by saying by speaking the making of Man was in in sermone in a consultation In this first Creation thus presented there is a shadow a representation of our second Creation our Regeneration in Christ and of the saving knowledge of God for first there is in Man a knowledge of God sine sermone without his word in the book of Creatures Non sunt loquelae sayes David Psal 19. They have no language they have no speech and yet they declare the glory of God The correspondence and relation of all parts of Nature to one Author the consinuity and dependance of every piece and joynt of this frame of the world the admirable order the immutable succession the lively and certain generation and birth of effects from their Parents the causes in all these though there be no sound no voice yet we may even see that it is an excellent song an admirable piece of musick and harmony and that God does as it were play upon this Organ in his administration and providence by naturall means and instruments and so there is some kind of creation in us some knowledge of God imprinted sine sermone without any relation to his word But this is a Creation as of heaven and earth which were dark and empty and without form till the Spirit of God moved and till God spoke Till there came the Spirit the breath of Gods mouth the word of God it is but a faint twilight it is but an uncertain glimmering which we have of God in the Creature But in sermone in his word when we come to him in his Scriptures we finde better and nobler Creatures produced in us clearer notions of God and more evident manifestations of his power and of his goodness towards us for if we consider him in his first word sicut locutus ab initio as he spoke from the beginning in the Old Testament from thence we cannot only see but feel and apply a Dixit fiat lux that God hath said let there be light and that there is a light produced in us by which we see that this world was not made by chance for then it could not consist in this order and regularity and we see that it was not eternall for if it were eternall as God and so no Creature then it must be God too we see it had a beginning a beginning of nothing and all from God So we find in our self a fiat lux that there is such a light produced And there we may find a fiat firmamentum that there is a kind of firmament produced in us a knowledge of a difference between Heaven and Earth and that there is in our constitutions an earthly part a body and a heavenly part a soul and an understanding as a firmament to separate distinguish and discern between these So also may we find a congregenter aquae that God hath said Let there be a sea a gathering a confluence of all such means as are necessary for the attaining of salvation that is that God from the beginning settled and established a Church in which he was alwayes carefull to minister to man means of eternall happiness The Church is that Sea and into that Sea we launched the water of Baptism To contract this sine sermone till God spake in his Creatures only we have but a faint and uncertain and generall knowledge of God in sermone when God comes to speak at first in the Old Testament though he come to more particulars yet it was in dark speeches and in vails and to them who understood best and saw clearest into Gods word still it was but de futuro by way of promise and of a future thing But when God comes to his last work to make Man to make up Man that is to make Man a Christian by the Gospel when he comes not to a fiat homo Let there be a Man as he proceeded in the rest but to a faciamus hominem Let us make Man Then he calls his Sonne to him and sends him into the world to suffer death the death of the Crosse for our salvation And he calls the Holy Ghost to him and sends him to teach us all truth and apply that which Christ suffered for our souls to our souls God leaves the Nations the Gentiles under the non locutus est he speaks not at all to them but in the speechless creatures He leaves the Jewes under the locutus est under the killing letter of the Law and their stubborn perverting thereof And he comes to us sicut locutus est in manifesting to us that our Messias Christ Jesus is come and come according to the promise of God and the foretelling of all his Prophets for that is our safe anchorage in all storms that our Gospel is in sermone that all things are done so as God had foretold they should be done that we have infallible marks given us before by which we may try all that is done after All the word of God then conduces to the Gospel the Old Testament is a preparation and a poedagogie to the New All the word belongs to the Gospell and all the Gospell is in the word nothing is to be obtruded to our faith as necessary to salvation except it be rooted in the Word And as the locutus est that is the promises that God hath made to us in the Old Testament and the sicut locutus est that is the accomplishing of those promises to us in the New-Testament are thus applyable to us so is this especially Quod adhuc loquitur that God continues his speech and speaks to us every day still we must hear Evangelium in sermone the Gospel in the Word in the Word so as we may hear it that is the Word preached for howsoever it be Gospel in it self it is not Gospel to us if it be not preached in the Congregation neither though it be preached to the Congregation is it Gospel to me except I find it work upon my understanding and my faith and my conscience A man may believe that there shall be a Redeemer and he may give an Historicall assent that there hath been a Redeemer that that Redeemer is come he may have heard utrumque sermonem both Gods wayes of speaking both his voices both his languages his promises in the Old Testament his performances in the New Testament and yet not hear him speak to his own soul Ferme Apostoli plus laborarunt says S. Chrys It cost the Apostles and their Successors the preachers of the Gospell more paines and more labour ut persuaderent hominibus dona Dei iis indulta To perswade men that this mercy of God and these merits of Christ Jesus were intended to them and directed upon them in particular then to perswade them that such things were done they can beleeve the promise and the performance in the generall but they cannot finde the application thereof in particular the voice that is neerest us we least
hand it shall not reach me Et si pereant Though others perish I shall not perish or to this assurance Si peream peream If I perish by the good pleasure of God I shall be well content to perish so and to this also Et si peream non pereo Though I perish I do not perish though I die I do not die but as that piece of money which was but the money of a poor man being given in Subsidy becomes a part of the Royal Exchequer So this body which is but the body of a sinful man being given in Subsidy as a Contribution to the Glory of my God in the grave becomes a part of Gods Exchequer and when he opens it he shall issue out this money that is manifest it again cloth'd in his Glory that body which in me was but a piece of Copper money he shall make a Talent of Gold and which in me was but a grain of Wheat buried in the earth he shall multiply into many ears not of the same Wheat but of Angels food The Angels shall feed and rejoyce at my resurrection when they shall see me in my soul to have all that they have and in my body to have that that they have not A SERMON Preached at Lincolns-Inn Ascension-day 1622. SERMON XXIII Deut. 12.30 Take heed to thy self that thou be not snared by following them after they be destroyed from before thee and that thou inquire not after their gods saying How did those nations serve their gods even so will I do likewise WHen I consider our ascension in this life that which David speaks of Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord I see the Prophet adds there Psal 24.30 as another manner of expressing the same thing And who shall stand in that holy place Quis ascendet quis stabit A man does not ascend except he stand And such an ascension an ascension without a redescent Moses provides for here First they should ascend to an abolishing of all Idolatry And then they should stand in that state persevere in that station and perpetuate that ascension to themselves by shutting themselves up against any new reentries of that Idolatry which had been once happily banished from amongst them The inchoation of this ascension that step which is happily made in the abolishing of idolatry is in the beginning of this Chapter Ye shall utterly destroy all the places which is a vehement gradation and heightening of the commandment It is a destruction not a faint discontinuing of idolatry but destruction It is utter destruction not a defacing not a deferring of idolatry and it is the