Eighty Sermons

SERM. XXXIII. Preached upon Whitsunday.

T Hat which served for an argument amongst the Jews, to diminish, and under-value Christ, Have any of the Rulers believed in him? had no force amongst the Gentiles, for amongst them, the first persons that are recorded to have applied themselves to the profession of the Christian Religion, were Rulers, Persons of place, and quality: Sune propter hoc Dignitates positae sunt, ut major pietas ostendatur, says S. Chrysostom, This is the true reason why men are Ennobled, why men are raised, why men are enriched, that they might glorify God the more, by that eminency; This is truly to be a good Student, Scrutari Scripturas, To search the Scriptures, in which is eternal life: This is truly to be called to the Barre, to be Crucified with Christ Jesus: And to be called to the Bench, to have part in his Resurrection, and reign in glory with him: and to be a Judge, to judge thyself, that thou beest not judged to condemnation, by Christ Jesus: Offices and Titles, and Dignities, make thee, in the eye, and tongue of the world, a better man; be truly a better man, between God and thee, for them, and they are well placed. Those Pyramids and Obelisces, which were raised up on high, in the Air, but supported nothing, were vain testimonies of the frivolousnesse, and impertinency of those men that raised them; But when we see Pillars stand, we presume that something is to be placed upon them. They, who by their rank and place, are pillars of the State, and pillars of the Church, if Christ and his glory be not raised higher by them, then by other men, put God's building most out of frame, and most discompose God's purposes, of any others. And therefore S. Chrysostom hath noted usefully, That the first of the Gentiles, which was converted to Christianity, was that Eunuch, which was Treasurer to the Queen of Ethiopia; And the second was this Centurion, in whose house S. Peter preached this fruitful Sermon, at which, While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell upon all them that heard the word.

Our Parts will be two; first some Circumstances that preceded this act, this miraculous descent and infusion of the Holy Ghost, And then the Act, the Descent it self. In the first, we shall consider first, the time, it was when Peter was speaking, when God's Ordinance was then in executing, preaching; And secondly, what made way to this descent of the Holy Ghost, that is, what Peter was speaking, and preaching, These words, true and necessary Doctrine; And here also we shall touch a little, the place, and the Auditory, Cornelius, and his family. When from hence we shall descend to the second Part, The descent of the Holy Ghost, we shall look first, (so as it may become us) upon the Person, (the third Person in the holy, blessed, and glotions Trinity) And then upon his action, as it is expressed here, Cecidit, He fell; As of Christ it is said, Deliciae ejus cum filiis hominum, His delight is to be with the sons of men, And, (to speak humanely, a perverse delight, for it was to be with the worst men, with Publicans & sinners) so, (to speak humanely) the Holy Ghost had an extraordinary, a perverse ambition, to go downwards, to enlarge himself, in his working, by falling; He fell: And then, he fell so, as a shower of rain falls, that does not lie in those round drops in which it falls, but diffuses, and spreads and enlarges it self, He fell upon all; But then, it was because all heard, They came not to see a new action, preaching, not a new Preacher, Peter, nor to see one another at a Sermon, He fell upon all that heard; where also, I think, it will not be impertinent, to make this note, That Peter is said to have spoke these words, but they, on whom the holy Ghost fell, are said to have heard The word; It is not Many words, long Sermons, nor good words, witty and eloquent Sermons that induce the holy Ghost, for all these are words of men; and howsoever the whole Sermon is the Ordinance of God, the whole Sermon is not the word of God: But when all the good gifts of men are modestly employed, and humbly received, as vehicuia Spiritus, as S. Augustine calls them, The chariots of the holy Ghost, as means afforded by God, to convey the word of life into us, in Those words we hear The word, and there the word and the Spirit go together, as in our case in the Text, While Peter yet spake those words, the holy Ghost fell upon all them that heard The word.

When we come then to consider in the first place, the Time of this miracle, we may easily see that verified in S. Peters proceeding, which S. Ambrose says, Nescit tarda molimina Spiritus sancti gratia, The holy Ghost cannot go a slow pace; It is the devil in the serpent that creeps, but the holy Ghost in the Dove flies: And then, in the proceeding with the Centurion, we may see that verified which Leo says, Vbi Deus Magister, quàm cito discitur? Where God teaches, how fast a godly man learns? Christ did almost all his miracles in an instant, without dilatory circumstances; Christ says to the man sick of the palsy, Tolle grabatum, Take up thy bed and walk, and immediately he did so: To the deaf man he says, Ephphatha, Be thine ears opened, and instantly they were opened: He says to the woman with the issue of blood, Esto sana à plagatua, and she was not only well immediately upon that, but she was well before, when she had but touched the hem of his garment. Upon him who had lain in his infirmity thirty eight years, at the pool, Christ makes a little stop; but it was no longer then to try his disposition with that question, Vis sanus fieri? Christ was sure what his answer would be; and as soon as he gives that answer, immediately he recovered. Where Christ seems to have stayed longest, which was upon the blind man, yet at his first touch, that man saw men walk, though not distinctly, but at the second touch he saw perfectly. As Christ proceeds in his miracles, so doth the holy Ghost in his powerful instructions. It is true, Scientiae sunt profectus, There is a growth in knowledge, and we overcome ignorances by degrees, and by succession of more and more light: Christ himself grew in knowledge, as well as in stature: But this is in the way of experimental knowledge, by study, by conversation, by other acquisitions. But when the holy Ghost takes a man into his school, he deals not with him, as a Painter, which makes an eye, and an ear, and a lip, and passes his pencil an hundred times over every muscle, and every hair, and so in many sittings makes up one man, but he deals as a Printer, that in one strain delivers a whole story.

We see that in this example of S. Peter, S. Peter had conceived a doubt, whether it were lawful for him to preach the Gospel to any of the Gentiles, because they were not within the Covenant; This was the sanus fieri, This very scruple was the voice and question of God in him: to come to a doubt, and to a debatement in any religious duty, is the voice of God in our conscience: Would you know the truth? Doubt, and then you will inquire: And facile solutionem accipit anima, quae prius dubitavit, says S. Chrysost. As no man resolves of anything wisely, firmly, safely, of which he never doubted, never debated, so neither doth God withdraw a resolution from any man, that doubts with an humble purpose to settle his own faith, and not with a wrangling purpose to shake another man's. God rectifies Peters doubt immediately, and he rectifies it fully; he presents him a Book, and a Commentary, the Text, and the Exposition: He lets down a sheet from heaven with all kind of beasts and fowls, and tells him, that Nothing is unclean, and he tells him by the same spirit, that there were three men below to ask for him, who were sent by God to apply that visible Parable, and that God meant, in saying Nothing was unclean, that the Gentiles generally, and in particular, this Centurion Cornelius, were not incapable of the Gospel, nor unfit for his Ministry. And though Peter had been very hungry; and would fain have eaten, as appears in the tenth verse, yet after he received this instruction, we hear no more mention of his desire to eat; but, as his Master had said, Cibus meus est, My meat is to do my Fathers will that sent me, so his meat was to do him good that sent for him, and so he made haste to go with those Messengers.

The time then was, when Peter thus prepared by the Holy Ghost, was to prepare others for the Holy Ghost, and therefore it was, Cum locutus, When he spoke, that is, preached to them. For, Si adsit palatum fidei, cui sapiat mel Dei, says S. Augustine, To him who hath a spiritual taste, no honey is so sweet, as the word of God preached according to his Ordinance. If a man taste a little of this honey at his rods end, as Jonathan did, though he think his eyes enlightened, as Jonathan did, he may be in Jonathan's case, I did but taste a little honey with my rod, Et ecce, morior, and behold, I die. If a man read the Scriptures a little, superficially, perfunctorily, his eyes seem straight-ways enlightened, and he thinks he sees everything that he had pre-conceived, and fore-imagined in himself, as clear as the Sun, in the Scriptures: He can find flesh in the Sacrament, without bread, because he finds Hoc est Corpus meum, This is my Body, and he will take no more of that honey, no more of those places of Scripture, where Christ says, Ego vitis, and Ego porta, that he is a Vine, and that he is a Gate, as literally as he seems to say, that that is his Body. So also he can find wormwood in this honey, because he finds in this Scripture, Stipendium peccati mors est, that The reward of sin is death, and he will take no more of that honey, not the Quandocunque, That at what time soever a sinner repents, he shall have mercy. As the Essentiall word of God, the Son of God, is Light of light, So the written Word of God is light of light too, one place of Scripture takes light of another: and if thou wilt read so, and hear so, as thine own affections transport, and mis-lead thee; If when a corrupt confidence in thine own strength possesses thee, thou read only those passages, Quare moriemini, domus Israel? Why will ye die, O house of Israel? and conclude out of that, that thou hast such a free will of thine own, as that thou canst give life to thyself, when thou wilt; If when a vicious dejection of spirit, and a hellish melancholy, and declination towards desperation possesses thee, thou read only those passages, Impossible est, That it is impossible, that he that falls, after he hath been enlightened, should be renewed again; And if thou hear Sermons so, as that thou art glad, when those sins are declamed against, which thou art free from, but wouldst hear no more, wouldst not have thine own sin touched upon, though all reading, and all hearing be honey, yet if thou take so little of this honey, Jonathan's case will be thy case, Ecce, morieris, thou wilt die of that honey; for the Scriptures are made to agree with one another, but not to agree to thy particular taste and humor.

But yet, the counsel is good, on the other side too, Hast thou found honey? eat so much thereof as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it. Content thyself with reading those parts of Scriptures, which are clear, and edify, and perplex not thyself with Prophesies not yet performed; and content thyself with hearing those Sermons, which rectify thee In credendis, and Inagendis, in all those things, which thou art bound to believe, and bound to practice, and run not after those Men, who pretend to know those things, which God hath not revealed to his Church. Too little, or too much of this honey, of this reading, and of this hearing, may be unwholesome: God hath chosen ways of mediocrity; He Redeemed us not, by God alone, nor by man alone, but by him, who was both. He instructs us not, by the Holy Ghost alone, without the Ministry of man, nor by the Minister alone, without the assistance of the Holy Ghost. An Angel appeared to Cornelius, but that Angel bid him send for Peter: The Holy Ghost visits us, and disposes us, but yet the Holy Ghost sends us to the Ministry of man: Non dedignatur docere per hominem, qui dignatus est esse homo, says S. Augustine; He that came to us, as Man, is content that we go to men, for our instruction. Preaching is the ordinary means; that which S. Peter wrought upon them, was, Cum locutus, when he had, and because he had preached unto them.

And it was also Dum locutus est, Whilst he yet spake those words; Non permittit Spiritus absolvi Sermonem, says S. Chrysostom; The Holy Ghost did not leave them to future meditations, to future conferences, he did not stay till they told one another after the Sermon, That it was a learned Sermon, a conscientious Sermon, a useful Sermon, but whilst the Preacher yet spoke, the Holy Ghost spoke to their particular consciences. And as a Gardener takes every bough of a young tree, or of a Vine, and leads them, and places them against a wall, where they may have most advantage, and so produce, most, and best fruit: So the Holy Ghost leads and places the words, and sentences of the Preacher, one upon an Usurer, another upon an Adulterer, another upon an ambitious person, another upon an active or passive Briber, when the Preacher knows of no Usurer, no Adulterer, no ambitious person, no Briber active or passive, in the Congregation. Nay, it is not only whilst he was yet speaking, but, as S. Peter himself reports the same Story, in the next Chapter, As I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell upon them.

Perchance in the beginning of a Sermon, the reprehension of the Preacher falls not upon me, it is not come to me; But, when as the duties of the Preacher are expressed by the Apostle, to be these three, To reprove, or convince by argument, to settle truths, to overthrow errors; And to exhort, to rectify our manners; And to rebuke, to denounce God's Judgments upon the refractary; whatsoever he says the two first ways, by Convincing, and by Exhorting, all that belongs to all, from the beginning; And for that which he shall say, the third way, by way of Rebuking, As I know at midnight, that the Sun will break out upon me tomorrow, though I know not how it works upon those places, where it shines then, So, though I know not how the rebukes of the Preacher work upon their consciences, whose sins he rebukes at the beginning; yet I must make account that he will meet with my sin too; & if he do not meet with my present sin; that sin which is my second wife, that sin which I have married now, (not after a divorce frō my former sin, so, as that I have put away that sin, but after the death of that sin, which sickness or poverty hath made me unable to continue in) yet if he bend himself upon that sin, which hath been my sin, or may be my sin, I must be sensible that the Holy Ghost hath offered himself to me, whilst he yet speaks, and ever since he began to speak; And, Cum locutus, Because Preaching is the ordinary means, and, Dum locutus, Because the Holy Ghost intends all for my edification, I must embrace and entertain the Holy Ghost, who exhibits himself to me, from the beginning, and not say, This concerns not me; for whatsoever the Preacher can say of God's mercy in Christ Jesus to any man, all that belongs to me, for no man hath received more of that, then I may do; And whatsoever the Preacher can say of sin, all the way, all that belongs to me, for no man hath ever done any sin, which I should not have done, if God had left me to myself, and to mine own perverseness towards sin, and to mine own insatiablenesse in sin.

It was then, when he preached, and whilst he preached, and as soon as he preached, but when, and whilst, and as soon as he preached Thus, thus as is expressed here, Whilest he spake these words: In which, we shall only touch, but not much insist upon, his manner first, and then his matter; And for his manner, we consider only here, his preparation, and no other circumstance. Though S. Peter say to them, when he came, I ask therefore, for what intent you have sent for me, yet God had intimated to him before, That it was to Preach the Gospel to the Gentiles; And therefore some time of meditation he had; Though in such a person as S. Peter, so filled with all gifts necessary for his function, and to such persons as Cornelius was, who needed but Catechizing in the rudiments of the Gospel, much preparation needed not. The case was often of the same sort, after, in the Primitive Church; The persons were very able, and the people very ignorant; and therefore it is easy to observe a far greater frequency of Preaching amongst the Ancient Fathers, then ordinarily, men that love ease, will apprehend. We see evidently in S. Augustine's hundred forty fourth Sermon De Tempore, And in S. Ambroses forty fourth Sermon De sancto Latrone, And in S. Bernard's twelve Sermons upon one Psalm, that all these blessed and Reverend Fathers, preached more then one day, divers days together, without intermission: And we may see in S. Basils second Homilie upon the six days work, that he preached in the after-noon; And so, by occasion of his often preaching, it seems by his second Homilie De Baptismo, that he preached sometimes extemporally. But of all this, the reason is as evident as the fact, The Preachers were able to say much, The people were capable but of little: And where it was not so, the Clergy often assisted themselves with one another's labors; as S. Cyrils Sermons were studied without book, and preached over again to their several Congregations, by almost all the Bishops of the Eastern Church. Sometimes we may see Texts extended to very many Sermons, and sometimes Texts taken of that extent and largeness, as only a paraphrase upon the Text would make the Sermon; for we may see by S. Augustine's tenth Sermon De verbis Apostoli, that they took sometimes the Epistle and Gospel of the day, and the Psalm before the Sermon for their text.

But in these our times, when the curiosity, (allow it a better name, for truly, God be blessed for it, it deserves a better name) when the capacity of the people requires matter of more labor, as there is not the same necessity, so there is not the same possibility of that assiduous, and that sudden preaching. No man will think that we have abler Preachers then the Primitive Church had; no man will doubt, but that we have learneder, and more capable auditories, and congregations then their were. The Apostles were not negligent, when they mended their nets: A preacher is not negligent, if he prepare for another Sermon, after he hath made one; nor a hearer is not negligent, if he meditate upon one Sermon, though he hear not another within three hours after. S. Peters Sermon was not extemporal; neither if it had (his person, and the quality of the hearers, being compared with our times) had that been any precedent, or pattern for our times, to do the like. But yet, Beloved, since our times are such, as are overtaken with another necessity, that our adversaries dare come, Cum locutus est, As soon as the Preacher hath done, and meet the people coming out of the Church, and deride the Preacher, and offer an answer to anything that hath been said; since they are come to come to Church with us, and Dum locutus est, Then when the Preacher is speaking, to say to him, that sits next him, That is false, that is heretical; since they are come to join with us at the Communion, so that it is hard to find out the Judas, and if you do find him, he dares answer, Your Minister is no Priest, and so your Bread and Wine no Sacrament, and therefore I care not how much of it I take; since they are come to boast, that with all our assiduity of preaching, we cannot keep men from them; since it is thus, as we were always bound by Christ's example, To gather you as a hen gathers her chickens, (to call you often to this assembling of yourselves) so are we now much more bound to hide and cover you, as a hen doth her chickens, and because there is a Kite hovering in every corner, (a seducer lurking in every company) to defend and arm you, with more and more instructions against their insinuations. And if they deride us, for often preaching, and call us fools for that, as David said, He would be more vile, he would Dance more, So let us be more fools, in this foolishness of preaching, and preach more. If they think us mad, since we are mad for our souls, (as the Apostle speaks) let us be more mad; Let him that hath preached once, do it twice, and him that hath preached twice, do it thrice. But yet, not this, by coming to a negligent, and extemporal manner of preaching, but we will be content to take so many hours from our rest, that we, with you, may rest the safelyer in Abraham's bosom, and so many more hours from our meat, that we, with you, may the more surely eat, and drink with the Lamb, in the kingdom of heaven. Christ hath undertaken, that his word shall not pass away, but he hath not undertaken that it shall not pass from us: There is a Ne exeas munaum served upon the world, The Gospel cannot go, nor be driven out of the world, till the end of the world; but there is not a Ne exeas regnum, The Gospel may go out of this, or any Kingdom, if they flacken in the doing of those things which God hath ordained for the means of keeping it, that is, a zealous, and yet a discreet; a sober, and yet a learned assiduity in preaching.

