of this world and to create in us strong desires of heaven whiles God causes us to be here treated rudely that we may long to be in our Countrey where God shall be our portion and Angels our companions and Christ our perpetuall feast and a never ceasing joy shall be our condition and entertainment O death how bitter art thou to a man that is at ease and rest in his possessions but he that is uneasie in his body and unquiet in his possessions vexed in his person discomposed in his designes who findes no pleasure no rest here will be glad to fix his heart where onely he shall have what he can desire and what can make him happy As long as the waters of persecutions are upon the earth so long we dwell in the Ark but where the land is dry the Dove it self will be tempted to a wandring course of life and never to return to the house of her safety What shall 1 say more 18 Christ nourisheth his Church by sufferings 19 He hath given a single blessing to all other graces but to them that are persecuted he hath promised a double one It being a double favour first to be innocent like Christ and then to be afflicted like him 20. Without this the miracles of patience which God hath given to fortifie the spirits of the saints would signifie nothing Nemo enim tolerare tanta velit sine causâ nec potuit sine Deo as no man would bear evils without a cause so no man could bear so much without the supporting hand of God and we need not the Holy Ghost to so great purposes if our lot were not sorrow and persecution and therefore without this condition of suffering the Spirit of God should lose that glorious attribute of The Holy Ghost the Comforter 21. Is there any thing more yet Yes They that have suffered or forsaken any lands for Christ shall sit upon thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel so said Christ to his Disciples Nay the saints shall judge Angels saith saint Paul well therefore might Saint Paul say I rejoyce exceedingly in tribulation It must be some great thing that must make an afflicted man to rejoyce exceedingly and so it was For since patience is necessary that we receive the promise and tribulation does work this For a short time it worketh the consummation of our hope even an exceeding weight of glory We have no reason to think it strange concerning the fiery triall as if it were a strange thing It can be no hurt the Church is like Moses bush when it is all on fire it is not at all consumed but made full of miracle full of splendour full of God and unlesse we can finde something that God cannot turn into joy we have reason not onely to be patient but rejoyce when we are persecuted in a righteous cause For love is the soul of Christianity and suffering is the soul of love To be innocent and to be persecuted are the body and soul of Christianity I John your brother and partaker of tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus said Saint John those were the titles and ornaments of his profession that is I John your fellow Christian that 's the plain song of the former descant He therefore that is troubled when he is afflicted in his outward man that his inward man may grow strong like the birds upon the ruines of the shell and wonders that a good man should be a begger and a sinner be rich with oppression that Lazarus should die at the gate of Dives hungry and sick unpitied and unrelieved may as well wonder that carrion crowes should feed themselves fat upon a fair horse farre better then himself or that his own excellent body should be devoured by wormes and the most contemptible creatures though it lies there to be converted into glory That man knows nothing of nature or providence or Christianity or the rewards of vertue or the nature of its constitution or the infirmities of man or the mercies of God or the arts and prudence of his loving kindnesse or the rewards of heaven or the glorifications of Christs exalted humanity or the precepts of the Gospel who is offended at the sufferings of Gods deerest servants or declines the honour and the mercy of sufferings in the cause of righteousnesse For the securing of a vertue for the imitation of Christ and for the love of God or the glories of immortality It cannot it ought not it never will be otherwise the world may as well cease to be measured by time as good men to suffer affliction I end this point with the words of Saint Paul Let as many as are perfect be thus minded and if any man be otherwise minded God also will reveal this unto you this of the covenant of sufferings concerning which the old Prophets and holy men of the Temple had many thoughts of heart but in the full sufferings of the Gospel there hath been a full revelation of the excellency of the sufferings I have now given you an account of some of those reasons why God hath so disposed it that at this time that is under the period of the Gospel judgement must begin at the house of God and they are either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or imitation of Christs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chastisements or trials martyrdom or a conformity to the sufferings of the Holy Jesus But now besides all the premises we have another account to make concerning the prosperity of the wicked For if judgment first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God that is the question of the Apostle and is the great instrument of comfort to persons ill treated in the actions of the world The first ages of the Church lived upon promises and prophecies and because some of them are already fulfilled for ever and the others are of a continuall and a successive nature and are verified by the actions of every day Therefore we and all the following Ages live upon promises and experience and although the servants of God have suffered many calamities from the tyranny and prevalency of evil men their enemies yet still it is preserved as one of the fundamentall truths of Christianity That all the fair fortunes of the wicked are not enough to make them happy nor the persecutions of the godly able to make a good man miserable nor yet their sadnesses arguments of Gods displeasure against them For when a godly man is afflicted and dies it is his work and his businesse and if the wicked prevail that is if they persecute the godly it is but that which was to
grown and so judge of the state of our duty and concerning our finall condition of being saved 1. Concerning the state of grace I consider that no man can be said to be in the state of grace who retaines an affection to any one sin The state of pardon and the divine favour begins at the first instance of anger against our crimes when we leave our fondnesses and kinde opinions when we excuse them not and will not endure their shame when we feele the smarts of any of their evil consequents for he that is a perfect lover of sin and is sealed up to a reprobate sense endures all that sin brings along with it and is reconciled to all its mischiefes can suffer the sicknesse of his own drunkennesse and yet call it pleasure he can wait like a slave to serve his lust and yet count it no disparagement he can suffer the dishonour of being accounted a base and dishonest person and yet look confidently and think himself no worse But when the grace of God begins to work upon a mans spirit it makes the conscience nice and tender and although the sin as yet does not displease the man but he can endure the flattering and alluring part yet he will not endure to be used so ill by his sin he will not be abused and dishonoured by it But because God hath so allayed the pleasures of his sin that he that drinks the sweet should also strain the dregs through his throat by degrees Gods grace doth irreconcile the convert and discovers first its base attendance then its worse consequents then the displeasure of God that here commences the first resolutions of leaving the sin and trying if in the service of God his spirit and the whole appetite of man may be better entertained He that is thus far entred shall quickly perceive the difference and meet arguments enough to invite him further For then God treats the man as he treated the spies that went to discover the land of promise he ordered the year in plenty and directed them to a pleasant and a fruitful place and prepared bunches of grapes of a miraculous and prodigious greatnesse that they might report good things of Canaan and invite the whole nation to attempt its conquest so Gods grace represents to the new converts and the weak ones in faith the pleasures and first deliciousnesses of religion and when they come to spie the good things of that way that leads to heaven they presently perceive themselves cased of the load of an evil conscience of their fears of death of the confusion of their shame and Gods spirit gives them a cup of sensible comfort and makes them to rejoyce in their prayers and weep with pleasures mingled with innocent passions and religious changes and although God does not deal with all men in the same method or in manners that can regularly be described and all men do not feele or do not observe or cannot for want of skill discern such accidental sweetnesses and pleasant grapes at his first entrance into religion yet God to every man does minister excellent arguments of invitation and such that if a man will attend to them they will certainly move either his affections or his will his fancy or his reason and most commonly both But while the spirit of God is doing this work of man man must also be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fellow worker with God he must entertain the spirit attend his inspirations receive his whispers obey all his motions invite him further and utterly renounce all confederacy with his enemy sin at no hand suffering any root of bitternesse to spring up not allowing to himself any reserve of carnal pleasure no clancular lust no private oppressions no secret covetousnesse no love to this world that may discompose his duty for if a man prayes all day and at night is intemperate if he spends his time in reading and his recreation be sinful if he studies religion and practises self interest if he leaves his swearing and yet retaines his pride if he becomes chast and yet remains peevish and imperious this man is not changed from the state of sin into the first stage of the state of grace he does at no hand belong to God he hath suffered himself to be scared from one sin and tempted from another by interest and hath left a third by reason of his inclination and a fourth for shame or want of opportunity But the spirit of God hath not yet planted one perfect plant there God may make use of the accidentally prepared advantages But as yet the spirit of God hath not begun the proper and direct work of grace in his heart But when we leave every sin when we resolve never to return to the chaines when we have no love for the world but such as may be a servant of God then I account that we are entred into a state of grace from whence I am now to begin to reckon the commencement of this precept grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2. And now the first part of this duty is to make religion to be the businesse of our lives for this is the great instrument which will naturally produce our growth in grace and the perfection of a Christian. For a man cannot after a state of sin be instantly a Saint the work of heaven is not done by a flash of lightning or a dash of affectionate raine or a few tears of a relenting pity God and his Church have appointed holy intervals and have taken portions of our time for religion that we may be called off from the world and remember the end of our creation and do honour to God and think of heaven with hearty purposes and peremptory designes to get thither But as we must not neglect those times which God hath reserved for his service or the Church hath prudently decreed nor yet act religion upon such dayes with forms and outsides or to comply with customs or to seem religious so we must take care that all the other portions of our time be hallowed with little retirements of all thoughts and short conversations with God and all along be guided with a holy intention that even our works of nature may passe into the relations of grace and the actions of our calling may help towards the obtaining the price of our high calling while our eatings are actions of temperance our labours are profitable our humiliations are acts of obedience and our almes are charity our marriages are chast and whether we eat or drink sleep or wake we may do all to the glory of God by a direct intuition or by a reflex act by designe or by supplement by fore sight or by an after election and to this purpose we must not look upon religion as our trouble and our hinderance nor think almes chargeable or expensive nor our fastings vexatious and burdensom nor our prayers a wearinesse of spirit
