a Lamb that is but with any reluctation But God knows that may have been accompanied with a dangerous damp and stupefaction and insensibility of his present state Our blessed Saviour admitted colluctations with Death and a sadnesse even in his Soul to death and an agony even to a bloody sweat in his body and expostulations with God and exclamations upon the Crosse He was a devout man who upon his death-bed or death-turse for he was an Hermit said Septuaginta annis domino servivisti mori times Hast thou serv'd a good Master threescore and ten yeeres Hilarion and now art thou loth to goe into his presence yet Hilarion was loath He was a devoure man an Hermite that said that day that he died Cogitate hodie coepisse servire Domino Barlaam hodie finiturum Consider this to be the first days service that ever thou didst thy Master to gloryfie him in a christianly and constant death and if thy first day be thy last day too how soone dost thou come to receive thy wages yet Barlaam could have beene content to have stayed longer for it Make no ill conclusion upon any man's lothnesse to die And then upon violent deaths inflicted as upon malefactors Christ himself hath forbidden us by his own death to make any ill conclusion for his own death had those impressions in it he was reputed he was executed as a Malefactor and no doubt many of them who concurred to his death did beleeve him to be so Of sodain deaths there are scarce examples to be found in the Scriptures upon good men for death in battail cannot be called sodain death But God governs not by examples but by rules and therefore make no ill conclusions upon sodain-Death nor upon distempers neyther though perchance accompanied with some words of diffidence and distrust in the mercies of God The Tree lies as it falls 'T is true but yet it is not the last stroke that fells the Tree nor the last word nor last gaspe that qualifies the Soule Still pray we for a peaceable life against violent deaths and for time of Repentance against sodaine Deaths and for sober and modest assurance against dâ—stemper'd and diffident Deaths but never make ill conclusâ—ion upon persons overtaken with such Deaths Domini Domini sunt exitus Mortis To God the Lord belong the issues of Death and he received Samson who went out of this world in such a manner consider it actively consider it passively in his own death and in those whom he slew with himself as was subject to interpretation hard enough yet the holy-Ghost hath mov'd Saâ—nt Paul to celebrate Samson in his great Catalogue and so doth all the Church Heb. 11. Our Criticall day is not the very day of our death but the whole course of our life I thank him that prayes for me when my bell tolls but I thank him much more that Carechises me or preaches to me or instructs me how to live fac hoc vives There 's my security The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it Doe this and thou shalt live But though I doe it yet I shall die too dy a bodily a naturall death but God never mentions never seems to consider that death the bodily the naturall death God doth not say Live well and thou shalt die well well that is an easy a quiet death but live well here and thou shalt live well for ever As the first part of a Sentence peeces well with the last and never respects never hearkens after the parenthesis that comes between so doth a good life here flow into an eternall life without any consideration what manner of death we die But whether the gate of my prison be opened with an oyl'd key by a gentle and preparing sicknesse or the gate be hew'd down by a violent death or the gate be burnt down by a rageing and frantick feaver a gate into Heaven I shall have for from the Lord is the course of my life and with God the Lord are the issues of death And farther we carry not this second acceptation of the words as this issue of death is liberatio in morte God's care that the Soule be safe what agonie soever the body suffer in the houre of death but passe to our third and last Part as this issue of death is liberatio per mortem a deliverance by the death of another by the death of Christ Part. 3. Liberatio per mortem SufferentiaÌ„ Job audiâ—stis judistis fineÌ„ Domini saies S. Ja. 5.11 You have heard of the patience of Job saies he All this while you have done that for in every man calamitous miserable man a Job speaks Now see the end of the Lord saith that Apostle which is not that end which the Lord proposed to himself Salvation to us nor the end which he proposes to us conformity to him but See the end of the Lord saies he the end that the Lord himself came to Death and a painfull and a shamefull death But why did he die and why die so Quia Domini Domini sunt exitus Mortis as Saint Augustine interpreting this Text De Civit. Dei l. 17. c. 18. answers that question because to this God our Lord belong'd these issues of Death Quid apertius diceretur sayes he there what can be more obvious more manifest then this sense of these words In the former part of the verse it is said He that is our God is the God of Salvation Deus salvos faciendi so he reads it The God that must save us Who can that be saith he but Jesus For therefore that name was given him because he was to save us And to this Jesus saith he Mat. 1.21 this Saviour belongs the issues of Death Nec oportuit cum de hac vita alios exitus habere quam mortis Being come into this life in our mortall nature he could not goe out of it any other way then by Death Ideo dictum saith he therefore is it said To God the Lord belong the issues of Death Ut ostenderetur moriendo nos salvos facturum to shew that his way to save us was to die And from this Text doth Saint Isiodore prove that Christ was truly man which as many Sects of Hereticks denied as that he was truly God because to him though he were Dominus Dominus as the Text doubles it God the Lord yet to him to God the Lord belong'd the issues of Death Oportuit cum pati more cannot be said then Christ himself saith of himself These Luk. 24.26 things Christ ought to suffer He had no other way but by Death So then this part of our Sermon must necessarily be a Passion Sermon since all his life was a continuall Passion all our Lent may well be a continual good-Friday Christ's painfull Life took off none of the pains of his Death he felt not the lesse then for having felt so much before nor will
The knowledge of God was manifested often in the Prophets he foretold therefore he foresaw His Wisdome was manifested often in frustrating all Councels of all Achitophels against him And his power was manifested often In the water consider it at least in the Red sea and in Pharaoh if you will bring it no nearer home And in the Fire consider it at least in the fiery Furnace if you will bring it no nearer home His Knowledge his Wisdome his Power his Mercy his Justice all his Attributes are alwayes manifested in all his works But Deus in carne that the person of God God himself should be manifested and manifested in our flesh Areopag Ineffabile omni sermoni omni ignotum intelligentiae ipse Angelorum primati non agnitum And if the Primate of the Angels the highest orders of them that stand in Gods sight know it not if no understanding were able to conceive it that had all the refinings and concoction that study and speculation and zeal to be vir desideriorum as the Angel said to Daniel a man that desired to dwell upon the meditation of his God could give must not I who always come with Moses uncircumcised lips not to speak perswasively and alwayes with Jeremies defect Puer sum nescio loqui not to speak plainly come now with Zachary's dumbness not to speak at all in this Mystery But hearkning to that which he who onely knew this Mystery hath said Verbum Caro factum est The word was made flesh And Deus manifestatus in carne God was manifested in the flesh rest my self in his Word and pray you in Christs stead to doe so too in this and all Mysteries of your Religion to rest upon the onely Word of God for in this particular it is nor mis-grounded Fulgent nor mis-collected by him that sayes Omnes pene errores almost all Errours have proceeded out of this that this great Mystery that God was manifested in the flesh Aut non omnino aut non sicuti est creditum is either not at all or not aright believed The Jews believe it not at all and to them Tertullian sayes enough Tertul. Since out of their Prophets they confess that when the Messias shall be manifested they must for a time suffer many calamities in this world if their Messias should be manifested now sayes he what could they suffer They say they must suffer banishment Et ubi dispersio gentis quae jam extorris whither shall that Nation be banish'd which is already in banishment and dispersion Redde statum Judaeis let the Jews shew me a State a Kingdom a Common-wealth a Government Magistrates Judicatures Merchandise and Armies let them shew something to loose for a Messias and then let them look for a Messias The Jewes are within the non omnino they believe not this Mystery at all And then for the non sicut est for the not believing it aright as the old Valentinians are renewed in the Anabaptists for both deny that Christ took flesh of the Virgin so the old Manichaeans are not renewed but exceeded in the Transubstantiators for they said the body of Christ was left in one place in the Sun these say it is upon as many Tables and in as many Boxes as they will But whether the manifestation of God in the flesh were referred to the Incarnation of Christ or to his Declaration when the wise men of the East came to see him at Bethleem whether when it was done or when it was declared to be done hath admitted a question because the Western Church hath call'd that day of their coming to him the Epiphany and Epiphany is Manifestation Then therefore is God manifested to us when as these wise men offer'd their Myrrhe and Frankincense we offer the Sacrifice of Prayer and as they offer'd their Gold we offer our temporall wealth for the glory of Christ Jesus And when the love of him corrects in thee the intemperances of adorning thy flesh of pampering thy flesh of obeying thy flesh then especially is this Epiphany God is manifested in the flesh in thy flesh Now when he was manifested in the flesh Justificat in spirit Rom. 8.3 it behooved him to be justified in the spirit for he came in similitudinem carnis peccati they took him for a sinner and they saw him converse with sinners for any thing they could see it might have been Caro peccati sinfull flesh and they saw enough to make them sure that it was Caro mortis mortall flesh Though he were Panis de coelo Bread from Heaven yet himself was hungry and though he were fons perennis an everlasting spring yet himself was thirsty though he were Deus totius consolationis the God of all comfort 2 Cor. 13. yet his soul was heavy unto death and though he were Dominus vitae the Lord of Life yet Death had dominion over him When therefore Christ was manifested in the flesh flesh subject to Death Death which was the reward of Sin and would take upon him to forgive sins it behooved him to be extraordinarily justified extraordinarily declared to the world and so he was he was justified in Spiritu in the Spirit first in Spiritu Sancto in the Spirit in the Holy Ghost both when the Holy Ghost was sent to him and when the Holy Ghost was sent by him from him The Holy Ghost was sent to him in his Baptisme and he tarried upon him Christ was not a Christian is not justified by one accesse one visitation one approach of the Holy Ghost not by one religious act it is a permanency a perseverance that justifies that foolishness and that fascination as the Apostle calls it that Witchcraft which he imputes to the Galatians is not so worn out but that there are foolish and bewitched Galatians still that begun in the Spirit and will be made perfect in the Flesh that receiv'd their Christianity in one Church and attend a confirmation a better state in a worse Christ was justified by the Holy Ghost when the Holy Ghost came to him so he was when he came from him at Pentecost upon his Apostles and then he came in Tongues and fiery Tongues Christ was not a Christian is not justified in silence but in declarations and open professions in tongues and not in dark and ambiguous speeches nor infinite and retractable speeches but in fiery tongues fiery that is fervent fiery that is clear He was justified so a Spiritu Sancto and so he was a Spiritu suo by his own Spirit not onely in that protestation of his Who can accuse me of any sin for S. Paul could say that he was unreproachable in the sight of men and yet he could not chuse but say Quorum ego maximus that he was the greatest sinner of all men I were a miserable man if I could accuse Christ of no sin if I could not prove all my sins his I were under a heavy condemnation But
