It was the design of his Spirit to imprint his Image in their Hearts which consisted in true holiness and righteousness But how could that Image be imprinted on them till they were first adopted his Children Or how could they be owned for his Children but in and through Christ his only begotten and beloved Son That Peace which his Holy Spirit brings into and settles in our Consciences is founded in that other which our Mediator hath procured and merited for us by his Death and Sufferings nor could our Minds ever have been calmed had not the Lamb of God taken away the sins of the World Our Peace was to be prepared by the Father ere it could be purchased by the Son and purchased by the Son ere it could have been applied by the Spirit The Gift of the Comforter was an effect of Christ's Intercession I will pray the Father and He shall send you another Comforter And it was requisite that He should go away to send that Comforter since he was the Effect of his Intercession and that Intercession the last Act of his Sacrifice in the Heavenly Sanctuary But then 2dly it was not fit that Christ should bestow his best and most excellent Gifts on us till he had recovered his first Majesty or that the Members should be thus adorned till the Head was perfectly glorious 'T is at the time of their Coronation and Triumph that Kings and Emperors scatter their Largesses When our Lord had ascended up on high and had led Captivity captive then was it a proper time for him to give gifts unto men and among the rest of his Gifts the Fountain and Giver of all Gifts and Graces the Holy Spirit it self This St. Peter tells his Auditors Act. 2. 33. That Christ being by the right hand of God exalted and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear Christ was first to rise from the dead and to be glorified before he could send down the Spirit And this we learn from Joh. 7. 39. where 't is said That the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified nor could he be fully glorify'd without the descent and testimony of the Spirit For 1. It had been some impeachment to Christ's equality with the Father had our Lord still remained on Earth for as much as the sending of the Spirit would have been ascribed to the Father alone as his sole Act. This would have been the most That the Father for his sake had sent Him but He as God had had no honour of sending Him 2. Nor indeed till he ascended up to Heaven could he have been fully glorified on Earth his appearance here having been very mean void of all pomp and state nothing about Him to strike men's Senses nothing of worldly grandeur to affect them who conversed with him neither wealth nor honour exposed he was to want and other inconveniencies of life and put at last to a cruel and an ignominious Death What strong prejudices had both Jews and Gentiles against Him upon this account And how could those prejudices be removed so long as he continued in that low state and condition But they were now quite taken away by the descent of the Holy Ghost which he had so often promised to send after his departure and which when they saw he made good their mean opinion of him was soon changed into veneration when they saw him who was made a little lower than the Angels nay who had appeared on Earth lower than the lowest of Men for the suffering of death crowned with such glory and honour And how can we but adore Him as God when we now behold Him that once stood before Herod and Pilate as a criminal exalted above all the Kings and Potentates of the Earth whose pride and glory now it is to be his Disciples to doe him homage and to lay down their Crowns and Scepters at the foot of his Cross We now see Temples every-where erected to his honour The most remote obscure Regions of the World enlightned by his beams That Jesus once so much despised become now the glory of the Earth His Name dreadfull to Devils adored by Turks and Infidels so that his Kingdom knows no bounds as it shall never have an end Had he still remained here below he had been lookt upon as no better than what the Arrians once styled Him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But now his Godhead is as visible to each Christian as his Manhood heretofore was to each Man the Spirit of God whom He sent down having born witness to Him in all those wonderfull Signs and Miracles that were wrought by his Apostles through his Name And thus we see how that Christ could not have been glorify'd on Earth as God had he not ascended up into Heaven and from thence sent down the Holy Ghost Nor 3. could the Holy Ghost himself otherwise have been discovered Christ's stay here would have been a lett to the manifestation of his Godhead also which appearing in those many great signs and wonders done by Him had not our Lord gone away those glorious Works would in all probability have been wholly ascribed unto him and so the Holy Ghost should have lost that honour which was due to him while his Deity should have been concealed from the notice of the World 4. A fourth reason of the necessity of Christ's departure respects his Apostles and all other his Disciples 1. His Apostles who we know were to be sent abroad into all Coasts to be dispersed over the whole Earth to preach the Gospel and not to stay in one place Now Christ's corporal Presence could herein have availed them little in order to this purpose He could not have been with St. James at Jerusalem and St. John at Ephesus whatever Ubiquitaries Papists or Lutherans say to the contrary in flat contradiction to all Philosophy and Scripture too which allows not this priviledge to Christ's Body now glorified Whom the Heavens must receive saith St. Peter untill the times of Restitution of all things Act. 3. 21. There He must be till He comes to fetch us to Him and when He promised his Apostles to be with them always even to the end of the World Mat. 28. 20. He meant no otherwise than by his Holy Spirit who should comfort and guide them into all Truth And therefore it was expedient for them as our Lord says here in the Text that himself should go away to make room for the Spirit as fitter for his Disciples in their dispersed disconsolate condition since He could be and was present with them all and with every one of them by himself as filling the compass of the whole World which cannot be affirmed of our Lord 's bodily Presence 2. Besides had this manner of Christ's Presence been possible without confounding the Properties of his humane and divine Nature it had been very
Omnipotent God a power able to break in pieces the chains even of death its self strong ones indeed to hold all others but weak to hold him who was as well God as Man Whom God hath raised up c. From which words Four things are to be gather'd 1. The Certainty of Christ's Resurrection set down here as matter of fact Hath raised up 2. The principal Agent or rather the sole efficient Cause of Christ's Resurrection God Whom God hath c. 3. The Manner how 't was done Removendo impedimentum by taking away whatsoever might obstruct it the rowling away the stone as it were from the door of the Sepulchre the untying of a hard knot Having loosed the pains of Death 4. And lastly the Necessity of all this a most convincing and irresistible Argument and therefore brought up in the rear to make all sure Because it was not possible he should be holden of it Of these in their order and of such practical Inferences as doe arise out of them And first of the first Particular the Certainty of Christ's Resurrection in these words Hath raised up 1. There is not any truth in Scripture which God has been so carefull or as I may so say curious to secure as that of his Son's Resurrection Which he did as by taking away all grounds of doubting of it so by making use of all manner of proofs to ascertain it For first whereas Sceptical Men might have questioned whether Christ died truly or no or if so whether his disciples did not come by night and steal him away These two grounds of suspition God took care to remove The first by that Evidence the Centurion gave in to Pilate of his real dying besides that of so many Spectators who beheld that stream of bloud wherein he poured forth his Soul unto death And the second by the exact care of the High Priest who caused a vast stone to be rowled before the door of the Sepulchre adding his Seal and Souldiers of his own chusing to guard it from the attempts of the Disciples who had they had a will had neither power nor courage to break open a Sepulchre hewen out of a new entire Rock or force such a strong guard as kept it much less Money to bribe their silence as the High Priests and Scribes did And to say that his Disciples stole him away while the stout Watch-men slept was surely no better than a Dream or rather not a Dream but a studied Lie and yet such a Lie too as does most clearly confirm the truth of our Lord's Resurrection But then secondly As God took away all cause of doubt so did he draw Arguments from all Topicks to prove this great Truth Heaven and Earth here gave in their Evidence For not only the Souls of Holy Men were fetcht thence to be united to their Bodies for proof of that Resurrection by which themselves were raised but the Blessed Inhabitants of Heaven the Angels came down on purpose to publish it to the Women as these did to the Apostles to whom Christ shewed himself alive too after his Passion by many infallible proofs and expos'd himself to their very Senses who did not only see and hear but converse and eat with him after he was risen from the dead that they might not mistake his Body as once they did for a Phantasm or Christ for a Spirit having flesh and bones as they found he had and retaining still the marks and prints of the nails and spear to shew the Identity as well as Reality of that Body which arose The very Infidelity of an Apostle being not the least confirmation of our Faith too in this particular Not to mention other instances the Earthquake the empty grave the stone rowled away the linnen cloths curiously wrapt up together as dead Witnesses when there were so many living ones Angels and Men and among these such as were ready to seal this Truth with their dearest Bloud of such credit and honesty too as might highly recommend their Testimony to our belief of such Prudence Experience and Holiness withall as neither could betray them to Error nor suffer them to abuse the credit of others Such were the Holy Apostles who with great power gave witness of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus and whose principal office it was to doe so as appears upon the Election of St. Matthias into the place of Judas grounded upon this necessity Act. 1. 21 22. To whom we may add no less than five hundred Brethren at once all agreeing in the same story Nemo omnes neminem omnes fefellerunt which made their Evidence rise to such a strong demonstration as was sufficient to stop the mouths of Christ's most contradicting Enemies and open ours to confess with the Disciples and Primitive Christians The Lord is risen indeed Luk. 24. 34. Thus we see how exact the Holy Ghost was as in removing all such Doubts as might in the least obstruct our Faith so in using all manner of Arguments to confirm and establish the undoubted Truth of Christ's Resurrection not only to show the possibility of a Resurrection in general by so pregnant and visible an Example but the importance of it in regard of ours whereof our Lord 's was the Fountain and Pledge 1. I say the clearing of the Truth of Christ's Resurrection was absolutely necessary in regard of the slowness and indisposition of most Men and in all times to admit of the possibility of a Resurrection The Philosopher we see could not digest it To the Stoicks and Epicureans it became matter of laughter who took it for some new Goddess Act. 17. 18 32. Nay some of the Disciples themselves lookt upon it as a Fable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luk. 24. 11. A considerable Sect too among the Jews the Sadducees utterly deny'd it Act. 23. 8. Simon Magus and the Gnosticks were of the same persuasion and so was Marcion as Tertullian informs me who deny'd the truth of Christ's flesh and consequently his Nativity and Resurrection as Valentinus's Disciple did the Resurrection of that Flesh he convers'd in Some there were who affirm'd 't was already past as Hymenaeus and Philetus Others turn'd it into a meer Allegory a Renovation Matth. 19. 28. A state of the Gospel call'd a New Heaven and a new Earth 2 Pet. 3. 13. And the World to come Heb. 2. 5. And lastly how doe all loose Christians decry it as a thing utterly inconsistent with their interest It was requisite then that this foundation should be laid very deep in men's Hearts which the Holy Ghost fore-saw so many would endeavour to over-throw 2. 'T was absolutely necessary to clear this Truth in regard of the importance of it to Christ's glory and the happiness of all true Christians 1. To Christ's glory which in the esteem of Men being much eclipsed by his Death was to shine out brighter by his Resurrection for nothing but this could take
humanity they must needs have been highly concern'd to hear that He was to leave them Happy sure not only the Womb that bare and the Paps that gave him suck but the Ears which heard the Eyes which saw the Feet which followed and the Hands which ministred unto Him Abraham rejoyced to see the Lord's day though at a great distance and St. Augustine could not propose a greater satisfaction to himself next to the Beatifical Vision than to have seen Christ in the flesh But these Disciples had not only the happiness to see Him but withall to be of his train to be instructed by his Divine Lessons comforted by his Christian Promises animated and encouraged by his Example and fortify'd by his Aid and Assistance Upon all which accounts our Lord Himself pronounceth them Blessed above those Prophets and Righteous Men who wanted such advantages Mat. 13. 16 17. Blessed then they were in this as well as other respects and therefore by how much the enjoyment of Christ's presence was beneficial unto them by so much the more was the very apprehension of losing Him harsh and unpleasing For although our Lord's Ascension-day which was the day of his leaving the Earth was to Him a day of Glory yet to the Disciples it could not be but a day of Sorrow It was his going to the Father indeed but it was a going from them And how could it be but that these Children of the Bridegroom should mourn when the Bridegroom was to be taken from them This sole Consideration was enough to beget sorrow in them but there were other Circumstances which help'd to fill up the measure of it and the chiefest this That He was to forsake them in their greatest needs For troubles were now hard at hand persecutions were suddenly to arise a storm was coming and all lookt black they were to be put out of the Synagogues nay the time was now coming That whosoever should kill them should think that he did God good service v. 2. So that to lose a friend such a friend and at such a time was a very uncomfortable prospect and there was but too much reason that their hearts should be filled with sorrow Nor does our Lord altogether blame it 'T was not his business to root out those affections which Nature had given Men but to moderate them He that took our infirmities was not severe to those of his disciples It was indeed a mistake in them to think that their Lord's departure would be disadvantageous to them but a mistake of carnal Love to his Person that was so dear to them which he minds them of and rectifies Quam incertoe providentioe nostroe How short-sighted are the best of us even in those things which most nearly concern us How apt are we to fancy a loss in our greatest benefit How earnestly bent many times on that which would be inconvenient if not mischievous to us And how ill a Judge is flesh and bloud of what tends to God s glory and Man's good St. Peter had no sooner been allarm'd with the news of Christ's Passion but he presently suggests Be it far from thee O Lord Matth. 16. 21 22. And while He and the rest of the Disciples here were possessed with Carnal thoughts how ill did they relish Spiritual things Nothing so much barrs up Men's minds against God's truths as worldly prejudice While they thought Christ was to reign on Earth they could not so much as dream of Heaven Upon the strength of this fancy so deeply rooted in them they give all for lost if they lose their Master It was high time then for him to shew them their error to let them know That that supposed loss would be their gain and the cause of his absence if well understood would raise a joy in them above their present sorrow since his going away for a time was only to prepare a place for them to all Eternity where He and they should one day so meet as never more to be parted In the mean while He assures them That he would not leave them comfortless but after his departure send one from Heaven who should more than supply the defect of his Presence on Earth even the Comforter Himself who yet could not come till He were gone A truth which though never so ungratefull yet being profitable they must hear and that from the mouth of Truth it self Nevertheless I tell you c. In the handling of which words I shall briefly and plainly discourse of these following Heads Shew you 1. Who the Person promised here is and how described 2. Who was to send him 3. When not till Christ was gone away 4. How expedient it was that the Holy Ghost should come and that not only to the Apostles but to all faithfull Believers by representing to you the infinite Benefits we and all the Faithfull do reap by his coming Of these in their order and 1. Of the Person promised here and his Office It cannot be deny'd but that the knowledge of the Third Person in the Ever-blessed Trinity was a Mystery lockt up for many Ages Holy Men of old spake indeed as they were moved by the Holy Ghost but 't is to be question'd whether they were well acquainted with Him they spake by They were his Organs and Instruments but at that time perhaps little sensible of that divine Breath that did inspire them He was scarce at all known before under the legal Dispensations those passages of Scripture being dark and obscure which point at him and Men not ripe then for so high a Revelation Which is so true that till the Holy Ghost came down upon the Apostles and appeared in cloven tongues as of fire on their heads the knowledge of him was very imperfect It being reported of some who had been baptized into John's baptism Act. 19. that they had not so much as heard whether there were any Holy Ghost not that they had never heard any thing at all of his Being having been baptized by John who had seen him descend upon Christ at his baptism in the visible shape of a Dove Mat. 3. Joh. 1. but that they had not yet been so throughly acquainted with his Gifts and Graces as afterwards they were Our Blessed Lord then was the first who clearly revealed him in his Gospel especially in that of our Evangelist As Joh. 14. 26. he promiseth Him to his Disciples to be their Instructer But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name He shall teach you all things He repeats it again chap. 15. 26. When the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father even the Spirit of Truth which proceedeth from the Father He shall testifie of me And so here in the Text where there is such a manifest discovery both of his Person and Godhead that none but an Arrian or a Macedonian none but He that resists can doubt of his Existence Taking
