thereof A Psalme of David giving Instruction And having given his Instruction the first way by Rule in the two former verses That Blessednesse consisted in the Remission of sinnes but that this Remission of sinnes was imparted to none Cui dolus in spiritu In whose spirit there was any deceit he proceeds in this Text to the other fundamentall and constitutive element of Instruction Example And by Example he shews how far they are from that Blessednesse that consists in the Remission of sinnes that proceed with any deceit in their spirit And that way of Instruction by Example shall be our first Consideration And our second That he proposes himselfe for the Example I kept silence sayes he and so My Bones waxed old c. And then in a third part we shall see how far this holy Ingenuity goes what he confesses of himselfe And that third part will subdivide it selfe and flow out into many branches First That it was he himselfe that was In doloso spiritu In whose spirit there was deceit Quia tacuit because he held his tongue because he disguised his sinnes because he did not confesse them And yet in the midst of this silence of his God brought him Ad rugitum to voyces of Roaring of Exclamation to a sense of paine and a sense of shame so far he had a voyce but still he was in silence for any matter of repentance Secondly he confesses the effect of this his silence and this his Roaring Inveteraverunt Ossa My Bones waxed old and my moisture is turned into the drought of Summer And then thirdly he confesses the reason from whence this inveteration in his bones and this incineration in his body proceeded Quia aggravata manus because the hand of God lay heavy upon him heavy in the present waight and heavy in the long continuation thereof day and night And lastly all this he seals with that Selah which you finde at the end of the verse which is a kinde of Affidavit of earnest asseveration and re-affirming the same thing a kinde of Amen and ratification to that which was said Selah truly verily thus it was with me when I kept silence and deceitfully smothered my sinnes the hand of God lay heavy upon me and as truly as verily it will be no better with any man that suffers himselfe to continue in that case First then 1 Part. Exemplum for the assistance and the power that example hath in Instruction we see Christs Method Quid ab initio how was it from the beginning Doe as hath been done before We see Gods method to Moses for the Tabernacle Looke that thou make every thing Exod. 24.40 after thy patterne which was shewed thee in the Mount And for the Creation it selfe we know Gods method too for though there were no world that was elder brother to this world before yet God in his owne minde and purpose had produced and lodged certaine Idea's and formes and patterns of every piece of this world and made them according to those pre-conceived formes and Idea's When we consider the wayes of Instruction as they are best pursued in the Scriptures so are there no Books in the world that doe so abound with this comparative and exemplary way of teaching as the Scriptures doe No Books in which that word of Reference to other things that Sicut is so often repeated Doe this and doe that Sicut so as you see such and such things in Nature doe And Sicut so as you finde such and such men in story to have done So David deals with God himselfe he proposes him an Example I aske no more favour at thy hands for thy Church now then thou hast afforded them heretofore Doe but unto these men now Psal 83.3 Sicut Midianitis as unto the Midianites Sicut Siserae as unto Sisera as unto Iabin Make their Nobles Sicut Oreb like Oreb and like Zeb and all their Princes Sicut Zeba as Zeba and as Zalmana For these had been Examples of Gods justice And to be made Examples of Gods anger Num. 5.26 is the same thing as to be a Malediction a Curse For in that law of Jealousie that bitter potion which the suspected woman was to take was accompanied with this imprecation The Lord make thee a Curse among the people So we reade it But S. Hierome In Exemplum The Lord make thee an Example among the people that is deale with thee so as posterity may be afraid when it shall be said of any of them Lord deale with this woman so as thou didst with that Adulteresse And so the prayer of the people is upon Booz Ruth 4.11 Vt sit in Exemplum as S. Hierom also reads that place The Lord make thee an Example of vertue in Ephrata and in Bethlem that is that Gods people might propose him to themselves conforme themselves to him and walke as he did As on the other side the anger of God is threatned so Ezek. 5.15 Jer. 48.39 God shall make thee Exemplum stuporem An Example and a Consternation And Exemplum derisum An example and a scorne That posterity whensoever they should be threatned with Gods Judgements they might presently returne to such Examples and conclude if our sins be to their Example our Judgements will follow their Example too a judgement accompanied with a consternation a consternation aggravated with a scorne we shall be a prey to our enemies an astonishment to our selves a contempt to all the world We doe according to their Example and according to their Example we shall suffer is not a Conclusion of any Sorbon nor a decision of any Rota but the Logique of the universall Universitie Heaven it selfe Zech. 13.5 And so when the Prophet would be excused from undertaking the office of a Prophet he sayes Adam exemplum meum ab adolescentia Adam hath been the example that I have proposed to my selfe from my youth As Adam did so in the sweat of my browes I also have eat my bread I have kept Cattle I have followed a Country life and not made my selfe fit for the office and function of a Prophet Adam hath been my Example from my youth And when Solomon did not propose a Man he proposed something els for his Example an example he would have Pro. 24.32 He looked upon the ill husbands land and he saw it over-growne Et exemplo didici disciplinam By that example I learnt to be wiser Enter into the Armory search the body and bowells of Story for an answer to the question in Iob Quis periit Who ever perished being Innocent Job 4.7 or where were the righteous cut off There is not one example no where never Answer but that out of Records Quis restitit Job 9.4 Job 11.10 Who hath hardned himselfe against the Lord and prospered Or that Quis contradicet If he cut off who can hinder him There is no Example No man by no meanes So if
to the Office of a Prophet 54. D. The promises of God in the Prophets how different from those in the Gospel 40. E. A This a seditious inference the Prophets did thus and thus in the Law therefore the Ministers of the Gospel should doe so likewise and why 734. A Psalmes The Booke of Psalmes the dignity and vertue of it 653. D. E They are the Manna of the Church 663. B Such forbid to bee made Priests that were not perfect in the Psalmes 813. B Singing of the Psalmes how generall and commendable in S. Hieromes times ibid. B. C Purgatorie none in the old Testament and why 783. E How derived from Poets and Philosophers to Fathers 784. A. B. C How suspitiously and doubtfully the Fathers speak of it bid specially S Augustine 786. E Bellarmine refuted about it 792.793 Q QVestions arising taken away by Silencing of both parties 42. D Against curiosity in seeking after them 57. D There is alwaies Divinity enough to save a soule that was never called into Question 745. A How peevish some Romish Authors doe detoâ—t the Scripture when they fall upon any Question or Controversie though otherwise they content themselves with the true meaning and sense of the same words 790. E. 791. A Quomodo to Question how God doth this or that dangerous 301. E. 367. C R REason not to be enquired after in all points of Faith 23. B Reasons not convincing never to be proffered for to prove Articles of Faith 205. D God useth to accompany those Duties which hee commands with Reasons to enduce us to the performance of them 593. A Reconciliation how little amongst the Papists 10. D All Nations under heaven have acknowledged some meanes of Reconciliation to their offended gods in the remission of their sinnes 564. C Religion against such as damnifie Religion by their outward profession more than if they did forsake it 757. D Every Religion had her mysteries her Reservations and in-intelligiblenesse which were not easily understood of all men 690. D And therefore Religion not to be made too homely and course a thing ibid. C Christian Religion an easie yoke a short and contracted burden 71. D All points of Religion not to bee divulged to the people 87. D Defects in Religion safer than superfluities 291. A Of peaceable conversation with men of divers Religions 310. C Wee charged to have but a negative Religion 636. A Religion how farre we may proceed in the outward declaration of our Religion 814. A Resurrection of three sorts 149. E Of that from persecution 185. B. C. D Of that from Sinne 186. D. E. c Of that from Death 189. D How a Resurrection of the soule being the soule cannot die 189. D Christ how the First Resurrection 191. B Our Resurrection a mystery 204. C Resurrection All Religions amongst the Heathens had some Impressions of it 800. E Retrospection or looking upon time past the best rule to judge of the future 668. D Reverence how much due to men of old Age 31. D What Required in Gods House 43. D Revelations wee are not to hearken after them 238 E Nor yet to binde God from them 239. A Rewards against bribery or receiving of Rewards 389. E God first proposes to himselfe persons to be Rewarded or condemned before he thinks of their condemnation or their Reward 674. B. 675. B. C Riches the cause of lesse sinne than poverty 658. D Especially considered in the highest degree and in the lowest that is abundant Riches and extreme beggerly poverty 659. D Against the perverse desire of Riches 728. C Riches S. Chrysostome calls the parents of absurdities and why 729. A The Remane Church a true Church as the Pest house is a house 606. A. 621. C Rome the Church of Rome the better for reformamation 621. B They doe charge us that we have but a negative Religion 636. A Why they so much under-value the Scripture and yet endevour to bring bookes of other Authors into that ranke as the Macchabees and such like 738. E Rome it selfe how it hath beene handled ever by Catholikes in their bloody warres 779. A Almost all the Controversies between Rome and the Christian world are matters of profit 791. A Rule and Example the two onely wayes of Teaching 571. E. 668. B The onely Rule of doctrine the Scripture and Word of God 738. E S THe Sabbath a Ceremoniall Law 92. C Sacrament how effectually Christ is present in it 19. C Of preparing our selves to the worthy receiving of it 32. A. c 33. A. c Against Superstition and Prophanesse too in the comming to it 34. A Of Christs reall presence in it 36. D. 37. B. C That which we receive in the Sacrament to bee Adored 693. B Against unworthy receiving of it 693. D. E Of both extremes about Chrsts presence in the Sacrament 821. E Saints against praying to them 90. D. 378. D. 595. A. 744. A. 757. B The Saints in heaven pray for us 106. B Why they must not pray to Saints in the Church of Rome upon good Friday Easter and Whitsunday 485. D Whether they enjoy degrees of Glory in heaven 742. E Salvation of the generall possibility of Salvation for all men 66. B. 330. A. B. 742. B. C. D. Not to be ascribed to our Workes 107. D Nor to our Faith ibid. E More that are Saved than that are damned 241. A. 259. C The impossibility of Salvation to any man before hee was a man a discomfortable doctrine 278. B Of that certaintie of Salvation which is taught of some in the Roman Church and how farre we are from it 339. D. E. 340. A. 608. C Salvation offered to all men and in earnest 742. A. B Saviour the name of Saviour attributed to others beside Christ 528. D Scriptures the most eloquent Books that are 47. E 556. E. 557. C foure Elements of the right exposition and sense of Scripture 305. B Moderation in reading of them 323. C Scripures the only rule of Doctrine 738. E Secrecy in Confession commended but in case of disloyaltie 92. E. 575. E Seeing of God in our Actions how necessary 169. E Against Selfe-Subsistence or standing of our selves 240. A. B Against Selfe-Love 156. A Sermons how loth the Fathers were to lacke company at them 48. C Of preaching the same Sermons twice 114. C 250. C The danger of hearing Sermons without practising 455. C. D Sighing for sinne the benefit of it 537. D Sight the noblest of the sences and all the sences 225. B Signe of the Crosse wherefore used in the Primative times 538. A And why by us in baptisme ibid. Signes how they may be sought after and how not 15. B. C. D Shame for sinne a good signe 557. D To be voice-proofe not afraid nor Ashamed of what the World sayes of a Man an ill signe of a Spirituall obduration in sinne 589. A Silence the severall sorts of it Silence of Reverence 575. C Silence of subjection ibid. D
bee new every morning too and all that he did in eighty eight in the last Centutry he shall doe if we need it in twenty eight in this Century And though he may be angry with our prayers as they are but verball prayers and not accompanied with actions of obedience yet he will not be angry with us for ever but re-establish at home zeale to our present Religion and good correspondence and affections of all parts to one another and our power and our honour in forraign Nations Amen SERMON VI. Preached at S. Pauls upon Christmas Day 1628. Lord who hath beleeved our report Domine quis credidit auditui nostro I Have named to you no booke no chapter no verse where these words are written But I forbore not out of forgetfulnesse nor out of singularity but out of perplexity rather because these words are written in more then one in more then two places of the Bible In your ordinary conversation and communication with other men I am sure you have all observed that many men have certaine formes of speech certaine interjections certaine suppletory phrases which fall often upon their tongue and which they repeat almost in every sentence and for the most part impertinently and then when that phrase conduces nothing to that which they would say but rather disorders and discomposes the sentence and confounds or troubles the hearer And this which some doe out of slacknesse and in-observance and infirmity many men God knowes do out of impiety many men have certaine suppletory Oathes with which they fill up their Discourse then when they are not onely not the better beleeved but the worse understood for those blasphemous interjections Now this which you may thus observe in men sometimes out of infirmity sometimes out of impiety out of an accommodation and communicablenesse of himselfe to man out of desire and a study to shed himselfe the more familiarly and to infuse himselfe the more powerfully into man you may observe even in the holy Ghost in himselfe in the Scriptures which are the discourse and communication of God with man There are certaine idioms certaine formes of speech certaine propositions which the holy Ghost repeats severall times upon severall occasions in the Scriptures It is so in the instrumentall Authors of the particular Bookes of the Bible There are certaine formes of speech certaine characters upon which I would pronounce That 's Moses and not David that 's Iob and not Solomon that 's Esay and not Ieremy How often does Moses repeat his Vivit Dominus and Ego vivo As the Lord liveth and As I live saith the Lord How often does Solomon repeat his vanitas vanitatum All is vanity How often does our blessed Saviour repeat his Amen Amen and in another sense then others had used that word before him so often as that you may reckon it thirtie times in one Evangelist so often as that that may not inconveniently be thought some reason why S. Iohn called Christ by that name Amen Rev. 3.14 Thus saith Amen He whose name is Amen How often does S. Paul especiallly in his Epistles to Timothy and to Titus repeat that phrase Fidelis Sermo This is a true and faithfull saying And how often his juratory caution Coram Domino before the Lord As God is my witnesse And as it is thus for particular persons and particular phrases that they are often repeated so are there certaine whole sentences certaine intire propositions which the holy Ghost does often repeat in the Scripture And except we except that proposition of which S. Peick makes his use That God is no accepter of persons Act. 10.34 for that is repeated in very many places that every where upō every occasiō every man might be remembred of that that God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you presume upon your own knowledge or your actions for God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you condemne another man for an Heretique because he beleeves not just as you beleeve or for a Reprobate because he lives not just as you live for God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you relie wholly upon the outward means that you are wrapped in the covenant that you are bred in a reformed Church for God is no accepter of persons except you will except this proposition I scarce remember any other that is so often repeated in the Scriptures as this which is our Text Lord who hath beleeved our report For it is first in the Prophet Esay There the Prophet is in holy throws and pangs Esay 53.1 and agonies till he be delivered of that prophecy the comming of the Messiah the incarnation of Christ Jesus and yet is put to this exclamation Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved our report And then you have these words in the Gospell of S. Iohn John 12.38 where we are not put upon the consideration of a future Christ in prophecy but the Evangelist exhibits Christ in person actually really visibly evidently doing great works executing great judgements multiplying great Miracles and yet put to the application of this exclamation Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved this report And then you have these words also in S. Paul Rom. 10.16 where we doe not consider a prophecy of a future Christ nor a history of a present Christ but an application of that whole Christ to every soule in the fetling of a Church in that concatenation of meanes for the infusion of faith expressed in that Chapter sending and preaching and hearing and yet for all these powerfull and familiar assistances Domine quis crodidit Lord who hath beleeved that report So that now beloved you cannot say that you have a Text without a place for you have three places for this Text you have it in the great Prophet in Esay in the great Evangelist in S. Iohn and in the great Apostle in S. Paul And because in all three places the words minister usefull doctrine of edification we shall by yours and the times leave consider the words in all three places In all three the words are a sad and a serious expostulation of the Minister of God with God himselfe that his Meanes and his Ordinances powerfully committed to him being faithfully transmitted by him to the people were neverthelesse fruitlesse and ineffectuall I doe Lord as thou biddest me sayes the Prophet Esay I prophecy I foretell the comming of the Messiah the incarnation of thy Son for the salvation of the world and I know that none of them that heare me can imagine or conceive any other way for the redemption of the world by fatisfaction to thy Justice but this and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved my report I doe Lord as thou biddest me sayes Christ himselfe in S. Iohn I come in person I glorifie thy name I doe thy will I preach thy Gospell I confirm my doctrine with evident Miracles and I seale
bottomelesse Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus so they would know as well what God hath done for my soule as what my soule and body have done against my God so they would reade me throughout and look upon me altogether I would joyne with Iob in his confident adjuration O Earth cover not thou my blood Let all the world know all the sins of my youth and of mine age too and I would not doubt but God should receive more glory and the world more benefit then if I had never sinned This is that that exalts Iobs confidence he was guilty of nothing that is no such thing as they concluded upon of nothing absolutely because he had repented all And from this his confidence rises to a higher pitch then this Nec clamor O Earth cover not thou my blood and let my cry have no place What meanes Iob in this Doubtfull Expositors make us doubt too Some have said Clamor that Iob desires his cry might have no place that is no termination no resting place but that his just complaint might be heard over all the world Stunnica the Augustinian interprets it so Some have said that he intends by his cry his crying sins that they might have no place that is no hiding place but that his greatest sins and secret sins might be brought to light Bolduc the Capuchin interprets it so according to that use of the word Clamor God looked for righteousnesse ecce clamorem behold a cry that is Esay 5.7 sins crying in the eares of God But there is more then so in this phrase in this elegancy in this vehemency of the Holy Ghost in Iobs mouth Let my cry have no place In the former part Iobs Protestation he considered God and man righteousnesse towards man in cleane hands and in pure prayers devotion towards God In this part his Manifest he pursues the same method he considers man and God Though men knew all my sins that should not trouble me sayes he and that we have considered yea though my cry finde no place no place with God that should not trouble me I should be content that God should seeme not to heare my prayers but that hee laid me open to that ill interpretation of wicked men Tush he prayes but the Lord heares him not he cries but God relieves him not And yet when wilt thou relieve me O thou reliever of men if not upon my cries upon my prayers Yet S. Augustine hath repeated that more then once more then twice Non est magnum exaudiri ad voluntatem non est magnum Be not over-joyed when God grants thee thy prayer Exauditi ad voluntatem Daemones sayes that Father The Devill had his prayer granted when he had leave to enter into the Heard of Swine And so he had sayes he exemplifying in our present example when he obtained power from God against Iob. But all this aggravated the Devils punishment so may it doe thine to have some prayers granted And as that must not over-joy thee if it be so if thy prayer be not granted it must not deject thee God suffered S. Paul to pray and pray and pray yet after his thrice praying granted him not that he prayed for God suffered that si possibile if it be possiblle and that Transeat calix Let this Cup passe to passe from Christ himselfe yet he granted it not But in many of these cases a man does easilier satisfie his owne minde then other men If God grant me not my prayer I recover quickly and I lay hold upon the hornes of that Altar and ride safely at that Anchor God saw that that which I prayed for was not so good for him nor so good for me But when the world shall come to say Where is now your Religion where is your Reformation doe not all other Rivers as well as the Tiber or the Poe does not the Seine and the Rhene and the Maene too begin to ebbe back and to empty it selfe in the Sea of Rome why should not your Thames doe so as well as these other Rivers Where is now your Religion your Reformation Were not you as good run in the same channell as others doe This is a shrewd tentation and induces opprobrious conclusions from malicious enemies when our cries have no place our religious service no present acceptation our prayers no speedy return from God But yet because even in this God may propose farther glory to himselfe more benefit to me and more edification even to them at last who at first made ill constructions of his proceedings I admit as Iob admits O Earth cover not thou my blood let all the world see all my faults and let my cry have no place let them imagine that God hath forsaken me and does not heare my prayers my satisfaction my acquiescence arises not out of their opinion and interpretation that must not be my triall but testis in coelis My witnesse is in heaven and my record is on high which is our third and last Consideration We must doe in this last as we have done in our former two parts crack a shell 3 Part. to tast the kernell cleare the words to gaine the Doctrine I am ever willing to assist that observation That the books of Scripture are the eloquentest books in the world that every word in them hath his waight and value his taste and verdure And therefore must not blame those Translators nor those Expositors who have with a particular elegancy varied the words in this last clause of the Text my witnesse and my record The oldest Latine Translation received this variation and the last Latine even Tremellius himselfe as close as he sticks to the Hebrew retaines this variation Testis and Conscius And that collection which hath been made upon this variation is not without use that conscius may be spoken de interno that God will beare witnesse to my inward conscience and testis de externo that God will in his time testifie to the world in my behalfe But other places of Scripture will more advance that observation of the elegancy thereof then this for in this the two words signifie but one and the same thing it is but witnesse and witnesse and no more Not that it is easie to finde in Hebrew nor perchance in any language two words so absolutely Synonymous as to signifie the same thing without any difference but that the two words in our Text are not both of one language not both Hebrew For the first word Gned is an Hebrew word but the other Sahad is Syriaque and both signifie alike Levit. 5.1 and equally testem a witnesse He that heares the voyce of swearing and is a witnesse sayes Moses in the first word of our Text and then the Chalde Paraphrase intending the same thing expresses it in the other word Sahad So in the contract between Laban and Jacob Gen. 31.47 Laban calls that heap of stones which he had
ignorance that all blessings spirituall and temporall too proceed from God and from God only and from God manifested in Christ and from Christ explicated in the Scriptures and from the Scriptures applyed in the Church which is the summe of all religion God hath given us this Legacy of knowledge Cognoscetis At that day you shall know as knowledge is opposed to ignorance As it is opposed to inconsideration Inconsideratio it is a great work that it doth too for as God hath made himself like man in many things in taking upon him in Scriptures our lineaments and proportion our affections and passions our apparell and garments so hath God made himself like man in this also that as man doth so he also takes it worse to be neglected then to be really injured Some of our sins do not offend God so much as our inconsideration a stupid passing him over as though that we did that which we had that which we were appertained not to him had no emanation from him no dependance upon him As God sayes in the Prophet of lame and blemished and unperfect Sacrifices Offer it unto any of your Princes and see if they will accept it at your hands So I say to them that passe their lives thus inconsiderately Offer that to any of your Princes any of your Superiours Dares an officer that receives instructions from his Prince when he leaves his commandements unperformed say I never thought of it Dares a Subject a Servant a Son say so Now beloved this knowledge as it is opposed to inconsideration is in this that God by breeding us in the visible Church multiplies unto us so many helps and assistances in the word preached in the Sacraments in other Sacramentall and Rituall and Ceremoniall things which are auxiliary subsidiary reliefes and refreshings to our consideration as that it is almost impossible to fall into this inconsideration Here God shewes this inconsiderate man his book of creatures which he may run and reade that is he may go forward in his vocation and yet see that every creature calls him to a consideration of God Every Ant that he sees askes him Where had I this providence and industry Every flowre that he sees asks him Where had I this beauty this fragrancy this medicinall vertue in me Every creature calls him to consider what great things God hath done in little subjects But God opens to him also here in his Church his Booke of Scriptures and in that Book every word cries out to him every mercifull promise cries to him Why am I here to meet thee to wait upon thee to performe Gods purpose towards thee if thou never consider me never apply me to thy selfe Every judgement of his anger cryes out Why am I here if thou respect me not if thou make not thy profit of performing those conditions which are annexed to those judgements and which thou mightest performe if thou wouldest consider it Yea here God opens another book to him his manuall his bosome his pocket book his Vade Mecum the Abridgement of all Nature and all Law his owne heart and conscience And this booke though he shut it up and clasp it never so hard yet it will sometimes burst open of it selfe though he interline it with other studies and knowledges yet the Text it selfe in the book it selfe the testimonies of the conscience will shine through and appeare Though he load it and choak it with Commentaries and questions that is perplexe it with Circumstances and Disputations yet the matter it selfe which is imprinted there will present it selfe yea though he teare some leaves out of the Book that is wilfully yea studiously forget some sins that he hath done and discontinue the reading of this book the survay and consideration of his conscience for some time yet he cannot lose he cannot cast away this book that is so in him as that it is himselfe and evermore calls upon him to deliver him from this inconsideration by this open and plentifull Library which he carries about him Consider beloved the great danger of this inconsideration by remembring That even that onely perfect man Christ Jesus who had that great way of making him a perfect man as that he was perfect God too even in that act of deepest devotion in his prayer in the garden by permitting himselfe out of that humane infirmity which he was pleased to admit in himselfe though farre from sin to passe one petition in that prayer without a debated and considered will in his Transeat Calix If it be possible let this Cup passe hee was put to a re-consideration and to correct his Prayer Veruntamen Yet not my will but thine bee done And if then our best acts of praying and hearing need such an exact consideration consider the richnesse and benefit of this Legacy knowledge as this knowledge is opposed to inconsideration It is also opposed to concealing and smothering Occultatio It must be published to the benefit of others Paulùm sepultae distat inertiae celata virtus sayes the Poet Vertue that is never produced into action is scarce worthy of that name For that is it which the Apostle in his Epistle to that Church which was in Philemons house Philem. 6. doth so much praise God for That the fellowship of thy faith may be made fruitfull and that whatsoever good thing is in you through Iesus Christ may be knowne That according to the nature of goodnesse and to the roote of goodnesse God himselfe this knowledge of God may be communicated and transfused and shed and spred and derived and digested upon others And therefore certainly as the Philosopher said of civill actions Etiam simulare Philosophiam Philosophia est That it was some degree of wisedome to be able to seeme wise so though it be no degree of religion to seeme religious yet even that may be a way of reducing others and perchance themselves when a man makes a publique an outward shew of being religious by comming ordinarily to Church and doing those outward duties though this be hypocrisie in him yet sometimes other men receive profit by his example and are religious in earnest and sometimes Appropinquat nescit as S. Augustine confesses that it was his case when he came out of curiosity and not out of devotion to heare S. Ambrose preach what respect soever brought that man hither yet when God findes him here in his house he takes hold of his conscience and shewes himselfe to him though he came not to see him And if God doe thus produce good out of the hypocrite and work good in him much more will he provide a plentifull harvest by their labours who having received this knowledge from God assist their weaker brethren both by the Example of their lives and the comfort of their Doctrine This knowledge then 2. Part. In die which to work the intended effect in us is thus opposed to ignorance and to inconsideration and to
years after the Donation of the Emperour Constantine by which the Bishops of Rome pretend all that to be theirs surely they could not finde this Patent this Record this Donation of Constantine then when Boniface begd this Temple in Rome this Pantheon of the Emperour And this Temple formerly the Temple of all their gods that Bishop consecrated to the honour of all the Martyrs of all the Saints of that kinde But after him another Bishop of the same sea enlarged the consecration and accompanied it with this festivall which we celebrate to day in honour of the Trinity and Angels and Apostles and Martyrs and Confessors and Saints and all the elect children of God So that it is truly a festivall grounded upon that Article of the Creed The Communion of Saints and unites in our devout contemplation The Head of the Church God himselfe and those two noble constitutive parts thereof The Triumphant and the Militant And accordingly hath the Church applied this part of Scripture to be read for the Epistle of this day to shew that All-Saints day hath relation to all Saints both living and dead for those servants of God which are here in this text sealed in their foreheads are such without all question as receive that Seale here here in the militant Church And therefore as these words so this festivall in their intendiment that applied these words to this festivall is also of Saints upon Earth This day being then the day of the Communion of Saints and this Scripture being received for the Epistle of this universall day that exposition will best befit it which makes it most universall And therefore with very good authority such as the expositions of this booke of the Revelation can receive of which booke no man will undertake to the Church that he hath found the certaine and the literall sense as yet nor is sure to do it Irenaeus till the prophecies of this booke be accomplished for prophetiae ingenium ut in obscuro delitescat donec impleatur It is the nature of prophecy to be secret till it be fulfilled Dan. 12.4 And therefore Daniel was bid to shut up the words and to seale the booke even to the time of the end that is to the end of the prophecy with good authority I say we take that number of the servants of God which are said to be sealed in the fourth verse of this Chapter which is one hundred forty foure thousand and that multitude which none could number of all Nations which are mentioned in the ninth verse to be intended of one and the same company both these expressions denote the same persons In the fourth verse of the fourteenth Chapter this number of one hundred forty foure thousand is applied to Virgins but is intended of all Gods Saints for every holy soule is a virgin And then this name of Israel which is mentioned in the fourth verse of this Chapter That there were so many sealed of the house of Israel is often in Scriptures applied to spirituall Israelites to Beleevers for every faithfull soule is an Israelite so that this number of one hundred forty foure thousand Virgins and one hundred forty foure thousand Israelites which is not a certaine number but a number expressing a numberlesse multitude this number and that numberlesse multitude spoken of after of all Nations which none could number is all one and both making up the great and glorious body of all Saints import and present thus much in generall That howsoever God inflict great and heavy calamities in this world to the shaking of the best morall and Christianly constancies and consciences yet all his Saints being eternally knowne by him shall be sealed by him that is so assured of his assistance by a good using of those helps which he shall afford them in the Christian Church intended in this sealing on the forehead that those afflictions shall never separate them from him nor frustrate his determination nor disappoint his gracious purpose upon them all them this multitude which no man could number To come then to the words themselves Divisio we see the safety and protection of the Saints of God and his children in the person and proceeding of our Protector in that it is in the hands of an Angel I saw another Angel And an Angel of that place that came from the East The East that is the fountaine of all light and glory I saw another Angel come from the East And as the Word doth naturally signifie and is so rendred in this last Translation Ascending from the East that is growing and encreasing in strength After that we shall consider our assurance in the commission and power of this Angel He had the seaele of the living God And then in the execution of this Commission In which we shall see first who our enemies were They were also Angels This Angel cryed to other Angels able to do much by nature because Angels Then we shall see their number they were foure Angels made stronger by joyning This Angel cryed to those foure Angels And besides their malignant nature and united concord two shrewd disadvantages mischievous and many They had a power a particular an extraordinary power given them at that time to do hurt foure Angels to whom power was given to hurt And to do generall universall hurt power to hurt the Earth and the Sea After all this we shall see this Protector against these enemies and their Commission execute his first by declaring and publishing it He cryed with a loud voyce And then lastly what his Commission was It was to stay those foure Angels for all their Commission from hurting the Earth and the Sea and the Trees But yet this is not for ever It is but till the servants of God were sealed in the forehead that is till God had afforded them such helpes as that by a good use of them they might subsist which if they did not for all their sealing in the forehead this Angel will deliver them over to the other foure destroying Angels Of which sealing that is conferring of Grace and helps against those spirituall enemies there is a pregnant intimation that it is done by the benefit of the Church in the power of the Church which is no singular person in that upon the sudden the person and the number is varied in our text and this Angel which when he is said to ascend from the East and to cry with a loud voyce is still a singular Angel one Angel yet when he comes to the act of sealing in the forehead to the dispensing of Sacraments and sacramentall assistances he does that as a plurall person he represents more the whole Church and therefore sayes here Stay hurt nothing Till we we have sealed the servants of our our God in their foreheads And by all these steps must we passe through this garden of flowers this orchard of fruits this abundant Text. First then Man being compassed with
