Works

A TABLE of the Texts of the Ensuing SERMONS, together with an account of the time when, the places where, and the occasions whereupon the more public of them were Preached.

Sermons Preached before the NATIVES of STAFFORDSHIRE.
• AT S. Michaels Cornhill, London, Novemb. 25. 1658. John. X. 22, 23. And it was at Jerusalem the Feast of Dedication; and it was Winter. And Jesus walked in the Temple, in Solomon's porch.
• At S. Mary Woolchurch, London, Novemb. 22. 1660. S. Jude, verse. 12. These are spots in your Feasts of charity.
• At S. Michaels Cornhill, London, Novemb. 26. 1663. Rom. V. 1. Being justified by saith we have peace with God.

Sermons Preached at the ASSISES at HERTFORD.
• March 1660. Revel. XX. 4. And I saw Thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them.
• March 16. 1663. Judges XX. 27, 28. And the children of Israel inquired of the Lord. For the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord was there in those days. And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days.
• March 29. 1663. 2 Pet. III. 13. Nevertheless we according to his promise look for new Heavens and a new Earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
• March 17. 1664. John. VIII. 9. And they being convinced by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even to the last.
• July 16. 1665. John. XIV. 2. In my Fathers house are many mansions, &c.
• April 6. 1666. 1 Ion. V. 16. There is a sin unto death, I do not say, that he should pray for it.
• March 27. 1669. Act. XVII. 31. Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the World in righteousness, by the Man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all Men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
• August 6. 1669. John. XVIII. 31. Then Pilate said unto them, Take ye him and judge him according to your Law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any Man to death.

A Sermon Preached at the ASSISES at ELY.
• September. 12. 1671. James V. 9. Behold the Judge standeth before the door.

Sermons Preached at S. MARIES, CAMBRIDGE.
• Octob. 7. 1655. Matth. XXVIII. 19. Go ye therefore, and teach all Nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
• At Aspiden, April 5. 1660. 1 Cor. X. 2. And were all baptized unto Moses, in the cloud and in the Sea.
• Febr. 24. 165 • . Luke XI. 2. When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in Heaven.
• April 9. 1658. 1 Pet. V. 13. The Church which is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you.
• Novem. 27. 1659. Rom. VIII. 23. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the Adoption, to wit, the Redemption of our Body.
• June 24. 1660. 1 Cor. XIV. 26. How is it then, Brethren? When ye come together, everyone of you hath a Psalm, hath a Doctrine, hath a Tongue, hath a Revelation, hath an Interpretation. Let all things be done to edifying.

Sermons Preached on the Fift of NOVEMBER.
• 1661. Dan. X. 21. And there is none that holdeth with we in these things, but Michael your Prince.
• 1669. At Eli. Rev. XIII. 2. And the Dragon gave him his Power, and his Seat, and great Authority.
• 1670. At Eli. Rev. XX. 7, 8. And when the Thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. And shall go out to deceive the Nations, which are in the four quarters of the Earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the Sand of the Sea.
• 1672. At Eli. 2 Pet. II. 15. Who have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the Son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.
• 1673. At Eli. 2 Tim. III. 8. As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth.

• 1674. At S. Mary's Cambridge. Act. XIII. 9, 10. Then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his Eyes on him.

  And said, O full of all subtlety, and all mischief, thou child of the Devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?

A Sermon Preached at Guild-hall, LONDON, before the Lord Mayor.
• Jan. 24. 1674. Rev. XXI. 2. And I John saw the holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven.
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More private Sermons.
• Exod. XXX. 15. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than half a Shekel, when they give an offering unto the Lord, to make an atonement for their Souls.
• Judge. XI. 39. And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned to her Father, who did with her according to his Vow, which he had vowed.
• 1 King. XIII. 24. And when he was gone, a Lion met him by the way and slew him: and his carcass was cast in the way. And the Ass stood by it, the Lion also stood by the carcass.
• Act. VII. 53. Who have received the Law by the Disposition of Angels, and have not kept it.
• Rev. XX. 5. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
• 2 Sam. XIX. 29. I have said, Thou and Ziba divide the Land.

• Dan. XII. 12, 13. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred, and five and thirty days.

  But go thou thy way till the end, for thou shalt rest, and stand in the lot at the end of days.

• Heb. X. 29. And hath counted the blood of the Covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing.
• Heb. XIII. 10. We have an Altar, whereof they have no right to eat, which serve the Tabernacle.
• Luke XV. 7. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, that need no repentance.

• Luke XXIII. 42, 43. And he saith unto Jesus, Lord, Remember me, when thou comest into thy Kingdom.

  And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.

• Acts XXIII. 8. For the Sadducees say, That there is no Resurrection, neither Angel nor Spirit. But the Pharisees confess both.
• John XI. 51. This spake he not of himself, but being High Priest that year he prophesied, That Jesus should die for that people.
• Rom. IX. 3. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ, for my Brethren, my Kinsmen according to the flesh.
• Gen. III. 20. And Adam called his wifes name Eve, because she was the Mother of all living.
• 1 John III. 12. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his Brother: and wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his Brothers righteous.
• Gen. IV. 15. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
• Exod. XX. 5. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.
• Exod. XX. 11. For in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth, the Sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.
• Exod. XX. 12. Honor thy Father and thy Mother, that thy days may be long in the Land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
• A Discourse upon the fourth Article of the Apostles Creed, He descended into Hell.

A SERMON PREACHED AT St. Michaels Cornhill, Novemb. 25. 1658. Before the NATIVES of STAFFORDSHIRE.

THE Text is suitable to the occasion: Here is a Feast as well as yours; a Feast in Winter as well as yours; and as I shall show you anon, a Feast on the five and twentieth day of November as well as yours. If Christ will vouchsafe his presence at yours, as he did at this in the Text, the parallel will not be so pregnant as it will be happy.

Of all the four Evangelists John is most punctual, nay, he only is punctual to give account of the Festivals that intercurred, between Christ's entrance into his Public Ministry at his Baptism, and the time of his Death; that renowned and signal space of time, of half a week of years, as they be called, Dan. 9. 27. or three years and an half, in which Christ performed his Ministry, and wrought Redemption. And this he doth partly, that he might the more remarkably count out the time, and partly that he might show how careful our Savior was to observe those Festivals.

He names you the four Passovers that intervened.

The first Passover after his Baptism in Chap. II. when he whipped Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple.

The second in Chap. V. when he healed the long diseased Man at Bethesda.

The third in Chap. VI. 4. a little before which he fed five thousand Men miraculously.

The fourth and last in Chap. XVIII. at which he suffered.

He gives you also account of his being at the Feast of Tabernacles, Chap. VII. and of his being at the Feast of Dedication in the words that I have read.

To the expounding of which, the very way that I must go, cannot but mind me to Observe this to you.

The Text gives the rise of this Observation, and it gives the proof of it. Here is the mention of the Feast of Dedication, and not one tittle else in all the Scripture concerning it. And so there is the bare mention of Solomon's porch, and indeed it is mentioned once again in Act. III. 11. but neither here nor there anymore than the bare name. Certainly the Holy Ghost would never have mentioned these things, if he would not have had us to have sought to know what they meant. But how should we know them? The Scripture gives not one spark of light to find them out, but Human Learning holds out a clear light of Discovery.

Would you know what this Feast of Dedication was? Upon what occasion instituted? How celebrated? At what time of Winter it occurred? The Scripture speaks not one word of all these, but Human Authors, the Talmud, Maimonides, Josephus, the first book of Maccabes tell you all fully.

And would you know what Solomon's porch was, and where it was, and in what part of the Temple it was, in Scripture you can never find it; but consult Human Learning, and Writers, and they will tell you it was a Cloister-walk on the East bound of the utmost Court of the Temple; and they will tell you the very space and fashion of it.

Here is a Text fallen into our Hands occasionally (a Thousand others of the like nature might be produced) let any of those that deny Human Learning to be needful in handling of Divinity, but expound me this Text without the help of Human Learning, and I shall then think there is something in their Opinion.

Two things lead them into this mistake. 1. Because they conceive the New Testament (which part of the Bible Christians have most to deal withal) is so easy of itself that it needs no pains, or study to the Expounding of it. 2. And the less, because, say they, the Spirit reveals it to the Saints of God, and so they are taught of God, and can teach others.

Give me leave partly for our settlement in the Truth about this Point, and partly for the stopping the mouths of such gainsayers, out of many things that might be spoken, to commend these four to you.

• I. That in the time when Prophecy flourished, the standing Ministry that was to teach the people were not Prophets, but Priests and Levites: that became Learned by Study. And for that end God disposed them into forty eight Cities, which were as Universities, where they were to Study the Law together, that they might be enabled to teach the people. And you may see the very Prophets themselves, sending the people to them to be Instructed, Hag. II. 2. Mal. II. 7. It is but a wild thing now when Prophesy is▪ ceased so many hundred years ago, to refuse Learning and a Learned Ministry, and to seek instruction we know not of whom.
• II. There is no ground in Scripture to believe, nor promise to expect, that God doth, or ever will, teach men the Grammatical or Logical construction of the Scripture Text. It is true indeed that he gives to a gracious Saint the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Christ, as it is Ephes. I. 17. But how? Revealing to him by experimental feeling, that which he knew indeed before in Scripture, but only by bare Theory. As for example, A man before his conversion knows by reading and hearing what Faith and Repentance are in their definitions, but when he comes to be Converted, the Spirit of Grace reveals these to him in feeling and experience. And further Revelation as to the understanding of Scripture there is not the least ground-work in Scripture, whereupon to expect it.
• III. When God had committed the New Testament to writing, he had revealed all that he would reveal to men on Earth, of his will and way of Salvation. The words in Joh. XVI. 13. are appropriate to the Apostles. None ever were or will be, whom God led into all Truth, save the Apostles. He leads indeed every Saint he hath, into all Truth needful for him, but the Apostles into all Truth needful both for themselves, and the whole Church. Because God by them was to give the rule of Faith and Manners to all the Church. Now when all the Truth that God would reveal was revealed and compact in the New Testament, as all Light in the body of the Sun, must we still look for further Revelation to explain this Revealing? It was foretold that the Light that God would exhibit under the Gospel should be as the Light of the Sun sevenfold, and must we look for another Sun of Revelation to give Light to this Sun? The New Testament revealed the Old, and must we look for Revelations to reveal the New? And so we may look in infinitum.
• IV. The main difficulty of the New Testament requires study to unfold it rather than Revelation. The Old Testament needed further Revelation to unfold it, and further was promised. And accordingly the New Testament was a further Revelation, that did unfold it. For the great difficulty of the Old Testament was in the Sence; the Language every Child could understand, for it was their Mother-tongue. But when they could understand what the words meant, they could not understand what the Sence meant; nor was it possible to find it out in abundance of places without further Revelation. But the main difficulty of the New Testament is in the Languages; unlock that clearly, and the Sence ariseth easy. The Old Testaments difficulty was in the Kernel, the New in the Shell. For besides, that Greek, the Original is not the Native Tongue now of any part of the World, there is such intermixture of Septuagint Greek, Hebrew Idioms, Talmudichal Phrases, and Allusions to the Jews Opinions and Customs, that the greatest difficulty is to explain the Language: that done the Sence is plain. Now certainly, it is more likely to obtain understanding of Languages by Study, than to attain it by Revelation: unless any one will yet expect that miraculous gift of Tongues, which I suppose there is none will make himself so ridiculous, as to say they expect. But this only by the way.

In the Text, as there are two Verses, so are there two distinct things observable.

In the former a Festival mentioned, in the latter Christ's presence there intimated, and either of them illustrated by three circumstances.

• I. The Festival. 1. By its Name. It was the Feast of Dedication. 2. By the Place. It was at Jerusalem. 3. By the Time. It was Winter.
• II. Christ's presence there. 1. By the place where he was. In the Temple. 2. The particular place in the Temple, Solomon's porch. 3. His posture there, He was walking. He was at the Feast at Jerusalem, though it were Winter, and he walked in the Temple, belike to get him heat, because it was Winter.

The Feast of Dedication (as the Authors before mentioned do inform us) was instituted upon this occasion. Antiochus Epiphanes, one of the Kings of Syria, one of the Horns of the fourth Monarchy, Dan. VII. 24. having the Nation of the Jews under his Power and Tyranny, raised against them and their Religion a very sad Persecution. He forbad them to Circumcise their Children: he restrained the exercise of their Religion, burnt the Books of the Law, set up idolatry, defiled the Temple, set up an Idolatrous Altar upon the very Altar of the Lord in the Court of the Temple. And all this for a Time, two Times, and half a Time; as Daniel styles it, Dan. VII. 25. or three years and an half.

The Jews had never felt such misery of that nature before, and Daniel in his twelfth Chapter foretelling of that a long time before it came, saith, That it should be such a time of trouble as had never been since they were a Nation.

At last Judas Maccabaeus prevails against his Power and Tyranny, shakes off that Yoak, restores the People and Religion, destroys his Idolatry, purges the Temple, pulls down his Idol-Altar, that he had erected there, yea also the Altar of the Lord which it had stood upon and defiled, reareth up a new Altar, and on the 25th day of the month Cisleu, which was the ninth month, or their November, dedicates the Altar, and sets the Public Service of the Temple afoot again. And thereupon he and the generation ordained that day, and seven days forward for the Feast of Dedication, to be kept annually throughout all succeeding Generations, as may be read at large in 1 Macc. IV. and in the Authors beside, that I named. I might Observe from hence

Oh! that England might see that day, and come to such a Feast of Dedication!

But I desire to fix upon the latter Verse of the Text, and to observe Christ's presence at that Feast, which is the more remarkable and strange, because there were three things, that might not only have warranted his absence thence, but even persuaded and urged it, according to the three circumstances we observed in the former verse, the Feast itself, the Time and the Place.

• I. The Time. It was Winter. An ill time to travail; and Jerusalem was a very long journey from Capernaum, the place of Christ's habitation. And the Evangelist seems to have added this circumstance the rather, that we might look upon his presence there as the more remarkable.
• II. It is said that Christ was at this Feast at Jerusalem; whereas he might have kept it in his own Town. For although indeed the three Festivals, that God had appointed by Moses, Passover, Pentecost, and of Tabernacles, required men's personal appearance at Jerusalem; yet the two Feast • , that were ordained afterwards, Purim and Dedication, as the Jews Records tell us, might be kept at their own homes.
• III. And that which was the main thing indeed, this Feast was not ordained either by the immediate appointment of God, as those three were to Moses, nor was there then any Prophet in those times, that by Divine Warrant could authorize its institution: but it was only of a Civil and Ecclesiastical Sanction, appointed by the Higher Powers in that Generation. As our fifth of November is indeed of Religious observation, and yet but only of Human Institution. These reasons might have kept Christ from going up to Jerusalem at this Feast, and yet you see that he is there. From whence I Observe, and on which I shall insist.

An Observation that the Text plainly affordeth, those considerations laid to it, that I have mentioned. For look upon this Feast as a thing of Religion and Religious Observation, he is present at it, as holding Communion with the Church in the public exercise of Religion, or look upon it only as a civil Commemoration, and of a civil Institution, he is present at it, because he kept in conformity with the common customs of the Nation in civil Converse.

I begin with the former: And we are upon a Subject very seasonable in these times of our great Divisions and Separations, and not unseasonable for your Meeting and Feast of Love and Unity. And I know no point, that may more usefully and profitably be studied and looked into toward the reconciling our great Separations than this, if so be the example of our Savior be of Authority and value with us.

For clearing the way of our discourse, let me first Observe these things to you.

I. That when I say, he held Communion in the public exercise of Religion, I mean, their National Religion, by which indeed they were a National Church. A National Religion and a National Church are phrases, that will not now be allowed of by many among Christians, though they will allow them for current among the Jews. Though indeed there can be no clear reason given of the difference.

It is true indeed, that no Nation can now be said to be a National Church in that restriction, that the Jews were, who were so a National Church, that no people were of the Church besides: yet is there the very same cause, that made them a National Church, that may make other Nations so now. Their being a peculiar people did not make them a National Church, for that made them only an only Church. Nor did their Ceremonial Rites in Religion make them a National Church, for that made them only a distinct Nation. But that that did properly make and denominate them a National Church, was the Worship of God, and the exercise of Religion went through the whole Nation. And I see not why Christian Nations, where there is the very same reason, may not also carry the very same name.

