his eye nothing else to distract his counsels nothing else done upon the face of the earth Take the earth now as it is replenished and take it either as it is torn and crumbled into raggs and shivers not a kingdome not a family not a man agreeing with himselfe Or take it in that concord which is in it as All the Kings of the earth set themselves and all the Rulers of the earth take counsell together against the Lord take it in this union or this division in this concord or this discord still the Lord that sitteth in the heavens discernes all looks at all laughs at all and hath them all in derision Earthly Judges have their distinctions and so their restrictions some things they cannot know what mortall man can know all Some things they cannot take knowledge of for they are bound to evidence But God hath Iudicium discretionis no mist no cloud no darknesse no disguise keeps him from discerning and judging all our actions and so he is a Judge too And he is so lastly as he hath Iudicium retributionis God knows what is evill he knows when that evill is done and he knows how to punish and recompense that evill for the office of a Judge who judges according to a law being not to contract or extend that law but to declare what was the true meaning of that Law-maker when hee made that law God hath this judgement in perfection because hee himself made that law by which he judges and therefore when he hath said Morte morieris If thou do this thou shalt die a double death where he hath said Stipendium peccati mors est every sin shall be rewarded with death If I sinne against the Lord who shall entreat for me Who shall give any other interpretation any modification any Non obstante upon his law in my behalf when he comes to judge me according to that law which himself hath made Who shall think to delude the Judge and say Surely this was not the meaning of the Law-giver when he who is the Judge was the Law-maker too And then as God is Judge in all these respects so is he a Judge in them all Sine Appellatione and Sine judiciis man cannot appeal from God God needs no evidence from man for for the Appeal first to whom should we appeal from the Soveraign 〈◊〉 Wrangle as long as ye will who is Chief Justice and which Court hath Juris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over another I know the Chief Justice and I know the Soveraign 〈…〉 the King of heaven and earth shall send his ministring Spirits his Angels to the 〈◊〉 and bowels of the Earth and to the bosome and bottome of the Sea and Earth must deliver Corpus cum causâ all the bodies of the dead and all their actions to receive a judgement in this Court when it will be but an erroneous and frivolous Appeal to call to the Hils to fall down upon us and the Mountains to cover and hide us from the wrathfull judgment of God He is a Judge then Sine appellatione without any Appeal from him he is so too Sine judiciis without needing any evidence from us Now if I be wary in my actions here incarnate Devils detractors and informers cannot accuse me If my sinne come not to action but lye onely in my heart the Devill himself who is the accuser of the brethren hath no evidence against me but God knows my heart doth not he that pondereth the heart understand it where it is not in that faint word which the vulgar Edition hath expressed it in inspector cordium That God sees the heart but the word is Tochen which signifies every where to weigh to number to search to examine as the word is used by Salomon again The Lord weigheth the spirits and it must be a ready hand and exact scales that shall weigh spirits So that though neither man nor Devill nay nor my self give evidence against me yea though I know nothing by my selfe I am not thereby justified why where is the farther danger In this which follows there in Saint Paul He that judges me is the Lord and the Lord hath meanes to know my heart better then my self And therefore as Saint Augustine makes use of those words Abyssus Abyssum invocat one depth cals upon another The infinite depth of my sins must call upon the more infinite depth of Gods mercy for if God who is Judge in all these respects judicio detestationis he knows and abhors evill and judicio discretionis he discerns every evill person and every evill action judicio retributionis he can and will recompense evill with evill And all these Sine Appellatione we cannot appeal from him Sine judiciis he needs no evidence from us If this judgement enter into judgement with me not onely not I but not the most righteous man no nor the Church whom he hath washed in his blood that she might be without spot or wrinckle shall appear righteous in his sight This being then thus that Iudgement is an unseparable character of God the Father being Fons Deitatis the root and spring of the whole Deity how is it said that the Father judgeth no man Not that we should conceive a wearinesse or retiring in the Father or a discharging of himself upon the shoulders and labours of another in the administration and judging of this world for as it is truly said that God rested the seventh day that is he rested from working in that kind from creating so it is true that Christ says here My Father worketh yet and I work and so as it is truly said here The Father judgeth no man it is truly sayd by Christ too of the Father I seek not mine own glory there is one that seeketh and judgeth still it is true that God hath Iudicium detestationis Thy eyes are pure eyes O Lord and cannot behold iniquity says the Prophet still it is true that hee hath Iudicium discretionis because they committed villany in Israel and I know it saith the Lord still it is true that he hath Iudicium retributionis The Lord killeth and maketh alive he bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up still it is true that he hath all these sine appellatione for go to the Sea or Earth or Hell as David makes the distribution and God is there and he hath them sine judiciis for our witnesse is in heaven and our record is on high All this is undeniably true and besides this that great name of God by which he is first called in the Scriptures Elohim is not inconveniently deriv'd from Elah which is Iurare to swear God is able as a Judge to minister an oath unto us and to draw evidence from our own consciences against our selves so that then the Father he judges still but he judges as God and not as the Father In the three great judgements of God the
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
from death a man might in some sort be said to be immortall for that minute but Man is never so Nunquam ei vicinius est posse vivere quà m posse mori That proposition is never truer This man may live to morrow then this proposition is This man may dy this minute Though then shortnesse of life be a malediction to the wicked The bloudy and deceitfull men shall not live halfe their dayes there 's the sentence the Judgement the Rule And they were cut down before their time there 's the execution the example God hath threatned God hath inflicted shortnesse of dayes to the wicked yet the Curse consists in their indisposition in their over-loving of this world in their terrors concerning the next world and not meerly in the shortnesse of life for this Ite depart out of this world is part of the Consolation I have a Reversion upon my friend and though I wish it not yet I am glad if he die Men that have inheritances after their fathers are glad when they dye though not glad that they die yet glad when they die I have a greater after the death of this body and shall I be loath to come to that Yet it is not so a Consolation as that we should by any means be occasions to hasten our own death Multi Innocentes ab aliis occiduntur à seipso nemo Many men get by the malice of others if thereby they dy the sooner for they are the sooner at home and dy innocently but no man dies innocently that dies by his own hand or by his own hast We may not doe it never we may not wish it alwayes nor easily Before a perfect Reconciliation with God it is dangerous to wish death David apprehended it so I said O my God take me not away in the midst of my dayes In an over tender sense and impatience of our own Calamities it is dangerous to desire death too Very holy men have transgressed on that hand Elias in his persecution came inconsiderately to desire that he might die It is enough ô Lord take away my soule He would tell God how much was enough And so sayes Iob My soule chuseth rather to be strangled and to die then to be in my bones He must have that that his soule chuses But to omit many cases wherein it is not good nor safe to wish Death certainly when it is done primarily in respect of God for his glory and then for the respect which is of our selves it is onely to enjoy the sight and union of God and that also with a Conditionall submission to his will and a tacite and humble reservation of all his purposes we may think David's thought and speak David's words My soule thirsteth for God even for the living God when shall I come and appeare before the presence of my Living God Saint Paul had David's example for it when he comes to his Cupio dissolvi to desire to be dissolved And Saint Augustine had both their examples when he sayes so affectionately Eia Domine videam ut hîc moriar O my God let me see thee in this life that I may die the death of the Righteous dy to sin moriar ut te videam let me dy absolutely that I may see thee essentially Here we may be in his Presence we see his state there we are in his Bedchamber and see his eternall and glorious Rest. The Rule is good given by the same Father Non injustum est justo optare mortem A righteous man may righteously desire deathâ— Si Deus non dederit injustum erit non tolerare vitam amarissimam but if God affords not that ease he must not refuse a laborious life So that this departing is not a going before we be call'd Christ himselfe stay'd for his ascension till he was taken up But when these comes a Lazare veni foras that God calls us from this putrefaction which we think life let us be not onely obedient but glad to depart For without such an Ite there is no such Surgite as is intended here without this departing there is no good rising without a joyfull Transmigration no joyfull Resurrection He that is loth to depart is afraid to rise againe and he that is afraid of the Resurrection had rather there were none and he that had rather there were none aâ—t â—aecitate aut animosâ—tate says S. Augustine either he will make himselfe beleeve that there is none or if he cannot overcome his Conscience so absolutely he will make the world beleeve that he beleeves there is none and truly to lose our sense of the Resurrection is as heavy a losse as of any one point of Religion It is the knot of all and hath this priviledge above all that though those Joyes of heaven which we shall possesse immediately after our death be infinite yet even to these infinite Joyes the Resurrection given an addition and enlarges even that which was infinite And therefore is Iob so passionately desirous that this doctrine of the Resurrection might be imparted to all imprinted in all Oh that my words more now written Oh that they were written in a book and graven with an Iron pen in lead and stone for ever what is all this that Iob recommends with so much devotion to all I am sure that my Redeemer liveth and be shall stand the last on Earth and though after my skin wormes destroy this body yet I shall see God in my flesh whom I my selfe shall see and mine eyes shall behold and none either for me This doctrine of the Resurrection had Iob so vehement and so early a care of Neither could the malicious and pestilent inventions of man no not of Satan himselfe abolish this doctrine of the Resurrection for as Saint Hierome observes from Adrian's time to Constantin's for 180 yeares in the place of Christs birth they had set up an Idoll a statue of Adonis In the place of his Crucifying they had set up an Idoll of Venus and in the place of his Resurrection they had erected a Iâ—â—pâ—ter in opinion that these Idolatrous provisions of theirs would have abolish'd the Mysteries of our Religion but they have outliv'd all them and shall outlive all the world eternally beyond all Generations And therefore doth Saint Ambrose apply well and usefully to our Death and Resurrection to our departing and rising these words Come my people enter then into thy Chambers and shut thy dores after thee Hide thy selfe for a very little while untill the Indignation passeover thee that is Goe quietly to your graves attend your Resurrection till God have executed his purpose upon the wicked of this world Murmur not to admit the dissolution of body and soul upon your death-beds nor the resolution and putrefaction of the body alone in your graves till God be pleased to repaire all in a full consummation and
is his word in his servants mouth come to that Conscience now nor make him mis-interpret that which he does hear or call that passion in the Preacher in which the Preacher is but sagittarius Dei the deliverer of Gods arrows for Gods arrows are sagitta Compunctionis arrows that draw bloud from the eyes Tears of repentance from Mary Magdalen and from Peter And when from thee There is a probatum est in S. Aug. Sagittaveras cor meum Thou hast shot at my heart and how wrought that To the withdrawing of his tongue à nundinis loquacitatis from that market in which I sold my self for S. Aug. at that time taught Rhetorique to turn the stream of his eloquence and all his other good parts upon the service of God in his Church You may have read or heard that answer of a Generall who was threatned with that danger that his enemies arrows were so many as that they would cover the Sun from him In umbra pugnabimus All the better says he for then we shall fight in the shadow Consider all the arrows of tribulation even of tentation to be directed by the hand of God and never doubt to fight it out with God to lay violent hands upon heaven to wrastle with God for a blessing to charge and presse God upon his contracts and promises for in umbra pugnabis though the clouds of these arrows may hide all suns of worldly comforts from thee yet thou art still under the shadow of his wings Nay thou art still for all this shadow in the light of his countenance To which purpose there is an excellent use of this Metaphor of arrows Hâ—bak 3. 11. where it is said that Gods servants shall have the light of his arrows and the â—â—ining of his glittering spear that is the light of his presence in all the instruments and actions of his corrections To end all and to dismisse you with such a re-collection as you may carry away with you literally primarily this text concerns David He by tentations to sin by tribulations for sin by comminations and increpations upon sin was bodily and ghostly become a quiver of arrows of all sorts they stook and stook fast and stook full in him in all him The Psalm hath a retrospect too it looks back to Adam and to every particular man in his loines and so Davids case is our case and all these arrowes stick in all us But the Psalm and the text hath also a prospect and hath a propheticall relation from David to our Saviour Christ Jesus And of him and of the multiplicity of these arrows upon him in the exinanition and evacuation of himself in this world for us have many of the Ancients interpreted these words literally and as in their first and primary signification Turne we therefore to him before we goe and he shall return home with us How our first part of this text is applyable to him that our prayers to God for ease in afflictions may be grounded upon reasons out of the sense of those afflictions Saint Basil tels us that Christ therefore prays to his Father now in heaven to spare mankinde because man had suffered so much and drunk so deep of the bitter cup of his anger in his person and passion before It is an avoidable plea from Christ in heaven for us Spare them O Lord in themselves since thou didst not spare them in me And how far he was from sparing thee we see in all those severall weights which have aggravated his hand and these arrowes upon us If they be heavy upon us much more was their weight upon thee every dram upon us was a Talent upon thee Non delâ—r sicut dolor tuus take Rachel weeping for her children Mary weeping for her brother Lazarus Hezekiah for his health Peter for his sins Non est delor sicut dolor â—uus The arrows that were shot at thee were Alienae Afflictions that belonged to others and did not onely come from others as ours doe but they were alienae so as that they should have fallen upon others And all that should have fallen upon all others were shot at thee and lighted upon thee Lord though we be not capable of sustaining that part this passion for others give us that which we may receive Compassion with others They were veloces these arrows met swiftly upon thee from the sin of Adam that induced death to the sin of the last man that shall not sleep but be changed when thy hour came they came all upon thee in that hour Lord put this swiftnesse into our fins that in this one minute in which our eyes are open towards thee and thine eares towards us our sins all our sins even from the impertinent frowardnesse of our childhood to the unsufferable frowardnesse of our age may meet in our present confessions and repentances and never appear more They were as ours are too Invisibiles Those arrows which fell upon thee were so invisible so undiscernible as that to this day thy Church thy School cannot see what kinde of arrow thou tookest into thy soul what kinde of affliction it was that made thy soul heavy unto death or dissolved thee into a gelly of blood in thine agony Be thou O Lord a Father of Lights unto us in all our ways and works of darkenes manifest unto us whatsoever is necessary for us to know be a light of understanding and grace before and a light of comfort and mercy after any â—in hath benighted us These arrows were as ours are also plures plurall many infinite they were the sins of some that shall never thank thee never know that thou borest their sins never know that they had any such sins to bee horn Lord teach us to number thy corrections upon us so as still to see thy torments suffered for us and our own sins to be infinitely more that occasioned those torments then those corrections that thou layst upon us Thine arrows stook and stook fast in thee the weight of thy torments thou wouldest not cast off nor lessen when at thy execution they offered thee that stupesying drink which was the civil charity of those times to condemned persons to give them an easier passage in the agonies of death thou wouldest not tast of that cup of ease Deliver us O Lord in all our tribulations from turning to the miserable comforters of this world or from wishing or accepting any other deliverance then may improve and make better our Resurrection These arrows were in thee in all thee from thy Head torn with thorns to thy feet pierced with nayls and in thy soul so as we know not how so as to extorta Si possibile If it be possible let this cup passe and an Vt quid dereliquisti My God my God why half thou forsaken me Lord whilest we remain entire here in body and soul make us and receive us an entire sacrifice to
