Works, Book 1 · Discourse 2
DISCOURSE II.
MATTHEW 6. 9. LUKE 11. 2.
Sanctificetur Nomen tuum. Sanctified, or Hallowed, be thy Name.
ALthough I make no question but that which we so often repeat unto Almighty God in our daily prayers, is for the general meaning thereof by the most of us in some competent measure understood: yet because by a morefull and distinct explication the knowledge of some may be improved, and the meditations of others occasioned to a further search; I hope I shall not do amiss, nor be thought to have chosen a Theme either needless or not so fit for this Auditory, If I shall enquire What that is we pray for in this first Petition of the Prayer our Lord hath taught us, when we desire that God's Name may be sanctified: For perhaps we shall find more contained therein than is commonly taken notice of.
The words are few, and therefore shall need no other Analyse than what their very number presents unto us,Matth. 6. 9. Luke 11. 2. viz. God's Name, and the sanctifying thereof; Sanctificetur Nomen tuum. I will begin first with the last in order, but first in nature, Nomen tuum, God's Name. By which, according to the style of Holy Scripture, we are to understand in this place, First of all, God himself, or His sacred Deity, to wit, abstractly expressed, according to the style of eminency and dignity, that is, Dei foreign, the Divine Majesty: as we are wont for the King to say, His Majesty, or the King's Majesty, and of other persons of honour and eminency, their Highness, their Honour, his Excellency, and the like; so of God, His Name, and sometimes, with the self-same meaning, His Glory; as Ier. 2. 11. Hath any nation changed their Gods, which yet are no Gods? but my people have changed their Glory (that is, their God) for that which is good for nought. So Psalm 106. 20. of the Calf made in the wilderness, They changed their Glory into the similitude of an Oxe that eateth grass: And S. Paul, Rom. 1. 23. They changed the Glory (that is, the Majesty) of the incorruptible God into an Image made like to corruptible man, &c. Such is the notion, but much more frequent, of God's Name. In a word, Nomen Dei in this kind of use is nothing else but Divinum Numen. Whence it is that in Scripture, to call upon the Name of God, to blaspheme the Name of God, to love his Name, to swear by his Name, to build a Temple to his Name, for his Name to dwell there; and in the New Testament, to believe in the Name of the Lord Iesus, to call upon the Name of the Lord Iesus; these, I say, and the like expressions have no other meaning, than to do these things to the Divine Majesty, to the Lord Iesus, whose is that Name above every name, whereat every knee must bow. Accordingly here, Sanctisicetur Nomen tuum, Hallowed be thy Name, is as much as to say, Sanctificetur Numen tuum, Sanctified be thy Divine Majesty.
Secondly, Under the Name of God here to be sanctified or hallowed, understand, besides the Majesty of his Godhead, that also super quod invocatum est Nomen ejus, whereupon his Name is called, or that which is called by his Name, (as we in our Bibles commonly express this phrase of Scripture;) that is, all whatsoever is God's, or God is the Lord and owner of by a peculiar right; such as are Things sacred, whether they be Persons, or whether Things by distinction so called, or Times, or Places, which have upon them a relation of peculiarness towards God. For such as these are said in Scripture, to have the Name of God called upon them, or to be called by his Name; that is, to be His. Thus we read in Scripture of an House which had the Name of God upon it, or which was called by his Name, that is, God's House, 1 Kings 8. 43. Ier. 7. 10, &c. Of a City upon which the Name of God was called or named, to wit, the Holy City, Ierusalem, the City of the great King, the Lord of hosts, Ier. 25. 29. Dan. 9. 18. Of an Ark upon which the Name of God the Lord was called, 1 Chron. 13. 6. 2 Sam. 6. 2. that is, the Lord's Ark, or the Ark of his Covenant, as it is elsewhere named. Of a People upon which the Name of the Lord was called, or which were called by his Name, Deut. 28. 10. Dan. 9. 19. and elsewhere; that is, were his peculiar and holy people; as is said in like manner, and with like meaning, of the Church of the New Testament, Iames 2. 7. Acts 15. 17. I represent not these places of Scripture at large, because I know that every ear that is acquainted with Scripture can bear witness unto them. And for the meaning of this expression of God's Name to be called upon a thing, or a thing to be called by his Name, that it is all one as to say it to be His, (besides the evidence of the matter whereabout it is used,) appears by the same phrase used in two other places, of the like relation of men to that which is theirs: as Gen. 48. 16. where Iacob blessing Ioseph's sons saith, The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads, and let my name be called upon them; that is, let them be mine, namely, as Reuben and Simeon are mine, as he saith a little before; for they are words of adoption. Again, in the 4. of Esay 1. where it is said, that seven women should take hold of one man, and say, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel, only let thy Name be called upon us, to take away our reproach; that is, Do thou own us, or let us be thine, that it may not be a reproach unto us that we have no husband. The Ancients were wont to set the Names of the Owners upon their houses and other possessions; which they called Tituli, Titles. Chrysologus Serm. 145. Sicut dominos praediorum liminibus affixi Tituli proloquuntur, As the Titles fixed to doors do speak the owners of the possessions. S. Augustine in Psal. 21. Quando potens aliquis invenerit Titulos suos, nonne jure rem sibi vendicat, & dicit, Non poneret titulos meos, nisi res mea esset? When any great man shall spy his own Titles, does he not justly challenge the goods, and say, No man would put my Titles to it, unless the thing were mine? Whether this phrase of Scripture, of God's Name to be called or named upon a thing, hath reference unto any such custom, I cannot affirm; but surely the meaning is the same, to wit; that God is the Lord and Proprietary of them. And thus ye have heard what is this Name of God we pray here to be sanctified; to wit, a twofold Name, first, his Name and Majesty which we call upon; secondly, that also which is called by his Name: The first we may call his Personal, the other his Denominative or Participated Name.
HAVING learned what Nomen Dei importeth, and so cleared the Object of what we pray for; let us next enquire what that is which the word Sanctifie, or To be sanctified, implieth, being that which our vote witnesseth ought to be done thereunto. And this I intended for the main and principal Argument of my present Discourse, being a matter not so well traced as the former, and perhaps not altogether freed of obscurity and difficulty to be understood.
For our more certain and assured discovery whereof, we will first examine the abstract thereof, Sanctity, and find out the true notion of it, namely, what is the ratio formalis, the formal state or nature of that which the Scripture entituleth in the general foreign or foreign, that is, Holy; not regarding what notion the Greeks or Latines had respect to in their Languages, but what the Holy Scripture properly intendeth under that name. For because to be sanctified can have but these two senses, either to be made holy, or to be used and done unto according to, or as becometh, its holiness; and that the Majesty of God, which is the prime object of this Act, is not capable of the first sense (viz. to be made holy) but of the second only: if we therefore once rightly understand what is the condition and property of Sanctity according to the notion of Scripture, we shall not be long ignorant what it is either for the Name or Majesty of God, or that which is called by his Name, to be hallowed or sanctified, namely, to be done unto according to their Holiness.
Now R. David Kimchi upon the 56 of Esay, ver. 2. Blessed is the man that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, hath these words, foreign To sanctifie the Sabbath is to separate or distinguish it from other days; foreign Because all words of Sanctity import a thing separated or divided from other things by way of preeminence or excellency. Thus the Rabbi. And that this which he saith is true, namely, That Sanctity consists in a discretion and distinction from other things by way of exaltation and preeminence, may appear by these instances and examples which I shall now produce out of Scripture.