In the Apostles times indeed there was no National Church of the Gospel, and that is most true that they plead that hold the contrary to what I assert; namely, that it is not said the Church of Achaia, the Church of Galatia, Indaea, Macedonia, &c. but the Churches. And there is very good reason why it is so said. For those whole Nations had not yet received the Gospel: but as there was a Christian Church in one place, so there was a Heathen Temple in another, and a Jewish Synagogue in another, nay it may be three for one, ten for one. But when the whole Nation came to profess the Gospel, and there were no Church but Christian, then whole Achaia, whole Macedonia, &c. were National Churches.

Observe that in Isaiah XIX. 24, 25. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the Earth. When the Lord of Hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, &c. Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance. Israel was a National Church, because the whole Nation professed Religion and Worshipped God. Egypt and Assyria could not be called so, when Heathen Temples, and Idolatrous Worship, and Jews Synagogues and Judaismes were intermixed; but when all Egypt and all Assyria came to own the same Religion, and Worship of God in the way of the Gospel, why might they not hear the same name of National Churches, as well as Israel?

We mean then that Christ held Communion with the Church of the Jews in the public exercise of that Religion which was the seated and fixed Religion of the Nation, and which went through the Nation.

II. The Religion of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Esseans was not the National Religion, but Sects and excrescences from it: therefore it no whit denies Christ Communicating with the Religion of the Nation, though he did not Communicate with the Religion of these Sects.

You may take up in your thoughts the whole Nation of the Jews when Christ came among them, in two parts: and you may very well so take them up, under the representation of an overflowing flood. Let Jordan their own River be the instance. It is said in Jos. III. 15. That Jordan overflowed his banks all barley harvest. Then a great part of the water ran in the channel, and another part flowed over the banks, and wasted what was in the way. So the greatest part of the Nation kept in the channel of their National Religion, and a great part, namely these Sects, overflowed the bounds, went beyond the proper current, especially the first and the last, and spoiled all with overdoing.

Now out of whether of these two parts did Christ gather those thousands, nay those several ten thousands, as Act. XXI. 20. that came into the profession of the Gospel? Some indeed from among those Sects, but the far greatest part from among them that kept in the channel of the National Religion. For observe what sad doom the Scripture passes upon those Sects severally and jointly.

The Pharisees single, Christ curseth and denounceth woe against, Matth. XXIII. over and over again.

The Pharisees and Sadducees together, John proclaimeth a generation of Vipers, Matth. III.

The Pharisees and Sadducees and Esseans altogether, the three evil Shepherds that mislead the people, Christ professeth that he hated them, as they did him, Zech. XI. 8.

Now it is no wonder if Christ Communicated not with the Religion of them, that were so abominable in themselves and to him, and their Religion so wild; and it had been a wonder, if he should not have Communicated with them to whom he came more especially to be a Minister, and from among whom he was to gather so great an harvest.

And now having premised these things, to come to prove and clear the assertion before us, we shall first consider the obligations that lay upon Christ and bound him to hold Communion with the Church wherein he lived, and the examples and instances that show he did so. The former will evince de jure, the latter de facto.

• I. Need I to prove that Christ was a member of the Church of the Jews? And if that be granted, it can hardly be denied that he was bound to keep Communion with the Church of which he was a member. The Apostle in Rom. IX. 5. tells us that Christ was of the blood of the Jews, and was he of their Nation only and not of their Church? He was Minister of the Circumcision, and was he not of the Church of which he was Minister?
• II. I need as little to prove that he was admitted to Communion with the Church by Circumcision. That stamped him for an Israelite, and joined him to Israel. In Exod. XII. 44. But every man's servant, that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. Circumcise him and thou bringest him into Communion; then he may eat, nay then he must eat the Passover.
• III. Now as he was a member of the Church of the Jews, as a Jew, and admitted to the full Communion with it by Circumcision, so there were two things besides engaged him, that he did not, that he might not depart from that Communion.
  • 1. The obligation of the Law was upon him for things of Divine Institution. And
  • 2. The tenderness of his own Heart, not to give offense in things indifferent.

First, The Apostle tells us, Gal. IV. 4. That he was made under the Law. He was under the Moral Law, as Man, bound to observe it upon duty, as all men are. He was also put under it, as Mediator, that he might fulfil it; and so he saith himself, Matth. V. 17. I am not come to destroy but to fulfil. It is a strange quotation the Apostle makes in Heb. III. to prove, that Christ was not ashamed to call his Saints brethren, verse. 12. I will declare thy Name amongst my brethren, that is plain and pregnant; but verse. 13. And again, I will trust in him. How doth the proof speak to the thing proposed? Why, very properly thus, As the Saints trusted in God, so did he; as it was their duty, so it was his; he being bound as Man to the obedience of the Moral Law, as well as any of his; and to it as Mediator, for the fulfilling of it in behalf of his.

Nay he was put under the whole Law and economy of Moses: the Ceremonial Law, which was the great Law of their Religion, as well as the Moral.

Take their Ceremonial Religion in all its relations, and he was under the bond of all.

• 1. As it was a badge of distinction to difference an Israelite from all other Nations, so he was bound under it, as being a Jew.
• 2. As it was a way of God's instituted Worship, so he was bound under it as one Religious.
• 3. As it was the bond of Israel's Communion in God's Worship, so he was bound under it as a member of that Church.

True you will say, he was bound to these rites, that were of Divine Institution, but a great part of their Religion consisted then of Human Inventions, which neither were of Divine Authority, nor some of them seemed of any great Solidity: Yet

Secondly, Even in these things, whilst they were not sinful in themselves, he would not break off Communion from the way of their Religion, because he would not give offense. That reason that he gives about paying the half Shekel, went along with him in other things, Matth. XVIII. 27. Lest we give them offense. He might have stood upon the argument, that he useth in verse. 26. his own immunity from such payments, as being the great Kings Son, to whom they were paid. He might have stood against the present employment of the money so paid. It was for the repair of the Temple, and now the Temple was become a den of thieves. It was for buying things for the service at the Altar, and he might have pleaded the corruption of the Priests and of the service; but he stands not out, but complies upon this account, lest we should give them offense.

When he had healed a Leper, in Matth. VIII. 4. He commands him to go and show himself to the Priest, and to offer his gift due upon such occasions. And why should he injoin him the ordinary observance, when his cleansing was extraordinary? Why should he send him to undergo the common rites of cleansing, when he was entirely cleansed already? And these rites also seeming not to carry much solidity with them. For he must stand in the Court gate of the Temple, and not himself go in, but thrust his head in, that the blood of his offering might be put upon the tip of his ear. For neither might the blood be brought out of the Court, because it was holy; nor might he go into the Court, because he was not yet cleansed, but thus standing and thrusting in his head he saved both cautions. A strange rite and posture, you will say, yet will Christ for all that, have the man to undergo those common rites used in that part of Service, because he would not give offense either by crossing or hindering.

His own precept speaks not only his own practice, but even his own mind and sense; and he would never go contrary to that, to which he exhorted others in Matth. XXIII. 1. The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses chair, they are the chief Magistrates and sit in the Legislative chair, therefore whatsoever they command you, in things not sinful, do.

And it was a great deal easier to bring in sinless human inventions into Divine Worship then, than it is under the Gospel. For when even their whole Religion given and appointed by God himself consisted namely of Ceremony, it was less to add Ceremony to Ceremony, than it is now under the Gospel; whose simplicity hath excluded such Ceremoniousness altogether. God by Moses had given general rules for Sacrifice, Purifications, Worship, and other things. Now there were some particulars necessary for the carrying on of those generals, which either were not at all, or not plainly set down by Moses. Now if the Learned Leaders of that Nation finding it needful that something should be stated in those particulars, and did according to their best judgment determine such and such things, it was but helping forward Ceremoniousness by Ceremoniousness, and stating particular practices suitable to the general end and intent, which how any Ceremoniousness may be to the Gospels is not so easy, if possible at all, to find out or digest. And therefore although I would set before you the great example of our Lord and Master of holding Communion with the Church, yet upon this very thing, that we are now speaking of, it may give everyone a time to consider whether Human Inventions do so well and sinlesly comply with Divine Worship now, as they might do then.

And thus having considered Christ's obligations to hold Communion, now let us come to observe his practice. And that we shall take up in these two heads. His Public Devotions, and his Gospel Institutions. And the former in observing his demeanor at the Festivals in Jerusalem, and in the Synagogue.

As to the first, God appointed the three Festivals, Passover, Pentecost, and of Tabernacles, for Religion and for Communion, and for Communion the rather.

I say, for Communion the rather. For the Services that Israel were to perform at them at Jerusalem, might have been done by them there, had they severally gone up thither; but God would have them to go up, and meet there altogether; and to do those things altogether, that he might tie them to Communion in Religion, as well as to Religion; and that they might own and keep their Communion, as well as their Religion.

Our Evangelist gives us account of Christ's resorting to these Festivals, and can we think that when he came there, he failed of either of the ends, for which all came thither? And that he went up, as the rest of the Church did, to withdraw from the Communion of the Church, or to cross it when he came there? Let us look on the examples this Evangelist gives us.

• I. He gives an account of his going up to the Passover; and unless there may be some scruple about the third from Joh. VI. he resorted to all between his Baptism and his Death. Now in all the Evangelists you cannot find that when he came there he differed the least tittle from the custom and order that was constantly used by the Church at that Solemnity. Nay they that are versed in the Jews Records, and see their customs there, may show you how he followed the Rubrics and Ritual of that Passover from point to point. His manner of sitting at the Table, his beginning the Meal with a cup of Wine, his ending it with a cup of Blessing, his using Bread and Wine, his concluding with a Psalm; and indeed his whole demeanor at the Meal, compared with the Jews Rubric and custom for the Solemnity, do clearly speak that he kept close Communion with the whole Church in that great Symbol of Communion. He that was to be the Paschal Lamb himself and to fulfil what the Typical Ordinance signified, would not, might not confound or cross the constant received order of that Solemnity.
• II. He gives us an account of his being at the Feast of Tabernacles, Chap. VII. and that he should go up then, and to the Feast, one may think it strange, if he consider what strange rites and customs were then used.
  • 1. That all the People, Men and Children, should go up and down with Palm and Willow-branches in their hands, singing and shaking them, and walking in procession with them. One would think it had been too light a thing for him to have been present at, yet he is so far from breaking Communion for such a rite as this, or crossing it; that he admits the entertainment of himself into the City at another time with the very same procession.
  • 2. But this was not all. This might plead for something of Divine Institution from Levite. XXIII. 40. but there was another custom yet stranger; and what warrant can we find of it? Every day of that Festival one of the Priests took a silver Flaggon, went and fetched water at the fountain Siloam, and came and poured it on the Altar. All the year long they poured Wine upon the Altar for the drink Offering; but now and never but now, they poured water too. None could tell who instituted this rite, nor upon what occasion, nor well what it signified; only the Jews Records tell us, that some said it signified the pouring out of the Holy Ghost. Now at night, after the water had been thus poured on the Altar by day, the grandees of the people, the gravest, wisest, and of chiefest authority, met in one of the Courts of the Temple, and thereby torchlight danced, capered and sung, that you might have thought the men besides themselves. And this, they said, was the rejoicing for the pouring out of the water: insomuch that it grew into a common Proverb, He that never saw the rejoicing for the pouring out of the water never saw rejoicing in all his life. One would think that these were strange passages for Christ to be present at, or to hold Communion with them that used them, and yet he is so far from withdrawing or crossing, that he instructs the people to know the right meaning in this custom, or at least would draw their minds higher than the bare rites, Joh. VII. 37, 38. In the last day, that great day of the Feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. q. d. Ye go to Siloam for water from that Text [for the Jews themselves say the custom took ground from that Text] Come to me for water and drink: and ye pour out a Flaggon of water upon the Altar, to represent the pouring out of the Holy Ghost, I am he that pour him out, and he that believeth on me, even rivers of waters shall flow out of him.
• III. He giveth us an account in the Text of his being present at the fear of Dedication. The chiefest Solemnity of which was this strange custom also, viz. To light up candles in every house: one candle the first night of the Feast, two the second, three the third, and so to increase the number of the candles as the account of the days increased, so that on the eighth night, there were at least eight candles burning in every house. I say, at least eight. For Maymony tells us, that those that would show themselves forward and zealous indeed lighted up a candle the first night for every person in the house. As, if there were ten persons, ten candles the first night, twenty the second, and so augmenting every day, that on the eighth night there were burning eighty candles. From this, as Josephus tells us, the Feast was called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that is lights: and he conceives the reason of the custom to have been because of the light that rose to the people after the great darkness of their misery.

One would scarely think that Christ should make any account of a Festival, when such a thing as this was one of the greatest Solemnities: and yet because he will show his Communion with the Church, he goes to Jerusalem to this Feast, or at least is there present at it; when he might as well have kept it at home; and he goes, though in Winter, when so evil travailing.

Many more examples might be produced, by which might be illustrated his holding Communion in the Festivals at Jerusalem, but these may suffice. And now from these, let us follow him to the Synagogues.

The Evangelists make it plain that it was his manner to go to the Synagogues every Sabbath day. And what to do there? To disturb the Congregation? To cross the Service? To sit dumb whilst others sung Psalms? To put on his hat [that I may express it by our known English garb] while others sit bare? To do everything or anything cross to the order of the Synagogue? As there are too many among us at this day of this cross-grained humor. No; no such thing came near his most meek and Divine Spirit. His noise or troublesomness was not heard in the Streets, much less in the place and time of Divine Worship. But he went to the public Congregation to join with the Congregation in the Worship of God, as the duty of the Sabbath did require. He went indeed to preach, but withal he joined with the Congregation in other parts of Divine Service, as he desired that they should join with him in that. We will allege but one example, having a further hint about this to give hereafter.

It is said Luke IV. 16. That as his custom was, he went to the Synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read. It had been his constant custom to go to that Synagogue of Nazareth, his Parish Church, every Sabbath day, but this is the first time that he Preached there. And in the clause, He stood up for to read, there is more than everyone observes. He Preached in other Synagogues, but he Read in none but this. For he that read in the Synagogue was a member of the Synagogue; and he by reading shown that he owned himself and was owned to be one of This. Now what a kind of people the Congregation of Nazareth was, we may somewhat guess from that passage, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? But plainly enough from what follows in the same story, that they would have murdered him, because his Doctrine pleased them not, verse. 29. And yet did he keep himself till then to that Congregation, owned himself a member of it, read in it as a member of it, till his function called him, and the fear of his life forced him thence.

And thus much be spoken of his Public Devotions, from thence we pass to his Gospel Institutions, and they speak to the very same tenor, that the other did, that he held Communion with the Church of the Jews in which he lived. Of which I shall give you these four instances.

I. His Institution of Baptism. Think not that Baptism was never used till John the Baptist came and baptized. It was used in the Church of the Jews many generations before he was born, and for the very same end that he used it; and it hath been used ever since, viz. for Introduction and Admission into the Church. The Jews did not only use Baptism in their legal Washings and Purifications, but also in the way that we do, viz. to admit into their Church. There own Records (enemies sufficient to our Christian Baptism) yet thus far bear witness also to it; and an Enemies testimony is a double witness. For they tell, that when any Proselytes came in from among the Heathen, to embrace the Faith and Religion of the Jews, they first Circumcized them, and when they were whole, then they Baptized them: and that they so Baptized the whole family, where the Master came in, even Wife and Children with him. So that Baptism of Men, Women and Children was no new thing among them, when John the Baptist came Baptizing, but a thing as well known as with us now. And hence it was that Christ gave no rule how to Baptize, or when to Baptize; because they knew the manner, and knew that Men, Women, and Children were Baptized, as we know it now. It pleaded no precept to Baptize Infants, and no example. It needed not: for Christ took up Baptism as he found it, a thing commonly known, and it was needful only to give a precept to make it an Evangelical Ordinance. As for other circumstances how to Baptize and when to Baptize, there needed no such rule, since common custom and use of the Ordinance had taught that for many ages before. The Parliament makes a Law, let everyone resort to the public Congregation on the Sabbath, and expresses no more. He would be laughed at, that in after times should deny, that Praying, Preaching, Singing Psalms, &c. should not be used in the Congregation, because there is no such Command in the Parliaments Act. Common and known custom and the constant use of such things in the Congregation made it needless to insert those particulars. And so it is in this case.

Doth not this speak Christ's Communion with the Church of the Jews, and his compliance with the public exercise of their Religion, when he would take one of their Ordinances [and no one knew, who first instituted it among them] and make it an Evangelical Ordinance?

I might speak the like of his Institution of the other Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, but I need to speak no more of that, than what I said about his keeping of the Passover before.