Thus far then we have been justly carried, in consideration of this circumstance in the manner of his preaching, his preparation; In descending to the next, which is the matter of his Sermon, we see much of that in his Text. S. Peter took his Text here, ver. 34. out of Deuteronomy, of a truth I perceive, that God is no respecter of persons. Where, because the words are not precisely the same in Deuteronomy, as they are in this Text, we find just occasion to note, That neither Christ in his preaching, nor the holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures of the New Testament, were so curious as our times, in citing Chapters and Verses, or such distinctions, no nor in citing the very, very words of the places. Heb. 4.4. There is a sentence cited thus indefinitely, It is written in a certain place, without more particular note: And, to pass over many, conducing to that purpose, if we consider that one place in the Prophet Isaiah, (Make the heart of this people fat, make their eyes heavy, and shut them, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and convert, and be healed) and consider the same place, as it is cited six several times in the New Testament, we shall see, that they stood not upon such exact quotations, and citing of the very words. But to that purpose, for which S. Peter had taken that text, he follows his text. Now, Beloved, I do not go about to include S. Peters whole Sermon into one branch, of one part, of one of mine: Only I refresh to your memories, that which I presume you have often read in this Story, and this Chapter, that though S. Peter say, That God is no such accepter of persons, but that in every Nation, he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him, yet it is upon this ground, Christ Jesus is Lord of all; And, (as it is, ver. 42.) He hath commanded us to preach; that is, he hath established a Church, and therein, visible means of salvation; And then, this is our general text, the subject of all our Sermons, That through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall have remission of sins. So that this is all that we dare avow concerning salvation, that howsoever God may afford salvation to some in all nations, yet he hath manifested to us no way of conveying salvation to them, but by the manifeltation of Christ Jesus in his Ordinance of preaching.

And such a manifestation of Christ, had God here ordained for this Centurion Cornelius. But why for him? I do not ask reasons of God's mercy to particular men, for if I would do so, when should I find a reason, why he hath shown mercy to me? But yet, Audit omnes, qui in Militia estis, & Regibus assistitis, All that serve in Wars, or Courts, may find something to imitate in this Centurion: He was a devout man; A Soldier, and yet devout; God forbid they were so incompatible, as that courage, and devotion might not consist: A man that feared God; A Soldiers profession is fearlesnesse; And only he that fears God, fears nothing else: He and all his house; A Soldier, yet kept a house, and did not always wander; He kept his house in good order, and with good means: He gave much alms; Though Arms be an expensive profession for outward splendor, yet hereserved for alms, much alms: And he prayed to God always; Though Arms require much time for the duties thereof, yet he could pray at those times; In his Trenches, at the Assault, or at the defense of a Breach, he could pray: All this the holy Ghost testifies of him together, ver. 2. And this was his general disposition; and then, those who came from him to Peter, add this, That he had a good report amongst all the Nation of the Jews, ver. 22. And this to a stranger, (for the Jews loved not strangers) and one that served the State, in such a place, as that he could not choose but be heavy to the Jews, was hard to have. And then, himself, when Peter comes to him, adds thus much more, That this first mercy of God in having sent his Angel, and that farther mercy, that that Angel named a man, and then that man came, was exhibited to him, then, when he was fasting. And then, this man, thus humbled and macerated by fasting, thus soupled and entendered with the fear of God, thus burnt up and calcined with zeal and devotion, thus united to God by continual prayer, thus tributary to God by giving alms, thus exemplar in himself at home, to lead all his house, and thus diffusive of himself to others abroad, to gain the love of good men, this man prostrates himself to Peter at his coming, in such an over-reverential manner, as Peter durst not accept, but took him up, and said, I myself am also a man; Sudden devotion comes quickly near superstition.

This is a misery, which our time hath been well acquainted with, and had much experience of, and which grows upon us still, That when men have been mellowed with the fear of God, and by heavy corrections, and calamities, brought to a greater rendernesse of conscience then before, in that distemper of melancholy, and inordinate sadness, they have been easiliest seduced and withdrawn to a superstitious and Idolatrous religion. I speak this, because from the highest to the lowest place, there are Sentinels planted in every corner, to watch all advantages, and if a man lose his preferment at Court, or lose his child at home, or lose any such thing as affects him much, and imprints a deep sadness for the loss thereof, they work upon that sadness, to make him a Papist. When men have lived long from God, they never think they come near enough to him, except they go beyond him; because they have never offered to come to him before, now when they would come, they imagine God to be so hard of access, that there is no coming to him, but by the intervention, and intercession of Saints; and they think that that Church, in which they have lived ill, cannot be a good Church; whereas, if they would accustom themselves in a daily performing of Christian duties, to an ordinary presence of God, Religion would not be such a stranger, nor devotion such an Ague unto them. But when Peter had rectified Cornelius, in this mistaking, in this over-valuing of any person, and then saw Cornclius his disposition, who had brought materials to erect a Church in his house, by calling his kinsmen, and his friends together to hear Peter, Peter spoke those words, Which whilst he yet spake, the holy Ghost fell upon all them that heard the word. And so we are fallen into our second part.

In this, the first Consideration falls upon the person that fell: And as the Trinity is the most mysterious piece of our Religion, and hardest to be comprehended, So in the Trinity, the Holy Ghost is the most mysterious person, and hardest to be expressed. We are called the household of God, and the family of the faithful; and therefore out of a contemplation, and ordinary acquaintance with the parts of families, we are apter to conceive any such thing in God himself, as we see in a family. We seem not to go so far out of our way of reason, to believe a father, and a son, because father and son are pieces of families: nor in believing Christ and his Church, because husband and wife are pieces of families. We go not so far in believing God's working upon us, either by ministering spirits from above, or by his spiritual ministers here upon earth, for master and servants are pieces of families. But does there arise any such thing, out of any of these couples, Father and Son, Husband and Wife, Master and Servant, as should come from them, and they be no whit before neither? Is there anything in natural or civil families, that should assist our understanding to apprehend this, That in heaven there should be a Holy Spirit, so, as that the Father, and the Son, being all Spirit, and all Holy, and all Holiness, there should be another Holy Spirit, which had all their Essentiall holiness in him, and another holiness too, Sanctitatem Sanctificantem, a holiness, that should make us holy?

It was a hard work for the Apostles, and their successors, at first, to draw the Godhead, into one, into an unity: when the Gentiles had been long accustomed to make every power and attribute of God, and to make every remarkable creature of God a several God, and so to worship God in a multiplicity of God's, it was a great work to limit, and determine their superstitious, and superfluous devotion in one God. But when all these lines were brought into one center, not to let that center rest, but to draw lines out of that again, and bring more persons into that one centricall God-head, this was hard forreason to digest: But yet to have extended that from that unity, to a duality, was not so much, as to a triplicity. And thereupon, though the Arians would never be brought to confess an equality between the Son and the Father, they were much farther from confessing it in the Holy Ghost: They made, says S. Augustine, Filium creaturam, The Son, they accounted to be but a creature; but they made the Holy Ghost Creaturam Creaturae, not only a Creature, and no God, but not a Creature of God's, but a Creature, a Messenger of the son, who was himself (with them) but a Creature. But these mysteries are not to be chawed by reason, but to be swallowed by faith; we professed three persons in one God, in the simplicity of our infancy, at our baptism, and we have sealed that contract, in the other Sacrament often since; and this is eternal life to die in that belief. There are three that bear witness in heaven, The Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one; And in that testimony we rest, that there is a Holy Ghost, and in the testimony of this text, that this Holy Ghost falls down upon all that hear the word of God.

Now, it is as wonderful that this Holy Ghost should fall down from heaven, as that he should be in heaven. Quomodo cecidisti? How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, thou son of the morning? was a question asked by the Prophet, of him, who was so fallen, as that he shall never return again. But the Holy Ghost, (as mysterious in his actions, as in his Essentiall, or in his Personal being) fell so from heaven, as that he remained in heaven, even then when he was fallen. This Dove sent from heaven, did more then that Dove, which was sent out of the Ark; That went and came, but was not in both places at once; Noah could not have shown that Dove to his sons and daughters, in the Ark, then, when the Dove was flown out: But now, when this Dove, the Holy Ghost, fell upon these men, at Peters Sermon, Stephen, who was then come up to heaven, saw the same Dove, the same Holy Ghost, whom they, whom he had left upon the earth, felt upon the earth then: As if the Holy Ghost fall upon any in this Congregation now, now the Saints of God see that Holy Ghost in heaven, whom they that are here, feel falling upon them here. In all his workings, the Holy Ghost descends, for there is nothing above him. There is a third heaven; but no such third heaven, as is above the heaven of heavens, above the seat and residence of the Holy Ghost: so that whatsoever he doth, is a descent, a diminution, a humiliation, and an act of mercy, because it is a Communication of himself, to a person inferior to himself.

But there is more in this Text, then a descent. When the Holy Ghost came upon Christ himself, after his Baptism, there it is said, He descended: Though Christ as the Son of God, were equal to him, and so it was no descent for the Holy Ghost to come to him, yet because Christ had a nature upon him, in which he was not equal to the Holy Ghost, here was a double descent in the Holy Ghost, That he who dwells with the Father and the Son, In luce inaccessibili, In light inaccessible, and too bright to be seen, would descend in a visible form, to be seen by men, And that he descended and wrought upon a mortal man, though that man were Christ. Christ also had a double descending too; He descended to be a man, and he descended to be no man; He descended to live amongst us, and he descended to die amongst us; He descended to the earth, and he descended to hell: Every operation of every person of the holy, and blessed, and glorious Trinity, is a Descending; But here the Holy Ghost is said to have fallen, which denotes a more earnest communicating of himself, a throwing, a pouring out of himself, upon those, upon whom he falls: He falls as a fall of waters, that covers that it falls upon; as a Hawk upon a prey, it desires and it will possess that it falls upon; as an Army into a Country, it Conquers, and it Governes where it falls. The Holy Ghost falls, but far otherwise, upon the ungodly. Whosoever shall fall upon this stone, shall be broken, but upon whomsocver this stone shall fall, it will grind him to powder. Indeed, he falls upon him so, as hail falls upon him; he falls upon him so, as he falls from him, and leaves him in an obduration, and impenitiblenesse, and in an irrecoverable ruin of him, that hath formorly despised, and despighted the Holy Ghost. But when the Holy Ghost falls not thus in the nature of a stone, but puts on the nature of a Dove, and a Dove with an Olivebranch, and that in the Ark, that is, testimonies of our peace, and reconciliation to God, in his Church, he falls as that kind of lightning, which melts swords, and hurts not scabbards; the Holy Ghost shall melt thy soul, and not hurt thy body; he shall give thee spiritual blessings, and saving graces, under the temporal seals of bodily health, and prosperity in this world: He shall let thee see, that thou art the child of God, in the obedience of thy children to thee, And that thou art the servant of God, in the faithfulness of thy servants to thee, And that thou standest in the favor of God, bythe favor of thy superiors to thee; he shall fall upon thy soul, and not wound thy body, give thee spiritual prosperity, and yet not by worldly adversity, and evermore over-shadow and refresh thy soul, & yet evermore keep thee in his Sunshine, and the light of his countenance.

But there is more then this, in this falling of the Holy Ghost, in this Text. For, it was not such a particular insinuation of the Holy Ghost, as that he convaied himself into those particular men, for their particular good, and salvation, and determined there; but such a powerful, and diffusive falling, as made his presence, and his power in them, to work upon others also. So when he came upon Christ, it was not to add anything to Christ, but to inform others, that that was Christ: So when Christ breathed his spirit into the Apostles, it was not merely to infuse salvation into them, but it was especially to seal to them that Patent, that Commission, Quorum remiseritis, That others might receive remission of sins, by their power. So the Holy Ghost fell upon these men here, for the benefit of others, that thereby a great doubt might be removed, a great scruple devested, a great disputation extinguished, whether it were lawful to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, or no; for, as we see in the next Chapter, Peter himself was reproved of the Jews, for this that he had done: and therefore, God ratified, and gave testimony to this service of his, by this miraculous falling of the Holy Ghost, as S. Augustine makes the reason of this falling, very justly to have been; so then, this falling of the Holy Ghost, was not properly, or not merely an infusing of justifying grace, but an infusing of such gifts, as might edify others: for, S. Peter speaking of this very action, in the next Chapter, fayes, The Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us, in the beginning; Which was, when he fell upon them, as this day. This doth not imply Graduum aequalitatem, an equal measure of the same gifts, as the Apostles had, who were to pass over the whole world, and work upon all men, But it implies Doni identitatem, it was the same miraculous expressing of the presence, and working of the Holy Ghost, for the confirmation of Peter, that the Gentiles might be preached unto, and for the consolation of the Gentiles, that they might be enabled to preach to one another: for so it is expressly said in this Chapter, That they heard these men speak with divers tongues; they that heard the Preacher, were made partakers of the same gifts that the Preacher had; A good hearer becomes a good Preacher, that is, able to edify others.

It it true, that these men were not to be literally Preachers, as the Apostles (upon whom the Holy Ghost fell, as upon them) were, and therefore the gift of tongues may seem not to have been so necessary to them. But it is not only the Preacher, that hath use of the tongue, for the edification of God's people, but in all our discourses, and conferences with one another, we snould preach his glory, his goodness, his power, that every man might speak one another's language, and preach to one another's conscience; that when I accuse myself, and confess mine infirmities to another man, that man may understand, that there is, in that confession of mine, a Sermon, and a rebuke, and a reprehension to him, if he be guilty of the same sin; Nay, if he be guilty of a sin contrary to mine. For, as in that language in which God spoke, the Hebrew, the same root will take in words of a contrary signification, (as the word of Job's wife signifies blessing and cursing too) so the covetous man that hears me confess my prodigality, should argue to himself, If prodigality, which howsoever it hurt a particular person, yet spreads money abroad, which is the right and natural use of money, be so heavy a sin, how heavy is my covetousness, which, besides that it keeps me all the way in as much penuriousnesse, as the prodigal man brings himself to at last, is also a public sin, because it emprisons that money which should be at liberty, and employed in a free course abroad? And so also when I declare to another, the spiritual and temporal blessings which God hath bestowed upon me, he may be raised to a thankful remembrance, that he hath received all that from God also. This is not the use of having learnt divers tongues, to be able to talk of the wars with Durch Captains, or of trade with a French Merchant, or of State with a Spanish Agent, or of pleasure with an Italian Epicure; It is not to entertain discourse with strangers, but to bring strangers to a better knowledge of God, in that way, wherein we, by his Ordinance, do worship and ferve him.

Now this place is ill detorted by the Roman Church, for the confirmation of their Sacrament of Confirmation: That because the Holy Ghost fell upon men, at another time then at Baptism, therefore there is a less perfect giving of the Holy Ghost, in Baptism. It is too forward a triumph in him, who says of this place, Locus insignis ad assertionem Sacramenti manus impositionis: That is an evident place for Confirmation of the Sacrament of Confirmation: It is true, that S. Cyprian says there, That a man is not truly sanctified, Nisi utroque Sacramento nascatur, Except he be regenerate by both Sacraments: And he tells us what those two Sacraments are, Aqua & Spiritus, Water and the Spirit, That except a man have both these seals, inward and outward, he is not safe: And S. Cyprian requires (and usefully truly) an outward declaration of this inward seal, of this giving of the Holy Ghost: For, he instances expressly in this, which was done in this Text, That there was both Baptism, and a giving of the Holy Ghost. Neither would S. Cyprian forbear the use of Confirmation, because it was also in use amongst some Heretics, Quia Novatianus facere audet, non putabimus nos esse faciendum? Shall we give over a good custom, because the Novatians do the like? Quia Novatianus extra Ecclesiam, vendicat sibi veritatis imaginem, relinquemus Ecclesiae veritatem? Shall the Church forbear any of those customs, which were induced to good purposes, because some Heretics, in a false Church, have counterfaited them, or corrupted them? And therefore, says that Father, It was so in the Apostles time, Et nunc quoque apud nos geritur, We continue it so in our time, That they who are Baptized, Signaculo Dominico consummentur, That they may have a ratification, a consummation in this seal of the Holy Ghost: Which was not in the Primitive Church (as in the later Roman Church) a confirmation of Baptism, so, as that that Sacrament should be but a half-Sacrament, but it was a Confirmation of Christians, with an increase of grace, when they came to such years, as they were naturally exposed to some temptations.

