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
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
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
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
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
the Sacrament and that hath this effect ut sensum minuat in minimis toliat consensum in magnis peccatis That grace that God gives in the Sacrament makes us lesse sensible of small tentations they move us not and it makes us resist and not yeild to the greatest tentations since I am in this state Quomodo inquinubo How shall I defile them The difference will be of whom thou askest this question If thou aske the world the world will tell thee well enough Quomodo How It will tell thee that it is a Melancholy thing to sit thinking upon thy sinnes That it is an unsociable thing to seeke him who cannot be seen an invisible God That it is poore company to passe thy time with a Priest Thou maiest defile thy selfe againe by forgetting thy sinnes and so doing them over againe And thou maist defile thy selfe againe by remembring thy sins and so sinne over thy sinnes againe in a sinfull delight of thy passed sinnes and a desire that thou couldst commit them againe There are answers enough to this Quomodo How how should I defile them if thou aske the world but aske thy Saviour and he shall tell thee That whosoever hath this water shall never thirst more but that water shall be in him an everlasting spring that is he shall find meanes to keep himselfe in that cleannesse to which he is come and neither things present nor things to come shall separate him from the love of God Thus the voice of this religious indignation Quomodo is how is it possible but it is also Quomodo how that is why should I The first is how should I be so base the other how should I be so bold Though I have my pardon written in the bloud of my Saviour sealed to me in his Sacrament brought home to me in the testimony of the holy Ghost pleaded for me at the tribunall of the Father yet as Princes pardons have so Gods pardons have too this clause It a quod se bene gerat He that is pardoned must continue of good behaviour for whensoever he breakes the peace he forfeits his pardon When I returne to my repented sinnes againe I am under the burden of all my former sinnes and my very repentance contracts the nature of a sinne and therefore Quomodo how should I that is why should I defile them To restore you to your liberty and to send you away with the meditation which concernes you most consider what an astonishment this would be that when Christ Jesus shall lay open the great volumes of all your sinnes to your sight who had forgot them and to their sight from whom you had disguised them at the last judgement when you shall heare all the wantonnesses of your youth all the Ambitions of your middle years all the covetous desires of your age published in that presence and thinke then this is the worst that can be said or laid to my charge this is the last indictment and the last evidence there shall follow your very repentances in the list of your sinnes and it shall be told you and all the world then Here and here you deluded that God that forbore to inflict his Judgements upon new vowes new contracts new promises between you and him even your repentances shall bind up that booke and tye your old sinnes and new relapses into one body And let this meditation bring you ad vocem gratulantis to rejoyce once againe in this Lavi pedes that you have now washed your feet in a present sorrow and ad vocem indignantis to a stronger indignation and faster resolution then heretofore you have had never to defile them againe SERMON IX Preached at a Churching MICAH 2. 10. Arise and depart for this is not your Rest. ALL that God asks of us is that we love him with all our heart All that he promises us is that he will give us rest round about us Judah sought the Lord with a whole desire and he gave her rest round about her Now a Man might think himselfe well disposed for Rest when he lies down I will lay me down and sleep in peace sayes David but it is otherwise here Arise and depart for here that is in lying and sleeping is not your Rest sayes this Prophet These words have a three-fold acceptation and admit a three-fold exposition for first they are a Commination the Prophet threatens the Jewes Secondly they are a Commonition the Prophet instructs all future ages Thirdly they areâ—a Consolation which hath reference to the Consummation of all to the rising at the generall Judgement First he foretels the Jewes of their imminent captivity Howsoever you build upon the pactum salis the Covenant of salt the everlasting Covenant that God will be your God and this land your land yet since that confidence sears you up in your sins Arise and depart for this is not your rest your Ierusalem must be chang'd into Babylon there 's the Commination Secondly he warns us who are bedded and bedrid in our sins howsoever you say to your selves Soule take thy rest enjoy the honors the pleasures the abundances of this world Tush the Lord sees it not The Master will not come we may ly still safely and rest in the fruition of this Happinesse yet this Rest will betray you this rest will deliver you over to eternall disquiet And therefore arise and depart for this is not your Rest and that 's the Commonition And in the third acceptation of the words as they may have relation to the Resurrection they may well admit a little inversion Howsoever you feel a Resurrection by grace from the works of death and darknesse in this life yet in this life there