Romans and God himself confined his own people and pinned them down with Laws and still controules the rising of their cruelty by remembrance of their own condition in Egypt and for that very end the Holy Ghost proceeds here with a double Argument against such Insolency which Tremelius cals Elegantissimam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first Argument drawn saith he a Judicio Dei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Judgement of our common Lord and Master respectless of any mans person and therefore the despising either of his person or of his cause yea of such a cause as wherein he dares contend with me that am his Master even this God will not bear I must answer for this nay I shall not be able to answer it if I be guilty but of this And the second argument is taken a jure naturali in the fifteenth verse Is my mold or mettle better then my mans Is a Lords flesh and blood of a purer composition then his Grooms or his Foot-mans Did not he that made me in the womb make him And did not one fashion us in the womb or fashion us in one womb that is the common womb of our mother earth What is then the lesson hence but meekness for all to practise but specially those in upper place since none is more superior then a Master over his slave And for this purpose the Scripture presents us with two strange examples Moses so chosen to advancement by God himself So known of God as his friend Dignified by his miraculous Power in the eyes of his enemies and by the conduct of his people that never man more prompted to take state upon him and yet it is said this Moses was the meekest man alive The other is David when he danced before the Ark and Michal reprooving him he told her he would be more vile since so she called his humility and confesses the bottom of his heart Psal 131. I have behaved my self and quieted my soul even as a weaned child We find this was at least they said so in the intent of those Philosophers both Sceptique and Epicurean to arrive at Mansuetudo Tranquillus animus to clear the soul like a fair and unclouded Heaven and this was brought us by the Doctor of Heaven Christ Jesus both in precept Learn of me to be humble and meek and in patience possess your souls and in practice stooping himself not to a survey of our miseries but clad enclosed compassed with all mans infirmities sin only accepted and as unashamed as glorying in his humility he cries out tell the daughter of Sion not her Servant but her Soveraign her King the King of Kings comes nnto her meek And is it not then a miserable consideration a wretched spectacle to see a proud man and a humble God an angry impatient and a merciless man and yet a God of Love and long-suffering I look to Heaven and thence I find descending the Saviour of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is his Description in Hebrews 1.3 the brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express image of his person in shape not only of a man but of a servant He that commands Legions of Angels and whose attendants they were in the wilderness and proud of the office to serve him as his Cooks and Butlers And shall not this example work on me that am but dust and worms and keep me from insulting over Inferiors who though my servants and my meaneft Hines and Drudges are yet respecting him our Lord and Father both my fellow servants and my fellow brethren Observe the provocations to this Vertue He scorns the Scorner resists the proud but gives Grace to the humble The Meek he will guide in Judgement in his Judgement he will teach them his way Psalm 25. When he shares the world he tels us The Meek shall inberit the earth and delight themselves in abundance of peace Psalm 39 7. which he ratifieth in his blessing Mat. 5.5 â—ut this is earthly blessing is it not so in heavenly things too Hear him in his Prophet Isa 61.1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings and we know what that means To whom to the Meek His first coming was for the Meek in the same Prophet Isa 11.4 And to meet again with the Text When God shall visit when this Son of God shall stand up to judge and to cast all proud and barbarous and cruel dispositions into Hell so he will then lift up the Meek and never leave these polisht Jewels till he hath inset them in heavenly Glory For the Lord takes pleasure in his people and will beautifie the Meek with salvation Psalm 149.4 Aud therefore who is a wise man saith St. James Jam. 3.13 let him shew out of a good conversation his works in meekness of wisdom for such is heavenly wisdom at verse 17. first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy c. If we preach it must be in love and the spirit of Meekness 1 Cor. 4. ult If you hear Receive with meekness the Word Jam. 1.21 If we will both Preacher and Hearers walk worthy our Vocation it must be with all lowliness and meekness c. Ephe. 4.2 For as if in this one grace all the rest were lock'd and infolded so doth the Apostle speak there and reckoning up the several gifts of the Spirit in Gal. 5. they seem all to be but Meekness diversified to several names To end I beseech you brethren by the meekness and gentleness of Christ Be ye cloathed with humility and upon that reason which is here in my Text God visits for rigor he resists the proud but gives Grace to the humble 1 Pet. 5.5 Furthermore If cruelty exclude from Paradise and disable from standing in the day of visitation Use this for terror against all the terrible Ones upon earth all exalted and crnel Oppressors They must hear of the wrath of this Supervisor in Heaven who sees them from thence and from thence they shall in that day see him come to visite for this sin Though they can over-soar and escape all power on earth yet see what a day the Lord threatens to make in Amos 8. and joyn to that the Prophesie of Isaiah 10.1 2 3. c. and Jeremy 6.6 c. Lastly Extend this for Consolation Regum timendorum in proprios greges saith he the highest power on earth can stretch but to their Vassals but over Princes themselves is his Perogative and Dominion that here stands up in my Text and of whom Solomon saith hc is higher then they In the cause and quarrel of Christ Jesus then we must put on the resolution of those three valiant Children The God whom we serve is able to deliver us Dan. 3. but if not we will not disobey his Command for any countercommand on earth And in this all those poor Saints of God that groan under the Turkish
SERMONS AND DEVOTIONS OLD and NEW Revived and publisht as an Oblation of gratitude to all such of the Nobility Gentry and Clergy as retain the noble conscience of having ministred to the weak Condition of the Author now aged 73. The SERMONS at Court were before the War brake forth betwixt King and Parliament Also a Discourse of DUELS being a Collection and Transtation of other mens Opinions with some Addition of his own And this in special dedicated for their Use To the Right Honourable THOMAS LORD VISCOVNT BEAVMONT of Coleorton and Mr. ROBERT SVTTON Heir to Mr. Rich. Sutton of Tongue in Leicestershire By THOMAS PESTEL the meanest amongst his late Majesties Chaplains in ordinary Nonumque premantur in annum Hor. LONDON Printed for Nathaniel Ekins at the Gun in Pauls Charch-yard 1659. DEVOTIONS ON Certain Anniversary FEASTS and other Occasions First on Ascension Day 1625. TO day white Saints and holy Angels sing To that pure Lamb some new triumphant thing Whereat the whole frame of the world ascends Each Bird on wings across his Journeys bends Upright and from the most exalted twist His voioe proclaims his Joyes above consist Earth swels to rise and heaves her Issue fair In swift perfumes to latch the mounting Air. Rise then my soul and every power awake Can wals of Dust so strong Resistance make Lo Thy Redeemer that brave Eagle flies With Cage and all breaking the marble skies His way to climb was fitst to be deprest Lay then his bloody Cross upon thy brest Which will be such a load as birds wings are To bear thee where his pleading wounds prepare A Crown of Glory made by conquest thine Was his by Nature where he will refine Thee and thy case of clay bright as his own When join'd in Glory both ascend one Throne The Relief on EASTER EVE LIke an Hart the live-long day That in thorns and thickets lay Rouse thee soul thy flesh forsake Got to relief from thy brake Shuddring I would have thee part And at every motion start Look behind thee still to see If thy frailties follow thee Deep in silence of the night Take a sweet and stoln delight Graze on Clover by this calm Precious spring of bleeding Balm Thou remembrest how it ran From his side that 's God and man Taste the pleasures of this stream Thou wilt think thy fâ—â—sh a dream Nightly this Repast go take Got to Relief from thy brake On WHITSUNDAY or God is Light GOD is all Light All eye who first gave sight To the dark Caos yielding no delight To him the double Parent whiles it lay So deep in night that nothing yet was day Wherein nought pleas'd his eye that blindly stood But when it saw He saw that all was good He whose eternal Essence House and Robe Are all one Light one boundless Christal Globe Fathers of Lights whose Son is from on high The day-spring and whose spirit an inward eye Which through this worlds wide Engine moves and rouls But dwels in us illumining our souls To search and find that whole and only Bliss Which of all three in one the Vision is Expostulation on the loss of a noble Gentlemans eye Mr. H. Ha. 1634. THou dreadfull Potter may thy humble clay Ask if Deformities or Darkness may Be pleasing in thy sight or why we find So many born so many striken blind Troops of diseases Change of chance to marr Thy work and leave a cloud where was a star If sin still made thy wrath thus heavy fall Alas thou mightst rain Darkness on us all If sins excess their pride that have their eyes Would all exceed for they would all despise But what on sins slaves as a plague is thrown Like manna fals and mercy to thine own The Sodomites were blind so Tobie was It fell on Paul as well as Elymas And to thy book thy glass when we repair Where as all scruples all solutions are That blind-born man so pos'd and quarrel'd there His parents too by thine own doom are clear And opening his thou giv'st us eyes to see That Natures Blemish may thy Glory be So canst thou blend these things and make us wealth Of Poverty and of a sickness health Want teaches Plenties use were night away We should grow wanton-weary of the day Blows Bruises Blindness ere thy work be done May into Medcine Balm and Eye-salve run God that through Darkness se'st down through my Rains And knowst how close this grief my heart constrains How this blow striks my eyes still that to weep I find them apter then to look or sleep Thou know'st the Muse was no phantastick fit Brought forth this verse I am not sick of wit But these disordered lines like Amraes deep Fetcht srom my soul in lowly murmur creep Up to thy Throne of Grace The rest is lost On New-years Day a New-years Gift Out of Gal. 4.4 God sent his Son made of a woman made under the Law First God sent his Sone GOD sent his Son to make mans joy begun From first to last in endless circle run Without Beginning God who never ends From boundless Being mans Beginning sends Mans double guard of Sun and stars we see Angels unseen all of his sending be A foodfull Garden after food came rest Then woman came of Visibles the best Her seed in Promise then in Gods intent Before all worlds into the world was sent But till all other sendings fail and fade The Blood that seal'd this mission was unmade Man first was sent to Reasons goodly Lamp Which dul'd he found and dim'd in sinful damp Then Sacrifice and Prayer which heard he saw New Light down sent him in a flaming Law Wild sinners scourge But School and Guide to those That tir'd by sin by Faith on him repose To make whose joyes in endless circle run From first to last Behold God sent his Son Made of a Woman MAde of a woman Heark you Race Of men no more this Sex disgrace The Lord of Glory leaves his place To Bour with Mary full of Grace God above all that 's great or good Is made of womans flesh and blood How rare a Vivary was this Our Lord within our Lady is O look Amazed Angels look But cannot read this my stick Book Till that Babes blood unclose the seal And so himself himself reveal The woman first that wrought our wo Remember first from man did grow Here all by Virgins blood was done Gods only Partner in his Son Made of a woman Heark you Race Of men no more this Sex disgrace Made under the Law UNder the Law He that the Ground-work laid Of Earth and gave the seas a Law was made Who gives the charge to this Eternal Word Supream-and-sole-law-giving mighty Lord. Proud slime and worms God bows our yoak to bear Put on in love to put us out of fear To service homage vassalage descends * Jan. 1. To day and first fruit of his blood he spends What Feind Eccentrick then shall force our souls
out of dust and bals of living fire fiâ—xt in our eye-brow what work makes this heavenly Potter even with that clay in white red blew after all his polishing forced to take it down and like China earth hiding some for many 1000 years will shew his Power in their raising far fairer then before and yet able to dispatch the same effect on others in a moment in the twinckling of an eye changed and not die by a suddain dissolution and a suddain re-union But far rarer Workmanship is the Recreation of our souls washt brighter in his blood and heightned by his Spirit We need but two things for our souls Grace Truth and both came by Jesus Christ from his fulness we receive both by whose service and Ministry we are made New Creatures invested in a Robe and admitted to an Order past the Fleece and Garter the Right Order of the holy Ghost Brag not vain man O run not up into some beastly figure if guilding like a snail or tracing the way of thy preferment by thy blood or match thou be mounted to a local state of Wealth and Honor for these can add no new substantial forms But this access of Spirit from this Lord is right enobling and superinduces a new soul which like fire devours and takes up all within thee and winding in one Coelestial flame and embracing Understanding Will Affections wings and lifts up all to Heaven 12. Lastly In this very house where we assemble for the Worship and Service of the Lord it is the Lord himself that does the Service to the whole Assembly So that a non nobis Domine is fixable upon the porch of this and every house of God For first he invites us hither Come I Call upon me Seek you my face The skie of Scripture hung round with provocations calling us to service and being entered who executes the parts of our Divine Service in this house of Prayer And is it not he that prays for us in us with us before us and teaches us to pray and say after him Our Father and as once by himself in Prayers and strong cries so here assists our dulness and deadness of Spirit by his own quickning Spirit inditing our Prayers and raising our Devotion with sighs and groans that cannot be exprest It is secondly a house of preaching and we indeed preach Jesus and our selves your servants for Jesus sake nay him a Servant for your sakes But if we speak him right it is he that speaks the word of the Lord heavenly Treasure from our earthen vessels that the excellency might be of God and not of us 'T is he that first did write the word which is his Power and Wisdom to our salvation and 't is he that spels the Gospel and reads and speaks to us in his Word and he that laies out and distributes sentences to several bosoms as every man hath need and he alone that follows the Sermon home and saies it all over again to our hearts Finally his House is a House of Communion for the Saints and Churches of God for the due receiving of his holy Sacraments And as in the Baptistery it is he that receives the Infants in his arms and washes their Souls in his blood and makes the water there a Laver of Regeneration So in the Supper of the Lord it is the same Lord who first shed those primordial purple drops at his Circumcision the first fruits of his all powerfull blood to begin the work of our Salvation and ever since at every holy Communion gives both body and blood the food of faithfull and repentant Spirits and