men now adaies like the Pellaean Hero Alexander the Great do Aestuare angusto limite mundi Sweat for want of room in the world there is not space enough for the flight of their soaring thoughts that are wing'd with ambition but this is according to the Wiseman nothing but vanity vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas They fish after impossibilities and grant they could subdue the whole world and reduce it into their own possession 't would not it could not satisfie their heart or give them any real solid content for the world is a Circle the heart of man a Triangle now we all know that a Circle cannot fill a Triangle Cease then all you that aim at the hilling up of fatal gold and employ your hours in a more noble traffick in procuring the riches and treasures of Jesus Christ that may serve you and be of use to you in the day of wrath to get your Sins pardoned all your crimes expunged with the Spunge of Oblivion that the Lord may nevermore lay them to your charge and this must be by an unfeigned repentance though none of the five forementioned ways Now that you may know how to gain the salvation of your souls how to be eternally blessed and sing Hallelujahs to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost world without end which felicity will undoubtedly be attained unto by all true penitent souls And that you may know affirmatively what it is to be true penitents take it in these following Considerations The five steps of ascention by Repentance To this felicity we must ascend by 5 degrees or steps of true and unfeigned repentance 1. The first step whereof that leads and conducts to heaven is for a man to have an internal regret for sin to be grieved and perplexed for it to be wounded in conscience for it for till a man see his Sins in the glass of repentance and weigh them and meditate upon the curse of God that hangs over his head in a judgment for them he will never repent This is the godly sorrow that leadeth unto repentance never to be repented of This compunction or pricking of the heart is a clear demonstration of repentance sincere and sound and is the first step to heaven and so per consequens to the salvation of the never dying soul And if it be so that this is the first step to heaven Use 1 how sad a thing is it to see men in such a miserable estate as many are in these distracted times how many are there that have not set one foot forward in the way to heaven and you know the old saying Non progredi est regredi Not to go forward is to go backward How many are there that never have been humbled never touched never wounded in conscience for their Sins Wilful impenitency or a careless neglect of Repentance very dangerous O what a miserable condition what a deplorable estate do they lye in Now apply this to your selves Beloved did the sacrificing Knife of Gods Word never wound your conscience nor extract one tear from your eyes for the deluge of your Sins that will overwhelm your soul eternally without Gods infinite mercy if you have not been thus and thus grieved for your trespasses and transgressions you are in a desperate condition and there is very little hope or probability of your salvation Vse 2 This serves then for a Use of Consolation to all the Children all the Sons and Daughters of God for if you feel your hearts wounded for your Sins and you bath your soul in true penitent tears for the many hainous crimes that you are conscious of it is a true indicium or sign of being in the state of grace and that Gods spirit hath met with us and his Word hath cut the throat of Sin which otherwise would have ruinated you nay aims at God himself for peccatum saith Parisiensis est Deicidium Sin is the Cut-throat of God with holy reverence be it spoken Sin strives to dethrone God therefore let us endeavour to cast Sin down the precipice of our hearts and nevermore afford it house-room since it offends so merciful so gracious and so kind a God as ours for Sin is an abomination unto the Lord and so are all Sinners and evil-doers 2. The second sign of or way to true penitency is this when a man fears to Sin not because of the punishment but because he offends so great a God in so doing like holy Joseph who when he was tempted by the sweet caresses of his Mistris cried out How can I do this great evil and sin against God! Therefore from him we may learn what is most to be desired here on earth viz. the love and favour of God so that if any one should put the question to you and demand what your desire most hunted after and what your affections were most fixed on You ought to answer The love and favour of God in Christ Jesus 'T is not your embroidered apparel your manners and mannors your parts and arts that are able to appease the trouble and perplexity of a distressed conscience nothing but the mercy of God in Christ Jesus will afford it This is the onely refuge for a troubled conscience in the greatest extreamity Men may in their extremities go to drink away sorrow as they term it in their profane gibbrish and betake themselves to their merry company but alas this is no comfort this no remedy for their disease an old sore gangren'd or putrified if it be not very skilfully handled will hardly admit of cure but if it be superficially healed at top and not throughly at the bottom as soon as 't is skin'd at the top it will break out at the bottom so when men seek to smother the accusation of their own consciences and strive to blunt the edge of it it will rebound again and give a deadly wound even to desperation Beg of God therefore power and ability through his strengthning grace that you may be buoy'd up thereby in the midst of an Ocean of troubles and that the burden of an afflicted wounded conscience may be minorated and lessened that so you may not fall into despair To prevent despair all godly persons ought like Heraclitus to weep away their daies and indeed they are a sea of tears a meer vapour melted into tears his voice is painted with tears which have such an airy power and faculty as that they are able to mount up to Heaven and there to insinuate themselves into the ear of the Almighty begging and craving pardon for sin and a preservation from despair by the mighty power of God Lachrymae preces are the only weapons in a Christian battel let us so fight with these weapons as to get the peace of conscience and joy of the Holy Ghost that passeth all understanding and that speedily too for our journey is long and our time short therefore we had need to husband
