warfares to God should not intangle himself with this world it is a sufficient and just conviction of those who would divide themselves betwixt God and the World and bestow any main part of their time upon secular affairs but it hath no operation at all upon this tenet which we have in hand that a man dedicate to God may not so much as when he is required cast a glance of his eye or some minutes of time or some motions of his tongue upon the publick business of his King and Countrey Those that expect this from us may as well and upon the same reason hold that a minister must have no family at all or if he have one must not care for it yea that he must have no body to tend but be all Spirit My Lords we are men of the same composition with others and our breeding hath been accordingly we cannot have lived in the World but we have seen it and observed it too and our long experience and conversation both in Men and in books cannot but have put something into us for the good of others and now having a double capacity qua cives qua Ecclesiastici as members of the common wealth as Ministers and Governours of the Church we are ready to do our best service in both one of them is no way incompatible with the other yea the subjects of them both are so united with the Church and Commonwealth that they cannot be severed yea so as that not the one is in the other but one is the other is both so as the services which we do upon these occasions to the Comonwealth are inseparable from our good offices to the Church so as upon this ground there is no reason of our exclusion If ye say that our sitting in Parliament takes up much time which we might have imployed in our studies or pulpits consider I beseech you that whiles you have a Parliament we must have a convocation and that our attendance upon that will call for the same expense of time which we afford to this service so as herein we have neither got nor lost But I fear it is not on some hands the tender regard of the full scope to our calling that is so much here stood upon as the conceit of too much honour that is done us in taking up the room of Peers and voting in this high Court for surely those that are averse from our votes yet could be content we should have place upon the wool-sacks and could alow us ears but not tongues If this be the matter I beseech your Lordships to consider that this honour is not done to us but our profession which what ever we be in our several persons can not easily be capable of too much respect from your Lordships Non tibi sed Isidi as he said of old Neither is this any new grace that is put upon our calling which if it were now to begin might perhaps be justly grudged to our unworthyness but it is an antient right and inheritance inherent in our station No less ancient then these walls wherein we sit yea more before ever there were Parliaments in the Magna Consilia of the Kingdome we had our places and as for my predecessors ever since the Conquerours time I can show your Lordships a just catalogue of them that have sat before me here and truely though I have just cause to be mean in mine own eyes yet why or wherein there should be more unworthiness in me then the rest that I should be stript of that priviledg which they so long injoyed though there were no law to hold me here I cannot see or confesse What respects of honour have been put upon the prime Clergy of old both by Pagans and Jewes and Christians and what are still both within Christendom and vvithout I shall not need to urge it is enough to say this of ours is not meerly arbitrary but stands so firmely established by law and custome that I hope it neither will nor can be removed except you will shake those foundations which I believe you desire to hold firme and inviolable Shortly then my Lords the church craves no new honour from you and justly hopes you will not be guilty of pulling down the old as you are the eldest sons and next under his Majesty the honourable patrons of the Church so she expects and beseeches you to receive her into your tenderest care so to order her affairs that ye leave her to posterity in no worse case then you found her It is a true word of Damasus Uti vilescit nomen episcopi omnis statua perturbatur Ecclesiae If this be suffered the misery will be the Churches the dishonour blurre of the act in future ages will be yours To shut up therefore let us be taken off from all ordinary trade of secular imployments and if you please abridge us of intermeddling with matters of common justice but leave us possessed of those places and priviledges in Parliament which our predecessors have so long and peaceably injoyed ANTHEMES FOR THE CATHEDRAL OF EXCETER LOrd what am I A worm dust vapor nothing What is my life A dream a daily dying What is my flesh My souls uneasie clothing What is my time A minute ever flying My time my flesh my life and I What are we Lord but vanity Where am I Lord downe in a vale of death What is my trade sin my dear God offending My sport sin too my stay a puffe of breath What end of sin hells horrour never ending My way my trade sport stay and place help up to make up my dolefull case Lord what art thou pure life power beauty bliss Where dwell'st thou up above in perfect light What is thy time eternity it is What state attendance of each glorious sp'rit Thy self thy place thy dayes thy state Pass all the thoughts of powers create How shall I reach thee Lord Oh soar above Ambitious soul but which way should I flie Thou Lord art way and end what wings have I Aspiring thoughts of faith of hope of love Oh let these wings that way alone Present me to thy blissfull throne ANTHEME FOR Christmas Day IMmortall babe who this dear day Didst change thine Heaven for our clay And didst with flesh thy Godhead vail Eternal Son of God All-hail Shine happy star ye Angels sing Glory on high to Heavens King Run Shepherds leave your nightly watch See Heaven come down to Bethleems cratch Worship ye Sages of the East The King of Gods in meanness drest O blessed maid smile and adore The God thy womb and armes have bore Star Angels Shepherds and wise sages Thou Virgin glory of all ages Restored frame of Heaven and Earth Joy in your dear Redeemers Birth LEave O my soul this baser World below O leave this dolefull dungeon of wo And soare aloft to that supernal rest That maketh all the Saints and Angels blest Lo there the God-heads radiant throne Like to ten thousand Suns in one Lo there thy Saviour dear in glory dight Ador'd of all the powers of Heavens bright Lo where that head that bled with thorny wound Shines ever with celestial honor crownd That hand that held the scornfull reed Makes all the fiends infernall dread That back and side that ran with bloody streams Daunt Angels eyes with their majestick beames Those feet once fastened to the cursed tree Trample on death and hell in glorious glee Those lips once drench't with gall do make With their dread doom the world to quake Behold those joyes thou never canst behold Those precious gates of pearl those Streets of gold Those streams of Life those trees of Paradise That never can be seen by mortal eyes And when thou seest this state divine Think that it is or shall be thine See there the happy troups of purest sprights That live above in endless true delights And see where once thy self shalt ranged be And look and long for immortalitie And now before-hand help to sing Allelujahs to Heavens King FINIS BOOKS printed for and to be sold by John Crook at the Sign of the Ship in St Pauls Church-yard ANnales veteris novi Testamenti Aviro Reverend Jacob Usserio Archiepisco Armachano Folio The Annals of the Old and New Testament with the Synchronismus of Heathen story to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans by James Usher D.D. Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland Folio The Antiquities of Warwikcshire illustrated beautified with Maps prospects and pourtractures by William Dugdale Folio Hymens Preludia or Loves Master piece being the 9th and 10th parts of Cleopatra Folio The History of this Iâ—on Age wherein is set down the Original of all the wars and commotions that have happened from the year of God 1500. Illustrated with the figures of the most Renowned persons of this Time Folio The History of the great and renowned Monarchy of China Fol. The holy History containing excellent observations on the Remarkable passages of the old Testament written Originally in French by N. Caussin S.I. and now rendred into English by a Person of Honour 4. Ejusdem de textus hebraici Veteris Testamenti variantibus Lectionibus ad Lodovicum Capellum Epistola Quarto Usserii de 70. Interpretum versione syntagma Quarto Montagues Miscellanea Spiritualâ—ia 4. second part A Treatise of Gavelkind both name and thing shewing the true Etymology and derivation of the one the nature antiquity and Original of the other by William Sonner Quarto The Holy Life of Mounsier de Renty a late noble man of France 8. Certain discourses viz. of Babylon the present See of Rome of laying on of hands of the old forme of words in Ordination of a set forme of prayer being the judgment of the Late Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland by N. Bernard D. D. Octavo The Character of England with reflections upon Gallus Castratus 12. The French Gardiner instructing how to cultivate all sorts of Fruit-trees with directions to dry and conserve them in their natural An accomplished peice illustrated with sculpture By whom also all manner of Books are to be sold brought from beyond the Seas
clear and piercing and therefore it is purposely added for the further Emphasis In him is no darkenesse Oh the infinite clearnesse of the Divine knowledg to which all things lye open both past present and to come which doth not only reach in one intuition to all the actions motions events of all Creatures that have been are shall be but which is infinitely more then all these extends to the full comprehension of himself his whole Divine nature and essence to which the World though full of innumerable varieties is lesse then nothing The Sun is a goodly globe of Light The visible World hath nothing so glorious so searching and yet there are many things lye hid within the bosome of the Earth and Sea which his eye never saw never shall see Neither can it ever see more then half the World at once darkness the while enwraps the other nor indeed of any much lesser if round body And though it give light unto other Creatures yet it gives not light to it self like as our eye sees all other objects but it self it cannot see And though it enlighten this materiall Heaven both above and below it self as also this lower Air and Earth yet the Empyreal Heaven transcends the beames of it and is filled with a more glorious illumination But God the Light of whom we speak who is the Maker of that Sun sees the most hidden secrets of Earth and Hell sees all that is done in Earth and Heaven at one view sees his most glorious self and by his presence makes Heaven Most justly therefore is God Light by an eminence Now the reflection of the first quality of Light upon us must be our clear apprehension of God the World and our selves and by how much more exact knowledg we shall attain unto of all these by so much more do we conform our selves to that God who is Light and by how much less we know them so much more darkness there is in us and so much less fellowship have we with God If the eye have not an inward Light in it self let the Sun shine never so bright upon it it is nevertheless blind What are we the better for that which is in God if there be not an inward Light in our Souls to answer and receive it How should we love and adore God if we know him not How shall we hate and combat the World if we know it not How shall we value and demean our selves if we know not our selves Surely the want of this Light of knowledg is the ground of all that miserable disorder which we see daily break forth in the affections in the carriages of men I know the common word is that we are fallen into a knowing age such as wherein our speculative skill is wont to be upbraided to us in a disgracefull comparison of our unanswerable practise our forward young men out-run their years bragg that there is more weight in the down of their chins then in the gray beards of their aged Grandsires Our artificers take upon them to hold argument with and perhaps control their Teachers neither is it any newes for the shop-board to contest with the schooles every not Knight or Rook only but Pawn too can give check to a Bishop The Romish Church had lately her Shee-Preachers till Pope Urban gagg'd them and our Gossips now at home in stead of dresses can tattle of mysteries and censure the Pulpit in stead of neighbours Light call you this No these are fiery flashes of conceit that glance through vain minds to no purpose but idle ostentation and satisfaction of wild humours without stability or any available efficacy to the soul Alas we are wise in impertinencies ignorant in main truths neither doth the knowledg of too many go any deeper then the verge of their brains or the tip of their tongue I fear true solid knowledg is not much less rare then when our unlett'red Grand-fathers were wont to court God Almighty with false Latin in their devotions For did the true Light shine into the hearts of men in the knowledg of God the World themselves how could they how durst they live thus Durst the leud tongues of men rend the holy name of God in peices with oaths and blasphemies if they knew him to be so dreadfull so just as he hath revealed himself Durst the cruell oppressors of the World grind faces and cut throats and shed blood like water if they were perswaded that God is a sure revenger of their outrages Durst the goatish adulterer the swinish drunkard wallow in their beastly uncleannesse if they knew their is a God to judge them an Hell to fry in Durst the rebellious seditionary lift up his hand against the Lords Anointed and that under a colour of religion if the fool had not said in his heart There is no God Could the covetous fool so admire and adore his red and white Earth could the ambitious so dote upon a little vanishing honour as to sacrifice his soul to it if he knew the World could the proud man be so besotted with self-love as that he sees his God in his glass if he knew himself Surely then the true Light is as rare as it is precious and it is as precious as life it self yea as life eternall This is eternall life to know thee and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ What were the World without Light and what the soul without the Light of knowledg We condemne Malefactors to darkness that is one great part of the horrour of their durance Jo. 17. â— and by how much more haynous their crime is so much darker is their dungeon Darkness of understanding then is punishment enough alone as it is also the entry into hell which is described by blackness of darkness None but savage Creatures delight in darkness Man naturally abhorres it in all things If our eyes be dim we call for glasses if our houses be dark we make windows if the evening grow dark we call for lights and if those lights burn dim we call for snuffers and shall we avoid darkness in every thing except our soules which is our better and more Divine part Honourable and beloved as we love and tender those dear soules of ours let us labour to furnish them with the Light of true and saving knowledg What is this Gospell which shines thus daily and clearly in your faces but the Vehiculum lucis the carriage of that heavenly Light to the World Send forth thy Light and thy Truth saith the Psalmist Thy Word is Truth saith our Saviour that word of truth then is the body of that Light which God showes to men Oh let it not shine upon us in vain let us not trample upon the beams of it in our floore as that foolish woman that St. Austin speaks of did to those of the Sun with a Calco Manichorum Deum But now while God gives these happy opportunities let us enlarge our hearts to receive
we should as we well might expect a dissolution of all things neither hath it lesse horrour in it to feel the Earth stagger under us Whose hair doth not start up at this trepidation and the more a man knowes the more is his astonishment He hangeth the Earth upon nothing saith Job Job 26.7 For a man to feel the Earth that hangs upon nothing but as some vast ball in the midst of a thin yielding air totter under him how can his soul choose but be possessed with a secret fright and confusion Me thinks I tremble but to think of such a trembling Such are the distempers and publick calamities of States though even of particular Kingdoms but so much more as they are more universall they are both unnaturall and dreadfull They are politickly unnaturall For as the end of all motion is rest so the end of all civill and spirituall agitations is peace and settlednesse The very name of a State implies so much which is we know a stando from standing and not from moving The man riding upon the red Horse which stood upon the myrtle trees Zachar. 1.11 describes the condicion of a peacefull government Behold all the Earth sitteth still and is at rest and Micah They shall sit still every man under his vine and figtree Micah 4.4 and none shall make them afraid Particular mens affayres are like the Clouds publick government is as the Earth The Clouds are alwayes in motion it were strange for any of them to stand still in one point of the air so it were to see private mens occasions void of some movings of quarrells or change the publick State is or should be as the Earth a great and solid body whose chief praise is settlednesse and consistence Now therefore when publick stirs and tumults arise in a well ordered Church or Common-wealth the State is out of the socket or when common calamities of war famine pestilence seize upon it then the hearts of men quake and shiver within them then is our prophets Earth-quake which is here spoken of Thou hast made the Earth to tremble To begin with the passive motions of publick calamities they are the shakings of our Earth So God intends them so must we account them and make use of them accordingly what are we I mean all the visible part of us but a peece of Earth besides therefore that magneticall vertue which is operative upon all the parts of it why should or can a piece stand still when the whole moveth Denominations are wont to be not from the greater but the better part and the best part of this Earthen World is man and therefore when men are moved we say the Earth is so and when the Earth in a generality is thus moved good reason we should be so also we must tremble therefore when God makes the Earth to do so What shall we say then to those obdured hearts which are nowhit affected with publick evils Surely he were a bold man that could sleep whiles the Earth rocks him and so were he that could give himself to a stupid security when he feels any vehement concussations of government or publick hand of Gods afflictive judgment But it falls out too usually that as the Philosopher said in matter of affaires so it is in matter of calamities Communia negliguntur Men are like Jonas in the storm sleep it out though it mainly concern them surely besides that we are men bound up each in his own skin we are limbs of a community and that body is no lesse intire and consistent of all his members then this naturall and no lesse sensible should we be of any evill that afflicts it If but the least toe do ache the head feels it but if the whole body be in pain much more do both head and feet feele it Tell me can it be that in a common Earth-quake any house can be free or is the danger lesse because the neighbours roofes rattle also Yet too many men because they suffer not alone neither are singled out for Vengeance are insensible of Gods hand Surely such men as cannot be shaken with Gods judgment are fit for the center the lowest parts of the Earth where there is a constant and eternall unrest not for the surface of it which looks towards an Heaven where are interchanges of good and evill It is notable and pregnant which the prophet Esay hath hear it all ye secure hearts and tremble In that day did the Lord of Hosts call to weeping and mourning and baldnesse and girding with sackcloth and behold joy and gladnesse slaying of Oxen and killing of Sheep eating Flesh and drinking Wine And what of that Surely this iniquity shall not be purged till you die saith the Lord God of Hosts What shall we say to this honourable and beloved wherefore hath God given us his good creatures but that we should injoy them Doth not Solomon tell us there is nothing better then that a man should Eat and Drink and make his soule injoy good in his labour Eccles. 2.24 And why is God so incensed against Israel for doing what he allowes them Know then that it is not the act but the time that God stands upon Very unseasonableness is criminall here and now comforts are sins to be joviall when God calls to mourning to glut our maw when he calls to fasting to glitter when he would have us sackcloth'd and squalid he hates it to the death here we may say with Solomon Of laughter thou art mad and of mirth what is this thou doest He grudges not our moderate and seasonable jolities there is an Ope-tyde by his allowance as well as a Lent Go thy wayes Eat thy Bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart for now God accepteth thy work Lo Gods acceptation is warrant enough for our mirth Now may his saints rejoyce and sing but there is a time to mourne and a time to daunce It was a strange word that God had to the Prophet Ezekiel that he would take away from him his wife the comfort of his life and yet he must not mourne but surely when he but threats to take away from us the publick comforts of our peace and common welfare he would have us weep out our eyes and doth no lesse hate that our hearts should be quiet within us then he hates that we should give him so just cause of our disquiet Here the Prophet can cry out Quis dabit capiti meo aquas And how doth the mournfull prophet now pour out himself into Lamentations How hath the Lord covered the doughter of Sion with a cloud in his anger and cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel Lament 2.1 Oh that our hearts could rive in sunder at but the dangers of those publick Judgments which we have too well deserved and be lesse sensible of our private concernments then should we make a right use of that dreadfull hand of God of
children as such Not as men not as witty wise noble rich bountiful useful but as Christians showing it self in all real expressions These these are excellent and irrefragable proofs and evictions of your calling and election Seek for these in your hearts and hands and seek for them till ye finde them and when ye have found them make much of them as the invaluable favours of God and labour for a continual increase of them and a growth in this heavenly assurance by them What need I urge any motives to stir up your Christian care and diligence Do but look first behinde you see but how much pretious time we have already lost how have we loitered hitherto in our great work Bernards question is fit still to be asked by us of our souls Bernarde ad quid venisti Wherefore are we here upon earth To pamper our Gut To tend our hide To wallow in all voluptuous courses To scrape up the pelf of the World As if the only end of our being were carnal pleasure wordly profit Oh base and unworthy thoughts What do we with reason if we be thus prostituted It is for beasts which have no soul to be all for sense For us that have ratiocination and pretend grace we know we are here but in a thorowfare to another world and all the main task we have to do here in this life is to provide for a better Oh then let us recollect our selves at the last and redeem the time and over-looking this vain and worthless World bend all our best indeavours to make sure work for eternity Look secondly before you and see the shortness and uncertainty of this which we call a life what day is there that may not be our last what hour is there that we can make account of as certain And think how many World 's the dying Man would give in the late conscience of a careless life for but one day more to do his neglected work and shall we wilfully be prodigall of this happy leasure and liberty and knowingly hazard so wofull and irremediable a surprisall Look thirdly below you and see the horror of that dreadfull place of torment which is the unavoydable portion of careless and unreclaimable sinners consider the extremity the eternity of those tortures which in vain the secure heart sleightly hoped to avoid Look lastly above you and see whether that Heaven whose out-side we behold be not worthy of our utmost ambition of our most zealous and effectuall endeavours Do we not think there is pleasure and happiness enough in that region of glory and blessedness to make abundant amends for all our self-combats for all our tasks of dutyfull service for all our painfull exercises of mortification Oh then let us earnestly and unweariably aspire thither and think all the time lost that we imploy not in the endeavour of making sure of that blessed and eternall inheritance To the full possession whereof he that hath purchased it for us by his most precious blood in his good time happily bring us Amen A Plain and Familiar Explication OF CHRIST'S PRESENCE IN THE SACRAMENT OF HIS Body and Blood Out of the Doctrine of the Church of ENGLAND For the satisfying of a Scrupulous Friend Anno 1631. THat Christ Jesus our Lord is truly present and received in the blessed Sacrament of his body and blood is so clear and universally agreed upon that he can be no Christian that doubts it But in what manner he is both present and received is a point that hath exercised many wits and cost many thousand lives and such as some Orthodox Divines are wont to express with a kind of scruple as not daring to speak out For me as I have learn'd to lay my hand on my mouth where God and his Church have been silent and to adore those mysteries which I cannot comprehend so I think it is possible we may wrong our selves in an over-cautious fear of delivering sufficiently-revealed truths such I take this to be which we have in hand wherein as God hath not been sparing to declare himself in his word So the Church of England our dear Mother hath freely opened her self in such sort as if she meant to meet with the future scruples of an over-tender posterity Certainly there can be but two wayes wherein he can be imagined to be present and received either corporally or spiritually That he should be corporally present at once in every part of every Eucharistical Element through the World is such a Monster of opinion as utterly overthrowes the truth of his humane body destroyes the nature of a Sacrament implies a world of contradictions baffles right reason transcends all faith and in short confounds Heaven and Earth as we might easily show in all particulars if it were the drift of my discourse to meddle with those which profess themselves not ours who yet do no less then we cry down the gross and Capernaitical expression which their Pope Nicholas prescribed to Berengarius and cannot but confess that their own Card. Bellarmine advises this phrase of Christs corporall presence should be very sparingly and warily taken up in the hearing of their people but my intention only is to satisfie those Sons of the Church who disclaiming from all opinion of Transubstantiation do yet willingly imbrace a kind of irresolution in this point as holding it safest not to inquire into the manner of Christs presence What should be guilty of this nice doubtfulness I cannot conceive unless it be a misconstruction of those broad speeches which antiquity not suspecting so unlikely commentaries hath upon all occasions been wont to let fall concerning these awful mysteries For what those Oracles of the Church have divinely spoken in reverence to the Sacramental union of the signe and the thing signified in this sacred business hath been mistaken as literally and properly meant to be predicated of the outward Element hence have grown those dangerous errors and that inexplicable confusion which hath since infested the Church When all is said nothing can be more clear then that in respect of bodily presence the Heavens must contain the glorified humanity of Christ untill his return to judgment As therefore the Angel could say to the devout Maries after Christs resurrection seeking for him in his grave He is risen he is not here so they still say to us seeking for his glorious body here below He is ascended he is not here It should absolutely lose the nature of an humane body if it should not be circumscriptible Mar. 16.6 Glorification doth not bereave it of the truth of being what it is It is a true humane body and therefore can no more according to the natural being even of a body glorified be many wheres at once then according to his personal being it can be separated from that Godhead which is at once every where Let it be therefore firmly setled in our souls as an undoubted truth That the humane body of Christ