makes those sad sweet drops fall again to the anguish first and then the healing of our souls For such a different office hath this blessed Sacrament that it serves both to discover our sins and to seal our Pardons Wherein while faithfully we receive him he really receives us into him and we him into us So all of us become one body and one Spirit and all by the service of one and the same for ever Jesus Christ to whom c. S. D. G. A SERMON Preached at YORK 1640. AT The Council of King and Lords EPHE 5.8 For you were once darkness but are now Light in the Lord. Walk as Children of Light IN the Skie of Scripture shines the Sun of Divinity And all Divinity all that Sun is shed in these thee Radii The Lapse the Restoring the Duty These are a perfect Catechism And a sum of these is the Epistle to the Romans injust Methode and this Text a methodical Brâ—â—iat of that Epistle indeed an Epitome of all the Book of God for here we have the Creation the World struck out of Chaos or what is more mysterious It could not chuse but please the Angels then to see the LIGHT rise out of darkness by a powerfull FIAT and the earth anon to emulate heaven by vertue of a Producat But this This Rare Work the Angels desire to prie into 1 Pet. 1.12 And if we pace along we shall find here Enoch walking with God Abraham called out of VR to another VR a purer Light The deliverance from Egypt the Red Sea the Rock the Mannae the Ark the Mercy-seat And here are all the Sacrifices the Life and Substance of them all with the Fulness and Light of all the Promises and Prophesies and here is the new Testament The Star appears Behold we bring you glad tidings Run Shepherds and see the great Shepherd of all our Souls whiles yet an Infant Loe He is wrapt here in the Swadling bands of this Text. He is the Word and this his Comment his Paraphrase and Explication You were once c. These words are a Tree laden with fruit most precious the very shell the rind is precious But if we open this Onyx this Pearl Cabinet it contains rare Food and Medicine and Wine and Balsam a Quintessence an Extraction beyond the Spirits of Oyl and Wine and Spices For what Chymist can draw Light Is not that that thing my sterious in Job 38. which way saith he is the Light parted yet here is more the Sun the Spring of Light here is that Sun of Righteousness and the Father of Light and the Spirit of Illuminations All All the holy blessed and glorious TRINITY unfolded here we may with Moses in a pious sense see him that is invisible Behold that rare workman tasking himself in his main project busie in dispatch of all his Miracles at once The Leper is cleansed the Lame walk the Blind receive their sight the dead are raised Nay Majus opus moveo The earth raised up to Heaven Flesh wrought up to Spirit Nature changed to Grace and dust advanced to he Partaker of Divine Nature For you were once Darkness c. A Comprehensive Text it is will take in all persons Speak I to a King or Lords Will they not all be glad at heart to be enlightned by this Dominus in the
here visiting looking to the wayes of Man that Man might look up to him Briefly not to reflect yet on the Coherence at which I shall touch anon in place convenient enough The Text delivers us two parts First Gods office Secondly Mans office His to visit Mans to debate and answer 1 God is the Visitor The School makes these degrees of perceiving God in names First Negationis Remotionis What God is not not the Sun Moon not finite mutable Secondly Perfectionis Affirmationis when what is most excellent in things create we apply to him by way of Analogie and Resemblance so we call him just Mercifull High Glorious Thirdly Of Supereminence such as this of a Visitor gathered from his action here and joyn'd with the Emphasis of my Text When he shall visit Men are Visitors but they more easily answered their place and power but Derivatives from this Primitive He He the grand Visier Altissimus most High So that to Gods absolute power everywhere presence this attribute and this transcendent Ability of an holy Watcher a Supervisor is proper 'T is proper Blazon and Title sutable denoting throughout these words not height alone and Power and Superiority when he shall stand up but Majesty and Terror too What shall I answer him We have found his Office but will God perform it 'T is a Question of mens performing their offices and a Question too of false gods They had an Idol in Egypt cal'd by such a name Baal-Zephon Dominus speculae Lord of the Watch-tower to fright their fugitives but when Moses and the people of Israel past that way and pitched the Camp there this god was asleep but he that keepeth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps He kept his Israel then and since he made good the Title then and since and dare we question it now But how doth God visit Search the Scriptures they testifie of him those books are moral to teach Man his office the whole duty of Man to make the Man of God perfect to every good work but they are Historical too and Prophetical too instructing us what God hath done and what God will do Look then to those Records and we shall find what and when and how in his several Visitations His Visitations are his actions Action is from intrinsique vertue Vertue there is none such in God as supposes Infirmity or Imperfection as Faith Hope c. but such as argues Perfection Mercy Justice Wisdom Bounty Power According with these we find his Visits First In general then with reference to men both wayes their persons in mercy sin upon their persons in Justice 1. In general in all places and over all things above Heaven is his Throne where he overlooks the Orders and royal Armies of his Angels ascending descending in the material Heaven disposing that numberless variety of those glorious stars calling them all by their names in the airie Heaven amidst those flocks of Fowl his Providence extending to the fall of every little sparrow If we go down to the sea amongst those infinite shoals and innumerable fishes there we see his Wonders in the Deep or if we go deeper if we descend to hell He is there also binding the fury of infernal spirits And for the Earth it is his footstool unmov'd he sits in midst of Heaven and yet they be the eyes of the Lord that run to and fro through the whole earth Zach. 4.10 raigning above yet containing and upholding all below compassing all about yet piercing all within But applyed to Men they are the eyes of God which behold and his eye lids which trye the Children of Men. But first the persons in mercy as we use the word in our visitation of friends or of the sick And of this kind as well pleased therewith is that where God doubles it Visitans visitavi Exod. 3.16 Visites and remembers visites and restores Jer. 17. ult This is called the face the beauty of his Holiness when he causes the light of his countenance to arise Then secondly Sins upon the persons and this changeth the aspect He frowns and bends the Brows sets his face against them visiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth generation Num. 14.18 first or last on them or theirs by no means clearing the guilty Then he is described to visit in Thunder and Earth-quake in Storm and Tempest Isa 29.6 And in this sense the word is used among the Prophets promiscuously for Recompensing Punishing Avenging and even this threatned on his own people tender as the Apple of his eye and his chief Treasure above all Nations Hos 1.4 12.2 Jer. 11. Isa 10.3 We may not omit his mercifull Visitation should it not shew like a piece of ingratitude not to touch here first though our voyage be to that of final Judgement And the first particular of his mercifull visitation wherein is his delight is confiderable as man is a body God then did visit him in the house of dust as his last work will be joyning and refining the same dust again in Glory and what might be said of his visitation in the womb Thou sawest my substance being yet imperfect c. What of all those wheels and wyers within the body that Mill and Clock of his contriving of his winding up at thought of which David speaks with a kind of strange shuddering O Lord I am fearfully and wonderfully made What of mans Shape Speech Beauty and how largely spred might this Web be if we took in all those threds and quils of his Providence by which he conveighs a thousand influences of his Bounty even loading Man with his benefits Psal 68. and renewing them every morning Lam. 3. Light after Darkness Spring after Winter as now we see that Grant in his course stealing an ascent over us and subduing the cold giving rain and fruitfull seasons c. What addition to this above all this from the Nature and Fabrique and Faculties of our soul in substance nobler then the stars able not only to give Being to the body like other forms but capable of eternal Felicity Secondly As Man is a Christian by means of the Revelation of Jesus that Orient ex Alto The day-spring from on High hath visited Luke 1. that Sun which riseth with healing in his wings And this was and is a blessed Visitation for thus it runs Visited and Redeemed his people Himself did visite and his servants did it in his name rising early for early visitation and since his ascension he send by his Apostles Pastors and Teachers that heavenly Treasure in their earthen vessels this Manna this Light the glory of his people Israel and because that had not concerned us it is also a Light revealed to the Gentiles this revives us when he is said To visit the Gentiles also to take of them a people to his Name Acts 15.14 But not that word of Grace though the Word of Life and Power and Mighty in operation Not
make the Seer overseen to lose the eyes of his mind to drown his holy unction in drink and suffocate the Spirit of Grace he must be apt to teach saith the Apostle and in the same place it follows Not addict to Wine left that disqualifie his Palate and Brain and render him Ineptum unfit to teach or to be taught But I hasten to a fourth and last sort of Visitors that is all Christians in performance of that general Duty which concerns both preacher and People and is indeed a prime part of Christianity and that which St. James calls Pure Religion namely to visit the fatherless and widdows in their adversity and that which will be remembred and enquired after at the great and dreadfull visitation by the Judge of all the world who will demand not what we have preacht or heard or professed bnt what we have done And among those works of mercy that shall follow and felicitate such as die in the Lord and shall then rise in the Power of his Resurrection this is a Chief our visiting the sick and those in prison And the omission of this shall be taken as a neglect and refusing of Christ Jesus in person In as much as you have not done it to them you have not done it to me Consider what I have said and the Lord give you and me and us all Understand in all things Let us pray for a Blessing c. THE FIRST SERMON AT COVRT GEN 3.9 The Lord God called unto the man and said Adam where art thou 1. A Text antient and catholique for all times seasonable fit for all places fit for all places and persons Is it to a King that I preach I may tell him this Sermon whereof my Text is a piece was the first piece of sound Divinity and preacht to the first Monarch-Lord of all the earth yet preacht by a greater King even the King of Kings and Lord of Heaven and Earth If I were preaching to a Parliament I could tell them this was the first that ever was in which the first malignant-Party was justly sentenc'd and the two first Delinquents in mankind put to Fine and Ransom 2. Take us together without respect of persons and the Text will serve to call upon every man here that professes himself a son and a servant and yet is apt to forget the Law of the Lord his God Where art thou first for the place In whose house in whose Courts in whose presence-Chamber and even this Demand considering our usual inconsideration is enough to shiver us as it did lacob with Surely God is in this place and I was not aware And then where art thou In whose Court of Judicature and even now to be called to thy answer for the same business as Adam here The breach and violation of Gods Commandment For thou hast eaten also of the forbidden fruit for so is the committing of any thing against which Gods prohibition lies and are we like then to be found Recti in Curia Can we answer him any one thing of a thonsand so the Call will concern us and the sense of the words will penetrate to our hearts also if we refuse not if we run not away from God and seek to hide our transgressions in summ it is a Text well worthy our serious attention 3. We may call it an Introduction to a judicial proceeding of God against man after his sin For after sin comes Judgement Premit comes So it was ab origine Adams case The first book-case that ever was And Judgement as St. Peter saith begins at the house and more here it begins with the Son of God for as in fulness of time he sent his only begotten Son in the similitude of sinfull flesh and to condemn sin in the flesh and though he knew no sin yet to be punished for sin being made sin for us and bearing all our sins in his body So here he comes in the beginning of time to arraign and condemn sinfull flesh in his own Son Christ is his honourable true and only Son begoten of his Father before all worlds by an everlasting generation and ineffable that none can declare But all the sons of men are his sons too by a generation declared in Ethnique Poety first and then in antient Catholique and Apostolick Divinity made of that Poety Acts 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are his Off-spring and Generation we all are so but our Forefather was so by a kind of Primogeniture as St. Luke expresly Which was the Son of Adam which was the Son of God Whence even thus early may we make application that certainly it will be then a poor and barren a silly and impotent a base and impudent hope for any son of Adam to look for Impunity Rather all must look in severals one day to hear this Call of God Where art thou Wheresoever thou shalt be or howsoever found dead among those that live in pleasures drowned and soakt in fleshly lusts or choacht in wordly cares or quick from the dead from that dispersion and resolution to watery slime and mud to earthly dust or aerie Atoms All the Mass and Collective body of mankind once made and then at once remade by his mighty Word shall hear his almighty Word that Voyce and Trump of God Return you sons of men Arise and come to Judgement Let us in Gods name and fear do so now Arise quicken our thoughts prepare for since prevent we cannot that last by considering of this first Judgement 5. Wherein the parts are four our two first parts are the two Parties appearing in and at this Judgement God the Judge and man the Delinquent Our third particular is the manner of the process Calling The Lord God called unto the man And the last is the matter of the Summons Where art thou which in the literal sense is Whether art thou fled But in the Mystick it bears a kind of secret Increpation and a touch of pitty Where art thou The glory of my Workmanship become the shame of all the Creatures Into what a miserable condition reduced that thou art ashamed of thy self Alas Adam where art thou and before we finish our Observations on the Text we may come to make use of both these Interpretations 6. The first part of this Judgement is the two persons appearing so I said there were two But yet it is not so The first person spoken of is the Judge and he is present The Lord is at hand But the guilty sinner he flies for 't Et non est inventus But it is not possible for him to escape or lie hid the sin will find him out and we must all appear Rejoyce O young man saith Ecclesiastes Eccle. 11. in th◠youth in excess of Riot Pomp Rage thou canst cover all under the fig leaves of youth but know that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgement young and old without difference every soul to answer for every thing