is no assurednesse that he that is risen and thinks he stands shall not fall here you arise and depart that is rise from your sins and depart from your sinfull purposes but you arise and depart so too that you fall and depart again into your sinfull purposes after you have risen and therefore Depart and arise for here is not your rest till you depart altogether out of this world and rise to Judgement you can have no such rest as can admit no disquiet no perturbation but then you shall and that 's the Consolation First then as the words concern the Iewes Here is first an increpation a rebuke that they are fallen from their station and their dignity implied in the first word Arise for then they were fallen Secondly here is a demonstration in the same word That though they lik'd that state into which they were fallen which was a security and stubbornnesse in their sins yet they should not enjoy even that security and that stubbornnesse that fall of theirs but they should lose that though it were but a false contentment yet they should be rouâ—'d out of that Arise first arise because you are fallen and then arise though you think your selves at easeâ— by that fall And
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
of rising as some exaltation of his power that he is to Judge And that place in the beginning of that Psalme many of the antients read in the future Dijudicabit God shall judge the Gods because the frame of the Psalme seems to referre it to the last Judgment Turtullian reads it Dijudicavit as a thing past God hath judged in all times and the letter of the text requires it to be in the present Dijudicat Collect all and Judgment is so essentiall to God as that it is coeternall with him he hath he doth and he will judge the world and the Judges of the world other Judges die likemen weakely and they fall that 's worse ignominiously and they fall like Princes that 's worst fearfully and yet scornfully and when they are dead and faln they rise no more to execute Judgment but have Judgment executed upon them the Lord dyes not nor he falls not and if he seem to slumber the Martyrs under the Altar awake him with their Vsque quo Domine how long O Lord before thou execute Iudgment And he will arise and Judge the world for Judgment is his God putteth downe one and setteth up another says David where hath he that power Why God is the Judge not a Judge but the Judge and in that right he putteth downe one and setteth up another Now for this Judgment which we place in God we must consider in God three notions three apprehensions three kinds of Judgment First God hath Iudicium detestationis God doth naturally know and therefore naturally detest evill for no man in the extreamest corruption of nature is yet fallen so far as to love or approve evill at the same time that he knows and acknowledges it to be evill But we are so blind in the knowledge of evill that we needed that great supplement and assistance of the law it self to make us know what was evill Moses magnifies and justly the law Non appropinquâ—vit says Moses God came not so neare to any nation as to the Iews Non taliter fecit God dealt not so well with any nation as with the Iews and wherein because he had given them a law and yet we see the greatest dignity of this law to be That by the law is the knowledge of sinne for though by the law of nature written in our hearts there be some condemnation of some sinnes yet to know that every sinne was Treason against God to know that every sinne hath the reward of death and eternall death annexed to it this knowledge we have onely by the law Now if man will pretend to be a Judge what an exact knowledge of the law is required at his hand for some things are sinne to one nation which are not to another as where the just authority of the lawfull Magistrate changes the nature of the thing and makes a thing naturally indifferent necessary to them who are under his obedience some things are sinnes at one time which are not at another as all the ceremoniall law created new sinnes which were not sinnes before the law was given nor since it expir'd some things are sinnes in a man now which will not be sinnes in the same man to morrow as when a man hath contracted a just scruple against any particular action it is a sinne to doe it during the scruple and it may be sinne in him to omit it when he hath devested the scruple onely God hath Iudicium detestationis he knows and therefore detests evill and therefore flatter not thy self with a Tush God sees it not or Tush God cares not Doth it disquiet him or trouble his rest in heaven that I breake his Sabbath here Doth it wound his body or draw his bloud there that I swear by his body and bloud here Doth it corrupt any of his virgins there that I sollicit the chastity of a woman here Are his Martyrs withdrawn from their Allegeance or retarded in their service to him there because I dare not defend his cause nor speake for him nor fight for him here Beloved it is a degree of superstition and an effect of an undiscreet zeale perchance to be too forward in making indifferent things necessary and so to imprint the nature and sting of sin where naturally it is not so certainly it a more slippery and irreligious thing to be too apt to call things meerely indifferent and to forget that even in eating and drinking waking and sleeping the glory of God is intermingled as if we knew exactly the prescience and foreknowledge of God there could be nothing contingent or casuall for though there be a contingency in the nature of the thing yet it is certain to God so if we considered duly