before they come to the Scriptures then they are with the other duty of repentance which belongs to Prayer for in all Solomons bookes you shall not finde halfe so much of the duty of thankfulnesse as you shall in Seneca and in Plutarch No book of Ethicks of morall doctrine is come to us wherein there is not almost in every leafe some detestation some Anathema against ingratitude but of repentance not a word amongst them all And therefore in that dutie of prayer which presumes repentance for he must stand Rectus in curia that will pray David hath insisted longest and because he would enter and establish a man upon a confidence in God he begins with a deprecation of his anger for but upon that ground no man can stand and because he would dismisse him with that which concerns him most he chooseth to end in a Thanksgiving Therefore at last he comes to his thanks Gratiae actae Now this is so poore a duty if we proportion it to the infinitenesse of Gods love unto us our thanks as we may justly call it nothing at all Bernar. But Amor Dei affectus non contractus The love of God is not a contract a bargaine he looks for nothing againe and yet he looks for thanks for that is nothing because there is nothing done in it August it is but speaking Gratias dicere est gratias agere To utter our thanks to God is all our performance of thankfulnesse It is not so amongst us Philo Iudae Vix aut nunquam apud nos purum merum beneficium Every man that gives gives out of designe Martial and as it conduces to his ends Donat in hamo There is a hook in every benefit that sticks in his jawes that takes that benefit and drawes him whither the Benefactor will God looks for nothing nothing to be done in the way of exact recompence but yet as he that makes a Clock bestowes all that labour upon the severall wheeles that thereby the Bell might give a sound and that thereby the hand might give knowledge to others how the time passes so this is the principall part of that thankfulnesse which God requires from us that we make open declarations of his mercies to the winning and confirming of others This David does in this noble and ingenuous publication Discedite and protestation I have strength enough and company enough power enough and pleasure enough joy enough and treasure enough honour enough and recompence enough in my God alone in him I shall surely have all which all you can pretend to give and therefore Discedite à me Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity Here is then first a valediction a parting with his old company but it is a valediction with a malediction with an imprecation of Gods Justice upon their contempts and injuries There was in the mouth of Christ sometimes such a Discede such an Abito as that farewell was a welcome as when he said to the Ruler John 4.46 Luke 7.50 Abito Goe thy way thy son liveth And when he said to the woman Goe in peace thy saith hath saved thee This going was a staying with him still Here the Abite and Venite was all one He that goes about his worldly businesse and goes about them in Gods name in the feare and favour of God remaines in Gods presence still When the Angels of God are sent to visit his children in the middest of Sodome or where they lie and languish in sordid and nasty corners and in the loathsomenesse of corrupt and infectious diseases or where they faint in miserable dungeons this Commission this Discedite goe to that Sodome to that Spittle to that Dungeon puts not those Angels out of the presence of God No descent into hell of what kinde soever you conceive that descent into hell to have been put the Son of God out of heaven by descending into hell no Discede no Leave no Commandement that God gives us to doe the works of our calling here excludes us from him but as the Saints of God shall follow the Lamb wheresoever he goes in heaven so the Lamb of God shall follow his Saints wheresoever they goe upon earth if they walk sincerely Christ uses not then as yet as long as we are in this world this Discede of David to bid any man any sinner to depart from him But there shall come a time when Christ shall take Davids Discede the words of this Text into his mouth with as much and more bitternesse then David does here Nescivi nos I never knew yee and therefore Depart from me yee workers of iniquity So have you his Protestation Servi sui his Proclamation They must avoid but who Who be these that David dismisses here Take them to be those of his owne house his Servants and Officers in neare places whose service he had used to ill purposes as Davids Person and Rank and History directs us upon that Consideration and we shall finde all such persons wrapt up in this danger that they dare not discharge themselves they dare not displace nor disgrace those men to whom by such imployments they have given that advantage over themselves as that it is not safe to them to offend such a servant Naturâ nec hostem habet nec amicum rex sayes a wise Statesman In nature that is Polybius in the nature of greatnesse and as great great persons consider no man to be so much a friend nor to be so much an enemy but that they will fall out with that friend and be reconciled to that enemy to serve their own turne sayes that Statesman But yet when great Persons trust servants with such secret actions as may bring them into contempt at home or danger abroad by those vices if they should be published they cannot come when they would to this Discedite Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity We have this evidently and unavoidably we cannot but see it and say it in this example which is before us even in King David He had imployed Ioab in such services as that he stood in feare of him and indured at his hands that behaviour and that language Thou hast shamed this day the faces of all thy servants that have saved thy life 2 Sam. 19. and thy sons and daughters and wives and concubines thou regardest neither thy Princes nor servants but come out and speak comfortably unto them for I sweare by the Lord except thou doe come out there will not tarry one man with thee this night David indured all this for he knew that Ioab had that letter in his Cabbinet which he writ to him for the murther of Vriah and he never came to this Discedite to remove Ioab from him in his life but gave it in Commandement to his Son 1 Kings 2. Let not Ioabs hoary head goe downe to the grave in peace Here is the misery of David
onely yet if we pursue Gods Method and see what our understanding can doe we shall see that out of ratiocination and discourse and probabilities and very similitudes at last will arise evident and necessary conclusions such as these That as there is a God that God must be worshiped according to his will That therefore that will of God must be declared and manifested somewhere That this is done in some permanent way in some Scripture which is the Word of God That this booke which we call the Bible is by better reasons then any others can pretend that Scripture And when our Reason hath carried us so far as to accept these Scriptures for the Word of God then all the particular Articles A Virgins Son and a mortall God will follow evidently enough And then those two Propositions Mysteria credenda ut intelligantur Mysteries of Religion must be beleeved before they be understood and Mysteria intelligenda ut credantur Mysteries of Religion must be understood before they can be beleeved will be all one For God exalts our naturall facultie of understanding by Grace to apprehend them and then to that submission and assent which he by grace produces out of our understanding by a succeeding and more powerfull Grace he sets to the Seale of faith Waite thou therefore upon God his way present unto him an humble and a diligent understanding conclude not too desperately against thy selfe if thou have not yet attained to all degrees of faith but admit that preparation which God offers to thine understanding by an assiduous and a sedulous hearing for a narrower faith that proceeds out of a true understanding shall carry thee farther then a faith that seemes larger but is wrapped up in an implicite ignorance no man beleeves profitably that knows not why he beleeves The subject then that this worke is wrought in is that faculty mans understanding There God begins in the Instruction of this text Thou shalt understand Thou shalt The act shall be thine but yet the power is mine faciam te I will make thee understand which is another Consideration in this part God doth not determine his promise here Faciam in a Faciam ut intelligas I will cast an understanding upon thee I will cause an understanding to fall upon thee but it is faciam te intelligere I will make thee to understand Thou shalt be an Agent in thine own salvation When God made the Asse speake under Balaam God went not so far as this first step not to the faciam ut intelligas he imprinted infused no understanding in that Beast When God suffers the hypocrite to praise him he imprints no understanding Here is a Frustra colunt It is a worship that is no worship when it is with the lips onely and the heart far off So when a Papist cryes Templum domini Templum domini Visibility of a Church Infallibility in a Church here is no understanding He pretends to beleeve as the Church beleeves but he knowes not what the Church beleeves no nor he neither upon whom he relies for his Instruction his Priest his Confessor They are deceived that thinke every Priest or Jesuit that comes hither knowes the Tenets of that Church it is a more reserved a more perplexed a more involved matter then so To contract this Consideration when a Preacher speaks well and destroys as fast by his ill life as he builds by his good doctrine Psal 111.10 here is no understanding neither A good understanding have all they that keepe the Commandements not all they that preach them but that keepe them It is all they 1 Joh. 2.3 and onely they There is no other assurance but that Hereby we are sure that we know him if we keepe his Commandements This is our Criterium and onely this hereby we know it Pro. 18.9 and by nothing els So that as he that is slothfull in his worke is even the brother of him that is a great waster So he that builds not with both hands life and doctrine Chrysost is slothfull in his worke He that preaches against sin and doth it Instruit dominum quomodo eum condemnet He doth not so much teach his Auditory how to scape condemnation as teach God how to condemne him In these cases there is no understanding at all In the case of the Asse and the hypocrite and the blind Romanist and the vicious Preacher In some other cases there is understanding given but without any concurrence any cooperation of man as in those often visions and dreames and manifestations of God to the Prophets and his other servants There was a faciam ut intelligas God would make his pleasure knowne unto them but yet not as in this Text where God makes use of the man himselfe for his own salvation But yet it is God and God alone that does all this that rectifies our understanding as well as that establishes our faith It is my soule that sayes to mine eye faciam te videre I will make thee see and my soule that sayes to mine eare faciam te audire I will make thee heare and without that soule that eye and eare could no more see nor heare then the eyes and eares of an Idol so it is my God that sayes to my soule faciam te intelligere I will make thee understand And therefore as thou art bound to infinite thankesgivings to God when he hath brought thee to faith to forget not thy tribute by the way to blesse and magnifie him if he have enlarged thy desire of understanding and thy capacity of understanding and thy meanes of understanding for as howsoever a man may forget the order of the letters after he is come to reade perfectly and forget the rules of his Grammar after he is come to speake perfectly yet by those letters and by that Grammar he came to that perfection so though faith be of an infinite exaltation above understanding yet as though our understanding be above our senses yet by our senses we come to understand so by our understanding we come to beleeve And though the Holy Ghost repeat that more then once Domine quis credidit Lord who beleeves our report And that Shall the sonne of Man finde faith upon earth when he comes though he complain of want of faith yet he multiplies infinitely that complaint for want of understanding and there are ten Non intelligunts for one Non credunt ten increpations that his people did not understand for one that they did not beleeve because though faith be a nobler operation God takes it alwayes worst in us to neglect those things which are nearest us as he doth to neglect the ordinary and necessary duties of Religion and search curiously into the unrevealed purposes of his secret counsails And this Instruction to the understanding he seemes in this text to extend to all for this singular word Te I will make Thee Thee to understand includes no exclusion
our enemies for By terrible things in righteousnesse will the God of our salvation answer us So then Per Iustitiam his Judgements are these Terribilia Terrible fearefull things And hee is faithfull in his Covenant and by terrible Judgements he will answer that is satisfie our expectation And that is a convenient sense of these words But the word which we translate Righteousnesse here is Tzadok and Tzadok is not faithfulnesse but holinesse And these Terrible things are Reverend things and so Tremellius translates it and well Per res Reverendas By Reverend things things to which there belongs a Reverence thou shalt answer us And thus the sense of this place will be That the God of our salvation that is God working in the Christian Church calls us to Holinesse to Righteousnesse by Terrible things not Terrible in the way and nature of revenge but Terrible that is stupendious reverend mysterious That so we should not make Religion too homely a thing but come alwayes to all Acts and Exercises of Religion with reverence with feare and trembling and make a difference between Religious and Civill Actions In the frame and constitution of al Religions these Materials these Elements have ever entred Some words of a remote signification not vulgarly understood some actions of a kinde of halfe-horror and amazement some places of reservation and retirednesse and appropriation to some sacred persons and inaccessible to all others Not to speake of the services and sacrifices of the Gentiles and those selfe-manglings and lacerations of the Priests of Isis and of the Priests of Baal faintly counterfaited in the scourgings and flagellations in the Roman Church In that very discipline which was delivered from God by Moses the service was full of mysterie and horror and reservation By terrible things Sacrifices of blood in manifold effusions God answered them then So the matter of Doctrine was delivered mysteriously and with much reservation and in-intelligiblenesse as Tertullian speaks The Joy and Glory of Heaven was not easily understood by their temporall abundances of Milke and Honey and Oyle and Wine and yet in these and scarce any other way was Heaven presented and notified to that people by Moses Christ a Messias a Saviour of the World by shedding his blood for it was not easily discerned in their Types and Sacrifices And yet so and scarce any other way was Christ revealed unto them Hos 12.10 God sayes I have multiplied visions and used similitudes by the ministery of the Prophets They were Visions they were Similitudes nor plaine and evident things obvious to every understanding that God led his people by And there was an Order of Doctors amongst the Jews that professed that way To teach the People by Parables and darke sayings Sandaei symbulica fol. 108. and these were the powerfullest Teachers amongst them for they had their very name Mosselim from power and dominion They had a power a dominion over the affections of their Disciples because teaching them by an obscure way they created an admiration and a reverence in their hearers and laid a necessity upon them of returning againe to them for the interpretation and signification of those darke Parables Many thinke that Moses cites these obscure Doctors these Mosselim in that place Num. 21.7 in the booke of Numbers when he sayes Wherefore they that speake in Proverbs say thus and thus And so he proceeds in a way and words as hard to be understood Psal 49.4 as any place in all his Books David professes this of himselfe often I will open darke sayings upon my Harpe Psal 77.2 And I will open my mouth in a Parable And this was the way of Solomon for that very word is the Title of his booke of Proverbs And in this way of teaching Matt. 7.19 our Saviour abounded and excelled for when it is said He taught them as one having authority And when it is said They were astonished at his Doctrine Luke 4.32 for his word was with Power they refer that to this manner of teaching that hee astonished them with these reserved and darke sayings and by the subsequent interpretation thereof gained a reverend estimation amongst them that he onely could lead them to a desire to know that darke way encreased their desire and then he onely satisfie them with the knowledge of those things which concerned their salvation For these Parables and comparisons of a remote signification were called by the Jews Potestates Powers Powerfull insinuations as amongst the Grecians the same things were called Axiomata Dignities And of Christ it is said Without a Parable spake he not Mat. 13.34 So that God in the Old and Christ in the New Testament hath conditioned his Doctrine and his Religion that is his outward worship so as that evermore there should be preserved a Majesty and a reverentiall feare and an awfull discrimination of Divine things from Civill and evermore something reserved to be inquired after and laid up in the mouth of the Priest that the People might acknowledge an obligation from him in the exposition and application thereof Nay this way of answering us by terrible things that is by things that imprint a holy horror and a Religious reverence is much more in the Christian Church then it can have beene in any other Religion Because if wee consider the Jews which is the onely Religion that can enter into any comparison with the Christian in this kinde yet we looke more directly and more immediately upon God in Christ then they could who saw him but by way of Prophecie a future thing that should be done after we looke upon God in History in matter of fact upon things done and set before our eyes and so that Majesty and that holy amazement is more to us then ever it was to any other Religion because we have a nearer approximation and vicinity to God in Christ then any others had in any representions of their Gods and it is a more dazeling thing to looke upon the Sun in a direct then in an oblique or side line And therefore the love of God which is so often proposed unto us is as often seasoned with the feare of God nay all our Religious affections are reduced to that one To a reverentiall feare If he be a Master he cals for feare and Mal. 1.6 If he be a Father he calls for honor And honour implies a reverentiall feare And that is the Art that David professes to teach Artem timendi Come ye children and hearken unto me Psal 34.12 and I will teach you the feare of the Lord. That you thinke not Divinity an Occupation nor Church-Service a recreation but still remember That the God of our Salvation God working in the Christian Church will answer you but yet by terrible things that is by not being over-fellowly with God nor over-homely with places and acts of Religion which it may be an advancement to your Devotion and
addition of comelinesse His aspect was cheerfull and such as gave a silent testimony of a cleere knowing soule and of a conscience at peace with it selfe His melting eye shewed he had a soft heart full of noble pity of too brave a spirit to offer injuries and too much a Christian not to pardon them in others His fancie was un-imitable high equalled by his great wit both being made usefull by a commanding judgement His mind was liberall and unwearied in the search of knowledge with which his vigorous soule is now satisfied and employed in a continuall praise of that God that first breathed it into his active body which once was a Temple of the holy Ghost and is now become a small quantity of Christian dust But I shall see it re-inanimated Iz Wa IOHANNES DONNE SAC THEOL PROFESSOR POST VARIA STUDIA QVIBUS AB ANNIS TENERRIMIS FIDELITER NEC INFELICITER INCUBUIT INSTINCTU ET IMPULSU SPIR S ti MONITU ET HORTATU REGIS IACOBI ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXUS Aº SUI JESU 1614. ET SUAE AETATIS 42. DECANATU HUJUS ECCLESIAE INDUTUS XXVII NOVEMBRIS 1621. EXUTUS MORTE ULTIMO DIE MARTII 1631. Hic licet in Occiduo Cinere Aspicit Eum Cujus Nomen est ORIENS A Table directing to the severall Texts of SCRIPTURE handled by the Author in this BOOK SERM. I. COLOS. 1.19 20. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulnesse dwell And having made peace through the bloud of his Crosse by Him to reconcile all things to himselfe by Him whether they be things in earth or things in heaven page 1 SERM. II. ESAIAH 7.14 Therefore the Lord shall give you a signe Behold a Virgin shall conceive and beare a Son and shall call his name Immanuel pa. 11 SERM. III. GALAT. 4.4 5. But when the fulnesse of time was come God sent forth his Sonne made of a woman made under the Law to redeeme them that were under the Law that we might receive the adoption of Sons pa. 20 SERM. IV. LUKE 2.29 30. Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word For mine eyes have seene thy salvation pa. 29. SERM. V. EXOD. 4.13 O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send pa. 39 SERM. VI. Lord who hath beleeved our report pa. 52 SERM. VII JOHN 10.10 I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly pa. 62 SERM. VIII MAT. 5.16 Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven pa. 77 SERM. IX ROM 13.7 Render therefore to all men their dues pa. 86 SERM. X. ROM 12.20 Therefore if thine enemie hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head pa. 96 SERM. XI MAT. 9.2 And Iesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsie My son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven thee pa. 102 SERM. XII MAT. 5.2 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God pa. 112 SERM. XIII JOB 16. ver 17 18 19. Not for any injustice in my hands Also my prayer is pure O earth cover thou not my bloud and let my cry have no place Also now behold my Witnesse is in heaven and my Record is on high pa. 127 SERM. XIV AMOS 5.18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord what have ye to doe with it the day of the Lord is darknesse and not light pa. 136 SERM. XV. 1 COR 15.26 The last Enemie that shall be destroyed is Death pa. 144 SERM. XVI JOHN 11.35 Iesus wept pa. 153 SERM. XVII MAT. 19.17 And he said unto him Why callest thou me Good There is none Good but One that is God pa. 163 SERM. XVIII ACTS 2.36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly That God hath made that same Iesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ pa. 175 SERM. XIX APOC. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection pa. 183 SERM. XX. JOHN 5.28 29. Marvell not at this for the houre is comming in the which all that are in the graves shall heare his voice And shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of life And they that have done evill unto the Resurrection of damnation pa. 192 SERM. XXI 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for dead pa. 120 SERM. XXII HEB. 11.35 Women received their dead raised to life againe And others were tortured not accepting a deliverance that they might obtaine a better Resurrection pa. 213 SERM. XXIII 1 COR. 13.12 For now we see through a glasse darkly But then face to face Now I know in part But then I shall know even as also I am knowne pa. 224 SERM. XXIV JOB 4.18 Behold he put no trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly pa. 233 SERM. XXV MAT. 28.6 He is not here for he is risen as he said Come See the place where the Lord lay pa. 242 SERM. XXVI 1 THES 4.17 Then we which are alive and remaine shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the ayre and so shall we be ever with the Lord. pa. 254 SERM. XXVII PSAL. 89.47 What man is he that liveth and shall not see death pa. 267 SERM. XXVIII XXIX JOHN 14.26 But the Comforter which is the holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you pa. 277. 286 SERM. XXX JOHN 14.20 At that day shall ye know That I am in my Father and you in me and I in you pa. 294 SERM. XXXI GEN. 1.2 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters pa. 303 SERM. XXXII 1 COR. 12.3 Also no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost p. 312 SERM. XXXIII ACTS 10.44 While Peter yet spake these words the holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the Word pa. 321 SERM. XXXIV ROM 8.16 The Spirit it selfe beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God pa. 332 SERM. XXXV MAT. 12.31 Wherefore I say unto you All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men But the Blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men pa. 341 SERM. XXXVI XXXVII JOHN 16.8 9 10 11. And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousnesse and of judgement Of sin because ye beleeve not on me Of righteousnesse because I goe to my Father and ye see me no more Of judgement because the Prince of this world is judged pa. 351. 361 SERM. XXXVIII 2 COR. 1.3 Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ
the places of the earth Divisie doe the Scriptures of God exceed Paradise In the midst of Paradise grew the Tree of knowledge and the tree of life In this Paradise the Scripture every word is both those Trees there is Life and Knowledge in every word of the Word of God That Germen Iehovae as the Prophet Esay calls Christ that Off-spring of Jehova that Bud that Blossome that fruit of God himselfe the Son of God the Messiah the Redeemer Christ Jesus growes upon every tree in this Paradise the Scripture for Christ was the occasion before and is the consummation after 1 Iohn 5.13 of all Scripture This have I written sayes S. Iohn and so say all the Pen-men of the holy Ghost in all that they have written This have we written that ye may know that ye have eternall life Knowledge and life growes upon every tree in this Paradise upon every word in this Booke because upon every Tree here upon every word grows Christ himselfe in some relation From this Branch this Text O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send we shall not so much stand to gather here and there an Apple that is to consider some particular words of the Text it selfe as endeavour to shake the whole tree that is the Context and coherence and dependance of the words for since all that passed between God and Moses in this affaire and negotiation Gods employing of Moses and Moses presenting his excuses to God and Gods taking of all those excuses determines in our Text in our Text is the whole story virtually and radically implyed And therefore by just occasion thereof we shall consider first That though for the ordinary duties of our callings arising out of the evidence of expresse Scriptures we are allowed no haesitation no disputation whether we will doe them or no but they require a present and an exact execution thereof yet in extraordinary cases and in such actions as are not laid upon us by any former and permanent notification thereof in Scripture such as was Moses case here to undertake the deliverance of Israel from Egypt in such cases not onely some haesitation some deliberation some consultation in our selves but some expostulation with God himselfe may be excusable in us We shall therefore see that Moses did excuse himself four wayes And how God was pleased to joyn issue with him in all foure and to cast him and overcome him in them all And when we come to consider his fift which is rather a Diversion upon another then an Excuse in himselfe and yet is that which is most literally in our Text O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send because this was a thing which God had reserved wholly to himselfe The sending of Christ we shall see that God would not have been pressed for that but as it followes immediately and is also a bough of this tree that is grows out of this Text God was angry But yet as we shall see in the due place it was but such an anger as ended in an Instruction rather then in an Increpation and in an Encouragement rather then in a Desertion for he established Moses in a resolution to undertake the worke by joyning his brother Aaron in commission with him So then wee have shak'd the tree that is resolv'd and analyz'd the Context of all which the Text it selfe is the root and the seale And as we have presented to your sight we shall farther offer to your tast and digestion and rumination these particular fruits First that ordinary Duties require a present execution Secondly that in Extraordinary God allowes a Deliberation and requires not an implicite a blind obedience And in a third place wee shall give you those foure circumstances that accompanied or constituted Moses deliberation and Gods removing of those foure impediments And in a fourth â—oome that Consultation or Diversion The sending of Christ And in that How God was affected with it He was angry angry that Moses would offer to looke into those things which he had lockt up in his secret counsels such as that sending of Christ which he intended But yet not angry so as that he left Moses unsatisfied or un-accommodated for the maine businesse but setled him in a holy and chearfull readinesse to obey his commandement And through all these particulars we shall passe with as much clearnesse as the waight and as much shortnesse as the number will permit First then our first Consideration constitutes that Proposition Ordinary Duties Ordinary Duties arising out of the Evidence of Gods Word require a present Execution There are Duties that binde us semper and Adsemper as our Casuists speak we are Alwayes bound to doe them and bound to doe them Alwayes that is Alwayes to produce Actus elicitos Determinate acts Successive and Consecutive acts conformable to those Duties whereas in some other Duties we are onely bound to an Habituall disposition to doe them in such and such necessary cases And those Actions of the later sort fall in Genere Deliberativo we may consider Circumstances before we fall under a necessity of doing them that is of doing them Then or doing them Thus Of which kind even those great duties of Praying and Fasting are for we are alwayes bound to Pray and alwayes bound to Fast but not bound to fast alwayes nor alwayes to pray But for Actions of the first kind such as are the worshipping of God and the not worshipping of Images such as are the sanctifying of Gods Sabbaths and the not blaspheming of his Name which arise out of cleare and evident commands of God they admit no Deliberation but require a present Execution Therefore as S. Stephen saw Christ standing at the right hand of his Father a posture that denotes first a readinesse to survay and take knowledge of our distresses and then a readinesse to proceed and come forth to our assistance so in our Liturgie in our Service in the Congregation we stand up at the profession of the Creed at the rehearsing the Articles of our Faith thereby to declare to God and his Church our readinesse to stand to and our readinesse to proceed in that Profession The commendation which is given of Andrew and Peter for obeying Christs call Mark 1.18 lyes not so much in the Reliquerunt retia that they left their nets as in the Protinus reliquerunt that forthwith immediately without farther deliberation they left their nets the meanes of their livelyhood and followed Christ The Lord and his Spirit hath anointed us to preach Esay 61.1 sayes the Prophet Esay To preach what Acceptabilem annum to preach the acceptable yeare of the Lord. All the yeare long the Lord stands with his armes open to embrace you and all the yeare long we pray you in Christs stead that you would be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.20 Psal 95.8 But yet God would
