know no Master no Father no Teacher no Leader nor no strength besides him Oh Beloved this is not to be done without the drawing of the Father or not but in a Fatherly way since he is the fountain of eternal love the Father or Fountain of love that hath made out his eternal Love himself in the similitude of flesh 2 Cor. 5.19 for God was in Christ saith the Text reconciling the world unto himself not imputing to them their trespasses It must be the love and good will of the Father made out to the soule that must call it and will draw it and cause it to come in to be at peace with him and be reconciled onely by his owne making out his love in Christ So I say this Eternal love that sent out Christ and that gives with Christ all good things it is the same eternal love and power Rom. 8.32 and everlasting goodness and good will of the Father that draws and brings the spirits of men unto Christ else they come not Draw them how is that with such a drawing as must be effectual As the Rain falleth not in vain but the earth bringeth forth fruit meet for them for whom it is appointed Heb. 6.7 So the eternal word and power of the Father made out through the flesh of Christ to the soul calls invites draws and works effectually and brings home the soul and this drawing of the Father is the eternal and everliving power of the Godhead or spirit that wonderfully draws the soules of men and when they are thus drawn they cannot but follow and being thus drawn by him this is the joy life wisdom and righteousness of the soule here it dwels rests recreates it selfe having lost its own life it lives and receives full satisfaction in the life and power and wisdom of Christ Then it is the office of the Son whom the Father hath sent to quicken it and raise it up at the last day and make it like himself even to sit together with him in heavenly places Eph. 2.6 The point I shall offer to your Considerations is this That the drawing of the Father only leads the souls of men unto Christ Doct. otherwise none can come unto him Before this truth can be beleived in us or be of benefit unto us it must become a truth of evidence and manifestation and experience in our hearts yet to witnesse this from the litteral word that this is truth you may be pleased to look upon a place or two yet they can make out nothing to us except the sam be made out by the eternal spirit in uâ— â—lse the word is but a dry tree a dead letter Cant. 1.4 The experience of the Spouse in Cant. 1.4 witnesseth the same draw me and we will run after thee her experience had known that the drawings and leadings of those cords and bands of love that are never to be broken in Jesus Christ the drawings of these bands of love only made her willing to go after that Husband Father and God of Loving-kindness and mercy otherwise man never comes nor is ever drawn but onely by these cords of his love Again the same is witnessed in Jer. 31 3. there he tells you because he had loved them Jer. 31.3 therefore with loving-kindness had he drawn them And in Hosea 11.4 he declares he had drawn them with the Cords of a man with the bands of love Hos 11.4 the soule finds it is onely the power of the Father the love of the Father that hath drawn him out of many waters as the Psalmist witnesses for David had found it so Psal 69. Ibid. 40.2 that he had delivered his soul out of the mire and horrible pit There is nothing but the eternal power of God that is able to draw a soul out of the deep and mierry pit in which it lies the drawing of the Father the power of the Father only draws men unto Christ otherwise they will not nor cannot come That this is so Divine truth witnesses and the experience of all Saints that men will not cannot do act or work nor come in unto Christ without this drawing First because Jesus Christ is not known and understood in the pretiousness excellency and value of him to the lost blind Reas 1 and carnal heart of man for man in this condition knows not the worth sweetness and excellency of him therefore man comes not unto Christ as David witnesses He looked down to see if any of the sons of men would seek after God Psal 14.2 but they are all gone out of the way there is none thath doth good no not one so I say man comes not to Jesus Christ because he is ignorant of that life glory righteousness and immortality that is laid up in him therefore the Apostle renders it as the reason why the Princes of the world Princes of learning and Princes in zeal and religion kild him why because saith he none of the Princes of this world knew him for had they known him they would not have crucified the Lord of life So I say the ground why our spirit comes not to Jesus Christ is that blindness and ignorance that is in the heart of man because he knows not the excellency and pretiousness of Christ As our Saviour said to the woman of Samaria John 4.10 Joh. 4.10 If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith unto thee Give me to drink thou wouldest have asked of him and be would have given thee living water and so it was with Jerusalem Luk. 19.42 Reas 2. shee did not know the things belonging to her peace because they were bid from her eyes Again men cannot come to Jesus Christ because as he is the power of God and appears in the wisdom of God so he appears as folishness unto them and they disdaine him as a weak and mean thing as Isaiah faith in ch 53. v. 2. there is no form nor beauty in him why he should be desired Esa 53.2 as a root out of a dry ground he hath no form no comliness and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him he is despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs and we hid our faces from him he was despised and we esteemed him not therefore the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. 2.14 the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God because they are foolishness unto him and are spiritually discerned and saith he in 1 Cor. 1 23. we preach Christ crucified 1 Cor. 1.23 to the Jewes a stumbling block to the Greeks foolishnesse so that man doth not will not nor cannot come to Jesus Christ because the spirit of Christ appears a poore despicable thing 1 Cor. 3.10 Psal 118.22.23 1 Pet. 2.7 and the heart of man is set against him and even that stone that is to be the head stone of
the corner it is rejected and laid by even by those that account themselves Master builders and this is the Lords doing and it s marvailous in our eyes Again another ground why the souls of men come not to Christ Reas 3 is because the appearing of Christ in the spirit makes all the hidden things of mans heart lie open even that which man himselfe never saw nor never thought was in him and this man hates and will not abide to see nor behold that depth of pride that selfe-glorying hypocrisie c. and taht bottomlesse pit of misery mans eye never looked into himself into his own heart but in the day of the appearance of Jesus Christ all this is discovered and laid open therefore man would by no means come to Christ because the appearing of Christ discovers his sin and condemnation man loves his own life skin for skin and all that a man hath will be give for his life but he that loseth his life shall find it Job 2.4 Mat. 10.39 John 3.19 therefore our Saviour tells us plainly that this is the câ—ndemnation that light is come into the world and men love darkness rather then light because their deeds are evil for he that doth evil hateth the light neither comes to the light lest his deeds should be made manifest that they are evil So here the ground is rendred why the Gospel is Condemnation to the sons of men the Gospel brings light but men resist it hate it Certain it is that the light of Christ is in every creature for he is the true light that enlightens every one that come into the world Joh. 1.9 Mat. 6.23 And if this light that is in us be darkness how great is that darkness Here is the condemnation of all the sons of men that they dare not stand in the light of Christ not being able to behold hell in their own hearts but labour by all means to cover it for the light of Christ would shew them that there is no thought action or duty or performance that ever they did that had any thing of purity in it but it was all sin Now man not daring to see his own misery therefore he runs from this light and gets himselfe behinde any tree He runs from the appearance of him that sits upon the Throne and so resolves he will not see his own misery death and condemnation Rev. 6.16 neither will he believe it though he be told it by an Angel from Heaven he will not come to the light lest thereby he may know or be convinced that his deeds are onely evil Againe this is the work of the Father to draw men unto Christ because no lesse then infinitness and Eternity is able to bring God and man together the separation between God and man is so vast and they are at such an infinite distance since his fall that nothing but Infinitness can bring these two infinite ends together for the soul of man in one sin sins against an infinite God in any one sin it goes out and turns away from the infinitnesse of all blessednesse good joy glory and peace and so goes down into the infinitness of nothing for nothing is a kinde of infinitness and he is indeed gone into a far Country Luk. 15. 13. as the Prodigal was now therefore nothing but the infinite powers and infinite wisedome and strength that is in the Lord is able to bring life out of death something out of nothing therefore there is nothing to bring the heart of man out of that far country wherein to it is gone and out of that bottomless pit into which is is fallen nothing can do it but infinitness and eternity 2 Cor. 4.14 nothing but the same spirit that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead can quicken our mortal bodies there is nothing I say able to do it but the same spirit to bring a poor soul from hell and condemnation and make it one in unity with the spirit And therefore the Apostle witnesses Eph. 2.13 you that were aliens hath he made nigh by the blood of Christ Eph. 2.13 and you that were sometimes afar off hath he made near by the blood of Christ So now I hope this appears a truth to you and I hope the Lord will make it so in you by experience till then it is not a savour of life unto life for except you have the Scriptures made good in the power thereof in your own hearts what are the Scriptures to you And I have alledged them for that very end that you may finde and say These things are all fulfilled not only among the Jewes and at Jerusalem but really and truely in my selfe So then I hope some of you see it is the alone power of the Father that draws the soules of men unto Christ otherwise no man can come unto him But give me leave yet a little farther for the clearing it and explaining it by the way What this power of the Father is or how the Father doth draw or bring the soules of men unto Christ God is said to be a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth Joh. 4.23 God is nothing but life glory and power spirit and immortality and whatsoever thing we could have a notion or similitude of that is able to set out strength and life and glory and wisdom yet all these come infinitly short of setting out the strength and power of the Lord of Hosts the great Jehovah who is Psal 121.5 he that keeps Israel Psal 121.5 he that keepes Israel neither slumbreth nor sleepeth so that is is to be cleared what power it is that brings the spirits of men unto Jesus Christ Certainly there is nothing but the same eternal spirit that was in Jesus Christ it is the same immortal and immediate hand and power of God that doth ever raise up the soule of man and bring it unto Christ and nothing but that spirit only and therefore from hence is that of the Apostle that no man can so much as say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12.3 Joh. 3.5 and except a man be born of water and the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of God for t is all one and t is wrought by one and the same Almighty Spirit to say that Jesus is the Lord by the spirit and to be born of the spirit for man to say confess so ten thousand times if he do not feel him to be the Lord and the Almighty in him all his confessions in words are nothing And by one spirit saith the Text ye are all baptized into one body even the whole body and they all testifie one and the same thing that there is but one spirit 1 Cor. 12.13 Eph. 4.4 one Lord one Faith one Baptisme one God and Father of all Eph. 4.4 and they have all been made to drink into
1 Cor. 12.13 whether they be Jews or Gentiles and have been all made to drink into one spirit I also bear witness to One Ordinance and One Administrator Mediator Redeemer and Intercessor which is the Lord Jesus Christ blessed for ever Joh. 14.6 who is the way the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father but by him and it is HE that is ordained Acts 10.42 to be Judge of quick and dead by the Father and there is no name given under Heaven Acts 4.12 by which men can be saved but the name of Jesus neither is there salvation in any other for there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit and there are differences of Administrations 1 Cor. 12.4 5 6. but the same Lord and there are diversities of Operations but it is the same God which worketh all in all And I witness that it is Jesus Christ only by his spirit that makes men Able Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter 2 Cor 3.6 but of the Spirit And do all teach and speak in and from the power of that spirit as IT is pleased to give them utterance And therfore all those that claim an Ordination by man or from man that speak from the spirit of the world from wit learning and humane reason who preach for hire Jer. 23.1 Ezek. 34.2 Zach 11.17 Joh. 10.1 and make merchandise of the souls of men I witness they are all Baals Priests and Idol-Shepherds who destroy the Sheep and are Theeves and Robbers who came not in by the door of the Sheepfold but climbed up another way And are the Magitians Sorcerers Inchanters Micah 5.12 Soothsayers Necromancers and Consulters with familiar spirits which the Lord will cut off out of the land 2 Tim. 3.8 9. so that his people shall have no more Soothsayers And as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses so doe these resist the Truth men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith but they shall proceed no farther for their folly shall be manifest to all men as theirs also was woe unto them for they have gone in the way of Cain and ran greedily after the errors of Balaam for reward and perished in the gainsaying of Core Jud. 11.12 13. These are spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you feeding themselvs without fear Clouds they are without water carried about of winds Trees whose fruit withereth without fruit twice dead plucked up by the roots Raging waves of the Sea foaming out their own shame wandring Stars to whom is reserved the blackness of Darkness for ever And now Brethren I commend you to God and to the word of his grace Act. 20.32 which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified Mind and give heed to that meek stil quiet and silent spirit of the Lord Jesus that is in you which is Pure Holy Innocent Underfiled and Righteous teaching and leading into all truth righteousness and purity like it selfe unto which if you give heed as unto a light shining in a dark place it will preserve and present you spotless and without blame before him whose eys behold no iniquity which that the Lord may fulfil in his due time in you is the Continual prayer of him who is Yours in the bonds of Love in the Lord Jesus Jo. WEBSTER To the Reader THe Author of these ensuing Sermons being cast by providence upon some imployment in the Lords work in this great City was much Carried forth in his ministration to set up the LORD JESVs in the Hearts of men in opposition to all that is of flesh and all that is of man which caused many out of an impatient spirit to distaste the things that were delivered But many that heard him being inwardly acquainted with what was spoken by him were very desirous to have that published for the benefit of all which they themselves had the happinesse to receive from his own mouth apprehending it to be the Bridegroomes voyce in him and therefore savory to them He being now at a great distance from the Presse and not in a capacity of overseeing that which the Transcriber may have failed in the Reader is therfore desired not to mind the manner of delivery but the matter of that which is here presented wherein if single-hearted he will doubtlesse finde a lively Discovery of many sweet Breathings of the spirit of Jesus Christ from One that appeares to have been long inwardly taught of God and that wholy laid aside all those Humane advantages wherewith he was and is plentifully furnished that he might commend his Message unto the hearts and consciences of men Not with enticing words of mans wisdome but in demonstration of the spirit and of power Vpon which account and no other what follows is recomended to the perusall of all that desire to benefit by what they read by Him that Teacheth to profit Thine In the service of our most holy Faith JOHN CARDELL JOSHUA SPRIG ROBERT BACON TO THE READER Dear Friends HAving obtained the sight of these ensuing Sermons and read some of the matter therein contained they yeilded such a rellish and savour to my Spirit that I could not choose but set to my Seal that it flowed from that spirit which is both pure peaceable which I do not to praise the person or the matter for to man there is none due and to the matter there is none needful because it is Truth and therefore needs not the shelter approbation or praise of men being in it self able to win praise to it self and to carry forth it self against all the oppositions of men or Devils Here thou shalt not find Terms of Art nor quirks of humane Learning and FALLEN Wisdom though the party through whom it was conveied excel in natural aquirements as much as the most but naked truth declaring it self through an earthen vessel in simplicity and plainnesse of speech evidencing thereby that our faith ought not nay doth not stand in the wisdome of mens words but in the power of God And hereby thou mayest see if thou be not blind in the carnal conceits of thy earthly wisdom as most of the Earthen Saints of our times are what self-denial is wrought in this Creature through which the Eternal Spirit hath breathed forth these ensuing precious truths that he having and enjoying all those humane Excellencies of Learning and knowledge which are so in the worlds account and lookt upon as helps to understand the things of God but used to help those that have them to worldly honour and preferment which indeed is the onely use is made of them and no other whatever is otherwise pretended but He in the height of this wisedom is made to become a fool for Christs sake and is willing to lose all honour dignity and preferment that the world and the wisdome thereof can confer upon him that he may enjoy
