those Canons enjoyn is a debt which they can call for but the Pastor himself hath another Court another Barre in himselfe by which hee tries himselfe and must condemne himselfe if hee pay not this debt performe not this duty as often as himself knowes himselfe to bee fit and able to doe it It is a duty and it is the duty of an husbands brother Now the husband hath power and authority over the wife The head of the woman is the Man and when the office of this spirituall husband is particularly expressed thus Reprove Rebuke Exhort you see for one word of familiarity that is Exhort there are two of authority Reprove and Rebuke But yet all the authority of the husband secular or ecclesiasticall temporall or spirituall husband is grounded rooted in love for the Apostle seemes to delight himself in the repeating of that Commandement to the Ephesians and to the Colossians Husbands love your wives Moses extends himselfe no farther in expressing all the happinesses that Isaak and Rebecca enjoyed in one another but this shee become his wife and he loved her If shee had not beene his wife Moses would never have proposed that love for an example for so it is also betweene Elkanah and his wife Hannah 1 Sam. 1. 5. Vnto Hannah he gave a double portion for sayes the Text hee loved Hannah If the Pastor love there will bee a double labour if the People love there will bee double respect But being so hee thought hee said all when he said they loved one another For where the Congregation loves the Pastor hee will forbeare bitter reproofes and wounding increpations and where the Pastor loves his Congregation his Rebukes because they proceed our of love will bee acceptable and well interpreted by them It is a duty and personall and perpetuall a duty of a husband and lastly of a husband that is brother to the former husband In which last circumstance we have time to mark but this one note that the reason of that law which drew the brother to this mariage was the preservation of the temporall inheritance in that family Even in our spirituall mariages to widow Churches we must have a care to preserve the temporall rights of all persons That the Parish be not oppressed with heavy extortions nor the Pastor defrauded with unjust substraction nor the Patron damnified by usurpations nor the Ordinary neglected by disobediences but that people and Pastor and Patron and Ordinary continuing in possession of their severall rights love being the root of all the fruit of all may be peace love being the soul of all the body of all may be unity which the Lord of unity and concord grant to us all for his Sonne Christ Jesus sake Amen SERMON XLVI The second Sermon Preached by the Author after he came to St. Dunstanes 25 Apr. 1624. PSAL. 34. 11. Come ye children Hearken unto me I will teach you the fear of the Lord. THE Text does not call children simply literally but such men and women as are willing to come in the simplicity of children such children as Christ spoke of Except ye become as little children ye shall not enter into the Kingdome of heaven Come ye children come such children Nor does the Text call such as come and would fain be gone again it is Come and Hearken not such as wish themselves away nor such as wish another man here but such as value Gods ordinance of Preaching though it be as the Apostle says but the foolishnesse of Preaching and such as consider the office and not the person how meane soever Come ye children And when ye are come Hearken And though it be but I Hearken unto me And I will teach you the feare of the Lord the most noble the most couragious the most magnanimous not affection but vertue in the world Come ye children Hearken unto me and I will teach you the feare of the Lord. To every Minister and Dispenser of the word of God and to every Congregation belong these words Divisio And therefore we will divide the Text between us To you one to us appertains the other part You must come and you must hearken we must teach and teach to edification There is the Meum Tuum your part and our part From each Part these branches flow out naturally In yours first the capacity as children Then the action you Come Then your Disposition here you hearken And lastly your submission to Gods Ordinance you hearken even unto me unto any Minister of his sending In our Part there is first a Teaching for else why should you come or hearken unto me or any It is a Teaching it is not onely a Praying And then there is a Catholique doctrine a circular doctrine that walks the round and goes the compasse of our whole lives from our first to our last childhood when age hath made us children again and it is the Art of Arts the root and fruit of all true wisdome The true feare of the Lord. Come ye children hearken unto mee and I will teach you the feare of the Lord. First then the word in which in the first branch of the first part your capacity is expressed filii pueri children is from the Originall which is Banim often accepted in three notions and so rendred Three ways men are called children out of that word Banâ—m in the Scriptures Either it is servi servants for they are filiâ— familiares as the Master is Pater familias Father of the family and that he is though there be no naturall children in the family the servants are children of the family and are very often in Scriptures called so Pueri children Or it is Alumni Nurse-children foster-children filii mâ—mmillares children of the breasts whether wee minister to them temporall or spirituall nourishment they are children Or else it is filii viscerales children of our bowels our naturall children And in all these three capacities as servants as sucking children as sons are you called upon in this appellation in this compellation children First as you are servants you are children for without distinction of age servants are called so frequently ordinarily in the Scriptures Pueri The Priest asks David before he would give him the holy bread An vasa puerorum sancta Whether those children speaking of Davids followers were clean from women Here were children that were able to get children Nay Davids Soldiers are often called so pueri children In the first of the Kings he takes a Muster recenset pueros Here were children that were able to kill men You are his children of what age soever as you are his servants and in that capacity he cals you You are unprofitable servants but it is not an unprofitable service to serve God He can get nothing by you but you can have nothing without him The Centurions servants came when he said Come and was their wages like yours Had
a fair latitude Between the opinion of the Manichean hereticks that thought women to be made by the Devil and your Colliridian hereticks that sacrificed to a women as to God there is a fair distance Between the denying of them souls which S. Ambrose is charged to have done and giving them such souls as that they may be Priests as your Pepution hereticks did is a faire way for a moderate man to walk in To make them Gods is ungodly and to make them Devils is devillish To make them Mistresses is unmanly and to make them servants is unnoble To make them as God made them wives is godly and manly too When in your Roman Church they dissolved mariage in naturall kindred in degrees where God forbids it not when they dissolve mariage upon spitituall kindred because my Grandfather Christned that womans Father when they dissolve mariage upon legall kindred because my Grandfather adopted that womans Father they separate those whom God hath joyned so as to give leave to joyn in lawfull mariage When men have made vows to abstain from mariage I would they would they would be content to try a little longer then they doe whether they could keep that vow or no And when men have consecrated themselves to the service of God in his Church I would they would be content to try a little farther then they doe whether they could abstain or no But to dissolve mariage made after such a Vow or after Orders is still to separate those whom God hath not separated The Persons are he and she man and woman they must be so much he must be a man she must be a woman And they must be no more not a brother and a sister not an unckle and aneece Adduxit od eum was the cause between Adam and Eve God brought them together God will not bring me a precontracted person he will not have me defraud another nor God will not bring me a mis-beleeving a superstitious person he will not have me drawn from himself But let them be persons that God hath made man and woman and persons that God hath brought together that is not put asounder by any Law of his and all such persons are capable of this first this secular mariage In which our second Consideration is the Action Sponsabe where the Active is a kinde of Passive I will mary thee is I will be maried unto thee for we mary not our selves They are somewhat hard driven in the Roman Church when making mariage a Sacrament and being prest by us with this question If it be a Sacrament who administers it who is the Priest They are fain to answer the Bridegroom and the Bride he and she are the Priest in that Sacrament As mariage is a civill Contract it must be done so in publick as that it may have the testimony of men As mariage is a religious Contract it must be so done as that it may have the benediction of the Priest In a mariage without testimony of men they cannot claim any benefit of the Law In a mariage without the benediction of the Priest they cannot claim any benefit of the Church for how Matrimonially foever such persons as have maried themselves may pretend to love and live together yet all that love and all that life is but a regulated Adultery it is not mariage Now this institution of mariage had three objects first In ustionem it was given for a remedy against burning And then In prolem for propagation for children And lastly In adjutorium for mutuall help As we consider it the first way In ustionem every heating is not a burning every naturall concupiscence does not require a mariage may every flaming is not a burning though a man continue under the flame of carnall tentation as long as S. Paul did yet it needs not come presently to a Sponsabo I will mary God gave S. Paul other Physick Gratia mea sufficit grace to stand under that tentation And S. Paul gave himself other Physick Contundo corpus convenient disciplines to tame his body These will keepa man from burning for Vriest desideriis vinci desideria pati illustris est perfecti To be overcome by our concupiscences that is to burn but to quench the fire by religious ways that is a noble that is a perfect work When God at the first institution of mariage had this first use of mariage in his contemplation that it should be a remedy against burning God gave man the remedy before he had the disease for mariage was instituted in the state of innocency when there was no inordinatenesse in the affections of man and so no burning But as God created Reubarb in the world whose quality is to purge choler before there was any choler to purge so God according to his abundant forwardnesse to doe us good created a remedy before the disease which he foresaw comming was come upon us Let him then that takes a wife in this first and lowest sense In medicinam but as his Physick yet make her his cordiall Physick take her to his heart and fill his heart with her let her dwell there and dwell there alone and so they will be mutuall Antidotes and Preservatives one to another against all forein tentations And with this blessing blesse thou ô Lord these whom thou hast brought hither for this blessing make all the days of their life like this day unto them and as thy mercies are new every morning make them so to one another And if they may not die together sustain thou the survivor of them in that sad hour with this comfort That he that died for them both will bring them together again in his everlastingnesse The second use of mariage was In prolificationem for children And therefore as S. August puts the case To contract before that they will have no children makes it no mariage but an adultery To deny themselves to another is as much against mariage as to give themselves to another To hinder it by Physick or any other practise nay to hinder it so far as by a deliberate wish or prayer against children consists not well with this second use of mariage And yet in this second use we dòe not so much consider generation as regeneration not so much procreation as education nor propagation as transportation of children For this world might be filled full enough of children though there were no mariage but heaven could not be filled nor the places of the fallen Angels supplied without that care of childrens religious education which from Parents in lawfull mariage they are likeliest to receive How infinite and how miserable a circle of sin doe we make if as we sinned in our Parents loins before we were born so we sin in our childrens actions when we are dead by having given them either example or liberty of sinning We have a fearfull commination from God upon a good man upon Eli
