against the holy Ghost for this is the nearest step thou hast made to it to think that thou hast done it walke in that large field of the Scriptures of God and from the first flower at thy entrance the flower of Paradise Semen mulieris the generall promise of the seed of the woman should bruise the Serpents head to the last word of that Messias upon the Crosse Consummatum est that all that was promised for us is now performed and from the first to the last thou shalt find the savour of life unto life in all those flowers walke over the same alley againe and consider the first man Adam in the beginning who involv'd thee in originall sinne and the thiefe upon the Crosse who had continued in actuall sinnes all his life and sealed all with the sinne of reviling Christ himselfe a little before his expiration and yet he recovered Paradise and Paradise that day and see if thou canst make any shift to exclude thy selfe receive the fragrancy of all these Cordialls Vivit Dominâ—â— as the Lord liveth I would not the death of a sinner Quandocunque At what time soever a sinner repenteth and of this text Neminem judieat Christ judgeth no man to destruction here and if thou find after all these Antidotes a suspitious ayre a suspicious working in that Impossibiâ—e est that it is impossible for them who were once inlightened if they fall away to renew them againe by repentance sprinkle upon that worme wood of Impossibile est that Manna of Quorum remiseritis whose sinnes yee remit are remitted and then it will have another tast to thee and thon wilt see that that impossibility lies upon them onely who are utterly fallen away into an absolute Apostasie and infidelity that make a mocke of Christ and crucifie him againe as it is expressed there who undervalue and despise the Church of God those means which Christ Jesus hath instituted in his Church for renewing such as are fallen To such it is impossible because there are no other ordinary meanes possible but that 's not thy case thy case is onely a doubt that those meanes that are shaâ—â— not be applied to thee and even that is a slippery state to doubt of the mercy of God to thee in particular this goes so neare making thy sinne greater then Gods mercy as that it makes thy sinne greater then daily adulteries daily murthers daily blasphemies daily prophanings of the Sabbath could have done and though thou canst never make that true in this life that thy sinnes are greater then God can forgive yet this is a way to make them greater then God will forgive Now to collect both our Exercises and to connexe both Texts Christ judgeth all men and Christ judgeth no man he claimes all judgment and he disavows all judgement and they consist well together he was at our creation but that was not his first sense the Arians who say Erat quando non erat there was a time when Christ was not intimating that he had a beginning and therefore was a creature yet they will allow that he was created before the generall creation and so assisted at ours but he was infinite generations before that in the bosome of his Father at our election and there in him was executed the first judgment of separating those who were his the elect from the reprobate and then he knows who are his by that first Judgment And so comes to his second Judgment to seale all those in the visible Church with the outward mark of his baptisme and the inward marke of his Spirit and those whom he calls so he justifies and sanctifies and brings them to his third Judgment to an established and perpetuall glory And so all Judgment is his But then to judge out of humane affections and passions by detraction and calumny as they did to whom he spoke at this time so he judges no man so he denies judgment To usurpe upon the jurisdiction of others or to exercise any other judgment then was his commission as his pretended Vicar doth so he judges no man so he disavows all judgment To judge so as that our condemnation should be irremediable in this life so he judges no man so he forswears all judgment As I live saith the Lord of hosts and as I have died saith the Lord Jesus so I judge none Acknowledge his first Judgment thy election in him Christ his second Judgment thy justification by him breath and pant after his third Judgement thy Crown of glory for him intrude not upon the right of other men which is the first defame not calumniate not other men which is the second lay not the name of reprobate in this life upon any man which is the third Judgement that Christ disavows here and then thou shalt have well understood and well practised both these texts The Father hath committed all Iudgment to the Sonne and yet The Sonne judges no man SERMON XIIII Preached at Lincolns Inne JOB 19. 26. And though after my skin wormes destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God AMongst those Articles in which our Church hath explain'd and declar'd her faith this is the eight Article that the three Creeds that of the councell of Nice that of Athanasius and that which is commonly known by the name of the Apostles Creed ought throughly to be received and embrac'd The meaning of the Church is not that onely that should be beleev'd in which those three Creeds agree for the Nicen Creed mentions no Article after that of the holy Ghost not the Catholique Church not the Communion of Saints not the Resurrection of the flesh Athanasius his Creed does mention the Resurrection but not the Catholique Church nor the communion of Saints but that all should be beleev'd which is in any of them all which is summ'd up in the Apostles Creed Now the reason expressed in that Article of our Church why all this is to be beleeved is Because all this may be prov'd by most certaine warrants of holy Scriptures The Article does not insist upon particular places of Scripture not so much as point to them But they who have enlarged the Articles by way of explanation have done that And when they come to cite those places of Scripture which prove the Article of the Resurrection I observe that amongst those places they forbeare this text so that it may seem that in their opinion this Scripture doth not concerne the Resurrection It will not therefore be impertinent to make it a first part of this exercise whether this Scripture be to be understood of the Resurrection or no And then to make the particular handling of the words a second part In the first we shall see that the Iews always had and have still a persuasion of the Resurrection We shall look after by what light they saw that whether by the light of naturall reason And if not by that by what light given in other places
It was then his Deed and it was his gift it was his Deed of gift and it hath all the formalities and circumstances that belong to that for here is a seale in his blood and here is a delivering pregnantly implied in this word which is not onely Dedit he gave but Tradidit he delivered First Dedit he gave himselfe for us to his Father in that eternall Decree by which he was Agnus occisus ab origine mundi The Lamb slain from the beginning of the world And then Tradidit he delivered possession of himselfe to Death and to all humane infirmities when he took our Nature upon him and became one of us Yea this word implies a further operativenesse and working upon himself then all this for the word which the Apostle uses here for Christ giving of himselfe is the same word which the Evangelists use still for Iudas betraying of him so that Christ did not onely give himselfe to the will of the Father in the eternall Decree nor onely deliver himselfe to the power of death in his Incarnation but he offered he exhibited he exposed we may say he betrayed himselfe to his enemies and all this for worse enemies to the Iewes that Crucified him once for us that make finne our sport and so make the Crucifying of the Lord of life a Recreation It was a gift then free and absolute Hee keeps us not in fear of Resumption of ever taking himselfe from the Church again nay he hath left himself no power of Revocation I am with you sayes he to the end of the world To particular men he comes he knocks and he enters and he stays and hesups and yet for their unworthinesse goes away again but with the Church he is usque ad consummationem till the end It is a permanent gift Dedit and Dedit seipsum It was he that did it That which he did was to give and that which he gave was himselfe Now since the Holy Ghost that is the God of unity and peace hath told us at once that the satisfaction for our sins is Christ himselfe and hath told us no more Christ entirely Christ altogether let us not divide and mangle Christ or tear his Church in pieces by froward and frivolous difputations whether Christ gave his divinity for us or his humanity whether the divine Nature or the humane Nature redeemed us for neither his divinity nor his humanity is Ipse He himselfe and Dedit seipsum He gave himselfe Let us not subdivide him into lesse pieces then those God and Man and enquire contentiously whether he suffered in soul as well as in body the pains of Hâ—ll as well as the sting of Death the Holy-Ghost hath presented him unite and knit together For neither soul nor body was Ipse He himselfe and Dedit seipsum He gave himselfe let us least of all shred Christ Iesus into lesse scruples and atoms then these Soul and body and dispute whether consisting of both it were his active or his passive obedience that redeemed us whether it were his death and passion onely or his innocency and fulfilling of the Law too let us onely take Christ himselfe for onely that is said he gave himselfe It must be an Innocent person and this Innocent person must die for us seperate the Innocency and the Death and it is not Ipse it is not Christ himselfe and Dedit seipsum it was himselfe Let us abstain from all such curiosities which are all but forc'd dishes of hot brains and not sound meat that is from all perverse wranglings whether God or Man redeemed us and then whether this God and Man suffered in soule or in body and then whether this person consisting of soule and body redeemed us by his action or by his passion onely for as there are spirituall wickednesses so there are spirituall wantonnesses and unlawfull and dangerous dallyings with mysteries of Divinity Money that is changed into small pieces is easily lost gold that is beat out into leaf-gold cannot be coyned nor made currant money we know the Heathens lost the true God in a thrust they made so many false gods of every particular quality and attribute of God that they scattered him and evacuated him to an utter vanishing so doth true and sound and nourishing Divinity vanish away in those impertinent Questions All that the wit of Man adds to the Word of God is all quicksilver and it evaporates easily Beloved Custodi Depositum sayes the Apostle keep that which God hath revealed to thee for that God himselfe cals thy Talent it hath weight and substance in it Depart not from thy old gold leave not thy Catechism-divinity for all the School-divinity in the world when we have all what would we have more if we know that Christ hath given himselfe for us that we are redeemed and not redeemed with corruptible things but with the precious blood of Christ Jesus we care for no other knowledge but that Christ and Christ crucified for us for this is another and a more peculiar and profitable giving of himselfe for thee when he gives himselfe to thee that is when he gives thee a sense and apprehension and application of the gift to thy self that Christ hath given himselfe to thy selfe We are come now to his exchange what Christ had for himselfe when he gave himselfe And he had a Church So this Apostle which in this place writes to the Ephesians when he preached personally to the Ephesians he told them so too The Church is that Quam acquisivit sanguine suo which he purchased with his bloud Here Christ bought a Church but I would there were no worse Simony then this Christ received no profit from the Church and yet he gave himselfe for it and he stayes with it to the end of the world Here is no such Non-residency as that the Church is left unserved other men give enough for their Church but they withraw themselves and necessary provision And if we consider this Church that Christ bought and paid so dearly for it was rather an Hospitall then a Church A place where the blind might recover sight that is Men borne in Paganisme or Superstition might see the true God truly worshipped and where the lame might be established that is those that Halted between two Religions might be rectified in the truth where the Deaf might receive so quicke a hearing as that they might discerne Musique in his Thunder in all his fearefull threatnings that is mercy in his Judgments which are still accompanied with conditions of repentance and they might finde Thunder in his Musique in all his promises that is threatnings of Judgements in our misuse of his mercies Where the hereditary Leper the new borne Child into whose marrow his fathers transgression cleaves in originall sinne and he that hath enwrapped Implicatos morbos one disease in another in Actuall sinnes might not onely come if he would but be intreated to come yea
compelled to come as it is expressed in the Gospell when the Master of the feast sends into the streets and to the hedges to compell blind and lame to come in to his feast A fountaine breaks out in the wildernesse but that fountaine cares not whether any Man come to fetch water or no A fresh and fit gale blowes upon the Sea but it cares not whether the Mariners hoise saile or no A rose blowes in your garden but it calls you not to smell to it Christ Jesus hath done all this abundantly he hath bought an Hospitall he hath stored it with the true balme of Palestine with his bloud which he shed there and he calls upon you all to come for it Hoe every one that thirsteth you that have no money come buy Wine and Milke without money eate that which is good and let your soules delight in fatnesse and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you even the sure mercies of David This Hospitall this way and meanes to cure spirituall diseases was all that Christ had for himselfe but he improved it he makes it a Church and a glorious Church which is our last consideration Quis sinis to what end he bestowed all this cost His end was that he might make it to himselfe a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle but that end must be in the end of all here it cannot be Cum tot a dicat ecclesia quamdiu hîc est Dimitte debita nostra non utique hîc est sine macula et ruga Since as yet the whole Church says forgive us our Trespasses the Church as yet is not without spots or wrinkles The wrinkles are the Testimonies of our age that is our sinne derived from Adam and the spots are the sinnes which we contract our selves and of these spots and wrinkles we cannot be delivered in this world And therefore the Apostle says here that Christ hath bestowed all this cost on this purchase ut sisteret sibi Ecclesiam that he might setle such a glorious and pure Church to himselfe first ut sisteret that he might setle it which can onely be done in heaven for here in Earth the Church will always have earthquakes Opartet haereses esse stormes and schismes must necessarily be the Church is in a warfare the Church is in a pilgrimage and therefore here is no setling And then he doth it ut sisteret sibi to setle it to himselfe for in the tyranny of Rome the Church was in some sort setled things were carried quietly enough for no Man durst complaine but the Church was setled all upon the Vicar and none upon the Parson the glory of the Bishop of Rome had eclipsed and extinguished the glory of Christ Iesus In other places we have seen the Church setled so as that no man hath done or spoken any thing against the government thereof but this may have been a setling by strong hand by severed discipline and heavy Lawes we see where Princes have changed the Religion the Church may be setled upon the Prince or setled upon the Prelates that is be serviceable to them and be ready to promote and further any purpose of theirs and all this while not be setled upon Christ this purpose ut sisteret sibi to setle such a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle holy to himselfe is reserved for the Triumphant time when she shall be in possession of that beauty which Christ foresaw in her long before when he said Thou art all faire my love and there is no spot in thee and when we that shall be the Children of the Mariage Chamber◠shall be glad and rejoice and give glory to him because the Mariage of the Lambe is come and his wife hath made her selfe ready that is we that are of that Church shall be so clothed as that our own clothes shall not defile us againe as Io◠complaines that they doe as long as we are in this world for though I make me never so cleane yet mine own clothes defile me againe as it is in that place But yet Beloved Christ hath not made so improvident a bargaine as to give so great a rate himselfe for a Church so farre in reversion as till the day of Judgement That he should enter into bonds for this payment from all eternity even in the eternall decree between the Father and him that he should really pay this price his precious bloud for this Church one thousand six hundred years agoe and he should receive no glory by this Church till the next world◠Here was a long lease here were many lives the lives of all the men in the world to be served before him But it is not altogether so for he gave himselfe that he might settle such a Church then a glorious and a pure Church but all this while the Church is building in heaven by continuall accesse of holy Soules which come thither and all the way he workes to that end He sanctifies it and cleanses it by the washing of water through the word as we find in our Text. He therefore stays not so long for our Sanctification but that we have meanes of being sanctified here Christ stays not so long for his glory but that he hath here a glorious Gospell his Word and mysterious Sacraments here Here then is the writing and the Seale the Word and the Sacrament and he hath given power and commandement to his Ministers to deliver both writing and Seale the Word and Baptisme to his children This Sacrament of Baptisme is the first It is the Sacrament of inchoation of Initiation The Sacrament of the Supper is not given but to them who are instructed and presum'd to understand all Christian duties and therefore the Word if we understand the Word for the Preaching of the Word may seeme more necessary at the administration of this Sacrament then at the other Some such thing seems to be intimated in the institution of the Sacraments In the institution of the Supper it is onely said Take and eate and drinke and doe that in remembrance of me and it is onely said that they sand a Pslame and s◠departed In the institution of Baptisme there is more solemnity more circumstance for first it was instituted after Christs Resurrection and then Christ proceeds to it with that majesticall preamble All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth◠and therefore upon that title he gives power to his Apostles to joine heaven and earth by preaching and by baptisme but here is more then singing of a Psalme for Christ commands them first to teach and then to baptize and then after the commandement of Baptisme he refreshes that commandement againe of teaching them whom they baptized to observe all things that he had commanded them I speake not this as though Baptisme were uneffectuall without a Sermon S. Angustines words Accedat yerbum fiat Sacramentum when the Word is
was come and gone for so much as belonged to the accomplishing of the types of the old law then Christ came againe to us by water and bloud in that wound which he received upon his side from which there flowed out miraculously true water true bloud This wound Saint Augustine calls Ianuam utriusque Sacramenti the doore of both sacraments where we see he acknowledges but two and both presented in this water and bloud and so certainely doe most of the fathers make this wound if not the foundation yet at least a sacrament of both the sacraments And to this water and bloud doth the Apostle here without doubt aime principally which he onely of all the Evangelists hath recorded and with so great asseveration and assurednesse in the recording thereof He that saw it bare record and his record is true and he knoweth that he saith truth that yee might beleeve it Here then is the matter which these six witnesses must be beleeved in here is Integritas Iesu quae non solvenda the intirenesse of Christ Jesus which must not be broken That a Saviour which is Iesus appointed to that office that is Christ figured in the law by ablutions of water and sacrifices of bloud is come and hath perfected all those figures in water and bloud too and then that he remaines still with us in water and bloud by meanes instituted in his Church to wash away our uncleannesses and to purge away our iniquities and to apply his worke unto our Soules this is Integritas Iesu Iesus the sonne of God in heaven Jesus the Redeemer of man upon earth Jesus the head of a Church to apply that to the end this is Integritas Iesu all that is to be beleeved of him Take thus much more that when thou comest to hearken what these witnesses shall say to this purpose thou must finde something in their testimony to prove him to be come not onely into the world but into thee He is a mighty prince and hath a great traine millions of ministring spirits attend him and the whole army of Martyrs follow the Lambe wheresoever he goes Though the whole world be his Court thy soule is his bedchamber there thou maist contract him there thou maist lodge and entertaine Integrum Iesum thy whole Saviour And never trouble thy selfe how another shall have him if thou have him all leave him and his Church to that make thou sure thine owne salvation When he comes to thee he comes by water and by bloud If thy heart and bowels have not yet melted in compassion of his passion for thy soule if thine eyes have not yet melted in tears of repentancâ— and contrition he is not yet come by water into thee If thou have suffered nothing for sinne nor found in thy selfe a chearfull disposition to suffer if thou have found no wresting in thy selfe no resistance of Concupiscences he that comes not to set peace but to kindle this war is not yet come into thee by bloud Christ can come by land by purchases by Revenues by temporall blessings for so he did still convey himselfe to the Jewes by the blessing of the land of promise but here he comes by water by his owne passion by his sacraments by thy tears Christ can come in a mariage and in Musique for so he delivers himselfe to the spouse in the Canticles but here he comes in bloud which comming in water and bloud that is in meanes for the salvation of our soules here in the militant Church is the comming that he stands upon and which includes all the Christian Religion and therefore he proves that comming to them by these three great witnesses in heaven and three in earth For there are three which beare record in heaven The Father the word and the holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three which bear record in the earth The spirit and the water and the bloud and these three agree in one By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be confirmed says Christ out of the law That 's as much as can be required in any Civill or Criminall businesse and yet Christ gives more testimony of himselfe for here he produces not Duos testes but Duas Classes two rankes of witnesses and the fullest number of each not two but three in heaven and three in earth And such witnesses upon earth as are omni exceptione majores without all exception It is not the testimony of earthly men for when Saint Paul produces them in abundance The Patriarch the Iudges the Prophets the elders of the old times of whom he exhibits an exact Catalogue yet he calls all them but Nubes testium cloudes of witnesses for though they be cloudes in Saint Chrysostomes sense that they invest us and enwrap us and so defend us from all diffidence in God we have their witnesse what God did for them why should we doubt of the like though they be cloudes in Athanasius sense they being in heaven showre downe by their prayers the dew of Gods grace upon the Church Though they be cloudes they are but cloudes some darkenesse mingled in them some controversies arising from them but his witnesses here are Lux inaccessibilis that light that no eye can attaine to and Pater Luminum the father of lights from whom all these testimonies are derived When God imployed a man to be the witnesse of Christ because men might doubt of his testimony God was content to assigne him his Compurgators when Iohn Baptist must preach that the kingdome of God was at hand God fortifies the testimony of his witnesse then Hic enim est for this is he of whom that is spoken by the prophet Esay and lest one were not enough he multiplies them as it is written in the prophets Iohn Baptist might be thought to testifie as a man and therefore men must testifie for him but these witnesses are of a higher nature these of heaven are the Trinity and those of earth are the sacraments and seales of the Church The prophets were full of favor with God Abraham full of faith Stephen full of the Holy Ghost many full of grace and Iohn Baptist a prophet and more then a prophet yet never any prophet never any man how much soever interessed in the favor of Almighty God was such an instrument of grace as a sacrament or as Gods seales and institutions in his Church and the least of these six witnesses is of that nature and therefore might be beleeved without more witnesses To speake then first of the three first the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost it was but a poore plot of the devill to goe about to rob us of their testimony for as long as we have the three last the spirit the water and bloud we have testimony enough of Christ because God is involved in his ordinance and though he be not tyed to the worke of the
gate into Heaven in thy selfe If thou beest not sensible of others mens poverties and distresses yet Miserere animae tuae have mercy on thine own soule thou hast a poor guest an Inmate a sojourner within these mudwals this corrupt body of thine be mercifull and compassionate to that Soule cloath that Soul which is stripp'd and left naked of all her originall righteousnesse feed that Soule which thou hast starv'd purge that Soule which thou hast infected warm and thaw that Soul which thou hast frozen with indevotion coole and quench that Soul which thou hast inflamed with licentiousness Miserere animae tuae begin with thine own Soule be charitable to thy self first and thou wilt remember that God hath made of one bloud all Mankind and thou wilt find out thy selfe in every other poor Man and thou wilt find Christ Jesus himselfe in them all Now of those divers gates which God opens in this life those divers exercises of charity the particular which we are occasion'd to speak of here is not the cloathing nor feeding of Christ but the housing of him The providing Christ a house a dwelling whether this were the very place where Solomons Temple was after built is perplexedly and perchance impertinently controverted by many but howsoever here was the house of God and here was the gate of Heaven It is true God may be devoutly worshipped any where In omni loco dominationis ejus benedic anima mea Domino In all places of his dominion my Soule shall praise the Lord sayes David It is not only a concurring of men a meeting of so many bodies that makes a Church If thy soule and body be met together an humble preparation of the mind and a reverent disposition of the body if thy knees be bent to the earth thy hands and eyes lifted up to heaven if thy tongue pray and praise and thine ears hearken to his answer if all thy senses and powers and faculties be met with one unanime purpose to worship thy God thou art to this intendment a Church thou art a Congregation here are two or three met together in his name and he is in the midst of them though thou be alone in thy chamber The Church of God should be built upon a Rock and yet Iob had his Church upon a Dunghill The bed is a scene and an embleme of wantonnesse and yet Hezekiah had his Church in his Bed The Church is to be placed upon the top of a Hill and yet the Prophet Ieremy had his Church in Luto in a miry Dungeon Constancy and setlednesse belongs to the Church and yet Ionah had his Church in the Whales belly The Lyon that roares and seeks whom he may devour is an enemy to this Church and yet Daniel had his Church in the Lions den Aquae quietudinum the waters of rest in the Psalme were a figure of the Church and yet the three children had their Church in the fiery furnace Liberty life appertaine to the Church and yet Peter Paul had their Church in prison and the thiefe had his Church upon the Crosse. Every particular man is himselfe Templum Spiritus sancti a Temple of the holy Ghost yea Solvite templum hoc destroy this body by death and corruption in the grave yet there shall be Festum encaeniorum a renuing a reedifying of all those Temples in the generall Resurrection when we shall rise againe not onely as so many Christians but as so many Christian Churches to glorifie the Apostle and High-priest of our profession Christ Jesus in that eternall Sabbath In omni loco domiâ—ationis ejus Every person every place is fit to glorifie God in God is not tyed to any place not by essence Implet continendo implet God fills every place and fills it by containing that place in himselfe but he is tyed by his promise to a manifestation of himselfe by working in some certain places Though God were long before he required or admitted a sumptuous Temple for Solomons Temple was not built in almost five hundred years after their returne out of Egypt though God were content to accept their worship and their sacrifices at the Tabernacle which was a transitory and moveable Temple yet at last he was so carefull of his house as that himselfe gave the modell and platforme of it and when it was built and after repaired again he was so jealous of appropriating and confining all his solemne worship to that particular place as that he permitted that long schisme and dissention between the Samaritans and the Iews onely about the place of the worship of God They differed not in other things but whether in Mount Sion or in Mount Garizim And the feast of the dedication of this Temple which was yearly celebrated received so much honor as that Christ himselfe vouchsafed to be personally present at that solemnity though it were a feast of the institution of the Church and not of God immediatly as their other festivalls were yet Christ forbore not to observe it upon that pretence that it was but the Church that had appointed it to be observed So that as in all times God had manifested and exhibited himselfe in some particular places more then other in the Pillar in the wildernesse and in the Tabernacle and in the poole which the Angell troubled so did Christ himselfe by his owne presence ceremoniously justifie and authorise this dedication of places consecrated to Gods outward worship not onely once but anniversarily by a yearly celebration thereof To descend from this great Temple at Jerusalem to which God had annexed his solemne and publique worship the lesser Synagogues and Chappell 's of the Iews in other places were ever esteemed great testimonies of the sanctity and piety of the founders for Christ accepts of that reason which was presented to him in the behalfe of the Centurion He is worthy that thou shouldst do this for him for he loveth our Nation And how hath he testified it He hath built us a Synagogue He was but a stranger to them and yet he furthered and advanced the service of God amongst them of whose body he was no member This was that Centurions commendation Et quanto commedatior qui adificat Ecclesiam How much more commendation deserve they that build a Church for Christian service And therefore the first Christians made so much haste to the expressing of their devotion that even in the Apostles time for all their poverty and persecution they were come to have Churches as most of the Fathers and some of our later Expositors understand these words Have ye not houses to eate and drinke or doe ye despise the Church of God to be spoken not of the Church as it is a Congregation but of the Church as it is a Material building Yea if we may beleeve some authors that are pretended to be very ancient there was one Church dedicated to the memory
there is but one place of this booke of Iob cited at all To the Corinthians the Apostle makes use of those words in Iob God taketh the wise in their owne craft And more then this one place is not I thinke cited out of this booke of Iob in the new Testament But the authority of Iob is established in another place you have heard of the patience of Iob and you have seen the end of the Lord says Saint Iames. As you have seen this so you have heard that seen and heard one way out of the Scripture you have hard that out of the booke of Iob you have seen this out of the Gospell And further then this there is no naming of Iobs person or his booke in the new Testament Saint Hierome confesses that both the Greeke and Latine Copies of this booke were so defective in his time that seven or eight hundred verses of the originall were wanting in the booke And for the originall it selfe he says Obliquus totus liber fertur lubricus it is an uncertaine and slippery book But this is onely for the sense of some places of the book And that made the authority of this book to be longer suspended in the Church and oftner called into question by particular men then any other book of the Bible But in those who have for many ages received this book for Canonicall there is an unanime acknowledgement at least tacitely that this peece of it this text When after my skin wormes shall destroy my body yet in my flesh I shall see God does establish the Resurrection Divide the expositors into three branches for so the world will needs divide them The first the Roman Church will call theirs though they have no other title to them but that they received the same translation that they doe And all they use this text for the resurrection Verba viri in gentilitate positi erubescamus It is a shame for us who have the word of God it selfe which Iob had not and have had such a commentary such an exposition upon al the former word of God as the reall and actuall and visible resurrection of Christ himselfe Erubescamus verba viri in gentilitate positi let us be ashamed and confounded if Iob a person that lived not within the light of the covenant saw the resurrection more clearly and professed it more constantly then we doe And as this Gregory of Rome so Gregory Nyssen understood Iob too For he considers Iobs case thus God promised Iob twofold of all that he had lost And in his sheep and camels and oxen and asses which were utterly destroyed and brought to nothing God performes it punctually he had all in a double proportion But Iob had seven sonnes and three daughters before and God gives him but seven sonnes and three daughters againe And yet Iob had twofold of these too for Postnati cum prioribus numerantur quia omnes deo vivunt Those which were gone and those which were new given lived all one life because they lived all in God Necquicquam aliud est mors nisi viti ositatis expiatio Death is nothing else but a devesting of those defects which made us lesse fit for God And therefore agreeably to this purpose says Saint Cyprian Scimus non amitti sed praemitti thy dead are not lost but lent Non recedere sed praecedere They are not gone into any other wombe then we shall follow them into nec acquirendae atrae vestes pro iis qui albis induuntur neither should we put on blacks for them that are clothed in white nor mourne for them that are entred into their Masters joy We can enlarge our selfes no farther in this consideration of the first branch of expositors but that all the ancients tooke occasion from this text to argue for the resurrection Take into your Consideration the other two branches of moderne expositors whom others sometimes contumeliously and themselves sometimes perversly have call'd Lutherans and Calvinists and you may know that in the first ranke Osiander and with him all his interpret these words so And in the other ranke Tremellius and Pellicanus heretofore Polanus lately and Piscator for the present All these and all the Translators into the vulgar tongues of all our neighbours of Europe do all establish the doctrine of the Resurrection by these words this place of Iob. And therefore though one and truly for any thing I know but one though one to whom we all owe much for the interpretation of the Scriptures do think that Iob intends no other resurrection in this place but that when he shall be reduc'd to the miserablest estate that can bee in this life still he will look upon God and trust in him for his restitution and reparation in this life let us with the whole Christian Church embrace and magnifie this Holy and Heroicall Spirit of Iob Scio says he I know it which is more in him then the Credo is in us more to know it then in that state then to believe it now after it hath been so evidently declar'd not onely to be a certain truth but to be an article of faith Scio Redemptorem says he I know not onely a Creator but a Redeemer And Redemptorem meum My Redeemer which implies a confidence and a personall application of that Redemption to himself Scio vivere says he I know that he lives I know that hee begunne not in his Incarnation I know he ended not in his death but it always was and is now and shall for ever be true Vivit that he lives still And then Scio venturum says he too I know hee shall stand at the last day to Judge me and all the world And after that and after my skinne and body is destroyed by worms yet in my flesh I shall see God And so have you as much as we proposed for our first part That the Jews do now that they always did believe a Resurrection That as naturall men and by naturall reason they might know it both in the possibility of the thing and in the purpose of God that they had better helpes then naturall reason for they had divers places of their Scripture and that this place of Scripture which is our text hath evermore been received for a proof of the Resurrection Proceed we now to those particulars which constitute our second part such instructions concerning the Resurrection as arise out of these words Though after my skinne worms destroy my body yet in my flesh I shall see God In this second part the first thing that was propos'd was That the Saints of God are not priviledg'd from this which fell upon Iob This Death this dissolution after death Upon the Morte morieris that double death interminated by God upon Adam there is a Non obstante Revertere turn to God and thou shalt not dy the death not the second
Verbum The word and his servants there talk of us here and pray to him for us They talked with him but of what They talked of hiâ— Decease says the text there which he should accomplish at Jerusalem all that they talked of was of his Passion All that we shall say and sing in heaven will be of his Passion accomplished at Jerusalem in that Hymn This Lamb hath redeemed as to God by his blood Worthy is the Lamb that was slaine to receive power and riches and wisdome and strength and honour and glory and blessing Amen Even our glory in heaven at last is not principally for our selves but to contribute to the glory of Christ Jesus If we inquire further then this into the state of our glorifyed bodies remember that in this reall Parable in this Type of the Resurrection the transfiguration of Christ it is said that even Beter himself wist not what to say and remember too That even Christ himself forbad them to say any thing at all of it till his Resurrection Till our Resurrection we cannot know clearly we should not speak boldly of the glory of the Saints of God nor of our blessed endowments in that state The summe of all is Fiducis Christianorum est resurrectio mortuorum My faith directs it self first upon that which Christ hath done he is dead he is risen and my hope directs it selfe upon that which shall bee done I shall rise again And yet says Luther Papa Cardinales primarii viri I know the Pope the Cardinals the Bishops are Iâ—genio doctrinâ ratione prudentiâ excellentes they abound in naturall parts in reading in experience in civill wisdome yet says he si tres sunt qui hunc â—â—ticulum indubitanter â—redunt If there be three amongst them that do faithfully and undoubtedly believe this article of the Resurrection of the body three are more then I look for amongst them Beloved as no things are liker one another then Court and Court the same ambitions the same underminings in one Court as in another so Church and Church is alike too All persecured Churches are religious all peaceable Churches are dissolute when Luther said that of the Church of Rome That few of them believed the Resurrection the Roman Church wall owed in all abundances and dissolutenesseâ— and scarce a man in respect opened his mouth against her otherwise then that the holy Ghost to make his continuall 〈◊〉 and to interrupt their prescription in every age raised up some to declare their impieties and usurpations But then when they bent all their thoughts entirely and prosperously upon possessing this world they thought they might spare the Resurrection well enough As hee that hath a plentifull fortune in Europe cares not much though there be no land of perfumes in the East nor of gold in the West-Indies God in our days hath given us and our Church the fat of the glory of this world too and we also neglect the other But when men of a different religion from them for they will needs call a differing from their errours a different Religion as though all their religion were errours for excepting errours we differ in no point when I say such men came to enquire into them to discover them and to induce or to attempt in divers parts of their government a reformation then they shut themselves up closer then they grew more carefull of their manners and did reform themselves somewhat though not thoroughly and are the better for that reformat on which was offered to them and wrought more effectually upon others As we say in the School that even the Devill is somewhat the better for the death of Christ so the Roman Church is somewhat the better for the Reformation Our assiduity of preaching hath brought them to another manner of frequency in preaching then before the Reformation they were accustomed to and our answers to their books have brought them to a more reserved manner of writing then they used before Let us therefore by their example make as good use of our enemies as our enemies have done of us For though we have no military enmity no hostility with any nation though we must all and doe out of a true sense of our duty to God pray ever for the continuance of peace amongst Christian Princes and to withhold the effusion of Christian blood yet to that intendment and in that capacity as they were our enemies in 88. when they provoked by their Excommunications dangerous invasions and in that capacity as they were our enemies in 603. when they bent their malice even against that place where the Laws for the maintenance of our religion were enacted so they are our enemies still if we be still of the same religion He that by Gods mercy to us leads us is as sure that the Pope is Antichrist now as he was then and we that are blessedly led by him are as sure that their doctrine is the doctrine of Devils now as we were then Let us therefore make use of those enemies and of their aery insolences and their frothy confidences as thereby to be the firmer in our selves and the carefuller of our children and servants that we send not for such a Physitian as brings a Roman Priest for his Apothecary nor entertain such a School-master as brings a Roman Priest for his Vsher nor such a Mercer as brings a Priest for his Tayler for in these shapes they have and will appear But in true faith to God true Allegiance to our Prince true obedience to the Church true dealing with all men make our selves sure of the Resurrection in the next life In carne incorruptibili in flesh that shall bee capable of no corruption by having that resurrection in this life in carne incorruptâ in devesting or correcting the corruptions which cleave to our flesh here that we bee not corrupted spiritually not disputed out of our Religion nor jeasted out nor threatened out nor bought out nor beat out of the truth of God nor corrupted carnally by the pleasures or profits of this world but that wee may conforme our selves to the purity of Christ Jesus in that measure which wee are able to attain to which is our spirituall Resurrection and constitutes our second part That Kingdome of God which flesh and blood may inherit in this life From the beginning we setled that That the primary purpose of the Apostle in these words was to establish the doctrine of the last Resurrection But in Tertullians exposition Arrabonem dedit arrabonem accepit That God hath left us the earnest of his Spirit upon earth and hath taken the earnest of our flesh into heaven it grew indifferent of which Resurrection spirituall or bodily first or last it be accepted but take Tertullian in another place upon the verse immediately preceding our Text Sicut portavimus portemus for so Tertullian reads that place and so does the Vulgate As we