wherein the glory of God might be promov'd in every action of ours there could scarce by any action so indifferent but that the glory of God would turne the scale and make it necessary to me at that time but then private interests and private respects create a new indifferency to my apprehension and calls me to consider that thing as it is in nature and not as it is considered with that circumstance of the glory of God and so I lose that Iudicium detestationis which onely God hath absolutely and perfectly to know and therefore to detest evill and so he is a Judge And as he is a Judge so Iudicat rem he judges the nature of the thing he is so too as he hath Iudicium discretionis and so Iudicat personam he knows what is evill and he discernes when thou committest that evill Here you are fain to supply defects of laws that things done in one County may be tryed in another And that in offences of high nature transmarine offences may be inquir'd and tryed here But as the Prophet says Who measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or meted 〈◊〉 the heavens with a span who comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure or weighed the mountains in a scale So I say who hath divided heaven into shires or parishes or limited the territories and Jurisdictions there that God should not have Iudicium discretionis the power of discerning all actions in all places When there was no more to be seen or considered upon the whole earth but the garden of Paradise for from the beginning Deliciae ejus esse cum filiis hominum Gods delight was to be with the sons of men and man was only there shal we not deminish God nor speak too vulgarly of him to say that he hovered like a Falcon over Paradise and that from that height of heaven the piercing eye of God saw so little a thing as the forbidden fruit and what became of that and the reaching â—are of God heard the hissing of the Serpent and the whispering of the woman and what was concluded upon that Shall we think it little to have seen to have things done in Paradise when there was nothing else to divert
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
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
upon thee and true that God is angry vehemently angry But Expone juststiam irae Dei deal clearly with the world and clear God and confesse it is because of thy sinne When Cain says My sin is greater then can be forgiven that word Gnavon is ambiguous it may bee sinne it may bee punishment and wee know not whether his impatience grew out of the horrour of his sinne or the weight of his punishment But here wee are directed by a word that hath no ambiguity Kata signifies sin and nothing but sinne Here the holy Ghost hath fixed thee upon a word that will not suffer thee to consider the punishment nor the cause of the punishment the anger but the cause of that anger and all the sin Wee see that the bodily sicknesse and the death of many is attributed to one kind of sinne to the negligent receiving of the Sacrament For this cause many are weak and sick amongst you and many sleep Imaginem judicii ostenderat God had given a representation of the day of Judgement in that proceeding of his for then we shall see many men condemned for sinnes for which we never suspected them so wee thinke men dye of Fevers whom we met lately at the Sacrament and God hath cut them off perhaps for that sin of their unworthy receiving the Sacrament My miseries are the fruits of this Tree Gods anger is the arms that spreads it but the root is sin My sin which is another consideration We say of a Possession Transit cum onere It passes to me with the burthen that my Father laid upon it his debt is my debt so does it with the sin too his sin by which he got that possession is my sin if I know it and perchance the punishment mine though I know not the sin Adams sin 6000 years agoe is my sin and their sin that shall sinne by occasion of any wanton writings of mine will be my sin though they come after Wofull riddle sin is but a privation and yet there is not such another positive possession sin is nothing and yet there is nothing else I sinned in the first man that ever was and but for the mercy of God in something that I have said or done might sin that is occasion sin in the last man that ever shall be But that sin that is called my sinne in this text is that that is become mine by an habituall practise or mine by a wilfull relapse into it And so my sin may kindle the anger of God though it bee but a single sinne One sinne as it is delivered here in the singular and no farther Because of my sinne Every man may find in himself Peccatum complicatum sinne wrapped up in sinne a body of sin We bring Elements of our own earth of Covetousnesse water of unsteadfastnesse ayre of putrefaction and fire of licentiousnesse and of these elements we make a body of sinne as the Apostle says of the Naturall body There are many members but one body so we may say of our sin it hath a wanton eye a griping hand an itching ear an insatiable heart and feet swift to shed blood and yet it is but one body of sin It is all â—and yet it is but One But let it be simply and singularly but One which is a miracle in sin truly I think an impossibility in sin to be single to be but One for that unclean Spirit which possessed the man that dwelt amongst the tombs carryed it at first as though he had been a single Devill and he alone in that man I I adjure thee says he to Christ and torment not me not me so far in the singular but when Christ puts him to it he confesses we are many and my name is legion So though thy sinne slightly