against us but yet with our ten thousand we may meet their twenty thousand if we have put on Christ and be armed with him and his holy patience and constancy but from whom may we derive an assurance that we shall have that armor that patience that constancy First a Christian must purpose to Doe and then in cases of necessity to suffer And give me leave to make this short note by the way no man shall suffer like a Christian that hath done nothing like a Christian God shall thanke no man for dying for him and his glory that contributed nothing to his glory in the actions of his life very hardly shall that man be a Martyr in a persecution that did not what he could to keep off persecution Thus then Iob comes first to the Si occiderit If he should kill me If Gods anger should proceed so far as so far it may proceed Let no man say in a sicknesse or in any temporall calamity this is the worst for a worse thing then that may fall five and thirty years sicknesse may fall upon thee and as it is in that Gospell a worse thing then that Distraction and desperation may fall upon thee let no Church no State in any distress say this is the worst for onely God knowes what is the worst that God can doe to us Iob does not deny here but that this Si occiderit if it come to a matter of life it were another manner of triall then either the si irruerent Sabaei if the Sabaeans should come and drive his Cattell and slay his servants more then the si ignis caderet if the fire of God should fall from heaven and devoute all more then the si ventus concuteret if the winde of the wildernesse should shake downe his house and kill and all his children The Devill in his malice saw that if it came to matter of life Iob was like enough to be shaked in his faith Skin for skin and all that ever a man hath will he give for his life God foresaw that in his gracious providence too and therefore he took that clause out of Satans Commission and inserted his veruntamen animam ejus servae medle not with his life The love of this life which is naturall to us and imprinted by God in us is not sinfull Few and evill have the days of my pilgrimage been says lacob to Pharaeoh though they had been evill which makes our days seem long and though he were no young man when he said so yet the days which he had past he thought few and desired more When Eliah was fled into the wildernesse and that in passion and vehemence he said to God Sufficit Domine tolle animam meam It is enough O Lord now take away my life if he had been heartily thoroughly weary of his life he needed not to have fled from Iesabel for he fled but to save his life The Apostle had a Cupie dissolvi a desire to be dissolved but yet a love to his brethren corrected that desire and made him finde that it was far better for him to live Our Saviour himselfe when it came to the pinch and to the agony had a Transeat Calix a naturall declining of death The naturall love of our naturall life is not ill It is ill in many cases not to love this life to expose it to unnecessary dangers is alwayes ill and there are overtures to as great sinnes in hating this life as in loving it and therefore Iobs first consideration is si occideret if he should kill me if I thought he would kill me this were enough to put me from trusting in any But Iobs consideration went farther then to the si occideret Though he should kill me for it comes to an absolute assurance that God will kill him for so it is in the Originall Ecce occidet Behold I see he will kill me I have I can have no hope of life at his hands T is all our cases Adam might have liv'd if he would but I cannot God hath placed an Ecce a marke of my death upon every thing living that I can set mine eye upon every thing is a remembrancer every thing is a Judge upon me and pronounces I must dye The whole frame of the world is mortall Heaven and Earth passe away and upon us all there is an irrecoverable Decree past statutum est It is appointed to all men that they shall once dye But when quickly If thou looke up into the aire remember that thy life is but a winde If thou see a cloud in the aire aske St. Iames his question what is your life and give St. Iames his answer It is a vapour that appeareth and vanisheth away If thou behold a Tree then Iob gives thee a comparison of thy selfe A Tree is an embleme of thy selfe nay a Tree is the originall thou art but the copy thou art not so good as it for There is hope of a tree as you reade there if the roote wax old if the stock be dead if it be cut down yet by the sent of the waters it will bud but man is sick and dyeth and where is he he shall not wake againe till heaven be no more Looke upon the water and we are as that and as that spilt upon the ground Looke to the earth and we are not like that but we are earth it self At our Tables we feed upon the dead and in the Temple we tread upon the dead and when we meet in a Church God hath made many echoes many testimonies of our death in the walls and in the windowes and he onely knowes whether he will not make another testimony of our mortality of the youngest amongst us before we part and make the very place of our buriall our deathbed Iobs contemplation went so far not onely to a Si occideret to a possibility that he might dye but to an Ecce occidet to an assurance that he must dye I know there is an infalliblenesse in the Decree an inevitablenesse in nature an inexorablenesse in God I must dye And the word beares a third interpretation beyond this for si occiderit is not onely if he should kill me as he maâ— if he will and it may be he will nor onely that I am sure he will kill me I know I must dye but the word may very well be also though he have killed me So that Iobs resolution that he will trust in God is grounded upon all these considerations That there is exercise of our hope in God before death in the agony of death and after death First in our good dayes and in the time of health Memorare novissima sayes the wise man we must remember our end our death But that we cannot forget every thing presents that to us But his counsell there is in omnibus operibus In all thine undertakings in all thine actions remember thine end when thou art in any worldly
invested in the light of joy and my body in the light of glory How glorious is God as he looks down upon us through the Sunne How glorious in that glasse of his How glorious is God as he looks out amongst us through the king How glorious in that Image of his How glorious is God as he calls up our eyes to him in the beauty and splendor and service of the Church How glorious in that spoufe of his But how glorious shall I conceive this light to be cum sub loco viderim when I shall see it in his owne place In that Spheare which though a Spheare is a Center too In that place which though a place is all and every where I shall see it in the face of that God who is all face all manifestration all all Innotescence to me for facies Deiest qua Deus nobis innotescit that 's Gods face to us by which God manifests himselfe to us I shall see this light in his face who is all face and yet all hand all application and communication and delivery of all himselfe to all his Saints This is Beatitudo in Auge blessednesse in the Meridionall height blessednesse in the South point in a perpetuall Sommer solstice beyond which nothing can be proposed to see God so Then There And yet the farmers of heaven and hell the merchants of soules the Romane Church make this blessednesse but an under degree but a kinde of apprentiship after they have beatified declared a man to be blessed in the fruition of God in heaven if that man in that inferiour state doe good service to that Church that they see much profit will rise by the devotion and concurrence of men to the worship of that person then they will proceed to a Canonization and so he that in his Novitiat and years of probation was but blessed Ignatius and blessed Xavier is lately become Saint Xavier aud Saint Ignatius And so they pervert the right order and method which is first to come to Sanctification and then to Beatification first to holinesse and then to blessednesse And in this method our blessed God bee pleased to proceed with us by the operation of his holy Spirit to bring us to Sanctification here and by the merits and intercession of his glorious Sonne to Beatification hereafter That so not being offended in him but resting in those meanes and seales of reconciliation which thou hast instituted in thy Church wee may have life and life more abundantly life of grace here and life of glory there in that kingdome which thy Sonne our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud Amen SERMON XLV Preached at Saint Dunstans Aprill 11. 1624. The first sermon in that Church as Vicar thereof DEUT. 25. 5. If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no Childe the Wife of the dead shall not mary without unto a stranger her husbands brother shall goe in unto her and take her to him to wife and performe the duty of an husbands brother unto her FRom the beginning God intimated a detestation a dislike of singularity of beeing Alone The first time that God himselfe is named in the Bible in the first verse of Genesis hee is named plurally Creavit Dit Gods Gods in the plurall Created Heaven and Earth God which is but one would not appeare nor bee presented so alone but that hee would also manifest more persons As the Creator was not Singular so neither were the creatures First he created heaven and earth both together which were to be the generall parents and out of which were to bee produced all other creatures and then he made all those other creatures plurally too Male and female created hee them And when he came to make him for whose sake next to his own glory he made the whole world Adam he left not Adam alone but joyned an Eve to him Now when they were maried we know but wee know not when they were divorced we heare when Eve was made but not when shee dyed The husbands death is recorded at last the wives is not at all So much detestation hath God himselfe and so little memory would hee have kept of any singularity of being alone The union of Christ to the whole Church is not expressed by any metaphore by any figure so oft in the Scripture as by this of Mariageâ— and there is in that union with Christ to the whole Church neither husband nor wife can ever die Christ is immortall as hee is himselfe and immortall as hee is the head of the Church the Husband of that wife for that wife the Church is immortall too for as a Prince is the same Prince when he fights a battaile and when hee triumphs after the victory so the militant and the triumphant Church is the same Church There can bee no widower There can bee no Dowager in that case Hee cannot shee cannot die But then this Metaphore this spirituall Mariage holds not onely betweene Christ and the whole Church in which case thee can be no Widow but in the union between Christs particular Ministers and particular Churches and there in that case the husband of that wife may die The present Minister may die and so that Church be a Widow And in that case and for provision of such Widows wee consider the accommodation of this Law If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no childe the wife of the dead shall not mary without unto a stranger c. This law was but a permissive law rather a dispensation then a law as the permitting of usury to bee taken of strangers and the permitting of divorces in so many cases were At most it was but a Iudiciall law and therefore layes no obligation upon any other nation then them to whom it was given the Iews And therefore wee enquire not the reasons of that law the reasons were determined in that people wee examine not the conveniences of the law the conveniences were determined in those times wee lay hold onely upon the Typique signification and appliablenesse of the law as that secular Mariage there spoken of may be appliable to this spirituall Mariage the Mariage of the Minister to the Church If brethren dwell together c. From these words then wee shall make our approaches and application to the present occasion by these steps First there is a mariage in the case The taking and leaving of a Church is not an indifferent an arbitrary thing It is a Mariage and Mariage implies Honour It is an honourable estate and that implies charge it is a burdensome state There is Honos and Onus Honour and labour in Mariage You must bee content to afford the honour wee must bee content to endure the labour And so in that point as our Incumbencie upon a Church is our Mariage to that Church wee shall as farre as the occasion admits see
his family in one day as by the Commandement he must which could not be in likelyhood of lesse then 400. for he went out before to the rescue of Lot with 318. borne and brought up in his House he must make his House a Spittle of so many impotent Persons unable to helpe one another for many daies for such was the effect of Circumcision as we see in their Story when Simeon and Levi came upon the Sichemites three daies after they had beene by their perswasion circumcised the Sichemites were unable to resist or defend themselves and so were slaine Yea the sorenesse and incommodity upon Circumcision was so great as that the very Commandement it selfe of Circumcision was forborne in the Wildernesse because they were then put to suddaine removes which presently after a Circumcision they could not have perform'd Might not Abraham have come to his Quare tam molestum Why will God command me so troublesome and incommodious a thing as this And to contract this when he considered That one principall reason of the Commandement of Circumcision was that that marke might be alwaies a remembrance to them against intemperance and incontinency Might not Abraham have come to his Quare mihi What use is there of this in my Body which is now dried up and withered by 99. yeares What Quares what reluctations Abraham had or whether he had any or no is not expressed but very religious and good men sometimes out of humane infirmities have them But then God brings them quickly about to Christ's Veruntamen Yet not my will but thine be done and he delivers them from the tentation and brings them to an intire obedience to his will which is that which we proposed for the next Branch in this part Tu qui vas figuli sayes the Apostle whensoever any disputation against a commandement of God arises in Gods children the Spirit of God smothers that spirit of Rebellion with that Tu qui vas figuli wilt thou who art but the vessell dispute with the potter that fashioned thee If Abraham had any such doubts of a frivolousnesse in so base a seale of an obscenity in so foule a seale of an incommodiousnesse in so troublesome a seale of a needlesnesse in so impertinent a seale if he had these doubts no doubt but his forwardnesse in obeying God did quickly oppose these reasons to those and overcome them That that part of the body is the most rebellious part and that therefore onely that part Adam covered out of shame for all the other parts he could rule Ad hominis inobedientiam redarguendam suâ inobedientiâ quodammodo caro testimonium perhibet to reproach Mans rebellion to God God hath left one part of Mans body to rebell against him for though the seeds of this rebellion be dispersed through all the body yet In illa parte magis regnat additamentum Leviathan sayes Saint Bernard the spawns of Leviathan the seed of sinne the leven of the Devil abound and reignes most in that part of the body it is sentiva peccati saies the same Father the Sewar of all sinne not onely because all sinne is deriv'd upon us by generation and so implyed and involv'd in originall sinne but because almost all other sinnes have relation to this for Gluttony is a preparation to this sinne in our selves Pride and excesse is a preparation to it in others whom we would enveigle and assure by our bravery Anger and malice inclines us to pursue this sinfull and inordinate love quarrelsomly so as that then we doe not quarrell for wayes and walls in the street but we quarrell for our way to the Devil and when we cannot go fast enough to the Devil by wantonnesse in the chamber we will quarrell with him who hinders us of our Damnation and find a way to go faster in the field by Duells and unchristian Murder in so foule a cause as unlawfull lust In this rebellious part is the root of all sinne and therefore did that part need this stigmaticall marke of Circumcision to be imprinted upon it Besides for the Jewes in particular they were a Nation prone to Idolatry and most upon this occasion if they mingled themselves with Women of other Nations And therefore Dedit eft signum ut admoverentnr de generatione pura saies Saint Chrysostome God would be at the cost even of a Sacrament which is the greatest thing that passes between God and Man next to his Word to defend them thereby against dangerous alliances which might turne their hearts from God God imprinted a marke in that part to keep them still in mind of that law which forbade them foraigne Marriages or any company of strange Women Custodia pietati servandae ne macularent paternam Nobilitatem left they should degenerate from the Nobility of their race God would have them carry this memoriall about them in their flesh And God foresaw that extreme Idolatry that grosse Idolatry which that Nation would come to and did come to when Maachah the Mother of Asa worshipped that Idol which Saint Hierome calls Belphegor and is not fit to be nam'd by us and therefore in foresight of that Idolatry God gave this marke and this mutilation upon this part If Abraham were surprized with any suggestions any half reasons against this commandement he might quickly recollect himself and see that Circumcision was first Signum memorativum monimentum isti faederis it was a signe of the Covenant between God and Abraham the Covenant was the Messias who being to come by a carnall continuance of Abrahams race the signe and seale was conveniently placed in that part And that was secondly Signum representativum it represented Baptisme In Christ you are circumcised saies the Apostle in that you are buried with him through Baptisme And then that was Signum Distinctivum for besides that it kept them from Idolatry as the Greeks called all Nations whom they despised Barbares Barbarians so did the Jewes Incircumcisos Uncircumcised And that was a great threatning in the Prophet Thou shalt die the death of the Uncircumcised that is without any part in the everlasting promise and Covenant But yet the principall dignity of this Circumcision was that it was Signum figurativum it prefigured it directed to that Circumcision of the heart Circumcise the foreskin of your heart for the Lord your God is God of Gods and Lord of Lords And for all the other reasons that could be assigned of Remembrance of Representation of Distinction Caret ubique ratione Iudaica carnis Circumcisio sayes Lactantius Nisi quod est Circumcisionis figura quae est Cor Mundum The Jewish Circumcision were an absurd and unreasonable thing if it did not intimate and figure the Circumcision of the heart And that is our Second part of this Exercise But before we come to that we are to say a word of the fourth branch of this part That as there is