II. His Institution of a standing Ministry under the Gospel, speaks also his conformity to the Church of the Jews. They had a standing Ministry, so would he. They ordained their Teachers by Imposition of Hands, he ordained the like Ordination. Remarkable is that of the Apostle, Heb. VI. 2. Observe here the Doctrine of Imposition of Hands in Ordination is a fundamental Point, as well as the Doctrine of Faith and Repentance. See verse. 1. Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith towards God, of the doctrine of Baptism, and of laying on of hands, &c. As the Doctrine of Faith is a fundamental point, so this; That a Gospel principle, so this. And what a point of Faith it is, may be seen by proposing this Question, with the Church, when the Apostle wrote, would propose, Whither must we go for instruction, when the Apostles and inspired men are gone? Why, saith the Apostle, this is a fundamental Point, that Christ hath set up a standing Ministry by Ordination. Hence that Evangelical promise and prediction, Esa. LXVI. 21. And I will also take of them for Priests and for Levites, saith the Lord. Not Priests and Levites, as they offered Sacrifices at the Temple, but as they were the standing Ministry through the Nation. And see v. 20. They shall bring all their brethren for an offering unto the Lord.

Think you, if Christ had despised the current of the public practice of Religion among the Jews, he would have so confirmed to it in a thing of such weight?

III. His institution of God's public worship under the Gospel speaks also the same conformity. The public worship of God among the Jews was twofold. At the Temple and in the Synagogues.

At the Temple, Sacrificing, Washings, Purifyings, &c.

In the Synagogues, Reading, Preaching, Hearing, Praying.

That at the Temple was Ceremonial, and that Christ abolished, having fulfilled what Ceremonies meant. But the worship in the Synagogue was moral and perpetual, and so translated by him into the Christian Church.

In that great Controversy, that hath been so much canvased, about Church Government, I should first lay down this for a foundation, which may, I conceive, be very clearly made good.

That Christ by himself and his Apostles platforming the model of Churches under the Gospel, did keep very close to the platform of Synagogues, and Synagogue-worship under the Law. This might be shown by showing parallel practices in the Apostolic Churches to those that were in the Synagogues. As a public Minister, Deacons, Reading, Preaching, Praying, Collections for the Poor, and Love-Feasts, or entertainment of strangers at the public charge; but I shall fix particularly upon the public Minister.

All the Titles that are given to Ministers of the Gospel are the very same that were given to the public Minister in the Synagogue. A Gospel Minister is called Angelus Ecclesiae, so was the Minister in the Synagogue called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Angel or Messenger of the Congregation. The Ministers of the Gospel are called Episcopy, Bishops or Overseers so was the Minister in every Synagogue called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Chazan Hacconeseth, the overseer of the Congregation. They are called Rulers, Elders, and those that are set over the people, so were the Ministers of the Synagogue called in every title.

Now doth not all this speak Christ's owning conformity to the Plat-form, Discipline and Worship in the Synagogues, when he thus translated all into the Christian Church? And this doth plainly show what we hinted before, that Christ's resorting constantly to the Synagogue was to join with them in the Worship there, as well as to preach or to heal what diseased he met with there.

IV. His institution of the Lord's Prayer tells that he held Conformity with the Church in the public exercise of Religion. They that are of opinion that the Lord's Prayer was not given for a form to be used to • idem verbis, that it is not fit to be joined with our Prayers, that it is not fit to be said by all, because all may not call God, Our Father; did they but clearly see in what conformity to the practice in the Jewish Church, both the Prayer was given, and every petition and phrase in it doth go, they would be of another opinion, if they be not espoused to their own.

The surest and safest construction of phrases and passages in the New Testament, is not by framing a sense of our own, which we think fair and probable, but by observing how such phrases and passages, wereunderstood by them to whom they were then uttered, according to the common use and signification of such phrases and passages, in the vulgar sense and use of the Nation. It is not what conceits or constructions we can mint out of our invention to maintain the opinions about this Prayer, that I mentioned before; but it is best to cast, how the Disciples, to whom it was given, did or could conceive of it upon such observations on it as these.

They knew, that such short forms of Prayer were usual in the Nation. That such forms were given by Masters to their Scholars to be used verbatim. That such were to be subjoined to their other Prayers. That the most common title, whereby the whole Nation called God, was, Our Father which art in Heaven. That every petition in this Prayer was such as was also usual in the Nation. So that they saw that Christ had given this Prayer directly according to the custom, style and form of the Nation, and that he had given no exception to them about it. Therefore how could they understand or conceive of it according to the common custom of the Nation in such cases, but that it was to be used in terminis and to be joined to their Prayers?

By these few examples, indeed of multitudes that might be produced, you see an evident proof of his holding communion all along his practice.

Thus have I done with the former part of the Doctrine, viz. That our Savior held in communion with the Church of the Jews in the public exercise of Religion. I should now take up the latter; That he conformed to the common customs of the Nation in civil converse. And here we are come into as large a field as the other, if not larger; a subject of abundant proof and clearness, and which if I should go about to evidence by all examples that might be produced, the day would fail me. I shall say no more upon it but this, That besides that what is said already doth abundantly prove it, one that hath perused the Jews Writings, and observed both the common dialect, and the customs of the Nation in those times, may observe Christ's conformity, almost to their customs in everyone of his actions, and his conformity to their Phrase, Language and Manner of speech, almost in everyone of his Speeches.

And as here is Wisdom, so here is Learning from knowledge of their Customs and Languages to unlock the phrases and passages of the New Testament, to which it alludes all along. It is not what we can guess upon these and the other speeches of Christ, where he is obscure; but the best way to find out the sense is to observe how such words which are their own Language, would be taken according to the common acceptation of them in the Nation, and how they understood them, to whom they were spoken.

I might be large in Application. And indeed in our divided times one can never speak too much upon this subject. But what need I do more among Christians, than to leave so plain a copy of Christ before them? I shall leave only this request with you concerning what hath been spoken: Deal as the Bereans, Search the Scriptures diligently. Let this hint your poor Countryman hath given you go along with you, as you read the New Testament: See there whether ever you find Christ, but going on in that communion I have spoken. And till you find him dividing, I hope there is none here, but will account his Example a rule inviolable.

And let me give you caution against that Opinion, that by mistake of a Text or two, sticks not to say, that the Gospel doth naturally produce division, Matth. X. 34, 35. Think not that I am come to send peace on Earth, I come not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, &c. And Luke XII. 51, 52. Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on Earth, I tell you, nay, but rather Division, &c. It were strange, if these should be natural effects of the Gospel of peace; and how doth such production agree with that of Esa. II. 4. They shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against Nation, &c. And Chap. XI. 9. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. And it were strange that Christ and his Gospel should be of so different tempers; he to keep so close to communion himself, and to give a Gospel that should break it. But mistake not the Texts, They speak not that Christ would send those divisions by the Gospel, but by his vengeance. He was most fearfully to destroy the cursed unbelievers, the Nation of the Jews, and one dreadful way of the execution of that vengeance was by sending a Spirit of division among the Nation, whereby they even destroyed themselves. The stories of their horrid Civil Wars, Burnings, Plunderings, Assassinations one of another; the like example is in no stories, is a most plain exposition of those Texts, and a dreadful accomplishment of that denunciation. The other Texts I mentioned, they show the natural and genuine product of the Gospel. They shall beat their swords into plow shares, &c. But when will that be? Never, according to universal obtaining. Ever have been Wars, and ever will be, because ever will be Lusts. And yet these are fulfilled in the sense proposed by the Prophets, viz. that God hath fully afforded means for this. The Gospel hath enough in it to move men to peace, but the fault is in themselves. God hath not failed, but men fail. As it is in Rom. III. 3. What if some did not believe, shall their unbelief make the faith of God of none effect? So what if some be unpeaceable, shall their divisions make the Gospel of peace of none effect? So in other prophesies to make like construction, Jer. XXXI. 34. They shall no more teach every man his neighbor, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest. It never was, never will be, Esa. LXV. 20. There shall be no more thence an Infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days. It never was nor will be. Yet God hath accomplished what he promised; He hath afforded means that it might be so.

Let me therefore leave this great copy of peaceableness and communion with you.

A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE Staffordshire-Natives, At St. Mary Wolchurch LONDON, Novemb. 22. 1660.

I Must take up that Style and Strain of excuse to begin withal, that St. Paul doth to his Countrymen about his Appeal unto Coesar; I have nothing, saith he, to accuse my Nation of, though I have been put upon it to make such an Appeal. So I, I have nothing, Dear Countrymen, to accuse this your Feast of Charity of, nor nothing to accuse any of, that are to come to it, though I have chosen these words, that speak so point blank of spots that occurred in such kind of Feasts. But I have fixed upon the words, partly that I might speak in some kind of parity to that discourse that I made to you at our last meeting upon this occasion, and chiefly that I might give you caution against such, that to Feasts are spots, to Charity destructive, and to all meetings dangerous.

Who they were that our Apostle meaneth, I shall clear to you by these two Observations.

I. That as it was foretold by the Holy Spirit in the Prophets, that the best and most comfortable things, that ever should accrue to the Church of the Jews, should accrue to them in the last days, that is, of Jerusalem. (For so is that expression, the last days, in most places of Scripture, to be understood.) So was it also foretold by the same Spirit, that the worst things that ever should accrue to it, should be in those last days also. It was foretold, that in those last days, Esa. II. 2. That the mountain of the Lord's house should be established in the top of the mountains, and should be exalted above the hills, and that all Nations should flow unto it. That in those last days, Joel II. 29, 30, &c. God would pour out his Spirit upon the servants and upon the handmaids; and that he would show wonders in the Heavens and in the Earth, &c. That in those last days, Hos. III. 5. the Children of Israel should return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their King, and should fear the Lord and his goodness. And all other things of the greatest comfort. So it was also foretold, That in those last days, perilous times and persons should come, II Tim. III. 1. In those last days there should come scoffers, walking after their own lusts, II Pet. III. 3. In those last days, there should be many Antichrists. I Joh. II. 18. And by this we know that it is the last time.

Among all other the sad things that befell in those last days of Jerusalem and the Commonwealth of the Jews, one of the greatest was, that there was a most horrid and very general Apostasy or falling away from Faith in the most Churches of the Jews, that had embraced the Gospel; they turning back to their old Judaism and vain Traditions again. Of this the Spirit had spoken expressly. I Tim. IV. 1. Of this our Savior had foretold in that sad application of the Parable. Matth. XII. 45. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and findeth none. Then, he saith, I will return into my house, from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation. The Devil had been cast out of a very great part of the Nation of the Jews. He thought to find rest there, but found none; such notable success had the Gospel of Christ found in that Nation. Upon which the Devil marshalleth up all his malice, strength and subtility, taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and so he at last prevails, to cause a grievous defection in the People from Christianity: they enter in and dwell there, and their last state was worse than their first. So was it with that generation. Of this he had foretold, Matth. XXIV. 12. And because iniquity shall abound, the Love of many shall wax cold. Of this the Apostle speaketh, II Thess. II. That before the terrible day of the Lord, and his vengeance, against Jerusalem (for •• that phrase doth signify almost continually▪ there should be a falling away. Of this you find sad footings in the Church of Galatia. Gal. III. 3. & IV. 9, 10. of Colossae, Col. II. 20. of Ephesus, Revel. II. 4. And indeed you may track the footing of it in all the Epistles of the Apostles.

II. The chief cursed promoters and procurers of this backsliding, was that multitude of false Teachers of the Jewish Nation, that went about pretending to have the Spirit of Prophesy and Revelation; and many of them working Miracles by the power of Magic; so sha •• ing the minds of men, and drawing them away from the Faith of the Gospel of Christ. Of these our Savior had foretold, when he foretold of the miseries that should occur in those last days of Jerusalem, Matth. XXIV. 24. Of these the Apostle foretold, when he spake of the Jewish Antichrist (for of the Jew he speaks, II Thes. II.) and saith, he would come after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, verse. 9. And of these the same Apostle speaks in that obscure place, I Cor. XII. 3. No man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed. For divers went about pretending to the Spirit, and yet cursed our Lord Jesus. Mention and footing of these you may find almost in all the Epistles of the Apostles, more especially in the second Epistle of S. Peter, and in this Epistle of S. Jude throughout. These are they that the Text saith were spots, certain deceivers crept in, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , verse. 4. men that took on them to have the Spirit, but were sensual, not having the Spirit, verse. 19. and filthy dreamers, verse. 8. These were the Spots.

What these Feasts of Charity were is some scruple. The more general opinion is, that they were Solemn Meals, which every Congregation had, and eat at together at receiving the Sacrament: some think instantly before, some after: And the groundwork of this opinion is that, I Cor. XI. 21. In eating everyone taketh before other his own supper. Thereupon Beza without any sticking. At those Feasts, saith he, which they called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , they received the Sacrament, as is plain out of I Cor. XI. Whereas such Feasts as these Suppers, were as far from the Apostles meaning, as the Apostle is far from commending or approving them. For you may observe that he doth not only, nor so much, condemn the misdemeanors at those suppers, as he doth the suppers themselves, as a misdemeanor. For 1. He tells plainly, that by them they vilified the Church, or the place of their public meeting. 2. That they shamed the poor, who could not bring in so good commons and victuals. And 3. That if they were so hungry, they should eat everyone at home.

There are such dreadful and terrible glosses made of the unworthy eating and drinking at these Feasts here mentioned, that many Christians now a days are terrified from partaking of the Lord's Supper, for fear lest they fall under this unworthy eating and drinking, and the Judgment consequent upon it. Whereas, I know you will think it strange, if I say it, yet I fear not to say it, that I believe, there is not a Christian now in the World, that receives the Sacrament unworthily in that sense the Apostle speaks of unworthy receiving there. Mistake me not, I say, in that sense that the Apostle speaks of there. For whereas all Churches consisted then of Jews and Gentiles, and this of Corinth particularly, as appears in the story of its first planting, Acts XVIII. and hence were their divisions: this was the cause of their other divisions, I Chap. I. 12. The Gentile party saying, I am of Paul, &c. The Jewish party, even in all Churches, in this Church undoubtedly, hankered too much after their old Judaism, this old leaven that the Apostle gives them caution against, Chap. V. 8. Two smacks of Judaism you find them tainted with, which the Apostle hints in that XI. Chap. before he speaks of their misreceiving of the Sacrament. The first was, that the men would not pray, but with their faces covered. Which was a mere Judaizing superstition. And the other that they wore long hair: as it appears by his so smartly reproving the thing, which relished of the rite of Nazarites, a mere Judaic custom. Upon that very account did Absalom wear his long hair: which some think, he did of pride, because that kind of pride is grown into fashion among us. But he did it as being or pretending to be under a Nazarites vow, II Sam. XV. 8. And as they thus Judaized in those two things, (and I might show their speaking with strange Tongues, &c. had a smatch of Judaism also) So did they Judaize about the Sacrament.

It was a common and generally received opinion among the Jewish Nation, That Messiah when he came should no whit alter, much less abolish any of their Mosaic Ordinances, but should inhance them to a greater glory. That he should make their Sacrifices, Purifications, Sabbaths, Festivals, and all other usances, far more resplendent and glorious, than ever they had been. According to this opinion did these Jewish Christians of Corinth understand and conceive concerning the Sacrament. They observed not, that it was a Remembrance of Christ's death, which the Apostle minds them to observe, verse. 26. nor did they discern the Lord's body at all in it, as the Apostle lasheth them for not doing, verse. 29. But they reputed it only as a farther inhancement of their delivery out of Egypt; and that Christ had only ordained it, as a further addition to this Passover, and to that Memorial. Hence those Procoenia were in imitation of the Passover-suppers, Judaizing in them, and in their opinion and receiving of the Sacrament. Which were as far from being any ground for these Feasts of Charity in that sense, that they are commonly interpreted in, as Judaism from Christianity, Error from Truth, as a thing odious and to be abhor'd in Christianity from a thing laudable and of divine approval.

If therefore I may have liberty to dissent from an opinion so generally received, I should say, these Feasts of Love were the Entertainment of strangers. It was a constant custom among the Jews, that at every Synagogue a place and persons were appointed for the reception of strangers, as appears by their own Writings. That this custom was translated into Christian Congregations, may be concluded, partly by the necessity of such a thing, at that time when the Apostles and Disciples went abroad to preach without money or provision of their own, and could not have subsisted without such entertainments, and partly, because we read of Gaius, Rom. XVI. 23. and Phaebe verse. 1. and women that washed strangers feet.

So did these false Teachers walk abroad, and came as strangers (for they crept in unawars, verse. 4.) taking on them to be true: and so the Churches entertained them in such entertainments, in those Feasts of Charity, at the common charge, looking on them as true Ministers and Disciples, but they proved Spots and Rocks (for so the Greek word signifies) in those entertainments. Spots, that shamed the company they conversed with, and soiled them with the filth of Errors and false Doctrines; and Rocks, at which multitudes of Souls dashed, splitted, and shipwracked Faith and their Salvation.

