spirit of God could effect it for so that particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As by the spirit of the Lord signifieth causam congruam dignam tantae transformationis as C. à Lapide rightly observeth All cometh to this and all fully to my present purpose That now when God is in Christ so fully as I may say exhibited and exposed to our view and in the Gospel so clearly manifested and held forth to us He expecteth and where grace prevaileth he thereby effecteth such a change and transformation that we are not like our former selves but are molded into his likeness and having laid aside our corrupt nature we are made partakers of his Divine Nature This is or should be according to Paul's doctrine there the effect of the Gospel and as Calvin observeth upon my Text according to Peter's doctrine here when he saith that the exceeding great and precious Gospel-promises are given to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that by them we should be partakers of the Divine Nature He telleth us this is the end of the Gospel Notemus hunc esse Evangelii finem ut aliquando Deo conformes reddamur id verò est quasi Deificari that at last we may be conformable to God which is as it were to be Deified or as our Apostle phraseth it to be made partakers of the Divine Nature Which whilst we are so plentifully partakers of the Gospel we should be exceedingly ashamed of that we so far fall short of it which yet the very Heathens so much aspired to who fell so short of us as thus in pattern so 2. In principle for as our pattern is more clear so our principle is more high This conformity to God in true Christians you heard from 2 Cor. 3. 18 is from the spirit of the Lord whilst by the spirit of Christ inlightning and regenerating we are renewed after the Image of God Col. 3. 10. As also from faith in Christ laying hold of thâ—se exceeding great and precious promises of the Gospel and on Christ in them from whose fulness alone God would have us receive grace for grace grace in us answerable and conformable to grace in him and so to be partakers of the Divine Nature Now this faith these promises this Christ and this spirit of Christ those Heathens and their most â—â—â—limate Philosophers were utter strangers to him they knew not to him by faith they went not nay out of themselves they went not but to their Philosophical moral considerations and their purgative vertues to which they ever joyned their heathenish idolatries and superstitious lustrations and sacrifices With Porphyrie to his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometimes to their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 charms and sorceries as utterly inconsistent with the Divine nature as the true God is contrary to a vain idol and therefore it is no wonder that it was so wofully deformed a deiformity which they arrived at how trimly soever their admirers do trim it up and turkess it And therefore when there is so much more light and power in the Gospel when our both pattern and principle so far every way exceed theirs Surely God cannot but expect that it should be another-kins likeness to him that we should attain to than what they arrived at And on the contrary let us sadly think what a shame it is to us and to the Gospel too that when there is so much of God in it there should be so little in us who profess it That when we read David's Psalms and the other Prophets writings in the old Testament we should find so much light and life that they both breath and express so much of God in them and we so little so that in truth although as Eusebius observeth they were not called yet indeed they were the true Christians and many of us are really as much without God as we are strangers from that Commonwealth of Israel Especially that even Heathens should herein exceed us that they should so honourably speak of that God whom we so blaspheme that they should express more of God by the twilight of nature than we in the sun-shine of the Gospel that Erasmus should so hardly forbear to pray to Socrates as a Saint whilst many who are named Christians may without breach of charity be called Atheists that any of us should have upon us such black marks of the Devil when on many of them we may discover though ruder yet very lovely characters and lineaments by the help only of their natural Divinity of the Divine nature which we who have better means in all reason should be more possessed of SERMON XX. ON 2 PET. 1. 4. AND should it be here asked what those means are which Quest we should make use of whereby to attain to this high honour and happiness I must answer that all that we of our selves can do as to any Ans inward worth or efficacy operative of so great an effect is just nothing We that can do nothing to make our selves men surely can do as little to make our selves men of God can less concur to the producing of this Divine nature than we did to our humane both are a Creation and therefore the work of God only but yet so as we are to make our addresses to him for the one now that we have a natural being which we could not for the other when he had none And here as the Divine nature essentially considered in God is common to all thâ—â—hree persons so this communicated symbolical Divine nature in us is the common work of them all and therefore to them all we are to make our applications for it 1. To God the Father who as he is Fons Deitatis and communicates Means that Divine nature to the Son and the spirit so he is Fons Gratiae and through the Son by the Spirit imparts this Divine nature to all his children It was his breath that breathed into Adam at first that soul in which especially was his image and it must be his breathing still that must breath into our hearts that divine grace in which consists that his image renewed and this Divine nature God our Creatour is the Author of this new Creature And here the means of it on our parts is by humble and earnest prayer to breath after him for it as the dying man gaspeth for breath that is going away or rather as the dry earth gapeth for heavens rain and influence which it wanteth and so in this systole and diastole upon the out-breathing of our souls and desires followeth in God's way the breathing in of this Divine breath of life the quickning spirit by which we are made spiritual living souls In this case it was said of Saul Behold he prayeth Acts 9. 11. For although it be true that the prayers of the wicked whilst they purpose to go on in sin are an abomination to the Lord Prov. 28. 9. And as true that the prayer
what Christ is to a Christian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theophylact upon my Text Light and Life and Breath and all things whilst he breaths in from Christ Comfort and Joy and breaths out Love and Praise O Lord by these things Men live saith Hezekiah Isa 38. 16. and in these things is the Life of my Spirit saith a true Christian I cannot live without them without Christ and Interest and Comfort in him I am weary of my Life as Rebekah said and what good will my Life do me Gen. 27. 46. Sine Christo enim vanum est omne quod vivimus Hierom It 's vain and to no purpose not worth the while not worth all the vanity and vexation we here meet with to live if we live out of Christ or not to him or not in communion with him Indeed our Riches and Possessions and outward Enjoyments are usually called our Livelihood or Living in the World's Dialect and according to it the Scripture sometimes so stiles them Luke 15. 12 30. and 21. 4. but withal it elsewhere tells us that which our Experience finds to be most true that a Man's Life confists not in the abundance of such Possessions Luke 12. 15. I am sure a Believer's doth not notwithstanding the greatest affluence of such Livelihoods if he want Christ his is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lifeless Life As the Spouse in Christ's absence Cant. 5. 8. is sick of Love so the faithful Spouse dyeth away and cannot live without him The whole World is not a Paradise but a Wilderness without this Tree of Life in it And although they told Naomi that Obed her Grandchild would be the Restorer of her Life Ruth 4. 15. yet it is neither Child nor Father nor Friend that is either Giver or Restorer or Preserver of a Christian's but Christ only and he alone alsufficiently Quamdiu Christi gloria incolumis perstat c. as he saith as long as Christ's Hyperius Glory and my Interest in him is intire and whole I am well I live and am lively amidst all other cool fainting Qualms and Swoons This is the Life-Bloud of my Heart which keeps it warm and alive whilst my Desires Loves Joys close with him and are animated by him SERMON XL. PHIL. 1. 21. II. Sermon Preacht at St. Maries August 15. 1658. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain ANd as thus our Life is seated in the Heart so as I may say it breaks forth in the lips And so 3. In the third place Christ is our Life when in the course of our Life we much breath Christ making him the Subject of our Discourse and ever frequently and freely setting forth his Truth Grace and Praises when whatever we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Word all is in the Name of the Lord Jesus as the Apostle speaks to this purpose Col. 3. 17. This I the rather mention because it 's a great part of the Apostle's meaning here in the Text where when he saith to him to live is Christ he meaneth that if he live his Life shall be spent in preaching Si vixero nihil aliud mihi proposui quam ut Christum glorificem praedicando c and setting forth of Christ in the Ministry of the Gospel as Calvin and others jointly interpret it And he was as good as his word his Practice herein being very observable for our imitation in these following particulars 1. In delighting very often and upon all occasions to make mention of the Name of Jesus Christ above 450 times in his fourteen Epistles hoc patiebatur Paulus ex nimio amore Christi ut In Ephes 1. quem diligebat superflue extraordinarie nominaret as Hierom expresseth it It seems Christ lived much in his Heart when out of the abundance of it he breathes him so fast and his Mouth Assiduum Jesu nomen domi foris ere resonare docuit Gazaei pia hilaria Tom. 2. Pag. 478. It 's said of Anselm Ejus ori nunquam Christus defuit Edinerus in ejus vitâ so abundantly speaks of him and that so very often that by Heathen Elegancy it would be counted a Tautology but yet no Popish Battology which appears in some of their superstitious Prayers too too affectedly repeating the Name of Jesus to make as it were a Charm of it and with the upstart Sect of Jesuits would be known by their continual both at home and abroad naming the Name Jesus But Paul that had none of their superstition had more love of Christ in this his so frequent not affected but affectionate naming of him 2. Observe likewise that to this purpose he studiously taketh nay often in his Writings maketh occasions to make mention of him and as it were casts about to bring him in as we often do to meet with a Friend or to give occasion of Speech of that which our Heart is set upon So the Vain-glorious Man is wont to hook in a Discourse which may give occasion of speech of that by which he might fan to himself his own praise But humble Paul so as that thereby he might take opportunity to Exalt the Honour of Jesus Christ 3. Take notice also when he hath so gotten an Opportunity of mentioning Christ how then he runneth Descant upon it and as though he had left and forgotten what formerly he was speaking of what large and long Excursions he makes into this happy Latifundium even to Hyperbatons and Anantapodotons * Which make sometimes the coherence and sense of his words more difficult which an Heathen Orator would reckon Inter viti◠Sermonis and even Hierom notes in him as Soloecisms But our holy Apostle chose rather to forget himself than Christ and to be esteemed rude and barbarous in Speech than to be tongue-tied nay not exuberant in the Praises of his Lord and Saviour 4. To this purpose in the last place observe when speaking of Christ and the things of Christ how he delights in most emphatical and superlative Expressions in augmentative Compositions of words heaping Comparatives upon Comparatives and Superlatives upon Superlatives when the word signified Eminency adding an augmentative Particle to heighten it as though he could never speak enough or high enough of Christ and his Excellencies in which though something is to be given to that Fervidum ingenium which is observed to be naturally in him yet more to that transcendent high Admiration that Fervour of warm zealous lively vigorous Love of Christ which so abounded in his Heart that it thus burst forth in these Superlative and almost Hyperbolical expressions of it Of this sort are his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes 1. 2. 4. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 8. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 2. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 1. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 1. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 4. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes 3. 20. as
live to our selves but to think and designe how we may live and be subservient therein to Christ His Interest should direct determine subordinate and qualify all As the Box smells of the Musk that is in it so should all our designs and undertakings of Christ and as the Artery goeth along with the Vein so should Christ with whatever our warmest Life-Bloud runneth in and therefore our thoughts should run much in this Channel Jacob said to Laban thou knowest how I have served thee but when shall I provide for my own House Gen. 30. 29 30. I have lived thus long and thus much to my self but how much mean while to Christ By all these Employments and Attainments I have exalted my self but have they been as so many under-steps to lift up Christ the more and me nearer to him I have other ways gained so much and so much but how much or rather how little have I gained to my Lord and Master by them This were a right Anagogical Sense and Interpretation of our Lives and Actions And thus to live were Christ whilst we reduce and subordinate all to him 3. And this if with all diligence and seriousness earnestness and liveliness for we do not loiter it when we labour for Life Then Skin for Skin and all that a Man hath will be give for it Job 2. 4. And so when Moses told Israel that their obedience to God's Commands was not a vain thing but it was their Life as much as their Life was worth he thinks he hath cause to bid them set their hearts to it with all seriousness Deut. 32. 46 47. and indeed Life is active and lively I am sure a Christian 's should be so if Christ be his Life for 〈◊〉 was not idle but still in his Fathers business ever going up and down doing good and Paul who Act. 10. 38. laboured as he said that the Life of Christ might be manifested in him how active and serious and unweariable was he in Christ's 2 Cor. 4. 11. service He in another sense said to the Corinthians so then Death worketh in us but Life in you but it was Ironically for v. 12. he was very far from being a dead-hearted Servant No the Life of Christ was excedingly operative in him according to that Colos 1. 29. in which almost every word hath a quick Emphasis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereunto I also labour and the word signifieth a cutting labour striving against Dangers and difficulties as the Actors in the Olympick Games with all contention and earnestness yea this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 secundum efficacem illam vim according to the Energy and most effectual power and efficacy and that of Christ which wrought in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 potenter mightily I thus to live was Christ when Christ and his Spirit thus effectually and mightily lived and wrought in him and the like he called for in others not to be slothful in service but fervent in Spirit whilst they served the Lord Rom. 12. 11. For on the contrary nothing almost is so unlike yea and contrary to Life especially the Life of Christ than a dull listless Dead-heartedness a cold benummed Frozenness or an indifferent Lukewarmness in service unworthy and falling short of that animi presentia and vigour of Spirit which was found in Heathen Worthies as in him who said se malle mortuum esse quam Curius Dentatatus non vivere that he had rather dye out-right and be dead than to be dull and rather not to live at all than not to be lively for which Drones and Dullards the Pythagoreans would have prepared a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore how much more unworthy is it for Christians who pretend to the Life of Christ whilst they say Christ is their Life to be either all amort Nabal-like through Dejections or to be dull and dead through the Lethargy of Spiritual Sloth Listlesness and Negligence to be as the Scripture speaketh either dull of hearing Heb. 5. 11. when we should be swift to hear James 1. 19. slow of heart to believe Luk. 24. 25. when we should receive the Word as they Act. 2. 41. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gladly or as the more noble-spirited Bereans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with all readiness of mind Acts 17. 11. when the work of Christ is a weariness to us and we puff at it as Matth. 11. 30. 1 John 5. 3. under a burden Mal. 1. 13. when Christ's Yoke should be easy to us and his Burden light and no command of his grievous In a word when what is said of the wanton Widow in regard of her 1 Tim. 5. 6. wantonness may be said of us for our sloth and negligence that we are dead whilst we live But is not this to seek the living among the dead Or is the Life of Christ in this deadness whilst we thus present God with dead Hearts dead Prayers and Services Is this as the Apostle requireth to offer to him that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 12. 1. living Sacrifice Thus to live is it Christ Or expresseth it any thing of the Life of Christ whom the Scripture calls a quickning 1 Cor. 15. 45. Spirit not only at the last day to raise up our dead Bodies but now also by his Grace and Spirit to enliven our dead Hearts Is this any partaking of the Divine Nature which is a pure Act to be thus restive Sure those that come nearer to it give another kind of resemblance of it The Heavens in their unwearied motion and the Sun that like a mighty Man rejoyceth to run his Psal 19. 5. Race the glorious Cherubims whose pictures God would have made in his Temple delighting in them as Stella observeth as Emblems maximae velocitatis of greatest swiftness and chearfulness in his Service as also the Seraphims of burning Zeal who in Isaiah's Vision are described to have six Wings to shew saith Isa 6. 2. Cornelius a Lapide that vere obediens est totus alatus and are there said both to stand and fly to signify as he addeth that Deo adstare volare est that to stand before God as his Servants is speedily and chearfully to fly at his Commands But to come lower to them in a lower Orb who dwell in dull and heavier Houses of Clay yet if the Spirit and Life of Christ dwell there especially if with some more freedom Paul often expresses his Course by the metaphor of running which expresseth speed and earnestness and David 2 Sam. 6. 14. 16. danceth before 1 Cor. 9. 26. Gal. 2. 2. 2 Tim. 4. 7. the Ark which manifesteth his chearfulness but the words in the Hebrew are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 words not so usual and one of them in formâ duplicatâ to hold forth David's extraordinary and double vigour in that Service and which signify intense strength and seriousness and therefore translated Saltabat
