of evil inclinations and actions which yet will never reach to evince our son-ship to God How easily were it for me to name you divers Heathens which have been eminent in all these and yet for ought we know never the nearer to Heaven yet lower there are some speciall gifts of the Spirit which we call Charismata rare endowments bestowed upon some men excellent faculties of preaching and praying power of miraculous workings as no doubt Judas did cast out Devils as well as the best of his fellow-Apostles gifts of tongues and of Prophesie and the like which do no more argue a right to the son-ship of God then the Manuaries infused skill of Bezaleel and Aâ—oliab could prove them Saints yet lastly there may be sensible operations of the Spirit of God upon the soul in the influences of holy motions into the heart in working a temporary faith and some fair progresse in an holy profession and yet no sonship the world is full of such glow-wormes that make some show of Spiritual Light from God when they have nothing in them but cold crudities that can serve for nothing but deceit Will ye then see what leading of the Spirit can evince us to be the Sons and Daughters of God know then that if we will hope for a comfortable assurance hereof we must be efficaciously led by his sanctifying Spirit first in matter of judgment secondly in our dispositions and thirdly in our practise For matter of judgment ye remember what our Saviour said to his Disciples When the Spirit of truth is come he will lead you into all Truth John 16.13 That is into all saving and necessary truthes so as to free us from grosse ignorance or main errour Whosoever therefore is enlightned with the true and solid knowledg of all those points of Christian doctrine which are requisite for salvation is in that first regard led by the Spirit and in this behalf hath a just title to the son-ship of God as contrarily those that are grosly and obstinately erroneous in their judgment of fundamental truthes let them pretend to never so much holinesse in heart or life shall in vain lay claim to this happy condition of the Sons of God For our disposition secondly If the holy Spirit have wrought our hearts to be right with God in all our affections if we do sincerely love and fear him if we do truely believe in him receiving him as not our Saviour only but as our Lord If our desires be unfained towards him If after a meek and penitent self-dejection we can find our selves raised to a lively hope and firm confidence in that our blessed Redeemer and shall continue in a constant and habitual fruition of him being thus led by the Spirit of God we may be assured that we are the Sons of God for flesh and blood cannot be accessary to these gracious dispositions Lastly for our practise it is a clear word which we hear God say by Ezekiel I will put my Spirit into the midst of you and will by it cause you to walk in my statutes and keep my laws Ezech. 36.27 Lo herein is the main crisis of a soul led by the Spirit of God and adopted to this heavenly son-ship It is not for us to content our selves to talk of the lawes of our God and to make empty and formal professions of his name Here must be a continued walk in Gods statutes it will not serve the turne for us to stumble upon some acceptable work to step aside a little into the pathes of godlinesse and then draw back to the World no my beloved this leading of Gods Spirit must neither be a forced angariation as if God would feoffe grace and salvation upon us against our wills nor some suddain protrusion to good nor a meer actual momentany transient conduction for a brunt of holinesse and away leaving us to the sinful wayes of our former disobedience and to our wonted compliances with the World the Devil and the Flesh but must be in a steady uninterrupted habitual course of holy obedience so as we may sincerely professe with the man after Gods own heart My soul hath kept thy Testimonies and I love them exceedingly Psal 119.67 Now then dear Christians lay this to heart seriously and call your selves sadly to this triall What is the carriage of our lives What obedience do we yeild to the whole law of our God If that be entire hearty universal constant perseverant and truly conscientious we have whereof to rejoyce an unfailing ground to passe a confident judgment upon our spiritual estate to be no lesse then happy But if we be willingly failing in the unfained desires and indevours of these holy performances and shall let loose the reins to any known wickednesse we have no part nor portion in this blessed condition Mark I beseech you how fully this is asserted to our hands in this saith the beloved Apostle the Children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil whosoever doth not righteousnesse is not of God neither he that loves not his brother 1 Joh. 3.10 Observe I pray you what test we are put to ye hear him not say who so talks not holily or who so professes not godlinesse in these an hypocrite may exceed the best Saint but whosoever doth not righteousnesse withall see what a clause the Disciple of love superadds to the mention of all Righteousnesse neither he that loves not his brother surely the Spirit of God is a Loving Spirit Wisdom 1.6 and St. Paul hath the like phrase Rom. 15.30 To let passe then all the other proofes of our guidance by the spirit Instance but in this one Alas my Brethren what is become of that charitable and christian carriage of men towards one another which God requires of us and which was wont to be conspicuous amongst Christian compatriots Wo is me instead of that true and hearty love which our Saviour would have the Livery of our Disciple-ship the badg of our holy profession what do we see but emulation envy malice rigid censures and rancorous heart-burnings amongst men In stead of those neighbourly and friendly offices which Christians were wont lovingly to performe to each other what have we now in the common practise of men but underminings oppressions violence cruelty Can we think that the Spirit of him who would be styled Love it self would lead us in these rugged and bloody pathes No no this alone is too clear a proof how great a stranger the Spirit of God is to the hearts and waies of men and how few there are that upon good and firme grounds can plead their right to the son-ship of God Alas alas if these dispositions and practises may bewray the sons of an holy God what can men do to prove themselves the children of that hellish Apollion who was a man-slayer from the beginning For us my beloved Oh let us hate and bewaile this common degeneration of Christians and as we would
injoyned to both parts in those other collaterall and needlesse disquisitions which if they might befit the Schools of Academicall disputants could not certainly sound well from the Pulpits of popular Auditories Those reconciliatory papers fell under the eyes of some Grave Divines on both parts Mr. Montague professed that he had seen them and would subscribe to them very willingly others that were contrarily minded both English Scotish and French Divines profered their hands to a no less ready subscription So as much peace promised to result out of that weak and poor enterprise had not the confused noise of the misconstructions of those who never saw the work crying it down for the very Names sake meeting with the royall edict of a general Inhibition buryed it in a secure Silence I was scorched a little with this flame which I desired to Quench yet this could not stay my hand from thrusting it self into an hotter fire Some insolent Romanists Jesuites especially in their bold disputations which in the time of the treaty of the Spanish Match and the calme of that Relaxation were very frequent pressed nothing so much as a Catalogue of the Professors of our Religion to be deduced from the primitive times and with the peremptory challenge of the impossibility of this Pedigree dazeled the eyes of the simple whiles some of our learned men undertaking to satisfy so needless and unjust a demand gave as I conceived great advantage to the Adversary In a just Indignation to see us thus wrong'd by misâ—stateing the Question betwixt us as if we yielding our selves of an other Church Originally and fundamentally different should make good our own erection upon the Ruines yea the Nullity of theirs and well considering the Infinite and great inconveniences that must needs follow upon this defence I adventured to set my pen on work desiring to rectifie the Opinions of those men whom an ignorant zeal had transported to the prejudice of our holy Cause laying forth the Damnable corruptions of the Roman Church yet making our game of the outward visibility thereof and by this means putting them to the probation of those newly obtruded corruptions which are truly guilty of the breach betwixt us The drift whereof being not well conceived by some spirits that were not so wise as fervent I was suddenly exposed to the rash censures of many well affected and zealous Protestants as if I had in a Remission to my wonted zeal to the Truth attributed too much to the Roman Church and strengthned the adversaries hands and weakned our own This envy I was fain to take off by my speedy Apologeticall advertisment and after that by my Reconciler B. Morton B. Davenant Dr. Prideaux D. Primrose seconded with the unaminous Letters of such Reverend Learned sound Divines both Bishops and Doctors as whose undoubtable authority was able to bear down calumny it self which done I did by a seasonable moderation provide for the Peace of the Church in silencing both my defendants and challengers in this unkind and ill-raised quarrell Immediately before the Publishing of this Tractate which did not a little aggravate the envy and suspicion I was by his Majesty raised to the Bishoprick of Exceter having formerly with much humble Deprecation refused the See of Glocester earnestly proffered unto me How beyond all expectation it pleased God to place me in that Western charge which if the Duke of Buckinghams Letters he being then in France had arived but some hours sooner I had been defeated of and by what strange means it pleased God to make up the Competency of that provision by the unthought of addition of the Rectory of St. Breok within that Diocess if I should fully relate the Circumstances would force the Confession of an extraordinary hand of God in the disposing of those events I entred upon that place not without much prejudice and suspicion on some hands for some that sate at the sterne of the Church had me in great Jelousie for too much favour of Puritanisme I soon had intelligence who were set over me for espialls my ways were Curiously observed and scanned However I took the resolution to follow those courses which might most conduce to the Peace and happiness of my New and weighty charge finding therefore some factious spirits very busie in that Diocess I used all fair and gentle means to win them to good order and therein so happily prevailed that saving two of that numerous Clergy who continuing in their refractoriness fled away from censure they were all perfitly reclaimed so as I had not one Minister professedly opposite to the anciently received orders for I was never guilty of urging any new Impositions of the Church in that large Diocess Thus we went on comfortably together till some persons of note in the Clergy being guilty of their own negligence and disorderly courses began to envy our success and finding me ever ready to encourage those whom I found conscionably forward and painfull in their places and willingly giving way to Orthodox and peaceable Lectures in severall parts of my Diocess opened their mouths against me both obliquely in the Pulpit and directly at the Court complaining of my too much Indulgence to persons disaffected and my too much liberty of frequent Lecturings within my charge The billowes went so high that I was three severall times upon my knee to his Majesty to answer these great Criminations and what Contestation I had with some great Lords concerning these particulars it would be too long to report only this under how dark a Cloud I was hereupon I was so sensible that I plainly told the Lord Archbishop of Canter that rather then I would be obnoxious to those slanderous tongues of his misinformers I would cast up my Rochet I knew I went right wayes and would not endure to live under undeserâ—â—piâ—â—ons what messages of caution I had from 〈◊〉 of my â—â—ry Brethren and what expostulatory Letters I had from above I need not relate Sure I am I had Peace and comfort at home in the happy sense of that generall unanimity and loving correspondence of my Clergy till in the last year of my presiding there after the Synodicall oath was set on foot which yet I did never tender to any one Minister of my Diocess by the incitation of some busie interlopeâ—s of the neighbour County some of them began to enter into an unkind contestation with me about the election of Clerks of the convocaâ—ion whom they secretly without ever acquainting me with their desire or purpose as driving to that end which we see now accomplished would needs nominate and set up in Competition to those whom I had after the usuall form recommended to them That they had a right to free voices in that choice I denyed not only I had reason to take it unkindly that they would work underhand without me and against me professing that if they had before hand made their desires known to me I should willingly have
God hath taken at our thus Grieving of him his Indearments our Ingagements his Expectation were we a people that God had no whit promerited by his favours that he had done nothing for us more then for the savage Nations of the World surely the God of Heaven had not taken it so deeply to heart but now that he hath been more kind to us then to any Nation under Heaven how doth he call Heaven and Earth to record of the justnesse of his high regret Hear O Heaven and hearken O Earth for the Lord himself hath spoken I have nourished and brought up Children and they have rebelled against me Esa 1.2 and excellently Jerem. 2.31 O generation see the word of the Lord have I been a wilderness to Israel a land of darkness therefore it followes Behold I will plead with thee ver 35. Neither are his indearments of us more then our ingagements to him for what Nation in all the World hath made a more glorious profession of the name of God then this of ours What Church under the cope of Heaven hath been more famous and flourishing Had we not pretended to holiness and purity of religion even beyond others the unkindness had been the lesse now our unanswerablenesse calls God to the highest protestation of his offence Be astonished O Heavens and be horribly afraid be ye very desolate saith the Lord for my people have committed two evils they have forsaken me the Fountain of living waters and have hewen them out Cisternes broken Cisternes that can hold no water Jer. 2.11 And who is so blind as my servant Esa 42.19 Now according to his Indearments and our Ingagements hath been his just expectation of an answerable carriage of us towards him the Husbandman looks not for a crop in the wild desart but where he hath Gooded and plowed and Eared and Sowne why should not he look for an harvest And this disappointment is a just heightner of his griefe what could I have done more for my Vineyard that I have not done I looked for grapes and it brought forth wild grapes And now I will tell you what I will do to my Vineyard I will take away the hedge thereof and I will lay it wast Esa 5.4 5. Wo is me we do not hear but feel God making his fearfull word good upon us I need not tell you what we suffer the word of Esay is fulfilled here It shall be a vexation onely to understand the report Esa 28.19 Alas we know it too well what rivers of blood what piles of Carcasses are to be seen on all sides would God I could as easily tell you of the Remedy and why can I not do so Doubtlesse there is a remedy no lesse certain then our suffering if we had but the grace to use it too long alas too long have we driven off the applying of our redress yet even still there is Balme in Gilead still there is hope yea assurance of help if we will not be wanting to our selves we have grieved our God to the height Oh that we could resolve to make our peace with our provoked God at the last Excellent is that of Esay 27.5 Let him take hold of my strength and make Peace with me and he shall make peace with with me Oh that we could take hold of our strong Helper who is mighty to save that we would lay hold on the strength of his marvellous mercies Oh that we could take Benhadads course here as they said of the King of Israel much more may I say of the God of Israel He is a merciful God let us put sackcloth upon our loynes and ropes upon our heads and go to the God of Israel and say Thy servants say I pray thee let us live 1 K. 20.31 Oh that it could greive us thoroughly that we have greived so good a God that we could by a sound and serious humiliation and hearty Repentance reconcile our selves to that offended Majesty we should yet live to praise him for his mercifull deliverance and for the happy restauration of our peace which God for his mercies sake vouchsafe to graunt us Thus much for the grieving of the holy Spirit in himself by way of allusion to humane affection Now followes that grievance which by way of Sympathy he feels in his Saints Anselme Aquinas Estius and other latter Interpreters have justly construed one branch of this offence of the Holy Spirit to be when through our leud despightful words or actions we grieve and scandalize those Saints and Servants of God in whom that Holy Spirit dwells It is true as Zanchius observes well that it is no thank to a wicked man that the Spirit of God is not grieved by him even in person he doth what he can to vex him the Impossibility is in the Impassiblenesse of the Spirit of God not in the Will of the Agent But although not in himself yet in his faithful Ones he may and doth grieve him They are the Receptacles of the Holy Ghost which he so possesses and takes up that the injuries and affronts done to them are felt and acknowledged by him As when an enemy offers to burn or pull down or strip plunder the house the Master or Owner takes the violence as done to himself We are the Temples the Houses wherein it pleaseth the Spirit of God to dwell what is done to us is done to him in us He challengeth as our Actions The Spirit of God prayes in us Rom. 8.26 so our Passions also he is grieved in our grief such an interest hath God in his that as Christ the second person in the Trinity could say to Saul why persecutest thou me So the Holy Ghost appropriates our injuries to himself If ye be reproached for the Name of Christ happy are ye saith S. Peter for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you on their part he is evil spoken of but on your part he is glorified 1 Pet. 4.14 Lo the Holy Spirit is glorified by our sufferings and is evil spoken of in our reproaches the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is blasphemed so as it is a fearful thing to think of to speak contumelious words against Gods children is by the Apostles own determination no better then a kinde of blaspheming the Holy Ghost See then consider ye malicious uncharitable men your wrongs reach further then ye are aware of ye suffer your tongues to run ryot in bitter Scoffs in spightful slanders in injurious raylings against those that are truly conscionable ye think ye gall none but men worse then your selves but ye shall finde that ye have opened your mouthes against Heaven I speak not for those that are meer outsides visors of Christianity making a shew of Godliness and denving the power of it in their lives I take no protection of them God shall give them their portion with Hypocrites But if he be a true childe of God one that hath the true fear
of stripes but the ingenuous disposition of Gods dear ones is wrought upon by the tender respect to the goodness and mercy of that God who hath so infinitely blessed it It is an emphaticall expression that of St. Paul For the love of Christ constraineth us 2. Cor. 5.14 Lo here is a kind of force and violence offered to the soul but it is the force of love then which nothing can be more pleasing neither will God offer any other it can be no will that is forced God will not break in upon the soul but wins it with those sweet solicitations that are more powerfull then those of fear Men commonly run in a full carere towards Hell it were happy that any thing in the world could stay them but are there any of us that find a restraint upon our selves in the midst of our evill wayes so as we make a stop in this pernicious course of our sining whence is it Is it out of a meer fear of the pains of Hell of those eternall torments that abide for sinners This is little thank to them Nature even in brute Creatures will teach them to affect their own preservation and to avoid those things which will necessarily draw on their destruction Balaams asse seeing the Angels sword will strive to decline it every slave will tugg hard to escape the lash but is it in a sweet sense of the mercies of God who hath done so much for thy soul is it out of a conscience not to offend so holy and munificent a God who hath purchased thee so dear and sealed thee up to the day of Redemption now thou hast in thee a true generosity of spirit this argues thee to have the proper affections of a true child of God for every child of God is spiritually good natur'd It is not so with our natural children A stomackfull Esau knowes that his good Father cannot but be displeased with his Pagan matches yet he takes him wives of the Daughters of Heth Gen. 26.35 And an ambitious Absalom dares rise up in rebellion against his tenderly-loving Father but grace hath other effects the spirituall generation of Gods faithfull ones are dearly affectionate to their Father in Heaven and apply themselves to all obedience out of meer love and duty The Son and the slave are both injoyned one work God be thanked we can have no instance in this kind that vassalage is happily and justly extinguished as unfit to be of use amongst Christians but where it obtaineth still the Son and the slave do one work but out of different grounds the Son to please his Father the slave that he may avoid the stripes of an imperious Master therefore the one doth it cheerfully and willingly the other grudgingly and repiningly the one of Love and Gratitude the other out of fear This is a point worthy of our serious consideration as that which mainly imports our souls what are the grounds of our either actions or forbearances we indevour some good duties we refrain from some sins out of what principles Some there are that can bragg of their immunity from gross sins with the proud Pharisee I am no fornicator no drunkard no murtherer no lyer no slanderer no oppressour And I would to God every one of you that hear me this day could in sincerity of heart say so But what is the ground of this their pretended inoffensiveness If it be only a fear of Hell and of the wrathful indignation of that just Judge thou canst reap smal comfort to thy Soul in this condition for this is out of meer selfe-love and desire to escape pain and misery which is incident into the worst of creatures Even the evil Spirits themselves are afraid of tormenting and deprecate the sending them back to their chains But if it be out of a gracious and tender love to God out of a filial fear of the displeasure of a God that hath done so much for thee this argues the disposition of a true child of God and may justly administer comfort to thy Soul in the time of thy trial Oh that we could every one of us lay before our eyes the sweet mercies of our God especially his spiritual favours how freely he hath loved us how dearly he hath redeemed us even with the most precious blood of the Son of his love how graciously he hath sealed us up to the day of our redeemption and that we could make this use of it to be a strong retractive from any even of our dearest and gainfullest sins Carry this home with you dear brethren I beseech you and fail not to think of it upon all occasions when ever you shall finde your selves tempted to any sin whatsoever of lust of excesse of covetous desires have this Antidote ready in your bosomes which good Joseph had How shall I do this great evill and sin against God As good Polycarpus that holy Martyr when for the preservation of his life he was urged to renounce Christ said Fourscore and six years have I been his servant and he never did me hurt and shall I deny my Soverain King that hath so graciously preserved me If out of these grounds thou canst check thy sins and canst say Lord I have been carefull not to grieve thy good spirit because thou in thine eternal love hast sealed me thereby to the day of my redemption be confident that thy redemption is sealed in Heaven and shall in due time be manifested to thine investiture with the eternall glory and happiness which God hath prepared for all his To the participation whereof that God who hath ordained us in his good time mercifully bring us for the sake of the Son of his love Jesus Christ the just to whom with the Father and the blessed Spirit one infinite and incomprehensible God be given all prayse honour and glory now and for evermore Amen A SERMON Preacht on WHITSUNDAY IN THE PARISH-CHURCH OF HIGHAM In the Year 1652. ROM 8.14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God THis only day is wont to be consecrated to the Celebration of the descent of the holy Spirit and therefore deserves to be as it is named the true Dominica in albis Whit-sunday white is the colour of Innocence and joy in respect of the first this together with the feast of Easter was wont in the primitive times to be the solemn season of Baptism and sacramentall Regeneration in respect of the second it was the season of the just Triumph and exultation of the Church which was as this day graced confirmed and refreshed with the miraculous descent of the promised comforter in both regards every Christian challenges an interest in it as these who claim to be the Sons of God by Baptism the Sacrament of Regeneration and to be indued and furnished with the sanctifying gifts of that blessed Spirit whose wonderfull descent we this day celebrate which how can we do better then by inquiring
