and dy the Soul of the Receiver which must be made partaker or shall be made guilty either partaker of the vertue or guilty of the shedding thereof to his endless destruction that receives it unworthily The guilt you have in the precedent Verse He shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. The destruction in the subsequent he eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body The exhortation in my Text lies between both that it might be the more vehemently enforced and every man might know how much it behoveth him diligently to examine himself before he eat of that bread and drink of that Cup But let a man examine c. Wherein you see there are two general parts first a preparation then an admission unto the blessed Sacrament of the body and blood of our Saviour The Admission in the latter part Let him eat and the preparation in the former but first let a man examine c. Of the holy Sacrament it self and an admission unto it hereafter at this time only of the preparation that should go before it Wherein you may consider 1. The Act wherein it consists Examination and then the object of that Act himself Let a man c. But we shall run both together and out of both draw these points which we will commend to your observation 1. Because the end of examination is to prepare our selves we will shew the necessity of this preparation 2. That we may know wherein to examine our selves we will consider the quality and extent of that preparation which is necessary for the making and constituting of a worthy Receiver 3. We will shew that the best means to attain unto this due preparationâ— or qualification is the study and knowledge of our selves and our own ways 4. Because the heart of man is deceitful above all things and we are all apt to deceive our selves in judging of our selves that it is not a superficial view but a strict examination that must give the just and true knowledge of our selves 5. And lastly we will make and practise this examination in those points we have found necessary that after it they who are approved in their own Consciences may chearfully approach unto the sacred Mysteries and eat of that bread and drink of that Cup to their endless comfort and others that are not so as I think few are may first reform themselves lest they eat and drink as the Apostle here threatens damnation to themselves So these five The necessity of preparation and what the prepation is that is so necessary That the best means to attain it is the knowledge of our selves and the best way to come to this knowledge examination which examination because it is the chief point we will strictly make in the last place that according to it we may either approve or reform our selves before we presume to come to the dreadful Sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord These 5. I say we shall at this time as God shall inable prosecute in their order but plainly as desirous to leave you rather better than more learned And first of the first the necessity of preparation But let a man examine c. The end of examination is preparation for to examine and not to prepare our selves were but to see our own foulness and refuse to cleanse it to inquire into our Lords will and neglect it when we have done and that will only make us worthy of more stripes And therefore he that commands the one doth in the same words of necessity injoin the other And indeed holy and Divine Mysteries as in reason they require an holy and sanctified preparation so in Scripture hath it ever been prescribed and exacted at their hands that shall draw near unto them yea the very Heathen Priests would not enter upon their Superstitious Ceremonies to their false Gods without first proclaiming a procul este profani all profane and unhallowed persons be ye far away And it was the use in the Primitive Church for the Minister as it is in St. Basils Liturgy or the Deacon his Assistant as Chrysostom hath it To cry with a loud voice before the Communion Sancta Sanctis holy things pertain unto holy people And for this cause it was that the Lord gave such strict command in Law that no uncircumcised person should presume to eat of the Paschal Lamb nor yet any circumcised neither under four days preparation and sanctification of themselves With what reverence then and awful regard should we draw near unto the true Passover in the blessed Sacrament which succeeds in the room of that other and exceeds it too no less than the substance doth the shadow than the body and blood of the Son of God doth the flesh and blood of a Lamb taken from the flock To shew this our Saviour himself at his last supper ariseth from the Table takes the Bason and the Towel washes and wipes his Disciples feet before he would institute his blessed Sacrament or suffer them to be Communicants at it Now by the feet in holy Scripture are meant the affections of the heart for as by the feet the body walks so by the affections the Soul moves to whatsoever it desires They are the springs and Fountains of all her vital operations and as the Fountains are such are the streams if those be troubled these will be foul if they be cleansed the other will run clear And therefore these feet these affections of the heart being once washed the meditations of the head the words of the mouth and the actions of the hand which are but rivers flowing from the abundance of the heart and the hearts affections cannot but partake of the same purity For which reason when Peter who at the first was not willing to be washt at all afterwards was desirous to have all washt his head and his hands as well as his feet our Saviour replies he that is washed needeth not to wash save his feet only for then he is clean every whit Joh. xiii 10. The feet then the affections of the Soul on whose cleanness doth depend the purity of the whole man and all his actions these are they that our Saviour by this act of his own doth instruct us carefully to wash and cleanse before they tread a step towards his holy Table How can they there expect to be partakers of him who himself in that place told Peter that without this washing he could have no part in him They frustrate the end and benefit of the holy Sacrament they prostitute the blessed mysteries themselves they dishonour both them and the Majesty of that God who is present at and in them who presume with unwasht feet unhallowed affections to enter upon the sacred Symbols sanctified with the peculiar presence of the precious body and blood of the Son of the everliving God No marvel therefore if such profaners of this blood are held as guilty of the
not then a Carnal presence but a Spiritual that doth link and associate unto Christ. To make up our union with him it is not needful that his humane nature should be drawn down from Heaven or that his body should be every where present on Earth as the Ubiquitaries affirm or that the Bread in the Sacrament should be transubstantiate into his body as the Papists imagin His dwelling in us is by his Spirit and his union with us is spiritual So himself in the same place where he speaks of eating his flesh and drinking his blood doth interpret himself the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speak are spirit and life And his Spirit it is not his body that shall give life unto the Spirit when the body shall perish If Christ c. This touch shall suffice for the condition I proceed to the substance of the Text. The Body is dead It contains as I said an admonition of our frailty corruption and death and comforts against death It is but the body that is dead the Spirit is life First of our corruption and frailry The body is dead That we all tend unto death we all know but the Apostle's speech is more remarkable he says not the body is subject to death but by a more significant phrase of speech he presseth it homer The body is dead There is a difference between a mortal body and a dead body Adams body before the fall was mortal in some sort that is subject to a possibility of dying but now after the fall our bodies are so mortal as they are subject to a necessity of dying yea if we'll here with the Apostle esteem of death by the beginning and seisure of it they are dead already The forerunners and harbingers of death dolours infirmities and heavy diseases have seised already on our bodies and marked them out as lodgings which shortly must be the habitation of their Master But how near this manner of speech draws unto true propriety they best conceive who best understand how that malediction of God and curse of the Law The day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death was fulfilled If God spared not the Angels when they waxed proud will he spare thee who art but a putrifying worm Ille intumuit in coelo erga in sterquilinio he was puft up in Heaven and therefore was cast down from the place of his habitation and if I wax proud lying on a dunghil shall I not be cast down into Hell So often therefore as corrupt nature stirreth up the heart to pride because of youth and health beauty and strength and the like perfections of the body let this consideration humble thee that though these are fair and beauti ful flowers yet they cannot but suddenly wither because the root from whence they sprung is corrupt and rotten and even dead already Neither is it more available to the cutting down of arrogance and pride than to teach us Temperance and sobriety What availeth it to pamper that Carcase of thine with excess of delicate feeding which is possessed by death already If Men took the tenth part of that care to present their spirit holy and without blame unto the Lord which they take to make their bodies fair and beautiful in the eyes of Men they