of the unbelievers among his own people in reserving the lapsed Angels to everlasting chains under darkness to the Judgement of the great day in Sodom and Gomorrha suffering the vengeance of temporal and eternal sire and concludes with the Prophecy as old as Enoch the seventh from Adam our exampe here which so early gave the world warning and witness of this Lords coming to execute Judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds and of all their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their rough and hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him So that as David in the 19. Psalm confounds the Atheists denying the Glory of God by a declaration of the Heavens and confirmed by the firmament under Gods own hand and utters it by the speech and voice of day and night all which speak all languages and as the blessed Apostle applies that to the preaching of the Gospel Rom. 10. The sound whereof went into all the earth and to the ends of the world and then asks the question Did not Israel know so I may apply all those passages in Scripture concerning Gods coming in flaming fire to rende Vengeance to all that are or mean to be of the Israel of God Have we not known that which was fore-known so many ages since in the famous confession of the Heathen Affore Tempus quo mare quo tellus ardeat so abundantly testimonied by the Prophets by our Saviour and the Apostles That as the flood of water was to rince the old world so all the corruptions of the New shall again be purged in streams of purifying fire 2 Thess 3. 2 Pet. ult and that none of all the corrupt mass of mankind shall avoid that tryal Is there not fair warning a fair Intimation here for all the branches by Gods striking at the root and by his Inquisition made against the first Offender that ever was The Lord God called unto the man c. 3. And here we might infer that usefull part of Sermons in uses of which the chief are still but two reducible they are all to two heads Timor Amor 1. Fear Come then and I will teach you the fear of the Lord Come and by this coming of the Lord learn and by this calling on the first Let us all at last learn to call one upon another but most of all upon our own souls to stand in aw of this Judge of all the world as for man we understand his Power is lined and chalkt out and we know what is his ultima linea But there is a line yet more ultimate that reaches down to the infernal pit and to the second death Fear him that is able to cast both body and soul into fire unquenchable Before whose Judgement-seat no Proxie is admitted from whose just Doom no Bribe no Lords Letter no Kings intercession can deliver us 2. And then Amor too not to be forgotten for all this For for all this executing of Judgement for all this erecting a Judgement-seat in Paradise against the first sinners there yet even there and then was laid the foundation of a Mercy-seat in Christ The womans seed was promised then which was sent in sulness of time to deliver us from that wrath to come And therefore can there be a greater Impulsive or Incentive to man to love the Lord No saith the Apostle He that considers this and loves not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maraxatha accursed till that coming of the Lord in a second Judgement 4. Thus far our first part The Judgement with the Doctrine and the uses upon that to shew that as I will not be bound to follow so will I never abhor even that easie Methode of making Sermons Our second and last part of the Text in this last dividing of it which is the Methode of this Judgement which we shall look upon by your patience in a double respect one to the delinquent Adam and another to God the Judge 5. First for the man He is here brought first into question God calls first to him and not to the Serpent or to the woman And in such occasional observations as this that clearing and light which the soul receives in apt solutions when she doubts or is in darkness may most properly be called the rendring of a reason It is not requisiâ—e it is impossible sometimes to reason upon some points of manifest Doctrine unless we mean to obscure them under a pretence of giving light as to tell why God is just or why mercifull The Mercy of God in the first act is his inclination in the second it is the exhibition of Mercy to us No reason of the first at all and of the second no reason at all but the first But where the thing we teach may fall under question there it is a sweet and delightfull thing to mans understanding to receive satisfaction such at least as if it do not fill up all Scruple in us may yet in the things of God possess our souls with a moderate reverend acquiescence As in this case of Adams the reason is afforded why he comes first to the bar First the Serpent was now incorrigible and had no share in this gracious Call which was ad Correctionem non ad ruiram And then in compare with the woman he was the greater sinner first as a man and then as her Husband In use it is nor sex nor person but sin the Lowdness of that which calls and cries for this calling to Judgement And even here the last in offending may be as bad as the first or worse Jacobs other sons inexcusable because they came afterwards and on more advantage to the slaughter of the Sechemites Greatness then or Superiority is no bar to this Inquest Jeroboam is branded for making Israel to sin so Adam for pertaking wilfully in the sin of Eve If David sin with Bathsheba the Prophet of God is sent to him with a special Writ and it not mistaken it was no false arrest Thou art the man Nay our persons and high places are motives to Judgements which like rains sall most on hills and eminent places 6. Secondly Respecting the other party who is offended God is Judge himself so is he ever in all acts of true Judgement though done by Delegates but here is an act immediate The Lord God in his own person It is not ever so for observe that as God here in the first foundation of mankind judges the first Monarch so in that first foundation of his people under Kings he judges Saul for inobedience like another Alam and David too for murder like another Cain The remarkable difference of the process is Here he doth it by himself To Adam he comes calling Vbi es and to Cain Gen. 4 9. Vbi est Abel But to the two Kings he sends two of his Ministers two of his Prophets Samuel and Nathan Why this different addressing of the Judgement Was
may undo thee nor can it redeem or preserve thee or thou it For Fool thy soul may be suddainly snatcht away And then whose shall those things be But if made a man indeed made for ever thou must be melted and refined and new made the Son of God in Christ Thirdly If long life be a blessing desireable Think all thy possessing here of all those dreams of the-shapes of pleasures shaddows can endure but for a vapory moment saith St Janes but he that believes in the Son of God hath everlasling Life saith St. John haves it in full and quiet possession by the power of his faith and having named everlasting life there need no addition of pleasure Food Rayment yet all these in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even in this life fulness of joy as full as humane nature can hold yea overflowing exceedingly abounding with all joy and peace in believing which Graces and replenishing of his Saints bosomes are therefore in the old resembled by saturity marrow fatness and in the new by manna hid and living fountains of water which mixt and cuited by the bleeding balm which drops from those holes of the Rock the peirced side of our Saviour becomes a cordial and soveraign Receipt against venom of sin and poison of the Serpent And lastly If felicity consist in knowledge or as he puts it Sapere fari with sapience like believing with the heart What Eloquence so puissant and clear like confessing with the mouth to salvation What learning to that Cross which makes Philosophy a fool suspends pales the sages and Disputers of this word Angels desire to prie into it and he that was full of Revelations desired to know nothing else 6. But take another view of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the two usual notions of the word Honour and Power Honour first It is so thin and aerie a thing as who can tell you what it is Something derivable from the prince the fountain of Honour yet he only alike to direct us where to lay and place the Title and the Ornaments He can bow no mans heart to any performance for it is a thing wholly in honorante in him that will do us honour if he lift and when he lift And what are the materials and the dress Reckond they are Esd 13. Thirdly Clothed in Purple and fine linnen eat in gold sleep on gold a Chariot with bridles of Gold Now usurpt by vulgars and then to sit next the King and to be called his Cousin Glories well worth the wearing when purchased by a long descent of noble blood and vertue mingled or by that vertue singular Yet how uncertain is the Possession In times of Peace how oft hath Glory vanisht all honour been laid in the dust and still attended on beside the shade of envy with those two certain Ravishers extream old age and death and in times of war or danger how subject to the pillage and affront of every Ruffin But here 's an honorable addition with a perpetuity enough if our hearts were filled with ambitious fires to give satisfaction and acquiescence Sons of the most high which stile though some on earth may wear yet God their Father wears it with a difference Some most high among men in their morning and meridian Glory may be full low before the evening But thy Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom Thou O Lord art most high for evermore With cordial water it is that the Church sprinckles all our hearts when she teaches us to pray O Lord whose Kingdom is everlasting and Power infinite To be Son then to him is a Title which anoints us in Grace as Christ in nature above all our fellows of mankind and in a sort above Angels For to which of the Angels said God at any time Thou art my Son A Title wherein all Titles imperial are appaled impoverisht lost or far exceeded For I can ask as great or I can think beyond all honour ever worn by mortal But this Gods tells me is above Demand and Cogitation above all that we are able to ask or think Secondly In the notion of Power as it is here rendred What a formidable army doth the people present and oppose to the militant Christian Eph. 6.14 Principalities and Powers and then the vantage ground in high places enough to daunt the courage of the stoutest flesh and blood to encounter Legions of such spirits yet mark his oration to the soldiour verse 11. My Brethren Be strong in the Lord and in the Power of his might There is a compleat armour beaten out in Heaven and we fight under him who hath blood and spirit ready to run into and fill our veins to make us stand and standing fight and fighting conquer more then Conquerors for we are made to triumph in Christ who triumpht over all those powers for us And if there be more Troopers in the way of our Salvation as there is a world of enemies yet this is your victory whereby you overcome the world even your faith and against all the treasons and rebellions of the flesh the servant of God hath no other rescue granted him upon his instant petition but my Grace shall be sufficient for thee and my power shall be made â—erfect in Weakness PARTICVLAR 3. 7. I Have done with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and am come to Torcular the Wine-press of Application By which I promised first to draw a cup of consolation which is soon done by contemplating the Grace and Mercy of God in Christ Jesus His abundant manifold Grace and the multitude of his Mercies his sweet and tender mercies differenced from mens first in being sure then in their eternity The Lord is gracious and his mercy is everlasting And lastly mercy mingled of pardoning and rewarding both together which no man uses to a riotous Son or refractory servant yet our case was more desperate and behold God sets forth his love to us being enemies and in defiance Then he sent again his only Son that whosoever believes might not perish Is not that enough No But might have everlasting life The solemnity of this fulness of delight in the enjoying of Gods mercy thus in Christ makes it up a wedding Hos 2. and in the Gospel And the Saints said to rejoice in their beds The spouse in Thalamo And all that Psalm of David Ps 45. and all Solomons Song are nothing but Epithalamions at these nuptials wherein the Bride though bare and poor and naked and miserable before is now by the rich Dowry and Joynture of her Grace in Christ stated and possest and enobled and arayed and adorned above her wish and to her everlasting consolation but for we are too apt too easily to let such Comforts issue from such Texts as this therefore I told you this cup must awhile be set by till we have tasted first a Cup of sober consideration for a cooler Be sober and suspitious was the Heathens and Christians rule alike is Be
he and I say it were unfit and monstrous it should be It may pass for a Chymera No I do not press the very precept of the Apossle Gal. 6.6 Let him that is instructed in the faith make his Instructer Partaker of all his goods or good things which you please Much less will I fright you with that of our Saviour worse then for Sodom and Gomorrah at the day of Judgement then for such as receive us not Nor urge to be received as in some places St. Paul was where people were ready to pull out their own eyes to do him good and received him as an Angel of God as Jesus Christ himself and his scholler Titus received with fear and trembling I will go less with you then your receiving men of other proâ—essions such as look to the state of your land or state of your bodies What a mighty Covenant seems to be driven with some of these almost in terms of Matrimony for better or worse in Sickness and in Health what and keep you only to them too and are the Jurisconsults of Gods Law and Physitians of the soul persons of no value Lastly Is it not a world of wonder to consider how all Regard runs down and streams in bounteous manner on both sides of us and leaves us drie in the middle between those two extreams The Stately Jesuit how is he received even to the adoration of his Fatherhoods venerable slipper and what is his errand to seduce you from the bosom of a Grave and Modest Matron your Mother who hath bred and fed you with the Milk of the Word and Blood of your Redeemer and cause you to embrace that painted Gentlewoman on the seven hills who if she be not she is yet as like the whore of Babylon as she can look on the other side the factious creeping Sectary is admired and applauded by too many as if he were a vessel of some burden when indeed he is but an empty frigat and not able to endure a grapling Mean space the plain down right Protestant that keeps the higher road the King of Heavens high way to truth and maintains that only Doctrine and Discipline which for 1600 years by just devolution is descended lineally from the Apostles and Apostolick men and is able to demonstrate and make it good in the face of both those adversaries is not received but misconceived and abased and abused by vulgar spirits But I hope yea I know better things by you and such as accompany Salvation of whom I know also I shall obtain a gratious pardon for this long Invective for alas the time is fully come for us to take up that prayer and complaint of the Princely Prophet Have mercy upon us O Lord have mercy upon us for we are utterly despised Our soul is filled with the scornful Rebuke and with the despightfulness both of the proud and ignorant 3. I dare not leave out the King who is a main Receiver of Christ Rex is in Vitis per me nay in me Reges too and Christ our Supream Monarch conveighs both our piety and our peace through earthly Kings Prayer for them first of all for in that prayer all others are included that we under them may lead a godly and a quiet life And as Rex is in the vine so he is a fruitful vine too and a main spreading tree like that Pliny mentions in Tacape within whose wide embrace a number of other trees were imbosom'd and received their fostering and education So under the Labels and Infules of the Crown as under a Canopy sits every man arbourd and sheltered enjoying his own vine and branches round about him with a spacious trail and bunch of blessings for which I must refer you to two places of Scripture 2 Sam. 23. and Esai 32.2 What might be added here