Works Volume 4
The same proportion would certainly be acknowledged in the second place, betwixt the command of Christ on one side, high, rational, venerable commands, that he that thinks not himself so strictly obliged to observe, cannot yet but revere him that brought them into the World, and deem them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Royal and a gallant Law ; whilst all the whole Volume or Code of the Law of the Members, hath not one ingenuous dictate, one tolerable, rational proposal in it, only a deal of savage drudgery to be performed to an impure tyrant (sin and pain being of the same date in the world, and the Hebrew 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signifying both) and the more such burdens undergone, the more mean submissions still behind; no end of the tale of Brick, to one that is once engaged under such Egyptian Kiln and Task-masters.
And for the terrors in the last place, there are none but those of the Lord, that are fit to move, or to persuade any: the utmost secular fear is so much more impendent over Satan 's, than God 's Clients (the killing of the body, the far more frequent effect of that, which had first the honor to bring death into the world; the Devil owning the title of destroyer, Abaddon, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and inflicting diseases generally on those whom he possessed; and Christ, that other, of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Physician and the Savior, that hath promises of long life annexed to some specials of his service:) that if it were reasonable to fear those that can kill the body, and afterwards have no more that they can do, ( i. e. are able by the utmost of their malice, and God's permission, but to land thee safe at thy fair Haven, to give thee Heaven and bliss before thy time, instead of the many lingering deaths that this life of ours is subject to) yet there were little reason to fear or suspect the fate in God's service, far less than in those steep precipitous paths which the Devil leads us thorough. And therefore to be thus low-bell'd with panic frights, to be thus tremblingly dismayed where there is no place of fear, and to ride on intrepid on the truest dangers, as the Barbarians in America do on Guns, is a mighty disproportion of men's faculties; a strange superiority of fancy over judgment: that may well be described by a defect in the power of numbering, that discerns no difference between Ciphers and Millions, but only that the noughts are a little the blacker, and the more formidable. And so much for the third branch of this character.
There is yet a fourth notion of simplicity, as it is contrary to common ordinary prudence, that by which, the politician and thriving man of this world, expects to be valued, the great dexterity and managery of affairs, and the business of this world; wherein let me not be thought to speak Paradoxes, if I tell you with some confidence, that the wicked man is this only impolitick fool, and the Christian generally the most dextrous, prudent, practical person in the world; and the safest Motto, that of the Virtutem violenter retine, the keeping virtue with the same violence that Heaven is to be taken with: not that the Spirit of Christ infuses into him the subtleties and crafts of the wicked, gives him any principles, or any excuse for that greater portion of the Serpentine wisdom ; but because honesty is the most gainful policy, the most thriving thorough prudence, that will carry a man farther than anything else. That old principle in the Mathematics, That the right line comes speediliest to the journeys end, being in spite of Machiavel, a Maxim in Politicks also; and so will prove, till Christ shall resign and give up to Satan the economy of the World. Some examples it is possible there may be, of the Prosperum Scelus, the thriving of villainy for a time, and so of the present advantages that may come in to us by our secular contrivances ; but sure, this is not the lasting course, but only an anomaly or irregularity, that cannot be thought fit to be reckoned of, in comparison of the more constant promises, the long life in a Canaan of Milk and Honey, that the Old and New Testament both have ensured upon the meek disciple.
And I think a man might venture the experiment, to the testimony and trial of these times, that have been deemed most unkind and unfavourable to such innocent Christian qualities; that those that have been most constant to the strict, stable, honest principles, have thrived far better by the equable figure, than those that have been most dextrous in changing shapes; and so are not the most unwise 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , if there were never another state of retributions, but this. Whereas it is most scandalously frequent and observable, that the great Politicians of this world, are baffled and outwitted by the Providence of Heaven; sell their most precious souls for naught, and have not the luck to get any money for them ; the most unthrifty improvident Merchandise, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 folly, Psal. xlix.13. which the lxxii. render 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , scandal ; the most piteous offensive folly, the wretchedst simplicity in the World.
You would easily believe, it should not stand in need of a farther aggravation; and yet now, you are to be presented with one in my Text, by way of heightening of the Character, and that was my second particular, that at first I promised you, made up of two farther considerations; first, the loving of that which is so unlovely ; secondly, the continuing in the passion so long. How long you simple ones, will you love, &c.
First, The degree and improvement of the Atheists folly, consists in the loving of it, that he can take a delight and complacency in his way; to be patient of such a course, gainless service, such scandalous mean submissions, had been reproach enough to any, that had not divested himself of ingenuity and innocence together, and become one of Aristotle's 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Natural slaves, (which if it signify anything, denotes the fools and simple ones in this Text, whom nature hath marked in the head for no very honorable employments.) But from this passivity in the Mines and Gallies, to attain to a joy and voluptuousness in the employment, to dread nothing but Sabbatick years and Jubiles, and with the crest-fallen slave, to disclaim nothing but liberty and manumission, i. e. in effect, Innocence, and Paradise, and Bliss ; to court and woo Satan for the Mansions in Hell, and the several types and praeludiums of them, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the initial pangs in this life, which he hath in his disposing, to be such a Platonic lover of stripes and chains, without intuition of any kind of reward, any present or future wages for all his patience ; and as it follows, to hate knowledge and piety ; hate it as the most treacherous enemy that means to undermine their Hell, to force them out of their beloved Satan 's embraces: this is certainly, a very competent aggravation of the simplicity. And yet to see, how perfect a character this is of the most of us, that have nothing to commend, or even excuse in the most of those ways, on which we make no scruple to exhaust our souls, but only our kindness; irrational passionate kindness and love toward them; and then, that love shall cover a multitude of sins, supersede all the exceptions and quarrels that otherwise we should not choose but have to them. Could a man see anything valuable or attractive in Oaths and Curses, in Drunkenness and Bestiality (the sin, that when a Turk resolves to be guilty of, he makes a fearful noise unto his Soul to retire all into his feet, or as far off as it is possible, that it may not be within ken of that bestial prospect, as Busbequius tells us.) Could any man endure the covetous man's sad galling Mules, burdens of Gold, his Achan's Wedge, that cleaves and rends in sunder Nations, (so that in the Hebrew, that sin signifies wounding and incision, Joel ii.8. and is alluded to, by his piercing himself thorough with divers sorrows, 1 Tim. vi.10.) his very Purgatories, and Limbo 's, nay, Hell, as devouring and perpetual as it; and the no kind of satisfaction so much as to his eye, from the vastest heaps or treasures, were he not in love with folly and ruin ; had he not been drenched with philtres and charms ; had not the Necromancer plaid some of his prizes on him, and as St. Paul saith of his Galatians, even bewitched him to be a fool. Would we but make a rational choice of our sins, discern somewhat that were amiable, before we let loose our passion on them, and not deal so blindly in absolute elections of the driest unsavory sin, that may but be called a sin (that hath but the honor of affronting God, and damning one of Christ 's redeemed ;) most of our wasting, sweeping sins, would have no manner of pretensions to us; and that you will allow to be one special accumulation of the folly and madness of these simple ones, that they thus love simplicity.
The second aggravation, is the continuance and duration of this fury, a lasting chronical passion, quite contrary to the nature of passions, a flash of lightning, lengthened out a whole day together, that they should love simplicity so long.
It is the nature of acute diseases, either to have intervals and intermissions, or else to come to speedy crises ; and though these prove mortal sometimes, yet the state is not generally so desperate; and so it is with sins: many the sharpest and vehementest indispositions of the Soul (pure Fevers of rage and lust) prove happily but flashing short furies, are attended with an instant smiting of the heart, a hating and detesting our follies, a striking on the thigh in Jeremy, and in David 's penitential style, a [ So foolish was I, and ignorant, even as a beast before thee. ] And it were happy if our Fevers had such cool seasons, such favorable ingenuous intermissions as these. But for the hectic continual Fevers (that like some weapons (the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) barbed shafts in use among the Franks in Agathias, being not mortal at the entrance, do all their slaughter by the hardness of getting out) the Vultures that so tire and gnaw upon the Soul, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that never suffer the sinner fool, to make any approach toward his wits, toward sobriety again; this passionate love of folly, improved into an habitual, steady course of Atheisticallness, a deliberate, peremptory, final reprobating of Heaven (the purity at once, and the bliss of it) the stanch demure covenanting with death, and resolvedness to have their part, to run their fortune with Satan, through all adventures; this is that monstrous brat, that (as for the birth of the Champion in the Poet ) three nights of darkness more than Egyptian, were to be crowded into one (all the simplicity and folly in a Kingdom) to help to a being in the World: and at the birth of it, you will pardon Wisdom, if she break out into a passion and exclamation of pity first, and then of indignation, How long, ye simple ones, &c. My last particular.
The first debt, that Wisdom, that Christ, that every Christian Brother owes and pays to every unchristian liver, is that of pity and compassion ; which is to him of all others, the properest dole. Look upon all the sad moneful objects in the world, betwixt whom all our compassion is wont to be divided; first, the Bankrupt rotting in a Gaol; secondly, the direful bloody spectacle of the Soldier wounded by the Sword of War; thirdly, the Malefactor howling under the Stone, or gasping upon the Rack or Wheel; and fourthly, the gallant person on the Scaffold or Gallows ready for execution; and the secure▪ • enseless sinner, is the brachygraphy of all these.
You have in him, 1. A rich patrimony and treasure of grace (purchased dear, and settled on him by Christ ) most prodigally and contumeliously misspent and exhausted. 2. A Soul streaming out whole Rivers of blood and spirits, through every wound, even every sin it hath been guilty of; and not enduring the Water to cleanse, much less the Wine or Oil to be poured into any one of them; the whole Soul transfigured into one wound, one 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , congelation and clod of blood. Then thirdly beyond this, all the racks and pangs of a tormenting conscience, his only present exercise: and lastly, all the torments in Hell (the Officer ready hurrying him to the Judge, and the Judge delivering him to the Executioner ) his minutely dread and expectation, the dream that so haunts and hounds him. And what would a man give in bowels of compassion (to Christianity ? or but) to human kind, to be able to reprieve or rescue such an unhappy creature ; to be but the Lazarus with one drop of water to cool the tip of the scalding Tongue, that is engaged in such a pile of flames. If there be any Charity left in this frozen World, any Beam under this cold uninhabitable Zone, it will certainly work some meltings on the most obdurate heart; it will dissolve and pour out our bowels into a seasonable advice, or admonition (that excellent Recipe, saith Themist. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , That supplies the place, and does the work of the burnings and scarifyings) a cry to stop him in his precipitous course; a tear, at least, to solemnize, if not to prevent so sad a fate. And it were well, if all our bowels were thus employed, all our kindness and most passionate love, thus converted and laid out on our poor lapsed sinner-brethren's souls, to seize upon those fugitives, as Christ is said to do, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Heb. xi.16. to catch hold and bring them back, ere it be yet too late; rescue them out of the hands of their dearest espoused sins, and not suffer the most flattering kind of death ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in Gal. de Athl. the Devil in the Angelical disguise ) the sin that undertakes to be the prime Saint (the zeal for the Lord of Hosts ) any the most venerable impiety, to lay hold on them. Could I but see such a new fashioned Charity received and entertained in the World; every man to become his brothers keeper, and every man so tame, as to love and interpret aright, entertain and embrace this keeper, this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , this Guardian Angel, as an Angel indeed, as the only valuable friend he hath under Heaven; I should think this a lucky omen of the worlds returning to its wits, to some degree of piety again. And till then, there is a very fit place and season for the exercise of the other part of the passion here, that of Indignation, the last minute of my last particular, as the how long is an expression of Indignation.
Indignation, not at the men (for however Aristotle's 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 [A man ought to have indignation at some persons ] may seem to justify it; Our Savior calls not for any such stern passion, or indeed any but love, and bowels of pity, and charity toward the person of any, the most enormous sinner ; and St. Paul, only for the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the restoring, setting him in joint again, that is thus overtaken in any fault ) but Indignation, I say, at the sin, at the simplicity and the folly ▪ that refuse reproachful Creature, that hath the fate to be beloved so passionately, and so long. And to this, will Aristotle's • eason of indignation belong, the seeing favors and kindness so unworthily dis • e • ced (the u • tarts, saith he, and new men advanced and gotten into the greatest dignities) knowledge to be pro • estly hated, and under that title, all the prime, i. e. Practical Wisdom, and Piety, and simplicity, i. e. folly and madness, and sin, to have our whole souls laid out upon it.
O let this shrill Sarcasm of Wisdoms, the [ How long, ye simple ones ] be forever a sounding in our ears. Let this indignation at our stupid ways of sin, transplant itself to that soil where it is likely to thrive and fructify best, I mean, to that of our own, instead of other men's breasts, where it will appear gloriously in St. Paul's inventory, a prime part of that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the durable, unretracted repentance, an effect of that godly sorrow that worketh to Salvation. And if it be sincere, O what indignation it produceth in us? What displeasure and rage at our folly ? to think how senselessly we have moulted and crumbled away our souls ; what unthrifty bargains we have made? what sots and fools we shall appear to Hell, when it shall be known to the wretched, tormented Creatures, what ambitions we had, to be but as miserable as they? upon what Gotham errands ? what Wild-goose chases, we are come posting and wearied thither? O that a little of this consideration, and this passion, betimes, might ease us of that endless woe and indignation ; those tears and gnashing of teeth, quit us of that sad arrear of horrors, that otherwise waits behind for us. Lord, do thou give us that view of our ways ; the errors, the follies, the furies of our extravagant Atheistical lives ; that may by the 〈◊〉 reproach and shame, recover and return us to thee. Make our faces ashamed, O Lord, that we may seek thy Law ; Give us that pity, and that indignation, to our poor perishing souls ; that may at length, • wake and fright us out of our Lethargies, and bring us so many confounded, humbled, contrite • tentiaries, to that beautiful gate of thy temple of mercies, where we may retract our follies, implore thy pardon, deprecate thy wrath ; and for thy deliverance from so deep an Hell, from so infamous a vile condition, from so numerous a tale of deaths; never leave praising thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Hosts; Heaven and Earth are full of thy glory; Glory be to thee, O God, most high.