into what right we have to this holy spirit and to that son-ship of God which in our Baptism we profess to partake of we are all apt upon the least cause to be proud of our parentage There are Nations they say in the world whereof every man challenges gentility and kindred to their King so are we wont to do spiritually to the King of Heaven Every one hath the Spirit of God every one is the son of God It is the main errand we have to do on the Earth to settle our hearts upon just grounds in the truth of this resolution and this text undertakes to do it for us infallibly deciding it that those and none but those that are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God So as we need not now think of climbing up into Heaven to turn the books of Gods eternall Counsell nor linger after Enthusiasmes and Revelations as some fanaticall spirits use to do nor wish for that holy Dove to wisper in our ear with that great Arabian impostour but only look seriously into our own hearts and lives and trie our selves thoroughly by this sure and unfailing rule of our blessed Apostle So many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God let my speech and your attention then be bounded in these three limits Here is First a priviledg To be the Sons of God Secondly a qualification of the priviledged To be led by the Spirit Thirdly an Universall predication of that priviledge upon the persons qualified So many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God I need not crave your attention the importance of the matter challenges it To the first then it is a wonderfull and inexplicable priviledge this To be the Sons of God no marvell if every one be apt to claim The glory of Children are their Fathers Prov. 17.6 How were the Jewes puffed up with that vain gloriation that they were the Sons of Abraham and yet they might have been so and have come from hated Esau or ejected Ismael what is it then to be the Sons of the God of Abraham Ye know what David could say upon the tender of matching into the blood royall seemeth it a small matter to you to be the Son in Law to a King Oh what then is it to be the true born sons to the great King of Heaven The Abassins pride themselves to be derived from that Son whom they say the Queen of Sheba had begotten of her by Solomon when she went to visit him it is enough that it was Princely though base how may we glory to be the true and legitimate issue of the King of glory the great Lord in the Gospell is brought in by our Saviour in his parable to say They will reverence my Son and Amnons wicked kinsman could say to him Why art thou the Kings Son so sad as if the son-ship to a King were a supersedeas to all whatsoever griefe or discontentment Neither is there matter of honour onely in this priveledg but of profit too especially in the case of the Sons of this Heavenly King whose Sons are all heirs as ye have it v. 17. with men indeed it is not so Amongst Gods chosen people the first born carryed away a double portion but in some other Nations and in some parts of ours the Eldest goes away with all as on the contrary others are ruled by the law or custome of Gavell kind and the like institutions where either the youngest inherit or all equally but generally it is here with us contrary to that old word concerning Isaacs twins the lesser serves the greater Johosaphat gave great gifts to his other sons but the Kingdome to the Eldest Jehoram 1 Chron. 21.3 so as the rest were but as subjects to their Eldest Brother in the family of the highest it is not so there are all heires all inherit the blessings the honours as all are partakers of the Divine nature and of every one may be said by way of Regeneration that which was eminently and singularly said by the way of eternall generation of the naturall and coessentiall Son of God Thou art my Son I have begotten thee so all are partakers of those blessings and happy immunities which appertain to their filiation and what are they Surely great beyond the power of expression for first in this name they have a spiritual right to all the creatures of God all things are yours saith the Apostle A spirituall I say not a naturall not a civill right which men have to what they legally possess we must take heed of this errour which makes an Universall confusion where ever it prevailes all these earthly affaires are managed by a civill right which men have whether by descent or lawfull acquisition so as it is not for any man to challenge an interest either ad rem or in re in the goods of another but Gods children have a double claim to all they possess both civill from men and spirituall from God The Earth hath he given to the Sons of men saith the Psalmist and men by just conquest by purchase by gift conveigh it legally to each other Besides which they have a spirituall right for God hath given all things to his Son as Mediatour and in and by him to those that are incorporated into him so as now in this regard every child of God is mundi dominus the Lord of the World as that Father truly said Secondly they have in this name an interest in God himself for what nearer relation can there be then betwixt a father and a son An interest in all his promises in all his mercies in all that he is in all that flowes from him in his remission protection provision Which of us earthly parents if we extinguish not nature in our selves can be wanting in these things to the children of our Loines How much more impossible is it that he who is All love 1 Job 4.16 should be wanting to those that are his by a true regeneration Hence is that enforcement which God useth by his Prophet Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb yea they may forget yet will not I forget thee Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands Esay 59.15 16. Thirdly hence followes an unquestionable right in attendance and Guardianship of the blessed Angels Psal 91.11 They are the little ones whereof our Saviour Matth. 18. the especial charge whom those glorious Spirits are deputed to attend Hebr. 1.14 And oh what an honor is this that we are guarded by creatures more glorious in nature more excellent in place and office then our selves What a comfortable assureance is this that we have these troopes of Heavenly Souldiers pitching their tents about us and ready to save-guard us from the malice of the principalities and powers of darknesse Lastly in this name they have a certain and unfailable
Spirit leads no man but by a just rule That rule is the word of truth in all matter of judgment that must direct us uncertain and variable Traditions private and ungrounded Revelations which are any way crosse to this recorded will of God are the deceitful guides of the spirit of errour If then any frantick or superstitious person shall pretend any other direction then God hath given us in his revealed will well may I say of him as St. Paul dares say of an Angel from Heaven if any such could be guilty of that offence Let him be Anathema Thirdly Gods Spirit leads his sweetly and gently disponit omnia suaviter not in a blustring and hurrying violence but by a leasurely and gracious inclination so in Elijahs vision There was fire wind Earthquake but God was in none of them these were fit preparatives for his appearance but it was the still soft voice wherein God would be revealed 1 Kings 19.12 Those that are carried with an heady and furious impetuousnesse and vehemence of passion in all their proceedings which are all rigour and extremity are not led by that good spirit which would be styled the spirit of meekness who was pleased to descend not in the form of an Eagle or any other soul of prey but in the form of a meek and innocent dove Fourthly Gods Spirit leads on in a constant way of progression from grace to grace from vertue to vertue like as the sun arises by degrees to his full meridian whereas passion goes by suddain flashes like lightning whereof the interruptions are as speedy and momentany as the eruptions The very word of leading implies a continuance neither can they be said to be led on that make no proceedings in their way if either therefore we go backward or stand still in goodnesse if we promove not from strength to strength we have no ground to think we are led by the Spirit of God Lastly Flesh and Spirit are ever opposite one to the other and go still contrary wayes and lead to contrary ends If ye walk after the flesh ye shall dye saith our Apostle Nature and Grace which have their hands in this manuduction both wayes stand in perpetual opposition to each other If therefore we be led by our sensual appetite to do and affect that which is pleasing to corrupt nature we are led by that blind guid the flesh and if the blind lead the blind it is no marvell if both of them fall into the pit of perdition but if we mortify our evil and corrupt affections crossing and curbing our exorbitant and sinful desires and bringing them forceably under the subjection of Gods Spirit Now we may be assured to be led by the Spirit of God Other particularities of discovery might be urged whereby we might easily judg of our own conditions but these are enow whereby we may try our selves our guides and wayes It is cleare then to summe up these proofes of our estate that only they who walk in the wayes of Gods commandements who are directed by the revealed Will and word of God who are sweetly inclined by the gracious motions of his Spirit who go on in a constant fashion through all the degrees of grace and obedience who restrain their own natural desires and affections submitting themselves wholy to the government of the Holy Ghost onely they I say are led by the Spirit of God Five sorts of men there are therefore who what challenge so ever they may pretend to make are not led by the Spirit of God First those that go on in a known evil way Lead me O Lord in the wayes of thy righteousnesse saith the Psalmist Lo they are only the pathes of righteousnesse in which God leads us the rest are false wayes as the Psalmist justly calls them which every good heart and much more the holy God utterly abhors wo is me that I have lived to see those dayes wherein any that looks with the face of a Christian should maintain that sins are no sins to the faithful and that he is the holiest man that can sin the boldlyest and with the greatest freedom from reluctancy Did ever any man look for Heaven in Hell before Did ever any seek for the greatest good in the worst of evils This is not heresie but meer Devilisme wherewith yet it seems some ungrounded soules are wofully tainted God be merciful to them and reclaim them ere it be too late from so damnable an impiety Secondly those that are led by their own vain imaginations and illusive dreams in the wayes of error raising unto themselves new and wild opinions and practises without any warrant from the written word of God Thirdly those that are carried by passion and distemper though even in good waies turning a religious heat into fury and uncharitable rage Fourthly those that make no progresse at all in good but either decay in grace or thrive not And lastly those that humour and sooth up corrupt nature careing only to fulfil the lusts of their own flesh All these whereof God knowes there are too many in the World yea in the Church of God making a fair flourish of Christianity are nothing lesse then led by the Spirit of God and therefore can lay no claim to the state or title of the Sons of God which is inferred in the connexion of this qualification with the priviledg being the third head of our discourse So many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God The Spirit of God is God neither is mention made here of the Spirit only as by way of exclusion of the other persons No what one doth all do according to the old maxime All the external works of the Trinity are indivisible it is good reason then that God should lead his own and so he doth But here it will be fit for us to consider How far this leading of Gods Spirit will argue and evince this son-ship and whether every conduct thereof will do it There is a work of the Spirit of God at large The Spirit of God fills all the World saith the Wiseman Wisdom 1.7 Not so yet as was the errour of P. Abailardus in Bernard That Gods Spirit is anima mundi as the God of the World not as the soul of the World As in the state of the first Tohu and Bohu the Spirit of God sluttered upon the Waters as it were to hatch the creature which should be produced Gen. 1.2 so doth he still fill the world for the preservation of this universse But in this all he works in man especially There is a spirit in man saith Elihu in Job 32.8 and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding yet this is not the leading of this holy Spirit that we are in hand with lower then this there are certain common graces wrought in men by the Spirit of God as some general iluminations in the knowledg of divine things some good moral dispositions some restraints
can deny all the doubt is whether the man can know that he doth thus believe that he shall continue so to believe And why should there be any doubt in either of these I am sure for the first the chosen vessel could say I know whom I have believed 2 Tim. 1. and speaks this not as an extraordinary person an Apostle but as a Christian therein affirming both the act of his faith and the object of it and his knowledg of both for whiles he saith I know whom I have believed he doth in effect say I know that I have believed and I know what I have believed God my Almighty Saviour is the object of my faith my faith layeth sure hold on this object and I know that my faith laies undoubted hold on this happy object I know whom I have believed and why should not we labour to say so too Some things the Apostle did as a singular favorite of Heaven of this kinde were his raptures and visions these we may not aspire to imitate other things he did as an holy man as a faithful Christian these must we propose for our examples and indeed why should not a man know he believes What is there in faith even as we define it but knowledg assent application affiance receiving of Christ and which of these is there that we cannot know Surely there is power in the soul to exercise these reflexe actions upon it self As it can know things contrary to the fanatick scepticke so it can know that it knowes These inward acts of knowledg and understanding are to the mind no other then the acts of our sensitive powers are unto our senses and a like certain judgment passeth upon both as therefore I can know that I hear or that I see or touch so can I no lesse surely know that I do know or understand And the object doth no whit alter the certainty of the act whiles a divine truth goes upon no lesse evidence and assurance why may not a man as well know that he knowes a divine truth as an humane The like is to be said of those other specialties which are required to our faith Our faith assents to the truth of Gods promises what should hinder the heart from knowing that it doth assent Do not I know whether I believe a man on his word Why should I not know the same of God when an honest man hath by his promises ingaged himself to me to do me a good turne do not I know whether I trust to him whether I make use of that favour in a confident reliance upon the performance of it the case is the same betwixt God and us Only we may be so much the more infallibly assured of the promised mercies of our God by how much we do more know his unfailingness his unchangeableness Yea so fecible is this knowledg as that our Apostle chargeth his Corinthians home in this point 2 Cor. 13.5 Prove your selves whether ye be in the faith Trye your selves know ye not your own selves that Christ Jesus is in you except ye be Reprobates what can be more full To be in the faith is more then to believe it intimates an habit of faith that is more then an act Now what proof what tryal can there be of our faith if we cannot know that we have faith Surely a tryal doth ever presuppose a knowledg If a man did not know which were good gold to what purpose doth he go to the Test Now how dwells Christ in us but by Faith So may they so must they know Christ to be in them that if they have him not they are reprobates And if they know not they have him they can have no comfortable assurance against their reprobation See then how emphaticall and full this charge is He saith not Guess at your selves but prove and try your selves He saith not do ye not morally conjesture but do ye not know He saith not whether ye hope well but whether ye be in the Faith And that not of the Faith of Miracles as Chrysostome and Theophilact nor of a Faith of Christian profession as Anselme but such a Faith as whereby Christ dwells in our hearts He saith not Lastly unless ye be faulty and worthy of blame but unless ye be reprobates The place is so choakingly convictive that there can be no probable elusion of it The shift of Cardinal Bellarmine wherein yet he would seem confident is worthy of pity that the place hath no other drift but to imply the powerfull presence of Christ amongst the Corinthians strongly confirming the truth of his Apostleship whereby if there were any faith at all in them except they were given up to a reprobate sense they must needs be convinced of the authority of his Ministery for what was this to their being in the faith whereof they must examine themselves or who can think that to be in the faith is no more then to have any faith at all Neither doth the Apostle say that Christ is among you but in you neither could the not knowing of Christs presence amongst them by powerfull Miracles be a matter of reprobation so as this sense is unreasonably strained to no purpose and such as no judicious spirit can rest in and this act of our knowledg is taken for granted by him that works it in us And indeed what question can there be of this act when God undertakes it in us The Spirit of God witnesseth with our Spirits that we are the Sons of God Rom. 8.16 Can any Man doubt of the truth of Gods Testimony Certainly he that is the God of truth cannot but speak truth now he witnesseth together with us Yea but you say though he be true yet we are deceitfull and his Spirit doth but witness according to the measure of our receit and capacity which is very poor and scant yea and perhaps also uncertain Take heed whosoever thou art least thou disparage God whiles thou wouldst abase thy self he witnesseth together with us The Spirit of truth will not witness with a lying Spirit were not therefore that witness of ours sure he would check us and not witness with us Now what witness can he give with us and to us if we do not hear him if we do not know what he saies if we cannot be assured of what he testifies Let no Bellarmine speak now of an experiment of inward sweetness and peace which onely causeth a conjecturall and not an unfailing certainty The Man hath forgot that this Testimony is of the Spirit of adoption whereby we do not seem Sons but are made so and are so assured and that it is not a guess but a witness and Lastly that there can be no true inward peace out of mere conjectures Yea here is not onely the word of God for it but his seale too and not his seale only but his earnest what can make a future match more sure then hand and seale and here we have them
impressa fuit aliqualis notitia veritatis divinae dolor de peccatis suis aliquod desiderium aliqua cura liberationis mutentur plane in contrarium veritaâ—em rejiciant odio habeant concupiscentiis suis se tradant in peccatis occalleant ibid. Thes 5. 8. These foregoing inward acts wrought by the word and Spirit both may be and are many times through the fault of the rebellious will choaked and quenched in the hearts of Men so as after some knowledg of divine truth some sorrow for sin and desire and care of deliverance they fall off to the contrary and give themselves over to their own lusts Ne Electi quidem ipsi in his praecedane is ad regenerationem actibus ita se gerant unquam quin ut propter negligentiam resistentiam suam possint juste a Deo deseri derelinqui sed ea est erga eos Dei specialis misericordia ut quam vis c. Eos tamen iterum iterumque urgeat Deus nec desistat promo vere donec eosdem gratiae suae prorsus subjugaverit ac in statu filiorum regeneratorum collocaverit Theol. Br. ibid. Thes 6. 9. Yea the very elect of God do not so carry themselves in these foregoing Acts but that they do oft-times justly deserve for their neglect and resistance to be forsaken of God But such is his speciall grace and mercy to them that he notwithstanding followes them effectually with powerfull helps till he have wrought out his good work in them Gratiam specialem essicacem ad salutem certo perducentem his quos Deus ex beneplacito suo gratioso elegerit propriam profitetur D. Overal in Art 3. Sent. 3. 10. When the hearts of his elect are thus excited and prepared by the foregoing Acts of grace God doth by his secret and wonderfull work regenerate and renew them infusing into them his quickning Spirit and induing all the powers of their soul with new qualities of grace and holyness Deus animos electorum suorum praedictis gratiae suae actibus excitatos praeparatos intima quadam mirabili operatione regenerat quasi de novo creat infundendo spiritum vivificantem omnes animae facultates novis qualitatibus imbuendo Theol. Br. de convers Thes 1. 11. Upon this conversion which God works in the heart followes instantly our actuall conversion to God whiles from our new changed will God fetches the act of our believing and turning to him He gives that power which the will exercises so as it is at once both ours and Gods ours in that we do work Gods in that he works it in us Praedictam conversionem sequitur haec nostra conversio actualis Deo perliciente ipsum actum credendi convertendi ex mutata voluntate quae acta adeo agit ipsa convertendo se ad Deum credendo hoc est actum suum vitalem simul eliciendo ibid. 12. In working upon the will God doth not overthrow the nature of the will but causeth it to work after it's own native manner freely and willingly neither doth he pull up by the roots that sinfull possibility which is in our nature to resist good motions but doth sweetly and effectually work in Man a firme and ready will to obey him his grace is so powerfull that it is not violent Divina haec actio non laedit voluntatis libertatem sed roborat neque tamen extirpat radicitus vitiosam resistendi possibilitatem sed pravitatem ad resistendum motibus spiritus sancti sed haec resistibilitas propter efficacissimam suavissimam motionem gratiae nequit in actum hic nunc erumpere huic gratiae resisti nequit quia primum operatur velle id est non resistere c. ibid. in explic Thes 2. Deum cum voluerit quibus voluerit gratiam tam abundantem tam potentem aut congruam aut alio modo efficacem concedere ut quamvis possit voluntas ratione suae libertatis resistere non tamâ—n resistat sed certo infallibiliter obsequatur Dr. Overal in Artic 4. It is true that whiles our naturall concupiscence raignes in us we have not only a possibility but a proneness to resistance which yet is by the gracious and effectuall motion of God Spirit so over ruled that it breaks not forth into a present Act for God works in us to will that is not to resist Yea the very will to resist is for the time taken away by the power of grace Deus hominem conversum fidelem non ita semper movet ad bonos actus subsequentes ut tollat ipsam voluntatem resistendi sed quandoque permittit illam vitio suo deficere a ductu gratiae in particularibus multis actibus concupiscentiae suae parere Theol. Br. ibid. Thes 3. 13. God doth not alwayes so work in the regenerate that he doth ever take from them this will to resist but sometimes suffers them through their own fault to give way to their own sinfull desires for howsoever in those principall Acts which are absolutely necessary to Salvation the grace of God works powerfully in the elect both the will and the deed in his own good time yet in some particular acts he thinks good for his own holy purposes to leave the best Men sometimes to themselves who do thereupon grieve his good Spirit by a recoverable resistance Oportet semper discrimen statuere inter illos actus principales sine quibus salus Electorum non constat particulares subsequentes actus c. ibid. in explic Of the Fifth ARTICLE OF PERSEVERANCE QUibusdam non electis conceditur quaedam illuminatio supernaturalis cujus virtute intelligant ea quae in verbo Dei annuntiantur esse vera iisdemque assensum praebent minime simulatum In iisdem ex hac cognitione fide oritur affectuum quaedam mutatio morum aliqualis emendatio non electi huc usque progressi ad statum tamen adoptions justificationis nunquam perveniunt Theol. Br. de 5. Art Thes 1 2 3 4. 1. EVen among those which belong not to the election of God there are some that are enlightned by supernaturall knowledg and give their assent to the truth of the Gospel receiveing the same with some joy and from that knowledg and faith find some change in their affections and lives who yet howsoever they may pass in the judgment of charity never attained to that hearty renovation which is joyned with justification nor yet to the immediate disposition thereunto and therefore were never in the true State of the adoption of Sons these may utterly fall away from that grace which they have professed Unde constat â—os nunquam reipsa pertingere ad illam mentis affestuum mutationem renovationem quae cum justificatione conjuncta est imo nec ad illam quae proxime praeparat ac disponit ad justificationem ibid. in explic 4. Artic. Idem regeniti ac justificati quandoque
