hearts any influence on your lives whether your Conversations are not still as Heathenish as ever If you have no other grounds or motives to embrace the Gospel but only because you are born within the pale of the Church no other evidences of your Discipleship but your livery then God is little beholding to you for your service The same motives would have served to have made you Turks if it had been your chance to have been born amongst them and now all that fair Christian outside is not thank-worthy 'T is but your good fortune that you are not now at the same work with the old Gentiles or present Indians a worshipping either Jupiter or the Sun 'T was a shrewd speech of Clemens that the life of every unregenerate Man is an Heathen-life and the sins of unsanctified Men are Heathen-sins and the estate of a Libertine Christian an Heathen estate and unless our resolutions and practices are consonant to our profession of Christ we are all still Heathens and the Lord make us sensible of this our Condition The third and in sum the powerfullest Argument to prove God's willingness that we should live is that he hath bestowed his spirit upon us that as soon as he called up the Son he sent the Comforter This may seem to be the main business that Christ ascended to Heaven about so that a Man would guess from the xvi Chapter of St. John and Vers 7. that if it had not been for that Christ had tarried amongst us till this time but that it was more expedient to send the Spirit to speak those things powerfully to our hearts which often and in vain had been sounded in our ears 'T is a fancy of the Paracelsians that if we could suck out the lives and spirits of other Creatures as we feed on their flesh we should never die their lives would nourish and transubstantiate into our lives their spirit increase our spirits and so our lives grow with our years the older we were by consequence the fuller of life and so no difficulty to become Immortal Thus hath God dealt with us first sent his Son his Incarnate Son his own Flesh to feed and nourish us and for all this we die daily he hath now given us his own very Life and incorporeous Essence a piece of pure God his very Spirit to feed upon and digest that if it be possible we might live There is not a vein in our Souls unless it be quite pin'd and shrivel'd up but hath some blood produced in it by that holy nourishment every breath that ever we have breathed toward Heaven hath been thus inspired besides those louder Voices of God either sounding in his Word or thundring in his Judgments there is his calm soft voice of Inspiration like the Night Vision of old which stole in upon the mind mingled with sleep and gentle slumber He draws not out into the Field or meets us as an Enemy but entraps us by surprize and disarms us in our quarters by a Spiritual Stratagem conquers at unawares and even betrays and circumvents and cheats us into Heaven That precept of Pythagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To worship at the noise and whistling of the wind had sense and divinity in it that Iamblicus that cites it never dreamt of that every sound and whispering of this Spirit which rustles either about our ears or in our hearts as the Philosopher saith Tecum est intus est when it breaths and blows within us the stoutest faculty of our Souls the proudest piece of flesh about us should bow down and worship Concerning the manner of the Spirits working I am not I need not to dispute Thus far it will be seasonable and profitable for you to know that many other Illuminations and holy Graces are to be imputed to Gods Spirit besides that by which we are effectually converted God speaks to us many times when we answer him not and shines about our eyes when we either wink or sleep Our many sudden short-winded Ejaculations toward Heaven our frequent but weak inclinations to good our ephemerous wishes that no man can distinguish from true piety but by their sudden death our every-day resolutions of obedience whilestwe continue in sin are arguments that God's Spirit hath shined on us though the warmth that it produced be soon chill'd with the damp it meets with in us For example there is no doubt beloved but the Spirit of God accompanies his Word as at this time to your ears if you will but open at its knock and receive and entertain it in your hearts it shall prove unto you according to its most glorious attribute Rom. i. The power of God unto salvation But if you will refuse it your stubborness may repel and frustrate God's Work but not annihilate it though you will not be saved by it it is God's still and so shall continue to witness against you at the day of doom Every word that was every darted from that Spirit as a beam or javelin of that piercing Sun every atome of that flaming Sword as the word is phrased shall not though it be rebated vanish the day of vengeance shall instruct your Souls that it was sent from God and since it was once refused hath been kept in store not to upbraid but damn you Many other petty occasions the Spirit ordinarily takes to put off the Cloud and open his Face towards us nay it were not a groundless doubt whether he do not always shine and the cloud be only in our hearts which makes us think the Sun is gone down or quite extinct if at any time we feel not his rays within us Beloved there be many things amongst