utter destruction of the very place not a seising the riches of the place nor a slight correction of the abuses of the place but the place it self and as is there expressed all the place not to leave the Devil one Chappel wherein the Nations had served their gods And the Holy Ghost proceeds in the next verse with this particular vehemency You shall overthrow their altars break their pillars burn their groves hew down their images and destroy their names But all this is but the inchoation of this ascension the first step in abolishing idolatry The consummation of it is in standing there and that 's in this Text Take heed to thy self c. Serm. 23. The words are an Inhibition and the persons are all they to whom God hath extended his favors so far as to deliver them from Idolatry formerly practised amongst them Divisio and to bring them to the sincere worship of his Name And for such persons we need not go far for we our selves are they God hath given us such a deliverance heretofore in the reformation of Religion so far we are ascended and so the Inhibition lies upon us that we slide not back again It hath two parts 1. The main matter of the Inhibition That we be not snared by Idolaters after they have been destroyed from before us And secondly two particular dangers whereby we may be snared First by following them Take heed you be not snared by them and then by an over-curious enquiring into their Religion Enquire not after their Gods c. And through the first the matter of the Inhibition we shall pass by these steps 1. That there is no security there is still danger though the Idolater be destroyed And secondly That there is therefore a diligence to be required Take heed to thy self And then thirdly That the danger from which this diligence must deliver us is a snare Take heed lest thou be snared And for the branches of the second part the snare of following them the snare of enquiring into their opinions it shall least incumber you to have them opened then when we come to handle them first we pass through the first part 1. Part. In that the first branch is That there is no security though the enemy be destroyed And there we are to consider first what amounts to a destruction what is called a destruction in this case God had promised the children of Israel that he would give all the inhabitants of the Land of Promise into their hands that he would abolish them destroy them and as his own phrase is cut them off Exod. 23.23 God performs all his promises was this performed to them did God destroy them all Truly it was very much that God did in this behalf He got great victories for them and by strange means One angel was able to destroy for them almost 200 thousand Assyrians in one night in Senacheribs Army 2 Kin. 19.35 This was a real execution by the hands of one who having Commission had truly Power to do it an Angel But he prevailed for them so too in another case only by an apparition of Angels when there was no blow strucken 2 Kin. 6.16 when Elisha's servant saw mountains full of Horses and Chariots of fire He prevailed for them by creatures of a much lower rank and weak in their nature Exod. 23.28 by Hornets He promises Moses that he would send Hornets before them and they should drive out the Inhabitants of the Land He prevails for them by creatures of a lower rank then they Jos 10.10 by creatures without life by stones The Lord discomfeited them by great stones from heaven He prevailed by that which is no creature no subsistence a sound only The Lord thundered with a great Thunder upon the Philistines and discomfeited them He took a lower way then this he employed nothing and yet did the work by imprinting a terror in their hearts 1 Sam. 7.10 Five of you shall chase a hundred and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight And a way lower then that 2 Kin. 6.17 he wrought not upon their mindes but upon their senses He smote a whole Army with blindness And he went further yet he did nothing at all upon them and yet wrought his purpose only
must that does that did dye ever since it was made I carry a Soul nay a Soul carries me to such a perpetuity as no Saint no Angel God himself shall not survive me over-live me And lastly says he Terrenus sum Coelestis I have a Body but of Earth but yet of such Earth as God was the Potter to mold it God was the statuary to fashion it and then I have a Soul of which God was the Father he breath'd it into me and of which no matter can say I was the Mother for it proceeded of nothing Such a Mystery is man here but he is a Miracle hereafter I shall be still the same man and yet have another being And in this is that Miracle exalted that death who destroys me re-edifies me Mors veluti medium excogitata Cyril ut de integro restauraretur homo man was fallen and God took that way to raise him to throw him lower into the grave man was sick and God invented God studied Physick for him and strange Physick to recover him by death The first faciamus hominem the Creation of man was a thing incomprehensible in Nature but the Denuo nasci to be born again was stranger even to Nicodemus who knew the former the Creation Joh. 4.3 well enough But yet the Immutabimur is the greatest of all 1 Cor. 15.57 which St. Paul calls all to wonder at Behold I shew you a Mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed A Mystery which it Nicodemus had discern'd it would have put him to more wonder then the Denuo nasci to enter into his mothers womb as he speaks to enter into the Bowels of the Earth and lie there and lie dead there not nine months but many yeers and then to be born again and the first minute of that new Birth to be so perfect as that nothing can be better and so perfect as that he can never become worse that is that which makes all strange accidents to natural Bodies and Bodies Politike too Scientia all changes in man all revolutions of States easie and familiar to us I shall have another being and yet be the same man And in that state I shall have the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus Of which three things being now come to speak I am the less sorry and so may you be too if my voice be so sunk as that I be not heard for if I had all my time and all my strength and all your patience reserv'd till now what could I say that could become what that could have any proportion to this knowledge and this glory and this face of Christ Jesus there in the Kingdome of Heaven But yet be pleased to hear a word of each of these three words and first of Knowledge In the Attributes of God we consider his knowledge to be Principium agendi dirigens The first proposer and Director This should be done and then his Will to be Principium imperans the first Commander This shall be done and then his Power to be Principium exequens the first Performer This is done This should be done this shall be done this is done expresses to us the Knowledge the Will and the Power of God Now we shall be made partakers of the Divine Nature and the Knowledge and the Will and the Power of God shall be so far communicated to us there as that we shall know all that belongs to our happiness and we shall have a will to doe and a power to execute whatsoever conduces to that And for the knowledge of Angels that is not in them per essentiam for whosoever knows so as the Essence of the thing flows from him knows all things and that 's a knowledge proper to God only Neither doe the Angels know per species by those resultances and species which rise from the Object and pass through the Sense to the Understanding for that 's a deceiveable way both by the indisposition of the Organ sometimes and sometimes by the depravation of the Judgment and therefore as the first is too high this is too low a way for the Angels Some things the Angels do know by the dignity of their Nature by their Creation which we know not as we know many things which inserior Creatures do not and such things all the Angels good and bad know Some things they know by the Grace of their confirmation by which they have more given them then they had by Nature in their Creation and those things only the Angels that stood but all they do know Some things they know by Revelation when God is pleased to manifest them unto them and so some of the Angels know that which the rest though confirm'd doe not know By Creation they know as his Subjects by Confirmation they know as his servants by Revelation they know as his Councel Now Erimus sicut Angeli says Christ There we shall be as the Angels The knowledge which I have by Nature shall have no Clouds here it hath that which I have by Grace shall have no reluctation no resistance here it hath That which I have by Revelation shall have no suspition no jealousie here it hath sometimes it is hard to distinguish between