of blessings by Land in our peaceable protection hitherto by means of Judex and Vindex twixt plea and plea twixt blood and blood without which what would become of the Possessions and Priviledge the Right and Property of the Subject and blessings by water in those winged Mercuries and well armed Martial Counsellors should the enemy forraign speak in defyance our best and ablest Agents to break off the Treaty And doth not all this deserve a Torcular to press this Racemus yielding such a fat full of blessings Indeed for the cup of Consolation the happiness enjoyed under Monarchical Government every man can open his mouth wide and swallow the profits and the pleasures of and under it But where 's our cup of Conformity to the Rulers Justice and Temperance and Goodness and Chast beams and sweet indulgent gracious and merciful Disposition But I forgot the cup of Consideration and so we are apt all to do the Consideration of our Duty We mark well that part of the prayer that the King knowing whose Minister he is c. but quite forget the other part That we duly considering whose authority he hath may faithfully serve honour and humbly obey him Hath not God joyned those Duties Fear God Honour the King so close there is no pause nor breath betwixt them And what God hath so joined will any vain man blow asunder Nor think this a drie and dull piece of Divinity because every bird in the painted cloth hath this in his mouth and every sign of the Bell can say as much for I could wish we had more birds taught to sing this note of Ave Caesar and that all our Bells specially all Aarons bells would leave their janglings and agree to ring this Peal in all mens ears for wheresoever those words are written they are written for our Instruction and ought to be written as the Law of God upon all our foreheads and in the Palms of all Subjects hands for the admonition and tempering of their hearts both when they lie down and when they rise up I will end in Vote and Prayer for Royal Charilaus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Grace of Kings and Joy of all good hearts beseeching God to bless us all with faithful souls to our God and his Christ in heaven and so to his Deputy here on earth that by approving our faithfulness and obedience to both our daies may be long in the Land which the Lord our God hath given us S. D. G. PSAL. 89. ult Remember O Lord the Rebuke of thy Servant and how I hear in my besome the Rebukes of many People wherewith thy enemies have blasphemed thee and slandered the foot-steps of thy Annointed Blessed be the Lord for evermore Amen Amen A Very Passionate peice and the last of a long-lasting Lamentation of David shall I say in the Name of David I am sure in a weak and woful condition beside the Contents that is the Disâ—â—ntents exprest in this Text all along if we surâ—â—igh the Pile the ruin rather of his misery and â—â—mself under the heap covered with dishonour â—â—r 44. 2. A wonderful thing so
and none able to answer him a word yet were they still offended at him and even in that offended because he was unanswerable nay the lustre of his Grace and Goodness his temper and sweetness and clearness dis-illustring the highest of their Priests and Princes and Rulers of the people being dazled and madded with the splendor of his Vestigia the prints and proofs the tracts and evidences of his meekness and innocence all along in his active and passive obedience when there was nothing else for the tooth and tongue of envy they took indignation at his very vertues and Pilate knew that for envy they had delivered him to his Judgement 12. And now methinks we have been all this while in America among Negroes black slaves not so much as an Albus dextris but all black toothed and black-mouthed and black-tongued and black-sould people A generation viperous and rising strangly from the earth with spears and swords not in their hands but in their mouths And yet Negroes can but poison arrows to take away mens lives but these opprobrious people corrode the very honour of Gods best servants far more precious then life it self O foul presumption How camest thou into the world to cover and blast both carth and skie and all the Children of the Light and him that is the Father of Light overrunning all with this new Chaos this foul Reconfusion 13. Indeed some read for all the people here all the Mighty and if so that will make Infamy yet more infamous and this world of wickedness worse then it was 'T is best to hold us to our old belief for if with Copernicus we turn the skeme and so let Servi Rex David Christus Domini himself that is the whole Church militant on earth which is his Spouse his Dove his dearly Beloved one body and one Spirit with Christ and dear as his eyes or heart be under a power of such Populorum with the sway and addition of Maximorum that is if Might be added to multitude then will the Church of God be but a miserable Center when those other wheel aloft and thwart their underlinings like the Zodiaque All the bosoms then of all the servants of Jehovah Christus Domin would soon be filled with Reproaches and with deadly arrows like the poor Anatomy in the Almanack Cancer would not only go against the stomack while others lie heavy on the head and heart but every pelting petty Sagittary would be dribbling at the legs and very Aquarius pour out the venom and dregs and bottom of his Tankard upon Vestigia here the Footsteps of Gods people PART 2. ANd then what Remedy against Opprobrium populorum truly if we intend it of Faex populi the skum it is like Babylon they cannot because they will not be cured born and bred like a wild Asses colt saith Job worse saith Isaiah then Ox or Asse know not their own Owner not God that made them Subjects nor Gods anointed set over them for their good Rom. 13. Such stuborn stomacks as are irreducible by moral swasion or any power of Eloquence not Orpheus nor any from hell tune them to a temperate obedience either of that Command in the beginning of the old Testament which God gave Laban concerning Jacob Nequid durius speak no harsh language nor to a fear of that Commination in the end of the New Testament against such as despise Dominions and speak evil of Dignities and of things they know not raging waves foaming out their own shame and concludes the Lord is coming with 10000 of his Saints to execute Judgement upon such impious sinners for all their ungodly deeds and for all their hard speeches Will these regard a Prophet or a Preacher against whom their usual fence is to strike him with the tongue when with such the Lords anointed shall be no longer so if they list to bring their Expurgatory for they can do it as fast as Jesuits or Anababtists That brace of Sects whose Dignity proceeds of themselves like those Chaldeans in the Prophet and who scoff at Kings and Princes are a scorn unto them Hab. 1.10 Nay What Cure for such mad men as think themselves all Kings or as the Devil boasts that all the Kingdoms of the earth are their Doles and Donatives as mad as he that fate in the haven and counted all the ships arriving there his own proper goods Such sots as these may have at times some Lucida but never continue in one mind David for a fit shall be the breath of their Nostrils they will sing his Glory and challenge ten parts in the King But the Son of Bichri a man of Belial may turn all this with one blast and every one of them gone with Opprobrium We have no part in the Son of Jesse 2 Sam. 20. So one while the barbarous people call St. Paul a Murderer and presently a God Gods are come down to us in the shapes of men O run and fetch Garlands and let us sacrifice All on a suddain the wind changes and then this fine speaker Mercury must be stoned But what speak we of Servi Christus Domini was not our Lord himself so tost from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to crucâ—fige He They 'l none of him give them Barabbas What was he A thief he was a Robber made Insurrection in the City and committed Murder Did they not make a rare choice Yet such wise men as these are those who to this day first elect themselves and then clep and call their friends and fellows by the names of Saints and Children of God As for Moses and Aaron they are too proud and officious but Core and his complicies are called the people of the Lord and when they saw them go down quick to hell yet next morning at it again the people of the Lord still But is there no Balm no Physitian Yes enough if Mountbanks not mistaken for Doctors and if they prescribed not poison instead of medicine Such leaders seduce and cause a mad people to err The divisions of Reuben were from great thoughts of heart But might not Simeon and Levi these were their Writers and Teachers be the Raisers and Fomenters of such Divisions Sure I am in Num. 16. where the Rubenites conspite against Moses the meekest man on earth and Aaron the Saint of the Lord it is Corah and his company of Levites and that coar of envy in their hearts for the high Priesthood that began the mischief And how oft do we read forewarnings of false Prophets and in Act. 20.20 among your selves saith the Apostle shall rise up men speaking perverse things to draw Disciples after them And I wish such Incendiaries only came from Rome with their charm of the Church Catholique and that we were free from Impostors and Seducers in this sence for drawing Disciples after them and infusing such Doctrines that with Satyrâ—k Sermons and incentive vociferations they have filled the State and Church both with
Dominus and then qua Servus 1. As Dominus For we may ask Pharoahs question but not with Pharoahs mind Whois the Lord and nothing but Jehovah will answer that in excellency which takes in all the three persons of the glorious Trinity but yet as we are forbidden by the Christian verity to say there be three but one Lord so observing both old and new Testament the second person by joynt assent of both the other is made made both Lord and Christ Lord every way Lord by Creation 〈◊〉 him were all things made Lord by preservation The Government upon his shoulder who is the mighty Lord and all things upheld by him who is the mighty word Lord by Redemption too The Lord our Righteousness made unto us Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption 1 Cor. 1.20 So to him all Power and Dominion is given in Heaven and Earth and at his exaltation his Coronation confirmed The homage of knees and tongues That Jesus is the Lord is was and is to come yesterday to day and the same for ever so goes our hope He shall come to judge so begins our Christian Creed In Jesus Christ our Lord so end our prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord so every Christian with St. Thomas makes a glad profession My Lord and my God If our eyes be not held that we shall not know him if once out of weakness we be made strong in the Lord if once out of darkness we be made light in the Lord if anointed with the eye-salve of the Sanctuary we then in him in whom the eye of Judas the worlds eye the Jews eye could see no beauty in that Worm they trod and spit upon that slave they scourged that Malefactor they crucified shall clearly find to our everlasting comfort both a gracious man and a glorious God breaking through all those clouds darting majestick raies contracting all our sight and uniting and fixing all our eyes on that only lovely Object who after all the Eclipses and shadows of the earth and hell gone over him shines forth in perfect beauty crowned with the Sun and under his feet a Moon with deaths pale head and a red Dragon upòn his thigh his name inscribed Dominus Dominorum Men and Brethren what shall we do What manner of men ought we to be in holiness and fear What think you Is not our obedience due in reason a reasonable service to this Lord above others Other Lords have ruled over us Satan and our vices have been Lords of Misrule But there goes vertue still out of this Dominus and vertue there is in Dominus a magnetick intrinsique vertue to draw even Ironhearts to his service Stands not Dominus over Domus here and so over every Church and Chappel like the herald star to beckon us to invite all that are wise to salvation O come let us worship and fall down before the Lord. Down O down with every high thing and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ Jesus our Lord This qua Dominus 2. And then qua servus still more reasonable service if such a Dominus stoop to Servus strange if all those houses you heard of prove our houses another while and he 'l do us service in them all first in the great house of the round world it is so both in the Mechaniks and Oeconomicks In the beginning of his book we find him as a Carpenter at work by the week making partitions measuring and figuring with his Elements in square and skies in circle stricking up Lights and pinning them to the body of the Sun then mixing other mysteries of Gardiner and Painter limming to the life his pieces this our Lords doing all Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation the work of thy hands Heb. 1.10 And for whose sake so fair a frame for Birds or Beasts the Heathen could tell you no 〈◊〉 Sanctius his Man made Lord to name his vassals at his pleasure and when God gives him possession the very word is Dominamini all at his service So in Occonomy as built so all upheld for us Habendum Tenendum by his Manu-tenency kept in repair from crumbling out to Atoms and not an empty house that would do us no service but herein by 10000 hidden providential quils distils and works out food and rayment by whole loads saith David Psal 68. and changes fresh every morning saith Jeremie Lam. 3.22 And therein descending past Offices of Stateâ—eward Treasurer Chamberlane to the meanest of Baker Cook and Butler with his bottles of Heaven clouds droping fatness finest wheat and liquor of the Grape so low in this great Domus is this greatest Dominus diminisht doing his servants all these Services 2. Secondly As Terram dedit so Coelum dabit His upper house shall be ours after one life that but a span long 'T is his by nature ours by conquest we come in with the Conqueror therefore we look at it still in hope as Travellers going home that abiding City whose Builder and Maker he is and where he is still at work for us preparing a place many Mansions Crescit sub principe Coelum where he keeps possession for us in our name and in our nature and whence he sends to us continually his holy Angels to serve us and thence will come with all those Angels to fetch us up to his last supper and there again serve us himself while we sit down with Abraham Jsaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven 3. Thirdly In the womb of the blessed Virgin he was an humble servant abased himself in not abhorring that whereon we dare not stay our trembling thoughts so many minutes as he endured it moneths and this service only for us for us men and for our salvation he was incarnate to burn out our stains and corrosive the leprosie of our nature For he by the holy Ghost which at first moving on the Chaos created a world of beauty being there conceived was thereby filled with Grace in out Nature which Grace in our measure was from him to be spread and shed in our hearts by the same holy Ghost which is given us Rom. 5. So was he our servant there and Factor for us and therefore stript of all that might unfit him for that Ministry 4. In the fourth house of our flesh he comes lowly with love I come to do service in the form of a servant to minister to serve the curt of souls and bodies too See the great Arch-Prelate Primate of Heaven and Earth Lord and Bishop of our souls whose Sea is from sea to sea and from the River to the worlds end to whom we may give all Bellarmines fifteen great names and all too little is yet content and that not in jest but in Deed and in Truth with servus servorum Domini who though he served his foes for a mocking-stock and never was man so shamefully served yet despising the shame he served out his time and counted it his
