delight is with the sons of men as Solomon witnesseth of her And S. Iames bids us pray for her If any man want Wisdom let him ask it of God So that when the Prophet Baruch saith No man knoweth her way nor thinketh on her path is as much as if he should say No man by the Natural Spirit of a man can reach so far But S. Peter faith that we have precious promises of being made partakers of the Divine Nature And our Blessed Saviour argueth thus in the 11th of S. Luke If so be that men being evil know how to give good gifts to their children How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him But what Shall therefore every one that saith Lord Lord or that can repeat their Pater noster receive the Holy Spirit of Wisdom No in no wise Only they that do the will of my Father which is in Heaven saith our Saviour If I encline to wickedness in my heart saith the Psalmist the Lord will not hear my prayer And indeed the old blind Poet could see so far into Divinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that obeys God God hears him So that we see that the foundation or beginning of this great work of Wisdom is that which the present Text points at viz. The fear of God The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom The words are plain and without ambiguity In the English especially The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not of so a determinate sense but that it may signifie the principal the first best or chiefest of Wisdom as well as the beginning of Wisdom But the latter I take to be the better if not the only sense For Fear hath torment saith the Apostle but perfect love casteth out fear Wherefore this Fear is not the choicest or chiefest of true Wisdom But if we compare this place with its parallel we shall yet more plainly see that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies merely a beginning or entrance Prov. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The entrance or first impenetration into Wisdom is the fear of God For the word comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying to boar or pierce So that it is evident that the English Translation is the only sense of this place of Scripture In the handling whereof I will endeavour these two things 1. To shew somewhat more largely out of other places of Scripture the truth of this present Text That the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom 2. Why there is no other entrance than this into true Wisdom THE former is manifest out of many places of Scripture 1. Ecclesiastie 4. 17. For first she will walk with him by crooked wayes and bring him unto fear and dread and torment him with her discipline until she have tryed his soul and have proved him by her judgments Then will she return the streight way unto him and comfort him and shew him her secrets and heap upon him her treasures of Knowledge 2. Also Esai 66. at the beginning of the Chapter Thus saith the Lord The heaven is my throne and the earth is my foot-stool Where is that house that you will build unto me And where is that place of my rest Presently after he subjoineth To him will I look even to him that is of a poor and contrite spirit and trembleth at my words He therefore that fears the Lord shall become the Temple of God And it should seem no strange thing to us being the Apostle makes mention of the same more than once or twice Know you not that your bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost in the first Epistle to the Corinthians And in the same Epistle Know you not that you are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you Now what Benefit accrues to us by being the Temple of God we may gather by the nature and use of these Material Temples these Temples made with hands In these we know amongst the Heathen were the Initiations into the Mysteries of whatsoever Deity the place was Consecrate to But we need not straggle We see the use of outward Temples dayly here among our selves They are for Prayers Hymns and for Instruction out of the Word of God the literal Word of God in a gross material Temple Therefore in analogy in the Temple of our Souls and Spirits shall the essential word the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Eternal Word of God or God himself teach and instruct us And who teacheth like him as is said in Iob. There was so great Vertue in the very presence of the Person of Socrates as you may see in Plato that his Scholars profited very much merely by being in the same Room with him though he spake not unto them How much more shall they profit with whom the Spirit of Christ abideth as in his own proper House and Temple With what joy and admiration shall they be taken when in the Synagogue of their Hearts he shall stand up and read as in that Synagogue at Nazareth He hath sent me that I should heal the broken-hearted that I should preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind When he shall begin to say This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears Then shall all the powers and faculties of a mans Soul bear him witness and wonder at the gracious words that proceed out of his mouth Such a Teacher shall all such have that truly fear God 3. Again That Wisdom is usherd in by terrour fear and horrour seems to be the subject of the 29th Psalm The voice of the Lord is upon the waters the God of glory maketh it to thunder the Lord is upon the great waters Now that Waters are an Emblem of the moveable and tumultuous flowings of the Earthly Nature that Learned Iew doth teach us when as he calls the Waters of Edom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Waters towards which the King of Egypt made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Platonists make but a sliding passing dream of corporeal and sensible things saying of them that they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they slide continually from the true essence by perpetual flowing So the Soul being united cum rebus fluxis caducis dissolved as it were and incorporate after a manner into their Watery nature and lost amongst it The mighty energy of the All-powerful Voice of God or Word of God doth operate upon these Waters for the producing of Light in them as in the first Creation And according to this Analogy speaks the Apostle 2 Cor. 4. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Iesus Christ. But to proceed further in the Psalm The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars yea the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon The voice of the Lord maketh
scarce dare to name had not the Apostle himself taken notice of it That this Beastly Lustfulness has made Women change the natural use into that which is against Nature and likewise also the Men leaving the natural use of the Woman burned in their Lusts one towards another men with men working that which is unseemly Rom. 1. With such base and inglorious with such wretched and hideous Servilities do the Fleshly Lusts tyrannize over the Soul when they have once captivated her carrying her thus in triumph and exposing her to all baseness and lewdness and dragging her by her chains of captivity through all filthiness and unseemliness and having thus besmear'd and defac'd her with the filth of all manner of Sins in this Life fit her for a delivery to her fellow-Devils in the other to be reserv'd with them in everlasting chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day This is the lamentable success of that Warfare betwixt the Lusts of the Flesh and the Soul if she suffer her self to be overcome And therefore it is no wonder the Holy Apostle uses all the Reason and Rhetorick he has to make us stand upon our guard and defend our selves from so subtle and malicious Enemies Dearly beloved I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. DISCOURSE II. PSAL. lxxxiv 7. They go from strength to strength every one of them appeareth before God in Sion THE Text is a Presage of admirable Prosperity and Success to some sort of People so that it may well excite in us a desire of searching out who they may be And if we begin further off at first or go about yet it may according to the Proverb prove the nighest way home If any one therefore demand who these are I shall answer him out of the 24th Psalm the subject whereof seems to be the very same with this and in the words of the same Prophet This is the generation of them that seek him that seek thy face O Iacob the God of the People that prevail by their importunities and wrestlings with God as Iacob is said to do Gen. 32. whereby he purchased to himself the name of Israel because as a Prince he had power with God And David as being one of this extraction himself he seems to challenge a Blessing from God on that very account O Lord God of Hosts hear my prayer give ear O God of Iacob in the Verse immediately following my Text. In this present Psalm as also in the 24th and 15th Psalms the Holy Prophet so speaks of the Court Tabernacle Temple or House of God as of a place of the highest enravishments that the Soul of man can enjoy which Expositors generally and I doubt not but truly interpret of the Mosaical Tabernacle and Literal Temple But that the mind of the Prophet was carry'd up also to some higher matter I do not at all question And the first Verse of the 15th Psalm Lord who shall abide in thy Tabernacle who shall dwell in thy holy Hill which is almost verbatim repeated again in the 24th Psalm the Chaldee Paraphrast does expresly interpret of Heaven So warrantable is it not to be ty'd down to the Letter but to seek a further edifying Mystery in the Holy Oracles of God And such a Temple as the abode wherein will be more suitable to such earnest breathings and vehement expressions of the Prophet Ver. 1. 2. How amiable are thy tabernacles O Lord of Hosts My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh cryeth out for the living God And again Ver. 4. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house they will be still praising thee These things do not suit so well methinks to a house that is made of any earthly materials into which the wicked can throng as well as the just Nor does God dwell in any House made with hands according to the Apostolick Philosophy Acts 7. Any yet according to their Doctrine We are the Temple of God at least design'd so to be And the Apostle Paul sayes expresly 1. Cor. 6. 19. What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost And yet the same Apostle Rom. 7. 18. I know saith he that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing This Earthly Tabernacle is no House of God as being from the Earth From whence it is that we groan earnestly as the same Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 5. desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven For we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened not for that we would be unclothed but clothed upon or further clothed that mortality might be swallow'd up of life Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit That is to say He that works us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into this condition is God himself by the operation of his Spirit which is the Architect of its own House as it is said of the Soul the Builder of that Holy Temple in us in which all is fulfilled which the Prophet David sets out in such devotional and vehement Language For when we are come to this state we are then truly the Temple of the Living God and it is Strength to a mans Navel and Marrow to his Bones So that well may the Holy Prophet raise himself into so high expressions touching this condition Ver. 2. My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh cryeth out for the living God For this Earthly Tabernacle destitute of this is but a burden or body of Vanity wherein are all the Seeds and Fruits of Sin and Misery But of this Heavenly House is that plentifully verify'd which the Prophet David presageth Blessed are they that dwell in thy house they will be still praising thee And they that are arrived to this condition will easily fulfil that Precept of the Apostle Eph. 5. 18 19. Be not drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit speaking to your selves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. This is the real participation of the Body or Flesh of Christ the true Bread from Heaven which is the immediate receptacle of the Divine Spirit so that he that comes hither cannot fail to be replenish'd with Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost And this may serve for a brief intimation Who these Persons are to whom such good Success is promised in the Text and what the place is towards which they are journeying viz. the Tabernacle Temple or House of God mystically understood LET us now consider 1. The Country through which they pass 2. How well accoutred they are in their persons for the Journey 3. What Convoy to guard them safe 4. Under what Influences of Heaven they travel 5. What the
the Spirit of Christ. For the First Eph. 6. 12. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high places Beloved The great work of Salvation is not then accomplished when we have through the power of God and the strength of Jesus Christ overcome the Lusts of the Body as Drunkenness Gluttony Whoredom and the like But we shall find a new task the taming of our proud Spirit For after our first conquest I mean the overcoming the Lusts of the Body then pride and haughtiness and contempt of our Neighbour the thinking of our selves some-body rigour and unmercifulness to our sinful Brother the magnifying of our selves in some conceited Opinions searching out and confidently concluding concerning the secrets of God censuring and contemning all men that are not of the same conceit in Divine Speculations with our selves These and many such like evil delusions the Devil will sow in our Hearts The Devil himself is neither Whoremaster nor Drunkard nor Glutton But he is Proud but he is Contemptuous but he is Hypocritical but he is a Blood-sucker a Murderer from the beginning full of self-love full of self-admiration full of cruelty under pretence of Religion full of deceit and injustice under pretence of Truth and maintenance of Godliness full of ambition and desire of rule even over the Souls and Consciences of men full of self-applause and arrogancy and strutting in his own supposed knowledge and power But true denyal of our selves and unfeigned deep humility a sensible apprehension of our nothingness as I may so say or real detestable vileness will cause such dreadful agonies in our Souls that no tongue can express nor heart conceive that hath not had experience of those bitter Sufferings With so great pain and torment are we torn and riven from our spiritual wickedness disjointed and dislimb'd as it were from our head that Prince of Pride and Father of Disobedience the Devil But I will now shew you the other kind of suffering which is the suffering in Spirit by reason of other mens wickedness When we are united to God and Christ in the union of Spirit then do those things that are contrary to the Spirit of God as all manner of sin trouble our Spirit Envious or cruel acts drunkenness deceit pride rigour fierceness folly and whatsoever else is sinful or vain our Spirit being enlivened by the Spirit of God is grieved and vext at these wickednesses or vanities Then we plainly see how Christ is cut and lash'd and hew'd and stab'd with our wicked deeds how he is crucified afresh as the Apostle speaketh Here may the true Church of God the Holy Ierusalem take up fitly that Lamentation in Ieremy Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow See how the Prophet David was affected with the wickedness of men Psal. 119. Mine eyes gush out with water because men keep not thy law I beheld the transgressours and was grieved because men keep not thy word So Lot was tormented at the wickedness of Sodom 2 Pet. 2. 7. And delivered just Lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked For that righteous man dwelling among them in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds So God complains in the Spirit of his Prophet Amos. Behold I am pressed under you as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves Amos 2. 13. And surely there is good Reason it should be so a sure Necessity For Fire is not more contrary to Water nor Light to Darkness nor any enmity in Nature or among men so strong as that betwixt the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the Devil that is in evil wicked men according to which they live and act So then when that detestable ugliness flowes out in their words or actions it must needs offend the Children of God God being of pure eyes and not abiding to behold wickedness Hence are they driven into consuming zeal or deep inexpressible grief And this is the second kind of suffering in Spirit But Beloved take this in by the way That he that can be angry at other mens faults and not much more angry at his own is a dissembler an Hypocrite Herein let every man examine himself But he that is so stupid that he is not moved at all with the wickedness of others or of himself is perfectly dead in Sin and is in the full power of Satan and is covered with Eternal Death and Darkness THIS Second Doctrine is now sufficiently plain That they that would be Heirs of the Kingdom of Christ must suffer with Christ. I will again here stir you up to an examination and tryal of your Spiritual state whether you have any interest in the Heavenly Inheritance The Sign and infallible Seal is our suffering with Christ. But not any suffering For the fuffering in Estate if we escape it yet may we be inheritors of Heaven But to be evil spoken of for Christ is harder to efcape yet admit we escape that too we may for all that be secure of our Eternal Inheritance Nor have all that are now with God been whip'd and tortur'd and put to death or martyrdom But yet we ought to be so minded that we had rather endure all these things than depart from Christ. But all the other sufferings as abstinence from voluptuousness from the delights of the flesh from priding our selves in any thing that God hath bestowed upon us a suppressing our anger abstaining from the sweetness of revenge denying of the ever-craving appetite of covetousness keeping our tongues from the delight of defamation and evil reports our ears from hearing evil of our Neighbour These be necessary All which endeavours will surely afflict and vex the corrupt Natural Spirit of a man But he that will not undergo this suffering believe it Beloved he is none of Christs he hath neither part nor portion in the Kingdom of Christ and of God But he that doth though with great agony of Soul and affliction of Mind fight against all this corruption of Flesh and Spirit He may bless God for his good condition and with good reason lay hold of the hope of Heaven They that are troubled in Spirit for the wickedness of men the prophanation of Gods name and any manner of sin and iniquity these men may conclude that they have the Spirit of God and consequently that they are the Sons of God And if sons then heirs heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ If so be that we suffer with him Which our own Spirit together with Gods Spirit doth testifie to us that we do and that we shall be certainly glorified with him Let every man herein examine himself that he may find a true ground of his hope of Eternal Salvation For none shall be saved but they that are
