either it must be a private or public. If it be private, it can but be useful to himself alone, and it may cozen him too, if it be not assisted by the spirit of a public man. But if it be a public spirit, it must enter in at the public door of ministerings and Divine ordinances, of God's grace and man's endeavour; it must be subject to the prophets; it is discernible and judicable by them, and, therefore, may be rejected, and then it must pretend no longer. For he that will pretend to an extraordinary spirit, and refuses to be tried by the ordinary ways, must either prophesy, or work miracles, or must have a voice from heaven to give him testimony. The prophets in the Old Testament, and the apostles in the New, and Christ between both, had no other way of extraordinary probation; and they that pretend to any thing extraordinary, cannot, ought not to be believed, unless they have something more than their own word: " If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true," said Truth itself, our blessed Lord. But, secondly, they that intend to teach by an extraordinary spirit, if they pretend to teach according to Scripture, must be examined by the measures of Scripture, and then their extraordinary must be judged by the ordinary spirit, and stands or falls by the rules of every good man's religion, and public government; and then we are well enough. But if they speak any thing against Scripture, it is the spirit of Antichrist, and the spirit of the devil: "For if an angel from heaven" (he certainly is a spirit)" preach any other doctrine, let him be accursed." But this pretence of a single and extraordinary spirit is nothing else but the spirit of pride, error, and delusion; a snare to catch easy and credulous souls, which are willing to die for a gay word and a distorted face; it is the parent of folly and giddy doctrine, impossible to be proved, and, therefore, useless to all purposes of religion, reason, or sober counsels; it is like an invisible colour, or music without a sound; it is, and indeed is so intended to be, a direct overthrow of order, and government, and public ministries: it is bold to say any thing, and resolved to prove nothing; it imposes upon willing people after the same manner that oracles and the lying demons did of old time, abusing men, not by proper efficacy of its own, but because the men loye to be abused: it is a great disparagement to the sufficiency of Scripture, and asperses the Divine Providence, for giving so many ages of the church an imperfect religion, expressly against the truth of their words, who said, they had declared the whole truth of God,' and told all the will of God:' and it is an affront to the Spirit of God, the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge, of order, and public ministries. But the will furnishes out malice, and the understanding sends out levity, and they marry, and produce a fantastic dream; and the daughter, sucking wind instead of the milk of the word,' grows up to madness, and the spirit of reprobation. Besides all this, an extraordinary spirit is extremely unnecessary; and God does not give emissions and miracles from heaven to no purpose, and to no necessities of his church; for the supplying of which he hath given apostles and evangelists, prophets and pastors, bishops and priests, the spirit of ordination and the spirit of instruction, catechists and teachers, arts and sciences, Scriptures, and a constant succession of expositors, the testimony of churches, and a constant line of tradition, or delivery of apostolical doctrine, in all things necessary to salvation. And, after all this, to have a fungus arise from the belly of mud and darkness, and nourish a glow-worm, that shall challenge to outshine the lantern of God's word, and all the candles which God set upon a hill, and all that the Spirit hath set upon the candlesticks, and all the stars of Christ's right hand, is to annul all the excellent, established, orderly, and certain effects of the Spirit of God, and to worship the false fires of the night. He, therefore, that will follow a guide that leads him by an extraordinary spirit, shall go an extraordinary way, and have a strange fortune, and a singular religion, and a portion by himself, a great way off from the common inheritance of the saints, who are all led by the Spirit of God, and have one heart and one mind, one faith and one hope, the same baptism, and the helps of the ministry, leading them to the common country, which is the portion of all that are the sons of adoption, consigned by the Spirit of God, the earnest of their inheritance. Concerning the pretence of a private spirit for interpretation of the confessed doctrine of God, (the holy Scriptures,) it will not so easily come into this question of choosing our spiritual guides; because every person that can be candidate in this office, that can be chosen to guide others, must be a public man, that is, of a holy calling, sanctified or separate publicly to the office; and then to interpret is part of his calling and employment, and to do so is the work of a public spirit; he is ordained and designed, he is commanded and enabled to do it: and in this there is no other caution to be interposed, but that the more public the man is, of the more authority his interpretation is; and he comes nearer to a law of order, and in the matter of government is to be observed; but the more holy and the more learned the man is, his interpretation in matter of question is more likely to be true; and, though less to be pressed as to the public confession, yet it may be more effective to a private persuasion, provided it be done without scandal, or lessening the authority, or disparagement to the more public person. 