And first from that Law touching the Holy oyl, Exod. 30. 31. where, after the composition thereof described, This (saith the Lord) shall be an holy anointing Oyl unto me. What is that? why, it follows, v. 32. VponUpon mans flesh shall it not be poured, neither shall ye make any other like it, after the composition thereof. It is Holy, therefore it shall be Holy unto you. That is, As this Oyl is holy and discrete from other Oyls, so shall it accordingly by you be used with difference and discrimination: For the Text goes on v. 33. Whosoever compoundeth any like it, or putteth any of it upon a stranger, (that is, upon any besides those it was appropriated to,) shall be cut off from his people. What else means all this, but that this Oyl should be a singular or peculiar Oyl, set apart and distinguished from all other Oyls both in its composition and use; and that to be such, was to be Holy or Sacred.
The like we shall find in the 35. verse of the same Chapter, concerning the Holy Persume there described: Thou shalt make it, saith he, (to wit, the ingredients he afore mentioned) a persume, a consection, after the art of the Apothecary, tempered together, pure and Holy. Verse 37. You shall not make to your selves (that is, not for your own use) according to the composition thereof: It shall be unto thee Holy for the Lord. Ver. 38. Whosoever shall make the like unto it, to smellthereto, shall be cut off from his people.
But above all others this notion of Sanctity or Holiness is most expresly intimated and taught us in those divine Periphrases or circumlo…tions which the Lord himself more than once makes of an Holy People: as Lev. 20. 24. speaking on this manner; I am the Lord your God which have separated you from other people.—Ver. 26. And ye shall be Holy unto me: for I the Lord am Holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine. Mark here, that to separate is to make Holy; and that to be Holy is to be separated from others of the same rank. Again, Deut. 26. 18, 19. The Lord hath avouched thee (to wit, Israel) this day to be his peculiar (or appropriate) people, as he hath promised thee:—And to make thee high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, in name, and in honour; namely, that thou may est be an Holy people unto the Lord thy God, as he hath spoken. Now what is this but Rabbi Kim…hi's definition almost verbatim? that to be sacred or Holy is to be separated or set apart from other things by way of excellence; or, which is all one, to be set in some state of singularity or appropriatedness, whereby it is advanced above the common condition of things of the same order. He that will, may compare also two other passages, Deut. 7. 6. & 14. 2. parallel to those I have produced; where to be an Holy, and to be a Peculiar people, are made one and the same, or the one expounded by the other.
It may be yet further confirmed by comparing Deut. 19. 2, 7. with Ioshuah 20. 7. For whereas in the former of these places it is said concerning the Cities of refuge, Thou shalt separate, foreign, three Cities for thee in the midst of thy land: in Ioshuah, where this commandment is put in execution, we read in stead of separated, foreign, i. they sanctified three Cities, Kedesh, Shechem, and Hebron. Where that the one is equivalent to the other, the Seventy so well understood, that even in this place of Ioshuah, for foreign, which is, Sanctificârunt they sanctified, they rendred*By which they are wont otherwise to render the verb foreign foreign, separârunt, or discreverunt, they separated or set apart.
The same notion of Holiness may be gathered from the Antithesis or opposite thereunto, to wit, Vnholy, or Vnclean, which the Scripture is wont to express by the name of Common. So S. Peter in his Vision, Acts 10. 14. Lord, saith he, I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean, foreign. For know, that because that which is Holy ought to be kept pure and clean; or rather, because Cleanness imports a separation from filth, as Holiness doth from common; thence Clean and Holy, and so also Vnholy and Vnclean, are used the one for the other: whence 1 Cor. 7. 14. Vnclean and Holy are opposed. But to go on; the voice from heaven answers S. Peter in the same language v. 15. What God hath cleansed, (that is, sanctified,) foreign, account not thou common. So in 1 Mac. 1. 47. foreign are unclean beasts; and v. 62. foreign, to eat unclean things.
The like Antithesis of Holy and Common is to be found Heb. 10. 29. where the Apostle saith of a Believer or Christian that lives an ungodly and wicked life, He hath troden under foot the Son of God, and counted the bloud of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified, foreign, as a common thing; that is, he had profaned it. Our translation rendreth it an unholy thing; the opposition thereof to sanctified witnessing that to be the meaning. Now then, if to be Vnholy or Vnclean be to be Common; surely it follows by the Law of opposition, that to be Holy is to be separated from the common, or to be singular and appropriate in some manner or other.
Lastly, it is to be observed, that whereas in the Law given Numbers 6. concerning the Vow of Nazarisme (which word signifies separation, of Nazar, to separate) the words, to separate, and separation, come very often in the Text; the vulgar Latin renders for them above ten times, consecrare, consecratio, sanctificare, and sanctificatio: which shews,As the …. once or twice in this place, and e…w…re sometime… render the same word. that this notion, namely, that Holiness consists in a state of separation, is no new conceit, but such as Antiquity took notice of.
The nature of Holiness, wherein it consisteth, according to the idiome of Scripture, being thus found out and cleared, that which was aimed at in this inquisition, to wit, what the same meaneth by to sanctifie, and to be sanctified, will be no hard matter to resolve. For Sanctity and to sanctifie being Conjugates or Denominatives, as Logicians call them; the one openeth the way to the knowledge of the other. If therefore Sanctity or Holiness be a condition of discretion and distinction from other things, as we have shewed it to be; then to sanctifie must either be to put a thing into that state, which we call, to consecrate; or if it be such already, to use and do unto it as becomes the sanctity thereof: that is, haberè cum discrimin…, to put a difference between it and other things by way of excellency, or in a dignîfying wise, by appropriating and severing it in the use thereof from things of ordinary and common rank; or, which is all one, to use it singularly, appropriately, and, in a word, uncommonly. For not to use it so, it being such, were to abuse it, which the Scripture cals to prophane; to sanctifie and to prophane being opposites. Whence Ezek. 22. 26. to prophane is expounded by not putting a difference: The Priests (saith the Lord) have violated my Law, and have prophaned my holy things; they have put no difference between the holy and prophane.
This to be to sanctifie, all the places almost which I have alledged out of the Law for the notion and nature of sanctity do apparently proclaim: for the one is so nearly linked to the other, that they could not well be separated. Thus was Israel, God's holy people, to sanctifie themselves by a discriminative manner of living or usance, because the Lord their God had discriminated or separated them from other people. So Lev. 20. 24, 25, 26. I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people. Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowles and clean: And ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean. But ye shall be holy unto me; for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.
After the same manner were the Holy Oyntment and the Holy Perfume or Incense to be sanctified by a discriminative, singular, appropriate usance of them, and not to be used as other Oyntments and Per…umes: to wit, the one not to be poured upon mans flesh, nor the other used for mans smelling unto; yea none of the like composition to the one or the other to be made for any prophane or common use, upon pain of his being cut off from his people who should dare to do it. That is, not the particular or Individuum only, but even the whole kind of that composition was to be accounted sacred: otherwise this caution needed not; since for the Individual, all sacred things ought to be appropriate and incommunicable in their use.
And to this notion it is not altogether improbable but the Apostle may allude, 1 Cor. 11. 29. when he expresseth the prophanation of the Holy Supper in coming to it, and using it as a common banquet, by foreign, not differencing the Lord's body; that is, not sanctifying it, or using it as became so holy a thing.