in and drown the Soul and choak all Life of Vertue and Goodness This is that great Deity of the Heaten This is the Idol of the Daughters of Moab whose stay and confidence is in this visible World whose joy and pleasure is in the Life of the Flesh. I will conclude with the Conclusion of the Psalmist Save us O Lord our God and gather us from among the Heathen to give thanks unto thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting and let all the people say Amen Praise ye the Lord. DISCOURSE XV. COL iii. 1. If you then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God THIS Text contains in it that precious mystery of the internal or inward Resurrection of Christ in our Hearts or Souls which is the chief if not only saving Knowledge of that part of our Christian Religion For alas Beloved what will that outward Resurrection of our Saviour according to the flesh profit us though we have the History of it never so accurately nay though we had seen it with our own eyes We may lye in the grave of sin our selves for all that We may sink like a dead stone into the bottomless pit and have our portion with the damned Devils who have an Historical Faith of all the passages of Christs doings or sufferings here on Earth it may be better than our selves And those wicked Souldiers that watched his Sepulchre were perfectly convinced that he had escaped the jawes of Death But what was this to them who were yet dead in their trespasses and sins Surely nothing at all And as little is it to us Beloved if we be dead in sin and have not risen from the strong holding bands of iniquity and vanity Wherefore it is not enough to say Christ dyed for our sins and rose again for our justification and so to imagine his Resurrection to be our raising from wickedness and corruption But we our selves also really and in truth are to rise from the grave of sin by the power of the enlivening Spirit of Jesus Christ. And whether we be thus risen indeed or no this present Text of Scripture will teach us If you be risen with Christ seek those things or you do seek those things which are above For the Greek Text will bear both senses I will first briefly run through the Sense of the words and then raise such Doctrines and Uses as shall most naturally flow from the Text and shall be most profitable for the promotion of that main work of our Salvation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If then you be risen with Christ That is If you be risen in your Souls as Christ in Body rose from the grave If your Souls have scaped the bands of the Spiritual Death which is the nature and life of Sin for that maketh us truly dead unto Righteousness and unto God as Christs Body broke from the Prison of the Sepulchre Then you seek those things that are above It must needs be understood of the Resurrection of the Soul from Sin because the Apostle did not Preach to dead men departed this Life once and again clothed with this Fleshly Tabernacle but to men who were alwayes alive from their first being born into this visible World In vain then had he taught them a sign of that which he knew would never come to pass till the Colossians were past his Preaching to to wit at the last day the time of the Resurrection of our Bodies And according to this manner doth the Apostle speak also of the Crucifixion of Christ making the outward Passion and Death of Christ a sign or resemblance of something in our Souls viz. our dying to Sin as here he hath made his Resurrection an emblem of our rising to Righteousness Rom. 6. 2 c.. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein Know you not that all we that have been baptised into Iesus Christ have been baptised into his death We are buried then with him by baptism into his death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father so we also should walk in newness of life For if we be grafted with him into the similitude of his death even so shall we be into the similitude of his resurrection Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin The Apostle there plainly compares our dying to Sin to the Crucifixion of our Saviour and that as he dyed on the Cross Corporally so we ought to crucifie the body of Sin in us by the power of God in our Spirits Thus have we good warrant from the example of the Apostle to look upon the Mystery of Christianity with Spiritual eyes The Birth the Death the Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour Bodily have their similitude Spiritually in our Souls The Birth of Christ a resemblance of Christs being born in us Gal. 4. 19. My little children of whom I travail in the birth again till Christ be formed in you His Death of our dying to Sin as I have already declared Or of Christs being dead in us For we are also said to crucifie Christ by our ungodliness and by extinguishing his Spirit of power and illumination in us Heb. 6. 4. For it is impossible that they which were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted of the good word of God and of the powers of the world to come If they fall away that they should be renewed by repentance seeing they have crucified again to themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame Crucified again For verily Beloved from our very youth up we have laid dead the Son of God the suggestions of the Holy Life in our Consciences But yet it pleaseth God to raise his Son in us and recover him to Life by the Preaching of the powerful Messengers of God and the secret working of his Holy Spirit upon the Heart And here is Christ risen as it were from the grave But if we by loose and negligent courses destroy this Life of Christ in us and extinguish the Spirit of God in our Souls then do we crucifie the Son of God afresh and shame the profession of Regeneration and the Spirit of God and the true and living Christianism by our open revolting from the living God and taking part with the wicked of this World and their ungodly and sensual courses But now as Christ is thus in a Spiritual manner killed and crucified so when he is in us restor'd to Life it must needs be fittingly termed his Resurrection from Death And according to this sense may those words of my Text be understood also If you be risen with Christ That is If your Souls have become living
modification which to us are so many distinct Colours But take away the Light and all these Colours cease to be As if there were a way to intercept the Suns light from coming to the Cloud where the Rainbow is figured all the Colours of the Rainbow would soon vanish and disappear So if Love be not no other Passion can be but that first supposed the other occasionally will arise from it As from the hitting of the Sun-beams against several Objects several Colours arise which are nothing else but the Beams or Light it self variously modify'd according to the variety of surfaces against which it doth impinge and is reverberated from So in like manner the Passion of Love in a mans Soul being one is variously transformed into several shapes and modes according as the occurrences and occasions it meets with And this we may sensibly perceive in the love of our selves which Domestick fire is kept alive in us with more superstition and care than that more Sacred flame of Divine Love but in a multifarious transfiguration as we may easily observe For Example When a man has committed any thing against his own Profit or Interest through some carelesness or mistake and so grows vext at it what is this but Self-love appearing in the disguise of Anger Sadness and discontent at the death or displeasure of some potent friend what is this but Self-love mufled up in the sad attirements of Sorrow Those pleasing motions and prefigurations of the mind upon the promise of future Honours and Preferments what is that but Self-love putting on the smiling countenance of hope And so of the rest But now to transfer all this to the present purpose That Love which I have defined to you is one simple and uniform thing like the visible Light And this is a perpetual well-liking of or benign affection to the Divine Beauty communicable to man which is as one still Sun-shine day or if you will as the Sun shining in silence and solitude there being no Earth or any opake part of the World to reflect and variegate his Rays Such is the mind of him that is possest with this Divine Love as it is freely and uncurb'dly working in it self But lighting upon several objects is after several manners modified and transfigured into several shapes This Love at the Conversion of a Sinner shines forth in that chearful aspect of Heavenly Ioy and Exultation of Spirit at the unworthy usage of good and holy men it burns with Anger and Indignation looking as red and purpled as the Horizontal Sun at the doubtful carriages of men is broken into distractful thoughts careful Fear and Anxiety at the sight of Solomons Fool devoid of understanding is struck with Forlornness and Sadness of Spirit such a one being as a lonesome desolate Cottage where no man inhabits For as he that is in the Wilderness though he have the company of Beasts yet being destitute of the society of men finds himself really in sadness and solitude so certainly he that is regenerate into the Image of the true man the Heavenly Adam i. e. Christ even in a crowd of acquaintance devoid of that Image perceives himself but in solitude And whensoever he converses or meets with any in whom that Heavenly inhabitant is wanting it is to him as forlorn a spectacle as a lonesome and empty Lodge in the midst of a Desart whither when the weary Traveller diverts he finds no man to refresh him with a morsel of Bread or a dish of Water For certainly they that once have a right sense and esteem of the lovely Image of Christ out of a kind of a Divine dotage as I may so speak can not endure to find it missing any where would have it hung up in every room would have it inhabit every house that they may meet with it at every turn And therefore where they miss of it it is as sad a chance as Divorce or Exile from our dear Friend as discomfortable as close Imprisonment and seclusion from all Conversation with men Thus we see Divine Love ceases not by other Passions but remains still the same though in several postures And that it is the several operations of one simple Nature about one and the same Object that is the Image of God or Divine Accomplishments communicable to man Which when they begin to spring and flourish in men this Love is figur'd into Ioy when they decay or are lost into Sorrow when despightfully used into Anger and the like So that if we know what we chiefly love and for whose cause man is to be loved we shall find it not impossible to have our Souls work according to this Principle of Love upon what Object soever So that we may without contradiction fulfil these Duties in the Text of Vniversal and Perpetual Love And now that the Thing is understood feasible it will not be hard to fetch out Arguments for the enforcement of the same The present Text will afford them And the First is From the State of Purification which every Christian is bound to be in and is in if he be truly a Christian. For the Soul of man being a kind of Flame or Fiery Essence Igneus est olli vigor Coelestis origo whereas that foulness and rubbish which it lies in to wit sensual and corruptible Pleasure the instrument whereof is this faeculent and misgoverned Body makes the Soul wrathful lustful self-will'd impetuously given to petty interests and particular poor contentations and delights Surely the purging of it from this foul dross and dregs must needs wing it free it universalize it and make it as generally benign to all men as the Sun is universally courteous to all the World in lending Light and Heat to all For by how much the Soul doth purge her self by so much nearer she approaches to that Primogeneal or Original Fire which is God himself that lets his sun rise on the evil and good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust Matth. 5. 45. This is the Chaldaean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of which proceeds all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as those Oracles speak And the Soul of man the Image of God is in the same said also to be Fire which Psellus more expresly defines in his Notes upon those Oracles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Soul is an immaterial and incorporeal Fire which withdrawing it self from the thickness and foulness of this low Corruption incorporates with that Original Fire even God himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the same Author upon those Oracles hath it Wherefore mingling Essences as it were with the Divinity it must be of the same sense and mind with God and therefore never ceases from loving all men as God himself refuses none The Publishers POST-SCRIPT THree things I shall here advertise the Reader of 1. The First is That the Appendix to Discourse XIII th should not have been Printed apart but that most of it was wanting till that other part was Printed off 2. The Second is That what is still wanting to complete that Discourse as also the Continuation of Discourse XV th never came into my hands 3. The Third is That if those Papers or any other of the Authors be sent to me all due care shall be taken for the making of them Publick FINIS A Catalogue Books Published by His Grace JOHN Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury THirty Sermons and Discourses upon several Occasions in three Volumes in Octavo The Rule of Faith or an Answer to the Treatise of Mr. I. Sergeant Octavo Since which is Published Nine several Sermons on several Occasions in Quarto Books writ by the Learned Dr. Isaac Barrow late Master of Trinity College in Cambridge And Published by His Grace JOHN Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in Four Volumes in Folio The First Volume containing Thirty Two Sermons Preached upon several Occasions An Exposition of the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments also the Doctrine of the Sacraments A Learned Treatise of the Popes Supremacy With some Account of the Authors Life The Second Volume containing Sermons and Expositions upon the Apostles Creed The Third Volume containing Forty Five Sermons upon several Occasions Compleating his English Works The Fourth Volume being his Opuscula Viz. Determinationes Conc. ad Clerum Orationes Poemata c. Any of the said Volumes may be had alone All Sold by Brabazon Ayliner at the Three Pigeons in Cornhil
Shield of Faith in the power of God whereby we are enabled to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked And we must take the Helmet of Hope and sure expectation of Everlasting Life which will keep us from being easily knock'd down to the Earth by the fiercest Assaults of our Adversaries And lastly we must take to us the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God whereby we may divide betwixt Good and Evil and admit the one and reject the other And being thus appointed we must pray alwaies with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit watching thereunto with all perseverance And especially to watch in such a sense as this as to be extremely shy and careful how we admit any thing under the colour or upon the rellish of Animal pleasure but rather eo nomine to decline it Which is an impregnable Bulwark against the assaults of the Flesh and such as will ever defeat them If we do these things we shall never fall let the assaults of the Fleshly Lusts be as violent as they will 3. But if we be overcome let us now see what a lamentable spoil they will make of us and how cruelly and tyrannically they will use us For First They will rob us of whatever is precious that we have They will take down and carry away with them that chearful and delightful furniture of the Soul Peace and Tranquillity of mind For the mind of man is not of so base an Original as to enjoy it self in things so much below it self as are the Fleshly Lusts Whence it must needs be that she will be ever and anon disturbed with loathings and regrets of Conscience amidst her so base condition and practices and instead of that steady peace and chearfulness of Spirit which are enjoyed in our adherence to Holiness and Vertue be exposed to many horrours and distractions and confusions of thoughts and an ungrateful sense of inward shame and reproach which accompanies such unworthy actions Secondly They will disarm the Soul of that honest activity and diligence which we ought to have in our Affairs and make us more uncareful and more unable to pursue and manage our Business with that discretion and faithfulness we ought to do to the scandal of the World as well as to our own detriment This Lucretius notes of that notorious kind of Fleshly Lusts the being addicted to Women Languent officia atque aegrotat fama vacillans But takes place also in Gluttony in Drunkenness and whatever other pleasure has once overcome the Soul and subdued her to it self Thirdly These Fleshly Lusts rob a man of the safe use of his Reason They will make it wonderfully prevaricate in the behalf of themselves and commit such Paralogisms as the Soul cannot but be ashamed of so soon as she has got out of the reach of their power And they will in the conclusion so weaken the Faculties of the Mind that they shall very fondly dote in their Verdicts even touching such things as the Fleshly Lusts themselves are unconcerned in For these Lusts bereaving the Mind of her purity must needs dim and obscure her Faculties more or less in all uses of them where there is ordinarily any difference of Sentiments amongst men Fourthly and lastly These Lusts deprive us of the Life and Influence of the Divine Spirit and most dismally damp and dead the Power of Faith and Sense of Religion in the Soul which is of more consequence than even Reason it self which proves very weak in the assurance of these things when the sagacity of a better Life is extinguished or smothered by the soul impurities of the Lusts of the Flesh. But the Soul being once purged from these ipso facto unites with the Spirit of God and by an Holy and Divine