Our Church acknowledges the trueuse of this Confirmation; for, in the first Collect in the office of Confirmation, it confesses, that that child is already regenerated by water and the holy Ghost; and prays only for farther strength: And having like a good mother, taught us the right use of it, then our Church, like a supreme Commander too, enjoins expressly, that none be admitted to the Communion, till they have received their Confirmation. And though this injunction be not in rigor and exactness pursued and executed, yet it is very necessary that the purpose thereof should be maintained; That is, that none should be received to the Communion, till they had given an account of their faith and proficiency. For, he is but an interpretative, but a presumptive Christian, who, because he is so old, ventures upon the Sacrament. A beard does not make a man fit for the Sacrament, nor a Husband, a woman: a man may be a great officer in the State, and a woman may be a grandmother in the family, and yet not be fit for that Sacrament, if they have never considered more in it, but only to do as others do. The Church enjoins a precedent Confirmation; where that is not, we require yet a precedent Examination, before any be admitted, at first, to the Sacrament.

This was then the effectual working of the Holy Ghost, Non spiravit, He did not only breathe upon them, and try whether they would receive the savor of life unto life, or no: Non sibilavit, He did not only whisper unto them, and try whether they had a disposition to hear, and answer; Non incubabat, He did not only hover over them, and sit upon them, to try what he could hatch, and produce out of them; Non descendit, He did not only descend towards them, and try whether they would reach out their hand to receive him; But Cecidit, He fell, so, as that he possessed them, enwrapped them, invested them with a penetrating, with a powerful force; And so, he fell upon them All. As we have read of some Generals, in secular story, that in great Services have knighted their whole Army, So the Holy Ghost Sanctifies, and Canonizes whole Congregations.

They are too good husbands, and too thrifty of God's grace, too sparing of the Holy Ghost; that restrain God's general propositions, Venite omnes, Let all come, and Vult omnes salvos, God would have all men saved, so particularly, as to say, that when God lays All, he means some of all sorts, some Men, some Women, some Jews, some Gentiles, some rich, some poor, but he does not mean, as he seems to say, simply All. Yes; God does mean, simply All, so as that no man can say to another, God means not thee, no man can say to himself, God means not me. Nefas est dicere, Deum aliquid, nisi bonum praedestinare; It is modestly said by S. Augustine, and more were immodesty; There is no predestination in God, but to good. And therefore it is Durus sermo, They are hard words, to say, That God predestinated some, not only Ad damnationem, but Ad causas damnationis, Not only to damnation because they sinned, but to a necessity of sinning, that they might the more justly be damned; And to say, That God rejected some Odio libero, Out of a hate, that arose primarily in himself, against those persons, before those persons were created, (so much as in God's intention) and not out of any hate of their sins, which he foresaw.

Beloved, we are to take in no other knowledge of God's Decrees, but by the execution thereof; How should we know any Decree in God, of the creation of Man, according to his Image, but by the execution? Because I see that Man is created so, as I conceive to be intended in this phrase, After his Image, I believe that he Decreed to Create him so: because God does nothing extemporally, but according to his own most holy, and eternal preconceptions, and Ideas, and Decrees. So, we know his Decree of Election, and Reprobation, by the execution; And how is that? Does God ever say, that any shall be saved or damned, without relation, without condition, without doing, (in the Old Testament) and, in the New Testament, without believing in Christ Jesus? If faith in Christ Jesus be in the Execution of the Decree, faith in Christ Jesus was in the Decree it self too. Christ wept for the imminent calamities, temporal, and spiritual, which hung over Jerusalem; And Lacrymae Legati doloris, says S. Cyprian, Tears are the Ambassadors of sorrow; And they are Sanguis animi vulnerati, says S. Augustine, Tears are the blood of a wounded soul; And would Christ bleed out of a wounded soul, and weep out of a sad heart, for that, which himself, and only himself, by an absolute Decree, had made necessary and inevitable? The Scribes and Pharisees rejected the Counsel of God, says S. Luke: In this new language we must say, They fulfilled the Counsel of God, if positively, and primarily, and absolutely, God's determinate Counsel were, that they should do so. But this is not God's Counsaile upon any, to be so far the Author of sin, as to impose such a necessity of sinning, as arises not out of his own will. Perditio nostra ex nobis, Our destruction is from our own sin, and the Devil that infuses it; not from God, or any ill purpose in him that enforces us. The blood of Christ was shed for all that will apply it, And the Holy Ghost is willing to fall, with the sprinkling of that blood, upon all that do not resist him; And that is, as follows in our text, Qui audiunt, The Holy Ghost fell upon all that heard.

Faith in Christ is in the Execution of God's Decree, and Hearing is the means of this faith: And the proposition is not the less general, if it except them, who will not be included in it, if the Holy Ghost fall not on them, who will not come to hear. Let no man think that he hath heard enough, and needs no more; why did the Holy Ghost furnish his Church with four Evangelists, if it were enough to read one? And yet everyone of the four, hath enough for salvation, if God's abundant care had not enriched the Church with more: Those Nations which never heard of Christ, or of Evangelist, shall rise up in judgment against us, and though they perish themselves, thus far aggravate our condemnation, as to say, you had four Evangelists, and have not believed, if we had had any one of them, we would have been saved. It is the glory of God's Word, not that it is come, but that it shall remain forever: It is the glory of a Christian, not that he hath heard, but that he desires to hear still. Are the Angels weary of looking upon that face of God, which they looked upon yesterday? Or are Saints weary of singing that song, which they sung to God's glory yesterday? And is not that Alleluiah, that song which is their morning and evening sacrifice, and which shall be their song, world without end, called still A new song?

Be not you weary of hearing those things which you have heard from others before: Do not say, if I had known this, I would not have come, for I have heard all this before; since thou never thoughtest of it since that former hearing, till thou heardest it again now, thou didst not know that thou hadst heard it before. Gideon's Fleece, that had all the dew of heaven in itself alone, and all about it dry, one day, next day was all dry in itself, though all about it had received the dew: He that hath heard, and believed, may lose his knowledge, and his faith too, if he will hear no more. They say there is a way of castration, in cutting off the ears: There are certain veins behind the ears, which, if they be cut, disable a man from generation. The Ears are the Aqueducts of the water of life; and if we cut off those, that is, intermit our ordinary course of hearing, this is a castration of the soul, the soul becomes an Eunuch, and we grow to a rust, to a moss, to a barrenness, without fruit, without propagation. If then God have placed thee under such a Pastor, as presents thee variety, bless God, who enlarges himself, to afford thee that spiritual delight, in that variety; even for the satisfaction of that holy curiosity of thine. If he have placed thee under one, who often repeats, and often remembers thee of the same things, bless God even for that, that in that he hath let thee see, that the Christian Religion is Verbum abbreviatum, A contracted doctrine, and that they are but a few things which are necessary to salvation, and therefore be not loath to hear them often.

Our errand hither then, is not to see; but much less not to be able to see, to sleep: It is not to talk, but much less to snort: It is to hear, and to hear all the words of the Preacher, but, to hear in those words, the Word, that Word which is the soul of all that is said, and is the true Physic of all their souls that hear. The Word was made flesh; that is, assumed flesh; but yet the Godhead was not that flesh. The Word of God is made a Sermon, that is, a Text is dilated, diffused into a Sermon; but that whole Sermon is not the word of God. But yet all the Sermon is the Ordinance of God. Delight thyself in the Lord, and he will give thee thy hearts desire; Take a delight in God's Ordinance, in man's preaching, and thou wilt find God's Word in that. To end all in that Metaphor which we mentioned at beginning, As the word of God is as honey, so says Solomon, Pleasant words are as the honey comb: And when the pleasant words of God's servants have conveyed the saving word of God himself into thy soul, then mayest thou say with Christ to the Spouse, I have caten my honey comb with my honey, mine understanding is enlightened with the words of the Preacher, and my faith is strengthened with the word of God; I glorify God much in the gifts of the man, but I glorify God much more in the gifts of his grace; I am glad I have heard him, but I am gladder I have heard God in him; I am happy that I have heard those words, but thrice happy, that in those words, I have heard the Word; Blessed be thou that camest in the name of the Lord, but blessed be the Lord, that is come to me in thee; Let me remember how the Preacher said it, but let me remember rather what he said. And beloved, all the best of us all, all that all together, all the days of our life shall be able to say unto you, is but this, That if ye will hear the same Jesus, in the same Gospel, by the same Ordinance, and not seek an imaginary Jesus, in an illusory sacrifice, in another Church, If you will hear so, as you have contracted with God in your Baptism, The holy Ghost shall fall upon you, whilst you hear, here in the house of God, and the holy Ghost shall accompany you home to your own houses, and make your domestic peace there, a type of your union with God in heaven; and make your eating and drinking there, a type of the abundance, and fullness of heaven; and make every days rising to you there, a type of your joyful Resurrection to heaven; and every nights rest, a type of your eternal Sabbath; and your very dreams, prayers, and meditations, and sacrifices to Almighty God.

SERM. XXXIV. Preached upon Whitsunday.

I Take these words, to take occasion by them, to say something of the holy Ghost: Our order proposed at first, requires it, and our Text affords it. Since we speak by Him, let us love to speak of Him, and to speak for Him: but in both, to speak with Him, that is, so, as he hath spoken of himself to us in the Scriptures. God will be visited, but he will not be importuned; He will be looked upon, but he will not be pryed into. A man may flatter the best man; If he do not believe himself, when he speaks well of another, and when he praises him, though that which he says of him be true, yet he flatters; So an Atheist, that temporises, and serves the company, and seems to assent, flatters. A man may flatter the Saints in heaven, if he attribute to them that which is not theirs; and so a Papist flatters. A man may flatter God himself; If upon pretence of magnifying God's mercy, he will say with Origen, That God at last will have mercy upon the devil, he flatters. So, though God be our business, we may be too busy with God; and though God be infinite, we may go beyond God, when we conceive, or speak otherwise of God, then God hath revealed unto us. By his own light therefore we shall look upon him; and with that reverence, and modesty, that That Spirit may bear witness to our spirit, that we are the children of God.

That which we shall say of these words, will best be conceived, and retained best, if we handle them thus; That whereas Christ hath bidden us to judge ourselves, that we be not judged, to admit a trial here, lest we incur a condemnation hereafter, This text is a good part of that trial, of that judicial proceeding. For, here are first, two persons that are able to say much, The Spirit itself, and Our spirit; And secondly, their office, their service, They bear witness; And thirdly, their testimony, That we are the children of God; And these will be our three parts. The first will have two branches, because there are two persons, The Spirit, and Our spirit; And the second, two branches, They witness, and They witness together, for so the word is; And the third also two branches, They testify of us, their testimony concerns us, and they testify well of us, That we are the children of God. The persons are withour exception, the Spirit of God cannot be deceived, and the spirit of man will not deceive himself: Their proceeding is Legal, and fair, they do not libel, they do not whisper, they do not calumniate; They testify, and they agree in their testimony: And lastly, the case is not argued so, as amongst practicers at the Law, that thereby, by the light of that they may after give Counsel to another in the like, but the testimony concerns ourselves, it is our own case, The verdict upon the testimony of the Spirit, and our spirit, is upon ourselves, whatsoever it be; And, blessed be the Father, in the Son, by the Holy Ghost, The verdict is, That we are the children of God. The Spirit beareth, &c.

First then, a slackness, a supinenesse, in consideration of the divers significations of this word Spirit, hath occasioned divers errors, when the word hath been intended in one sense, and taken in another. All the significations will fall into these four, for these four are very large; It is spoken of God, or of Angels, or of men, or of inferior creatures. And first, of God, it is spoken sometimes Essentially, sometimes Personally. God is a Spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and truth. So also, The Egyptians are men, and not God, and their horses flesh, and not spirit; For, if they were God, they were Spirit. So, God altogether, and considered in his Essence, is a Spirit: but when the word Spir it is spoken, not essentially of all, but personally of one, then that word designeth Spiritum sonctum, The holy Ghost: Go and baptize, In the name of the Father, and Son, & Spiritus sancti, and the holy Ghost. And as of God, so of Angels also it is spoken in two respects; of good Angels, Sent farth to minister for them, that shall be heirs of salvation, And evil Angels, The lying Spirit, that would deceive the King by the Prophet; The Spirit of Whoredom, spiritual whoredom, when the people ask counsel of their stocks, And Spiritus vertiginis, The spirit of giddiness, of perversities, (as we translate it) which the Lord doth mingle amongst the people, in his judgment. Of man also, is this word Spirit, spoken two ways; The Spirit is sometimes the soul, Into thy hands I commend my Spirit, sometimes it signifies those animal spirits, which conserve us in strength, and vigor, The poison of God's arrows drinketh up my spirit; And also, the superior faculties of the soul in a regenerate man, as there, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Savior, And then lastly, of inferior creatures it is taken two ways too, of living creatures, The God of the spirits of all flesh; and of creatures without life, (other then a metaphorical life) as of the wind often, and of Ezckiels wheels, The Spirit of life was in the wheels. Now in this first Branch of this first Part of our Text, it is not of Angels, nor of men, nor of other creatures, but of God, and not of God Essentially, but Personally, that is, of the Holy Ghost.

Origen says, Antecessores nostri, The Ancients before him had made this note, That where we find the word Spirit without any addition, it is always intended of the Holy Ghost. Before him, and after him, they stuck much to that note; for S. Jerome makes it too, and produces many examples thereof; but yet it will not hold in all. Didymus of Alexandria, though borne blind, in this light saw light, and writ so of the Holy Ghost, as S. Jerome thought that work worthy of his Translation; And he gives this note, That wheresoever the Apostles intend the Holy Ghost, they add to the word Spirit, Sanctus, Holy Spirit, or at least the Article The, The Spirit. And this note hath good use too, but yet it is not universally true. If we supply these notes with this, That whensoever any such thing is said of the Spirit, as cannot consist with the Divine nature, there it is not meant of the Holy Ghost, but of his gifts, or of his working; (as, when it is said, The Holy Ghost was not yet, (for his person was always) And where it is said, Quench not the Holy Ghost (for the Holy Ghost himself cannot be quenched) we have enough for our present purpose. Here, it is Spirit without any addition, and therefore fittest to be taken for the Holy Ghost; And it is Spirit, with that emphatical article, The, The Spirit, and in that respect also fittest to be so taken. And though it be fittest to understand the Holy Ghost here, not of his person, but his operation, yet it gives just occasion to look piously, and to consider modestly, who, and what this person is, that doth thus work upon us. And to that purpose, we shall touch upon four things: First, His Universality, He is All, He is God; Secondly, His Singularity, He is One, One Person; Thirdly, His root from whence he proceeded, Father and Son; And fourthly, His growth; his emanation, his manner of proceeding; for our order proposed at first, leading us now to speak of this third person of the Trinity, it will be almost necessary, to stop a little upon each of these.

First then, the Spirit mentioned here, the Holy Ghost is God, and if so, equal to Father and Son, and all that is God. He is God, because the Essentiall name of God is attributed to him; He is called Jehovah; Iebovah says to Isaiah, Go and tell this people, &c. And S. Paul making use of these words, in the Acts, he says, Well spake the Holy Ghost, by the Prophet Isaiah. The Essentiall name of God is attributed to him, and the Essentiall Attributes of God. He is Eternal; so is none but God; where we hear of the making of everything else, in the general Creation, we hear that the Spirit of God moved, but never that the Spirit was made. He is everywhere; so is none but God; whither shall Igoe from thy Spirit? He knows all things; so doth none but God; The Spirit searcheth all things, yca the deep things of God. He hath the name of God, the Attributes of God, and he does the works of God. Is our Creator, our Maker, God? The Spirit of God hath mademe. Is he that can change the whole Creation, and frame of nature, in doing miracles, God? The Spirit lead the Israelites miraculously through the wilderness. Will the calling and the sending of the Prophets, show him to be God? The Lord God, and his Spirit hath sent me. Is it argument enough for his God-head, that he sent Christ himself? Christ himself applies to himself that, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and hath anointed me to preach. He foretold future things, The Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spoke before, says S. Peter. He establishes present things, The Spirit of truth guides into all truth. And he does this, by ways proper only to God; for, our illumination is his, He shall receive of me, (says Christ) and show it you. Our Justification is his; Ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, by the Spirit of God. Our regeneration is his; There is a necessity of being borne again of Water, and the Spirit. The holy sense of our natural wretchedness is his; For, It is he, that reproves the world of Sin, of Righteousness, of Judgment. The sense oftrue comfort is his; The Churches were multiplied in the comforts of the Holy Ghost. All from the Creation to the Resurrection, and the Resurrection it self, is his; The Spirit of him that raised Jesus from the dead, shall quicken your mortal bodies, by the same Spirit. He is Arrha, The earnest that God gives to them now, to whom he will give all hereafter. He is Sigillum, that seal of our evidence, You are sealed with that holy Spirit of promise. He is the water, which whosoever drinks, shall never thirst, when Christ hath given it; And he is that fire, with which Christ baptizes, who baptizes with fire, and with the Holy Ghost. He is Spiritus precum, The Spirit of grace, and supplication; And he is Oleum laetitiae, The oil of gladness, that anoints us, when we have prayed. He is our Advocate, He maketh intercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered; And when our groanings under the calamities of this world, are uttered without remedy, he is that Paracletus, The Comforter, who when Christ himself seems to be gone from us, comes to us; who is, (as Tertullian expresses it, elegantly enough, but not largely enough) Dei Villicus, & Vicaria vis Christi, The Vice-gerent of Christ, and the Steward of God; but he is more, much more, infinitely more, for he is God himself. All that which S. John intends, in the seven Spirits, which are about the Throne, is in this One, in this only Spirit, who is Vnicus & septiformis, solus & multiplex; One and yet seven, that is infinite; for, Though there be diversity of gifts, yet there is but one Spirit. He is God, because the essential name of God is his; Therefore let us call upon his name: And because the Attributes of God are his; Therefore let us attribute to him, All Might, Majesty, Dominion, Power, and Glory: And he is God, because the Works of God are his; Therefore let us co-operate, and work with this Spirit, and we shall be the same Spirit with him.