they are in the sense before explained to be accounted loss that we may gain Christ I. All Worldly Excellencies and advantages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 6. 3 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 John 2. 16. such as the Apostle there calls the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life i. e. Pleasure Profit Honour and the repute of great place learning wisdom ease liberty health life it self Of all which all that I have now to do is to shew 1. That Paul and all the faithful of his spirit ever de facto did and do esteem them all loss and dung in comparison of Christ 2. That de jure there was and is very great reason so to do 3. For application that it is our duty to be answerably affected 1. That Paul was so the Text speaks aloud in the fore-mentioned particulars Nor was it only for a good mood here once but his deliberate judgment and constant frame of spirit at other times in all his writings For Christs sake his profit was lost whilst he served him in much Poverty Hunger and thirst cold and 2. Cor. 11. 27. nakedness that he was fain to send from Rome as far as to Ephesus 2 Tim. 4. 13. for a Cloak to cover it His pleasure exchanged for weariness and painfulness stripes and imprisonments so that he had had a very unpleasant life of it but that for Christs sake he took pleasure in infirmities And as for honour and repute he had learnt in the cause of Christ to digest evil report as well as good to be accounted amongst the filth and off-scouring of the World one who for his sect was a learned Pharisee and for his personal abilities eminent above his fellows whilst he desired to know nothing but Christ Jesus and him Crucified he is content that the Corinthians shall account him a fool and that Felix shall call him a mad man such a dunghil was the world to him whilst Christ was the only Pearl And although he was herein eminent yet not so singular as to be alone in this estimate for Christ was The desire of all Nations The Apostle speaks indefinitely but meaneth universally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 2. 7. To you to all you that believe he is precious or as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports the price it self by and in reference to which every true believer prizeth all things and it above all Hence even in the time of the law and before when the Beauty and worth of Christ was seen at a further distance and through darker shadows nothing in the whole City could 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prove a Cordial to the Spouse sick of love as long as she met not Hebr. 11. 13. Cant. 3. 5. with her beloved Nay Asaph had none either in Earth or Heaven but him Psal 73. 25. so that it seems all besides him was nothing Israel thrice a year left all to come to the Temple a type of Christ and yet never lost by it It was by the faith of a Messiah Heb. 11. that Abraham left all Isaac and Jacob and the other Patriarks proved Pilgrims that Moses so undervalued the Court Honour and the Treasure of Egypt But especially in the times of the Gospel when the unsearchable riches of Christ were more revealed in the very dawning of the morning this Phosphorus shined so bright that the Magi came from a far Country took a tedious and dangerous journey and ran the hazard of proclaiming him King under the Tyrants Nose But when this Sun of Righteousness was got more up how willingly doth the wise Merchant sell all to buy this Pearl Matth. 13. 46. their garments are made his Foot-cloth their hair his Towel the pretious Box of Spikenard broken and none but a Judas accounted it too costly to anoint even the feet of the anointed Messiah What an honour did they account it to suffer shame for Christ Act. 5. 41. How ambitious of disgrace How greedy of gain by losing all for him They loved not their lives unto death Rev. 12. 11. is but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that loves his life accounts nothing more precious than life and therefore on the contrary he that is said not to love it is prodigal of it and so Beza there rendreth it And this not only with those Apostles and first Disciples and other Primitive Martyrs and Confessors Not only with a Galeacius or Pizzardus or other such more noble Heroes who When bribed with all the World could promise to be drawn from Christ could readily return answer and say Thy money perish with thee valeat vita pereat pecunia veniat Christus And when threatned and pursued with whatever the malice of man or Devil could invent to drive them from Christ yet a Polycarpus could not speak an ill word of his Master whom he had served so long and never had hurt from When called upon but to think what they did an holy Cyprian will not take time to deliberate and in the midst of the flames to a holy Lambert None but Christ None but Christ Blest Souls we envy them not their Aureola who on those higher stilts could thus easily stride over the highest Mountains in this World to get to their Saviour in that other It s our Crown of Rejoycing if haud passibus aequis we can but follow them in this way And truly the poorest weakest Infant-Believer who can but creep yet can go thus far as to be able from the heart to say Christ is All and All in Comparison of Him is Nothing 1. It s the first word that the infant can speak and this it can and doth speak at its first renewed Birth and Conversion This self-denial the first Lesson then taught in the School of Christ The voice of the Crier in the Wilderness that first proclaimed Christ blasted as so much withering grass all the glory of the Creature Isa 40. 6. That eye and heart that as the Prophet speaks before Jer. 22. 17. was not but for Covetousness c. is now so unmoveably fixt on Christ that then at least it overlooks all else and eyeth him only ipsum ipsum cupido tantum spectare vacavit As Statius of himself when invited to Domitians Feast It was Lib. 4. not his rich furniture or costly provisions but himself only that his eye pored on That was the Poets flattery to a Domitian but this is a true Converts real respect to Christ However it is with any of us now and I know not why after our more acquaintance with Christ we should less love him I am sure if any of us ever savingly knew him there was once a time and that was in the day of our espousals and Conversion before we came fully to enjoy him that we then above all did most highly value him One drop of his blood one smile of his Countenance was then worth a
a fair way but baulk'd him in a foul we should what we can as it were revoke and reform their sins by a quite other yea contrary course as the son that shall surely live seeth all his fathers sins and considereth and doeth not the like Ezek. 18. 14 17. So good Asa removed all the 1 King 15. 12. Idols that his father had made and Nehemiah could say that his Predecessors the former Governours had done evil so and so But he adds But so did not I because of the fear of God Nehem. 5. 15. It 's not in their sins that we should imitate them as the Sons of Korah not joining with their father in his sin escaped that woful pit-fall Numb 16. 32 33. with Numb 26. 10 11. and were Levites in Gods service But in their Graces and well-doings and herein labour to express them to the life that when they are dead they may yet live in thee Here above all things take heed of degenerating That the Heathens should complain Aetas Parentum pejor avis tulit nos nequiores c. that of the Egyptians it should be said another King arose that knew not Joseph Exod. 1. 8. is a less wonder but that of the people of God it should be said Judg. 2. 10 17. their fathers obey'd the Commandments of the Lord but their Children did not so how sad if after godly Parents and Ancestors it may be in some successions are gone to their rest such prodigals should arise as not only to wast all that estate which they had gathered but also quite extinguish all that lustre of holiness which they had so long continued to have the head of gold and the feet of clay although it expressed what degenerous successions there are in the World and as at this day we may see in many both greater and meaner families amongst us yet we must needs judge that they are very sad changes when posterity proves so degenerate that God may justly disinherit them and Godly Parents not own them as the Prophet speaks of Abrahams not knowing his degenerous posterity Isa 63. 16. as Augustus would not acknowledge Julia for his daughter but accounted her rather as an Imposthume broken out of him as on the contrary we read the effect of John Baptist's Ministry was to turn the hearts of the fathers to whom he Brugens yet preached not unto the Children so as to own them as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 legitimate and not spurious when it was withall to turn the Mal. 4. 6. hearts of the children to their fathers viz. in following them in their godly ways dum in id quod senserunt illi consentiunt isti Augustin de Civ D. L. 20. c. 29. Which therefore Luke rendreth by turning the disobedient to the wisdom of the just Luke 1. 17. Thus Godly Parents and Children should mutually reflect a lustre upon one another as Abner's name may be taken both ways either Pater Lucerna or Lucerna Patris either the father was the 1 Sam. 14. 50. lamp or brightness of the Son or the Son the brightness of the Father Indeed both should be mutually according to that of Solomon Prov. 17. 6. Childrens Children are the Crown of old men and the glory of Children are their Fathers but that is if both be virtuous Dod in locum and gracious for else Blessed Hezekiah was in no sort dignified by his wicked father Ahaz nor Ahaz any whit graced by his godly Son Hezekiah But therefore it in part was as some observe that Abraham Isaac and Jacob are usually named Idem in Proverb 5. together as mutually reflecting a lustre on each other the Root giving life and sap and verdure to the branches and the flourishing branches back again commending the lively root that it may be said they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord and their off-spring with them or as it is Isa 59. 21. the word and spirit of God may not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed from henceforth and for ever What a glorious resplendency is it when such bright beams from Father to Son as of Basil's Parents that they were such that if they had not had such blessed Children of themselves they Nazianzen Orat 20. p. 322. had been renowned and their Children such that if their Parents had not of themselves been so famous yet they would have been most happy in so blessed an off-spring what a glorious resplendency I say is it when such bright beams from Father to Son and back again are thus mutually reflected and when both are conspicuous and eminent How comely and glorious a sight is it to see Abraham Isaac and Jacob hand in hand going up to the Mount of God striving which should be formost At least when there is a failure on the one part greater care should be taken that the supply may be made up of the other as that when the Child is bad the Parent may be good ut ramorum sterilitatem radix foecunda compenset as Hierom ad Demetriadem or as he elsewhere expresseth it ut quod in virgâ non poterat in radicibus Ad Oceanum demonstraret as in some plants in which the branches are useless the root is of Soveraign use Or which is nearer to my present purpose when Parents are bad the Children need be good to keep up the Family ut radicis amaritudinem dulcedo fructuum compenset as the same Hierom speaks in his Epistle to Laeta as in some plants when the root is good for nothing the fruit is admirable both for Meat and Medicine and as he there shews of Albinus Laeta's Father that by reason of his Childrens and Kinreds Piety was himself a Candidate of Heaven and adds that he thought even Jupiter the father of all Ego puto etiam ipsum Jovem si habuisset talem cognationem potuisse in Christum credere Idolatries and impieties might have believed in Christ if he had had such Children and relations as our happy experience hath sometimes found sinful Parents brought home to God by the Prayers and helps of their godly Children and so they proved means of their spiritual birth which were causes of their natural at least have been a means to keep off judgment from them and so bring honour to them though they continued bad But if good did double yea multiply it whilst they were multiplied Copies and Portraitures of their Parents Beauties as Tully said of Sextus Sulpicius Nullum unquam monumentum Philippic 9. clarius S. Sulpitius relinquere potuit quà m effigiem morum suorum virtutis constantiae pietatis ingenii filium the happiness of the Son being one great part of the blessedness of the Father they being a part of their Parents and as dear nay often dearer to them than themselves And therefore it is that in Scripture as we find God
together and now gotten into a wild Wilderness and having lost the right path we irrecoverably lose our selves and are ready to seduce others in numberless by-cross-ways and like so many crooked lines drawn off the Center cross and cut one another or a routed Army run either singly or in some small parties this way and that way justling and treading down each other as well as others who come in their way but yet think that the course which they take is the only way to their own and others safety And thus from these and other such like grounds too many do and we are all too apt to betake our selves to such Sects and to think to commend our selves to God in so doing Which was the second thing I propounded Paul sometimes counted this to be gain But now that he is grown wiser he reckons it as well as other things but loss yea and dung that he might gain Christ 3. Which was the third thing propounded and chiefly intended in the Text and Point That this being of or adhering to any Sect or Party is not that which we should take up with or rest in Whatever vain men say or think it 's not the being wrapt in a Friars Cowl that will either Cure the sick mans Body or save his Soul not being of this or that Sect or Party that will dub or Canonize thee a Saint or make thee meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light that we must be beholding to Col. 1. 12. Christ only for in compare with whom this especially had need be accounted loss and dung and indeed it 's no less than a dishonour to Christ that such dung should come into comparison with him And therefore I must say less in this kind of this particular than of all that hitherto I have compared with Christ or hereafter shall compare with him for in those other particulars there is otherwise much at least some good but in this of following and maintaining of Sects nothing that is pleasing to God and that therefore should please us And what comparison should we then make of Light with Darkness of Christ with Belial will this sect-following justifie and commend us to God or may it be compared with Christ which 1. Is so directly opposite to Christ the Prince of Peace and the spirit of Christ and the Gospel of Peace one body one spirit one hope one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all So many unities and yet universals that it comes to one and all makes a Catholick Vnion which therefore the Apostle calls for in the same place whiles he exhorts us to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of Peace Eph. 4. 3 4 5 6. More in so few words could not be said nor more Emphatically And must Christ then be divided into Parties 1 Cor. 1. 13. and his seamless Coat rent into pieces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens Romanus piously Cant. 6. 8. bemoaneth however we may pride our selves in it yet it 's truly filthy and unworthy of Christ and a true Christian conversation Though there be fourscore Concubines of such as do not so sincerely profess Christ and Virgins without number that make no Cant. 6. 8. profession of love to him yet his Beloved is but one And that one should not prove many Straight lines drawn from the centre to the circumference never cut one another and therefore if we so part as to cross and clash the cause must needs be that either we do not truly centre in Christ or that there is some lesser or greater obliquity that we are not right either in heart or life judgment or practice Such secting I may without affectation say is a dissecting and mangling the body of Christ and therefore very much against Christ and the Spirit of Christ 2. Contrary also to God and his Law and that many ways for if where strife and division is there be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every evil work as the Apostle saith Jam. 3. 16. in this one offence as it 's usually said of the first Adam's there 's at once a violation and breach of Gods whole Law I insist not in particulars as idolizing our selves or others against the first Commandment and setting altare juxta altare our threshold by God's against the second c. In general I say If love be the fulfilling of the whole Law this is so destructively opposite to love that it 's a perfect evacuating of it By which we are at odds not only with God and our brethren but oft-times even with our selves and our own judgments and consciences which men often cross that they may comply with a party to which they are captivated as Lactantius said of Tully Verùm haec non Ciceronis culpa est sed sectae Thus Lib. 2. cap. 9. such breaches at once snap all asunder And whilst they cry up their own opinion and way if that be Tom 6. de Haeres haeres 54. ut asseveraret quod nihil cuique obesseâ— quorumlâ—â—er perpetratio perseverantia peceatorum si hujus quae ab illo docebatur fidei particeps esset but believed and followed by themselves and their followers a broad way is set open and liberty indulged to trample upon all other Commandments as Eunomius in Austin gave out That the commission of or perseverance in any sin could not hurt that man that would but entertain the faith which he taught as our later Libertines and Antinomians make the worst sins none but only the sense of them and sorrow for them Hence Arch-Hereticks though some few as Pelagius especially at the first were more sober and seemingly religious yet have been observed usually to be very abominable and scandalous in their practices exemplified if not exceeded in our Ranters and other Sectaries railings cursings stark-naked obscenities which Grace could not name and even Nature would cover and blush at A manifest heavy judgment of God upon them written with a Sun-beam had they not unmann'd themselves putting out their own eyes and debauched their very natural consciences But Lord whither do we not run when thou leavest us As this is another manifest Judgment of God upon them that as by these Sects they cut themselves off from others so very often they cannot keep long together amongst themselves O Lord divide their Psal 55. 9. tongues prayeth David against his enemies and it 's that which God most justly inflicteth on these Babel builders What divisions See Socrates l. 5. c. 21 23 24. Graec and subdivisions are they mouldred into and what deadly irreconcileable feuds and animosities amongst themselves do they often fall to Thomists with Scotists and Jesuits against Dominicans Seculars and Regulars and one Sect against another till at last See Watsons Quodlibets Judg. 7. 12. 1 Sam. 14. 20. Ezech. 38. 21. when others could not