build our duty upon our own bottoms as supported with the grace of God there is no vice but may finde a Patron and no age or relation or state of life but will be an engagement to sin And we shall think it necessary to be lustfull in our youth and revengefull in our man hood and covetous in our old age and we shall perceive that every state of men and every trade and profession lives upon the vices of others or upon their miseries and therefore they will think it necessary to promote or to wish it If men were temperate Physitians would be poor and unlesse some Princes were ambitious or others injurious there would be no imployment for souldiers The Vintners retail supports the Merchants trade and it is a vice that supports the Vintners retail and if all men were wise and sober persons we should have fewer beggers and fewer rich and if our Law-givers should imitate Demades of Athens who condemned a man that lived by selling things belonging to funeralls as supposing he could not choose but wish the death of men by whose dying he got his living we should finde most men accounted criminalls because vice is so involved in the affairs of the world that it is made the support of many trades and the businesse of great multitudes of men Certainly from hence it is that iniquity does so much abound and unlesse we state our questions right and perceive the evil to be designed onely from our selves and that no such pretence shall keep off the punishment or the shame from our selves we shall fall into a state which is onely capable of compassion because it is irrecoverable and then we shall be infinitely miserable when we can onely receive an uselesse and ineffective pity Whatsoever is necessary cannot be avoided He therefore that shall say he cannot avoid his sin is out of the mercies of this Text they who are appointed Guides Physitians of souls cannot to any purpose do their offices of pity It is necessary that we serve God and do our duty and secure the interest of our souls and be as carefull to preserve our relations to God as to our friend or Prince But if it can be necessary for any man in any condition to sin it is also necessary for that man to perish Sermon XVII The severall states and degrees of Sinners WITH The manner how they are to be treated Part II. 4. THe last sort of them that sin and yet are to be treated with compassion is of them that interrupt the course of an honest life with single acts of sin stepping aside and starting like a broken bowe whose resolution stands fair and their hearts are towards God and they sojourn in religion or rather dwell there but that like evil husbands they go abroad and enter into places of dishonour and unthriftinesse Such as these all stories remember with a sad character and every narrative concerning David which would end in honour and fair report is sullied with the remembrances of Bathsheba and the Holy Ghost hath called him a man after Gods own heart save in the matter of Uriah there indeed he was a man after his own heart even then when his reason was stolne from him by passion and his religion was sullied by the beauties of a fair woman I wish we lived in an age in which the people were to be treated with concerning renouncing the single actions of sin and the seldome interruptions of piety Men are taught to say that every man sins in every action he does and this is one of the doctrines for the beleeving of which he shall be accounted a good man and upon this ground it is easie for men to allow themselves some sins when in all cases and in every action it is unavoidable I shall say nothing of the Question save that the Scripture reckons otherwise * and in the accounts of Davids life reckon but one great sin * and in Zachary and Elizabeth gave a testimony of an unblameable conversation * and Hezekiah did not make his confession when he prayed to God in his sicknesse and said he had walked uprightly before God * and therefore Saint Paul after his conversion designed and laboured hard therefore certainly with hopes to accomplish it that he might keep his conscience void of offence both towards God and towards man * and one of Christs great purposes is to present his whole Church pure and spotlesse to the throne of grace and* Saint John the Baptist offended none but Herod * and no pious Christian brought a bill of accusation against the holy Virgin Mother * certain it is that God hath given us precepts of such a holinesse and such a purity such a meeknesse and such humility as hath no pattern but Christ no precedent but the purities of God and therefore it is intended we should live with a life whose actions are not checker'd with white and black half sin and half vertue Gods sheep are not like Jacobs flock streaked and spotted it is an intire holinesse that God requires and will not endure to have a holy course interrupted by the dishonour of a base and ignoble action I do not mean that a mans life can be as pure as the Sun or the rayes of celestial Jerusalem but like the Moon in which there are spots but they are no deformity a lessening onely and an abatement of light no cloud to hinder and draw a vail before its face but sometimes it is not so serene and bright as at other times Every man hath his indiscretions and infirmities his arrests and sudden incursions his neighbourhoods and semblances of sin his little vidences to reason and peevish melancholy and humorous Phantastick discourses unaptnesses to a devout prayer his fondnesses to judge favourably in his own cases little deceptions and voluntary and involuntary cousenages ignorances and inadvertencies carelesse hours and unwatchful seasons but no good man ever commits one act of adultery no godly man wil at any time be drunk or if he be he ceases to be a godly man and is run into the confines of death and is sick at heart and may die of the sicknesse die eternally This happens more frequently in persons of an infant piety when the vertue is not corroborated by a long abode and a confirmed resolution and an usual victory and a triumphant grace and the longer we are accustomed to piety the more imfrequent will be the little breaches of folly and a returning sin But as the needle of a compasse when it is directed to its beloved star at the first addresses waves on either side and seems indifferent in his courtship of the rising or declining sun and when it seems first determined to the North stands a while trembling as if it suffered inconvenience in the first fruition of its desires and stands not still in a full enjoyment till after first a great variety of motion and then an
in their obedience and frequenting of the ordinance to the Priest in his ministery and publick and privat offices To which also I adde this consideration that as the Holy Sacraments are hugely effective to spiritual purposes not onely because they convey a blessing to the worthy suscipients but because men cannot be worthy suscipients unlesse they do many excellent acts of vertue in order to a previous disposition so that in the whole conjunction and transaction of affaires there is good done by way of proper efficacy and divine blessing so it is in following the conduct of a spiritual man and consulting with him in the matter of our souls we cannot do it unless we consider our souls and make religion our businesse and examine our present state and consider concerning our danger and watch and designe for our advantages which things of themselves wil set a man much forwarder in the way of Godlinesse besides thath naturally every man will lesse dare to act a sin for which he knows he shall feel a present shame in his discoveries made to the spiritual Guide the man that is made the witnesse of his conversation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holy men ought to know all things from God and that relate to God in order to the conduct of souls and there is nothing to be said against this if we do not suffer the devil in this affaire to abuse us as he does many people in their opinions teaching men to suspect there is a designe and a snake under the plantain But so may they suspect Kings when they command obedience or the Levites when they read the law of tithes or Parents when they teach their children temperance or Tutors when they watch their charge However it is better to venture the worst of the designe then to lose the best of the assistance and he that guides himself hath much work and much danger but he that is under the conduct of another his work is easy little and secure it is nothing but diligence and obedience and though it be a hard thing to rule well yet nothing is easier then to follow and to be obedient Sermon XXII Of Christian Prudence Part III. 7. AS it is a part of Christian prudence to take into the conduct of our soules a spiritual man for a guide so it is also of great concernment that we be prudent in the choice of him whom we are to trust in so great an interest Concerning which it will be impossible to give characters and significations particular enough to enable a choice without the interval assistances of prayer experience and the Grace of God He that describes a man can tell you the colour of his hair his stature and proportions and describe some general lines enough to distingush him from a Cyclops or a Saracen but when you chance to see the man you will discover figures or little features of which the description had produced in you no Phantasme or expectation And in the exteriour significations of a sect there are more semblances then in mens faces and greater uncertainty in the signes what is faulty strives so craftily to act the true and proper images of things and the more they are defective in circumstances the more curious they are in forms and they also use such arts of gaining Proselytes which are of most advantage towards an effect and therefore such which the true Christian ought to pursue and the Apostles actually did and they strive to follow their patterns in arts of perswasion not onely because they would seem like them but because they can have none so good so effective to their purposes that it follows that it is not more a duty to take care that we be not corrupted with false teachers then that we be not abused with false signes for we as well finde a good man teaching a false proposition as a good cause managed by ill men and a holy cause is not alwayes dressed with healthful symptomes nor is there a crosse alwayes set upon the doores of those congregations who are infected with the plague of heresy When Saint John was to separate false teachers from true he took no other course but to remark the doctrine which was of God and that should be the mark of cognisance to distinguish right shepheards from robbers and invaders every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God He that denieth it is not of God By this he bids his schollers to avoid the present sects of Ebion Cerinthus Simon Magus and such other persons that denied that Christ was at all before he came or that he came really in the flesh and a proper humanity This is a clear note and they that conversed with Saint John or believed his doctrine were sufficiently instructed in the present Questions But this note will signify nothing to us for all sects of Christians confesse Jesus Christ come in the flesh and the following sects did avoid that rock over which a great Apostle had hung out so plain a lantern In the following ages of the Church men have been so curious to signifie misbelievers that they have invented and observed some signes which indeed in some cases were true real appendages of false believers but yet such which were also or might be common to them with good men and members of the Catholick Church some few I shall remark and give a short account of them that by removing the uncertain we may fix our inquiries and direct them by certain significations lest this art of prudence turn into folly and faction errour and secular designe 1. Some men distinguish errour from truth by calling their adversaries doctrine new and of yesterday and certainly this is a good signe if it be rightly applyed for since all Christian doctrine is that which Christ taught his Church and the spirit enlarged or expounded and the Apostles delivered we are to begin the Christian aera for our faith and parts of religion by the period of their preaching our account begins then and whatsoever is contrary to what they taught is new and false and whatsoever is besides what they taught is no part of our religion and then no man can be prejudiced for believing it or not and if it be adopted into the confessions of the Church the proposition is alwayes so uncertain that it s not to be admitted into the faith and therefore if it be old in respect of our dayes it is not therefore necessary to be believed if it be new it may be received into opinion according to its probabilitie and no sects or interest are to be divided upon such accounts This onely I desire to be observed that when a truth returns from banishment by a postliminium if it was from the first though the Holy fire hath been buried or the river ran under ground yet that we do not call that new since newnesse is not to be accounted of by a proportion