examined may seem but One yet if thou dare presse it it will confesse a plurality a legion if it be but One yet if that One be made thine by an habituall love to it as the plague needs not the help of a Consumption to kill thee so neither does Adultery need the help of Murder to damn thee For this making of any One sin thine thine by an habituall love thereof will grow up to the last and heaviest waight intimated in that phrase which is also in this clause of the Text In facie paccati that this sin will have a face that is a confidence and a devesting of all 〈◊〉 or disguises There cannot bee a heavier punishment laid upon any sinne then Christ lays upon scandall It were better for him a mil-stone were hanged about his neck and hee drowned in the Sea If something worse then such a death belong to him surely it is eternall Death And this this eternall death is interminated by Christ in cases where there is not always sinne in the action which wee doe but if we doe any action so as that it may scandalize another or occasion sin in him we are bound to study and favour the weaknesse of other men and not to doe such things as they may think sins We must prevent the mis-interpretation yea the malice of other men for though the fire be theirs the fewell or at least the â—ellows is ours The uncharitablenesse the malice is in them but the awaking and the stirring thereof is in our carelesnesse who were not watchfull upon our actions But when an action comes to be sin indeed and not onely occasionally sin because it scandalizes another but really sin in it selfe then even the Poet tels you Maxima debetur pueris reverentia si quid Tâ—rpe paras Take heed of doing any sinne in the sight of thy Child for if we break through that wall we shall come quickly to that faciâ—m Sacerdotis non erubuerunt they will not be afraid nor ashamed in the presence of the Priest they will look him in the face nay receive at his hands and yet sin their sinne that minute in their hearts and to that also faciem seniorum non erubuerunt they will not be afraid nor ashamed of the Office of the Magistrate but sin for nothing or sin at a price bear out or buy out all their sins They sin as Sodom and bide it not is the highest charge that the Holy Ghost could lay upon the sinner When they come to say Our lips are ours who is Lord ever us They will say so of their hands and of all their bodies They are ours who shall forbid us to doe what wee will with them And what lack these open sinners of the last judgement and the condemnation therof That judgement is that men shall stand naked in the sight of one another and all their sinnes shall be made manifest to all and this open sinner does so and chuses to doe so even in this world When David prays so devoutly to be cleansed from his secret sins and Saint Paul glories so devoutly in having renounced the
hidden things of dishonesty how great a burthen is there in these open and avowed sins sins that have put on so brasen a face as to out-face the Minister and out-face the Magistrate and call the very Power and Justice of God in question whether he do hate or can punish a sinne for they doe what they can to remove that opinion out of mens hearts Truly as an Hypocrite at Church may doe more good then a devout man in his Chamber at home be cause the Hypocrites outward piety though counterfeit imprints a good example upon them who doe not know it to bee counterfeit and wee cannot know that he that is absent from Church now is now at his prayers in his Chamber so a lesser sinne done with an open avowment and confidence may more prejudice the Kingdome of God then greater in secret And this is that which may be principally intended or atleast usefully raised our of this phrase of the Holy Ghost in David A facie peccati that the habituall sinner comes to sin not onely with a negligence who know it but with a glorious desire that all the world might know it and with a shame that any such Iudge as feared not God nor regarded man should be more feareless of God or regardless of man then he But now beloved when we have laid man thus low Miserable because Man and then Diseased and that all over without any soundnesse even in his whole substance in his flesh and in the height of this disease Restlesse too and Restlesse even in his bones diffident in his strongest assurances And when we have laid him lower then that made him see the Cause of all this misery to be the Anger of God the inevitable anger of an incensed God and such an anger of God as hath a face a manifestation a reality and not that God was angry with him in a Decree before he shewed man his face in the Law and saw Mans face in the transgression of the law And laid him lower then that too made him see the cause of this anger as it is sinne so to be his sinne sinne made his by an habituall love thereof which though it may be but one yet is become an out-facing sinne a sinne in Contempt and confidence when we have laid Man laid you thus low in your own eyes we returne to the Canon and rule of that Physician whom they call Evangelist aâ—â— medicinae the Evangelist of Physique Sit intentio prima in omni medicina comfâ—rtare whether the physician purge or lance or sear his principall care and his end is to comfort and strengthen so though we have insisted upon Humane misery and the cause of that the anger of God and the cause of that anger sinne in that excesse yet we shall dismisse you with that Consolation which was first in our intention and shall be our conclusion that as this Text hath a personall aspect upon David alone and therefore we gave you hit case and