ancestors which was a licentious kind of Carnavall If any amongst us have fallen into that disease to cast stones or dirt at his friends it is an infection from his own distemper not from our doctrine for if any man list to be contentious we have no such custome neither the Church of God We departed not from them then till it was come to a hot plague in a necessity of professing old opinions to be new articles of Faith not till we were driven by them and drawn by the voice of God in the learnedest men of all nations when they could not discharge themselves by the distinction of the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome because if the abuses had been but in the Court it was the greatest abuse of all for that Church which is so much above that Court not to mend it Nor can they require Miracles at our hands who doe none themselves and yet need them because they induce new articles of Religion neither can they reproach to us our Dissentions amongst our selves because they are neither in so fundamentall points nor pursued with so much uncharitablenesse as theirs So we justifie our secession from them but all this justifies in no part the secession of those distempered men who have separated themselves from us which is our next and our last consideration When the Apostle says study to be quiet 1 Thes. 4. 11. me thinks he intimates something towards this that the lesse we study for our Sermons the more danger is there to disquiet the auditory extemporall unpremeditated Sermons that serve the popular care vent for the most part doctrines that disquiet the Church Study for them and they will be quiet consider ancient and fundamentall doctrines and this will quiet and settle the understanding and the Conscience Many of these extemporall men have gone away from us and vainly said that they have as good cause to separate from us as we from Rome But can they call our Church a Babylon Confusion disorder All that offends them is that we have too much order too much regularity too much binding to the orderly and uniforme service of God in Church It affects all the body when any member is cut off Cum dolore amputatur etiam quae putruit pars corporis and they cut off themselves and feel it not when we lose but a mysticall limbe and they lose a spirituall life we feel it and they doe not When that is pronounced sit tibi sicut ethnicus if he hear not the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen gravius est quà m si gladio feriretur flammis absumeretur feris subigeretur it is a heavier sentence then to be beheaded to be burnt or devoured with wild beasts and yet these men before any such sentence pronounced by us excommunicate themselves Of all distempers Calvin falls oftenest upon the reproof of that which he calls Morositatem a certain peevish frowardnesse which as he calls in one place deterrimam pestem the most infectious pestilence that can fall upon a man so in another he gives the reason why it is so semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa that this peevish frowardnesse is always accompanied with a pride and a singularity and an ambition to have his opinions preferred before all other men and to condemn all that differ from him A civill man will depart with his opinion at a Table at a Councell table rather then hold up an argument to the vexation of the Company so will a peaceable man doe in the Church in questions that are not fundamentall That reverend man whom we mentioned before who did so much in the establishing of Geneva professes that it was his own opinion that the Sacrament might be administred in prisons and in private houses but because he found the Church of Geneva of another opinion and another practise before he came he applied himself to them and departed in practise from his own opinion even in so important a point as the ministration of the Sacrament Which I present to consideration the rather both because thereby it appears that greater matters then are now thought fundamentall were then thought but indifferent and arbitrary for surely if Calvin had thought this a fundamentall thing he would never have suffered any custome to have prevailed against his conscience and also because divers of those men who trouble the Church now about things of lesse importance and this of private Sacraments in particular will needs make themselves beleeve that they are his Disciples and always conclude that whatsoever is practised at Geneva was Calvins opinion Saint Augustine saith excellently and appliably to a holy Virgin who was ready to leave the Church for the ill life of Church-men Christus nobis imperavit Congregationem sibi servavit separationem Christ Jesus hath commanded us to gather together and recommended to us the Congregation as for the separation he hath reserved it to himself to declare at the last day who are Sheep and who are Goats And hee wrought that separation which our Fathers made from Rome by his expresse written Word and by that which is one word of God too Vox populi The invitation and acclamation of Doctors and People and Princes but have our Separatists any such publique and concurrent authorising of that which they doe since of all that part from us scarse a dozen meet together in one confession When you have heard the Prophet say Can two walke togeâ—her except they be agreed when you have heard the Apostle say I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Iesus Christ that ye all speake the same things and that there be no divisions among you for if preachers speake one one way another another there will be divisions among the people And then it is not onely that in obedience to authority they speake the same things But Be perfectly joyned in the same mind and in the same judgement you had need make haste to this union this pacification for when we are come thither to agree among our selves we are not come to our journeys end Our life is a warfare other wars in a great part end in mariages Ours in a divorce in a divorce of body and soule in death Till then though God have brought us from the First Babylon the darknesse of the Gentiles and from the Second Babylon the superstitions of Rome and from the third Babylon the confusion of tongues in bitter speaking against one another after all this every man shall finde a fourth Babylon enough to exercise all his forces The civill warre the rebellious disorder the intestine confusion of his own Concupiscencies This is a transmigration a transportation layd upon us all by Adams rebellion from Jerusalem to Babylon from our innocent State in our Creation to this confusion of our corrupt nature God would have his children first brought to Babylon before he would be glorifyed in
pieces and slackens the band of the Christian faith which faith is That Christ consisting of two natures in one person suffered for the salvation of man So then not onely to take from Jesus one of his natures God or man but to adde to him another person this addition is a Diminution a dissolution an annihilation of Jesus So also to adde to the Gospel to adde to the Scriptures to adde to the articles of faith this addition is a Diminution a Dissolution an Annihilation of those Scriptures that Gospel that faith and the Author and finisher thereof Iesus grew in stature says the Gospel But he grew not to his lifes end we know to how many feet he grew So the Scriptures grew to the number of the books grew But they grow not to the worlds end we know to how many bookes they grew The body of man and the vessels thereof have a certain and a limited capacity what nourishment they can receive and digest and so a certaine measure and stature to extend to The soul and soul of the soul Faith and her faculties hath a certain capacity too and certain proportions of spirituall nourishments exhibited to it in certaine vessels certaine measures so many these Bookes of Scriptures And therefore as Christ saies Which of you can adde one Cubit to your stature how plentifully and how delicately soever you feed how discreetly and how providently soever you exercise you cannot doe that so may he say to them who pretend the greatest power in the Church Which of you can adde another booke to the Scriptures A Codicill to either of my Testaments The curse in the Revelation fals as heavy upon them that adde to the booke of God as upon them that take from it Nay it is easie to observe that in all those places of Scripture which forbid the taking away or the adding to the Book of God still the commandment that they shall not and still the malediction if they do is first placed upon the adding and after upon the taking away So it is in that former place Plagues upon him that takes away but first Plagues upon him that addes so in Deut. you shall not diminish but first you shall not adde So again in that Book whatsoever I command you observe to do it Thou shalt not diminish from it but first Thou shalt not adde to it And when the same commandment seems to be given in the Proverbs there is nothing at all said of taking away but onely of adding as though the danger to Gods Church consisted especially in that Every word of God is pure saith Solomon there Adde thou not unto his word lest thou be reproved and found a lyer For though heretofore some Heretiques have offered at that way to clip Gods coin in taking away some book of Scripture yet for many blessed Ages the Church hath enjoyed her peace in that point None of the Books are denied by any church there is no substraction offered But for addition of Apocryphal Books to Canonicall the Church of God is still in her Militant state and cannot triumph and though she have victory in all the Reasons the cannot have peace You see Christs way to them that came to heare him Audiistis and Audiistis This and that you have heard others say Egâ— autem dico your Rule is what I say for Christ spoke Scripture Christ was Scripture As we say of great and universall Scholars that they are viventes Bibliothecae living walking speaking Libraries so Christ was lâ—quens Scriptura living speaking Scripture Our Sermons are Text and Discourse Christ Sermons were all Text Christ was the Word not onely the Essentiall Word which was alwayes with God but the very written word too Christ was the Scripture and therefore when he refers them to himselfe he refers them to the Scriptures for though here he seem onely to call upon them to hearken to that which he spoke yet it is in a word of a deeper impression for it is Videte See what you hear Before you preach any thing for my word see it see it written see it in the body of the Scriptures Here then lies the double obligation upon the Apostles The salvation of the whole world lies upon your preaching of that of All That of onely That which you hear from me now And therefore take heed what you hear And farther we carry not your consideration upon this first acceptation of the words as they are spoken personally to the Apostles but passe to the second as by reflexion they are spoken to us the Ministers of the Gospel In this consideration we take in also our Adversaries for we all pretend to be successors of the Apostles though not we as they in the Apostolicall yet they as well as we in the Evangelicall and Ministeriall function for as that which Christ said to Saint Peter he said in him to all the Apostles Vpon this Rock will I build my Church so in this which he saith to all the Apostles he saith to all us also Take heed what you heare Be this then the issue between them of the Roman distemper and us whether they or we do best perform this commandment Take heed what you heare conceal nothing of that which you have heard obtrude nothing but that which you have heard Whether they or we do best apply our practise to this rule Preach all the Truth preach nothing but the Truth be this lis contestata the issue joyned between us and it will require no long pleading for matter of evidence first our Saviour saith Man liveth by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God And this Christ saith from Moses also so that in the mouth of two unreproachable witnesses Moses and Christ the Law and the Gospel we have this established Mans life is the Word of God the Word is the Scripture And then our Saviour saith further The Holy Ghost shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance and here is the Latitude the Totality the Integrality of the meanes of salvation you shall have Scriptures delivered to you by them the Holy Ghost shall teach you all things and then you shall be remembred of all by the explication and application of those Scriptures at Church where lies the principall operation of the Holy Ghost Now is this done in the Roman Church Are the Scriptures delivered and explicated to them To much of the Scriptures as is read to them in their Lessons and Epistles and Gospels is not understood when it is read for it is in an unknown language so that that way the Holy Ghost teaches them nothing Neither are all the Scriptures distributed into these Lessons and Epistles and Gospels which are read so that if they did understand all they heard yet they did not heare all they were bound to understand And for remembring them by the way of preaching though it be true that the
the people what a temporall dominion in the possessions of the world had the Virgin Mary Queen of heaven and Queen of earth too She was made joint purchaser of the Church with her Sonne and had as much of the worship thereof as he though she paid her fine in milke and he in bloud And till a new Sect came in her Sonnes name and in his name the name of Jesus tooke the regency so farre out of that Queen Mothers hands and sued out her Sonnes Livery so farre as that though her name be used the Virgin Mary is but a feoffee in trust for them all was hers And if God oppose not these new usurpers of the world posterity will soon see Saint Ignatius worth all the Trinity in possessions and endowments as that sumptuous and splendid foundation of his first Temple at Rome may well create a conjecture and suspicion Travaile no farther Survay but this City And of their not one hundred Churches the Virgin Mary hath a dozen The Trinity hath but one Christ hath but one The holy Ghost hath none But not to goe into the City nor out of our selves which of us doth truly and considerately ascribe the comforts that he receives in dangers or in distresses to that God of all comfort the comforter the holy Ghost We know who procured us our Presentation and our dispensation you know who procured you your offices and your honours Shall I ever forget who gave me my comfort in sicknesse Who gave me my comfort in the troubles and perplexities and diffidencies of my conscience The holy Ghost brought you hither The holy Ghost opens your eares and your hearts here Till in all your distresses you can say Veni Creator Spiritus come holy Ghost and that you feel a comfort in his comming you can never say Veni Domine Iesu come Lord Jesus come to Judgement Never to consider the day of Judgement is a fearfull thing But to consider the day of Judgement without the comfort of the holy Ghost is a thousand times more fearfull This Seale then this impression this notion of the Trinity being set upon us in the first Creation in this first plurall word of our text Faciamus Let us for Father Sonne and holy Ghost made man and this seale being re-imprinted upon us in our second Creation our Regeneration in Baptisme Man is Baptized In the name of the Father of the Sonne and of the holy Ghost This notion of the Trinity being our distinctive Character from Iew and Gentile This being our specifique forme why does not this our forme this soule of our Religion denominate us why are we not called Trinitarians a name that would embrace the profession of all the Persons but onely Christians which limits and determines us upon one The first Christians amongst whose manifold Persecutions scorne and contempt was not the least in contempt and scorne were called Nazarai Nazarites in the mouth of the Vulgar and Galilâ—i Galilaeans in the mouth of Iulian and Iudaei Iews in the mouth of Nero when he imputed the burning of Rome his owne act to them and Christiani as Tertullian says that they could accuse Christians of nothing but the name of Christians and yet they could not call them by their right name but Chrestians which was gentle quiet easie patient men made to be troden upon They gave them divers names in scorne yet never called them Trinitarians Christians themselves amongst themselves were called by divers names in the Primitive Church for distinction Fideles the faithfull and Fratres the Brethren and Discipuli Disciples And after by common custome at Antioch Christians And after that they say by a councell which the Apostles held at the same city at Antioch there passed an expresse Canon of the Church that they should be called so Christians And before they had this name at Antioch first by common usage after by a determinate Canon to be called Christians from Christ at Alexandria they were called most likely from the name of Jesus Iesseans And so Philo Iudaeus in that book which he writes De Iessenis intends by his Iessenis Christians and in divers parts of the world into which Christians travell now they find some elements some fragments some reliques of the Christian Religion in the practice of some religious Men whom those Countreys call Iesseans doubtlesly derived and continued from the name of Jesus So that the Christians took many names to themselves for distinction Brethren Disciples faithfull And they had many names put upon them in scorne Nazarites Galilaeans Iews Chrestians and yet they were never never by Custome amongst themselves never by commandement from the Church never in contempt from others called Trinitarians the profession of the Trinity being their specifique forme and distinctive Character why so Beloved the name of Christ involv'd all not onely because it is a name that hath a dignity in it more then the rest for Christ is an anointed person a King a Messiah and so the profession of that Name conferrs an Unction a regall and a holy Unction upon us for we are thereby a royall Priesthood but because in the profession of Christ the whole Trinity is professed How often doth the Sonne say that the Father sent him And how often that the Father will and that he will send the Holy Ghost This is life eternall says he to know thee the onely true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent And sent with all power in heaven and in earth This must be professed Father and Sonne And then no man can professe this no man can call Jesus the Lord but by the holy Ghost So that as in the persecutions in the primitive Church the Martyrs which were hurried to tumultuary executions and could not be heard for noise in excusing themselves of Treason and sedition and crimes imputed to them to make their cause odious did use in the sight of the people who might see a gesture though they could not heare a protestation to signe themselves with the signe of the Crosse to let them know for what profession they died so that the signe of the Crosse in that use thereof in that time was an abridgement and a Catechisme of the whole Christian Religion so is the professing of the name of Christ the professing of the whole Trinity As he that confesses one God is got beyond the meer naturall man And he that confesses a Sonne of God beyond him So is neither got to the full truth till he confesse the holy Ghost too The foole sayes in his heart there is no God The foole says David The emphaticall foole in the highest degree of folly But though he get beyond that folly he is a foole still if he say there is no Christ For Christ is the wisdome of the Father And a foole still if he deny the holy Ghost for who shall apply Christ to him but the holy Ghost Etiam Christiani Nomen superficies est
staid with it then as closely as when he wrought his greatest miracles Beyond all this God having thus maried soule and body in one man and man and God in one Christ he maries this Christ to the Church Now consider this Church in the Type and figure of the Church the Arke in the Arke there were more of every sort of cleane Creatures reserved then of the uncleane seven of those for two of these why should we feare but that in the Church there are more reserved for salvation then for destruction And into that room which was not a Type of the Church but the very Church it selfe in which they all met upon whitsunday the holy Ghost came so as that they were enabled by the gift of tongues to convay and propagate and derive God as they did to every nation under heaven so much does God delight in man so much does God desire to unite and associate man unto him and then what shall disappoint or frustrate Gods desires and intentions so farre as that they should come to him but singly one by one whom he cals and wooes and drawes by thousands and by whole Congregations Be pleased to carry your considerations upon another testimony of Gods love to the society of man which is his dispatch in making this match his speed in gathering and establishing this Church for forwardnesse is the best argument of love and dilatory interruptions by the way argue no great desire to the end disguises before are shrewd prophecies of jealousies after But God made hast to the consummation of this Marriage between Christ and the Church Such words as those to the Colosrians and such words that is words to such purpose there are divers The Gospell is come unto you as it is into all the world And againe It bringeth forth fruit as it doth in you also And so likewise The Gospell which is preached to every creature which is under heaven such words I say a very great part of the Antients have taken so literally as thereupon to conclude That in the life of the Apostles themselves the Gospell was preached and the Church established over all the world Now will you consider also who did this what persons cunning and crafty persons are not the best instruments in great businesses if those businesses be good as well as great Here God imployed such persons as would not have perswaded a man that grasse was green that blood was red if it had been denyed unto them Persons that could not have bound up your understanding with a Syllogisme nor have entendred or mollified it with a verse Persons that had nothing but that which God himselfe calls the foolishnesse of preaching to bring Philosophers that argued Heretiques that wrangled Lucians and Iulians men that whet their tongues and men that whet their swords against God to God Unbend not this bowe blacken not these holy thoughts till you have considered as well as how soone and by what persons so to what Doctrine God brought them Wee aske but St. Augustins question Quis tantam multitudinem ad legem carni sanguini centrariam induceret nisi Deus Who but God himselfe would have drawn the world to a Religion so contrary to flesh and blood Take but one piece of the Christian Religion but one article of our faith in the same Fathers mouth Res incredibilis resurrectio That this body should be eaten by fishes in the sea and then those fishes eaten by other men or that one man should be eaten by another man and so become both one man and then that for all this assimilation and union there should arise two men at the resurrection Res incredibilis sayes he this resurrection is an incredible thing Sed magis incredibile totum mundum credidisse rem tam incredibilem That all the world should so soone believe a thing so incredible is more incredible then the thing it selfe That any should believe any is strange but more that all such believe all that appertains to Christianity The Valentinians and the Marcionites pestilent Heretiques grew to a great number Sed vix duo vel tres de iisdem eadem docebant says Irenaeus scarce any two or three amongst them were of one opinion The Acatians the Eunomians and the Macedonians omnes Arium parentem agnoscunt sayes the same Father they all call themselves Arians but they had as many opinions not onely as names but as persons And that one Sect of Mahomet was quickly divided and sub-divided into 70 sects But so God loved the world the society and company of good soules ut quasi una Domus Mundus the whole world was as one well governed house similiter credunt quasi una anima all beleeved the same things as though they had all but one soule Constanter praedicabant quasi unum os At the same houre there was a Sermon at Ierusalem and a Sermon at Rome and both so like for fundamentall things as if they had been preached out of one mouth And as this Doctrine so incredible in reason was thus soone and by these persons thus uniformely preached over all the world so shall it as it doth continue to the worlds end which is another argument of Gods love to our company and of his loathnesse to lose us All Heresies and the very names of the Heretiques are so utterly perished in the world as that if their memories were not preserved in those Fathers which have written against them we could finde their names no where Irenaeus about one hundred and eighty yeers after Christ may reckon about twenty heresies Tertullian twenty or thirty yeares after him perchance twenty seven and Epiphanius some a hundred and fifty after him sixty and fifty yeare after that St. Augustine some ninety yet after all these and but a very few yeares after Augustine Theodoret sayes that in his time there was no one man alive that held any of those heresies That all those heresies should rot being upheld by the sword and that onely the Christian Religion should grow up being mowed down by the sword That one graine of Corne should be cast away and many eares grow out of that as Leo makes the comparison That one man should be executed because he was a Christian and all that saw him executed and the Executioner himself should thereupon become Christians a case that fell out more then once in the primitive Church That as the flood threw down the Courts of Princes and lifted up the Arke of God so the effusion of Christian blood should destroy heresies and advance Christianity it self this is argument abundantly enough that God had a love to man and a desire to draw man to his society and in great numbers to bring them to salvation I will not dismisse you from this consideration till you have brought it thus much nearer as to remember a later testimony of Gods love to our
Evangelists that that voice added Hear him for after that Declaration that he who was visibly and personally come amongst them was the Sonne of God there was no reason to doubt of mens willingnesse to hear him who went forth in person to preach unto them in this world As long as he was to stay with them it was not likely that they should need provocation to hear him therefore that was not added at his Baptisme and entrance into his personall ministery But when Christ came to his Transfiguration which was a manifestation of his glory in the next world and an intimation of the approaching of the time of his going away to the possession of that glory out of this world there that voyce from heaven sayes This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased heare him When he was gone out of this world men needed a more particular solicitation to heare him for how and where and in whom should they heare him when he was gone In the Church for the same testimony that God gave of Christ to authorize and justifie his preaching hath Christ given of the Church to justifie her power The holy Ghost fell upon Christ at his Baptism and the holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles who were the representative Church at Whitsontide The holy Ghost tarried upon Christ then and the holy Ghost shall tarry with the Church usque ad consummationem till the end of the world And therefore as we have that institution from Christ Dic Ecclesiae when men are refractary and perverse to complaine to the Church so have they who are complained of to the Church that institution from Christ also Audi Ecclesiam Hearken to the voyce of God in the Church and they have from him that commination If you disobey them you disobey God in what fetters soever they binde you you shall rise bound in those fetters and as he who is excommunicated in one Diocese should not be received in another so let no man presume of a better state in the Triumphant Church then he holds in the Militant or hope for communion there that despises excommunication here That which the Scripture says God sayes says St. Augustine for the Scripture is his word and that which the Church says the Scriptures say for she is their word they speak in her they authorize her and she explicates them The Spirit of God inanimates the Scriptures and makes them his Scriptures the Church actuates the Scriptures and makes them our Scriptures Nihil salubrius says the same Father There is not so wholsome a thing no soule can live in so good an aire and in so good a diet Quà m ut Rationem praecedat authoritas Then still to submit a mans owne particular reason to the authority of the Church expressed in the Scriptures For certainly it is very truly as it is very usefully said by Calvin Semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa A frowardnesse and an aptnesse to quarrell at the proceedings of the Church and to be delivered from the obligations and constitutions of the Church is ever accompanied with an ambitious pride that they might enjoy a licentious liberty It is not because the Church doth truly take too much power but because they would be under none it is an ambition to have all government in their own hands and to be absolute Emperors of themselves that makes them refractary But if they will pretend to believe in God they must believe in God so as God hath manifested himself to them they must believe in Christ so if they will pretend to heare Christ they must heare him there where he hath promised to speake they must heare him in the Church The first reason then in this Trinity the person that directs is the Church the Trumpet in which God sounds his Iudgements and the Organ in which he delivers his mercy And then the persons of the second place the persons to whom the Church speakes here are Filiae Sion The daughters of Sion her owne daughters We are not called Filii Ecclesiae sonnes of the Church The name of sonnes may imply more virility more manhood more sense of our owne strength then becomes them who professe an obedience to the Church Therefore as by a name importing more facility more supplenesse more application more tractablenesse she calls her children Daughters But then being a mother and having the dignity of a Parent upon her she does not proceed supplicatorily she does not pray them nor intreat them she does not say I would you would go forth and I would you would looke out but it is Egredimini videte imperatively authoritatively Do it you must do it So that she showes what in important and necessary cases the power of the Church is though her ordinary proceedings by us and our Ministery be To pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God In your baptisme your soules became daughters of the Church and they must continue so as long as they continue in you you cannot devest your allegiance to the Church though you would no more then you can to the State to whom you cannot say ◠will be no subject A father may dis-inherit his son upon reasons but even that dis-inherited childe cannot renounce his father That Church which conceived thee in the Covenant of God made to Christians and their seed and brought thee forth in baptisme and brought thee up in catechizing and preaching may yet for thy misdemeanor to God in her separate thee à Mensa Toro from bed and board from that sanctuary of the soule the Communion Table and from that Sanctuary of the body Christian buriall and even that Christian buriall gives a man a good rise a good helpe a good advantage even at the last resurrection to be laid down in expectation of the Resurrection in holy ground and in a place accustomed to Gods presence and to have been found worthy of that Communion of Saints in the very body is some earnest and some kinde of first-fruits of the joyfull resurrection which we attend God can call our dead bodies from the sea and from the fire and from the ayre for every element is his but consecrated ground is our element And therefore you daughters of Sion holy and religious souls for to them onely this indulgent mother speaks here hearken ever to her voice quarrell not your mothers honor nor her discretion Despise not her person nor her apparell Doe not say she is not the same woman she was heretofore nor that she is not so well dressed as she was then Dispute not her Doctrine Despise not her Discipline that as you sucked her breasts in your Baptism in the other Sacrament when you entred and whilst you stayd in this life so you may lie in her bosome when you goe out of it Hear her a good part of that which you are to hear from her is envolv'd inwrapped in that w ch we have propos'd
that the Gospel of Saint Iohn containes all Divinity this Chapter all the Gospell and this Text all the Chapter Therefore it is too large to goe through at this time at this time we shall insist upon such branches as arise out of that consideration what and who this light is for we shall finde it to be both a personall light it is some body and otherwise too a reall light it is some thing therefore we inquire what this light is what thing and who this light is what person which Iohn Baptist is denied to be Hereafter we shall consider the Testimony which is given of this light in which part in due time we shall handle the person of the witnesse Iohn Baptist in whom we shall finde many considerable and extraordinary circumstances and then his Citation and calling to this testimony and thirdly the testimony it selfe that he gave and lastly why any testimony was requisite to so evident a thing as light But the first part who and what this light is belongs most properly to this day and will fill that portion of the day which is afforded us for this exercise Proceed we therefore to that Iohn Baptist was not that light who was what was Though most expositors as well ancient as modern agree with one generall and unanime consent that light in this verse is intended and meant of Christ Christ is this light yet in some precedent and subsequent passages in this Chapter I see other senses have been admitted of this word light then perchance those places will beare certainly other then those places need particularly in the fourth verse In it was life and that life was the light of men there they understand life to be nothing but this naturall life which we breath and light to be onely that naturall life naturall reason which distinguishes us men from other creatures Now it is true that they may have a pretence for some ground of this interpretation in antiquity it selfe for so says Saint Cyrill Filius Dei Creativè illuminat Christ doth enlighten us in creating us And so some others of the Fathers and some of the Schooles understand by that light naturall Reason and that life conservation in life But this interpretation seemes to me subject to both these dangers that it goes so farre and yet reaches not home So far in wresting in divers senses into a word which needs but one and is of it selfe cleare enough that is light and yet reaches not home for it reaches not to the essentiall light which is Christ Iesus nor to the supernaturall light which is Faith and Grace which seemes to have been the Evangelists principall scope to declare the comming of Christ who is the essentiall light and his purpose in comming to raise and establish a Church by Faith and Grace which is the supernaturall light For as the holy Ghost himselfe interprets life to be meant of Christ He that hath the Sonne hath life so we may justly doe of light too he that sees the Sonne the Sonne of God hath light For light is never to my remembrance found in any place of the Scripture where it must necessarily signifie the light of nature naturall reason but wheresoever it is transferred from the naturall to a figurative sense it takes a higher signification then that either it signifies Essentiall light Christ Jesus which answers our first question Quis lux who is this light it is Christ personally or it signifies the supernaturall light of Faith and Grace which answers our second question Quid lux what is this light for it is the working of Christ by his Spirit in his Church in the infusion of Faith and Grace for beliefe and manners And therefore though it be ever lawfull and often times very usefull for the raising and exaltation of our devotion and to present the plenty and abundance of the holy Ghost in the Scriptures who satisfies us as with marrow and with fatnesse to induce the diverse senses that the Scriptures doe admit yet this may not be admitted if there may be danger thereby to neglect or weaken the literall sense it selfe For there is no necessity of that spirituall wantonnesse of finding more then necessary senses for the more lights there are the more shadows are also cast by those many lights And as it is true in religious duties so is it in interpretation of matters of Religion Necessarium Satis convertuntur when you have done that you ought to doe in your calling you have done enough there are no such Evangelicall counsailes as should raise workes of supererogation more then you are bound to doe so when you have the necessary sense that is the meaning of the holy Ghost in that place you have senses enow and not till then though you have never so many and never so delightfull Light therefore is in all this Chapter fitliest understood of Christ who is noted here with that distinctive article Illa lux that light For non sic dicitur lux sicut lapis Christ is not so called Light as he is called a Rock or a Cornerstone not by a metaphore but truly and properly It is true that the Apostles are said to be light and that with an article the light but yet with a limitation and restriction the light of the world that is set up to convey light to the world It is true that Iohn Baptist himselfe was called light and with large additions Lucerna ardens a burning and a shining lampe to denote both his owne burning zeale and the communicating of this his light to others It is true that all the faithfull are said to be light in the Lord but all this is but to signifie that they had been in darknesse before they had been beclouded but were now illustrated they were light but light by reflexion by illustration of a greater light And as in the first creation vesper mane dies unus The evening and the morning made the day evening before morning darknesse before light so in our regeneration when wee are made new Creatures the Spirit of God findes us in naturall darknesse and by him we are made light in the Lord. But Christ himselfe and hee onely is Illa lux vera lux that light the true light Not so opposed to those other lights as though the Apostles or Iohn Baptist or the faithfull who are called lights were false lights but that they were weake lights But Christ was fons lucis the fountaine of all their light light so as no body else was so so as that hee was nothing but light Now neither the Apostles nor Iohn Baptist nor the Elect no nor the virgin Mary though wee should allow all that the Roman Church aske in her behalfe for the Roman Church is not yet come to that searednesse that obduratenesse that impudency as to pronounce that the virgin Mary was without originall sinne though they have done many
Fifty SERMONS PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE JOHN DONNE D r IN DIVINITY Late Deane of the Cathedrall Church of S. PAULS London The Second Volume LONDON Printed by Ia. Flesher for M. F. I. Marriot and R. Royston MDCXLIX TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE BASIL EARLE OF DENBY My very good Lord and Patron My Lord IN a season so tempestuous it is a great encouragement to see your Lordship called to the Helme who in your publique negociations having spent so many yeares in that so famed Common-wealth of Venice must of necessity have brought home such excellent Principles of Government that if our Fate doe not withstand your Directions we may reasonably at last expect to see our new Brittish Lady excell that ancient Adriatique Queene Neither can I offend much against the State in begging your Patronage and perusall of this Book knowing that your Lordship first mastered all the Learning of Padoa before you did adventure upon that wise Senate who amongst all her other greatnesses has ever had a principall care that Learning might not be diminished When these Sermons were preached they were terminated within the compasse of an houre but your acceptance may make them outlive the very Churches that they were preached in and give them such a perpetuity that Nec Jovis Ira nec Amor edacior multò poterit abolere For though a fiery zeale in succeeding ages hath often both ruined the Temples and casheired the gods that were worshipped in them Yet such sacrifices as these have beemy laies kept unburnt and we are suffered to know those religions that we are not allowed to practice Nor can I expect any greater advantage for the paines I have taken in publishing this Book then that posterity may know I did it when I had the favor and protection of your Lordship and was allowed to stile my selfe Your Lordships most humble Servant JO. DONNE FOR THE RIGHT HONOURABLE BOLSTRED WHITLOCK RICHARD KEEBLE 〈◊〉 JOHN LEILE Lords Commissioners of the Great Seale THe reward that many yeares since was proposed for the publishing these Sermons having been lately conferred upon me under the authority of the Great Seale I thought my selfe in gratitude bound to deliver them to the world under your Lordships protection both to show how carefull you are in dispensing that part of the Churches treasure that is committed to your disposing and to encourage all men to proceed in their industry when they are sure to find so just and equall Patrons whose fame and memory must certainely last longer then Bookes can find so noble Readers and whose present favors doe not onely keep the Living alive but the Dead from dying Your Lordships most humble Servant JO. DONNE A Table directing to the severall Texts of SCRIPTURE handled in this Book Sermons preached at Mariages Sermon I. Preached at the Earl of Bridgwaters house in London on MATTH 22. 30. For in the Resurrection they neither mary nor are given in Mariage but are as the Angels of God in heaven p. 1. Serm ' II. GEN. 2. 18. And the Lord God said It is not good that the man should be alone I will make him a Help meet for him p. 9. Serm. III. HOSEA 2. 19. And I will mary thee unto me for ever p. 15 Sermons preached at Christnings Serm. IV. REVEL 7. 17. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall governe them and shall leade them unto the lively fountaines of waters and God shall wipe away all teares from their eyes p. 23 Serm. V. EPHES. 5. 25 26 27. Husbands love your wives even at Christ loved the Church and gave himselfe for it that he might sanctifie 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 wrinckle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blame p. 31 Serm. VI. 1 JOH 5. 7 8. For there are three which beare record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three which beare record in the Earth The Spirit and the water and the blood and these three agree in one p. 39 Serm. VII GAL. 3. 27. For all yee that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. p. 50. Sermons preached at Churchings Serm. VIII CANT 5. 3. I have washed my feet how shall I defile them p. 59. Serm. IX MICAH 2. 10. Arise and depart for this is not your rest p. 67. Serm. X. A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 74. Sermons preached at Lincolns-Inne Serm. XI GEN. 28. 16 17. Then Iacob awoke out of his sleep and said Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware And he was afraid and said How fearefull is this place This is none other but the House of God and this is the gate of Heaven p. 83 Serm. XII JOH 5. 22. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Sonne p. 94. Serm. XIII JOH 8. 15. I judge no man p. 101. Serm. XIIII JOB 19. 26. And though after my skin wormes destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God p. 106. Serm. XV. 1 COR. 15. 50. Now this I say Brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God p. 118. Serm. XVI COLOS. 1. 24. Who now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his bodies sake which is the Church p. 128. Serm. XVII MAT. 18. 7. Wo unto the world because of offences p. 136. Serm. XVIII A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 142 Serm. XIX PSAL. 38. 2. For thine arrowes stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore p. 158. Serm. XX. PSA 38. 3. There is no soundnesse in my flesh because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sinne p. 162. Serm. XXI PSAL. 38. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me p. 174. Serm. XXII A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 186. Serm. XXIII A third Serm. on the same Text. p. 192. Sermons preached at White-Hall Serm. XXIV EZEK 34. 19. And as for my flocke they eate that which ye have trodden with your feet and they drink that which yee have fouled with your feet 199. Serm. XXV A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 208. Serm. XXVI ESAI 65. 20. For the childe shall die a hundred yeers old but the sinner being a hundred yeers old shall be accursed p. 218 Serm. XXVII MARK 4. 24. Take heed what you hear p. 228 Serm. XXVIII GEN. 1. 26. And God said Let us make man in our own Image after our likenesse p. 239. Serm. XXIX A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 250 Sermons preached to the Nobility Serm. XXX JOB 13. 15. Loe though he slay me yet will I trust in him p. 262. Serm. XXXI JOB 36.