and misunderstood and reproved and rejected by any of her wilful or ignorant sons and daughters so it is also as hard that they should be bound not to see when the case is plain and evident There may be mischiefs on both sides but the former sort of evils men may avoid if they will for they may be humble and modest and entertain better opinions of their Superiours then of themselves and in doubtful things give them the honour of a just opinion and if they do not do so that evil will be their own private for that it become not publike the King and the Bishop are to take care but for the latter sort of evil it will certainly become universal If I say an authoritative false doctrine be imposed and is to be accepted accordingly for then all men shall be bound to professe against their conscience that is with their mouthes not to confesse unto salvation what with their hearts they believe unto righteousnesse The best way of remedying both the evils is that Governours lay no burden of doctrines or lawes but what are necessary or very profitable and that Inferiours do not contend for things unnecessary nor call any thing necessary that is not till then there will be evils on both sides and although the Governours are to carry the Question in the point of law reputation and publike government yet as to Gods Judicature they will bear the bigger load who in his right do him an injury and by the impresses of his authority destroy his truth But in this case also although separating be a suspicious thing and intolerable unlesse it be when a sin is imposed yet to separate is also accidentall to truth for some men separate with reason some men against reason therefore here all the certainty that is in the thing is when the truth is secured and all the security to the men will be in the humility of their persons and the heartinesse and simplicity of their intention and diligence of inquiry The Church of England had reason to separate from the Confession and practises of Rome in many particulars and yet if her children separate from her they may be unreasonable and impious 5. The wayes of direction which we have from holy Scripture to distinguish false Apostles from true are taken from their doctrine or their lives That of the doctrine is the most sure way if we can hit upon it but that also is the thing signified and needs to have other signes Saint John and Saint Paul took this way for they were able to do it infallibly All that confesse Jesus incarnate are of God said Saint John those men that deny it are hereticks avoid them and Saint Paul bids to observe them that cause divisions and offences against the doctrine delivered Them also avoid that do so And we might do so as easily as they if the world would onely take their depositum that doctrine which they delivered to all men that is the Creed and superinduce nothing else but suffer Christian faith to rest in its own perfect simplicity unmingled with arts and opinions and interests This course is plain and easie and I will not intricate it with more words but leave it directly in its own truth and certainty with this onely direction That when we are to choose our doctrine or our side we take that which is in the plain unexpounded words of Scripture for in that onely our religion can consist Secondly choose that which is most advantageous to a holy life to the proper graces of a Christian to humility to charity to forgivenesse and alms to obedience and complying with governments to the honour of God and the exaltation of his attributes and to the conservation and advantages of the publike societies of men and this last Saint Paul directs Let ours be carefull to maintain goodworks for necessary uses for he that heartily pursues these proportions cannot be an ill man though he were accidentally and in the particular applications deceived 6. But because this is an act of wisdom rather then prudence and supposes science or knowledge rather then experience therefore it concerns the prudence of a Christian to observe the practise and the rules of practise their lives and pretences the designes and colours the arts of conduct and gaining proselytes which their Doctors and Catechists do use in order to their purposes and in their ministery about souls For although many signes are uncertain yet some are infallible and some are highly probable 7. Therefore those teachers that pretend to be guided by a private spirit are certainly false Doctors I remember what Simmias in Plutarch tels concerning Socrates that if he heard any man say he saw a divine vision he presently esteemed him vain and proud but if he pretended onely to have heard a voice or the word of God he listened to that religiously and would enquire of him with curiosity There was some reason in his fancy for God does not communicate himself by the eye to men but by the ear ye saw no figure but ye heard a voice said Moses to the people concerning God and therefore if any man pretends to speak the word of God we will enquire concerning it the man may the better be heard because he may be certainly reproved if he speaks amisse but if he pretends to visions and revelations to a private spirit and a mission extraordinary the man is proud and unlearned vicious and impudent No Scripture is of private interpretation saith S. Peter that is of private emission or declaration Gods words were delivered indeed by single men but such as were publikely designed Prophets remarked with a known character approved of by the high Priest and Sanhedrim indued with a publike spirit and his doctrines were alwayes agreeable to the other Scriptures But if any man pretends now to the spirit either it must be a private or publike if it be private it can but be usefull to himself alone and it may cozen him too if it be not assisted by the spirit of a publike man But if it be a publike spirit it must enter in at the publike door of ministeries and divine ordinances of Gods grace and mans endeavour it must be subject to the Prophets it is discernable and judicable by them and therefore may be rejected and then it must pretend no longer For he that will pretend to an extraordinary spirit and refuses to be tried by the ordinary wayes must either prophecy or work miracles or must have a voice from heaven to give him testimony The Prophets in the old Testament and the Apostles in the New and Christ between both had no other way of extraordinary probation and they that pretend to any thing extraordinary cannot ought not to be beleeved unlesse they have something more then their own word If I bear witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true said Truth it self our Blessed Lord. But secondly they that intend to teach by an
extraordinary spirit if they pretend to teach according to Scripture must be examined by the measures of Scripture and then their extraordinary must be judged by the ordinary spirit and stands or falls by the rules of every good mans religion and publike government and then we are well enough But if they speak any thing against Scripture it is the spirit of Antichrist and the spirit of the Devil For if an Angel from heaven he certainly is a spirit preach any other doctrine let him be accursed But this pretence of a single and extraordinary spirit is nothing else but the spirit of pride errour and delusion a snare to catch easie and credulous souls which are willing to die for a gay word and a distorted face it is the parent of folly and giddy doctrine impossible to be proved and therefore uselesse to all purposes of religion reason or sober counsels it is like an invisible colour or musick without a sound it is and indeed is so intended to be a direct overthrow of order and government and publike ministeries It is bold to say any thing and resolved to prove nothing it imposes upon willing people after the same manner that Oracles and the lying Daemons did of old time abusing men not by proper efficacy of its own but because the men love to be abused it is a great disparagement to the sufficiency of Scripture and asperses the Divine providence for giving to so many ages of the Church an imperfect religion expressely against the truth of their words who said they had declared the whole truth of God and told all the will of God and it is an affront to the Spirit of God the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge of order and publike ministeries But the will furnishes out malice and the understanding sends out levity and they marry and produce a phantastick dream and the daughter sucking winde instead of the milk of the word growes up to madnesse and the spirit of reprobation Besides all this an extraordinary spirit is extremely unnecessary and God does not give immissions and miracles from heaven to no purpose and to no necessities of his Church for the supplying of which he hath given Apostles and Evangelists Prophets and Pastors Bishops and Priests the spirit of Ordination and the spirit of instruction Catechists and Teachers Arts and Sciences Scriptures and a constant succession of Expositors the testimony of Churches and a constant line of tradition or delivery of Apostolical Doctrine in all things necessary to salvation And after all this to have a fungus arise from the belly of mud and darknesse and nourish a gloworm that shall challenge to out-shine the lantern of Gods word and all the candles which God set upon a hill and all that the Spirit hath set upon the candlesticks and all the starres in Christs right hand is to annull all the excellent established orderly and certain effects of the Spirit of God and to worship the false fires of the night He therefore that will follow a Guide that leads him by an extraordinary spirit shall go an extraordinary way and have a strange fortune and a singular religion and a portion by himself a great way off from the common inheritance of the Saints who are all led by the Spirit of God and have one heart and one minde one faith and one hope the same baptisme and the helps of the Ministery leading them to the common countrey which is the portion of all that are the sons of adoption consigned by the Spirit of God the earnest of their inheritance Concerning the pretence of a private spirit for interpretation of the confessed doctrine of God the holy Scriptures it will not so easily come into this Question of choosing our spirituall Guides Because every person that can be Candidate in this office that can be chosen to guide others must be a publike man that is of a holy calling sanctified or separate publikely to the office and then to interpret is part of his calling and imployment and to do so is the work of a publike spirit he is ordained and designed he is commanded and inabled to do it and in this there is no other caution to be interposed but that the more publike the man is of the more authority his interpretation is and he comes neerest to a law of order and in the matter of government is to be observed but the more holy and the more learnd the man is his interpretation in matter of Question is more likely to be true and though lesse to be pressed as to the publick confession yet it may be more effective to a private perswasion provided it be done without scandal or lessening the authority or disparagement to the more publick person 