an intent to contemplate his face but he transforms him into his own likeness or similitude by the irradiation of his splendor and perfection And if God be Charity and Love as the holy Apostle St. John affirms and all Christians are engaged to believe in the 1. of St. John 4 Chap. 8 vers it follows of necessity that the creature being by this beatifical vision made like unto God should be ravished with love and all on a flame with this spiritual fire Such a fire as hath imposed a name on the Seraphims to termed because of their ardor which is no other thing but the Love of God the fervor of their zeal and their promptitude and agility in his service This now should serve for a Use of exhortation to all good Christians Use viz. to labour after the love of God with all humility pious speed and integrity of heart that so they might be like unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle expresseth it And unless you be drunk with momentary and totally deprived of a sense or imagination of the super-excellency and plerophory of joy that is in Heaven you cannot but strive by a holy life and conversation to attain unto the everlasting Crown of Glory and the seat and society of the blessed Angels in Heaven where you shall chant forth in aeternum Hallelujahs to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost and live in felicity and joy that is unutterable to the praise and glory of Gods immortal name without care sorrow grief or distraction world without end Use 2 This serves for a Use of terror and horror to all wicked persons whose whole life hath been a perpetual wilful violation of Gods Law without any repentance of or amendment and conversion from their misdemeanours and offences They shall never enter into the joy of the Lord but have that terrible doleful doom and sentence passed upon them Go ye cursed into everlasting darkness where there is nothing but weeping and wayling and gnashing of teeth totally deprived of Gods comfortable soul-vivifying presence being entombed alive in this pit of darkness ubi miseriae ubi tenebrae ubi horror aeternus ubi nulla spes boni nulla desperatio mali where you shall be surrounded with miseries benegroed in more then cimmerian and that perpetuall darkness too overwhelmed by and implunged into eternal horror where there is no hope of restitution to a blessed or redemption from an accursed estate but there must be tormented world without end Thus have I demonstrated unto you the happiness of those that fear God and their unhappiness that go a whoring after the lusts and concupiscences of the flesh we have shewn you the five Degrees of Love toward God and our meditation cannot soar any higher this is the last round of Jacobs Ladder that conveys us to Heaven We all profess I must confess to love God but few do it seriously and cordially and by this kind of external pomp and outward shew of profession we deceive ignorant man nay we put a fallacy upon our selves But there is no humane policy or sophistry that can cheat a God wherefore it is necessary for the prevention and knowledge of such counterfeit hypocritical persons to bring them to the touch and try what metal they are composed of to discern the true sincere and pure Love of God from the false and counterfeit And as there are five degrees of our Love to God so there are five marks or tokens visible enough whereby we may discern whether or no we have the true Love of God 5 Marks of Gods Love which we shall only enumerate and so conclude for the present 1 Mark The first mark or token of our Love to God is this viz. It extinguisheth all other unchaste and inordinate Love 2 Mark The second mark and effect of this Love is the peace and tranquillity of the soul and conscience The third mark is 3 Mark our Love towards our Neighbour The fourth mark is 4 Mark the delight and pleasure that we have and take in communing and conversing with God The fifth mark is 5 Mark a zeal for the glory of God that is increased or diminished according as God is honoured or dishonoured He whosoever he be that perceives these effects wrought in him may assure himself that he loves God with a true real and religious Love and though it may happen sometimes that his love may be abated the heat of his zeal be somewhat quenched the vigor of his affection somewhat debilitated though this Love be weak yet it argues it not to be false it is true for all that for as a weak faith is a good faith so a weak love is a good love The very Apostles themselves were termed by our Saviour men of little faith though it be small so it encrease indies day by day tending to perfection 't will without doubt end in happiness and eternal joy Thus have I laid down these five degrees or marks of our true love to God which I shall desist from discoursing any farther on at present but commit you to God and leave the handling of them to the next opportunity If God permit Amen THE SAINTS COMFORT in the day of death In the book of Job the 19 Chapter and the 25 verse it is thus written I know that my Redeemer liveth c. HE alwayes goes stumblingly SERM. V. that walks in the night said Jesus Christ the true light of the World Joh. 11.10 And he that walketh in darkness knows not whither he goes said his beloved disciple If there be any thing wherein this may be clearly known is is in the mistake of judgement which those make of themselves who being destitute of the celestial light of verity suffer themselves to be led away