I am not ignorant of the variety of Reading and Interpretation of these words, as much as in most places: but I shall not insist upon that: for it would be but expense of time, since both Antiquity embraceth the Reading, as we do, and an easy discovery might be made by what mistakes other Readings and Interpretations took place.

In the words there are three parts.

• I. The Persons, in the first word These.
• II. One particular act of theirs, hinted in the last words, they crept into their Feasts of Charity.
• III. What and how they proved there, they were Spots or Rocks, and did mischief.

I might take up words by way of Descant upon the present occasion, and tell you what are Spots in the Feasts and Entertainments, Riot and Drunkenness, obscene and filthy Communication, Quarrelling and Contention, Uncharitableness and Forgetting of the Poor; these and other things are Spots. But I keep close to the Apostles meaning, and consider the persons he speaks of, such as I described unto you, false Teachers, that pretended to the Spirit, and to preach and work Miracles by the Spirit. And I shall discourse a little concerning the great delusion that is by pretence of the Spirit: and this the rather that I may speak something like in subsequence to that I treated upon at our last Meeting. Then I exhorted you to hold Communion by the example of Christ. For separation I then told you, was the undoing of our Church. Now I give caution against the pretence of those that Preach and Expound Scripture by the Spirit. For that is the cause of Separation, and hath proved the ruin of Religion.

And although this change of times doth seem to promise that this delusion in time will die, so that the present discourse may seem not so very pertinent, yet doth that mischief now live, move, delude, and captivate silly souls little less than it hath done all along. Therefore give me leave a little to discover this delusion to you, that you may not only be the better fenced against it, that it do not deceive you, but that you may be the better furnished to stop the mouths of those that pretend to it.

For the prosecuting this argument, you must distinguish between the false pretence to the Spirit of Sanctification, and to the Spirit of Revelation. By the former men deceive themselves, by the latter, others. They deceive themselves, by conceiving they have the former, because they have something like it; but these deceive others by the pretence of the latter, though they have nothing like it.

There is no grace, but there is a false coin minted by the Devil to dissemble it. As the Harlot takes the live-child from the unwitting mother, and fosters the dead one in the room: and so lies the poor woman deceived: and so the poor man is deceived, and thinks he hath saving grace, when tis but common, and the Spirit of Sanctification, when tis but the Spirit of Bondage. But I shall not insist on this. But proceed to the other pretence, viz. to the Spirit of Revelation and Prophesy, whereby these, in the Text, deceived others.

I shall not need to show you how this hath been the great cheat in all times. There were false Prophets before the captivity, and false Prophets after it; such pretenders almost in all times. I shall strip this delusion naked, and whip it before you by observing these four things.

I. No degree of holiness whatsoever doth necessarily beget and infer the Spirit of Revelation, as the cause produceth the effect. It is the first cheat that these men put upon themselves and others by concluding, I am a Saint, therefore I have the Spirit, and I preach and expound Scripture by the Spirit: whereas, I say, no degree of Sanctification doth necessarily beget and produce that of Revelation. I clear this from the nature of the thing itself, and by examples.

First, From the nature of the thing. The Spirit of Holiness and Revelation are far different, therefore the one is not the cause of the other. The cause and the effect have a parity and similitude one with another; but these are far from being so.

• 1. They are impartible to different subjects: Holiness only to holy men; the Spirit of Revelation sometimes to wicked men. So it was imparted to Balaam, Numb. XXIII. so likewise to Judas and Caiaphas.
• 2. They are bestowed upon different ends: Holiness for the good of him that hath it, Revelation for the benefit of others.
• 3. They are of different manners and operations. The Spirit of Sanctification changeth the heart; Paul is a Saul no more; Revelation doth not. Judas is Judas still.
• 4. They are of different Diffusion in the Soul: Sanctification is quite through, I Thess. V. 23. Revelation only in the understanding.
• 5. They are of different Effects; Sanctification never produceth but what is good: Revelation may produce what is evil. Knowledge puffeth up.

Now see what a cheat they are in This to themselves, (if they believe it themselves) and to others that believe it, in this argumentation, I am holy, therefore I have the Spirit of Revelation.

To the further confuting of this, add but two Examples.

• 1. The first Adam. He was as holy as created nature could be, and yet had he the Spirit of Revelation? Not the Spirit at all. He was most holy, yet had not the Spirit of Sanctification, most full of knowledge, yet had not the Spirit of Revelation: but all his holiness was founded only in his nature, as he was created. God made him holy, and left him to stand upon his own holiness, and had not the assistance of the Spirit at all. So he had great knowledge, yet not the Spirit of Revelation, either to know things to come, or to know things beyond their natures and causes. But
• 2. Consider the second Adam. He was holiness itself, yet had he not the Spirit of Revelation by that holiness. In Christ there were two things. The holiness of his person, by union with the Godhead, and the Indowment of the Spirit upon his person. He was so holy that he was not only without sin, but he was impeccable, Rom. VIII. 2. as we are a Law that cannot but sin, so he contra. Now this holiness of Christ's person or nature is to a clean different end to what the gifts of the Spirit upon him were. His person was so holy, that he might perform the Law, satisfy justice, pay obedience, conquer Satan. But the gifts of the Spirit were to fit him for Mediatorship, to cast out Devils, to reveal the will of God, to work Miracles to confirm that Doctrine.

As these differ in their ends, so are they from different originals; holiness from the purity of his nature, endowments by extraordinary donation. If he had the Spirit in extraordinary gifts of Revelation and Miracles, by virtue of his holy nature, why was that Spirit given so visible, Matth. III. and given when he was to begin his Mediation? Consider his own words, Mark. XIII. 32. But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no not the Angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son but the Father: Some are ashamed to confess their ignorance of anything, yet he doth it plainly. For the Divine Nature in Christ acted not to the utmost of its power. It is clear from this passage of Christ, that by his nature he had not the Spirit of Revelation, but he had it by the immediate gift of God. For it pleased not God so to reveal that day and hour to him, while he was here on Earth. So that by this example you may see much more the fallacy of that argument, I am a Saint, therefore I have the Spirit of Revelation. Whereas Christ himself could not say so.

II. The Spirit of Revelation is given indeed to Saints, but means little that sense, that these men speak of, but is of a clean different nature. The Apostle prays, Ephes. I. 17. That God would give unto them the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of him. And God gives this Spirit; but in what sense? Not, to foresee things to come, not to understand the Grammatical construction of Scripture without study, not to preach by the Spirit: but the Apostle explains himself, verse. 18. The eyes of their understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints. So that the Revelation given to the Saints is this, that God reveals the experience of those things, that we have learned before in the Theory from Scripture, a saving feeling of the hope of his calling, and the riches of the glory of his inheritance. Here let me speak three things.

• 1. To feel the experience of Grace is not by new Light, that was never known before, but by application of what was known before. As the Queen of Sheba first heard of the Fame of Solomon, then found by experience. Compare we our knowledge of Spiritual things to a Banquet, to your Feast this day. A man before Grace sees the banquet God hath provided for his people, hath by the word learned the nature and definition of Faith, Repentance, Holiness, Love of God, and Love to God, but as yet he does but see the banquet; when Grace comes, then he sees and tastes these things in experience and sense in his own Soul. He had a light before from the Word, now it is brought so near his heart that he feels warmness, he feels life and sense and operation of these things, is as it were changed into these things; as in II Cor. III. 18. We with open face beholding as in a gl • ss the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory. Now this is no • the Spirit of Revelation in that sense, that these take it in, but tis so called, because it▪ is by a light and operation above natural light and operation. As common grace is called grace, because 'tis above the ordinary working of nature, so this is called revelation, because above the work of common light.
• 2. How do men come to assurance of pardon and salvation? Not by the Spirit of revelation in their sense, not by any immediate whispers from Heaven, but another way. As in Rom. XV. 4. Through patience and comfort of the Scriptures we have hope. In Scripture is your comfort, and in your own conscience; and in them is your assurance. A Saint makes this holy Syllogism.
  • Scripture, Major, He that repents, believes, loves God, hath the pardon of his sins.
  • Conscience, Minor, Lord, I believe, Lord, I love thee.
  • Saint, from both makes the Conclusion, Therefore I am assured of the pardon of my sins, and my Salvation.

Thus Christ would bring S. Peter to assurance of his Estate after his denial, by this trial, Lovest thou me? Not by any revelation that Christ loved him, but it was assurance enough, if he loved Christ. And here by the way let me speak one word for trial, whether we have the Spirit of Sanctification, that we be not deceived in the rest. Never believe you have the Spirit of Sanctification, unless your heart be changed to love God. Among many signs this is the most sensible and undoubted. I say, unless the heart be changed, and changed to love God. Change of heart is the mother habit of all Graces. God speaks enough in Ezek. XXXVI. 26. A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. In that question about perseverance and loss of grace, as in the case of David, Peter, &c. we say, That the Act may be suspended and lost for the present, but the Habit not. Now by habit we mean not the particular seed of this or that Grace, but the change of the Heart, the materia prima of all Graces. That is never unchanged back again: the stone is taken away. The heart indeed may freez into ice, as David's and Peters, but never turn into stone again.

I say further▪ To love God. A man may feel some kind of change of heart in common grace Common grace is God's ordinary way for working Saving grace; his keys, Illumination, stirring of Conscience, fear of Hell, some kind of Grief. Now though these go not so far as to come to saving grace, yet saving grace comes not but by the inlet of these. And here many are deceived, if they have some such stirrings within them, if startled, pricked, have some sorrow for sin, though all from the Spirit of bondage, yet think they have repentance, godly sorrow enough. And here were an insuperable difficulty of discerning a man's estate, whether yet under common grace only, but that this resolves it, If I Love God. Peters startling of Conscience, grief, tears, were good signs, but never sure signs, had not this seasoned all, Lord I Love thee.

So that a man's assurance of his happy estate is not by any Spirit of Revelation, but of Sanctification, not from Inspiration, but from the work and testimony of a good Conscience; the Spirit of God in grace bearing witness to our Spirits.

3. I may add, A Saint in Heaven finds nothing, but what he knew before in little, what he tasted before in little, but then is filled. As he hath heard, so now he seeth in the City of God: hath heard of the Beatifical Vision, of partaking of God, of Eternity; now he enjoys it, not by any new Revelation of the Spirit, but by blessed experience. So that the dearest Saint of God hath no further promise of Revelation, then in this sense.

III. There is no promise in Scripture, whereupon the Spirit of Revelation is to be expected after the fall of Jerusalem. It is a delusion by which the men, we speak of, deceive themselves and others, when they think and assert, that what promises are made of Revelation, or of great light, are to be applied to these times. How have these places been as it were worn thread-bare by them for this purpose, Isaiah LIV. 13. All thy Children shall be taught of the Lord; and Jer. XXXI. 33, 34. And this is the Covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my Law in their inward parts, &c. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, &c. and others; as if they had been directly aimed for these very times, and as if directly for England: whereas I say again, there is no promise, upon which the Spirit of Revelation is to be expected after the fall of Jerusalem. This assertion is more important and proveable, than seems at first sight. I limit Prophesy to expire at the fall of Jerusalem. Whosoever saith not so, will not know where to limit it, and what that age was wherein it was extinguished. And if no limit, than how great is the danger we are in, who live in these times, when so many of contrary minds pretend to Prophesy: and then there were no age, but there would be some persons Oracular as Moses. If any limit then, where is it fixed? I say at the fall of Jerusalem. And I will prove it by what they bring to prove Prophesy for these days, Act. II. 17. And it shall come to pass in the last days saith God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and their sons and their daughters shall Prophesy, &c. By the last days, they would understand it of the World, I, of Jerusalem. So in divers places besides. That it is so to be understood in the place, S. Peters application makes out. Who applies this place of the Old Testament unto himself and the Christians at that time; upon occasion of their speaking strange Languages. What absurdity would there also be in his applying this place?

The old Economy is as the old World, the Evangelical is the new Heaven and the new Earth. So that the last days of the old World are the last days of the old Economy. Hence the destruction of Jerusalem is spoke of as the destruction of the old World, and Christ's coming is said to be in the last days. So that if we take not the pouring out of the Spirit in the last days, in that sense, we swerve from the sense of the phrase in Scripture. And hence it appears that Spirit to be in those last days, and that it was affixed to them from propriety of phrase.

To this we might add, the manner of imparting the Spirit in those times: It was either by effusion upon many together, Act. II. & X. or by imposition of hands upon some single ones. Now who dares think that ever was since the fall of Jerusalem, such manner of giving, or ever will be? And these are the only ways of imparting the Spirit that are spoke of since Christ ascended.

To all we might add, that at the fall of Jerusalem all Scripture was written, and God's full will revealed; so that there was no further need of Prophesy and Revelation.

Therefore those places they cite, are misapplied both as to the time and also as to the proper sense of them. So that here is a discovery of the third delusion, that Prophesy still continues, whereas it was to cease at the fall of Jerusalem, and there is no promise, whereupon any hath reason to expect it in these times.

IV. The standing Ministry is the ordinary Method that God hath used for the instruction of his Church. It has ever been God's way, since he first wrote words, to teach his Church by a studious learned Ministry, who were to explain the Scripture by study, not by the Spirit. Mistake not, this Ministry consisted not of Prophets, (they were occasional, and of necessity,) but of Priests and Levites. We are sent to them, Hag. II. 11. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, ask now the Priests concerning the Law, Mal. II. 7. For the Priests lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the Law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts. We have mention made of the sons of the Prophets in the Old Testament; these were not inspired, but understanding was instilled into them by Elias, and they sat at his feet; such were those of Issachar. So the Disciples sat at the feet of Christ. The true Apostles indeed were inspired because there was a necessity of it. But when the New Testament was written, there was no further need of inspiration. And then the Church was sufficiently instructed by ordinary Ministers, therefore was Timothy left at Ephesus, Titus in Crete. Thefore was the Imposition of Hands, Hebrews VI. 2.

I conclude all with that suitable advise of St. John, I Chap. IV. 1. Beloved believe not every Spirit, but try the Spirits whether they are of God, because many false Prophets are gone out into the World.

A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE Staffordshire-Natives, At St. Michaels Cornhill LONDON, Novemb. 26. 1663.

T HIS Text may seem very unsuitable to this occasion; but certainly to no occasion, no company, no season can it be unsuitable, can it be unseasonable to speak, hear, meditate of the infinite mercy of God in justifying men, and of the inexpressible happiness of man in having peace with God.

But I have chosen this Subject to treat upon in a methodical succession to what I have discoursed upon heretofore, being called to this Employment: At my first being upon this task before you, from those words in X. Joh. 22, 23. which speaks of Christ's being at Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication, I shown you at large how our Savior held Communion with the Church of the Jews; and thereupon I spake of such unity, against Schism. At my second from those words, Jud. verse. 12. These are spots in your Feasts of Charity, I shown that the spots spoken of were false Teachers, that went abroad pretending to the Spirit, and so deceiving; and thereupon I spake of taking heed of such delusions, against Heresy and Error. And now what can I more orderly and methodically speak upon, after speaking of keeping Peace with the Church, and keeping Peace with the Truth, than of having Peace with God?

Yes, you will say, To have taken in first having peace one with another. True, that might not have been immethodical. But you speak that in my stead; this Loving, Friendly, Brotherly meeting discourses that for me, and makes a visible Sermon of your peace one with another. And I have made that as it were a Text, whereupon to raise an occasional meditation to the tenor of that, which the Text that I have read, speaks. And let me raise it thus, If it be so good, and pleasant and happy a thing to see brethren thus live together in unity, thus to meet together, to walk together, to Feast together in Love, Unity and Peace; Sursum corda, lift up your hearts, and from this luster you see of the Sun shining in this water below, look up to the light that is in the body of the Sun itself, and meditate how excellent, how pleasant, how happy a thing it is to have peace with God, to walk in peace with God in his own ways, to converse in peace with God in his own House, to Feast in peace with God at his own Table, and at night to lie down and sleep in peace with with God in his own Bosom.

This is the last Epistle the Apostle wrote before his apprehension and imprisonment. He wrote it from Corinth, where he touched in his journey to Jerusalem, his last journey thither. He wrote it in the second year of Nero immediately after Easter, when Claudius, who had hindered the Mystery of iniquity from its working in its full scope, by his discountenancing the Jewish Nation, had now been taken away above a year and an half ago. And now that mystery did find itself loose, and acted in its full activity: those of that Nation, that had not embraced the Gospel persecuting it with all virulency, and multitudes of those that had embraced it apostatizing from it, and becoming its bitter enemies.