To whom with the Son, and the Holy Ghost be ascribed, &c.
SERMON IV.
MATT. I.23.
Emmanuel, which is by interpretation, God with us.
T HE different measure and mean • of dispensing Divine Knowledge to several ages of the World, may sufficiently appear by the Gospels of the New, and Prophecies of the Old Testament; the sunshine and the clearness of the one, and the twilight and dimness of the other: but in no point this more importantly concerns us, than the Incarnation of Christ. This hath been the Study and Theme, the Speculation and Sermon of all holy Men and Writers since Adam 's Fall; yet never plainly disclosed, till John the Baptist, in the third of Matth. and the third Verse, and the Angel in the next Verses before my Text, undertook the Task, and then indeed was it fully performed; then were the Writings, or rather the Riddles, of the obscure, stammering, whispering Prophets, turned into the voice of One crying in the Wilderness, Prepare ye the ways of the Lord, &c. Isa. xl.3. Then did the cry, yea, shouting of the Baptist, at once, both interpret and perform what it prophesied; At the sound of it, Every valley was exalted, and every hill was brought low: the crooked was made straight, and the rough places plain, v. 4. That is, the Hill and Groves of the Prophets were level'd into the open champain of the Gospel; those impediments which hindered God's approach unto men's rebel hearts, were carefully removed; the abject mind was lifted up, the exalted was deprest, the intractable and rough was rendered plain, and even; in the same manner as a way was made unto the Roman Army marching against Jerusalem.
This I thought profitable to be premised to you, both that you might understand the affinity of Prophecies, and Gospel, as differing not in substance, but only in clearness of revelation, as the glorious face of the Sun, from itself, being overcast and mask'd with a cloud; and also for the clearing of my Text: For this entire passage of Scripture, of which these words are a close, is the Angels message, or Gospel unto Joseph, and set down by St. Matthew, as both the interpretation, and accomplishment of a Prophecy delivered long ago by Isaiah ; but perhaps not at all understood by the Jews : to wit, That a Virgin should conceive and bear a Son, and they should call his name Emmanuel.
Where first we must examine the seeming difference in the point of Christ's Name, betwixt the place here cited from Isaiah, and the words here vouched of the Angel, V. 21. and proved by the effect V. 25. For the Prophet says, he shall be called Emmanuel, but the Angel commands he should be, and the Gospel records he was named Jesus.
And here we must resume and enlarge the ground premised in our Preface, that Prophecies being not Histories, but rude imperfect draughts of things to come, do not exactly express and delineate, but only shadow, and covertly veil those things, which only the Spirit of God, and the event must interpret. So that in the Gospel, we construe the words, but in Prophecies, the sense; i. e. we expect not the performance of very Circumstance expressed in the words of a Prophecy, but we acknowledge another sense beyond the literal; and in the comparing of Isaiah with St. Matthew, we exact not the same expressions, provided we find the same substance, and the same significancy. So then, the Prophets [ and call his name Emmanuel] is not, as human Covenants are, to be fulfilled in the rigor of the Letter, that he should be so named at his Circumcision, but in the agreement of sense, that this name should express his nature; that he was indeed, God with us, and that at the Circumcision he should receive a name of the same power and significancy. Whence the observation by the way is, that Emmanuel, in effect, signifies Jesus, God with us, a Savior ; and from thence the point of Doctrine, that God's coming to us, i. e. Christ's Incarnation, brought Salvation into the World. For if there be a substantial agreement betwixt the Prophet, and the Angel; if Emmanuel signify directly Jesus ; if God with us, and a Savior be really the same title of Christ ; then was there no Savior, and consequently no Salvation, before this presence of God with us. Which position we will briefly explain, and then omitting unnecessary proofs, apply it.
In explaining of it, we must calculate the time of Christ's Incarnation, and set down how with it, and not before, came Salvation.
We may collect in Scripture a three-fold Incarnation of Christ ; 1. In the Counsel of God, 2. In the Promises of God, 3. In a Personal open exhibiting of him unto the World ; the effect and complement of both Counsel, and Promises.
1. In the Counsel of God ; so He was as slain, so incarnate, before the foundation of the World, Rev. xiii.8. For the word slain, being not competible to the Eternal God, but only to the assumption of the human nature, presupposes him incarnate, because slain. God then in his Prescience, surveving before he created, and viewing the lapsed, miserable, sick estate of the future Creation; in his Eternal Decree, foresaw, and pre-ordained Jesus, the Savior, the Author and Finisher of the Worlds Salvation. So that in the Counsel of God, to whom all things to come, are made present, Emmanuel and Jesus went together; and no Salvation bestowed on us, but in respect to this, God with us.
2. In the Promises of God ; and then, Christ was incarnate when he was promised first in Paradise, The seed of the Woman, &c. and so he is as old in the flesh, as the World in sin, and was then in God's Promise first born, when Adam and man-kind began to die. Afterwards he was, not again, but still incarnate in God's Promise more evidently in Abraham 's time, In thy seed, &c. and in Moses his time, when at the addition of the Passover, a most significant representation of the incarnate and crucified Christ, he was more than promised, almost exhibited. Under which times, it is by some asserted, that Christ, in the form of Man, and habit of Angel, appeared sundry times to the Fathers, to give them not an hope, but a possession of the Incarnate God, and to be praeludium incarnationis, a pawn unto them, that they trusted not in vain: And here it is plain throughout, that this Incarnation of Christ, in the Promise of God, did perpetually accompany, or go before Salvation : not one blessing on the nations, without mention of thy feed ;] not one encouragement against fear, or unto confidence, but confirmed and backed with an I am thy shield, &c. i. e. according to the Targum, my Word is thy shield; i. e. my Christ, who is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Word, in the first of Joh. i. Not any mention of Righteousness and Salvation, but on ground and condition of belief of that Jesus which was then in promise, Emmanuel, God with us.
3. In the Personal exhibiting of Christ in form of flesh unto the World, dated at the fullness of time, and called in our ordinary phrase his Incarnation ; then no doubt was Emmanuel, Jesus ; then was he openly shown to all people in the form of God a Savior, which Simeon, Luk. ii.30. most divinely styles God's Salvation ; thereby, no doubt, meaning the Incarnate Christ, which by being God with us, was Salvation.
Thus do you see a three-fold Incarnation, a three-fold Emmanuel, and proportionably a three-fold Jesus.
1. A Savior first decreed for the World, answerable to God, incarnate in God 's Counsel ; and so, no man was ever capable of Salvation, but through God with us.
2. A Savior promised to the World, answerable to the second God with us, to wit, incarnate in the Promise; and so, there is no Covenant of Salvation, but in this God with us.
3. A Savior truly exhibited and born of a Woman, answerable to the third Emmanuel ; and so also is there no manifestation, no proclaiming, no preaching of Salvation, but by the birth and merits of God with us.
To these three, if we add a fourth Incarnation of Christ, the assuming of our Immortal Flesh, which was at his Resurrection, then surely the Doctrine will be complete, and this Emmanuel incarnate in the Womb of the grave, and brought forth clothed upon with an incorruptible seed, is now more fully than ever proved an Eternal Jesus; For when he had overcome the sharpness of death, he opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers, as it is in our Te Deum ; as if all that till then ever entered into Heaven, had been admitted by some privy key; but now the very gates were wide opened to all believers: This last Incarnation of Christ, being accompanied with a Catholic Salvation, that Jesus might be as Eternal as Emmanuel, that he might be as Immortal a Savior, as a God with us. 'Twere but a superfluous work, further to demonstrate, that through all ages of the World, there was no Salvation ever tendered, but in respect to this Incarnation of Christ ; that the hopes, the belief, the expectation of Salvation, which the Fathers lived and breathed by, under the types of the Law, was only grounded upon, and referred unto these Promises of the future Incarnation ; that they which were not in some measure enlightened in this mystery, were not also partakers of this Covenant of Salvation : that all the means besides, that Heaven and Earth, and which goes beyond them both, the brain of Man, or Angel could afford or invent, could not excuse, much less save any child of Adam: That every Soul which was to spring from these loins, had been without those transcendent mercies which were exhibited by this Incarnation of Christ's, plunged in necessary desperate damnation: Your patience shall be more profitably employed in a brief Application of the point;
First, That you persuade, and drive yourselves to a sense and feeling of your Sins, those sins which thus plucked God out of Heaven, and for a while deprived him of his Majesty; which laid an engagement upon God, either to leave his infinite Justice unsatisfied, or else to subject his infinite Deity to the servile mortality of Flesh, or else to leave an infinite World in a common damnation.
Secondly, To strain all the expressions of our hearts, tongues, and lives, to the highest note of gratitude which is possible, in answer to this Mystery and Treasure of this God with us ; to reckon all the Miracles of either common or private preservations, as foils to this incomparable Mercy, infinitely below the least circumstance of it; without which, thine Estate, thy Understanding, thy Body, thy Soul, thy Being, thy very Creation, were each of them as exquisite Curses, as Hell or Malice could invent for thee.
Thirdly, To observe with an ecstasy of joy and thanks, the precious privileges of us Christians, beyond all that ever God professed love to, in that we have obtained a full revelation of this God with us ; which all the Fathers did but see in a cloud, the Angels peep'd at, the Heathen world gap'd after, but we behold as in a plain at mid-day: For since the veil of the Temple was rent, every man that hath eyes may see Sanctum Sanctorum, the Holy of Holies, God with us.
Fourthly, To make a real use of this Doctrine to the profit of our Souls; that if God have designed to be Emmanuel, and Jesus an Incarnate God, and Savior to us; that then, we will fit, and prepare, and make ourselves capable of this Mercy ; and by the help of our religious, devout, humble endeavors, not frustrate, but further and promote in ourselves, this end of Christ's Incarnation, the saving of our Souls; and this use is effectually made to our hands in the twelfth to the Hebrews, at the last, Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom that cannot be moved; i. e. being partakers of the Presence, the Reign, the Salvation of the Incarnate God, Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear. And do thou, O powerful God, improve the truth of this Doctrine, to the best advantage of our Souls, that thy Son may not be born to us unprofitably; but that he may be God, not only with us, but in us; in us, to sanctify and adorn us here, with his effectual grace; and with us, to sustain us here, as our Emmanuel; and as our Jesus, to crown and perfect us hereafter with glory.
And so much for this point, That Jesus and Emmanuel import the same thing, and there was no Salvation, till this presence of God with us: We now come to the substance itself, i. e. Christ's Incarnation, noted by Emmanuel, which is by interpretation, &c. Where first we must explain the word, then drive forward to the matter. The Word in Isaiah, in the Hebrew, is not so much a name, as a sentence, describing unto us the mystery of the Conception of the Virgin 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 with us God ; where 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 God is taken in Scripture, either absolutely for the nature of God, as for the most part in the Old Testament; or personally ; and so, either for the Person of the Father in many places, or else distinctly for the Person of the Son, so Hos. i.7. And will save them by the Lord their God; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 their God, i. e. Christ: and so also most evidently in this place, out of Isaiah, where 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signifies the Son Incarnate, God-man, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and many the like; especially those where the Targum paraphrases, Jehovah, or Jehovah Elohim, by 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Word of the Lord, i. e. Christ Jesus, Joh. i.1. As for instance, Gen. iii.22. that Word of the Lord said ; and Gen. ii.6. the Word created. Secondly, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which signifies in its extent, near, at, with, or amongst. Thirdly, the Particle, signifying us ; though it expresses not, yet it must note, our human nature, our abode, our being in this our great World, wherein we travel, and this our little World, wherein we dwell; not as a mansion place, to remain in, but either as an Inn to lodge, or a Tabernacle to be covered, or a Prison to suffer in: So that the words in their latitude run thus; Emmanuel: i. e. The second Person in Trinity is come down into this lower world amongst us, for a while to travel, to lodge, to sojourn, to be fettered, in this Inn, this Tabernacle, this Prison of man's flesh; or briefly, at this time, is conceived and born God-man, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the same both God and Man, the Man Christ Jesus. And this is the cause and business, the ground and theme of our present rejoicing: in this were limited and fulfilled, the expectation of the Fathers ; and in this begins and is accomplished, the hope and joy of us Christians. That which was old Simeon's warning to death, the sight and embraces of the Lord Christ, Luk. ii.28. as the greatest happiness which an especial favor could bestow on him; and therefore made him in a contempt of any further life, sing his own funeral, Nunc Dimittis: Lord, now lettest thou, &c. This is to us the Prologue, and first part of a Christians life; either the life of the World, that that may be worthy to be called life; or that of Grace, that we be not dead whilst we live. For were it not for this assumption of flesh, you may justly curse that ever you carried flesh about you; that ever your Soul was committed to such a Prison as your Body is; nay, such a Dungeon, such a Grave: But through this Incarnation of Christ, our flesh is, or shall be cleansed into a Temple, for the Soul to worship in, and in Heaven for a robe, for it to triumph in. For our body shall be purified by his Body.