word that is without understanding or considering the institution vertue of baptisime expressed in Gods word and so receive baptisme onely for temporall and naturall respects they are not led to the waters but they fall into them and so as a Man may be drowned in a wholsome bath so such a Man may perish eternally in baptisme if he take it for satisfaction of the State or any other by respect to which that Sacrament is not ordained in the word of God He shall lead Men of years by Instruction and he shall lead young children in good company and with a strong guard he shall lead them by the faith of his Church by the faith of their Parents by the faith of their sureties and undertakers He shall lead them and then when he hath taken them into his government for first it is Reget he shall govern them and then Deducet that is he shall lead them in his Church and therefore they that are led to baptisme any other way then by the Church they are misled nay they are miscarried misdriven Spiritu vertiginis with the spirit of giddinesse They that joyne any in commission with the Trinity though but as an asstsant for so they say in the Church of Rome baptisme may be administred in the name of the Father Sonne and holy Ghost and the virgin Mary they follow not as Christ led in his Church Non fuit sic ab initio it was not so from the beginning for quod extra hos tres est totum Conservum est though much dignity belong to the memory of the Saints of God yet whosoever is none of the three Persons Conservus est he is our fellow-servant though his service lie above staires and ours below his in the triumphant ours in the militant Church Conservus est yet he or she is in that respect but our fellow-servant and not Christs fellow-redeemer So also if we be led to Marah to the waters of bitternesse that we bring a bitter taste of those institutions of the Church for the decency and signification in Sacramentall things things belonging to Baptisme if we bring a misinterpretation of them an indisposition to them an aversnesse from them and so nourish a bitternes and uncharitablenesse towards one another for these Ceremonies if we had rather crosse one another and crosse the Church then crosse the child as God shewed Moses a tree which made those waters in the wildernesse sweet when it was cast in so remember that there is the tree of life the crosse of Christ Iesus and his Merits in this water of baptisme when we all agree in that that all the vertue proceeds from the crosse of Christ the God of unity and peace and concord let us admit any representation of Christs crosse rather then admit the true crosse of the devill which is a bitter and schismaticall crossing of Christ in his Church for it is there in his Church that he leads us to these waters Well then they to whom these waters belong have Christ in his Church to lead them and therefore they need not stay till they can come alone till they be of age and years of discretion as the Anabaptists say for it is Deducet and Deducet cos generally universally all that are of this government all that are appointed for the Seal all the one hundred and forty foure thousand all the Innumerable multitudes of all Nations Christ leads them all Be Baptized every one of you in the name of Iesus Christ for the remission of sinnes for the promise is made unto you and your children Now all promises of God are sealed in the holy Ghost To whom soever any promise of God belongs he hath the holy Ghost and therefore Nunquid aquam quis prohibere potest Can any Man forbid water that these should not be baptized which havereceived the holy Ghost as well as we says S. Peter And therfore the Children of the Covenant which have the promise have the holy Ghost all they are in this Regiment Deducet cos Christ shall lead them all But whither unto the lively says our first edition unto the living says our last edition fountaines of waters In the originall unto the fountaines of the water of life now in the Scriptures nothing is more ordianry then by the name of waters to designe and meane tribulations so amongst many other God says of the City of Tyre that he would make it a desolate City and bring the deep upon it and great waters should cover it But then there is some such addition as leads to that sense either they are called Aqua multae great waters or Profunda aquarum deep waters or Absorbebit aqua whirlepooles of waters or Tempestas aquae tempestuous waters or Aqua Fellis bitter water God bath mingled gall in our water but we shall never read fontes aquarum fountaines of waters but it hath a gratious sense and presents Gods benefits So they have forsaken me the fountaine of living waters So the water that I shall give shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life and so every where else when we are brought to the fountaines to this water in the fountaine in the institution howsover we puddle it with impertinent questions in disputation however we soule it with our finnes and all conversation the fountaine is pure Baptisme presents and offers grace and remission of sinnes to all Nay not onely this fountaine of water but the greatest water of all the flood it selfe Saint Basil understands and applies to Baptisme as the Apostle himselfe does Baptisme was a figure of the flood and the Arke for upon that place The Lord sitseth upon the flood and the Lord doth remaine King for ever he says Baptismi gratiam Diluvium nominat nam deles purgat David calls Baptisme the flood because it destroyes all that was sinfull in us and so also he referrs to Baptisme those words when David had confessed his sinnes I thought I would confesse against my selfe my wickednesse unto the Lord and when it is added Surely in the flood of great waters they shall not come near him peccato non appropinquabunt says he originall sinne shall not come neare him that is truly baptized nay all the actuall sinnes in his future life shall be drowned in this baptisme as often as he doth religiously and repentantly consider that in Baptisme when the merit of Christ was communicated to him he received an Antidote against all poyson against all sinne if he applied them together sinne and the merit of Christ for so also he says of that place God will subdue all our iniquities and cast our sinnes into the bottome of the Sea Hoc est in mare Baptismi says Basil into the Sea of Baptisme There was a Brasen Sea in the Temple and there is a golden Sea in the Church of
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
doth nothing so like a subject as when he puts himselfe to the pain to consider the profit and the safety of his Subjects and such a subjection is that of a Husband who is bound to study his wife and rectify all her infirmites Her infirmities he must bear but not her sins if he bear them they become his own The pattern the example goes not so far Christ maried himself to our Nature and he bare all our infirmities hunger and wearinesse and sadnesse and death actually in his own person but so he contracted no sin in himselfe nor encouraged us to proceed in sin Christ was Salvator corporis A Saviour of his body of the Church to which he maried himselfe but it is a tyranny and a devastation of the body to whom we mary our selves if we love them so much as that we love their Sin too suffer them to goe on in that or if we love them so little as to make their sin our way to profit or preferment by prostituting them and abandoning them to the solicitation of others still we must love them so as that this love be a subjection not a neglecting to let them doe what they will nor a tyrannizing to make them doe what we will You must love them then first Quia vestrae because they are yours As we said at first God loves Couples He suffers not our body to be alone nor our soule alone but he maries them together when that 's done to remedy the vae soli left this Man should be alone he maries him to a help meet for himâ— and to avoid fornication that is if fornication cannot be avoided otherwise Every Man is to have his wife and every woman her own husband When the love comes to exceed these bounds that it departs à vestris from a Man 's own wife and settles upon another though he may think he discharges himselfe of some of his subjection which he was in before yet he becomes much more subject subject to houshold and forain Iealousies subject to ill grounded quarrels subject to blasphemous protestations to treacherous misuse of a confident friend to ignoble an unworthy disguises to base satisfactions subject lastly either to a clamorous Conscience or that which is worse slavery to a sear'd and obdurate and stupefied Conscience and to that Curse which is the heavier because it hath a kind of scorn in it Be not deceived as though we were coâ—sened of our souls Be not deceived for no adulterer shal enter into the kingdom of heaven All other things that are ours we may be the better for leaving Vade vende which Christ said to the yong Man that seemed to desire perfection reached to all his goods Goe and sell them sayes Christ and thou shalt follow me the better But there is no selling nor giving nor lending nor borrowing of wives we must love them Quia nostrae because they are ours and if that be not a ty and obligation strong enough that they are Nostrae ours we must love them Quia nos because they are our selves for no man yet ever hated his own flesh We must love them then Quia nostrae because they are ours those whom God hath given us and Quia uxores because they are our wives Saint Paul does not bid us love them here Quanquam uxores but Quia not though they be but because they are our wives Saint Paul never thought of that indisposition of that disaffection of that impotency that a Man should come to hate her whom he could love well enough but that she is his wife Were it not a strange distemper if upon consideration of my soule finding it to have some seeds of good dispositions in it some compassion of the miseries of others some inclination of the glory of God some possibility some interest in the kingdome of heaven I should say of this soule that I would fast and pray and give and suffer any thing for the salvation of this Soule if it were not mine own soule if it were any bodies else and now abandon it to eternall destruction because it is mine own If no Man have felt this barbarous inhumanity towards his owne soul I pray God no man have felt it towards his own wife neither That he loves her the lesse for being his own wife For we must love them not Quanquam says Saint Paul though she be so That was a Caution which the Apostle never thought he needed but Quia because in the sight of God and all the Triumphant Church we have bound our selves that we would do so Here Mariages are sometimes clandestine and witnesses dye and in that case no Man can bind me to love herâ— Quia uxâ—r because she is my wife because it lyes not in proofe that she is so Here sometimes things come to light which were concealed before and a Mariage proves no Mariage Decepta est Ecclesia The Church was deceived and the poor woman loses her plea Quia uxâ—r because she is his wife for it fals out that she is not so but if thou have maried her in the presence of God and all the Court and Quire of heaven what wilt thou doe to make away all these witnesses who shall be of thy Councell to assign an Error in Gods judgement whom wilt thoubribe to embezill the Records of heaven It is much that thou are able to doe in heaven Thou art able by thy sins to blot thy name out of the book of life but thou are not able to blot thy wifes name out of the Records of heaven but there remains still the Quia uxâ—r because she is thy wife And this Quia uxâ—r is Quaâ—diu uxâ—r since thou art bound to love her because she is thy wife it must be as long as she is so You may have heard of that quinquâ—nnium Neronis The worst tyran that ever was was the best Emperour that ever was for five years the most corrupt husbands may have been good at first but that love may have been for other respects satisfaction of parents establishing of hopes and sometimes Ignorance of evill that ill company had not taught them ill conditions it comes not to be Quia uxor because she is thy wife to be the love which is commanded in this text till it bring some subjection some burthen Till we love her then when we would not love her except she were our wife we are not sure that we love her Quia uxor that is for that and for no other respect How long that is how long she is thy wife never ask wrangling Controverters that make Gypsie-knots of Mariages ask thy Conscience and that will tell thee that thou wast maried till death should depart you If thy mariage were made by the Dâ—vill upon dishonest Conditions the Devill may break it by sin if it were made by God Gods way of breaking of Mariages is onely by death It is then a Subjection and it is
joyned to the element or to the Action then there is a true Sacrament are ill understood by two sorts of Menâ— first by them that say that it is not verbum Deprecatorium nor verbum Conciâ—natâ—riuâ— not the word of Prayer nor the word of preaching but verbum Consecratorium and verbum Sacramentale that very phrase and forme of words by which the water is sanctified and enabled of it selfe to cleanse our Soules and secondly these words are ill understood by them who had rather their children dyed unbaptized then have them baptized without a Sermon whereas the use of preaching at baptisme is to raise the whole Congregation to a consideration what they promised by others in their baptisme and to raise the Father and the Sureties to a consideration what they undertake for the childe whom they present then to be baptized for therefore says Saint Augustine Acoedaâ— verbum there is a necessity of the word Non quâ—a dicitur sed quia creditur not because the word is prâ—ached but because it is beleeved and That Beleese faith belongs not at all to the incapacity of the child but to the disposition of the rest A Sermon is usefull for the congregation not necessary for the child and the accomplishment of the Sacrament From hence then arises a convenience little lesse then necessary in a kind that this administration of the Sacrament be accompanied with preaching but yet they that would evict an absolute necessity of it out of these words force them too much for here the direct meaning of the Apostle is That the Church is cleansed by water through the word when the promises of God expressed in his word are sealed to us by this Sacrament of Baptisme for so Saint Augustine answers himselfe in that objection which he makes to himselfe Cum per Baptisâ—â—â— fundati sint quare sermoni tribuit radicem He answers In Sermone intelligendus Baptismusâ— Quia sine Sermone non perficitur It is rooted it is grounded in the word and therefore true Baptisme though it be administred without the word that is without the word preached yet it is never without the word because the whole Sacrament and the power thereof is rooted in the word in the Gospell And therefore since this Sacrament belongs to the Church as it is said here that Christ doth cleanse his Church by Baptisme as it is argued with a strong probability That because the Apostles did baptize whole families therefore they did baptize some children so we argue with an invincible certainty that because this Sacrament belongs generally to the Church as the initiatory Sacrament it belongs to children who are a part and for the most part the most innocent part of the Church To conclude As all those Virgins which were beautifull were brought into Susan Ad domum mulierum to be anointed and persumed and prepared there for Assuerus delight and pleasure though Assuerus tooke not delight and pleasure in them all so we admit all those children which are within the Covenant made by God to the elect and their seed In domum Sanctorum into the houshold of the faithfull into the communion of Saints whom he chooseth for his Mariage day that is for that Church which he will settle upon himselfe in heaven we know not but we know that he hath not promised to take any into that glory but those upon whom he hath first shed these fainter beames of glory and sanctification exhibited in this Sacrament Neither hath he threatned to exclude any but for sinne after And therefore when this blessed child derived from faithfull parents and presented by sureties within the obedience of the Church shall have been so cleansed by the washing of water through the word it is presently sealed to the possession of that part of Christs purchase for which he gave himselfe which are the meanes of preparing his Church in this life with a faithfull assurance I may say of it and to it Iam mundus es Now you are cleanâ— through the word which Christ hath spoken unto you The Seale of the promises of his Gospell hath sanctified and cleansed you but yet Mandatus mundandus says Saint Augustine upon that place It is so sanctified by the Sacrament here that it may be farther sanctified by the growth of his graces and be at last a member of that glorious Church which he shall settle upon himselfe without spot or wrinkle which was the principall and final purpose of that great love of his whereby he gave himselfe for us and made that love first a patterne of Mens loves to their wives here and then a meanes to bring Man and wife and child to the kingdome of heaven Amen SERMON VI. Preached at a Christning 1 JOHN 5. 7 8. For there are three which beare record in heaven The Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three which beare record in the Earth The Spirit and the water and the bloud and these three agree in one IN great and enormous offences we find that the law in a well governed State expressed the punishment upon such a delinquent in that form in that curse Igni aqua interdicitor let him have no use of fire and water that is no use of any thing necessary for the sustentation of life Beloved such is the miserable condition of wretched Man as that we come all into the world under the burden of that curse Aqua igni interdicimâ—r we have nothing to doe naturally with the spirituall water of life with the fiery beames of the holy Ghost till he that hath wrought our restitution from this banishment restore us to this water by powring out his owne bloud and to this lively fire by laying himselfe a cold and bloudlesse carcasse in the bowels of the Earth till he who haptized none with waâ—er direct his Church to doe that office towards us and he without whom none was baptized with fire perfect that Ministeriall worke of his Church with the effectuall seales of his grace for this is his testimony the witnesse of his love Yea that law in cases of such great offences expressed it selfe in another Malediction upon such offenders appliable also to us Intestabiles sunte let them be Intestable Now this was a sentence a Condemnation so pregnant so full of so many heavy afflictions as that he who by the law was made intestable was all these ways intestable First he was able to make no Testament of his owne he had lost all his interest in his owne estate and in his owne will Secondly he could receive no profit by any testament of any other Man he had lost all the effects of the love and good disposition of other Men to him Thirdly he was Intestable so as that he could not testifie he should not be beleeved in the behalfe of another and lastly the testimony of another could doe him no good no Man could be admitted to
speake for him After that first and heavy curse of Almighty God upon Man Morte morieris If thou eate thou shalt die and die twice thou shall die a bodily thou shalt die a spirituall death a punishment which no sentence of any law or law-maker could ever equall to deterre Men from offending by threatning to take away their lives twice and by inflicting a spirituall death eternally upon the Soule after we have all incurred that malediction Morte moriemur we shall die both death we cannot thinke to scape any lesse malediction of any law and therefore we are all Intestabiles we are all intestable in all these senses and apprehensions which we have touched upon We can make no testament of our owne we have no good thing in us to dispose we have no good inclination no good disposition in our Will we can make no use of anothers testament not of the double testaments of Almighty God for in the Old testament he gives promises of a Messias but we bring into the world no Faith to apprehend those promises and in the New testament he gives a performance the Messias is come but he is communicable to us no way but by baptisme and we cannot baptize our selves we can profit no body else by our testimony we are not able to endure persecution for the testimony of Christ to the edification of others we are not able to doe such workes as may shine before Men to the glorifying of our God Neither doth the testimony of others doe us any good for neither the Martyrdome of so many Millions in the primitive Church nor the execution of so many judgments of God in our owne times doe restifie any thing to our Consciences neither at the last day when those Saints of God whom we have accompanied in the outward worship of God here in the visible Church shall be called to the right hand and we detruded to the left shall they dare to open their mouthes for us or to testifie of us or to say Why Lord these Men when they were in the world did as we did appeared and served thee in thy house as we did they seem'd to goe the same way that we did upon Earth why goe they a sinister way now in heaven We are utterly intestable we can give nothing we can take nothing nothing will be beleeved from us who are all falshood it selfe nor can we be releeved by any thing that any other will say for us As long as we are considered under the penalty of that law this is our case Interdicti intestabiles we are accursed and so as that we are intestable Now as this great malediction Morte marieris in volves all other punishments upon whom that falls all fall so when our Saviour Christ Jesus hath a purpose to take away that or the most dangerous part of that the spirituall death when he will reverse that judgment Aqua igni interdicitur to make us capable of his water and his fire when he will reverse the intestabiles the inteâ—â—ability and make us able to receive his graces by faith and declare them by works then as he that will reedifie a demolished house begins not at the top but at the bottome so Christ Jesus when he will make this great preparation this great reedification of mankind he beginnes at the lowest step which is that we may have use of the testimony of others in our behalfe and he proceeds strongly and effectually he produces three witnesses from heaven so powerfull that they will be heard they will be beleeved and three witnesses on earth so neare us so familiar so domestique as that they will not be denied they will not be discredited Three are three that beare Record in heaven and three that beare record in earth Since then Christ Jesus makes us all our owne Iury able to conceive and judge upon the Evidence and testimony of these three heavenly and three earthly witnesses let us draw neare and hearken to the evidence and consider three things Testimonium esse Quid sit and Qui testes That God descends to meanes proportionable to Man he affords him witnesse and secondly the matter of the proofe what all these six witnesses testifie what they establish Thirdly the quality and value of the witnesses and whether the matter be to be beleeved for their sakes and for their reasons God requires nothing of us but Testimony for Martyrdome is but that A Martyr is but a witnesse God offers us nothing without testimony for his Testament is but a witnesse Teste ipso is shrewd evidence when God says I will speake and I will testifie against thee I am God even thy God when the voice of God testifies against me in mine owne conscience It is more pregnant evidence then this when his voice testifies against me in his word in his Scriptures The Lord testified against Israel by all the Prophets and by all the Seers When I can never be alone but that God speakes in me but speakes against me when I can never open his booke but the first sentence mine eye is upon is a witnesse against me this is fearfull evidence But in this text we are not in that storme for he hath made us Testabiles that is ready to testifie for him to the effusion of our bloud and Testabiles that is fit to take benefit by the testament that hee hath made for us The effusion of his bloud which is our second branch what is testified for us what these witnesses establish First then that which a sinner must be brought to understand and beleeve by the strength of these witnesses is Integritas Christi not the Integrity as it signifies the Innocency of Christ but integrity as it signifies Intireness not as it is Integer vitae but Integra vita not as he kept an integrity in his life but as he onely is intirely our life That Christ was a person composed of those two Natures divine and humane whereby he was a fit and a full satisfaction for all our sinnes and by death could be our life for when the Apostle writ this Epistle it seemes there had been a schisme not about the Mysticall body of Christ the Church but even about the Naturall that is to say in the person of Christ there had been a schisme a separation of his two natures for as we see certainly before the death of this Apostle that the Heresie of Ebion and of Cerinthus which denied the divine nature of Christ was set on foot for against them purposely was the Gospell of Saint Iohn written so by Epiphanius his ranking of the Heresies as they arose where he makes Basilides his Heresie which denied that Christ had any naturall body to be the fourth herefie and Ebions to be the tenth it seemes that they denied his humanity before they denied his Divinity And therefore it is well collected that this Epistle of Saint Iohn being written long
Sacrament yet he is always present in it Yet this plot the devill had upon the Church And whereas this first Epistle of Saint Iohn was never doubted to be Canonicall whereas both the other have been called into some question yet in this first Epistle the first verse of this text was for a long time removed or expung'd whether by malice of Heretiques or negligence of transcribers The first Translation of the new testament which was into Syriaque hath not this verse That which was first called Vulgata editio had it not neither hath Luther it in his Germane translation very many of the Latine Fathers have it not and some very ancient Greeke Fathers want it though more ancient then they have it for Athanasius in the Councell of Nice cites it and makes use of it and Cyprian beheaded before that Councell hath it too But now he that is one of the witnesses himselfe the Holy Ghost hath assured the Church that this verse belongs to the Scripture and therefore it becomes us to consider thankfully and reverently this first ranke of witnesses the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost The Father then hath testified De integritate Christi of this intirenesse that Christ should be all this and doe all this which we have spoken of abundantly he begunne before Christ was borne in giving his name Thou shalt call his name Iesus for he shall save his people from sin Well how shall this person be capable to doe this office of saving his people from sinne Why in him say God the father in the representation of an Angell shall be fulfilled that prophecy A virgin shall beare a Sonne and they shall call his name Emanuel which is by interpretation God with us This seemes somewhat an incertaine testimony of a Man with an Alià s dictus with two names God says he shall be called Iesus that the prophecy may be fulfilled which says he shall be called Emanuel but therein consists Integritas Christi this intirenesse he could not be Jesus not a Saviour except he were Emanuel God with us God in our nature Here then is Jesus a Saviour a Saviour that is God and Man but where is the Testimony De Christo that he was anointed and prepared for this sacrifice that this worke of his was contracted between the Father and him and acceptable to him It is twice testified by the Father both in Christs act of humiliation when he would be Baptized by Iohn when he would accept an ablution who had no uncleannesse then God says This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased he was well pleased in his person and he was well pleased in his act in his office And he testifies it againe in his first act of glory in his transfiguration where the Father repeates the same words with an addition Heare him God is pleased in him and would have Men pleased in him too He testified first onely for Iosephs sak that had entertained and lodged some scrupulous suspition against his wife the Blessed Virgine His second testimony at the baptisme had a farther extent for that was for the confirmation of Iohn Baptist of the preacher himselfe who was to convey his doctrine to many others His third testimony in the transfiguration was larger then the Baptisme for that satisfied three and three such as were to carry it farre Peter and Iames and Iohn All which no doubt made the same use of his testimony as we see Peter did who preached out of the strength of his manifestation we followed not deceivable fables but with our owne eyes we saw his Majesty for he received of God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the Excellent glory This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased But yet the Father gave a more free a more liberall testimony of him then this at his Conception or Baptisme or Transfiguration when upon Christs prayer Father glorifie thy Name there came a voice from heaven I have both glorified it and will glorifie it againe For this all the people apprehended some imputed it to Thunder some to an Angel but all heard it and all heard Christs comment upon it That that voice came not for him but for their sakes so that when the Father had testified of a Iesus a Saviour and a Christ a Saviour sent to that purpose and a Sonne in whom he is pleased and whom we must heare when it is said of him moreover Gratificavit â—â—s in Dilectâ— he hath made us accepted in his beloved this is his way of comming in water and bloud that is in the sacraments of the Church by which we have assurance of being accepted by him and this is this Integritas Christi the intirenesse of Christ testified by our first witnesse that bears record in heaven The father The second witnesse in heaven is verâ—um The Word and that is a welcome message for it is Christ himselfe It is not so when the Lord sends a word The Lord sent a word unto Iacob and it lighted upon Israelâ— there the word is a judgement and an execution of the Judgement for that word that signifies 2 word there in the same letters exactly signifies a pestilence a Calamity It is a word and a blow but the word here is verbum cara that Word which for our sakes was made our selves The word then in this place is the second person in the Trinity Christ Iesus who in this Court of heaven where there is no corruption no falsification no passion but fair and just proceeding is admitted to be a witnesse in his owne cause It is Iesus that testifies for Iesus now when he was upon earth and said If I should beare witnesse of my selfe my witnesse were not true whether we take those words to be spoken per Coâ—nlventiam by an allowance and concession It is not true that is I am content that you should not beleeve my witnesse of my selfe to be true as Saint Cyrill understand them or whether we take them Humana mare that Christ as a man acknowledged truely and as he thought that inlegall proceeding a mans owne testimony ought not to be beleeved in his owne behalfe as Athanâ—â—ius and Saint Ambrose understand them yet Christ might safely say as he did Though I beare a record of my selfe yet my record is true why because I know whence I come and whither I goe Christ could not be Singularis â—â—stis a single witnesseâ— He was alwayes more then one witnesse because he had alwayes more then 〈◊〉 God and man and therefore Christ instructing Nicodemus speakes plurally we speake that 〈◊〉 know we testifie that we have seene and you receive not Testimoniâ—â— nâ—strum our witnesseâ— he does not say my witnesse but ours because although a singular yet he was a plurall person too His testimony then was credible but how did he testifie Integritatem this intirenesse
bed that he in the name of the dead man might answer to all the questions usually asked in administring of Baptisme But this was a corrupt effect of pure and sincere doctrine which doctrine is That Baptisme is so necessary as that God hath placed no other ordinary scale nor conveyance of his graces in his Church to them that have not received that then buptisme And they who doe not provide duly for the Baptisme of their children if their children die have a heavier accompt to make to God for that child then if they had not provided a Nurse and suffered the child to starve God can preserve the child without Milke and he can save the child without a sacrament but as that mother that throwes out and forsakes her child in the field or wood is guilty before God of the Temporall murder of that child though the child die not so are those parents of a spirituall murder if their children by their fault die unbaptized though God preserve that child out of his abundant and miraculous mercy from spirituall destruction When the custome of the Christian Church was to baptize but twice in the year at Easter and Whiâ—sontide for the greater solemnity of that action yea when that ill custome was grown as it was even in the Primitive Church that upon an opinion that all sins were absolutely forgiven in Baptisme Men did defer their Baptisme till their death-bed as we see the Ecclesiasticall histories full of such examples even in some of the Christian Emperors and according to this ill custome we see Tertullian chides away young children for comming so soon to Baptisme quid festinat innocens aetas ad remâ—ssionem peccatorum why should this child that as yet hath done no sinne make such hast to be washed from sinnce which opinion had got so much strength that Saint Basil was faine to oppose it in the Easterne Church and both the Gregories Nazianzen and Nissen and Saint Ambrose in the Western yet in the height of both their customes of seldome baptizing and of late baptizing the case of insants that might be in danger of dying without baptisme was ever excepted So that none of those old customes though some of them were extreamly ill went ever so farre as to an opinion that it were all one whether the child were baptized or no. I speake not this as though the state of children that died without baptisme were desperate God forbid for who shall shorten the Arme of the Lord God is able to raine downe Manna and Quailes into the soules of these children though negligent parents turne them out into the wildernesse and put God to that extraordinary work They may have Manna and Quailes but they have not the Milke and Hony of the Land of promise They may have salvation from God but they have not those graces so sealed and so testified to them as God hath promised they should be in his Sacraments When God in spirituall offences makes Inquisition of bloud he proceeds not as Man proceeds for we till there appear a Man to be dead never inquire who killed him but in the spirituall Murder of an unbaptized child though there be no child spiritually dead though Gods mercy have preserved the child from that yet God imputes this as such a murder to them who endangered the child as farre as they could by neglecting his ordinance of baptisme This is then the necessity of this Sacrament not absolutely necessary but necessary by Gods ordinary institution and as it is always necessary so is it always certaine whosoever is baptized according to Christs institution receives the Sacrament of baptisme and the truth is always infallibly annexed with the signe Nec fieri potest visio hominis ut non sit Sacramentum quod figurat Though the wicked may feele no working by the Sacrament yet the Sacrament doth offer and present grace as well to the unworthy as to the worthy Receiver Nec fallaciter promittit The wicked may be a cause that the Sacrament shall doe them no good but that the Sacrament become no Sacrament or that God should be false in his promises and offer no grace where he pretends to offer it this the wicked cannot doe baptisme doth truly and without collusion offer grace to all and nothing but baptisme by an ordinary institution and as an ordinary meanes doth so for when baptisme is called a figure yet both that figure is said there to save us The figure that now saveth us baptisme and it is a figure of the Arke it hath relation to it to that Arke which did save the world when it is called a figure So it may be a figure but if we speake of reall salvation by it baptisme is more then a figure Now as our putting on of Christ was double by faith and by sanctification so by this Sacrament also we are baptized in Nomen Christi into the Name of Christ and in mortem Christi into the death of Christ we are not therefore baptized into his Name because names are imposed upon us in our baptisme for that was not always permanently accustomed in the Christian Church to give a name at baptisme To men who were of years and well known in the world already by their nameâ— if they were converted to the Christian faith the Church did not use to give new names at their baptisme neither to Children alwayes but sometimes as an indifferent thing they left them to the custome of that country or of that family from which they were derived When Saint Augustine sayes that he came to Milan to S. Ambrose at that time quâ— dari nomina oportuit when Names were to be given it is true that he speaks of a time when Baptisme was to be administred but that phrase of Giving of Names was not a receiving of Names at Baptisme for neither Ambrose nor Augustine received any new name at their Baptisme but it was a giving up of their Names a Registring a Matriculating of their Names in the book of the profession of the Christian Religion and a publique declaration of that profession To be baptized therefore into the name of Christ is to be translated into his Family by this spirituall adoption in which adoption when it was legall as they that were adopted had also the name of the family into which they were adopted as of octavius Octavianus and the rest so are we so baptized into his name that we are of Christus Christiani and therefore to become truly Christians to live Christianly this is truly to be baptized into his name No other name is given under heaven whereby we can be saved nor must any other name accompany the name of God in our Baptisme When therefore they teach in the Romane Church that it is a good Baptisme which is administred in this forme I baptize thee in the name of the Father and Sonne and holy Ghost and the virgin Mary if he which baptizes so
over the pursuite of it till you overtake it Persquere follow it but first Inquire says David seek after it find where it is for here is not your rest Vnaquâ—que res in sua patria fortior If a Starre were upon the Earth it would give no light If a tree were in the Sea it would give no fruit every tree is fastest rooted and produces the best fruit in the soile that is proper for it Now here we have no continuing City but we seek one when we finde that we shall finde rest Here how shall we hope for it for our selves Intus pugnae foris timores we feel a warre of concupiscencies within aand we feare a battery of tentations without Si dissentiunt in domo uxor maritus periculâ—sa molestia says Saint Augustine If the Husband and wife agree not at home it is a troublesome danger and that 's every mans case for Care conjux our flesh is the wife and the spirit is the husband and they two will never agree But si dominetur uxor perversa pax says he and that 's a more ordinary case then we are aware of that the wife hath got the Mastery that the weaker vessell the flesh hath got the victory and then there is a show of peace but it is a stupidity a security it is not peace Let us depart out of our selves and looke upon that in which most ordinarily we place an opinion of rest upon worldly riches They that will be rich fall into tentations and snares and into many foolish and noysome lusts which drowne Men in perdition and in destruction for the desire of money is the root of evill Not the having of Money but the desire of it for it is Theophylacts observation that the Apostle does not say this of them that are rich but of them that will be made rich that set their heart upon the desire of riches and will be rich what way soever As the Partridge gathereth the young which she hath not brought forth so he that gathereth riches and not by right shall leave them in the midst of his dayes and at his end shall be a foole he shall not make a wise will But shall his folly end at his end or the punishment of his folly We see what a restlesse fool he is all the way first because he wants roome he says he will pull downe his barnes and build new thus farre there 's no rest in the Diruit and adificat in pulling downe and building up Then he says to his soule live at ease he says it but he gives no ease he says it as he shall say to the Hills fall downe and cover usâ— but they shall stand still and his soule shall heare God say whilest he promises himselfe this case O foole this night they shall fetch away thy soule God does not onely not tell him who shall have his riches but he does not tell him who shall have his soule He leaves him no affurance no ease no peace no rest Here. This rest is not then in these things not in their use for they are got with labor and held with feare and these labour and feare admit no rest not in their nature for they are fluid and transitory and moveable and these are not attributes of rest If that word doe not reach to Land the land is not movable yet it reaches to thee when thou makest thine Inventory put thy selfe amongst the moveables for thou must remove from it though it remove not from thee So that what rest foever may be imagined in these things it is not your rest for howsoever the things may seem to rest yet you doe not It is not here at all not in that Here which is intimated in this Text not in the falling that is Here for sinne is a stupidity it is not a rest not in the rising that is Here for this remorse this repentance is but as a surveying of a convenient ground or an emptying of an inconvenient ground to erect a building upon not in the departing that is here for in that is intimated a building of new habits upon the ground so prepared and so a continuall and laborious travaile no rest falling and rising and departing and surveying and building are no words of rest for give these words their spirituall sense that this sense of our fall which is remorse after sinne this rising from it which is repentance after sinne this departing into a safer station which is the building of habits contrary to the former doe bring an ease to the conscience as it doth that powerfully and plentifully yet as when we journey by Coach we have an ease in the way but yet our rest is at home so in the ways of a regenerate Man there is an unexpressible ease and consolation here but yet even this is not your rest for as the Apostle says If I be not an Apostle unto others yet doubtlesse I am unto you so what rest soever others may propose unto themseleves for you whose conver sation is in heaven for this world to the righteous is Atrium templi and heaven is that Temple it selfe the Militant Church is the porch the Triumphant is the Sanctum Sanctorum this Church and that Church are all under one roofe Christ Jesus for you who appertaine to this Church your rests is in heaven And that consideration brings us to the last of the three interpretations of these words The first was a Commination a departing without any Rest propos'd to the Jewes The second was a Commonition a departing into the way towards Rest proposed to repentant sinners And this third is a Consolation a departing into Rest it selfe propos'd to us that beleeve a Resurrection It is a consolation and yet it is a funerall for to present this eternall Rest we must a little invert the words to the departing out of this world by death and so to arise to Judgement Depart and arise for c. This departing then is our last Exodus our last passeover our last transmigration our departing out of this life And then the Consolation is placed in this that we are willing and ready for this departing Qua gratia breve nobis tempus praescripsit Deus How mercifully hath God proceeded with Man in making his life short for by that means he murmurs the lesse at the miseries of this life and he is the lesse transported upon the pleasures of this life because the end of both is short It is a weaknesse sayes Saint Ambrose to complain De immaturitate mortis of dying before our time for we were ripe for death at our birth we were born mellow Secundum aliquem modum immortalis dici posset homo si esset tempus intra quod mori non posset is excellently said by the same Father If there were any one minute in a mans life in which he were safe
reuniting of body and soule in a blessed Resurrection Ite Surgite depart so as you may desire to rise Depart with an In manus tuas and with a Veni Domiâ—e Iesu with a willing surrendring of your soules and a cheerfull meeting of the Lord Jesus For else all hope of profit and permanent Rest is lost for as Saint Hierome interprets these very words Here we are taught that there is no rest in this life Sed quasiâ—â—â— mortuis resurgentes ad sublime tendere ambulare post Daminum Iesum we depart when we depart from sin and we rise when we raise our selves to a conformity with Christ And not onely after his example but after his person that is to hasten thither whither he is gone to prepare us a Room For this Rest in the Text though it may be understood of the Land of Promise and of the Church and of the Arke and of the Sabbath for if we had time to pursue them we might make good use of all these acceptations yet we accept Chrysostâ—me's acceptation best Requies est ipse Christus our rest is Christ himselfe Not onely that rest that is in Christ peace of conscience in him but that Rest that Christ is in eternall rest in his kingdome There remaineth a Rest to the people of God besides that inchoation of Rest which the godly have here there remains a fuller Rest. Iesus is entred into his Rest sayes the Apostle there his Rest was not here in this world and Let us study to enter into thatâ— Rest sayes he for no other can accomplish our peace It is righteousnesse with God is recompence tribulation to them that trouble you and to you which are troubled Rest but when in this world no when the Lord Iesus shall sheâ— himselfe from heaven with his mighty Angels then comes your Rest for for the grave the body lies still but it is not a Rest because it is not sensible of that lying still In heaven the body shall rest rest in the sense of that glory This Rest then is not here Not onely not Here at this Here was taken in the first interpretation Here in the Earth but not Here in the second interpretation not in Repentance it selfe for all the Rest of this life even the spirituall Rest is rather a Truce then a peace rather a Cessation then an end of the war For when these words I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians Every one shall fight against his brother and every one against his neighbour City against City and Kingdome against Kingdome may be interpreted and are so interpreted of the time of the Gospell of Christ Jesus when Christ himselfe says Nolite putare quod venerim mittere pacem in terrâ Never think that I came to settle peace or Rest in this world Nay when Christ sayes None of them that were bidden shall come to his supper and that may be verified of any Congregation none of us that are call'd now shall come to that Rest a Man may be at a security in an opinion of Rest and be far from it A man may be neerer Rest in a troubled Conscience then in a secure Here we have often Resurrections that is purposes to depart from sin but they are such Resurrections as were at the time of Christs Resurrection when as the strongest opinion is Resurrexerunt iterum morituri Many of the dead rose but they died again we rise from our sins here but here we fall again Monumenta aperta sunt it is Saint Hierome's note The graves were opened presently upon Christs death but yet the bodies did not arise till Christs Resurrection The godly have an opening of their graves they see some light some of their weight some of their Earth is taken from them but a Resurrection to enter into the City to follow the Lamb to come into an established security that they have not till they be united to Christ in heaven Here we are still subject to relapses and to looking back Memento uxoris Lâ—t Ipsa in loco manet transeuntes monet Shee is fixed to a place that she might settle those that are not fix'd Vt quid in statuam salis conversa si non homines ut sapiant condiat to teach us the danger of looking back till we be fix'd she is fix'd When the Prophetâ— Eliahâ— was at the dore of Desperation an Angell touch'd him and said Vp and eat and there was bread and water provided and he did eat but he slept again and we have some of these excitations and we come and eat and drink even the body and bloud of Christ but we sleep again we doe not perfect the work Our Rest Here then is never without a fear of losing it This is our best state To fear leâ—t at any time by forsaking the promise of entring into his rest we should seem to be depriv'd The Apostle disputes not neither doe I whether we can be depriv'd or no but he assures us that we may fall back so far as that to the Church and to our own Consciences we may seem to be depriv'd and that 's argument enough that here is no Rest. To end all though there be no Rest in all this world no not in our sanctification here yet this being a Consolation there must be rest some where And it is In superna Civitate unde amicus non exit quâ inimicus non intrat In that City in that Hierusalem where there shall never enter any man whom we doe not love nor any goe from us whom we doe love Which though we have not yet yet we shall have for upon those words because I live ye shall live also Saint Augustine sayes that because his Resurrection was to follow so soon Christ takes the present word because I doe live But because their life was not to be had here he says Vivetis you shall live in heaven not Vivitis for here we doe not live So as in Adam we all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive says the Apostle All our deaths are here present now now we dy our quickning is reserv'd for heaven that 's future And therefore let us attend that Rest as patiently as we doe the things of this world and not doubt of it therefore because we see it not yet even in this world we consider invisible things more then visible Vidimus pelagus non autem mercedem The Merchant sees the tempestuous Sea when he does not see the commodities which he goes for Videmus terram non autem messem The Husbandman sees the Earth and his labour when he sees no harvest and for these hopes that there will be a gain to the Merchant and a harvest to the Labourer Naturae fidimus we rely upon Creatures for our Resurrection fide usâ—orem habemus Coranatum Not Nature not Sea