might in short time make a greater improvement in Religion and Virtue than they have done But herein is their folly they make fat the flesh with precious things which within few days the worms shall devour but never care to beautify the Soul with holy and virtuous actions which shortly is to be presented to God Let us therefore refrain from the immoderate cherishing this proud and dead flesh meats are ordained for the belly and the belly for meats but God will destroy them both 1 Cor. vi 13. I might inlarge this point almost infinitely for the benefit of this consideration is not confined unto Humility Sobriety and Temperance or any particular virtues but it 's universal restraining from all evil and inciting powerfully unto all virtue and goodness Nihil sic revocat bominem à peccato quà m frequens mortis meditatio saith St. Aug. nothing can so recall a Man from his evil ways as the frequent meditation of death especially if he consider as the certainty of death so the uncertain time of his death and the unchangeable estate of everlasting misery if he die in his sins Would to God we were wise thoroughly to apprehend and apply this unto our own Souls It is strange that there is nothing so well known nothing of greater benefit and yet nothing so little regarded What a Prodigy is it that sinful Men should carry about their death in their bosoms and in every vein of their Bodies and yet scarce admit a thought of their mortality into their minds but live here as if they verily thought they should never die If we had no Religion yet reason would teach us that our strength is not the strength of stones and yet them even the drops of water weareth nor our sinews of Brass and Iron as Job speaks and yet these the rust and canker consumeth but a vapour but a smoak which the Sun soon drieth or the wind driveth away It was wittily said of Epictetus the Philosopher who going forth one day and seeing a Woman weeping that had broken her Pitcher and the next day meeting another Woman that had lost her Son Heri vidi fragilem frangi hodie video mortalem mori Yesterday saith he I saw a brittle thing broken and to day I see a mortal Man die And what difference of frailty between these two surely none unless Man be the frailer of the two For as St. Austin hath it Take the brittlest veslel of earth or glass and keep it safe from outward violence and it may last many thousand of years but take a Man of the most pure complexion of the strongest constitution and keep him as safe as thou canst he hath that within his own bowels and bones that will bring him to his end Nay I hear some say saith the same Father that such a one hath the Plague or the Pleurisie and therefore sure he will die but we may rather say such a one liveth and therefore sure he will die for diverse have had these Diseases and did not die of them but never any Man lived that did not die The Consumption of the Liver is the messenger of Death the Consumption of the Lungs the Minister of Death the Consumption of the marrow and moisture the very Mother of Death and yet many have had these Diseases and not died of them But there is another kind of Consumption which could never yet be cured it is the Consumption of the days the common Disease of all Mankind David saw it and spake of it when he said my days are consumed like smoke Psal. cii yea the Philosopher saw it and could say of it quicquid praeteritum est temporis mors
certain and ought to be acknowledged by either That the first Graces of God either confer'd in time upon Earth or prepared eternally by him who dwelleth in the Heavens are a free collation and absolute without any thing of reward otherwise Grace were not grace as the Apostle speaks Secondly The last punishments in Hell a meer reward in justice without any thing of free and undeserved collation otherwise Punishment were not punishment But the Kingdom of Heaven and the joyes of that place come to us after a mixed manner though originally and principally yet not altogether by grace neither yet altogether by merit not as a gift only nor yet wholly as a reward but is so a reward as it is still a gift so a gift as it is still a reward A reward because promised unto works a gift because that promise was of grace and these works no way deserve the reward And therefore the Scriptures apply themselves unto both terming it sometimes an Inheritance by Adoption sometimes a Crown of Righteousness sometimes a gift of Grace sometimes a Reward of our Works But that we mistake not we are most commonly careful not to mention the one respect without some intimation of the other In that very place where the Apostle affirms it a Crown of Righteousness yet that we may receive it as a Crown rather given than deserved it follows immediately which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me in that day On the other side in those places where it is called an Inheritance as it is in many yet in all we shall find it to be an Inheritance of the Saints and never conferred but on obedient Childeren My Sheep saith our Saviour hear my voice and follow me wheresoever I go do istis vitam eternam and I give them eternal life There it is a gift but yet to his sheep that hear and follow him dâ—num datâ—m non personae sed vitae a gift given not to the persons of men but to their lives and that is no other than a reward as St. Jerom rightly In the v. of St. Maâ—thew it is a reward merces vestra your reward is great in the Kingdom of Heaven yet it is merces coprosa a great and plenteous reward magnanâ—mis as God said unto Abraham I am thy exceeding great reward a reward with excess far exceeding indeed all the works and passions too of men that are to be rewarded So true is that rule of the Rabbins concerning the holy Scriptures In omni loco in quo invenis objectinoâ— pro haeretico ibi quoque invenis medicamentum in latere ejus Not a place that seems to favour an heresy but hath an Antidote or Medicine hanging at the side of it But on the other side most true it is Hell and eternal death are the wages and meer wages of wickedness That of the Prophet Vita â—ors a domino life and death are both of the Lord is right but yet must be rightly understood not both of him after one and the same manner but with St. Aâ—stins difference Vita scilicet à Donante mors à Vindicante which we may render in the words of the Apostle Life is the gift of God but death the wages of Sin To shew therefore that death is be to attributed not so properly to the Inâ—â—ctour as to the deserver the Wiseman is bold to say Deus mortem non fecit God hath not made death but men by the errours of their life have sought it out and drawn it down upon their own heads Let not any man therefore conceive the evil works oâ— wicked men as effects of a foredoomed destruction buâ— destruction rather wherever it lights to follow both iâ— design and execution as a just meede and recompence of evil doings for the merciful Lord that preserver of Souls as the same Author hath it cannot possibly hate any man as Davids enemies did him gratis without any cause but is ever as the Scriptures teach and the Fathers proverbially affirm Primus in amore ultimus in odio first in love and last in hatred And they that will needs think otherwise if they be not reckoned among the haters of God sure I am they will be found lyars at the last for the Lord is a just God and so is his reward that will look precisely on the work without respect unto any mans person be he what he will or may be for so it follows in the next place reddet unicuique he shall reward every man c. Great diversity there is among the Sons of men but the summons of this day is universal and will reach unto them all Be they rich or poor noble or ignoble none so mean as to escape unregarded none so mighty as to decline the Tribunal we must all appear saith the Apostle we and we all no remedy we all must make our appearance before the judgment-seat of Christ. And however here upon earth there doth indeed belong great respect and reverence unto the persons and dignities of great and honourable men yet these things are all now passed away and Christ the great Judge in this terrible day will have no regard unto any mans person or titles farther than these have had an influence into his actions and rendred them justly rewardable with greater honour or else with sorer punishment For the Virtue or Vice of such Men dies not at home in their own bosoms but as their persons are great so their works and ways in like manner eminent and every way more exemplar And therefore the Wise man saith but right Potentes potenter mighty Men that have done amiss shall be mightily tormented and for the same reason those that have done well as mightily rewarded There is nothing mean in them now nor shall be hereafter For these are they whom God hath made great upon Earth filled them with substance and honour that pouring out of their plenty upon the distressed and relieving the oppressed by their power they might become even as Gods unto their brethren These he hath placed tanquam majores venae as the greater veins in the body Politick to minister blood and spirits unto the rest of the members tanquam communes Patriae parentes as the common Fathers and Parents of their Country to whom all the weak and injured may fly as unto a refuge and sanctuary of protection yea tanquam planetae stellae majores as the greater Stars and Planets in the Firmament of power by sweet and propitious influence to cherish the Earth under them and all good things that are in it These now if clean contrary shall abuse this wealth and power push the weaker cattle with them as with horn and shoulder as the Scripture speaketh If the higher Potentates and Princes like so many mighty Nimrods molest and vex the world they should govern provoke Heaven and take peace from the earth embrue and embroil all to satisfy their own impotent and unlimited