If ye will be sufficiently instructed into a just valuation of the weight of this Mystery, you must resolve yourselves to a pretty large task (and it were a notable Christmas employment, I should bless God, for any one that would be so piously valiant, as to undertake it) you must read over the whole Book of Scripture and Nature to this purpose. For when you find in the Psalmist, the news of Christ's coming, Then said I, loe I come ; you find your directions how to tract him, In the volume of thy book it is written of me, &c. i. e. either in the whole book, or in every folding, every leaf of this Book: Thou shalt not find a Story, a Riddle, a Prophecy, a Ceremony, a down-right legal Constitution, but hath some manner of aspect on this glass, some way drives at this mystery, God manifest in flesh. For example, (perhaps you have not noted) where ever you read Seth 's Genealogies more insisted on than Cain 's, Sem 's than his elder brother Ham 's, Abraham 's than the whole World besides, Jacob 's than Esau 's, Judah 's than the whole twelve Patriarchs; and the like passages which directly drive down the line of Christ, and make that the whole business of the Scripture; Whensoever, I say, you read any of these, then are you to note; that Shiloh was to come; that he which was sent, was on his journey; that from the Creation, till the fullness of time, the Scripture • was in travel with him; and by his leaping ever now and then, and as it were, springing in the Womb, gave manifest tokens that it had conceived, and would at last bring forth the Messias. So that the whole Old Testament ▪ is a Mystical Virgin Mary, a kind of Mother of Christ ; which by the Holy Ghost, conceived him in Genesis, Chap. iii.15. And throughout Moses and the Prophets, carried him in the Womb, and was very big of him: And at last in Malachi, Chap. iii.4. was in a manner delivered of him; For there you shall find mention of John the Baptist, who was, as it were, the Midwife of the Old Testament, to open its Womb, and bring the Messias into the World. Howsoever, at the least it is plain, that the Old Testament brought him to his birth, though it had not strength to bring forth ; and the Prophets, as Moses from Mount Nebo, came to a view of this Land of Canaan.
For the very first words of the New Testament, being, as it were, to fill up what only was wanting in the Old, are the Book and History of his generations and birth, Matth. i. You would yet be better able to prize the excellency of this Work, and reach the pitch of this days rejoicing, if you would learn how the very Heathen fluttered about this light ; what shift they made to get some inkling of this Incarnation beforehand; how the Sibyls, Heathen Women, and Virgil, and other Heathen Poets in their writings, before Christ 's time, let fall many passages, which plainly referred and belonged to this Incarnation of God. It is fine sport to see in our Authors, how the Devil with his famous Oracles and Prophets, foreseeing by his skill in the Scripture, that Christ was near his birth, did droop upon it, and hang the wing; did sensibly decay in his courage; began to breath thick, and speak imperfectly; and sometimes as men in the extremity of a Fever, distractedly, wildly, without any coherence, and scarce sense; and how at last about the birth of Christ, he plainly gave up the ghost, and left his Oracular Prophets, as speechless as the Caves they dwelt in, their last voice being, that their great god Pan, i. e. the Devil, was dead, and so both his Kingdom and their Prophecies at an end; as if Christ 's coming, had chased Lucifer out of the World, and the powers of Hell were buried that minute, when a Savior was born.
And now by way of Use, can ye see the Devil put out of heart, and ye not put forward to get the Field? can you delay to make use of such an advantage as this? can ye be so cruel to yourselves, as to show any mercy on that now disarmed enemy? will ye see God send his Son down into the Field, to enter the Lists, and lead up a Forlorn Troop against the Prince of this World, and ye not follow at his Alarm ? will ye not accept of a conquest, which Christ so lovingly offers you? It is a most terrible exprobration in Hosea, Chap. xi.3. look on it, where God objects to Ephraim, her not taking notice of his mercies; her not seconding and making use of his loving deliverances, which plainly adumbrates this deliverance by Christ 's death; as may appear by the first Verse of the Chapter, compared with the second of Matth. 15. Well, saith God, I taught Ephraim to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with the cords of a man ; an admirable phrase, (with all those means that use to oblige one man to another) with bands of love, &c. i. e. I used all means for the sustaining and strengthening of my people; I put them in a course to be able to go, and fight, and overcome all the powers of darkness, and put off the Devils yoke: I sent my Son amongst them for this purpose, Verse 1. And all this I did by way of love, as one friend is wont to do for another; and yet they would not take notice of either the benefit or the donor, nor think themselves beholding to me for this mercy.
And this is our case, beloved, If we do not second these and the like mercies of God bestowed on us; if we do not improve them to our Souls health; if we do not fasten on this Christ incarnate; if we do not follow him with an expression of gratitude and reverence, and stick close to him, as both our Friend and Captain : finally, if we do not endeavor and pray, that this his Incarnation may be seconded with annother; that as once he was born in our flesh to justify us, so he may be also born spiritually in our Souls to sanctify us: for there is a spiritual 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or Mystical Incarnation of Christ in every regenerate man, where the Soul of Man is the Womb wherein Christ is conceived by the Holy Ghost. The proof of which Doctrine shall entertain the remainder of this hour: for this is the Emmanuel that most nearly concerns us, God with us, i. e. with our Spirits, or Christ begotten and brought forth in our hearts. Of which briefly.
And that Christ is thus born in a regenerate man's soul, if it were denied, might directly appear by these two places of Scripture, Gal. ii.20. I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Again, Ephes. iii.17. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, &c.
Now that you may understand this Spiritual Incarnatien of Christ the better, we will compare it with his Real Incarnation in the Womb of the Virgin ; that so we may keep close to the business of the day, and at once observe both his birth to the World, and ours to Grace ; and so even possess Christ whilst we speak of him.
And first, if we look on his Mother Mary, we shall find her an entire pure Virgin, only espoused to Joseph; but before they came together, she was found with Child of the Holy Ghost, Matth. i.18. And then the Soul of Man must be this Virgin.
Now there is a threefold Purity or Virginity of the Soul ; First, An absolute one, such as was found in Adam before his fall. Secondly, A respective, of a Soul, which like Mary, hath not yet joined or committed with the World, to whom it is espoused ; which though it have its part of natural corruptions, yet either for want of ability, of age, or occasion, hath not yet broke forth into the common outrages of sin. Thirdly, A restored purity, of a Soul formerly polluted, but now cleansed by repentance.
The former kind, of natural and absolute purity, as it were to be wished for, so is it not to be hoped ; and therefore is not to be imagined in the Virgin Mother, or expected in the Virgin Soul. The second purity, we find in all regenerate infants, who are at the same time outwardly initiated to the Church, and inwardly to Christ ; or in those whom God hath called, before they have engaged themselves in the courses of actual, heinous sins; such are well disposed, well brought up; and to use our Savior's words, Have so lived, as not to be far from the Kingdom of God. Such happily, as Cornelius, Acts x.1. And such a Soul as this, is the fittest Womb, in which our Savior delights to be incarnate; where he may enter and dwell, without either resistance or annoyance; where he shall be received at the first knock, and never be disordered or repulsed by any stench of the carcass, or violence of the Body of sin. The restored purity, is a right Spirit renewed in the Soul, Psal. li.10. a wound cured up by repentance, and differs only from the former purity, as a scar from a skin never cut, wanting somewhat of the beauty and outward clearness, but nothing of either the strength or health of it. Optandum esset ut in simplici Virginitate servaretur navis, &c. It were to be wished, that the Ship, our Souls, could be kept in its simple Virginity, and never be in danger of either leak or shipwreck: but this perpetual integrity, being a desperate, impossible wish, there is one only remedy, which though it cannot prevent a leak, can stop it. And this is repentance after sin committed, Post naufragium tabula, a means to secure one after a shipwreck, and to deliver him even in the deep Waters. And this we call a restored Virginity of the Soul, which Christ also vouchsafes to be conceived and born in. The first degree of Innocence, being not to have sinned, the second to have repented.
In the second place, the Mother of Christ in the flesh, was a Virgin, not only till the time of Christ 's conception, but also till the time of his birth, Matth. i.25. He knew her not, till she had brought forth, &c. And farther, as we may probably believe, remained a Virgin all the days of her life after: for to her is applied by the Learned, that which is typically spoken of the East-gate of the Sanctuary, Ezek. xliv.2. This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it, because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it; therefore it shall be shut. A place if appliable, very apposite for the expression. Hence is she called by the Fathers and Counsels 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Perpetual Virgin, against the Heresy of Helvidius. The probability of this might be farther proved, if it were needful. And ought not upon all principles of nature and of justice, the Virgin Soul, after Christ once conceived in it, remain pure and stanch till Christ be born in it, nay, be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Perpetual Virgin, never indulge to sensual pleasures, or cast away that purity which Christ either found or wrought in it? If it were a respective purity, then ought it not perpetually retain and increase it, and never fall off to those disorders that other men supinely live in? If it were a recovered purity, hold it fast, and never turn again, As a Dog to his vomit, or a Sow to her wallowing in the mire? For this conception and birth of Christ in the Soul, would not only wash away the filth that the Swine was formerly mired in, but also take away the Swinish nature, that she shall never have any strong propension to return again to her former inordinate delights. Now this continuance of the Soul, in this its recovered Virginity, is not from the firm, constant, stable nature of the Soul, but as Eusebius saith in another case, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , From a more strong, able Band, the Union of Christ to the Soul, his Spiritual Incarnation in it: Because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it; therefore it shall be shut, Ezek. xliv.2. i. e. it shall not be opened, either in consent or practice, to the lusts and pollutions of the World or Flesh ; because Christ by being born in it, hath cleansed it; because he the Word of God, said the Word, therefore the leprosy is cured ; in whom he enters, he dwells; and on whom he makes his real impression, he seals them up to the day of redemption ; unless we unbuild ourselves, and change our shape, we must be his.
In the third place, if we look on the agent in this conception, we shall find it, both in Mary and in the Soul of Man, to be the Holy Ghost, that which is conceived in either of them, is of the Holy Ghost, Matth. i.20. Nothing in this business of Christ's birth with us, to be imputed to natural power or causes, the whole contrivance and final production of it; the preparations to, and laboring of it, is all the workmanship of the Spirit. So that as Mary was called by an ancient, so may the Soul without an Hyperbole by us, be styled, The Shop of Miracles, and The Work-house of the Holy Ghost ; in which, every operation is a miracle to nature, and no tools are used, but what the Spirit forged and moves. Mary conceived Christ, but it was above her own reach to apprehend the manner how; for so she questions the Angel, Luke i.34. How shall this be, &c.? So doth the Soul of Man conceive and grow big, and bring forth Christ, and yet not itself fully perceives how this work is wrought; Christ being, for the most part, insensibly begotten in us, and to be discerned only spiritually, not at his entrance, but in his fruits.
In the fourth place, that Mary was chosen and appointed among all the Families of the Earth, to be the Mother of the Christ, was no manner of desert of hers, but God's special favor and dignation; whence the words run truly interpreted, Luke i.28. Hail thou that art highly favored ; not as the Vulgar read, Gratiâ plena, full of Grace. And again, verse 30. Thou hast found favor with God. So is it in the case of Mans Soul, there is no power of nature, no preparation of Morality, no art that all the Philosophy or Learning in the World can teach a man, which can deserve this grace at Christ's hands, that can any way woo or allure God to be born spiritually in us; which can persuade or entice the Holy Ghost, to conceive and beget Christ in us, but only the mere favor and good pleasure of God ; which may be obtained by our prayers, but can never be challenged by our merits, may be comfortably expected and hoped for, as a largess given to our necessities and wants, but can never be required as a reward of our deserts: for it was no high pitch of perfection, which Mary observed in herself, as the motive to this favor; but only the mere mercy of God, which regarded the lowliness of his hand-maid, Luke i.48.
Whence in the fifth place, this Soul in which Christ will vouchsafe to be born, must be a lowly, humble soul ; or else it will not perfectly answer Mary's temper, nor fully bear a part in her Magnificat ; where in the midst of her glory, she humbly specifies the lowliness of his handmaid. But this by the way.
In the sixth place, if we consider here-with, John the Baptist his forerunner, coming to prepare his way, and his Preaching repentance, as a necessary requisite to Christ's being born, and received in the World,; then we shall drive the matter to a further issue, and find repentance, a necessary preparation for the birth of Christ in our hearts. For so the Baptist 's Message set down, Isai. xl.3. Prepare the ways, &c. is here interpreted by the event, Matth. iii.2. Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand : as if this Harbinger had no other furniture and provision to bespeak in the heart that was to receive Christ, but only repentance for sins. I will not examine here the precedence of Repentance before Faith in Christ ; though I might seasonably here state the question, and direct you to begin with John, and proceed to Christ ; first repent, then fasten on Christ : only this for all, the promises of Salvation in Christ, are promised on condition of repentance, and amendment, they must be weary and heavy laden, whoever come to Christ, and expect rest, Matth. xi.28. And therefore whosoever applies these benefits to himself, and thereby conceives Christ in his heart, must first resolve to undertake the condition required, to wit, Newness of life ; which yet he will not be able to perform, till Christ be fully born, and dwell in him, by his enabling graces : for you may mark, that Christ and John being both about the same age, as appears by the story, Christ must needs be born before Johns Preaching; so in the Soul there is supposed some kind of Incarnation of Christ, before repentance or newness of life ; yet before Christ is born, or at least, come to his full stature and perfect growth in us; this Baptist 's Sermon, that is, this repentance and resolution to amendment, must be presumed in our Souls. And so repentance is both a preparation to Christ's birth, and an effect of it: for so John preached, Repent for, &c. Matth iii.2. And so also in the same words Christ preaches, Repent, &c. Matth. iv.17. And so these two together, John and Christ, repentance and Faith, though one began before the other was perfected; yet, I say, these two together in the fully regenerate man, Fulfil all righteousness, Matth. iii.15.
In the seventh place, you may observe, that when Christ was born in Bethlehem, the whole Land was in an uproar. Herod the King was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him, Matth. ii.3. which whether we apply to the lesser city, the Soul of man, in which; or the adjoining people, amongst whom, Christ is spiritually born in any man; you shall for the most acknowledge the agreement: for the man himself, if he have been any inordinate sinner, then at the birth of Christ in him, all his natural, sinful faculties are much displeased, his reigning Herod sins, and all the Jerusalem of habituate lusts and Passions, are in great disorder, as knowing, that this new birth abodes their instant destruction; and then they cry oft in the voice of the Devil, Mark i.24. What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Art thou come to torment and dispossess us before our time ? If it be applied to the Neighbor Worldlings, which hear of this new convert ; then are they also in an uproar, and consult how they shall deal with this turbulent spirit, which is made to upbraid our ways and reprove our thoughts, Wisd. ii. which is like to bring down all their trading and consenage to a low ebb, like Diana 's Silver-smith in the Acts, Chap. xix.24. which made a solemn speech (and the Text says, there was a great stir) against Paul, because the attempt of his upstart doctrine, was like to undo the Shrinemakers: Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth. And no marvel, that in both these respects, there is a great uproar, seeing the spiritual birth of Christ, is most infinitely opposite to both, the common people of the World, and common affections of the Soul, two the most turbulent, tumultuous, wayward, violent Nations upon Earth.