in heaven may be of some good use but such in our brains will never light us thither Let therefore such Spanish Alumbradoes or English Illuminates please themselves Casaubon Enthusiasme p. 131. in such fantastical attainments On the contrary let it be the care of every one that would prove a substantial Christian by all good means to attain to a solid judgment of saving truth and not rest there neither but because Theologia is not scientia speculativa but practica and because in Scripture-use verba sensûs affectum effectum connotant words of knowledge and sense imply affection and Divinity is an art of living and not only of bare knowing as many of us as would be solid Divines and substantial Christians as the lamenting Churches eye affected her heart Lament 3. 54. so let our knowledge effectually press on to earnest affection and real action which leadeth on to the other two Heads before mentioned 2. And as concerning our hearts and affections two things also either fall short of or come cross to that substantialness which is to be expected from them whom Christ causeth to inherit substance 1. The first is a weak faint listlesness and deadness in the out-goings of our souls to Christ an heartless velleity a wishing and a woulding rather than any true and hearty willing Balaam's wishes Numb 23. 10. the sluggards desires half desires which in Gods account are Prov. 21. 25. none as Gods people when with a weaned remisness they close with the things of this world they rejoice as though they rejoiced not 1 Cor. 7. 30. So when our desires and affections to Christ do so freeze in our bosoms they come short of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Est in the Text they are and they are not When we say and profess that Christ is such solid food his flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meat indeed and we bring such flashy desires and such faint appetites to him what do we but make men believe that either he is not found food or at least that we have but sick stomachs He not substance or we not substantial Christians 2. But Secondly There is another distemper in this kind which wanteth not for strength but yet in substance The wind no solid substantial body yet may be very violent and impetuous such a flatulency there is in many mens spirits which makes a shew of a great deal of real zeal and strength of affection for God and Christ and yet is nothing but an empty swelling tympany an impetuous violence to prosecute our own desires opinions and wayes and to bear down whatsoever rather displeaseth us than what offendeth God Such was Jehu's zeal and 2 Kings 10. 16. Luke 13. 14. the Ruler of the Synagogue his indignation and the more to discover the unsubstantialness of it it 's usually not about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the weightier things of the law and such as concern the substance and power of godliness but about circumstances and externals or other less and lighter matters as it was with the Pharisees about their Mint and Anise and Phylacteries and so now is with the Papists about their Ceremonies and Traditions and with many amongst us about some niceties in Church government and outward forms and other curious Punctilioes which are at a great distance from the heart and soul and substance of Religion Here we have heat enough and too much a feverish heat but not kindly and natural fire but such as proves wild-fire making a blaze in lighter straw but such as putteth all into a combustion Oh beware of such a dangerous mistake as to take the violence of an unmortified passion for the power and substance of saving grace And therefore if ever we would attain to solid and substantial evidence of it our contrary care and effectual indeavour must be 1. Contrary to that coolness and indifferency of our affections to Christ to rise up to more strong and earnest outgoings of our Souls after him such as the Scripture expresseth by hungrings and thirstings and longings breathings breakings pantings and faintings after God not a faintness of indifferency but a fainting upon our being spent in eagerest pursuits of what we cannot fully overtake that it cometh not to I am and I am not but as Christ named himself I am so with truth and reality I can eccho back Exod. 3. 14. again and say Lord I am I am really and in good earnest with strongest bâ—nt of my Soul I am for thee and so indeclinably and earnestly move towards thee that I shall not be quiet till I rest in thee I do not measure substance by quantity nor judge of truth of grace by the degree though some now will needs wholly place it in it There is the true essence and substance of a man in a weak Child and weak desires after Christ may be true and serious if this weakness be occasioned from other hinderances and not from an indifferency but still giving Christ the Soveraignty But yet such weakness should not be rested in but over-grown and more strong and earnest workings of the heart to be grown up to if we would have more real and substantial at least more sensible evidences of the life and power of godliness 2. Nor must we satisfie our selves with this There was strength enough and in some respects too much in that impetuous flatulency of some men's spirits which was the second miscarriage before noted But therefore contrary to it our care must be if we would have evidence of true solid substantial godliness that this strength of passion do not only bluster towards others but that it produceth real and substantial effects in our own hearts and that we find and feel it so doing for as they are wont to say that Tactus est fundamentum vitae sensitivae so real felt inward effects in the Soul are surest evidences of a true spiritual life also such as were before-mentioned in the doctrinal part of this point as substantial and real effects and operations of Christ in us are to this purpose to be really felt and expressed by us A serious and hearty making out after Christ indeed and in good earnest working that really in us which Nature cannot effect and hypocrisie but ill favouredly counterfeit which may evidence to others as least to our selves that God is in us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a truth as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 14. 25. really changing our hearts and powerfully mortifying our lusts that we may be not as that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet. 2. 18. but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 free indeed as it is John 8. 36. substantially satisfying the vast desires of our Souls and thereby evidencing that Christ is to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only sawce as he is to Hypocrites and many Politicians but meat indeed And as substantially supporting and comforting us in greatest exercises and faintings either in life or death a
Ranting Enthusiast-Gnosticks of this and former ages who of all men by reason of their abominable filthiness partake least of God and most of the beast and the Devil make yet greatest pretensions to whilest they give out that they are Godded with God and Christed with Christ such is their blasphemous gibberish Whatever either Fantastical or Diabolical trances such may have and divine illapses unions and communications they may vainly boast of yet I am sure that no evil dwells with an holy God Psal 5. 4. and that Christ is separate from such sinners Heb. 7. 26. What diviner raptures and heavenly ravishments I do not say a Platonick Philosopher in his speculations but an holy humble believing Soul may sometimes have in its holy meditations and devotions I neither envy nor now dispute only say with the Psalmist that it is good for me to draw near to God and that they are happiest who in a spiritual union and communion can get and keep nearest but to pretend to get so near as properly to participate of the essence of God flieth higher than Lucifer's pride Isa 14. 14. and is Antichristian Blasphemy 2 Thes 2. 4. I acknowledge some of the Fathers especially the Greek in their Rhetorical Hyperboles and desiring to express that lively image of God which his children have instamped upon them do indulge themselves a sufficient liberty as * Orat. 4. in Arrium Athanasius in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and †Orat. 42. p. 680. Basil orat 3. de sp Sanct. Nazianzen in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but not as though they ever meant any such abolition of our nature and transformation of it into God's or participation of his essence which being in it self infinite is therefore to the finite creature incommunicable if Christs hypostatical union did not confound the natures and their properties much less will this mystical union of God and the soul work any commixtion or tranfusion of it into the Godhead 1. The three consubstantial persons of the Sacred Trinity only in common partaking if I may so call it of the Divine nature essentially 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Christs humane nature not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nestorius blasphemed for so we partake of it but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and personally which is his alone prerogative 3. It 's our highest honour and happiness that we may be made partakers of it by a participation of Divine Grace and image which is wrought in us by him and by which we are made conformable to him so far as the image of his infinite holiness is expressible in a limited and restrained being as the wax receives the impression of the Seal not the essence and that in a picture is called a face or hand which hath the likeness of it as he well expresseth it and as truly addeth that he who raiseth it Dr. Spurstow upon the Text. any higher must have swelling and lofty thoughts of the creature and low and most unworthy and dishonourable thoughts of God Thus Divines say we partake of the Divine nature accidentaliter per donum gratiae sanctificantis as we have Divine Grace wrought in us by the spirit of God which makes us like God But as for Cornel à Lapide's substantialiter which he adds as we are partakers of In Textum the spirit of God himself we shall speak of that by and by we are now dealing with Enthusiasts who as the Manichees of old held that by nature we are ex traduce Dei orti drops and And so as Caelestius said without Sin as God is Augustin de gestis Pelagii cap. ult beams and particles of the Deity so they conceit that in the way of their high attainments they are partakers of the very Godhead Godded with God and Christed with Christ as their blasphemous gibberish blunders it But how much more soberly and piously doth Cyprian express it Nostra ipsius conjunctio nec miscet personas nec unit substantias sed affectus consociat confoederat voluntates This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Divine nature is not the Divine Essence as they conceit it I acknowledge that * Tractat. de foedere in Gangraenâ doctrinae Anabaptisticae Clopenburgh and de †In Textum Dieu after him conceive otherwise and that as Jam. 3. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the nature of beasts signifieth Beasts and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the nature of man a man so here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Divine nature or nature of God may Oâ—thodoxally enough be taken to signify God as considered in his own nature and being but then that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or partakers is not here meant a transfusion or communication of They understand Communion rather than Communication the Divine Essence that in that sense we should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 partakers of the Deity but only as Heathen Idolaters 1 Cor. 10. 20. are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have fellowship with Devils so true believers have not only a real communication of Divine Grace infused into them but also a true and blessed Communion with God himself and truly our fellowship is with the Father and the Son as the Apostle asserts it John 1. 3. Nor hath this exposition any thing in it which is contrary to piety or sound doctrine but yet this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seemeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to sound a more inward and inherent communication of something and not only a bare communion and fellowship as one friend hath with another though that be included and of it some good Interpreters expound it 2. Others therefore interpret these words in reference to Christ as Ambrose and Oecumenius of his incarnation in which his humane Epist 38. nature was made partaker of the Divine because hypostatically united to it But 1. Therein the Son of God did more properly take part of our humane nature as is expresly said he did Heb. 2. 14. than we of the Divine 2. Besides that partaking was already in act ever since our Saviour's Cyprian saith divinae naturae communicamus per spiritum humanae per corpus de Nativitate Christi sect 7. birth and conception whereas this which the Apostle here speaks of was in part yet to be accomplished to believers in their several successions and further participation 3. And withall Thus all that have an humane nature might be said to be partakers of the divine which the Apostle here restrains to believers only 4. And therefore Cyril although he interpret it also with reference Catechis to Christ yet of our Symbolical partaking of him and so of God in the Eucharist This the Papists greedily swallow down as making they think for their Transubstantiation by which as they say they come to eat the very
Ephes 4. 24. Col. 3. 10. and in the other shewing forth his vertues and graces 1 Pet. 2. 9. made one spirit with him 1 Cor. 6. 17. not by any Partnership of his Essence and substance but of excellent graces holy as he is holy 1 Pet. 1. 15. pure as he is pure 1 John 3. 3. merciful as he is merciful Luke 6. 36. perfect as he is perfect Matth. 5. 48. grace for grace John 1. 16. as the Child to the Father member for member or in the Wax to the Seal stamp for stamp or in the glass face to face being changed from glory to glory as by the spirit of the Lord 2 Câ—r 3. 18. This likeness to God and imitation of him in hatred of sin in holiness righteousness and all other graces is as a transcript of what is in God originally and infinitely A new Creature is this Divine nature when from an inward Divine Principle and energy as in the Glossary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred Ingenium in word and deed we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 express God as well as our selves and in many things God and not our selves or God more than our selves we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Ignatius and others Deo pleni So gratia habitualis est Divina natura participata Aquin. 12. q. 110. See Gibicuf lib. 1. cap. 17. pag. 108. of old were stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like God and as Adam at first having God's image in holiness and righteousness stampt upon him was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as God Gen. 3. so a true Saint having this image renewed in him is as God vir Divinus which is even the highest Title which the Socinians will vouchsafe the second Adam our blessed Saviour In a word when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Hierocles expresseth it or as Calvin quantum modulus noster feret sumus unum cum Deo as far as our measure reacheth we are like God one with God we are here said to be partakers of the Divine nature Which is evident from the words foregoing and following 1. The Text that you might be partakers of the Divine Nature and immediately follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust added on purpose by way of exposition to tell us what it is in and by which we are made partakers of the divine nature not of God's divine essence so as to Hoc ipsum indicat cum definit naturae divinae participem fieri idem esse ac mundi corruptionem effugisse Beza be Godded with his Godhead for whosoever should ascribe to it the escaping of pollution would thereby most unworthily and blasphemously disparage his infinite and essential holiness but only a participation of his heavenly grace whereby in a way and frame of sanctification we escape worldly pollutions 2. Again immediately before the words of the Text it 's said there are given to us exceeding great and precious promises whereby we are made partakers of the Divine nature It seemeth theâ—â—fore we have it by promise so hath not God it being his essence and nature nor should we if we had his very nature of which there is no one promise made us in the whole book of God unless that of the Devils ye shall be like God Gen. 3. but of Divine grace and sanctification very many 3. And lastly that which in the Text is called a giving to us that whereby we are made partakers of the divine nature in the foregoing verse is called the divine powers giving to us all things that pertain to life and Godness and as many expound that which followeth a calling of us to glory and vertue The divine nature then is in that which pertains to godliness and vertue here in an estate and way of grace and to life and glory in the other world which leads to the 3. Third and last particular of our being partakers of the Divine Nature and that is the perfecting of grace in glory when God Beza Diodat Estius Lapide and so Calvin expounds this place Instit lib. 3. cap. 11. sect 10. shewing himself face to face shall so fill us with his light and life that then we shall be most fully Deopleni most perfectly like him when we shall see him as he is 1 John 3. 2. And if by beholding him in the glass of the Gospel in the face of Christ we are here transformed from glory to glory as by the spirit of the Lord into a most divine and heavenly conformity 2 Cor. 3. 18. what a far greater tranâ—figuration will it at last be when we shall be once got up into the holy mount and there see God and Christ face to face Oh how shall we then be changed from glory to glory when made 2 Thes 2. 14. partakers of the glory of Christ John 17. 22 24. and the glory of God Rom. 5. 2. when we shall as much as we are capable of Rom. 15. 7. transire in Deum be transformed into his likeness in the immediate fruition of himself there where all old things and whatever See Calvin in Psychopannuch pag. 558. we were before more unlike to God in shall pass away and God only shall be all in all 1 Cor. 15. 28. Thus at last in these particulars we have seen what it is to be made partakers of the divine nature and in the explication of them there hath gone along with it a sufficient proof that true believers are so and by truly being God-like do make good their name while they are called Godly And because the main thing I intended in the choice of this argumeâ—â— was the due improvement of it in heart and life Let us first with all humble reverence and thankfulness to God Vse 1 in Christ admire and adore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this his On bended knees with hands and hearts lifted up to God let us say now thanks be to God for this unspeakable gift unspeakable gift inenarrable that cannot be uttered or declared sufficiently The Apostle 2 Cor. 9. 15. used that phrase of God's makâ—ng the Corinthians willing and ready to communicate of their outward and temporal goods to the Saints but by how much greater right may we apply it to Gods giving himself and in the sense before explained communicating of his own nature to sinneâ—s The poor Scholar when he had nothing else he gave himself to his master and the great God as having nothing greater sweareth by himself Heb. 6. 13. so having nothing better he giveth himself to his servants It was Peters poverty that made him say to the Cripple silver and gold have I none but such Act. 3. 6. as I have give I thee But it is the unsearchable unvaluable riches of Gods grace who though he could say the silver and gold is Psal 50. mine Hag. 2. 8. when all the silver and gold in the world is his to bestow upon the heirs of