by their own natural darkness For there is nothing more frequent in their mouths then the complaint of their misfortunes nor nothing more rare then the confession of their faults they out-speak their punishments and palliate their crimes they declare themselves miserable but would not be thought wicked you shall often hear the Philosophers call man a dream of a shaddow a weather-cock of inconstancy an example of weakness a general rendezvous of dolours and misfortunes A Democritus laughing at his folly an Heraclitus bemoaning his calamities The one termes those happy that go quickly out of the world and th' other those more happy that never come into it All too much occupied in the sense of their misery but never in searching or acknowledging their sins All accusing Nature as a stepdame but no man himself as a rebellious or disobedient child He of all men seems to have best hit of mans condition who hath qualified him the miserablest and proudest of creatures for whereas all declamations upon the pitiful estate of humane nature ought to be so many lively lessons of true humility and that cloud of misfortunes that showres on their
Fortior est qui se quam qui fortissima vincit Moenia He is the greatest Conqueror that can subdue his own passions and keep his body in subjection as St. Paul did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he I chastise my body from whence Friars draw their authority of chastising themselves though without cause and so take the word to be such a chastisement as School-masters use to boys We ought all of us against the grain of our flesh to mould and fashion our selves to repentance that so we may obtain a Trinity of Graces to save us Faith Hope and Charity and this Trinity of Grace will deliver us from a Trinity of Evils Blindness Error and Unbelief and if we be delivered from these we shall be freed from the predominancy of the World the Flesh and the Devil and if we be preserv'd from these we shall undoubtedly be crowned by the blessed Trinity God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost to whom be Glory Honour and Praise World without end Amen GOD AND MAN Mutually Embracing In the first Epistle of St. John the 4 Chap. and the 19 vers it is thus written We love him because he first loved us LOve is the punctum or centre SERM. III. about which the circumference of our thoughts doth move and the primus motor that induceth us to fix our spirits upon an object Love is to our souls as weight is to ponderous bodies for as the gravity of a body forceth it downward that it may enjoy a sweet repose in its centre so Love moves our souls to an object that promiseth repose and contentment therefore from hence it follows that as ponderous bodies move in a straight line toward their centre so if we will obtain a true rest our Love must be regular and proceed in a direct line by a divinely-composed motion This Text Beloved that I come from reading to you is the Epitome of Christian Religion or the great Folio of Christian duty reduced into a Decimo-sexto or pocket-volume In this Text there are two parts and these two parts are the two pillars of the Church and the whole Christian World 1. Our love toward God in these words We love him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Gods love toward us which is but the reason or rather efficient cause of our love toward him because he first loved us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not to stand upon the nice and fine-spun distinctions that the School-men make of Love we shall only divide it into two sorts Divinum and Humanum amorem into Love Divine and Humane the divine is couched down by the holy Spirit of God in the latter part of the verse because he loved us and the humane in the former We love him We will begin with the latter humane love or the love of man to God Spiritual or true love gives repose and contentment to the soul when as carnal or false love is an irregular agitation and an inconsiderate motion without a Terminus ad quem it is ever repleat with inquietude and distraction and never ceaseth or resteth till it despairs or is quite tired out which is not properly a rest but an impotency and inability of motion and the desire is strong when the power is weak like a horse that tied to a manger gnaweth his bridle asunder such are most persons their desires are strong their power but weak they desire most what they can least perform The cause of this disturbance is this Our Love selecteth out Reasons why we love not God perfectly 1 Cause and fixeth upon false objects and such that cannot satiate the desire for if you survey all sublunary things that deserve the name of beautiful you shall find in them no true quiet or rest but a concatenation of cares interwoven with perpetual trouble The greatest delicacies are consited in bitterness The acquisition of honour and preferment is painful and many break their necks in riding upon the airy stilts of Fame The possession of riches is uncertain and the loss certain if they leave not us by some accident Death Natures Bayliff will arrest us and force us to leave them To aim at such things is but ventum prosequi To pursue the wind an action as ridiculous as can be Grant they be good yet they are incertain therefore we must seek after our repose somewhere else since the earth cannot afford it and turn the compass of our Love toward Heaven For as the lower region of the Air is the habitation of winds tempests and earth-quakes but that part that is near the Heaven is serene and quiet so our Love so long as it adheres to sublunary objects will be full of trouble but 't will find rest and quiet if it lift it self up to Heaven and lay hold of the promises of God and then the soul though in the midst of the confusions and afflictions of this world be they never so thorny will have the fruition of an assured tranquillity like the Needle of the Compass that remains firm upon one point notwithstanding the violence of the scolding surges of a Tempestuous Sea and all because it is guided by the motion of the Heavens God is the sole object or at least ought to be of our Love and hath only a power to render us amiable by loving us He that only can nay that will give them felicity and that unutterable too that love him As the Apostle St. Paul writeth in the first to the Corinth the 2 Chap. and the 9 vers Eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath entred into the heart of man to conceive the things that God hath prepared for them that love him He promiseth also in St. John chap. 14. vers 23. to come unto him that loveth him and make his abode with him O unparallelled Love that makes a Palace of our souls for the King of Glory and a Sanctuary of the Holy Ghost 2. 