scorne Many are dreadful and call upon our best thoughts for their preventation or resistance The World is apt to make an ill use of multitude On the one side arguing the better part by the greater on the other side arguing mischief tolerable because it is abetted by many The former of these is the Paralogisme of fond Romanists The other of time-serving Politicians There cannot be a worse nor more dangerous Sophistry then in both these If the first should hold Paganisme would carry it from Christianity for it is at least by just computation five to one Folly from Wisdome for surely for every wise man the World hath many fools Outward calling should carry it from election for many are called few are chosen Hell from Heaven For strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evill saith God But if any have a mind to do so and shall please himself with company in sinning let him consider what abatement of torment it will once be to him to be condemned with many wo is me that shall rather aggravate his misery the rich glutton in hell would have his brethren sent to that his torment might not be encreased with the accession of theirs If the latter should take place that which heightens evills should plead for their immunity so none but weak mischiefs should receive opposition Strong thieves should live only some poor pettylarçons and pilferers should come to execution Nothing should make room for justice but inbecellity of offence Away with this base pusillanimity Rather contrarily by how much more head wickednesse hath gotten so much more need it had to be topped A true Herculean Justice in Governours and States is for Gyants and Monsters A right Sampson is for a whole host of Philistims The Mountains must be touch't till they smoak yea till they be level'd Set your faces ye that are men in authority against a whole faction of vice and if ye finde many opposites the greater is the exercise of your fortitude and the greater shall be the glory of your victory It was St. Pauls encouragment that which would have disheartned some other a large door and effectuall is opened to me and there are many adversaries 1 Cor 16.9 And if these Divels can say My Name is Legion for we are many let your powerfull commands cast them out and send them with the swine into the deep and thence into their chaines These many sit not still but walk they are still in motion Motion whether natural or voluntary Natural so walking is living 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus we walk even while we sit or lye still Every minute is a new pace neither can any thing stop our passage whether we do something or nothing we move on by insensible steps toward our long home we can no more stand still then the Heavens then time Oh that we could be ever looking to the house of our age and so walk on in this vale of tears that we may once rest for ever Voluntary so the wicked ones walk like their setter the Devil who came from compassing the Earth Job 1. Wickedness is seldom other then active It is with evill as with the contagion of Pestilence those that are tainted long to infect others False Teachers make no spare of their Travails by Sea or Land to make a Proselite Could Sin or Heresie be conjured into a circle there were the lesse danger now they are so much more mischievous as they are more Erraticall How happy should it be since they will needs be walking that by the holy Vigilancie of power and authority they may be sent to walk their own rounds in the regions of darkness Yet further walking implies an ordinary trade of life It is not a step or one pace that can make a walk but a proceeding on with many shiftings of our feet It is no judging of a man by some one action Alas the best man that is may perhaps step aside by the importunity of a temptation and be mis-carried into some odious act Can you have more pregnant instances then David the man after Gods own heart and Peter the prime Disciple of our Saviour But this was not the walk of either It was but a side-step their walk was in the wayes of Gods commandement holy and gracious No look what the course of mens lives are what their usuall practise and according to that judge of them If they be ordinary Swearers profane Scoffers Drunkards Debauch't persons their Walk is in an ill way to a most fearfull end Pitty them labour to reclaim them and to stop them that they fall not into the precipice of Hell but if their course of life be generally holy and conscionable it is not a particular mis-carriage that can be a just ground of the censure of an inordinate walking which our Apostle passes here upon these mis-living Philippians Many walk This for their Motion their Quality followes Enemies to the crosse of Christ What an unusuall expression is this Who can but hate every thing that concurs to the death of a Friend whether Agents or Instruments And what was the Crosse but the Engine of the Death of him whom if we love not best we love not at all surely We love thee not O Saviour if we can look with any other then angry eyes at Judas Pilate the Crosse Nayles Speare or what ever else was any way necessary to thy murder They were thine enemies that raised thee to the Crosse how can they be other then thy Friends that are enemies to that thy most cruell and indigne crucifixion When we consider these things in themselves as Wood and Metall we know they are harmlesse but if from what they are in themselves we look at them with respect to men to thee we soon finde why to hate why to love them We hate them as they were employed by men against thee we love them as they were improved by thee for man as the instruments of mens malice and cruelty against thee we hate them we love them as they were made by thee the instruments of our redemption Thy Crosse was thy death It is thy death that gives us life so as therefore we cannot be at once enemies of the Crosse and friends of thee crucified As Christ himself so the Crosse of Christ hath many false friends and even those are no other then enemies unjust favours are no less injurious then derogations he that should deify a Saint should wrong him as much as he that should Divellize him Our Romanists exceed this way in their devotions to the Crosse both in overmultiplying and in over-magnifying of it Had the wood of the Crosse grown from the day that it was first set in the Earth till now and borne crosses that which Simon of Cyrene once bore could not have filled so many carts so many ships as that which is now in several parts of Christendom given
the parts and a liberty of the man There is a drunken liberty of the Tongue which being once glibbed with intoxicating liquor runs wilde through Heaven and earth and spares neither him that is God above nor those which are called Gods on Earth the Slanderer answer'd Pirrhus well I confess I said thus O King and had said more if more Wine had been given me treason is but a Tavern-dialect Any thing passes well under the Rose it is not the man but the liquor not the liquor but the excesse that is guilty of this liberty There is an audacious and factious liberty of this loose filme which not only ill-tutor'd Schollers take to themselves under the name of libertas prophetandi pestering both Presses and Pulpits with their bold and brainsick fancies but unletter'd Trades-men and tatling Gossips too whith whom deep questions of Divinity and censures of their Teachers are grown into common table-talk and peremptory decisions of Theological problemes is as ordinary almost as backbiting their neighbours There is a profane liberty of Atheous swaggerers which say disrumpamus Vincula let us break their bonds Not religion only but even reason and humanity seem fetters to these spirits who like the Demoniack in the Gospel having broken all their chains finde no freedom but among the noysom graves of hatefull corruptions There is a disloyal liberty of those rebellious spirits which despise government and hold it a servitude to live within the range of wholesome lawes there is no freedom with these unquiet dispositions but in the bold censures of authority in the seditious calumniations of superiours and in their own utopical prescriptions Every thing is good to these men save the present and nothing save their own though all these are not so much liberties as licentiousness Besides these there are civill liberties of Persons Towns Incorporations Countries Kings Kingdomes good reason these should be mutually stood upon Religion was never an enemy to the due orders and rights of policy Gods book is the true Magna charta that enacts both King and People their own He that hath set bounds to the wide Ocean hath stinted the freest liberty but these liberties are not for the pulpit It is the Christian liberty wherewith we have to do that alone hath scope enough both for our present speech and perpetual maintenance This Christian liberty stands either in immunity from evill or enlargement to good The immunitie is from that which is evill in it self or that which is evill to us In it self Sin Satan Sin whether in the fault or in the punishment the punishment whether inward or outward Inward the slavery of an accusing conscience Outward the wrath of God Death Damnation Evill to us whether burdensome traditions or the law the Law whether Moral or Ceremoniall Moral whether the obligations or the curse Enlargement to good whether in respect of the creature which is our free use of it or whether in respect to God in our voluntary service of him in our free accesse to him Accesse whether to his throne of grace or our throne of glory I have laid before you a compendious tablet of our Christian liberty lesse then which is bondage more then which is loosenesse Such abundant scope there is in this allowed freedom that what heart soever would yet rove further makes it self unworthy of pitty in loosing it self Do we think the Angels are pent up in their Heavens or can wish to walk beyond those glorious bounds Can they hold it a restraint that they can but will good like to our liquorous first parents that longed to know evil Oh the sweet and happy liberty of the sons of God All the world besides them are very slaves and lye obnoxious to the bolts fetters scourges of a spiritual cruelty It is hard to beat this into a carnall heart no small part of our servitude lyes in the captivation of our understanding such as that we cannot see our selves captive This is a strange difference of misprison the Christian is free and cannot think himself so the the worldling thinks himself free and is not so What talk we to these Jovialists It is liberty with them for a man to speak what he thinks to take what he likes to do what he lists without restriction without controlment Call ye this freedom that a man must speak and live by rule to have a guard upon his lips and his eyes no passage for a vain word or look much less for a leud to have his best pleasures stinted his worse abandoned to be tasked with an unpleasing good and chid when he fails Tush tell not me To let the heart loose to an unlimited jollity to revell heartily to feast without fear to drink without measure to swear without check to admit of no bound of luxury but our own strength to shut out all thoughts of scrupulous austerity to entertain no guest of inward motion but what may sooth up our lawlesness This is liberty who goes lesse is a slaâ—e to his own severe thoughts Get thee behind me Satan for thou savourest not the things of God If this be freedom to have our full scope of wickedness Oh happy Divels Oh miserable Saints of God Those though fettered up in chains of everlasting darkness can do no other but sin these in all the elbow-room of the Empyreal heaven cannot do one evill act yea the God of Saints and Angels the Author of all liberty should be least free who out of the blessed necessity of his most pure nature is not capable of the least possibility of evill Learn O vain men that there is nothing but impotence nothing but gieves and manicles in the freest sins some captive may have a longer chain then his fellowes yea some offender may have the liberty of the Tower yet he is a prisoner still Some Goal may be wider then some Palace what of that If Hell were more spacious then the seat of the blessed this doth not make it no place of torment Go whether thou wilt thou resolved sinner thou carriest thy chain with thee it shall stick as close to thee as thy soul neither can it ever be shaken off till thou have put off thy self by a spiritual regeneration then only thou art free It is a divine word that in our Liturgie Whose service is perfect freedom St. Paul saith as much Rom. 6.18.20 Being freed from sin ye are made servi justitiae the servants of righteousnesse What is liberty but freedom from bondage and behold our freedom from the bondage of sin tyes us to a sure liberty that is our free obedience to God Both the Orator and the Philosopher define liberty by Potestas vivendi ut velis but withall you know he addes quis vivit ut vult nisi qui recta sequitur See how free the good man is he doth what he will for he wills what God wills and what God would have him will in what ever he doth therefore he is a
free man neither hath any man free-will to good but he Be ambitious of this happy condition O all ye noble and generous spirits and do not think ye live till ye have attained to this true liberty The liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free So from the liberty we descend to the perogative Christs liberation Here is the glorious prerogative of the Son of God to be the deliverer or redeemer of his people They could not free themselves the Angels of heaven might pitty could not redeem them yea alas who could or who did redeem those of their rank which of lightsome celestiall spirits are become foul Devils Only Christ could free us whose ransome was infinite only Christ did free us whose love is infinite and how hath he wrought our liberty By force by purchase By force in that he hath conquer'd him whose captives we were by purchase in that he hath pay'd the full price of our ransom to that supream hand whereto we were forfeited I have heard Lawers say there are in civill Corporations three wayes of freedom by Birth by Service by Redemption By Birth as St. Paul was free of Rome by Service as Apprentises upon expiration of their years by Redemption as the the Centurion with a great sum purchased I this freedom Two of these are barred from all utter possibility in our spiritual freedom for by Birth we are the sons of wrath by service we are naturally the vassals of Satan It is only the precious redemption of the Son of God that hath freed us Whereas freedom then hath respect to bondage there are seven Egyptian Masters from whose slavery Christ hath freed us Sin an accusing Conscience danger of Gods wrath tyranny of Satan the curse of the Law Mosaicall Ceremenies humane Ordinances see our servitude to and our freedom from all these by the powerfull liberation of Christ 1. It was a true word of that Pythagorean Quot vitia tot domini sin is an hard master A master Yea a tyrant let not sin reign in your mortall bodies Rom. 6 14. and so the sinner is not only servus corruptitiae a drudge of corruptions 2 Pet. 2.19 but a very slave sold under sin Rom. 7.14 So necessitated to evill by his own inward corruption that he cannot but grind in this Mill he cannot but row in this Gally For as posse peccare is the condition of the greatest Saint upon earth and Non posse peccare is the condition of the least Saint above so non posse non peccare is the condition of the least sinful unregenerate as the prisoner may shift his feet but not his fetters or as the snail cannot but leave a slime track behind it which way soever it goes Here is our bondage where is our liberty Ubi spriritus domini ibi libertas where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty 2 Cor. 3.7 Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death I thank my God through Jesus Christ So then Christ hath freed us from the bondage of sin An accusing conscience is a true task-master of Egypt it will be sure to whip us for what we have done for what we have not done Horrour of sin like a sleeping Mastive lyes at our door Gen. 4.7 when it awakes it will fly on our throat No closer doth the shaddow follow the body then the revenge of self-accusation followes sin walk Eastward in the morning the shadow starts behind thee soon after it is upon thy left side at noon it is under thy feet lye down it coucheth under thee towards even it leaps before thee thou canst not be rid of it whiles thou hast a body and the Sun light no more can thy soul quit the conscience of evil This is to thee instead of an Hell of Fiends that shall ever be shaking fire brands at thee ever torturing thee with affrights of more paines then thy nature can comprehend Soeva conturbata conscientia Wisd 17.11 If thou look to the punishment of loss it shall say as Lysimachus did how much felicity have I lost for how little pleasure If to the punishment of sense it shall say to thee as the Tyrant dream'd his heart said to him out of the boiling caldron 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am the cause of all this misery Here is our bondage where is the liberty Having our hearts sprinkled from an evill Conscience Heb. 10.22 Sprinkled with what Even with the blood of Jesus vers 19. This this only is it that can free us It is with the unquiet heart as with the troubled Sea of Tiberias the Winds rise the Waters swell the billowes roar the ship is tossed Heaven and Earth threat to meet Christ doth but speak the word all is calme so Christ hath freed us Secondly from the bondage of an accusing conscience The conscience is but Gods Bayliff It is the displeasure of the Lord of Heaven and Earth that is the utmost of all terribles the fear of Gods wrath is that strong winde that stirrs these billowes from the bottom set aside the danger of divine displeasure and the clamoâ—rs of conscience were harmless this alone makes an Hell in the bosome The aversion of Gods face is confusion the least bending of his brow is perdition Ps 2. ult but his totus aestus his whole fury as Ps 78.38 is the utter absorption of the creature excandescentia ejus funditur sicut ignis His wrath is poured out like fire the rocks are rent before it Nahum 1.6 whence there is nothing but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fearfull expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries Heb. 10.27 Here is the bondage where is the liberty Being just fyed by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then Christ hath freed us thridly from the bondage of the wrath of God As every wicked man is a Tyrant according to the Philosophers position and every Tirant is a Devil among men so the Devil is the Arch-tyrant of the creatures he makes all his Subjects errand vassals yea chained slaves 2 Tim. 2. ult That they may recover themselves from the snare of the Devil who are taken captive by him at his will lo here is will snares captivity perfect tyranny Nahash the Ammonite was a notable Tyrant he would have the right eyes of the Israelites put out as an eminent mark of servitude so doth this infernal Nahash blind the right eye of our understanding yea with the spightful Philistim he puts out both the eyes of our apprehension and judgment that he may gyre us about in the Mill of unprofitable wickednesse and cruelly insult upon our remedilesse misery And when he hath done the fairest end is death yea death without end Oh the impotency of earthly tyranny to this the greatest blood-suckers could but kill and livor post fata as the old word is but here is an homicida ab initio and a fine
too ever killing with an ever-living death for a perpetual fruition of our torment Here is the bondage where is the liberty Christ hath spoiled principalities and powers and made a show of them openly triumphing over them in the same cross Colos 2.15 By his death he destroyed him that hath the power of death tke Devil Heb. 2.14 So then Christ hath freed us fourthly from the bondage of Satans tyranny At the best the law is but a hard Master impossible to please 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Paul but at the worst a cruell one The very courtesie of the law was jugum an unsupportable yoke but the spight of the law is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a curse Cursed is every one that continues not in all that is written in the book of the law to do it Gal. 3.10 Do you not remember an unmercifull steward in the Gospell that catcheth his bankrupt fellow by the throat and saies Pay me that thou owest me so doth the law to us we should pay and cannot and because we cannot pay we forfeit our selves so as every mothers son is the child of death Here is our bondage where is our liberty Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us Oh blessed redemption that frees us from the curse Oh blessed redeemer that would become a curse for us that the curse of the law might not light upon us so Christ hath freed us fifthly from the bondage of the law Moses was a meek man but a severe Master His face did not more shine in Gods aspect upon him then it lowred in his aspect to men His ceremonies were hard impositions Many for number costly for charge painfull for execution He that led Israel out of one bondage carryed them into another From the bondage of Egypt to the bondage of Sinai this held till the vail of the Temple rent yea till the vail of that better Temple his sacred body his very heart-strings did crack a sunder with a consummatum est And now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ is the end of the law Rom. 10.4 Now the law of the spirit of life hath freed us Rom. 8.2 You hear now no more newes of the ceremonies of prefiguration they are dead with Christ ceremonies of decency may and must live let no man now have his ear bored thorough to Moses his post Christ hath freed us sixtly from the law of ceremonies Our last Master is humane Ordinances the case of our exemption where from is not so clear concerning which I finde a double extream of opinion The one that ascribes too much to them as equalling them with the law of God the other that ascribes too little to them as if they were no tie to our obedience The one holding them to bind the conscience no less then the positive laws of God the other either sleighting their obligation or extending it only to the outward man not the inward we must learn to walk a mid-way betwixt both and know that the good lawes of our superiours whether civill or ecclesiastical do in a sort reach to the very conscience though not primarily and immediately as theirs yet mediately and secondarily as they stand in reference to the law of God with our obedience to his instituted authority and therefore they tie us in some sort besides the case whether of scandall or contempt Where no man can witness there is no scandall where is no intention of an affront to the commanding power there is no contempt and yet willingly to break good Iaws without all witness without all purpose of affront is therfore sin because disobedience For example I dine fully alone out of wantonnesse upon a day sequestred by authority to a publick fast I dine alone therefore without scandall out of wantonnesse therefore not out of contempt yet I offend against him that seeth in secret notwithstanding my solitarinesse and my wantonnesse is by him construed as a contempt to the ordainer of authority But when both scandall and contempt are met to aggravate the violation now the breach of humane lawes binds the conscience to a fearfull guilt Not to flatter the times as I hope I shall never be blurred with this crimination I must needs say this is too shamefully unregarded Never age was more lawlesse Our fore-fathers were taught to be superstitiously scrupulous in observing the lawes of the Church above Gods like those Christians of whom Socrates the historian speaks of which held fornication as a thing indifferent de diebus festis tanquam de vita decertant but strive for an holy day as for their life we are leapt into a licentious neglect of civill or sacred lawes as if it were piety to be disobedient Doth the law command a Friday fast no day is so selected for feasting let a schismaticall or popish book be prohibited this very prohibition endears it let wholsome lawes be enacted against drunkennesse idlenesse exactions unlawfull transportations excesse of diet of apparell or what ever noted abuse commands do not so much whet our desires as forbiddances what is this but to baffle and affront that sacred power which is entrusted to government and to professe our selves not Libertines but licentiate of disorder Farr farr is it from the intentions of the God of order under the stile of liberty to give scope to these unruly humors of men the issue whereof can be no other then utter confusion But if any power besides divine in Heaven or Earth shall challenge to it self this priviledg to put a primary or immediate tie upon the conscience so as it should be a sin to disobey that ordinance because 't is without relation to the command of the highest let it be anathema our hearts have reason to be free in spight of any such Antichristian usurpation whiles the owner of them hath charged us not to be thus the servants of men 1 Cor. 7.23 so Christ hath lastly freed us from the bondage of humane ordinances Lo now ye have seen our liberation from a whole heptarchy of spirituall tyranny Stand still now awhile Honourable and beloved and look back with wondring and thankfull eyes upon the infinite mercy of our deliverer sin beguiles us conscience accuseth us Gods wrath is bent against us Satan tyrannizes over us the law condemnes us insolent superstition inthralls us and now from all these Christ hath made us free How should we now erect altars to our dear Redeemer and inscribe them Christo liberatori how should we from the altars of our devoted hearts send up the holy sacrifices of our best obediences the sweet incense of our perpetuall prayers Oh blessed Saviour how should we how can we enough magnifie thee no not though those celestiall Choristers of thine should return to bear a part with us in renewing their gloria in excelsis glory to God on high Our bodies our souls are too little for thee Oh take thine own from us and give it