17. 1 Pet. 2. 2. 2. Nor is it to strike down such poor Christians as are already sinking by reason of inward faintness I acknowledge that in the new-born babe through weakness of nature this pulse may be weak and in the grown Christian through accidental corruptions and temptations there may be obstructions and interruptions but then the man is the more sick for it and nature thus oppressed if it be Divine struggles and groans the more under it when the man of God cannot do the good that he would he cryeth out of himself as a wretched miserable man for it Rom. 7. 18 24. though the root of the matter be in him as it was in Job yet sometimes it may be under-ground and as seed sown under a great weight of earth that keeps it under but it works and works and at last peeps out and then sprouts and springs apace such an inward principle there is in nature and such also in the soul that is made partaker of the divine nature in its outgoings to that which grace hath made connatural to it 2. Hence in the second place from this inward principle natural motion of it self is ready and free not forced or violent With what inward freedom doth my heart go out to him whom I naturally love and with what a free source doth the fountain cast out or as the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the active form signifieth empty her waters that naturally flow from it And A free spirit Psa 51. 12. how willing a people are God's in the day of his power Psal 110. 3. and our Saviour sheweth that as free a current floweth from this fountain of life when in the place before quoted he John 4. 14. saith that his Spirit and Grace shall be as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a well of water so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aquae salientis of water springing freely fully spouting yea leaping up to everlasting life No need of pumping and pulling How naturally doth such a Soul fall into thoughts of God and desires after him O! never more free than when it can run in this Channel most freely Or if at any time as too often it is this current be hindred or dammed up what a complaining murmur may you hear though without murmuring against God and how may you see it though not rising and swelling in discontent and pride yet running over in tears of true repentance And therefore for trial know that a constant As Hos 11. 7. bent to backsliding from God and total averseness from God and the things of God speaks plainly either a Devilish temper or at best corrupt nature And although as in some cases in a mans body there may be listlesness where there is life so an auk backwardness may and often doth consist with the Divine Nature yet it 's but as life in such a weak sick body in which nature is oppressed Grace is but weak or weakned the man of God in such a case stands in great need of cure and relief that his Soul may freely breath and go out to God as Davids did naturally to his Son Absalom 2 Sam. 13. 39. 3. As natural actions and motions are free so thereupon they are not irksome and grievous but pleasing and delightful How merrily doth the wheel run down the Hill from its natural propension And with what delight doth the Scholar plod even on those harder studies to which he is naturally affected The generous Wine with a kind of jollity and tripudium mantles and sparkles upward when in Solomon's phrase it moves it self Pro. 23. 31. Psal 19. 5. Psal 119. 32. aright and the Sun in its natural course rejoiceth as a mighty man to run his race but not so much as the man of God when his heart is enlarged to run the ways of Gods Commandments The generous spiritual Christian never thinks he mounts so right or with more delight than when he sparkleth and moveth upward How merrily doth this sweet Bird sing when it moves upward and soars aloft in Divine Meditations Prayers praises and such like more pleasing uninterrupted outgoings of the Soul to God! yea what melody in the heart doth it make both to God and it self in its sweet sad notes whilest it is tugging in the snare below 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have a complacency and take pleasure in infirmities reproaches persecutions distresses for Christs sake saith Paul 2 Cor. 12. 10. it's the same word that God the Father said of his Son when he said he was well pleased in him Matth. 3. 17. as though with the like natural complacency that the Father embraced Christ the same doth his servant from the instinct of this Divine nature welcom even heaviest sufferings for Christ With what delight doth this Scholar in Christs School who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read these hard Chapters with which he is so naturally taken for all delight and pleasure ariseth from the sutableness of the faculty and the object and therefore where a law of commands without doth so naturally suit with a law of love within us how doth it hug and embrace Then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I consent and approve for my judgment Rom. 7. 16. and for my affections 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 22. I delight in the law of the Lord after the inward man and when it is so within the heart then I delight to do thy will O my God Psal 40. 8. then it 's meat and drink to do the will of God Matth. 11. 30. 1 John 5. 3. John 4. 34. the yoke is easie and the burden light and no command grievous no task but a recreation no distastful Medicine but pleasing food which the palate relisheth and the stomach naturally closeth with I confess the Child is weak and may not be so well able for the time to digest so strong meat and the man of God may be sick and then it may not go down with so much delight Weakness or distemper may sometimes weaken and hinder this actual complacential rejoicing as sickness or a cut finger may take off the Musician from actual playing on his instrument wherein yet he habitually much delighteth but then that sickness maketh him more sick to think of it Where there is habitual delight such actual indisposition causeth actual and hearty grief for it and so this grief for the presence of the contrary impediment proclaims aloud what love he bears and what delight he hath in that from which he is hindred And this sufficiently enough distinguisheth in this Case the true Divine Nature from a counterfeit form of Godliness the one saith with them Mal. 1. 13. Behold what a weariness is it But the other cryeth out oh how weary am I A genuine Child of God crieth out of himself and his own uncomfortable weariness in that which he so naturally loveth and delighteth in bewails his being so weakned and hindred as the
of any in an estate of corrupt nature as it cometh from such is so defiled that in regard of any worth in it instead of meriting an answer it justly deserveth a denial Whereupon our Antinomians and others do wickedly forbid such to pray Yet in such sinners that lie under the burden of sin and misery and are looking out for help and mercy to look up to God in prayer for it A it is the homage which is due from the creature to its Creatour and so to be tendred to him So it is the way ordained by God in and by which the creature in want and misery may come to receive mercy Which therefore God commands and that to a Simon Magus and that upon only a Perhaps to receive mercy Act. 8. 22. pray God if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee And which therefore in obedience to such a command to perform is both in God's intention and ordination on his part and as to the happy success and event on â—ur parts the direct sutable and successful means of our obtaining as all other mercies so of this which is one of the chief of all of being made partakers of the Divine nature and that upon a double account 1. As in a way of moral causality it prevaileth with God and through his indulgence procureth of him the grant of this inestimable gift of the new creature this divine nature as Manasseh in this case by his prayer prevailed with God for his return both from his sin and captivity together 2 Chron. 33. 12 13. and so still the child is born crying 2. So also in a kind of physical efficiency as I may call it In the very act of praying we so nearly converse with God that by looking up to him we are made like him as the stung Israelite by looking to the Brazen Serpent was healed and Moses by near approaches to God and communing with him on the Mount had irradiations of his glory reflected on him so in near and frequent addresses to God by prayer there is much communication of God by such close communion with him Papists are wont to picture their Saints praying with a Glory on their head but true Saints that are much with God have much of God and his glorious grace on their hearts and none more than those that come into his presence oftnest get nearest and keep closest Our Saviour when he was praying in the Mount was transfigured Luke 9. 29. Nor are we ever more transformed into the image of God and Christ than when we have got up our hearts highest and nearest in that duty Be much therefore with God our Father in prayer for this mercy 2. Make nearest applications to Christ the Son and our Saviour by faith in his promises for By the promises we read in the Text we come to be partakers of the divine nature which when sealed to us there is an impress of Christ stamped on us And Christ is wrapt up in those promises who as in his Incarnation was made partaker of our nature so by him and his grace alone we are made partakers of his And faith is the eye and hand which seeth and taketh hold of Christ in the promises and so by beholding him in that glass as intellectus fit idem cum objecto we come to be changed as we heard into the same image from glory to glory There is an image of the thing seen in the eye that looks on it and we by faith wistly eying of Christ have his image so imprinted on us that we prove no longer like our selves As the wise men Matth. 2. when they had seen him turn'd back another way v. 12. So they that by him are made wise to Salvation never savingly saw him but went away with another heart not their former selves but changed into another that is to say this divine nature To these promises and Christ in them apply we our selves for it 's from his fulness as before we heard that we must only receive grace for grace grace in us answerable to the grace in him And content we not our selves with moral and Philosophical considerations as able to work such a change Gehazi may lay 2 King 4. 31. the staff on the child's face and no life come the water will not rise higher than from whence it descended Nature in its highest elevations will not be able of it self to rise up to saving grace nor will any moral speculations or qualifications lift us up to a divine nature Christ is the fountain-head He came down from heaven to work it and therefore to him in heaven by faith must we rise up if ever we would have it wrought in us 3. And to the spirit of Christ for this changing into the same image as we also heard is by the spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3. 18. It was this spirit that breathed the image of God into us in Gen. 2. 7. our first creation and it must be the same spirit that must breath into us this new life the finger of this spirit that only can draw upon us these fair and lovely characters and lineaments of this Divine image the spirit of regeneration that must beget us to this new nature And therefore here again rest not in highest either natural or moral considerations they are but airy and their birth will be answerable prove abortions or like that of the Spanish mares which they say conceive by breathing in the South-wind but their Foals they say too presently languish and die and so at last to be sure will all such births of our own begetting Especially take heed of grieving and resisting the spirit in these his Divine workings If the child would be born if it cannot further it s own birth let it not hinder it by working backward because it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do let us Phil. 2. 12 13. not marr his work but in and by his strength work out our own salvation by not being flints to God but as wax to yield to and to receive his Divine impressions Thus applying our selves to God this happy work may and will be wrought and rather than fail God can make even afflictions a means to effect it that what are in themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 common to men may further this Divine 1 Cor. 10. 13. nature and as the ball struck down to the earth in the rebound rise as high as heaven So by them we are made partakers of his holiness Heb. 12. 10. and that is no less than to be partakers of the divine nature and whilst we so suffer Peter saith the spirit of glory yea and of God resteth upon us and so most happy participations of the divine glory and nature are communicated to us Never was more of God seen in any than in the Martyrs by the light of the fires they were consumed in Thus upon these considerations and in
keep house in time of peace nor hold out siege in time of war of which the poorest that have least will have a little and all some useful to all and so prized by all that the spilling of it with some is superstitiously ominous and Homer can give it no less than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divine for its Epithet they using as Plutarch observes to honour such things as were of general and necessary Sympos l. 5. c. 10. use with the title of Divinity Divines we are by our calling and if we be but our selves the salt of the earth as necessary as they that are called the shields of it sine quo saith Austin of our Ministry non possunt homines vel fieri vel vivere Christiani without Psal 47. 9. Epist 180. which we can as little be or live Christians as Pliny said without salt we can live men so that take it away and you take salt off o' th' board and bread out of the house and horsinan and 2 Kings 2. 12. chariot out of the camp even the Sun and light out of heaven and what then but fames faetor unsavouriness and famine and darkness and confusion would be left behind Let not therefore our people grudge us our double Honour 1 Tim. 5. 17. by whom they have such a multiplied and universal Vse blessing Of Repute and Respect Let not us be to your as unsavoury unless you love your own unsavouriness Ministers that are salt of the earth should not be as sale empta mancipia like refuse stâ—ff as they are usually esteemed by the insipid earth-woâ—m qui centum mystas â—urto centusse licetur To spill this salt let it ever be ominous â—ecause it â—ill never be superstitious Of Maintenance if we season you it s but right that you â—eed Salaria dicta quae Ancus Martius 6000 modia sâ—lâ—â— in congiariâ— dâ—dit Pâ—â—n ubi prius us If Salary as Pliny sheweth hath its name from salt then here espâ—cially by all right its due to it From the poor who of this seasoning may have as great a share as the rich And from the rich whose greatest dainties without this salt will be but like Job's white of an egg cap. 6. 6. and greatest estates and honours but like Jericho's tall palm-trees which grow upon barren earth and by bad waters as long as Elisha's salt is not cast into them 2 King 2. 19 c. whatever your fare is it will never make good chear fat bodies but leaness will be sent into the Psal 106. 15. soul as long as there 's neither bread nor salt on the board nor word to bless it and no Minister to say grace to it But it may be we should in both these respects have more of our Vse own if we were more our selves and that is the salt of the earth Not Freshmen from the University which of late have grown barren as Naturalists tell us the earth where salt pits are usually is Omnis locuâ— in quo sal reperitur sterilis est nihilque gignit Plin. Such young Physicians instead of a Church have need of a new Church-yard Plin. lib. 31. cap. 7. Nor Mechanicks from the Loom or Last insipid insulse animals quibus anima est pro sale ut suibus whose souls are only as salt to keep their bodies from stinking whilst they can season neither themselves nor others with either wisdom or grace and yet of these we have too great a sprinkling like Varro's salt which he saith in some parts upon the Rhine in his time the country people made ex lignorum quorundam combustis carbonibus And so here carbo quoque in salem vertitur It were well if Colliers prove not Salters As clothes that are so spotted and spoiled as that they will not take any other colour are usually dyed black which hides the spots but burns the cloth so too often in the Church when men are so blemished in body mind carriage as that they are fit for no other employment they are by their parents or friends or themselves dyed black for such-coloured salt Theoprastus speaks of but it is unsavoury as such are whilst they stain the cloth and defile the Priesthood But I would be salt not to fret but to season rather 2. And therefore I pass on from our Dignity which such dishonour to our Duty which I desire we may all make conscience of which this comparison of the salt also puts us in mind of and that in two particulars 1. What we are to be in our selves 2. And what to others And in both as we go along we shall note the contrary unsavouriness when the salt hath lost its savour which is the second part of the Text that when we come to it we may the less insist on it 1. And first what we are to be in our selves if salt to others then it s presupposed we must be seasoned and savoury our selves Have salt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in your selves saith our Saviour Mark 9. 50. have it and keep it for the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there signifieth both and this in your selves as ever you would season others for nil dat quod non habet There must be Oyl in the Vessel or else it will not shine long in the Lamp Mat. 25. 4. There must be waters in our own Cisterns yea living running waters in our own Well if we would have them run over so as that our Fountains be dispersed abroad and rivers of waters in the streets Prov. 5. 15 16. Ezra that ready Scribe herein writes us a perfect copy who prepared his heart first to seek the Law of the Lord and then secondly to do it and then thirdly to teach it Cap. 7. 10. This this is rectissima methodus concionandi the right method of Preaching with the Priests in the Law to have a Sea in which they first wash themselves as well as Lavers in which afterward they wash the sacrifices which we should labour to offer up as an holy and sweet smelling savour to God in Christ Rom. 15. 16. washed in the Laver but then we our selves first should be washed in the Sea of Christ's bloud salted with salt Mark 9. 49. And therefore we had need have the salt of wisdom and grace of integrity and incorruption in our selves be our selves savoury if ever we would season them And therefore on the contrary as our Saviour in that place elegantly expresseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Salt is unsalted The Minister is not himself if become either insipid or insulse Insipid having no savour of grace his spirit in regard of any spiritual life dry arid But is there any taste in such a white of an Egg Especially if withall insulse and of an unsavoury spirit qui crapulam olet that smells strong of vomit and drunkenness and uncleanness as some did of old Isai 28. 8. and such filth is not swept wholly out of the house of
