them and have taken up a Proverb to entertain them with Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming it stirreth up the dead for thee and all the chief ones of the earth it hath raised up from the thrones all the Kings of the nations all they shall speak and say unto thee art thou also become weak as we art thou become like to us The worm is spread under thee and the worms cover thee c. Humane Learning the excellency of power and strength created thou Ruben my first born the head of this world thou shalt be made the tayl thou that wilt comprehend Christ thou that wilt bring God into thy compass and under thy span and weigh him in thy ballance thou that knowest no spirit nor wisdom besides thy self thou that condemnest that which is not there for folly and weakness thou Lucifer son of the morning that hast said I will ascend into heaven and set my Throne above the Stars I will be like the most high thou spirit of the world that wilt acknowledge none above thee Thou shalt not excell because thou didst ascend into my bed he went up to my couch I will rise out of the weak and foolish things to confound thee I will ordain strength out of the mouth of babes and sucklings to undoe thee I will fight against thee in the Carpenters Son and the Fishermen Judah shall have the Scepter binding his Foal unto the Vine and his Asses Colt unto the choyce Vine The King that rides on the Ass and the Foal of an Ass whom the Boys and Girls follow with the voyce of Hosanna shall destroy your Place and Nation O ye Scribes Pharises Lawyers Rabbies after that you have mocked him and crucified him done to him what ever you listed he will rise again and fear will take hold of you as sorrow upon a woman and you wil call to the Rocks and Mountains to fall upon you and so go unto your own Place And thou Independency the fairest Form the most beautiful Face as yet that the Sun hath looked on The world hath thrown dirt on thee and disguised thee which thou hast washed off take heed thy Father spit not in thy Face that will make thee ashamed indeed Thou art Rachel thou hast with great wrestlings prevailed and brought forth Gad a Troop and hast routed pursued destroyed taken if thou lift up thy self against thy root that bears thee that spirit that hath lifted thee up thou shalt be so dealt withal in thy high mindedness if thou work not out thy salvation in fear and trembling And thou Righteousness that derivest thy pedegree from Adam and standest in the Law and walkest like a Queen in mans wisdom and Forms of Religions shinest in the outward Court that is given to the Gentiles to be trodden under foot thou hast a beauty as if it were of the holy place and lookest like the Spouse and Bride of the Lamb but thou shalt be discovered a base Harlot and Strumpet whilst thou settest up thy self against the righteousness of the Spirit And when thou shalt fight against him as a Blasphemer and thinkest to destroy him as thou hast Episcopacy and Presbytery when thou shalt look that Jerusalem should fall before thee as the gods of the Nations Gozan and Haran and Reseph and the children of Eden which were in Telassar when thou shalt come to lay hold on Christ as a blasphemer and shalt go forth like Sampson thinking to do as thou hast done at other times when thy zeal shall gather an Army that goes upon the breadth of the earth and thou compassest the Camp of the Saints about and the beloved City then shall fire come down from God out of Heaven and devour thee Then shalt thou find that sword of the Lord which hath drunken blood and eat flesh to fall out of thy hand and shalt see a battel fought in a way of war that thou never knewest having only known carnal weapons a battel not with confused noyse and garments rowled in blood but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire for his name is wonderful who hath the Government on his shoulders in the day of his begetting which is his manifestation or declaratiou with power Then no more Iron against Iron flesh against flesh the potsherds against the potsherds of the earth The naked power of the Spirit the holy arm of the Lord made bare shall make a supper to the â—â—wls of the ayr of the flesh of Kings and Captains and mighty men and horses and them that sit thereon and there shall the beast be taken and the false Prophet No more carnal weapons thenceforth they shall all be beaten into mattocks and pruning hooks when the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea then I looked and every Iland fled away and the Mountains were not found I saw none but the Lamb standing on the Mount Sion and with him a hundred forty and four thousand having his Fathers name written on their foreheads and I heard the voyuce of Harpers harping with their Harpers and they sung a new Song This manner of War God was pleased to come forth in in the Apostles and Primitive Christians who had laid the world on its back and made it like Sodom and Gomorrah had not the Trumpet sounded a retreat and that power which was abroad retired again that the world might recover its deadly wound and get up upon his legs again that the man of sin might be fully revealed in the return of this power to be utterly consumed when it shall come in the brightness of its glory And thou Rule authority and power earthly that wilt not acknowledge the Lord thou earth that dost not tremble at the presence of the Lord his day will be on thee to put thee down if the Host of Heaven those Powers be shaken thou must not look for a priviledge and exemption and though thou hast been made like Nebuchadnezzar the servant of the Lord to pull down those heavenly powers that kept not their first estate and hast been a scourge upon the Powers of the Earth and smote them in wrath though thou hast been a feller among the Cedars of Lebanon thou that hast broken the Gold and Silver and the Brass with thy Iron feet remember that the Iron is mixed with clay that shews thy weakness thou shalt be shattered to pieces by that stone cut out of the mountain without hands when Satan shall lead thee against him as against a Blasphemer Therefore you Heavens and Religious Forms that are putting for the Government of the world and sadling Kingdoms and Re publiks and making them the Beast to carry the false Prophet which now begins to kick and winch and look upon thee that rideth And you Mountaines of the earth worldly Powers that say in your hearts We will ascend into Heaven and set our throne above the Stars
Christ sent them only as his Father sent him and so Christ never gave unto them any earthly or humane or secular power no power of words or prisons no power of outward constraint and violence Christ gave them no such outward and worldly power for the inlargement of his Kingdom as not being at all sutable to it For his Kingdom is spiritual and what can carnal power do in a Spiritual Kingdom His Kingdom is heavenly and what can earthly power do in a heavenly Kingdom His Kingdom is not of this world and what can worldly power do in a Kingdom that is not of the World And though Antichrist and his Ministers have arrogated and usurped such a carnal and earthly and worldly power to themselves in their pretended managing the Kingdom of Christ yet the faithful Ministers of Christ cannot And therefore seeing the Ministers of the Gospel have no power from beneath they must needs have power from on high seeing they have no fleshly power they must needs have Spiritual power seeing they have no power from earth and from men they must needs have power from heaven and from God that is the power of the Holy Spirit coming on them or else they have no power at all 2. The Ministers of the Gospel must needs have this power of the Holy Spirit because otherwise they are not sufficient for the Ministery For no man is sufficient for the work of the Ministery by any natural parts and abilities of his own nor yet by any acquisite parts of humane learning and knowledge but onely by this power of the Holy Spirit and till he be indowed with this notwithstanding all his other accomplishments he is altogether insufficient And therefore the very Apostles were to keep silence till they were induced with this power they were to wait at Jerusalem till they had received the promise of the spirit and not to preach till then Yea Christ himself did not betake himself to the work of the Ministery till first the spirit of God came upon him and anointed him to preach And therefore for thirty years together he did not preach publikely and ordinarily till at Johns Baptism he received this power of the spirit coming on him Now if Christ himself and his Apostles were not sufficient for the Ministery till they had received this power from on high no more are any other Ministers whatsoever For as I said it is not natural parts and abilities and gifts and learning and eloquence and accomplishments that make any man sufficient for the Ministery but only the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon him So that who ever is destitute of the spirit of power is insufficient for the work of the Ministery and that in these regards 1. Without this power of the spirit Ministers are utterly unable to preach the Word that is the true spiritual and living Word of God For to preach this Word of God requires the Power of God One may speak the word of man by the power of man but he cannot speak the Word of God but by the power of God And Christ himself in all his Ministery spake nothing of himself in the strength of his humane nature but he spake all he spake by the power of God and without this power of God he could not have spoken one word of God And so in like manner no man is able to preach Christ but by the Holy Spirit which is the power of God For Christ is the power of God and can never be represented but by the Holy Spirit which is the power of God For as we see light in his light that is the Father who is light in the Son who is light or else the Son who is light in the Holy Spirit who is light So we know power in his power that is the Son who is power in the Holy Spirit who is power And Christ who is the power of God can never be made known to the Church but by the ministration of the spirit which is the power of God So that it is not an easie thing to preach Christ the power of God yea none can do it aright but by the power of the Holy Spirit comming upon him 2. Without this power of the Spirit Ministers are unable to preach the word powerfully They may it may be happen upon the outward word yet there is no power in their Ministry till they have received this power of the spirit comming upon them Otherwise their Ministery is cold and there is no heat in it it is weak and there is no strength in it 1. It is cold and there is no heat in it Without men have received the power of the spirit there is no fire in their preaching Their ministery is unlike the ministery of Elias whose ministery was as fire and unlike John Baptists who in his ministery was a burning and shining light and unlike Christs whose ministery made the Disciples hearts burn within them and unlike the Apostles who having received this spirit were as men made all of fire running through the world and burning it up Without this spirit a mans ministery is cold it warms the hearts of none it inflames the spirit of none but leaves men still frozen in their sins 2. It is weak and hath no might in it There is no strength in a Ministery where there is no spirit Whereas when men have received the spirit then their ministery is a powerful ministery as Paul 1 Thess 1. 5. The Gospel came to you not in word onely but in power and in the Holy Ghost and therefore in povver because in the Holy Spirit And again 1 Cor. 2. 4. My speech and preaching was not with the entising words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and power Where you see the spirit and power in the work of the Ministery are alwayes conjoyned as the Sun and light are And that Ministery that is in the spirit is alway in power And being in power it is alwayes effectual either to convert men or to inrage them And the inraging of men is as evident a sign of the spirit of power in a mans ministery as the conversion of men Whereas a cold and dead ministry that is destitute of this power doth as we use to say neither good nor harm neither converts nor inrages neither brings in righteousness nor destroyes sin neither kils nor quickens any but leaves men in their old temper for many years together and never stirs them But the ministration of the spirit and power is operative and mighty and carries all before it And though evil and carnal men will ever be murmuring and wrangling and opposing and contending against such a ministry yet they are never able to resist the wisdom and spirit of it as the Libertines Cyrenians and Alexandrians were not able to resist the wisdom and spirit by which Stephen spake And therefore let them that will needs be striving
otherwise in the Church for whoever speak there the hearers are to judge of the truth of the Doctrine and accordingly are either to receive it or reject it having power to do either as they see occasion and so errour cannot prevail in that Church where the faithfull have liberty to judge of all Doctrines and do exercise that liberty But where they that publish Doctrine are also the judges of it and the people are bound up to the Doctrine of the Teachers and may not question or contradict it there errour reigns as in its proper Kingdom And thus by these means errour may certainly be kept out of the Church that the Church may live in truth and peace But here now a great question wil be moved and that is this Whether the Magistrate hath not power to suppress errour by the sword and whether the Church may not use this remedy against errour as well as all those before named I answer that many men of great eminency have attributed such a power to the Magistrate and have done him the honour besides his throne in the world to erect him a throne in Gods Kingdom at the least equal to Christ thinking that Religion would soon be lost if he should not uphold it And to make this good they have produced many Scriptures of the Old Testament which seem to arm the Magistrate against the authors and spreaders of errours But I desire the wise hearted to consider whether as clear Scriptures may not be produced out of the Old Testament to prove that temporal power in the world belongs to Ecclesiastical men as that spiritual power in the Church belongs to worldly Magistrates And to this purpose because I would not be too large in this matter now I shall desire him who hath a minde to be instructed to reade and weigh the Reply of the French Prelates to the Lord Peters which he may finde in Fox his Book of Martyrs vol. 1 p. 467. Wherefore seeing the Scriptures of the old Testament are every whit as strong to give Ministers power in temporal matters as Magistrates in spiritual it is without all question the only sure and safe way to determine this cause by the new Testament or the doctrine of Christ and the Apostles by whom in these last dayes God hath spoken fully to the Church and after whose doctrine there is no other word to be expected And because herein I finde no such power given to the Civil Magistrate to judge and determine in spiritual matters therefore I conclude he hath none Now if any shall say This is a great