works these he decrees to worke in his why should we be scrupulous in what place they come into the holy purposes of God which we graunt cannot be missing in our way to Heaven Why do we not rather labour to be such as he requires that we may injoy what he hath promised and pre-ordained for us What say the Belgick Defendents Neither did we ever say that those singular persons whom God chose from all eternity were to be considered without respect to Christ and faith in him but have ever roundly professed that the merits of Christ and faith in him are considered of God in this election of individual persons as means whereby he hath decreed to bring them to salvation see then how narrow this difference is God hath decreed by these means to bring men to salvation yet these fall not into his decree of ordinary choice to salvation they are in the execution of his decree and in the decree of his execution they are not in the decree of his election Let these be undoubted truths as they are yet what need the souls of quiet Christians be racked with so subtile questions It well befits the Schooles to examine these problemes but for common Christians it doth not so much concern them to enquire how the order of Gods decree stands in our apprehension of that one simple act of the divine understanding or will as how it is in respect of the execution Here comes in our main interest in these eternall Councills of the Almighty which drawes from us a due care and indeavour to be capable of this promised salvation and to avoid the wayes of death Could we be perswaded to take more from that speculation and to add more to this practise it would be much happier for us Neither is this election according to the Plea of the opponents made ever the more uncertain by this prerequisition of our faith since they profess to teach it supposed in our election not as a condition whose performance God expects as uncertain but as a guift which God according to his eternall prescience foresees in Man present and certain as the decree of sending Christ into the World did not depend upon a conditioned and uncertain expectation of what Man would do or would not do but upon the infallible notice of God who foresaw Man as presently sinning or falne so as the election of God is not suspended upon the mutability of Mans will but upon the infallible certainty of the foreknowledg of God to whose eyes our faith and perseverance is not more doubtfull then future and whose prescience hath no less infallibility then his decree If therefore God may have the sole glory of this work in the guift of that faith which he foresees and our election hazards no certainty as they profess to hold what is there that should need to draw blood in this first quarrell But what need I labour to reconcile these opinions which have no reason to concern us The Church of England according to the explication of R. B. Overall goes a mid-way betwixt both these For whiles the one side holds a generall conditionall decree of God to save all Men if they believe and a particular decree of saving those whom he foresaw would believe and the other side not admitting of that generall conditionate decree only teaches a particular absolute decree to save some speciall persons for whom only Christ was given and to whom grace is given irresistiblely all others being by a no less absolute decree rejected our Church saith he with St. Austin maintaineth an absolute and particular decree of God to save those whom he hath chosen in Christ not out of the prescience of our faith and will but out of the meer purpose of his own will and grace and that thereupon God hath decreed to give to whom he pleaseth a more effectuall and abundant grace by which they only not may believe and obey if they will but whereby they do actually will believe obey and persevere without prejudice to the rest to whom he hath also given gracious offers and helps to the same purpose though by their just fault neglected What can the Synod of Dort in this case wish to be said more Indeed with all he addeth a general conditionate will of God or a generall evangelical promise of saving all if they do believe since God doth will and command that all men should hear Christ and believe in him and in so doing hath offred grace and salvation unto all declaring how well these two may agree together That first God hath propounded salvation in Christ to all if they believe and hath offred them within the Church especially a common and sufficient grace in the means that he hath mercifully ordeined if men would not be wanting to the word of God and his holy Spirit and that to ascertain the salvation of man he hath decreed to add that especiall effectuall and saving grace unto some Neither of which truths can well and safely be denyed of any Christian Only the sound of a generall and conditionate will perhaps seems harsh to some ears whereto yet they should do well to inure themselves since it is the approved distinction of worthy Orthodox and unquestionable Divines Deum velle quaedam absolute manifestum esse literae sacrae confirmant etenim voluit mundum creari c. Eundem Deum velle quaedam conditionaliter docent itidem sacrae literae vult enim omnes salvari si velint implere legem aut in Christum credere proinde illam priorem voco absolutam voluntatem hanc vero posteriorem conditionalem Opusc p. 291. Caeterum illud tamen verum est Deum velle omnes homines salvos fieri voluntate scil revelata conditionali nimirum si velint in Christum credere ejus legi servandae studere hac enim voluntate nemo a salute cognitione veritatis excluditur c. ibid. pag. 285. Zanchius in his book de praedest Sanct. hath it interminis with a large exposition That God willeth some things absolutely saith he it is manifest and plainly confirmed by Scriptures so he absolutely willed the world should be created and governed so he absolutely willed that Christ should come into the World and dye for the salvation of his elect he wills also absolutely that the elect shall be saved and therefore perfomes to them all things that are necessary to their salvation that the same God willeth some things conditionally the Scriptures also teach us For God would have all men to be saved if they would keep the Law or believe in Christ and therefore I call that first an absolute will this latter a conditional And in the next leaf to the same purpose he saith it is also true that God would have all men to be saved in his revealed and conditionate will scil if they would believe in Christ and carefully keep his law for by this will no man is excluded from
IOSEPHI HALL NORVIC EPISCOPI VERA EFFIGIES REVERENDI DO NI The Shaking of the Olive-Tree THE Remaining Works Of that Incomparable PRELATE JOSEPH HALL D. D. Late LORD BISHOP of NORWICH WITH SOME SPECIALTIES OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN HIS LIFE Noted by His own Hand Together with His HARD MEASURE VVritten also by Himself Heb. 11.38 Of whom the World was not worthy John 6.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by J. Cadwel for J. Crooke at the Ship in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1660 CHRISTIAN READER WE present thee here with some scattered Reliques of a departed Saint void of the superstition of those of Rome as those of Rome are void of their divine operation These few drops of Inke from the Authors pen will work saving miracles when the pretended blood of the Baptist so shrined and adored at Naples shall blush at its weaknesse That account which thou hast here of the Life of the Reverend Author from his own hand is exceedingly too short and modest yet durst we not presume to make any additions to it for many reasons Our Relation to him would but impair the credit of our most sincere relations of him as too partial and flattering and indeed the attempt is too hard and high for us where his own accurate pencil hath begun a draught of himself to continue it with the same Elegancy and Decorum And besides where this meek Moses hath drawn a vail over his own shining face in his pourtraict of himself It seems to us undecent to take it away though to discover more of his splendour especially to the weak and prejudiced eyes of this Age and Generation who cannot indure innocency it self when habited in a Rochet We remember what Seneca saith and it is in his De Ira too they are affecti oculi quos candida vestis obturbat happy is it for him that the blackest Stigma that can be fastned upon him is that his robes were whiter then his Brethrens that only the coat of our Joseph hath drawn their envy upon him the Man Dr. Hall was not the object of their distast but the Bishop To satisfy these tender eyes they have here this great Aaron stripped of all his Priestly Ornaments and laid open to them only in these few winding sheets spunne and woven with his own hand In the narrative of his life his pen breaks off with his outward pressures wherein all the Losses and indignities he suffered did so little trouble him as to some eminent Commissioners who desired to know his suffering condition and made fair overtures of some little reparation he replyed that of Seneca Qui se habet nihil perdidit God had no sooner withdrawn his hand from visiting him with those outward tryals then he began to exercise him by sore afflictions of the body in his continually increasing paines of the stone and strangury which for many years held him and pursued him to the death yet could not these great impediments take him off from being active both in Presse and Pulpit His intellectuals and sences continued strong and fresh to the last his head continued Gold and his heart of refined Silver when all the rest of his body was half clay His sence of the sad and divided condition of the Church was to his end passionatly tender professing all willingness to live though in the midst of his exceeding pains and torments so he might be any way instrumental to the making up of the breaches of it and putting it in due frame and order But since all his endeavours with men so little prevailed he never ceased wrestling with God to this purpose setting apart one day in every weak through the Year for fasting and humiliation with his Family not that he sought his own Interests to be restored to that Episcopal height and greatness of which he had been divested All those who truely knew him can witness with us his abundant contentment in his retreat to a private life as not a misery but a blessing to him We know when in the height of all his honors he was ready enough to such a secession could he fairly and handsomly have retired And now that impetuous storme which beat him off from the course of his publick employments though it batter'd his vessel and tore his sailes yet it did but drive him to the quiet haven where he would be justly could he take up the words of holy Nazianzen in this and many other things his parallel who when hotly opposed and thrust from his See of Constantinople could say A retired life everwas and now is dearly affected by me though they drive me from my chair they cannot drive me from my God Among many worthy men who received Ordinaon to the Ministry from his hands we cannot but mention one in whome he take great comfort as being a notable precedent for the rest of our learned religious Gentry to follow It was Mr. Gipson Lucas an Esq of good estate a great Commissioner and Justice of Peace in the County of Suffolk who found his Spirit and Conscience so wrought upon as after good deliberation and consultation with others he came to this Reverend Father for Ordination as refusing to take it from any hands where his did not precede which he received good proof being given of his abilities according to his desire and he who entred Nayoth before this aged Samuel like Saul in his scarlet for that was his habit returned from him a Sackcloth Prophet continuing a diligent and zealous preacher of the Gospel To returne to the Reverend Author his retreat from the World though he were hotly and constantly charged with furious onsets of his sharp diseases yet was it answerable to his life solemn and staid with a composed and heavenly temper of spirit The stream was deep which could run clear calmly through so craggy crooked a Channel without a murmure After his prevailing infirmities had wasted all the strengths of nature and the Arts of his learned and excellent Physician D. Brown of Norwich to whom under God we and the whole Church are ingaged for many Years preserving his life as a blessing to us after his Fatherly reception of many persons of Honour Learning and Piety who came to crave his dyeing prayers and benediction One of which A Noble person he saluted with the words of an ancient Votary Vides hominem mox pulverem futurum after many holy prayers exhortations and discourses he rouzed up his dying Spirits to a heavenly Confession of his Faith which ere he could finish his speech was taken from him so that we cannot here insert it After some struglings of nature with the agonies of death he quietly gradually and even insensibly gave up his last breath And now how can we forbear to cry sadly after him O our Father our Father the Chariots of Israel and the Horsemen thereof Theodorets Lamentation over Chrysostome may be taken up over Him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though ye have
with Antinomianism another with Familism and all these run a madding after their own fancies and affect nothing so much as to draw others into the society of their errors and damnation Take heed to your selves for Gods sake ye that stand surest in the confidence of your setled judgment grounded knowledg honest morality the pestilent influences of wicked society are not more mortall then insensible In vain shall ye plead the goodness of your heart if ye be careless of the wickedness of your heels and elbowes St. Paul thought it a sentence worthy to borrow from an Heathen Poet and to feoffe it in the Canon evill conversation corrupts good manners As therefore Moses said in the case of Korah and his company so let me say in the case of others wickednesse whether it be in matter of judgment or practise Depart I pray you from the tents of these wicked men and touch nothing of theirs lest ye be consumed in all their sins Num. 16.26 It is worth your observing that in that great rebellion and dreadfull judgment the sons of Corah dyed not 2 Chron. 26.11 They had surely a dear interest in their Father yet their natural interest in a Father could not feoffe them in their Fathers sin though they lov'd him in nature yet they would not cleave to him in his rebellion they forsook both his sin and his tents and therefore are exempted from his judgment If we love our selves let us follow them in shunning any participation with the dearest of sinners that we may also escape the partnership of their vengeance This for the frequence the passion followes I tell you weeping And why weepest thou O blessed Apostle What is it that could wring tears from those eyes Even the same that fetch 't them from thy Saviour more then once The same that fetcht them from his Type David from the powerfull prophet Elisha 2 Kings 8.11 In a word from all eyes that ever so much as pretended to holinesse Grief for sin and compassion of sinners Let others celebrate St. Peters tears I am for St. Pauls both were precious but these yet more Those were the tears of penitence these of charity those of a sinner these of an Apostle those for his own sins these for other mens How well doth it become him who could be content to be Anathema for his brethren of the circumcision to melt into tears for their spirituall uncircumcision Oh blessed tears the juice of a charitable sorrow of an holy zeal a gracious compassion Let 〈◊〉 man say that tears argue weaknesse even the firmest marble weeps in a resolution of Air He that shrinks not at the Bear Lion Goliah Saul ten thousand of the people that should beset him round about yet can say Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because they keep not thy law Ps 119.136 what speak I of this when the omnipotent son of God weeps over Jerusalem and makes his tears the preface of his blood Nay rather these tears argue strength of piety and Heavenly affections To weep for fear is childish that is unbeseeming a man and to weep for anger is womanish and weak to weep for mere grief is humane for sin Christian but for true zeal and compassion is Saint-like and divine every one of these drops is a pearl Behold the precious liquor which is reserved as the dearest relique of Heaven in the bottles of the Almighty every dram whereof is valued at an eternall weight of glory even a cup of cold water shall once be rewarded and behold every drop of this warme water is more worth then many cups of cold weep thus awhile and laugh for ever sowe thus in tears and be sure to reap in joy But wo is me what shall I say to those men that make themselves merry with nothing so much as sin their own or others whether their act or their memory I remember of old the fool that made the all sport in the play was called the Vice and surely it is no otherwise still vice is it that makes the mirth in this common theater of the world were it not for quaffing ribaldry dalliance scurrile profaneness these men would be dull and as we say dead on the nest These things are the joy of their life yea these are all the life of their joy Oh God that Christians and Divells should meet in the same consort that we should laugh at that for which our Saviour wept and bled that we should smile at that upon earth whereat God frowns in Heaven and make that our delight wherewith the holy spirit of God is grieved Wo be to them that thus laugh for they shall weep and wail and gnash St. Paul weeps to tell of mens sins tears do well in the pulpit as it is in the buckets of some pumps that water must first be powred down into them ere they can fetch up water in abundance so must our tears be let down to fetch up more from our hearers the chair of God can never be better fitted then with a weeping Auditory I remember holy Augustine speaking of his own Sermons saith that when he saw the people did show contentment and delight in their countenances and seemed to give applauses to his preaching he was not satisfied with his own pains but when he saw them break forth into tears then he rejoyced as thinking his labours had sorted to their due effect I have heard some preachers that have affected a pleasantness of discourse in their Sermons and never think they have done well but when they see their hearers smile at their expressions But here I have said of laughter thou art mad and of mirth what doest thou Surely jiggs at a Funeral and laughter at a Sermon are things prodigiously unseasonable It will be long my beloved ere a merry preacher shall bring you to Heaven True repentance which is our only way thither is a sad and serious matter It is through the valley of Bachah that we must pass to the mount of God the man with the writers inkhorne in Ezekiel marks none in the forehead but mourners Oh then mourne for the abominations of Jerusalem ye that love the peace of it and would be loath to see the ruine and desolation of it and your own in it weep with them that weep yea weep with them that should weep as our Apostle doth here That which is said of the Israelites that they drew water in Mizpeh and powred it out before the Lord 1 Sam. 7.6 is by some interpreters taken of the plentiful water of their tears which is so much the more likely because it is joyned with fasting and publick humiliation Oh that we could put our eyes to this use in these sad times into which we are faln how soon would the heavens clear up and bless us with the comfort of our long wished for peace wordly and carnal men as they have hard hearts so they have dry eyes dry as a Pumice-stone uncapable of
whom our prophet here thou hast made the Earth to tremble This for the passive Earth-quake of publick calamities now for the active of publick stirs and tumults with these the land is moved too and this quaking is so much more unnaturall for that men are here the immediate troublers of themselves whereas in the other they are moved by the immediate hand of God And here alas what shall we say to those men that take pleasure in the embroyling of States that with Nero can sing to see the City on fire that love to daunce upon a quaking earth Yea that affect to be actors in these unkindly motitations That great Mathematician braggart could vainly say give me a place where to set my foot and I will move the earth that which that proud Engineer would do by Art these men will do by wickedness that and more for they will be moving that earth which they cannot but tread upon I remember Georgias Agricola who when I was a young man was noted for the most accurate observer of these under ground secrets of nature tells us most probably that the secondary and immediate cause of an Earth-quake is a certain subterraneous fire kindled of some sulphureous matter within the bowels of that vast body and increased by the resistance of the ambient coldnesse the passages whereof being precluded and blocked up by the solid and cold matter of the earth it rages and roars within those dark hollowes and by the violence of it as murmuring to be thus forceably imprisoned shakes the parts about it and at last makes way by some dreadfull Vesuvian-like eruption Such is the mis-kindled heat of some vehement spirits this when it lights upon some earthy proud sullen head-strong disposition and findes it self crossed by an authoritative resistance growes desperately unruly and in a mad indignation to be suppressed is ready to shake the very foundations of government and at last breaks forth into some dangerous rupture whether in Church or State Let no man think I intend to strike at a wise holy well-govern'd zeal no I hugge this in my bosome as the lively temper of grace as the very vitall spirits of religion I wish there were more of that in the World I speak of the unruly distempers of male-contented persons and of the furies of Anabaptism and Separation Let such men think what they will of themselves Solomon has past his doom upon them Prov. 6.14 Homo nequam miscet contentiones as Tremelius turnes it He is no better then a wicked man that hatcheth divisions how ever they may sleight this contentious humour I dare confidently say a private murderer shall make an easyer answer then a publick disturber even Apostolicall charity can wish would to God they were cut off that trouble you And more then so whereas they would not be more stirring then their neighbours if they did not think themselves wiser he that is wiser then they gives them their own It is an honour for a man to cease from strife but every fool will be medling Prov. 20.3 So then a quarrelsome man in a parish especially if he have gotten a little smattering of law is like a cholick in the guts that teares and wrings and torments a whole township but a Seditionary in a State or a Schismatick in the Church is like a sulphureous fiery Vapour in the bowels of the Earth able to make that stable element reele again worse then that Monster of Tyrants who could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when I am dead Let Earth and fire jumble together but this man sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let me live to see the earth totter and with that shaking torne and divided which is the usuall effect of the Earth-quake and the second head of our intended discourse Thou hast broken or divided it I come not hither to astonish you with the relation of the fearfull effects which Earth-quakes have produced in all ages as it were easy to do out of histories and Philosophical discourses where you may see Rocks torne in pieces Mountains not cast down only but removed Hills raised not out of Vallies only but out of Seas Fires breaking out of Waters Stones and Cinders belched up Rivers changed Seas dislodged Earth opening Towns swallowed up and many other such hideous events Of which kind our own memory can furnish us with too many at home although these colder climates are more rarely infested with such affrightfull accidents It is more properly in my way to shew you the parallell effects of the distempers and calamities in States and Churches To begin therefore with the active breaches whom should I rather instance in then that wofull heart-burning of Corah the Son of Levi and of Dathan and Abiram the Sons of Reuben No sooner were they enflamed with an envious rage against Moses and Aaron then 250. Princes of the Assembly famous in the Congregation men of renown rise up in the mutiny against their Governours and these draw with them all the Congregation of Israel to the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation What is the Issue After Moses his proclamation the people withdraws from their tents the earth opens her mouth swallows up Corah and his Company withall that pertained to them and they go down quick into the pit What a shriek do you think there was when they found themselves sinking into that dreadfull gulfe as for the 250. Reubenites fire came out from the Lord and consumed them Lo the two terrible effects even of materiall Earth-quakes opening and burning which we shall find spiritually happening in all commotions of this nature Look at the rebellion of Jeroboam the male-contented multitude when their petition speeds not cries out What portion have we in David neither have we inheritance in the Son of Jesse to your tents O Israel took to thine own house David What was the effect Israel departed to their tents only Juda stuck to Rehoboam there is the division The stones fly about the ears of Adoram and become his suddain Tomb and drive their Leige Soveraign to his chariot there is the fire of violence So upon the harsh proceeding of Innocent the 4th against Frederick the Emperour Maxima partialitas populorum subsetuâ—a est as Tritemius tells us There was such a division of the people as lasted in the computation of that Author no lesse then 260. years not without the effusion of much blood those which took the Popes part were called Guelfes those which took the Emperours Gibellines here was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed with this Roman Earth-quake What should I overlay you with instances Will ye see the like effects in the Church I could tell you of those Eastern Earth-quakes caused by the Arrians Donatists Circumcellians of those of Province and the bordering parts wherein so many thousand honest and inoffensive Albigenses were overwhelmed I could tell you of the Parisian massacres and many other such tragicall acts take that one whereof