He is God, That was our first step, and our second is, that he is a distinct Person in the God-head. He is not Virtus à Deo in homine exaltata, Not the highest and powerfullest working of God in man; Not Afflatus Divinus, The breathing of God into the soul of man; These are low expressions; for they are all but Dona, Charismata, The gifts of the Holy Ghost, not the Holy Ghost himself: But he is a distinct person, as the taking of the shape of a Dove, and the shape of fiery tongues do declare, which are acts of a distinct person. It is not the Power of the King, that signs a pardon, but his Person. When the power of the Government was in two Persons, in the two Consuls at Rome, yet the several acts were done by their several Persons. Wilt thou ask me, What needs these three Persons? Is there anything in the three Persons, that is not in the one God? Yes, The Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, falls not in the bare consideration of that one God. Wilt thou say, What if they do not? What lack we if we have one Almighty God? Though that God had no Son, nor they two, no Holy Ghost? We lacked our redemption; we lacked all our direction; we lacked the revealed will of God, the Scriptures; we have not God, if we have him not, as he hath delivered himself; and he hath done that in the Scriptures; and we embrace him, as we find him there; and we find him there, to be one God in three Persons, and the Holy Ghost to be one of those three; and in them we rest.

He is one; but one that proceeds from two, from the Father, and from the Son. Some in the Greek Church, in later times, denied the proceeding of the Holy Ghost from the Son; but this was especially a jealousy in terms; They thought that to make him proceed from two, were to make duo principia, two roots, two beginnings from whence the Holy Ghost should proceed, and that might not be admitted, for the Father, and the Son are but one cause of the Holy Ghost, (if we may use that word, Cause, in this my stery.) And therefore it is as suspiciously, and as dangerously said by the Master of the Sentences, and by the later School, That the Holy Ghost proceeds Minùs Principaliter, Not so radically from the Son, as from the Father; for, in this action, The Father and the Son are but one root, and the Holy Ghost equally from both: In the generation of the Son, the Father is in order before the Son, but in the procession of the holy Ghost, he is not so. He is from both; for where he is first named, he is called Spiritus Elohim, The Spirit of God's, in the plural. In this Chapter, in the ninth verse, he is the Spirit of the Son, If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his; And so in the Apostle, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts. God sent him, and Christ sent him, If I depart, I will send the Comforter unto you. He sent him after he went, and he gave him when he was here, He breathed upon his Apostles, and said, Receive ye the holy Ghost. So he is of both.

But by what manner comes he from them? By proceeding. That is a very general word; for, Creation is proceeding, and so is Generation too: Creatures proceed from God, and so doth God the Son proceed from God the Father; what is this proceeding of the holy Ghost, that is not Creation, nor Generation? Exponant cur & quomodo Spiritus pulsat in arteriis, & tum in processionem Spiritus sancti inquirant: When they are able clearly, and with full satisfaction to tell themselves how and from whence that spirit proceeds, which beats in their pulse, let them inquire how this Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. And let them think till they be mad, and speak till they behoarce, and read till they be blind, and write till they be lame, they must end with S. Augustine, Distinguere inter Processioncm, & Generationem, nescio, non valeo, non sufficio, I cannot distinguish, I cannot assign a difference between this Generation, and this Proceeding. We use to say, they differ principio, That the Son is from the Father alone, the holy Ghost from both: but when this is said, that must be said too, That both Father and Son are but one beginning. We use to say, They differ ordine, because the Son is the second, and the holy Ghost the third person; but the second was not before the third in time, nor is above him in dignity.

There is processio corporalis, such a bodily proceeding, as that that which proceeds is utterly another thing then that from which it proceeds: frogs proceed (perchance) of air, and mise of dust, and worms of carcasses; and they resemble not that air, that dust, those carcasses that produced them. There is also processio Metaphysica, when thoughts proceed out of the mind; but those thoughts remain still in the mind within, and have no separate subsistence in themselves: And then there is processio Hyperphysica, which is this which we seek and find in our souls, but not in our tongues, a proceeding of the holy Ghost so from Father and Son, as that he remains a subsistence alone, a distinct person of himself. This is as far as the School can reach, Ortu, qui relationis est, non est àse; Actu, qui personae est, per se subsistit: Consider him in his proceeding, so he must necessarily have a relation to another, Consider him actually in his person, so he subsists of himself. And De modo, for the manner of his proceeding, we need, we can say but this, As the Son proceeds per modu intellectus, (so as the mind of man conceives a thought) so the holy Ghost proceeds per modum voluntatis; when the mind hath produced a thought, that mind, and that discourse and ratiocination produce a will; first our understanding is settled, and that understanding leads our will. And nearer then this (though God knows this be far off) we cannot go, to the proceeding of the holy Ghost.

This then is The Spirit, The third person in the Trinity, but the first person in our Text, The other is our spirit, The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit. I told you before, that amongst the manifold acceptations of the word spirit, as it hath relation particularly to man, it is either the soul itself, or the vital spirits, (the thin and active parts of the blood) or the superior faculties of the soul, in a regenerate man; & that is our spirit in this place. So S. Paul distinguishes soul and spirit, The word of God pierces to the dividing asunder soul and spirit; where The soul is that which inanimates the body, and enables the organs of the senses to see and hear; The spirit is that which enables the soul to see God, and to hear his Gospel. The samephrase hath the same use in another place, I pray God your spirit, and soul, and body may be preserved blameless: Where it is not so absurdly said, (though a very great man call it an absurd exposition) That the soul, Anima, is that, qua animales homines, (as the Apostle calls them) that by which men are men, natural men, carnal men, And the spirit is the spirit of Regeneration, by which man is a new creature, a spiritual man, But that, that Expositor himself hath said enough to our present purpose, The soul is the seat of Affections, The spirit is rectified Reason. It is true, this Reason is the Sovereign, these Affections are the Officers, this Body is the Executioner: Reason authorizes, Affections command, the Body executes: And when we conceive in our mind, desire in our heart, perform in our body nothing that displeases God, then have we had benefit of S. Paul's prayer, That in body, and soul, and spirit we may be blameless. In sum, we need seek no farther for a word to express this spirit, but that which is familiar to us, The Conscience: A rectified conscience is this spirit; My conscience bearing me witness, says the Apostle: And so we have both the persons in this judicial proceeding; The Spirit is the holy Ghost; Our spirit is our Conscience: And now their office is to testify, to bear witness, which is our second general part, The Spirit bears witness, &c.

To be a witness, is not an unworthy office for the holy Ghost himself: Heretics in their pestilent doctrines, Tyrans in their bloody persecutions, call God himself so often, so far into question, as that he needs strong and pregnant testimony to acquit him. First, against Heretics, we see the whole Scripture is but a Testament; and Testamentum is Testatio meant is, it is but an attestation, a proof what the will of God is: And therefore when Tertullian deprehended himself to have slipped into another word, and to have called the Bible Instrumentum, he retracts and corrects himself thus, Magìs usui est dicere Testamentum quàm Instrumentum, It is more proper to call the Scripture a Testament, then a Conveyance or Covenant: All the Bible is Testament, Attestation, Declaration, Proof, Evidence of the will of God to man. And those two witnesses spoken of in the Revelation, are very conveniently, very probably interpreted to be the two Testaments; And to the Scriptures Christ himself refers the Jews, Search them, for they bear witness of me. The word of God written by the holy Ghost is a witness, and so the holy Ghost is a witness against Heretics. Against Tyrans and Persecutors, the office of a witness is an honorable office too; for that which we call more passionately, and more gloriously Martyrdom, is but Testimony; A Martyr is nothing but a Witness. He that pledges Christ in his own wine, in his own cup, in blood; He that washes away his sins in a second Baptism, and hath found a lawful way of Re-baptizing, even in blood; He that waters the Prophets ploughing, and the Apostles sowing with blood; He that can be content to bleed as long as a Tyran can foam, or an Executioner sweat; He that is pickled, nay embalmed in blood, salted with fire, and preserved in his own ashes; He that (to contract all, nay to enlarge beyond all) suffers in the Inquisition, when his body is upon the rack, when the rags are in his throat, when the boots are upon his legs, when the splinters are under his nails, if in those agonies he have the vigor to say, I suffer this to show what my Savior suffered, must yet make this difference, He suffered as a Savior, I suffer but as a witness. But yet to him that suffers as a Martyr, as a witness, a crown is reserved; It is a happy and a harmonious meeting in Stephens martyrdom; Proto-martyr, and Stephanus; that the first Martyr for Christ should have a Crown in his name. Such a blessed meeting there is in Joash his Coronation, Posuit super eum Diadema & Testimonium, They put the Crown upon his head, and the Testimony; that is, The Law, which testified, That as he had the Crown from God, so he had it with a witness, with an obligation, that his Government, his life, and (if need were) his death should testify his zeal to him that gave him that Crown.

Thus the holy Ghost himself is a witness against Heretics in the word; and those men who are full of the holy Ghost, (as Stephen was) are witnesses against persecution, in action, in passion. At this time, and by occasion of these words, we consider principally the first, The testification of the holy Ghost himself; and therein we consider thus much more, That a witness ever testifies of some matter of fact, of something done before; The holy Ghost, the Spirit here, (as we shall see anon) witnesses that we are the children of God. Now if a Witness prove that I am a Tenant to such Land, or Lord of it, I do not become Lord nor Tenant by this Witness, but his testimony proves that I was so before. I have therefore a former right to be the child of God, that is, The eternal Election of God in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus could as well have disobeyed his Father, and said, I will not go, or disappointed his Father, and said, I will not go yet, as he could have dis-furnished his Father, and said, He would not redeem me. The holy Ghost bears witness, that is, he pleads, he produces that eternal Decree for my Election. And upon such Evidence shall I give sentence against myself? Si testaretur Angelus, vel Archangelus, posset quisquam addubitare? I should not doubt the testimony of an Angel, or Archangel, and yet Angels and Archangels, all sorts of Angels were deceivers in the Serpent. And therefore the Apostle presents it (though impossible in it self) as a thing that might fall into our mis-apprehension: If we, (that is, the Apostles) or if an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel, Anathema sit, let him be accursed. But Quando Deus testator, quis locus relinquitur dubitationi? when God testifies to me, it is a rebellious sin to doubt: And therefore how hyperbolically soever S. Paul argue there, If Apostles, If Angels teach the contrary, teach false Doctrine, it never entered into his argument (though an argument ab Impossibili ) to say, If God should teach, or testify false doctrine. Though then there be a former evidence for my being the child of God, a Decree in heaven, yet it is not enough that there is such a Record, but it must be produced, it must be pleaded, it must be testified to be that, it must have the witness of the Spirit, and by that, Innotescit, though it do not become my Election then, it makes my election appear then, and though it be not Introductory, it is Declaratory. The Root is in the Decree, the first fruits are in the testimony of the Spirit; but even that spirit will not be testis singularis, he will not be heard alone, and single, but it is Cum spiritu nostro, The Spirit testifies with our spirit, &c.

The holy Ghost will fulfill his own law, In ore duorum, In the mouth of two witnesses. Sometimes our spirit bears witness of some things appertaining to the next world, without the testimony of the holy Ghost. Tertullian in that excellent Book of his, De testimonio Animae. Of the testimony which the soul of man gives of it self to it self, where he speaks of the soul of a natural, an unregenerate man, gives us just occasion to stop a little upon that consideration. If, says he, we for our Religion produce your own Authors against you, (he speaks to natural men, secular Philosophers) and show you out of them, what Passions, what Vices even they impute to those whom you have made your God's, then you say, they were but Poetae vani, Those Authors were but vain, and frivolous Poets: But when those Authors speak anything which sound against our Religion, then they are Philosophers, and reverend and classique Authors. And therefore, says he, I will draw no witness from them, Perversae foelicitatis, quibus in falso potiùs creditor, quàm in vero, Because they have this perverse, this left-handed happiness, to be believed when they lie, better then when they say true. Novum testimonium adduco, says he; I wayve all them, and I call upon a new witness: A witness, Omni literaturi notius, More legible then any Character, then any text hand, for it is the intimation of mine own soul, and conscience; and Omni Editione vulgatius, More public, more conspicuous then any Edition, any impression of any Author, for Editions may be called in, but who can call in the testimony of his own soul? He proceeds, Te simplicem, & Idioticum compello, I require but a simple, an unlearned soul, Qualem te habent, qui te solam habent, Such a soul, as that man hath, who hath nothing but a soul, no learning; Imperitia tua mibiopus est, quoniam aliquantulae peritiae tuae nemo credit; I shall have the more use of thy testimony, the more ignorant thou art, for, in such cases, Art is suspicious, and from them who are able to prove anything, we believe nothing; And therefore, says he, Nolo Academiis, bibliothecis instructam, I call not a soul made in an University, or nursed in a Library, but let this soul come now, as it came to me in my Mothers womb, an inartificiall, an inexperienced soul; And then, (to contract Tertullian's Contemplation) he proceeds to show the notions of the Christian Religion, which are in such a soul naturally, and which his spirit, that is, his rectified reason, rectified but by nature, is able to infuse into him. And certainly, some of that, which is proved by the testimony mentioned in this text, is proved by the testimony of our own natural soul, in that Poet whom the Apostle cites, that said, Genus ejus, We are the offspring of God.

So then our spirit bears witness sometimes when the Spirit does not; that is, Nature testifies some things, without addition of particular grace: And then the Spirit, the Holy Ghost oftentimes testifies, when ours does not: How often stands he at the door, and knocks? How often spreads he his wings, to gather us, as a Hen her chickens? How often presents he to us the power of God in the mouth of the Preacher, and we bear witness to one another of the wit and of the eloquence of the Preacher, and no more? How often he bears witness, that such an action is odious in the sight of God, and our spirit bears witness, that it is acceptable, profitable, honorable in the sight of man? How often he bears witness, for God's Judgments, and our spirit deposes for mercy, by presumption, and how often he testifies for mercy, and our spirit swears for Judgment, in desperation? But when the Spirit, and our spirit agree in their testimony, That he hath spoke comfortably to my soul, and my soul hath apprehended comfort by that speech, That, (to use Christ's similitude) He hath piped, and we have danced, He hath shown me my Savior, and my Spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior, He deposes for the Decree of my Election, and I depose for the seals and marks of that Decree, These two witnesses, The Spirit, and My spirit, induce a third witness, the world it self, to testify that which is the testimony of this text, That I am the child of God. And so we pass from the two former parts, The persons, The Spirit, and our spirit, And their office, to witness, and to agree in their witness, and we are fallen into our third part, The Testimony it self, That we are the Children of God.

This part hath also two branches; First, That the Testimony concerns ourselves, We are; And then, That that which we are is this, We are the Children of God. And in the first branch, there will be two twiggs, two sub-considerations; ¹ We, A personal appropriation of the grace of God to ourselves, ² We are, we are now, a present possession of those Graces. First, consider we the Consolation in the particle of appropriation, We. In the great Ant-hill of the whole world, I am an Ant; I have my part in the Creation, I am a Creature; But there are ignoble Creatures. God comes nearer; In the great field of clay, of red earth, that man was made of, & mankind, I am a clod; I am a man, I have my part in the Humanity; But Man was worse then annihilated again. When Satan in that serpent was come, as Hercules with his club into a potters shop, and had broke all the vessels, destroyed all mankind, And the gracious promise of a Messias to redeem all mankind, was shed and spread upon all, I had my drop of that dew of Heaven, my spark of that fire of heaven, in the universal promise, in which I was involved; But this promise was appropriated after, in a particular Covenant, to one people, to the Jews, to the seed of Abraham. But for all that I have my portion there; for all that profess Christ Jesus are by a spiritual engrafting, and transmigration, and transplantation, in and of that stock, and that seed of Abraham; and I am one of those. But then, of those who do profess Christ Jesus, some grovell still in the superstitions they were fallen into, and some are raised, by God's good grace, out of them; and I am one of those; God hath afforded me my station, in that Church, which is departed from Babylon.