that we may farther distinguish the diverse kinds of either And two sorts sure there are apparently Verbal Wars and Violent so the Orator doth divide duo sunt genera decertandi â—num per vim alterum per disceptationem There are two sorts of war and contention the one by force the other by dispute and contestation that proper unto Beast this unto Men yet Men may fly unto that faith he when this latter may not be used or hath been used to no purpose For in case of injuries between States or Princes that have no Superiour Judges if reason may not prevail for right or restitution the Sword of necessity must dispute the cause and be bold to carve out its own satisfaction But then what large satisfaction men do usually cut out to themselves that are their own Carvers and Judges in their own causes backed with Caesars Maxime of War in the Poet Omnia dat qui justa negat what bitter revenges they take of their brethren what sorrows and calamities what slaughter and effusion of blood and confusion they bring upon the world until the whole earth doth groan and mourn if not totter and reel like a drunkard under the burthen is an argument fitter for tears than discourses for prayers unto God than declamations unto Men that little regard them But such are the conditions of the former sort violent and bloody The second are of a milder nature disceptive onlay and verbal In which kind I shall not now meddle with the pleas and pleadings between right and wrong bellum forense These are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 private brabbles between person and person founded in meum tuum frigida illa verba saith St. Chrysostome quae innumera genuere bella c. but only with 〈◊〉 those disceptations and disputes which concern verum falsum Truth and Error even in Faith and things pertaining unto God bellum Ecclesiasticum a war publick too as that other between States and Kingdoms so this between Churchmen and Churches as the war most especially intended in the Text and that we be not much offended at it ever and in all ages permitted by the Divine Dispensation for great reasons more or less to exercise the Church of God And these wars it were yet something well had they contained themselves within their proper sphere of disceptation and dispute though even thus such contention it self and the bitter fruits which it produceth is cause sufficient to bring sorrow enough on the heat of every true Son of the Church for whose heart smarteth not to consider the divisions I say not now of Reuben but of Levi and their great thoughts of heart to behold the parts and parcels divisions and subdivisions factions and fractions whereinto they have broken and even crumbled themselves To see the Coat of Christ that should be without seam not only rent in pieces but torn even unto rags until Religion Christian Religion seem to suffer the same fate with that Lady in Plutarch quam cum procorum singuli possidere nequirent integram in partes direpserunt obtinuit nemo omnium But have these contentions stayed here Have they not thrown aside the Pen and drawn forth the Sword lest chiding and fallen to blows words have bred exasperation and exasperation hatred more than Vatinians mortal or rather immortal hatred not content to spend it self on the goods the bodies the lives of the living but to rage on the Memory the Bones and the very Ashes and Sepulchres of the dead yea on the very Souls as far as they might of both how many such Souls of our late Predecessors whole blood in most Savage manner poured forth and spilt is yet even almost warm are there now lying under that Altar in the Revel and crying unto God with an usquequo how long Lord merciful and true And how well may we cry out and admire too with that Poet Tantum Relligio potuit suadere malorum For certainly there is neither of these contentions whether by disceptation or violence whether they be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 publick Wars or private Fightings of either sort but will well deserve an unde of admiration and inquisition too but first of admiration in regard of the inter vos the parties contending which is the second point whence c. And sure were the vos here only but men it were not without marvel since such violent and bloody contention as the Orator said well is proper to Beasts to Beasts that are of divers kinds and several natures as full of passion as void of understanding not unto Men that are rational of the same blood and descended from the loins of the same Parent in whom the lines of their several Pedegrees do all meet and center themselves in unity original that so in their running on from thence there might be continued a fraternity perpetual Beasts indeed come forth armed and in their several kinds well appointed for war into the world but Man is sent out without Tooth or Talon horn or hoof from the womb tanquam animal sociale ad pacem colendam natum as a civil and sociable creature designed and born unto peace Is it not strange that such notwithstanding should become belluis ipsis magis belluini more full of beastly ferity than beasts themselves That this sociable Animal should justifie the madness of the most Savage and intractable creatures steel their affections with more cruelty and barbarity than Bears and Lions can learn in the Wilderness As if they had sucked Tygers in the desert rather than the Daughters of Men or were a Cadmean generation born not of Women but terrae filii sprung up out of the earth sown with the teeth of Serpents for just so we destroy one another pereunt per mutua vulnera fratres like the young men that played before Joab and Abner every man thrusting his Sword in his Brothers side This cannot be without marvel But yet this is not it there is something more in the vos than this St. James directs his speech not meerly unto Men to animal Men and Infidels but unto Christian Men to Men whose Badge and Cognizance yea whose very form and essence is mutual Love and Charity unde inter vos It is but a just admiration this whence are wars amongst such That divers and several Religions should strive even unto death that the Jew and the Christian contending the Gentile should fall upon both as in the primitive times is no great matter but that one and the same should nourish intestine war that the Children of the same Mother should struggle and fight like Jacob and Esau in the very womb that bears them that is it that is marvellous indeed For we may not conceive that Christianity infolds within it several Religions As far as the World is Christian it is but one in which indeed there may be and are Factions and Parts some Schisms and
Belial God and Baal is most insufferable yea more than the clear rejection of him Utinamcalidus esses aut frigidus I would you were hot or cold saith the Lord to some in the Revelations As if since they were not throughly hot he had rather by much they were utterly cold than in that faint temper between both fit for nought but evomition as is there threatned for the indignation of God riseth at nothing so much as when Men neither so cold as to contemn Religion nor yet so hot as to forsake their sins present him with a cooler mixture of both Better therefore be a pure Gentile or a graceless sinner than a compounded and perfunctory Christian worse than either and harder to be cured his mediocrity being grown venerable unto the world and himself under the shew and title of calmness and moderation For which cause that may be verified of these our Saviour said of others Publicans and harlots shall sooner enter the kingdom of heaven If we mean to find entrance there it may not be by the formal and falsehearted seeking seek the Lord and you shall find him but if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul otherwise instead of finding a Kingdom we may chance to fall upon a curse Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently Seek ye therefore first with all Industry and with all speed too that it may be the first thing you seek every way first in time as well as in intention Death is uncertain and delays are dangerous whilst we take farther day unto our selves enlarging our time as the rich Fool did his Barns God oftentimes derides us as he did him Stulte hac nocte Thou Fool this night shall thy soul be taken from thee And who in his own particular knows the length and date of this his day who can tell how many hours there are in it or how many of them are spent already How soon that now that henceforth of obstruction and blindness may come upon him and refusing to cleanse his Soul whilst the Spirit like that Angel in the Pool of Bethesda is moving the waters how suddenly he may fall under that fearful Sentence of the same Spirit in the Revelation He that is filthy let him be filthy still If that Fig-tree were cursed even before the time of fruit in comparison was come before the Gospel was throughly published may not those that have lived long under the bright beams and Sun-shine of it and still bring forth nought but leaves of shew and formality have just cause to fear every moment the approach and probation of that final and fatal doom Never fruit grow on thee more Whilst Men in their presumption are sporting themselves and grieving God with their sins God in his wrath in the mean while may be swearing they shall never enter into his rest Undoubtedly did the rays of true wisdom and divine pierce into the Soul had the heart any true impression of future things or of the vanity of the present did Men taste