in the Flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the World received up into Glory were then all riddle And as our Knowledge now is far clearer than that of God's ancient People was so is our Consolation and Joy also being established on better Promises revealed with more Evidence and embraced with more Firmness and Certitude Death is now swallowed up in victory and hath lost its sting so that our Fears are less as our Hopes are stronger sweeter and more comfortable being now not under the Spirit of Bondage but of Adoption which makes us go boldly to the Throne of Grace The Result of all is this That the Oeconomy of the Spirit followed that of the Father and of the Son That the Holy Ghost was not properly to be styled a Comforter till Christ went up from Earth to Heaven and that if our Lord had remained here below the blessed Comforter would not have come down in that plentifull Effusion of his Gifts and Graces as he did after our Lord's departure which is the Third thing proposed But before I enter upon this subject I shall first take notice of the sender of Him which our Lord says was Himself I will send him unto you Christ had before told his Disciples That He would pray the Father that He would send them another Comforter Joh. 14. 16. v. 26. That the Father would send Him in his Name But chap. 15. 26. as here in the Text He takes it upon Himself to send him I will send Him unto you from the Father And both with Truth For the Father and the Son sent and had an equal share in sending Him He is therefore called The Spirit of the Father Mat. 10. 20. and The Spirit of the Son Gal. 4. 6. For he proceedeth from both From the Father 't is said expresly Joh. 15. 26. and from the Son if not in express terms yet virtually imply'd in that He is said to be the Spirit of Christ as well as of the Father and must therefore come from Him because sent from Him too The only difference being this That the Holy Ghost is sent by the Father as from Him who hath by the Original Communication a right of Mission which denotes only distinction of Order The Father being as the Spring the Son as the Fountain and the Holy Ghost as the Stream flowing from both From whence we may collect two Things 1. That the Holy Ghost is a real distinct Person from the Father and the Son in as much as He is sent by them For how can He be the same with them that send Him If he proceed from the Father he must be distinct in subsistence and if his Coming depended on the Son 's going away and sending Him after he was gone He cannot be the Son who therefore departed that He might send Him 2. It follows hence That the Holy Ghost is equal to the Father and the Son For whatsoever proceedeth from God must be God whatsoever partakes of his Essence must be equal with Him And surely if the Son have the same right of Mission with the Father as we learn from the Text he must be acknowledged to have the same Essence with him too And had not the Holy Ghost been Equal with the Son as with the Father how could He have supplied his Place Or what Expediency could there have been in the Holy Spirit 's coming when being less than Christ he could have never been able to doe as much as Christ did and so the exchange must needs have been to the Apostle's loss and not as Christ himself had told them it should prove to their benefit and advantage St. Augustine's Prayer then was not impertinent Domine da mihi alium Te alioqui non dimittam Te Give me Lord another as good as thy self or I will never leave Thee nor ever consent that Thou shouldst leave me Nor is it any diminution to the Deity of the Holy Ghost that He is said here to be sent by the Son These Expressions To be sent or To come and the like being not Expressions of disparagement For He was so sent as to come too and to come of his own accord His coming being free and voluntary He came in no servile manner but as a Lord as a friend from a friend in a Letter the very Mind of him that sent it which shews an agreement indeed and concord with Him that sent him but implies no Inferiority nor any the least degree of Subjection 'T is the Spirits honour to be sent to be a Leader and though sent He be yet is He as free an Agent as He that sent him Tertullian calls Him Christi Vicarium Christ's Vicar on Earth But if that argued any inequality in the Spirit it might as well in the Son too who is styled in Scripture the Angel and Messenger of God and is said to go about his Father's business that sent Him But to leave this Argument as more proper to convince a Macedonian Heretick than needfull for any true Believer I shall proceed to the third Thing namely The time when the Holy Ghost was to be sent and that was after our Lord's departure If I depart I will send him unto you But what necessity was there may some say of Christ's departing in order to the Spirit 's Coming Might He not have tarried here and the Spirit have come for all that Was the stay of the one any lett or hinderance to the coming of the other Or might not Christ have sent for as well as go away himself to send him To this I say 1. That it was decreed from all Eternity That God the Father should draw us to his Son Joh. 6. 44. 2dly That God the Son should instruct us chap. 17. 6 8. And 3dly That God the Holy Ghost should assist and establish us in all Truth And so the whole Work of our Redemption should be ascribed to the Father as electing To the Son as consummating and to the Holy Ghost as applying it God the Father had done his part God the Son was at this instant doing his too It remained only that the Comforter should come to perfect both which could not be till the Son had performed his Task here on Earth and should go away to Heaven For the Acts of the Holy Ghost pre-suppose those of a Redeemer 'T is the part of that Blessed Spirit to inflame our Souls with the Love of God but in order to this effect 't is absolutely necessary that the Redeemer should first appease God Our first Parent was not able to endure the terror of the voice of his provoked Majesty but was forc'd to hide his head And what is each Sinner but as Flax before the consuming fire of his Justice Till our Redeemer then had disarm'd that Justice till he had made men's Peace and Reconciliation the Holy Ghost could not excite any motions of Love in them