glory with the Father before the world was made thou didst admit a cloud and a slumber upon that glory and staiedst for thy glory till thy death yet thou givest us naturally inglorious and miserable creatures a reall possession of glory and of inseparablenesse from thee in this life This is that Copiosa redemptio there is with the Lord plentifull redemption though that were Matura redemptio a seasonable redemption if it should meet me upon my death-bed and that the Angels then should receive my soul to lay it in Abrahams bosome yet this is my Saviours plentifull redemption that my soul is in Abrahams bosome now whilest it is in this body and that I am already in the presence of his Throne now when I am in your sight and that I serve him already day and night in his Temple now when I meditate or execute his Commission in this service in this particular Congregation Those words are not then necessarily restrained to Martyrs they are not restrained to the state of the Triumphant Church they are spoken to all the Children of righteousnesse and of godlines and godlinesse hath the promises of the life present and that that is to come That which involves all these promises that which is the kernell and seed and marrow of all the last clause of the text God shall wipe all teares from their eyes those words that clause is thrice repeated intirely in the Scriptures When it is spoken here when it is spoken in the one and twentieth Chapter of the Revelation and at the fourth verse in both places it is derived from the Prophet Esay which is an Eacharisticall chapter a Chapter of thanksgiving for Gods deliverance of his children even in this world from the afflictions and tribulations thereof and therefore this text belongs also to this world This imprinting then of the seale in the forehead this washing of the robes in the bloud of the Lambe S. Ambrose places conveniently to be accomplished in the Sacrament of Baptisme for this is Copiosissima Redemptio this is the most plentiful redemption that that be applied to us not onely at last in Heaven nor at my last step towards heaven at my death nor in all the steps that I make in the course of my life but in my first step into the Church nay before I can make any step when I was carried in anothers armes thither even in the beginning of this life and so do divers of the later Men and of those whom we call ours understand all this of baptisme because if we consider this washing away of teares as Saint Cyprian says young children doe most of all need this mercy of God and this assistance of Man because as soone as they come into this world Plorantes ac flentes nihil aliud faciunt quam deprecantur they beg with teares something at our hands and therefore need this abstersion this wiping For though they cannot tell us what they aile though if we will enter into curiosities we cannot tell them what they aile that is we cannot tell them what properly and exactly Originall sin is yet they aile something which naturally disposes them to weep and beg that something might be done for the wiping away of teares from their eyes And therefore though the other errors of the Anabaptist be ancient 1000. year old yet the denying of baptisme to children was never heard of till within 100. years and lesse The Arrians and the Donatists did rebapsize those who were baptized by the true Christians whom they counted Heretiques but yet they refused not to baptize children The Pelegians denied originall sin in children but yet they baptized them All Churches Greek and Russian and Ethiopique howsoever they differ in the body of the Church yet they meet they agree in the porch in Limine Ecclesiae in the Sacrament of baptisme and acknowledge that it is communicable to all children and to all Men from the child new borne to the decrepit old Man from him that is come out of one mothers wombe to him that is going into another into his grave Sicut nullus prohibendus à baptisme it a nullus est qui non peccate moritur in baptismo As baptisme is to be denied to none so neither is it to be denied that all that are rightly baptized are washed from sin Let him that will contentiously say that there are some children that take no profit by baptisme shew me which is one of them and qui testatur de scientia testetur de mode scientiae If he say he knowes it let him tell us how he knowes that which the Church of God doth not know We come now to the second part in which we consider first this firstword quoniam for which is verbum praegnans a word that includes all those great blessings which God hath ordained for them whom in his eternall decree he hath prepared for this sealing and this washing Those blessings which are immediately before the text are that in Gods purpose they are already come out of great tribulations they have already received a whitenes by the bloud of the Lambe they are already in the presence of the threne of the Lambe they have already overcome all hunger and thirst and heat Those particular blessings we cannot insist upon that requires rather a Comment upon the Chapter then a Sermon upon the text But in this word of inference for we onely wil observe this That though all the promises of God in him are Yea and Amen certain and infallible in themselves though his Name that makes them be Amen Thus saith Amen the faithfull and true witnesse and therefore there needs no better security then his word for all those blessings yet God is pleased to give that abundant satisfaction to Man as that his reason shall have something to build upon as well as his faith he shall know why he should beleeve all these blessings to belong to them who are to have these Seales and this washing For God requires no such faith nay he accepts nay he excuses no such faith as beleeves without reason beleeves he knows not why As faith witout fruit witout works is no faith to faith without a roct without reason is no faith but an opinion All those blessings by the Sacrament of Baptism all Gods other promises to his children and all the mysteries of Christrian Religion are therefore beleeved by us becuase they are grounded in the Scriptures of God we beleeve them for that reason and then it is not a worke of my faith primarily but it is a worke of my reason that assures me that these are the Scriptures that these Scriptures are the word of God I can answer other Mens reasons that argue against it I can convince other men by reason that my reasons are true and therefore it is a worke of reason that I beleeve these to be Scriptures To prove a beginning of the world I
Christ which is Baptistrisum the font the Sea into which God flings all their sinnes who rightly and effectually receive that Sacrament These fountaines of waters then in the text are the waters of baptisime and if we should take them also in that sense that waters signifie tribulations and afflictions it is true too that in baptisme that is in the profession of Christ we are delivered over to many tribulations The rule is generall Castigat omnes he chastiseth all The example the precedent is peremptory Opertuit pati Christ ought to suffer and so enter into glory but howsoever waters be affictions they are waters of life too says the text Though baptisme imprint a crosse upon us that we should not be ashamed of Christ crosse that we should not be afraid of our owne crosses yet by all these waters by all these Crosse ways we goe directly to the eternall life the kingdome of heaven for they are lively fountaines fountaines of life And this is intended and promised in the last words Absterget omnem Lachrymam God shall wipe all teares from our eyes God shall give us a joyfull apprehension of heaven here in his Church in this life But is this a way to wipe teares from the childes face to sprinkle water upon it Is this a wiping away to powre more on It is the powerfull and wonderfull way of his working for as his red bloud makes our red soules white that his rednesse gives our rednesse a candor so his water his baptisime and the powerfull effect thereof shall dry up and wipe away Omnem â—achrymam all teares from our Eyes howsoever occasioned This water shall dry them up Christ had many occassion of teares we have more some of our owne which he had not we must weep because we are not so good as we should be we cannot performe the law We must weepe because we are not so good as we could be our free will is lost but yet every Man findes he might be better if he would but the sharpest and saltest and smartest occasion of our teares is from this that we must not be so good as we would be that the prosanenesse of the Libertine the reproachfull slanders the contumelious scandalls the seornfull names that the wicked lay upon those who in their measure desire to expresse their zeale to Gods glory makes us afraid to professe our selves so religious as we could find in our hearts to be and could truly be if we might Christ went often in contemplation of others foreseeing the calamities of Ierualem he wept over the City comming to the grave of Lazarus he wept with them but in his owne Agony in the garden it is not said that he weps If we could stop the stood of teares in our afflictions yet there belongs an excessive griefe to this that the ungodly disposion of other Men is slacking of our godlinesse of our sanctification too Christ Jesus for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse we for the joy of this promise that God will wipe all teares from our eyes must suffer all this whether they be teares of Compunction or teares of Compassion teares for our selves or teares for others whether they be Magdalens teares or Peters teares teares for sinnes of infirmity of the flesh or teares for weaknesse of our faith whether they be teares for thy parents because they are improvident towards thee or teares for thy children because they are disobedient to thee whether they be teares for Church because our Sermons or our Censures pinch you or teares for the State that penall laws pecuniary or bloudy lie heavy upon you Deus absterget omneni lachryman here 's your comfort that as he hath promised inestimable blessings to them that are sealed and washed in him so he hath given you security that these blessings belong to you for if you find that he hath govened you bred you in his visible Church and led you to his fountaine of the water of lifein baptisme you may be sure that he will in his due time wipe all teares from your eyes establish the kingdome of heaven upon you in this life in a holy and modest infallibility SERMON V. Preached at a Christning EPHES. 5. 