be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost yet we see out of the formes of the Heretiques themselves still so farre as they conceived the Godhead to extend so farre they extended Glory in that holy acclamation those who beleeved not the Son to be God or the Holy Ghost not to be God left out Glory when they came to their Persons but to him that is God in all confessions Glory appertains Now Glory is Clara cum laude notitia sayes S. Ambrose It is an evident knowledge and acknowledgement of God by which others come to know him too which acknowledgement is well called a recognition for it is a second a ruminated a reflected knowledge Beasts doe remember but they doe not remember that they remember they doe not reflect upon it which is that that constitutes memory Every carnall and naturall man knowes God but the acknowledgement the recognition the manifestation of the greatnesse and goodnesse of God accompanied with praise of him for that this appertaines to the godly man and this constitutes glory If God have delivered me from a sicknesse and I doe not glorifie him for that that is make others know his goodnesse to me my sicknesse is but changed to a spirituall apoplexy to a lethargy to a stupefaction If God have delivered us from destruction in the bowels of the Sea in an Invasion and from destruction in the bowels of the earth in the Powder-treason and we grow faint in the publication of our thanks for this deliverance our punishment is but aggravated for we shall be destroyed both for those old sins which induced those attempts of those destructions and for this later and greater sin of forgetting those deliverances God requires nothing else but he requires that Glory and Praise And that booke of the Scriptures of which S. Basil sayes That if all the other parts of Scripture could perish yet out of that booke alone we might have enough for all uses for Catechizing for Preaching for Disputing That whole Booke which containes all subjects that appertaine to Religion is called altogether Sepher Tehillim The Booke of praises for all our Religion is Praise And of that Book every particular Psalme is appointed by the Church and continued at least for a thousand and two hundred yeares to be shut up with that humble and glorious acclamation Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost O that men would therefore praise the Lord and declare the wonderfull works that he doth for the sons of men Nil quisquam debet nisi quod turpe est non reddere sayes the Law It is Turpe an infamous and ignominious thing not to pay debt And infamous and ignominious are heavy and reproachfull words in the Law and the Gospell would adde to that Turpe Impium It is not onely an infamous but an impious an irreligious thing not to pay debts As in debts the State and the Judge is my security they undertake I shall be paid or they execute Judgement so consider our selves as Christians God is my security and he will punish where I am defrauded Either thou owest God nothing And then if thou owe him nothing from whom or from what hath shestollen that face that is faire or he that estate that is rich or that office that commands others or that learning and those orders and commission that preaches to others or they their soules that understand me now If you owe nothing from whom had you all these all this Or if thou dost owe Turpe est Impium est It is an unworthy it is an unhonest it is an irreligious thing not to pay him in that money which his owne Spirit mints and coynes in thee and of his owne bullion too praise and thanksgiving Not to pay him then when he himselfe gives thee the money that must pay him the Spirit of Thankfulnesse falls under all the reproaches that Law or Gospell can inflict in any names How many men have we seene molder and crumble away great estates and yet pay no debts It is all our cases What Poems and what Orations we make how industrious and witty we are to over-praise men and never give God his due praise Nay how often is the Pulpit it selfe made the shop and the Theatre of praise upon present men and God left out How often is that called a Sermon that speakes more of Great men Psal 148.2 then of our great God Laudate eum omnes Augeli ejus laudate eum omnes virtutes ejus David calls upon the Angels and all the Host of Heaven to praise God and in the Romane Church they will employ willingly all their praise upon the Angels and the Host of Heaven it selfe and this is not reddere debitum here is mony enough spent but no debt paid praise enough given but not to the true God Ver. 10. Laudate eum ligna fructifera universa pecora volucres pennatae sayes David there David calls upon fruits and fowle and cattle to praise God and we praise and set forth our lands and fruits and fowle and cattle with all Hyperbolicall praises and this is not reddere debitum no paiment of a debt where it is due Laudate eum juvenes senes virgines sayes David too He calls upon old men and young men and virgins to praise the Lord and we spend all our praises upon young men which are growing up in favour or upon old men who have the government in their hands or upon maidens towards whom our affections have transported us and all this is no paiment of the debt of praise Laudate eum Reges terrae Principes omnes Iudices V. 11. He calls upon Kings and Judges and Magistrates to praise God and we employ all our praise upon the actions of those persons themselves Beloved God cannot be flattered he cannot be over-praised we can speake nothing Hyperbolically of God But he cannot be mocked neither He will not be told I have praised thee in praising thy creature which is thine Image would that discharge any of my debt to a Merchant to tell him that I had bestowed as much or more mony then my debt upon his picture Though Princes and Judges and Magistrates be pictures and Images of God though beauty and riches and honour and power and favour be in a proportion so too yet as I bought not that Merchants picture because it was his or for love of him but because it was a good peece and of a good Masters hand and a good house-ornament so though I spend my nights and dayes and thoughts and spirits and words and preaching and writing upon Princes and Judges and Magistrates and persons of estimation and their praise yet my intention determines in that use which I have of their favour and respects not the glory of God in them and when I have spent my selfe to the last farthing my lungs to the last breath my wit
and he from a Rabbi of the Jews Aben Ezra takes this to be an adjuration of the Earth as Gregory does but not as Gregory does in the person of Christ but of Iob himselfe That Iob adjures the earth not to cover his blood that is not to cover the shedding of his blood not to conspire with the malice of his enemies so much as to deny him buriall when he was dead that they which trod him downe alive might not triumph over him after his death or conclude that God did certainly forsake him alive since he continued these declarations against him when he was dead And this also may have good use but yet it is too narrow and too shallow to bee the sense of this phrase this elegancy this vehemency of the Holy Ghost in the mouth of Iob. S. Chrysostome I think was the first that gave light to the sense of this place He saies that such men as are as they thinke over-punished have naturally a desire that the world knew their faults that so by comparing their faults with their punishments there might arise some pitty and commiseration of their state And surely this that Chrysostome sayes is true and naturall for if two men were to be executed together by one kinde of death the one for stealing a Sheep perchance in hunger the other for killing his Father certainly he that had but stollen the Sheep would be sorry the world should think their cases alike or that he had killed a Father too And in such an affection Iob sayes I am so far from being guilty of those things that are imputed to me that I would be content that all that ever I have done were knowne to all the world This light which S. Chrysost gave to this place shined not out I think till the Reformation for I have not observed any Author between Chrysostome and the Reformation that hath taken knowledge of this interpretation nor any of the Reformation as from him from Chrysostome But since our Authors of the Reformation have somewhat generally pursued that sense Calvin hath done so and so Tremellius and so Piscator and many many more now one Author of the Romane Church one as curious and diligent in interpreting obscure places of Scripture as any amongst them and then more bold and confident in departing from their vulgar and frivolous and impertinent interpretations of Scriptures then any amongst them the Capuchin Bolduc hath also pursued that sense That sense is that in this adjuration or imprecation O Earth cover not thou my blood Blood is not literally bodily blood but spirituall blood the blood of the soule exhausted by many and hainous sins such as they insimulated Iob of For in this signification is that word Blood often taken in the Scriptures When God sayes when you stretch forth your hands Esay 1.15 Psal 51.14 they are full of blood there blood is all manner of rapine of oppression of concussion of violence When David prayes to be delivered from blood-guiltinesse it is not intended onely of an actuall shedding of blood for it is in the Originall à sanguinibus in the plurall other crimes then the actuall shedding of blood are bloody crimes Ezech 7.23 Therefore sayes one Prophet the land is full of bloody crimes And another blood toucheth blood Hosea 4.2 whom the Chalde Paraprase expresses aright Aggregant peccata peccatis blood toucheth blood when sin induces sin Which place of Hosea S. Gregory interprets too then blood touches blood cum ante oculos Dei adjunctis peccatis cruentatur anima Then God sees a soule in her blood when she wounds and wounds her selfe againe with variation of divers or iteration of the same sins This then being thus established that blood in this Text is the blood of the soule exhausted by sin for every sin is an incision of the soule a Lancination a Phlebotomy a letting of the soule blood and then a delight in sin is a going with open veines into a warme bath and bleeding to death This will be the force of Iobs Admiration or Imprecation O Earth cover not thou my blood I am content to stand as naked now as I shall doe at the day of Judgement when all men shall see all mens actions I desire no disguise I deny I excuse I extenuate nothing that ever I did I would mine enemies knew my worst that they might study some other reason of Gods thus proceeding with me then those hainous sinnes which from these afflictions they will necessarily conclude against me But had Iob been able to have stood out this triall Was Iob so innocent as that he need not care though all the world knew all Perchance there may have been some excesse some inordinatenesse in his manner of his expressing it we cannot excuse the vehemence of some holy men in such expressions We cannot say that there was no excesse in Moses his Dele me Pardon this people or blot my name out of thy booke or that there was no excesse in S. Pauls Anathema pro fratribus That he wished to be accursed to be separated from Christ for his brethren But for Iob we shall not need this excuse for either we may restraine his words to those sins which they imputed to him and then they have but the nature of that protestation which David made so often to God Iudge me O Lord according to my righteousnesse according to mine innocency according to the cleannesse of my hands which was not spoken by David simply but respectively not of all his sins but of those which Saul pursued him for Or if we enlarge Iobs words generally to all his sins we must consider them to be spoken after his repentance and reconciliation to God thereupon If they knew may Iob have said how it stood between God and my soule how earnestly I have repented how fully he hath forgiven they would never say these afflictions proceeded from those sins And truly so may I so may every soule say that is rectified refreshed restored re-established by the seales of Gods pardon and his mercy so the world would take knowledge of the consequences of my sins as well as of the sins themselves and read my leafes on both sides and heare the second part of my story as well as the first so the world would look upon my temporall calamities the bodily sicknesses and the penuriousnesse of my fortune contracted by my sins and upon my spirituall calamities dejections of spirit sadnesse of heart declinations towards a diffidence and distrust in the mercy of God and then when the world sees me in this agony and bloody sweat in this agony and bloody sweat would also see the Angels of heaven ministring comforts unto me so they would consider me in my Peccavi and God in his Transtulit Me in my earnest Confessions God in his powerfull Absolutions Me drawne out of one Sea of blood the blood of mine owne soule and cast into another Sea the
occasionally instrumenta of Gods glory August sahll finde cold affection If they killed Lazarus had not Christ done enough to let them see that he could raise him againe for Caeca sevitia sialiud videtur mertuus aliud occisus It was a blinde malice if they thought that Christ could raise a man naturally dead and could not if he were violently killed This then being his greatest Miracle preparing the hardest Article of the Creed the Resurrection of the body as the Mirracle it selfe declared sufficiently his Divinity that nature so in this declaration that he was God he would declare that he was man too and therefore Iesus wept He wept as man doth weepe and he wept as a man may weepe Noninordinaté Bernard Iob 10.4 for these teares were Testes naturae non Indices diffidentiae They declared him to be true man but no distrustfull no inordinate man In Iob there is a question ask'd of God Hast thou eyes of flesh and doest thou see as man sees Let this question be directed to God manifested in Christ and Christ will weepe out an answer to that question I have eyes of flesh and I do weep as man weepes Not as sinfull man not as s man that had het fall his bridle by which he should trune his horse Not as a man that were cast from the rudder by which he should steere his Ship Not as a man that had lost his interest and power in his affections and passions Christ wept not so Christ mingt goe farther that way then any other man Christ might ungirt himselfe and give more scope and liberty to his passions then any other man both because he had no Originall sin within to drive him no inordinate love without to draw him when his affections were moved which all other men have God sayes to the Jews That they had wept in his eares God had heard them weep Numb 11.18 but for what and how they wept for flesh There was a tincture there was a deep dye of murmuring in their tears Christ goes as far in the passion in his agony and he comes to a passionate deprecation in his Tristis anima and in the Si possibile and in the Transeat calix But as all these passions were sanctified in the roote from which no bitter leafe no crooked twig could spring so they were instantly washed with his Veruntamen a present and a full submitting of all to Gods pleasure Yet not my will O Father but thine be done It will not be safe for any man to come so neare an excesse of passions as he may finde some good men in the Scriptures to have done That because he heares Moses say to God Dele me Blot my name out of the book of life Therefore he may say God damne me or I renounce God It is not safe for a man to expose himself to a tentation because he hath seen another passe through it Every man may know his own Byas and to what sin that diverts him The beauty of the person the opportunity of the place the importunity of the party being his Mistresse could not shake Iosephs constancy There is one such example of one that resisted a strong tentation But then there are in one place two men together that sinned upon their own bodies Her and Onan Gen. 46. â—2 then when no tentation was offered nay when a remedy against tentation was ministred to them Some man may be chaster in the Stews then another in the Church and some man will sin more in his dreams then another in his discourse Every man must know how much water his own vessell draws and not to think to saile over wheresoever he hath seen anothe he knows not with how much labour shove over No nor to adventure so far as he may have reason to be confident in his own strength For thugh he may be safe in himself yet he may sinin anogher if by his indiscreete and improvident example another be scandalized Christ was alwayes safe He was led of the Spirit Mat. 4.1 of what spirit his own Spirit Led willingly into the wildernesse to be tempted of the devill No other man might do that but he who was able to say to the Sun Siste sol was able to say to Satan Siste Lucifer Christ in another place gave such scope to his affections and to others interpretations of his actions that his frineds and kinsfolds thught him mad besides himself But all this while Christ had his own actions and passions and their interpretations in his own power he could do what he would Here in our Text Jesus was troubled and he groaned and vehemently and often his affections were stirred but as in a clan glasse if water be stirred and troubled though it may conceive a little light froth yet it contracts no foulenesse in that clean galsse the affections of Christ were moved but so in that holy vessell they would contract no foulenesse no declination towards inordinatenesse But then every Christian is not a Christ and therefore as he that would fast forty dayes as Christ did might starve and he that would whip Merchants out of the Temple as Christ did might be knockt downe in the Temple So he knowing his owne inclinations or but the generall ill inclination of all mankind as he is infected with Originall sin should converse so much with publicans and sinners might participate of their sins The rule is we must avoid inordinatenesse of affections but when we come to examples of that rule our selves well understood by our selves must be our owne exaples for it is not alwaies good to go too far as some good men have gone before Now though Christ were farre from both Non Apathes yet he came nearer to an excesse of passion then to an Indolencie to a senselesnesse to a privation of naturall affections Inordinatenesse of affections may sometimes make some men like some beasts but indolencie absence emptinesse privation of affections makes any man at all times like stones like dirt In novissimis saith S. Peter In the last that is in the worst dayes in the dregs and lees and tartar of sin then shall come men lovers of themselves and that is ill enough in man for that is an affection peculiar to God to love himselfe Non speciale vitium sed radix omnium vitiorum saies the Schoole in the mouth of Aquinas selfe love cannot be called a distinct sin but the roote of all sins It is true that Iustin Martyr saies Philosophanti finis est Deo assimilari The end of Christian Philosophy is to be wise like God but not in this to love our selves for the greatest sin that ever was and that upon which even the blood of Christ Jesus hath not wrought the sin of Angels was that Similis ero Altissimo to be like God To love our selves to be satisfied in our selves to finde an omni-sufficiency in our selves is an intrusion an usurpation upon God
middle nature above the Philosophers and below the Scriptures the Apocryphall books and I know it is said there Comfort thy selfe for thou-shalt do him no good that is dead Ecclus. 38.6 Et teipsum pessimabis as the vulgat reads it thou shalt make thy self worse and worse in the worst degree But yet all this is but of inordinate lamentation for in the same place the same Wise man sayes My Son let thy tears fall down over the dead weep bitterly and make great moane as he is worthy When our Saviour Christ had uttered his consummatum est all was finished and their rage could do him no more harm when he had uttered his In manus tuas he had delivered and God had received his soul yet how did the whole frame of nature mourn in Eclipses and tremble in earth-quakes and dissolve and shed in pieces in the opening of the Temple Quia mortuus because he was dead Truly to see the hand of a great and mighty Monarch that hand that hath governed the civill sword the sword of Justice at home and drawn and sheathed the forraigne sword the sword of war abroad to see that hand lie dead and not be able to nip or fillip away one of his own wormes and then Quis homo what man though he be one of those men of whom God hath said Ye are gods yet Quis homo what man is there that lives and shall not see death To see the brain of a great and religious Counsellor and God blesse all from making all from calling any great that is not religious to see that brain that produced means to becalme gusts at Councell tables stormes in Parliaments tempests in popular commotions to see that brain produce nothing but swarmes of wormes and no Proclamation to disperse them To see a reverend Prelate that hath resisted Heretiques Schismatiques all his life fall like one of them by death perchance be called one of them when he is dead To re-collect all to see great men made no men to be sure that they shall never come to us not to be sure that we shall know them when we come to them to see the Lieutenants and Images of God Kings the sinews of the State religious Counsellors the spirit of the Church zealous Prelates And then to see vulgar lgnorant wicked and facinorous men thrown all by one hand of death into one Cart into one common Tide-boate one Hospitall one Almeshouse one Prison the grave in whose dust no man can say This is the King this is the Slave this is the Bishop this is the Heretique this is the Counsellor this is the Foole even this miserable equality of so unequall persons by so foule a hand is the subject of this lamentation even Quia mortuus because Lazarus was dead Iesus wept He wept even in that respect Quia non abhibita media Quia mortuus and he wept in this respect too Quia non adhibita media because those means which in appearance might have saved his life by his default were not used for when he came to the house one sister Martha sayes to him Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed and then the other sister Mary sayes so too Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed They all cry out that he who only only by comming might have saved his life would not come Our Saviour knew in himself that he abstained to better purpose and to the farther glory of God for when he heard of his death he said to his Disciples I am glad for your sakes that I was not there Christ had certain reserved purposes which conduced to a better establishing of their faith and to a better advancing of Gods Kingdome the working of that miracle But yet because others were able to say to him it was in you to have saved him and he did not even this Quia non adhibita media affected him and Iesus wept He wept Etsi quatriduanus Etsi quatriduanus though they said unto him He hath been foure dayes dead and stinkes Christ doth not say there is no such matter he doth not stink but though he do my friend shall not lack my help Good friends usefull friends though they may commit some errors and though for some misbehaviours they may stink in our nostrils must not be derelicted abandoned to themselves Many a son many a good heire findes an ill ayre from his Father his Fathers life stinkes in the nostrils of all the world and he heares every where exclamations upon his Fathers usury and extortion and oppression yet it becomes him by a betterlife and by all other means to rectifie and redeem his Fathers fame Quatriduanus est is no plea for my negligence in my family to say My son or my servant hath proceeded so far in ill courses that now it is to no purpose to go about to reform him because Quatriduanus est Quatriduanus est is no plea in my pastorall charge to say that seducers and practisers and perswaders and sollicitors for superstition enter so boldly into every family that now it is to no purpose to preach religious warinesse religious discretion religious constancy Quatriduanus est is no plea for my Usury for my Simony to say I do but as all the world doth and hath used to do a long time To preach there where reprehension of growing sin is acceptable is to preach in season where it is not acceptable it is out of season but yet we must preach in season and out of season too And when men are so refractary as that they forbeare to heare or heare and resist our preaching we must pray and where they dispise or forbid our praying we must lament them we must weep Quatriduanus erat Lazarus was far spent yet Iesus wept He wept Etsisuscitandus Though he knew that Lazarus were to be restored and raised to life again for as he meant to declare a great good will to him at last so he would utter some by the way he would do a great miracle for him as he was a mighty God but he would weep for him too as he was a good natured man Truly it is no very charitable disposition if I give all at my death to others if I keep all all my life to my self For how many families have we seen shaked ruined by this distemper that though the Father mean to alien nothing of the inheritance from the Son at his death yet because he affords him not a competent maintenance in his life he submits his Son to an encumbring of his fame with ignominious shiftings and an encumbring of the estare with irrecoverable debts I may mean to feast a man plentifully at Christmas and that man may starve before in Lent Great persons may think it in their power to give life to persons and actions by their benefits when they will and before that will be up and ready both
your Master hath dealt thus mercifully with you all that to you all all he sends a message Sciant omnes Let all the house of Israel know this Needs the house of Israel know any thing Needs there any learning in persons of Honour We know this characterizes this distinguishes some whole Nations In one Nation it is almost a scorn for a gentleman to be learned in another almost every gentleman is conveniently and in some measure learned But I enlarge not my self I pretend not to comprehend Nationall vertues or Nationall vices For this knowledge which is proclaimed here which is the knowledge that the true Messias is come and that there is no other to bee expected is such a knowledge as that even the house of Israel it self is without a Foundation if it be without this knowledge Is there any house that needs no reparations Is there a house of Israel let it be the Library the depositary of the Oracles of God a true Church that hath the true word of the true God let it be the house fed with Manna that hath the true administration of the true Sacraments of Christ Jesus is there any such house that needs not a farther knowledge that there are alwaies thieves about that house that would rob us of that Word and of those Sacraments The Holy Ghost is a Dove and the Dove couples paires is not alone Take heed of singular of schismatical opinions what is more singular more schismaticall then when all Religion is confined in one mans breast The Dove is animal sociale a sociable creature and not singular and the Holy Ghost is that And Christ is a Sheep animal gregale they flock together Embrace thou those truths which the whole flock of Christ Jesus the whole Christian Church hath from the beginning acknowledged to be truths and truths necessary to salvation for for other Traditionall and Conditionall and Occasionall and Collaterall and Circumstantiall points for Almanack Divinity that changes with the season with the time and Meridionall Divinity calculated to the heighth of such a place and Lunary Divinity that ebbes and flowes and State Divinity that obeyes affections of persons Domus Israel the true Church of God had need of a continuall succession of light a contiuall assistance of the Spirit of God and of her own industry to know those things that belong to her peace And therefore let no Church no man think that he hath done enough or knowes enough If the Devill thought so too we might the better think so but since we see that he is in continuall practise against us let us be in a continuall diligence and watchfulnesse to countermine him We are domus Israel the house of Israel and it is a great measure of knowledge that God hath afforded us but if every Pastor look into his Parish and every Master into his own Family and see what is practising there sciat domus Israel let all our Israel know that there is more knowledge and more wisdome necessary Be every man farre from calumniating his Superiours for that mercy which is used towards them that are fallen but be every man as far from remitting or slackning his diligence for the preserving of them that are not fallen The wisest must know more though you be domus Israel the house of Israel already Crucifixistis and then Etsi Crucifixistis though you have crucified the Lord Jesus you may know it sciant omnes let all know it S. Paul saies once If they had known it they would not have crucified the Lord of life but he never saies if they have crucified the Lord of life 1 Cor. 2.8 they are excluded from knowledge I meane no more but that the mercy of God in manifesting and applying himself to us is above all our sins No man knowes enough what measure of tentations soever he have now he may have tentations through which this knowledge and this grace will not carry him and therefore he must proceed from grace to grace So no man hath sinned so deeply but that God offers himself to him yet Sciant omnes the wisest man hath ever something to learn he must not presume the sinfullest man hath God ever ready to teach him he must not despaire Now the universality of this mercy Sciant hath God enlarged and extended very farre in that he proposes it even to our knowledge Sciant let all know it It is not only credant let all beleeve it for the infusing of faith is not in our power but God hath put it in our power to satisfie their reason and to chafe that waxe to which he himself vouchsafes to set to the great seale of faith And that S. Hierome takes to be most properly his Commission Tentemus animas quae deficiunt a fide natur alibus rationibus adjuvare Let us indevour to assist them who are weak in faith with the strength of reason And truly it is very well worthy of a serious consideration that whereas all the Articles of our Creed are objects of faith so as that we are bound to receive them de fide as matters of faith yet God hath left that out of which all these Articles are to be deduced and proved that is the Scripture to humane arguments It is not an Article of the Creed to beleeve these and these Books to be or not to be Canonicall Scripture but our arguments for the Scripture are humane arguments proportioned to the reason of a naturall man God does not seale in water in the fluid and transitory imaginations and opinions of men we never set the seale of faith to them But in Waxe in the rectified reason of man that reason that is ductile and flexible and pliant to the impressions that are naturally proportioned unto it God sets to his seale of faith They are not continuall but they are contiguous they flow not from one another but they touch one another they are not both of a peece but they enwrap one another Faith and Reason Faith it self by the Prophet Esay is called knowledge Esay 53.11 By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many sayes God of Christ that is by that knowledge that men shall have of him So Zechary expresses it at the Circumcision of Iohn Baptist That hee was to give knowledge of salvation Luke 1.77 for the remission of sins As therefore it is not enough for us in our profession to tell you Qui non crediderit damnabitur Except you beleeve all this you shall be damned without we execute that Commission before Ite praedicate go and preach work upon their affections satisfie their reason so it is not enough for you to rest in an imaginary faith and easinesse in beleeving except you know also what and why and how you come to that beliefe Implicite beleevers ignorant beleevers the adversary may swallow but the understanding beleever he must chaw and pick bones before he come to assimilate him
miser abilis casus saies he cui non sufficit una regeneratio Miserable man that I am and miserable condition that I am fallen into whom one regeneration will not serve So is it a miserable death that hath swallowed us whom one Resurrection will serve We need three but if we have not two we were as good be without one There is a Resurrection from worldly calamities a resurrection from sin and a resurrection from the grave First Exod. 10.17 1 Cor. 15.31 Psal 41.8 from calamities for as dangers are called death Pharaoh cals the plague of Locusts a death Intreat the Lord your God that he may take from me this death onely And so S. Paul saies in his dangers I dye daily So is the deliverance from danger called a Resurrection It is the hope of the wicked upon the godly Now that he lieth he shall rise no more that is Now that he is dead in misery he shall have no resurrection in this world Now this resurrection God does not alwaies give to his servants neither is this resurrection the measure of Gods love of man whether he do raise him from worldly calamities or no. The second is the resurrection from sin Apec 20.5 and therefore this S. Iohn calls The first Resurrection as though the other whether we rise from worldly calamities or no were not to be reckoned Anima spiritualiter cadit spiritualiter resurget saies S. Augustine Since we are sure there is a spirituall death of the soule let us make sure a spirituall resurrection too Audacter dicam saies S. Hierome I say confidently Cum omnia posset Deus suscitare Virginem post ruinam non potest Howsoever God can do all things he cannot restore a Virgin that is fallen from it to virginity againe He cannot do this in the body but God is a Spirit and hath reserved more power upon the spirit and soule then upon the body and therefore Audacter dicam I may say with the same assurance that S. Hierome does No soule hath so prostituted her selfe so multiplied her fornications but that God can make her a virgin againe and give her even the chastity of Christ himselfe Fulfill therefore that which Christ saies Iohn 5.25 The houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God and they that heare shall live Be this that houre be this thy first Resurrection Blesse Gods present goodnesse for this now and attend Gods leasure for the other Resurrection hereafter 1 Cor. 15.20 He that is the first fruits of them that slept Christ Jesus is awake he dyes no more he sleepes no more Sacrificium pro te fuit sed à te accepit August quod pro te obtulit He offered a Sacrifice for thee but he had that from thee that he offered for thee Primitiae fuit sed tuae primitiae He was the first fruits but the first fruits of thy Corne Spera in te futurum quod praecess it in primitiis tuis Doubt not of having that in the whole Croppe which thou hast already in thy first fruits that is to have that in thy self which thou hast in thy Saviour And what glory soever thou hast had in this world Glory inherited from noble Ancestors Glory acquired by merit and service Glory purchased by money and observation what glory of beauty and proportion what glory of health and strength soever thou hast had in this house of clay The glory of the later house Hag. 2.9 shall be greater then of the former To this glory the God of this glory by glorious or inglorious waies such as may most advance his own glory bring us in his time for his Son Christ Jesus sake Amen SERMON XIX Preached at S. Pauls upon Easter-day in the Evening 1624. APOC. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection IN the first book of the Scriptures that of Genesis there is danger in departing from the letter In this last book this of the Revelation there is as much danger in adhering too close to the letter The literall sense is alwayes to be preserved but the literall sense is not alwayes to be discerned for the literall sense is not alwayes that which the very Letter and Grammer of the place presents as where it is literally said That Christ is a Vine and literally That his flesh is bread and literally That the new Ierusalem is thus situated thus built thus furnished But the literall sense of every place is the principall intention of the Holy Ghost in that place And his principall intention in many places is to expresse things by allegories by figures so that in many places of Scripture a figurative sense is the literall sense and more in this book then in any other As then to depart from the literall sense that sense which the very letter presents in the book of Genesis is dangerous because if we do so there we have no history of the Creation of the world in any other place to stick to so to binde our selves to such a literall sense in this book will take from us the consolation of many spirituall happinesses and bury us in the carnall things of this world The first error of being too allegoricall in Genesis transported divers of the ancients beyond the certain evidence of truth and the second error of being too literall in this book fixed many very many very ancient very learned upon an evident falshood which was that because here is mention of a first Resurrection and of raigning with Christ a thousand years after that first Resurrection There should be to all the Saints of God a state of happinesse in this world after Christs comming for a thousand yeares In which happy state though some of them have limited themselves in spirituall things that they should enjoy a kinde of conversation with Christ and an impeccability and a quiet serving of God without any reluctations or cōcupiscences or persecutions yet others have dreamed on and enlarged their dreames to an enjoying of all these worldly happinesses which they being formerly persecuted did formerly want in this world and then should have them for a thousand yeares together in recompence And even this branch of that error of possessing the things of this world so long in this world did very many and very good and very great men whose names are in honour and justly in the Church of God in those first times stray into and flattered themselves with an imaginary intimation of some such thing in these words Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection Thus far then the text is literall Divisio That this Resurrection in the text is different from the generall Resurrection The first differs from the last And thus far it is figurative allegoricall mysticall that it is a spirituall Resurrection that is intended But wherein spirituall or of what spirituall Resurrection In