design and management thereof did at his Examination confess That his principal motive to this villanous attempt was an Excommunication thundred out at first by Pius Quintus against Queen Elizabeth and kept still on foot by Sixtus Quintus which sticking on King James oblig'd him in conscience to attempt the murthering of his Sovereign in obedience to that Bull. And how did he excuse that Fact Was it not by his pious intention to promote God's glory and the good of the Catholick Church A fit cover for such a foul fact but commonly made use of by such as himself was in justification of the like wicked practices St. Paul we see hath expresly doom'd all those that doe so to no less than eternal Damnation But those men and he are not agreed in this point For should his doctrine be good what would then become of all their Piae Fraudes Feigned Legends and Miracles Indices Expurgatorii Equivocations and mental Reservations Allowance of common Stews for the preventing unnatural Lusts that is of one Sin to hinder another For which and the like the Catholick defence is the Catholick cause and men's pious Intentions which in case they should prove never so faulty yet a little rectifying of them will rectifie all that is amiss in them A piece of spiritual Chymistry this of late Invention which can extract the finest gold out of the basest metal to guild over all the Villanies which the heart of man can devise or his hand execute I know not whether any can really think that by such vile artifices they can doe God any service But I am apt to believe that they rather think to doe themselves one and that 't is the same humane policy not to give it a worse name and not Religion that acts such men which did these persons in the Text. But if any men do in good earnest think they doe God any service thereby It is such a one as our Lord Himself here flatly tells them neither his Father nor He will ever thank them for But since it will be in vain for me to tell them so who will not take Christ's own word for it I shall turn my discourse to you who now hear me and for the preventing any such dangerous errour in you leave some few Rules of caution and direction with you and so conclude 1. And the first shall be concerning your Zeal That you be as carefull and industrious to employ it in a good as some do theirs in a bad cause but with this proviso That your Zeal be a right and well-temper'd one A right one it will be if it be alway in a good thing And well-temper'd if it be according to knowledge Rom. 10. 2. St. Paul's rules both If your Zeal be not in a good thing it will doe the same mischief that fire does out of its proper place the hearth And if it have not light to see its way by it will prove very dangerous company in the dark and lead you into bogs and precipices There is nothing so pernicious to man as a blind frantick zeal which instead of eating them up who are possess'd with it eates up God's people as if they were bread Nor is there any thing so injurious to God it being common for people in their indiscreet and furious zeal for God to run farthest from Him and either to break the two Tables of his Law with Moses or at least to dash them one against the other And can we think they should ever doe God service who know not what they doe themselves May not he say to such Zealots what King Achish did of David 1 Sam. 21. 15. Have I need of mad men And does not too much ignorant zeal much more than too much learning make men so Surely there is no madness to the religious one which like the Devil in the possessed man in the Gospel casts them sometimes into the fire and sometimes into the water that is into contrary excesses and extravagances scattering mischief where-ever it goes turning the World into a Chaos and the Church into an Acheldama while Melancholy is made the seat of Religion by some and Frenzy by others what can follow thence but confusion And therefore we ought to have a special care that our Zeal be guided by knowledge and discretion lest we over-shoot our selves with these men here and when we put Christ's servants out of our Synagogues and kill them too into the bargain we become so foolish as with them also to think we shall thereby doe God service 2. Our next caution must be that we be well assured of the soundness of the Principles we act by What a dangerous thing it is to be herein mistaken our Saviour tells us Matt. 6. 