sinners never nay he strives to forget God and when the notion of a God is forced upon him he struggles against it and sayes to the Almighty Depart from me And even this alone showes how he stands in respect of his affections He loves not God no not whiles he promerits him with his favours It is the Title that St. Paul gives to wicked men Rom. 1. â—0 that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God-haters One would think this should not be incident into a man for nothing but evill is the object of hatred and God is absolute goodnesse it self yet such is the cankered and corrupt nature of the sinner that apprehending God sub ratione mali he hates him who is in himself infinitely amiable and as he saies in his heart there is no God so he wishes in his heart there were no God He is never well therefore whiles he hath any thing to do with God whiles he is in his company or in the company of those that he thinks belong to him his conscionable servants and whiles he is imployed in any of his services he stands upon thornes Thus the sinner is in his affectations aloof off from God and for his carriage and actions they are answerable to both the other All his life is nothing else but a departing from the living God and therefore he must needs at last be farr off Look to all his wayes you shall find how diametrally contrary they are to Gods Gods wayes are direct ones the sinners are oblique and crooked God hath chalked out his wayes in the Ten words of his royall law the sinner turnes his back upon every one of them and walkes point-blank opposite God commands an holy and religious disposition towards his Majesty the sinner gives himself over to a wild and loose profanenesse to a lawlesse course of godlesnesse and walks as without God in the world God commands all reverent and awfull usage of his name the sinner tears it in pieces with his oathes and blasphemies God commands all dutifull obedience to authority not for fear only but for conscience sake the sinner is ready to say disrumpamus vincula let us break their bonds and cast their cords from us God commands all sobriety chastity temperance the sinner runs into all excesse of riot Finally God commands all charity and justice to our neighbour the wicked heart is mercilesse and cares not upon whose ruines he raiseth his own advantages so every way both in his thoughts affections and actions the sinner is afarr off from God Now the morall and civill man hears this and turnes it off as nothing concerning him he is as near to God as the best and indeed in some sense he is so St. Paul could say to his Athenians He is not far from every one of us Every creature hath equally his living moving being from God but as for any relation to God in respect of holinesse of grace and mercy of glory this man is as far off as Earth is from Heaven yea as Heaven is from Hell For even by nature we are the best of us the Sons of wrath And if we had no more then even our birth sin this alone would estrange us sufficiently from God but besides this our actuall sins set us off yet further and if we had no sins of commission as we have numberlesse for in many things we sin all yea in all things we sin all yet those of omission cannot but put us into an utter distance for if the morall man could be supposed to do nothing actually against Gods will yet his thoughts are not upon him being wholly taken up with the World his affections are not towards him being wholly set upon the World and these earthly things his best actions are not regulated by the royall law of righteousnesse but by the rules of civility and common humanity and the end which he proposeth to himself in them is not the glory of God but his own honour or advantage And therefore both the wicked man and the mere morall man are aloof off from God and therefore out of the benefit of Gods favour and protection even as we know that those which live under the two poles are out of the comfortable reach of the Sun-beames or those Antichthones which are on the other side of the globe of the Earth are now whiles it is day with us Please your selves therefore ye sinfull and naturall men with the spirituall condicion wherein ye stand God is no otherwise near to you but to plague and punish you Ye can never receive any glimpse of true comfort in your soules whiles you so continue and therefore as ye tender your own present and eternall welfare stir up your selves to take this divine Counsell of the Apostle Draw nigh unto God And so from the distance implyed we descend to the approach injoyned which we shall consider as it hath respect to the presence of God and to the motion of man To the presence of God in relation to his Ordinances and to his Spirit First then we draw nigh unto God when we attend upon him in his worship and service for God is where he is worshipped and where he reveales himelf In this regard when Cain was banished from the presence of God it was not so much an exile as an excommunication Hence is all the legall service called appearing before the Lord So David when shall I appear in thy sight Psal 42.2 and can find in his heart for this cause to envy the sparrowes and swallowes as herein happier then himself Thus Jacob of his Bethel God was here and I knew it not Then therefore do we draw nigh unto God when we come into his house when we present our selves to him in our prayers whether private or publick when we attend upon him in his word whether read or preached in his holy Sacraments in all religious exercises And those that do willingly neglect these holy services they are no other then aloof off from God and certainly whatsoever they may think of it this estate of theirs is very dangerous for if the worst peece of hellish torment be that of losse and utter departing from the presence of God then surely our voluntary Elongation of our selves from his presence must needs be a fearfull introduction to an everlasting distance from him Let our Recusants whether out of heresie or faction make what sleight account they please of these holy assemblies Surely the keeping away from the Church is the way to keep out of Heaven Auditus aspectum restituit as Bernard well It is our hearing that must restore us to the sight of God This in relation to his Ordinances that to his spirit followes we do then Secondly draw nigh to God when upon our conversion to him we become the receptacles and entertainers of his good Spirit For God is undoubtedly where he breathes into the soul holy desires where he works Heavenly grace in the heart This
presence followes upon the other or accompanies it For when we do carefully and conscionably wait upon Gods ordinance then his Spirit offers and conveighs it self into the heart these are Vehiculum gratiae the carriage of grace into the soul Never any scorner or profane person hath any sense of this presence This is that David speaks so passionately of Oh cast me not away from thy presence and take not thine holy spirit from me It troubled him as before to be kept from Gods ordinances but it troubled him an hundred times more to be cast out from this more entire presence Cant. 5.6.7 the Church in the Canticles when she misses her welbeloved how impatient she is How she runs about the City How she hazards her self to the blowes of the watchmen and will take no rest till she have recovered him These spirituall desertions are the saddest things that can befall to a man For there is a spirituall familiarity of sweet conversation betwixt God and his which it is a death to forgoe they injoy each other live in each others sight impart their counsels each to other So then we draw near to God when repenting us of our former aberrations from him we renue our covenants with him put our selves into an awfull acknowledgment of him still seeing him that is invisible when we grow into dear though trembling acquaintance with him taking pleasure in his company interchanging our dulce susurrium cum Deo as Bernard speaks and indevouring to be in all things approved of him This must needs be a very comfortable and blessed condicion Oh happy thrice happy are they that ever they were born who have truly attained to it It is a true rule in philosophy that every naturall agent works by a contaction whether bodily or virtuall which the weaker or further off it is the efficacy of the operation is so much the lesse As when we are cold the fire heates us but not except we come within the reach of it If we stand aloof off it warmes us so feebly that we are little the better for it but if we draw close to the hearth now it sensibly refresheth us even thus also doth God himself please to impart himself to us How ever there is infinite vertue in the Almighty not confinable to any limits Luc. 8.45 yet he will not put it forth to our benefit unlesse we thus draw near to him who toucht me saith our Saviour when the bloody-fluxed woman fingred but the hemme of his garment Lo many thronged him but there was but one that toucht him and upon that touch Vertue went out from him to her cure He might have diffused his vertue as the Sun doth his beames at a distance to the furthest man but as good old Isaac that could have blessed his Esau in the field or in the forrest yet would have him to come close to him for his benediction So will God have us to draw nigh to him if ever we look for any blessing at his hands according to the charge here given Draw nigh unto God Now then that from the respect to the presence of God we may descend to consider the motion of man There are many wayes of our appropinquation to God this People saith God drawes nigh me with their lips but their hearts are farr from me This is an approach that God cannot abide this lip-walk may advance us to hell for our hypocrisie but it can never promove us one step towards Heaven God cannot abide meer talkers of religion let them say Lord Lord he shall answer them I know you not Depart from me ye workers of iniquity There are three wayes of our drawing nigh to God which he accepts of from us On our feet on our hands and on our knees On our feet first Keep thy foot Eccles. 5.1 saith Solomon when thou goest into the house of God what are the feet of the soul but the affections Then do we therefore draw nigh to God when we are so affected to him as we ought when we come to him with the foot of fear Fear the Lord all his Saints saith the Psalmist Serve the Lord in fear Ps 2. Fear God and depart from evill saith his Son Solomon Prov. 3.7 when we come to him with the foot of love I sought him whom my soul loveth saith the Spouse Cant. 3.1 when with the foot of desire As the embossed heart panteth for the rivers of waters so doth my soul for thee O God Ps 42.1 with the foot of joy I rejoyced when they said Come let us go up to the house of the Lord with the foot of confidence In the Lord put I my trust how then do ye say to my soul Flee hence as a bird to the hills And as we must draw nigh to God on the feet of our affections so also upon the hands of our actions even as Jonathan and his armour-bearer climbed up the rock with feet and hands this is done when we perform to God all holy obedience when we serve him as we ought both in our devotions and our carriage and this is the best and truest approximation to God Walk before me saith God to Abraham and be upright Master saith Peter if it be thou Joh. 21.17 bid me come unto thee and after that when he heard it was the Lord he girt his fishers coat to him casts himself into the Sea to come to Christ without this reality of action all our profession is but idle pretence I remember our Country-man Bromiard tells us of one who meeting his neighbour coming out of the Church askt him what is the Sermon done Done said the other No It is said it is ended but it is not so soon done And surely so it is with us we have good store of Sermons said but we have but a few done and one sermon done is worth a thousand said and heard For not the hearers of the law but the doers of it are justified and if ye know these things blessed are ye if ye do them Glory honour and peace to every one that worketh good Rom. 2.10 Now that we may supply both those other approaches on our feet hands we must in the third place draw nigh to God on our knees in our earnest supplications to him for his enabling us to them both doth any man want wisdom and this is the best improvement of wisdom that may be Ja. 1.4 to shelter our selves under the wings of the Almighty let him ask of God who giveth liberally and upbraideth no man let us sue to him with all holy importunity Oh that my wayes were made so direct that I might keep thy statutes Teach me O Lord the way of thy statutes Ps 119. and I shall keep it to the end O stablish thy word in thy servant that I may fear thee Thus let us seek the Lord early and fervently and powre out our hearts before him It is not for us to
the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation before the Lord where I will meet you to speak there with thee Lo God meets us in the holy Assemblies Meets us yea stayes with us there Zach. 2.10 The prophet speaking of the dayes of the Gospell Sing and rejoyce saith he O Daughter of Sion for Lo I come and will dwell in the midst of thee saith the Lord Contrarily when he withdrawes from any people the ordinary means of salvation he is truly said to depart from them but this perhaps not at once but by degrees as in Ezekiels vision he removes first to the threshold and from thence to the door of the East-gate and this I would have you know to be done not only in a meer silence but in a corruption of doctrine not only when faithfull mouths are stopped but when mens mouths are lawlesly opened to the venting whether of popish fancies or satyricall invectives against authority for you may not think that all discourses are preaching or all preaching Gospell when men preach themselves and not Christ when they utter their own impetuous fury and not the glad tidings of peace how shall we call this the message of God No God was not in the winde he was not in the fire he was in the soft voice And he that walks betwixt the golden Candlesticks doth not go away only when the light is quite out but when the snuff burns unsavourily in the socket Shortly where the sincere milk of the Gospell is given to Gods babes and the solid meat of true Orthodox and saving doctrine is set before the stronger men there God visits his people in mercy and is drawn nigh to them in his holy Ordinance Secondly in his audience we use to say out of sight out of mind and those that are out of distance what noise so ever they make are not heard The ravished Virgin in the field saith God cryed out and there was none to save her Deut. 22.27 but when we come neer the least groan and sigh is heard Thus God who is never but with us is said to come neer us when he gives proof to us that he comes not only within the ken of our necessities but within the hearing of the softest whisperings of our prayers So David every where The Lord hath heard my supplication the Lord will hear my prayer Ps 6. The Lord will hear me when I call upon him The tender mother is never away from the bed-side of her sick child but if she perceive the disease to grow dangerous now she is more attentive and layes her ear to the mouth of it and listens to every breathing that it fetcheth so doth our heavenly father to us The Lord is nigh to all that call upon him saith the Psalmist Nigh them indeed for he puts into them those holy desires which he graciously hears and answers Contrarily when that sweet singer of Israel findes some stop made of his audience he is then in another tune Wherefore hidest thou thy face and forgettest our affliction and our oppression Psal 44.24 still measuring Gods nearnesse to us by his regard and as it were re-ecchoing to our prayers A third and yet nearer and happier approach of God to us is in his Grace and favour in the other two as in his word and in our prayers he may come near us little to our availe He speaks to many in his word that hear him not or that hear him to their further judgment Our gospell is howsoever a sweet savour to God yet a savour of death unto death to many a soul wo be to thee Chorazin wo be to thee Bethsaida He hears many speak to him in their prayers but for their own punishment and sometimes will not hear in mercy to the petitioner the Devill sues to enter into the Swine and is heard Paul sues to be freed from the buffets of the messenger of Satan and is mercifully not heard the Israelites have Quailes according to their desires but sauced to them with a vengeance But this third appropinquation of God is never other then cordiall and beneficiall It is a sweet word I will dwell amongst the Children of Israell and will be their God Exod. 29.45 Yea this is true happinesse indeed that God will so dwell with us as to be ours St. Paul told the Athenians most truely non longe ab unoquoque he is not far from every one of us how should he when in him we live and move and are but little are we the better for these generall favours which are common to all his creatures if we do not finde in our selves a speciall interest in the presence of his Spirit If he only call on us as a passenger or lodge with us as a stranger or sojourne with us as a guest this can be small comfort to us nor any thing lesse then his so dwelling with us as that he dwell in us and that not as an inmate but as an owner Know ye not that Christ dwells in you saith St. Paul unlesse ye be Reprobates Know ye not that ye are the Temples of the living God his Temples for a perpetuall inhabitation of which he hath said Here shall be my rest for ever Whereupon there will be sure to follow the fourth degree of his appropinquation which is our aid and sweet experience of his mercifull deliverance It was out of a full sense of Gods goodnesse that holy David breaks out into that heavenly Epiphonema The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and saveth such as be of a contrite Spirit many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivereth him out of them all Psal 34.18 19. His salvation is nigh to them that fear him that glory may dwell in our Land Psal 85.9 So then the sum of all is this that if we draw nigh unto God he will be sure to draw nigh to us in his Ordinances in his Audience in his Graces in his Aid But what shall we say to the order of these two approaches One would have thought he should have said God drawes near to you therefore draw you near to God For surely his approach to us is the cause that we come near to him and not our approach to him causeth him to come near to us Do not think that God and man strain courtesie who shall begin or that man hath any power to draw to God but from God The true order of our regeneration is that Cantic 1.4 Draw me and I shall run after thee There have been contrary heresies in the Church concerning this point The Manichees held man in all things dragged by a necessity of destiny The Pelagians held man led altogether by his will so as that can alone enable him to do good and to feoffe him in blessednesse And our Semipelagian Papists go not much lesse save that they suppose some help given to the will which it can thus improve The Orthodox Church still hath
Spirit of God by which ye are sealed to the day of Redemption IT was a rule of some wise Heathen of old That he was a great Master of Morality that had learn'd to govern his Tongue his Gut his Concupiscence these three And well might it be so when Christianity hath so farr seconded it as that the Spirit of God hath singled out one of these for a Triall of the rest He that offends not with his Tongue is a perfect Man James 2.2 So as that triplicity is reduced to an Unitie and indeed if a man have attained to an exact government of this loose and busie filme which we carry in our mouths it is a great argument of his absolute Mastership over himself in the other particulars whereupon it is that the Apostle hath hedged in my Text with this Charge Before my Text inhibiting all corrupt Communication after it all bitternesse and Clamour and evill speaking and betwixt both enforcing this vehement and Heavenly dehortation And grieve not the holy Spirit Intimating in the very contexture of the words that that man can never hold good terms with the Spirit of God what profession soever he makes that lets his tongue loose to obscene and filthy Communication or to bitter or spightfull words against his Brethren and in these words disswading us both from this and all other before mentioned particularities of wickednesse by an argument drawn from unkindnesse look to it for if you shall give way to any of these vicious courses ye shall grieve the holy Spirit of God and that will be a shamefull and sinfull ingratitude in you forasmuch as that holy Spirit hath been so gracious unto you as to Seale you to the day of Redemption a motive which how sleight soever it may seem to a carnall heart and by such a one may be past over and pisht at in imitation of the carelesse note of Pharaoh Who is the Spirit of God that I should let my Corruptions go yet to a regenerate man to such our Apostle writes it is that irresistible force whereof Nahum speaks that rends the very Rocks before it Nahum 1.6 And indeed an ingenuous Spirit is more moved with this then with all outward violence The Law of Christ both constraines and restraines him constraines him to all good Actions and restraines him from all evill The good Patriark Joseph when his wanton Mistresse solicited him to her wicked lust Behold saith he My Master hath committed all that he hath to my hand there is none greater in his house then I neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee because thou art his wife how then can I do this great wickednesse and sin against God Gen. â—â— 8.9 wherein ye see he hath a double Antidote for her poysonous suggestion the one his Masters favour and trust which he may not violate the other the offence of his God Joseph knew he could not do this wickednesse but he must bring plagues enough upon his head but that is not the thing he stands upon so much as the sin against God A Pilate will do any thing rather then offend a Cesar that word thou art not Cesars friend if thou let him go John 19.12 strikes the matter dead Thou art not Gods friend if thou entertain these sins cannot but be prevalent with a good heart and bear him out against all Temptations and this is the force of our Apostles inference here who after the enumeration of that black Catalogue of sins both of the whole man and especially those of the Tongue infers And grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby ye are Sealed to the Day of Redemption The Text you see is a dehortatory charge to avoid the offence of God wherein we have the Act and the subject the Act Grieve not the subject set forth by his Title by his Merit his Title The holy Spirit of God his Merit and our obligation thence arising By whom ye are sealed to the day of Redemption the subject is first considerable both in Nature and Act as that the knowledg and respect whereof doth both most disswade us from the offence and aggravate it when it is committed The holy Spirit of God which when we have shortly meditated on apart we shall joyne together by the Act inhibited in this holy dehortation That this is particularly to be taken of the third person of the blessed Trinity to whom this day is peculiarly devoted there can be no doubt for both the Title is his The holy Spirit of God not absolutely God who is an holy Spirit but the holy Spirit of God and the effect attributed to him is no lesse proper to him for as the contriving of our Redemption is ascribed to the Father the atchieving of it to the Son So the Sealing confirming and applying of it to the Holy Ghost There are many Spirits and those holy and those of God as their Creator and Owner as the enumerable Company of Angels and the Spirits of Just Men made perfect Hebr. 12. but this is set forth as Zanchius notes well with a double Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that holy Spirit by a transcendent eminence by a singularity as that which is alone The holy Spirit of God Now why the third Person should specially be denominated a Spirit a title no lesse belonging to the Father and the Son to the whole absolute Deity as being rather Essential then Personal or why an holy Spirit since Holinesse is as truly Essentiall to the other Persons also as their very being Or why being coequal and coessential with God the Father and the Son he should be called the Spirit of God though they might seem points incident into the Day yet because they are Catechetical heads I hold it not so fit to dwell in them at this time Only by the way give me leave to say that it had been happy both for the Church of England in general and this Diocesse in particular that these Catechetical Sermons had been more frequent then they have been as those which are most usefull and necessary for the grounding of Gods People in the principles of saving Doctrine and I should earnestly exhort those of my Brethren of the Ministry that hear me this day that they would in these perilous and distractive times bend their labours this way as that which may be most effectuall for the setling of the Soules of their hearers in the grounds of true Religion that they may not be carried about with every winde of Doctrine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Cockboat of mens fancies as the Apostle speak but this by the way I shall now only urge so much of the Person as may add weight to the dehortation from the Act Grieve not the holy Spirit of God and every notion of it adds a several weight as a Spirit as the Spirit of God as the holy Spirit of God It is a rule not capable of contradiction that by how much more
excellent the Person so much more hainous is the offence done to him As to offend an Officer is in the eye of the Law more then to offend a private Subject a Magistrate more then an inferiour Officer a Peere more then a Magistrate for that is Scandalum Magnatum a Prince more then a Peere a Monarch more then a Prince Now in very nature a Spirit is more excellent then a Body I could send you higher but if we do but look into our own breasts we shall finde the difference There is a Spirit in Man saith Elihu Job 32.8 The Spirit of Man is as the Candle of the Lord saith Wise Solomon Prov. 20.27 without which the whole House is all dark and confused Now what comparison is there betwixt the Soul which is a Spirit and the Body which is Flesh even this which Wise Solomon instanceth in may serve for all The Spirit of a Man sustains his infirmities but a wounded Spirit who can hear Lo the Body helps to breed infirmities and the Spirit bears them out to which add the Body without the Spirit is dead the Spirit without the Body lives more It is a sad word of David when he complaines My bones are vexed Ps 6.2 and cleaves to my skin Psal 102.5 yet all this is tolerable in respect of that My Spirit faileth me My Spirit is overwhelmed within me my heart within me is desolate Psal 143.4 they were sore strokes that fetcht blood of our blessed Saviour but they were nothing to these inward torments that wrung from him the bloody sweat in his Agony when he said my soul is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heavy unto the Death could we conceive that the Body could be capable of pain without the Spirit as indeed it is not since the Body feeles only by the Spirit that pain were painlesse but this we are sure of that the Spirit feels more exquisite pain without the Body in the state of separation from it then it could feel in the former conjunction with it and the wrong that is done to the Soul is more haynous then that which can be inflicted on the Body By how much then more pure simple perfect excellent the Spirit is whom we offend by so much more grievous is the offence to offend the Spirit of any good Man one of Christs little ones is so hainous that it were better for a man to have a milstone hanged about his neck and to be cast into the bottom of the Sea Mat. 18.6 To offend an Angel which is an higher degree of spirituality is more then to vex the Spirit of the best man Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy Flesh to sin neither say before the Angel that it was an errour Eccles 5.6 Hence St. Paul heightens his adjuration to Timothy I charge thee before the Elect Angels 1 Tim. 5.21 And giving order for the decent demeanure of the Corinthian Women in the Congregation requires That they should have power on their head because of the Angels 1 Cor. 11.10 To offend therefore the God of Spirits the Father of these spirituall Lights must needs be an infinite aggravation of the sin even so much more as He is above those his best Creatures and there cannot be so much distance betwixt the poorest worme that crawles on the Earth and the most glorious Archangel of Heaven as there is betwixt him and his Creator One would think now there could be no step higher then this yet there is our Saviour hath so taught us to distinguish of sins that he tells us All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven Matth. 12.31 and Marc. 3.29 Not that we can sin against one Person and not offend another for their essence is but one but this sin is singled out for a special obstruction of forgivenesse for that it is done against the illumination and Influence of that Grace whereof the Holy Ghost is the immediate giver and worker in the Soul who is therfore called the Spirit of Grace hereupon is Stevens challenge to the stiff-necked Jews Act. 7.51 Ye do alwayes resist the holy Ghost And his charge to Ananias Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost Act. 5.3 Ye see then how this charge riseth and what force is put into it by the condition of the Person A Spirit the holy Spirit the holy Spirit of God enough to make way for the consideration of the Act inhibited Grieve not the holy Spirit of God Grieve not c. How incompatible are the termes of this charge That which makes the sin as it is set forth more sinfull may seem to make it impossible If a Spirit how is it capable of passion and if it be impassible how can it be grieved Alas we weak mortalls are subject to be hurried about with every blast of passion The Almighty is above all the reach of these unquiet perturbations Lo that God which mercifully condescended because his infinite glory transcends our weaknesse to speak unto us men by man and by Angels in the forme of Men speaks to us men in the style and language of Men Two wayes then may the Spirit of God be said to be grieved in Himself in his Saints in himself by an Anthropopathie as we call it In his Saints by a Sympathie the former is by way of Allusion to humane passion and carriage so doth the Spirit of God upon occasion of mens sins as we do when we are grieved with some great wrong or unkindnesse And what do we then First we conceive an high dislike of and displeasure at the Act Secondly we withdraw our countenance and favour from the offender Thirdly we inflict some punishment upon the offence and these are all of them dreadfull expressions of the grieving of Gods Spirit even these three displeasure aversion punishment For the first Esay expresseth it by vexation Esay 63.10 A place so much more worthy of observation for that some judicious interpreters as Reverend Calvin Zanchius Pagnine and Cornelius a Lapide think very probably that this text is borrowed from thence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And they rebelled and vexed the Spirit of his holinesse Where such an Act is intimated as compriseth both grief and Anger surely we do not think it safe to irritate the great and if it be but a man a little bigger then our selves we are ready to deprecate his displeasure but if it be a man that is both great and dear to us with whom we are faln out how unquiet are we if we have any good nature in us till we have recovered his lost favour do ye not see with what importunity good David seeks to appease the wrath of his incensed Father in Law none of the best men and causelesly provoked Let my Lord the King hear the words of his Servant If the Lord have stirred thee up against me let him accept an offering but if they