some Protestant Divines on the affirmative And were this the worst opinion of the Romanists we should not quarrel much with them since some passages of Scripture seem to favour it Whether this be so or no I shall not here undertake to determine nor indeed need I. For to what purpose were it to prove that every Man has a peculiar Angel assign'd him when we are here and elsewhere so clearly told that all of them do serve every one of us while we serve and obey God He hath given his Angels charge over thee says the Psalmist in the fore-cited Psal. 91. 10. i. e. many Angels over one particular Man And as we find more than one appointed to carry Lizarus's Soul into Heaven Luk. 16. 22. so sometimes we reade of one Angel attending many Men as in the case of Israel in the expulsion of the Canaanites and Amorites Gen. 24. 7. and at other times of many Angels attending one Man as in that of Jacob Gen. 32. 1 2. and of Elisha 2 King 6. 17. 'T is not for us to limit the Almighty nor to retrench that guard He has assign'd us While we have an heavenly Host about us why should we content our selves with one single Assistant And when we are certain of their protection why should we dispute their Number And as it may seem some scanting of the bountifull provision of the Almighty who is pleas'd to express his gracious respects to one Man in the allotment of many Guardians so a Platonick piece of Divinity in the School-men to reduce them to one single one for each individual person But to let this pass as an innocent though perhaps erroneous Opinion their conceit of an exterior and interior Mission whereby some are said to illuminate others and fit them for their several Charges but never to stir abroad themselves may justly in St. Paul's expression be styl'd an intruding into things which they have not seen nor can see and is indeed no better than a flat contradiction to the Text which tells us That All none excepted are Ministring spirits to serve the necessity of God's Elect ones These blessed Spirits know no such state as to think it a disparagement to wait on the meanest Saint When God sends them the best of them go be the errant never so slender They measure not their Obedience by the lowness of their employment but the Will of him that employs them thinking no message beneath their Dignity which God is pleas'd to put them upon The highest Angel does not esteem himself too good to obey his Commands in the lowest instances of Obedience And since the Son of God came down on Earth to minister to Men no Arch-angel will deem it an abasement unbefitting him to serve them The measures of humane Grandeur are not to be apply'd to that of Heaven where every abasement if there can be any such thing in doing God's Will is Exaltation Let us then imitate them in their humble submissions to their Maker but then let our Prudence be as Angelical as our Humility if that teaches us to go when God sends us this should teach us also not to stir or act till he sends us which leads me from their Office to their Commission They are sent The very name Angel signifies a Messenger and consequently implies a subordination and dependence on some superior Being that employs him 'T is a name of Office not of Nature This belongs to him as he is a Spirit That as he is an Agent God is the supreme cause and disposer of all things Angels but his instruments They act not but by his Commission nor do they run till he sends them The Heavenly Host do nothing without Orders from their General and like the Centurion's Souldiers in the Gospel go and come when he bids them He gives his Angels charge says the Psalmist and as his Ministers they doe his pleasure not their own ours much less They are not our Familiars And though their Help be more powerfull yet is it not more absolute than that of other means since it dependeth still on the Will of God too and what-ever Message they deliver or Commands they execute 't is that Will still that gives them Motion and Authority And therefore when St. Stephen says the Law was received by the disposition of Angels we must not fancy them to be Authors of it but only the Heralds 'T was Christ that gave these did but publish it The Law was ordained by Angels but still in the hand of a Mediator Gal. 3. 19. The Ministry was indeed of Angels but the Authority of Christ. And therefore Junius renders those words Act. 7. 53. You have received the Law in the midst of the ranks of Angels i. e. among them attending God when he delivered it Thither then they came only to assist at the Ceremony not as Law-givers but Attendants That being a Title peculiar to the one great Law-giver who gives Laws as well to Angels as to Men. These they constantly observe and if we doe so they shall be Ministring spirits to us for their Employment lasts still and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Particle of the Present tense implies it Thus as they are God's Ministers they shall still be ours too if we be God's Servants and consequently heirs of Salvation The last Particular Who shall be heirs of Salvation i. e. To those that shall one day possess what they now doe certainly expect and wait for They who are already in Heaven need not the assistance of Angels being themselves though not Angels yet like them and equally happy in the fruition of the same God Their Ministry is necessary to bring us thither but ceases when we are there They are our Guides here There they shall be our Companions Nor are their Services design'd but for those whom God has chosen out of the rest of lost Mankind to fill up the void places of Apostate Spirits For as Christ himself is by our Apostle styl'd the Saviour of all Men but in an especial manner of those that believe So may Angels be said to be in some sort Ministring spirits to Mankind but with a reserve to those who are God's chosen Vessels Those may possibly have their common protection but their particular attendance is on these For as the Almighty makes his Sun to shine as well upon the just as the unjust and sometimes more gloriously on the latter than the former so is it in the Ministry of Angels from which even wicked Men may reap a general benefit in some instances more perhaps of an external help and assistance than the good while the best of their Offices are reserved for the best We know that whosoever stept down first into the Pool of Siloam was cured whether good or bad and the Angels brought down Manna in the Wilderness to the rebellious as well as to the obedient Israelites These are favours
the work of Man's Redemption which could not have been perform'd but in such a Body as his own nor could the Seed of the Woman be said to bruise the Serpent's head had not Christ been conceived of that Seed nor the Promise renew'd to Abraham Gen. 22. 18. In thy seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed have been made good had not the Mother of our Lord descended from his loins too And surely well may she be call'd Blessed without whom we could never have been so since 't was she that furnish'd those Materials that repair'd our ruines from whose Bloud also flow'd that most pretious One which alone can cleanse and redeem us Our Mother Eve could brag when she had brought forth her first-begotten and he but an untoward Child for St. John tells us he was of that wicked one the Devil 1 John 3. 12. as all other Reprobates are there said to be vers 10. I have gotten a Man from the Lord Gen. 4. 1. i. e. as some interpret the words That famous Man the Lord fancying Cain to be that Seed of the Woman that should bruise the Serpent's head But how truly may each of us now say Possedi Deum per Virginem I have gotten the Lord my Redeemer by the means of a pure Virgin of whom my Saviour was made Man that I might be made the Son of God How much better may the Virgin Mary deserve the name of the Mother of all the Living than Eve did Gen. 3. 20. who at best convey'd unto us but a Natural whereas the former a Spiritual life in giving us Him who is the Life so far was Eve from being Mater Viventium in this sense that she brought forth all her Posterity still-born into the World dead in trespasses and sins She indeed hearkned to the Suggestions of an evil Spirit but the Holy Virgin to the Message of a good one If she were the Mother of the Living then this of the Predestinate and if by the former Satan bruised our heel by this Anti-Eve we crush his head being instated in a better condition than we had forfeited Now if they who were the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Benefactors to Mankind were thought worthy of divine Honours the first occasion of Idolatry there being nothing that renders a person more like God than to doe good especially to oblige all Manking nothing that could raise such Persons so high in the Esteem of Mortals as such a large and comprehensive Goodness surely none came so near the Almighty in this so divine a quality as the Holy Virgin did by whose means not only the Inhabitants of the Earth but in some sort too those of Heaven became certainly and immutably Blessed confirm'd in such a state of happiness by her Son as they are uncapable of losing And therefore well might the Angel pronounce her Blessed who with the rest of his Order were so much obliged by her And surely all generations of Men much more who in part owe unto her their recovery and those hopes they have of being one day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alike Blessed with them and if St. Paul was Blessed in being a chosen Vessel to bear Christ's name then the Holy Virgin much more by conveying a humane Nature to him who alone makes us partakers of the divine one All these advantages had the Mother of God glorious indeed but not the chiefest part of her happiness nor was she to value her self for her relation purely considered in its self Yea rather Blessed are they says our Lord who hear the Word of God and keep it Whereby it appears how little he set by any carnal propinquity and how much nearer and dearer to him the Righteous are than his own bloud not that he did in the least despise his Parents for his own Example preaches Subjection to them Luke 2. 51. but only preferr Spiritual kindred to Carnal as he often does letting us know That to doe the will of his Father which is in Heaven is to be his Brother Sister and Mother Matth. 12. 50. That true Christian Heraldry is founded in Grace and not in Bloud That to be joined unto him in one Spirit is a closer Union than to be united to him in the flesh and to be obedient to his Commands far more advantageous than to relate to his Person Nay so little would our Lord have us too to prize such outward things as these that unless in some cases we hate Father and Mother Wife and Children Brethren and our selves too he plainly tells us we cannot be his Disciples Luke 14. 26. And for this reason Moses blessed Levi Deut. 33. 9. Who said unto his Father and to his Mother I have not seen him neither did he acknowledge his Brethren nor knew his own Children but observed God's Word and kept his Covenant This is certain that all outward favours and privileges how pompous soever in themselves are wholly insignificant and ineffectual without the grace of Obedience being at best but gratioe gratis datoe non gratum facientes rather ornaments than benefits which as we are not thanklesly to over-slip so neither presumptuously to over-ween See how little account St. Paul makes of them 2 Cor. 5. 16. Though we have known Christ after the flesh have familiarly convers'd with him been eye-witnesses of all those glorious things he did as his Apostles yet now henceforth know we him no more we disclaim all such carnal acquaintance and if we should know Christ no better he would not know us nor own us for his we might be nearly related to him and yet be far enough from him and without him for so 't is expresly recorded of some of his Brethren that they did not believe in him Joh. 7. 5. So far were they from looking upon him as their Saviour that they took him for no better than a mad-man one besides himself Mark 3. 21. though in process of time some of them indeed became his disciples and no doubt of Christ's Genealogy not a few were eternally lost The Jews much prided themselves in being Abraham's sons and yet one of them that calls himself so fryes in Hell What did it avail Saul to be a Prophet or Judas an Apostle when such privileges serv'd them for no other purpose but to enhanse their damnation We reade not of any dignified with more glorious Prerogatives than these two the Blessed Virgin and St. John the Evangelist the one for bearing our Saviour in her Womb and the other for leaning on his Breast yet how little had these things benefited them had not Faith and Piety seasoned such outward privileges and made them as gracious as they were glorious Happier Mary for bearing Christ's Sayings in her Heart than Himself in her Womb in that she partook of the Merit than imparted the Matter and Substance of his bloud 'T was not so much the loveliness of her Motherhood as the lowliness of her Handmaidship that He regarded
