in this place when it is said Christ our passover is sacrificed for us So as here is a trope or figure twice told First the lamb is the passover Secondly Christ is that paschal Lamb. You would think this now far-fetched here was a double passing over The Angels passing over the Israelites the Israelites passing out of Egypt both were acts the one of God the other of men as for the lamb it is an animal substance Yet this Lamb represents this passover This is no newes in sacramental speeches The thing signed is usually put for the sign it self My covenant shall be in your flesh that is circumcision the sign of my covenant the rock that followed them was Christ 1 Cor. 10.4 that is Christ was represented by that rock This cup is the new testament So here Christ our passover Gen. 17.13 that is Christ represented by the Paschal-lamb What an infatuation is upon the Romish party that rather then they will admit of any other then a grosse literall capernaiticall sence in the words of our Saviours sacramental supper This is my body will confound Heaven and Earth together and either by a too forceable consequence endeavour to overthrow the truth of Christs humanity or turne him into a monster a wafer a crum a nothing Whenas St. Austin hath told us plainly sacramentaliter intellectum vivificabit Take it in a sacramental sence there is infinite comfort and spiritual life in it As for his body St. Peter hath told us the heavens must contain him till the time of the restitution of all things Acts 3.21 Yea when our Saviour himself hath told us the words that I speak are spirit and life Jo. 6. Now what a marvellous mercy was this of God to Israel thus to passe over them when he slew the first-borne of Egypt There was not an house in all Egypt wherein there was not mourning and lamentation no roof but coverd a suddainly made carcasse what an unlook't for consternation was here in every Egyptian Family Only the Israelites that dwelt amongst them were free to applaud this judgment that was inflicted upon their tyrannous persecutors and for their very cause inflicted for this mercy are they beholden under God to the blood of their Paschal-lamb sprinkled upon their door-posts Surely had they eaten the lamb and not sprinkled the blood they had not escaped the stroak of the destroying Angel This was in figure In reality it is so It is by and from the blood of our redeemer sprinkled upon our souls that we are freed from the vengeance of the Almighty Had not he dyed for us were not the benefit of his precious blood applyed to us we should lye open to all the fearful judgments of God and as to the upshot of all eternall death of body and soul As then the Israelites were never to eat the Paschal-lamb but they were recalled to the memory of that saving preterition of the Angel and Gods merciful deliverance from the fiery furnaces of the Egyptians so neither may we ever behold this sacramental representation of the death of our blessed Saviour but we should bethink our selves of the infinite mercy of our good God in saving us from everlasting death and rescuing us from the power of hell This is the first figure That the Lamb is the Passover The se-second followes That Christ is that Paschal-Lamb Christ then being the end of the Law it is no marvell if all the ceremonies of the Law served to prefigure and set him forth to Gods people but none did so clearly and fully resemble him as this of the paschal Lambe whether we regard 1. the choyce 2. the preparation 3. the eating of it The choice whether in respect of the nature or the quality of it the nature ye know this creature is noted for innocent meek gentle profitable such was Christ our Saviour His fore-runner pointed at him under this stile Behold the Lamb of God what perfect innocence was here No guile found in his mouth Hell it self could finde nothing ro quarrel at in so absolute integrity What admirable meekness He is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so opened be not his mouth Esay 53.7 Doth his own treacherous servant betray him to the death Friend wherefore art thou come Mat. 26.50 Do the cruel tormentors tenter out his pretious limmes and nail his hands and feet to the tree of shame and curse Father forgive them for they know not what they do Oh patience and meeknesse incident into none but an infinite sufferer 2ly The quality Every Lamb would not serve the turne it must be agnus immaculatus A lamb without blemish that must be paschal Exod. 12.5 Neither doth it hinder ought that leave is there given to a promiscuous use either of lamb or kid for the sacramental supper of the passover For that was only allowed in a case of necessity as Theodoret rightly and as learned Junius well in the confusion of that first institution wherein certainly a lamb could not be gotten on the suddain by every Israelitish house-keeper to serve six hundred thousand men and so many there were Exod. 12.37 This liberty then was only for the first turne as divers other of those ceremonious circumstances of the passover were namely the four daies preparation the sprinkling of the blood upon the door-cheeks eating with girded loines and staves in their hands which were not afterward required or practised The lamb then must represent a most holy and perfectly sin-less Saviour could he have been capable of the least sin even in thought he had been so far from ransoming the World that he could not have saved himself Now his exquisite holinesse is such as that by the perfection of his merits he can and doth present his whole Church to himself glorious not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing as holy and without blemish Ephes 5.27 Canst thou therefore accuse thy self for a sinful wretch a soul blemished with many foul imperfections Look up man lo thou hast a Saviour that hath holinesse enough for himself and thee and all the World of beleevers close with him and thou art holy and happy Behold the immaculate lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world thine Therefore if thou canst lay hold on him by a lively faith and make him thine This for the choice the preparation followes so Christ is the paschal lamb in a threefold respect in resemblance of his killing sprinkling his blood and roasting 1. This Lamb to make a true passover must be slain So was there a necessity that our Jesus should dye for us The two Disciples in their walk to Emaus hear this not without a round reproof from the mouth of their risen Saviour Oh fooles and slow of heart to beleeve all that the Prophets have spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory Luc. 24.26 Ought not there is
lesse transmitted to Constantinople Set those aside and what holinesse can Tiber challenge above Rhene or Thames Let fooles be mocked with these fancies but you whom God hath indued with singular judgment and understanding in all things will easily resent the fraud and see that there is no more reason why the English Church should conform in opinion to the Romish were the Doctrines equally indifferent then the Roman Church to the English They are but the several limms of one large and universal body and if in respect of outward order there have been or may be acknowledged a precedency yet in regard of the main substance of truth we cannot admit of any dependance on any Church under Heaven Here that which is the purer from Error and corruption must take the wall maugre all the loud throats of acclaming parasites yea so far must we needs be from pinning our faith upon the sleeve of Rome as that we cannot without violence offered to our own consciences but see and say that there is no particular Church on Earth so branded by the Spirit of God in the Scriptures as Rome In so much as the best abbettors and dearest fautors of that See are glad to plead that Rome is St. Peters and St. Johns Babylon we blesse God for standing on our own feet and those feet of ours stand upon the infallible grounds of the Prophets and Apostles of Primitive Creeds Councels Fathers and therefore we can no more deceive you then they can deceive us The censure that the enemies of our Church cast upon it is not untruth but defect they dare not but grant what we say is true but they blame us for not saying all is true which they say now that which we say was enough to serve those antient Christians which lived before those lately devised additions the refusal whereof is made haynous and deadly to us how safe how happy is this erring Let my soul be with those blessed Martyrs Confessors Fathers Christians which never lived to hear of those new Articles of the new Roman faith and I dare say you will not wish yours any other where there can be no danger in old truths there can be nothing but danger in new obtrusions But I finde how apt my pen is to over-run the bounds of a letter my zeal of your safety carries me into this length the errors into which these seducers would lead you are deadly especially upon a revolt your very ingenuity I hope besides grace will suggest better things to you Hold that which you have that no man take your crown My Soul for yours you go right so sure as there is a heaven this way will lead you thither go on confidently and cheerfully in it let me never be happy if you be not you will pardon my holy importunity which shall be ever seconded with my hearty prayers to the God of truth that he will stablish your heart in that eternal truth of his Gospel which you have received and both work and crown your happy perseverance such shall be the fervent apprecations of Your much devoted Friend Jos Exon. RESOLUTIONS FOR RELIGION WHereas there are many loud quarrels and brabbles about matter of Religion this is my firme and steadfast Resolution wherein I finde peace with God and my own Soul as being undoubtedly certain in it self and holily charitable to others and that in which I constantly purpose God willing as to Live so to Dye 1. I do believe and know that there is but one way to Heaven even the True and Living way Jesus Christ God and Man the Saviour of the World 2. I believe and know that this way however it is a narrow and straight way in respect of the World yet hath much Latitude in it self So as those that truely believe in this Son of God their Saviour though they may be mis-led into many by-pathes of small errors yet by the mercy of God are acknowledged not to be out of the main high way to eternal life 3. I believe and know that the Canonical Scriptures of God are the true and unfailing Rule of our Faith so as whatsoever is therein contain'd is the infallible Truth of God and whatsoever is necessary to be believed to eternal Salvation is therein expresly or by clear and undoubted consequence contein'd and so set forth as it neither needeth farther explication nor admits of any probable Contradiction 4. I believe and know that God hath ever since the creation of Mankinde had a Church upon Earth and so shall have to the end of the World which is a Society or Communion of Faithful men professing his Name against which the gates of Hell shall never be able to prevail for the failing thereof 5. I believe and know that the consenting voice of the successions and present universality of faithful Men in all times and places is worthy of great authority both for our Confirmation in all truths and for our direction in all the circumstantial points of Gods service so as it cannot be opposed or sever'd from without just offence to God 6. I believe and know that besides those necessary truths contain'd in the Holy Scriptures and Seconded by the Consent and Profession of all Gods faithful ones there may be and ever have been certain collateral and not-mainly importing verities wherein it is not unlawful for several particular Churches to maintain their own Tenets and to dissent from other and the several members of those particular Churches are bound so far to tender the common Peace as not to oppose such publiquely received truths 7. I do confidently believe that if all the particular Churches through the whole Christian World should meet together and determine these secondary and unimporting truthes to be believed upon necessity of Salvation and shall enact Damnation to all those which shall deny their assent thereunto they should go beyond the Commission which God hath given them and do an act which God hath never undertaken to warrant Since there can be no new Principles of Christian Religion however there may be an application of some formerly received Divine truthes to some emergent occasions and a clearer explication of some obscure verities 8. I do confidently believe that God hath never confin'd the determination of his will in all questions and matters pertaining to Salvation or whatsoever controversies of Religion to the breast of any one Man or to a particular Church or to a correspondence of some particular Churches so as they shall not possibly err in their Definitions and Decrees 9. I do confidently believe that the Church of Rome comprehending both the head and those her adherents and dependance being but particular Churches have highly offended God in arrogating to themselves the priviledg of infallibility which was never given them and in ordaining new Articles of faith and excluding from the bosome of Gods Church and the Gates of Heaven all those which differ from her in the refusal of her late bred
spirits of his by the title of Angeli lucis Angels of Light not only hath the Son of God God and man justified himself Lux mundi the Light of the World but God absolutely and indistinctâ—y in respect of persons vouchsafeth to make himself known to us by this name That God is Light Hereupon it is that even in this sense the children of God are called the Sons of Light because he is Light whose Sons they are But that of the Athanasian Creed is most pregnant that the eternal Son of God God the Son is God of God Light of Light Neither doth our Apostle here say God is resembled by Light But as our Saviour said of God God is a Spirit so here our Apostle God is Light How then is God Light Far be it from us that according to the stupidity of the Manichees we should take this literally of a sensible and materiall Light that is but a creature though indeed the first and exceeding glorious but yet a creature and therefore infinitely below the purity and perfection of the Creator but sure God would have us by this to be led to the conceit of the transcendent glory of his incomprehensible Deity and would have us when we think of him to be put in mind of admiring an increated immateriall super-intelligible uprightnesse of a glory so much above all spiritual natures as the Light is above the bodily and visible whereupon it is that when the spirit of God by his Apostle describes the habitation of God he doth it in these termes that he dwells in a Light that none can approach unto and when he describes the Heaven of the elect 1 Tim. 6.16 he calls it the inheritance of the Saints in Light so as when that place of blisse and the God whose presence makes it such come into our thoughts Coloss 1.12 we must elevate our thoughts above this dark sphere of mortality and represent unto our selves a glorious lightsomnesse as much above this materiall Light as Light is above Darknesse abandoning that gloomie and base opacity of conceit wherewith our earthly mindes are commonly wont to be over-clouded for surely it is easie and familiar to observe that the higher we go the more Light we shall find In the center of the Earth there is nothing but perfect darknesse nearer the upper region of that great body where any overture is made there is a kind of imperfect twilight In this lower air there is a better Light but mixed with foggs and Vapors In the higher regions there are lesse mists and more clearnesse yet not without some dimness of exhalations In the starry Heavens a purer Light yet not without some eclipses In the empyreall nothing but pure and perfect Light justly therefore are our hearts lift up with our eyes to a contemplation of a Light above those Heavens more pure and excellent then theirs Away then with all dull and darksome imaginations when we addresse our selves to the throne of Grace and let us adore an infinite Spirit dwelling in an unaccessible Light attended with millions of Angels of Light and glorified spirits of his Saints in a Light unspeakable and glorious this shall be the first glimpse of our inlightned understanding when we would comfortably appear before God In which regard I fear many of us Christians are much defective in our holy devotions speaking unto God and thinking of him sullenly and sadly as shut up in some remote and unknown darknesse on the other side of the World or at least without the lively apprehension of that wonderfull radiance of glory wherewith he is invested misconceiving herein of that Deity whom we implore who hath revealed himself unto us by the name of Light And surely as none but an Eagle can look upon the Light of the Sun so none but the confirmed eyes of an illuminated Christian can behold God in this notion of his celestiall splendor which we must so labour to attain unto and settle in our minds as that we should no more think of the blessed Deity without the conceit of an infinite resplendence then we can open our eyes at noon-day without an incurrence and admission of an outward Light But this how ever requisite to be conceived and done is not the main drift of our Apostle who goes not about here so much to make any description of God or prescription of the wayes of our understanding or representation of his glorious presence as to lay the grounds of our holy disposition and pure and Heavenly carriage before him For so is the Light here affirmed of God as the darkness is disavowed of him and both of them are mentioned with an intention of drawing in an exhortation to that purity which we should affect and the avoydance of all the state and works of spirituall darkness which we should abhorre God then is Light as in himself so in relation to us and this predication of Light serves to inferre our conformity to God in this behalf It is not for us therefore to inquire so much into those absolute termes wherein God stands with himself as what he is in pattern unto us Thus is he Light either qualitatively or causatively The Light hath a quality for it matters not to search into the essence of it and indeed it is more then we can do to find it out of clearnesse of purity Of clearness for the use of manifestation Of purity and untaintedness in respect of any mixture of corruption In both these is God Light Causatively in that he is the Authour of all Light communicating it to his Creatures in what kind soever not without reference to the diffusive quality of Light in the illuminating of this vast body and dilating it self to all the World in an instant In these three regards therefore is God Light here 1. Of absolute clearness in his infinite knowledg and wisdom 2. Of exact purity in the perfect rectitude of his will 3. Of gracious diffusion in the communicating of himself to his Creatures and to us in speciall so as to inlighten us with competent knowledg in our understanding and sincere disposition of our will and affections And because God is thus Light all that will claim to partake of him must be in their measure clear in understanding pure in will and affections diffusive of their knowledg and graces to others These three qualities of clearness purity diffusion together with three answerable reflections upon us shall be the matter of our following discourse and challenge your best attention Those things which whether in nature or art are wont to pass for the carriages of Light have in them sometimes at least in respect of our sight some kind of dimness and opacity The candle hath his snuffe the fire his smoke and blackness of indigestion the Moon her spots the very Sun it self his Eclipses Neither is it said that God is lightsome but light it self in the abstract then which nothing can be convinced more