This double fruit of gall and wormwood proceeded from one and the same root of bitterness, viz. Their doting upon Judaism: the word taken in a Civil sense, as they accounted it a privilegial excellence to be a Jew, or in a Religious sense, as they expected to be justified by their Judaical works.

So that the very season and present juncture of affairs might very well give occasion unto the Apostle, to handle the two Themes that faced these two great delusions, so copiously in this Epistle, above all other places, viz. The casting off the Jews, and coming in of the Gentiles, to decry their boasting of being Jews; and Justification by Faith, to face their dangerous principle of Justification by their Works.

How he prosecutes his Discourse upon the point of Justification by Faith from the beginning of his Epistle hither, any one may see plainly; first, confuting the opinion concerning Justification by Works, and then proving that it is by Faith.

As to the former, in Chap. I. he speaks of the works of the Heathen, most abominable, and clean contrary to justifying: in Chap. II. of the works of the Jews, most failing and infinitely short of justifying; and yet concludes, as to the second head he handles, that the Believers of the one Nation and the other are justified, Chap. III. 30. as well the circumcision 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 by faith and not by works, as the uncircumcision 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 through faith, though it had been of so contrary works.

In Chap. IV. he instanceth in Abraham, as serving to both his purposes, showing that he was not justified by his Works, but by believing, and that the rather because it was a common opinion and saying among the Jews, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 That Abraham performed all the Law to a little, and consequently that he was justified by that performance. He showeth, that he believed and was justified by his faith, before he received circumcision, in which they placed so much of justification, and that he received Circumcision 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a seal of the righteousness of faith, which he had being yet uncircumcised, and a seal of the righteousness of faith which should be in the uncircumcision, or Gentiles, that should come to believe, (as those words will also bear) that he might be the Father of all that believe, though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also; verse. 11.

In this verse before, as he begins to apply the Doctrine he had cleared, and the word Therefore infers no less. Upon which I shall not insist to examine, whether by it he infers only the first clause of the Text, as proved already, That Justification is by Faith: or the second also, as proved likewise, or now added to be proved, That being Justified by Faith, we have peace with God. Nor shall I insist upon the connection, but take the words as they lie singly before us; and methinks they are as Ephraim and Manasseh before Jacob, both clauses so excellent, that we may be at a stand on which to lay the right hand; so great the mystery of Justification, and so incomparable the happiness of having Peace, that on which shall we fix to discourse in this hour? I may not pass the former, but in a word or two by the way, hint something of the great mystery of Justification.

• I. It is a mystery and wonder, that I may say with that Apostle, even the Angels desire to look into, and that men have cause with amazement to look upon, that ever a sinful wretch, a condemned person, should be justified before God. But so it was in the Law, he that was unclean with the deepest died legal uncleanness that could be, if purified with the Purification of the Sanctuary, he became clean.
• II. It is a mystery, that a sinner should be justified, and yet whiles he lives in this world he is sinful still. But so likewise it was in the Law, the Leper was cleansed, yet he was a Leper still, Levite. XIII. 13. In a case there mentioned the Priest was to pronounce him clean. His condition was changed as to his restoring to the public Worship, and to the Congregation, but his inherent distemper was not wholly removed.
• III. It is a mystery, that a sinner should be justified by God's justice: the property of which is to condemn sin and to punish sinners. For we are justified not only by the grace and mercy of God, but by the very justice of God. And methinks the very word Justification speaks no less, I am sure the Apostle speaks so in Chap. I. 17. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. In the Law was revealed the righteousness or justice of God condemning, and in the Gospel the righteousness or justice of God justifying.
• IV. It is a mystery, that man's believing should justify: it being an Act of man, and so infinitely unadaequate to God's justifying. But as in the Law, he that would have his atonement made at the Altar, and have his acceptance there, must of necessity take the Priest in his thoughts, and in his way to do it for him; so Faith doth inevitably include also Christ the object of believing, and his merit. So that you cannot define this Gospel faith but with this comprehension, that it is a trusting in the grace and promise of God through Christ.
• V. It is a mystery, that a sinner should be justified or made righteous by the righteousness of another. This is strange to the ears of the Jews, who expected to be justified everyone by his own righteousness. Whereas they might have learned at the Temple, that even the holiest things there, were not holy of themselves, but made holy by something else; the Sacrifice by the Altar, the Priest by his garments. And this is that Faith that the Apostle speaks of in the place mentioned before, The righteousness of God revealed from Faith to Faith, I. Rom. 17. i. e. a righteousness beyond that that the Jew expected by Faith in God, who immediately trusted in God upon the account of his own righteousness: whereas This is a Faith or trusting in God upon the righteousness of Christ.
• VI. It is a mystery, that whereas Faith is not the same for degree and measure in all that believe, yet justification is the same in all that believe, though their belief be in different measures and degrees. So once in the Wilderness all gathered not Manna in the same measure, yet when all came to measure, they had all alike, none above an Omer, none under. Sanctification indeed receiveth magis & minus, and one hath a greater degree or less of holiness than other, but Justification is not so. For all are justified alike; the truth of faith justifying, not the measure. So actual sinfulness recipit magis & minus, and so some are greater sinners some less, but origin sui, 'tis not so, but sin is alike in all.

But my discourse shall light down and stay upon that which in the Text is the lighting down of the happiness of being justified, viz. That such have peace with God.

The very word, to have Peace with God may make a Christians heart to leap within him, it speaks so much happiness. Did not our hearts burn within us, say they in the Gospel upon Christ's gracious discourses with them. It is enough to warm a heart, if it be not, if it will not be, a stone; if it be sensible, if it will be sensible, what it is to be a sinner: to hear that an offended, just, dreadful, all-powerful God, will be at peace with him, that hath offended him.

Why art thou so dull O my Soul, why so stupid within me, as not to stir, not to be affected at the sounding of such tidings as these, that it is possible for a sinner to have peace with God? Cain, why art thou so unquiet in thy conscience, if thou do well shalt thou not be accepted, but if thou do not, there is a sin offering lies at the door, and thou mayest have an atonement. Wretch that thou art, if thy heart relent not at such tidings as these!

When the Devil had set enmity twixt God and Man at the fall of Adam, it was a lovely dawning towards man's recovery, when God set enmity twixt Man and the Devil: for their friendship had been Mans undoing. But it was the glorious Sun-rising, or noontide rather, when God abolished the enmity betwixt Man and himself, and brought and spake Peace.

In the Angels song, that they sung at the birth of our Savior; that part of the Ditty spake a great deal of happiness, that spake of Peace on Earth twixt man and man; which was not to be by reconciling Jew and Gentile in the Gospel: but that part of it spake more happiness, that spake of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 God's good will towards men, or Peace twixt Men and God.

Now what it is to have peace with God, who can utter? It is a fit Theme for an Angel from Heaven to discourse upon, who never had enmity with God, or rather for a Saint in glory, who had once been at enmity, but now knows what the sweetness of peace with God is in its full enjoyment. Take the prospect of it thus reflexly. Take your stand in your thoughts from a death-bed, a very convenient stand to take our view in all our actions. Think of your dying condition, and conceive all your sins then mustered before you, the vanity, folly and wretchedness of an ill led life presenting themselves before you in their horror and confusion, your conscience flashing the very flames of Hell into your faces: imagine that you beheld God frowning, and his face full of indignation; in a word that you saw plainly your lost and undone Condition; and then speak, heart, what is it to have peace with God? Solomon, wilt thou have riches? Sinner, wilt thou have pre • erments, wealth, pleasure, all contents the World can afford? No, Lord, let me have Peace with God, which is above ten thousand Worlds.

It is very incident to any, that treateth upon this Subject, to be carried by a kind of delightful impulse and enforcement, to discourse what happiness it is to have Peace with God. And no wonder, when the field is very pleasant to spatiate in: But I shall according to the proper rule of method, first, inquire into the nature of the thing itself, and then, if time permit, speak of that happy fruit of it.

Of the former of these I shall discourse Negatively and Positively.

I. Negatively, what is not this Peace, nor any sign of it: but is counterfeit coin▪ And

1. Outward Peace, or prosperity in the things of this World is no sign at all of Peace with God. The men of the World are willing to delude themselves with this Sophism, All things go well with me, therefore 'tis so twixt God and me. 'It is true, outward prosperity in Scripture-phrase is often termed by the name of Peace; and it is true also, that outward prosperity is often promised upon pleasing God in obedience to his Commandments, as in Levite. XXVI. and Deut. XXVIII. and in multitudes of other places. And hence some may be ready upon the enjoyment of worldly prosperity to think they may conclude upon the favor of God, and that they are at peace with him, and all well 'twixt God and them.

But that promise of the Covenant is to be interpreted according to the tenor of the Covenant itself: which is, That it is absolutely a Covenant of Grace and Peace, but it is conditionally the Covenant of somewhat else, viz. of temporal things. In 1 Tim. IV. 8. Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come: Of the life to come absolutely, of this conditionally. God's Covenant is, that they that keep his Covenant, shall have grace; that is absolute: and it may be prosperity, it may be adversity; that is conditional. But this may be, spoils all. By no means. Thou shalt have prosperity, if best; thou shalt have adversity, if best: Riches if good for thee, prosperity if better.

And in that question, whether wicked men have right to the creature, the determination is made more easy, this being observed, That there is a great deal of difference betwixt a right to the Creature, and a Covenant-right, which is, that the use of the Creature be for our good. For Dominium temporale non fundatur in gratia. It is not grace that gives interest to the use of the Creature, but to the blessing on the Creature, I Tim. IV. 5. The creature is sanctified by the Word of God and Prayer. The matter is not, whether we have the use of the Creature, but whether the Creature be sanctified, and becomes a blessing. God hath promised, keep my Covenant, and be blessed in thy basket and thy store, &c. and yet thousands have kept God's Covenant, and walked hungry and naked; as in Heb. XI. 36, 37. These good men, if they had not well understood the tenor of the Covenant of Grace, might have disputed with God, Thou hast promised to them that keep thy Covenant, that they shall be so and so blessed, we have done it, but where is the promise? As they plead Psal. XLIV. 11. 17. Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat, &c. All this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy Covenant. But saith God, and they knew it well, The tenor of the Covenant absolutely is Grace, and that you have, but other things are but conditional, viz. as they may be best for you.

Let no man then deceive himself; seek not the living among the dead. A full bag, and chest, and barn is a very improper place to seek for the Peace of God in. A man's outward condition is not a sign of his interest in the Covenant of Grace and Peace: but if that condition will be a blessing to him, and will forward and help him on the better to Grace and Peace, the end of the Covenant, then he shall have it: A man prosperous in the World grows proud, secure, insulting. Is this Covenant Prosperity? No, it is clean contrary to the end of the Covenant, which is the forwarding men in grace. So that I may wind my assertion higher, That outward peace and plenty is so little a sign of Peace with God, that it is oftentimes a sign rather of his enmity. See Eccles. V. 13. There riches are said to be kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. And Mal. II. 2. There God threatens to curse these blessings. But I need say no more upon this point, but only to mention, that our Savior sets his Peace and this peace of the World in opposition, in XIV. Joh. 27.

2. There is another false coin that counterfeits Peace with God, and that is men's having peace in their own consciences. I shall discover how deceiveable it is, by speaking to this second assertion.

That inward peace in the Conscience doth not at all infer having Peace with God. And let me add a third and speak reversely,

That having peace with God doth not necessarily infer inward peace of Conscience.

1. That inward peace in the Conscience doth not infer having Peace with God. By inward peace in the Conscience I mean, the opposite to pangs, troubles, storms of conscience. And this peace is the common temper of the most consciences in the world; they have no disquiet at all. Who hath used to visit the sick on their dying beds, hath he not found it too common, that Conscience hath been in this temper? I thank God, nothing troubles me, all is quiet in my Conscience. As Elisha over Hazael, upon foresight of his mischievousness to come, so could I weep over such a poor Soul, to see it go out of the World with such a delusion as this in its right hand.

Ah! say not peace, peace, when there is no peace. For here indeed is neither peace with God, nor peace of Conscience properly so called. But if you will have the Spirit of God to word it, it is the Spirit of slumber, Rom. XI. 8. It is an impenitent heart, Rom. II. 5. It is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , past feeling, Eph. IV. 19. In a word it is a Nabal's heart dead within him. And that such a Conscience should be quiet it is no wonder; for mortui non mordent. But it would be a wonder if such a peace in the Conscience should be a sign of peace with God. Into such a peace, let not my Soul, my Conscience enter.

It was a strange request of him that said to his Father, Smite me, I pray thee. But I hardly know a more pertinent request, that a sinner can put up to God, and it must be mine continually; and I know, that all that know what belong to the right frame of Conscience, will pray with me, Lord smite me I pray thee, wound me, lash my Conscience and spare it not, rather than suffer me to lie and die, and perish under such peace of Conscience as this is; if such stupidity may be called peace.

Doth any one by such a peace of Conscience as this argue his peace with God? I must now also wind this assertion higher, as I did the former: It is so far from inferring peace with God, that it directly argues peace with the Devil. And our Savior the God of Truth, and the Prince of Peace bears witness to it, Luk. XI. 21.

2. But doth not Peace with God argue or infer Peace of Conscience? That is the second thing I should speak to. And here I could insist with delight, for it is a very material case of Conscience.

It is a mystery in Divinity and experience, that an unregenerate person can hardly be driven off from presuming on his Salvation, and that a regenerate man can hardly be brought to hope of his Salvation. That he who is furthest from having peace with God should scarcely be driven from not doubting of his peace with him, and that he that undoubtedly hath his peace with him, should so hardly be driven off from doubting it. Many a good Soul is in the world that is justified, and hath without question quoad re • ipsam, his peace with God, according to the divine Oracle of the Text; and yet is as it the fence of it, exceeding far from peace of Conscience; full of troubles and fears at all times.

Think you not David was justified, and that his peace was made with God? Who can doubt it? And yet you have him sore broken, Psal. XXXVIII. 8. Think you not that he that penned the seventy seventh Psalm, was justified, and had peace with God, be he David or Asaph? Who can doubt it? And yet you have his sore running, &c. verse. 2. Was it not he that composed the eighty eighth Psalm justified and had peace with God? It is past all question; and yet you have him sadly bemoaning, at verse. 15, 16. That from his youth up all his life he was so terrified in Conscience that he was even distracted, and that he felt the fierce wrath of God go over him, and his terrors cutting him off.

But let my lot be with such mourners of Zion; let me have such breakings of heart, whilst others delight to be secure. Let me be in tears, and such trembling of Conscience, as these men were: and those that delight in having no trouble there, let them take it to themselves.

If this case were inconsistent with having peace with God, then were such a condition of all men's most miserable; but it is so far from being inconsistent, that it is the common and constant condition of all that obtain peace with him, though it be not alike to all, and in the same degree. It may seem as snow in Harvest to speak of a mourning, afflicted, grieved Conscience at a Feast of mirth; but to show that yet such an unquiet Soul may be, for all that, at Peace with God, will make the case like that at the laying the foundation of the new Temple in Ezra, Chap. III. that the sound of rejoicing may drown that of weeping.

I could gladly and delightsomly, as I said, speak to this case, and show for the comfort of such afflicted Consciences, how little their case doth deny having peace with God: how comfortable such a condition is, though it be bitter also. I might clear the state and nature of such men's Condition, Partly, by observing under what predicament such a case comes in the Covenant of Grace. Partly, by observing the quality of such trouble, and how clear it is from being sinful. Partly, by observing the extent of the ability of Conscience to judge of a man's estate. Partly, by observing the proper original from whence it ariseth in the Soul itself. Partly, by observing the purpose of God in stating Conscience in such a Condition. By everyone of which might be evinced, that Conscience may be at miserable trouble within itself, and yet that person at most entire peace with God: that his peace with God may be most undoubtedly sure, when his Conscience doth most doubt of it.

But these would require the hour to begin again to have time to speak to them. And indeed it may seem as mourning at a banquet of Wine, to speak of an afflicted Conscience at a Feast of rejoicing.

II. And therefore having thus spoke to the negative, I shall come to the positive, and show what it is to have Peace, having shown what it is not. But when shall I begin and when end? First, a discourse of this subject must begin at the suburbs of Hell, enmity with God, and end in the highest Heaven, the full enjoyment of him in glory. Secondly, it must proceed to show the original of this enmity, from the disjunction of sinful nature from the holy nature of God, and from disobedience of life and will to the divine Will and Law. And now thirdly, it comes to Jerusalem, the vision of Peace. The thing itself what it is, we may take up in two considerations briefly.