he may be delivered from death and wrath Ezek. 20.43 1 Cor. 5.5 and that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord and that he may bring him to rest peace wisdom righteousness and glory in that alone and Aâ—sufficient Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ in whom alone are all these but in the creature nothing but trouble confusion death sinne hell and condemnation in which All the sonnes of men are concluded and all their best workes and Christ alone is ordained of the Father to be our strength wisdom righteousness redemption 1 Cor. 1.30 and salvation Him alone hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and Saviour to give repentance to Israel and forgivenesse of sins Him alone I say being made unto us wisedome righteousness sanctification and redemption 1 Cor. 1.29 That so no flesh should glory in his presence but according as it is written He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord and in the Lord alone THE Power of Divine Attraction or the Fathers great Love in drawing poor sinners unto his Sonne Delivered at Whitehall on the Sixth of John verse 44. No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day BEloved when the power of God from Eternity which was himself was made out in the appearance of flesh at Jerusalem when this eternal word I say was in that Vaile which was the making out of the true body of Christ when the Saviour of the world appeared in the flesh to make out himselfe to the Sonnes of men in all his actings and speakings we finde nothing else sought acted or spoken by him but the fulfilling and accomplishing of the work and will of the Father about which he was sent Joh. 6.38 and therefore whatsoever he did or said was onely that he might finish and accomplish that great work about which the Father had sent him therefore in that regard he said he had meat to eat that man knew not of John 4.32 understood not did not see And as he came to fulfil the work of the Father not onely in the flesh in those manifold and unparalleled sufferings he underwent but also in the power of that spirit that he might convey life and salvation to the soules of men this was his meat and drink so that this is it that in all his speakings he chiefly holds out so here he having declared that he was that bread that came down from Heaven that only true and spiâ—itual Manna which cometh down from Heaven Joh. 6 33. that nourisheth the soules of men and besides which there is none other Hereupon he holding forth this so boldly and so clearly the Jewes the scribes and Pharisees those Religious and learned men of the times not knowing the mystery of this bread became extreamly offended and despised and derided him saying Vers 41 Hew can this man give us his flesh to eat Truly Beloved that which is held out to us by this is That the Jew is in every man by nature and is discontented at the speaking out of the spiritual things of Jesus Christ When it is holden out that there is no other Wisdome Strength Righteousness and Holiness but that which is onely in and from the Son of God and that this is the only meat and drink of the soule And that there is not any one of the sonnes of men that hath either wisdom or holinesse or power or any good thing of his owne this is a hard saying to flesh and blood 1 Cor. 2.14 for the natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God neither indeed can he for they are spiritually discerned The Words now read are the answer of our Saviour to the murmuring objection of the carnall minded man or Jew saying how can this man be bread unto us or Manna or meat and drink Joh. 6.42 Is not this the Son of Joseph and the reason is because they saw onely the Vail but not the Godhead the eternity or everliving WORD that was under that Vail viz. his flesh or his external appearance Now he therefore gives an answer to this their murmuring and shews the reason and ground why it could not be otherwise with them that their carnal minds could do no other but murmur at these spiritual makings out of the minde of God Because no man could know him love him and believe in him but those that were given him of the Father those that were drawn by the spirit and love of the Father onely would understand love and beleeve and know him but otherwise all others they would nor could do no other but murmur and repine for all others in seeing they did see and not understand for their foolish heart was blinded and darkened with impenitency of heart therefore saith he no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him First here is discovered by way of Negation and Exclusion the impossibility of man as man to come to Christ no man c. Secondly here is laid down the power way and means by which man comes on to Christ and that is in and by the drawing of the Father when the FATHER draws man cannot but come and when the Father draws not man cannot come unto Christ No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day as if he should say if he be not drawn and raised up by me he can never come and I never raise nor draw till the last day till mans day mans power wisdom strength holiness all that is in or of man is at an end and that he is lost distressed and undone Then at that last day I will raise him up I will come in and stay no longer for while mans day that is mans life wisdom and strength lasts there is nothing but resistance blindnesse fightings and oppositions First no man can come that is In his natural blind dead and lost condition wherein he is as a dead bone Ezek. 37. there is no life at all in him wherein he is stark blinde and sees not the things that concern his peace therefore he hath no will nor power nor mind to come unto me UNTO ME Luk. 19.42 who am the Saviour of the world the truth righteousnesse and Sactification it selfe to come unto me that is to ME indeed for men had power enough to come to Christs bodily appearance while he was on the earth but this is not the comming to him to come in conceit notion opinion or in a verbal or litteral way according to the History and relation of him But to come to Christ is to come in the life of Christ in the power of God to come unto him in the eternall power that HE may onely teach them lead them and guide them and be their onely Master that they may
one spirit which is that One Boundless Infinite and Eternal Spirit of the Father that like the wind bloweth where it lifteth and we may hear the sound and tasste the operation of it in us Joh 3.8 but know not whence it cometh nor when it will work but cometh and goeth when it pleaseth and not in the least when men will they have no command of that free and good spirit It is onely this one spirit that makes the soul one with Jesus Christ therefore the Apostle witnesses if Christ be in you Rom. 8 11 he that raised up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by that spirit that dwelleth in you this is that spirit that searches all things and tries all things even the hidden things of God 1 Cor 2.10 this is that living spirit that blows upon the dry bones the spirit of the four winds that blows upon the dead and rotten bones Ezek. 37.4 and the blowing of this spirit brings sinew to sinew bone to bone and this makes them live and stand up before him and there is nothing else but this spirit that doth it there is nothing can be conjoined with it However men may say and keep a great deal of busling about the power of man that so it may not be said there was any to help him yet I say it is the spirit of God alone that draws man to Jesus Christ that it may not be said that his Idol hath done it for otherwise the mouths of all would not be stopped Ibid. 48.5 Rom. 3.19 Zach. 2.13 and all flesh would not become silent before him Neither would it be said that the Saints rejoyce in nothing else but in the Lord Jesus alone Obj. But I know it will be objected Oâ—bj though God doth thus and he onely draws the soule to Jesus Christ yet this is not done without means and instruments Answ First Answ truly I grant it is so but the wayes of God are like himself infinite and he is infinitly wise and his wayes are past all the thoughts and imaginations of the hearts of men for eye hath not seen Rom. 11.33 1 Cor. 2.9 nor ear heard nor is the heart of man ever able to finde out the secret wayes of the Lord. Secondly God hath not onely determined a thing but determined also by what power and instruments and means he will bring it to passe but in this it is otherwise with God then with man Man may propose a means to an end that is weak and may faile but God never intends and purposes an end but the means is as infinite as himselfe and as eternal and omnipotent as himselfe so that his meanes cannot faile he speaks and it shall and must come to pass 'T is true God hath ordained the means by which he brings men to Jesus Christ Psal 33.9 but this means is hiw own power and spirit and strength Obj. But thou wilt say Obi. Is it solely by himself alone without an Organ and Instrument is there not something subordinate Answ Truly the workings of God have alwayes a subject wherein to be manifested Answ as in man there is the soule which is the Recipient and subject in which the things of life and death are acted there is usually an Organ And how should they hear without a Preacher Rom. 10.14 yet both the Organ and the Preacher are empty dead things And if I or any man in being exercised about the things of God should look upon our selves otherwise quite laying by all thoughts of power wisdom ability to do any thing but to be only as a Pipe or Cistern through which those divine things passe and no more we take that praise to our selves which is alone due to God Now though it be so I say that this Organ is but a dead thing through which the life of God passeth if we be any thing else in our message and speaking to you but as men that have denied our selves laid aside our own wisedome strength conceits and abilities and all the workings of our own heads if we be not dead to all things that so the Lord may speak through us then I may boldly say we are not those Instruments and Embassadours by which he entreats his people to be reconciled unto him 1 Cor. 3.6 Therefore be pleased to consider that place of the Apostle in 1 Cor. 3.6 I have planted and Apollo hath watered So then Paul may be called a Planter and Apollo a Waterer but doth he goe no farther nay saith he Neither is he that planteth any thing nor he that watereth any thing Vers 7 but God that gives the encrease thoug they may improperly be called PLANTERS and WATERERS yet neither is the Planter any thing nor the Waterer any thing So that it is clear it is no otherwise but thus It pleased God out of his own love and goodnesse to condescend so low as to speak the Words of Eternal Life mercy by us and to one another that men of the same Blood and Frailtie should become Instruments and no other in the hand of the Lord taking no glory to themselves in any thing onely to be as weak and fraile and dead Instruments whereby the Lord will speak out the Words of Eternal Life But this creature is to be considered as nothing at all neither is he that planteth any thing nor he that watereth but God is all therefore I say 1 Cor. 3.7 till it be so with us that we are dead to all our own wit and reason and all our understanding till these are killed and dead and we stand onely waiting upon the Lord as Habakkuk saith Hab. 2.1 Hab. 2.1 I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the Tower and will watch to see what he will say unto me and what I shall answer I say when the soule is thus dead and silent to his own wit to his own selfeseeking to all his own opinions of wisdom or strength or parts I say there is no man which is a true Prophet or a Messenger from God till then For all the Prophets and Embassadours from God come thus qualified and they are not ashamed thus to shame themselves and to be as nothing in the eyes of themselves and others that so the Lord alone may be lifted up and exalted in them And when God appears thus in the poor dead Organ then usually God works in them and by them For saith the Apostle We have this treasure in earthen vessels 2 Cor. 4.7 God useth Organs and Instruments but there is no Efficiency in the Instruments for notwithstanding all that I can say and speak if the eternal sense and mind of the spirit be not at the back of it and goe home with it it will be but a Parable a History and a Paradox to you Mat. 13.11 Saith Christ to you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom So then
and say we are the Substitutes of Christ That which we deny him we take to our selves certainly all this is nothing else but hellish arrogancy and the pride of the man of sin and ANTICHRIST within us that exalts himself in us above all that is called God 2 Thes 2.4 that puts us into these wayes and to think that we can draw or we can drive to Jesus Christ when there is none can do this but meerly and solely that only and eternal power and spirit of the Father Thirdly if it be so as we have clearly proved and none dare deny it Use 3 neither can then the wisdome nor power nor strength nor any rules of Fellowships or Church-gatherings or any discipline of man draw nor drive others in but 't is onely the drawing and driving of the eternal power of the Fathers spirit It is true the Sons of Men may do and have done and do compass Sea and Land and what is it to doe to make a Proselyte and what then he is but twofold more the child of perdition then before Mat. 23.15 They may indeed gather men into Fellowships and Churches as they call them But to gather men into the spirit of the Lord Jesus this was never the work of man no strength nor power nor wisedome of man could ever doe it and without question every plant that the Heavenly father hath not planted Ibid. 15.13 shall be rooted up It is true and I grant there was some mention made of the Church and Churches in the times of the Apostles but what Churches were they They were no other but what were called by God himselfe in the power of his spirit and not of or by man Where do we read of this mans Church or the other mans Members but they were called the Church of God and not divided by those distinctions of vain-glorious self-seeking ambitious covetous men as they are in these dayes Nor did they Owne one another or had any relation one unto another in their love or esteem upon that account Note But they looked upon one another in what place soever as but one body and having all but one spirit meerly because thty were all baptized into One body by that One Spirit 1 Cor. 12.13 They did not know one another as they were of Paul and of Apollo of Cephas and this mans Church as they now call it But as they were all baptized by one Spirit and into one Body and as they were of one mind and of one spirit and so of one heart Heb. 12.13 and so brought to the general assembly of the Church of the first born And therefore we must conclude there is nothing that gathers or draws in the soul of man unto Jesus Christ but the everlasting power of God We know also men may worship at Jerusalem this way and that way and pretend to honour that Christ who died there and yet they doe but draw nigh to him with their lips Esa 29.13 but not with the spirit in truth but no man can do these things in the power of God nor so much as SAY that Iesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost and by the power of Jesus Christ And be sure that every plant that my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted up From whence also lastly Vse 4 If the power of the Father only draws the spirit of man unto the Son and unto Jesus Christ then let every man look in and unto his own heart and see whether he doe not resist the drawing of the spirit Behold saith he I stand at the door and knock if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and sup with him Rev 3.20 and he with me enter but into thy own Chamber and be still and look into thy own brest and see whether thou be not daily and hourly resisting the Spirit of God that would draw man unto Christ didst thou but look into thy own heart thou shouldst find there was never any thought that did ever arise in thee to check or controle thee in thy evil wayes but that very thought was a light in thee if thou wouldst have heeded or regarded it And that light also did tell thee that all thy best actions were but sin and that all the wayes thou walkest in there is nothing but fear in them and death in them and misery in them And thy best and holiest services are an abomination There is a spirit within thee that is still troubling and checking thee for every proud and for every evil thought and what is this for 2 Cor. 8.2 onely to let thee see that thou art dead and reprobate to every good work and all thy deeds are evil and all that thou knowest thou knowest not as thou oughtest to know It is to let thee know that thou art naked and poor and blind and miserable It is to take away thy false strength and thy false wisedome and riches and to let thee see thy weaknesse and folly and poverty but this is thy onely misery and the general universal misery of all the sons of men that they dare not stand in the light and abide in it To abide in such a light which shewes that man hath not one good thought Psal 73.22 but is as a beast before God That he hath no holinesse nor no righteousnesse at all Now for thee so farre to presume and to think so highly of thy selfe that thou art of such abilities and wisdome and parts as to sit down at the head-end of the Table or because that thou hast gotten in thy own conceit into the best way of Religion for knowledge and practice and performances and therefore thou art Some-body and thou must be magnified and reverenced and for these men now to be brought back to look into their own hearts and see themselves as bad as the rest of the world and to see themselves the worst of men Oh Beloved what a mighty fall must these men have before ever God brings them into this condition which must be if ever they be brought or drawn home to Jesus Christ by the power of the Father And yet to adde to this besides all this thou hast gotten a covering for thy sins and hast wipt thy mouth and said thou hast done nothing when all thy wayes are nothing but resistings fightings and emnity against God Do not men resist him when they seek esteem to themselves and they must be great and respected and honoured what is all this but to rob Jesus Christ of his honour and steal it away to put upon themselves Oh that the power of God would but make men abide in the Center of their own hearts to see that there is nothing there but darkness nothing but folly in regard of God and Christ if man would but dwell and abide here to see himselfe lost and wretched miserable and undone then God would
must needs be wavering and unstable like the waves of the Sea and still casting up mire and dirt while thou seekest any refreshment in the patterns themselves whatsoever pattern thou canst imitate or build upon that is made by hands and be sure God dwels not in them for saith the Apostle Acts. 7.43 Ch. 17.24 25. â— he dwels not in Temples made with hands neither is he worshipped with mens hands as though he needed any thing seeing he gives breath and life and being and motion unto all Whatever Tabernacle or Temple man builds they are but like man they are fading and perishing Mark 13.2 Heb. 12.23 and there shall not one stone of them be left upon another but when the soule comes to the true assembly of the Saints to spirits of just men made perfect to the spiritual Manna and to the Heavenly Jerusalem to the true Tabernacle Jesus Christ and eats that Manna that doth not perish but is meat indeed and life indeed then t is silled and satisfied and never before So that while the soule is seeking after a life and to get food in the pattern and shadow and form of Heavenly things it is sure to find nothing but emptinesse bitternesse and vanity he shall be like the hungry man Isaiah speaks of Esa 29.8 who dreams and thinks he eates and when he awakes finds nothing So the Carnal men they are praying and reading and keeping themselves strict to outward rules and when they have done they think they find comfort and refreshment by them and they break bread and they are speaking one to another and think they have consolation by it but alas this food will all fail thou thinkest thou hast eaten Christ when thou hast used these but when the wrath of God falls upon thy soul and thou art summoned to judgement thou wilt finde there was no meat to feed thee in these things thou callest Ordinances nor there is no water in these Vessels to quench thy parched soul for though God of his good pleasure gave patterns of heavenly things yet they were not those heavenly things themselves but are onely the type and shadow of that divine heavenly Tabernacle which God did pitch and not man Heb. 8.2 And hence it apparently appears that the power life and the meat and drink of a child of God is onely and alone Jesus Christ for he never eats and drinks nor moves out of God for he eats and drinks and doth all in God and thus he is come to that which is perfect to the fountain of all fulness Heb. 12.27 28. to the Mount that cannot be shaken now he is gone over and passed by all the similitudes and shadows and patterns and is come to that living fountain of the water of life it selfe of which whoever drinks shall live for ever and it shall be in him a well of water springing up to eternall life Joh. 4.14 Then this further discovers to us that the Tabernacle of God is a hidden thing that the mysteries of God in Christ are covered so that the Saints themselves cannot see them except they be given unto them from above 1 Cor. 2.8 14. then much more the natural man perceives not the things of God which are spiritually discerned and which none of the men nor Princes of this world knew for had they known him they would not have crucified the Lord of life Ibid. 1.21 and when the world by wisdom knew not God it pleased the Lord by the foolishnesse of preaching to save those that believe So that I say it is even now too true according as we have a proverb and receiv'd as a Maxim but from whence it arose I am not certain that the place of PARADISE doth not now appeare in the earth no man knows where it is but sure I am that Paradise and place of pleasure which is the enjoyment of Jesus Christ is vanished and disappears is gone away and almost quite removed from the beholdings of all the sonnes of men Adam was turned out and you never heare where it is nor of any that can describe the way to come to it Even so is the true knowledge of Jesus Christ in the mystery So that the light of God and the spirituall Manna it is a thing that is utterly hidden and removed from all the wisdom and endeavours of any of the sonnes of men and unlesse the Lord himselfe come forth and reveale it and make it manifest the wisest of men in the worlds esteem may doe as those wicked men in Sodome when the Angel was sent to bring out Lot being stricken blind Gen. 19.11 they laboured to finde the dore but could not so he that is in the dark knows not whither he goes so this is cleare and true to this very day that the true Tabernacle of the Lord is still covered with a cloud no man can see it till God discover it to him Now notwithstanding this being so yet what are the waies of men what doe they undertake to doe Doe not all men that come out under the name of being the Ministers of Christ undertake the opening and revealing the Tabernacle of God yes but what is the light by which they can shew it unto us Is it any other but what man hath within himselfe and what he hath attained by his wits and industry by the Vniversity and searching severall Authors Yet notwithstanding they will discover this Tabernacle and undertake to take off the cloud that covers it and they will shew how the pattern leads to it and yet if they be put to it they themselves must deny they ever saw it truly and really what it was or is but they will be guessing and imagining the way that leads to it Now for a man to direct another the way that never understood that way may very easily make good what Christ saith If the blind lead the blind both fall into the ditch And there be other men that are so grosly ignorant as to tell us That if they goe but to an Academy a few yeeres and gather a little Philosophy and although it be that of the worst sort relishing of those that hold the immortality of the World and mortality of the Soule now even these they come out as they think furnished and by this they will undertake to discover to us the heavenly Canaan and Tabernacle of God Generally most men what ever they be though they differ in judgement yet say they are either Papists or Socinians c. And they have the boldnesse to hold forth these things though they be never so blind and dark in the things of God And I finde very few but generally all take up this for truth that Humane learning is the way to discover this by Now I beseech you see whether this be any lesse then the hellish pride of Satan to make men goe out in the pride of their hearts Jer. 29.23 and Ezek. 13.7