wrong to the Magistrate to thrust his power out of the Church and to confine it to the world I answer That to make the Church an Ecclesiastical Kingdom standing in outward Laws orders authority dignity promotion goverment all which are to be granted established and managed by state power and yet to deny the Magistrates authority and influence into these things which flow from his own power and consist in it and by it this is to streighten and to wrong him indeed But to declare the true Church to be a spiritual Kingdom as Christ hath made it and not at all of this world but the very Kingdom of heaven upon earth and thereupon to deny him power in it is no more to prejudice the Magistrate then to deny him power in heaven Seeing the Sons Kingdom which is heaven on earth is to be as free from worldly and humane power as the Fathers Kingdom which is heaven in heaven Christ being to be all in all in this as God is to be all in all in that And so to deny the Magistrate that power which Christ never granted him is no wrong to him at all but to grant him and gratifie him with such power would be a great and intolerable wrong to the truth and Church of Christ as in many other things so in this present matter we are speaking of as you may see in the following particulars For the putting the power of the sword into the Magistrates hands to suppress errour is attended with these evils 1. Hereby the Magistrate is made a Judge of Doctrines and hath power given him to pronounce which is truth and which is errour being yet no more infallible yea everywhit as liable to erre as the meanest of the people And what Magistrate is there that hath the power of the sword but will uphold his own Religion and judgement to be the truth though never so false and will sentence what ever is contrary thereunto to be errour though never so true and so the truth and word of God which only is to judge all and it self to be judged of none by this means is made subject to the judgement of vain man and shall either be truth or errour as he pleases to call it and errour when it pleaseth the Magistrate shall be adorned with the glorious title of truth and shall have his authority to countenance and uphold it And how great a prejudice this hath been and is to the truth and how great an advantage to errour it is very easie to judge Now if any shall say that the Magistrate may not judge of doctrine by himself and use his sword accordingly but he may take to him the councel and advice of godly and able Ministers as now of the Assembly and so may judge and punish according to their judgement I answer Is it fit that the Magistrate in so great matters should be blinde folded himself and see onely by other mens eyes Again if the Magistrate judge according to the judgement of â—he Ministers and depending more on their knowledge then his own shall draw his sword against whomsoever they shall perswade him What higher honour doth he attain to in all this then to become their Executioner Yea if he punish amiss he may prove a very murderer Pilate in this case may be a sea-mark to all the Magistrates in the world who following the councel and judgement of the High Priests put the Son of God himself to death as if he had been the son of perdition Which I say may serve for a sufficient warning to the end of the world to all Magistrates that they confide not on the judgement of the Clergy but that they be sure themselves in what they do 2. The putting power into the Magistrates hands to suppress error by the sword gives him full opportunity to destroy and slay the true children of God if at any time he shall mistake and judge them Heretikes For what power men ignorantly allow a godly Magistrate against true Heretikes the same power will all Magistrates arrogate to themselves as their just due against all those that differ from themselves in matters of Religion though their judgement who so differ from them be never so true And thus the Magistrate who is a most fallible Judge in these things in stead of tares may pluck up the wheat
Holy Ghost is come upon you And here we may note two things 1. What he promises them and that is Power you shall receive power 2. How they should be made partakers of that power and that was by the Holy Spirits coming upon them The point we will insist on from both is this That the receiving of the Spirit is the receiving of power till we receive the Spirit we are altogether without power and when we receive the Spirit then first of all do we receive power power from on high By nature we are all without strength weak impotent creatures utterly unable to any thing that is truly and spiritually righteous and good For by nature we are nothing but flesh for that which is born of flesh is flesh and all flesh is grass a fading withering and decaying thing together with all the flowers of it that is the perfections and excellencies of it So that by nature we are all without power because we are nothing but flesh of which weakness is an inseparable adjunct But when we receive the Spirit we receive power for power is an inseparable adjunct of the Spirit as weakness is of flesh yea the Spirit it self which is given us is power and that both essentially and operatively in it self and in us 1. The Spirit is power essentially in it self for it is one God with the Father and the Son co-essential co-equal co-eternal and so as Christ is the power of God so also is the spirit the power of God yea the spirit is the God of power aswel as the power of God So that the Spirit is power in himself essentially and he that partakes of the power of the spirit partakes of that power which is God and no creature 2. The Spirit is power operatively in us by being in us 1. A Spirit of Knowledge for the Holy Spirit teaches us to know the things that are freely given to us of God yea he teaches us to know what sin is and what righteousness what death is and what life what Heaven is and what hell what our selves are and what God is and these things he teaches us to know otherwise then other men know them In a word the spirit teaches a Christian to know all things that is to know God and the Kingdom of God and all the things of both all other things being nothing in comparison of these Thus the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of knowledge in us and so of power for knowledge is the strength of a man Whereas an ignorant man is a weak man you may carry him whither you will but knowledge renders a man strong and unmoveable And in all things wherein the Holy Spirit is a spirit of knowledge in us he is also a spirit of strength The Holy Spirit is a spirit of Power in us by being in us a spirit of Truth And so the spirit is because it doth not onely lead us unto the truth that is unto the word which is the onely truth as it is written Sanctifie them through the truth thy Word is truth but also the Spirit leads us into the Truth it leads us into the truth and the truth into us till we and it become one by an inseparable union The Holy Spirit takes a beleever and leads him into one truth after another till at last it lead him into all truth Now wherein the Spirit is a Spirit of truth to us it is a Spirit of Power for through the truth we learn from the Spirit of truth we are altogether stedfast and unmovable among variety of different and contrary winds of Doctrine And this is the very cause that among so many divisions and factions and errours and heresies which wofully prevail in these present times of ours the people of God are not seduced and overcome to wit because they are all taught of God of God and not of men and have the Spirit of truth to lead them into the truth the Spirit I say and not men and so it is impossible that they should fully and finally be deceived For wherein we are taught by the Spirit of God it is unpossible we should be perverted by men Whereas on the contrary the true ground why so many are seduced and overcom by the errors and heresies of this age is because they have taken up their religion onely from mans teaching and have received their opinions or doctrine from men and so what one man hath taught us another man can unteach yea if we be led to the truth it self onely by man man can again lead us from it For all the world cannot lead any man into the truth till the Spirit lead him into it and when the Spirit doth lead us into the truth all the men in the world cannot lead us out of it but we are so sure of those things wherein the Spirit hath been a teacher to us that if all the Councels and Churches in the world yea all the Angels of Heaven should teach us contrary we would hold them accursed But a man that hath not been taught of the Spirit every day you may win him into new opinions by the power and authority of men together with the strength of other advantages But he that hath been led into the truth by the Spirit of truth is unmoveable and invincible among all doctrines And thus also the Holy Spirit by being a Spirit of truth is also a Spirit of Power in us 3. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of Power in us by being in us a Spirit of Wisdom and so it is because it makes us wise with the wisdom of God wise upon earth after the rate of heaven wise to salvation There is no man wise without the Spirit of God for the wisdom of carnal men is but foolishness before God yea before Angels and Saints but the wisdom of the Spirit is most gracious and heavenly wisdom And this wisdom of the Spirit is the strength of a Christian the more he hath of it the more mighty he is both in all his doings and indurings It is said Eccles 9. 15. That there was a poor wise man delivered a small city from the power of a mighty King and therefore Solomon concludes that wisdom is better then strength for it can do greater things then strength can When David carried himself wisely Saul a great King was afraid of him he thought himself too weak to deal with David and David too mighty to deal with him because of his wisdom and Solomon asked Wisdom of God above all things for the strength of his Government all Government without this being but weak and brittle Thus wisdom contributes strength to us whereas we say of a man that wants wisdom he is a weak man And so the Holy Spirit being a Spirit of wisdom in us is also a Spirit of Power 4. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of Power in us by being in us a Spirit of Faith For
Christ Joh 16. The world shall hate you and persecute you and shall put you out of their synagogues and shall kill you and in doing all this shall think they do God good service But saith he I will send you the comforter Christ knew well enough that among all these evils they should have no Comforter on earth and therefore promises to send them one from heaven And therefore when thy soul is placed in affliction never look after any earthly or sensual or creature comforts for they will prove poison to thy soul but only look for heavenly comforts such as the Spirit brings such as flow immediately from God for these are pure and sweet and unmixed and refreshing and supporting and satisfying and enduring comforts comforts that are able to make thee rejoyce not only in fulness but in wants not only among friends but in the midst of enemies not only in good report but in evil report not only in prosperity but in tribulations not only in life but in death they will make thee go singing to prison to the Cross to the grave they are mighty comforts infinitely stronger then all the sorrows of the flesh and hence it is that many Saints and Martyrs have gone cheerfully to the stake and sung in the very flames the comforts of God in their souls have strengthned them to this Thou that art a beleever and in union with Christ never doubt of this comfort in thy greatest sorrows When Christ had none to stand by him and comfort him God sent an Angel from heaven to do it And so when we are left alone in the world rather then we shall want comfort God will send us an Angel from heaven to comfort us yea the Spirit it self which is greater then all the Angels in heaven and we shall certainly be comforted by God when we are afflicted and tossed with tempest and not comforted by men Behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours c. The Lord seeth the Church in its affliction without all comfort in the world and then the Lord comes and comforts it himself and this he doth by a promise They are the sweetest comforts that are brought to us in the promises The promises are the swadling-clothes of Christ they carry Christ wrapt up in them and Christ represented to the Church hath been the comfort of it in all its evils outward or inward And therefore whatever affliction takes hold on thee have recourse to the promises to draw thy comforts from Christ through them Oh how sweet is that life that is led in the promises a life led in the promises is the best life in the world Men that have estates in money or land depend on those things for their maintenance but a Christian may have little or nothing of these in the world but he hath a promise which is a thousand times better and makes his life more comfortable I am God All-sufficient and I will not fail thee nor forsake thee whereupon he comes to this resolution The Lord is my portion saith my soul I will trust in him Oh how sweet a life is this life that knows no cares nor fears nor troubles nor disquietments here saith a believer lies my estate and living and the lot of mine inheritance and this is a thousand times better and more certain estate then all the Mannors and Lordships in the Kingdom for my bread shall be given me my waters shall be sure The Lord is my shepheard and I shall not want no not then when the Lions the great men of the Kingdom to whom every poor man is a prey shall lack and sufferâ—hunger He that hath given me his own Nature and Spirit will not leave me destitute of food and clothing Take another instance A man feeling the bitterness of affliction to flesh and blood is ready to think Oh how shall I ever be able to suffer this or that or to part with my relations with my estate with my life and all that is near and dear unto me Why when a Christian lays hold on the promise God is faithful and will not suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able O saith a Christian God will never bring me to any temptation or trial but he will give me strength proportionable to it or above it and so lives satisfied with the truth and goodness and power of God And thus you see in these instances that a life led in the promises is the sweetest and best life when a man can draw all from God himself through a promise And this in general That God comforts his Church by a promise But to come more particularly to the words Behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours and lay thy foundations with Saphires Vers 12. And I will make thy windows of Agates and thy gates of Carbuncles and all thy borders of pleasant stones The promise relates to the Spiritual Church of the New Testament and this you shall observe is oft in Scripture compared to a building and that to a most stately sumptuous magnificent and glorious building as being all built of precious stones and so more glorious then the first Temple which was built up of common stones and it was prophesied that the glory of the second Temple should far exceed the glory of the first The first Temple was Solomons which was indeed filled with the outward presence of God but the second Temple is the humanity of Jesus Christ or the flesh of Christ both head and members this is the living Temple of the living God the Temple that God hath built by his Spirit for his own habitation wherein God dwels truly really spiritually and most neerly by the way of the most neer union whereby God and the creature are knit together and this spiritual Temple is more glorious then the first material one either according to the first edition of it by Solomon or the second edition of it by the Fathers in the dayes of Cyrus Darius and Artaxerxes Here then you see that the Lord promiseth to build up the Church of the New Testament with stones of fair colours with precious stones I will not stand to enquire particularly into the natures of the several stones here named for the Jews themselves do not fully agree about them It shall be sufficient for us to attain to the meaning of the Spirit in this place and that is this That the Spiritual Church of the New Testament is not to be built with common but with pretious stones Now the full sense of these words I shall give you forth in several particulars 1. You see here the matter of which the Church of the New Testament is made and that is not of common but of precious stones elect and precious stones and such are the faithful For 1. They have a more excellent nature then other men have for they are born of God and so partake of the nature of God and so in
