laid his hands on the Ephesians after they were baptized in the name of Jesus; whereupon it is said, that the Holy Ghost came upon them: and in Acts viii. we read, that when St. Peter by his preaching and miracles had converted the Samaritans, and afterwards baptized them, St. Peter and St. John, two of the apostles, were sent to lay hands on them, upon which it is said, that they received the Holy Ghost, ver. 17. By which it appears that this ministry of confirmation appertained to the apostles; since St. Philip, though a worker of miracles, a preacher, a prime deacon, and, if we may believe St. Cyprian, one of the seventy-two disciples, would not presume to assume it, but left it to the apostles as their peculiar province. And accordingly in the primitive church it was always performed by the hands of the bishops; for though from later ages some probable instances are produced of some presbyters that confirmed in the bishop's absence, or by his delegation, yet in all primitive antiquity we have neither any one canon nor example of it. From whence we may fairly conclude, that this imposition of hands for confirmation was peculiar to the apostles, in the original, and to their successors the bishops in the continuation of it.

SECT. XI.

Of Christ's regal acts in his kingdom.

HAVING in the foregoing section given an account of the several ministers which Christ employs in the administration of his kingdom, we proceed, in the next place, to inquire what those acts of

royalty are which he himself exerts in his kingdom, and by which he perpetually rules and governs it: and these may be distributed into three orders: First, Such as he hath performed once for all. Secondly, Such as he hath always performed, and will still continue to perform.

Thirdly, Such as are yet to be performed by him before the surrender of his kingdom.

First, One sort of the royal acts of our Saviour are those which he hath performed once for all: and these are reducible to three particulars :

I. His giving laws to his kingdom.

II. His mission of the Holy Spirit to subdue men's minds to the obedience of those laws, and to govern them by them.

III. His erecting an external polity or form of government in his kingdom.

I. One of those regal acts which Christ hath performed in his kingdom once for all is giving laws to it; and this he performed while he was upon earth in those excellent sermons and discourses which he then preached and delivered to the world. For though he preached as a prophet, yet it was as a royal prophet, as one that had regal authority to enact what he delivered into laws; for he was a king while he was upon earth, so that all his prophecies were enforced with his regal authority, and he commanded as he was a king whatsoever he taught as he was a prophet. Indeed, had he been a mere prophet, he could not have obliged men by any legislative authority of his own to believe and obey him; his declarations had had no farther force in them than as they expressed the will and command of the Almighty Sovereign of the

world; and if what he declared had not been law before, it could not have been made law by his declaring it. But being a royal prophet, his words were laws, and all his declarations carried a commanding power in them. And hence the gospel is called the law of Christ, Gal. vi. 2. and the law of the Spirit of life in or by Christ Jesus, Rom. viii. 2. and that command of loving our neighbour as ourself is called the royal law, i. e. the law of Christ our King, James ii. 8. for this our Saviour calls his commandment, John xv. 12. and his new commandment, viz. That ye love one another, even as I have loved you, John xiii. 34. And not only this, but all other duties of the gospel are called his commandments, John xiv. 21. and Matt. xxviii. 20. By all which it is evident, that in revealing his gospel to the world he did not only perform the part of a prophet, but also of a legislator, and that by his own inherent authority, as he was a king, he stamped those doctrines into laws which he taught and delivered as a prophet. And such as his kingly power is, such are his laws and commandments; he is a spiritual king, a king of souls, of wills, and of affections; and accordingly his laws are spiritual, and do extend their obligation to the souls, and wills, and affections of his subjects. For they not only oblige our outward man, but also the inmost motions of our heart; they lay their reins upon our thoughts and desires, as well as upon our words and actions; and give directions to our inward intentions, as well as to our outward actions. So that to satisfy their demands, it is not sufficient that we do well, unless we also intend well; that the matter of our actions be good, unless the aim and design of them be so

:

also for according to the tenor of these spiritual laws, a bad intention unconsecrates the best actions, and converts even our prayers and our alms into the most loathsome cheats and dissimulations, (vid. Matt. vi. 1—6. 16, 17, 18.) And as they oblige our inward intentions to good ends, so they also restrain our inward concupiscence from evil objects, so far forth at least as it falls under the command and disposal of our wills. For they not only forbid us the doing of evil actions, but also the consenting to them, and even the taking pleasure in the contemplation of them; and the very affection to any bad action, if it be voluntary and consented to, is, in the construction of these laws, the same with the commission of it; for so hatred is construed murder, 1 John iii. 15. covetousness, theft or robbery, Mark vii. 22. inordinate lusting after a woman, adultery, Matt. v. 28. And so in general the wicked will is, in the construction of these laws, the wicked action it chooses and consents to. Thus the laws of our Saviour (to whose all-seeing eye our inmost motions are as obvious as our most open practice) do as well take notice of our vicious affections, those internal springs and fountains of iniquity, as of the vicious actions which stream out from them; and we are as well accountable to them for harbouring the desire of sin, when we have not the convenience or opportunity to act it, for consenting to it (though we never commit it) whenever opportunity occurs, yea, and for indulging to ourselves the phantastic pleasures of sinful meditations, which are but the antepasts of the actions, and, as the twilight to a dark night, but the first approaches toward the deeds of darkness, as for the sinful actions themselves. This therefore

is the common nature of the laws of our Saviour, that they are all of them spiritual, and do in the first place lay hold upon our wills, and bind our inward man, and from thence extend their obligation to the outward actions. They begin with that which is the principle of all moral good and evil, and by rectifying the spring and wheels of our will and affections within, communicate a regular motion to the hand of our practice without.

But, for our better understanding the nature of these laws, and the obligations they devolve upon us, it will be necessary to consider them more particularly, they being all reducible under two heads; first, the law of perfection; and secondly, the law of sincerity. Both which require of us the same instances of piety and virtue, though not in the same degree, nor under the same penalty.

1. There is the law of perfection, which requires the utmost degrees of every Christian virtue which in the several states and periods of our lives we are capable of attaining to. For so we are enjoined, not only to do, but to abound in the work of the Lord; not only to have grace, but to grow in it; to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord; and to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. For the nature of God is the standard of that perfection whereunto we are obliged to aspire, and our growth in piety and virtue is never to come to a period, till we are pure as he is pure, and holy as he is holy, i. e. till we are arrived to infinite holiness, which because our finite nature can never do in any period of duration, therefore we are to be growing on to eternity. So that this law, by prescribing no limits to the degrees of our growth, hath cut out work