office of Conscience clear beyond all Objection And thus much I thought fit to premise concerning the Nature of the Light here spoken of by our Saviour and Intended for the subject of the present discourse Which Light as it is certainly the great and Sovereign Gift of God to Mankind for the Guidance and Government of their Actions in all that concernâ— them with reference to this Life 〈◊〉 a better so it is also as certain that it is Capable of being turned into Darkness and thereby made wholly useless for so Nobl 〈…〉 Purpose For so much the Words of the Tâ—â— Import nor do they Import only bare possibility that it may be so but aâ— so a very high Probability that witâ—â—â—â— an extraordinary Prevention it will bâ— so For as mâ—ch as all Warning in thâ— very Reason of the Thing and according to the Naturâ—l force of such expressions implies in it these two Thingâ— First Some very Considerable Evil or mischief Warned against and Secondly An Equal danger of falling into iâ— without which all Warning would be not only superfluous but Ridiculous Now both these in the Present Case are very great as will appear by a distinâ—t consideration of each of them And First For the Evil which we are warned or caution'd against to wit the Turning of this light within us into Darkness 〈◊〉 Evil so unconceivable great and comprehensive that to give an Account of the Utmost extent of it would pose our Thoughts as well as Nonplus our Expressions But yet to help our Apprehensions of it the best we 〈◊〉 let â—s but consider with our selves those Intolerable Evils which Bodily Blindness Deafness Stupefaction and an utter Deprivatâ—on of all sense must unavoidably subject the outward Man to For what is one in such a Condition able to do And what is He not lyable to suffer and yet Doing and Suffering upon the matter Comprehend all that concerns a Man in this World If such an ones Enemy seeks his Life as He may be sure that some or other will and Possibly such an One as he takes for his Truest Friend in this forlorn Case he can neither see nor hear nor perceive his Approach till He finds Himself actually in his Murthering Hands He can neither encounter nor eâ—cape Him neither in his own â—â—fence give nor ward off a Blow 〈◊〉 whatsoever blinds a Man ipso facto disarms Him so that being thus 〈◊〉 rest both of his Sight and of all his Senseâ— besides what such an one can be fit for unless it be to set up for Prophecy or believe Tâ—â—â—substantiation I cannot Imagine Thâ—â— I say are some of those Fâ—â—tal mischiefs which corporal Blindneâ—â— and Insensibility expose the Body to and are not those of a Spiritual Blindneâ—â— Unexpressibly greater For must 〈◊〉 Man Labouring under this be utterly 〈◊〉 at a loss how to distinguish betweâ—â—â— the two grand Governing concerns 〈◊〉 â—â—fe Good and Evil and may not thâ—â— Ignorance of these cost us as dear as the Knowledge of them did our first Parentsâ— Life and Death Vice and Vertue comâ— alike to such an one As all things are oâ— the same Colour to Him who cannot seâ— His whole Soul is nothing but Night and Confusion Darkness and Indistinction He can neither see the way to Happinesâ— and how then should He choose it Noâ— yet to destruction and how then should He avoid it For where there is no sense of things there can be no distinction and â—here there is no distinction there can be no Choice A Man destitute of this directing and distinguishing Light within Him is and must be at the Mercy of every thing 〈◊〉 Nature that would impose or serve 〈◊〉 Turn upon Him So that whatsoever the Devil will have Him do that 〈◊〉 must do Whithersoever any Exâ—â—â—tant desire or design hurries Him thither He must go Whatsoever any base Interest shall prescribe that he must set his hand to whether His Heart goes along with it or no. If he be a Statesman He must be as willing to sell as the Enemy of his Country can be to bay If a Churchman he must be ready to surrender and give up the Church and make a Sacrifice of the Altar it self though He lives by it and in a Word take that for a full discharge from all his Subscriptions and obligations to it to do as He is bid Which being the Case of such as steer by a false Light certainly no slave in the Gallies is or can be in such a Wretched Condition of slavery as a Man thus abandoned by Conscience and bereft of all Inward Principles that should either Guide or Controul Him in the Course of his Conversation So that we see here the Transcendent Greatness of the Evil which 〈◊〉 stand caution'd against But then Secondly If it were an Evil that seldom happened that very hardly and raâ—â—ly befell a Man this might in a 〈◊〉 measure supersede the strictness of tâ—â—â— Caution But on the contrary we shaâ—â— find that as great as the Evil is which we are to fence against and that is 〈◊〉 great as the Capacities of an Immortal Soul the Greatness of the danger is still Commensurate For it is a Case that usually happens It is a mischief as frequent in the Event as it is or can be Fatal in the Effect It is as in a Common Plague in which the Infectionâ—â— as hard to be escaped as the distempâ—â— to be Cured For that which brings this Darkness upon the Soul is Sin And as the state of Nature now is the Soul is not so Close United to the Body as Sin is to the Soul indeed so close is the Union between them that one would even think the Soul it self as much a Spirit as it is were the matter and Sin the form in our present Constitution In a word there is a set Combination of all without a Man and all within Him of all above ground and all under it if Hell be so first to put out his Eyes and then to draw or drive Him headlong into Perdition From all which I suppose we must needs see Reason more than sufficient for this Admonition of our Saviour Take heed that the Light which is in Thee be not Darkness An Admonition founded upon no less a Concern than all that a Man can save and all that He can lose to Eternity And thus having shewn both the Vastness of the Evil it self and the extreme danger we are in of it Since no Man can be at all the Wiser or the Safer barely for knowing his danger without a Vigorous application to prevent it and since the surest and most Rational preventive of it is to know by what Arts and methods our Enemy will encounter us and by which He is most likely to prevail over us we will enquire into and Consider those Ways and Means by which He commonly attempts and too frequently effects this so dismal a Change upon us as to strip us even of the poor
doing and always condemning himself for what He does And for this cause a Man shuts his Eyes and stops his Ears against all that His Reason would tell Him of the sinfulness of that Practice which long Custom and frequency has endeared to Him So that He becomes studiously and affectedly Ignorant of the Illness of the Course he takes that He may the moâ—â— sensibly Tast the Pleasure of it And thus when an Inveterate Imperious Custom has so over-ruled all a Mans faculties as neither to suffer His Eyes to see nor his Ears to hear nor his mind to think of the Evil of what He does that is when all the Instruments of Knowledge are forbid to do their office Ignorance and Obscurity must needs be upon the whole Soul For when the Windows are stopped up no Wonder if the whole Room be Dark The Truth is such an Habitual frequency of Sinning does as it were Bar and Bolt up the Conscience against the sharpest Reproofs and the most Convincing Instructions so that when God by the Thunder of his Judgments and the Voice of His Ministers has been ringing Hell and Vengeance into the Ears of such a Sinner perhaps like Felix He may Tremble a little for the Present and seem to yield and fall down before the over-powering Evidence of the Conviction but after a while Custom overcoming Conscience the Man goes his way and though He is Convinced and satisfyed what He ought to do yet He actually does what he uses to do And all this because through the darkness of his Intellect he Judges the present Pleasure of such a sinful Course an over-balance to the Evil of it For this is certain That Nature has placed all Humane Choice in such an Essential Dependance upon the Iudgment that no Man does any Thing though never so Vile Wicked and Inexcusable but all circumstances considered he Judges