23. If the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness that is If thy mind and conscience be defiled if thy Judgment be corrupt how great and dangerous will those mistakes prove that mislead thee For the farther thou shalt go on in thy wrong way the more shalt thou be out of the right one And when thou art once out it will be impossible for thee to get into it again so long as those false Guides which are as so many Satans standing at thy right-hand still prompting and tempting thee to evil shall remain in thee He that commits a sin by principles hath nothing to retrieve him from his errour while he retains such principles and as long as he is under the power and guidance of ill ones they will not only dangerously expose but highly encourage him to evil by turning the greatest crimes into merit and making him hope to gain Heaven by such practices as directly lead him to Hell The Physicians maxime That an error in the first concoction is never to be mended holds as true in Religion as in Nature And therefore it highly concerns us that our first choice here be right lest we set out amiss and offend God most even there where we think most to please Him 3. The last Use I shall draw from my Text is an Use of Direction or Tryal how to judge of the Truth and Goodness of a Religion and that is by the Mildness and Harmlesness thereof This is the proper Chraracter of true Christian Religion It has all of the Dove and nothing of the Vulture in it That which breathes nothing but Curses and Slaughters to be sure is not of God the Father nor of His Son I think there is no true Member of our Church that understands his Religion well and the nature of it but would be willing to submit it to this Test But I can scarce believe that they who talk so much of the Cruelty of ours would be content to put the Truth of their Religion upon this issue We need but compare Q. Mary and Queen Elizabeth's Reigns to see which of the two Religions they were of was the mildest No fire and faggot to be
the work of Man's Redemption which could not have been perform'd but in such a Body as his own nor could the Seed of the Woman be said to bruise the Serpent's head had not Christ been conceived of that Seed nor the Promise renew'd to Abraham Gen. 22. 18. In thy seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed have been made good had not the Mother of our Lord descended from his loins too And surely well may she be call'd Blessed without whom we could never have been so since 't was she that furnish'd those Materials that repair'd our ruines from whose Bloud also flow'd that most pretious One which alone can cleanse and redeem us Our Mother Eve could brag when she had brought forth her first-begotten and he but an untoward Child for St. John tells us he was of that wicked one the Devil 1 John 3. 12. as all other Reprobates are there said to be vers 10. I have gotten a Man from the Lord Gen. 4. 1. i. e. as some interpret the words That famous Man the Lord fancying Cain to be that Seed of the Woman that should bruise the Serpent's head But how truly may each of us now say Possedi Deum per Virginem I have gotten the Lord my Redeemer by the means of a pure Virgin of whom my Saviour was made Man that I might be made the Son of God How much better may the Virgin Mary deserve the name of the Mother of all the Living than Eve did Gen. 3. 20. who at best convey'd unto us but a Natural whereas the former a Spiritual life in giving us Him who is the Life so far was Eve from being Mater Viventium in this sense that she brought forth all her Posterity still-born into the World dead in trespasses and sins She indeed hearkned to the Suggestions of an evil Spirit but the Holy Virgin to the Message of a good one If she were the Mother of the Living then this of the Predestinate and if by the former Satan bruised our heel by this Anti-Eve we crush his head being instated in a better condition than we had forfeited Now if they who were the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Benefactors to Mankind were thought worthy of divine Honours the first occasion of Idolatry there being nothing that renders a person more like God than to doe good especially to oblige all Manking nothing that could raise such Persons so high in the Esteem of Mortals as such a large and comprehensive Goodness surely none came so near the Almighty in this so divine a quality as the Holy Virgin did by whose means not only the Inhabitants of the Earth but in some sort too those of Heaven became certainly and immutably Blessed confirm'd in such a state of happiness by her Son as they are uncapable of losing And therefore well might the Angel pronounce her Blessed who with the rest of his Order were so much obliged by her And surely all generations of Men much more who in part owe unto her their recovery and those hopes they have of being one day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alike Blessed with them and if St. Paul was Blessed in being a chosen Vessel to bear Christ's name then the Holy Virgin much more by conveying a humane Nature to him who alone makes us partakers of the divine one All these advantages had the Mother of God glorious indeed but not the chiefest part of her happiness nor was she to value her self for her relation purely considered in its self Yea rather Blessed are they says our Lord who hear the Word of God and keep it Whereby it appears how little he set by any carnal propinquity and how much nearer and dearer to him the Righteous are than his own bloud not that he did in the least despise his Parents for his own Example preaches Subjection to them Luke 2. 51. but only preferr Spiritual kindred to Carnal as he often does letting us know That to doe the will of his Father which is in Heaven is to be his Brother Sister and Mother Matth. 12. 50. That true Christian Heraldry is founded in Grace and not in Bloud That to be joined unto him in one Spirit is a closer Union than to be united to him in the flesh and to be obedient to his Commands far more advantageous than to relate to his Person Nay so little would our Lord have us too to prize such outward things as these that unless in some cases we hate Father and Mother Wife and Children Brethren and our selves too he plainly tells us we cannot be his Disciples Luke 14. 