8. Those are to be suspected for evil guides, who, to get authority among the people, pretend a great zeal, and use a bold liberty in reproving princes and governors, nobility and prelates; for such homilies cannot be the effects of a holy religion, which lay a snare for authority, and undermine power, and discontent the people, and make them bold against kings, and immodest in their own stations, and trouble the government. Such men may speak a truth, or teach a true doctrine; for every such design does not unhallow the truth of God: but they take some truths, and force them to minister to an evil end. But, therefore, mingle not in the communities of such men; for they will make it a part of your religion, to prosecute that end openly, which they, by arts of the tempter, have insinuated privately. But if ever you enter into the seats of those doctors that speak reproachfully of their superiors, or detract from government, or love to curse the king in their heart, or slander him with their mouths, or disgrace their person, bless yourself and retire quickly; for there dwells the plague, but the Spirit of God is not president of the assembly. And, therefore, you shall observe in all the characters which the blessed apostles of our Lord made for describing and avoiding societies of heretics, false guides, and bringers in of strange doctrines,—still they reckon treason and rebellion. So St. Paul: "In the last days perilous times shall come; then men shall have the form of godliness, and deny the power of it; they shall be traitors, heady, high-minded;" that is the characteristic note. So St. Peter: "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government; presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities."-The same also is recorded and observed by St. Jude: "Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities." These three testimonies are but the declaration of one great contingency; they are the same prophecy, declared by three apostolical men that had the gift of prophecy; and by this character the Holy Ghost in all ages hath given us caution to avoid such assemblies, where the speaking and ruling man shall be the canker of government, and a preacher of sedition, who shall either ungird the prince's sword, or unloose the button of their mantle. 9. But the apostles in all these prophecies have remarked lust to be the inseparable companion of these rebel prophets : "They are filthy dreamers, they defile the flesh," so St. Jude; "They walk after the flesh, in the lust of uncleanness," so St. Peter; "They are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, incontinent and sensual," so St. Paul. And by this part of the character, as the apostles remarked the Nicolaitans, the Gnostics, the Carpocratians, and all their impure branches, which began in their days, and multiplied after their deaths; so they prophetically did fore-signify all such sects to be avoided, who, to catch silly women laden with sins, preach doctrines of ease and licentiousness, apt to countenance and encourage vile things, and not apt to restrain a passion, or mortify a sin:-such as these: that God sees no sin in his children; that no sin will take us from God's favour; that all of such a party are elect people; that God requires of us nothing but faith; and that faith which justifies is nothing but a mere believing that we are God's chosen; that we are not tied to the law of commandments; that the law of grace is a law of liberty, and that liberty is to do what we list; that divorces are to be granted upon many and slight causes; that a 2 Tim. iii. 1, &c. b 2 Pet. ii. 9, 10. < Jude, 5. 8. simple fornication is no sin. These are such doctrines, that upon the belief of them men may do any thing, and will do that which shall satisfy their own desires, and promote their interests, and seduce their she-disciples. And, indeed, it was not without great reason that these three apostles joined lust and treason together; because the former is so shameful a crime, and renders a man's spirit naturally averse to government, that if it falls upon the person of a ruler, it takes from him the spirit of government, and renders him diffident, pusil lanimous, private, and ashamed: if it happen in the person of a subject, it makes him hate the man that shall shame him and punish him; it hates the light and the sun, because that opens him, and, therefore, is much more against government, because that publishes and punishes too. One thing I desire to be observed, that though the primitive heresies now named, and all those others, their successors, practised and taught horrid impurities, yet they did not invade government at all; and, therefore, those sects that these apostles did signify by prophecy, and in whom both these are concentered,—were to appear in some later times, and the days of the prophecy were not then to be fulfilled. What they are since, every age must judge by its own experience, and for its own interest. But Christian religion is so pure and holy, that chastity is sometimes used for the whole religion; and to do an action chastely signifies purity of intention, abstraction from the world, and separation from low and secular ends, the virginity of the soul, and its union with God; and all deviations and estrangements from God, and adhesion to forbidden objects, is called fornication and adultery. Those sects, therefore, that teach, encourage, or practise impious or unhallowed mixtures, and shameful lusts, are issues of the impure spirit, and most contrary to God, who can behold no unclean thing. 10. Those prophets and pastors, that pretend severity and live loosely, or are severe in small things, and give liberty in greater, or forbid some sins with extreme rigour, and yet practise or teach those that serve their interest or constitute their sect, are to be suspected and avoided accordingly: "Nihil est hominum inepta persuasione falsius, nec ficta severitate ineptius." All ages of the church were extremely -- a Eloquia Domini casta eloquia, |