In the eighth and last place (because I will not tire you above the time which is allotted for the trial of your patience) you may observe the increase and growth of Christ, and that either in himself, in Wisdom and Stature, &c. Luke ii.52. or else in his troop and attendants, and that either of Angels to minister unto him, Matth. iv.11. or of Disciples to follow and obey him; and then the harmony will still go currant. Christ in the regenerate man, is first conceived, then born, then by degrees of childhood and youth, grows at last to the measure of the stature of this fullness ; and the Soul consequently, from strength to strength, from virtue to virtue, is increased to a perfect manhood in Christ Jesus. Then also, where Christ is thus born, he chooses and calls a Jury at least of Disciple-graces, to judge and fit upon thee, to give in evidence unto thy Spirit, That thou art the Son of God. Then is he also ministered unto, and furnished by the Angels with a perpetual supply, either to increase the lively, or to recover decayed graces. So that now Christ doth bestow a new life upon the man, and the regenerate soul becomes the daughter, as well as the Mother of Christ ; she conceives Christ, and Christ her; she lives, and grows, and moves in Christ, and Christ in her. So that at last, she comes to that pitch, and height, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that St. Paul speaks of, Gal. ii.20. I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I live in the flesh, I live by the Faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Thus have we briefly passed through these words, and in them first shown you the real agreement betwixt Matthew and Isaiah, in the point of Christ 's Name, and from thence noted, that Jesus and Emmanuel, is in effect, all one; and that Christ 's Incarnation brought Salvation into the World. Which being proved through Christ 's several Incarnations, were applied to our direction ; 1. To humble ourselves. 2. To express our thankfulness. 3. To observe our privileges. 4. To make ourselves capable and worthy receivers of this mercy. Then we came to the Incarnation itself, where we shown you the excellency of this Mystery, by the effects, which the expectation and foresight of it, wrought in the Fathers, the Prophets, the Heathens, the Devils ; and then by way of Use, what an horrible sin it was, not to apply and employ this mercy to our Souls. Lastly, We came to another birth of Christ, besides that in the flesh, his Spiritual Incarnation in Man's Soul; which we compared with the former exactly in eight chief Circumstances; and so left all to God 's Spirit, and your Meditations to work on.
Now the God, &c.
SERMON V.
LUKE IX.55.
You know not what spirit you are of.
O F all Errors or Ignorances, there are none so worthy our pains to cure, or caution to prevent, as those that have influence on practice. The prime ingredient in the making up a wise man, saith Aristotle in his Metaphysics, is to be well advised 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , what doubts must first be made, what ignorances earliest provided for: and there is not a more remarkable spring and principle of all the Scripture folly (that is wickedness) among men, than the beginning our Christian course unluckily, with someone, or more false infusions, which not only are very hardly ever corrected afterward, like the errors of the first concoction, that are never rectified in the second; but moreover have an inauspicious, poisonous propriety in them, turn all into nourishment of the prevailing humor: and then, as the injury of filching some of that corn that was delivered out for seed, hath a peculiar mark of aggravation upon it; is not to be measured in the garner, but in the field ; not by the quantity of what was stolen, but of what it would probably have proved in the Harvest; so the damage that is consequent to this infelicity is never fully aggrava • ed, but by putting into the Bill against it, all the Sins of the whole life, yea, and all the damnation that attends it.
Of this kind, I must profess to believe the ignorance of Gospel Spirit to be chief, an ignorance, that cannot choose, but have an influence on every public action of the life. So that as Padre P •• l • was designed an handsome office in the Senate of Venice, to sit by, and observe, and take care nequid contra pietat • m ▪ so it were to be wished, that every man on whom the Name of Christ is called, had some assistant Angel, some 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , be it conscience, be it the remembrance of what I now say unto him, to interpose in all, especially the visible undertakings of the life, nequid contra spiritum Evangobi, that nothing be ventured on, but what is agreeable to the spirit of the Gospel. Even Disciples themselves may, it seems, run into great inconveniences for want of it; James and John did so in the Text; igno •• de 〈◊〉 ▪ fr • from Heaven on all that did not treat them so well as they expected; but Christ turned and reproved them, saying, You know not what spirit, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , what kind of spirit you are of ; and that with an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 on 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , you Disciples, you Christians, You know not what spirit you are of.
In the words it will be very natural to observe these three Particulars; 1. That there is a peculiar Spirit that Christians are of, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; 2. That some prime Christians do not know the kind of spirit, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; even so James and John, You know not, &c. 3. That this ignorance is apt to betray Christians to unsafe, unjustifiable designs and actions: You that would have fire from Heaven, do it upon this one ignorance, You know not, &c.
I begin first with the first of these, That there is a Peculiar Spirit that Christians are of: a spirit of the Gospel▪ and that must be considered here, not in an unlimited latitude, but one as it is opposite to the Spirit of Elias, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; Wilt thou do as he did? It will then be necessary to show you the peculiarity of the Gospel Spirit by its opposition to that of Elias, which is manifold; for instance, first, Elias was the great assertor of Law▪ upon which ground Moses and he appear with our Savior at his transfiguration: So that two things will be observable, which make a difference betwixt the Legal, and the Gospel Spirit : 1. That some Precepts of Christ now clearly (and with weight upon them) delivered by Christ, were, if in substance delivered at all; yet sure not so clearly, and at length, and intelligibly proposed under the Law. You have examples in the fifth of Matthew, in the opposition betwixt the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , what was said by Moses to the Ancients, and the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Christ's sayings to his Disciples; which if they be interpreted of Moses Law, (as many of the particulars are evidently taken out of the Decalogue, Thou shalt not kill, commit adultery, perjury,) Christ's are then clearly superadditions unto Moses ; or if they refer to the Pharisees glosses, (as some others of them possibly may do) then do those glosses of those Pharisees (who were none of the loosest, nor ignorantest persons among them; but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for their lives, the strictest ; and they sit in Moses Chair, and whatever they teach, that do; for their learning most considerable) argue the Mosaic Precepts not to be so clear, and incapable of being misinterpreted; and so still Christ 's were additions, if not of the substance, yet of light and luster, and consequently, improvements of the obligation to obedience, in us Christians, who enjoy that light, and are precluded those excuses of ignorance that a Jew might be capable of: From whence I may sure conclude, that the Ego autem, of not retaliating, or revenging of injuries, (for that is sure the meaning of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which we render resist not evil ) the strict precept of loving, and blessing, and praying for Enemies, and the like, is more clearly preceptive, and so more indispensably obligatory to us Christians, than ever it was to the Jews before. And there you have one part of the Spirit of the Gospel, in opposition to a first notion of the legal Spirit: And by it you may conclude, that what Christian soever can indulge himself the enjoyment of that hellish sensuality, that of revenge, or retributing of injuries; nay, that doth not practice that high piece of (but necessary, be it never so rare) perfection of overcoming evil with good ; and so, heap those precious melting coals of love, of blessings, of prayers, those three species of sacred vestal fire, upon all Enemies heads; Nescit qualis spiritus, He knows not what kind of spirit he is of.
But there is another thing observable of the Law, and so of the Judaical Legal Spirit; to wit, as it concerned the planting the Israelites in Canaan, and that is the command of rooting out the nations ; which was a particular case, upon God's sight of the filling up of the measure of the Amorites sins, and a judicial sentence of his proceeding upon them; not only revealed to those Israelites, but that with a peremptory command annexed to it, to hate, and kill, and eradicate some of those Nations. Which case, because it seldom or never falls out to agree in all circumstances, with the case of any other sinful people, cannot lawfully prescribe to the eradicating of any other (though in our opinion never so great) enemies of God, until it appear as demonstrably to us, as it did to those Israelites, that it was the will of God they should be so dealt with: and he that thinks it necessary to shed the blood of every enemy of God, whom his censorious faculty hath found guilty of that charge, that is all for the fire from Heaven, though it be upon the Samaritans, the not receivers of Christ ; is but as the Rabbies call him sometimes, one of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 sons of bloods, in the plural number, and sons of fire ; yea, and like the Disciples in my Text, Boanerges, sons of thunder, far enough from the soft temper that Christ left them; Ye know not what kind of spirit ye are of.
In the next place, Elias Spirit was a Prophetick Spirit ; whose dictates were not the issue of discourse and reason, but impulsions from Heaven. The Prophetick writings, were not, saith St. Peter, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (I conceive in an agonistick sense) of their own starting, or incitation, as they were moved or prompted by themselves, but, as it follows, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as they were carried by the Holy Ghost ; not, as they were led, but carried (when the Lord speaks, who can but prophesy?) And so likewise are the actions Prophetick; many things that are recorded to be done by Prophets in Scripture, they proceed from some peculiar incitations of God; I mean not from the ordinary, or extraordinary, general, or special direction, or influence of his grace, cooperating with the Word, as in the breast of every regenerate man, (for the Spirit of Sanctification, and the Spirit of Prophecy, are very distant things) but from the extraordinary revelation of God's Will, many times against the settled rule of duty, acted and animated not as a living creature, by a Soul, but moved as an outward impellent, a sphere by an intelligence, and that frequently into eccentrical and planetary motions; so that they were no further justifiable, than that prophetic calling to that particular enterprize will avow: Consequent to which is, that because the prophetic office was not beyond the Apostles time to continue constantly in the Church, any further, than to interpret, and superstruct upon what the Canon of the Scripture hath settled among Christians; (Christ and his Word in the New Testament, being that Bath-Col, which the Jews tell us, was alone to survive all the other ways of Prophecy:) he that shall now pretend to that Prophetick Spirit, to some Vision, to teach what the Word of God will not own; to some incitation, to do what the New Testament Law will not allow of, he that with the late Friar in France, pretends to ecstatical revelations, with the Enthusiasts of the last age, and Fanatics now with us, to ecstatical motions; that with Mahomet, pretends a dialogue with God, when he is in an Epileptick fi • , sets off the most ghastly diseases, I shall add, most horrid sins, by undertaking more particular acquaintance and commerce with the Spirit of God, a call from God 's Providence, and extraordinary Commission from Heaven, for those things, which if the New Testament be Canonical, are evaporate from Hell; and so first leads captive silly women, (as Mahomet did his Wife) and then a whole Army of Janizaries into a War, to justify and propagate such delusions, and put all to death that will not be their Proselytes, is far enough from the Gospel Spirit that lies visible in the New Testament, ( verbum vehiculum spiritûs, and the preaching of the Word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) and is not infused by dream or whisper, nor authorized by a melancholy, or phanatick fancy; and so 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , knows not what kind, &c.
In the third place, Elias was the great precedent and example of sharp unjudiciary procedure with Malefactors, which from the common ordinary awards on Criminals in that execution, proceeded Trial, and the Malefactor suffered 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , without attending the formalities of Law.
Of this kind, two Examples are by Mattathias cited, 1 Macab. ii. one of Phinces, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that zeal'd a zeal, and in that, run thorough Zimri and Cozbi, and so (as the Captain once answered for the killing the drowsy Sentinel) reliquit quos invenit, found them in unclean embraces, and so left them: (And the variety of our interpretations in rendering of that passage in the Psalm, Then stood up Phinehas and prayed, in the Old, and then stood up Phinehas and executed judgment, in the New Translations, may perhaps give some account of that action of his, that upon Phinehas Prayer for God's direction what should be done in that matter, God raised up him in an extraordinary manner to execute judgment on those offenders.) And the other of Elias in the Text, and he with some addition, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , In zealing the zeal of the Law, called fire from Heaven upon those that were sent out from Ahazia, to bring him to him. And this fact of his (by God's answering his call, and the coming down of the fire upon them) was demonstrated to come from God also, as much as the prediction of the Kings death, which was confirmed by this means.
It may very probably be guest by Mattathias his words in that place, that there were no precedents of the zelotick spirit in the Old Testament, but those two; for among all the Catalogue of examples mentioned to his sons, to enflame their zeal to the Law, he produceth no other; and 'tis observable, that though there be practices of this nature mentioned in the story of the New Testament, the stoning of St. Stephen, of St. Paul at Iconium, &c. yet all of them practiced by the Jews, and not one that can seem to be blameless, but that of Christ (who sure had extraordinary power) upon the buyers and sellers in the Temple ; upon which the Apostles remembered the Psamists Prophecy, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the zeal of God's house carried him to that act of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , of indignation and punishment upon the transgressors. And what mischief was done among the Jews by those of that sect, in Josephus, that called themselves by that name of Zealots, and withal, took upon them to be the saviors and preservers of the City, but as it proved, the hastners and precipitators of the destruction of that Kingdom, by casting out, and killing the High-Priests first, and then the Nobles and chief men of the Nation, and so embasing, and intimidating, and dejecting the hearts of all the people, that all was at length given up to their fury, Josephus, and any of the learned that have conversed with the Jewish Writers will instruct the enquirer: And ever since, no very honorable notion had of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the New Testament; one of the fruits of the flesh, Gal. v. of the Wisdom that comes not from Heaven, Jam. iii. and in the same, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a bitter zeal, a gall that will embitter all that come near it. The short of it is, the putting any man to death, or inflicting other punishment upon any terms, but that of legal, perfectly legal process; is the importance of a zelotick Spirit; as I remember in Maimonides, him that curses God in the name of an Idol, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that meet him, kill him, i. e. the zealots permitted, it seems, if not authorized to do so. And this is the Spirit of Elias, that is of all others, most evidently reprehended and renounced by Christ. The Samaritans, no very sacred persons, added to their habitual constant guilts, at that time to deny common civility of entertainment to Christ himself; and the Disciples asked whether they might not do what Elias had done, call for fire from Heaven upon them in that case; and Christ tells them, that the Gospel-Spirit was of another complexion from that of Elias, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , turned to them as he did to Peter, when he said, Get thee behind me Satan ; as to so many fiery Satanical-spirited men, and checked them for that their furious zeal, with an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. The least I can conclude from hence is this, that they that put any to death, by any but perfectly legal process; that draw the sword upon any, but by the supreme Magistrates command, are far enough from the Gospel-Spirit, whatever precedent they can produce to countenance them: And so if they be really, what they pretend, Christians, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , they are in a prodigious mistake, or ignorance; They know not what Spirit they are of.