a respiration from God and a suggestion from the Devil There our curiosity shall have this noble satisfaction we shall know how the Angels know by knowing as they know We shall not pass from Author to Author as in a Grammar School nor from Art to Art as in an University but as that General which Knighted his whole Army God shall Create us all Doctors in a minute That great Library those infinite Volumes of the Books of Creatures shall be taken away quite away no more Nature those reverend Manuscripts written with Gods own hand the Scriptures themselves shall be taken away quite away no more preaching no more reading of Scriptures and that great School-Mistress Experience and Observation shall be remov'd no new thing to be done and in an instant I shall know more then they all could reveal unto me I shall know not only as I know already that a Bee-hive that an Ant-hill is the same Book in Decimo sexto as a Kingdom is in Folio That a Flower that lives but a day is an abridgment of that King that lives out his threescore and ten yeers but I shall know too that all these Ants and Bees and Flowers and Kings and Kingdoms howsoever they may be Examples and Comparisons to one another yet they are all as nothing altogether nothing less then nothing infinitely less then nothing to that which shall then be the subject of my knowledge for it is the knowledge of the glory of God Gloria Dei Before in the former acceptation the glory of God was our glorifying of God here the glory of God is his glorifying of us there it was his receiving here it
that which we intend by his being justified a spiritu suo by his own spirit is not by the testimony that he gave of himself but by that Spirit that God-head that dwelt bodily in him and declared him and justified him in that high power and practise of Miracles When Christ came into this world as if he had come a day before any day a day before Moses his in principio before there was any creature for when Christ came there was creatures that could exercise any natural faculty in opposition to his purposes when Nature his Vicegerent gave up her sword to his hands when the Sea shut up her selfe like Marble and bore him and the Earth opened her selfe like a book to deliver out her dead to wait upon him when the winds in the midst of their own roaring could heare his voyce and Death it self in putrid and corrupt carkases could heare his voice when his own body whom his own soul had left abandoned was not abandoned by this Spirit by this Godhead for the Deity departed not from the dead body of Christ then was Christ especially justified by this Spirit in whose power he raised himself from the dead he was justified in Spiritu Sancto and in spiritu suo two witnesses were enough for him Adde a third for thy self justificetur in Spiritu tuo let him be justified in thy spirit God is safe enough in himself and yet it was a good declaratory addition that the Publicans justified God Luke 7.29 Mat. 2.19 Wisdom is safe enough of her self and yet Wisdome is justified of her children Christ is sufficiently justified but justificetur in Spiritu tuo in thy spirit To say If I consider the Talmud Christ may as well be the Messias as any whom the Jews place their marks upon if I consider the Alchoran Christ is like enough to be a better Prophet then Mahomet if I consider the Arguments of the Arrians Christ may be the Son of God for all that if I consider the Church of Rome and ours he is as likely to manifest himself in his own Word here as there in their word to say but so Christ may be God for any thing I know this is but to baile him not to justifie him not to quit him but to put him over to the Sessions to the great Sessions where he shall justifie himself but none of them who do not justifie him testifie for him in spiritu suo sincerely in their souls nay that 's not enough to justifie is an act of declaration 1 Cor. 2.2 and no man knowes what is in man but the spirit of man and therefore he that leaves any outward thing undone that belongs to his calling for Christ is so far from having justified Christ as that at the last day he shall meet his voice with them that cried Crucifie him and with theirs that cried Not Christ but Barabbas if thou doubt in thy heart if thou disguise in thine actions non justificatur in spiritu tuo Christ is not justified in thy spirit and that 's it which concernes thee most Christ had all this testimony more Visus ab Angelis Visus ab Angelis he was seen of Angels which is not onely visited by Angels serv'd by Angels waited upon by Angels so he was and he was so in every passage in every step An Angel told his mother that he should be born and an Angel told the Shepherd that he was born and that which directed the wise men of the East where to finde him when he was born is also believed by some of the Ancients to have been an Angel in the likeness of a Star When he was tempted by the Devil Angels came and ministred to him Mat. 4.2 but the Devil had left him before his own power Luke 22.43 had dissipated his In his Agony in the Garden an Angel came from heaven to strengthen him but he had recovered before and was come to his Veruntamen Not my will but thine be done He told Peter Mat. 26.53 he could have more then twelve legions of Angels to assist him but he would not have the assistance of his own sword he denies not that which the Devil sayes that the Angels had in charge that he should not dash his foot against a stone Mat. 4.6 but they had an easie service of it for his foot never dasht never stumbled never tripp'd in any way As soon as any stone lay in his way an Angel removed it Mat. 28.2 He rolled away the stone from the sepulchre There the Angel testified to the women that sought him not onely that he was not there that was a poor comfort but where he was He is gone into Galilee and there you shall finde him There also the Angel testified to the men of Galilee that look'd after him not onely that he was gone up that was but a poor comfort but that he should come again Acts 1.2 The same Jesus shall so come as he went There in Heaven they perform that service whilest he stayes there Heb. 1.6 which they are call'd upon to do Let all the Angels of God worship him and in judgement when the Son of man shall come in his glory all the holy Angels shall be with him in every point of that great compass in every arch in every section of that great circle of which no man knowes the Diameter how long it shall be from Christs first coming to his second visus ab Angelis he was seen he was visited he was waited upon by the Angels But there is more intended in this then so Christ was seen of the Angels otherwise now then ever before something was reveal'd to the Angels themselves concerning Christ which they knew not before at least not so as they knew it now For all the Angels do not alwayes know all things if they had there would have been no dissention no strife no difference between the two Angels Dan. 10. the Angel of Persia would not have withstood the other Angel 21 dayes neither would have resisted Gods purpose if both had known it S. Dionyse who considers the names and natures and places and apprehensions of Angels most of any observes of the highest orders of Angels Ordin supremi ad Jesu aspectum haesitabant the highest of the highest orders of Angels were amaz'd at Christs coming up in the Flesh it was a new and unexpected thing to see Christ come thither in that manner There they say with amazement Quis iste Isa 63.1 Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah And Christ answers there Ego it is I I that speak in righteousness I that am mighty to save The Angels reply Wherefore are thy garments red like him that treadeth the wine-press and Christ gives them satisfaction calcavi You mistake not the matter I have trodden the wine-press and calcavi solus I have trodden the wine-press alone and of