HITHERTO I have considered the words of my Text apart: but now let us put them again together, and see How the Name of God ought to be Sanctified in the manner now specified, both in it self, and in the things which it is called upon; as in the beginning I distinguished. For the better understanding of which, we are to take notice of a twofold Holiness; one Original, Absolute, and Essential in God; the other Derived or Relative in the things which are His, properly (according to the use of the Latin) called Sacra, Sacred things. Both these have their several and distinct Sanctifications belonging unto them. For whatsoever is Holy, ought to be sanctified, according to the condition and proportion of the Holiness it hath.
To speak of them distinctly. The first, Original or Absolute Holiness, is nothing else but the incommunicable Eminency of the Divine Majesty, exalted above all, and divided from all other foreign or Eminencies whatsoever. For that which a man takes to be, and makes account of as, his God, (whether it be such indeed, or by him fancyed only) he ascribes unto it, …in so doing, a condition of Eminency above, and distinct from all other Eminencies whatsoever, that is of Holiness. Hence it comes that we find the Lord the God of Israel, and the only true God, in Scripture so often styled Sanctus Israelis, the Holy One of Israel, that is, Israel's most Eminent and Incommunicable One, or, which is all one, His God: as namely Psal. 89. 18. The Lord is our defence, the HOLY ONE of Israel is our King. Esay 17. 7. At that day shall a man look unto his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the HOLY ONE of Israel. Habak. 1. 12. Art not thou from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine HOLY ONE? Agreeably whereunto the Lord is said also now and then to swear by his HOLINESS, that is, by Himself: as in the Psalm before alledged v. 35. Once have I sworn by my HOLINESS, that I will not lie unto David, &c. Amos 4. 2. The Lord God hath sworn by his HOLINESS, that lo, the dayes shall come upon you that he will take you away with hooks, &c. According to this sense I suppose also that of Amos 8. 7. is… to be understood; The Lord hath sworn by the Excellency of Iacob (that is Iacob's most Eminent and Incommunicable One,See Esay. 24. 14. or by Iacob's HOLY ONE) Surely I will never forget any of their works, &c. For indeed the Gods of the Nations were not properly and truly Holy, Micah 4. 3.because but partially and respectively only; forasmuch as the Divine eminency which they were supposed to have was, even in the opinion of those who worshipped them, common to others with them, and so not discriminated from, nor exalted above all: But the God of Israel was simply and absolutely such, both in himself and to them-ward who worshipped him, as who might acknowledge no other; and therefore foreign, and by way of distinction from all other Gods, called Sanctus Israelis, The Holy One of Israel; that is, that sole absolute and only incommunicable One, or foreign (as the Author of the Book of Wisdome calls him, chap. 14. 21.) That God exalted above all, and divided from all, without pareil; there being no other such besides him. There is none holy as the Lord, (saith Hannah) for there is none besides thee; 1 Sam. 2. 2.[Lxx.*foreign. none Holy besides thee;] neither is there any Rock like our God. Wherefore it is to be observed, that although the Scripture every where vouchsafes the Gentiles Daemons the name of Gods; yet it never, I think, calls them Holy Ones, as indeed they were not. Thus you see that as Holiness in general imports a state of eminency and separation; so this of God, as I have described it, disagrees not from that general notion, when I affirm it to consist in a state of peerless or incommunicable Majesty: for that which is such, includes both the one and the other. But would you understand it yet better? Apply it then to his Attributes whereby he is known unto us, and know that The Lord is Holy, is as much as to say, He is a Majesty of peerless Power, of peerless Wisdom, of peerless Goodness, and so of the rest. Such a one is our God, and such is his Holiness.
Now then to Sanctifie this peerless Name or Majesty of his must be by doing unto him according to that which his Holiness challengeth in respect of the double importance thereof: namely, to serve and glorifie him, because of his Eminency; and to do it with a singular, separate, and incommunicated worship, because he is Holy. Not to do the former is Irreligion and Atheism, as not to acknowledg God to be the Chief and Soveraign Eminency; not to observe the second is Idolatry. For as the Lord our God is a singular and peerless Majesty, distinguished from and exalted above all things and eminencies else whatsoever; so must his Worship be singular, incommunicable, and proper to him alone. Otherwise,Iosh. 24. 19. (saith Ioshnah to the people) Ye cannot serve the Lord. Why? For (saith he) He is an Holy God, He is a jealous God, (that can endure no corrival,) He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. I… ye forsake the Lord and serve strange gods, &c.
Whence in Scripture, those who communicate the Worship given unto him with any besides him, or together with him, by way of Object, that is, whether immediately or but mediately, are deemed to deny his incomparable Sanctity, and therefore said to prophane his Holy Name. See Ezek. 20. 39. and chap. 43. 7, 8. Levit. 18. 21.
In a word; All that whole immediate Duty and Service which we ow unto God, whether inward or outward, contained under the name of Divine Worship, (when either we confess, praise, pray unto, call upon or swear by his Name) yea all the Worship both of men and Angels, is nothing else but to acknowledg in thought, word and work, this peerless preeminence of his Power, of his Wisdom, of his Goodness and other Attributes, that is, His Holiness; by ascribing and giving unto him that which we give and ascribe to none besides him, that is, to sanctifie his most Holy Name. This is that the Holy Ghost would teach us, when describing how the Seraphims worship and glorifie God, Esay 6. 3. he brings them in crying one unto another, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory; that is, Sanctifying him. From whence is derived that which we repeat every day in the Hymne, To thee all Angels cry aloud, the heavens and all the powers therein; To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabbaoth; Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of thy Glory.
And because the pattern of God's holy worship is not to be taken from Earth, but from Heaven; the same Spirit therefore in the Apocalyps expresseth the Worship of God in the New Testament with the same form of hallowing or holying his Name which the heavenly Host useth. For so the four Animalia, representing the Catholick Church of Christ in the four quarters of the world, are said when they give glory, honour and thanks to him that sitteth upon the throne and liveth for ever and ever, to do it by singing day and night this Trisagium,Apoc. 4. 18. Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come: that is, the sum of all that they did was but to agnize his Sanctity or Holiness, or, which is all one, to Sanctifie his holy Name. When therefore the same four Animalia are afterwards brought in chanting, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain,Ch. 5. 12. to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing; and again, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever: V. 13.all is to be understood as comprehended within this general Doxologie, as being but an exemplification thereof; and therefore the Elogies or blazons mentioned therein, to be taken, according to the style of Holiness, in an exclusive sense, of such prerogatives as are peculiar to God alone.
And according to this notion of sanctifying God's Name which I contend for, would the Lord have his Name sanctified,As Gen. 31. 42, 53. Esa. 8. 12, 13. when he saith, Fear ye not their Fear (that is, the Idolaters foreign or Gods; for so Fear here signifies, to wit, the thing feared) neither dread ye it:Psal. 76. 11. but sanctifie the Lord of Hosts himself,So the Chaldee uses their foreign, and more than once renders I A H the name of God by it. and let him be your Fear, and let him be your Dread, that is, your God.
Again chap. 29. 23. They shall sanctifie my Name, (saith he) even sanctifie the Holy One of Iacob, and shall fear the God of Israel. The latter words shew the meaning of the former.
The like we have in the first Epistle of S. Peter chap. 3. vers. 14, 15. foreign (i. Gentilium) foreign, &c. Fear ye not their Fear, nor be in dread thereof: (that is, Fear not nor dread ye the Gods of the Gentiles which persecute you) But sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts, that is, Fear and worship him with your whole hearts. For that this passage (howsoever we are wont to expound it) ought to be construed in the same sense with that of Esay 8. before alledged, and the words to be rendred sutably, I take it to be apparent for this reason, because they are verbatim taken from thence; as he that shall compare the Greek words of S. Peter with the Lxx. in that place of Esay, will be forced to confess.