Yet farther it is observable of Elias, that he did execrate and curse, call for judgments from Heaven upon men's persons; and that temper of mind in the parallel, you may distribute into two sorts; First, in passing judgments upon men's future estates, the censorious reprobating Spirit, which though we find it not in Elias at this time, yet is a consequent of the Prophetick Office, and part of the burden received from the Lord, and laid upon those guilty persons, concerning whom it hath pleased Almighty God to reveal that secret of his Cabinet; but then this rigor cannot, without sin, be pretended to by any else; for in the blackest instances, charity believes all things, and hopes all things, and even in this sense, covers the multitudes of sins. Now this so culpable an insolent humor, rashly to pass a condemning sentence, was discernible in the Pharisees, (this Publican, whose profession and trade is forbidden by that Law, and this people that know not that Law, is cursed ) so likewise in the Montanists, (nos spirituales, and all others animales and Psychici ) so in the Romanists (who condemn all but themselves) and in all those generally whose pride and malice conjoined, (most directly contrary to the Gospel-Spirit of humility and charity) doth (prepare them one, and the other) inflame them to triumph, and glut themselves in this spiritual assassinacy, this deepest die of blood, the murthering of Souls; which because they cannot do it really, they endeavor in effigie, anathematize, and slaughter them here in this other Calvary, the place for the crucifying of reputations, turning them out of the Communion of their charity, though not of bliss; and I am confident, reject many whom the Angels entertain more hospitably. Another part of this cursing Spirit there is, more peculiarly Elias 's, that of praying (and so calling) for curses on men's persons; and that being upon the enemies of God, and those appearing to Elias a Prophet to be such, might be then lawful to him, and others like him, David perhaps, &c. in the Old Testament, but is wholly disliked and renounced by Christ under this state of higher Discipline, to which Christians are designed by him in the New. I say, not only for that which concerns our own enemies, for that is clear, When thine enemy hungereth, feed him ; and somewhat like that in the Old Testament, When thine enemies Ox, &c. But I extend it even to the enemies of God himself, and that I need not do upon other evidence than is afforded from the Text; the Samaritans were enemies of Christ himself, and were barbarous and inhumane to his person, and they must not be cursed by Disciples. And he that can now curse even wicked men, who are more distantly the enemies of God, can call for (I say not, discomfiture upon their devices, for that is charity to them, to keep them from being such unhappy Creatures as they would be, contrivers of so much mischief to the world; but) Plagues and Ruin upon their persons, (which is absolutely the voice of Revenge, that sulphur-vapor of Hell) he that delighteth in the misery of any part of God's Image (and so usurps upon that wretched quality, of which we had thought, the Devil had gotten the Monopoly (that of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , joying in the Brother's misery) but now see with horror, is got loose out of that Pit to rave among us;) he that would mischief, if it were in his power, and, now it is not, by unprofitable wishes of execration, shows his good will toward it, is quite contrary to the Gospel-spirit, and so 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he knows not, &c.
Lastly, Elias was not only wrapped to Heaven, but moved on Earth in a Fiery Chariot, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , saith the Author of the Book of Maccabees ; his zeal had fire and fire again ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 comes from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 an excessive fervency) and agreeable to his temper is his appetite; he desires nothing but fire upon his adversaries, calls for fire, and fire, and fire, as you may see it in the story: And the Gospel-Spirit is directly contrary to this, an allaying, quenching spirit, a gentle lambent flame, that sits on the Apostles heads to enlighten and adorn; by its vital warmth, expelling partial hectic heats, and burning Feverish distempers, that spiritual 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 mentioned in the Gospel ; and putting in the place, a cool, sedute, and equable temper, to have peace with all men, and chiefly with ourselves▪ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (an admirable phrase in St. Paul ) to use as much diligence to restore the Earth to peace again, as all the wind, or air, or perhaps fire in its bowels (I mean, ambitious, contentious men) do, to set it a shaking; and he that will not contribute his utmost to quench those flames; that will not joyfully do anything, that may not directly, or by consequence include sin, toward the extinguishing a fire thus miserably gotten into the veins and bowels of a calamitous Kingdom, is far enough from the Gospel-Spirit, and so 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he knows not, &c.
I shall not clearly give you the Gospel-Spirit, unless I proceed from its opposition to Elias his act, to that other, the opposition to the motion of those Disciples, considered in the particular circumstances. The case stood thus, Christ was going up to Jerusalem, thereupon the Samaritans receive him not; the Disciples will have fire from Heaven upon those Samaritans. Jerusalem was at that time, the only proper place of God 's worship, and may note to us as an emblem, the true established Protestant Religion of this Kingdom: The Samaritans were great enemies to this, enemies to Jerusalem ; being, first, Heretics in Religion, took in the Assyrian Idols into the worship of the true God ; they feared the Lord, and served their own gods, as it is in the story, and continued their wont when they turned Christians, make up the first sort of Heretics in Epiphanius his Catalogue. Secondly, They were Schismatics in an eminent manner, set up a new separation by themselves, on Mount Gerizim: And farther yet, in the third place, pretended to the only purity and antiquity, they lived where Jacob once lived; and therefore, though Assyrians by extraction, they boast they are Jacob 's seed ; and pretend more antiquity for that Schism of theirs, because Jacob once worshipped in that Mountain, than they think can be shown for the Temple at Jerusalem, which was but in Solomon 's time, of a later structure: Just as they which pretended, though never so falsely, that they were of Christ, have still despised and separated from all others as Novellists, which walked in the Apostles steps and practices; and so, Samaritans under guilts enough: First, Haters of Jerusalem ; Secondly, Heretics ; Thirdly, Sepa • atists ; Fourthly, Pretenders (though without all reason) to the first antiquity, and so arrogant Hypocrites too: And fifthly, beyond all, prodigious, but still confident Disputers ; and yet, sixthly, one higher step than all these, Contemners and haters of all, even of Christ himself, on this only quarrel, because he was a friend to Jerusalem, and looked as if he were a going thither, as if he had some favor to the established Religion of the Land. I wish this passage did not hitherto parallel itself; but seeing it doth too illustriously to be denied, or disguised, I shall imagine that that which follows, may do so too.
All this together, was temptation to two honest Disciples, to think fire from Heaven a but reasonable reward for such Samaritans ; and having flesh and blood about them, compounded with Piety, You will not much wonder at them, that they were wrought on by the temptation; and yet this very thought of theirs, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , is presently checked by Christ, as being against the Gospel-spirit; you know not what spirit you are of. Haters of the Church, Heretics, Schismatics, Hypocrites, Irrational Pretenders, Enemies, Contumelious, even to Christ himself, must not presently be assigned the Devils portion, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , may be yet capable of some mercy, some humanity, not instantly devoted to be sacrifices to our fury. The Gospel-spirit will have thoughts of peace, of reconciliableness toward them. And let me beseech God first, and then you, Right Honorable; God that he indue and inspire your hearts with this piece of the Gospel-spirit, so seasonable to your present consultations: And you, that you would not reject my Prayers to God, but open your hearts to receive the return of them, and not imitate, even the Disciples of Christ, in that they are Boanerges ; but stay till the cool of the day, till you have them in a calmer temper, when Christ 's Word and Doctrine hath stilled those billows, as once he did the other tempestuous Element. It was Antonius his way to be revenged on his enemies, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 not to imitate them, whatever he did. And this was but an Essay or obscure shadow of the Christian Magnanimity, that goes for poverty of spirit in the World, but proceeding from the right principle of unshaken patience, of constant, unmovable meekness, of design to be like our Royal Master-sufferer. (Father forgive them that crucify me, and go and preach the doctrine of the Kingdom to them, after they have crucified me. And you know all, we Ministers ever since are but Ambassadors of Christ, to ingrate, crucifying enemies, Praying them in Christ's name and stead, that they would be reconciled, that they that have done the wrong, will vouchsafe to be friends. ) What is it, but that eminent piece of Gospel-spirit, which they that can be persuaded to part with, for all the sweetness that thirst of Revenge can promise or pretend to bring in unto them, are unhappily ignorant of the richest Jewel, that ever came within their reach; They know not, &c.
I have as yet given you the Gospel-spirit, in one color or notion; that of its opposition to Elias first, and then to the Boanerges. It will be necessary to add somewhat of the Positive consideration of it, though that must be fetched from other Scriptures. And this will be but necessary to this Text, because, that which is here mentioned, is the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 spirit in the extent, not only that one part of it that respected the present action; where (though any one eminent defect, that particularly wherein those Disciples offended, were destructive to the Gospel-spirit, Malum ex quolibet defectu, yet) all the several branches of it, are required to integrate or make up the Gospel-spirit, Bonum ex essentiâ integra. And what these branches are, I cannot better direct you, than by putting you in mind of these few severals. First, Christ 's badge or cognizance, By this shall all men know, that you are my Disciples, if you love one another: Not if one opinion , but of love. Add, Nunquam laeti sitis, &c. as Jews rend Garments at Blasphemy ; so we at Uncharitableness. Secondly, Christ 's legacy, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Thirdly, Christ 's copy, Learn of me ; what's beyond all his other perfections, I am meek. Fourthly, The Nature of that Wisdom which cometh from above, Jam. iii. First pure, then peaceable. Fifthly, The quality of the fruits of the Spirit, in St. Paul, Gal. v. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, &c. Sixthly, The gallantry of meekness in St. Peter, Ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. Seventhly, Titus 's charge; that all Christians are to be put in mind of, Tit. iii.1. To be subject to Principalities, to obey Magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 no fighters, but gentle, showing all meekness to all men. Things, that it seems, nothing but Christianity could infuse; For we ourselves were sometimes fools, disobedient, &c. But after the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, then, room for this Spirit.
I cannot give you a readier Landskip to present them all to your view together, than that excellent Sermon of Christ upon the Mount, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as Chrysostom calls it, That top-pitch of Divine Philosophy, worthy to be imprinted in every man's heart; and of which, he that hath not been a pondering student, and resolved to regulate his practice by it, as much as his Faith by the Apostles Creed ; yea, and to lay down his life a Martyr of that Doctrine, though he hath all Faith, I cannot promise myself much of his Christianity. If you will have the Brachygraphy of that, the Manual picture that may be sure, either in words or sense, never to depart from your bosom, but remain your constant Phylactery or Preservative, from the danger of all ungospel spirits, then take the Beatitudes in the front of it: And among them (that I may, if it be possible, bring the whole Iliads into a Nutshel ) those that import immediately our duty towards men; for in that the Gospel-spirit especially consists, increasing our love to Brethren ; whose flesh Christ now assumed, and in whose interests he hath a most immediate concern. And if you mark, in the Chapter following, all the improvements mentioned, except only that of swearing, belong to the commands of the Second Table. And then, the integral parts of this Gospel-spirit, will be these four constantly, Humility, meekness, mercifulness, peaceableness, and if need be, suffering too: Every of these four brought in to us, with a checker or lay of duty towards God, of mourning betwixt humility and meekness, hungering and thirsting after Righteousness, betwixt meekness, and mercifulness; purity of heart betwixt mercifulness, and peaceableness, and persecution, and reproaches, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , every. Rabshakeh Topic of railing Rhetoric vomited out upon us ( Blessed persecution, blessed reproaches, when our holding to Christ, is that which brings them all upon us) the consummation and crown of all.
Having but named you these severals, Humility, meekness, mercifulness, peaceableness, and if need be, patience of all stripes, both of hand and tongue; the sparkling gems in this Jewel, blessed ingredients in this Gospel-spirit, you will certainly resolve it full time for me to descend to my second particular, at first proposed, That some Disciples there were, some prime Professors do not know the kind of that spirit, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , You know not what kind of spirit you are of.