eat or receive me but he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood for my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed and no man can give or take of this bread but my Heavenly Father only giveth you of that Heavenly Bread Ioh. 6. Ibid. 6. T is not the outward flesh of Christ or his external body was the life of the world But that same spirit and nature that was in Christ is to be in as many as do receive him this and no other is the life of the World viz. Christ his comming into the souls of men discovering them to be of the seed of that evil one and to be deceived to be lost to be in darkness and discovering the works of Darkness making manifest the works of the Devil and that he dwels in the soul under a disguise pretending himself to Christ when he is a Devil and Antichrist and is no other but the father of lyes Now Christ without us never does this but when he does it in us then is fulfilled that of the Apostle to the Galathians Before whose eyes Iesus Christ hath been evidently set forth Crucified among you or in you Gal. 3.1 The seeing of him then or now crucified outwardly was nothing that was but the shadow of the life and substance but really to see themselves to be the crucifiers of Christ this was the lively crucifying set out before them Then Beloved from hence t is clear against all gainsayers that it is the incomming of the Power of God in our spirits by which alone our Freedom Deliverance and Salvation is wrought T is not all the bolding forth of a Christ crucified the Letter can do it though all those things done in the Letter were true yet they are nothing to us if we be not saved delivered redeemed from our bondage and captivity therfore t is that we see many thousands in the world that can professe Christ and tell large stories of his external life and sufferings and yet never felt the power of his death or life in themselves for they can follow their own wills and they can love the world and extol and magnifie themselves and are as great in their own eyes as any other who professe him not Therefore Christ is not Salvation nor Deliverance to them Master we have eaten and drank in thy presence we have preacht and cast out Devils in thy Name Luk. 13.26 we have cast away Swearing and Lying and Whoring and Drunkenness and we have taken up this duty and the other and we have held forth thy Name to the World and we have been Sober Grave and Austere in our conversation but for all this Christ will profess I never knew you for ye are workers of iniquity For Satan had his full possession still and ye are no other but painted Sepulchres fair and glorious without but full of all rottennesse stench lothsomnesse and dead mens bones Then which nothing can stink more Therefore t is not holding forth the highest profession or Christ in the Letter or externally that sets us free except Christ come into the heart and makes us free indeed else t is not freedom indeed t is but the profession and the shew but it must be even the same Almighty power that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead we having the same spirit of faith as the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 4.13 14. knowing that he that raised the Lord Iesus shall raise us up 2 Cor. 4.13 14. Rom. 8.11 by Iesus And again in Rom. 8.11 But if the spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit which dwelleth in you And therfore how wofully hath the professing World been mistaken still in all ages about Christ without them and of Christ according to the Letter For if they do but assent to that and say Christ suffered for them and they must apply him by an external beleeving and so he is made their Righteousnesse Sanctification and Redemption and though they sin and fall if they can but cast their eyes upon Christ suffering upon the Cross Joh. 3.14 as the Israelites by looking up upon the brazen Serpent they shall be healed and pardoned and saved and yet we know withall that all those things were done and were necessary for the accomplishing of the Fathers purpose and the mind of God but in all those things it was not FINISHED and yet here the world sticks and builds their Religion and this they think is as much as is required and he that shall speak against it and say they fall short of Jesus Christ they cry out upon him for a Seducer and an Heretick and they are as mad against him as they were against Paul when he preacht that they were no gods which were made by men And are ready to burst out upon them as full of wrath and madnesse as the Jewes upon Steven when he ript them up and spoke home to them Acts. 7.54 Acts 7.54 c. And when they heard these things they were cut to the heart and gnashed upon him with their teeth Yet for all that know that all this believing wil not serve thy turn but it must be Christ manifested in thee seeing him crucified and rising again and sitting in Heavenly places in thy heart else whatever thou talkest of Christ and of his miracles if thou hast no witness no evidence of the truth of them in thy own heart what is all that ever He did and what 's all that ever He suffered to thee It may be thou mayest have a notion and an opinion of the things of God and thou hast them by History and by Relation or Education or Example or Custom or by Tradition or because generally all or most men have received them for truths but if thou hast no evidence of his mighty miracles and God-like power in thine own soul how or which way canst thou be a witness that they are the things thou hast heard and seen for all those outward things are but Representations Figures and Patterns of the Heavenly things themselves Thou mayest have a strong opinion but yet no experience of them that Jesus Christ hath freed and delivered thy soul Again take notice hence That as Christ delivers not but as he comes Himselfe into the soules of men and is born in them so it is not opinions nor notions nor forms nor washings nor disciplines nor any external rules or conformities that can work deliverance for the soule but it must be God in us operating by his own Almighty power every man is spiritually in Sodom and in Egypt Rev. 11.8 where our Lord is Spiritually and most truly crucified And as the world is deceived in their Forms and their Notions thinking they shall help and save them So likewise they take a great deal of satisfaction to themselves in making of Books and
away their captivity Oh! that men were but to come to this condition to be sensible of their misery that they did but really see they were in Babylon in Captivity Oh then what mourning what hanging their Harps upon the Willows Psal 137.1 c. sitting down by the Rivers of Babylon weeping and crying out Oh how shall we sing the Lords song in a strange Land And wishing and saying Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones Will the Ox lowgh when he hath fodder Job 6.5 saith Job Till they have deliverance they cannot but mourn Rev. 5.5 and none can deliver them but the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah to such a soul only is Iesus Christ precious others may talk of him and make a great profession of Iesus Christ in the Letter and talk of Iesus Christ his dying at Jerusalem and of beleeving and Salvation by him but they cannot love him till Iesus Christ be IMMANVEL a Saviour in them Mat. 1.23 then and never before can these Elders throw down their Crowns before the Lamb saying Thou only art worthy to receive honour and glory and power Rev. 4.10 11. for thou only hast redeemed us by thy Blood Thou seest thou canst not so much as move hand or foot to help thy self All thy tears thy prayers are nothing but as Iesus Christ prayes and cryes in thee by his spirit with groans unutterable which cannot be exprest Rom. 8.26 This take as the first difference and examination between those that are wounded and sick and condemned the one he is so and he can go to no other but only to Iesus Christ to be healed and saved The others when they are so they can finde help and rest in men in means in ordinances in fellowships in reformations and better ordering of their lives by their own power The other finde there is no resting no sitting still in any thing below Christ but they hunger and thirst and wait the good pleasure of Iesus Christ and when the spirit which bloweth where it listeth will blow upon their Hearts John 3.8 They are like a hungry man whose stomack doth so gnaw he cannot rest without food and like a thirsty man who cannot be satisfied without drink It is not husks nor shadows nor pictures nor Idols will serve his turn but he must have real food he must have Christs body which is meat indeed Ibid. 6.55 and Christs blood which is drink indeed He must have the Eternal God help him or all he can do is nothing to him Beloved were men but come to this to be really miserable and truly in bonds which men so much talk of and so little feel ye need not direct them this way and that way ye need not bid them cry or pray or run to hear or the like their very misery would constrain them whereas otherwise men take up these things for form and for custom and complement and to be thought religious and to quiet their consciences and the like But they would be like the blind man which notwithstanding they hindred him and reproved him and bid him not pray nor cry yet the sense of his blindness made him cry out after Jesus Christ Jesus thou son of David have mercy on me Luke 18.39 If men did but find see and feele the burning within them and the sting of the fiery Serpent they need not be bid to look up to the Brazen Serpent John 3.14 Secondly If thou beest a true seeker of deliverance a true waiter thou wilt abominate and scorn all other Deliverers but only this Only Deliverer Jesus Christ all other thou lookest upon them as Physitians of no value Job 13 4. Thou seest there is but one Teacher but one Counsellour but one Saviour They will not go after them that say Loe here is Christ and loe there Mat 24.23 in this way and in that form saying joyn to us we are in the best way here ye shall find rest and satisfaction but they see really and are fully convinced that there is nothing else but the Eternal Father making out himselfe through his son 1 Tim. 3.16 c. even Christ manifested in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles beleeved on in the world and received up into Glory And sayes the Apostle Gal. 4.3 4. Even so we when we were Children were in bondage under the Elements of the world but when the fulnesse of Time was come God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law that we might receive the Adoption of Sons And because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father So that it is clear that soul that truly seeks deliverance it sees Jesus Christ only to be able to deliver that there is nothing lesse then Him nothing besides Him But herein lies the misery of all the Sons of men they pretend to seek Iesus Christ and think they have found him because they have heard of a Iesus Christ who died at Ierusalem and though they have no union with him yet if they can externally beleeve in him that 's enough though they never receive any vertue from him nor he was never formed in them And herein generally most men professing Christ sit down and rest and blesse themselves and never yet saw truly their own misery how they are departed from the fountain of living waters Jer. 2.13 and how they dig to themselves broken Cisterns which are empty and dry and can hold no water And in their extremity hither they come to their own Cisterns thinking to refresh themselves and quench their thirst but they are empty and dry and so many men who are great professors of Religion dig wells for themselves but they are not the Wells of Salvation Oh my dear friends Esa 12.3 my heart bleeds to think how these men delude themselves with golden dreams And they pretend great love to Christ and say he is their hope and their help and they will wait upon him and cast their soules upon him when as they do but as it is Ps 78.34 35. they returned and inquired early after God Ps 78.34 35. and remembred that God was their rock and the high God their Redeemer Neverthelesse they did but flatter him with their mouths and they lyed unto him with their tongues for their heart was not right with him neither were they faithful in his covenant How do these men keep a great stir and make a great noise for their Religion and who seem more zealous then they or more eager for worship who more flattering and smooth in their expressions and say thy Servants thy Servants and who seem to be more affected with dishonour to Christ and are very much offended at errors and heresies and blasphemies but I fear and
to all these devilish deceits that your soules might come to live in him who is Truth it selfe And then you would not onely be professors but possessors of that Eternal love which would lead you into the truth and goodnesse in sincerity But because this friend of truth will not nor cannot own your outside worship he having by Gods power found the deceit thereof he is therefore by you cast out as a Heretick and so are all those that in truth and uprightnesse of heart are led and acted forth by God to work his own works for Wisdom is justified of her Children The second thing that is breathed forth in this book is this that as Christ is the Foundation so he alone it is that doth build upon this Foundation that building that will stand when all other shall and must fall and not only so but he likewise begins the work of his own power in every particular soule and carries on the same with his own hand in despight of all opposition causing flesh and all the power thereof to fall down before his face into death misery judgment and condemnation where all the glory of the first creation is seald down under the covenant of death never to rise again in its own strength power wisdom nor righteousnesse but if ever it rise again it may rise in the power wisdom and righteousnesse of Jesus the Eternal Son of the living God And thus God exercises his people under the administration of his power by bringing life out of death mercy out of misery fulnesse out of emptinesse strength out of weaknesse sufficiency out of insufficiency joy out of sorrow peace out of war and doth not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoaking flax until he hath brought forth judgment into victory and as he begineth and carrieth on his own work so also he it is and none but he that perfects it as saith the Apostle he that hath begun a good work will perfect it For it was the Eternal love of the Lord which by his Son planted the righteous seed in every soule of his and it is the same power and love that causeth it to grow in the spirit of man above all carnal power strength or policy for the pure seed shal reign till all its enemies be subdued and the spirits of those in whom it is perfectly redeemed from the Shrines and Vizzards of mortality Oh how it doth chear my heart to see our near and dear IMMANVEL springing forth unto the blind world in and through earthen vessels to the praise of the glory of Gods great grace who hath made us accepted in his beloved Therefore Reader if thou findest any of these workings in thy own soul then mayst thou know that they are no fictions but the real operations of Gods great power but if thou look not on them in the light of truth there will be no unity between thee and the party through whom they were uttered for he lives in the life of that which here is declared by words and if thou live in the same life and look upon them in the same light then will they be matter of rejoycing to thy soul but if thou look upon them any other way they will be nothing to thee but Parables and Riddles Thus hoping and knowing that God will make this work and every other work together for good to them that love him I commend thee to God and to the work of his grace Resting thy Brother and Companion in tribulation in the Kingdom and Patience of Jesus Christ THO. SOMERTON THE TITLES CONTENTS And TEXTS contained in this Book 1. THe Vail of the Covering spred over All Nations What it is and How removed with a Discovery of that Mountain of Fat things full of Marrow and Wine on the Lees well refined Delivered on a Publick Day of Thanksgiving the 23. of June 1653. at Alhallowes Lumbard street Upon ESA. 25.6 7. In this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto All people a Feast of Fat things A Feast of Wines on the Lees c. In one Sermon 2. THe Builders of Babel confounded in their Language Being an Exposition by Mr. Webster at the end of a Disputation at Alhallows Lumbard street He being requested to dismisse the multitude with some profitable exhortation which was from Gen. 11. the nine first verses And the whole Earth was of one Language and of one Speech and it came to pass as they journyed from the East they found a Plain in the land of Shinar and they dwelt there and they said one to another Go too let us make brick and burn them throughly c. 3. THe Power of Divine Attraction or The Fathers great love in drawing poor Sinners unto his Son Delivered at White-hall On JOH 6.44 No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day In one Sermon 4. THe Cloud taken off the Tabernacle that the Israel of God may journey At Alhallows Lumbard street In two Sermons EXOD. 40.36 37 38. And when the Cloud was taken up from over the Tabernacle then the Children of Israel went onward in all their journeys But if the Cloud were not taken up they journyed not until the day it was taken up c. 5. THe secret Southsayer or Hidden Sorcerer discovered At Alhallows Lumbard street In two Sermons MICAH 5.10 11 12 13. And I will cut off the Cities of thy land and throw down all thy strong holds I will out off Witchcrafts out of thine hand and thou shalt have no more Southsayers Thy graven Images also will I cut of and thy standing Images out of the midst of thee c. 6. THe rooting up of every plant not planted by the Heavenly Father Delivered at Alhallows Lumbard street In two Sermons MATTH 15.13 14. Jesus answered and said Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up Let them alone they bee blind leaders of the blind and if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch 7. THe Saints perfect freedom or Liberty in Christ asserted in opposition to all yoaks of bondage At Alhallows Lumbard street In two Sermons GALA 5.1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us Free and be not entangled again with the yoak of bondage 8. IN the second of these last Sermons Mr. Webster was freely drawn forth to give that Testimony to Dr. Everards Sermons lately printed which is placed at the end of the Book and are all the Sermons can be expected of his there being not any more preserved Which are sould by R. Harford at the Bible and States-Arms in Little Brittain 9. LAstly hereunto is added A Responsion by Mr. Jo. Webster to certain pretended Arguments against his Book call'd The Saints Guide Reader THere are some few faults escaped at the Press some litteral others in some owrds mistaken but being only such as an
