Let us then lift up our hearts together with our hands to Go◠in the Heavens 1. OUR first part is Vitis and that is Christ we way take his own word John 15. 1. I am the true Vine Poor hedge and harth wine you may wring from natural knowledge and from moral Books and dull muddy stuff the world affords mingled with Mandragoras whose effect is betwixt sleep and poison But would you that above the spirit of Cecub or Falernian wine The Vine which breeds a liquor potent and mighty in operation Quod cum spe divite manet in Venas A cup of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that fills with holy Raptures and Extasies and lifts your Spirit up to become Partaker of the divine Nature Then come to me saith he He all alone at this He and none but He can give this Grace Search the Vineyards the Scriptures They testifie of him Those Cherubins the Old and New Testament clap all their wings together for the enclosing him who is A. and Ω. the same Rock and Mannae Jesus Christ yesterday and to day and the same for ever The Book of God is Paradise everywhere Trees of knowledge bowing their eminent tops But Christ Jesus the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden The Fruit and Kernel of which Fruit is here in Vitis Objection 1. 2. But in 1 Pet. 1.3 we find this made the Act of God the Father Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath begotten us again c. and ascribable to him as an Act of Power and Wonder first above that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And secondly As an Act of Love of which he is the Fountain While not as a Father alone but as a Mother too he conceives in the womb of Predestion brings forth in Vocation tenders and bears in arms and on his wings of Providence and hath Viscera misericordiarum in the plural And again this is made the work of the holy Ghost Tit. 3.8 By the washing of the new birth and renewing of the Holy Ghost c. And so much seems implied in that Commission Receive you the holy Ghost and then Whose sins you remit c. For answer hereto briefly we learn from the school that though in the sacred Trinity be order yet no Degree and in their Acts ad extra they all blessedly conspire as in this particular the Apostle informs us 1 Cor. 6. By the Grace of God the Father through the blood of his Son are we raised as so many Temples of the holy Ghost And as the Son is in at Creation by him were all things made he being the power and wisdom of the Father so the Spirit is called his Gift too whom I will send you from the Father and in the Galatians it is stild the Spirit of Christ All build then this holy frame But he lies down as the Foundation as that precious corner-stone on whom his Saints relie by vertue of their precious Faith and partake all these precious Promises in him Yea and Amen He that Olive of whose fatness and Vine from whose root live all the Branches which he performs in special too by a double distillation of his Grace and blood while the blood of that Vine is made ours and we through it and him made Sons of God and most properly in this Filiation here mentioned his Act who is in nature Filius He by generation to make us so by Regeneration Thus have we endeavoured to dig and discover this to the root indeed that root ineffable of three in one God the Father as Author and Fountain the Son as means and merit the Spirit forming cherishing and preserving the new Creature A Grace flowing from the Father by the Son in the Power and Operation of the holy Ghost Objection 2. 3. But where 's the Text then How do we receive it by Faith Our Saviour Answers it in the fifteenth of St. John This is done by insition as we by it receive him that is abide in him and that cannot be without assenting and obeying both By both which we begin to live and draw sap and conrinuating strength of spiritual Life The life I now live I live by the power of the Son of God 'T is his Act and Gift in the first Light and Influence and first Attraction and bowing our will to receive him and in obediential performaces too asubsequent and concurrent Grace yet a Nostrality too so far as a non fugere saith St. Austin nay as a Sequi too and an Agere a co-working with the work of him that works all in all and all our works in us And the manifest of this Insition by believing and so receiving him is a plain and easie Decision of that drie and tedious Jangle which infects the mysterie of Godliness For nor Faith nor works alone Nor they without their root Nor it without his fruits Poscit opem conjurat amice Faith working by Love Objection 3. 4. But which way How can these things be Which way is the Light parted saith Job c. Where comes our divine Light of Reason to clasp and Grace it self under that noble and ampler Lamp of Faith The Answer is prepard by St. Peter who tells us where it grows the immortal seed of his his Word called therefore the Word of Life and the Word of his Grace and this very Grace the Word of Faith to which is ever annext the use and blessing of those Sacraments of the one whereof our Saviour tells us Except a man be born again and of the other Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood no life is in you no kingdom of Heaven for you PARTICVLAR 2. 