our virility our holy manhood our true and religious strength consists in the assurance that though death have divided us and though we never receive our dead raised to life again in this world yet we do live together already in a holy Communion of Saints and shal live together for ever hereafter in a glorious Resurrection of bodies Little know we how little a way a soule hath to goe to heaven when it departs from the body Whether it must passe locally through Moone and Sun and Firmament and if all that must be done all that may be done in lesse time then I have proposed the doubt in or whether that soule finde new light in the same roome and be not carried into any other but that the glory of heaven be diffused over all I know not I dispute not I inquire not Without disputing or inquiring I know that when Christ sayes That God is not the God of the dead he saies that to assure me that those whom I call dead are alive And when the Apostle tels me That God is not ashamed to be called the God of the dead Heb. 11.16 he tels me that to assure me That Gods servants lose nothing by dying He was but a Heathen that said Menander Thraces If God love a man Iuvenis tollitur He takes him young out of this world And they were but Heathens that observed that custome To put on mourning when their sons were born and to feast and triumph when they dyed But thus much we may learne from these Heathens That if the dead and we be not upon one floore nor under one story yet we are under one roofe We think not a friend lost because he is gone into another roome nor because he is gone into another Land And into another world no man is gone for that Heaven which God created and this world is all one world If I had fixt a Son in Court or married a daughter into a plentifull Fortune I were satisfied for that son and that daughter Shall I not be so when the King of Heaven hath taken that son to himselfe and maried himselfe to that daughter for ever I spend none of my Faith I exercise none of my Hope in this that I shall have my dead raised to life againe This is the faith that sustaines me when I lose by the death of others or when I suffer by living in misery my selfe That the dead and we are now all in one Church and at the resurrection shall be all in one Quire But that is the resurrection which belongs to our other part That resurrection which wee have handled though it were a resurrection from death yet it was to death too for those that were raised again died again But the Resurrection which we are to speak of is forever They that rise then shall see death no more for it is sayes our Text A better Resurrection That which we did in the other part 2 Part. in the last branch thereof in this part we shall doe in the first First we shall consider the examples from which the Apostle deduceth this encouragement and faithfull constancy upon those Hebrewes to whom he directs this Epistle Though as he sayes in the beginning of the next Chapter he were compassed about with a Cloud of witnesses and so might have proposed examples from the Authenticke Scriptures and the Histories of the Bible yet we accept that direction which our Translators have given us in the Marginall Concordance of their Translation That the Apostle in this Text intends and so referres to that Story which is 2 Maccab. 7.7 To that Story also doth Aquinas referre this place But Aquinas may have had a minde to doe that service to the Romane Church to make the Apostle cite an Apocryphall Story though the Apostle meant it not It may be so in Aquinas He might have such a minde such a meaning But surely Beza had no such meaning Calvin had no such minde and yet both Calvin and Beza referre this Text to that Story Though it be said sayes Calvin that Ieremy was stoned to death and Esay sawed to death Non dubito quin illas persecutiones designet quae sub Antiocho I doubt not sayes he but that the Apostle intends those persecutions which the Maccabees suffered under Antiochus So then there may be good use made of an Apocryphall Booke It alwayes was and alwayes will be impossible for our adversaries of the Romane Church to establish that which they have so long endeavoured that is to make the Apocryphall Bookes equall to the Canonicall It is true that before there was any occasion of jealousie or suspition that there would be new Articles of faith coyned and those new Articles authorized and countenanced out of the Apocryphall Books the blessed Fathers in the Primitive Church afforded honourable names and made faire and noble mention of those Books So they have called them Sacred and more then that Divine and more then that too Canonicall Books and more then all that by the generall name of Scripture and Holy Writ But the Holy Ghost who fore-saw the danger though those blessed Fathers themselves did not hath shed and dropt even in their writings many evidences to prove in what sense they called those Books by those names and in what distance they alwayes held them from those Bookes which are purely and positively and to all purposes and in all senses Sacred and Divine and Canonicall and simply Scripture and simply Holy Writ Of this there is no doubt in the Fathers before S. Augustine For all they proposed these Bookes as Canones morum non sidei Canonicall that is Regular for applying our manners and conversation to the Articles of Faith but not Canonicall for the establishing those Articles Canonicall for edification but not for foundation And even in the later Roman Church we have a good Author that gives us a good rule Cajeâ—an Ne turberis Novitie Let no young Student be troubled when he heares these Bookes by some of the Fathers called Canonicall for they are so saies he in their sense Regulares ad aedificationem Good Canons good Rules for matter of manners and conversation And this distinction saies that Author will serve to rectifie not onely what the Fathers afore S. Augustine for they speake cleerely enough but what S. Augustine himselfe and some Councels have said of this matter But yet this difference gives no occasion to an elimination to an extermination of these Books which we call Apocryphall And therefore when in a late forraine Synod that Nation where that Synod was gathered would needs dispute whether the Apocryphall Bookes should not be utterly left out of the Bible And not effecting that yet determined that those Bookes should be removed from their old place where they had ever stood that is after the Bookes of the Old Testament Exteri se excusari petierunt Sessio 10. say the Acts of that Synod Those that
came to that Synod from other places desire to be excused from assenting to the displacing of those Apocryphall Books For in that place as we see by Athanasius they prescribe For though they be not Canonicall saies he yet they are Ejusdem veteris Instrumenti libri Books that belong to the Old Testament that is at least to the elucidation and cleering of many places in the Old Testament And that the Ancient Fathers thought these Books worthy of their particular consideration must necessarily be more then evident to him that reads S. Chrysostomes Homilie or Leo his Sermon upon this very part of that Book of the Maccab to which the Apostle refers in this Text that is to that which the seven Brethren there suffered for a better Resurrection And if we take in the testimony of the Reformation divers great and learned men have interpreted these Books by their particular Commentaries Osyander hath done so and done it with a protestation that divers great Divines intreated him to do it Conrad Pellicanus hath done so too Who lest these Books should seeme to be undervalued in the name of Apocryphall saies that it is fitter to call them Libros Ecclesiasticos rather Ecclesiasticall then Apocryphall Books And of the first of these two books of the Maccab he saies freely Reverà Divini Spiritus instigatione No doubt but the holy Ghost moved some holy man to write this Book because saies he by it many places of they Prophets are the better understood and without that Booke which is a great addition of dignitie Ecclesiastica eruditio perfecta non fuisset The Church had not been so well enabled to give perfect instruction in the Ecclesiasticall Story Therefore he cals it Piissimum Catholicae Ecclesiae institutum A most holy Institution of the Catholike Church that those Books were read in the Church And if that Custome had been every where continued Non tot errores increvissent So many errors had not growne in the Reformed Church saies that Author And to descend to practise at this day we see that in many Churches of the Reformation their Preachers never forbeare to preach upon Texts taken out of the Apocryphall Books We discerne cleerely and as earnestly we detest the mischievous purposes of our Adversaries in magnifying these Apocryphall Books It is not principally that they would have these Books as good as Scriptures but because they would have Scriptures no better then these Books That so when it should appeare that these Books were weake books and the Scriptures no better then they their owne Traditions might be as good as either But as their impiety is inexcusable that thus over-value them so is their singularity too that depresse these books too farre of which the Apostle himselfe makes this use not to establish Articles of Faith but to establish the Hebrews in the Articles of Faith by examples deduced from this Booke The example then to which the Apostle leads them is that Story of a Mother and her seven Sons which in one day suffered death by exquisite torments rather then break that Law of their God which the King prest them to break though but a Ceremoniall Law Now as Leo saies in his Sermon upon their day for the Christian Church kept a day in memory of the Martyredome of these seven Maccabees though they were but Jewes Gravant audita nisi suscipiantur imitanda It is a paine to heare the good that others have done except we have some desire to imitate them in doing the like The Panegyricke said well Onerosum est succederebono Principi That King that comes after a good Predecessour hath a shrewd burthen upon him because all the World can compare him with the last King and all the world will looke that he should be as good a King as his immediate Predecessour whom they all remember was So Gravant audita It will trouble you to heare what these Maccabees which S. Paul speaks of suffered for the Law of their God but you are weary of it and would be glad we would give over talking of them except you have a desire to imitate them And if you have that you are glad to heare more and more of them and from this Apostle here you may For he makes two uses of their example First that though they were tortured they would not accept a deliverance And then that they put on that resolution That they might obtaine a better Resurrection What they suffered hath exercised all our Grammarians and all our Philologers and all our Antiquaries that have enquired into the Racks and Tortures of those times We translate it roundly They were tortured And S. Pauls word implies a torture of that kind that their bodies were extended and rackt as upon a drumme and then beaten with staves What the torture intended in that word was we know not But in the Story it selfe to which he refers in the Maccab you have all these divers tortures Cutting out of tongues and cutting off of hands and feete and macerating in hot Cauldrons and pulling off the skin of their heads with their haire And yet they would not accept a deliverance Ver. 24. Was it offered them Expresly it was The King promises and sweares to one of them that he would make him Rich and Happie and his Friend and trust him with his affaires if he would apply himselfe to his desires and yet he would not accept this deliverance This is that which S. August saies Sunt qui patienter moriuntur There may be many found that dye without any distemper without any impatience that suffer patiently enough But then Sunt qui patienter vivunt delectabiliter moriuntur There are others whose life exercises all their patience so that it is a paine to them though they indure it patiently to live But they could dye not only patiently but cheerefully They are not onely content if they must but glad if they may dye when they may dye so as that thereby They may obtaine a better Resurrection And this was the case of these Martyrs whom the Apostle here proposes to the imitation of the Hebrews They put all upon that issue A better Resurrection So the second Brother saies to the King Ver. 9. Thou like a Fury takest us out of this life but the King of the World shall raise us up who have dyed for his Law unto everlasting life Here lay his hope That that which dyed that which could dye his body should be raised againe So the third Brother proceeded Ver. 11. He held out his hands and said These I had from Heaven and for his Laws I despise them and from him I hope to receive them again There was his hope a restitution of the same hands in the Resurrection And so the fourth Brother Ver. 14. It is good being put to death by men to looke for hope from God Hope of what To be raised up againe by him There was his hope And he
opinions yet even from their various opinions there arise good instructions we shall rather Problematically inquire then Dogmatically establish first whether these words were spoken of Angels or no whether this word Angell in this text be not as it is in many other places of Scriptures and in the nature of the Word it selfe communicable to other servants and other messengers then those whom ordinarily we intend when we say Angels and then secondly if the words be spoken of Angels then whether of Good or Bad Angels of those which stand now or those which fell at first and againe if of those that stand then what degree of perfection they have and what that which we use to call their Confirmation is how it accrues to them and how it works in them if even of them it be said Behold he put no trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly In our second part what was inferd upon these premisses what was concluded out of these propositions what reflected upon us by this assimilation of ours to the Angels because it is a matter of much weight we shall first in our entrance into that part consider the weight of the testimony in the Person that gives it for it is not Iob himselfe that speaks these words It is but one of his friends but Elephaz but the Temanite a Gentile a stranger from the Covenant and the Church of God and yet his words are part of the Word of God And then for the matter that is inferd from our assimilation to the state of Angels will be fairely collected that if those Angels stand but by the support of Grace not by any thing inseparably inhering in their nature when we are at our best in heaven we shall do but so neither much lesse whilst we are upon earth have we in us any impossibility of falling by any thing already done for us Our standing is meerely from the grace of God and therefore let no man ascribe any thing to himselfe and Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall for God hath done no more for the best of us here nor hereafter then for those Angels and of them we heare here He put no trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly First then 1 Part. An Angeli for our first Disquisition in our first part De quibus the persons of whom these words are spoken Amongst all our Expositors of this book of Iob which are very many and amongst all Authors Ancient and Moderne which have had occasion in their Sermons and Tractates to reflect upon this text which are many more infinite I have never observed more then one that denies these words to be spoken of Angels or that there is any mention any intention any intimation of Angels in these words And which is the greater wonder this one single man who thus departs from all and prefers himselfe above all is no Jesuit neither It is but a Capuccin but Bolduc upon this Book of Iob and yet he adventures to say That that Person of whom it is said in this text He put no trust in his Servants and He charged his Angels with folly is not God and that they of whom it is said He trusted not his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly are not Angels But that all that Eliphaz intended in all this passage of Iob was no more but this That no great Person must trust in any kind of Greatnesse particularly not in great retinues and dependances of many servants and powerfull instruments for that was Iobs owne case and yet he lost them all The doctrine truly is good neither should I sodainly condemne his singularity if it were well grounded For though in the exposition of Scriptures singularity alwaies carry a suspition with it singularity is Indicium as we say in the Law some kind of evidence It is Semi-probatio a kind of halfe-proofe against that man that holds an opinion or induces an interpretation different from all other men yet as these which we call Indicia in the Law worke but so as that they may bring a man to his oath or in some cases to the rack and to torture but are not alone sufficient to condemne him So if we finde this singularity in any man we take from thence just occasion to question and sift him and his Doctrine the more narrowly but not only upon that presently to condemne him For this was S. Augustines case S. Augustine induced new Doctrines in divers very important points different from all that had written before him but upon due examination for all his singularity the Church hath found reason to adhere to him in those points ever since his reasons prevailed In our single Capuccins case here in our text it is not so And therefore here we must continue that complaint which we are often put to make of the iniquity of the Roman Church to us If the Fathers seeme to agree in any point wherein we differ from them they cry out we depart from the Fathers If we adhere to the Fathers in any point in which they differ from them then they cry out we forsake the Church Still they presse us with their Trent-Canon You must interpret Scriptures according to the unanime consent of the Fathers and yet they suffer a single Capuccin of their owne to depart from the Fathers and Sons from the Ancient and Moderne Expositors in their owne Church And I may adde from the Holy Ghost too from the evident purpose and meaning of the place in more places then any Author whom I have seene and in this more then in any other place when he saies with such assurance that in these words He put no trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly there is no mennon no intention of God or Angels but it is onely spoken of men of the infidelity of servants and of the insecurity of Masters relying upon such dependancies We take this then Ande Angelis Boâ—â— as All do All for this single Capuccin makes no considerable exception more then a mole-hill to the roundnesse of the earth to be spoken of Angels which was our first probleme and disquisition And our second is being spoken of Angels of what Angels they are spoken Good or Bad of those that fell or those that stood Here we meet with the same rub as before singularity For amongst all our Expositors upon this book I have not observed any other then Calvin to interpret this place of the good Angels of those that stand confirmed in grace Not that Calvin is to be left alone in that opinion as though he were the onely man that thought that the good Angels considered in themselves might be defective in the offices committed unto them by God for it is evident that Origen in divers of his Homilies upon the book of Numbers in his twentieth and twentie two and foure and twentie sixt and in his
judgements did God shew Adam Iudicia pessimorum spirituum sayes he the better to containe Adam in his duty God declared to him the judgement that he had executed upon those disobedient Angels So that as Adam if he had made a right use of Gods grace had been immortall in his body and yet not immortall then by nature as our bodies in the state of glory in the resurrection shall be immortall and yet not immortall then by nature so no Angell after this Confirmation that is the mediation of Christ applied to him shall fall For Quis Catholicus ignorat Aug. nullum novum Diabolum ex bonis Angelis futurum Who can pretend to be a Catholique and beleeve that ever there shall be any new Devill from amongst the good Angels And yet by the way many of the Ancient Fathers thought that those words That the sons of God saw the daughters of men to be faire and fell in love with them were meant of good Angels who fell in love with those women that were committed to their charge and that they sinned in so doing and that they never returned to heaven but fell to the first fallen Angels So that those Fathers have more then implied a possibility of falling into sin and punishment for sin in the good Angels But this none sayes now nor with any probability ever did It is enough that they stand confirmed confirmed by the grace of God in Christ Jesus so that now being in possession of the sight of God and the light of Gâ—ry their understanding is perfectly illustrated so that they can apprehend nothing erroneously and therefore their will is perfectly rectified so that they can desire nothing irregularly and therefore they cannot sin and therefore they cannot die for all sin is from the perversenesse of the will and all disorder in the will from errour in the understanding In heaven they are and we by our assimilation to them shall be free from both and impeccable and impassible by the continuall grace of God Though if they or we were left to our selves even there God could put no trust in his servants nor leave his Angels uncharged with folly And so we have done with the pieces which constitute our first part De quibus of whom these words are spoken First that they were spoken of Angels rejecting that single Capuccin who only denies it and then of good Angels accepting Calvins interpretation because though he be singular in applying this Text to that Doctrine yet in the Doctrine it self he hath authority enough and faire reasons for the Text it selfe and lastly how that which we call Confirmation in those Angels accrewes to them and how it works in them And so we passe to our second Part what is inferred upon these premisses what concluded upon these propositions what by our assimilation to Angels reflects upon us And here 2. Part. Testis Eliphaz because the matter is of much consideration we proposed first to be considered the waight and validity of the testimony in the person of him that gives it for many times the credit of the restimony depends much upon the credit of the witnesse And here it is not Iob himself it is but Eliphaz Eliphaz the Temanite an Alien a stranger to the Covenant and Church of God But surely no greater a stranger then those secular Poets whose sentences S. Paul cites not only in his Epistles but in his Sermons too Certainly not so great a stranger as the Devill and yet in how many places of Scripture are words spoken by the Devill himself inserted into the Scriptures and thereby so farre made the word of God as that the word of God the Bible were not perfect norintire to us if we had not those words of those Poets those words of the Devill himself in it How can I doubt but that God can draw good out of ill and make even some sin of mine some occasion of my salvation when the God of truth can make the word of the father of lies his word There is but one place in all this Book of Iob cited in the New Testament Job 5.13 that is He taketh the wise in their owne craft and those words are not spoken by Iob himself but by this very friend of Iob this Eliphaz that speaks in our Text 1 Cor. 3.19 and yet they are cited in the phrase and manner in which holy Scripture is ordinarily cited It is written sayes the Apostle there and so the Holy Ghost that spoke in S. Paul hath canonized the words spoken by Eliphaz But besides the credit which these words have Visio à posteriori that they are after inserted into the word of God which is another manner of credit and authentiquenesse then that which the Canonists speak of that when any sentence of a Father is cited and inserted into a Decretall Epistle of a Pope or any part of the Canon Law that sentence is thereby made authenticall and canonicall these words have their credit à priori for before be spake them to Iob he received them in a vision from God I had a vision in the night Ver. 12. sayes he and feare and trembling came upon me and a spirit stood before me and I heard this voyce Neither is there any necessity no nor reason to charge Eliphaz with a false relation or counterfaiting a revelation from God which he had not had as some Expositors have done For howsoever in some argumentations and applyings of things to Iobs particular case we may finde some errors in Eliphaz in modo probandi in the manner of his proceeding yet we shall not finde him to proceed upon false grounds and therefore we beleeve Eliphaz to have received this that he sayes from God in a vision and for the instruction of a man more in Gods favour then himself of Iob. Balaam had the reputation of a great Wizard and yet God made his Asse wiser then he and able to instruct and catechize him Generally we are to receive our instructions from Gods established Ordinances from his ordinary meanes afforded to us in his Church And where those meanes sufficient in themselves are duly exhibited to us we are not to hearken after revelations nor to beleeve every thing that may have some such apparance to be a revelation But yet we are not so to conclude God in his Law as that he should have no Prerogative nor so to binde him up in his Ordinances as that he never can or never does work by an extraordinary way of revelation Neither must the profusion of miracles the prodigality and prostitution of miracles in the Romane Church where miracles for every naturall disease may be had at some Shrine or miracle-shop better cheap then a Medicine a Drugge a Simple at an Apothecaries bring us to deny or distrust all miracles done by God upon extraordinary causes and to important purposes Eliphaz was a prophane person and yet received a Vision from
never spoken of the Resurrection to them they were likely to have heard of it from them to whom Christ had spoken of it It was Cleophas his question to Christ though he knew him not then to be so when they went together to Emaus Art thou onely a stranger in Ierusalem that is hast thou been at Jerusalem and is this Luke 24.16 The death of Christ strange to thee So may we say to any that professes Christianity Art thou in the Christian Church and is this The Resurrection of Christ strange to thee Are there any amongst us that thrust to Fore-noones and After-noones Sermons that pant after high and un-understandable Doctrines of the secret purposes of God and know not this the fundamentall points of Doctrine Even these womens ignorance though they were in the number of the Disciples of Christ makes us affraid that some such there may be and therefore blessed be they that have set on foote that blessed way of Catechizing that after great professions we may not be ignorant of small things These things these women might have learnt of others who were to instruct them Luke 24. â—â— But for their better assurance the Angell tells them here that Christ himself had told them of this before Remember sayes he how Christ spoke to you whilst he was with you in Galile We observe that Christ spoke to his Disciples of his Resurrection five times in the Gospell Now these women could not be present at any of the five but one which was the third Mat. 17.22 And before that it is evident that they had applied themselves to Christ and ministred unto him The Angell then remembers them what Christ said to them there Luke 24.6 It was this The Sonne of man must be delivered into the hands of sinfull men and Crucified and the third day rise againe And they remembred his words sayes the Text there Then they remembred them when they heard of them again but not till then Which gives me just occasion to note first the perverse tendernesse and the supercilious and fastidious delicacy of those men that can abide no repetitions nor indure to heare any thing which they have heard before when as even these things which Christ himself had preached to these women in Galile had been lost if this Angel had not preached them over again to them at Jerusalem Remember how he spake to you sayes he to them And why shouldst thou be loath to heare those things which thou hast heard before when till thou heardst them again thou didst not know that is not consider that ever thou hadst heard them So have we here also just occasion to note their impertinent curiosity who though the sense be never so well observed call every thing a salfification if the place be not rightly cyphard or the word exactly cited and magnifie one another for great Text men though they understand no Text because they cite Book and Chapter and Verse and Words aright whereas in this place the Angel referres the women to Christs words and they remember that Christ spake those words and yet if we compare the places Mat. 17.22 Luke 24.6 that where Christ speaks the words and that where the Angell repeats them though the sense be intirely the same yet the words are not altogether so Thus the Angell erects them in the consternation Remember what was promised that in three dayes he would rise The third day is come and he is risen as he said and that your senses may be exercised as well as your faith Come and see the place where the Lord lay Even the Angell calls Christ Lord Dominus Angeli Heb. 1.6 and his Lord for the Lord and the Angell calls him so is Lord of all of men and Angels When God brings his Soninto the world sayes the Apostle he sayes let all the Angels of God worship him And when God caries his Son out of the world by the way of the Crosse they have just cause to worship him too Colâ—â—â— 1.20 for By the blood of his Crosse are all things reconciled to God both things in earth and things in heaven Men and Angels Therefore did an Angel minister to Christ before he was Luke 1. Mat. 1. Luke 2. Mat. 4. Luke 22. Acts 1.10 in the Annunciation to his blessed Mother that he should be And an Angel to his imaginary Father Ioseph before he was born And a Quire of Angels to the Shepheards at his birth An Angel after his tentation And in his Agony and Bloody-sweat more Angels Angels at his last step at his Ascension and here at his Resurrection Angels minister unto him The Angels of heaven acknowledged Christ to be their Lord. In the beginning some of the Angels would be Similes Altissimo like to the most High But what a transcendent what a super-diabolicall what a prae-Luciferian pride is his that will be supra Altissimum 2 Thes 2.4 superiour to God That not only exalteth himselfe above all that is called God Kings are called Gods and this Arch-Monarch exalts himselfe above all Kings but above God literally and in that wherein God hath especially manifested himself to be God to us that is in prescribing us a Law how he will be obeyed for in dispensing with this Law and adding to and withdrawing from this law he exalts himself above God as our Law-giver And as it is also said there He exalteth himself and opposeth himselfe against God There is no trusting of such neighbours as are got above us in power This man of sin hath made himselfe superiour to God and then an enemy to God for God is Truth and he opposes him in that for he is heresie and falshood and God is Love and he opposes him in that for he is envy and hatred and malice and sedition and invasion and rebellion The Angell confesses Christ to be The Lord his Lord Dominus mortuus and he confesses him to be so then when he lay dead in the grave Come seethe place where the Lord lay A West Indian King having beene well wrought upon for his Conversion to the Christian Religion and having digested the former Articles when he came to that He was crucified dead and buried had no longer patience but said If your God be dead and buried leave me to my old god the Sunne for the Sunne will not dye But if he would have proceeded to the Article of the Resurrection hee should have seene that even then when hee lay dead hee was GOD still Then when hee was no Man hee was GOD still Nay then when hee was no man hee was God and Man in this true sense That though the body and soule were divorced from one another and that during that divorce he were no man for it is the union of body and soule that makes a man yet the Godhead was not divided from either of these constitutive parts of man body or soule Psal 22.7 1
so disposed In all ages in all Churches there have been men who have been Ingrati gratiae as S. Augustine calls them that have been unthanfull to the grace of God and attributed that to nature Act. 17.26 which belonged to grace But we have an universall conclusion God hath made of one blood all mankinde And no man can adopt himselfe into the family of God man is excluded and all power in man and all assistance from man neither your owne reason nor the reason of your Masters whom you relie upon can raise you to this knowledge for Esay 31.3 Aegyptus homo non Deus The Egyptians are men and not Gods and their horses are flesh and not spirit and when the Lord shall stretch out his hand the helper shall fall and he that is holpen shall fall and they shall fall together The Atheist and all his Philosophy Helper and hee that is Holpen Horse and Man Nature and Art Reason mounted and advanced upon Learning shall never be able to leap over or breake thorough this wall No man no naturall man can doe any thing towards a supernaturall work This was our second Branch Quid homo facit That too much is ordinarily attributed by man to man And our third is That too little is done by any man and that is worse then the other When Nebuchadnezzar had made his Image of gold of sixtie Cubits it had been a madnesse in him not to have celebrated the Dedication thereof with all the pomp and solemnity that he did To have gone so farre and not to have made it serve his farther uses had been a strange impertinence So is it a strange contemplation to see a man set up a golden Image to attribute even Divinity to our nature and to imagine it to be able to doe whatsoever the grace of God can doe and yet with this Angelicall nature with this celestiall soule to contribute lesse to the glory of God then an Ant or a plant or a stone As the counsell of the Philosopher Epictetus directs thee if thou take any new action in hand consider what Socrates would doe in that case that is dispose thy selfe therein according to the example and precedent of some wise man So if thou wilt take this new action in hand that which is new but should be ordinary unto thee if thou wilt take a view of thy sins that are past doe but consider if ever thou didst any sin which Socrates or Seneca would not have forborne And whatsoever thou seest another can doe by the power of that reason and that perswasion which thou art able to minister who art not able to infuse faith nor inspire grace into him but must work by thy reason and upon his reason why shouldest not thou be as powerfull upon thy selfe and as strong in thine owne behalfe and obey that counsell from thy selfe which thou thinkest another man mad if he doe not obey when thou givest it Why shouldest thou pretend Reason why another should forbeare any particular sin and not present that Reason to thy selfe or not obey it To love the Scriptures of God better then any other booke to love the house of God better then any other Court to love the Communion of Saints better then any other Conversation to study to know the revealed will of God rather then the secrets of any Princes to consider the direct purposes of God against his enemies rather then the sinister supplantations of pretenders to places in Court briefly to Reade to Heare to Beleeve the Bible is a worke within the ability of nature within the power of a morall man He that attributes more to nature he that allowes her any ability of disposing her selfe before hand without prevention of grace or concurrence and co-operation after without continuall assistance of particular graces he sets up an Idoll and magnifies nature beyond that which appertaines unto her But he that goes not so farre as this That the reason of man and his naturall faculties are the Instruments and Organs that God works in by his grace howsoever he may in discourse and in argument exalt nature howsoever he may so give too much to her yet he does not so much with her as he might doe He hath made her a Giant and then as though he were afraid of her hee runs away from her He will not doe that which is in his power and yet he thinks it is in his power to repent when he lists and when he lists to apply the merits of Christ to himselfe and to doe all those duties which are implyed in our next Part To say that Iesus is the Lord. In this our first duty is an outward act Dicere to professe Christ Jesus 2. Part. Dicere Rom. 1.16 Luke 9.26 Non erubesco sayes S. Paul I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ Iesus for it is the power of God unto salvation And Qui erubuerit sayes Christ Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my word of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he shall come in glory This is a necessary duty but is it the duty of this place for here it is not non vult but non potest not that he is loath to professe Jesus but that he is not able to doe it We see that some could say that and say it aloud preach it and yet without the Holy Ghost Some sayes the Apostle preach Christ through envy and strife Philem. 15. supposing to adde more afflictions unto my bands Which may well be that some Jews and Gentiles to exasperate the State against Paul fained themselves also to be converted to his religion because when they had made him odious by drawing off others they who pretended to have been drawen by him could alwayes save themselves with recanting and renouncing their new profession So they could say Dominum Iesum That Iesus was the Lord and never meane it And of those twelve whom Christ chose to preach Iudas was one of whom Christ sayes John 6.70 Have I not chosen you twelve and one of you is a devill So that this devill Iudas and that devill that made him a devill the devill himself could say as much as this Iesus I know Acts 19.15 Luke 4.41 and Paul I know They said it they cryed it Thou art the Christ the Son of God and that incessantly Till Iesus rebuked them and suffered them not to say That they knew him to be The Christ But besides that even this confessing of Christ is not Sine omni impulsu Spiritus sancti Altogether without any motion of the holy Ghost for the holy Ghost even in these cases had a purpose to draw testimonies for Christ out of the mouthes of his adversaries this is not the professing required here When Tiberius had a purpose to canonize Christ Jesus and to admit him into the number of the Romane Gods and to make him beholden to him for that honour he