2 Cause Philosophy it self hath this down for a maxime that Natura Deus nihil fecerunt frustra that God and Nature made nothing in vain Now that infinite and insatiable desire or appetite that is in man were in vain if there were nothing to satisfie and content it Which since it is impossible to find out upon this Terraqueous Globe we must search after it in Heaven of God that is bonum infinitum an infinite good 3 Cause 3. Besides God created the world for the use of man and therefore without doubt he created man for something better then the world viz. God himself 4 Cause 4. God created man inter omnia animalia only secundum imaginem according to his own image with a straight body and an upright countenance according to mellifluous Naso Os homini sublime dedit coelumque tueri Jussit erectos ad sydera tollere vultus that so he might behold him whom he represented and that the But and White of all his actions and thoughts
of God that we understand not what it is to love him This Tree of Knowledge grows not in our Eden This flower springs not up in our Garden 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a gift dropt out of Heaven proceeding from the Father who is Love and Charity as St. John saith This is a divine liquor the true Nectar that God poures into our souls guttatim drop by drop as in narrow-neckt vessels Wherefore to accommodate our selves to our native slowness we 'll endeavour to infuse into our spirits by little and little so by degrees to arrive at the highest degree and Apex of Love There are five degrees of this our Love to God 1. The first is to love God for the good he doth us and we expect to receive from him still 2. Secondly To love him propter seipsum or sui ipsius gratia for his own sake because he is most excellent and most amiable 3. Thirdly To love God above all things nay your own selves but to love nothing in the World but for his sake 4. Fourthly To detest and abhor himself for the Love of God 5. Fifthly to love him as we shall in the life to come when we shall be in glory with this love the Saints are extasied and assist at the Throne of God in secula seculorum We call these Degrees of Love and not species or kinds because the superior contain the inferior as the chiefest white differs from the other parcels of the same colour that are less clear and transparent not in specie but in gradu we must remount up these degrees or stairs and rest our selves a little upon every one of them 1. The first degree and lowest is Five degrees by which we are brought to love God To love God for the good he doth us upon this step of Love was King David when in the 116 Psalm and in the 1 verse I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplication and so in the 18 Psalm for God will have respect and love from us because he extends his bounty so liberally to us 'T is God that created us 't is God that preserves and keeps us being created that nourisheth our bodies that cherisheth our souls that redeemeth us by his Son that governs us by his holy Spirit that instructeth us by his word that hath vouchsafed to admit us as his servants nay his friends and children and which is more the same with himself Plato playing the Philosopher with the grace of God Plato blessed God for three things thanked him for three things 1. That he was created a man and not a beast 2. That he was born a Graecian and not a Barbarian and 3. That he was a Philosopher Now we that are instructed in the School of Christ a School of more strict discipline So ought we for these especially make another kind of distribution of the grace of God and return him thanks for these three things 1. That of all Creatures we were created men 2. That of all men Christians And 3. That among those that are Christians he hath made us in the number of the true elect And if you please you may add a fourth That he hath adopted us by his Son Jesus Christ before the foundation of the World having been carefull of us not onely before we had any existence but even before the world had its creation Now if God did manifest his love to us before we were how liberally will he extend it to us how bountifully will it flow from him when we invocate and call upon his Sacred Name and affect him with a filial and reverential love Now the smaller our number is the larger is our priviledge the more extensive and diffusive is his bounty and goodness to us to endow us with sight among so many blind persons as the portion of Jacob in Aegypt solely enlightned in the midst of obscurity Cimmerian darkness like the fleece of Gideon that was only bedewed with the grace of God when the rest of the earth was dry and destitute of it God hath encircled us with abundance of examples of stupendious caecity or blindness that he might raise our estimation of light and that we might make a farther progress in the way of salvation that so whilest it is called to day we may steer the ship of our souls by the Lanthorn of his Word All these vertues the constellation of all these graces depend upon one Soveraign and Prime one viz. reconciliation with God by the passion of our blessed Jesus This is the Chanel through which the graces of God stream unto us 'T is Jacobs Ladder that joyns Heaven