Besides this evident and express use of the word Sanctifie, in the notion of religious and holy worship and fear of the Divine Majesty, there is yet another expression sometimes used in Holy Scripture which implieth the self-same thing; that, namely, to worship God with that which we call holy and divine worship, is all one with to agnize his holiness, or to sanctifie his Name. Those speeches, I mean, wherein we are exhorted to worship the Lord, because he is Holy. As Psal. 99. 5. Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship at his foot-stool; for he is Holy. Again, in the end of the Psalm, Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy hill; for the Lord our God is Holy. The same meaning is yet more emphatically expressed by those that sing the Song of victory over the Beast, Apoc. 15. 3, 4. Great (say they) and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy wayes, thou King of Nations. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorifie thy Name? foreign *So Editio Compl…. Andrea…, & Exempl. 15.foreign, (for that I believe is the true reading, not foreign) thou only art Holy; therefore all the Nations shall come and worship before thee: that is, they shall relinquish their Idols and plurality of Gods, and worship thee as God only. For this was the Doctrine both of Moses in the Old Testament, and of Christ Iesus the Lamb of God in the New; That one God only, that made the heaven and the earth, was to be acknowledged and worshipped, and with an incommunicable worship. In respect whereof, as I take it, these Victors are there said to sing the Song of Moses, and the Lamb, that is, a gratulatory Song of the worship of one God, after that his *foreign jur….Ordinances were made manifest. For otherwise the Ditty is borrowed from the 86. Psalm, the 8, 9, and 10. verses, where we read, Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord, neither are there any works like unto thy works. All Nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord, and shall glorifie thy Name. For thou art great, and dost wondrous works: Thou art God alone; that is, Thou only art Holy. Compare Ier. 10. ver. 6, 7.
I have one thing more to adde before I finish this part of my Discourse, lest I might leave unsatisfied that which may perhaps seem to some to weaken this my explication of the sanctification of God's Name. For the word, to sanctifie, or be sanctified, is sometimes used of God in a more general sense than that I have hitherto specified, namely, as signifying any way to be glorified, or to glorifie; as when he saith, He will be sanctified in the destruction of his enemies, or in the deliverance of his people, and that before the Heathen, and the like; that is, he would purchase him glory, or be glorified thereby. I answer, It is true, that to be sanctified is in these passages to be glorified; but yet alwayes to be glorified as God, and not otherwise. Namely, when God by the works of his Power, of his Mercy, or Iustice extorts from men the confession of his great and holy Godhead, he is then said to sanctifie, or make himself to be sanctified amongst them, that is, to be glorified and honoured by their conviction and acknowledgment of his Power and Godhead. For although men may be also said to glorifie, or purchase honour unto themselves, when by their noble acts they make their abilities and worth known unto the world: yet, for such respect, to be said to be sanctified, is peculiar unto him alone whose Glory is his Holiness, that is, unto God.
THUS we have learned How the Name or Majesty of God is to be sanctified personally or in it self; which is the chiefest thing we pray for, and ought so to be in our endeavour; namely, To worship and glorifie him incommunicably, according to his most eminent and unparallel'd Holiness: and so, ô Lord, Hallowed be thy Name. But there is another Sanctification or Hallowing of God's Name yet behind, which must be joyned therewith; which is, To sanctifie him also in the things which have his Name upon them, that is, are separate and dedicate to his service, or, in a word, which are His, namely, by a peculiar relation. For otherwise it is true, The whole earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof, the World and those that dwell therein. But there are some things His not as other things are, and so as they are no longer Ours; such as according to the style of Scripture (as I have already noted) are said to be called by his Name, or to have his Name called upon them. These are things sacred. Therefore I told you before of a twofold Sanctity or Holiness: the one Original, Absolute, and Essential in God; the other Derived or Relative, in that which is set apart to be in a peculiar and appropriate manner His. For whatsoever belongeth unto him in this manner, is divided from other things with preeminence, whether they be Things or Persons which are so separated. For in such separation we shewed the nature of Sanctity in general to consist. Now as the Divine Majesty it self is separate and holy; so know, it is a part of that honour we owe unto his most Sacred Name, that the Things whereby and wherewith he is served should not be promisenous and common, but appropriate and set apart to that sacred end. It is an honour which in some degree of resemblance we afford unto Kings, Princes, and other persons of dignity, (of infinite less eminency than God is) to interdict the use of that to others which they are wont to use; sometimes the whole kind, sometimes the individual only. As we know in former times, to wear purple, to subscribe with the Ink called Encaustum, of a purple colour, and other the like, which the diligent may find were appropriate to the use of Kings and Emperors only. In the Book of the Kings we read of the King's Mule, so appropriate to his use, as to ride upon him was to be made King, 1 Kings 1. 33, 44. In the Book of Esther, Chap. 6. 8. of the Horse that King Ahasucrus used to ride upon, put in the same rank with the Crown and royal apparel, which none but the King might wear. And of individual Utensils thus appropriated, and as it were dedicated to the alone use of persons of eminency, our own times want not examples. Whence natural Instinct may seem to prompt unto us, that such appropriation is a testimony of honor and respect. Sure I am, that Almighty God hath revealed it to be a part of that Honor we owe unto him. Thus all the Utensils of the Tabernacle and Temple were sacred and set apart to that use; and not the Utensils of the Altar only, but even the Instruments of Musick, which David ordained to praise the Lord with in the Temple, were not common, but consecrated unto God for that end: whence they are called, 1 Chron. 16. 42. foreign, Instrumenta musica Dei, the musical Instruments of God, that is, sacred ones, and 2 Chron. 7. 6. foreign, the musical Instruments of the Lord. Agreeably whereunto those who sung the fore-alledged song of victory over the Beast are said to have had in their hands foreign,Apoc. 15. 2. the harps of God, that is, not prophane or common, but sacred Harps, the Harps of the Temple; for there they sung this their Antheme, standing upon the great Laver or Sea of glass which was therein.
Nay, our Blessed Saviour, Mark 11. 16. would not suffer a prophane or common vessel to be so much as carried through his Father's House, accounting it as great a prophanation as to buy and sell there. And yet was not this abuse (which is a thing well to be marked) within those Septs of the Temple which the Iews accounted sacred, but in the outmost Court called Atrium gentium & immundorum, the place whither, together with such as were unclean, the Gentiles and uncircumcised were admitted to pray; as that of the Prophet cited by our Saviour, rightly rendred, intimates, My house shall be called a house of Prayer, to (or for) ALL NATIONS. Consider Esay 56. 6, 7. This Court therefore the Iews made no other account of than as of a prophane place: but our Saviour proved by Scripture, that this Gentiles Oratory was also part of his Father's house, and accordingly not to be prophaned with common use. Lastly, There was never any age of the Christian Church (till of late) wherein it was not commonly believed, that God was to be honoured by such appropriation or consecration as we speak of; that is, that God's Name was in this manner to be sanctified. But are there any (will you say) now that deny it? Yes, there are some in our age so far carried away into a contrary extreme to that they flie from, that they hold no oblation or consecration of things unto God by the devotion of men in the New Testament, whether of Utensils, Goods, Times, or Places, ought to be esteemed lawful; but that all distinction between sacred and prophane in external things by virtue of such consecration (excepting only the Sacraments) is flat superstition. Yet to him that seriously considers it, it cannot chuse, methinks, but seem strange and absurd to affirm, (as this assertion doth,) that men now in the time of the Gospel are exempted and freed from agnizing God to be Lord of the creature, by giving some part thereof unto him; than which no part of Divine Worship is more natural, and which hath been used by mankind ever since the beginning of the world. Yea, in the state of Paradise, among all the Trees in the Garden, which God gave man freely to enjoy, one Tree was Noli me tangere, and reserved to God as Holy, in token he was Lord of the Garden. So that the first sin of Mankind, for the species of the fact, was Sacriledge, in prophaning that which God had made holy.