Now, all this while, my soul is in a cheerful progress; when I consider what God did for Goshen in Egypt, for a little park in the midst of a forest; what he did for Jury, in the midst of enemies, as a shire that should stand out against a Kingdom round about it: How many Sancerraes he hath delivered from famins, how many Genevaes from plots, and machinations against her; all this while my soul is in a progress: But I am at home, when I consider Bulls of excommunications, and solicitations of Rebellions, and pistols, and poisons, and the discoveries of those; There is our Nos, We, testimonies that we are in the favor, and care of God; We, our Nation, we, our Church; There I am at home; but I am in my Cabinet at home, when I consider, what God hath done for me, and my soul; There is the Ego, the particular, the individual, I. This appropriation is the consolation, We are; But who are they? or how are we of them? Testimonium est clamor ipse, says S. Chrysostom to our great advantage, Even this, that we are able to cry Abba, Father, by the Spirit of Adoption, is this testimony, that we are his Children; if we can truly do that, that testifies for us. The Spirit testifies two ways; Directly, expressly, personally, as in that, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee, And so to David by Nathan, Transtulit, The Lord hath taken away thy sin; And then he testifies, Per indicia, by constant marks, and infallible evidences. We are not to look for the first, for it is a kind of Revelation, nor are we to doubt of the second, for the marks are infallible. And therefore, as S. Augustine said of the Manichees, concerning the Scriptures, Insani sunt adversus Antidotum, quo sani esse possunt, They are enraged against that, which only can cure them of their rage, that was, the Scriptures; so there are men, which will still be in ignorance of that which might cure them of their ignorance, because they will not labor to find in themselves, the marks and seals of those who are ordained to salvation, they will needs think, that no man can have any such testimony.

They say, It is true, there is a blessed comfort, in this appropriation, if we could be sure of it; They may; we are; we are already in possession of it. The marks of our spiritual filliation, are less subject to error, then of temporal. Shall the Mothers honesty be the Evidence? Alas, we have some such examples of their falsehood, as will discredit any argument, built merely upon their truth. He is like the Father; Is that the evidence? Imagination may imprint those Characters: He hath his land; A supposititious child may have that. Spiritual marks are not so fallible as these: They have so much in them, as creates even a knowledge, Now we are the Sons of God, and we know that we shall be like him; And we know, that we are of God. Is all this but a conjectural knowledge, but a moral certitude? No tincture of faith in it? Can I acquire, and must I bring Certitudinem fidei, an assurance out of faith, That a Council cannot err; And then, such another faithful assurance, That the Council of Trent was a true council; And then another, That the Council of Trent did truly and duly proceed in all ways essential to the truth of a Council, in constituting their Decree against this doctrine? And may I not bring this assurance of faith to S. Paul, and S. John when they say the contrary? Is not S. Paul's sumus, and S. John's scimus, as good a ground for our faith, as the servile and mercenary voices of a herd of new pensionary Bishops, shovelled together at Trent for that purpose, are for the contrary?

A particular Bishop in the Roman Church, cites an universal Bishop, a Pope himself in this point, and he says well, Legem credendi statuit lex supplicandi, Whatsoever we may pray for, we may, we must believe Certitudine fidei, With an assurance of faith; If I may pray, and say Pater noster, if I may call God Father, I may believe with a faithful assurance, that I am the child of God. Stet invicta Pauli sententia, Let the Apostles doctrine, says that Bishop, remain unshaked; Et velut sagitta, says he, This doctrine, as an arrow shot at them, will put out their eyes that think to see beyond S. Paul. It is true, says that Bishop, there are differences, Inter Catholicos, Amongst Catholics themselves in this point; And then, why do they charge us, whom they defame, by the name of Heretics, with beginning this doctrine, which was amongst themselves before we were at all, if they did date us aright? Attestatur spiritus, & ei damus fidem, & inde certi sumus, says that Bishop: The holy Ghost bears witness, and our spirit with him, and thereby we are sure: but, says he, they will needs make a doubt whether this be a knowledge out of faith; which doubt, says he, Secum fert absurditatem, There is an absurdity, a contradiction in the very doubt: Ex Spiritu sancto, & humana? Is it a knowledge from the holy Ghost, and is it not a divine knowledge then? But, say they, (as that Bishop presses their objections) The holy Ghost doth not make them know, that it is the holy Ghost that assures them; This is, says he, as absurd as the other; For, Nisi se testantem insinuet, non testator, Except he make them discern, that he is a witness, he is no witness to them: He ends it thus, Sustinere coguntur quod excidit; and that is indeed their case, in very many things controverted; Then when it conduced to their advantage in argument, or to their profit in purse, such and such things fell from them, and now that opposition is made against such sayings of theirs, their profit lies at stake, and their reputation too, to make good, and to maintain that which they have once, how undiscreetly soever, said. Some of their severest later men, even of their Jesuits, acknowledges that we may know ourselves to be the children of God, with as good a knowledge, as that there is a Rome, or a Constantinople, And such an assurance as delivers them from all fear that they shall fall away; and is not this more then that assurance which we take to ourselves? We give no such assurance as may occasion security, or slackness in the service of God, and they give such an assurance as may remove all fear and suspicion of falling from God.

It was truly good counsel in S. Gregory, when, writing to one of the Empresses bedchamber, a religious Lady of his own name, who had written to him, that she should never leave importuning him, till he sent her word, that he had received a revelation from God that she was saved: for, says he, Rem difficilem postulas, & inutilem, It is a hard matter you require, and an impertinent, and useless matter: for I am not a man worthy to receive revelations, and besides, such a revelation as you require, might make you too secure: And Mater negligentiae solet esse securitas, (says he) Such a security might make you negligent in those duties which should make sure your salvation. S. Augustine felt the witness of The Spirit, but not of his spirit, when he stood out so many solicitations of the holy Ghost, and deferred, and put off the outward means, his Baptism. In that state, when he had a disposition to Baptism, he says of himself, Inferbui exultando, sed inhorrui timendo; Still I had a fervent joy in me, because I saw the way to thee, and intended to put myself into that way, but yet, because I was not yet in it, I had a trembling, a jealousy, a suspicion of myself. Insinuati sunt mihi in profundo nutus tui, In that half darkness, in that twilight I discerned thine eye to be upon me; Et gaudens in fide, laudavi nomen tuum, And this, says he, created a kind of faith, a confidence in me, and this induced an inward joy, and that produced a praising of thy goodness, Sed ea fides securum me non esse sinebat, But all this did not imprint, and establish that security, that assurance which I found as soon as I came to the outward seals, and marks, and testimonies of thine inseparable presence with me, in thy Baptism, and other Ordinances. S. Bernard puts the marks of as much assurance, as we teach, in these words of our Savior, Surge, tolle grabatum, & ambula, Arise, Take up thy bed, and walk. Surge ad divina, Raise thy thoughts upon the next world; Tolle corpus, ut non te ferat, sed tu illud, Take up thy body, bring thy body into thy power, that thou govern it, and not it thee; And then, Ambula, non retrospicias, Walk on, proceed forward, and look not back with a delight upon thy former sins: And a great deal an elder man then Bernard, expresses it well, Bene viventibus perhibet testimonium, quod jam sumus filii Dei, To him that lives according to a right faith, the Spirit testifies that he is now the child of God, Et quod talia faciendo, perseverabimus in ea filiatione, He carries this testimony thus much farther, That if we endeavor to continue in that course, we shall continue in that state, of being the children of God, and never be cast off, never disinherited. Herein is our assurance, an election there is; The Spirit bears witness to our spirit, that it is ours; We testify this in a holy life; and the Church of God, and the whole world joins in this testimony, That we are the children of God; which is our last branch, and conclusion of all.

The holy Ghost could not express more danger to a man, then when he calls him Filium saeculi, The child of this world; Nor a worse disposition, then when he calls him, Filium diffidentiae, The child of diffidence, and distrust in God; Nor a worse pursuer of that ill disposition, then when he calls him Filium diaboli, (as S. Peter calls Elymas ) The child of the devil; Nor a worse possessing of the devil, then when he calls him Filium perditionis, The child of perdition; Nor a worse execution of all this, then when he calls him Filium gehennae, The child of hell: The child of this world, The child of desperation, The child of the devil, The child of perdition, The child of hell, is a high expressing, a deep aggravating of his damnation; That his damnation is not only his purchase, as he hath acquired it, but it is his inheritance, he is the child of damnation. So is it also a high exaltation, when the holy Ghost draws our Pedegree from any good thing, and calls us the children of that: As, when he calls us Filios lucis, The children of light, that we have seen the day-star arise, when he calls us Filios sponsi, The children of the bride-chamber, begot in lawful marriage upon the true Church, these are fair approaches to the highest title of all, to be Filii Dei, The children of God; And not children of God, Per filiationem vestigii, (so every creature is a child of God) by having an Image, and impression of God, in the very Being thereof, but children so, as that we are heirs, and heirs so, as that we are Co-heirs with Christ, as it follows in the next verse, and is implied in this name, Children of God.

Heirs of heaven, which is not a Gavel-kind, every son, every man alike; but it is an universal primogeniture, every man full, so full, as that every man hath all, in such measure, as that there is nothing in heaven, which any man in heaven wants. Heirs of the joys of heaven; Joy in a continual dilatation of thy heart, to receive augmentation of that which is infinite, in the accumulation of essential and accidental joy. Joy in a continual melting of indissoluble bowels, in joyful, and yet compassionate beholding thy Savior; Rejoicing at thy being there, and almost lamenting (in a kind of affection, which we can call by no name) that thou couldst not come thither, but by those wounds, which are still wounds, though wounds glorified. Heirs of the joy, and heirs of the glory of heaven; where if thou look down, and see Kings fighting for Crowns, thou canst look off as easily, as from boys at stool-ball for points here; And from Kings triumphing after victories, as easily, as a Philosopher from a Pageant of children here. Where thou shalt not be subject to any other title of Dominion in others, but Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews, nor ambitious of any other title in thyself, but that which thou possessest, To be the child of God. Heirs of joy, heirs of glory, and heirs of the eternity of heaven; Where, in the possession of this joy, and this glory, The Angels which were there almost 6000. years before thee, and so prescribe, and those souls which shall come at Christ's last coming, and so enter but then, shall not survive thee, but they, and thou, and all, shall live as long as he that gives you all that life, as God himself.

Heirs to heaven, and co-heirs with Christ: There is much to be said of that circumstance; but who shall say it? I that should say it, have said ill of it already, in calling it a Circumstance. To be co-heirs with Christ, is that Essentiall salvation it self; and to that he intitled us, when after his Resurrection he said of us, Go tell my brethren that I am gone. When he was but borne of a woman, and submitted to the law, when in his minority, he was but a Carpenter, and at full age, but a Preacher, when they accused him in general, that he was a Malefactor, or else they would not have delivered him, but they knew not the name of his fault, when a fault of secular cognizance was objected to him, that he moved sedition, that he denied tribute, And then a fault of Ecclesiastical cognizance, that he spoke against the Law, and against the Temple, when Barabbas a seditious murderer was preferred before him, and saved, and yet two thieves left to accompany him, in his torment and death, in these diminutions of Christ, there was no great honor, no great cause why any man should have any great desire to be of his kindred; to be brother, or co-heir to his Cross. But if to be his brethren, when he had begun his triumph in his Resurrection, were a high dignity, what is it to be co-heirs with him in heaven, after his Ascension? But these are inexpressible, inconceivable things; bring it back to that which is nearest us; to those seals and marks which we have in this life; That by a holy, a sanctified passage through this life, and out of this life, from our first seal in Baptism, to our last seal upon our death-bed, The Spirit may bear witness to our spirit, that we are the children of God. Amen.

SERM. XXXV. Preached upon Whitsunday.

A S when a Merchant hath a fair and large, a deep and open Sea, into that Harbor to which he is bound with his Merchandize, it were an impertinent thing for him, to sound, and search for lands, and rocks, and clifts, which threaten irreparable shipwreck; so we being bound to the heavenly City, the new Jerusalem, by the spacious and bottomeless Sea, the blood of Christ Jesus, having that large Sea opened unto us, in the beginning of this Text, All manner of sin, and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, It may seem an impertinent diversion, to turn into that little Creek, nay upon that desperate, and irrecoverable rock, The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven to men. But there must be Discoverers, as well as Merchants; for the security of Merchants, who by storm and tempest, or other accidents, may be cast upon those sands, and rocks, if they be not known, they must be known. So though we fail on, with a merry gale and full sails, with the breath of the holy Ghost in the first Part, All manner of sin, and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, yet we shall not leave out the discovery of that fearful and ruinating rock too, But the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

I would divide the Text, and fewer Parts then two, we cannot make, and this Text hath scarce two Parts: The whole Text is a conveyance; it is true; but there is a little Proviso at the end: The whole Text is a rule; it is true; but there is an exception at the end; The whole text is a Royal Palace; it is true; but there is a Sewar, a Vault behind it; Christ had said all, that of himself he would have said, when he said the first part, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men, But the iniquity of the Pharisees extorted thus much more, But the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men: The first part is the sentence, the proposition, and the sense is perfect in that, All manner of sin, &c. The last part is but a Parenthesis, which Christ had rather might have been left out, but the Pharisees, and their perverseness inserted, But the blasphemy, &c. But since it deserves, and requires our consideration, as well, that the mercy of God can have any stop, any rub, determine anywhere, as that it can extend, and spread it self so far, as it doth in this text, let us make them two parts: And in the first consider with comfort, the largeness, the expansion of God's mercy, that there is but one sin, that it reacheth not to; And in the second let us consider with fear, and trembling, that there is one sin, so swelling, so high, as that even the mercy of God does not reach to it. And in the first we shall proceed thus, in the magnifying God's mercy, first, in the first term, Sin, we shall see that sin is even a wound, a violence upon God; and then Omne peccatum, Every sin is so; and nothing is so various, so divers as sin; and even that sin, that amounts to Blasphemy, a sin not only conceived in the thought, but expressed in contumelious words; and those contumelious and blasphemous words uttered against the Son, (for so it is expressed in the very next verse) All this shall be forgiven: But yet it is in futuro, They shall be: No man's sins are forgiven him, then when he sins them; but by repentance they shall be forgiven; forgiven unto men; that is, first, unto any man, and then, unto none but men; for the sin of the Angels shall never be forgiven: And these will be the Branches of the first Part. And in the second Part, we shall look as far as this text occasions it, upon that debated sin, the sin against the holy Ghost, and the irremissiblenesse of that; of which Part, we shall derive and raise the particular Branches anon, when we come to handle them.

First then, for the first term, Sin, we use to ask in the School, whether any action of man's can have rationem demeriti, whether it can be said to offend God, or to deserve ill of God: for whatsoever does so, must have some proportion with God. With things which are inanimate, things that have no will, and so no good nor bad purpose, as dust, or the wind, or such, a man cannot properly be so offended, as to say that they deserve ill of him. With those things which have no use, no command of their will, as children, and fools, and mad men, it is so too; And then, there is no creature so poor, so childish, so impotent in respect of man, as the best man is in respect of God: How then can he sin, that is, offend, that is, deserve ill of him? The question begun not in the School; It was asked before of Job: If thou sinnest, what doest thou against him? or if thy transgressions be multiplied, what doest thou unto him? Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; but what is it to God? for, as Gregory says upon that place, Humana impietas ci nocet, quem pervertendo inquinat, Our sins hurt them, whom our example leads into temptation; but our sins cannot draw God to be accessory to our sins, or to make him sin with us. Our sin cannot hurt him so; nor hurt him directly any way; not his person: But his Subjects, whom he hath taken into his protection, it may; His Law, which he hath given for direction, it may; His Honor, of which he is jealous, which Honor consists much in our honoring of him, it may. Wherein is a Kings Person violated, by coining a false penny, or counterfeiting a seal? and yet this is Treason. God cannot be robbed, he cannot be damnified; whatsoever is taken from him (and there is a sacrilege in all unjust takings) wheresoever it be laid, he sees it, and it is still in his possession, and in his house, and in his hands. God cannot be robbed, nor God cannot be violated, he cannot be wounded, for he hath no limbs. But God is Vltimis fin is, The end to which we all go, and his Law is the way to that end; And transilire lineam, to transgress that Law, to leave that way, is a neglecting of him: and even negligences, and pretermissions, and slightings, are as great offenses, as actual injuries. So God is communis Pater, the Father of all creatures; and so the abuse of the creature reflects upon God, as the injuries done to the children, do upon the Parents.