of the Church is as great a work as the Redemption of it you will acknowledge the work is too great for you and that it belongs only unto Christ seeing the Father hath committed the care of this work only to him and he hath taken this care and charge upon himself and it is onely sutable to him as being the Head of the Church and he only is able for it as being the Son of God and equall to God The third General By what means Christ brings this Reformation about And that is by these two and them onely to wit the Word and the Spirit The first means whereby Christ reforms the Church is the Word By this Christ doth all that ever he doth in his Kingdom by this he cals and rejects by this he binds and looseth by this he comforts and terrifies by this he enlightens and makes blind by this he kils and quickens by this he saves and damns and all that ever he doth in this Kingdom he doth by his word and without this he doth nothing of all that he doth Christ doth all in his Kingdom by the word only but Antichrist doth all things without the word even by the Decrees and Constitutions of men Now as Christ doth all other things in the Church by the word so he reforms too Now are ye clean through the word that I have spoken to you All the powers in the world cannot reform the Church as the word of God can do for this is quick and powerful and sharper then a two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart and doth change and renew and reform all And therefore Christ when he comes to reform the Church comes with no worldly power or weapons but onely with the word in his mouth yea though God set him King upon his holy hill of Sion yet he reforms not by outward power but by preaching saying I will publish the decree whereof the Lord hath said unto me Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee And again The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he hath annointed me to preach the Gospel And again The Redeemer shall come to Sion and then follows the Covenant of God with the Redeemer My word shall never depart out of thy mouth Isa 59. 10. and in Psal 45. the Church saith by the Spirit to Christ Ride on prosperously in the word of truth meekness and righteousness which is the word of the Gospel And so Christ when the time of Reformation was come went up and down preaching the word And thus he brought to pass the glorious Reformation of the New Testament by preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom and nothing else And when he was to eave the world he sent his Disciples to carry on the work of Reformation as he himself had begun it as he saith As my Father sent me so send I you not with the power of the world but with the power of the word and so he bid them go teach all Nations and preach the Gospel to every creature and by teaching and preaching to the world to reform the world and so accordingly they did Mark 16. ver 20. They went forth and preached everywhere the Lord working with them So that Christ sent them not forth with any power of swords or guns or prisons to reform the world or with any power of States or Armies but sent forth poor illiterate mechanick men and only armed them with the power of the word and behold what wonders they wrought by that power alone They turned the world upside down they changed the manners customes religion worship lives and natures of men they carryed all oppositions and difficulties before them they won many in most Kingdoms unto Christ and brought them into willing subjection and obedience to him and all this they did I say not with any earthly or secular power but by the ministery of the Gospel alone Christs great and onely Instrument for the conquering subduing and reforming of the Nations And so the power appeared to be Gods onely and not the creatures And thus you see how the word is one means Christ useth for Reformation And this word only works a right Reformation For this reforms truly and indeed all other power reforms but in appearance So that there is no true reformation of any thing but what is wrought by the word but what ever evill is reformed and not by the power of the word it is not truly reformed it is onely reformed in the flesh and not in the spirit it is only suspended in the outward operation of it but the seed and nature of it still remains in the heart to grow up and work again as opportunity serves And therefore what ever evil or corruption is reformed in thee see it be reformed by the power of the word if the word hath killed it in thee it is killed indeed if not it is alive in thee though it seem to be dead The outward power of the world may set up an image of Reformation but it is the word onely can work true Reformation And therefore let us learn to rely on the word for the Reformation of the Church For this is much for the honour of the word which God hath magnified above all his Name when we can neglect the power of the world and leave the whole work of Reformation to the power working and efficacy of the word alone which is Almighty and able to bring off the heart from all things to God As on the contrary it is a great dishonour to God and his word when men dare not relie on the word alone to reform the Church though it be stronger then men and Angels and all the creatures but will needs be calling in the power of the world and rest and rely on that for this work as if the power of the word were not sufficient But let such men know that if the power of the word will not reform men all the power of the world will never do it And therefore well said Luther Praedicare annuntiare scribere volo neminem autem vi adigam I will Preach and Teach and Write but I will constrain no body Oh therefore that our Civil and Ecclesiastical powers would so much honour Christs Word as to trust the reformation of his Kingdom with it and that as it is sufficient to reform the Church so you would be pleased to think it sufficient and thus shall you give Christ and his Word due honour as well as declare your own faith And if you would commit this work to the power of the word to which onely it belongs you should soon see what the Word would do There is no such glorious sight under heaven as to see the Word in the spirit and power of it come in to an unreformed world and to observe the changes and
of God that will exercise a Judicature in Heaven and determine of things of the Kingdom of God which the Spirit hath kept in his own hands you may break one the other earthen potsheards But if you joyn against the Spirit and be one as Jew and Gentile Herod and Pilate against Christ it will be your everlasting breaking so that a man cannot gather a Sherd of you to take fire from the hearth or water out of the Pit for God hath set his King upon his holy Hill and you are but sheaves against a hearth of fire The Power of Christ is coming forth happy they that wait for it The Lord shall send the rod of his power out of Sion be thou Ruler in the midst of thine enemies Psal 110. All Forms and Shadows shall flie away and the new creature only abide and they that walk after this Rule peace be on them and mercy and upon the Israel of God The spiritual Church shall rise and be established in the beauty of holiness These are the tidings of this Book And I heard a voyce saying Hallelujah Praise the Lord from the Heavens prayse him all ye heights prayse him all ye Angels of his all the wisdom of man Prayse him Sun and Moon all worldly Magistrates praise him all the Stars of light all Ministers Pastors Teachers prayse him ye Heavens of Heavens all Forms and Churches and what ever of you excel and are lifted up above others exalt the Lord not your selves for his name only is excellent his glory is above the Earth and Heavens he also exalteth the Horns of his people the prayse of all his Saints even of the children of Israel a people neer to him Thy part be among these who ever art the Reader it is the desires and prayer of him who knows no greater no other happiness Who is thine as to it Christop Goad CHRIST'S SPIRIT A Christians Strength OR A plain discovery of the mighty and invincible power that all Believers receive through the gift of the SPIRIT First held forth in two Sermons on Act. 1. 8. and after published for the instruction and use of those that are spiritual Anno 1645. By WILLIAM DELL Minister of the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST at Yelden in the County of Bedford 1 Cor. 4. 19. 20 I will come to you shortly if the Lord will and will know not the speech of them that are puffed up but the power For the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power 2 Tim. 3. 5. Having a form of Godliness but denying the power of it from such turn away London Printed for Hen. Cripps and Lod. Lloyd 1651. To the Right Honorable the Lady ELIZABETH Countess of BULLINGBROOK Right Honourable THe form of Godliness is very common in these dayes of ours but the power of it is very rare How few persons shall we finde in the visible Church who live and act in the strength of God But generally men do what ever they do in their own strength and that not onely in humane things but in divine How seldom do we see either in Ministers or Christians in the discharge of their duties in their several places more then the power of men The greatest part by far not onely of those who are called Christians but also of forward Professors being ignorant what it is to be strengthened with might in the inner man according to the glorious power of the great God How little is there among all our plenty of that preaching which is not in the plausible words of mans wisdom but in the demonstration of the Spirit and Power How few Congregations among the many that are in the Kingdom are gathered together in the Spirit and Power of our Lord Jesus Christ How few of those Christians are there in whom is the exceeding greatness of Gods power together with the effectual working of it But the form of Godliness is now become almost the covering of all flesh and in these dayes of light and knowledge it is accounted by all that are not down-right Atheists a great shame not to seem to be religious And when men and families and Congregations are gotten into this form they think themselves both safe and happy as being near the suburbs of the Kingdom of God and close Neighbours to the Saints And this form of godliness as it is of very easie compliance with flesh and blood in this particular in that according to this men onely make their actions new retaining still their old natures so it is also of great credit and esteem with carnal Gospellers But the spiritual man judgeth all things and yet he himself is judged of no man and he being partaker of the power of God himself can in some measure discern both the presence and want of it in others both which he knows in his own experience Now this form of godliness is when men are godly without God and anoynted without Christ and regenerate not having the Spirit that is when they have a semblance of holiness but not the thing it self a semblance of grace retaining their old natures And such Christians as these perform spiritual duties with natural strength heavenly duties with earthly strength the works of God with the power of men In the Religion of these men there is the outward duty done and it may be very speciously and plausibly but there is none of Christ nor the Spirit in the duty There is their own working towards God which is faint and faithless and not Gods own working in them towards himself which is lively and mighty and all the religious acts they do are onely their own operations and not the operations of God in them This form of godliness how pleasing soever it be to a mans self and of what reckoning soever with others who are like himself yet is indeed of very evil and woful consequence whether we regard the doings or sufferings unto which this form necessarily engages For first when men by occasion of this form are called forth to do the great works of God and yet are destitute of the power of God their duties are above their strength and their strength bears no proportion to their duties And so sooner or later meeting with difficulties they faint and languish as a Snail their works being too high for their faculties For nature being strained above its power and offering at that which is beyond its abilities by degrees grows weary and returns to its old temper again And he that sought that glory which was not his own at last lies down in his own shame Again the form of godliness exposes a man to those evils that are incident to the faithful because of godliness Now when a man hath the same evils with the faithful and not the same power to support him under those evils when men have the same evils in the flesh but not the same power in the Spirit the same burthens on their shoulders but not the same everlasting arms