have found out a platform of Government among the fallen Angels who though their Principles be crooked yet being obey'd by Wills as crooked observe an irregular Rule and a perverse Order even in Hell so Sin rules in us too by Principles For there is saith St. Paul a Law of Sin But then 't is such a Law as if it should be Treason for any Subject not to Murther his Natural Prince or Adultery not to Ravish or Blasphemy not to take God's Name in vain 'T is such a Law as if two Anti-Tables should be written which should make it Sin not to break the Commandments Lastly Let the Apostle tell you what Law it is 'T is a Law of the Members warring against the Law of the Mind and not only warring but bringing it into Captivity Rom. 7. 23. Sin herein far exceeding the Author of it For he only aspir'd to be like the Highest but Sin hath made an inversion in the Soul advancing Sense into the Chair of Reason and placing the Beast above the Man And though it may leave us to a natural liberty in moral actions for 't is harsh to think that Justice and Temperance are but guilded Sins yet for actions of Grace it has so glewed and settered the Soul that it cannot possibly mount up to Heaven 2. Next for Death Men have made a Covenant with that saith the Scripture and if Contract be not enough we reade Wisd. 1. v. 14. of a Kingdom of Death so that Christ did not only find us Captives but Captives slain Teneo à primordio homicidam culpam says Tertullian Adam's Throat was our open Sepulchre who in that fatal Apple did not only murther his Children like Saturn but like Thyestes in the Tragedy did eat them After that Transgression there pass'd an Act upon us It is appointed for all Men once to dye Nay it were a degree of happiness to dye but once if nothing remained for punishment for nothing can suffer nothing But we were to be raised to another Death and like drowsie Malefactors that had lain down with their Sentence were to be awakened out of sleep to be put upon the Rack 3. The Scripture almost every-where styles the Devil the Prince of this World His Kingdom had enlarg'd its self from that place about which the Schools dispute to every rebellion and disorder of the Soul where as in a conquer'd Province per cupiditates regnavit saith St. Augustine He reigned by his Proconsul Sins There also making himself the Prince of Darkness by our ignorance and the Prince of the Air by raising Tempests through all the Regions of Man and exercising an universal and absolute Power over him For such was his power in the World when the Saviour of it came into it There was then a general defection from God Satan's Synagogue had in a manner swallowed up God's Church who had but one corner of the World left him and therein for a long time but a moving Tabernacle and when a fix'd habitation but one house wherein a very few to serve him while the Devil's Temples were every-where crowded with Priests and Sacrifices and his Altars smoak'd in all places with Incense so that the Earth and the fulness thereof seem'd now his and he though cast out of Heaven to have reveng'd himself in some sort of God by thus dispossessing him as it were of the Earth Nor was the Devil's power more Universal than 't was Absolute over men's Bodies and over their Souls too Their Bodies he possest and tormented at pleasure insomuch that his very Priests might have receiv'd Death with as much ease as they did his Oracles entring into Men as he did into the Hoggs hurrying them violently into perdition commanding Parents to make their Sons and Daughters pass through the fire to him tearing and bruising those he had got into and casting them sometimes into the water and sometimes into the fire Nor did he tyrannize less over Men's souls than bodies blinding their understanding putting out the light of natural reason in them first corrupting their Judgments and then their Manners from Error in judgment the passage being natural and easie to Error in practice and accordingly St. Paul tells us how vain men became in their imaginations even to worship the Creature instead of the Creator to change the glory of the uncorruptible God into Images made like to corruptible Men and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things which made God give them up to all manner of uncleanness as you may reade at large Rom. 1. 21 c. In such slavery had the Devil not only Heathens his own people as I may call them but even the Jews themselves God's chosen people who after so many Miracles of Power and Mercies so many excellent Statutes and Ordinances to direct them in the true manner of his Worship as had not been delivered to any Nation besides did not for all this fall short of the worst of Heathens either in matter of erroneous judgment or vitious practices The profane Sadducee had corrupted all good Manners and the hypocritical Pharisee perverted the Law by his false Glosses and Comments on it so that when our Saviour appeared on Earth an universal deluge of Wickedness had over-spread the face of it And thus all Mankind being the Devil 's by right of Conquest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken by him as it were in War the true import of that word and bound fast to him with his Chains of darkness of gross error and vitiousness 't was high time for the Son of God to come down to rescue miserable Men from these several Captivities which he did three manner of ways 1. By Commutation 2. By Conquest and 3. By way of Ransome or Purchase 1. By Commutation For when we were prisoners to Death by sin God made an exchange delivered his Son over to it for us became our Scape-goat like the Ram substituted in the place of Isaac and as the Apostle speaks tasted death for every man that we might not be devoured and swallowed up by it 2. By Conquest as it referrs to Power and thus our Lord offered violence to Hell snatcht us as brands out of its fire and rescued us as so many preys out of the teeth of the roaring Lion delivering us from the power of darkness and translating us into his kingdom vanquishing death and him that had the power of death the Devil and treading him under our feet And not content with that he spoiled principalities and powers making a shew or as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports an example of them openly and triumph'd over them in himself or in his Cross. 3. By way of Purchase or Ransome as it referrs to Justice Thus Christ made a perfect satisfaction to God by laying down a price for us and paying the very utmost farthing of our debt and so came not only to give us an Example as Socinians
wrought before us How should we be ravished at a second Transfiguration and say with the Apostles who beheld it It is good for us to be here Should Christ ascend up again into Heaven in our sight as he did in that of his disciples and followers should we not need an Angel as they did to check us for our too much gazing And yet let me tell you that such a prospect as that would not be more glorious than of a Christ nailed to his Cross nor yet perhaps so usefull It would rather raise our curiosity than inflame our affections rather amaze and astonish than benefit us The Text therefore gives us a more advantageous one of Him It bids us look on him as pierced and pierced even for us who pierced him It bids us view this Sun of Righteousness more glorious in himself more benign to us in his Setting than in his Rising More beautifull in his Eclipse than in his full Lustre To look unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross and despised the shame and to consider him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself This was the aim of all St. Paul's preaching We preach Christ crucified 1 Cor. 1. 23. This the top of his Knowledge I determined not to know any thing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified 1 Cor. 2. 2. This his only Glory God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ Gal. 6. 14. And here to our joy and comfort may we view him Redeeming us from the curse of the Law Gal. 3. 10. Abolishing in his flesh the Enmity the Law of Commandments Ephes. 2. 14 15. Blotting out the hand-writing of Ordinances that was against us and nailing it to his Cross Col. 2. 14. Reconciling the World to Himself making our peace expiating our offences satisfying the Justice of an offended God repairing our loss and restoring us to a better condition than we had forfeited by our Transgression In a word vanquishing Hell and opening Heaven for us And ought not this to be matter of glorying to us Can any sight be more worthy our beholding Any object more deserve to be lookt on than such a one as this At this time especially when the Church solemnly invites us to this Spectacle When as St. Paul speaks Gal. 3. 1. Jesus Christ is evidently set forth crucified among us This the Text prophetically tells us Christ's crucifiers should doe and indeed All that expect to have their part in the Merit of his Death and Passion must doe that is by a serious and often-repeated Meditation have Christ crucified always before their eyes For we are not to look upon the words of my Text only as a Prophecy but as a necessary Duty obliging us to fix our eyes constantly on this object Christ pierced for us and that we may the better doe it let us take a more particular and exact view of Him and consider Him as pierced both in his Body and in his Soul In every Member of That in every Faculty of This the better to estimate his Sufferings and raise our Devotion and Admiration Consider we then Christ as pierced 1. In his Body Let us behold the Man as Pilate exposed him to the eyes of the Jews all in Bloud all as it were one Wound pierced in every part of his Body His Head torn with thorns his Face bruised with buffetings his Shoulders crusht with the weight of that Cross which he first bare before it bare Him His Back plowed up with Whips his Feet and Hands bored with Nails and his very Heart pierced with the point of the Spear I am not able to paint out those dire Sufferings Christ endured in his Body but must draw a Veil over them and leave them to your own Meditations And yet this is but the least part of what our Lord suffered for us that which our bodily eye can discern All this is but the outward piercing and but as it were skin-deep in comparison of the piercing of his 2. Soul For what is the pain of the Body to that of the Soul And this had its piercing too What Simeon said of the Mother by way of Prophecy That a Sword should go through her Soul Luke 2. 35. was more signally verified of the Son of God The Arrows of the Almighty did not only stick in his Flesh but pierced his very Soul through That Bloud which streamed from him in his Agony was not so much the Bloud of his Body as of his very Soul And 't was this piercing which drew that sad and lamentable complaint from Him Matth. 26. 38. My Soul is exceeding sorrowfull even unto death Surely it was the apprehension of somewhat more horrible than either Pain or Death that made him so heavy and sorrowfull of Soul Evils are wont to crucifie the Mind in the expectation rather than in the suffering It is a double misery both to fear and undergo it God hath mercifully provided this ease for our Souls in the often ignorance of things that happen that they streighten not our Thoughts ere they load our Backs Who of us embraceth not Pain before Perplexity How often doe we groan and cry for a ready dispatch in our lingerings Defiring rather to dye than to feel or fear death and live Yet was our Saviour both terrified and crucified Terrified in the apprehension of Wrath and in the perpession of Death crucified Not only the sorrows of Death but the very pains of Hell came about him and God's dereliction was that which made up the greatest part of those pains Mat. 27. 46. My God my God why hast thou forsaken me was That which most tortured Him Christ's Enemies had now mocked scourged pierced Him so that from head to foot every Member was deformed and dislocated yet He opened not his mouth He is silent and patient at all the violence Man offered him He only complains of the absence of his God He bewails not what He feels but what He misses and could have endured any misery that could not abide to want his God And what a loss think we was this to want the presence and favour of God though but for a moment which where it is perpetual does in the judgment of Divines make up the greatest part of Hell But you will say How could God forsake Christ unless Christ forsook Himself Certainly God and Man were so unchangeably so inseperably combined in Him that so strict an Union could not possibly suffer the least Divulsion or Desertion True indeed And therefore the Godhead at this time denied the Manhood not his Person but his Patronage not his Presence but his Protection Divinity here winks and withdraws it self from Humanity that our Lord might now be bereft of all comfort and favour who took upon Him to sustain the wrath of all Well then might his Soul be heavy unto death
turn'd Men into destruction to say Come again ye Children of Men. If the Disputer of this World the conceited Rationalist should deny a possibility of a return from a privation to a habit a re-production of the same thing once corrupted Let me ask him why that God who created our Bodies out of nothing cannot be able to recall them out of something For since even Philosophy its self will grant that in every dissolution the parts dissolved doe not perish the Materials still continuing All the Skill here will be but to join and reunite the scattered parcels Quasi non majoris miraculi sit animare quà m jungere Tertullian's reasoning here is very concluding and we cannot resist the argument Utique idoneus est reficere qui fecit quanto plus est fecisse quam refecisse initium dedisse quà m reddidisse Ita restitutionem carnis faciliorem credas institutione An Artificer can take a Watch or Clock asunder and put it together again and shall not the great Creator be able to doe as much here to re-unite what he has severed having still reserved the loose scattered pieces and fragments The separation of our Bodies and Souls by death as 't was violent so their desire of re-union being natural shall not be frustrated They are incompleat Substances in that state and long for their perfection which is their re-union for by that are the spirits of just Men departed made perfect and God will not leave them in an imperfect condition lest a power and inclination should for ever be in the root and never rise up to fruit This may suffice to silence though not to satisfie Natural reason especially if we consider that many Philosophers have had strong apprehensions of a Resurrection upon the dissolution of the World by fire a reduction of all things to a better state as Seneca terms it Nor was there any Article of the Faith more generally believed among the Jews than this as appears by Joh. 12. 24. and Act. 23. 8. The Patriarchs were certain of it witness their great care before their death to have their Bones carried away by the Children of Israel out of Egypt that they might be buried in Abraham's Field out of a hope no doubt of being the first that by vertue of Christ's Resurrection might rise from the dead as 't is very probable they were of the Number of those many Saints which arose and came out of their Graves after his Resurrection and went into the holy City and appeared unto many Matth. 27. 53. But then to the Faith of a Christian nothing is so easie as a Resurrection since God's Word clearly tells us That Christ is our Resurrection and our Life Joh. 11. 25. and that our life which is now hid with him in God shall one day be revealed Colos. 3. 3. That God is not the God of the dead but of the living Matth. 22. 32. Nay the Lord of dead and living Rom. 14. 9. For that he will one day raise them up to life again For the dead Bodies of Saints while they lye rotting in the Grave being still united to Christ as his Body there was to the Deity cannot be for ever separate from him the Members must at last be joined to their Head If the first-fruits be risen the whole lump shall follow Not one hair of our head shall perish He that numbers the sand of the Sea numbers our dust nor can the least Attom escape him All our members are written in God's book He that puts our tears into his bottle locks up the pretious dust of his Saints in his Cabinet can recall our dispers'd Ashes and require our Bloud of every Beast that has drunk it fetch those several parcels of us which have been buried in a thousand living Graves and been made a part of those Graves which have devoured them God can make the Earth cast out her dead cause the Sea to disgorge them and our dry bones to gather together as in Ezekiel's Vision ch 37. He that calleth all the Stars by their names knows his by name for their names are written in Heaven and will call them by their names as he did Lazarus bid them come forth and by bidding enable them to doe so in spight of all their bands Now that we may be of the number and partake of the lot of these happy ones we must hear Christ's voice here calling us to repentance and newness of life that we may hear that with comfort which shall hereafter call us to Judgment and be able to answer it with joy and confidence Here we are Let us be sure of our part in the first Resurrection that the second death may have no power over us All shall one day be raised All must one day appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ good and bad But there is a Resurrection of damnation for these and for those of life Both shall come out of their Dungeons but the one like Pharaoh's Baker to an Execution the other like his Butler to an Exaltation The former shall have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sinners shall arise but the godly be quickned How happy would it be for wicked Men if they should never have been born or should never rise again since they shall rise no otherwise than as drowsie Malefactors who lying down with their Sentence are afterwards awakened to be set on the Rack But 't is not so with the Godly who sleeping in Christ doe rest in hope I would not have you ignorant Brethren concerning them which are asleep says St. Paul that ye sorrow not even as other which have no hope For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him What doest thou fear then O good Christian Sin Behold the Resurrection of thy Redeemer publishes thy discharge Thy Surety has been arrested and cast into the prison of his Grave for thee Had not the utmost farthing of thine Arrearages been paid he could not have come forth But now that thou seest he is come forth now that the summ is fully satisfied what danger can there be of a discharged debt Or is it the Wrath of God thou dreadest Wherefore is that but for Sin And if thy Sin be defrayed that quarrel is at an end And if thy Saviour suffered it for thee how canst thou fear to suffer it in thy self Surely that infinite Justice hates to be twice paid He is risen and therefore he hath satisfied Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again Rom. 8. 34. Lastly Is it Death that affrights thee Behold thy Saviour overcoming Death by dying and triumphing over it in his Resurrection And canst thou fear a conquered Enemy What harm is there in this Serpent but for his sting The sting of death is sin And when thou seest