James and John, it appears, were such Disciples, and that, after they had been for some competent time followers and auditors of his Sermons; so far an easier thing it is, to leave their worldly condition, and follow Christ, than to leave their carnal prejudices and ignorances, and obey him; especially those that had such hold in their passions; (as revenge, they say, is the pleasingest piece of carnality in the heap;) cheaper to hear his Gospel-Sermons, than to practice them. And you will less wonder at these two, when you see that St. Peter himself, after a longer space of proficiency, in that school, even at the time of Christ's attachment, had not yet put off that ignorance, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , say the Fathers, Peter was of an hot Constitution, and Christ's Doctrine had not yet got down deep enough into his heart, to allay or cool him: Nondum concipiens in se Evangelicam patientiam illam traditam sibi à Christo, &c. saith Origen ; that Gospel-patience and peaceableness that Christ had commended to him, he had not, it seems, yet received into an honest heart, & so he makes no scruple to cut off Malchus 's ear, when he was provoked to it. I have heard of a Friar, that could confess that Malchus signified a King, and yet after made no scruple to acknowledge him in that notion, to be the High-Priests Servant; And secondly, to justify St. Peters act, and avoid Christ's reprehension, by saying that he was chid, not for doing so much, but for doing no more ; not for cutting off his Ear, but for not directing the blow better, to the cutting off his Head: And how far this Friar's barbarous Divinity hath been justified of late by the Writings of some, (who will yet persuade us, that Christ did not reprehend St. Peter for that act) and by the actions of others, I have little joy to represent unto you; God knows, I love not to widen breaches; only I am sure, the Fathers are clear; that though formerly St. Peter were ignorant, and from that ignorance and zeal together, ran into that fury, yet Christ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , desirous to tune him to that sweet harmoniacal Gospel temper, tells him he must not use the sword, (he having no Commission, especially against those that have it, though they use it never so ill) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , though it were to avenge even God himself. And having given you these proofs of this ignorance in three Disciples, I think 'tis possible I might extend it to the rest of them, that they were in this particular ignorant too, (as it seems they were in many other things) till the Holy Ghost came according to promise, to teach them all things, and to bring to their remembrance, (to thaw their memories, that the words of Christ's, like the voice in Plutarch that had been frozen, might at length become audible ; or as Plato 's Precepts were learned by his Scholars, when they were young, but never understood till they were Men of full age, and tamer passions:) I say, to bring to their remembrance whatsoever Christ had in Person said unto them. And I wish to God, it were uncharitable to charge this ignorance still upon Disciples, after so many solemn Embassies of the Holy Ghost unto us, to teach us, and remember us of this Duty. Nay, I wish, that now after he hath varied the way of appearing, after he hath sat upon us in somewhat a more direful shape, not of a Dove, but Vultur (tearing even the flesh from us, on purpose, that when we have less of that carnal Principle left, there might be some heed taken to this Gospel-Spirit) there were yet some proficiency observable among us, some heavings of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that hath so long been a working in the World; I am confident, there were no such way of designing a prosperous, flourishing, durable Kingdom, as to found its policy upon Gospel-Principles, and maintain it by the Gospel-Spirit. I have authority to think, that was the meaning of that Prophecy of Christ's turning swords into plough-shares, not that he should actually bring peace, he tells you, that it would prove quite contrary; but because the fabric of the Gospel is such, that would all men live by it, all wars and disquiets would be banished out of the World. It was a madness in Machiavel to think otherwise, and yet the unhappiness of the World, that Sir Thomas Moor 's Book that designed it thus, should be then called Utopia, and that title to this hour remain perfect Prophecy, no place to be found where this Dove may rest her foot, where this Gospel-Spirit can find reception. No not among Disciples themselves, those that profess to adventure their lives to set up Christ's Kingdom in its purity ; none so void of this knowledge, as they. Whether we mean a speculative or practical knowledge of it, few arrived to that height or vacancy of considering whether there be such a Spirit, or no. Some so in love with nature, that old Pelagian Idol, resolve that sufficient to bring them to Heaven, if they but allow their brethren what they can claim by that grand Character, love of Friends, those of the same persuasion, those that have obliged them; they have Natures leave, and so are resolved to have Christ's, to hate, pursue to death whom they can fancy their Enemies. And I wish, some were but thus of Agrippa 's Religion, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , so near being Christians, as nature itself would advance them, that gratitude, honor to Parents, natural affection, were not become malignant qualities, disclaimed as conscientiously, as obedience and justice, and honoring of betters. Others again so devouted to Moses 's Law ▪ the Old Testament Spirit, that whatever they find practiced there, they have sufficient authority to transcribe. And 'tis observable, that they which think themselves little concerned in Old Testament Duties, (which have a long time past for unregenerate morality, that faith hath perfectly out-dated) are yet zealous Assertors of the Old Testament Spirit, all their pleas for the present resistance fetched from them, yea, and confessed by some, that this liberty was hidden by God in the first ages of the Christian Church, but now revealed we cannot hear where, yet, but in the Old Testament, and from thence a whole CIX. Psalm full of Curses against God 's Enemies and theirs, (and generally those pass for synonymous terms) the special devotion they are exercised in; and if ever they come within their reach, no more mercy for them, than for so many of the seven nations, in rooting out of which, a great part of their) Religion consists. I wish there were not another Prodigy also abroad under the name of the Old Testament Spirit, the opinion of the necessity of Sacrifice, real bloody Sacrifice, (even such as was but seldom heard of among Indians, and Scythians themselves) such Sacrifices, of which the Canibal Cyclops Feasts may seem to have been but attendants, (furnished with the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that come from such savage Altars) sacrificing of Men, of Christians, of Protestants, as good as any in the World, to expiate for the blood shed by Papists in Queen Mary 's days; and some Prophets ready to avow, that without such Sacrifice, there is no remission, no averting of judgments from the Land. What is this, but like the Pharisees, To build and garnish the Sepulchers of the Prophets, and say, That if they had lived in their Fathers days, they would never have partaken of the blood of the Prophets, and yet go on to fill up the measure of their Fathers? the very men to whom Christ directs thee, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest, in the present tense; a happy turn, if but the Progeny of those Murderers, and what can then remain, but the, Behold, your house is left unto you desolate, irreversible destruction upon the Land. A third sort there is again, that have so confined the Gospel to Promises, and a fourth so persuaded that the Unum necessarium is to be of right persuasions in Religion; i. e. of those that every such man is of, (for he that did not think his own the truest, would sure be of them no longer) that betwixt those two popular deceits, that of the Fiduciary, and this of the Solisidian, the Gospel-spirit, is not conceived to consist in doing anything; and so still, those practical Graces, Humility, Meekness, Mercifulness, Peaceableness, and Christian Patience, are very handsomely superseded; that one Moses 's Rod, called Faith, is turned Serpent, and hath devoured all these for rods of the Magicians ; and so still you see men sufficiently armed and fortified against the Gospel-spirit. All that is now left us, is not to exhort, but weep in secret, not to dispute, but pray for it, that God will at last give us eyes to discern this treasure put into our hands by Christ, which would yet like a whole Navy and Fleet of Plate, be able to recover the fortune and reputation of this bankrupt Island, fix this floating Delos, to restore this broken shipwrakt Vessel to harbor and safety, this whole Kingdom to peace again. Peace ! seasonable, instant peace, the only remedy on earth to keep this whole Land from being perfect Vastation, perfect Africa, of nothing but wild and Monster ; and the Gospel-spirit, that Christ came to preach, and exemplify, and plant among men, the only way imaginable to restore that peace. Lord, that it might at length break forth among us! the want of it, is certainly the Author of all the miseries we suffer under; and that brings me to the third and last particular, That this ignorance of the Gospel-spirit, is apt to betray Christians to unsafe, unjustifiable enterprises : You that would have fire from Heaven, do it upon this one ignorance, You know not, &c.
It were too sad, and too long a task, to trace every of our evils home to the original; every of the fiends amongst us, to the mansion in the place of darkness, peculiar to it: If I should, it would be found too true, what Du Plesse is affirmed to have said to Languet, as the reason why he would not write the story of the Civil Wars of France, That if he were careful to observe the causes, and honest to report them, he must Hound the Fox to a Kennel, which it was not willing to acknowledge ; drive such an action to the Brothel-house, that came speciously and pretendedly out of a Church : find that to be in truth, the animosity of a Rival, that took upon it to be the quarrel for Religion ; or as in Polybius oft, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to be a thing very distant from the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the color from the cause.
In the mean, it will not be a peculiar mark of odium on the imbroilers of this present State and Church, to lay it at their doors, which I am confident never failed to own the like effects in all other Christian States, the Ignorance (i. e. in the Scripture phrase, Not Practising) of those Christian Rules which the Gospel-spirit presents us with.
I might tire you but with the names of those effects that flow constantly from this Ignorance ; such are, usurping the Power that belongs not to us, which Humility would certainly disclaim; such, resisting the Powers under which we are placed by God, to which Meekness would never be provoked; such, the judging and censuring men's thoughts and intentions any further than their actions enforce, most irreconcilable with the forgiving part of mercifulness ; such, the doing any kind of evil, that the greatest or publickest good may come, designing of Rapine or Blood to the sanctifiedst end, which St. Paul and Peaceableness would never endure; such Impatience of the Cross, shaking a Kingdom to get it off from our own shoulders, and put it on other men, diametrally opposite to the suffering and patience of a Christian.
To retire from this Common, to the Inclosure, and to go no farther than the Texts suggests to me, To call fire from Heaven upon Samaritans, is here acknowledged the effect of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the want of knowledge, or consideration of the quality of their spirit.
And what may that signify to us? Why, fire you know is the emblem of a Civil War, which is called a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a combustion, or, being farther broken out into flames, a conflagration ; and I conceive should be so rendered in that place of St. Peter, where we read the Fiery Trial.
Now fire, you know, belongs most naturally to Hell ; and therefore when the fire and brimstone came down upon Sedom, the fancy of the Fathers calls it Gehennam de Coelo : and so generally the Civil Fire, the Combustion in a State, its original is from thence too; part of that wisdom that is not from above. These Tares so apt for burning, are sowed by Satan, the Enemy-man. From whence come Wars and strivings among you, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Wars of all sizes, are they not from your lusts, that war in your flesh? saith St. James. The lusts from the Flesh, but the War from Hell, the Devil, the Spiritus sufflans that sets them a warring. Believe it, they would not be able to do it in this manner, prove such fiery boutefeus, if they were not inflamed from beneath, if they were not set on fire by Hell. And therefore to call fire from Heaven, to entitle God or Heaven to that fire, is to do both of them great injury; nay, though it be on Samaritans, that are not so friendly to Christ as might be expected: and so, to call fire from Heaven upon Samaritans, is (by accommodation at least) to pretend God, or Heaven, or Religion, for the cause of War, which of all things hath least to do it, if the Gospel-spirit may have leave to be considered. Indeed, very few kinds of War there are, that will be justified by Gospel-principles. It was truly said, (though by a rough Soldier) That if the Lord of Hosts were permited to sit in the Council of War, there would soon be a cessation of Arms, and disbanding of Armies : Though that all War is not unlawful, will appear by John Baptists address to the Soldiers, who gave rides to regulate their Militia, but did not disband them; and the example of the Convert Centurion, a Centurion still after his Conversion: Where yet this still remains as an infallible resolution, that Wars are to be used like the Regia Medicamenta, never but when the Physician sees there is no other means available; never upon the wantonness of the Patient, but command of the Physician, and never but when peace appears to be impossible; for if it be possible, the precept is of force, F • llow peace with all men. And then to shed the blood of Christians, when blood may be spared, what an hideous thing it is, you may guess by that Emperor, that having beheaded a Christian, was by the sight of a fishes head that came to his Table so astonished, phansying, that it was the head of that slaughtered Christian gaping on him, that he scarce recovered to his wits; or of that poor penitent David in his pathetic expression, Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O Lord : a wonderful deliverance, it seems, to get clear from that▪ And what an Ocean of fishes heads, may appear one day gaping on some Men, I have no joy to tell; Deliver us from blood-guiltiness, O God.
I have done with my third particular also, and have now no more to importune you with, but my requests to you, and to Heaven for you, that the time past of all our lives, be sufficient to 〈◊〉 spent in the will of the Gentiles, after the dictates of that Heathen spirit, the natural or Jewish principles: that you be content at length to go up to the Mount with Christ, and be auditors of his Sermon ; to that other Mount with the same Christ, and be transfigured after him to that spirit of humility, spirit of meekness, spirit of all kind of mercifulness ; that peaceable, patient spirit, which will give you a comfortable passage through this valley of Achor here; yea, though it prove a Red Sea of Blood ; and will fit you for a Crown, that true Olympic Olive Crown ; the peaceable fruit • of righteousness, an eternal weight of glory hereafter. Which God of his infinite mercy grant, thorough the merit and promise of his Son.
To whom with the Father, &c.
SERMON VI.
EZEK. XVIII.31.
For why will you die?
S INCE the Devil was turned out of Heaven, all his care and counsels have been employed to keep us from coming thither; and finding God's love very forward and increasing toward us, he hath set us upon all ways of enmity and opposition against him. The first warlike exploit he put us upon, was the building of Babel, when man having fortified himself, and the arm of flesh grown stout, began to reproach and challenge, and even assault the God of Heaven. But the success of that boldness cost so dear, that we have ever since been discouraged from such open proud attempts. Our malice and despite hath kept in somewhat more close and secretly, hath retired and settled in the Soul; the inward man hath ever since erected its Babel ; proud and high imaginations out-bidding Heaven and God. These were a long while forged in the Brain, when instead of the acknowledgment of one true God, all Monsters of Atheism filled the understanding, sometimes with a multitude and shole of gods; sometimes deprived it quite, and left it utterly void of any: But now at last, the Devil and all the Atheism in the World, being at last exorcised and banished out of the Brain, by the evidence and power of truth, hath like the Legion, Luke viii. which being cast out of the man, had leave to enter the Swine, fixed violently, and taken possession, and intrenched itself in the brutish bestial part, the Affections. All the swellings, and tumors, and ulcers, that ever shown themselves in any portion of the circumference, are now retired into the center : All the Atheism or Heresy that ever soared or floated in the Brain, or surface of the Soul, is now sunk into the heart ; and there the Devil is seated at ease, there to set up and fortify, and contemn God forever. So that in brief, the issue of all, is this, there is an infinite opposition and thwarting, a professed combat and bandying of forces betwixt the will of Man, and the Will of God; God doing, in a kind, his best on one side, and Man on the other: God wonderfully willing and desirous that we should live; man most perversely willful to his own destruction.