and relish the good gift of God and the powers of the world to come they would not permit any quiet to their Spirits or peace unto their Souls till their Souls had made and gained peace with their God and freed themselves from such uncertainties This is the Haven of our Rest and Heaven upon Earth and we that see it may well say unto our Souls better than he did say but saw it not O quid agis anima meâ— fortiter occupa portum what dost thou O my Soul the Port is before thee steer away before Sea and Wind manfully foul weather is behind thee make haste to escape the stormy Wind and Tempest And however there should chance not to be any for there may be room for misericordia Domini inter pontem fontem He hath not shut up life nor the gate of his mercy upon any yet it will concern wise men to fear the worst that is more likely and prevent it whilst they have time to work the work of the Lord whilst it is yet high day before that dreadful and terrible night approach wherein no man can work To defer it to the eleventh hour to the evening and twilight were a presumption too full of boldness especially since our Sun may set at noon and our light go out in the midst of our life For we are but dust as our Fathers were and the Spirit of the Lord will not always strive with us Let us therefore laying aside all delays be resolute and vigilant attending speedily to open when it pleaseth him to knock when he calls instantly to answer Lo I come when he says seek ye my face to echo immediately thy face Lord will I seek So seeking his face in holiness here you may be sure to see it in glory hereafter In the mean time that God who hath added all things else plentifully unto you all abundantly unto one continue and multiply his favours unto all but principally and above all unto that one For since it is one of the last services your Majesty before your journey is to receive from this place I would not willingly leave it without one word of apprecation For though I may not bless yet I may pray God almighty whom you seek and serve hath blessed you ever hitherto and may his faithfulness and truth be your shield and protection ever hereafter He that went with Abraham in his Journey be with you in yours Let him lead you forth in peace and to the joy of all hearts return you again in safety May he carry you from Crown unto Crown from one Kingdome to another upon earth and having ministred all things else unto you according to your hearts desire here may he at last and let that be late minister an entrance unto you also abundantly into his own Kingdom this Kingdom of God Whereunto the same God of his infinite mercy vouchsafe to bring us all for and in the meritorious blood of his dearly beloved Son and our most blessed Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen Laus Deo in aeternum A PREPARATION FOR THE Holy COMMUNION SERMON VIII Upon 1 COR. XI 28. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. THE holy but fearful Sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord as it is the highest and noblest Institution the Christian Religion hath so is it to be approached unto with the greatest reverence and regard For as it affords inestimable comfort to the worthy participant so not less danger and terrour to the unworthy Receiver He that takes it must know he takes a powerful medicine that will work one way or other either cure or kill prove wholsom Physick or deadly poyson As the patient is prepared so it works this way or that even either life or death For the blood which is received if it do not wash and cleanse it willâ— certainly stain
shedding of it which was purposely shed to cleanse them from the guilt of their sins if instead of sealing salvation to their own Souls they do but eat damnation to themselves for not discerning the body of their Lord. For did they discern it did they understand and conceive it to be there they could not but approach unto it with greater reverence with much more heed and awful regard When it was at the worst and lowest estate the malicious Jews could bring it to bereaved of all form and beauty yea and of that blessed Soul which dwelt within it and now remained only a dead and crucified Carkase all over gaping with wounds and gored with blood yet even then with what care and reverent respect was it handled by the good Arimathean It was wrapt up in fine and clean Linnen imbalmed with sweet Oyntmens and perfumes and laid in a new Sepulcher hewen out of the Rock How then and with what high esteem should we we that are to be made not Sepulchers but Shrines and Temples not of his ignominious but glorified body not of his body only but of his whole person of his body and blood and Soul and Divinity and all how I say and with what diligent preparation should we see that all things be pure and clean and sweet and new where such a guest is to be entertained where he is not to be lodged for a night or two but to inhabit where he is not to lye a while as in the grave but to dwell and live for ever This were something to the purpose and we should then shew we discerned the Lords body which now we seem not at all to regard eating and drinking of his flesh and blood with no more reverence and respect than if we were at an ordinary Table of Bread and Wine Nay I assure my self many of us make more preparation being but to dine with some Neighbour than they do to come to the great Kings supper They can with all diligence apparel and trim up the outward man against every ordinary feast in the mean time neglecting the inward man of the Soul little regarding how foul and slovenly that comes to the holy Banquet But let such careless men in time take heed the wrath of the Lord hath never shown it self more terribly than on the profaners of holy things especially his own holy presence Many and fearful are the examples in this kind The great King of Babel no sooner polluted the Sanctified Vessels but even whilst he is carrouzing in the bowls of the Temple a strange hand from heaven writes his doom on the wall before him the terror whereof looseth the joints of his loyns and makes his knees knock one against another which was but a forerunner of his ruine who that night lost at once both his Kingdom and his life But how dreadful was that judgment in the 1 of Sam. vi where fifty thousand Souls are suddenly struck dead for but looking irreverently into the holy Ark and Uzzah instantly smitten with the like vengeance for but touching it with profane hands though with a good intent to hold it up when in his judgment it was like to fall And shall we who are permitted I say not to touch or to look into the moveable but to walk into the standing Ark the Temple of the Lord yea to enter in within the Vail and approach up even to the Mercy-seat and eat of the holy shew bread that stands before the Lord if we continue to pollute that sacred place and banquet with our unwasht feet unclean and impure affections shall we think to escape alone without wrath from Heaven Let no Soul flatter it self with such a bold and mad presumption The divine indignation that in former times was wont ever almost to follow such profanations at the heels though in these later ages the great day of final accounts drawing on it seem to slacken the pace yet it will certainly overtake them one time or other if not here in this world yet infallibly in that other hereafter though oftentimes even in this also Even at this instant when the Apostle wrote this very Chapter the Lord had sent a fearful sickness amongst the Corinthians and that for this very cause their profaning of the Sacrament as you may read the words immediately following my Text. For this cause saith he some are even now sick others weak and many amongst you fallen asleep that is taken away by bodily death But however it go with us now yet at that day when the great King shall come to take a particular view of his guests he will not fail to find out all those careless people that have presumed to sit down at his table without their wedding garments and pronounce upon them that heavy doom in the Gospel take them bind them hand and foot and cast them into utter darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth So necessary is this duty of reverent preparation and so great the necessity urged upon the high terms of no less than plagues and punishments here and destruction for ever hereafter So true is that of our Apostle he that eateth unworthily doth but eat judgment unto himself so the word imports judgment temporal though he repent and without repentance damnation eternal and that in so heinous a manner as if he were guilty of the very body and blood of the Lord no less than the cruel Jews that shed the one and crucified the other or treacherous Judas that betrayed both Well then necessary it is and highly But to come to the second point let us now see what the preparation is that is so necessary wherein it consists and how far it extends that must denominate and make a worthy Receiver Surely though no Man living be absolute worthy in himself or can by any means attain unto that entire and compleat worth which is fully answerable unto the dignity and holiness of those sacred mysteries yet it pleaseth God of his grace to accept of him for a worthy Receiver of them that doth truly and faithfully endeavour to receive them with a competent measure of that reverence and those qualifications which he hath prescribed in his word amongst which Knowledge Faith Repentance Love and Charity Love to God and Charity to our Brethren I suppose are the chief if not all And these sure at least are simply necessary by them we must examine and with them we must prepare our selves whosoever will be worthy Receivers First with Knowledge an honest degree of knowledge what the mysteries are what they signifie and exhibite for what purpose they were ordained of God and are received by our selves Thus much seems requisite in the meanest capacity for so long as we are ignorant of the substantial parts and fundamental doctrine of the Sacrament so long as we neither know nor consider the main ends and purposes for which it was instituted how can we possibly prepare our selves worthily to