say they so as that wee shall use them or so as that we might But this sight that Iob speaks of is onely the fruition of the presence of God in which consists eternall blessednesse Here in this world we see God per speculum says the Apostle by reflection upon a glasse we see a creature and from that there arises an assurance that there is a Creator we see him in aenigmate says he which is not ill rendred in the margin in a Riddle we see him in the Church but men have made it a riddle which is the Church we see him in the Sacrament but men have made it a riddle by what light and at what window Doe I see him at the window of bread and wine Is he in that or doe I see him by the window of faith and is he onely in that still it is in a riddle Doe I see him à Priore I see that I am elected and therefore I cannot sinne to death Or doe I see him à Posteriore because I see my selfe carefull not to sin to death therefore I am elected I shall see all problematicall things come to be dogmaticall I shall see all these rocks in Divinity come to bee smooth alleys I shall see Propheâ—ies untyed Riddles dissolved controversies reconciled but I shall never see that till I come to this sight which follows in out text Videbo Deum I shall see God No man ever saw God and liv'd and yet I shall not live till I see God and when I have seen him I shall never dye What have I ever seen in this world that hath been truly the same thing that it seemed to me I have seen marble buildings and a chip a crust a plaster a face of marble hath pilld off and I see brick-bowels within I have seen beauty and a strong breath from another tels me that that complexion is from without not from a sound constitution within I have seen the state of Princes and all that is but ceremony and I would be loath to put a Master of ceremonies to define ceremony and tell me what it is and to include so various a thing as ceremony in so constant a thing as a Definition I see a great Officer and I see a man of mine own profession of great revenues and I see not the interest of the money that was paid for it I see not the pensions nor the Annuities that are charged upon that Office or that Church As he that fears God fears nothing else so he that sees God sees every thing else when we shall see God Sicuti est as he is we shall see all things Sicuti sunt as they are for that 's their Essence as they conduce to his glory We shall be no more deluded with outward appearances for when this sight which we intend here comes there will be no delusory thing to be seen All that we have made as though we saw in this world will be vanished and I shall see nothing but God and what is in him and him I shall see in carne in the flesh which is another degree of Exaltation in mine Exinanition I shall see him In carâ—e suâ in his flesh And this was one branch in Saint Augustines great wish That he might have seen Rome in her state That he might have heard S. Paul preach That he might have seen Christ in the flesh Saint Augustine hath seen Christ in the flesh one thousand two hundred yeares in Christs glorifyed flesh but it is with the eyes of his understanding and in his soul. Our flesh even in the Resurrection cannot be a spectacle a perspective glasse to our soul. We shall see the Humanity of Christ with our bodily eyes then glorifyed but that flesh though glorifyed cannot make us see God better nor clearer then the soul alone hath done all the time from our death to our resurrection But as an indulgent Father or as a tender mother when they go to see the King in any Solemnity or any other thing of observation and curiosity delights to carry their child which is flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone with them and though the child cannot comprehend it as well as they they are as glad that the child sees it as that they see it themselves such a gladnesse shall my soul have that this flesh which she will no longer call her prison nor her tempter but her friend her companion her wife that this flesh that is I in in the re-union and redintegration of both parts shall see God for then one principall clause in her rejoycing and acclamation shall be that this flesh is her flesh In carne meâ in my flesh I shall see God It was the flesh of every wanton object here that would allure it in the petulancy of mine eye It was the flesh of every Satyricall Libeller and defamer and calumniator of other men that would call upon it and tickle mine ear with aspersions and slanders of persons in authority And in the grave it is the flesh of the worm the possession is transfer'd to him But in heaven it is Caro mea My flesh my souls flesh my Saviours flesh As my meat is assimilated to my flesh and made one flesh with it as my soul is assimilated to my God and made partaker of the divine nature and Idem Spiritus the same Spirit with it so there my flesh shall be assimilated to the flesh of my Saviour and made the same flesh with him too Verbum caro factum ut caro resurgeret Therefore the Word was made flesh therefore God was made man that that union might exalt the flesh of man to the right hand of God That 's spoken of the flesh of Christ and then to facilitate the passage for us Reformat ad immortalitatem suam participes sui those who are worthy receivers of his flesh here are the same flesh with him And God shall quicken your mortall bodies by his Spirit is that dwelleth in you But this is not in consummation in full accomplishment till this resurrection when it shall be Caro mea my flesh so as that nothing can draw it from the allegiance of my God and Caro mea My flesh so as that nothing can devest me of it Here a bullet will aske a man where 's your arme and a Wolf wil ask a woman where 's your breast A sentence in the Star-chamber will aske him where 's your ear and a mouths close prison will aske him where 's your flesh A fever will aske him where 's your Red and a morphew will aske him where 's your white But when after all this when after my skinne worms shall destroy my body I shall see God I shall see him in my flesh which shall be mine as inseparably in the effect though not in the manner as the Hypostaticall union of God and man in Christ makes our nature and the God-head
Father or of my friend shall bee glorifyed there mine eyes shall be glorifyed as much and we are both kept in the same proportion there as wee had towards one another here here my naturall eye could see his naturall face and there mine eye is as much mended as his body is and my sense as much exalted as mine object And as well as I may know that I am I I may know that He is He for I shall not know my selfe nor that state of glory which I am then in by any light of Nature which I brought thither but by that light of Glory which I shall receive there When therefore a man finds that this consideration does him good in his conversation and retards him towards some sinnes how shall I stand then when all the world shall see that my solicitation hath brought such a woman to the stews to the Hospitall to hell who had scap'd all this if I had not corrupted her at first which no man in the world knew before and all shall know then Or that my whispering and my calumny hath overthrown such a man in his place in his reputation in his fortune which he himself knew not before and all shall know then Or that my counsell or my example hath been a furtherance to any mans spirituall edification here He that in rectified reason and a rectified conscience finds this in Gods name let him beleeve yea for Gods sake let him take heed of not beleeving that we shall know one another Actions and Persons in the Resurrection as the Apostles did know Christ at the Transfiguration which was a Type of it This Transfiguration then upon earth was the same glory which Christ had after in heaven Qualis venturus talis apparuit such as all eyes shall see him to be when he comes in glory at last those Apostles saw him then but of the particular circumstances even of this transfiguration upon earth there is but little said to us Let us modestly take that which is expressed in it and not search over-curiously farther into that which is signifyed and represented by it which is the state of glory in the Resurrection First his face shin'd as the Sunne says that Gospell he could not take a higher comparison for our Information and for our admiration in this world then the Sunne And then the Saints of God in their glorifyed state are admitted to the same comparison The righteous shall shine out as the Sunne in the Kingdome of the Father the Sunne of the firmament which should be their comparison will be gone But the Sun of grace and of glory the Son of God shall remain and they shall shine as he that is in his righteousnesse In this transfiguration his clothes were white says the text but how white the holy Ghost does not tell us at once as white as snow says Saint Mark as white as light says Saint Matthew Let the garments of the glorifyed Saints of God be their bodies and then their bodies are as white as snow as snow that fall's from heaven and hath touâ—ht no pollution of the earth For though our bodies have been upon earth and have touched pitch and have been defiled yet that will not lye in proof not be given in evidence Though he that drew me and I that was drawen too know in what unclean places and what unclean actions this body of mine hath been yet it lyes not in proof it shall not be given in evidence for Accusator fratrum The accuser of the brethren is cast down the Devill shall find nothing against me And if I had spontaneum Daemonem as Saint Chrysostome speaks a bosome Devill and could tempt my self though there had been no other tempter in this world so I have spontanâ—um Demonem a bosome accuser a conscience that would accuse me there if I accuse my self there I reproach the mercy of God who hath seal'd my pardon and made even my body what sins soever had discoloured it as white as snow As white as snow and as white as light says that Gospel Light implies an active power Light is operative and works upon others The bodies of the Saints of God shall receive all impressions of glory in themselves and they shall doe all that is to bee done for the glory of God there There they shall stand in his service and they shall kneel in his worship and they shall fall in his reverence and they shall sing in his glory they shall glorifie him in all positions of the body They shall be glorified in themselves passively and they shall glorifie God actively sicut Nix sicut Lux their beeing their doing shall be all for him Thus they shall shine as the Sun Thus their garments shall be white white as snow in being glorified in their own bodies white as light in glorifying God in all the actions of those bodies Now there is thus much more considerable and applyable to our present purpose in this tranfiguration of Christ that there was company with them Be not apt to think heaven in an Ermitage or a Monastery or the way to heaven a sullen melancholy Heaven and the way to it is a Communion of Saints in a holy cheerfulnesse Get thou thither make sure thine own salvation but be not too hasty to think that no body gets thither except he go thy way in all opinions and all actions There was company in the transfiguration but no other company then Moses and Elias and Christ and the Apostles none but they to whom God had manifested himself otherwise then to a meer naturall man otherwise then as a generall God For in the Law and in the Padagogie and Schoolmastership and instruction thereof God had manifested himself particularly by Moses In Elias and the Prophets whom God sent in a continuall succession to refresh that manifestation which he had given of himself in the Law before in the example of these rules in him who was the consummation of the Law and the Prophets Christ Iesus And then in the Application of all this by the Apostles and by the Church established by them God had more particularly manifested himself then to naturall men Moses Elias Christ and the Apostles make up the houshold of the faithfull and none have interest in the Resurrection but in and by these These to whom and by whom God hath exhibited himself to his Church by other notions then as one universall God For nothing will save a man but to believe in God so as God hath proposed himself in his Son in his Scriptures in his Christ. These were with him in the transfiguration and they talked with him says that text As there is a Communion of Saints so there is a Communication of Saints Think not heaven a Charter-house where men who onely of all creatures are enabled by God to speak must not speak to one another The Lord of heaven is
infirmer voice rise together in this resurrection of grace Let him that hath been buried sixty years forty years twenty years in covetousnesse in uncleannesse in indevotion rise now now this minute and then as Adam that dyed five thousand before shall be no sooner in heaven in his body then you so Abel that dyed for God so long before you shall be no better that is no fuller of the glory of heaven then you that dye in God when it shall be his pleasure to take you to him SERMON XVI Preached at Lincolns Inne COLOS. 1. 24. Who now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his bodies sake which is the Church WE are now to enter into the handling of the doctrine of Evangelicall counsailes And these words have been ordinarily used by the writers of the Roman Church for the defence of a point in controversie between them and us which is a preparatory to that which hereafter is to be more fully handled upon another Text. Out of these words they labour to establish works of supererogation in which they say men doe or suffer more then was necessary for their owne salvation and then the superfluity of those accrues to the Treasury of the Church and by the Stewardship and dispensation of the Church may be applied to other men living here or suffering in Purgatory by way of satisfaction to Gods justice But this is a doctrine which I have had occasion heretofore in this place to handle And a doctrine which indeed deserves not the dignity to be too diligently disputed against And as we will not stop upon the disproving of the doctrine so we need not stay long nor insist upon the vindicating of these words from that wresting and detortion of theirs in using them for the proofe of that doctrine Because though at first they presented them with great eagernesse and vehemence and assurance Quicquid haeretici obstrepunt illustris hic locus say the Heretiques what they can this is a clear and evident place for that doctrine yet another after him is a little more cautelous and reserv'd Negari non potest quin ita expeni possint it cannot be denied but that these words may admit such an exposition And then another more modified then both says Primò propriè non id intendit Apostolus the Apostle had no such purpose in his first and proper intention to prove that doctrine in these words Sed innuitur ille sensus qui et si non genuinus tamen à pari deduci potest some such sense says that author may be implied and intimated because though it be not the true and naturall sense yet by way of comparison and convenience such a meaning may be deduced Generally their difference in having any patronage for that corrupt doctrine out of these words appeares best in this that if we consider their authors who have written in controversies we shall see that most of them have laid hold upon these words for this doctrine because they are destitute of all Scriptures and glad of any that appear to any any whit that way inclinable But if we consider those authors who by way of commentary and exposition either before or since the controversies have been stirred have handled these words we shall find none of their owne authors of that kind which by way of exposition of these words doth deliver this to be the meaning of them that satisfaction may be made to the justice of God by the works of supererogation one man for another To come then to the words themselves in their true sense and interpretation we shall find in them two generall considerations First that to him that is become a new creature a true Christian all old things are done away and all things are made new As he hath a new birth as he hath put on a new man as he is going towards a new Ierusalem so hath he a new Philosophy a new production and generation of effects out of other causes then before he finds light out of darknesse fire out of water life out of death joy out of afflictions Nunc gaâ—deâ— now I rejoyce in my sufferings c. And then in a second consideration he finds that this is not by miracle that he should hope for it but once but he finds an expresse and certaine and constant reason why it must necessarily be so because I still up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ c. It is strange that I should conceive joy out of affliction but when I come to see the reason that by that affliction I fill up the sufferings of Christ c. it is not strange it cannot chuse but be so The parts then will be but two a proposition and a reason But in the first part it will be sit to consider first the person not meerely who it is but in what capacity the Apostle conceives this joy And secondly the season Now for joy is not always seasonable there is a time of mourning but now rejoycing And then in a third place we shall come to the affection it selfe Joy which when it is true and truly placed is the nearest representation of heaven it selfe to this world From thence we shall descend to the production of this joy from whence it is derived and that is out of sufferings for this phrase in passionibus in my sufferings is not in the middest oâ— my sufferings it is not that I have joy and comfort though I suffer but in passionibus is so in suffering as that the very suffering is the subject of my joy I had no joy no occasion of joy if I did not suffer But then these sufferings which must occasion this joy are thus conditioned thus qualified in our text That first it be passio mea my suffering and not a suffering cast by my occasion upon the whole Church or upon other men mea it is determined and limited in my selfe and mea but not prome not for my selfe not for mine owne transgressions and violating of the law but it is for others pro vobis says the Apostle for out of that root springs the whole second part why there appertaines a joy to such sufferings which is that the suffering of Christ being yet not unperfect but unperfected Christ having not yet suffered all which he is to suffer to this purpose for the gathering of his Church I fill up that which remaines undone And that in Carne not onely in spirit and disposition but really in my flesh And all this not only for making sure of mine own salvation but for the establishing and edifying a Church but yet his Church for men seduced and seducers of men have their Churches too and suffer for those Churches but this is for his Church and that Church of his which is properly his body and that is the visible Church and
these will be the particular branches of our two generall parts the proposition Gaudeo in afflictionibus c. And the reason Quiae adimpleo c. To beginne then with the first branch of the first part The person we are sure it was Sainâ— Paul who we are sure was an Apostle for so he tells the Coloâ—sians in the beginning of the Epistle Paul an Apostle of Iesus Christ by the will of God but yet he was not properly peculiarly their Apostle he was theirs as he was the Apostle of the Gentiles but he was not theirs as he was the Apostle of the Corinthians If I be not an Apostle to others says he yet doubtlesse I am to you for amongst the Corinthians he had laid the foundations of a Church Are ye not my worke in the Lord says he there but for the Colossians he had never preached to them never seen them Epaphras had laid the foundation amongst them And Archippus was working now at the writing of this Epistle upon the upper buildings as we may see in the Epistle it selfe Epaphras had planted and Archippus watered How entred Paul First as an Apostle he had a generall jurisdiction and superintendency over them and over all the Gentiles and over all the Church And then as a man whose miraculous conversion and religious conversation whose incessant preaching and whose constant suffering had made famous and reverend over the whole Church of God all that proceeded from him had much authority and power in all places to which it was directed As himselfe says of Andronicas and Iunia his kinsmen that they were Nobiles in Apostolis Nobly spoken of amongst the Apostles so Saint Paul himselfe was Nobilis Apostolus in Discipulis reverendly esteemed amongst all the Disciples for a laborious Apostle Saint Augustine joyned his desire to have heard Saint Paul preach with his other two wishes to have seen Christ in the flesh and to have seen Rome in her glory And Saint Chrysostome admires Rome so much admired for other things for this principally that she had heard Saint Paul preach And that Siâ—utâ—orpus magnum validum ita duos haberet illustres oculos as she was a great and glorious body so she had two great and glorious eyes The presence and the memories of Saint Peter and Saint Paul he writes not to them then meerely as an Apostle not in that capacity for he joines Timothy with himselfe at the beginning of the Epistle who was no Apostle properly though upon that occasion of Pauls writing in his owne and in Timothies name Saint Chrysostame say in a larger sense Ergo Timotheâ—s Apostolus if Timothy be in commission with Paul Timothy is an Apostle too But Saint Paul by his â—ame and estimation having justly got a power and interest in them he cherishes that by this salutation and he binds them the more to accept his instructions by giving them a part in all his persecutions and by letting them see how much they were in his care even in that distance A servile application of himselfe to the humors of others becomes not thâ— ministers of God It becomes him not to depart from his ingenuity and freedome to a servile humoring but to be negligent of their opinion of him with whom he is to converse and upon whose conscience he is to worke becomes him not neither It is his doctrine that must beare him out But if his discretion doe not make him acceptable too his doctrine will have the weaker root when Saint Paul and the Colossians thought well of one another the work of God was likely to goe forward amongst them And where it is not so the work prospers not This was then the person Paul as he had a calling and an authority by the Apostleship and Paul as he had made his calling and authority and Apostleship acceptable to them by his wisedome and descreet behaviour towards them and the whole Church The season followes next when he presents this doctrine to them Nunc Gaudeo now I rejoyce and there is a Nunc illi and a Nunc illis to be considered one time it hath relation to Saint Paul himselfe and another that hath relation to the Colossians His time the Nunc illis was nunc in vinculis now when he was in prison at Rome for from thence he writ this Epistle Ordinarily a prisoner is the lesse to be beleeved for his being in prison and in fetters if he speak such things as conduce to his discharge of those fetters or his deliverance from that imprisonment it is likely enough that a prisoner will lye for such an advantage But when Saint Paul being now a prisoner for the preaching of the Gospell speaks still for the advancement of the Gospell that he suffers for and finds out another way of preaching it by letters and by epistles when he opens himselfe to more danger to open to them more doctrine then that was very credible which he spake though in prison There is in all his epistles impetus Spiritus Christi as Irenaeus says a vehemence of the holy Ghost but yet amplius habent quae è vinculis says Chrisostome Those epistles which Saint Paul writ in prison have more of this vehemency in them a sentence written with a cole upon a wall by a close prisoner affects us when we come to read it Stolne letters by which a prisoner adventers the losse of that liberty which he had come therefore the more welcome if they come It is not always a bold and veliement reprehension of great persons that is argument enough of a good and a rectified zeale for an intemperate use of the liberty of the Gospell and sometimes the impotency of a satyricall humor makes men preach freely and over-freely offensively scandalously and so exasperate the magistrate God forbid that a man should build a reputation of zeale for having been called in question for preaching of a Sermon And then to think it wisdome redimere se quo queat minimo to sinke againe and get off as good cheape as he can But when the malignity of others hath slandred his doctrine or their galled consciences make them kicke at his doctrine then to proceed with a Christian magnanimity and a spirituall Nobility in the maintenance of that doctrine to preferre then before the greatnesse of the their persons and the greatnesse of his owne danger the greatnesse of the glory of God and the greatnesse of the losse which Gods Church should suffer by his lenity and prevarication To edifie others by his constancy then when this building in apparence and likelyhood must be raised upon his owne ruine then was Saint Pauls Nunc concerning himselfe then was his season to plant and convey this doctrine to these Colossians when it was most dangerous for him to doe so Now to consider this season and fitnesse as it concerned them The Nunc illis It was then
imploys the hand of sicknesse the hand of poverty the hand of justice the hand of malice still it is his hand that breakes the vessell and this vessell which is his own for can any such vessell have a propriety in it selfe or bee any other bodies primarily then his from whom it hath the beeing To recollect these if I will have joy in suffering it must be mine mine and not borrowed out of an imaginary treasure of the Church from the works of others Supererogation mine and not stollen or enforced by exasperating the Magistrate to a persecution mine by good title and not by suffering for breach of the Law mine in particular and not a generall persecution upon the Church by my occasion And mine by a stranger title then all this mine by resignation mine by disavowing it mine by confessing that it is none of mine Till I acknowledge that all my sufferings are even for Gods glory are his works and none of mine they are none of mine and by that humility they become mine and then I may rejoyce in my sufferings Through all our sufferings then there must passe an acknowledgement that we are unprofitable servants towards God utterly unprofitable So unprofitable to our selves as that we can merit nothing by our sufferings but still we may and must have a purpose to profit others by our constancy it is Pro vobis that Saint Paul says hee suffers for them for their souls I will most gladly bestow and be bestowed for your soules says he But Numquid Paulus crucifixus pro vobis was Paul crucified for you is his own question as he suffered for them here so we may be bold to say he was crucified for them that is that by his crucifying and suffering the benefit of Christs sufferings and crucifying might be the more cheerfully embraced by them and the more effectually applyed to them Pro vobis is Pro vestro commodo for your advantage and to make you the more active in making sure your own salvation We are afflicted says he for your consolation that 's first that you might take comfort and spirituall courage by our example that God will no more forsake you then he hath done us and then hee addes salvation too for your consolation and salvation for our sufferings beget this consolation and then this consolation facilitates your salvation and then when Saint Paul had that testimony in his own conscience that his purpose in his sufferings was Pro illis to advantage Gods children and then saw in his experience so good effect of it as that it wrought and begot faith in them then the more his sufferings encreast the more his joys encreast Though says he I be offered up upon the service and sacrifice of your faith I am glad and rejoyce with you all And therefore hee calls the Philippians who were converted by him Gaudium Coronam his Joy and his Crown not onely a Crown in that sense as an auditory a congregation that compasses the Preacher was ordinarily called a Crown Corâ—na In which sense that Martyr Cornelius answered the Judge when he was charged to have held intelligence and to have received Letters from Saint Cyprian against the State Ego de Corona Domini says he from Gods Church 't is true I have but Contra Rempublicam against the State I have received no Letters But not onely in this sense Saint Paul calls those whom he had converted his Crown his Crown that is his Church but he cals them his Crown in heaven What is our hope our joy our Crown of rejoycing are not even you it and where even in the presence of our Lord Iesus Christ at his coming says the Apostle And therefore not to stand upon that contemplation of Saint Gregories that at the Resurrection Peter shall lead up his converted Jewes and Paul his converted Nations and every Apostle his own Church Since you to whom God sends us doe as well make up our Crown as we doe yours since your being wrought upon and our working upon you conduce to both our Crowns call you the labour and diligence of your Pastors for that 's all the suffering they are called to till our sins together call in a persecution call you their painfulnesse your Crown and we shall call your applyablenesse to the Gospel which we preach our Crown for both conduce to both but especially childrens children are the Crown of the Elders says Solomon If when we have begot you in Christ by our preaching you also beget others by your holy life and conversation you have added another generation unto us and you have preached over our Sermons again as fruitfully as we our selves you shall be our Crown and they shall be your Crowns and Christ Jesus a Crown of everlasting glory to us all Amen SERMON XVII Preached at Lincolns Inne MATTH 18. 7. We unto the world because of offences THe Man Moses was very meeke above all the men which were upon the face of the Earth The man Moses was so but the Child Iesus was meeker then he Compare Moses with men and Moses will scarce be parallel'd Compare him with him who being so much more then man as that he was God too was made so much lesse then man as that he was a worme and no man and Moses will not be admitted If you consider Moses his highest expression what he would have parted with for his brethren in his Dele me Pardon them or blot my name out of thy book yet Saint Pauls zeale will enter into the balance and come into comparison with Moses in his Anathema pro fratribus in that he wished himselfe to be separated from Christ rather then his brethren should be But what comparison hath a sodaine a passionate and indigested vehemence of love expressed in a phrase that tasts of zeale but is not done Moses was not blotted out of the book of life nor Saint Paul was not separated from Christ for his brethren what comparison hath such a love that was but said and perchance should not have been said for we can scarce excuse Moses or Saint Paul of all excesse and inordinatenesse in that that they said with a deliberate and an eternall purpose in Christ Jesus conceived as soon as we can conceive God to have knowen that Adam would fall to come into this world dye for man and then actually and really in the fulnesse of time to do so he did come and he did dye The man Moses was very meeke the child Jesus meeker then hee Moses his meeknesse had a determination at least an interruption a discontinuance when hee revenged the wrong of another upon that Egyptian whom he slew But a bruised reed might have stood unbroken and smoking flax might have lien unquenched for ever for all Christ. And therefore though Christ send his Disciples to School to the Scribes and Pharisees because they sate in Moses seat for other lessons yet for
nor that melancholy that dampes me in a jealousie and suspicion a diffidence and distrust in God The Devill had no hand in composing me in my constitution But the Devill knows which of these govern and prevail in me and ministers such tentations as are most acceptable to me and this is Scandalum amoris the scandall of Love So have ye then the Name and Nature and extent of the Active Scandall against which the inhibition given in this Text is generall wee are forbidden to scandalize any person by any of these ways The scandall of Example or the scandall of Perswasion The scandall of Fear or the scandall of Love For there is scarce any so free to himselfe so entirely his own so independent upon others but that Example or Perswasion or Fear or Love may scandalize him that is Lead him into tentation and make him doe some things against his own mind Our Saviour Christ had spoken De pusillis of little children of weak persons easie to be scandalized before this Text and he returns ad pusillos to the consideration of little children persons easie to bee scandalized again this Text is not of them or not of them onely but of all say not thou of any man aetatem habet he is old enough let him look to himselfe he hath reason as other men have he hath had a learned and a religious education ill example can doe him no harm but give no ill example to any study the setling and the establishing of all for scarce is there any so strong but may bee shaked by some of these scandals Example Perswasion Fear or Love And hee that employs his gift of wit and Counsell to seduce and mislead men or his gift of Power and Authority to intimidate and affright men or his gift of other graces lovelinesse of person agreeablenesse of Conversation powerfulnesse of speech to ensnare and entangle men by any of these scandals may draw others into perdition but he falls also with them and shall not be left out by God in the punishments inflicted upon them that fall by his occasion The Commandement is generall scandalize none scarce any but may bee overthrown by some of these ways And then the Apostles practise was generall too we give no occasion of offence in any thing As he requires that wee should eat and drinke to the glory of God so hee would have us study to avoid scandalizing of others even in our eating and drinking If meat make my brother to offend offend either in eating against his own conscience or offend in an uncharitable mis-interpretation of my eating In aeternum says the Apostle there I will eat no flesh while the world standeth Nor destroy my brother with my meat for whom Christ dyed That 's the Apostles tendernesse in things He would give no occasion of offence in any thing And it is as generall in contemplation of persons he would have no offence given neither to the Iew nor to the Grecian nor to the Church of God He was as carefull not to scandalize not to give just occasion of offence to Jew not Gentile as not to the Church of God so must we be towards them of a superstitions religion amongst us as carefull as towards one another not to give any scandall any just cause of offence But what is to be called a just cause of offence towards those men Good ends and good ways plain and direct and manifest proceedings these can be called no scandall no just cause of offence to Jew nor Gentile to Turk nor Papist nor does Saint Paul intend that we should forbear essentiall and necessary things for fear of displeasing perverse and peevish men To maintain the doctrinall truths of our religion by conferences by disputations by writing by preaching to avow and to prove our religion to be the same that Christ Jesus and his Apostles proposed at beginning the same that the generall Councels established after the same that the blessed Fathers of those times unanimely and dogmatically delivered the same that those glorious Martyrs quickned by their death and carryed over all the world in the rivers in the seas of their blood to avow our religion by writing and preaching to be the same religion an then to preserve and protect that religion which God hath put into our hearts by all such meanes as hee hath put into our hands in the due execution of just Laws this is no scandall no just cause of offence to Jew not Gentile Turke nor Papists But when leaving fundamentall things and necessary truths we wrangle uncharitably about Collaterall impertinencies when wee will refuse to doe such things as conduce to the exaltation of Devotion or to the order and peace of the Church not for any harme in the things but onely therefore because the Papists doe them when because they kneel in the worship of the bread in the Sacrament wee will not kneel in Thanksgiving to God for the Sacrament when because they pray to Saints we will reproach the Saints or not name the Saints when because they abuse the Crosse we will abhor the Crosse This is that that Saint Paul protests against and in that protestation Catechizes us that as he would give no just occasion of offence to the true Church of God so neither would hee doe it to a false or infirme Church He would not scandalize the true Church of God by any modifications any inclinations towards the false nor hee would not scandalize the false and infirme Church by refusing to communicate with them in the practise of such things as might exalt our Devotion and did not endanger nor shake any foundation of religion which was the wisdome of our Church in the beginning of the Reformation when the Injuctions of our Princes forbad us to call one another by the odious names of Papist or Papisticall Heretique or Schismatique or Sacramentary or such convitions as the word of the Injunction is and reprâ—achfull names but cleaving always intirely and inseparably to the fundamentall truths of our own religion as farre as it is possible we should live peaceably with all men Saint Paul would give no offence to the true Church of God he would not prevaricate nor to the Jew nor Gentile neither he would not exasperate And this may bee enough to have been said of the active scandallâ— and passe we now in our order to the Passive It is no wonder to see them who put all the world into differences the Jesuits to differ sometimes amongst themselves And therefore though the Jesuit Maldonat say of this Text That Christ did not here intend to warne or to arm his Disciples against scandals as scandals occasions of sin but onely from offering injury to one another That scandall in this text is nothing but wrong yet another Jesuit Vincemius Rhegius is not onely of another opinion himselfe but thinks that opinion as he calls it absurd It is absurd says he
hidden things of dishonesty how great a burthen is there in these open and avowed sins sins that have put on so brasen a face as to out-face the Minister and out-face the Magistrate and call the very Power and Justice of God in question whether he do hate or can punish a sinne for they doe what they can to remove that opinion out of mens hearts Truly as an Hypocrite at Church may doe more good then a devout man in his Chamber at home be cause the Hypocrites outward piety though counterfeit imprints a good example upon them who doe not know it to bee counterfeit and wee cannot know that he that is absent from Church now is now at his prayers in his Chamber so a lesser sinne done with an open avowment and confidence may more prejudice the Kingdome of God then greater in secret And this is that which may be principally intended or atleast usefully raised our of this phrase of the Holy Ghost in David A facie peccati that the habituall sinner comes to sin not onely with a negligence who know it but with a glorious desire that all the world might know it and with a shame that any such Iudge as feared not God nor regarded man should be more feareless of God or regardless of man then he But now beloved when we have laid man thus low Miserable because Man and then Diseased and that all over without any soundnesse even in his whole substance in his flesh and in the height of this disease Restlesse too and Restlesse even in his bones diffident in his strongest assurances And when we have laid him lower then that made him see the Cause of all this misery to be the Anger of God the inevitable anger of an incensed God and such an anger of God as hath a face a manifestation a reality and not that God was angry with him in a Decree before he shewed man his face in the Law and saw Mans face in the transgression of the law And laid him lower then that too made him see the cause of this anger as it is sinne so to be his sinne sinne made his by an habituall love thereof which though it may be but one yet is become an out-facing sinne a sinne in Contempt and confidence when we have laid Man laid you thus low in your own eyes we returne to the Canon and rule of that Physician whom they call Evangelist aâ—â— medicinae the Evangelist of Physique Sit intentio prima in omni medicina comfâ—rtare whether the physician purge or lance or sear his principall care and his end is to comfort and strengthen so though we have insisted upon Humane misery and the cause of that the anger of God and the cause of that anger sinne in that excesse yet we shall dismisse you with that Consolation which was first in our intention and shall be our conclusion that as this Text hath a personall aspect upon David alone and therefore we gave you hit case and then a generall retrospect upon Adam and all in him and therefore we gave you your own case so it hath also an Evangelicall prospect upon Christ and therefore for your comfort and as a bundle of Myrrhe in your bosomes we shall give you his case too to whom these words belong as well as to Adam or David or you There is no soundnesse in my flesh because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sinne If you will see the miseries of Man in their exaltation and in their accumulation too in their weight and in their number take them in the Ecce home when Christ was presented from Pilate scourged and scorned Ecce home behold man in that man in the Prophets They have reproched the feetsteps of thine Anointed says David slandred his actions and conversation He hath no form nor comlinesse nor beauty that we should desire to see him says Esay Despised rejected of men A man of sorrows and acquainted with griefes And Ecce homo behold man in that man in the whole history of the Gospell That which is said of us of sinfull men is true in him the salvation of men from the sole of the foot even unto the Head there is no soundnesse but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores That question will never receive answer which Christ askes Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow Never was never will there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow because there can never be such a person to suffer sorrow Affliction was upon him and upon all him for His soule was heavy unto death Even upon his Bones fire was sent into his bones and it prevailed against him And the highest cause of this affliction was upon him the anger of God The Lord had afflicted him in the day of his fierce anger The height of Gods anger is Dereliction and he was brought to his Vt quid dereliquisti My God my God why hast thou forsaken me We did esteem him striken of the Lord says Esay And we were not deceived in it Percutiam pastorem says Christ himselfe of himselfe out of the Prophet I will smite the shepheard and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered And then the cause of this anger sinne was so upon him as that though in one consideration the raine was upon all the world and onely this fleece of Gedeon dry all the world surrounded with sinne and onely He innocent yet in another line we finde all the world dry and onely Gedeons fleece wet all the world innoceâ— and onely Christ guilty But as there is a Verè tulit and a Verè portavit surely he bore those griefes and surely he carried those sorrows so they were Verè nostri surely he hath borne our griefes and carried our sorrows he was wounded for our transgressioâ—â— and bruised for our iniquitles The Chastisement of our peace was upon him 〈◊〉 â—efore it must necessarily follow as it does follow there with his stripes wee 〈◊〉 for God will not exact a debt twice of Christ for me and of me too 〈◊〉 therefore Quare moriemini Domus Israel since I have made ye of the houshold â— of Israel why will ye die since ye are recovered of your former sicknesses why will die of a new disease of a suspicion or jealousie that this recovery this redemption in Christ Iesus belongs not to you Will ye say It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands Dei viventis of the living God 'T is so a fearfull thing But if Deâ—s mortuus the God of life bee but dead for mee be fallen into my hands applied to mee made mine it is no fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Non sat is est medicum fecisse suum officium nisi agrotus adstantes sua It is not enough for Christ Jesus to have prepared you the balm of his bloud
choice whether hee should pardon me all those actuall and habituall sins which I have committed in my life or extinguish Originall sinne in me I should chuse to be delivered from Originall sin because though I be delivered from the imputation thereof by Baptism so that I shall not fall under a condemnation for Originall sin onely yet it still remains in me and practises upon me and occasions all the other sins that I commit now for all my actuall and habituall sins I know God hath instituted meanes in his Church the Word and the Sacraments for my reparation But with what a holy alacrity with what a heavenly joy with what a cheerfull peace should I come to the participation of these meanes and seals of my reconciliation and pardon of all my sins if I knew my selfe to be delivered from Originall sinne from that snake in my bosome from that poyson in my blood from that leaven and tartar in all my actions that casts me into Relapses of those sins which I have repented And what a cloud upon the best serenity of my conscience what an interruption what a dis-continuance from the sincerity and integrity of that joy which belongs to a man truly reconciled to God in the pardon of his former sins must it needs be still to know and to know by lamentable experiences that though I wash my selfe with Soap and Nitâ—e and Snow water mine own cloathes will defile me again though I have washed my selfe in the tears of Repentance and in the blood of my Saviour though I have no guiltinesse of any former sin upon me at that present yet I have a sense of a root of sin that is not grub'd up of Originall sinne that will cast me back again Scarce any man considers the weight the oppression of Originall sinne No man can say that an Akorn weighs as much as an Oak yet in truth there is an Oak in that Akorn no man considers that Originall sinne weighs as much as Actuall or Habituall yet in truth all our Actuall and Habituall sins are in Originall Therefore Saint Pauls vehement and frequent prayer to God to that purpose could not deliver him from Originall sin and that stimulus carnis that provocation of the flesh that Messenger of Satan which rises out of that God would give him sufficient grace it should not worke to his destruction but yet he should have it Nay the infinite merit of Christ Jesus himself that works so upon all actuall and habituall sins as that after that merit is applyed to them those sins are no sins works not so upon Originall sin but that though I be eased in the Dominion and Imputation thereof yet the same Originall sin is in me still and though God doe deliver me from eternall death due to mine actuall and habituall sins yet from the temporall death due to Originall sin he delivers not his dearest Saints Thus sin is heavy in the seed in the grain in the akorn how much more when it is a field of Corn a barn of grain a forest of Oaks in the multiplication and complication of sin in sin And yet wee consider the weight of sin another way too for as Christ feels all the afflictions of his children so his children will feel all the wounds that are inflicted upon him even the sins of other men as Lots righteous soule was grieved with sins of others If others sin by my example provocation or by my connivence and permission when I have authority their sin lies heavyer upon me then upon themselves for they have but the weight of their own sinne and I have mine and theirs upon me and though I cannot have two souls to suffer and though there cannot be two everlastingnesses in the torments of hell yet I shall have two measures of those unmeasurable torments upon my soul. But if I have no interest in the sins of other men by any occasion ministred by me yet I cannot chuse but feel a weight a burthen of a holy anguish and compassion and indignation because every one of these sins inflict a new wound upon my Saviour when my Saviour says to him that does but injure me Why persecutest thou me and feels the blow upon himselfe shall not I say to him that wounds my Saviour Why woundest thou me and groane under the weight of my brothers sin and my Fathers my Makers my Saviours wound If a man of my blood or allyance doe a shamefull act I am affected with it If a man of my calling or profession doe a scandalous act I feel my self concerned in his fault God hath made all mankinde of one blood and all Christians of one calling and the sins of every man concern every man both in that respect that I that is This nature is in that man that sins that sin and I that is This nature is in that Christ who is wounded by that sin The weight of sin were it but Originall sin were it but the sins of other men is an insupportable weight But if a sinner will take a true balance and try the right weight of sin let him goe about to leave his sin and then he shall see how close and how heavily it stook to him Then one sin will lay the weight of seelinesse of falshood of inconstancy of dishonour of ill nature if you goe about to leave it and another sin will lay the weight of poverty of disestimation upon you if you goe about to leave it One sin will lay your pleasures upon you another your profit another your Honour another your Duty to wife and children and weigh you down with these Goe but out of the water goe but about to leave a sin and you will finde the weight of it and the hardnesse to cast it off Gravatae sunt Mine iniquities are heavy that was our first and gravatae nimis they are too heavy which is a second circumstance Some weight some balast is necessary to make a ship goe steady we are not without advantage in having some sinne some concupiscence some tentation is not too heavy for us The greatest sins that ever were committed were committed by them who had no former sinne to push them on to that sin The first Angels sin and the sin of Adam are noted to be the most desperate and the most irrecoverable sins and they were committed when they had no former sin in them The Angels punishment is pardoned in no part Adams punishment is pardoned in no man in this world Now such sins as those that is sins that are never pardoned no man commits now not now when he hath the weight of former sins to push him on Though there be a heavy guiltinesse in Originall sin yet I have an argument a plea for mercy out of that Lord my strength is not the strength of stones nor my flesh brasse Lord no man can bring a clean thing out of uncleannesse Lord no man can say after I have
