Commentary on the Gospels and Acts, Commentary 1 · Chapter 7 · Verse 11 – Verse 12
Verse 11. If ye then being evil]
Even ye my Disciples also:foreign Never a … better …. For by nature there is never a better of us. But as the historian …, that there were many Marij in one Caesar, so there are many Cains and Judasses in the … of us all. Homo est inversus decalogus, saith one: whole evil is in man, and whole man in evil; … in the devil, whose works (even in the best of his Saints) ChristThe … Cretians before conversion were lyers, evil …, &c. … must be … rebuked that they may … in the …. came to destroy; to dissolve the old frame, and to drive out the Prince of darknesse, who hath there entrencht himself. And although sinne in the Saints hath received its deaths-wound, yet are there still in the best, … stirrings, and spruntings thereof (as in dying creatures it useth to be) which (without Gods greater grace, and the countermotion of the holy Spirit within them) would certainly produce most shamefull evils. This put S. Paul to that pittifull outcry, Rom. 7. 24. and made him exhort … … 1. ….(though he were a young man rarely mortified) to exhortforeign 1 …. 5. …. the younger women with all …, or chastity; intimating, that, thorough the corruption of his nature, even whilst he was exhorting them to chastity, some unchast motions might steal upon him unawares. A tree may have withered branches, by reason of some deadly blow given to the root, and yet there may remain some sap within, which will bud and blossome forth again. Or, as if some wilde fig-tree, saith a Father, that grows in the walls of a goodly building, and hides the beauty of it, the boughs and branches may … cut or broken of, but the root, which is wrapped into the stones of the building, cannot be taken away, till the walls be thrown down, and the stones cast one from another: So sinne that dwelleth in us, hath its roots so inwrapped and intertwined in our natures, that it can never be utterly …; but pride will bud, Ezek. 7. 10.and the fruits of the flesh will be manifest, though we be daily loppingGal. 5. 19. off the branches, and labouring also at the root. Sinne is an inmate, that will not out, doe what we can, till the house fall upon the head of it; an hereditary disease, and that, which is bred in the bone, will never out of the flesh; a pestilent Hydra, somewhat akin to those beasts in Daniel, that had their dominion taken away, yet were their lives prolonged for a time, and a season. …. 7. 12.
How much more will your father which is in Heaven give good things]
Give the holy Spirit saith S. Luke: for Nihil bonum Luk. 11. 13.sine summo bono, saith S. Austin, when God gives his Spirit, he gives all good things, and that which is more then all besides. For it is a Spirit of judgement and of burning, of grace and of deprecation,Isa. 4. 4. Zech. 12. 10.of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord, of strengthIsa. 11. 2. and of might, enabling both to resist evil of sinne, and to endure evil of sorrow. And for good things, temporall, to trample on them; spirituall, to reach after them. It is a free spirit, setting a2 Cor. 3. 17. man at liberty from the tyranny of sin, and terrour of wrath; and oyling his joints, that he may be active and abundant in the Lords worke. This holy spirit is signified by those two golden pipes, Zech. 4. through which the two Olive-branches, the …, empty out of … the golden oyles of all precious graces into the candle-stick, the Church. And how great a favour it is to have the holy Spirit … inhabitant: See Joel 2. where, after God had promised the former and latter rain, floores full of wheat, and … full of wine and oyl, a confluence of all outward comforts and contentments; he adds this as more then all the rest, I will also Ioel …. 23, 28.… out my spirit upon all …. He will pour out, not drop downPsal 51. only sparingly and pinchingly as some penny-father, but pour… carni …, i. res praest antissima rei plane fragili, & caducae: quam tamen … spiritus. sui munere. …. …, like a liberall housholder, as it were, by pailes or bucket-fulls. And what? my spirit, that noble spirit, as David calleth it, that comforter, counsellour, conduit into the land of the living. And upon whom? upon all …: spirit upon flesh, so brave a thing upon so base a subject. Next to the love of Christ in dwelling in our nature, we may well wonder at the love of the holy Ghost that will dwell in our defiled souls; that this spirit of glory and of God will dain to rest upon us, … the cloud did upon the Tabernacle. How glad was Lot of the Angels, Micha of the Levite, Elizabeth of the mother of her Lord, Lydia of Paul, Zacheus 1 Pet. 4. 