commandment out of the Decalogue!

Yea, what evil is there

under heaven, that we can wash our hands of?

But, withal, we are so much the farther off from God, by how much we either were or should have been nearer. Of a people, that knew not God, that could not know him, no other could be expected. Had we had the Gospel of the Kingdom locked up from us, and been kept hood-winked from the knowledge of his royal Law; the times of such ignorance God had not regarded: but now, that we have had so clear a light of God's truth shining in our faces; and such importunate solicitations from God, to reclaim us from our wicked ways, by his messengers, rising early and suing to us; and yet have, as it were, in spite of heaven, continued and aggravated our wickednesses, alas, what excuse is there for us? how can we do other than hang down our heads, in a guilty confusion: and expect a fearful retribution, from the just hand of God?

Thus have we done to God: and, whilst we have gone away from him, hath he done other to us? Hath he not given too just testimonies of withdrawing his countenance from us? Hath he not, for these many years, crossed us in our public designs, both of war and peace? Hath he not threatened to stir up evil against us, out of our own bowels? Nay, which is worse than all this, hath he not given us up to a general security, obduredness, and insensibleness of heart; so as we do not feel either our own sins, or our dangers, or relent at all at his judgments?

Alas, Lord, thou art too far off from us; and we have deserved it: yea, we have too well deserved, that thou shouldest turn thy face away from us for ever; that thou shouldest draw near to us in thy vengeance, who have so shamefully abused thy mercy.

But, what shall we say? whatsoever we be, we know thou wilt be ever thyself; a God of mercy and compassion, long-suffering, and great in kindness and truth. So bad as we are, could we have the grace to draw nigh to thee in an unfeigned repentance, thou wouldst draw nigh to us in mercy and forgiveness: could we turn away from our sins to thee, thou wouldst turn away from thy judgments to us. Lord, what can we do to thee, without thee? Oh, do thou draw us unto thee, that we may come. Do thou enable us to draw nigh unto thee, upon the Feet of our Affections, upon the Hands of our Actions, upon the Knees of our Prayers; that so thou mayest draw nigh to us in thine Ordinances, in thine Audience, in thy Grace and Mercy, in thine Aid and Salvation. All this for thy mercy sake, and for thy Christ's sake: To whom, with thee, O Father, and thy good Spirit, One Infinite God, be given all praise, honour, and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

t

SERMON XXXVI.

THE SIN AND PUNISHMENT OF GRIEVING THE HOLY

SPIRIT:

A SERMON PREACHED ON WHITSUNDAY, JUNE 9, 1644, IN THE GREEN-YARD OF NORWICH.

BY JOSEPH, BISHOP OF NORWICH.

EPH. IV. 30.

And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, by which ye are sealed to the day of Redemption.

It was a rule of some wise heathen of old, That he was a great master of morality, that had learned to govern his tongue, his gut, his concupiscence; these three: and, well might it be so, when Christianity hath so far seconded it, as that the Spirit of God hath singled out one of these for a trial of the rest; He, that offends not with his tongue, is a perfect man; James iii. 2: so as that triplicity is reduced to an unity. And, indeed, if a man have attained to an exact government of this loose and busy film, which we carry in our mouths, it is a great argument of his absolute mastership over himself in the other particulars.

Whereupon it is, that the Apostle hath hedged in my Text, with this charge: before my text, inhibiting all corrupt communication; after it, all bitterness and clamour and evil-speaking; and betwixt both, enforcing this vehement and heavenly dehortation, And grieve not the Holy Spirit: intimating, in the very contexture of the words, that that man can never hold good terms with the Spirit of God, what profession soever he makes, that lets his tongue loose to obscene and filthy communication, or to bitter or spiteful words against his brethren; and, in these words, dissuading us, both from this and all other beforementioned particularities of wickedness, by an argument drawn from unkindness: "Look to it; for, if you shall give way to any of these vicious courses, ye shall grieve the Holy Spirit of God; and that will be a shameful and sinful ingratitude in you, forasmuch as that Holy Spirit hath been so gracious unto you, as to seal you to the day of redemption:" a motive, which, how slight soever it may seem to a carnal heart, and by such a one may be past over and pisht at, in imitation of the careless note of Pharaoh, "Who is the Spirit of God, that I should let my corruptions go?" yet, to a regenerate man, (to such our Apostle writes,) it

is that irresistible force, whereof Nahum speaks, that rends the very rocks before it; Nahum i. 6.

And, indeed, an ingenuous spirit is more moved with this, than with all outward violence. The law of Christ both constrains and restrains him; constrains him to do all good actions, and restrains him from all evil.

The good Patriarch Joseph, when his wanton mistress solicited him to her wicked lust, Behold, saith he, my master hath committed all that he hath to my hand: there is none greater in his house than I; neither hath he kept back anything from me, but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? Gen. xxxix. 8, 9. Wherein, ye see, he hath a double antidote for her poisonous suggestion: the one, his master's favour and trust, which he may not violate; the other, the offence of his God. Joseph knew he could not do this wickedness, but he must bring plagues enough upon his head: but that is not the thing he stands upon so much, as the sin against God. A Pilate will do any thing rather than offend a Cæsar. That word; Thou art not Cæsar's friend, if thou let him go; John xix. 12; strikes the matter dead.

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Thou art not God's friend if thou entertain these sins," cannot but be prevalent with a good heart, and bear him out against all temptations. And this is the force of our Apostle's inference here; who, after the enumeration of that black catalogue of sins, both of the whole man and especially those of the tongue, infers, And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed to the day of redemption.

The Text, you see, is a dehortatory charge to avoid the offence of God. Wherein we have the Act; and the Subject: the ACT, grieve not the SUBJECT; set forth by his Title, by his Merit; his Title, The Holy Spirit of God; his Merit, and our obligation thence arising, By whom ye are sealed to the day of redemption.