and Earth together that rejoyns God and Man The Angels ascending this Ladder represent our prayers that we piously dart up to Heaven the Angels descending signifie the blessings of God that are distilled in answer to our prayers Jacob sleeping at the foot of the Ladder intimates unto us the quiet and tranquillity of conscience that we enjoy under the cool and comfortable shade of his intercession Before man was environed with horror and astonishment he could not cast his eye aside but he met with an object of fear If he look't upon God he discerned a consuming fire a supream Justice armed with revenge against sinners If he cast his eye upon the Law he immediately perceived the arrest of condemnation If he viewed the Heaven he concluded himself excluded thence by reason of sin If the World he saw his irreparable loss of dominion over the Creatures if himself a thousand spiritual and corporal infirmities At the signes of Heaven and the Earth-quake he was ague-struck with fear Then Satan Death Hell were his inveterate foes that either drew him to perdition or did behel and wrack him with the expectation of them But now every person that hath confidence in Christ Jesus changes his language and speaks in a more pleasing dialect If he look upon God he 'll say 'T is my Father that hath adopted me If his thoughts pitch upon the day of Judgement he 'll bespeak himself thus My Elder Brother sits there and he that is my Judge is also my Counsellor If he think on the Angels he cries out They are my guardians Psalm the 34. If he view the Heaven he terms it his habitation If he hear it thunder he 'll reply 'T is the voice of my Father If he consider the Law The Son of God saith he hath accomplisht it for me If he swim with the flowing tide of prosperity he 'll say God hath reserved better things for me If in the low ebb of adversity Jesus Christ hath endured far more for me God exerciseth or proves corrects or afflicts me making me therein conformable to his Son If he thinks on Hell the Devil or Death then he will triumph over all with the holy Apostle in the 1 to the Corinth the 15 Ch. and the 55 56 and 57 vers O Death where is thy
sting O grave where is thy victory The sting of Death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ Though these things buz about his ears like bees provoked or irritated yet they have lost their sting If the old serpent bruise his heel yet his head is broken if the Devil give us a false alarm by persecutions yet we are souldiers fighting under Christs Banner listed and registred into the Book of Life at our Baptism he hath bought and redeemed us by his most precious blood and no one can ravish us from him What soul can be so sordid as to fear the arm of flesh when he is guarded by the spirit of Christ that doth not only intercede for sinners but of sinners makes them become just That is not only Advocate of a bad cause but also renders it good That doth both pray and pay for us so that his pardoning of us is not onely a work of his mercy but also an effect of his justice Besides these obligations we have an infinite number of incitations to the love of Christ if we will but recollect our selves and seriously consider how often he hath delivered us from imminent danger caused inexpected overtures of evil intended to us that we might avoid them for according to the old Proverb Praemoniti praemuniti forewarned forearmed and afflicted us here that he might save us hereafter Now 't was the wish of that famous pillar of the Latin Church St. Augustin Hic ure hic tunde hic seca modo in aeternum parcas Cut saw burn my body here so thou savest my soul hereafter Now for shame let it not be said that God hath showred down his blessings on the sand Let us not be so bestial as to drink of the stream and ne'er think of the fountain without elevating our thoughts unto God the source of all benedictions But when we say God doth good unto us to the end that we may love him not that he stands in need of our Love but he will have us love him in regard that we cannot be saved if we hate him Nay farther that we love him proceeds from him as a gift for 't is he that kindles in us his love He doth not only bestow and confer his bona upon us but he gives us a hand to receive them grace to use them and vertue to glorifie for them so that Deus primo dat quod jubet and then jubet quod vult first he gives what he commands viz. Love Love is the gift of God and then he commands what is most agreable to his will and pleasure This first degree or step of Love though it be holy and useful yet 't is but principium amoris divini 't is but the prologue to the Love of God for he that loves God only for profit is like an infant or child that prays only for his break-fast and to speak properly such persons love not God but themselves Such love is but mercenary and injurious to God a palpable affront put upon the Deity Therefore he must know that hath gained this first degree he must proceed for non progredi est regredi to be at a stand is to be retrograde he must therefore I say ascend the second step The second degree of our Love toward God is to Love him 2 Degree not only for our profit but also for himself i. e. laying aside all consideration of his benefits that he is daily pleased to confer on us and though we expected no profit from him yet to love him supra omnia Holy David spake of this Love in the 69 Psalm Let all those that love thee rejoyce in thy name He counsels us to love God for his name because he is the supream Wise in his counsel just in his actions true in his promises whose habitation is in glory inaccessible enjoying a Soveraign perfection God whose life was without beginning and his duration without end his eternity without alteration his greatness without measure and his power irresistible That created the World by his Word governs it by his vertue and will reduce it to a Chaos of ruine when it is his pleasure Who in one sole vertue and perfection which is his Essence