knowest it is wind by that but knowest not whence nor whither So is every one that is born of the Spirit The cause and course is secret but the effect discernable As in Creation our soul and body meet by breathing so here the mystick work is Inspiration and infusion of manifold graces but those graces have activities and such whereby you shall easily perceive that you were once darkness but are now Light in the Lord. These Graces then will give us further Light whose excellencies are laid out in those expressions of Water Floods Fountains and Fire and Milk and Manna and Oyntment and their Efficacies in those names of Seal and Evidence and Earnest and Witness and Joy and Consolation And are there not fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. Fruits that grow not up from the bitter Root of corrupted nature but from another Principle and which in their bloom and freshness render a man not like those Ethnick Graces only facile and sweet in conversation though they do that too but gracious in Gods aspect and glorious too shining as a Light in the midst of a crooked and perverse Generation If we shall taft a fruit or two in specialty I will only trie to do it in this notion here and under this Capacity of Light 1. Knowledge even that of nature is a Light and mans soul still is the Lamp of God saith Solomon and a Wisdom residing therein that Recedes as far from folly as Light ftom Darkness and this was all those great Philosophers Animalia Gloriae had which puft them up so For this hath some tincture of the Serpent and soon inflates yet alas Mans salvation is that Grove and Mysterie Nulli penetrabilis astro not pervious nor peirceable by the star-light of Reason There must come a supernatural Light from Heaven which as in the Giver it is called a Sun of Righteousness rising with healing in his wings the day-spring from on high and the True Light so in the Receiver it is called a great and marvellous Light of which Will you hear St. Paul I count all loss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the supereminence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord this indeed is all for in this is all This is Eternal life to know Thee and him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ to know him for my Jesus to apprehend him for my Justifier by a second Grace by a true and lively Faith 2. Faith then is another Light of the sanctifying Spirit superinduced on the Light of Reason to raise and perfect it for it is not in stones or beasts God can from stones raise up Children unto Abraham but if so the work must first be done by Infusion of a rational soul and the golden Key of this Grace then fitted to the prepared wards of reasonable Nature It is not amiss to compare it to Sybillaes golden bough which grew to and upon the Trce and as he adds Auri per Ramos aura refulsit So this superstructure out-shines the utmost endeavours and perfections of Nature and Reason and resembled it is by some as the Seal to Wax It is not naked and meer reason as Air is Fire but Faith is rather printed reason and there joined Light if we wilfully exstinguish not their flames will yield the bearer fair Direction and Confidence and Consolation There may be there will be a coarctation a compression of this flame in the act of Faith a damp upon the alacrity thereof yet if there be not in us an evil heart desirous nay wilfully set to depart from the living God If you abide in me saith our Saviour then certainly as his Father and he with the sacred Spirit joyntly made Light at first and pin'd it to that Sun which was never wholly darkned since and as he the true Light breaking from the clouds of the blessed Virgins body and joyned to mans nature retains that nature still now glorified so the Spirit of this Grace possessing thy spirit loves never to part again but grieves when we offer to quench his coelestial fires O then learn not to despair of Mercy and Assistance Clouds and Eclipses obscure and wandring and wicked thoughts self-accusings and self-condemnings and Satans suggestions may trouble and affright us But if we abide in him and be strong in the Lord and in the Power of his Might and resist the Devill he will flie from us and our hope in Christ and the Power of his Resurrection like a rising Morn will scatter all the delusions and rebellions of the Night and remember his gracious Promise Hell-gates shall not prevail against a Faith of Adherence All the Powers of Darkness let loose upon St. Paul yet he was safe I know in whom I have believed I live saith he no not I but Ckrist lives in me and it is his Spirit only that can give assurance that whereas I was darkness my Faith in him makes me light in the Lord. 3. As for Love another Grace the Grace of Graces the bond of perfection and especially of that coelestial Armor and Ardor of the soul to God What might we say Whatdo they feel into whose breasts is shot this right coelestial flame and there shed abroad by the holy Ghost which is given them Away then with all wanton fires of earthly Love or ambition set them but by this and they will appear poor and wan discolour'd pale and drousie things and like meretritious females shewn with modest and noble Matrons dasht all out of countenance 4. Lastly for I am not too long to insist on these Graces so perceptible to the Possessors if we would have true and lasting joy Where shall we seek it Is it to be found among those Pangs and Convulsions and Palpitations of an earthly sensuall mind Mala mentis gaudia as the heathen Poet calls them and plac'd by him far within the Porch of hell Meteors of imperfect mixture Scansory and seeming to mine and aim at lightsomness and height of Spirit But having crackt awhile and blaz'd down they slide again and resolve into their first earth and drossiness But he that hath tasted of the heavenly gift the joy in the Holy Ghost wherein the Kingdom of Heaven on earth doth principally consist can tell you of a joy that is full a joy unspeakable and glorious consisting in a dispersion of all that is dark and desolate and a true Light that is Lux in Domine Light in the Lord. Thus have we trac'd this Oriens ex alto and thus far described that Method that Lucidus Ordo of Gods procedure in descent of his Spirit and defluence of his Graces Thus far we are come to meet with this great Bishop of all our souls this blessed Visitor and have observed his way of baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with enthean fire and confirming his People with the manifold Graces of his Spirit But yet since he is in Heaven and that Spirit is to descend on us we are not satisfied till we
also Negatively Dewâ— 5. â—7 Not kill nor cozomit adultery nor steal and so the Apostle Be not dsceived Neither fornicators nor Idolaters nor covetous nor drunkards c. 1 Cor. 6.9 Not yet to shew you further of this in that new eapanfure and firmament of his Grates under the New â— estament till I come to the consummation I intend â—or the conclusion But by the way even this connexion of comforts may awake our consideration and raise our admiration and by that call up and address and enlarge our thankfulness St. Beraard wonders as well he may at those Dual junâ—toes of God and man and of maid and mother and then that admirable conjuncture in man of faith and reason mixing their auxiliary forces and mutual assistances to comprehend and believe this Mystery How can our souls then escape an extasie of comfort when we light upon those conjunctive precious Promises God will give grace and glory and no good thing will be withhold Glory and Honor and Immortality on every soul that does well and on the contrary the Remembrance of the Law of God given in conjunction should make us tremble to sever what God has so joyn'd and entender our consciences to avoid every wickedness not abhorring Iâ—ols and committing sacriledge not pretending to fear God and yet dishonor the King and yet hope to escape the chain-shot of Gods Judgements which come in conjunctions too and for them that treasure up sin he treasures up wrath against the day of wrath he hath treasures of hail and stormy tempests stor'd up for the ungodly plagues of famine and sword and diseases tribulation and anguish temporal and spiritual and Eternal 3. A third Material is the Expansion the extension of this golden Ingor The spreading and dilatation of this comfort of our being Gods peculiar before we look upon it Refin'd in Christ in the state and trial of adversity For if thou beest of those that in corrupt times canst fear before the Lord and think upon his Name which are the qualifications of these Jewels of God in the Text in what blessed Ark and Repository then art thou How safe dost thou dwell under the shadow of those wings that are never nipt never lose any long feathers wings that are a tent in time of peace in time of war a Pavilion and a strong tower of defençe and protection Let then the world hate disclaim on thee Caesar frown Princes persecute the whole world against thee as it was once said of Athanasius yet as Athanasius entitles one Psalm the 62. Psal Adversus omnes Insidiantes all enemies of state fame body and soul so mayst thou write over this Text and make hither thy appeal and hence derive thy Cordial and Restorative in this that thou art Gods own the Lord of Hosts is with thee the God of Jacob is thy Refuge All the Sentences of Scripture containing gracious Promises are as St. Jerome told Paâ—la fences for the brest of a Christian How is this then able to hoop it round with steel and keep it up from sinking in despair be the affliction never so forcible to press it down Though thou wert humbled with all Davids miseries that thou couldst take up all his complaints at once Though the proud rise and assemblies of the terrible seek after thy soul and thou bear in thy bosome the Reproaches of all the mighty though thou art left as a sparrow or as a Pelican in the desert a brother of Dâ—agons and companion of Owls thy Lovers and friends put far from thee and thy acquaintance into darkness and though thy bones are burnt up as an harth and sorrow hath dryed up thy strength that thy bread is ashes mingled with weeping though thy soul melt thy spirit ore-whelm'd and thy heart within thee be desolate though the terrours of death compass thee and the pains of Hell get hold upon thee or were thy wretchedness equal to that of holy Job Broken with a tempest and fill'd with bitterness the venom drinking up thy spirit thy reins clâ—ven asunder and thy gall poured out upon the ground thy face foul with weeping and thy eye-lids in the shadow of death Or in thy Reputation like him made a by-word and tabret for drunkards or like St. Paul the spectacle of disgrace a fool the scum and off-scouring of all things Yet all this fire is quencht in one drop of his mercy whose thou art and who is thy keeper and Defender Thou shalt be mine sayes God mine for all this the sooner for this I will look upon thee respect remember thee own thee raise thee lift thee up visit mark thee seal thee and make thee up a Jewel for my self 4. This was the Expansure and Dilatation next is the complication of our comfort as it is wrapt up here in Dominus Exercituuâ— the Lord of Hosts Indeed the arresting and conserving of all joyes is in him that weares that Name by a right Excellency And this Title falls fitly in our way to be tryed before we can make a full extraction For though the Emphasis be in They as we shall see anon and the comfort enclosed in â—â— ine yet would this Mine prove but heavy leaden Ruff. Verbum frigidum as St. Cbrysostome calls moum tuum were it pronounced by the greatest Monarch upon earth The life of it is in that the living God hath spoken it For shall not the Judge of all the world do right and hath the Lord spoken and will not perform it That Lord whose Attributes of Power and Mercy both are specified in this Appellation of Dominus Exercituums The pith and strength of all lies in this For though this Name seem incidental here and by way of Perenthesis yet is it axis cardo the hinge on which the whole hope of the Righteous turns and it would break the sence of the whole sentence to leave out this The sence I am sure of the blessing not so full nay none at all if he were not Dominus Exercituum The School makes three Degrees of perceiving God by Names both in nature and Scripture First Negationis remotionis He is not the Sun not finite mutable Secondly Perfectionis affirmationis when what is most excellent in things create we apply to God by way of Analogy and Resemblance so we call him Just Merciful High Glorious Thirdly Names of Excellence and Supereminence as this Title here for to seek him amongst the Hosts of his Creatures yea in the highest things we know is Ridiculous but to determine him there is impious Vltra altra quarendus cryes St. Bernard And yet though it be an impotent hope and impudent attempt to imprison God in Names yet as God every way incomprehensible to make some impression of his Nature to Moses gave himself a Name so we find the man after Gods own heart and by his own inspiration say the Lord is a man of war The Lord of Hosts is his Name By which conjuncture of War and
Hosts in that Psalm we may first consider God in this Name as a Warriour and as the Lord Generalissimo of the War but not so as men receive that Name for their Command over one and their own Army but as Commander over all Armies and all wars Offensive or Defensive that have been are or shall be in the world For it is not only in spiritual Furn ture that Isay dresses God and arms him Cap à pee but the Prophets ost in the literal sense as if God took a special complacency in the stile and none more frequently then David so present him In Psalm 46.8 9. he calls us to behold his Mirabilia and addâ— a special proof of all by Gods not Warring but doing a greater work then that in making wars to cease in all the world O were it once so his great and gracious work in this our orbis Divisus our little world of great Britain He breaks the how and knaps the spear in sunder and burns the Chariots in the fire But when he will war and shew how dreadfully he can come on the Text tells us he looks but on the earth and it trembles but touches the mountains and they smoak And even Nebuchadnezzâ—r will in the end acknowledge as much to his glory that all the Inhabitants of the earth are reputed before him not only as Grashoppers but as meer nothing and he does what he will in the Army of Heaven and him that walks in pride he is able to abase And therefore an horse is counted but a vain thing to save a man from this God of Battails No King can be sase by the multitude of his Host 'T is this Lord incline the Victory as he pleases Secondly whereas other names of God in Scripture are less luminous in reference to his servants succour and protection such as shield and fortress and Desence like particular refulgent stars in the Firmament of his Power and Providence This as the Sun wherein he shines forth more Illustriously more diffusively more manifoldly This a whole Heaven a circling and enwrapping skye with all the Constellations and affluences of his own Essential and immediate with those of the Angels and other Creotures co-assistances So that a gracious and a glorious a full and clear and constant consolation is derivable from the fulness of this Name and every souldier and servant of his may sing and say with the Prophet and the Apostle The Lord is my light and my salvation the Lord of Hosts is with us And if that Lord be with us no matter how many Lords and earthly Kings be against us Diogenes could boast deride and chuse all Tragick fortune upon that conceit that he was a friend of Jupiters and the Jesuit Serarius sayes even the flames of Purgatory are not dreadful respecting the assistance of the Patients good Angel How much more and on what better ground may we build and raise a foot of comfort and erect a lively hope from the true Jupiter Opt. max. the God of those good spirits and whose Charriors are two hundred thousand even thousands of his victorious Angels What wars or rumors of wars what numbers of enemies can dismay the man of God when Eliahs boy can espy these battalias in the clouds of Heaven whereof one alone in one night without hoft or Cannon or sword or spear or noise is able to slaughter 180000 thousand of Assyrians And as great Chiefs are vigilant to take places of advantage and so to dispose their troopes as one may give Relief unto another so this Soveraign Commander for the succor of his poor Infantry