underneath them they fall sadly and desperately to the great scandal of the ways of God However if men be not called forth to such eminent doings and sufferings and so scape such manifest discoveries and downfals yet the form of godliness hath this evil in it That it brings a man onely to the troublesome part of Religion but not to the comfortable it engages a man in the same duties with the godly but supplies him not with the same strength it involves him in the same bitterness of flesh but doth not furnish him with the same joy of Spirit For as such a mans Religion doth not reach above flesh and blood no more doth his strength and comforts And so he performs duties at a low rate yea and his bare and empty form casts a black vail upon Religion and utterly obscures its beauty and glory and makes the world judge meanly of it and to think it a matter only of singularity and humour and not of power Whereas when a Christian walks in the strength of the Spirit doing and suffering the will of God beyond all strength and abilities of flesh and blood the world often times wonders and gazes at him and many are provoked to glorifie God who hath given such power to men For this power of godliness among other things hath these three advantages 1. It makes a man do every duty strongly and mightily And whatever might take a man off from duty or distract and disturbe him in it all fals to nothing before this power There is that strength in each duty performed by the power of the anoynting which declares it to be the operation of God himself in man and nothing else but the very power of God that is Jesus Christ himself in action in us 2. It makes a man inflexible in the ways of God that he shall neither turn to the right hand nor to the left but take straight steps towards the mark set before him No fear nor favours nor frowns nor flatteries nor temptations nor insinuations nor designs of others nor ends of his own can turn him aside He carries such strength in his Spirit as he can never be bended and so far forth as he partakes of the power of God is as unmoveable and unchangeable as God him self 3. It makes a man invincible by all evils and enemies Because all the power against him is but the power of the creature but the power in him is the power of God And the power of God easily overcomes the mightiest power of the creature but is never overcome by it And if this power in a Christian should be prevailed against God himself who is that power should be conquered which is impossible To conclude the power of godliness is the doer of every duty in Gods Kingdom the subduer of every sin the conquerour of each tribulation and temptation the life of every performance the glory of each grace the beauty of a Christians life the stability of his conversation the lustre of his Religion his great Honour and excellency both in doing and suffering yea it is the very glory of God himself in the Church of God for by faith the Lord arises on us and by this power of godliness his glory is seen upon us These considerations right honourable moved me to discourse of the power of the Holy Spirit coming on all Christians Ministers and People And besides the importunity of some other friends your Honours earnest desires of these notes hath especially prevailed with me to publish them Not that I am worthy to publish any thing but that the truth of God is worthy to be published be the instrument never so mean and unworthy And although I well know the doubtful success of such undertakings as these yet in this matter I am not at all carefull being most willing to be bound up in one condition with the truth of God and to have with it the same common friends and enemies Besides if Christ dwell in my heart by faith I carry in my bosome already my reward out of whom I neither regard praise or dispraise good or evil Now I was bold to prefix your Honours name to these Notes because your desire of them hath made them yours and also your many noble favors are a strong and continual engagement for me to serve you according to what God hath made me Especially I remember your extraordinary compassion and bowels towards me in the day of my deepest distress when my soul drew near to the Pit and the shadow of death sate upon my eye lids and I had not the least drop of comfort either from earth or heaven Your Honor then shewed me the kindness of the Lord and encompassed me both with your pitty and goodness though then through bitterness of spirit I tasted it not Wherefore when I remember the wonderful goodness of God to me after so great sorrow and darkness I cannot forget that part of his goodness which he was pleased to administer to me by your Honours hands And the remembrance of this causes me to pray that God would double the same goodness on you and that he would pour forth upon my Lord your Honour your noble off-spring and family this power of the holy Spirit here treated of which shall render you a thousand times more precious and excellent before God and his Saints then all worldly Honour aud Nobility whatsoever And by this means shall Religion shine in your Family in its native beauty and lustre and the Kingdom of God which stands not in word but in power shall appear in its bright glory among you till the Kingdom of the Son first fit you and then after deliver you up to the Kingdom of the Father and God be all in all immediately Which is the earnest prayer of your most humble and faithful servant WILLIAM DELL The Contents THe Context The Explication of the Words Three General Doctrines 1. That Christ gives his own people sufficient strength for their imployments his own strength for his own Works 2. That when Christ leaves his people in regard of sense he never leaves them without a promise and in that promise his Spiritual presence 3. That the pouring forth of the spirit is the means whereby God both increases and governs his Church The more special Doctrine from the words is That the receiving of the Spirit is the receiving of power For the Spirit it self is power 1. Essentially in it self 2. Operatively in us By being in us 1. A Spirit of Knowledge 2. Of Truth 3. Of Wisdom 4. of Faith which inables us To do Indure the same things with Christ himself 5. Of Righteousness in Destroying sin Imparting Grace 6. Of the fear of the Lord. 7. Of Love and Vnity The Use twofold 1. Exhortation to inforce this the necessity of having this power is urged in reference 1. To Ministers 2. To all Christians 1. Ministers stand in need of the power of the Spirit to come upon them 1.
they desire him first to resolve them of this question whether or no he would at that time restore the Kingdom to Israel Lord say they Wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel Now Christ doth not deny the restoring of the Kingdom to Israel but denies to acquaint them with the time when it should be done He tells them it was not for them to know the times and seasons which the Father had put in his own power verse 7. The like answer to the like demand Daniel received in his time For when the Angel had represented to Daniel the totall destruction of the image of worldly Monarchy together with the rise and reign and ruin of Antichrist and the setting up of Christs Kingdom in the world in the stead of the two former Daniel said Chap. 12. 8. And I heard but I understood not then said I O my Lord What shall be the end of these things And he said Go thy way Daniel for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end So that the Angel who discovered the things themselves to Daniel refused to discover to him plainly and expressely the time when they should be done but that was to be closed and sealed up till the time of the end And so here in like manner Christ who had discoursed largely and cleerly to the Disciples touching the Kingdom of God yet denies to discover to them the time when it should be set up in the world And the reason why he denied this to them to whom he had not denyed himself was not for want of love but because the Father had kept the time and season wherein all this should be done in his own power Had this been placed in Christs power he had no doubt made it known to them as well as he did those other things which he had heard from his Father but the Father had not placed this in his Sons power but had reserved it in his own and the Apostles were not to pry after that which was hidden with God but were to content themselves with what he had revealed But though the Son did not reveal to them what the Father had kept in his own power yet he tells them what the Father had promised unto them and what he had also put into his power and what he would certainly perform ere long and that was the gift of the Spirit of power saying But ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me c. As if he should have said Do not you trouble your selves about secret things which shall not be accomplisht in the world till many yeers after you are fallen asleep but do you mind your present business wherein you are to serve God in your generation your present task is to be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem and all Judea and in Samaria and to the utmost parts of the earth to declare and make known what you have heard and seen with your eyes and looked upon and your hands have handled of the Word of life you are to testifie to the world my Incarnation Doctrine Miracles Life Death Resurrection and my Kingdom and glory that is to come You are to make known to the world the high and deep the great and glorious mystery of Christ and of the Gospel and that you may be fit for this great and weighty work you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost you shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you c. Which words also may be an Answer to another question which the Disciples did or might make after this maner Our dear Lord and Master why wilt thou leave us thy poor Disciples among so many evils and enemies in the world which our weakness must of necessity sink under We well remember how fearful and foolish we have been whilest thou wast yet with us but how much more timorous and trembling shall we be when thou art gone from us When thou wast apprehended by the armed power of the Magistrates thou knowest how we all forsook thee and fled and I said Peter denied thee and forswore thee at the voice of a simple maid And therefore if thou now quite leave us what Witnesses are we like to be unto thee and what Preachers of thy Name among the obstinate Jews among the angry and inraged Rulers and people who will be ready for thy Names sake every day to deliver us up to a new death And how shall we be able to stand amidst so many difficulties troubles distresses oppositions and persecutions when thou hast left us Surely we are such weak and infirm creatures that we shall never be able to hold out but shall lie down both in shame and sorrow To this Christ answers in these words Accipietis virtutem You shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you As if he should have said You have a hard task indeed but you shall be furnished with proportionable power The business you are to undertake is not humane but Divine the things that you are to teach are not carnal but spiritual the work that you are to set upon is not mans work but Gods you are to act among men for God you are to act in the world against the world you are to act against the devill in the very midst of the devils Kingdom You are to convert Infidels to make of Heathens Christians to bring them neer unto God who are now without God in the world to carry the light of heaven up and down this dark world among the people that sit in darkness and shadow of death to shew them the way to life and salvation you are to turn the world upside down to change the manners and customes of the people to bring them off from the idolatry of their forefathers to worship the true God in spirit and truth you are to reduce the earth into conformity with heaven and set up Gods Kingdom here in this present world And all this you shall not do in ease and quietness and prosperity and pleasure but whilest you are thus imployed and busied you shall have the whole world rise up against you and the devil prosecuting you with his utmost power through wicked men and you shall not onely be hated of all men for my names sake but you shall be even overwhelmed with reproaches obloquies slanders oppositions persecutions prisons torments deaths And therefore that you may be able both to do and to suffer all these things You shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you Now from these words we shall note something generally and something more particularly In general three things The first is this 1. That as Christ will not suffer his Disciples to be tempted above their power so neither to be imployed above their power but he furnishes them with power sufficient both for their temptations and for
against such a ministery know that they strive against more then a meer man they strive against power from on high against the greatest power that ever God put forth against the power of Christ himself and his eternal spirit and so they shall never be able to prevail against this power but shall surely sinke under it But to return from whence we have a little digressed 3. Without this power of the spirit as Ministers are not able to preach the Word nor to preach it powerfully so neither are they able to hold out in their ministry and to carry it on strongly against all opposition and contradiction Peter and John preached the Gospel but presently the Rulers and Elders and Scribes convented them and straightly threatned them and commanded them not to speak at all nor to teach in the name of Jesus And now if the Apostles had wanted this power of the spirit they would presently have been snibd and awed and would have sneaked away and you should have heard no more of them But they having received this power all the threatnings and scornings of the Rulers and Magistrates could not deterr them from the discharge of their office and that ministery they had received from Christ But though before they were fearful and trembling and daunted at the apprehension of the least danger yet now having received this power they are altogether undaunted and said to the Rulers and Elders whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more then unto God judge ye As if they should have said O ye Rulers and Elders of the people our case is a plain case wherein we are most willing that even your own selves should be Judges For we have received a command from God to preach the Gospel of his Son Jesus Christ and you forbid us to do that which God hath commanded us Now do you your selves be Judges who is fittest to be obeyed God or you the great and glorious God of heaven and earth or poor wretched men such as your selves Nay what God hath commanded us we must and will obey against all your threatnings and punishments and what ever you can say or do We cannot conceal but must publish what we have seen and known of our Lord Jesus Christ of his incarnation life death resurrection ascension kingdom glory and of that great redemption and salvation which he hath wrought and purchased for all the Elect of God Now I would to God that the unjust commands of all Magistrates and secular Powers whatsoever might be no otherwise obeyed then this unjust command of the Rulers was by Peter and John and that no man would dare to yield more obedience to the creature then to the Lord of all For no Princes or Magistrates in the world have any power to forbid the preaching of the everlasting Gospel which God hath commanded should be published to all Nations for the obedience of Faith I say they have no power at all to forbid the preaching of this Gospel or of any one truth of it though never so cross to their designs And if they should yet herein ought we to know no more obedience then Peter and John did here We ought to obey God and not them and to make known the whole minde of God though it be never so contrary to their minde After the example of Peter and John who having received this power of the Holy Spirit held on their Ministery against all the countermands and threatnings and punishments of the Magistrates Whereas without this power they had soon fainted and failed and had