5. THus far of Vitis Our second Particular is Racemus The bunch of Grapes 'T is rendred here by Power but is understood in an Excellency Power cum Priviledgio This indeed intended as Caput Votorum For as he saith Quid voveat dulci alumno So what is it that thy soul desires Is it Beauty Belive there are no such Roses and Lilies in their Midsummer as Gods Sons in their early Spring That being true of every member which is spoken of the body in general Thou art all fair No deformity not that of sickness nor that of age nor spot nor wrinckle Free from all defilement of sin a brave and high victorious and insolent Beauty that pure fair white and red in his innocence and in the blood of the Lamb. Is it riches How faint and cold and poor a word to this that makes a man rich in God! And rich in faith is equivalent to that For by that is a poor wretch under all made Heir to God who is rich over all and enjoyes not these shadows of the world but those unsearchable riches of Christ not filthy lucre defiling in the acquist but fine Gold So that thy adoring Mammon is but a mockery to thy soul It cannot make thee it may marr it
knowest it is wind by that but knowest not whence nor whither So is every one that is born of the Spirit The cause and course is secret but the effect discernable As in Creation our soul and body meet by breathing so here the mystick work is Inspiration and infusion of manifold graces but those graces have activities and such whereby you shall easily perceive that you were once darkness but are now Light in the Lord. These Graces then will give us further Light whose excellencies are laid out in those expressions of Water Floods Fountains and Fire and Milk and Manna and Oyntment and their Efficacies in those names of Seal and Evidence and Earnest and Witness and Joy and Consolation And are there not fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. Fruits that grow not up from the bitter Root of corrupted nature but from another Principle and which in their bloom and freshness render a man not like those Ethnick Graces only facile and sweet in conversation though they do that too but gracious in Gods aspect and glorious too shining as a Light in the midst of a crooked and perverse Generation If we shall taft a fruit or two in specialty I will only trie to do it in this notion here and under this Capacity of Light 1. Knowledge even that of nature is a Light and mans soul still is the Lamp of God saith Solomon and a Wisdom residing therein that Recedes as far from folly as Light ftom Darkness and this was all those great Philosophers Animalia Gloriae had which puft them up so For this hath some tincture of the Serpent and soon inflates yet alas Mans salvation is that Grove and Mysterie Nulli penetrabilis astro not pervious nor peirceable by the star-light of Reason There must come a supernatural Light from Heaven which as in the Giver it is called a Sun of Righteousness rising with healing in his wings the day-spring from on high and the True Light so in the Receiver it is called a great and marvellous Light of which Will you hear St. Paul I count all loss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the supereminence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord this indeed is all for in this is all This is Eternal life to know Thee and him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ to know him for my Jesus to apprehend him for my Justifier by a second Grace by a true and lively Faith 2. Faith then is another Light of the sanctifying Spirit superinduced on the Light of Reason to raise and perfect it for it is not in stones or beasts God can from stones raise up Children unto Abraham but if so the work must first be done by Infusion of a rational soul and the golden Key of this Grace then fitted to the prepared wards of reasonable Nature It is not amiss to compare it to Sybillaes golden bough which grew to and upon the Trce and as he adds Auri per Ramos aura refulsit So this superstructure out-shines the utmost endeavours and perfections of Nature and Reason and resembled it is by some as the Seal to Wax It is not naked and meer reason as Air is Fire but Faith is rather printed reason and there joined Light if we wilfully exstinguish not their flames will yield the bearer fair Direction and Confidence and Consolation There may be there will be a coarctation a compression of this flame in the act of Faith a damp upon the alacrity thereof yet if there be not in us an evil heart desirous nay wilfully set to depart from the living God If you abide in me saith our Saviour then certainly as his Father and he with the sacred Spirit joyntly made Light at first and pin'd it to that Sun which was never wholly darkned since and as he the true Light breaking from the clouds of the blessed Virgins body and joyned to mans nature retains that nature still now glorified so the Spirit of this Grace possessing thy spirit loves never to part again but grieves when we offer to quench his coelestial fires O then learn not to despair of Mercy and Assistance Clouds and Eclipses obscure and wandring and wicked thoughts self-accusings and self-condemnings and Satans suggestions may