clear and piercing and therefore it is purposely added for the further Emphasis In him is no darkenesse Oh the infinite clearnesse of the Divine knowledg to which all things lye open both past present and to come which doth not only reach in one intuition to all the actions motions events of all Creatures that have been are shall be but which is infinitely more then all these extends to the full comprehension of himself his whole Divine nature and essence to which the World though full of innumerable varieties is lesse then nothing The Sun is a goodly globe of Light The visible World hath nothing so glorious so searching and yet there are many things lye hid within the bosome of the Earth and Sea which his eye never saw never shall see Neither can it ever see more then half the World at once darkness the while enwraps the other nor indeed of any much lesser if round body And though it give light unto other Creatures yet it gives not light to it self like as our eye sees all other objects but it self it cannot see And though it enlighten this materiall Heaven both above and below it self as also this lower Air and Earth yet the Empyreal Heaven transcends the beames of it and is filled with a more glorious illumination But God the Light of whom we speak who is the Maker of that Sun sees the most hidden secrets of Earth and Hell sees all that is done in Earth and Heaven at one view sees his most glorious self and by his presence makes Heaven Most justly therefore is God Light by an eminence Now the reflection of the first quality of Light upon us must be our clear apprehension of God the World and our selves and by how much more exact knowledg we shall attain unto of all these by so much more do we conform our selves to that God who is Light and by how much less we know them so much more darkness there is in us and so much less fellowship have we with God If the eye have not an inward Light in it self let the Sun shine never so bright upon it it is nevertheless blind What are we the better for that which is in God if there be not an inward Light in our Souls to answer and receive it How should we love and adore God if we know him not How shall we hate and combat the World if we know it not How shall we value and demean our selves if we know not our selves Surely the want of this Light of knowledg is the ground of all that miserable disorder which we see daily break forth in the affections in the carriages of men I know the common word is that we are fallen into a knowing age such as wherein our speculative skill is wont to be upbraided to us in a disgracefull comparison of our unanswerable practise our forward young men out-run their years bragg that there is more weight in the down of their chins then in the gray beards of their aged Grandsires Our artificers take upon them to hold argument with and perhaps control their Teachers neither is it any newes for the shop-board to contest with the schooles every not Knight or Rook only but Pawn too can give check to a Bishop The Romish Church had lately her Shee-Preachers till Pope Urban gagg'd them and our Gossips now at home in stead of dresses can tattle of mysteries and censure the Pulpit in stead of neighbours Light call you this No these are fiery flashes of conceit that glance through vain minds to no purpose but idle ostentation and satisfaction of wild humours without stability or any available efficacy to the soul Alas we are wise in impertinencies ignorant in main truths neither doth the knowledg of too many go any deeper then the verge of their brains or the tip of their tongue I fear true solid knowledg is not much less rare then when our unlett'red Grand-fathers were wont to court God Almighty with false Latin in their devotions For did the true Light shine into the hearts of men in the knowledg of God the World themselves how could they how durst they live thus Durst the leud tongues of men rend the holy name of God in peices with oaths and blasphemies if they knew him to be so dreadfull so just as he hath revealed himself Durst the cruell oppressors of the World grind faces and cut throats and shed blood like water if they were perswaded that God is a sure revenger of their outrages Durst the goatish adulterer the swinish drunkard wallow in their beastly uncleannesse if they knew their is a God to judge them an Hell to fry in Durst the rebellious seditionary lift up his hand against the Lords Anointed and that under a colour of religion if the fool had not said in his heart There is no God Could the covetous fool so admire and adore his red and white Earth could the ambitious so dote upon a little vanishing honour as to sacrifice his soul to it if he knew the World could the proud man be so besotted with self-love as that he sees his God in his glass if he knew himself Surely then the true Light is as rare as it is precious and it is as precious as life it self yea as life eternall This is eternall life to know thee and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ What were the World without Light and what the soul without the Light of knowledg We condemne Malefactors to darkness that is one great part of the horrour of their durance Jo. 17. â— and by how much more haynous their crime is so much darker is their dungeon Darkness of understanding then is punishment enough alone as it is also the entry into hell which is described by blackness of darkness None but savage Creatures delight in darkness Man naturally abhorres it in all things If our eyes be dim we call for glasses if our houses be dark we make windows if the evening grow dark we call for lights and if those lights burn dim we call for snuffers and shall we avoid darkness in every thing except our soules which is our better and more Divine part Honourable and beloved as we love and tender those dear soules of ours let us labour to furnish them with the Light of true and saving knowledg What is this Gospell which shines thus daily and clearly in your faces but the Vehiculum lucis the carriage of that heavenly Light to the World Send forth thy Light and thy Truth saith the Psalmist Thy Word is Truth saith our Saviour that word of truth then is the body of that Light which God showes to men Oh let it not shine upon us in vain let us not trample upon the beams of it in our floore as that foolish woman that St. Austin speaks of did to those of the Sun with a Calco Manichorum Deum But now while God gives these happy opportunities let us enlarge our hearts to receive
into what right we have to this holy spirit and to that son-ship of God which in our Baptism we profess to partake of we are all apt upon the least cause to be proud of our parentage There are Nations they say in the world whereof every man challenges gentility and kindred to their King so are we wont to do spiritually to the King of Heaven Every one hath the Spirit of God every one is the son of God It is the main errand we have to do on the Earth to settle our hearts upon just grounds in the truth of this resolution and this text undertakes to do it for us infallibly deciding it that those and none but those that are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God So as we need not now think of climbing up into Heaven to turn the books of Gods eternall Counsell nor linger after Enthusiasmes and Revelations as some fanaticall spirits use to do nor wish for that holy Dove to wisper in our ear with that great Arabian impostour but only look seriously into our own hearts and lives and trie our selves thoroughly by this sure and unfailing rule of our blessed Apostle So many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God let my speech and your attention then be bounded in these three limits Here is First a priviledg To be the Sons of God Secondly a qualification of the priviledged To be led by the Spirit Thirdly an Universall predication of that priviledge upon the persons qualified So many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God I need not crave your attention the importance of the matter challenges it To the first then it is a wonderfull and inexplicable priviledge this To be the Sons of God no marvell if every one be apt to claim The glory of Children are their Fathers Prov. 17.6 How were the Jewes puffed up with that vain gloriation that they were the Sons of Abraham and yet they might have been so and have come from hated Esau or ejected Ismael what is it then to be the Sons of the God of Abraham Ye know what David could say upon the tender of matching into the blood royall seemeth it a small matter to you to be the Son in Law to a King Oh what then is it to be the true born sons to the great King of Heaven The Abassins pride themselves to be derived from that Son whom they say the Queen of Sheba had begotten of her by Solomon when she went to visit him it is enough that it was Princely though base how may we glory to be the true and legitimate issue of the King of glory the great Lord in the Gospell is brought in by our Saviour in his parable to say They will reverence my Son and Amnons wicked kinsman could say to him Why art thou the Kings Son so sad as if the son-ship to a King were a supersedeas to all whatsoever griefe or discontentment Neither is there matter of honour onely in this priveledg but of profit too especially in the case of the Sons of this Heavenly King whose Sons are all heirs as ye have it v. 17. with men indeed it is not so Amongst Gods chosen people the first born carryed away a double portion but in some other Nations and in some parts of ours the Eldest goes away with all as on the contrary others are ruled by the law or custome of Gavell kind and the like institutions where either the youngest inherit or all equally but generally it is here with us contrary to that old word concerning Isaacs twins the lesser serves the greater Johosaphat gave great gifts to his other sons but the Kingdome to the Eldest Jehoram 1 Chron. 21.3 so as the rest were but as subjects to their Eldest Brother in the family of the highest it is not so there are all heires all inherit the blessings the honours as all are partakers of the Divine nature and of every one may be said by way of Regeneration that which was eminently and singularly said by the way of eternall generation of the naturall and coessentiall Son of God Thou art my Son I have begotten thee so all are partakers of those blessings and happy immunities which appertain to their filiation and what are they Surely great beyond the power of expression for first in this name they have a spiritual right to all the creatures of God all things are yours saith the Apostle A spirituall I say not a naturall not a civill right which men have to what they legally possess we must take heed of this errour which makes an Universall confusion where ever it prevailes all these earthly affaires are managed by a civill right which men have whether by descent or lawfull acquisition so as it is not for any man to challenge an interest either ad rem or in re in the goods of another but Gods children have a double claim to all they possess both civill from men and spirituall from God The Earth hath he given to the Sons of men saith the Psalmist and men by just conquest by purchase by gift conveigh it legally to each other Besides which they have a spirituall right for God hath given all things to his Son as Mediatour and in and by him to those that are incorporated into him so as now in this regard every child of God is mundi dominus the Lord of the World as that Father truly said Secondly they have in this name an interest in God himself for what nearer relation can there be then betwixt a father and a son An interest in all his promises in all his mercies in all that he is in all that flowes from him in his remission protection provision Which of us earthly parents if we extinguish not nature in our selves can be wanting in these things to the children of our Loines How much more impossible is it that he who is All love 1 Job 4.16 should be wanting to those that are his by a true regeneration Hence is that enforcement which God useth by his Prophet Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb yea they may forget yet will not I forget thee Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands Esay 59.15 16. Thirdly hence followes an unquestionable right in attendance and Guardianship of the blessed Angels Psal 91.11 They are the little ones whereof our Saviour Matth. 18. the especial charge whom those glorious Spirits are deputed to attend Hebr. 1.14 And oh what an honor is this that we are guarded by creatures more glorious in nature more excellent in place and office then our selves What a comfortable assureance is this that we have these troopes of Heavenly Souldiers pitching their tents about us and ready to save-guard us from the malice of the principalities and powers of darknesse Lastly in this name they have a certain and unfailable
claim to eternal glory For what is that but the inheritance of the Saints Colos 1. Who should have your Lands but your heirs and Lo these are the heirs of God and none but they Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdome prepared for you saith our Saviour Matth. 25.34 Many a one here is borne to a fair estate and is strip't of it whether by the just disherson of his offended Father or else by the power or circumvention of an adversary or by his own mis-government and unthriftiness here is no danger of any of these On our Fathers part none For whom he loves he loves to the end On our Adversaries part none None shall take them out of my hand saith our Saviour The gates of Hell shall not prevaile against his On our part none For whereby can we lavish out our estate but by our sins and he that is borne of God sinneth not sinneth not so as to incurr a forfeit he may so sin as to be frowned on for the time to be chid yea perhaps to be well whipped of his Father not so as to be unsonned or dis-herited For the seed of God remains in him Lo whiles he hath the Divine seed in him he is the Son of God and whiles he is a Son he cannot but be an heir Oh then the comfortable and blessed priviledges of the Sons of God! enough to attract and ravish any heart for who doth not effect the honour of the highest parentage not under Heaven but in it who can be but eagerly ambitious of the title of the Lord of the world so closely yea to be interessed in the great God of Heaven and Earth by an inseparable relation to be attended on by those mighty and majesticall Spirits and lastly to be feoffed in the all-glorious Kingdome of Heaven and immortal crown of glory None of you can be now so dull as not desire to be thus happy and to ask as the blessed Virgin when she was told of her miraculous conception Quomodo fiet istud How shall this be How may I attain to this blessed condition This is a question worth asking Oh the poor and base thoughts of men How may I raise my house how may I settle my estate How may I get a good bargain how may I save or gain how may I be revenged of mine enemy whiles in the mean time we care not to demand what most concerns us which way should I become the child of God But would we know this to which all the World is but trifles surely it is not so hard as useful whose Sons we are by nature we soon know too well It is not enough to say our Father was an Amorite and our Mother an Hittite or to say we are the children of this world Luke 16.8 or a seed of falsehood Esay 57.4 or yet worse the children of the night and darknesse 1 Thess 5.5 worse yet we are filii contumaciae the sons of wilfull disobedience as the original runs Ephes 2.3 and thereby yet worse the sons of wrath Ephes 2.2 and which is the height of all miseries the Sons of death and eternal damnation how then how come we to be the Sons of God It is the Almighty power of Grace that only can make this change A double Grace the Grace of Adoption the Grace of Regeneration Adoption God hath predestinated us to the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ Ephes 1.5 Regeneration So many as received him he gave them this power or right to be made the Sons of God those which are borne not of blood or the lust of the flesh but borne of God John 1.12 13. and that which referrs to both Ye are all the Children of God by faith in Christ Jesus Galat. 3.26 Shortly then if we would be Sons and Daughters of God for the case is one in both the soul hath no sexes and in Christ there is neither male nor female we must see that we be borne again not of water only so we are all sacramentally Regenerated but of the Holy Ghost If any man be in Christ he is a new creature 2 Cor. 5.17 we must not be the men we were and how shall that be effected In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospell saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 4.15 He hath begotten us by the word of Truth Jam. 1.18 This word is that immortal seed whereby we are begotten to God let this word therefore have it's perfect work in us let it renew us in the inner man mortifying all our evill and corrupt affections and raising us up to a new life of Grace and obedience then God will not shame to own us for his and we shall not presume in claiming this glorious title of the Sons of God But if we be still our old selves no changlings at all the same men that we came into the World without defalcation of our corruptions without addition of Grace and Sanctification Surely we must seek us another Father we are not yet the Sons of God But me thinks ere I was aware I am falling to anticipate my discourse and whiles I am teaching how we come to be the Sons of God am showing how we may know that we are so which is the drift of this Scripture in the qualification here mentioned So many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God It is not enough for us my beloved to be the Sons and Daughters of God unlesse we know our selves to be so for certainly he cannot be truely happy that doth not know himself happy How shall we therefore know our selves to be the Sons of God surely there may be many signes and proofes of it besides this mentioned in my Text or rather many specialties under this general As first Every Child of God is like his Father It is not so in carnall Generation we have seen many Children that have not so much as one lineament of their Parents and as contrary to their dispositions as if they had been strangers to their loines and womb In the spiritual son-ship it is not so every Child of God carries the true resemblance of his Heavenly Father as he that hath called you is holy so be ye holy in all manner of conversation Because it is written Be ye holy for I am holy 1 Pet. 1.15 16. Well then my Brethren trie your selves by this rule our Heavenly Father is merciful are we cruel Our Father is righteous in all his wayes are we unjust Our Heavenly Father is slow to anger are we furious upon every sleight occasion Our Heavenly Father abhors all manner of evill do we take pleasure in any kind of wickednesse certainly we have nothing of God in us neither can we claim any kindred with Heaven Secondly every Child that is not utterly degenerate bears a filial love to his Parents answering in some measure that naturall affection which the parent bears towards him we cannot but know that the love of