They say, It is true, that in the Old Testament this way of honouring and acknowledging God was warranted by the Divine Law; but in the New we find no precept given concerning it, nor confirmation of that which was before. Now God is not to be worshipped with any worship but what he hath himself prescribed in his Word. I answer, What though there be no particular precept in the New Testament for this, no more than for divers other duties which a Christian is bound to? yet if a general warrant be, the particular needs not. But our Saviour saith in his Gospel, in that Evangelical Sermon he preached upon the Mount, that he came not to dissolve the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil and perfect them: Think not (saith he*Mat. 5. 17.) that I am come to dissolve the Law and the Prophets, [that is, to take away the obligation of that Rule of the duty of man to God and his neighbour, given first by Moses in the Law, and afterwards repeated and inculcated by the Prophets; for so Prophets are here to be*According as in that Matt. 22. 40. On these two Commandments [viz. To love God above all, and our neighbour as our selves] hang all the Law and the Prophets; and in that Luke 16. 29. They have Moses and the Prophets. understood, and not of predictions] foreign, but to fulfil them, that is, to supply, accomplish, or perfect those Rules and Doctrines of Iust and Unjust contained in them, by a more ample interpretation, and other improvement befitting the state of the Gospel. For surely this must be the meaning of this speech of our Saviour, if we be more willing (as we should) to take a sense from Scripture, than to bring one to it. Doth not the whole context following evince it? Indeed the Law, that is, the Legal Covenant or Covenant of works, (as Law is oft taken in the New Testament) together with all the Rites depending thereon, is dissolved by the coming of Christ; and a better Covenant with new Rites established in stead thereof: but the Law, that is, the Doctrine and Rule of life, given by God, contradistinct from those ordinances which were only appendages of that Covenant, (though these were also in some sense perfected, by bringing the truth and substance in stead of the figure and shadow thereof) is not disannulled, but confirmed and perfected by him, in such manner as became the condition of the Covenant of the Gospel. For that this confirmation is not to be restrained to the Decalogue only, is manifest, because our Saviour in the following words insists upon other Precepts besides it. If it be said, they are reducible thereto; this will not serve the turn, for so are all the rest of God's Commandments. Unless therefore it can be shewn, that to honour God by an oblation of his creature is no part of the Law here confirmed by our Saviour, let no man be so daringly bold as to exempt himself and others from the obligation thereof; unless he means to be one of them of whom our Saviour speaks immediately, saying, Whosoever therefore shall break one of the least of these Commandments, and shall teach men so to do, (mark it) he shall be called (i. he shall be) the least in the Kingdom of heaven. The word is foreign, that is, loose, or dis-bind, as he doth both, that abrogates, and that observes it not; much more he that affirmeth it unlawful to be observed.
Nay, how dare we dis-bind or loose our selves from the tye of that way of agnizing and honouring God, which the Christian Church from her first beginnings durst not do? Irenaeus, witness of that age which next succeeded the Apostles, is plain. Lib. 4. c. 34. Offerre oportet Deo (saith he) primitias creaturae ejus; sicut & Moses ait, Non apparebis vacuus ante conspectum Domini Dei tui.—Et non genus Oblationum reprobatum est: oblationes enim & illic, (sc. in V.T.) oblationes autem & hîc; sacrificia in populo, sacrificia & in Ecclesia: sed species immutata est tantùm; quippe cum jam non à servis, sed à liberis offeratur. Vnus enim & idem Dominus; proprium autem character servilis oblationis, & proprium liberorum, uti & per oblationes ostendatur indicium libertatis. It behoveth us (saith he) to offer unto God a present of his creature; as also Moses saith, Thou shalt not appear before the Lord thy God emptie.—For offerings in the general are not reprobated: there were Offerings there, (viz. in the Old Test.) there are also offerings here in the Church: but the specification only is changed; forasmuch as offerings now are not made by bond, but free-men. For there is one and the same Lord still; but there is a proper character of a bond or servile offering, and a proper character of free-mens, that so even the offerings may shew forth the tokens of freedom.— Now where in Scripture he believed this doctrin and practice to be grounded, he lets us know in the 27. chap. of the same Book: Et quia Dominus naturalia Legis, per quae homo justificatur, (quae etiam ante legisdationem custodiebant qui side justificabantur, & placebant Deo) non dissolvit, sed extendit, sed & implevit, ex sermonibus ejus ostenditur. That is, That our Lord dissolved not, but enlarged and perfected the natural precepts of the Law, whereby a man is just (which also, before the Law was given, they observed who were justified by faith, and pleased God,) is evident by his words. Then he cites some of the passages of that his Sermon upon the Mount, Mat. 5. 20. And a little after addes; Necesse fuit auferre quidem vincula servitutis quibus jam homo assueverat, & sine vinculis sequi Deum; superextendi verò decreta libertatis, & augeri subjectionem quae est ad Regem, ut non retrorsus quis renitens indignus appareat ei qui se liberavit. —Et propter hoc Dominus, pro eo quod est, Non moechaberis, nec concupiscere praecepit; & pro eo quod est, Non occîdes, neque irasci quidem; et pro eo quod est, Decimare, omnia quae sunt pauperibus dividere. That is, It was needful that those bonds of servitude which man had before been inured to should be taken off, that so he might without Gyves follow God; but that the laws and ordinances of freedom should be extended, and his subjection to the King encreased, lest that drawing backward he might appear unworthy of him that freed him.—And for this reason our Lord, in stead of, Thou shalt not commit adultery, commands not so much as to lust; in stead of, Thou shalt not kill, not so much as to be angry; in stead of, To Tithe, to distribute all we have to the poor, &c. All which, saith he, in the same place, are not solventis Legem, sed adimplentis, & extendentis & dilatantis, not of one that dissolves the Law, but fulfils, extends and enlarges it: alluding still to that in our Saviour's Sermon upon the Mount.
Besides, those who are acquainted with Antiquity can tell, that the Primitive Christians understood the holy Eucharist to be A commemoration of the Sacrifice of Christ's death upon the Cross, in an oblation of Bread and Wine. 'Tis witnessed by the Fathers of those first Ages generally. Whereupon the same Irenaeus also affirmeth, that our Saviour by the institution of the Eucharist had confirmed Oblations in the New Testament: Namely, to thanks give or bless a thing in way to a sacred use, he took to be an offering of it unto God. And was not David's Benediction and thanksgiving at the preparation for the Temple and Offertory? Where note well, That as he, upon that occasion,1 Chron. 29. 11. &c. blessed the Lord, saying, Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory—all that is in heaven and earth is thine, thine is the Kindgom— Both riches and honour come of thee—Ergo, because all things come of the… of thine own have we given thee: so do Christ's redeemed, in their Evangelical S…, Apoc. 5. ascribe no less unto him, saying, v. 12. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. Yea, the 24. Elders, which are the Christian Presbytery, expressing (ch. 4. 11.) the very argument and sum of that Hymnologie which the Primitive Church used at the offering of Bread and Wine for the Eucharist, worship God, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are, and were created.
