high places and fountains in the midst of the valleys that the poor and needy who seek water might be refreshed and they whose tongues failed for thirst might satisfy themselves with living water These are some of the lofty expressions whereby the Courtly Prophet Isaiah sets forth the great promise of the spirit none better befitting the mighty advantages the Church of God hath ever since enjoyed by the pouring out of the spirit than these For the fountain was opened in the Apostles but the streams of those Rivers of living water have run down to our Age not confined within the banks of Tiber nor mixing with the impure waters of it but preserved pure and unmixed in that sacred doctrine contained in the Holy Scripture Within those bounds we confine our faith and are not moved by the vain discourses of any who pretend to discover a new Fountain head to these waters at Rome and would make it impossible for them to come down to us through any other Channel but theirs But supposing they had come to us through them have they thereby gotten the sole disposal of them that none shall tast but what and how much they please and must we needs drink down the filth and mud of their Channel too As long as they suffer us to do what Christ hath commanded us to do viz. to take of these waters of life freely we do our own duty and quarrel not with them But if they go about to stop the passage of them or adulterate them with some forrain mixture or strive with us as the Herdsmen of Gerar did with Isaac's Herdsmen saying the Water is ours then if the name of the well be Esek if contentions do arise the blame is not ours we assert but our own just right against all their encroachments For as Isaac pleaded that he only digged again the wells of water which they had digged in the days of Abraham his Father and although the Philistins had stopped them after the death of Abraham yet that could be no hindrance to his right but he might open them again and call their names after the names by which his Father had called them So that is the substance of our Plea we pretend to nothing but to clear the passage which they have stopped up and was left free and open for us in the time of the Apostles and Fathers we desire not to be imposed upon by their later usurpations we plead for no more but that the Church of God may have the same purity and integrity which it had in the primitive times and that things may not only be called by the names by which the Fathers have called them but that they may be such as the Fathers have left them But otherwise let them boast never so much of the largeness of their stream of the Antiquitity of their Channel of the holiness of their waters of the number of their Ports and the riches of their trading nay and let them call their stream by the name of the Ocean too if they please yet we envy them not their Admaâ— and Pharpar and all the Rivers of Damascus so we may sit down quietly by these living waters of Iordan We are contented with the miracles which the Apostles wrought without forging or believing new ones we are satisfied with the gift of strange tongues which they had we know no necessity now of speaking much less of praying in an unknown tongue we believe that Spirit infallible which inspired the Apostles in their holy writtings and those we acknowledge embrace and I hope are willing to dye for But if any upstart Spirit pretend to sit in an infallible chair we desire not to be brought under bondage to it till we see the same miracles wrought by vertue of it which were wrought by the Apostles to attest their infallibility 3. The last thing to be spoken to is the season that this effusion of the Spirit was reserved for which was after the glorious ascension of Christ to Heaven This was reserved as the great Donative after his Triumph over Principalities and Powers when he was ascended up on high he sends down the greatest gift that ever was bestowed upon mankind viz. this gift of his Holy Spirit Hereby Christ discovered the greatness of his purchase the height of his Glory the exercise of his Power the assurance of his Resurrection and Ascension and the care he took of his Church and People by letting them see that he made good his last promise to them of sending them another Comforter who should be with them to assist them in all their undertakings to direct them in their doubts to plead their cause for them against all the vain oppositions of men And he should not continue with them for a little time as Christ had done but he should abide with them for ever i. e. so as not to be taken from them as himself was but should remain with them as a pledge of his love as a Testimony of his truth as an earnest of Gods favour to them now and their future inheritance in heaven for he should comfort them by his presence guide them by his counsel and at last bring them to glory Nothing now remains but that as the occasion of our rejoycing on this day doth so much exceed that of the Jews at their ceremony of pouring out the water so our joy should as much exceed in the nature and kind of it the mirth and jollity which was then used by them With what joy did the Israelites when they were almost burnt up with thirst in the wilderness cast of the pleasant streams which issued out of the rock that rock saith the Apostle was Christ and the gifts of the Spirit are that stream of living water which flows from him and shall not we express our thankfulness for so great and unvaluable a mercy Our joy cannot be too great for such a gift as this so it be of the nature of it i. e. a spiritual joy The Holy Ghost ought to be the Fountain of that joy which we express for Gods giving him to his Church Let us not then affront that good Spirit while we pretend to bless God for him let us not grieve him by our presumptuous sins nor resist his motions in our hearts by our wilful continuance in them The best way we can express our thankfulness is by yielding up our selves to be guided by him in a holy life and then we may be sure our joy shall never end with our lives but shall be continued with a greater fulness for ever more SERMON X. Preached at WHITE-HALL MARCH 2. 1669. ISAIAH LVII XXI There is no peace saith my God to the Wicked IF we were bound to judge of things only by appearance and to esteem all persons happy who are made the object of the envy of some and the flattery of