us that single fire can do nothing upon they are of such a stubborn frozen nature there must be some material thing for the fire to consist in a sharp iron red hot that may bore as well as burn or else there is small hopes of conquering them Many men are so hardned and congealed in sin that the ordinary beam of the Spirit cannot hope to melt them the fire must come consubstantiate with some solid instrument some sound corpulent piercing judgment or else it will be very unlikely to thrive True it is the Spirit is an omnipotent Agent which can so invisibly infuse and insinuate its vertue through the inward man that the whole most enraged adversary shall presently fall to the earth Act. ix the whole carnal man lie prostrate and the sinner be without delay converted and this is a Miracle which I desire from my heart might be presently shewed upon every Soul here present But that which is to my present purpose is only this That God hath also other manners and ways of working which are truly to be said to have descended from Heaven though they are not so successful as to bring us thither other more calm and less boysterous influences which if they were received into an honest heart might prove semen
never so great enemies of God until it appear as demonstrably to us as it did to those Israelites that it was the will of God they should be so dealt with and he that thinks it necessary to shed the blood of every enemy of God whom his censorious faculty hath found guilty of that charge that is all for the fire from Heaven though it be upon the Samaritans the not receivers of Christ is but as the Rabbies call him sometimes one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sons of blouds in the plural number and sons of fire yea and like the Disciples in my Text Boanerges sons of thunder far enough from the soft temper that Christ left them Ye know not what kind of spirit ye are of In the next place Elias Spirit was a Prophetick Spirit whose dictates were not the issue of discourse and reason but impulsions from Heaven The Prophetick writings were not saith S. Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I conceive in an agonistick sense of their own starting or incitation as they were moved or prompted by themselves but as it follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were carried by the Holy Ghost not as they were led but carried when the Lord speaks who can but Prophecy And so likewise are the actions Prophetick many things that are recorded to be done by Prophets in Scripture they proceed from some peculiar incitations of God I mean not from the ordinary or extraordinary general or special direction or influence of his grace cooperating with the Word as in the breast of every regenerate man for the Spirit of Sanctification and the Spirit of Prophecy are very distant things but from the extraordinary revelation of God's Will many times against the setled rule of duty acted and animated not as a living creature by a Soul but mov'd as an outward impellent a sphear by an intelligence and that frequently into eccentrical and planetary motions so that they were no further justifiable than that prophetick calling to that particular enterprize will avow Consequent to which is that because the prophetick office was not beyond the Apostles time to continue constantly in the Church any further than to interpret and superstruct upon what the Canon of the Scripture hath setled among Christians Christ and his Word in the New Testament being that Bath-Col which the Jews tell us was alone to survive all the other ways of Prophecy he that shall now pretend to that Prophetick Spirit to some Vision to teach what the Word of God will not own to some incitation to do what the New Testament Law will not allow of he that with the late Fryar in France pretends to ecstatical revelations with the Enthusiasts of the last age and Phanaticks now with us to ecstatical motions that with Mahomet pretends a dialogue with God when he is in an Epileptick fit sets off the most ghastly diseases I shall add most horrid sins by undertaking more particular acquaintance and commerce with the Spirit of God a call from God's Providence and extraordinary Commission from Heaven for those things which if the New Testament be Canonical are evaporate from Hell and so first leads captive silly women as Mahomet did his Wife and then a whole Army of Janizaries into a War to justifie and propagate such delusions and put all to death that will not be their Proselytes is far enough from the Gospel Spirit that lies visible in the New Testament verbum vehiculum spiritûs and the preaching of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is not infused by dream or whisper nor authorized by a melancholy or phanatick phansie and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 knows not what kind c. In the third place Elias was the great precedent and example of sharp unjudiciary procedure with Malefactors which from the common ordinary awards on Criminals in that execution proceeded Trial and the Malefactor suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without attending the formalities of Law Of this kind two Examples are by Mattathias cited 1 Macab ii one of Phinees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that zeal'd a zeal and in that run through Zimri and Cozbi and