TAKING therefore for granted that which the Practice of the Church of God in all ages, yea, I think, I may say the Consent of mankind from the beginning of the world, beareth witness to; that among those duties of the Sanctification of God's Name, wherewith his Divine Majesty is immediately and personally glorified, (of which I have before spoken) this is one, and a principal one, to agnize and confess his peerless Soveraignty and dominion over the creature, by yielding him some part thereof toward his worship and service, of which we renounce the propriety our selves; and that accordingly there are both Things and Persons now in the Gospel (as well as were before the Law was given) in this manner lawfully and acceptably set apart and separated, by the devotion of men, unto the Divine Majesty, and consequently relatively Holy (which is nothing else but to be God's by a peculiar right:) I say, that these are likewise to be done to according to their degree of sanctity, in honour of him whose they are: not to be worshipped with divine worship, or the worship which we give unto God, communicated to them; (far be it from us to defer to any creature the Honour due unto the Divine Majesty, either together with him, or without him;) but yet habenda cum discrimine, to be regarded with a worthy and discriminative usance, that is, used with a select and differing respect from other things: as namely, if Places, not as other places; if Times, not as other times; if Things by way of distinction so called, not as other things; if Persons set apart unto the service and worship of God, neither to be used by others, nor they to carry themselves in their fashion of life, as other persons, (for that which in other things sacred is their use, in persons sacred is their conversation, demeanour or carriage of themselves;) But all to be sanctified with a select, appropriate, or uncommon usage; that as they are God's by peculiar relation, and have his Name called upon them; so to be separate, as far as they are capable, from common use, and imployed as instruments and circumstances of his worship and service: which is the highest and most singular honour that any creature is capable of. Nay, (as I have said before) even this is to the honour of God, That as himself is that singular, incommunicable and absolutely Holy One, and his service and worship therefore incommunicable; so should that also which hath his Name thereon, or is coasecrated to his service, be in some proportion incommunicably used, and not promiscuously and commonly, as other things are. They are the words of Maimonides the Iew, but such as will not misbecome a Christian to make use of, concerning that Law, Levit. 5. 15. If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance in the holy things of the Lord; then he shall bring unto the Lord for his …respass a Ram, &c. Behold, saith he, how great weight there is in the Law touching sacrilegious transgression. And what though they be wood and stone, and dust and ashes? when the Name of the Lord of all the world is called upon things, they are sanctified (that is, made holy.) And whoso useth them to common use, he transgresseth therein; and though he do it through ignorance, he must needs bring his atonement, Yea, it is a thing worthy to be taken special notice of, that that so presumptuous and most dreadfully vindicated sin of Korah, Dathan, Abiram and their company, in offering Incense unto the Lord, being not called thereunto, did not discharge their Censers of this discriminative respect due unto things Sacred. For thus the Lord said unto Moses, after that fire from heaven had consumed them for their impiety,Numb. 16. 37, 38. Speak unto Eleazar the Son of Aaron the Priest, that he take up the Censers out of the burning, and scatter thou the fire yonder; for they are hallowed: The Censers of these Sinners against their own souls; let them make them broad plates for a covering of the Altar: for they offered them before the Lord, therefore they are hallowed, or holy.
Now that by this discriminative usance or sanctification of Things sacred the Name of God is honoured and sanctified, according to the tenor of our petition, is apparent, not only from Reason, which tells us that the honour and respect had unto ought that belongs unto another, because it is his, redounds unto the owner and Master; but from Scripture, which tells us that by the contrary use of them his Name is prophaned. Hear himself, Lev. 22. 2. Speak unto Aaron (saith he) and his sons, that they separate themselves from the Holy things of the children of Israel, and that they prophane not my Holy Name in the things which they hallow unto me. Also in the Chapter next before, v. 6. the Priest that should not discriminate himself according to those singular observations or differing rules there prescribed him, is said to prophane the Name of his God. Again, Ezek. 22. 26. when the Priests prophaned God's holy things, by putting no difference between the Holy and Prophane; I (saith the Lord) am prophaned amongst them. Likewise chap. 43. 7. Together with other abominations there mentioned, the Lord saith, that his Holy Name had been polluted, or prophaned, by the carkasses of their Kings, that is, of Manasseh and Amon, buried in the King's Garden hard by the walls of the Temple: for so by the Hebrews and others that place is understood. See 2 Kings 21. 18, 26. By the pollution of the Temple the Lord esteemed his own Name prophaned. Take in also, if you will, that of Malachi ch. 1. where the Lord saies of those who despised and dishonoured his Table or Altar, by offering thereon for sacrifice the lame, blind, and sick, which the Law had made unclean and polluted, that they had prophaned his Holy Name. But if the Name of God be prophaned by the disesteem and misusage of the things it is called upon; then surely it is sanctified when the same are worthily and discriminatively used, that is, as becometh the relation they have to him.
I HAVE already specified the several Kinds of Sacred things which are thus to be sanctified: yet lest something contained under some of them might not be taken notice of by so general an intimation, it will not be amiss a little more fully and particularly to explicate them than I have yet done. Remember therefore that I ranged all Sacred things under four heads. First, of Persons Sacred; such as were the Priests and Levites in the Old Testament, and now in the New the Christian Clergy or Clerus, so called from the beginning of Christian Antiquity, either because they are the Lord's foreign or Portion, which the Church dedicateth unto him out of her self, (namely, as the Levites were an offering of the Children of Israel, which they offered unto him out of their Tribes,) or because their inheritance and livelihood is the Lord's portion. I prefer the first; yet either of both will give their Order the title of Holiness, as doth also more especially their descent which they derive from the Apostles, that is, from those for whom their Lord and Master prayed unto his Father, saying,Iohn 17. 17. Father, foreign, [foreign [foreign] Sanctisie them unto, or for, thy Truth: thy Word is Truth; that is, Separate them unto the Ministery of thy Truth, the word of thy Gospel, which is the truth and verification of the promises of God. It follows, As thou hast sent me into the world,V. 18. so have I also sent them into the world, (this is the key which unlocks the meaning of that before and after.) And for them I sanctifie my self, that they might be sanctified for thy Truth; V. 19.that is, And forasmuch as they cannot be consecrated to such an Office without some sacrifice to atone and purifie them, therefore for their consecration to this holy function of ministration of the new Covenant, I offer my self a Sacrifice unto thee for them, in lieu of those legal and typical ones wherewith Aaron and his sons first, and then the whole Tribe of Levi, were consecrated unto thy service in the old. An Ellipsis of the first Substantive in Scripture is frequent. So here foreign only is put for foreign, Truth, for the Ministery of Truth.
Now that the Christian Church (for of the Iewish I shall need say nothing) hath alwayes taken it for granted, that those of her Clergy ought, according to the separation and sanctity of their Order, to be distinguished and differenced from other Christians, both passively in their usance from others, but especially actively, by a restrained conversation and peculiarness in their manner of life, is manifest by her ancient Canons and Discipline. Yea, so deeply hath it been rooted in the minds of men, that the Order of Church-men binds them to some differing kind of conversation and form of life from the Laity; that even those who are not willing to admit of the like discrimination due in other things, have still in their opinions some relick thereof remaining in this, though perhaps not altogether to be acquitted of that imputation which Tertullian charged upon some in his time, to wit, Quum excellimur & inflamur adversùs Clerum, tunc unum omnes sumus, tunc omnes Sacerdotes; quia Sacerdotes nos Deo & Patri fecit. Quum ad peraequationem Disciplinae Sacerdotalis provocamur, deponimus insulas,De Mo…ogamia cap. 12. & impares sumus. When we vaunt and are puffed up against the Clergie, then we are all one, then we are all Priests; for he made us Priests to God and his Father. But when we are called upon to equal in our lives the example of Priestly Discipline, then down go our Mi…res, and we are another sort of men.