therefore this truth for granted I shall only speak to his Office described here by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies two things 1. A Comforter 2. An Advocate 1. A Comforter and such He was to be 1. To the Apostles themselves 2. To the whole Church 3. To each faithfull Believer 1. To the Apostles themselves It was indeed a seasonable time to talk to them of a Comforter when sorrow and distress were coming upon them and they were to be as sheep without a shepherd They had left all for Christ but while he was with them they found all in Him who was dearer to them than all their possessions While He lived with them their joy and satisfaction was full and compleat but a joy that was to last no longer than his Corporal presence which the Holy Spirit was to supply and that abundantly For although they could no longer have recourse to their Lord for Resolution of Doubts or Protection from Dangers yet should they not want an Oracle to clear the one nor a Sanctuary to secure them from the other The Holy Ghost should both enlighten their Understandings and dispell their Fears Being endewed with power from on high Afflictions themselves should prove Consolations unto them and they should find more satisfaction in their very Sufferings than worldly Men in their highest Enjoyments as we find they did Act. 5. 41. when departing from the presence of the Counsel they rejoyced and that with joy unspeakable that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ's Name But then 2. The Holy Ghost was to be a Comforter not only to the Apostles but to the whole Church of God The Father under the ancient legal Dispensation was a severe Law-giver rewarding Obedience and strictly punishing Rebellion He appeared terrible on Mount Sinai Nothing was to be seen there but Fire and Smoak and thick Darkness Nothing to be heard but Thunder and the Trump of an Angel insomuch that Moses himself trembled and quaked Such an Appearance suiting well with the Promulgation of the Law as denouncing nothing but Woes and Curses to Offenders But under the Gospel-Oeconomy there was another face of things The Son of God while in the Flesh had no such marks of terror and severity attending him more proper to a Creator than a Redeemer He came not with a Rod but in the Spirit of Meekness His condition was a condition of Humility agreeable to one whose Kingdom was not of this World and suitable to his appearance in the Flesh was that of the Holy Ghost whose descent was indeed in Fire but to warm and cherish not to consume In a mighty rushing Wind to represent his divine Power and Efficacy not his Impetuosity 'T was not such a Wind as God came to Elijah in which rent the Mountains and brake the Rocks in pieces The motions of the Holy Spirit are not violent He does not affright those He lights on nor create Fear but Love in that Heart he fills 'T is He that makes us cry Abba Father That begets in us a holy generous Confidence and speaks peace to his People The cords he brings with Him are those of a Man such as chain and captivate Hearts The Oeconomy of the Divine Spirit was to be an Oeconomy of Sweetness and Consolation to the Church becoming the Gospel of Peace and the God of all Consolation 3. The Holy Ghost was to be a Comforter to all true Believers not only as begetting Faith in their Hearts and dispelling that Darkness which naturally possesseth their Understandings but as giving them Peace of Conscience and that unspeakable joy which the World is unacquainted with and cannot take from them Hence He is said to seal them unto the day of their Redemption Ephes. 4. 30. To be the Earnest of their heavenly Inheritance and to make them fore-tast the joys of Heaven here on Earth What comfort what ravishing joys does he still raise in the Souls of all the Faithfull by the apprehension and sense he gives them of the Love of God and that certain hope they have by him of enjoying Him in Heaven Grace is the Paradise of the Soul Holiness its Crown and the assurance it has of God's Love to it the choicest flower of that Crown Nor is he thus only a Comforter to each true Believer but he is so too as his Teacher and another-guess Teacher than Men are to one another For let their Methods of Teaching be never so perspicuous and their care and pains to inform us never so great yet when all is done they cannot communicate unto us either clearness of Apprehension faithfulness of Memory or soundness of Judgment and where they find us dull or stupid all their pains and skill are but thrown away upon us But the Holy Ghost does so teach as withall to change the natural temper and disposition of men's Minds working so upon their Understandings by the clearness and evidence of those Reasons he proposeth that they are not able to resist or stand out against the force of his Demonstrations drawing them to Him in so sweet and yet effectual a manner that although sensible of the effect yet the way of his Attraction is as imperceptible to them as the power thereof is uncontroulable The Manner of the Holy Spirit 's operation on Believers now is very different from that on the Prophets of old which was so forcible that Elisha could not Prophecy without the help of Musick to compose and tune his Spirit But under the Gospel-Dispensation the Holy Ghost deals otherwise with his Servants No such Enthusiasms or Transports here Their Understandings are enlightned without any disturbance to their Bodies They receive the Holy Ghost's Inspirations without the least astonishment or discomposure while he gently glides and descends into them like rain into a fleece of wool in the Prophet David's expression Psal. 72. 6. And thus the Holy Ghost is a Comforter But then 2dly He is withall an Advocate The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies so much one that maintains the Cause of a Criminal or at least of an Accused Person Now the Spirit does so by justifying our Persons and pleading our Causes against the Accusations of our Spiritual Enemies 1. Against the Severity of God's Law and that most righteous undeniable Charge of Sin laid thereby upon us 2dly Against the Devil who we know is styled the Accuser of the Brethren and doth not only load our Sins upon our Consciences but farther endeavoureth to exclude us from the benefit of Christ by charging us with Impenitency and Unbelief Here the Spirit enableth us to clear our selves against this Father of lyes to secure our Title to Heaven against the Sophistical Exceptions of this our subtle Adversary and when by Temptations our Eye is dimmed or by the mixture of Corruptions our Evidences defaced he by his Skill helpeth our infirmities and bringeth those things which are blotted out and forgotten into our
in the Flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the World received up into Glory were then all riddle And as our Knowledge now is far clearer than that of God's ancient People was so is our Consolation and Joy also being established on better Promises revealed with more Evidence and embraced with more Firmness and Certitude Death is now swallowed up in victory and hath lost its sting so that our Fears are less as our Hopes are stronger sweeter and more comfortable being now not under the Spirit of Bondage but of Adoption which makes us go boldly to the Throne of Grace The Result of all is this That the Oeconomy of the Spirit followed that of the Father and of the Son That the Holy Ghost was not properly to be styled a Comforter till Christ went up from Earth to Heaven and that if our Lord had remained here below the blessed Comforter would not have come down in that plentifull Effusion of his Gifts and Graces as he did after our Lord's departure which is the Third thing proposed But before I enter upon this subject I shall first take notice of the sender of Him which our Lord says was Himself I will send him unto you Christ had before told his Disciples That He would pray the Father that He would send them another Comforter Joh. 14. 16. v. 26. That the Father would send Him in his Name But chap. 15. 26. as here in the Text He takes it upon Himself to send him I will send Him unto you from the Father And both with Truth For the Father and the Son sent and had an equal share in sending Him He is therefore called The Spirit of the Father Mat. 10. 20. and The Spirit of the Son Gal. 4. 6. For he proceedeth from both From the Father 't is said expresly Joh. 15. 26. and from the Son if not in express terms yet virtually imply'd in that He is said to be the Spirit of Christ as well as of the Father and must therefore come from Him because sent from Him too The only difference being this That the Holy Ghost is sent by the Father as from Him who hath by the Original Communication a right of Mission which denotes only distinction of Order The Father being as the Spring the Son as the Fountain and the Holy Ghost as the Stream flowing from both From whence we may collect two Things 1. That the Holy Ghost is a real distinct Person from the Father and the Son in as much as He is sent by them For how can He be the same with them that send Him If he proceed from the Father he must be distinct in subsistence and if his Coming depended on the Son 's going away and sending Him after he was gone He cannot be the Son who therefore departed that He might send Him 2. It follows hence That the Holy Ghost is equal to the Father and the Son For whatsoever proceedeth from God must be God whatsoever partakes of his Essence must be equal with Him And surely if the Son have the same right of Mission with the Father as we learn from the Text he must be acknowledged to have the same Essence with him too And had not the Holy Ghost been Equal with the Son as with the Father how could He have supplied his Place Or what Expediency could there have been in the Holy Spirit 's coming when being less than Christ he could have never been able to doe as much as Christ did and so the exchange must needs have been to the Apostle's loss and not as Christ himself had told them it should prove to their benefit and advantage St. Augustine's Prayer then was not impertinent Domine da mihi alium Te alioqui non dimittam Te Give me Lord another as good as thy self or I will never leave Thee nor ever consent that Thou shouldst leave me Nor is it any diminution to the Deity of the Holy Ghost that He is said here to be sent by the Son These Expressions To be sent or To come and the like being not Expressions of disparagement For He was so sent as to come too and to come of his own accord His coming being free and voluntary He came in no servile manner but as a Lord as a friend from a friend in a Letter the very Mind of him that sent it which shews an agreement indeed and concord with Him that sent him but implies no Inferiority nor any the least degree of Subjection 'T is the Spirits honour to be sent to be a Leader and though sent He be yet is He as free an Agent as He that sent him Tertullian calls Him Christi Vicarium Christ's Vicar on Earth But if that argued any inequality in the Spirit it might as well in the Son too who is styled in Scripture the Angel and Messenger of God and is said to go about his Father's business that sent Him But to leave this Argument as more proper to convince a Macedonian Heretick than needfull for any true Believer I shall proceed to the third Thing namely The time when the Holy Ghost was to be sent and that was after our Lord's departure If I depart I will send him unto you But what necessity was there may some say of Christ's departing in order to the Spirit 's Coming Might He not have tarried here and the Spirit have come for all that Was the stay of the one any lett or hinderance to the coming of the other Or might not Christ have sent for as well as go away himself to send him To this I say 1. That it was decreed from all Eternity That God the Father should draw us to his Son Joh. 6. 44. 2dly That God the Son should instruct us chap. 17. 6 8. And 3dly That God the Holy Ghost should assist and establish us in all Truth And so the whole Work of our Redemption should be ascribed to the Father as electing To the Son as consummating and to the Holy Ghost as applying it God the Father had done his part God the Son was at this instant doing his too It remained only that the Comforter should come to perfect both which could not be till the Son had performed his Task here on Earth and should go away to Heaven For the Acts of the Holy Ghost pre-suppose those of a Redeemer 'T is the part of that Blessed Spirit to inflame our Souls with the Love of God but in order to this effect 't is absolutely necessary that the Redeemer should first appease God Our first Parent was not able to endure the terror of the voice of his provoked Majesty but was forc'd to hide his head And what is each Sinner but as Flax before the consuming fire of his Justice Till our Redeemer then had disarm'd that Justice till he had made men's Peace and Reconciliation the Holy Ghost could not excite any motions of Love in them
scattered promiscuously on all which God is pleas'd to deal out to all Men by the hands of his Ministers the Angels But they come not down on the Ladder but to his Jacobs nor rescue any out of the spiritual Sodom but his Lots Nor did the Almighty ever design them to be Ministers for good to any but the Righteous Over them he gives his Angels charge and They are styl'd Their Angels with an Emphasis and Psal. 34. 7. The Angel of the Lord tarrieth round about them that fear him and delivereth them And as our Apostle endured all things for the Elect sake so doe the Angels doe all for them To this purpose 't is observed That God never speaks by his Angels but he puts some character on those he speaks to as such as fear the Lord are heirs of Salvation and the like And this is so true that if wicked Men enjoy any good in this life by the Angels 't is for the Elect's sake they doe so I will bless them that bless thee says God to Abraham Gen. 12. 3. Even Reprobates fare the better here for the Saints God sometimes gratifies his Children with the Temporal preservation of the wicked as he did St. Paul with the Lives of those Infidels that were in the Ship with him Act. 27. 24. and Lot with all that were in Zoar. The Jews have a Saying Absque stationibus non staret Orbis The Prayers of God's People uphold the World The Holy Seed are Statumen Terrae Esay 6. 13. with David They bear up the Pillars of the Earth Hippo could not be taken while St. Augustine lived nor Sodom destroy'd while Lot was in it And St. Ambrose is said to have been the Wall of Italy And therefore 't is ill policy as well as impiety in any to wrong the Saints of God much more to endeavour to root them out of the World as Heathen Persecutors did Wherein they resembled the Stag in the Emblem that by feeding on those Leaves which hid him from the Hunter did but betray themselves to his fury and Sampson-like by pulling down those Pillars brought the house upon their own heads Were it not for the Elect God would make a short work in the Earth and no flesh should be saved Every Angel of his would then be a destroying one so that whether they preserve or punish the wicked 't is still in order to the Salvation of those who shall be the heirs of it And now what remains but that while we behold God's Angels ascending and descending we make their Ladder ours too to mount up to God who sits at the top of it and employs them for our good and with them give him the glory of those his benefits which they convey unto us For all the helps and assistances they afford us are nothing without his And therefore when God promised Moses that an Angel should go before Israel but withall threatned them with the subduction of his own Presence I marvel not if that Holy Man were no less troubled than if they had been left destitute and guardless and that he ceased not his importunity till he had won the gratious Engagement of the Almighty for his Presence in that whole Expedition For what is the greatest Angel in Heaven without his Maker Or what are their Services to us if his Favour go not along with them Let him then have the chiefest glory who is the Author of them The Psalmist directs us to this duty For no sooner had he said Psal. 34. 