25 26 27. Husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the Church and gave himselfe for it that he might sanctisie it and cleanse it by the washing of water through the Word That he might make it unto himselfe a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle on any such thing but that it should be holy and without blame ALmighty God ever loved unity but he never loved singularity God was always alone in heaven there were no other Gods but he but he was never singular there was never any time when there were not three persons in heaven Pater ego unum summi The father and I are one says Christ one in Esseuct and one in Consent our substance is the same and our will is the same but yet Tecum fui ab initio says Christ in the person of Wisdome I was with thee disposing all things at the Creation As then God seemes to have been eternally delighted with this eternall generation with persons that had ever a relation to one another Father and Sonne so when he came to the Creation of this lower world he came presently to those three relations of which the whole frame of this world consists of which because the principall foundation and preservation of all States that are to continue is power the first relation was between Prince and Subject when God said to Man Subjecite dominamini subdue and govern all Creatures The second relation was between husband and wife when Adam said This now is house of my bone and flesh of my flesh And the third relation was between parents and children when Eve said that she had obtained a Man by the Lord that by the plentifull favour of God she had conceived and borne a sonne from that time to the dissolution of that frame from that beginning to the end of the world these three relations of Master and Servant Mans and Wife Father and Children have been and ever shall be the materialls and the elements of all society of families and of Cities and of Kingdomes And therefore it is a large and a subtill philosophy which S. Paul professes in this place to shew all the qualities and properties of these several Elements that is all the duties of these severall callings but in this text he handles onely the mutuall duties of the second couple Man and Wife and in that consideration shall we determine this exercise because a great part of that concernes the education of Children which especially occasions our meeting now The generall duty that goes through all these three relations is expressed Subditi estate invicevs Submit your selves to one another in the feare of God for God hath given no Master such imperiousnesse
of his word or in scantler measure not to be always a Christian but then when thou hast use of being one or in a different fashion to be singular and Schisâ—aticall in thy opinion for this is one but an ill manner of putting on of Christ as a garment The second and the good way is to put on his righteousnesse and his innocency by imitation and conforming our selves to him Now when we goe about earnestly to make our selves Temples and Altars and to dedicate our selves to God we must change our clothes As when God bad Iacob to goe up to Bethel to make an Altar he commanded all his family to change their clothes In which work we have two things to doe first we must put off those clothes which we had and appeare naked before God without presenting any thing of our owne for when the Spirit of God came upon Saul and that he prophecyed his first act was to strip himselfe naked And then sâ—condly we come to our transfiguration and to have those garments of Christ communicated to us which were as white as the light and we shall be admitted into that little number of which it is said Thou hast a few Namees in Sardis which have not defiled their garments and they shall walke with â—e in white And from this which is Induere vestem from this putting on Christ as a garment we shall grow up to that perfection as that we shall Inâ—â—ere personam put on hiâ— his person That is we shall so appeare before the Father as that he shall take us for his owne Christ we shall beare his name and person and we shall every one be so accepted as if every one of us were all Mankind yea as if we were he himselfe He shall find in all our bodies his woundes in all our mindes his 〈◊〉 in all our hearts and actions his obedience And as he shall doe this by impâ—tation so really in all our Agonies he shall send his Angels to minister unto us as he did to Eliâ—s In all our tentations he shall furnish us with his Scriptures to confoâ—â—d the Tempter as be in person did in his tentation and in our heaviest tribulation which may exâ—â—â—â— from us the voice of diffidence My God My God why hast 〈◊〉 forsaken me He shall give us the assurance to say In manus tuas câ— Into thy â—ands O Lord have I coâ—â—â—â—nded my spirit and there I am safe He shall use us in all things as his sonne and we shall find restored in us the Image of the whole Trinity imprinted at our creation for by this Regeneration we are adopted by the Father in the bloud of the Sonne by the sanctification of the holy Ghost Now this putting on of Christ whereby we stand in his place at Gods Tribunall implies as I said both our Election and our sanctification both the eternall purpose of God upon us and his execution of that purpose in us And because by the first by our Election we are members of Christ in Gods purpose before baptisme and the second which is sanctification is expressed after baptisme in our lives and conversation therefore Baptisme intervenes and comes between both as a seale of the first of Election and as an instrument and conduit of the second Sanctification Now Abscendita Dominâ— Dea nostro quae manifesta suâ—s nobis let no Man be too curiously busie to search what God does in his hedchamber we have all enough to answer for that which we have done in our bedchamber For Gods eternall decree himselfe is master of those Rolls but out of those Rolls he doth exemplifie those decrees in the Sacrament of baptisme by which Copy and exemplification of his invisible and unsearchable decree we plead to the Church that we are Gods children we plead to our owne consciences that we have the Spirit of adoption and we plead to God himselfe the obligation of his own promise that we have a right to this garment Christ Iesus and to those graces which must sanctifie us for from thence comes the reason of this text for all yeâ— that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. As we cannot see the Essence of God but must see him in his glasses in his Images in his Creatures so we cannot see the decrees of God but must see them in their duplicats in their exemplification in the sacraments As it would doe him no good that were condemned of treason that a Bedchamber man should come to the Judge and swear he saw the king signe the prisoners pardon except he had it to pleade so what assurance soever what priâ—y marke soever those men which pretend to be so well acquainted and so familiar with the decrees of God to give thee to know that thou art elect to eternall salvation yea if an Angel from heaven comedowne and tell thee that he saw thy name in the booke of life if thou have not this Exemplification of the decree this seale this Sacrament if thou beest not baptized never delude thy selfe with those imaginary assurances This Baptisme then is so necessary that first as Baptisme in a large acceptation signifies our dying and buriall with Christ and all the acts of our regeneration so in that large sense our whole life is a baptisme But the very sacrament of Baptismeâ— the actuall administration and receiving thereof was held so necessary that even for legall and Civill uses as in the law that child that dyed without circumcision had no interest in the family no participation of the honor nor name thereof So that we see in the reckning of the Genealogy and pedegree of David that first sonne of his which he had by Bathshebae which dyed without circumcision is never mentioned nor toucht upon So also since the time of Mâ—ses law in the Imperiall law by which law a posthume child borne after the fathers death is equall with the rest in division of the state yet if that child dye before he be baptized no person which should derive a right from him as the mother might if he dyed can have any title by him because he is not considered to have been at all if he dye unbaptized And if the State will not beleeve him to be a full Man shall the Church beleeve him to be a full Christian before baptisme Yea the apprehension of the necessity of this Sacrament was so common and so generall even in the beginning of the Christian Church that out of an excessive advancing of that trnth they came also to a falshoodâ— to an error That even they that dyed without baptisme might have the benefit of baptisme if another were baptized in their name after their deathâ— And so out of a mistaking of those words Else what shall they doe Qui baptizantur pro mortuis which is that are ready to dye when they are baptized the Marcionites induc'd a custome to lay one under the dead bodyes
doe not meane in his intention that the virgin Mary is equall to the Trinity but onely an assistant this is not onely an impertinent but an impious addition to that God that needs no assistant And as in our baptisme we take no other name necessarily but the name of Christ So in our Christian life we accept no other distinctions of Iesuits or Franciscans but onely Christians for we are baptized into his name and the whole life of a regenerate man is a Baptisme For as in putting on Christ sanctification doth accompany faith so in baptisme the imitation of his death that is mortification and the application of his passion by fulfilling the sufferings of Christ in our flesh is that baptisme into his death Which doe so certainly follow one another that he that is truly baptized into the name of Christ is also baptized into his death as that Saint Paul couples them together Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized into the name of Paâ—l If you were not baptized into his name then you have no interest no benefit by his death nor by any thing which he suffered that his merits or his works of supereragation should be applied to you And if he did not suffer for you if all that any Paul much lesse any Ignatins could doe were but enough and too little for himselfe then you are not baptized into his name nor to be denominate by him This is then to be Baptized into Christs death Habere reddere testimonium Christam pro me mortuum to be sure that Chirst dyed for me and to be ready to dye for him so that I may fulfill his sufferings and may think that all is not done which belongs to my Redemption except I finde a mortification in my selfe Not that any mortification of mine works any thing as a cause of my redemption but as an assurance and testimony of it 〈◊〉 sit pignus sigilluâ— redemptionis It is a pledge and it is a Seale of my redemption Christ calls his death a Baptisme So Saint Augustine calls our Baptisme a death Quod crux Christo Sepâ—lcrâ—m id nobis Baptisma Baptisme to us says he is our Croffe and our passion and our buriall that is in that we are conformed to Christ as he suffered dyed and was buried Because if we be so baptized into his Name and into his death we are thereby dead to sinne and have dyed the death of the righteous Since then Baptisme is the death of sinne and there cannot be this death this conquest this victory over sinne without faith there must necessarily faith concurre with this baptisme for if there be not faith none in the child none in the parents none in the sureties none in the Church then there is no baptisme performed Now in the Child there is none actually In the sureties we are not sure there is any for their infidelity cannot impeach the sacrament The child is well baptized though they should be misbeleevers for when the Minister shall aske them Doest thou beleeve in God dost thou renounce the Devill perchance they may ly in their owne behalfes perchance they doe not beleeve they doe not renounce but they speake truth in the behalfe of the child when they speake in the voyce of the Church who receives this child for her childe and binds her selfe to exhibit and reach out to that child her spirituall paps for her future nourishment thereof How comes it to passe says Saint Augustine that when a man presents another mans child at the font to be baptized if the Minister should aske him Shall this man child be a valiant man or a wise man shall this woman child be a chast and a continent woman the surety would answer I cannot tell and yet if he be ask'd of that child of so few dayes old Doth that child beleeve in God now will he renounce the Devill hereafter the surety answers confidently in his behalfe for the beleefe and for the renouncing How comes this to passe says Saint Augustine He answers to this that as Sacramentum Corporis Christi est secundum modum Corpus Christi so Sacramentum