• 1. It is a laying away and extinguishing of God's hatred and enmity against a sinner.
• 2. It is not only privately, the laying aside the wrath of God, but positively, the flowing in of the love of God. Moses prays to God, Lord, show me thy Glory. Oh! what a sight is it, when the cloud of unbelief is over, how lovely and sweetly does the Son of righteousness arise upon us?

But I give not the whole definition of Peace with God, unless to God reconciled to man, I add, Man reconciled to God. We may observe, how the Holy Ghost expresses the great Reconciliation: the main stress lies in the reconciliation of man to God, Col. I. 20. God through the blood of the cross hath reconciled all things to himself. He saith not, hath reconciled himself to all things, but all things to himself. And in II Cor. V. 19. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. He saith not, reconciling himself unto the World; and verse. 20. We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled unto God. The great business is for man to be reconciled unto God; Absalom unto David. Here then is the main trial, to know whether God be at peace with you; see if you be at peace with him. This is the Note in the Index, and if we find it there, we may be sure to find the other in the Book. As he that looked Westward, for the rising of the Sun, saw it sooner, gilding the tops of the Mountains, than they that looked for it in the East. So this is the best way to see whether God be at peace with us: let us look back upon ourselves, and see how our Condition is towards God. Some hold, that the answer by Urim and Thummim was by the rising of the stones in the High Priests breastplate. Though I am not of their mind, yet I may allude unto it in the case in hand; Look into thine own breast, make thine observation thence, see how thy heart stands affected towards God: and by that thou mayest undestand what God's Answer to thy Question is, viz. Whether he be at Peace with thee?

A SERMON PREACHED AT HERTFORD Assise, March 1660.

T HIS portion of Scripture out of which I have taken this Text, is as much misconstrued, and as dangerously misconstrued, as any one portion of Scripture in all the Bible. How much, I shall show you in the unfolding of it: and how dangerously, you may read in the late example, of a handful of unhappy men, who thought to have brought our great City, but indeed brought themselves, to a fatal end and untimely grave, merely upon the misconstruction of this Scripture.

I must therefore humbly crave your patience a little, whilst I speak something for the discovery of the meaning of the context, that so I may facilitate and plain the way to the understanding of the meaning of the words that I have chosen.

What work the Millinary and Fifth-monarchists make upon this place, I need not tell you, I would that matter were not so well known as it is. To whom, and to whose opinion, I must do as he did in the story; who when a great company of men were met together and wanted a head over them: and had agreed that he should be their chief, that could first espy the Sun rising the next morning; whilst all the rest stood gazing into the East for that purpose, one among them turned the clear contrary way and looked Westward; and he espied the shining of the Sun on the hill tops before him, sooner than they could espy the body of the Sun arising in the East before them. So I to these men and their opinion. They look forward and make account, that the things that are here spoken of their accomplishment and fulfilling, are yet to come. I look backward and fear not to aver that the things here spoken of have received their accomplishment not long ago. They look forward, and expect that the 1000 years that are here mentioned, are yet to begin. I look backward, and make no doubt, that those 1000 years ended and expired above half a thousand years since.

And the reason of this difference between us, is because there is propotionable difference between us about subjectum quaestionis, the subject and matter that the Apocaiyptick here aimeth at.

He speaks up that great and noble Theme that all the Prophets so divinely and comfortably harp upon, namely the calling of the Gentiles: that they should come in out of their dark and deluded estate, to the light and embracing of the Gospel, and to become the Church and People of the living God: This is the Theme of our Apocalyptic here, and he speaks to it in seven particulars.

I. As to the way and manner that God used to bring them in: that Christ the great Angel of the Covenant, should by the power of the Gospel chain up the Devil that he should deceive them no more as he had done.

The mistakers I mentioned, do either ignorantly or willfully err about the subject handled here; and construe it to this sense, that the Devil should be bound by Christ that he should not persecute, disturb and disquiet the Church as he had done: but that all along these thousand years their should be only some time of peace and tranquility, and not one cloud of disquieture or disturbance by the Devil or his instruments eclipse it. A sense as far from the Holy Ghosts meaning as the East is from the West.

There is not a word here of the Devils binding that He should not disturb the Church: but of the Devils binding that He should not deceive the Nations. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 let a Grecian Read the words and he will render them, that He should not deceive the Heathen anymore. The Devil had deceived and kept the poor Heathen in deludedness by Idols, Oracles, false Miracles, horrid Mysteries of irreligiousness, and a thousand cousenages for above two thousand years: namely, from their first casting off at the confusion of Babel, till the Gospel was brought in among them by the Apostles. By the Gospel there, Christ dissolves those charms of delusion, brings down Idolatry, silences the Devils Oracles and Miracles, and chains up the Devil from that power and liberty of deceiving all Nations as he had done.

II. He saith, the Devil was chained up in this sense a thousand years: using a known expression of the Jews and alluding to an opinion of theirs, partly that he might speak the more to be understood, when he useth an expression so well known, and partly that he might face the mistake of the Jews in that opinion.

It was their conceit and fancy, as I might show you out of their writings, that Messias when he should come should reign among the Jewish Nation a thousand years, but as for the Heathen he should destroy them.

No, saith our Apocalyptic, His reigning a thousand years shall be among the Nations or the Gentiles, and he shall not come to destroy the Gentiles, but to deliver them: To deliver them from the power and delusions of Satan, to chain up Satan that he shall deceive them no more as he had done: but that whereas before for so long a time together they had been only taught of the Devil; now they should all be taught of God, as had been foretold, Esa. LIV. 13. and as our Savior himself applies it, Joh. VI. 45.

III. He speaks of Christ's disposal of the Heathen when he should have brought them in from under the deceivings of the Devil, to the knowledge and embracing of the Gospel, viz. That he would platform them into Kingdoms, States, and Civil Governments, and that he would set up Christian Kings, and Magistrates, and Judges among them, and that is the meaning of the words of the Text, And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and Judgment was given unto them: as I shall show to you by and by.

IV. He relates, That the Souls of those that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, nor had worshipped the beast nor his image, &c. should live and reign with Christ a thousand years.

Where he faceth another erroneous opinion of the Jews again: which was that the Kingdom of Messias should be a pompous Kingdom, and of earthly splendor and glory. And that those that should reign with him, should do it in the enjoyment of all earthly magnificence and worldly state.

No saith our Apocalyptic, they that suffer with him are those that shall reign with him: as also saith the Apostle, II Tim. II. 12. That howsoever he shall set up Kings and Magistrates to rule for him, and under him, yet his Kingdom is not of this World; but the way to reign with him is by suffering, self denial, enduring for him, dying for him.

V. He calls this calling in of the Gentiles, The first Resurrection, verse. 5. And a wondrous one too: when they that had so long lain dead, in darkness, trespasses and sins, should now be revived to live unto God: as Ephes. II. 1. and our Savior useth the very same expression of the same persons, Joh. V. 25.

VI. He telleth, that some of those dead should not live again, till the thousand years should be fulfilled, verse. 5. Not that they should live again when the thousand years should be fulfilled, but that they had lost the opportunity of living in those thousand years, when light and life was offered and tendered through the world. For

VII. When those thousand years should be expired Satan should be loosed again, and deceive the World as he had done, verse. 7, 8.

And if you begin to count the thousand years from the time that the Gospel was first brought in among the Gentiles by Paul and Barnabas and other of the Apostles, you will find that the end and expiring of them will fall to be in the very depth and thickness of Popery: and then was the Devil got loose again, and deceived the Nations by as gross and wretched delusions as ever he had done before.

And thus you have a brief account of the meaning of this portion of Scripture, so much mistaken and misconstrued: and by this time you see that the meaning of my Text is, as I gave it you before, namely that in the Church of the Gentiles called in, God should set up Thrones, and Kings, and Magistrates, and put Judgment into their hands, to govern and judge the World and to administer Justice.

So that they that from this place would argue against Magistracy and Civil Government in the Christian Church, do no less mistake, than they did these words of God in the Prophet Jeremy, Jer. XIII. 12. who when God told them That every bottle should be filled with wine, and his meaning was, that every person should be filled with his indignation▪ as it is explained in the next verse; they so far misconstrued, that they answer, We certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine: meaning bottles in the proper sense, and that they should be filled with good liquor to maintain them still in their luxury and jovialty. So the mistakes we spake of, would from this Scripture argue against Magistrates and the Civil Power: whereas there is hardly a place of Scripture that speaks more home and thoroughly for it than this doth.

And this I shall further clear to you partly out of the words of the Text themselves, and partly from two other places that speak the same thing.

In the Text, it is said, Judgment was given unto them; what can this mean, but power and authority to be Magistrates and Judges? Yes say our mistakers, It means that the Saints • t the day of Judgment shall sit upon seats with Christ approving and applauding his Judgment. And they misapply other Scriptures as much for the confirmation of this, as they do this to such a construction. And those are Mark XIX. 28. Luke XXII. 30. which speak one and the same thing. Where Christ speaks not at all of the Saints judging the World in such a sense as they fain to themselves, but only the twelve Apostles [and Judas if you well observe the places, to be reckoned for one ] judging the twelve Tribes of Israel. And the meaning is but this, that when Christ should come to reveal himself in his glorious appearing in vengeance against Jerusalem and the Jewish Nation, the Doctrine that they had Preached should condemn the twelve Tribes that had not believed it, as if they themselves sat on the Thrones to judge and condemn them. And so some of the Ancients have of old well understood it, that it is not spoken of their Persons but of their Doctrine, Judging and Condemning.

And to the true sense, that I say the Text speaketh, speaketh also that equally abused place, I Cor. VI. 2. Do ye not know that the Saints shall judge the World, i. e. know ye not that there shall be a Christian Magistracy: that Christians shall be Kings and Magistrates to rule and judge the World?

And the very same sense speaketh Dan. VII. 18. 26, 27. from whence both my Text and that passage of Paul are taken; know ye not, saith he, that the Saints shall judge the World? How should they know it? Why? Plainly enough out of that place in Daniel, where in verse. 18. it is foretold, That the Saints of the most High should take the Kingdom, and possess the Kingdom forever and ever. And in verse. 26, 27. The Judgment shall sit (as in the Text) and the Kingdom, and Dominion, and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven should be given to the people of the Saints of the most High.

Two considerations will put the matter out of all question.

I. That the word Saints means not strictly, nor really Sanctified, in opposition to men not really sanctified, but it means Christians in general in opposition to Heathens. And so the Apostle himself clears it in the verse before that I cited. Dare any of you go to Law before the unjust and not before the Saints? What is meant by the unjust there? Heathens or Infidels as he calls them, verse. 6. And then what is meant by Saints? But Christians in opposition to Heathens.

II. Observe the tenor of the contents in Daniel, and that will illustrate the sense of these verses that I produced. He speaks before of the four Heathen Monarchies, the Babylonian, Mede-Persian, Grecian, and Syrogrecian, that had had the Kingdom and Dominion and Rule in the World, and had tyrannized in the World, especially against the Church that was then being: but at last they should be destroyed, and upon their being destroyed Christ should come and set up his Kingdom through the World, and then the Kingdom, and Rule, and Dominion in the World, should be put into the hands of Saints or Christians, and they should Rule and Judge in the World, as those Heathen Monarchies had done all the time before.

And thus you have the words unfolded to you, and I hope according to the meaning of the Holy Ghost.

And now my Lord's and Gentlemen, you may see your own picture in the glass of the Text; for you are of the number of those of whom it speaketh. In it you may see yourselves, Imbenched, Commissioned and your work put into your hands.

In the first clause, The institution of the Function, the ordaining of Magistracy and Judicature: I saw Thrones set. In the second, The Commissionating of Christians unto that Office and Function, They sat upon them. In the last, The end of this Office, and the employment they are set upon in it, Judgment was given unto them.

Thrones set: by whom? By him that had been the great agent in the verse before, Christ that had bound the Devil and chained him up.

They sat upon them? Who? They that are the persons mentioned in the verse before. Men of the Nations, undeceived from the delusions of Satan, and brought into the truth of the Gospel.

Judgment was given them: for what end? For Judgment sake, that they might execute judgment and righteousness among the Nations.

And so I have my words fairly cut out before me, and the matter and the method of the Text calls upon me to speak unto these three things.

• I. Of the institution of Magistrates, as an ordinance of Christ.
• II. Of Christian Magistracy as a Gospel mercy.
• III. The great work, the all in all of Magistracy, The execution of Judgment.

I. Of all the offices of Christ, he executed only one of them peculiarly and reservedly himself, without the communicating of any acting in it to any other, but as to the execution of the other two, he partly acteth himself, and partly importeth some acting therein by deputation to others.

His Priestly office, that that most concerned, and had the greatest stroke in man's redemption, he executed entirely himself, and no other had share, no other could have share in the executing of that with him.

None could be capable of offering any of his all-sufficient Sacrifice with him: none could be capable of offering the incense of mediation with him. But in his Kingly and Prophetick offices he acteth himself and he deputeth others to act for him.

As the great Prophet, he teacheth his Church himself, by giving of the Scriptures, and instructing his holy ones by his Spirit, yet withal hath he deputed Ministers to be her Teachers.

And as the great King of the Church, and of all the World, he ruleth in both himself: in the hearts of his people by his Word and Spirit, and amongst his enemies with a rod of Iron: yet withal hath he deputed Kings, Judges and Magistrates to be Rulers for him.

These two great Ordinances you have couched in this very place. In the verse before the Text, Christ chaineth up the Devil, that he should no more deceive poor men as he had done before. And how did he this? By the Ministry of the Word and Preaching of the Gospel: And in the words of the Text, he setteth up Thrones, and sets men upon them; for what? To execute Magistracy and to administer Judgment.

And so likewise are they closely hinted in that place of the Apostle that I cited, I Cor. VI. Know ye not that the Saints shall judge the World, or Christians be Magistrates? and in the next verse following, know ye not that we shall judge Angels, or we Apostles and Ministers judge Devils and overthrow their Idols, Oracles, Miracles and Delusions by the Ministry of the Gospel?

And so if I should take Pastors and Teachers, Ephes. IV. 11. for Magistrates and Ministers, I believe there were no soloecisme in the thing: and I am sure the Jews called their chiefest Magistrates 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Pastores in their common speech. And if the Apostle may be shown there to speak in their vulgar dialect, as he doth indeed all along his Epistles, it would save a controversy and question that is raised upon that place.

These two Functions are the two standing Pillars and Ordinances, the Jachin and Boaz, that our great Solomon hath set up in his Temple to stand with the Temple while it standeth.

These are two choice strainings and distillings of the precious ointment that was poured on the head of our great Aaron that runs down upon the skirts of his clothing.

Yours, my Lord's and Gentlemen, is a beam of that luster that shineth in the Royal Crown of Christ's Kingly office. It is a coin stamped, with the Image and superscription of the great Caesar of Heaven and Earth sitting in his Empire and Dominion over all.

I remember a Phrase of Pliny in his Epistles, speaking of a virtuous and gallant daughter that imitated to the life the virtues and gallantry of a noble Father, Filia patreni exscripserat, the daughter had copied out her father to the life. Magistracy is a daughter of that Royal Father, that said, All power is given to me in Heaven and Earth: and it is a copy of her father. He himself hath drawn his own picture in it in little, as he sitteth in his Royal Domination, and given that image of himself to you to wear always about you.

Let me therefore only tell you the story of a King that always wore his Fathers picture, who had been a worthy Prince, about him: and ever and anon would look on it, and say, Ne quid unquam faciam indignum tali patri. O may I never do anything unworthy such a father. Your wisdom, and worth, will make the Application.

A good Magistrate hath one part of the image of Christ more than other good men: as Adams dominion over the Creatures was part of the image of God upon him as well as holiness and righteousness was the image of God in him: So is his Power and Commission to rule Kingdoms in the World, the very image of Christ ruling and judging, if Righteousness and Holiness be added; and Adam in all his glory was not arrayed like such a Person.

I am unwilling to insist and spend time to prove that Magistracy is Christ's ordinance, lest I speak but as he did at Rome, who had written a large discourse in praise of Hercules: he was but jeered for his pains and folly, to go about so seriously to commend Hercules, whom none, said they, did ever discommend. What sober man does or can deny, Kingship and Magistracy to be of Christ's ordaining? and I am unwilling by being urgent in the proof of it, so much as to seem to undervalue the judgment of any in the Congregation so far, as to think, this great and important truth needs any proof to him.