asunder of joints and marrow but this of the Word only of the soul and Spirit to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 4. 12. to sit as Judge and Critick in the inward tribunal of the heart and to take cognizance of all priviest matters there This is salt indeed that searcheth far pricks some at the very heart more kindly Act. 2. 37. and cuts others to the heart and makes them rage more desperatly Acts 7. 54. And no wonder seeing it was salt that was applied animis crudis to raw flesh in the one place besmeared with the blood of the Prophets and in the other yet reeking with the blood of Christ And accordingly whilst the Word like spiritual Doctrine is spiritually delivered for Spirit passeth where flesh sticketh our sins and Christ's sufferings the doctrine of Faith and Repentance of self-denial and mortification of cutting off right hands and plucking out of right eyes Mark 9. 43 to 49. is plainly and powerfully preached and people told that they must be salted with such unpleasing salt to flesh and blood here or else be salted with fire namely with unquenchable flames hereafter vers 49. This this is salt and in preaching this Ministers Veritas amara â—st carni Zuinglius are salt and good salt too vers 50. as here also in the Text they are so called when called to express Poverty of spirit Mourning Meeknesse and such other graces in the former verses Which kind of doctrine is indeed as fretting salt to proud flesh invisa putrescenti mundo as Musculus expresseth it And therefore no wonder as Chrysostom observes nor should we be discouraged if in our Ministry we find the World fret whilst our Word smarts it 's a sign that it meets with raw corrupt flesh and that it 's good Salt So that at once their corruption and the integrity of our Ministry are discovered together for if the Flesh be whole though you sprinkle Salt on it yet it smarts not as Chemnitius rightly observes that our Saviour having made mention of Revilings and Persecutions which they were likely to meet with in the two foregoing Verses Mox subjicit quasi causam presently adds in this You are the Salt of the Earth as the Cause or Occasion of it And therefore on the contrary for this first Particular the Salt hath lost his savour when the Preacher in his Ministrations 1. Is wholly insipid so flat and dilute without the least 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Acrimony or Spirit or Strength that it 's altogether Inscitiâ vel inertiâ insulsi Cartw. not only toothless but also to any right Palat wholly savourless The Iron so blunt as it will not enter though it strike often unless it had more strength Such kind of frequent Teachers Plutarch compares 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Praecept moral pag. 836. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to such as snuff the Lamp oft but put no Oyl to it In such according to the expression of the Text the Salt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without a Trope properly and simply Sal infatuatus est the Salt is become foolish as the Word signifieth in such Zech. 11. 15. foolish Shepherds handling of it 2. When he is too affected in preaching vain Froth of carnal â—loquence humane Learning Postillers Conceits Philosophers bâ—â—e Morality or the Schoolmens Divinity who use to make Aristotle's Ethicks their Bible But Nomen hoc Philosophorum daemonia non fugat said Tertullian this name of Philosophers Apologet. cap. 46. In them sales but not this sal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost dispossesseth not Devils nor will any such Philosophizing season Souls The Apostles that were the Salt of the Earth Paul tells us took another course in their Preaching to season it 3. When he is too base When for fear or favour profit or preferment he will claw and not bite flatter and daub with untempered Morter and with them Isa 30. 10. only speak placentia But what is to adulterate nay to abjure the nature of Salt if this be not As Sugar is called the Indian Salt in Rhodiginus which is indeed Colore Sal but Sapore Mel as Stenchius saith Salt only in Colour but Honey in taste and yet Sugar more like Salt for both cleanse than these corrupt and corrupting Ministers like this Salt the Text speaks of Sal insulsum est qui principatum amat qui increpare non audet saith Jerom. He is unsavoury Salt who that he may have his better In Marc. 9. Fee will apply Lenients to proud flesh which calls for a Câ—rrosive Such Trencher-Salts are too often found in Kings Courts and great Men's Houses But God in the Text cast them out of his as most unsavoury Salt if it were good should make even an Emperor's cut-finger smart Objurga montes corripe colles Contend with the Mountains and let the highest Hills hear thy Voice was given in charge to the Prophets Mic. 6. 1. And the Apostles this Salt of the Earth in the Text took the like course to season it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not by clawing and flattering but by pulling down of strong holds and bringing every proud thought into Captivity to the obedience of Christ 2. Cor. 10. 4 5. 4. I might add when either too negligently careless or cruelly pitiful or sinfully indulgent as Eli in his gentle breath Do no more so my Sons 1 Sam. 2. 23. Which was a sprinkling not of Salt but of Sugar a casting Oyl rather than Water on the flame When we are ashamed to make sinners blush and swoon our selves when we should make others bleed Crudelis haec misericordia this is cruel pity which will rather let such rot than make them smart save the Salt and not save the Soul A fault which is more ordinary than the contrary extream of Ostendit rarius in excessu peccare in defectu saepius insipidos potius quam nimis acres ut plurmum Parte 3. dub too much Tartness as Learned Spanhemius judiciously observes because our Saviour speaks only of the Salts wanting saltness Mark 9. 50. Yet because in the excess of sharpness and harshness all may and some too often do offend know we that as Salt bites and smarts so 2. It cures and heals which was the second Particular of the resemblance namely that as Salt after heals what before it made smart as we often see in a cut-finger it having 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theophylact in Marc. 9. a restringent quality whereby it makes the wide-gaping Lips of the bleeding Wound close and so it heals So also a Minister especially of the Gospel in this should indeed be like Salt never to make any Wound but with desire and indeavour to heal it and therefore as the Proverb wills that we should Salem oleum emere buy Oyl as well as Salt And Physicians in their use are wont to joyn the one with the other And as Pliny sheweth how Salt is helped with sweet
and that where he may be seen in Providences Ordinances in Word Sacraments and although thy case be ill afflicted and tossed with tempests scorched with heat and spent with thirst yet leave not seeking till there you find him to be all this in the Text even an hiding-place from the wind So first as such seek him As such when found trust and rest and glory in him and improve Vse 2 him Thou mayest then cry aloud thy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have found him whom my soul loveth and that as these comparisons express it every way happily for Christ was born in Bethlehem Ephrata Mic. 5. 2. The first word whereof signifieth an house of bread and the other fruitfulness There 's therefore no starving or pining there In thy Fathers house there 's bread enough yea and physick enough too for every disease as St. Ambrose fully on Psal 119. 57. those words Portio mea Domine O Lord thou art my portion And indeed a naked Christ is Portion enough besides all other Bequests and Legacies To this purpose it 's worth the marking that Psal 81. 8. God seems to make way to speak of some great matter which he would with greedy attention have listned to Hearken O my people and I will testifie O Israel if thou wilt hearken unto me as though some great promise were to follow and so there doth but what is it see vers 9 10. That there shall be no strange God amongst them besides him as though he by himself were all-sufficient enough and Abraham's exceeding great reward without them So happy every way thou art if thou hast him but more happy if every way we could improve him for as God would have none of our parts and abilities lye idle so neither would he have any thing in him that we have interest in not improved And therefore seeing Christ and Godliness are profitable for all things we should in greater and lesser wants and evils improve Christ and have recourse to him that even to us and in our particular whether inward or outward blusterings and thirstings and faintings we may find him as an hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the storm that thy thirsty soul may find him rivers of waters in that dry place and thy tired-out spirit the shadow of a great rock in a weary land This the Application of what Christ is to us For that other what it cost him First see thy sin in the sufferings of thy Saviour what he did Vse 1 endure thou shouldst have done And therefore sinful soul look upon thy Christ arraigned condemned whipt cursed crucified and say all this I should have been Tua O gulosa gula c. as he saith Drunkard it was thy sugred cup that made Christ drink Gall and Vinegar Proud haughty one it was thy pride that hung thy Saviour between thieves thy gayness proud Peacock that crowned him with thorns It was the wantonness of thy flesh that pierced thy Saviour's with nails and tore it with whips and therefore when thou seest thy Saviour's blood arise in his wounds let thine in an holy blush arise in thy face and say all this blast and storm which the roof endured and all that scorching heat which the rock is beaten upon with was procured by my sins and had not Christ interposed had certainly lighted on my person and therefore I 'l first loath both But secondly the more love him yea more than our selves saying with Ignatius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Christ as my sins so my love was crucified and by way of thankfulness though it never be a requital I 'l interpose my dearest right hand to save my Head from wounding The servant shall willingly put his own body between his Master and the thrust to save his dishonour who by so doing hath himself saved his soul even by being an hiding-place from the wind a covert from the storm rivers of waters in a dry place the shadow of a great rock in a weary land Tibi Domine Jesu SERMON XXVIII JOHN 5. 14. At St. Paul's Decemb. 27. 1646. Afterward Jesus findeth him in the Temple and said unto him Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee THe prudent Physician 's care is not only perfectly to Medicinae partes duae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cure the present disease but withal to prevent an after-relapse which otherwise might prove more dangerous and accordingly the Lord Jesus our Phaebus Medicus the Son of righteousness that hath healing in his wings in the beginning of the Chapter comes as a loving Physician to the Pool of Bethesda as to a publick Hospital of impotent diseased people vers 2. and of all the multitude he most graciously visits one that had most need of pity and help whose disease Interpreters Dulcis medicus in viset Nosocomium prae caeteris maxime laborantem conceive was most dangerous and for time grown Chronical the Text saith of thirty eight years continuance vers 5. drooping Christian die not of despair for thou shalt not of thy disease though never so desperate if Christ undertake the cure for him he healed vers 7 8. for his body and so much was wrought on his soul that from Bethesda's Porch v. 2. he was now got to the Temple in the Text most likely to return thanks to God Vt mos erat Luc. 18. 10. Act. 3. 1 8. Grotius for his recovery but his Saviour was not as yet savingly made known to him And therefore to perfect the cure in healing his soul and to prevent a relapse of both soul and body into a worse malady he casts about there the second time to meet him and after his cure prescribes him a Diet this Recipe Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee In which words two things are implied and two things injoyned The first thing implied in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sin no more was that after his recovery without better care taken he was in danger to sin again The second this that if he did revolt to his former sin he was in eminent danger to relapse into a worse malady in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. lest a worse thing come unto thee Whereupon the two things prescribed and injoyned and the first a means of the second are 1. A serious consideration of the Mercy he had received in those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold thou art made whole 2. A studious care that he would avoid the like sin if he would not incur a greater danger in those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee Like as the Angel charged Lot now gotten out of Sodom to flie for his life and not look back lest Vengeance should overtake him Gen. 19. 17. Or as if the Physician before spoken of should say thus to his Patient whose wantonness or
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I said some read it you may you shall And therefore for the Application 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the common Vse reading is Christ here commands us to endeavour that we may possess our lives in Patience At the best we are but Tenants at will and if some of us consider our Ages and others our Weakness and all of us the perilous Times we are cast into we may well think that our Leases are fast hasting to an expiration What Man therefore is he that desireth Life and loveth many days let him seek peace saith the Psalmist Psalm 34. 12 13 14. and let me add Patience for Patience is one of the best Preservatives Prayers and Tears were wont to be the Churches best offensive Weapons and Patience one of the chiefest Defensives Not by Might nor by Power but by my Spirit saith God when he stiles himself the Lord of Hosts Zech. 4. 6. And truly the Spirit of Meekness and Patience hath in it the Spirit of a Conqueror As therefore Christ our Lord vanquished the Devil not by fighting Qui pro nobis mundum vicit non aâ—mato milite sed irrisà cruce Austin in Psal 62. ad finem but by dying so our way to overcome the World and save our lives is rather by patient yeelding and suffering than by peevishly contending I mean not by a base unworthy complying with Mens sins but by a generous suffering of their rage and ever with a silent and meek submission to the righteous Judgment of God Yea in the way of thy Judgments have we waited for thee O Lord said the humbled Church Isa 26. 8. And waiting as it implyeth a still and quiet attendance so with God it ever finds at last a gracious acceptance Thou wilt never bid that Beggar stay and wait whom thou at last intendest to send away empty much less will God make thee content quietly to wait whom he intends to send away discontented by wholly frustrating thee of thy Expectation The prudent shall keep silence in that time for it is an evil time saith the Prophet Amos 5. 13. How evil our times are I need not say and therefore if we would shew our selves prudent and wise for our selves as we love our lives let us keep silence and that 's the Expression which in the Old Testament Patience is usually and almost only set out by Not a malicious silence as Absalom's was 2 Sam. 13. 22. whereby we bite in for the present but lie in insidiis to watch opportunities of mischief and revenge but a shamefaced silence in sense of our own confusion and guilt an humble meek silence not murmuring against God's dealings or an angry clamouring at evil Mens proceedings but a quiet submitting to his hand and a patient enduring as long as God continues it of their oppressions saying if any thing with the Church I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have Micah 7. 9. sinned against him or rather with our Saviour though led as a Sheep to the Slaughter and as the Lamb before the Shearer so Act. 8. 32. open we not our mouths as Paulinus to his Friend Nos taceamus Epist 1. ad Aprum istis loquentes ad Dominum silentio humilitatis voce patientiae tunc ipse qui invictus est pugnabit pro nobis vincet in nobis So the dumb Dove's mourning in a far Country was heard and she delivered if you compare the Argument and the 56th Psalm together And Christ the meek silent Lamb though slaughtered yet shortly after was raised from the dead to whom if we be Unisons in this sweet still-Musick we shall for certain have our lives for a prey either preserved or restored either kept from death or if the two Witnesses be now to be slain shall have part in a better Resurrection For so if we should take the word in the Text for our lives so it holds good that by our patience we may and therefore ought to possess our Souls But take the word Soul in its more proper signification for 2 Soul that nobler part of Man and so most understand our Saviour's meaning when he here saith In your patience possess ye your Souls In which words we have these two Particulars considerable 1. That it 's our duty to possess our Souls 2. That Patience is one special means to keep this possession As always so especially in evil and perilous Times for such Doct. 2 our Saviour here speaks of whatever else we are deprived or thrust out of our great care and endeavour must be to possess our Souls Whatsoever the force be we must stand to it and keep possession Above all keepings keep thy Heart saith Solomon Prov. 4. 23. And keep thy Soul diligently saith Moses Deut. 4. 9. Take heed to your Spirit saith the Prophet Mal. 2. 15. And so here In your patience possess ye your Souls saith our Saviour A dear and great Pledg it is which both God and his People do mutually betrust each other with and both to our present purpose They him looking at it as their Jewel and considering their own weakness and heedlessness leave it to be kept in his safer Hand That we may possess it as the Child gives the Mother that it would have kept we put it into God's Hands to keep it for us And so it 's Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 1. 12. his Depositum which he leaves with God And our dying Saviour when now to be dispossest of his Life that he might keep possession of his Soul saith Father into thy Hands I commend my Spirit Luke 23. 46. And he them it being one of his chief Master-pieces and Possessio siduciaria therefore as soon as it comes out of his hands he commends it to every Man's best care as a great Talent which he betrusts us with and will have at last a strict account of At our Birth sent out from him and in Death Eccles 12. 7. again to return to him that he may have an account how it hath been abused or improved whether kept or lost When thrust out of this House of Clay whether we have not lost it and it Heaven For so this possessing of our Souls includes a double care and endeavour 1. That it be not utterly lost 2. No nor so Distempered and Disguised that neither we nor it be our selves 1. First I say our care must be so to possess our Souls that they be not utterly lost for so the Scripture speaks of losing the Soul Mat. 16. 26. And what is quite lost is then out of our possession And on the contrary that in Matthew He that endures to the end shall be saved Chap. 10. 22. and this of the Text In your patience possess ye your Souls are by learned Interpreters Grotius Brugensis made Parallel so that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to possess the Soul and to save
our desires and call out our more earnest Cries and Groans the more to quicken the earnings of his Bowels towards us and so the more to hasten our deliverance Which tells us in these times of our perplexities and dangers Vse what bad Friends we are to our selves and what Enemies to our Salvation in our neglect of this first Particular of waiting for it 1. In want of these stronger out-goings of the Soul and these warmer breathings after that Deliverance and Mercy which we stand in so much need of not that our outward peace and safety were either in it self or in our deliberate esteem less desireable no less than Health and Life is to a Man in a Lethargy But that Disease makes him sensless so as that when he stands in most need of it he is least of all affected with it and so lieth still as dead without desires of it or any other way making out for it O the deadness of our hearts such a Lethargy I fear hath too much seized on us Our Straits are many our Dangers very great and yet our Hearts very dead because of later years we have been accustomed to troubles and now like a Man before tired out with labour and watching fallen into such a deep sleep as he cannot be wakened We are very far from an awakened frame of Spirit to look up to God and to look out for Salvation and the right way to come by it as the Prophet complained though we fade like a Leaf and our iniquities like the Wind are ready to take us away as a blustering Wind doth the fading Leaves from the Trees in Autumn yet there is none that calleth upon God that stirs up himself to take hold of him Isa 64. 6 7. We are very secure in the midst of danger The drunken Man is asleep on the top of the Mast in the midst of the Sea And although Prov. 23. Dan. 7. 2. the four Winds of the Heaven strive upon the great Sea from all quarters of the World nothing but Storms and Tempests 〈…〉 ever yet those sweeter gales are very silent a spirit of Prayer is very much down and when the said as Jonah 1. 2. Wind is down the Showr is wont to pour down The Lord grant it may not be a Showr of Fire and Brimstone that Sodome's sins may not bring upon us a Sodom's overthrow But so much for the first particular of this waiting viz. an earnest desire 2. The second was a confident expectance For waiting is an act of Hope and Hope the Daughter of Faith and Faith is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hebr. 11. 1. the very subsistence of things hoped for Faith assures and thereupon Hope expects and thereupon also waits My Soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from him Psal 62. 5. Waits as long as it expects and no longer as long as you expect a friends coming so long you will wait though it be very long but give over looking for him and then you will wait no longer When that desperate Courtier in a pang of despair said Behold this evil is of the Lord which he will not and we cannot remove and so despair of remedy then what followed but that desperate conclusion why should I wait for the Lord any longer 2 King 6. 33. But a meekned Believer because he expects much is very willing to wait long and in this patient waiting he continues confidently expecting according to that Isa 8. 17. I will wait upon the Lord and I will look for him Believing Waiters are men of great hopes and expectations Mordecai is confident that enlargement and deliverance shall arise to the Jews Esther 4. 14. Our God whom we serve is able yea and he will deliver us said Daniels three fellows Chap. 3. 17. and fainting Jacob here in the Text though whilest he foresaw the strength and prevalency of Enemies and the sins and sufferings of his posterity and especially of the Tribe of Dan which he now speaks of yet as old Simeon having it revealed that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ Luke 2. 25 26. So old Jacob here seeing for certain a great deliverance by Sampson and a greater by Christ in the midst of all disheartning discouragements whilest he expects he waits and whilest he waits he expects Gods Salvation This did he and this should we and that in greatest straits wait and look wait and look to God 2 Chron. 20. 12. nay wait and look for much from God as the Cripple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 looked on the Apostles expecting to receive something of them Act. 3. 5. Especially when Peter had before in the 4th verse said to him look on us And the very same word God saith to us when we ly before him in a more miserable condition look unto me and be ye saved Isa 45. 22. As the Stung Man looked on the Brasen Serpent in assurance of cure and the Servant on the hands of his Master in expectance of a langess so our Lord and Master in this our waiting posture would have us by Faith look to him not only with desire but with expectance of Salvation And this as very much making also 1. For the Glory of God which was much advanced in the former particular by having the Eyes of all Creatures looking to him in way of desire but much more in this when they are fixed on him in expectation That spake him an alsufficient Soveraign but this proclaims him a gracious and bountiful one for otherwise with men some may be so able that much is desired of them but withal so strait-handed that it 's but little which is expected from then but how glorious is our God that is as gracious as great not more powerful than bountiful from whom his servants may promise themselves as much as they ask My God will hear me Micah 7. 7. yea expect more than they desire as being both able and willing to do more than we can ask or think Ephes 3. 20. This glory of his free and rich Goodness is his great Design especially in the Covenant of Grace and therefore it is that he makes choice of the recumbency and expectance of Faith by which he will dispense not only eternal but even temporal Salvation as that which in so doing much sets forth this his Glory 2. And secondly as much furthers and facilitates our Deliverance for great Expectations are great Obligations even with Men of generous spirits to do much for them that rely much on them and promise themselves much from them that the others good thoughts may not exceed their goodness and this sometimes to those that can plead no Merit that it might appear to be mere Goodness and Mercy If thus with ingenuous Men then much more than so with an All-Gracious God who hath professed that he delights in them that trust and hope in his Mercy Psal 147. 11. and therefore takes pleasure to answer