Another sort of things Sacred which I named, was Sacred Places, to wit, Churches and Oratories, as the Christian name foreign implieth them to be, that is, the Lord's. A third, Sacred Times, that is, dedicated and appointed for the solemn celebration of the worship of God, and Divine duties: such are with us (for those of the Iews concern us not) foreign, our Lord's dayes, with other our Christian Festivals and Holy-dayes. Of the manner of the discrimination from common, or sanctifying both the one and the other, by actions some commanded, others interdicted to be done in them, the Canons and Constitutions of our Church will both inform and direct us. For holy Times and holy Places are Twins, (Time and Place being, as I may so speak, pair-circumstances of action;) and therefore Lev. 19. 30. and again 26. 2. they are joyned together, tanquam ejusdem rationis, Keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my Sanctuary.
The fourth sort of Sacred things is of such as are neither Persons, Times nor Places, but Things in a special sense, by way of distinction from them. And this sort containeth under it many particulars, which may be specified after this manner.
1. Sacred Revenues of what kind soever: which in regard of the dedication thereof, as they must not be prophaned by sacrilegious alienation, so ought they to be sanctified by a different use and imployment from other Goods; namely such a one as becometh that which is the Lord's, and not man's. For that Primitive Christian Antiquity so esteemed them, appears by their calling them foreign, as they did their Place of Worship foreign, and their Holy day foreign all of the Lord, as it were Christening the old notion of Sacred by a new name. So Can. Apostol. XL. Manifestae sint Episcopi res propriae (si quidem res habet proprias & manifesta sint foreign, i. res Dominicae—Let it be manifest what things are the Bishop's own, (if he have any things of his own,) and let it be manifest what things are the Lord's. Author constitut. Apost. Lib. 2. c. 28. al. 24. Episcopus ne utatur foreign, Dominicis rebus, tanquam alienis aut communibus, sed moderatè—Let not the Bishop use the things that are the Lord's, as if they were another's or as if they were common, but moderately and soberly. See also Balsamon in Can. 15. Concilii Ancyrani, and the Canon it self.
2. Sacred Vtensils, as the Lord's Table, Vessels of ministration, the Books of God, or Holy Scripture, and the like. Which that the Church, even in her better times. respected with an holy and discriminative usance, may be learned from the story of that calumnious crimination devised by the Arrian Faction against Athanasius, as a charge of no small impiety, namely, that in his Visitation of the Tract of Marcotis, Macarius one of his Presbyters, by his command or instinct, had entered into a Church, of the Miletian Schismaticks, and there broken the Chalice or Communion-Cup, thrown down the Table, and burnt some of the Holy Books. All which argues that, in the general opinion of Christians of that time, such acts were esteemed prophane and impious; otherwise they could never have hoped (as they did) to have blas…ed the reputation of the holy Bishop by such a slander.
Touching the Books of God, or Holy Scripture, (which I referred to this Title) especially those which are for the publick service of God in the Church, I adde this further; That under that name I would have comprehended the senses, words and phrases appropriated to the expression of Divine and Sacred things; which a Religious ear cannot endure to hear abused with prophane and scurrilous application.
3. Under this fourth head of Things Sacred I comprehend Sacred Acts; such as are the Acts of God's holy worship and administration of his Sacraments. For albeit these Acts are duties of the first and personal Sanctification of God's Name, whereof the immediate object is God; yet are the Acts themselves Sacred things, and therefore have some sanctification due to them also, as other Sacred things have: of which although it be most true that the unseigned devotion of the Heart (as before him who alone knoweth the Hearts of the children of men) be the main and principal requisite; yet unless, even in the outward performance, they be for the manner and circumstances discriminated from common acts by a select accommodation befitting their holiness, their sanctification is defective, and by such defect, if voluntary, God's Name is prophaned, even then when we are worshipping him. How much more when our carriage therein cometh short even of that wonted reverence wherewith we come before an earthly Potentate? May not God here justly use the same expostula…ion with us, that he did with those in the Prophet Malachi, who presented themselves before him with such an offering as was, in regard of the blemishes, unworthy of and unbefitting so great a Majesty, and therefore to be accounted rather an affront than an act of honour and worship? Ye have, Malach. 1. 6, 8, 12, 14.saith he, despised and prophaned my Name—Offer it now unto thy Governour; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person?—yet I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts. And this is the document or lesson which this place naturally and unavoidably ministreth to us; That to come before the Divine Majesty with less reverent and regardful deportment than we do before earthly Kings and Potentates, is to despise and prophane his holy Name. And not that, which some would shelter under this Text, and lean too much upon; namely, That the Acts of God's external worship ought to be wholly conform to the use of the semblable actions performed unto men, and not differ from them; and upon this ground charge the Christian Liturgies with absurdity in their forms of praying and praising God with responsals, singing by turns, and speaking many together. For this principle is directly repugnant to the nature of Sanctification, which consists in discrimination and difference. And therefore, though the material of our gestures and other expressions, vocal or visible, be borrowed from the use and custom of men; yet for the formality of them, not only they may, but ought to be differenced from them. Moreover, touching this reproof of the Prophet, take notice that it is grounded upon the Law, Levit. 22. where we are taught, that when that is not observed concerning the Rites of God's service which the Sanctity of them requireth, as in other particulars, so in this of a not defective or unblemished offering, his Name is thereby prophaned. See verse 32. with the rest of the Chapter foregoing it. And if so, then by the contrary it is sanctified.
Lastly, Unto this head of Sacred Acts I reduce Oaths and sacred Covenants, that is, such as are made either with God, or between men, God's Name being called upon; which therefore 1 Sam. 20. 8. are styled Covenants of the Lord. For that the observance due touching both is a sanctifying of them, as things upon which the Name of the Lord is called, is apparent; forasmuch as when they are violated by falshood they are said to be prophaned, as Levit. 19. 12. Psalm 55. 20. Ier. 34. 15, 16.
Thus, together with my Explication of these several sorts of Sacred Things, I have briefly and in general pointed at that also wherein the proper Sanctification of each consisteth: which though far short of such a tractation as the matter requireth; yet if it may serve only but to give occasion to others, who are better able, to bend their thoughts upon this Argument (which perhaps the Times call for,) I shall fully attain the end I aimed at. For mine own part, to descend to particulars would be a task too high for me, and (as I suspect) not very acceptable. For it is ten to one (if the grounds I have laid be true) but that the most of us would be found faulty in some things, and some of us in all. Well, the summ of my argumentation hath been this; Is there any thing in the New Testament God's by a peculiar right? To say there is not, is absurd, and against the perpectual tradition of Christianity. If there be, then it is holy; if holy, then to be sanctified; if sanctified, then to be discriminated in the usance and respect thereof from that which is of common condition.