so as the Captain once answered for the killing the drowsie Sentinel reliquit quos invenit found them in unclean embraces and so left them And the variety of our interpretations in rendring of that passage in the Psalm Then stood up Phinehas and prayed in the Old and then stood up Phinehas and executed judgment in the New Translations may perhaps give some account of that action of his that upon Phinehas Prayer for Gods direction what should be done in that matter God raised him up in an extraordinary manner to execute judgment on those offenders And the other of Elias in the Text and he with some addition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In zealing the zeal of the Law called fire from Heaven upon those that were sent out from Ahazai to bring him to him And this fact of his by God's answering his call and the coming down of the fire upon them was demonstrated to come from God also as much as the prediction of the Kings death which was confirm'd by this means It may very probably be guest by Matathias his words in that place that there were no precedents of the zelotick spirit in the Old Testament but those two for among all the Catalogue of examples mentioned to his sons to enflame their zeal to the Law he produceth no other and 't is observable that though there be practises of this nature mentioned in the story of the New Testament the stoning of S. Stephen of St. Paul at Iconium c. yet all of them practised by the Jews and not one that can seem to be blameless but that of Christ who sure had extraordinary power upon the buyers and sellers in the Temple upon which the Apostles remembred the Psalmists Prophecy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the zeal of Gods house carried him to that act of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of indignation and punishment upon the transgressors And what mischief was done among the Jews by those of that sect in Josephus that call'd themselves by that name of Zealots and withal took upon them to be the saviours and preservers of the City but as it prov'd the hastners precipitators of the destruction of that Kingdom by casting out killing the High-Priests first and then the Nobles and chief men of the Nation and so embasing and intimidating and dejecting the hearts of the people that all was at length given up to their fury Josephus and any of the learned that have conversed with the Jewish Writers will instruct the enquirer And ever since no very honourable notion had of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New Testament one of the fruits of the flesh Gal. v. of the Wisdom that comes not from Heaven Jam. iii. and in the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bitter zeal a gall that
it For 't is no less then atheism which the scorners of the last age are to fall upon by walking after their own lusts 2 Pet. iii. 3. And thus was the Pharisees practice here who makes use of his own authority to deny Christ 't was the Pharisees that said Have any of the Pharisees believed on him There is not a more dangerous mother of heresies in the midst of piety then this one that our phansie first assures us that we have the spirit and then that every phansie of ours is Theopneust the work of the spirit There are a multitude of deceits got altogether here 1. We make every idle perswasion of our own the evidence of Gods spirit then we joyn infallibility to the person being confident of the gift then we make every breath of our nostrils and flame that can break out of our hearts an immediate effect of the spirit and fire which hath spiritually enlivened us and then we are sure it is authentical and all this while we never examine either the ground or deductions from it but take all upon trust from that everlasting deceiver our own heart which we ought to sit upon and judge of by proofs and witnesses by comparing it with other mens dictates probably as godly perhaps more learned but certainly more impartial judges of thee then thou canst be of thy self Lastly If the word of God speak distinctly and clearly enforce as here by miracles done before all men to their astonishment and redargution then will I not stay my belief to wait on or follow the learnedst man in the world when Christ himself speaks to my eyes the proudest eminentest Pharisee in earth or hell nay if any of their sect have crowded into Heaven shall not be able to charm my ear or lay any clog upon my understanding So that you see the Pharisees argument in that case was sophistical the matter being so plain to them that they needed no advicè His works bore witness of him John v. 36. yet in the general it holds probable and learning remains a good guide still though an ill Master in matters of Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first thing we undertook to demonstrate And this we should draw down yet lower to our practice and that variously but that almost every Proposition insisted on hath in part spoken to your affections and so prevented store of uses This only must not be omitted For Scholars to learn to set a value on their precious blessing which God hath vouchsafed them above all the world beside to bless God infinitely that they understand and conceive what they are commanded to believe this I am sure of there is not a greater and more blessed priviledge besides Gods spirit which