been scandaliz'd and led into tentation by them till his law have been evacuated that that use of the law which is to shew sin to our consciences be annihilated in us till such a Cry come up to him by our often and professed sinning that it concerns him in his Honour which he will give to none and in his Care of his Churches which he hath promis'd to be till the end of all to take knowledge of them Yea though this Cry be come up to his Ears though it be a lowd Cry either by the nature of the sin as heavie things make a great noise in the moving or by reason of the number of the sins and the often doing thereof for as many children will make as great a noise as a loud Cryer so will the custome of small sins Cry as loud as those which are called peccata clamantia Crying sins Though this cry be encreased by this liberty and professed sinning that as the Prophet sayes Esa 3.9 They declare their sins and hide them not as Sodom did Though the cry of the sin be increased by the cry of them that suffer oppression by that sin as well as by the sin it self as the voice of Abel's bloud cryed from earth to heaven yea Gen. 4.10 though this cry ring about Gods ears in his own bed-chamber under the Altar it self in that Usquequo Domine when the Martyrs cry out with a loud voice How long Lord holy and true Revel 6.10 dost thou not judge and avenge our bloud yet God would fain forbear his Revenge he would fain have those Martyrs rest for a little space till their fellow servants and their brethren were fulfilled God would try what Cain would say to that Interrogatory Where is thy brother Abel And though the cry of Sodom were great and their sin exceeding grievous yet says God I will go down and see whether they have done altogether according unto that cry and if not I may know God would have been glad to have found Errour in their Inditement and when he could not yet if Fifty Fourty five Thirty Twenty Ten had been found righteous he had pardoned all Adeo malum Gregory quasi cum difficultate credidit cum audivit so loth is God to believe ill of man when he doth hear it This then is his patience Sententia But why is his patience made a reason of their continuance in sins Is it because there is no sentence denounced against sin These busie and subtile Extractors of Reasons that can distil and draw Poyson out of Manna Occasions of sin out of Gods Patience will not say so That there is no sentence denounced The word that is here used Pithgam is not truly an Hebrew word And though in the Book of Job and in some other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures we finde sometimes some forreign and out-landish word deriv'd from other Nations yet in Solomons writing very rarely neither doth Solomon himself nor any other Author of any part of the Hebrew Bible use this word in any other place then this one The word is a Chaldee word and hath amongst them the same signification and largeness as Dabar in Hebrew and that includes all A verbo ad legem from a word suddenly and slightly spoken to words digested and consolidated into a Law So that though the Septuagint translate this place Quia non est facta contradictio as though the reason of this sinners obduration might have been That God had not forbidden sin and though the Chaldee Paraphrast express this place thus Quia non est factum verbum ultionis As though this sinner made himself believe that God had never spoken word of revenge against sinners yet this sinner makes not that his reason That there is no Law no Judgement no Sentence given for every Book of the Bible every Chapter every Verse almost is a particular Deuteronomy a particular renewing of the Law from Gods mouth Morte Morieris Thou shalt die the death and of that Sentence from Moses mouth Pereundo peribitis You shall surely perish and of that Judgement from the Prophets mouth Non est Pax impiis There is no peace to the wicked And if this obdurate sinner could be such a Goth and Vandal as to destroy all Records all written Laws if he could evacuate and exterminate the whole Bible yet he would finde this Law in his own heart this Sentence pronounced by his own Conscience Stipendium peccati Mors est Treason is Death and sin is Treason His reason is not That there is no Law he sees it nor that he knows no Law his heart tells it him nor that he hath kept that Law his Conscience gives judgement against him nor that he hath a Pardon for breaking that Law for he never ask'd it and besides those Pardons have in them that clause Ita quod se bene gerat Every Pardon bindes a man to the good behaviour and by Relapses into sin we forfeit our Pardons for former sins All their Reason all their Comfort is onely a Reprieve and a Respite of Execution August Distulit Securim attulit Securitatem God hath taken the Ax from their necks and they have taken Security into their hearts Sentence is not executed Executed Execution is the life of the Law but then it is the death of the Man And therefore whosoever makes quarrels against God or arguments of Obduration out of this respite of Execution would he be better pleased with God if God came to a speedy Execution But let that be true Where there is no Execution there is no reverence to the Law there is truly and in effect no Law The Law is no more a Law without Execution then a Carcase is a Man And so much certainly the word which is here rendred sententia facta doth properly signifie A Judgement perfected executed Gen. 25.25 When Esau was born hairy and so in the likeness of a grown and perfect man he was call'd by the word of this text Gnesau Esau factus perfectus And so when God had perfected all his works Gen. 1. ult that is said then that he saw that all was good that he had made where there is the same word That he had perfected So that if the judgements of God had been still without execution if all those Curses Deut. 28.15 Cursed shalt thou be in the town and cursed in the field cursed in the fruit of thy body and in the fruit of thy land and in the fruit of thy cattel cursed when thou comest in and when thou goest out The Lord shall send thee cursings and trouble and shame in all thou setst thy hand to The Lord shall make a pestilence cleave to thee and a consumption and a fever The Lord shall make the heavens above as brass and the earth under thee as iron with all those Curses and Maledictions which he flings and slings and stings the soul of
Lord of the world but that is in the person of Infidells and we are none of that world Though we have to do with Principallities and spiritual wickedness Ephes yet St Paul motions it thus much Est nobis Colluctatio He arms us at all points in that chapter fit to indure any violent or any long attempt and yet he tells us that all that we have to do with the Devil is but Colluctatio but a wrastling we may be throwen but we cannot be slain So also is the same state of the saints of Gods described That the Devil labours to Devoure That he walks about and seeks Those who are without the pale without the Church and these that are Rebellious and refractary within it these he may devoure without any resistance they fall into his mouth but for us who are embraced by thy Redemtion he is put to his labour and to lose his labour too He is put to seek and put to miss too He was put to sue out a Commission for Jobs good till then he conâ—essed to God Thou hast put a hedge about him He was put to renew this commision for his person Touch his bones but further he durst not ask He hath a Kingdom but no body knowes where I would we might still dispute whether it were in the Earth or in the Ayre and not finde this Kingdome in our owne hearts Expell him thence and Gods spirit is as the Air that admits no vacuity no emptiness destroy this kingdome of Satan in your selves and God will establish his God will be content with his place Himselfe you cannot see that 's one degree of his tiranny to Reserve him selfe and not be seen for his deformities would make ye hate him but in his glases in the riches in the vanities of this world you see him and know him not you see him and know him and embrace him St. Chrysost hath convinced you in all that can be sayd for the love of this world If thou wilt says he that I must therfore look after worldly things because they are necessary E regione respendeo says he Therefore thou needest not look after them because they are necessary Si essent superflua non deberes confidere quia sunt necessaria non debes ambigere for that which is more than necessary thou shouldest not labour and for that which is necessary thou shoudst not doubt for whatsoever God does not give thee he knows was not necessary for thee for he can make thee happy without these temporal things as his way in this text is to redeem without money which is our last circumstance Sine Argento In delivering his people out of Egypt he gave no money for them nay he made them get money and Jewels at their coming away In delivering them out of Babylon he brought them away rich Here in this redemption it had been bribery to have given in so good a cause and it had been a new kind of Simony never heard of to give money for the exercise of their own grace He gave no money then not because he had it not Amos 3. for Domini est terra The earth and all in it is his ye have taken my silver and my gold says God in one Prophet Agg. 2. and he makes his continual claim in another The silver is mine and the gold is mine But it was God and not the devil that was to be satisfied In devillish trading there is no passing without money in the Temple it self there were In the Church and Church affaires there are buyers and sellers too if there were no buyers there would be no sellers but