never been able to have gone through with it 4. Without this power of the Holy Spirit Ministers are not able to reprove the world For every man by nature seeks the amity of the world and no man by his good will would provoke the enmity of it against himself And therefore flesh and blood will never reprove the world of sin but allows it and countenances it in sin But now the Spirit when he is come he will reprove the world of sin When a man hath this power of the Spirit in him then presently he reproves and argues the world of sin and so by his ministery bids defiance to the whole world and provokes the whole world against himself And this no man either can do or dares do except he be first indued with this power of the Spirit coming on him And therefore saith Micah Cha. 3. vers 8. I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgement and of might to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin The world of all other things cannot indure the reproof of sin and the declaration of its evil wayes And therefore it is exceedingly offended yea and extreamly rages against the faithful teachers of the Word with all sorts of punishments and persecutions as the examples of all the Prophets Apostles and faithful teachers of the Word of God in all ages do declare Yea and Christ himself testifies touching himself therefore the world hates me because I testifie of it that the works thereof are evil But now they that will connive at sin and flatter the world in its own wayes these are the onely men of reckoning and live in all worldly Honour and prosperity And all ages can witness that all Teachers are not of that strength and resolution to contemn the hatred and fury of the world Nay the most are quite overcome with the prosperity of this present life and with the desire of friends and riches and preferment and so wink at the sins of the world and are Ministers in whose mouths are no reproofs though the whole world lye in wickedness For thus they escape the rage and violence and obtain the favour and love of the men of this world And thus weak and unworthy are those men who are onely indued with their own Spirits But now saith Micah I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgement and of might to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin As if he should have said the power of the Spirit of the Lord dwelling in me puts forth its self two wayes in judgement and in fortitude 1. In judgement and this signifies the reproving and the condemning sin and wickedness as the Prophet himself explicates saying that I might declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin But seeing their being full of judgement doth not want danger but exposes a man to a thousand evils in as much as the world can indure nothing less then the reproof of sin therefore I am by the power of the Spirit not onely full of judgement but also Secondly full of Might and as the Spirit of judgement exposes me to danger so the Spirit of might inables me to contemn those dangers So that though the world because of the Spirit of judgement threatens never so many evils yet the
Prophet is not frighted from his office but through the Spirit of might discharges it faithfully in despight of all those threatnings And whatever Ministers want this Spirit of might though out of danger they may be confident yet at the very first incounter of evil they will bend and yeeld and speak and do all things for the favour of the world rather then for the truths sake they will expose themselves to the hatred and opposition of the world 5. Without this power of the Spirit they are unable to wrestle with and overcome the Devil whose subtilty and wrath and malice and power they must needs encounter with in the work of the Ministry Christ as soon as he was indued with this power and anointed by the spirit to preach was immediately led into the wilderness to be temped of the devil who would fain have taken him off from the work of the Ministery if it had been possible But Christ being indued with this power overcame the divel And Christ before he sent his Apostles to preach the Kindgdom of God as you may see Luke 9. 1. called them together and gave them power and authority over all devils and when they returned they told him that the devils themselves were subject to them But now the seven sons of Sceva who were destitute of this power when they took upon them to call over one who had an evill spirit the name of the Lord Jesus and to say we adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth The evil spirit answered and said Jesus I know and Paul I know but who are ye and so the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped upon them and overcame them and prevailed against them and they fled away naked and wounded Acts 19. So that they being destitute of this power from on high the devil was presently too hard for them and they were overcome by the devil But now they that are invested with this power of the Holy Spirit are able to wrestle with principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world and to out-wrestle them and to tread Satan himself under their feet Sixthly without this power of the Holy Spirit they are unable to suffer persecution for the Word but the least touch of evil causes them to pull in their hornes and each reproach and opposition and persecution shakes them down Whereas this power makes them confident couragious comfortable and invincible in the midst of all evils See this in some examples Our Lord Jesus Christ being anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power did not onely preach the truth in his life but also witnessed a good confession before Pontius Pilate and sealed to the truth with His death Paul who was indued with the same power when Agabus foretold him by the Holy Spirit his bonds at Jerusalem and the brethren hearing it came weeping to Paul and besought him to keep himself out of bonds by not going up thither Paul reproved them and told them that he was ready not onely to be bound but to dye at Jerusalem for the Lord Jesus Chrysostome was indued with the same power and so resolved to preach the truth and not to depart from the truth though the whole world should wage war against him alone And professed that he desired nothing more then to suffer for the cause of Christ and that if it were offered to him of God whether he would immediately go to heaven or stay on earth and suffer for Christ he would a thousand times rather chuse this latter then the former Because in going immediately to heaven he should seek himself but in staying on earth to suffer for Christ he should wholly deny himself and seek his honour alone Luther was indued with the same spirit of power and so when he was called to Wormes before the Emperour Charls the fifth and before all the estates of the Empire to render a reason of his Doctrine and some of his friends perceiving undue dealing among his adversaries perswaded him not to go to expose himself to danger but he answered with a mighty spirit I have decreed and am resolved because I am called to go into the City in the name of our Lord Jesus Christi though I knew there were so many Devils to oppose me as there are tiles on all the houses of the City And when he was called to return to Wittenberge by the people which he could not do without most evident and apparent danger he being already condemned by the Edicts and Authority both of the Pope and Emperour and so in regard of them could expect no less then a violent death every day yet for all this he was resolved to return to his charge and upon this occasion hath this passage to the Duke of Saxony But what shall I do unavoidable causes urge me God himself calls and compells me and here I will turn my back to no creature Go to then let me do it in the name of Jesus Christ who is Lord both of life and death Again in his answer to the Dialogue of Sylvester Prierias who had threatned him he saith I have nothing that I can loose I am the Lords and if I am lost I am lost to the Lord that is I am found And therefore seek some body else to fright for me you cannot Again in his answer to Ambrosius Catharinus he saith of the Pope and his Instruments they seek not to overcome me with Scriptures but to destroy me out of the earth but I know and am sure that Christ our Lord lives and reigns And being even filled with this knowledge and confidence I will not fear many thousands of Popes For greater is he that is in us then he that is in the World And again in his Epistle to his Father he hath this remarkable passage What if the Pope shall kill me or condemn me below hell He cannot rayse me up again when I am slain and kill me a second and third time And having once condemned me I would never have him absolve me For I am confident that the day is at hand wherein that Kingdom of abomination and destruction shall be it self destroyed But would I might first be counted worthy either to be burned or slain by him that so my blood might cry the lowder and urge his judgement to be the more hastened But if I am not worthy to testifie with my blood let me at least intreat and implore this mercy that I may testifie by my life and Doctrine that Jesus Christ alone is our Lord and God blessed for ever and ever Calme Melancton was indued with the same Spirit of power and so when his enemies threatned him not to leave him a place in all Germany whereon to set his foot he said avido tranquillo animo expecto exilia I expect banishment with a desirous and peace able mind Many more Examples might be produced to show that when Ministers are indued with the
not travel with child for more are the children of the desolate then of the marryed wife saith the Lord. Enlarge the place of thy tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations Spare not lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles and make the desolate Cities to be inhabited So that there shall certainly be a most wonderful and numerous increase of the faithful in the Christian Church till they become as the stars of heaven and as the drops of the morning dew that cannot be told all of them assembled in the beauties of holiness And therefore let us not be overmuch troubled though at present we see in a numerous nation but few true children of the spiritual Church for God shall bless these few and bid them increase and multiply and replenish the earth so that though the Assemblies of the Saints be now but thin and one comes from this place and another from that to these Assemblies and in many and most places of the kingdom these few are fain to come together secretly for fear of the Jews that is the people of the letter yet through the pouring forth of the Spirit it shall come to pass at last that they shall come in flocks and as doves to their windows And it shall be said to the Church by the Lord Lift up thine eyes round about and behold all these gather themselves together and come to thee As I live saith the Lord thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all as with an ornament and binde them on thee as a bride doth c. till at last the Church shall say in her heart Who hath begotten me these seeing I have lost my children and am desolate a captive and removing to and fro and who hath brought up these Behold I was left alone these where had they been Yea these very promises are now in the very act of accomplishing among us for the spiritual Church hath received a very great increase within these few years and God hath many faithfull people in many places of this Kingdom and of this my self and many more in this Army are witnesses for having marched up and down the Kingdom to do the work of God and the Sate we have met with many Christians who have much Gospel light and which makes it the more strange in such places where there hath been no Gospel Ministery which hath put me in minde of that prophecy Isa 66. 8. Who hath heard such a thing who hath seen such things Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day or shall a Nation be born at once For as soon as Sion travelled nay before she travelled she brought forth her children There was no outward Ministery of the Gospel to travel or take pains with them and yet Sion brings forth her children And one thing that is remarkable touching the increase of the Church at this day is this That where Christ sends the Ministration of the Spirit there many young people are brought in to Christ as being most free from the forms of the former age and from the Doctrines and Traditions of men taught and received instead of the pure and unmixed Word of God whereas many old professors who are wholly in the form prove the greatest enemies to the power of godliness and thus the first are the last and the last first Now this great and sudden increase of the faithful is that which doth so exceedingly trouble the World and makes them angry at the very heart For if they were but a few mean contemptible and inconsiderable persons whom they might easily suppress and destroy they would be pretty quiet but when they begin to increase in the land as Israel did in Egypt and notwithstanding all the burdens of their task-masters wherewith they are afflicted and grieved do yet increase abundantly and multiply and wax exceeding mighty till they begin to fill the land and when they consult to deal wisely with them lest they multiply too much do yet see them grow and multiply the more that they know not at what Countrey or City or Town or Village or Family to begin to suppress them this is that which doth so exceedingly vex and inrage the world and makes them even mad again as we see this day For the increase of the faithful as it is the glory of the Church so it is the grief and madness of the world But these men in vain attempt against this increase of the faithful as the Egyptians against the increase of the Israelites for none can hinder the increase of the Church but they that hinder God from pouring out his Spirit and according to the measure of God pouring forth the Spirit is and must be the increase of the Church in despite of all the opposition of the world And thus much touching the first promise of the Churches Increase Now in the words I read to you the Lord comes to another promise so that the Lord because of the Churches weakness addes one promise to another and these promises are nothing but the out goings and manifestations of his love throug the Word Christ But to look more neerly upon the words Vers 11. Oh thou afflicted Affliction in the world doth so inseparably attend the Church that the Church even takes its denomination from it Oh thou afflicted The condition of the Church is an afflicted condition For the Church being born of God and born of the Spirit is put into a direct contrariety to the world which is born of the flesh and is also of its father the devil And so the whole world is malignant against the faithful and spiritual Church and all that are not regenerate set their faces yea their hearts and their hands against the Saints and the unregenerate world is against the regenerate and the carnal world against the spiritual and the sinful world against the righteous and all the people and nations in the world are against that people and nation which the Apostle cals a holy nation and a peculiar people As the world cannot endure God in himself So neither can it endure God in the Saints and so the more God dwels in the Saints the more doth the world afflict the Saints for they oppose not the faithful for any thing of flesh and blood in them but because that flesh and blood of theirs is the habitation of God and the very presence of God himself is there as he saith I will dwell in them and walk in them Agreeable to this is that of Christ where he saith All this shall they do to you for my Names sake that is when the Name of Christ is called upon us and we are taken into his Name that is into his righteousness and life and truth and wisdom and holiness and into his Nature which comprehends all this then when the world