then a generall retrospect upon Adam and all in him and therefore we gave you your own case so it hath also an Evangelicall prospect upon Christ and therefore for your comfort and as a bundle of Myrrhe in your bosomes we shall give you his case too to whom these words belong as well as to Adam or David or you There is no soundnesse in my flesh because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sinne If you will see the miseries of Man in their exaltation and in their accumulation too in their weight and in their number take them in the Ecce home when Christ was presented from Pilate scourged and scorned Ecce home behold man in that man in the Prophets They have reproched the feetsteps of thine Anointed says David slandred his actions and conversation He hath no form nor comlinesse nor beauty that we should desire to see him says Esay Despised rejected of men A man of sorrows and acquainted with griefes And Ecce homo behold man in that man in the whole history of the Gospell That which is said of us of sinfull men is true in him the salvation of men from the sole of the foot even unto the Head there is no soundnesse but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores That question will never receive answer which Christ askes Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow Never was never will there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow because there can never be such a person to suffer sorrow Affliction was upon him and upon all him for His soule was heavy unto death Even upon his Bones fire was sent into his bones and it prevailed against him And the highest cause of this affliction was upon him the anger of God The Lord had afflicted him in the day of his fierce anger The height of Gods anger is Dereliction and he was brought to his Vt quid dereliquisti My God my God why hast thou forsaken me We did esteem him striken of the Lord says Esay And we were not deceived in it Percutiam pastorem says Christ himselfe of himselfe out of the Prophet I will smite the shepheard and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered And then the cause of this anger sinne was so upon him as that though in one consideration the raine was upon all the world and onely this fleece of Gedeon dry all the world surrounded with sinne and onely He innocent yet in another line we finde all the world dry and onely Gedeons fleece wet all the world innoceâ— and onely Christ guilty But as there is a Verè tulit and a Verè portavit surely he bore those griefes and surely he carried those sorrows so they were Verè nostri surely he hath borne our griefes and carried our sorrows he was wounded for our transgressioâ—â— and bruised for our iniquitles The Chastisement of our peace was upon him 〈◊〉 â—efore it must necessarily follow as it does follow there with his stripes wee 〈◊〉 for God will not exact a debt twice of Christ for me and of me too 〈◊〉 therefore Quare moriemini Domus Israel since I have made ye of the houshold â— of Israel why will ye die since ye are recovered of your former sicknesses why will die of a new disease of a suspicion or jealousie that this recovery this redemption in Christ Iesus belongs not to you Will ye say It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands Dei viventis of the living God 'T is so a fearfull thing But if Deâ—s mortuus the God of life bee but dead for mee be fallen into my hands applied to mee made mine it is no fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Non sat is est medicum fecisse suum officium nisi agrotus adstantes sua It is not enough for Christ Jesus to have prepared you the balm of his bloud
choice whether hee should pardon me all those actuall and habituall sins which I have committed in my life or extinguish Originall sinne in me I should chuse to be delivered from Originall sin because though I be delivered from the imputation thereof by Baptism so that I shall not fall under a condemnation for Originall sin onely yet it still remains in me and practises upon me and occasions all the other sins that I commit now for all my actuall and habituall sins I know God hath instituted meanes in his Church the Word and the Sacraments for my reparation But with what a holy alacrity with what a heavenly joy with what a cheerfull peace should I come to the participation of these meanes and seals of my reconciliation and pardon of all my sins if I knew my selfe to be delivered from Originall sinne from that snake in my bosome from that poyson in my blood from that leaven and tartar in all my actions that casts me into Relapses of those sins which I have repented And what a cloud upon the best serenity of my conscience what an interruption what a dis-continuance from the sincerity and integrity of that joy which belongs to a man truly reconciled to God in the pardon of his former sins must it needs be still to know and to know by lamentable experiences that though I wash my selfe with Soap and Nitâ—e and Snow water mine own cloathes will defile me again though I have washed my selfe in the tears of Repentance and in the blood of my Saviour though I have no guiltinesse of any former sin upon me at that present yet I have a sense of a root of sin that is not grub'd up of Originall sinne that will cast me back again Scarce any man considers the weight the oppression of Originall sinne No man can say that an Akorn weighs as much as an Oak yet in truth there is an Oak in that Akorn no man considers that Originall sinne weighs as much as Actuall or Habituall yet in truth all our Actuall and Habituall sins are in Originall Therefore Saint Pauls