If then we can sin so against God, as we can against the King, and against the Law, and against Propriety, and against Parents; we have ways enow of sinning against God. Sin is not therefore so absolutely nothing, as that it is (in no consideration) other then a privation, only Absentia recti, and nothing at all in it self: but, not to enter farther into that inextricable point, we rest in this, that sin is Actus inordinatus, It is not only an obliquity, a privation, but it is an action deprived of that rectitude, which it should have; It does not only want that rectitude, but it should have that rectitude, and therefore hath a sinful want. We shall not dare to call sin merely, absolutely nothing, if we consider either the punishment due to sin, or the pardon of that punishment, or the price of that pardon. The punishment is everlasting; why should I believe it to be so? Os domini locutum, The mouth of the Lord hath said it. But why should it be so? Iustum est ut qui in suo aeter no peccavit contra Deum, in Dei aeterno puniatur, It is but justice, that he that sins in his eternity, should be punished in God's eternity: Now to sin in our eternity, is to sin as long as we live, and if we could live eternally, to desire to sin eternally. God can cut off our eternity, he can shorten our life; If we could cut off his eternity, and quench hell, our punishment were not eternal. We consider sin to be Quoddam infinitum; as it is an aversion from God, who is infinite goodness, it is an infinite thing: and as it is a turning upon the Creature, it is finite, and determined; for all pleasure taken in the creature, is so: and accordingly sin hath a finite, and an infinite punishment: That which we call Poenam sensus, The torment which we feel, is not infinite; (otherwise, then by duration) for that torment is not equal in all the damned, and that which is infinite must necessarily be equal; but that which we call Poenam damni, The everlasting loss of the sight of the everliving God, that is infinite, and alike, and equal in all the damned. Sin is something then, if we consider the punishment; and so it is, if we consider our deliverance from this punishment: That which God could not pardon in the way of justice without satisfaction, that for which nothing could be a satisfaction, but the life of all men, or of one man worth all, the Son of God, that that tore the Son out of the arms of his Father, in the Quid dereliquisti, when he cried out, why hast thou forsaken me? That which imprinted in him, who was anointed with the Oil of gladness above his fellows, a deadly heaviness, in his Tristis anima, when his soul was heavy unto death, That which had power to open Heaven in his descent hither, and to open hell, in his descent thither, to open the womb of the Virgin in his Incarnation, and the womb of the Earth in his Resurrection, that which could change the frame of Nature in Miracles, and the God of Nature in becoming Man, that that deserved that punishment, that that needed that ransom (say the School men what they will of privations) cannot be merely, absolutely nothing, but the greatest thing that can be conceived, and yet that shall be forgiven.

That, and all that; Sin, and all sin: And there is not so much of anything in the world, as of sin. Every virtue hath two extremes, two vices opposed to it; there is two to one; But Abraham's task was an easy task to tell the stars of Heaven; so it were to tell the sands, or hairs, or atoms, in respect of telling but our own sins. And will God say to me, Confide Fili, My Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee? Does he mean all my sins? He knows what original sin is, and I do not; and will he forgive me sin in that root, and sin in the branches, original sin, and actual sin too? He knows my secret sins, and I do not; will he forgive my manifest sins, and those sins too? He knows my relapses into sins repented; and will he forgive my faint repentances, and my rebellious relapses after them? will his mercy dive into my heart, and forgive my sinful thoughts there, and shed upon my lips, and forgive my blasphemous words there, and bathe the members of this body, and forgive mine unclean actions there? will he contract himself into himself, and meet me there, and forgive my sins against himself, And scatter himself upon the world, and forgive my sins against my neighbor, and emprison himself in me, and forgive my sins against myself? Will he forgive those sins, wherein my practice hath exceeded my Parents, and those wherein my example hath misled my children? Will he forgive that dim sight which I have of sin now, when sins scarce appear to be sins unto me, and will he forgive that over-quick sight, when I shall see my sins through Satan's multiplying glass of desperation, when I shall think them greater then his mercy, upon my death bed? In that he said all, he left out nothing, is the Apostles argument: and, he is not almighty, if he cannot; his mercy endures not forever, if he do not forgive all.

Sin, and all sin, even blasphemy: now blasphemy is not restrained to God alone; other persons besides God, other things, besides persons, may be blasphemed. The word of God, the Doctrine, Religion may be blasphemed. Magistracy and Dignities may be blasphemed. Nay, Omnia quae ignorant, says that Apostle, They blaspheme all things which they know not. And for persons, the Apostle takes it to his own person, Being blasphemed, yet we entreat; and he communicates it to all men, Neminem blasphemate, Blaspheme no man. Blasphemy, as it is a contumelious speech, derogating from any man, that good that is in him, or attributing to any man, that ill that is not in him, may be fastened upon any man. For the most part it is understood a sin against God, and that directly; and here, by the manner of Christ expressing himself, it is made the greatest sin; All sin, even blasphemy. And yet, a drunkard that cannot name God, will spew out a blasphemy against God: A child that cannot spell God, will stammer out a blasphemy against God: If we smart, we blaspheme God, and we blaspheme him if we be tickled; If I lose at play, I blaspheme, and if my fellow lose, he blasphemes, so that God is always sure to be a loser. An Usurer can show me his bags, and an Extortioner his houses, the fruits, the revenues of his sin; but where will the blasphemer show me his blasphemy, or what he hath got by it? The licentious man hath had his love in his arms, and the envious man hath had his enemy in the dust, but wherein hath the blasphemer hurt God?

In the School we put it for the consummation of the torment of the damned, that at the Resurrection, they shall have bodies, and so be able, even verbally, to blaspheme God; herein we exceed the Devil already, that we can speak blaspemously. There is a rebellious part of the body, that Adam covered with fig leaves, that hath damned many a wretched soul; but yet, I think, not more then the tongue; And therefore the whole torment that Dives suffered in hell, is expressed in that part, Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue. The Jews that crucified God, will not sound the name of God, and we for whom he was Crucified, belch him out in our surfeits, and foam him out in our fury: An Impertinent sin, without occasion before, and an unprofitable sin, without recompense after, and an incorrigible sin too; for, almost what Father dares chide his son for blasphemy, that may not tell him, Sir I learnt it of you? or what Master his servant, that cannot lay the same recrimination upon him? How much then do we need this extent of God's mercy, that he will forgive sin, and all sin, and even this sin of blasphemy, and (which is also another addition) blasphemy against the Son.

This emphatical addition arises out of the connection in the next verse, A word, (that is, a blasphemous word) against the Son, shall be forgiven. And here we carry not the word Son so high, as that the Son should be the eternal Son of God, Though words spoken against the eternal Son of God by many bitter and blasphemous Heretics have been forgiven: God forbid that all the Photinians who thought that Christ was not at all, till he was borne of the Virgin Mary, That all the Nativitarians, that thought he was from all eternity with God, but yet was not the Son of God, That all the Arians, that thought him the Son of God, but yet not essentially, not by nature, but by grace and adoption, God forbid that all these should be damned, and because they once spoke against the Son, therefore they never repented, or were not received upon repentance. We carry not the word, Son, so high, as to be the eternal Son of God, for it is in the text, Filius hominis, The Son of Man; And, in that acceptation, we do not mean it, of all blasphemies that have been spoken of Christ, as the Son of man, that is, of Christ invested in the human nature; though blasphemies in that kind have been forgiven too: God forbid that all the Arians, that thought Christ so much the Son of Man as that he took a human body, but not so much, as that he took a human soul, but that the Godhead it self (such a Godhead as they allowed him) was his soul; God forbid that all the Anabaptists that confess he took a body, but not a body of the substance of the Virgin; That all the Carpocratians, that thought only his soul, and not his body ascended into Heaven, God forbid all these should be damned, and never called to repentance, or not admitted upon it: There were fearful blasphemies against the Son, as the Son of God, and as the Son of Man, against his Divine, and against his Human Nature, and those, in some of them, by God's grace forgiven too. But here we consider him only as the Son of Man, merely as Man; but as such a Man, so good a Man, as to calumniate him, to blaspheme him, was an inexcusable sin. To say of him, who had fasted forty days and forty nights, Ecce homo vorax, Behold a man gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, To say of him, of whom themselves had said elsewhere, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man, that he was a friend of Publicans and sinners, That this man who was The Prince of Peace, should endure such contradiction, This was an inexcusable sin. If any man therefore have had his good intentions mis-construed, his zeal to assist God's bleeding and fainting cause, called Innovation, his proceeding by ways good in themselves, to ends good in themselves, called Indiscretion, let him be content to forgive them, any Calumniator, against himself, who is but a worm and no man, since God himself forgave them against Christ, who was so Filius hominis, The Son of Man, as that he was the Son of God too.

There is then forgiveness for sin, for all sin, even for blasphemy, for blasphemy against the Son, but it is Infuturo remittetur, It shall be forgiven. It is not Remittebatur, It was forgiven; Let no man antidate his pardon, and say, His sins were forgiven in an Eternal Decree, and that no man that hath his name in the book of life, hath the addition, sinner; that if he were there from the beginning, from the beginning he was no sinner. It is not, in such a sense, Remittebatur, It was forgiven; nor it is not Remittitur, that even then, when the sin is committed, it is forgiven, whether the sinner think of it or no, That God sees not the sins of his Children, That God was no more affected with David's adultery, or his murder, then an indulgent Father is to see his child do some witty waggish thing, or some sportfull shrewd turn. It is but Remittetur, Any sin shall be, that is, may be forgiven, if the means required by God, and ordained by him, be entertained. If I take into my contemplation, the Majesty of God, and the ugliness of sin, If I devest myself of all that was sinfully got, and invest myself in the righteousness of Christ Jesus, (for else I am ill suited, and if I clothe myself in Mammon, the righteousness of Christ is no Cloke for that doublet) If I come to God's Church for my absolution, and the seal of that reconciliation, the blessed Sacrament, Remittetur, by those means ordained by God any sin shall be forgiven me. But if I rely upon the Remittebatur, That I had my Quietus est before hand, in the eternal Decree, or in the Remittuntur, and so shut mine eyes, in an opinion that God hath shut his, and sees not the sins of his children, I change God's Grammar, and I induce a dangerous solecism, for, it is not They were forgiven before they were committed, nor They are forgiven in the committing, but, They shall be, by using the means ordained by God, they may be; And so, They shall be forgiven unto men, says the Text, and that is, first, unto every man.

The Kings of the earth are fair and glorious resemblances of the King of heaven; they are beams of that Sun, Tapers of that Torch, they are like gods, they are gods: The Lord killeth and maketh alive, He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up: This is the Lord of heaven; The Lord's anointed, Kings of the earth do so too; They have the dispensation of judgment, and of mercy, they execute, and they pardon: But yet, with this difference amongst many other, that Kings of the earth (for the most part, and the best, most) bind themselves with an oath, not to pardon some offenses; The King of heaven swears, and swears by himself, That there is no sinner but he can, and would pardon. At first, Illuminat omnem hominem, He is the true light, which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world; Let that light (because many do interpret that place so) let that be but that natural light, which only man, and every man hath; yet that light makes him capable of the super-natural light of grace; for if he had not that reasonable soul, he could not have grace; and even by this natural light, he is able to see the invisible God, in the visible creature, and is inexcusable if he do not so. But because this light is (though not put out) brought to a dimness, by man's first fall, Therefore John the Baptist came to bear witness of that light, that all men, through him, might believe: God raises up a John the Baptist in every man; every man finds a testimony in himself, that he draws curtains between the light and him; that he runs into corners from that light; that he doth not make that use of those helps which God hath afforded him, as he might.

Thus God hath mercy upon all before, by way of prevention; thus he enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world: but, because for all this men do stumble, even at noon, God hath given Collyrium, an Eye-salve to all, by which they may mend their eye-sight; He hath opened a pool of Bethesda to all, where not only he that comes at first, but he that comes even at last, he that comes washed with the water of Baptism in his infancy, and he that comes washed with the tears of Repentance in his age, may receive health and cleanness; For, the Font at first, and the death-bed at last, are Cisterns from this pool, and all men, and at all times, may wash therein: And from this power, and this love of God, is derived both that Catholic promise, Quandocun{que}, At what time soever a sinner repents, And that Catholic and extensive Commission, Quorum remiseritis, Whose sins soever you remit, shall be remitted. All men were in Adam; because the whole nature, mankind, was in him; and then, can any be without sin? All men were in Christ too, because the whole nature, mankind, was in him; and then, can any man be excluded from a possibility of mercy? There were whole Sects, whole bodies of Heretics, that denied the communication of God's grace to others; The Cathari denied that any man had it but themselves: The Novatians denied that any man could have it again, after he had once lost it, by any deadly sin committed after Baptism, But there was never any Sect that denied it to themselves, no Sect of despairing men. We have some somewhere sprinkled; One in the Old Testament, Cain, and one in the new, Judas, and one in the Ecclesiastic Story, Julian; but nobody, no Sect of despairing men. And therefore he that abandons himself to this sin of desperation, sins with the least reason of any, for he prefers his sin above God's mercy, and he sins with the fewest examples of any, for God hath diffused this light, with an evidence to all, That all sins may be forgiven unto men, that is, unto all men; and then, herein also is God's mercy to man magnified, that it is to man, that is, only to man.

Nothing can fall into this comparison, but Angels; and Angels shall not be forgiven: We shall be like the Angels, we shall participate of their glory which stand; But the Angels shall never be like us; never return to mercy, after they are fallen. They were Primogeniti Dei, God's first born, and yet disinherited; and disinherited without any power, at least, without purpose of revocation, without annuities, without pensions, without any present supply, without any future hope. When the Angels were made, and when they fell, we dispute; but when they shall return, falls not into question. Howsoever Origen vary in himself, or howsoever he fell under that jealousy, or misinterpretation, that he thought the devil should be saved at last, I am sure his books that are extant, have pregnant and abundant testimony of their everlasting, and irreparable condemnation. To judge by our evidence, the evidence of Scriptures, for their sin, and the evidence of our conscience, for ours, there is none of us that hath not sinned more then any of them at first; and yet Christ hath not taken the nature of Angels, but of man, and redeemed us, having reserved them in everlasting chains, under darkness: How long? Unto the judgment of the great day, says that Apostle; And is it but till then, then to have an end? Alas no; It is not until that day, but unto that day; not that that day shall end or ease their torments which they have, but inflict accidental torments, which they have not yet; That is, an utter evacuation of that power of seducing, which, till that day come, they shall have leave to exercise upon the sons of men: To that are they reserved, and we to that glory, which they have lost, and lost forever; and upon us, is that prayer of the Apostle fallen effectually, Mercy, and peace, and love is multiplied unto us; for, sin, and all sin, blasphemy, and blasphemy against the Son, shall be, that is, is not, nor was not, but may be forgiven to men, to all men, to none but men; And so we pass to our second part.

In this second part, which seems to present a bank even to this Sea, this infinite Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus; And an Horizon even to this heaven of heavens, to the mercy of God, we shall proceed thus: First, we shall inquire, but modestly, what that blasphemy, which is commonly called The sin against the holy Ghost, is: And secondly, how, and wherein it is irremissible, that it shall never be forgiven: And then thirdly, upon what places of Scripture it is grounded; amongst which, if this text do not constitute and establish that sin, The sin against the holy Ghost, yet we shall find, that that sin which is directly intended in this text, is a branch of that sin, The sin against the holy Ghost: And therefore we shall take just occasion from thence, to arm you with some instructions against those ways which lead into that irrecoverable destruction, into that irremissible sin: for though the sin itself be not so evident, yet the limbs of the sin, and the ways to the sin, are plain enough.

S. Augustine says, There is no question in the Scripture harder then this, what this sin is: And S. Ambrose gives some reason of the difficulty in this, Sicut una divinitas, una offensa: As there is but one Godhead, so there is no sin against God (and all sin is so) but it is against the whole Trinity: and that is true; but as there are certain attributes proper to every several person of the Trinity, so there are certain sins, more directly against the several attributes and properties of those persons, and in such a consideration, against the persons themselves. Of which there are divers sins against power, and they are principally against the Father; for to the Father we attribute power; and divers sins against wisdom, and wisdom we attribute to the Son; and divers against goodness, and love, and these we attribute to the holy Ghost. Of those against the holy Ghost, considered in that attribute of goodness, and of love, the place to speak, will be in our conclusion. But for this particular sin, The sin against the holy Ghost, as hard as S. Augustine makes it, and justly, yet he says too, Exercere nos voluit difficultate quaestionis, non decipere falsitate sententiae, God would exercise us with a hard question, but he would not deceive us with a false opinion: Quid sit quaeri voluit, non negari; God would have us modestly inquire what it is, not peremptorily deny that there is any such sin.