fidei est fides As the Sacrament of the body and bloud of Christ is in some sense and in a kinde the body and bloud of Christ says Augustine so in the sacrament of faith says he that is Baptisme there is some kinde of faith Here is a child borne of faithfull parents and there is the voyce of God who hath sealed a Covenant to them and their seed Here are sureties that live by Gods gratious spirit in the unity and in the bosome of the Church and so the parents present it to them they present it to the Church and the Church takes it into her care It is still the naturall child of her parents who begot it it is the spirituall child of the Sureties that present it but it is the Christian child of the Church who in the sacrament of Baptisme gives it a new inanimation and who if either parents or sureties should neglect their parts will have a care of it and breed it up to a perfection and full growth of that faith whereof it hath this day an inchoation and beginning As then we have said that Baptisme is a death a death of sinne and as we said before sinne dyes not without faith so also can there be no death of sinne without sorrow and contrition which onely washes away sinne as therefore we see the Church and Christs institution furnishes this child with faith which it hath not of it selfe so let us bring to this action that sorrow and that condoling that we produce into the world such miserable wretches as even by peccatum involuntarium by that sinne to which no act nay no will of theirs concurred that is Originall sinne are yet put into the state of damnation But let us also rejoyce in our owne and this childes behalfe that as we that have been baptized so this child that shall be have and shall put on Christ Jesus in Baptisme Both as a garment for Sacramenta sunt vestimenta As Christ is a garment so the Sacraments are Christs garment and as such a garment as Ornat militem and convincit desertores It gives him that continues in Gods battailes a dignity and discovers him that forsakes Gods tents to be a fugitive Baptisme is a garland in which two ends are brought together he begins aright and perseveres so Ornat militem It is an honour to him that fights out in Gods battaile but Convincit Desertorem Baptisme is our prest-money and if we forsake our colours after we have received that even that forfaits our lives our very having been baptized shall aggravate our condemnation Yea it is such a garment as those of the children of Israel in the wildernesse which are by some expositors thought to have growne all the forty yeares with their bodies for so by Gods blessed provision
found in all the Scriptures Tremellius hath mollifyed it in his translation there it is but Confodere to pierce And yet it is such a piercing such a sapping such an undermining such a demolishing of a fort of Castle as may justly remove us from any high valuation or any great confidence in that skinne and in that body upon which this Confoderint must fall But in the great Bible it is Contriverint Thy skinne and thy body shall be ground away trod away upon the ground Aske where that iron is that is ground off of a knife or axe Aske that marble that is worn off of the threshold in the Church-porch by continuall treading and with that iron and with that marble thou mayst finde thy Fathers skinne and body Contrita sunt The knife the marble the skinne the body are ground away trod away they are destroy'd who knows the revolutions of dust Dust upon the Kings high-way and dust upon the Kings grave are both or neither Dust Royall and may change places who knows the revolutions of dust Even in the dead body of Christ Jesus himself one dram of the decree of his Father one sheet one sentence of the prediction of the Prophets preserv'd his body from corruption and incineration more then all Iosephs new tombs and fine linnen and great proportion of spices could have done O who can expresse this inexpreffible mystery The foul of Christ Jesus which took no harm by him contracted no Originall sin in coming to him was guilty of no more sin when it went out then when it came from the breath and bosome of God yet this soul left this body in death And the Divinity the Godhead incomparably better then that soul which soul was incomparably better then all the Saints and Angels in heaven that Divinity that God-head did not forsake the body though it were dead If we might compare things infinite in themselves it was nothing so much that God did assume mans nature as that God did still cleave to that man then when he was no man in the separation of body and soul in the grave But full we from incomprehensible mysteries for there is mortification enough and mortification is vivification and aedification in this obvious consideration skinne and body beauty and substance must be destroy'd And Destroyed by wormes which is another descent in this humiliation and exâ—anition of man in death After my skinne wormes shall destroy this body I will not insist long upon this because it is not in the Originall In the Originall there is no mention of wormes But because in other places of Iob there is They shal lye down alike in the dust and the worms shall cover them The womb shal forget them and the worm shal feed sweetly on them because the word Destroying is presented in that form number Contriverint when they shall destroy they and no other persons no other creatures named both our later translations for indeed our first translation hath no mention of wormes and so very many others even Tremellâ—s that adheres most to the letter of the Hebrew have filled up this place with that addition Destroyed by worms It makes the destruction the more contemptible Thou that wouldest not admit the beames of the Sunne upon thy skinne and yet hast admitted the pollutions of sinne Thou that wouldst not admit the breath of the ayre upon thy skinne and yet hast admitted the spirit of lust and unchast solicitations to breath upon thee in execrable oathes and blasphemies to vicious purposes Thou whose body hath as farre as it can putrefyed and corrupted even the body of thy Saviour in an unworthy receiving thereof in this skinne in this body must be the food of worms the prey of destroying worms After a low birth thou mayst passe an honourable life after a sentence of an ignominious death thou mayst have an honourable end But in the grave canst thou make these worms silke worms They were bold and early worms that eat up Herod before he dyed They are bold and everlasting worms which after thy skinne and body is destroyed shall remain as long as God remains in an eternall gnawing of thy conscience long long after the destroying of skinne and body by bodily worms Thus farre then to the destroying of skinne and body by worms all men are equall Thus farre all 's Common law and no Prerogative so is it also in the next step too The Resurrection is common to all The prerogative lies not in the Rising but in the rising to the fruition of the sight of God in which consideration the first beam of comfort is the Postquam After all this destruction before by worms ruinous misery before but there is something else to be done upon me after God leaves no state without comfort God leaves some inhabitants of the earth under longer nights then others but none under an everlasting night and those whom he leaves under those long nights he recompenses with as long days after I were miserable if there were not an Antequam in my behalfe if before I had done well or ill actually in this world God had not wrapped me up in his good purpose upon me And I were miserable againe if there were not a Postquam in my behalfe If after my sinne had cast me into the grave there were not a lowd trumpet to call me up and a gracious countenance to looke upon me when I were risen Nay let my life have been as religious as the infirmities of this life can admit yet If in this life onely we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable For for the worldly things of this life first the children of God have them in the least proportions of any and besides that those children of God which have them in larger proportion do yet make the least use of them of any others because the children of the world are not so tender conscienced nor so much afraid lest those worldly things should become snares and occasions of tentation to them if they open themselves to a full enjoying thereof as the children of God are And therefore after my wanting of many worldly things after a penurious life and after my not daring to use those things that I have so freely as others doe after that holy and conscientious forbearing of those things that other men afford themselves after my leaving all these absolutely behind me here and my skin and body in destruction in the grace After all there remaines something else for me After but how long after That 's next When Christ was in the body of that flesh which we are in now sinne onely excepted he said in that state that he was in then Of that day and houre no man knoweth not the Angels not the Sonne Then in that state he excludes himselfe And when Christ was risen againe in an uncorruptible body he said even to his nearest followers Non est
their deliverance Venies usque ad Babylonem Ibi liberaberis To Babylon thou shalt come there I will deliver thee but not till then that is till you come to a holy sense of the miseries you are in and what hath brought you to them Though then you have suffred the calamities of all these Babylons in some proportions though you be not Incolae but Indigenae not naturalized but borne Babylonians Originall sinne makes you so yet since you are within the Covenant heare him that sayd to you in Abrahams ears Egredere de terrâ tuâ Get thee out of thy Country and from thy kindred unto the land I will shew thee Come out of Babylon to Jerusalem since ye are within his Adoption and may cry Abba father hear that voice Egredimini filiae Sion Come forth ye daughters of Sion come to Jerusalem Though ye be dead and buryed and putrefyed in this corrupted and corrupting flesh yet since he cries with a loud voice as it is said in that Text Lazare veni for as Lazarus come forth come forth of your Tombs in Babylon to this Jerusalem come from your troubled waters your waters of contention of anxiety of envy of solicitude and vexation for worldly encumbrances and come Ad aquas quietudinum to the waters of rest the application of the merits of Christ in a true Church Vinum non habetis have ye no wine to refresh your hearts no merits of your own to take comfort in Implete Hydrias aquâ fill all your vessels with water that water of life remorsefull teares perchance he will change your water into wine as he did in that place perchance he will give you abundance of temporall blessings perchance he will change that water into blood as in Egypt that is into persecutions into afflictions into Martyrdome for his sake for hee will accept our water for blood our tears of repentance and contrition for Martyrdome ut cum desit Martyrium sanguinis habeamus Martyrium aquae that we may be Martyrs in his sight and shed no blood Martyrs of a new die white Martyrs That our waters of sorrow for sinne may answer our Saviours tears over Lazarus and over Ierusalem and the sweat of our brows in a lawfull calling may answer our Saviours sweat of water and blood in his agony and that our reverent and profitable receiving of the Sacrament may answer the water and blood that issued from his side which represented omnia Sacramenta all the Sacraments That as we do we may still feed upon grace that is not troden and drink water that is not troubled with the feet of others or our own that we be never shaked in the sinceritie nor in the integritie of Religion with their power nor our own distempers of fears or hopes But that our meat may be to do the will of him that sent us and to finish his work Joh. 4. 2. SERMON XXVI Preached to the King at White-Hall the first Sunday in Lent ESAI 65. 