it Pro hìc nunc absolutely better for Him to do it than not to do it And what a Darkness and Delusion must Conscience needs be under while it makes a Man judge that really best for him which directly tends to and generally ends in his utter Ruin and Damnation Custom is said to be a second Nature and if by the first we are already so bad by the second to be sure we shall be much worse Thirdly Every Corrupt Passion or Affection of the Mind will certainly pervert the judging and obscure and darken the discerning Power of Conscience The Affections which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latines Affectus Animi are of much the same use to the Soul which the Members are of to the Body serving as the proper Instruments of most of its Actions and are always attended with a certain Preternatural Motion of the Blood and Spirits peculiar to each Passion or Affection And as for the Seat or Fountain of them Philosophers both place them in and derive them from the Heart But not to insist upon meer Speculations The Passions or Affections are as I may so call them the mighty Flights and Sallyings out of the Soul upon such objects as come before it and are generally accompanied with such Vehemence that the Stoicks reckoned them in their very Nature and Essence as so many Irregularities and Deviations from Right Reason and by no means incident to a wise or good Man But though better Philosophy has long since exploded this Opinion and Christianity which is the greatest and the best has taught us that we may be Angry and yet not Sin Eph. 4.26 And that Godly Sorrow is neither a Paradox nor a Contradiction 2 Cor. 7.10 and consequently that in every Passion or Affection there is something purely Natural which may both be distinguished and divided too from what is sinful and irregular yet notwithstanding all this it must be confessed That the Nature of the Passions is such that they are extreamly prone and apt to pass into Excess and that when they do so nothing in the World is a greater hindrance to the Mind or Reason of Man from making a True Clear and Exact Judgment of Things than the Passions thus wrought up to any Thing of Ferment or Agitation It being as Impossible to keep the Iudging Faculty steady in such a Case as it would be to view a Thing distinctly and perfectly through a Perspective Glass held by a shaking Paralytick hand When the Affections are once engaged the Iudgment is always Partial and Concerned There is a strong Bent or Byass upon it it is possessed and gained over and as it were fee'd and retained in their Cause and thereby made utterly unable to carry such an equal regard to the object as to consider Truth Nakedly and stripped of all Foreign Respects and as such to make it the Rigid Inflexible Rule which it is to Iudge by especially where Duty is the Thing to be Iudged of For a Man will hardly be brought to Judge Right and True when by such a Judgment he is sure to Condemn Himself But this being a Point of such high and Practical Importance I will be yet more particular about it and show severally in several Corrupt and Vitious Affections how Impossible it is for a Man to keep his Conscience rightly Informed and fit to guide and direct Him in all the Arduous Perplexing Cases of Sin and Duty while He is actually under the Power of any of them This I know Men generally are not apt to believe or to think that the flaws or failures of their Morals can at all affect their Intellectuals But I doubt not but to make it not only Credible but Undeniable Now the Vitious Affections which I shall single and cull out of those Vast Numbers which the Heart of Man that great Store-house of the Devil abounds with as some of the Principal which thus Darken and Debauch the Conscience shall be these Three First Sensuality Secondly Covetousness Thirdly Ambition Of each of which I shall speak particularly and First For Sensuality or a vehement delight in and pursuit of Bodily Pleasures We may truly say of the Body with Reference to the Soul what was said by the Poet of an ill Neighbour Nemo tam propè tam proculque None so nearly joined in point of Vicinity and yet so widely distant in point of Interest and Inclinations The Ancient Philosophers generally holding the Soul of Man to be a Spiritual Immaterial substance could give no Account of the several failures and defects in the Operations of it which they were sufficiently sensible of but from its Immersion into and intimate conjunction with matter called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And accordingly all their complaints and accusations were still levelled at this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the only cause of all that they found amiss in the whole Frame and Constitution of Mans Nature In a word whatsoever was observed by them either Irregular or Defective in the Workings of the Mind was all Charged upon the Body as
its great Clog and Impediment As the skilfulest Artist in the World would make but sorry work of it should he be forced to make use of Tools no way fit for his Purpose But whether the fault be in the Spiritual or Corporeal part of our Nature or rather in Both certain it is that no two Things in the World do more rise and grow upon the Fall of Each other than the Flesh and the Spirit They being like a kind of Balance in the hand of Nature so that as one mounts up the other still sinks down and the high Estate of the Body seldom or never fails to be the Low declining Estate of the Soul Which great contrariety and discord between them the Apostle describes as well as words can do Galat. 5.7 The Flesh says He lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit lusteth against the Flesh and these two are contrary like two mighty Princes whose Territories join they are always encroaching and Warring upon one Another And as it most commonly falls out that the Worse Cause has the Best success so when the Flesh and the Spirit come to a Battle it is seldom but the Flesh comes off Victorious And therefore the same great Apostle who so constantly exercised Himself to keep a Conscience void of Offence did as constantly and severely exercise Himself to keep under his Body and bring it into subjection 1 Cor. 9.27 And the same in all Ages has been the Judgment and Practice of all such as have had any Experience in the ways of God and the true methods of Religion For all Bodily Pleasure dulls and weakens the Operations of the Mind even upon a Natural Account and much more upon a Spiritual Now the Pleasures which Chiefly Affect or rather Bewitch the Body and by so doing become the very Pest and Poyson of the Nobler and Intellectual Part of Man are those false and fallacious Pleasures of Lust and Intemperance Of Each of which severally and First For Lust. Nothing does or can darken the mind or Conscience of Man more Nay it has a peculiar Efficacy this way and for that cause may justly be ranked amongst the very Powers of Darkness It being that which as Naturalists observe strikes at the proper seat of the Understanding the Brain Something of that Blackness of Darkness mentioned in the 13 th of St. Iude seeming to be of the very Nature as well as Punishment of this Vice Nor does only the Reason of the thing it self but also the Examples of such as have been possessed with it demonstrate as much For had not Sampson think we an Intolerable Darkness and Confusion upon his understanding while He ran Roving after every strumpet in that Brutish manner that He did Was it not the Eye of his Conscience which his Dalilah first put out and so of a Judge of Israel rendred Himself really a Judgment upon them And when the two Angels as we read in 19. Gen. struck those Monsters the Men of Sodom with Blindness had not their own detestable Lust first stricken them with a greater Or could Herod have ever Thought Himself obliged by the Religion of an Oath to have Murdered the Baptist had not his Lust and His Herodias Imprisoned and Murdered his Conscience first For surely the Common Light of Nature could not but Teach Him that no Oath or Vow whatsoever could warrant the greatest Prince upon Earth to take away the Life of an Innocent Person But it seems his besotted Conscience having broken through the seventh Commandment the sixth stood too near it to be safe