there was a third sort that was whiped out too which were Changers But in oure case it was God that was to be satisfied and therefore we were not redeemed with corruptable things as silver and gold 1 Pet. 1. but with the precious blood of Christ Now this blood of Christ Iesus was not within the Compass of this word which is here translated Money though as I noted at the begining this word Casaph includes all that the heart can wish or desire for though the Application of the blood of Christ now that is shed is to be wished by every sinner to his own soul Though the sheding of that blood might have been wished by the patriarchs to whom God had revealed that in the fullness of time it should be shed at the second coming of Christ and the Resurrection may be wished for by us now yet if we take Rem integram if we take the matter at first without any such revealing of Gods purpose as he in his Scripture hath afforded us so no man might have wished or prayed without a greater sin in that wish and in that prayer than all his former sins that the Son of God might come down and dye for his sins If it could possibly have fallen into his imagination that this might have been a way for his redemption yet he ought not to have wished that way neither might it neither certainly did it ever fall within the desire of any desparing sinner that thought that the death of Christ appertaind not to him to wish that God the father or God the Holy Ghost would come down and become man and shed his blood for him Th blood of Christ by which we are redeemed was not this Casaph it was not Res appetibilis a thing that a sinner might or could desire to be shed for him though being shed he must desire that it may be applied to him And hence it is that some of the fathers argue that when the Devill began to tempt Christ he knew him not to be the Son of God for even to the devil himself the blood of Christ could not be Res appetibilis a thing that deliberately he could have desired should have been shed If the devil had considered that the shedding of that blood would have redeemed us would he have hastned the shedding of that blood He redeemed us then without money And as he bought so he sells He paid no money he asks no money but he proclaims freely to all Esa 55. Ho every one that thirsteth come to the waters and ye that have no silver come buy and eat come I say buy wine and milk without silver and without money But you must come and you must come to the market to the Magazine of his graces his Church And you must buy though you have no money he paid obedience and he asks obedience to himself and his Church at your hands And then as Joseph did to his brethren he will give you your corn and your money again he will give you grace and temporal blessings too he will refresh and re-establish your natural faculties and give you supernatural He hath already done enough for all even in his mercy he was just just to the Devil himself for as we had done so he did he gave himself both to the
You would not go into a Medicinal Bath without some preparatives presume not upon that Bath the blood of Christ Jesus in the Sacrament then without preparatives neither Neither say to your selves we shall have preparatives enough warnings enough many more Sermons before it come to that and so it is too soon yet you are not sure you shall have more not sure you shall have all this not sure you shall be affected with any If you be when you are remember that as in that good Custome in these Cities you hear cheerful street musick in the winter mornings but yet there was a sad and doleful bel-man that wak'd you and call'd upon you two or three hours before that musick came so for all that blessed musick which the servants of God shall present to you in this place it may be of use that a poor bell-man wak'd you before and though but by his noyse prepared you for their musick And for this early office I take Christs earliest witness his Proto-Martyr his first witness St. Stephen and in him that which especially made him his witness and our example his his death and our preparation to death what he suffered what he did what he said so far as is knit up in those words When he had said this he fell a sleep Divisio From which example I humbly offer to you these two general considerations first that every man is bound to do something before he dye and then to that man who hath done those things which the duties of his calling bind him to death is but a sleep In the first we shall stop upon each of those steps first there is a sis aliquid every man is bound to be something to take some calling upon him Secondly there is a hoc age every man is bound to do seriously and scedulously and sincerely the duties of that calling And Thirdly there is a sis aliquis the better to performe those duties every man shall do well to propose to himself some person some pattern some example whom he will follow and imitate in that calling In which third branch of this first part we shall have just occasion to consider some particulars in him who is here propos'd for our Example St. Stephen and in these three sis aliquid be something profess something and then hoc age do truly the duties of that profession and lastly sis aliquis propose some good man in that profession to to follow and in the things intended in this text propose St. Stephen we shall determine our first part And in the other we shall see that to them that do not this that do not settle their consciences so death is a bloody conflict and no victory at last a tempestuous sea and do harbor at last a slippery heighth and no footing a desperate fall and no bottom But then to them that have done it their pill is gilded and the body of the pill hony too mors lucrum death is a gain a treasure and this treasure brought some in a calm too they do not only go to heaven by death but heaven comes to them in death their very manner of dying is an inchoative act of their glorified state therefore it is not call'd a dying but asseeping which one metaphor intimates two blessings that because it is a sleep it gives a present rest and because it is a sleep it promises a future waking in the resurrection First part Sis aliquid First Then for our first branch of our first part we begin with our beginning our birth man is born to trouble so we read it to trouble The original is a little milder then so yet there it is Man is born unto labor Job 5 7. God never meant less then labor to any man Put us upon that which we esteem the honorablest of labors the duties of martial discipline yet where it is said that man is appointed to a warfare upon earth it is seconded with that His dayes are like the dayes of an hireling 7.1 How honorable soever his station be he must do his daies labor in the day the duties of the place in the place How far is he from doing so that never so much as considers why he was sent into this world who is so sar from having done his errand here that he knows not considers not what his errand was nay knows not considers not whether he had any errand hither or no. But as though that God who for infinite millions of millions of generations before any creation any world contented himself with himself satisfied delighted himself with himself in heaven without any creatures yet at last did bestow six daies labor upon the Creation accommodation of man as though that God who when man was sour'd in the whole lump poysoned in the fountain perished at the chore withered in the root in the fall of Adam would them in that dejection that exainantion that evacuation of the dignity of man and not in his sormer better estate engage his own Son his only his beloved Son to become man by a temporary life and then to become no man by a violent and yet a voluntary death as though that God who he was pleased to come to a creation might yet have left thee where thou wast before amongst privations a nothing or if he would have made thee something a creature yet he might have shut thee up in the closs prison of a bare being and no more without life or sense as he hath done earth and stones or if he would have given thee life and sense he might have left thee a toad without the comeliness of shape without that reasonable and immortal Soul which makes thee a man or if he had made thee a man yet he might have lost thee upon the common amongst the Heathen and not have taken thee into his inclosures by giving the a particular form of religion or if he would have given thee a religion He might have left thee a Jew or if he would have given thee Christianity He might have left thee a Papist as though this God who had done so much more for thee by breeding thee in a true Church had done all this for nothing thou pussest through this world as a flash as a lightning or which no man knows the beginning or the ending as an ignis fatuus in the air which does not only not give light for any use but does not so much as portend or signifie any thing and thou passest out of the world as a hand passes out of a bason or a body out of a bath where the water may be the fouler for thy having washed in it else the water retains no impression of thy hand or body so the world may be the worse for thy having liv'd in it else the world retains no marks of thy having been there When God plac'd Adam in the world God enjoyned Adam to fill the world to subdue