may be equall as the Devill is a Spirit and a condemned soule a spirit yet that soule shall have a Body too to be tormented with it which the Devill shall not How little we know our selves which is the end of all knowledge But we hast to the next branch In the Resurrection we shall be like to the Angels of God in Heaven But in what lies this likenesse In how many other things soever this likenesse may ly yet in this Text and in our present purpose it lies onely in this Non nubent In the Resurrection they shall not mary But did Angels never mary or as good or at least as ill as mary How many of the ancients take those words That the sonnes of God saw the daughters of Men that they were faire and they tooke them wives of all which they chose to be intended of Angels They offer to tell us how many these maried Angels were Origen saies sixty or seventy They offer to tell us some of their names Aza was one of these maried Angels and Azael was another But then all those who doe understand these words The sonnes of God to be intended of Angels who being sent downe to protect Men fell in love with Women and maried them all I say agree that those Angels that did so never returned to God againe but fell with the first fallen under everlasting Condemnation So that still the Angels of God in Heaven those Angels to whom we shall be like in the Resurrection doe not mary not so much as in any such mistaking they doe not because they need not they need not because they need no second Eternity by the continuation of children for says S. Luke they cannot die Adams first immortality was but this Posse non mori that he needed not to have died he should not have died The Angels immortality and ours when we shall be like them in the Resurrection is Non posse mori that we cannot die for whosoever dies is Homicida sui sayes Tertullian he kills himselfe and sinne is his sword In heaven there shall no such sword be drawn we need not say that the Angels in heaven have that we when we shall be like them in the Resurrection shall so invest an immortality in our nature as that God could not inflict Death upon them or us there if we sinned But because no sinne shall enter there no Death shall enter there neither for Death is the wages of sinne Not that no sinne could enter there if we were left to our selves for in that place Angels did sinne And fatendum est Angelos natura mutabiles saies S. Augustine Howsoever Angels be changed in their Condition they retaine still the same nature and by nature they are mutable But that God hath added another prerogative by way of Confirmation to that state so as that that Grace which he gives us here which is that nothing shall put a necessity of sinning upon us or that we must needs sinne God multiplies upon us so there as that we can conceive no inclination to sinne Therein we shall be like the Angels that we cannot die And the nearer we come to that state in this life the liker we are to those Angels here Now beloved onely he that is Dead already cannot die He that in a holy mortification is Dead the Death of the righteous dead to sinne he lives shall we dare to say so yes we may he lives a blessed Death for such a Death is true life And by such a heavenly Death Death of the righteous Death to sinne he is in possession of a heavenly life here in an inchoation though the consummation and perfection be reserved for the next world which is our last circumstance and the Conclusion of all At the Resurrection we shall be like the Angels Till then we shall not and therefore must not looke for Angelicall perfections here but beare one anothers infirmities It is as yet but in Petition fiat voluntas Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven And as long as there is an Earth it will be but in Petition His will will not be done in Earth as it is in Heaven when all is Heaven to his Saints all will be well but not all till then In the meane time remember all especially you whose Sacramentall that is Mysterious and significative union now is a Type of your union with God in as neare and as fast a band as that of Angels for you shall be as the Angels of God in Heaven That the office of the Angels in this world is to Assist and to supply Defects You are both of noble extraction there 's no defect in that you need not supply one another with Honour you are both of religious Education there 's no defect in that you need not supply one another with fundamentall instructions Both have your parts in that testimony which S. Gregory gave of your Nation at Rome Angli Angeli you have a lovelinesse fit for one another But though I cannot Name no nor Thinke any thing wherein I should wish that Angelicall disposition of supporting or supplying defects yet when I consider that even he that said Ego pater unum sumus I and the Father are one yet had a time to say utquid dereliquisti My God my God why hast thou forsaken me I consider thereby that no two can be so made one in this world but that that unity may be though not Dissolved no nor Rent no nor Endangered yet shaked sometimes by domestique occasions by Matrimoniall encumbrances by perversnesse of servants by impertinencies of Children by private whisperings and calumnies of Strangers And therefore to speake not Prophetically that any such thing shall fall but Provisionally if any such thing should fall my love and my duty and my Text bids me tell you that perfect happinesse is to be staid for till you be as the Angels of God in heaven here it is a faire portion of that Angelicall happinesse if you be alwaies ready to support and supply one another in any such occasionall weaknesses The God of Heaven multiply the present joy of your parents by that way of making you joyfull parents also and recompense your obedience to parents by that way of giving you obedient Children too The God of heaven so joine you now as that you may be glad of one another all your life and when he who hath joined you shall separate you againe establish you with an assurance that he hath but borrowed one of you for a time to make both your joies the more perfect in the Resurrection The God of Heaven make you alwaies of one will and that will alwaies conformable to his conserve you in the sincere truth of his Religion feast you with the best feast Peace of conscience and carry you through the good opinion and love of his Saints in this world to the association of his Saints and Angels and one
glory with the Father before the world was made thou didst admit a cloud and a slumber upon that glory and staiedst for thy glory till thy death yet thou givest us naturally inglorious and miserable creatures a reall possession of glory and of inseparablenesse from thee in this life This is that Copiosa redemptio there is with the Lord plentifull redemption though that were Matura redemptio a seasonable redemption if it should meet me upon my death-bed and that the Angels then should receive my soul to lay it in Abrahams bosome yet this is my Saviours plentifull redemption that my soul is in Abrahams bosome now whilest it is in this body and that I am already in the presence of his Throne now when I am in your sight and that I serve him already day and night in his Temple now when I meditate or execute his Commission in this service in this particular Congregation Those words are not then necessarily restrained to Martyrs they are not restrained to the state of the Triumphant Church they are spoken to all the Children of righteousnesse and of godlines and godlinesse hath the promises of the life present and that that is to come That which involves all these promises that which is the kernell and seed and marrow of all the last clause of the text God shall wipe all teares from their eyes those words that clause is thrice repeated intirely in the Scriptures When it is spoken here when it is spoken in the one and twentieth Chapter of the Revelation and at the fourth verse in both places it is derived from the Prophet Esay which is an Eacharisticall chapter a Chapter of thanksgiving for Gods deliverance of his children even in this world from the afflictions and tribulations thereof and therefore this text belongs also to this world This imprinting then of the seale in the forehead this washing of the robes in the bloud of the Lambe S. Ambrose places conveniently to be accomplished in the Sacrament of Baptisme for this is Copiosissima Redemptio this is the most plentiful redemption that that be applied to us not onely at last in Heaven nor at my last step towards heaven at my death nor in all the steps that I make in the course of my life but in my first step into the Church nay before I can make any step when I was carried in anothers armes thither even in the beginning of this life and so do divers of the later Men and of those whom we call ours understand all this of baptisme because if we consider this washing away of teares as Saint Cyprian says young children doe most of all need this mercy of God and this assistance of Man because as soone as they come into this world Plorantes ac flentes nihil aliud faciunt quam deprecantur they beg with teares something at our hands and therefore need this abstersion this wiping For though they cannot tell us what they aile though if we will enter into curiosities we cannot tell them what they aile that is we cannot tell them what properly and exactly Originall sin is yet they aile something which naturally disposes them to weep and beg that something might be done for the wiping away of teares from their eyes And therefore though the other errors of the Anabaptist be ancient 1000. year old yet the denying of baptisme to children was never heard of till within 100. years and lesse The Arrians and the Donatists did rebapsize those who were baptized by the true Christians whom they counted Heretiques but yet they refused not to baptize children The Pelegians denied originall sin in children but yet they baptized them All Churches Greek and Russian and Ethiopique howsoever they differ in the body of the Church yet they meet they agree in the porch in Limine Ecclesiae in the Sacrament of baptisme and acknowledge that it is communicable to all children and to all Men from the child new borne to the decrepit old Man from him that is come out of one mothers wombe to him that is going into another into his grave Sicut nullus prohibendus à baptisme it a nullus est qui non peccate moritur in baptismo As baptisme is to be denied to none so neither is it to be denied that all that are rightly baptized are washed from sin Let him that will contentiously say that there are some children that take no profit by baptisme shew me which is one of them and qui testatur de scientia testetur de mode scientiae If he say he knowes it let him tell us how he knowes that which the Church of God doth not know We come now to the second part in which we consider first this firstword quoniam for which is verbum praegnans a word that includes all those great blessings which God hath ordained for them whom in his eternall decree he hath prepared for this sealing and this washing Those blessings which are immediately before the text are that in Gods purpose they are already come out of great tribulations they have already received a whitenes by the bloud of the Lambe they are already in the presence of the threne of the Lambe they have already overcome all hunger and thirst and heat Those particular blessings we cannot insist upon that requires rather a Comment upon the Chapter then a Sermon upon the text But in this word of inference for we onely wil observe this That though all the promises of God in him are Yea and Amen certain and infallible in themselves though his Name that makes them be Amen Thus saith Amen the faithfull and true witnesse and therefore there needs no better security then his word for all those blessings yet God is pleased to give that abundant satisfaction to Man as that his reason shall have something to build upon as well as his faith he shall know why he should beleeve all these blessings to belong to them who are to have these Seales and this washing For God requires no such faith nay he accepts nay he excuses no such faith as beleeves without reason beleeves he knows not why As faith witout fruit witout works is no faith to faith without a roct without reason is no faith but an opinion All those blessings by the Sacrament of Baptism all Gods other promises to his children and all the mysteries of Christrian Religion are therefore beleeved by us becuase they are grounded in the Scriptures of God we beleeve them for that reason and then it is not a worke of my faith primarily but it is a worke of my reason that assures me that these are the Scriptures that these Scriptures are the word of God I can answer other Mens reasons that argue against it I can convince other men by reason that my reasons are true and therefore it is a worke of reason that I beleeve these to be Scriptures To prove a beginning of the world I
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
of his word or in scantler measure not to be always a Christian but then when thou hast use of being one or in a different fashion to be singular and Schisâ—aticall in thy opinion for this is one but an ill manner of putting on of Christ as a garment The second and the good way is to put on his righteousnesse and his innocency by imitation and conforming our selves to him Now when we goe about earnestly to make our selves Temples and Altars and to dedicate our selves to God we must change our clothes As when God bad Iacob to goe up to Bethel to make an Altar he commanded all his family to change their clothes In which work we have two things to doe first we must put off those clothes which we had and appeare naked before God without presenting any thing of our owne for when the Spirit of God came upon Saul and that he prophecyed his first act was to strip himselfe naked And then sâ—condly we come to our transfiguration and to have those garments of Christ communicated to us which were as white as the light and we shall be admitted into that little number of which it is said Thou hast a few Namees in Sardis which have not defiled their garments and they shall walke with â—e in white And from this which is Induere vestem from this putting on Christ as a garment we shall grow up to that perfection as that we shall Inâ—â—ere personam put on hiâ— his person That is we shall so appeare before the Father as that he shall take us for his owne Christ we shall beare his name and person and we shall every one be so accepted as if every one of us were all Mankind yea as if we were he himselfe He shall find in all our bodies his woundes in all our mindes his 〈◊〉 in all our hearts and actions his obedience And as he shall doe this by impâ—tation so really in all our Agonies he shall send his Angels to minister unto us as he did to Eliâ—s In all our tentations he shall furnish us with his Scriptures to confoâ—â—d the Tempter as be in person did in his tentation and in our heaviest tribulation which may exâ—â—â—â— from us the voice of diffidence My God My God why hast 〈◊〉 forsaken me He shall give us the assurance to say In manus tuas câ— Into thy â—ands O Lord have I coâ—â—â—â—nded my spirit and there I am safe He shall use us in all things as his sonne and we shall find restored in us the Image of the whole Trinity imprinted at our creation for by this Regeneration we are adopted by the Father in the bloud of the Sonne by the sanctification of the holy Ghost Now this putting on of Christ whereby we stand in his place at Gods Tribunall implies as I said both our Election and our sanctification both the eternall purpose of God upon us and his execution of that purpose in us And because by the first by our Election we are members of Christ in Gods purpose before baptisme and the second which is sanctification is expressed after baptisme in our lives and conversation therefore Baptisme intervenes and comes between both as a seale of the first of Election and as an instrument and conduit of the second Sanctification Now Abscendita Dominâ— Dea nostro quae manifesta suâ—s nobis let no Man be too curiously busie to search what God does in his hedchamber we have all enough to answer for that which we have done in our bedchamber For Gods eternall decree himselfe is master of those Rolls but out of those Rolls he doth exemplifie those decrees in the Sacrament of baptisme by which Copy and exemplification of his invisible and unsearchable decree we plead to the Church that we are Gods children we plead to our owne consciences that we have the Spirit of adoption and we plead to God himselfe the obligation of his own promise that we have a right to this garment Christ Iesus and to those graces which must sanctifie us for from thence comes the reason of this text for all yeâ— that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. As we cannot see the Essence of God but must see him in his glasses in his Images in his Creatures so we cannot see the decrees of God but must see them in their duplicats in their exemplification in the sacraments As it would doe him no good that were condemned of treason that a Bedchamber man should come to the Judge and swear he saw the king signe the prisoners pardon except he had it to pleade so what assurance soever what priâ—y marke soever those men which pretend to be so well acquainted and so familiar with the decrees of God to give thee to know that thou art elect to eternall salvation yea if an Angel from heaven comedowne and tell thee that he saw thy name in the booke of life if thou have not this Exemplification of the decree this seale this Sacrament if thou beest not baptized never delude thy selfe with those imaginary assurances This Baptisme then is so necessary that first as Baptisme in a large acceptation signifies our dying and buriall with Christ and all the acts of our regeneration so in that large sense our whole life is a baptisme But the very sacrament of Baptismeâ— the actuall administration and receiving thereof was held so necessary that even for legall and Civill uses as in the law that child that dyed without circumcision had no interest in the family no participation of the honor nor name thereof So that we see in the reckning of the Genealogy and pedegree of David that first sonne of his which he had by Bathshebae which dyed without circumcision is never mentioned nor toucht upon So also since the time of Mâ—ses law in the Imperiall law by which law a posthume child borne after the fathers death is equall with the rest in division of the state yet if that child dye before he be baptized no person which should derive a right from him as the mother might if he dyed can have any title by him because he is not considered to have been at all if he dye unbaptized And if the State will not beleeve him to be a full Man shall the Church beleeve him to be a full Christian before baptisme Yea the apprehension of the necessity of this Sacrament was so common and so generall even in the beginning of the Christian Church that out of an excessive advancing of that trnth they came also to a falshoodâ— to an error That even they that dyed without baptisme might have the benefit of baptisme if another were baptized in their name after their deathâ— And so out of a mistaking of those words Else what shall they doe Qui baptizantur pro mortuis which is that are ready to dye when they are baptized the Marcionites induc'd a custome to lay one under the dead bodyes