herein Interpreters differ ut qui maxime For those late writers which have read the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because of the young Men I must needs say they would make a clear sense if we might take their words for the use of any such word in the Greek Tongue which for my part I must confess never to have met with To pass over the improbable guesses of many The words are taken by some in a borrowed sense by some others in a naturall In a borrowed sense by those either who by Angells here understand Gods Ministers or as those that take it for holy men of what ever profession These latter seem not to have any fair warrant for their interpretation since however we find somewhere that the Saints shall be in a condition like to the Angels yet no where do we find them called Angels the former want not good probability for their construction neither is it an unusuall thing with the Spirit of God to call his Ministers by the name of Angels So Malachy 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he is the Angel or Messenger of the Lord and of John the Baptist the same Prophet can say Malâ—c 3.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will send my messenger or Angel yea the very name of the Prophet that writes is no other then Malachy My Angel And ye know in the Apocalypse how oft the prime Governors of the Church are called Angels whereupon St. Chrysostome as I remember makes the reason of that full expression of St. Paul If an Angel from Heaven Galat. 1. to allude unto this distinction that even Gods Ministers are his Angels too though upon Earth a title given them both in regard of their mission and of their near relation to God and of those qualities which these Men of God should imitate in those blessed Spirits The very name is doctrinall and teacheth us both what God expects from us both to himself and you and what he expects from you to us From us faithfullnesse and diligence in his holy errands whereabouts we are sent to the World from you love and reverence to those Messengers which he imployes about your Salvation but it was my meaning only to call to this sense at the window in my passage as that which I hold not within the compasse of the Holy-Ghosts intention Doubtless the sense is naturall and proper not of men by way of allusion but of those which are Spirâ—ts by essence and yet even in this sense there is some variety of judgment whiles some take this to be spoken of evill Angels others of good Those which apply this to evill Angels are likewise in a double opinion For some take it passively least even those Angels should be tempted others actively least they should take occasion to tempt The former conceit is as gross as it hath been ancient of Tertullian and some others that even spirits to whom they ascribe a kind of materiality may be taken with the immodest venditation of a fleshly beauty to which purpose they do ignorantly mistake that of Genes 6.2 That the Sons of God saw the Daughters of Men that they were fair not considering the sequel that they took them wives of all that they chose Surely if ever spirits have affected these fleshly sins yet of marryed Spirits there was never dream in any sober head This fancy is too absurd to merit a confutation No doubt wicked spirits take delight in drawing the Sons of men to inordinate affections and beastly practises but that themselves place any pleasure in bodily obscenities is a matter not easie to be believed Or if they should be obnoxious to those carnall desires that the interposing of a vail should any way avail to the restraint of their wicked inclinations and purposes it is too poor a thought to enter into any wise understanding The other viz. least those Spirits should take this occasion of tempting might pass for currant if ever we could find in the whole body of the Scripture where the evill spirits are absolutely called Angels without some addition of distinction which is learned Camerons observation except only that one 1 Cor. 6.3 where they are so stiled for the greater honour of the Saints that shall judge them However the truth of the proposition is undeniable that so we ought to habit and order our selves that we may not give advantage to the evill Spirits either to our temptation or their prevalence we may be sure those tempters will omit no occasion of winning us to filthiness Do you not think that when they see wanton dames come disguised into Gods house as it were into the box of the play-house with their brest bare almost to the Navel their armes to the elbow their necks to the shoulder-points darting their lascivious eyes every way and in their whole fashion and gesture bewraying such lightness as might be able to debauch a whole assembly think ye not I say that they applaud themselves in so rich a booty as knowing that every eye that is transported and every heart that is fired with that immodest gazing-stock are so many spoiles and trophees of their Temptations It is a true and seasonable word that holy Cyprian said to the dames of his time that it was not enough for them to keep themselves from being corrupted by others solicitations unless they took care so to dress and deport themselves that they might not be occasions of raysing wanton thoughts in the beholders For surely we can not free our selves from those sins wherein others by our means though besides our particular intentions are insnared there is much liberty I confess in matter of attire but let me withall give you St. Pauls Item to his Galathians Brethren ye have been called to liberty only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another Galat. 5.13 When and how is our liberty an occasion to the flesh but when we do so pranck up and pamper our flesh as that we regard not therein any others dangers which when soever we are drawn to do we may be sure we have so wary and vigilant spirits to watch us as that no advantage can be let fall against our souls as therefore wise and carefull commanders do not only cast how to impugne oppresse and annoy an enemy but also how to remove those helps which might be advantageous to him in his siege even to the demolishing of Suburbs and stopping up of Fountaines and the like so must we do in this spirituall warfare of ours we must not only stir up our courage and indevors to resist and vanquish tentations but we must bend our utmost care upon the prevention and removall of whatsoever in our apparell carriage diet recreations may be likely to give furtherance to their assault or prevalency and in the whole practise of our lives so demean our selves as that we may according to the charge of the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not
a motive for God to give largely unto us as that we give freely unto God 2 Sam. 11 16. David did but intend to build God an house and now in a gratious retribution God tells him by Nathan The Lord will build thee an house and will establish thine house and thy kingdome for ever before thee and contrarily in this it holds as in all other pious bequests 2 Cor. 9.6 He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly if some particular wayes of the conveighance of our bounty were anciently ceremonial Prov. 3.9 yet we are sure this charge is perpetual Honour the Lord with thy substance Had our blessed Saviour been of the mind of these drye and pinching Devotionists he had surely chid Mary Magdalene for the needlesse wast of that her pretious ointment and have agreed with Judas how much better it migh have been employed for the relief of many poor soules that wanted bread then in such a complement of unnecessary delicacy Mat. 26.13 but how kindly this seasonable expence was taken by our Lord Jesus appears in that the memorial of this beneficence is ordained by him to have no narrower bounds of Time or Place then this blessed Gospel it self Shortly as the honest and learned Gerson long since distingushed in matter of Doctrine so must we learn to distingush in matter of practise some things are of the necessity of devotion others of the piety of devotion and yet further in this second ranke some things are essential to the piety of devotion without which it cannot be at all others are accidental without which it cannot be so well under this latter sort expedience and decency both of cleanliness and cost challenge a due place and cannot justly be denyed it As it is in our own case some things are requisite out of the necessity of nature without which we cannot subsist other things are requisite for the convenience of our estate without which we cannot maintain a well being He that hath Bread and Drinke and Cloathes may live but he that hath not his Linnen washed and his meat cleanly dressed and change of warme suits will hardly live with comfort To the great marriage of the Kings son in the Gospel all comers are invited yea the guests are fetcht from the very high waies Mat. 22.9.10 and hedges where there could be no probability of any choice Wardrobe yet when the King comes in and finds a man without his wedding garment he in displeasure asks Friend how camest thou in hither sufficienty intimating that even comlinesse of fashion and meet complement are worthily expected in the solemn entertainments of God To conclude if we have rightly apprehended the dreadful and glorious Majesty of the great God we shall never think we can come with reverence enough into his holy presence and it is no small appendance of reverence to have our very bodies decently composed before him and if we have well weighed the absolute soveraignty of this great King of Glory and the infinite largess of our munificent God who hath given us our selves and all that we have or are or hope for that hath not grudged us ought in earth or heaven no not the dear son of his love and eternal essence but hath sent him out of his bosome for our redemption we cannot think all our little enough to consecrate to his blessed name and service and shall hold that evil eye worthy to be pulled out which shall grudg the fattest of his flocks and heards to the altar of the Almighty Now the appâ—ication of this whole discourse I leave to the thoughts of every reader who cannot but easily finde how too much need there is of a monitor in this kind whiles the examples of a profane indecency so abound every where to the great shame of the Gospel and scandall of all ingenious mindes I forbear to particularize a volume would be too straight for this complaint It is not the blushing of my Nation the derision of Foraigners the advantage of adversaries that I drive at in these seasonable lines it is the reformation of those foul abuses gross neglects outward indignities notorious pollutions which have helpt to expose the face of this famous Church late the glory of Christendom to the scorne of the nations round about us who now change their former envy at her unmatchable beauty into a kinde of insulting pity of her miserable deformity Returne dear brethren returne to that comly order and decency which won honour and reverence to your goodly forefathers After the main care of the substance of divine worship which must be ever holy spiritual answerable to the unfailing and exact rule of the eternal word of God let the outwatd carriage of Gods sacred affairs be what may be sutable to that pure and dreadful Majesty whose they are let his now neglected houses be decently repaired Nequid pâ—ofanum Templo Dei insâ—ratur â—oâ—feâ—sus sedâ—m quâ—m inhabitat deâ—eâ—inquat Cyprian de habitâ— virg neatly kept reverently regarded for the owners sake and inviolably reserved for those sacred uses to which they are dedicated let his holy table be comly spread attended with awful devotion let them be clean both within and without that bear the vessels of the Lord let the maintenance of his altar be free liberal chearful let Gods chair the pulpit be climb'd into by his chosen servants with trembling and gravity briefly let his whole service and worship be celebrated with all holy reverence this is the way to the acceptation of God and to honour with men Good Security A Comfortable DISCOURSE OF The Christians Assurance of Heaven Grounded upon 2 Pet. 1.10 Give diligence to make your Calling and Election sure IT shall be my onely drift and endeavour in this discourse to settle the hearts of those who profess the name of Christ in a main case of Christian resolution concerning their present and final estate the mean whereof is no lesse comfortable and useful then the extremes miserably dangerous whiles one is causelesly confident and dyes presuming another is wilfully careless and perisheth through neglect both fearfully mis-carry and help to fill up hell I shall desire to guide the wise Christian in a midway between both these and teach him how to be resolute without presumption and to be awful without distrust how to labour for an holy security and modest confidence Ere we descend to the matter Three termes require a little clearing what this calling is What election What the sure-making of both As to the first this cannot be taken of an outward calling For we are sure enough of that wheresoever the Gospel is preached we are called outwardly neither are we much the nearer to be sure of that for many are called few chosen yea certainly this not answered shall aggravate our damnation It is therefore an inward and effectuall calling that we must endeavour to make sure a call not by the sound of the word only
in hand without which there can be no firm peace no constant and solid comfort to the Soul of Man Three things then call us to the indeavor of this assurance our duty our advantage our danger We must do it out of duty because our God bids us Gods commands like the Prerogatives of Princes must not be too strictly scanned should he require ought that might be losse-full or prejudiciall to us our blindfold obedience must undertake it with cherefulnesse how much more then when he calls for that from us then which nothing can be imagined of more or equall behoof to the Soul It is enough therefore that God by his Apostle commands us to Give diligence to make our calling and election sure Our Heavenly Father bids us what sons are we if we obey him not Our blessed Master bids us what Servants are we if we set not our selves to observe his charge our glorious and immortall King bids us what subjects are we if we stick at his injunction out of mere duty therefore we must indeavour to make our calling and election sure Even where we owe no duty oftentimes advantage drawes us on yea many times across those duties which we owe to God and Man how much more where our duty is seconded with such an advantage as is not parallelable in all the World beside What lesse what other followes upon this assurance truly attained but peace of conscience and joy in the holy Ghost in one word the begining of Heaven in the soul What a contentment doth the heart of Man find in the securing of any whatsoever good what a coyle do mony-Masters keep for security of the summes they put forth and when that is taken to their mind are ready to say with the rich Man in the Gospel Soul take thy ease Great venturers at Sea how willingly do they part with no small part of their hoped gain to be assured of the rest How well was Ezekiah appaid when he was assured but of fifteene years added to his life How doth Babylon applaud her own happiness to her self when she can say I sit as a Queen I shall not be a widdow I shall know no sorrow It must needs follow therefore that in the best things assured there must be the greatest of all possible contentments And surely if the heart have once attained to this that upon good grounds it can resolve God is my Father Christ Jesus is my Elder Brother the Angels are my Guardians Heaven is my undoubted patrimony how must it needs be lift up and filled with a joy unspeakable and glorious What bold defiances can it bid to all the troupes of worldly evils to all the powers of Hell with what unconceiveable sweetness must it needs injoy God and it self how comfortably and resolutely must it needs welcome death with that triumphant champion of Christ I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith and now from henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness c. 2. Tim. 4.7 8. Out of the just advantage therefore of this assurance we must endeavour to make our calling and election sure Neither is the advantage more in the performance hereof then there is danger in the neglect In all uncertainties there is a kinde of afflictive fear and troublesome mis-doubt Let a man walk in the dark because he cannot be confident where safely to set his steps he is troubled with a continual suspicion of a suddain mis-cariage and therefore goes in pain what can there be but discomfort in that soul which knowes not in what termes it stands with God Yet whiles there is life there may be hope of better But if that soul be surprised with an unexpected death and hurried away with some suddain judgment in this state of irresolution in how deplored a condition is it beyond all expression I cannot but therefore lament the woful plight of those poor souls that live die under the Roman discipline who when they have most need of comfort in the very act of their dissolution are left pitifully disconsolate and given up by their teachers to either horror or suspence Even the most Saint-like of them except his soul fly up in Martyrdom like Gedeons Angel in the Smoke of his incense may not make account of a speedy ascent to heaven insomuch as Cardinal Bellarmine himself of whom our Coffin dares write that his life was not stayned with mortal sin pag. 27. He that could call heaven Casamia and whose canonization the Cardinals thought fit to be talked of in his sickness when Cardinal Aldobrandino desired him that when he came to heaven he would pray for him answered To go to heaven so soon is a matter too great for me men do not use to come thither in such hast and for me I shall think it no small favour to be sure of purgatory and there to remain a good while pag. 42. which yet himself can say differs not much for the time in respect of the extremity of it from hell it self and to be a good while there O terror past all reach of our thoughts And if the righteous be thus saved where shall the sinners appear For ought they can or may know hell may but purgatory must be their portion heaven may not be thought of without too high presumption Certainly if many despair under those uncomfortable hands I wonder that no more since they are bidden to doubt and beaten off from any possibility of the confidence of rest and happinesse But whiles I urge this danger of utter discomfort in our irresolution I hear our adversaries talke of a double danger of the contrary certitude A danger of pride and a danger of sloth The supposed certainty of our graces breeds pride saith their Cardinal The assurance of our election sloth saith their Alphonsus a Castro out of Gregory And indeed if this cordial doctrine be not well given well taken well digested it may through our pravity and heedlesness turne to both these noxious humors as the highest feeding soonest causeth a dangerous Plethory in the body How have we heard some bold ungrounded Christians brag of their assurance of glory as if they had carried the keyes of heaven at their Girdle How have we seen even sensual men flatter themselves with a confident opinion of their undoubted safety unfailable right to happiness How have we known presumptuous Spirits that have thought themselves carried with a plerophory of faith when their sailes have been swelled only with the winde of their own self-love how many ignorant soules from the mis-prision of Gods infallible election have argued the needlessnesse of their indeavours and the safety of their ease and neg-lect As ye love your selves sail warily betwixt these rocks and sands on either side But if these mischiefs follow upon the abuse of a sound and wholsome doctrine God forbid they should be imputed to the truth it self as if that God who