long and therefore his two great Casuists the Devil and his Herodias the worse Devil of the Two having allowed Him to lie and wallow in Adultery so long easily perswaded Him that the same Salvo might be found out for Murder also So that it was His Lust obstinately continued in which thus darken'd and deluded his Conscience and the same will no doubt darken and delude and in the End extinguish the Conscience of any Man Breathing who shall surrender Himself up to it The Light within him shall grow every day less and less and at length totally and finally go out and that in a stink too So hard or rather utterly unfeasible is it for Men to be Zealous Votaries of the Blind God without losing their Eyes in his Service and it is well if their Noses do not follow From all which it appears what a Paradox it is in Morals for any one under the Dominion of his lust to think to have a Right Judgment in Things relating to the state of his Soul And the same in the Second Place holds equally in that other Branch of sensuality Intemperance whereupon we find them both Joined together by the Prophet Hosea 4.11 Whoredom says He and Wine take away the Heart that is according to the Language of Holy Writ a Mans Iudging and Discerning abilities And therefore whosoever would preserve these Faculties especially as to their discernment of Spiritual objects quick and vigorous must be sure to keep the upper Region of His Soul clear and serene which the Fumes of Meat and Drink lâ—xuriously taken in will never suffer it to be We know the method which this high and exact Pattern of Spiritual Prudence St. Paul took to keep the great sentinel of His Soul his Conscience always vigilant and circumspect It was by a Constant and severe Temperance heighten'd with frequent Watchings and Fastings as He Himself tells us 2 Cor. 11.27 In watchings often in Fastings often c. This was the Discipline which kept his senses exercised to a sure and exquisite discrimination of Good and Evil and made the Lamp within Him shine always with a Bright and a Triumphant flame But Gluttony and all excess either in eating or drinking strangely clouds and dulls the Intellectual Powers and then it is not to be expected that the Conscience should bear up when the Vnderstanding is drunk down An Epicure's Practice Naturally disposes a Man to an Epicure's Principles that is to an equal looseness and dissolution in Both And He who makes his Belly His Business will quickly come to have a Conscience of as large a swallow as his Throat of which there wants not several scandalous and deplorable Instances Loads of meat and drink are fit for none but a Beast of Burden to bear and He is much the greater Beast of the two who carries his Burden in his Belly than He who carries it upon his Back On the contrary Nothing is so great a Friend to the mind of Man as Abstinence It strenghens the memory clears the Apprehension and sharpens the Iudgment and in a word gives Reason its full scope of Acting and when Reason has That it is always a diligent and faithful Hand-Maid to Conscience And therefore where Men look no further than meer Nature as many do not let no Man expect to keep his Gluttony and his Parts His Drunkenness and his Wit his Revellings and his Iudgment
are told is who shall reckon his Years For he shall live to be very Aged Though yet we know no more of his Age but that he Prophesied about forty Years whereas some others have Prophesied much longer and particularly Hosea who Prophesied about fourscore As for the other Expression of his seeing his Seed and prolonging his Days that we are taught must signify that he should see many of his Converts in Egypt where he should live for a long time Though yet we read not of any one of those Converts nor of any such prolonging his Days there but that it is a constant Tradition of Antiquity that he died an untimely disastrous Death being knock'd on the Head in Egypt by his wicked Country-men with a Fuller's Club. And in the last place for his dividing the Spoil with the Mighty that we are informed was fullfilled in this That Nebuzaradan Captain of the Chaldean Host as we find it in Ieremy 40.5 gave him a Reward and some Victuals that is to say a small supply or modicum of Meat and Money for his present support and so sent him away A worthy glorious dividing of the Spoil indeed and much after the same rate that the Poor may be said to divide the Spoil when they take their shares of what is given them at Rich-men's Doors So then we have here an Interpretation but as for the sense of it that for ought I see must shift for it self But whether thus to drag and hale words both from Sence and Context and then to squeeze whatsoever meaning we please out of them be not as I may speak with some change of the Prophet's Phrase to draw lyes with cords of Blasphemy and Nonsence as it were with a Cart-rope let any sober and impartial Hearer or Reader be Judge For whatsoever titles the itch of Novelty and Socinianism has thought fit to Dignify such Immortal Incomparable Incomprehensible Interpreters with yet if these Interpretations ought to take place the said Prophecies which all before Grotius and the aforesaid Rabby Saadias Unanimously fixed in the first sense of them upon the sole Person of the Messiah might have been actually fullfilled and consequently the Veracity of God in the said Prophecies strictly accounted for though Iesus of Nazareth had never been Born Which being so would any one have thought that the Author of the Book de Veritate Religionis Christianae de satisfactione Christi could be also the Author of such Interpretations as these No Age certainly ever produced a mightier Man in all sorts of Learning than Grotius nor more happily furnished with all sorts of Arms both Offensive and Defensive for the Vindication of the Christian Faith had he not in his Annotations too frequently turned the Edge of them the wrong way Well therefore taking it for manifest and that upon all the grounds of Rational and unforced Interpretation that the Person here spoken of was the Messias and that this Messias could be no other than Iesus of Nazareth the Great Mediator of the second Covenant very God and very Man in whom every tittle of this Prophecy is most exactly verifyed and to whom it does most peculiarly and incommunicably agree We shall proceed now to take an account of the several parts of the Text in which we have these three things considerable First The suffering it self He was stricken Secondly The Nature of the suffering which was Penal and Expiatory He was stricken for Transgression And Thirdly The Ground and Cause of this suffering which was God's propriety in and relation to the Persons for whom Christ was stricken implyed in this word My People For the Transgression of My People was he stricken Of each of which in their order And First For the suffering it self He was stricken The very word imports violence and invasion from without It was not a suffering upon the stock of the meer internal weaknesses of Nature which carries the seeds and causes of its dissolution in its own bowels and so by degrees withers and decays and at length dies like a Lamp that for want of Oyl can burn no longer but like a Torch in its full flame beat and ruffled and at length blown out by the breath of a North-Wind So was Christ dealt with in the very prime and vigor of his Years being by main force torn and stricken out of the World Blows did the work of time and Stripes and Spears were instead of Age to put a period to his afflicted Life Now the Greatness of this Suffering will be made out to us upon these three accounts First Upon the Account of the Latitude and Extent of it Secondly Of the Intenseness and Sharpness of it And Thirdly Of the Person inflicting it First As for the Latitude or Extent of it The Blow reach'd every part of His humanity carrying the grief all over till by an Universal diffusion of it self it entred according to the Psalmists expression like water into His bowels or like Oyl into His bones It spread it self into every part of his Body as if it had been another Soul Nothing was free from suffering that could suffer Suffering seem'd to be his Portion his Inheritance nay his very Property Even the Religion that he came to propagate and establish was a