vehement and frequent prayer to God to that purpose could not deliver him from Originall sin and that stimulus carnis that provocation of the flesh that Messenger of Satan which rises out of that God would give him sufficient grace it should not worke to his destruction but yet he should have it Nay the infinite merit of Christ Jesus himself that works so upon all actuall and habituall sins as that after that merit is applyed to them those sins are no sins works not so upon Originall sin but that though I be eased in the Dominion and Imputation thereof yet the same Originall sin is in me still and though God doe deliver me from eternall death due to mine actuall and habituall sins yet from the temporall death due to Originall sin he delivers not his dearest Saints Thus sin is heavy in the seed in the grain in the akorn how much more when it is a field of Corn a barn of grain a forest of Oaks in the multiplication and complication of sin in sin And yet wee consider the weight of sin another way too for as Christ feels all the afflictions of his children so his children will feel all the wounds that are inflicted upon him even the sins of other men as Lots righteous soule was grieved with sins of others If others sin by my example provocation or by my connivence and permission when I have authority their sin lies heavyer upon me then upon themselves for they have but the weight of their own sinne and I have mine and theirs upon me and though I cannot have two souls to suffer and though there cannot be two everlastingnesses in the torments of hell yet I shall have two measures of those unmeasurable torments upon my soul. But if I have no interest in the sins of other men by any occasion ministred by me yet I cannot chuse but feel a weight a burthen of a holy anguish and compassion and indignation because every one of these sins inflict a new wound upon my Saviour when my Saviour says to him that does but injure me Why persecutest thou me and feels the blow upon himselfe shall not I say to him that wounds my Saviour Why woundest thou me and groane under the weight of my brothers sin and my Fathers my Makers my Saviours wound If a man of my blood or allyance doe a shamefull act I am affected with it If a man of my calling or profession doe a scandalous act I feel my self concerned in his fault God hath made all mankinde of one blood and all Christians of one calling and the sins of every man concern every man both in that respect that I that is This nature is in that man that sins that sin and I that is This nature is in that Christ who is wounded by that sin The weight of sin were it but Originall sin were it but the sins of other men is an insupportable weight But if a sinner will take a true balance and try the right weight of sin let him goe about to leave his sin and then he shall see how close and how heavily it stook to him Then one sin will lay the weight of seelinesse of falshood of inconstancy of dishonour of ill nature if you goe about to leave it and another sin will lay the weight of poverty of disestimation upon you if you goe about to leave it One sin will lay your pleasures upon you another your profit another your Honour another your Duty to wife and children and weigh you down with these Goe but out of the water goe but about to leave a sin and you will finde the weight of it and the hardnesse to cast it off Gravatae sunt Mine iniquities are heavy that was our first and gravatae nimis they are too heavy which is a second circumstance Some weight some balast is necessary to make a ship goe steady we are not without advantage in having some sinne some concupiscence some tentation is not too heavy for us The greatest sins that ever were committed were committed by them who had no former sinne to push them on to that sin The first Angels sin and the sin of Adam are noted to be the most desperate and the most irrecoverable sins and they were committed when they had no former sin in them The Angels punishment is pardoned in no part Adams punishment is pardoned in no man in this world Now such sins as those that is sins that are never pardoned no man commits now not now when he hath the weight of former sins to push him on Though there be a heavy guiltinesse in Originall sin yet I have an argument a plea for mercy out of that Lord my strength is not the strength of stones nor my flesh brasse Lord no man can bring a clean thing out of uncleannesse Lord no man can say after I have
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
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
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
to others to thy self And then by our Commission we cry out to you to make streight his paths In which we do not require that you should absolutely rectifie all the deformities and crookednesse which that Tortuositas Serpentis the winding of the old Serpent hath brought you to for now the streame of our corrupt nature is accustomed to that crooked channell and we cannot divert that we cannot come to an absolute directnesse and streightnesse and profession in this life and in this place the holy Ghost speaks but of a way a path not of our rest in the end but of our labour in the way Our Commission then is not to those sinlesse men that think they have nothing for God to forgive But when we bid you make streight his paths as before we directed you to take knowledge what his wayes towards others had been so here we intend that you should observe which is the Lords path into you by what way he comes oftnest into you who are his Temple and do not lock that doore do not pervert