with Antinomianism another with Familism and all these run a madding after their own fancies and affect nothing so much as to draw others into the society of their errors and damnation Take heed to your selves for Gods sake ye that stand surest in the confidence of your setled judgment grounded knowledg honest morality the pestilent influences of wicked society are not more mortall then insensible In vain shall ye plead the goodness of your heart if ye be careless of the wickedness of your heels and elbowes St. Paul thought it a sentence worthy to borrow from an Heathen Poet and to feoffe it in the Canon evill conversation corrupts good manners As therefore Moses said in the case of Korah and his company so let me say in the case of others wickednesse whether it be in matter of judgment or practise Depart I pray you from the tents of these wicked men and touch nothing of theirs lest ye be consumed in all their sins Num. 16.26 It is worth your observing that in that great rebellion and dreadfull judgment the sons of Corah dyed not 2 Chron. 26.11 They had surely a dear interest in their Father yet their natural interest in a Father could not feoffe them in their Fathers sin though they lov'd him in nature yet they would not cleave to him in his rebellion they forsook both his sin and his tents and therefore are exempted from his judgment If we love our selves let us follow them in shunning any participation with the dearest of sinners that we may also escape the partnership of their vengeance This for the frequence the passion followes I tell you weeping And why weepest thou O blessed Apostle What is it that could wring tears from those eyes Even the same that fetch 't them from thy Saviour more then once The same that fetcht them from his Type David from the powerfull prophet Elisha 2 Kings 8.11 In a word from all eyes that ever so much as pretended to holinesse Grief for sin and compassion of sinners Let others celebrate St. Peters tears I am for St. Pauls both were precious but these yet more Those were the tears of penitence these of charity those of a sinner these of an Apostle those for his own sins these for other mens How well doth it become him who could be content to be Anathema for his brethren of the circumcision to melt into tears for their spirituall uncircumcision Oh blessed tears the juice of a charitable sorrow of an holy zeal a gracious compassion Let 〈◊〉 man say that tears argue weaknesse even the firmest marble weeps in a resolution of Air He that shrinks not at the Bear Lion Goliah Saul ten thousand of the people that should beset him round about yet can say Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because they keep not thy law Ps 119.136 what speak I of this when the omnipotent son of God weeps over Jerusalem and makes his tears the preface of his blood Nay rather these tears argue strength of piety and Heavenly affections To weep for fear is childish that is unbeseeming a man and to weep for anger is womanish and weak to weep for mere grief is humane for sin Christian but for true zeal and compassion is Saint-like and divine every one of these drops is a pearl Behold the precious liquor which is reserved as the dearest relique of Heaven in the bottles of the Almighty every dram whereof is valued at an eternall weight of glory even a cup of cold water shall once be rewarded and behold every drop of this warme water is more worth then many cups of cold weep thus awhile and laugh for ever sowe thus in tears and be sure to reap in joy But wo is me what shall I say to those men that make themselves merry with nothing so much as sin their own or others whether their act or their memory I remember of old the fool that made the all sport in the play was called the Vice and surely it is no otherwise still vice is it that makes the mirth in this common theater of the world were it not for quaffing ribaldry dalliance scurrile profaneness these men would be dull and as we say dead on the nest These things are the joy of their life yea these are all the life of their joy Oh God that Christians and Divells should meet in the same consort that we should laugh at that for which our Saviour wept and bled that we should smile at that upon earth whereat God frowns in Heaven and make that our delight wherewith the holy spirit of God is grieved Wo be to them that thus laugh for they shall weep and wail and gnash St. Paul weeps to tell of mens sins tears do well in the pulpit as it is in the buckets of some pumps that water must first be powred down into them ere they can fetch up water in abundance so must our tears be let down to fetch up more from our hearers the chair of God can never be better fitted then with a weeping Auditory I remember holy Augustine speaking of his own Sermons saith that when he saw the people did show contentment and delight in their countenances and seemed to give applauses to his preaching he was not satisfied with his own pains but when he saw them break forth into tears then he rejoyced as thinking his labours had sorted to their due effect I have heard some preachers that have affected a pleasantness of discourse in their Sermons and never think they have done well but when they see their hearers smile at their expressions But here I have said of laughter thou art mad and of mirth what doest thou Surely jiggs at a Funeral and laughter at a Sermon are things prodigiously unseasonable It will be long my beloved ere a merry preacher shall bring you to Heaven True repentance which is our only way thither is a sad and serious matter It is through the valley of Bachah that we must pass to the mount of God the man with the writers inkhorne in Ezekiel marks none in the forehead but mourners Oh then mourne for the abominations of Jerusalem ye that love the peace of it and would be loath to see the ruine and desolation of it and your own in it weep with them that weep yea weep with them that should weep as our Apostle doth here That which is said of the Israelites that they drew water in Mizpeh and powred it out before the Lord 1 Sam. 7.6 is by some interpreters taken of the plentiful water of their tears which is so much the more likely because it is joyned with fasting and publick humiliation Oh that we could put our eyes to this use in these sad times into which we are faln how soon would the heavens clear up and bless us with the comfort of our long wished for peace wordly and carnal men as they have hard hearts so they have dry eyes dry as a Pumice-stone uncapable of
free man neither hath any man free-will to good but he Be ambitious of this happy condition O all ye noble and generous spirits and do not think ye live till ye have attained to this true liberty The liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free So from the liberty we descend to the perogative Christs liberation Here is the glorious prerogative of the Son of God to be the deliverer or redeemer of his people They could not free themselves the Angels of heaven might pitty could not redeem them yea alas who could or who did redeem those of their rank which of lightsome celestiall spirits are become foul Devils Only Christ could free us whose ransome was infinite only Christ did free us whose love is infinite and how hath he wrought our liberty By force by purchase By force in that he hath conquer'd him whose captives we were by purchase in that he hath pay'd the full price of our ransom to that supream hand whereto we were forfeited I have heard Lawers say there are in civill Corporations three wayes of freedom by Birth by Service by Redemption By Birth as St. Paul was free of Rome by Service as Apprentises upon expiration of their years by Redemption as the the Centurion with a great sum purchased I this freedom Two of these are barred from all utter possibility in our spiritual freedom for by Birth we are the sons of wrath by service we are naturally the vassals of Satan It is only the precious redemption of the Son of God that hath freed us Whereas freedom then hath respect to bondage there are seven Egyptian Masters from whose slavery Christ hath freed us Sin an accusing Conscience danger of Gods wrath tyranny of Satan the curse of the Law Mosaicall Ceremenies humane Ordinances see our servitude to and our freedom from all these by the powerfull liberation of Christ 1. It was a true word of that Pythagorean Quot vitia tot domini sin is an hard master A master Yea a tyrant let not sin reign in your mortall bodies Rom. 6 14. and so the sinner is not only servus corruptitiae a drudge of corruptions 2 Pet. 2.19 but a very slave sold under sin Rom. 7.14 So necessitated to evill by his own inward corruption that he cannot but grind in this Mill he cannot but row in this Gally For as posse peccare is the condition of the greatest Saint upon earth and Non posse peccare is the condition of the least Saint above so non posse non peccare is the condition of the least sinful unregenerate as the prisoner may shift his feet but not his fetters or as the snail cannot but leave a slime track behind it which way soever it goes Here is our bondage where is our liberty Ubi spriritus domini ibi libertas where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty 2 Cor. 3.7 Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death I thank my God through Jesus Christ So then Christ hath freed us from the bondage of sin An accusing conscience is a true task-master of Egypt it will be sure to whip us for what we have done for what we have not done Horrour of sin like a sleeping Mastive lyes at our door Gen. 4.7 when it awakes it will fly on our throat No closer doth the shaddow follow the body then the revenge of self-accusation followes sin walk Eastward in the morning the shadow starts behind thee soon after it is upon thy left side at noon it is under thy feet lye down it coucheth under thee towards even it leaps before thee thou canst not be rid of it whiles thou hast a body and the Sun light no more can thy soul quit the conscience of evil This is to thee instead of an Hell of Fiends that shall ever be shaking fire brands at thee ever torturing thee with affrights of more paines then thy nature can comprehend Soeva conturbata conscientia Wisd 17.11 If thou look to the punishment of loss it shall say as Lysimachus did how much felicity have I lost for how little pleasure If to the punishment of sense it shall say to thee as the Tyrant dream'd his heart said to him out of the boiling caldron 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am the cause of all this misery Here is our bondage where is the liberty Having our hearts sprinkled from an evill Conscience Heb. 10.22 Sprinkled with what Even with the blood of Jesus vers 19. This this only is it that can free us It is with the unquiet heart as with the troubled Sea of Tiberias the Winds rise the Waters swell the billowes roar the ship is tossed Heaven and Earth threat to meet Christ doth but speak the word all is calme so Christ hath freed us Secondly from the bondage of an accusing conscience The conscience is but Gods Bayliff It is the displeasure of the Lord of Heaven and Earth that is the utmost of all terribles the fear of Gods wrath is that strong winde that stirrs these billowes from the bottom set aside the danger of divine displeasure and the clamoâ—rs of conscience were harmless this alone makes an Hell in the bosome The aversion of Gods face is confusion the least bending of his brow is perdition Ps 2. ult but his totus aestus his whole fury as Ps 78.38 is the utter absorption of the creature excandescentia ejus funditur sicut ignis His wrath is poured out like fire the rocks are rent before it Nahum 1.6 whence there is nothing but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fearfull expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries Heb. 10.27 Here is the bondage where is the liberty Being just fyed by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then Christ hath freed us thridly from the bondage of the wrath of God As every wicked man is a Tyrant according to the Philosophers position and every Tirant is a Devil among men so the Devil is the Arch-tyrant of the creatures he makes all his Subjects errand vassals yea chained slaves 2 Tim. 2. ult That they may recover themselves from the snare of the Devil who are taken captive by him at his will lo here is will snares captivity perfect tyranny Nahash the Ammonite was a notable Tyrant he would have the right eyes of the Israelites put out as an eminent mark of servitude so doth this infernal Nahash blind the right eye of our understanding yea with the spightful Philistim he puts out both the eyes of our apprehension and judgment that he may gyre us about in the Mill of unprofitable wickednesse and cruelly insult upon our remedilesse misery And when he hath done the fairest end is death yea death without end Oh the impotency of earthly tyranny to this the greatest blood-suckers could but kill and livor post fata as the old word is but here is an homicida ab initio and a fine
consider first the miseries of war and then the benefits and comforts of peace The former of these may be talk't of but can never be thoroughly conceived by any but those that have felt them I could tell you of sieging and famishing sacking and spoiling and killing and ravishing and burning of weltring in blood and a thousand such tragicall calamities of war but I had rather the spirit of God should describe them in his own expressions These Sword without terrour within shall destroy both the Young-man and the Virgin the suckling also with the Man of gray haires Deut. 32.25 And Jeremy Every battle of the warriour is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood but this shall be with burning and with fenell of fire Jer. 9.5 Not to presse those passionate descriptions of Esay and Nahum that one of the Prophet Azariah the Son of Obed shall shut up all Chro. 15.6 In those times there was no peace to them that went out nor to him that came in but great vexations were upon all the Inhabitants of the Countreys and Nation was destroyed of Nation and City of City for God did vex them with all adversity Mark but the foot of this report upon the mention of war straight it followes God did vex them with all adâ—ersity surely there is no adversity incident unto a Creature which doth not inevitably attend a war and as all wars are thus wofull and hideous so much more the intestine and domesticall those that are raised out of our own bowels these are beyond all conceit dreadfull and horrible As therefore we do in our ordinary prayers put all these together which are the effects and concomitants of war From plague pestilence and famine from battail and murder and from suddain death good Lord deliver us so good reason have we to put them into the tenor of our hearty thanksgiving that God hath graciously delivered us from the fury of all these in that he caused wars to cease to the ends of our Earth As for the benefits of peace if we were not cloyed with them by their long continuance we could not but be heartily sensible of them and know that all the comforts we enjoy either for Earth or for Heaven we owe to this unspeakable blessing of Peace whereto if we add the late accession of further strength by the union of our Warlick neighbours and the force of a strong and inviolable league for the perpetuation of our peace and unity there will need no further incitements to a celebration of this day and to our hearty thankfulness unto the God of peace who whiles he hath made wofull desolations in all the Earth besides yet hath caused wars to cease unto our ultima the ends of our Earth and hath broken the bow and cut the spear in sunder Oh then prayse the Lord O Jerusalem prayse thy God of Sion for he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates and blessed thy children within thee Ps 147.12.13 He maketh peace within thy borders and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat To that good God of all glory peace and comfort Father Son Holy Ghost one infinite God in three most glorious persons be given all praise honour and glory as is due from Heaven and Earth from Angels and Men from this time forth and for evermore Amen THE MISCHIEFE OF FACTION And the REMEDIE of it Laid forth in a SESMON Before his MAJESTY In the COURT-YARD AT WHITE-HALL On the Second Sunday in Lent 1641. By JOS. EXON PSALM 60.2 Thou hast made the Earth to tremble thou hast broken it heal the breaches thereof for it shaketh MY text is a complaint and a suit a complaint of an evill and a suit for a remedy An evill deplored and an implored redresse The evill complained of is double the concussion or unsettlement of the state of Israel and the division of it For it hath been the manner of the prophets when they would speak high to expresse spirituall things by the height of naturall allusions fetcht from those great bodies of Heaven Sea Earth the most conspicuous and noted pieces of Gods Almighty workmanship It were to no purpose to exemplifie where the instances are numberlesse Open your Bibles where you will in all the Sapienciall or Propheticall books your eyes cannot look beside them And thus it is here I suppose no man can be so weak as to think David intends here a philosophicall history of Earthquakes although these dreadfull events in their due times and places are worthy of no lesse then a prophets either notice or admiration But here it is not in his way It is an Analogicall morall or politicall Earth-quake that David hear speaks of and so our usuall and ancient Psalter Translation takes it well whiles for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Earth it reads the Land by a just Synecdoche and for making the Earth to tremble reads moving the Land and for broken reads divided and for breaches sores so as by comparing of both translations The Earth is the Land the tremblings are the violent motions of it whether by way of action or passion the divisions thereof are breaches and those breaches sores which the hand of God both makes and heals Shortly then here is first an Earth-quake such as it is 2ly The effects of that Earth-quake breaches or sores 3ly The authour of both Thou hast made the Earth to tremble thou hast broken it 4ly The remedy of both with the authour of it Heal thou the Sores or breaches and Lastly the motive of the remedy for it shaketh The Text falls into these parts so naturally that there is none of you who hear me this day but were able to divide it for me which I shall desire to follow with all perspicuous brevity and profitable enforcement And first hear and consider that the motions of the distempers or publick calamities of States are Earthquakes either or both For this Earthquake is either out of a feare or sense of judgment or out of the strife of contrary affectations the one we may call a passive the other an active Earth-quake Earth-quakes we know are strange and unnaturall things There is no part of all Gods great Creation save the Earth that is ordained for rest and stability The waters are in perpetuall agitation of flux and refluxes even when no wind stirs they have their neap and spring tides The air cannot stand still whiles the Heavens whirle about The Heavens or any part of them never stood still but once since they were made but the Earth was made for fixednesse and stability Hence ye find so oft mention of the foundations of the Earth and the stile of it is nescia moveri the Earth that cannot be moved and that stands fast for ever And therefore for the Earth to move it is no lesse prodigie then for the Heavens to stand still Neither is it more rare then formidable If we should see the Heavens stand still but one houre
sinners never nay he strives to forget God and when the notion of a God is forced upon him he struggles against it and sayes to the Almighty Depart from me And even this alone showes how he stands in respect of his affections He loves not God no not whiles he promerits him with his favours It is the Title that St. Paul gives to wicked men Rom. 1. â—0 that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God-haters One would think this should not be incident into a man for nothing but evill is the object of hatred and God is absolute goodnesse it self yet such is the cankered and corrupt nature of the sinner that apprehending God sub ratione mali he hates him who is in himself infinitely amiable and as he saies in his heart there is no God so he wishes in his heart there were no God He is never well therefore whiles he hath any thing to do with God whiles he is in his company or in the company of those that he thinks belong to him his conscionable servants and whiles he is imployed in any of his services he stands upon thornes Thus the sinner is in his affectations aloof off from God and for his carriage and actions they are answerable to both the other All his life is nothing else but a departing from the living God and therefore he must needs at last be farr off Look to all his wayes you shall find how diametrally contrary they are to Gods Gods wayes are direct ones the sinners are oblique and crooked God hath chalked out his wayes in the Ten words of his royall law the sinner turnes his back upon every one of them and walkes point-blank opposite God commands an holy and religious disposition towards his Majesty the sinner gives himself over to a wild and loose profanenesse to a lawlesse course of godlesnesse and walks as without God in the world God commands all reverent and awfull usage of his name the sinner tears it in pieces with his oathes and blasphemies God commands all dutifull obedience to authority not for fear only but for conscience sake the sinner is ready to say disrumpamus vincula let us break their bonds and cast their cords from us God commands all sobriety chastity temperance the sinner runs into all excesse of riot Finally God commands all charity and justice to our neighbour the wicked heart is mercilesse and cares not upon whose ruines he raiseth his own advantages so every way both in his thoughts affections and actions the sinner is afarr off from God Now the morall and civill man hears this and turnes it off as nothing concerning him he is as near to God as the best and indeed in some sense he is so St. Paul could say to his Athenians He is not far from every one of us Every creature hath equally his living moving being from God but as for any relation to God in respect of holinesse of grace and mercy of glory this man is as far off as Earth is from Heaven yea as Heaven is from Hell For even by nature we are the best of us the Sons of wrath And if we had no more then even our birth sin this alone would estrange us sufficiently from God but besides this our actuall sins set us off yet further and if we had no sins of commission as we have numberlesse for in many things we sin all yea in all things