here below hath lodg'd those Legions and bright squadrons of winged spirits above to be in readiness and in whose aid that man of God sayes he will be confident and so he may and so may every Dauid for God himself hath plac'd that Guard while himself is pleas'd to attend the watch and go the round and designs and emploies those flaming Ministers in their Ranks and Orders for the service of his Elect. Is it not so Art they not all ministring spirits sent out for the good of all them that shall be heirs of Salvation Thus far the Materials of comfort drawn from this Mine both in the radiant mixture and connexion and expansion of those diffusive joyes whose nature is to supple and sustain them in adversity and all this again complicated and arrested upon the contemplation and proof of their Lords being Dominus Exercituum And now lastly to keep promise I shall trie to superinduce a Roof and Crown of pure Gold over all these Materials which is the Consummation of the Saints Consolation as God becomes ours and we His in the only Mediator Christ Jesus which before we can well discern it is requisite we discover to the bottom of this Mine and find the first foundation of Gods people laid upon the only love of God in making choice of them at first for his Peculiar For to be his in general is the common lot of all his Creatures The Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof Again His delight was ever with the sons of men Acts 17. and he made of one blood all mankind to dwell on all the face of the earth All live and move and are in Him and His Off-spring and Generation and he provides for all Light and Influences and showers of fatning rain to fill their hearts with food and gladness But in Exodus 19.5 where we find this very word in the Text denoting Singularity and Choiceness God tells his Israel whom he had derived from Abraham the father of the faithfull that if they would obey his words indeed and keep his Covenant then they should be a peculiar Treasure to him above all people For all the earth saith God is mine but not so mine as You for he goes on You shall be a kingdom of Priests and an holy Nation Only the Lord there laies down the Corner-stone of this building and discovers the bottom reason of his electing them which was not saith he your multitude for you were the fewest nor your inclination to my service for you were an obstinate and stiff-necked people but only he had a delight in their Fathers so we have it Deut. 10. to love them above all people Which love of God as it drew on his first calling them so it occasioned his preserving them from all the world when planting this Vine in Aegypt where it was pincht and straitned he made room for it and transplanted it to grow and flourish in the vast and barren Wilderness and on the sandy botome of the sea till removing Nations greater and mightier then they he made that people possess the gates of their enemies and his Blessings and Protections still eminent and imminent still over their heads even then when they provoke him to send them into captivity from whence yet he gathered them again and as that daughter of Sion that Church through the four
invest us with a Light yet inaccessible will also place another Crown of Glory inaccessible And so in the allusion the contemplation of those joyes that go before the entrance into our Masters Joy and those that follow after in fruition will easily stir and fire our souls to cry or sing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to this son of David Blessed be he that comes thus in the name of the Lord and is the Lord that comes thus from the Father and God Totius of all consolation anointed to his great Office and Design of binding up the broken hearted by the Holy Ghost the Comforter Luke 1. and is himself by way of Excellency stil'd the consolation of Israel And thus this first glad priviledge of Gods fearful and faithful servant is refin'd and wrought up to perfection from this Mine in Malachy the last of the Prophets to that Mine of St. John the last and liveliest of the Evangelists or rather that Mine of our Lords own discovery in Iohn 17.10 Thine they are and all mine are thine and thine are mine Mine But who is he All our comfort even now was complicated and conserv'd in Dominus Exercituum And is he so That stile indeed wears out in the New Testament but is abundantly recompenc'd in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The only Potentate the Lord of Life and Glory Most of all in that name above all names which all tongues must confess and at which all knees should bow that sweet and powerful that gracious and glorious Name of Jesus a Saviour and able to save to the utmost in whom all fulness dwels and in whose hand is all power in heaven and earth And had not their eyes been held down and the Jews hearts vaild over they would have perceived and received him for the true Messiah in this very notion and nature of a Lord of Hosts For in him were all their Moses's Joshuales all their Captains and Saviours their Baraks and Gideons and Sampsons and Davids and Macchabees all reviv'd and restor'd to the world But they knew not the manner of their King and to mistake a King may be a world of misery nor of his Kingdom nor the force of his Artillery in the dreadful Canon and Ordinance of his Word Spirit Nor that the Scepter of his new Law should prove the Iron Rod to break and subdue both men and Devils They considered not his stupendious Miracles proving him the Lord of Hosts in commanding over the whole frame of Heaven and Earth and Seas and all the host of them and bowing whole created nature to his obedience To rebuke tempestuous winds roaring waves as a Nurse her child with Peace and be still nay suspend and silence and deprive Devils of their possessions with a word To lay his command on Death it self and force him to let go his hold after four dayes seisure in the grave Will Iews or Jewish hearts attend my voice that would not hear the thunder of those Miracles But for support of the true Catholick faith and for the consummation of all our consolation King and people Christ Jesus is become our Dominus Exercituum Christo auspice regno regnabo too and his bloody Cross a braver badge then that of Castor and Pollux This is polleus lux ipsa For is it not he alone destroyes our raging lusts and nails them to his cross and he alone that ' gainst a world of opposition and all the opposition of this evil world cryes to his host be of good comfort I have overcome the world He alone that came to dissolve destroy the works the strong holds of Satan and to vanquish powers and Principalities in high places that had the vantage ground over us He that breaks in on death and sin and hell and like a Conquerer in the triumphal Chariot of his Cross made a shew of them openly and as Triumphers us'd to do when he ascended up on high and led captivity captive he gave gifts unto men But yet more to prove him the Lord of Hosts by being more then that name can imply for this Name is observed to be too yong for the ancient of Dayes that is a Name taken up since and from the Creation A Name indeed that draws and scatters on us all we can look for from our Maker and Preserver But all his powers and mercies are resolved and melted into this Name of Christ Jesus Without Christ without God sayes the Apostle in the world we are but meer pieces of the masse nay far worse is our condition born children of wrath and in state of enimies and so the Lord of Hosts is against us and all the hosts of Heaven and spirits of Hell and all the creatures and our selves against our selves And when there was no Name under heaven to save and deliver us from present and wrath to come then came this Prince of peace and became our Peace pledg'd himself for us gave his life a Ransome so making peace So prevailing over the Lord of Hosts binding his Almighty hands and God content to accept terms of peace may we not say so Came not that Voyce from Heaven This is my beloved Son in quo acquiesco in whom I am at peace with all the world If all this prove him not a Lord of Hosts he will one day to the further consolation of all that love his appearing appear to the consternation of all his Despisers in flaming fire to render vengeance And as in the dayes of his flesh then unglorified and compast about with all mans infirmities he could have been encompast with more then twelve Legions of Angels so then he will meet those two Hosts those droves and flocks of sheep and goats with another Army of his Saints and Angels from Heaven with whom we shall be caught up to meet that Lord in the ayr and so shall be ever with the Lord. If we desire yet higher to raise this Crown of consummate consolation in Christ I will come to Visions and Revelations I will open that of St. Steven Acts 7.56 I see heaven opened and the son of man set on the right hand of God which place being further opened by St. John makes us see him on a Throne of Glory covered with light as with a garment under his feet Deaths pale head and a red Dragon and all his enemies about him stand the Armies of his Angels and of mankind a greater number then any man can number of all Nations Languages On his thigh that Name written Rex Regum Dominus Dominorum The Elders casting down their Crowns adore him that has many Crowns upon his head And we may safely add this Title to those Crowns of Dominus Exercituum and rejoyce to think how those Crowns are encinctur'd and enchas'd with precious stones for the twelve Tribes of Israel and with manifold unions of God and man of grace and glory for the consolation of the Gentiles also thereby fully made perfect
the Sun in his strength so when his time was fully come the day that this Jewel must be made up First his Body is glorified on earth and then assum'd into Heaven and a place for this precious Gem at his own right Hand above Principalities and Powers and a Name given him above all names And now that blessed Face wherein the Jews saw no beauty yet was fairer then the sons of men which they defiled and spit upon is ador'd by Seraphims and both Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of his Glory Now God observes the self-same method in all the rest finds them out among the refuse of the world amongst flocks and herds of Nations from the first rude quarrie of the Chaos from utter vacuity and nothing assembles their attoms and smallest dust breaths in a lively spirit exalts purifies it grafts on it Knowledge Faith Love Holiness and having begun a good work of Grace never leaves it till he bring it to perfection filing away their dross and grinding out their grains and Ices and clouds of corruption till he hath refin'd them to a brightness as in St. Paul a rough stony-hearted persecutor wrought by certain scales and barks pull'd away to become a chosen vessel to bear his name among the Gentiles Act 9. A bright star on earth and now a glorious Saint in Heaven 3. Jewels then thirdly they are for that care and love which God affords them men prize their Jewels Reserve them curiously take a glory and perplacency in possessing and wearing them So God having bought them at a price inestimable purchased not with corruptible things as silver and gold but with the blood of Jesus Christ as of a Lamb undefiled and without spot then he sets his heart upon them all his delight is in the Saints that excel Those he tenders as the Apple of his eye sets them as Josiah for a seal and a Signet on his right hand hides them under the shadow of his wings and so also God glories in them and holds them out to the amazement and confusion of the world of gross and earthly souls which are as foils to their perfections and commands them to do him grace and to be an Ornament to him Let your light shine c. Again The Comparison would hold for the task is easie to pursue an Allegory for Rarity Rari quippe boni apparent rari in gurgite Vasto in a sea of froth and foam and for the place and manner of breeding and growth But I forsake the rest and chuse to insist only on Properties respecting which Righteous men are justly term'd Jewels and chiefly two of clearness and lustre first and then of firmness and solidity which are the Vrim and Thummim of a Christian 1. In the first precious stones excel being compact of the finest Atoms and this holds well for as while we admire the pure Orient Pearls the radiant and sparkling Carbuncle the serene bright Saphir the green Emerald and the like we may raise our contemplation to the beauty and clearness of the stars and Sun and so ascend to him that struck light out of darkness at the first that dwels in perfect Beauty and in light inaccessible and covers himself with Light as with a garment so in a spiritual manner that Light of Grace in his servants attracts others also to behold in them Him who is Pater Luminum the Father of all Illuminations and so that fair and pure soul which gives Light in the darkness of the Body and night of Ignorance returns with advantage to him that gave it with the gain of other souls wonne by beholding their chast and illustrious conversation They tell of Diamonds belonging to some of the house of Luxembourge and Theophrastus has it of other stones propagating their Species by turning first the circumstant ayr into water and then contracting that water into a more earthy substance like themselves But it is true of these precious and living stones who born of Gods immortal seed by a new Light shot from Heaven do likewise in Reflection and by aggregation assimilation and an ardent sympathetical combination and communion work others to the same conformity of the godly Nature inspire illumine and propagate others with a kind of Divine Generation And as that Godlike creature the child of Heaven and Gods first born Light when delivered from the womb and jaws of Darkness is able to deliver over it self without ceasing without Annibilation Fraction o◠Diminution and as Love in moral minds and true Charity in Coelestial souls not leaving its own habitation will walk the round to those spirits which are capable of its Society And as God the Son is of the Father God of God and Light of Light and Love of Love For God is Love as he is Light so are his Regenerate and Adopted children also all from him and one enlightened from another Secondly Solidity firmness constancy the Christians is a standing Credo it was wont to be so Lord I believe without distrust whether my understanding comprehend it or no without curiosity to be further confirm'd by Miracles Lastly Credo Audacter without dissembling or fear to acknowledge it This is stere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Col. 2.2 that firm and full assurance of Faith I mean in Resolution not to alter or shrink as was in couragious Joshuah I will serve the Lord and hearty David that endured much and long yet he recedes not from his Vow no I have sworn and am stedfastly purposed And Job though he dyed for 't yet it should prove no this way dissolution And for this cause God allows the Name calls it the most precious faith of his Elect and chides those Recreants that Recoil so easily O ye of little faith Those are no right Jewels of his they are but Glow-worms and Hypocrites or as glass and Sophisticate shels and vitious stones which have an inconstant and languishing shine or whose splendor is only in a morning or under a clear sky and lasts not in gusts and storms of persecution or which in age decrease in Grace and Vertues and come to lose their abilities No t is said of Gods Palms and Cedars that they flourish on and bring forth more fruit in their age And for this firmness even moral men have made strange approaches and profest the conquest of it resolv'd to retain their vertue and honour untainted maugre all the rage of bloody tyrants and either allurements or encombrances of a base and vitious world How much more Christians to endure the torture the Rack the fire that which is the Crasis of all these The Inquisition to despise that tryal of cruel mockings and resist even to blood and ready to lay down our lives rather then betray or prevaricate and shuffle in the cause and quarrel of Christ Jesus and his holy Church As no sin shall tear me from that Root of Gods Love so I am perswaded sayes the Apostle no affliction Rom. 8.