20. For the child shall die a hundred years old But the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed PEace is in Sion Gods whole Quire is in tune Nay here is the musick of the Sphears all the Sphears all Churches all the Stars in those Sphears all Expositours in all Churches agree in the sense of these words and agree the words to be a Prophesie of the Distillation nay Inundation of the largenesse nay the infinitenesse of the blessings and benefits of Almighty God prepared and meditated before and presented and accomplisht now in the Christian Church The Sun was up betimes in the light of nature but then the Sun moved but in the winter Tropick short and cold dark and cloudy dayes A Diluculum and a Crepusculum a Dawning and a Twilight a little Traditionall knowledge for the past and a little Conjecturall knowledge for the future made up their day The Sunne was advanced higher to the Iewes in the Law But then the Sunne was but in Libra as much day as night There was as much Baptisme as Circumcision in that Sacrament and as much Lamb as Christ in that Sacrifice The Law was their Equinoctiall in which they might see both the Type and that which was figured in the Type But in the Christian Church the Sun is in a perpetuall Summer Solstice which are high degrees and yet there is a higher the Sun is in a perpetuall Meridian and Noon in that Summer solstice There is not onely a Surge Sol but a Siste Sol God hath brought the Sunne to the height and â—ixt the Sun in that height in the Christian Churchâ— where he in his own Sonne by his Spirit hath promised to dwell usque ad consummationem till the end of the world Here is Manna and not in Gomers but in Barns and Quails and not in Heaps but in Hills the waters above the Firmament and not in drops of Dew but in showers of former and latter Rain and the Land of Canaan not in Promise onely nor onely in performance and Possession but in Extention and Dilatation The Graces and blessings of God that is means of salvation are so aboundantly poured upon the Christian Church as that the triumphant Church if they needed means might fear they should want them And of these means and blessings long life as it is a Modell and abridgement of Eternity and a help to Eternitie is oneâ— and one in this Text The Childe shall die 100. yeares old But shall we receive good from God and not receive evill too shall I shed upon you Lumen visionis the light of that vision which God hath afforded me in this Prophecie the light of his countenance and his gracious blessings upon you and not lay upon you Onus visionis as the Prophetts speak often The burthen of that vision which I have seen in this Text too It was a scorn to David that his servants were half cloath'd The Samaritane woman beleeved that if she might see Christ he would tell her all things Christ promises of the Holy Ghost that he should lead them into all Truth And the Apostles discharge in his office was that he had spoken to them all Truth And therefore lest I should be defective in that integritie I say with Saint Augustine Non vos fallo non praesumo non vos fallo I will not be so bold with you as flatter you I will not presume so much upon your weaknesse as to go about to deceive you as though there were nothing but blessing in God but shew you the Commination and judgement of this Text too that though the childe should die a hundred years old yet the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed If God had not lengthened his childes life extended my dayes but taken me in the sinnes of my youth where had I been may every soul here say And where would you be too if no man should tell you that though The
childe should die a hundred years old yet the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed What can be certain in this world if even the mercy of God admit a variation what can be endlesse here if even the mercy of God receive a determination and sin doth vary the nature sin doth determine even the infinitenesse of the mercy of God himself for though The childe shall die a hundred yeares old yet the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed Disconsolate soul dejected spirit bruised and broken ground and trodden attenuated evaporated annihilated heart come back heare thy reprieve and sue for thy pardon God will not take thee away in thy sins thou shalt have time to repent The childe shall die a hundred years old But then lame and decrepit soul gray and inveterate sinner behold the full ears of corn blasted with a mildew behold this long day shutting up in such a night as shall never see light more the night of death in which the deadliest pang of thy Death will be thine Immortality In this especially shalt thou die that thou canst not die when thou art dead but must live dead for ever for The sinner being a hundred yeers old shall be accursed he shall be so for ever In this discovery from this Red Sea to this dead Sea from the mercy of God in the blood of his Son to the malediction of God in the blood of the sinner be pleased to make these the points of your Compasse and your Land-marks by the way in those the two parts of this exercise First in the first consider the precedencie and primogeniture of Mercy God begins at Mercy and not at Iudgement God's method here is not The sinner shall be accursed but The childe shall have long life but first the blessing and then the malediction And then secondly we shall see in what form the particular blessing is given here In long life The childe shall die a hundred years old And then also because we find it in the company of Mercies in the region of Mercies in this first part of the Text which is the Sphear of Mercy we shall look also how this very dying is a Mercy too The mercy is especially plac'd in the long life The childe shall live a hundred yeares but the Holy Ghost would not leave out that that he should die The childe shall die a hundred yeares old And in these three first the precedencie and primogeniture of God's mercy and then the specification of that mercy in long life and lastly the association of mercy that death as well as life is a blessing to the Righteous we shall determine that first part And in the second But the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed we shall see first that the malediction of God hath no object but a sinner God antidates no malediction Till there be a sinner there is no malediction nay not till there be an inveterate sinner A sinner of a hundred yeares at least such a sinner as would be so if God would spare him a hundred yeares here And upon such a sinner God thunders out this Prosternation this Consternation in this one word of our Text which involves and inwraps all kinds of miseries feeblenesse in body infatuation in mind evacuation of power dishonour in â—ame eclipses in favour ruine in fortune dejection in spirit He shall be accursed Where because in this second part we are in the Region and Sphear of maledictions we cannot consider this future He shall be as a future of favour a prorogation a deferring of the malediction He shall be is not he shall be hereafter but not yet but it is a future of continuation He shall be accursed that is he shall be so for ever And so have you the frame and partitions of this Bâ—thel this House of God in which he dwells which is both Iosuah's Beth-hagla the house of Joy and Iohn's Bethania his house of affliction too and we passe now to the furnishing of these roomes with such stuff as I can have laid together First in our first part we consider the precedency and primogeniture of Mercy It is a good thing to be descended of the eldest Brother To descend from God to depend upon God by his eldest Son the Son of his love the Sonne of his right hand Mercy and not to put God to his second way his sinister way his way of judgement David prophesies of God's exaltation of Solomon so Ponam in Primogenitum I will make him my first-born Though Solomon were not so God would make him so And in that Title the Wiseman makes his prayer for Israel Quem coaequasti Primogegenito whom thou hast nam'd thy first-born for so God had in Exod. Israel is my Sonne even my first-born and in Iob the fiercest terrour of death is exprest so Primogenitus mortis the first-born of Death shall devour his strength Still the exaltation the Superlative is called so The first-born And in such a sense if we could think of more degrees of goodnesse in God of an exaltation of God himself in God of more God in God of a Superlative in God we must necessarily turn upon his mercy for that Mercie must be the Superlative So is it too if we consider Gods first action or God's first thought towards Man Mercy was the first-born by every Mother by that Understanding by that Will by that Power which we conceive in God Mercy was the first-born and first-mover in all We consider a preventing Grace in God and that preventing Grace is before all for that prevents us so as to Visite us when we sit in darknesse And we consider an Antecedent-Will in God and that Antecedent Will is before all for by that Will God would have all men saved And when we call Gods Grace by other names then Preventing whether Assisting Grace that it stand by us and sustain us or Concomitant Grace that it work with us and inanimate our action when it is doing or his Subsequent Grace that rectifies or corrects an action when it is done when all is done still it is the Preventing Power and quality of that Grace that did all that in me If I stand by his Assisting Grace if I work with his Concomitant Grace if I rectifie my errour by his Subsequent Grace that that moves upon me in all these is still the preventing power of that Grace For as all my Naturall actions of life are done by the power of that Soul which was in me before so all the Supernaturall actions of that Soul are done by that power of that Grace that prevents and preinanimates that action and all my co-operation is but a post-operation a working by the Power of that All-preventing Grace I moved not at first by the Tide by the strength of naturall faculties nor do I move after by that windâ— which had formerly fill'd my sails I proceed not now by
prepared a Whale to transport Ionas before Ionas was cast into the Sea God prepared thee a holy Patience before he reduced thee to the exercise of that Patience If thou couldest apprehend nothing done for thy self yet all the mercies that God hath exhibited to others are former mercies to thee in the Pattern and in the Seal and in the Argument thereof They have had them therefore thou shalt All Gods Prophecies are thy Histories whatsoever he hath promised others he hath done in his purpose for thee And all Gods Histories are thy Prophesies all that he hath done for others he owes thee Hast thou a hardnesse of heart knowest thou not that Christ hath wept before to entender that hardnesse hast thou a palenesse of soul in the apparition of God in fire and in judgement knowest thou not that Christ hath bled before to give a vigour and a vegetation and a verdure to that palenesse is thy sinne Actuall sinne knowest thou not that there is a Lamb bleeding before upon the Altar to expiate that Is thy terrour from thy inherence and encombrance of Originall sinne knowest thou not that the effect of Baptism hath blunted the sting of that sinne before art thou full of sores putrid and ulcerous sores full of wounds through and through piercing wounds full of diseases namelesse and complicate diseases knowest thou not that there is a holy Charm a blessed Incantation by which thou art though not invulnerable yet invulnerable unto death wrapt up in the eternall Decree of thine Election that 's thy pillar the assurance of thine Election If thou shake that if thou cast down that Pillar if thou distrust thine Election with Samson who pulled down pillars in his blindnesse in thy blindnesse thou destroyest thy self Begin where thou wilt at any Act in thy self at any act in God yet there was mercy before that for his mercy is eternall eternall even towards thee I could easily think that that that past between God and Moses in their long conversation that that that past between Christ and Moses in his trans-figuration that that that past between Saint Paul and the Court of Heaven in his extasie was instruction and manifestation on one part and admiration and application on the other part of the mercy of God Earth cannot receive Heaven cannot give such another universall soul to all