preserve the peace of the Christian Church when they are to plant Churches how ready to go about it how diligent in attending it how watchful to prevent all miscarriages among them When they write Epistles to those already planted with what Authority do they teach with what Majesty do they command with what severity do they rebuke with what pity do they chastise with what vehemency do they exhort and with what weighty arguments do they perswade all Christians to adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour in all things So that such persons who after all these things can believe that the Apostles were acted only by some extravagant heats may as easily perswade themselves that men may be drunk with sobriety and mad with reason and debauched with goodness But such are fit only to be treated in a dark room if any can be found darker than their understandings are 2. But yet there may be imagined a higher sort of madness than these men are guilty of viz. That when men are convinced that these things could not be done by meer Mechanical causes then they attribute them to the assistance of Spirits but not to the holy and divine but such as are evil and impure A madness so great and extravagant that we could hardly imagine that it were incident to humane nature unless the Scripture had told us that some had thus blasphemed the son of man and either had or were in danger of blaspheming the Holy Ghost too And this is properly blaspheming the Holy Ghost which was not given as our text tells us till after Christs ascension when men attribute all those miraculous gifts which were poured out upon the Apostles in confirmation of the Christian doctrine to the power of an unclean Spirit For so the Evangelist St. Luke when he mentions the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost which shall not be forgiven immediately subjoyns their bringing the Apostles to the Synagogues and Magistrates and Powers and adds that the Holy Ghost even that which they so blasphemed in them should teach them in that same hour what they ought to say I deny not but the attributing the miraculous works of Christ who had the Holy Spirit without measure to an evil Spirit was the same kind of sin but it received a greater aggravation after the resurrection of Christ from the dead and the miraculous effusion of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles For now the great confirmation was given to the truth of all that Christ had said before he had some times concealed his miracles and forbid the publishing of them and to such he appeared but as the son of man of whom it is said that had they known him they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory and St. Peter more expresly and now Brethren I wote that through ignorance you did it as did also your Rulers But now since his resurrection and ascension when God by the effusion of the Holy Ghost hath given the largest and fullest Testimony to the doctrine of the Gospel if men after all this shall go on to blaspheme the Holy Ghost by attributing all these miracles to a Diabolical power then there is no forgiveness to be expected either in this world or the world to come Because this argues the greatest obstinacy of mind the highest contempt of God and the greatest affront that can be put upon the Testimony of the holy Spirit for it is charging the Spirit of truth to be an evil and a lying Spirit By which we see what great weight and moment the Scripture lays upon this pouring out of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles and what care men ought to have how they undervalue and despise it and much more how they do reproach and blaspheme it They might as well imagine that light and darkness may meet and embrace each other as that the infernal Spirits should imploy their power in promoting a doctrine so contrary to their interest For Heaven and Hell cannot be more distant than the whole design of Christianity is from all the contrivances of wicked Spirits How soon was the Devil's Kingdom broken his Temples demolished his oracles silenced himself baffled in his great design of deceiving mankind when Christianity prevailed in the world Having thus far asserted the truth of the thing viz. that there was such an effusion of the Holy Spirit now come to consider 2. The nature of it as it is represented to us by Rivers of living waters flowing out of them that believe by which we may understand 1. The plenty of it called Rivers of waters 2. The benefit and usefulness of it to the Church 1. The plentifulness of this effusion of the Spirit there had been some drops as it were of this Spirit which had fallen upon some of the Jewish nation before but those were no more to be compared