gods as there are Creatures from God and more then that as many gods as they could fancie or imagine in making Chimera's of their owne for not onely that which was not God but that which was not at all was made a God And then as in narrow channels that cannot containe the water the water over-flowes and yet that water that does so over flow flies out and spreads to such a shallownesse as will not beare a Boat to any use so when by this narrownesse in the Gentiles God had over-flowne this bank this limitation of God in an unity all the rest was too shallow to beare any such notion any such consideration of God as appertained to him They could not think him an Omnipotent God when if one God would not another would nor an Infinite God when they had appeales from one God to another and without Omnipotence and without Infinitenesse they could not truly conceive a God They had cantoned a glorious Monarchy into petty States that could not subsist of themselves nor assist another and so imagined a God for every state and every action that a man must have applied himselfe to one God when he shipped and when he landed to another and if he travailed farther change his God by the way as often as he changed coynes or post-horses Deut. 6.4 But Heare O Israel the Lord thy God is one God As though this were all that were to be heard all that were to be learned they are called to heare and then there is no more said but that The Lord thy God is one God There are men that will say and sweare they do not meane to make God the Author of sin but yet when they say That God made man therefore that he might have something to damne and that he made him sin therefore that he might have something to damne him for truly they come too neare making God the Author of sin for all their modest protestation of abstaining So there are men that will say and sweare they do not meane to make Saints Gods but yet when they will aske the same things at Saints hands which they do at Gods and in the same phrase and manner of expression when they will pray the Virgin Mary to assist her Son nay to command her Son and make her a Chancellor to mitigate his common Law truly they come too neare making more Gods then one And so do we too when we give particular sins dominion over us Quot vitia tot Deos recentes sayes Hierom As the Apostle sayes Covetousnesse is Idolatry so sayes that Father is voluptuousnesse and licentiousnesse and every habituall sin Non alienum sayes God Thou shalt have no other God but me But Quis similis sayes God too Who is like me Hee will have nothing made like him not made so like a God as they make their Saints nor made so like a God as we make our sins Wee thinke one King Soveraigne enough and one friend counsellor enough and one Wife helper enough and he is strangely insatiable that thinks not one God God enough especially since when thou hast called this God what thou canst Hâ—â—â—r he is more then thou hast said of him Cum definitur ipse sua definitione crescit When thou hast defined him to be the God of justice and tremblest he is more then that he is the God of mercy too and gives thee comfort When thou hast defined him to be all eye He sees all thy sins he is more then that he is all patience and covers all thy sins And though he be in his nature incomprehensible and inaccessible in his light yet this is his infinite largenesse that being thus infinitely One he hath manifested himselfe to us in three Persons to be the more easily discerned by us and the more closely and effectually applied to us Now these notions that we have of God as a Father as a Son as a Holy Ghost Trinitas as a Spirit working in us are so many handles by which we may take hold of God and so many breasts by which we may suck such a knowledge of God as that by it wee may grow up into him And as wee cannot take hold of a torch by the light but by the staffe we may so though we cannot take hold of God as God who is incomprehensible and inapprehensible yet as a Father as a Son as a Spirit dwelling in us we can There is nothing in Nature that can fully represent and bring home the notion of the Trinity to us There is an elder booke in the World then the Scriptures It is not well said in the World for it is the World it selfe the whole booke of Creatures And indeed the Scriptures are but a paraphrase but a comment but an illustration of that booke of Creatures And therefore though the Scriptures onely deliver us the doctrine of the Trinity clearely yet there are some impressions some obumbrations of it in Nature too Take but one in our selves in the soule The understanding of man that is as the Father begets discourse ratiocination and that is as the Son and out of these two proceed conclusions and that is as the Holy Ghost Such as these there are many many sprinkled in the Schoole many scattered in the Fathers but God knowes poore and faint expressions of the Trinity But yet Praemisit Deus naturam magistram Tertul. submissurus prophetiam Though God meant to give us degrees in the University that is increase of knowledge in his Scriptures after yet he gave us a pedagogy he sent us to Schoole in Nature before Vt faciliùs credas prophetiae discipulus naturae That comming out of that Schoole thou mightest profit the better in that University having well considered Nature thou mightest be established in the Scriptures He is therefore inexcusable that considers not God in the Creature that comming into a faire Garden sayes onely Here is a good Gardiner and not Here is a good God and when he sees any great change sayes onely This is a strange accident and not a strange Judgement Hence is it that in the books of the Platonique Philosophers and in others much ancienter then they if the books of Hermes Trismegistus and others be as ancient as is pretended in their behalfe we finde as cleare expressing of the Trinity as in the Old Testament at least And hence is it that in the Talmud of the Jews and in the Alcoran of the Turks though they both oppose the Trinity yet when they handle not that point there fall often from them as cleare confessions of the three Persons as from any of the elder of those Philosophers who were altogether dis-interested in that Controversie But because God is seene Per creaturas ut per speculum per verbum ut per lucem Aleus In the creature and in nature but by reflection In the Word and in the Scriptures directly we rest in the knowledge which we
Solomon do for the most part hold in Christ Christ is for the most part the Wisdome of that book And for that book which is called altogether The book of Wisdome Isidore sayes that a Rabbi of the Jews told him That that book was heretofore in the Canonicall Scripture and so received by the Jews till after Christs Crucifying when they observed what evident testimonies there were in that book for Christ they removed it from the Canon This I know is not true but I remember it therefore because all assists us to consider Wisdome in Christ as that does also That the greatest Temple of the Christians in Constantinople was dedicated in that name Sophia to Wisdome by implication to Christ And in some apparitions where the Son of God is said to have appeared he cals himself by that name Sapientiam Dei He is Wisdome therefore because he reveales the Will of the Father to us and therefore is no man wise but he that knowes the Father in him Isidore makes this difference Inter sapientem prudentem that the first The wise man attends the next world the last The prudent man but this world But wisdome even heavenly wisdome does not exclude that prudence though the principall or rather the ordinary object thereof be this world And therefore sins against the second Person are sins against Wisdome in either extreame either in affected and grosse ignorance or in overrefined and sublimed curiosity As we place this Ignorance in Practicall things of this world so it is Stupidity and as we place it in Doctrinall things of the next world so Ignorance is Implicite Beliefe And Curiosity as we place it upon Practical things is Craft and upon Doctrinal things Subtilty And this Stupidity and this Implicite faith and then this Craft and this Subtilty are sins directed against the Son who is true and onely Wisdome First then A stupid and negligent passage through this world as though thou wert no part of it without embarking thy selfe in any calling To crosse Gods purpose so much Stupiditas as that whereas he produced every thing out of nothing to be something thou wilt go so far back towards nothing againe as to be good for nothing that when as our Lawes call a Calling an Addition thou wilt have no Addition And when as S. Augustine saies Musca Soli praeferenda quia vivit A Fly is a nobler Creature then the Sun in this respect because a Fly hath life in it selfe and the Sun hath none so any Artificer is a better part of a State then any retired or contemplative man that embraces no Calling These chippings of the world these fragmentary and incoherent men trespasse against the Son against the second Person as he is Wisdome And so doe they in doctrinall things that swallow any particular religion upon an implicite faith When Christ declared a very forward knowledge in the Temple at twelve yeares with the Doctors yet he was there Audiens interrogans He heard what they would say and he moved questions to heare what they could say for Ejusdem scientiae est scire quid interroges quidve respondeas Luke 2.46 Origen It is a testimony of as much knowledge to aske a pertinent question as to give a pertinent answer But never to have beene able to give answer never to have asked question in matter of Religion this is such an Implicitenesse and indifferency as transgresses against the Son of God who is Wisdome It is so too in the other extreame Curiosity And this in Practicall things is Craft Curiositas in Doctrinall Subtilty Craft is properly and narrowly To go towards good ends by ill wayes And though this be not so ill as when neither ends nor wayes be good yet this is ill too The Civilians use to say of the Canonists and Casuists That they consider nothing but Crassam aequitatem fat Equity downe-right Truths things obvious and apprehensible by every naturall man and to doe but so to be but honest men and no more they thinke a diminution To stay within the limits of a profession within the limits of precedents within the limits of time is to over-active men contemptible nothing is wisdome till it be exalted to Craft and got above other men And so it is with some with many in Doctrinall things too To rest in Positive Divinity and Articles confessed by all Churches To be content with Salvation at last and raise no estimation no emulation no opinion of singularity by the way only to edifie an Auditory and not to amaze them onely to bring them to an assent and to a practise and not to an admiration This is but home-spun Divinity but Country-learning but Catechisticall doctrine Let me know say these high-flying men what God meant to doe with man before ever God meant to make man I care not for that Law that Moses hath written That every man can read That he might have received from God in one day Let me know the Cabal that which passed betweene God and him in all the rest of the forty dayes I care not for Gods revealed Will his Acts of Parliament his publique Proclamations Let me know his Cabinet Counsailes his bosome his pocket dispatches Is there not another kinde of Predestination then that which is revealed in Scriptures which seemes to be onely of those that beleeve in Christ May not a man be saved though he doe not and may not a man bee damned though he doe performe those Conditions which seeme to make sure his salvation in the Scriptures Beloved our Countrey man Holkot upon the booke of Wisdome sayes well of this Wisdome which we must seeke in the Booke of God After he hath magnified it in his harmonious manner which was the style of that time after he had said Cujus authore nihil sublimius That the Author of the Scripture was the highest Author for that was God Cujus tenore nihil solidius That the assurance of the Scripture was the safest foundation for it was a Rock Cujus valore nihil locupletius That the riches of the Scripture was the best treasure for it defrayed us in the next World After he had pursued his way of Elegancy and called it Munimentum Majestatis That Majesty and Soveraignty it selfe was established by the Scriptures and Fundamentum firmitatis That all true constancy was built upon that and Complementum potestatis That the exercise of all power was to be directed by that he reserves the force of all to the last and contracts all to that Emolumentum proprietatis The profit which I have in appropriating the power and the wisdome of the Scriptures to my selfe All wisdome is nothing to me if it be not mine and I have title to nothing that is not conveyed to me by God in his Scriptures and in the wisdome manifested to me there I rest I looke upon Gods Decrees in the execution of those Decrees and I try whether I be within that Decree
does not call man with an Ecce To behold him and then hide himselfe from him he does not bid him looke and then strike him blinde We are all borne blinde at first In Baptisme God gives us that Collyrium that eye-salve by which we may see and actually by the power of that medicine we do all see Mat. 7. â— more then the Gentiles do But yet Ecce trabs in oculis sayes Christ Behold there is a beame in our eye that is Naturall infirmities But for all this beame when Christ bids us behold we are able to see by Christs light our owne imperfections though we have that beame yet we are able to see that we have it And when this light which Christ gives us which is his first grace brings us to that then Christ proceeds so that which followes there Projice trabem Cast out the beame that is in thine eye and so we become able by that succeeding grace to overcome our former impediments If Christ bid us behold he gives us light if he bid us cast out the beame he gives us strength There is an Ecce neutus cast upon Zachary Behold thou shalt be dumbe Luke 1.20 God punished Zacharies incredulity with dumbnesse But there is never an Ecce caecus Behold thou shalt be blinde That God should call man to see and then blow out the candle or not shew him a candle if he were in utter darknesse for this is an Ecce directionis an Ecce lucernae God cals and he directs and lightens our paths never reproach God so impiously as to suspect that when he cals he does not meane that we should come Well then Vox with what doth he enlighten thee Why Ecce vox Behold a voyce saying Now for this voyce in the Text by whom it was heard as also by whom the Dove that descended was seen is sometimes disputed and with some perplexity amongst the Fathers Some thinke it was to Christ alone because two of the Euangelists Mark and Luke record the words in that phrase Tu es filius not as we reade it in our Text This is but Thou art my beloved Sonne But so there had been no use neither of the Dove nor of the voyce for Christ himselfe lacked no testimony that he was that Sonne Some thinke it was to Christ and Iohn Baptist and not to the company Because say they The mysterie of the Trinity was not to be presented to them till a farther and maturer preparation And therefore they observe that the next manifestation of Christ and so of the Trinity Mat. 17. by a like voyce was almost three years after this in his Transfiguration after he had manifested this doctrine by a long preaching amongst them And yet even then it was but to his Apostles and but to a few of them neither and those few forbidden to publish too and how long Till his resurrection when by that resurrection he had confirmed them then it was time to acquaint them with the Doctrine of the Trinity But for the Doctrine of the Trinity as mysterious as it is it is insinuated and conveyed unto us even in the first verse of the Bible in that extraordinary phrase Creavit Dii Gods Gods in the plurall created heaven and earth There is an unity in the action it is but Creavit in the singular and yet there is a plurality in the persons it is not Deus God but Dij Gods The Doctrine of the Trinity is the first foundation of our Religion and no time is too early for our faith The simplest may beleeve it and all time is too early for our reason The wisest cannot understand it And therefore as Chrysostome is well followed in his opinion so he is well worthy to be followed That both the Dove was seen and the voyce was heard by all the company for neither was necessary to Christ himselfe And the voyce was not necessary to Iohn Baptist because the signe which was to governe him was the Dove He that sent me said upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit come down and tarry still it is he that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost But to the company both voyce and Dove were necessary for if the voyce had come alone they might have thought that that testimony had been given of Iohn of whom they had as yet a far more reverend opinion then of Christ And therefore God first points out the person and by the Dove declares him to all which was He and then by that voyce declares farther to them all what He was This benefit they had by being in that company they saw and they heard things conducing to their salvation for though God worke more effectually upon those particular persons in the Congregation who by a good use of his former graces are better disposed then others yet to the most gracelesse man that is if he be in the Congregation God vouchsafes to speake and would be heard They that differ in the persons Via Creaturae who heard it agree in the Reason All they heard it in all their opinions to whom it was necessary to heare it And it is necessary to all us to have this meanes of understanding and beleeving to heare Therefore God gives to all that shall be saved vocem his voyce We consider two other wayes of imprinting the knowledge of God in man first in a darke and weake way the way of Nature and the book of Creatures and secondly in that powerfull way the way of Miracles But these and all between these are uneffectuall without the Word When David sayes of the Creatures Psal 19.3 Rom. 10.17 There is no speech nor language where their voyce is not heard the voyce of the Creature is heard over all S. Paul commenting upon those words says They have heard All the world hath heard but what The voyce of the Creature now that is true so much all the world had heard then and does heare still But the hearing that S. Paul intends there is such a hearing as begets faith and that the voyce of Creature reaches not to The voyce of the Creature alone is but a faint voyce a low voyce nor any voyce till the voyce of the Word inanimate it for then when the Word of God hath taught us any mystery of our Religion then the booke of Creatures illustrates and establishes and cherishes that which we have received by faith in hearing the Word As a stick bears up and succours a vine or any plant more precious then it selfe but yet gave it not life at first nor gives any nourishment to the root now so the assistance of reason and the voyce of the Creature in the preaching of Nature works upon our faith but the roote and the life is in the faith it selfe The light of nature gives a glimmering before and it gives a reflexion after faith but the meridianall noone is in faith Now if we consider the other way the way of
comes Job 1.6 that the Sonnes of God present themselves before the Lord Satan comes also among them Not onely so as S. Augustin confesses he met him at Church to carry wanton glances between men and women but he is here sometimes to work a mis-interpretation in the hearer sometimes to work an affectation in the speaker and many times doth more harme by a good Sermon then by a weake by possessing the hearers with an admiration of the Preachers gifts and neglecting Gods Ordinance And then it is not onely their naturall power as they are Angels nor their united power as they are many nor their politique power that in the midst of that confusion which is amongst them yet they agree together to ruine us but as it follows in our text it is potestas data a particular power which besides their naturall power God at this time put into their hands He cryed to the foure Angels to whom power was given to hurt All other Angels had it not nor had these foure that power at all times which in our distribution at first we made a particular Consideration It was potestas data a speciall Commission that laid Iob open to Satans malice Potestas data It was potestas data a speciall Commission that laid the herd of swine open to the Devils tranportation Much more no doubt Mat. 8.32 have the particular Saints of God in the assistances of the Christian Church for Iob had not that assistance being not within the Covenant and most of all hath the Church of God her selfe an ability in some measure to defend it selfe against many machinations and practises of the Devill if it were not for this Potestas data That God for his farther glory in the tryall of his Saints and his Church doth enable the Devill to raise whole armies of persecutors whole swarmes of heretiques to sting and wound the Church beyond that ordinary power which the Devill in nature hath That place Curse not the King no not in thought Eccles 10.20 for that which hath wings shall tell the matter is ordinarily understood of Angels that Angels shall reveale disloyall thoughts now naturally Angels do not understand thoughts but in such cases there is Potestas data a particular power given them to do it and so to evill Angels for the accomplishment of Gods purposes there is Potestas data a new power given a new Commission that is beyond permission for though by Gods permission mine eye see and mine eare heare yet my hand could not see nor heare by Gods permission for permission is but the leaving of a thing to the doing of that which by nature if there be no hindrance interposed it could and would do This comfort then and this hope of deliverance hast thou here that this Angel in our text that is the Ministery of the Gospel tels thee that that rage which the Devill uses against thee now is but Potestas data a temporary power given him for the present for if thy afflictions were altogether from the naturall malice and power of the Devill inherent in him that malice would never end nor thy affliction neither if God should leave all to him And therefore though those our afflictions be heavier which proceed ex potestate data when God exalts that power of the Devill which naturally he hath with new Commissions besides his Permission to use his naturall strength and naturall malice yet our deliverance is the nearer too because all these accessory and occasionall Commissions are for particular ends and are limited how far they shall extend how long they shall endure Here the potestas data the power which was given to these Angels was large it was generall for as it is in the former verse it was a power to hold the foure winds of the earth that the winde should not blow on the earth nor on the sea nor on any tree What this withholding of the winde signifies and the damnification of that is our next Consideration By the Land Venti is commonly understood all the Inhabitants of the Land by the Sea Ilanders and Sea-faring men halfe inhabitants of the Sea and by the Trees all those whom Persecution had driven away and planted in the wildernesse The hinderance of the use of the wind being taken by our Expositors to be a generall impediment of the increase of the earth and of commerce at Sea But this Book of the Revelation must not be so literally understood as that the Winds here should signifie meerly naturall winds there is more in this then so Thus much more That this withholding of the winds is a withholding of the preaching and passage of the Gospel which is the heaviest misery that can fall upon a Nation or upon a man because thereby by the misery of not hearing he loses all light and meanes of discerning his owne misery Now as all the parts and the style and phrase of this Book is figurative and Metaphoricall so is it no unusuall Metaphor even in other Bookes of the Scripture too to call the Ministers and Preachers of Gods Word Cant. 4.16 by the name of winds Arise O North and come O South and blow on my Garden that the spices thereof may flow out hath alwayes been understood to be an invitation a compellation from Christ to his Ministers to dispense and convey salvation Psal 135.7 by his Gospel to all Nations And upon those words Producit ventos He bringeth winds out of his treasuries and Educit nubes He bringeth clouds from the ends of the earth Puto Praedicatores nubes ventos August sayes S. Augustine I think that the holy Ghost means both by his clouds and by his winds the Preachers of his Word the Ministers of the Gospel Nubes propter carnem ventos propter spiritum Clouds because their bodies are seen winds because their working is felt Nubes cernuntur venti sentiuntur as clouds they embrace the whole visible Church and are visible to it as winds they pierce into the invisible Church the soules of the true Saints of God and work though invisibly upon them Psal 18.10 So also those words God rode upon a Cherub and did fly He did fly upon the wings of the wind have been well interpreted of Gods being pleased to be carryed from Nation to Nation by the service of his Ministers Now this is the nature of this wind of the Spirit of God breathing in his Ministers Spirat ubi vult John 3.8 that it blowes where it lists and this is the malice of these evill Angels that it shall not doe so But this Angel which hath the seale of the living God that is the Ministery of the Gospel established by him shall keep the winds at their liberty And howsoever waking dreamers think of alterations and tolerations howsoever men that disguise their expectations with an outward conformity to us may think the time of declaring themselves growes on
in a peacefull unity of affections by the love and goodnesse of the holy Ghost Amen SERM. XLIX Preached on the Conversion of S. PAUL 1629. ACTS 23.6 7. But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadduces and the other Pharisees he cryed out in the Councel Men and Brethren I am a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee Of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question And when he had so said there arose a dissention between the Pharisees and the Sadduces and the multitude was divided WE consider ordinarily in the old Testament God the Father And in the Gospels God the Son And in this Book the Acts and in the Epistles and the rest God the Holy Ghost that is God in the Government and Administration of his Church as well in the ordinary Ministery and constant callings therein as in the extraordinary use of generall Councells of which we have the Modell and Platforme and precedent in the fifteenth Chapter of this Booke The Book is noted to have above twenty Sermons of the Apostles and yet the Book is not called The Sermons The Preaching of the Apostles but the Practise the Acts of the Apostles Our actions if they be good speak louder then our Sermons Our preaching is our speech our good life is our eloquence Preaching celebrates the Sabbath but a good life makes the whole week a Sabbath that is A savor of rest in the nostrils of God Gen. 8. Chrysost Hieron as it is said of Noahs Sacrifice when he came out of the Ark. The Book is called The Acts of the Apostles But sayes S. Chrysostome and S. Hierome too it might be called the Acts of S. Paul so much more is it conversant about him then all the rest In which respect at this time of the yeare and in these dayes when the Church commemorates the Conversion of S. Paul I have for divers yeares successively in this place determined my selfe upon this Book Once upon the very act of his Conversion in those words Acts 9.4 Acts 20.25 Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Once upon his valediction to his Ephesians at Miletus in those words Now I know that all ye shall see my face no more And once upon the escape from the Vipers teeth and the viperous tongues of those inconstant and clamorous beholders Acts 28.6 who first rashly cried out He is a murderer and then changed their mindes and said He is a God And now for the service of your devotions and the advancement of your edification I have laid my meditations upon this his Stratagem and just avoiding of an unjust Judgement When Paul percived that one part were Sadduces and the other Pharisees c. In handling of which words Divisio because they have occasioned a Disputation and a Probleme whether this that Paul did were well done To raise a dissention amongst his Judges we shall stop first upon that Consideration That all the actions of holy men of Apostles in the new Testament of Patriarchs in the old are not to be drawne into example and consequence for others no nor alwayes to be excused and justified in them that did them All actions of holy men are not holy that is first And secondly we shall consider this action of S. Paul in some circumstances that invest it and in some effects that it produced in our Text as dissention amongst his Judges and so a reprieving or rather a putting off of the triall for that time and these will determine our second Consideration And in a third we shall lodge all these in our selves and make it our owne case and finde that we have all Sadduces and Pharisees in our own bosomes contrary affections in our own hearts and finde an advantage in putting these home Sadduces and home Pharisees these contrary affections in our owne bosomes in colluctation and opposition against one another that they doe not combine and unite themselves to our farther disadvantage A Civill warre is in this case our way to peace when one sinfull affection crosses another we scape better then when all joyne without any resistance And in these three first the Generall How wee are to estimate all actions And then the Particular what wee are to thinke of S. Pauls Action And lastly the Individuall How wee are to direct and regulate our owne Actions wee shall determine all First then 1. Part. though it be a safer way to suspect an action to be sin that is not then to presome an action to be no sin that is so yet that rule holds better in our selves then in other men for in judging the actions of other men our suspition may soone stray into an uncharitable mis-interpretation and wee may sin in condemning that in another which was no sin in him that did it But in truth Transilire lineam To depart from the direct and straight line is sin as well on the right hand as on the left And the Devill makes his advantages upon the over-tender and scrupulous conscience as well as upon the over-confident and obdurate and many men have erred as much in justifying some actions of holy men as in calumniating or mis-condemning of others If we had not evidence in Scripture that Abraham received that Commandement from God who could justifie Abrahams proceeding with his son Isaac And therefore who shall be afraid to call Noahs Drunkennesse and his undecent lying in his Tent Or Lots Drunkennesse and his iterated Incest with his Daughters or his inconsiderate offer to prostitute his Daughters to the Sodomites Or to call Davids complicated and multiplied sin a sin When the Church celebrates Samsons death though he killed himself it is upon a tender holy supposition that he might do this not without some instinct and inspiration from the Spirit of God But howsoever the Church interprets such actions it is a dangerous and a fallacious way for any private man to argue so The Spirit of God directed this man in many actions therefore in all And dangerous to conclude an action to be good either because he that did it had a good purpose in doing it or because some good effects proceeded from it Bonum bene are the two horses that must carry us to heaven To do good things and to doe them well To propose good ends and to goe by good waies to those good ends The Mid-wives lie in the behalfe of the Israelites children was a lie and a sin howsoever God out of his own goodnesse found something in their piety to reward I should not venture to say as he said nor to say that hee said well when Moses said Dele me Forgive their finne or blot mee out of thy Booke Exod. 32.32 Rom. 9 3. Nor when S. Paul said Anathema pro fratribus I could wish that my selfe were separated from Christ for my Brethren I would not I could not without sin be content that my name should be blotted out of the Booke of
not Oportet impleri Scripturam The Scripture must be fulfilled We doe not wish them we do but Prophesie them no nor we doe not prophesie them but the Scriptures have preprophesied them before they will fall upon you as upon Iudas in condemnation and perchance as upon Iudas in desperation too Davids purpose then being in these words to work to their amendment Mollior sensus and not their finall destruction we may easily and usefully discerne in the particular words a milder sense then the words seeme at first to present And first give me leave by the way only in passing by occasion of those words which are here rendred Convertentur Erubescent and which in the Originall are Iashabu and Ieboshu which have a musicall and harmonious sound and agnomination in them let me note thus much even in that that the Holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures delights himself not only with a propriety but with a delicacy and harmony and melody of language with height of Metaphors and other figures which may work greater impressions upon the Readers and not with barbarous or triviall or market or homely language It is true that when the Grecians and the Romanes and S. Augustine himselfe undervalued and despised the Scriptures because of the poore and beggerly phrase that they seemed to be written in the Christians could say little against it but turned still upon the other safer way wee consider the matter and not the phrase because for the most part they had read the Scriptures only in Translations which could not maintaine the Majesty nor preserve the elegancies of the Originall Their case was somewhat like ours at the beginning of the Reformation when because most of those men who laboured in that Reformation came out of the Romane Church and there had never read the body of the Fathers at large but only such ragges and fragments of those Fathers as were patcht together in their Decretat's and Decretals and other such Common placers for their purpose and to serve their turne therefore they were loath at first to come to that issue to try controversies by the Fathers But as soon as our men that in braced the Reformation had had time to reade the Fathers they were ready enough to joyne with the Adversary in that issue and still we protest that we accept that evidence the testimony of the Fathers and resuse nothing which the Fathers unanimly delivered for matter of faith and howsoever at the beginning some men were a little ombrageous and startling at the name of the Fathers yet since the Fathers have been well studied for more then threescore yeares we have behaved our selves with more reverence to wards the Fathers and more confidence in the Fathers then they of the Romane perswasion have done and been lesse apt to suspect or quarrell their Books or to reprove their Doctrines then our Adversaries have been So howsoever the Christians at first were fain to sink a little under that imputation that their Scriptures have no Majesty no eloquence because these embellishments could not appeare in Translations nor they then read Originalls yet now that a perfect knowledge of those languages hath brought us to see the beauty and the glory of those Books we are able to reply to them that there are not in all the world so eloquent Books as the Scriptures and that nothing is more demonstrable then that if we would take all those Figures and Tropes which are collected out of secular Poets and Orators we may give higher and livelier examples of every one of those Figures out of the Scriptures then out of all the Greek and Latine Poets and Orators and they mistake it much that thinke that the Holy Ghost hath rather chosen a low and barbarous and homely style then an eloquent and powerfull manner of expressing himselfe To returne and to cast a glance upon these words in Davids prediction Erubescent upon his enemies what hardnesse is in the first Erubescent Let them be ashamed for the word imports no more our last Translation sayes no more neither did our first Translators intend any more by their word Confounded for that is confounded with shame in themselves This is Virga desoiplinae sayes S. Bernard as long as we are ashamed of sin we are not growne up and hardned in it we are under correction the correction of a remorse As soone as Adam came to be ashamed of his nakednesse he presently thought of some remedy if one should come and tell thee that he looked through the doore that he stood in a window over against thine and saw thee doe such or such a sin this would put thee to a shame and thou wouldest not doe that sin till thou wert fure he could not see thee O if thou wouldest not sin till thou couldst think that God saw thee not this shame had wrought well upon thee There are complexions that cannot blush there growes a blacknesse a sootinesse upon the soule by custome in sin which overcomes all blushing all tend ernesse White alone is palenesse and God loves not a pale soule a soule possest with a horror affrighted with a diffidence and distrusting his mercy Rednesse alone is anger and vehemency and distemper and God loves not such a red soule a soule that sweats in sin that quarrels for sin that revenges in sin But that whitenesse that preserves it selfe not onely from being died all over in any foule colour from contracting the name of any habituall sin and so to be called such or such a sinner but from taking any spot from comming within distance of a tentation or of a suspition is that whitenesse which God meanes when he sayes Thou art all faire my Love Cant. 4.7 and there is no spot in thee Indifferent looking equall and easie conversation appliablenesse to wanton discourses and notions and motions are the Devils single money and many pieces of these make up an Adultery As light a thing as a Spangle is a Spangle is silver and Leafe gold that is blowne away is gold and sand that hath no strength no coherence yet knits the building so doe approaches to sin become sin and fixe sin To avoid these spots is that whitenesse that God loves in the soule But there is a rednesse that God loves too which is this Erubescence that we speak of an aptnesse in the soule to blush when any of these spots doe fall upon it God is the universall Confessor the generall Penitentiary of all the world and all dye in the guilt of their sin that goe not to Confession to him And there are sins of such waight to the soule and such intangling and perplexity to the conscience in some circumstances of the sin as that certainly a soule may receive much ease in such cases by confessing it selfe to man In this holy shamefastnesse which we intend in this outward blushing of the face the soule goes to confession too And it is one of