Instinct is in a proneness and readiness to believe such things as God is truly said to have done or to intend to do concerning the sons of men by vertue of her union with the Divine Spirit or that Eternal Mind that immutably contains the whole Counsel of God touching things past present and to come This miserable spoil do the Fleshly Lusts make of the poor Soul when they overcome her and not only so but they use her cruelly to boot That they put out her Eyes I have already intimated in that I noted that they bereave her both of Faith and Reason And that they pluck all her Feathers out of her Wings it is as manifest since our being captivated with Fleshly Lusts keeps down the Soul and hinders all Holy and Heavenly Aspires and extinguishes the pure Flames of Devotion Nor are they content with this but they also crucifie and nail the captive Soul to this Earthly Body as Plato complains 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Pleasure and Grief nails saith he the Soul to the Body Nor is it impertinent to name enormous Grief amongst the Lusts of the Flesh since no Grief is enormous but out of the enormity of Self-love or inordinate love of this Corporeal Personality of ours which if we could be sufficiently unconcerned for and love and esteem nothing but the Almighty Lord of Heaven and Earth and those Divine Laws and Holy Sentiments he has implanted in our Souls Enormity of Grief would not be able to seize upon us Nor do they only thus crucifie and kill that higher and Diviner Life of the Soul but by the exorbitant excitations of the contrary Life into several enormous modes and forms metamorphose men into so many abhorred Monsters whom they keep in the chains of this base servility and captivity and then let them loose upon the most villainous outrages or the basest and most contemptible actions imaginable Wrath and Revenge like a Bear robb'd of her Whelps makes them tear apieces and destroy all they meet with in their way Ambition and Avarice like an Evening-Wolf makes them fall upon the Sheepfolds and suck the blood of innocent Lambs to satisfie their thirst Superstition and false Zeal turnes them into such Furies or Devils that they destroy whole Cities and Countries with Fire and Sword out of pride and impatience that others do not submit to their Wisdom and give themselves up to their Guidance who yet have no Light but those Infernal Torches of an ignorant and bitter Zeal devoid of all Christian Charity which they could light no where but from the Flames of Hell nor conduct a Soul by this Light any whither but to the place of those Infernal Flames The sting of Lust transforms them into such Satyrs and Baboons that they fly upon all promiscuously not sparing their own Mothers Sisters nor Daughters Gluttony and Drunkenness as Circe did Vlysses his Companions changes their shapes into foul dirty Swine To say nothing of those ugly indecorums of Effeminacy that brings some into as base a Servility as Omphale did Hercules who made him put off his Lyons-Skin and sit amongst her Maids at the Distaff and Spindle Not to add what one would
of God For this Life and Spirit is not drawn into the Soul but with the Body of Christ which is the Holy Temple of God Wherefore when we come to that Dispensation which we call the Living Law or the Law that giveth Life this is a main progress indeed in our Journey through the Valley of Baca and in this especially is that verify'd that it is turned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into a springing Well which as I intimated before is to be understood of the Spirit This Spirit of Life in us the Soul being one with it she will cleanse her self of all dirtiness and uncleanness like a bubling Spring into which if a man fling any dirt it will work it out again And so will this Spirit of Life work out all filth and falshood out of the Soul it not enduring any such heterogeneous stuff in it Here therefore the Vertues become Cathartical in an eminent degree But when Corruption is laid aside and kept at a distance when Regeneration is compleated and the new man well knit and compacted together then is the House or Temple of God built which these Travellers in Baca seek after And this degree of Vertue you may if you will in Plotinus his Phrase call Paradigmatical though not in his Sense who understands thereby a sensless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Soul as if she had to do with no Matter at all and was to be reduced to a perfect Apathy But the Body of Christ and the Temple of God though they be very Pure Holy and Heavenly yet they are not perfectly Immaterial And it is that Idea or Example that we are to imitate and according to which our perfection is and therefore when Vertue has arrived to this degree it may well in this solid Sense be called Paradigmatical for all things are here according to the Pattern in the Mount And we have now brought our Travellers through the Valley of Baca to Mount Sion or rather to that part of that Tract so called in which the Temple was built which is Mount Moriah the Mountain of Myrrhe as some would have it signifie which implies the dryness and sterility of the Soil as well as the Notation of Sion does which has its name from aridity or dryness For this Temperature wherein the lubricous and luxuriant moisture of the Concupiscible or Desires of the Flesh of what nature soever and pleasures thereof are dry'd up and consumed by that more heavenly heat and zealous desire after the House of God This is the true Terra Sancta the Consecrated Ground in which the Temple of God will at last be erected and wherein those Travellers through the Valley of Baca will at last to their unspeakable comfort find it and with it the most solid Happiness the Soul of man is capable of which is the last particular 6. The Entertainment of these Travellers at their Iourneys end It is no less than a Beatifick Vision They shall every one of them appear before God in Sion For these are the generation of them that seek him even them that seek the face of the God of Iacob And here they are said to appear before the God of Gods in Sion and so to see his face which is the greatest satisfaction that the Soul of man can either desire or find according to that in the 17th Psalm As for me I will behold thy face in righteousness I shall be satisfied when I awake into thy likeness Which men can never do till they are brought into this Terra Sancta the moist fumes and vapours of a foul lushious Blood and unsanctify'd and unpurify'd Body will keep them fast in an heavy Sleep accompanied at the best but with vain and frivolous Dreams and the false Pleasures and Joyes of this perishing Life till they enter seriously into this Journey through the Valley of Baca and ascend into the Mountain of Myrrh which will prove to them the Mountain of the Vision of God which is an indubitable Etymology of Mount Moriah in which the Temple and Presence of God was amongst the Iews in which God exhibits himself visible to his People Blessed are the pure in heart which is the true Terra Sancta for they shall see God Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness whose Soul thirsts after God as a thirsty land as the Psalmist speaks for these shall be satisfied These are arriv'd to Mount Sion that dry hungry and thirsty Soil and consequently to the Holy Temple And therefore will not fail of being satisfied with the fatness of Gods house and of drinking plentifully of the river of pleasures that flows there For with thee is the fountain of life and in thy light shall we see light that is to say we shall see God who is light by his communicating his Image to us and making us Deiform This will be the Entertainment of these Travellers through Baca when they are come to Mount Moriah the Mountain of the Vision of God as the word signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The God of Gods will appear to them in Sion The God of Gods the Summum Ronum O Lord our God other Lords besides thee have had dominion over us but in this thy Holy Temple we will make mention of thy name only It was our ignorance of thee and because we had not seen the beauty and comfort of thy Countenance that we have served other Gods before thee that we have sought satisfaction in the power or riches of this World in the honour or applause of Men in the lust and pleasures of the Flesh in needless and fruitless subtilities of Knowledge or from any self-reflections on our own conceited worth or precellency before others or whatever else is rellish'd by the mere Natural man It was our ignorance that we were any time servants to these or that they were any way the guides of our Life or the joy of our Hearts But they are dead dry'd up and withered and shall not live they are deceased and shall not rise to lord it again over us For thou only art Holy thou only art the Lord and thou only oughtest to possess us who only art able to satisfie us and fill us and so to fill us and satisfie us as that as there is no need so there is no room left for any worldly or carnal satisfactions that nothing unholy or unclean may crowd into this thy Holy Temple or approach this thy Holy Mountain wherein thou hast appointed that day of Feasting that Feast of fat things that Feast of refined Wines and of fat things full of Marrow as the Prophet Esay speaks This is the entertainment of our Travellers through the Valley of Baca when they are once arrived to the House of God God does not only show himself unto them but welcome them after their long travel with a joyful Feast and all delicious refreshments Behold I stand at the door and knock If any man hear my voice and
open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me Rev. 3. 20. See how friendly and familiarly they are entertained by Christ as if they feasted one another at a mutual Collation I will delight my self by the possession and actuation of the Humane Nature by my Holy Spirit and they shall be delighted and transported by the comfortable and enravishing influence of my Divine Nature when they shall be filled with all the fulness of God Of such infinite consequence is it to attain to that Body which is the proper House of God or his Holy Temple that when he knocks and calls we may yield obedience to that voice in the Psalmist who prophesies of this Mystery Lift up your heads O ye gates and be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors that the King of Glory may come in that the Lord of Hosts with all his glorious retinue may fill his own House For he is not there alone as it appear'd by that voice heard in the Temple of the Iews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but by his residence in us replenisheth us with all Heavenly Graces We are strengthened with all might according to the glorious power of this Lord of Hosts unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness as the Apostle speaks And that is most eminently verify'd to us which occurs in S. Iohn Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world And as for being rooted in Love as S. Paul speaks in another place this glorious Lord of Hosts is also the God of Love For God is Love and he that abideth in Love abideth in God and God in him as touching Holy and Divine things This Heavenly Love has his abode in this AEthereal Tabernacle And as for Truth and Knowledge as S. Iohn witnesses where is it to be seen or heard but in this Lucid Temple of God While we are out of this condition we know but in part or rather quite miss the mark by the giddiness and distortedness of an unpurify'd mind we hear and understand but faintly and unsetledly like Thunder afar off but in this Holy Temple we do as it were distinctly from his own mouth receive the Living Oracles of God And briefly as for Truth this is that state wherein all Figures and Shadows do fly away This is that grand Mystery reserved more especially for these last approaching Ages and witnessed by a great Voice out of Heaven Behold the Tabernacle of God is with men Apoc. 21. 3. These are some few strictures or faint obscure strokes of the admirable and ineffable Happy Condition of the Travellers through the Valley of Baca when once they have arrived to their Journeys end and appear before the God of Gods in Sion DISCOURSE III. MAT. vi 22 23. The light of the Body is the Eye if therefore thine Eye be single thy whole Body shall be full of light But if thine Eye be evil thy whole Body shall be full of darkness If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness THE Text seems to be a Syllogistical Parable The Argument is contained in those first words The light of the Body is the Eye From whence is this double Inference That if the Eye be single the whole Body is full of light But if the Eye be evil the whole Body is full of darkness with this Porisma or Corollary annexed to the latter Inference If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness That is It is wonderfully and unspeakably great The force of the Argument for the inferring the Conclusions is so conspicuous that it is altogether needless to say any thing toward the further clearing it And therefore we will only take notice of the Truths in several manifestly comprized in the Text. 1. The First whereof is That the Eye is the light of the Body 2. The Second That a Single Eye makes the whole Body full of light 3. The Third That an Evil Eye makes the whole Body full of darkness 4. The Fourth and Last That if the Eye it self be dark the Body is left in most wretched and miserable darkness such as the presence of no Light no not of the Sun it self can chase away Non radii solis nec lucida tela Diei Discutient These are the external Truths of the letter of the Parable But hitherto we do but lambere vitreum vas sed pultem non attingimus We must know therefore that every part of this Parable is but the Protasis of a Similitude and that all the skill will be to find out the true Apodosis in every particular And if our Judgment fail us not in the first we shall not easily mistake in the following parts of the Parable Wherein I mean in the First if we make out this Analogy viz. That as the Eye is to the Body so the Vnderstanding is to the Soul it would be neither inept in it self nor unsupported by very great Authorities Aristotle sayes expresly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which may embolden us to make the Soul the Homologous term to the Body Which Galen does expresly as Grotius cites him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And to this purpose several other Philosophers speak and not without truth though not so precisely accommodate to our purpose This Apodosis would be over-dry and Philosophical and such as will not reach that Diviner meaning of our Saviour This Analogy was obvious enough to the Natural man I mean the comparing the Intellectual or Rational faculty of the Soul with the Sight or Visive faculty in the Eye of the Body But having regard to our Saviours Discourse in this place it is plain he intends not so much that which the Philosophers call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the Homologous term to that of the Eye as what S. Paul stiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is not meer notion or perception but implies with it a savour and relish of what is perceived Get thee behind me Satan said Christ to Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because thou savourest not the things that be of God And the Apostle expresly mentions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In brief therefore respecting the scope of our Saviour as we shall see more clearly anon the Analogy must run thus 1. What the Eye is for enlightning the Body that is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this relish savour sense or sapience in this peculiar sense for the illuminating the Soul that is this being so or so minded or affected And this is the first Analogy hinted in this Parable 2. The 2d is That as the Single Eye enlightens thoroughly the Body so Single-mindedness does thoroughly illuminate the Soul And this is that great and important Arcanum of Life that this Parable affords us That that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Apostle speaks of 2 Cor. 1. 12. that godly simplicity and sincerity is the Eye