with these rivers of waters than the waters of Siloam which run softly with the mighty River Euphrates What was the Spirit which Bezaleel had to build the Tabernacle with if compared with that Spirit which the Apostles were inspired with for building up the Church of God what was that Spirit of Wisdom which some were filled with to make garments for Aaron if compared with that Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation which led the Apostles into the knowledge of all Truth What was that Spirit of Courage which was given to the Iudges of old if compared with that Spirit which did convince the world of sin of righteousness and of judgement What was that Spirit of Moses which was communicated to the 70. elders if compared with that Spirit of his son which God hath shed abroad in the hearts of his people What was that Spirit of prophesie which inspired some Prophets in several ages with that pouring out of the Spirit upon all flesh which the Apostle tells us was accomplished on the day of Pentecost But these Rivers of Waters though they began their course at Ierusalem upon that day yet they soon overflowed the Christian Church in other parts of the world The sound of that rushing mighty wind was soon heard in the most distant places and the fiery tongues inslamed the hearts of many who never saw them These gifts being propagated into other Churches and many other tongues were kindled from them as we see how much this gift of tongues obtained in the Church of Corinth And so in the History of the Acts of the Apostles we find after this day how the Holy Ghost fell upon them which believed and what mighty signs and wonders were done by them 2. The benefit and usefulness of this effusion of the Spirit like the Rivers of Waters that both refresh and enrich and thereby make glad the City of God The coming down of the Spirit was like the pouring water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground Now God opened the Rivers in
commanded the power of Heaven When God of a sudden like one highly provoked drew forth the sword of his destroying Angel and by it cut off so many thousands in the midst of us Then we fell upon our knees and begg'd the mercy of Heaven that our Lives might be spared that we might have time to amend them but no sooner did our fears abate but our devotion did so too we had soon forgotten the promises we made in the day of our distress and I am afraid it is at this day too true of us which is said in the Revelations of those who had escaped the several plagues which so many had been destroyed by And the rest of the men which were not killed by these Plagues yet repented not of the work of their bands For if we had not greedily suckt in again the poyson we had only laid down while we were begging for our lives if we had not returned with as great fury and violence as ever to our former lusts the removing of one judgement had not been as it were only to make way for the coming on of another For the grave seemed to close up her mouth and death by degrees to withdraw himself that the Fire might come upon the Stage to act its part too in the Tragoedy our sins have made among us and I pray God this may be the last Act of it Let us not then provoke God to find out new methods of vengeance and make experiments upon us of what other unheard of severities may do for our cure But let us rather meet God now by our repentance and returning to him by our serious humiliation for our former sins and our stedfast resolutions to return no more to the practice of them That that much more dangerous infection of our souls may be cured as well as that of our bodies that the impure flames which burn within may be extinguished that all our luxuries may be retrenched our debaucheries punished our vanities taken away our careless indifferency in Religion turned into a greater seriousness both in the profession and the practice of it So will God make us a happy and prosperous when he finds us a more righteous and holy Nation So will God succeed all your endeavours for the honour and interest of that people whom you represent So may he add that other Title to the rest of those you have deserved for your Countries good to make you Repairers of the breaches of the City as well as of the Nation and Restorers of paths to dwell in So may that City which now sits solitary like a Widow have her tears wiped off and her beauty and comeliness restored unto her Yea so may her present ruines in which she now lies buried be only the fore-runners of a more joyful resurrection In which though the body may remain the same the qualities may be so altered that its present desolation may be only the putting off its former inconveniences weakness and deformities that it may rise with greater glory strength and proportion and to all her other qualities may that of incorruption be added too at least till the general Conflagration And I know your great Wisdom and Iustice will take care that those who have suffered by the ruines may not likewise suffer by the rising of it that the glory of the City may not be laid upon the tears of the Orphans and Widows but that its foundations may be setled upon Justice and Piety That there be no complaining in the Streets for want of Righteousness nor in the City for want of Churches nor in the Churches for want of a settled maintenance That those who attend upon the service of God in them may never be tempted to betray their Consciences to gain a livelihood nor to comply with the factions humours of men that they may be able to live among them And thus when the City through the blessing of Heaven shall be built again may it be a Habitation of Holiness towards God of Loyalty towards our Gratious King and his Successors of Iustice and Righteousness towards Men of Sobriety and Peace and Unity among all the Inhabitants till not Cities and Countries only but the world and time it self shall be no more Which God of his infinite mercy grant through the merits and mediation of his Son to whom with the Father and Eternal Spirit be all Honour and Glory for evermore SERMON II. Preached before the KING MARCH 13. 