doe not meane in his intention that the virgin Mary is equall to the Trinity but onely an assistant this is not onely an impertinent but an impious addition to that God that needs no assistant And as in our baptisme we take no other name necessarily but the name of Christ So in our Christian life we accept no other distinctions of Iesuits or Franciscans but onely Christians for we are baptized into his name and the whole life of a regenerate man is a Baptisme For as in putting on Christ sanctification doth accompany faith so in baptisme the imitation of his death that is mortification and the application of his passion by fulfilling the sufferings of Christ in our flesh is that baptisme into his death Which doe so certainly follow one another that he that is truly baptized into the name of Christ is also baptized into his death as that Saint Paul couples them together Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized into the name of Paâ—l If you were not baptized into his name then you have no interest no benefit by his death nor by any thing which he suffered that his merits or his works of supereragation should be applied to you And if he did not suffer for you if all that any Paul much lesse any Ignatins could doe were but enough and too little for himselfe then you are not baptized into his name nor to be denominate by him This is then to be Baptized into Christs death Habere reddere testimonium Christam pro me mortuum to be sure that Chirst dyed for me and to be ready to dye for him so that I may fulfill his sufferings and may think that all is not done which belongs to my Redemption except I finde a mortification in my selfe Not that any mortification of mine works any thing as a cause of my redemption but as an assurance and testimony of it 〈◊〉 sit pignus sigilluâ— redemptionis It is a pledge and it is a Seale of my redemption Christ calls his death a Baptisme So Saint Augustine calls our Baptisme a death Quod crux Christo Sepâ—lcrâ—m id nobis Baptisma Baptisme to us says he is our Croffe and our passion and our buriall that is in that we are conformed to Christ as he suffered dyed and was buried Because if we be so baptized into his Name and into his death we are thereby dead to sinne and have dyed the death of the righteous Since then Baptisme is the death of sinne and there cannot be this death this conquest this victory over sinne without faith there must necessarily faith concurre with this baptisme for if there be not faith none in the child none in the parents none in the sureties none in the Church then there is no baptisme performed Now in the Child there is none actually In the sureties we are not sure there is any for their infidelity cannot impeach the sacrament The child is well baptized though they should be misbeleevers for when the Minister shall aske them Doest thou beleeve in God dost thou renounce the Devill perchance they may ly in their owne behalfes perchance they doe not beleeve they doe not renounce but they speake truth in the behalfe of the child when they speake in the voyce of the Church who receives this child for her childe and binds her selfe to exhibit and reach out to that child her spirituall paps for her future nourishment thereof How comes it to passe says Saint Augustine that when a man presents another mans child at the font to be baptized if the Minister should aske him Shall this man child be a valiant man or a wise man shall this woman child be a chast and a continent woman the surety would answer I cannot tell and yet if he be ask'd of that child of so few dayes old Doth that child beleeve in God now will he renounce the Devill hereafter the surety answers confidently in his behalfe for the beleefe and for the renouncing How comes this to passe says Saint Augustine He answers to this that as Sacramentum Corporis Christi est secundum modum Corpus Christi so Sacramentum fidei est fides As the Sacrament of the body and bloud of Christ is in some sense and in a kinde the body and bloud of Christ says Augustine so in the sacrament of faith says he that is Baptisme there is some kinde of faith Here is a child borne of faithfull parents and there is the voyce of God who hath sealed a Covenant to them and their seed Here are sureties that live by Gods gratious spirit in the unity and in the bosome of the Church and so the parents present it to them they present it to the Church and the Church takes it into her care It is still the naturall child of her parents who begot it it is the spirituall child of the Sureties that present it but it is the Christian child of the Church who in the sacrament of Baptisme gives it a new inanimation and who if either parents or sureties should neglect their parts will have a care of it and breed it up to a perfection and full growth of that faith whereof it hath this day an inchoation and beginning As then we have said that Baptisme is a death a death of sinne and as we said before sinne dyes not without faith so also can there be no death of sinne without sorrow and contrition which onely washes away sinne as therefore we see the Church and Christs institution furnishes this child with faith which it hath not of it selfe so let us bring to this action that sorrow and that condoling that we produce into the world such miserable wretches as even by peccatum involuntarium by that sinne to which no act nay no will of theirs concurred that is Originall sinne are yet put into the state of damnation But let us also rejoyce in our owne and this childes behalfe that as we that have been baptized so this child that shall be have and shall put on Christ Jesus in Baptisme Both as a garment for Sacramenta sunt vestimenta As Christ is a garment so the Sacraments are Christs garment and as such a garment as Ornat militem and convincit desertores It gives him that continues in Gods battailes a dignity and discovers him that forsakes Gods tents to be a fugitive Baptisme is a garland in which two ends are brought together he begins aright and perseveres so Ornat militem It is an honour to him that fights out in Gods battaile but Convincit Desertorem Baptisme is our prest-money and if we forsake our colours after we have received that even that forfaits our lives our very having been baptized shall aggravate our condemnation Yea it is such a garment as those of the children of Israel in the wildernesse which are by some expositors thought to have growne all the forty yeares with their bodies for so by Gods blessed provision
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
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
no persecutor could ever invent a sicknesse or a way to inflict a sicknesse upon a condemned man To a galley he can send him and to the gallows and command execution that hour but to a quartane fever or to a gâ—ut hee cannot condemn him In poverty I lack but other things In banishment I lack but other men But in sicknesse I lack my self And as the greatest misery of war is when our own Country is made the seat of the war so is it of affliction when mine own Body is made the subject thereof How shall I put a just value upon Gods great blessings of Wine and Oyle and Milke and Honey when my cast is gone or of Liberty when the gout fetters my feet The King may release me and say Let him goe whither he will but God says He shall not goe till I will God hath wrapped up all misery in that condemnation Morte morietur That the sinner shall die twice But if the second death did not follow the first death were an ease and a blessing in many sicknesses And no sicknesse can be worse then that which is intended here for it is all over Non sanitas no soundnesse no health in any part This consideration arises not onely from the Physicians Rule that the best state of Mans body is but a Neutrality neither well nor ill but Nulla sanitas a state of true and exquisit health say they no man hath But not onely out of this strictnesse of Art but out of an acknowledgment of Nature we must say sanitas hujus vitae bâ—ne intelligentibus sanitas non est It is but our mistaking when we call any thing Health But why so fames naturalis morbus est Hunger is a sicknesse And that 's naturally in us all Medicamentum famis cibus potus sitis fatigationis somnus when I eate I doe but take Physique for Hunger and for thirst when I drink and so is sleep my physique for wearinesse Detrahe medicamentum interficient for beare but these Physiques and these diseases Hunger and thirst and wearinesse will kill thee And as this sickness is upon us all and so non sanitas there is no Health in none of us so it is upon us all at all times and so Non sanitas there is never any soundness in us for saemper deficimus we are Borne in a Consumption and as little as we are then we grow less from that time Vita cursus ad mortem Before we can craule we runne to meet death urgemur ownes pari passu Though some are cast forward to death by the use which others have of their ruine and so throw them through Discontents into desperate enterprises and some are drawn forward to death by false Markes which they have set up to their own Ambitions and some are spurred forward to death by sharp Diseases contracted by their own intemperance and licentiousness and some are whip'd forward to death by the Miseries and penâ—ries of this life take away all these accidentall furtherances to death this drawing and driving and spurring and whipping pari paessu urgemur omnes we bring all with us into the world that which carries us out of the world a naturall unnaturall consuming of that radicall vertue which sustaines our life Non sanitas there is no health in any so universall is sickness nor at any time in any so universall and so universall too as that not in any part of any man at any time As the King was but sick in his feet and yet it killed him It was but in his fact yet it flew up into his head it affected his head as our former translation observed it in their margin that the disease did not onely grow to a great height in the disease but to the highest parts of the body It was at first but in the feet but it was presently all over Iosiah the King was shot with an arrow at the battail of Megiddo One book that reports the story says he was carried out of the field alive dyed at Ierusalem and another that he was carried out of the field dead Deadly wounds deadly sicknesses spread themselvs all over so fast as that the holy Ghost in relating it makes it all one to tell the beginning and the end thereof If a man doe but prick a finger and binde it above that part so that the Spirits or that which they call the Balsamum of the body cannot descend by reason of that ligature to that part it will gaâ—grene And which is an argument and an evidence that mischiefes are more operative more insinuating more penetrative more diligent then Remedies against mischâ—efes are when the Spirits and Balsamum of the body cannot passe by that ligature to that wound yet the Gangrene will passe from that wound by that ligature to the body to the Heart and destroy In every part of the body death can finde a door or make a breach Mortall diseases breed in every part But when every part at once is diseased death does not bsie ge him but inhabit him In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble and the strong men shall how themselves and the grinders cease because they are few and those that look out at the windows he darkned when age of Gods making age grown by many years or age of the Devills making age grown by many sinnes hath spred an universall debility upon me that all sicknesses are in me have all lost their names as all simples have in Triacle I am sick of sicknesse and not of a Fever or any particular distemper then is the misery of this Text fallen upon me Non sanitas no health none at any time none in any part non in Carne not in my flesh not in my whole substance which is also another circumstance of exaltation in humane misery Take flesh in the largest extent and signification that may be as Moses calls God The God of the spirits of all flesh that is of the Beeing of all Creatures and take all these Creatures to be ours in that Donation Subjicite dominamini subdue and rule all Creatures yet there is no soundnesse in our flesh for all these Creatures are corrupted and become worse then they were to us by the sinne of Adam Bring flesh to a nearer signification to our own there was Caro juxta naturam and there is Caro juxta culpam That flesh which was naturall to man that which God gave man at first that had health and soundnesse in it but yet not such a degree of soundnesse as that it needed no more then it then had That had been naturally enough if that had been preserved to carry that flesh it selfe to heaven but even that flesh if it had not sinned though it had an Immortality in it self yet must have received a glorification in heaven as well though in another measure
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
childe should die a hundred years old yet the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed What can be certain in this world if even the mercy of God admit a variation what can be endlesse here if even the mercy of God receive a determination and sin doth vary the nature sin doth determine even the infinitenesse of the mercy of God himself for though The childe shall die a hundred yeares old yet the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed Disconsolate soul dejected spirit bruised and broken ground and trodden attenuated evaporated annihilated heart come back heare thy reprieve and sue for thy pardon God will not take thee away in thy sins thou shalt have time to repent The childe shall die a hundred years old But then lame and decrepit soul gray and inveterate sinner behold the full ears of corn blasted with a mildew behold this long day shutting up in such a night as shall never see light more the night of death in which the deadliest pang of thy Death will be thine Immortality In this especially shalt thou die that thou canst not die when thou art dead but must live dead for ever for The sinner being a hundred yeers old shall be accursed he shall be so for ever In this discovery from this Red Sea to this dead Sea from the mercy of God in the blood of his Son to the malediction of God in the blood of the sinner be pleased to make these the points of your Compasse and your Land-marks by the way in those the two parts of this exercise First in the first consider the precedencie and primogeniture of Mercy God begins at Mercy and not at Iudgement God's method here is not The sinner shall be accursed but The childe shall have long life but first the blessing and then the malediction And then secondly we shall see in what form the particular blessing is given here In long life The childe shall die a hundred years old And then also because we find it in the company of Mercies in the region of Mercies in this first part of the Text which is the Sphear of Mercy we shall look also how this very dying is a Mercy too The mercy is especially plac'd in the long life The childe shall live a hundred yeares but the Holy Ghost would not leave out that that he should die The childe shall die a hundred yeares old And in these three first the precedencie and primogeniture of God's mercy and then the specification of that mercy in long life and lastly the association of mercy that death as well as life is a blessing to the Righteous we shall determine that first part And in the second But the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed we shall see first that the malediction of God hath no object but a sinner God antidates no malediction Till there be a sinner there is no malediction nay not till there be an inveterate sinner A sinner of a hundred yeares at least such a sinner as would be so if God would spare him a hundred yeares here And upon such a sinner God thunders out this Prosternation this Consternation in this one word of our Text which involves and inwraps all kinds of miseries feeblenesse in body infatuation in mind evacuation of power dishonour in â—ame eclipses in favour ruine in fortune dejection in spirit He shall be accursed Where because in this second part we are in the Region and Sphear of maledictions we cannot consider this future He shall be as a future of favour a prorogation a deferring of the malediction He shall be is not he shall be hereafter but not yet but it is a future of continuation He shall be accursed that is he shall be so for ever And so have you the frame and partitions of this Bâ—thel this House of God in which he dwells which is both Iosuah's Beth-hagla the house of Joy and Iohn's Bethania his house of affliction too and we passe now to the furnishing of these roomes with such stuff as I can have laid together First in our first part we consider the precedency and primogeniture of Mercy It is a good thing to be descended of the eldest Brother To descend from God to depend upon God by his eldest Son the Son of his love the Sonne of his right hand Mercy and not to put God to his second way his sinister way his way of judgement David prophesies of God's exaltation of Solomon so Ponam in Primogenitum I will make him my first-born Though Solomon were not so God would make him so And in that Title the Wiseman makes his prayer for Israel Quem coaequasti Primogegenito whom thou hast nam'd thy first-born for so God had in Exod. Israel is my Sonne even my first-born and in Iob the fiercest terrour of death is exprest so Primogenitus mortis the first-born of Death shall devour his strength Still the exaltation the Superlative is called so The first-born And in such a sense if we could think of more degrees of goodnesse in God of an exaltation of God himself in God of more God in God of a Superlative in God we must necessarily turn upon his mercy for that Mercie must be the Superlative So is it too if we consider Gods first action or God's first thought towards Man Mercy was the first-born by every Mother by that Understanding by that Will by that Power which we conceive in God Mercy was the first-born and first-mover in all We consider a preventing Grace in God and that preventing Grace is before all for that prevents us so as to Visite us when we sit in darknesse And we consider an Antecedent-Will in God and that Antecedent Will is before all for by that Will God would have all men saved And when we call Gods Grace by other names then Preventing whether Assisting Grace that it stand by us and sustain us or Concomitant Grace that it work with us and inanimate our action when it is doing or his Subsequent Grace that rectifies or corrects an action when it is done when all is done still it is the Preventing Power and quality of that Grace that did all that in me If I stand by his Assisting Grace if I work with his Concomitant Grace if I rectifie my errour by his Subsequent Grace that that moves upon me in all these is still the preventing power of that Grace For as all my Naturall actions of life are done by the power of that Soul which was in me before so all the Supernaturall actions of that Soul are done by that power of that Grace that prevents and preinanimates that action and all my co-operation is but a post-operation a working by the Power of that All-preventing Grace I moved not at first by the Tide by the strength of naturall faculties nor do I move after by that windâ— which had formerly fill'd my sails I proceed not now by
