commanded from heaven to heare saith That without him we can do nothing That those to whom Power is given to be the sonnes of God are not borne of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God 1. They are not borne of blood that is they come not by naturall propagation for by this nativity wee are children of wrath 2. They are not of the will of the flesh This may be referred to them which are borne of faithful Parents yet begotten carnally For as the wheat is sown without chaffe but when it grows the chaffe comes up with it Or as the Hebrew Males which were circumcised begat children which were uncircumcised so the most holy and spiritual man begets a carnal sonne the reason is Quia ex hoc gignit quod adhuc vetustum tenet inter filios seculi non ex hoc quod in novitatem promovit inter filios dei as Austin He begets according to that corruption which hee retains amongst the sonnes of men not according to that perfection which he hath attained unto amongst the sons of God 3. They are not borne of the will of man That is the will of man doth not co-work with God at his regeneration to receive grace and convert himselfe Let the Papists and Pelagians and Semi-pelagians busie their braines and confederate themselves and joyne their forces against Christ and his Apostles maugre their beards it shall stand which is confessed by an honest Frier that there is not in the whole world of natural men vel mica virium so much as a dram or crum of power whereby he may convert himselfe and become a sonne of God Thus then first he is our Father not only by grace of adoption but by grace of regeneration he regenerates and begets us a new by the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the holy Ghost 2. To his children thus begotten and born anew he gives new names Thou shalt be called by a new name Isa 62. 2. To him that overcometh I will give a white stone and in the stone a new name Rev. 2. 13. I will write in it my new name Rev. 3. 12. Old things when they are renewed have new names given them So old Byzantiū renewed by Constantine was called after his name So a son of the old Adam who of himself Is a child of wrath a firebrand of hell Gods enemy and an alien from the common-wealth of Israel being renewed and regenerate and having given his name to Christ is called a Christian This is a new name received from him who after he had spoyled Principalities and Powers and like a triumphant Conqueror shewed them openly in his Chariot of triumph so Origen calls it the Crosse hath received a name above all names that are named not in this world only but also in that which is to come The name also we receive in our Baptisme when we are admitted into Christs Church is a new name and may put us in mind of our new and spirituall estate as the other which we receive from our Parents and Ancestors is a mark of our natural state we received from them So that whensoever we think of our names given us in our baptisme we should think of our new birth and be more and more renewed according to that of the Apostle Old things are past behold all things are become new Therefore as many as are in Christ let them be new creatures New names and old natures are like new wine in old vessels or like new cloath in an old garment 3. He feeds us 1. with corporall food for the sustenance of our bodies The greatest Prince of the world hath not so much de proprio as a morsell of bread to put in his mouth but what he receives from him who hath Heaven for his throne and Earth for his foot-stoole who opens his hand and gives to all creatures that wait upon him their meate in due season For which cause Christ sends us to heaven gates to begge our daily bread viz. not only the substance of bread but baculum panis as the Scripture calls it the power and strength to nourish us without whose benediction be our tables furnished with never such variety of dishes wee shall be but like Caligula's guests at his golden banquet we may well feed our eyes but not our stomacks Or like to him that eates in a dreame and when he awakes behold his soule is empty 2. He feeds us with spiritual food that which was figured by the tree of life and the waters that flowed out of the stony rock as some of the Fathers expound it the bodie and blood of Christ unto eternall life 3. He cloatheth us as the Kings daughter with a vesture of gold the robe of Christs righteousnesse which we must put on as a wedding garment that our filthy nakednesse may not appeare in his sight and withall by degrees makes us glorious within with the habite of sanctification and inherent righteousnesse 5. He protects us against all dangers as hath been already shewed 6. He corrects us for our offences as a father doth his child in whom his soule delighteth 7. He provides for us an Inheritance immortall and undefiled in the heavens For it is your fathers good pleasure to give you a kingdome The next thing that comes to be handled But let us first by way of use and inference reflect upon the point we have in hand Is God Almighty a Father of his little flock and such a father as doth not only regenerate but feedeth and cloatheth and protecteth and directeth and hath in a readinesse a Kingdom for the meanest of them that be his Here then let us take notice of the dignity and worth and happinesse of the meanest Christian above all the sonnes of Adam be they never so great swell they never so high with a conceit of their owne worth The greatest of heathen Philosophers tells us that felicity consists in a cumulation of moral vertues Others place it in worldly pleasures The common sort of men in worldly honours and preferments and the higher a man is advanced the more worthy the more happy they repute him But alas what great felicity is it for a base fellow to act a Kings part upon the Stage and when the Play is ended to be contented with a ragged coate far lesse to be a King in this world and then to be cast into Hell fire Here is the state and condition of the greatest Potentates on Earth that have not Christ for their Brother and God for their Father when they have acted their parts upon the stage of this world downe they must goe into the infernall lake The Spider thinks her selfe no base creature when she hath got her selfe into the roofe of a Princely palace and there woven her webbe and rests there secure as shee thinks from all danger but anon when