1665 9. PROV XIV IX Fools make a mock at Sin WHEN God by his infinite Wisdom had contrived and by a power and goodness as infinite as his Wisdom had perfected the creation of the visible world there seemed to be nothing wanting to the glory of it but a creature endued with reason and understanding which might comprehend the design of his wisdom enjoy the benefits of his goodness and employ it self in the celebration of his power The Beings purely intellectual were too highly raised by their own order and creation to be the Lords of this inferiour world and those whose natures could reach no higher than the objects of sense were not capable of discovering the glorious perfections of the great Creator and therefore could not be the fit Instruments of his praise and service But a conjunction of both these together was thought necessary to make up such a sort of being which might at once command this lower world and be the servants of him who made it Not as though this great fabrick of the world were meerly raised for man to please his fancy in the contemplation of it or to exercise his dominion over the creatures designed for his use and service but that by frequent reflections on the author of his being and the effects of his power and goodness he might be brought to the greatest love and admiration of him So that the most natural part of Religion lyes in the grateful acknowledgements we owe to that excellent and supream Being who hath shewed so particular a kindness to man in the creation and Government of the world Which was so great and unexpressible that some have thought it was not so much pride and affectation of a greater height as envy at the felicity and power of mankind which was the occasion of the fall of the Apostate spirits But whether or no the state of man were occasion enough for the envy of the Spirits above we are sure the kindness of Heaven was so great in it as could not but lay an indispensable obligation on all mankind to perpetual gratitude and obedience For it is as easie to suppose that affronts and injuries are the most suitable returns for the most obliging favours that the first duty of a Child should be to destroy his Parents that to be thankful for kindnesses received were to commit the unpardonable sin as that man should receive his being and all
but too much will unfit them for greater business But do men believe these things to be true or not when they say thus if they be true why need they fear their uncertainty if they be certain what pains and care can be too great about them since a little will never serve to obtain them Let but the care and diligence be proportionable to the greatness of the end and the weight of the things and you never need fear the want of a recompence for all your labour But suppose you say if you were fully convinced of their certainty you would look more after them What hinders you from being so convinced Is it not a bad disposition of mind which makes you unwilling to enquire into them examine things with a mind as free as you would have it judge seriously according to the reason of things and you will easily find the interests of a life to come are far more certain as well as more desireable than those of this present life And yet the great uncertainty of all the honours and riches of this world never hinder the covetous or ambitious person from their great earnestness in pursuit of them And shall not then all the mighty arguments which God himself hath made use of to confirm to us the certainty of a life to come prevail upon us to look more seriously after it Shâ—ll the unexpressible love of the Father the unconceiveable sufferings of the Son of God and the miraculous descent and powerful assistance of the Holy Ghost have no more impression on our minds than to leave us uncertain of a future state What mighty doubts and suspicions of God what distrusts of humane Nature what unspeakable ingratitude and unaccountable folly lies at the bottom of all this uncertainty O fools and slow of heart to believe not only what the Prophets have spoken but what our Lord hath declared God himself hath given testimony to and the Holy Ghost hath confirmed 3. But is not your Interest concerned in these things Is it all one to you whether your souls be immortal or no whether they live in eternal felicity or unchangeable misery Is it no more to you than to know what kind of Bables are in request at the Indies or whether the customs of China or Iapan are the wiser i. e. than the most trifling things and the remotest from our knowledge But this is so absurd and unreasonable to suppose that men should not think themselves concerned in their own eternal happiness and misery that I shall not shew so much distrust of their understandings to speak any longer to it 3. But if notwithstanding all these things our neglect still continues then there remains nothing but a fearful looking for of judgement and the fiery indignation of God For there is