we sin all yet those of omission cannot but put us into an utter distance for if the morall man could be supposed to do nothing actually against Gods will yet his thoughts are not upon him being wholly taken up with the World his affections are not towards him being wholly set upon the World and these earthly things his best actions are not regulated by the royall law of righteousnesse but by the rules of civility and common humanity and the end which he proposeth to himself in them is not the glory of God but his own honour or advantage And therefore both the wicked man and the mere morall man are aloof off from God and therefore out of the benefit of Gods favour and protection even as we know that those which live under the two poles are out of the comfortable reach of the Sun-beames or those Antichthones which are on the other side of the globe of the Earth are now whiles it is day with us Please your selves therefore ye sinfull and naturall men with the spirituall condicion wherein ye stand God is no otherwise near to you but to plague and punish you Ye can never receive any glimpse of true comfort in your soules whiles you so continue and therefore as ye tender your own present and eternall welfare stir up your selves to take this divine Counsell of the Apostle Draw nigh unto God And so from the distance implyed we descend to the approach injoyned which we shall consider as it hath respect to the presence of God and to the motion of man To the presence of God in relation to his Ordinances and to his Spirit First then we draw nigh unto God when we attend upon him in his worship and service for God is where he is worshipped and where he reveales himelf In this regard when Cain was banished from the presence of God it was not so much an exile as an excommunication Hence is all the legall service called appearing before the Lord So David when shall I appear in thy sight Psal 42.2 and can find in his heart for this cause to envy the sparrowes and swallowes as herein happier then himself Thus Jacob of his Bethel God was here and I knew it not Then therefore do we draw nigh unto God when we come into his house when we present our selves to him in our prayers whether private or publick when we attend upon him in his word whether read or preached in his holy Sacraments in all religious exercises And those that do willingly neglect these holy services they are no other then aloof off from God and certainly whatsoever they may think of it this estate of theirs is very dangerous for if the worst peece of hellish torment be that of losse and utter departing from the presence of God then surely our voluntary Elongation of our selves from his presence must needs be a fearfull introduction to an everlasting distance from him Let our Recusants whether out of heresie or faction make what sleight account they please of these holy assemblies Surely the keeping away from the Church is the way to keep out of Heaven Auditus aspectum restituit as Bernard well It is our hearing that must restore us to the sight of God This in relation to his Ordinances that to his spirit followes we do then Secondly draw nigh to God when upon our conversion to him we become the receptacles and entertainers of his good Spirit For God is undoubtedly where he breathes into the soul holy desires where he works Heavenly grace in the heart This
of God planted in his heart and one that desires to be approved to God in all his wayes though perhaps he differ in judgment and be of another profession from thee in some collateral matters as the God of Heaven stands not upon such points let him I say be one of Gods dear and secret ones whom thou revilest and persecutest the Spirit of God feels the Indignities that are offered to such a one and will let thee feel that he feels them make as slight as you will of scandalizing and wronging a good man there is a good God that will pay you for it What an heavy complaint is that which the Apostle makes to his Corinthians concerning himself and his fellowes I think saith he that God hath set forth us the Apostles last as it were appointed to death for we are made a spectacle to the World and to Angels and to Men 1 Cor. 4.9 and verse the 13. We are made as the filth of the world the off-scouring of all things unto this day Alas if this were the condicion of the blessed Apostles to be thus vilified why should it seem strange to us their unworthy successours and Disciples if we be thought fit for nothing but to be cast upon the dunghill but these reproaches however we may take coolly and calmly as that Stoick Philosopher did who whilst he was discoursing of being free from passions it being the doctrine of that sect that a wise man should be impassionate a rude fellow spat purposely in his face and when he was asked whether he were not angry answered no truly I am not angry but I doubt whether I should not be angry at such an abuse but there is a God that will not put up our contumelies so we strike his servants on Earth and he feels it in Heaven It is very emphaticall which the Apostle hath to this purpose Coloss 1.24 I fill up that which is behind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Asterings of the Afflictions of Christ in my flesh Intimating that there is one intire body as it were of Christs sufferings part whereof he indured in his own person and part he still sustaines in his members so as he cannot be free whiles they suffer inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of my brethren ye did it unto me Mat. 15.40 As the soul feels what is done to the body the Iron entred into his Soul saith the Psalmist so what is done to the faithfull soul God is sensible of and will revenge it accordingly what shall be done to thee thou false Tongue saith the Psalmist even mighty and sharp Arrowes with hot burning Coales Psal 102.3 Thou hast shot thine Arrowes even bitter words against Gods chosen ones and God shall send thee sharper arrowes of his vengeance singing into thy bosome thy tongue hath been set on fire with contention and hath helpt to kindle it in others and now God shall fill thy mouth with hotter coales of that fire which shall never be quenched Oh then as we tender our own safety let us binde our Tongues and hands to the good behaviour and resolve with the holy Apostle To give none offence neither to the Jewes nor to the Gentiles nor to the Church of God 1. Cor. 10.32 Now as the holy Spirit of God both in himself and in his Children is grieved with our leud speeches and offensive carriage so contrarily God and his holy Spirit are joyed in our gracious speeches and holy conversation Luc. 15.10 I say unto you there is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner that repenteth Lo this is Gods joy and the Angels witnesse it it is the owner that hath found the lost Groate and that saith Rejoyce with me how doth conscionable and godly behaviour and holy Communication make Musick in Heaven We have known many that have thought their time well bestowed if they could make a great Man smile Principibus placuisse c. And perhaps their facetious urbanity hath not passed unrewarded Oh what shall we think of moving true delight to the King of glory It was no small incouragement to the Colossians that the Apostle professes he was with them rejoycing and beholding their Order Coloss 2.5 What a comfort then must it needs be that the great God of Heaven is with us and takes notice of our carriage and contentment in it Revel 2.2 I know thy works and thy labour and thy patience saith the Spirit of God to the Angel or Bishop of the Church of Ephesus and Videndo vidi saith God to Moses concerning the Israelites I have seen the afflictions of my people it is said of Anthony the Hermite Let no man bogle at this that I mention an Hermite to this Congregation those first Eremites that went aside into the Wildernesse to avoid those primitive persecutions were holy men great Saints and of a quite different alloy from those of the present Romish Church Mera Nominum Crepitacula that when he was set upon by Divells and buffeted by them as St. Paul was 2 Cor. 12. according to learned Cameran his interpretation after the conflict he cryed out O bone Jesu ubi eras O Lord Jesu where wast thou and received answer juxta te eram c. I was by thee and lookt how thou wouldst demean thy self in thy combat who would not fight valiantly when he fights in the eye of his Prince It is the highest consideration in the World this how doth God rellish my actions and me The common rule of the World is what will men say what will my neighbours what will my superiours what will posterity and according to their conceits we are willing to regulate our carriage but a true Christian looks higher and for every thing he sayes or does inquires after the censure or allowance of God himself still caring that the words of his mouth and the meditations of his heart may be accepted of his God and if his heart tell him that God frownes at his actions all the World cannot chear him up but he will go mourning all the day long till he have made his peace and set even termes between God and his Soul but if that tell him all is well nothing in the world can deject and dishearten him but he takes up that resolution which Solomon gives for advice Let thy Garments be white and let no Oyle be wanting to thine head go thy way Eat thy bread with joy and drink thy Wine with a merry heart for now God accepteth thy works Eccles 9.7 8. And this consideration as it never can be unseasonable so is a most fit cordiall for every honest and good heart in these dismall times we are in a sad condicion and perhaps in expectation of worse the sword is either devouring or threatning we are ready to be swallowed up with grief or fear what should we now do Dear Christians let every one of us look in what termes he stands with his God do
besides it And indeed what other can we insist upon Outward profession will not do it many a one shall say Lord Lord with a zealous reduplication which yet shall be excluded And for pretended revelations they are no lesse deceitfull Satan oftentimes transforming himself into an Angel of light A Zidkijeh thinks he hath the Spirit as well as any Michaiah of them all our books are full of the reports of dangerous dulusions of this kind whereby it hath come to pass that many a one in stead of the true David hath found nothing but an image of clouts laid upon a bolster stuffed with Goats hair 1 Sam. 19.16 But this mark of reall sanctification cannot fail us It will ever hold good that which St. Paul hath Rom. 8. So many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Nothing in this World can so highly concern us as this to see and know whether we be sealed to the day of Redemption Would we know how it may be evidenced to us look upon the impression that Gods Spirit hath made upon our hearts and lives if he have renewed us in the inner man and wrought us unto true holiness to a lively faith to a sincere love of God to a conscionable care of all our actions and to all other his good graces doubtlesse we are so sealed that all the powers of Hell cannot deface and obliterate this blessed impression But the principal main use of this Seal is for certainty of performance If we have the word of an honest man we believe it but if we have his hand we make our selves more sure but if we have both his hand and seal we rest secure of the accomplishing of what is given or undertaken How much more assurance may we have when we have the word of a God whose very title is Amen Rev. 3.14 whose promises are like himself Yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1.20 Alas the best man is deceitful upon the balance and his true stile is Omnis homo mend ax every man is a lyer But for this God of truth Heaven and Earth shall passe away before one tittle of his word shall fail but when that promise is seconded by his Seal what a transcendent assurance is here It is the charge of the Apostle Peter Give diligence to make your calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 Sure not in respect of God whom no changes can reach whose word is I am Jehovah my counsel shall stand but in respect of our apprehension not in regard of the object only which cannot fail but even of the subject also which if it were not fecible sure the Spirit of God would not have injoyned it or imposed it upon us The Vulgar reads Per bona opera by good works And indeed it is granted by Beza and Clamier that in some Greek copies it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereupon Bellarmine would fain take an advantage to prove his conjecturall assurance A strange match of words meerly contradictory for if but conjecturall how can it be assurance and if it be assurance how only conjecturall we may as well talk of a false truth as a conjecturall assurance But that implication of Bellarmine is easily blown over if we consider that these Good works do not only comprehend external works as almes-deeds prayer attendance on Gods ordinances and the like but also the internall acts of the soul the Acts of believing the Acts of the love of God the Acts of that hope which shall never make us ashamed These will evidence as our calling and election so the certainty of both and therefore are the seal of our Redemption Let foolish men have leave to improve their wits to their own wrong in pleading for the uncertainty of their right to Heaven But for us let us not suffer our souls to take any rest till we have this blessed seal put upon us to the assuring of our Redemption and Salvation that we may be able to say with the chosen vessel God hath sealed us and given us the earnest of his Spirit in our hearts 2 Cor. 1.22 If we have the grant of some good lease or some goodly Mannor made to us by word of mouth we stay not till we have gotten it under black and white and not then till we have it under seal nor then if it be a perpetuity till we have livery and seizin given us of it and when all this is done we make account securely to enjoy our hopes and shall we be lesse carefull of the main-chance even of the eternal inheritance of Heaven Lo here all these done for us Here is the word preaching peace and Salvation to all that believe here are his Scriptures the internal monuments of his written word confirming it here is the seal added to it here is the Livery and Seâ—zin given in the earnest of his Spirit and here is sufficient witnesse to all even Gods Spirit witnessing with our Spirits that we are the sons of God Let us finde this in our bosome and we are happy neither let our hearts be quiet till we can say with the chosen Vessel I am perswaded that neither life nor death nor Angels nor Principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any creature can be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom. 3. the last verse Lo this is not a guesse but an assurance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither doth the Apostle speak of his own speciall revelation as the Popish Doctors would pretend but he takes all beleevers into the partnership of this comfortable unfailablenesse nothing shall separate us thus happy are we if we be sealed unto the day of Redemption Having now handled the parts severally let us if you please put them together and see the power of this inference or argument ye are by the Spirit of God sealed to the day of redemption Oh therefore grieve not that Spirit of God by whom ye are thus sealed The Spirit of God hath infinitely merited of you hath done so much for you as ye are not capable to conceive much lesse to answer in so Heavenly an obsignation Oh then be you tender of giving any offence to that good Spirit Do not you dare to do ought that might displease that loving and beneficent Spirit Be not you so much your own enemies as to give just distast to your good God So as the force of the argument as we intimated at the first lies upon an action of unkindnesse affording us this instruction that the ground of Gods Childrens fear to offend must be out of love and thankfulness great is thy mercy that thou maist be feared saith the Psalmist he doth not say great is thy mercy that thou maist be loved nor great is thy Majesty that thou maist be feared but great is thy mercy that thou maist be feared base servile natures are kept in with feare
Spirit leads no man but by a just rule That rule is the word of truth in all matter of judgment that must direct us uncertain and variable Traditions private and ungrounded Revelations which are any way crosse to this recorded will of God are the deceitful guides of the spirit of errour If then any frantick or superstitious person shall pretend any other direction then God hath given us in his revealed will well may I say of him as St. Paul dares say of an Angel from Heaven if any such could be guilty of that offence Let him be Anathema Thirdly Gods Spirit leads his sweetly and gently disponit omnia suaviter not in a blustring and hurrying violence but by a leasurely and gracious inclination so in Elijahs vision There was fire wind Earthquake but God was in none of them these were fit preparatives for his appearance but it was the still soft voice wherein God would be revealed 1 Kings 19.12 Those that are carried with an heady and furious impetuousnesse and vehemence of passion in all their proceedings which are all rigour and extremity are not led by that good spirit which would be styled the spirit of meekness who was pleased to descend not in the form of an Eagle or any other soul of prey but in the form of a meek and innocent dove Fourthly Gods Spirit leads on in a constant way of progression from grace to grace from vertue to vertue like as the sun arises by degrees to his full meridian whereas passion goes by suddain flashes like lightning whereof the interruptions are as speedy and momentany as the eruptions The very word of leading implies a continuance neither can they be said to be led on that make no proceedings in their way if either therefore we go backward or stand still in goodnesse if we promove not from strength to strength we have no ground to think we are led by the Spirit of God Lastly Flesh and Spirit are ever opposite one to the other and go still contrary wayes and lead to contrary ends If ye walk after the flesh ye shall dye saith our Apostle Nature and Grace which have their hands in this manuduction both wayes stand in perpetual opposition to each other If therefore we be led by our sensual appetite to do and affect that which is pleasing to corrupt nature we are led by that blind guid the flesh and if the blind lead the blind it is no marvell if both of them fall into the pit of perdition but if we mortify our evil and corrupt affections crossing and curbing our exorbitant and sinful desires and bringing them forceably under the subjection of Gods Spirit Now we may be assured to be led by the Spirit of God Other particularities of discovery might be urged whereby we might easily judg of our own conditions but these are enow whereby we may try our selves our guides and wayes It is cleare then to summe up these proofes of our estate that only they who walk in the wayes of Gods commandements who are directed by the revealed Will and word of God who are sweetly inclined by the gracious motions of his Spirit who go on in a constant fashion through all the degrees of grace and obedience who restrain their own natural desires and affections submitting themselves wholy to the government of the Holy Ghost onely they I say are led by the Spirit of God Five sorts of men there are therefore who what challenge so ever they may pretend to make are not led by the Spirit of God First those that go on in a known evil way Lead me O Lord in the wayes of thy righteousnesse saith the Psalmist Lo they are only the pathes of righteousnesse in which God leads us the rest are false wayes as the Psalmist justly calls them which every good heart and much more the holy God utterly abhors wo is me that I have lived to see those dayes wherein any that looks with the face of a Christian should maintain that sins are no sins to the faithful and that he is the holiest man that can sin the boldlyest and with the greatest freedom from reluctancy Did ever any man look for Heaven in Hell before Did ever any seek for the greatest good in the worst of evils This is not heresie but meer Devilisme wherewith yet it seems some ungrounded soules are wofully tainted God be merciful to them and reclaim them ere it be too late from so damnable an impiety Secondly those that are led by their own vain imaginations and illusive dreams in the wayes of error raising unto themselves new and wild opinions and practises without any warrant from the written word of God Thirdly those that are carried by passion and distemper though even in good waies turning a religious heat into fury and uncharitable rage Fourthly those that make no progresse at all in good but either decay in grace or thrive not And lastly those that humour and sooth up corrupt nature careing only to fulfil the lusts of their own flesh All these whereof God knowes there are too many in the World yea in the Church of God making a fair flourish of Christianity are nothing lesse then led by the Spirit of God and therefore can lay no claim to the state or title of the Sons of God which is inferred in the connexion of this qualification with the priviledg being the third head of our discourse So many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God The Spirit of God is God neither is mention made here of the Spirit only as by way of exclusion of the other persons No what one doth all do according to the old maxime All the external works of the Trinity are indivisible it is good reason then that God should lead his own and so he doth But here it will be fit for us to consider How far this leading of Gods Spirit will argue and evince this son-ship and whether every conduct thereof will do it There is a work of the Spirit of God at large The Spirit of God fills all the World saith the Wiseman Wisdom 1.7 Not so yet as was the errour of P. Abailardus in Bernard That Gods Spirit is anima mundi as the God of the World not as the soul of the World As in the state of the first Tohu and Bohu the Spirit of God sluttered upon the Waters as it were to hatch the creature which should be produced Gen. 1.2 so doth he still fill the world for the preservation of this universse But in this all he works in man especially There is a spirit in man saith Elihu in Job 32.8 and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding yet this is not the leading of this holy Spirit that we are in hand with lower then this there are certain common graces wrought in men by the Spirit of God as some general iluminations in the knowledg of divine things some good moral dispositions some restraints