of Divine knowledg or holinesse ever brake forth upon any Saint or Angel but from his blessed irradation and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justly therefore is he Pater luminum the Father of Lights and as the child oft-times resembles the Father this quality the Light hath from God that it is wondrously diffusive of it self reaching forth it self largely in very quick and instantanie motions to all those things which are capable of it Other Creatures though beneficiall yet impart themselves more sparingly unto us The Earth yields us fruit but it is onely perhaps once a year and that not without much cost and angariation requiring both our labour and patience The Clouds do sometimes drop fatnesse but at great uncertainties other whiles they pour down famine upon our heads the Sea yields us commodities both of passage and sustenance but not without inconstancy and delaies and oft-times takes more in an hour then it gives in an age his favours are locall his threats universall But the Light is bountifull in bestowing it self freely with a clear safe unlimited largesse upon all Creatures at once indifferently incessantly beneficially The reflection of this quality upon us should be our diffusivenesse That we should so be lights as that we should give light so have light in our selves that we should give it unto others The Prophet Daniel who was a great Philosopher Astronomer in his time tells us of a double shining or light The one as of the Firmament the other as of the Stars The one a generall Light dispersed through the whole or body of the Skie the other a particular one compacted into the bodies of those starry globes which are wont to be called the more solid piece of their Orbe Thus it is in the Analogy of the spirituall light There is a generall Light common to Gods Children whereof our Saviour Let your Light shine so before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in Heaven Thus the great Doctour of the Gentiles exhorts his Philipians Philip. 2.15 that they be blameless and harmelesse the Sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse Generation among whom saith he ye shine as lights in the world There is a particular light propper to severall vocations especially those that are publick and encharged with the care of others whether spirituall or civill Of the one you know what our Saviour said in the Mount Vos estis lux mundi of the other you know what God said in Davids case I have ordained a Lampe for mine Anointed Ps 132.17 that is a glorious successour To begin with the latter Princes and Governours are and must be Lights by an eminence for God is Light and he hath called them Elohim Exod. 22.28 Gods So as they must imitate God in shining to the World sending forth the rayes both of good example and of Justice and Judgment into the eyes of their People An ordinary Star-light is not enough for them they are the Vice-gerents of him who is Sol jâ—stitiae Malac. 4.2 the Sun of Righteousnesse they must fill the world therefore with their glorious beams and give so much more light as their Orbe is higher and their Globe more capacious And blessed be God what beams of light our Sun sends forth of Temperance Chastity Piety Mercy and Justice let Malice it self say let even Rebellion it self witness Now if he be the Sun you great ones are our Stars as you receive your Light from him the light of your honour and good example so whilst you keep the one of them to your selves so you must communicate the other to your inferiours And if in presence his light dim or extinguish yours yet the World affords you darkness enough abroad to shine in Oh shine you clearly in the dark night of this evill World that the beholders may see and magnify your brightness and may say of one there is a Mars of truly heroical courage there is the Mercury of sound wisdom and learning there the Jupiter of exemplary honour and magnificence there the Phosphorus of Piety and ante-lucan devotion and may be accordingly sensible of beneficiall influences to your Country Far be it from any of you to be a fatall Sirius or Dog-star which when he rises yields perhaps a little needless light but withall burns up the Earth and inflames the ayr puts the World in a miserable combustion Far be it from you to be dismall and direfull comets that portend nothing but horrour and death to the earth or if your light be of a lower accension far far be it from you to be any of those ignes fatui that do at once affright and seduce the poor travailer and carry him by leud guidance into a ditch Such such alas there are give me leave to complain where can I do it better then at a Court the professed Academy of honour That a strange kind of loose debauchednesse hath possessed too many of the young Gallants of our time I fear I may take in both sexes with whom modesty civility temperance sobriety are quite out of fashion as if they had been sutes of their Grandsires wardrobe As for Piety and Godliness they are so laid by as if they were the cast rags of a despised frippery He is no brave Spirit with too many that bids not defiance to good orders that revells not without care spends not withour measure talks not without grace lives not without God Wo is me is this the fruit of so long and clear a Light of the Gospel Is this to have fellowship with the Divine Light Now the God of Heaven be mercifull to that Wild and Atheous licenciousnes wherewith the World is so miserably over-run and strike our hearts with a true sence of our grievous provocations of his name that our serious humiliations may fore-lay his too-well-deserved judgments In the mean time if there should be any one such amongst you that hear me this Day as commonly they will be sure to be farthest off from good counsell let Wise Solomon School him for me Rejoyce O Young man in thy youth and let thy heart chear thee up in the dayes of thy Youth and walk in the wayes of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee to judgment And let me add this if he be not for the light he shall be for the fire for the same Spirit of God which tells him here that God is Light tells him elsewhere which he shall once feel though he will not believe that our God is a consuming fire Now in the second place for us of the holy Tribe we are stars too And if not Stars Revel 1.16 Yet Candles Matth. 5.13 However Lights we must be and that both in Life and Doctrine If the first there are stars of severall magnitudes some goodly and great ones that move in Orbes of their own
others small and scarce visible in the Galaxy of the Church but all are Stars and no Star is without some light If but the Second there are large Tapers and Rush-candles one gives a greater light then the other but all give some Never let them go for either Stars or Candles that neither have nor give light And wo is me if the Light that is in us be darkness how great how dangerous is that darknesse Blessed be God we have a learned able and flourishing Clergy as ever this Church had or I think I may boldly say any other since the Gospel look't forth into the World there have not been clearer Lamps in Gods Sanctuary since their first lighting then our dayes have seen yet why should we stick to confesse that which can neither be concealed nor denyed that there are some amongst so many whose wicke is too much for their Oyle yea rather whose snuffe is more then their Light I mean whose offensive lives shame their holy Doctrines and reproach the Glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ these as we lament so we desire to have top't by just censures but hear you my worthy brethren do not you where you see a thiefe in the Candle call presently for an extinguisher for personal faults do not you condemn an holy calling Oh be you wisely charitable and let us be exemplarily holy Lastly for you Christian hearers think not that this Light may be put off to publick and eminent persons only Each of you must shine too at the least tanquam faces Philip. 2. If they be as Cities up-an Hill the meanest of you must be as Cottages in a Vally though not high-built yet wind-tight and water tight If they be Beacons you must be Lanterns every one must both have a light of his own and impart it to others It is not a charge appropriated to publick Teachers that the Apostle gives to his Hebrewes Exhort one another dayly while it is called to day least any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3.13 Even the privatest person may shine forth in good counsell he that is most obscure may and must do good works in his place and improve his graces to others good These these my beloved are the light which we must both have and give not to have were to have no fellowship with God to have and not to give it were to ingrosse and monopolize grace which God cannot abide Hath any of you Knowledge Let him communicate it and light others Candle at his Hath any man worldly riches let him not be Condus but Promus to do good and distribute forget not Hath any man Zeal Zeal I say not fury not frenzy let him not glow only but shine let him say with Jehu Come see my Zeal for the Lord Hath any man true piety and devotion let him like a flaming brand enkindle the next thus thus shall we approve our selves the Sons of that infinite and communicative Light thus shall we so have fellowship with the God who is Light that shining like him and from him here in Grace we may shine with him hereafter above in everlasting glory which the same God grant to us for the sake of the Son of his love Jesus Christ the righteous to whom with thee O God the Father and thy blessed Spirit one infinite and incomprehensible Lord be given all praise honour and glory now and for ever Amen A SERMON Preacht in the Cathedral at EXCETER UPON The solemn Day appointed for the CELEBRATION OR THE PACIFICATION Betwixt the Two KINGDOMS Viz. Septemb. 7. 1641. By JOS. EXON PSAL. 46.8 Come behold the Works of the Lord what Desolations He hath made in the Earth He maketh warrs to cease unto the ends of the Earih c. IT was doubtless upon the happy end of some warr and the renovation of an established peace that this gratulatory Psalme was penned and therefore fits well with our occasion My text then is an earnest invitation to a serious and thankfull consideration of the great works of God in his contrary proceedings with men Desolations of warr and restaurations of Peace we are called first to a generall survay of Gods wonderfull works and then to a speciall view of the works of his justice first what desolation he hath made upon Earth then of his mercy in composing all the busie broils of the World He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the Earth These must be the subject both of our eyes and of my tongue and your ears at this time We must then behold the works of the Lord but that we may behold them we must come and that we may both come and behold them we are invited to both Come and behold We are naturally full of distractions ready to mind any thing but what we should unless we be called we shall not come and unlesse we come and behold we shall behold to no purpose that which our Saviour saith of Martha is the common case of us all we are troubled about many things One is carking about his household affaires another is busying his thoughts with his law-suits another is racking his mind with ambitious projects another is studying which way to be revenged of his enemy and some other perhaps rather then want work will be troubling themselves with matters of State or other mens affaires that concern them not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 busie Bishops in other mens diocess we had need to be call'd off from these vain unmeet avocations ere we offer to behold the works of God else it will fall out with us as it doth ordinarily with our bodily sight that whiles we have many objects in our eye we see nothing distinctly at all Away therefore with all the distractive yea divulsive thoughts of the World and let us Come and behold the works of the Lord as the Vulgar hath it in the next verse vacate videte Come then from thy counting house thou from thy shop-board thou from thy study thou from thy barr thou from the field and behold the works of the Lord. Indeed how can we look beside them What is there that he hath not done What thing is it that he hath not created or what event can befall any of his Creatures which he hath not contrived Or what act can fall from any Creature of his wherein he is not interested So as unlesse we will wilfully shut our eyes we cannot but behold the works of the Lord But there is more in this charge then so as these works are not meant of the ordinary occurrents so it is not a mere sight that is here called for but a serious and fixed contemplation It is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I remember Beza distinguishes upon an other occasion a bending of our eyes upon this holy object Solomon the Son interprets his Father David Eccles 7.13 Consider the work
great power are met in any Prince he can be content to fit still and not break forth into some notable breaches of publick peace And where once the fire of war is kindled it is not easily quenched yea it runs as in a trayn and feeds it self with all the combustable matter it meets withall on every side and therefore t is a marveilous work of the power and mercy of God that he makes war to cease And this he doth either by an over-powering victory as in the case of Hezekiah Sennacherib which should seem to be the drift of this Psalme whereof every passage imports such a victory and triumph as the conquered adversary should never be able to recover Or by tempering and composing the hearts of men restraining them in their most furious carriere and taming their wild heats of revenge and inclining them to termes of peace This is a thing which none but he can do the heart of man is an unruly and head strong thing it is not more close then violent as none can know it so none can over-rule it but he that made it It is a rough sea he only can say here shalt thou stay thy proud waves Shortly then publick peace is the proper work of an Almighty and mercifull God His very title is Deus pacis the God of peace Rom. 15.33 and 16.20 Heb. 13.20 so as this is his peculium yea it is not only his for he owes it but his for he makes it I make peace and create evill I the Lord do all these things Esa 45.7 That malignant Spirit is in this his profest opposite that he is the great make-bate of the World Labouring to set all together by the ears sowing discord betwixt Heaven and Earth betwixt one peece of Earth against another Man against Man Nation against Nation hence he hath the name of Satan of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Diabolus of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as whose whole indeavour is enmity and destruction Contrarily the good God of Heaven whose work it is to destroy the works of the Devill is all for peace he loves peace he commands it he effects it He maketh wars to cease This is his work in the kinde and so much more his work in the extent To the ends of the Earth by how much more good any work is by so much more it is his and by how much more common any good is by so much better it is Even the pax pectoris the private and bosome peace of every man with himself is his great and good work for the heart of every man is naturally as an unquiet sea ever tossing and restlesse troubled with variety of boistrous passions he only can calme it the peace of the family is his he maketh men to be of one minde in an house without whose work there is nothing but jarres and discord betwixt husband and wife parents and children masters and servants servants and children with each other so as the house is made if not an hell for the time yet a purgatory at the least the peace of the neighbourhood is his without whom there is nothing but scolding brawling bloodsheds lawing that a City is at unity in it self not divided into sides and factions it is the Lords doing for many men many mindes and every man is naturally addicted to his own opinion hence grow daily destractions in populous bodies That a Country that a Nation is so is so much more his work as there are more heads and hearts to governe But that one Nation should be at unity with another yea that all Nations should agree upon an universall cessation of armes and embrace peace A domino factum est hoc est mirabile it must needs be the Lords doing so much more eminently and it is marveilous in our eyes Faciam eos in gentem unam was a word fit only for the mouth of God who only can restrain hands and conjoyne hearts as here He maketh wars to cease unto the ends of the Earth Now wherefore serves all this but for the direction of our recourse for the excitation of our duty and immitation for the challenge of our thankfulnesse In the first place are we troubled with the fears or rumours of wars are we grieved with the quarrells and dissensions that we finde within the bosome of our own Nation or Church would we earnestly desire to finde all differences composed and a constant peace setled amongst us we see whether to make our addresse even to that omnipotent God who maketh warrs to cease unto the ends of the earth who breaketh the bow and snappeth the spear in sunder And surely if ever any Nation had cause to complain in the midst of a publick peace of the danger of private destractions and factious divisions ours is it wherein I know not how many uncouch Sects are lately risen out of Hell to the disturbance of our wonted peace all of them eagerly pursuing their own various fancies and opposing our formerly received truth what should we do then but be take our selves in our earnest supplications to the God of peace with an Help Lord never ceasing to solicit him with our prayers that he would be pleased so to order the hearts of men that they might encline to an happy agreement at least to a meek cessation of those unkinde quarrels wherewith the Church is thus miserably afflicted But secondly in vain shall we pray if we do nothing Our prayers serve only to testifie the truth of our desires and to what purpose shall we pretend a desire of that which we indeavour not to effect That God who makes wars and quarrels to cease useth means to accomplish that peace which he decrees And what are those means but the inclinations projects labors of all the well-willers to peace It must be our care therefore to immitate yea to second God in this great work of peace-making The phrase is a strange but an emphaticall one that Deborah uses in her song Curse ye Meroz said the Angel of the Lord curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof because they came not to help the Lord to help the Lord against the mighty Judg. 5.23 Lo what a word here is To help the Lord what help needs the Almighty or what help can our weaknesse afford to his omnipotence Yet when we put our hands to his and do that as instruments which he as the authour requires of us and works by us we help that Lord which gives us all the motions both of our wills and actions so must we do in the promoting of peace and the allaying of quarrells when an house is on fire we must every one cast in his pail-full to the quenching of the flames It is not enough that we look on harmlesly with our hands in our bosomes No we add to that burning which we indeavour not to quench We must contribute our utmost to the cessation of these spirituall and intellectuall wars which shall be
consider first the miseries of war and then the benefits and comforts of peace The former of these may be talk't of but can never be thoroughly conceived by any but those that have felt them I could tell you of sieging and famishing sacking and spoiling and killing and ravishing and burning of weltring in blood and a thousand such tragicall calamities of war but I had rather the spirit of God should describe them in his own expressions These Sword without terrour within shall destroy both the Young-man and the Virgin the suckling also with the Man of gray haires Deut. 32.25 And Jeremy Every battle of the warriour is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood but this shall be with burning and with fenell of fire Jer. 9.5 Not to presse those passionate descriptions of Esay and Nahum that one of the Prophet Azariah the Son of Obed shall shut up all Chro. 15.6 In those times there was no peace to them that went out nor to him that came in but great vexations were upon all the Inhabitants of the Countreys and Nation was destroyed of Nation and City of City for God did vex them with all adversity Mark but the foot of this report upon the mention of war straight it followes God did vex them with all adâ—ersity surely there is no adversity incident unto a Creature which doth not inevitably attend a war and as all wars are thus wofull and hideous so much more the intestine and domesticall those that are raised out of our own bowels these are beyond all conceit dreadfull and horrible As therefore we do in our ordinary prayers put all these together which are the effects and concomitants of war From plague pestilence and famine from battail and murder and from suddain death good Lord deliver us so good reason have we to put them into the tenor of our hearty thanksgiving that God hath graciously delivered us from the fury of all these in that he caused wars to cease to the ends of our Earth As for the benefits of peace if we were not cloyed with them by their long continuance we could not but be heartily sensible of them and know that all the comforts we enjoy either for Earth or for Heaven we owe to this unspeakable blessing of Peace whereto if we add the late accession of further strength by the union of our Warlick neighbours and the force of a strong and inviolable league for the perpetuation of our peace and unity there will need no further incitements to a celebration of this day and to our hearty thankfulness unto the God of peace who whiles he hath made wofull desolations in all the Earth besides yet hath caused wars to cease unto our ultima the ends of our Earth and hath broken the bow and cut the spear in sunder Oh then prayse the Lord O Jerusalem prayse thy God of Sion for he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates and blessed thy children within thee Ps 147.12.13 He maketh peace within thy borders and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat To that good God of all glory peace and comfort Father Son Holy Ghost one infinite God in three most glorious persons be given all praise honour and glory as is due from Heaven and Earth from Angels and Men from this time forth and for evermore Amen THE MISCHIEFE OF FACTION And the REMEDIE of it Laid forth in a SESMON Before his MAJESTY In the COURT-YARD AT WHITE-HALL On the Second Sunday in Lent 1641. By JOS. EXON PSALM 60.2 Thou hast made the Earth to tremble thou hast broken it heal the breaches thereof for it shaketh MY text is a complaint and a suit a complaint of an evill and a suit for a remedy An evill deplored and an implored redresse The evill complained of is double the concussion or unsettlement of the state of Israel and the division of it For it hath been the manner of the prophets when they would speak high to expresse spirituall things by the height of naturall allusions fetcht from those great bodies of Heaven Sea Earth the most conspicuous and noted pieces of Gods Almighty workmanship It were to no purpose to exemplifie where the instances are numberlesse Open your Bibles where you will in all the Sapienciall or Propheticall books your eyes cannot look beside them And thus it is here I suppose no man can be so weak as to think David intends here a philosophicall history of Earthquakes although these dreadfull events in their due times and places are worthy of no lesse then a prophets either notice or admiration But here it is not in his way It is an Analogicall morall or politicall Earth-quake that David hear speaks of and so our usuall and ancient Psalter Translation takes it well whiles for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Earth it reads the Land by a just Synecdoche and for making the Earth to tremble reads moving the Land and for broken reads divided and for breaches sores so as by comparing of both translations The Earth is the Land the tremblings are the violent motions of it whether by way of action or passion the divisions thereof are breaches and those breaches sores which the hand of God both makes and heals Shortly then here is first an Earth-quake such as it is 2ly The effects of that Earth-quake breaches or sores 3ly The authour of both Thou hast made the Earth to tremble thou hast broken it 4ly The remedy of both with the authour of it Heal thou the Sores or breaches and Lastly the motive of the remedy for it shaketh The Text falls into these parts so naturally that there is none of you who hear me this day but were able to divide it for me which I shall desire to follow with all perspicuous brevity and profitable enforcement And first hear and consider that the motions of the distempers or publick calamities of States are Earthquakes either or both For this Earthquake is either out of a feare or sense of judgment or out of the strife of contrary affectations the one we may call a passive the other an active Earth-quake Earth-quakes we know are strange and unnaturall things There is no part of all Gods great Creation save the Earth that is ordained for rest and stability The waters are in perpetuall agitation of flux and refluxes even when no wind stirs they have their neap and spring tides The air cannot stand still whiles the Heavens whirle about The Heavens or any part of them never stood still but once since they were made but the Earth was made for fixednesse and stability Hence ye find so oft mention of the foundations of the Earth and the stile of it is nescia moveri the Earth that cannot be moved and that stands fast for ever And therefore for the Earth to move it is no lesse prodigie then for the Heavens to stand still Neither is it more rare then formidable If we should see the Heavens stand still but one houre