Only let me say this, to those that do deny it, That it is a very strange Logic they make, when they conclude thus, Jesus is King Jesus, and he is Lord and Ruler of all, therefore he will endure no Kingship else, no Potentates, no Civil Government. Thou thoughtest me like unto thyself, is the complaint of God against the profane in Psal. L. 21. Men that would Rule, and would have none to Rule but themselves, would persuade you Christ is of that mind, and so make that persuasion a stalking-horse to their ambition.

I am sure God himself, concludes after another manner in the second Psalm. I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion: what infers he thereupon? Not, Therefore O ye Kings give up your Kingship, Nor O ye Judges of the Earth, judge the Earth no more. But therefore be wise O ye Kings, &c. and do your duty in your places.

When our Savior Christ came to set up his Kingdom of the Gospel, as among the Jews, he took away and abolished only that of their Laws and Ordinances that were Ceremonial, and that that related only to them as peculiar people, but let that stand that was Moral, and that that was not of that peculiar relation: so among them Gentiles when he made them his Church, he took away and destroyed only that that was sinful and abominable among them, and which did most properly denominate them Heathenish, as strangers and enemies to all Goodness and Religion: but that that was innocent, useful and necessary, he perpetuated among them.

Among the Jews he abolished the worship at the Temple, as purely Ceremonious, but he perpetuated the Worship of the Synagogue, Reading the Scriptures, Praying, Preaching, and Singing of Psalms, &c. transplanted it into the Christian Church as purely Moral. So among the Gentiles, he destroyed their ignorance, Idolatry, corruption of manners, delusions of Satan, as purely Heathenish. But he perpetuated Kingship, Magistracy, civil Government as useful and profitable, and taken up upon the very pure light of nature and inevitable necessity,

I may compare what he did in this to what he did about Baptism. He found when he came, that it had been in use among the Jews for admission of Proselytes to their Church, many hundred of years before he himself or John the Baptist were born: and hence he was not solicitous to give rules what persons, and ages were to be baptized, nor in what manner now, for that was known both then and many generations before he came, as well as we know it now: but he took up Baptism as he found it continued in the Christian Church, only he enhanced the dignity of it by Sanctionating it for a Gospel Sacrament.

So when he came among the Gentiles, he found that Magistracy and Civil Government had been among them in all generations, and he takes it up as he found it, and continues in the Christian Church, only he enhanced the dignity of it in Sanctionating it now for a Gospel Ordinance. And I must add for a Gospel Mercy.

II. And that is it that I observe from the second clause in the Text, They sat upon them. A Christian Magistracy is a Gospel Mercy: Christian Kings are Inthroned, and Christian Magistrates are Impoured for a mercy unto Christians. The context for several verses together speaks of several things, as Gospel mercies: and my Text coming in the midst of them speaks of that that is of the same nature and qualification.

It was a Gospel Mercy that the Devil was chained up that he should deceive the Nations no more as he had done in the verse before the Text.

It is a Gospel Mercy that those that suffer for Christ, and die for Christ, are not lost, but reign with him in glory in this same verse with the Text.

It was a Gospel Mercy that the Heathen that had been so long dead in ignorance and all manner of sinfulness should have a Resurrection and come to the life of grace and glory; in the fifth verse.

And it is a Gospel Mercy, in the Text, that Christians are set up to be Kings, Rulers and Judges among Christians.

We need not go far for proof of this, for the flourishing condition of England, both in Church and State under such Government and Governors, gives evidence and example sufficient in this case. And vox populi, the universal joy and acclamations of all the Nation upon the happy restoring of his Sacred Majesty, speaks the sense and attestation of the whole Nation, nay of the three Nations unto the truth, and their sensibleness of this mercy. The shout of a King, of a most Christian King was among them.

I know your own thoughts prevent me in the proof of this, and read the truth of it in this days occasion; who is here that is a lover of right and honesty, that is a son of peace and order, and deserves indeed the name of a Christian, whose heart rejoiceth not within him to see such occasion as these? Justice looking down upon us from Heaven: Deputies sent us from our great King in Heaven as well as from his Sacred Majesty, and they of our own Nation, Religion, Profession, of the same Body, Church and Nation with ourselves, administer Judgment among us to relieve the oppressed, to pull the unjust gotten prey from the jaws of the cruel; to punish the evil, to encourage the good, and to cause Righteousness to run down like a stream, and Judgment like a running brook.

If any desire further proof, I must remit him to such Prophetick prediction as these, Kings shall be thy nursing Fathers, &c. And I will give them Judges of themselves, and Rulers of their own people.

And let them but compare the difference of the Jews condition, when they were under the Government of Heathens in their own Land, Persians, Grecians, Romans, and when they were under the Government of those of their own Blood and Nation. And it deserves more observation than most men bestow upon it, that Paul appealed from the Bench of his own Nation, to a Heathen tribunal, a thing I believe hardly ever paralleled in that Nation; but it shows what a wretched condition they were then come unto. Now I call that a Gospel Mercy.

1. That is for the benefit of those that profess the Gospel. And that Christian Magistracy is so, he knows not the meaning of Christianity and Christi •• Magistracy that can deny it.

2. That is a Gospel Mercy that is dispensed by Christ in a Gospel way of dispensation, and that Christian Magistracy is so I shall evidence to you by this demonstration.

There is a Magistracy in Turkey, China, and Tartary, as well as in England, and there were a Senate at Rome, as well as a Parliament in England, and all disposed by Christ who is made Lord of all: but there is as much difference betwixt the way of dispensation, as there is betwixt Christ's ruling over all the World as he was Creator, and dispensing common bounty, and his ruling in his Church as Mediator, and dispensing peculiar mercy. As much as betwixt his ruling in all Nations as the Conqueror of all God's enemies, and his ruling in his Church, as the Savior and Mediator of his people. God hath made him Lord and Christ, Act. II. 36. There is more distinction in the words than many are aware of. He is Lord over all: He is Christ to his own chosen.

3. That is a Gospel Mercy that doth promote and advance the efficacy of the Gospel: And that a Christian Magistracy doth so, if it need any proof I shall show it by this one instance.

There are great promises in the Prophets, of mercy to be exhibited under the Gospel, which seem incredible, and which some look for still to be accomplished according to the letter, and hence their expectation of such glorious times to come; whereas they are accomplished long ago and accomplishing daily, but never were, nor ever shall be according to the letter. Such are

That in Esa. II. 4. They shall beat their swords into plough-shares. And that in Esa. XI. 6. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb. And that in Esa. LXV. 20. There shall be no more thence an Infant of days, &c. What shall we say to these things? Were they ever fulfilled according to the letter? No, nor ever shall be.

And yet God is faithful, and hath performed his promise, he hath done his part of what was promised, and his own people partake of the promise: and why should we look for any further?

There will be warrings in the World whilst there are lusts in the World, for warrings come from lusts, Jam. IV. 1. And there will be lusts in the World, while there are men in the World, for every imagination of the thoughts of men's hearts are evil, only evil, and evil continually, Gen. VI. 5. But God hath done his part, he brought the Gospel of peace into the World, that might have taught men and wrought men to better, but it is their own faults and wretchedness that they are not better. And though Saints of God have this promise accomplished in themselves, and they are knit together in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of Peace, and what accomplishment more can be expected?

And so there will be Woolvish and Serpentine affections and actions of men in the World, where there is sin in the World: and there will be ignorance in the World, and men will be infants in understanding, whilst there is Fleshliness and Worldliness in the World; yet God hath done his part, he hath brought the Gospel into the World, that might tame men's brutish affections and curb their actions; and the Saints of God have this effect wrought upon them, but some men will be Wolves and Lions still.

He hath brought the light and knowledge of the Gospel into the World, that men need not to be infants in understanding; and the Saints of God that embrace the Gospel, come to be aged men in knowledge: but men will be ignorant still.

Hath not God therefore performed his promise? As Esa. V. 4. What could God have done more to this purpose than he hath done, in affording the means for the effecting of this, as much as could be afforded?

And here comes in the work and employment of the Magistracy: God is so fully a performer of his promise, that he hath left the issue not only to the bare preaching of the Word, but he hath ordained also the Sword and Authority of the Magistracy, to restrain men from their fightings and brutishness, and to force them out of their willful ignorance, when the only preaching of the Word will not persuade them. As when the Priests with the sounding of their Trumpets will not serve the turn to subdue Jericho, an host of men of arms must be ready to assist the work and to do it.

It is in mercy to men's Souls that God hath ordained Magistracy, as well as it in mercy to their Estates, and for the securing of their Persons. It is a bond of love, whereby he would draw men from their own ruin and the ruining of others; a holy, tender and loving violence, whereby, when the Ministry of the Gospel cannot persuade them to be good, he would restrain them from being evil, and would constrain them to be better than they are. A holy violence that would make men good whether they will or no.

Such a mercy is a Christian Magistracy: An Ordinance stamped with Christ's own Kingly picture, and sent for a token to his Church of special love and mercy: As Aaron in his breast-plate of Judgment carried Urim and Thummim, Light and Perfection. So Magistrates in the Brest-plate of Judgment, they always carry about with them, have written there as it were with Christ's own finger, Power and Mercy: Power, derived from Christ to them, and mercy derived from Christ by them to the Church.

The Pagans and Infidels Magistracy that is among them, it is true, is an ordinance of Christ, Rom. XIII. 2. The powers that be are ordained of God. But these are but crumbs that fall from his Table of common providence, as he is the great Ruler of all the World. But Christian Magistracy is a full furnished Table of mercy from him, as the Father and cherisher of his Church.

Mercy to our Estates for their preservation, mercy to our Lives for their security, mercy to the Nation for its peace, mercy to Widows for their encouragement, mercy to the Gospel for its maintaining, mercy to Souls for their reducing. Such a mercy is a Christian Magistracy, and so is the end, and such the fruit of the execution of their Office, the execution of Judgment, which is the third thing I have to speak to from the third clause in the Text, and Judgment was given unto them.

III. He saith not Power, for that would not have included Judgment, but he saith Judgment which includeth also lawful power, yea and something else, Righteousness and Justice.

I am assured there is none that hear me this day, is so little acquainted with the style of Scripture, but he knoweth that when it speaketh of Judgment as the work of the Magistrate, it meaneth the execution of Justice or of right Judgment: Shall not the Judge of all the World do right? Gen. XVIII. 25. The very title of Judge speaketh doing right, as it was with the Judge of all the World, so with the Judges of any part of it.

This, my Lord's and Gentlemen, is your work and employment to judge righteous Judgment, to plead the cause of the oppressed, to relieve the fatherless and widow, and him that hath no helper, to reward everyone according to the Justice of his cause before you.

As you carry the stamp of Christ's own image in your Power, so it is no whit to the life, if Justice be not stamped there also. And your being a mercy to the people, is by doing Justice to the people.

I shall not here go about to teach you what you have to do in your Employment and Function. I am far from supposing that either you know not your duty, or that I know it better than yourselves. Only give me leave to be your remembrancer a little of what is the charge that lies upon you: and that not by setting any rules before you, but by setting some Divine copies before you, most fairly written, upon which to look with a single eye may be enough to stir you up to your duty: and that the more because we are commonly more wrought upon men by example than by precept: I shall only propose three: two copied out by God in his own example; and the third, a singular copy set out in his Word. The first, I shall be bold, to offer to you of the Magistracy. The second, to all that have to do with you at the present occasion, Counsel, Jurors and Witnesses; and the third, before all that hear me.

The first is this, You know God's Attributes, Power, Mercy and Justice. Now God acteth not any of his Attributes according to the utmost extent of the infiniteness of it, but according to the most wise and most holy counsel and disposal of his own Will. God never acted his Power according to the utmost infinity of his Power: for else whereas he made one World, he might have made a Thousand.

He never acted his Mercy according to the utmost infinity of his Mercy, for then whereas he saveth but a little flock, he might have saved all Men and Devils.

Nor did he ever act his Justice according to the utmost infinity of his Justice, for then all flesh would fail before him and the Spirits that he hath Created.

But his Will as I may speak it, acts as Queen Regent in the midst of his Attributes, and limits and confines their acting according to the sacred disposal of that.

So that he showeth his Power, not when and where he can, but when and where and how he will show his Power: He showeth his Justice not when and where he can, but when and where he will show his Justice: And he will show Mercy, not on whom he can, but on whom he will show Mercy, Rom. IX. 18.

Look upon this copy and then reflect upon yourselves and your Function. You have your Attributes, let me so call them, of Power, Mercy, Interest in the people, and the like; now how are these to be acted by you? An unjust Magistrate, like him Luke XVIII. would be ready to miswrite after the copy, and say, I will act these after mine own will, as God acteth his after his own will. No, he is mistaken: let him look better on his Commission. The Judgment that is put into his hand, is the Will of God put into his hand. As the Apostle saith, This is the Will of God, even your Sanctification: so This is the Will of God, even the Judgment that is given him; his Commission carries it not, sic velis sic jubeas, do not thou with thy Power what thou wilt, but sic volo sic jubeo, Do in thine Office as it is my Will and as I Command.

The Sun in Heaven sends down his shine upon the Earth, and we are to set all our dials by that light, and not by any candle of our own.

The Will of God as it is the rule of all his own actions, so he sends down the beams of it in his Word to men to be the rule of theirs. By the Ministry, God puts his Will revealed in his Word into the hands of men, to do according to that rule, and not by any rule of their own Will. So the Commission that he puts into the hands of the Magistracy, is the Will of God to act by, as he hath revealed in his Word, not to act according to their own mind. Not to show Mercy, Justice, Power, and Favor as they please, but as God's Will appears in their Commission.

It was the custom in Israel that when the King was Crowned, the book of the Law was put into his hand, the Will of God to be his rule, and not his own. So when Joshua is made chief Magistrate, God instates him in his Power, and with all put the Law into his hand, Josh. I. 8. This book of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth, &c. And so at the Crowning of young Joash, I King. XI. 12. They put the Crown upon him and gave him the Testimony.

Look then upon the Copy that is before you, and look upon the Commission he hath given you. His Will in Heaven acts all his glorious Attributes, and as I may speak it with reverence, his Will rules them. He hath transcribed his Will in little in your Commission, to act all yours: Now his Will be done by you upon Earth, as it is done by himself in Heaven.

A second Copy, that I would present before you, and before all that have anything to do with you at present about Judicature, Counsel, Witnesses and Jurors, is God's own righteousness, and that especially in one particular example. It is needless to tell you from Scripture, that the righteous God loves righteousness, delights in righteousness, practices righteousness, commands righteousness. That one acting of his does demonstrate all these to admiration, and that is his Justice in justifying a sinner. Much is spoken in Scripture of this righteousness of God, and indeed never enough. My righteousness is never to be revealed: To bring in everlasting righteousness: New Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, &c. Never enough spoken, never enough conceived of this Righteousness: the most mysterious acting of Heaven, the wonder of wonders among men, the Justice of God in justifying a sinner: A Divine Justice that exceeds divine Justice, Divine Justice turned into Mercy. You may think I speak strangely: if I do it, I am something excusable, with Peter ravished with the Transfiguration. I am upon a subject that may swallow up all minds with amazement; but I clear my meaning.

In Rom. I. 17. It is said, Therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. Revealed in the Gospel, not in the Law. Was there no revelation of Justice till the Gospel came? Yes, the Law revealed Justice, but it was condemning Justice; as that Text speaks, From faith to faith, so from righteousness to righteousness. God's Justice was most divine that appeared in the Law to condemn, but that Justice exceeded in the Gospel to justify. Where are they that talk of being justified by their own works? Then must they have a righteousness of their own, that must out-vy God's condemning justice, which is infinitely just. But his own justifying justice doth out-vy it. As it is said, Where sin abounded, Grace did superabound: So where condemning Justice was glorious, justifying Justice was much more glorious.

I said, Justice was turned into mercy; I say, the greatest Justice into the greatest mercy. How are we justified and saved? By Mercy? True, and yet by Justice become mercy, not ceasing to be Justice, what it was, but becoming Mercy, what it was not. Here is a lively Copy before you; God so loveth, so acteth justice, that he will satisfy it upon his own Son, that he might glorify it by way of mercy on all justified. His greatest mercy appeareth in this acting of his justice; and you are the greatest Mercy to a people when you do them the most Justice.