of evil inclinations and actions which yet will never reach to evince our son-ship to God How easily were it for me to name you divers Heathens which have been eminent in all these and yet for ought we know never the nearer to Heaven yet lower there are some speciall gifts of the Spirit which we call Charismata rare endowments bestowed upon some men excellent faculties of preaching and praying power of miraculous workings as no doubt Judas did cast out Devils as well as the best of his fellow-Apostles gifts of tongues and of Prophesie and the like which do no more argue a right to the son-ship of God then the Manuaries infused skill of Bezaleel and Aâ—oliab could prove them Saints yet lastly there may be sensible operations of the Spirit of God upon the soul in the influences of holy motions into the heart in working a temporary faith and some fair progresse in an holy profession and yet no sonship the world is full of such glow-wormes that make some show of Spiritual Light from God when they have nothing in them but cold crudities that can serve for nothing but deceit Will ye then see what leading of the Spirit can evince us to be the Sons and Daughters of God know then that if we will hope for a comfortable assurance hereof we must be efficaciously led by his sanctifying Spirit first in matter of judgment secondly in our dispositions and thirdly in our practise For matter of judgment ye remember what our Saviour said to his Disciples When the Spirit of truth is come he will lead you into all Truth John 16.13 That is into all saving and necessary truthes so as to free us from grosse ignorance or main errour Whosoever therefore is enlightned with the true and solid knowledg of all those points of Christian doctrine which are requisite for salvation is in that first regard led by the Spirit and in this behalf hath a just title to the son-ship of God as contrarily those that are grosly and obstinately erroneous in their judgment of fundamental truthes let them pretend to never so much holinesse in heart or life shall in vain lay claim to this happy condition of the Sons of God For our disposition secondly If the holy Spirit have wrought our hearts to be right with God in all our affections if we do sincerely love and fear him if we do truely believe in him receiving him as not our Saviour only but as our Lord If our desires be unfained towards him If after a meek and penitent self-dejection we can find our selves raised to a lively hope and firm confidence in that our blessed Redeemer and shall continue in a constant and habitual fruition of him being thus led by the Spirit of God we may be assured that we are the Sons of God for flesh and blood cannot be accessary to these gracious dispositions Lastly for our practise it is a clear word which we hear God say by Ezekiel I will put my Spirit into the midst of you and will by it cause you to walk in my statutes and keep my laws Ezech. 36.27 Lo herein is the main crisis of a soul led by the Spirit of God and adopted to this heavenly son-ship It is not for us to content our selves to talk of the lawes of our God and to make empty and formal professions of his name Here must be a continued walk in Gods statutes it will not serve the turne for us to stumble upon some acceptable work to step aside a little into the pathes of godlinesse and then draw back to the World no my beloved this leading of Gods Spirit must neither be a forced angariation as if God would feoffe grace and salvation upon us against our wills nor some suddain protrusion to good nor a meer actual momentany transient conduction for a brunt of holinesse and away leaving us to the sinful wayes of our former disobedience and to our wonted compliances with the World the Devil and the Flesh but must be in a steady uninterrupted habitual course of holy obedience so as we may sincerely professe with the man after Gods own heart My soul hath kept thy Testimonies and I love them exceedingly Psal 119.67 Now then dear Christians lay this to heart seriously and call your selves sadly to this triall What is the carriage of our lives What obedience do we yeild to the whole law of our God If that be entire hearty universal constant perseverant and truly conscientious we have whereof to rejoyce an unfailing ground to passe a confident judgment upon our spiritual estate to be no lesse then happy But if we be willingly failing in the unfained desires and indevours of these holy performances and shall let loose the reins to any known wickednesse we have no part nor portion in this blessed condition Mark I beseech you how fully this is asserted to our hands in this saith the beloved Apostle the Children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil whosoever doth not righteousnesse is not of God neither he that loves not his brother 1 Joh. 3.10 Observe I pray you what test we are put to ye hear him not say who so talks not holily or who so professes not godlinesse in these an hypocrite may exceed the best Saint but whosoever doth not righteousnesse withall see what a clause the Disciple of love superadds to the mention of all Righteousnesse neither he that loves not his brother surely the Spirit of God is a Loving Spirit Wisdom 1.6 and St. Paul hath the like phrase Rom. 15.30 To let passe then all the other proofes of our guidance by the spirit Instance but in this one Alas my Brethren what is become of that charitable and christian carriage of men towards one another which God requires of us and which was wont to be conspicuous amongst Christian compatriots Wo is me instead of that true and hearty love which our Saviour would have the Livery of our Disciple-ship the badg of our holy profession what do we see but emulation envy malice rigid censures and rancorous heart-burnings amongst men In stead of those neighbourly and friendly offices which Christians were wont lovingly to performe to each other what have we now in the common practise of men but underminings oppressions violence cruelty Can we think that the Spirit of him who would be styled Love it self would lead us in these rugged and bloody pathes No no this alone is too clear a proof how great a stranger the Spirit of God is to the hearts and waies of men and how few there are that upon good and firme grounds can plead their right to the son-ship of God Alas alas if these dispositions and practises may bewray the sons of an holy God what can men do to prove themselves the children of that hellish Apollion who was a man-slayer from the beginning For us my beloved Oh let us hate and bewaile this common degeneration of Christians and as we would
be and be acknowledged the sons of God Let us put on as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercy kindnesse humblenesse of mind meeknesse long-suffering forbearing one another forgiving one another if we have a quarrell against any even as Christ forgave us and above all these things put on charity which is the bond of perfectnesse Colos 3.12 13 14. And lastly forsaking the mis-guidance of Satan the World and our corrupt nature which will lead us down to the chambers of death and eternal destruction let us yield up our selves to be led by the holy Spirit of God in all the wayes of righteousnesse and holynesse of piety justice charity and all manner of gracious conversation that we may thereby approve our selves the sons and daughters of God and may be feoffed in that blessed inheritance which he hath laid up for all his to the possession whereof may he happily bring us who hath dearly bought us Jesus Christ the righteous to whom with the Father and the blessed spirit one infinite God be given all praise honour and glory now and for ever Amen THE MOURNER IN SION ECCLESIASTES 3.4 There is a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance I Need not tell you that Solomon was a wise man his wisdom as it was in an extraordinary measure put into him by him that is wisdom it self so was it in a more then ordinary way improved by his diligent observation his observation was Universal of times things persons actions events neither did he look his experiments up in the closet of his own brest but by the direction of Gods Spirit laid them forth to the World in this divine sermon which not as a King but as a Prophet he preach't to all posterity Every sentence here therefore is a dictate of the holy Ghost it is not Solomon then but a greater then Solomon even the holy Spirit of the great God that tells you there is not a time onely but a season too for every thing and for every purpose under Heaven that is as I hope you can take it no otherwise for every good thing or indifferent as for evill things or actions if men find a time yet sure God allowes no season those are alwayes damnably-unseasonable abuses of times and of our selves not to meddle with other particulars our thoughts are now by the divine providence pitch't upon a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance or rather onely upon the time to weep and mourn for our time of laughing and dancing is past already and perhaps we have had too much of that in our former times which makes the causes and degrees of our now weeping and mourning as more uncouth so more intensive we must be so much deeper in our mourning by how much we have been more wild and wanton in our laughter and dancing To fall right down therefore upon our intended discourse without any previous circumlocutions There is a threefold time of just mourning 1. When a man is sensible of his punishments 2. Of his sins 3. Of his dangers Of his punishments first or rather which is more general of his afflictions for all afflictions are not intended for punishments some are fatherly chastisments onely for our good whereas all punishments are afflictive when we are whip't then when we smart with the rod we have cause to weep and if in this case we shed no tears it is a sign of a gracelesse heart It is time therefore to mourn when we are pressed by sufferings whether from the immediate hand of God or mediately by the hands of men whether by private or publique calamities are we smitten in our bodies by some painfull and incurable diseases Doth the pestilence rage in our streets Hath God forbidden us the influence of Heaven and curst the Earth with barrennesse Hath he broken the staffe of bread and sent leannesse into our souls Hath he humbled us with the fearfull casualties of fire or water by wracks at Sea by lightnings and tempests by land hath he sent murrain amongst our cattle and destroying vermine into our barnes and fields now God tells us it is a time to mourn are we disquieted in our minds by some over-mastering passions of griefe for the miscarriages of children for the secret discontents of domesticall jars for unjust calumnies cast upon our good name are we molested in our mindes and spirits with impetuous and no lesse importune then hatefull Temptations now it is a time to mourn do we find in our souls a decay and languishment of grace a prevalence of those corruptions which we thought abated in us Do we find our selves deeply soul-sick with our sinfull indispositions Shortly do we find the face of our God for the time withdrawn from us Now now it is a time to mourn If we turn our eyes to those evils which are cast upon us by the hands of men Do men find themselves despoyled of their estates restrained of their Liberties tortured in their bodies Do they find the wofull miseries of an intestine war killings burnings depopulations do they find fire and sword raging in the bosom of out Land now it is a time to mourn Were these evils confined to some few persons to some special families they were worthy of the tears of our compassion for it is our duty to weep with them that weep but where they are universal and spread over the whole face of any Nation there cannot be found tears enough to lament them Punishments then are a just cause of our sorrow and mourning but to a good heart sin is so much greater cause of mourning by how much a moral evil is more then a natural and by how much the displeasure of an Almighty God is worthy of more regard then our own smart Doth thine heart then tell thee that thou hast offended the Majesty of God by some grievous sin now is thy time to weep and mourne as thou wouldest for thy only son Zechar. 12.10 now it is time for thee to be in bitternesse as one that is in bitternesse for his first borne Thy soul is foul wash and rince it with the tears of thy repentance go forth with Peter and weep bitterly Dost thou finde in the place where thou livest that sin like some furious torrent bears down all before it now it is time for thee to mourne for the sins of thy people and to say as the holy Psalmist did Psal 119 136. Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because men keep not thy law Lastly as our sufferings and our sins make up a due time for our mourning so do our dangers also for fear is no lesse afflictive then pain yea I know not whether there can be a greater pain then the expectation of imminent mischiefs Do we therefore see extremities of judgments hovering over our heads ready to fall down like Sodoms fire and
so much as give an occasion to an adversary 1 Tim. 5.14 wether of calumny or of Triumph oh that we could be fearful of doing any unfit thing because of the evil Angels we shall be sure to hear of it again to our cost even the most carelesse boyes will be affraid to offend in the face of the monitor such are the evill Angels to us Be sure every unbeseeming and unlawfull act that passeth from us is upon their file and shall once be urged against us to our shame and conviction My Brethren we would be loath to come under the power of their torment as we would avoid this fearfull issue let us be jealous of their suggestions and our carriage and not dare to do ought that may be scandalous Because of the Angels Good use may be made you see even of this sense but I take it our Apostle intended here to intimate the presence of and respect to the good Angels It is no a lesse comfortable then well-grounded point of Divinity That none of Gods Children upon Earth want the assidence and Ministration of those blessed spirits we have it from him that cannot fail us Matth. 18.10 and the sweet singer of Israel had warbled out this Heavenly note before him The Angels of the Lord encamp about those that fear him Ps 34.7 And he that was rapt up into the third Heaven and saw those wonderfull Orders of Angels can tell us they are all ministring Spirits sent forth to Minister for them who shall be heirs of Salvation Heb. 1.14 Now these as they guard and attend every of Gods elect ones when they are singled and sequestred in the greatest solitariness so we can not think they leave their whether common or severall charges when they assemble together for the exercises of piety and devotion so as the publique meetings of Gods Saints can be no other then filled with whole troupes of Angels This as it is a truth so it was the received opinion of the Jewes as Capellus pregnantly cites it out of the Sedar Tephilloth of the Portugall Jewes in his learned Spicelegium Coronam dant tibi Domine Deus noster Angeli turba illa superna cum populo tuo Israel hic inferne Congregato O Lord our God the Angels give glory to thee even those Heavenly troupes that are assembled with thy Israel here below Out of the reverend and awfull respect therefore that is due to these glorious though invisible beholders there may no unseemly thing be done or admitted in the Church of God and therefore The Women ought to have power on their Heads because of the Angels and surely my beloved were we fully perswaded that now at this present there is within these walls a greater Congregation of Angels then of Men and Women I suppose it could not but strike such an awe into us as to make us at once holily mannerly and fervently devout It is a great fault in us Christians that we think of nothing but what we see whereas that spirituall and intelligible World which is past the apprehension of these Earthly senses is far greater farr more noble and excellent then all visible and materiall substances Certainly there is not one Angel in Heaven that hath not more glory then all this sensible World can be capable of what should I tell you of the excellency of their nature the height of their offices the Majesty of their persons their power able to confound a World their nearness both of place and of essence to that infinite deity their tender love and care of man-kind any of which were able and worthy to take up a whole lives meditation And if there be so much perfection in one how unconceiveable is the concurrent lustre and glory of many had we eyes to see these invisible supervisors of our behaviour we could not we durst no let fall any so much as indecent gesture before such a presence Quicken then I beseech you and sharpen your eyes dear and beloved Christians to see your selves seen even of them whom ye cannot see and let your whole carriage be thereafter he is not worthy to claim more priveledge then of a beast that can see nothing but sensible objects brute Creatures can see us if we see nothing but our selves and then wherefore serves our understanding wherefore our faith and if we see invisible beholders why are we not affected accordingly certainly it were better for us not to see then than seeing to neglect their presence What is then the honor what the respect that we must give to the Angels of God who are present in our holy assemblies I must have leave to complain of two extremities this way There are some that give them too much veneration there are others that give them no regard at all In the first are those within the Roman Clientele who are so over-curteous as that they give them no lesse then the honor of adoration of invocation reviving herein the erroneous opinion and practise of them which Theodoret held confuted by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians It is the praise that Franciscus de Sales Bishop of Genua gives to Petrus Faber one of the first associates of Ignatius Loiola that his manner was whensoever he came to any place he still made suit to the Tutelar Angels that presided there for their aid of converting the people from heresie and found great successe in it This imploration and worship is ordinary wherein they do that to the Angels which the Angels themselves have forbidden to be done and yet I must needs say if any creature could be capable of a religious worship it is they and if any creature were fit to be prayed unto it is they rather then the highest Saints of Heaven for whereas it is the just ground of our refusing to pray to the Saints that we cannot be sure of their presence and notice sure rather of the contrary and therefore cannot pray in faith that ground is here justly removed we are sure that the Angels of God are present with us we are sure that they hear us pray but this is an honor reserved as peculiar to the God of Angels and to that one mediator betwixt God and man Jesus Christ those Spirits hate to be made rivals to their maker neither have we learned that unreasonable modesty to sue to wayters when we are called up to supplicate the King The other extreme is of carelesse christians that do no more think of Angels then if there were none suffering their bodily eyes to be taken up with the sight of their assembled neighbours but never raising their spirituall eyes to behold those spiritual essences which are no lesse present and certainly I fear we are all much to blame this way and may justly tax our selves of an unthankful dull irreligious neglect of these glorious Spirits I finde that the Mahometan Preists in their Morning and Evening prayer still end their devotion with Macree Kichoon Be