Binius himself can tell you Pope Urban the 6th coming to his Episcopall chair would be correcting the loose manners of the Cardinalls they impatient of his reformation flew out to Anagina chose and set up another for an Anti-pope Clement 7th and thereupon perniciosissimum schisma a most pernicious schisme arâ—se which could not be stinted of 36. years or as Fasciculus temporum sayes of 40. years in all which time saith he even the most learned and conscientious men knew not who was the true Bishop of Rome cum gravi scandalo totius Cleri grandi jactura animarum In the mean time what wofull work do you think there was what discontented murmurs what roaring of Bulls what flashes of reciprocall anathema's what furious side-takings what plots what bloodsheds Here at home what deadly divisions have our intestine Earthquakes brought forth how have whole fields whole Countries been swallowed up with the unhappily raised Barons wars with the fatall quarrells of the two Roses Blessed be God our land hath had rest for many years ever since that happy and auspicious union and blessings and peace be ever upon that gracious head and royall line in whom they are united I say we have had a long and happy peace although perhaps it is no thank to some body for had that sulphureous mine taken fire as it was very near it this State in all likelyhood had not been shaken only but quite blowen up those goodly piles and therein the Monuments of ancient Kings had been together with the yet stirring limbes of dying Princes buried in their own ruine and rubbish Deus omen It is a dangerous thing honourable and beloved for a man to give way to a secret discontentment or to the first offers of sedition Curse not the King no not in thy thought Curse not the Rich in thy Bed-chamber Eccles. 10. ult That great Lawyer said well if Treason could be discovered but in the heart it were worthy to be punished with death For how ever sleight and force-lesse these beginnings may seem they bring forth at last no lesse then publique distraction and utter subversion what a poor despicable beginning had the Scirifii two Brothers in Barbary who desired nothing of their Father but a Drum and an Ensigne but with them they made shift to over-run the two Kingdomes of Fez and Morocco what a small snow-ball was that which cursed Mahomet began to roll which since hath covered all the vallies yea and Mountaines of the East what a poor matter is a spark lighting on the tinder and yielding a dim blew light upon the match yet if once it hath light the candle it soon kindles a fire able to burn a World yea what can be lesse considerable then a litle warm Vapour fuming up in some obscure cell of the Earth had it had but the least breathing out it had vanished alone without noise or notice but now the inclosure heightens the heat and the resisting cold doubles it and now it having gathered head growes so unruly that it makes the Earth to tremble at the fury of it and tears up Rocks and Mountaines before it in making vent for it self Of this nature is a mutinous spirit he needs no other incentive then his own disposition and by that alone inraged with opposition is able to inflame a world so wise Solomon As coales are to burning coales and wood to fire so is a contentious man to kindle flrife Prov. 26.21 It hath been alwayes therefore the wisdom of Churches and States by an early suppression to prevent the gathering of these hot and headstrong Vapours by the power of good lawes by carefull executions and so they must do still if they desire to have peace If we would have our Earth stand still we must not stand still but must seasonably with all speedy Vigilancy disperse those unquiet and turbulent fumes which rise up in it But forasmuch as these mischiefs are first hatcht within and notice cannot be taken of them till they have got a dangerous head since no man keeps the Key of a mans own heart but himself the true way of a perfect prevention is for men to work upon their own souls in secret to suppress the first rising of male-contented and mutinous thoughts in their own brests to settle in themselves a true valuation of peace and a just sense of the mischiefs of contentions How have we seen Churches and States like a dry unliquor'd Coach set themselves on fire with their own motion How have we seen good timber rotted with but the droppings of a small chink Yea how have we seen goodly ships sinking with but a leak It was a wise observation of Erasmus sunt quae neglecta non laedunt exagitata graves suscitant tragedias There are things which do no hurt to be let alone but when they are urg'd breed no small stirs It was an absur'd and ridiculous mistake of the vulgar Translation of that Luc. 15. as Salmeron himself observes in his prolegomena Mulier perdidit drachmum accendit lucernam evertit domum instead of everrit The Woman lost her groat lighted a candle and overthrew the house instead of sweeping See how one letter may marre a sense but truly so it is Many a one in but the seeking of a sorry groat lights the candle and sets the house on fire would to God we had not too much experience of this mischief No lesse mistaken but to better purpose is that Psal 107.4 where they read Effusa est contentio super principes whereas the true word is effusa est contemptio He powreth contempt upon Princes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Apollinaris or as the Septuagent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The morall may be too good Where there are quarrells and contentions there will soon be contempt shame Annihilation It was our Saviours word An house divided cannot stand If this then be a fearfull judgment which is here specified that there is a division of the Land Let our hearts abhorr to be guilty of bringing it upon our selves wo be to those by whom the offence cometh England had wont to be Anglia quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Capgrave derives it intus gloriosa So we found it in the blessed times of our long peace and so let us leave it to the succeeding generations Far be from us that which Bernard speaks of his time Omnes suum stomachum sequntur that every man should follow his own stomack and his own brain Away with all peevish humours of contention if we love our selves our Land our Church Let us as the Apostles charges study to be quiet Thus much for the active breaches The passive breaches which follow upon those Earth-quakes of judgment are those grievous Vastations which have followed upon the publick calamities of any Nation for these are called Breaches too as Perez Vzzah and the hand upon the wall wrote Baltazars Upharsin If the Earth could quiver only for a time and
cease again without any sensible breach it were no great matter but as there is no thunder in the cloud without an eruption of lightning so there is no Earth-quake lightly without some fearfull rupture The judgments of God never return empty handed they still bring what they were sent for Those three great executioners of God sword famine pestilence what wofull havock have they made in the World I could show you very wide breaches that these have made wheresoever they have come I could tell you out of Josephus of so many Jewes slaughtered at Hierusalem the bordering parts as you would wonder the World should yield so many men I could tell you of Eighteen hundred thousand in one Year swept away as it is said in one City Cairo with the pestilence what need I travell so far off when we have so many and miserable instances nearer home Here in England as our Florilegus or Matthew of Westminster tells us in the Year 665 there was so great a mortality that men run up by troups to the rocks and cast themselves into the Sea Do but look back and recollect those bills of death which in our two last heavy visitations astonished the presse Do but look about at both Germanies and their bordering neighbourhood and see what gaps the sword hath made in those yet bleeding territories Oh the wofull breaches that have followed these late Earth-quakes of Christendome the very examples whereof one would think should be enough to teach us both fear and thankfulnesse when the Israelites round about saw Corah and his company devoured of the Earth they run away at the cry of them and said lest the Earth swallow us up also I cannot blame them they had reason the same jawes of the Earth might have yawned wider and taken them in too So let us do Honourable and beloved yea why should not the care of our own safety prevail so far with us as to force us since we see the lamentable breaches that are made in our neighbour Nations to run away trembling from this gulf of Gods deserved judgments and shall I tell you how we may run away to purpose Run away before-hand from those sins which have drawn down these judgments on them and will otherwise do the like upon us so shall we be sure to escape the avenging hand of God who alone it is that moves the earth and makes these breaches which is the third head of our discourse Thou hast made the earth to tremble thou hast divided or broaken it Who or what ever be the means he is the author of these movings of these breaches as in nature the immediate causes of an Earth-quake are those Subterraneous heats which we mentioned yet it is God the prime cause that sets them on work in causing both them and their agency so it is in these analogical motions Men may be the immediate actors in them but he that actuates the orders over-rules these means is God to him must be ascribed these stirrings these breakings whether by a just but efficacious permission as sins or by a just immission as punishments This is Gods claime the prerogative of the King of Heaven Is there any evill in the City and I have not done it Surely none except we will detract from his omnipotence none against him none without him none but by him his infinite power justice wisdome mercy knowes when and how to scourge one to chastise a second to warne a third to humble a fourth to obdure a fifth to destroy a sixt shortly to break some and move all Oh the infinite varieties and inevitable certainties of Gods vengeance upon sinfull Nations Doth Israell walk with God they are the miraculous prâ—cedent of favours to all ages and people Do they fly off in Mutinies and Idolatries God hath plagues fiery serpents mighty enemies to execute his wrath upon them Doth Solomon hold right with his God Never Kingdome so flourished in plenty and peace Is his heart turned from the Lord God of Israel straightwayes the Lord stirred up an adversary to Solomon Hadad the Edomite and after him 1 K 11.9 v. 14. the wicked Son of Nebat the Ephrathite vers 26. and which is worthy of singular observation when that rebell Jeroboam had drawn away the ten Tribes of Israel from their allegiance to the Son of Solomon and Rehoboam had gathered together an hundred and fourscore thousand men of Judah and Benjamin to fight against the revolted Israelites the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God Speak to Rehoboam and say Ye shall not go up nor fight against your brethren for this thing is from me Lo who it is that moves the Earth and divides it we may look as humane wisdome teacheth us to do at the secondary causâ—s and finde them guilty of the publick evils this mans illimitable ambition that mans insatiable covetousnesse the cruel oppressions of these great ones the mutinous dispositions of thoâ—e inferiours violence in one in another Faction but if we look not at the first mover of all these lower wheels we are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not seeing things afarr off we do but as the Dog snarle at the stones neglect the hand we are like some fond spectators that when they see the puppets acting upon the ledge think they move alone not knowing that there is an hand behind the curtain that stirs all their wires Upon the sight we do well and wisely by all politick provisions to meet with or prevent all those peccant humours which may occasion a publick distemper to curb the lawlesse insolence of some the seditious machinations of others the extortions cruelties of some the corrupt wresting of justice in others the giddinesse of some others quarrelsomenesse but when all is done if we do not make our peace with God we do nothing it is but a reckoning without our host a remedy without ease Oh then in all either our sense or fear of evils let us have our recourse to that Almighty hand which ordereth all the events of Heaven and Earth and work him by our true repentance to a gratious cessation of vengeance else what do we with all our endeavours but as that fond man who wearies himself lading out the channel with a shallow dish whiles the Spring runs full and unchecked Vain man can he possibly hope to scoppet it out so fast as it fills let him take order with the well head from whence it issues if that be filled up the channell dries alone When the Paralytick was with much labour let down through the roof to our Saviours cure what said he Son thy sins be forgiven thee Alas the poor man came not for pardon he came for cure but that great unfailing Physitian knew that he must begin here If the sins were gone he knew the palsy could not stay behind them If ever we think to be rid of judgments we must begin whence they begin He it is that can both
strike and case wound and heal again which is the next and must be for fear of your over-tiring the last subject of our discourse heal thou the sores or breaches thereof That great and ineffable name of God consisting of four letters which we now call Jehovah no man knowes what it was or how pronounced but being abridged to Jah the Grecians have been wont to expresse it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to heal the sense whereof is answered by that name which the Heathens gave him Jupiter as juvans pater This healing then is a proper kindly and naturall act of God whereas the other as dividing striking wounding commoving are a◠it were forced upon him by men Surely else he that is essentiall unity would not divide he that is stability it self would not move he that is salus ipsa would not wound he that is all mercy would not strike we do as it were put this upon him and therefore he cries out Why will ye die O house of Israel but when we shall returne to our selves and him and be once capable of mercy and cure how doth he hasten to our redresse The Son of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings Mal. 4.2 Lo here is healing for his act and wings for his haste Those breaches which are made in the earth by the shaking of it are as so many wounds gashes or sores in a vast body and both of these resemble those either divisions or calamities which fall out in the bodies of Churches or States the hand that made them must can will only heal them Heal thou the breaches And how doth he heal them in matter of calamity First by removing the grounds of it Surely the great and true sores of the Land are the sins of the Land which till it please him to heal by working us to a serious repentance in vain shall we complain of our breaches which follow them These are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a noysome sore and grievous Rev. 16.2 Not only in the Knees Leggs Deut. 28. but in the very bowels vitallest parts as Jeroboams was 2 Chro. 21. Wo is me how full we are of these sores Longae pacis mala we are what an Ulcerous body are we grown like to that great pattern of misery that was totus ulcus all but one botch I would not be querulous but I must say so What shall I say of our blasphemies prophanesses uncleanesses drunkennesses oppressions sacriledges lawlesse disobediences contempt of Gods messengers and all that rabble of hellish enormities enough to shame Heaven and confound Earth These are sores with a witnesse Alas these like to Davids run and cease not they are besides their noysomnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sure and old sores But yet stay my brethren we are not come to that passe that Jehoram was that the Wound is incurable or to the State of the Sareptans Son that there was no breath left in him but like Eutichus rather bruised but yet breathing And still still there is balme in Gilead let our Wounds be never so deep repentance may can will recure them let not us think onwards to heal Gods people with good words this is the way to fester them within No let us who are Gods Chirurgions make use of the probe of Wise Austere judgment let us gage the sore to the botome and tent it home with the applications of the Law let us take off the proud flesh with the corrosiving denunciations of vengeance to the impenitent sinners and then when it is thoroughly drawn let us lay on the soveraign emplaisters of the most precious and meritorious mercy of our blessed Redeemer Thus thus must all our spirituall sores be healed and oh that we could obtain of our own hearts to addresse our selves to a saving use of these sure remedies how happy were both for our soules and for our Land whose sores yet lye dangerously open how soon would our justly provoked God take off his heavy judgments Is it an Enemy that would afflict us He can put a hook into the Nostrils and a bridle into the Lips of the proudest Assyrian at pleasure Is it a Pestilence He can call in the destroying Angel and bid him Smite no more Is it Famine He can restore to us the years that the Locust hath eaten the Canker-worme and the Caterpiller The Floores shall be full of Wheat and the Fat 's overflow with Wine and Oyle In matter of division secondly the way to his cure must be by composing all unkind differences and uniting the hearts of men one to another the hearts even of Kings much more of Subjects are in his hand as the Rivers of Waters and he turnes them which way soever he pleases sometimes dreadfully forward to a right down opposition sometimes side-ways to a fair accomodation sometimes circularly bringing them about to a full condescent and accordance But as we commonly say the Chirurgion heals the wound and yet that the Plaister heals it too the Chirurgion by the plaister so may we justly here it is God that heals and the means heal God by the means and the means by and under God and surely when we pray or expect that God should heal either of these breaches we do not mean to sue to him to work miracles this were as St. Austin said truely in the like case to tempt God but we beseech God to give and bless those means whereby those breaches may be made up As for the calamitous breaches those we wish may be healed so far as the arme of flesh can reach by the vigilance and ower of Soveraignity by the prudence of wise Statesmen by the sage Councell of the State and Kingdome by wholsome provisions of good Lawes by carefull and just executions As for quarrellous and discontented breaches there are other Remedies to heal them the Remedies must be as the causes of them from within Let the first be a resolution of confining our desires within the due bounds not affecting mutuall incroachments or unnecessary innovations Not Incroachments first Good Lord what a stir these two great wranglers Meum and Tuum make in the World were it not for them all would be quiet Justice must do her part betwixt them both holding the balance even with a suum cuique and sayes with the Master of the vineyard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Take that which is thine own and go thy way Mat. 20.14 remembring in all states that heavy word of the Apostle But he that doth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done and there is no respect of persons Colos 3. ult It is but right that wrong should receive a payment in whose hands soever it be found and if this retribution fail sometimes with you men of might whom earthly greatnesse may perhaps for a time bear out in hard measures to your impotent inferiours yet there is no respect of persons above except this be it potentes potenter
God hath taken at our thus Grieving of him his Indearments our Ingagements his Expectation were we a people that God had no whit promerited by his favours that he had done nothing for us more then for the savage Nations of the World surely the God of Heaven had not taken it so deeply to heart but now that he hath been more kind to us then to any Nation under Heaven how doth he call Heaven and Earth to record of the justnesse of his high regret Hear O Heaven and hearken O Earth for the Lord himself hath spoken I have nourished and brought up Children and they have rebelled against me Esa 1.2 and excellently Jerem. 2.31 O generation see the word of the Lord have I been a wilderness to Israel a land of darkness therefore it followes Behold I will plead with thee ver 35. Neither are his indearments of us more then our ingagements to him for what Nation in all the World hath made a more glorious profession of the name of God then this of ours What Church under the cope of Heaven hath been more famous and flourishing Had we not pretended to holiness and purity of religion even beyond others the unkindness had been the lesse now our unanswerablenesse calls God to the highest protestation of his offence Be astonished O Heavens and be horribly afraid be ye very desolate saith the Lord for my people have committed two evils they have forsaken me the Fountain of living waters and have hewen them out Cisternes broken Cisternes that can hold no water Jer. 2.11 And who is so blind as my servant Esa 42.19 Now according to his Indearments and our Ingagements hath been his just expectation of an answerable carriage of us towards him the Husbandman looks not for a crop in the wild desart but where he hath Gooded and plowed and Eared and Sowne why should not he look for an harvest And this disappointment is a just heightner of his griefe what could I have done more for my Vineyard that I have not done I looked for grapes and it brought forth wild grapes And now I will tell you what I will do to my Vineyard I will take away the hedge thereof and I will lay it wast Esa 5.4 5. Wo is me we do not hear but feel God making his fearfull word good upon us I need not tell you what we suffer the word of Esay is fulfilled here It shall be a vexation onely to understand the report Esa 28.19 Alas we know it too well what rivers of blood what piles of Carcasses are to be seen on all sides would God I could as easily tell you of the Remedy and why can I not do so Doubtlesse there is a remedy no lesse certain then our suffering if we had but the grace to use it too long alas too long have we driven off the applying of our redress yet even still there is Balme in Gilead still there is hope yea assurance of help if we will not be wanting to our selves we have grieved our God to the height Oh that we could resolve to make our peace with our provoked God at the last Excellent is that of Esay 27.5 Let him take hold of my strength and make Peace with me and he shall make peace with with me Oh that we could take hold of our strong Helper who is mighty to save that we would lay hold on the strength of his marvellous mercies Oh that we could take Benhadads course here as they said of the King of Israel much more may I say of the God of Israel He is a merciful God let us put sackcloth upon our loynes and ropes upon our heads and go to the God of Israel and say Thy servants say I pray thee let us live 1 K. 20.31 Oh that it could greive us thoroughly that we have greived so good a God that we could by a sound and serious humiliation and hearty Repentance reconcile our selves to that offended Majesty we should yet live to praise him for his mercifull deliverance and for the happy restauration of our peace which God for his mercies sake vouchsafe to graunt us Thus much for the grieving of the holy Spirit in himself by way of allusion to humane affection Now followes that grievance which by way of Sympathy he feels in his Saints Anselme Aquinas Estius and other latter Interpreters have justly construed one branch of this offence of the Holy Spirit to be when through our leud despightful words or actions we grieve and scandalize those Saints and Servants of God in whom that Holy Spirit dwells It is true as Zanchius observes well that it is no thank to a wicked man that the Spirit of God is not grieved by him even in person he doth what he can to vex him the Impossibility is in the Impassiblenesse of the Spirit of God not in the Will of the Agent But although not in himself yet in his faithful Ones he may and doth grieve him They are the Receptacles of the Holy Ghost which he so possesses and takes up that the injuries and affronts done to them are felt and acknowledged by him As when an enemy offers to burn or pull down or strip plunder the house the Master or Owner takes the violence as done to himself We are the Temples the Houses wherein it pleaseth the Spirit of God to dwell what is done to us is done to him in us He challengeth as our Actions The Spirit of God prayes in us Rom. 8.26 so our Passions also he is grieved in our grief such an interest hath God in his that as Christ the second person in the Trinity could say to Saul why persecutest thou me So the Holy Ghost appropriates our injuries to himself If ye be reproached for the Name of Christ happy are ye saith S. Peter for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you on their part he is evil spoken of but on your part he is glorified 1 Pet. 4.14 Lo the Holy Spirit is glorified by our sufferings and is evil spoken of in our reproaches the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is blasphemed so as it is a fearful thing to think of to speak contumelious words against Gods children is by the Apostles own determination no better then a kinde of blaspheming the Holy Ghost See then consider ye malicious uncharitable men your wrongs reach further then ye are aware of ye suffer your tongues to run ryot in bitter Scoffs in spightful slanders in injurious raylings against those that are truly conscionable ye think ye gall none but men worse then your selves but ye shall finde that ye have opened your mouthes against Heaven I speak not for those that are meer outsides visors of Christianity making a shew of Godliness and denving the power of it in their lives I take no protection of them God shall give them their portion with Hypocrites But if he be a true childe of God one that hath the true fear