to that some to this aid and some to that but the spiritual Church scorns to trust to any creature for establishment but looks to be establisht onely in righteousness and because of this neither men nor devils shall prevail against it And therefore you that are of this Temple and building which is made by God seeing you have so many enemies on all hands pray look to your establishment which is in righteousness In righteousness shalt thou be established Thou shalt be far from oppression for thou shalt not fear and from terror for it shall not come neer thee The fear and teror he speaks of here is inward fear and terror from which the Church shall be free in the midst of all outward evils for though the Church be full of danger and persecution without yet it is free from fear and terror within Nay the Church hath trouble without but peace within affliction without joy within weakness without strength within imprisonment without liberty within persecution without content within against all the sorrows and sufferings on the flesh they have refreshings comforts hopes sweetnesses rejoycings triumphs in the spirit and so in the midst of evil are free from evil and in the midst of sufferings are free from pain yea they rejoyce in tribulations and in the midst of evil are fild and satisfied with good Vers 15. Behold they shall surely gather together but not by me whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake A very strange thing it is that the spiritual Church being this builded and taught and establisht and should yet be so blinde and mad as to ingage against it and yet the world and the carnal Church especially doth this yea the more pure and spiritual the Church is the more enmity the world and Formalists have against it Behold they shall surely gather together When they shall see the Churches gathering together into the true communion of Saints then will they gather themselves together against the Churches And why do these men blame the Churches for gathering together unto Christ when they themselves gather together against the Church as we daily see Indeed the gathering together of the Saints the world doth most hate of all other things Oh this is a dreadful and terrible thing to them it makes their hearts ake within them and looseth the joynts of their loynes they think their exaltation will be their own abasement and their gathering together their own scattering and their glory their own shame and their strength their own undoing and out of these conceits the world acts so strongly and furiously to scatter abroad again Christs own gatherings together But the Lord hath decreed and promised to hew that little stone of Christs spiritual Church out of the mountain of the World with out hands and will certainly accomplish it and is now about that very business but the world that never looks beyond sense they think this is surely a plot of ours and that we have a great designe in hand and so we have indeed but the design is not our designe but Gods contrived in eternity and discovered to Daniel chap. 2. and this is the setting up a Kingdom of Saints in the world under Christ the King of Saints wherein the people shall live alone in point of spiritual worship and communion and shall have nothing to do with the rest of the Nations This counsel of God begins to be accomplished and the world thinks that we are subtile and we are mighty whereas they are clearly mistaken in us for the wisdom and strength whereby this is done is Gods and not ours For it is the Lord must build this spiritual Church and set it up in the world and preserve it against the world and cause it to increase till it fills the world so that the designe and the accomplishment of it belongs to God and not to us and they that are displeased at it let them go and quarrel against God and so they will certainly do through the operation of the Devil Behold saith he they shall surely gather together As soon as ever the Church separates from the world the world gathers together against the Church Yea this place is not only to be understood of those that are open enemies without the Church but of a generation in it that are not of it and so the gathering together against the Church shall be in the Church and so Calvin interprets and such a thing will assuredly come to pass that the Church as well as the Kingdom will have domestick enemies it hath been soo in all ages and what wonder will it be if it be so in this The first division in this Kingdom was between common profession and open prophaness and if ever there be another it is like to lie between the form and the power of godliness and the children that are born after the flesh will up and be persecuting them that are born after the Spirit and the deepest wounds we shall receive will be in the house of our friends not our friends indeed but of such who seem to be so for they pray as well as we and preach and hear and receive the Sacraments and use the same ordinances with us and yet their enmity of all other will be the greatest against us and we shall receive deeper wounds in the house of these friends then in the streets of our enemies They shall gather together in thee against thee But not by mee The Saints gather together by God having the Spirit of God to bring them into Vnion and Communion but the carnal Church gathers together agaist thee spiritual not by God but without him for worldly base ends and interests and profits and advantages But mark the end of such gathering together Whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake We have seen the accomplishment of this promise with our eyes even a great party of the greatest men in the Kingdom as well as of mean ones gathered together against the Church but all fallen What is become of the great Power and Armies that were in the West and the North and other parts of the Kingdom are they not fallen through the strength of this promise and if any new party shall arise up again they shall also fall in like manner For thy sake For the Lord loves the Church the body of Christ even as he loves Jesus Christ himself thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me he loves Head and Members with the same love The Lords people are his portion on Earth as he is theirs in Heaven and so he will give Nations and Kingdoms for them and hath said the Nations and Kingdoms that will not serve thee shall perish yea those Nations shall be utterly wasted Oh that this Kingdom in it self and in its representation would avoyd this evil as they would escape this end The four Monarchies for opposing the spiritual Church have fallen
this work would be to give up your selves to double ruine to wit both from heaven and earth And therefore the Lord make you faithful that you may do this work for God and to fulfill his Word and not for your selves and to fulfill your own Ends. And now as you are busie about the Peace of the Kingdom to settle and establish that upon a right and sure foundation so God hath engaged my heart to meditate the peace of the Church And though I have excluded your power from having a hand in this Work yet I have not in any measure wronged you as you shall perceive but rather endevoured to preserve you from dashing your selves against that Rock against which all the ignorant and unwise Rulers and Kingdoms of the world both have and yet shall dash themselves in peeces It shall be your wisdom to be built up together with the Church on Christ but it would be your confusion to go about to build the Church on your selves and your power seeing this building is too weighty for any foundation but Christ himself Your power will do well in the Kingdoms of the world but not in Gods Kingdom which is Christs inheritance from the beginning to the end You shall be happy to be subject in it but none must be Lord or Law-giver here but Christ himself Let not the Devil who in these last times hath in many places translated the mystery of iniquity from the Ecclesiastical Kingdom of the Clergy into the temporal Kingdom of the Magistrate any longer keep it there seeing it will be as pernicious in this as in that for it will be no less dangerous an evil for the Magistrate to make himself Lord and Law-giver in the Church then for the Pope or General Councel in all the Kingdoms called Christian or for the Archbishop or National Assembly in particular Kingdoms Men have commonly thought that to preserve the godly in worldly peace and prosperity is to preserve the Church whereas to preserve them in faith hope love in union and communion with Christ and the Father in and through the Spirit this only is to preserve the Church and this oft-times is better done by Christ whose work only it is in affliction then in prosperity Wherefore do You look to the care of the State and trust Christ with the care of his Church seeing he is both faithful and able to save it perfectly The peace of the Church lies in Christ only and no part of it out of him no not for a moment and this their peace Christ is able to preserve in Himself in the midst of the most cruel and desperate evils of the world Now what the true Church of Christ is and wherein its Peace and Unity lies is here in some measure declared for the good of the faithful every-where and particularly for Your good lest you being glorious instruments in the hand of God for one work should miscarry in another And this I have done through God not because I was worthy to do it but because it was worthy to be done For why should the Church any longer be ignorant of the things that belong unto its peace and why should the Members of it any longer lie as scattered bones dry and dead and not gathered up into the unity of a living body and who could longer indure to see unskilfull Physitians under pretence of healing the Church wound it still deeper and under pretence of procuring its peace hurry it into endless dissentions and divisions In this case of necessity I could not but speak both out of duty and love and I hope none of You will despise to hear who consider that God when he layes aside the wise and prudent chooses Babes and Sucklings to perfect his praise out of their mouths that so he himself may be the more glorified and admired in his weak and mean instruments Now let his praise be above the earth and the heavens and let him give you the honor that all his Saints have and this is his hearty desire who humbly writes himself Your servant in the Gospel William Dell. To his Excellency the Lord General FAIRFAX And the Honorable Lieutenant-General CROMWEL Together with the Councel of VVar. THE presence of the Lord having turned your course backward like Jordan from what it was a year ago and all former inchantments and divinations used against you being dissolved through the renewing of the same presence of God with you after a manifest with-drawing of it and You through a blessed necessity being now doing that work of God which once you had little minde to viz. The procuring the Peace of the Kingdom by subduing the great enemies of Peace and removing all the enmity against peace that was inwrapped in our very Laws and degenerated Constitution of the Kingdom I thought good whiles You are thus busie about the peace of the Kingdom which is a peace without you to put you in minde of the true peace of the true Church which is a peace within you and an eternal peace as the former is but a temporal for what advantage will it be for you to have peace among men to want peace with God to do the work of God in the world and to be destitute of the work of God in your own hearts to destroy the enemies to worldly peace and yet to maintain in your own hearts the corruptions of unrenewed nature which are the enemies of heavenly peace Take heed therefore that your present employments do not so over-ingage you in this world that you neglect the world to come take heed lest by seeking your selves you have your reward here but do the work of God for God and whilst you act for God live in him and let him be your reward and not the creature And now here in this Dicourse shall you see a better Peace and Agreement then you are striving for though your work also be excellent and glorious even such a Peace and Agreement of which Christ himself is the immediate Author and Prince and which he communicates not to the world but to them he chooses out of the world even the Peace of God in Jesus Christ by the Spirit which hath its foundation in Christ and its influence into each Communion of Saints all the world over And this Peace can no more be brought about by your Sword then by the Magistrates Scepter and therefore take heed lest you now having power in your hands to another purpose should so far forget your selves as to do that your selves which you have condemned in others Therefore suffer the Word only to be both Scepter and Sword in the Kingdom of God and let the true Church remain free in the Freedom which Christ hath conferr'd upon it or else the Lord whose own the Church is will as certainly in his due time take the sword out of your hands as he hath done the Scepter out of the Magistrate's and throw you into one destruction