no possibility of escaping if we continue to neglect so great salvation All hopes of escaping are taken away which are only in that which men neglect and those who neglect their only way to salvation must needs be miserable How can that man ever hope to be saved by him whose blood he despises and tramples under foot What grace and favour can he expect from God who hath done despight unto the Spirit of Grace That hath cast away with reproach and contempt the greatest kindness and offers of Heaven What can save him that resolves to be damned and every one does so who knows he shall be damned if he lives in his sins and yet continues to do so God himself in whose only pity our hopes are hath irreversibly decreed that he will have no pity upon those who despise his goodness slight his threatnings abuse his patience and sin the more because he offers to pardon It is not any â—elight that God takes in the miseries of his Creatures which makes him punish them but shall not God vindicate his own honour against obstinate and impenitent sinners He declares before hand that he is far from delighting in their ruine and that is the reason he hath made such large offers and used so many means to make them happy but if men resolve to despise his offers and slight the means of their salvation shall not God be just without being thought to be cruel And we may assure our selves none shall ever suffer beyond the just desert of their sins for punishment as the Apostle tells us in the words before the Text is nothing but a just recompence of reward And if there were such a one proportionable to the violation of the Law delivered by Angels how shall we think to escape who neglect a more excellent means of happiness which was delivered by our Lord himself If God did not hate sin and there were not a punishment belonging to it why did the Son of God die for the expiation of it and if his death were the only means of expiation how is it possible that those who neglect that should escape the punishment not only of their other sins but of that great contempt of the means of our salvation by him Let us not then think to trifle with God as though it were impossible a Being so merciful and kind should ever punish his Creatures with the miseries of another life For however we may deceive our selves God will not be mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap for he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flâ—sh reap corruption but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting I shall only propound some few Considerations to prevent so great a neglect as that of your salvation is 1. Consider what it is you neglect the offer of Eternal Happiness the greatest kindness that ever was expressed to the World the foundation of your present peace the end of your beings the stay of your minds the great desire of your Souls the utmost felicity that humane Nature is capable of Is it nothing to neglect the favour of a Prince the kindness of Great Men the offers of a large and plentiful Estate but these are nothing to the neglect of the favour of God the love of his Son and that salvation which he hath purchased for you Nay it is not a bare neglect but it implies in it a mighty contempt not only of the things offered but of the kindness of him who offers them If men had any due regard for God or themselves if they had any esteem for his love or their own welfare they would be much more serious in Religion than they are When I see a person wholly immersed in affairs of the World or spending his time in luxury and vanity can I possibly think that man hath any esteem of God or of his own Soul When I find one very serious in the pursuit of his Designs in the World thoughtful and busie subtle in contriving them careful in managing them but very formal remiss and negligent in all affairs
laid on him the iniquities of us all that through the eternal Spirit he offer'd himself without spot to God and did appear to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself that he was made a propitiation for our sins that he laid down his life as a price of Redemption for Mankind that through his blood we obtain Redemption even the forgiveness of sins which in a more particular manner is attributed to the blood of Christ as the procuring cause of it That he dyed to reconcile God and us together and that the Ministery of Reconciliation is founded on Gods making him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him and that we may not think that all this Reconciliation respects us and not God he is said to offer up himself to God and for this cause to be a Mediator of the New Testament and to be a faithful high-Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people and every high-Priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God not appointed by God in things meerly tending to the good of men which is rather the Office of a Prophet than a Priest So that from all these places it may easily appear that the blood of Christ is to be looked on as a sacrifice of Atonement for the sins of the World Not as though Christ did suffer the very same which we should have suffer'd for that was eternal death as the consequent of guilt in the person of the Offender and then the discharge must have been immediately consequent upon the payment and no room had been left for the freeness of remission or for the conditions required on our parts But that God was pleased to accept of the death of his Son as a full perfect sufficient sacrifice oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the