Though mine iniquities be got over my head as a wall of separation yet in Christo omnia possum In Christ I can doe all things Mine iniquities are got over my head but my head is Christ and in him I can doe whatsoever hee hath done by applying his sufferings to my soule for all my sins are his and all his merit is mine And all my sins shall no more hinder my ascending into heaven nor my sitting at the right hand of God in mine own person then they hindered him who bore them all in his person mine onely Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus blessed for ever SERMON XXIV Preached at White-Hall EZEK 34. 19. And as for my flock they eate that which yee have troen with your feet and they drink that which yee have foulded with your feet THose four Prophets whom the Church hath called the great Prophets Esay and Ieremy Ezekiel and Daniel are not onely therefore called great because they writ more then the lesser Prophets did for Zecbary who is amongst the lesser writ more then Daniel who is amongst the greater but because their Prophecies are of a larger comprehension and extent and for the most part speake more of the comming of Christ and the establishing of the Christian Church then the lesser Prophets doe who were more conversant about the temporall deliverance of Israel from Babylon though there be aspersions of Christ and his future government in those Prophets too though more thinly shed Amongst the four great ones our Prophet Ezekiel is the greatest I compare not their extraction and race for though Ezekiel were de genere sacerdotali of the Leviticall and Priestly race And as Philo Iudâ—us notes all nations having some markes of Gentry some calling that ennobled the professors thereof in some Armes and Merchandize in some and the Arts in others amongst the Iews that was Priesthood Priesthood was Gentry though Ezekiel were of this race Esay was of a higher for he was of the extraction of their Kings of the bloud royall But the extraordinary greatnesse of Ezekiel is in his extraordinary depth and mysteriousnesse for this is one of those parts of Scripture as the beginning of Genesis and the Canticles of Solomon also are which are forbid to be read amongst the Iews till they come to be thirty years old which was the Canonicall age to be made Priests In so much that Saint Gregory says when he comes to expound any part of this Prophet Noctunum iter ago that he travelled by night and did but ghesse at his way But besides that many of the obscure places of the Prophets are more open to us then they were to the ancients because many of those prophecies are now fulfilled and so that which was Prophecy to them is History to us in this place which we have now undertaken there never was darknesse not difficulty neither in the first emanation of the light thereof nor in the reflection neither in the Literall nor in the Figurative sense thereof for the literall sense is plainly that that amongst the manifold oppressions under which the Children of Israel languished in Babylon this was the heaviest that their own Priests joyned with the State against them and infused pestilent doctrines into them that so themselves might enjoy the favour of the State and the people committed to their charge might slacken their obedience to God and surrender themselves to all commandements of all men This was their oppression the Church joyned with the Court to oppresse them Their own Priests gave these sheep grasse which they had troden with their feet doctrines not as God gave them to them but as they had tampered and tempered them and accommodated them to serve turnes and fit their ends whose servants they had made themselves more then Gods And they gave them water to drink which they had troubled with their feet that is doctrines mudded with other ends then the glory of God And that therefore God would take his sheep into his own care and reduce them from that double oppression of that Court and that Church those Tyrannous officers and those over-obsequious Priests This is the literall sense of our text and context evident enough in the letter thereof And then the figurative and Mysticall sense is of the same oppressions and the same deliverance over againe in the times of Christ and of the Christian Church for that 's more then figurative fully literall soon after the Text I will set up one shepheard my servant David And I will raise up for them a plant of renoune which is the same that Esay had called A rod out of the stem of Iesse and Ieremy had called A righteous brâ—nch a King thus should raigne and prosper This prophecy then comprehending the kingdome of Christ it comprehends the whole kingdome of Christ not onely the oppressions and deliverances of our forefathers from the Heathen and the Heretiques in the Primitive Church but that also which touches us more nearly the oppressions and deliverance of our Fathers in the Reformation of Religion and the shaking off of the yoak of Rome that Italian Babylon as heavy as the Chaldâ—an We shall therefore at this time fix our meditations upon that accommodation of the Text the oppression that the Israel of God was under then when he delivered them by that way the Reformation of Religion and consider how these metaphors of the holy Ghost The treading with their feet the grasse that the sheep were to eae and the troubling with their feet the water that the sheep were to drink doe answer and set out the oppressions of the Roman Church then as lively as they did in the other Babylon And so having said enough of the primary sense of these words as they concern Gods Israel in the first Babylon and something by way of commemoration and thankfulnesse for Gods deliverance of his Israel from the persecutions in the Primitive Church insist we now upon the severall metaphors of the Text as the holy Ghost continues them to the whole reigne of Christ and so to the Reformation First the greatest calamity of those sheep in Babylon was that their own shepherds concurred to their oppression In Babylon they were a part but in Rome they were all In Babylon they joyned with the State but in Rome they were the State Saint Hierome notes out of a Tradition of the Iews that those loafes which their priests were to offer to the Lord were to be of such corne as those Priests had sowed and reaped and threshed and ground and baked all with their own hands But they were so farre from that at Babylon and at Rome as that they ploughed iniquity and sowed wickednesse and reaped the same and as God himselfe complaines trod his portion under foot That is first neglected his people for Gods people are his portion And then whatsoever pious men had given to the Church is his portion too and that portion
they had troden under foot not neglected it not despised it for they collected it and audited it providently enough but they trod it under foot when that which was given for the sustentation of the Priest they turned upon their own splendour and glory and surfet Christ will be fed in the poor that are hungry and hee will be cloathed in the poore that are naked so he would be enriched in those poor Ministers that serve at his Altar when Christ would be so fed he desires not feasts and banquets when he would be so cloathed hee desires not soft rayment fit for Kings houses nor embroyderies nor perfumes when he would be enriched in the poor Church-man he desires not that he should be a spunge to drinke up the sweat of others and live idly but yet as he would not be starved in the hungry nor submitted to cold and unwholesome ayre in the naked so neither would he be made contemptible nor beggerly in the Minister of his Church Nor was there in the world take in Turky and all the heathen for they also have their Clergy a more contemtible more beggerly Clergy then that of Rome I speak of the Clergy in the most proper sense that is they that minister they that officiate they that execute they that personally laboriously do the service of the Church The prelacies and Dignities of the Church were multiplyed in the hands of them who under pretext of Government took their ease and they that labored were attenuated macerated with lean penurious pensions In the best governed Churches there are such Dignities supplies without Cure of soules or personall service but they are intended for recompence of former labours and sustentation of their age of whose youth and stronger days the Church had received benefit But in the Roman Church these preferments are given almost in the wombe and children have them not onely before they can merit them but before they can speake for them and they have some Church-names Dean or Bishop or Abbat as soon almost as they have any Christian names Yea we know many Church dignities entailed to noble families and if it fall void whilest the child is so incapable it must be held for him by some that must resigne it when it may by any extent of dispensation be asked for him So then the Church joyned with the State to defraud the people The Priest was poorly maintained and so the people poorely instructed And this is the first conformity between the two Babylons the Chaldean and the Italian Pursue we then the holy Ghosts purpose and manner of implying and expressing it the food ordained for sheep Grasse In which make we onely these two stops that the sheep are to eate their grasse super terram upon the ground And they are to eate it sinerore when the dew is off First upon the ground that is where the hand of God hath set it which for spirituall food is the Church In hard winters we give sheep hay but in open times open grasse In persecutions of Tyrans in Interdicts of Antichristian Bishops who sometimes out of passion or some secular respect shut up Church dores and forbid service and Sacraments to whole Cities to whole nations sheep must live by hay Gods Children must relieve themselves at home by books of pious and devout meditation But when God affords abundant pastures and free entrance thereunto Gods sheep are to take their grasse upon the ground Gods grace at the Church Impossibile est eum corrigere qui omnia scit Chrysost It is an impossible thing to correct him that thinks he knows all things already As long as he will admit counsaile from another he acknowledges the other to know more then he but if he thinks he knows all before he hath no room for farther instruction nor love to the place where it is to be had We read in the Eastern Histories of a navigable River that afforded all the inhabitants exportation and importation and all commerce But when every particular man to serve his own curiosity for the offices of his house for the pleasures of his gardens and for the sumptuousnesse of Grots and aqueducts and such water-works drew severall channells infinite channells our of this great River this exhausted the maine channell and brought it to such a shallownesse as would beare no boats and so took from them the great and common commodities that it had afforded them So if every man think to provide himselfe Divinity enough at home for himselfe and his family and out of laziness and singularity or state or disaffection to the preacher leave the Church unfrequented he frustrates the Ordinance of God which is that his sheep should come to his pastures and take his grasse upon his ground his instructions at his house at Church And this we could not doe in the Roman Church where all our prayers and all Gods service of that kinde were in a language not onely not understood by him that heard it but for the most part not by him that spoke it It is not of their manifold and scornfull and ridiculous and histrionicall Ceremonies in their service nor of the dangerous poysons the direct Idolatries in the practise of the people in their service that we complain of now but of this that though it had been never so wholesome grasse it was not so to those sheep they could not know it to be their proper aliment for certainly they aske without faith that aske without understanding nor can I beleeve or hope that God will give me that I aske if I know not what I asked And what a miserable supply had they for this in their Legends for many of those Legends were in vulgar tongues and understood by them In which Legends the Virgin Mary was every good mans wife and every good womans mid-wife by a neighborly and familiar and ordinary assistant in all houshold offices as we see in those Legends and revelations In which Legends they did not onely faine actions which those persons never did but they fained persons which never were and they did not onely mis-canonize men made Devils Saints but they mis-christened men put names to persons and persons to names that never were And these legends being transferred into the Church the sheep lacke their grasse upon the ground that is the knowledge of Gods will in his house at Church And this is another conformity between the two Babylons the Chaldean and the Italian Babylon that the sheep lacked due food in the due place So is it also that the sheep eat their grasse whilest the Dew was upon it which is found by experience to be unwholesome The word of God is our grasse which should be delivered purely simply sincerely and in the naturall verdure thereof The Dews which we intend are Revelations Apparitions Inspirations Motions and Interpretations of the private spirit Now though we may see the naturall dew
receiving an inestimable benefit at the hands of God which was the first reason of kneeling then And because the Priest is then in the act of prayer in their behalfe that that may preserve them in body and soule unto eternall life But they are suffered to go one in kneeling in adoration of that bread which they take to be God We deny not that there are Traditions nor that there must be ceremonies but that matters of faith should depend of these or be made of these that we deny and that they should be made equall to Scriptures for with that especially doth Tertullian reproch the Heretiques that being pressed with Scriptures they fled to Traditions as things equall or superiour to the word of God I am loth to depart from Tertullian both because he is every where a Patheticall expresser of himselfe and in this point above himselfe Nobis curiositate opus non est post Iesum Christum nec Inquisitione post Evangelium Have we seen that face of Christ Jesus here upon earth which Angels desired to see and would we see a better face Traditions perfecter then the word Have we read the four Evangelists and would we have a better Library Traditions fuller then the word Cum credimusâ— nihil desideramus ultra credere when I beleeve God in Christ dead and risen againe according to the Scriptures I have nothing else to beleeve Hoc enim prius credimus non esse quod ultra credere debeamus This is the first Article of my Faith that I am bound to beleeve nothing but articles of faith in an equall necessity to them Will we be content to be well and thank God when we are well Hilary tells us when we are well Bene habet quod iis quae scripta sunt contentus sis then thou art well when thou satisfiest thy self with those things which God hath vouchsafed to manifest in the Scriptures Si aliquis aliis verbis quà m quibus à Deo dictum est demonstrare velit if any man will speake a new language otherwise then God hath spoken and present new Scriptures as he does that makes traditions equall to them Aut ipse non intelligit aut legentibus non intelligendum relinquit either he understands not himself or I may very well be content not to understand him if I understand God without him The Fathers abound in this opposing of Traditions when out of those traditions our adversaries argue an insufficiency in the Scriptures Solus Christus audiendus says Saint Cyprian we hearken to none but Christ nec debemus attendere quid aliquis ante nos faciendum putarit neither are we to consider what any man before us thought fit to be done sed quid qui ante emnes est fecerit but what he who is before all them did Christ Iesus and his Apostles who were not onely the primitive but the pre-primitive Church did and appointed to be done In this treading down of our grasse then in the Roman Church first by their supine Ignorance and barbarisme and then by traditions of which some are pestilently iufectious and destroy good words some cover it so as that not being declared to the people in their signification they are uselesse to them no Babylon could exceed the Italian Babylon Rome in treading down their grasse Their oppression was as great in the other In troubling their water My sheep drink that which you have troubled When the Lord is our shepherd he leadeth us ad aquas quietudinum to the waters of rest of quietnesse of these in the plurall quietudinum quietness of body and quietness of Conscience too The endowments of heaven are Ioy and Glory joy and glory are the two Elements the two Hemispheres of Heaven And of this Joy and this Glory of heaven we have the best earnest that this world can give if we have rest satisfaction and acquiescence in our religion for our beleefe and for our life and actions peace of Conscience And where the Lord is our shepherd he leads us and ad aquas quietudinum to the waters of rest multiplyed rest all kind of rest But the shepherds in our text troubled the waters and more then so for we have just cause to note the double signification of this word which we translate Trouble and to transfer the two significations to the two Sacraments as they are exhibited in the Roman Babylon The word is Mirpas and it denotes not onely Conturbationem a troubling a mudding but Obturationem too an interception a stopping as the Septuagint translates it Prov. 35. and in these two significations of the word a troubling and a stopping of the waters hath the Roman Church exercised her tyranny and her malignity in the two Sacraments For in the Sacrament of Baptisme they had troubled the water with additions of Oile and salt and spittle and exorcismes But in the other Sacrament of they came Ad obturationem to a stopping to an intercision to an interruption of the water the water of life Aquae quietudinum the water of rest to our souls and peace to our consciences in withholding the Cup of salvation the bloud of Christ Jesus from us So that if thou come to Davids holy expostulation Quid retribuam what shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me And pursue it to Davids holy resolution Accipiam Calicem I will take the Cup of salvation you shall be told Sir you must take Orders first or you cannot take that Cup. But water is as common as Aire And as that Element Aire in our spirituall food that is preaching which is Spiritus Domini the breath of God is common to all Iâ—e praedicate omni Creaturae goe preach the Gospell to every Creature so is this water of life in the Sacrament common to all Bibite ex eo omnes Drink yee all of this and thereby doe the names of Communion and participation accrew to it because all have an interest in it This is that bloud of which Saint Chrysostome says Hic sanguis facit ut Imago Dei in nobis floreat That we have the Image of God in our souls we have by the benefit of the same nature by which we have our souls There cannot be a humane soule without the Image of God in it But ut floreat that this Image appear to us and be continually refreshed in us ut non Languescat animae nobilitas that this holy noblenesse of the soule doe not languish not degenerate in us we have by the benefit of this bloud of Christ Iesus the seale of our absolution in that blessed and glorious Sacrament And that bloud they deny us This is that bloud of which they can make as much as they will with a thought with an intention so as they pretend a power of changing a whole vintage at once all the wine of all the nations in the world into the bloud of Christ if the Priest have an intention to
And then lastly by way of condoling and of instructing we shall make it appear to our weak brethren that our departing from Rome can be no example no justification of their departing from us Our branches then from whence we are to gather our fruit being thus many it is time to lay hold upon the first which is Manebant Though these sheep were thus ill fed yet they did stay Optimis ovibus pedes breves The best sheep have-shortest leggs Their commendation is not to make hast in straying away He that hasteth with his feet sinneth that is from the station in which God hath placed him Si innumera bona fecerimus If we have abounded in good works and done God never so good service Non minores Poenas dabimus quà m qui Christi corpus proscindebant si integritatem Ecclesiarum discerpserimus we are as guilty in the eies of God as they that crucifyed the Lord of life himselfe if we violate his spouse or rent the intirenesse of his Church Vir quidam sanctus dixit says the same father of another Chrysostome of Cyprian A certaine holy man hath ventured to say Quod audaciùs sapere videtur attamen dixit That which perchance may seem bodily sayd but yet he sayd it what was it This peccatum istud nec martyrio deleri That this sin of schisme of renting the unity of the Church cannot be expiated no not by Martyrdome it self When God had made but a hedge about Iob yet that hedge was such a â—ence as the Devill could not break in when God hath carryed Murum aeneum a wall of brasse nay Murum igneum a wall of fire about his Church wilt thou break out through that wall that brasse that fire Paradise was not walled nor hedged and there were serpents in Paradise too yet Adam offered not to goe out of Paradise till God drove him out and God saw that he would have come in againe if the Cherubims and the flaming sword had not been placed by God to hinder him Charme the Charmer never so wisely as David speaks he cannot utter a sweeter nor a more powerfull charme â—hen that Ego te baptizo I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost And Nos admittimus we receive this child into the congregation of Christs slock There is a sweet and a powerfull charm in the Ego te absolvo I absolve thee from all thy sins But this blessed charm I may heare from another if I stray into another Church But the Ego te baptizo I can heare but once and to depart from that Church in which I have received my baptism and in which I have made my Contracts and my stipulations with God and pledged and engaged my sureties there deserve a mature consideration for I may mistake the reasons upon which I goe and I may finde after that there are more true errours in the Church I goe to then there were imaginary in that that I left Truly I have been sorry to see some persons converted from the Roman Church to ours because I have known that onely temporall respects have moved them and they have lived after rather in a nullity or indifferency to either religion then in a true and established zeale Of which kinde I cannot forbeare to report to you so much of the story of a French gentleman who though he were of good parts and learned yet were not worthy to be mentioned in this place but that he soar'd so high as to write against the learnedst King that any age hath produc'd our incomparable King Iames. This man who was turned from the Reformed to the Roman religion being asked halfe in jest Sir which is the best religion you must needs know that have been of both answered Certainely the religion I left the reformed religion must needs be the best religion for when I changed I had this religion the Romans religion for it and three hundred Crowns a year to boot which was a pension given him upon his conversion Neither truely doth any thing more loosen a mans footing nor slacken his hold upon that Church in which he was baptized nor open him more to an undervaluation of all Churches then when he gives himselfe leave to thinke irreverently slightly negligently of the Sacraments as of things at best indifferent and many times impertinent I should thinke I had no bowels if they had not earn'd and melted when I heard a Lady whose child of five or sixe daies being ready to die every minute she being mov'd often that the child might be christened answered That if it were Gods will that the child should live to the Sabbath that it might be baptized in the Congregation she should be content otherwise Gods will be done upon it for God needs no Sacrament With what sorrow with what holy indignation did I heare the Sonne of my friend who brought me to that place to minister the Sacrament to him then upon his death-bed and almost at his last gaspe when my service was offered him in that kinde answer his Father Father I thanke God I have not lived so in the sight of my God as that I need a Sacrament I name a few of these because our times abound with such persons as undervalue not onely all rituall and ceremoniall assistances of devotion which the wisdome and the piety of the Church hath induced but even the Sacraments themselves of Christs owne immediate institution and are alwaies open to solicitations to passe to another Church upon their own surmises of errours in their own Whereas there belongs much consideration and a well grounded assurance of fundamentall errours in one Church and that those errours are repayred and no other as great as those admitted in the other Church before upon any collaterall pretences we abandon that Church in which God hath sealed us to himselfe in Baptisme Our Fathers stayd in Rome Manebant They stayd and Edebant they eat that grasse and they drunke that water which was troden and troubled Alasse what should they have eaten what should they have drunke should a man strangle himselse rather then take in an ill ayre Or forbear a good table because his stomach cannot digest every dish We doe not call money base money till the Allay exceed the pure metall and if it doe so yet it may be currant and serve to many offices Those that are skilfull in that art know how to sever the base from the pure the good parts of the religion from the bad and those that are not will not cast it away for all the corrupt mixture It is true they had been better to have stayd at home and served God in private then to have communicated in a superstitious service Domum vestram Christi Ecclesian deputamus I shall never doubt to call your House the Church of Christ. But this was not permitted to our Fathers to
1000 The infection grew hotter and hotter in Rome their may came to a must those things which were done before de facto came at last to be articles of Faith and de jure must be beleeved and practised upon salvation They chide us for going away and they drove us away If we abstained from communicating with their poysons being now growen to that height they excommunicated us They gave us no room amongst them but the fire and they were so forward to burne Heretiques that they called it heresie not to stay to be burnt Yet we went not upon their driving but upon Gods calling As the whole prophecy of the deliverance of Israel from Babylon belongs to the Christian Church both to the Primitive Church at first and to the Reformed since so doth that voice spoken to them reach unto us Egredimini de Babylone Goe ye out of Babylon with a voice of singing declare show to the ends of the earth that the Lord hath redeemed his servant Iacob For that Rome is not Babylon they have but that one half-comfort that one of their own authors hath ministred that Romae regulariter male agitur that Babylon is Confusion disorder but at Rome all sinnes are committed in order by the book and they know the price and therefore Rome is not Babylon And since that many of their authors confesse that Rome was Babylon in the time of the persecuting Emperours and that Rome shall be Babylon againe in the time of Antichrist how they will hedge in a Ierusalem a holy City between these two Babylons is a cunning peece of Architecture From this Babylon then were our Fathers called by God not onely by that whispering sibilation of the holy Ghost sibilabâ— populum I will hisse for my people and so gather them for I have redeemed them and they shall increase not onely by private inspirations but by generall acclamations every where principall writers and preachers and Princes too as much as could stand with their safety crying out against them before Luther howsoever they will needs doe him that honour to have been the first mover in this blessed revolution They reproach to us our going from them when they drove us and God drew us and they discharge themselves for all by this one evasion That all that we complain of is the fault of the Court of Rome and not of the Church of the extortion in the practise of their Officers not of error in the doctrine of their Teachers Let that be true as in a great part it is for almost all their errors proceed from their covetousness and love of money this is that that we complain most of and in this especially lies the conformity of the Iewish Priests in the Chaldean Babylon and these Prelates in the Roman Babylon that the Court and the Church joined in the oppression But since the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome are united in one head I see no use of this distinction Court and Church If the Church of Rome be above the Court the Church is able to amend these corruptions in the Court If the Court be got above the Church the Church hath lost or sold away her supremacy To oppresse us and ease themselves now when we are gone from them they require Miracles at out hands when indeed it was miracle enough how we got from them But magnum charitatis argumentum credere absque pignoribus miraculorum He loves God but a little that will not beleeve him without a miracle Miracles are for the establishing of new religions All the miracles of and from Christ and his Apostles are ours because their Religion is ours Indeed it behooves our adversaries to provide new miracles every day because they make new articles of Faith every day As Esop therefore answered in the Market when he that sold him was asked what he could do that he could do nothing because his fellow had said that he could do all so we say we can do no miracles because they do all all ordinary cures of Agues and tooth-ach being done by miracle amongst them We confesse that we have no such tye upon the Triumphant Church to make the Saints there do those anniversary miracles which they do by their reliques here upon their own holy days ten days sooner every year then they did before the new computation We pretend not to raise the dead but to cure the sick and that but by the ordinary Physique the Word and Sacraments and therefore need no miracles And we remember them of their own authors who do not onely say that themselves do no miracles in these latter times but assigne diligently strong reasons why it is that they doe none If all this will not serve we must tell them that we have a greater miracle then any that they produce that is that in so few years they that forsook Rome were become equall even in number to them that adhered to her We say with Saint Augustine That if we had no other miracle hoc unum stupendum potentissimum miraculum esse that this alone were the most powerfull and most a mazing miracle ad hanc religionem totius orbis amplitudinem sine miraculis subjugatam that so great a part of the Christian world should become Protestants of Papists without any miracles They pursue us still being departed from them and they aske us How can ye pretend to have left Babylon confusion Dissention when you have such dissentions confusions amongst your selves But neither are our differences in so fundamental points as theirs are for a principall author of their own who was employed by Clement the eight to reconcile the differences between the Iesuits and the Dominicans about the concurrence of the grace of God and the free will of man confesses that the principall articles and foundations of faith were shaken between them between the Iesuits and Dominicans neither shall we finde such heat and animosity and passion between any persons amongst us as between the greatest amongst them The succeeding Pope mangling the body of his predecessor casting them into the river for buriall disannulling all their decrees and ordinations their Ordinations so that no man could be sure who was a Priest nor whether he had truely received any Sacrament or no. Howsoever as in the narrowest way there is most justling the Roman Church going that broad way to beleeve as the Church beleeves may scape some particular differences which we that goe the narrower way to try every thing by the exact word of God may fall into Saint Augustine tells us of a City in Mauritania Caesarea in which they had a custome that in one day in the year not onely Citizens of other parishes but even neighbours yea brethren yea Fathers did fling stones dangerously and furiously at one another in the streets and this they so solemnized as a custome received from their
people and gather them so So Christ tells us things in darknesse And so Christ speakes to us in our Ear And these low voices and holy whisperings and halfe-silences denote to us the inspirations of his Spirit as his Spirit beares witnesse with our spirit as the Holy Ghost insinuates himselfe into our soules and works upon us so by his private motions But this is not Gods ordinary way to be whispering of secrets The first thing that God made was light The last thing that he hath reserved to doe is the manifestation of the light of his Essence in our Glorification And for Publication of himselfe here by the way he hath constituted a Church in a Visibility in an eminency as a City upon a hill And in this Church his Ordinance is Ordinance indeed his Ordinance of preaching batters the soule and by that breach the Spirit enters His Ministers are an Earth-quake and shake an earthly soule They are the sonnes of thunder and scatter a cloudy conscience They are as the fall of waters and carry with them whole Congregations 3000 at a Sermon 5000 at a Sermon a whole City such a City as Niniveh at a Sermon and they are as the roaring of a Lion where the Lion of the tribe of Juda cries down the Lion that seekes whom he may devour that is Orthodoxall and fundamentall truths are established against clamorous and vociferant innovations Therefore what Christ tels us in the darke he bids us speake in the light and what he saies in our eare he bids us preach on the house top Nothing is Gospell not Evangelium good message if it be not put into a Messengers mouth and delivered by him nothing is conducible to his end nor available to our salvation except it be avowable doctrine doctrine that may be spoke alowd though it awake them that sleep in their sinne and make them the more froward for being so awaked God hath made all things in a Roundnesse from the round superficies of this earth which we tread here to the round convexity of those heavens w ch as long as they shal have any beeing shall be our footstool when we come to heaven God hath wrapped up all things in Circles and then a Circle hath no Angles there are no Corners in a Circle Corner Divinity clandestine Divinity are incompatible termes If it be Divinity it is avowable The heathens served their Gods in Temples sub dio without roofs or coverings in a free opennesse and where they could in Temples made of Specular stone that was transparent as glasse or crystall so as they which walked without in the streets might see all that was done within And even nature it self taught the naturall man to make that one argument of a man truly religious Aperto vivere voto That he durst pray aloud and let the world heare what he asked at Gods hand which duty is best performed when we joyne with the Congregation in publique prayer Saint Augustine hath made that note upon the Donatists That they were Clancularii clandestine Divines Divines in Corners And in Photius we have such a note almost upon all Heretiques as the Nestorian was called Coluber a snake because though he kept in the garden or in the meadow in the Church yet he lurked and lay hid to doe mischief And the Valentinian was called a Grashopper because he leaped and skipped from place to place and that creature the Grashopper you may hear as you passe but you shall hardly find him at his singing you may hear a Conventicle Schismatick heare him in his Pamphlets heare him in his Disciples but hardly surprize him at his exercise Publication is a fair argument of truth That tasts of Luthers holy animosity and zealous vehemency when he says Audemus gloriari Christum à nobis primo vulgatum other men had made some attempts at a Reformation and had felt the pulse of some persons and some Courts and some Churches how they would relish a Reformation But Luther rejoyces with a holy exultation That he first published it that he first put the world to it So the Apostles proceeded when they came in their peregrination to a new State to a new Court to Rome it selfe they did not enquire how stands the Emperour affected to Christ and to the preaching of his Gospel Is there not a Sister or a Wife that might be wrought upon to further the preaching of Christ Are there not some persons great in power and place that might be content to hold a party together by admitting the preaching of Christ This was not their way They only considered who sent them Christ Jesus And what they brough salvation to every soul that embraced Christ Jesus That they preached and still begunne with a Vae si non Never tell us of displeasure or disgrace or detriment or death for preaching of Christ. For woe be unto us if we preach him not And still they ended with a Qui non crediderit Damnabitur Never deceive your own souls He to whom Christ hath been preached and beleeves not shall be damned All Divinity that is bespoken and not ready made fitted to certaine turnes and not to generall ends And all Divines that have their soules and consciences so disposed as their Libraries may bee At that end stand Papists and at that end Protestants and he comes in in the middle as neare one as the other all these have a brackish taste as a River hath that comes near the Sea so have they in comming so neare the Sea of Rome In this the Prophet exalts our Consolation Though the Lord give us the bread of Adversity and the water of Affliction yes shall not our Teachers be removed into corners They shall not be silenced by others they shall not affect of themselves Corner Divinity But saies he there our eyes shall see our Teachers and our eares shall hear a word saying This is the way walke in it For so they shall declare that they have taken to heart this Commandement of him that sent them Christ Jesus All that you receive from me you must deliver to my people therefore Take heed what you hear forget none of it But then you must deliver no more then that and therefore in that respect also Take heed what you hear adde nothing to that and that is the other obligation which Christ laies here upon his Apostles That reading of those words of Saint Iohn Omnis spiritus qui solvit Iesum Every spirit that dissolves Jesus that takes him asunder in pieces and beleeves not all is a very ancient reading of that place And upon that Ancient reading the Ancients infer well That not onely that spirit that denies that Christ being God assumed our flesh not onely he that denies that Christ consists of two natures God and Mam but he also that affirmes this Christ thus consisting of two natures to consist also of two persons this man dissolves Iesus takes him asunder in
another that plotted to betray thee And therefore if you can heare a good Organ at Church and have the musique of a domestique peace at home peace in thy walls peace in thy bosome never hearken after the musique of sphears never hunt after the knowledge of higher secrets then appertaine to thee But since Christ hath made you Regale Sacerdotium Kings and Priests in your proportion Take heed what you hear in derogation of either the State or the Church In declaring ill affections towards others the Holy Ghost hath imprinted these steps First he begins at home in Nature He that curseth Father or Mother shall surely be put to death and then as families grow out into Cities the Holy Ghost goes out of the house into the consideration of the State and says Thou shalt not curse the Ruler of the people no Magistrate And from thence he comes to the highest upon earth for in Samuel it comes to a cursing of the Lords Anointed and from thence to the highest in heaven Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sinne and as though both those grew out of one another The cursing of the King and the cursing of God the Prophet Esai hath joyned them together They shall be hungry says he indigent poor penurious and they shall fret be transported with ungodly passion and they shall curse their King and their God If they doe one they will doe the other The Devil remembers from what height he is fallen and therefore still clambers upward and still directs all our sinnes in his end upon God Our end in a sin may be pleasure or profit or satisfaction of affections or passions but the Devils end in all is that God may be violated and dishonoured in that sinne And therefore by casting in ill conceptions and distasts first against Parents and Masters at home and then against subordinate Magistrates abroad and so against the Supreme upon earth He brings us to ill conceptions and distasts against God himself first to thinke it liberty to bee under no Governour and then liberty to be under no God when as onely those two services of a gracious God and of a good King are perfect freedome Therefore the wise King Solomon meets with this distemper in the root at first ebullition in the heart Curse not the King no not in thy thought for that Thought hath a tongue and hath spoken and sayd Amen in the eares of God That which thy heart hath said though the Law have not though the Jury have not though the Peers have not God hath heard thee say The word which Solomon uses there is Iadung and that our Translators have in the margin called Conscience Curse not the King no not in thy conscience Doe not thou pronounce that whatsoever thou dislikest cannot consist with a good conscience never make thy private conscience the rule of publique actions for to constitute a Rectitude or an Obliquity in any publique action there enter more circumstances then can have fallen in thy knowledge But the word that Selomon takes there Iadâ—ng signifies properly all waies of acquiring knowledge and Hearing is one of them and therefore Take heed what you heare Come not so neare evill speaking as to delight to heare them that delight to speake evill of Superiours A man may have a good breath in himself and yet be deadly infected if he stand in an ill ayre a man may stand in a cloud in a mist in a fogge of blasphemers till in the sight of God himself shall be dissolved into a blasphemous wretch and in that cloud in that mist God shall not know him that endured the hearing from him that adventured the speaking of those blasphemies The ear in such cases is as the clift in the wall that receives the voice and then the Echo is below in the heart for the most part the heart affords a returne and an inclination to those things that are willingly received at the ear The Echo returnes the last syllables The heart concludes with his conclusions whom we have been willing to hearken unto We make Satyrs and we looke that the world should call that wit when God knowes that that is in a great part self-guiltinesse and we doe but reprehend those things which we our selves have done we cry out upon the illnesse of the times and we make the times ill so the calumniator whispers those things which are true no where but in himselfe But thy greater danger is that mischievous purpose which we spake of before to endanger thee by hearing and to entangle thee in that Dilemma of which an ingenuous man abhors one part as much as a conscientious man does the other That thou must be a Delinquent or an Accuser a Traitour or an Informour God hath imprinted in thee characters of a better office and of more dignity of a Royall Priesthood as you have sparks of Royaltie in your soules Take heed what you hear of State-government as you have sparks of holy fire and Priesthood in your soules Take heed what you heare of Church-government which is the other consideration The Church is the spouse of Christ Noble husbands do not easily admit defamations of their wives Very religious Kings may have had wives that may have retained some tincture some impressions of errour which they may have sucked in their infancy from another Church and yet would be loth those wives should be publikely traduced to be Heretiques or passionately proclaimed to be Idolaters for all that A Church may lacke something of exact perfection and yet that Church should not be said to be a supporter of Antichrist or a limme of the beast or a thirster after the cup of Babylon for all that From extream to extream from east to west the Angels themselves cannot come but by passing the middle way between from that extream impurity in which Antichrist had damped the Church of God to that intemerate purity in which Christ had constituted his Church the most Angelicall Reformers cannot come but by touching yea and stepping upon some things in the way He that is come to any end remembers when he was not at the middle way he was not there as soon as he set out It is the posture reserved for heaven to sit down at the right hand of God Here our consolation is that God reaches out his hand to the receiving of those who come towards him And nearer to him and to the institutions of his Christ can no Church no not of the Reformation be said to have come then ours does It is an ill nature in any man to be rather apt to conceive jealousies and to suspect his Mothers honour or his sisters chastity then a strange womans It is an irreverent unthankfulnesse to think worse of that Church which hath bred us and fed us and led us thus far towards God then of a forein Church though Reformed too and in a good degree How often