that 's the use which we have of the North in this place The consideration of our West our low estate that we are but earth but red earth dyed red by our selves and that imaginary white which appeares so to us is but a white of leprosie This West enwraps us in heavy clouds of murmuring in this life that we cannot live so freely as beasts doe and in clouds of desperation for the next life that we cannot dye so absolutely as beasts doe we dye all our lives and yet we live after our deaths These are our clouds And then the North shakes these clouds The North Winde driveth away the raine says Solomon There is a North in our text that drives all those teares from our eyes Christ calls upon the North as well as the South to blow upon his Garden and to diffuse the perfumes thereof Adversity as well as prosperity opens the bounty of God unto us and oftentimes better But that 's not the benefit of the North in our present consideration But this is it that first our sunne sets in the West The Eastern dignity which we received in our first Creation as we were the worke of the whole Trinity falls under a Western cloud that that Trinity made us but earth And then blowes our North and scatters this cloud That this earth hath a nobler forme then any other part or limbe of the world For we are made by a fairer pattern by a nobler Image by a higher likenesse Faciamus Though we make but a man Let us make him in our Image after our likenesse The variety which the holy Ghost uses here in the pen of Moses hath given occasion to divers to raise divers observations upon these words which seem divers Image and likenesse as also in the variety of the pharse For it is thus conceived and laid in our Image and then after our likenesse I know it is a good rule that Damascen gives Parva parva non sunt ex quibus magna proveniunt Nothing is to be neglected as little from which great things may arise If the consequence may be great the thing must not be thought little No Jod in the Scripture shall perish therefore no Jod is superfluous If it were superfluous it might perish Words and lesse particles then words have busied the whole Church In the Councell of Ephesus where Bishops in a great number excommunicated Bishops in a greater Bishop against Bishop and Patriarch against Patriarch in which case when both parties had made strong parties in Court and the Emperor forbare to declare himselfe on either side for a time he was told that he refused to assent to that which six thousand Bishops had agreed in the strife was but for a word whether the blessed Virgin might be called Deipara the mother of God for Christipara the mother of Christ which Christ all agree to be God Nestorius and all his party agreed with Cyrill that she might be In the Councell of Chalcedon the difference was not so great as for a word composed of syllables It was but for a syllable whether Ex or In. The Heretiques condemned then confessed Christ to be Ex duabus naturis to be composed of two natures at first but not to be in duabus naturis not to consist of two natures after and for that In they were thrust out In the councell of Nice it was not so much as a syllable made of letters For it was but for one letter whether Homoousion or Homousion was the issue Where the question hath not been of divers words nor syllables nor letters but onely of the place of words what tempestuous differences have risen How much Sola fides and fides sola changes the case Nay where there hath been no quarrell for precedency for transposing of words or syllables or letters where there hath not been so much as a letter in question how much doth an accent vary a sense An interrogation or no interrogation will make it directly contrary All Christian expositors read those words of Cain My sin is greater then can be pardoned positively and so they are evident words of desperation The Jews read them with an interrogation Are my sinnes greater then can be pardoned And so they are words of compunction and repentance The Prophet Micah says that Bethlehem is a small place the Evangelist Saint Matthew says no small place An interrogation in Micahs mouth reconciles it Art thou a small place amounts to that thou art not Sounds voices words must not be neglected For Christs forerunner Iohn Baptist qualified himselfe no otherwise He was but a voice And Christ himselfe is Verbum the Word is the name even of the Sonne of God No doubt but Statesmen and magistrates finde often the danger of having suffered small abuses to passe uncorrected We that see State businesse but in the glasse of story and cannot be shut out of Chronicles see there upon what little objects the eye and the jealousie of the State is oftentimes forced to bend it selfe We know in whose times in Rome a man might not weep he might not sigh he might not looke pale he might not be sicke but it was informed against as a discontent as a murmuring against the present government and an inclination to change And truly many times upon Damascens true ground though not always well applied Parva non sunt parva nothing may be thought little where the consequence may prove great In our own Spheare in the Church we are sure it is so Great inconveniencies grew upon small tolerations Therefore in that businesse which occasioned all that trouble which we mentioned before in the Councell of Ephesus when Saint Cyrill writ to the Clergy of his Dioces about it at first he says prastiterat abstinere it had been better these questions had not been raised But says he Si his nugis nos adoriantur if they vex us with these impertinencies these trifles And yet these which were but trifles at first came to occasion Councells and then to divide Councell against Councell and then to force the Emperour to take away the power of both Councells and govern in Councell by his Vicar generall a secular Lord sent from Court And therefore did some of the Ancients particularly Philastrius cry down some opinions for Heresies which were not matters of faith but of Philosophy and even in Philosophy truly held by them who were condemned for heretiques and mistaken by their Judges that condemned them Little things were called in question left great things should passe unquestioned And some of these upon Damascens true ground still true in the rule but not always in the application Parva non sunt parva nothing may be thought little where the consequence may be great Descend we from those great Spheares the State and the Church into a lesser that is the Conscience of particular men and consider the danger of exposing those vines to little Foxes of leaving small
sinnes unconsidered unrepented uncorrected In that glistring circle in the firmament which we call the Galaxy the milky way there is not one Star of any of the six great magnitudes which Astronomers proceed upon belonging to that circle It is a glorious circle and possesses a great part of heaven and yet is all of so little stars as have no name no knowledge taken of them So certainly are there many Saints in heaven that shine as stars and yet are not of those great magnitudes to have been Patriarchs or Prophets or Apostles or Martyrs or Doctors or Virgins but good and blessed soules that have religiously performed the duties of inferiour callings and no more And as certainly are there many soules tormented in hell that never sinned sinne of any of the great magnitudes Idolatry Adultery Murder or the like but inconsiderately have slid and insensibly continued in the practise and habite of lesser sinnes But Parva non sunt parva nothing may be thought little where the consequence may prove great When our Saviour said that we shall give an account of every Idle word in the day of Judgement what great hills of little sands will oppresse us then And if substances of sinne were removed yet what circumstances of sinne would condemne us If idle words have this weight there can be no word thought idle in the Scriptures And therefore I blame not in any I decline not in mine own practise the making use of the variety and copiousnesse of the holy Ghost who is ever abundant and yet never superfluous in expressing his purpose in change of words And so no doubt we might doe now in observing a difference between these words in our text Image and likenesse and between these two formes of expressing it in our Image and after our likenesse This might be done but that that must be done will possesse all our time that is to declare taking the two words for this time to be but a farther illustration of one another Image and likenesse to our present purpose to be all one what this Image and this likenesse imparts and how this North scatters our former cloud what our advantage is that we are made to an Image to a pattern and our obligation to set a pattern before us in all our actions God appointed Moses to make all that he made according to a pattern God himselfe made all that he made according to a pattern God had deposited and laid up in himselfe certain formes patternes Idea's of every thing that he made He made nothing of which he had not preconceived the forme and predetermined in himselfe I will make it thus And when he had made any thing he saw it was good good because it answered the pattern the Image good because it was like to that And therefore though of other creatures God pronounced they were good because they were presently like their pattern that is like that forme which was in him for them yet of man he forbore to say that he was good because his conformity to his pattern was to appeare after in his subsequent actions Now as God made man after another pattern and therefore we have a dignity above all that we had another manner of creation then the rest so have we a comfort above all that we have another manner of Administration then the rest God exercises another manner of Providence upon man then upon other creatures A Sparrow falls not without God says Christ yet no doubt God works otherwise in the fall of eminent persons then in the fall of Sparrows For yee are of more value then many Sparrows says Christ there of every man and some men single are of more value then many men God does not thanke the Ant for her industry and good-husbandry in providing for her selfe God does not reward the Foxes for concurring with Sampson in his revenge God does not fee the Lion which was the executioner upon the Prophet which had disobeyed his commandement nor those two she-Beares which slew the petulant children who had caluminated and reproached Elisha God does not fee them before nor thanke them after not take knowledge of their service But for those men that served Gods execution upon the Idolaters of the Goden Calfe it is pronounced in their behalfe that therein they consecrated themselves to God and for that service God made that tribe the tribe of Levi his portion his Clergy his consecrated Tribe So Quiae fecisti hoc says God to Abraham by my selfe I have sworn because thou hast done this thing and hast not withheld thy Sonne thine onely sonne in blessing I will blesse thee and in multiplying I will multiply thee So neither is God angry with the dog that turnes to his vomit nor with the sow that after her washing wallowes in the mire But of Man in that case he says It is impossible for those who were once enlightned if they fall away to renew them againe by repentance The creatures live under his law but a law imposed thus This they shall doe this they must doe Man lives under another manner of law This you shall doe that is this you should doe this I would have you doe And fac hoc doe this and you shall live disobey and you shall die But yet the choise is yours Choose ye this day life or death So that this is Gods administration in the Creature that he hath imprinted in them an Instinct and so he hath something to preserve in them In man his administration is this that he hath imprinted in him a faculty of will and election and so hath something to reward in him That instinct in the creature God leaves to the naturall working thereof in it selfe But the free will of man God visites and assists with his grace to doe supernaturall things When the creature does an extraordinary action above the nature thereof as when Balaams Asse spake the creature exercises no faculty no will in it selfe but God forced it to that it did When man does any thing conducing to supernaturall ends though the worke be Gods the will of man is not meerly passive The will of man is but Gods agent but still an agent it is And an agent in another manner then the tongue of the beast For the will considered as a will and grace never destroyes nature nor though it make a dead will a live will or an ill will a good will doth it make the will no will might refuse or omit that that it does So that because we are created by another pattern we are governed by another law and another providence Goe thou then the same way If God wrought by a pattern and writ by copy and proceeded by a precedent doe thou so too Never say there is no Church without error therefore I will be bound by none but frame a Church of mine owne or be a Church to my selfe What greater injustice then to propose
work for advancing thy state remember thy naturall death but especially when thou art in a sinfull worke for satisfying thy lusts remember thy spirituall death Be afraid of this death and thou wilt never feare the other Thou wilt rather sigh with David My soule hath too long dwelt with him that hateth peace Thou wilt be glad when a bodily death may deliver thee from all farther danger of a spirituall death And thou wilt be ashamed of that imputation which is layd upon worldly men by St. Cyprian Ad nostros navigamus ventos contrarios optamus we pretend to be sayling homewards and yet we desire to have the winde against us we are travelling to the heavenly Ierusalem and yet we are loath to come thither Here then is the use of our hope before death that this life shall be a gallery into a better roome and deliver us over to a better Country for if in this life onely we have hope in Christ we are of all men the most miserable Secondly in the agony of death when the Sessions are come and that as a prisoner may looke from that Tower and see the Judge that must condemne him to morrow come in to night so we lye upon our death-bed and apprehend a present judgement to be given upon us when if we will not pleade to the Indictment if we will stand mute and have nothing to say to God we are condemned already condemned in our silence and if we do plead we have no plea but guilty nothing to say but to confesse all the Indictment against our selves when the flesh is too weake as that it can performe no office and yet would faine stay here when the soule is laden with more sins then she can bear and yet would faine contract more in this agony there is this use of our hope that as God shall then when our bodily eares are deaf whisper to our soules and say Memento homo Remember consider man that thou art but dust and art now returning into dust so we in our hearts when our bodily tongues are speechlesse may then say to God as it is in Iob Memento quaeso Remember thou also I beseech thee O God that it is thou that hast made me as clay and that it is thou that bringest me to that state againe and therefore come thou and looke to thine owne worke come and let thy servant depart in peace in having seen his salvation My hope before death is that this life is the way my hope at death is that my death shall be a doore into a better state Lastly the use of our hope is after death that God by his promise hath made himself my debter till he restore my body to me againe in the resurrection My body hath sinned and he hath not redeemed a sinner he hath not saved a sinner except he have redeemed and saved my body as well as my soule To those soules that lye under the Altar and solicite God for the resurrection in the Revelation God sayes That they should rest for a little season untill their fellow-servants and their brethren that should be killed even as they were were fulfilled All that while while that number is fulfilling is our hopes exercised after our death And therefore the bodies of the Saints of God which have been Temples of the Holy Ghost when the soule is gone out of them are not to be neglected as a sheath that had lost the knife as a shell that had spent the kernell but as the Godhead did not depart from the dead body of Christ Jesus then when that body lay dead in the grave so the power of God and the merit of Christ Jesus doth not depart from the body of man but his blood lives in our ashes and shall in his appointed time awaken this body againe to an everlasting glory Since therefore Iob had and we have this assurance before we dye when we dye after we are dead it is upon good reason that he did and we do trust in God though he should kill us when he doth kill us after he hath killed us Especially since it is Ille He who is spoken of before he that kills and gives life he that wounds and makes whole againe God executes by what way it pleases him condemned persons cannot chuse the manner of their death whether God kill by sicknesse by age by the hand of the law by the malice of man si ille as long as we can see that it is he he that is Shaddai Vastator Restaurator the destroyer and the repairer howsoever he kill yet he gives life too howsoever he wound yet he heales too howsoever he lock us into our graves now yet he hath the keys of hell and death and shall in his time extend that voyce to us all Lazare veni for as come forth of your putrefaction to incorruptible glory Amen SERMON XXXI Preached at Hanworth to my Lord of Carlile and his company being the Earles of Northumberland and Buckingham c. Aug. 25. 1622. JOE 36. 25. Every man may see it man may behold it afar off THe words are the words of Elihu Elihu was one of Iobs friends and a meer naturall man a man not captivated not fettered not enthralled in any particular forme of Religion as the Iewes were a man not macerated with the feare of God not infatuated with any preconceptions which Nurses or Godfathers or Parents or Church or State had infused into him not dejected not suppled not matured not entendred with crosses in this world and so made apt to receive any impressions or follow any opinions of other men a meer naturall man and in the meer use of meer naturall reason this man sayes of God in his works Every man may see it Man may behold it afar off It is the word of a naturall man and the holy Ghost having canonized it sanctified it by inserting it into the booke of God it is the word of God too Saint Paul cites sometimes the words of secular Poets and approves them and then the words of those Poets become the word of God Elihu speakes a naturall man and God speakes in canonizing his words and therefore when we speake to godly men we are sure to be believed for God sayes it if we were to speake to naturall men onely we might be believed for Elihu a naturall man and wise in his generation sayes it that for God in his works Every man may see it man may behold it afar off Be pleased to admit and charge your memories with this distribution of the words Let the parts be but two so you will be pleased to stoop and gather or at least to open your hands to receive some more I must not say flowers for things of sweetnesse and of delight grow not in my ground but simples rather and medicinall herbs of which as there enter many into good cordials so in this supreme cordiall of bringing