receive it we shall fall short for want of discerning the body of the Lord. And in this every Man ought to examine himself and many Men others too as well as themselves It is not the proper duty of the Minister of God only to Catechise every Father and Mother of a Family is or ought to be in this regard as a Minister within his own charge It is our part not to be still laying of the Foundations and Principles of the Doctrine of Christ but to lead you on towards perfection Heb. vi 1. As St. Peter the Apostle said of ministring at Tables nay as St. Paul of Baptism it self I was not sent to baptise but to preach So we may much more say of Catechizing We were not sent to Catechise but to preach the Gospel our office is to dispense the Word and Sacraments yours it is properly to prepare yours it is to teach and instruct your Children and Servants that they may be fit and capable to receive both though the sloth and ignorance of these times to your sin and shame hath cast this burden wholly upon our shoulders most Fathers for the want of willingness or knowledge deserving to be Catechised no less than the Children that are under them yea in my understanding much more having lost in their age that little which they learned in their youth The second qualification is Faith without it it is impossible to please God as in any other duties we can exhibite unto him so especially in this of the Sacrament It is the eye of the Soul by which we behold and look upon the hand by which we lay hold and apprehend the very mouth by which we eat and receive the Body and Blood of our Redeemer given and applied unto us in these mystical figures Non dentes sed fidem prepare not therefore thy teeth but thy Faith saith St. Aug. for crede manducasti believe and thou hast eaten And for this duty we suppose there needs little preparation or tryal every Man thinks he can readily assure and acquit himself in the performance but when we come to examination anon we shall find it a harder matter than we imagine to believe aright and as we ought The third of these preparatory qualifications is Repentance which though it be also generally required as precedaneous unto all sacrifices and services which we offer unto God according to that of the Apostle Let him depart front iniquity whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord yet the more holy and sacred the actions are the more especially ought we to cleanse our selves and purge our sins and corruptions before we go about them for I will be sanctified saith the Lord in those that draw near unto me And nearer well we cannot draw unto God or God unto us than in this Sacrament ordained of purpose to joyn and unite both in one But do we think his pure and precious body will vouchsafe to be received and dwell in an unclean and polluted Soul shall this bread panis de Coelo bread from Heaven the Childrens bread as it is in the Gospel and indeed the food of Angels shall it be given do we imagine unto whelps shall these precious Pearls of the Gospel shell'd up in Divine Mysteries be opened and cast unto Swine shall the cup of the Testament be given unto him that hath nothing to do with the Covenant surely no What hast thou to do saith God in the Psalms to take my Covenant in thy mouth so long as thou hatest to be reformed to take it in thy mouth so much as by naming of it how much less hast thou to do to take the blood of the Covenant in thy mouth by receiving it so long as thou refusest to reform thy self by true Repentance This therefore is the main and principal part of our qualification wherein we cannot be too diligent and careful and the other of Love is like unto it Of Love first unto God who hath shewn such marvellous Love unto us and from us should receive all Love and thankfulness again And then unto our brethren that as God hath loved us so should we also shew Love and Mercy unto one another In regard of the first this blessed Sacrament is well termed the Eucharist that is the Sacrament of thanksgiving wherein by the assistance of the blessed Spirit we do in all thankfulness and grateful return of our best affections solemnly commemorate the wonderful Love of the Son that suffered and the infinite goodness and mercy of the Father that gave him to death for the sins of the world In regard of the other the Love of our brethren it is as rightly stiled a Communion that is a common union for so it is doubly a common union of our selves amongst our selves and of all unto our Saviour But first we must be united unto one another before we be united unto him as we drink of one cup and eat of one bread so we must be knit into one body mystical by Love or we shall never be knit unto our head Christ Jesus by Faith What union canst thou expect with him so long as thou art at variance with those for whom he died His blood was shed for us all whilst we were yet enemies and shall we think we may drink it and in it remission of sins to our selves so long as we refuse to remit the sins of another can we hope or expect that mercy from God which we will not shew to our own flesh No no if without this thou thinkest to receive any favour from him or look he should receive or accept any sacrifice from thee thou deceivest thy self It is his rule in the Gospel If when thou comest to offer at his Altar thou remembrest that thy Brother hath ought against thee leave thy gift there go and first be reconciled to him then come and offer thine oblation Ecce honorem suum despicit dum in proximo charitatem requirit Behold saith Chrysost. how he preferreth thy Charity before his own honour who will not accept of any sacrifice to himself till thou hast shown love to thy neighbour And so here these four Knowledge Faith Repentance and Love are as you see the principal qualifications wherewith due preparation must of necessity adorn and beautifie the Soul they are the several parts whereof that Wedding-garment must be made up wherewith it is to be arrayed and wherein every one must appear that would be held and accepted of God for a worthy Receiver And thus much of the first points the preparation and the necessity of it drawn from the phrase and commanding force of the Text Let a man examine himself for this Let is not permissive let him do it if he will or if he will not let him chuse but mandatory and imperative let him see and be sure that he doth it and that under pain of damnation as it follows in the next verse Proceed we now in
is it possible for this knowing faculty of our Souls to discover those sins and hypocrises which her self with all her wits seek to hide even from her self as well as from others And therefore unless we vindicate the intellect from this thraldom and deliver it from the power and tyranny of the will and that will 's corrupt affections that it may be a free Umpire and Judge within us unless laying aside all love of our selves and sins we deal truly and impartially with our selves Nay unless we be jealous of our own souls and take our selves as we well may for the greatest enemies of our selves and so deal with our hearts as we would do with felons and other offenders that is search and examine them with all strictness and diligence we shall never throughly discover the truth of our own bosoms For the heart is a sly and subtle malefactor he will not quickly confess he must be tript with many questions often taken in contradictions nay have evident proofs brought in against him or he will never acknowledge his error nothing but manifest truth can extort it from him Unless it be the rack on that indeed he will sometimes confess on the rack of some sudden Judgment on the rack of a tormenting Conscience you shall hear it then cry out before any body examines them like Judas I have sinned in betraying innocent blood and hang themselves when they have done and to sin worse in shedding their own But this of the rack is confess and be hang'd that which we seek by examination is confess and be forgiven If we confess our sins God is faithful to forgive them saith St. John though most men had as lieve be hang'd as confess and out of a stubborn Pride had rather excuse than acknowledge their crimes So losing the benefit of remission for want of seeing how much they deserved punishment which nothing but a true inquiry and a faithful examination can set before their eyes For want whereof it is that so many think well of themselves now and are as sure of heaven as if they had possession already who God knows shall never come there Only this benefit they gain by their false security that without any murmuring of Conscience they go merrily to Hell for as Solomon hath it there is a way that is right in a mans eyes but it leads down unto death In this way the Pharisee in the Gospel seemed to walk I thank God saith he I am not as other men no Adulterer no Covetous Extortioner no unjust person as that Publican but he gave Almes to the poor he fasted every week and payed Tithes of all that he had He was right indeed in his own eyes and why but because his eyes looked only outwards upon other wicked men whom he found himself unlike or if at any time inwards it was through the false spectacles of pride and self-love which can present him with nothing but seeming