we may come to be temperate to be sober to be chast to be modest to be humble to study mortification of all wickedness in Flesh and Spirit being so persuaded that Wisdom will not inhabit where these be absent and in conclusion a dreadful thing to think of we may fall into the same Heresie with S. Iames and Solomon That Wisdom is the gift of God and that it is a point of Wisdom to think so But that no men rashly and arrogantly take upon them this gift before it be given I could wish that all that are forward to profess themselves the Scholars of God nay his Secretaries his Closet-counsel his only Children born and brought up of him the only wise and holy Off-spring of God full of Wisdom and Celestial Understanding that they would examine themselves by that Rule in S. Iames chap. 3. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge amongst you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not an lye not against the Truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual devilish For where envying and strife is there is contention and every evil work But the wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie Whosoever therefore is fervent and vehement in maintaining the Truth let him first be assured that he has the right Knowledge and the true mind of the Spirit of God And before he ascribes this Spirit of Wisdom or Heavenly Understanding to himself let him try if he have the qualifications of that Celestial Wisdom which are Meekness Purity Peaceableness Gentleness Affability Mercy Bounty Impartialness and Simplicity He that hath not these hath not the Truth but is liable to be made the habitation of seducing Devils and to create mischief to men and shame and eternal confusion to his own self As sure as God doth impart his Spirit of Truth and Divine Knowledge to his Children so surely true it is that that Spirit suggesteth no Cruelty nor Unrighteousness but Patience Benignity Compassion and boundless and unlimited Charity And if men otherwise qualified pretending to the Spirit as Histories testifie have plainly shewn that they were led by some Fanatick erroneous Fury lodging in spiritual pride and infernal bitterness and distemper yet this is no sufficient excuse of that common Civil Atheism in the World that excludeth the operation of Gods Spirit in the hearts of men and attributes all to Nature and Humane Industry For as nihil generat seipsum is true in Philosophy so that no man can regenerate himself is as true in Divinity But now that this New Creature born at this Second Birth should have its old Eyes and the same sight with the Earthly Adam seems to me a thing monstrous and prodigious Surely there is a renovation of the Understanding as well as the Will and both by the Divine Spirit the Wisdom of God that worketh all in all I but here some mischievous piece of modesty will object Can that Spirit be communicable to us also that hath such magnificent Titles in the 7th of Wisdom She is the breath of the power of God and a pure influence that floweth from the glory of the Almighty She is the brightness of the everlasting light the undefiled mirrour of the majesty of God and the image of his Goodness I Answer Here is the treasure of those precious promises S. Peter speaks of And hitherto may be referr'd that in the Psalms Glorious things are spoken of thee O thou city of God But I need not have gone out of the same Chapter an answer being so nigh at hand As there be many Epithets of Height and Majesty so there is one of Humanity and Courtesie But these words are too weak to express that affection which is attributed there to this good Spirit of Wisdom It is said in the Greek Text to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover of men Therefore you shall find this Spirit descending in the 27th of that Chapter even sliding down into the Souls of Holy and Humble men And that not once or twice as if it were afraid of such debasement but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from age to age But there is yet a more plentiful Testimony of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 6th Chapter ver 16. She goeth about seeking such as are meet for her and sheweth her self chearfully unto them in the wayes and meeteth them in every thought And at the 12th Verse Wisdom shineth and never fadeth away and is easily seen of them that love her and found of such as seek her She preventeth them that desire her that she may first shew her self unto them Whoso awaketh to her betimes shall have no great travail For he shall find her sitting at his doors Blessed is the man that exerciseth himself in her and he that layeth up her commandments in his heart shall be wise If he do them he shall be strong in all things For he setteth his steps in the light of the Lord which giveth wisdom to the godly The Lord be praised for evermore So be it So be it AND here I should willingly end did I not suspect that that which hath been spoken might move some Scruples in the minds of the Younger Auditors As whether wicked men have any Knowledge at all or no whether this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exclude the use of Books with such others as misapprehension is the most ready and plentiful suggestor of doubts and difficulties But I will meddle only with these two I have named 1. And first with the former It would be a very distastful position to Flesh and Blood to say that wicked men are mere Ignaroes For there being not many that are not conscious to themselves of some dearly fosterd wickedness in their breast they would be put to a shreud strait for they must either undergo the doleful death of dying to their beloved Corruption or else be content to count themselves Fools so long as they live Both which are Gall and Wormwood to Natural Pride and Concupiscency But let us brook it as we can that Spirit in Esaiah dares give Sentence in this cause Behold all you that kindle a fire and are compassed about with sparks walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks that you have kindled This shall you have at my hand you shall lye down in sorrow 'T is true the Prophet here allowes them some light but a light of their own kindling And if Foolishness be the School-Mistress the Scholars are not likely to be very wise Weak quickly-dying sparks they have blindly and boldly mounting up though their Vehicle be but a filthy fuliginous vapour of darkness But the Sun of Righteousness hath not yet shone upon them Gross fire
that Tyrannick Prince that rules in the Sons of Disobedience he shall be excluded from the everlasting light of God and his Holy Truth And thus briefly under one we have seen how we are said to deceive our selves and the way to escape this self-deceit God that commanded the light to shine out of darkness shine in our hearts and give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Iesus Christ that we may walk before him in the truth of Life To Him with the Father and the Blessed Spirit c. DISCOURSE VII PROV xv 15. All the dayes of the afflicted are evil but a good conscience is a continual feast THE Text is a description of the estate of the wicked man and the righteous man Which will be more evident if we consult with the Septuagints Translation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The eyes of the wicked continually expect evil but the Godly or good men are alwayes at rest Here do the LXX Interpreters express plainly that opposition of those persons and of their conditions Vngodly and good or godly unquietness of mind and perpetual rest As I pronounced concerning this Text at first that it is a description of the opposite conditions of those ever opposite off-springs of God and the Devil the Sons of Christ and the Sons of Belial the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness This Sense have the LXX put upon this portion of Scripture though the words themselves answer not so fitly to the Hebrew Text. To devise the occasion of their variation would be more easie though curious than profitable I intend not to mispend time or abuse your attention with the husks of words or fruitless discourse of Translations I will follow Symmachus in the first part of the Verse exactly answering to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All the dayes of the poor are evil in the second part the Hebrew it self But a good heart is a continual feast or as the words will bear He that hath a good heart feasts continually Now therefore that this Poverty is not to be understood of outward poverty is plain out of the Text. Continual feasting and constant poverty or affliction are contrary So that we must either exclude the poor man from having a good Heart and Conscience whereby all sorrow is dispell'd and continual joy and chearfulness obtained or else if he hath these joyes make him rich in outward wealth But sith the poor upright honest man through the continual comfort of his own good Conscience Dives like fares deliciously every day though poor in estate then surely none of his dayes are evil though he poor outwardly in them all So that this present Text is to be understood of an inward kind of poverty that makes a mans life full of evil and misery This evil poverty and miserable want is described in the Revelation of S. Iohn Ch. 3. Thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and knowest not how thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked I counsel thee to buy of me gold tryed in the fire that thou mayst be made rich and white rayment that thou mayst be clothed and that thy filthy nakedness do not appear and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve that thou mayst see Here 's good store of penury a wardrobe of want want of Money want of Clothes to cover their shame want of Eye-sight to be able to do that which is but a misery to go from door to door to beg But hear what 's said Verse 21. To him that overcometh will I give to sit with me in my Throne even as I overcame and sit with my Father in his Throne See what a change From a Begger to a King from a Dunghil to a Throne from a blind Wretch to a Judge upon a Throne that shall discern the right that shall judge the Twelve Tribes of Israel He that is spiritual judgeth all things yet he himself is judged of no man We have by this time plainly seen what this poor man is whose dayes are said all to be full of evil That he is one that wants those white Robes which is the Righteousness of the Saints wants that old precious coin whose image and superscription is Righteousness and true Holiness the figure of Christ the Son of God the express Portraiture of his Father He wants his Eye-sight the true Spiritual Wisdom holy Discretion the sense of Spirits and discovery of the mysterious working of that Prince of Darkness and Deceit He 's plainly destitute though not of the necessaries of this Life yet of that main one and only necessary thing as our Saviour calls it that better part that Mary chose and could not be taken from her Virtus nec eripi nec surripi◠potest Nor force nor fraud can deprive a man of that inward good And now I have described this poor man I think it is not hard to prove that all his dayes are evil By how much better the Soul is than the Body by so much worse are the Defects of the Soul than those of the Body 1. Is an Vlcer or Wound grievous in the Body Much more grievous is it then in the Soul or Spirit The Spirit of a man will sustain his infirmities but a wounded Spirit who can bear Prov. 18. 14. 2. Is Blindness or Darkness an horrid thing to the Body then is Ignorance much more to the Soul As may appear from that excellent description of this AEgyptian darkness in the Book of Wisdom Chap. 17. When the unrighteous people thought to have thy holy people in subjection they were bound with the bands of darkness and long night and being shut up under the roof did lye there to escape the eternal providence But now that we think not only of outward darkness in the Air see what followes And while they thought to be hid in their dark sins they were scattered abroad in the dark covering of forgetfulness fearing horribly and troubled with visions For the den that hid them kept them not from fear But the sounds that were about them troubled them and terrible visions and horrible sights did appear No power of the fire might give light neither might the clear flames of the stars lighten the dreadful night And a few Verses after For it is a fearful thing when malice is condemned by her own testimony and a conscience that is touched doth ever forecast cruel things Thus having their eyes closed in misty sleep it doth not secure them from the trouble of fear For they that endure this intolerable night breath'd out of the dungeon of Hell as they sleep the same sleep so are they in like manner tortured with the same monstrous visions sounding for fear and perplexity of Spirit as is largely described in that Chapter But that this evil condition may appear more evil I will set the contrary by it God is light and in him
of mind and Disquietness And this very latter disposition is good too but not alwayes that is when it is accompanied with a Iudas-like despair otherwise it is good as wholsome Physick not as a pleasant Banquet But it is seldom or never known that the Heart was ever established without the fore-going of this disquietness of mind For mans Natural Inclinations lead him astray and Childhood and Youth betray him unto vanity So that man being lost thus in his Natural blindness when Christ begins to open his eyes by his Truth and he is convicted of his wicked errours what can come of it but sorrow Nay but being thus in some good measure enlightened afterward to have rebelled against this measure of light or at least through weakness or rather the love of sin and neglectful yielding to the Devils assaults to fall into the same filth he was warned of before surely this must needs breed great distraction and confusion of Spirit And so long will this be as that Holy Light keeps in and we live not conformable unto it For God is a God of pure eyes and cannot behold wickedness and so long as we see this eye upon our wayes this light over our actions which we see by light imparted from it in lumine tuo videbimus lumen as it is said in the Psalms In thy light we shall see light Every work of darkness will so ashame us and confound us that we shall never be at quiet till we vvalk uprightly before the avvful Majesty of Heaven that is ever present before us But vvhen through the Mercy and Might of Jesus Christ and his quickning Spirit vve vvalk in unfeigned Obedience in the sight of the Father of Lights our Conversation being in Heaven vvhere Christ sits at the Right Hand of the Povver of God having led captivity captive as the Psalmist speaks Then shall our mouth be filled with laughter and our tongue with joy as it is said in another Psalm about the turning again the captivity of Sion And Psal. 63. My soul shall be filled even as with marrow and fatness when my mouth praiseth thee with joyful lips But there is a more apt and ample description of this joy and feasting Esay 25. In this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things a feast of fined wines and fat things full of marrow of wines fined and purified This is Mount Sion whom the Lord hath chosen to be an habitation for himself which he hath longed for which shall be his rest for ever Here will he dwell for he hath a delight therein Ps. 132. Here he keeps open house all the Year long or rather all Eternity long Ho! every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters and ye that have no silver come buy and eat Come I say buy wine and milk without silver and without money Wherefore do you lay out silver and not for bread and your labour without being satisfied Hearken diligently unto me and eat that which is good and let your soul delight in fatness Esay 55. But what is this Mountain that God should promise such Joy upon it Or what is Sion that such Feasting and Mirth should be in it Mount Sion is called the Hill of the Holiness of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hill of his holiness Psal. 3. Such a kind of Holiness such a kind of Purity as a man may stand before God in that a man sees God in that is approved of God and will abide the fire For our God is a consuming fire and burns and pains a mans Soul so long as filth resides there Who amongst us shall dwell with devouring fire Who amongst us shall dwell with everlasting burning He that walketh in justice and speaketh righteous things c. He shall dwell on high his defence shall be the munition of rocks bread shall be given him and his water shall be sure saith the Prophet Esay He shall dwell on Mount Sion that high and holy Hill where God hath prepared this great Feast This is the Hill of the thirsty for so may this word Sion signifie And blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be satisfied Or more properly it may signifie dry Earth And so we may fitly use that of the Psalmist My soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land And the same Happiness will return again as before they shall be satisfied so our English 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall be fed so the Greek They shall be sufficiently fed they shall be feasted continually feasted For he that eateth of this bread shall never hunger and he that drinketh of this drink shall never thirst saith our Saviour How excellent is thy mercy O God! therefore shall the children of men trust under the shadow of thy wings They shall be satisfied with the fatness of thy house and thou shalt give them drink out of the river of thy pleasures Psalm 36. This is the excellent inward state of the upright Soul and undefiled Conscience streaming and over-flowing with strong and full torrents of Heavenly Delight issuing from the Throne of God and of the Lamb. But to handle the matter some what more distinctly I will consider the nature of a Feast and of what parts it chiefly consists The curious Varro in Gellius makes a compleat Feast to consist of these four things Si belli homuncali collecti sunt si electus locus si-tempus lectum si apparatus non neglectus i. e. If good disposition'd People be gathered together if the Provision be not poor or sordid if the Place be convenient if the Time fit and seasonable 1. That those that are assembled to this Feast are belli homunculi in the best sense I shall easily prove Mat. 8. Many shall come from the East and West and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of Heaven There is very good Company you 'll all grant it But the Doubt will be what this Kingdom of Heaven is Let the Apostle resolve you Rom. 14. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost All which things may be obtained in some good measure at least here without spreading a Table-cloth in the Coelum Empyreum But to proceed You saw before out of the Prophet how that God prepares a Feast in Mount Sion The Apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews makes known to us the Guests But you are come to the mount Sion and to the city of the living God the celestial Ierusalem and to the company of innumerable Angels and to the congregation of the first-born written in heaven and to the spirits of just and perfect men All these are the Guests of Gods Heavenly Table There these are assembled Wheresoever the carkass is there will the eagles resort saith our Saviour This is the great Communion of Saints who do all eat of the same spiritual