given man means and faculties to conceive and understand he hath limited our eyes with a firmament beset with stars our eyes can see no farther he hath limited our understanding in matters of religion with a starry firmament too that is with the knowledg of those things quae ubique quae semper which those stars which he hath kindled in his Church the Fathers and Doctors have ever from the beginning proposed as things necessary to be explicitely believ'd for the salvation of our souls for the eternal decrees of God and his unreveal'd mysteries and the inextricable perplexities of the School they are waters above the firmament here Paul plants and here Apollo waters here God raises up men to convey to us the dew of his grace by waters under the firmament by visible sacraments and by the word so preach'd and so interpreted as it hath been constantly and unanimously from the beginning of the Church And therefore this second day is perfited in the third in the congregentur aquae let the waters be gathered together God hath gathered all the waters all the waters of life in one place that is all the doctrine necessary for the life to come into his Church And then producet terra here in this world are produced to us all herbs and fruits all that is necessary for the soul to feed upon And in this third daies work God repeats here that testimony videt quod bonum he saw that it was good good that here should be a gathering of waters in one place that is no doctrine receiv'd that had not been taught in the Church and videt quod bonum he saw it was good that all herbs and trees should be produced that bore seed all doctrines that were to be proseminated and propagated and to be continued to the end should be taught in the Church but for doctrines which were but to vent the passion of vehement men or to serve the turns of great men for a time which were not seminal doctrines doctrines that bore seed and were to last from the beginning to the end for these interlineary doctrines and marginal which were no part of the first text here 's no testimony that God sees that they are good And In diebus istis if in these two daies the day when God makes thee a firmament shewes thee what thou art to limit thine understanding thy faith upon and the day where God makes thee a sea a collection of the waters showes thee where these necessary things must be taught in the Church if in those daies thou wilt not remember thy Creator it is an irrecoverable Lethargy In the fourth daies work let the making of the Sun to rule the day be the testimony of Gods love to thee in the sun-shine of temporal prosperity and the making of the Moon to shine by night be the refreshing of his comfortable promises in the darkness of adversity then remember that he can make thy sun to set at noon he can blow out thy taper of prosperity when it burns brightest Amos. and he can turn the Moon into blood Act. 2.20 he can make all the promises of the Gospel which should comfort thee in adversity turn into despair and obduration Let the first daies work which was the creation Omnium reptibilium and omnium volatilium of all creeping things and of all flying things produc'd out of water signifie and denote to thee either thy humble devotion in which thou saist of thy self to God vermis ege et non homo I am a worm and no man or let it be the raising of thy soul in that pennas columbae dedisti that God hath given thee the wings of a dove to fly to the wilderness in a retiring from or a resisting of tentations of this world remember still that God can suffer even thy humility to stray and degenerate into an uncomly dejection and stupidity and senselesness of the true dignity and true liberty of a Christian and he can suffer this retiring thy self from the world to degenerate into a contempt and despising of others and an overvaluing of thine own perfections Let the last day in which both man and beasts were made out of the earth but yet a living soul breath'd into man remember thee that this earth which treads upon thee must return to that earth which thou treadst upon thy body that loads thee and oppresses thee to the grave and thy spirit to him that gave it And when the Sabbath day hath also remembred thee that God hath given thee a temporal Sabbath plac'd thee in a land of peace and an ecclesiastical Sabbath plac'd in a Church of peace perfect all in a spirituall Sabbath a conscience of peace by remembring now thy Creator at least in one of these daies of the week of thy regeneration either as thou hast light created in thee in the first day that is thy knowledg of Christ or as thou hast a firmament created in thee the second day that is thy knowledg what to seek concerning Christ things appertaining to faith and salvation or as thou hast a sea created in thee the third day that is a Church where all the knowledg is reserv'd and presented to thee or as thou hast a sun and moon in the fourth day thankfulness in prosperity comfort in adversity or as thou hast reptilem humilitatē or volatilem fiduciam a humiliation in thy self or an exaltation in Christ in thy fift day or as thou hast a contemplation of thy mortality and immortality in the sixth day or a desire of a spiritual Sabbath in the seaventh In those daies remember thou thy Creator Juventutis Now all these daies are contracted into less room in this text In diebus Bechurotheica is either in the daies of thy youth or electionem tuarum in the daies of thy hearts desire when thou enjoyest all that thou couldest wish First therefore if thou wouldest be heard in Davids prayer Delicta juventutis O Lord remember not the sins of my youth remember to come to this prayer In diebus juventutis Ps 25.7 29.4 in the dayes of thy youth Job remembers with much sorrow how he was in the dayes of his youth when Gods providence was upon his Tabernacle and it is a late but a sad consideration to remember with what tenderness of conscience what scruples what remorces we entred into sins in our youth how much we were afraid of all degrees and circumstances of sin for a little while and how indifferent things they are grown to us and how obdurate we are grown in them now This was Jobs sorrow and this was Tobias comfort 1.4 when I was but young all my Tribes fell away but I alone went after to Jerusalem Though he lacked the counsail and the example of his Elders yet he served God for it is good for a man Thren 3.27 that he bear his yoke in his youth For even when God had delivered over
from others upon whom we may depend to admit any dramms of the dregs of a superstitious Religion for it is a miserable extremity when we must take a little poyson for physick And so having made the right use of Gods corrections we shall enjoy the comfort of this phrase in this House our selves our first-born our Zeal was dead it was but it is not Lastly in this fourth House the House where we stand now the House of God and of his Saints God affords us a fair beam of this consolation in the phrase of this Text also They were dead How appliable to you in this place is that which God said to Moses Put off thy shoes for thou treadest on holy ground put off all confidence all standing all relying upon worldly assurances and consider upon what ground you tread upon ground so holy as that all the ground is made of the bodies of Christians and therein hath received a second consecration Every puff of wind within these walls may blow the father into the sons eys or the wife into her husbands or his into hers or both into their childrens or their childrens into both Every grain of dust that flies here is a piece of a Christian you need not distinguish your Pews by figures you need not say I sit within so many of such a neighbour but I sit within so many inches of my husbands or wives or childes or friends grave Ambitious men never made more shift for places in Court then dead men for graves in Churches and as in our later times we have seen two and two almost in every Place and Office so almost every Grave is oppressed with twins and as at Christs resurrection some of the dead arose out of their graves that were buried again so in this lamentable calamity the dead were buried and thrown up again before they were resolved to dust to make