is that it may be removed from all people that others may see that which he sees and enjoy that which he enjoyes that Christ may be a mountain to them as he is to him a rock to them as he is to him a feast to them as he is to him And they can say truely and name this mountaine Jehovah-jireh onely in the mount of the Lord can this be seen Abraham could not sacrifice his Son till he came up into this mount once come in to this mountain then the soule can part with all things for the love of Christ nothing is so dear as Christ And this is the conclusion wrought by the Spirit in Abraham Jehovah-jireh saith he in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen there is no seeing any of these things nor there is no true feasting till we come into this mount of the Lord. What was that going up of Abraham to the mount Moriah think you In the truth of it it was no other thing but this his going up from himself and out of himself forsaking all things for this one thing and comming up to this mountain of the Lod where the Lord alone was all in all Beloved know this for truth there is no wisdome no rightousnesse no strength c. nowhere else but here In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen and nowhere else There is no self-denial no true repentance no conquering of the least sin no true peace no joy no love no wisdom but onely in this mount whatever men pretend that they are wise or holy and the like 't is all but deceit and a delusion till we come up to the Mount till this Vaile be removed we can never bind the strong man we can never cut off our right hands or pul out our right eye til then Matth. 29 30. we can never forsake our selvs we can never deny our own power wisdome and holinesse Here now is this mountain of strength here it was that Abraham staggered not through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God Rom. 4.17.20 Here he 〈◊〉 and was fully perswaded that he that had promised was able to performe that though Isaac were sacrificed yet God was he who could quicken the dead and calleth things which are not as though they were Herein was Abraham the father of the faithful and Isaac the seed of many Nations and all the faithful are his seed in this And his going up to the Mountain is no other but what is done by all the faithful that litteral mountain was not the truth but onely the figure of this strong mountain Jesus Christ he is that mountain spoken of Esai 2.2 called there the mountain of the Lords house Esa 2.2 which shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the Hills and all Nations shall flow unto it Jesus Christ is that mountain who is unalterable unmovable unchangable never to be shaken nor never to be removed and to be established on the top of all mountaines above all the mountaines of man the mountaines of mans wisdome of mans righteousnesse which were esteemed by men never so high never so strong yet this mountain shall overtop them all and be established above all Beloved none come to know these things but those in whom they are wrought in whom the Vaile of the covering is removed men may pretend to these things and be very confident they enjoy them when indeed they are under the Covering to this very day This is that stone also that Daniel speaks of Dan. 2. which was cut out of the mountain without hands which smote the Image which was so terrible in the form thereof Dan. 2. he head being of fine Gold his brest and armes of Silver his belly and thighs of Brass his legs of Iron and his feet part Iron and part clay Now the stone cut out without hands smote this terrible Image and it self became a great mountain V. 25. and filled the whole earth However this may be applicable as by some it is to the outward Monarchyes in the world one succeeding and overcomming another yet all those things are but figures of the truth for those things are not done without hands but the truth is done in spirit whatever it is that men set up to shelter themselves under any form any religion to defend themselves from the wrath of God from the guilt of sin from seeing themselves odious with all their righteousnes and rags All things of that nature are Images and are such Images and so Terrible that no man is able to break them to peices 't is only The Stone cut out of the Mountain without hands can bring them down or break them to peices These Images are diverse and of several tempers and conditions some are of Clay that is some are of low rudiments poor and mean things that Men set up and rely upon and shelter themselves with all their good meanings and good hopes and the like and these may be esteemed but as the feet of this Image others goe higher and they depend up on things of more worth and strength that seem to be made of Iron they cloath themselves with moral vertues and put confidence in them and these they thinke will defend and save them But there are some that goe higher then all these and they pretend to cloath themselves with the garments of Jesus Christ himselfe and the graces of the Spirit and in these they glory and this glisters like Gold but it is not Gold and they seem to have faith but have not faith and love but 't is not love and patience but t is not patience c. And they are no other but Images and Idols upon which many men professing Religion and under the strictest formes and fellowships rely and shelter themselves under and think these will defend and protect them from hell and destruction and Gods wrath these things cover them and cover the wickednesse of their hearts that they cannot see themselves how vile they are how infinitly wicked in the sight of God Esay 30.1 these cover themselves with a covering but not with the Lords spirit Wo be to all such for these poor souls do most pitifully and miserably delude themselves these instead of putting on the rich and glorious robe of Christs righteousnesse doe cloath themselves with the stinking loathsome abominable and divelish righteousnesse of man I and they preferre it before the excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ and of these Christ himselfe saith verily such can never enter into the Kingdome of Heaven but Publicans and Harlots and the vilest of sinners shall enter into the Kingdome Matth. 21.31 when they shall be shut out For these are those that have put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face as the Lord saith by Ezekiel and have set up their Idols in their heart Ezek. 7.19 14.4 c. and yet
it is onely the immortal Word of the Lord that draws the soul and it is the power of eternity which works all and it is from mercy and great condiscension on his part to speak out these things by such fraile Instruments but it is so 1 Cor. 1.29 That no flesh may glory in his presence And that the praise may be of God and not of the Vessel or of man And know farther It is the Spirit of the Father the same Eternal power of the Father even the same that is God for it is the same God though the manifestations be diverse and though there be the manifestations of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost yet they are One for they are not Three but One. The next thing I shall explain is what is meant by Christ no man come UNTO MEE By Mee here is not meant the coming to the fleshly presence and body of Christ then must we with Mary seek him among the dead no he is risen he is not here it is not meant of the coming to Christ in the History and Notion and in the Letter so all men making profession are come to Christ 2 Cor. 5.19 Joh. 1.14 the Text saith God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself and the Text saith again The word became flesh and dwelt in us what is it to come unto him Certainly then it is to come to the EMANUEL he that is God with us or rather God in us but saith the Apostle to those that are called we preach Christ crucified 1 Cor. 1.24 Christ the power of God and wisdom of God So that to come unto Christ is to come to the power of Christ in us to have him abiding and dwelling in us carrying us and leading us into all truth and therefore he tells you againe Joh. 16.13 Col. 1.27 Christ in you the hope of Glory and therefore saith the Apostle try your selves know you not that Christ is in you except you be reprobates So that to come to Christ is to come unto the power of Jesus Christ and Christ is the power of God 2 Cor. 13 5. and the wisdome of God Nay it is God in us teaching us and guiding us and directing us he being the sole Master Ruler power and strength in us this is to come to Jesus Christ From whence it being thus explained there is a deduction or two we would draw from what hath beene said First if the immortal Spirit onely draw the soules of men unto Christ that is unto himself Vse 1 for he is the love of the Father made out unto us for Christ was God dwelling in flesh Then if it be so then Man considered as Man cannot be any wayes drawn or driven or can come unto Christ Not any power of man as man or the power of the whole Creation is able to draw man unto Christ but onely the power of the Father Let men say what they will there is no power of man or any actions or disciplines of man are able to bring man unto Christ for he is weak and cannot wilfull and will not guilty and dare not come to Christ he dare not appear before him But this is a drawing whether the carnal mind will or will not though it murmur and repine yet it draws him out of this spiritual Egypt and bondage Then this shews how false all their pretences are which the world so much admires and cries up Every man thinks he can goe to Christ and he can bring others to Christ by arguments and perswasions and the like and for this purpose are all the forms of Religion set up under pretence of comming and bringing and going to Christ and going on to the Heavenly Canaan and to the New Jerusalem But did they but look into their own hearts they would see this was but going from the Lord instead of going or comming to him all these devices are but to cover over the iniquity of their own hearts For every several way and form will say they are journying to Christ and to find him when alas where is the man that minds him but onely seeks himselfe his own rest and to quiet his own heart and to cover the smoak and the cry and the guilt that lies upon him and to get comfort to himself and then he is safe and he thinks he is gotten neer to Jesus Christ And when he wants peace then he bethinks himself of walking more close and stricter to those forms and rules that quieted his conscience before and thus he runs in a round and makes himself his works and duties his Saviour For if thou askest thy own heart seriously what is the reason of thy praying and going into this form or the other form is it not because thou thinkest God therefore accepts thee and loves thee And is not this to deny this truth that there is nothing but the power of the Father can draw thee that there is nothing able to draw thee but the immortal seed and Almighty hand of God and to say that something else is sufficient to draw thee unto Christ But here now lies the depth of this deceit thou drawest in a Religious way and hast gotten a covering and a profession and such and such actions into thy hands and here thou restest and what follows thou gatherest together and heapest up all Nations to make thy self strong and secure Hab. 2.5 but thou coverest not with the covering of the Lord and so thereby layest sin upon sin thou coverest indeed with a covering that thereby the Condemnation Esa 30.1 Hell and Guilt in thy own heart may not be made manifest in thee Now consider whether ever thou canst come at Jesus Christ who is the Rock of Ages that goest not in the leadings of the Father But if thy heart did apprehend that thou wert that child which Ezekiel speaks of cast out into the open field Ezek. 16. and hadst no hand to help thee nor no eye to pitty thee if it were so with thee then he would appear in thee and lead thee if thou thoughtst thou wast the ignorantest creature in the world if thou wast but blind enough and bad enough in thy own sight but the misery of the world lies herein Joh. 9.41 because they think they see therefore their sin remains for there is no difference among all the sons of men for All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God Thou mayest Rom. 3.21 and I know doest think so that there is a difference in some but truth hath witnessed it that every man hath sinned and is at an infinite distance from the Lord God of mercy and there is no salvation nor no power but in the hand of the Allmighty and that he alone is able to make peace and bring together those two Infinite distances and to make them One. Now judge whether this or the way of the world brings the greatest inconveniency and
Son himself for not any of all those things the Jews themselves were to rest in though done exactly according to the Pattern But this MESSIAH was he that they should have eyed through and beyond all those figures and shadows for that Tabernacle was but pitched by man mark that though commanded by God but the true Tabernacle is pitched by the Lord himself So that the Apostle there we may clearly see expounds this last chapter of Exodus and reduceth all those shadows to the substance proving that Christ himself is the true Tabernacle and the true Ministry and the true Sanctuary and that those things are but the Patterns and Emblems of the heavenly things Now all things must be according to him for he is the true pattern and is that one and alone Sacrifice once ffered as in that ninth chapter of the Hebrews Heb. 9.11 c. and the eleventh verse and so on Christ being an high Priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle not made with hands that is to say not of this building and by his own blood he entered into the Holy Place and if the blood of Bulls and Goats sanctifyeth to the purifying of the stesh how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered up himselfe without spot to God purge your consciences from dead works c. Though all these things were done by Moses and all done according to the example and pattern yet saith he the things we speak of are not things done hy man not of this building that is not done by the wisdom power or will of man no nor those done by them according to the direction of God himselfe and in that sense commanded and unquestionable Ordinances yet these made not the commers thereunto perfect therefore saith he in the three and twentieth verse of that ninth chapter It was therefore necessary that the PATTERNS of the things in the Heavens should be purified with these Vers 23. but the Heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices for Christ is not entered into the Holy Places made with hands which are the figures of the true but into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us The Heavenly things themselves purified what 's that That is the soules of men which are of Heavenly natures and Immortal and if those External Sacrifices must be purified with blood it is much more necessary that that Heavenly and Immortal soul of man should be purified with the pretious blood of Jesus Christ Man having departed from God and defiled his soul by turning away from him and being gone down to earthly things to find himself a God and a Trust and a Refuge this departure is of that infinitness that nothing but this Eternal Priest and Mediatour could reconcile and bring together again the Majesty and Nature of God and polluted man thus at an infinite distance but He by himself and of his own mercy and good will hath reconciled us to his father 2 Cor. 5.20 Esa 63.3 and hath trod the Winepress alone and none stood by him and herein was the eternal and infinite love of Jesus Christ our alone Saviour seen And by the way let me mind you of one thing That when the Scripture speaks of Christ his Ascending and entring into the third Heaven and far above all Heavens and sitting down on the right hand of his Father Eph. 4.10 Heb 12.2 I would not have you so childish as to be deluded by those tricks and devices of the men of the Letter who not being able to see the mystery do take those things as spoken litterally as though Christ now had a material body flesh and bones the same which he had in the flesh when he was upon earth these are very fond inventions of men that Christ is in a local place and sits upon a Throne above in Heaven next his Father as upon his right hand or the like and when he comes to judgement he will set himself in the material Clouds and call all Nations before him just as Judges doe at the Sizes and there to sit in a Chaire of State above all or as Solomon upon a glorious Throne Truly the world hath been a long time deluded with these fancies Now as the Apostle saith plainly he is not entred into a place made with hands nor into any thing of this nature Heb. 9.24 nor of this building But we are when we speak of him to separate all our thoughts far from all carnal things and all creaturely beings For there is no tincture of the creature concernments in those heavenly and divine things but all those things are done spiritually and in a way far above the thought or comprehension of all creaturely conceptions But from all this which hath been spoken hence it is clear That the Tabernacle here spoken of is the glory wisdome power righteousnesse of Jesus Christ and whatever is HIMSELF who is nothing else but majesty purity glory wisdom love goodnesse fulnesse infinitnesse blessednesse and Alsufficiency and all good he alone is the Lord Mat. 6.13 he alone is King his is the Kingdom the power and the glory for ever and no creature can without blasphemy in the highest degree appropriate or assume any one or any part of these to himself Here now Beloved we have set before you the Tabernacle and the Fire in the Tabernacle This is that fire of the Lord which can never be put out nor extinguished Levit. 6.13 but is ever one and the same it can never decrease nor increase in regard of himself but onely in regard of manifestation to us and which cannot be procured one day sooner by all the Wisdom Learning Industry of man but onely when he is pleased to remove the cloud then have ye liberty to journey and walk and woâ—k and not before whatever the dark and blind and the poor deluded sons of men make you believe And further be assured that until you come to possess and enjoy in your selves these spiritual and divine things you cannot know what they mean and whatever you do and whatever you see or adore below these you adore nothing but the patterns and the images of them wherein no man ever yet had any other but a false rest and they lived in a false light and enjoyed not the things themselves nay though we should know and behold Christ after the flesh and look upon him in his Conception Life Death Crucifying Burial Resurrection Ascention yet all these things are but the patterns of the Heavenly things and of the Lord himself Heb. 9.23 which are to pass a way and be forgotten when that Christ himself is personally manifested Hence forth know we him no more 2 Cor. 5.16 saith the Apostle When the Eternal Majesty and Splendour of that which is the Truth comes in all the glory of all other things vanishes before its presence These are
all his power wisdom parts righteousnesse and whatever man as man adores All true Saints are brought to see this in experience they see all the world seeking themselves following after the gods that they have made and crying up their Diana they see all the whole earth alwaies and continually crying out Not this man but Barabbas Mat. 27.21 And they know them to be all Theeves and Robbers But these onely come to the light and walk in the light Joh. 10.8 And the light of Christ in them hath discovered that in man is nothing but sin and darkness and misery and condemnation This they really see both within themselves and without themselves that he that would be exalted is in them brought low and he that humbleth himself is exalted Luk. 14.11 Christ in them and to them is all in all and this is their Glory this is their Kingdome this their Pearl for which they have sold all this is their Heaven Then they come to see Mat. 13.46 as the truth is that they have no power wisdom excellency nothing at all but what is to be condemned and that all their works which are accepted are wrought in God Joh. 3.21 1 Cor. 1.30 That Jesus is their Wisdom Rgihteousness Justification Sanctification and Redemption they come to this light and they walk in this light they continually see that Jesus Christ hath all power and wisdom in himself he hath not given any part of his excellencies out of himselfe but whatever is wrought in them is wrought by Him they dare not say I must doe and I must act and I must pray that I may be accepted nor think as others do I must perform the conditions on my part to do Heb. 6.6 and then I shall be accepted All Doctrine of this nature is no other but crucifying the Son of God afresh and putting him to open shame and walking in darknesse Those that preach this Acts 20.29 John 3.31 are those grievous wolves which Paul speaks of Acts 20.29 30. I know that after my departure shall grievous wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw disciples after them Of your own selvs that is men that hold forth the same doctrine and preach Jesus Christ too and hold him forth for a Saviour yet under that pretence crucifie him and make him as no Christ and his Crosse of no effect But those that are in the light they come to the light and follow this light live in this light that their deeds may be made manifest whether wrought in God or no Then he sees this is the true wisdom from above Jam. 3.17 which is pure peaceable easie to be entreated full of good works 't is not high and stern and subtile and rigid to keep at distance from all but whom they like but they are easie to be entreated meek ready to doe good to all they see no such excellency in houses inheritances money honour praise but for the love of Christ they are not deare to them they know if they have these they are not given to make them great or high or praised among the sonnes of men but that by them Christ in them may make himselfe great That they may be of another spirit then any other naturall man in the world Acts 26.18 shewing forth the vertues of him that hath called them from darkness to light from the power of Satan to God Then is their Tongue Touched with a coal from the Altar Esay 6.6 and they must declare Jesus Christ to make him alone glorious powerfull wise mighty eternal c. And then it is no longer they that speake Mark 13.11 but the spirit of their Father that is within them My beloved breathren if men were but come to the sight of this light and were able to stand in it and walk in it They would not goe forth as they doe in their own name and in their own wisdom and power having furnished themselves by their study and by their Books and by their borrowed matter but all this is because they have no light in them How many Speakers be there now in the world and with what confidence doe they come unto you when this spirit from on high never came upon them Pro. 8.34 Luke 24.49 they never yet waited at Wisdoms gates never yet stayed at Jerusalem for the promise of the Father but runne before they are sent and they of themselves have found a way to be furnished they can goe to the Vniversity and there lay the foundation and they can have the laying on of the hands of the Presbyterie and then they can study Authors and they have wisdom and parts and eloquence of their own and thus they come furnished and are as they think able Ministers of the Gospel 2 Cor. 3.6 John 10.1 Alas poore soules Christ cals these no other but thieves and Robbers which come not in at the doore they come not in by him but climb up some other way These have not made Christ the doore and the way for did They but live in the true light they durst not doe thus they durst not speak till he had opened the dore they durst not walk till the fire of the Sanctuary guided them till this cloud of ignorance not knowing themselves nor the work of Christ were taken up else they sit still And I say there would not be so many speakers as there be they would not covet so much to be some body that they may be taken notice of to be wise to be learned to be holy to be sober to be endowed with the gifts of Christ as they would be thought to be All this is but putting new wine into old bottles Luk. 5.37 and both are lost but if this light of God this spirit from on high this fire of the Sanctuary were upon them then this new wine would be put into new bottles and both preserved Oh my brethren it woes my very heart to see how confident and bold men are in their own light and he that will say to the contrary but that 't is the light of God he must be a deceiver and he must be a Schismatick a Familist any thing yea the most odious of all men Oh that these men did but know from whence they speak Oh that they did but know whether they were Moseses or Magicians whether sent from God or the Divel whether from Christ or Antichrist who indeed sit in the Temple of Christ as if sent from Christ Nay let me tell you they come with such deceivablenesse of unrighteousnesse with such signes and lying wonders 2 Thes 2.9.10 that they are able to deceive the very Elect of God if it were possible but the truth is t is onely they can discover them t is only the spirit of Christ that can lay them open onely He that hath the true