encompasseth all other vertues that are infused into all other creatures All other vertues do concentre in this punctum and the more they deviate from him the more eccentrique they are God therefore is to be loved for these preceding considerations more then for the good that he is pleased to confer upon us Our Saviour instructeth us the same in that most absolute pattern that he himself hath set before us in which he commands to beg the sanctification of his Holy Name and the advancement of his Kingdom before we put up a petition for our daily bread We naturally are enamoured with beauty now Light is the first of beauties without which there is no distinction between beauty and deformity God therefore being the primum lumen it follows necessarily that he be also the prime beauty He is the Father of Lights Pater Luminum saith St. James and holy David the Psalmist in the 36 Psalm 9. For with thee is the Fountain of Life in thy light shall we see light Wherefore in laying his hand to the stately Fabrick of the World when he reduced the Chaos of confusion into a beautiful and harmonious order he began first with the light as that by which his nature is best represented He is the Sun of Righteousness a Sun that never comes to the West never sets nor casts a shadow all things are naked unto him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things are bare-neckt unto him 't is in the Original being a metaphor taken from the mode in the Eastern Countreys where they go bare-neckt such a Sun as doth not only clarifie the sight but gives it also And judge you what a splendid sight-offending lustre this is that the Seraphims assisting at his Throne cover their faces with their wings as Isaiah saith 6 Chap. 2 vers not being able to endure so glorious a splendor And if at the coming and appearance of the humanity of Christ the Sun shall be benegroed in darkness as a petty light at the coming of a greater how if you cast an eye upon the life of God! The life of God ours is but a shadow if compared to it nay a nihil for our life is a flux or succession of parts But God possesseth and hath full and entire fruition of his eadem instanti and all together And his only begotten Son was willing to lay down his life for the redemption of us miserable and wretched sinners That Son that Isaiah calls Chap. the 9. Father of eternity was content to assume this frail flesh of ours He became Son of Man that we might become the sons of God He was born in a stable that we might
be received into the Kingdom of Heaven born among beasts that we might be the associates of Angels He that was regens sydera became sugens ubera 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that is the bread of life was pinched with hunger that we might be satisfied He that is the fountain of life became thirsty that we might have ours quenched In fine he that is life it self did undergo death that he might make us heirs of eternal life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the blessed Apostle in a holy extasie cried out O the depth of the riches of the Love of Christ These are prosundities that swallow up our spirits and there is pleasure in being lost therein for these are the graces of God that surpasse our shallow capacities but recreate our hearts that afford matter of admiration and subject of consolation Now to what end is all this if not to induce us to love God and admire the treasures and riches of his grace Our spirits are extasied with the rapture and contemplation of thy bounty Our words are a degree beneath our thoughts yet our thoughts are far beneath the truth We do but lisp forth thy praise our commendation and elogiums of thee are but an undervaluing of thee for in so doing we do but lumen soli praeferre or endeavour to delineate him in his golden tresses by the dark draught of a charcoal Therefore we must intreat the Lord that is our Father to touch our hearts with a filial affection that it would please him that bestows and infuseth his love into us to create also in us strong affections and desires after such a divine vertue that we may pant after pursue it with so much eagerness as to encounter with all obstructions for the obtaining of it All these considerations do but incite us to the love of God not for our selves but for his own sake which is perspicuous in this that our Love cannot be regulate unless it be formed and fashioned on the model of his Love that he bears to us Now God Loves us for his own sake according to the Prophet Isa Chap. 43. 'T is I 't is I that blot away thy trangressions for mine own sake And it is the prayer of holy Daniel in the 9. of his prophecy Lord hear me Lord pardon me O Lord my God tarry not for thine own sake for thy name hath been called upon by this people God considers that we bear his Image on our souls he considers that we are unworthy of his benefits but that it is a divine thing to do good to those that are unworthy of receiving it and which is more to make them worthy in doing them good He looks upon his Church as a small fold that carrieth his name and are baptized the people of God Hosea the 2. nor will he suffer it to become the prey of Satan or the triumph of their adversaries Amen GOD AND MAN Mutually Embracing In the first Epistle of St. John the 4 Chap. and the 19 vers it is thus written We love God because he first loved us WE have in one Sermon already discoursed of our Love of God SERM. IV. and informed you of the several degrees of this Love which were five two whereof we have only as yet insisted on the other three we shall auspice Christo dispatch in our subsequent love-discourse Therefore not to detain you with the reiteration or repetition of what you have formerly heard we 'll proceed at present to the third degree of our Love to God which is this viz. To Love God so far above all sublunary beings as to affect nothing 3 Degree to be enamoured with nothing but only for his sake As for instance in the vast circumference of the