Head Bread Sun Light Life it self and the Breath of our Nostrils as divers expound that Lament 4. 20. and if all this we may well ask Bernard's question Vbi bene est sine te Vbi male poterit esse cum te Lord with thee how or where can it be ill with me who in thee have Father Husband Captain Shepherd Head to guide protect and provide for me the Staff of Bread to feed and support me the Sun Light and Life to inlighten and inliven me But alas how where will it can it be well with me if without thee without whom all this all else is nothing What forlorn Orphans are we if we have not him to be our Father What desolate Widow-Souls have we if divorced from this Husband silly helpless stray lost Sheep and only for a Prey though fed in other never so fat and green Pastures if not under this good Shepherds care Though a Sampson should be my Champion yet a miserable inthrall'd Captive I shall be if not under the protection of this Captain of my Salvation pined with all other dainties if not fed with this Bread of Life benighted in blackness of darkness for ever though other Starrs shine and all other Torches be lighted if not enlightned with this Sun of Righteousness a sensless trunk if not united to this Head a liveless Life if not enlivened with this quickning Spirit and Life Sine Christo vanum est omne quod vivimus what good will my Lapide in Lament 4. 20. Life do me if Jacob marry with the Daughters of Heth said Rebekah Gen. 27. 46. and what good will mine do me if I be not married to Christ None but Christ nothing but Christ Whatever ground I stand on my foot sinks till set upon this Rock And therefore what ever other mercy or Deliverance I have still with Jacob in the Text I will wait for thy Salvation O Lord. Which leads to 4. A 4th Consideration to this purpose and that is of what all other Mercies and Deliverances are besides Christ his Salvation 1. They but pledges of this Outward mercies of Christ and his Grace and Salvation Indeed they are not this in themselves so as either wicked Men that have their share in them should thereby have any Evidence of interest in Him or that the Godly from their want of them should doubt of their part in him For in both these respects Solomon's rule holds By them no Man knoweth either Love or hatred Eccles 9. 1. But yet because as to Believers the same electing Love that designs Heaven and Eternal Salvation to them in Christ doth in and by him dispense also outward Mercies and Deliverances and therefore the Apostle from the one argueth and ariseth to the other Rom. 8. 28 29 30. therefore they in their enjoyment of them should so improve them as Israel's Deliverances from the Iron Furnace in Egypt and Babylon were types of their and our Salvation by Christ from the fiery Furnace of Hell and Damnation so still that temporal Favours and protections should be tasts and pledges to us of spiritual and eternal Salvation by Christ as it was with Paul 2 Tim. 4. 17 18. I was delivered from the Mouth of the Lyon and the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work and preserve me unto his Heavenly Kingdom But if so then the thirsty Soul cannot be satisfied with such tasts but by them rather hath its appetite further quickned after those fuller draughts of Grace and Mercy in Christ And these lesser pledges draw it out in more earnest longings after those greater matters and which it far more looks after For although in some other cases the pledge may in worth equal yea and exceed the thing insured and expected yet here it 's far otherwise This pledg is scarce an earnest penny and therefore will not satisfy the wary Soul instead of its full payment And so though it hath this Earnest yet it looks still for the Principal Though delivered by Sampson yet still waits on God for his Salvation 2. These outward Mercies and Deliverances are given and intended by God in a sanctified use of them to be as means and as it were under-steps to lift up the Heart to higher desires and enjoyments of Christ and Salvation As Zacheus by getting up into the Sycomore-Tree gets a sight of Christ In these more savourable and liberal entertainments in our way God never intended that with the drowsie Disciples we should dream of pitching our Tabernacles and say it 's good to be here but that These Accommodations on the one hand should be as our viaticum and incouragements And those Deliverances on the other hand remove discouragements and stumbling-blocks in our way to Salvation The one build our Scaffold that we might better edify our selves in the Faith of Christ as Act. 9. 31. when the Churches had rest and peace they were edified walking in the fear of God and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost And therefore the Lord by his Prophet Joel Chap. 2. after he had promised plenty of other food v. 26. adds a Promise of pouring out his Spirit v. 28. The other are but to free us from incumbrances that we might vacare Deo and serve him with less distraction as Zachary sings being delivered out of the hands of our Enemies might serve him without fear in Holiness and Righteousness before him all the days of our Life Luke 1. 74 75. Indeed we are too subject so to abuse and pervert such outward helps that on the contrary they too oft prove hindrances Snares and Thorns to intangle us in our advance to Heaven so that sometimes we never had less of Goâ—â— than when we had most of the World and our being set free from trouble is but the opening the Cage or Prison-door for loose hearts to run further from God Who thereby is inforced that he may recover us out of those wild vagaries to bring us into some narrow deep Lanes beset on both sides with Thorns the better to keep us in our way and to break those Crutches which we too much rested on that we may be taught to lean upon our Beloved in a Wilderness Cant. 8. 5. and so we come to make more speed to our journey's end when lightned of that Luggage which so much loaded and hindred us in our way But that is from God's Grace Mean while it 's a great part of our folly and perverseness to turn our helps into hindrances He at once both wrongs himself and his Friend's courtesy who having a Stool lent him to reach something he hath great need of when he hath gotten upon it only stands strutting upon it and braving over others that are under him till instead of reaching what he wanteth falls down headlong He is a foolish Passenger that when the Master of the Ship puts him ashore for his refreshment or to take in something for his accommodation stayeth so long gathering Shels on the
thy Salvation O Lord. And so Lord do thou ever wait to be Gracious Amen and Amen SERMON XXXVII MAT. 24. 45 46. Preached at St. Alphage Church London May. 2. 1648. Who then is a faithful and wise Servant whom his Lord hath made Ruler over his Honshold to give them Meat in due season Blessed is that Servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing IN the Parallel place of St. Luke upon our Saviour's Exhortation Chap. 12. ver 41 42 43. there as here to Watchfulness Peter makes bold to ask him Lord speakest thou this Parable unto us or even to all ver 41. Which Question of his our Saviour answers with another Question in the words of the Text Who then is that faithful and wise Servant c. By which he gives him and us to understand that although in part he meant all †Chrysostom others yet especially * Ambros Hilarius Cartwright them and their Successors to whom he committeth the Government of the Church for if the ordinary Souldier must Watch then much more he that stands Sentinel The Text therefore and the Auditory suit and in it you have these Four particulars 1. Your Office Servants but yet made Rulers over the Lords Houshold 2. Your Work and Employment to give them Meat in due season 3. Your Qualifications requisite for the discharge of it You must be Faithful and Wise ver 45. and so sincere constant and instant about it that the Lord when he comes may find you so doing ver 46. 4. Your Reward Happy Men if you be such and do so it 's no less than Blessedness Blessed is that Servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing You see I have much way to rid in a little time I must therefore make the more haste and view some things only in transitu and stay upon nothing long nor need I in so Pious and Judicious an Auditory I begin with the first viz. their Office which may be considered in a double reference 1. To God in that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are but his Servants 2. To his People They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are made Rulers of his Houshold 1. The Governors of the Church are but Servants of Christ Moses a King in Jeshurun Deut. 33. 5 and yet but the Servant of the Lord Josh 1. 1. Faithful in God's House but as a Servant Hebr. 3. 5. Paul not inferior to the chiefest Apostles 2 Cor. 11. 5. and yet acknowledgeth himself to be the Servant of Jesus Christ not only as a Christian but as an Apostle Rom. 1. 1. Though as Aristotle observes Nature makes them that have Politick 1. but weak parts to be Servants to Men yet Grace teacheth Men of greatest Gifts Graces and Places to be Servants to Christ who in the Government of his Family will be sure ever to be the Lord over his own House as the Apostle speaks Heb. 3. 6. whilst highest Church-Officers but Servants and set over it not as their House but Christ's And in this differing from Kings and other Civil Magistrates that Church-Government and Governors are not Despotical but merely Ministerial That whereas Princes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exercise Matth. 20. 25. Luke 22. 26. 1 Pet. 5. 3. Lordly Authority over their people our Saviour's peremptory Interdict is vos autem non sic In his Church he permits no such Lording it over his Heritage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 20. 26 27. a Minister and a Servant is the highest stile he suffers them to aspire to They though Servants Ministers of God Rom. 13. 4. yet are permitted to be such Lords as to create Offices and to enact Laws for all things in their Government provided they be not against the Law of God And so both are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ordinances of Man 1 Pet. 2. 13. Here though whilst observing the general Rules of the Word the persons may be designed and chosen by Men yet the both erecting of Offices and the enacting of Laws is the Prerogative of the supreme Lord and Law-giver They must be the Ordinances of Jesus Christ which we as Servants must administer and he only as Lord institute No dogmatizing for us here Col. 2. 20. The servants of Christ must not be Lords of his peoples Faith the Lord make us helpers of their Joy 2 Cor. 1. 24. As Church-Governours we are Servants to Christ and in some respects to his Church 2 Cor. 4. 5. Be not therefore highminded but fear If God be a Master Vse upon that account he expects Fear Mat. 1. 6. and if we be Servants though we have cause to be thankful yet I am sure we have none to be Proud and yet Men's Servants often are and 't were well that Christ's Servants never were There is one that stiles himself Servus servorum who the Apostle tells us exalts 1 Thes 2. 4. himself above Dominus Dominantium and therefore we had need be very wary and the rather 1. Because as Pride is a spiritual sin so it 's through our corruption very subject to breed in Spiritual transactions Liquor full of Spirits soon set on a bright flame 2. Especially in Novices 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 3. 6. not a Novice lest being puft up he fall into both the sin and condemnation of the Devil Whence some collect the Devil's first sin was his being proud of his Office A Novice whether in Christianity or in Office either it new or he newly put into it is subject to be proud as the Child of his new-Coat We had need therefore be the more careful 3. And lastly the rather because to be sure many will be very watchful New things are much viewed and strangers most looked after When Austin and his Company came first into England the direction given to discover whether they were the true Servants of God or no was to mark whether they were proud or humble Look for the like eyes upon us now Some have been so quick or rather maliciously evil that they could foresee that in the managing of these affairs we would be proud as the Devil foretold that Job would be a Blasphemer O that our humility as well as Job's Patience might make the Devil and such devilish malice a Liar and no better way than by knowing our place and the Text tells us it 's to be Servants and that place and relation tells us our duty That what the Scripture requires as due from our Servants Vse 2 to us we owe much more to God calls for Subjection Obedience Ephes 6. Col. 4. Tit. 2. Fear Fidelity not with Eye-service as Men-pleasers but with singleness of heart as unto Christ waiting upon him to appoint you your work Consult his Word and Providences and say as Act. 9. 6. Lord what wilt thou have me to do And for direction assistance and acceptance in your doing of it And then
that he answers the want and desire of every living thing Psal 145. 16. So this Presence-Chamber of his Church he hath so fully fitted and furnished that in his Word Sacraments Censures and other Administrations his Mannah is answerable to every Palat he hath a fit Medicine for every Malady both a Rod and a Pot of Manna in his Ark. But now to â—â—w which of them to use and to whom This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this right dividing of the Word of Truth 2 Tim. 2. 15. so as the proud Sinner may not presume nor the fainting Christian droop the right Administration of the Keys that no false Pretender notwithstanding his greatest shews may be let in nor the weakest Believer notwithstanding his many weaknesses kept out that we do not on the one hand in too rigorous a way kill a fly on our Brothers Forehead with a Beetle nor on the other through ignorance in advertency Interest or the like blow whole a corrupt Ulcer a little skinned over This is one of the hardest pieces of our work hic labor huc opus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord who is sufficient for these things 2 Cor. 2. 16. This would call for in Ministers a more diligent inspection into and Knowledge of the state of our Flock Prov. 27. 23. than I fear we have any of us attained to or many of us endeavoured after which we had need this day to be greatly humbled for our want neglect of This requires all the qualifications which Christ here mentioneth of Faithfulness Wisdom Sincerity Constancy Instancy which I said are contained in the third part of the Text so worthy to be sought and yet so hard to be found if all of you should be like some of us that in both respects Christ may here ask the question Who is that Faithful and Wise Servant whom his Lord shall make Ruler over his Houshold to give them their Food or due portion of Meat in due season 4. Which last words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in season is the fourth particular in this second part of the Text. Food is to be given and that in a fit proportion and also in a fit Season It 's so with orderly Men and in well-ordered Families Eccles 10. 17. and God would not have his House worse ordered The wise Physician as he weighs the Dose he gives so he calculates the time in which he should most seasonably give it It 's the Wisdom of God as Governor of the World that as he satisfieth the desires of his Creatures in giving them their Food so that it is in due season Psal 145. 15. and accordingly as the Lawgiver of his Church you shall observe how punctual he is in the Law to require his Ordinances to be observed but in their season Exod. 13. 10. Levit. 23. 4. Numb 9. 3 7 13 28. 2. He is now no whit less careful of it in the dispensaon of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Apostolical Precept 2 Tim. 4. 2. Be instant in season He adds indeed and out of season too though that is out in some Copies but if you take it Beza in you must understand it of that which the wisdom of the Flesh accounts out of season as that it will not stand now with the Ministers profit or the peoples occasions or humors For otherwise it 's the both faithfulness and wisdom of Ministers and other Church-Officers heedfully and watchfully to watch and catch all fittest oportunities in which they may act most seasonably 1. Hard to be hit on and therefore the more carefully to be heeded Much good lost because the opportunity is slipt because is every purpose there is a time and judgment therefore the misery of Man is great upon him Eccles 8. 6. 2. Most Successful usually if observed The thing is then Beautiful Eccles 3. 11. and therefore taking upon the Wheels them and therefore goeth on smoothly I am no Arminian to make the Efficacy of Grace to consist in Moral perswasions applied tempore modo congruis in the fitness and seasonableness of such Applications No I know that God to shew the freeness and prevailing Efficacy of his Grace sometimes works it as in Paul and others when the Sinner is most indisposed as Christ the Physician came when the World was most Corrupted who otherwise than other Physicians can to purpose give Physick in the height of a Fit as he cured Simon 's Wive's Mother In aestu Febris in the very Paroxism of her Disease Nullum tempus occurrit Regi SERMON XXXIX PHIL. 1. 21. 1. Sermon Preacht at St. Maries May 2. 1658. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain ACcording as our Nature is so proportionably is our Life and Practice It is so with us as we are Men and so it should be with us as we are Christians As such in my former Text lately handled Peter told us that our Nature is Divine and Paul telleth us here that his Life is 2 Pet. 1. 4. such To me to live is Christ and so to die is gain When Christ first is our Life then even Death at last proves our advantage In the two following Verses the Apostle telleth us he is in a strait between two and knew not which of them to chuse Happy strait Not such an one as David was in 2 Sam. 24. 14. when he was to chuse which of three Evils but of two Good things and both so Good that he knew not which to make choice of Such a proffer whether to live or die to a condemned Malefactor would not be accounted a Strait but an happy Enlargement when all his hopes are in Life and he hath no assurance of any Good after Death Skin for Skin and all he would give for his Life Indeed such an Option whether of Life Job 2. 4. Eccles 15. 17. Deut. 30. 15 19. Jer. 21. 8. or Death was once by God tendred to Adam and by Moses and Jeremiah afterward to Israel and Death was by them unhappily made choice of not as sometimes * Jer. 8. 3. it is out of present anguish and weariness of Life but from desperate preferring of Lust to Life and a careless if not wilful Ignorance or non-attendance of what Death and its consequents come to But Paul's both Case and Temper here was far better Because Death would have been his own gain so he could willingly have made choice of it But because his Life would be Christ's and the Church's advantage which he must prefer before himself and therefore deny himself rather than them so as Christ when Nature simply would have desired Life out of Obedience Mat. 26. 39 42. to his Father chose Death so on the contrary but from the same Spirit the Apostle Mortem habet in desiderio vitam in patientiâ When Self-interest would have made choice of Death Christ's Interest makes him chuse Life And happy he that he might so well do