This is a truth of a most dismal importance, that concerns you to be instructed in, and will not be more powerfully enforced on you from any place of Scripture, than the Text which I have read to you, Why will ye die? It is God speaks it, and with an infinite emphasis and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to note his passion and affectionateness in desiring our good, and willing that we should live. And then secondly, Why will you die? Mans resoluteness and stubborn wretchlesness towards his own ruin, rushing or tumbling as in a praecipice violently to Hell, like the swine, which formerly our Wills were resembled to, Luke viii.33. running full speed down a steep place into the Lake. And these are like to prove the parts of my ensuing discourse; First, God's willingness that we should be saved ; Secondly, Mans willfulness toward his own damnation. And of these plainly to your hearts, not your ears ; not so much to advance your knowledge, which though it could be raised to the tallest pitch, might yet possibly bear thee company to Hell: but rather to increase your zeal, to work someone good inclination in you, to persuade you to be content to suffer yourselves to be saved; to be but so tame, as to be taken by Heaven, that now even besieges you. And with my affectionate Prayers for success to this design, I will presume of your ears and patience, and begin first with the first, God's willingness that we should live, Why will ye die?
Amongst all other prejudices and mis-conceits that our fancy can entertain of God, I conceive not any so frequent or injurious to his Attributes, as to imagine him to deal double with Man-kind in his Word ; seriously to will one thing, and to make show of another; to deliver himself in one phrase, and reserve himself in another. It were an unnecessary, officious undertaking to go about to be God 's Advocate, to apologize for him, to vindicate his actions, or in Job 's phrase, to accept the person of God. Our proceedings will be more Christian, if we take for a ground or principle, that scorns to be beholding to an Artist for a proof, that every word of God is an argument of his Will ; every action an interpreter of his Word. So that howsoever he reveals himself, either in his Scripture, or his Works, so certainly he wisheth and intends to us in his secret Counsels. Every protestation of his love, every indignation at our stubbornness, every mercy conferred on us, and that not insidiously, but with an intent to do us good, are but ways and methods to express his Will: are but rays, and emissions, and gleams of that eternal Love, which he exhibits to the World. Now there is no way to demonstrate this willingness of God that we should live, à priori, or by anything either in God or us, preexistent as the cause of it, unless it be his love, which yet is rather its genus than its cause, somewhat of larger extent, though otherwise co-incident with it. The more vulgar powerful convincing way, is to enforce it to your hearts by its effects, and those divers and familiar: some few of which we will insist on.
And first, and principally, the sending of his Son; 1 John iv.9. In this was manifest the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the World, that we might live through him. Mark God 's love to us in sending his Son, that we might live through him; his love, the cause of this Mission ; this Mission the manifestation and argument of that love ; and that we live, the end of both. Had God been any way inclined to rigor or severity, there had needed no great skill, no artificial contrivance for a fair plausible execution of it; It had been but passing us by, the taking no notice of us, the leaving of us in our blood, Ezek. xvi. and then, Hell had presently opened its mouth upon us. We were all cast out in the open field, to the loathing of our persons, in the day that we were born, Ezek. xvi.5. ready for all the Vultures infernal to fix on; that hideous Old Testament, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Eccles. xiv.12. The Testament of Hell, or in the mercifulest construction, the Covenant of Grace had passed on us, naturally then (what infidelity now makes us) condemned already; our damnation sealed to us with our life, born to no other inheritance, but Hell: as if the Devil had out of policy fallen before Adam, or rather descended, and that in post, like lightning, Luke x.18. lest if his journey from Heaven, had been to have been performed after, some other Creature should have intercepted him of his prey. But God 's Bowels were enlarged above the size, wider than either the covetous gates of Hell, or that horrid yawning head that is all mouth. 'Twas not within the Devil's skill to fear, or suspect what a way of mercy and deliverance God had found out for us. Somewhat he understood by the event, the decay of his Prophetick Arts, becoming now his Oracle ; and even his silence growing vocal to him: But all this could not declare the Mystery at large; when Christ was born, he would have been rid of him betimes, musters all his forces, Pharisees and People, Herod's and Pilate's, Rome and Jerusalem, and all the friends he had in the World, to make away with him; and yet when he was just come to the p • sh, to the consummation of his Plot, he was afraid to act it; as in the Epistle ascribed to Ignatius the Martyr, and directed to the Philippians, 'tis observed, that whilst he was at a pretty distance, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Devil hastened the structure of Christ's Cross, as much as he could; set Judas and all the Artificers of Hell about the work; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but when all was even ready, Christ for the Cross, and the Cross for Christ, then he began to put i • demurs; shows Judas an Halter, frights Pilar 's Wife in a dream, she could not sleep in 〈…〉 ; and in sum, uses all means possible to prevent Christ's Crucifixion. Yet this, saith Ignatius, not out of any repentance, or regret of Conscience, but only being started with the foresight of his own ruin by this means: Christ 's suffering being in effect the destruction of his Kingdom, his death ou • Triumph over Hell, and his Cross our Trophy. By this you may discern what a miracle of God 's love was this giving of his Son ; the conceiving of which, was above the Devil's reach, and wherein he was providentially engaged, and (if we may so speak) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , carried blindfold by God, to be an Instrument of his own ruin, and in a kind, be a Co-worker of our Salvation. Not to enlarge or expatiate upon Circumstances; Man being thus involved in a necessity of damnation, and no remedy within the sphere, either of his power or conceit, left to rescue him; (nay, as some have been so hold to say, that God himself had no other means, besides this, in his Store-house of miracles, to save us, without entrenching on someone of his Attributes ) for God then to find out a course that we could never prompt him to, being solicited to it by nothing in us, but our sins and misery, and without any interposition, any further consultation or demur, to part with a piece of himself, to redeem us; Brachium Domini, The Arm of the Lord, as Isaiah calls our Savior, Isa. liii. Nay, to send down his very Bowels amongst us, to witness his compassion ; to satisfy for us by his own death, and attach himself for our liberty; to undergo such hard conditions, rather than be forced to a cheap severity; and, that he might appear to love his Enemies, to hate his Son : In brief, to fulfil the work without any aid required from us, and make Salvation ready to our hands, as Manna is called in the sixth of Wisdom, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Bread baked, and sent down ready from Heaven, Wisd. xvi.20. to drop it in our mouths, and exact nothing of us, but to accept of it: this is an act of love and singleness, that all the malice we carry about us, knows not how to suspect: so far from possibility of a treacherous intent, or double dealing, that if I were an Heathen, nay a Devil, I would bestow no other appellation on the Christians God, than what the Author of the Book of Wisdom doth so often, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the friend, or the lover of Souls. But this is a vulgar, though precious subject, and therefore I shall no longer insist on it. Only before I leave it, would I could see the effect of it expressed in our Souls, as well as acknowledged in our looks ; your hearts ravished as thoroughly as your brains convinced; your breasts as open to value and receive this superlative mercy, as your tongues to confess it; then could I triumph over Hell and death, and scoff them out of countenance; then should the Devil be reduced to his old pittance, confined to an empty corner of the World; and suffer as much by the solitariness, as darkness of his abode; all his engines and arts of torment should be busied upon himself, and his whole exercise to curse Christ forever, that hath thus deprived him of Associates. But alas! we are too solicitous in the Devil's behalf, careful to furnish him with Companions, to keep him warm in the midst of fire; 'tis to be feared, we shall at last thrust him out of his Inheritance. 'It is a probable argument that God desires our Salvation, because that Hell, wheresoever it is, (whether at the Center of the Earth, or Concave of the Moon) must needs be far less than Heaven ; and that makes us so besiege the gate, as if we feared we should find no room there. We begin our journey betimes, lest we should be forestall'd, and had rather venture a throng or crowd in Hell, than to expect that glorious liberty of the Sons of God. 'It is to be feared, that at the day of Judgment, when each Body comes to accompany its Soul in torment, Hell must be let out, and enlarge its territories, to receive its Guests. Beloved, there is not a Creature here that hath reason to doubt, but Christ was sent to die for him, and by that death hath purchased his right to life. Only do but come in, do but suffer yourselves to live, and Christ to have died ; do not uncrucifie Christ, by crucifying him again by your unbelief; do not disclaim the Salvation, that even claims right and title to you; and then, the Angels shall be as full of joy to see you in Heaven, as God is willing, nay, desirous to bring you thither; and Christ as ready to bestow that Inheritance upon you at his second coming, as at his first to purchase it. Nothing but Infidelity restrains Christ's sufferings, and confines them to a few. Were but this one Devil cast out of the World, I should be straight of Origen's Religion, and preach unto you Universal Catholic Salvation.
A second Argument of God 's good meaning towards us, of his willingness that we should live, is the calling of the Gentiles, the dispatching of Posts and Heralds over the whole ignorant Heathen World, and giving them notice of this treasure of Christ 's blood. Do but observe what a degree of profaneness, and unnatural abominations the Gentile World was then arrived to, as you may read in all their stories; and in the first to the Romans, how well grown, and ripe for the Devil, Christ found them; all of them damnably Superstitious and Idolatrous in their Worship; damnably unclean in their lives; nay, engaged forever in this rode of damnation, by a Law they had made, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , never to entertain any new Laws, or Religion ; not to innovate, though it were to get Salvation, as besides their own Histories, may be gathered out of Act. xvii.18. And lastly, consider how they were hook'd in by the Devil, to join in crucifying of Christ, that they might be guilty of that blood which might otherwise have saved them, and then you will find no argument to persuade you, 'twas possible, that God should have any design of mercy on them. Peter was so resolved of the point, that the whole succession of the Gentiles should be damned, that God could scarce persuade him to go and Preach to one of them, Act. x. He was fain to be cast into a Trance, and see a Vision about it; and for all that, he is much troubled about the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , their profaneness and uncleanness, that they were not fit for an Apostle to defile himself about their Conversion.
And this was the general opinion of all the Jews ; they of the Circumcision were astonished at the news, Act. x.45. Nay, this is it that the Angels wondered at so, when they saw it wrought at the Church by Paul's Ministry; never dreaming it possible, till it was effected, as may appear, Eph. iii.10. This was the Mystery, which from the beginning of the World had been hid in God, V. 9. One of God 's Cabinet Counsels, a Mercy decreed in secret, that no Creature ever wish of, till it was performed.
And in this behalf are we all (being lineally descended from the Gentiles ) bound over to an infinite measure both of humiliation and gratitude, for our deliverance from the guilt and reign of that second Original sin, that Heathenism of our Ancestors, and Catholic damnation, that Sixteen hundred years ago we were all involved in. Beloved, we were long ago set right again, and the obligation lies heavy upon us, to show this change to have been wrought in us to some purpose; to prove ourselves Christians in grain, so fixed and established, that all the Devils in Hell shall not be able to reduce us again to that abhorred condition. If we that are thus called out, shall fall back, after so much Gospel, to Heathen practices, and set up Shrines and Altars in our hearts, to every poor delight that our sottishness can call a God ; if we are not called out of their sins, as well as out of their ignorance; then have we advanced but the further toward Hell; we are still but Heathen Gospellers; our Christian Infidelity and practical Atheism, will but help to charge their guilt upon us, and damn us the deeper for being Christians. Do but examine yourselves on this one Interrogatory, whether this calling the Gentiles, hath found any effect in your hearts, any influence on your lives; whether your Conversations are not still as Heathenish as ever? If you have no other grounds or motives to embrace the Gospel, but only because you are bor • within the pale of the Church, no other evidences of your Discipleship, but your livery; then God is little beholding to you for your service. The same motives would have served to have made you Turks, if it had been your chance to have been born amongst them: and now, all that fair Christian outside is not thank-worthy. 'It is but your good fortune, that you are not now at the same work with the old Gentiles, or present Indians, a worshipping either Jupiter, or the Sun! 'Twas a shrewd speech of Clemens, that the life of every unregenerate Man, is an Heathen-life; and the sins of unsanctified Men, are Heathen-sins; and the estate of a Libertine Christian, an Heathen-estate: and unless our resolutions and practices are consonant to our profession of Christ, we are all still Heathens; and the Lord make us sensible of this our Condition.
The third, and in sum, the powerfullest Argument to prove God 's willingness that we should live, is, that he hath bestowed his spirit upon us ; that as soon as he called up the Son, he sent the Comforter. This may seem to be the main business that Christ ascended to Heaven about; so that a Man would guess from the xvi Chapter of St. John, and Vers. 7. that if it had not been for that, Christ had tarried amongst us till this time; but that it was more expedient to send the Spirit to speak those things powerfully to our hearts, which often and in vain had been sounded in our ears. 'It is a fancy of the Paracelsians, that if we could suck out the lives and spirits of other Creatures, as we feed on their flesh, we should never die: their lives would nourish and transubstantiate into our lives, their spirit increase our spirits, and so our lives grow with our years, and the older we were, by consequence, the fuller of life; and so no difficulty to become Immortal. Thus hath God dealt with us; first sent his Son, his Incarnate Son, his own Flesh, to feed, and nourish us; and for all this, we die daily: he hath now given us his own very Life, and incorporeous Essence, a piece of pure God, his very Spirit to feed upon, and digest, that if it be possible we might live. There is not a vein in our Souls, unless it be quite pin'd and shrivel'd up, but hath some blood produced in it by that holy nourishment; every breath that ever we have breathed toward Heaven, hath been thus inspired: Besides those louder Voices of God, either sounding in his Word, or thundering in his Judgments ; there is his calm, soft voice of Inspiration, like the Night Vision of old, which stole in upon the mind, mingled with sleep, and gentle slumber. He draws not out into the Field, or meets us as an Enemy; but entraps us by surprise, and disarms us in our quarters, by a Spiritual Stratagem conquers at unawares, and even betrays, and circumvents, and cheats us into Heaven. That precept of Pythagoras, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , To worship at the noise and whistling of the wind, had sense, and divinity in it, that Jamblichus that cites it, never dreamt of; that every sound and whispering of this Spirit, which r • stles either about our ears, or in our hearts, (as the Philosopher saith, Tecum est, intus est) when it breaths, and blows within us, the stoutest faculty of our Souls, the proudest piece of flesh about us, should bow down, and worship. Concerning the manner of the Spirits working, I am not, I need not to dispute. Thus far it will be seasonable and profitable for you to know, that many other Illuminations and holy Graces are to he imputed to God's Spirit, besides that by which we are effectually converted. God speaks to us many times, when we answer him not, and shines about our eyes, when we either wink, or sleep. Our many sudden, shortwinded Ejaculations toward Heaven, our frequent, but weak inclinations to good, our ephemerous wishes, that no man can distinguish from true piety, but by their sudden death; our every day resolutions of obedience, whilst we continue in sin, are arguments that God 's Spirit hath shined on us, though the warmth that it produced be soon chill'd with the damp it meets within us. For example, there is no doubt, beloved, but the Spirit of God accompanies his Word, as at this time, to your ears, if you will but open at its knock, and receive, and entertain it in your hearts, it shall prove unto you according to its most glorious attribute, Rom. i. The power of God unto salvation ▪ But if you will refuse it, your stubbornness may repel and frustrate God's Work, but not annihilate it; though you will not be saved by it, it is God 's still, and so shall continue to witness against you as the day of doom. Every word that was ever darted from that Spirit, as a beam or javelin of that piercing Sun, every ato • e of that flaming Sword, as the word is phrased, shall not, though it be rebated, vanish: the day of Vengeance shall instruct your Souls, that it was sent from God, and since it was once refused, hath been kept in store, not to upbraid, but damn you.