light can discover these hidden deeds of darkness He that hath this true light and this true spirit he sees he is nothing nor cannot step one step in this work except the Lord goe with him not onely in words to say this that 's nothing but really from the light of God to know this Then hee durst not goe forth to speak of the things of God but in trembling and fear Nature it thinks it selfe alwaies ready its never unfurnished call him when ye wil he can preach he can pray he can fit you for mourning for rejoycing he is furnished for all occasions he can manage and order all his affairs and govern the very Church of Christ by his wisdome and learning John 7.6 and he is never to seeke but is alwaies ready as Christ saith These men are become Masters of their Religion I t is true for Religion was never yet Master over them But beloved t is not thus with the Saints of God nor with the Ministers of Christ but they see Christ the sole Master and the sole Orderer of the Church Cant. 2.7 and they dare not awake their beloved untill he please they know none other can furnish them nor Commission nor command them to goe forth but onely Him Mat. 23.9 10. they know there is no other Master no other Father no other Teacher but Christ alone They cannot think it enough that they have Vniversity learning that they have the most ORTHODOX Authors as they call them and sometimes Most excellent DIVINES but most blasphemously to rob Christ of his Honour For there can be no Divine but Christ Vers 7 8. no Teacher but Christ no Doctor but Christ They know they must have the inward teaching before they can open their mouthes the Coale from the Altar to touch their lips Isa 6.6 or else they dare not speak They know the spirit of their Father is an Almighty Eternall Free spirit like the wind which bloweth whether it listeth Man neither knows whence it commeth John 3.8 nor when Sometime the Cloud is removed when He pleaseth and then they may yea must goe forth then they may journey but when the day is cloudy and darke and the spirit of the Lord doth not speake in them then they must be content to sit still till the day that the Lord himself takes up the Cloud Man can never remove it no not one hour nor minute sooner but when the spirit listeth But in the day of light then they may goe forward nay then they shall go forth with power then they shall not speak as the Scribes and Pharisees but with Authority Then Mat. 7.29 they shall not regard the honour of men nor glory in those things that the foolish and vain heart of man doth As because they are sent forth by the Presbytery and they have gifts c. and they can speak and declare themselves and that they stand up in a Pulpit or high place above all their Brethren and they are in high esteem and the like All these things are banished in that soul when the Lord sends forth a messenger Far be it from me to think that I have Wisdome or Learning or Knowledge more then the meanest Saint among you what am I what is Paul what is Apollo but Ministers and your Servants and the Servants of Christ by whom ye believed for me to think because I stand in this High place therefore I am ever the better or have the more honour or more esteemed God for bid For I am nothing if Christ speak not out by me any yea every experience of the truth Therefore look onely at him Mat. 11.7 for what come ye out into the Wildernesse to see a reed shaken with the wind Oh look look not at the weak instrument but behold the Wisdom the Power the Majesty the Authority of the Almighty Rather then I should hide him let me be as I am nothing a vain and light shaken reed and I confesse a Hill or a Mountain in a Wilderness or a Stool were more fit for me or for any man Oh let no woman be heard in the Church but only the voice of Christ there every one speaks of and seeks his glory even the glory of him that sent him and that same is true Psal 26.9 Joh. 7.18 Psal 69.15 and there is no unrighteousness in him Let him encrease but let man and all the womanly weaknesse in man decrease and whatever is of man when ever he would have glory or be any thing let him be confounded and the pit shut her mouth upon him For t is not onely unseemly but a shame for The Woman to speak in the Church THE CLOUD taken off the TABERNACLE that the ISRAEL of God might journey SERMON II. Preached at Alhallows Lumbard-street EXOD. 40.36 And when the Cloud was taken up from over the Tabernacle the Children of Israel went onwards in all their journies But if the Cloud was not taken up then they journied not till the day that it was taken up WE have beloved according as God was pleased in mercy to be present with us spoken concerning the meaning of these words wherein we have manifested that the Holy Ghost holds out higher and deeper and more mysterious things then is conceived of by the meer History and Letter we have shewed and held forth the same exposition that the Author to the Hebrews hath given of them That these things were but the patterns of Heavenly things Heb. 9.23 and this Tabernacle built by Moses was but a shadow similitude and type of the true Tabernacle which God did piteh and not Man and from thence we have shewed that the Tabernacle in the mystery is the Riches of that glory life mercy and immortality which God makes out to the sonnes of men And that Jesus Christ is that spiritual Moses that spiritual high Priest who hath once entred into this holy place even once for all And that the light in this Tabernacle which is as a fire by Night is that light and fire only that guildes and directs the souls of Saints in all their journeying through the desolate Wildernesse of their own dark and blind hearts and that this Tabernacle is covered with a cloud that the eyes of men nay nor of Saints cannot see or behold it till God himselfe withdraws and removes it And the souls of Saints are not to goe on but to abide in their Tents till the Lord remove this cloud as we may see expresly and fully commanded in Deu. 9. from vers 16 Deut. 9.16 c. to the end And we have shewed that in the day when he doth not remove it they are to sit still till the day and time he pleaseth to remove it and even then in the night in the darke when all other things are become darknesse then this fire this light is a lanthorn to them in all their journeys or waies wherein they shall goe
but the Apostle tels us of another Ruler and Teacher As many as are Christs are led by the spirit of Christ Rom. 8.14 Acts 17.7 And in the Acts it is said the Apostles would have gone into Bithynia After they were come to Missia they assayed to goe into Bithynia but the spirit suffered them not for they found trouble and opposition there was the Lord leading of them and guiding of them otherwise they did not set a foot forward their eye was still upon the Lord so till the cloud be removed from over the Tabernacle the soule will finde nothing but trouble and destruction if it goe onward and the Lord hath not discovered the light of the Tabernacle and himselfe goe before it Then in the first place this discovers to us that there are usually two things in the way of Christ which oftentimes in the world are mistaken and taken one for another there are I say the heavenly things themselves and there are the Patterns of them now the Pattern is not set forth for it selfe but in reference and Relation unto the thing of which it is a pattern And a copy or exemplar it is not for it selfe but in relation to what we should act imitate or doe by it so there are the heavenly things themselves and the patterns or types or similitudes of them Take speciall notice of these two things Now we shall finde it apparent if we consider it that the world hath alwayes been quick-eyed to see the one but not at all to discern the other The world and especially the great professours of Religion have been quick-sighted to discern the form pattern and similitudes of Heavenly things and there they have been satisfied But I say to find feel and enjoy and to live in the Heavenly things themselves Heb. 9.23 Col. 1.26 1 Joh. 7.6 this is that Mystery that hath been hid from ages and Generations your time that is the time of the flesh is always But My time that is the time of Christ is not always as to man though always as to God I say the world in all Ages could never be found to be without living upon and in the patterns forms and shapes of Heavenly things according as they fancied but to find the sons of men living in under and by the power of Heavenly things themselves that is the Mystery that hath I say been hidden from ages and generations as Paul saith We all find the Jews in the time of Moses they all lived under the Law in that form they all saw the outward form of the Tabernacle had a reverent esteem of that and there rested And so how many are there now who rest on the outward forms of washing and dipping these I take to be the Familists the world so much hates and talks of for they are all of this Family and Society and herein lies so far as I can see their Church-membership which they so much Idolize And for all this how few are there of them that are of the inward assembly of the Saints that are come to the general assembly of the Church of the first born which are written in Heaven they are come and are brought but only to the mount that may not be touched and that burneth with fire Heb. 12.18 22. and unto blackness and darkness and tempest How many of them I say are these that are brought to Forms Fellowships and Washings which as they are used produce nothing but blackness and darkness and fire and Tempest not into the Unity of that one Spirit But Onely to be baptized with Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea 1 Cor. 10.1 c. Ps 95.11 Heb. 3 17.18.19 for with many of them saith the Apostle God was not well pleased whose Carkasses fell in the Wilderness And the Text saith they entred not into his Rest but were overthrown in the Wilderness because of unbelief Now we shall finde no age in the world where the people have wanted their forms of things in one kind or other but ye shall hardly find any age wherein people have lived under and upon the Heavenly things themselves How many patterns and similitudes have the Papists in their Church the Pope himself in imitation of Christ can wash the feet of twelve Pilgrims once in the year and fares it any better with those that call themselves members of other Churches to be only Apostles in imitation some have one pattern some another one thinks he hath the true Baptisme because he hath the similitude and pattern of spiritual Baptism which was then by some used by way of dipping in water Another hath the pattern and similitude of eating Christs Body and drinking his Blood in their breaking of Bread which was but the type of the Heavenly bread that was the Body of Christ But Christ saith Joh. 6.53 except a man eat his flesh and drink his blood he hath no life in him How many Churches partake of the patterns and shadows and whatever they say they conclude from thence they are the Church of God because say they we have the right use of the Sacraments which is a sign of a true Church because they have the patterns types and shadows observing onely outward rules forms and carnal ordinances which all perish with the using wherefore Col 2.20 if ye be dead with Christ from the Rudiments of the world why as though living in the world are ye subject to Ordinances yet impudently and blasphemously wil they dare to say they are not Church of Man but of God when they know not the mystery nor live according to the power of the Heavenly things themselves and therefore herein that Scripture comes to be fulfilled that men shall have a form of godliness 2 Tim. 3.5 but deny the power of it for the one may be where the other is not and the Apostle tells us That he is not a Jew that is one outwardly but he is a Jew that is one inwardly Rom. 2.28 29. whose circumcision is of the heart and spirit whose praise is not of men but of God So from hence it is clear many Churches and many hundred thousands of souls may have an exact pattern and yet want the Heavenly things themselves they may have the pattern as the Jews had that were sanctified and washed only with the Blood of Bulls and Goats but to have the Heavenly things themselves viz. that Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of life and to have the Purifications and Sanctifications that are onely by his blood this they are strangers to This is the spiritual and living fire and where ever it is in the soul of man it cannot but break forth to the destroying of all things of man and flesh and magnifying and exalting all things of the Spirit of God So that hence it is clear that it would be the wisdome of the sons of men to see whether they have the heavenly things themselves and
doing this work we may see the manner of his working and proceeding with the sons of men in the following words I will cut off thy Horses out of the midst of thee and I will destroy thy Charets this is one part of his acting He will cut off his Horses and destroy his Charets that is whatever it be that man rides on or trusts in or thinks to be delivered by all his helps or refuges all his hopes or confidences that are below or less then Jesus Christ himself hee will cut off and destroy though his confidence be never so great and that wherein he trusts be never so strong and his Charets never so many In that day when the Lord wil arise they shall be all cut off all utterly overwhelmed like Pharaoh and his Charets in the Sea Let it be what it will wherein thou trustest Exod. 14. and thinkest to sit safely in the midst of all wrath and storms if thou puttest trust in riches honour power of men wisdom parts or any thing thou hast chosen and thinkest thy self ever the better or safer for them all these shall be cut off from thine hand Nay though thou art in the very Chariot of Religion Mich. 5.12 and highest profession of the truth and hast chosen to thy selfe the purest forms and Ordinances as thou callest them and Church-felloships washings breaking of bread or any thing else in thine hand which can be named except Jesus Christ himselfe whereby thou hast quieted thy spirit and hast thereby gotten to thy selfe a peace and a rest all is a delusion and an Idol It may be Thou when thy conscience began to accuse thee and wrath appeard to amaze and affright thee thou saidst within thy self I must now do something that I may deliver my soule from this guilt I must quench this flame for I am not able to bear it I will run to this duty and take up that form and observe such and such rules and then I shall do well and I shall secure my self from wrath and hell As the Pharisees what think you drove them to the Baptism of John certainly it was this fear and this guilt upon their spirits For saith he to them O Generation of Vipers Mat. 3.7 who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come bring forth fruits meet for repentance as if he should say when ye were affrighted and terrified you thought comming to my Baptisme would secure you but you are but Vipers for all this and this submitting to Baptisme doth not declare true repentance But know the Ax is now laid to the root of the Tree Vers 10. and every Tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewen down and cast into the fire And further you boast of being the children of Abraham and the seed of the faithful and because ye are members of the true Church but all this is to little purpose for God is able of these stones to raise up Children unto Abraham So that you see for all your Forms and Fellowships wherein you trust you shall be in that day of the Lord stript naked of all your garments and of all your refuges all those Horses and Chariots which you thought should preserve you and carry you out of all danger they shall all be broken and cut off and thy soul plunged into the bottomlesse pit Psal 38.3 and thou shalt have no rest in thy bones because of thy sin and by reason of thy misery for thou shalt not know which way to turn thee for all thy Idols and all thy Images shall not in that day be able to help or deliver thee Jer. 4.4 for the wrath of the Lord shall burn as an Oven and then thou must stand naked before the presence of the Lord who is a consuming fire Heb. 12. c. to burn up and consume every thing but Himself And not onely so but as it follows in the next words I will cut off the Cities of thy Land and throw down all thy strong holds As when outward enemies came upon the people of Israel and invaded their Land and the Lord had said they should go into captivity then nothing should be a defence to them but the enemy should break into their strongest places and their Cities should not secure them nor any of their strong holds which they had made for their defence do them any good This now was true in the Letter but this is also as true in the Mystery in the living and spiritual sense When men have made themselves defences and think they are secured from wrath and hell and all storms and no evil shall touch them neither will they be carried captive by Satan nor by the Prince of Darknesse and although by their wisdom they contrived these forts and strong holds and thought themselvs never so secure therin yet all of them shall be vain hopeless and helpless and nothing within them nor without them shall help them and the wrath of the Lord shall make them vile odious and abominable which before they got coverings for now whether they will or no they shall see themselves as they are and they shall not be able to have one good thought of themselvs but the contrary for this light of the Lord discovers their blackness their deformity and that there is no power nor wisdom can help them but onely the good will and the good hand of the Lord nothing but his meer goodnesse and they shall see that there is no power no goodnesse no mercy anywhere but in the Lord alone and if he doe not pitty them there is no mercy at all for them And not only so That men have their horses to ride on to carry them swift away that no danger may overtake them and Chariots wherein they ride and put their trust so likewise that they have Cities and Strong-holds for their security so that all the wisdome and power of man cannot make them more strong and safe to beare off the wrath of God but also saith he in the next verse Vers 13 I will cut off witchcraft out of thine hand and thou shalt have no more Southsayers Men have their Juglers and Diviners their Southsayers and their Witches All that witchcraft whereby men have deluded and deceived their souls in that day shall be discovered those false SEERS who cryed peace peace when there was no peace All that Witchcraft which men used in the things of God in setting up Images and forms and shadows and herein deluded men making them believe they were the things themselves And though they have wrought them up never so curiously and made them as neere the life as might be yet in that day they shall come to see they were but Images and dead things which could not help at all And now they shall no more live upon them or hang depend or call upon them for help or reliefe though they were made after the best pattern and never