his people purposely to be afflicted yet himself complains in their behalf That the persecutor laid the very heaviest yoke upon the ancient Esa 47.6 It is a lamentable thing to fall under a necessity of suffering in our age Basil Labore fracta instrumenta ad Deum ducis quorum nullus usus wouldest thou consecrate a Chalice to God that is broken no man would present a lame horse a disordered clock a torn book to the King Caro jumentum thy body is thy beast Aug. and wilt thou present that to God when it is lam'd and tir'd with excesse of wantonness when thy clock the whole course of thy time is disordered with passions and perturbations when thy book the history of thy life is torn 1000. sins of thine own torn out of thy memory wilt thou then present thy self thus defac'd and mangled to almighty God Basil Temperantia non est temperantia in senectute sed impotentia incontinentiae chastity is not chastity in an old man but a desability to be unchast and therefore thou dost not give God that which thou pretendest to give for thou hast no chastity to give him Senex bis puer but it is not bis juvenis an old man comes to the infirmities of childhood again but he comes not to the strength of youth again Do this then In diebus juventutis in thy best strength Electionum and when thy natural facuties are best able to concur with grace but do it In diebus electionum in the dayes when thou hast thy hearts desire for if thou have worn out this word in one sense that it be too late now to remember him in the dayes of youth that 's spent forgetfully yet as long as thou art able to make a new choise to chuse a new sin that when thy heats of youth are not overcome but burnt out then thy middle age chooses ambition and thy old age chooses covetousness as long as thou art able to make thy choice thou art able to make a better than this God testifies that power that he hath given thee I call heaven and earth to record this day Deut. 30.19 that I have set before you life and death choose life If this choice like you not Jos 24.15 If it seem evil unto you to serve the the Lord saith Josuah then choose ye this day whom ye will serve Here 's the election day bring that which ye would have Serm. 18. into comparison with that which ye should have that is all that this world keeps from you with that which God offers to you and what will ye choose to prefer before him for honor and favor and health and riches perchance you cannot have them though you choose them but can you have more of them than they have had to whom those very things have been occasions of ruin The Market is open till the bell ring till thy last bell ring the Church is open grace is to be had there but trust not upon that rule that men buy cheapest at the end of the market that heaven may be had for a breath at last when they that hear it cannot tel whether it be a sigh or a gasp a religious breathing and anhelation after the next life or natural breathing out and exhalation of this but find a spiritual good husbandry in that other rule that the prime of the market is to be had at first for howsoever in thine age there may be by Gods strong working Dies juventutis A day of youth in making thee then a new creature for as God is antiquissimus dierum so in his school no man is super-annated yet when age hath made a man impotent to sin this is not Dies electionum it is not a day of choice but remember God now when thou hast a choice that is a power to advance thy self or to oppress others by evil means now in die electionum in those thy happy and sun-shine dayes remember him Creatorem This is then the faculty that is excited the memory and this is the time now now whilest we have power of election The object is the Creator Remember the Creator First because the memory can go no farther then the creation and therefore we have no means to conceive or apprehend any thing of God before that When men therefore speak of decrees of reprobation decrees of condemnation before decrees of creation this is beyond the counsail of the holy Ghost here Memento creatoris Remember the Creator for this is to remember God a condemner before he was a creator This is to put a preface to Moses his Genesis not to be content with his in principio to know that in the beginning God created heaven and earth but we must remember what he did ante principium before any such beginning was Moses his in principio that beginning the creation we can remember but St. Johns in principio that beginning eternity we cannot we can remember Gods fiat in Moses but not Gods erat in St. John what God hath done for us is the object of our memory not what he did before we were and thou hast a good and perfect memory if it remember all that the holy Ghost proposes in the Bible and it determines in the memento Creatoris There begins the Bible and there begins the Creed I believe in God the Father maker of Heaven and Earth Jâ— 7.39 for when it is said The holy Ghost was not given because Jesus was not glorified it is not truly Non erat datus but non erat for non erat nobis antequam operaretur It is not said there the holy Ghost was not given but it is the holy Ghost was not for he is not that is he hath no being to us ward till he works in us which was first in the creation Remember the Creator then Serm. 19. because thou canst remember nothing backward beyond him and remember him so too that thou maist stick upon nothing on this side of him That so neither height Ro. 8. ult nor depth nor any other creature may separate thee from God not only not separate thee finally but not separate so as to stop upon the creature but to make the best of them thy way to the Creator We see ships in the river but all their use is gone if they go not to sea we see men fraighted with honor and riches but all their use is gone if their respect be not upon the honor and glory of the Creator and therefore sayes the Apostle Let them that suffer 1 Peâ— 4. ult commit their souls to God as to a faithful Creator that is He made them and therefore will have care of them This is the true contracting and the true extending of the memory to Remember the Creator and stay there because there is no prospect farther and to Remember the Creator and get thither because there is no safe footing upon the
God and live in his fear to be mercinarij per laborem to be the workmen of God and labour in his Vineyard to be filij per lavacrum to be the sons of God and preserve that Inheritance which was sealed to us at first in Baptism and last of all Amici per virtutem by the good use of his gifts the King of Kings shall be our friend That which he said to his Apostles his Spirit shall say to our spirit here and seal it to us for a Covenant of Salt an everlasting John 15.14 an irrevocable Covenant Henceforth call I you not servants but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my Father have I made known unto you And the fruition of this friendship which neither slackens in all our life nor ends at our death the Lord of Life for the death of his most innocent Son afford to us all Amen A Serm. 25. SERMON Preached at the SPITTLE Vpon Easter-Munday 1662. SERMON XXV 2 Cor. 4.6 For God who commanded light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ THe first Book of the Bible begins with the beginning In principio says Moses in Genesis In the beginning God created heaven and earth and can there be any thing prius principio before the beginning Before this beginning there is The last Book of the Bible in the order as they were written the Gospel of St. John begins with the same word too In principio says St. John In the beginning was the Word and here Novissimum primum the last beginning is the first St. John's beginning before Moses Moses speaking but of the Creature and St. John of the Creator and of the Creator before he took that name before he came to the act of Creation as the Word was with God and was God from all Eternity Our present Text is an Epitome of both those beginnings of the first beginning the Creation when God commanded light to shine out of darkness and of the other beginning which is indeed the first of Him in whose face we shall have the knowledge of the glory of God Christ Jesus The first Book of the Bible is a Revelation and so is the last in the order as they stand a Revelation too To declare a production of all things out of nothing which is Moses his work that when I do not know and care not whether I know or no what so contemptible a Creature as an Ant is made of but yet would fain know what so vast and so considerable a thing as an Elephant is made of I care not for a mustard seed but I would fain know what a Cedar is made of I can leave out the consideration of the whole Earth but would be glad to know what the Heavens and the glorious bodies in the Heavens Sun Moon and Stars are made of I shall have but one answer from Moses for all that all my Elephants and Cedars and the Heavens that I consider were made of nothing that a Cloud is as nobly born as the Sun in the Heavens and a begger as nobly as the King upon Earth if we consider the great Grand-father of them all to be nothing to produce light of darkness thus is a Revelation a Manifestation of that which till then was not this Moses does St. John's is a Revelation too a Manifestation of that state which shall be and be for ever after all those which were produced of nothing shall be return'd and ressolv'd to nothing again the glorious state of the everlasting Jerusalem the Kingdom of Heaven Now this Text is a Revelation of both these Revelations the first state that which Moses reveals was too dark for man to see for it was nothing The other that which St. John reveals is too bright too dazling for man to look upon for it is no one limited determined Object but all at once glory and the seat and fountain of all glory the face of Christ Jesus The Holy Ghost hath shewed us both these severally in Moses and in St. John and both together in St. Paul in this Text where as the Sun stands in the midst of the Heavens and shews us both the Creatures that are below it upon Earth and the Creatures that are above it the Stars in Heaven so St. Paul as he is made an Apostle of the Gentiles stands in the midst of this Text God hath shin'd in our hearts Ours as we are Apostolical Ministers of the Gospel and he shows us the greatness of God in the Creation which was before when God commanded light out of darkness and the goodness of God which shall be hereafter when he shall give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus So that this Text giving light by which we see light commanded by God out of darkness and the Object which we are to see the knowledge of the glory of God and this Object being brought within a convenient distance to be seen in the face of Jesus Christ And a fit and well-disposed Medium being illumin'd through which we may see it God having shin'd in our hearts established a Ministry of the Gospel for that purpose if you bring but eyes to that which this Text brings Light and Object and Distance and Means then as St. Basil said of the Book of Psalms upon an impossible supposition If all the other Books of Scripture could perish there were enough in that one for the catechising of all that did believe and for the convincing of all that did not so if all the other Writings of St. Paul could perish this Text were enough to carry us through the body of Divinity from the Cradle of the world in the Creation when God commanded light out of darkness to the Grave and beyond the Grave of the world to the last Dissolution and beyond it when we shall have fully the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus Now whilst I am to speak of all this this which is Omne scibile all and more then can fall within the comprehension of a natural man for it is the beginning of this world and it is the way to the next and it is the next world it self I comfort my self at my first setting out with that of St. Gregory Purgatas aures hominum gratiam nancisci nonne Dei donum est I take it for one of Gods great blessings to me if he have given me now an Auditory Purgatae auris of such spiritual and circumcised Ears as come not to hear that Wisdom of Words which may make the Cross of Christ of none effect much less such itching Ears as come to hear popular and seditious Calumnies and Scandals and Reproaches cast upon the present State and Government For a man may make a Sermon a Satyr he