besides it And indeed what other can we insist upon Outward profession will not do it many a one shall say Lord Lord with a zealous reduplication which yet shall be excluded And for pretended revelations they are no lesse deceitfull Satan oftentimes transforming himself into an Angel of light A Zidkijeh thinks he hath the Spirit as well as any Michaiah of them all our books are full of the reports of dangerous dulusions of this kind whereby it hath come to pass that many a one in stead of the true David hath found nothing but an image of clouts laid upon a bolster stuffed with Goats hair 1 Sam. 19.16 But this mark of reall sanctification cannot fail us It will ever hold good that which St. Paul hath Rom. 8. So many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Nothing in this World can so highly concern us as this to see and know whether we be sealed to the day of Redemption Would we know how it may be evidenced to us look upon the impression that Gods Spirit hath made upon our hearts and lives if he have renewed us in the inner man and wrought us unto true holiness to a lively faith to a sincere love of God to a conscionable care of all our actions and to all other his good graces doubtlesse we are so sealed that all the powers of Hell cannot deface and obliterate this blessed impression But the principal main use of this Seal is for certainty of performance If we have the word of an honest man we believe it but if we have his hand we make our selves more sure but if we have both his hand and seal we rest secure of the accomplishing of what is given or undertaken How much more assurance may we have when we have the word of a God whose very title is Amen Rev. 3.14 whose promises are like himself Yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1.20 Alas the best man is deceitful upon the balance and his true stile is Omnis homo mend ax every man is a lyer But for this God of truth Heaven and Earth shall passe away before one tittle of his word shall fail but when that promise is seconded by his Seal what a transcendent assurance is here It is the charge of the Apostle Peter Give diligence to make your calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 Sure not in respect of God whom no changes can reach whose word is I am Jehovah my counsel shall stand but in respect of our apprehension not in regard of the object only which cannot fail but even of the subject also which if it were not fecible sure the Spirit of God would not have injoyned it or imposed it upon us The Vulgar reads Per bona opera by good works And indeed it is granted by Beza and Clamier that in some Greek copies it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereupon Bellarmine would fain take an advantage to prove his conjecturall assurance A strange match of words meerly contradictory for if but conjecturall how can it be assurance and if it be assurance how only conjecturall we may as well talk of a false truth as a conjecturall assurance But that implication of Bellarmine is easily blown over if we consider that these Good works do not only comprehend external works as almes-deeds prayer attendance on Gods ordinances and the like but also the internall acts of the soul the Acts of believing the Acts of the love of God the Acts of that hope which shall never make us ashamed These will evidence as our calling and election so the certainty of both and therefore are the seal of our Redemption Let foolish men have leave to improve their wits to their own wrong in pleading for the uncertainty of their right to Heaven But for us let us not suffer our souls to take any rest till we have this blessed seal put upon us to the assuring of our Redemption and Salvation that we may be able to say with the chosen vessel God hath sealed us and given us the earnest of his Spirit in our hearts 2 Cor. 1.22 If we have the grant of some good lease or some goodly Mannor made to us by word of mouth we stay not till we have gotten it under black and white and not then till we have it under seal nor then if it be a perpetuity till we have livery and seizin given us of it and when all this is done we make account securely to enjoy our hopes and shall we be lesse carefull of the main-chance even of the eternal inheritance of Heaven Lo here all these done for us Here is the word preaching peace and Salvation to all that believe here are his Scriptures the internal monuments of his written word confirming it here is the seal added to it here is the Livery and Seâ—zin given in the earnest of his Spirit and here is sufficient witnesse to all even Gods Spirit witnessing with our Spirits that we are the sons of God Let us finde this in our bosome and we are happy neither let our hearts be quiet till we can say with the chosen Vessel I am perswaded that neither life nor death nor Angels nor Principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any creature can be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom. 3. the last verse Lo this is not a guesse but an assurance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither doth the Apostle speak of his own speciall revelation as the Popish Doctors would pretend but he takes all beleevers into the partnership of this comfortable unfailablenesse nothing shall separate us thus happy are we if we be sealed unto the day of Redemption Having now handled the parts severally let us if you please put them together and see the power of this inference or argument ye are by the Spirit of God sealed to the day of redemption Oh therefore grieve not that Spirit of God by whom ye are thus sealed The Spirit of God hath infinitely merited of you hath done so much for you as ye are not capable to conceive much lesse to answer in so Heavenly an obsignation Oh then be you tender of giving any offence to that good Spirit Do not you dare to do ought that might displease that loving and beneficent Spirit Be not you so much your own enemies as to give just distast to your good God So as the force of the argument as we intimated at the first lies upon an action of unkindnesse affording us this instruction that the ground of Gods Childrens fear to offend must be out of love and thankfulness great is thy mercy that thou maist be feared saith the Psalmist he doth not say great is thy mercy that thou maist be loved nor great is thy Majesty that thou maist be feared but great is thy mercy that thou maist be feared base servile natures are kept in with feare
into what right we have to this holy spirit and to that son-ship of God which in our Baptism we profess to partake of we are all apt upon the least cause to be proud of our parentage There are Nations they say in the world whereof every man challenges gentility and kindred to their King so are we wont to do spiritually to the King of Heaven Every one hath the Spirit of God every one is the son of God It is the main errand we have to do on the Earth to settle our hearts upon just grounds in the truth of this resolution and this text undertakes to do it for us infallibly deciding it that those and none but those that are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God So as we need not now think of climbing up into Heaven to turn the books of Gods eternall Counsell nor linger after Enthusiasmes and Revelations as some fanaticall spirits use to do nor wish for that holy Dove to wisper in our ear with that great Arabian impostour but only look seriously into our own hearts and lives and trie our selves thoroughly by this sure and unfailing rule of our blessed Apostle So many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God let my speech and your attention then be bounded in these three limits Here is First a priviledg To be the Sons of God Secondly a qualification of the priviledged To be led by the Spirit Thirdly an Universall predication of that priviledge upon the persons qualified So many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God I need not crave your attention the importance of the matter challenges it To the first then it is a wonderfull and inexplicable priviledge this To be the Sons of God no marvell if every one be apt to claim The glory of Children are their Fathers Prov. 17.6 How were the Jewes puffed up with that vain gloriation that they were the Sons of Abraham and yet they might have been so and have come from hated Esau or ejected Ismael what is it then to be the Sons of the God of Abraham Ye know what David could say upon the tender of matching into the blood royall seemeth it a small matter to you to be the Son in Law to a King Oh what then is it to be the true born sons to the great King of Heaven The Abassins pride themselves to be derived from that Son whom they say the Queen of Sheba had begotten of her by Solomon when she went to visit him it is enough that it was Princely though base how may we glory to be the true and legitimate issue of the King of glory the great Lord in the Gospell is brought in by our Saviour in his parable to say They will reverence my Son and Amnons wicked kinsman could say to him Why art thou the Kings Son so sad as if the son-ship to a King were a supersedeas to all whatsoever griefe or discontentment Neither is there matter of honour onely in this priveledg but of profit too especially in the case of the Sons of this Heavenly King whose Sons are all heirs as ye have it v. 17. with men indeed it is not so Amongst Gods chosen people the first born carryed away a double portion but in some other Nations and in some parts of ours the Eldest goes away with all as on the contrary others are ruled by the law or custome of Gavell kind and the like institutions where either the youngest inherit or all equally but generally it is here with us contrary to that old word concerning Isaacs twins the lesser serves the greater Johosaphat gave great gifts to his other sons but the Kingdome to the Eldest Jehoram 1 Chron. 21.3 so as the rest were but as subjects to their Eldest Brother in the family of the highest it is not so there are all heires all inherit the blessings the honours as all are partakers of the Divine nature and of every one may be said by way of Regeneration that which was eminently and singularly said by the way of eternall generation of the naturall and coessentiall Son of God Thou art my Son I have begotten thee so all are partakers of those blessings and happy immunities which appertain to their filiation and what are they Surely great beyond the power of expression for first in this name they have a spiritual right to all the creatures of God all things are yours saith the Apostle A spirituall I say not a naturall not a civill right which men have to what they legally possess we must take heed of this errour which makes an Universall confusion where ever it prevailes all these earthly affaires are managed by a civill right which men have whether by descent or lawfull acquisition so as it is not for any man to challenge an interest either ad rem or in re in the goods of another but Gods children have a double claim to all they possess both civill from men and spirituall from God The Earth hath he given to the Sons of men saith the Psalmist and men by just conquest by purchase by gift conveigh it legally to each other Besides which they have a spirituall right for God hath given all things to his Son as Mediatour and in and by him to those that are incorporated into him so as now in this regard every child of God is mundi dominus the Lord of the World as that Father truly said Secondly they have in this name an interest in God himself for what nearer relation can there be then betwixt a father and a son An interest in all his promises in all his mercies in all that he is in all that flowes from him in his remission protection provision Which of us earthly parents if we extinguish not nature in our selves can be wanting in these things to the children of our Loines How much more impossible is it that he who is All love 1 Job 4.16 should be wanting to those that are his by a true regeneration Hence is that enforcement which God useth by his Prophet Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb yea they may forget yet will not I forget thee Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands Esay 59.15 16. Thirdly hence followes an unquestionable right in attendance and Guardianship of the blessed Angels Psal 91.11 They are the little ones whereof our Saviour Matth. 18. the especial charge whom those glorious Spirits are deputed to attend Hebr. 1.14 And oh what an honor is this that we are guarded by creatures more glorious in nature more excellent in place and office then our selves What a comfortable assureance is this that we have these troopes of Heavenly Souldiers pitching their tents about us and ready to save-guard us from the malice of the principalities and powers of darknesse Lastly in this name they have a certain and unfailable
claim to eternal glory For what is that but the inheritance of the Saints Colos 1. Who should have your Lands but your heirs and Lo these are the heirs of God and none but they Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdome prepared for you saith our Saviour Matth. 25.34 Many a one here is borne to a fair estate and is strip't of it whether by the just disherson of his offended Father or else by the power or circumvention of an adversary or by his own mis-government and unthriftiness here is no danger of any of these On our Fathers part none For whom he loves he loves to the end On our Adversaries part none None shall take them out of my hand saith our Saviour The gates of Hell shall not prevaile against his On our part none For whereby can we lavish out our estate but by our sins and he that is borne of God sinneth not sinneth not so as to incurr a forfeit he may so sin as to be frowned on for the time to be chid yea perhaps to be well whipped of his Father not so as to be unsonned or dis-herited For the seed of God remains in him Lo whiles he hath the Divine seed in him he is the Son of God and whiles he is a Son he cannot but be an heir Oh then the comfortable and blessed priviledges of the Sons of God! enough to attract and ravish any heart for who doth not effect the honour of the highest parentage not under Heaven but in it who can be but eagerly ambitious of the title of the Lord of the world so closely yea to be interessed in the great God of Heaven and Earth by an inseparable relation to be attended on by those mighty and majesticall Spirits and lastly to be feoffed in the all-glorious Kingdome of Heaven and immortal crown of glory None of you can be now so dull as not desire to be thus happy and to ask as the blessed Virgin when she was told of her miraculous conception Quomodo fiet istud How shall this be How may I attain to this blessed condition This is a question worth asking Oh the poor and base thoughts of men How may I raise my house how may I settle my estate How may I get a good bargain how may I save or gain how may I be revenged of mine enemy whiles in the mean time we care not to demand what most concerns us which way should I become the child of God But would we know this to which all the World is but trifles surely it is not so hard as useful whose Sons we are by nature we soon know too well It is not enough to say our Father was an Amorite and our Mother an Hittite or to say we are the children of this world Luke 16.8 or a seed of falsehood Esay 57.4 or yet worse the children of the night and darknesse 1 Thess 5.5 worse yet we are filii contumaciae the sons of wilfull disobedience as the original runs Ephes 2.3 and thereby yet worse the sons of wrath Ephes 2.2 and which is the height of all miseries the Sons of death and eternal damnation how then how come we to be the Sons of God It is the Almighty power of Grace that only can make this change A double Grace the Grace of Adoption the Grace of Regeneration Adoption God hath predestinated us to the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ Ephes 1.5 Regeneration So many as received him he gave them this power or right to be made the Sons of God those which are borne not of blood or the lust of the flesh but borne of God John 1.12 13. and that which referrs to both Ye are all the Children of God by faith in Christ Jesus Galat. 3.26 Shortly then if we would be Sons and Daughters of God for the case is one in both the soul hath no sexes and in Christ there is neither male nor female we must see that we be borne again not of water only so we are all sacramentally Regenerated but of the Holy Ghost If any man be in Christ he is a new creature 2 Cor. 5.17 we must not be the men we were and how shall that be effected In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospell saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 4.15 He hath begotten us by the word of Truth Jam. 1.18 This word is that immortal seed whereby we are begotten to God let this word therefore have it's perfect work in us let it renew us in the inner man mortifying all our evill and corrupt affections and raising us up to a new life of Grace and obedience then God will not shame to own us for his and we shall not presume in claiming this glorious title of the Sons of God But if we be still our old selves no changlings at all the same men that we came into the World without defalcation of our corruptions without addition of Grace and Sanctification Surely we must seek us another Father we are not yet the Sons of God But me thinks ere I was aware I am falling to anticipate my discourse and whiles I am teaching how we come to be the Sons of God am showing how we may know that we are so which is the drift of this Scripture in the qualification here mentioned So many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God It is not enough for us my beloved to be the Sons and Daughters of God unlesse we know our selves to be so for certainly he cannot be truely happy that doth not know himself happy How shall we therefore know our selves to be the Sons of God surely there may be many signes and proofes of it besides this mentioned in my Text or rather many specialties under this general As first Every Child of God is like his Father It is not so in carnall Generation we have seen many Children that have not so much as one lineament of their Parents and as contrary to their dispositions as if they had been strangers to their loines and womb In the spiritual son-ship it is not so every Child of God carries the true resemblance of his Heavenly Father as he that hath called you is holy so be ye holy in all manner of conversation Because it is written Be ye holy for I am holy 1 Pet. 1.15 16. Well then my Brethren trie your selves by this rule our Heavenly Father is merciful are we cruel Our Father is righteous in all his wayes are we unjust Our Heavenly Father is slow to anger are we furious upon every sleight occasion Our Heavenly Father abhors all manner of evill do we take pleasure in any kind of wickednesse certainly we have nothing of God in us neither can we claim any kindred with Heaven Secondly every Child that is not utterly degenerate bears a filial love to his Parents answering in some measure that naturall affection which the parent bears towards him we cannot but know that the love of
be and be acknowledged the sons of God Let us put on as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercy kindnesse humblenesse of mind meeknesse long-suffering forbearing one another forgiving one another if we have a quarrell against any even as Christ forgave us and above all these things put on charity which is the bond of perfectnesse Colos 3.12 13 14. And lastly forsaking the mis-guidance of Satan the World and our corrupt nature which will lead us down to the chambers of death and eternal destruction let us yield up our selves to be led by the holy Spirit of God in all the wayes of righteousnesse and holynesse of piety justice charity and all manner of gracious conversation that we may thereby approve our selves the sons and daughters of God and may be feoffed in that blessed inheritance which he hath laid up for all his to the possession whereof may he happily bring us who hath dearly bought us Jesus Christ the righteous to whom with the Father and the blessed spirit one infinite God be given all praise honour and glory now and for ever Amen THE MOURNER IN SION ECCLESIASTES 3.4 There is a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance I Need not tell you that Solomon was a wise man his wisdom as it was in an extraordinary measure put into him by him that is wisdom it self so was it in a more then ordinary way improved by his diligent observation his observation was Universal of times things persons actions events neither did he look his experiments up in the closet of his own brest but by the direction of Gods Spirit laid them forth to the World in this divine sermon which not as a King but as a Prophet he preach't to all posterity Every sentence here therefore is a dictate of the holy Ghost it is not Solomon then but a greater then Solomon even the holy Spirit of the great God that tells you there is not a time onely but a season too for every thing and for every purpose under Heaven that is as I hope you can take it no otherwise for every good thing or indifferent as for evill things or actions if men find a time yet sure God allowes no season those are alwayes damnably-unseasonable abuses of times and of our selves not to meddle with other particulars our thoughts are now by the divine providence pitch't upon a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance or rather onely upon the time to weep and mourn for our time of laughing and dancing is past already and perhaps we have had too much of that in our former times which makes the causes and degrees of our now weeping and mourning as more uncouth so more intensive we must be so much deeper in our mourning by how much we have been more wild and wanton in our laughter and dancing To fall right down therefore upon our intended discourse without any previous circumlocutions There is a threefold time of just mourning 1. When a man is sensible of his punishments 2. Of his sins 3. Of his dangers Of his punishments first or rather which is more general of his afflictions for all afflictions are not intended for punishments some are fatherly chastisments onely for our good whereas all punishments are afflictive when we are whip't then when we smart with the rod we have cause to weep and if in this case we shed no tears it is a sign of a gracelesse heart It is time therefore to mourn when we are pressed by sufferings whether from the immediate hand of God or mediately by the hands of men whether by private or publique calamities are we smitten in our bodies by some painfull and incurable diseases Doth the pestilence rage in our streets Hath God forbidden us the influence of Heaven and curst the Earth with barrennesse Hath he broken the staffe of bread and sent leannesse into our souls Hath he humbled us with the fearfull casualties of fire or water by wracks at Sea by lightnings and tempests by land hath he sent murrain amongst our cattle and destroying vermine into our barnes and fields now God tells us it is a time to mourn are we disquieted in our minds by some over-mastering passions of griefe for the miscarriages of children for the secret discontents of domesticall jars for unjust calumnies cast upon our good name are we molested in our mindes and spirits with impetuous and no lesse importune then hatefull Temptations now it is a time to mourn do we find in our souls a decay and languishment of grace a prevalence of those corruptions which we thought abated in us Do we find our selves deeply soul-sick with our sinfull indispositions Shortly do we find the face of our God for the time withdrawn from us Now now it is a time to mourn If we turn our eyes to those evils which are cast upon us by the hands of men Do men find themselves despoyled of their estates restrained of their Liberties tortured in their bodies Do they find the wofull miseries of an intestine war killings burnings depopulations do they find fire and sword raging in the bosom of out Land now it is a time to mourn Were these evils confined to some few persons to some special families they were worthy of the tears of our compassion for it is our duty to weep with them that weep but where they are universal and spread over the whole face of any Nation there cannot be found tears enough to lament them Punishments then are a just cause of our sorrow and mourning but to a good heart sin is so much greater cause of mourning by how much a moral evil is more then a natural and by how much the displeasure of an Almighty God is worthy of more regard then our own smart Doth thine heart then tell thee that thou hast offended the Majesty of God by some grievous sin now is thy time to weep and mourne as thou wouldest for thy only son Zechar. 12.10 now it is time for thee to be in bitternesse as one that is in bitternesse for his first borne Thy soul is foul wash and rince it with the tears of thy repentance go forth with Peter and weep bitterly Dost thou finde in the place where thou livest that sin like some furious torrent bears down all before it now it is time for thee to mourne for the sins of thy people and to say as the holy Psalmist did Psal 119 136. Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because men keep not thy law Lastly as our sufferings and our sins make up a due time for our mourning so do our dangers also for fear is no lesse afflictive then pain yea I know not whether there can be a greater pain then the expectation of imminent mischiefs Do we therefore see extremities of judgments hovering over our heads ready to fall down like Sodoms fire and