Fuller Miscel l. 4. c. 17. Grotius Hammond in locum will have it read in my Father's House it 's still as much for my purpose for he was in his Father's House there to do his Father's Business or as the word is to be in it and wholly employed in it to give us an Example that as He was in his Father's so we should be in his for although our life is said to be hid with Christ in God Col. 3. 3. viz. as to See Davenant in locum its being safely laid up with Christ and what it will be at last in Glory yea here in Grace not always clear to our selves and much less to others in the World through our own Infidelity and their Prejudice yet not so but that others may see we are alive by our Working and our Works wroâ—ght in God and for Mat. 5. 16. God and that we are not so much about our own Business as God's and Jesus Christ's This the Apostle calleth for Col. 2. 6. As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk ye in him as you have received Him for your own comfort so walk in him to his Glory If you have received Jesus Christ as a Lord you must walk in him and to him as his Servants But what is it to walk in Christ To persevere and proceed to continue and increase in the Faith of Christ But that is not all significat vitam ex Davenant in locum Calvin in loc fide Christi ad ejus praescriptum atque ex ejus spiritu traducere so Zanchy to lead our whole Lives and wholly to act from the Faith and Spirit of Christ that that be the business of our Life And this walking in Christ makes Christ to be our Way as he stiles himself Joh. 14. 6. in which we are to walk and ever to be found so that so much as we act and move not from him and to him though we bestir our selves in the World busily and run swiftly yet as we have it in the Proverb it s besides our work and way per de via so that without better aid and guidance as we have lost our way so we may come finally to lose God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and our selves to Eternity In a word there Christ is our way which we must walk in here our Life and the main business of it which before all other things we are chiefly to be taken up with This in general 2. But more particularly 1. This directly immediately in our frequent and constant more immediate Applications to Christ and so living in him and upon him for what is more immediate to a living Creature than its Life And therefore this includeth and holdeth forth the first and most direct emanations of our Life like that Wine before mentioned Cant. 7. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which moâ—e directly and immediately to our Beloved as in Prayer Praises Meditations and the like outgoings and outstreamings of the Soul in Faith Love Delight desire and such other immediate Addresses to Christ It 's Heaven and the Angels happiness in nearest and directest view to behold the Face of God there Matt. 18. 10. and it 's the Porch and Gate of Heaven to have much of Gen. 28. 17. our Life spent in like blessed interviews between Christ and our Souls here It 's a pleasant thing to see the Light to have our dark hearts gilded with the Golden Beams of the Sun of Righteousness in such nearer Approaches and more happy and benign Aspects It is good for me to draw nigh to God said the Psalmist Psal 73. 28. It was so chearing and enlivening to the Apostles in his Transfiguration that they would have pitched down Tabernacles and sitten down by it Matth. 17. 4. but it 's not so fully to be enjoyed here in our Tabernacle-condition being reserved for our Mansion-state hereafter when being caught up to meet Christ in the Clouds we shall for ever be with the Lord 1 Thess 4. 17. and to behold his Glory John 17. 24. When Christ who is our Life shall appear and we shall appear with him in Glory And therefore Col. 3. 4. although I cannot allow of such Monkish Devotion as upon pretence of endeavors after uninterrupted converse with God and Christ neglecteth such other services of God and Man as they are necessarily called to much less of such as under this pretext give themselves over to Idleness and Luxury how contrary is this to the Life of Christ at least how little of the Life of Christ is to be found among such unfruitful and unprofitable ones Whereas Paul v. 22. doth joyn his abiding in the Flesh and the fruit of his work together so I must needs account them the most happy Men living and that they have an Heaven upon Earth who in their even treading in the ways of general and particular calling which some say was meant by the cleaving of the Hoof in the Law do walk and abide under these more full and direct Rays and Influence of this Sun of Righteousness whilst they can either step out of the crowds of other avocations into this more free Air as Psal 116 7. Return to thy rest O my Soul Or even in the midst of them can with Stephen look up and Act. 7. 55 56. view Christ and converse with him This will be the happiness of the Elect at the last dreadful day to be able with joy and without hurt to look up and lift up their Heads when the Elements Luke 21. 28. shall be melting and dropping down And next to it is this for Believers here in the midst of all other incumbrances of doing and suffering to be vacant for God and to have free and immediate converse with Christ and even in the Fiery Furnace with those three Worthies Dan. 3. 25. to have the Son of God walking with them Thus Oh thus to live is Christ this would be most eminently to have Christ to be our Life and happy we if we had more of it in these more immediate addresses and enjoyments 2. But Secondly Christ would be our Life though not immediately yet reductively if in all businesses of this Life and our particular Callings we did direct and subordinate all to him that they do not as an opake dense Body terminate our Eyes and Heart so but with them and through them we may look to Christ for in that we live much that notwithstanding other things yea and in them we mind most So the Apostle would have Servants in doing their Masters work to serve the Ephes 6. 5. Lord Christ Col. 3. 22 23 24. So as we are Scholars with our Books we are to study Christ too and how we may be most and best serviceable to him and so in all other Callings and Employments as we are Men so we are to remember we are Christians and so not to be content in them to serve our selves and
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not after Christ Col. 2. 8. And for themselves To say the Truth but in Christ Rom. 9. 1. 2 Tim. 2. 7. To speak as of Sincerity as of God as in the sight of God but in Christ 2 Cor. 2. 17. 12. 19. that their Hearers might have a proof of Christ speaking in them 2 Cor. 13. 3. And that where-ever they came they might triumph but in Christ and be unto God a sweet savour in all but a sweet savour of Christ 2 Cor. 2. 14 15. To teach us that for the Matter of our Preaching we should not read a Lecture of Philosophy or bare Morality which they that never heard of Christ might do as well as we and so as some complained of the Schoolmen make Aristotle's Ethicks our Bible or the Documents of Plato whom we call Divine our Divinity And so none might find Christ in our Sermons more than Austin did his Name in Tullie's Works Nor for the manner of it to make some Nose-gays of our own Wit Fansie and affected Eloquence to smell to our selves which to do to the holy Perfume in the Law was deadly Exod. 30. 38. or to fan to our selves the sweet scent of it by the Breath or Applause of others but that the Matter we Preach be Christ and a Crucified Christ in a Crucified manner and so prove a sweet savour of Christ and that such a savour of Life as may quicken dead Sinners to the Life of Christ which other affected Discourses Cant. 7. 9. fall wholly short of Animam non dant quia non habent Thus let Christ as a Quickening Spirit be the Life of our Preaching and in such like Preaching let our Life be spent and so to us to live will be Christ as we are Ministers in our Preaching 2. And secondly whether as Ministers or other Christians He that said 1 Thes 3. 8. we live if ye stand fast in the Lord would say I live if I live to the Lord Christ this calls for the like care of us in our Lives and Practices that in the Sense aforesaid To us to live may be Christ The Grace and Interest of Christ may be that which the whole business of our Life upon a true account is summ'd up and resolved into I say Christ And not 1. Self Not Self-ends and Self-interests I mean our own Profits Pleasures or Preferments which too usually the very spirit and vigour the whole of most Men's lives is intensly fixed and so spent upon which should they be taken out of their Lives it would be a lifeless Life that would be left when in those otherwise very active Spirits you can scarce discern the least moving or so much as breathing after God in Christ But how empty a Vine is Israel whilst he bringeth forth Fruit only to himself Hos 10. 1. Or if they be called Christians what another kind of Christ do they make of him than He was who said that His Kingdom was not of this World John 18. 36. and then not his Life neither In all this thou hast but found the life of thy hand as the Prophet calls it Isa 57. 10. and that 's but a poor withering dying Life It 's but Wind Job 7. 7. A Vapour James 4. 14. Thin vain empty and if full only of Vanity and Sorrows that we are weary of it Job 10. 1. Isa 38. 12. Despise it Job 9. 21. Hate it Eccles 2. 17. Acts 20. 24. Even our own frail Life consists not in the abundance of those outward things we possess Luke 12. 15. much less the Life of Christ Our bodily Life is more than Meat c. Mat. 6. 25. And therefore the Life of Christ sure is much more Even our natural Life is not that which in it self especially in compare with Christ we should so much look after for if to us to live be only to live yea or to live delicately with the Courtier Luke 7. 25. or with the Whore Rev. 18. 7. Deliciously is not Operae pretium not worth the while for Christ's being our Life in the Text is called the fruit of our Labour in the following Verse Christ and Self are two things very distinct and otentimes directly opposite so that we may be forced to deny the one if we would own the other even be dead to the World and Self if ever we would live either to Christ or with Him who therefore died that they which live should not henceforth live to themselves but unto him who died for them 2 Cor. 5. 15. And accordingly you read of their Resolution and Practice for none of us liveth to himself and no Man dieth to himself but whether Rom. 14. 7 8 9. we live we live unto the Lord or whether we die we did unto the Lord yea and sometimes for Him too with Ittai's professed Resolution to David and the like should ours be to Christ As the Lord liveth and as my Lord the King liveth in what place my Lord the King shall be whether in Death or in Life there also will thy Servant be 2 Sam. 15. 21. Hoc scilicet vere est Christo vivere mori cum nobis posthabitis ferimur quo Christus nos Calrin in Phil. 1. 23. vocat rapimur To us to live must be Christ not Self 2. Much less Sin or sinful Self or Satan for they always stand in a flat contrariety to Christ What concord hath Christ with Heb. 7. 26. Belial 2 Cor. 6. 15. or sin with him who is Holy and Harmless and separate from Sinners And yet should we observe many Men's lives should we not see that the vigour and very life of their lives is exerted and run out in the eager pursuit of Mic. 7. 3. Jer. 22. 17. Jer. 23. 10. dead Works who do evil with both Hands earnestly whose whole course is evil and their force is not right as the Prophet speaketh who in a course of Sensuality live the Beast not the Man much less the Christian do not eat to live but rather live to eat and to whom Bibere est vivere or in a mischievous way live the very Devil who breaths in their Oaths and Blasphemies and playeth the very Devil in their mischievous Impieties cannot live unless they take away some others Lives or do some other Mischief Prov. 4. 16. Et si non aliquà nocuisset mortuus esset But is this Christ or any thing like the Life of God or Christ who you heard was Holy and Harmless and came to save Men's lives and not to destroy them If Peccatum be Deicidium Luke 9. 56. it cannot partake of that Life which it doth destroy it put Christ to Death and therefore cannot consist with his Life To live in Sin and to live to Christ are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore we must Die to the one if ever we would Live to the other If to live to us be Christ it 's not Self
in the Event not till the death of our Bodies is the body of Sin quite dead in us but then it will be for as Sin entred into us at the first union of Body and Soul so it goeth not out till their last dissolution But being then parted As to the Body for fins of omission this lump of Earth doth no longer aggravare animam clog the Soul from doing duty nor as to sins of commission doth this Earthly dusty tabernacle any longer defile the Soul as being a fomes and an Instrument by which it acts its self-pollution And as to the Soul though wicked Mens Souls are in statu separato as sinful as they were before yet the spirits of just Men are then made perfect Heb. 12. 23. and therefore not liable to sin which is the greatest imperfection And what a gain this is a holy Heart will tell you when now groaning under the Burden and Pollution of some defiling lust would give a whole World to be rid of it even exchange his life for Death because by it he shall gain a full deliverance from it And as Death ends the Believer's sin So also all that misery which by reason of his sin he more or less all his Life long was exercised with No more inward sorrows or fears or anguishes and perplexities in and from himself no more temptations from Satan no more molestations or persecutions from the World or if any he is no more sensible of them There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary are at rest there the Prisoners rest together they hear not the voice of the oppressor Job 3. 17 18. And if you say that for these outward troubles it is then as well with the wickedest sinners as with the holiest Saints I say but it is not so as to those inward anguishes and perplexities which are the greatest miseries for they in the wicked are not then ended but as to their greatest extremities then begin But for the Godly no more then any of these They then cease from all their Labours Revel 14. 13. and rest quietly in their Beds Isa 57. 2. not one bodily pain or disquieting thought more as Mr. Knox on his death-bed being asked whether his See his Life pains were great answered that he did not esteem that a pain which would be to him the end of all trouble and the beginning of endless Joys Serve the Lord in Fear and Death shall not be troublesome to you Blessed is the Death of those that have part in the Blood of Jesus And is not he who hath attained to this proved a great Gainer having all his former sins and miseries so well and for ever ended 2. And whatsoever of both kinds if he had lived longer he might have fallen into most happily prevented The Apocryphal Solomon saith that Enoch was speedily taken away lest wickedness should have altered his understanding Wisdom 4. 11. But I am sure from authentical Scripture that Josiah was that he might not see that desolation which was coming upon his people 2 Chron. 34. 28. and that the Righteous are taken away from the evil to come Isa 57. 1. of which some expound that Dr. Hammond Revel 14. 13. Blessed are they that dye in the Lord namely at that time there meant because after that time there would be greater misery It may be we cannot but think how miserable some Men would have been if they had lived any longer yea and what sinful Snares some of God's Servants would have been in danger to have been taken in if they had not died the sooner But when they were now falling a Fathers watchful eye saw their danger and with a wary hand snatcht them out of it and took them into his own Bosom out of the reach of it Blessed Father Happy Child And gainful Death that put them into harbor when the storm was coming that would have sunk them prevented those sins and miseries that might have undone them And thus Death to the Godly is gain privatively in preventing loss 2. Secondly Positively in bringing in reallest Gains 1. Of Grace made perfect and that in the most perfect exercise and operation of it Faith then completed in Vision and Hope in Fruition and therefore called the end of our Faith 1 Pet. 1. 9. not so much of cessation as the consummation and perfection of both and for Love what was here imperfect shall then be done away 1 Cor. 13. 10. So that it shall be perfectly then exerted toward God and one another when we shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 20. 36. like to the Angels of God every way pliable and expedite in doing his will And we who think how well it is with us when we can here in any measure of freedom and liveliness meditate and pray or in any other kind with enlarged hearts run the way of God's Commandments and feel how burdensom it is to lye under the burden of Sin and have our Chariot-Wheels taken off so that we drive heavily in what he sets us to what unvaluable a gain shall we esteem it when all these cloggs shall be taken off and we shall find our Souls as upon the Chariots of Amminadab freely to expatiate in those latifundia of Eternity and with those Angels in Ezekiel's Vision whither the Spirit is to go to go without hinderance and Ezek. 1. 12. weariness Now a true Christian estimates Gain not by that of Mony as it 's called Judg. 5. 19. or other commodities which the Men of the World traffique in but that which ariseth from being Rich in Faith James 2. 5. and God's fear Prov. 22. 4. Which is the * Luke 16. 11. true and the †Prov. 8. 18. everlasting Riches as our Saviour and Solomon calls them and therefore when such Riches and Gains are come in fullest he accounts himself the greatest gainer and that will be when in Death Grace is perfected 2. And happiness completed and that will be then also if you will only abate that which will arise from the Souls reunion with the Body which will not be till the last day But at Death Paul makes account that when he departs hence he shall be with Christ which he esteems to be best of all v. 23. of this Chapter in a more full Vision and Fruition of God and what attends that Estate and in what else can be our best happiness Mr. Mede indeed saith that he remembers not that Death is On Rev. 14. 13. Diem mortis diem mercedis indigitari ever in Scripture said to be the time of reward Nor it may be is it so said in those express words nor indeed is it the time of the reward of the most full and compleat payment of it which is reserved to the Resurrection-day But I am sure if Paul said true that upon his departure he should be with Christ that the greatest part of the reward is then given and that not only