8. Those are to be suspected for evil guides who to get authority among the people pretend a great zeal and use a bold liberty in reproving Princes and Governours nobility and Prelates for such homilies cannot be the effects of a holy religion which lay a snare for authority and undermine power and discontent the people and make them bold against Kings and immodest in their own stations and trouble the government Such men may speak a truth or teach a true doctrine for every such designe does not unhallow the truth of God but they take some truthes and force them to minister to an evil end but therefore mingle not in the communities of such men for they will make it a part of your religion to prosecute that end openly which they by arts of the Tempter have insinuated privately But if ever you enter into the seats of those Doctors that speak reproachfully of their Superiours or detract from government or love to curse the King in their heart or slander him with their mouths or disgrace their persons blesse your self and retire quickly for there dwells the plague but the spirit of God is not president of the assembly and therefore you shall observe in all the characters which the B. Apostles of our Lord made for describing and avoiding societies of hereticks false guides and bringers in of strange doctrines still they reckon treason and rebellion so S. Paul In the last dayes perillous times shall come the men shall have the form of Godlinesse and denie the power of it they shall be Traitors heady high minded that 's their characteristic note So Saint Peter the Lord knoweth how to deliver the Godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleannesse and despise government presumptuous are they self willed they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities The same also is recorded and observed by Saint Jude likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh despise dominion and speak evil of dignities These three testimonies are but the declaration of one great contingency they are the same prophesy declared by three Apostolical men that
the commandments and by the certain known and established forms of government These are the great indices and so plain apt and easy that he that is deceived is so because he will be so he is betrayed into it by his own lust and a voluntary chosen folly 12 Besides these premises there are other little candles that can help to make the judgement clearer but they are such as do not signifie alone but in conjunction with some of the precedent characters which are drawn by the great lines of scripture Such as are 1. when the teachers of sects stir up unprofitable and uselesse Questions 2. when they causelesly retire from the universal customs of Christendom 3. And cancel all the memorials of the greatest mysteries of our redemption 4. When their confessions and Catechismes and their whole religion consist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in speculations and ineffective notions in discourses of Angels and spirits in abstractions and raptures in things they understand not and of which they have no revelation 5. Or else if their religion spends it self in ceremonies outward guises and material solemnities and imperfect formes drawing the heart of the vine forth into leaves and irregular fruitless suckers turning the substance into circumstances and the love of God into gestures and the effect of the spirit into the impertinent offices of a burdensom ceremonial For by these two particulars the Apostles reproved the Jews and the Gnostics or those that from the school of Pythagoras pretended conversation with Angels and great knowledge of the secrets of the spirits chosing tutelar Angels and assigning them offices and charges as in the Church of Rome to this day they do to Saints to these adde 6. that we observe whether the guides of souls avoid to suffer for their religion for then the matter is foul or the man not fit to lead that dares not die in cold blood for his religion will the man lay his life and his soul upon the proposition If so then you may consider him upon his proper grounds but if he refuses that refuse his conduct sure enough 7. You may also watch whether they do not chose their proselyts amongst the rich and vitious that they may serve themselves upon his wealth and their disciple upon his vice 8. If their doctrines evidently and greatly serve the interest of wealth or honour and are ineffective to piety 9. If they strive to gain any one to their confession and are negligent to gain them to good life 10. If by pretences they lessen the severity of Christs precepts and are easy in dispensations and licencious glosses 11. If they invent suppletories to excuse an evil man and yet to reconcile his bad life with the hopes of heaven you have reason to suspect the whole and to reject these parts of errour and designe which in themselves are so unhandsom alwayes and somtimes criminal He that shal observe the Church of Rome so implacably fierce for purgatory and the Popes supremacy from clerical immunities and the Superiority of the Ecclesiastical persons to secular for indulgencies and precious and costly pardons and then so full of devises to reconcile an evil life with heaven requiring onely contrition even at the last for the abolition of eternal guilt and having a thousand wayes to commute and take off the temporal will see he hath reason to be jealous that interest is in these bigger then the religion and yet that the danger of the soul is greater then that interest and therefore the man is to do accordingly Here indeed is the great necessity that we should have the prudence and discretion the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of serpents ut cernamus acutum Quam aut aquila aut serpens Epidaurius For so serpents as they are curious to preserve their heads from contrition or a bruise so also to safeguard themselves that they be not charmed with sweet and enticing words of false prophets who charm not wisely but cunningly leading aside unstable souls against these we must stop our ears or lend our attention according to the foregoing measures and significations but here also I am to insert two or three cautions 1. We cannot expect that by these or any other signes we shall be inabled to discover concerning all men whether they teach an errour or no. Neither can a man by these reprove a Lutheran or a Zuinglian a Dominican or a Franciscan a Russian or a Greek a Muscovite or a Georgian because those which are certain signes of false teachers do signifie such men who destroy an article of faith or a commandment God was careful to secure us from death by removing the Lepers from the camp and giving certain notices of distinction and putting a term between the living and the dead but he was not pleased to secure every man from innocent and harmlesse errors from the mistakes of men and the failings of mortality The signes which can distinguish a living man from a dead will not also distinguish a black man from a brown or a pale from a white It is enough that we decline those guides that lead us to hell but not to think that we are inticed to death by the weaknesses of every disagreeing brother 2. In all discerning of sects we must be careful to distinguish the faults of men from the evils of their doctrine for some there are that say very well and do very ill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Multos Thyrsigeros paucos est cernere Bacchos Many men of holy calling and holy religion that are of unholy lives homines ignavâ oper â Philosophâ sententiâ But these must be separated from the institution and the evil of the men is onely to be noted as that such persons be not taken to our single conduct and personal ministery I will be of the mans religion if it be good though he be not but I will not make him my confessor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If he be not wise for himself I will not sit down at his feet lest we mingle filthinesse instead of being cleansed and instructed 3. Let us make one separation more then we may consider and act according to the premises If we espie a designe or an evil mark upon one doctrine let us divide it from the other that are not so spotted for indeed the publick communions of men are at this day so ordered that they are as fond of their errours as of their truthes and somtimes moct zealous for what they have least reason to be so and if we can by any arts of prudence separate from an evil proposition and communicate in all the good then we may love colleges of religious persons though we do not worship images and we may obey our Prelates though we do no injury to princes and we may be zealous against a crime though we be not imperious over mens persons and we may be diligent in the conduct of souls
purchase of many good things so the thing it self ows to labour many degrees of its worth and value and therefore I need not reckon that besides these advantages the mercies of God have found out proper and natural remedies for labour Nights to cure the sweat of the day sleep to ease our watchfulnesse rest to alleviate our burdens and dayes of religion to procure our rest and things are so ordered that labour is become a duty and an act of many vertues and is not so apt to turne into a sin as is its contrary and is therefore necessary not onely because we need it for making provisions of our life but even to ease the labour of our rest there being no greater tediousnesse of spirit in the world then want of imployment and an unactive life and the lasie man is not onely unprofitable but also accursed and he groans under the load of his time which yet passes over the active man light as a dreame or the feathers of a bird while the disimployed is a desease and like a long sleeplesse night to himself and a load unto his country And therefore although in this particular God hath been so merciful in this infliction that from the sharpnesse of the curse a very great part of mankinde are freed and there are myriads of people good and bad who do not eat their bread in the sweat of their brows yet this is but an overrunning and an excesse of the divine mercy God did more for us then we did absolutely need for he hath disposed of the circumstances of this curse that mans affections are so reconciled to it that they desire it and are delighted in it and so the Anger of God is ended in loving Kindnesse and the drop of water is lost in the full chalice of the wine and the curse is gone out into a multiplied blessing But then for the other part of the severe law and laborious imposition that we must work out our spiritual interest with the labours of our spirit seems to most men to be so intolerable that rather then passe under it they quit their hopes of heaven and passe into the portion of Devils and what can there be to alleviate this sorrow that a man shall be perpetually sollicited with an impure tempter and shall carry a flame within him and all the world is on fire round about him and every thing brings fuel to the flame and full tables are a snare and empty tables are collateral servants to a lust and help to blow the fire and kindle the heap of prepared temptations and yet a man must not at all tast of the forbidden fruit and he must not desire what he cannot choose but desire and he must not enjoy whatsoever he does violently covet and must never satisfy his appetite in the most violent importunities but must therefore deny himself because to do so is extremely troublesome this seems to be an art of torture and a devise to punish man with the spirit of agony and a restlesse vexation But this also hath in it a great ingredient of mercy or rather is nothing else but a heap of mercy in its intire constitution For if it were not for this we had nothing of our own to present to God nothing proportionable to the great rewards of heaven but either all men or no man must go thither for nothing can distinguish man from man in order to beatitude but choice and election and nothing can enoble the choice but love and nothing can exercise love but difficulty and nothing can make that difficulty but the contradiction of our appetite and the crossing of our natural affections and therefore when ever any of you is tempted violently or grow weary in your spirits with resisting the petulancy of temptation you may be cured if you will please but to remember and rejoyce that now you have something of your own to give to God