meat and do all drink of the same spiritual drink and are all incorporate into one Body all quickened by the same Spirit all conspire into one Will through unity of the same Life so that all 's in peace and good order And thus much for the Persons assembled Which if you doubt of or are perswaded that you shall not continually enjoy their company yet I will shew you an assembly that so long as you enjoy a pure Conscience you shall alway enjoy their company in a true Paradise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An Holy Paradise where are assembled Vertue Wisdom and all Decency and Discretion And these are excellent companions tho' they were known to no body but him that lives with them And He lives with them that hath a pure Heart for the Father of them abides in the sincere Spirit 2. But it were time now to speak of the Provision had I not spoke already somewhat of it almost before due time But no tongue can declare it I will rather use the Psalmists words O taste ye and see how gracious the Lord is For they that fear him shall lack nothing The lyons do lack and suffer hunger but they that do seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good So then here is apparatus non neglectus at least no want if not redundancy Ay but it 's a poor Feast you 'll say where there is no overplus If any man suspect he shall come to such a slender Dinner I will use the words of our Saviour Mat. 16. O ye of little faith why think you thus within your selves Do you not perceive neither remember the five loaves when there were five thousand men and how many baskets were taken up neither the seven loaves when there were four thousand men and how many baskets were taken up If Christ could satisfie such multitudes of men with so few loaves so that so many fragments were left Surely we need not fear but when he feeds us with himself who is that Heavenly Bread and the foecundity or fulness of God but that we shall be unspeakably satisfied and superabundantly refreshed So we have plainly seen how excellent our company how good our chear shall be I will interfeit one accomplishment which Varro omits in his Feast And that is Musick The concent of Musicians at a Banquet is as a Signet of Carbunoles set in Gold As the Signet of an Emerald well trimmed with Gold so is the melody of Musick in a pleasant banquet Ecclesiasticus 32. 5 6. Now that this Feast is not devoid of Musick will thus appear For Righteousness is nothing else but an harmony of the lower parts of a mans Soul with the upper of the Affections with Reason as the Pythagorists define it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Polus the Pythagorean When as the inclinations of a mans Will or Desire answer the dictates of true Reason these are Heavenly responses indeed fit for a Celestial Quire When Reason begins the point and all the Affections chearfully follow it as Philo comments upon that Song of Moses and Miriam I will sing unto the Lord for he hath triumphed gloriously the horse and his rider he hath over-thrown in the Sea The Lord is my strength and praise and he is become my salvation Who is like unto thee O Lord among the gods Who is like unto thee so glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders Then Miriam the rest of the women following her with Timbrels and with Dances takes up her Timbrel in her hand and answers Sing unto the Lord for he hath triumphed gloriously the horse and the rider hath he over-thrown in the Sea Such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as these such Triumphal Songs against our Spiritual Enemies will become this Feast well The same exultation of Spirit you shall find in the blessed Psalmist The Lord is my strength and my shield my heart hath trusted in him and I am helped Therefore my heart danceth with joy and in my song will I praise him Psalm 28. This is that which the Apostle exhorts to Eph. 5. Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess but be filled with the Spirit speaking unto your selves with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts Hitherto then is this Feasting very compleat good Companions good Chear good Musick 3. But what is all this if not in a good convenient place Iobs Children you know as they were making merry at their elder Brothers a strong Whirlwind took a corner of the house and buried them with the ruins in the midst of their merriment But whosoever dwelleth under the defence of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty that is under the protection of him that is able to keep them safe Ps. 91. And at the 90th Psalm Lord thou hast been our habitation from generation to generation Before the mountains were made and before thou hadst formed the earth even from everlasting to everlasting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou art the strong God a more sure sustentation than the steddy Earth a more strong safeguard than the massy Hills So then this Holy Assembly feast under a safe roof far from the reach of any tumult or tempest God is our hope and strength a very present help in trouble Therefore will we not fear though the earth be moved and though the hills be carryed into the midst of the sea Though the waters thereof rage and swell and though the mountains shake at the tempest of the same Yet there is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God the holy place of the tabernacle of the most high In all this danger and stir you see here 's secure Feasting and Joy in the Tabernacle of the most High The voice of joy and gladness is in the dwelling of the righteous safe pleasure and never fading delight in the habitation of the upright in Heart and pure in Conscience But if any man be not contented with the Safeness of the place but would curiously inquire into the Beauty of it that Description is done to our hands in the 21th of S. Iohns Revelation Gold and pearl and precious stones is a slight glimpse of the Glory of that Habitation and the Beauty of God 4. I will pass now to the fourth thing considerable in a Feast The convenience of time And no time surely is inconvenient to these Feasters who have the preeminence exceedingly above them that enjoy any outward delight For these men be confined to Seasons and Opportunities which be but poor small parcels of time But all Time and Eternity too is but one entire Opportunity for those Spiritual Feasters to enjoy themselves in A good Heart or a pure Spirit is one continual everlasting Feast It was well said of Diogenes to one that was too much taken with the seldom solemnity of an outward Feast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What saith
the Face of God In thy light we shall see light But by Righteousness I will rather understand that in us which answers to Diaphaneity rather than to Light and which I would render Faithfulness Vprightness and Sincerity of Spirit For in such a Sence as that the LXX sometimes Translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faithful and true And I conceive that Purity and Sincerity is that Righteousness that will lead us at length to the Vision of God according as our Saviour has also promised Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God So the Psalmist This is the generation of them that seek him that seek thy face O Iacob even of them that seek him in Sincerity and Truth to whom God is so faithful that he will be found of them nor shall their labour be in vain in the Lord. And that a man may know whether he be in the way or no I shall only briefly intimate what Sincerity is and that he may have no excuse to keep out of the way I must futher superadd that it is in his power to keep in it For I say it is in a mans power to be sincere though it be not in his power to be righteous in that other usual Sense For to be sincere is only to do what we can and what our Conscience witnesses we can do which God will graciously accept in Christ and endue us with further strength so long as we make use of that which we have already Now it is Noematically true and wants no further demonstration That we can do what we can do And therefore it is but the examination of our selves whether we do all that which our own Consciences tell us we both ought to do and can do and thereby we shall easily discover whether we be in the way toward this blissful Vision or no And if we find our selves out of it we cannot excuse our selves for our wandering sith it is in our power to keep in the vvay that is to be sincere as certainly as it is in our povver to do vvhat is in our povver And therefore the falling short of this Happiness lyes at every mans door and God and Providence must be quit of all that evil that these Loyterers must once sadly complain of vvhen it is too late Every man therefore must dayly examine his ovvn Conscience in this For as the keeping close to this vvay of Sincerity or doing vvhat is in our povver vvill unfailingly through assistance of fresh supplies of Heaven lead us directly to the Vision of God so he that finds himself remiss and unsincere may be as certain that he is out of the vvay to that Happiness He that layes his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God But if vve continue in the vvay of Sincerity vvhich God has put in our povver to do as has been already demonstrated it is impossible but that a man shall find an encrease of Divine Assistances and a successful progress God imparting strength according to the fidelity of the user thereof as seems to be adumbrated in the Parable of the Talents Habenti dabitur that is bene utenti and Fac quod in te est Deus adjuvabit voluntatem tuam are I must confess but short and trite Sayings but such as fall from the mouths of those that travel in the direct road to Heaven For the aid and assistance of God is never wanting to such But they hold on their Journey in chearfulness and constancy with that Song of the Psalmist in their mouths Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee in whose heart are thy ways which going through the vale of misery use it for a well and the pools are filled with water They will go from strength to strength and unto the God of Gods appeareth every one of them in Sion Or with this of my Text As for me I will behold thy face in righteousness when I shall awake into thy likeness I shall be satisfied therewith DISCOURSE IX ROM viii 17. And if children then heirs heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ if so be that we suffer with him that we may be also glorified with him THIS Text is the evidence of our Eternal Inheritance There is none here I suppose so dull so slow and so sensless of his own good and outward welfare but that if he were to purchase any Worldly Possession he would look that his Conveyances were sure and his Title good and warrantable How much more sollicitous and careful ought we to be concerning our Everlasting Inheritance in Heaven To inform our selves whether there be any such Possession or no and to whom it appertains what manner of persons shall be made partakers of it So that our hopes of future Felicity may be setled upon good grounds That they be not all blown away with our last breath and the extinguishing of this Life leave us not to eternal horrour of darkness This present Text of Scripture will answer both those Queries which contains these two Doctrines 1. That God hath prepared an Inheritance for his Children 2. That they that would have this Inheritance must suffer with Christ. I. That God hath prepared an Inheritance for his Children is plain out of Scripture And verily I would not go about to prove so evident a Truth did not the lives of men contradict it who live as though there were neither Heaven nor Hell no Reward nor Judgment to come Mat. 25. 34. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world And Coloss. 1. 12. Giving thanks unto the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light And surely it is a very reasonable thing that God should as well provide for our inward man as for our outward The Light of the Sun the seasonable Showers of Rain the timely Fruits of the Earth all these hath he prepared and many more for this Natural Life of man Nay his careful Providence extends it self to the young Ravens and the Lillies of the field And shall his Goodness fall short in providing for that dear and precious Life derived unto us by his own Spirit making us his Sons and Holy Off-spring No surely God will not forget that which is so near to himself when his Fatherly Benignity circuits the utmost verge of his Creature Add unto this that we our selves are the House and Inheritance of God Know you not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost saith the Apostle And the Prophet Esaias The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Iudah his pleasant plant And Cant. 5. The voice of my beloved that knocketh saying Open to me my sister For my head is filled with dew and my locks with the drops of the night And elsewhere in Holy Scripture God is said to dwell in us and walk
in us And Israel is called the inheritance of God Wherefore God in a kind of Gratitude as I may so say will provide us an Inheritance sith that we as he himself testifieth are an Inheritance to him Now if any man be desirous to know what an Inheritance this is that God hath prepared It is no less than a Kingdom And how great an esteem is put upon an Earthly Kingdom is very well known to you all Which if it be so desirable how much more desirable is the Kingdom of Heaven that nor time nor tumult can ever demolish This Kingdom of Heaven of God or Christ is the Inheritance of the Sons of God with Christ. But if any one rest unsatisfied yet and would further know what the Kingdom of God is Let him listen to S. Paul Rom. 14. 17. The kingdom of God is not meat nor drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost But this will seem even nothing to him that hath not the Spirit of Righteousness Peace and Joy Wherefore saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 7. c. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory Which none of the princes of this world knew for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory But as it is written Eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither have entred into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love him But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit For the Spirit searcheth all things even the deep things of God For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man that is in him Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit that is of God that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God In a word therefore Beloved the Inheritance of the Children of God is the Spirit of God and all that it doth discover as the Sun is the lot and the inheritance of the Natural Eye and all visibles laid open by it in Nature And can any thing be wanting to them that are sharers in that Inheritance If I may call them sharers where every one is full possessour of the whole as the Sun is alike wholly in every eye Can our Souls be larger than the Life of God Or our Understanding not filled and satisfied by his all-knowing Spirit Can our Will wax restless or anxious where the Understanding finds out and feels the greatest good that any thing is capable of where the pure and undefiled Affection baths her silver plumes in eternal love and delight What is the Soul more than infinite that it should desire any Inheritance greater than God But it were now more seasonable to make some Vse to our selves from this Doctrine so infinitely plain or infinitely inexplainable First Who cannot hence condemn all Avarice Drunkenness Fleshly Lust Voluptuousness the bartering away this Glorious Inheritance of the Everlasting Kingdom of God for the Muck of this World choak'd with the Cares of this World undermining our Neighbours by false and treacherous practices over-reaching them in bargainings and cheating indeed our selves of Eternal LIfe by our own couzenages Instead of being filled with the Spirit to be full of base liquor drowning our Reason and Conscience and laying our selves open to the despight of the Devil and the shame of the World Chaffering away for a light momentany fit of Pleasure or some seducing wanton Lust the Inheritance of the good Spirit of God the sweet and comfortable Fellowship of the Holy Ghost the Joyes of Heaven the full Contentments and unspeakable Delights of that hidden Paradise that Garden of all sweetness and deliciousness Secondly The consideration of this future excellent state and glorious royal condition may afford much comfort to men of low degree and meaner fortune What though our Means be small our Calling base and dishonourable before men This time vvill certainly over and that quickly Though I be poor here a Servant and Bond-slave a Beggar Yet hereafter I shall be rich free noble a Prince a King an Emperour Then shall I be Lord not of a larger spot of Ground consisting of Dirt and Gravel and vvithering Grass and perishing Trees the sight of vvhich every nights sleep takes from me but of the boundless Heavens the everlasting Beauty of God vvhere vvith never-vvaking Eyes I shall alvvayes behold his excellent Glory This I say may comfort the poorer sort they being as capable if not more capable of this precious Inheritance than Lords and Princes of the Earth than Kings and Caesars than Dukes and Emperours Gal. 3. 26 c. For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Iesus For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Iew nor Greek there is neither bond nor free there is neither male nor female For ye are all one in Christ Iesus And if ye be Christs then are you Abrahams seed and heirs according to promise But Thirdly and Lastly Is it so indeed that there is prepared for men of all conditions of Life such a rich Inheritance Let then all men of what condition soever examine themselves and try what assurance they find in themselves in their own Souls of this future Happiness What then is the Sign That brings me to my Second Doctrine viz. II. That the heirs of the Kingdom must suffer So saith the Text Heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ if so be that we suffer with him that we may be also glorified with him Which Truth is manifest out of sundry places of Scripture I will name only two Acts 14. 22. We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God And Coloss. 1. 10 11 12. That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light What Shall we think Beloved to obtain Heaven at a more easie rate than we purchase any Temporal Honour or Estate Multa tulit fecitque puer Those that are designed for some special piece of Earthly Preferment sweat and toil for it even from their very Childhood by industrious Education But we think to have Heaven for an old song as they say or for a lazily repeated Pater Noster for a word for an imagination for a phansie a thought an empty faith for nothing Who in the name of God told us so My Text contradicts it And Scripture will not contradict my Text because my Text is Scripture No verily It confirms it Be not deceived God is