all persons all actions as Mercy And were I the childe of this Text that were to live a hundred years I would ask no other marrow to my bones no other wine to my heart no other light to mine eyes no other art to my understanding no other eloquence to my tongue then the power of apprehending for my self and the power of deriving and conveying upon others by my Ministery the Mercy the early Mercy the everlasting Mercy of yours and my God But we must passe to the consideration of this immense Light in that one Beam wherein it is exhibited here that is long life The childe shall die a hundred years old Long life is a blessing as it is an image of eternity as Kings are blessings because they are Images of God And as to speak properly a King that possest the whole earth hath no proportion at all to God he is not a dramme not a grain not an atome to God so neither if a thousand Methusalems were put in one life had that long life any proportion to eternity for Finite and Infinite have no proportion to one another But yet when we say so That the King is nothing to God we speak then between God and the King and we say that onely to assist the Kings Religious humiliation of himself in the presence of God But when we speak between the King and our selves his Subjects there we raise our selves to a just reverence of him by taking knowledge that he is the Image of God to us So though long life be nothing to eternity yet because we need such Glasses and such Images as God shews us himself in the King so he shewes us his eternitie in a long life In this that the Patriarchs complain every where of the shortnesse of life and neernesse of death Iacob at a hundred and thirtie yeares tells Pharaoh that his dayes were few In this that God threatens the shortnesse of life for a punishment to Eli God saies There shall not be an old man in thy house for ever In this that God brings it into Promise and enters it as into his Audite and his revenue With long life will I satisfie him and shew him my salvation That God would give him long life and make that long life a Type of Eternity In this that God continues that promise into performance and brings it to execution in some of his chosen servants at a hundred and twenty Moses his eyes were not dim nor his naturall force abated and Caleb saith of himself I am this day 85. yeares old and as my strength was at first for warre so is my strength now In all these and many others we receive so many testimonies that God brings long life out of his Treasurie as an immediate blessing of his And therefore as such his blessing let us pray for it where it is not come yet in that apprecation and acclamation of the antient generall Councells Multos annos Caesari Aeternâ—s annos Caesari Long life to our Cesar in this world everlasting life to our Cesar in the world to come and then let us reverence this blessing of long life where it is come in honouring those Ancient heads by whose name God hath been pleased to call himself Antiquuâ— dierum the ancient of dayes and let us not make this blessing of long life impossible to our selves by disappointing Gods purpose of long life upon us by our surfets our wantonnesse our quarrels which are all Goths and Vandals and Giants called in by our selves to fight with God against us But yet so receive we long life as a blessing as that we may also find a blessing in departing from this life For so manifold and so multiforn are his blessings as even death it self hath a place in this Sphear of blessings The childe shall live a hundred yeares but yet The childe shall die When Paradise should have extended as man should have multiplied and every holy family every religious Colony have constituted a new Paradise that as it was said of Egypt when it abounded with Hermitages in the Primitive persecutions That Egypt was a continuall City of Hermitages so all the world should have been a continuall Garden of Paradises when all affections should have been subjects and all creatures servants and all wives helpers then life was a sincere blessing But but a mixt blessing now when all these are so much vitiated onely a possible blessing a disputable a conditionable a circumstantiall blessing now If there were any other way to be saved and to get to Heaven then by being born
into this life I would not wish to have come into this world And now that God hath made this life a Bridge to Heaven it is but a giddy and a vertiginous thing to stand long gazing upon so narrow a bridge and over so deep and roaring waters and desperate whirlpools as this world abounds with So teach us to number our dayes saith David that we may apply our hearts unto wisedome Not to number them so as that we place our happinesse in the increase of their number What is this wisedome he tells us there He asked life of thee and thou gavest it him But was that this life It was Length of dayes for ever and ever the dayes of Heaven As houses that stand in two Shires trouble the execution of Justice the house of death that stands in two worlds may trouble a good mans resolution As death is a sordid Postern by which I must be thrown out of this world I would decline it But as death is the gate by which I must enter into Heaven would I never come to it certainly now now that Sinne hath made life so miserable if God should deny us death he multiplied our misery We are in this Text upon blessings appropriated to the Christian Church and so to these times And in theseTimes we have not so long life as the Patriarchs had before They were to multiply children for replenishing the world and to that purpose had long life We multiply sinnes and the children and off-spring of sinnes miseries and therefore may be glad to get from this generation of Vipers God gave his Children Manna and Quails in the Wildernesse where nothing else was to be had but when they came to the Land of Promise that Provision ceas'd God gave them long life in the times of Nature and long though shorter then before in the times of the Law because in nature especially but in the Law also it was hard to discern hard to attain the wayes to Heaven But the wayes to Heaven are made so manifest to us in the Gospel as that for that use we need not long life and that is all the use of our life here He that is ready for Heaven hath lived to a blessed age and to such an intendment a childe newly baptized may be elder then his Grandfather Therefore we receive long life for a blessing when God is pleased to give it though Christ entered it into no Petition of his Prayer that God would give it and so though we enter it into no Petition nor Prayer we receive it as a blessing too when God will afford us a deliverance a manumission an emancipation from the miseries of this life Truely I would not change that joy and consolation which I proposed to my hopes upon my Death-bed at my passage out of this world for all the joy that I have had in this world over again And so very a part of the Joy of Heaven is a joyfull transmigration from hence as that if there were no more reward no more recompence but that I would put my self to all that belongs to the duty of an honest Christian in the world onely for a joyfull a cheerfull passage out of it And farther we shall not exercise your patience or your devotion upon these three pieces which constitute our first part The Primogeniture of Gods Mercy which is first in all The specification of Gods Mercy long Life as it is a figure of and a way to eternity and then the association of Gods Mercy that Death as well as Life is a blessing to the Righteous So then we have brought our Sunne to his Meridianall height to a full Noon in which all shadows are removed for even the shadow of death death it self is a blessing and in the number of his Mercies But the Afternoon shadows break out upon us in our second part of the Text. And as afternoon shadowes do these in our Text do also they grow greater and greater upon us till they end in night in everlasting night The sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed Now of shadowes it is appliably said Vmbrae non sunt tenebrae sed densior lux shadowes are not utter darknesse but a thicker light shadowes are thus much nearer to the nature of light then darknesse is that shadowes presume light which darknesse doth not shadowes could not be except there were light The first shadowes in this dark part of our Text have thus much light in them that it is but the sinner onely the sinner that is accursed The Object of Gods malediction is not man but sinfull man If God make a man sinne God curses the man but if sinne make God curse God curses but the sinne Non talem Deum tuum putes qualis nec tu debes esse Never propose to thy self such a God as thou wert not bound to imitate Thou mistakest God if thou make him to be any such thing or make him to do any such thing as thou in thy proportion shouldst not be or shouldst not do And shouldst thou curse any man that had never offended never transgrest never trespast thee Can God have done so Imagine God as the Poet saith Ludere in humanis to play but a game at Chesse with this world to sport himself with making little things great and great things nothing Imagine God to be but at play with us but a gamester yet will a gamester curse before he be in danger of losing any thing Will God curse man before man have sinned In the Law there are denuntiations of curses enjoyned and multiplied There is maledictus upon maledictus but it is maledictus homo cursed be the man He was not curst by God before he was a man nor curst by God because he was a man but if that man commit Idolatry Adultery Incest Beastiality Bribery Calumny as the sinnes are reckoned there there he meets a particular curse upon his particular sinne The book of Life is but names written in Heaven all the Book of Death that is is but that in the Prophet when names are written in the Earth But whose names are written in the Earth there They that depart from thee shall be written in the Earth They shall be when they depart from thee For saith he They have forsaken the Lord the Fountain of Living water They did not that because their names were written in the Earth but they were written there because they did that Our Saviour Christ came hither to do all his Fathers will and he returned cheerfully to his Father again as though he had done all when he had taken away the sinnes of the world by dying for all sinnes and all sinners But if there were an Hospitall of miserable men that lay under the reprobation and malediction of Gods decree and not for sinne the blood of that Lamb is not sprinkled upon the Postills of that doore Forgive me O Lord O Lord forgive