something that he will be pleased to accept something that he hath given thee that thou mayest give it him for our mony and our time our dayes of feasting and our dayes of sorrow our discourse and our acts of praise our prayers and our songs our vows and our offerings our worshippings and prostrations and whatsoever else can be accounted in the sum of our religion are onely accepted according as they bear along with them portions of our wil and choice of love and appendant difficulty Laetius est quoties magno tibi constat honestum So that whoever can complain that he serves God with pains and mortifications he is troubled because there is a distinction of things such as we call vertue and vice reward and punishment and if he will not suffer God to distinguish the first he will certainly confound the latter and his portion shall be blacknesse without variety and punishment shall be his reward 6. As an appendage to this instance of divine mercy we are to account that not onely in nature but in contingency and emergent events of providence God makes compensation to us for all the evils of chance and hostilities of accident brings good out of evil which is that solemn triumph which mercy makes over justice when it rides upon a cloud and crowns its darknesse with a robe of glorious light God indeed suffered Joseph to be sold a bondslave into Egypt but then it was that God intended to crown and reward his chastity for by that means he brought him to a fair condition of dwelling and there gave him a noble trial he had a brave contention and he was a conqueror Then God sent him to prison but still that was mercy it was to make way to bring him to Pharaohs court and God brought famine upon Canaan and troubled all the souls of Jacobs family and there was a plot laid for another mercy this was to bring them to see and partake of Josephs glory and then God brought a great evil upon their posterity and they groaned under task-masters but this God changed into the miracles of his mercy and suffered them to be afflicted that he might do ten miracles for their sakes and proclaim to all the world how dear they were to God And was not the greatest good to mankinde brought forth from the greatest treason that ever was committed the redemption of the world from the fact of Judas God loving to defeat the malice of man and the arts of the Devil by rare emergencies and stratagems of mercy It is a sad calamity to see a kingdom spoiled and a church afflicted the Priests slain with the sword and the blood of Nobles mingled with cheaper sand religion made a cause of trouble and the best men most cruelly persecuted Government confounded and laws ashamed Judges decreeing causes in fear and covetousnesse and the ministers of holy things setting themselves against all that is sacred and setting fire upon the fields and turning in little foxes on purpose to destroy the vineyards and what shall
would presse further then is intended for Ananias tells him he was sent to him that he might lay his hands on him that he might receive the holy Ghost and to doe that was more then Philip could doe though he was a Deacon and in as great a necessity as this was And yet besides all this this was not a case of necessity unlesse there was never a Presbyter or Deacon in all Damascus or that God durst not trust any of them with Paul but onely Ananias or that Paul could not stay longer without baptisme as many thousand converts did in descending ages And for the other conjecture it is not considerable at all for the Apostles might take three or four days time to baptize the 3000 there was no hurt done if they had stayed a week the text insinuates nothing to the contrary The same day about 3000 were added to the Church then they were added to the Church that is by virtue and efficacy of that Sermon who it may be considered some while of S. Peters discourse and gave up their names upon mature deliberation and positive conviction But it is not said they were baptized the same day and yet it was not impossible for the twelve Apostles to doe it in one day if they had thought it reasonable For my own particular I wish we would make no more necessities then God made but that we leave the administration of the Sacraments to the manner of the first institution and the Clericall offices be kept with their cancells that no Lay hand may pretend a reason to usurpe the sacred ministery and since there can be no necessity for unbaptized persons of years of discretion because their desire may supply them it were well also if our charity would finde some other way also to understand Gods mercy towards infants for certainly he is most mercifull and full of pity to them also and if there be no neglect of any of his own appointed ministeries so as he hath appointed them me thinks it were but reasonable to trust his goodnesse with the infants in other cases for it cannot but be a jealousie and a suspicion of God a not daring to trust him and an unreasonable proceeding beside that we will rather venture to dispense with divine institution then thinke that God will or that we shall pretend more care of children then God hath when we will breake an institution and the rule of an ordinary ministery of Gods appointing rather then cast them upon God as if God loved this ceremony better then he loved the child for so it must be if the childe perishes for want of it and yet still me thinkes according to such doctrine there was little or no care taken for infants for when God had appointed a ministery and fixed it with certain rules and a proper deputation in reason knowing in all things else how mercifull God is and full of goodnesse we should have expected that God should have given expresse leave to have gone besides the first circumstances of the Sacrament if he had intended we might or should and that he should have told us so too rather then by leaving them fast tyed without any expresse cases of exception or markes of difference permit men to dispute and stand unresolved between a case of Duty and a point of Charity for although God will have mercy rather then sacrifice yet when both are commanded God takes order they shall never crosse each other and sacrifice is to be preferred before mercy when the sacrifice is in the commandement and the mercy is not as it is in the present question And if it were otherwise in this case yet because God loves mercy so well why should we not thinke that God himself will shew this mercy to this Infant when he hath not expressed his pleasure that we should doe it we cannot be more mercifull then he is The Church of England hath determined nothing in this particular that I know of onely when in the first Liturgy of King Edward the sixt a rubrick was inserted permitting midwives to baptize in cases of extreme danger it was left out in the second Liturgies which is at least an argument she intended to leave the question undetermined if at least that omission of the clause was also not a rejection of the Article Onely this Epiphanius objects it against the Marcionites and Tertullian against the Gnosticks that they did permit women to baptize I cannot say but they made it an ordinary imployment and a thing besides the case of necessity I know not whether they did or no. But if they be permitted it is considerable whither the example may drive Petulans mulier quae usurpavit docere an non utique tingendi jus sibi pariet that I may turn Tertullians Thesis into an Interrogative The women usurpe the office of teaching if also they may be permitted to baptize they may in time arrogate and invade other ministeries or if they doe not by reason of the naturall and politicall incapacity of their persons yet others may upon the same stock for necessity consists not in a Mathematicall point but hath latitude which may be expounded to inconvenience and that I say truth and feare reasonably I need no other testimony then the Greek Church for amongst them a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the absence of the Priest is necessity enough for a woman to baptize for so says Gabriel Philadelphiensis In the absence of a Priest a Christian Laick may baptize whether it be man or woman either may doe it and whether that be not onely of danger in the sequel but in it selfe a very dissolution of all discipline I leave it to the Church of England to determine as for her own perticular that at least the Sacrament be left intirely to clericall dispensation according to divine commandement One thing I offer to consideration that since the keyes of the kingdome of heaven be most notoriously and signally used in baptisme in which the kingdome of heaven the Gospel and all its promises is opened to all beleevers and though as certainly yet lesse principally in reconciling penitents and admitting them to the communion of the faithfull it may be of ill consequence to let them be usurped by hands to whom they were not consigned Certain it is S. Peter used his keyes and opened the kingdome of heaven first when he said Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sinnes and ye shall receive the gift of the holy Ghost However as to the main question we have not onely the universall doctrine of Christendome but also expresse authority and commission in Scripture sending out Apostles and Apostolicall men persons of choice and speciall designation to baptize all nations and to entertain them into the services and institution of the holy Jesus SECT V. I Shall instance but once more but it is in
the most solemn sacred and divinest mystery of our Religion that in which the Clergy in their appointed ministery doe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stand between God and the people and doe fulfill a speciall and incomprehensible ministery which the Angels themselves doe look into with admiration to which the people if they come without fear cannot come without sinne and this is of so sacred and reserved mysteriousnesse that but few have dared to offer at with unconsecrated hands some have But the Eucharist is the fulnesse of all the mysteriousnesse of our religion and the Clergy when they officiate here are most truly in the phrase of Saint Paul dispensatores mysteriorum Dei dispensers of the great mysteries of the kingdome For to use the word of S. Cyprian Jesus Christ is our high Priest and himself became our sacrifice which he finished upon the crosse in a reall performance and now in his office of Mediatorship makes intercession for us by a perpetuall exhibition of himselfe of his own person in heaven which is a continuall actually represented argument to move God to mercy to all that beleeve in and obey the Holy Jesus Now Christ did also establish a number of select persons to be ministers of this great sacrifice finished upon the crosse that they also should exhibit and represent to God in the manner which their Lord appointed them this sacrifice commemorating the action and suffering of the great Priest and by way of prayers and impetration offering up that action in behalfe of the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Gregory Naz. expresses it sending up sacrifices to be laid upon the Altar in heaven that the Church might be truly united unto Christ their head and in the way of their ministery may doe what he does in heaven for he exhibites the sacrifice that is himselfe actually and presentially in heaven the Priest on earth commemorates the same and by his prayers represents it God in behalf of the whole Catholick Church presentially too by another and more mysterious way of presence but both Christ in heaven and his ministers on earth doe actuate that sacrifice and apply it to its purposed designe by praying to God in virtue and merit of that sacrifice Christ himselfe in a high and glorious manner the ministers of his priesthood as it becomes ministers humbly sacramentally and according to the energy of humane advocation and intercession This is the summe and great mysteriousnesse of Christianity and is now to be proved This is expresly described in Scripture that part concerning Christ is the doctrine of S. Paul who disputes largely concerning Christs priesthood affirming that Christ is a Priest for ever he hath therefore an unchangeable priesthood because he continueth for ever and he lives for ever to make intercession for us this he does as Priest and therefore it must be by offering a sacrifice for every high Priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices and therefore it is necessary he also have something to offer as long as he is a Priest that is for ever till the consummation of all things since therefore he hath nothing new to offer and something he must continually offer it is evident he offers himselfe as the medium of advocation and the instance and argument of a prevailing intercession and this he calls a more excellent ministery and by it Jesus is a minister of the Sanctuary and of the true Tabernacle that is he as our high Priest officiates in heaven in the great office of a Mediator in the merit and power of his death and resurrection Now what Christ does always in a proper and most glorious manner the ministers of the Gospell also doe in theirs commemorating the sacrifice upon the crosse giving thanks and celebrating a perpetuall Eucharist for it and by declaring the death of Christ and praying to God in the virtue of it for all the members of the Church and all persons capable it is in genere orationis a sacrifice and an instrument of propitiation as all holy prayers are in their severall proportions And this was by a precept of Christ Hoc facite Doe this in remembrance of me Now this precept is but twice reported of in the new Testament though the institution of the Sacrament be four times And it is done with admirable mystery to distinguish the severall interest and operations which concern severall sorts of Christians in their distinct capacities S. Paul thus represents it Take eat This doe in remembrance of me plainely referring this precept to all that are to eate and drinke the symbols for they also doe in their manner enunciate declare or represent the Lords death till he come And S. Paul prosecutes it with instructions particular to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to them that doe communicate as appears in the succeeding cautions against unworthy manducation and for due preparation to its reception But S. Luke reports it plainly to another purpose and he took bread and gave thankes and brake it and gave it unto them saying This is my body which is given for you Hoc facite This doe in remembrance of me This cannot but relate to accepit gratias egit fregit distribuit Hoc facite Here was no manducation expressed and therefore Hoc facite concerns the Apostles in the capacity of ministers not as receivers but as Consecrators and Givers and if the institution had been represented in one scheme without this mysterious distinction and provident separation of imployment we had been eternally in a cloud and have needed a new light to guide us but now the spirit of God hath done it in the very first fountains of Scripture And this being the great mystery of Christianity and the onely remanent expresse of Christs sacrifice on earth it is most consonant to the Analogy of the mystery that this commemorative sacrifice be presented by persons as separate and distinct in their ministery as the sacrifice it selfe is from and above the other parts of our religion Thus also the Church of God hath for ever understood it without any variety of sense or doubtfulnesse of distinguishing opinions It was the great excellency and secret ministery of the religion to consecrate and offer the holy symbols and sacraments I shall transcribe a passage out of Justin Martyr giving the account of it to Antoninus Pius in his oration to him and it will serve in stead of many for it tells the religion of the Christians in this mystery and gives a full account of all the ceremony 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. When the prayers are done then is brought to the President of the brethren the Priest the bread and the Chalice of wine mingled with water which being received he gives praise and glory to the Father of all things and presents them in the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit and largely gives thankes that he hath been pleased to
give us these gifts and when he hath finished the prayers and thanksgiving all the people that is present with a joyfull acclamation say Amen Which when it is done by the Presidents and people those which amongst us are called Deacons and Ministers distribute to every one that is present that they may partake of him in whom the thanks were presented the Eucharist bread wine and water and may beare it to the absent Moreover this nourishment is by us called the Eucharist which it is lawfull for none to partake but to him who beleeves our doctrine true and is washed in the Laver for the remission of sins and regeneration and that lives so as Christ delivered For we doe not take it as common bread common drink but as by the word of God Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world was made flesh and for our salvation sake had flesh and bloud after the same manner also we are taught that this nourishment in which by the prayers of his word which is from him the food in which thanks are given or the consecrated food by which our flesh bloud by mutation or change are nourished is the flesh bloud of the incarnate Jesus For the Apostles in their commentaries which they wrote which are called the Gospells so delivered that Jesus commanded For when he had given thanks and taken bread he said Doe this in remembrance of me This is my body And likewise taking the Chalice and having given thanks he said This is my bloud and that he gave it to them alone This one testimony I reckon as sufficient who please to see more may observe the tradition full testified and intire in Ignatius Clemens Romanus or who ever wrote the Apostolicall constitutions in his name Tertullian S. Cyprian S. Athanasius Epiphanius S. Basil S. Chrysostome almost every where S. Hierome S. Augustine and indeed we cannot look in vain into any of the old writers The summe of whose doctrine in this particular I shall represent in the words of the most ancient of them S. Ignatius saying that he is worse then an infidell that offers to officiate about the holy Altar unlesse he be a Bishop or a Priest And certainly he could upon no pretence have challenged the Appellative of Christian who had dared either himselfe to invade the holy rites within the Cancels or had denyed the power of celebrating this dreadfull mystery to belong onely to sacerdotall ministration For either it is said to be but common bread and wine and then if that were true indeed any body may minister it but then they that say so are blasphemous they count the bloud of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Paul calls it in imitation of the words of institution The bloud of the Covenant or new Testament a profane or common thing they discerne not the Lords body they know not that the bread that is broken is the communication of Christs body But if it be a holy separate or divine and mysterious thing who can make it ministerially I mean and consecrate or sublime it from common and ordinary bread but a consecrate separate and sublimed person It is to be done either by a naturall power or by a supernaturall A naturall cannot hallow a thing in order to God and they onely have a supernaturall who have derived it from God in order to this ministration who can show that they are taken up into the lot of that Deacon-ship which is the type and representment of that excellent ministery of the true Tabernacle where Jesus himselfe does the same thing in a higher and a more excellent manner This is the great secret of the kingdome to which in the Primitive Church many who yet had given up their names to Christ by designation or solemnity were not admitted so much as to the participation as the Catechumens the Audientes the Poenitentes Neophytes and Children and the ministery of it was not onely reserved for sacred persons but also performed with so much mysterious secrecy that many were not permitted so much as to see This is that rite in which the Priest intercedes for and blesses the people offering in their behalfe not onely their prayers but applying the sacrifice of Christ to their prayers and representing them with glorious advantages and tithes of acceptation which because it was so excellent celestiall sacred mysticall and supernaturall it raised up the persons too that the ministeriall Priesthood in the Church might according to the nature of all great imployments passe an excellency and a value upon the ministers And therefore according to the naturall reason of religion and the devotion of all the world the Christians because they had the greatest reason so to doe did honour their Clergy with the greatest veneration and esteem It is without a Metaphor regale sacerdotium a royall Priesthood so S. Peter which although it be spoken in generall of the Christian Church and in an improper large sense is verified of the people yet it is so to be expounded as that parallel place of the books of Moses from whence the expression is borrowed Yee shall be a kingdome of Priests and an Holy Nation which plainly by the sense and Analogy of the Mosaick law signifies a nation blessed by God with rites and ceremonies of a separate religion a kingdome in which Priests are appointed by God a kingdome in which nothing is more honourable then the Priesthood for it is certain the nation was famous in all the world for an honorable Priesthood and yet the people were not Priests in any sense but of a violent Metaphor And therefore the Christian ministery having greater privileges and being honoured with attrectation of the body and bloud of Christ and offices serving to a better Covenant may with greater argument be accounted excellent honorable and royall and all the Church be called a royall Priesthood the denomination being given to the whole from the most excellent part because they altogether make one body under Christ the head the medium of the union being the Priests the collectors of the Church and instrument of adunation and reddendo singula singulis dividing to each his portion of the expression the people is a peculiar people the Clergy a holy Priesthood and all in conjunction and for severall excellencies a chosen Nation so that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Priesthood of the kingdome that is the ministery of the Gospell for in the new Testament the kingdome signifies the Gospell and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kingly is of or belonging to the Gospell for therefore it is observable it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not well rendred by the vulgar Latine regale sacerdotium as if Kingly were the Appellative or Epithete of this Priesthood it
something which others have not or if he be onely imployed in praying and presenting sacrifices of beasts for the people yet that such a person should be admitted to a neerer addresse and in behalf of the people must depend upon Gods acceptation and therefore upon divine constitution for there can be no reason given in the nature of the thing why God will accept the intermediation of one man for many or why this man more then another who possibly hath no naturall or acquired excellency beyond many of the people except what God himself makes after the constitution of the person If a spirituall power be necessary to the ministration it is certain none can give it but the fountain and the principle of the Spirits emanation Or if the graciousnesse and aptnesse of the person be required that also being arbitrary preternaturall and chosen must derive from the divine election For God cannot be prescribed unto by us whom he shall hear and whom he shall entertain in a more immediate addresse and freer entercourse And this is divinely taught us by the example of the high Priest himself who because he derived all power from his Father and all his gratiousnesse and favour in the office of Priest and Mediator was also personally chosen and sent and took not the honour but as it descended on him from God that the honour and the power the ability and the ministery might derive from the same fountain Christ did not glorisie himself to become high Priest Honour may be deserved by our selves but always comes from others and because no greater honour then to be ordained for men in things pertaining to God every man must say as our blessed High Priest said of himself If I honour my self my honour is nothing it is God that honoureth me For Christ being the fountain of Evangelicall ministery is the measure of our dispensations and the rule of Ecclesiasticall oeconomy and therefore we must not arrogate any power from our selves or