26. And for this reason Moses blessed Levi Deut. 33. 9. Who said unto his Father and to his Mother I have not seen him neither did he acknowledge his Brethren nor knew his own Children but observed God's Word and kept his Covenant This is certain that all outward favours and privileges how pompous soever in themselves are wholly insignificant and ineffectual without the grace of Obedience being at best but gratioe gratis datoe non gratum facientes rather ornaments than benefits which as we are not thanklesly to over-slip so neither presumptuously to over-ween See how little account St. Paul makes of them 2 Cor. 5. 16. Though we have known Christ after the flesh have familiarly convers'd with him been eye-witnesses of all those glorious things he did as his Apostles yet now henceforth know we him no more we disclaim all such carnal acquaintance and if we should know Christ no better he would not know us nor own us for his we might be nearly related to him and yet be far enough from him and without him for so 't is expresly recorded of some of his Brethren that they did not believe in him Joh. 7. 5. So far were they from looking upon him as their Saviour that they took him for no better than a mad-man one besides himself Mark 3. 21. though in process of time some of them indeed became his disciples and no doubt of Christ's Genealogy not a few were eternally lost The Jews much prided themselves in being Abraham's sons and yet one of them that calls himself so fryes in Hell What did it avail Saul to be a Prophet or Judas an Apostle when such privileges serv'd them for no other purpose but to enhanse their damnation We reade not of any dignified with more glorious Prerogatives than these two the Blessed Virgin and St. John the Evangelist the one for bearing our Saviour in her Womb and the other for leaning on his Breast yet how little had these things benefited them had not Faith and Piety seasoned such outward privileges and made them as gracious as they were glorious Happier Mary for bearing Christ's Sayings in her Heart than Himself in her Womb in that she partook of the Merit than imparted the Matter and Substance of his bloud 'T was not so much the loveliness of her Motherhood as the lowliness of her Handmaidship that He regarded
two things when I shall have briefly spoken to I shall then in the close endeavour 1. To shew you how the Holy Virgin was in this latter respect Blessed above all her Sex anointed like her Son with the Oyl of Gladness above her fellows in being as much the Mother of God and as properly in a Spiritual as ever she was in a Carnal sense 2. And secondly to stir you up to an imitation of those her Vertues and Perfections which as they entitled her to this more divine and blessed Relation will us too proportionably as they shall be found in every one of us The first thing that offers its self here is the Woman's Testimony allow'd by Christ That she that bare him was Blessed and for that very reason too In the time of the Law 't was accounted a great Blessing to be a Mother in Israel Barrenness being then as infamous as Fruitfulness was honourable To have still preserv'd their Virginity was in most people's conceit as bad as to have betray'd it insomuch that some have more bitterly lamented that than their untimely death or which is more their sins The reason which the Jewish Doctors give us of this strange passion was Because the Messiah being to come every one that was not barren might hope to be that person that should have the honour to bring him into the World And as all the Daughters of Israel were most ambitious of it so about the time Christ came in the flesh the expectation of the Messiah's Revelation was very high and pregnant Whether this Woman in the Text took our Lord for the true Messiah that great Prophet that should come into the World which yet 't is not improbable she might guess him to be by the visible power of his Miracles and which was as admirable the force of his persuasions is altogether uncertain But this is certain that she lookt upon him as an extraordinary person sent from God and as such one that might justly ennoble his Parents and Relations This as it was a great Truth so 't was not all and our Saviour did not only here allow this Woman's Testimony for good but farther improve it by expresly revealing Himself to be the Messiah which is called Christ Joh. 4. 25 the Holy One of Israel and the glory of its People a Monarch but a spiritual one to whose Sceptre all Nations and Souls should bow such a King as had Heaven for his Throne and the Earth for his Footstool That the Desire of Nations was now come so long before promised by God foretold by the Prophets expected by the Patriarchs infinitely wisht by all just Men with a desire equal to their necessities And to be the Mother of such a Prince as this to inclose Him in her bowels whom the Heaven of Heavens could not encircle to be the Mother of God Deipara A Title bestow'd on the Blessed Virgin by a General Council and which we may safely allow her This was more than to have descended from the Loins of the Kings of Judah or the most glorious Monarchs of the Earth An honour which the greatest Queens thereof would willingly have purchas'd even with the loss of their temporal Diadems A thing which never happened but once and can never any more unless a Saviour could again be born so that there can never any more be such a Mother because never again such a Son We reade Gen. 5. 