what ground he sayes or does or suffers that which he suffers and does and sayes Howsoever he pretend the honour of God in his testimony yet if the thing be materially false false in it self though true in his opinion or formally false true in it self but not known to be so to him that testifies it both ways he is an incompetent witnesse And this takes away the honour of having been witnesses for Christ and the consolation and style of Martyrs both from them who upon such evidence as can give no assurance that is traedi tions of men have grounded their faith in God and from them who take their light in corners and conventicles and not from the City set upon the top of a hill the Church of God Those Roman Priests who have given their lives those Separatists which have taken a voluntary banishment are not competent witnesses for the glory of God for a witnesse must know and qui testatur de scientia testetur de modo scientiae sayes the Law He that will prove any thing by his knowledge must prove how he came by that knowledge The Papist hath not the knowledge of his Doctrine from any Scripture the Separatist hath not the knowledge of his Discipline from any precedent any example in the primitive Church How farre then is that wretched and sinfull man from giving any testimony or glory to Christ in his life who never comes to the knowledge and consideration why he was sent into this life who is so farre from doing his errand that he knowes not what his errand was not whether he received any errand or no. But as though that God who for infinite millions of ages delighted himself in himself and was sufficient in himself and yet at last did bestow six dayes labour for the creation and provision of man as though that God who when man was sowr'd in the lumpe poysoned in the fountaine withered in the roote in the loins of Adam would then ingage his Sonne his beloved Sonne his onely Sonne to be man by a temporary life and to be no man by a violent and a shamefull death as though that God who when he was pleased to come to a creation might have left out thee amongst privations amongst nothings or might have shut thee up in the close prison of a bare being and no more as he hath done earth and stones or if he would have given thee life might have left thee a Toad or if he would have given thee a humane soule might have left thee a heathen without any knowledge of God or if he had afforded thee a Religion might have left thee a Iew or though he had made thee a Christian might have left thee a Papist as though that God that hath done so much more in breeding thee in his true Church had done all this for nothing thou passest thorough this world like a flash like a lightning whose beginning or end no body knowes like an Ignis fatuus in the aire which does not onely not give light for any use but not so much as portend or signifie any thing and thou passest out of the world as thy hand passes out of a basin of water which may bee somewhat the fouler for thy washing in it but retaines no other impression of thy having been there and so does the world for thy life in it When God placed Adam in the world he bad him fill it and subdue it and rule it and when he placed him in paradise he bad him dresse and keepe paradise and when he sent his children into the over-flowing Laud of promise he bad them fight and destroy the Idolaters to every body some task some errand for his glory And thou comest from him into this world as though he had said nothing unto thee but Go and do as you see cause Go and do as you see other men do Thou knowest not that is considerest not what thou wast sent to doe what thou shouldest have done but thou knowest much lesse what thou hast done The light of nature hath taught thee to hide thy sinnes from other men and thou hast been so diligent in that as that thou hast hid them from thy self and canst not finde them in thine owne conscience if at any time the Spirit of God would burne them up or the blood of Christ Jesus wash them out thou canst not finde them out so as that a Sermon or Sacrament can work upon them Perchance thou canst tell when was the first time or where was the first place that thou didst commit such or such a sinne but as a man can remember when he began to spell but not when he began to reade perfectly when he began to joyne his letters but not when he began to write perfectly so thou remembrest when thou wentest timorously and bashfully about sinne at first and now perchance art ashamed of that shamefastnesse and sorry thou beganst no sooner Poore bankrupt that hast sinned out thy soule so profusely so lavishly that thou darest not cast up thine accounts thou darest not aske thy selfe whether thou have any soule left how farre art thou from giving any testimony to Christ that darest not testifie to thy selfe nor heare thy conscience take knowledge of thy transgressions but haddest rather sleepe out thy daies or drinke out thy daies then leave one minute for compunction to lay hold on and doest not sinne alwaies for the love of that sinne but for feare of a holy sorrow if thou shouldest not fill up thy time with that sinne God cannot be mocked saith the Apostle nor God cannot be blinded He seeth all the way and at thy last gaspe he will make thee see too through the multiplying Glasse the Spectacle of Desperation Canst thou hope that that God that seeth this darke Earth through all the vaults and arches of the severall spheares of Heaven that seeth thy body through all thy stone walls and seeth thy soul through that which is darker then all those thy corrupt flesh canst thou hope that that God can be blinded with drawing a curtain between thy sinne and him when he is all eye canst thou hope to put out that eye with putting out a candle when he hath planted legions of Angels about thee canst thou hope that thou hast taken away all Intelligence if thou have corrupted or silenced or sent away a servant O bestow as much labour as thou hast done to finde corners for sin to finde out those sinnes in those corners where thou hast hid them As Princes giveâ— pardons by their own hands but send Judges to execute Justice come to him for mercy in the acknowledgement of thy sinnes and stay not till his Justice come to thee when he makes inquisition for blood and doe not think that if thou feel now at this presentâ— a little tendernesse in thy heart a little melting in thy bowels a little dew in thine eyes that if thou beest come to know that thou art a
proceedings by the benefit of those helps shall but aggravate our condemnation Alpha and Omega make up the Name of Christ and between Alpha and Omega are all the letters of the Alphabet included A Christian is made up of Alpha and Omega and all between He must begin well imbrace the true Church and live well according to the profession of that true Church and die well according to that former holy life and practise Truth in the beginning Zeale all the way and Constancie in the end make up a Christian. Otherwise for all this filiation children may be disinherited or submitted to such calamities as these which are interminated upon the children of Israel which constitute our second part They shall be without a King and without a Prince and without a Sacrifice and without an Ephod and without a Teraphim Disobedient children are not cast off but yet disobedience is not left uncorrected Be mercifull but mercifull so as your Father in Heaven is mercifull Be not so mercifull upon any private respect as to be thereby cruell to the publique And be Iust but just as your Father in Heaven is just Hate not the vice of a man so as thereby to hate the man himself God hath promised to be an enemy to our enemies an adversary to our adversaries but God is no irreconciliable enemy no implacable no inexorable Adversary For that hatred which David calls Odium perfectum I have hated them with a perfect hatred is not onely a vehement hatred but as Saint Hilary calls it Odium religiosum a hatred that may consist with religion That I hate not another man for his religion so as that I lose all religion in my self by such a hating of him And Saint Augustine calls it Odium Charitativum a hate that may consist with Charitie that I hate no man for his peremptory uncharitablenesse towards my religion so as to lose mine own Charity for I am come to one point of his religion if I come to be as uncharitable as he God and Kings are at a near distance All gods Magistrates and inferiour persons are at a near distance all dust As God proceeds with a King with Iehosaphat in that temper that moderation Shouldst thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord So men with men Magistrates with inferiour men learned men with ignorant men should proceed with Saint Pauls moderation If any man obey not but be refractary unconformable note that man saith the Apostle and have no company with him but yet count him not as an enemy The union of the two Natures in Christ give us a faire example that Divinity and Humanity may consist together No Religion induces Inhumanity no Piety no Zeal destroyes nature and since there is a time to hate and a time to love then is love most seasonable when other civill contracts civill alliances civill concurrences have soupled and intenerated the dispositions of persons or nations formerly farther asunder to a better possibility to a fairer probability to a nearer propinquity of hearkning to one another That Christ might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Crosse having slain the enmity thereby Civill Offices may worke upon religions too and where that may follow That our mildnesse in civill things may prevail upon their obduration in religion there is the time to love But in cases where civill peace and religious foundations are both shaked that the State and the Church as they are both in one bottome so they are chased by one Pirate I hate not with a perfect hatred not perfect towards God except I declare and urge and presse home the truth of God against their errours in my Ministery nor perfect towards man except I advance in my place the execution of those Lawes against their practises without which they are inabled nay incouraged nay perswaded nay intreated to goe forward in those practises God himself proceeds against his own children so farre and dearer then those children were to God can no friends be to us no allies to any Prince That they should be without King without Prince without Sacrifice without Image without Ephod without Teraphim that is without Temporall without Ecclesiasticall Government First then we presume we presuppose and that necessarily every peece of this part of our Text to fall under the Commination they were threatned with the losse of every particular and therefore they were the worse for every particular losse Not the worse onely because they thought themselves the worse because they had fixed their love and their delight upon these things but because they were really the better for having them it was really a curse a Commination that they should lose them as well that they should lose their Ephod and their Image and their Teraphim as that they should lose their Sacrifices But first though that other fall also within the Commination that they should be without a setled form of Religion without Sacrifice and Ephod and the rest the first thing that the Commination falls upon is That they should be without a Civill form of government without King and without Prince For though our Religion prepare us to our Bene esse our well-being our everlasting happinesse yet it is the State the civill and peaceable government which preserves our very Esse our very Being and there cannot be a Bene esse without an Esse a well and a happy Being except there be first a Being established It is the State the Law that constitutes Families and Cities and Propriety and Magistracy and Jurisdiction The State the Law preserves and distingâ—â—shes not onely the Meum Tuum the Possessions of men but the Me Te the very persons of men The Law tels me not onely whose land I must call every Acre but whose son I must call every man Therefore God made the Body before the Soule Therefore there is in man a vegetative and a sensitive soule before an immortall and reasonable soule enter Therefore also in this place God proposes first the Civil State the temporall Government what it is to have a King and a Prince before he proposes the happinesse of a Church and a Religion not but that our Religion conduces to the greater happinesse but that our Religion cannot be conserved except the Civil State and temporall Government be conserved too The first thing then that the Commination fals upon is the losse of their Temporall State But the Commination doth not fall so fully upon the exclusion of all formes of Government as upon the exclusion of Monarchy It does not so expresly threaten an Anâ—â—chy that they should have no Government no Governours It is not sine Regimine but sine Rege If they had any they should not have the best They should be without a King Now if with S. Hierome and others that accompany him in that interpretation we take the Prophecy of this Text to be fulfilled