in this place when it is said Christ our passover is sacrificed for us So as here is a trope or figure twice told First the lamb is the passover Secondly Christ is that paschal Lamb. You would think this now far-fetched here was a double passing over The Angels passing over the Israelites the Israelites passing out of Egypt both were acts the one of God the other of men as for the lamb it is an animal substance Yet this Lamb represents this passover This is no newes in sacramental speeches The thing signed is usually put for the sign it self My covenant shall be in your flesh that is circumcision the sign of my covenant the rock that followed them was Christ 1 Cor. 10.4 that is Christ was represented by that rock This cup is the new testament So here Christ our passover Gen. 17.13 that is Christ represented by the Paschal-lamb What an infatuation is upon the Romish party that rather then they will admit of any other then a grosse literall capernaiticall sence in the words of our Saviours sacramental supper This is my body will confound Heaven and Earth together and either by a too forceable consequence endeavour to overthrow the truth of Christs humanity or turne him into a monster a wafer a crum a nothing Whenas St. Austin hath told us plainly sacramentaliter intellectum vivificabit Take it in a sacramental sence there is infinite comfort and spiritual life in it As for his body St. Peter hath told us the heavens must contain him till the time of the restitution of all things Acts 3.21 Yea when our Saviour himself hath told us the words that I speak are spirit and life Jo. 6. Now what a marvellous mercy was this of God to Israel thus to passe over them when he slew the first-borne of Egypt There was not an house in all Egypt wherein there was not mourning and lamentation no roof but coverd a suddainly made carcasse what an unlook't for consternation was here in every Egyptian Family Only the Israelites that dwelt amongst them were free to applaud this judgment that was inflicted upon their tyrannous persecutors and for their very cause inflicted for this mercy are they beholden under God to the blood of their Paschal-lamb sprinkled upon their door-posts Surely had they eaten the lamb and not sprinkled the blood they had not escaped the stroak of the destroying Angel This was in figure In reality it is so It is by and from the blood of our redeemer sprinkled upon our souls that we are freed from the vengeance of the Almighty Had not he dyed for us were not the benefit of his precious blood applyed to us we should lye open to all the fearful judgments of God and as to the upshot of all eternall death of body and soul As then the Israelites were never to eat the Paschal-lamb but they were recalled to the memory of that saving preterition of the Angel and Gods merciful deliverance from the fiery furnaces of the Egyptians so neither may we ever behold this sacramental representation of the death of our blessed Saviour but we should bethink our selves of the infinite mercy of our good God in saving us from everlasting death and rescuing us from the power of hell This is the first figure That the Lamb is the Passover The se-second followes That Christ is that Paschal-Lamb Christ then being the end of the Law it is no marvell if all the ceremonies of the Law served to prefigure and set him forth to Gods people but none did so clearly and fully resemble him as this of the paschal Lambe whether we regard 1. the choyce 2. the preparation 3. the eating of it The choice whether in respect of the nature or the quality of it the nature ye know this creature is noted for innocent meek gentle profitable such was Christ our Saviour His fore-runner pointed at him under this stile Behold the Lamb of God what perfect innocence was here No guile found in his mouth Hell it self could finde nothing ro quarrel at in so absolute integrity What admirable meekness He is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so opened be not his mouth Esay 53.7 Doth his own treacherous servant betray him to the death Friend wherefore art thou come Mat. 26.50 Do the cruel tormentors tenter out his pretious limmes and nail his hands and feet to the tree of shame and curse Father forgive them for they know not what they do Oh patience and meeknesse incident into none but an infinite sufferer 2ly The quality Every Lamb would not serve the turne it must be agnus immaculatus A lamb without blemish that must be paschal Exod. 12.5 Neither doth it hinder ought that leave is there given to a promiscuous use either of lamb or kid for the sacramental supper of the passover For that was only allowed in a case of necessity as Theodoret rightly and as learned Junius well in the confusion of that first institution wherein certainly a lamb could not be gotten on the suddain by every Israelitish house-keeper to serve six hundred thousand men and so many there were Exod. 12.37 This liberty then was only for the first turne as divers other of those ceremonious circumstances of the passover were namely the four daies preparation the sprinkling of the blood upon the door-cheeks eating with girded loines and staves in their hands which were not afterward required or practised The lamb then must represent a most holy and perfectly sin-less Saviour could he have been capable of the least sin even in thought he had been so far from ransoming the World that he could not have saved himself Now his exquisite holinesse is such as that by the perfection of his merits he can and doth present his whole Church to himself glorious not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing as holy and without blemish Ephes 5.27 Canst thou therefore accuse thy self for a sinful wretch a soul blemished with many foul imperfections Look up man lo thou hast a Saviour that hath holinesse enough for himself and thee and all the World of beleevers close with him and thou art holy and happy Behold the immaculate lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world thine Therefore if thou canst lay hold on him by a lively faith and make him thine This for the choice the preparation followes so Christ is the paschal lamb in a threefold respect in resemblance of his killing sprinkling his blood and roasting 1. This Lamb to make a true passover must be slain So was there a necessity that our Jesus should dye for us The two Disciples in their walk to Emaus hear this not without a round reproof from the mouth of their risen Saviour Oh fooles and slow of heart to beleeve all that the Prophets have spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory Luc. 24.26 Ought not there is
below if any wealthy citizen upon the uncertainty of trade shall have turned his shop-book and his bagges into lands and mannours and having purchased plentifully and called his land by his name shall be so foolish as to set down his rest here and say Hic requies mea soul take thy ease he may well look that God will give him his own with a Thou fool this night c. It is true the worldly man is at home in respect of his affections but he is and shall be a meer sojourner in respect of his transitoriness His soul is fastened to the earth all his substance cannot fasten himself to it Both the Indies could not purchase his abiding here this is our condition as men but much more as Christians we are perfect strangers and sojourners here in the world and if we be no other then such why do we not demean our selves accordingly If then we be but sojourners and that in a strange nation here must be an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unmedlingnesse with these worldly concernments not that we should refrain from managing the affaires of this present life without which it were no living for us upon earth there is a difference betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 necessary businesse and unnecessary distractions A man that sojournes abroad in a strange countrey findes himself no way interessed in their designes and proceedings what cares he who rises or falls at their Court who is in favour and who in disgrace what ordinances or lawes are made and what are repealed he sayes still to himself as our Saviour said to Peter Quid ad te What is that to thee Thus doth the Christian here he must use the World as if he used it not he must pass through the affairs of this life without being intangled in them as remembring who and where he is that he is but a sojourner here Secondly here must be a light address no Man that goes to sojourn in a strange Country will carry his lumber along with him but leaves all his houshold stuffe at home no he will not so much as carry his stock of mony or Jewells with him as knowing he may meet with dangers of theeves and robbers in the way but makes over his mony by exchange to receive it where he is going ye rich men cannot think to carry your pelfe with you into Heaven no it were well if you could get in your selves without that cumbrous Load it may keep you out ye cannot carry it in if you will go safe and sure wayes make over your stock by exchange that is as our Saviour tells you make you friends of the unrighteous Mammon 1. Tim. 6.19 that when ye go hence they may receive you into everlasting habitations those riches which Solomon saith have wings and therefore may flie up and being well used may help to carry up your soules towards Heaven if you clip their wings may prove as clogs to weigh your soules down to Hell dispose of them therefore where you may be sure to find them with an happy advantage to your selves and do not think to keep them still in your hands remembring that you are but sojourners here Thirdly if ye be but strangers and sojourners here you must make account of no other then hard usage in the world it is the just Epithete of the world which Julius Scaliger gives unjustly to London Torva peregrinis but we cannot add that which follows sed non inhospita for surely there is nothing to be expected here but unkinde and churlish intertainment we know that God still puts together the Stranger the Widow and the Orphan these are every where most exposed to wrong as men are still apt to climb over the hedg where it is lowest The good Shunamite when the Prophet offered her the favour to speak to the King for her could say I dwell amongst my own People intimating that while she dwelt at home amongst her good Neighbours she had no need of a Friend at Court But when she had been abroad sojourning in the land of the Philistims 2 Kings 8. and in her absence was stripped of her house and Land she is fain to come with an humble petition in her hand suing to be righted against the injurious usurpation of her cruel oppressour Do we therefore finde harsh usage at the hands of the World are we spightfully intreated by unjust men our reputation blemished our profession slandered our goods plundered our estates causelesly empaired our bodies imprisoned and all indignities cast upon us and ours let us bethink our selves where and what we are strangers and sojourners here And let us make no reckoning to fare any otherwise whiles we sojourne in this vale of tears Lastly if we be strangers and Pilgrimes here we cannot but have a good mind homeward It is natural to us all to be dearly affected to our home and though the place where we sojourne be handsomer and more commodious then our own yet we are ready to say Home is homely and our heart is there though our bodies be away and this is a difference betwixt a banished man and a voluntary Traveller The exiled man hath none but displeasing thoughts for his native Countrey would fain forget it and is apt as we have had too much proof to devise plots against it whereas the voluntary Traveller thinks the time long till he may enjoy his long desired home and thinks himself happy that he may see the smoak of his own chimney and if our lot be faln upon a stony and barren Ithaca yet it is not all the glorious promises of a Calypso can withdraw us from desiring a speedy returne to it beloved we know we are strangers here our home is above There is our Fathers house in which there are many mansions and all glorious If this earth had as many contentments in it as it hath miseries and vexations yet it could not compare with that region of blessednesse which is our only home Oh then if we believe our selves to have a true right to that abiding City to that City which hath foundations where our Father dwels why do we not long to be possessed of those glorious and everlasting habitations we finde it too true which the Apostle saies That whiles we are present in the flesh we are absent from the Lord. 2 Cor. 5. Why are we not heartily desirous to change these houses of clay for that house not made with hands eternal in the heavens we may please our selves in formalities but I must tell you it is no good sign if we be loath to go home to our fathers house Me thinks this word here should be emphatical in deed it is not in the original text but it is both sufficiently implyed and would seem to intimate a kind of comparison between the place of our sojourning and the place of our home Here is trouble and toil there is rest
all Religion is expressed by the name of fear and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred by Timoratus indeed where this fear is there can be no other then a gracious heart for this will be sure to work in a man true humility the Mother of vertues when he shall compare his dust and ashes with the glorious Majesty of God when he sees such an Heaven roling over his head such an Earth and Sea under him how can he but say Lord what is man this will make him think himself happy that he may be allowed to love such a God that such a worme as he may be admitted to have any interest in so infinite a Majesty this will render him carefully conscionable in all his wayes that he would not for a World do any thing that might offend such a God yea it will make him no lesse fearfull of sin then of Hell see Gods own connexion when he gives a Character of his Servant Job A perfect and an upright man one that feareth God and escheweth evill Job 1.8 Lo he that fears God will therefore eschew evill will not dare to sin if Satan shall lay all the Treasures of the World at his feer he will say in an holy scorn Thy Gold and thy Silver perish with thee if all the philtrâ—s and wanton allurements of a great and beautifull mistress shall lay seige to him he will say with good Joseph Gen. 39.9 How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God But O God who hath believed our report and to whom is the arme of the Lord revealed Is there such a thing as the fear of the Lord amongst men Can we think that the common sins of the times can stand with the least scruple of the fear of the Almighty wo is me what rending and tearing of the sacred name of God in pieces with oaths and blasphemies do we meet with every where what contempt of his holy Ordinances and Ministers What abominable sacriledges what foul perjuries what brutish and odious drunkenness and epicurean excess what fraud and cozenage in trading what shamefull uncleanness what merciless and bloody oppressions Oh where then where is the fear of a God to be found the while yea to such an height of atheous boldnesse and obduration are the russians of our time grown that they boast of it as their greatest glory to fear nothing Neither God nor Devil they feast without fear they fight without fear they sin without fear But hear this ye carelesse and profane epicures that say Tush doth God see it Is there knowledg in the most high Hear this ye formall hypocrites that can fashionably bow to him whose face you can be content to spit upon and whom ye can abide to crucifie again by your wicked lives Hear this ye Godlesse and swaggering roarers that dare say with Pharaoh Who is the Lord You that now bid defiance to fear shall in spight of you learn the way to fear yea to tremble yea to be confounded at the terrors of the Almighty Those knees that are now so stiff that they will not bow to God shall once knock together those teeth through which your blasphemies have passed shall gnash those hands that were lift up against Heaven shall shake and languish If ye were as strong as Mountaines before his presence the Mountaines fled and the hills were moved If as firme as rocks who can stand before his wrath His wrath is poured out like fire and the rocks are broken before him Nahum 1.6 If as the whole Earth whose title is That cannot be moved The Earth trembled and quaked because he was angry saith the Psalmist yea if as wicked as Devils even they believe and tremble and if when he doth but thunder in his clouds the stoutest Atheist turnes pale and is ready to creep into a bench-hole what shall become of them when he shall put forth the utmost of his fury and revenge upon his enemies Lo then ye that now laugh at fear shall yell and houle like hell-hounds in eternall torments and God shall laugh when your fear commeth ye that would not now so much as with Faelix quake at the newes of a judgment shall irrecoverably shiver in the midst of those flames that can never be quenched But for us dear and beloved Christians far be it from us to be of that iron-disposition that we should never bow but with the fire no we have other more kindly grounds of our fear Great is thy mercy saith the Psalmist that thou maist be feared Lo it is the amiableness of merits that must attract our fear it is a thing that mainly concernes us to look where and how fears are placed Far be it from us to bring upon our selves the curse of wicked ones To fear where no fear is as this is the common condition of men Alas we are apt to fear the censures and displeasure of vain greatness whereas that may be a means to ingratiate us with God shame of the World whereas that may be a means to save us from everlasting confusion poverty whereas that may possess us of a better wealth death whereas to the faithfull soul that proves the necessary harbinger to eternall rest and glory in the mean time the same men are no whit afraid of the displeasure of God and their own perdition wherein they are like to foolish children who run away from their parents and best friends if they have but a maske or scarfe over their faces but are no whit afraid of fire or water Away with all these and the like weak misprisions and if we tender our own safety let it be our main care to set our fears right which shall be done if we place them upon our infinitely great and glorious God in that relation both of mercy and goodness wherein he is here recommended to us as our Father and that awfull apprehension of Justice wherein he is set forth to us as an unpartiall judge of us and all our actions Consider then that from the duty we may descend to the motive that this fear is of a Father and therefore a loving fear but this Father is a judge and therefore it must be an awfull love how will these two go together a Father and a Judge the one a stile of love and mercy the other of justice What ever God is he is all that he is all love and mercy He is all justice That which God is in the pure simplicity of his essence we must imitate in our compositions namely to unite both these in one heart He is not so a judg that he will wave the title and affection of a Father he is not so a Father that he will remit ought of his infinite justice in any of his proceedings upon both these must we fasten our eyes at once we must see the love of a Father to uphold and chear us we must look upon the Justice of a Judge that we may tremble and
herein Interpreters differ ut qui maxime For those late writers which have read the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because of the young Men I must needs say they would make a clear sense if we might take their words for the use of any such word in the Greek Tongue which for my part I must confess never to have met with To pass over the improbable guesses of many The words are taken by some in a borrowed sense by some others in a naturall In a borrowed sense by those either who by Angells here understand Gods Ministers or as those that take it for holy men of what ever profession These latter seem not to have any fair warrant for their interpretation since however we find somewhere that the Saints shall be in a condition like to the Angels yet no where do we find them called Angels the former want not good probability for their construction neither is it an unusuall thing with the Spirit of God to call his Ministers by the name of Angels So Malachy 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he is the Angel or Messenger of the Lord and of John the Baptist the same Prophet can say Malâ—c 3.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will send my messenger or Angel yea the very name of the Prophet that writes is no other then Malachy My Angel And ye know in the Apocalypse how oft the prime Governors of the Church are called Angels whereupon St. Chrysostome as I remember makes the reason of that full expression of St. Paul If an Angel from Heaven Galat. 1. to allude unto this distinction that even Gods Ministers are his Angels too though upon Earth a title given them both in regard of their mission and of their near relation to God and of those qualities which these Men of God should imitate in those blessed Spirits The very name is doctrinall and teacheth us both what God expects from us both to himself and you and what he expects from you to us From us faithfullnesse and diligence in his holy errands whereabouts we are sent to the World from you love and reverence to those Messengers which he imployes about your Salvation but it was my meaning only to call to this sense at the window in my passage as that which I hold not within the compasse of the Holy-Ghosts intention Doubtless the sense is naturall and proper not of men by way of allusion but of those which are Spirâ—ts by essence and yet even in this sense there is some variety of judgment whiles some take this to be spoken of evill Angels others of good Those which apply this to evill Angels are likewise in a double opinion For some take it passively least even those Angels should be tempted others actively least they should take occasion to tempt The former conceit is as gross as it hath been ancient of Tertullian and some others that even spirits to whom they ascribe a kind of materiality may be taken with the immodest venditation of a fleshly beauty to which purpose they do ignorantly mistake that of Genes 6.2 That the Sons of God saw the Daughters of Men that they were fair not considering the sequel that they took them wives of all that they chose Surely if ever spirits have affected these fleshly sins yet of marryed Spirits there was never dream in any sober head This fancy is too absurd to merit a confutation No doubt wicked spirits take delight in drawing the Sons of men to inordinate affections and beastly practises but that themselves place any pleasure in bodily obscenities is a matter not easie to be believed Or if they should be obnoxious to those carnall desires that the interposing of a vail should any way avail to the restraint of their wicked inclinations and purposes it is too poor a thought to enter into any wise understanding The other viz. least those Spirits should take this occasion of tempting might pass for currant if ever we could find in the whole body of the Scripture where the evill spirits are absolutely called Angels without some addition of distinction which is learned Camerons observation except only that one 1 Cor. 6.3 where they are so stiled for the greater honour of the Saints that shall judge them However the truth of the proposition is undeniable that so we ought to habit and order our selves that we may not give advantage to the evill Spirits either to our temptation or their prevalence we may be sure those tempters will omit no occasion of winning us to filthiness Do you not think that when they see wanton dames come disguised into Gods house as it were into the box of the play-house with their brest bare almost to the Navel their armes to the elbow their necks to the shoulder-points darting their lascivious eyes every way and in their whole fashion and gesture bewraying such lightness as might be able to debauch a whole assembly think ye not I say that they applaud themselves in so rich a booty as knowing that every eye that is transported and every heart that is fired with that immodest gazing-stock are so many spoiles and trophees of their Temptations It is a true and seasonable word that holy Cyprian said to the dames of his time that it was not enough for them to keep themselves from being corrupted by others solicitations unless they took care so to dress and deport themselves that they might not be occasions of raysing wanton thoughts in the beholders For surely we can not free our selves from those sins wherein others by our means though besides our particular intentions are insnared there is much liberty I confess in matter of attire but let me withall give you St. Pauls Item to his Galathians Brethren ye have been called to liberty only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another Galat. 5.13 When and how is our liberty an occasion to the flesh but when we do so pranck up and pamper our flesh as that we regard not therein any others dangers which when soever we are drawn to do we may be sure we have so wary and vigilant spirits to watch us as that no advantage can be let fall against our souls as therefore wise and carefull commanders do not only cast how to impugne oppresse and annoy an enemy but also how to remove those helps which might be advantageous to him in his siege even to the demolishing of Suburbs and stopping up of Fountaines and the like so must we do in this spirituall warfare of ours we must not only stir up our courage and indevors to resist and vanquish tentations but we must bend our utmost care upon the prevention and removall of whatsoever in our apparell carriage diet recreations may be likely to give furtherance to their assault or prevalency and in the whole practise of our lives so demean our selves as that we may according to the charge of the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not
not better have been spared Surely had those Godly Emperours Kings Princes Peers Gentry been of the minde of many moderne Christians they had forborne this care and cost and turned their magnificence into another channel But if this bounty of theirs were holy and commendable as it hath been justly celebrated by all Christians till this present age how are those of ours shamefully degenerated who affect nothing but homlinesse and beggery in all that is devoted to the Almighty and are ready to say contrary to the man after Gods own heart 2 Sam. 24.24 I will offer to the Lord my God of that which shall cost me nothing With what great state and deep expence God was served under the Law no man can be ignorant for who knowes not the costly furniture of the Tabernacle the rich habiliments of the Priest the precious vessels for the sacrifices and after that the invaluable sumptuouâ—ness of the Temple both without and within In the marbles cedars almuggim trees brasse silver gold in the curious celatures and artificial textures in regard of all which for matter and forme what was this other then the glory of the whole earth and as for the very altar alone Gods Ariel that which went up there from in smoke both in the daily sacrifices and the solemn Hecatombs upon special occasions what man could value Besides the treble tithes first fruites oblations which were perpetually presented to God for the maintenance of his Priesthood O the costly services of God under the Law And do we think the same God is now of a quite other diet then formerly Is all this meer ceremony Is there not so much morality in it as that it is meet the great God who is the possessour of Heaven and Earth should be served of the best that it is not for us to affect too much cheapnesse and neglective homeliness in our evangelical devotions Surely nature it self calls to us for this respect to a deity even the very savage Indians may teach us this point of religion amongst whom we find the Mexicans a people that had never had any intercourse with the other three parts of the World Eminent in this kinde what sumptuous and stately Temples had they erected to their Devils How did they enrich their mis-called Gods with Magazins of their treasure And even still the most barbarous and brutish of all those people that bear the shape of men have this principle bred in them that if they have ought better then other it is for their God a principle so much advanced by imperfect Christianity that the Abassins hold it piacular to build their own houses of the same matter which is reserved for their Churches Jo. Pories descript of Africk to the very fabrick and use whereof they yield so much reverence as that their greatest Peer alights from his horse when he comes but within view of those sacred piles And if from those remote parts of the world we shall think fit to look homewards how just cause shall we finde to wonder at the munificent piety of our predecessors who so freely poured out themselves into bountiful expence for raising of the houses of God in our Island and endowing them with rich patrimony that the prime honor of this Nation all the world over hath ever been the beauty of our Churches Neither was it otherwise in all those parts of the World where Christianity had obtained How frequent was it for a wealthy matron with Vestina and for a great Nobleman with the Roman Tertullus Regna potius quam coenobia vir sanctis posteris reliquit c. Volaterran to make God their heir Ex lâ—bro Portifie Innocent 1. and to enrich his houses and services with the legacies of their jewels and possessions Whereupon it came to passe that those structures and vessels which at the first were but of mud and meaner mettals according to the poverty of the donors soon after exchanged their homeliness for so glorious a magnificence as bleared the eyes of the heathen beholders See saith that enemy of Christ in what vessels Maries son is served and Ammianus is ready to burst with spight at the liberal provision of Gods ministers in comparison of their neglective Paganisme Ut ditenter oblationibus matronarum c. There may have been some in all ages that out of a misgrounded humility and pretended mortification have affected a willing disrespect of all outward accommodations both in their own domestick provisions and in the publick services of God such were St. Gallus of old and in later Times the two famous Franceses of Assise and of St. Paul The first whereof Gallus Wolafrid Strab. c. 18. as the history reports when a great Duke out of a reverent opinion of his sanctity had given him a rich and curiously carved peece of plate Magnoaldus his Disciple who had the carriage of that pretious vessel moving that it might be reserved for the sacred use of Gods table received this answer from him Son remember what Peter said Gold and Silver have I none let this plate which thou bearest be distributed to the poor for my blessed master Saint Colomb was wont to offer that holy Sacrifice in chalices of brasse because they say our Saviour was with brazen nailes fastned to his cross thus he in more humility then wisdome Lep rosis ulcerosarum plagarum ruebat in Oscula lib. Confor Fructu Separatur And for the other two never man more affected bravery and pride then they did beggery and nastiness placing a kind of merit in sticks and clay in rags and patches and slovenry S. Franciscus circa mortem suam in testamento suo scribi voluit quod omnes cellae domus fratrum de lignis luto essent tantum ad conservandam melius humilitatem paupertatem Libr. Conform p. 218. lib. 2. Fructu 4. Conform 16. Let these and their ill-advised followers pass for Cynicks in Christianity although now what ever the original rule of their sordid founder was even those of that order can in their buildings and furnitures emulate the magnificence of Princes as if they affected no less excess in the one extreme then their patron did in the other Fratres omnes vilibus vestibus induantur possunt earepeciare de saccis aliis peciis cum benedictione Dei. Conform l. 1. Fructu 9. p. 116. Wise Christians sit down in the mean now under the Gospel avoyding a carelesse or parcimonious neglect on the one side and a superstitious lavishnesse on the other As for this Church of ours there is at this time especially little fear of too much and if we be not more in the ablative then our Ancestors were in the dative case yet we are generally more apt to higgle with the Almighty and in a base niggardliness to pinch him in the allowances to his service wherein we do not so much wrong our God as our selves for there is not in all the World so sure
