Page images
PDF
EPUB

4. It is a most intolerable thing, to make no applications to this Spirit, after we know its distance. We know it is the Author of life, and the Governor of all holy motions unto all the children of God; and yet never apply to it, never put up a sigh or a cry! How intolerable is this! Do we know of any other way to live? Do we think, that there can be such a thing as everlasting life, a life which shall never end, and which shall also never begin? Sure if there be such a life, it must sometime begin: and where will we place the beginning of it, but in the communication of that spiritual, vital in-. fluence, which once given is a spring of living waters, springing up unto life eternal?

[ocr errors]

1

Let us so therefore represent the matter to ourselves; the high dignity, the immense fulness, the royal magnificent bounty and benignity of this blessed Spirit; that we may neither neglect it, nor distrust it. Represent the tendency of all its communications, and consider them as the earnests and pledges of everlasting life, the blossomings of glory; that which must be our preparation for, and our assurance of, the eternal state of life. And then desire such communications above all things. Let this he the sense of our souls, (sure there is reason enough, that it should be so ;) "Lord, let me rather live in poverty, live in pain and sickness, live in disgrace all my days, than live without thy Spirit! Let not that Spirit be a stranger to me, but inhabit and dwell in me, act and move me; and be my condition what it will in all external respects, I am unsolicitous, I will never capitulate, never dispute the matter." Till that Spirit come to be valued by us, and all its communications, even above all things else that men are wont to count dear to them, we have reason.to apprehend, that it and we are like to continue still strangers; and if we be strangers to the divine Spirit, we must be acquainted with misery both in this and another state.

[blocks in formation]

TO THE READER.

I apprehend little occasion to make an apology for the publication They who relish Mr. Howe's inimiof the following discourses. table spirit of piety, judgment, copiousness and force in the management of every subject he hath undertaken, will be glad of any remains of so great a man; and those who have been conversant with his writings, will hardly want any other voucher, besides the sermons themselves, that they are genuine, they so evidently carry in them, to a person of taste, the marks which always distinguish his performances.

They have not indeed had the advantage of his own masterly hand to prepare them for the press, and to give them their last finishing; but were his discourses from the pulpit, taken first in shorthand by the hand of a very ready and judicious writer, who afterwards copied them out fair with the minutest exactness, as they made it necessary, that were delivered. This very precise accuracy -they should be transcribed anew, before they saw the light. This I have adventured to do, without the alteration or addition of any one thought. But, in discourses delivered by a preacher without notes, some repetitions naturally occur in the pulpit; and very usefully, to enable the hearer to discern the connexion of the disCourse as he goes along, and to make the deeper impression. These might appear tedious to a reader, who hath the whole before him; and therefore are omitted, farther than they seemed to carry a peculiar emphasis, or than a different representation of the same thought was apprehended to convey the idea with greater force. The writer appears to have religiously followed the very words of the author, when he cited passages of Scripture by memory. was judged proper to consult the texts themselves, and to cite them

It

as they lie in the Bible; except where the author might be supposed out of choice to substitute another english word, as more expressive of the sense of the original. The repetition also of former discourses at the beginning of another sermon hath been omitted where nothing new occurred. But where a new thought is suggested, in such a repetition, it hath been carefully inserted in its proper place. This is all the variation I have allowed myself to make from the copy; and so much I apprehend will be accounted reasonable and necessary by all that are acquainted with such things.

The subject can hardly fail to be particularly acceptable. The reverend author hath often indeed expressed in general the same catholick sentiments in several of the works which he published himself; and shewn his mind to have been uniformly the same as here, upon that head, wherein the prosperity of the Christian interest lies that it consists not in the advancement of any party among christians as such, or of any distinguishing name, or in any mere external forms; but in real vital religion and conformity to God. He hath also more than once intimated his expectation of better times for the church of God, than the present state of it. But he hath no where so professedly and distinctly explained his sentiments concerning the latter days of the Christian church, as in these discourses.

They were all preached in the course of a Wednesday-lecture, which he formerly kept up at Cordwainer's-hall in this city: and all within the year 1678, as appears by the dates prefixed to each. A time, wherein he was in the vigour of life and height of judg'ment, between forty and fifty years old: and within a few years after his settlement with that congregation of protestant dissenters, where he ministered till his death. That was a time of peculiar distress and danger, not only to protestants out of the legal establishment in these kingdoms, but to the reformed interest in general through Europe. This may be supposed to have engaged his thoughts in so long attention to this subject, which animates with the hope of better times to come.

There are other discourses immediately preceding these at the same lecture, concerning the work of the Spirit in every age upon particular persons; as these relate to his work upon the Christian community, to be expected in the last age. A copy of those sermons, drawn up by the same writer, is fallen into the hands of a very worthy brother of this city, by as unexpected a providence as these came into mine. I hope he may be prevailed with to introduce them into the world, if those which are now offered meet with a favourable reception. And both these volumes together, will contain the sum of this great man's sentiments concerning the important doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

If any inquire, why these sermons were not inserted in the late collection of Mr. Howe's works in folio: I answer; beside that it

These are printed first in this volume in the order in which they were preached,

« PreviousContinue »