be the Children of men cursed be they before the Lord And even Josephs Brethren though so ill-natur'd that they could eat and drink whilst their Brother was crying in their pit yet at last as doubtlesse they had done ere then they come with humble prostrations and passionate Supplications to their Brother Gen. ult we pray thee forgive the trespasse of the Servants of thy Fathers God what speak I of these Even Absolom himself though he soon after carried a Traitor in his bosome how earnestly he sued for his restoring to his fathers long denyed presence and out of his impatience caused Joab to pay dear for the delay Oh then how should we be affected with the sence of the displeasure of the holy Spirit of our good God who as he is our best friend so he is a most powerful avenger of wickednesse Surely we do so vex and sadden him with our grievous provocations that he cryes out and makes moan of his insufferable wrong this way Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins and wearied me with thine iniquities Esa 43.24 and Amos 1.13 Behold I am pressed under you as a cart is pressed that is full of Sheaves even so full that the Axeltree creaks and bends and cracks again It must needs be a great weight that the Almighty complaines of and surely so it is could our offences be terminated in men and not strike God thorough them we might well say that all the outrages and affronts that we could put upon a world of men were nothing to the least violation of the infinite Majestie of God and so doth the God against whom they are committed take them by how much more tender the part is so much more painfull is the blow the least wipe of the eye troubles us more then a hard stroak upon the back it is easy to observe that the more holy the person is the more he is afflicted with his own and with others sin Lot vexed his righteous Soul with the unclean conversation of the Sodomites Davids eyes gusht out rivers of waters because men kept not the Law how much more then shall the holy God from whom these good men receive these touches of Godly indignation be vexed to see and hear our profanations of his name and dayes our contempt of his Servants and ordinances our debauched lives our malicious and oppressive practises our wilfull disobediences our shamefull excesses and uncleanesses our uncharitable censures of each other and all that World of wickednesse that we are overborne withall grief is never but an unpleasive passion the rest have some life and contentment in them Not only love and joy which useth to dilate and chear the heart but even hatred it self to a rancorous stomack hath a kinde of wicked pleasure in it but grief is ever harsh and tedious one of St. Augustins two tormentors of Mankinde Dolor et Timor And shall our hearts tell us That we have grieved the good Spirit of God by our sins and shall not we be grieved at our selves that we have grieved him How can there be any true sense of heavenly love and gratitude in us if we be not thoroughly humbled and vexed within our selves to think that we have angred so good a God How can we choose but roar out in the unquietnesse of our soules with the holy Psalmist There is no soundnesse in my flesh because of thine Anger neither is there any rest in my Bones because of my sin for mine iniquities are gone over my head as an heavy burden they are to heavy for me to bear Ps 38.3 4. Certainly it is a signe of a gracelesse Soul to be secure and cheerfull under a known sin that Man that can sleep soundly after a murder that can give merry checks to his Conscience after an act of adultery or theft or any such grievous crimes hath an heart insensible of goodnesse and may prove a fit brand for hell This is that whereof Esay speaks In that Day did the Lord of Hosts call to weeping and to mourning and to baldnesse and to girding with sackcloth and behold joy and gladnesse slaying of Oxen and killing of Sheep eating Flesh and drinking Wine Esa 22.12 13. But it followes next Surely this iniquity shall not be purged till ye die vers 14. these are they that say we have made a covenant with death and with hell we are at an agreement but it followes soon after Their covenant with death shall soon be disanulled and their agreement with hell shall not stand Esa 28.15.18 Far far be this disposition from us that professe to love the Lord let it be with us as with some good natur'd Children whom I have seen even after their whippings unquiet till with their continued tears and importunities they have made their peace with their offended parent And thus much for the displeasure which is in this grieving of the Spirit of God which never goes alone but is attended by those two other consequent effects Aversion and Punishment As those therefore which scent an unsavory breath turne their heads aside and those great and good guests who finde themselves ill used change their Inn so doth the holy Spirit of God upon occasion of our wilfull sins turne away his face and withdraw his presence In a little wrath I hid my face from thee saith God Esa 54.8 This good David found and complained of Thou turnedst away thy face and I was troubled Psal 30.7 And again as if he feard lest God would be quite gone upon those his horrible sins of Adultery and Murder he cryes out passionatly O cast me not away from from thy Presence and take not thine holy Spirit from me Psal 51.11 This is that which Divines call spirituall desertion A course which God takes not seldome when he finds a kind of restiveness and neglect in his Servants or passage given to some haynous sin against the checks of conscience where he intends correction quickning and reclamation the Spouse in the Canticles because she opened not instantly to her Beloved findes her self disappointed I opened to my Beloved but my Beloved had withdrawen himself and was gone and my Soul failed me Cant. 5.6 This is no other then we must make account of and which if we have any acquaintance with God and our selves in our daily experience we have found and shall find if we have given way to any willing sin in that very Act the Spirit is grieved and in that Act of griefe subduced neither can we ever expect comfort in the sense of his return or hope to have his face shine upon us again till we have won him to us and recovered his favour by an unfained Repentance Is there any of us therefore that hath grieved and estranged the holy Spirit from us by any known offence it must cost us warme water ere we can recover him and the light of his countenance upon us neither let us be sparing of our Tears to this
of God planted in his heart and one that desires to be approved to God in all his wayes though perhaps he differ in judgment and be of another profession from thee in some collateral matters as the God of Heaven stands not upon such points let him I say be one of Gods dear and secret ones whom thou revilest and persecutest the Spirit of God feels the Indignities that are offered to such a one and will let thee feel that he feels them make as slight as you will of scandalizing and wronging a good man there is a good God that will pay you for it What an heavy complaint is that which the Apostle makes to his Corinthians concerning himself and his fellowes I think saith he that God hath set forth us the Apostles last as it were appointed to death for we are made a spectacle to the World and to Angels and to Men 1 Cor. 4.9 and verse the 13. We are made as the filth of the world the off-scouring of all things unto this day Alas if this were the condicion of the blessed Apostles to be thus vilified why should it seem strange to us their unworthy successours and Disciples if we be thought fit for nothing but to be cast upon the dunghill but these reproaches however we may take coolly and calmly as that Stoick Philosopher did who whilst he was discoursing of being free from passions it being the doctrine of that sect that a wise man should be impassionate a rude fellow spat purposely in his face and when he was asked whether he were not angry answered no truly I am not angry but I doubt whether I should not be angry at such an abuse but there is a God that will not put up our contumelies so we strike his servants on Earth and he feels it in Heaven It is very emphaticall which the Apostle hath to this purpose Coloss 1.24 I fill up that which is behind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Asterings of the Afflictions of Christ in my flesh Intimating that there is one intire body as it were of Christs sufferings part whereof he indured in his own person and part he still sustaines in his members so as he cannot be free whiles they suffer inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of my brethren ye did it unto me Mat. 15.40 As the soul feels what is done to the body the Iron entred into his Soul saith the Psalmist so what is done to the faithfull soul God is sensible of and will revenge it accordingly what shall be done to thee thou false Tongue saith the Psalmist even mighty and sharp Arrowes with hot burning Coales Psal 102.3 Thou hast shot thine Arrowes even bitter words against Gods chosen ones and God shall send thee sharper arrowes of his vengeance singing into thy bosome thy tongue hath been set on fire with contention and hath helpt to kindle it in others and now God shall fill thy mouth with hotter coales of that fire which shall never be quenched Oh then as we tender our own safety let us binde our Tongues and hands to the good behaviour and resolve with the holy Apostle To give none offence neither to the Jewes nor to the Gentiles nor to the Church of God 1. Cor. 10.32 Now as the holy Spirit of God both in himself and in his Children is grieved with our leud speeches and offensive carriage so contrarily God and his holy Spirit are joyed in our gracious speeches and holy conversation Luc. 15.10 I say unto you there is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner that repenteth Lo this is Gods joy and the Angels witnesse it it is the owner that hath found the lost Groate and that saith Rejoyce with me how doth conscionable and godly behaviour and holy Communication make Musick in Heaven We have known many that have thought their time well bestowed if they could make a great Man smile Principibus placuisse c. And perhaps their facetious urbanity hath not passed unrewarded Oh what shall we think of moving true delight to the King of glory It was no small incouragement to the Colossians that the Apostle professes he was with them rejoycing and beholding their Order Coloss 2.5 What a comfort then must it needs be that the great God of Heaven is with us and takes notice of our carriage and contentment in it Revel 2.2 I know thy works and thy labour and thy patience saith the Spirit of God to the Angel or Bishop of the Church of Ephesus and Videndo vidi saith God to Moses concerning the Israelites I have seen the afflictions of my people it is said of Anthony the Hermite Let no man bogle at this that I mention an Hermite to this Congregation those first Eremites that went aside into the Wildernesse to avoid those primitive persecutions were holy men great Saints and of a quite different alloy from those of the present Romish Church Mera Nominum Crepitacula that when he was set upon by Divells and buffeted by them as St. Paul was 2 Cor. 12. according to learned Cameran his interpretation after the conflict he cryed out O bone Jesu ubi eras O Lord Jesu where wast thou and received answer juxta te eram c. I was by thee and lookt how thou wouldst demean thy self in thy combat who would not fight valiantly when he fights in the eye of his Prince It is the highest consideration in the World this how doth God rellish my actions and me The common rule of the World is what will men say what will my neighbours what will my superiours what will posterity and according to their conceits we are willing to regulate our carriage but a true Christian looks higher and for every thing he sayes or does inquires after the censure or allowance of God himself still caring that the words of his mouth and the meditations of his heart may be accepted of his God and if his heart tell him that God frownes at his actions all the World cannot chear him up but he will go mourning all the day long till he have made his peace and set even termes between God and his Soul but if that tell him all is well nothing in the world can deject and dishearten him but he takes up that resolution which Solomon gives for advice Let thy Garments be white and let no Oyle be wanting to thine head go thy way Eat thy bread with joy and drink thy Wine with a merry heart for now God accepteth thy works Eccles 9.7 8. And this consideration as it never can be unseasonable so is a most fit cordiall for every honest and good heart in these dismall times we are in a sad condicion and perhaps in expectation of worse the sword is either devouring or threatning we are ready to be swallowed up with grief or fear what should we now do Dear Christians let every one of us look in what termes he stands with his God do
we finde the face of God clouded from us let our souls refuse comfort till we have recovered his favour which is better then life do we find our selves upon our sound repentance received to grace and favour of the Almighty and that he is well pleased with our persons and with our poor obediences and that he smiles upon us in Heaven courage dear Brethren in spight of all the frowns and menaces of the World we are safe and shall be happy here is comfort for us in all tribulation 2 Cor. 1.4 with that chosen vessel we are troubled on every side yet not distressed â—e are perplexed but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken 2. Cor. 4.8 cast down but not destroyed for which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish 16. yet the inward man is renewed day by day for our light Affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us 18. a farr more exceeding and eternall weight of glory to the full possession whereof the God that hath ordained us graciously bring us for the sake of the Son of his love Jesus Christ the righteous To whom with the Father and the holy Ghost three persons and one glorious God be given all praise honour glory and dominion now and for evermore A Second SERMON In prosecution of the same Text PREACHT AT St. GREGORIES CHURCH IN NORWICH July 21. 1644. By JOS. B. of N. EPHES. 4.30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed to the day of Redemption WE have done with the Dehortation it self and therein with the Act forbidden Grieve not and with the title of the Subject the Holy Spirit of God We descend to the inforcement of the Dehortation by the great merit of the Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed to the day of Redemption Those that are great and good we would not willingly offend though meer strangers to us but if they be besides our great friends and liberal Benefactors men that have deserved highly of us we justly hold it a foul shame and abominable ingratitude wilfully to do ought that might affront them It is therefore added for a strong disswasive from Grieving the Spirit of God that by him we are sealed to the day of redemption All the world shall in vain strive to do for us what our great Friend in Heaven hath done our loathness therefore to grieve him must be according to the depth of our obligation to him Cast your eyes then a little upon the wonderful Benefit here specified and see First what this day of Redemption is Secondly what is the sealing of us to this day and Thirdly why the sealing of us to this day should be a sufficient motive to withhold us from grieving the Holy Spirit of God These three must be the limits of my Speech and your Atrention Redemption signifies as much as a Ransome A Ransome implies a Captivity or Servitude There is a threefold Captivity from which we are freed Of Sin of Misery of Death For the first We are sold under sin saith our Apostle No Slave in Argier is more truly sold in the Market under a Turkish Pyrate then we are naturally sold under the Tyranny of sin by whom we are bound hand and foot and can stir neither of them towards God and dungeon'd up in the darkness of our ignorance without any Glimpse of the vision of God For the second the very name of Captivity implyes Misery enough what outward evil is incident into a man which bondage doth not bring with it Wo is me there was never so much captivity in this land since it was a Nation nor so woful a Captivity as this of brethren to brethren Complaints there are good store on both sides of restraint want ill-lodging hard and scant diet Irons insultations scornes and extremities of ill usage of all kindes and what other is to be found in the whole course of this wretched life of ours the best whereof is vanity and the worst infinite vexations But Thirdly if some men have been so externally happy as to avoid some of these miseries for all men smart not alike yet never man did or can avoid the third which is obnoxiousness to death By the offence of one saith the Apostle judgment came upon all men to condemnation Rom. 5.18 Sin hath raigned unto death Ps 21. It is more then an Ordinance a statute law in Heaven Statutum est c. It is enacted to all men once to dye Heb. 9.27 This then is our bondage or captivity now comes our redemption from all these at once when upon our happy dissolution we are freed from sin from misery from death and enter into the possession of glory thus our Saviour Lift up your heads for the day of your redemption draweth nigh thus saith St. Paul The creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption unto the glorious liberty of the Sons of God Rom. 8.21 It is the same condition of the members of Christ which was of the head that they overcome death by dying when therefore the bands of death are loosed and we are fully freed from the dominion of the first death and danger of the second and therein from all the capacity not only of the rule and power of sin but of the life and in-dwelling of it and from all the miseries both bodily and spirituall that attend it and when in the same instant our soul takes possession of that glory which shall once in the consociation of it's glorious partner the body be perfectly consummated Then and not till then is the day of our redemption Is there any of us therefore that complaines of his sad and hard condition here in the world paines of body grief of mind agonies of soul crosses in estate discontentments in his families suffering in his good name let him bethink himself where he is this is the time of his captivity and what other can be expected in this case Can we think there is no difference betwixt liberty bondage Can the slave think to be as free as his Patron Ease rest liberty must be lookt for elsewhere but whiles we are here we must make no account of other then these varieties of misery our redemption shall free us from them all But now perhaps some of you are ready to say of the Redemption as they did of the Resurrection that it is past already and so indeed it is one way in respect of the price laid out by the Son of God the invaluable price of his blood for the redemption of man but so that it must be taken out by and applied to every soul inparticular if we will have the benefit redound to us It is his Redemption before it is now only our Redemption when it is brought home to us Oh then the dear and happy day of this our finall redemption wherein we shall be absolutely freed from all the miserable sorrowes paines cares fears
God our Heavenly Father toward us is no less then infinite Psal 103.13 what return do we make of love to him again we can perhaps talk largely of our love to God but where is the proof of it Did we love our Father in Heaven as children could we strange our selves from his interest Could we indure to see him wronged in all his concernments to hear his sacred and dread name blasphemed to see his Ordinances trampled upon his messengers contemptuously used his house and his day prophaned would we not spit at that son that would put up such indignities offered to his carnal Father And why will we lay claim to a son-ship of God if we can swallow such spiritual affronts put upon our God Thirdly every not ill-natur'd and ungracious son as God hath none such bears a kind of awfull respect to his Father both in what he doth and in what he suffers For his actions he dares not to do any thing wilfully that may work his Fathers displeasure and even those things which he would not stick to do before a stranger yet before his Father he reverentially forbeares to do If I be a Father where is my honour Malac. 1.6 If then we be not awfully affected to the presence of God If we dare boldly sin God in the face it argues strongly that we have no filial relation to him For his sufferings A child will receive that correction from the hand of a Father which he would never abide from a stranger He that would be ready to repay blowes to another man takes stripes from a Father and answers them onely with tears Thus if we be the Sons of God we do submissely undergo from his hand what fatherly chastisment he shall be pleased to lay upon us but if we be ready to struggle and groyningly repine at his correction it showes we do not acknowledge him for our Father Lastly a son as he is wholly at his parents disposing so he depends upon his Fathers provision expecting such patrimony as his Father shall bestow upon him and waiting with patience for such childes-part as he can have no hope of from a stranger If we do so to our Heavenly Father leading the life of faith with him casting our selves upon his gracious providence for all good things of either World and fixing our eyes upon that glorious inheritance which he hath purchased for us above we do evidently show our selves to be the sons of God but what need we any other evidence of this blessed condition then what is here expresly laid down to our hands in my Text So many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God What is it then to be led by the Spirit of God The originall is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word which every Grammarian knowes to signifie both agi and duci to be led or driven so where it is said by one Evangelist that Christ was led into the Wilderness to be temped Mat. 4.1 Of another it is read that he was driven Mark 1.12 And though the vulgar reads it here qui aguntur yet our Rhemists turn it Those that are led noteing in the margin out of St. Augustines true explication that Gods children are not violently compelled against their wills but sweetly drawn moved and induced to do good So as this word then implies both an act of Gods Spirit working in us and our complying with that act in an obedient and ready conformity thereunto For wherever the Spirit of God is it is not idle and ineffectuall but it is still directing and inclining unto good and whosoever is led by that Spirit yields himself to the motions and guidance Acti agimus as the old word is In all leading therefore and so in this there must be an hand to guide and a foot to follow good motions on Gods part and motions in good on ours both these must go together else there is no leading by the Spirit of God It is not enough that good thoughts are injected into us by the holy Spirit yea it is so farr from availing us as that a man is so much the worse for those good motions he entertaines not as the motions are more excellent and divine But those good injections must be received imbraced delighted in and followed home in a constant and habituall practise with a resolute rejection and detestation of the contrary Besides that spirit of our mind Ephes 4.23 which lodgeth in every brest every man is led by some spirit or other One is led by a spirit of Errour 1 Tim. 4.1 and seduction in matter of understanding Another by the spirit of giddiness Esa 19.14 into wild fancies and brainsick imaginations another is led by the Spirit of bondage to slavish fears and afflictive horrours as in the next verse to my Text another by the spirit of the World 1 Cor. 2.12 Another and indeed all these by the unclean Spirit as he is usually styled in the Gospell others which are all the regenerate are led by the Spirit of God when our Saviour said to his too fiery Disciples Ye know not of what Spirit ye are he implies that of some spirit they must needs be now there are those that pretend to be led by the spirit of God and are not St. Paul could upon good warrant say I trust I have the Spirit of God that trust was however he modestly expresses it no lesse then a certain knowledg but a Zidkijah on the other side in a false presumption can say Which way went the Spirit of God from me to speak to thee I remember in the history of the Anabaptists of Munster one of those illuminated companions of John Becold and Onipperdoling is said to have kill'd his own naturall Brother in the face of his parents and professed to do it upon a revelation from the Spirit the night before And what heresies and prodigious opinions have been set on foot and maintained to the death under pretence of the dictation and warrant of Gods Spirit who can be ignorant Let us therefore enquire how a man may know whether he be truly led by the Spirit of God First then the Spirit of God leads no man but in a right way and what is that but the way of Gods Commandements All other wayes are wayes of our own oblique and crooked as deviating from the straight line of righteousnesse In them either we lead our selves or Satan leads us If any man be tempted let him not say that he is tempted of God God moves to holy duties to just and charitable actions and none but them for he cannot be contrary to himself Is there any of us therefore that is carried on in a course of uncleannesse excess disobedience oppression or any other sin whatsoever Alas we are led by a contrary spirit in the dark wayes that lead to death and Hell It were blasphemy to father these sinfull mis-leadings upon the holy Spirit of God Secondly Gods