the Scriptures For God who commanded light out of darkness hath shin'd c. The 26 Sermon Serm. 26. Psa 68.20 And unto God the Lord belong the issues of Death from Death BUildings stand by the benefit of their foundations that sustain them support them and of their buttresses that comprehend them embrace them and of their contignations that knit and unite them The foundation suffers them not to sink the buttresses suffer them not to swerve the contignation and knitting suffer them not to cleave The body of our building is in the former part of this verse it is this He that is our God is the God of salvation ad salutes of salvations in the plural so it is in the original the God that gives us spiritual and temporal salvation too But of this building the foundation the buttresses the contignation are in this part of the verse which constitutes our text and in the three diverse acceptations of the words amongst our expositors Unto God the Lord belong the issues of death For first the foundation of this building that our God is the God of all salvations is laid in this That unto this God the Lord belongs the issues of death that is it is his power to give us an issue and deliverance even then when we are brought to the jaws and teeth of death and to the lips of that whirl-pool the grave and so in this acceptation this exitus mortis this issue of death is liberatio a morie a deliverance from death this is the most obvious and most ordinary acceptation of these words and that upon which our translation laies hold The issues from death And then Secondly the buttresses that comprehend and settle this building that He that is our God is the God of salvation are thus raised Unto God the Lord belong the issues of death that is the disposition and manner of our death what kind of issue and transmigration we shall have out of this world whether prepared or sodain whether violent or natural whether in our perfect senses or shak'd and disordered by sickness there is no condemnation to be argued out of that no judgment to be made upon that for howsoever they dye precious in his sight is the death of his Saints and with him are the issues of death the way of our departing out of this life are in his hands and so in this sense of the words this Exitus mortis the issue of death is liberatio in morte a deliverance in death not that God will deliver us from dying but that he will have a care of us in the hour of death of what kind soever our passage be and this sense and acceptation of the words the natural frame contexture doth well and pregnantly administer unto us And then lastly the contignation and knitting of this building that he that is our God is the God of all salvation consists in this Unto this God the Lord belong the issues of death that is that this God the Lord having united and knit both natures in one and being God having also come into this world in our flesh he could have no other means to save us he could have no other issue out of this world nor return to his former glory but by death And so in this sense this exitus mortis the issue of death is liberatio per mortem a deliverance by death by the death of this God our Lord Christ Jesus and this is St. Augustines acceptation of the words and those many and great persons that have adhered to him In all these three lines then we shall look upon these words first as the God of power the Almighty Father rescues his servants from the jaws of death and then as the God of mercy the glorious Son rescued us by taking upon himself the issue of death and then between these two as the God of comfort the holy Ghost rescues us from all discomfort by his blessed impressions before hand that what manner of death soever be ordained for us yet this exitus mortis shall be introitus in vitam our issue in death shall be an entrance into everlasting life And these three considerations our deliverance a morte in morte per mortem from death in death and by death will abundantly do all the offices of the foundation of the buttresses of the contignation of this our building that He that is our God is the God of all salvation because Unto this God the Lord belong the issues of death First Part. A mâ—â—e First then we consider this exitus mortis to be liberatio a morte that with God the Lord are the issues of death therefore in all our deaths and deadly calamities of this life we may justly hope of a good issue from him and all our periods and transitions in this life are so many passages from death to death Exitus a morte uteri Our very birth and entrance into this life is exitus a morte an issue from death for in our mothers womb we are dead so as that we do not know we live not so much as we do in our sleep neither is there any grave so close or so putrid a prison as the womb would be to us if we stai'd in it beyond our time or died there before our time In the grave the worms do not kil us We breed and feed and then kill those worms which we our selves produc'd In the womb the dead child kils the mother that conceiv'd it and is a murderer nay a Parricide even after it is dead And if we be not dead so in the womb so as that being dead we kill her that gave us our first life our life of vegetation yet we are dead so as Davids Idols are dead Psa 115.6 in the womb we have eyes and see not ears and hear not There in the womb we are fitted for works of darkness all the while deprived of light and there in the womb we are taught cruelty by being fed with blood and may be damned though we be never born Of our very making in the womb David saies 139. 14. I am wonderfully and fearfully made and Such knowledg is too excellent for me for Even that is the Lords doing and it is wonderful in our eyes 118. 23. Ipse fecit nos It is he that hath made us and not we our selves no 200. 3. nor our Parents neither Thy hands have made me and fashioned me round about saies Job and 10. 8. as the original word is Thou hast taken pains about me and yet saies he Thou doest destroy me though I be the master-peice of the greatest Master man is so yet if thou do no more for me if thou leave me where thou mad'st me destruction will follow The womb which should be the house of life becomes death it self if God leave us there That which God threatens so often the shutting of the womb is not
evidences of adoption and spiritual filiation then and so long as I see these marks and live so I may safely comfort my self in a holy certitude a modest infallibility of my adoption Christ determins himself in that the purpose of God because the purpose of God was manifest to him S. Pet. S. Paul determine themselves in those two waies of knowing the purpose of God the word of God before the execution of the Decree in the fulness of time It was prophecied before said they it is perform'd now Christ is risen without seeing corruption Now this which is so singularly peculiar to him that his flesh should not see corruption at his second coming his coming to Judgment shall be extended to all that are then alive their flesh shall not see corruption because as the Apostle saies and saies as a secret as a mystery behold I shew you a mystery we shall not all sleep 1 Cor. 15.51 that is not continue in the state of the dead in the grave but we shall all be changed In an instant we shall have a dissolution and in the same instant a redintegration a recompacting of body and soul and that shall be truly a death and truly a resurrection but no sleeping no corruption But for us who dy now and sleep in the state of the dead we must all pass this posthume death this death after death nay this death after burial this dissolution after dissolution this death of corruption and putrefaction of virmiculation and incineration of dissolution and dispersion in and from the grave When those bodies which have been the children of royal Parents and the Parents of royal Children must say with Job 17.14 to corruption thou art my Father to the worm thou art my Mother my Sister Miserable riddle when the same worm must be my mother my sister my self Miserable incest when I must be married to mine own mother and sister and be both Father and Mother to mine one mother and sister beget and bear that worm which is all that miserable penury when my mouth shall be silled with dust and the worm shall feed and feed sweetly upon me 24.20 When the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction if the poorest a live tread upon him nor the poorest receive any contentment in being made equal to Princes for they shall be equal but in dust 23.24 One dyeth at his full strength being wholly at ease and in quiet and another dies in the bitterness of his soul and never eats with pleasure but they ly down alike in the dust and the worm cover them 24.11 The worm covers them in Job and in Esai it covers them is spread under them the worm is spread under thee and the worm covers thee There is the mats and the carpet that lie under and there is the state and the canopy that hangs over the greatest of the Sons of men Even those bodies that were the Temples of the holy Ghost come to this dilapidation to ruine to rubbish to dust Even the Israel of the Lord and Jacob himself had no other specification Esa 41.14 no other denomination but that vermis Jacob thou worm of Jacob. Truly the consideration of this posthume death this death after burial that after God with whom are the issues of death hath delivered me from the death of the womb by bringing me into the world and from the manifold deaths of the world by laying me in the grave I must die again in an incineration of this flesh and in a dispersion of that dust that all that monarch that spread over many nations alive must in his dust lie in a corner of that sheet of lead and there but so long as the lead will last and that private and retired man that thought himself his own for ever and never came forth must in his dust of the grave be published and such are the revolutions of graves be mingled in his dust with the dust of every high way and of every dunghil and swallowed in every puddle and pond this is the most inglorious and contemptible villification the most deadly and peromptory nullification of man that we can consider God seems to have carried the declaration of his power to a great heighth when he sets the Prophet Ezechiel in the vally of dry bones 37. 