our humane condition is capable of then this of learning and specially divine knowledge of which Aristotle himself witnesseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 none is better then it As long as we have no evidence or demonstration from that which yet it most nearly concerns us to rely upon we cannot enjoy without an immediate supernatural irradiation a tranquillity and consistency of spirit we cannot peremptorily have resolved our selves that we have built upon the rock every temptation proves a discouragement to us many horrours take hold of us and sometimes we must needs fall to that low ebb not far from despair which the Apostles were in Luke xxiv 22. We had trusted but now we know not what to think of it that this was he that should have redeemed Israel But to see all the Articles of my faith ratified and confirmed to my understanding to see the greatest treasure and inheritance in the world sealed and delivered to me in my hand written in a character and language that I am perfectly skilled in O what a comfort is this to a Christian soul O what a fulness of joy to have all the mysteries of my salvation transcribed out of the book of the Lord and written in my heart where I can turn and survey and make use of them as much and as often as I will Nay where I have them without book though there were neither Father nor Bible in the world able out of my own stock to give an account nay a reason of my faith before the perversest Papist Heathen or Devil This serves me instead of having lived and conversed and been acquainted with Christ By this I have my fingers pit into the print of the nails and my hands thrust into his side and am as sure as ever Thomas was I see him as palpably as he that handled him that he is my Lord and my God 'T was observed by the Philosopher as an act generally practised among Tyrants to prohibit all Schools and means of learning and education in the Commonwealth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to suffer neither learning nor Schools nor common meetings that men being kept blind might be sure to obey and tyrannical commands through ignorance be mistaken for fair government And thus did Julian interdict the Christians all manner of literature and chiefly Philosophy for fear saith Nazianzen they should be able to grapple with the Heathen and cut off Goliah's head with his own weapon The continuance of these arts of spiritual tyranny you may observe in the prescribed stupidity and commanded ignorance of the Laity through all Italy All which must call for a superlative measure of thanks to be exprest not in our tongues and hearts only but in our lives and actions from us I say who have obteined not only a knowledge of his laws but almost a vision of his secrets and for as much as concerns our eternal bliss do even see things as they were acted having already comprehended in our reason not only in our faith the most impossible things in nature the bredth and length and depth and height of the conceived incarnate and crucified God and if all that will not serve our turn but we must press into his cabinet-secrets invade the book of life and oversee and divulge to all men abscondita Domini Dei nostri then are Gods mercies unworthily repaid by us and those indulgences which were to bestow civility upon the world have only taught us to be more rude In sum the reallest thanks we can perform to God for this inestimable prize is modestly and softly to make use of it 1. To the confirming of others faith and 2. to the expressing of our own For 1. he is the deepest scholar saith the Philosopher who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 best able to teach other men what himself conceives and then 2. he hath the habit most radicated who hath prest it down into his heart and there sow'd a seed which shall encrease and fructify and spread and flourish laden with the fruits of a lively faith He is the truest scholar that hath fed upon learning that hath nourished and grown and walked and lived in the strength of it And till I see you thrive and
and nourishment from the spirit is rather opprest then improved by such an overflow The Christian is thereby much hindred in his progress of good works and cannot serve the Lord with alacrity that so perpetually hangs down his head like a Bulrush Wherefore the Country rule is that that ground is best which is mellow which being crusht will break but not crumble dissolve but not excessively Hence I say the habituate believer need not suspect his estate if he find not in himself such an extremity of violent grief and humiliation as he observes in others knowing that in him such a measure of tears would both soil the face of his devotion and clog the exercise of it His best mediocrity will be to be habitually humbled but actually lively and alacrious in the wayes of godliness not to be too rigid and severe a tyrant over his soul but to keep it in a temper of Christian softness tender under the hand of God and yet man-like and able both in the performance of Gods worship and his own calling And whensoever we shall find our selves in either extreme either too much hardned or too much melted too much elevated or too much dejected then to pray to that Holy Spirit so to fashion the temper of our souls that we neither fail in humbling our selves in some measure for our sins nor