23.7 c. who love to be called RABBI or by that Blasphemous Title of DIVINE and they must be honoured above other Saints of God and they are The Clergie and others they are but the Layitie of a meaner rank then we say they And how doe they love to have greetings in the market and the uppermost rooms at Feasts and the like well let them look to it God will judge them one day for all their Sorceries and inchantments and for standing up between him and his glory To whom alone all praise is due but to every man misery shame confusion of face blacknesse of darknesse hell and condemnation But hence we may see that it is no new thing to be bewitched by the Sorcerers and Inchanters and Magicians of the World The Galathians themselves were so for there are many Antichrists in the world there are legions gone out from the Prince of darknesse to deceive the whole Earth And if any from Christ speak but the truth he by his cunning devices will disguise it under the shape of Heresie Schisme Familisme or some odious nickname or other that so the truth may not be owned nor known That so men may stop their eares against the Heavenly voyce of Christ which brings down all things adored or loved in or from man and sets up nothing else but the power wisdom goodnesse holiness and Alsufficiency of the Lord alone He cries Mans heart and all the imaginations thereof are onely evill continually and that there is none that doth good Psal 14.3 Rom. 3 10. no not one They are all gone out of the way and every one is become abominable there is none that understands or seeks GOD. And that there is nothing in man of good but all is evill sin death darkness abomination a lye and utter desolation But Satan cries in the mouthes of his Ministers Let man doe something he can pray he can heare and let him follow those rules that we prescribe and they shall bring peace and rest to his soule But if man were but content to heare the voice of Christ and to stand in the light of God he should be convinced that he had no power no goodnesse and that nothing but onely the power of God could carry him out and that he is dead in trespasses and sins Ephes 2.1 and that the voice of Christ alone can raise them from their graves and that no lesse power can quicken or raise but the eternall Almighty power which raised Iesus Christ himselfe from the dead Rom. 8.11 It is not as men say If you will come to us and joyn and walk with us and be dipt with us or break bread with us will give any life any peace to the soule but the standing in the light of God that so man may take to himselfe death and darknesse misery and wrath and here to stand and dwell and that in him is no good thing then this light would also shew him that in Christ is all life liberty fulnesse satisfaction peace and rest and nowhere else If men did but abide in this light it would debase and keep low the lofty thoughts and those great expectations of and from man it would also give Jesus Christ his due it would not suffer him in the least to act against the glory of Christ but man would be dead and buried and Christ would onely ascend and sit upon his Throne There would nothing be esteemed in Heaven or Earth Mat. 19.21 but Christ and he would be content to sell and lose all for him This light would curb every wicked act every desire of the flesh this alone is the means to crucifie and kill thy vile nature and not any outward externall thing by washing or dipping in water or eating such a poore empty carnall thing as a bit of bread or drinking a sup of wine this thing never did nor never will doe it but to eate and drink that which Christ gave which was not a little bread and wine onely but HIMSELFE Joh. 6.56 1 Cor. 11.29 Ibid. v. 20 ch 10.16 and by feeding on him eating his body and drinking his blood this will nourish to eternall life When ye are met together into one place this is not to eate the Lords body For the bread which we break is the Communion of the body of Christ and he that eateth and drinketh unworthily discerneth not the Lords body Object But may I not use these things Object Ans Yea Answ so you think your selves never the better for using them for t is not they can feed or comfort thee nor t is not going on in thy own power nor thy using of means for Christ alone is the way and the means As if you come to a Feast you are not invited to eate the platters or earthern dishes which bring the meat but you are invited to the meat they doe but bring the meat and if thou eate not the meat thou mayst starve and die if thou follow the dreams of thy own heart and thinkest thou eatest and dost not what a horrible delusion and inchantment is this But of these things we may have an opportunity to speak more fully hereafter Thus you see what are those things which the Lord will cut off in that day when he shall come Thy Horses and thy Chariots thy Cities and thy strong holds Thy witchcraft and thy Southsayers Thy graven Images and thy standing Images out of the midst of thee THE SECRET SOUTHSAYER OR Hidden SORCERER discovered By Mr. Jo. WEBSTER SERMON II. Preached at Alhallows Lumbard-street MICAH 5.10 11 12 13. And it shall come to passe in that day saith the Lord That I will cut off thy Horses out of the midst of thee and I will destroy thy Chariots And I will cut off the Cities of thy Land and throw down all thy strong holds I will cut off Witchcrafts out of thine hand and thou shalt have no more Southsayers Thy graven Images also will I cut off and thy standing Images out of the midst of thee and thou shalt no more worship the work of thine hands I Have beloved according to the appearance of God in me shewed the meaning of these words according to the Spirit and the Mysterie declaring that great work which is brought to passe by Jesus Christ when he appeares gloriously in the world in the soules of men and is exalted as Lord and King and then it is when Jesus Christ is exalted in the earth and not when men are exalted or when there is peace and plenty of outward things But all the speakings of the Prophets and of Christ himselfe tend to set out that Kingdome and PERSONALL REIGNE which generally all men know little of and neither wil nor can own for a glorious state because not accommodated with outward power riches and eternall glory But in that day when Jesus Christ will come and arise in power spiritually in the soules of men then is that
and ORDAINE Ministers and they speak of giving the Holy Ghost but alasse I say all these are but resemblances and shadows they are not the true Ordinances of Christ and notwithstanding mens using of these things with so much appearance of strictnesse and exactuesse yet they have them not For they are in bondage still they were never yet delivered set free indeed nor never Baptized with the Baptisme of Christ never yet fetcht off their own bottoms never taken into Vnion with Christ who will undertake to give the Spirit and the Holy Ghost and yet never had it themselves and therefore all those things that these men use are nothing but shadows Outsides Shels and Carkasses of the true Ordinances of Christ You know many came to Johns Baptisme even of the Pharisees and yet they wre but a Generation of Vipers their consciences told them that John was a true Prophet Mat. 3.7 and they began to smite them and they thought it was a duty they were bound to that thereby they should prevent the wrath to come and they presently take it up as having power of their own to do any thing in Religion and here they thought themselves secure and that they had really prevented the wrath to come But the true Baptisme and the true Ordinanes and the true Worship are things of a farre higher nature There is a HEAVENLY Baptisme and a Heavenly Worship and an Heavenly Ord inance I saith John Baptize with Water but there is one that commeth after me Ver. 11 12. who is preferred before me He shall Baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire I must decrease but HE must increase My Baptisme is nothing I must stand by when he comes I baptize but unto repentance but He gives repentance and the Holy Spirit The Heavenly things are of a far higher nature These are but the pictures and the shadows the shells and the outsides the other the Life and the Power the Holy Ghost and the Fire it self Now they that receive these things are indeed the Children of the Free-Woman and are the true seed of Abraham All other are the Children of the Bond-Woman and are HAGAR who is in bondage with her Children to this very day For as it was with Hagar so is it now and hath been alwayes in all ages and generations The children of the Bond-woman do alwayes exalt themselves and are very sawcy and peremptory toward the children of the Free-woman why because they are Circumcised and submit to Ordinances and think themselves of the seed of Abraham therefore they grow proud lofty and censorious and usurp too much over the Children of the Free-woman even as their mother before the Hagar she despised her Mistress and lifted up her selfe more then was fit for her Therefore this is determined concerning her Cast out the Bond-woman and her Son for the Son of the Bond-woman shall not be heir with the Son of the Free-woman Gal. 4.25 When once the Handmaid who is in the house but by sufferance will exalt her selfe above THE MISTRESSE and her SON born after the flesh begin to persecute him that is born after the spirit then away with her cast out both her and her Sons too And farther know this that when the appearance of the power of Christ comes into the soul that is when the Bond-woman and her son is cast out then the soul doth not as some imagine and teach work out its own liberty nor is it made free by its own power Ibid 5.1 but Christ brings in this liberty with him and from this liberty the soule acts and works The children of the Free-woman do not work to be set free but because they are set free therefore they work freely and cannot but so work And herein lies a broad difference between the children of the Bond-woman and the children of the Free-woman When the sons of the Bondwoman hear of any thing that man is required to do presently they think to work themselves to it by their care watchfulnesse resolution c. But now it is quite contrary with the sons of the Free-woman they having a Principle of Freedom act and work from this the one worships God from an internal Principle in the power of the spirit the other from an outward compulsory cause and not from the power of love So likewise the one doth all his actions out of love to men doing good to all men in the world being willing to serve all out of love Pittying all Counselling all willing to help all so far as lies in them Imitating their Heavenly Father who doth good to all to the good and evil just and unjust Mat. 5.45 and meerly from a Heavenly Principle of mercy pitty and loving kindnesse and bowels of mercy But the other His Religion consists in outward forms in washings and dippings and conformity to Fellowships and whatever they do it is not from the power of love or from the nature of their heavenly fater in them but from some external cause from something without them from fear or hope either to prevent some danger or to procure something which they conceive in a general notion to be good for them to make them happy and the like because Hell they hear is a terrible place and full of Horrour and Destruction and Heaven is a place of peace joy and rest and there they shall live for ever in pleasure which shall never end upon these two grounds most men act and take up the strictest forms of Worship and hereupon they may be very constant and very zealous and sincere as they conceive when alas all these things are nothing at all so nor so for the truth is Hell they love and live in and yet know not that they are in it and that which is true heaven to the soule they hate and run away from as being the place of misery death and torments to them Therefore ye may see what a miserable delusion and cursed vaile is generally upon the Hearts of most men which call themselves Men fearing God and that which they call the Worship of God is no other but inventions of their own as they practice them and WILL-WORSHIP And though they keep a great deal of stirre about Ordinances and breaking of bread yet alas how far they are from the Ordinances of Christ let the effects of their practice and lives declare how little do they feed on Christ as they pretend to do He that feeds on Christ partakes of his nature and Christ in them turns the stock into his own Nature as Peter speaks Luk. 11.28 Ibid. 22.19 and they hear the word and keep it and these truly feed on Christ and do it in remembrance of him But these pretenders to Ordinances and outward duties they in stead of feeding on Christ or being fed by him they are fed indeed but by whom even by Satan himselfe for he makes them live and rest upon these shadows and
pictures and to have their dependance and life on them and to make IDOLS of them Ps 106.37 1 Cor. 10.20 21. and in this case saith David and the Apostle Paul They sacrifice unto Devils and not unto God And yet none more precise none more holy in words and gestures and in their Apish Imitations and carriages then they none pretend more justice and carriages then was it not thus with the Pharisees They made it a great matter to be outwardly just to men and stood much upon their praying fasting paying Tythes not keeping back so much as that of the smalest consequence Mint and Cummin yet what were they for all this but Hypocrits Dissemblers painted Sepulchres without Mat. 23.27 but full of rottenness and dead mens bones within But those that are indeed Saints and Members of the true body of Christ their minds are first changed and they have a new nature and from this they work and worship and do acts of Justice and Mercy The other whatever they pretend change but the outside and wash but the outside of the cup and platter Ibid. v. 25 but the inside is as foul and loathsome as ever they can be very strict in their performances and carriages they can make long prayers and seem very devout but then they must be thought to be Somebody and they must be honoured or else all the fat is in the fire as the proverb is and they must have the uppermost seats and grave greetings by the Name of RABBI RABBI and they must be thought to be the only holy men are mighty circumspect to keep their distances with all but whom they think wel of and hereby they think to keep up their honor and respect and they are very conversant in reading praying and expounding the Scriptures as they themselves understand them and this is their Holiness and their Religion and these things make them to be feared and honoured as they think and this makes them bold and this strikes an awfulnesse on the spirits of others and makes them TERRIBLE alas poor ignorant deluded soules these things may be called holiness and holy duties and their many words and long bablings they may be called prayer by themselves and others who are as blind as themselves who cannot see their pride and vain-glory and self-confidence and lifting up themselves and indeed men know them not for saith Christ Luke 11.44 Luk. 11 44 They are as graves which appear not and men are not aware of them but as for those who have the spirit of God in them and a spirit of discerning in them they see plainly that all this is vanity They see that all their highest and strictest zeal and performances are a meer sound of words without any real life to be no other but as sounding Brass 1 Cor. 13.1 or a tinckling Cymbal which vanishes and comes to nothing it being no more but air and emptimesse having nothing of truth or reallity in it The Pharisees long prayer was no prayer at all but was rejected when the poor dejected Publicans saying but a few words was esteemed a prayer and was accepted and he went home justified and not the other These Pharisees they are furnished at all times Luk. 18 13. they can preach and pray and do any thing they are fitted at all times they can at any houre command themselves they can pray either in the Chamber or in the Temple or in the Closet and keep their set rules and houres And this is their Holiness and all that do not follow their Modes and their Forms are loose and prophane and they can judge and censure a brother for a Mote in his eye but perceive not a Beam in their own eye Mat. 7 3. These are the men our Lord so much aimd at Mat. 23.26 33 and had so much to do to uncase and convince and him they so much hated because he had such a slight opinion of them and of their holinesse and because he censured them for Hypocrits and blind Pharisees nay the worst of all men yea worse then Whoremongers Thieves and Murtherers Nay he calls them Serpents But the other who worship God in the spirit and have their help strength and dependance on the Lord they see really their own insufficiency and they receive all by waiting on God they cannot speak nor preach nor pray but when he doth all this in them they will not be unjust to men because they have an inward principle that conforms them to the mind of Christ 1 Cor. 29.16 1 John 5.18 having a new nature they work all their works from that being good they cannot but do good but the other they do good things thinking thereby to make themselves good and to procure favour and acceptance But the sons of God know that whatever is not acted from the spirit of God working in such is no other but from the Devil is no other but Witchcraft Sorcery Inchantment c. In brief the one keep a great deal of stir and are very busie and exact about outsides and forms and times and places and the like when as the other see the vanity and folly of such things and having a principle of holinesse within from thence doe they act and work This they know is the true circumcision who worship God in the spirit Phil. 3.3 and rejoyce in Jesus Christ and have no confidence in the flesh and doing any duty from this principle of the new man or the new creature in them this they esteem to be an ORDINANCE because it is done with life and power and in the spirit of Jesus Christ and they cannot call any thing an Ordinance but only this whatever all the Wizzards Southsayers Diviners Inchanters in the world say to the contrary THE ROOTING up of every Plant not Planted by the Heavenly Father Preached at Alhallows Lumbard-street Matth. 15.13 14. But Jesus answered and said Every Plant which my Father hath not planted shall be rooted up Let them alone they be blind leaders of the blind And if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch THese words contain an answer of our Lord unto his Disciples For they having heard how the Scribes and Pharises were much offended at some things he had preached they being very strict for the outside and formal part of Religion and being generally taken for great Professours and our Saviour knowing their hearts knew that though the outside was clean aimable and beautiful yet the inside was foul stinking and loathsome for all their observances of washings and fastings and the like Hereupon our Saviour to undeceive the people concerning them calls the multitude together and tells them plainly wishing them not to be foold and deluded but hear and understand in the eleventh verse saith he It is not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man but that which cometh out of the mouth that defileth a man Vers 11 The