when God writeth thy sinnes in dust wilt thou write thy Brothers in Marble When he forgiveth thee ten thousand talents wilt not thou forgive thy Brother an hundreth pence If thou wilt be indeed his Sonne be like unto him be pitiful tender-hearted full of mercy and compassion if thou be angry beware that thou sin not by speedy revenge if thy wrath be conceived in the morning and perchance increase his heat with the Sunne till mid-day yet let it settle with the Sunne at afternoon and set with it at night Let not the Sunne go down upon thy wrath if its conception be in the night use it as the harlot used her child smother it in thy bed and make it like the untimely fruit of a woman which perisheth before iâ— see the Sun to this purpose remember that the Citizens of this Jerusalem are at unity amongst themselves the stones of this temple are fast coupled and linked together the members of this Body as they are united in one head with the nerves of a justifying faith So are they knit in one heart with the Arteries of love The branches of this Vine as they are united with the boale from whence they receive nutriment so have they certain tendâ—els whereby they are fastned and linked one to another Now if without compassion thou seekest thy brothers hurt thou dost as it were divide Christ thou pullest a stone out of this Temple thou breakest a branch from this Vine nay more then so thou cuttest the Vine it self Virgil tels us that when Aeneas was pulling a bough from a miâ—tle tree to shadow his sacrifice there issued drops of blood from the boale trickling down unto the ground at length he heard a voice crying unto him thus Quid miserum Aenea laceras jam parce sepulto parce pias scelerare manus the Poet tels us that it was the blood of Polydorus Priamus his sonne which cried for vengeance against Polymnester the Thracian King which had slain him in like manner whensoever thou seekest the overthrow of thy Christian Brother and hast a desire to revenge thy self of him as hee had to pull a bough from the Tree think that it is not the branches but the Vine thou seekest to cut down Think that Christ will count this indignity done to his members as it were done to himselfe Think that thou hearest him cry unto thee after this manner jam parce sepulto parce tuas scelerare manus imbrue not thy hands in my blood hand cruor hic de stipite manat it is not the branches thou fightest against Nam Polydorus ego I am Jesus whom thou persecutest I am now come near to a point which I have pressed heretofore in the other publick place of this citie therefore I proceed no further but turn aside to my second general point observed in this verse which was Jerusalems miserie The Tree is very fruitful and I am but a passenger and therefore must be contented to pull two or three clusters which I conceived to be the ripest and the readiest to part with the boughs which when I have commended to your several tastes I will commit you to God First the Paucity of true Professors if ye can finde a man or if there be any Secondly the place where In Jerusalem Thirdly that God will bring his judgements upon her because of her wickednesse not expressed but necessarily understood From these three I collect three Propositions from the first Gods flock militant may consist of a small number from the second There is no particular place so priviledged but that it may revolt and fall from God from the third No place is so strong nor city so fenced but the sins of the people will bring it to ruine Of these three in order Gods holy Spirit directing me and first of the first God made all the world and therefore it is great reason that he should have it all to himself yea and he challengeth it as his own right The gold is his and the silver is his and all the beasts of the field 〈◊〉 his and so are the cattel upon a thousand hills and the Heavens are his for they are his Throne and the earth is his for it is his footstool and the reprobate are his for Nebuchadnezzar is his servant and as Judah is his so is Moab likewise but in another kinde of service in a word The earth is the Lords and all that therein is the compasse of the world and all that dwell therein but not in that property which is now meant for that belongs only unto men and yet not unto all but to a few which are appointed to be heirs of salvation God made all men so that they are all his sons by creation but he ordained not all to life so that there is but a remnant which are his sons by adoption our first Father did eat such a sowre grape as did set all his childrens teeth on edge by transgressing Gods commandment he lost his birth-right and was shut out of Paradise by committing treason against his Lord and King his blood was stained and all his children were made uncapable of their fathers inheritance but God who is rightly termed the Father of all mercy and God of all consolation as he purposed to shew his justice in punishing the greater part of such as so grievously incurred his displeasure so on the contrary side it was his good pleasure to shew his mercy in saving of some though they deserved as great a degree of punishment as the other and therefore in a Parliment holden before all times it was enacted that the natural son of God the second person in the Trinity should in the fulnesse of time take upon him mans flesh and suffer for our transgressions and gather a certain number out of that Masse of corruption wherein all mankinde lay these be they which shall follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth these be his people and the sheep of his pasture these be they which have this prerogative to be called the Sons of God and the heirs of God annexed with Christ and these are they which I affirm to be often contained in a very narrow room in respect of the wicked There is much chaffe and little wheat it is the wheat that God keeps for his garner there are many stones but few pearls it is the pearl which Christ hath bought with his blood Many fowls but only the Eagles be good birds Sathan hath a Kingdom and Christ but a little flock it is like to Bethleem in the land of Judah but a little one amongst the Princes of Judah it is like to Noahs flood going and returning like the 〈◊〉 flowing and ebbing or like to the Moon filling and waining and sometimes so eclipsed and darked with the earth that thou canst not perceive that Christ the son of righteousnesse doth