14.of Christ, Obed-Edom of the Ark? And shall not we be as joyfull and thankfull for the holy Spirit, whereby we are sealed (as merchants…. 4. 30. set their seals upon their wares, unto the day of redemption. If David for outward benefits brake out into, What is man that thou art mindefull of him? and Iob, for fatherly chastisements,… 4. … 7. ….What is man that thou shouldest magnifie him &c? how should this best gift of his holy Spirit affect and ravish us? sith thereby all mercies are seasoned, and all crosses sanctified; neither can any man say (experimentally and savingly) that Iesus is the Lord, but by the holy Ghost.1 …. 12. …
Give good things to them that aske him]
sc. If they aske in faith, bring honest hearts, and lawfull petitions, and can weight Gods leisure. Let none say here, as the Prophet in another case, I have laboured in vain, and spent my strength for nought: I haveIsa. 49. prayed and sped not, the more I pray, the worse its with me. The manner of our usage here in prison doth change (saith B. Ridley inAct and Mon. fol. …. a … to Bradford) as sowr ale doth in summer: and yet who doubts but they praid earn and earnestly, when they were in Bocardo, that Colledge of Quondams, when those Bishops were there prisoners? God is neither unmindfull nor unfaithfull, but waits the fittest time to … mercy, and will surely avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear Luk. …. 7.… with them. The seed must have a time to grow downward, before it grows upward: And as that seed which is longest covered, riseth the first, with most increase: so those prayers which seem lost, are laid up in heaven, and will prove the surest grain: the more we sowe of them into Gods bosom, the more fruit and comfort we shall reap and receive in our greatest need.
Verse 12. Therefore all things what soever ye would &c.]
q. d. To winde up all in a word (for it would be too tedious to set down each particular …;) let this serve for a generall rule of direction in common conversation, and mutuall interdealings one with another: whatsoever ye would that men should doe to you, … ye … so to them. This is the royall Law, the standard of all … in this kinde, a … weight and rule, according to which we must converse with all men. Severus the Emperour had this sentence of our Saviour often in his mouth; and commanded it to be proclaimed by the Cryer, whensoever he punished such of his souldiers as had … injury to others: For there is no doubt (saith Mr Calvin upon this text) but that perfect right should rule amongst us, were we but as faithfull disciples of active charity (if we may so speak) as we are acute Doctours of passive; did we but love our neighbour as our self. Charity (tis true) begins at home in regard of order, but not in regard of time: for so soon as thou … to love thy self, thou must love thy neighbour as thy self; neither may any man at any time hide his eyes from his own flesh, that is from his neighbour, of the same stockIsa. 58 7., with himself.
For this is the law and the Prophets.]
i. e. This is as much as either of them have said touching love to our neighbour. Yea, this is the summe of all that Christ and the Apostles have spoken of it: For love (that seeketh not her own things) is both the complement 1 Cor. 13. 5.of the Law, and the supplement of the Gospel. Rom. 13. 8, 10. Gal. 5. 14. Ioh. 15. 12. & v. 14. Christ maketh love to our brethren, the same with keeping the Commandments. So Acts 15. 20. St … in that sacred Synod gives this suffrage, to lay upon the … Gentiles, no greater burden then these necessary things: that they abstain from pollutions of Idols, and from fornication, from foreign … in loc. foreign.things strangled, and from bloud: And in certain ancient …, as also by Irenaeus and Cyprian, it is added, and what thing soever ye would not, that others should doe to you, that ye doe not the same to them. Timothy naturally cared for the Philippians, which was rare, Phillip. 2. 20. 22. So should all Christians … for another, Gal. 5. 13. 1 Cor. 10. 24. Rom. 15. 1, 2. Self-lovers begin the black bed-role, 2 Tim. 3, 2.