do all men are alone in the hands of the Father he alone is Judge of quick and dead In his hands alone are the issues of life and death Acts 10.42 Ps 68.20 Joh. 6.44 And no man can come to him except the Father himself draw him and yet men will be drawing and DRIVING to Jesus Christ and they think to beget men and they like well to be called Doctors and Masters and Fathers and yet the spirit expresly sai h Of his own will begat be us with the word of truth Jam. 1.18 that we should be a kind of first fruits of his Creatures There is no power wisdome strength rules examples or precepts can do it but onely the will and power of God And he saith againe By one spirit are we all baptized into one body 1 Cor. 12.13 has one man then any more power then another can it be this mans learning or the other mans wisdom or another mans elquence or power of words or perswasions Oh let no man think so far be such thoughts from any that professe to exalt Jesus Christ for what can be more doshonour to him and yet how do the general course of the World and all pretenders to Religion run this way though they say in words Christ is All and man can do nothing and he is dead yet they in all their practices and perswasions and exhortations hold forth that they verily beleeve the power of man and that he is but half dead and may raise himselfe and uphold himselfe and chuse this plant Jesus Christ and ingraff it and nourish it and dig and hedg about it and cause it to bring forth more fruit which is alone the work of the Father Or at least wise if they give so much to God as to say he must give grace yet this they affirm that man must nurse it and water it and cherish it and maintain it else he may lose it quite say some and others to his own apprehension sight and feeling And what 's all this but to say himselfe he is the Dresser and he is the Pruner and Purger and Rectifier of all things amisse He is the True Husbandman But the Scripture holds forth otherwise that these things are done onely by the hand of God and that instruments are nothing t is onely the sword of the spirit can cut off and the word of God that is quick and powerfull and sharper then a two-edged sword Heb. 4.12 and that can divide between the soul and the spirit the joynts and the marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart There is nothing else plants nothing else cuts off from the root but only this spirit which is as the wind bloweth where it listeth and man hath nothing to do Joh. 3.8 I say the Creature hath nothing to do but to wait and expect when the Angel will move the Waters This is the Circumcision which is done without Hands Joh. 5.8 Rom. 2.28 29. And he is not a Jew that is one outwardly made by Men or any power of or in man but he is a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the Heart and not in the Letter whose praise is not of men but of God And this work the Lord doth manageth and carrieth on by his own strength and by his owu power he is not at all beholding to mans wisedome or care but what is done in man or by man t is not he that doth it but Christ in them his work is not done by any outward and external means but by a secret invisible and spiritual power He is that secret invisible sap that communicates vertue and nourishment to every part and member through the whole body so that mans power wisdom and care is not used at all but only as an instrument or subject in which and by which it works and therefore man hath nothing at all to speak of or boast in And one man is not more holy then another or improves more because he hath more wisdom diligence endeavour or the like in the work of God all things tending in the least to lift up man are to be cut of but the spirit works where and when it listeth and man by all his care Joh. 3.8 cannot fetch in the spirit but when it self pleaseth so that no flesh may boast or glory in his presence nor one man lift up himself above another For we are alone his workmanship 1 Cor. 1.29 Eph. 2.10 1 Cor. 1.30 31. created unto good works And we are of him in Jesus Christ who of God is made unto us wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption Therefore from hence let us make this conclusion and seal to it not in our words and judgments onely but in our hearts in our practices that we may say these are the very things that we have heard and seen with our eyes and we have looked upon and which our hands have handled of the word of life 1 Joh. 1.1 for there is nothing more usual then to consent to truth in the Notion thereof and in the Doctrinal part but when they come to the Practical and Applicatory then they declare plainly that they have no experience of the things of the work of God in themselves but they make man a Worker an Agent Heb. 12.2 and a finisher of Faith Some confesse that God he begins and layes the foundation but man must carry it on and do his part else all is nothing what an high indignity is this to the grace and power of God And hence it is that men glory and pride themselves so much in their own doing and are so forward to censure and judge other men wen alas man hath done nothing at all in this spiritual planting and watering but onely taken up a conceit of his own doing acting and working and priding himselfe in a meer empty fancy without any real doing at all For be sure this is that great work which Christ alone hath undertaken Heb. 2.10 Esa 42.8 Joh. 3.8 To bring many sons unto Glory and in this He will never give his glory unto another He will be free and his wind shall blow when he listeth and work when he pleaseth And for man to say that there must be any other power or any other meanes in the whole earth is to rob God of his glory and to give it to another But the practice of all the Saints is I do not say in words onely but in their practice they ascribe all to God only How violent was Paul against the Truth and the Professors thereof and yet he had attained to be a forward and an exact Pharisee far more strict then any we shall finde in our days And how zealous was he as he thought for the Truth Act. 26.11 Act. 9.1 2. exceedingly zealous against errours in his way and yet it was no other but madnesse against the truth and
garments rolled in blood hast thou seen the massacre of thy own life and the burning and the spoil and the fewel of fire in thee Then this shall be a sign to thee that to thee the Child is born and the Son given And thou hast then seen him to be the Mighty God the great Councellour the Wonderful and the Prince of peace Beloved you may talk what ye will of this mark and tother sign for saith Christ Ver. 6. Indeed the men of this Generation seek after signs but let them never once name and other sign till they finde this sign in them Have ye found this cutting off from your selves and this planting by the Lord alone Never tell me of Ordinances nor of Washings nor of Breaking bread nor of any of your rules or forms mind you only this signe this mark before ever ye look for any other of being risen with Christ and the like He that knows not these things in himself knows nothing Christ comes not to send peace before he hath sent the sword Mat. 10.34 What 's now all your doings all your dippings washings baptisms if ye have not this Baptisme all the other can never make the doers thereof nor the commers thereunto perfect Heb. 9.9 10.1 And till this be all your baptisms and worships are but from men and not from Heaven and all your Ordinances are but the Ordinances of men neither do you know what an Ordinance of Christ is for all these are but shadows your Sabbaths your new moons all things of this nature for the body is Christ Col. 2.17 If Christ himselfe will make use of these then indeed they are HIS Ordinances and there is life and power in them but as men use them they are empty cold dead and they change not the commers therunto at all for they are alive still and their spirit is yet whole in them and they have no change wrought in them from the men of the World for they are as much in love with honour and credit and all the things of the world as any other men Mat. 7.20 Col. 3.1 by their fruits ye may know them and yet they professe to be risen with Christ and to seek those things that are above why because they mistake things that are above But because they go to Church and hear and pray and fast and conform to Johns Baptism therefore they conclude they mind the things of God and seek after them Beloved to be risen with Christ is another manner of thing and it must be done by another manner of power then these men ever felt Even the very same Almighty power that raised up Iesus from the dead else they do but delude themselves This work is done by no other but by his own eternal spirit And men need not seek to any other help or means but him as thinking they can doe themselves any good But here now comes in the common Objection at which all men having not the work wrought in themselves stumble and fall Obj. and over this block they cannot get Although it is true that God does all and he must give a new heart Ezek. 11.19 and take out the stony heart and give an heart of flesh Thus far they will joyn in with you But must not man do his part and use the means that it may be effected This indeed hath been Answ and is and shall be the great stumbling block in all ages for men having not the experience of these things done in themselves they dreame of mans doing acting and working and he must put himselfe upon this duty and that when as I told you before no man seeks for Heaven as this Heaven and how then can he use the meanes for it when he never once desires the true Kingdome of Heaven but hates it opposes it runs from it useth all his inventions and weapons offensive and defensive to keep it out and desires the Lord to depart from him Job 21.14 Mat. 8.34 for be desireth not the knowledge of his wayes and with the Gergesens rather then they will part with their swinishness and that mire wherein they wallow they will meet Christ and desire him not to come neere them but to depart out of their coasts so well do all men out of Christ love him and seek after him or use meanes to come to him But to answer more particularly I do not ☜ nor never did deny the use of the meanes in the hand of the Father for the meanes do nothing but the Fathers hand only And God never intended a carnal meanes should effect a spiritual work He is a spirit and those that worship him John 4.24 must worship him in spirit and truth The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual And they are mighty in the hand of God 2 Cor. 10 4. John 3.6 not in the hand of man not in our selves but in him That which is borne of the flesh is flesh but that which is borne of the spirit is spirit And what is it that men make out about this Objection but this that men must do and men must strive and men must watch 't is true what meanes soever God pleaseth to use shall prevaile but if use by man it does nothing at all can a spiritual thing come out of a carnal can a cleane thing come out of an uncleane And therefore 't is cleare to me and to all the people of God and to their experience That the Lord makes no use of mans power or strength or wisdome or watchfulnesse or industry but what is done in man Gen. 1.3 't is purely the hand and power of the Lord. If HE say the word Let there be light in such a soul 't is done if he say to the Lepers Luke 5.12 17.17 Mark 7.34 v. 14. Chap. 5.24 be ye cleane 't is done If he say to the eares EPHPHATHA be ye opened And young man I say unto thee Arise And to the sick Arise take up thy bed and walk then the work is done But men not knowing the work and power of God they are alwayes Harping on this string on mans power acting working striving and the like I but they object further I Object but must not man use external meanes as Preaching and hearing and reading the Scripture and the like Answ Although he do Answ yet what doth all this do except the power of God be in it The Lord is pleased in this Book of the Bible to speak out the things belonging to the Kingdome of Heaven and he is pleased to stoop so low to us to represent by external things those things that are high and spiritual and saving but alasse they are all MYSTERIES and they cannot be known but in the light of God and not in the light of man but as God is pleased to make them out in man else no man knows what they meane in their own nature And
are still in snares and lockt fast in their fetters for who else can deliver and set free the soule of man but he that is Lord of all Rev. 1.18 and is subject to none He alone hath the keyes of Hell and death he alone is the soules Captaine and deliverer This is that which all the Saints have experience of when they finde themselves delivered from the bondage of flesh of selfe of the world if they feel this work done within them they know experimentally t is the very finger and power of Christ and that he is only Christs free man that none hath brought it to pass to set them at liberty to knock off their chains and lead them out of prison and set their feet upon a rock but only the Almighty power and meer mercy of the Lord Jesus they know that it hath been he that hath opened their eyes and their eares Psal 40.2 that hath raised them from death and given them feet to walk and there is none know this truly but only those that feele it done in themselves And for proofe of this point though I might prove it by Scripture very pleatifully to shew how many yea all the Saints there spoken of have found it in their own experience that they were delivered from death and from prison by the power of God and by the hand of Jesus Christ yet what is this to thee except thou sinde their experience true in thy selfe else their experience is but notions and riddles to thee and such things whereof thou hast no knowledge except thou see and know thy selfe to be under deth and kept fast in prison and except thou hast found Jesus Christ restoring recovering delivering and redeeming thee from this death And that thou findest that he hath said to thy soule Arise and stand up on the feet Acts 14.10 and hath given thee strength and life to what end is it to bring all the examples in Scripture and in the world if this death and life be no experimented in us Insomuch that thou canst say This word is true to me because done in me as the Apostle saith in Heb. 1.1 2. Heb. 1.1 2. God who at sundry times and divers manners spake in times past unto the Fathers and by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son whom he hath appointed Heir of all things Those truths which he spake before by the Prophets he hath now spoken in us by his Son so that we now know them to be the word and speakings of God But as our Saviour saith Mat. 12.39 40. An evil and an Adulterous Generation seeketh after a sign They expect every speaking should be made good by an external word and ye must go no farther so that the truth is never witnessed to in their hearts but as he sayes there There shall no sign be given them but the sign of the Prophet Ionas For as Ionas was three days and three nights in the Whales belly even so shal the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the Earth Except you find the same things done in you the same miracles the same death the same lying in the grave three days and three nights except you find Jesus Christ taking thee by the hand and restoring thee to life thou art of an evil and adulterous Generation seeking after an external sign and thou art a meer stranger to these things But I shall for their sakes who feel the work of Christ within them give you two or three places of Scripture being the experience of the Saints of old that you may see how the Saints bear witnesse to each other in experience First Scripture Esa 61.1 2 3. Esa 61.1 2 3. speaking there of Christ being the only deliverer saith The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he hath anoynted me to preach good tidings to the meek he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the Captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound c. To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion to give them beauty for ashes and the oyl of joy for mourning and the garments of praise for the spirit of heavinesse c. Christ only is the breaker open of the soules prison doors he alone gives deliverance to the Captives and he alone brings them forth from prison and sets them free and this he is to his people in all ages for he is yesterday and to day Heb. 13.8 and the same for ever and when the same word appeared in flesh he testifies the same of himself Luke 4.18 Luk. 4.18 21. where he rehearseth the same words and applyes them to himself vers 21. This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears And this was that which he still held forth in all his teachings that there is no other Saviour nor Deliverer but himself never was nor is nor ever shall be to the end of the world Moses was only an outward and external Captain or Deliverer but His leadings and deliverings are spiritual and there is none can be delivered but by him Heb. 12.24 as he is a better Mediator then Moses so he is a better deliverer t is he alone that frees the soul from the pit from death and hell his Kingdom is within us The Jewes and Pharisees they still excepted an outward deliverer and could not own Him as a Prince and Saviour but were blind and saw not what he still held forth in all his teachings They could not see the truth that they were blind and miserable and full of Hypocrisie and were no other but painted Sepulchres glorious outwardly but within were full of rottennesse stench and dead mens bones They could not endure to stand in the light of this truth Mat. 23.27 but hated it and persecuted him to the death for holding it forth What are we blind also what we the learned the wisest the holiest what we that are strict our selves and call upon others to be so this was death to them But now had they but seen this and owned it he would have been their righteousness their deliverer their redeemer to have set them free but because they said we see therefore their sin remained and their fetters and bondage was not taken off And again Christ tells them Iohn 8.31 32. If ye continue in my word then are ye my Disciples indeed and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free Now these things they could not see nor understand that they were in bondage but answered to him we are Abrahams seed and were never in bondage to any man how sayest thou ye shall be made free then Jesus answered them Verily verily I say unto you He that committeth sin is the servant of sin the servant abideth not in the House for ever but the son abideth for ever And if the son shall make you
honour or praise or the like nor to the Religion of the world nor of the Nation as ye know many usually do and if that will not do then they fly higher and they will be of the strictest sort of the Pharisees and joyn themselves with men of Learning Gravity and Religion and men esteemed Orthodox and sound in the Faith and he will follow their ways in hearing and reading and praying and walking without offence and the like but all these do but sow to the flesh Gal. 6.8 and of the flesh can reap nothing but corruption Do but examine thy selfe although thou hast joined thy selfe here and there and gone from one Church-society to another and put thy neck under the yoak of such a form and such a religion what was the cause was it not thy fears thy terrors within or was it not that thou mayst cover thy filthy and corrupt heart from the sight of others hast thou not for all this conformity the same heart the same nature still though thou hast hid and covered it by these inventions and when the fire hath still broke out and thy misery and undone condition would not be concealed hast not thou said within thy self is there not some other way some better remedy is there no better Physitians then these I have joind my self to the Presbyterians and I have found their way too short that would not do I have come over to the Independents and thought that way seemed before a better and more refined way yet it is too narrow I cannot wrap my self in that covering well sayes thy heart is there no other nor no better Physitians so I could but secure my self and prevent this fire and this burning I would be content to do any thing and take up every yoak and submit to the strictest forms Then say the Anabaptists come over to us and we shall give thee satisfaction we have the true Baptism according to the word none so near the word of God as we But when thou hast done all these things to find rest and to quench the fire which began to burn and to hide thy deformities from men dost thou think there is any thing of Christ in all this is not this rather to run away and turn thy back upon Christ and to live by thy own wits and inventions and by thy own power meerly to prevent death and destruction and the losing of thy own wisdom and righteousnesse and that thou mayest not come into the light of God least it should discover thy darknesse and blacknesse And now seeing these things are so how dare any of the sons of men boast of these things when they cannot free nor deliver the soul but rather increase their misery and lengthen out their bondage I say dare any man stand forth and call these the Ordinances of Christ as they use them what greater what higher blasphemy an Ordinance of God is a thing of another nature wherein the wisdom and power of God is effectual to bring in the heart to cause man to renounce his own wisdom power c. to empty him of all his power and goodnesse and to cause the soul to submit to the righteousnesse of faith else t is but an ordinance of man and the word is but a dead Letter and t is no more but the word of man Matth. 7.29 2 Cor. 10.5 Psa 50.16 except it come with authority and power upon the heart bringing every high thought and every imagination into the obedience of Christ What hast thou to do to take my word into thy mouth and yet hatest to be reformed Truly friends there are many pretenders to Christ and the world makes a great noise of serving and worshipping him and there is great talk everywhere of fearing God in notion and opinion and delusion For who else more persecute and crucifie Christ and hate and oppose the true power of godlinesse and the teachings of the spirit and the work of Christ in redeeming and delivering the soule then these men Therefore Beloved these things that men so much cleave to and magnifie cannot be the rest of a Christian nor the Ordinances of Christ as used by them but of Antichrist because they may be used and lived in and admired and prized and yet they are without any power they let those that use them and live in them to be carried away with divers lusts 2 Tim. 3.6 2 Pet. 2.19 they pretend liberty but themselves are the servants of corruption and enemies to the power of Christ and the life of Christianity and are acted by Antichrist who as God sitteth in the Temple of God 2 Thes 2.4 shewing himself that he is God Though he be a Devil and Antichrist yet he would not be known all his policy is to conceal himself and be thought to be righteous and pure and to be the very Christ the son of the living God May not one be dipt and receive water baptisme and yet be a Sorcerer Yes was not Simon Magus so Acts 8 12. May not one be at breaking of bread with Christ and yet be a Devil Mat. 26.23 Yes for so was Iudas though he was not there when Christ gave them his body to eat and his blood to drink which was himself which he gave to all the rest yet he was at supper with him at the Paschal Lamb and externally brake bread with him May not a man be full of good words and make great professions of strictnesse and yet be far from the Kingdom of of Heaven Yes Mat. 23.14 for so were the Pharisees they were the only Learned men and the Interpreters of the Scriptures and used much and long praying and uttering many outward good words sweet and smooth in their carriage and were very strict as to the outward command and were generally taken for the holiest and the gravest and the soberest men if any lend to them they would lend to them again yet you know what Christ saies of them Ibid. v. 27. they were but painted Hypocrits and compares them to lothsome stincking Sepulchres As the Apostle saith concerning charity though a man go never so far in actions of love though he give his body to be burned 1 Cor. 13.3 and have not true love all is nothing Men may come so far as to burn for Religion and yet have nothing of Christ at all Therfore these outward external actions of men do not truly declare a Christian whether he act from the power of Christ in him for he may do the same acts by way of imitation that a true Saint may do Therefore Beloved it lies us very much upon to discover and find out wherein the truth lies how we may know it from all forms shadows pictures patterns to know that which is true real unchangable and cannot deceive for there can be no true peace nor no real satisfaction but where Christ is an indweller in the soul where all of man