A third and last Copy that I would set before you all, that hear me this day, is fairly, yet seems strangely written with God's own hand in the Gospel. In divers places of the New Testament, where mention is made of the Law, and where you would think it meant both the Tables, it comes off only with mention of the Second, Matth. XIX. 17. If thou wilt enter into life, keep the Commandments. You would look for all the Ten, but look forward, and he pitcheth only upon the second Table. So Rom. XIII. 8. He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law. You would look for the whole Law to be mentioned there, but look forward in verse. 9. and only the second Table is mentioned. So Jam. II. 8. If you fulfil the Royal Law according to the Scripture, &c. you would look for the whole Law, but he concludes all under this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Why, where are the Duties of the first Table? See, how God put even all religion in the second Table. As it is said, Behold! how he saved Lazarus; so, Behold! how God loveth honest, upright, charitable dealing 'twixt man and man.

I shall not insist, to show you the reason of this strange passage. I might tell you it is, because whatsoever men pretend of Religion towards the Commands of the first Table, it is nothing, if it appear not in our obedience to the second. I might tell you, God puts you to that that is more in your own power, as to obey the second Table, is more so than the first. But I leave the Copy in your own hands to read and comment on. And when you have studied it the most, you will find this to be the result, how God requires, how God delights in our righteous, upright, charitable dealings one with another.

A SERMON PREACHED AT HERTFORD Assise, March 13. 1663.

A ND it was time to inquire of the Lord, considering their present condition, and exigent: and it was well they had the Ark in those days to inquire at, considering the evil of those days, and their exceeding wickedness. And it was strange that Phinehas was then there, considering the time of the story, when he is thus brought in. The three clauses in the Text, that hint their inquiring, and the manner of their inquiring, and the Person by whom; they inquired of the Lord, and they inquired at the Ark of the Covenant, and they inquired by Phinehas, require each one a serious explication; and each one explicated, it may be will afford something of information, that everyone hath not observed before.

I. They inquired of the Lord. And it was time to inquire indeed when business went so crossly with them, that though the Lord himself had encouraged them to that war, yet they lose so many thousands in the battle. At their first mustering they ask counsel of God, and he allows their quarrel, and appoints their Captain, verse. 18. And the Children of Israel arose and went up to the house of God, and asked counsel of God, and said which of us shall go up first to the battle against the Children of Benjamin? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up first. And yet when they come to fight, they lose two and twenty thousand men, verse. 21. They ask counsel of God again, and he bids them go up, and yet when they come to fight again they lose eighteen thousand men more. And now after the loss of forty thousand men, they inquire again, and indeed it was very full time.

But what was it they inquired about? If why they thus fell when God himself had encouraged them to the War, which was a very just Quaere; Had I or you been there, we might have resolved them without an Oracle. There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel; and a very strange accursed thing, that it is not strange, that thou canst not stand, but fallest thus before thine enemies.

In the Chapter before, a Levites Concubine plays the whore, and runs from him, and as he fetches her again, she is paid in her kind, and whored with at Gibeah till it cost her her life. Hereupon all Israel musters in arms as one man, and solemnly vows and resolves to avenge her quarrel. But in the Chapter before that, Idolatry is publicly set up in the Tribe of Dan. And in the Chapter before that, it is publicly enough set up in the Town of Micah, and yet not one man, that stands up or stirs in the quarrel of the Lord. Oh Israel that art thus zealous in the quarrel of a Whore, and hast been no whit zealous in the cause of the Lord, it is no wonder if thou fall and fall again before thine enemies.

So that it was the Justice of God that encouraged them to this war, and it had two parts to act. First, To punish Israel for that Idolatry against which they stirred not, and now stirred so in the cause of a Strumpet. And then secondly, To punish Gibeah and Benjamin for the abominable fact about that Strumpet, the one for acting and the other for abetting it, and not delivering the offenders▪ to deserved punishment.

So that had they inquired why they fell so many in the war, when God himself had set them to it, this answer might easily have been given without asking at an Oracle; and no question but Phinehas, or what other holy men were in the army, did sadly observe it.

But before we pass further, the observation, how God encourages them to this war, and yet foils them in it, minds me of two cases, that are something parallel, but only in this excepted, that they had not a precedent and dormant cause, why God should so check, when he had commanded and encouraged, but only a present and emergent.

The one is Jacob commanded and encouraged by God to go from Haran to his own Country, and God promised to be with him, and yet Christ the Angel of the Covenant meets him by the way, wrestles with him, seeks to kill him, and he escapes so narrowly, that he lamed him all his life. The emergent reason was, because Jacob upon news of Esau's coming with four hundred armed men, was sorely shaken in his faith, foiled with distrust, and sends him a great multitude of cattle before he had tithed them, as his Vow was to do. Hence God that had commanded him, doth so check him; but he wept and made supplication, recovers his faith and scapes with life, though not with all his limbs.

The other is Moses, commanded and encouraged by God to go for Egypt to deliver the people, and the power of miracles put into his hand: And yet Exod. IV. 24. It came to pass by the way in the Inn, that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him. The emergent cause was Moses distrust likewise: He had long declined the Employment, as doubting and pleading his own insufficiency for it; and though God had given him this token, that he should bring the people to worship God at that mountain, yet durst not Moses venture to leave his wife behind him, lest he should not come to see her anymore, but takes her with him though now in childbed, and her child not yet eight days old, to be circumcised. And for this distrust God that had commanded him, yet doth check him with so great a danger. But he recovers his faith, scapes with life, sends back his wife, and goes on his journey.

But these failings with these good men were sudden and emergent. This fault of Israel had been sometime dormant, and they dormant under it; but now God awakens them with the alarm of a grievous slaughter; that if ever they will inquire about their condition and business, it is time for them to inquire now. But how do they do it?

II. And that is a second thing to be inquired after. The Ark and Phinehas are here mentioned, because their inquiry was by Phinehas, and his inquiry at the Ark.

And was it possible that Phinehas should be then alive? He was one of the persons that came out of Egypt, Exod. VI. 23. And it was three hundred and fifty years at least, since they came out of Egypt, to the death of Sampson, which you see is set before this story in the XVI. Chap. let Phinehas be supposed to have been in the swaddles, when they came out, yet must he be at the least three hundred and fifty years old, if he were alive at the death of Sampson, which is far above the date, that the ages of men went at at that time. Before the Flood indeed the Patriarchs lived almost to a thousand years. But at the Flood man's age was halved, so that none that was born after, lived up full to five hundred. At the Confusion of Babel it was halved again; so that none born after that lived up, no not to two hundred and fifty, as is easy to observe by computing the Ages in Gen. XI. Nay the Ages of men stood not at that measure neither, but at the murmuring in the Wilderness, Numb. XIV. they were shortened again, and the common stint of man's life brought to seventy or eighty years, or thereabouts, as Moses tells us in the XC. Psalm. Which Psalm was penned by him upon that very occasion.

So that it is not so much as to be imagined, that Phinehas attained to three hundred and fifty years of age; which he did and more if the time of this story were according to the order of placing it in this book. But as it is very usual in Scripture to dislocate stories out of their proper time and place, and that upon most divine reason; so it is done here; and indeed more signally, than in any other place whatsoever. This story of the war at Gibeah, and that before, of the Idolatry set up in Dan; and that before that, of the Idolatry set up by Micah in Mount Ephraim, being set in the latter end of the Book, which indeed for their proper time should have place near the beginning. And that

First, Because in Chap. II. 7. it is said that Idolatry broke out among them, as soon as the first generation that had seen the wonders in the Wilderness was dead and gone. Now that Idolatry of the Danites, with the Idol of Micah, was the first public breaking out. And thereupon Dan is omitted to be named among the sealed of the twelve Tribes, Revel. VII.

Secondly, It is said that this occurrence at Gibeah was, when no King, i. e. no Judge, in Israel was yet risen. It is repeated three times over, Chap. XVIII. 1. Chap. XIX. 1. and Chap. XXI. 27. to point out, that these stories occurred, before any Judge was.

Thirdly, The wickedness at Gibeah is reckoned for the first notorious piece of villainy in the Land, Hos. X. 9. O Israel thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah.

Fourthly and lastly, That passage in Judge. V. 8. speaks clearly of this matter. They chose new God's; then was war in the gates: was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel? They chose new God's refers to the Idolatry in Dan. Then was war in the gates, to this Civil war in Gibeah in their own gates. Was shield or spear seen among forty thousand? To the forty thousand that fell in this war, as if neither shield nor spear had been among them.

I shall not trouble you with large discourses to show why these stories are displaced, and laid in this place, whereas they occurred so soon in the story of this book. I shall only commend this to your Conception. Sampson their last Judge, after whose death their seat declined, was of Dan: and their first public Idolatry was in Dan. Samson's life was sold for eleven hundred shekels of silver of every Philistine Prince, Chap. XVI. 5. And then look at the eleven hundred shekels of silver consecrated for making Micah's Idol, Chap. XVII. 2. which was set up in the Tribe of Dan, Chap. XVIII. 29. And you may easily perceive, that the Holy Ghost hath laid these stories thus together, that their sin in Dan, and shame in the fall of Sampson of Dan might be cast up together. Their last Judge, Sampson of Dan came to so fatal and unhappy an end, and no wonder for their first Idolatry was in Dan. And thus you see, how Phinehas is still alive in this story, and he named because they inquired by him: and the Ark named because he inquired at the Ark. Which is the third inquiry.

III. But how inquired he? By Urim and Thummim. So was God's direction to them Numb. XXVII. 21. And Joshua shall stand before Eleazar the Priest, who shall ask counsel for him after the Judgment of Urim before the Lord. As Joshua the chief Commander in his time did inquire by Eleazar the father, so did the chief commander now by Phinehas the son, and both by the judgment of Urim and Thummim.

But how was that? There are so many opinions about what Urim and Thummim was, and so great obscurities made, how the Oracle was given by it, that it may seem to require another Oracle to tell how that Oracle was given. I shall not tire you with diversities of opinions, I shall briefly lay down some particulars concerning this thing, upon which I myself am abundantly satisfied about it, and upon which I suppose any that is not over curious may receive satisfaction.

1. None but knows the Dress of the High Priest, Exod. XXVIII. and particularly the breast-plate, the twelve stones, and the names of the twelve Tribes engraven in upon them. And then it is said at verse. 30. And thou shalt put in the breast-plate of judgment the Urim and Thummim. By the breast-plate there is meant, as in verse: 15, 16. viz. that piece of imbroidred work foursquare, and doubled of a span square, in which the twelve precious stones were to be set. And by the Urim and Thummim is meant the twelve precious stones themselves, which are called Urim or Lights, or Brightness, because of their shining Luster; and Thummim or Perfections, because with most exact and perfect compacture they were all set and fixed in a plate, and border of gold in that embroidred piece, or that piece of cloth of gold.

2. The inquiry by Urim and Thummim was not upon any private occasion, nor by a private man; but by the Prince or Commander in chief, and that in some matter that concerned the whole Nation. This might be largely cleared, but needeth not; only this I cannot but observe, that till Solomon's time there is mention and example of this enquiring by Urim: by Joshua, here in the Text, by Saul, by David, but after Solomon's time no such mention: not because the Oracle then failed, but because till David had done the work, the whole Land, in the full extent that God had promised, namely to Euphrates, was not conquered. And therefore in those times this Oracle was stirring for the direction of the Prince or chief Commander in that expedition and employment.

3. There was no enquiring of any Priest by Urim, who was not inspired by the Spirit of Prophesy. And hence it is that, as the Jews well observe, after the first generation after the return out of Captivity, the Oracle by Urim and Thummim, was not under the second Temple at all: because thenceforward there never was any High Priest, that had the Spirit of Prophesy, or divine Inspiration. The case of Caiaphas was singular, and it was but once, XI. Joh. 51. Being High Priest that year he prophesied. The emphasis and main reason lies in that year: that year when Vision and Prophesy should be sealed, that year, when the Spirit should be poured down in so abundant a measure, as it was, Act. II. He being High Priest that year, had one drop of that shower of divine Inspiration that fell that year, and he Prophesied. But before him had there been no High Priest, that was endued with the Spirit of Prophesy from the times of Nehemiah, Chap. VII. 65. and accordingly not the Oracle by Urim and Thummim.

4. That Oracle therefore was not given by any audible Voice from off the Ark, nor by rising of the letters of the Names of the Tribes in the precious stones, that should spel out the answer, for two or three letters in the Alphabet were wanting in those Names: nor was it by change of Colour in the letters or stones, as is conceited by some; but the manner of inquiring and receiving answer was thus. The High Priest with all his Habiliments on, particularly the Brest-plate with the twelve precious stones in it upon his breast, the Names of the twelve Tribes engraven in the stones, stood before the Ark, only the Vail between, and so he presented the Names, and represented the Persons of the twelve Tribes before God. He proposed the thing that was inquired, as Phinehas here in the Name of the People, shall I go up against my Brethren? And the Lord presently inspired him with immediate Revelation, discovering to him what was his mind in that case, and so he told it the people. As Phinehas here, Go up now against Benjamin again, and you shall prevail.

And thus have we done with the Historical concernment of the Text. And now instead of any doctrinal Observations upon it, I might take into Consideration three material inquiries, which lie fairly hinted in the three parts I have spoken to.

I. From the first part, that speaks of the Children of Israel's inquiring of the Lord, we may be justly moved to inquire, how the Children of England may inquire of the Lord in their doubtings or perplexities as Israel did.

II. From the second part that speaks of the Ark being there in those days, it may justly call upon us to consider, why or whereupon the Ark carried that Name and Title that it doth here, and in many other places? viz. The Ark of the Covenant.

III. From the third and last part, that speaks of their enquiring by Phinehas the High Priest, it may justly move this Quaere, whether the High Priest were Prophetick or Oracular by his Function? I take the hint for this, from the Rhemists note upon Caiaphas his Prophesying, Joh. XI. 50. where they say, that the gifts of the Holy Ghost followed his Order and Office, though he were so wicked; and so bring it home to Peters chair, that the Pope sitting there cannot want the Spirit.

I shall especially pitch upon the two first, Namely, to take up that Inquiry, Why the Ark was called the Ark of the Covenant? And the resolution of that Quaere will help not a little to resolve the first, as to the mainest things, that we are to inquire of the Lord about.

How frequently the Ark is called by this title, The Ark of the Covenant, I need not instance: hundreds of places do evidence it. But what could any one see in the Ark, that might speak God's Covenant? There was indeed the Mercy seat upon it, and the two Cherubims at the several ends of it, and the cloud oft between, and this was all that any Israelite could see, that looked upon it. But this was not that that intitled it to that Title; but the two Tables of the Law that were in it. And so Moses himself doth make the exposition, Exod. XXXIV. 28. He wrote upon the Tables the words of the Covenant, the ten Commandments. Deut. IX. 11. At the end of forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two Table of stone, the Tables of the Covenant. And to spare more instances you find the terms Covenant and Commands to be convertible, or to mean one and the same thing, Psal. CV. 8. He hath remembered his Covenant, the word which he Commanded. And Psal. CXI. 9. He Commanded his Covenant forever. He Commanded his Covenant; a strange expression, and a comfortless expression as one would think: his Covenant to be nothing but a company of impossible Commands: his Covenant to be nothing but a Law, the Ministration of which, the Apostle tells us, was the Ministration of death, II Cor. III. As he, I thought he would have stroked his hand over the sore, and prayed, and he bids only, Go wash in Jordan. So one would think, it should be said, He hath promised, tendered, engaged his Covenant, and it comes off only with this, He hath Commanded his Covenant.

And here we are come to the great question, Under what notion the Moral Law stands in the Covenant of grace? You know who they were, that have held, and I doubt too many hold it at this day, that to Israel it was a Covenant of Works, and thereupon infer, that Christians are delivered from the obligation of the Moral Law, because they are not under the Covenant of Works, but the Covenant of Grace. And accordingly they understand that distinction of the old Covenant and new, mentioned so much by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the old Covenant means the Moral Law, and the new Covenant the Gospel. To these men let me first speak in the style of God to Abraham, Gen. XV. 5. Look up to Heaven and count the Stars, if thou canst number them. So look up to Heaven, and see the old Moon and the new, and observe them. Are they really two several Moons? No, but one and the same Moon under various shapes. Or look on the Earth, upon a person now Regenerated; he was before an old Creature, now he is a new, II Cor. V. 17. What is he now a really distinct person from what he was before? No, but of a different condition only: the same man, but his condition and temper changed. So the Covenant of Grace is the same, like Christ the chief Tenor of the Covenant, yesterday and today and the same forever: the same from the first day that it was given to Adam, to the last day of the World, and till Time shall be no more. The same under the Law, the same under the Gospel, but clothed in different garments, in administrations of various fashions.

The Covenant of Grace to the Jew, was Believe in Christ and be saved, as it is to us, as the Apostle clears in all his Epistles, more particularly in Heb. XI. But to them God added thus, Because the Doctrine of Christ is not yet so clear, use these Ceremonies;