It is therefore somewhat early, somewhat forwardly pronounced, though by a reverend man, Certum reprobationis signum, in spiritum blasphemia, That it is an infallible assurance, that that man is a Reprobate that blasphemes the holy Ghost. For, whatsoever is an infallible sign, must be notorious to us; If we must know another thing by that, as a sign, we must know that thing which is our sign, in it self: And can we know what this blaspheming of the holy Ghost is? Did we ever hear any man say, or see any man do anything against the holy Ghost, of whom we might say upon that word, or upon that action, This man can never repent, never be received to mercy? And yet, says he, Tenendum est, quod qui exciderint, nunquam resurgent; We are bound to hold, that they who fall so, shall never rise again. I presume, he grounded himself in that severe judgment of his, upon such places, as that to the Romans, When they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind: That that is the ordinary way of God's justice, to withdraw his Spirit from that man that blasphemes his Spirit; but S. Paul blasphemed, and S. Peter blasphemed, and yet were not divorced from God.

S. Augustine's rule is good; not to judge of this sin, and this sinner especially, but à posteriori, from his end, from his departing out of this world. Neither though I do see an ill life, sealed with an ill death, dare I be too forward in this judgment. He was not a Christian in profession, but worse then he are called Christians, that said, Qui pius est, sum Philosophatur; The charitable man is the great Philosopher; and it is charity not to suspect the state of a dead man. Consider in how sudden a minute the holy Ghost hath sometimes wrought upon thee; and hope that he hath done so upon another. It is a moderation to be embraced, that Peter Martyr leads us to: The Primitive Church had the spirit of discerning spirits; we have not; And therefore, though by way of definition, we may say, This is that sin, yet by way of demonstration, let us say of no man, This is that sinner: I may say of no man, This sin in thee is irremissible.

Now, in considering this word, Irremissible, That it cannot be forgiven, we find it to be a word, rather usurped by the School, then expressed in the Scriptures: for in all those three Evangelists, where this fearful denunciation is interminated, still it is in a phrase, of somewhat more mildness, then so; It is, It shall not be forgiven, It is not, it cannot be forgiven: It is an irremission, it is not an irremissiblenesse. Absolutely there is not an impossibility, and irremissiblenesse on God's part: but yet some kind of impossibility there is on his part, and on ours too. For, if he could forgive this sin, he would; or else, his power were above his mercy; and his mercy is above all his works. But God can do nothing that implies contradiction; and God having declared, by what means only his mercy and forgiveness shall be conveyed to man, God should contradict himself, if he should give forgiveness to them, who will fully exclude those means of mercy. And therefore it were not boldly, nor irreverently said, That God could not give grace to a beast, nor mercy to the Devil, because either they are naturally destitute, or have willfully despoiled themselves of the capacity of grace, and mercy. When we consider, that God the Father, whom, as the root of all, we consider principally in the Creation, created man in a possibility, and ability, to persist in that goodness, in which he created him, And consider that God the Son came, and wrought a reconciliation for man to God, and so brought in a treasure, in the nature thereof, a sufficient ransom for all the world, but then a man knows not this, or believes not this, otherwise then Historically, Morally, Civilly, and so evacuates, and shakes off God the Son, And then consider that the holy Ghost comes, and presents means of applying all this, and making the general satisfaction of Christ, reach and spread it self upon my soul, in particular, in the preaching of the Word, in the seals of the Sacraments, in the absolution of the Church, and I preclude the ways, and shut up myself against the holy Ghost, and so evacuate him, and shake him off, when I have resisted Father, Son, and holy Ghost, is there a fourth person in the God-head to work upon me? If I blaspheme, that is, deliberately pronounce against the holy Ghost, my sin is irremissible therefore, because there is nobody left to forgive it, nor way left, wherein forgiveness should work upon me; So far it is irremissible on God's part, and on mine too.

And then, take it there, in that state of irremissiblenesse, and consider seriously the fearfulness of it. I have been angry; and then, (as Christ tells me) I have been in danger of a judgment; but in judgment, I may have counsel, I may be heard; I have said Racha, expressed my anger and so been in danger of a Council; but a Council does but consult, what punishment is fit to be inflicted; and so long there is hope of mitigation, and commutation of penance; But I have said fatue, I have called my brother fool, and so am in danger of hell fire. In the first, there is Ira, an inward commotion, an irregular distemper; In the second, there is Ira & vox; In the first it is but Ira carnis, non animi, It is but my passion, it is not I that am angry, but in the second I have suffered my passion to vent and utter it self; but in the third, there is Ira, vox & vituperatio, A distemper within, a declaration to evil example without, and an injury and defamation to a third person, and this exalts the offense to the height: But then when this third Person comes to be the third Person in the Trinity, the Holy Ghost, in all the other cases, there is danger, danger of judgment, danger of a Council, danger of hell, but here is irremissiblenesse, hell it self, and no avoiding of hell, no cooling in hell, no deliverance from hell; Irremissible; Those hands that reached to the ends of the world, in creating it, & span the world in preserving it, and stretched over all in redeeming it, those hands have I manacled, that they cannot open unto me: That tenderness that is affected to all, have I damped, retarded that proneness, stupefied that alacrity, confounded that voice, diverted those eyes, that are naturally disposed to all: And all this, Irremissibly, forever; not, though he would, but because he will not show mercy; not, though I would, but because I cannot ask mercy: And therefore beware all approaches towards that sin, from which there is no returning, no redemption.

We are come now, in our order, to our third and last Branch of this last Part, That this Doctrine of a sin against the Holy Ghost, is not a dream of the School-men, though they have spoken many things frivolously of it, but grounded in evident places of Scriptures: Amongst which, we look especially, how far this Text conduces to that Doctrine. There are two places ordinarily cited, which seem directly to concern this sin; and two others, which to me seem not to do so. Those of the first kind, are both in the Epistle to the Hebrews: There the Apostle says, For those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, If they fall away, it is impossible to renew them by repentance. Now, if final impenitence had been added, there could have been no question, but that this must be The sin against the Holy Ghost; And because the Apostle speaks of such a total falling away, as precludes all way of repentance, it includes final impenitence, and so makes up that sin. The other place from which it rises most pregnantly, is, Of how sore a punishment shall they be thought worthy, who have trodden underfoot the Son of God, and have done despite unto the Spirit of grace? As he had said before, If we sin willfully, after we have received the knowledge of truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation. But yet, though from these places, there arises evidence, that such a sin there is, as naturally shuts out repentance, and so is thereby irremissible, yet there arise no marks, by which I can say, This man is such a sinner; not though he himself would swear to me, that he were so now, and that he would continue so, till death.

The other places that do not so directly concern this sin, and yet are sometimes used in this affaire, are, one in S. John, and this text another. That in S. John is, There is a sin unto death, I do not say, that he shall pray for it. It is true, that the Master of the Sentences, and from him, many of the School, and many of our later Interpreters too, do understand this, of the sin against the Holy Ghost, because we are (almost) forbidden to pray for it; but yet we are not absolutely forbidden, in that we are not bidden. And if we were forbidden, when God says to Jeremiah, Pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry, nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me, for I will not hear thee, And again, Pray not for them, for I will not hear them, Not them, though they should come to pray for themselves, God forbid that we should therefore say, that all that people had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. And for this particular place of S. John, that answer may suffice, which very good Divines have given, Pray not for them, is indeed pray not with them, admit them to no part in the public prayers of the Congregation, but if they sin a sin unto death, a notorious, an inexcusable sin, let them be persons excommunicated to thee.

For the words in this text, which seem to many appliable to that great sin, it is not clear, it is not much probable, that they can be so applied. Take the words invested in their circumstance, in the context and coherence, and it will appear evident. Christ speaks this to the Pharisees, upon occasion of that which they had said to him, and of him before, and he carries it, intends it no farther. That appears by the first word of out text, Propterea, Therefore I say unto you; Therefore, that is, Because you have used such words unto me. And S. Mark makes it more clear, He said this to them, because they said, He had an unclean spirit; because they said he did his Miracles by the power of the Devil. Now, this was certainly a sin against the Holy Ghost, so far, as that it was distinguished from the sins against the Son of Man; But it was not the sin against the Holy Ghost; for, Christ being a mixed person, God and Man, did some things, in which his Divinity had nothing to do, but were only actions of a mere natural man, and when they slandered him in these, they blasphemed the Son of Man. Some things he did in the power of his God head, in which his humanity contributed nothing; as all his Miracles; and when they attributed these works to the Devil, they blasphemed the Holy Ghost. And therefore S. Augustine says, That Christ in this place, did not so much accuse the Pharisees, that they had already incurred the sin of the Holy Ghost, they might at last fall into The sin, that impenitible, and therefore irremissible sin. But that sin, this could not be, because the Pharisees had not embraced the Gospel before, and so this could not be a falling from the Gospel, in them: Neither does it appear to have continued to a final impenitence; so far from it, as that S. Chrysost. makes no doubt, but that some of these Pharisees did repent upon Christ's admonition.

Now, beloved, since we see by this collation of places, that it is not safe to say of any man, he is this sinner, nor very constantly agreed upon, what is this sin, but yet we are sure, that such a sin there is, that captivates even God himself, and takes from him the exercise of his mercy, and casts a dumnesse, a speechlesnesse upon the Church it self, that she may not pray for such a sinner; and since we see, that Christ, with so much earnestness, rebukes the Pharisees for this sin in the text, because it was a limb of that sin, and conduced to it, let us use all religious diligence, to keep ourselves in a safe distance from it. To which purpose, be pleased to cast a particular, but short and transitory glance, upon some such sins, as therefore, because they conduce to that, are sometimes called sins against the holy Ghost. Sins against Power, (that is the Fathers Attribute) sins of infirmity are easily forgiven; sins against Wisdom, (that is the Sons Attribute) sins of Ignorance are easily forgiven; but sins against Goodness, (that is the Holy Ghosts Attribute,) sins of an hard and ill nature are hardly forgiven: Not at all, when it comes to be The sin; not easily, when they are Those sins, those that conduce to it, and are branches of it.

For branches, the Schoolmen have named three couples, which they have called sins against the Holy Ghost, because naturally they shut out those means by which the Holy Ghost might work upon us. The first couple is, presumption and desperation; for presumption takes away the fear of God, and desperation the love of God. And then, they name Impenitence, and hardness of heart; for Impenitence removes all sorrow for sins past, and hardness of heart all tenderness towards future temptations. And lastly, they name The resisting of a truth acknowledged before, and the envying of other men, who have made better use of God's grace then we have done; for this resisting of a Truth, is a shutting up of ourselves against it, and this envying of others, is a sorrow, that that Truth should prevail upon them. And truly (to reflect a very little upon these three couples again) To presume upon God, that God cannot damn me eternally in the next world, for a few half-hours in this; what is a fornication, or what is an Idolatay to God? what is a jest, or a ballad, or a libel to a King? Or to despair, that God will not save me, how well soever I live, after a sin? what is a tear, what is a sigh, what is a prayer to God? what is a petition to a King? To be impenitent, senseless of sins past; I past yesterday in riot, and yesternight in wantonness, and yet I hear of some place, some office, some good fortune fallen to me today; To be hardened against future sins; shall I forbear some company, because that company leads me into temptation? Why, that very temptation will lead me to preferment; To forsake the truth formerly professed, because the times are changed, and wiser men then I change with them; To envy and hate another, another State, another Church, another man, because they stand out in defense of the truth, (for, if they would change, I might have the better color, the better excuse of changing too) all these are shrewd and slippery approaches towards the sin against the Holy Ghost, and therefore the Schoolmen have called all these six, (not without just reason, and good use) by that heavy name.

And some of the Fathers have extended it farther, then to these six. S. Bernard, in particular, says, Nolle obedire, To resist lawful Authority; And another, Simulata poenitentia, To delude God with relapses, & counterfeit repentances; and another also, Omne schisma, All schismatical renting of the peace of the Church, All these they call in that sense, Sins against the Holy Ghost. Now, all sins against the Holy Ghost, are not irremissible. Stephen told his persecutors, They resisted the Holy Ghost, and yet he prayed for them. But because these sins may, and ordinarily do come to that sin, stop betimes. David was far from the murder of Uriah, when he did but look upon his Wife, as she was bathing. A man is far from defying the holy Ghost, when he does but neglect him; and yet David did come, and he will come to the bottom quickly. It may make some impression in you, to tell, and to apply a short story. In a great Schism at Rome, Ladislaus took that occasion to debauch and corrupt some of the Nobility; It was discerned; and then, to those seven Governors, whom they had before, whom they called Sapientes, Wise men, they added seven more, and called them Bonos, Good men, honest men, and relied, and confided in them. Goodness is the Attribute of the Holy Ghost; If you have Greatness, you may seem to have some of the Father, for Power is his: If you have Wisdom, you may seem to have some of the Son, for that is his: If you have Goodness, you have the Holy Ghost, who shall lead you into all truth. And Goodness is, To be good and easy in receiving his impressions, and good and constant in retaining them, and good and diffusive in deriving them upon others: To embrace the Gospel, to hold fast the Gospel, to propagate the Gospel, this is the goodness of the Holy Ghost. And to resist the entrance of the Gospel, to abandon it after we have professed it, to forsake them, whom we should assist and succor in the maintenance of it, This is to depart from the goodness of the Holy Ghost: and by these sins against him, to come too near the sin, the irremissible sin, in which the calamities of this world shall enwrap us, and deliver us over to the everlasting condemnation of the next. This is as much as these words do justly occasion us to say of that sin; and into a more curious search thereof, it is not holy sobriety to pierce.

SERM. XXXVI. Preached upon Whitsunday.

O Ur Panis quotidianus, Our daily bread, is that Iuge sacrificium, That daily sacrifice of meditating upon God; Our Panis hodiernus, This days bread, is to meditate upon the holy Ghost. To day if ye will hear his voice, today ye are with him in Paradise; For, wheresoever the holy Ghost is, he creates a Paradise. The day is not past yet; As our Savior said to Peter, Hodie, in nocte hac, This day, even in this night thou shalt deny me, so, Hodie in nocte hac, Even now, though evening, the day-spring from on high visits you, God carries back the shadow of your Sundial, as to Hezekiah; And now God brings you to the beginning of this day, if now you take knowledge, that he is come, who, when he comes, Reproves the world of sin, &c.

The solemnity of the day requires, and the method of the words offers for our first consideration, the Person; who is not named in our text, but designed by a most emphatical denotation, Ille, He, He who is all, and doth all. But the word hath relation to a name, proper to the holy Ghost: for, in the verse immediately preceding, our Savior tells his disciples, That he will send them the Comforter. So, forbearing all other mysterious considerations of the holy Ghost, we receive him in that notion, and function in which Christ sends him, The Comforter. And therefore, in this capacity, as The Comforter, we must consider his action, Arguet, He shall reprove; Reprove, and yet Comfort; nay, therefore comfort, because reprove: And then the subject of his action, Mundum, The world, the whole world; no part left unreproved, yet no part left without comfort: And after that, what he reproves the world of; That multiplies; Of sin, of righteousness, of judgment. Can there be comfort in reproof for sin? Or can there lie a reproof upon righteousness, or upon judgment? Very justly; Though the evidence seem at first, as strange as the crime; for, though that be good evidence against the sin of the world, That they believe not in Christ, (Of sin, because ye believe not on me) yet to be Reproved of righteousness, because Christ goes to his Father, and they see him no more, And to be Reproved of judgment, because the Prince of this world is judged, this seems strange, and yet this must be done, and done to our comfort; For, this must be done, Cum venerit, Then when the holy Ghost, and he in that function, as the Comforter, is come, is present, is working.

Beloved, Reproofes upon others without charity, rather to defame them, then amend them, Reproofes upon thyself, without showing mercy to thine own soul, diffidences, and jealousies, and suspicions of God, either that he hated thee before thy sin, or hates thee irremediably, irreconciliably, irrecoverably, irreparably for thy sin, These are Reproofes, but they are Absent spiritu, In the absence of the holy Ghost, before he comes, or when he is gone; When he comes, and stays, He shall reprove, and reprove all the world, and all the world of those errors, sin, and righteousness, and judgment, and those errors upon those evidences, Of sin, because ye believe not on me, &c. But, in all this proceeding he shall never devest the nature of a Comforter; In that capacity he is sent, in that he comes, and works. I doubt I shall see an end of my hour, and your patience, before I shall have passed those branches, which appertain most properly to the celebration of this day, the Person, the Comforter, his action, Reproof, the subject thereof, the world, and the Time, Cum venerit, When he comes. The inditement, of what the accusation is, and the evidence, how it is proved, may exercise your devotion at other times. This day, the holy Ghost is said to have come suddenly, and therefore in that pace we proceed, and make haste to the consideration of the Person, Ille, When he, He the holy Ghost, the Comforter, is come.