terrestrial Globe there is variety both of persons and things that we cannot withdraw our affections from them we cannot but love them and in reality 't were impiety not to Love them A Father loveth his Children a Wife her Husband our Parents our Kindred our Neighbours our Friends have all share in this amity So a man loves his health and labours to preserve it if it be any way lost he endeavours by all possible means to recover it The brawny Peasant is in his element when whistling to his Teem and manuring of his acres The Scholar is so ravished with his study that his very countenance smels of the candle as the Poet ingeniously expresseth it Livida nocturnam sapiebant ora lucernam Their pale countenance did relish of the candle speaking of excessive students Nay to go to disrobe a man of this love would be a doctrine inhumane and a degree below brutality He is worse than an Infidel that hath not a care of his family saith the blessed Apostle Piety doth not extirpate a mans affections but cultivates them and makes them colleagues with the Love and fear of God No otherwise than Joshuah who having subdued the Gibeonites would not put them to death but compel them to service in the House of God For then doth a father love his sons with a real paternal affection when he resolves to educate them so in their youth that they may encrease in growth and become plants that one day may fructifie to the glory of God Then doth a man love his friends as he ought when their love to God is the efficient cause of his love to them and that he perceives the Image of God shine in them Then shall we love our health lawfully and aright when we desire it not because it is more pleasant and comfortable but because it endowes our bodies with a vigour and our souls with a liberty of serving God in our vocation The same may be said of Riches Honour Learning and the like these are things that one may affect but so that their love rob us not of our love to God but rather stimulate us on and provoke us to good works And as there is no river so small but disembogues it self into the Sea so there is none of Gods benefacta though of the lowest size of the most dwarfish stature but conducts and leads our thoughts to the profound abyss of his goodness and greatness Then shall our affections to our friends be regulated and sweetly composed when they shall be branches or arms of the Sea of Gods immense Love and have a reflection upon the Image or benefits of God Set not a price or estimation upon men for that that is about them but for what is in them Love not men as you do Purses i. e. for the money they have If you honour a person for his stately attire you might as well salute the Sattin when intire in a whole piece If you reverence a man for his honour or renown you pin his dignity upon his sleeve and fix his worth on an airy title and this is the mode now adaies this is the frame of most mens spirits in the world to
accomplish the work of our redemption The Law and the Prophets endured till John but since his time the Kingdom of God is Evangelized Luk. 16.16 Many Kings and Prophets have desired to see the things which were seen when Jesus Christ converst in the world and they have not seen them Luk. 10.24 And therefore Jesus Christ prefers the least that were under the Gospel before the greatest that were under the Law St. John pointed at him with his hand and shewed him to the World to be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins for which cause he was raised above the Prophets and because he had not seen nor shew'd the glory and vertue which followed his death and his resurrection he was therefore set below the Apostles And St. Paul saith that the grace which hath been given us in Jesus Christ from eternal times is now manifested by the apparition of our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath destroyed death and put into light both life and immortality by the Gospel It seems then that this mystery of our redemption hath been hidden from precedent ages and that the ancient Fathers have had nothing but shadows and figures of things that were to come And yet Jesus Christ himself gives this testimony to Abraham that he desired to see this day of his and hath seen it and rejoyced Joh. 8.56 and St. Peter 1 Pet. 1.10 that the Prophets have enquired and made diligent search concerning the salvation of souls the reward of faith and by the Prophetick spirit in them have declared the sufferances which were to come to Jesus Christ and the joyes which were to follow them And for this reason it is that the Son of God sayes He had the testimony of Moses and the Prophets and that the Scriptures of the old Testament bare witness of him Joh. 5.39 To know then how that must be understood to resolve us in this appearance of contrariety and to begin our undermining at the foundation of Papistical errors touching the state of the souls of the Fathers deceased before the coming of Christ let us learn then from this confession of faith so fair so firm so clear as it can be in the noon day of the Gospel that we have no other faith nor other means of salvation then what the ancient Patriarchs had before us and that the ancient Covenant contracted with them in the substance and truth is the same thing with the new one contracted with us that are fallen into these later times all the difference which is in them consisting only in the order and the means of the dispensation which according to the diversity of times hath made it assume divers visages for as the Apostle Heb. 1.1 2. God hath heretofore many times and after many sorts spoken to the fathers by the Prophets and in these later times by his Son Jesus Christ. Where he seems to distinguish the times by the coming of the Son of God betwixt the preceding ages and those that were to come after The first part hath had divers seasons and divers manners according to which this dispensation hath been ordered The first season is counted from the fall of Adam