the Children of God elect to this Inheritance none are the Children of God but those that have the Spirit of God none have the Spirit of God but those that suffer with Christ that mortifie their own sins and are grieved for the sins of others Be not deceived Beloved with flattering dreams and phansies This is the very Truth of God and according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And this Truth being so apparently true I need not exhort in many words to those Christian Sufferings Stand fast in the true Faith of the Power of God and quit your selves like men Cast away all softness and effeminateness and be so stout-hearted as to endure the pangs of Death of the mortification of your sinful flesh and carnal mind for his sake that dyed for you Resist unto Blood even unto the effusion of the wicked Life and unrighteous devilish Spirit that resideth in you For this is the good will of your God that you be mortified that you be thoroughly sanctified that you destroy all things contrary to God in you 1 Thess. 4. And let this be the First Motive to run with patience the race that is set before us Secondly These our Sufferings though great are not comparable to the rich Reward that Glorious Inheritance in Heaven 2 Cor. 4. For which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish yet the inward man is renewed day by day For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Thirdly If we compare the future state of the Wicked and the Godly how all their Glory and Pleasure vanisheth and how the Children of God are received into Everlasting Happiness crown'd with Eternal Light it will more firmly establish us in our Christian resolutions It cannot be better described then it is in the Book of Wisdom The iniquities of the wicked shall convince them to their own face and they shall approach the tribunal of God with fear and quaking But then shall the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of such as have afflicted him and made no account of his labours When they see it they shall be troubled with terrible fear and shall be amazed at the strangeness of his salvation And they repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit shall say within themselves This is he whom we had some time in derision and a proverb of reproach We fools counted his life madness and his end to be without honour How is he numbred among the children of God and his lot is among the saints Wisd. 5. You may read the whole Chapter at your leasure Fourthly and Lastly The Inheritance of Heaven is conditional If we suffer with him we shall be glorified with him which implies if we do not suffer with him we shall not be glorified with him 2 Tim. 2. 11. This is a faithful saying that if we be dead with him we shall also live with him if we suffer with him we shall also reign with him Wherefore Beloved sooth not up your selves in vain hopes and flatteries For without killing of your sinful Lusts without Mortification there is no Salvation He that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his Now no body hath the Spirit of Christ unless he be dead unto sin For if he be dead unto Sin then shall he be raised from Death to Life by the Spirit of Christ that quickeneth us to Righteousness But if he be dead unto Righteousness and alive unto Sin he is a son of Belial a child of the Devil a vessel of perdition a faggot for Hell and the devouring Wrath of God remains upon him No Heir of God no Coheir with Christ but he shall have his portion with those infernal Fiends to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever Wherefore Beloved awake from your beds of ease shake off your idle dreams and bewitching phansies that either the Devil or his false Prophets have buz'd at any time into your heads If you will be the Sons of God and Disciples of Christ take up the Cross of Christ afflict your own carnal minds give not way to wrath to envy to anger to revenge to lust to wantonness to back-biting to swearing to revelling to drinking to pride to contemning to reproaching to fighting to contesting to censuring to defaming or whatsoever else Flesh and Blood is easily carried out to but deny your selves in abstaining from all those evil acts and so give no encouragement to the Devil to assault you Which if you shall do in the precious Christian Patience even to the mortification of all manner of Sin in you God shall stir up in you the Spirit of his Son and enrich you with the Power and Wisdom of the Holy Ghost And the Peace of God which passeth all understanding shall fill your hearts with all joy and you shall find in your selves an unexpressible taste of the delights of Heaven and receive an infallible earnest of your Eternal Inheritance Which God grant that we may all do through Iesus Christ our Lord to whom c. DISCOURSE X. JAM i. 27. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world THE Text is a description of pure and undefiled Religion And certainly if any thing Religion it is that wants the pointing out by the most evident plain and conspicuous descriptions that may be to be writ in Capital Letters in so large and visible Characters that he that runs may read it For indeed most men are but at leasure to read it running 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the by tanquam aliud agentes still keeping on their course in that broad way that beaten path that leads to the reward of impiety and irreligiousness But yet I know not how it comes to pass that though men make not Religion their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their main business and work yet they prove most-what far more fortunate in this than in their worldly occasions and employments where though they take a great deal more pains yet we shall more ordinarily hear them complain of ill success But as for Religion how few are there that find themselves at a loss therein nay that are not suited to their own hearts liking and from these slight and transient glances cast upon it are kindled into so hot a passion and inflammation of love and zeal for it that finding their own breasts too strait and narrow for such a violent heat would even force open the hearts of other men that there may be more room and freedom for so ample a flame Not content to keep alive this Vestal fire within the walls of its own Temple but to disthrone the Sun and ordain it the sole Lamp of the Universe where all other Religions and Worships must like the lesser Stars disappear and vanish Every rash Religion is Popery
heart O God thou wilt not despise And Psal. 4. 5. Offer the sacrifice of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. And Rom. 12. 1. I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is your spiritual service So Beza They were not to offer any dead or unclean Beast under the Law wherefore are we here under the Gospel to offer our selves a living and holy Sacrifice impolluted of the World and alive to Righteousness and to God Give me leave here a little to enlarge my self Who can doubt but that the Heart of a Christian from whence sweet odours of Prayers and Praises ascend up is a better Altar of Incense than that in Moses's Temple that God is more truly fed by relieving his living Members true and sincere Christians than by feeding the unsatiable fire by thousands of Holocausts that the seven Spirits the Spirit of the Lord the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Counsel and Might the Spirit of Knowledge and the Fear of the Lord are a truer and clearer light than the Seven Golden Candlesticks of Moses that the Iewish Temple was but a strait prison in comparison of the enlarged Soul of man So many load of Sand or Gravel would have filled that up to the top but no less than God himself can fill the Heart of man which therefore is the meetest Temple or Mansion for him In brief what is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but as Nonnus speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to honour and worship God and what doth that consist in but in appropriating or consecrating unto him times or places or things persons also and solemnity of actions Is not this therefore to worship God in spirit and in truth truly and unfeignedly to devote our selves and dedicate all we have to the God of Heaven seeking his Will in all our actions and denying our selves and our own desires What comparison is there betwixt the offering the Firstlings of our Flock or the Fruit of our Ground whereby we acknowledge we hold all these things of God the great Lord of Heaven and Earth what comparison is there I say betwixt this and the not arrogating any thing to our selves of either knowledge and power but very sensibly and affectionately ascribing all to God whatsoever we can do think or speak which is the right Christian Humility and Spiritual Decimation to the true Melchizedek Christ Jesus And let me be yet bolder if there be any boldness in it What is Baptism or the washing of Water in respect of the real cleansing by the Spirit the being Baptized with the Holy Ghost and with Fire What is Bread and Wine in comparison of that true Bread from Heaven the Flesh and Blood of Christ Tell me therefore now is nothing of Religion left when I only consider the inward essence or substance of it abstracting from shell or husk Is the very heart or kernel of it nothing The pure and unpainted Religion is truly Religion if not the only true Religion And pardon me if I seem too careful and curious in reserving the name of Religion to it because that word strikes more powerfully upon the ears of men and summons at the very first alarm all the power we have both of Soul and Body to assist countenance and maintain it Wherefore I would under the name as the notion it self doth most eminently deserve it commend unto my self and all men this truth of Godliness that we may as heartily and zealously both aspire unto our selves and endeavour the same in others as ever we did or can do the opinions and institutions of men or yet the opposing of them For this will not be found pure and undefiled Religion in his eyes who is the judge thereof viz. God the Father Which is the Second Particular and upon which I would now fall did not another sense step between which must awhile hold me back 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hitherto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have signified the pure and un-colour'd truth of Religion without Show or Ceremony The words are not incapable of another sense which our English Translation favours Pure impolluted or undefiled Religion is this Which implies that there are impure filthy and impious Religions in the World How it would make a noise to speak of the obscene Ceremonies of Baal-Peor the cruel Rites of Moloch and that most ridiculous Devil-service in India But we need not run back so much in time or travel to so remote places I do not see but the Invocation of Saints and Worshipping of Idols is impious enough and the relying on any one man or a multitude for infallible guides of his Faith and Religion mere Idolatry and Irreligiousness For what is this but to cut our selves off from the living God and free guidance of his gracious Spirit and to give up our selves to men blind guides to the sons of men that are found deceitful upon the weights lighter than vanity it self Is it not the Lord that hath made Heaven and Earth and filleth all things with his spirit and power Behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the ballance All nations are before him even as nothing and they are counted of him less than nothing and vanity It is he alone that has established the mountains and has given laws to the measureless deep that has stretched out the Heavens as a curtain and spreadeth it out as a tent to dwell in that sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are as grashoppers Which of these will you chuse for your God Or what number of them for the stay of your hearts Will you worship a Fly instead of your Maker Will you ask counsel of the God of Ekron Will you advise with Baal-Zebub concerning your Salvation Is not Christ the only Healer the only Saviour the only Recoverer of fallen man Is his Holiness at Rome infallible Or may not a many gray heads joyn'd together go astray together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Elihu in Iob And I said days should speak and multitude of years should teach wisdom But there is a spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding Great men are not alwayes wise neither do the aged understand judgment Iob 32. It is the Lord that is the only wise God that Auncient of dayes alone it is that can instruct us in Prudence 't is God the Father alone that can guide us safely in his Truth And thus am I again cast upon the Second Particular viz. II. That God the Father is judge of what is true pure and undefiled Religion And indeed there is very good reason for it For what is Religion but the worship and service of God He therefore knows best how he would be worshipped and served And here it will not be unseasonable to
unspatter'd and unspall'd upon by foul Tongues 'T is a thing as impossible as unprejudicial to the Soul her self That which is without a man defiles not the man but that which is within him What is meant by World S. Iohn doth fully unfold unto us All that is in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life is not of the Father but of the world Of these then we must keep our selves unspotted if we will be holy as our Heavenly Father is holy This is the World that we must keep our selves unstain'd of But for the Natural World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things are sacred and good 'T is Sensuality that soyles the Soul and fills the Mind full of impure thoughts unworthy desires that transform the Humane Nature which is capable of the Image of God into a loathsome Beast 'T is Covetousness that contracts the large Spirit of man and makes it shrivel up and wrinkle for want of that which can alone fill it those unspeakable treasures of Heaven that no tongue can number nor figures express How deformed is that mind whose are nothing but Bills and Bonds mouldy Money moth-eaten Housholdstuff and such like trash rusty Locks and Keys Iron Chests and strong hollow Vaults behung with Cobwebs This is the Covetous mans Soul if we could see within him nothing near so beautiful as the foulest pond or dunghil-puddle where if you cast your eye you may happily meet with the reflection of the Stars or the bright Circle of the Sun or the white moving Clouds or the pleasant blew-coloured Sky But such things as an Ingenuous man would scarce have the patience to look on be not only the continually desired Objects of the Worldlings sight but the perpetual Life and Energy of his mis-shapen Spirit And here though the Proud man may please himself in conceiting that this inward man is garnished with better bravery and is a more comely Creature his phansie glittering with the representation of Crowns and Scepters Silver Maces Purple and Scarlet Robes rich Stuffs and Holy Mitres Yet if we look upon the Beast that bears this glaring luggage his own dear Soul what is the very life and heart of it but Pride and Envy the two Essentials that constitute the ugliest of all Creatures the deformed Fiends of Hell And beside this innate ill-favouredness his whole Person is ordinarily besmear'd with the Bloud of the Innocent and his Garments drop and reek with the warm Tears of the Afflicted and Oppressed and are foul and greasie with the Sweat of the Poor This is the attire both of the Ambitious and Covetous man And certainly there is very little Religion in him that doth not heartily abhor so abominable a monster I◠but is there indeed much Religion in him that doth I confess that a man may be temperate for the Devil as we ordinarily conceive is not lyable to the sins of the Flesh and yet fall short of true Religion His constitution or some other strong but natural or secular design making him so Covetousness is also often but a complexion and Liberality may be no better in some men Some men are also born with a more low and quiet disposition which is not the Vertue of Humility but the lowness and stillness of their Natural Spirit But to be unspotted of the World is also to be free from the attraction of our own private Nature which is a piece of this dark deceivable World and to have our whole man acted and regulated by the Spirit of God Dull Phlegm is no Christian Patience nor all Fire true Zeal especially if it be fed by the fat of the Earth But that is true Zeal that flowes out in affliction and glories in the cross and tribulation He is not chast that never partak'd of the bed of defilement nor temperate that eats nor drinks to excess But he that enjoys the pleasure of the Creature only in reference to the Creator tasting the sweetness of his God even in his Meat and Drink lifting up his Soul to the Meat that perisheth not but endures to Eternal Life He is untouch'd of Covetousness that desires nothing for himself but is a faithful Steward of the manifold Blessings of God He is unstain'd of the Pride of life who is so dead to himself and the sense or cognoscence of his own power and will that he arrogates no good thing to himself but doth from the very ground of his Soul speak that of the Prophet Thou O Lord hast wrought all our works in us This is as I said before the right Idea or Paradigme of true Religion By how much more near we come to this by so much more near we are to Religion and the farther removed hence the farther off from true Religion If any man doubt of it I appeal to this judgment that cannot err even to God the Father and that 's included in my last particular viz. IV. That to visit the Fatherless and the Widows in their affliction and to keep our selves unspotted of the World this is pure and undefiled Religion even in the sight of God the Father I will dispatch this point in a word or two The Summ as you may remember of this description of Religion was comprised in these two words Charity and Purity Both these are so near the Nature of God that he is engaged as I may so say to give Sentence for them God is love and he that abideth in love abideth in God saith S. Iohn Can any thing then be more acceptable to God then Love To do good and communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased saith the Author to the Hebrews And our blessed Saviour Matth. 5. Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you that you may be the children of your father which is in heaven For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect So then there is no doubt of Gods sentencing that Religion for the best whose Nature consists in that which himself loves and likes and is the image of himself viz. Love or Charity And we have his Command for the other part thereof back'd with his own Example viz. Purity Be ye holy saith he for I am holy But what is now this Holiness or Purity of God Is it not this That whereas he is present in all things he is not immerse nor polluted of any thing So must our Souls be We are of necessity here in this Orb of Death and Corruption actors in the administration of the affairs of this lower World Let not our hearts sink into that that our eye must needs attend if we be not idle and useless Every man has a part or province committed to him by