to be Lapis Iacob the stone that Iacob slept upon fourthly to be Lapis Davidis the stone that David flew Golih withall And lastly to be Lapis Petra such a stone as is a Rock and such a Rock as no Waters nor Stormes can remove or shake these are benefits Christ Jesus is a stone no firmnesse but in him a fundamentall stone no building but on him a corner stone no piecing nor reconciliation but in him and Iacobs stone no rest no tranquillity but in him and Davids stone no anger no revenge but in him and a rocky stone no defence against troubles and tribulations but in him And upon this stone we fall and are broken and this stone may fall on us and grinde us to powder First in the metaphor that Christ is called a stone the firmnesse is expressed Forasmuch as he loved his owne which were in the world In finem dilexit eos sayes St. Iohn He loved them to the end and not to any particular end for any use of this owne but to their end Qui erant in mundo sayes Cyrill ad distinctionem Angelorum he loved them in the world and not Angels he loved not onely them who were in a confirmed estate of mutuall loving him too but even them who were themselves conceived in sinne and then conceived all their purposes in sinne too them who could have no cleansing but in his blood and when they were cleansed in his blood their owne clothes would defile them againe them who by nature are not able to love him at all and when by grace they are brought to love him can expresse their love no other way but to be glad that he was betrayed and scourged and scorned and nayled and crucified and to be glad that if all this were not already done it might be done yet to long and wish that if Christ were not crucified he might be crucified now which is a strange manner of expressing love those men he loved and loved unto the end Men and not Angels and then men Ad distinctionem mortuorum sayes Chrysostome not onely the Patriarchs who were departed out of the world who had loved him so well as to take his word for their salvation and had lived and dyed in the faithfull contemplation of a future promise which they never saw performed but those who were partakers of the performance of all those promises those into the midst of whom he came in person those upon whom he wrought with his piercing Doctrine and his powerfull miracles those who for all this loved not him he loved Et in finem he loved them to the end It is much that he should love them in fine at their end that he should looke graciously on them at last that when their sunne sets their eyes faint his sunne of grace should arise and his East be brought to their West that then in the shadow of death the Lord of life should quicken and inanimate their hearts that when their last bell tolls and calls them to their first Judgement and first and last Judgement to this purpose is all one the passing bell and Angels trump sound all but one note Surgite qui dormitis in pulvere Arise ye that sleepe in the dust which is the voyce of the Angels and Surgite qui vigilatis in plumis Arise ye that cannot sleepe in feathers for the pangs of death which is the voyce of the bell is but one voyce for God at the generall Judgement shall never reverse any particular Judgement formerly given that God should then come to the beds side ad sibilandum populum suum as the Prophet Ezekiel speaks to hisse softly for his childe to speake comfortably in his eare to whisper gently to his departing soule and to drowne and overcome with this soft Musick of his all the danger of the Angels Trumpets all the horror of the ringing Bell all the cryes and vociferations of a distressed and distracted and scattering family yea all the accusations of his owne conscience and all the triumphant acclamations of the Devill himselfe that God should love a man thus in fine at his end and returne to him then though he had suffered him to go astray from him before it is a great testimony of an unspeakable love but his love is not onely in fine at the end but in finem to the end all the way to the end He leaves them not uncalled at first he leaves them not unaccompanied in the way he leaves them not unrecompensed at the last that God who is Almighty Alpha and Omega first and last that God is also love it selfe and therefore this love is Alpha and Omega first and last too Consider Christs proceeding with Peter in the ship in the storme first he suffered him to be in some danger but then he visites him with that strong assurance Noli timere Be not afraid it is I any testimony of his presence rectifies all This puts Peter into that spirituall knowledge and confidence Iube me venire Lord bid me come to thee he hath a desire to be with Christ but yet stayes his bidding he puts not himselfe into an unnecessary danger without a commandment Christ bids him and Peter comes but yet though Christ were in his sight and even in the actuall exercise of his love to him yet as soone as he saw a gust a storme timuit he was afraid and Christ letteth him feare and letteth him sinke and letteth him crie But he directeth his feare and his crie to the right end Domine salvum me fac Lord save me and thereupon he stretcheth out his hand and saved him God doth not raise his children to honour and great estates and then leave them and expose them to be subjects and exercises of the malice of others nor he doth not make them mightie and then leave them ut glorietur in malo qui potens est that he should thinke it a glory to be able to do harm He doth not impoverish and dishonour his children and then leave them leave them unsensible of that Doctrine that patience is as great a blessing as aboundance God giveth not his children health and then leaveth them to a boldnesse in surfetting nor beauty and leave them to a confidence of opening themselves to all sollicitations nor valour and then leaveth them to a spirit of quarrelsomnesse God maketh no patterns of his works no modells of his houses he maketh whole pieces he maketh perfect houses he putteth his children into good wayes and he directeth and protecteth them in those wayes For this is the constancy and the perseverance of the love of Christ Jesus as he is called in this Text a stone To come to the particular benefits the first is that he is lapis fundamentalis a foundation stone for other foundation can no man lay then that which is laid which is Christ Jesus Now where Saint Augustine saith as he doth in two or three places
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
watchfulnesse that we fall not into sinne we have lucem essentiae possession and fruition of heaven and of the light of Gods presence and then if we doe by infirmity fall into sinne yet by this denudation of our soules this manifestation of our sinnes to God by confession and to that purpose a gladnesse when we heare our sinne spoken of by the preacher we have lumen gloriae an inchoation of our glorified estate and then an other couple of these lights which we propose to be considered is lumen fidei and lumen naturae the light of faith and the light of nature Of these two lights Faith and Grace first and then Nature and Reason we said something before but never too much be cause contentious spirits have cast such clouds upon both these lights that some have said Nature doth all alone and others that Nature hath nothing to do at all but all is Grace we decline wranglings that tend not to edification we say onely to our present purpose which is the operation of these severall couples of lights that by this light of Faith to him which hath it all that is involved in Prophecies is clear and evident as in a History already done and all that is wrapped up in promises is his own already in performance That man needs not goe so high for his assurance of a Messias and Redeemer as to the first promise made to him in Adam nor for the limitation of the stock and race from whence this Messias should come so far as to the renewing of this promise in Abraham nor for the description of this Messias who he should be and of whom he should be born as to Esaias nor to Micheas for the place nor for the time when he should accomplish all this so far as to Daniel no nor so far as to the Evangelists themselves for the History and the evidence that all this that was to be done in his behalf by the Messias was done 1600. yeares since But he hath a whole Bible and an abundant Library in his own heart and there by this light of Faith which is not onely a knowing but an applying an appropriating of all to thy benefit he hath a better knowledge then all this then either Propheticall or Evangelicall for though both these be irrefragable and infallible proofs of a Messias the Propheticall that he should the Evangelicall that he is come yet both these might but concern others this light of Faith brings him home to thee How sure so ever I be that the world shall never perish by water yet I may be drowned and how sure so ever that the Lamb of God hath taken away the sinnes of the world I may perish without I have this applicatory Faith And as he needs not looke back to Esay nor Abraham nor Adam for the Messias so neither needs he to looke forward He needs not stay in expectation of the Angels Trumpets to awaken the dead he is not put to his usquequo Domine How long Lord wilt thou defer our restitution but he hath already died the death of the righteous which is to die to sinne He hath already had his buriall by being buried with Christ in Baptisme he hath had his Resurrection from sinne his Ascension to holy purposes of amendment of life and his Iudgement that is peace of Conscience sealed unto him and so by this light of applying Faith he hath already apprehended an eternall possession of Gods eternall Kingdome And the other light in this second couple is Lux naturae the light of Nature This though a fainter light directs us to the other Nature to Faith and as by the quantitie in the light of the Moone we know the position and distance of the Sunne how far or how neare the Sunne is to her so by the working of the light of Nature in us we may discern by the measure and virtue and heat of that how near to the other greater light the light of Faith we stand If we finde our naturall faculties rectified so as that that free will which we have in Morall and Civill actions be bent upon the externall duties of Religion as every naturall man may out of the use of that free will come to Church heare the Word preached and believe it to be true we may be sure the other greater light is about us If we be cold in them in actuating in exalting in using our naturall faculties so farre we shall be deprived of all light we shall not see the Invisible God in visible things which Saint Paul makes so inexcusable so unpardonable a thing we shall not see the hand of God in all our worldly crosses nor the seal of God in all our worldly blessings we shall not see the face of God in his House his presence here in the Church nor the mind of God in his Gospell that his gracious purposes upon mankinde extend so particularly or reach so far as to include us I shall heare in the Scripture his Vinite omnes come all and yet I shall thinke thatâ— his eye was not upon me that his eye did not becken me and I shall heare the Deus vult omnes salves that God would save all and yet I shall finde some perverse reason in my selfe why it is not likely that God will save me I am commanded scrutari Scripturas to search the scriptures now that is not to be able to repeat any history of the Bible without booke it is not to ruffle a Bible and upon any word to turne to the Chapter and to the verse but this is exquisit a scrutatio the true searching of the Scriptures to finde all the histories to be examples to me all the prophecies to induce a Saviour for me all the Gospell to apply Christ Jesus to me Turne over all the folds and plaits of thine owne heart and finde there the infirmities and waverings of thine owne faith and an ability to say Lord I beleeve help mine unbeleefe and then though thou have no Bible in thy hand or though thou stand in a dark corner nay though thou canst not reade a letter thou hast searched that Scripture thou hast turned to Marke 9. ver 24 Turne thine eare to God and heare him turning to thee and saying to thy soule I will marry thee to my selfe for ever and thou hast searched that Scripture and turned to Hos. 2. ver 19. Turne to thine owne histery thine owne life and if thou canst reade there that thou hast endeavoured to turne thine ignorance into knowledge and thy knowledge into Practice if thou finde thy selfe to be an example of that rule of Christs If you know these things blessed are you if you do them then thou hast searched that Scripture and turned to Io. 13. ver 14. This is Scrutari Scripturas to Search the Scriptures not as though thou wouldest make a concordance but an application as thou wouldest search a
calling by being personally here at these exercises of Religion thou art some kinde of witnesse of this light For in how many places of the world hath Christ yet never opened such doors for his ordinary service in all these 1600. yeers And in how many places hath he shut up these doors of his true worship within these three or foure yeers Quod citaris huc That thou art brought hither within distance of his voyce within reach of his food intra sphaeram Activitatis within the spheare and latitude of his ordinary working that is into his house into his Church this is a citation a calling answerable to Iohn Baptists first calling from his fathers dead loins and his mothers barren wombe and his second citation was before he was borne in his mothers wombe When Mary came to visit Elizabeth the childe sprang in her belly as soone as Maries voice sounded in her eares And though naturally upon excesse of joy in the mother the childe may spring in her yet the Evangelist meanes to tell an extraordinary and supernaturall thing and whether it were an anticipation of reason in the childe some of the Fathers think so though St. Augustine do not that the childe understood what he did or that this were a fulfilling of that prophecy That he should be filled with the holy Ghost from his mothers wombe all agree that this was an exciting of him to this attestation of his Saviours presence whether he had any sense of it or no. Exultatio significat sayes St. Augustine This springing declared that his mother whose forerunner that childe should be was come And so both Origen and St. Cyrill refer that commendation which our Saviour gives him Inter natos Mulierum Among those that were born of women there was not a greater Prophet that is none that prophecyed before he was borne but he And such a citation beloved thou mayest have in this place and at this time A man may upon the hearing of something that strikes him that affects him feel this springing this exultation this melting and colliquation of the inwardest bowels of his soule a new affection a new passion beyond the joy ordinarily conceived upon earthly happinesses which though no naturall Philosopher can call it by a name no Anatomist assigne the place where it lyes yet I doubt not through Christ jesus but that many of you who are here now feele it and understand it this minute Citaris huc thou wast cited to come hither whether by a collaterall and oblique and occasionall motion or otherwise hither God hath brought thee and Citaris hîc here thou art cited to come neerer to him Now both these citations were before Iohn Baptist was borne both these affections to come to this place and to be affected with a delight here may be before thy regeneration which is thy spirituall birth a man is not borne not borne againe because he is at Church nor because he likes the Sermon Iohn Baptist had and thou must have a third citation which was in him from the desert into the publique into the world from contemplation to practice This was that mission that citation which most properly belongs to this Text when the word came to the voyce The word of God came to Iohn in the wildernesse and he came into all the Countrey preaching the Baptisme of repentance To that we must come to practise For in this respect an Vniversity is but a wildernesse though we gather our learning there our private meditation is but a wildernesse though we contemplate God there nay our being here is but a wildernesse though we serve God here if our service end so if we do not proceed to action and glorifie God in the publique And therefore Citaris huc thou art cited hither here thou must be and Citaris hîc thou art cited here to lay hold upon that grace which God offers in his Ordinance and Citaris hinc thou art cited from hence to embrace a calling in the world He that undertakes no course no vocation he is no part no member no limbe of the body of this world no eye to give light to others no eare to receive profit by others If he think it enough to be excrementall nayles to scratch and gripe others by his lazy usury and extortion or excrementall hayre made onely for ornament or delight of others by his wit or mirth or delightfull conversation these men have not yet felt this third citation by which they are called to glorifie God and so to witnesse for him in such publique actions as Gods cause for the present requires and comports with their calling And then Iohn Baptist had a fourth citation to bear witnesse for Christ by laying down his life for the Truth and this was that that made him a witnesse in the highest sense a Martyr God hath not served this citation upon us nor doth he threaten us with any approches towards it in the feare of persecution for religion But remember that Iohn Baptists Martyrdome was not for the fundamentall rock the body of the Christian religion but for a morall truth for matter of manners A man may be bound to suffer much for a lesse matter then the utter overthrow of the whole frame and body of religion But leaving this consideration for what causes a man is bound to lay downe his life consider we now but this that a man lays downe his life for Christ and beares witnesse of him even in death when he prefers Christ before this world when he desires to be dissolved and be with him and obeyes cheerefully that citation by the hand of death whensoever it comes and that citation must certainly be served upon you all whether this night in your beds or this houre at the doore no man knowes You who were cited hither to heare and cited here to consider and cited hence to worke in a calling in the world must be cited from thence too from the face to the bosome of the earth from treading upon other mens to a lying downe in your owne graves And yet that is not your last citation there is fifth In the grave Iohn Baptist does and we must attend a fifth citation from the grave to a Iudgement The first citation hither to Church was served by Example of other men you saw them come and came The second citation here in the Church was served by the Preacher you heard him and beleeved The third from hence is served by the law and by the Magistrate they binde you to embrace a profession and a calling and you do so The fourth which is from thence from this to the next world is served by nature in death he touches you and you sinke This fifth to Iudgement shall be by an Angell by an Archangell by the Lord himself The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voyce of the Archangell and with