And whereas the humiliation of my Saviour is in all things to be imitated by me yet herein I am bound to depart from his humiliation that whereas he being in the forme of God tooke the forme of a servant I being in the forme of a servant may nay must take upon me the forme of God in being Deiformis homo a man made in Christ the Image of God So have I the Image of God intirely in his unity because I professe that faith which is but one faith and under the seale of the Baptisme which is but one Baptisme And then as of this one God so I have also the Image of the severall persons of the Trinity in this capacity as I am a Christian more then in my naturall faculties The Attributes of the first Person the Father is Power and none but a Christian hath power over those great Tyrants of the world Sinne Satan Death and Hell For thus my Power accrues and growes unto me First Possum Iudicare I have a Power to Judge a judiciary a discretive power a power to discerne between a naturall accident and a Judgement of God and will never call a Judgement an accident and between an ordinary occasion of conversation and atentation of Satan Possum judicare and then Possum resistere which is another act of power When I finde it to be a tentation I am able to resist it and Possum stare which is another I am able not onley to withstand but to stand out this battell of tentations to the end And then Possum capere that which Christ proposes for a tryall of his Disciples Let him that is able to receive it receive it I shall have power to receive the gift of continency against all tentations of that kinde Bring it to the highest act of power that with which Christ tryed his strongest Apostles Possum bibere calicem I shall be able to drinke of Christs Cup even to drinke his bloud and be the more innocent for that and to powre out my bloud and be the stronger for that In Christo omnia possum there 's the fulnesse of Power in Christ I can doe all things I can want or I can abound I can live or I can die And yet there is an extension of Power beyond all this in this Non possum peccare being borne of God in Christ I cannot sinne This that seemes to have a name of impotence Non possum I cannot is the fullest omnipotence of all I cannot sinne not sinne to death not sinne with a desire to sinne not sinne with a delight in sinne but that tentation that overthrowes another I can resist or that sinne which being done casts another into desperation I can repent And so I have the Image of the first Person the Father in Power The Image of the second Person whose Attribute is Wisdome I have in this that Wisdome being the knowledge of this world and the next I embrace nothing in this world but as it leads me to the next For thus my wisdome my knowledge growes First Scio cui credidi I know whom I have beleeved in I have not mislaid my foundation my foundation is Christ and then Scio non moriturum my foundation cannot sinke I know that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more againe Scio quod desideret Spiritus I know what my spirit enlightned by the Spirit of God desires I I am not transported with illusions and singularities of private spirits And as in the Attribute of Power we found an omnipotence in a Christian so in this there is an omniscience Scimus quia omnem Scientiam habemus there 's all together we know that we have all knowledge for all Saint Pauls universall knowledge was but this Iesum Crucifixum I determine not to know any thing save Jesus Christ and him Crucified and then the way by which he would proceed and take degrees in this Wisdome was Sultitia praedicandi the way that God had ordained when the world by Wisedome knew not God it pleased God by the foolishnesse of preaching to save them that beleeve These then are the steps of Christian Wisedome my foundation is Christ of Christ I enquire no more but fundamentall doctrines him Crucified and this I apply to my selfe by his ordinace of Preaching And in this wisdome I have the Image of the second Person And then of the third also in this that his Attribute beeing Goodnesse I as a true Christian call nothing good that conduces not to the glory of God in Christ Jesus nor any thing ill that drawes me not from him Thus I have an expresse Image of his Goodnesse that Omnia cooperantur in bonum all things worke together for my good if I love God I shall thanke my fever blesse my poverty praise my oppressor nay thanke and blesse and praise even some sinne of mine which by the consequences of that sinne which may be shame or losse or weaknesse may bring me to a happy sense of all my former sinnes and shall finde it to have been a good fever a good poverty a good oppression yea a good sinne Vertit in bonum says Ioseph to his brethren you thought evill but God meant it unto good and I shall have the benefit of my sinne according to his transmutation that is though I meant ill in that sinne I shall have the good that God meant in it There is no evill in the City but the Lord does it But if the Lord doe it it cannot be evill to me I beleeve that I shall see Bona Dei the goodnesse of the Lord in the land of the living that 's in heaven but David speakes also of Signum in bonum shew me a token of good and God will shew me a present token of future good an inward infallibility that this very calamity shall be beneficiall and advantageous unto me And so as in Nature I have the Image of God in my whole soule and of all the three Persons in the three faculties thereof the Understanding the Will and the Memory so in Grace in the Christian Church I have the same Images of the Power of the Father of the Wisedome of the Sonne of the Goodnesse of the holy Ghost in my Christian profession And all this we shall have in a better place then Paradise where we considered it in nature and a better place then the Church as it is Militant where we considered it in grace that is in the kingdome of heaven where we consider this Image in glory which is our last word There we shall have this Image of God in perfection for if Origen could lodge such a conceit that in heaven at last all things should ebbe backe into God as all things flowed from him at first and so there should be no other Essence but God all should be God even the Devill himselfe
Then his trust is in him And who shall preserve him Almighty God and therefore his trust must be at last in him To what nation is their God come so near to them as the Lord our God is come neare unto us what nation hath laws and ordinances so righteous as we have Moses sayd this historically of the Iew and prophetically of us T is true we are governed by a peaceable and a just law Moses his prophecy is fulfilled upon us and so is Esays too Reges nutricii Kings shall be thy nursing fathers It is true to us The law is preserved to us by a just and a peacefull prince but how often have the sinnes of the people and their unthankfulnesse especially induc'd new laws and new princes The prince and the law are the two most reverend and most safe things that man can rely upon but yet in other nations at least sacred and secular story declares that for the iniquity of the people the law hath been perverted by princes and for the sinne of the people the prince hath been subverted by God Howsoever there may be some collaterall and transitory trust in by things the radicall the fundamentall trust is onely in God Iob trusted in him that is in nothing but him but then speravit he hoped for something at his hands none can give but God but God will give to none that doe not hope for it and that doe not expresse their hope by asking by prayer God scatters not his blessings as Princes doe money in Donatives at Coronations or Triumphes without respect upon whom they shall fall God rained downe Manna and Quailes plentifully abundantly but he knew to what hand every bird and every graine belonged To trust in nothing else is but halfe way it is but a stupid neglecting of all It is an ill affection to say I look for nothing at the worlds hands nor at Gods neither God onely hath all and God hath made us capable of all his gifts and therefore we must neither hope for them any where else nor give over our hope of them from him by intermitting our prayers or our industry in a lawfull calling for we are bound to suck at those breasts which God puts out to us and to draw at those springs which flow from him to us and prayer and industry are these breasts and these springs and whatsoever we have by them we have from him Expectavit Iob trusted not in the meanes as in the fountaine but yet speravit he doubted not but God who is the fountaine would by those meanes derive his blessings temporall and spirituall upon him Hee Hoped now Hope is onely or principally of invisible things for Hope that is seen is not hope says the Apostle And therefore though we may hope for temporall things for health wealth strength and liberty and victory where Gods enemies oppresse the Church and for execution of laws where Gods enemies undermine the Church for whatsoever we may pray for we may hope for and all those temporall blessings are prayed for by Christs appointment in that petition Give us this day our daily bread yet our Hope is principally directed upon the invisible part and invisible office of those visible and temporall things which is that by them we may be the better able to performe religious duties to God and duties of assistance to the world When I expect a friend I may go up to a window and wish I might see a Coach or up to a Cliffe and wish I might see a ship but it is because I hope that that friend is in that Coach or that ship so I wish and pray and labour for temporall thingsâ— because I hope that my soule shall be edified and my salvation established and God glorified by my having them And therefore every Christian hope being especially upon spirituall things is properly and purposely grounded upon these stones that it be spes veniae a hope of pardon for that which is past and then spes gratiae a hope of Grace to establish me in that state with God in which his pardon hath placed mee and lastly spes gloriae a hope that this pardon and this grace shall lead me to that everlasting glory which shall admit no night no eclipse no cloud First for the first object of this hope pardon we are to consider sinne in two aspects two apprehensions as sinne is an injury a treason yea a wound to God And then as sinne is a Calamity a misery fallen inevitably upon man Consider it the first way and there is no hope of pardon Nectalem Deum tuum putes qualis nec tu debes esse is excellently said by Saint Augustine never imagine any other quality to be in Christ then such as thou as a Christian art bound to have in thy selfe And if a Snake have stung me must I take up that Snake and put it into my bosome If so poore a snake so poore a worme as I have stung my Maker have crucified my Redeemer shall he therefore therefore take me into his bosome into his wounds and save me and glorifie me No if I look upon sinne in that line in that angle as it is a wound to God I shall come to that of Cain Major iniquitas my sinne is greater then can be forgiven and to that of Iudas Peccavi tradens I have sinned in betraying the innocent bloud that is in Crucifying him againe who was crucified for me in betraying his righteous bloud as much by my unworthy receiving as Iudas did in an unjust delivering of it But if I look upon sinne as sinne is now the misery and calamity of man the greater the misery appears the more hope of pardon I have Abyssus Abyssum as David speakes One Depth calls upon another Infinite sinnes call for infinite mercy and where sinne did abound grace and mercy shall much more First David presents the greatnesse of his sinnes and then followes the Miserere mei have mercy upon me according to the greatnesse of thy mercy Is there any little mercy in God Is not all his mercy infinite that pardons a sinne done against an infinite majesty yes but herein the greatnesse appeares to us that it delivers us from a great calamity Quia infirmus Because I am weake borne weake and subject to continuall infirmities Quia oss a conturbata Because my bones are troubled my best repentances and resolutions are shaked Quia vexata anima because my soule is in anguish when after such resolutions and repentances and vowes I relapse into those sinnes these miseries of his were Davids inducements why God should pardon him because it is thus with me have mercy upon me And so God himselfe seemes to have had a diverse a two-fold apprehension of our sinnes when he says that because all the imaginations of the thoughts of mans heart were onely evill continually therefore he would spare none he would destroy all and
company in the reformation of Religion A miracle scarce lesse then the first propagation thereof in the primitive Church In how few yeares did God make the number of learned â—riters the number of persons of all qualities the number of Kings in whose Dominions the reformed Religion was exercised equall to the number of them who adhered to the Roman Church And yet thou must not depart from this contemplation till thou have made thy self an argument of all this till thou have concluded out of this that God hath made love to thy soule thy weake soule thy sick and foule and sinfull soule That he hath written to thee in all his Scriptures sent Ambassage to thee in all his preachers presented thee in all his temporall and spirituall blessings That he hath come to thee even in actions of uncle annesse in actions of unfaithfulnesse towards men in actions of distrustfulnesse towards God and hath checked thy conscience and delivered thee from some sins even then when thou wast ready to commit them as all the rest That that God who is but one in himselfe is yet three persons That those three who were all-sufficient to themselves would yet make more make Angels make man make a Christ make him a Spouse a Church and first propagate that by so weake men in so hard a doctrine and in so short a space over all the world and then reforme that Church againe so soone to such a heighth as these I say are to all the world so be thou thy self and Gods exceeding goodnesse to thee an argument That that God who hath shewed himself so loath to lose thee is certainly loath to lose any other soule but as he communicates himself to us all here so he would have us all partake of his joy and glory hereafter he that fils his Militant Church thus would not have his Triumphant Church empty So far we consider the accessiblenesse the communicablenesse the conversation of our good and gracious God to us in the generall There is a more speciall manner intimated even in the first word of our Text After this After what After he had seene the servants of God sealed sealed This seale seales the contract betweene God and Man And then consider how generall this seale is First God sealed us in imprinting his Image in our soules and in the powers thereof at our creation and so every man hath this seale and he hath it as soone as he hath a soule The wax the matter is in his conception the seale the forme is in his quickning in his inanimation as in Adam the waxe was that red earth which he was made of the seale was that soule that breath of life which God breathed into him Where the Organs of the body are so indisposed as that this soule cannot exercise her faculties in that man as in naturall Idiots or otherwise there there is a curtaine drawn over this Image but yet there this Image is the Image of God is in the most naturall Idiot as well as in the wisest of men worldly men draw other pictures over this picture other images over this image The wanton man may paint beauty the ambitious may paint honour the covetous wealth and so deface this image but yet there this image is and even in hell it selfe it will be in him that goes down into hell uri potest in gehenna non exuri sayes St. Bernard The image of God may burne in hell but as long as the soule remaines that image remaines there too And then thou who wouldest not burne their picture that loved thee wilt thou betray the picture of the Maker thy Saviour thy Sanctifier to the torments of hell Amongst the manifold and perpetuall interpretations of that article He descended into hell this is a new one that thou senâ—est him to hell in thy soule Christ had his Consummatum est from the Iewes he was able to say at last All is finished concerning them shall he never have a Consummatum est from thee never be at an end with thee Never if his Image must burne eternally in thy soule when thou art dead for everlasting generations Thus then we were sealed all sealed all had his image in our creation in the faculties of our soules But then we were all sealed againe sealed in our very flesh our mortall flesh when the image of the invisible God Christ Iesus the onely Sonne of God tooke our nature for as the Tyrant wished that all mankinde were but one body that he might behead all mankinde at a blow so God tooke into his mercie all mankinde in one person As intirely as all mankinde was in Adam all mankinde was in Christ and as the seale of the Serpent is in all by originall sinne so the seale of God Christ Iesus is on us all by his assuming our nature Christ Jesus tooke our souls and our bodies our whole nature and as no Leper no person how infectiously soever he be diseased in his body can say surely Christ never tooke this body this Leprosie this pestilence this rottennesse so no Leprous soule must say Christ never tooke this pride this adultery this murder upon himself he sealed us all in soule and body when he tooke both and though both dye the soule in sin daily the body in sicknesse perchance this day yet he shall afford a resurrection to both to the soule here to the body hereafter for his seale is upon both These two seales then hath God set upon us all his Image in our soules at our making his Image that is his Sonne upon our bodies and soules in his incarnation And both these seales he hath set upon us then when neither we our selves nor any body else knew of it He sets another seale upon us when though we know not of it yet the world the congregation does in the Sacrament of Baptisme when the seale of his Crosse is a testimony not that Christ was borne as the former seale was but that also he dyed for us there we receive that seale upon the forehead that we should conforme our selves to him who is so sealed to us And after all these seales he offers us another and another seale Set me as a seale upon thy heart and as a seale upon thine arme says Christ to all us in the person of the spouse in the Heart by a constant faith in the Arme by a declaratory works for then are we sealed and delivered and witnessed that 's our full evidence then have we made sure our salvation when the works of a holy life doe daily refresh the contract made with God there at our Baptisme and testifie to the Church that we doe carefully remember what the Church promised in our behalfe at that time for otherwise beloved without this seale upon the arme that is a stedfast proceeding in the works of a holy life we may have received many of the other seales and yet deface
them all Grieve not the holy Ghost whereby you are sealed unto the day of Redemption says the Apostle they were sealed and yet might resist the Spirit and grieve the Spirit and quench the Spirit if by a continuall watchfulnesse over their particular actions they did not refresh those seales formerly received in their Creation in Christs incarnation in their Baptisme and in their beginnings of faith to themselves and plead them to the Church and to the world by such a declaration of a holy life But these seales being so many and so univesall that argues still that which we especially seek to establish that is the Accessiblenesse the communicablenesse the sociablenesse the affection shall I say the Ambition that God hath to have us all Now how is this extensivenesse declared here in our text It is declared in the great number of those who were sealed both before and after to the consideration of both which we are invited by this phrase which beginnes the text After this for before that Iohn saw this there were one hundred forty foure thousand sealed Is that then that one hundred forty foure thousand intended for a small number If it had been so it would rather have been said of such a Tribe but twelve thousand and but twelve thousand of such a Tribe but God as expressing a joy that there were so many repeats his number of twelve thousand twelve times over of Iuda twelve thousand of Levi twelve thousand and twelve thousand of every Tribe So that then we may justly take this number of twelve and twelve thousand for an indefinite and uncertain number and as Saint Augustine does wheresoever he finds that number of twelve as the twelve Thrones where the Saints shall judge the world and divers such we may take that number of twelve and twelve pro universitate salvandorum that that number signifies all those who shall be saved If we should take the number to be a certaine and exact number so many and no more yet this number hath relation to the Iews onely And of the Iews it is true that there is so long a time of their exclusion so few of them doe come in since Christ came into the world as that we may with Saint Augustine interpret that place of Genesis where Abrahams seed is compared both to the Starres of heaven and to the dust of the earth that the Stars of heaven signifie those that shall be saved in heaven and the dust of the earth those that perish and the dust of the earth may be more then the Stars of heaven though by the way there are an infinite number of Stars more then we can distinguish and so by Gods grace there may be an infinite number of soules saved more then those of whose salvation we discerne the ways and the meanes Let us embrace the way which God hath given us which is the knowledge of his Sonne Christ Iesus what other way God may take with others how he wtought upon Iob and Naaman and such others as were not in the Covenant let us not inquire too curiously determine too peremptorily pronounce too uncharitably God be blessed for his declaring his good-wil towards us his will be done his way upon others Truly even those places which are ordinarily understood of the paâ—city of the Iews that shall be saved will receive a charitable interpretation and extension God says in Ieremy I will take you one out of a City two out of a family yet he says he wil do this therefore because he is married to them so that this seems to be an act of his love And therefore I had rather take it that God would take a particular care of them one by one then that he would take in but one and one As it is in that place of Esay In that day ye shall be gathered one by one o yee children of Israel that is in the day of Christ of his comming to and toward Judgement Howsoever they come in but thinly yet by the way yet the Apostle pleads in their behalfe thus Hath God cast away his people God forbid At this present says he there is a Remnant then when they had newly crucified Christ God had a care of them God hath given them the spirit of slumber says he also it is but a slumber not a death not a dead sleep Have they stumbled that they should fall Fall utterly God forbid But says he as concerning the Gospell they are enemies for your sakes that is that room might be made for you the Gentiles but as touching election they are beloved for their Fathers sakes that is they have interest by an ancient title which God will never disannull And therefore a great part of the ancient and later men too doe interpret divers passages of Saint Paul of a generall salvation of the Iews that all shall be effectually wrought upon to salvation before the second comming of Christ. I end this concerning the Iews with this note that in all these Tribes which yeelded to this sealing twelve thousand a peece the Tribe of Dan is left out it is not said that any were sealed of the Tribe of Dan many have enquired the reason and satisfied themselves over easily with this that because Antichrist was to come of that Tribe that Tribe is forsaken It is true that very many of the Fathers Irenaeus Ambrose Augustine Gregory and more then these have thought so that Antichrist must be of that Tribe but yet for all that profession which they make in the Roman Church of adhering to the Fathers one amongst them says Incertum be the Fathers as clear and as unanimous as they will in it it is a very uncertain a very disputable thing and another says fabulosum est be the Fathers as earnest as they will it is but a poeticall and a fabulous thing that Antichrist must come of the Tribe of Dan. But he that hath most of the workes of Antichrist upon him of any person in the world now is thus far of the Tribe of Dan Dan signifies Iudgement And he will needs be the Judge of all faith and of all actions too and so severe a Judge as to give an irrevocable Judgement of Damnation upon all that agree not with them in all points Certainly this Tribe of Dan that is of such uncharitable Judges of all other men that will afford no salvation to any but themselves are in the greatest danger to be left out at this generall seale nothing hinders our own salvation more then to deny salvation to all but our selves This then which was done before though it concerne but the Iews was in a great number and was a great argument of Gods sociable application of himselfe to man but that which was after was more A great multitude which no man could number of all nations c. Gods mercy was not confined nor determined upon the Iews
more then that too if we come to that inebriabo me lacrymis if we overflow and make our selves drunke with teares in a true sense and sorrow for those sinnes still it is more And more then all this if we can expostulate with God in an Vsque quo Domine How long O Lord shall I take counsell in my self having wearinesse in my heart These steps these gradations towards God do well warre is a degree of peace as it is the way of peace and these colluctations and wrestlings with God bring a man to peace with him But then is a man upon this stone of Iacob when in a faire and even and constant religious course of life he enters into his sheets every night as though his neighbours next day were to shrowd and wind him in those sheets he shuts up his eyes every night as though his Executors had closed them and lies downe every night not as though his man were to call him up next morning or to the next dayes sport or businesse but as though the Angels were to call him to the resurrection And this is our third benefit as Christ is a stone we have security and peace of conscience in him The next is That he is Lapis David the stone with which David slew Goliah and with which we may overcome all our enemies Sicut baculus crucis ita lapis Christi habuit typum Davids sling was a type of the Crosse and the stone was a type of Christ we will chuse to insist upon spirituall enemies sinnes And this is that stone that enables the weakest man to overthrow the strongest sinne if he proceed as David did David sayes to Goliah Thou comest to me with a speare and a shield but I come to thee in the name of the God of the hosts of Israel whom thou hast railed upon if thou watch the approach of any sinne any giant sinne that transports thee most if thou apprehend it to rayle against the Lord of Hosts that is that there is a loud and active blasphemy against God in every sinne if thou discerne it to come with a sword or a speare that is perswasions of advancement if thou do it or threatings of dishonour if thou do it not if it come with a shield that is with promises to cover and palliate it though thou do it If then this David thy attempted soule can put his hand into his bag as David did for quid cor hominis nisi sacculus Dei a mans heart is that bag in which God layes up all good directions if he can but take into his consideration his Jesus his Christ and sling one of his works his words his commandments his merits This Goliah this Giant sinne will fall to the ground and then as it is said of David that he slew him when he had no sword in his hand and yet in the next verse that he tooke his sword and slew him with that so even by the consideration of what my Lord hath done for me I shall give that sinne the first deaths wound and then I shall kill him with his owne sword that is his owne abomination his owne foulenesse shall make me detest him If I dare but looke my sinne in the face if I dare tell him I come in the name of the Lord if I consider my sinne I shall triumph over it Et dabit certanâ—â— victoriam qui dedit certandi audaciam That God that gave me courage to fight will give me strength to overcome The last benefit which we consider in Christ as he is a stone is That he is Petra a Rock The Rock gave water to the Israelites in the wildernesse and he gave them honey out of the stone and oyle out of the hard Rock Now when Saint Paul sayes That our Fathers dranke of the same Rock as we he adds that the same Rock was Christ So that all Temporall and all Spirituall blessings to us and to the Fathers were all conferred upon us in Christ but we consider not now any miraculous production from the Rock but that which is naturall to the Rock that it is a firme defence to us in all tempests in all afflictions in all tribulations and therefore Laâ—date Dominum habitatores petrae sayes the Prophet You that are inhabitants of this Rock you that dwell in Christ and Christ in you you that dwell in this Rock Prayse ye the Lord blesse him and magnifie him for ever If a sonne should aske bread of his father will he give him a stone was Christs question Yes O blessed Father we aske no other answer to our petition no better satisfaction to our necessity then when we say Da nobis panem Give us this day our daily bread that thou give us this Stone this Rock thy self in thy Church for our direction thy self in the Sacrament for our refection what hardnesse soever we finde there what corrections soever we receive there all shall be easie of digestion and good nourishment to usâ— Thy holy spirit of patience shall command That these stones be made bread And we shall finde more juice more marrow in these stones in these afflictions then worldly men shall do in the softnesse of their oyle in the sweetnesse of their honey in the cheerefulnesse of their wine for as Christ is our foundation we beleeve in him and as he is our corner-stone we are at peace with the world in him as he is Iacobs stone giving us peace in our selves and Davids stone giving us victory over our enemies so he is a Rock of stone no affliction no tribulation shal shake us And so we have passed through all the benefits proposed to be considered in this first part As Christ is a stone It is some degree of thankfulnesse to stand long in the contemplation of the benefit which we have received and therefore we have insisted thus long upon the first part But it is a degree of spirituall wisdome too to make haste to the consideration of our dangers and therefore we come now to them Wee may fall upon this stone and be broken This stone may fall upon us and grinde us to powder and in the first of these we may consider Quid cadere what the falling upon this stone is and secondly Quid frangi what it is to broken upon it and then thirdly the latitude of this unusquisque that whosoever fals so is so broken first then because Christ loves us to the end therefore will we never put him to it never trouble him till then as the wiseman sayd of Manna that it had abundance of all pleasure in it and was meat for all tasts that is as Expositors interpret it that Manna tasted to every one like that which every one liked best so this stone Christ Jesus hath abundance of all qualities of stone in it and is all the way such a stone to every man as he desires
shrewd acts towards it to the prejudice of the contrary opinion yet none of these were so light as they were nothing but light Moses himselfe who received and delivered the law was not so and to intimate so much there was an illustration and irradiation upon his face but not so of all his body Nay Christ Iesus himselfe who fulfilled the law as man was not so which he also intimated in the greatest degree of glorification which he accepted upon earth which was his transfiguration for though it be said in that That the fashion of his Countenance was changed and his garment was white and glistered yet lineamenta Petro agnoscibilia servavit hee kept that former proportion of body that Peter could know him by it So that this was not a glorifying of the body and making it thorough light but hee suffered his Divine nature to appeare and shine thorough his flesh and not to swallow or annihilate that flesh All other men by occasion of this flesh have darke clouds yea nights yea long and frozen winter nights of sinne and of the works of darknesse Christ was incapable of any such nights or any such clouds any approaches towards sinne but yet Christ admitted some shadowes some such degrees of humane infirmity as by them he was willing to show that the nature of man in the best perfection thereof is not vera lux tota lux true light all light which he declared in that Si possible and that Transeat calix If it hee possible let this cup passe words to which himselfe was pleased to allow so much of a retractation and a correction Veruntamen yet Father whatsoever the sadnesse of my soule have made mee say yet not my will but thine be done not mine but thine so that they were not altogether all one humane infirmity made some difference So that no one man not Christ considered but so as man was tota lux all light no cloud No not mankinde consider it collectively can bee light so as that there shall bee no darknesse It was not so when all mankind was in one person in Adam It is said sometimes in School that no man can keep the commandements yet man collectively may keep them They intend no more herein but that some one man may abstaine from doing any act against worshipping of Images another from stealing another from adultery and others from others But if it were possible to compose a man of such elements as that the principallest vertues and eminencies of all other men should enter into his composition and if there could bee found a man as perfect in all particular vertues as Moses was in meeknesse who was a meeke man above all the men that were upon the earth yet this man would not bee vera lux tota lux true light all light Moses was not so meeke but that hee slew the Egyptian nor so meek but that hee disputed and expostulated with God many times passionately Every man is so far from beeing tota lux all light as that he hath still within him a darke vapor of orginall sinne and the cloud of humane flesh without him Nay not onely no man for so we may consider him in the whole course of his life but noone act of the most perfect and religious man in the world though that act employ but halfe a minute in the doing thereof can bee vera lux true light all light so perfect light as that it may serve another or thy selfe for a lanthorne to his or thy feet or a light to his or thy steps so that hee or thou may thinke it enough to doe so still For another man may doe so good works as it may justly work to thy shame and confusion and to the aggravating of thy condemnation that thou livest not as well as hee yet it would not perchance serve thy turne to live but so well for to whom God gives more of him he requires more No man hath veram lucem true light thorough light no man hath meridiem Augem that high point that casts no shadow because besides originall sinne that ever smoakes up and creates a foote in the soule and besides naturall infirmities which become sinnes when wee consider Grace no man does carry his good actions to that heighth as by that grace which God affords him hee might doe Slacker men have a declination even in their mornings a West even in their East coolings and faintnesses and after-noones as soon as they have any dawnings any breake of day any inchoation of any spirituall action or purpose Others have some farther growth and increasing and are more diligent in the observation of spirituall duties but yet they have not their meridiem their Augem their noon their south point no such heighth as that they might not have a higher by that grace which they have received In the best degree of our best actions particularly in this service which wee doe to God at this houre if we brought with us hither a religious purpose to sanctifie this festivall if wee answer to the callings of his most blessed Spirit whilest wee are here if wee carry away a detestation of our sinnes and a holy purpose of amendment of life this is a good degree of proficiency and God bee blessed if any of us all arrive to that degree but yet this is not vera lux true light all light for who amongst us can avoid the testimony of his conscience that since he begun this present service to God his thoughts have not strayed upon pleasures and vanities or profit and leapt the walls of this Church yea perchance within the walls of this flesh which should bee the Temple of the holy Ghost Besides to become vera lux tota lux true light thorough light requires persebrrance to the end So that till our naturall light goe out wee cannot say that wee have this light for as the darknesse of hell fire is so this light of this heavenly fire must bee everlasting If ever it go cleane out it was never throughly kindled but kindled to our farther damnation it was never vera lux true light for as one office of the law is but to show sinne so all the light of grace may end in this to show me my desperate estate from the abuse of grace In all Philosophy there is not so darke a thing as light As the sunne which is fons lucis naturalis the beginning of naturall light is the most evident thing to bee seen and yet the hardest to be looked upon so is naturall light to our reason and understanding Nothing clearer for it is clearnesse it selfe nothing darker it is enwrapped in so many scruples Nothing nearer for it is round about us nothing more remote for wee know neither entrance nor limits of it Nothing more easie for a child discerns it nothing more hard for no man understands it It is apprehensible by sense and not comprehensible by reason
in their beginning and then done in season the Dove must lay the egge and hatch the bird the holy Ghost must infuse the purpose and sit upon it and overshadow it and mature and ripen it if it shall be precious in Gods eye The reformation of abuses in State or Church is a holy purpose there is that drop of the dew of heaven in it but if it be unseasonably attempted and have not a farther concoction then the first motions of our owne zeale it becomes ineffectuall Stones precious in the estimation of men begin with the dew of Heaven and proceed with the sunne of Heaven Actions precious in the acceptation of God are purposes conceived by his Spirit and executed in his time to his Glory not conceived out of Ambition nor executed out of sedition And this is the application of this Lux depuratarum mixtionum of precious stones out of their making we proposed another out of their valuation which is this That whereas a Pearle or Diamond of such a bignesse of so many Carats is so much worth one that is twice as big is ten times as much worth So though God vouchsafe to value every good work thou dost yet as they grow greater he shall multiply his estimation of them infinitely When he hath prized at a high rate the chastitie and continency of thy youth if thou adde to this a moderation in thy middle age from Ambition and in thy latter age from covetousnesse and indevotion there shall be no price in Gods treasure not the last drop of the blood of his Sonne too deare for thee no roome no state in his Kingdome not a Iointenancie with his onely Sonne too glorious for thee This is one light in this Couple The lustre of precious stones the other the last is Lux Repercussionum The light of Repercussion of Reflexion This is when Gods light cast upon us reflecteth upon other men too from us when God doth not onely accept our works for our selves but imployes those works of ours upon other men And here is a true and a Divine Supererogation which the Devill as he doth all Gods Actions which fall into his compasse did mischievously counterfeit in the Romane Church when he induced their Doctrine of Supererogation that a man might do so much more then he was bound to do for God as that that superplusage might save whom he would and that if he did not direct them in his intention upon any particular person the Bishop of Rome was generall Administrator to all men and might bestow them where he would But here is a true supererogation not from Man or his Merit but from God when our good works shall not onely profit us that do them but others that see them done and when we by this light of Repercussion of Reflexion shall be made specula divinae gloriae quae accipiunt reddunt such looking glasses as receive Gods face upon our selves and cast it upon others by a holy life and exemplary conversation To end all we have no warmth in our selves it is true but Christ came even in the winter we have no light in our selves it is true but he came even in the night And now I appeall to your own Consciences and I aske you all not as a Iudge but as an Assistant to your Consciences and Amicus Curiae whether any man have made a good use of this light as he might have done Is there any man that in the compassing of his sinne hath not met this light by the way Thou shouldest not do this Any man that hath not onely as Balaam did met this light as an Angell that is met Heavenly inspirations to avert him but that hath not heard as Balaam did his own Asse that is those reasons that use to carry him or those very worldly respects that use to carry him dispute against that sinne and tell him not onely that there is more soule and more heaven and more salvation but more body and more health more honour and more reputation more cost and more money more labour and more danger spent upon such a sinne then would have carried him the right way They that sleep sleep in the night and they that are drunke are drunke in the night But to you the Day starre the Sunne of Righteousnesse the Sonne of God is risen this day The day is but a little longer now then at shortest but a little it is Be a little better now then when you came and mend a little at every coming and in lesse then seaven yeares appâ—entissage which your occupations cost you you shall learn not the Mysteries of your twelve companies but the Mysteries of the twelve Tribes of the twelve Apostles of their twelve Articles whatsoever belongeth to the promise to the performance to the Imitation of Christ Jesus He who is Luâ— una light and light alone and Lux tota light and all light shall also by that light which he sheddeth from himselfe upon all his the light of Grace give you all these Attestations all these witnesses of that his light he shall give you Lucem essentiae really and essentially to be incorporated into him to be made partakers of the Divine Nature and the same Spirit with the Lord by a Conversation in Heaven here and lucem gloriae a gladnesse to give him glory in a donudation of your souls and your sinnes by humble confession to him and a gladnesse to receive a denudation and manifestation of your selves to your selves by his messenger in his medicinall and musicall increpations and a gladnesse to receive an inchoation of future glory in the remission of those sinnes He shall give you lucem fidei faithfull and unremovable possession of future things in the present and make your hereafter now in the fruition of God And Lucem naturae a love of the outward beauty of his house and outward testimonies of this love in inclining your naturall faculties to religious duties He shall give you Lucem aeternorum Corporum a love to walk in the light of the stars of heaven that never change a love so perfect in the fundamentall articles of Religion without impertinent additions And Lucem incensionum an aptnesse to take holy fire by what hand or tongue or pen soever it be presented unto you according to Gods Ordinance though that light have formerly been suffered to go out in you He shall give you Lucem depuratarum Mixtionum the lustre of precious stones made of the dew of heaven and by the heat of heaven that is actions intended at first and produced at last for his glory and every day multiply their value in the sight of God because thou shalt every day grow up from grace to grace And Lucem Repercussionum he shall make you able to reflect and cast this light upon others to his glory and their establishment
conscience and pinching the bowells by denouncing of Gods Judgements these beare witnesse of the light when otherwise men would sleep it out and so propter non intelligentes for those that lye in the suddes of nature and cannot or of negligence and will not come to heare sol lucernas this light requires testimony These testimonies Gods ordinances may have wakened a man yet he may winke and covet darknesse and grow weary of instruction and angry at increpation And as the eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight so the eare of this fastidious and impatient man longeth for the end of the Sermon or the end of that point in the Sermon which is a thorne to his conscience But as if a man wink in a cleare day he shall for all that discerne light thorough his eylids but not light enough to keep him from stumbling so the most perverse man that is either in faith or manners that winkes against the light of nature or light of the law or light of grace exhibited in the Christian Church the most determined Atheist that is discernes through all his stubbornnesse though not light enough to rectifie him to save him yet enough to condemne him though not enough to enable him to reade his owne name in the book of life yet so much as makes him afraid to read his own story by and to make up his owne Audit and account with God And doth not this light to this man need testimony That as he does see it is a light so he might see that there is warmth and nourishment in this light and so as well see the way to God by that light as to see by it that there is a God and this he may if he doe not sleep nor winke that is not forbeare comming hither nor resist the grace of God always offred here when he is here Propter incredulos for their sakes who though they doe heare heare not to beleeve sol lucernas this light requires testimony and it does so too propter infirmos for their sakes who though they doe heare and beleeue yet doe not Practise If he neither sleep nor wink neither forbeare nor resist yet how often may you surprise and deprehend a man whom you thinke directly to look upon such an object yet if you aske him the quality or colour of it he will tell you he saw it not That man sees as little with staring as the other with winking His eye hath seen but it hath returned nothing to the common sense We may pore upon books stare upon preachers yet if we reflect nothing nothing upon our conversation we shall still remaine under the increpation and malediction of Saint Paul out of Esay Seeing yee shall see and shall not perceive seeing and hearing shall but aggravate our condemnation and it shall be easier at the day of Judgement for the deaf and the blinde that never saw Sacrament never heard Sermon then for us who have frequented both propter infirmos for their sakes whose strength though it serve to bring them hither and to beleeve here doth not serve them to proceed to practise sol lucernas this light requires testimony Yet if we be neither dead nor asleep nor winke nor looke negligently but doe come to some degrees of holinesse in practise for a time yet if at any time we put our selves in such a position and distance from this light as that we suffer dark thick bodies to interpose and eclipse it that is sadnesse and dejection of spirit for worldly losses nay if we admit inordinate sadnesse for sinne it selfe to eclipse this light of comfort from us or if we suffer such other lights as by the corrupt estimation of the world have a greater splendour to come in As the light of Knowledge and Learning the light of Honour and Glory of popular Applause and Acclamation so that this light which we speake of the light of former Grace be darkned by the accesse of other lights worldly lights then also you shall finde that you need more and more Testimony of this light God is light in the Creature in nature yet the naturall Man stumbles and falls and lies in that ignorance Christ bears witnesse of this light in establishing a Chrishian Church yet many Christians fall into Idolatry and Superstition and lie and die in it The Holy Ghost hath born further witnesse of this light and if we may take so low a Metaphore in so high a Mystery hath snuffed this candle mended this light in the Reformation of Religion and yet there is a damp or a cloud of uncharitablenesse of neglecting of defaming one another we deprave even the fiery the claven tongues of the Holy Ghost Our tongues are fiery onely to the consuming of another and they are cloven onely in speaking things contrary to one another So that still there need more witnesses more testimonies of this light God the Father is Pater Luminum the Father of all Lights God the Sonne is Lumen de lumine Light of light of the Father God the Holy Ghost is Lumen de luminibus Light of lights proceeding both from the Father and the Sonne and this light the Holy Ghost kindles more lights in the Church and drops a coale from the Altar upon every lamp he lets fall beams of his Spirit upon every man that comes in the name of God into this place and he sends you one man to day which beareth witnesse of this light ad ignaros that bends his preaching to the convincing of the naturall man the ignorant soul and works upon him And another another day that bears witnesse ad incredulos that fixeth the promises of the Gospell and the merits of Christ Jesus upon that startling and timorous soul upon that jealous and suspicious soul that cannot beleeve that those promises or those merits appertain to him and so bends all the power of his Sermon to the binding up of such broken hearts and faint beleevers He sendeth another to bear witnesse ad infirmos to them who though they have shaked off their sicknesse yet are too weake to walke to them who though they doe beleeve are intercepted by tentations from preaching and his Sermon reduces them from their ill manners who thinke it enough to come to hear to beleeve And then he sendeth another ad Relapsos to bear witnesse of this light to them who have relapsed into former sinnes that the merits of Christ are inexhaustible and the mercies of God in him indefatigable As God cannot be deceived with a false repentance so he cannot resist a true nor be weary of multiplying his mercies in that case And therefore thinke not that thou hast heard witnesses enow of this light Sermons enow if thou have heard all the points preached upon which concerne thy salvation But because new Clouds of Ignorance of Incredulitie of Infirmitie of Relapsing rise every day and call this light in question