goodness and that multiplyed much more than it was But as he was right in his eyes had his eyes also been right in his head he might upon better examination have seen what our Saviour easily discerned the hypocrisy of his heart which did but cover it self with Sheeps cloathing being inwardly more ravenous than a wolf under pretence of religion and long prayers eating up the substance of poor women and devouring Widows houses and therefore he tells them Publicans and Sinners that is the most lewd and dissolute people should sooner enter into the Kingdom of Heaven For the foulness of their Crimes past all excuse leaves some hopes they may in time come to see and detest them whereas the other whose sins being deep and secret are not so easily discerned and his wounds though they fester and putrify at the bottom as being never searched to the depth yet because they are skinned over at the top with an outward formality of Religion he pleaseth himself with a conceit he is throughly cured and so of necessity nourisheth his death within him without ever looking after the Chirurgion These Pharisees are not yet all dead they still live and will do in many a bosome and in theirs especially that live most civilly and least think they are harbored there For who almost is there amongst us that is not right in his own eyes who is there that looking on the outward surface of his actions how justly he lives and free from aspersion how diligently he frequents the Church hears Sermons receives the Sacrament and the like doth not secretly in his heart thank God he is not like other men when if he look into it a little better he may peradventure find it for all this as empty of true piety unto God or charity unto his Brother as that false Pharisee was We do not yet know nor shall we till we undestand our selves better how apt we are to deceive our selves and flatter our Souls out of their salvation The very gross and palpable offender can shrowd you see his crimes under such fair titles as they seem to him little or none at all nay vertues sometimes instead of vices The Covetous man is but thrifty and the Drunkard a good fellow the quarrelling Ruffian a man of valour and the prodigal Spendal kind and freehearted How much more easily then shall the civil hypocrite slide away under the false pretences of a goodly outside Wherewith he is so industrious to cosen others that at length vâ—luing his goodness by their opinions whom he hath abused he cheaâ—s himself ere he is aware of his own Soul That therefore in so dangerous a case we may take care we do not deceive our hearts any longer but every man deal faithfully and truly with himself where it so highly concerns him Let us come at length to the examination it self For this hitherto is but to shew how necessary it is to examine we will now endeavour to make that examination and we will make it not in all things we might but only in that preparationâ— and those qualifications of it which erewhile we found necessarily required in a worthy Communicant that accordingly we may condemn and reform our selves before we approach unto the holy table Wherein because I desire to deal impartially with mine own Soul and yours I shall intreat your patience if I come as near your Consciences as may be which you cannot afford without finding the comfort of it in your selves for assuredly the more willing the heart is to be furrowed and plowed up the better ever it takes the immortal seed and the sooner and surer sends forth fruit to eternal life To enter on it then The qualifications of our preparation wherein we are to examine our selves I have shewn you to be four especially Knowledge Faith Repentance and Love But before we deal upon them it will not be amiss briefly to reflect on the examination and preparation of our selves and see and consider how much heretofore we have failed
in usilitatem nostram de salvatore salutem operari imploy or make use of him for our best behoof draw his proper extract from him and work salvation out of this our Saviour But how may that be done sure no way better than as God in his infinite mercy this day gave him so we this day again in all thankfulness receive him otherwise we shall but evacuate the gift and dishonour the giver but abuse his goodness and lose our own benefit For it is not so ours but by our own neglect it may be lost For though all be ours because given us yet nothing shall be ours if not accepted Ours indeed he and all his are already by right and interest but they are never throughly ours till they be ours by possession and then they are ours indeed Possession then let us take but how or which way shall we take it no way so well as in the blessed Sacrament in the holy Mysteries instituted of purpose and ordained to no other end but for pledges to assure us and conduits to convey unto us this blessed Saviour and all his benefits There and there only we may be seised and possessed of both for there and there only are both to be received Thither then let us approach with all reverence and due regard to claim our interest in them and then be assured it shall never be denied He himself will presently meet and answer us with an Accipite Here take this is my body by the offering whereof ye are sanctified Take this is my blood by the shedding whereof ye are saved Take and receive them both and with them all the joyes and blessings they both have purchased or this Text doth afford for now after this all are yours in right and yours in possession none can bereave you of them You have the Author of all safe enough and fast enough with you nay within you It is no longer now Natus vobis to you is born a Saviour but in vobis in you he is born and in you he lives and will live for ever Ye may henceforth say with St. Paul jam non ego vivo fed vivit in me Christus it is not I now that live but Christ liveth in me and if he live in us now we shall live in him for ever hereafter For if whilst ye live ye do not live but Christ liveth in you why when ye die ye shall not dye but live in Christ in Christ the Lord of life and glory and joy and with Christ be made coheirs and Lords of them all and whatsoever other blessedness wherewith he himself is everlastingly Blessed Which the Lord God Almighty vouchsafe unto us for this our Saviour Christ the Lords sake who this day came to purchase them for us and to whom with the Father and the blessed Spirit three Persons c. be rendred all c. Amen Laus Deo in aeternum THE SECOND SERMON ON CHRISTMAS Day SERMON X. Upon GAL. iv 4 5. When the fullness of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law That he might redeem them that were under the Law that we might receive the adoption of Sons THE Text begins with the fulness of time but we may well begin with the fulness of the Text for it hath both fulness of time and fulness of matter the love of the Father the humility of the Son and the happiness of man arising from both are here at the full First the fulness of the Fathers love who so loved the world as he gave his only begotten Son When the fulness c. God sent his Son c. Secondly the fulness of the Sons humility not only vouchsafing to take on him our nature made of a Woman but also our miserable condition undertaking to satisfy the Law unto whose condemnation we were subject made under the Law c. Thirdly and lastly the fulness of our bliss and happiness arising from both as being now ransomed from the death of everlasting sorrow which the Law did threaten that he might redeem c. and not so only but adopted also unto that immortal life of glory which the Gospel doth promise that we might c. by the one we are freed from all evil by the other invested with whatsoever is good and both must needs make up the fulness of happiness That he c. So these three are here at the full and in the fulness of them doth consist the fulness of the whole Gospel whose foundation is wholly built upon the Son of God sent into the world of whom there is little to be known and by whom there was little performed and fulfilled which is not even in these verses fully expressed For you have here both foundation and roof both substance of the work and all the circumstances that belong unto it and you may see in it not only that he was a Saviour sent into the world which is the main but also who it was that was sent and by whom and in what manner to what end and in what time which are necessary adjuncts If you demand of it who it was that was sent it tells you the Son of God if by whom it answers by God his Father God sent his Son if in what manner it replies in a twofold made and made again twice made factum ex factum sub made of and made under made of a Woman and made under the Law If to what purpose all this it gives you a double end which is the comfort of all Redemption and Adoption unto men To them that were c. That we might c. Lastly if when it was performed you have it clearly and fully in the first words in plenitudine temporis in the fulness of time When the fulness c. So have you the sending and whatsoever may seem to belong unto it who was sent and by whom how and why and when not one the least circumstance is omitted but you have all so full it is and yet you have not all the fullness For should we inquire more particularly into the nature and person of this Saviour here they are all three one person and two natures or two natures in one person he is the Son of God see his Divinity but of a Woman see his humanity made of a Woman see their union in one person for God cannot be made Man but by making himself one person with Man This for his incarnation will you now inquire for the birth or nativity of the person so incarnate it's here too for as he was made so was he sent as made of a Woman so sent into the world made of a Woman by incarnation and sent into the world by birth and nativity God sent his son made of a woman Should we yet proceed a step or two farther after his incarnation and birth would you behold his life or contemplate his death see what he did in the one or