Summum bonum this Happinesse this Blessednesse was For they considered only some particular fruits thereof and it is much easier how high soever a tree be to come to a taste of some of the fruits then to digge to the root of that tree They satisfied themselves with a little taste of Health and Pleasure and Riches and Honour and never considered that all these must have their root in heaven and must have a relation to Christ Jesus who is the root of all And as these Philosophers could never tell us what this blessednesse was so Divines themselves and those who are best exercised in the language of the Holy Ghost the Originall tongue of this Text cannot give us a cleare Grammaticall understanding of this first word in which David expresses this Blessednesse Ashrei which is here Translated Blessed They cannot tell whether it be an Adverb And then it is Bene viro Well is it for that man A pathetique a vehement acclamation Happily Blessedly is that man provided for Or whether it be a Plurall Noune and then it is Beatitudines such a Blessednesse as includes many all blessednesses in it And one of these two it must necessarily be in the Rules of their Construction That either David enters with an Admiration O how happily is that man provided for Or with a Protestation That there is no particular Blessednesse which that man wants that hath this This Reconciliation to God Eusebius observes out of Plato that he enjoyned the Poets and the Writers in his State to describe no man to be happy but the good men none to be miserable but the wicked And his Scholar Aristotle enters into his Book of Ethiques and Morall Doctrine with that Contemplation first of all That every man hath naturally a disposition to affect and desire happinesse David who is elder then they begins his Book of Psalmes so The first word of the first Psalme is the first word of this Text Blessed is the man He comprehends all that belongs to mans knowledge and all that belongs to mans practise in those two first in understanding true Blessednesse and then in praising God for it Davids Alpha is Beatus vir O the Blessednesse of righteous men And Davids Omega is Laudate Dominum O that men would therefore blesse the Lord And therefore as he begins this Book with Gods blessing of man so he ends it with mans praising of God For where the last stroak upon this Psaltery the last verse of the last Psalme is Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord Yet he addes one note more to us in particular Praise ye the Lord and there is the end of all And so also our Saviour Christ himselfe in his owne preaching observed that Method Mat. 5.3 He begun his great Sermon in the Mount with that Blessed are the poore inspirit Blessed are they that mourne Blessed are the pure in heart Blessednesse alone was an abundant recompence for all And so the subject of Iohn Baptists Commission before and of his Disciples Commission after Mat. 3.2 was still the same to preach this Blessednesse That the Kingdome of God that is Mat. 10.7 Reconciliation to God in his Visible Church was at hand was forthwith to be established amongst them Though then the Consummation of this Blessednesse be that Visio Dei That sight of God which in our glorified state we shall have in heaven yet because there is an inchoation thereof in this world which is that which we call Reconciliation it behooves us to consider the disposition requisite for that It is a lamentable perversenesse in us that we are so contentiously busie in inquiring into the Nature and Essence and Attributes of God things which are reserved to our end when we shall know at once and without study all that of which all our lives study can teach us nothing And that here where we are upon the way we are so negligent and lazy in inquiring of things which belong to the way Those things we learne in no Schoole so well as in adversity As the body of man and consequently health is best understood and best advanced by Dissections and Anatomies when the hand and knife of the Surgeon hath passed upon every part of the body and laid it open so when the hand and sword of God hath pierced our soul we are brought to a better knowledge of our selves then any degree of prosperity would have raised us to All creatures were brought to Adam and because he understood the natures of all those creatures he gave them names accordingly In that he gave no name to himselfe it may be by some perhaps argued that he understood himselfe lesse then he did other creatures If Adam be our example in the time and Schoole of nature how hard a thing the knowledge of our selves is till we feele the direction of adversity David is also another example in the time of the Law who first said in his prosperity Psal 30.6 He should never bee moved But When sayes he Thou hidest thy face from me I was troubled and then I cryed unto thee O Lord and I prayed unto my God Then but not till then The same Art the same Grammar lasts still and Peter is an example of the same Rule in the time of grace who was at first so confident as to come to that Si omnes scandalizati if all forsook him Si mori oportuit If he must die with him or dye for him he was ready and yet without any terror from an armed Magistrate without any surprizall of a subtile Examiner upon the question of a poore Maid he denied his Master But then the bitternesse of his soule taught him another temper and moderation when Christ asked him after Amas me Lovest thou me not to pronounce upon an infallible confidence I have loved and I doe and I will doe till death but Domine tu scis Lord thou knowest that I love thee My love to thee is but the effect of thy love to me and therefore Lord continue thine that mine may continue No study is so necessary as to know our selves no Schoole-master is so diligent so vigilant so assiduous as Adversity And the end of knowing our selves is to know how we are disposed for that which is our end that is this Blessednesse which though it be well collected and summed by S. Augustine Beatus qui habet quicquid vult nihil mali vult He onely is blessed that desires nothing but that which is good for him and hath all that we must pursue in those particulars which here in Davids Catechisme constitute this Blessednesse and constitute our third Part and are delivered in three Branches first The forgiving of our transgressions And then The covering of our sinnes And thirdly The not imputing of our iniquities First then that in this third Part we may see in the first Branch 3 Part. Transgression the first notification of this Blessednesse we
thou be tempted with over-valuing thine owne purity finde an Example to answer that Job 14.27 Pro. 20.9 Quis mundum Who can bring a cleane thing out of uncleannesse Or that Who can say I have made my heart cleane I am pure from sinne There is no Example No man ever did it No man can say it If thou be tempted to worship God in an Image be able to answer God something to that To whom will yee liken God or what likenesse will yee compare unto him Esay 40.18 There can be no example no patterne to make God by for that were to make God a Copy and the other by which he were made the Originall If thou have a tentation to withdraw thy selfe from the Discipline of that Church in which God hath given thee thy Baptisme finde an Example to satisfie thy Conscience and Gods people in what age in what place there was any such Church instituted or any such Discipline practised as thou hast fancied to thy selfe Beleeve nothing for which thou hast not a Rule Doe nothing for which thou hast not an Example for there is not a more dangerous distemper in either Beliefe or Practise then singularity for there onely may we justly call for Miracles if men will present to us and binde us to things that were never beleeved never done before David therefore in this Psalme his Psalme of Instruction as himselfe calls it doth both He lays downe the Rule he establishes it by Example and that was our first Consideration and we have done with that Our second is That he goes not far for his Example 2 Part. Exemplum ipse He labors not to shew his reading but his feeling not his learning but his compunction his Conscience is his Library and his Example is himselfe and he does not unclaspe great Volumes but unbutton his owne breast and from thence he takes it Men that give Rules of Civill wisedome and wise Conversation amongst men use to say that a wise man must never speak much of himselfe It will argue say they a narrow understanding that he knows little besides his own actions or els that he overvalues his own actions if he bring them much into Discourse But the wise men that seeke Christ for there were such wise men in the world once Statesmen in the kingdome of heaven they goe upon other grounds and wheresoever they may finde them they seeke such Examples as may conduce most to the glory of God And when they make themselves Examples they doe not rather choose themselves then others but yet they doe not spare nor forbeare themselves more then other men David proposes his owne Example to his owne shame but to Gods glory For David was one of those persons Qui non potuit solus perire Bernar. He could not sin alone his sin authorized sin in others Princes and Prelates are Doctrinall men in this sense and acceptation that the subject makes the Princes life his Doctrine he learns his Catechisme by the eye he does what he sees done and frames to himselfe Rules out of his Superiors Example Therefore for their Doctrine David proposes truly his own Example and without disguising tells that of himselfe which no man else could have told Christ who could doe nothing but well proposes himselfe for an example of humility Iohn 3.15 Titus 2.7 I have given you an example Whom what That you should doe as I have done So S. Paul instructs Titus In all things shew a patterne of good works But whom for Titus might have shewed them many patternes but Shew thy selfe a patterne sayes the Apostle and not onely of assiduous and laborious preaching but of good works 1 Cor. 16.10 And this is that for which he recommends Timothy to the Church Hee works the work of the Lord And not without a patterne nor without that patterne which S. Paul had given him in himselfe He works so as I also doe S. Paul who had proposed Christ to himselfe to follow might propose himselfe to others and wish as he does I would all men were even as my selfe 1 Cor. 7.7 For though that Apostle by denying it in his owne practise 2 Cor. 4.5 seeme to condemne it in all others To preach our selves We preach not our selves but Christ Iesus the Lord yet to preach out of our owne history so farre as to declare to the Congregation to what manifold sins we had formerly abandoned our selves how powerfully the Lord was pleased to reclaime us how vigilantly he hath vouchsafed to preserve us from relapsing to preach our selves thus to call up the Congregation to heare what God hath done for my soule is a blessed preaching of my selfe And therefore Solomon does not speak of himselfe so much nor so much propose and exhibit himselfe to the Church in any Book as in that which he calls the Preacher Ecclesiastes In that Book he hides none of his owne sins none of those practises which he had formerly used to hide his sins He confesses things there which none knew but himselfe nor durst nor should have published them of him the King if they had knowne them So Solomon preaches himself to good purpose and poures out his owne soule in that Book Which is one of the reasons which our Interpreters assigne why Solomon cals himselfe by this name Lorin Proleg C. 5. Ecclesiastes Coheleth which is a word of the Foeminine gender and not Concionator but Concionatrix a Shee-preacher because it is Anima Concionatrix It is his soule that preaches he poures out his owne soule to the Congregation in letting them know how long the Lord let him run on in vanities and vexation of spirit and how powerfully and effectually he reclaimed him at last For from this Book the Preacher the she-Preacher the soule-Preacher Solomon preaching himselfe rather her selfe the Church raises convenient arguments and the best that are raised for the proofe of the salvation of Solomon of which divers doubted And though Solomon in this Book speak divers things not as his owne opinion but in the sense of worldly men yet as we have a note upon Plato's Dialogues that though he doe so too yet whatsoever Plato sayes in the name and person of Socrates that Plato alwayes meanes for his owne opinion so whatsoever Solomon sayes in the name of the Preacher the Preacher sayes this or sayes that that is evermore Solomons own saying When the Preacher preaches himselfe his owne sins and his owne sense of Gods Mercies or Judgements upon him as that is intended most for the glory of God so it should be applied most by the hearer for his own edification for he were a very ill natured man that should think the worse of a Preacher because he confesses himselfe to be worse then he knew him to be before he confessed it Therefore David thought it not enough to have said to his Confessor to Nathan in private Peccavi I have sinned but here before
but is an offer a promise to all which is our other and last Consideration in this first part In this consideration let us stop a little upon this question Te. why the Scriptures of God more then any other booke doe still speake in this singular person and in this familiar person still Tu and Tibi and Te Thou must love God God speaks to thee God hath care of thee Certainly in those passages which are from lower persons to Princes no Author is of a more humble and reverentiall and ceremoniall phrase then the phrase of the Scripture is Who could goe lower then David to Saul that calls himselfe a flea 1 Sam. 24.15 2 Sam. 9.8 Dan. 2.37 and a dead dogge Who could goe higher then Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar O King thou art King of Kings In all places the children of men the beasts of the field the fouls of the ayre are given into thy hand Thy greatnesse reacheth to heaven Dan. 4.19 and thy dominions to the ends of the earth So is it also in persons nearer in nature and nearer in ranke Iacob bowes seaven times to the ground in the presence of his brother Esau and My Lord and My Lord Gen. 33.3 at every word The Scripture phrase is as ceremoniall and as observant of distances as any and yet still full of this familiar word too Tu and Tuus Thou and Thine And we also we who deale most with the Scriptures are more accustomed to the same phrase then any other kinde of speakers are In a Parliament who is ever heard to say Thou must needs grant this Thou mayest be bold to yeeld to this Or who ever speaks so to a Judge in any Court Nay the King himselfe will not speake to the people in that phrase And yet in the presence of the greatest we say ordinarily Amend thy life and God be mercifull to thee and I absolve thee of all thy sinnes Beloved in the Scripture God speaks either to the Church his Spouse and to his children and so he may be boâ—d and would be familiar with them Or els he speaks so as that he would be thought 〈◊〉 thee to speake singularly to thy soule in particular Know then that Christ Jesus haâ— done enough for the salvation of all but know too that if there had been no other name written in the booke of life but thine he would have dyed for Thee Of those which were given him he lost none but if there had been none given him but Thou rather then have lost Thee he would have given the same price for Thee that he gave for the whole world And therefore when thou hearest his mercies distributed in that particular and that familiar phrase Faciam Te I will make Thee understand thou knowest not whether he speake to any other in the Congregation or no Be sure that he speake to Thee which he does if thou hearken to him and answer him If thou canst not find that he means Thee yet that he speaks to thee now if thou thinke he speake rather to some other whose faith and good life thou preferrest before thine own doe but begin to thinke now of the blessednesse of that man to whom thou thinkest he speaks and say to God with thy Saviour Eli Eli My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Why art thou gone to the other side or why to the next on my right or on my left hand and left out me Why speakest thou not comfortably to my soule and he will leave the ninety nine for thee and thou shalt finde Onus amoris such a waight and burden and load of his love upon thee as thou shalt be faine almost to say with S. Peter Exi à me Domine O Lord goe farther from me that is thou shalt see such an obligation of mercy laid upon thee as puts thee beyond all possibility of comprehension much more of retribution or of due and competent thankesgiving Miserere animae tuae Be but mercifull to thine own soule and God will be mercifull to it too If God had never meant to be mercifull to thee he would learne of thee If thou couldest love thy selfe before God love thee God would love thee for loving thy selfe how much more for thy loving his love in thee Love understanding and faciet te intelligere he will make thee understand enough for thy pilgrimage enough for thy transmigration enough for thy eternall habitation As we count them wisest who are most provident and foresee most he will make thee see farther then all they through all generations beyond children and childrens children which is the prospect of the world to all eternity that hath no termination and he will allow thee an understanding for this world too He will bid thee Lift up thine eyes to heaven Esay 51.6 and bid thee Look downe to the earth too He will make thy considerations of this world acceptable to him as well as those of the next He will remember thee that Angels descended as well as ascended that to a religious soule Gen. 28. this world is not out of the way to heaven Faciet te intelligere He will make thee understand enough for both And so we have done with that first Part De credendis Things which we are bound to beleeve That even for those God workes upon the understanding That though God worke all in all yet it is the man that understands and lastly that in the Holy Ghosts choosing this word of singularity Te I will make thee understand there is pregnant intimation of Gods large and diffusive goodnesse to all This word Thee excludes none And so we passe to our second Part Instruction De agendis what we are to doe I will teach thee in the way thou shalt goe If any man lack wisedome 2 Part. Docebo let him aske it of God and Faciet intelligere God shall make him understand God shall I may study and then you may heare me but God onely makes us all understand for the understanding is the doore of faith and that doore he opens and he shuts So by understanding he brings us to beleeve But then he that truly beleeves finds that he hath something to doe too And he saies to himself Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his wayes And he cannot tell himselfe He askes them whom God hath sent to tell him his Ministers Viri fratres Men and brethren what shall we doe to be saved And by their leading he goes to the Spirit of God to God himself and sayes Mat. 19.16 Good Master what good thing shall I do that I may have eternall life And that good Master will teach him what to doe which is the promise of this part of Instruction in our Text Gregor I will teach thee in the way thou shalt goe And Plus est docere quà m instruere God promises more in this that he will Teach thee in the way then in the former
of man do not become the servants and instruments of that Grace Let all that we all seeke be who may glorifie God most and we shall agree in this That as the Pelagian wounds the glory of God deepely in making Naturall faculties joynt-Commissioners with Grace so do they diminish the glory of God too if any deny naturall faculties to be the subordinate servants and instruments of Grace for as Grace could not worke upon man to Salvation if man had not a faculty of will to worke upon because without that will man were not man so is this Salvation wrought in the will by conforming this will of man to the will of God not by extinguishing the will it selfe by any force or constraint that God imprints in it by his Grace God saves no man without or against his will Glory be to God on high and on earth Peace and Good will towards men And to this God of Glory the Father and this God of Peace and reconciliation the Son and this God of Good will and love amongst men the Holy Ghost be ascribed all praise c. PREBEND SERMONS Preached at St. PAULS The first of the Prebend of Cheswicks five Psalmes which five are appointed for that Prebend as there are five other for every other of our thirty Prebendaries SERM. LXV Preached at S. Pauls May 8. 1625. PSAL. 62.9 Surely men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie To bee laid in the balance they are altogether lighter then vanity WE consider the dignity of the Booke of Psalmes either in the whole body together or in the particular limmes and distribution thereof Of the whole Body Basil it may be enough to tell you that which S. Basil saith That if all the other bookes of Scripture could perish there remained enough in the booke of Psalmes for the supply of all And therefore he cals it Amuletum ad profligandum daemonem Any Psalme is Exorcisme enough to expell any Devill Charme enough to remove any tentation Enchantment enough to ease nay to sweeten any tribulation It is abundantly enough that our Saviour Christ himselfe cites the Psalmes not onely as Canonicall Scripture but as a particular and entire and noble limme of that Body All must be fulfilled of me saith he which is written in the Law Luk. 24.44 in the Prophets and in the Psalmes The Law alone was the Sadduces Scripture they received no more The Law and the Prophets were especially the Scribes Scripture they interpreted that The Christians Scripture in the Old Testament is especially the Psalmes For except the Prophecy of Esay be admitted into the comparison no booke of the Old Testament is so like a Gospel so particular in all things concerning Christ as the Psalmes So hath the Booke of Psalmes an especiall dignity in the intire Body all together It hath so also in divers distributions thereof into parts For even amongst the Jewes themselves those fifteen Psalmes which follow immediatly and successively after the 119. Psalme were especially distinguished and dignified by the name of Graduall Psalmes Whether because they were sung upon the Degrees and staires ascending to the Altar Or because hee that read them in the Temple ascended into a higher and more eminent place to reade them Or because the word Graduall implies a degree of excellency in the Psalmes themselves I dispute not But a difference those fifteen Psalmes ever had above the rest in the Jewish and in the Christian Church too So also hath there beene a particular dignity ascribed to those seven Psalmes which we have ever called the Penitentiall Psalmes Of which S. Augustine had so much respect August as that he commanded them to be written in a great Letter and hung about the curtaines of his Death-bed within that hee might give up the ghost in contemplation and meditation of those seven Psalmes And it hath beene traditionally received and recommended by good Authors that that Hymne Matt. 26.30 which Christ and his Apostles are said to have sung after the Institution and celebration of the Sacrament was a Hymne composed of those six Psalmes which we call the Allelujah Psalmes immediatly preceding the hundred and nineteenth So then in the whole Body and in some particular limmes of the Body the Church of God hath had an especiall consideration of the booke of Psalmes This Church in which we all stand now and in which my selfe by particular obligation serve hath done so too In this Church by ancient Constitutions it is ordained That the whole booke of Psalmes should every day day by day bee rehearsed by us who make the Body of this Church in the eares of Almighty God And therefore every Prebendary of this Church is by those Constitutions bound every day to praise God in those five Psalmes which are appointed for his Prebend And of those five Psalmes which belong to mee this out of which I have read you this Text is the first And by Gods grace upon like occasions I shall here handle some part of every one of the other foure Psalmes for some testimony that those my five Psalmes returne often into my meditation which I also assure my selfe of the rest of my brethren who are under the same obligation in this Church For this whole Psalme Psalmus integer which is under our present consideration as Athanasius amongst all the Fathers was most curious and most particular and exquisite in observing the purpose and use of every particular Psalm for to that purpose he goes through them all in this maner If thou wilt encourage men to a love and pursuit of goodnesse say the first Psalme and 31. and 140 c. If thou wilt convince the Jewes say the second Psalme If thou wilt praise God for things past say this and this And this and this if thou wilt pray for future things so for this Psalme which we have in hand he observes in it a summary abridgement of all For of this Psalme he sayes in generall Adversus insidiantes Against all attempts upon thy body thy state thy soule thy fame tentations tribulations machinations defamations say this Psalme As he saith before that in the booke of Psalmes every man may discerne motus animi sui his owne finfull inclinations expressed and arme himselfe against himselfe so in this Psalme he may arme himselfe against all other adversaries of any kinde And therefore as the same Father entitles one Sermon of his Contr a omnes haereses A Sermon for the convincing of all Heresies in which short Sermon he meddles not much with particular heresies but onely establishes the truth of Christs Person in both natures which is indeed enough against all Heresies and in which that is the consubstantiality of Christ with the Father God of God this Father Athanasius hath enlarged himselfe more then the rest insomuch that those heretiques which grow so fast in these our dayes The Socinians who deny the Godhead of Christ
then that if I doe nothing But if I pray for his helpe and apprehend and husband his graces well when they come then he is truly properly my helper and upon that security that testimony of a rectified Conscience I can proceed to Davids confidence for the future Because thou hast been my Helpe therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce which is our third and last generall part In this last part which is after Davids aspect and consideration of his present condition Divisio 3 Part. which was in the effect an Exclusion from Gods Temple And his retrospect his consideration of Gods former mercies to him That he had been his Helpe his prospect his confidence for the future we shall stay a little upon these two steps first That that which he promises himselfe is not an immunity from all powerfull enemies nor a sword of revenge upon those enemies It is not that he shall have no adversary nor that that adversary shall be able to doe him no harme but that he should have a refreshing a respiration In velamento alarum under the shadow of Gods wings And then in the second place That this way which God shall be pleased to take this manner this measure of refreshing which God shall vouchsafe to afford though it amount not to a full deliverance must produce a joy a rejoycing in us we must not onely not decline to a murmuring that we have no more no nor rest upon a patience for that which remains but we must ascend to a holy joy as if all were done and accomplished In the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce First then Vmbra Alarum lest any man in his dejection of spirit or of fortune should stray into a jealousie or suspition of Gods power to deliver him As God hath spangled the firmament with starres so hath he his Scriptures with names and Metaphors and denotations of power Sometimes he sâ—â—es out in the name of a Sword and of a Target and of a Wall and of a Tower and of a Rocke and of a Hill And sometimes in that glorious and manifold constellation of all together Dominus exercituum The Lord of Hosts God as God is never represented to us with Defensive Armes He needs them not When the Poets present their great Heroes and their Worthies they alwayes insist upon their Armes they spend much of their invention upon the description of their Armes both because the greatest valour and strength needs Armes Goliah himselfe was armed and because to expose ones selfe to danger unarmed is not valour but rashnesse But God is invulnerable in himselfe and is never represented armed you finde no shirts of mayle no Helmets Esay 59.17 no Cuirasses in Gods Armory In that one place of Esay where it may seeme to be otherwise where God is said to have put on righteousnesse as a breastplate and a Helmet of salvation upon his head in that prophecy God is Christ and is therefore in that place called the Redeemer Christ needed defensive armes God does not Gods word does His Scriptures doe And therefore S. Hierome hath armed them and set before every booke his Prologum galeatum that prologue that armes and defends every booke from calumny But though God need not nor receive not defensive armes for himselfe yet God is to us a Helmet a Breastplate a strong tower a rocke every thing that may give us assurance and defence and as often as he will he can refresh that Proclamation Nolite tangere Christos meos Psal 105.15 Our enemies shall not so much as touch us But here by occasion of his Metaphore in this Text Sub umbra alarum In the shadow of thy wings we doe not so much consider an absolute immunity That we shall not be touched as a refreshing and consolation when we are touched though we be pinched and wounded The Names of God which are most frequent in the Scriptures are these three Elohim and Adonai and Iehovah and to assure us of his Power to deliver us two of these three are Names of Power Elohim is Deus fortis The mighty The powerfull God And which deserves a particular consideration Elohim is a plurall Name It is not Deus fortis but Dii fortes powerfull Gods God is all kinde of Gods All kinds which either Idolaters and Gentils can imagine as Riches or Justice or Wisdome or Valour or such and all kinds which God himself hath called gods as Princes and Magistrates and Prelates and all that assist and helpe one another God is Elohim All these Gods and all these in their height and best of their power for Elohim is Dii fortes Gods in the plurall and those plurall gods in their exaltation The second Name of God is a Name of power too Adonai For Adonai is Dominus The Lord such a Lord as is Lord and Proprietary of all his creatures and all creatures are his creatures And then Dominium est potestas tum utendi tum abutendi sayes the law To be absolute Lord of any thing gives that Lord a power to doe what he will with that thing God as he is Adonai The Lord may give and take quicken and kill build and throw downe where and whom he will So then two of Gods three Names are Names of absolute power to imprint and re-imprint an assurance in us that hee can absolutely deliver us and fully revenge us if he will But then his third Name and that Name which hee chooses to himselfe and in the signification of which Name hee employes Moses for the reliefe of his people under Pharaoh that Name Iehovah is not a Name of Power but onely of Essence of Being of Subsistence and yet in the vertue of that Name God relieved his people And if in my afflictions God vouchsafe to visit mee in that Name to preserve me in my being in my subsistence in him that I be not shaked out of him disinherited in him excommunicate from him devested of him annihilated towards him let him at his good pleasure reserve his Elohim and his Adonai the exercises and declarations of his mighty Power to those great puklike causes that more concerne his Glory then any thing that can befall me But if he impart his Iehovah enlarge himselfe so far towards me as that I may live and move have my beeing in him though I be not instantly delivered nor mine enemies absolutely destroyed yet this is as much as I should promise my selfe this is as much as the Holy Ghost intends in this Metaphor Sub umbra alarum Vnder the shadow of thy wings that is a Refreshing a Respiration a Conservation a Consolation in all afflictions that are inflicted upon me Yet is not this Metaphor of Wings without a denotation of Power As no Act of Gods though it seeme to imply but spirituall comfort is without a denotation of power for it is the power of God that comforts me To overcome that sadnesse of soule