from a lesse authority then our Lord and Master did and this is true and necessary in the Gospell rather then in any ministery or Priesthood that ever was because of the collation of so many excellent and supernaturall abilities which derive from Christ upon his Ministers in order to the work of the Gospel And the Apostles understood their duty in this particular as in all things else for when they had received all this power from above they were carefull to consign the truth that although it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a divine grace in a humane ministery and that although 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is He that is ordained by men yet receives his power from God not at all by himself and from no man as from the fountain of his power And this I say the Apostles were carefull to consign in the first instance of Ordination in the case of Mathias Thou Lord shew which of these two thou hast chosen God was the Elector and they the Ministers and this being at the first beginning of Christianity in the very first designation of an ecclesiasticall person was of sufficient influence into the religion for ever after and taught us to derive all clericall power from God and therefore by such means and Ministeries which himself hath appointed but in no hand to be invaded or surprized in the entrance or polluted in the execution This descended in the succession of the Churches doctrine for ever Receive the holy Ghost said Christ to his Apostles when he enabled them with Priestly power and S. Paul to the Bishops of Asia said The holy Ghost hath made you Bishops or Overseers because no mortall man no Angel or Archangell nor any other created power but the Holy Ghost alone hath constituted this order saith S. Chrysostome And this very thing besides the matter of fact and the plain donation of the power by our blessed Saviour is intimated by the words of Christ otherwhere Pray ye therefore the Lord of the vineyard that he will send labourers into his harvest Now his mission is not onely a designing of the persons but enabling them with power because he never commands a work but he gives abilities to its performance and therefore still in every designation of the person by what ever ministery it be done either that ministery is by God constituted to be the ordinary means of conveying the abilities or else God himself ministers the grace immediately It must of necessity come from him some way or other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. James hath adopted it into the family of Evangelicall truths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every perfect gift and therefore every perfecting gift which in the stile of the Church is the gift of Ordination is from above the gifts of perfecting the persons of the Hierarchy and ministery Evangelicall which thing is further intimated by S. Paul Now he which stablisheth us with you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in order to Christ and Christian Religion is God and that his meaning be understood concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of establishing him in the ministery he addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he which anointeth us is God and hath sealed us with an earnest of his Spirit unction and consignation and establishing by the holy Spirit the very stile of the Church for ordination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was said of Christ Him hath the Father sealed that is ordained him the Priest and Prophet of the world and this he plainly spoke as their Apostle and President in religion Not as Lords over your faith but fellow-workers he spake of himself and Timothy concerning whose Ministery in order to them he now gives account 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God anoints the Priest and God consigns him with the holy Ghost that is the Principale quaesitum that is the main question And therefore the Author of the books of Ecclesiasticall hierarchy giving the rationale of the rites of Ordination says that the Priest is made so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of proclaiming and publication of the person signifying That the holy man that consecrates is but the proclaimer of the divine election but not by any humane power or proper grace does he give the perfect gift and consecrate the person And Nazianzen speaking of the rites of ordination hath this expression with which the divine grace is proclaimed And Billius renders it ill by superinvocatur He makes the power of consecration to be declarative which indeed is a lesser expression of a fuller power but it signifies as much as the whole comes to for it must mean God does transmit the grace at or by or in the exteriour ministery and the Minister is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a declarer not by the word of his mouth distinct from the work of
his hand But by the ministery he declares the work of God then wrought in the person suscipient And thus in absolution the Priest declares the act of God pardoning not that he is a Preacher onely of the pardon upon certain conditions but that he is not the principall agent but by his ministery declares and ministers the effect and work of God And this interpretation is clear in the instance of the blessed Sacrament where not onely the Priest but the people doe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 declare the Lords death not by a Homily but by virtue of the mystery which they participate And in the instance of this present question the consecrator does declare the power to descend from God upon the person to be ordained But thus the whole action being but a ministery is a declaration of the effect and grace of Gods vouchsafing and because God does it not immediately and also because such effects are invisible and secret operations God appointing an externall rite and ministery does it that the private working of the Spirit may become as perceived as it can be that is that it may by such rites be declared to all the world what God is doing and that man cannot doe it of himself and besides the reasonablenesse of the thing the very words in the present allegation doe to this very sense expound themselves for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the same thing and expressive of each other the consecrator declares that is he doth not do it by collation of his own grace or power but the grace of God and power from above And this doctrine we read also in S. Cyprian towards the end of his Epistle to Cornelius ut Dominus qui Sacerdotes sibi in ecclesia sua eligere constituere dignatur electos quoque constitutos sua voluntate atque opitulatione tueatur It is a good prayer of ordination that the Lord who vouchsafes to choose and consecrate Priests in his Church would also be pleased by his ayd and grace to defend them whom he hath so chosen and appointed Homo manum imponit Deus largitur gratiam Sacerdos imponit supplicem dextram Deus benedicit potenti dextra saith S. Ambrose man imposes his hand but God gives the grace the Bishop layes on his hand of prayer and God blesses with his hand of power The effect of this discourse is plain the grace and powers that enable men to minister in the mysteries of the Gospel is so wholly from God that whosoever assumes it without Gods warrant and besides his way ministers with a vain sacrilegious and ineffective hand save onely that he disturbs the appointed order and does himself a mischief SECT VII BY this ordination the persons ordained are made ministers of the Gospel stewards of all its mysteries the light the salt of the earth the shepheard of the flock Curates of soules these are their offices or their appellatives which you please for the Clericall ordination is no other but a sanctification of the person in both senses that is 1 a separation of him to do certain mysterious actions of religion which is that sanctification by which Jeremy and S. John the Baptist were sanctified from their mothers wombs 2 It is also a sanctification of the person by the increasing or giving respectively to the capacity of the suscipient such graces as make the person meet to speak to God to pray for the people to handle the mysteries and to have influence upon the cure The first sanctification is a designation of the person which must of necessity be some way or other by God because it is a neerer approach to him a ministery of his graces which without his appointment a man must not cannot any more doe then a messenger can cary pardon to a condemned person which his Prince never sent But this separation of the person is not onely a naming of the man for so farre the separation of the person may be previous to the ordination for so it was in the ordinations of Mathias and the seven Deacons The Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they appointed two before God chose by lot and the whole Church chose the seven Deacons before the Apostles imposed hands but the separation or this first sanctification of the person is a giving him a power to doe such offices which God hath appointed to be done to him and for the people which we may clearly see and understand in the instance of Job and his friends For when God would be intreated in behalfe of Eliphaz and his companions he gave order that Job should make the addresse Goe to my servant he shall pray for you and him will I accept this separation of a person for the offices of advocation is the same thing which I mean by this first sanctification God did it and gave him a power and authority to goe to him and put him into a place of trust and favour about him and made him a minister of the sacrifice which is a power and eminency above the persons for whom he was to sacrifice and a power or grace from God to be in neernesse to him This I suppose to be the great argument for the necessity of separating a certain order of men for ecclesiasticall ministeries And it relies upon these propositions 1. All power of ordination descends from God and he it is who sanctifies and separates the person 2. The Priest by God is separate to be the gracious person to stand between him and the people 3. Hee speaks the word of God and returns the prayers and duty of the people and reconveyes the blessings of God by his prayer and by his ministery So that although every Christian must pray and may be heard yet there is a solemn person appointed to pray in publick and though Gods spirit is given to all that aske it and the promises of the Gospel are verified to all that obey the Gospell of Iesus yet God hath appointed sacraments and solemnities by which the promises and blessings are ministred more solemnly and to greater effects All the ordinary devotions the people may doe alone the solemn rituall and publick the appointed Minister onely must do And if any man shall say because the Priests ministery is by prayer every man can doe it and so no need of him by the same reason he may say also that the Sacraments are unnecessary because the same effect which they produce is also in some degree the reward of a private piety and devotion But the particulars are to be further proved and explicated as they need Now what for illustration of this article I have brought from the instance of Job is true in the ministers of the Gospell with the superaddition of many degrees of eminency But still in the same kind for the power God hath given is indeed mysticall but it is not like a power operating by