But considering that God meant not to deliver Man by a powerful conquest but a just redemption by a just Redeemer that should dissolve the just condemnation of the Law there is something more in it than the conquest of Satan In this case he that shall undertake it must not only vanquish the Prince of darkness but by satisfying Divine Justice appease the King of Glory that was offended And this I suppose no meer creature endued with any power of God whatsoever unless that which ariseth from personal union with the Creator and maketh him cease to be a meer creature could ever be enabled to perform and accomplish He that shall come to Redeem as it is here that is lay down a full price for Mans transgression He that shall put himself under the Law that is undertake the penalty which Divine Justice doth injoin unto the breakers if he be but a finite person he shall be sure to suffer infinite sorrow or rather because being finite he cannot at once suffer any thing that is infinite he must suffer it infinitely that is never make an end of suffering but lie under it for ever The person satisfying must be as infinite as the person offended otherwise he can never be of that infinite merit as to make a temporary passion equivalent to a perpetual punishment And this still adds fulness to the Fathers love and to his wisdom too who by sending this person not only sent one that was full and answerable unto his own love but full and sutable also to our necessity When no other Creature either in Heaven or Earth was either of worth sufficient to be imployed or of sufficient ability to perform the imployment of this message and embassy misit filium he sent his Son So the Fathers love is full twice full he sent and sent his Son sent first and sent the best thing that he had We now pass on to the Sons humility wherein we shall perceive his love arising unto fullness by two degrees made and twice made Made of a Woman and made under the Law It must needs be a great degree of humiliation for the Son of God to be made at all to be made any thing for to make him saith one well is to mar him be it what it will be He is the maker and Creator of all things and therefore when he himself is made no less than the Creator is made a Creature which cannot be but an infinite abasement But yet since he may not come in his own glory but must be made if there be any thing better than other let him be made that some Angel or Archangel or any other of that Celestial Hierarchy No he would by no means take on him the nature of Angels that descent was not low enough for his humility He made himself lower than the Angels he was made man and a man not made immediately by the fingers of God like Adam in his full strength and beauty but bred by degrees in the womb of a Woman for even that he vouchfafed not to abhor factum ex muliere made of a Woman c. Thus it pleased the Lord to abase himself and thus it pleased him to exalt us and our Nature by the assumption whereof man is now become God and God is made man He that was the Son of God without a Mother is now become the Son of a Woman without a Father and as God at the first drew a Woman out of Man without the help of a Woman so he now took a Man out of a Woman without the help of Man For he was not begotten but made made a man but of the substance only of a woman made of a woman c. Blessed woman from whose body the redeemer of mankind took the blood that was to be shed for the sins of the world yea of whose blood he made that body which men and Angels must ever adore What wonderful titles hast thou obtained thou Daughter of the Father Mother of the Son and I had almost said spouse of the Holy Ghost that wrought thy conceptionâ— how and how strangely art thou become as the Daughter of thy Son so the Mother of thy own Father For so she must needs be that is the Mother of God Blessed therefore thou art and well may all generations so call thee from whose bowels so great a blessing is descended to all generations This much we willingly afford and more than this we may not give thou maist not receive we honour but we may not adore thee we bless thee we praise thee we magnify thee only we do not worship thee that belongs unto thy Son which is both thy Son and thy Saviour For the blood which he took from thee he even paid for thee he took it from thee so he is thy Son he pay'd it for thee so he is thy Saviour God thy Saviour and therefore thy Father as well as thy Son as well as thy Saviour So his thou art and his Creature by a double title of Creation of Redemption Thou maist not then take unto thy self any part of his honour and worship whom thou thy self art for ever bound to worship and honour Honour enough it is for thee that he that made thee vouchsafed to be made of thee Made of a woman c. Neither hath he honoured her alone in her own person or in her own Sex but man and all mankind For though he were made of a woman yet not made by a woman made of a woman but made himself a man that both man and woman might rejoyce and glory in him How well may we cry out with David Domine quid est homo Lord what is man that thou didst magnify him or the Son of man that thou didst so visit him And how well may we answer with the same Prophet Homo est res nihili man is a thing of nought that is a thing drawing near unto nothing of no worth no value no continuance yet such a thing it pleased the Son of God to be made and therein to be made lower than the Angels that he might raise and advance this thing of nought far above all principalities and powers and crown him with worship and glory So have you both his natures God and man the Son of God and yet the Son of a woman So he was and so it was convenient he should be that was to be the redeemer of man who might not be redeemed but by a passion proportionable unto a perpetual punishment For as I said before had he not been God his sufferings could never have been of that infinite value so I now say had he been nothing else but God he could not have suffered at all and for this reason be was both God and man man to suffer God to merit man to serve God to set free man to die God to rise again from the dead for had he been God alone he could never have suffered had he
season and who is so mad as to build and plant garnish and make great provision in an Inn in his passage and upon the way being to depart ere long peradventure the next morning For here we have no abiding place no permanent City but as strangers and pilgrims we look for one which hath a foundation And in such a Soul which is in it self as an Inn and esteems the world for no other and therefore void of all scraping and wretched desires the Son of God is ever most infallibly born and will as certainly bear it where are true riches and everlasting Now these three pleasure profit and pride that is the flesh the world and the Devil are the three heads whereunto all sins are reducible and as Christ cuts them all off in his birth so must we cut them off in our selves or he will never be born in us Carnal pleasure must depart he will be born of a Virgin Devilish pride abandoned he is born in a Stable worldly cares and covetous desires utterly discharged he is born in an Inn. And when the Soul is thus prepared by being truly cleansed from all these the time is at hand and then let him make hast and go up with confidence unto Bethlem for there he will be born that is the last and general place of his nativity born in Bethlem And Bethlem is domus panis so the name signifies the house of bread and never so truly as now when the bread of life was born in it And as then so will be still be born in Bethlem in the house of bread Of bread not corporal but spiritual and such as can nourish the Soul and what house think you is that surely Bethlem is nothing but Bethel the house of bread none other but the house of God Where Men eat Angels food and that bread of life is freely dispensed not only panis verbi but panis verbum the bread of the word but the bread which is the word the eternal word of God panis de Coelo bread from Heaven of which whosoever eateth shall never die And this is that house ecce and behold there is that heavenly bread indeed not so much bread as the body of thy Redeemer the bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Lords body the Communion sure of his body and blood too of himself and all that he did or suffered yea or purchased either For all are communicated in these the same Symbols of all and Conduits by which all are conveyed to us And therefore Christ Jesus himself is under this bread and comes down to thee as from Heaven in this shape that he might be at once both received in thy mouth and conceived in thy heart conceived and born live and inhabit therefor ever So justly was Bethlem the seat of his Nativity and therefore as Jacob said when he awoke out of sleep in that place where some suppose the Temple was afterwards built how fearful saith he is this place the Lord was in it and I was not aware this is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven if he said so of the Temple the house of that bread how much more justly may we say of the bread of this house How fearful is this bread the Lord is in it and much more especially than in the Temple and wo unto them that are not aware of it that discern it not for they do but eat damnation to themselves because they discern not the