Angels present and the people shout out their Amen and shall our piety this way be lesse than theirs Surely the Angels of God are inseparably with us yea whole cohorts yea whole Legions of those heavenly soldiery are now viewing guarding us in these holy meetings and we acknowledg them not we yeild not to them such reverent and awful respects as even flesh and blood like our own will expect from us Did we think the Angels of God were with us here durst those of us which dare not be covered at home as if the freedom of this holy place gave them priviledge of a loose and wild licentiousness affect all saucy postures and strive to be more unmannerly then their Masters Did we consider that the Angels of God are witnesses of our demeanour in Gods house durst we stumble in here with no other reverence then we would do into our Barne or Stable and sit down with no other care then we would in an ale-house or Theater Did we finde our selves in an assembly of Angels durst we give our eyes leave to rove abroad in wanton glances our tongues to walk in idle and unseasonable chat our ears to be taken up with frivolous discourse Durst we set our selves to take those naps here whereof we failed on our pillow at home certainly my beloved all these do manifestly convince us of a palpable unrespect to the blessed Angels of God our invisible consorts in these holy services However then it hath been with us hitherto let us now begin to take up other resolutions and settle in our hearts an holy aw of that presence wherein we are Even at thy home address thy self for the Church prepare to come before a dreadful Majesty of God and his powerful Angels thou seest them not no more did Elishaes servant till his eyes were opened It is thine ignorant and grosse infidelity that hath filmed up thine eyes that thou canst discerne no spiritual object were they but anointed with the eye-salve of faith thou shouldest see Gods house full of heavenly glory and shouldest check thy self with holy Jacob when he awaked from his divine vision Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not how dreadfull is this place this is no other but the house of God and this is the gate of Heaven Gen. 28.16 17. Oh then when thou settest thy foot over the threshold of Gods Temple tremble to think who is there lift up thine awfull eyes and bow thine humble knees and raise up thy devout and faithful soul to a religious reverence and fear of those mighty and Majestical Spirits that are there and of that great God of Spirits whose both they and thou art and study in all thy carriage to be approved of so glorious witnesses and overseeres That so at the last those blessed Spirits with whom we have had an invisible conversation here may carry up our departing soules into the heaven of heavens into the presence of that infinite and incomprehensibly-glorious God both theirs and ours there to live and raign with them in the participation of their unconceivable blisse and glory To the fruition whereof he that hath ordained us graciously bring us by the mediation and for the sake of his blessed Son Jesus To whom with thee O Father of Heaven and thy co-eternall Spirit three persons in one God be given all praise honor immortality now and for ever HOLY DECENCY IN THE WORSHIP of GOD. By J. H. B. N. I Know that a clean heart and a right spirit is that which God mainly regards For as he is a Spirit so he will be served in Spirit but withall John 4.24 as he hath made the body and hath made it a partner with the Soul so he justly expects that it should be also wholly devoted to him so as the Apostle upon good reason prayes for his Thessalonians that their whole Spirit and Soul 1 Thes 5.23 and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and beseeches his Romans by the mercies of God that they present their bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God Rom. 12.1 Now as the body is capable of a double uncleanness the one morall when it is made an instrument and agent in sin the other naturall when it is polluted with outward filthiness so both of these are fit to be avoided in our addresses to the pure and holy God the former out of Gods absolute command who hath charged us to cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of the flesh and Spirit the latter out of the just grounds of Decency 2 Cor. 7.1 and expedience for though there be no sinfull turpitude in those bodily uncleanenesses wherein we offer our selves to appear before the Lord our God yet there is so deep an unbeseemingness in them as places them in the next door to sin Perhaps Gods ancient people the Jewes were too superstitiously scrupulous in these externall observations whos 's Talmud tells us of one of their great Rabbies that would rather suffer under extremity of hunger and thirst then tast of ought with unwashen hands as counting that neglect equall to lying with an harlot and who have raised a great question whether if any of their poultry have but dipped their beak in the bowle the water may be allowed to wash in forbidding to void the urine standing except it be upon a descent of ground lest any drop should recoyle upon the feet and in case of the other evacuation beside the paddle-staffe and other ceremonies in uncovering the feet injoyning to turn the face to the South not to the East or West because those coasts had their faces directed towards them in their devotions what should I speak of their extreme curiosity in their outward observances concerning the Law which no man might be allowed to read whiles he was but walking towards the unloading of nature or to the Bathe or near to any place of annoyance no Man might so much as spit in the Temple or before that sacred Volumn or stretch forth his feet towards it or turn his back upon it or receive it with the left hand no Man might presume to write it but upon the parchment made of the skin of a clean beast nor to write or give a bill of divorce but by the side of a running stream yea the very Turks as they have borrowed our circumcision so also religious niceties from these Jewes not allowing their Alcoran to be touched by a person that is unclean But surely I fear these men are not more faulty in the one extreme then many Christians are in the other who place a kinde of holinesse in a slovenly neglect and so order themselves as if they thought a nasty carelessenesse in Gods services were most acceptable to him Hence it is that they affect homely places for his worship abandoning all magnificence and cost in all the acts and apendances of their devotion clay and sticks please
children as such Not as men not as witty wise noble rich bountiful useful but as Christians showing it self in all real expressions These these are excellent and irrefragable proofs and evictions of your calling and election Seek for these in your hearts and hands and seek for them till ye finde them and when ye have found them make much of them as the invaluable favours of God and labour for a continual increase of them and a growth in this heavenly assurance by them What need I urge any motives to stir up your Christian care and diligence Do but look first behinde you see but how much pretious time we have already lost how have we loitered hitherto in our great work Bernards question is fit still to be asked by us of our souls Bernarde ad quid venisti Wherefore are we here upon earth To pamper our Gut To tend our hide To wallow in all voluptuous courses To scrape up the pelf of the World As if the only end of our being were carnal pleasure wordly profit Oh base and unworthy thoughts What do we with reason if we be thus prostituted It is for beasts which have no soul to be all for sense For us that have ratiocination and pretend grace we know we are here but in a thorowfare to another world and all the main task we have to do here in this life is to provide for a better Oh then let us recollect our selves at the last and redeem the time and over-looking this vain and worthless World bend all our best indeavours to make sure work for eternity Look secondly before you and see the shortness and uncertainty of this which we call a life what day is there that may not be our last what hour is there that we can make account of as certain And think how many World 's the dying Man would give in the late conscience of a careless life for but one day more to do his neglected work and shall we wilfully be prodigall of this happy leasure and liberty and knowingly hazard so wofull and irremediable a surprisall Look thirdly below you and see the horror of that dreadfull place of torment which is the unavoydable portion of careless and unreclaimable sinners consider the extremity the eternity of those tortures which in vain the secure heart sleightly hoped to avoid Look lastly above you and see whether that Heaven whose out-side we behold be not worthy of our utmost ambition of our most zealous and effectuall endeavours Do we not think there is pleasure and happiness enough in that region of glory and blessedness to make abundant amends for all our self-combats for all our tasks of dutyfull service for all our painfull exercises of mortification Oh then let us earnestly and unweariably aspire thither and think all the time lost that we imploy not in the endeavour of making sure of that blessed and eternall inheritance To the full possession whereof he that hath purchased it for us by his most precious blood in his good time happily bring us Amen A Plain and Familiar Explication OF CHRIST'S PRESENCE IN THE SACRAMENT OF HIS Body and Blood Out of the Doctrine of the Church of ENGLAND For the satisfying of a Scrupulous Friend Anno 1631. THat Christ Jesus our Lord is truly present and received in the blessed Sacrament of his body and blood is so clear and universally agreed upon that he can be no Christian that doubts it But in what manner he is both present and received is a point that hath exercised many wits and cost many thousand lives and such as some Orthodox Divines are wont to express with a kind of scruple as not daring to speak out For me as I have learn'd to lay my hand on my mouth where God and his Church have been silent and to adore those mysteries which I cannot comprehend so I think it is possible we may wrong our selves in an over-cautious fear of delivering sufficiently-revealed truths such I take this to be which we have in hand wherein as God hath not been sparing to declare himself in his word So the Church of England our dear Mother hath freely opened her self in such sort as if she meant to meet with the future scruples of an over-tender posterity Certainly there can be but two wayes wherein he can be imagined to be present and received either corporally or spiritually That he should be corporally present at once in every part of every Eucharistical Element through the World is such a Monster of opinion as utterly overthrowes the truth of his humane body destroyes the nature of a Sacrament implies a world of contradictions baffles right reason transcends all faith and in short confounds Heaven and Earth as we might easily show in all particulars if it were the drift of my discourse to meddle with those which profess themselves not ours who yet do no less then we cry down the gross and Capernaitical expression which their Pope Nicholas prescribed to Berengarius and cannot but confess that their own Card. Bellarmine advises this phrase of Christs corporall presence should be very sparingly and warily taken up in the hearing of their people but my intention only is to satisfie those Sons of the Church who disclaiming from all opinion of Transubstantiation do yet willingly imbrace a kind of irresolution in this point as holding it safest not to inquire into the manner of Christs presence What should be guilty of this nice doubtfulness I cannot conceive unless it be a misconstruction of those broad speeches which antiquity not suspecting so unlikely commentaries hath upon all occasions been wont to let fall concerning these awful mysteries For what those Oracles of the Church have divinely spoken in reverence to the Sacramental union of the signe and the thing signified in this sacred business hath been mistaken as literally and properly meant to be predicated of the outward Element hence have grown those dangerous errors and that inexplicable confusion which hath since infested the Church When all is said nothing can be more clear then that in respect of bodily presence the Heavens must contain the glorified humanity of Christ untill his return to judgment As therefore the Angel could say to the devout Maries after Christs resurrection seeking for him in his grave He is risen he is not here so they still say to us seeking for his glorious body here below He is ascended he is not here It should absolutely lose the nature of an humane body if it should not be circumscriptible Mar. 16.6 Glorification doth not bereave it of the truth of being what it is It is a true humane body and therefore can no more according to the natural being even of a body glorified be many wheres at once then according to his personal being it can be separated from that Godhead which is at once every where Let it be therefore firmly setled in our souls as an undoubted truth That the humane body of Christ
in us Implying that so doth our mouth and stomach receive the bread and wine as that in the mean time our souls receive the flesh and the blood of Christ now the soul is not capable of receiving flesh and blood but by the power of that grace of faith which appropriates it But that we may clearly apprehend how these Sacramental acts and objects are both distinguished and united so as there may be no danger of either separation or confusion that which followeth in the consecratory prayer is most evident Hear us O merciful father we beseech thee and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christs holy institution in remembrance of his death and passion may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and gave it to his disciples saying Take eat this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me What more can be said what come we to receive outwardly The Creatures of bread and wine To what use In remembrance of Christs death and passion what do we the whiles receive inwardly we are thereby made partakers of his most blessed body and blood by what means doth this come about By virtue of our Saviours holy institution still it is bread and wine in respect of the nature and essence of it but so that in the spiritual use of it it conveyes to the faithful receiver the body and blood of Christ bread and wine is offered to my eye and hand Christ is tendred to my soul Which yet is more fully if possibly it may be expressed in the form of words prescribed in the delivery of the bread and wine to the communicant The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body soul into everlasting life and take and eat this in remembrance that Christ dyed for thee and feed on him in thine heart by faith with thanksgiving c. No gloss in the world can make the words more full and perspicuous So do we in remembrance of Christs death take and eat the sacramental bread with our mouths as that our hearts do feed upon the body of Christ by our faith And what is this feeding upon Christ but a comfortable application of Christ and his benefits to our souls Which is as the prayer next following expresses it Then do we feed on Christ when by the blessed merits and death of our blessed Saviour and through faith in his blood we do obtain remission of our sins and all other benefits of his passion and are fulfilled with his grace and heavenly benediction Or if we desire a more ample commentary upon this sacramental repast and the nourishment thereby received the prayer ensuing offers it unto us in these words We most heartily thank thee for that thou hast vouchsafed to feed us which have duely received these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ and dost assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness towards uâ— and that we be very members incorporate in thy mystical body which is the blessed company of all faithful people and be also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdome by the merits of the most precious death and passion of thy dear Son This then is to feed upon Christ Lo the meat and manducation and nourishment are all spiritual whiles the elements be bodily and sensible which the allowed homilies of the Church also have laboured in most significant termes to set forth Thou must carefully search and know saith the first sermon concerning the sacrament Tome 2. what dignities are provided for thy soul whither thou art come not to feed thy senses and belly to corruption but thy inward man to immortality and life nor to consider the earthly creatures which thou seest but the heavenly graces which thy faith beholdeth For this table is not saith Chrysostome for chattering jayes but for Eagles who fly thither where the dead body lieth And afterwards to omit some other passages most pregnantly thus It is well known the meat we seek for in this supper is spiritual food the nourishment of our soul a Heavenly refection and not earthly an invisible meat and not bodily a ghostly substance and not carnal so that to think without faith we may enjoy the eating drinking thereof or that that is the fruition of it is but to dream a gross carnal feeding basely abjecting and binding our selves to the elements and creatures whereas by the advice of the council of Nice we ought to lift up our minds by faith and leaving these inferiour and earthly things there seek it where the son of righteousness ever shineth Take this lesson O thou that art desirous of this table of Emissenus a godly father That when thou goest to the reverend communion to be satisfyed with spiritual meats thou look up with faith upon the holy body and blood of thy God thou marvel with reverence thou touch it with the mind thou receive it with the hand of thy heart and thou take it fully with the inward Man Thus that homily in the voice of the Church of England Who now shall make doubt to say that in the Sacrament of the blessed Eucharist Christ is only present and received in a spiritual manner so as nothing is objected to our senses but the Elements nothing but Christ to our faith and therefore that it is requisite we should here walk with a wary and even foot as those that must tread in the midst betwixt profaneness and superstition not affixing a deity upon the Elements on the one side nor on the other sleighting them with a common regard not adoring the Creatures not basely esteeming their relation to that Son of God whom they do really exhibit to us Let us not then think it any boldness either to inquire or to determine of the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament and confidently to say that his body is locally in Heaven spiritually offered to and received by the faith of every worthy communicant upon Earth True it is that in our Saviours speech Joh. 6. to believe in Christ is to eat his flesh and to drink his blood even besides out of the act of this Eucharistical supper so as whosoever brings Christ home to his soul by the act of his faith makes a private meal of his Saviour but the holy Sacrament superadds a further degree of our interest in the participation of Christ for now over and above our spiritual eating of him we do here eat him Sacramentally also every simple act of our faith feeds on Christ but here by virtue of that necessary union which our Saviours institution hath made betwixt the signe and the thing signified the faithfull communicant doth partake of Christ in a