way of naturall or proper operation it is not vis but facultas not an inherent quality that issues out actions by way of direct emanation like naturall or acquired habits but it is a grace or favour done to the person and a qualification of him in genere politico he receives a politick publick and solemn capacity to intervene between God and the people and although it were granted that the people could do the externall work or the action of Church ministeries yet they are actions to no purpose they want the life and all the excellency unlesse they be done by such persons whom God hath called to it and by some means of his own hath expressed his purpose to accept them in such ministrations And this explication will easily be verified in all the particulars of the Priests power because all the ministeries of the Gospell are in genere orationis unlesse we except preaching in which God speaks by his servants to the people the minister by his office is an intercessor with God and the word used in Scripture for the Priests officiating signifies his praying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were ministring or doing their Liturgy the work of their supplications and intercession and therefore the Apostles positively included all their whole ministery in these two but we will give our selves to the word of God and to prayer the prayer of consecration the prayer of absolution the prayer of imposition of hands they had nothing else to doe but pray and preach And for this reason it was that the Apostles in a sense neerest to the letter did verifie the precept of our blessed Saviour Pray continually that is in all the offices acts parts and ministeries of a dayly Liturgy This is not to lessen the power but to understand it for the Priests ministery is certainly the instrument of conveying all the blessings of the people which are annexed to the ordinary administration of the Spirit But when all the office of Christs Priesthood in heaven is called intercession for us and himself makes the sacrifice of the Crosse effectuall to the salvation and graces of his Church by his prayer since we are ministers of the same Priesthood can there be a greater glory then to have our ministery like to that of Jesus not operating by virtue of a certain number of syllables but by a holy solemn determined and religious prayer in the severall manners and instances of intercession according to the analogy of all the religions in the world whose most solemn mystery was then most solemn prayer I mean it in the matter of sacrificing which also is true in the most mysterious solemnity of Christianity in the holy Sacrament of the Lords supper which is hallowed and lifted up from the common bread and wine by mysticall prayers and solemn invocations of God And therefore S. Dionysius calls the forms of consecration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prayers of consecration and S. Cyrill in his 3 mystagogique Catechism says the same The Eucharisticall bread after the invocations of the holy Ghost is not any longer common bread but the body of Christ. For although it be necessary that the words which in the Latin Church have been for a long time called the words of consecration which indeed are more properly the words of institution should be repeated in every consecration because the whole action is not completed according to Christs pattern nor the death of Christ so solemnly enunciated without them yet even those words also are part of a mysticall prayer and therefore as they are not onely intended there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of history or narration as Cabasil mistakes so also in the most ancient Liturgies they were not onely read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as a meer narrative but also with the form of an addresse or invocation Fiat hic panis corpus Christi fiat hoc vinum sanguis Christi Let this bread be made the body of Christ c. So it is in S. James his Liturgy S. Clement S. Marks and the Greek Doctors And in the very recitation of the words of institution the people ever used to answer Amen which intimates it to have been a consecration in genere orationis called by S. Paul benediction or the bread of blessing and therefore S. Austin expounding those words of S. Paul Let prayers and supplications and intercessions and giving of thanks be made saith Eligo in his verbis hoc intelligere quod omnis vel pene omnis frequent at ecclesia ut precationes accipiamus dictas quas fecimus in celebratione sacramentorum antequam illud quod est in Domini mensâ accipiat benedici orationes cum benedicitur ad distribuendum comminuitur quam totam orationem pene omnis ecclesia Dominicâ oratione concludit The words and form of consecration he calls by the name of orationes supplications the prayers before the consecration preces and all the whole action oratio and this is according to the stile and practise and sense of the whole Church or very neer the whole And S. Basil saith that there is more necessary to consecration then the words recived by the Apostles and by the Evangelists * The words of invocation in the shewing the bread of the Eucharist and the cup of blessing who of all the Saints have left to us For we are not content with those which the Apostle and the Evangelists mention but both before and after we say other words having great power towards the mystery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we have received by tradition These words set down in Scripture they retained as a part of the mystery cooperating to the solemnity manifesting the signification of the rite the glory of the change the operation of the Spirit the death of Christ and the memory of the sacrifice but this great work which all Christians knew to be done by the holy Ghost the Priest did obtain by prayer and solemn invocation according to the saying of Proclus of C. P. speaking of the tradition of certain prayers used in the mysteries and indited by the Apostles as it was said but especially in S. James his Liturgy By these prayers saith he they expected the coming of the holy Ghost that his divine presence might make the bread and the wine mixt with water to become the body and bloud of our blessed Saviour And S. Justin Martyr very often calls the Eucharist food made sacramentall and eucharisticall by prayer and Origen we eat the bread holy and made the body of Christ by prayer Verbo Dei per obsecrationem sanctificatus bread sanctified by the word of God and by prayer viz. the prayer of consecration prece mystica is S. Austins expression of it Corpus Christi sanguinem dicimus illud tantum quod ex fructibus terrae acceptum pree mystica consecratum ritè sumimus That onely we call the
garments they had it but in imperfection and unactive faculties So saith Theophylact He breathed not now giving to them the perfect gift of the Holy Ghost for that he intended to give at Pentecost but he prepared them for the fuller reception of it They had the gift before but not the perfect consummation of it that was reserved for the great day and because the power of consecration is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or perfection of the Priestly order it was the proper emanation of this days glory then was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the perfection of what power Christ had formerly consigned For of all faculties that is not perfect which produces perfect and excellent actions in a direct line actions of a particular sort but that which produces the actions and enables others to doe so too for then the perfection is inherent not onely formally but virtually and eminently and that 's the crown of habits and naturall faculties Now besides the reasonablenesse of the thing this is also verified by a certainty that will not easily fail us by experience and ex postfacto For as we doe not find the Apostles had before Pentecost a productive power which made them call for a miracle or a speciall providence by lots so we are sure that immediately after Pentecost they had it for they speedily began to put it in execution and it is remarkable that the Apostles did not lay hands upon Mathias he being made Apostle before the descent of the Holy Ghost they had no power to doe it they were not yet made Ministers of the Spirit which because afterwards presently they did concludes fairly that at Pentecost they were amongst other graces made the ordinary Ministers of Ordination This I say is certain that the holy Ghost descending at Pentecost they instantly did officiate in their ministeriall offices they preached they baptized they confirmed and gave the holy Spirit of obsignation and took persons into the Lot of their Ministery doing of it by an externall rite and solemn invocation and now the extraordinary way did cease God was the fountain of the power but man conveyed it by an externall rite And of this Saint Paul who was the onely exception from the common way takes notice calling himself an Apostle not of man nor by man but by Jesus Christ implying that he had a speciall honour done to be chosen an Apostle in an extraordinary way therefore others might be Apostles and yet not so as he was for else his expression had been all one as if one should say Titius the sonne of a man not begotten of an Angell or Spirit nor produced by the Sunne or Starre but begotten by a man of a woman the discourse had been ridiculous for no man is born otherwise and yet he also had something of the ordinary too for in an extraordinary manner he was sent to be ordained in an ordinary ministery And yet because the ordinary ministery was setled Saint Paul was called to an account for so much of it as was extraordinary and was tyed to doe that which every man now is bound to doe that shall pretend a calling extraordinary viz. to give an extraordinary proof of his extraordinary calling which when he had done in the College of Jerusalem the Apostles gave him the right hand of fellowship and approved his vocation which also shews that now the way of Ordination was fixed and declared to be by humane ministery of which I need no other proof but the instances of Ordinations recorded in Scripture and the no instances to the contrary but of Saint Paul whose designation was as immediate as that of the 11 Apostles though his Ordination was not I end this with the saying of Job the Monk Concerning the Order of Priesthood it is supernaturall and unspeakable He that yesterday and the day before was in the form of Ideots and private persons to day by the power of the Holy Ghost and the voice of the chief Priest and laying on of hands receives so great an improvement and alteration that he handles and can consecrate the divine mysteries of the holy Church and becomes under Christ a Mediator Ministeriall between God and man and exalted to hallow himself and sanctifie others The same almost with the words of Gregory Nyssen in his book De sancto baptismate This is the summe of the preceding discourses God is the Consecrator man is the Minister the separation is mysterious and wonderfull the power great and secret the office to stand between God and the people in the ministery of the Evangelicall rites the calling to it ordinary and by a setled Ministery which began after the descent of the holy Ghost in Pentecost This great change was in nothing expressed greater then that Saul upon his Ordination changed his name which Saint Chrysostome observing affirms the same of S. Peter I conclude Differentiam inter ordinem plebem constituit Ecclesiae authoritas honor per ordin is consessum sanctificatus à Deo saith Tertullian The authority of the whole Church of God hath made distinction between the person ordained and the people but the honour and power of it is derived from the sanctification of God It is derived from him but conveyed by an ordinary Ministery of his appointing Whosoever therefore with unsanctified that is with unconsecrated hands shall dare to officiate in the ministerial office separate by God by gifts by graces by publick order by an established rite by the institution of Jesus by the descent of the holy Ghost by the word of God by the practise of the Apostles by the practise of sixteen ages of the Catholick Church by the necessity of the thing by reason by analogy to the discourse of all the wise men that ever were in the world that man like his predecessor Corah brings an unhallowed Censer which shall never send up a right cloud of incense to God but yet that unpermitted and disallowed smoak shall kindle a fire even the wrath of God which shall at least destroy the sacrifice His work shall be consumed and when upon his repentance himself escapes yet it shall be so as by fire that is with danger and losse and shame and trouble For our God is a consuming fire Remember Corah and all his company 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The End The Printer to the Reader THe absence of the Author and his inconvenient distance from London hath occasioned some lesser escapes in the impression of these Sermons and the Discourse annexed The Printer thinks it the best instance of pardon if his Escapes be not layd upon the Author and he hopes they are no greater then an ordinary understanding may amend and a little charity may forgive A Table to both the Volumes of Sermons A. WHo shall be the Accusers of sinners that belong not to life in the great judgement Vol. 1. p. 23 Almes wherein and how far our respects to