do not crosse do not deface that path The ordinary way even of the holy Ghost for the conveying of faith and supernaturall graces is as the way of worldly knowledge is by the senses where his way is by the care by hearing his word preached do not thou crosse that way of his by an inordinate delight in hearing the eloquence of the preacher for so thou hearest the man and not God and goest thy way and not his God hath divers wayes into divers men into some he comes at noone in the sunshine of prosperity to some in the dark and heavy clouds of adversity Some he affects with the musick of the Church some with some particular Collect or Prayer some with some passage in a Sermon which takes no hold of him that stands next him Watch the way of the Spirit of God into thee that way which he makes his path in which he comes oftnest to thee and by which thou findest thy self most affected and best disposed towards him and pervert not that path foule not that way Make streight his paths that is keepe them streight and when thou observest which is his path in thee by what means especially he workes upon thee meet him in that path embrace him in those meanes and alwayes bring a facile a fusil a ductile a tractable soule to the offers of his grace in his way Our Commission reaches to the exalting of your valleys Let every valley be exalted In which we bid you not to raise your selves in this world to such a spirituall heighth as to have no regard to this world to your bodies to your fortunes to your families Man is not all soule but a body too and as God hath married them together in thee so hath he commanded them mutuall duties towards one another and God allowes us large uses of temporall blessings and of recreations too To exalt valleyes is not to draw up flesh to the heighth of spirit that cannot be that should not be done But it is to draw you so much towards it as to consider and consider with an application that the very Law which was but the schoolmaster to the Gospell was given upon a mountaine That Moses could not so much as see the Land of promise till he was brought up into a mountaine That the inchoation of Christ glory which was his transfiguration was upon a mountaine That his conversation with God in prayer That his returne to his eternall Kingdom by his ascension was so too from a mountaine even his exinanition his evacuation his lowest humiliation his crucifying was upon a mountaine and he calls even that humiliation an exaltation Si exaltatus If I be exalted lifted up sayes Christ signifying what death he should die Now if our depressions our afflictions be exaltations so they were to Christ so they are to every good Christian how far doth God allow us an exalting of our vallies in a considering with a spirituall boldnesse the heighth and dignity of mankind and to what glory God hath created us Certainly man may avoid as many sinnes by this exalting his vallies this considering the heighth and dignity of his nature as by the humblest meditations in the world For upon those words of Iob Manus tuae fecerunt me Saint Gregory says Misericordiae judicis dignitatem suae conditionis opponit Iob presents the dignity of his creation by the hand of God as an inducement why God should regard him It is not his valley but his mountaines that he brings into Gods sight not that dust which God took into his hands when he made him but that person which the hands of God had made of that dust Man is an abridgement of all the world and as some Abridgements are greater then some other authors so is one man of more dignity then all the earth And therefore exalt thy vallies raise thy selfe above the pleasures that this earth can promise And above the sorrowes it can threaten too A painter can hardly diminish or contract an Elephant into so little a forme but that that Elephant when it is at the least will still be greater then an Ant at the life and the greatest Sinne hath diminished man shrowdly and brought him into a narrower compasse but yet his naturall immortality his soule cannot dye and his spirituall possibility even to the last gaspe of spending that immortality in the kingdome of glory and living for ever with God for otherwise our immortality were the heaviest part of our curse exalt this valley this cold of earth to a noble heighth How ill husbands then of this dignity are we by sinne to forfeit it by submitting our selves to inferior things either to gold then which every worme because a worme hath life and gold hath none is in nature more estimable and more precious Or to that which is lesse then gold to Beauty for there went neither labour nor study nor cost to the making of that the Father cannot diet himselfe so nor the mother so as to be sure of a faire child but it is a thing that hapned by chance wheresoever it is and as there are Diamonds of divers waters so men enthrall themselves in one clime to a black in another to a white beauty To that which is lesse then gold or Beauty voice opinion fame honour we sell our selves And though the good opinion of good men by good ways be worth our study yet popular applause and the voice of inconsiderate men is too cheape a price to set our selves at And yet it is hardly got too for as a ship that lies in harbour within land sometimes needs most of the points of the Compasse to bring her forth so if a man surrender himselfe wholly to the opinion of other men and have not his Criterium his touchstone within him he will need both North and South all the points of the
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
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