Ille, Ille alone, He, is an emphatical denotation; for to this purpose Ille and Ipse is all one; And then, you know the Emphasis of that Ipse; Ipse conteret, He or It shall bruise the Serpents head, denotes the Messias, though there be no Messias named: This Ipse is so emphatical a denotation, as that the Church of Rome, and the Church of God strives for it; for they will needs read it Ipsa, and so refer our salvation, in the bruising of the Serpents head, to the Virgin Mary; we refer it according to the truth of the doctrine, and of the letter, to Christ himself, and therefore read it Ipse, He. If there were no more but that in David, It is He that hath made us, every man would conclude, that that He is God. And if S. Paul had said Ipse alone, and not Ipse spiritus, That He, and not He the Spirit bears witness with our spirit, every spirit would have understood this to be the holy Spirit, the holy Ghost. If in our text there had been no more, but such a denotation of a person that should speak to the hearts of all the world, that that Ille, that He would proceed thus, we must necessarily have seen an Almighty power in that denotation; But because that denotation might have carried terror in it, being taken alone, therefore we are not left to that, but have a relation to a former name, and specification of the holy Ghost, The Comforter.

For the establishment of Christ's divinity, Christ is called The mighty God; for his relation to us, he hath divers names. As we were all In massa damnata, Forfeited, lost, he is Redemptor, A Redeemer, for that that is past, The Redeemer shall come to Zion, says the Prophet, and so Job saw His Redeemer, one that should redeem him from those miseries that oppressed him. As Christ was pleased to provide for the future, so he is, Salvator, A Savior, Therefore the Angel gave him that name Jesus, For he shall save his people from their sins. So, because to this purpose Christ consists of two natures, God and man, he is called our Mediator, There is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Because he presents those merits which are his, as ours, and in our behalf, he is called an Advocate, If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And because every man is to expect according to his actions, he is called the Judge, We testify that it is he, that is ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. Now, for Christ's first name, which is the root of all, which is, The mighty God, No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the holy Ghost; And there is our first comfort, in knowing that Christ is God; for, he were an Intruder for that which is past, no Redeemer, he were a weak Savior for the future, an insufficient Mediator, a silenced Advocate, and a Judge that might be misinformed, if he were not God. And though he were God, he might be all these to my discomfort, if there were not a holy Ghost to make all these offices comfortable unto me. To be a Redeemer and not a Savior, is but to pay my debts, and leave me nothing to live on. To be a Mediator, a person capable by his composition of two natures, to intercede between God and man, and not to be my Advocate, is but to be a good Counselor, but not of counsel with me; To be a Judge of quick and dead, and to proceed out of outward evidence, and not out of his bosom mercy, is but an acceleration of my conviction; I were better lie in Prison still, then appear at that Assize; better lie in the dust of the grave forever, then come to that judgment. But, as there is Men's in anima, There is a mind in the soul, and every man hath a soul, but every man hath not a mind, that is, a Consideration, an Actuation, an Application of the faculties of the soul to particulars; so there is Spiritus in Spiritu, a Holy Ghost in all the holy offices of Christ, which offices, being, in a great part, directed upon the whole world, are made comfortable to me, by being, by this holy Spirit, turned upon me, and appropriated to me; for so, even that name of Christ, which might most make me afraid, The name of Judge, becomes a comfort to me. To this purpose does S. Baesil call the holy Ghost, Verbum Dei, quia interpres filii: The Son of God is the word of God, because he manifests the Father, and the Holy Ghost is the word of God, because he applies the Son. Christ comes with that loud Proclamation, Ecce auditum fecit, Behold the Lord hath proclaimed it, to the end of the world, Ecce Salvator, and Ecce Merces, Behold his Salvation, Behold thy Reward, (This is his publication in the manifest Ordinances of the Church) And then the Holy Ghost whispers to thy soul, as thou standest in the Congregation, in that voice that he promises, Sibilabo populum meum, I will hiss, I will whisper to my people by soft and inward inspirations. Christ came to tell us all, That to as many as received him, he gave power to become the Sons of God, The Holy Ghost comes to tell thee, that thou art one of them. The Holy Ghost is therefore Legatus, and Legatum Christi, He is Christ's Ambassador sent unto us, and he is his Legacy bequeathed unto us by his Will; his Will made of force by his death, and proved by his Ascension.

Now, when those days were come, that the Bridegroom was to be taken from them, Christ Jesus to be removed from their personal sight, and conversation, and therefore even the children of the marriage Chamber were to mourn, and fast; when that Church that mourned, and lamented his absence, when she was but his Spouse, must necessarily mourn now in a more vehement manner, when she was to be, (in some sense) his Widow; when that Shepherd was not only to be smitten, and so the flock dispersed, (this was done in his passion) but he was to be taken away, in his Ascension; what a powerful Comforter had that need to be, that should be able to recompense the absence of Christ Jesus himself, and to infuse comfort into his Orphans, the children of his marriage Chamber, into his Widow, the desolate, and disconsolate Church, into his flock, his amazed, his distressed, and, (as we may, properly enough, say in this case) his beheaded Apostles and Disciples? Quantus ergo Deus, qui dat Deum? Less then God could not minister this comfort; How great a God is he, that sends a God to comfort us? and how powerful a Comforter he, who is not only sent by God, but is God? Therefore does the Apostle enlarge, and dilate, and delight his soul upon this comfort, Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any affliction, by that comfort, wherewith ourselves are comforted of God. The Apostle was loath to depart from the word, Comfort; And therefore, as God, because he could swear by no greater, sware by himself, So, because there is no stronger adjuration, then the comfort it self, to move you to accept this comfort, as the Apostle did, so we entreat you by that, If there be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellow ship of the Spirit, if any bowels, and mercy, Lay hold upon this true comfort, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and say to all the deceitful comforts of this world, not only Vane consolati est is, Your comforts are frivolous, but Onerosi consolatores, Your comforts are burdensome; there is not only a disappointing of hopes, but an aggravating of sin, in entertaining the comforts of this world. As Barnabas, that is, Filius consolationis, The son of consolation, that he might be capable of this comfort, devested himself of all worldly possessions, so, as such sons, Suck and be satisfied, at the breasts of this consolation, that you may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of his glory; And as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. Heaven is Glory, and heaven is Joy; we cannot tell which most; we cannot separate them; and this comfort is joy in the Holy Ghost. This makes all Job's states alike; as rich in the first Chapter of his Book, where all is suddenly lost, as in the last, where all is abundantly restored. This Consolation from the Holy Ghost makes my mid-night noon, mine Executionera Physician, a stake and pile of Fagots, a Bone-fire of triumph; this consolation makes a Satyr, and Slander, and Libell against me, a Panegyrique, and an Elogy in my praise; It makes a Tolle an Ave, a Va an Euge, a Crucifige an Hosanna; It makes my death-bed, a mariagebed, And my Passing-Bell, an Epithalamion. In this notion therefore we receive this Person, and in this notion we consider his proceeding, Ille, He, He the Comforter, shall reprove.

This word, that is here translated To reprove, Arguere, hath a double use and signification in the Scriptures. First to reprehend, to rebuke, to correct, with Authority, with Severity; So David, Ne in furore arguas me, O Lord rebuke me not in thine dnger: And secondly, to convince, to prove, to make a thing evident, by undeniable inferences, and necessary consequences; So, in the instructions of God's Ministers, the first is To reprove, and then To rebuke; So that reproving is an act of a milder sense, then rebuking is. S. Augustine interprets these words twice in his Works; and in the first place he follows the first signification of the word, That the Holy Ghost should proceed, when he came, by power, by severity against the world. But though that sense will stand well with the first act of this Reproof, (That he shall Reprove, that is, reprehend the world of sin ) yet it will not seem so properly said, To reprehend the world of Righteousness, or of Judgment; for how is Righteonsnesse, and Judgment the subject of reprehension? Therefore S. Augustine himself in the other place, where he handles these words, embraces the second sense, Hoc est arguere mundum, ostendere vera esse, quae non credidit; This is to reprove the world, to convince the world of her errors, and mistakings; And so (scarce any excepted) do all the Ancient Expositors take it, according to that, All things are reproved of the light, and so made manifest; The light does not reprehend them, not rebuke them, not chide, not upbraid them; but to declare them, to manifest them, to make the world see clearly what they are, this is to reprove.

That reproving then, which is warrantable by the Holy Ghost, is not a sharp increpation, a bitter proceeding, proceeding only out of power, and authority, but by enlightening, and informing, and convincing the understanding. The signification of this word, which the Holy Ghost uses here for reproof, Elenchos, is best deduced, and manifested to us, by the Philosopher who had so much use of the word, who expresses it thus, Elenchus est Syllogismus contra contraria opinantem; A reproof, is a proof, a proof by way of argument, against another man, who holds a contrary opinion. All the pieces must be laid together: For, first it must be against an opinion, and then an opinion contrary to truth, and then such an opinion held, insisted upon, maintained, and after all this, the reproof must lie in argument, not in force, not in violence.

First it must come so far, as to be an opinion; which is a middle station, between ignorance, and knowledge; for knowledge excludes all doubting, all hesitation; opinion does not so; but opinion excludes indifferency, and equanimity; I am rather inclined to one side then another, when I am of either opinion. Id opinatur quisque quod nescit: A man may have an opinion that a thing is so, and yet not know it. S. Bernard proposes three ways for our apprehending Divine things; first, understanding, which relies upon reason; faith, which relies upon supreme Authority; and opinion, which relies upon probability, and verisimilitude. Now there may arise in some man, some mistakings, some mis-apprehensions of the sense of a place of Scripture, there may arise some scruple in a case of conscience, there may arise some inclinations to some person, of whose integrity and ability I have otherwise had experience, there may arise some Paradoxicall imaginations in myself, and yet these never attain to the settledness of an opinion, but they float in the fancy, and are but waking dreams; and such imaginations, and fancies, and dreams, receive too much honor in the things, and too much favor in the persons, if they be reproved, or questioned, or condemned, or disputed against. For, often times, even a condemnation nourishes the pride of the author of an opinion; and besides, begets a dangerous compassion, in spectators and hearers; and then, from pitying his pressures and sufferings, who is condemned, men come out of that pity, to excuse his opinions; and from excusing them, to incline towards them; And so that which was but straw at first, by being thus blown by vehement disputation, sets fire upon timber, and draws men of more learning and authority to side, and mingle themselves in these impertinencies. Every fancy should not be so much as reproved, disputed against, or called in question.

As it must not be only a fancy, an imagination, but an opinion, (in which, though there be not a Certo, yet there is a Potiùs, Though I be not sure, yet I do rather think it) so we consider Contraria opinantem, That it must be an opinion contrary to something that we are sure of; that is, to some received article, or to some evident religious duty; contrary to religion, as religion is matter of faith, or as religion is matter of obedience, to lawful Authority. Though fancies grow to be opinions, that men come to think they have reasons for their opinions, and to know they have other men on their side, in those opinions; yet, as long as these are but opinions of a little too much, or a little too little, in matter of Ceremony and Circumstance, as long as they are but deflectings, and deviations upon collateral matters, no foundation shaked, no corner-stone displaced, as long as they are but preteritions, not contradictions, but omissions, not usurpations, they are not worthy of a reproof, of a conviction, and there may be more danger then profit in bringing them into an over-vehement agitation. Those men whose end is schism, and sedition, and distraction, are brought so near their own ends, and the accomplishment of their own desires, if they can draw other men together by the ears: As some have all they desire, if they can make other men drunk, so have these if they can make sober men wrangle.

They must be Opinions, not fancies, and they must have a contrariety, an opposition to certain truths, and then they must be held, persisted in, before it be fit to give a reproof, either by calling in question, or by confutation. As some men are said to have told a lie so often, as that at last, they believe it themselves, so a man admits sometimes an opinion to lodge so long, as that Transit in intellectum, It fastens upon his understanding, and that that he did but think before, now he seems to himself to know it, and he believes it. And then, Fides si habet haesitationem, infirma est, As that faith that admits a scruple is weak, and so, without scruple he comes peremptorily to believe it. But so, Opinio si habet assertionem, temeraria est, When that which is but an opinion comes to be published and avowed for a certain, and a necessary truth, then it becomes dangerous; And that grows apace; for scarcely does any man believe an opinion to be true, but he hath a certain appetite and itch to infuse it into others too.

Now when these pieces meet, when these atoms make up a body, a body of Error, that it come to an Opinion, a half-assurance, and that in something contrary to foundations, and that it be held stiffly, publicly persisted in, then enters this reproof; but yet even then reproof is but Syllogismus, it is but an argument, it is but convincing, it is not destroying; it is not an Inquisition, a prison, a sword, an axe, a halter, a fire; It is a syllogism, not a syllogism, whose major is this, Others, your Ancestors believed it, and the minor this, We that are your Superiors believe it, Ergo you must, or else be banished or burnt. With such syllogisms the Arians abounded, where they prevailed in the Primitive Church, and this is the Logic of the Inquisition of Rome. But our syllogism must be a syllogism within our Authors definition, when out of some things which are agreed on all sides, other things that are controverted, are made evident and manifest. Hell is presented to us by fire, but fire without light: Heaven by light, and light without any ill effect of fire in it. Where there is nothing but an Accuser, (perchance not that) and fire, citation and excommunication, here is Satan, (who is an Accuser, but an invisible one) and here is Hell it self, a devilish and a dark proceeding. But when they, to whom this reproof belongs, take Christ's way, not to tread out smoking flax, that a poor soul, misled by ignorant zeal, and so easily combustible and apt to take fire, be not trodden down with too much power, and passion, when they do not break a bruised reed, that is, not terrify a distracted conscience, which perchance a long ill conversation with schismatical company, and a spiritual melancholy, and over-tender sense of sin hath cast too low before, then does this reproof work aright, when it is brought in with light before fire, with convenient instruction, and not hasty condemnation.

We may well call this Viam Christi, and Viam Spiritus sancti, Christ's way, and the Holy Ghosts way, for he had need be a very good Christian, and a very sanctified man, that can walk in that way; Perfectorum est, nihil in peccatore odisse praeter peccata: He that hates nothing in an Heretic, or in a Schismatic, but the Schism, or the Heresy, He that sets bounds to that sea, and hath said to his affections, and human passions, Stay there, go no farther, hath got far in the steps of Christian perfection. The slipperiness, the precipitation is so great on the other side, that commonly we begin to hate the person first, and then grow glad, when he grows guilty of anything worthy our hate; and we make God himself the Devils instrument, when we pretend zeal to his service, in these reproofs and corrections, and serve only our own impotent passion, and inordinate ambition. For therein Plerumque cum tibi videris odisse inimicum, fratrem odisti, & nescis; Thou thinkest or pretend •• t to hate an enemy, and hatest thine own brother, and knowest it not; Thou knowest not, considerest not, that he, by good usage and instruction, might have been made thy Brother, a fellow-member in the Visible Church, by outward conformity, and in the Invisible too, by inward. Etiam fictilia vasa confringere, Domino soli concessum, If thou be a vessel of gold or silver, and that other of clay, thou of a clear, and rectified, he of a dark and perverted understanding, yet even vessels of clay are only in the power of that Potters hand that made them, or bought them, to break, and no bodies else: Still, as long as it is possible, proceed we with the moderation of that blessed Father, Sic peccata Haereticorum compesce, ut sint quos poeniteat peccasse, Take not away the subject of the error, (the perverseness of the man) so, as that thou take away the subject of repentance, the man himself; If thou require fruit, leave a tree; If thou wouldst have him repent, take not away his life, says he. We see the leisurely pace that God's Justice walks in: When Daniel had told Nebuchadnezzar his danger, yea the Decree of God upon him, (as he calls it) yet he told him a way how to revoke it; by works of mercy to the poor, and breaking off his sins; And after all this, he had a years space to consider himself, before the judgment was executed upon him.

But now beloved, all that we have said, or can be said to this purpose, conduces but to this, That though this reproof, which the Holy Ghost leads us to, be rather in convincing the understanding by argument, and other persuasions then by extending our power to the destruction of the person, yet this hath a modification, how it must be, and a determination where it must end, for, there are cases in which we may, we must go farther. For, for the understanding, we know how to work upon that; we know what arguments have prevailed upon us, with what arguments we have prevailed upon others, and those we can use: so far, Vt nihil habeant contra, & si non assentiantur, That though they will not be of our mind, yet they shall have nothing to say against it. So far we can go upon that faculty, the understanding. But the will of man is so irregular, so unlimited a thing, as that no man hath a bridle upon another's will, no man can undertake nor promise for that; no Creature hath that faculty but man, yet no man understands that faculty. It hath been the exercise of a thousand wits, it hath been the subject, yea the knot and perplexity of a thousand disputations, to find out, what it is that determines, that concludes the will of man so, as that it assents thereunto. For, if that were absolutely true which some have said, (and yet perchance that is as far as any have gone) that Vltimus actus intellectus est voluntas, That the last act of the Understanding is the Will, then all our labor were still to work upon the Understanding, and when that were rectified, the Will must follow. But it is not so; As we feel in ourselves that we do many sins, which our understanding, and the soul of our understanding, our conscience, tells us we should not do, so we see many others persist in errors, after manifest convincing, after all reproof which can be directed upon the understanding.

When therefore those errors which are to be reproved, are in that faculty, which is not subject to this reproof by argument, in a perverted will, because this willful stubbornness is always accompanied with pride, with singularity, with faction, with schism, with sedition, we must remember the way which the Holy Ghost hath directed us in,