NOW out of this Discourse which I have hitherto made you may see and take notice, that (contrary to the vulgar opinion) the Prohibition of Idolatry, and the discriminative observance of things sacred, not to prophane them by a promiscuous and common use, are derived both of them from one and the same principle, namely, God's Incommunicableness, which derives a shadow and resemblance upon the things which have his Name called upon them, to wit, a sta…e of appropriateness and singularity. Wherefore the Apostle, Rom. 2. 22. not without good reason, compares together the transgressions of the one and the other kind, as parallel sins or sins of affinity: Thou that hatest Idols, (saith he) dost thou commit Sacriledge? Where by Sacriledge understand not only the usurpation of things sacred, but the violation of that which is sacred in general. And it is as if he had said, Thou hast mended the matter well indeed; for still thou dashest against the same principle. For it is one of the exemplifications of that he saith in the beginning of the Chapter: He that judgeth or condemneth another, and doth the same or the like himself, is inexcusable. By this it appears how much they are mistaken who, under pretence of avoiding Idolatry and Superstition; cannot endure that any distinction should be made between things Sacred and Common. Is not this to unhallow God's Name one way, that so we might not prophane it another? Far be it from me to be a patron of Idolatry or Superstition in the least degree: yet I am afraid lest we, who have reformed the worship of God from that pollution, (and blessed be his name therefore,) foreign, as S, Basil speaks, that is, by bending the crooked stick too much the other way, have run too far into the contrary extreme, and taken away (some of us) all difference in a manner between Sacred and Prophane; and by this our transgression in doing God's work made our selves lyable to that upbraid of the Apostle, In qui idola abominaris, sacrilegium admittis? Thou that abhorrest Idols, dost thou commit Sacriledge? that is, prophanest thou God's Name by violating that which is sacred?
Let no man think it strange or incredible that such an enormity should be committed, or an occasion at least given thereof, in the manage of so holy and glorious a work; seeing the experience of all ages sufficiently witnesseth how prone the nature of man is, in flying one extreme, to run too far towards the other. Why then should we think it unlikely, or rather not think it very likely, that we also may have miscarried in the same manner? unless we will arrogate unto our selves that priviledge of infallibility and freedom from error, which we condemn as intolerable presumption in our Adversaries.
Besides, it is to be taken notice of, because of the prejudicate misprision of many to the contrary, That the measure of Truth and Falshood, Best and Worst, is not the greater or lesser distance from Popery, (forasmuch as Popery also containeth much of Christianity;) nor that which is most destructive of the Man of Sin, always most warrantable and safe to be embraced. If it were, there be some in the world (whose religion we would be loth to admit of) that would be found more orthodox and better reformed Christians than any of us all.
Nay, give me leave, without offence, for the better awakening of some out of their deafness to whatsoever else may be said to this purpose, to propound such a Demand as this; Who knoweth whether this transgression I speak of be not a main and principal ingredient of that guilt which the Divine Majesty admonisheth us to take notice of in this his so long and so severe visitation of our neighbours and brethren? whether he doth not visibly, or, if some passages be considered, almost vocally, upbraid them, Thou that hatest Idols, dost thou commit Sacriledge? I know right well, that rashly to assign the particular causes of God's judgments, without rule or precedent of Scripture, is a sin of presumption, and a bold intrusion into God's secrets; and therefore I affirm not, but demand only, whether there be not here some cause which may minister such a suspicion. But whatsoever it be, the compassion of their woful affliction calls upon me rather to pray for them, than to follow this harsh and unpleasant passage any further. Only thus much, If that which the Apostle saith in particular of the things which befel the Israelites, God's first people, in the Wilderness, These things happened unto them for ensamples,1 Cor. 10. 11. and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come, if this be to be extended also unto those punishments and their analogy which besel them afterwards; then may perhaps two things further not unseasonably be enquired into. First, For what other sins it is remembred in Scripture that God gave his people, during that his first Covenant, (especially after they came to dwell in their own Land) under the sword of an external enemy, or his worship thereby at any time to be troden under foot, besides these two, Idolatry, and Prophanation of that which was holy, or Sacriledge. Examples of the first who knows not? Of the second, see the Story of Achan, Iosh. 7. of Eli'sons, 1 Sam. 2. the punishment of the Sacriledge of the seventh or Sabbatical year, 2 Chron. 36. and the parallel places; for by the Law every seventh year, not only the whole Land, but all servants and debts were holy unto the Lord, and therefore to be released, Lev. 25. 2, 4. Deut. 15. Exod. 21. Secondly, What was that Transgression, after the return from Babylon, mentioned in that Prophesie of Antiochus Epiphanes, Dan. 8. 12. for which it is there foretold, that An host should be given him against the daily Sacrifice, and that it should cast down the truth unto the ground, and practise and prosper. Perhaps the Story in the 2, 3, and 4. Chap. of the second Book of Maccabees will tell us.
To that which is commonly alledged, That such distinction and reverent regard of things Sacred as we contend for, opens a way for Idolatry; I answer, No otherwise than the eschewing of Idolatry may also, through the preverseness of men, be made a bridge to prophaneness, that is, by accident, not from its own towardness, but our distemper. Otherwise this Discrimination or Distinction, if we would understand or heed the ground thereof, prompts the clean contrary. For we should reason thus: If the things which are God's, eo nomine, in that name and because they are His, are therefore to be held segregate in their use; then surely God himself, who is the Fountain of Holiness, ought to have a prerogative of segregation in the most eminent and absolute manner; namely, such an one, as that the worship due unto him must not be communicated with any thing else besides him. And indeed, unless both be done, God's Name is neither fully nor rightly sanctified.
AND here I should now make an end, but that there is one thing yet behind of principal consequence, which I have deferred hitherto, because I could not elsewhere bring it in conveniently without somewhat disturbing the coherence of my Discourse. There is an eminent species or kind of Sanctification which I may seem all this while to have neglected, forasmuch as it seemeth not to be comprehended under this notion of discretion and separation, wherein I place the nature of Holiness; and that is Sanctification, or Holiness of life. To which I answer, That all notions of Sanctity and Sanctification in Scripture are derived from discretion and separation, and that this now mentioned is likewise derived thence. For it is to be reduced to the Sanctification of Persons Sacred and set apart unto God. By which though in the strict and proper sense are intended only Priests and such as minister about Holy things; yet in a larger sense, and, as it were, by way of resemblance, the whole body of the People of God are a Royal Priesthood, and*Hea… the … called foreign, the … Catholick Church. Holy Nation, which the Almighty hath selected unto himself out of the rest of the world, and set apart to serve him in a peculiar and different manner from the rest of men: For you have heard it is a requisite of that which is Holy, to be used in a peculiar and singular manner, and not as things common. Hence it is that the observation of that peculiar and different form of life which God hath commanded those whom he hath called and set apart from the world unto himself, in Scripture carries the name of Holiness or Sanctity, (especially in the New Testament) that is, of such as becometh those that are Holy; according to that, Be ye Holy, as I am Holy. And here I might have a large field of discourse, to shew how the Name of God is sanctified by the lives of his Children, when they*Rom. 12. 2. Iam 4… 4. 1 Iohn 2. 15. 1 Pet. 4. 2, 3. Gal 6. 14. Iam. 1. 27. 1 Iohn 3. 3. 1 Pet. 1. 15. Eph…s. 4. 17. to verse 25. conform not themselves to the fashions of the world, but as the Apostle speaks, are crucified thereto… and keep themselves unspotted from the pollutions and vanities thereof.
But this I leave to be supplied by your meditations, according to the general intimation given thereof.