and he had good store shall slacken my hold upon this Rock shall severe me from that love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord. Other Properties they ascribe to precious stones and some such as are marvailous The Jasper sayes Pliny was wont to be worn in all the Oriental Regions as an Amulet against poyson and is of vertue to expel noysome dreams and Visions to clear the eyes and assists against all adversity So the Saphir in a Ring or Amulet contributes toward all prosperity encreases Devotion and helps against Ire Envy Sadness The Sardonix against Pride The Chrysolite against pusillanimity all melancholy fears and follies The Turkese they say deliver from imminent dangers and discovers them when they are near The Topaze from phrensie and sudden death The Chrysoprase availes against covetousness as the Beril is a hater of idleness Finally for I may not reckon all the Diamond for frienship stil'd therefore the stone of Reconciliation The Hyacinth is powerful to procure chearfulness and to preserve from thunder and lightning and all diseases The Amethist good against surfets and drunkenness and advances men to the favour of Kings Others are reported vertuous and those I am use you could wish me to help a man to eloquence and to make him quick of dispatch But now I confess I allow not this for a point of Divinity nor put it to you as a piece of good History for in the stories and traditions of these things I doubt not but there is a mass and mixture of praestigious vanity and untruth yet am not I of their mind utterly that think all Jewels vâ—id of all efficacy for doubtless as we believe the influences of stars and vertues of medicinal herbs and Roots so t is not disagreeable to Reason that in these glorious creatures the Creatour may have imprest beside their lustre some other secret testimonies of his excellent power which not only for that God vouchsafes here by them to describe the excellency of his Saints and calls his own blessed and beloved son by that Name of a precions stone but also I am the apter to believe by reason of those two places of Scripture which I named before The 28 of Exodus the 21 of the Revelation to which again I reser your reconsiderations Allowing then a possibility for many of these Properties in precious stones we may reduce all to two Specialties 1. They do encourage to good 2. And preservefrom evil both of sin and punishment and herein however qualified in themselves they may surely be of good use for us to make an apt resemblance and to express the condition of righteous souls such servants of God as fear him and think upon his name These are Jewels to the world in example stirring and provoking others to emulation shining in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation And these are they that like Lot in Sodom restrain the vengeance and overwhelming storms of fire from Heaven upon a world of ungodly wretches These are those blameless souls who when Achitophel and Haman are hanged up with all their rotten pollicies and ragioni dâ—â—stato shall shine and whose light God will make to break out as the morning and to rise in obscurity and their darkness to be as the noon day and then they shall be call'd according to their qualities the Repairers of the breach and Restorers of the paths to dwell in Isay 58.12 But the cunning Statesman laughs at this and shakes his head to think that honesty or Religion should prescribe to such Grandees and Superintendents of fine but unrighteous Policy That the Bible or the Rules or the grace indeed deriv'd from thence should afford a way of enabling men in discharge of that Duty which is seen in Governments Lucian he likes but Machiavel admires those are his Scriptures Yet let such a man take the experimental proof of this from secular story Seneca the Jewel of Neroes youth and a braver Defence and Ornament then that so famous Jasper of his wherein he was pourtrai'd arm'd compleatly but his Armour of proof was Seneca preserving him five whole years in a form of Regiment equal to the best of his Predecessors But his Jewel once thrown away he fell to all excess of wickedness Or if a Scripture-story may pass let him look on that 2 Chron. 24. it may serve abundantly for all Examples Joas a yong King yet does right in the sight of the Lord so long as his Jewel lived the Text is plain all the dayes of Jehojada the Priest ver 2. Collections for repair of Gods House Oblations and Sacrifices renewed But when this Jewel was call'd for back to Heaven to be treasur'd there at ver 17. come the Princes of Judah no worse and they crouch make obeysance to the King for what for a change of Religion and how succeeds it as they could wish For the King hearkened to them and so they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers and served groves and Idols And as in States and Common-wealths so in Cities and Towns and private Families Gods servants in the due preservation and practice of Piety and Goodness are as means of encouragement to others so causes also of Restraint from evil of sin many sins of swearing whoring drunkenness and consequently preventers of Gods judgements for such sins As Moses interpos'd himself as a precious Jewel of excellent vertue in his prayer and Aaron with his fire betwixt the living and the dead and caused the Destruction to stop there So no question while just men live the whole Countrey Town Family is the better blest and when they dye God takes them away from the evil to come So far the bodily part of the Sermon in the explication of this second priviledge of Gods servants They are his Jewels Now to infuse a soul by breaking this speculation into practice into such uses as I account the very life of preaching For our first useful extraction then is to teach us wherein consists true Honour Joy Nobility Blessedness 'T is not in the endowments of Nature not in thy large capacity or faithful memory swift apprehension thy penetration of judgement or facility of Elocution not in thy height or depth of learning no nor in the exercise of moral vertue thy valour or thy bounty though these are Ornaments I wish on all my friends much less is it in thy purse or clothes or titles Not though thou wert a Joseph or a Mordecay to feed in Gold be drest in Purple sit next the King and be call'd his cousin which are reckoned in Esdras for the prime favours of an earthly Monarch for alas all these things mayst thou have and yet be but a meer worldling and after devolve to a worse master Kings may give their favourites and Popes bequeath their darlings and their Nephues earth and ayr Title Territory and make them Lords of so many Parks Mannors Honours Towns Counties Yet if but one
not aware I took at first no notice of his Fatherly corrections which are indeed his compassions and consolations Thy Rod and thy staff comfort me Psalm 23. But now I feel his coming to visit me is like his visiting the earth which he visits and enriches Psalm 65. like a Physitians visiting an Hospital to cure for if I am sure it is the hand of my God I am sure also that it is in Love for God is Love t is his Essence immutable No reason then his visitation should prove to an irreligious sadness or a melancholy a dejection a jealousie a diffidence So long as the work is his though he purge or cut so he give me not over so he cast me not out of his hands so I hear not that voyce which is more dreadfull then ten thousand thunders Depart from me c. Thus far I am to debate what I am to answer in affliction Surely the best answer is no answer at all Tacui Domine and my soul kept silence not as unaffected remorseless but as subdued by faith repentance obedience working me to a blessed patience captivating and bringing into subjection every exorbitant every wild and wandring imagination Once have I spoken saith holy Job but I will no more or if my heart will vent I have forms and molds ready wherein to cast my words that of Ely It is the Lord c. and David behold here am Is let him do unto me as it seems good in his own eyes and I will confess too to his glory the fruit and the root I find that thou O Lord of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled Psalm 119. and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit Job 10.12 And to draw this into practice in each particular affliction for every one is Gods Embassadour and none to be dismiss'd unanswered The application is a world of matter which I cannot look at now only for that I find my self in a Seminary in a Colledge of Divines I may have the liberty the recreation too to make for you and my self one particular application For we my Brethren that are or should be pars indocili melior grege if your pulse beat like mine are certainly so much infested with no worldly calamity as when saevit malignum ignobile vulgus as when we find our selves disgrac'd counted the seum of those that are indeed the scum of the world when all we can say or do which way soever we frame our doctrine or conversation it is as water spilt upon the ground For though we pipe unto them they will not dance though we mourn they will not weep Let a mans behaviour be like Iohn the Baptist rough austere they cry he hath a Devil or if enlarged in freedom of conversation like our Saviour away with him a glatton a wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and sinners So that the ground of the quarrel rests not in being thus or thus affected or qualified or endowed but they hate us for our very calling But what answer have we I could tell you one a harsh one of the Cynical Philosopher who being demanded How it happened that the great and wealthy people affected rather to be liberal in rewarding Fools and Players and Jesters and beggers then men of his profession answered for that they might perchance have some hope of proving such themselves but no hope of turning Scholars This was bitter But we have learn'd a better of the Apostle I pass not to be judged by you and a better yet of a better master Let not your hearts be troubled they called our Master Belzebub and shall not I drink of the cup which my father gives me saith he so shall we not drink the potion which our Lord hath begun to us which by tasting first he hath sweetened for us Is the Disciple greater so is he daintier then his Master Were we like the Apostles persecuted whipt imprison'd that consideration would make us march on in all these dificulties and like hardy souldiers non gementes sequi Imperatorem But rather rejoycing that we were counted worthy to suffer any thing for his name sake and if it came to death we know our Answer Christ t s to me life and death is to me advantage But I forget my self for I am bound to a further Port to that which is appointed after death for after that to Judgement When God shall visit c. Of this final Judgement the Text informs us two Things It shall be and it shall be most dreadfull therefore needs debating and casting for our Answer First it shall be He will visit Even the Heathen had an Apprehension an expectance of such a day a time quo Mare quo Tellus correptaque regia Coeli Ardeat mundi moles operosa laboret All this frame unling'd unpin'd and burnt And the new-discovered world have discovered this too though who discovered it to them is hard to determine But I speak to Christians who as fully as we believe God in Heaven believe from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead But Where When What Where I know not about Mount Olivet and they think they argue it fairly and probably from what we find in the Prophet of the valley of Jehosophat Joel 3.2 and that of the Angels This Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come again as you have seen him go into Heaven Act. 1.11 However that sure we are of this his Elect by his Angels from the four winds from one end of Heaven to the other shall be gathered into one place Mat. 24.31 When tell us when shall these things be You know who ask'd that question and you know our Saviours Answer Take heed that no man deceive you and when wicked Mockers ask'd it the Apostle sets no day he durst not he could not Job was resolved in the Article he shall stand the last upon earth Job 19. but no time limited The Prophecy father'd on Elias tels us of two thousand yeers Inane two thousand Lex two thousand Dies Messiae and then the Conflagration But our Saviour controuls all over-rules all Of that day and hour knows no man nor Angel nor the Son kimself Only by many signs accomplished by the Apostles calling those the last days then what may we imagine now if but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then a Tantillum then that span of time is now contracted to an inch and he that shall come will come and will not tarry But what what will he come for he will come to visite such a Session Visitation as none before it No Star-chamber no high Commission no Parliament-Bar no Council-table no Inquisition so formidable Why who comes the Circuit the LORD the LORD-Chief-Justice Judge of all the world Wise Incorrupt with Power and great Glory with such a Train all his Saints and his Holy Angels and this is that day the day the day the great day of his wrath Zeph. 1.