Jesus before whose face I stand now and before whose face I shall not be able to stand amongst the righteous at the last day if I lie now and make this Pulpit my Shop to vent sophisticate Wares In the presence of you a holy part I hope of the Militant Church of which I am In the presence of the whole Triumphant Church of which by him by whom I am that I am I hope to bee In the presence of the Head of the whole Church who is All in all I and I thinke I have the Spirit of God I am sure I have not resisted it in this point I and I may bee allowed to know something in Civill affaires I am sure I have not been stupefied in this point doe deliver that which upon the truth of a Morall man and a Christian man and a Church man beleeve to be true That hee who is the Breath of our nostrils is in his heart as farre from submitting us to that Idolatry and superstition which did heretofore oppresse us as his immediate Predecessor whose memory is justly precious to you was Their wayes may bee divers and yet their end the same that is The glory of God And to a higher Comparison then to her I know not how to carry it As then the Breath of our nostrils our breath is his that is our speech first in containing it not to speak in his diminution then in uttering it amongst men to interpret fairly and loially his proceedings and then in uttering it to God in such prayers for the continuing thereof as imply a thankfull acknowledgement of the present blessings spirituall and temporall which we enjoy now by him So farre Breath is speech but Breath is life too and so our life is his How willingly his Subjects would give their lives for him I make no doubt but hee doubts not This is argument enough for their propensenesse and readinesse to give their lives for his honour or for the possessions of his children That though not contra voluntatem not against his will yet Praeter voluntatem without any Declaration of his will or pleasure by any Command they have been as ready voluntarily as if a Presse had commanded them But these ways which his wisdome hath chosen for the procuring of peace have kept off much occasion of triall of that how willingly his Subjects would have given their lives for him Yet their lives are his who is the breath of their nostrils And therefore though they doe not leave them for him let them lead them for him though they bee not called to die for him let them live so as that may bee for him to live peaceably to live honestly to live industriously is to live for him for the sinnes of the people endanger the Prince as much as his owne When that shall bee required at your hand then die for him In the meane time live for him live so as your living doe not kindle Gods anger against him and that is a good Confession and acknowledgement That hee is the breath of your nostrils That your life is his As then the breath of our nostrils is expressed by this word in this Text Ruach spiritus speech and life so it is his When the breath of life was first breathed into man there is called by another word Neshamah and that is the soule the immortall soule And is the King the breath of that life Is hee the soule of his Subjects so as that their soules are his so as that they must sinne towards men in doing unjust actions or sinne towards God in forsaking and dishonouring him if the King will have them If I had the honour to aske this question in his royall presence I know he would bee the first man that would say No No your souls are not mine so And as hee is a most perfect Text-man in the Booke of God and by the way I should not easily feare his being a Papist that is a good Text-man I know hee would cite Daniel saying Though our God doe not deliver us yet know O King that we will not worship thy Gods And I know hee would cite S. Peter We ought to obey God rather then men And he would cite Christ himself Feare not them for the soule that cannot hurt the soule He claimes not your souls so It is Ruach here it is not Neshamah your life is his your soule is not his in that sense But yet beloved these two words are promiscuously used in the Scriptures Ruach is often the soule Neshamah is often the temporall life And thus farre the one as well as the other is the Kings That hee must answer for your soules so they are his for hee is not a King of bodies but a King of men bodies and soules nor a King of men onely but of Christian men so your Religion so your soules are his his that is appertaining to his care and his account And therefore though you owe no obedience to any power under heaven so as to decline you from the true God or the true worship of that God and the fundamentall things thereof yet in those things which are in their nature but circumstantiall and may therefore according to times and places and persons admit alterations in those things though they bee things appertaining to Religion submit your selves to his directions for here the two words meet Ruach and Neshamah your lives are his and your souls are his too His end being to advance Gods truth he is to be trusted much in matters of indifferent nature by the way He is the word of our Text Spiritus as Spiritus is the Holy Ghost so farre by accommodation as that he is Gods instrument to convey blessings upon us and as spiritus is our breath of speech and as it is our life and as it is our soule too so farre as that in those temporall things which concern spirituall as Times of meeting and much of the manner of proceeding when we are met we are to receive directions from him So he is the breath of our nostrils our speech our lives our soules in that limited sense are his But then did those subjects of his And I charge none but his subjects with this plot for I judge not them who are without from whom God deliverd us this day did they think so of him That he was the breath of our nostrils If the breath be soure if it bee tainted and corrupt as they would needs thinke in this case is it good Physick for an ill breath to cut off the head or to suffocate it to smother to strangle to murder that man Hee is the breath of their nostrils They owe him their speech their thanks their prayers and how have these children of fooles made him their song and their by-word How have these Drunkards men drunke with the Babylonian Cup made Libels against him How have those Seminatores verborum word-scatterers defamed him even with
invested in the light of joy and my body in the light of glory How glorious is God as he looks down upon us through the Sunne How glorious in that glasse of his How glorious is God as he looks out amongst us through the king How glorious in that Image of his How glorious is God as he calls up our eyes to him in the beauty and splendor and service of the Church How glorious in that spoufe of his But how glorious shall I conceive this light to be cum sub loco viderim when I shall see it in his owne place In that Spheare which though a Spheare is a Center too In that place which though a place is all and every where I shall see it in the face of that God who is all face all manifestration all all Innotescence to me for facies Deiest qua Deus nobis innotescit that 's Gods face to us by which God manifests himselfe to us I shall see this light in his face who is all face and yet all hand all application and communication and delivery of all himselfe to all his Saints This is Beatitudo in Auge blessednesse in the Meridionall height blessednesse in the South point in a perpetuall Sommer solstice beyond which nothing can be proposed to see God so Then There And yet the farmers of heaven and hell the merchants of soules the Romane Church make this blessednesse but an under degree but a kinde of apprentiship after they have beatified declared a man to be blessed in the fruition of God in heaven if that man in that inferiour state doe good service to that Church that they see much profit will rise by the devotion and concurrence of men to the worship of that person then they will proceed to a Canonization and so he that in his Novitiat and years of probation was but blessed Ignatius and blessed Xavier is lately become Saint Xavier aud Saint Ignatius And so they pervert the right order and method which is first to come to Sanctification and then to Beatification first to holinesse and then to blessednesse And in this method our blessed God bee pleased to proceed with us by the operation of his holy Spirit to bring us to Sanctification here and by the merits and intercession of his glorious Sonne to Beatification hereafter That so not being offended in him but resting in those meanes and seales of reconciliation which thou hast instituted in thy Church wee may have life and life more abundantly life of grace here and life of glory there in that kingdome which thy Sonne our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud Amen SERMON XLV Preached at Saint Dunstans Aprill 11. 1624. The first sermon in that Church as Vicar thereof DEUT. 25. 5. If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no Childe the Wife of the dead shall not mary without unto a stranger her husbands brother shall goe in unto her and take her to him to wife and performe the duty of an husbands brother unto her FRom the beginning God intimated a detestation a dislike of singularity of beeing Alone The first time that God himselfe is named in the Bible in the first verse of Genesis hee is named plurally Creavit Dit Gods Gods in the plurall Created Heaven and Earth God which is but one would not appeare nor bee presented so alone but that hee would also manifest more persons As the Creator was not Singular so neither were the creatures First he created heaven and earth both together which were to be the generall parents and out of which were to bee produced all other creatures and then he made all those other creatures plurally too Male and female created hee them And when he came to make him for whose sake next to his own glory he made the whole world Adam he left not Adam alone but joyned an Eve to him Now when they were maried we know but wee know not when they were divorced we heare when Eve was made but not when shee dyed The husbands death is recorded at last the wives is not at all So much detestation hath God himselfe and so little memory would hee have kept of any singularity of being alone The union of Christ to the whole Church is not expressed by any metaphore by any figure so oft in the Scripture as by this of Mariageâ— and there is in that union with Christ to the whole Church neither husband nor wife can ever die Christ is immortall as hee is himselfe and immortall as hee is the head of the Church the Husband of that wife for that wife the Church is immortall too for as a Prince is the same Prince when he fights a battaile and when hee triumphs after the victory so the militant and the triumphant Church is the same Church There can bee no widower There can bee no Dowager in that case Hee cannot shee cannot die But then this Metaphore this spirituall Mariage holds not onely betweene Christ and the whole Church in which case thee can be no Widow but in the union between Christs particular Ministers and particular Churches and there in that case the husband of that wife may die The present Minister may die and so that Church be a Widow And in that case and for provision of such Widows wee consider the accommodation of this Law If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no childe the wife of the dead shall not mary without unto a stranger c. This law was but a permissive law rather a dispensation then a law as the permitting of usury to bee taken of strangers and the permitting of divorces in so many cases were At most it was but a Iudiciall law and therefore layes no obligation upon any other nation then them to whom it was given the Iews And therefore wee enquire not the reasons of that law the reasons were determined in that people wee examine not the conveniences of the law the conveniences were determined in those times wee lay hold onely upon the Typique signification and appliablenesse of the law as that secular Mariage there spoken of may be appliable to this spirituall Mariage the Mariage of the Minister to the Church If brethren dwell together c. From these words then wee shall make our approaches and application to the present occasion by these steps First there is a mariage in the case The taking and leaving of a Church is not an indifferent an arbitrary thing It is a Mariage and Mariage implies Honour It is an honourable estate and that implies charge it is a burdensome state There is Honos and Onus Honour and labour in Mariage You must bee content to afford the honour wee must bee content to endure the labour And so in that point as our Incumbencie upon a Church is our Mariage to that Church wee shall as farre as the occasion admits see