trouble and affright us But if we abide in him and be strong in the Lord and in the Power of his Might and resist the Devill he will flie from us and our hope in Christ and the Power of his Resurrection like a rising Morn will scatter all the delusions and rebellions of the Night and remember his gracious Promise Hell-gates shall not prevail against a Faith of Adherence All the Powers of Darkness let loose upon St. Paul yet he was safe I know in whom I have believed I live saith he no not I but Ckrist lives in me and it is his Spirit only that can give assurance that whereas I was darkness my Faith in him makes me light in the Lord. 3. As for Love another Grace the Grace of Graces the bond of perfection and especially of that coelestial Armor and Ardor of the soul to God What might we say Whatdo they feel into whose breasts is shot this right coelestial flame and there shed abroad by the holy Ghost which is given them Away then with all wanton fires of earthly Love or ambition set them but by this and they will appear poor and wan discolour'd pale and drousie things and like meretritious females shewn with modest and noble Matrons dasht all out of countenance 4. Lastly for I am not too long to insist on these Graces so perceptible to the Possessors if we would have true and lasting joy Where shall we seek it Is it to be found among those Pangs and Convulsions and Palpitations of an earthly sensuall mind Mala mentis gaudia as the heathen Poet calls them and plac'd by him far within the Porch of hell Meteors of imperfect mixture Scansory and seeming to mine and aim at lightsomness and height of Spirit But having crackt awhile and blaz'd down they slide again and resolve into their first earth and drossiness But he that hath tasted of the heavenly gift the joy in the Holy Ghost wherein the Kingdom of Heaven on earth doth principally consist can tell you of a joy that is full a joy unspeakable and glorious consisting in a dispersion of all that is dark and desolate and a true Light that is Lux in Domine Light in the Lord. Thus have we trac'd this Oriens ex alto and thus far described that Method that Lucidus Ordo of Gods procedure in descent of his Spirit and defluence of his Graces Thus far we are come to meet with this great Bishop of all our souls this blessed Visitor and have observed his way of baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with enthean fire and confirming his People with the manifold Graces of his Spirit But yet since he is in Heaven and that Spirit is to descend on us we are not satisfied till we
in essence and properties And as lending thus his light to others averts no beam from us by reason of his full administration so nor the opacity nor incapacity of our Spirit can uneffectuate his power but that as our knowledge from a meer vacuity and brutish ignorance he brings up and raises to angel-like perfection so he can encrease and multiply that grain of precious faith to such a tree as shall lift up its Crown and reach the stars and apprehend and receive him there who is both the Author and Finisher of our Faith and Salvation Lastly Fix on what the school calls Convenientius for a surplusage to make this Cup oâ— Consolation brim-full and run over God was tied to no necessity absolute of sending his Son He could have saved us some other way yet this was so convenient that they dare think that if a man had not faln yet Christ had been incarnate for the demonstration of two things Gods infinite Power and Bounty His Power was not manisest so fully in Creation because no infinite Act and his bounteous and boundless love in it self apt for Communion had not yet come near enough to his beloved Creature in that our first Off-spring and universal Derive of being his generation Then a Christ Convenientius for man too more steadily to â—asten and anchor on Christ by faith and hope more to enlarge his knowledge in the proclaim of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here the Dignity to which sinfull flesh is exalted and thereby more enflame his love saltem redamare to relove him that so loved us in Christ Now observe in this second Edition of Grace and Mercy in this great work of the holy Ghost all these are reprinted and sealed in good assurance by the evidence and earnest and testimony which it gives to the bargain of thy salvation And to conclude this point As Christ was not sent till the fulness of time not presently after the fall a sense and discovery of sins power must precede ere we find our need of his powerful blood and man first sent to reason and to the Law under School-masters to bring us to Christ so the Spirit of Grace falls down in infinite Power and in strictest Union and yet performs the work in measure and by degrees which it could do by one Ransack and Destruction of all sin and infirmitie at once But for convenience and fit appliance to the Receiver it proceeds leisurely to fill our narrow vessels and stays that very season till the water be troubled mans heart made ready by remorse when he perceives himself sinking and is at it with Save Lord we perish and all this that the excellency of the power might be and might be felt and acknowledged to be of God and not