Eternal Spiritual Riches he will endue us with hereafter 3. The Third Motive is taken from the persons to whom we are to communicate The rich and the poor meet together and the Lord enlightens both their eyes Prov. 29. No difference between the greatest Prince and the poorest Beggar but the goods of Fortune or rather of Providence For they come not to us by chance but by the good will of God who hath made out of his Wisdom some Poor and some Rich that we may have occasion to exercise the acts of Mercy and tender Compassion to our Brethren who live by the same Air vvalk in the light of the same Sun vvere created by the same God are to be saved by the same Christ. There is one Body and one Spirit even as you are called in one hope of your calling One Lord one Faith one Baptism One God and Father of all which is above all and through all and in you all Eph. 4. What One Body and one Member despise and disregard another One Spirit and not sympathize one vvith another One Hope and not help one another One Lord and not one fellovv-servant acknovvledge another One Father and Brethren not relieve one another One God above all over-seeing us all in all our actions vvho though he be so high yet beholdeth things here belovv upon earth and vve poor earthly vvorms overlook one another One God in us all and no goodness in us all God vvho is Love it self pierce through us all and yet not those lovely shafts of holy Charity vvound any of our hearts God forbid If vve abide not in Love God abideth not in us If our hearts be contracted and darkened by frozen rigidness the light of God shineth not through us If our poor contemptible Neighbour be so far under us that vve disdain to stretch forth our armes to help him vve forget God above us If vve love not as Brethren God is not our Father If vve be asham'd of our Fellovv-servants the Lord is not our Master If vve be cold in mutual affection our Faith is dead and Hypocrisie is our Religion If vve have no sympathy or fellovv-feeling the Spirit vve boast of is but vanity or empty air If vve favour not one another as Members of the same Body vve are not Members of the same Body but disunited Dust vvhich the Wind blovves to and fro upon the face of the Earth and the Angel of God scatters it Community is but a name vvhere there is no communication of good Vnity but a deceivable phansie vvhere there is no real Mercy He that will endanger the Soul of his Brother by with-holding the sustenance of his Body which out of Brotherly affection he is to administer to him surely that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Brotherly Love which the Apostle calls for dwelleth not in him The very shame of Poverty will force a man to do or suffer any thing How much more will pinching hunger scorching thirst benumming cold Necessity hath no Law or at least necessitous persons are easily drawn to think so Give me not poverty saith the Wise Man Prov. 30. 8 9. lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain A good man is merciful to his beast and shall not we be so good as to have compassion upon men The miserable and penurious condition of the Poor man would afford me great store or plenty of Arguments to plead his cause but I will only name them Hunger thirst nakedness rags filth deformity pensiveness sickness torture contempt sighs tears groans fear despair disconsolateness assaults of the Devil hard-heartedness of the World dejectedness of his spirit weak and vain looks loss of limbs blindness and deafness I cannot name them all Poverty is attended with such a numerous regiment of defects and infirmities that they may win the most strong and stony heart to compassionate their miseries But because we are fallen into these ill latter times in which the Apostle hath foretold that the love of many or rather of most if not almost of all shall wax cold Mercy and Pity are not passions easily to be stirred up out of the representation of our Neighbours misery and ill plight These are poor contemptible vertues befitting the weak womanish sect A strong vigorous faith I would to God it were so or if you will a deep conceited phansie that we are Gods Children though we be not merciful as our Heavenly Father is merciful is altogether in request and fashion amongst us Christians So this conceit makes us abound with Love toward God as vve think But when all comes to all it will prove but false and adulterate Love It will not abide that touchstone If you love me keep my commandements Or that of S. Iohns Epistle Chap. 3. Whosoever hath this worlds good and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his compassion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him 4. But if we do love God so much and our Neighbour so little yet we may not evade or escape this duty of doing good for all that For say that all our time is to be spent in the duties of the First Table all our Piety to be shewed in performances toward God If I shew that these acts of Mercy and Bounty be acts of the First Table too I hope we will not shew our selves so ungrateful and impious as to decline this manner of Worship which he requires at our hands Now that acts of Mercy are duties of the First Table I need go no farther for proof than my Text which tells us that doing good and communicating is a sacrifice And Sacrificing you know is a duty of the First Table even the immediate service of God How fitly the Apostle hath framed his Argument for convincing of mens corrupt Consciences and discovering that mysterious hidden wickedness that lurks in our hypocritical hearts a strong perswasion that we are Gods though there be little of the inward power of Godliness in us This holy kind of irreligiousness that is so immerse and lost as it were in a false counterfeit love of God that it quite forgets all respect and duty to our Neighbour That foolish impudent Spirit that would so confidently father it self upon God and perswade him that he is his Child when it s nothing but the deceitful breath of the Devil A handsome slight to travel to Heaven at least charges The service of God that is a strong perswasion that we are one of them that God hath sign'd to be his though there be no other sure argument or sign saving that we do strongly perswade our selves so The hearing of the Word the saying of Prayers and such outward performances or outward deceivable phansies is a Religion so cheap and easie that it asks a man neither cost nor labour But to be crucified with Christ to suffer with him to undergo the deadly dolorous pangs of mortification to sweat drops of Blood and endure
not with thy left hand that is thy natural false Spirit that will counsel for it self But let thy right hand act by it self that strong Arm of God the Spirit of Christ that the action may be wholly to God the evil principle of that wicked life of falseness nothing at all intermingling it self with it And thus this communication of good will be an Holocaust totally consecrated and consummated in the service of God alone But for the other two kinds Though the Christian Sacrifice hath not finem Sacrificantis the end of the Iewish Sacrificant yet hath it finem Sacrificii For so thanks is rendered to God for his goodness and further goodness obtained and future evils prevented as is manifest out of Scripture 2. The end of the Peace-offering was to procure the Blessing and Favour of God See now what the Wisdom of God teacheth us Prov. 11. The liberal person shall have plenty and he that watereth shall also have rain And in the Psalms He hath dispersed abroad and hath given to the poor His righteousness shall remain for ever his horn shall be exalted with honour Cornelius his Prayers and Alms how well were they rewarded with the service of Men and Angels and the descent of the Holy Ghost For as he was Fasting and Praying in his House one in the shape of a man in white clothing stood before him and said Cornelius Thy prayer is heard and thine alms had in remembrance in the sight of God So he directs him to send for S. Peter who came and in requital of his Alms fed him with the Bread of Life at whose Preaching the Spirit of Life the Holy Ghost fell upon all his Auditors amongst whom was Cornelius Thus we see how meet a Sacrifice this is pro beneficio accipiendo for the procuring a benefit from God And as fit it is pro accepto to manifest our thankfulness for favours received Freely you have received freely give saith our Saviour This is all the requital I desire all the thanks I expect 3. The last Sacrifice is a Sin-offering The reward of sin is death But mercifulness and doing good delivers from this Prov. 20. 2. The treasures of wickedness profit nothing but righteousness delivers from death That is The covetous hoarding of the wicked man or Riches wickedly and unlawfully heaped and scraped up together shall not profit in the conclusion But Righteousness that is bountifulness acts of Mercy For so the original will signifie the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is sometime turned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an act of Mercy As also appears out of the Inscription of the Poor mans Box in the Iewes Temple which was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The chest of Iustice as we would Translate it following the first signification of the word but according to the signification of the word in that place the chest of Alms. This Righteousness Goodness of Mercifulness will deliver from Death That of our Saviour Christ is more plain and without exception Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy So whether we compare this Duty of communicating good with the general notion of a Sacrifice or with the kinds thereof we see correspondency enough it falls short in nothing of a Sacrifice under the Old Law but in not being a shadow which you might bear withal Though to say the truth it hath that in it too the outward act which I have intimated before But the inward principle it self whence those good acts flow nothing is greater than it nothing more divine nothing more sublime the Everlasting Life of Charity the Glory and Image of God the Beauty of Man the Lamp of Knowledge the Sun of Paradise the Seal of Eternity the Pledge and Crown of Everlasting Happiness NOW that I may not seem to have lost my time in inculcating this Truth so long let us see what useful Inferences will flow from the same First then If doing good be a Sacrifice let us remember that which R. Moses the AEgyptian conceives their Wise and Holy Law-giver to have bound them to Vt quisquis utilitatem aliquam ceperit ex re sanctificatâ pro praevaricatore habeatur c. Whosoever doth take to himself any profit out of Consecrated things as Oblations or Sacrifices or whatsoever is Consecrated to God he is a Transgressour and hath need of an Atonement to be made for him although he commits the act out of error Our doing good therefore to other men if we do it not simply in obedience to God and love of our Neighbour but in hope of requital by his friends or himself or out of desire of applause or vain glory or any other sinister respects it is a making use of a thing Consecrated a sharing with God in the Holocaust and makes our action sinful and unsavoury before God Wherefore vve are to endeavour to the utmost that vve be not guilty of this Sacrilege Secondly In omni Oblatione tuâ offeres sal Lev. 2. 13. All thy meat-offerings shalt thou season with salt neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat-offering Vpon all thy oblations thou shalt offer salt See hovv this Precept is inculcated for offering of Salt with every Oblation and Sacrifice That Salt is an enblem of Wisdom and Discretion is so well known that I need not speak of it I will only name our Saviours words You are the salt of the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If the salt become foolish c. So that by Salt is understood Wisdom or Knowledge as it presently follows You are the light of the world So the seasoning our Christian Sacrifice of Bounty will prove nothing else but distributing our good things with discretion whether pertaining to Body or Mind Rebuke not a scorner for he will hate thee but rebuke a wise man and he will love thee saith Solomon And our blessed Saviour instill'd his words of Wisdom into his Disciples ears according as they were capable Iohn 16. 12. I have yet many things to say unto you but you cannot bear them now Howbeit when he is come which is the spirit of truth he will lead you into all truth As the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God And Chap. 3. 1. I could not speak unto you brethren as to spiritual men but as unto carnal I fed you with milk and not with meat for you were not able to bear it This is the discretion in imparting Spiritual Alms. Nor is every man a fit object of our Bounty as concerning things belonging to the Body If Strength and Health be joyned to their Poverty the best Charity is to set them to work Thirdly Leaven was not to be offered in Sacrifice So these Christian Oblations are to be offered in sincerity of heart without pride without hypocrisie Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which is Hypocrisie And 1 Cor. 5. the Apostle makes
mention of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth But this is included in the first Inference Wherefore I will let it pass Fourthly If communicating of good be a Sacrifice then it is a Duty of the First Table and respects the Worship of God From whence we may learn to set a true estimate upon this Duty We applaud our selves in the frequent Hearing of the Word of God and praying to God and the like We highly esteem I say our performances in this kind because they be of the First Table and respect God so nearly But that we may with as great zeal and diligence exercise the acts of Charity as well as of that kind of Devotion The Apostle tells us that when we distribute our Goods to others relieving them either in Body or in Soul we then worship God we then sacrifice to God which is an act of service and worship proper and peculiar to him which consideration is worthy our thinking of and more worthy our practising of Cursed is he that doth the work of God negligently The Fifth and last Inference shall be this That which Philo the Iew speaks of in his Tractate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of them that sacrifice of their washing and sprinkling that kind of sprinkling of water mingled with the ashes of a red heiser Numb 19. Which is saith he to put us in mind whereof we be made that we are but dust and ashes water and earth mingled together This is our composure such our frailty this our poor condition capable of so many miseries by reason of this tempered dirt we carry about with us And therefore being all of one mould we may the more heartily commiserate one another and help one another This sprinkling is a fit Consecration of every Christian Sacrificer that in all humility and compassion he may relieve his fellow-member The Summ is this That with all sincerity discretion diligence humility and tender sympathy we may offer unto God this Christian Oblation even the Charitable communication of such good things as God hath imparted to us AND thus I have dispatched the Second branch of my Text viz. That doing of good is a Sacrifice III. The Third and last is That doing of good is a sacrifice in which God is well pleased It is not improbable that the Apostle hath here an eye to those many testimonies in the Prophets of Gods displeasure against the Iewish Sacrifices Esa. 1 11 13. What have I to do with the multitude of your sacrifices saith the Lord I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams and of the fat of fed beasts and I desire not the blood of bullocks nor of lambs nor of goats Bring no more oblations in vain Incense is an abomination unto me My soul hateth your new-moons and appointed feasts So Chap. 66. 3. He that kills a bullock is as if he slew a man He that sacrificeth a sheep as if he cut off a dogs neck What is it therefore that God would have Wherein is his delight I desired mercy and not sacrifice saith he Hosea 6. 6. And in the first of Esay he nameth the relieving of the oppressed And Chap. 66. Ver. 2. He speaks of a poor and contrite Spirit and such a Spirit is also merciful For it's pride and high-mindedness that makes us forget the evil plight of our Neighbour I will add a Reason or two to confirm this Truth and so conclude God is Truth and Essence it self therefore his delight is in the truth of every thing and not in their empty shadows He loves the truth in the inward parts as the Psalmist saith Therefore doing good out of pure Charity cannot but please him it being the substance of the Iewish Ceremony of Sacrificing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Pious Iew True Sacrificing what can it be but the Piety of the Soul that loves God And he that loves him must needs love his Neighbour also And he that loves his Neighbour will do good to him so far as he is able Therefore the same Author saith very truly in another place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Humanity or forwardness to do all good offices to our Neighbour and Piety are twins He thinks not the term of Cousin or Sister fit enough but calls them Twins to shew that they be born both at a time So soon as true Piety is born in us Humanity strait springs up with it Now this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or love of our Neighbour being so like the Nature of God whom the Apostle calls Love This principle and the effects of it doing good to our Neighbour must needs be acceptable to God The Heathens had so much Reason in them to offer that to their Deities which was most consonant to their Nature So the Persians Sacrificed on Horse to the Sun Ne detur celeri victima tarda Deo But I will not insist upon the proof of a thing so plain I doubt not but that you are thoroughly perswaded of the truth of these tvvo latter parts of my Text That doing good is a Sacrifice and that it is a Sacrifice wherein God is well pleased The Inference and Conclusion of all is that vvhich I begun vvith viz. To do good and communicate forget not And that vve forget not He that hath set his eyes upon the hearts of men and mindeth all their wayes He strengthen us and stir us up by the powerful working of his all-quickening Spirit that we constantly endeavour to fulfil the dictates thereof through Iesus Christ our Lord to whom with the Father and the Blessed Spirit be all Honour Glory Power Praise henceforth and for ever Amen DISCOURSE XII GAL. vi 14 15 16. But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Iesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world For in Christ Iesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature And as many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy and upon the Israel of God THE drift of this Epistle to the Galatians is to reduce them again to the Truth of Christianity that were almost apostatizing to Iudaism and the Ceremonial Lavv of Moses Ye observe days and months and times and years I am afraid of you lest I have bestowed labour on you in vain Chap. 4. Ver. 10 11. But the main scope of the Apostle is against Circumcision as is plain upon the very first perusal of the Epistle Which he beating dovvn together vvith all the Lavv of Moses and extolling the Faith in Christ seems sometime to excuse a man from walking in the Lavv under the pretence of Faith in Christ. But as S. Peter hath well observed there be many things in S. Pauls Epistles hard to be understood which foolish men pervert to their own destruction And that we be not led into the same error and mischief I hold it not from my purpose to trace the footsteps of S.