suffering Religion and by the severest method of establishment he gave the First and the Greatest Instance of it in himself He who would recount every part of Christ that suffered must read a Lecture of Anatomy From the Crown of the Head to the Sole of the Foot there was nothing but the traces of pain and suffering they made long furrows upon His back says the Psalmist they did as it were tear and plow up his innocent Body In his Person we might have seen Grief in its height and supremacy Grief Triumphant Crown'd and arrayed in Purple Grief reigning and doing the utmost that it was able It is a Subject too well known and too frequently discoursed of to make descriptions of the Thorns the Spears and the Nails that acted their several parts in this Tragedy and that so that the very Narrative of our Saviour's Passion cannot but beget another in every pious hearer of it But when we have said the utmost of his Bodily sufferings we still know that Nature has provided a support able to mate and stand up against all these for the strength and firmness of a Resolved Mind will bear a Man above his Infirmity as the Breath bears up the Body from sinking But when the supporter it self fails when the Primum vivens and the Vltimum moriens has had a mortal blow and the Iron enters into the very Soul then baffled Nature must surrender and quit the Combat unless seconded and held up by something greater and mightier than it self And this was our Saviour's Condition There was a Sword which reach'd his very Spirit and pierced his Soul till it Bled through his Body for they were the Struggles and Agonies of the
Fair. And then for the Gift of Healing let a bleeding Church and State shew how notably they were gifted that way They played the Chirurgeons indeed with a Witness but we never yet heard that they Acted the Physitian all their Practice upon the Body Politick was with Powder and Ball Sword and Pistol No saving of Life with those Men but by Purging away the Estate And likewise for the Gift of discerning of Spirits They had their Tryers that is a Court appointed for the Tryal of Ministers but most properly called Cromwell's Inquisition In which they would pretend to know Men's hearts and inward Bent of their Spirits as their word was by their very looks But the Truth is as the Chief Pretence of those Tryers was to enquire into Men's Gifts so if they found them but well Gifted in the Hand they never looked any further for a full and Free hand was with them an Abundant demonstration of a Gracious Heart a word in great request in those times And moreover for the Gift of diverse Tongues it is certain that they scarce spake the same Thing for two days together Though otherwise it must be Confessed that they were none of the greatest Linguists their own Mother Tongue serving all their Occasions without ever so much as looking into the Fathers who always spoke the Language of the Beast to such as could not understand them Latin was with them a Mortal Crime and Greek instead of being owned for the Language of the Holy Ghost as in the New Testament it is was looked upon like the Sin against it so that in a Word they had all the Confusions of Babel amongst them without the Diversity of Tongues And then Lastly For the Gift of Interpreting they thought themselves no ordinary Men at Expounding a Chapter if the Turning of a few Rational significant Words and Sentences into a loose tedious Impertinent Harangue could be called an Exposition But above all for their Interpreting Gift you must take them upon Ezekiel Daniel and the Revelation and from thence as it were out of a Dark Prophetick Cloud Thundring against the Old Cavaleirs and the Church of England and as I may but too appositely express it breaking them upon the wheels in Ezekiel Casting them to the Beasts in Daniel and pouring upon them all the Vials in the Revelation After which let any one deny it who durst that the Black Decree was Absolutely passed upon those Malignants and that they were all of them to a Man Sons of Reprobation And thus I think I have Reckoned up most of the Extraordinary Gifts of the Spirit and Compared them with those of our late Gifted Brethren Amongst all which Divine Gifts I must declare that I cannot find the Gift of Canting and whining and making Faces that is of Speaking Bad sence with worse looks which yet those Men used to call the Language of Canaan Nor can I find the Gift of uttering every suddain crude undigested thought coming over their minds and of being Impudently bold and Familiar with Almighty God in Prayer I cannot find the Gift of exploding the Mysteries and peculiar Credenda of the Gospel in order to the turning Christianity into bare Morality I cannot find the Gift of accounting Tenderness of Conscience against Law as a Thing Sacred but Tenderness of Conscience according to Law as a Crime to be prosecuted almost to Death In a word I cannot find the Gifts of Rebelling Plundering Sequestring Robbing Churches and Murdering Kings and all this purely for the sake of Conscience and Religion These Things I say whether it be through the Weakness of my discerning Faculties or whatsoever else may be the Cause I cannot for my Life find amongst the Primitive Gifts of the Spirit And therefore wheresoever I do find them let Men talk never so much of Inward Motions and Extraordinary Calls of the Spirit of the Kingdom of Iesus Christ and of the Publick good of Moderation and of an Healing Spirit and the like yet long and sad Experience having taught us the true meaning of all these fine and fallacious Terms I must needs say both of them and the Spirit from which they proceed in those words of St. Iames 3.18 That they descend not from above but are Earthly Sensual and Devilish These are the Names which God knows and calls them by though Schismaticks and Hypocrites may call them Reformation But Fourthly In the fourth and last place This Emanation of Gifts from the Spirit assures us that Knowledge and Learning are by no means opposite to Grace since we see Gifts as well as Graces conferred by the same Spirit But amongst those of the late Reforming Age whom we have been speaking of all Learning was utterly cryed down So that with them the best Preachers were such as could not read and the ablest Divines such as could not write In all their Preachments they so highly pretended to the Spirit that they could hardly so much as spell the Letter To be blind was with them the Proper Qualification of a Spiritual Guide and to be Book-Learned as they called it and to be Irreligious were almost Terms Convertible None were thought fit for the Ministry but Tradesmen and Mechanicks because none else were allowed to have the Spirit Those only were accounted like St. Paul who could work with their hands and in a litteral sence drive the Nail home and be able to make a Pulpit before they preached in it But the Spirit in the Primitive Church took quite another Method being still as Careful to furnish the Head as to sanctifie the Heart and as He wrought Miracles to found and establish a Church by these extraordinary Gifts so it would have been a greater Miracle to have done it without them God as He is the giver of Grace so He is the Father of Lights He neither Admits Darkness in Himself nor approves it in others And therefore those who place all Religion in the Heats of a furious Zeal without the due Illuminations of Knowledge Know not of what Spirit they are indeed of such a Spirit as begins in Darkness Leads to it and Ends in it But certainly we shall one day find that a Religion so much Resembling Hell neither was nor could be the Readiest way to Heaven But on the Contrary That the Spirit always Guides and instructs before He saves and that as He brings to Happiness only by the ways of Holiness so He never leads to true Holiness but by the Paths of Knowledge To which Holy Spirit together with the Father and the Son Three Persons and one God be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen THE Peculiar Care AND Concern of Providence FOR THE Protection and Defense of Kings Set forth in a SERMON Preached At Westminster-Abbey Nov. 5. 1675. Psalm CXLIV 10 former part It is He that giveth Salvation unto Kings THE greatest and most magnificent Title by which God