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
contrary defamations Heretofore that he persecuted their Religion when he did not now that he hath left his own Religion He is their breath they owe him their tongues and how foully do they speak and they owe him their lives and how prodigally do they give away their lives to others that they might take away His He is their breath as breath is the soule that is Accomptant for their soules and how have they raised themselves out of his Audit and withdrawne themselves from his Allegiance This they have done historically and to say prophetically what they would do first their Extenuation of this fact when they call it an enterprise of a few unfortunate Gentlemen And then their Exaltation of this fact when they make the principall person in it a Martyr this is prophecy enough that since they are not ashamed of the Originall they will not be afraid to copy it often and pursue the same practises to the same end Let it be Iosiah then let it be Zedekiah he was the Breath the life of his Subjects and that was the first attribute and he was The Anoynted of the Lord which is the other Vnction it self alwayes separated that which was anoynted from prophane and secular use unction was a religious distinction It had that signification in practise before any Law was given for it when Iacob had had that vision upon the stone which made him see that that place was the house of God and the gate of heaven then he tooke up that stone which he had stept upon and set it up for a pillar and anoynted it This was the practise in nature and then the precept in the Law was as for the Altar it self so for many other things belonging to the service of God in the Temple Thou shalt anoynt them to sanctifie them Thus it was for things and then if we consider persons we see the dignity that anoynting gave for it was given but to three sorts of persons to Kings to priests and to Prophets Kings and Priests had it to testifie their ordinary and permanent and indelible jurisdiction their power is laid on in Oyle And Prophets had it because they were extraordinarily raised to denounce and to execute Gods Judgements upon persons that were anoynted upon Priests and upon Kings too in those cases for which they were then particularly imployed Thus then it is anoynted things could not be touched but by anoynted persons and then anoynted persons could not be touched but by persons anoynted The Priest not directed but by the King The King as King not corrected but by the prophet And this was the State that they lamented so compassionately That their King thus anoynted thus exempted was taken prisoner saw his Sonnes slaine in his presence and then had his owne eyes pulled out was bound in chains and carried to Babell And lesse then this in himself and in his Sonne and in all was not intended this day against our not Zedekiah but Iosiah for death speaking in nature hath all particular miseries in it An anoynted King and many Kings anoynted there are not and he that is anoynted prae Consortibus suis above his fellow Kings for I think no other King of his Religion is anoynted The anoynted of the Lord who in this Text hath both those great names Meshiach Iehovahâ— Christus Domini as though he had been but the Bramble anoynted for King of the Trees and so made the fitter fuell for their â—ire as though as Davids lamentation is for Saul He had not been anoynted with Oyle This eye of God he by whom God looks upon us This hand of God he by whom God protects us This foote of God he by whom in his due time and Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord before that time come God shall tread downe his owne and our enemies was swallowed and devoured by them in their confidence of their owne plot and their infallible assurance of his perishing So it was historically And how it stands prophetically that is What such as they were would do for the future as long as they write not in Libels clandestinely and subreptitiously stollen out but avowed by publique Authority That our Priests are no Priests but the Priests of â—aal for so they write That the conspiracy of this day being against him who oppressed Religion was as just as that against Caesar who did but oppresse the State And that they write That those who were the actors herein are therefore saved because at their execution they submitted all to the Romane Church and were content if the Church condemned it then to repent the Fact for so they write also That the Religion of our present King is no better then the Religion of Ieroboam or of Numâ— Pompilius for so they write too that the last Queene though an Heretique yet because she was Anointed did cure that disease The Kings evill but because in scorne thereof the King refused to be anointed at his Coronation therefore hee cannot cure that disease and so non dicendus unctus Domini he is not to be called the Anointed of the Lord says that Author for all these are the words of one man and one who had no other provocation to say all this but onely the Kingsâ— Apology for the oath of Allegiance by retaining in their avowed books and by relying upon such Authors and Authorities as these which remaine for their future instruction we see their dispositions for the future and judge of them prophetically as well as historically Now the misery which is here lamented the declination of the kingdome in the person of the King is thus expressed He was taken in their pits taken and taken in pits and taken in their pits are so many staires so many descents so many gradations rather degradations in this calamity Let it bee Iosiah let it bee Zedekiah They were taken taken and never returned Let it bee our Iosiah and will it hold in that application Was hee taken Hee was plotted for but was hee Taken When hee himselfe takes publique knowledge that both at home and abroad those of the Romane persuasion assured themselves of some especiall worke for the advancement of their cause at that time when they had taken that assurance hee was so taken taken in that their assurance infallibly taken in their opinion so as this kingdome was taken in their opinion who thought their Navy invincible so this King was taken in their assurance who thought this plot infallible Hee was taken and in fovea in a pit says the Text If our first translation would serve the sorrow were the lesse for there it is he was taken in their net now a man that flattereth spreadeth a net and a Prince that discerns not a flatterer from a Counsellor is taken in a net but that 's not so desperate as in a pit In Iosiahs case it was a pit a Grave in Zedekiahs case it
they their beeing their ever-lasting well-beeing for their service You will scarce receive a servant that is come from another man without testimony If you put your selves out of Gods service whither will ye goe In his service and his onely is perfect freedome And therefore as you love freedome and liberty bee his servants and call the freedome of the Gospel the best freedome and come to the Preaching of that He cals you children as you are servants filii familiares and he cals you children as you are Alumni nurse-children filii mammillares as he requires the humility and simplicity of little children in you For Cum simplicibus sermocinatio ejus as the vulgat reads that place Gods secret discourse is with the single heart The first that ever came to Christ so as he came to us in blood they that came to him so before he came so to us that died for him before he died for them were such sucking children those whom Herod slew As Christ thought himself bound to thank his Father for that way of proceeding I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth that thou hast revealed these things unto babes so Christ himself pursues the same way Suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me for of such is the Kingdome of heaven Of such not onely of those who were truly literally children children in age but of such as those Talium est regnum coelorum such as come in such a disposition in the humility in the simplicity in the singlenesse of heart as children do An habituall sinner is always in minority always an Infant an Infant to this purpose All his acts all the bands of an Infant are void all the outward religious actions even the band and contract of Baptism in an habituall sinner is void and ineffectuall He that is in the house and favour of God though he be a child a child to this purpose simple supple tractable single-hearted is as Adam was in the state of Innocency a man the first minute able to stand upright in the sight of God And out of one place of Esay our Expositors have drawn conveniently enough both these conclusions A child shall die 100 years old says the Prophet that is say some a sinner though he live 100 years yet he dies a child in ignorance And then say others and both truly He that comes willingly when God cals though he die a child in age he hath the wisdome of 100 years upon him There is not a graver thing then to be such a child to conform his will to the will of God Whether you consider temporall or spirituall things you are Gods children For for temporall if God should take off his hand withdraw his hand of sustentation all those things which assist us temporally would relapse to the first feeble and childish estate and come to their first nothing Armies would be but Hospitals without all strength Councell-tables but Bedlams without all sense and Schools and Universities but the wrangling of children if God and his Spirit did not inanimate our Schools and Armies and Councels His adoption makes us men therefore because it makes us his children But we are his children in this consideration especially as we are his spirituall children as he hath nursed us fed us with his word In which sense the Apostle speaks of those who had embraced the true Religion in the same words that the Prophet had spoken before Behold I and the children that God hath given me And in the same sense the same Prophet in the same place says of them who had fallen away from the true Religion They please themselves in the children of strangers In those men who have derived their Orders and their Doctrine from a forein Jurisdiction In that State where Adoptions were so frequent in old Rome a Plebeian could not adopt a Patrician a Yeoman could not adopt a Gentleman nor a young man could not adopt an old In the new Rome that endevours to adopt all in an imaginary filiation you that have the perfect freedome of Gods service be not adopted into the slavery and bondage of mens traditions you that are in possession of the ancient Religion of Christ and his Apostles be not adopted into a yonger Religion Religio à religando That is Religion that binds that binds that is necessary to salvation That which we affirm our adversaries deny not that which we professe they confesse was always necessary to salvation They will not say that all that they say now was always necessary That a man could not be saved without beleeving the Articles of the Councell of Trent a week before that Councell shut up You are his children as children are servants and If he be your Lord where is his fear you are his children as he hath nursed you with the milk of his word and if he be your Father so your foster Father where is his love But he is your Father otherwise you are not onely Filii familiares children because servants nor onely Filii mammillares children because noursed by him but you are also Filii viscerales children of his bowells For we are otherwise allied to Christ then we can be to any of his instruments though Angels of the Church Prophets or Apostles and yet his Apostle says of one whom he loved of Onesimus Receive him that is mine owne bowells my Sonne says he whom I have begotten in my hands How much more art thou bound to receive and refresh those bowells from which thou art derived Christ Iesus himselfe Receive him Refresh him Carry that which the wiseman hath said Miserere animae tuae bee mercifull to thine owne soule higher then so and Miserere salvatoris tui have mercy upon thine owne Saviour put on the bowells of mercy and put them on even towards Christ Iesus himselfe who needs thy mercy by beeing so tome and mangled and embowelled by blasphemous oaths and execrations For beloved it is not so absurd a prayer as it is conceived if Luther did say upon his death bed Oremus pro Domino nostro Iesu Christo Let us pray for out Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ. Had we not need pray for him If he complaine that Saul persecutes him had we not need pray for him It is a seditious affection in civill things to divide the King and the kingdome to pray to fight for the one and leave out the other is seditiously done If the kingdome of Christ need thy prayers and thy assistance Christ needs it If the Body need it the Head needs it If thou must pray for his Gospell thou must pray for him Nay thou canst not pray for thy selfe but thou must pray for him for thou art his bowells when thou in thy forefathers the first Christians in the Primitive Church wast persecuted Christ cryed out why persecutest thou me Christ made thy case his because thou wast of his
or distrust in God and his mercy and to that purpose we consider the Serpents punishment and espcially as it is heightned and aggravated in this Text Dust shalt thou eate all the days of thy life There are three degrees in the Serpents punishment First Super pectus He must creep upon his belly And secondly Inimicitias ponam I will put enmity God will raise him an enemy And thirdly Pulverem comedes Dust shalt thou eate all the days of thy life And in all these three though they aggravate the judgement upon the Serpent there is mercy to us For for the first that the Serpent now does but creep upon his belly S. Augustine and S. Gregory understands this belly to be the seat of our affections and our concupiscencies That the Serpent hath no power upon our heart nor upon our brain for if we bring a tentation to consideration to deliberation that we stop at it think of it study it and forsee the consequences this frustrates the tentation Our nobler faculties are always assisted with the grace of God to resist him though the belly the bowels of sin in sudden surprisals and ebullitions and foamings of our concupiscencies be subject to him for though it may seem that if that be the meaning which from S. Augustine and S. Gregory we have given you That the Serpent hath this power over our affections and that is intended by that The belly it should rather have been said super pectus vestrum Hee shall creep upon your belly then upon his owne yet indeed all that is his own which we have submitted and surrendred to him and hee is upon his own because we make our selves his for to whom ye yeeld your servants to obey his servants you are So that if he be super pectus nostrum if he be upon our belly he is upon his own But he does but creep He does not fly He is not presently upon you in a present possession of you you may discern the beginning of sin and the ways of sin in the approaches of the Serpent if you will The Serpent leaves a slime that discovers him where he creeps At least behinde him after a sin you may easily see occasion of remorse and detestation of that sinne and thereby prevent relapses if you have not watched him well enough in his creeping upon you When hee is a Lion he does not devoure all whom he findes He seeks whom he may devoure He may not devoure all nor any but those who cast themselves into his jaws by exposing themselves to tentations to sin He does but creep why did he any more before was his forme changed in this punishment Many of the Ancients think literally that it was and that before the Serpent did goe upon feet we are not sure of that nor is it much probable That may well be true which Luther says fuit suavissima bestiola till then it was a creature more lovely more sociable more conversable with man and as Calvin expresses the same Minus odiosus man did lesse abhor the Serpent before then after Beloved it is a degree of mercy if God bring that which was formerly a tentation to mee to a lesse power over me then formerly it had If deformity if sicknesse if age if opinion if satiety if inconstancy if any thing have worn out a tentation in that face that transported me heretofore it is a degree of mercy Though the Serpent be the same Serpent yet if he be not so acceptable so welcome to me as heretofore it is a happy a blessed change And so in that respect there was mercy It was a punishment to the Serpent that though he were the same still as before yet he was not able to insinuate himself as before because hee was not so welcome to us So the having of the same form which he had might be a punishment as nakednesse was to man after his fall He was naked before but he saw it not he felt it not he needed no cloathes before Now nakednesse brings shame and infirmities with it So God was so sparing towards the Serpent as that he made him not worse in nature then before and so mercifull to us as that hee made us more jealous of him and thereby more safe against him then before Which is also intimated pregnantly in the next step of his punishment Inimicitias ponam That God hath kindled a war between him and us Peace is a blessed state but it must be the peace of God for simeon and Levi are brethren they agree well enough together but they are instruments of evill and in that case the better agreement the worse So war is a fearfull state but not so if it be the war of God undertaken for his cause or by his Word Many times a State suffers by the security of a Peace and gains by the watchfulness of a War Wo be to that man is so at peace as that the spirit fights not against the flesh in him and wo to them too who would make them friends or reconcile them betweene whom God hath perpetuated an everlasting war The seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent Christ and Beliall Truth and Superstition Till God proclaimed a warre between them the Serpent did easily overthrow them but therefore God brought it to a war that man might stand upon his guard And so it was a Mercy But the greatest mercy is in the last and that which belongs most directly though all conduce pertinently and usefully to our present occasion Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life He must eat dust that is our bodies and carnall affections Hee was at a richer diet he was in better pasture before before he fed upon souls too But for that his head was bruised in the promise of a Messias who delivers our souls from his tyranny But the dust the body that body which for all the precious ransome and the rich and large mercy of the Messias must die that dust is left to the Serpent to Satan that is to that dissolution and that putrefaction which he hath induced upon man in death He eats but our dust in our death when he hath brought us to that that is a mercy nay he eats up our dust before our death which is a greater mercy our carnal affections our concupiscencies are eaten up and devoured by him and so even his eating is a sweeping a deansing a purging of us Many times we are the better for his tentations My discerning a storm makes me put on a cloak My discerning a tentation makes me see my weaknesse and fly to my strength Nay I am somtimes the safer and the readier for a victory by having been overcome by him The sense and the remorse of a sin after I have fallen into it puts me into a better state and establishes better conditions between God and me then were before when I felt no