If thou desire revenge upon thine enemies as they are Gods enemies That God would bee pleased to remove and root out all such as oppose him that Affection appertaines to Glory Let that alone till thou come to the Hemisphear of Glory There joyne with those Martyrs under the Altar Revel 6.10 Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord dost thou deferre Judgement and thou shalt have thine answere there for that Whilst thou art here here joyne with David and the other Saints of God in that holy increpation of a dangerous sadnesse Why art thou cast downe O my soule why art thou disquieted in mee That soule that is dissected and anatomized to God Psal 42.5 in a sincere confession washed in the teares of true contrition embalmed in the blood of reconciliation the blood of Christ Jesus can assigne no reason can give no just answer to that Interrogatory Why art thou cast downe O my soule why art thou disquieted in me No man is so little as that he can be lost under these wings no man so great as that they cannot reach to him Semper ille major est August quantumcumque creverimus To what temporall to what spirituall greatnesse soever wee grow still pray wee him to shadow us under his Wings for the poore need those wings against oppression and the rich against envy The Holy Ghost who is a Dove shadowed the whole world under his wings Incubabat aquis He hovered over the waters he sate upon the waters and he hatched all that was produced and all that was produced so was good Be thou a Mother where the Holy Ghost would be a Father Conceive by him and be content that he produce joy in thy heart here First thinke that as a man must have some land or els he cannot be in wardship so a man must have some of the love of God or els he could not fall under Gods correction God would not give him his physick God would not study his cure if he cared not for him And then thinke also that if God afford thee the shadow of his wings that is Consolation respiration refreshing though not a present and plenary deliverance in thy afflictions not to thanke God is a murmuring and not to rejoyce in Gods wayes is an unthankfulnesse Howling is the noyse of hell singing the voyce of heaven Sadnesse the damp of Hell Rejoycing the serenity of Heaven And he that hath not this joy here lacks one of the best pieces of his evidence for the joyes of heaven and hath neglected or refused that Earnest by which God uses to binde his bargaine that true joy in this world shall flow into the joy of Heaven as a River flowes into the Sea This joy shall not be put out in death and a new joy kindled in me in Heaven But as my soule as soone as it is out of my body is in Heaven and does not stay for the possession of Heaven nor for the fruition of the sight of God till it be ascended through ayre and fire and Moone and Sun and Planets and Firmament to that place which we conceive to be Heaven but without the thousandth part of a minutes stop as soone as it issues is in a glorious light which is Heaven for all the way to Heaven is Heaven And as those Angels which came from Heaven hither bring Heaven with them and are in Heaven here So that soule that goes to Heaven meets Heaven here and as those Angels doe not devest Heaven by comming so these soules invest Heaven in their going As my soule shall not goe towards Heaven but goe by Heaven to Heaven to the Heaven of Heavens So the true joy of a good soule in this world is the very joy of Heaven and we goe thither not that being without joy we might have joy infused into us but that as Christ sayes Iohn 16.24.22 Our joy might be full perfected sealed with an everlastingnesse for as he promises That no man shall take our joy from us so neither shall Death it selfe take it away nor so much as interrupt it or discontinue it But as in the face of Death when he layes hold upon me and in the face of the Devill when he attempts me I shall see the face of God for every thing shall be a glasse to reflect God upon me so in the agonies of Death in the anguish of that dissolution in the sorrowes of that valediction in the irreversiblenesse of that transmigration I shall have a joy which shall no more evaporate then my soule shall evaporate A joy that shall passe up and put on a more glorious garment above and be joy super-invested in glory Amen SERM. LXVII The third of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls November 5. 1626. In Vesperis PSAL. 64.10 And all the upright in heart shall glory I Have had occasion to tell you more then once before that our Predecessors in the institution of the Service of this Church have declared such a reverence and such a devotion to this particular Booke of Scripture The Psalmes as that by distributing the hundred and fifty Psalmes of which number the body of this booke consists into thirty portions of which number the body of our Church consists and assigning to every one of those thirty persons his five Psalmes to bee said by him every day every day God receives from us howsoever wee be divided from one another in place the Sacrifice of Praise in the whole Booke of Psalmes And though we may be absent from this Quire yet wheresoever dispersed we make up a Quire in this Service of saying over all the Psalmes every day This sixty fourth Psalme is the third of my five And when according to the obligation which I had laid upon my selfe to handle in this place some portion of every one of these my five Psalmes in handling of those words of the Psalme immediately before this in the seventh verse Because thou hast beene my helpe therefore in the shadow of thy Wings I will rejoyce I told you that the next world Heaven was as this world is divided into two Hemispheares and that the two Hemispheares of Heaven were Joy and Glory for in those two notions of Joy and Glory is Heaven often represented unto us as in those words which we handled then wee sailed about the first Hemispheare That of Joy In the shadow of thy Wings will I rejoyce So in these which I have read to you now our voyage lies about the Hemispheare of Glory for All the upright in heart shall Glory As we said then of Joy we say of Glory now There is an inchoative joy here though the consummative joy be reserved for Heaven so is there also such a taste such an inchoation of glory in this life And as no man shall come to the joyes of Heaven that hath no joy in this world for there is no peace of conscience without this joy so no man
to the Evidence that arises from us and not according to those Records that are hid in himselfe Our actions and his Records agree we doe those things which he hath Decreed but onely our doing them and not his Decreeing them hath the nature of evidence God does not Reward nor Condemne out of his Decrees but out of our actions God sent downe his Commissioners the Angels to Sodome to inquire Gen. 18.17 Gen. 3.9 and to informe him how things went God goes down himselfe to inquire and informe himselfe how it stood with Adam and Eve Not that God was ever ignorant of any thing concerning us but that God would prevent that dangerous imagination in every man That God should first meane to destroy him and then to make him that he might destroy him without having any evidence against him For God made man Ad imaginem suam To his owne Image If he had made him under an inevitable and irresistible necessity of damnation he had made him Ad Imaginem Diabolicam to the Image of the Devill and not to his own God goes not out as a Fowler that for his pleasure and recreation or for his commodity or commendation would kill and therefore seeks out game that he may kill it It is not God that seeks whom he may devoure 1 Pet. 5.8 But God sees the Vulture tearing his Chickens or other birds picking his Corne or pecking his fruit and then when they are in that mischievous action God takes his bowe and shoots them for that When God condemns a man he proposes not that man to himselfe as he meant to make him and as he did make him but as by his sinnes he hath made himselfe At the first Creation God looked upon nothing there was nothing But ever since there have been Creatures God hath looked upon the Creature and as Adam gave every Creature the Name according as he saw the Nature thereof to be so God gives every man reward or punishment the name of a Saint or a Devill in his purpose as he sees him a good or a bad user of his graces When I shall come to the sight of the Booke of life and the Records of heaven amongst the Reprobate I shall never see the name of Cain alone but Cain with his addition Cain that killed his brother Nor Iudas name alone but Iudas with his addition Iudas that betrayed his Master God does not begin with a morte moriendum some body must die and therefore I will make some body to kill But God came to a morte morieris yet thou art alive and mayest live but if thou wilt rebell thou must die God did not call up feavers and pestilence and consumptions and fire Levit. 26.16 and famine and warre and then make man that he might throw him into their mouths but when man threw downe himselfe God let him fall into their mouths Had I never sinned in wantonnesse I should never have had consumption nor feaver if I had not sinned in Riot nor death if I had not transgressed against the Lord of life If God be pleased to looke upon me at the last day as I am renewed in Christ I am safe But if God should looke upon me as he made me in Adam I could not be un-acceptable in his sight except he looked farther and saw me in mine own or in Adams sin I would never wish my selfe better then God wished me at first no nor then God wishes me now as manifold a sinner as he sees me now if yet I would conforme my will to his God looks upon persons persons so conditioned as they were which was our first branch in this first part and our second is That he delights to propose to himselfe Persons that are capable of his rewards for he mentions no others in this place All that are upright in heart The first thing that Moses names to have been made Insistit in bonis was Heaven In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth And infinite millions of generations before this Heaven was made there was a Heaven an eternall emanation of beams of glory from the presence of God But Moses tells us of no Hell made at the Creation And before the Creation such a Hell as there was a Heaven there could not be for the presence of God made Heaven and God was equally present every where And they who have multiplied Hells unto us and made more Hells then God hath made more by their two Limboes one for Fathers another for Children and one Purgatory have yet made their new Hells more of the nature of Heaven then of Hell For in one of their Limboes that of the Fathers and in their Purgatory there is in them who are there an infallible assurance of Heaven They that are there are infallibly assured to come to Heaven And an assurance of salvation will hardly consist with Hell He that is sure to come to Heaven can hardly be said to be in Hell God was loath and late in making places of torment He is loath to speake of Judgements or of those that extort Judgements from him How plentifully how abundantly is the word Beatus Blessed multiplied in the Booke of Psalmes Blessed and Blessed in every Psalme in every Verse The Booke seems to be made out of that word Blessed And the foundation raysed upon that word Blessed for it is the first word of the Booke But in all the Booke there is not one Vae not one woe so denounced Not one woe upon any soule in that Booke And when this Vae this woe is denounced in some other of the Prophets it is very often Vox dolentis and not Increpantis That Vae that woe is a voyce of compassion in him that speaks it and not of destruction to them to whom it is spoken God Jerem. 9.1 in the person of Ieremy weeps in contemplation of the calamities threatned Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountaine of teares that I might weepe day and night for the slaine of the Daughter of my people It is God that was their Father and it is God their God that slew them but yet that God their Father weepes over the slaughter So in the person of Esay Esay 16.9 God weeps againe I will bewaile thee with weeping and I will water thee with teares And without putting on the person of any man God himselfe avowes his sighing Esay 1.24 when he comes to name Judgements Heu vindicabor Alas I will revenge me of mine enemies And he sighs when he comes but to name their sinnes Heu abominationes Ezek. 16.11 Alas for all the evill abominations of the house of Israel As though God had contracted an Irregularity by having to doe in a cause of blood He sighs he weeps when he must draw blood from them God delights to institute his discourses and to take and to make his Examples from men that stand in state of grace and are
and in the Cup of Salvation in the Sacrament for so much as concernes him is but spilt upon the ground as though his honey his worldly greamesse were his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Prince and friends and all when that is lost by this vomit he mournes for all in a sad and everlasting mourning in such a disconsolate dejection of spirit as ends either in an utter inconsideration of God or in a desperation of his mercies This is that Incipiamte evomere as the Vulgat reads it in this vomit of worldly things Revel 3.16 God does begin to vomit him out of his mouth and then God does not returne to his vomit but leaves this impatient patient to his impenitiblenesse But we must not lanch into these wide Seas now to consider the scorne or the danger of this vomit but rather draw into the harbor and but repeat the text transferred from this world to the text from temporall to spirituall things Thus far we have beene In melle In honey upon honey but now Super mel Conclusio above honey Psal 19.10 The judgements of the Lord are Dulcia prae melle Sweeter then honey and the honey combe And the judgements of the Lord are that by which the Lord will judge us and this world it is his word His word the sincerity of the Gospel the truth of his Religion is our honey and honey combe our honey and our waxe our Covenant and our Seale we have him not if we have not his truth if we require other honey and wee trust him not if we require any other Seale if we thinke the word of God needs the traditions of men And Invenisti tu Hath God manifested to thee the truth of his Gospell Blesse thou the Lord praise him and magnifie him for ever whose day-spring from an high hath visited thee and left so many Nations in darknesse who shall never heare of Christ till they heare himselfe nor heare other voyce from him then then the Ite maledicti Pity them that have not this honey and confesse for thy selfe that though thou have it thou hast but found it couldst thou bespeake Christian Parents beforehand and say I will be borne of such Parents as shall give me a title to the Covenant to Baptisme or couldst thou procure Sureties that should bind themselves for thee at the entring into the Covenant in Baptisme Thou foundest thy selfe in the Christian Church and thou foundest meanes of salvation there thou broughtest none hither thou boughtest none here the Title of S. Andrew the first of the Apostles that came to Christ was but that Invenimus Mesiam We have found the Mesias It is onely Christ himselfe that sayes of himselfe Cant. 5.1 Comedi mel meum I have eat my honey his owne honey We have no grace no Gospel of our owne we find it here But since thou hast found it Comede Eat it do not drinke the cup of Babylon lest thou drink the cup of Gods wrath too but make this Honey Christs true Religion thy meate digest that assimilate that incorporate that and let Christ himself and his merit be as thy soul let the cleere and outward profession of his truth Religion be as thy body If thou give away that body be flattered out of thy Religion or threatned out of thy Religion If thou sell this body be bought and bribed out of thy Religion If thou lend this body discontinue thy Religion for a yeare or two to see how things will fall out if thou have no body thou shalt have no Resurrection and the cleere and undisguised profession of the truth is the body Eat therefore this honey Ad sufficientiam so much as is enough To beleeve implicitly as the Church beleeves and know nothing is not enough know thy foundations and who laid them Other foundations can no man lay then are laid Christ Jesus neither can other men lay those foundations otherwise then they are laid by the Apostles but eat Ad sufficientiam tuam that which is enough for thee for so much knowledge is not required in thee in those things as in them whose profession it is to teach them be content to leave a roome stil for the Apostles Aemulamini charismata meliora desire better gifts and ever think it a title of dignity which the Angel gave Daniel to be Vir desideriorum To have still some farther object of thy desires Do not thinke thou wantest all because thou hast not all for at the great last day we shall see more plead Catechismes for their salvation then the great volumes of Controversies more plead their pockets then their Libraries If S. Paul so great an Argosie held no more but Christum crucifixum what can thy Pinnace hold Let humility be thy ballast and necessary knowledge thy fraight for there is an over-fulnesse of knowledge which forces a vomit a vomit of opprobrious and contumelious speeches a belching and spitting of the name of Heretique and Schismatique and a losse of charity for matters that are not of faith and from this vomiting comes emptiness The more disputing Psal 90.14 the lesse beleeving but Saturasti nos benignitate tua Domine Thou hast satisfied us early with thy mercy Thou gavest us Christianity early and thou gavest us the Reformation early and therefore since in thee we have found this honey let us so eat it Levit. 18.25 and so hold it That the land do not vomit her Inhabitants nor spew us out as it spewed out the Nations that were before us Levit. 18.29 but that our dayes may be long in this land which the Lord our God hath given us and that with the Ancient of dayes we may have a day without any night in that land which his Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood To which glorious Son of God c. SERM. LXXI At the Haghe Decemb. 19. 1619. I Preached upon this Text. Since in my sicknesse at Abrey-hatche in Essex 1630. revising my short notes of that Sermon I digested them into these two MAT. 4.18 19 20. And Iesus walking by the Sea of Galile saw two brethren Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother casting a net into the Sea for they were fishers And he saith unto them Follow me and I will make you fishers of men And they straightway left their nets and followed him SOLOMON presenting our Saviour Christ in the name and person of Wisdome in the booke of Proverbs puts by instinct of the Holy Ghost these words into his mouth Prov. 8.30 Deliciae meae esse cum filiis hominum Christs delight is to be with the children of men And in satisfaction of that delight he sayes in the same verse in the person of Christ That he rejoyced to be in the habitable parts of the Earth that is where he might converse with men Ludens in orbe terrarum so the Vulgat reads
distempers both theirs that think That there are other things to be beleeved then are in the Scriptures and theirs that think That there are some things in the Scriptures which are not to bee beleeved For when our Saviour sayes Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you he intends both this proposition I have told you all that is necessary to be beleeved and this also All that I have told you is necessary to bee beleeved so as I have told it you So that this excludes both that imaginary insufficiency of the Scriptures which some have ventured to averre for God shall never call Christian to account for any thing not notified in the Scriptures And it excludes also those imaginary Dolos bonos and fraudes pias which some have adventured to averre too That God should use holy Illusions holy deceits holy frauds and circumventions in his Scriptures and not intend in them that which he pretends by them This is his Rule Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you If I have not told you so it is not so and if I have it is so as I have told you And in these two branches we shall determine the first part The Rule of Doctrines the Scripture The second part which is the particular Doctrine which Christ administers to his Disciples here will also derive and cleave it selfe into two branches For first wee shall inquire whether this proposition in our Text In my Fathers house are many Mansions give any ground or assistance or countenance to that pious opinion of a disparity and difference of degrees of Glory in the Saints in heaven And then if we finde the words of this Text to conduce nothing to that Doctrine wee shall consider the right use of the true and naturall the native and genuine the direct and literall and uncontrovertible sense of the words because in them Christ doth not say that in his Fathers house there are Divers Mansions divers for seat or lights or fashion or furniture but onely that there are Many and in that notion the Plurality the Multipliciry lies the Consolation First then 1 Part. for the first branch of our first part The generall Rule of Doctrines our Saviour Christ in these words involves an argument That hee hath told them all that was necessary Hee hath because the Scripture hath for all the Scriptures which were written before Christ and after Christ were written by one and the same Spirit his Spirit It might then make a good Probleme why they of the Romane Church not affording to the Scriptures that dignity which belongs to them are yet so vehement and make so hard shift to bring the books of other Authors into the ranke and nature and dignity of being Scriptures What matter is it whether their Maccabees or their Tobies be Scripture or no what get their Maccabees or their Tobies by being Scripture if the Scripture be not full enough or not plaine enough to bring me to salvation But since their intention and purpose their aime and their end is to under-value the Scriptures that thereby they may over-value their owne Traditions their way to that end may bee to put the name of Scriptures upon books of a lower value that so the unworthinesse of those additionall books may cast a diminution upon the Canonicall books themselves when they are made all one as in some forraigne States we have seene that when the Prince had a purpose to erect some new Order of Honour he would disgrace the old Orders by conferring and bestowing them upon unworthy and incapable persons But why doe we charge the Roman Church with this undervaluing of the Scriptures when as they pretend and that cannot well be denied them That they ascribe to all the books of Scripture this dignity That all that is in them is true It is true they doe so But this may be true of other Authors also and yet those Authors remaine prophane and secular Authors All may be true that Livy sayes and all that our Chronicles say may be true and yet our Chronicles nor Livy become Gospell for so much they themselves will confesse and acknowledge that all that our Church sayes is true that our Church affirmes no error and yet our Church must be a hereticall Church if any Church at all for all that Indeed it is but a faint but an illusory evidence or witnesse that pretends to cleare a point if though it speake nothing but truth yet it does not speake all the truth The Scriptures are our evidence for life or death Iohn 5.39 Search the Scriptures sayes Christ for in them ye thinke ye have eternall life Where ye thinke so is not ye thinke so but mistake the matter but ye thinke so is ye thinke so upon a well-grounded and rectified faith and assurance Now if this evidence the Scripture shall acquit me in one Article in my beliefe in God for I doe finde in the Scripture as much as they require of me to beleeve of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And then this evidence the Scripture shall condemne me in another Article The Catholique Church for I doe not finde so much in the Scripture as they require me to beleeve of their Catholique Church If the Scripture be sufficient to save me in one and not in the rest this is not onely a defective but an illusory evidence which though it speake truth yet does not speake all the truth Fratres sumus quare litigamus sayes S. Augustine Wee are all Brethren by one Father one Almighty God and one Mother one Catholique Church and then why do we goe to Law together At least why doe we not bring our Suits to an end Non intestatus mortuus est Pater sayes he Our Father is dead for Deut. 32.30 Is not he your Father that bought you is Moses question he that bought us with himselfe his blood his life is not dead intestate but hath left his Will and Testament and why should not that Testament decide the cause Silent Advocati Suspensus est populus Legant verba testamenti This that Father notes to be the end in other causes why not in this That the Counsell give over pleading That the people give over murmuring That the Judge cals for the words of the Will by that governs and according to that establishes his Judgement I would at last contentious men would leave wrangling and people to whom those things belonged not leave blowing of coales and that the words of the Will might try the cause since he that made the Will hath made it thus cleare Si quo minus If it were not thus I would have told you If there were more to be added then this or more clearnesse to bee added to this I would have told you In the fift of Matthew Christ puts a great many cases what others had told them Mat. 5. but he tels them that is not
prevailed so farre as that it is easie to observe in their Expositions upon the Lords Prayer that the greatest part of the Fathers doe ever interpret that Petition Da nobis hodie Give us this day our daily bread to be intended onely of spirituall blessings and not of temporall So S. Hierome saith when we ask that bread Illum petimus qui panis vivus est descendit de coelo we make our petition for him who is the bread of life and descended from the bosome of the Father and so he refers it to Christ and in him to the whole mystery of our Redemption And Athanasius and S. Augustine too and not they two alone refer it to the Sacramentall bread That in that Petition wee desire such an application of the bread of life as wee have in the participation of the body and blood of Christ Jesus in that Communion S. Cyprian insists upon the word Nostrum Our bread For saith he temporall blessings cannot properly bee called Ours because they are common to the Saints and to the reprobates but in a prayer ordained by Christ for the faithfull the petition is for such things as are proper and peculiar to the faithfull and that is for spirituall blessings onely If any man shall say Ideo quaerenda quia necessaria We must pray and we must labour for temporall things because they are necessary for us we cannot be without them Ideo non quaerenda quia necessaria sayes S. Chrysostome so much of them as is necessary for our best state God will give us without this laborious anxiety and without eating the bread of sorrow in this life Non speran dum de superfluis non desperandum de necessariis sayes the same Father It is a suspicious thing to doubt or distrust God in necessary things and it is an unmannerly thing to presse him in superfluous things They are not necessary before and they are not ours after for those things onely are ours which no body can take from us and for temporall thing Auferre potest inimicus homo invito Let the inimicus homo be the devill and remember Iobs case Let the inimicus homo be any envious and powerfull man who hath a minde to that that thou hast and remember Naboths case and this envious man can take any temporall thing from thee against thy will But spirituall blessings cannot bee taken so Fidem nemo perdidit nisi qui spreverit sayes S. Augustin No man ever lost his faith but he that thought it not worth the keeping But for Iobs temporall estate sayes S. Augustine all was lost And lest any man should say Vxor relicta erat Iob had not lost all because his Wife was left Misericordem putatis diabolum saies that Father qui ei reliquit Vxorem doe you thinke that Iob lighted upon a mercifull and good natur'd devill that the devill did this out of pity and compassion to Iob or that Iob was beholding to the devill for this that he left him his Wife Noverat per quam deceperat Adam sayes he The devill knew by what instrument he had deceived the first man and by the same instrument he practises upon Iob Suam reliquit adjutricem non mariti consolatricem He left Iob a helper but a helper for his owne ends but for her Husband a miserable comforter Caro conjux sayes the same Father in another place This flesh this sensuall part of ours is our wife and when these temporall things by any occasion are taken from us that wife that flesh that sensuality is left to murmure and repine at Gods corrections and that is all the benefit we have by that wife and all the portion we have with that wife Though therefore S. Hierom who understood the Originall Language the best of his time in his Translation of the Psalmes doe give the true the right sense of this place yet in his owne Commentaries upon the Psalmes he takes this first sense and beats upon that doctrine that it is but a popular error a generall mistaking to make worldly blessings any degree of happinesse he saw so good use of that doctrine as that he would not see the right interpretation of the words he saw well enough that according to the letter of the text temporall things were blessings yet because they were but left-handed blessings remembring the story in the booke of Judges of 700. left-handed Benjamites Iudg. 20.10 that would sling stones at a haires breadth and were better mark-men then the right-handed and considering the left-handed men of this world those who pursue temporall blessings onely went with most earnestnesse and best successe to their works to correct that generall distemper that generall vehemence upon temporall things S. Hierom and so many of the Fathers as accompany him in that interpretation were content to embrace that sense which is not truly the literall sense of this place that it should be only Beatum dixerint and not Beatus populus a popular error and not a truth that any man for any people were blessed in temporall things and so we have done with the first sense of these words and the reason why so many follow it We are come now to the second Interpretation where there is not Beatitudo falsa and vera for both are true but there is dextra and sinistra 2. Interpretatio a right-handed and left-handed blessednesse there is Inchoativa and perfectiva there is an introductory and a consummatory blessednesse and in the first of these in the left-handed in the lesse perfect blessednesse we must consider three things First Beatitudinem ipsam That there is a blessednesse proposed and secondly In quibus in what that blessednesse is placed in this text Quibus sic blessed are they that are so that is so as is mentioned in the three former verses and thirdly another In quibus not in what things but in what persons this first blessednesse is placed Beatus populus It is when all the people the whole body and not some ranks of men nor some particular men in those ranks but when all the people participate of these blessings Now first for this first blessedness Beatitudo As no Philosophers could ever tell us amongst the Gentiles what true blessedness was so no Grammarian amongst the Jews amongst the Hebrews could ever tell us what the right signification of this word is in which David expresses blessedness here whether Asherei which is the word be a plurall Noune and signifie Beatitudines Blessednesses in the plurall and intimate thus much that blessedness consists not in any one thing but in a harmony and consent of many or whether this Asherei be an Adverbe and signifie beatè and so be an acclamation O how happily how blessedly are such men provided for that are so they cannot tell Whatsoever it bee it is the very first word with which David begins his booke of Psalmes Beatus vir as the last word of that booke
years after Christ But as Tertullian shews us an early birth of it so he tells us enough to shew us that it should not have been long liv'd when he acknowledges that it had no ground in Scripture but was onely a custome popularly and vulgarly taken up But Tertullian speaks of more then Prayer he speaks of oblations and sacrifices for the dead It is true he does so but it is of oblations and sacrifices far from the propitiatory sacrifice of the Masse for Tertullian makes a woman the Priest in his sacrifice Offert uxor sayes he annuis diebus dormitionis mariti The wife offers every yeare upon the day of her husbands death that is every yeare upon that day she gives a dole and almes to the poore as the custome was to doe in memory of dead friends This being then but such a custome and but so induc'd why did none oppose it Aerius Epiphanius Why it was not sufficiently opposed I have intimated some reasons before The affection of those that did it who were though mistaken in the way piously affected in the action And then the harmlesnesse in the thing it self at first And then partly a loathnesse in the Fathers to deter the Gentiles from becomming Christians And partly a cloud and darknesse of the state of the soule after death Yet some did oppose it But some not early enough and some not earnestly enough And some not with much successe because they were not otherwise Integrae famae They were not thought sound in all things and therefore they were beleeved in nothing which was Aerius his case who did oppose it but because Aerius did not come home to all truths he was not hearkned unto in opposing any error Otherwise at that time Epiphanius had a faire occasion offered to have opposed this growing custome and to have rectified the Church in a good measure therein about an hundred years after Tertullian For then Aerius opposed it directly but because he proceeded upon false grounds That since it was come to that That the most vicious man the most enormous sinner might be saved after his death by the prayers and devotions of another man there remained no more for a Christian to doe but to provide such men in his life to doe those offices for him after his death and so he might deliver himselfe from all the disciplines and mortifications and from the anguishes and remorses and vexations of conscience which the Christian Religion induces and requires Epiphanius discerning the advantage that Aerius had given by imputing things not throughly true he places his glory and his triumph onely in overthrowing Aerius his ill grounded arguments and takes the question it selfe and the danger of the Church no farther to heart then so And therefore when Aerius asks Can prayers for the dead be of any use Epiphanius sayes Yes they may be of use to awaken and exercise the piety and charity of the living and never speaks to that which was principally intended whether they could be of any use to the dead So when Aerius asks Is it not absurd to say That all sins may be remitted after death Epiphanius sayes No man in the Church ever said That all sins may be remitted after death and never cleares the maine whether any sin might And yet with all advantages and modifications Epiphanius lodges it at last but upon custome Nec enim praeceptum Patris sed institutum matris habemus sayes he For this which we doe we have no commandment from God our Father but onely an Institution implyed in this Custome from the Church our Mother But then it grew to a farther height from a wild flower in the field Chrysost and a garden flower in private grounds to be more generally planted and to be not onely suffered by many Fathers but cherished and watered by some and not above forty years after Epiphanius to be so far advanced by S. Chrysostome as that he assignes though no Scripture for it yet that which is nearest to Scripture That it was an Apostolicall Constitution And truly if it did clearly appeare to have been so A thing practised and prescribed to the Church by the Apostles the holy Ghost were as well to be beleeved in the Apostles mouthes as in their pens An Apostolicall Tradition that is truly so is good evidence But because those things doe hardly lie in proofe for that which hath been given for a good Rule of Apostolicall Traditions is very defective that is That whatsoever hath been generally in use in the Church of which no Author is known is to be accepted for an Apostolicall Tradition for so that Ablutio pedum The washing of one anothers feet after Christs example was in so generall use that it had almost gained the dignity of being a Sacrament And so was also the giving of the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud to children newly baptized and yet these though in so generall use and without any certaine Author are not Apostolicall Traditions Therefore we must apply S. Augustines words to S. Chrysostome Lege ex Lege ex Prophetis ex Psalmis ex Euangelio ex Apostolicis literis credemus Read us any thing out of the Law or Prophets or Psalmes or Gospel or Epistles and we will beleeve it And we must have leave to return S. Augustines words upon S. Augustine himselfe who hath much assisted this custome of praying for the dead Lege ex Lege c. Read it out of the Scriptures and we will beleeve it for S. Augustine does not pretend any other place of Scripture then this of the Maccabees and not disputing now what credit that Book had with S. Augustine certainly it fell not within this enumeration of his The Maccabees are neither Law nor Prophets nor Psalms nor Gospel nor Epistle Beloved it is a wanton thing for any Church in spirituall matters to play with small errors to tolerate or wink at small abuses as though it should be alwayes in her power to extinguish them when she would It is Christs counsell to his Spouse that is the Church Capite vulpes parvulas Take us the little foxes for they destroy the Vine though they seeme but little and able to doe little harme yet they grow bigger and bigger every day and therefore stop errors before they become heresies and erroneous men before they become formall heretiques Capite sayes Christ Take them suffer them not to goe on but then it is Capite nobis Take us those foxes Take them for us The bargaine is betweene Christ and his Church For it is not Capite vobis Take them to your selves and make your selves Judges of such doctrinall matters as appertaine not to your cognizance Nor it is not Cape tibi Take him to thy selfe spy out a Recusant or a man otherwise not conformable and take him for thy labour beg him and spoile him and for his Religion leave him as you found him Neither is it Cape sibi Take