removed after we are fast planted and grounded in the house of God he takes us aright This is a certainty that we may that we must labour to aspire unto Commo vetur sides non excutitur as Chamier well We must therefore give all diligence to make this effectuall calling this eternall election thus sure unto us Mark in what order first our calling then our election nor beginning with our election first it were as bold as absurd a presumption in vain Men first to begin at Heaven and from thence to descend to Earth The Angels of God upon Jacobs ladder both ascended and descended but surely we must ascend onely from Earth to Heaven by our calling arguing our election If we consider of Gods working and proceeding with us it is one thing there he first foreknowes us and praedestinates us then he calls us and justifies us then he glorifies us Rom. 8.29.30 If we consider the order of our apprehending the State wherein we stand with God there we are first called then justified and thereby come to be assured of our predestination and glory Think not therefore to climb up into Heaven and there to read your names in the book of Gods eternall decree and thereupon to build the certainty of your calling believing persevering this course is presumptuously preposterous but by the truth of your effectuall calling and true believing grow up at last towards a comfortable assurance of your election which is the just Methode of our Apostle here Make your calling and election sure Mark then the just connexion of these two If the calling then the election one of these doth necessarily imply the other many Thousands are outwardly called who yet have no right in Gods eternall election here is as much difference as between many and few But where the heart is effectually called home to God by a true and lively faith applying the promises of God and laying effectuall hold of Christ there is certainly an election Doubtless there is much deceit and mis-prision in the World this way every Faith makes not an effectuall calling there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Temporary there is an inform there is a counterfeit Faith Many a one thinks he hath the true David when it is but an Image stuff't with goates hair we know how deceitfull Mans heart is and how cunning Satan is to gull us with vain showes that he may hold us off from true and solid comforts But if there be false saith we know there are true ones yea there could not be false if there were not a true one so much more must be our diligence to make sure work for our Faith and by that for our calling which ascertained will evince our election As Men when they hear there are many conterfeit slips and much washed and clipped coyne abroad are the more carefull to turn over and examine every peece that passeth through their hands So then those whom God hath thus joyned neither Man nor Devil can put asunder Our calling and Election Three heads then offer themselves here to our present discourse 1. That our Calling and Election may be made sure 2. That we must endeavour to make them sure 3ly How and by what means we may and must endevor to assure them As for the first of these the very charge and command it self implyes it The justice of God doth not use to require impossible things from us when therefore he bids us gâ—â—e diligence to do it what doth it imply but that by diligence it may be done what will our diligence do in a business that cannot be done should a man be bidden to take care that he flye well or waâ—k steddily on his head this would justly sound as a mockery because he knowes they are not fecible but when he is bidden to walk circumspectly and to take heed to his feet it presupposeth our ability and requireth our will to performe it and so doth this precept here Men are apt to imploy their wits to their own disadvantage The Romish Doctors have been of late times very busy to cry down the possibility of this certainty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pontificiam nos seriò damnamus aversamur toto coelo errant qui hanc cum isto dogmate confundunt Alia est istaec perpetua dubitatio sive fluctuatio qua statuunt Pontificii nâ—minem in hac vita certitudine fidei certum esse posse se gratiam apud Deum adeptum esse Quid hoc ad praesentem quaeâ—tionem Quis nostrûm hanc Pontificiorum sententiam unquam approbavit Imo ut huic calumniae maturè obviam iremus in propositione sententiae nostrae circa quintâ—m articulum exsertè professi sumus thesi 7. Vere fidelem ut pro tempore praesente de fidei conscientiae suae integritate certum esse posse ita de suâ salute salutifera Dei erga ipsum benevolentia pro illo tempore certum esse posse ac debere addentes insuper Pontificiam sententiam nos hîc improbare Remonstr defens 51. articuli p. 338. they and none but they for all Protestants of what profession soever disclaim this Doctrine even those our brethren that follow the school of Arminius are herein for the possibility of our present certainty with and for us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pontificiam they are their own words nos serio damnamus aversamur this popish doubtfulness and irresolution we hate and condemn c. So as only the Pontifician Divines are in this point opposite to us all and not all of them neither Catherinus is for us and some others come close to us But the stream of them runs the wrong way teaching that we may hope well and give good conjectures and attain perhaps to a moral certitude of our present acceptation and future blessedness but that no assurance can be had hereof nor none ought to be affected without a special revelation as their St. Anthony St. Francis St. Galla and some few others have had the contrary whereof their Estius dare censure for perdita perâ—itrix haeresis Why will wise men affect to be thus much their own enemies Is not salvation the best of good things Should not a man rather incline to wish himself well What pleasure then can it be for a man to stand in his own light and to be niggardly to himself where God hath been bountifull to stave himself off from that comfortable certainty which God hath left in his possibility to make good to his owne Soul Let us then a little inquire into the faisibleness of this great improvement of our holy and Christian diligence And cettainly if there be any let in the possibility of this assurance it must be either in our present faith or in the perpetuation of it for in the connexion of a lively faith with salvation it cannot be That he who effectually believes and perseveres to the end shall be saved no man no Devil
both 2 Cor. 1.22 Who hath sealed us Lo the promise was past before vers 20. and then yet more confirmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vers 21. and now past under seale 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vers 22. Yea but the present possession is yet more and that is given us in part by our received earnest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Earnest is a binder wherefore is it given but by a little to assure all In our transactions with Men when we have an honest Mans word for a bargain we think it safe but when his hand and seale infallible but when we have part in hand already the contract is past and now we hold our selves stated in the commodity what ever it be And have we the promise hand seale earnest of Gods Spirit and not see it not feel it not know it Shortly whom will we believe if not God and our selves No Man knowes what is in Man but the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Man that is in him as St. Paul to his Corinthians Ye have heard Gods Spirit hear our own out of our own mouth Doth not every Christian say I believe in God c. I believe in Jesus Christ I believe in the holy Ghost I believe the Communion of Saints the forgiveness of sins and life Everlasting And doth he say he believes when he believes not or when he knows not whether he believe or no what a mockery were this of our Christian profession Or as the Jesuitical evasion commonly is is this only meant of an assent to these general truthes that there is a God a Saviour a sanctifyer Saints remission salvation not a special application of these several articles to the soul of him whose tongue professeth it Surely then the devil might say the creed no less confidently then the greatest Saint upon Earth There is no Devil in hel but believes not without regret that there is a God that made the World a Saviour that redeemed it a blessed Spirit that renewes it a remission of sins an eternal Salvation to those that are thus redeemed and regenerate and if in the profession of our faith we go no further then Devils how is this Symbolum Christianorum To what purpose do we say our creed But if we know that we believe for the present how know we what we shall do what may not alter in time we know our own frailty and ficklenesse what hold is there of us weak wretches what assurance for the future Surely on our part none at all If we be left never so little to our selves we are gone on Gods part enough there is a double hand mutually imployed in our hold-fast Gods and ours we lay hand on God God laies hand on us if our feeble hand fail him yet his gracious and omnipotent hand will not fail us even when we are lost in our selves yet in him we are safe he hath graciously said and will make it good I will not leave thee nor forsake thee The seed of God saith the beloved disciple Joh. 3. remaines in him that is born of God so as he cannot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 trade in sin as an unregenerate not lose himself in sinning so as contrary to Card. Bellarmines desperate Logick even an act of infidelity cannot marr his habit of faith and though he be in himself and in his sin guilty of death yet through the mercy of his God he is preserved from being swallowed up of death whiles he hath the seed of God he is the Son of God and the seed of God remaines in him alwayes That of the great Doctor of the Gentiles is sweet and cordiall and in stead of all to this purpose Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I am fully perswaded that neither Death nor Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other Creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ â—esus our Lord. Rom. 8.39 O divine oratory of the great Apostle Oh the heavenly and irrefragable Logick of Gods Pen-man it is the very question that we have now in hand which he there discusses and falls upon this happy conclusion That nothing can separate Gods elect from his everlasting love he proves it by induction of the most powerfull agents and triumphes in the impoâ—ence and imprevalency of them all and whiles he names the principalities and powers of darkness what doth he but imply those sins also by which they work And this he saies not for himself only least any with Pererius and some other Jesuites should harp upon a particular Revelation but who shall separate us he takes us in with him and if he seem to pitch upon his own person in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet the subject of this perswasion reacheth to all true believers That nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord Us not as it is over-stretched by Bellarmine and Vasquez indefinitely for those that predestinate in generall but with an implyed application of it to himself and the believing Christians to whom he wrote The place is so clear and full that all the miserable and strained Evasions of the Jesuiticall gainsayers cannot elude it but that it will carry any free and unprejudiced heart along with it and evince this comfortable truth That as for the present so for the future we may attain to be safe for our spirituall condition What speak I of a safety that may be when the true believer is saved already already past from death to Life already therefore over the threshold of Heaven Shortly then our faith may make our calling sure our calling may make sure our election and we may therefore confidently build upon this truth that our calling and election may be made sure Now many things may be done that yet need not yea that ought not to be done This both ought and must be indeavored for the necessity and benefit of it This charge here as it implies the possibility so it signifies the convenience use profit necessity of this assecuration for sure if it were not beneficiall to us it would never be thus forceably urged upon us And certainly there needs no great proof of this For nature and our self-love grounded thereupon easily invites us to the indeavour of feoffing our selves in any thing that is good this being then the highest good that the Soul of Man can be possibly capable of to be ascertained of Salvation it will soon follow that since it may be done we shall resolve it ought it must be indeavored to be done Indifferent things and such as without which we may well subsist are left arbitrary to us but those things wherein our spirituall well-being consisteth must be mainly laboured for neither can any contention be too much to attain them such is this we have
in respect of corporal presence is in Heaven whither he visibly ascended and where he sits on the right hand of the Father and whence he shall come again with glory a parcel of our Creed which the Church learn't of the Angels in Mount Olivet who taught the gazing disciples that this same Jesus which was taken up from them into Heaven shall so come in like manner as they saw him go into Heaven which was with wonderfull glory and magnificence Far be it from us then to think that the blessed humanity of the Son of God should so disparage it self as where there is neither necessity nor use of a bodily descent to steale down and conveigh himself insensibly from Heaven to Earth daily and to hide up his whole sacred body in an hundred thousand several pixes at once It is a wonder that superstition it self is not ashamed of so absurd and impossible a fancy which it is in vain for Men to think they can salve up with a pretence of omnipotence we question not the power of God but his will and do well know he cannot will absolute contradictions Deus hoc potenter non potest as one said truly That which we say of Christs presence holds no less of his reception for so do we receive him into us as he is present with us neither can we corporally receive that which is bodily absent although besides the common incongruity of opinion the corporal receiving of Christ hath in it a further prodigiousness and horrour all the Novices of the Roman Schools are now asham'd of their Popes Dentibus teritur but when their Doctors have made the best of their own Tenent they cannot avoid St. Austins flagitium videtur praecipere By how much the humane flesh is and ought to be more dear by so much more odious is the thought of eating it neither let them imagine they can escape the imputation of an hateful savageness in this act for that it is not presented to them in the form of flesh whiles they professe to know it is so howsoever it appeareth Let some skilful cook so dress mans flesh in the mixtures of his artificial hashes and tast full sauces that it cannot be discerned by the sence yet if I shall afterwards understand that I have eaten it though thus covertly conveyed I cannot but abhorr to think of so unnatural a diet Corporally then to eat if it were possible the flesh of Christ Joh. 6.63 as it could in our Saviours own word profit nothing so it could be no other then a kinde of religious Cannibalisme which both nature and grace cannot but justly rise against Since therefore the body of Christ cannot be said to be corporally present or received by us it must needs follow that there is no way of his presence or receit in the Sacrament but spiritual which the Church of England hath laboured so fully to express both in her holy Liturgie and publickly-authorized homilies that there is no one point of divine truth which she hath more punctually and plainly laid down before us What can be more evident then that which she hath said in the second exhortation before the Communion thus Dearly beloved forasmuch as our duty is to render to Almighty God our heavenly Father most hearty thanks for that he hath given his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ not only to dye for us but also to be our spiritual food and sustenance as it is declared unto us as well by Gods word as by the holy Sacraments of his blessed body and blood c. Lo Christ is in this Sacrament given to us to be our spiritual food in which regard also this sacrament is in the same exhortation called a Godly and heavenly feast whereto that we may come holy and clean we must search and examine our own consciences not our chops and mawes that we may come and be received as worthy Partakers of such an Heavenly Table But that in the following exhortation is yet more pregnant that we should diligently try and examine our faith before we presume to eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For as the benefit is great if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive that holy Sacrament for then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood then we dwel in Christ and he in us we be one with Christ and Christ with us so is the danger great if we receive the same unworthily What termes can be more expresse it is bread and wine which we come to receive that bread and that wine is sacramental It is our heart wherewith we receive that sacrament it is our faith whereby we worthily receive this receit and manducation of the flesh of Christ is spiritually done and by this spiritual receit of him we are made one with him and he with us by vertue then of the worthy receit of this sacramental bread and wine we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ spiritually and there growes hereby a reciprocal union betwixt Christ and us neither is he otherwise one with us then we are one with him which can be no otherwise then by the power of his institution and of our faith And that no man may doubt what the drift and purpose of our blessed Saviour was in the institution and recommendation of this blessed sacrament to his Church it followes in that passage And to the end that we should alway remember the exceeding great love of our master and onely Saviour Jesus Christ thus dying for us and the innumerable benefits which by his pretious blood-shedding he hath obtained to us he hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries as pledges of his love and continual remembrances of his death to our great and endlesse comfort If therefore we shall look upon and take these sacred elements as the pledges of our Saviours love to us and remembrances of his death for us we shall not need neither indeed can we require by the judgment of our Church to set any other value on them But withall that we may not sleightly conceive of those mysteries as if they had no further worth then they do outwardly show we are taught in that prayer which the Minister kneeling down at Gods board is appointed to make in the name of all the communiâ—ants before the consecration that whiles we do duly receive those blessed elements we do in the same act by the power of our faith eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ so effectual and inseparable is the sacramental union of the signes thus instituted by our blessed Lord and Saviour with the thing thereby signified for thus is he prescribed to pray Grant us therefore gratious Lord so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his blood that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our soules washed through his most pretious blood and that we may ever dwell in him and he
in us Implying that so doth our mouth and stomach receive the bread and wine as that in the mean time our souls receive the flesh and the blood of Christ now the soul is not capable of receiving flesh and blood but by the power of that grace of faith which appropriates it But that we may clearly apprehend how these Sacramental acts and objects are both distinguished and united so as there may be no danger of either separation or confusion that which followeth in the consecratory prayer is most evident Hear us O merciful father we beseech thee and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christs holy institution in remembrance of his death and passion may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and gave it to his disciples saying Take eat this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me What more can be said what come we to receive outwardly The Creatures of bread and wine To what use In remembrance of Christs death and passion what do we the whiles receive inwardly we are thereby made partakers of his most blessed body and blood by what means doth this come about By virtue of our Saviours holy institution still it is bread and wine in respect of the nature and essence of it but so that in the spiritual use of it it conveyes to the faithful receiver the body and blood of Christ bread and wine is offered to my eye and hand Christ is tendred to my soul Which yet is more fully if possibly it may be expressed in the form of words prescribed in the delivery of the bread and wine to the communicant The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body soul into everlasting life and take and eat this in remembrance that Christ dyed for thee and feed on him in thine heart by faith with thanksgiving c. No gloss in the world can make the words more full and perspicuous So do we in remembrance of Christs death take and eat the sacramental bread with our mouths as that our hearts do feed upon the body of Christ by our faith And what is this feeding upon Christ but a comfortable application of Christ and his benefits to our souls Which is as the prayer next following expresses it Then do we feed on Christ when by the blessed merits and death of our blessed Saviour and through faith in his blood we do obtain remission of our sins and all other benefits of his passion and are fulfilled with his grace and heavenly benediction Or if we desire a more ample commentary upon this sacramental repast and the nourishment thereby received the prayer ensuing offers it unto us in these words We most heartily thank thee for that thou hast vouchsafed to feed us which have duely received these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ and dost assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness towards uâ— and that we be very members incorporate in thy mystical body which is the blessed company of all faithful people and be also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdome by the merits of the most precious death and passion of thy dear Son This then is to feed upon Christ Lo the meat and manducation and nourishment are all spiritual whiles the elements be bodily and sensible which the allowed homilies of the Church also have laboured in most significant termes to set forth Thou must carefully search and know saith the first sermon concerning the sacrament Tome 2. what dignities are provided for thy soul whither thou art come not to feed thy senses and belly to corruption but thy inward man to immortality and life nor to consider the earthly creatures which thou seest but the heavenly graces which thy faith beholdeth For this table is not saith Chrysostome for chattering jayes but for Eagles who fly thither where the dead body lieth And afterwards to omit some other passages most pregnantly thus It is well known the meat we seek for in this supper is spiritual food the nourishment of our soul a Heavenly refection and not earthly an invisible meat and not bodily a ghostly substance and not carnal so that to think without faith we may enjoy the eating drinking thereof or that that is the fruition of it is but to dream a gross carnal feeding basely abjecting and binding our selves to the elements and creatures whereas by the advice of the council of Nice we ought to lift up our minds by faith and leaving these inferiour and earthly things there seek it where the son of righteousness ever shineth Take this lesson O thou that art desirous of this table of Emissenus a godly father That when thou goest to the reverend communion to be satisfyed with spiritual meats thou look up with faith upon the holy body and blood of thy God thou marvel with reverence thou touch it with the mind thou receive it with the hand of thy heart and thou take it fully with the inward Man Thus that homily in the voice of the Church of England Who now shall make doubt to say that in the Sacrament of the blessed Eucharist Christ is only present and received in a spiritual manner so as nothing is objected to our senses but the Elements nothing but Christ to our faith and therefore that it is requisite we should here walk with a wary and even foot as those that must tread in the midst betwixt profaneness and superstition not affixing a deity upon the Elements on the one side nor on the other sleighting them with a common regard not adoring the Creatures not basely esteeming their relation to that Son of God whom they do really exhibit to us Let us not then think it any boldness either to inquire or to determine of the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament and confidently to say that his body is locally in Heaven spiritually offered to and received by the faith of every worthy communicant upon Earth True it is that in our Saviours speech Joh. 6. to believe in Christ is to eat his flesh and to drink his blood even besides out of the act of this Eucharistical supper so as whosoever brings Christ home to his soul by the act of his faith makes a private meal of his Saviour but the holy Sacrament superadds a further degree of our interest in the participation of Christ for now over and above our spiritual eating of him we do here eat him Sacramentally also every simple act of our faith feeds on Christ but here by virtue of that necessary union which our Saviours institution hath made betwixt the signe and the thing signified the faithfull communicant doth partake of Christ in a