and may make thee doubt whether thou have it or no every day that is as often as thou canst heare more and more witnesses of this light and bless that God who for thy sake would submit himselfe to these Testimonia ab homine these Testimonies from men and being all light himselfe and having so many other Testimonies would yet require the Testimony of Man of Iohn which is our other branch of this first part Christ who is still the light of our Text That light the essentiall light had testimony enough without Iohn First he bore witness of himselfe And though he say of himself If I beare witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true yet that he might say either out of a legall and proverbiall opinion of theirs that ordinarily they thought That a witness testifying for himself was not to be beleeved whatsoever he said Or as Man which they then took him to be he might speake it of himselfe out of his own opinion that in Iudicature it is a good rule that a man should not be beleeved in his own case But after this and after he had done enough to make them see that he was more then man by multiplying of miracles then he said though I beare witnesse of my selfe my witnesse is true So the onely infallibility and unreproachable evidence of our election is in the inward word of God when his Spirit beares witnesse with our Spirit that we are the Sonnes of God for if the Spirit the Spirit of truth say he is in us he is in us But yet the Spirit of God is content to submit himselfe to an ordinary triall to be tried by God and the Countrey he allowes us to doubt and to be afraid of our regeneration except we have the testimony of sanctification Christ bound them not to his own testimony till it had the seale of workes of miracles nor must we build upon any testimony in our selves till other men that see our life testifie for us to the world He had also the testimony of his Father the Father himselfe which hath sent me beareth witnesse of me But where should they see the Father or heare the Father speak That was all which Philip asked at his hands Lord show us the Father and it sufficeth us He had the testimony of an Angel who came to the shepheards so as no where in all the Scriptures there is such an Apparition expressed the Angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them but where might a man talke with this Angel and know more of him As Saint Augustine says of Moses Scripsit abiit he hath written a little of the Creation and he is gone Si hîc esset tenerem rogarem if Moses were here says he I would hold him fast till I had got him to give me an exposition of that which he writ For beloved we must have such witnesses as we may consult farther with I can see no more by an Angel then by lightning A star testified of him at his birth But what was that star was it any of those stars that remaine yet Gregory Nissen thinkes it was and that it onely then changed the naturall course and motion for that service But almost all the other Fathers thinke that it was a light but then created and that it had onely the forme of a star and no more and some few that it was the holy Ghost in that forme And if it were one of the fixed stars and remaine yet yet it is not now in that office it testifies nothing of Christ now The wise men of the East testified of him too But what were they or who or how many or from whence were they for all these circumstances have put Antiquity it selfe into more distractions and more earnest disputations then circumstances should doe Simeon testified of him who had a revelation from the holy Ghost that he should not see death till he had seen Christ. And so did the Prophetess Anna who served God with fasting and prayer day and night Omnis sexus aetas both sexes and all ages testified of him and he gives examples of all as it was easie for him to doe Now after all these testimonies from himselfe from the Father from the Angel from the star from the wise men from Simeon from Anna from all what needed the testimony of Iohn All those witnesses had been thirty years before Iohn was cited for a witnesse to come from the wildernesse and preach And in thirty years by reason of his obscure and retired life in his father Iosephs house all those personall testimonies of Christ might be forgotten and for the most part those witnesses onely testified that he was borne that he was come into the world but for all their testimony he might have been gone out of the world long Before this he might have perished in the generall flood in that flood of innocent blood in which Herod drowned all the young children of that Countrey When therefore Christ came forth to preach when he came to call Apostles when he came to settle a Church to establish meanes for our ordinary salvation by which he is the light of our text the Essentiall light shining out in his Church by the supernaturall light of faith and grace then he admitted then he required Testimonium ab homine testimony from man And so for our conformity to him in using and applying those meanes which convay this light to us in the Church we must doe so too we must have the seale of faith and of the Spirit but this must be in the testimony of men still there must be that done by us which must make men testifie for us Every Christian is a state a common-wealth to himselfe and in him the Scripture is his law and the conscience is his Iudge And though the Scripture be inspired from God and the conscience be illumined and rectified by the holy Ghost immediately yet both the Scriptures and the Conscience admit humane arguments First the Scriptures doe in all these three respects first that there are certaine Scriptures that are the revealed will of God Secondly that these books which we call Canonicall are those Scriptures And lastly that this and this is the true sense and meaning of such and such a place of Scripture First that there is a manifestation of the will of God in certain Scriptures if we who have not power to infuse Faith into men for that is the work of the Holy Ghost onely but must deal upon the reason of men and satisfie that if we might not proceed per testimonia ab homine by humane Arguments and argue and infer thus That if God will save man for worshipping him and damne him for not worshipping him so as he will be worshipped certainly God hath revealed to man how he will be worshipped and
that in some visible in some permanent manner in writing and that that writing is Scripture if we had not these testimonies these necessary consequences derived even from the naturall reason of man to convince men how should we convince them since our way is not to create Faith but to satisfie reason And therefore let us rest in this testimony of men that all Christian men nay Iewes and Turkes too have ever beleeved that there are certain Scriptures which are the revealed will of God and that God hath manifested to us in those Scriptures all that he requires at our hands for Faith or Manners Now which are those Scriptures As for the whole body intirely together so for the particular limbs and members of this body the severall books of the Bible we must accept testimonium ab homine humane Arguments and the testimony of men At first the Jewes were the Depositaries of Gods Oracles and therefore the first Christians were to aske the Jewes which books were those Scriptures Since the Church of God is the Master of those Rolls no doubt but the Church hath Testimonium à Deo The Spirit of God to direct her in declaring what Books make up the Scripture but yet even the Church which is to deal upon men proceedeth also per testimonium ab homine by humane Arguments such as may work upon the reason of man in declaring the Scriptures of God For the New Testament there is no question made of any Book but in Conventicles of Anabaptists and for the Old it is testimony enough that we receive all that the Jews received This is but the testimony of man but such as prevails upon every man It is somewhat boldly said not to permit to our selves any severer or more bitter animadversion upon him by a great man in the Romam Church that perchance the book of Enoch which S. Iude cites in his Epistle was not an Apocryphal book but Canonicall Scripture in the time of the Iews As though the holy Ghost were a time-server and would sometimes issue some things for present satisfaction which he would not avow nor stand to after as though the holy Ghost had but a Lease for certain years a determinable estate in the Scriptures which might expire and he be put from his evidence that that book might become none of his which was his before We therefore in receiving these books for Canonicall which we do and in post-posing the Apochryphall into an inferior place have testimonium ab homine testimony from the People of God who were and are the most competent and unreproachable witnesses herein and we have Testimonium ab inimico testimony from our adversary himself Perniciosius est Ecclesiae librum recipere pro sacro qui non est quà m sacrum rejicere It is a more pernicious danger to the Church to admit a book for Canonicall which is not so then to reject one that is so And therefore ne turberis novitie saith another great Author of theirs Let no young student in Divinity be troubled si alicubi repererit libros istos supputari inter Canonicos if he finde at any time any of these books reckned amongst the Canonical nam ad Hiero. limam verba Doctorum Concilio rum reducenda for saith he Hieroms file must passe over the Doctors and over the Councels too and they must be understood and interpreted according to S. Hier. now this is but testimonium ab homine S. Hier. testimony that prevailed upon Cajetan and it was but testimonium ab homine the testimony of the Iews that prevailed upon S. Hierom himself It is so for the whole body The bible it is so for all the limbs of this body every particular book of the Bible and it is so for the soul of this body the true sense of every place of very book thereof for for that the sense of the place we must have testimonium ab homine the testimony that is the interpretation of other men Thou must not rest upon thy self nor upon any private man Iohn was a witnesse that had witnesses the Prophets had prophesied of Iohn Baptist. The men from whom we are to receive testimony of the sense of the Scriptures must be men that have witnesses that is a visible and outward calling in the Church of God That no sense be ever admitted that derogateth from God that makes him a false or an impotent or a cruell God That every contradiction and departing from the Analogy of Faith doth derogate from God and divers such grounds and such inferences as every man confesses and acknowledges to be naturally and necessarily consequent these are Testimonia ab homine Testimonies that passe like currant money from man to man obvious to every man suspicious to none Thus it is in the generall but then when it is deduced to a more particular triall what is the sense of such or such a place when Christ saith Scrutamini Scripturas search the Scriptures non mittit ad simplicem lectionem sed ad scrutationem exquisitam It is not a bare reading but a diligent searching that is enjoyned us Now they that will search must have a warrant to search they upon whom thou must rely for the sense of the Scriptures must be sent of God by his Church Thou art robbed of all devested of all if the Scriptures be taken from thee Thou hast no where to search blesse God therefore that hath kept thee in possession of that sacred Treasure the Scriptures and then if any part of that treasure ly out of thy reach or ly in the dark so as that thou understandest not the place search that is apply thy self to them that have warrant to search and thou shalt lack no light necessary for thee Either thou shalt understand that place or the not understanding of it shall not be imputed to thee nor thy salvation hindred by that Ignorance It is but to a woman that Saint Hierome saith Ama Scripturas amabit te Sapientia Love the Scriptures and Wisdome will love thee The weaknesse of her Sex must not avert her from reading the Scriptures It is instruction for a Childe and for a Girle that the same Father giveth Septem annorum discat memoriter Psalterium As soone as she is seaven yeares old let her learn all the Psalmes without book the tendernesse of her age must not avert her from the Scriptures It is to the whole Congregation consisting of all sorts and sexes that Saint Chrysostome saith Hortor hortari non desinam I alwayes doe and alwayes will exhort you ut cum domi fueritis assiduae lectioni Scripturarum vacetis that at home in your owne houses you accustome your selves to a dayly reading of the Scriptures And after to such men as found or forced excuses for reading them he saith with compassion and indignation too O homo non est tuum Scripturas evolvere
quia innumeris curis distraheris Busie man belongeth it not to thee to study the Scriptures because thou art oppressed with worldly businesse Imòmagis tuum est saith he therefore thou hadst the more need to study the Scriptures Illi non tam egent c. They that are not disquieted nor disordered in their passions with the cares of this world doe not so much need that supply from the Scriptures as you that are doe It is an Authour that lived in the obedience of the Romane Church that saith the Councell of Nice did decree That every man should have the Bible in his house But another Authour in that Church saith now Consilium Chrysostomi Ecclesiae nunc non arridet The Church doth not now like Chrysostomes counsell for this generall reading of the Scriptures Quia etsi ille locutus ad plebem plebs tunc non erat haeretica Though Saint Chrysostome spoke that to the people the people in his time were not an Hereticall people And are the people in the Roman Church now an Hereticall people If not why may not they pursue Saint Chrystomes counsel and reade the Scriptures Because they are dark It is true in some places they are dark purposely left so by the Holy Ghost ne semel lectas fastidiremus lest we should think we had done when we had read them once so saith S. Gregory too In plain places fami occurrit he presents meat for every stomach In hard and dark places fastidia detergit he sharpens the appetite Margarita est undique perforari potest the Scripture is a Pearl and might be bored through every where Not every where by thy self there may be many places which thou of thy self canst not understand not every where by any other man no not by them who have warrant to search Commission from God by their calling to interpret the Scriptures not every where by the whole Church God hath reserved the understanding of some places of Scripture till the time come for the fulfilling of those Prophecies as many places of the Old Testament were not understood till Christ came in whom they were fulfilled If therefore thou wilt needs know whether when Saint Paul took his information of the behaviour of the Corinthians from those of Chloe whether this Chloe were a woman or a place the Fathers cannot satisfie thee the latter Writers cannot satisfie thee there is not Testimonium ab homine no such humane Arguments as can determine thee or give thee an Acquittance the greatest pillars whom God hath raised in his Church cannot give a satisfaction to thy curiosity But if the Doctrine of the place will satisfie thee which Doctrine is that S. Paul did not give credit to light rumors against the Corinthians nor to clandestine whisperers but tells them who accused them and yet as well as he loved them he did not stop his eares against competent witnesses for he tells them they stood accused and by whom then thou maist bore this pearle thorough and make it fit for thy use and wearing in knowing so much of Saint Pauls purpose therein as concerns thy edification though thou never know whether Chloe were a Woman or a Place Tantum veritati obstrepit adulter sensus quam corruptor stylus a false interpretation may doe thee as much harme as a false translation a false Commentary as a false copy And therefore forbearing to make any interpretation at all upon dark places of Scripture especially those whose understanding depends upon the future fulfilling of prophecies in places that are clear evident thou maist be thine own interpreter In places that are more obscure goe to those men whom God hath set over thee and either they shall give thee that sense of the place which shall satisfie thee by having the sense thereof or that must satisfie you that there is enough for your salvation though that remaine uninterpreted And let this Testimonium ab homine this testimony of man establish thee for the Scripture that there is a Scripture a certaine book that is the word and the revealed will of God That these books which we receive for Canonicall make up that book And then that this and this is the true sense of every place which the holy Ghost hath opened to the present understanding of his Church We said before that a Christian being a Common-wealth to himselfe the Scripture was his law and for that law that Scripture he was to have Testimonium ab homine the testimony of man And then his Conscience is his Iudge and for that he is to have the same testimony too Thou must not rest upon the testimony and suggestions of thine owne conscience Nec illud de trivio paratum habere thou must not rest in that vulgar saying sufficit mihi c. As long as mine owne Conscience stands right I care not what all the world say Thou must care what the world says and study to have the approbation and testimony of good men Every man is enough defamed in the generall depravation of our whole natureÌ„ Adam hath cast an infamy upon us all And when a man is defamed it is not enough that he purge himselfe by oath but he must have compurgators too other men must sweare that they beleeve he sweares a truth Thine owne conscience is not enough but thou must â—atisfie the world and have Testimonium ab homine good men must thinke thee good A conscience that admits no search from others is cauterizata burnt with a hot Iron not cured but seared not at peace but stupefied And when in the verse immediately before our text it is said That Iohn came to beare witnesse of that light it is added that through him that is through that man through Iohn not through it through that light that through him all men beleeve For though it be efficiently the operation of the light it selfe that is Christ himselfe that all men beleeve yet the holy Ghost directs us to that that is nearest us to this testimony of man that instrumentally ministerially works this beliefe in men If then for thy faith thou must have testimonium ab homine the testimony of men and maist not beleeve as no man but thy selfe beleeves much more for thy manners and conversation Thinke it not enough to satisfie thy self but satisfie good men nay weake men nay malicious men till it come so far as that for the desire of satisfying man thou leave God unsatisfied endeavour to satisfie all God must waigh down all thy selfe and others but as long as thy selfe onely art in one balance and other men in the other let this preponderate let the opinion of other men waigh downe thine owne opinion of thy selfe 'T is true but many men flatter themselves too far with this truth that it is a sin to do any thing in Conscientiâ dubiâ when a man doubts whether he may doe it or no and in
Circumcision in the flesh after the spirituall Circumcision in the heart is established by the Gospell their end is not Circumcision but Concision they pretend Reformation but they intend Destruction a tearing a renting a wounding the body and frame and peace of the Church and by all means and in all cases Videte Concisionem Beware of Concision First then we shall from these words consider the lothnesse of God to lose us For first he leaves us not without a Law he bids and he forbids and then he does not surprise us with obsolete laws he leaves not his laws without proclamations he refreshes to our memories and represents to us our duties with such commonefactions as these in our Text Videte Cavete this and this I have commanded you Videte see that ye do it this and this will hinder you Cavete beware ye do it not Beware of Concision And this thus derived and digested into these three branches first Gods lothnesse to lose us and then his way of drawing us to him by manifestation of his will in a law and lastly his way of holding us with him by making that law effectuall upon us by these his frequent commonefactions Videte Cavete looke to it beware of it this will be our first part And then our second will be the thing it self that falls under this inhibition and caution which is Concision that is a tearing a renting a shredding in peeces that which should be intire In which second part we shall also have as we had in the former three branches for we shall consider first Concisionem corporis the shredding of the body of Christ into fragments by unnecessary wrangling in Doctrinall points and then Concisionem vestis the shredding of the garment of Christ into rags by unnecessary wrangling in matter of Discipline and ceremoniall points and lastly Concisionem spiritus which will follow upon the former two the concision of thine owne spirit and heart and minde and soule and conscience into perplexities and into sandy and incoherent doubts and scruples and jealousies and suspitions of Gods purpose upon thee so as that thou shalt not be able to recollect thy self nor reconsolidate thy self upon any assurance and peace with God which is onely to be had in Christ and by his Church Videte Concisionem beware of tearing the body the Doctrine beware of tearing the Garment the Discipline beware of tearing thine owne spirit and conscience from her adhaesion her agglutination her cleaving to God in a holy tranquillity and acquiescence in his promise and mercy in the merits of his Sonne applyed by the holy Ghost in the Ministry of the Church For our first consideration of Gods lothnesse to lose us this is argument enoughâ— That we are here now now at the participation of that grace which God alwayes offers to al such Congregations as these gathered in his name For I pray God there stand any one amongst us here now that hath not done something since yesterday that made him unworthy of being here to day and who if he had been left under the damp and mist of yesterdayes sinne without the light of new grace would never have found way hither of himself If God be weary of me and would faine be rid of me he needs not repent that he wrapped me up in the Covenant and derived me of Christian parents though he gave me a great help in that nor repent that he bred me in a true Church though he afforded me a great assistance in that nor repent that he hath brought me hither now to the participation of his Ordinances though thereby also I have a great advantage for if God be weary of me and would be rid of me he may finde enough in me now and here to let me perish A present levity in me that speake a present formality in you that heare a present Hypocrisie spread over us all would justifie God if now and here he should forsake us When our blessed Saviour sayes When the Son of man comes shall he finde faith upon earth we need not limit that question so if he come to a Westminster to an Exchange to an Army to a Court shall he finde faith there but if he come to a Church if he come hither shall he finde faith here If as Christ speaks in another sense That Iudgement should begin at his owne house the great and generall judgement should begin now at this his house and that the first that should be taken up in the clouds to meet the Lord Jesus should be we that are met now in this his house would we be glad of that acceleration or would we thank him for that haste Men of little faith I feare we would not There was a day when the Sonnes of God presented themselves before the Lord and Satan came also amongst them one Satan amongst many Sonnes of God Blessed Lord is not our case far otherwise do not we we who as we are but we are all the Sonnes of Satan present our selves before thee and yet thou Lord art amongst us Is not the spirit of slumber and wearinesse upon one and the spirit of detraction and mis-interpretation upon another upon one the spirit of impenitence for former sinnes and the spirit of recidivation into old or of facility and opennesse to admit tentations into new upon another We as we are but we are all the Sonnes of Satan and thou Lord the onely Sonne of God onely amongst us If thou Lord wert weary of me and wouldest be rid of me may many a soule here say Lord thou knowest and I know many a midnight when thou mightest have been rid of me if thou hadst left me to my selfe then But vigilavit Doninus the Lord vouchsafed to watch over me and deliciae ejus the delight of the Lord was to be with me And what is there in me but his mercy but then what is there in his mercy that that may not reach to all as well as to me The Lord is loth to lose any the Lord would not the death of any not of any sinner much lesse if he do not see him nor consider him so the Lord would not lose him though a sinner much lesse make him a sinner that he might be lost Vult omnes the Lord would have all men come unto him and be saved which was our first consideration and we have done with that and our second is The way by which he leads us to him that he declares and manifests his will unto us in a Law he bids and he forbids The laborers in the Vine-yard took it ill at the Stewards hand and at his Masters too that those which came late to the labour were made equall with them who had borne the heate and the burden of the day But if the Steward or the Master had never meant or actually never had given any thing at all to them that had borne the heate and the
into shreds and fragments such as the Prophet speaks of The breaking of a Potters vessell that cannot be made up again Concision is at best Solutio Continui The severing of that which should be kept intire In the State the aliening of the head from the body or of the body from the head is Concision and videte it is a fearefull thing to be guilty of that In the Church which Church is not a Monarchy otherwise then as she is united in her head Christ Jesus to constitute a Monarchy an universall head of the Church to the dis-inherison and to the tearing of the Crownes of Princes who are heads of the Churches in their Dominions this is Concision and videte it is a fearefull thing to be guilty of that to advance a forein Prelate In the family where God hath made man and wife one to divide with others is Concision and videte it is a fearefull thing to be guilty of that Generally the tearing of that in peeces which God intended should be kept intire is this Concision and falls under this Commonefaction which implies an increpation videte beware But because thus Concision would receive a concision into infinite branches we determined this consideration at first into these three first Concisio Corporis the concision of the body dis-union in Doctrinall things and Concisio vestis the Concision of the garment dis-union in Ceremoniall things and then Concisio Spiritus the Concision of the Spirit dis-union irresolution unsetlednesse diffidence and distrust in thine owne minde and conscience First for this Concision of the body of the body of Divinity in Doctrinall things since still Concision is Solutio continui the breaking of that which should be intire consider we first what this Continuum this that should be kept intire is and it is sayes the Apostle Iesus himself Omnis spiritus qui solvit Iesum so the Antients reade that place Every spirit which dissolveth Iesus that breakes Jesus in peeces that makes Religion serve turnes that admits so much Gospell as may promove and advance present businesses every such spirit is not of God Not to professe the whole Gospell Totum Iesum not to beleeve all the Articles of faith this is Solutio continui a breaking of that which should be intire and this is truly concision Now with concision in this kinde our greatest adversaries they of the Romane heresie and mis-perswasion do not charge us They do not charge us that we deny any article of any antient Creed nor may they deny that there is not enough for salvation in those antient Creeds This is Continuitas universalis a continuity an intirenesse that goes through the whole Church a skin that covers the whole body the whole Church is bound to beleeve all the articles of faith But then there is Continuitas particularis Continuitas modi a continuity a harmony an intirenesse that does not go through the whole Church the whole Church does not alwaies agree in the manner of explication of all the articles of faith but this may be a skin that covers some particular limbe of the body and not another one Church may expound an article thus and some other some other way as in particular the Lutheran Church expounds the article of Christs descent into hell one way and the Calvinist another Now in cases where neither exposition destroyes the article in the substance thereof it is Concision that is Solutio continui a breaking of that which should be kept intire for any man to breake the peace of that Church in which he hath received his baptisme and hath his station by advancing the exposition of any other Church in that And as this is Concision Solutio continui a breaking of that which is intire to break the peace of the Church where we were baptized by teaching otherwise then that Church teaches in these things De modo of the manner of expounding such or such articles of faith so is there another dangerous Concision too For to inoculate a forein bud or to engraffe a forein bough is concision as well as the cutting off an arme from the tree to inoculate cleaves the rinde the bark and to engraffe cleaves the tree it severs that which should be entire So when a particular Church in a holy and discreet modesty hath abstained from declaring her self in the exposition of some particular Articles or of some Doctrines by faire consequence deducible from those Articles and contented her self with those generall things which are necessary to salvation As the Church of England hath in the Article of Christs descent into Hell it is Concision it is solution Continui a breaking of that which should be intire to inoculate a new sense or engraffe a new exposition which howsoever it may be true in it selfe it cannot be truly said to be the sense of that Church not perchance because that Church was not of that mind but because that Church finding the thing it self to be no fundamentall thing thought it unnecessary to descend to particular declarations when as in such declarations she must have departed from some other Church of the Reformation that thought otherwise and in keeping her self within those generall termes that were necessary and sufficient with a good conscience she conserved peace and unity with all David in the person of every member of the Church submits himself to that increpation Let my right hand forget her cunning and let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I prefer not Ierusalem before my chiefest joy Our chiefest joy is for the most part our own opinions especially when they concur with other learned and good men too But then Ierusalem is our love of the peace of the Church and in such things as do not violate foundations let us prefer Ierusalem before our chiefest Joy love of peace before our own opinions though concurrent with others For this is that that hath misled many men that the common opinion in the Church is necessarily the opinion of the Church It is not so not so in the Romane Church There the cōmon opinion is That the blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without originall sin But cannot be said to be the opinion of that Church nor may it be safely concluded in any Church Most Writers in the Church have declared themselves this way therefore the Church hath declared her self for the declarations of the Church are done publiquely orderly and at once And when a Church hath declared her self so in all things necessary and sufficient let us possess our souls in peace and not say that that Church hath or presse that that Church would proceed to further declarations in lesse necessary particulars When we are sure we have beleeved practised all that the Church hath recōmended to us in these generals then and not till then let us call for more declarations but in the mean time prefer Ierusalem before our chiefest joy love of peace
of Christ when he overshadowed the blessed Virgin did but make man of the woman who was one part disposed by nature thereunto whereas these men make man and God too of bread naturally wholly indisposed to any such change for this power we confesse it is not in our Commission and their Commission and ours was all one and the Commission is manifest in the Gospel and since they can charge us with no rasures no expunctions we must charge them with interlinings and additions to the first Commission But for that power which is to work upon you to whom we are sent we are defective in nothing which they call necessary thereunto This I speak of this Church in which God hath planted us That God hath afforded us all that might serve even for the stopping of the Adversaries mouth and to confound them in their own way which I speak onely to excite us to a thankfulnesse to God for his abundant grace in affording us so much and not to disparage or draw in question any other of our neighbour Churches who perchance cannot derive as we can their power and their Mission by the ways required and practised in the Romane Church nor have had from the beginning a continuance of Consecration by Bishops and such other concurrences as those Canons require and as our Church hath enjoyed They no doubt can justly plead for themselves that Ecclesiasticall positive Laws admit dispensation in cases of necessity They may justly challenge a Dispensation but we need none They did what was lawfull in a case of necessity but Almighty God preserved us from this necessity As men therefore Qui nec jussi renuunt nec non jussi affectant which neither neglect Gods calling when we have it nor counterfeit it when wee have it not Qui quod verecundè excusant obstinatiùs non recusant who though wee confesse our selves altogether unworthy have yet the seales of God and his Church upon us Nec rei nostrae legati not to promove our own ends but your reconciliation to God Nec sine principali mandate not without a direct and published Commission in the Gospell we come to you in Christs stead and so should be received by you As for our Mission that being in the quality of Ambassadours we submitted our selves to those two obligations which we noted to lie upon Ambassadours so here in our Reception we shall propose to you two things that are for the most part practised by Princes in the reception of Ambassadours One is that before they give audience they endevour by some confident servant of theirs to discern and understand the inclination of the Ambassadour and the generall scope and purpose of his negotiation and of the behavior that he purposeth to use in delivering his Message left for want of thus much light the Prince might either be unprepared in what manner to expresse himselfe or be surprised with some such message as might not well comport with his honour to heare But in these Ambassages from God to man no man is made so equall to God as that he may refuse to give Audience except he know before hand that the message be agreeable to his minde Onely he that will be more then man that Man of sinne who esteemeth himselfe to be joyned in Commission with God onely he hath a particular Officer to know before hand what message Gods Ambassadours bringeth and to peruse all Sermons to be preached before him and to expunge correct alter all such things as may be disagreeable to him It cannot therefore become you to come to these Audiences upon conditions to informe your selves from others first what kinde of messages such or such an Ambassadour useth to deliver whether he preach Mercy or Iudgement that if he preach against Vsury you will heare Court-sermons where there is less occasion to mention it If hee preach against Incontinency you will goe whither Is there any place that doth not extort from us reprehensions exclamations against that sinne But if you beleeve us to come in Christs stead what ever our message be you must hear us Doe that and for the second thing that Princes practise in the Reception of Ambassadours which is to referre Ambassadours to their Councell we are well content to admit from you Whosoever is of your nearest Councell and whose opinion you best trust in we are content to submit it to Let naturall reason let affections let the profits or the pleasures of the world be the Councell Table and can they tell you that you are able to maintaine a warre against God and subsist so without being reconciled to him Deceive not your selves no man hath so much pleasure in this life as he that is at peace with God What an Organe hath that man tuned how hath he brought all things in the world to a Consort and what a blessed Anthem doth he sing to that Organe that is at peace with God His Rye-bread is Manna and his Beefe is Quailes his day-labours are thrustings at the narrow gate into Heaven and his nightâ—watchings are extasies and evocations of his soule into the presence and communion of Saints his sweat is Pearls and his bloud is Rubies it is at peace with God No man that is at suite in himselfe no man that carrieth a Westminster in his bosome and is Plaintiffe and Defendant too no man that serveth himself with Process out of his owne Conscience for every nights pleasure that he taketh in the morning and for every dayes pound that he getteth in the evening hath any of the pleasure or profit that may be had in this life nor any that is not at peace with God That peace we bring you how will you receive us That vehemence of zeale which the Apostle found we hope not for you received me as an Angell of God even as Christ Iesus And if it had been possible you would have plucked out your owne eyes and have given them to me Consider the zeale of any Church to their Pastor it will come short of the Pastor to the Church All that Saint Paul saith of the Galatians towards him is farre short of that which he said to the Romanes That he could wish himselfe separated from Christ for his brethren or that of Moses that he would be blotted out of the Booke of Life rather then his charge should When we consider the manner of hearing Sermons in the Primitive Church though we doe not wish that manner to be renewed yet we cannot deny but that though it were accompanied with many inconveniences it testified a vehement devotion and sense of that that was said by the preacher in the hearer for all that had been formerly used in Theaters Acclamations and Plaudites was brought into the Church and not onely the vulgar people but learned hearers were as loud and as profuse in those declarations those vocall acclamations and those plaudites in the passages and transitions in Sermons as ever they
the breast of one man and is therefore subject to alterations They sacrifice to gods whom they know not says God and those gods new gods too The more suspicious for their newnesse and as it is added there unto gods whom their fathers feared not Men that fall from us whose fathers were of that Religion put themselves into more bondage and slavery to the Court of Rome now then their fathers did to the Church of Rome then They sacrifice to gods whom they know not and whom their fathers feared not so much as they doe But they have corrupted themselves as God charges them farther They are fallen from us whom no example of their fathers led that way fathers have left their former superstition which they were born and bred in and the sonnes which were born and bred in the truth have embraced those superstitions Their spot is not the spot of children so it follows in the same place a weaknesse that might have that excuse that they proceeded out of a reverentiall respect to their fathers and followed their example for their fathers have stood and they are fallen Their spot is not the spot of children And because Kings are pictures of God when they trun upon new gods they turn to new pictures of God too and with a forein Religion invest a forein Allegiance Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians says God and from the Ammonites and from the Amorites and Philistims from a succession of enemies at times and from a league of enemies at once Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods says God there And therefore to that resolution God comes Therefore I will deliver you no more And yet how often did God deliver them after this Ingratitude Idolatry are just causes of Exhaeredation Israel abounded in both these and yet after all these in this Text he cals them Children The Children of Israel and therefore his children God is kinde even to the unthankfull saith christ himself and himself calls Jerusalem The holy City even when she was deâ—iled with many and manifold uncleannesses because she had been holy and had the outward help of holinesse remaining in her still Christ doth not disavow not disinherit those children which gave most just cause of exheredation much lesse doth he justify by his example finall and totall disinheriting of children occasioned by single and small faults in the children and grounded in the Parents upon sudden and passionate and intemperate and imaginary vowes They have vowed to doe it therefore they will doe it for so they put a pretext of Religion upon their impiety and make God accessary to that which he dislikes and upon colour of a vow doe that which is far from a service to God as the performance of every lawfull and discreet vow is God calls them his Children which is one and then though as a Father he correct them yet he shewes them his face in that correction which is another beam of his mercy He calls their calamity their affliction Not a night but a day many dayes shall the children of Israel suffer this We finde these two words often joyned together in the Scriptures Dies visitationis The day of visitation though as it is a visitation it be a sad a dark contemplation yet as it is a day it hath alwayes a cheerfulnesse in it If it were called a night I might be afraid that this night They I am not told who would fetch away my soul but being a day I have assurance that the Sunne the Sunne of Righteousnesse will arise to me At the light of thine Arrowes they went forward saith the Prophet Habakkuk Though they be Arrowes yet they are Torches too though they burn yet they give light too though God shoot his Arrowes at me even by them I shall have light enough to see that it is God that shoots As there is a heavy commination in that of Amos I will cause the Sunne to goe down at noone and I will darken the earth in clear day so is there a gracious promise and a constant practise in God That he will as he hath done command light of darknesse and inable thee to see a clear day by his presence in the darkest night of tribulation For truly such a sense I think belongs to those words in Hosea That when God had said The dayes of visitation are come the dayes of recompence are come God adds that as an aggravating of the calamitie yea woe also to them when I depart from them as though the oppression of the affliction the peremptorinesse of the affliction were not in the affliction it self hut in Gods departing from them when he afflicted them they should be visited but see no day in their visitations afflicted from God but see no light from him receive no consolation in him In this place we take it for the exaltation of your devotion as a particular beam of his mercy That though the Children of Israel were afflicted many dayes yet still he affords them the name of Children and still their darke and cloudy dayes were accompanied with the light and presence of God still they felt the Hand of God under them the Face of God upon them the Heart of God towards them Those then which have this filiation God doth not easily disinherit because they were his Children after unnaturall disobediencies he avowes them and continues that name to them But yet this must not imprint a security a presumption for even the children here are submitted to heavie and dangerous calamities when Christ himselfe saith The children of the kingdome shall be cast into utter darknesse who can promise himselfe a perpetuall or unconditioned station we have in the Scriptures two especiall Types of the Church Paradise and the Arke But in that Type the Arke we are principally instructed what the Church in generall shall doe and in that in Paradise what particular men in the Church should do For we doe not reade that in the Arke Noah or his company did waigh any anchor hoyst any saile ship any oare steare any rudder but the Arke by the providence of God who onely was Pilot rode safe upon the face of the waters The Church it selfe figured by the Arke cannot shipwrack though men sleep though the Devill wake The gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church But in the other Type of the Church where every man is instructed in his particular duty therein Paradise Adam himself was commanded to dresse Paradise and to keep Paradise And when he did not that which he was injoyned to doe in that place he forfeited his interest in it and his benefit by it Though we be born and bred in Gods house as Children Baptized and Catechized in the true Church if we slacken our holy industry in making fare our salvation we though Children of the Kingdome may becast out and all our former helps and our
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
in that Dispersion which hath continued upon the Jews ever since the destruction of Ierusalem the Jews have been so far from having had any King as that they have not had a Constable of their owne in any part of the world no interest at all in any part of the Magistracy and Jurisdiction of the world any where but they are a whole Nation of Cains fugitives and vagabonds But howsoever it be the heat and the vehemency of this Commination fals upon this particular sine Rege they shall be without a King It was long before God afforded the Jews a King and he did not easily doe it then when he did it Not that he intended not that form of Government for them but because they would extort it from him before his time and because they asked it onely in that respect That they might be like their neighbours to whom God would not have had them too like And also because God to keep their thankfulnesse still awake would reserve and keep back some better thing then he had given them yet to give them at last For so he says as the Coronation of all his benefits to Israel of which there is a glorious Inventary in that Chapter Thou didst prosper into a Kingdome Till the Crown of glory be presented in the comming of the Messias thou canst not be happier Those therefore that allow but a conditionall Soveraignty in a Kingdome an arbitrary a temporary Soveraignty that may be transferred at the pleasure of another they oppose the Nolumus hoc we would not have we would not live under this form of Government not under a temporall Monarchy Nolumus hoc Those that determine Allegiance and civil obedience onely by their own religion and think themselves bound to obey none that is of another perswasion they oppose the Nolumus hunc We will not have this man to reign over us and so make their relations and fix their dependencies upon forein hopes Nolumus hunc Those that fix a super-Soveraignty in the people or in a Presbytery they oppose the Nolumus sic we would not have things carried thus They pretend to know the happinesse of living under that form A Kingdome and to acknowledge the person of the King but they would be governed every man according to his own minde And all these the Nolumus hoc they that desire not the continuance of that form of a Kingdome in an Independency but would have a dependency upon a forein power And the Nolumus hunc they that are disaffected to the person of him that governs for the present And the Nolumus sic they that will prescribe to the King ends and ways to those ends all these assist this malediction this commination which God interminates here as the greatest calamity sine Rege They shall be without a King for this is to Canton out a Monarchy to Ravell out a Kingdome to Crumble out a King There is another branch in this Part which is of Temporall calamities That they shall be sine Principe Without a King and without a Prince The word in the originall is Sar and take it as it sounds most literally in our Translation The Prince is the Kings Son so this very word is used in Esay Sar Salem The Son of God is called the Prince of Peace And so the commination upon the Jews is thus farre aggravated That they shall be without a Prince that is without a certain heire and Successor which uncertainty more then any thing else slackens the industry of all men at home and sharpens the malice of all men abroad fears at home and hopes abroad discompose and disorder all where they are sine Principe without a certain heire But the word enlarges it selfe farther for Sar signifies a Iudge when Moses rebuked a Malefactor he replies to Moses Who made thee a Iudge And in many very many places Sar signifies a Commander in the Warres So that where the Iustice of the State or the Military power of the State faile and they faile where the men who doe or should execute those places will not or dare not doe what appertains to their places there this Commination fals They are without a Prince that is without future assurance without present power or Justice But we passe to the spirituall Commination that is They shall be without Sacrifice without Ephod without Image without Teraphim It is not that their understanding shall be taken away no nor that the tendernesse of their conscience or their zeale shall be taken away It is not that they shall come to any impiety or ill opinion of God They may have religious and well-disposed hearts and yet be under a curse if they have not a Church an outward Discipline established amongst them It is not enough for a man to beleeve aright but he must apply himself to some Church to some outward form of worshipping God It is not enough for a Church to hold no error in doctrine but it must have outward assistances for the devotion of her children and outward decency for the glory of her God Both these kindes are intended in the particulars of this Text Sacrifice and Ephod Image and Teraphim First it is a part of the curse to be without Sacrifice Now if according to S. Hieromes interpretation this Text be a Prophecy upon the Jews after Christs time and that the Malediction consist in this That they shall not embrace the Christian Religion nor the Christian Church entertain them if the Prophet drive to this They shall bee without Sacrifices because they shall not be of the Christian Church certainly the Christian Church is not to be without Sacrifice It is a miserable impotency to be afraid of words That from a former holy and just detestation of reall errors we should come to an uncharitable detestation of persons and to a contentious detestation of words We dare not name Merit nor Penance nor Sacrifice nor Altar because they have been abused How should we be disappointed and disfurnished of many words in our ordinary conversation if we should be bound from all words which blasphemous men have prophaned or uncleane men have defiled with their ill use of those words There is Merit there is Penance there is Sacrifice there are Altars in that sense in which those blessed men who used those words first at first used them The Communion Table is an Altar and in the Sacrament there is a Sacrifice Not onely a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving common to all the Congregation but a Sacrifice peculiar to the Priest though for the People There he offers up to God the Father that is to the remembrance to the contemplation of God the Father the whole body of the merits of Christ Iesus and begges of him that in contemplation of that Sacrifice so offered of that Body of his merits he would vouchsafe to return and to apply those merits to that Congregation A Sacrifice as farre