World as our Church expresseth it and in consideration of the sufferings of his Son is pleased to offer pardon of sin upon sincere repentance and eternal life upon a â—…y obedience to his will Thus much for the things we are to consider concerning the contradiction of sinners which Christ endured against himself Nothing now remains but the influence that ought to have upon us lest we be weary and faint in our minds For which end I shall suggest two things 1. The vast disproportion between Christs sufferings and ours 2. The great encouragement we have from his sufferings to bear our own the better 1. The vast Disproportion between Christs sufferings and our own Our lot is fallen into suffering times and we are apt enough to complain of it I will not say it is wholly true of us what the Moralist saith generally of the complaints of men Non quia dura sed quia molles patimur that it is not the hardness of our conditions so much as the softness of our spirits which makes us complain of them For I must needs say this City hath smarted by such a series and succession of judgements which few Cities in the world could parallel in so short a time The Plague hath emptied its houses and the fire consumed them the War exhausted our spirits and it were well if Peace recovered them But still these are but the common calamities of humane nature things that we ought to make account of in the World and to grow the better by them And it were happy for this City if our thankfulness and obedience were but answerable to the mercies we yet enjoy let us not make our condition worse by our fears nor our fears greater than they need to be for no enemy can be so bad as they Thanks be to God our condition is much better at present than it hath been let us not make it worse by fearing it may be so Complaints will never end till the World does and we may imagine that will not last much longer when the City thinks it hath trade enough and the Country riches enough But I will not go about to perswade you that your condition is better than it is for I know it is to no purpose to do so all men will believe as they feel But suppose our condition were much worse than it is yet what were all our sufferings compared with those of our Saviour for us the sins that make us smart wounded him much deeper they pierced his side which only touch our skin we have no cause to complain of the bitterness of that Cup which he hath drunk off the dreggs of already We lament over the ruins of a City and are revived with any hopes of seeing it rise out of the dust but Christ saw the ruins that sin caused in all mankind he undertook the repairing them and putting men into a better condition than before And we may easily think what a difficult task he had of it when he came to restore them who were delighted in their ruins and thought themselves too good to be mended It is the comfort of our miseries if they be only in this life that we know they cannot last long but that is the great aggravation of our Saviours sufferings that the contradiction of sinners continues against him still Witness the Atheism I cannot so properly call it as the Antichristianism of this present Age wherein so many profane persons act over again the part of the Scribes and Pharisees they slight his Doctrine despise his Person disparage his miracles contemn his Precepts and undervalue his Sufferings Men live as if it were in defiance to his holy Laws as though they feared not what God can do so much as to need a Mediator between him and them If ever men tread under foot the Son of God it is when they think themselves to be above the need of him if ever they count the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing it is not only when they do not value it as they ought but when they exercise their profane wits upon it Blessed Saviour was it not enough for thee to bear the contradiction of sinners upon Earth but thou must still suffer so much at the hands of those whom thou dyedst for that thou mightest bring them to Heaven was it not enough for thee to be betrayed on Earth but thou must be defied in Heaven Was it not enough for thee to stoop so low for our sakes but that thou shouldest be trampled on because thou didst it was the ignominious death upon the Cross too small a thing for thee to suffer in thy Person unless thy Religion be contemned and exposed to as much shame and mockery as thy self was Unhappy we that live to hear of such things but much more unhappy if any of our sins have been the occasion of them If our unsuitable lives to the Gospel have open'd the mouths of any against so
to widen our differences or increase our animosities they are too large and too great already nor to condemn any humble and modest dissenters from us but I despair ever to see our divisions healed till Religion be brought from the Fancies to the hearts of men and till men instead of mystical notions and unacccountable experiences in stead of mis-applying promises and misunderstanding the spirit of prayer instead of judging of themselves by mistaken signs of Grace set themselves to the practice of humility selfdenial meekness patience charity obedience and a holy life and look on these as the greatest duties and most distinguishing characters of true Christianity And in doing of these there shall not only be a great reward in the life to come but in spight of all opposition from Atheism profaneness or superstition we may see our divisions cured and the Kingdom of God which is a Kingdom of peace and holiness to