7. The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him but he adds in the following Verse O tast and see how gratious the Lord is To let us know whom we are beholding to for all the good Angels doe us and to whom we are to pay our Thanks Yet while we pay the main tribute of our Thanks to God he is content we should have a respect too for his Ambassadors They are to be honoured for his sake and next to him that sends them Nor can any Reverence be too high which diminishes not of that we owe to our common Maker We ought to be willing to give them so much as they will be willing to take from us If we go beyond these bounds we offend them as much as St. John did when he would have ador'd them The excess of Respects to them have turn'd to abominable Impiety which however St. Hierome seems to impute to the Jews ever since the Prophet's time yet Simon Magus was the first that we find guilty of this impious flattery of the Angels who fondly holding that the World was made by them could not think fit to present them with less than divine Honour And near a-kin to these were the Angelici of old who professing true Christianity and Detestation of Idolatry as having learn'd that God only was to be worshipped properly yet reserved a certain kind of lesser Adoration to the Angels Against this opinion and practice the Apostle seems to bend his style in his Epistle to the Colossians forbidding a voluntary humility in worshipping of Angels whether grounded upon the superstition of ancient Jews as St. Hierome or the Ethnick Philosophy of some Platonicks as Estius imagines or the damnable Precepts of the Simonians and Cerinthians as Tertullian we need not enquire Nothing is more clear than the Apostle's Inhibition nor more evident than the Papists direct opposition to that Inhibition who are no less guilty of the same voluntary humility than they were who thought it too much boldness to come immediately to God without making their way to his favour by the Mediation of Angels which whether it be not justly to be charged on Papists let any sober Man judge Surely as the Good Angels deserve our Reverence so do they not desire our Adoration The Evil Angels indeed still required it and the Devil begg'd it of Christ that he would fall down and worship him Mat. 4. 9. but the Good refuse it Revel 19. 10. And therefore St. Bernard is too liberal when he tells us we owe to the Good spirits Reverence for their Presence Devotion for their Love and Trust for their Custody The former indeed we doe and we come short of our Duty to them if we entertain not in our Hearts a high and venerable conceit of their wonderfull Majesty Glory and Greatness and such a reverential awe of their Presence as to doe nothing which may offend them Take heed that ye despise not these little ones says our Lord for their Angels are with my Father in Heaven They may perhaps forgive us these will not And therefore we shall doe well to consider whether they who behold the face of God will endure to look upon us much less to assist us when we doe that which makes God turn his face from us We are a spectacle to Angels as well as Men 1 Cor. 4. 9. They are observers and witnesses of all our Actions but especially
who as He is the Fountain of the Deity and of all operations in the Divine Nature so of all our gifts and graces too Every good and every perfect gift whether of Nature Grace or Glory coming down to us from the Father of lights Jam. 1. 17. especially the Inheritance in light which is so peculiarly his gift that our Saviour appropriates it to Him telling his Apostles Mat. 20. 23. That it is not his to give but the Father's Hence that Blessing of St. Paul Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Ephes. 1. 3. directing his Thanks to Him as the Original of all our Blessings whether Temporal or Spiritual Now of these two sorts the latter being far the greatest our Thanks for them ought to be so too We are to thank God then 1. That He hath made us partakers and 2. meet partakers of the Inheritance in light First I say That He hath made us partakers of so glorious an Inheritance as that in light it being nothing less than his very self who is Essential light and who dwelleth in that light which no Man can approach unto 1 Tim. 6. 16. A rich and a glorious Inheritance indeed fit for the Majesty and Mercy of an Almighty God to bestow the unvaluable Bloud of his Son to purchase and the dearly beloved of his Soul to enjoy How thankfull ought we then to be for being made partakers of such an Inheritance as is as far above those here below as Heaven is above the Earth or God above All things But this is not All. We are in the second place to thank God the Father for making us meet partakers thereof which is a greater Blessing than we are aware of We would fain have the Inheritance at any rate but we consider not whether we be fit for it or no and if we be not Heaven it self will be no place of Happiness to us nor shall we take pleasure therein For Pleasure being nothing else but the suitableness of the Object to the Faculty because things agreeable alone can agree together then what satisfaction should we find in Heaven while our selves were altogether Earthly Light is a pleasant thing to an Eye prepared for and that can bear it not to that of a Bat or of an Owl nor to that of a Man that should suddenly be brought into it out of a dark Dungeon it would rather blind his Eyes than delight them And what would the Inheritance in light be to a Child of Darkness but as the pleasure of a rational Man is to a Beast or of an Intelligence to a bruitish Man He who is wholly taken up with Sensual Objects and so unacquainted with Intellectual rests there and seeks no farther Tell a Mahumetan of such a Heaven as the Gospel describes and you may then make him fall in love with that place when you can persuade a Hog to leave his Stye for a Palace or that to lye in perfumes were better for him than to wallow in the mire What a Transcendent blessing then is it and how thankfull ought we to be to God for it that He makes us meet for the Inheritance above in order to our better partaking of it that He gives us his Grace here as a preparative to Glory hereafter makes us Holy in this life that we may be capable of being Happy in the next his Goodness being not more conspicuous in the reward He designs us than in the manner of bestowing it in giving us a Crown of Glory than in fitting our Heads for it 'T is a greater honour to be accounted worthy of it than to wear it As Vertue is beyond a Title and a Man more than a Place And now since our lot is fallen unto us in so fair a ground and that we have so goodly a Heritage let us highly value it make it our chief Treasure that our Hearts may still be there where we have such a glorious Inheritance laid up for us and such an indefeisible Estate as shall never be either in another's power to defeat us of or in our own to lose when once possest of How do we value our Earthly Inheritances How dear are they to us How loth are we to part with them The Lord forbid it me that I should give the Inheritance of my Fathers unto thee said Naboth to Ahab when he would have wrested it from him 1 King 21. 3. And yet this being but an Earthly Inheritance whereas ours is an Heavenly He chose rather to part with his Life than with the Inheritance of his Fathers and we are willing to part with the Inheritance of the Saints in light for nothing to sell our spiritual Birthright with profane Esau for a mess of Pottage while every trifling Argument shall make us disbelieve and every trifling Lust make us forfeit it Is the price of Christ's bloud the purchase he has made for us of an Eternal Inheritance become so cheap unto us in comparison of those uncertain perishing ones which the malice of Men can and death in a very short time will be sure to strip us of so subject to alteration and decay so polluted and defiled The Inheritance of the Saints in light is by St. Peter described by three such properties so peculiar to it that they are not to be found in worldly ones He tells us 1 Pet. 1. 4. That 't is an Inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away Now 1. Worldly Inheritances even Kingdoms are Transitory whereas that of Heaven cannot be moved Heb. 12. 28. Estates here shift their Landlords what is one Man 's to day is another's to morrow nay all the evidence Men have of their Estates here shall one day be burnt with the World and be made void at the Day of Judgment And yet how do they call their Lands after their own names when those names and those very lands that are called after them shall perish together when they who are Owners of them shall one day become part of their own lands retain nothing of all their Possessions but Graves and in a short time scarce be distinguished from that Earth wherein they were buried 2. Again Should Inheritances here be continued to their Owners never so long yet are they fading still losing their beauty verdure and lustre there is some moth or canker that continually frets and at last eats them up But in Heaven as we shall have an Incorruptible so an Immarcessible Crown Not like Olympick ones of Bays or Herbs which immediately withered even on the heads of those that wore them but always fresh and green 3. Lastly Worldly Inheritances are so far from being undefiled that their Owners may well blush when they consider how many times they come by them with how much sin Themselves enjoy and Others to whom they must leave shall spend them Yet as pitifull things as they are how thankfull
are we to those who bequeath them to us And if we think we have reason to be so to Men for such mean Inheritances how much more ought we to be to our Heavenly Father for this Inheritance in light Now since we cannot be thankfull to him for an Inheritance which we are not well assured does belong unto us it will concern us here to try and secure our Evidence and for that we need go no farther than the Text. If as that tells us it be an Inheritance of Saints and an Inheritance in light what Right or Title can we pretend to it without being our selves Saints and Children of the light And if as St. Peter hath described it it be an Inheritance incorruptible and undefiled how can we hope to partake of it unless our Corruptible even here put on Incorruption and we endeavour to be pure as God who is our Inheritance is pure 1 Joh. 3. 3. Heaven is no place for the polluted Into the Heavenly Jerusalem shall in no wise enter any thing that defileth or is defiled Revel 21. 27. Nor will Christ receive any into his Kingdom but whom He shall find when He cometh without spot and blameless 2 Pet. 3. 9. If these things be found in us Innocence Vertue and Holiness of Life an entrance shall then be ministred unto us abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 2 Pet. 1. 11. And so when St. Peter bids us give diligence to make our calling and election sure 1 Pet. 1. 10. He shews us the way how to doe so and that is by adding to our faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and so on verses 5 6 7. by practising the Vertues of the Moral Law there set down These are the clear Evidences of the Inheritance in light as well as the means to attain it which we are to find in our selves continually and to clear up still fearing lest any of us come short of our Inheritance Heb. 4. 1. If we doe these things we shall never fall Let our Inheritance be as sure as God can make it yet is it not sure to us till our Consciences can bear us witness that we are the Children of God by obeying our Heavenly Father And since he has provided such a glorious Estate for those that doe so how ought we to despise those poor Inheritances He allots us here below in comparison of what He prepares for us above How willing to part with those for that when He requires it and we cannot keep both Heaven will make up all our losses here it will pay for all at last And this is the main Argument the Apostle useth here to persuade the Colossians unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness in the precedent Verse because by outward afflictions God did make them meet to be partakers of such an Inheritance in light as could not be taken from them as their Earthly Ones daily were by Heathens Tyrants and Oppressors That with other Saints of God they should take joyfully the spoiling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had in Heaven a better and an enduring substance Lastly As God the Father first makes us meet to be partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in light so when he has once made us meet by his Grace let us endeavour by the assistance of that Grace still to make our selves meeter always blessing and thanking him as for all sorts of Blessings he bestows upon us so in an especial manner for this in the Text for the blessed hope and assurance he gives his Saints of partaking one day of such an Inheritance as is All Blessedness Here He crumbles his Blessings unto us we have them here by Retail In Heaven we shall have them all in a lump and that for ever All the satisfactions and enjoyments of this present life are so thin empty and comfortless that we have need of patience to be able to endure them The Prophet David found them so and had He not had a prospect of far better things as a Cordial to cheer up and enliven his Heart it would quite have failed him I should utterly have fainted but that I believe verily to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living Psal. 27. 15. Let this Faith bear up our drooping spirits as it did his And let our Thoughts continually dwell on Heaven and on the Happiness we shall there enjoy when we shall come into the City of the living God the Heavenly Jerusalem to an innumerable Company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the first-born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judge of All and to the Spirits of just Men made perfect who now partake of the Inheritance in light To which blessed Society God bring us all Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON Preached on the Fifth of NOVEMBER St. Matt. VII the former part of v. 16. Ye shall know them by their fruits THE main design of Satan as it hath ever been the same to ruin the Church of God so his arts and methods to compass it have been various and different Sometimes he hath endeavoured to destroy her by force otherwhiles to undermine her by subtlety His first attempt was to crush her in the Birth and the second Man that ere was born dy'd a Martyr Ever since the Church has been an Acheldama a Field of Bloud and its Kalendar markt all along with Red letters the profession of truth having still been fatal as to its Author so to all his followers in succeeding Ages distinguishable not so much by the several Reigns of Heathen Emperors as those various storms that in their times have fallen upon Christians 2. But as these storms were ever blown away by the breath of God and Satan by strictly winnowing the Church gat nothing thereby but his own tares when he saw that Phoenix grew fruitfull from her own ashes and the fertile bloud of her Martyrs did but bring her in a larger harvest of Proselytes He then shifted the Scene laid aside those terrible Arguments of Racks and Gibbets to compell Men to come into his Kingdom and took up other more plausible and insinuative the allurements and blandishments of this World to baffle them out of the rewards of another thinking by out-bidding Christ to gain a more numerous party to himself wherein how successfull he has been the frequent Apostasies of Men in all Ages do abundantly testifie 3. Lastly As he met with some of a stouter and wiser temper than to be prevail'd on by either of these Methods Men not to be beaten off from their Profession by threats nor drawn away from it by such mean hopes as this World could afford them His subtlest policy has been to work upon their Judgments to deprave their Understandings by poysoning the very Fountains of Knowledge the Scriptures To which end he made choice of corrupt Teachers as the most proper