1. and saies Son of man can these dry bones live as though it had been impossible and yet they did the Lord laid sinews upon them and flesh and breathed into them and they did live But in that case there were bones to be seen something visible of which it might be said can this this live but in this death of incineration and dispersion of dust we see nothing that we can call that mans If we say can this dust live perchance it cannot It may be the meer dust of the earth which never did live nor never shall it may be the dust of that mans worms which did live but shall no more it may be the dust of another man that concerns not him of whom it is asked This death of incineration and dispersion is to natural reason the most irrecoverable death of all and yet Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis unto God the Lord belong the issues of death and by recompacting this dust into the same body and re-inanimating the same body with the same soul be shall in a blessed and glorious Resurrection give me such an issue from this Death as shall never passe into any other death but establish me in a Life that shall last as long as the Lord of Life himself And so have you that that belongs to the first acceptation of these words unto God the Lord belong the issues of Death That though from the womb to the grave and in the grave it self we passe from Death to Death yet as Daniel speaks The Lord our God is able to deliver us and he will deliver us And so we passe to our second accomodation of these words Unto God the Lord belong the issues of Death That it belongs to God and not to Man to passe a Judgement upon us at our Death or to conclude a dereliction on God's part upon the manner thereof Those Indications which Physitians receive Part. 2. Liberatio in morte and those praesagitions which they give for death or recovery in the Patient they receive and they give out of the grounds and rules of their Art But we have no such rule or art to ground a presagition of spiritual death and damnation upon any such Indication as we see in any dying man we see often enough to be sorry but not to despayr for the mercies of God work momentanely in minuts and many times insensibly to by-standers or any other then the party departing and we may be deceived both wayes we use to comfort our selves in the death of a friend if it be testifyed that he went away like
any thing that shall be said before lessen but rather enlarge your devotion to that which shall be said of his Passion at the time of the due solemnization thereof Christ bled not a drop the lesse at last for having bled at his Circumcision before nor will you shed a teare the lesse then if you shed some now And therefore be now content to consider with me how to this God the Lord belong'd the issues of Death That God the Lord The Lord of Life could die is a strange contemplation That the red-Sea could be dry Potuisse Mori Exod. 14.21 That the Sun could stand still Jos 10.12 That an Oven could be seven times heat and not burn That Lyons could be hungry and not bite is strange miraculously strange But super-miraculous That God could die But that God would die is an exaltation of that But even of that also it is a super-exaltation that God should die must die and non exitus saith Saint Augustin God the Lord had no issue but by death and oportuit pati saith Christ himself all this Christ ought to suffer was bound to suffer Psal 94.1 Voluisse Mori Deus ultionum Deus saith David God is the God of Revenges He would not passe over the sin of man unrevenged unpunished But then Deus ultionum libere egit sayes that place The God of Revenges works freely he punishes he spares whom he will and would he not spare himself He would not Dilectio fortis ut Mors Can. 8.6 Love is as strong as Death stronger it drew in Death that naturally was not welcome Si possibile saith Christ If it be possible let this Cup passe when his Love expressed in a former Decree with his Father had made it impossible Many waters quench not Love Christ tryed many He was baptized out of his Love v. 7. and his love determin'd not there He wept over Jerusalem out of his love and his love determined not there He mingled blood with water in his Agony and that determined not his love He wept pure blood all his blood at all his eyes at all his pores in his flagellations and thornes to the Lord our God belonged the issues of blood and these expressed but these did not quench his love Oportuisse Mori He would not spare nay he would not spare himself There was nothing more free more voluntary more spontaneous then the death of Christ 'T is true libere egit he died voluntarily But yet when we consider the contract that had passed between his Father and him there was an Oportuit a kinde of necessity upon him All this Christ ought to suffer And when shall we date this obligation this Oportuit this necessity when shall we say it begun Certainly this Decree by which Christ was to suffer all this was an eternall Decree and was there any thing before that that was eternall Infiâ—ite love eternall love be pleased to follow this home and to consider it seriously that what liberty soever we can conceive in Christ to dy or not to dy this necessity of dying this Decree is as eternall as that Liberty and yet how small a matter made he of this Necessity and this dying Gen. 3.15 His Father calls it but a Bruise and but a bruising of his heele The Serpent shall bruise his heele and yet that was that the Serpent should practise and compasse his death Himself calls it but a Baptism as though he were to be the better for it I have a Baptism to be baptized with Luk. 12.50 and he was in paine till it was accomplished and yet this Baptism was his death The holy-Ghost calls it Joy For the joy which was set before him he endured the Crosse which was not a joy of his reward after his passion Heb. 12.2 but a joy that filled him even in the middest of those torments and arose from them When Christ cals his passion Calicem a cup and no worse Can ye drink of my cup He speaks not odiously not with detestation of it indeed it was a cup salus mundo Mat. 20.22 A health to all the world and quid retribuem saies David Psal 116.12 What shall I render unto the Lord Answer you with David Accipiam Calicom I will take the cup of salvation Take that that cup of salvation his passion if not into your present imitation yet into your present contemplation and behold how that Lord who was God yet could die would die must die for your salvation That Moses and Elias talked with Christ in the transfiguration both St. Matthew and St. Mark tel us but what they talked of Mat 17.3 Mat. 9.4 Luc. 9.31 only St. Luke Dicebant excessum ejus saies he they talked of his decease of his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem The word is of his Exodus the very word of our Text Exitus his issue by death Moses who in his Exodus had prefigured this issue of our Lord and in passing Israel out of Egypt through the red sea had foretold in that actual prophecy Christs passing of mankind through the sea of his blood and Elias whose Exodus and issue out of this world was a figure of Christs ascension had no doubt a great satisfaction in talking with our blessed Lord De excessu ejus of the full consummation of all this in his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem Our meditation of his death should be more viseral and affect us more because it is of a thing already done The ancient Romans had a certain tenderness and detestation of the name of death they would not name death no not in their wils there they would not say Si mori contingat but Si quid humanitas contingat not if or when I die but when the course of nature is accomplished upon me To us that speak daily of the death of Christ He was crucified dead and buried can the memory or the mention of our death be irksome or bitter There are in these latter times amongst us that name death freely enough and the death of God but in blasphemous oaths and execrations Miserable men who shall therefore be said never to have named Jesus because they have named him too often and therefore hear Jesus say Nescive vos I never knew you because they made themselves too familiar with him Moses and Elias talked with Christ of his death only in a holy and joyful sence of the benefit which they and all the world were to receive by it Discourses of religion should not be out of curiosity but edification And then they talked with Christ of his death at that time when he was at the greatest heighth of glory that ever he admitted in this world that is his transfiguration And we are afraid to speak to the great men of this world of their death but nourish in them a vain imagination of immortallity and immutability But bonum est
upon me and there is a law of sin and a law in my flesh which after the water of Baptism taken and the water of penitent teares given after the blood of Jesus Christ taken and mine own blood given that is a holy readiness at that time when I am made partaker of Christs death to die for Christ throwes me back by relapses into those repented sins This put the Apostle to that passionate exclamation O wretched man that I am And yet he found a deliverance even from the body of this death through Jesus Christ his Lord that is a free an open recourse and access to him in all oppressions of heart in all dejections of spirit Now when this Chyrographum this bond of Adams hand Original sin is cancell'd upon the Cross of Christ And this Pactum this band of mine hand actual sins washed away in the blood of Christ and this Lex in membris this disposition to relapse into repented sins which as a tide that does certainly come every day does come every day in one form or other is beaten back as a tide by a bank by a continual opposing the merits and the example of Christ Jesus and the practise of his fasting and such other medicinall disciplines as I find to prevaile against such relapses when by this blessed means the whole Law against which I am a trespasser is evacuated will God condemn me for all this and not by a Law When I have pleaded Christ and Christ and Christ Baptism and Blood and Teares will God condemn me an oblique way when he cannot by a direct way by a secret purpose when he hath no law to condemn me by Sad and disconsolate distorted and distracted soul if it be well said in the School Absurdum est disputare ex manuscriptis it is an unjust thing in Controversies and Disputations to press arguments out of Manuscripts that cannot be seen by every man it were ill said in thy conscience that God will proceed against thee ex manuscripto or condemn thee upon any thing which thou never saw'st any unrevealed purpose of his Suspicious soul ill-presaging soul Is there something else besides the day of Judgement that the Son of Man does not know Disquiet soul Does he not know the proceeding of that Judgement wherein himself is to be the Judge But that when he hath died for thy sins and so fulfilled the Law in thy behalfe thou maist be condemned without respect of that Law and upon something that shall have had no consideration no relation to any such breach of any such Law in thee Intricated intangled conscience Christ tells thee of a Judgement because thou didst not do the works of Mercy not feed not cloath the poor for those were enjoyned thee by a Law But he never tells thee of any Judgement therefore because thy name was written in a dark book of Death never unclasped never opened unto thee in thy life He sayes unto thee lovingly and indulgently Fear not for it is Gods good pleasure to give you the Kingdome But he never sayes to the wickedest in the world Live in fear dye in anxiety in suspition and suspension for his displeasure a displeasure conceived against you before you were sinners before you were men hath thrown you out of that Kingdome into utter darkness There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus the reason is added because the Law of the Spirit of Life hath made them free from the Law of Sin and of Death All upon all sides is still referred to Law And where there is no law against thee as there is not to him that is in Christ and he is in Christ who hath endeavoured