from the glory of God but it will make much for the sanctifying of thy name the gathering and encreasing thy Kingdom the propagating the knowledge of thy word and to be brief it is a most excellent and profitable design But God no doubt laughed at this wisdom of mine and said Go to now I know thee to be wise and learned but this was never my manner that either Peter or Martin meaning himself should teach or form or govern or lead me For I am not a passive but an active God who use always to lead govern form Now saith he it is very grievous that our wisdom should be only passive and that we are commanded to mortifie and slay it and therefore many who could not endure this mortification have fallen horribly And thus this kinde of Gods government is wholly according to his own wisdom and councel and wholly without yea contrary to ours And thus we are in some measure acquainted with the government of Gods special providence over his Church 2. The second sort of Gods immediate Government of his Church is the Grvernment of his spiritual Presence or Gods government within us For the right Church is the City of God and hath God in the midst of it being built and framed and that according to every part of it by the Spirit to be the habitation of God this is the temple of the living God as God hath said and God is in it of a truth And if any would know what this Church is called the name of it is THE LORD IS THERE And so the whole guiding and ordering of this Church depends wholly on God who dwels within it For God will not dwell in his own Church and sit still whilst others that are without it shall govern it but the government of the right Church lies on his shoulders who is Immanuel God with us and in us And so this government of the Church is one of the invisible things of God in the Church Christ who fils it governing it by a most present and powerful but invisible influence leading it into truth by the Spirit of truth into patience by the Spirit of patience into love by the Spirit of love into power by the Spirit of power into humility meekness patience heavenly mindedness and into the fulness of all Righteousness by that Spirit which contains all these graces in it self and works them in all those in whom it dwels In this government we hear the voice behind us saying This is the way walk in it when we turn either to the right hand or to the left In this government we have not outward laws to order us as the Kingdoms of the world have but an inward law written in our hearts by the Spirit of God as God hath said I will write my law in their hearts and in their inward parts and this law is the word of life for the living Church or body of Christ can only be governed by a living word which is called the law of the spirit of life And according to this Government also God guides the true Church wonderfully the soul not seeing the ways and councels of God whereby he forms and fashions the Church according to his own minde and good pleasure clean contrary to humane reason and judgement for he brings them to mourning to bring them to comfort brings them to despair to bring them to faith to death to bring them to life yea even to hell to bring them to heaven leading his chosen people after such a manner that nothing would follow but faith which looks not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen And thus when the soul is in the midst of many fears woes agonies temptations till it feel in good earnest the true sorrows of death and pains of hell and in this darkness sees no beam nor the least glimmering of light and wants all counsel and knows not which way to turn it self then Christ comes and manifests himself to the soul and counsels and directs and comforts it and leads it into the path of life and redeems it from all distress subduing the world and the devil and sin and death and hell under it yea and carrying it into all the fulness of God Now these two sorts of Governments to wit the one of his special providence and the other of his spiritual presence the true Church never wanted in any Age And in this present Age when the Prelatical Government hath been dissolved for several years together Can any Christian think that the right Church of Christ hath been without all Government Nay all this while it hath been governed most powerfully by his special providence and most sweetly by his spiritual presence So that neither the world nor the devil have been able to prevail neither against its grace nor comforts And for an outward formal visible enforced Government after the manner of civil Corporations or worldly Kingdoms the true Church can as well want such a Government at all times as at any time yea and it is best without it as being farthest removed from the tyranny of men and more immediately under the Government of Christ its onely King and Law-Giver And therefore they that are so violent for an outward and visible Government of the Church after the manner of the Kingdoms of the World I do heartily wish that if it be the good pleasure of God they might sometime or other be exercised with temptations of despair and with the sence of the wrath of God and everlasting burnings For by this means their idle and vain thoughts and speculations of governing the Church of God by humane power and methods would soon vanish and they would soon give over to trouble themselves and the faithful about things that have neither power in them to free from eternal death nor to procure eternal life And thus much for that two-fold Government of the Church which God himself exercises immediately in and over it whereof we must not be ignorant if we desire to preserve the peace of the Church both in our selves and others Now besides this immediate Government of God there is another sort of Government of the Church which Christ exercises mediately by the Church And this also is Christs Government and not mans and men who have not known nor understood the former Government of Christ have mistaken this also through the same unbelief wherefore they not so much as minding the former Government of Christ which is immediate and by himself have made this mediate Government of the Church by man to be all And this also I say they have understood most grossly and carnally and not according to the Word but according to their own ignorant and seduced hearts I shall not trouble the Reader with their particular mis apprehensions in this matter seeing it is far more profitable to content our selves with the plain and evident truth then
to enquire after variety of errors Wherefore letting alone their darkness I shall onely endeavour that the light of the word may shine unto us in this matter that herein also we may be taught of God if it be the will of God This mediate Government then of Christ in the true Church I conceive to be nothing but this Christs ordering all things by the faithful among the faithful in reference to the communion of Saints Now because many Christians desire instruction and light in this matter I shall be willing to hold forth to them that measure of knowledge which I have received herein being desirous also to learn my self of them that can teach me better by the Word And that I may proceed the more distinctly I shall propound several things to which I shall speak in order and they be these 1. To whom Christ hath committed the power of ordering and managing all things in the true Church in reference to the communion of Saints 2. What kinde of power this is which the true Church hath 3. What is the extent of this power 4. What is the outward instrument of it 5. What the true Church can do by vertue of it And this comprehends these particulars 1. It can gather it self together 2. It can appoint its own order 3. It can choose its own officers and if need be reform them or depose them 4. It can call its own councels 5. It can judge of all Doctrines both of its Officers and Councels And all these things I reckon needful for the true Church to know for the preserving among themselves that peace and unity they have in Christ They first thing then is 1. To whom Christ hath committed the power of ordering and managing all things in the true Church in reference to the communion of Saints I Answer He hath given it to the true Church it self as formerly described even to each and all the members of it for as natural power belongs to all natural men alike so spiritual power which is the true Church power to all spiritual men alike Christ in a Believer is the root of true Church-power and because Christ dwels in all Believers alike through unity of faith therefore all Believers partake alike of spiritual and super-natural power and no one partakes of this power more then another any more then he partakes of Christ more then another but Christ in them all is the self same power of God to do all things that are to be done in the Kingdom of God And according this sense that place in Math. 16. 19. is to be understood where Christ saith to Peter And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven The Pope and Papal Church under colour of this place have made great merchandise and have exceedingly abused and cheated the Nations for many hundred years together but the light of the Gospel hath shined forth and the days of their traffique are at end And yet since others have been trucking with the world by their false interpretations of this place and have thought to use it to their great advantage but the day hath so far dawned that their shadows also are flying away But not to keep you longer from the words themselves Peter had said to Christ Thou art Christ the Son of the living God And Christ replyed to Peter Blessed art thou for flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee but my Father which is heaven and then adds Vnto thee will I give the keys of the Kingdom of heaven c. that is not to Peter as an Apostle or Minister but as a Believer who had the Revelation of the Father touching the Son and so also they are given equally to each faithful Christian who hath the same Revelation with Peter as also to the whole communion of Saints And so these Keys are not given to any particular person or persons consisting of flesh and blood or imployed in such or such an Office but that man whoever he be that hath the Revelation of the Father he it is to whom these Keys are given and to none else and so they are given to each Believer in particular and to the whole Church of Believers in general But what are these Keys about which there hath been so great a do in the Church I answer They are not any outward Ecclesiastical power whatever that men have devised to serve their own turns withal but to pass by the many false conceits wherewith many former and present Writers have and do still trouble the Church John doth tell us plainly Joh. 20. 22. what Matthew means by the Keys of the Church Christ saith he appearing to his Disciples after his Resurrection breathing on them said Receive the holy Spirit here are the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and then adds Whose sins ye remit they are remitted and whose sins ye retain they are retained that is when ye have received the Spirit then you have received the Keys to binde and loose to remit and retain sin and that not according to your wils but wholly according to the minde and will and direction of the Spirit And so Christ then before his ascention gave these Keys truly to his Disciples but more solemnly and fully at the day of Pentecost when the Spirit was given by Christ glorified and after the Gentiles who by the preaching of Peter received the Spirit even as the Apostles did they also received these Keys and so all that have received the Spirit have the Keys of the Kingdom equally committed to them and the power of binding and loosing by the ministration of the Spirit And so these Keys appertain not only to greater Congregations of Christians but to the very least communion of Saints as Christ hath promised Where two or three are met together in my name there am I present in the midst of them Where we see that two or three gathered together in Christs name have as much power as Peter and all the Apostles because Christ is equally present with these as with those Again Christ hath commanded that if the offending brother will not hear the admonition of two or three other brethren the offended brother should tell the Church Mat. 18. 17. Now the Church is not the Officers but the Congregation of the faithful seeing men are not of the Church through any Office but only through faith And by all these things it is evident That the power of Church-government that is the power of acting and ordering all things among the faithful belongs to every faithful man alike in the Congregation of the faithful 2. What kinde of power this is which the true Church hath I answer in general that it is a power sutable to the Church or Kingdom whereof it is the power
the Commonwealth As the Lord of Arras a City of Picardie was wont to say that Flanders would be governed otherwise then France or Burgundy And this consideration saith he rightly understood to wit not to press Uniformity in the Church but to let the Church use its liberty in these things would be an excellent beginning of the Reformation of the Church notwithstanding the contradiction of many of the Court of Rome Luther also that chosen Vessel of Christ did clearly oppose this evil of Vniformity He thus delivers his judgement touching Vniformity of Ceremonies If one Church will not follow another of its own accord in those outward things what need is there that it should be compelled by the Decrees of Councels which presenly are turned into laws and snares of souls And therefore let one Church freely imitate another or let it be suffered to use its own way so that unity of Spirit be preserved in Faith and the Word though there be variety and diversity in the flesh or Elements of the world Again the same Luther after he had set down a Form of Celebrating the Supper for the Church of Christ at Wittingberg concludes thus In quibus omnibus cavendum ne legem ex libertate faciamus c. That is In all which we must take heed that we make not a law of liberty or constrain them to sin who shall either do otherwise or shall omit some things so they permit the words of blessing to remain entire and do all act here in Faith For these ought to be the Rites of CHRISTIANS that is of the children of the FREE-WOMAN who may keep them willingly and of their own accord having power to change them when and as often as they will And therefore there is no cause that any should either desire or establish any necessary Form as a law in this matter whereby he may either ensnare or trouble mens consciences And therefore we read not in the ancient Fathers or Primitive Church any example of any such Rite but onely in the Romane Church And if so be they had established any thing for a law in this matter we ought not to have kept it Quod legibus hic obstringi nec possent nec debent Because these things neither could nor ought to be bound by Laws Moreover if divers men shall use a diverse Rite let none either judge or contemne another but let every one abound in his own sense and let us all savour and judge the same things though for Forms we act diversly and let each Rite please others lest by diversity of Rites follow divesity of opinions and sects as it came to pass in the Church of Rome For outward Rites though we cannot want them as neither meat nor drink yet they commend us not to God but onely Faith and love commend us to him And therefore let that of Paul take place here That the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and so no Rite nor Form is the Kingdom of God but faith within us c. And at the end of the same form for the Church of Wittenberg which he writes out for Nicholas Hausmannus a Godly Minister he saith Which Copy either you or others may follow if you please if not we willingly give place to the anointing being our selves to receive from you or any others more profitable things These things he spake like a Christian indeed and we acknowledge the voice of Christ in him as in others that act these things peremptorily and command and inforce them by secular power we are sensible of the voice of strangers and of such strangers as are Theeves and Murtherers Melancton also perswades certain Christians to unity who differed in Vniformity in these words Seeing we do agree among our selves in the chief Articles of Christian Doctrine let us imbrace one another with mutual love and let not unlikeness and variety of Rites and Ceremonies and Bucer quoting this place adds no nor of Ecclesiastical government disjoyn our minds Upon all these Testimonies which these godly men give from the light of the word which we acknowledge in them it is evident that all forms are to be left free to the faithful and Congregations of Saints