respect of doctrines to be examined full and adequate And to this we are sent by Moses to judge of a Prophet Deut. 13. 1 2 3. where though a Prophet should work Miracles or foretell things to come yet if he delivered any doctrine contrary to the Precepts of the Law he was to be rejected The very Rule St. Paul gives us too 1 Tim. 6. 3. If any man teach otherwise or any other thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consent not to wholsom words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to godliness he is proud knowing nothing So Gal. 1. 8 9. Though we or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you let him be accursed Here then is the Test all doctrines are to be brought to viz. to the Written Word of God to the Law and to the Testimony we must weigh them all in the Balance of the Sanctuary and judge of them by that Analogy and Proportion of Faith mentioned Rom. 12. 6. That form of doctrine delivered Rom. 6. 17. and of sound words 2 Tim. 1. 13. That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole Body as I may call it of divine Truths between the parts and members whereof there is an exact harmony so that as in the natural body a member would become monstrous should it exceed its due proportion to the other its fellow members if we carefully compare a doctrine concerning one Article with a truth concerning others we may then exactly judge of the part by its symmetry and proportion to the whole Where-ever then we find any doctrine either expresly contained in Scripture or deducible thence by necessary consequence and agreeing to the Analogy or Proportion of the Christian Faith we may conclude it is of God if not to be none of his Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh that denies his Incarnation or his Gospel is not of God no more than that doctrine can be which tends to the drawing us off from Christ and the promoting the interest of Sin and Satan and they who bring any such doctrine are infallibly Satan's Emissaries not Christ's Apostles Their very Speech bewrayeth them and we may easily distinguish them by their Shiboleth Their corrupt and abominable doctrines will certainly tell us whom they belong to 2. A Second sort of Fruits whereby we are to distinguish false Prophets from true ones are their corrupt practices the natural issues of their corrupt doctrines Heresies are indeed properly seated in the Understanding and yet Saint Paul ranks them among the works of the Flesh Gal. 5. 20. because they dispose us to and ever determine in them Men first dream says St. Jude i. e. are intoxicated with their own fantastical and carnal opinions and then defile the flesh first cast off all obedience to God and then to men by despising Dominions and speaking evil of Dignities It has therefore been a constant Observation that most Hereticks have been Ill-livers and the Scripture still brands them where-ever it mentions them sometimes with the Character of Boasters otherwhiles of Flatters and Men-pleasers sometimes representing them as Self-seekers and doing all for filthy lucres sake at other times as ambitious and affecting pre-eminence sometimes cruel as Wolves and sometimes subtle and insinuative as Serpents working upon the weakness of silly People laden with iniquity as Satan did on Eve and soothing them in their Corruptions to keep them fast and maintain a Party being full of all impurity themselves notwithstanding all their braggs of extraordinary light and sanctity such as the Scripture describes the Gnosticks to be who professing to know God much better than all other Christians did in works deny him and were abominable disobedient and to every good work reprobate 'T is true indeed that the first addresses of false prophets are usually made with all the semblances and exterior appearances of holiness but those appearances prove no better at last than fantastical illusions like false meteors which after a little blaze usually expire in a stench Nemo potest diu personam ferre Those vizards Seducers put on either fall off of themselves or are so transparent that every prying eye may see through them The sheeps-cloathing is too thin a veil to conceal the Wolf though he wrap himself up never so close in it The very affectation of Sanctity renders the pretenders to it suspected and their too much subtlety oft betrays them nothing being so gross and palpable as too curious a disguise Truth as it is always constant to it self the same yesterday to day and for ever so are they who teach and follow it Their lives will still be answerable to their Principles and we shall seldom or never find them halting They are no wandring Planets but fixt Stars that know no excentrick motions 'T is not so with them who have but the form of godliness These wax worse and worse and their folly will at last be made manifest to all men who have but any common reason and prudence to try them Their golden heads are supported by feet of clay If they seem to begin in the Spirit they end in the Flesh. Sometimes you shall find them stooping low but 't is to mount the higher at other times soaring high but if you follow them with your eye you shall quickly see them lighting on some carrion Their pretence is Zeal but their design Gain God is in their mouths and Diana in their hearts Notwithstanding all their feigned mortifications and abstinences 't is their Belly they serve and not Christ. Observe then their carriage all along This truly speaks a man and what he does and does constantly to be sure That he is For though every bad act denominates not a Sinner as we are not to call Noah a Drunkard because he was once overtaken with Wine yet a bad habit does Some withered or blasted fruit may possibly be found on a good tree but that must needs be a bad one which constantly yields bad fruit Here then is the tryal of a false Prophet and therefore the Pharisees themselves did not argue amiss Joh. 9. 16. This man is not of God because he keepeth not the sabbath-day The Proposition was sound had they not mistaken themselves in the Assumption He that keepeth not the Sabbath is not of God We may safely reason in like manner He that transgresseth Christ's Law can never be a true Disciple of his no more than he who teaches men to doe so his true Apostle But because each of these fruits distinctly considered may prove but a partial and incomplete Rule whereby to judge of men according to that of Seneca De toto non de partibus judicandum Let us put both together and we shall be sure then not to be mistaken The doctrines and practices of men in conjunction will prove a true glass to
their sight is that of all the parcels of time regard but the present and of all things but the face and appearance men that only mind earthly things of so low and base a spirit that their Souls are but as salt to them and of so brutish a temper that such a Transmigration as Pythagoras fansied a punishment to bad men would with them pass for a happiness and with the Devils they would make it their desire that they might be suffered hereafter to enter into Hogs Such men dare not openly deny an Immortality and yet they will not believe it or if they do 't is so faintly that their lives wholly confute their judgments 'T is strange to see how many there are that having nothing but frost in their veins and earth in their face do yet so much doat on that life which they have now scarce any part in whose faith reaches no farther than their senses and yet scarce retain they those senses whose frame should lift them up above the Earth and their affections carry them wholly to it They are unwilling to leave the World though they see they cannot keep it in their weak and enfeebled bodies they carry strong desires to it being dead to every thing but to the pleasures thereof which yet they cannot now enjoy because they cannot taste and do then covet most when they are just leaving them Than which as there cannot be a greater folly so let us take heed how we imitate it learn to look off from these temporal things which are seen to those eternal which are not seen get such a perspective of faith as may draw Heaven nearer to us shew us those glories which Christ has prepared for us and already taken possession of in his own flesh that so ours may rest in hope and one day inherit His kingdom And now since Christ has given us an assurance of Immortality let us endeavour to lay the foundation of a happy one in this life to work it out even in this world this common shop of change work it out of that in which it is not out of riches by not trusting in and well using them out of the pleasures of this world by loathing and forsaking them out of the flesh by crucifying it with the lusts and affections thereof and out of the world it self by overcoming it Lastly and above all let us labour to secure this blessed Immortality which lies before us by such good works as may follow us through the huge and unconceivable tract of Eternity Else we may be so eternal as to wish we were mortal wish against our interest that in this life only we had hope make our selves who now fear death to dread immortality too hope that there were no eternal joys and tremble at the thoughts even of that everlasting bliss which our ill lives should give us no just ground to hope for But if while we enjoy this life we make lasting provisions for the next by good works then do we truly hope in Christ and then the seeds of Vertue and Piety well cultivated here shall hereafter yield us the happy fruits of a glorious Immortality which he grant us who hath brought life and immortality to light through his Gospel Jesus Christ in us the hope of Glory To whom with the Father c. Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON ON ROM XII 1 I beseech you therefore Brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service SAint Paul being from a Jew converted to a Christian hath taken great pains not only to prove the reasonableness of his doing so but that Judaism it self was to be Christned the legal Washings to be at last baptized That whole Oeconomy to be done away that it might be made complete and to be destroyed that it might be perfected And it was well that it was to be so For the Law could not justifie because its performances were but low its Promises but near and its strength weak The Law then could not justifie had it been observed but being broken it could condemn so that our Saviour to upbraid the Jews refers them not only to himself but to Moses in whom they did trust And indeed 't is as visible that the Jews did break their Law as that they did boast of it They were equally zealous in observing and industrious in transgressing it Instead of Religion they had brought themselves to be a Sect humorsome and peevish arrogant and censorious All the world was to be of their way and yet themselves not of it so that they were as I may so say Idolaters of the true God whose Circumcision was uncircumcised As if that fact of Moses when he brought the Law had been the Type of the future observance of it when at the time of bringing the Tables he brake them But not to upbraid the Jews with their failings let us see what use there is to be made of them while they perform the letter let us obey the meaning while their Sabbaths are lazy let ours be holy They wrote the Law on their Garments let us write them on our Hearts They boasted of it let us doe it While they sacrifice their Beasts let us offer up to God the more precious bloud of his own Lamb and with that bloud our selves For we Christians as well as the Jews have an Altar says St. Paul and are Priests too a royal Priesthood says St. Peter Aaron and his Successors offered up Bulls and Rams unreasonable Creatures that were first slain and then offered But we our Bodies and those such living Sacrifices as make up a reasonable Service No Calves here to be presented but those of our lips For a Lamb and a Dove meekness and innocence and for a Goat our Iusts must be sacrificed No death here but of inbred corruptions no slaughter but of the old man whose death enlivens our Sacrifice and so fits it for an Everliving God and makes it Holy and so becoming a Holy God And if we crown our Sacrifices with such flowers they must needs send forth a sweet and acceptable odour to God and pass with Him not only for a Sacrifice but which is more be heightned to a reasonable Service And this our Gratitude calls for and our Interest We owe it to God as to our Creator who made our Bodies and as to our Redeemer who hath purchased them We owe it to our selves too if we will be happy in the enjoyment of God who as He is not a God of the dead but of the living will have a living Body for a Sacrifice and not a Carkass And this in all respects is so reasonable that it may well be matter of wonder why our Apostle should spend so much passionate Rhetorick to persuade us to give up that unto God which 't is our highest advantage He should vouchsafe to accept But then
not any Excellency they had in their own Nature being not good but only in respect of what was worse It being better to sacrifice to God than to Devils nor otherwise than as Types of the Lamb slain from the Foundation of the World and did therefore vanish as soon as He was once offered upon the Cross Whereas true Religion remains still a Juge Sacrificium and is more lasting than the Heavens themselves which as it was long in the World before any Command came forth for Sacrifice So is it now most glorious when Jewish Altars are down 'T is not confin'd to time or place nor ever to be dispenc'd with as we find legal Sacrifices oft-times were And as 't is in the sight of God the best of all Sacrifices who requires Mercy and not bruitish Oblations so is it a most Reasonable Service being not founded in mera voluntate imponentis but in the Reason of the thing it self the Sacrifice not of a Brute Beast but of a man endued with Reason and withal most suitable to the Nature of God who as He is a Spirit will be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth and as He is a most wise God will not away with the Sacrifice of Fools Eccles. 5. 1. But will have the Evangelical as well as the Legal Sacrifices salted with salt our words and actions seasoned with discretion For we are fed with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well with the Rational as with the sincere milk of the Gospel so far is Christian Religion from divesting men of their reason that it strictly requires them to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh them a reason of the hope that is in them 1 Pet. 3. 15. Being in it it self as 't is easie to demonstrate of all other the most Reasonale service and to present God with any other worship were but to offer strange Fire before him And now let me bespeak you in like manner as Naaman's Servants did their Master 2 Kings 5. 13. If the Lord had bid us do some great thing should we not do it Might he not require of us as of the Jews whole Herds of Cattle and Woods of Spices and Incense Nay which is more the Sacrifice of our Bodies in the most strict and severe Sense He might surely as being Lord of all but here we see He does not No other Bloud now to be shed but what St. Bernard calls sanguinem animi vulnerati that of a wounded troubled Spirit of a broken and contrite heart Slay thy lust and thou shalt offer him a Beast give him thy Reason or which is perhaps dearer to thee Thy Will and thou shalt sacrifice a Man to him He will accept thy Tears for drink-offerings and prefer thy very Fasts to meat-offerings Thou needest not appear before thy God empty while thou presentest thy self to him every part of thy Body and every faculty of thy Soul nay every thing thou possessest and which many times thou accountest more pretious than that very Soul of thine may be a Sacrifice and a far more acceptable one too than all the Beasts of the Forrest Give the Lord thy Heart and that will be the Fat of thy Sacrifice As thy Charity the true fire of it without which the Incense of thy Prayers and of thy Devotions will not smoak nor ever ascend up to Heaven nay without which Martyrdom it self will prove a vain and insignificant oblation and though thou shouldst give thy Body to be burnt yet thou shouldst be nothing In a word give thy God thy self and in such a manner as He requires thee to do it and thou canst give him no more and yet when all this is done no more than what he first gave thee Thus shalt thou make him Thine and be infinitely more thy self by being His. 'T is like laying up Treasure in the Temple which thereby becomes more sacred and more assured too But then in the last place let us remember that what we have once solemnly dedicated to God cannot without Sacriledge be alienated Our Bodies being once his they are no more then our own For to whom we yield our selves Servants to obey his Servants we are to whom we obey Rom. 6. 16. Our gifts here like God's must be without Repentance nor can we recall much less employ them to any other use either of the World or Satan as we cannot serve God and Mammon so neither ought we to give him the Lean and this the Fat of our Sacrifice If our God will not part stakes surely he will not content himself with the worser share Let us then give him all and that all will be our Heart and our Affections that when we appear before him our Souls may ascend up to him as the Angel did in the flame of the Altar and that Flame may still be kept alive upon it be a continual Sacrifice such as may never cease and we may do that constantly on Earth which shall be our Eternal Employment in Heaven still praise and adore our Creator Then shall he change these our Sacrifices into everlasting Temples for himself to dwell in what we now present him natural Bodies turn into spiritual and make these our vile ones like unto his glorious one Which God of his Infinite Mercy grant c. Amen Soli Deo Gloria in aeternum A SERMON ON ESAY V. 20. The former Part of the Verse Wo unto them that call Evil good and Good Evil. THE great Creator has never been wanting to Man in prescribing him such Laws as might be sufficient if obeyed to make him happy whether we consider him in the State of Primitive Integrity or out of it In the former God so left him in the hands of his own Councel as to make himself his own Rule Nature was to him instead of Revelation he had then the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil planted in him Conscience was his Oracle and Reason his Guide and to know his Duty was but to consult himself God did not only wind him up as a Watch to a regular Motion but did withal place in him a Sun-dial to set himself by if he should go false so that his very Essence and Rule was then so much the same that to transgress was not so much to break a Law as a Man Nor did he by his Fall wholly forfeit all his natural Advantages either to himself or his Posterity For though our first Parent brake the natural Tables as Moses afterwards did those of Stone yet from the scattered pieces thereof set together we may all of us though imperfectly spell out our Duty The worst of men are born with a certain Decalogue Their Souls are not mere Rasae Tabulae there is a Book of Conscience wherein the different Characters of Good and Evil are plainly legible and by the help of those practical Notions which make