Many other petty occasions the Spirit ordinarily takes to put off the Cloud, and open his Face toward us: nay, it were not a groundless doubt, whether he do not always shine, and the cloud be only in our hearts, which makes us think the Sun is gone down, or quite extinct, if at any time we feel not his rays within us. Beloved, there be many things amongst us, that single fire can do nothing upon; they are of such a stubborn, frozen nature, there must be some material thing for the fire to consist in, a sharp iron, red hot, that may bore, as well as burn, or else there is small hopes of conquering them. Many men are so hardened and congealed in sin, that the ordinary beam of the Spirit cannot hope to melt them; the fire must come consubstantiate with some solid instrument, some sound, corpulent, piercing judgment, or else it will be very unlikely to thrive. True it is, the Spirit is an omnipotent Agent, which can so invisibly infuse and insinuate its virtue through the inward man, that the whole most enraged adversary shall presently fall to the earth, Act. ix. the whole carnal man lie prostrate, and the sinner be without delay converted; and this is a Miracle which I desire from my heart, might be presently shown upon every Soul here present.
But that which is to my present purpose, is only this, That God hath also other manners and ways of working, which are truly to be said to have descended from Heaven, though they are not so successful as to bring us thither; other more calm, and less boisterous influences, which if they were received into an honest heart, might prove semen immortalitatis, and in time increase, and grow up to immortality.
There is no such encumbrance to trash us in our Christian Progress, as a fancy that some men get possessed with; that if they are elected, they shall be called and saved in spite of their teeth; every man expecting an extraordinary call, because Saul met with one; and perhaps running the more fiercely, because Saul was then called, when he was most violent in his full speed of malice against Christians.
In this behalf, all that I desire of you is, First, to consider, that though our regeneration be a miracle, yet there are degrees of miracles, and thou hast no reason to expect, that the greatest and strongest miracle in the world, shall in the highest degree be shown in thy Salvation. Who art thou, that G •• should take such extraordinary pains with thee?
Secondly, To resolve, that many precious rays and beams of the Spirit, though when they enter, they come with power; yet through our neglect, may prove transitory, pass by that heart which is not open for them.
And then thirdly, You will easily be convinced, that no duty concerns us all so strictly, as to observe, as near as we can, when thus the Spirit appears to us; to collect and muster up the most lively, quick-sighted, sprightfullest of our faculties ; and with all the perspectives that spiritual Opticks can furnish us with, to lay wait for every glance and glimpse of its fire or light. We have ways in nature, to apprehend the beams of the Sun, be they never so weak and languishing, and by uniting them into a Burning-Glass, to turn them into a fire. Oh that we were as witty and sagacious in our spiritual estate! then it were easy for those sparks which we so often either contemn or stifle, to thrive within us, and at least, break forth into a flame.
In brief, Incogitancy and inobservance of God's seasons, supine numbness, and negligence in spiritual affairs, may on good grounds be resolved on, as the main or sole cause of our final impenitence and condemnation ; it being just with God, to take those away in a sleep, who thus walked in a dream, and at last to refuse them, whom he hath so long solicited. He that hath scorned or wasted his inheritance, cannot complain, if he dies a bankrupt; nor he that hath spent his candle at play, count it hard usage, that he is fain to go to bed darkling. It were easy to multiply arguments on this theme, and from every minute of our lives, to discern some pawn and evidence of God's fatherly will and desire that we should live. Let it suffice, that we have been large, if not abundant in these three chief ones: First, The giving of his Son to the World. Secondly, Dispatching the Gospel to the Gentiles. And lastly, The sending of his Spirit. We come now to a view of the opposite trenches, which lie pitched at the Gates of Hell, obstinate and peremptory to besiege, and take it: Mans resolvedness and willfulness to die, my second part, Why will you die?
There is no one conceit that engages us so deep, to continue in sin, that keeps us from repentance, and hinders any seasonable Reformation of our wicked lives, as a persuasion, that God 's will is a cause of all events. Though we are not so blasphemous as to venture to define God the Author of sin; yet we are generally inclined for a fancy, that because all things depend on God 's decree, whatsoever we have done, could not be otherwise; all our care could not have cut off one sin from the Catalogue. And so being resolved, that when we thus sinned, we could not choose, we can scarce tell how to repent for such necessary fatal misdemeanors; the same excuses which we have for having sinned formerly, we have for continuing still, and so are generally better prepared for Apologies, than Reformation. Beloved, it will certainly much conduce to our edification, instead of this speculation (whose grounds or truth, I will not now examine) to fix this practical theorem in our hearts, that the will of man is the principal cause of all our evil, that death either as it is the punishment of sin, eternal death, or as it is the sin itself, a privation of the life of grace, spiritual death, is wholly to be imputed to our willful will. It is a Problem in Aristotle, why some Creatures are longer in conceiving & bringing forth than others; and the sensiblest reason he gives for it, is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the hardness of the Womb, which is like dry earth, that will not presently give any nourishment to either seed or plant; and so is it in the spiritual conception, and production of Christ, that is, of life in us: The hardness and toughness of the heart, the womb where he is to be born, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that dry Earth, in the Philosophers ; or that way-side, or at best stony ground, in Christ 's phrase, is the only stop and delay in begetting of life within us, the only cause of either barrenness or hard travail in the Spirit. Be the brain never so soft and pliable, never so waxy and capable of impressions ; yet if the heart be but carnal, if it have anything much of that lust of the flesh, 1 John ii.15. in its composition, it will be hard for the spiritual life to be conceived in that man. For Faith, the only means by which Christ lives and dwells in us, Ephes. iii.17. is to be seated in the heart, i. e. the will and affections, according to the express words, That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. So that, be your brains never so swelled and puffed up with persuasions of Christ our Savior, be they so big that they are ready to lie in, and travail of Christ, as Jove 's did of Minerva in the Poem; yet if the heart have not joined in the conception, if the seed sown have not taken root and drawn nourishment from the will, it is but an aerial or phantastical birth, or indeed rather a disease or tympany; nay, though it come to some proof, and afterward extend and increase in limbs and proportions never so speciously, yet if it be only in the brain, neither is this to be accounted solid nourishment and augmentation, but such as a Camalion may be thought to have, that feeds on air, and itself is little better, and in sum, not growth, but swellings.
So then, if the will, either by nature, or custom of sinning, by familiarity and acquaintance, making them dote on sensual objects, otherwise unamiable; by business and worldly ambitious thoughts, great enemies to faith ; or by pride and contentment, both very incident to noble Personages and great Wits, to Courtiers and Scholars: In brief, if this Will, the stronger and more active part of the Soul remain carnal, either in indulgence to many, or, which is the snare of judicious men in chief, of some one prime sin, then cannot all the faith in the world, bring that man to Heaven; It may work so much miracle, as Simon Magus is said to have done, who undertook to raise the dead, give motion to the head, make the eyes look up, or the tongue speak; but the lower part of the man, and that the heaviest, will by no charm or spell be brought to stir, but weigh and sink even into Hell, will still be carcass and corruption; Damnation is his birth-right, Ecclus. xx.25. And it is impossible, though not absolutely; yet ex hypothesi, the second Covenant being now sealed, even for God himself, to save him or give him life. It is not David 's Music, that exorcised and quieted Saul 's evil spirit, nor Pythagora 's Spondees that tamed a man, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , set him right in his wits forever, that can work any effect on a fleshy heart: So that Chrysostom would not wonder at the voice that cried, O Altar, Altar, hear the voice of the Lord, because Jeroboam 's heart was harder than that; nor will I find fault with Bonaventure, that made a solemn prayer for a stony heart, as if it were more likely to receive impression, than that which he had already of flesh.
It were long to insist on the willfulness of our fleshy hearts, how they make a faction within themselves, and bandy faculties for the Devil; how when grace and life appear, and make profer of themselves, all the carnal affections, like them in the Gospel, Join all with one consent to make excuses ; nothing in our whole lives we are so solicitous for, as to get off fairly, to have made a cleanly Apology to the invitations of God's Spirit, and yet for a need, rather than go, we will venture to be unmannerly: We have all married a Wife, espoused ourselves to some amiable delight or other; we cannot, we will not come. The Devil is wiser in his generation than we; he knows the price and value of a Soul, and will pay any rate for it, rather than lose his market; he will give all the riches in the world, rather than miss. And we, at how low a rate do we prize it? it is the cheapest commodity we carry about us. The beggarliest content under Heaven, is fair, is rich enough to be given in exchange for the Soul. Spiritus non ponderat, saith the Philosopher ; the Soul being a spirit, when we put it into the balance, weighs nothing; nay, more than so, it is lighter than vanity, lighter than nothing, i. e. it doth not only weigh nothing, but even lifts up the scale it is put into, when nothing is weighed against it. How many sins, how many vanities, how many idols, i. e. in the Scripture phrase, how many nothings be there in the world, each of which will out-weigh and preponderate the Soul?
It were tedious to observe and describe the several ways that our devilish sagacity hath found out, to speed ourselves to damnation, to make quicker dispatch in that unhappy rode, than ever Elias his fiery Chariot could do toward Heaven. Our daily practice is too f • ll of arguments, almost every minute of our lives, as it is an example, so is it a proof of it: Our pains will be employed to better purpose, if we leave that as a worn, beaten, common place, and betake ourselves to a more necessary Theme, a close of Exhortation.
And that shall be by way of Treaty, as an Ambassador sent from God, that you will lay down your arms, that you will be content to be friends with God, and accept of fair terms of composition ; which are, That as you have thus long been enemies to God, proclaiming hostility, and perpetually opposing every merciful will of his by that willfulness ; so now being likely to fall into his hands, you will prevent that ruin, you will come in, and whilst it is not too late, submit yourselves, that you may not be forced as Rebels and Outlaws, but submit as Servants. This perhaps may be your last parley for peace ; and if you stand out, the battery will begin suddenly, and with it the horrendum est, Heb. x.31. It is a fearful, hideous thing to fall into the hands of the living God: All that remains upon our willful holding out, may be (the doom of Apostates from Christianity ) a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation that shall devour the adversaries, Vers. 27. And methinks the very emphasis in my Text, notes as much; Why will you die? As if we were just now falling into the Pit, and there were but one minute betwixt this time of our jollity, and our everlasting hell. Do but lay this one circumstance to your hearts, do but suppose yourselves on a Bed of sickness, laid at with a violent burning Fever, such a one as shall finally consume the whole world, as it were battered with thundering and lightning, and besieged with fire, where the next throw or plunge of thy disease, may possibly separate thy soul from thy body, and the mouth of Hell just then open and yawning at thee; and then suppose there were one only minute, wherein a serious resigning up thyself to God, might recover you to Heaven. O then what power and energy? what force and strong efficacy, would there be in this voice from God? Why will you die? I am resolved, that heart that were truly sensible of it, that were prepared seasonably by all these circumstances to receive it, would find such inward vigor and spirit from it, that it would strike death dead in that one minute; this ultimus conatus, this last spring and plunge, would do more than a thousand heartless heaves in a lingering sickness, and perhaps overcome, and quit the danger.
And therefore let me beseech you to represent this condition to yourselves, and not any longer be flattered or cozened in a slow security: To day if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. If you let it alone till this day come in earnest, you may then perhaps heave in vain, labor and struggle, and not have breath enough to send up one sigh toward Heaven. The hour of our death we are wont to call, Tempus improbabilitatis, a very improbable inch of time to build our Heaven in; as after death is impossibilitatis, a time wherein it is impossible to recover us from Hell. If nothing were required to make us Saints, but outward performances; if true repentance were but to groan, and Faith but to cry, Lord, Lord ; we could not promise ourselves, that at our last hour we should be sufficient for that; perhaps a Lethargy may be our fate, and then, what life or spirits even for that? perhaps a Fever may send us away raving, in no case to name God, but only in oaths and curses ; and then it were hideous to tell you, what a Bethlehem we should be carried to: But when that which must save us, must be a work of the Soul, and a gift of God, how can we promise ourselves, that God will be so merciful, whom we have till then contemned, or our souls then capable of any holy impression, having been so long frozen in sin, and petrified even into Adamant? Beloved, as a man may come to such an estate of grace here, that he may be most sure he shall not fall, as St. Paul in likelihood was, when he resolved that nothing could separate him: So may a man be engaged so far in sin, that there is no rescuing from the Devil. There is an irreversible estate in evil, as well as good, and perhaps I may have arrived to that before my hour of death; for I believe Pharaoh was come to it, Exod. ix.34. after the seventh Plague hardening his heart; and then I say, it is possible, that thou that hitherto hast gone on in habituate, stupid, customary rebellions, mayst be now at this minute, arrived to this pitch, That if thou run on one pace farther, thou art engaged forever past recovery. And therefore at this minute, in the strength of your age and lusts, this speech may be as seasonable, as if