abide and flourish among us SERMON IX Preached at WHITE HALL WHITSUNDAY 1669. JOHN VII XXXIX But this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Iesus was not yet glorified WHat was said of old concerning the first creation of the world that in order to the accomplishment of it the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters is in a sense agreeable to the nature of it as true of the renovation of the world by the doctrine of Christ. For whether by that we understand a great and vehement mind as the Jews generally do or rather the Divine power manifesting it self in giving motion to the otherwise dull and unactive parts of matter we have it fully represented to us in the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost For that came upon them as a rushing mighty wind and inspired them with a new life and motion whereby they became the most active instruments of bringing the world out of that state of confusion and darkness it lay in before by causing the glorious light of the Gospel to shine upon it And left any part should be wanting to make up the parallel in the verse before the text we read of the Waters too which the Spirit of God did move upon and therefore called not a dark Abyss but flowing rivers of living water He that believeth on me as the Scripture hath said out of his bellie shall flow rivers of living water Not as though the Apostles like some in the ancient Fables were to be turned into fountains and pleasant Springs but the great and constant benefit which the Church of God enjoys by the plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit upon them could not be better set fotth than by rivers of living water flowing from them And this the Evangelist in these words to prevent all cavils and mistakes tells us was our Saviours meaning But this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive And lest any should think that our Blessed Saviour purposely affected to speak in strange metaphors we shall find a very just occasion given him for using this way of expression from a custom practised among the Jews at that time For in the solemnity of the feast of Tabernacles especially in the last and great day of the Feast mentioned v. 37. after the sacrifices were offered upon the Altar one of the Priests was to go with a large Golden Tankard to the fountain of Siloam and having filled it with water he brings it up to the water-gate over against the altar where it was received with a great deal of pomp and ceremony with the sounding of the Trumpets and rejoycing of the people which continued during the libation or pouring it out before the Altar after which followed the highest expressions of joy that were ever used among that people insomuch that they have a saying among them that he that never saw the rejoycing of the drawing of water never saw rejoycing in all his life Of which several accounts are given by the Jews some say it had a respect to the later rain which God gave them about this time others to the keeping of the Law but that which is most to our purpose is that the reason assigned by one of the Rabbies in the Ierusalem Talmud is because of the drawing or pouring out of the Holy Ghost according to what is said with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of Salvation By which we see that no fairer advantage could be given to our Saviour to discourse concerning the effusion of the Holy Ghost and the mighty joy which should be in the Christian Church by reason of that than in the time of this solemnity and so lets them know that the Holy Ghost represented by their pouring out of water was not to be expected by their rites and ceremonies but by believing the doctrine which he preached and that this should not be in so scant and narrow a measure as that which was taken out of Siloam which was soon poured out and carried away but out of them on whom the Holy Ghost should come rivers of living waters should flow whose effect and benefit should never cease as long as the world it self should continue So that in the words of the text we have these particulars offered to our consideration 1. The effusion of the Spirit under the times of the Gospel but this spake he of the spirit which they that believe on him should receive 2. The nature of that effusion represented to us by rivers of living waters flowing out of them 3. The time that was reserved for it which was after the glorious ascension of Christ to Heaven For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Iesus was not yet glorified 1. The effusion of the spirit under the times of the Gospel by which we mean those extraordinary gifts and abilities which the Apostles had after the Holy Ghost is said to descend upon them Which are therefore called signs and wonders and divers gifts of the Holy Ghost and the operations of the Spirit of which we have a large enumeration given us in that place The two most remarkable which I shall insist upon and do comprehend under them most of the rest are the power of working miracles whether in Healing diseases or any other way and the gift of tongues either in speaking or interpreting they who will acknowledge that the Apostles had these will not have reason to question any of the rest And concerning these I shall endeavour to prove 1. That the things attributed to the Apostles concerning them could not arise from any ordinary or natural causes 2. That they could not be the effects of an evil but of a holy and divine spirit and therefore that there was really such a pouring out of the spirit