yet too cowardly deject and cast down our selves below the courage and comfort and spiritual rejoycing which he hath prescribed us O Holy Lord we are the greatest of sinners and therefore we humble our selves before thee but thou hast sent thy Christ into the world to save sinners and therefore we raise up our spirits again and praise and magnifie thy name And thus much of this point and in brief of the first consideration of these words to wit as they are absolutely a profession of Paul himself to which end we beheld him in his double estate converted and unconverted In his unconverted state we found though a very great sinner yet not absolutely greater then those times brought forth and therefore we were to think of him relatively to his future estate and so we found him the greatest sinner that ever was called in the New Testament into so glorious a Saint Whence we observe the rarity of such conversions that though Saul were yet every blasphemous sinner could not expect to be called from the depth of sin to regeneracy and salvation and this we proved both against the ancient Romans and modern Censors of morality and applied it to the care which we ought to have of keeping our unregeneracy spotless from any reigning sin Afterward we came to Paul converted where we balk't the discourse of the condition of sin in the regenerate and rather observed the effect of it and in it that the greatness of his sin made as Paul so every regenerate man more eagerly to fasten on Christ Which being proved by a double ground we applied first by way of caution how that proposition was to be understood 2. by way of character how a great sinner may judge of his sincere certain conversion 3. by way of comfort to others who find not the effects of humiliation and the like in themselves in such measure as they see in others and so we have past through the first consideration of these words being conceived absolutely as St. Pauls profession of himself we should come to the other consideration as they are set down to us as a pattern or form of confessing the estate and applying the salvation of sinners to our selves which business requiring the pains and being worthy the expence of an entire hour we must defer to a second exercise Now the God which hath created us hath elected redeemed called justified us will sanctifie us in his time will prosper this his ordinance will direct us by his grace to his glory To him be ascribed due the honour the praise the glory the dominion which through all ages of the world have been given to him that sitteth on the Throne to the Holy Spirit and Lamb for evermore The XIX Sermon 1 Tim. I. 15. Of whom I am the chief IN all Humane writings and Learning there is a kind of poverty and emptiness which makes them when they are beheld by a judicious reader look starved and crest-faln their speeches are rather puft up then fill'd they have a kind of boasting and ostentation in them and promise more substance and matter to the ear then they are able to perform really to the understanding whence it falls out that we are more affected with them at the first hearing and if the Orator be clear in his expression we understand as much at the first recital as we are able to do at the hundredth repetition But there is a kind of Excellency in the Scripture a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sublimity above all other writings in the world The reading of every section of it leaves a sting in the mind and a perpetual conceit of a still imperfect understanding of it An intelligent man at every view finds in it a fresh mystery and still perceives that there is somewhat beyond not yet attain'd to like men digging in mines the deeper he dives he finds the greatest treasure and meets with that under ground which looking on the outward turf or surfice he never imagined to have been there This I observe unto you to shew you the riches both of all and especially of this Scripture whereinto the deeper I dig the more oar I find and having already bestowed one hour in the discussing of it without any violence or wresting or wire-drawing find plenty of new materials We have already handled the Words at large in one consideration as they are a profession of Paul himself I will not repeat you the particular occurrents We now without any more delay of preface come to the second consideration of them as they are spoken by Paul respectively to us i. e. as they are prescribed us for a form of confessing the estate and applying the salvation of sinners unto ourselves teaching each of us for a close of our Faith and Devotion to confess Of all c. Where first the cadence or manner how Paul falls into these words is worthy to be both observed and imitated the chief and whole business of this verse being the truth the acceptable truth of Christs Incarnation with the end of it the saving of sinners He can no sooner name this word sinners but his exceeding melting tenderness abruptly falls off and subsumes Of all sinners c. If there be any thing that concerns sinners I am sure I have my part in that for of that number I am the chief The note by the way briefly is That a tender conscience never hears of the name of sinner but straight applies it to it self It is noted by Aristotle the master of Human Learning that that Rhetorick was very thin and unprofitable very poor and like