not of nor cannot conceive of And therefore all the world whether professing Christ or not they not eating of this Divine food they starve and die and eat nothing else but death the curse and damnation And yet what a noise and a busling there hath been in all ages about the forms and shadows of things and what censuring and condemning each other for not having a uniformity which can never be for they only dwelling in the letter and upon externall things they see not the spirit and the mysterie the life and the true bread 1 Gor. 10.17 But those who eate of the true bread they are one body and one bread for they are all partakers of that one bread with them there is a unity and a uniformity and nowhere else there can be of which men have heard a talk and report and they speak of such a thing but they know not what it means nor how to come by it for none can come at it but those to whom this bread is given and they onely can say experimentally Joh. 6.55 his body is bread indeed and his blood is drink indeed 1 Gor. 10.16 And they only can give witnesse of the True Communion of Saints and know the happinesse and true pleasure thereof and what heavenly sweetnesse is therein All harmonizing and giving testimony to This One alone Great Deliverer and This wonderfull None-such Deliverance No unity like this unity nor love nor peace like this peace which they have in Jesus Christ Their only Deliverer THE SAINTS Perfect Freedome OR Liberty in CHRIST asserted In opposition to all Yokes of Bondage By Mr. Jo. WEBSTER Preached at Alhallows Lumbard-street SERMON II. GALAT. 5.1 Stand fast therefore in the libertie wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage WE have already spoke something from these words according as God was pleased to give forth to us The Apostle in the former Chapter having spoken of the difference between the two seeds shewing that the one was the Heir the son of the promise and the seed of the Free-woman and was to inherit all the blessings The other was the son of the Bond-woman who was always in bondage with her Children and was to be cast cut and rejected for the Son of the Bond-woman shall not be Heir with the son of the Free-woman Now the Apostle with these Galathians had taken great pains and he had as it were Gal. 4.19 travailed in birth with them to bring them to Christ and to have him formed in them and they being made children of the Free-woman He comes in this verse to exhort them to stand fast in that deliverance wherewith Christ had made them free and to stand fast under the true obedience of Christ and not to be entangled or to give eare to any other Doctrine for all Doctrine and all other Government was no other but A yoak of bondage And the point we then stood upon was this That Jesus Christ was the only Deliverer from bondage wherein we shewed that every beleever was Christs true free-man Doct. and no man was ever delivered and set free from bondage but only and alone by Jesus Christ And we spake something to shew you how Christ was the Deliverer Esa 7.14 whom I shewed you was IMMANUEL God in us he being manifested and brought forth in us Col. 5.27 then he was the hope of Glory and never till then For man is set free by no other nor no lesse power then the power of the Father even the very same power which raised up Iesus from the grave Eph. 1.19.20 The very same sets every beleever at liberty And was that which freed him from his bondage broke off his shackles loosed him from his chains and delivered him out of prison We shewed hence the folly and madness of all those who went about or had any hope or expectation of freedom by any other way but only by Jesus Christ alone and how vain all the endeavour of man was till Christ was pleased to set him free for where the spirit of Christ is 2 Cor. 3.17 there is liberty and nowhere else This Liberty will abide and men may stand fast in it but all other liberty is but a delusion and will fail and come to nothing whatever peace or power or righteousness is brought into any soul by any other means it will fail and deceive him that puts confidence therein But where Christ has set a man free there is real freedom and his work will abide and shall receive a reward 1 Cor. 3.14 In the next place we shewed that this Deliverer all his works were spiritual they were not wrought in a carnal and fleshly way It was not externall forms nor outward rules nor disciplines nor gathering into fellowships nothing of this nature could set the soul free but onely the infinite power of Jesus Christ himself And having laid these things down we would now come nearer to our selves that every soul here may examine it selfe to see what witnesse it can bear to this doctrine whether they can testifie and beare out their witnesse in experience that Christ hath been their Deliverer or no and whether this deliverance have been wrought in them I doe not here come to ask any what he can say in words or what he hath by notion by reading or hearing or by custom or education but Art thou come to thy Deliverance by the spirit and power of Christ Hast thou found in thy selfe that all thy wisdom power endeavours all thy rules and strict walking could never deliver thy soul from one lust but that thou wert forced to renounce all as weak and abominable being utterly lost and stript naked in thy selfe being made as weak as any other man Judg. 16.17 and that all thy power working acting reforming was but a meer forced thing and nothing therein done by the power of love and by the spirit of Christ in thee that all thy glorious shews of faith and holinesse and strictnesse in conversation was but meer shews and pictures and that thou thy selfe wert but as sounding Brass and as a tinckling Cymbal and all thy profession and religion meer aire apparition 1 Cor. 13.1 emptiness and in truth A Ly and no such thing However thou hast been carried out upon divers considerations and hast had many glorious speculations and high expressions which to thy selfe and others have seemed rare and glorious yet I say except thou canst make these things out as done and acted in thy self by Jesus Christ be assured all thy words and high profession is nothing But hath Jesus Christ been thy Saviour thy Deliverer hath he opened thy eyes and thy ears raised thee from death to life have thy anckle-bones received steength from him Are those miracles spoken of which he did in the flesh done in thee Acts. 3.7 Are thy bones broken Ps 91.3 and is thy soul
escaped from the snare of the Hunter Hast thou really seen thy selfe lost undone made miserable hast thou seen that thy self was in Captivity and that thou wast deaf and dumb and blind and lame that thou wert shut up in darknesse and death and that there was none in Heaven or Earth able to help thee in the least but thou seeing thy selfe so miserable and hopeless that thou wert at thy wits end and no help at all appeared If this have not been thy condition though thou couldst speak never so excellently of the Letter and the History and though thou submittedst to the highest forms and to the soberest and most strict course of life being constant and austere in observing of thy rules for hearing and reading and set times of prayer and constant examining thy self to keep thy selfe up the stricter to thy Rules alas poor soul all this is nothing though thou couldest speak with the Tongue of Men and Angels 1 Cor. 13.1 and pray with such sweet words and language as might ravish all the men on earth If thou doest not finde Christ Jesus in thee breaking every bond and loosing every yoak and that no other in Heaven or Earth could do it but he thou wert never yet delivered but art still under wrath death and bondage The chief thing that every soul is to mind in reading and hearing is to examine whether the same thing be wrought in them whatever we find in the Letter if it be not made good in us what are the words to us we must see how Christ is crucified and buried in us and how he is risen and raised from death in us the chief thing I say is to look into our own breasts All generally that hold forth a profession of Christ they say in words that Christ is the Deliverer but that is not the thing but is he a Deliverer to thee Is that glorious MESSIAH promised Rom. 11.26 and the Deliverer out of Sion come with power into thy soul hath he exalted himselfe there and hath he made bare his arm and been a glorious CONQVERER in thee hath he taken to himself his great power to raign in thee Rev. 11.17 Is he King of Kings and Lord of Lords in thee c. Beloved all preaching and reading and praying and duties is to this end to examine thy inward man and thy spiritual condition Thou joinest thy self in fellowship and walkest conformable to all thy rules and thou art washed and thou breakest bread with them and thinkest herein thou hast obeyed the commands of Christ alas this is nothing if Jesus Christ have not joined thee to himself and made thee a member of him what good doe all these things for by all these outward actings thou dost not discern the Lords body To discern the Lords body is to eat him to be united to him to be made one spirit with him that so he may be made experimentally a Saviour and a Deliverer in thee That he hath taken thy soul out of the mire and clay Ps 40.2 and out of the horrible pit thou canst say experimentally and by feeling that it was an horrible pit and that there thy soul stuck fast and thou hadst no hope ever to get forth and if Christ hath set thee free thou knowest full well no power could do it but only his Eph. 1.19 only the same power which raised Jesus Christ from the grave and no lesse And thou whoever thou art who hast experience of this work thou art in one of these two conditions either thou art set free and delivered by the power of Jesus Christ or else thou seest thy self in the pit in straits in misery in a hopelesse condition and art sighing and groaning for deliverance and waiting when Christ will deliver thee And if thou beest but in either of these two conditions thou art in a safe and good Condition but if thou hast been in this misery and condemnation and thou hast used all means to put this off and sought out deliverance for thy selfe and by thy wisedome and strength and conformity and holinesse hast got thy selfe a covering by any thing under Heaven then Jesus Christ never was a Deliverer to thee but though thou thinkest thy selfe delivered yet thou art for all thy peace and for all thy Coverings under a worse bondage then before Therefore I say I would have every soul before me examine it selfe whether he be a true seeker of Deliverance which is to examine in which of these two Conditions he is in whether he hath been under these Terrors and death in hell and condemnation seeing himself lost and miserable and that instead of seeing any wisdom or power or righteousnesse in himself that he hath seeen and doth still see himself to be a meer sink of sin and a cage of unclean birds and that in him is nothing but weaknesse Rev. 18.2 wickednesse and all abominations And let me ask thee when thou wast in this condition whither wentest thou for help whether to dumb Idols that could not help that have eyes and see not and ears and hear not or to the living God in whom alone is help and deliverance And if thou art at present in this condition and distresse Joh. 5.4 thou art one that lies waiting at the pool till the Angel stir the waters expecting when Christ will put thee in Thou wilt not run to this duty and that form to ease thy self and to allay these Terrors and to quench these flames but if help come not there thou waist and there thou standest and remainest in this condemnation and goest up and down sighing and mourning all the day long and thou seest t is not in the power of all the Ministers under Heaven not in all the forms and rules that can be invented but only in the tender mercy and good will of Jesus Christ All other wayes thou lookest upon but as going out to Asher Hos 7.11 and to Egypt and to seek after dumb Idols that have a picture of eyes and ears and hands promising as though they could help but they can neither see nor hear nor help though to others they appear glorious and goodly things and they blesse themselves in using them yet to thee they are dead cold and helplesse so that now here thou waitest and sittest alone like the Pelican in the Desart Ps 102.6 and there thou mournest and bemoanest thy condition and with David thou hast no rest in thy bones because of thy sins Ibid. 38.3 Try thy self now in which is thy condition if in neither of these thou art in a most sad miserable condition indeed and so much the more sad because thou seest it not Or it may be thou hast cured thy self and healed thy selfe but art not cured nor healed Jer. 6.14 but the Prophets have healed the Daughter of my people slightly as the Prophet speaks have not throughly discovered their iniquity to turn
for when I had pondered the levity and incomposure of his Argument I could not but conclude as learned Helmont did of RODOLPHUS GOCLENIUS De Magn. vulner Curat lib. ingenui scientiae tam debilem Patronum obtigisse But alas he must needs appear a MODERATE states-man who hath hardly yet learned good manners it had been a far better adviso for him to have stayed at Jericho until his beard had been grown and kept his papers by him until Horace his advice had taught him some better experience decimum prematur in annum but a full Vessel must needs vent let us therefore hear his responsion He begins the Chapter with the words of a namelesse Author who saith Nor is any Nation without some turbulent spirits of its own the dishonour of the Gown and Pulpit the shame and sometimes ruine of their Country and amongst them ranks me as one Where we may note that though the man be ready and rash groundlesly to call others the disciples of Satan yet it is manifest he is one himself for Satan is an accuser of the brethren Rev. 12.10 and so is he in these forecited words he is also a father of Untruths Neither He nor any in the Nation can justly make it forth that I am any way guilty of turbulency of spirit either to shame or ruine my country and for Satan He was a lyar from the beginning and abode not in the truth Joh 8.44 But I can witnesse the truth of his Author in himselfe for if he had not been of a turbulent spirit he would never have began nor proceeded so boysterously nor uncivilly And if He be not the shame of the Gowne or Pulpit I am sure he is of the Presse that may well blush with those malicious falsities that he hath published against me who never thought nor did him iujury Doth his learning or Christianity teach him these things The lips of truth shall be established for ever Pro. 12.19 but a lying tongue is but for a moment And so hee repeats my third Quaery And His first entrance is still like himselfe full of poyson and evil words He saith it is a Quaery Satan himself might blush to put Surely the man was ARMIGER to Goliath or Rabshakeh from whom hee learned to rayle for I must tell him That some persons have put the same Quaere without blushing who were of more learning and piety then an hundred such as G. W. though they were all Esquires But it may be the man hath spoken truth knew not for I verily beleeve Satan would blush to put any Quaery that might unmask his deceits or discover truth and so would not willingly have this question brought to the rest lest the foundation of his Kingdom be thereby shaken Neither doth this Quaere any way disagree with the title of The Saints Guide 1 Thes 5.21 for it is they who are advised to try all things and to hold fast that which is good and that the wolfe cloaths himselfe in the lambs skin is witnessed in himselfe whose wolfish nature appears in his malicious devouring language though he would adorne it with the specious pretext of being a Christian And then he proceeds still in that work which his Master the Prince of darknesse hath set him upon to accuse unjustly and falfely for he saith that I reproach Learning which is absolutely untrue I doe onely but rank and place it where it ought to stand neither doe I blasphemously like himselfe assume or attribute any divinity to my self or words Can any thing be truly and properly called DIVINITY but the Nature and Being of God onely Surely his Learning might have taught him more fit language But he proceeds and saith That except the Old Serpent and my selfe whom he Serpent-like calls his Disciple he never found any affirming that man wanted any thing in his innocency pag. 111. Where did he finde except in his own Serpentine-heart that the Old Serpent did ever affirme that man wanted not any thing in his innocency For if he had affirmed this he had affirmed that truth which he hates Did the man never finde that the Spirit of God in the Scriptures doth affirme that Man wanted the knowledge of evil that he wanted sin corruption misery and death which all entred by the fall and after it Had man before the fall an ignorant blind and darkened soule or a bestiall nature subject to diseases and death or came not all these by and after the fall and so he wanted them before Who is the Serpents disciple I or the Armiger let all knowing men judge Thus the man argues against he neither knowes what nor whom with much railing but no reason But now he saith he comes to the question That reason was depraved and darkened by the Fall and that by the help of learning it is in some measure restored and this he allowes and affirmes Was this the question propounded by me let any man read and judge The great Logician with all his skill commits that Fallacie which every minor Sophister would be ashamed of which is Petitio principii the begging of the question For in the Quaery it is not supposed nor granted that man before the fall had reason or humane learning but is part of the question it selfe And he himself page 110 urges it as my affirmation that man wanted it in his innocency and yet now hath forgotten and lost the state of the question Therefore I must put him in mind of it againe and tell him that the question was not whether reasen were depraved by the fall or in some measure restored by learning but whether before the fall he had reason or humane learning or not and so all that he spatters forth about falling into a pit and getting out and the rest to the middle of the 112. page is but the foame of his raving fancy and to no purpose in respect of my Quaery but is altogether extra limites questionis Then he proceeds and saith The fellow seems to be a Scholler I shall therefore ask him one question I would know of this Armiger how many such fellows as my self his Worship maintains to wait upon him It may be he looks not upon me as his fellow but however he might take me to be his brother Animal Joh. 9.29 But I shall meekly and patiently passe by the Title knowing that our Lord and Master Jesus Christ was so called by the great Rabbies of the Jewes and onely wish that God would be pleased to bring him to the fellowship of his Saints in truth and sincerity If I seem to be a Scholler which I confesse is in a very little measure I wish I could see it appeare so in him for I had rather combat with solidity of Learning then with passion and uncivill language But let us heare his learned question which is this Is not Reason the specifical difference of man from a beast and was man distinguished from