the keeping or repented the breaking of the Law God will never proceed to execution by any secret purpose never notified never manifested Suspicious jealous scattered soule recollect thy self and give thy self that redintegration that acquiescence which the Spirit of God in the means of the Church offers thee study the Mystery of godlinesse which is without all controversie that is endeavour to keep repent the not keeping of the Law and thou art safe for that that you shall be judged by is a Law But then this Law is called here a Law of Liberty and whether that denotation that it is called a Law of Liberty import an ease to us or a heavier weight upon us is our last disquisition and conclusion of all So speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the Law of Liberty Lex libertatis That the Apostle here by the Law of Liberty meanes the Gospel 1.25 was never doubted He had called the Gospel so before this place Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein shall be blessed in his deed that is blessed in doing so blessed in conforming himself to the Gospel But why does he call it so a Law of Liberty Not because men naturally affecting liberty might be drawn to an affection of the Gospel by proposing it in that specious name of Liberty though it were not so The Holy Ghost calls the Gospel a Pearle and a Treasure and a Kingdom and Joy and Glory not to allure men with false names but because men love these and the Gospel is truly all these a Pearle and a Treasure and a Kingdome and Joy and Glory And it is truly a Law of Liberty But of what kind and in what respect Not such a Liberty as they have established in the Roman Church where Ecclesiastical Liberty must exempt Ecclesiastical persons from participating all burdens of the State and from being Traitors though they commit treason because they are Subjects to no secular Prince nor the liberty of the Anabaptists that overthrowes Magistracy and consequently all subjection both Ecclesiastical and Laick for when upon those words Be ye not servants of men 1 Cor. 7.23 S. Chrysostome sayes this is Christian liberty Nec aliis nec sibi servire neither to be subjects to others nor to our selves that 's spoken with modification with relation to our first Allegeance our Allegeance to God not to be so subject to others or to our selves as that either for their sakes or our owne we depart from any necessary declaration of our service to God Deo First then the Gospel is a Law of Liberty in respect of the Author of the Gospel of God himself because it leaves God at his liberty Not at liberty to judge against his Gospel where he hath manifested it for a Law for he hath laid a holy necessity upon himself to judge according to that Law where he hath published that law But at liberty so as that it consists onely in his good pleasure to what Nation he will publish the Gospel or in what Nation he will continue the Gospel or upon what persons he will make this Gospel effectuall So Oecumenius who is no single witness nor speaks not alone but compiles the former Fathers places this
then contract them in thy self and consider Gods speedy execution upon thy soul and upon thy body and upon thy soul and body together Was not Gods judgement executed speedily enough upon thy soul when in the same instant that it was created and conceiv'd and infus'd it was put to a necessity of contracting Original sin and so submitted to the penalty of Adam's disobedience the first minute Was not Gods judgement speedily enough executed upon thy body if before it had any temporal life it had a spiritual death a sinful conception before any inanimation If hereditary diseases from thy parents Gouts and Epilepsies were in thee before the diseases of thine own purchase the effects of thy licentiousness and thy riot and that from the first minute that thou beganst to live thou beganst to die too Are not the judgements of God speedily enough executed upon thy soul and body together every day when as soon as thou commitst a sin thou art presently left to thine Impenitence to thine Insensibleness and Obduration Nay the judgement is more speedy then so for that very sin it self was a punishment of thy former sins But though God may begin speedily yet he intermits again he slacks his pace and therefore the execution is not speedy As it is said of Pharaoh often Because the plagues ceased though they had been laid upon him Ingratum est cor Pharaonis Pharaoh's heart was hardned But first we see by that punishment which is laid upon Heli That with God it is all one to begin and to consummate his judgement When I begin I will make an end 1 Sam. 3.12 And when Herod took a delight in that flattery and acclamation of the people It is the voice of God and not of man Acts 12.22 the angel of the Lord smote him immediately the worms took possession of him though if we take Josephus relation for truth he died not in five days after Howsoever if we consider the judgements of God in his purpose and decree there they are eternal And for the execution thereof though the wicked sinner dissemble his sense of his torments and as Tertullian says of a persecutor Herminianus who being tormented at his death in his violent sickness cryed out Nemo sciat ne gaudeant Christiani Let no man know of my misery lest the Christians rejoyce thereat so these sinners suppress these judgements of God from our knowledge because they would not have that God that inflicts them glorified therein by us Yet they know their damnation hath never slept nor let them sleep quietly and in Gods purpose the judgement hath been eternal and they have been damned as long as the devil and that 's an execution speedy enough But because this appears not so evidently but that they may disguise it to the world and with much ado to their own Consciences Therefore their hearts are fully set in them to do evil And so we pass to our third Part. Part III. This is that perversness which the Heathen Philosopher Epictetus apprehends and reprehends That whereas every thing is presented to us Cum duabus sausis with two handles we take it still by the wrong handle This is tortuositas serpentis The wryness the knottiness the entangling of the Serpent This is that which the Apostle takes such direct knowledge of Rom. 2.4 Despisest thou the riches of Gods bountifulness and long-suffering not knowing that it leads thee to repentance St. Chrysostome's comparison of such a sinner to a Vulture that delights onely in dead carcases that is in company dead in their sins holds best as himself notes in this particular that the Vulture perhorrescit fragrantiam unguenti He loaths and is ill affected with any sweet savour for so doth this sinner finde death in that soveraign Balm of the patience of God and he dies of Gods mercy Et quid infelicius illis qui bono odore moriuntur says S. Augustine In what worse state can any man be then to take harm of a good air But as the same Father addes Numquid quia mori voluisti malum fecisti odorem This indisposition in that particular man does not make this air an ill air and yet this abuse of the patience of God comes to be an infectious poyson and such a poyson as strikes the heart and so general as to strike the heart of the children of men and so strongly as that their hearts should be fully set in them to do evil First then what is this setting of the heart upon evil and then what is this fulness that leaves no room for a Cure When a man receives figures and images of sin into his Fancie and Imagination and leads them on to his Understanding and Discourse to his Will to his Consent to his Heart by a delightful dwelling upon the meditation of that sin yet this is not a setting of the heart upon doing evil To be surpris'd by a Tentation to be overthrown by it to be held down by it for a time is not it It is not when the devil looks in at the window to the heart by presenting occasions of tentations to the eye nor when he comes in at the door to our heart at the ear either in lascivious discourses or Satyrical and Libellous defamations of other men It is not when the devil is put to his Circuit to seek whom he may devour and how he may corrupt the King by his Council that is The Soul by the Senses But it is when by a habitual custom in sin the sin arises meerly and immediately from my self It is when the heart hath usurp'd upon the devil and upon the world too and is able and apt to sin of it self if there were no devil and if there were no outward objects of tentation when our own heart is become spontanea insania voluntarius daemon Such a wilful Madness Chrysost and such a voluntary and natural Devil to it self as that we should be ambitious though we were in an Hospital and licentious though we were in a wilderness and voluptuous though in a famine so that such a mans heart is as a land of such Gyants where the Children are born as great as the Men of other nations grow to be for those sins which in other men have their birth and their growth after their birth they begin at a Concupiscence and proceed to a Consent and grow up to Actions and swell up to Habits In this man sin begins at a stature and proportion above all this he begins at a delight in the sin and comes instantly to a defence of it and to an obduration and impenitibleness in it This is the evil of the heart by the mis-use of Gods grace to devest and lose all tenderness and remorse in sin Now for the Incurableness of this heart it consists first in this that there is a fulness It is fully set to do evil such a full heart hath no room for a
against thy will that they have it thou givest then but art sorry that they to whom thou givest that which thou givest came so soon to it And then saepe infirmitatis servi efficimur we become slaves to our last sickness often Bernard oftentimes Apoplexies stupifie us and we are dull and Fevers enrage us and we are mad we are in a slavery to the disease Et servï non testantur says the law slaves have no power to make a Will Testare Liber Idem make thy Will and make it to be thy Will give it the effect and execute thy Will whilest thou art a free man in state of health restore that which is not thine for even that of which thou art true owner may be reserved to thy harm much more that Harm which is none of thine Every man may finde in himself that he hath done some sinnes which he would not have done if he had not been so rich for there goes some cost to the most sins his wantonness in wealth makes him do some his wealth hath given him a confidence that that fault would not be lookt into or â—hat it would be bought out if it were Some sins we have done because we are rich but many more because we would be rich And this is a spiritual harm the riches do their owners And for temporal harm if it were hard to finde in our own times examples of men which have incurr'd great displeasure undergone heavy calamities perished in unrecoverable shipwrack all which they had escaped if they had not been eminently and enormously rich we might in ancient history both profane and holy finde such precedents enough as Naboth was who if he had had no such vineyard as lay convenient for so much greater a person might have passed for an honest and religious Man to God and a good subject to the King without any indictment of blasphemy against either and never have been stoned to death 1 Reg. 21. The rich Merchant at Sea is afraid that every fisherman is a Pyrat and the fisherman fears not him And if we should survay the body of our penal Laws whensoever the abuse of them makes them snares and springes to entangle men we should see that they were principally directed upon rich men neither can rich men comfort themselves in it that though they be subject to more storms then other men yet they have better ground tackling they are better able to ride it out then other men for it goes more to the heart of that rich Merchant which we spoke of to cast his goods over board then it does to the