to permit them to fall as namely to humble them to make them more earnestly implore his help to shew unto them their own miserie in relapsing and to make knowne his owne mercy in forgiving but still he is ready to receive them again if they returne unto him by repentance For if he would have us to forgive our Brethren their trespasses when they turne unto us and ask forgiveness not seven times but seventy times seven times that is as oft as they offend us much more will the Lord out of the bottomlesse depth of his mercie pardon his children when they fall if afterward they returne unto him by earnest and unfeigned repentance And thus much in effect the Novatians did at length confesse holding that such as sinned after baptisme were not to be admitted into the congregation but yet they should be exhorted to repentance that so they might obtain remission of sinne of God who alone can forgive sinnes meaning that if after their relapse they should repent the Lord would have mercie upon them and this is the difference betwixt Gods children and revolting hypocrites these when they fall they fall away but Gods Elect though they fall seven times yet they rise as often The fall of the wicked is like the fall of Eli from his chaire or of Iesabel from the window it is a breakneck fall but the fall of the godly is like unto the fall of Eutychus though they fall from the third loft yet they are taken up though dead and some good Paul by embracing them with the sweet promises of his Gospel doth revive them the wicked are like to the Raven which as the vulgar corruptly reades it went out of the Arke and returned not they goe out of the Arke the Church and return not but feed upon the carrion of this world but the godly are like the Dove they flie somtimes out of the Arke the church of God yet when they find no rest for the soles their feet they returne again with an olive-branch in their mouthes like the Dove I mean with an humble confession of their offences and earnest and hearty prayers unto Almighty God which when they do then Noah the true Preacher of righteousness will put forth his hand and again receive them into the arke And therefore let not the weake Christian be discouraged with the remembrance of such sinnes as he hath faln into after his justification as if now there were no hope of pardon but let him prostrate himselfe before the throne of God and with many bitter groanes crie after this or the like manner Father I have sinned against Heaven and against thee I dare not lift up my impure eyes unto the heavens the seate of thy majesty I am one whom thou hast vouchsafed to adopt to be thy son and yet I have never reverenced thee as a loving Father but like a stranger have transgressed thy precepts and neglected thy statutes so that I am most unworthy to be called thy sonne I am one for whom thou hast given thine owne and only sonne Christ Jesus God and man the very brightnesse of thy glorie the engraven form of thy person the essential word by which thou madest all things and yet I have been unmindfull of so great a benefit I have rejected the sweet promises of thy sons Gospel I have denyed the faith I have sinned Father I have sinned against Heaven and against thee I am no more worthy to be called thy sonne I am one whom thou out of the bottomlesse depth of thy mercie many others of better desert being still leftin darknesse hast illuminated with the light of thy word hast called unto faith and repentance hast ingrafted into the true Vine when I was a wild branch thou hast made me partaker of thy holy sacraments and yet these inestimable Jewels these heavenly treasures these rich indowments I have set at naught and trodden under foot I have sinned Father I have sinned against Heaven and against thee I am no more worthy to be called thy sonne I am one whom thou hast washed with the blood of thy deare sonne whom thou hast restored to newness of life and yet I have returned like a dog to my vomit and with the Sow to the wallowing in the mire to thee therefore to thee belongeth righteousness but unto me belongeth nothing but shame and confusion of face yet O my God the greater my offences are the more earnestlie I implore thy help and the more shall thy mercie appeare if thou pardon and forgive them I have polluted and defiled all my wayes thou O Lord Jesus which art puritie it selfe which camest into this world to save sinners whereof I am chief wash my filthiness revive my deadness quicken my dulness awake my drousiness kindle my zeale increase my faith Lord Jesus I flie unto thee my soule gaspeth after thee as a thirstie land Peter denyed thee and thou didst receive him again the Apostles forsooke thee and yet thou forgavst them Paul persecuted thee and yet thou didest receive him to mercie David did grievously trespasse and yet thou O God hadst pittie and compassion upon him the Israelites oftentimes provoked thee and yet thou didst in thy mercie forgive them thy love is not abated thy bowels of compassion are not lessened the bottomlesse-Ocean of thy mercie is not dried thou hast protested and made it to be proclaimed by thy Herauld the Prophet that thou wilt not the death of a sinner but that he turne unto thee and live Lord I turne unto thee receive me to mercie let thy favourable countenance once againe shine upon me And when his heavenlie Father shall heare these and perceive that they proceed from an humble and contrite heart presently he will have compassion upon such a prodigall Child and fall on his neck and kisse him and bring forth his best Robe even the Robe of Christs righteousnesse and put it upon him and put a Ring on his finger and shooes on his feet Thus farre of the first Proposition the second followes It is not enough for a Christian to perform obedience to some of Gods precepts and to beare with himself wilfully in the breach of others Cursed is he that continueth not in all There were some of opinion as saith Lombard that a man might truely repent of one sinne and obtain pardon for the same and yet continue in another but these did never rightly understand the nature of mortification which requires a detestation and forsaking of all sinne and not a paring away of some which may best be spared as wee cannot at the same time look with one eye into Heaven and another unto the earth so may wee not in somethings serve God and in other things be servants of sinne when a man seeth his house on fire he will not quench some part of the flame and let the rest be burning but he will use all possible meanes to extinguish all the fire lest peradventure if one spark