Naphtali that hee should bee a well-spoken and a perswasive man For so Moses after God had farther inabled him saith Give eare O yee Heavens and I will speake Heare O Earth the words of my mouth My mouth saith Moses The Minister of God that cometh with convenient gifts and due preparation may speak such things as Earth and Heaven it selfe may be content to heare For when Saint Paul saith That to the Principalities and Powers in Heavenly places the manifold wisdome of God is made known by the Church that is by the Ministery and Service of the Church and by that which is done here wee may congruously and piously beleeve that even those Principalities and Powers in Heavenly places The Angels of Heaven doe heare our Sermons and hearken how the glory of God is communicated and accepted and propagated through the Congregation and as they rejoyce at the conversion of a Sinner so rejoyce also at the means of their Conversion the powerfull and the congruous preaching of the Word of God And therefore let no man though an Angell of the Church though an Archangell of the Church Bishop or Archbishop refuse to heare a man of imeriour place or inferiour parts to himself neither let any man be discouraged by the fewnesse or meannesse of his Hearers For as the Apostle saith with relation to Abraham Entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained Angels unawares so preach to all and that seat that thou thinkest empty may have Angels in it To them is the manifold Wisedome of God made knowne by the Church and Angels are here here for the augmentation of their owne Ioy in their fresh knowledge of the propagation of the Kingdome of God in this Congregation and they are here for their Accusation that are not here but frivolously and causelessely absent or negligently absently present if they be here Therefore Moses might say Give eare O yee Heavens though it bee but I that speake And hee might add as he doth there My Doctrine shall droppe as the rain and my speech shall distll as the dew And why Because I will publish the Name of the Lord saith Moses there because I will deliver the Messages of my God to his People What though you doe must this be ascribed unto you no Moses claimeth not that for when hee had said Give eare O yee Heavens let no man thinke himselfe too high or too wise to heare me and called it his Doctrine and his speech because he published the Name of the Lord yet he transferreth all upon God himselfe He establisheth their attentions with that Ascribe yee Greatnesse unto our God It becommeth me to make my selfe as acceptable a messenger as I can and to infuse the Word of God into you as powerfully as I can but all that I can doe is but a small matter the greatnesse of the worke lieth in your Application and that must proceed from the Word of God it selfe quickned by his Spirit and therefore Ascribe all Greatnesse unto our God for that is the Hony whatsoever or whosoever be the Hony-combe Truely when I reade a Sermon of Chrysostome or of Chrysologus or of Ambrose Men who carry in the very signification of their Names and in their Histories the attributes of Hony mouthed and Golden-mouthed Men I finde my selfe oftentimes more affected with the very Citation and Application of some sentence of Scripture in the middest or end of one of their Sermons then with any witty or forcible passage of their owne And that is it which Saint Hierome doth especially magnifie in Saint Paul After he had said Quotiescunque lego non verba mihi videor sed tonitrua audire wheresoever I open Saint Pauls Epistles it is not a word or a sentence but a clappe of Thunder that flieth out he addeth moreover Legatis doe but use your selves to the reading of Saint Pauls Epistles Videbitis in testimoniis quae sumit ex veteri Testamento quà m Artifex sit quà m prudens you will easily see how artificially how dexterously how cunningly and how discreetly he makes his use of those places which he citeth out of the Old Testament Videntur verba Innocontis rusticani you would take them saith hee sometimes for words of some plain Country-man as some of the Prophets were no other But before Saint Paul have done with those words Fulmina sunt capiunt omne quod tangunt hee maketh you see that they are flashes of lightning and that they possesse and melt affect and dissolve every soul they touch And hence it is Beloved that I return so often at home in my private Meditations that I present so often to Gods People in these Exercises this Consideration That there are not so exquisite so elegant Bookes in the World as the Scriptures neither is any one place a more pregnant example thereof for the purity and elegancy for the force and power for the largenesse and extention of the words then these which the Holy Ghost hath taken in this Text Hee that oppresseth the poore reproaches his Master c. And so we passe from this first Consideration The power and Elegancy of the whole word of God in generall to the same consideration in these particular words The Matter which in the generall is but this That the poor must bee relieved being a Doctrine obvious to all The Manner wil rather be our object at this time How the Holy Ghost by Solomons hand hath enwrapped this Doctrine in these words How the Omission of this Duty is aggravated how the performance thereof is celebrated in this Text and in the force and elegancies thereof Mans perversenesse hath changed Gods method God made man good but in a possibility of being ill Now God findes man ill but in a possibility of being good When man was good and enabled to continue so God began with him with affirmative Commandements Commandements that implied liberty and Soveraignty such as that Subjicite Dominamini Subdue the Creature and rule over the Creature and he comes not till after to Negative to Prohibitive Commandments Commandments that imply infirmity and servility such as this Of this Tree thou shalt not eate upon thy life this life and the next thou shalt not But now because God findes man ill and prone to bee worse God is faine to change his method and to begin and stop him at first with negative and prohibitive Commandments So he does in the thirty fourth Psalm ver 14. which is also again repeated first Depart from evill and then Doe good For man brings with him something into the world now to forget and to unlearn before he can take out any new lesson Man is so farre from being good of himselfe as that he must forget himselfe devest himselfe forsake himselfe before he can be capable of any good And such is the method of our Text Because God sees a naturall declination in man to abuse his power to the
himself is fearelesse of others he betrayes he circumvents And he oppresses with scorne him whom poverty hath made the subject of pity and of prayers he makes the anvile of scorne and of jeasts For so far our first word Gnashak carries his signification and our meditation he oppresses by violence by deceit by scorne brutishly devillishly and more which is the qualification of the fault and was our first consideration and all this upon the poore which is the specification of the persons and is our second You see who this oppressor is and how you may know him you have his markes Violence deceit scorne But who is this poor man and how shall you know him How shall you know whether he that askes be truly poor or no Truly beloved there is scarce any one thing in which our ignorance is more excusable then in this To know whether he to whom we give be truly poor or no In no case is our inconsideration more pardonable then in this God will never examine me very strictly why I was no stricter in examining that mans condition to whom I gave mine almes If I give to one that is poor in my sight I shall finde that almes upon Gods score amongst them who were poor in Gods sight And my mistaking the man shall never make God mistake my meaning Where I finde undeniable unresistible evidence to the contrary when I see a man able in his limbes live in continuall idlenesse when I see a man poore in his meanes and oppressed with his charge spend in continuall drunkennesse in this case I were the oppressor of the poor if I should give to that man for this were to give the childrens bread to dogs And that is not a name too bad for them for foris Canes they are dogs that are without that is without the Church And how few of these who make beggery an occupation from their infancy were ever within Church how few of them ever Christned or ever maried Foris Canes they are dogs that are without and the Childrens bread must not be given to Dogs But to pursue our first intention and so to finde out these poor in the origination of the words chosen by the holy Ghost here we have in this text two words for the poor One is Ebion and Ebion is a begger It was the name given to one of those first heretiques who occasioned the writing of St. Iohns Gospell he was called Ebion So that it may well be imagined that those first Heretiques were Mendicants Men that professed begging and lived upon the labours and sweat of other men For the Ebionit is a begger not onely he that needs but he that declares his need that askes that craves that begs for the root of Ebion is Ahab which is not onely to desire but to declare that desire to aske to crave to beg Now this poor man must be relieved The charity that God required in Israel was that no man should be put to this necessity but provided for otherwise There shall be no begger amongst you for there is our very word no Ebionite that is no poor man shall be put to beg But yet in the Prophet Ieremy that man is well spoken of that did good even to the Ebionit to the begger he that is brought to a necessity of asking must be relieved Not that we are not bound to give till another aske or never to open our hand till another open his mouth for as Saint Iohn did in the beginning of the Revelation a man may see a sound see a voice A sad aspect a pale look a hollow cheek a bloudlesse lip a sonke eye a trembling hand speake so lowd as that if I will not heare them from him God will heare them against me In many cases and with many persons it is a greater anguish to aske then to want and easier to starve then to beg therefore I must hearken after another voice and with another organ I must hearken with mine eye Many times I may see need speake when the needy man says nothing and his case may cry aloud when he is silent Therefore I must lay mine eare to the ground and hearken after them that lie in the dust and enquire after the distresses of such men for this is an imitation of Gods preventing grace that grace then which we can conceive no higher thing in God himselfe that God should be found of them that seek him not if I relieve that man that was ashamed to tell me he wanted The Ebionit the begger but not he onely must be relieved for our word in this part of the text is not Ebion but a word derived from Dalal and Dalal in this word signifies Exhaustum attenuatum a man whose former estate is exhausted and gone or whose present labours doe not prosper but that God for ends best known to himselfe exercises him with continuall poverty the word signifies also a man enfeebled and decrepit with age and more then that the word signifies sicknesse too for this very word we have in Hezekiahs mouth The Lord will cut me off with sicknesse So that now you have the specification of the person who is the poor man that is most properly the object of your charity he whose farmer estate is wasted and not by his vices but by the hand of God He whose present industry does not prosper He who is overtaken with Age and so the lesse able to repaire his wants and in his age afflicted with sicknesse and so the lesse able to indure his wants And this poor man this labouring man this decayed man this aged man this sickly man this oppressor in our text pursues and pursues with violence with deceit with scorne And so have you the qualification of the fault which was our first and the specification of the persons which was our second consideration But before we depart from this branch I remember I asked leave at first onely to stirre this consideration onely to propound this Probleme onely to aske this question whether Envy and Emulation and supplantation of Superiors or this oppression and conculcation of Inferiours in this kinde were in the nature and root thereof the greater sinne and surely the sentence and the Judgement will be against this oppressor of the poor For Envy conceived against a man in place hath evermore some emulation of those gifts which enable a man for that place Whosoever labours to supplant another that he may succeed will in some measure endevour to be fit for that succession So that though it be but a squint-eye and not a direct look yet some eye some aspect the envious man hath upon vertue Besides he that envies a higher person he does not practise as the Poet says sine talione He deales with a man that can be at full even with him and can deale as ill with him But he that oppresses the poor digs in a dunghill for wormes And he
think that of all this Congregation which lookes me in the face now I should not meet one at the Resurrection at the right hand of God! And for so much as concerns me it is all one if none of you be saved as if none of you be saved by my help my means my assistance my preaching If I put you upon miraculous wayes to be saved without hearing or upon extraordinary wayes to be saved by hearing others this shall aggravate my condemnation though you be saved How much more heavy must my burden be if by my negligence both I and you perish too So then this calling this marriage is a burden every way When at any midnight I heare a bell toll from this steeple must not I say to my selfe what have I done at any time for the instructing or rectifying of that mans Conscience who lieth there now ready to deliver up his own account and my account to Almighty God If he be not able to make a good account he and I are in danger because I have not enabled him and though he be for himself able that delivers not me if I have been no instrument for the doing of it Many many burdens lie upon this calling upon this marriage but our recompense is that marriage is as well an honourable as a painefull calling If be a Father where is mine Honour faith God If you can answer God why you have it in your Prophets They have it that satisfieth him that dischargeth you For he that receiveth them receiveth him But if Christ who repeats that complaint in every one of us That a Prophet hath no honour in his own Countrie that a Pastor is least respected of his own stock you have not your Quctus est for the honour due to God God never discharges the honour due to him if it be not paid into their hands whom he sendeth for it to them upon whom he hath directed it Would the King believe that man to honour him that violateth his Image or that calumniateth his Ambassadour Every man is the Image of God every Creature is the Ambassadour of God The Heavens and as well as the Heavens the Earth declare the glory of God but the Civill Magistrate and the Spirituall Paster who have married the two Daughters of God The state and the Church are the Images and Ambassadours of God in a higher and more peculiar sense and for that marriage are to be honoured And then Honour implieth that by which Honour subsisteth maintenance and they which withdraw that injuriously or with-hold that contentiously dishonour God in the dishonour of his servants and so make this marriage this calling onely burdensome and not honourable So then the interest of your particular Minister and the particular Church being such as between Man and Wife a marriage we consider the uses of marriage in Gods first intention and apply them to this marriage Gods first intentions in marriage were two In adjutorium for mutuall helpers and in prolem for procreation and education of Children For both these are we made Husbands of Churches in prolem to assist in the regeneration of Children for the inheritance of Heaven and in adjutorium to be helpers to one another And therefore if the husband the Pastor put the wife his flock in a circumcision to pare themselves to the quick to take from their necessary means to sustain their families to satisfie him the wife will say as Zipporah said to Moses sponâ— sus sanguinum a bloudy husband art thou that exactest and extortest more then is due In that case the Husband is no helper But if we be alwayes ready to help your children over the threshold as Saint Augustine calls Baptisme Limen Ecclesiae alwayes ready to Baptize the Children if we be alwayes ready to help you in all your spirituall diseases to that Cordiall that Balsamum the body and bloud of Christ Iesus If we be alwayes ready to help you in all your bodily distresses ready even at your last gasp to open your eyes then when your best friends are ready to close them ready to deliver your souls into the hands of God when all the rest about you are ready to receive into their hands that which you leave behinde you and then ready to lay up the garments of your soules your bodies in the wardrobe the grave till you call for them and put them on again in the resurrection then are we truely helpers true husbands and then if the Wife will say as Iobs wife to the husband Curse God and die be sorry that thou hast taken this Profession upon thee and live in penury and die in povertie In a word if he presse too much if she withdraw too much this frustrates Gods purpose in making that a marriage they are not mutuall helpers to one another These were Gods two principall intentions in marriage in adjutorium in prolem But then mans fall induced a third in remedium That for a remedy against burning and to avoid fornication every man should have his own wife every woman her own husband And so in remedium for a remedy against spirituall fornication of running after other men in other places out of disaffection to their own Pastor or over affecting another God hath given every wife her own husband Every Church her own Pastor And to all these purposes our function is a marriage It is a marriage it deserves the honour it undertakes the burden of that state and then it is a marriage of a widow of a Church left in widow-hood by the death of her former husband In the Law literally God forbad the High Priest to marry a widdow The Romane Church continues that literally and more they extend it that which was in figure enjoined to the High Priest onely they in fact extend to all Priests no man that ever married a widow may be a priest though she be dead when he desires orders There is no question but there is a more exemplary sanctity required in the Priest then in other persons and more in those who are in high places in the Church then in those of inferiour Jurisdictions and the name and title of Virginity hath ever been exhibited as an Embleme as a Type of especiall Sanctity And as such the Apostle uses it when he saith That he would present the Church of Corinth as a chaste Virgine to Christ That is as chaste as a Virgin though married for so he saith in the words immediately before That he had espoused them to a husband As marriage is an honourable state though in poverty so is the bed undefiled with strange lust a chaste bed even in marriage And in the accommodation of the Figure to the present occasion our marriage to severall Churches If we might marry no widowes no Churches which had been wives to former husbands we should finde few Virgins that is Churches newly erected for us But when the wife of a former husband is left
a widow Nubat in Domino saith the Apostle In Gods name let her marry But the former husband must be dead The husbands absence makes not the wife a widow nor doth the necessary and lawfull absence of the Pastor make the Church vacant The sicknesse of the husband makes not a widow The bodily weaknesse nay the spirituall weaknes of the Pastor in case that his parts and abilities and faculties be grown but weak do not make his Church vacant If the Pastor be suspended or otherwise censured this is but as a separation or as a divorce and as the wife is not a widow upon a divorce so neither is the Church vacant upon such censures And therefore for them that take advantages upon the weaknesses or upon the disgrace or upon the povertie of any such incumbent and so insinuate themselves into his Church this is intrusion this is spirituall adultery for the husband is not dead though he be sick Nay if they would remove him by way of preferment yet that is a supplantation when Iacob had Esau by the heel whether he kept him in till he might be strong enough to goe out before him or whether he pushed him out before he would have gone Iacob was a supplanter Some few cases are put when a wife becomes as a widow her husband living but regularly it is by death In some few cases Churches may otherwise be vacant but regularly it is by death And then Esto vidua in Domâ— Patris saith Iudah to Thamar Remain a widow at thy fathers house Then the Church remaineth in the house in the hands of her Father the Bishop of that Diâ—ces till a new husband be lawfully tendred unto her And till that time as our Saviour Christ recommended his most blessed Mother to Saint Iohn but not as a wife so that Bishop delivers that Church to the care and administration of some other during her widowhood till by due course she become the wife of another Thus our calling is a mariage It should have honour It must have labour and it is a lawfull mariage upon a just and equitable vacancy of the place without any supplantation upon death And then it is upon death of a brother If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no childe the wife c. Aswell Saint Gregory as Saint Augustine before interpret this of our elder our eldest brother Christ Iesus That hee being dead we mary his wife the Church and become husbands to her But Christ in that capacity as he is head of the Church cannot die That to which the application of this law leads us is That predecessor and successor bee brethren of the same faith and the same profession of faith The Sadduces put a case to Christ of a woman maried successively to seven men let seven signifie infinite still those seven were brethren How often soever any wife change her husband any Church her Pastor God sends us still a succession of brethren sincere and unfeigned Preachers of the same truth sonnes of the same father Who is that father God is our Father Have we not all one Father says the Prophet Yes we have and so a worme and we are brethren by the same father and mother the same God the same Earth Hath not the raine a father The raine hath and the same that wee have More narrowly and yet very largely Christ is our father One of his names is The everlasting Father And then after these after God after Christ the King is our father See my father the skirt of thy robe in my hand says David to his King Saul Now if any husband should be offered to any widow any Pastor to any vacant Church who were not our brother by all these fathers in a right beliefe in God the Father of all men in a right profession of Christ Iesus the Father of all Christians in a right affection and allegiance to the King the Father of all Subjects Any that should incline to a forain father an imaginary universall father he of whom his Vice-fathers his Junior fathers the Iesuites for all the Jesuits are Fathers says That the Fathers of the Church are but sons and not fathers to him They that say to a stock to the Image of the beast Thou art my father who not in a sense of humiliation as Iob speaks the words but of pride say to corruption Thou art my father that is that prostrate themselves to all the corruptions of a prostitute Church If any so inclined of himself or so inclinable if occasion should invite him or rather tempt him be offered for husband to any widow for a Pastor to any vacant Church he is not within the accommodation of this law hee is not our brother by the whole bloud who hath not a brotherhood rooted in the same religion and in the allegiance to the same Soveraign He must be a brother and Frater Cohabitans a brother dwelling with the former brother As he is a brother we consider the unity of faith As he dwels in the same house we consider the unity of discipline That as he beleeves and professes the same articles of faith so by his own obedience and by his instructing of others hee establish the same government A Schismatique is no more a brother to this purpose then an Heretique If we look well we shall see that Christ provided better for his garments then for his flesh he suffered his flesh to be torn but not his seamlesse garment There may bee in many cases more mischief in disobeying the uniformity of the discipline of the Church then in mistaking in opinion some doctrine of the Church Wee see in Gods institution of his first Church whom he called brethren Those who were instructed and cunning in the songs of the Church they are called brethren To oppose the orders of the Church solemnly ordained or customarily admitted for the advancement of Gods glory and the devotion of the Congregation forfeits this brotherhood or at least discontinues the purpose and use of it for howsoever they may bee in a kinde brothers if they succeed in the profession of the same faith yet wee see where the blessednesse is settled Blessed are they that dwell in thy house And we see where the goodnesse and the pleasantnesse is settled Behold how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity So that if they be not brothers in the same faith and brothers in the same houshold of the faithfull and brothers in the same allegiance If they advance not the truth of the Church and the peace of the Church and the head of the Church fomentors of Error and of Schisme and Sedition are not husbands for these widows Pastors for these Churches Hee must bee a brother A brother dwelling in the same house of Christ and then brother to one
dead without children as Tertullian expresses it in his particular elegancy Illiberis that is content to be his brother in that sense in that capacity to claime no children no spirituall children of his own begetting not to attribute to himself that holy generation of the Saints of God as though his learning or his wit or his labour had saved them but to content himselfe to have been the foster father and to have nursed those children whom the Spirit of God by over-shadowing the Church hath begot upon her for though it be with the word of truth in our preaching yet of his own will begot he us though by the word says the Apostle Saint Paul might say to the Corinthians Though you have tenne thousand instructors in Christ yet have yee not many fathers for in Christ Iesus I have begotten you through the Gospel And hee might say of his spirituall sonne Onesimus That he begot him in his bonds Those to whom he first of any presented the Gospel That had not heard of a Christ nor a holy Ghost before They into whom he infused a new religion new to them might well enough bee called his children and hee their father But we have no new doctrine to present no new opinion to infuse or miracles to amaze as in the Romane Church they are full of all these wee have no children to beget of our own Paul was not crucified for you nor were you baptized in the name of Paul sayes Paul himself as he sayes again who is Paul but a Minister by whom ye beleeved and that also not by him but as the Lord gave to every man Not as Paul preached to every man for he preached alike to every man but as the Lord gave to every man I have planted says he it is true but he that planteth is nothing says he also Only they that proceed as they proceed in the Romane Church Ex opere operato to tye the grace of God to the action of the man will venter to call Gods children their children in that sense My prayer shal be against that commination That God will not give us a miscarrying womb nor dry breasts that you may always suck pure milk from us and then not cast it up but digest it to your spirituall growth And I shall call upon God with a holy passion as vehement as Rachels to Iacob Da mihi liberos give me children or I die That God would give me children but his children that he by his Spirit may give you an inward regeneration as I by his ordinance shall present to you the outward means that so being begot by himselfe the father of life and of light you may be nursed and brought up in his service by me That so not attributing the work to any man but to Gods Ordinances you doe not tye the power of God nor the breath of life to any one mans lips as though there were no regeneration no begetting but by him but acknowledging the other to be but an instrument and the weakest to be that you may remember also That though a man can cut deeper with an Axe then with a knife with a heavy then with a lighter instrument yet God can pierce as far into a conscience by a plain as by an exquisite speaker Now this widow being thus maried This Church thus undertaken He must perform the duty of a husbands brother First it is a personall office he must doe it himself When Christ shall say at the Judgement I was naked and ye cloathed me not sick and ye visited me not it shall be no excuse to say When saw we thee naked when saw we thee sick for wee might have seen it wee should have seen it When we shall come to our accompt and see them whose salvation was committed to us perish because they were uninstructed and ignorant dare we say then we never saw them show their ignorance wee never heard of it That is the greatest part of our fault the heaviest weight upon our condemnation that we saw so little heard so little conversed so little amongst them because we were made watchmen and bound to see and bound to hear and bound to be heard not by others but by our selves My sheep may be saved by others but I save them not that are save so nor shall I my self be saved by their labour where mine was necessarily required The office is personall I must doe it and it is perpetuall I must perform it sayes the text goe through with it Lots wife looked backe and God never gave her leave to look forward again That man who hath put his hand to the plow and looks back Christ disables him for the kingdome of God The Galatians who had begun in the spirit and then relapsed before whose eyes Christ Iesus had been evidently set forth as the Apostle speaks fall under that reproach of the Apostle to bee called and called againe fooles and men bewitched If I beginne to preach amongst you and proceed not I shall fall under that heavy increpation from my God you beganne that you might for your owne glory shew that you were in some measure able to serve the Church and when you had done enough for your own glory you gave over my glory and the salvation of their souls to whom I sent you God hath set our eyes in our foreheads to look forward not backward not to be proud of that which we have done but diligent in that which we are to doe In the Creation if God had given over his worke the third or fift day where had man been If I give over my prayers due to the Church of God as long as God enables me to doe it service I lose my thanks nay I lose the testimony of mine own conscience for all My office is personall and it is perpetuall and then it is a duty He must perform the duty of a husbands brother unto her It is not of curtesie that we preach but it is a duty it is not a bounty given but it is a debt paid for though I preach the Gospel I have nothing to glory of for a necessity is laid upon me sayes Saint Paul himself It is true that as there is Vae si non Wo be unto mee if I doe not preach the Gospel so there is an Euge bone serve Well done good and faithfull servant to them that doe But the Vae is of Iustice the Euge is of Mercy If doe it not I deserve condemnation from God but if I doe it I deserve not thanks from him Nay it is a debt not onely to God but to Gods people to you and indeed there is more due to you then you can claime or can take knowledge of For the people can claime but according to the laws of that State and the Canons of that Church in which God hath placed them such preaching as those Laws and
bowells When Christ is disseised and dispossest his truth profligated and thrown out of a nation that professed it before when Christ is wounded by the blasphemies of others and crucified by thee in thy relapses to repented sinnes wilt thou not say to Them to Thy selfe in the behalfe of Christ why persecute yee me Wilt thou not make Christs case thine as hee made thine his Art not thou the bowells of Christ If not and thou art not if thou have not this sense of his suffering thou hast no interest in his death by thy Baptisme nor in his Resurrection by thy feeble halfe repentances But in the duty of a child as thou art a servant in the simplicity of a child as thou hast sucked from him in the interest and inheritance of a child as thou art the Son of his bowells in all these capacities and with all these we have done God calls thee come ye children and that is our next step the Action Come Passing thus from the Persons to the action Venite Come we must aske first what this comming is The whole mystery of our redemption is expressed by the Apostle in this word venit that Christ Iesus is come into the world All that thou hast to do is to come to and to meet him Where is he At home in his own house in the Church Which is his house which is his Church That to thee in which he hath given thee thy Baptisme if that do still afford thee as much as is necessary for thy salvation Come thither to the participation of his ordinances to the exercises of Religion there The gates of heaven shall be opened to you at last in that word Venite benedicti come ye blessed the way to those gates is opened to you now in the same word Venite filii come ye children come Christ can come and does often into thy bed-chamber in the visitation of his private Spirit but here he calls thee out into the congregation into the communion of Saints And then the Church celebrates Christs coming in the flesh a moneth before he comes in four Sundays of Advent before Christmas When thou comest to meet him in the Congregation come not occasionally come not casually not indifferently not collaterally come not as to an entertainment a show a spectacle or company come solemly with preparation with meditation He shall have the lesse profit by the prayer of the Congregation that hath not been at his private prayer before he came Much of the mystery of our Religion lay in the venturus that Christ was to come all that the law and Prophets undertooke for was that venturus that Christ was to come but the consummation of all the end of the law and the Prophets is in the venit he is come Do not clogge thy coming with future conditions and contingencies thou wilt come if thou canst wake if thou canst rise if thou canst be ready if thou like the company the weather the man We finde one man who was brought in his bed to Christ but it was but one Come come actually come earnestly come early come often and come to meet him Christ Jesus and no body else Christ is come into the world and therefore thou needest not goe out of the world to meet him He doth not call thee from thy Calling but in thy Calling The Dove went up and down from the Arke and to the Arke and yet was not disappointed of her Oliveleafe Thou maiest come to this place at due times and maiest doe the businesses of the world in other places too and still keep thy Olive thy peace of Conscience If no Hereticall recusancy thou dost like the Doctrine no schismaticall recusancy thou dost like the Discipline no lasie recusancy thou forbearest not because thou canst not sit at thine ease no proud recusancie that the company is not good enough for thee if none of these detain thee thou maist be here even when thou art not here God may accept thy desire as in many cases thou maist be away when thou art here as in particular thou art if being here thou do not hearken to that which is said here for that is added to the coming and follows in a third consideration after the capacity Children and the Action Come The disposition Hearken Come ye children hearken Upon those words of David Conturbata sunt ossa mea St. Basil faith well Habet anima ossa sua The soul hath bones as well as the body And in this Anatomy and dissection of the soul as the bones of the soul are the constant and strong resolutions thereof and as the seeing of the soul is understanding The eyes of your understanding being opened so the Hearing of the soul is hearkning in these religious exercises we doe not htar except we hearken for hearkning is the hearing of the soul. Some men draw some reasons out of some stories of some credit to imprint a belief of extasie and raptures That the body remaining upon the floore or in the bed the soul may be gone out to the contemplation of heavenly things But it were a strange and a perverse extasie that the body being here at a religious exercise and in a religious posture the soul should be gone out to the contemplation and pursuit of the pleasures or profits of this world You come hither but to your own funeralls if you bring nothing hither but your bodies you come but to be enterred to be laid in the earth if the ends of your comming be earthly respects prayse and opinion and observation of men you come to be Canonized to grow Saints if your souls be here and by grace here alwayes diffused grow up to a sanctification Bonus es Domine animae quaerenti te Thou art good O Lord to that soul that seeks thee It is St. Augustines note that it is put in the singular Animae to that soul Though many come few come to him A man may thread Sermons by half dozens a day and place his merit in the nūber a man may have been all day in the perfume and incense of preaching and yet have receivd none of the savor of life unto life Some things an Ape can do as wel as a Man some things an Hypocrite as wel as a Saint We cannot see now whether thy soul be here now or no but to morrow hereafter in the course of thy life they which are near thee know whether thy former faults be mended or no know whether thy soul use to be at Sermons as well as thy body uses to go to Sermons Faith comes by hearing saith the Apostle but it is by that hearing of the soul Hearkning Considering And then as the soul is infused by God but diffused over the whole body so there is a Man so Faith is infused from God but diffused into our works and so there is a Saint Practise is the Incarnation of Faith Faith
for we have an ease in that nor that it is In Virga ejus in his rod for we have a benefit by that but it is In virga irae in that it is the rod of his wrath of his anger But truely beloved there is a blessed comfort ministred unto us even in that word for that word Gnabar which we translate Anger wrath hath another ordinary signification in Scripture which though that may seem to be an easier would prove a heavier sense for us to beare than this of wrath and anger this is preteritio conniventia Gods forbearing to take knowledge of our transgressions when God shall say of us as he does of Israel Why should ye be smitten any more when God leaves us to our selves and studies our recovery no farther by any more corrections for in this case there is the lesse comfort because there is the lesse anger show'd And therefore S. Bernard who was heartily afraid of this sense of our word heartily afraid of this preterition that God should forget him leave him out affectionately passionately embraces this sense of the word in our Text Anger and he sayes Irascaris mihi Domine Domine mihi irascaris Be angry with me ô Lord O Lord be angry with me lest I perish for till we have a sense of such an anger in God towards us as Children have from their Parents that not onely they correct them but deny them some things that they aske and keep them some time from their sight and presence till we be made Partakers of this blessed anger of God for we doe not pray that God would not be angry but that he would not be angry with us for ever till then we come not to see an affliction that is to discerne what and whence and why that comes Nor we see that not like Men like such Men like Christian Men not with a faithfull and constant assurance that all will have an end in him who suffered infinitely more for us than he hath layd upon us SERMON XLIX A Sermon Preached at Saint Dunstan's upon New-years-day 1624. GEN. 17. 24. Abraham himselfe was ninety nine yeares old when the foreskin of his flesh was Circumcised THis is the place where Circumcision began and this is the Day when Circumcision ended in this Scripture it was Instituted in the person of Abraham and upon this Day it was perfected and consummated in the person of Christ Iesus for though Circumcision were admitted in a few cases in the Apostles time after Christ yet that was as dead berbs are re-admitted into medicines in the winter when fresh and green herbs cannot be had of that kind So Circumcision was sometimes admitted for peace and to avoid scandall and the better to propagate the Church after the vertue thereof was extinguished in Christ. In the Institution thereof in this Text we will consider Abrahams ready and exact obedience In the Consummation thereof in the person of Christ we will consider that to which this Circumcision had relation that is the spirituall Circumcision of our hearts It is a Text well handled and it is a Day well spent if the Text teach us to obey God readily and immediately what inconveniences soever present themselves in the way and if the celebration of the Day teach us to come this Day to that which is the true Circumcision the Circumcision of the Heart In the first in Abraham's example we shall passe by these steps First that though there be allowed to us an Omnia Probate a Triall of all things and a spirit to discerne spirits yet when once it appeares to us to be a comman dement of God there 's a fine leavied all Titles concluded no more claime to be made by our under standing our reason but a present and an exact obedience must be given to it Secondly that in particular Men and in particular cases there may arise tentations objections reasons why a Man might forbeare altogether or at least differ the execution of such a commandement as there may have done in Abraham's case as we shall see anon Thirdly that though such tentations doe arise in us out of our infirmities yet God gives his Children strength to overcome those difficulties and to oppose stronger reasons against those reasons and so to come to a willing obedience to his will And then lastly the triumph that belongs to this victory which we shall find in considering what benefit Abraham received by this obedience in his Circumcision And these will be the branches of out first part rising out of the Institution of Circumcision in the person of Abraham at that great age First that Gods manifest will must not be disputed nor reasoned upon Secondly that Mans corrupt nature will offer reasons against it Thirdly that God will give the issue with the tentation reason above that reason And lastly he will accompany that victory with other blessings too First then for our exact obedience to that which God exacts of us it is well said by Luther Depuerascendum est cum agitur de obedientia Dei when the question is whether this or this be commanded by God or no when traditions and additions of men are imposed upon us as commandements of God here 's no Depuerascendum in this case this is no Childs-play then viriliter agendum as the Apostle speaks we must quit our selves like men we must dispute like Men like learned men preach like Men like Zealous Men pray like Men like devout Men resist like Men like valiant Men or at least in cases where we may not resist suffer like Men like constant Christian Men. But when the question is De obedientia Dei that this is agreed to be the will of God and all the question is whether God might not be content to accept an obedience to some part of it or to all of that hereafter but not now whether God would not forgive the debt or at least give day for the payment of it either when we are old or by legacies to pious uses when we die when this is the question Depuerascendum est we must grow Children again we must not onely not argue not dispute against it which are acts of men of strong able understandings but we must return to the first weaknesse of Children to be speechlesse to be thoughtlesse we must not utter a word not conceive a thought against it Periculosa pestilens quaestio Quare saies Luther also It is a Dangerous and Infectious Monasillable How or Why If I will aske a reason why God commands such a thing first Periculosum est It is Dangerous for I have nothing to answer me but mine owne reason and that affords not Lead enough nor Line enough to sound the depth of Gods proceedings nor length enough nor strength enough to reach so farre and therefore I may mistake the reason and goe upon false grounds So Periculosum est It is a Dangerous question and a lost
This is the way of joy not to seek occasions of sorrow which they have not but to finde out those which they have and know not that is their secret sins the causes of Gods judgements in themselves To discern that that correction that is upon me is from God and not a naturall accident this is a beam of joy for I see that he would cure me though by corosives To discern that God is not unjust nor cruell and therefore it is something in me and not in him that brings it to this sharpnesse this is a beam of joy too for I see how to discharge God and to glorifie him and how to accuse my self and that is a good degree of repentance But to perfect my repentance Non sufficit dolere de peccatis sed requiritur gaudiâ—m de dolore It is not enough to come to a sorrow in my sin that may flow out into despair but I must come to a joy in my sorrow for that fixes me upon the application of Christ and such a joy a man must suscitate and awaken in himselfe by these steps In malis temporalibus in all worldly crosses Else he does not Gaudere semper No nor except he finde this joy In malis Spiritualibus in Spirituall afflictions too When I fall into new sorrow after my former joy relapse into those sins which I have repented and beloved the dangerous falling in any man is to fall backward he that fals forward hath his eys to help him and his hands to help him but he that fals backward lacks much yet even out of these relapses we must finde joy too For when Saint Iames says Count it all joy when you fall into divers tentations as he speaks of all joy so he intends or may justly be extended to all tentations not onely tentations that is trialls when God proves a man by affliction where morall constancy is exercised but even in triall of religious constancy in tentations to sin still there is fresh occasion of joy in discerning Gods deliverance from the falling into the sinne or from lying in the sinne Ipsa tentatio sal animae as salt preserves flesh so tentations preserve the Soule not the sinning but the discerning that it is nay that that was a tentation to sinne preserves the soule And therefore he calls tentationes custodes he makes even the evill Angells our Guardians our Tutelar Angells because by their tentations they bring us up in the feare of God and in the ways of joy And therefore though it be a joyfull thing to have overcome a tentation yet determine not your Joy in that that if that tentation had overcome you you might have no more Joy but as Christ says In this rejoyce not that is not onely in this that the Spirits are subject to you but rather rejoyce that your names are written in heaven Rejoyce not in this that is determine not conclude not your ioy in this that you have overcome that tentation but rather in this that God does not forsake you after a sinne nor after a relapse into sinne but manifests your election by continuall returning to you But that this may bee the joy of the text true Joy not a joy that induces presumption for that will faile that it may bee Semper it must bee in Sempiterno a Joy rightly conceived and rightly placed Gaudium in Domino and that is our next step Rejoyce in the Lord always says the Apostle and left it should admit any interruption he repeates it Iterum dico gaudete Againe I say rejoyce But still in the Lord. For Quasi locus quidam iustorum capax est Dominum though God be in no place God is the place in whom all good men are God is the Court of every just King God is the Church of every holy Priest God is the field of every valiant man and the bed of every sickly man whatsoever is done in Domino in the Lord is done at home in the right place He that is settled in God centred in God Laetitiae fontem voluptatis radicem lucratus est They are all considerable words Lucratus est he hath purchased something which he did not inherit he hath acquired something which was not his before and what Fontem laetitiae 't is joy else it were nothing for what is wealth if sicknesse take away the joy of that Or what is health if imprisonment take away the joy of that Or what is liberty if poverty take away the joy of that but he hath joy and not a Cistern but a fountain the fountaine of joy that rejoyces in God He carries it higher in the other Metaphore he hath radicem voluptatis a man may have Flores flowers of joy and have no fruit a man may have some fruit and not enough but if he have joy in God he hath radicem voluptatis if we may dare to translate it so and in a spirituall sense we may it is a voluptuous thing to reioyce in God In rejoycing in another thing Saint Bernards harmonious charme will strike upon us Rara hora brevis mora they are joyes that come seldome and stay but a little while when they come Call it joy to have had that thou lovest in thine eye or in thine armes remember what oathes what false oathes it did cost thee before it came to that And where is that joy now is there a Semper in that Call it joy to have had him whom thou hatest in thine hands or under thy feet what ignoble disguises to that man what servile observations of some greater then either you or he did that cost you before you brought him into your power and where is that joy if a Funerall or a bloudy conscience benight it Currus Domini says David the Chariots of the Lord are twenty thousand thousands of Angels says our translation Millia laetantium says the vulgat thousands of them that reioyce How comes it to bee all thing Angells and Reioycers Ne miremur illos laetari continuò subiecit Dominus in illis Saint Augustine saith to take away all wonder it is added the Lord is in the midst of them and then be what they will they must reioyce For if he be with them they are with him and hee is Joy The name of Isaac signifies ioy and the triall of Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac Immola Isaac tuum sacrifice all thy Joy in this world to God Et non mactatus sed sanctificatus Isaac tuus thy Joy shall not bee destroyed but sanctified so farre from being made none that it shall bee made better better here but not better then that hereafter which is our last steppe beyond which there is nothing that even true Joy rightly placed is but an inchoative a preparatory Joy in this world The consummation is for the next Gaudebimus semper Sicut laetantium omnium habitatio est inte as Saint Hierome