Torturers had to inflict them I do not say that all especially weak Christians do or can arise to the Heroick spirit of these Worthies and God forbid that I should fear the safety of their Estates who from weakness of Faith and want of Assurance are afraid of Death and because they dare not as yet die pray with David Psal 39. 13. O spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more But yet this I must say to such that whilst thus they pray for time to recover strength they must acknowledg that it is their weakness which is not to be rested in And if it be from their former careless neglect of preparation for Death or contracting of and continuing under the guilt of some favoured Sin which makes Death terrible they have the more need to make haste to get out of it Or if it be as it may be sometimes it is because in their former Life they among their other many Petitions have not so much pressed that for comfort in Death they had then need plie it the more and listen to holy Bradford's On the Lord's Prayer last Petition Counsel who thus adviseth Pray when the tide of Death comes that we may hale forth of the Haven of this Flesh this World chearfully Nor indeed should it be a Haling but a ready going with the Stream as St. Austin saith In Death we should be like live-Honey which is the best not to need pressing out of the Comb but to flow freely from it But the Wax of this Comb sticks too fast to us and makes us cleave too much to this present Life that we have need to chide out our restive Souls with him Egredere O anima egredere rouse up O slothful Soul get up and get out Go forth O ye Daughters Cant. 3. 11. of Zion and behold King Solomon with his Crown Are you afraid to shut your eyes from seeing the World and Men that you may open them to see God and Christ as Cyprian speaketh De exhortatione Martyrii Cap. 12. ad finem De mortalitate S. 15. Is Death to the Godly but an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Exitus Heb. 13. 7. an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet. 1. 15. an Out gate as of Israel out of Egypt Nay as Cyprian else-where saith Non exitus sed transitus temporali itinere demenso ad aeterna transgressus And shall we be unwilling or fearful to go out of our Prison into our glorious everlasting Mansion Is it but an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as even now we heard and after a long tedious and dangerous Journey should we be troubled to return Home and there to have our Burdens taken off as we said that word signifieth Is it but an Accersitio as Lucianus in Cyprian stiles it but our Father's sending for us Home after a long absence from him Epist 22. S. 2. either by our wild Vagaries or upon his sending and occasions and should not then even the Prodigal when come to himself say I will arise and go to my Father Luke 15. 18. And lastly In the Text is it a Gain Then what bad Husbands we if we be backward from making out after it But is it indeed Gain Then all the time before we arrive at it if it be not Damnum emergens accruing loss as too often by our prodigal Mispenses we make it yet at best it will be but Lucrum cessans it 's a ceasing and intercepting of that Gain which we might have had by it And then Quis hic anxietatis sollicitudinis locus est Quis inter haec trepidus moestus est nisi cui Cyprian de Mortal S. 2. spes fides deest What place is here left for Anxiety and Fear as the Father speaks unless it be in them that have no hope or but a weak Faith if any It 's for Heathen Romans to have a God whom they made the president of Death and therefore called him Viduus because he did Corpus animâ viduare and therefore would let him have no room in their Houses but shut him out and let him stand without and so Romanà Religions damnatur potius quam colitur But the assured Christian with Joseph of Arimathea may well place his Sepulchre in his Garden of delights and put Death and the thoughts of it in his Bosom not as a Snake to sting it but as a Jewel as his Gain to enrich him Ejus est mortem timere qui nolit ad Christum ire Idem ibid. It 's for them to fear Death that would not go to Christ and they that have no assurance of a better Life may be loth to leave this because they know not where to mend themselves so Earth in possession they think is better to them than Heaven in reversion But how more happy will it be if after Christ hath been our Life Death prove our Gain After whatever I have in this Life lost for Christ if not here yet at Death I shall be sure to be no loser by Christ but there may be able with David and our Blessed Saviour to commend my spirit into God's Hands then Psal 31. 5. Luke 23. 46 when there will be enough to take our Goods and Honours and other Earthly possessions to enjoy them and some it may be to take our dead Bdies and bury them but none but God to receive our Spirits who only can secure and save them Then then to be able with much peace to say Father take my Jewel and lay it up in thy Bosom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my only One my Darling my Glory and glorifie it with thy self for ever How happy will that be and how blessed shall we be then Which in a way of close walking with God and working for God we should labour now to get assurance of and then after a longer or shorter days labour not to fear Death but be glad to go to Bed and to rest with God for ever This at all times but especially in these times Of the Old-age and Ruine of the World and it may be of some of our now almost spent Lives And of these our troublesom and perilous Days It 's good dying in Evil-days if assured that we shall then live with God for ever No hurt to be taken away from the evil to come For the Ship to be put into the Harbor when the Storm threatens a Shipwrack Upon this Ground the Father exhorted the Christians Cyprian in his hard Times to be willing to Die though it were by Martyrdome Vt qui cernitis caepisse gravia scitis imminere graviora Because they saw sad things and fore-saw sadder coming on Death should not then be bitter when such things as are more bitter than death are in view for those that live longer Let this be the Rule by which we estimate true Gain viz. If Vse 4 it prove so to us at Death and Death
be lost they are lost for ever 1 Sam 9. 3 20. Psal 119 ult 1 Pet. 2. 25. Mat. 18. 11. Luke 14. 4 5. Saul's lost Asses may be again found and so the lost Sheep and such were the best of us in this Life may be also but Souls lost at Death will never be able afterward to find the way to Life nor will all the riches of the World be able to purchase then a Guide to it Indeed in the right improving of them for God and the Poor thou mayst be laying a good foundation as the Apostle speaks 1 Tim. 6. 18 19. against time to come that when Death comes thou mayst lay hold of everlasting Life but the bare enjoying of them though it may set thee on higher ground amongst Men here below yet it will never be able to lift thee up to God's favour in Life or to Heaven in Death The gain of these things is the Devil's Bait and therefore he cast it out as his last device to take our Saviour with All this will I give thee c. Matth. 4. 9. and with which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he enticeth Men to the loss of James 1. 14. their Souls and so the same Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth both Gain and Craft or Deceit because by gain he craftily deceives Men to their perdition And so his prime Scholar Simon Magus because as Solomon saith Mony answereth all Eccles 10. 16. Acts 8. 19. things would be chaffering with it for Spirituals but Peter gave him his Answer that his Mony was not current in God's Market but bade it perish with him so that it seems Ver. 20. he might perish for all it with it and if gain be all his Godliness all that his gain will be found to be loss at his 1 Tim. 6. 5. last reckoning and then the Covetous who are most greedy of gain will be greatest losers as the Prophet pronounceth a Woe against such Hab. 2. 9. 3. Nor will the bare enjoying of outward Ordinances though more gainful make Death our gain which yet Men are too ready to phansy and promise to themselves Now know I saith Micah that the Lord will do me good seeing I have a Levite to my Priest Judg. 17. 13. and it is a Plea which some even at Death and Judgment will knock boldly at the Gate of Heaven with to have it opened to them We have eaten and drank in thy presence and thou hast taught in our Streets Luke 13. 26. And to this day it 's a very short cut that some are ready to make from a Death-bed to Heaven they have been Baptized and by it Original sin was taken away from them and they have gone to Church to Prayer Sermon and Sacrament and if then at the point of Death they may have their actual sins taken off by Absolution and receive the Sacrament upon it for confirmation of it they make no question but they shall go bolt right up to Heaven and whatever their lives be Death will be their gain without all peradventure But Friend be not too hasty to reckon without your Host sit down a little and think seriously of these Scriptures Bodily exercise profiteth little 1 Tim. 4. 8. It is the Spirit that quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing John 6. 63. Circumcision verily profiteth if thou keep the Law but if thou beest a breaker of the Law thy Circumcision is made uncircumcision Rom. 2. 25. It 's not the bare having them but profiting by them in one sense if either in Life or Death thou wouldst be profited by them in another Indeed we read Rom. 3. 1 2. What advantage hath the Jew or what profit is there of Circumcision Much every way and chiefly because unto them were committed the Oracles of God saith Paul and so say I great is the gain that in Life and Death we get by them if we in Life gain saving-Grace and Souls-advantage by them but they will not be so if we live wickedly or but unfruitfully under them and so have our condemnation aggravated by them as some would gather out of Revel 14. those that will not be gathered in Grotius the Gospel's Harvest v. 15 16. will be pressed in the Vintage of God's Judgments v. 17 18. 4. Nor will outward Profession and a fair shew under those Ordinances which too many rest in and hope to gain Heaven by accrue to their advantage at Death and their last account then Paul could say Though I speak with the Tongues of Men and Angels and though I have the gift of Prophesy and Faith to remove Mountains and bestow all my goods on the Poor and have not true Charity it profiteth me nothing 1 Cor. 13. 1 2. And more near to my purpose that 's a sad question Job 27. 8. What is the hope of the Hypocrite though he hath gained this and that and the repute with Men with Christians of more than ordinary proficiency in Grace and Holiness when God takes away his Soul Man thou wilt then be stript for we shall all be judged naked and then as Solomon saith in another case Prov. 23. 8. The Morsel thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up and lose thy sweet words the hid corruption of thy Heart will then up and out to the loathing of both thy self and others and all those sweet words and pretences by which thou didst impose upon others and endeavouredst upon God also will be all lost and thou with them when thou shalt find that of the Apostle Rom. 2. 28 29. made good He is not a Jew who is one outwardly neither is that Circumcision which is outward in the Flesh but he is a Jew who is one inwardly and Circumcision is that of the Heart in the Spirit and not in the Letter whose praise is not of Men but of God Ravennae extat emblema ad picturam Phaenicis Securus moritur qui scit se morte renasci Mors ea non dici sed nova vita potest Expunctâ hâc morte ad immortalitatem venimus Cyprian de mortalitate S. 2. FINIS There are several literal Mistakes and some mispointings in the Hebrew words which the Candid and Learned Reader is desired to amend The other most material here follow PAge 3. Line 13. Read by p. 4. l. 3. r. notional p. 9. in the margent r. John the most Eagle-eyed Evangelist p. 21. l. 32. r. Michal p. 24. l. 8. dele self after him p. 32. l. 31. r. add some p. 81. l. ult r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 88. l. 11. r. Josh 4. 18. p. 91. l. 17. r. lumber p. 112. marg r. legis sectam p. 122. l. 8. r. in Christ p. 182. l. 35. for God himself r. Godliness p. 183. l. 36. for cross r. crasse p. 224. l. 18. r. meant p. 230. l. 8. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 232. l. 9. r. adore him for p. 233. l. 13. r. could bestow p. 239. l. 38. for crimes r. aimes p. 247. l. 4. r. is terminus p. 378. l. 1. r. quid p. 403. l. 15. r. this p. 415. l. 8. dele why p. 441. l. 23. r. faedus p. 462. l. ult 463. l. 1. r. none before the guide p. 469. l. 30. r. persons p. 471. l. 15. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 474. l. 21. r. Anaxagoras p. 478. l. 35. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 489. l. 20. r. Rereward p. 511. marg l. 21. r. prima q. 105. p. 537. l. ult r. conflatus à Vulcano p. 538. l. 2. r. firmer p. 542. l. 34. r. there by p. 560. l. 23. r. main chance p. 561. l. 21. r. left p. 564. l. 1. after small insert But the King p. 566. l. 27. r. Abject l. 26. r. rescued p. 594. l. 35. r. the Psalmist saith p. 614. l. 25. after come add when it doth come l. 37. r. enjoying p. 652. l. ult dele of it p. 661. l. 26. r. Jesuates p. 666. l. 24. r. move p. 668. l. 12. after Gen. 30. 29. add But a Christian should say thus with himself p. 672. l. 8. r. inquam p. 678. l. 15. r. privatively p. 686. l. 12 for say r. answer P. 692. l. 31. r. enow
material Body of Christ and so become Christiferi and Christo concorporei Christ being concorporated with them as the food is with the body for so they will expound those words of our Saviour John 6. 56. He that cateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him But although in the due receiving of that Sacrament we spiritually by faith are made partakers of whole Christ and so far as saving grace is conveyed to us in the use of it we may be truly said by it as by other Ordinances to be made partakers of that which the Apostle here calleth the Divine Nature yet 1. He speaketh more generally of it here than to be restrained to the effect only of that Sacrament 2. And more spiritually than to understand any such gross absurd and blasphemous commixture and concorporation of Christ's Body with ours so as to be this partaking of the Divine nature 3. Others therefore more rightly and properly interpret it in reference to the Holy Ghost and so C. à Lapide saith we are made partakers of the Divine nature not only accidentaliter as we are by the spirit of God and the work of his grace indued with Divine Qualities and Graces wherein especially the image of God consists and so by those Divine Lineaments drawn by the finger of God which are a shadowy representation of his glorious being and holiness we are made conformable to him and as Children like unto our Heavenly Father But he would have it also understood substantialiter that we Bonavent 1. Sent. dist 14. a. 2. q. 1. Thom. p. 1. q. 43. ar 3. 6. Vasquez Valent Suarez de Deo c. l. 12. c. 5. n. 11 12. are substantially also made partakers of the Divine nature in that the very person of the Holy Ghost is united to us and dwelleth in us as in his Temple substantially and personally novo modo and so in a manner deifieth us This he proveth out of others of their Authors Nor do I deny but that some of our own * Mr. Downham Mr. Cotton Vt in perfectis sima amicitiâ necessaria est amici praesentia Divines though I know none of them that expounds this Text of it do yet hold that not only the grace but even the person of the Holy Ghost is in an especial manner in Believers who is therefore as they conceive said to be given to them 1 John 3. 24. 4. 13. Rom. 5. 5. to be and to dwell and to abide in them John 14. 16 17. 1 Cor. 6. 19. and such like But although I fully believe these Scriptures and therefore subscribe to what Lombard lib. 1. dist 14. proveth out of Antiquity that the Holy Ghost himself is given to and dwelleth in believers yet as concerning that novus modus which they speak of I must confess my own ignorance as not knowing how the Holy Ghost being God and so in his Essence substance and person alike every where should in that respect be more present in believers than elsewhere but only in a more gracious and glorious presence of manifestation of himself to them and operation in them unless they would have the third person hypostatically united to believers as Christ's humanity was to the second person which Lapide's words seem something to sound like to when he saith that the Holy Ghost personally dwells in the righteous Soul which I suppose he meant not of a personal union but only an union of persons of the person of the Holy Ghost dwelling there not as though it were so personally that the spirit and the believing Soul were one person as it was with Christ's humanity in its hypostatical union with the second person of the Blessed Trinity which yet he there compareth this to and to my apprehension doth but nicely distinguish it from it whilst in that personal Union in Christ of the second person with the humanity he makes the bond and tye to be modus substantialis but in this personal Union of the third person with a believer the tie is grace as a quality But I leave these niceties which many a gracious Soul in which the Holy Ghost dwells by his grace cannot conceive and therefore troubleth not it self with It 's sufficient for my present purpose that he confesseth this grace of the spirit to be the medium vinculum causa of this personal indwelling of the spirit in us and therefore it is that as the spirit by his grace dwelleth in us we are made partakers of the Divine nature And this fitly leads me to that which undoubtedly and if not only yet is most fully and properly intended and held out by this Expression Partakers therefore we are of the Divine Nature See Forbes of justification Cap. 8. p. 23 24 25. Id praestant Christi beneficia illud maximè quod sumus filii Dei See Bellarmin de justific l. 2. c. 5. Quomodo autem c. 1. In and by the grace of Adoption and Sonship for by Adoption being called to the fellowship of Christ in his Sonship what he is by nature we are made by grace viz. the Sons of God and so Christs father is our father and his spirit our spirit and consequently the nature of all three being but one is in this relative sense communicated to us we as Sons having our subsistence from the Son who is one with the Father and we in our manner and measure one with them both even the Children of God and so partakers of the Divine Nature So Athanasius * Orat. 4. contr Arrium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by being partakers of the Son of God members of his body of his flesh and of his bones as the Apostle expresseth it Ephes 5. 30. we become thereby partakers of God and of this he addeth this Text is to be understood But as we are the Sons of God upon a double Title both of Adoption and Regeneration for whom he adopts to be Sons John 1. 12. he begets as Sons v. 13. so we are made partakers of the Divine nature upon a double interest as relative in adoption so 2. Positive and inherent in Regeneration and it carried on in sanctification and this I conceive here especially understood So Nazianzen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 4â— Deiformes effecti Cyprian de singul Cleric Deiformi conversatione Idem de unctione Chrismatis S. 3 Deifico studio Idem de aleatoribus S. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil Tom. 1. de lib. arbitrio Vt in his nos filios ejus veréque Deos praestemus Bucer in Rom. 2. Concil 2. pag. 120. Calvin Beza Piscator Lapide Amesius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are made partakers of the Divine nature by partaking of the Holy Spirit as Athanasius in another place expressâ—th it de S. Trinit dialog Tom. 2. p. 164. whilest by the operation of the Divine Spirit in heart and life we are made like God in the one bearing his image