and when any shall set down any form the Congregations of the faithful may use them so far forth as they please or may add or alter or wholly reject them and no Laws are to be made in this matter which the secular power should inforce to insnare Consciences and to infringe Christian Liberty and to straighten the Spirit in those in whom it dwels and to obscure the vertues of Christ in his people Wherefore it is most evident that they are most horribly mistaken that now urge external Vniformity on the Church as the only means of Vnity who scarce minding I am sure not naming one body one spirit one hope of calling one Lord Faith Baptism c. to make the Church one do earnestly and fiercely labour for one outward Form and Order one Directory one Confession one Catechism one Discipline and to have these things of their own devising inforced on the Church by the power of the State as the onely means their hearts can find out to make the Church one But the Seers are blinde in this matter and the Prophets prophesie false things For if the unity of the Church stand onely or chiefly in Vniformity what woful division will be found in it For the Fathers before the flood lived in one form the Fathers after the flood in another the Believers under the Law in an other the Believers under the Gospel in another yea these being free from all forms used any according to the wisdom of the Spirit Christ himself and John Baptist who both lived in the same time observed no Vniformity between them for John lived retiredly in the wilderness and came neither eating nor drinking and Christ lived in the frequency of the world and did both eat and drink And their Disciples observed no Vniformity for Johns Disciples fasted oft and Christs not at all in those days Besides at first the believing Jews used another form then the believing Gentiles and after among the Gentiles the Greek Church used one form the Latine another and several Churches under both several forms and so the Church on earth according to the infirmity of the flesh still uses some or other form and the Church in Heaven is without all form Now then if we shall have no Vnity but where is Vniformity what an Earthquake of confusion and division will this make through the whole Church of God in all ages and under all Gods own dispensations in the world yea through the whole Church in Earth and Heaven Wherefore I dare be bold to affirm that imposed and inforced Vniformity is one of the greatest enemies to the true Churches unity that Antichrist himself could devise
And therefore let not the true Church suffer it self to be reduced under this bondage again through specious pretences of Reformation but let the Church know it may use what forms seem good to it self and that its true unity stands in being one body and one spirit c. as hath been before declared And thus onely the Church in all ages is one yea thus onely the Church in earth and heaven is one And therefore I desire the faithful to know that Vniformity is to be kept out or if it be brought in it is to be cast out for the preserving of peace in the Church For that God might make Jews and Gentiles one He abolished the Laws of Commandments contained in Ordinances Ephes 2. 15. Whence it is evident that God so highly valued the peace of the faithful that to bring this about he repeals his own Institutions and dissolves his own outward Ordinances Now if the Ceremonies of Gods own ordaining were to be made void rather then to continue to the prejudice of the Churches unity how much more any Ceremonies or outward rules of our own or other mens devising Let him that reads understand And these are the practical rules in the way of the Churches peace that are more absolute and general And now we hasten to the rules that are more special and occasional in case of difference among the faithful In which case we are necessarily in the first place to consider the weight of the things wherein they differ to wit whether those things be such as are necessary to salvation or no. If they be not such things as are necessary to salvation then first they are either things Ceremonial and Circumstantial Or secondly very truths themselves yet such wherein a Christian may for the present erre without danger of salvation If the difference be in Circumstantial and Ceremonial things we should minde these things to preserve peace 1. That we ought not to contend for vanities nor to trouble our selves and the Church of God with trifles and things of no weight or moment at all It is a wonder to us in these days that the ancient Christians should so earnestly contend about the day on which Easter as they called it was to be celebrated and upon difference herein should divide into Sects as they did seeing there always shone light enough in the Gospel to declare this to be a slight circumstance not worth the minding The Apostle exhorts the Philippians to strive together for the faith of the Gospel but no where for the form of it in one thing or other 2. We ought not for contrary mindedness in these things to avoid Christian converse and communnion with one another for strangeness of Christians in these cases both breeds and increases suspitions and jealousies causes that we harbour hard thoughts brother against brother and it takes away all opportunities of conference and of understanding and perswading one another and so of Reconciliation 3. In these things whereof neither commend us to God we are not to condemn one another for to condemn one another for every difference in judgement produces innumerable Sects in the Church then which nothing can be more destructive to the peace of it seeing such deadly enmity arises among Sects as we see by daily experience And therefore that rash judgement that produces these Sects is the great enemy to the peace of the Church and the great advancer of the Devils work of division 4. Let us know wherein the essence of Gods Kingdom stands to wit in righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Spirit in Faith and Love c. and not in outward Ceremonies and Orders and where the power and substance of Gods Kingdom is let us be contented though there 's a difference in form and circumstances Let us take careful heed that we do nothing against the power and substance of godliness under pretence of the form and circumstance The highest good in the Church is salvation in Christ and the end of all gifts given to all Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors Teachers is to bring us all to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God And if so be that this be done the Church is not to be troubled with other things yea all other things are to give way to this Where the heavenly things themselves are present we ought not in these dayes of grace and truth to contend about the shadows of them 5. In case men differ in judgement in these circumstantial things such as are in present power ought take care especial 1. That they do not entertain men into the communion of Saints that are onely of one judgement but that every one to whom the keys of the Kingdome of Heaven are given may have free liberty to go in and out and finde pasture It is a most Antichristian thing to make another key to the Kingdom of Heaven or true Church besides that which Christ hath given for then it will soon come to pass that Christs keys will not be sufficient without mans also yea soon it will come to pass that mans key shall be sufficient without Christs that is it will not be reckoned sufficient for men to be believers and to have received the gift of the Spirit to make them of the Church unless they also conform to the judgements of such and such men but to be of their judgements will be enough to make them of the Church though they be destitute of faith and the Spirit And thus by making another key to Gods Kingdom besides the key that Christ hath given and so to let in those that should be kept out and keep out those that should be let in this must needs be avoided as extreamly prejudicial to the peace of the Church 2. They must take care that they do not prefer Christians to places of publike Ministry and imployment that are onely of one judgement but that they dispose of them alike to godly men of 〈◊〉 judgement lest otherwise many smell the design of Anti-christ underneath which is that none shall buy or sell or have any place in the Church or Universities but only such as have taken a certain mark into their foreheads and right hands And though the outward mark of the mystery may change yet the inward minde and meaning of it doth not change with the change of form 3. If one sort of Christians be not to be admitted as members or preferr'd as Officers in the Church more then another much less is one party to be destroyed for another for thus would Satan also be a Prince of Peace who would destroy Christs Kingdom to exalt his own that he might possess all quietly and alone but Christs way is to reconcile those that differ in these things and of twain to make them one new man in himself And so we shall be like Christ if we seek to bring both into one in
alterations it makes there And thus you see that one means that Christ useth for the Reformation of his Church is the Word But here I must further declare to you that this Word by which Christ reforms the Church is not the Word of the Law for the Law made nothing perfect but the Word of the Gospel This this is the onely Word that works Reformation For first 1. This Word works faith and therefore it is called the word of faith because faith comes by hearing of this Word Rom. 10. ver 8. and ver 17. Now as the Word workes faith so faith apprehends the Word even that Word that was with God and was God this living and eternal Word dwels in our hearts by faith as the Apostle saith That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith And this Word dwelling in us by faith changeth us into it is own likeness as fire changeth the Iron into its own likeness and takes us up into all its own vertues And so the word dwelling in the flesh reforms the flesh and it dwels in us through faith and faith is wrought by the Gospel So that the Word whereby Christ reforms is not the Word without us as the Word of the Law is but the Word within us as it is written The Word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart and this is the word of Faith If thou live under the Word many years and if it come not into thy Heart it will never change thee nor reform thee And therefore the reforming Word is the Word within us and the Word within us is the Word of faith 2. The Gospel reformes because it doth not only reveal Christs righteousness as it is written The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith but also it communicates it to us And therefore it is called the Word of righteousness because it works righteousness So that Christ the righteousness of God is conveyed to us through this Word of righteousness And when the righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel comes and dwels in us what Reformation of sin doth this work all sin perisheth at the rebuke of his countenance for the righteousness of God will endure no sin in us And so the Gospel reforms by working righteousness in us 3. The Gospel reforms because it shews us Christ and by shewing us him it changeth us into his Image the more we see Christ in the Gospel the more are we made like unto him that as we have born the Image of the earthly so we may bear the Image of the Heavenly Adam 2. Yea the Gospel shews us God in Christ in all his glory and changeth us into that glory of God which is shewen us we all saith Paul with open face beholding as in a glass and this glass is the Gospel the glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord so that the Gospel by shewing us God changeth us into the Image of God and God through the Gospel ariseth on us till his glory be seen upon us And thus you see the grounds of the Gospels Reformation So that now the Word of the Gospel is the only Reforming Word and if there be never so much preaching if it be but Legal it will reform no body aright because there can be no working Faith nor communicating righteousness nor changing men into Gods Image and so there can be no true Reformation And thus much for the first Means of Reformation which Christ useth which is the Word and this Word the Gospel 2. Means the Spirit For the Spirit accompanies the Word in the Ministery of the Gospel and therefore the Gospel is called the Ministration of the Spirit that is the Word and Spirit in union and operation In the Law there was the Letter without the Spirit and so that could do nothing but in the Gospel the Word and the Spirit are alwayes joyned and therefore saith Christ The words that I speak are spirit and Life that is they come from the spirit and carry spirit with them And this Spirit that is present in the word of the Gospel and works in it and is given by it reforms mightily and therefore it is called the spirit of judgement and burning And the Lord looking to this time of reformation promised long before to pour out his Spirit upon all flesh and so to reform all flesh Now the Spirit poured forth upon the flesh reforms it two wayes 1. By taking away all evils out of the flesh 2. By changing the flesh into its own likeness 1. The Spirit poured forth upon the flesh reforms it all by taking all evil out of the flesh As first all Sin and Corruption saith Paul If you mortifie the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit yee shall live the deeds of the flesh are not to be mortified by any power but by the Spirit all pride and envy and lust and covetousness and carnal mindedness and all other evils of the flesh are reformed by the presence of the Spirit in it and no other way 2. The Spirit reforms not only all Sins in the Church but all Errors and Heresies and false doctrines as is evident by that of Paul 1 Cor. 3. 12. If any man build upon this foundation gold silver precious stones wood hay stubble every mans work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is c. So that a man may lay Christ for a foundation and yet build wood hay and stubble upon him that is humane doctrines and the inventions of men and false and wicked opinions 2. The destruction of this hay wood and stubble that is error heresie and humane doctrines in the Church of God that is the people built on Christ shall not be by Laws of States or Constitutions of Councels but by the Holy Spirit which is as fire The Spirit shall come into the Saints and burn up all that corrupt and false doctrine that will not indure the Spirit and error shall never be destroyed but by the Spirit of truth So that the Spirit reforms all error as well as all corruptions in the faithful 2. The Spirit doth not only reform the flesh by taking away all evil out of it whether corruptions or errors but also it changeth the flesh into its own likeness For the Spirit is as fire that changeth every thing into its self and so doth the Spirit in the flesh make the flesh spiritual like heavenly fire it changeth men into its own likeness and makes them spiritual heavenly holy meek good loving c. And thus the Spirit reforms indeed When the Spirit is poured forth upon a man how wonderfully doth it reform him this works a change in him in good earnest and no man is ever truly reformed till he