Nothing and that in the Business of Religion and the great concern of Souls all that is short of Obedience and a Good Life is Nothing but Trick and Evasion Froth and Folly and consequently that if they build upon such deceitful Grounds and with such slight materials they must and can expect no other than after all their cost and pains to have their House fall upon their Heads and so perish in the Ruin And with this Terrible Application in these two last Verses which I have pitched upon for my Text he concludes his Divine Sermon and Discourse from the Mount The words of the Text being too plain and easy to need any Nice or large Explication I shall manage the discussion of them in these four Particulars First In shewing the Reasons upon which I conclude Practice or Obedience in the great Business of a Man's Eternal Happiness to be the best and surest Foundation for him to build upon Secondly In shewing the False Foundations upon which many build and accordingly in Time of Tryal Miscarry Thirdly In shewing the Causes why such Miscarry and fall away in time of Tryal or Temptation Fourthly and Lastly In shewing wherein the Fatal greatness of their Fall consists And First for the first of These viz. to shew the Reasons why Practice or Obedience is the best and surest Foundation still supposing it bottomed upon the merits of Christ for a Man to build his designs for Heaven and the hopes of his Salvation upon I shall mention Three First Because according to the ordinary way and Oeconomy of God's working upon the Hearts of Men nothing but Practice can change our Corrupt Nature and Practice continued and persevered in by the Grace of God Will. We all acknowledge that is all who are not wise above the Articles of our Church that there is an Universal stain and depravation upon Mans Nature that does incapacitate him for the Fruition and Infinitely pure Converse of God The Removal of which cannot be effected but by introducing the contrary habit of Holiness which shall by degrees expell and purge out the other And the only way to produce an habit is by the frequent repetition of Congenial Actions Every Pious Action leaves a certain Tincture or disposition upon the Soul which being seconded by Actions of the same Nature whether by the superaddition of new Degrees or a more radicate fixation of the same grows at length into an Habit or Quality of the Force and Energy of a second Nature I confess the Habit of Holiness finding no Principles of Production in a Nature wholly corrupt must needs be produced by Supernatural Infusion and consequently proceed not from Acquisition but Gift It must be brought into the Soul it cannot grow or spring out of of it But then we must remember that most excellent and true Rule of the Schools that Habitus infusi obtinentur per modum acquisitorum It is indeed a supernatural effect but as I may so speak wrought in a Natural way The Spirit of God imitating the Course of Nature even then when it works something above it A person in the State of Nature or Unregeneracy cannot by the sole strength of his most improved Performances acquire an Habit of True Grace or Holiness But as in the Rain it is not the bare Water that fructifies but a secret Spirit or Nitre descending with it and joined to it that has this Vertue and produces this effect So in the Duties of a meer Natural Man there is sometimes an hidden Divine Influence that keeps pace with those Actions and together with each performance imprints a holy disposition upon the Soul which after a long Series of the like Actions influenced by the same Divine Principle comes at length to be of that force and firmness as to outgrow and work out the Contrary Qualities of inherent Corruption We have an illustration of this though not a Parallel Instance in Natural Actions which by frequency imprint an habit or permanent facility of Acting upon the Agent Godliness is in some sense an Art or Mystery and we all know that it is Practice chiefly that makes the Artist Secondly A second Reason for our Assertion is Because Action is the highest Perfection and Drawing forth of the utmost Power Vigor and Activity of Mans Nature God is pleased to Vouchsafe the best that He can give only to the Best that we can do And Action isâ— undoubtedly our best because the most Difficult for in such cases Worth and Difficulty are inseparable Companions The properest and most raised Conception that we have of God is that He is a Pure Act a Perpetual Incessant Motion And next to Him in the Rank of Beings are the Angels as approaching nearest to Him in this Perfection being all Flame â—nd Agility ministring Spirits always busy and upon the Wing for the Execution of His Great Commands about the Government of the World And indeed Doing is nothing else but the Noblest Improvement of Being It is not as some nice Speculators make it an airy diminutive entity or Accident distinct from the Substance of the Soul but to define it more sutably to it self and to the Soul too Action is properly the Soul in its best Posture Thirdly A Third Reason is because the main End Drift and Design of Religion is the Active part of it Profession is only the Badge of a Christian Belief the beginning but Practice is the Nature and Custom the Perfection For it is this which translates Christianity from a bare Notion into a Real Business from useless Speculations into Substantial Duties and from an Idea in the Brain into an Existence in the Life An Upright Conversation is the bringing of the General Theorems of Religion into the particular Instances of solid Experience and if it were not for this Religion would exist no where but in the Bible The Grand deciding Question at the last day will be not What have you said or What have you believed but What have you done more than others But that the very Life of Religion consists in Practice will appear yet further from those subordinate Ends to which it is designed in this World and which are as Realâ—y though not as Principally the purpose of it as the Utmost attainment of the Beatifick Vision and the very last Period of our Salvation And these are Two First The Honouring of God before the World God will not have His Worship like His Nature Invisible Next to Authority it self is the Pomp and Manifestation of it And to be acknowledged is something more than to be Obeyed For what is Sovereignty unknown or Majesty unobserved What Glory were it for the Sun to direct the Affairs if he did not also attract the Eyes of the World It is his open and Universal Light more than his Occult Influence that we love and admire him for Religion if confined to the Heart is not so much entertain'd as imprisoned That indeed is to be its Fountain
inward Man the Labours and Strivings of his restless Thoughts which cast his Body into that Prodigious Sweat For though it was the Flesh that Sweated it was the Spirit that took the Pains It was that which was then treading the Wine-Press of God's Wrath alone till it made him Red in his Apparel and dyed all his Garments with Blood What thought can reach or Tongue express what our Saviour then felt within his own Breast The Image of all the Sins of the World for which he was to suffer then appeared clear and lively and express to his Mind All the vile and horrid circumstances of them stood as it were particularly ranged before his Eyes in all their dismal Colours He saw how much the Honour of the Great God was abused by them and how many millions of Poor Souls they must inevitably have cast under the Pressures of a Wrath Infinite and Intolerable should he not have turn'd the Blow upon himself The horrour of which then fill'd and amazed his vast Apprehensive Soul and those Apprehensions could not but affect his tender Heart then brimful of the highest Zeal for God's Glory and the most relenting Compassion for the Souls of Men till it fermented and boyled over with Transport and Agony and even forced its way through all his Body in those strange Ebullitions of Blood not to be parallel'd by the sufferings of any Person recorded in any History whatsoever It was this which drew those doleful words from him My Soul is exceeding sorrowful c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was surrounded and as it were besieged with an Army of Sorrows And believe it his Soul was too big and of