be and be acknowledged the sons of God Let us put on as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercy kindnesse humblenesse of mind meeknesse long-suffering forbearing one another forgiving one another if we have a quarrell against any even as Christ forgave us and above all these things put on charity which is the bond of perfectnesse Colos 3.12 13 14. And lastly forsaking the mis-guidance of Satan the World and our corrupt nature which will lead us down to the chambers of death and eternal destruction let us yield up our selves to be led by the holy Spirit of God in all the wayes of righteousnesse and holynesse of piety justice charity and all manner of gracious conversation that we may thereby approve our selves the sons and daughters of God and may be feoffed in that blessed inheritance which he hath laid up for all his to the possession whereof may he happily bring us who hath dearly bought us Jesus Christ the righteous to whom with the Father and the blessed spirit one infinite God be given all praise honour and glory now and for ever Amen THE MOURNER IN SION ECCLESIASTES 3.4 There is a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance I Need not tell you that Solomon was a wise man his wisdom as it was in an extraordinary measure put into him by him that is wisdom it self so was it in a more then ordinary way improved by his diligent observation his observation was Universal of times things persons actions events neither did he look his experiments up in the closet of his own brest but by the direction of Gods Spirit laid them forth to the World in this divine sermon which not as a King but as a Prophet he preach't to all posterity Every sentence here therefore is a dictate of the holy Ghost it is not Solomon then but a greater then Solomon even the holy Spirit of the great God that tells you there is not a time onely but a season too for every thing and for every purpose under Heaven that is as I hope you can take it no otherwise for every good thing or indifferent as for evill things or actions if men find a time yet sure God allowes no season those are alwayes damnably-unseasonable abuses of times and of our selves not to meddle with other particulars our thoughts are now by the divine providence pitch't upon a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance or rather onely upon the time to weep and mourn for our time of laughing and dancing is past already and perhaps we have had too much of that in our former times which makes the causes and degrees of our now weeping and mourning as more uncouth so more intensive we must be so much deeper in our mourning by how much we have been more wild and wanton in our laughter and dancing To fall right down therefore upon our intended discourse without any previous circumlocutions There is a threefold time of just mourning 1. When a man is sensible of his punishments 2. Of his sins 3. Of his dangers Of his punishments first or rather which is more general of his afflictions for all afflictions are not intended for punishments some are fatherly chastisments onely for our good whereas all punishments are afflictive when we are whip't then when we smart with the rod we have cause to weep and if in this case we shed no tears it is a sign of a gracelesse heart It is time therefore to mourn when we are pressed by sufferings whether from the immediate hand of God or mediately by the hands of men whether by private or publique calamities are we smitten in our bodies by some painfull and incurable diseases Doth the pestilence rage in our streets Hath God forbidden us the influence of Heaven and curst the Earth with barrennesse Hath he broken the staffe of bread and sent leannesse into our souls Hath he humbled us with the fearfull casualties of fire or water by wracks at Sea by lightnings and tempests by land hath he sent murrain amongst our cattle and destroying vermine into our barnes and fields now God tells us it is a time to mourn are we disquieted in our minds by some over-mastering passions of griefe for the miscarriages of children for the secret discontents of domesticall jars for unjust calumnies cast upon our good name are we molested in our mindes and spirits with impetuous and no lesse importune then hatefull Temptations now it is a time to mourn do we find in our souls a decay and languishment of grace a prevalence of those corruptions which we thought abated in us Do we find our selves deeply soul-sick with our sinfull indispositions Shortly do we find the face of our God for the time withdrawn from us Now now it is a time to mourn If we turn our eyes to those evils which are cast upon us by the hands of men Do men find themselves despoyled of their estates restrained of their Liberties tortured in their bodies Do they find the wofull miseries of an intestine war killings burnings depopulations do they find fire and sword raging in the bosom of out Land now it is a time to mourn Were these evils confined to some few persons to some special families they were worthy of the tears of our compassion for it is our duty to weep with them that weep but where they are universal and spread over the whole face of any Nation there cannot be found tears enough to lament them Punishments then are a just cause of our sorrow and mourning but to a good heart sin is so much greater cause of mourning by how much a moral evil is more then a natural and by how much the displeasure of an Almighty God is worthy of more regard then our own smart Doth thine heart then tell thee that thou hast offended the Majesty of God by some grievous sin now is thy time to weep and mourne as thou wouldest for thy only son Zechar. 12.10 now it is time for thee to be in bitternesse as one that is in bitternesse for his first borne Thy soul is foul wash and rince it with the tears of thy repentance go forth with Peter and weep bitterly Dost thou finde in the place where thou livest that sin like some furious torrent bears down all before it now it is time for thee to mourne for the sins of thy people and to say as the holy Psalmist did Psal 119 136. Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because men keep not thy law Lastly as our sufferings and our sins make up a due time for our mourning so do our dangers also for fear is no lesse afflictive then pain yea I know not whether there can be a greater pain then the expectation of imminent mischiefs Do we therefore see extremities of judgments hovering over our heads ready to fall down like Sodoms fire and
of our sins with Israels Yet one more do we think of the bold intrusion of presumptuous persons into the sacred calling without any commission from God Of whom do we think the Prophet Jeremy speaks The Prophets prophesy lies in my name I sent them not neither have I commanded them nor spake unto them They prophesy unto you a false vision and the deceit of their own heart Jer. 14.14 and again I have not sent these Prophets yet they run I have not spoken to them yet they prophesyed Jer. 23.21 To what purpose should I instance in more as I easily might as practical atheisme falsehood cruelty hypocrisy ingratitude and in a word universal corruption O England England too like to thy sister Israel in all her spiritual deformities if not rather to thy sister Sodome Behold this was the iniquity of thy Sister sodome pride fulnesse of bread and abundance of idlenesse was in her neither did she strengthen the hands of the poor and needy Ezechiel 16.49 Lo thou art as haughty as she and hast committed all her abominations But that which yet aggravates thy sin is thy stubborne incorrigiblenesse and impudence in offending is it not of thee that the Prophet Jeremy speaks This is a Nation that obeyeth not the voice of the Lord their God nor receiveth correction Jer. 7.28 For O our God hast thou not whipt us soundly and drawn blood of us in abundance yet wo is me what amendment hast thou found in us what one excesse have we abated what one sin have we reformed what one vice have we quitted Look forth brethren into the World see if the lives of men be not more loose and lawlesse their tongues more profane their hands more heavily oppressive their conversation more faithlesse their contracts more fraudulent their contempt of Gods messengers more high their neglect of Gods ordinances more palpable then ever it was Yea have not too many amongst us added to their unreformation an impudence in sinning Is it not of these that the Prophet speaketh Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination Nay they were not ashamed at all neither could they blush therefore shall they fall among them that fall in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down saith the Lord Jer. 8.12 By this time I suppose you see how too much cause we have to mourn for those sins of practise which have fetcht down judgments upon us turn your eyes now a little to those intellectual wickednesses which we call sins of Opinion Opinion think some of you now alas what so great offence can there be in matter of conceit and in those results of ours ratiocination which we picht upon in the cases of Religion let me tell you dear Christians what valuation soever you may please to set upon these capital errours of the understanding set abroach for the seduction of simple souls there is more deadly mischief and higher offence to God in them then in those practical evils which honest hearts profess to abhorr These as they are the immediate sins of our spirituall part so they do more immediately strike at the God of Spirits in his Truth and holinesse and as Religion is the highest concernment of the soul so the depravation of Religion must needs be most dangerous and damnable It is no marvell therefore if a truly-zealous Christian could even weep his eyes out to see hear those hellish heresies Atheous paradoxes which have poysoned the very air of our Church wherein they were vented One beats the keys into the sword or hangs them at the Magistrates girdle so as he suspends religion upon the meer will and pleasure of severaignty One allowes plurality or community of Wives another allows a man to divorce that wife he hath upon sleight occasions and to take another One is a Ranter another is a Seeker a third is a Shaker One dares question yea disparage the sacred Scriptures of God another denies the Souls immortality a third the Bodies resurrection One spits his poyson upon the blessed Trinity another blasphemes the Lord Jesus and opposes the eternity of his Godhead One is altogether for inspirations professing himself above the sphere of all Ordinances yea above the blood of Christ himself Another teaches that the more villanie he can commit the more holy he is that only confidence in sinning is perfection of sanctity that there is no hell but remorse To put an end to this list of blasphemies the very mention whereof is enough to distemper my tongue and your ears One miscreant dares give himself out for God Almighty Another for the Holy Ghost Another for the Lord Christ Another a vile adulterous strumpet for the Virgin Mary O God were there ever such frenzies possessed the braines of men as these sad times have yieled Was ever the Devil so prevalent with the sons of men Neither have these prodigious wretches smothered their damnable conceits in their impure breasts but have boldly vented them to the World so as the very presses are openly defiled with the most loathsome disgorgments of their wicked blasphemies Here here my dear brethren is matter more then enough for our mourning If we have any good hearts to God if any love to his truth if any zeal for his glory if any care for his Church if any compassion of either perishing or endangered souls we cannot but apprehend just cause of pouring out our selves into tears for so horrible affronts offered to the dread Majesty of our God for so inexpiable a scandal to the Gospel which we professe for so odious a conspurcation of our holy profession and lastly for the dreadful damnation of those silly souls that are seduced by these cursed impostors Ye have seen now what cause we have of mourning for sins both of Practise and Opinion It remaines now that we consider what cause of mourning we may have from our dangers for surely fear as it is alwayes joyned with grief so together with it is a just provoker of our tears And here if I should abridge all the holy Prophets and gather up out of them all the menaces of judgments which they denounce against their sinfull Israel I might well bring them home to our own doors and justly affright us with the expectation of such further revenge from Divine Justice for how can we otherwise think but that the same sins must carry away the same punishments The holy God is ever constant to his own most righteous proceedings if then our sins be like theirs why should we presume upon a dissimilitude of judgments Here then it is easy to descry a double danger worth our mourning for the one of further smart from the hand of God for our continuing and menacing wickednesse the other of further degrees of corruption from our selves For the first let that sad Prophet Jeremiah tell you what we may justly fear They are not humbled even unto this day neither have they feared nor walked in my law
Therefore thus saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel Behold I will set my face against you for evill and to cut off all Judah Jer. 44.10.11 and if ye will have particularities have we not cause to fear that he will make good upon us that fearful word I have taken away my peace from this people saith the Lord even loving kindnesse and mercies Jer. 16.5 This is an ablative judgment and that a heavy one too will ye see a positive one more heavy then that Behold I will utterly forget you and I will forsake you and the City that I gave to you and your forefathers and cast you out of my presence And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you and a perpetual shame which shall not be forgotten Jer. 23.39 40. Will ye have the specialities of his threatned judgments Behold I will send upon them the sword the famine and the pestilence I will persecute them with all these and will deliver them to be removed to all the Kingdomes of the Earth to be a curse and an astonishment and an hissing and a reproach among all Nations Jer. 29.17 18. But enough enough of these dolefull accents of interminated judgments wherewith if I would follow the steps of the Prophets I might strike your hearts with just horrour See now the no lesse danger that arises from our selves no lesse Yea much greater for the highest revenge of all other that God takes of men is when he punishes sin with sin Let me therefore sadly and seriously tell you that there is just fear we are running apace into two woful mischiefs Atheisme and Barbarisme Oh that I were a false Prophet and did not see too much ground of this fear The multiplicity of these wild opinions in matter of Religion if there be not a speedy restraint can have no other issue but no Religion And if we should live to see discouragements put upon Learning and a substract on or diminution of the maintenance of studied Divines and an allowance of or connivence at unlettered preachers and no care taken of any but some select soules ignorance confusion and barbarity will be the next newes that we shall hear of from the Church of England Brethren if we see not these causes of fear we are blind and if seeing them we be not affected with them we are stupid Let this be enough to be spoken of those grounds that make a just time of our mourning now that our seasonable mourning may not be to no purpose let us inquire a little how this our mourning should be regulated for the due carriage and conditions of it And first for the quantity of it it must be proportioned to the occasion and cause upon which it is taken up for to mourne deeply upon sleight and trivial causes were weak and childish like to those faint hearts that are ready to swoun away for the scratch of a finger on the contrary not to mourne heavily upon a main cause of grief argues an insensate and benummed heart If it be for some vehement affliction of body good Ezekiah is a lawfull precedent for us Like as a Crane or a swallow so did I chatter I did mourne as a dove mine eyes fail with looking upward Isaiah 38.14 If it be for some great publick calamity Jeremie tells you what to do For this gird you with sackcloth lament and howl for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned back from us Jerem. 4.8 and Gods chosen People are a fit pattern The Elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and keep silence they have cast up dust upon their heads they have girded themselves with sackcloth the Virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground Lament 2.10 and the Prophet beats them company in their sorrow Mine eyes do fail with tears my bowels are troubled my liver is poured upen the earth for the destruction of the daughter of my People Lament 2.11 If it be for some personall and grievous sin that we have been miscarried into Holy David is a meet example for us My bones saith he waxed old through my roaring all the day long for day and night thy hand was heavie upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of Summer Psal 32.3 4. and elsewhere My sore ran in the night and ceased not my soul refused to be comforted I complained and my Spirit was over-whelmed Psal 77.2 3. Where are those pandars of sin the Romish casuists that teach the least measure of sorrow even meer attrition is enough for a penitent Surely had the man after Gods own heart thought so he had spared many a sigh and many a sobbe and many a tear that his sins cost him and so must they do us if ever we hope to recover true comfort to our souls and certainly could we be rightly apprehensive of the dread Majesty of the most high God whom we move to anger with our sin and could consider the hainousness of sin whereby we provoke the eyes of his glory and lastly the dreadfulness of that eternal torment which our sin drawes after it we could not think it easy to spend too much sorrow upon our sins Lastly if from our own private bosome we shall cast our eyes upon the common sins of the times and places wherein we live a tast whereof I have given you in this our present discourse where oh where shall we finde tears enough to bewail them now sack-cloth and ashes sighs and tears weeping and wailing rending of garments yea rending of hearts too are all too little to expresse our just mourning When good Ezra heard but of that one sin wherewith both Priests and Levites and the Rulers and People of Israel were tainted which was their intermarriage with the Heathen so as the holy seed was vitiated with this mixture how passionately was he affected Let himself tell you When I heard this thing saith he I rent my garment and my mantle and pluckt off the hair of my head and of my beard and sat down astonished untill the evening sacrifice Ezra 9.3 4. What would he have done think we if he had seen so many abominations and heard so many and soul blasphemies of his Israel as we have been witnesses of in these last times This for the quantity Now secondly for the quality of our mourning we may not think to rest in a meer sorrow in a pensive kind of sullennesse Worldly sorrow causeth death 2 Cor. 8.10 For by the sorrow of the heart the Spirit is broken Prov. 15.13 and a broken spirit dryeth the bones Prov. 17.22 And this is one main difference betwixt the Christian mourner and the Pagan both equally complain both are sensible of the causes of their complaint but the sorrow of the one is simply and absolutely afflictive as looking no further but to the very object of his grief the other is mixed with divers holy temperaments as with a meekness of Spirit with a faithul
perfect Mediator betwixt God and man To proclaime the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all that mourn in Zion to give unto them beauty for ashes the oyl of joy for mourning the garment of praise for the spirit of heavinesse Esa 61.2.3 So as all Gods faithfull ones may cheerfully expect the performance of that cordiall promise which the God of truth hath made to his Israel Their soul shall be as a watred Garden and they shall not sorrow any more at all then shall the Virgin rejoyce in the dance both young men and old together for I will turne their mourning into joy and will comfort them and make them rejoyce from their sorrow Jerem. â—1 12 13. But if the justice of God have been so highly provoked by the sinnes of a particular Nation as that there is no remedy but the threatned judgments must proceed against them remember what charge Ezekiel tells you was given to the man clothed in linnen that had the writers inkhorne by his side The Lord said unto him go through the midst of the City through the midst of Jerusalem and set a mark upon the forheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof Ezek. 9.3 4. Lo these marked Jewes owe their life to their tears if they had not wept for their fellowes they had bled with their fellowes If their sighs could not save their people from slaughter yet they have saved themselves their charitable mourning is recompensed with their own preservation Oh then my brethren as we desire the joyes of another World and as we tender our own comfort and safty in this let us not be sparing of our tears let them flow freely out for our own sins first and then for the sins of our people let not our mourning be perfunctory and fashionable but serious hearty and zealous so as that we may furrow our cheekes with our teares Let our devotions that accompany our mourning be fervent and importunate as those that would offer a kind of holy force to Heaven wrestling with the Angel of the covenant for a blessing Let our amendment which should be the effect of our mourning be really conspicuous to the eyes both of God and men And finally that our mourning may be constant and effectuall let us resolve to make it our business and for that purpose let us solemnly vow to set apart some time of each day for this sad but needfull task and which is the main of all since the publique is most concerned in this duty Oh that the trumpet might be blown in Zion fasts sanctified solemn assemblies called that the Ministers of the Lord as the chief mourners might weep aloud in Gods sanctuary Joel 2. â—5 and say Spare thy people O Lord and give not thine heritage to reproach wherefore should the enemies of thy Church say among the people where is their God This were the way to reconcile our offended God to divert his dreadfull judgments to restore us to the blessings of peace and to cause the voice of joy and gladness to be once again heard in our land ON EASTER-DAY AT HIGHAM 1648. 1 COR. 5.7 For Christ our passover is sacrificed for us Therefore let us keep the feast THe feast that is the passover of the Jewes then expiring or the Christians Easter then succeeding indeed I know not whether both be not alluded to for this Epistle is conceived to have been written by the Apostle some 24. Years after our Saviours passion ere which time it is more then probable that the feast of Christs resurrection was solemnly celebrated by the Christian Church this I am sure of that no record in all history mentions the time when it began to be kept and therefore it is most likely according to Augustines received rule to be deduced from the observation of the Apostles There were ancient and eager quarrels betwixt the Eastern and Western Churches about the day whereon it should be kept but whether it should be kept or no there was never yet any question since Christianity look't forth into the World and as that Pasche so this Easter is justly the feast for the eminency of it above the rest for if we do with joy and thankfulnesse according to the Angels message solemnize the day wherein the Son of God our blessed Redeemer being born entred the life of humane nature how much more should we celebrate that day wherein having conquered all the powers of death and Hell he was as it were born again to the life of a glorious immortality But to leave the time and come to the Text. This for that leads it in is both a relative and an illative referring to what he had said in the foregoing words and inferring a necessary consequence of the one clause upon the other Purge out the old leaven for Christ our passover is sacrificed for us The whole Text is Allegoricall alluding to the charge and duty of Gods ancient people the Jewes in the observation of their passover who upon no lesse pain then cutting off from the Congregation of Israel must admit of no leavened bread to be eaten or found in their houses during the whole seven dayes of this celebrity as you may see Exod. 12.17.18 c. As therefore the ceremoniall passover would admit of no materiall leaven So the spirituall passover may not abide any leaven of wickednesse Purge therefore out the old leaven For Christ our passover is sacrificed for us The first work then that we have to do is to cast back our eyes to the ground of this institution and to enquire why no leaven might consist with the Jewish passover And we shall find that there was not the same reason of the first observation of this ceremony and of the following The first was Necessity Devotion was the ground of the rest Necessity first for in that suddain departure which they were put upon there could be no leasure to leaven their dough as you may see Exod. 12.39 Devotion afterward in a gratefull recognition both of their own servile condition and of the gracious providence of God In the former they were called to look back upon their old Egyptian servitude by their unleavned bread for this was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bread of affliction as we turn it or the bread of the poor as the word signifies which they must now eat to put them in mind of their hard and poor condition in Egypt under their evill task masters all their lives after as Deut. 16.3 to the same purpose it was that they must eat the Lamb not with sowre herbes as it had wont to be turned for a sharp kind of sowrenesse in sawces is esteemed pleasing and tastfull but with bitter herbes yea as the word is in the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum amaritudinibus with bitternesses In the latter they were minded of a