room for more But are all these dead They were says the Text they were in your eys and therefore we forbid not that office of the eye that holy tenderness to weep for them that are so dead But there was a part in every one of them that could not die which the God of life who breathed it into them from his own mouth hath suck'd into his own bosome And in that part which could die They were dead but they are not The soul of man is not safer wrapt up in the bosome of God then the body of man is wrapt up in the Contract and in the eternal Decree of the Resurrection As soon shall God tear a leaf out of the Book of Life and cast so many of the Elect into Hell fire as leave the body of any of his Saints in corruption for ever To what body shall Christ Jesus be loth to put to his hand to raise it from the grave then that put to his very God-head the Divinity it self to assume all our bodies when in one person he put on all mankinde in his Incarnation As when my true repentance hath re-ingraffed me in my God and re-incorporated me in my Savior no man may reproach me and say Thou wast a sinner So since all these dead bodies shall be restored by the power and are kept alive in the purpose of Almighty God we cannot say They are scarce that they were dead When time shall be no more when death shall be no more they shall renew or rather continue their being But yet beloved for this state of their grave for it becomes us to call it a state it is not an annihilation no part of Gods Saints can come to nothing as this state of theirs is not to be lamented as though they had lost any thing which might have conduced to their good by departing out of this world so neither is it a state to be joyed in so as that we should expose our selves to dangers unnecessarily in thinking that we want any thing conducing to our good which the dead enjoy As between two men of equal age if one sleep and the other wake all night yet they rise both of an equal age in the morning so they who shall have slept out a long night of many ages in the grave and they who shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord Jesus in the aire at the last day shall enter all at once in their bodies into Heaven No antiquity no seniority for their bodies neither can their souls who went before be said to have been there a minute before ours because we shall all be in a place that reckons not by minutes Clocks and Sun-dials were but a late invention upon earth but the Sun it self and the earth it self was but a late invention in heaven God had been an infinite a super-infinite an unimaginable space millions of millions of unimaginable spaces in heaven before the Creation And our afternoon shall be as long as Gods forenoon for as God never saw beginning so we shall never see end but they whom we tread upon now and we whom others shall tread upon hereafter shall meet at once where though we were dead dead in our several houses dead in a sinful Egypt dead in our family dead in our selves dead in the Grave yet we shall be received with that consolation and glorious consolation you were dead but are alive Enter ye blessed into the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning Amen A SERMON Preached at the Temple SERMON XXII Esther 4.16 Go and assemble all the Jews that are found in Shushan and fast ye for me and eat not nor drink in three days day nor night I also and my Maids will fast likewise and so I will go in to the King which is not according to the Law And if I perish I perish NExt to the eternal and coessential Word of God Christ Jesus the written Word of God the Scriptures concern us most and therefore next to the person of Christ and his Offices the Devil hath troubled the Church with most questions about the certainty of Scriptures and the Canon thereof It was late before the Spirit of God setled and established an unanime and general consent in his Church for the accepting of this Book of Esther For not onely the holy Bishop Melito who defended the Christians by an Apology to the Emperor removed this Book from the Canon of the Scripture One hundred and fifty years after Christ but Athanasius also Three hundred and forty years after Christ refused it too Yea Gregory Nazianzen though he deserved and had the stile and title of Theologus The Divine and though he came to clearer times living almost Four hundred years after Christ did not yet submit himself to an acceptation of this Book But a long time there hath been no doubt of it and it is certainly part of that Scripture which is profitable to teach 2 Tim. 3.16 to reprove to correct and to instruct in righteousness To which purpose we shall see what is afforded
then whosoever wishes that it might be forgotten wishes that it had proceeded And therefore let our tongue cleave unto the roof our mouths if we do not confers his loving kindness before the Lord and his wonderful works before the Sons of men Then I say did his Majesty shew this Christian courage of his more manifestly when he sent the profession of his Religion The Apology of the Oath of Allegeance and his opinion of the Romane Antichrist in all languages to all Princes of Christendom By occasion of which Book though there have risen twenty Rabshakes who have rail'd against our God in railing against our Religion and twenty Shemeis who have raised against the person of his sacred Majesty for I may pronounce that the number of them who have bark'd and snarl'd at that book in writing is scarceless then fourty yet scarce one of them all hath undertaken the arguments of that book but either repeated and perchance enlarged those things which their own Authors had shovel'd together of that subject that is The Popes Temporal power or else they have bent themselves maliciously insolently sacrilegiously against the person to his Majesty and the Pope may be Antichrist still for any thing they have said to the contrary It belong'd only to him whom no earthly King may enter into comparison with John 17.12 the King of Heaven Christ Jesus to say Those that thou gavest me have I kept and none of them is lost And even in him in Christ Jesus himself that admitted one exception Judas the childe of perdition was lost Our King cannot say that none of his Subjects are fled to Rome but his vigilancy at home hath wrought so as that fewer are gone from our Universities thither in his then in former times and his Books abroad have wrought so that much greater and considerable persons are come to us then are gone from us I add that particular from our Universities because we see that since those men whom our Universities had bred and graduated before they went thither of which the number was great for many years of the Queens time are worne out amongst them and dead those whom they make up there whom they have had from their first youth there who have received all their Learning from their beggarly and fragmentary way of Dictates there and were never grounded in our Schools nor Universities have prov'd but weak maintainers or that cause compar'd with those men of the first times As Plato says of a particular natural body he that will cure an ill Eye must cure the Head he that will cure the Head must cure the Body and he that will cure the Body must cure the Soul that is must bring the Minde to a temperature a moderation an equanimity so in Civil Bodies in States Head and Eye and Body Prince and Council and People do all receive their health and welfare from the pureness of Religion And therefore as the chiefest of all I chose to insist upon that Blessing That God hath given us a Religious King and Religious out of his Understanding His other Virtues work upon several conditions of men by this Blessing the whole Body is blest And therefore not only they which have been salted with the salt of the Court as it is said of the Kings Servants but all that are salted with the salt of the Earth Ezra 4.24 Matth. 