2. that the Sons of God joined themselves to the Daughters of Men but that God himself should vouchsafe a poor Virgin that honour he is pleas'd to bestow upon his Church to call her his Spouse the great Creator He by whom all things were made and do consist not disdain to be made the Son of his own Creature and own himself as it were beholding to that Creature for something which he that has all things had not a garment of flesh such a garment as he can no more put off now than He can his Godhead for quod semel assampsit nunquam dimisit This I say was a strange Condescension in the Almighty and a peculiar honour done to the Holy Virgin who was cull'd out for this purpose from the rest of Women and may therefore very well be styl'd Blessed among yea and above them the top and glory of her Sex as in whom the whole Trinity now met to consult not as at the Creation to make Man but Deum-Hominem to unite God and Man in one Person of the Word so that as the Father bespeaks the Son Psal. 2. 7. Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee The Blessed Virgin might to her immortal honour say too This day have I conceived thee Nor was this all To be such a Mother was indeed a high Privilege but to be a Mother and yet still a Virgin wonderfull as that Son she brings forth This had the Prophet Esay long before foretold ch 7. 14. Behold a Virgin shall conceive But the Prophet Jeremy not content with that gives it out for a strange and unheard-of thing and so indeed it was more strange than Christ's coming into the house the doors being shut Joh. 20. 26. The Lord says he ch 31. 22. hath created a new thing in the Earth a Woman shall compass a Man i. e. A Virgin still continuing such otherwise sure it were no new thing shall in her Womb inclose a Man child and such a Man as the same Prophet styles Immanuel God with us chap. 8. 8. and chap. 9. 6. The mighty God the everlasting Father the Prince of Peace enough to silence the incredulous blaspheming Jew so that these two Glories like the two Luminaries of Heaven met in the Mother of our Lord which never happened to any before nor shall ever hereafter that of a Mother and of a Virgin the Fruitfulness of the one and the Purity of the other But these things as they were the Holy Virgin 's Privileges and in some sort her Happiness too so there was something that render'd her yet more blessed by being a Blessing to us in conveying to us the greatest good that ever could happen to Men. For as her Son is the Fountain of those living streams which refresh the Sons of Men so was this Mother the golden Pipe to derive them to them 'T is of his fulness we all receive but by her The promise of our Redemption as it was as old as our Fall Gen. 3. 15. The seed of the Woman shall bruise the Serpent's head so was it literally fulfilled in this Woman of whom St. Paul says Christ was made Gal. 4. 4. i. e. from whom He took the matter of that Body wherein He wrought out our Redemption the full import of St. Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and St. John's too Joh. 1. 14. For however the Anabaptist dream of a Body fram'd in Heaven which pass'd through the Holy Virgin as water through a Conduit-pipe yet cannot this fancy possibly consist with
remembrance again Joh. 14. 26. He admonisheth and directeth us his Clients how to order and solicit our own business what Evidences to produce how to manage and plead them making up our failings by his Wisdom and not only so but as the word Paraclete here imports he intercedeth also with God for us not in such a manner as Christ is said to doe whom St. John also calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Advocate with the Father 1 Joh. 2. 1. For as much as that Bloud which He shed for us on the Cross speaks for us better things than that of Abel and continually pleads our Pardon before the Tribunal of God but the Holy Ghost is said to make intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered because he stirreth us up to Prayer prompting and teaching us also how to pray as we ought to doe in all our Necessities So that as Christ is the first Advocate by working our Reconciliation with God so is the Spirit our other or second one by testifying and applying the same unto our Souls 2dly He is our Advocate not only in respect of God but of Men too by maintaining our Cause against the World against Tyrants and Persecutors 1. Against the World as oft as it accuseth us by false and slanderous Calumniators laying to our charge things we never did The Spirit in this case maketh us not only plead our Innocency but rejoyce in the Reproaches of Christ count our selves happy in this that it is not such low marks as we are which the malice of the World aimeth at but the Spirit of glory and of God which resteth upon us who is on their part evil spoken of 1 Pet. 4. 14. 2dly Against Tyrants and Persecutors Whence it is that our Saviour Mat. 10. 19. bids his Disciples not be concern'd what they should speak when they should be delivered up to Men because it should be given them in that same hour what they should speak And he adds vers 20. It is not ye that speak but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you And we know how that God in all Ages did by the mouths of Infants maintain his Truths to the shame and confusion of Tyrants who endeavour'd to suppress them But here it may be objected Was not the Holy Ghost given to the Jewish Church before the coming of Christ Did He not comfort and support them under a long and tedious expectation of his appearance Was He not then a Teacher of the Faithfull and when that Cloud of Witnesses suffered for the Cause of the God of Jacob when they were sawn in pieces and stoned was not the Holy Ghost their Advocate as well as the Martyrs under the Gospel Did He not speak by the Mouth of Daniel when cast to the Lions and of the three Children who