as well that because Christ is called Porta A Gate therefore when Samson is said to have carried a Gate Samson must be a Christopher and carry Christ And because Christ is a vine and a way and water and bread wheresoever any of these words are they must be intended of Christ not to stand upon the argument and inconsequence I say this word Baptisme hath not that signification which he would have it have here in any of those other places of Scripture which he cites to this purpose They are but two and may quickly be considered The first is when Christ askes the ambitious Apostles Mat. 20.20 Luk. 12.50 Are yee able to drinke of the Cup that I shall drinke of and to be baptized with the baptisme that I shall be baptized with The second is in S. Luke I must be baptized with a Baptisme and how am I grieved till it be ended In both which places Christ doth understand by this word Baptisme his Passion That is true And so ordinarily in the Christian Church as the dayes of the death of the Martyrs were called Natalitia Martyrum The Birth-dayes of the Martyrs so Martyrdome it selfe was called a Baptisme Baptisma sanguinis The Baptisme of Blood That is also true but what then was the Passion of Christ himselfe such an affliction as Bellarmine speakes of here and argues from in this place that is an affliction so inflicted upon himselfe and undertaken by himselfe as that then when he did beare it he might have forborne it and refused to beare it Though nothing were more voluntary then Christs submitting himselfe to that Decree of dying for man yet when that Decree was passed to which he had a privity nothing was more necessary nor unavoydable to any man then the Death of the Crosse was to Christ neither could he not onely not have saved us but not have been exalted in his humane nature himselfe if he had not dyed that death for all that was wrapped up in the Decree and from that grew out the propterea exaltatus and the oportuit pati That all those things Christ ought to suffer And therefore therefore because he did suffer all that he was exalted And will Bellarmine say that the Martyrdome of the Martyrs in the primitive Church was so voluntarily sustained as that they might have forsaken the cause of Christ and refused Martyrdome and yet have been saved and satisfied the purpose or the commandement of God upon them If from us Bellarmine will not heare it let him heare a man of his own profession not onely of his own Religion but so narrowly of his own profession as to have been a publique Reader of Divinity in a great University as well as he Estius And he sayes Sunt aliqui recentiores qui baptizari interpretantur affligi There are some sayes he not all nor the most and therefore it is not so manifest a place Sunt aliqui recentiores There are some of the later men sayes he not of the Fathers or Expositors in the primitive Church and therefore it is not so reverend and uncontrolable an opinion But onely some few later men there are sayes he that thinke that Baptisme in this place is to be understood of Affliction But sayes the same Doctor It is an Interpretation valde figurata rara wholly relying upon a figure and a figure very rarely used so rarely sayes he Vt non ab alio quam à Christo usurpetur That never any but Christ in the Scriptures called Affliction Baptisme So that it lacks thus much of being a manifest proofe for Purgatory as Bellarmine pretends That it is neither the common sense but of a few nor the ancient sense but of a few later men nor a sense obvious and ordinary and literall but figurative and that figure not communicated to others but onely applied by Christ and appropriated to his Passion which was not a passion so undergone as that then when he suffered it he might have refused it which is necessary for that Doctrine which Bellarmine would evict from it But because Bellarmine in whom perchance the Spirit of a Cardinall hath not overcome the Spirit of a Jesuit will admit no competition nor diversity of opinion except it be from one of his own Order we have Iustinian a man refined in that Order Iustinian a Jesuit as well as he an Italian and so hath his naturall and nationall refining as well as he and one whose books are dedicated to the Pope as well as his and so hath had an Oraculous refining by an allowance Oraculo vivae vocis by the breath of life the Oracle of truth the Popes approbation as well as he and thus much better That Iustinians never were but Bellarmines books have been threatned by the Inquisition And Iustinian never was but Bellarmine hath been put to his Retractations And he sayes onely this of this place Aliqui referunt ad corporis vexationes pro Mortuis Some men refer these words to bodily afflictions sustained by men alive for the Dead Et haec sententia multis vehementer probatur sayes he This interpretation hath much delighted and satisfied many men Sed potest dici sayes he By their leaves this may be said If S. Paul aske Why doe men afflict themselves in the behalfe of them that are dead it may be answered sayes he That if they doe so they are fools in doing so S. Paul intends certainly to prove the Resurrection by these words neither sayes he could the Resurrection of the body be proved by all S. Pauls argument if that were admitted to be the right sense of the place for what were all this to the Resurrection of the body which is S. Pauls scope and purpose in the place If men were baptized that is as Bellarmine would have it if they did suffer voluntarily and unnecessarily affliction for the Dead that is to deliver their soules out of Purgatory what would all this conduce to the proofe of the Resurrection of the body But that we may have a witnesse against him in all his capacities as wee have produced one as he is a Jesuit and another equall to him as he was publique Professor so to consider him as a Cardinall for as a Cardinall Bellarmine hath changed his opinion in some things that he held before he was hood-wincked with his Hat to consider him therefore so we have a witnesse against him in the Consistory Cardinall Cajetan Cajetan who finds no baptisme of teares nor penance in these words no application of any affliction sustained voluntarily by the living in the behalfe and contemplation of the dead but adhering to that which is truly the purpose of the Apostle to prove the resurrection of the body hee sayes In hoc quòd merguntur sub aqua mortuos gerunt When in Baptisme they are as it were buried under the water as the forme of Baptizing was then by Immersion of the whole body and not onely
in thy seeking of him If the Angels bee come downe to destroy Sodome If Ionas bee come to proclaime destruction to Nineveh wilt thou make thy selfe beleeve that thou art a Citizen of Sodom an inhabitant of Nineveh and must necessarily be wrapped up in that destruction If David say Non sic impii non sic The wicked shall not stand in judgement wilt thou needs be one of them As a wise and a discreet man will never beleeve that he that writes a Satyr meanes him though he touch upon his vices so whatsoever the Prophets say of an aversion and obduration in God against sinners yet they meane not thee nor doe thou assume it in an inevitablenesse upon thy selfe The Angel of God the Spirit of God shall deale with thee as he did with Lot in Sodom He told Lot over-night Gen. 19.12 that he would burne the City and bad him prepare God shall give thee some grudgings before he exalt thy fever and warne thee to consider thy state and consult with thy spirituall Physitian The Angel called him up in the morning and then hastned him and when he prolonged sayes the Text The Angel caught him and carried him forth and set him without the City Because though there was no cooperation in Lot yet there was no resisting neither God was pleased to doe all So in this death of diffidence and sense of Gods fearefull judgements God opens thy grave now and now he calls to thee Lazare veni for as Come forth Lazarus and hee offers his hand to pull thee out now Iosh 1.6 Onely Comfortare esto robustus as God said to Ioshuah Bee strong and have a good courage and as God addes there Comfortare esto robustus valde Multiply thy courage and God shall multiply thy strength in all dejections have a cheerefull apprehension of thy resurrection and thou shalt have it nay thou hast it But this death of desperation or diffidence in Gods mercy by Gods mercy hath swallowed none of us but the death of sinne hath swallowed us all and for our owne customary sinnes we all need a resurrection And what is that Resurrectio à peccato cessatio à peccato Durand non est idem Every cessation from sin is not a resurrection from sinne A man may discontinue a sinne intermit the practise of a sin by infirmity of the body or by satiety in the sinne or by the absence of that person with whom he hath used to communicate in that sin Damasc But Resurrectio est secunda ejus quod interiit statio A Resurrection is such an abstinence from the practise of the sin as is grounded upon a repentance and a detestation of the sin and then it is a setling and an establishing of the soule in that state and disposition It is not a sudden and transitory remorse nor onely a reparation of that which was ruined and demolished but it is a building up of habits contrary to former habits and customes in actions contrary to that sin that we have been accustomed to Else it is but an Intermission not a Resurrection but a starting not a waking but an apparition not a living body but a cessation not a peace of conscience Now this Resurrection is begun and well advanced in Baptismate lachrymarum In the baptisme of true and repentant teares But Beloved as S. Paul in this place hath a relation Ad baptismum clinicorum to death-bed-baptists death-bed-Christians to them that defer their Baptisme to their death but he gives no allowance of it So this Baptisma clinicorum this repentance upon the death-bed is a dangerous delay Even of them I will say with S. Paul here If there were no Resurrection no need to rise from sin by repentance why are they then thus baptized pro mortuis why doe they repent when they are as good as dead and have no more to suffer in this world But if there be such a resurrection a necessity of such a Baptisme by repentance why come they no sooner to it For is any man sure to have it or sure to have a desire to it then It is never impertinent to repeat S. Augustines words in this case Etiam hac animadversione percutitur peccator ut moriens obliviscatur sui qui dum viveret oblitus est Dei God begins a dying mans condemnation at this That as he forgot God in his life so he shall forget himselfe at his death Compare thy temporall and thy spirituall state together and consider how they may both stand well at that day If thou have set thy state in order and made a Will before and have nothing to doe at last but to adde a Codicil this is soone dispatched at last But if thou leave all till then it may prove a heavy businesse So if thou have repented before and setled thy selfe in a religious course before and have nothing to doe then but to wrastle with the power of the disease and the agonies of death God shall fight for thee in that weake estate God shall imprint in thee a Cupio dissolvi S. Pauls not onely contentednesse but desire to be dissolved And God shall give thee a glorious Resurrection yea an Ascension into Heaven before thy death and thou shalt see thy selfe in possession of his eternall Kingdome before thy bodily eyes be shut Be therefore S. Cyprians Peripatetique and not his Clinique Christian A walking and not a bed-rid Christian That when thou hast walked with God as Henoch did thou maist be taken with God as Henoch was and so walke with the Lamb as the Saints doe in Jerusalem and follow him whithersoever hee goes That even thy death-bed may bee as Elias Chariot to carry thee to heaven And as the bed of the Spouse in the Canticles which was Lectus floridus a greene and flourishing bed where thou maist find by a faithfull apprehension that thy sicknesse hath crowned thee with a crowne of thornes by participation of the sufferings of thy Saviour and that thy patience hath crowned thee with that crowne of glory which the Lord the righteous Judge shall impart to thee that day SERM. LXXIX Preached at S. PAULS PSAL. 90.14 O satisfie us early with thy mercy that we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes THey have made a Rule in the Councel of Trent that no Scripture shall be expounded but according to the unanime consent of the Fathers But in this Book of the Psalms it would trouble them to give many examples of that Rule that is of an unanime consent of the Fathers in the interpretation thereof In this Psalme Bellarmine in his Exposition of the Psalms finds himselfe perplexed He sayes and sayes truly Hieronymus constanter affirmat Augustinus constanter negat S. Hierome doth confidently and constantly affirme and S. Augustine with as much confidence and constancy deny that this Psalme and all that follow to the hundredth Psalme are Moses Psalms and written by him And this diverse
constancy in these two Fathers S. Hierome and S. Augustine shake the constancy of that Canon which binds to a following of an unanime consent for that cannot be found Bellarmine expedites himselfe herein that way which is indeed their most ordinary way amongst their Expositors which is where the Fathers differ to adhere to S. Augustine So he doth in this point though most of the Ancients of the Christian Church most of the Rabbins of the Jews most of the Writers in the Reformation take it to be Moses Psalme and that way runs the greatest streame and nearest to a concurrence And thus far I have stopped upon this consideration Whether this be Moses Psalme or no That when it appeares to be his Psalme and that we see that in the tenth verse of this Psalm mans life is limited to seventy years or at most to eighty and then remember that Moses himselfe then when he said so was above eighty and in a good habitude long after that we might hereby take occasion to consider that God does not so limit and measure himselfe in his blessings to his servants but that for their good and his glory he enlarges those measures God hath determined a day from Sun to Sun yet when God hath use of a longer day for his glory he commands the Sun to stand still till Ioshua have pursued his victory So God hath given the life of man into the hand of sicknesse and yet for all that deadly sicknesse God enlarges Hezekiah's years Moses was more then fourescore when he told us that our longest terme was fourescore If we require exactly an unanime consent that all agree in the Author of this Psalme we can get no farther then that the holy Ghost is the Author All agree the words to be Canonicall Scripture and so from the holy Ghost and we seek no farther The words are his and they offer us these considerations First That the whole Psalme being in the Title thereof called a Prayer A Prayer of Moses the man of God it puts us justly and pertinently upon the consideration of the many dignities and prerogatives of that part of our worship of God Prayer for there we shall see That though the whole Psal me be not a Prayer yet because there is a Prayer in the Psalme that denominates the whole Psalme the whole Psalme is a Prayer When the Psalm grows formally to be a Prayer our Text enters O satisfie us early with thy mercy that we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes And in that there will be two Parts more The Prayer it selfe O satisfie us early with thy mercy And the effect thereof That we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes So that our Parts are three First Prayer Then this Prayer And lastly the benefit of all Prayer For the first which is Prayer in generall 1 Part. Prayer I will thrust no farther then the Text leads me in that is That Prayer is so essentiall a part of Gods worship as that all is called Prayer S. Hierome upon this Psalme sayes Difficillimum Psalmum aggredior I undertake the exposition of a very hard Psalme and yet sayes he I would proceed so in the exposition thereof ut interpretatio nostra aliena non egeat interpretatione That there should not need another Comment upon my Comment that when I pretend to interpret the Psalme they that heare me should not need another to interpret me which is a frequent infirmity amongst Expositors of Scriptures by writing or preaching either when men will raise doubts in places of Scripture which are plaine enough in themselves for this creates a jealousie that if the Scriptures be every where so difficult they cannot be our evidences and guides to salvation Or when men will insist too vehemently and curiously and tediously in proving of such things as no man denies for this also induces a suspition that that is not so absolutely so undeniably true that needs so much art and curiosity and vehemence to prove it I shall therefore avoid these errors and because I presume you are full of an acknowledgment of the duties and dignities of Prayer onely remember you of thus much of the method or elements of Prayer That whereas the whole Book of Psalms is called Sepher Tehillim that is Liber Laudationum The Book of Praise yet this Psalme and all that follow to the hundredth Psalme and divers others besides these which make up a faire limme of this body and a considerable part of the Book are called Prayers The Book is Praise the parts are Prayer The name changes not the nature Prayer and Praise is the same thing The name scarce changes the name Prayer and Praise is almost the same word As the duties agree in the heart and mouth of a man so the names agree in our eares and not onely in the language of our Translation but in the language of the holy Ghost himselfe for that which with us differs but so Prayer and Praise in the Originall differs no more then so Tehillim and Tephilloth And this concurrence of these two parts of our devotion Prayer and Praise that they accompany one another nay this co-incidence that they meet like two waters and make the streame of devotion the fuller nay more then that this identity that they doe not onely consist together but constitute one another is happily expressed in this part of the Prayer which is our Text for that which in the Originall language is expressed in the voice of Prayer O satisfie us c. in the first Translation that of the Septuagint is expressed in the voice of praise Saturasti Thou hast satisfied us The Original makes it a Prayer the Translation a Praise And not to compare Original with Translation but Translation with Translation and both from one man we have in S. Hieroms works two Translations of the Psalmes one in which he gives us the Psalmes alone another in which he gives them illustrated with his notes and Commentaries And in one of these Translations he reads this as a Prayer Reple nos O fill us early with thy mercie and in the other he reads it as a Praise Repleti sumus Thou hast filled us c. Nay not to compare Originall with Translation nor Translation with Translation but Originall with Originall the holy Ghost with himselfe In the Title of this Psalme and the Titles of the Psalms are Canonicall Scripture the holy Ghost calls this Psalme a Prayer and yet enters the Psalme in the very first verse thereof with praise and thanksgiving Lord thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations And such is the constitution and frame of that Prayer of Prayers That which is the extraction of all prayers and draws into a summe all that is in all others That which is the infusion into all others sheds and showres whatsoever is acceptable to God in any other prayer That Prayer which our Saviour gave us for as he meant to
joy we shall see when we see him who is so in it as that he is this joy it selfe But here in this world so far as I can enter into my Masters sight I can enter into my Masters joy I can see God in his Creatures in his Church in his Word and Sacraments and Ordinances Since I am not without this sight I am not without this joy Here a man may Transilire mortalitatem Seneca sayes that Divine Morall man I cannot put off mortality but I can looke upon immortality I cannot depart from this earth but I can looke into Heaven So I cannot possesse that finall and accomplished joy here but as my body can lay downe a burden or a heavy garment and joy in that ease so my soule can put off my body so far as that the concupiscencies thereof and the manifold and miserable enâ— cumbrances of this world cannot extinguish this holy joy And this inchoative joy David derives into two branches To rejoyce and to be glad The Holy Ghost is an eloquent Author Exultatio a vehement and an abundant Author but yet not luxuriant he is far from a penurious but as far from a superfluous style too And therefore we doe not take these two words in the Text To rejoyce and to be glad to signifie meerely one and the same thing but to be two beames two branches two effects two expressings of this joy We take them therefore as they offer themselves in their roots and first naturall propriety of the words The first which we translate To rejoyce is Ranan and Ranan denotes the externall declaration of internall joy for the word signifies Cantare To sing and that with an extended and loud voyce for it is the word which is oftnest used for the musique of the Church and the singing of Psalmes which was such a declaration of their zealous alacrity in the primitive Church as that when to avoyd discovery in the times of persecution they were forced to make their meetings in the night they were also forced to put out their Candles because by that light in the windowes they were discovered After that this meeting in the darke occasioned a scandall and ill report upon those Christians that their meetings were not upon so holy purposes as they pretended they discontinued their vigils and night-meetings yet their singing of Psalmes when they did meet they never discontinued though that many times exposed them to dangers and to death it selfe as some of the Authors of the secular story of the Romans have observed and testified unto us And some ancient Decrees and Constitutions we have in which such are forbidden to be made Priests as were not perfect in the Psalmes And though S. Hierome tell us this with some admiration and note of singularity That Paula could say the whole book of Psalmes without booke in Hebrew yet he presents it as a thing well known to be their ordinary practise In villula Christi Bethlem extrapsalmos silentium est In the village where I dwell sayes he where Christ was borne in Bethlem if you cannot sing Psalmes you must be silent here you shall heare nothing but Psalmes for as he pursues it Arator stivam tenens The husbandman that follows the plough he that sowes that reapes that carries home all begin and proceed in all their labours with singing of Psalmes Therefore he calls them there Cantiones amatorias Those that make or entertaine love that seeke in the holy and honorable way of marriage to make themselves acceptable and agreeable to one another by no other good parts nor conversation but by singing of Psalmes So he calls them Pastorum sibilum and Arma culturae Our shepheards sayes S. Hierome here have no other Eclogues no other Pastoralls Our labourers our children our servants no other songs nor Ballads to recreate themselves withall then the Psalmes And this universall use of the Psalmes that they served all for all gives occasion to one Author in the title of the Booke of Psalmes to depart from the ordinary reading which is Sepher Tehillim The booke of Praise and to reade it Sepher Telim which is Acervorum The booke of Heapes where all assistances to our salvation are heaped and treasured up And our Countryman Bede found another Title in some Copies of this booke Liber Soliloquiorum de Christo The Booke of Meditations upon Christ Because this booke is as Gregory Nyssen calls it Clavis David that key of David which lets us in to all the mysteries of our Religion which gave the ground to that which S. Basil sayes that if all the other Books of Scripture could be lost he would aske no more then the Booke of Psalmes to catechize children to edifie Congregations to convert Gentils and to convince Heretiques But we are launched into too large a Sea the consideration of this Booke of Psalmes I meane but this in this That if we take that way with God The way of prayer prayer so elemented and constituted as we have said that consists rather of praise and thankesgiving then supplication for future benefits God shall infuse into us a zeale of expressing our consolation in him by outward actions to the establishing of others we shall not disavow nor grow slacke in our Religion nor in any parts thereof God shall neither take from us The Candle and the Candlestick The truth of the Gospel which is the light And the cheerfull and authorized and countenanced and rewarded Preaching of the Gospel which is the Candlestick that exalts the light nor take from us our zeale to this outward service of God that we come to an indifferency whether the service of God be private or publique sordid or glorious allowed and suffered by way of connivency or commanded and enjoyned by way of authority God shall give us this Ranan this rejoycing this extern all joy we shall have the publique preaching of the Gospel continued to us and we shall shew that we rejoyce in it by frequenting it and by instituting our lives according unto it But yet this Ranan this Rejoycing this outward expressing of our inward zeale Delectabimur may admit interruptions receive interceptions intermissions and discontinuances for without doubt in many places there live many persons well affected to the truth of Religion that dare not avow it expresse it declare it especially where that fearfull Vulture the Inquisition hovers over them And therefore the Holy Ghost hath added here another degree of joy which no law no severe execution of law can take from us in another word of lesse extent Shamach which is an inward joy onely in the heart which we translate here to be Glad How far we are bound to proceed in outward declarations of Religion requires a serious and various consideration of Circumstances Dan. 6.10 You know how far Daniel proceeded The Lords had extorted a Proclamation from the King That no man should pray to any other God then the King for
speaks yet so doth the zeale of Gods Saints and their last prayers though we heare them not God continues still and they pray in Heaven as the Martyrs under the Altar even till the Resurrection He is with him now too In funere Here in his Funerals Buriall and Christian Buriall and Solemne Buriall are all evidences and testimonies of Gods presence God forbid we should conclude or argue an absence of God from the want of Solemne Buriall or Christian Buriall or any Buriall But neither must we deny it to be an evidence of his favour and presence where he is pleased to afford these So God makes that the seale of all his blessings to Abraham Gen. 15. Gen. 46. Gen. 50. Esay 11.10 Matt. 26. That he should be buried in a good age God established Iacob with that promise That his Son Ioseph should have care of his Funerals And Ioseph does cause his servants The Physitians to embalme him when he was dead Of Christ it was Prophecied That he should have a glorious Buriall And therefore Christ interprets well that profuse and prodigall piety of the Woman that poured out the Oyntment upon him That she did it to Bury him And so shall Ioseph of Arimathea be ever celebrated for his care in celebrating Christs Funerals If we were to send a Son or a friend to take possession of any place in Court or forraine parts we would send him out in the best equipage Let us not grudge to set downe our friends in the Anti-chamber of Heaven the Grave in as good manner as without vaine-gloriousnesse and wastfulnesse we may And in inclining them to whom that care belongs to expresse that care as they doe this day The Lord is with him even in this Funerall And because The Lord is here our brother is not dead Not dead in the memories and estimation of men And lastly In resurrectione that we may have God present in all his Manifestations Hee that was and is and is to come was with him in his life and death and is with him in this holy Solemnity and shall bee with him againe in the Resurrection Gen. 46.4 God sayes to Iacob I will goe downe with thee into Egypt and I will also surely bring thee up againe God goes downe with a good man into the Grave and will surely bring him up againe When The Angel promised to returne to Abraham and Sarah Gen. 18.10 for the assurance of the birth of Isaac according to the time of life that is in such time as by nature a woman may have a childe God will returne to us in the Grave according to the time of life that is in such time as he by his gracious Decree hath fixed for the Resurrection And in the meane time no more then the God-head departed from the dead body of our Saviour in the grave doth his power and his presence depart from our dead bodies in that darknesse But that which Moses said to the whole Congregation I say to you all both to you that heare me Deut. 4.4 and to him that does not All ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day Even hee whom wee call dead is alive this day In the presence of God we lay him downe In the power of God he shall rise In the person of Christ he is risen already And so into the same hands that have received his soule we commend his body beseeching his blessed Spirit that as our charity enclines us to hope confidently of his good estate our faith may assure us of the same happinesse in our owne behalfe And that for all our sakes but especially for his own glory he will be pleased to hasten the consummation of all in that kingdome which that Son of God hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen FINIS ⧠The Table of such places of SCRIPTURE as are illustrated and expounded in this BOOKE GENESIS 1.16 TWo great lights c. 81. A. 2.7 Man was a living soul 71. A. 18.10 According to the time of life 826. D. 26.18 Isaac digged the wells of water which 118. B. 29.12 Iacob kissed Rachel 407. C. 41.45 Pharaoh called Iosephs name 529. A. 51.20 You thought evill against me 171. B. EXODUS 4.22 Israel is his sonne 56. E. 14.14 The Lord shall fight for you 577. D. 23.3 Thou shalt not countenance 782. C. 33.13 Shew me now thy way 66. E. DEUTERONOMY 21.23 He that is hanged is accursed of God 8. A. 30.15 See I have set before thee life and death 70. A. 30.19 I have set before you life and death 148. D. JOSHUAH 10.12 Sunne stand thou still 700. A. JUDGES 2.5 They wept 539. B. RUTH 1.19 Call me not Naomi 479. B. 2 SAMUEL 14.14 We must needs die and are 311. A. 26.12 The sleepe of the Lord was upon him 257. D. 2 KINGS 9.3 None shall say This is Iezebel 148. B. 11.12 They put the crowne 336. D. 20.7 Take a lump of figs 514. E. JOB 4.18 His Angels he charged with folly 9. C. 5.7 Man is borne unto travatle as 538. B. 7.1 Mans life is a warfare 142. A. 603 E. 8.16 Woe unto me poor rush for c. 141. B. 10.20 Lord spare me a while 162. C. 19.25 I know my Redeemer liveth c. 150. A. 19.26 In my flesh c. 122. A. 20.11 My bones are full of the sins 519. B. PSALMES 2.2 They imagine a vaine thing 433. D. 2.8 Aske of me and I will give thee c. 26. E. 462. E. 2. ult Kisse the Son lest he be angry 541. D. 3.7 Thou hast broken the teeth 516. D. 6.5 In death there is no remembrance of thee 533. E. 15.2 Lord who shall ascend to thy Tabernacle 117. E. 19.9 The judgements of the Lord justifie themselves 366. D. 22.6 I am a worme 18. A. 45. C. 65. A. 25.15 Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord 618. A. 37.5 Cōmit thy wayes unto the Lord 686. B. 37.26 The righteous is mercifull 83. E. 45.7 God hath anointed thee with the oyle of gladnesse 396. C. 50.12 If I were hungry 101. B 55.19 Because they have no changes therefore they feare not God 57. D. 65.1 Praise waiteth for thee 64. A. 66.3 Through the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit 585. A. 72.18 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which 394. D. 78.63 Their maidens were not given in marriage 679. C. 82.1 God standeth in the 72. D. 90.10 The dayes of our yeares c. 83. B. 101.1 I will sing of thy mercy and 12. A. 101.5 Him that hath a high looke 729. B. 102.5 My bones cleave to my flesh 519. B. 104.29 They die and they returne 255. D. 105.15 Touch not mine anointed 55. B. 106.20 They changed their glory 85. A. 111.10 A good understanding have 612. C. 113.5 He dwels in heaven 134. C. 119.57 The Lord is my portion 14. B.
And even God himselfe who had that omni-sufficiency in himselfe conceived a conveniency for his glory to draw a Circumference about that Center Creatures about himselfe and to shed forth lines of love upon all them and not to love himselfe alone Selfe-love in man sinks deep but yet you see the Apostle in his order casts the other sin lower that is into a worse place To be without naturall affections S. Augustine extends these naturall affections to Religious affections because they are naturall to a supernaturall man to a regenerate man who naturally loves those that are of the houshold of the faithfull that professe the same truth of Religion and not to be affected with their distresses when Religion it selfe is distressed in them is impietie He extends these affections to Morall affections the love of Eminent and Heroicall vertues in any man we ought to be affected with the fall of such men And he extends them to civill affections the love of friends not to be moved in their behalfe is argument enough that we doe not much love them For our case in the Text These men whom Jesus found weeping and wept with them were none of his kindred They were Neighbours and Christ had had a conversation and contracted a friendship in that Family V. 5. He loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus saies the Storie and he would let the world see that he loved them for so the Jewes argued that saw him weepe V. 36. Behold how he loved them without outward declarations who can conclude an inward love to assure that Iesus wept To an inordinatenesse of affections it never came to a naturall tendernesse it did and so far as to teares Laerymae and then who needs be ashamed of weeping Look away far from me for I will weep bitterly sayes Hierusalem in Esay But look upon me sayes Christ in the Lamentations Behold and see if ever there were any sorrow any teares like mine Not like his in value but in the roote as they proceeded from naturall affection they were teares of imitation and we may we must weepe teares like his teares They scourged him they crowned him they nailed him they pierced him and then blood came but he shed teares voluntarily and without violence The blood came from their ill but the teares from his owne good nature The blood was drawne the teares were given We call it a childish thing to weepe and a womanish and perchance we meane worse in that then in the childish for therein we may meane falshood to be mingled with weaknesse Christ made it an argument of his being man to weepe for though the lineaments of mans bodie eyes and eares hands and feet be ascribed to God in the Scriptures though the affections of mans mind be ascribed to him even sorrow nay Repentance it selfe is attributed to God I doe not remember that ever God is said to have wept It is for man And when God shall come to that last Act in the glorifying of Man when he promises to wipe all teares from his eyes what shall God have to doe with that eye that never wept He wept out of a nuturall tendernesse in generall and he wept now out of a particular occasion What was that Quia mortuus because Lazarus was dead We stride over many steps at once waive many such considerable circumstances as these Lazarus his friend was dead therefore he wept Lazarus the staffe and sustentatio of that family was dead he upon whom his Sisters relied was dead therefore he wept But I stop onely upon this one step Quia mortuus that he was dead Now a good man is not the worse for dying that is true and capable of a good sense because he is established in a better world but yet when he is gone out of this world he is none of us he is no longer a man The stronger opinion in the Schoole is That Christ himselfe when he lay dead in the grave was no man Though the God head never departed from the Carcasse there was no divorce of that Hypostaticall union yet because the Humane soule was departed from it he was no man Hugo de S. Victor who thinks otherwise that Christ was a man then thinkes so upon a weak ground He thinkes that because the soule is the form of man the soul is man and that therefore the soul remaining the man remaines But it is not the soule but the union of the soul that makes the man The Master of the Sentences Peter Lombard that thinks so too that Christ was then a man thinkes so upon as weak a ground He thinkes that it is enough to constitute a man that there be a soul and body though that soul and body be not united but still it is the union that makes the man And therefore when he is disunited dead he is none of us he is no man and therefore we weep how well soever he be Abraham was loath to let go his wife though the King had her A man hath a naturall lothnesse to let go his friend though God take him to him S. Augustine sayes that he knew well enough that his mother was in heaven and S. Ambrose that he knew wel enough that his master Theodosius the emperor was in heaven but because they saw not in what state they were they thought that something might be asked at Gods hands in their behalf and so out of a humane and pious officiousnesse in a devotion perchance indigested uncocted and retaining yet some crudities some irresolutions they strayed into prayers for them after they were dead Lazarus his sisters made no doubt of their brothers salvation they beleeved his soul to be in a good estate And for his body they told Christ Lord we know that he shall rise at the last day And yet they wept Here in this world we who stay lack those who are gone out of it we know they shall never come to us and when we shall go to them whether we shall know them or no we dispute They who think that it conduces to the perfection of happinesse in heaven that we should know one another think piously if they think we shall For as for the maintenance of publique peace States and Churches may think diversly in points of Religion that are not fundamentall and yet both be true and Orthodoxall Churches so for the exaltation of private devotion in points that are not fundamentall divers men may think diversly and both be equally good Christians Whether we shall know them there or no is problematicall and equall that we shall not till then is dogmaticall and certain Therefore we weep I know there are Philosophers that will not let us weep nor lament the death of any And I know that in the Scriptures there are rules and that there are instructions convayed in that example that David left mourning as soon as the childe was dead And I know that there are Authors of a