5.13 Mark 9.50 as Christ calls his Church his Apostles all that love to have salt in themselves and peace with one another all that are sensible of the Spiritual life and growth and good taste that they have by the Gospel are bound to praise him to magnifie him for ever that hath vouchsafed us a Religious King and Religious out of Understanding Many other happinesses are rooted in the love of the Subject and of his confidence in their love his very absence from us is an argument to us His continual abode with us hath been an argument of his love to us and this long Progress of his is an argument of his assurance of our loyalty to him It is an argument also of the good habitude and constitution to which he hath brought this State and how little harm they that wish ill to it are able to do Mamertinus Maximiano upon any advantage Hanc in vobis fiduciam pertimescunt This confidence of his makes his home-enemies more afraid then his Laws or his Train'd-Bands Et contemnise sentiunt cum relinquuntur When they are left to their own malignity and to do their worst they discern in that how despicable and contemptible a party they are Cum in interiora Imperii seceditis when the King may go so far from the heart of his Kingdom and the enemy be able to make no use of his absence this makes them see the desperateness of their vain imaginations He is not gone from us for a Noble part of this Body our Nation is gone with him and a Royal part of his Body stays with us Neither is the farthest place that he goes to any other then ours now when as the Roman Orator said Nunc demum juvat orbem terrarum spectare depictum Eumenius cum in illo nihil videmus alienum Now it is a comfort to look upon a Map of the World when we can see nothing in it that is not our own so we may say Now it is a pleasant sight to look upon a Map of this Island when it is all one As we had him at first and shall have him again from that Kingdom where the natural days are longer then ours are so may he have longer days with us then ever any of our Princes had and as he hath Immortalitatem propriam sibi filium sibi similem as it was said of Constantine a peculiar immortality not to die because he shall live in his Son so in the fulness of time and in the accomplishment of Gods purposes upon him may he have the happiness of the other Immortality and peacefully surrender all his Crowns in exchange of one a Crown of immortal glory which the Lord the righteous Judge lay up for him against that day To conclude all and to go the right way from things which we see to things which we see not by consideration of the King to the contemplation of God since God hath made us his Tenants of this World we are bound not only to pay our Rents spiritual duties and services towards him but we are bound to reparations too to contribute our help to society and such external duties as belong to the maintenance of this world in which Almighty God hath chosen to be glorified If we have these two Pureness of heart and Grace of lips then we do these two we pay our Rent and we keep the world in reparation and we shall pass through all those steps and gradations Ambros which St. Ambrose harmoniously melodiously expresses to be servi per timorem to be the servants of
of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts First He made light There was none before so first He shines in our hearts by his preventing Grace there was no light before not of Nature by which any man could see any means of salvation not of foreseen Merits that God should light his light at our Candle give us Grace therefore because he saw that we would use that Grace well He made light he infus'd Grace And then He made light first of all Creatures Ut innotescerent says St. Ambr. that by that light all his other Creatures might be seen which is also the use of this other light that shines in our hearts that by that light the love of the Truth and the glory of Christ Jesus all our actions may be manifested to the world and abide that tryal that we look for no other approbation of them then as they are justifiable by that light as they conduce to the maintenance of his Religion and the advancement of his glory not to consider actions as they are wisely done valiantly done learnedly done but onely as they are religiously done and ut abdicemus occulta dedecoris v. 2. as the Apostle speaks That we may renounce the hidden things of dishonesty and not walk in craftiness that is not sin therefore because we see our sins may be hid from the world For says St. Ambrose speaking of Gyges Ring a Ring by which he that wore it became invisible Da sapienti says that Father Give a wise man a man religiously wise that Ring and though he might sin invisibly before men he would not because God sees Nay Seneca even the moral man goes further then that in that point Though I knew says he hominem ignoraturum Deum ignosciturum that man should never know it and that God would forgive it I would not sin for the very soulness that is naturally in sin As God commanded light for the Manifestation of his creatures so he hath shin'd in our hearts that our actions might appear by that light How then made he that light Dixit he said it by his Word In which we note first the means Verbo he did it by his Word and by his Word the preaching of his Word doth he shine in our hearts And we consider also the dispatch how soon he made light Chrysost with a word Dixit id est summa cum celeritate fecit his work cost him but a word Tertul. and then Cogitasse jussisse est his word cost him but a thought So if we consider the dispatch of Christ Jesus in all his Miracles there went but a Tolle Take up thy bed and walk to the lame man but an Ephptata Be opened to the deaf man but a Quid vides What seest thou to the blind man If we consider his dispatch upon the thief on the cross how soon he brought him from reviling to glorifying and if any in this Auditory feel that dispatch of the Holy Ghost in his heart that whereas he came hither but to see he hath heard or if he came to hear the man he hath heard God in the man and is better at this Glass then he was at the first better now then when he came and will go away better then he is yet he that feels this must confess that as God commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in his heart So that is by the same means by his Word and so that is with the same speed and dispatch Again Deus vidit lucem God saw the light he looked upon it he considered it This second light even Religion it self must be looked upon considered not taken implicitely nor occasionally not advantageously but seriously and deliberately and then assuredly and constantly And then vidit quod bona God saw that this light was good God did not see nor say that darkness was good that ignorance how near of kin soever they make it to Devotion was good nor that the waters were good that a flui'd a moving a variable an uncertain irresolution in matter of Religion is good nor that that Abyssus that depth which was before light was good that it is good to surround and enwrap our selves in deep and perplexing School-points but he saw that light evident and fundamental Articles of Religion were good good to clear thee in all scruples good to sustain thee in all tentations God knew that this light would be good before he made it but he did not say so till he saw it God knew every good work that thou shouldest doe every good thought that thou shouldest think to thy end before thy beginning for he of his own goodness imprinted this degree of goodness in thee but yet assure thy self that he loves thee in another manner and another measure then when thou comest really to doe those good works then before or when thou didst only conceive a purpose of doing them he calls them good when he sees them And when he saw this light this good light he separated all darkness from it When thou hast found this light to have shin'd in thy heart God manifested in his way his true Religion separate all darkness the dark inventions and traditions of men and the works of darkness sin and since thou hast light be night not thy self again with relapsing to either The comparison of these two lights created and infus'd light would run in infinitum I shut it up with this that as at the first production of light till light was made there was a general an universal darkness darkness over all but after light was once made there was never any universal darkness because there is no body bigg enough to shadow the whole Sun from the Earth so till this light shine in our hearts we are wholly darkness but when it hath truly and effectually shin'd in us and manifested to us the evidence of our Election in Gods eternal Decree howsoever there may be some Clouds some Eclipses yet there is no total darkness no total no final falling away of Gods Saints And in all these respects the comparison holds As God commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts and so we have done with all the branches of our second part which implies our Vocation here and we pass to the last Our Glorification hereafter As in our first part we consider'd by occasion of the first Creature light the whole Creation and so the Creation of man Part III. and in our second part by occasion of this shining in our hearts the whole work of our Vocation and proceeding in this world so in this third part by occasion of this glorious manifestation of God in the face of Christ Jesus which is intended principally by this Apostle of the manifestation of God in the Christian Church we shall also as far as that dazling glory will give us leave consider the perfect state of glory in the Kingdom of Heaven So