of us By this time if you be content to taste this Cup so brewed I yet have no Power so to minister it not alone It must be mingled with both the former and if so it please you I shall be bold upon your Patience to urge and press the health of all three together AND first For conveniency in relation to our common Lord whose Cup it is The world hath her Cup of pleasure and she of Babylon hers of Fornication and what swilling in of these Even Kings of the earth drunk And shall we startle or scruple at this Cup of Christ What! Sit at my right hand in Glory and shame to taste a little shame and bitterness of a Cross and Cup which I have born and drunk off before you Remember 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is in the bottom what if it should make you sweat and pant in getting off this health Do but think how oft you have enforced your selves to take down those healths falsly so called and suffer then the word of exhortation which presses you down upon your knees to beg this pledge at the hand of your Soveraign Lord and Maker as his servant did Pota me Domine torrente voluptatis saith Austin for so you shall find it in the end though you should be compelled for Christs sake and the Gospels to drink it blood warm and in a fiery tryal So much the sweeter by his Grace and Power seasoning it who by his own example hath so begun it to us Secondly A Convenience in reference to our selves This Cup must down or else another that is worse and there is but another and that is in the hand of the Lord too wherein the wine is red and it is full mixt and the wicked of the earth must drink and wring out the dregs of Gods wrath If we would scape that drench and bane of soul and body which but begins the torment of those damned Spirits who must for ever drink it burning hot in a lake of fire and brimstone Resolve and speedily to taste and consider how gracious and sweet his offered Mercies are in Christ and if we would shun that Cup of his vengeance which runs out for the seirceness take then to day while it is called to day and while we are called to day this Cup of his Mercy which runs over for the sulness 2. As thus for Conveniency so is this Recipe to be prest on all for necessity absolute Wo to me if I do not preach or preach it dully or lazily and wo unto you if you receive it not as the unum necessarium For shall we need any more Receipts What would be given for a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Elixar a Cathâ—â—con to cure all diseases of the body and beside renue and preserve health youth beauty and restore them still fairer and fresher then before Such a Merchant might have all the Lords and Ladies and all the Kings of the earth his Clients and Patients Alas Is our soul and inward beauty less precious Why Here it is that will cure all sinfull distempers Restore thy soul her native Candor and sweetness and ingenuity making thee young and lustie as an Eagle Make all their eyes that be of a right aerie able by a lively faith to look up and contemplate that sun where the body of that light is there will the Eagles be gathered together and that body is here 'T is the very Vitis and Vitals and the Corps of my Text. Let me not lose you then Be gathered still in the continuance of your gracious and patient Attentions For now the last way I am to urge this health for necessity respective on those first that deny the Lord that bought them either directly as the Arrian and Socinian do or indirectly yet desperately would undermine our faith and sap out of the corner stone on which all relies by ruining some other parts of the building These boast themselves the rational discoursers of the age such as Saint Paul means in that question Where is the Disputer of this world For these dare dispute openly against the Creation related by Moses and justified by Christ and quarrel the souls immortality and the bodies resurrection which
with those three Children of Light then walk on to fire unquenchable and utter darkness Then know O King that though our God will not deliver us yet will not we transgress the bounds of his Law to worship the Image that thou hast set up But then in this case we must look to our evidence that it be clear and sull Light nor streightned nor enlarged by our own or other mens false expositions For allow him but the ordinary gloss and every sinner will excuse his grossest crimes Is not the prohibition plain enough Thou shalt not commit Aultery Fornication Let it not be once naned yet all this with a Roman wash of venial sin or their rule of Caute si non caste will easily perswade some of their Novices or she Prosylite that there may be a kind of witty fornication tolerable or moderate Adultery So that Command Thou shall not steal Let the High-way thief or Highland Plunderer interpret he will tell you It s true unless you be under an invincible necessity or else promise to restore or accompt one day though you intend the day of Doom and such glosses men allow themselves in the main Articles of the Creed I believe the Catholick Church Ask the Anabaptist what it is It is a company whereof he is a prime man illumined needing no Scripture-rule but the Law of love and liberty Ask