too strong a make to bend under an ordinary Sorrow It was not any of those little things which make us put the Finger in the Eye as loss of Estate Friends Preferment Interest and the like things too mean to raise a tumult in the Breast of a resolved Stoick and much less in His who both placed and preached Happiness not only in the want but in the very defyance of them And now after this his Agony in the Garden I need not much insist upon the Wounds given his Reputation by the Sword of a Blaspheming Tongue the sharpest of all others and which like a Poysoned Dagger hurting both with Edge and Venom too at the same time both makes a Wound and prevents its Cure Even a guilty Person feels the sting of a malicious Report and if so much more must one who is innocent and yet infinitely more must He who was not only Innocent but Innocence it self Reputation is tender and for it to be blown upon is to be tainted like a Glass the clearer and finer it is the more it suffers by the least Breath And therefore for him who came to destroy the Kingdom of Satan to be traduced as a Partner with and an Agent for Beelzebub For Him whose greatest Repasts were Prayer and abstinence and the most rigid severities upon Himself to be taxed as a Wine-bibber and a Good-fellow For Him who came into the World both in Life and Death to bear Witness to the Truth to suffer as an Impostor and a Deceiver what could be more grievous and afflicting to a great Innocence joyned with as great an Apprehension However his Church gains this great Advantage of Comfort by it that the worst of sufferings comes sanctified to our Hands by the Person of our grand Example Who was reviled and slandered and tossed upon the Tongues of Men before us A greater Martyrdom questionless than to be cast as the Primitive Christians were to the Mouths of Lyons which are tender and merciful compared to the Mouths of Men whether we look upon that bitter Spirit which acted in those Jews or in some Christians now adays worse than Jews Men who seem to have out-done all before them in the Arts of a more refined Malice and improved Calumny Qualities lately sprung up out of the stock of a spreading Atheism and a domineering reigning Sensuality Sins now made National and Authentick and so much both Iudgment and Mercy-proof that it is well if we can be cured without being cut off But to return to the business before us We have now seen the first thing setting forth the greatness of this suffering to wit the Latitude and Extent of it as that it seized both Body and Soul and every Part and Faculty of both Second The next thing declaring its greatness was the intenseness and sharpness of it We have seen already how far it went we are now to consider how deep It fell not on him like a dew or mist which only wets the surface of the Ground but like a pouring soaking Rain which descends into the very Bowels of it There was pain enough in every single part to have been spread in lesser Proportions over the whole Man Christ suffered only the exquisiteness and heights of pain without any of those mitigations which God is pleased to temper and allay it with as it befalls other Men like a Man who drinks only the Spirits of a Liquor separated and extracted from the dull unactive Body of the Liquor it self All the force and activity the stings and fierceness of that troublesome thing were as it were drain'd and distill'd and abridged into that Cup which Christ drank off There was something sharper than Vinegar and bitterer than Gall which that draught was prepared and made up with We cannot indeed say that the sufferings of Christ were long in duration for to be violent and lasting too is above the methods or measures of Nature But he who lived at that rate that he might be said to live an Age every hour was able to suffer so too and to comprize the greatest torments in the shortest space which yet by their shortness lost nothing of their Force and Keenness as a Pen-Knife is as sharp as a Spear though not so long That which promotes and adds to the Impressions of pain is the delicate and exact Crasis and Constitution of the Part or Faculty aggrieved And there is no doubt but the very Fabrick and Complexion of our Saviour's Body was a Master-piece of Nature a thing absolutely and exactly framed and of that fineness as to have the quickest and most sensible touches of every Object and withal to have these advanced by the communion of his admirably made Body with his high and vigorous Intellectuals All which made him drink in Pain more deeply feel every lash every wound with so much a closer and a more affecting sense For it is not to be doubted but a dull Fellow can endure the Paroxysms of a Fever or the Torments of the Gout or Stone much better than a Man of a quick mind and an exalted Fancy because in one Pain beats upon a Rock or an Anvil in the other it prints it self upon wax One is even born with a kind of Lethargy and stupefaction into the World armed with an Iron
Heaven would grow Cheap and Common and which is very preposterous to Conceive they would be Miracles without a Wonder The Papists indeed who having swallowed and digested the Belief of so many Monstrous Contradictions would do but very unwisely and disagreeably to themselves if for ever after they should stick at any advantageous Absurdity these I say hold that the Gift of Miracles still continues ordinary in their Church and that the Christian Religion has still the same need of such Miraculous Confirmations as it had at first Where if by the Christian they mean their own Popish Religion I am so fully of their mind that I think there is need not only of Daily but even of hourly or rather continual Miracles to Confirm it if it were but in that one single Article of Transubstantiation But then we know whose Badge and Character the Scripture makes it to Come in Lying Wonders and we know also that Lying Wonders are true Impostures and theirs are of that Nature that the fallacy is so gross and the Cheat so Transparent in them that as it hardens the Iews and Mahumetans with a desperate Invincible Prejudice against Christianity as a Thing as false as those Miracles which they see it recommended by so I am Confident that it Causes many Christians also to nauseate their own Religion and to fall into secret Atheism being Apt to Think as even these Impostors also pretend that the very Miracles of the Apostles might be of the same Nature with those which they see daily Acted by these Spiritual Juglers so that hereby the grand Proof of Christianity falls to the ground and has no force or hold upon Men's minds at all Whereas our Saviour Himself laid the main Stress and Credit of his Gospel and of his Mission from God upon his Miracles The Works that I do says He bear Witness of me John 10.25 And Believe me for my very Works sake John 14.11 And had I not done amongst them the Works which no other Man did they had not had Sin John 15.24 So that we see here that the Credit of all turned upon his Miracles his mighty and Supernatural Works But as we know it often falls out that when a Man has once got the Character of a Lyer even Truth it self is suspected if not absolutely disbelieved when it comes from the Mouth of such an one So these Miracle-Mongers â—aving alarm'd the World round about tâ—em to a discernment of their Tricks wâ—en they came afterwards to Preach Christianity especially to Infidels and to preâ—â— it upon Men's belief in the strength of those Miraculous Works which were truely and really done by Christ yet since they pretend the same of their own Works too which all People see through and know to be Lyes and Impostures all that they Preach of Christ is presently looked upon as false and fictitious and leaves the minds of Men locked up under a fixed obstinate and impregnable Infidelity Such a fatal blow has the Legerdemain of those Wretches given to the Christian Religion and such jealousies have they raised in some Men's Thoughts against it by their false Miracles and Fabulous Stories of the Romantick feats of their Pretended Saints In all which there is nothing indeed strange or Miraculous but the Impudence and Impiety of such as report and make them and the folly of such as can believe them 2. Pass we now to the second Thing proposed which is to shew