fisherman to loose his boat Bernard Idem and perchance his life Sudat pauper foris It is true the poor mans brow sweats without Laborat intus dives the rich mans heart bleeds within and the poor man can sooner wipe his face then the rich man his heart Gravius fastidio quam ille inedia cruciatur the rich man is worse troubled to get a stomach then the poor man to satisfie his and his loathing of meat is more wearisome then the others desire of it Summe up the diseases that voluptuousness by the ministery of riches imprints in the body the battery that malice by the provocation of riches layes to the fortune the sins that confidence in our riches heaps upon our souls and we shall see that though riches be reserved to their owners yet it is to their harm Sickness As then the burden of that song in the furnace where all creatures were called upon to blesse the Lord was still praise the Lord ver 36. and magnifie him for ever And as the burden of that Psalm of thanksgiving where so many of Gods miracles are recorded is this for his mercy endureth for ever so the burden of Solomons exclamation against worldly things is still in all these Chapters vanity and vanity of vanities and vexation of spirit so he addes thus much more to this particular distemper of reserving Riches naturally disposed to do us harm That it is a sickness Mow Sanitas naturalis Bernard Nature abhors sickness and therefore this is an unnatural desire For whether we take this phrase of Solomon for a Metaphor and comparison that this desire of Riches is like a sickness that it hath the pains and the discomforts and the dangers of a sickness or whether we take it literally that it is a disordering a discomposing a distemper of the mind and so truely and really a sickness and that this sickness induceth nothing but eternal death nothing should make us more afraid then this sickness for the root of all evil is the desire of money And then if it be truely a sickness all the way and Morbus complicatus a dropsie and a consumption too we seem great but it is but a swelling for our soul is lean what a sad condition will there be when their last bodily sickness and this spiritual sickness meet together a sick body a sick soul will be but ignorant Physitians and miserable comforters to one another It is a sickness and an evil sickness Evil. there is a weight added in that addition for though all sickness have rationem mali some degrees of the evil of punishment in it yet sometimes the good purpose of God in inflicting a sickness and the good use of man in mending by a sickness overcome and weigh down that little dram and washes away the pale tincture of evil which is in it There is a wholsome sickness Et est sanitas quae viaticum ad peccatum health sometimes victuals us Basil and fuels us and armes us for a sin and we do those sins which Bernard if we were sick we could not do And then Mala sanitas carnis quae ducit ad infirmitatem animae It is an unwholsome health of the body that occasions the sickness of the soul It is true that in bodily Sickness Tua dimicant contra te arma Bernard It is a discomfortable war when thou fightest against thy self In ipso gemis in quo peccasti that that flesh in which thou hast sinned comes to vex and anguish thee that thy body is become but a bottle of rheum Thy Sinews but a bundle of thornes and thy bones but a furnace of vehement ashes But it thou canst hear God as St. Augustin did Ego novi unde aegrotes Ego novi uâ—de saneris I know thy disease Augustin and I know thy cure Gratia mea sufficit my grace shall serve thy turn Thou shalt come to that disposition of the Apostle too Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities because when I am weak 2. Cor. 12.10 then am I strong when thou art come to an apprehension of thy own weakness thou comest also to a recourse to him in whom onely is thy saving healthand recovery But this Sickness of gathering those riches which are reserved for our evil comes not to
then this pactum this contract of mine own hand actual and habitual sin for of these one is wash'd out in water and the other in blood Ro. 7.20 in the two Sacraments But then there is Lex in membris saith the Apostle I find a law that when I would do good evil is present with me Sin assisted by me is now become a Tyrant over me and hath establish'd a government upon me and therefore is a law of sin and a law in my flesh which after the water of baptism taken and the water of penitent tears given after the blood of Christ Jesus taken and mine one blood given that is a holy readiness at that time when I am made partaker of Christs death to die for Christ throws me back by relapses into those repented sins This put the Apostle to that passionate exclamation O wretched man that I am and yet he found a deliverance even from the body of his death through Jesus Christ his Lord that is a free and open recourse and access to him in all oppressions of heart in all dejections of spirit Now when this Chirographum this band of Adams hand Original sin is cancell'd upon the Cross of Christ and this pactum this band of mine own hand actual sins wash'd away in the blood of Christ and this Lex in membris this disposition to relapse into repented sins which as a tide that does certainly come every day does come every day in one form or other is beaten back as a tide by a bank by a continual opposing the merits and the example of Christ Jesus and the practice of his fasting such other medicinal disciplines as I find to prevail against such relapses when by this blessed means the whole law against which I am a trespasser is evacuated will God condemn me for all this and not by a law when I have pleaded Christ Christ and Christ baptism and blood and tears will God condemn mean oblique way when he cannot by a direct way by a secret purpose when he hath no law to condemn me by Sad and discomposed distorted and distracted soul if it be well said in the School absurdum est disputare ex manuscriptis it is an unjust thing in controversies and disputations to press arguments out of manuscripts that cannot be seen by every man it were ill said in thy conscience that God will proceed against thee ex manuscriptis or condemn thee upon any thing which thou never sawst any unreveal'd purpose of his Suspicious soul ill-presaging soul is there something else besides the day of Judgment that the Son of man does not know disquiet soul does he not know the proceeding of that Judgment wherin himself is to be Judg but that when he hath died for thy sins and so fulfill'd the law in thy behalf thou maist be condemn'd without respect of that law and upon something that shall have had no consideration no relation to any such breach of any such law in thee Intricated entangled conscience Christ tels thee of a Judgment because thou didst not do the works of mercy not feed not cloth the poor for these were enjoyn'd thee by a law but he never tels thee of any Judgment therefore because thy name was written in a dark book of death never unclaps'd never opened unto thee in thy life He saies to the lovingly indulgently fear not for it is Gods good pleasure to give you the Kingdom but he never saies to the wickedest in the world live in fear dy in anxiety in suspition and suspension for his displeasure a displeasure conceiv'd against you before you were sinners before you were men hath thrown you out of that kingdom into utter darkness There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus The reason is added because the law of the Spirit of life hath made them free from the law of sin and of death All upon all sides is still refer'd to a law And where there is no law against thee as there is not to him that is in Christ and he is in Christ who hath endeavoured the keeping or repented the breaking of the law God wil never proceed to execution by any secret purpose ever notified never manifested Suspicious jealous scattered soul recollect thy self and give thy self that redintegration that acquiescence which the spirit of God in the means of the Church offers thee study the mysterie of godliness which is without all controversie that is endeavour to keep repent the not keeping of the law and thou art safe for that you shall be judged by is a law But then this law is called here a law of liberty and whether that denotation that it is called a law of liberty import an ease to us or heavier weight upon us is our last disquisition and conclusion of all So speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty Lex libertatis That the Apostle here by the law of liberty means the Gospel was never doubted he had call'd the Gospel so before this place whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty 1.25 and continueth therein shal be blessed in his deed that is blessed in doing so blessed in conforming himself to the Gospel but why does he call it so A law of liberty not because men naturally affecting liberty might be drawn to an affection of the Gospel by proposing it in that specious name of liberty though it were not so The holy Ghost calls the Gospel a pearl and a treasure and a kingdome and joy and glory Not to allure men with false names but because men love these and the Gospel is truly all these a pearl and a treasure and a kingdome and joy and glory And it is truly a law of liberty but of what kind and in what respect not such a liberty as they have established in the Roman Church where Ecclesiastical liberty must exempt Ecclesiastical persons from participating all burdens of the State and from being traitors though they commit treason because they are Subjects to no secular Prince nor the liberty of the Anabaptist that overthrows Magistracy and consequently all subjection both Ecclesiastical Laick for when upon those words 1 Cor. 7.23 Be ye not servants of men St. Chrysostome sayes This is Christian liberty Nec aliis nec sibi servire neither to be subjects to others nor to our selves that 's spoken with modification an allegiance with relation to our first allegiance to God not to be so subject to others or to our selves as that either for their sakes or our own we depart from any necessary declaration of our service to God Deo First then the Gospel is a Law of Liberty in respect of the author of the Gospel of God himself because it leaves God at his liberty Not at liberty to judg against his Gospel where he hath manifested it for a law for he hath laid a holy necessity upon himself