chanted out the Praises of God in the midst of the flames of the firey furnace How then does our Lord say here If I go not away the Comforter will not come to you since so many Ages before He was come and as a Comforter too For Resolution hereof we are to observe That although the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity be equally the Principles of all those Acts they produce without according to the received Maxim of the Schools yet with a considerable difference in relation to those three distinct Oeconomies or Dispensations towards the Church That of the Father lasted till the Coming of Christ in the Flesh yet so as that in that space of time 't is generally believed that the Son of God did sometimes appear as to Abraham Jacob and Joshua being a kind of Essay or Prelude to his Incarnation and the Holy Ghost did then also impart some degree of Efficacy to the Faithfull However This is properly to be reckoned the Oeconomy of the Father The second was That of the Son from his Incarnation to his Ascension yet so as that the Father made his voice to be heard at Jordan and Mount Tabor This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased hear ye Him As at another time in the Audience of the People Joh. 12. 28. I have both glorified it and will glorifie it again Then also did the Holy Ghost appear in the form of a Dove yet still this is to be accounted the Oeconomy of the Son That of the Holy Spirit commenced from his Descent upon the Apostles and shall last unto the end of all things Differing herein from the other two That in the two first Dispensations Men's senses were usually affected with some extraordinary miraculous and sensible Objects God the Father shewing himself in a Cloud and Pillar of Fire giving out his Oracles from between the Cherubins consuming the burnt-offerings with Fire from Heaven and filling the Sanctuary with his Glory And the Son of God conversing so familiarly with Men that it made St. John say That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life declare we unto you Whereas I say All was as it were visible and palpable here 'T was far otherwise in the Dispensation of the Spirit The Heavens were not seen to part nor was God's terrible Voice heard in the Air no Shechinah no Glory or sensible Mark of the Presence of the living God in his Temple For which reason the third Person in the Trinity has the Special Name of Spirit given Him For as He is styled Holy in respect of that Sanctification he worketh in us though that same Title belongs also to the other two Persons as having the same Spiritual Essence yet the Holy Ghost bears the name of Spirit in regard of his altogether Spiritual Dispensation and those Graces he imparts to each faithfull Soul which are Heavenly and Spiritual such as are the Knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven and his inward Vertues and Consolations As for Knowledge it was so weak and imperfect under the Ancient Oeconomy that in respect of that our Lord preferrs the least in the Kingdom of Heaven i. e. the meanest Christian to all the Prophets not excepting the Baptist himself Nor can it be deny'd but that the very first Principles and Rudiments of Christianity do far surpass the highest Attainments of the Law The Jews were under a Cloud and the Doctrine of the Prophets was but as a light shining in a dark place All was then Shadow or rather Night and Moses his Veil was over the Eyes of the whole Nation God made himself known to the Jews as the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob not as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom They had a very wrong Notion looking upon him as the Conqueror of the World such was the very Apostle's fancy of him and that even after his Resurrection Act. 1. The ineffable Mystery of the Trinity that of Godliness which without controversie is great God manifested
of our religious Duties And for this cause ought the Woman to have power on her head because of the Angels says St. Paul 1 Cor. 11. 10. While Zachary and the People were praying he sees an Angel of God who as Gideon's Angel went up in the smoak of the Sacrifice came down in the fragrant smoak of his Incense too Those glorious Spirits are indeed always with us but most in our Devotions They rejoyce to be with us while we are with our God nor will they any longer be with us than while we are with Him while we keep in his ways they will keep us safe if we go out of his Precincts we forfeit their Protection They will certainly leave us when we forsake God and when the Good ones go from us the Evil will come to us as in Saul's case And therefore to prevent the coming of the bad let us be sure to make the good ones our friends which we shall best doe by being like them by imitating them in their Obedience as our Saviour bids us in their Purity and Humility as also in their Charity by ministring to others though never so mean as they doe to us who are so much below them that so we may be the true heirs of Salvation be sure of their Protection here and enjoy their Society hereafter Which God of his infinite Mercy grant for his sake who is the Angel of the Covenant c. Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON Preached on All-saints-day COLOS. I. 12. Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light SAint John reflecting on the Honour and Dignity of God's Children is so affected with that very Thought that in a Divine Rapture he breaks forth Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God! 1 Joh. 3. 