I. The SUBJECT is first considerable, both in nature and act: as that, the knowledge and respect whereof doth both most dissuade us from the offence, and aggravate it when it is committed, The Holy Spirit of God: which when we have shortly meditated on apart, we shall join together by the Act inhibited in this holy

dehortation.

That this is particularly to be taken of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, to whom this day is peculiarly devoted, there can be no doubt. For, both the Title is his, The Holy Spirit of God; not absolutely, God, who is a holy spirit; but, The Holy Spirit of God: And the Effect attributed to him is no less proper to him; for, as the contriving of our Redemption is ascribed to the Father, the achieving of it to the Son, so the scaling, confirming and applying of it, to the Holy Ghost. There are many spirits; and those holy; and those of God, as their Creator and Owner: as the innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just men

made perfect; Heb. xii. 22, 23: but this is set forth, as Zanchius notes well, with a double article, Tò Пveûμa Tò âyiov, that Holy Spirit, by a transcendent eminence; by a singularity, as that, which is alone, The Holy Spirit of God.

Now, why the Third Person should specially be denominated a Spirit, a title no less belonging to the Father and the Son, to the whole absolute Deity, as being rather essential than personal; or, why a Holy spirit, since holiness is as truly essential to the other Persons also, as their very being; or, why, being coequal and coessential with God the Father and the Son, he should be called the Spirit of God; though they might seem points incident into the day; yet, because they are catechetical heads, I hold it not so fit to dwell in them, at this time.

Only, by the way, give me leave to say, that it had been happy, both for the Church of England in general, and this Diocese in particular, that these Catechetical Sermons had been more frequent than they have been; as those, which are most useful and necessary for the grounding of God's people in the principles of saving doctrine: and I should earnestly exhort those of my Brethren of the Ministry, that hear me this day, that they would, in these perilous and distractive times, bend their labours this way; as that, which may be most effectual for the settling of the souls of their hearers in the grounds of true religion, that they may not be carried about with every wind of doctrine, av rη Kußeía τŵv ȧvôρwπwv, in the cockboat of men's fancies; as the Apostle speaks. But this by the way.

I shall now only urge so much of the Person, as may add weight to the dehortation from the act, Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God and every notion of it adds a several weight; as a Spirit; as the Spirit of God; as the Holy Spirit of God.

It is a rule not capable of contradiction, That, by how much more excellent the Person, so much more heinous is the offence done to him as to offend an officer, is, in the eye of the law, more than to offend a private subject; a magistrate, more than an inferior officer; a peer, more than a magistrate, for that is Scandalum Magnatum ; a prince, more than a peer; a monarch, more than a prince.

Now, in very nature, a spirit is more excellent than a body. I could send you higher, but, if we do but look into our own breasts, we shall find the difference. There is a spirit in man; saith Elihu; Job xxxii. 8. The spirit of man is as the candle of the Lord; saith wise Solomon; Prov. xx. 27: without which, the whole house is all dark and confused. Now, what comparison is there betwixt the soul, which is a spirit; and the body, which is flesh? Even this, which wise Solomon instanceth in, may serve for all, The spirit of a man sustains his infirmities, but a wounded spirit who can bear? Lo, the body helps to breed infirmities, and the spirit bears them out. To which add, the body,

without the spirit is dead; the spirit, without the body, lives more. It is a sad word of David, when he complains, My bones are vexed; Psalm vi. 2: and cleave to my skin; Psalm cii. 5: yet all this is tolerable, in respect of that, My spirit faileth me; My spirit is overwhelmed within me; my heart within me is desolate; Psalm cxliii. 4. They were sore strokes, that fetched blood of our blessed Saviour: but they were nothing to these inward torments, that wrung from him the bloody sweat in his Agony; when he said, My soul is repivós, heavy unto the death. Could we conceive that the body could be capable of pain without the spirit, (as indeed it is not, since the body feels only by the spirit,) that pain were painless: but this we are sure of, that the spirit feels more exquisite pain without the body in the state of separation from it, than it could feel in the former conjunction with it; and the wrong, that is done to the soul, is more heinous, than that, which can be inflicted on the body.

By how much, then, more pure, simple, perfect, excellent the Spirit is, whom we offend; by so much more grievous is the offence.

To offend the spirit of any Good Man, one of Christ's little ones, is so heinous, that it were better for a man to have a millstone hanged about his neck, and to be cast into the bottom of the sea; Matth. xviii. 6.

To offend an Angel, which is a higher degree of spirituality, is more than to vex the spirit of the best man: Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin: neither say before the Angel, that it was an error; Eccl. v. 6. Hence St. Paul heightens his adjuration to Timothy, I charge thee before the Elect Angels; 1 Tim. v. 21: and, giving order for the decent demeanour of the Corinthian women in the congregation, requires, That They should have power on their head, because of the Angels; 1 Cor. xi. 10.

To offend therefore the God of Spirits, the Father of these Spiritual Lights, must needs be an infinite aggravation of the sin: even so much more, as He is above those his best creatures. And there cannot be so much distance, betwixt the poorest worm that crawls on the earth and the most glorious archangel of heaven; as there is, betwixt him and his Creator. One would think now, there could be no step higher than this. Yet there

is. Our Saviour hath so taught us to distinguish of sins, that he tells us, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven; Matt. xii. 31: and Mark iii. 29.

Not that we can sin against one person and not offend another; for their essence is but one: but this sin is singled out, for a special obstruction of forgiveness, for that it is done against the illumination and influence of that grace, whereof the Holy Ghost is the immediate giver and worker in the soul, who is therefore called the Spirit of Grace. Hereupon is Stephen's challenge to