prophesying these may be as variable as the other are constant it is no more possible to fit all Churches and Countreys with one form then to fit all bodies with one suit or all limmes with one size Neither can I with learned Beza and Cappellus think that prophesying here is taken for the hearing of prophesyes these things were extraordinarily done till they were restrained In those Primitive times there were some women extraordinarily gifted by Gods Spirit who took upon them to preach and pray publickly which afterwards St. Paul forbad to his Timothy 1 Tim. 2.12 They exercising these manly functions presumed to take upon them manly fashions whereas therefore bare-headednesse was in Corinth as also in all Greece and Rome a token of honour and superiority and covering the head a token of subjection these forward women usurpe upon the fashions of their husbands and will have their faces seen as well as their voyces heard as the Jesuitesses of late time dared both to attempt and practise till the late restraint of Pope Urban curbed and suppressed them Our holy Apostle who was zealously carefull to reforme even Soloecismes in the outward deportment of Gods service controlls this absurd disorder and as the great Master of holy ceremonies injoynes a modest vail to the women when they will show themselves in these acts of publique devotion For this cause the women ought to have power on their head because of the Angels Wherein your selves without me observe two remarkable heads of our discourse 1. An Apostolicall Canon 2ly The carriage or grounds of it The Canon is fully and home-charged The women ought to have power on their head The grounds are double one precedent For this cause The other subsequent Because of the Angels which in the vulgar and in St. Ambrose is brought in by a Copulative or etiam propter Angelos From the Canon it self in the generality you would of your selves in my silence easily inferre that spirituall superiors must take care not only of the substantiall parts of Gods worship but of the circumstantiall appendances of it what is a meerer ceremony then our cloathes what can seem of lesse consequence then a vail left off or put on the head may be as good and as full of holy thoughts bare or covered what is that you would think to the heart of our devotion yet the chosen vessel fears not to seem too scrupulous in laying weighty charges upon us in so small and as we might imagine unimporting a business Certainly my beloved though the Kings Daughter be all glorious within and there lies her chief beauty yet her clothing is of wrought Gold too And if in the Tabernacle Gods first dwelling place upon Earth it pleased him to give order for the principal stuffe of the vails and curtaines and frame for the matter and form of the Ark and Altars and Tables of the Face-bread yet he thought good not to neglect the punctuall directions for the Taches Snuffers Snuff-dishes beesomes and the meanest requisites of that sacred Fabrick Justice and Judgment which are the main businesses of the law must be chiefly regarded but yet even the tithing of mint and anyse and cummin may not be neglected Had not Simon the Pharisee meant an hearty welcome to our Saviour he had never undergone the envy of inviting him to his house but yet our Saviour finds him short of his due complements of the hospitall kiss of washing and anoynting Let no man say what matter is to be made of stuffes or colours or postures God is a Spirit and will be worshipt in Spirit and truth these bodily observations are nothing to that spirituall and infinite essence what Corinthian Gossip might not have said so to our Apostle yet he sees the respect of these circumstances so necessary that the neglect of them may yea will marr the substance and surely in all experience were it not for ceremonies what would become of state goverment conversation religion and yet of these there is great difference some ceremonies are no less then substance to others and beside the latitude of their nature they have one aspect as they look toward an imposing authority and another as they look toward an arbitrary use It is one thing what men take up out of will or custome another thing what they conform to out of duty and obedience so as what our superiors to whom we must leave to see further then our selves think fit to injoyne us out of their estimation of decency and order is not now left to the freedom of our election it is for them to judge it is for us to obey neither have we the like reason to censure them for imposing things indifferent which are found by them to conduce unto holy ends that they have to censure us for not observing them herein they are wise and just whiles we are conceitedly refractory I know how little I need to press this to a people where I can find nothing but an universal conformity only this touch was needfull if but to second and revive those late meet and expedientorders which we lately commended to your carefull and Christian observation This from the generall and confused view of this Apostolicall charge cast your eyes now upon the particular injunction The Woman ought to have power on her Head what is this power but a signification of her husbands power over her for it is worth observing that the Hebrew word which signifies a vail 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies also power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being derived from a root of that sense so as the meaning plainly is The woman ought to wear that on her head which may import and testifie that she is under her husbands power which is as the Valentinians read it not amiss in Irenaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a vail or covering here therefore ye have an evident Metonymy the thing signified which is the husbands power is put for that which signifies it which is the womans vail so as this proposition then lies open to a double consideration the one in reference to the thing signified which is the husbands power over the wife the other in reference to the sign implying it which is the wifes vail or covering of the head of both briefly The first that the husband hath power over the wife is so clear both in nature and reason that I shall willingly save the labour of a proof it is enough that by her Creatour she was made for an helper and an helper doth necessarily argue a principall it is enough for matter of instiution that he who gave her a will appointed it should be subject to the will of her husband which how deep an impression it took in very Heathens appears clearly enough in the Persian sages censure of Vashti Est. 1. And that it may appear the liberty of the Gospell doth no whit alter the case How do the blessed Apostles St. Paul and St. Peter redouble the charge of
custom for these contrary fashions neither are either of them to be censured as faulty and exorbitant and with us we hold the head uncovered if the hat be off though the cap be on others make no difference if there be ought at all on the head Consider Secondly that the hair was given by God both to Men and Women for an ornament for which cause though it pass in our account for no better then an excretion yet it was created together with Man and Woman in their first Perfection Were it not thus surely Baldnesse would be held a Beauty and noâ— a Blemish Neither would the Prophet Elisha have taken it for so haynous an affront that the children cryed ascende calve Neither would God have exprest it as an intimation of his severest judgment upon Israel on every head shall be baldness Jer. 48.37 Neither would God have ordained it for a law to Israel that he who was enamoured of a captive woman should first shave her hair to take off the edge of his affection Deut. 21.12 Neither would Nehemiah have taken this revenge of the hair of hiâ— mis-married Countrymen Nehem. 13.25 It was but a just question that Augustus Cesar askt his Daughter Julia when she had her white hairs pulled out daily whether within a few years she had rather be gray or bald And our story tells us that when it was askt why the Spartans suffred their hair to grow Ageselaus answerd that was the cheapest ornament that belong'd to the body In a word therefore if our hair were given for a deformity to us it could but be all hidden Let it be Thirdly considered that our Apostles main drift here is to give order for the habiting of women in the publique assemblies and exercises of their devotions not for their ordinary and domestique attire Which appears plainly in the 5th verse Every Woman that prayeth or prophesyeth with her head uncovered dishonoreth her head he saith not every woman that walkes abroad upon civill occasions or that staies at home upon her houshold affaires without a vail on her head dishonors her head and verse 13. Judge in your selves is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered It is a publique prayer that is there meant parallel to the prophesie before mentioned both which in these first times of the Church were in extraordinary use without the danger of a precedent to us upon whom the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Church and the ends of the World are at once come And if there were no more proofs my Text were enough which injoynes the vayling of the head is to be used because of the Angels relating as all interpreters give it to the publique Congregations of the Saints of God as we shall see in the sequele Lastly it must be known that this covering of the head hath principall relation to the face which is the best and most conspicuous part of the head so as it is supposed that the humility and modesty of the woman doth most show it self in the vayling of the face from the view of beholders the back parts of the head not giving so much cause of note and distinction not so much occasion of temptation to any eye those therefore who by vertue of this place would have all their hair hid must much more and upon better reason contend that their face should be alwayes covered wherein one absurdity and servile inconvenience would easily draw on another Shortly then it followes irrefragably from all this that however the garish and wanton fashion of the womans dissheveling her hair and the lascivious turning it into nets for the catching of fond and amorous eyes be justly forbidden both to grave matrons and to chast and well governd Virgins yet that no law of God or good reason disallowes such a moderate laying out of some part of the hair as may give a safe comeliness to the face without the just scandall of any wise beholder Neither doth that other Text make ought for this fancy where the Apostle tels us that the womans hair was given her for a covering but rather evinces the contrary The meaning is it was given her for a covering actively to cover her not passively to be covered by her For St. Paul intending to show how unseemly it was for women to show themselves in publique exercises with a bare face an open brow an uncovered hair before the multitude fetches an argument from nature it self which plainly points her what she ought to do in that it hath furnished her with a native vail which is her hair since therefore provident nature hath given her a long hair purposely to be a cover unto her it therein showes how fit it is that her modesty and discretion should provide her such a covering for her head when she will be opening her mouth in the publique assembly as may testifie her womanly bashfulnesse and humble subjection To shut up this point therefore there can be no just pretence from this or any other Scripture for this mis-raysed scrupulousnesse Rather for the contrary the holy Ghost seemes to make in that his Divine Epithalamion wherein he brings in Christ the Heavenly Bridegroom magnifying his bride the Church with this sweet allusion Behold thou art fair my love Behold thou art fair thou hast doves eyes within thy locks thy hair is as a flock of goates that appear from Mount Gilead Cantic 4.1 Lo the dove-like eyes of the Church are within her locks and her hair is not as an hidden flock but appears and that in a glorious beauty Let no well affected Christian bring her self under the bondage of an observation which God never injoyned or passe a groundless and rash verdict upon others for that which God hath never forbidden but with a due care of an holy outward decency Let every one in the fear of God look to the hidden Man of the heart in that which is not corruptible even the Ornament of a meek and quiet Spirit which is in the sight of God of great price 1 Pet. 3.4 And so I have done with the Rule or Canon of the Apostle Come we now to the grounds of it The former whereof hath reference to what he had concerning the eminent condition of the Man in respect of the Woman fetched from both the materiall and finall cause Materiall the woman is of the Man Finall the woman is created for the man not the contrary but because this point is coincident with that which we have formerly touched concerning the husbands superiority I shall not need to renew my discourse upon this subject but choose rather to descend to that second ground which by the vulgar and some Fathers quoting the place is brought in by way of a copulative And because of the Angels a ground so deep that great wits and judgments have professed not to fadom it Quid hoc sit saith learned Beza nondum intelligo and our no lesse learned Camâ—ron confesses that
herein Interpreters differ ut qui maxime For those late writers which have read the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because of the young Men I must needs say they would make a clear sense if we might take their words for the use of any such word in the Greek Tongue which for my part I must confess never to have met with To pass over the improbable guesses of many The words are taken by some in a borrowed sense by some others in a naturall In a borrowed sense by those either who by Angells here understand Gods Ministers or as those that take it for holy men of what ever profession These latter seem not to have any fair warrant for their interpretation since however we find somewhere that the Saints shall be in a condition like to the Angels yet no where do we find them called Angels the former want not good probability for their construction neither is it an unusuall thing with the Spirit of God to call his Ministers by the name of Angels So Malachy 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he is the Angel or Messenger of the Lord and of John the Baptist the same Prophet can say Malâ—c 3.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will send my messenger or Angel yea the very name of the Prophet that writes is no other then Malachy My Angel And ye know in the Apocalypse how oft the prime Governors of the Church are called Angels whereupon St. Chrysostome as I remember makes the reason of that full expression of St. Paul If an Angel from Heaven Galat. 1. to allude unto this distinction that even Gods Ministers are his Angels too though upon Earth a title given them both in regard of their mission and of their near relation to God and of those qualities which these Men of God should imitate in those blessed Spirits The very name is doctrinall and teacheth us both what God expects from us both to himself and you and what he expects from you to us From us faithfullnesse and diligence in his holy errands whereabouts we are sent to the World from you love and reverence to those Messengers which he imployes about your Salvation but it was my meaning only to call to this sense at the window in my passage as that which I hold not within the compasse of the Holy-Ghosts intention Doubtless the sense is naturall and proper not of men by way of allusion but of those which are Spirâ—ts by essence and yet even in this sense there is some variety of judgment whiles some take this to be spoken of evill Angels others of good Those which apply this to evill Angels are likewise in a double opinion For some take it passively least even those Angels should be tempted others actively least they should take occasion to tempt The former conceit is as gross as it hath been ancient of Tertullian and some others that even spirits to whom they ascribe a kind of materiality may be taken with the immodest venditation of a fleshly beauty to which purpose they do ignorantly mistake that of Genes 6.2 That the Sons of God saw the Daughters of Men that they were fair not considering the sequel that they took them wives of all that they chose Surely if ever spirits have affected these fleshly sins yet of marryed Spirits there was never dream in any sober head This fancy is too absurd to merit a confutation No doubt wicked spirits take delight in drawing the Sons of men to inordinate affections and beastly practises but that themselves place any pleasure in bodily obscenities is a matter not easie to be believed Or if they should be obnoxious to those carnall desires that the interposing of a vail should any way avail to the restraint of their wicked inclinations and purposes it is too poor a thought to enter into any wise understanding The other viz. least those Spirits should take this occasion of tempting might pass for currant if ever we could find in the whole body of the Scripture where the evill spirits are absolutely called Angels without some addition of distinction which is learned Camerons observation except only that one 1 Cor. 6.3 where they are so stiled for the greater honour of the Saints that shall judge them However the truth of the proposition is undeniable that so we ought to habit and order our selves that we may not give advantage to the evill Spirits either to our temptation or their prevalence we may be sure those tempters will omit no occasion of winning us to filthiness Do you not think that when they see wanton dames come disguised into Gods house as it were into the box of the play-house with their brest bare almost to the Navel their armes to the elbow their necks to the shoulder-points darting their lascivious eyes every way and in their whole fashion and gesture bewraying such lightness as might be able to debauch a whole assembly think ye not I say that they applaud themselves in so rich a booty as knowing that every eye that is transported and every heart that is fired with that immodest gazing-stock are so many spoiles and trophees of their Temptations It is a true and seasonable word that holy Cyprian said to the dames of his time that it was not enough for them to keep themselves from being corrupted by others solicitations unless they took care so to dress and deport themselves that they might not be occasions of raysing wanton thoughts in the beholders For surely we can not free our selves from those sins wherein others by our means though besides our particular intentions are insnared there is much liberty I confess in matter of attire but let me withall give you St. Pauls Item to his Galathians Brethren ye have been called to liberty only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another Galat. 5.13 When and how is our liberty an occasion to the flesh but when we do so pranck up and pamper our flesh as that we regard not therein any others dangers which when soever we are drawn to do we may be sure we have so wary and vigilant spirits to watch us as that no advantage can be let fall against our souls as therefore wise and carefull commanders do not only cast how to impugne oppresse and annoy an enemy but also how to remove those helps which might be advantageous to him in his siege even to the demolishing of Suburbs and stopping up of Fountaines and the like so must we do in this spirituall warfare of ours we must not only stir up our courage and indevors to resist and vanquish tentations but we must bend our utmost care upon the prevention and removall of whatsoever in our apparell carriage diet recreations may be likely to give furtherance to their assault or prevalency and in the whole practise of our lives so demean our selves as that we may according to the charge of the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not
Angels present and the people shout out their Amen and shall our piety this way be lesse than theirs Surely the Angels of God are inseparably with us yea whole cohorts yea whole Legions of those heavenly soldiery are now viewing guarding us in these holy meetings and we acknowledg them not we yeild not to them such reverent and awful respects as even flesh and blood like our own will expect from us Did we think the Angels of God were with us here durst those of us which dare not be covered at home as if the freedom of this holy place gave them priviledge of a loose and wild licentiousness affect all saucy postures and strive to be more unmannerly then their Masters Did we consider that the Angels of God are witnesses of our demeanour in Gods house durst we stumble in here with no other reverence then we would do into our Barne or Stable and sit down with no other care then we would in an ale-house or Theater Did we finde our selves in an assembly of Angels durst we give our eyes leave to rove abroad in wanton glances our tongues to walk in idle and unseasonable chat our ears to be taken up with frivolous discourse Durst we set our selves to take those naps here whereof we failed on our pillow at home certainly my beloved all these do manifestly convince us of a palpable unrespect to the blessed Angels of God our invisible consorts in these holy services However then it hath been with us hitherto let us now begin to take up other resolutions and settle in our hearts an holy aw of that presence wherein we are Even at thy home address thy self for the Church prepare to come before a dreadful Majesty of God and his powerful Angels thou seest them not no more did Elishaes servant till his eyes were opened It is thine ignorant and grosse infidelity that hath filmed up thine eyes that thou canst discerne no spiritual object were they but anointed with the eye-salve of faith thou shouldest see Gods house full of heavenly glory and shouldest check thy self with holy Jacob when he awaked from his divine vision Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not how dreadfull is this place this is no other but the house of God and this is the gate of Heaven Gen. 28.16 17. Oh then when thou settest thy foot over the threshold of Gods Temple tremble to think who is there lift up thine awfull eyes and bow thine humble knees and raise up thy devout and faithful soul to a religious reverence and fear of those mighty and Majestical Spirits that are there and of that great God of Spirits whose both they and thou art and study in all thy carriage to be approved of so glorious witnesses and overseeres That so at the last those blessed Spirits with whom we have had an invisible conversation here may carry up our departing soules into the heaven of heavens into the presence of that infinite and incomprehensibly-glorious God both theirs and ours there to live and raign with them in the participation of their unconceivable blisse and glory To the fruition whereof he that hath ordained us graciously bring us by the mediation and for the sake of his blessed Son Jesus To whom with thee O Father of Heaven and thy co-eternall Spirit three persons in one God be given all praise honor immortality now and for ever HOLY DECENCY IN THE WORSHIP of GOD. By J. H. B. N. I Know that a clean heart and a right spirit is that which God mainly regards For as he is a Spirit so he will be served in Spirit but withall John 4.24 as he hath made the body and hath made it a partner with the Soul so he justly expects that it should be also wholly devoted to him so as the Apostle upon good reason prayes for his Thessalonians that their whole Spirit and Soul 1 Thes 5.23 and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and beseeches his Romans by the mercies of God that they present their bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God Rom. 12.1 Now as the body is capable of a double uncleanness the one morall when it is made an instrument and agent in sin the other naturall when it is polluted with outward filthiness so both of these are fit to be avoided in our addresses to the pure and holy God the former out of Gods absolute command who hath charged us to cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of the flesh and Spirit the latter out of the just grounds of Decency 2 Cor. 7.1 and expedience for though there be no sinfull turpitude in those bodily uncleanenesses wherein we offer our selves to appear before the Lord our God yet there is so deep an unbeseemingness in them as places them in the next door to sin Perhaps Gods ancient people the Jewes were too superstitiously scrupulous in these externall observations whos 's Talmud tells us of one of their great Rabbies that would rather suffer under extremity of hunger and thirst then tast of ought with unwashen hands as counting that neglect equall to lying with an harlot and who have raised a great question whether if any of their poultry have but dipped their beak in the bowle the water may be allowed to wash in forbidding to void the urine standing except it be upon a descent of ground lest any drop should recoyle upon the feet and in case of the other evacuation beside the paddle-staffe and other ceremonies in uncovering the feet injoyning to turn the face to the South not to the East or West because those coasts had their faces directed towards them in their devotions what should I speak of their extreme curiosity in their outward observances concerning the Law which no man might be allowed to read whiles he was but walking towards the unloading of nature or to the Bathe or near to any place of annoyance no Man might so much as spit in the Temple or before that sacred Volumn or stretch forth his feet towards it or turn his back upon it or receive it with the left hand no Man might presume to write it but upon the parchment made of the skin of a clean beast nor to write or give a bill of divorce but by the side of a running stream yea the very Turks as they have borrowed our circumcision so also religious niceties from these Jewes not allowing their Alcoran to be touched by a person that is unclean But surely I fear these men are not more faulty in the one extreme then many Christians are in the other who place a kinde of holinesse in a slovenly neglect and so order themselves as if they thought a nasty carelessenesse in Gods services were most acceptable to him Hence it is that they affect homely places for his worship abandoning all magnificence and cost in all the acts and apendances of their devotion clay and sticks please