the Papist And he saith 't is nothing but a fine man at Rome with a triple Crown and a number of Fellows in red hats like Minstrels attending on him while with his foot he kicks off the Crowns of Kings and treading on the necks of Emperors cries super Aspidem Basiliscum c. Or briefer thus The Catholick Church in our Creed is Ecclesia Catholica Romana which though it be a Bull and infold a contradiction yet it serves for a Charm and the poor seduced Papist on whose brest it is hung is therewith stupified and dare not stir out of that Circle if he do the Devill will take him for God hath no deer out of that Pale that 's the Ark and out of the Popes Parish there is Salvation So then it must be no false or new-devised but old and full Light from Scripture that shall guide us And it can never become any Child of Light to cast his conscience into cloudy and raw and scrupulous fetters and startle and flie out of a Christian course or from a Christian Church upon conceited or imaginary Tropicks much less when the world or Devil would draw us to disorder our ways by their Cancer and Capricorn the griping claws of earthly Profit or the goatish Delights of sensual and carnal Pleasure Secondly And above all our Saviours Light is our best Direction And observe that Sun of Righteousness ere he rose a clear Light comes forth of Promises and Prophesies then a Day-star then in fulness of time he breaks the East discloses and he shines on in Wisdom at twelve years old grows in stature in Grace and Favour with God and man After his Baptism and taking on him the Ministry He goes about Preaching Healing doing good and suffering evil till he die rises ascends sends the Holy Ghost intercedes in Heaven for us and on earth is with us by his Spirit and Word to the end and in the end his final Reâ—olution and Revisitation to bring us to those joyes â—hat have no end This was and is his course Vade tu fae similiter Go thou and do like him How can we Why Be followers of God The Child may follow though non passibus aequis In his action he said I have given you an example and of his Passion the Scriptures saith He suffered leaving us an example Children learn to write and sew by Copies and Samplers so must we and so shall we if once our hearts be toucht with an Adamant if once tramed on by the Epiphany of such a star Then like those Eastern Magi we shall rejoyce to follow it yea content to take up our Cross and follow him content to be down and dark and despairing so we may rise to Light and stradiation and enabling Grace pursuing him through Ignorance Error and Death who is the Way the Truth and the Life And never giving over our Revolution and Resolution till we come to set where we rose born back with endless and impatient desires to enjoy Jesus the Author and Finisher of our saith and the end of our faith the salvation of our souls I have done with the explication of my Text There remains a word of Application to our selves first so had we best or it will be done to out hands with Medice cura te ipsum May I have leave then once more to look upon the Light and apply it first to the Learning and then to the Life 's of clergie men Wherein if I shall seem to teach any of these my Reverend Fathers or of my Learned Brethren it is with this protestation of primo meipsum 1. Our Learning first must be Lux in Demino we are Seers eyes to the Mystick body of Christ Jesus Dark Ignorance then to us should be a thing most horrible as t is to that sense in nature A foule and fearfull sight if those holes in our faces were empty and those bals of living fire pluckt from our fronts What is it when me want filling for so large a Sphere as our profession is A wofull Spectacle to see a blinking Glow-worm where a star of Magnitude should shine We are Gods Lawyers and Physitians with truth of Direction and severity of observance in our cures And is it not scandalous and dangerous an Ignoramus an Emperick or Montebank in our Calling unless as Circe and AEsculapius were both accounted Apollo's off-spring so Mediocrity and Excellency make no difference in Profit or Repute which makes so many take up with Atalanta Declinat cursus aurumy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But God would have us workmen able Ministers dividing the Word of Truth arighe And is noe Learning a mighty wedge and wrest in that Affair Aristole handles the affections in his Rhetoricks and sure I am that all our Rhetorick hath edge little enough to pierce into the wooden and stony affections of our common hearers Orpheus it had need to be in Sylvis to draw Beasts and Blocks And what shall we do in learned Audience They will soon perceive upon whose wheels our motions are such as can taft every vein of water and tell which savours Sulphur Vitriol or Steel but worst of all in convincing the Adversary What will become of our empty Frigats grapling with a man of war or a Jehu Jesuit thaâ— charges furiously when he finds a wak Adversary We must walk then to the Heaven of Scripture and stars of Interpreters no casting off those Beam without a self-illuminating and to get us work mens tools for sharp and flat peirce not alike though there be the like percussion We are Gods Smiths and