by diversion when Saul pursued David with the most vehemence of all 1 Sam. 23.27 a messenger came and told him that the Philistines had invaded his Land and then he gave over the pursuit of David Really great admirably strange things did God in the behalf of his children for the destruction of his and their Idolatrous enemies But yet were they ever destroy'd totally destroy'd they were not The Lord left some Nations says the Text there without hastily driving them out neither did he deliver them into the hands of Joshuah Judg. 2.23 The Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day says that holy story and so did other Nations with the other Tribes in other places 1.21.28 They were able as we are told there to put the Canaanites to Tribute but not to drive them out to make Penal Laws against them but not to deliver the Land of them Now why did God do this We would not ask this question if God had not told us ut erudiret in iis Jerusalem 3.2 that the Enemy might be their Schoolmaster and War their Chatechism that they might never think that they stood in no more need of God The Lord was with Judah saith the Text so far with him 1.19 as that he drave out the Inhabitants of the Mountain but yet would not drive out the Inhabitants of the Valley Sometimes God does the greater work and yet leaves some lesser things undone God chooses his Matter and his Manner and his Measure and his Means and his Minutes But yet God is truly and justly said to have destroyed those Idolatrous Enemies in that he brought them so low as that they could not give Laws to the children of Israel nor force them to the Idolatrous Worship of their gods though some scattered Idolaters did still live amongst them God could destroy Nequitias in coelestibus he could evacuate all Powers and Principalities he could annihilate the Devil or he could put him out of Commission take from him the power of tempting or solliciting his servants Though God hath not done it yet he is properly said to have destroyed him because he hath destroyed his Kingdom Death is swallowed up in victory saith Saint Paul out of Ose O death where is thy sting says he Where is it Why 1 Cor. 15.5.4 Ose 13.14 it is in thy bosome It is at the heart of the greatest Princes of the earth Though they be gods they die like men O grave where is thy victory says he there Why above the Victories and Trophies and Triumphs of all the Conquerors in the world And yet the Apostle speaks and justly as if there were no death in man no sting in death no grave after death because to him who dies in the Lord all this is nothing not he by death but death in him is destroyed And as it is of the cause of Sin the Devil and of the effect of Sin Death so is it of Sin it self it is destroyed and yet we sin He that is born of God doth not commit sin so as that sin shall be imputed to him Sin and Satan and Death are destroyed in us because they can do no harm to us So the Idolatrous Nations were destroyed amongst the Israelites because they could not bring in an Inquisition amongst them and force them to their Religion And so Idolatry hath been destroyed amongst us destroyed so as that it hath been declared to be Idolatry towards God and declared to be complicated and wrapped up inseparably in Treason towards the King and the State Our Schools and Pulpits have destroyed it and our Parliaments have destroyed it Our Pulpits establish them that stay at home and our Laws are able to lay hold upon them that run from home and return ill affected to their home Let no man therefore murmur at Gods proceedings and say If God had a minde to destroy Idolatry he would have left no seed or he would not have admitted such arepullulation and such a growth of that seed as he hath done God hath his own ends and his own ways He destroyed the Nations from before the Israelites Christ hath destroyed Sin and Satan and Death and Hell and Idolaters amongst us for Gods greater glory do remain For such a destruction as should be absolute God never intended God never promised for that were to occasion and to induce a security and remove all diligence Which is our second Branch in this first part Cave tibi see take heed c. In the beginning of the world we presume all things to have been produced in their best state all was perfect and yet how soon a decay all was summer and yet how soon a fall of the leaf a fall in Paradise not of the leaf but of the Tree it self Adam fell A fall before that in heaven it self Angels fell Better security then Adam then Angels had there we cannot have we cannot look for here And therefore there is danger still still occasion of diligence Lev. 11.3 of consideration The chewing of the Cudd was a distinctive mark of cleanness in the Creature The holy rumination the daily consideration of his Christianity is a good character of a Christian 1 Cor. 12.31 Covet earnestly the best gifts says the Apostle those to whom he writ had good gifts already yet he exhorts them to a desire of better And what doth he promise them not the Gift it self but the way to it I will shew a more excellent way There is still something more excellent then we have yet attained to Non dicit charisma Chrysost sed viam The best step the best height in this world is but the way to a better and still we have way before us to walk further in Anathema pro fratribus Rom. 9.3 was but once said St. Paul once and in a vehement and inordinate zeal and religious distemper said so That he could be content to be separated from Christ Exi à me Domine was but once said once St. Peter said Luc. 5.8 Depart from me O Lord. The Anathema the exi but once but the Adveniat Regnum Let thy Kingdom come I hope is said more then once by every one of us every day every day we receive and yet every day we pray for that Kingdom more and more assurance of Glory by more and more increase of Grace For as there are bodily diseases and spiritual diseases too proper to certain ages a yong man and an old man are not ordinarily subject to the same distempers nor to the same vices so particular forms of Religion have their indispositions their ill inclinations too Thou art bred in a Reformed Church where the truth of Christ is sincerely Preached bless God for it but even there thou mayest contract a pride an opinion of purity and uncharitably despise those who labour yet under their ignorances or superstitions or thou mayest grow weary of thy Manna and smell
so heavy nor so discomfortable a curse in the first as in the latter shutting not in the shutting of barrenness as in the shutting of weakness Esa 37 3. when Children are come to the birth and there is not strength to bring forth It is the exaltation of misery to fall from a near hope of happiness And in that vehement imprecation the Prophet expresses the highth of Gods anger Give them O Lord what wilt thou give them Osc 9 14. give them a mis-carrying womb Therefore as soon as we are men that is inanimated quickned in the womb though we cannot our selves our Parents have reason to say in our behalves Wretched man that he is who shall deliver him from this body of death for Ro. 7.24 even the womb is the body of death if there be no deliverer It must be he that said to Jeremy 1. 5. Before I formed thee I knew thee and before thou camest out of the womb I sanctified thee We are not sure that there was no kind of ship nor boat to fish in nor to pass by till God prescribed Noah that absolute forme of the Ark that word which the holy Ghost by Moses uses for the Ark is common to all kinds of boats Thebah and is the same word that Moses uses for the boat that he was exposed in that his mother laid him in an Ark of bullrushes Exo 2.3 But we are sure that Eve had no Midwife when she was delivered of Cain therefore she might well say Possedi virum a Domino Gen. 4.1 I have gotten a man from the Lord wholly intirely from the Lord it is the Lord that hath enabled me to conceive the Lord hath infus'd a quickning soul into that conception the Lord hath brought into the world that which himself had quickned without all this might Eve say my body had been but the house of death and Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis To God the Lord belong the issues of death But then this Exitus a morte is but Introitus in mortem this issue Exitus a moribus mundi this deliverance from that death the death of the womb is an entrance a delivering over to another death the manifold deaths of this world We have a winding sheet in our Mothers womb that grows with us from our conception and we come into the world wound up in that winding sheet for we come to seek a grave And as prisoners discharged of actions may lie for fees so when the womb hath discharged us yet we are bound to it by cords of flesh by such a string as that we cannot go thence nor stay there We celebrate our own funeral with cries even at our birth as though our threescore and ten years of life were spent in our Mothers labor and our Circle made up in the first point thereof We beg one Baptism with another a sacrament of tears and we come into a world that lasts many ages but we last not In domo patris saies our blessed Saviour speaking of heaven multae mansiones Jo. 14.2 there are many and mansions divers and durable so that if a man cannot possess a martyrs house he hath shed no blood for Christ yet he may have a confessors he hath been ready to glorifie God in the shedding of his blood And if a woman cannot possess a virgins house she hath embrac'd the holy state of marriage yet she may have a matrons house she hath brought forth and brought up children in the fear of God In domo patris In my Fathers house in heaven there are many mansions but here upon earth Mat. 8 20. The Son of man hath not where to lay his head saies he himself No terram dedit filiis hominum How then hath God given this earth to the Sons of men He hath given them earth for their materials to be made of earth and he hath given them earth for their grave and sepulture to return and resolve to earth but not for their possession Heb. 13.14 Here we havh no continuing City nay no Cottage that continues nay no we no persons no bodies that continue Whatsoever moved St. Hierome to call the journies of the Israelites in the wilderness Exo. 17.1 Mansions the word the word is nasang signifies but a journie but a peregrination even the Israel of God hath no mansions Gen. 47 9. but journies pilgrimages in this life By that measure did Jacob measure his life to Pharaoh The daies of the years of my pilgrimage And though the Apostle would not say morimer that whilst we are in the body we are dead yet he saies peregrinamur 2 Cor. 5 6. whilst we are in the body we are but in a pilgrimage and we are absent from the Lord. He might have said dead for this whole world is but an universal Church-yard but one common grave and the life and motion that the greatest persons have in it is but as the shaking of buried bodies in their graves by an earthquake That which we call life is but Hebdomada mortium a week of deaths seaven daies seaven periods of our life spent in dying a dying seaven times over and ther 's an end Our birth dies in Infancy and our infancy dies in youth and youth and the rest die in age and age also dies and determines all Nor do all these youth out of infancy or age out of youth arise so as a Phenix out of the ashes of another Phenix formerly dead but as a wasp or a serpent out of carrion or as a snake out of dung our youth is worse then our infancy and our age worse then our youth our youth is hungry and thirsty after those sins which our infancy knew not and our age is sorry and angry that it cannot pursue those sins which our youth did And besides all the way so many deaths that is so many deadly calamities accompany every condition and every period of this life as that death it self would be an ease to them that suffer them Upon this sense does Job wish 10. 18. that God had not given him an issue from the first death from the womb Wherefore hast thou brought me forth out of the womb O that I had given up the Ghost and no eye had seen me I should have been as though I had not been And not only the impatient Israelites in their murmuring would to God we had died by the hands of the Lord Ex. 16.3 in the land of Egypt but Eliah himself when he fled from Jezabel and went for his life as that Text saies under the juniper tree requested that he might die and said It is enough now O Lord take away my life 1 Reg. 19.4 So Jonah justifies his impatience nay his anger towards God himself Now O Lord take I beseech thee my life from me for it is better for me to die then to live And when God ask'd him dost thou well