Theater of the World not content with the Conscience of them unless as the Pharisees dealt their Alms and said their Prayers they may do them so as to be seen of men And hence it is that many belye themselves in Sin usurp Vice and steal the glorious Reputation of exceeding Sinfulness as if the Impiety were meritorious and the shame of doing ill the only thing to be ashamed of St. Augustine in his Confessions complains of himself that in his younger Days he did so that in compliance with some of this shameless humour he did often boast of imaginary Vices and attributed Sins to himself he never had committed being more afraid of displeasing his vile Companions than his God And doubtless many to avoid the Imputation of Temperance and the Scandal of a singular and affected Sobriety labour all they can to be thought more wicked than sometimes they are Nor is it enough for such to wear out all the Impressions of the Law written in their own Hearts and wholly to subdue their own Consciences unless they may shame and baffle all Goodness out of those of other men by setting off Vice with all Lustre and Advantage that possibly may recommend it to their esteem while on the other side they labour as much to put Vertue out of countenance and render it unfashionable and ridiculous by the antick Dress they give it cloathing it as the Jews did our Lord in a Fool 's Coat to move Laughter and Contempt the Business of every drolling Buffoon who thinks he cannot better disparage Vertue than by representing it as a melancholy and pedantick thing an Enemy to good Manners and civil Conversation a Contradiction to Nature and a restraint on that Liberty and those Appetites it gives us Now if this be not to cast off all discriminating Notions of Good and Evil if this be not to expose Nature Travesty and by a perverse kind of Heraldry to set Evil before Good 't is hard to say what it is Doubtless of all other men these best deserve the Prophet's Character here and fall directly within the Compass of his Curse The last thing to be considered The Law of Nature of which Morality is the most considerable part is so unchangeable that some how warrantably I know not do affirm 't is not in the Power of God himself to alter it 'T is hard to say that he that has Power to make a Law cannot alter it since in some Instances we find he has done so but they are indeed more rare than his miraculous Dispensings with the ordinary Course of Nature And as God is pleas'd sometimes to vary that to show himself Lord of Nature so has he sometimes changed this to let us know He is that one Lawgiver St. James speaks of who can prescribe to the Conscience To endeavour then to alter the property of moral Good and Evil is to entrench upon the Almighty's Prerogative and to call Evil Good to stamp our Impression on his Bullion is the worst sort of Coinage and no less than flat Rebellion against the Supreme Majesty of Heaven Job expresly calls it a rebelling against the light the Light of Nature ch 24. ver 13. A Sin in some measure against the Holy Ghost too all natural as well as revealed Light being from Him especially when it is done out of that reprobate or injudicious mind Heathens were given up to who held the truth in unrighteousness i. e. did by their wicked lives and conversations so imprison those common notices of God and Morality which naturally shined in their Understandings that they could no more appear or come forth than men that are shut up close Prisoners in a dark Dungeon This was the great Crime of the Heathen World and for this Cause God gave them up to vile Affections to be directed by such a crooked Rule as they had framed to themselves and be led by the Wisp of their false Imaginations over Boggs and Precipices into ruine 'T is usual with God as to make one Sin the punishment of another so to suit Punishments to Crimes Thus when Heathens abused natural Light he suffered them so far to be besotted as not only to worship Stocks and Stones but Vices and Sins Thus while some Jews abused revealed Light he threatens them with putting out their Light in obscure Darkness as he does Christians who go against the Light of the Gospel to remove their Candlestick and send them strong Delusions to believe a Lye take Darkness for Light and Light for Darkness And if the Light that is in Man be Darkness how great must that Darkness be Surely by so much the greater by how much their Light was so And therefore Christians who besides the Natural and Mosaical have the glorious Light of the Gospel to direct them as to the Measure of Good and Evil must needs be much more inexcusable if they shall err in their choice and in what they know naturally as brute Beasts in those very things corrupt themselves and so have nothing left to distinguish them from Heathens but a better Name and worse Practices For how many Heathens were there who if they should now appear on the Stage of the World would shame most Christians of it What Justice Temperance Frugality Conscience of Oaths and Promises Severity and Strictness of Life among them and what Injustice Intemperance Prodigality Falseness and Universal Depravation of Manners among these Certainly if our Righteousness exceed not theirs We shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven But if our Unrighteousness shall exceed theirs what Hell will be deep or dark enough for us Shall not Uncircumcision which is by Nature if it fulfill the Law judge thee who by the Letter and Circumcision dost transgress the Law said St. Paul to the Jews Let every Christian make particular Application to himself and see whether with the Advantage of a far clearer Revelation he does not come short of Jews nay whether he makes any Conscience of doing those things which the bare Light of natural Reason taught Heathens to abhor and yet while he damns them for their moral Vertues he can absolve himself though guilty of their foulest ones It were to be wisht that many Christians were but as good as some Heathens were that they would at least follow Nature the Dictates of natural Reason their Errours would be fewer and their Accompt less and were they faithful in this smaller Talent God would then entrust them with a greater The common Notices of Good and Evil are the natural Man's Book as Papists say Images are Lay-mens and he that well studies this Book and is learned in it may not despair of taking a higher Degree of perfection in the School of Christ Christianity being nothing else but Nature refined and exalted and all the Laws of Christ concerning moral Actions the very Law of Nature but in a clearer Character and more correct Impression Indeed the
behold him as gratious in his Commands as in his Returns as kind in what He exacts from as what He bestows upon us His reforming our Nature being the greatest honour it ever received next to his own wearing it Had our Lord only pardoned our sins and not removed them the guilt indeed might have been gone but not the shame whereas now both are done away by Him by his not only imputing Righteousness but requiring it So that his Incarnation besides the primary end of redeeming us has another too which is to make us worth the redeeming nay capable of being truly redeemed that is of being made Partakers of the fruit and benefit of his Redemption For as Christ gives us his Righteousness so he expects we should return him ours We receive indeed all our Merit from Him but upon condition that we afford him our Obedience He will save us from our sins provided we forsake them Nor is it enough for us here to be innocent if we be not holy nor holy too if not exemplary Holiness is the Badge and Livery of our Profession and Perfection the Crown of it By that we are his People by this his peculiar and chosen People indeed A Title due to none but those who are not content to doe great things if they be not ambitious still of doing greater if they have not a Zeal in some measure answerable to their Obligation and wholly give up themselves to Him Who gave Himself for us that He might not only redeem us from all iniquity but withall purifie us to Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works In which Words we have 1. The Person in the Relative Who. 2. His Bounty and Goodness in the clearest the highest and most endearing Expressions thereof His giving Himself for us 3. The Design or End of this his Gift and that twofold 1. Redemption That He might redeem us from iniquity and from all iniquity 2. Sanctification That he might purifie us to Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Of these in their order I. Who this is that gave Himself for us we reade in the verse before That it is our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. But if you would fully know who He was you must go to the beginning of St. John's Gospel no one word being able to speak him out but that which Himself is there styl'd by and which He always was If we should say That is God we should not say enough for He is also a Man But how poor a thing is it to say He is a Man when He is also a God St. Paul prefaceth this Article thus Great is the mystery of Godliness God manifested in the flesh Great sure when it is the vast Complexum of the Creator and more even a Creature too where God is not all and Infinity but a part He who is in all things else All in all is here not the whole He who did send and who was sent He who was given and who gave Himself shall make but one part being indeed both but one St. Paul in opposition to one Heresie affirms Him to be really a Man and in opposition to another to be as really over All God blessed for ever This Infant was the Ancient of days born at this time and before Eternity Here you may behold Eternity beginning and Immensity confin'd a Virgin Mother and an Infant God This is that which St. Peter tells us the Angels desire to look into but cannot see Those Intelligences understand not this They have with us the Benefit not the Knowledge of it And when themselves are saved by it they can never understand how we came to be so They are indeed naturally above us for God has made us lower than the Angels but now is our Nature set above them The Scripture is very sparing in discovering those glorious Beings yet this we reade that they worship God and tend us are ministring Spirits to his honour and our preservation How did it surprize them think we after so many Ages to see Immutability change and God become what He once was not He turn'd the chiefest of their Order out of Heaven for endeavouring to be like Him and Himself became like us to bring us thither Their Maker made Himself a Man and perhaps received some addition by this diminution Before He could indeed Command but now He cannot only doe that but what is often more He can also Obey Besides that He can prescribe Laws He can now observe them Give the Rule and be the Example Thus does Almightiness if not increase yet exert new vigour in the strength of its very Infirmities and the Humanity becomes a qualification superadded to the Divinity the Veil not only to cover but adorn it The Stoicks have an impudent brag That Men who live according to the rules of Vertue and their Sect are to be preferred before God Himself because say they He is good by the Necessity of his Nature They by the Wisedom of their Choice Temptations never assault Him but these have conquered them that is He is indeed without Temptations but themselves above them To compleat their happiness there is nothing wanting but Immortality which although they cannot attain they do more than so for they deserve it See here now a supposition which no Philosophy nor Impudence it self could ever fancy God himself submitted to the duties to the infirmities of a Man to every thing of him besides the sin nay that He might be like us in every thing He came as near sin as He could possibly without the guilt of it for He was made sin for us though he would not commit any He would be a Criminal though without a Crime or a Criminal with our Crimes though not his own In this low condition of his see the Son of God's Love bearing his wrath submitting to as if He were not One with Him and besides forsaken by Him as though He had not been his very Self But that our Lord may not lose the Glories of his Humility the Honour of his Manhood the Exaltation which was due to his being humbled so that the Man has gotten a name and a place above Angels and only lower than the God Himself always was He who was Heir of all things is not ashamed of an Inheritance He hath obtained This Title of his own procuring was thought not unworthy to be joined to that He was born with and the Man hath got a Name the God disdains not to be called by See now Him who made the Heavens for more than Thirty years together behaving Himself as a Candidate for them meriting what He was born to as if his own Actions had been to instate upon him his Nature his Obedience to qualifie him for his Supremacy his Submission to God to assert his Equality with him and from his very Humanity have a kind of Title to his Divinity He has a Throne in Heaven due to his very
leaving it and that which He hath purchased so very glorious that some have mistaken it for his Eternal one To all this which He hath obtained for Himself let us add what He hath merited for us in that flesh He this day took upon Him and wherein He wrought out our Redemption offering up Himself to God and giving Himself for us the greatest gift He could give or we receive whereof in the next place II. Who gave Himself for us Every word here has its weight 1. He gave 2. Gave Himself and 3. For us 1. He gave A Gift this as much above Man's Desert as 't was above his Comprehension 'T was a free gift too no Attractive here but misery no Motive but his own goodness The Romanists indeed to establish their rotten Doctrine of Merit will needs persuade us that some Ancient Fathers before and under the Law did ex congruo if not ex condigno merit Christ's Incarnation or at least the hastning of its accomplishment This conceit of theirs they mainly ground on Gen. 22. 18. where 't is said to Abraham In thy seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed Because thou hast obeyed my voice As if that Because denoted the meritorious Cause of Christ's Incarnation to have been Abraham's Obedience whereas Zachary ascribes it not to the Merits of any the most holy persons of old but to God's mercy and free promise to the Forefathers Luke 1. 72. St. Paul to the riches of God's mercy Ephes. 2. 4. To his benignity and loving-kindness to mankind here Tit. 3. 4. As our Lord Himself does also John 3. 