more peculiar manner now his very senses help to nourish his soul and by his eyes his hands his tast Christ is spiritually conveighed into his heart to his unspeakable and everlasting consolation But to put all scruples out of the mind of any reader concerning this point Let that serve for the upshot of all which is expressely set down in the 5th Rubrick in the end of the Communion set forth as the judgment of the Church of England both in King Edwards and Queen Elizabeths time though lately upon negligence omitted in the impression In these words Least yet the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise we do declare That it is not meant thereby that any adoration is done or ought to be done either unto the sacramental bread and wine there bodily received or unto any real and essential presence there being of Christs natural flesh and blood For as concerning the sacramental bread and wine they remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithfull Christians and as concerning the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ they are in Heaven and not here for it is against the truth of Christs natural body to be in more places then one at one time c. Thus the Church of England having plainly explicated her self hath left no place for any doubt concerning this truth neither is she any changeling in her judgment however some unsteddy minds may vary in their conceits away then with those nice scruplers who for some further ends have endeavoured to keep us in an undue suspense with a non licet inquirere de modo and conclude we resolutely that there is no truth in divinity more clear then this of Christs gracious exhibition and our faithful reception of him in this blessed Sacrament Babes keep your selves from Idols Amen A LETTER FOR THE OBSERVATION OF THE FEAST OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY Sir with my Loving Remembrance IT cannot but be a great grief to any wise and moderate Christian to see zealous well meaning souls carried away after the giddy humour of their new teachers to a contempt of all holy and reverend antiquity and to an eager affectation of novel fancies even whiles they cry out most bitterly against innovations When the practise and judgment of the whole Christian world ever from the dayes of the blessed Apostles to this present age is pleaded for any form of government or laudable observation they are straight taught That old things are passed and that all things are become new making their word good by so new and unheard-of an interpretation of Scripture Whereby they may as justly argue the introducing of a new Church a new Gospel a new Religion with the annulling of the old And that they may not want an all-sufficient patronage of their fond conceit our blessed Saviour himself is brought in who in his sermon on the mount controlled the antiquity of the pharisaical glosses of the law Ye have heard that it was said by them of old thus and thus but I say unto you c as if the Son of God in checking the upstart antiquity of a mis-grounded and unreasonable tradition meant to condemn the truely-antient and commendable customes of the whole Christian Church which all sober and judicious christians are wont to look upon with meet respect and reverence And certainly whosoever shall have set down this resolution with himself to sleight those either institutions or practises which are derived to us from the Primitive times and have ever since been intertained by the whole church of Christ upon earth that man hath laid a sufficient foundation of Schisme and dangerous singularity and doth that which the most eminent of the Fathers St. Augustine chargeth with no less then most insolent madnesse For me and my friend God give us grace to take the advice which our Saviour gives to his spouse to Go forth by the footsteps of the Flock and to feed our Kids beside the Shepheards tents Cant. 1.8 and to walk in the sure paths of uncorrupt antiquity For the celebration of the solemn Feasts of our Saviours Nativity Resurrection Ascention and the comming down of the Holy Ghost which you say is cryed down by your zealous lecturer one would think there should be reason enough in those wonderful and unspeakable benefits which those dayes serve to commemorate unto us For to instance in the late feast of the Nativity when the Angel brought the newes of that blessed birth to the Jewish shepheards Behold saith he I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people for unto you is borne this day a Saviour If then the report of this blessing were the best tidings of the greatest joy that ever was or ever could be possibly incident into mankind why should not the commemoration thereof be answerable Where we conceive the greatest joy what should hinder us to expresse it in a joyfull festivity But you are taught to say the day conferred nothing to the blessing that every day we should with equal thankfulnesse remember this inestimable benefit of the incarnation of the Son of God so as a set anniversary day is altogether needless know then and consider that the all wise God who knew it fit that his People should everyday think of the great work of the creation and of the miraculous deliverance out of the Egyptian servitude and should daily give honour to the Almighty creator and deliverer yet ordained one day of seven for the more special recognition of these marvellous works as well knowing how apt we are to forget those duties wherewith we are only encharged in common without the designment of a particular rememoration Besides the same reason will hold proportionably against any monethly or annuall celebration whatsoever the Jewes should have been much to blame if they had not every day thankfully remembred the great deliverance which God wrought for them from the bloody design of cruel Haman yet it was thought requisite if not necessary that there should be two special dayes of Purim set apart for the anniversary memorial of that wonderful preservation The like may be said for the English Purim of our November it is well if besides the general tye of our thankfulness a precise day ordaind by authority can enough quicken our unthankful dulness to give God his own for so great a mercy shall we say now it is the work of the year what needs a day As therefore no day should passe over our head without a grateful acknowledgment of the great mystery of God incarnate So withall the wisdome of the primitive Church no doubt by the direction of the holy Ghost hath pitched upon one special day wherein we should intirely devote our thoughts to the meditation of this work which the Angels of heaven can not enough admire But you are told that perhaps we miss of the day since the season
suo vitio incidunt in atrocia peccata ibid. Thes 3. de persever 2. The true believer and regenerate hath no immunity or priviledg whereby he is secured from falling into those horrible sins which are committed by others Indignationem Dei paternam incurrunt damnabilem contrahunt c. ibid. Ita ut dum in eo statu impoenitentes persistunt nec deâ—eant nec possint aliter sibi persuadere quam se esse morti obnoxios in explic ejusd Art 3. Whiles he continues in those sins he runs into the displeasure of God and is in the guilt of damnation so as he neither can nor ought to perswade himself other then that abiding in this State impenitent he is obnoxious to eternall death Talis peccator stat merito suo damnandus Theol. Br. ibid Thes 5. Jus ad regnum non tollitur c. Jure regni haereditario excidere non potest in explic Art 6. Tertia sententia Ecclesiae Anglicanae ponit cum Augustino credentes quidem communiter posse a gratia fide per carnis infirmitatem tentationis recidere etiam deficere sed addit illos credentes qui secundum propositum vocati sunt quique in fide viva solide radicati fuerint non posse totaliter aut finaliter deficere perire sed per gratiam Dei specialem efficacem ita in fide vera viva perseverare ut tandem ad vitam eternam perducantur D. Overal in Art 5. 4. Howsoever such a one stands by his own desert in the State of damnation yet those who are soundly rooted in a true and lively faith lose not all their right to the inheritance of Heaven neither can either totally or finally fall from grace and perish everlastingly But by the speciall and effectuall favour and inoperation of God are kept up and enabled to persevere in a true and lively faith so as that at last they are brought to eternall life These are the Articles of accord which whosoever holdeth and resteth in my soul betwixt him and his harmes in the ignorance of further particulars Let there be a thousand parcells and Atomes of truth contained in these heads there needs no more be known perhaps not all these let there be no fewer errours in misholding those other manifold shreds of opinion yet these are no rubs in our way to Heaven And if now having consented in these chief specialties we will needs fall out about immateriall inferences we are like to quarrelous brethren who having agreed upon the main division of their inheritance fall out about some heaps of rubbish Away with this unquiet Spirit from us that profess Christians what should these Mattockes and hammers sound in the living Temple of the holy Ghost Men Brethren Fathers help who sees not a dangerous fire kindling in our Church by these five fatall brands which if it be not speedily quenched threatens a furious eruption and shall too late dye in our ashes That crafty Devill that envyes our peace takes this perilous season to distract us that so we might fall as a prey to a common Enemy It is not yet too late to redress this evill A few Pailsfull may yet seasonably extinguish this weak flame which time will make headstrong and irremediable Let me boldly say it is not disputation it is not Counter-writing that can quench it These courses are but the bellowes to diffuse and raise these flashes to more height and rage we saw it in the practise of our neighbours never did that Belgick quarrell grow to extremity till after the solemn conference before the States at the Hague which was intended to appease it There is no possible redress but in a severe Edict of restraint to charme all tongues and pens upon the sharpest punishment from passing those moderate bounds which the Church of England guided by the Scriptures hath expresly set or which on both sides are fully accorded on If any Man herein complain of an usurpation upon the conscience and an unjust servitude let him be taught the difference betwixt matters of faith and Scholasticall disquisitions Those have God for their author these the brain of Men Those are contained in Scriptures either in express Terms or irrefragable consequences these are only deduced thence by such crooked inferences as cannot command assent Those do mainly import our Salvation these not at all Those are for the Pulpit these for the Schools In those the heart is tyed to believe the tongue must be free to speak In these the heart may be free the tongue may be bound of this latter sort are the points we have now in hand besides and after the accorded particulars which how unfit they are for popular ears and how unworthy to break the peace of the Church shall appear in the difficulty of the questions in the unimportance of the ill raised differences Visum sapientissimo numini obscuritate quadam locorum ambiguitate involvere haec mysteria For the former we need no other Judge then St. Austin himself who calls this question of predestination whereon the rest depend Questionem difficillimam paucis intelligibilem a question most difficult and which but few can understand What need we any other witness then the learnedst followers of Arminius who in their Epistle to forraign Divines confess that it hath seemed good to the most wise God to involve these mysteries in obscurity and in an ambiguity of places seemingly contradictory Haec ipsa de praed perplexa spinosa obscuritate sua molestissima ibid. And some Pages after they profess to subscribe to the Judgement of all Divines both ancient and modern that these questions of predestination being perplexed thorny and troublesome through their obscureness may without all detriment of Salvation be either unknown or discussed Neither was that comparison of Strigelius amiss who likens the place of predestination in Divinity to the Cossick Rule in Arithmetick But what an idleness were it to prove the danger of the passage through these Sands and Rocks when we see the Shipwracks Where ever did the great Doctor of the Gentiles cry O altitudo but in this point To fall upon these discourses then in popular auditories what were it other then to teach Algebra to those that yet know not their figures or to turn them lose into a perilous Sea who know neither Coast nor Carde nor Compass But were the knowledg of these differences as necessary as it is hard the difficulty should but whet our appetite and incourage our industry what if it appear there is as little use as ease in the common Canvasses of them and that when the noise of passion is stilled on both sides so as each will but hear other speak with just favour and moderation our variance shall be proved less materiall then may be worthy of the warr of Brethren This shall be made good in our following discourse which I intreat both parts in the bowels of Jesus Christ to examine without
in respect of corporal presence is in Heaven whither he visibly ascended and where he sits on the right hand of the Father and whence he shall come again with glory a parcel of our Creed which the Church learn't of the Angels in Mount Olivet who taught the gazing disciples that this same Jesus which was taken up from them into Heaven shall so come in like manner as they saw him go into Heaven which was with wonderfull glory and magnificence Far be it from us then to think that the blessed humanity of the Son of God should so disparage it self as where there is neither necessity nor use of a bodily descent to steale down and conveigh himself insensibly from Heaven to Earth daily and to hide up his whole sacred body in an hundred thousand several pixes at once It is a wonder that superstition it self is not ashamed of so absurd and impossible a fancy which it is in vain for Men to think they can salve up with a pretence of omnipotence we question not the power of God but his will and do well know he cannot will absolute contradictions Deus hoc potenter non potest as one said truly That which we say of Christs presence holds no less of his reception for so do we receive him into us as he is present with us neither can we corporally receive that which is bodily absent although besides the common incongruity of opinion the corporal receiving of Christ hath in it a further prodigiousness and horrour all the Novices of the Roman Schools are now asham'd of their Popes Dentibus teritur but when their Doctors have made the best of their own Tenent they cannot avoid St. Austins flagitium videtur praecipere By how much the humane flesh is and ought to be more dear by so much more odious is the thought of eating it neither let them imagine they can escape the imputation of an hateful savageness in this act for that it is not presented to them in the form of flesh whiles they professe to know it is so howsoever it appeareth Let some skilful cook so dress mans flesh in the mixtures of his artificial hashes and tast full sauces that it cannot be discerned by the sence yet if I shall afterwards understand that I have eaten it though thus covertly conveyed I cannot but abhorr to think of so unnatural a diet Corporally then to eat if it were possible the flesh of Christ Joh. 6.63 as it could in our Saviours own word profit nothing so it could be no other then a kinde of religious Cannibalisme which both nature and grace cannot but justly rise against Since therefore the body of Christ cannot be said to be corporally present or received by us it must needs follow that there is no way of his presence or receit in the Sacrament but spiritual which the Church of England hath laboured so fully to express both in her holy Liturgie and publickly-authorized homilies that there is no one point of divine truth which she hath more punctually and plainly laid down before us What can be more evident then that which she hath said in the second exhortation before the Communion thus Dearly beloved forasmuch as our duty is to render to Almighty God our heavenly Father most hearty thanks for that he hath given his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ not only to dye for us but also to be our spiritual food and sustenance as it is declared unto us as well by Gods word as by the holy Sacraments of his blessed body and blood c. Lo Christ is in this Sacrament given to us to be our spiritual food in which regard also this sacrament is in the same exhortation called a Godly and heavenly feast whereto that we may come holy and clean we must search and examine our own consciences not our chops and mawes that we may come and be received as worthy Partakers of such an Heavenly Table But that in the following exhortation is yet more pregnant that we should diligently try and examine our faith before we presume to eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For as the benefit is great if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive that holy Sacrament for then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood then we dwel in Christ and he in us we be one with Christ and Christ with us so is the danger great if we receive the same unworthily What termes can be more expresse it is bread and wine which we come to receive that bread and that wine is sacramental It is our heart wherewith we receive that sacrament it is our faith whereby we worthily receive this receit and manducation of the flesh of Christ is spiritually done and by this spiritual receit of him we are made one with him and he with us by vertue then of the worthy receit of this sacramental bread and wine we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ spiritually and there growes hereby a reciprocal union betwixt Christ and us neither is he otherwise one with us then we are one with him which can be no otherwise then by the power of his institution and of our faith And that no man may doubt what the drift and purpose of our blessed Saviour was in the institution and recommendation of this blessed sacrament to his Church it followes in that passage And to the end that we should alway remember the exceeding great love of our master and onely Saviour Jesus Christ thus dying for us and the innumerable benefits which by his pretious blood-shedding he hath obtained to us he hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries as pledges of his love and continual remembrances of his death to our great and endlesse comfort If therefore we shall look upon and take these sacred elements as the pledges of our Saviours love to us and remembrances of his death for us we shall not need neither indeed can we require by the judgment of our Church to set any other value on them But withall that we may not sleightly conceive of those mysteries as if they had no further worth then they do outwardly show we are taught in that prayer which the Minister kneeling down at Gods board is appointed to make in the name of all the communiâ—ants before the consecration that whiles we do duly receive those blessed elements we do in the same act by the power of our faith eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ so effectual and inseparable is the sacramental union of the signes thus instituted by our blessed Lord and Saviour with the thing thereby signified for thus is he prescribed to pray Grant us therefore gratious Lord so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his blood that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our soules washed through his most pretious blood and that we may ever dwell in him and he