to be angry for this 4. 3. and after about the Gourd dost thou well to be angry for that he replies I do well to be angry even unto death How much worse a death then death is this life which so good men would so often change for death But if my case be St. Pauls case Quotidie morior 1 Cor. 15.31 that I die dayly that something heavier then death fall upon me every day If my case be Davids case Tota die mortificamur psa 44.22 all the day long we are killed that not only every day but every hour of the day something heavier then death fals upon me though that be true of me conceptus in peccatis I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me 51. 5. There I died one death though that be true of me natus filius irae I was born not only the child of sin but the child of the wrath of God for sin which is a heavier death yet Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis with God the Lord are the issues of death and after a Job and a Joseph and a Jeremy and a Daniel I cannot doubt of a deliverance and if no other deliverance conduce more to his glory and my good yet He hath the keyes of death Apo. 1.18 and he can let me out at that dore that is deliver me from the manifold deaths of this world the omni die and the tota die the every daies death and every hours death by that one death the final disolution of body and soul the end of all But then is that the end of all Exitus a morte Incinerationis is that dissolution of body and soul the last death that the body shall suffer for of spiritual deaths we speak not now it is not Though this be exitus a morte it is introitus in mortem though it be an issue from the manifold deaths of this world yet it is an entrance into the death of corruption and putrifaction and vermiculation and incineration and dispersion in and from the grave in which every dead man dies over again It was a prerogative peculiar to Christ not to die this death not to see corruption What gave him this privilege not Josephs great proportions of gums and spices that might have preserved his body from corruption and incineration longer then he needed it longer then three daies but yet would not have done it for ever What preserv'd him then did his exemption and freedome from original sin preserve him from this corruption and incineration 'T is true that original sin hath induc'd this corruption and incineration upon us 1 Câ—â— 15.33 If we had not sinn'd in Adam mortality had not put on immortality as the Apostle speaks nor corruption had not put on incorruption but we had had our transmigration from this to the other world without any mortality any corruption at all But yet since Christ took sin upon him so far as made him mortal he had it so far too as might have made him see this corruption and incineration though he had no original sin in himself What preserv'd him then did the hypostatical union of both natures God and man preserve his flesh from this corruption this incineration 't is true that this was a most powerful embalming To be embalm'd with the divine nature it self to be embalm'd with eternity was able to preserve him from corruption and incineration for ever And he was embalm'd so embalm'd with the divine nature even in his body as well as in his soul for the Godhead the divine nature did not depart but remain still united to his dead body in the grave But yet for all this powerful imbalming this hypostatical union of both natures we see Christ did die and for all this union which made him God and man he became no man for the union of body and soul makes the man and he whose soul and body are seperated by death as long as that state lasts is properly no man And therefore as in him the dissolution of body and soul was no dissolution of the hypostatical union so is there nothing that constrains us to say that though the flesh of Christ had seen corruption and incineration in the grave this had been any dissolving of the hypostatical union for the divine nature the Godhead might have remain'd with all the elements and principles of Christs body as well as it did with the two constitutive parts of his person his body and soul This incorruption then was not in Josephs gums and spices nor was it in Christs innocency and exemption from original sin nor was it that is it is not necessary to say it was in the Hypostatical union But this incorruptibleness of his flesh Psa 16 10. is most conveniently plac d in that non dabis Thou wilt not suffer thy holy one to see corruption We look no farther for causes or reasons in the mysteries of our religion but to the will and pleasure of God Mat. 11.26 Christ himself limited his inquisition in that Ita est even so father for so it seemed good in thy sight Christs body did not see corruption therefore because God had decreed that it should not The humble soul and only the humble soul is the religions soul rests himself upon Gods purposes and his decrees but then it is upon those purposes and decrees of God which he hath declared and manifested not such as are conceiv'd and imagin'd in our selves though upon some probability some verisimilitude So in our present case Act. 2.31.13.35 Peter proceeded in his sermon at Jerusalem and so Paul in his at Antioch they preached Christ to be risen without having seen corruption not only because God had decreed it but because he had manifested that decree in his Prophet Therefore does St. Paul cite by special number the second Psalme for that decree and therefore both St. Peter and St. Paul cite for that place in the 16. Psal for v. 10. when God declares his decree and purpose in the express word of his Prophet or when he declares it in the real execution of the decree then he makes it ours then he manifests it to us And therefore as the mysteries of our religion are not the objects of our reason but by faith we rest in Gods decree and purpose it is so O God because it is thy will it should be so so Gods decrees are ever to be considered in the manifestation thereof All manifestation is either in the word of God or in the execution of the decree and when these two concur and meet it is the strongest demonstration that can be when therefore I find those marks of Adoption and spiritual filiation which are delivered in the word of God to be upon me when I find that real execution of his good purpose upon me as that actually I do live under the obedience and under the conditions which are
nobis esse hic as St. Peter said there It is good to dwell here in this consideration of his death and therefore transfer we our Tabernacle our devotion through some of these steps which God the Lord made to his issue of death that day Take in his whole day from the hour that Christ eat the passover upon Thursday to the hour in which he died the next day Make this present day Conformitas that day in thy devotion and consider what he did and remember what you have done Before he instituted and celebrated the sacrament which was after the eating of the passover he proceeded to the act of humility to wash his Disciples feet even Peters who for a while resisted him In thy preparation to the holy and blessed sacrament hast thou with a sincere humilty sought a reconciliation with all the world even with those who have been averse from it and refused that reconciliation from thee If so and not else thou hast spent that first part of this his last day in a conformity with him After the sacrament he spent the time til night in prayer in preaching in Psalms Hast thou considered that a worthy receiving of the sacrament consists in a continuation of holiness after as wel as in a preparation before If so thou hast therein also conformed thy self to him so Christ spent his time till night At night he went into the garden to pray and he prayed prolixius He spent much time in prayer Luc. 22.24 How much because it is literally expressed that he praied there three several times and that returning to his Disciples after his first prayer and finding them asleep said could ye not watch with me one hour Mat. 26.40 it is collected that he spent three houres in prayer I dare scarce ask thee whither thou wentst or how thou disposedst of thy self when it grew dark and after last night If that time were spent in a holy recommendation of thy self to God and a submission of thy will to his that it was spent in a conformity to him In that time and in those prayers was his agony and bloody sweat I will hope that thou didst pray but not every ordinary and customary prayer but prayer actually accompanied with shedding of tears and dispositively in a readiness to shed blood for his glory in necessary cases puts thee into a corformity with him About midnight he was taken and bound with a kiss Art thou not too conformable to him in that Is not that too literally too exactly thy case At midnight to have been taken and bound with a kiss from thence he was carried back to Jerusalem first to Annas then to Caiphas and as late as it was there he was examined and buffeted and delivered over to the custody of those officers from whom he received all those irrâ—sions and violences the covering of his face the spitting upon his face the blasphemies of words and the smartness of blows which that Gospel mentions In which compass fell that Gallicinium that crowing of the Cock which called up Peter to his repentance How thou passedst all that time last night thou knowest If thou didst any thing then that needed Peters tears and hast not shed them let me be thy Cock do it now now thy Master in the unworthyest of his servants looks back upon thee Do it now Betimes in the morning as soon as it was day the Jews held a Councel in the high Priests house and agreed upon their evidence against him then carried him to Pilate who was to be his Judg. Didst thou accuse thy self when thou wak'dst this morning wast thou content to admit even fals accusations that is rather to suspect actions to have been sin which were not then to smother justifie such as were truly sins then thou spendst that hour in conformity to him Pilat found no evidence against him therefore to ease himself to pass a complement upon Herod Tetrarch of Galilee who was at that time at Jerusalem because Christ being a Galilean was of Herods jurisdiction Pilat sent him to Herod rather as a mad man then a malefactor Herod remanded him with scorns to Pilat to proceed against him this was about 8 of the Clock Hast thou been content to come to this inquisition this examination this agitation this cribration this pursuit of thy conscience to sift it to follow it from the sins of thy youth to thy present sins from the sins of thy bed to the sins of thy board and from the substance to the circumstance of thy sins that 's time spent like thy Saviours Pilat would have sav'd Christ by using the priviledg of the day in his behalf because that day one prisoner was to be delivered but they chose Barrabas He would have sav'd him from death by satisfying their fury with inflicting other torments upon him scourging and crowning with thorns loading him with many scornful ignominious contumelies but this redeem'd him not they press'd a crucifying Hast thou gone about to redeem thy sin by fasting by alms by disciplines mortifications in the way of satisfaction to the justice of God that will not serve that 's not the right way We press an utter crucifying of that sin that governs thee and that conforms thee to Christ Towards noon Pilat gave Judgment and they made such hast to execution as that by noon he was upon the Cross There now hangs that sacred body upon the cross re-baptiz'd in his own tears sweat and embalm'd in his own blood alive There are those bowels of compassion which are so conspicuous so manifested as that you may see them through his wounds There those glorious eyes grew faint in their light so as the Sun asham'd to survive them departed with his light too And there that Son of God who was never from us yet had now come a new way unto us in assuming our nature delivers that soul which was never out of his Fathers hands into his Fathers hands by a new way a voluntary emission thereof for though to this God our Lord belong these issues of death so that considered in his own contract he must necessarily dy yet at no breach nor battery which they had made upon his sacred body issues his soul but emisit he gave up the Ghost as God breath'd a soul into the first Adam so this second Adam breath'd his soul into God into the hands of God There we leave you in that blessed dependancy to hang upon him that hangs upon the cross There bath in his tears there suck at his wounds lie down in peace in his grave till he vouchsafe you a Resurrection an ascension into that Kingdome which he hath purchas'd for you with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen FINIS