16. God so loved the World that He gave his only begotten Son and so well did that his Son love it too that He gave Himself for us says the Text. 2. Himself And surely more He could not give For as the Apostle speaks in another case Because God could swear by no greater He sware by Himself So may we here because He had no greater thing to give us He gave us Himself The Almighty could go no higher than this Infinite goodness was here at its non ultra He who is All in All could bestow no more than that All. More then He could not give but could He not have given less and that less have been enough Or might not the party offended have freely remitted the Offence without any farther satisfaction or have obliged some other to make it Sent some glorious Creature some blessed Spirit of the noblest Order of created Beings to be a sufficient expiatory Sacrifice for Mankind and so have sav'd Himself the trouble of an Incarnation 'T is not for us here to be too inquisitive what God might have done let us rather admire and extoll his Goodness for not contenting Himself with less than what He did and withall dread the severity of his Justice not to be atton'd by any other Sacrifice than that of his own Son And indeed the most glorious the most innocent and perfect Creature God could make being but Finite it cannot possibly be conceived how it could satisfie an infinite Justice much less was it in the power of Man to satisfie for himself of the party guilty to expiate its own guilt This knot was too hard for any but a God to untie Nay the Godhead its self it seems could not doe it without the assistance of the Manhood For as the divine Nature could not suffer so the humane one could not merit This furnished the bloud but that made it passable and valuable None then but He who united both Natures in the Person of the word Incarnate He who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God and Man could be a perfect Reconciler of both Parties This as his Justice and our Necessities required so his alone Goodness prompted him unto and his as infinite Wisedom found out the only way to doe it by taking our Nature upon Him and so giving Himself for us 3. For Us. This circumstance does yet very much heighten the Blessing and set off God's infinite Love to Mankind That He should give Himself for us us Sinners and Rebels and for us alone Were there no other Objects for his Mercy besides us Were there not Angels to be redeemed as well as Men Or were they not worth the Redeeming who were by Nature so much above them That God should pass by them and only vouchsafe to look upon us This is the great Mystery of his Love And that He did so is clear from Heb. 2. 16. Verily He took not on Him the Nature of Angels but He took on Him the Seed of Abraham whereupon He is called the Saviour of all Men but not of Angels 1 Tim. 4. 10. Whether it was because the sin of Angels had more of Wilfulness in it and less of Temptation or because they did not All fall as we did some of them still preserving their Station let the Schools dispute These may serve for plausible Conjectures but to find the true cause hereof we must go out of the World and seek it in the bosom of the Father and in the bowels of his own Son whose Love did even transform him into us this day whereon He was born for no other purpose but to dye for us and by his meritorious Death rescue us from the slavery of Sin the primary end of his Incarnation and the third Thing to be spoken to III. That He might redeem us For the better comprehending the benefit we reap from the Incarnation of our blessed Lord We must consider the main end and design of it which the Text says was to redeem us Now Redemption being a Relative supposes Bondage For we cannot say his Irons are struck off who never had them on or pronounce him releas'd who never was a prisoner Now such was all Mankind till Christ delivered it by taking upon Him the form of a servant and being made in the likeness of men For as Aristotle hath made some men born slaves and as others tell us of a Law whereby all the Posterity of Captives were Bondmen So in Divinity 't is a certain truth that not some but all Mankind are born under the Fork and that the Womb of our first Parent was like that in Tacitus Subjectus servitio Uterus a Womb from which issues a race of Slaves Christ then found us in Captivity and that according to the Divinity of the Schools a threefold one 1. To Sin as the Merit obliging 2. To Death as the Reward or Punishment 3. To the Devil as to the Executioner And to each of these the Scripture hath assign'd a Dominion over us and that in terms of the greatest subjection and which in the conveyance of Power give the strongest Empire For the first St. Paul hath told us That we are the servants of Sin so far 't is our Master And in another place 't is said to reign in our mortal Bodies That makes it our Prince And indeed as some
who is our Comforter if so the following Verse here will tell us That He can Reprove as well as Comfort But on the other side if we obey his Motions submit to his Dictates follow his Guidance and Direction in a word be led by Him we shall then be the Sons of God and the only-begotten of the Father will not fail to send him to us as He did to his Apostles Then especially above all other times when we eat and drink his flesh and bloud in the Holy Sacrament For as his Bloud was the meritorious Cause to procure us his Spirit so is his Holy Sacrament the Pipe or Conduit to convey Him unto us For hereby we are all made to drink into one Spirit 1 Cor. 12. 13. And then as there is plentifull Redemption here on Christ's part so if we duly partake of that Redemption there will be plentifull Effusion of his Spirit on us Which God of his infinite Mercy grant c. Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON Preached on Michaelmas-day HEB. I. 14. Are they not all ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation 'T IS the great happiness and priviledge of Saints to be under the care and protection of an Almighty God Others have the benefit of his general Providence These of his particular Love and Kindness The clearest Evidence of that his Love appears in sending his only beloved Son into the World to merit Salvation for them and next to that in employing Angels to further it He being our alone Saviour These our Guardians and Assistants Wherein the Almighty has abundantly provided as well for the honour as the security of his Servants For what greater honour next to the having Christ for our Brother than that we should have such glorious Creatures as Angels for our Ministers Their Nature we know places them above us and yet God's Love and their Humility sets them here below us Even while those excellent Spirits attend on the Throne of God we may see them waiting on us Men While they behold his Face there they cast a benign aspect on us here These bright Morning-stars do at the same time praise Him and assist and guide us Their Employment in Heaven does not exempt them from their Services on Earth dividing them as it were between those two places ever ascending and descending i. e. perpetually employ'd in discharging their Duties to their Creator and for his sake performing all good Offices to their fellow Creatures 2. And hence it is That in consideration of those great and various Benefits she receives by their appointed Aid and Ministration The Church has set apart this Day as to praise Him who makes use of such glorious Instruments for her safeguard and protection so gratefully to commemorate those advantageous Services they doe her And although the Title of this Festival carries but a particular denomination of St. Michael's Day yet does the Church herein celebrate the general Memorial of all Angels and the Text I have chosen leads us to it as the Scope thereof does to the whole Chapter wherein the Apostle's design is to compare Christ with Angels and to prove his Superiority over them which He does by several Arguments taken 1. From his Sonship He God's Son by Eternal generation These only by Creation and Resemblance v. 2. 2. From his Name more excellent than that of Angels v. 4. 3. From the Worship peculiarly due to Him even from Angels themselves v. 6. 4. From his being the Head of Angels who at best are but his Ministring spirits v. 7. 5. From his Kingly Authority over all Creatures Men and Angels too v. 8. 6. From his creating the Heavens and the Earth which Angels neither did nor could doe v. 10. 7. And lastly from his sitting as Equal with God at his right hand whereas the most glorious Angels doe but stand there as Ministers of his Will and Commands and to serve the necessities of his Chosen ones in the question here put Are they not all c. In which Words you may observe 1. Something imply'd or suppos'd and that is Their Existence Are they not c. The Apostle speaks of them as of persons really and actually subsisting 2. Something plainly exprest and those are four Particulars here mention'd 1. The Essence or Nature of Angels They are Spirits i. e. intellectual immortal and incorporeal Substances 2. Their Office Ministring spirits and that without any reserve All of them such none excepted not the most glorious not the most excellent of their Order 3. Their Commission from God who sends them forth deputing them their several Ministerial Charges and Employments 4. The End or Design for which they are employ'd viz. God's glory and the benefit of those who shall be heirs of Salvation These be the several Stages through which I shall lead you And first of the Existence or Being of Angels suppos'd in the question Are they not all c. 1. Since the Being of Angels is here suppos'd and taken for granted one would think there should need no farther proof of it and surely 't would be needless did not the Infidelity of some Men make it necessary And 't is strange that Divine Revelation should not be sufficient to settle this Truth among Christians which Heathens by the dim light of Nature have so clearly discern'd For what-ever mistakes they were guilty of as to the Nature they believ'd the Existence of spiritual Substances and we find them very curious in ranking and disposing them into their several Classes and describing the Hierarchy of their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with as much exactness I had almost said as good ground as the pretended Dionyfius has done that of Angels whom the Schoolmen so passionately doat on And the same reason which taught Heathens so much Divinity fetches this Truth also from the Order of Nature which seems to require it For as here we find some things without life others living but without sense some again sensible and others rational yet so as to be of a mixt Nature partly Corporal and partly Spiritual there would want one main link in the Chain of Providence had not the Divine Power made some Creatures purely Intellectual such as might be a Mean between God and Man as Man is between them and Beasts to prevent a chasm or vacuum in Nature Besides since every part and place in the World is fill'd with Inhabitants proper for it it seems but requisite that the highest Heavens should not be left void of such as might be fit to dwell in those pure and glorious Mansions But not to build so necessary and important a Truth on meer rational Conjectures we have a more solid foundation for it which is Divine Revelation the Scriptures every-where not only mentioning the Being of Angels but giving us a clear account of their Creation of their manifold Apparitions and Discoveries to Men on Earth together
with their several Actions and Operations All which clearly demonstrate their Existence For the first Their Creation may be gathered though it be not set down in express terms from the first and second Chapters of Genesis where they are styl'd the Host of Heaven an usual Title afforded to all Creatures in Scripture-language but in a more especial manner appropriated to Angels as 't is by the Psalmist Psal. 148. 2. and most suitable to them in regard of their great Power and exact Order And so all Expositors allow it 'T is true indeed there is no such express mention of the Creation of Angels in Moses's Writings as in those of the other Holy Pen-men which he omits not so much as some would have it to prevent Idolatry in the Israelites who had they known Angels would have been apt to have ador'd them as for these two Reasons 1. Because Moses applies himself to the simple Capacity of that People and describes the Creation of visible and sensible things leaving spiritual as above their lower apprehensions and 2dly lest Men should think God needed the help of Angels either in the production or disposition of other Creatures As if the Fabrick of the World had been too great a Task for Himself alone to undertake as Heathens and some Hereticks also have fancied to the manifest derogation of the Divine Omnipotency But for what reason soever Moses forbore to speak out here the Psalmist is plain enough By the Word of the Lord were the Heavens made and all the Host of them by the breath of his mouth Psal. 33. 6. and clearer yet Psal. 104. 4. He maketh his Angels spirits and his Ministers a flaming fire And whereas our Apostle v. 4. tells us That God made the Worlds Colos. 1. 16. He explains the meaning of that expression by things visible and invisible and these invisible things by Thrones Dominions Principalities and Powers the usual Titles Angels are design'd by So void of all Reason as well as of Religion is that bold or rather impudent Assertion of the Author of the Leviathan concerning the Creation of Angels there is nothing delivered in Scripture 2. A second proof of the Existence of Angels may be taken from their sundry Apparitions both before and under the Law and in the first dawning of the Gospel There is nothing more certain than that under those several Dispensations especially at the beginning of them such Apparitions were very frequent Holy Men in those times had a familiar acquaintance and correspondency with Heaven 'T was no news then to see an Angel of God The Patriarchs scarce convers'd so much with Men as with blessed Spirits They were their Guests and their Companions of their Family and of their Counsel Nothing of importance was done either at home or abroad without their privity and direction And he must be a great stranger to the New Testament that finds them not there too very often among the Servants of God For though God had for a long time withdrawn from the Jews all means of supernatural Revelations yet at the first publication of the Gospel he began to restore them 'T was no marvel that when that wicked people became strangers to God in their Conversation God should grow a stranger to them in his Apparitions But when the Gospel approacht he visited them afresh with his Angels before he visited them with his Son Joseph Mary Zachary the Shepherds Mary Magdalen the gazing Disciples at the Mount of Olives Peter Philip Cornelius St. Paul St. John the Evangelist were all blessed with the sight of them In succeeding times 't is also very credible what Ecclesiastical Writers report That the good Angels were nowhit more sparing of their Presence for the comfort of Holy Martyrs and Confessors who suffered for the Name of Christ. I doubt not but Constant Theodorus saw and felt the refreshing hand of the Angel no less than he reported to Julian the Persecutor Nor do I question but that those retired Saints too of the prime Ages of the Church had sometimes such heavenly Companions for the Consolation of their forced Solitude as St. Jerome reports of them But this is evident too that the elder the Church grew the more rare was the use of these Apparitions as of all other Miracles Actions and Events not that the Arme of God is shortned or his Care and Love to his abated but that his Church being now setled in an ordinary way has no need of any extraordinary ones no more than the Israelites had of Manna when they were once got out of the Wilderness Nay such extraordinary ones now would perhaps be not useless only but dangerous and we may justly suspect those strange Relations of the Romanists concerning later Angelical Apparitions to Saints of their own Canonizing when we see them made use of to countenance Doctrines of Men. And yet notwithstanding their false play here 't is hard to say that all those instances which sober learned Men have given us of Modern Apparitions are utterly incredible But it has often fallen out indeed that Evil spirits have appeared in this wicked and corrupt Age more than good ones The frequent experience of later days gives in here its Evidence and 't is unreasonable wholly to reject it there being no other reason but this to doe so that our selves doe not see what others so peremptorily affirm they did which were to call in question all that our own Eyes have not been witnesses to and if we will believe nothing but what we see we may as well doubt whether there be Souls as Devils And yet so far as men's Eyes may discern Spirits they may doe it in those possessed Bodies they usurp For that such Possessions have been and still are in the World though more frequent in our Saviour's time than ours is as hard to deny as that there are Witchcrafts which yet many will not allow of and the Papists would take it ill we should deprive them of this one great Argument to prove the truth of their Doctrines who though they feign Possessions where there are none and conjure up imaginary Devils that they may have the credit to lay them yet this is no good reason to say there are no such things at all And this once granted as we must needs doe unless we will contradict all credible sensible Experience there will be no ground left to dispute the real Being of bad Angels which is an Argument of equal force to prove that there are good ones But then 3dly What if we do no longer now-a-days see Angels in visible shapes may we not discover them by their several actions and operations And do not these necessarily imply the Being of things Now besides the Testimony of Scripture which represents Angels standing moving talking and the like It is apparent that there are many effects in Nature which as they cannot be attributed to any natural Causes unless we will have continual