Of his wrath who is a consuming fire and will come so inflaming fire to render vengeance with strange effects the Sun obscur'd the Moon lost Stars fallen Powers of Heaven shaken the Heavens themselves passing away with a noyse Elements melting with fervent heat Earth and all her works burnt up 2 Pet. 3. with the great sound of a Trumpet which even the dead shall hear Graves shall fling open their marble doors and Seas vomit up Millions of drowned Carcases Hell it self shaking thereat and yet all this passing in a moment in a twinkling falling on the world as a snare stealing as a thief rowling as the flood confounding like lightning from the East Then for strictness in this Judges proceedings as for reward first wherein mens Laws are lame defective there 's a Kingdom his own thy Masters joy the same Throne Rev. 13. and then the Purity of that Bliss which Angels enjoying adore and last The Eternity in Psal 16. at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore So contrary those four conditions of hell torments for variety the most greatness insufferable for Purity unmixt with least allay of comfort or hope of mitigation and for continuance everlasting Is it not high time to debate Answer and thither we are come Consider this you that forget God that is you that would forget him that would damp out your own light you that say in your hearts that is you that wish in your hearts there were none what will you do what answer him He hath answered me already that you shall not be able to answer him not able to stand when he stands up in Judgement for the mouth of all wickedness shall be stopped your answer may be a vain cry to the hils and rocks to fall and cover you from the presence of that Judge But I preach not I hope to Atheists and Desperates But when St. Peter saith The righteous shall scarce be saved Doth he not enforce a necessity of debating Had we a tryal in law or Debts on Interest we would fall to reckoning This is more The title of our souls and eternal salvation is at trial a Debt doubled and re-doubled in sins of Youth of Age of Ignorance of Presumption and are our Purses neerer then our souls But is there no avoiding None not for the young men that are least touched with remorse He will bring thee to Judgement Eccle. 11. We must all appear There are wayes and those wayes are trodden too many go those wayes to elude the temporal Judgement of men But in Rom. 14.12 it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every one must account and every one for himself no Atturneyes no Proxies Think too think of our distance shall I speak to the Lord that am but dust and ashes What words shall I chuse saith he Job 9.15 Alas all thought of answer then will be in vain for besides that we are not able to answer him one thing of a thousand that day is his day his day of wrath the time of mercy is over past irrevocably past his day of Doom is come 't is come to sentence and therefore what shall we do Why while we have time put in our answer yet the Chancery and Court of Request is open Now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation My Text is future yet He shall come he shall visit Here is a latitude for Repentance yet he expects calls for our answer and we know to what we have his Bill his Articles Interrogatories that is his Law written and engraven in our hearts we must now frame and put in our answer What is it Repentance first For so may that of the Apostle be understood in Eph. 6. where he enjoyns the Christian souldier to have his feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace I know some take that preparation of the Gospel for a readiness to preach that Gospel which should then belong alone to us Ministers others for a promptness in profession others Evangelical Obedience and some take it to be Patience and not unlikely But may it not also endure this meaning of Repentance too considering it is made the first step in the way of Life and so the first entrance into the field against Satan by John first the day-star who rose before the Sun and came to prepare the way How Repent c. And our Saviour in the same mind upon the same Text Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven it at hand Sad sighs and prayers and tears make up the first part of Repentance and make up so the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart which God will not despise And hast thou this Is the rock cloven Come drops of warm blood in anguish from thy heart Break there floode of bitter weeping from thine eyes This is a fair piece of an answer Such tears have a voice that reaches Heaven and not from David only The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping but from Manasseth too a fearfull sinner because thou hast wept before me I have heard it 'T is Musick to the Almighties-self and raises a joy in Heaven Can the Prodigal that had wasted all his stock of Grace say but Father I have sinned See before he can came to say so God he meets him on the way and receives him to Mercy But this Answer hath a second part Take beed lest your hearts be hardened by sins deceitfulness It is a Circe a Syren we must stop our ears and resolve to be deaf to all her charms charm she never so wisely never so worldly wisely giving not a faint and cold but a peremptory final Answer with the Psalmist Away from me for I will keep the Commandments of my God Will keep them I that is I have sworn and am stedfastly purposed This is the meaning of the Apostle Tit. 3. The Grace of God hath appeared teaching us What Our Answer And how that by denying Ungodliness and worldly Lusts The best Answer is a flat denyal a round Refusal like our Head Christ Jesus who being tempted had his Answer ready And this is our first Answer in a full Repentance made up of grief and resolution 2. A second Answer is Obedience our Works for words will not carry it Not every one that saith Lord Lord And some Answers we read of shall nor serve the turn Some will answer Lord thou hast preached in our streets and we have preached in thy name Tell not me of preaching said our Saviour unless your lives have preacht too Away from me ye workers of iniquity God will have this Answer complexioned of Piety and Honesty when these are marryed they are crowned with the Grace and Blessing of God A number deceive themselves as the Jews when they cry Corban once as the Papists crack of Ecclesia Catholica Romana so these conclude all lies in being Professors zealous magnifying themselves and despising others But what were the
done in every body The Judge is of pure and fiery eyes sees down through darkness to our hearts and reins no casting of mists no deluding of this Judge and then no need of long proceedings frequent siftings and tedions Cribrations of the cause for all things are naked and bare in his sight all evident and clear before this Lord for this Lord is God The Lord God is his name 7. Now the names of God are referred to two heads 1. Simple and absolute or 2. In Relation to us Of the first sort Some respect his Essence or Nature as that name which we know not certainly how but we are taught to pronounce Jehovah Some respect that which we call but yet in tender sense dare scarce call it so his Personality as the names of Father Son and Spirit And some his Attributes Essential as Just Holy c. The second kind of relative names are such as King Governor Preserver and this of Dominus here the Lord 8. First for the Name and so the Nature of God it is an Ocean too immense and boundless for our discovery An Abyss for the sounding of our light and frail reason to propound And concerning this Title Lord I will not enter though my Text lie near the Creation into that curious dispute which yet amused Tertullian and St. Austin afterwards whether this stile then only and properly began in the worlds beginning and could not be attributed to God before Such speculation is but drie and useless stuff I will rather tell you what the School tells us of all Gods Names in relation that is such Names are not really in God but in the Creature So as God is called Summum Bonum not because God cannot admit a composition of those two or any pieces but because his Bonitas as comprehensive of all other and diffusive to all so supereminently above all And because all that retains the name of Good as derivative from him so in it self defective and to us deficient in compare with him saith Aquinas and yet even in affecting and accepting such names God delivers himself to us in a gracious way of endearment For where men aspire to Honor and ascend to titular additions therefore that the swelling vapor of a Longa Pagina as he calls it may lift them like a Pageant high in the air and hal'd from the community of baser earth God in a wonderfull descending still vouchsafes rather to honor his servants and Clients by sometimes assuming names of particular and individual reference as the God of Abrabam the fear of Isaac sometimes of general appliance to all the Israel of God as is the large extended and branching Tree the spreading Sun in an Expansion Dilatation Emanation Communication Consolation to all his servants in this full and chearfull name of Dominus the Lord. 9. Which name in the strict and proper acceptation they say can belong of right to none but God by reason it includes these two conditions First He that is exactly Dominus may at his pleasure use the thing whereof he is Lord enlarge diminish change annihilate that is as far as the nature of the thing will bear And who is so supream on earth Secondly The absolute Lord stands in need of nothing but is endued with a proper innate and self-sufficiency Aad who can boast himself to be so absolute Vnxi te in Regem in caput are notes of humane eminence in the Old and as plain is that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New One from Samuels testimony a Seer and a chief Prophet of God and the other from St. Peter a prime Apostle both instructed in the Will of the Lord here And yet no Saul nor Roman Emperor nor any supream Head and Governor on earth since those times can ever say and say truly so much as to the foot of his body Politick I have no need of you much less then can the feet or legs the sides or arms or bulk of the body though never so big say to the head mistaking it for a Perruke say We have no need of thee 10. It was as is imaginable for this Energie in the restrained sense of the word that the Septuagint everywhere render Jehovah by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord and some such reverence to the name made Augustus sure so respective and nice as not to endure it and Suetonius reproves Domitian of incredible arrogance for not disclaiming that usual acclamation in the Amphitheatre of Dominofoeliciter Well might his Poet then recant and repent his Inscription of Dominus Deusque noster And yet we know what he that sits in that Emperors Throne the triple miter'd man of sin or if not so yet surely sinfull man doth dully and damnably retain and blushes not to this day to wear and hear from his Poets and Parasites in Print of Dominus Deus noster our Lord God the Pope And yet for the term of Dominus alone as in our language t is cheap enough The words Lord and Sir being very near allied in sense so in the Latine now and all those crums and drops of Spanish French Italian Eloquence into which the Latine is broken and dissolved it signifies no more it confers no more in usual phrase And in the very Greek of the New Testament so near Augustus dayes it is evident enough that their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was but equivalent to our Sir for it is observed that Mary Magdaleus gives it there to our blessed Saviour and at the same time envies it not but affords her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir to the very Gardiner 11. But a more usefull Note from both these Names together we may make out of St. Bernards rule Omne nomen Dei in Scripturis c. Every Name of God in Scripture sounds of Mercy or of Justice and both these are in this judicatorie to shew that Adam had now provoked not only a glorious God holy and just but his Lord Gracious and full of kindness to him This raises the wind into a foul storm swels a brook of disobedience to a Sea when man the master-piece the favorite turns against his God that had made him a kind of under-god given him dominion too For the Habendum enters with a Dominamini It was my Lord Adam from the beginning a Lord Lieutenant under the Lord of Hosts in three great Counties of the earth and air and Seas and of all things therein with power of life and death Ingratefull man to make offence against his maked the creature rise against his Creaâ—our that rais'd him from the dust sustain'd planted pleasur'd him with infinite varieties of sure and â—al favours This on the Remorse was it that cut David to the heart Against thee O Lord against thee have I â—inned and done this evill in thy sight No wonder if traiterous man on this recognition of the Judge offended hid himself and sought for shelter among the trees and even there remained startling
yoak or Spanish Inquisition all those poor Tenants and servants that live rackt and opprest and ground to powder under the merciless and rigorous Lords and Masters must advance the eye of their souls with comfort to the comming of this great and glorious Judge and Lord of Heaven for that day of his visitation shall be also the day of their full Redemption My third application is to four sorts of Visitors First You that are authorized over us you see God will discharge his Office Do you set God ever before you his Example and his Fear and first learn his first visitation in Mercy in kindness to us your brethren to do us good 'T is God we confess appoints degres of Superiority and Excellency in all Orders of Angels in Heaven in the Skie greater lesser Lights Lower still Eagles and Flies Cedars and Shrubs among the very Stones the brightest tincture given to the Ruby clearest light to the Diamond But by comparing parts of the body the Apostle proves the head cannot want the foot among uâ— specially of the Clergy no proud infulting for the Rule holds on this side the water too that the Capuchin and Cordelier the poorer part of this Tribe uphold the dignity of Priesthood ballancing with the pomp of some superior Prelates Secondly Do you visit as God ad correctionem and not hold it a vertue Laxare Disciplinam Remember the worlds entertaining Mahumetism is ascribed to three causes Pestis Arriana Manichaei furores and the third Disciplina laxata But wherein do we need your inspection in both our learning and our life First See to our insufficiency ignorance what silly things suffered not only to read but cloathing their sancies with pretext of the Spirit to preach too and then the main way of teaching in many places yet unpractis'd and that is Catechising Alas What is it to enrich the peoples ears for an hour who if they sleep not gape and praise the Sermon as they like the Tune saith Ezekiel as they do a Love-song Ezek. 33.32 Then are you over mens lives too over the Layety to curb their wolvish and fox-like shifts and cousenage in the Lords portion but chiefly in that sin whereto my Text appoints you in Gods stead for Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge he will visit doth it dayly and will then do it dreadfully In the mean time are you his Depuries Delegates Commissioners What though the scornfull fools as Solomon cals them make a mock of this sin a sport and pursue it as an Art and Trade Yet you know it is respecting a mans self unhallowing of Gods Temple a dismembring the body of Christ respecting others a defiling of the most holy and solemn Covenant on earth a kerving asunder those whom God hath joyned and therefore stands the Commandment forbidding it betwixt Thest and Murder Lastly Respecting the Land it is a fire as Job speaks here at verse 12. devouring foundations and hurling the flame round about it And are not they who have the Power of Coertion if they do it not as so many Spreaders of this fire as so many Bawds and Pandars if for Bribes they wilfully palliate or wink at this Disorder or look upon it through a false and coloured Medium And if ever there was cause to cry loud and lift up the Trumpets voyce to waken both you and the whole State is it not now when like Egypt plagu'd with Frogs the Land even stiaks of this corruption and had we no other Infection enough to bring some fearfull curse upon us all But are our lives so ciear they need no visiting need none from you No Is not a debaucht and drunken Minister within your power Drunkenness a crime hatefull in the Lay but hideous in the Clergy-man a sin in them but sacriledge in us And are not you to visit for these things and vindicate our mother from this stain But when when shall we see a great and rich Adulterer perform the open penance of the Church Or when shall I hear an Arch-deacon a Commissary a Chancellor or a Bishop rather for that 's the title of God here an Over-seer rattle and fright some of these swoln and putrid offall of the Levites these hatefull roaring Drunkards in the midst of the assembly of their brethren Remember God in his visitation on Sodom saith he will go down and see whether so or no. So should you stay to enquire and not make the Visitation as the country calls it in scorn a busie taking only or passing over us like a Vision rather then a Visitation But who should help it how can there any thing be reformed without presentment this concerns a second sort of Visitors Church-wardens And what saith your bill my Masters Some poor Rascall will not pay his levy or the piper hath got a bastard but how many hath your Land-lord gotten Alas Sir we are poor people and it would be our undoing to meddle with such But what your Minister they say he is a lewd Tosse-pot a very drunken Sot O no! Omnia bene a good Fellow a little given to company-keeping thus the best of you are content to mince it or some perhaps ready to defend him and reason why they keep the Ale-house and he 's the prime guest if it were not for him they might knock down the sign Blessed be God I am perswaded you know not many such as I describe but yet I fear there be some still within the compass of these marks And dare not you present them Nay dare you present any thing Shall men in office Visitours Wardens nay watchmen sworn thus play with their Oaths What a wretched thing is it thus to fear men and despise God that great Lord Warden of his Church who when he shall visit you for this perjury what will you answer him A third sort of Visitours are our selves Sears called in the old Testament and Over-seers in the New Acts 20. all Bishaps Phil. 1.1 Let us then learn to discharge it first by heeding and visiting our own hearts reflecting on and examining our own souls whether the God in our Books in our Sermons be such in our secret brests and whether we hear or feel our selves rather when we preach or whether our preaching run not through us like a wooden Spout like the old Riddle of Through the wood and never touch it never touch never affect the heart And then ore-look our learning and strive to mend our nets giving our selves as Tully saith recoquendos till we become workmen that need not be asham'd dividing the Word aright able to exhort and convince soundly Tit. 1.3 For this it Ars artium regimen animarum which to perform as commonly t is done flatteringly or lazily and perfunctorily is both easie and acceptable but it is too most miserable and damnable And then ore-see our lives and those exempt and defend from baseness but specially that odious sin which goes too much in black drunkenness The way to