them better then Marble and Cedars Hence it is that their dresses make no difference of festivals all stuffes all colours are alike to them in all sacred solemnities Hence that they stumble into Gods house without all care or show of reverence and sit them down at his Table like his fellows with their hats on their heads Hence that they make no differnnce of coming with full panches to that heavenly banquet and that the very dogs are allowed free accesse and leave to lift up their legs at those holy tables In quibus populi vota membra Christi portata sunt Optat. Milevit l. 6. where we partake of the Son of God For the rectifying of which misconceits and practises let it be laid down as an undoubted rule that it is a thing well-pleasing to God that there should be all outward cleanliness gravity reverent and comely postures meet furniture utensils places used and observed in the service of the Almighty a truth sufficiently grounded upon that irrefragable Canon of the Apostle Let all things be done decently and in order whereof Order refers to persons 1 Cor. 14 40. and actions decency to the things done and the fashion of doing them disorder therefore and indecency as they are a direct violation of this Apostolick charge so doubtlesse they are justly offensive to the Majesty of that God whose service is disgraced by them as for disorder it falls not into our present discourse in matter of indecency the main disquisition will be how it may be judged and determined to know what is comly hath been of old noted to be not more commendable then difficult for the mindes of men may be of a different diet one may approve that for decent which another abhors as most unbeseeming Suarum rerum nemo non mitis arbiter pius judex Petrarch A Cynick curre or some Turkish Saint may think it not uncomly to plant his own kind in the open market place and Xenophon tells us of a certain people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Xenoph de â—aeped Cyrâ— l 5. called Mosynecians whose practise was to do all those acts in publick which other men men placing shame in them are wont to reserve for the greatest secrecy and contrarily to do those things in private which other Nations thought fit for the openest view and we finde that the Stigmatical Saint of the Church of Rome who could say of himself that God would have him fatuellum quendam Dixit mihi Dominus quod volebat me esse unum fatuellum in hoc mundo Conform Separator thought it no shame to go stark naked through the streets of Assisium So did Theodore the Taylor and seven Men and five Women Anabaptists strip themselves and ran naked through Amsterdam Guy de Bres Idem fecit coram Episcopo Assisii lib. Conform p. 211. But certainly there are unquestionable rules whereby decency may be both regulated and judged 1 Cor. 11.13.14.16 The great Doctor of the Gentiles when he would correct an indecent practise in his Corinthians uses these three expressions Judge in your selves is it comly Doth not nature it self teach you We have no such custome nor the Churches of God Wherein he sends us for the determination of decency to the judgment of our right reason undebauched nature and approved custome and surely if we follow the guidance of these three we cannot easily erre in our decision of comlinesse both in our carriage in humane affaires and in the services of God all these will tell us that it is most meet that all outward cleanliness gravity modesty reverence should be used in all the actions of divine worship and will in form us that whatsoever fashion of deportment is held rude uncivil in humane conversation is so much more indecent in divine actions by how much the person whom we deal with is more awful and worthier of the highest observance It is no other then an error therefore in those men who think that if they look to the inward disposition of the soul it matters not in what posture or what loathsome turpitude the body appears before the Almighty Even that slovenly Cinick when he saw a woman bowing her self forward too low in her devotion could chide her for her unregard to those deities which beheld her on all sides Our blessed Saviour though he had good cheere at the Pharisees house yet he somewhat taxeth his host for want of a due complement Luc. 7.44.46 I entred into thine house thou gavest me no water for my feet mine head with oyle didst thou not anoint c. He looks still for meet formalities of good entertainment as well as the substance of the dishes It was Gods charge that no steps should be made to go up to his altar Exod. 20 26. lest the nakednesse of the sacrificer should be discovered for this cause it was that he who made the first sute of skins for our first parents ordained linnen breeches for his Priests in their ministrations God hath no where commanded us to cut our nailes or our hair but it were a foul indecency not to do both and if we would justly loath a man that should come to our table like wild Nebuchadnezzar in the desert with hair to his wast and clawes on his fingers how much more odious would this seem in a man that should thus thrust himself in to the Table of the Lord and if our displeasure would justly arise at that barbarous guest which should come to our board with his hands be smeared with ordure or blood how can we think it can be otherwise then ill-taken of the holy God that we should in a beastly garbe offer our selves into his presence It is not onely in regard of spiritual filthyness that the evill Spirits are called unclean but even of external also wherein how much they delight we may well appeal to the confessions of those Witches and Sorcerers which upon their conviction and penitence have laid open the shameful rites of their nightly meetings Bod in Demonomania c. Augustin l. de Haeres Philastr de Haeres Neither was it without cause that some of their prime agents in the antient Church were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from those filthy fashions which were in use amongst them Gnostici borboritae quasi coenosi ob turpitudinem in suis mysteriis c. Contrarily what pleasure the pure and holy God takes in the cleannesse both of flesh and spirit is abundatly testifyed by to those many and strict injunctions of lotions and purifications which we finde upon every occasion in his antient law and though those lawes be not now obligatory as being for the substance of them ceremonial and typical yet they have in them so much tincture of an eternall morality as to imply a meetnesse of decent cleanlinesse in the services of God In the observation whereof it is meet for us to hold a midle way betwixt
but by the efficacy of the Spirit The soul hath an ear as well as the body when the ear of the soul hears the operative motions of Gods spirit as well as the ear of the body hears the external sound of the Gospel then are we called by God when true faith is wrought in the Soul as well as outward conformity in our life when we are made true Christians as well as outward professors then and not till then have we this calling from God Such then is our calling the election is answerable to it Not a temporal and external to some special office or dignity whereof our Saviour Have not I chosen you twelve John 6.70 and Moses his chosen Psal 106. Not a singling out from the most to an outward profession of Christ whereof perhaps the Apostle 1 Thes 1.4 Knowing beloved that ye are elect of God and the Psalmist Blessed is he whom thou choosest and causest to dwell in thy courts Psal 65.5 For notwithstanding this noble and happy priviledge little would it availe us to be sure of this and no more no profession no dignity can secure us from being perfectly miserable but an eternal election to glory whereof St. Paul Ephes 1.4 God hath chosen us in Christ before the foundations of the World that we might be holy and blamlesse before him in love and to his Colossians As the elect of God holy and beloved such as to whom saving Faith is appropriated the style whereof is Fidus electorum the faith of the Elect Tit. 1.1 Such then is our calling and elction Now this calling this election must be made sure or firme as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies sure and firme not on Gods part who we know is unchangble in his nature in his counsels So as in that regard our election if it be at all is most sure and surer cannot be but on ours not only in respect of the object which is the truth and immutability of the thing it self but in respect of the subject too the soul that apprehends it so sure that it cannot be falsified cannot be disappointed It is not for us to expect such a certainty of knowledg in this point as there is of Principles of Arts or of those things whereof common sence assures us Our Schoolmen make distinction of a certainty evident and inevident Evident which ariseth out of the clearness of the object it self and the necessary connection of the termes as that the whole is greater then a part Inevident which arises not so much out of the intrinsecal truth of the proposition it self as out of the veracity and infallibleness of the party that affirmes it So both Divine and Humane faith receive their assurance from the Divine or Humane authority whereon it is grounded and this inevident assurance may be so certain as to expel all prevailing doubt though not all troubling doubt Neither need there any other for the Articles of our creed which we take upon the infallible trust of him who is the truth it self and can no more deceive us then not be This latter is the certainty which we must labour to attain unto In the grant whereof our Romish Divines are generally too straight-laced yielding yet a Theological certainty which goes farr but not home although some of them are more liberal as Catharinus Vega Ruardus Tapperus and Pererius following them which grant that some holy men out of the feeling and experience of the power of Gods Spirit in them may without any speciall revelation grow to a great height of assurance if not so as that they may swear they are assured of this happy estate of grace yet so as that they may be as confident of it as that there is a Rome or Constantinople which one would think were enough but the rest are commonly too sparing in the inching out of the possibilitie of our assurance by nice distinctions Cardinal Bellarmine makes six kindes or degrees of certainty whereof three are clear three obscure the three first are the certainty of understanding the certainty of knowledg the certainty of experience The first of them is of plain principles which upon meer hearing are yielded to be most true without any traverse of thoughts The second is of conclusions evidently deduced from those principles The third is of the matters of sense about which the eye or eare is not deceived The three latter certainties which are more obscure are those of Faith or Beleefe and the degrees thereof The first whereof is the certainty of the Catholick or Divine faith which depending upon Gods authority cannot deceive us The second is the certainty of humane faith so depending upon Mans authority and in such matters as shut out all fear of falshood or disappointment in believing them as that there was an Augustus Caesar a Rome a Jerusalem The third is the certainty of a well grounded conceit which he pleaseth to call conjecturall raised upon such undoubted signes and proofs as may make a Man secure of what he holdeth and excludes all anxiety yet cannot utterly free him from all fear This last he can be content to yield us and indeed in his stating the question stands onely upon the deniall of the certainty of a Divine faith in this great affair we are ready to take what he gives so as then here may be a certainty in the heart of a regenerate Man of his calling and election and such a one as shall render him holily secure and free from anxiety Let the distinguisher weary himself with the thoughts of reconciling certitude with conjectures security with fear let us have the security and let him take the fear to himself Shortly then whiles the Schools make much ado of what kind of certainty this must be taken whether of faith or of hope or of confidence surely if it be such an hope and confidence as makes not ashamed by disappointing us both are equally safe It is enough if it be such a fiduciall perswasion as cannot deceive us nor be liable to falshood But how far then reaches this assecuration So far as to exclude all fears all doubting and hesitation Neither of these Not all kind of fear for we are bidden to work out our salvation with fear and trembling Philip. 2. and to spend the time of our pilgrimage in fear 1 Pet. 1. Not doubting which the counsell of Trent would seem to cast upon our opinion we cannot be so senseless as not in the conscience of our infirmities and manifold indispositions find our selves put to many plunges but yet so as that by the power of our faith which is the victory that overcomes the World at last we do happily recover and find our selves freed by a comfortable and joyfull â—â—uctation If any Man could be so fond as to think we stand so sure that we shall never shake or move he grosly misconceives our condition but if so sure that we shall never be turned up by the roots never
carnal he threats with death If ye live after the flesh ye shall dye Those which are regenerate contrary to the wicked paradox of those men he assures of life If ye mortifie the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit ye shall live How doth he exclude the Spirit of bondage to fear which these good guides would lead in again how confidently doth he averr the inward testimony of Gods Spirit to ours and ascribes that voice to it which bars all doubt and disappointment and tels us by the powerful assurance of this Abba we are sons and if sons heirs coheirs with Christ Let them now go and say that God may disinherit his own son that he may cast off his adopted But say they to the same regenerate persons he applyes these two clauses and saith at once ye have received the Spirit of adoption and yet if ye walk after the flesh ye shall die what followes of this commination any assertion of the possibility of Apostasy in the regenerate Nothing lesse These threats are to make us take better hold and to walk more warily as a father that hath set his little son on horseback it is Zanchies comparison bids him hold fast or else he shall fall though he uphold him the while that both he may cause him hereby to sit fast and call the more earnestly for his supportation But the scope of the place plainly extorts a division of carnal men and regenerate the threats are propounded to the one the promises and assurance to the other and therefore no touch from hence of our uncertainty in a confessed estate of renovation For that Mat. 12.43 The Apodosis or inference of the parable might well have stop't the mouthes of these Cavillers for you shall finde in the end of it so shall it be with this wicked generation I suppose no man will be so absurd as to say these Jewes had formerly received true justifying faith How should they when they rejected the Messias And yet of them is this parable spoken by our Saviours own explication Maldonate himself a learned and spightful Jesuite can interpret it no otherwise Ideo Christus hoc dixit ut doceret pejores esse Judaeos quam si nunquam Dei legem cognitionem accepissent and to this purpose he cites Hilary Hierom Beda and this sence is so clear that unlesse the seven Devils had found harbour in the dry hearts of these men they could not so grosly pervert it Quench not the Spirit 1 Thes 5. will never prove a final or total extinction of saving grace the Spirit is quenched when the degrees of it are abated when the good motions thereof are by our security let fall we grant the Spirit may be quenched in tanto not in toto Or if we should so take it as they desire I remember Austin parallels this place with that other to Timothy Let no man despise thy youth Not saith he that the Spirit can be quenched or that contempt can be avoided but that in the one we may not indeavour to do that which may tend towards this wrong to the Spirit and in the other that we should be careful not to do that which may procure contempt The place I remember not directly but numeros teneo si verba tenerem But in all likelyhood that place sounds quite another way as may appear by the connexion of it with those two sentences following As if he should have said discourage not the graces that you finde in any of your Teachers despise not their preaching trye their doctrines And now what is this to the falling from Grace Which of us do not teach the necessity of perseverance He only that indures to the end shall be saved Be faithful to the death and c. But he that hath ordained we shall be saved hath ordained our perseverance as a mean to this salvation and hath appointed these sharp advises as the means and motives of our perseverance So as he that shall be saved shall also indure to the end Because no man plucks them out of my hand saith Christ How evidently doth the Spirit of God proclaime our certainty against these doubt-mongers Every where is he as full of assurance as these men of discomfort He that is borne of God sinneth not neither can sin because he is born of God and the seed of God remaines in them what an invincible 1 Jo. 3.3 and irrefragable consolation is this The seed of life is sown in the hearts of the elect though they could be dead to themselves yet to God they cannot And what a supposition is that of Christ that if it were possible the very elect should be deceived Desponsabo te mihi in perpetuum Mat. 24. Hos 2. and a thousand of this strain which your exercise in those holy leaves hath I doubt not abundantly furnisht you withal hold fast then my dear friend this sure anchor of our undeceivable hope and spit in the face of men or Devils that shall go about to slacken your hand Let these vain Spirits sing despair to themselves for us we know whom we have believed Thus hath my pen run it self out of breath in this so important a demand and much a do have I had to restrain it neither would I give you one houres intermission to my answer which I know your love cannot but accept as that which proceeds from aâ— heart zealous both of God and you Reverendissimo Viro D o. Marco Antonio DE DOMINIS Archiep. SPALATENSI Epistola DISCESSUS SUI Ad ROMAM dissuas NOli gravate ferre Reverendissime Praesul candidam hanc animi calami devotissimi tibi utriusque libertatem sane expressit mihi vel renitenti verba haec prius sincerus quidam religionis zelus tui Fama est te discessum a nobis meditari neque tam loco cedere velle quam fide strenua profecto suspicione non caret hoc ipsum proficisci neque enim cujusquam subire mentem potest hominem senem velle animi causa peregrinari deferbuit procul dubio jam diu juvenilis ille ardor relictas pridem oras curiose revisendi nec ita crassi sumus insulares ut credere possimus coelum te mutare velle nisi animum prius quadam-tenus mutare decrevisses multo vero minus septem illos invisos coelo totiesque tuo fulmine ictos colles repetere novimus nos sat bene ingenium Romae ecquem latere potest nedum hominem cordatum quam infida sit illa statio superbae Hierarchiae expugnatori Moneat te olim vester Fulgentius quam nihil ita tutum sit Pontificiae Majestatis tantillo violatori etiam post fidem si qua famae fides sancte datam post promissa munera post benignissimae invitationis blanditias Viderit tua prudentia ut te vel propudiosissima Palinodia tactaeque quas de jerasti prius arae liberaverint O tuam si quem modo profiteris sanus
gone and doth go a mid-way betwixt these so ascribing all to grace that it destroyes not nature teaching us as Bernard well that we will is from nature that we will good and well is from grace But if it stick with you that we are bidden to draw nigh to God and therefore we can do it else the exhortation were vain and reason-lesse know that these charges show us what we should do not what we can do and that he who bids us can and doth together with the word of his invitation inable us to do what he requires his Spirit working with his word effects what he commands As a mother or nurse bids the child come to her but reaches forth a finger to uphold it in the walk If therefore Wisdom say in the Proverbs 1.17 I love them that love me yet St. John must comment upon Solomon prior dilexit he loved us first else we could never have loved him 1 John 4.19 It is true that in order of time there is no difference betwixt Gods working and our willing our conversion so soon as it is fire it burnes and if it burnes it is fire but in order of nature Gods work is before ours as the cause before the effect As we therefore say sensibly blow the fire and it will burne implying that our blowing doth not make it to be fire but helps to intend the heat where fire is so doth the Spirit of God say here draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you Our first motion of drawing to God is the work of God he that thus drawes our will to him upon our pliant obedience to his will thus graciously seconds and rewards his own work in us so if we draw nigh to him by his co-working grace he will draw nearer still to us by his perfecting grace And oh how happy a condicion is this whosoever hath by Gods mercy attained unto it What can that man want who injoyes him that possesses all things In thy presence is the fulnesse of joy saith the Psalmist as contrarily in his estranging of himself from us there is nothing but grief and horrour It is with God and the Soul as betwixt the Sun and the Earth In the declining of the Year when the Sun drawes afar off from us how doth the Earth mourne and droop how do the Trees cast off the ornaments of their leaves and fruit how doth the Sap of all Plants run down to the root and leave the bare boughs seemingly feare and dead But at the approach of it in the rising of the Spring all things seem revived the earth decks her self in her fresh abiliments of blossomes leaves flowers to entertain those comfortable heats and influences so and more is it in the declining or approach of this all-glorious Sun of righteousnesse In his presence there is life and blessednesse in his absence nothing but dolour disconsolatenesse despair if an earthly King do but withdraw himself from us for a time we are troubled how much more if the King of glory shall absent himself from us in displeasure Surely nothing but our sins can estrange him from us our miseries do rather attract him to us our sins are only they that separate between God and us That we may therefore shut up in some application there is the same reason of a particular soul and of a whole Church one of these is but an abridgment of the other there is therefore the same consideration of Gods absence from or presence with both And certainly if sins can alienate a people from God and God from a people we have cast our selves miserably aloof from him For which of his commandments have we not shamefully violated wo is me how is our patient God affronted by us every day By our atheous profanesse by our frequent oathes and blasphemies by our wilfull disobediences by our pride excesse drunkennesse uncleanesse usury cozenages oppressions lying slanderous detractions as if we would utterly casheere the ninth commandement out of the Decalogue Yea what evil is there under Heaven that we can wash our hands of But withall we are so much the further off from God by how much we either were or or should have been nearer of a people that knew not God that could not know him no other could be expected Had we had the Gospel of the Kingdome lock't up from us and been kept hood-wink't from the knowledg of his royall Law the times of such ignorance God had not regarded But now that we have had so clear a light of Gods truth shining in our faces and such importunate solicitations from God to reclaim us from our wicked wayes by his Messengers rising early and suing to us and yet have as it were in spight of Heaven continued and aggravated our wickednesses Alas what excuse is there for us how can we do other then hang down our heads in a guilty confusion and expect a fearfull retribution from the just hand of God Thus have we done to God and whilest we have gone away from him hath he done other to us Hath he not given too just testimonies of withdrawing his countenance from us Hath he not for these many years crossed us in our publick designes both of war and peace Hath he not threatned to stir up evill against us out of our own bowels Nay which is worse then all this hath he not given us up to a generall security obdurednesse and insensiblenesse of heart so as we do not feel either our own sins or our dangers or relent at all at his judgments Alas Lord thou art too far off from us and we have deserved it yea we have too well deserved that thou shouldst turn thy face away from us for ever that thou shouldest draw near to us in thy vengeance who have so shamefully abused thy mercy But what shall we say Whatsoever we be we know thou wilt be ever thy self a God of mercy and compassion long suffering and great in kindnesse and truth so bad as we are could we have the Grace to draw nigh to thee in an unfained re-repentance thou wouldst draw nigh to us in mercy and forgivenesse Could we turne away from our sins to thee thou wouldst turne away from thy judgments to us Lord what can we do to thee without thee Oh do thou draw us unto thee that we may come Do thou enable us to draw nigh unto thee upon the feet of our affections upon the hands of our actions upon the knees of our prayers that so thou mayest draw nigh to us in thine Ordinances in thine Audience in thy grace and mercy in thine Aid and Salvation All this for thy mercy sake and for thy Christs sake to whom with thee O Father and thy good Spirit one infinite God be given all praise honour and glory now and for ever Amen A SERMON Preacht on WHITSUNDAY June 9. 1644. in the GREEN-YARD OF NORWICH By JOS. B. of N. EPHES. 4.30 And grieve not the holy