1. And then describing the future happiness that Relation should entitle us to he does it in such terms as shew it unconceivable ver 2. We are now says he the Sons of God but it doth not yet appear what we shall be In like manner St. Paul speaking of the Joys above describes them Negatively telling us rather what they are not than what they are Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither have entred into the Heart of Man the things which God hath prepared far them that love him 1 Cor. 2. 9. That is they exceed the apprehension not only of humane Sense but Understanding Now if any could have given us an exact description of those things then surely these two Apostles For since Heaven did as it were come down to the one in Visions and Revelations and the other went up thither having been caught up into it Who fitter than these Persons to display the Glories of that Place which themselves had seen And yet we see the only account they give or indeed could give us of them is but this That they are unaccountable not to be reacht by Thought nor to be known but by Enjoyment But how obscure soever or inexpressible those Glories appear to such as expect them This is certain that they are reserved and laid up in a sure place for as many as God shall account worthy of them An Estate they have in Reversion though now incapable of its actual Possession during their minority They are Heirs apparent of Salvation even in this their nonage and are as sure of Heaven as if they were already in it For it is their certain Inheritance Yet lest any should wax proud of their Title they are to remember that they owe it not to themselves but to the mere goodness of their Heavenly Father who both gives them the thing it self and their capacity for it Gives them Heaven and makes Heavenly too and therefore may justly challenge their most hearty acknowledgment of so great a Mercy which is that the Apostle requires of these Colossians That they should give thanks to the Father who had made them meet to be partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in light So that we have in these words 1. A Description of the future Happiness of God's Children consisting of two Particulars 1. That it is their Inheritance 2. An Inheritance in light 2. The Persons who are the true Heirs and Proprietaries thereof The Saints 3. The Manner of its Conveyance to them and that is by Free-gift It descends not to them by any natural succession nor is it the fruit of their own pains or purchase But 't is God the Father that makes them both Partakers and meet Partakers thereof 4. Lastly Here is a Duty on their part to be performed arising from so high an Obligation That since the Father had been so bountifull in bestowing on them so goodly an Inheritance they should not fail to be thankfull to Him for it Giving thanks c. These be the Parts whereof briefly in their order And first of the Inheritance it self with the Nature and Condition thereof An Inhertaince in light An Inheritance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Singular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is it seems but one common Inheritance as but one common Salvation wherein all God's Saints are Heirs in solidum And let not this trouble any of them For Heaven is big enough and God sufficient for All. There not the Elder Brother is the only Heir and goes away with the Inheritance when many times the younger are Beggars but we shall All be Heirs and Co-heirs with Christ. Earthly Inheritances are indeed impaired and lessened by being parcelled out But this Inheritance in light like light loseth nothing by being communicated to All wherein every one shall have his Part and that Part shall be his All. Each vessel of honour shall be filled up it shall have as much as it can hold and that is as much as it shall desire All shall shine as stars in the Kingdom of their Father though with different lustre As one star differeth from another star in glory 1 Cor. 15. 41. Joh. 14. 2. All shall be in their Father's house but in several Mansions and with several Portions assigned them Which difference shall be so far from abating that it shall increase their mutual Glory when none shall complain that another hath too much and himself too little when each other's share shall be his own and more his own for being another's so that he shall be glorified in that very glory wherein his fellow Saint shall outshine him and his own Crown for this reason be brighter because his Neighbour's shall be so And as this Inheritance here is but one so is it a durable one That very name speaks a lasting Title What comes thus unto us we look upon as our own and our own for ever And indeed without Propriety and that perpetual all we have or enjoy is nothing We are at best but usu-fructuaries not true Possessors
in the Council of Nice but killing and treading down each other in that of Ephesus What would he have said had he lived to behold those fatal Tragedies which have been acted since on the Theatre of the World upon the score of Men's different persuasions How have they put one another out of their Synaguoges cast them out of their Churches by Excommunications and by worrying them to death turned them out of the World too and so as much as in them lay destroyed peoples Souls as well as their Bodies I dare say that Jews and Heathens put together have not spilt so much Christian bloud as Christians themselves have done For proof whereof I might appeal to Massacres foreign and domestick Croysades Persecutions raised and carried on against Men with the utmost rage and violence merely for not being able to bring their Judgments to the same pitch and level with that of their Persecutors not to mention the bloudy design of this Day which had it taken effect would at once have blown up