naturally from the Text and be most profitable for you to hear But God forbid That hath reference to the precedent Verse But they desire to have you circumcised that they might glory in your flesh Yet the Holy Apostle devoid of all ambition and emulation and of making an outward shovv among them contents himself vvith that vvhich is but the scorn of Worldly men nay glories in it and in it alone the Inward Cross the Mortification of the Old man the Circumcision of the Heart God forbid that I should glory in any thing c. See the exceeding deep humility of the Apostle a man endued vvith such excellent gifts from God so learned and vvell versed in the Lavv one acquainted vvith so Divine Revelations rapt up into the Third Heavens an Hebrew also an Israelite a Son of Abraham such an excellent Oratour as he approved himself before Felix before Festus before Agrippa and also at Lysta vvhere they took him to be the God of Eloquence Mercury himself and would have Sacrificed unto him so well versed in the Poets as his quotations out of Aratus and others testifie him to be But these are but trifles I mean Poetry and Oratory You may see him in the Acts casting out Devils healing the Sick making the Lame walk recovering the Dead to Life nay giving the Spirit of Life even the Holy Ghost and with it the power of Prophesie and speaking with Tongues Yet all these and many more the least whereof were able to puff up the vain mind of our ordinary Christians and swell them to an unusual extent stir not S. Paul above his wonted measure But he still continues himself a Paul i. e. little in his own eyes though the endowments God had bestowed on him were very great A true Disciple of Christ who taught his to be thus minded Learn of me for I am meek and lowly And methinks I hear the Apostle call to us out of this Text saying Be you followers of me as I am of Christ. But if a man propound the Example of the Apostles and Saints of God to some they look on them rather as Prodigies to gaze at than Examples to imitate and do usually with the rude Cyclops in Erasmus return this answer Paulus est Paulus Ego sum ego Paul had a privilege to be good my privilege is to be as bad as he was good But let Reason move thee if Example will not Why shouldst thou glory and in what Art thou Noble No more than the blood that runs out of thy Fathers Nose or that which is blown out of it unless thou be Vertuous Art thou well Apparel'd Yet a Lilly is better Art thou Fair It is but in thy superficies or surface of thy Body within is stinking dung and dirt Art thou Strong Yet weaker far than an ordinary Cart-horse Art thou Proper Yet not so tall as a Pine A goodly great-bodied man The whole Earth is but a Point why struttest thou then so proudly as if thou wouldst out-face Heaven Thou art a wise and subtil piece So is the Devil and a Serpent Thou art extolled and admired of men So is Vanity Beloved of women But their own Lust and Lasciviousness a great deal more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All whatsoever thou boastest thy self in is but ludicrous and ridiculous contemptible dust and less than dust even nothing Why then dost thou glory in any thing God forbid that I should glory in any thing save in the cross What a Paradox is this More strange than not to boast at all For not to boast there being nothing worthy boasting of is but reasonable But to boast of that which is a shame and reproach among all men is uncouth and strangely admirable Crux crux inquam infaelici miseris The Cross was but the fate and doom of Thieves and Malefactors and as little glorious as the deserts that bring to it But it may be it was some fine Silver or Golden Crucifix A pretty toy for Children to glory in What was it The Cross of our Lord Iesus Christ Yet it is but a stumbling-block to the Iews and to the Greeks foolishness I but it is the Cross of Christ Whereby the World is crucified to him and he unto the World This is worse and worse a scandal also to the Christians themselves Sufficient for them it is that Christ bore his own Cross and the Cross bore him It was fitter one man should dye for the people What that we may securely live in sin God forbid He that will be my disciple let him take up his cross and follow me saith our blessed Saviour The death therefore of the Cross belongs to us as well as to him though we would fain avoid it This is true then truer than we would have it that a right Christian whose Pattern S. Paul is must be crucified to the World and the World to him be dead unto the World and the World dead to him But what is the World and what to be dead to it S. Iohn in his 1 Ep. Chap. 2. describes it from its parts Ver. 15 16. Love not the world neither the things that are in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him For all that is in the world the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but of the world These then ought we to be dead to viz. The lust of the flesh i. e. all carnal concupiscence and unlawful desires of the Body all gluttony drunkenness and leachery To the lust of the eyes i. e. all covetousness and filthy avariciousness desiring to encroach and compass all that we see and pleasing our selves with looking upon what we have got already but making no good use of it to the glory of God or good of our Neighbour To the pride of life i.e. ambition stately and lordly living the praise and applause of men superiority and authority over others All these things we are to be dead to by the inward Cross by an holy and serious mortification of our corrupt Life But how shall a man be able to mortifie this corruption to kill these inordinate desires I will tell you an infallible way upon condition you will remember it By a constant denial of their Cravings Give a Beggar nothing at thy door and he will never visit thee Desire is starved by being unfulfill'd A man you know often loseth his appetite by staying very long for his Dinner Inordinate desire will hurt a man like an Ague if we pamper or satisfie it The Devil and the Sop will both down into our guts at once But thou mayst pine out both Desire and the Devil that lurks in it by a pertinacious Temperance or stopping thy self in thy outward actions Affect not vain glory in thy actions or words but modestly decline it and Pride will fall in thy Soul in good time thou shalt find Humility rise
up from the dead by the glory of the Father so we also should walk in newness of life For if we be grafted with him into the similitude of his death even so shall we be into the similitude of his resurrection Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him c. The words do plainly describe the Spiritual Death of the Soul as also the inward Resurrection thereof from Sin to a newness of life as the Apostle speaks And so Rom. 8. 10. And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is mortified for sin As we would say such an one is kill'd for Robbing or is let blood for an Ague So dead for sin is either the mortifying our Bodily and Carnal Affection in a just vengeance on our selves for the sin they suggest and made us commit Or dead or mortified for sin is that Sin may be quite dislodged of our Bodies as a man is said to be let blood for an Ague to rid himself quite of that disease or to prevent its unwelcome returns But the Spirit is life or righteousness that is the Spirit is our life vivification or the cause of our inward or Spiritual Resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for righteousness that is that we may be righteous or live righteously For Beloved if we take the sense of this place of Scripture in a natural meaning It will not prove true For those Romans bodies to whom the Apostle writes were not dead for if so they had not been able to read the Epistle or to have heard others read it And beside this the words would imply that Christs being in us destroyed this Body or the health of it when as Piety unfeigned preserves both Body and Soul in good temper much less doth Christs being in us make the Body dead unto Righteousness Therefore it is plain that this is the sense of this place viz. That if Christ be in us the Body or Flesh of a man is dead or mortified to sin and that our Life then is the Spirit of God to live in Righteousness Now mark the following Verse 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 that dwelleth in you O behold the mighty power and dominion of the Spirit of God in a man Not only our Will and Understanding is swayed ruled and enlivened by it but it descends even to the enquickening of our Bodies too when they be once mortified that is the Passions and Lusts thereof destroyed so that we exercise not our Affections in the things of this World Then will God enliven it with better and more Divine Passions and Affections For Anger against our Brother unadvisedly it shall be moved with holy and discreet Zeal against all wickedness in every body For Sorrow and inordinate Grief for its own private crosses with a sweet and tender Compassion and Pitty toward all that be in any Affliction For Lust and Sensual or Carnal Love with Divine Charity and a large embracement of all the Creatures of God they having some resemblance of his lovely Wisdom and Beauty Thus shall a man exult and rejoyce in the ways of God both Body and Soul serving willingly and chearfully with the whole man For our mortal Bodies even those earthly tabernacles lyable to death and dissolution shall the Spirit of Christ enliven by his powerful working if so be that our Bodies be first made dead unto Sin and the Spirit of God be in us indeed As the Apostle doth plainly witness A further proof for this purpose may we gather out of Phil. 3. 10 11. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect That this is meant of a Spiritual Resurrection seems reasonable from these grounds First because it is ranked with Spiritual sufferings and Spiritual conformableness unto the Death of Christ And then because the Apostle useth this way of apologizing Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect which caution he need not have put in about the Bodily Resurrection For could the Apostle think the Philippians to be so mad as to conceive that the Apostle had now risen out of the grave already clothed with his glorious Body which should be incorruptible Wherefore the Apostle speaks there of a Spiritual Resurrection And that this Doctrine want no Authority to confirm it I will add those words of our blessed Saviour Iohn 5. 25. Verily verily I say unto you The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live That Life and Resurrection from the dead can it be understood of the Resurrection of the Body out of the grave That was not then when our Saviour Christ spoke nor hath been yet fulfilled saving in one single example of Lazarus whom Christ called out of the grave But that was not the Life that is meant here for it is called everlasting life in the foregoing Verse which Lazarus was not raised up to else Lazarus would be alive at this very day which no man will acknowledge to be true But remember what our Saviour Christ saith Iohn 11. 25 26. I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in me or trusts in me or my power though he dye or be mortified or though he be dead yet he shall live And whosoever liveth and believeth in me that is is alive in me or to me The everlasting Righteousness of God and trusteth this living power shall never dye but be ever alive to Righteousness and to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. This must be understood of a Spiritual Life or Resurrection or else it will follow that all true Believers in Christ shall not dye at all that their Bodies shall never descend into the grave And now Beloved if this Discourse of the Spiritual Resurrection of the Soul seem to us subtle nice or obscure it is our fault not the fault of Truth The Sun is clear enough and easie to be seen but he that is blind dead or asleep beholds it not Nor can the unbelieving and unregenerate while he lies dead or asleep in Sin discern the truth of the Spirit of God in the Holy Scripture But all things are discovered and made manifest by the light For whatsoever doth make manifest is light Wherefore he saith Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Eph. 5. 13 14. Wherefore this point is plain to him whose eyes are open to behold it viz. That there is a Spiritual Resurrection or Vivification of the Soul But now if you be desirous to know what
this Resurrection of the Soul is I will also endeavour to satisfie you in that too but very briefly It is the inward Life of Righteousness it is the renewing of the Soul the shaping of it again into the image and similitude of God in a word it is the Life or Spirit of Christ whereby a mans Soul is alive to all Spiritual and Heavenly things I will explain it by a comparison When a mans Natural Life is gone all his imaginations and machinations perish He desires not any thing belonging to this Natural Life nor Food nor Clothing he feels not though his Body be rent or cut or rot away goes not about to preserve or recover the Health or Life of his dead Body thinks not of Wife nor Children nor any Natural thing else But when a man is alive according to Nature he desires Food Meat and Drink for the preservation of his Natural Life Cloths both for shelter and ornament is sensible of what hurts his living Body provides for his Health and Strength is active in the deeds of Nature and if he be a mere Natural man all his joy pleasure and content is in the same Just thus it is Beloved in the Death and Life of the Soul While the Soul is dead Spiritually it hath no true desire to the Word of God which is the Food of the Soul but doth come to the Church only for fashion sake gives no ear to the Voice of God rebuking her in her Conscience hath no unfeigned thirst after Righteousness nor is she sensible of the violent heat of Passion how wicked it is nor feels her self frozen and stark cold to all Charity and due Devotion she goes not about to obtain that saving Health even Jesus Christ that precious Balsam of the Soul nor is she a whit moved whatever mischief betides him But when the Soul hath risen from this Death and hath got the new Life of Christ being enquickened by his Spirit Then hath she a right healthful appeal to that Heavenly Bread and those Spiritual Waters those Refreshments from above the sweet Comforts of the Holy Ghost Then doth she heartily abhor all filth of Sin and keeps her Affections unspotted before her Lord and Husband Jesus Christ clothed in fine Linnen pure and white which is the Righteousness of the Saints Then is the living Law of God to her sweeter than the Honey and the Honey-comb so delightful and pleasant that she meditates thereon day and night She is very sensible of whatsoever is disgraceful to Christ or wounds or hurts his precious Body in any thing very tenderly loves the Communion of Saints and hath a very forward desire to propagate and enlarge the true and living Church of God She never falls by any infirmity or surprisal but is grieved and hurt as the Natural man is vexed when his Body chanceth to fall upon stones and is bruised Beloved where there is Life there is also Sense and where there in Sense there is also Grief and Joy Grief at such things as are contrary or destructive of the Life and Joy at such things as are agreeable and healthful for the same BY this time I hope you are sufficiently instructed concerning the Spiritual Resurrection both that it is and what it is Let us now make some Vses of this Doctrine That there is a Spiritual Resurrection belonging to every true Christian. 1. Then it is plain from hence That every Christian be he what he will that hath been made partaker of this Resurrection was once dead himself For as rising presupposeth a being down first so doth also a rising from death or being quickened presuppose a being dead Hence therefore it is plain That every Christian man or if you will even every man or was once or is at this present Spiritually dead Now the Nature of Death you know is such that nothing that is held therewith nothing that is Dead can recover it self to Life As it is also said in the Book of Psalms No man hath quickened his own Soul Wherefore Beloved this is the proper Vse we can make of this Consideration That if we find the fruits of the Resurrection of Christ Spiritually in our Souls we give God alone the Glory For it is he alone that killeth and maketh alive that leadeth down to Hell and bringeth up again He it is that is the death of deaths and a mighty destruction to the destroyer He it is that is the Resurrection and the Life as he himself witnesseth of himself He it is I mean the Spirit of Christ in us that fights against all the powers of Death and Darkness in our Souls and triumpheth gloriously over his and our enemies He is the strong arm of Salvation from God He hath wrought all our works in us Therefore not to us but unto God be the praise for his mercy and truths sake Nor only are we to praise God but also to live humbly and meekly before our Neighbour For thou whoever thou art that presumest thou hast attained to the Resurrection or enquickening or enlivening of the Spirit of Christ If hereby thou contemnest thy sinful Brother and settest him at nought and art not mercifully and kindly affected toward all men acknowledging very sensibly and inwardly that wherewith thou conceivest thy self to excel others or to be distinguished from them to be the Grace of God and his free work Thou art a lyar and a deceiver and jugglest with God and thine own Soul and art vainly puffed up in thy Carnal Mind For where Pride is there is not the saving Spirit of Christ where harshness of Mind is and contempt of our Neighbour there abides not the Love of God 2. If men be dead till they partake of the Resurrection of Christ then such neither can nor ought to take upon them any office of the living Who will make a Blind man judge of Colours or a Sick man of Tasts or a Deaf man of Musick But he that is Dead is worse than Sick or Blind or Deaf Wherefore no man that is devoid of the Resurrectiod of Christ in the Spirit is fit to judge in Spiritual things or in the secret Mysteries of God It is the Spiritual man that judgeth all the Heavenly man the Lord from Heaven and yet with man upon Earth the true Emanuel God with us and in us by his Spirit the true Judge of the Quick and the Dead As it is written The first man is of the earth earthly the second man is the Lord from heaven As is the earthly such are they that are earthly and as is the heavenly such are they that are heavenly Wherefore Beloved judge nothing before the time that is till the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus till his glorious appearing from Heaven when he shall make every work of man manifest and shall judge with right judgment 3. I will only add an Vse of Examination and so conclude Is there such a State of the Soul belonging to every