uncertainty still by the tradition of the Jewes either the Synagogue or the chamber is indifferently allowed to this act And why should the Sacrament of the new law be so affixed to our Churches that not necessity it self should be able to fetch these wholsom remedies home to our houses sure I am the fathers of the ancient Church were of another mind who before the fancy of opus operatum was hatched conceived such necessity of the Sacraments that Cyprian can tell you of Clinici as well as Peripateitci that others in case of extremity would have no difference made of land or water house or way bed or pavement And how is it that our liberty hath made us more strict or our straightness hath made us more free more strict for the place more free for the conceit of necessity But if privacy be so opposite to the nature of a Sacrament why may it not be avoided even in a parlour for in such a case the Church removes thither the walls you think conferr nothing the people are by the order of the Church commanded to assemble in a due frequence to the honor of either sacrament so as now I see not other difference but this Those which in the case of some private fast can be content for their preaching to change the Church into a chamber in the case of baptisme make dainty to change a chamber into a Church For geniculation in the Eucharist I am deceived if ever ceremony could complain of a more unjust displeasure or plead better desert For the Antiquity of it those that fetch it from Honorius are ill heralds They might know that Averroes an age before him could say in a misprision of the gesture Christiani adorant quod edunt and the best of the Fathers many ages before him Nemo manducat nisi prius adoraverit For the expedience what business can pass betwixt Heaven and Earth God and Man so worthy of reverence as that wherein Man receives God even the smallest gifts we receive from Princes upon our knees and now when the Prince of our peace gives himself to us shall we grudg to bow I know the old challenge Artolatry But shall others superstition make us unreverent Shall not God have our knees because Idols have had the knees of others But what do I press this to you who professed to me if I remember well your approbation hereof in our English Congregations The Sacrament is every where the same Nothing but want of use hath bred a conceit of uncouthness in that which custom would approve and commend As for confirmation by Bishops I need to say little because it little concerns you as an action appropriate to superiors neither I think do you envy it to them That the ceremony it selt is both of ancient and excellent use I know you will not deny for the one Melancton gives it the praise of Utilis ad erudiendos homines retinendos in vera agnitione Dei For the other Zuinglius can assure you Confirmationem tum fumpsisse exordium eum vulgo caeptum est infantes tingi In regard of both reverend Calvin wisheth it again restored to the Church with no small fervency all the doubt is in the restriction to Bishops wherein I will only send you to learned Bucer signum impositionis manuum etiam soli episcopi praebebant non absque ratione sive enim sit foedus Domini baptizatis confirmandum sive reconciliandi qui gravius peccaverunt sive ecclesiis ministri ordinandi haec omnia ministeria maxime decent eos quibus ecclesiarum cura demandata est This as it was done only at first by the Apostles in the case of the Samaritans so from them was by the Church derived to the Bishops as Chrysostom directs praepositis suis as Cyprian and Austin speak But what need I cite Fathers or counsels for that which worthy Calvin himself both confesses and teaches Certainly nothing but continuance and abuse hath distasted these things which if time had been their friend never wanted that which might procure them grace and respect from the World For their own sakes therefore I need not doubt to say that all these are worthy of your good intertainment much more then when they come to you with the billets of authority in their hands were they but things in the lowest ranke of indifferency the power that commands them might challenge their welcom how much more then when they have an intrinsecall worthiness to speak for them Your Letter hath well insinuated what the power of Princes is in things of middle natures whereof your Apostles rule will eternally hold not for fear but for conscience Indeed wherein is the power of royall authority if not in these things Good and evill have their set limits determined by God himself only indifferent things have a latitude allowed for the exercise of humane commands which if it might be resisted at pleasure what could follow but an utter confusion of all things This ground as it hath found just place in your own brest so were very fit to be laid by all your publick discourses in the minds of the people as that which would not a little rectifie them both in judgment and practise There is no good heart whom it would not deeply wound to hear of the least danger of the dissipation of your Church God in Heaven forbid any such mischief our prayers shall be ever for your safety but if any inconvenience should on your parts follow upon the lawfull act of authority see ye how ye can wash your hands from the guiltinesse of this evill This is I hope but your fear Love is in this sence full of suspicions and commnoly projects the worst It is Nazianzens advise Dum secundo vento navigas naufragium time tutior eris a naufragio adjutorem tibi ac sociâ—m adjungens timorem Farr farr is it from the heart of our Gratious Soveraign who holds it his chief glory to be amicus sponsae to intend ought that might be prejudiciall to your Church If his late journey his laboursome conferences his toylsome indeavours his beneficiall designes have not evinced his love to you what can do it And can any of yours think that this affection can stand with a will to hurt you I know nothing if I may except his own soul that he loves better then your Church and State and if he did not think this a fruit of his love he would be silent what shall he gain by this but that advantage which he promiseth to himself of your good in your assimilation to other churches a matter wherein I need not tell you there is both honour and strength The mention whereof drawes me towards the closure of my long letter whether to an Apology or interpretation of my self belike some captious hearers took hold of words spoken in some Sermon of mine that sounded of too much indifferency in these businesses ubi bos herbam vipera venenum
lesse transmitted to Constantinople Set those aside and what holinesse can Tiber challenge above Rhene or Thames Let fooles be mocked with these fancies but you whom God hath indued with singular judgment and understanding in all things will easily resent the fraud and see that there is no more reason why the English Church should conform in opinion to the Romish were the Doctrines equally indifferent then the Roman Church to the English They are but the several limms of one large and universal body and if in respect of outward order there have been or may be acknowledged a precedency yet in regard of the main substance of truth we cannot admit of any dependance on any Church under Heaven Here that which is the purer from Error and corruption must take the wall maugre all the loud throats of acclaming parasites yea so far must we needs be from pinning our faith upon the sleeve of Rome as that we cannot without violence offered to our own consciences but see and say that there is no particular Church on Earth so branded by the Spirit of God in the Scriptures as Rome In so much as the best abbettors and dearest fautors of that See are glad to plead that Rome is St. Peters and St. Johns Babylon we blesse God for standing on our own feet and those feet of ours stand upon the infallible grounds of the Prophets and Apostles of Primitive Creeds Councels Fathers and therefore we can no more deceive you then they can deceive us The censure that the enemies of our Church cast upon it is not untruth but defect they dare not but grant what we say is true but they blame us for not saying all is true which they say now that which we say was enough to serve those antient Christians which lived before those lately devised additions the refusal whereof is made haynous and deadly to us how safe how happy is this erring Let my soul be with those blessed Martyrs Confessors Fathers Christians which never lived to hear of those new Articles of the new Roman faith and I dare say you will not wish yours any other where there can be no danger in old truths there can be nothing but danger in new obtrusions But I finde how apt my pen is to over-run the bounds of a letter my zeal of your safety carries me into this length the errors into which these seducers would lead you are deadly especially upon a revolt your very ingenuity I hope besides grace will suggest better things to you Hold that which you have that no man take your crown My Soul for yours you go right so sure as there is a heaven this way will lead you thither go on confidently and cheerfully in it let me never be happy if you be not you will pardon my holy importunity which shall be ever seconded with my hearty prayers to the God of truth that he will stablish your heart in that eternal truth of his Gospel which you have received and both work and crown your happy perseverance such shall be the fervent apprecations of Your much devoted Friend Jos Exon. RESOLUTIONS FOR RELIGION WHereas there are many loud quarrels and brabbles about matter of Religion this is my firme and steadfast Resolution wherein I finde peace with God and my own Soul as being undoubtedly certain in it self and holily charitable to others and that in which I constantly purpose God willing as to Live so to Dye 1. I do believe and know that there is but one way to Heaven even the True and Living way Jesus Christ God and Man the Saviour of the World 2. I believe and know that this way however it is a narrow and straight way in respect of the World yet hath much Latitude in it self So as those that truely believe in this Son of God their Saviour though they may be mis-led into many by-pathes of small errors yet by the mercy of God are acknowledged not to be out of the main high way to eternal life 3. I believe and know that the Canonical Scriptures of God are the true and unfailing Rule of our Faith so as whatsoever is therein contain'd is the infallible Truth of God and whatsoever is necessary to be believed to eternal Salvation is therein expresly or by clear and undoubted consequence contein'd and so set forth as it neither needeth farther explication nor admits of any probable Contradiction 4. I believe and know that God hath ever since the creation of Mankinde had a Church upon Earth and so shall have to the end of the World which is a Society or Communion of Faithful men professing his Name against which the gates of Hell shall never be able to prevail for the failing thereof 5. I believe and know that the consenting voice of the successions and present universality of faithful Men in all times and places is worthy of great authority both for our Confirmation in all truths and for our direction in all the circumstantial points of Gods service so as it cannot be opposed or sever'd from without just offence to God 6. I believe and know that besides those necessary truths contain'd in the Holy Scriptures and Seconded by the Consent and Profession of all Gods faithful ones there may be and ever have been certain collateral and not-mainly importing verities wherein it is not unlawful for several particular Churches to maintain their own Tenets and to dissent from other and the several members of those particular Churches are bound so far to tender the common Peace as not to oppose such publiquely received truths 7. I do confidently believe that if all the particular Churches through the whole Christian World should meet together and determine these secondary and unimporting truthes to be believed upon necessity of Salvation and shall enact Damnation to all those which shall deny their assent thereunto they should go beyond the Commission which God hath given them and do an act which God hath never undertaken to warrant Since there can be no new Principles of Christian Religion however there may be an application of some formerly received Divine truthes to some emergent occasions and a clearer explication of some obscure verities 8. I do confidently believe that God hath never confin'd the determination of his will in all questions and matters pertaining to Salvation or whatsoever controversies of Religion to the breast of any one Man or to a particular Church or to a correspondence of some particular Churches so as they shall not possibly err in their Definitions and Decrees 9. I do confidently believe that the Church of Rome comprehending both the head and those her adherents and dependance being but particular Churches have highly offended God in arrogating to themselves the priviledg of infallibility which was never given them and in ordaining new Articles of faith and excluding from the bosome of Gods Church and the Gates of Heaven all those which differ from her in the refusal of her late bred
my power I can much better suffer with my Friend then judge him But however either partial or rigorous the conceits of others may be be sure I beseech you that you receive from your own bosome a free and just doom on all your actions after all the censures of others thence must proceed either your peace or torment But what do I undertake to teach him that is already in the School of God and under that divine ferule hath learned more then by all the Theorical counsels of prosperity Surely I cannot but professe that I know not whether I were more sorry for the desert of your durance or glad of such fruit thereof as mine eyes end ears witnessed from you But one Sabaoth is past since my meditations were occasioned to fixe themselves upon the gain which Gods children make of their sins the practise whereof I rejoyced to see conconcurr in you with my speculation and indeed it is one of the wonders of Gods mercy and providence that those wounds wherewith Satan hopes to kill the Soul through the wise and gratious ordination of God serve to heal it We faint Souldiers should never fight so valliantly if it were not for the indignation at our foil There are corruptions that may lurk secretly in a corner of the Soul unknown unseen till the shame of a notorious evil send us to search and ransacke if but a spot light upon our cloke we regard it not but if through our neglect or the violence of a blast it fall into the mire then we wash and scoure it As we use therefore to say there cannot be better physick to a cholerick body then a seasonable Ague so may I say safely there can be nothing so advantageous to a secure heart as to be sinsick for hereby he who before fel in overpleasing himself begins to displease himself at his fall Fire never ascends so high as when it is beaten back with a cool blast Water that runs in a smooth level with an insensible declination though an heavy body yet if it fall low it rises high again Much forgiven causeth much love neither had the penitent made an ewer of her eyes and a towel of her hair for Christs feet if she had not found her self more faulty then her neighbours Had not Peter thrice denyed he had not been graced with that threefold question of his Saviours love it is an harsh but a true word Gods Children have cause to blesse him for nothing more then for their sins If that all-wise providence have thought good to raise up even your forgotten sins in your face to shame you before men there cannot be a greater argument of his mercy This blushing shall avoid eternal confusion Envy not at the felicity of the closely or gloriously guilty who have at once firm foreheads and foul bosomes vaunting therefore of their innocence because they can have no accusers like wicked harlots who because they were delivered without a midwife and have made away their stolen birth go currant still for maids nothing can be more miserable then a sinners prosperity this argues him bound over in Gods just decree to an everlasting vengeance Wo be to them that laugh here for they shall weep and gnash Happy is that shame that shall end in glory And if the wisdome of that just judge of the world shall think fit to strip you of your worldly wealth and outward estate acknowledg his mercy and your gain in this loss he saw this camels bunch kept you out of the needles eye he saw these bels too heavy for that high flight to which he intended you now shall you begin to be truely rich when you can injoy the possessor of Heaven and Earth when these base rivals are shut out of doors God shall have your whole heart who were not himself if he were not all-sufficient Neither let it lye too heavy upon your heart that your hopefull Sons shall inherit nothing from you but shame and dishonour why are you injurious to your self and those you love your repentance shall feoffe upon them more blessings then your sin hath lost let posterity say they were the sons of a penitent Father this stain is washt off with your tears and their vertue and for their provision if the worst fall The Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof imagine them born to nothing we that are more Rich in Children then estate hope well of those vessels whom we can put forth wel rigged well balla'st though not wealthy laden How sensibly do you now find that wealth doth not consist in getting much but well and that contentment doth not lye in the cofer but in the breast lastly that all treasures are drosse to a good conscience For your self If you be pent up within four wals and barred both of Sun and Men make God yours and you cannot complain of restraint or solitude No prison is too straight for his presence Heaven it self would be a prison without him your serious repentance may win that Society which makes the very Angels blessed this is the way to make him your comforter your companion in whose presence is the fulness of joy Shortly let your thoughts be altogether such as may beseem a man not unwillingly weaned from this world and careful only to speed happily in another We your poor friends can answer the kinde respects of your prosperity no otherwise then with our prayers for the best use of your affliction which shall not be wanting from your true and sorrowful wel-willer J. H. A SHORT ANSWER TO THOSE Nine Arguments VVhich are brought against the BISHOPS SITTING IN PARLIAMENT THose reasons had need to be strong and the inconveniences hainous that should take away an ancient and hereditary right established by law These are not such 1. To trade in secular affairs and to be taken up with them is indeed a great and just hinderance to the exercise of our ministerial function but to meet once in three years in a Parliament for some few weeks at the same time when we are bound to attend convocation business is no sensible impediment to our holy calling 2. We do indeed promise profess when we enter into holy orders that we will give our selves so much as in us lies wholly to this vocation will it therefore follow that we may not upon any occasion lend our selves to the care of the publick when we are thereunto called And if this notwithstanding we may yea must take moderate care of our houshold affairs and the provision for our family why not as well of the Common-wealth 3. For ancient Canons of Councells will they be content to be bound by them who urge them upon us Or will they admit some and reject others Or will they admit them where they are contrary to our own laws Now our Clarendon Constit have expresly debent interesse omnibus judiciis The Canons therefore must yield to them not they to the Canons 4. Twenty
upon your Acts and Monuments and see whether any have been more expensive either of their ink or their blood against the tyranny of Popery and superstition then the Bishops of this Church of England in so much as the reverend Dr. Du Moulin in his publick Epistle professes that the Bishops of England were they to whom this Church is beholden for the liberty and maintenance of the Protestant Religion in this Kingdom and in this present age how many of us have written and are content and ready to bleed for the sincerity of the Gospel If there be any therefore in this holy order whose lips have hang'd towards the onions and garlick and fleshpots of Egypt let them undergo just censure but let the calling and the zealous and faithfull managers of it be acquitted before God and Men. For the latter I see and mourn to see that many good souls are brought into a dislike and detestation of the common prayers of the Church of England as meer Mass and Popery wo is me that error should prevail so farr with good hearts I beseech you for Gods sake and your souls sake be rightly informed in this so materiall and important a point I see there is herein a double offence One of them which dislike the prayers because they are set forms the other that dislike them because they are such set forms For the former I beseech them to consider seriously whether they ought to think themselves wiser and perfecter then all the Churches of God that ever have been upon the Earth This I dare confidently say that since God had an established Church in the World there were set forms of devotion in the Jewish Church before and since Christ in the Christian Church of all ages and at this very day all those varieties of Christians in the large circle of Christianography they have their set forms of prayers which they do and must use and in the Reformed Churches both of the Lutherans and France and Scotland it is no otherwise yea reverend Mr. Calvin himself whose judgment had wont to sway with the forwardest Christians writing to the Protector of England Anno 1548. hath these words Quod ad formulam precum attinet rituum Ecclesiasticorum valsle probâ— ut certa illa extet a qua pastoribus discedere non liceat in functione sua c. And adding three grave and solid reasons for it concludes thus so then there ought to be a set form of Catechism a set form of administration of Sacraments and of publick prayers and why will we cast off the judgment both of him and all the Divines of the whole Christian World till Barrow and Browne in our age and remembrance contradicted it and run after a conceit that never had any being in the World till within our own memory For the latter There are those who could allow some form of set prayers but dislike this of ours as savoring of the Pope and the Mass whence they say it is derived Now I beseech you Brethren as you would avoid the danger of that wo of calling good evill and evill good inform your selves throughly of the true State of this business Know therefore that the whole Church of God both Eastern and Western as it was divided both the Greek and Latin Church under which this Iland was wont to be ranged had their forms of prayer from the begining which were then holy and Heavenly compiled by the holy Fathers of those first times Afterwards the abuses and errors of popery came in by degrees as Transubstantiation Sacrifice of the Mass prayers for the dead prayers to Saints these poysoned the Church and vitiated these holy forms whiles they continued but when Reformation came in divers worthy Protestant Divines whereof some were noble Martyrs for religion were appointed to revise that form of service to purge out all that popish leaven that had sowred them to restore them to their former purity leaving nothing in that book but that which they found consonant to godliness and pure religion If any Man will now say that our prayer book is taken out of the Mass let him know rather that the Mass was cast out of our prayer-book into which it was injuriously and impiously intruded the good of those prayers are ours in the right of Christians the evill that was in them let them take as their own And if it should have been as they imagine let them know that we have departed from the Church of Rome but in those things wherein they have departed from Christ what good thing they have is ours still That scripture which they have That Creed which they profess is ours neither will we part with it for their abuse If a peece of Gold be offerd us will we not take it because it was taken out of the channell If the Devil have given a confession of Christ and said I know who thou art even Jesus the Son of the living God shall not I make this confession because it came out of the Devils mouth Alas we shall be herein very injurious both to our selves and to God whose every holy truth is This then is the form which hath been compiled by learned and holy Divines by blessed Martyrs themselves who used it comfortably and blessed God for it But if the quicker eyes of later times have found any thing which displeases them in the phrases and manners of expression or in some rites prescribed in it Let them in Gods name await for the reforming sentence of that publick authority whereby it was framed and enacted and let not private persons presume to put their hands to the work which would introduce nothing but palpable confusion let all things be done decently and in order Shortly my Brethren let us hate Popery to the death but let us not involve within that odious name those holy forms both of administration and devotion which are both pleasing unto God and agreeable to all Christianity and Godliness A SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT My Lords I Have long held my peace and meant to have done so still but now like to Croesus his mute Son I must break silence I humbly beseech your Lordships to give me leave to take this too just occasion to move your Lordships to take into your deep and serious consideration the woful and lamentable condition of the poor Church of England your dear Mother My Lords this was not wont to be her stile we have heretofore talkt of the famous and flourishing Church of England but now your Lordships must give me leave to say that the poor Church of England humbly prostrates her self next after his sacred Majesty at your Lordships feet and humbly craves your compassion and present aid My Lords It is a foul and dangerous insolence this which is now complained of to you but it is but one of a hundred of those which have been of late done to this Church and Government The Church of England as your Lordships cannot choose