a Church and a State And all this with the same pretences of holy zeal and pious intentions that Jews and Heathens had and with as equal ignorance too For however they thought hereby to doe God service yet God Himself we see does not think so nor Christ neither who chargeth all such Zealots with utter ignorance both of the Nature of God the Father and of Himself also These things will they doe unto you says He because they have not known the Father nor Me. Which leads me to the second Head of my Discourse to wit Our Lord's Judgment of or rather Sentence of Condemnation past here upon all such persons and their practices They have not known the Father nor Me. I know not what good opinion some may have of Ignorance in matter of Devotion so as to make it the Mother thereof I am sure the Scripture all along makes it the source of all impiety of atheism oppression cruelty and of all that confusion that is in the World Have they no knowledge that they are all such workers of mischief eating up my people as it were bread Psal. 14. 8. It was this Ignorance that crucified Christ Had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory says St. Paul 1 Cor. 2. 8. And he thanks his ignorance for his persecuting and blaspheming 1 Tim. 1. 13. They are the dark places of the earth that are full of the habitations of cruelty Psal. 74. 20. And when men walk on still in darkness all the foundations of the earth are out of course Ps. 82. 5. That is There is nothing then but confusion in the world They proceed from evil to evil because they know not me saith the Lord Jerem. 9. 3. And here we see that Christ Himself chargeth all the cruelty that should be exercised on his Servants upon men's not knowing the Father nor Himself But wherein did this their Ignorance consist It consisted I say in these two Things 1. In that they thought that such violent courses as they took to bring men in to them as their putting them out of their Synagogues and their killing them could be an acceptable Service to God 2. That their pious Intentions Their thinking thereby to doe God service could be able to bear them out and justifie this their way of proceeding 1. I say first That they were grosly mistaken in thinking that those violent courses they took could possibly please God This was their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their First grand mistake For there was nothing in the Divine Law to shew God's approbation of any such thing Nor do we find that the ancient Jews who alone worshipping the true God and being his peculiar People might in that regard have had some colourable pretence to persecute all that were out of God's Covenant as enemies to Him did notwithstanding use any rigorous much less barbarous and cruel ways to compell men to come into their Church The Law indeed required the life of an Apostate to Idolatry whether 't were a single Person or a City Deut. 13. And therefore to prevent the Jews running into Idolatry to which they were so prone Death which was the only proper restraint in that case was put into the Law by God who was Himself then the Supreme Magistrate in that Theocracy against whom it was exact Rebellion and Treason to take another God and therefore was by Him punished with Death But this Law concerned those only who were within the Pale of the Jewish Church nor do we find that any who were without were forcibly compelled to come into it This was wholly left to their own choice and they were suffered to go on in their own way without being obliged to receive the Mosaical Law It was never God's method this to drag men to his Service nor otherwise to work on their understandings than by rational convictions He might have made use of his great Power to confound but he hath always pleaded with men by way of Argument a Way most suitable to the nature of reasonable Creatures and to his own abhorring all manner of cruelty and by his forbearance long-suffering and goodness seeking to lead men to repentance And therefore they who have any other apprehensions of a Divine Being measure Him by their own fierce and inhumane Temper thinking wickedly that he is such a one as themselves and be they who they will They know not the Father Nor do they know the Son neither I say Whosoever employ any violent ways or means to force men's consciences in matter of Religion do not know Christ. Let me not here be mistaken as if I were against all manner of legal compulsion I deny not Magistrates the power of constraining them to outward acts of Justice Honesty and Religion too who are destitute of the inward Vertues such acts falling within their Jurisdiction serving to preserve Civil Societies of whom Magistrates are properly Lords and who do obtain their ends if the outward acts be done There are two Swords among Christians the spiritual and the temporal and both these have their due office and place in the maintenance of Religion But we may not take up Mahomet's Sword or like unto it that is We must not propagate Religion by sanguinary Persecutions nor force consciences so long as men's opinions destroy not faith or morality that they keep them to themselves and do not spread them to the ruine of the established Religion and Government For when they doe so as some Peoples very Religion is treasonable the Treason not the Religion is then punished by the Magistrate But setting a-side this case I say That as all outward compulsion to oblige men to quit their present Persuasion without any rational conviction is directly contrary to the Will of God the Father as I have already shown you so to that of his Son Jesus Christ as will appear upon these three following accounts 1. Because it