what is meant by this Diversity of Gifts mentioned in the Text. It Imports I conceive these Two Things 1. Something by way of Affirmation which is Variety 2. Something by way of Negation which is Contrariety 1. And first for the first of them It imports Variety of which Excellent Qualification it is hard to say whether it makes more for Vse or Ornament It is the very Beauty of Providence and the Delight of the World It is that which keeps alive Desire which would otherwise flag and tire and be quickly weary of any one single Object It both supplies our Affections and Entertains our Admiration Equally serving the Innocent Pleasures and the Important Occasions of Life And now all these Advantages God would have this desireable Quality derive even upon his Church too In which great Body there are and must be several Members having their several Vses Offices and Stations as in the 28 th v. of this Chapter where my Text is the Apostle tells us that God has placed in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Preachers after that Miracles then Gifts of healing helps Governments Diversities of Tongues The particular Function and Employment of so many parts subserving the Joint Interest and Design of the whole As the motion of a Clock is a Complicated motion of so many Wheels fitly put together and Life it self but the Result of so many several Operations all issuing from and Contributing to the support of the same Body The great help and furtherance of Action is order and the Parent of order is Distinction No sence faculty or Member must Encroach upon or interfere with the Duty and Office of another For as the same Apostle discourses in the two next verses Are all Apostles Are all Prophets Are all Teachers Are all Workers of Miracles Have all the Gift of Healing Do all Speak with Tongues Do all Interpret No but as in the Natural Body the Eye does not Speak nor the Tongue see so neither in the Spiritual is every one who has the Gift of Prophecy endued also with the Gift and Spirit of Government every one who may speak well and pertinently enough upon a Text is not therefore presently fit to rule a Diocess nor is a Nimble Tongue always attended with a strong and a steady Head If all were Preachers who should Govern or rather indeed who could be governed If the Body of the Church were all Ear Men would be only hearers of the Word and where would then be the Doers For such I am sure we are most to seek for in our days in which sad experience shews that Hearing of Sermons has with most swallowed up and devoured the Practice of them and manifestly serves instead of it rendring many Zealots amongst us as really guilty of the Superstition of resting in the bare Opus Operatum of this Duty as the Papists are or can be Charged to be in any of their Religious Performances whatsoever The Apostle justly reproaches such with Itching Ears 2 Tim. 4.3 And I cannot see but that the Itch in the Ear is as bad a distemper as in any other part of the Body and perhaps a Worse But to proceed God has use of all the several Tempers and Constitutions of Men to serve the Occasions and Exigences of his Church by Amongst which some are of a Sanguine Chearful and Debonair Disposition having their Imaginations for the most part filled and taken up with Pleasing Ideas and Images of Things seldom or never Troubling their Thoughts either by
st v. we have him Singing of Iudgment as well as Mercy and so raising the sweetest Harmony out of the seeming discord of the most disagreeing Attributes There can be no Composition in any thing without some multiplicity and diversity of Parts and therefore we have a Catalogue of those Gifts which did as it were compound and make up the Primitive Church in the 8 9 and 10 th verses of this 12 th Chapter of the 1 st to the Corinthians Where the Apostle tells us That to one is given the Word of Wisdom to another the Word of Knowledge to another Faith with many more such like Gifts there reckoned up and indeed so many and various were the Gifts poured out by the Spirit of God upon the first Preachers of the Gospel that there is need almost of the Gift of Tongues to rehearse them Of which great Variety as we have hitherto observed the Vse so it is intended also for the Ornament of the Church I say Ornament for I cannot perswade my self that God ever designed his Church for a Rude Naked Unbeautified Lump or lay to the Foundations of Purity in the Ruines of decency The Entrance and Gate of Solomon's Temple was called Beautiful and as there were several Orders of Priests and Levites belonging to it so they had their several Offices their several Chambers and Apartments in that Temple It was a kind of Representation of Heaven in which our Saviour tells us there are many Mansions But behold there are Wiser much Wiser than Solomon amongst us who will have it quite otherwise in the Christian Church Nothing of Order or Distinction nothing of Splendour or Dress must be allowed of here No they are all for lying in the Dust before God as their word is and therefore will have nothing but Dust and Nastiness for the Churches Furniture To attempt a Confutation of such Persons would be superfluous and indeed I have no more to say for those who contend for such a sordid and mean Condition of the Church but that in this they do not so much speak their Devotion as their Education it being generally found that a slovenly way of breeding disposes Men to a kind of slovenly Religion Much might be spoken by way of Analogy between the Internal and External the Spiritual and the Material Ornaments of the Church But both of them serve to dress and set off the Spouse of Christ the first to recommend Her to his own Eyes and the latter to the Eyes of the World Where would be the Beauty of the Heavens themselves if it were not for the multitude of the Stars and the Variety of their Influences and then for the Earth here below and those who dwell therein certainly we might live without the Plumes of Peacocks and the Curious Colours of Flowers without so many different Odors so many several Tastes and such an Infinite diversity of Airs and Sounds But where would then be the glory and lustre of the Universe the flourish and gaiety of Nature if our Senses were forced to be always poring upon the same Things without the Diversion of Change and the quickning Relish of Variety And now when matters stand thus may we not justly say If God so cloathes the Fields so paints the Flowers and paves the very places we Tread upon and with such curiosity provides for all our senses which yet are but the Servants and under Officers of the Soul shall He not much more provide for the Soul it self and his own service thereby in the Glorious Oeconomy and great Concernments of the Church and moreover does not such a Liberal Effusion of Gifts equally Argue both the Power and the Bounty of the Giver Number and multitude are the signs of Riches and the materials of Plenty And therefore though Vnity in the Government and Communion of the Church is indeed a great blessing yet in the Gifts and endowments of it it would be but Penury and a Curse But Secondly As this diversity of the Spirits Gifts imports Variety so it excludes Contrariety Different they are but they are not opposite There is no Jarr no Combat or Contest between them but all are disposed of with mutual Agreements and a happy subordination For as Variety adorns so Opposition destroys Things most different in Nature may yet be united in the same design and the most distant Lines may meet an◠Clasp in the same Centre As for Instance One would Think that the Spirit of Meekness and the Spirit of Zeal stood at that distance of Contrariety as to defie all Possibility either of likeness or Reconcilement and yet as we have already shewn they both may and do equally serve and carry on the great End and business of Religion And the same Spirit which Baptizes with Water Baptizes also with Fire It is an Art to attain the same End by several Methods and to make things of a quite contrary Operation to concur in one and the same Effect Come we now to the third and last Thing proposed from the Words which is to shew What are the Consequences of this Emanation of so many and different Gifts from one and the same Spirit I shall instance in Four