we shall also see that all those particular that did aggravate the affliction in the former part That they were from the Lord from his Rod from the Rod of his wrath doe all exalt our comfort in this That it is a particular comfort that our afflictions are from the Lord Another that they are from his Rod and another also that they are from the Rod of his wrath First then in our first art and the first branch thereof The Generality of affliction considered in the nature thereof We met all generally in the first Treason against our selves without exception all In Adams rebellion who was not in his loins And in a second Treason we met all too in the Treason against Christ Iesus we met all All our sins were upon his shoulders In those two Treasons we have had no exception no exemption The penalty for our first Treason in Adam in a great part we doe all undergoe we doe all die though not without a lothnesse and colluctation at the time yet without a deliberate desire to live in this world for ever How loth soever any man be to die when death comes yet I thinke there is no man that ever formed a deliberate Prayer or wish that he might never die That penalty for our first Treason in Adam we do bear And would any be excepted from bearing any thing deduced from his second Treason his conspiracy against Christ from imitation of his Passion and fulfilling his sufferings in his body in bearing cheerfully the afflictions and tribulations of this life Omnis caro corruper at and thou art within that generall Indictment all flesh had corrupted his way upon Earth Statutum est omnibus mori and thou art within that generall Statute It is appointed unto all men once to die Anima quae peccaverit ipsa morietur and thou art within that generall Sentence and Judgement Every soul that sinneth shall die The death of the soul. Out of these generall Propositions thou canst not get And when in the same universality there commeth a generall pardon Deus vult omnes slavos God will have all men to be saved Because that Pardon hath in it that Ita quod that condition Omnem filium Hee scâ—urgeth every sonne whom he receiveth wouldst thou lose the benefit of that Adoption that Filiation that Patrimony and Inheritance rather then admit patiently his Fatherly chastisements in the afflictions and tribulations in this life Beloved the death of Christ is given to us as a Hand-writing for when Christ naild that Chirographum that first hand-writing that had passed between the Devill and us to his Crosse he did not leave us out of debt nor absolutely discharged but he laid another Chirographum upon us another Obligation arising out of his death His death is delivered to us as a writing but not a writing onely in the nature of a peece of Evidence to plead our inheritance by but a writing in the nature of a Copy to learne by It is not onely given us to reade but to write over and practise Not onely to tell us what he did but how we should do so too All the evills and mischiefes that light upon us in this world come for the most part from this Quia fruimur utendis because we thinke to injoy those things which God hath given us onely to use God hath given us a use of things and we set our hearts upon them And this hath a proportion an assimilation an accommodation in the death of Christ. God hath proposed that for our use in this world and we think to enjoy it God would have us doe it over again and we think it enough to know that Christ hath done it already God would have us write it and we doe onely read it God would have us practise the death of Christ and we do but understand it The fruition the enjoying of the death of Christ is reserved for the next life To this life belongs the use of it that use of it to fulfill his sufferings in our bodies by bearing the afflictions and tribulations of this life For Priùs Trophaeum Crucis erexit deinde Martyribus tradidit erigendum first Christ set up the victorious Trophee of his Crosse himself and then he delivered it over to his Martyrs to do as he had done Nor are they onely his Martyrs that have actually died for him but into the signification of that name which signifies a Witnesse fall all those who have glorified him in a patient and constant bearing the afflictions and tribulations of this life All being guilty of Christs death there lies an obligation upon us all to fulfill his sufferings And this is the generality of afflictions as we consider them in their own nature Now this generality is next expressed in this word of exaltation Gheber Ego vir I am the man It was that man that is denoted and signified in that name that hath lien under affliction and therefore no kinde of man was likely to scape There are in the Originall Scriptures four words by which man is called four names of man and any of the others if we consider the origination of the words might better admit afflictions to insult upon him then this Gheber vir I am the man At first man is called Ishe a word which their Grammarians derive à sonitu from a sound from a voice Whether mans excellency be in that that he can speak which no other creature can doe or whether mans impotency be in that that he comes into the world Crying in this denomination in this word man is but a sound but a voyce and that is no great matter Another name of man is Adam and Adam is no more but earth and red earth aud the word is often used for blushing When the name of man imports no more but so no more but the frailty of the earth and the bashfull acknowledgement and confession of that frailty in infinite infirmities there is no great hope of scaping afflictions in this name Adam Lesse in his third name Enosh for Enosh signifies aegrum calamitosum a person naturally subject to and actually possest with all kindes of infirmities So that this name of man Enosh is so farre from exempting him as that it involves him it overflows him in afflictions He hath a miserable name as well as a miserable nature Put them in fear O Lord says David that they may know they are but men but such men as are denoted in that name of man Enosh for there that name is expressed weak and miserable men Now to collect these as man is nothing but a frivolous an empty a transitory sound or but a sad and lamentable voice he is no more in his first name Ishe As man is nothing but red earth a moldring clod of infirmities and then blushing that is guilty sensible and ashamed of his own miserable condition and man is
afflictions of Christ and therefore must all fulfill his sufferings in our flesh And then secondly in this name of Exaltation Gheber man in the highest consideration of man is the subject of affliction And lastly in the person of Ieremy in whom we have made our use of those three observations First That no man is so necessary to God as that God cannot be without him Then That no man is excused of future calamities by former And lastly That he whom God hath exercised with afflictions is bound to glorifie God in the declaration thereof shut wee up this branch with that story of S. Ambrose who in a journey from Milan to Rome passing sometime in the evening with his Host and hearing him brag that he had never had any crosse in his life S. Ambrose presently removed from thence to another house with that protestation That either that man was very unthankfull to God that would not take knowledge of his corrections or that Gods measure was by this time full and hee would surely and soundly and suddenly poure down all together And so we passe to our other branch of this first part from the extent and generality of afflictions to the weight and vehemence of them expressed in three heavy circumstances That they are His the Lords That they are from his Rod That they are from the Rod of his wrath I am the man that have seen afflictions by the rod of his mouth First they are aggravated in that they are Ejus His The Lords It is ordinary in the Scriptures that when the Holy Ghost would expresse a superlative or the highest degree of any thing to expresse it by adding to it the name of God So in many places fortitudo Domini and timor Domini The power of the Lord and the fear of the Lord doe not import that power which is in the Lord nor that fear which is to be conceived by us of the Lord but the power of the Lord and the fear of the Lord denote the greatest power and the greatest fear that can be conceived As in particular when Saul and his company were in such a dead sleep as that David could enter in upon them and take his speare and his pot of water from under his head this is there called sopor Domini the sleep of the Lord was upon him the heaviest the deadliest sleep that could be imagined so may these Afflictions in our Text be conceived to bee exalted to a superlative heighth by this addition that They and the Rod and the wrath are said to be His The Lords But this cannot well be the sense nor the direct proceeding and purpose of the Holy Ghost in this place because where the addition of the name of God constitutes a superlative that name is evidently and literally expressed in that place as fortitudo Det sopor Dei and the rest But here the name of God is onely by implication by illation by consequence All necessary but yet but illation but implication but consequence For there is no name of God in this verse but because in the last verse of the former chapter the Lord is expresly named and the Lords Anger and then this which is the first verse of this chapter and connected to that refers these afflictions and rods and wrath to Him The rod of his wrath it must necessarily bee to him who was last spoken of The Lord They are Ejus His and therefore heavy Then is an Affliction properly Gods Affliction when thou in thy Conscience canst impute it to none but God When thou disorderest thy body with a surfeit nature will submit to sicknesse When thou wearest out thy selfe with licentiousnesse the sin it self will induce infirmities when thou transgressest any law of the State the Iustice of the State will lay hold upon thee And for the Afflictions that fall upon thee in these cases thou art able to say to thy selfe that they would have falne upon thee though there had been no God or though God had had no rod about him no anger in him Thou knowest in particular why and by whose or by what means these Afflictions light upon thee But when thou shalt have thy Conscience clear towards such and such men and yet those men shall goe about to oppresse thee when thou labourest uprightly in thy calling and yet doest not prosper when thou studiest the Scriptures hearkenest to Sermons observest Sabbaths desirest conferences and yet receivest not satisfaction but still remainest under the torture of scruples and anxieties when thou art in S. Pauls case Nihili conscius That thou knowest nothing by thy selfe and yet canst not give thy selfe peace Though all Afflictions upon Gods Children be from him yet take knowledge that this is from him more intirely and more immediately and that God remembers something in thee that thou hast forgot And as that fit of an Ague or that pang of the Gout which may take thee to day is not necessarily occasioned by that which thou hast eaten to day but may be the effect of some former disorder so the affliction which lights upon thee in thine age may be inflicted for the sinnes of thy youth Thy affliction is his The Lords And the Lord is infinite and comprehends all at once and ever finds something in thee to correct something that thou hast done or something that thou wouldest have done if the blessing of that correction had not restrained thee And therefore when thou canst not pitch thy affliction upon any particular sinne yet make not thy selfe so just as that thou make God unjust whose Judgements may be unsearchable but they cannot be unjust This then is the first weight that is laid upon our afflictions that they are His The Lords and this weight consists in this That because they are his they are inevitable they cannot be avoyded And because they are His they are certainly just and cannot be pleaded against nor can we ease our selves with any imagination of an innocency as though they were undeserved And the next weight that is laid upon them is that they are In virga ejus in his rod. For though this Metaphore the Rod may seeme to present but an easie correction such as that If thou beat thy childe with a rod be shall not dye It will not kill him yet there is more weight then so in this Rod for the word here is Shebet and Shebet is such a Rod as may kill If a man smite his servant with a Rod so that he dye under his hand he shall be surely punished Beloved whether Gods Rod and his correction shall have the savour of life unto life or of death unto death consists much in the hand that is to receive it and in the stomach that is to digest it As in Gods Temporall blessings that he raines downe upon us it is much in our gathering and inning and spending them whether it shall be frumenti or
expressed that David determined himself or declared his choice of any of the three Hee might conceive a hope that God would forbear all three As when another Prophet Nathan had told him The childe shall surely die yet David said for all that determined assurance Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live and he fasted a fast and mourned and prayed for the childes life Beloved no commination of God is unconditioned or irrevocable But in this case David intimates some kinde of election Let me fall into the hands of the Lord for his mercies are exceeding great and not into the hands of men Susanna when shee was surprised and in a straight too though of another kind she resolves that it is better for her to fall into the hands of men let men defame her let men accuse her condemn her execute her rather then sin in the sight of God and so fall into his hands So that if wee compare offences wee were better offend all the Princes of the earth then offend God because he is able to cast body and soul into hell fire But when the offence is done for the punishment which follows God forgives a treason sooner then thy neighbour will a trespasse God seales thee a Quietus est in the bloud of his Son sooner then a Creditor will renue a bond or withdraw an Action and a Scandalum magnatum will lie longer upon thee here then a blasphemâ— against God in that Court. And therefore as it is one degree of good husbandry in ill husbands to bring all their debts into one hand so doest thou husband thy afflictions well if thou put them all upon thy debts to God and leave out the consideration of Instruments And he shall deale with thee as hee did with David there that plague which was threatned for three days he will end in one In that trouble which if men had had their will upon thee would have consumed thee thou shalt stand unconsumed For if a man wound thee it is not in his power though hee be never so sorry for it whether that wound shall kill thee or no but if the Lord wound thee to death he is the life he can redeem thee from death and if hee doe not he is thy resurrection and recompenses thee with another and a better life And so lies our first comfort that it is Ejus His The Lords And a second is that it is In virga ejus In his rod. Iob would fain have come to a cessation of arms before hee came to a treaty with God Let the Lord take away his rod from me sayes he and let not his fear terrifie me Them would I speak As long as his rod was upon him and his fears terrified him it was otherwise he durst not But truly his feares should not terrifie us though his rod be upon us for herein lies our comfort That all Gods rods are bound up with that mercy which accompanied that rod that God threatned David to exercise upon his son Solemon If he commit iniquity I will chasten him with the rod of men I will let him fall into the hands of men This was heavy Therefore it is eased with that Cordiall But my mercy shall not depart away from him as I took it from Saul But for this mercy the oppressions of men were mercilesse But all Gods rods are bound up with this mercy and therein lies our comfort And for the rods of other men O my people be not afraid of the Assyrian says God Why blessed Lord shalâ— the Assyrian doe thy people no harm yes says God there He shall smite them with a rod and he shall lift up his staffe against them Some harm he shall doe He shall smite them with a rod And he shall threaten more offer at more he shall lift up his staffe where then is the peoples reliefe and comfort In this The Lord of Hosts shall stir up a scourge for him God shall appear in that notion of power The Lord of Hosts and he shall encounter his enemies and the enemies of his friends with a scourge upon them against their rod upon us Gods own rods are bound up in mercy they end in mercy And for the rods of other men God cuts them in pieces and their owners with his sword Gods owne rods even towards his owne Children are sometimes as that rod which he put into Moses hand was chang'd into Serpents Gods owne rods have sometimes a sting and a bitternesse in them but then they are chang'd from their owne nature Naturally Gods roddes towards us are gentle and harmlesse When Gods rod in Moses hand was changed to a Serpent it did no harme that did but devoure the other Serpents when Gods rods are heaviest upon us if they devoure other rods that is enable us to put off the consideration of the malice and oppression of other Men and all displeasure towards them and lay all upon God for our sinnes these serpentine rods have wrought a good effect When Moses his Rod was a Serpent yet it return'd quickly to a Rod againe how bitter so ever Gods corrections be they returne soone to their naturall sweetnesse and though the correction continue the bitternesse does not with this Rod Moses tam'd the Sea and divided that but he drowned none in that Sea but the Aegyptians Gods rod will cut and divide between thy soule and spirit but he will destroy nothing in thee not thy Morality not thy Christianity but onely thine owne Aegyptians thy Persecutors thy concupiscencies But all this while we have but deduced a comfort out of thy Word Quia Virga though that be a rod but this is a comfort Quia Virga therefore because that is a Rod for this word which is here a Rod is also in other places of Scriptures an Instrument not of correction but direction Feed thy sheep with thy Rod saies God and there it is a Pastorall Rod the direction of the Church Virga rectitudinis virgaregni tui saies David The Scepter of thy kingdome is a right Scepter and there its a royall rod the protection of the state so that all comforts that are deriv'd upon us by the direction of the Church and by the protection of the State are recommended to us and conferr'd upon us in this His Rod. Nor is it onely a Rod of comfort by implication and consequence but expresly and literally it is so Though I should walke thorough the valley of the shadow of death I will feare no evill Thy rod and thy staffe they comfort me He had not onely a comfort though he had the rod but he had not had so much comfort except he had had it we have not so good evidence of the joyes of the next life except we have the sorrowes of this The discomfort then lies not in this That the affliction is ejus his the Lords