Lords body Take heed therefore above all things unto thy self when thou comest to this fearful twice fearful place this double Temple the Temple of his worship and Temple of his Body and so that thou make thy approach with due regard and diligent preparation with that deep sorrow as becometh thy sins that low reverence as becometh thy Saviour And so in the end think on the night wherein he was to be born and betake thee to thy sweet and silent meditations consider the deep of Winter and embrace thine afflictions Look upon the days of peace and let go wrath view the Stable and down with thy pride see the Inn and contemn the World contemplate the Virgin and cleanse thy self from all pollutions of the flesh so shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty and thy Virgin Soul come up safely into Bethlem and take of the bread of life freely and with it the blessed Lord of life himself who will make thy spirit another spiritual Bethlem or house for this living bread an habitation for this living Lord to be born and live in so long as thou livest and give thee everlasting life when thou canst live no longer Which God of his infinite mercy c. To whom c. Laus Deo in aeternum TWO FUNERAL SERMONS The FIRST for the MOTHER SERMON XII Upon PSAL. cxlii verse ult Bring my Soul out of Prison that I may give thanks unto thy Name which thing if thou wilt grant me then shall the Righteous resort unto my Company DO not marvel the Text may be fitter than you imagine or I could have made choice of for it is not I but another it was not taken but given me She that is now gone and at rest and may she rest for ever in peace she whose dissolved Tabernacle the prison of whose blessed Soul lies here before your eyes as a spectacle of mortality as a document of the frailty of our humane condition which I would if I might so wish it had this day appeared by some other example She this worthy and honoured Lady now glorious Saint in Heaven to whom we are at this time to perform our last office and Christian duty She it is who as she made it her frequent praise in her life so she desired it might be commended to your meditations in her death And you will anon perceive how justly when you shall see how well it sorted with the one and how fully it is now accomplished in the other But for this you must stay a little First therefore of her Theam then of her self Bring my Soul c. The whole Psalm is a prayer of Davids pursued by Saul and shut up in a Cave as appears by the Title but whether that of Adullam in the xxii of Samuel as Haimo and Remigius or else of the other of Engedi in the xxiv of the same book as Ambrose and Athanasius suppose is uncertain nor is it material to enquire In one of them it was and in this distress he flees unto the Lord for sucour in this whole Psalm the sum and substance of whose devout prayer you have in this last verse Bring my Soul c. This is the Historical truth and the literal sence of the Text which ariseth from thence is manifest Deliver my Soul out of Prison Espelunca out of this Cave and not so only not out of the Cave alone for so he might have fallen into the hands of Saul from whom it
habet all our time that is past death hath seised on it and so much of our life is consumed Let me then warn you and stir up your meditations of your mortality in the words of Moses Deut. xxxii 29. O that men were wise then would they understand this then would they consider their latter end Sure we are unwise that we consider not the things past the evil we have committed the good we have omitted the benefits of God we have abused the time we have mispent and yet we grieve not because we think not yet whether we shall die More unwise are we not to consider the things present the deadness of our Body and uncertainty of our death the difficulty of Salvation and the small number of such as shall be saved and yet we shame not because we think we shall not yet die But most unwise are we that we consider not the things to come Death Judgment Hell all to come and yet we fear not because we think we shall never die But O that we were wise then should we understand then should we consider our latter end and considering it we should both prepare for it now and more cheerfully entertain it when it comes memorare novissims remember thy end saith the Wiseman in aeternum non peccabis and thou shalt never offend never do amiss Ecclus vii 36. So universal is the goodness of this consideration and therefore I have stayed the longer on it But now I pass from mortality to the cause of it from death to sin that first brought it into the world The body is dead because of sin Sin it is and only sin which is as the cause of all our dolours and calamities so of death it self that follows them without this there never had been there never could have been any death in the world Death were not death had it not a sting to kill but the sting of death is sin as the strength of sin is the law saith our Apostle The cursed apple of disobedience which our first Parents would needs eat sticks still in all our teeth it was poyson unto his nature and infected his blood and he hath derived the contagion to all his posterity who still continuing to feed on forbidden fruit as he did do perpetually strengthen the original Disease and draw death upon themselves more hastily and violently than either that sin procured or the prime corruption of nature for it doth inforce Hence then we may perceive first how foolish they are who living still in sin yet never consider that they are the Butchers and Murtherers of themselves according to that of the Psalmist The malice of the wicked shall slay themselves xxxiv 21 his own sin which he hath conceived brought forth and nourished shall be his destruction Every Man judgeth Saul miserable that died upon his own Sword but what better are other wretched Men whose sins and iniquities are the cruel instruments of death wherewith they slay themselves Souls and Bodies too Thus are they twice miserable first that they must die and secondly that they are guilty of their own death O the lamentable blindness of Men who albeit in their life they fear nothing more than death yet do they entertain nothing more willingly than sin which causeth their death In bodily diseases Men are content to abstain even from ordinary food when they are informed it will but nourish their sickness and this they do to eschew death only herein they are so ignorant that notwithstanding they abhor death yet they take pleasure in unrighteousness that brings it upon them And secondly which shall be the last use we will make of this point Since sin it is that did first bring and doth still hasten on death upon wicked Men what marvel is it if in these last and worst days the Lord strike the bodies of Men with sundry sorts of diseases and sundry kinds of death seeing Man by sundry sorts of sins doth not cease to provoke him unto anger He frameth his Judgments proportionable to our iniquities if ye walk stubbornly against me and will not obey me I will then bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins Levit. xxvi 25. He hath a famine to punish intemperance and the abuse of his creatures if the memory of our own corrupt and putrifying bodies cannot do it he hath a devouring sword to bring down the pride of our hearts If we have fiery and unclean affections he doth not need burning Fevers and loathsome diseases to punish them And now if the Lord after that he hath stricken us with such a dreadful pestilence shall renew his Plague amongst us or go on to finish that former destruction with the Sword of our enemies what shall we say but the despising of his former fatherly corrections or our stubborn walking against the Lord our God hath procured it justly unto our selves Quid mirum in poenas generis humani crescere ir am Dei cùm crescat quotidie quod puniatur what marvel that the wrath of God increase every day to punish Man when that doth daily increase which deserves that God should punish it But enough of this part it is now time to pass on to the second and most worthy part as of Man so of my Text from the Body to the Soul from the memory of death to the comforts against death for though the body be dead yet it is but the body the spirit which is the highest consolation of a Christian is yet alive Mans life it self But the spirit is life I cannot now stand to discourse of the excellent Nature of Mans Spirit and the wonderful union of it with flesh and blood for Man you see is no simple creature but compounded of both both a Body and a Spirit He is the abstract and brief compendium of all the creatures of God The world was corporeal the Angels spiritual and both were united in Man and made as it were into one creature A creature which hath being with the elements life with plants sense with beasts reason and spiritual existence with Angels that so the Almighty God first uniting all his creatures in Man and then uniting Man unto himself in the person of Christ might in some sort through Man communicate himself to all his creatures Worthily therefore did the Naturalists term him a little world and as worthily did St. Austin say of him that of all the miracles that were ever wrought amongst Men Man himself is the greatest miracle and that not only in regard of his two substances but especially in regard of their marvellous union that a mass of clay should be quickened by a spirit of life and both united into one person That as God himself hath diverse persons in one Nature so man hath diverse and those contrary natures in one person Commonly says Bernard the honourable agrees not with the ignoble the strong overgoes the weak the living and the dead dwell not together