directly and naturally deducible from it As First If the Spirit Works such Variety of Gifts and those in so vast a Multitude and for the most part above the force of Nature certainly it is but Rational to Conclude That it is a Being superiour to Nature and so may justly Challenge to it self a Deity There have been several who have impugned the Deity of the Holy Ghost though not in the same manner but the Principal of them come within these two sorts 1. Macedonius and his followers who allowed Him to be a Person but denyed his Deity Affirming Him to be the Chief Angel the supreme and most Excellent of those Blessed Spirits imployed by God in Administring the Affairs of the Church and Conveying good suggestions to the minds of Men and for that cause to be called the Holy Spirit and sometimes simply and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by way of Eminence The Spirit And the same was held also by one Biddle an Heretick of some Note here in England a little before the Restauration That is to say while Confusion and Toleration gave Countenance to almost all Religions except the True 2. But secondly Socinus and his School deny both the Deity of the Holy Ghost and his Personal subsistence too not granting Him to be a Person but only the Power of God To wit That Vis or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which he effects or produces Things And amongst those who assert this none have given such bold strokes at the Deity of the Holy Ghost as Crellius in his Book de uno Deo Patre and his other de Spiritu Sancto Now to draw forth and Insist upon all the Arguments and Texts of Scripture which use to be traversed on both sides in this Controversy would be a
Thing neither to be done within this Compass of time nor perhaps so proper for this Exercise and therefore let it suffice us upon the warrant of express Scripture not Sophisticated by Nice and forced Expositions but plainly interpreted by the General Tradition of the Church to which all private Reason ought in Reason to give place to confess and adore the Deity of the Holy Ghost Now this Holy Spirit is in the Church as the Soul in the Natural Body For as the same Soul does in and by the several parts of the Body exercise several functions and Operations so the Holy Ghost while He animates the mystical Body of Christ Causes in it several Gifts and Powers by which He Enables it to exert Variety of Actions And as in the River Nilus it is the same fountain which supplies the seven streams So when we read of the seven Spirits Revelation 4.5 They are but so many several Gifts of the same Spirit all bearing the Name and Title of their Donor as it is usual for so many several Volumes to bear the single denomination of their Author and we say properly enough that such an one has read Cicero or Plutarch when he has read their Works But now surely this Glorious Person or Being who thus enlightens the minds of all Men coming into the World in some measure and of the Church more Especially cannot be in the Rank and Number of Created Beings The Heathens attributed a kind of Divinity or Godhead to springs because of that Continual Inexhaustible Emanation from them Resembling a kind of Infinity But here we see the very Gifts of the Spirit to be Divine and where we find such a Divinity in the stream certainly we may well ascribe it in a more transcendent manner to the Fountain Besides if the Holy Ghost were not God I cannot see how our Bodies could be well called his Temples since none but God can Challenge to Himself the Prerogative of a Temple And so much for the first Consequent But Secondly This great diversity of the Spirits Gifts may read a Lecture of Humility to some and of Contentment to others God indeed in this great Scheme of the Creation has drawn some Capital Letters set forth some Master-Pieces and furnished them with Higher Abilities than ordinary and given them Gifts as it were with both hands But for all that none can brag of a Monopoly of them none has so absolutely engrossed them all as to be that Thing of which we may say Here we see what and how much God can do No God has wrote upon no Created Being the utmost stint of his Power but only the free Issues and Products of his Pleasure God has made no Man in Opprobrium Naturae only to overlook his Fellow Creatures to upbraid them with their Defects and to discourage them with the Amazing distance of the Comparison He has filled no Man's Intellectuals so full but He has left some Vacuities in them that may sometimes send Him for supplies to Minds of a much Lower Pitch He has Stocked no Land or Countrey with Such Universal Plenty without the mixture of some wants to be the ground and Cause of Commerce for mutual wants and mutual perfections together are the Bond and Cement of Conversation The vast Knowledge and Ruling Abilities of Moses might yet stand in need of Aaron's Elocution And He who speaks with the Tongue of Angels and the greatest Fluency of Spiritual Rhetorick may yet be at a loss when He comes to matters of Controversy and to assert the Truth against the Assaults and Sophistry of a subtle opponent God indeed can and sometimes happily does unite both these Gifts in the same Person But where He does not let not Him who can Preach condemn Him who can only Dispute neither let Him who can dispute despise Him who can only Preach For as we have shewn before the Church is served by both and has equally need of some Men to speak and declare the Word and of others to Defend it it being enough and too often more than enough for one Man to maintain what another says In which Work the speaking part is indeed the more Easy but the Defensive the more glorious And as this may give some Check to the Presumption of the most raised Understandings so it should prevent the despondency of the meanest For the Apostle makes this very use of it in the 21. and 22. v. Where He would not have even the lowest and poorest member of the Church to be dejected upon the Consideration of what it wants but rather be Comforted in the sense of what it has Let not the foot Trample upon it self because it does not rule the Body but consider that it has the honour to support it Nay the greatest Abilities are sometimes beholding to the very meanest if but for this only that without them they would want the Gloss and Lustre of a Foyl The Two Talents went into Heaven as easily as the Five And God has put a Peculiar usefulness even into the smallest Members of the Body answerable to some Need or Defect in the greatest thereby to level them to a mutual Intercourse of Compliance and Benefaction which alone can keep things equal and is indeed the very Poise and bâ—last of Society And thus much for the second Consequent But Thirdly The foregoing Doctrine affords us also a Touchstone for the Tryal of Spirits For such as are the Gifts such must be also the Spirit from which they flow And since both of them have been so much pretended to it is well for the Church that it has rule of judgment and a note of Discrimination There is none who is not willfully a stranger to the Affairs of our Israel but has had the Noise and blusters of Gifted Brethren and of persons pretending to the Spirit ringing in his Ears Concerning which Plea of theirs since we all know that there are Spirits both Good and Bad it cannot be denyed but that in some sence they might have the Spirit such a Spirit as it was and that in a very large measure But as for their Gifts we must Examine them by the standard of those here mentioned by the Apostle And first for that of Prophecy These Men were once full of a Prophecy that the World should be destroyed in the Year 1656 Because forsooth the Flood came upon the Old World in that Year Reckoning from the Creation And again that the Downfal of Pope and Antichrist together with that of Monarchy and Episcopacy which they always accounted as Limbs of Antichrist should be in the Year 1666. And that because some Remarkable mention is made of the Number 666 in the Revelation with many other such like Predictions The Event of all which has shewn that those Men were not of God's Privy Council but on the Contrary that all their Prophecies were like those of Almanacks which warn every Wise Body to prepare against foul weather by their foretelling