unto Abraham during which we had no declaration more express of this eternal alliance of God with men then that which is contained in few words but of an high and full signification The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the Serpent Gen. 3.15 upon which promise confirmed declared and entertained by the usage of sacrifices and carried from hand to hand and from father to son during all the first age of the world this faith was sustained and the hope of the faithful founded In the second season from Abraham to Moses during which Job lived a true Son of Abraham both according to the flesh and to the promise this general promise was as it were restrained in the family and posterity of this Holy Patriarch when God made this alliance with him that he would be their God and they his children and discocovered to him that from him should go forth the Redeemer of the World when he said that in his seed all the Nations of the World should be blessed Genes 12. giving him beside the sacrifices the particular seal of the circumcision as a sign of the justice of faith Rom. 4.11 The third was from Moses to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ where in a more especial and ample manner God was pleased to instruct his people exposing and confirming his Covenant unto them after divers fashions in which are remarkable two principal parts having reference each to other and ordained one for the love of the other Like the two Cherubims who being placed one right against the other and extending their wings one toward the other did both of them look toward the propitiatory Exod. 25.20 the one was the Law promising life and everlasting benediction under the condition of a most perfect observation of his commands A condition impossible to corrupted nature whose imaginations were nothing but evil at all times and yet very necessary and useful to make men know the duty wherein they were obliged to make them sensible of weakness and to make them comprehend the horrour of that condemnation into which their transgressions had precipitated them by that means to conduct them to the second part of the Covenant which was all of it purely Evangelical as that which under divers figures and ceremonies did represent mans reconciliation to God and his plenary deliverance by the ransom of that infinite merit of the sacrifice of the death and passion of Christ After this in the fulness of time came the great Redeemer of our soules who abolished the first means that he might establish the second abolish'd I say not wholly but in part not in the substance but in the accidents For as for the first part he exacts no more as it were by force of maledictions that perfect obedience of the Law but supplying the defects of nature by the abundant effusion of his spirit of grace he draws from sanctified hearts a voluntary obedience And in the second he hath caused the body to succeed the shadows the truth the figures the thing the signes all these things having been fulfilled in the death of Christ And from hence may we easily comprehend the difference that there is betwixt the new Covenant and the old between the faith of the Fathers that lived under the Law and theirs that live under the Gospel For it is the same thing in substance Having God for the Author his grace and mercy for the cause and the satisfaction of Christ for the meritorious foundation The same things promised grace and glory God is to us both a Sun and a Shield he gives both grace and glory and withholds no good thing from such as wait upon him Distributed in general by the same means and the preaching of the word Hearken and your soules shall live Isai 55.3 the
seek them in this perverse age where there are many that are more ready to sell their Country their Brethren and Parents for a little silver then to forsake them for the glory of God Where this rage of getting goods this infernal fury of avarice so possesses the greatest part of men that are so far from quitting their riches to follow Christ that contrarily they do not stick to truck with Jesus Christ for riches and do willingly leave the certain hope of the glory of heaven for the uncertain promise of some honour or some command in the world though but for three dayes and where at last in stead of the joy which the children of God resent in their tribulations and the actions of thanks which they render to God in the midst of his corrections we see painted upon the faces of the most modest a consternation and a sadness which witnesses that we regard his fatherly rods with a wicked eye and that these light afflictions do send us to deaths door notwithstanding the Weight of Justice which they carry nor the glory that followes them can any waies awaken nor cheer up our hearts And what is this but that faith goes by little and little failing and falling to the ground that we have no more but an appearance of piety and a shew of godliness but have renounced the force of it we believe not in the promises of God and Atheisme is but too far insinuated into the greatest part of souls that are slaves to the perishable Mammon that love your pleasures more then God unworthy to have an immortal spirit that set your affections upon things that have not so much honour as to be mortal Of all that which you sow to the flesh what do you reap but corruption What can you hope for after the contempt of the heavenly gift whereof you have tasted Of this power of the world to come which you have known of this spirit of grace which you have grieved of this blood of the Covenant which you tread under foot but an horrible expectation of the judgement of God a fervour of fire consuming his adversaries and a vengeance as much redoubled as the knowledge which you have had renders you more wicked and inexcusable You then faithful souls to whom God hath given better inspirations at this noyse and report of the faith of your fore-fathers awaken earnestly this drowziness of your own turn away your hearts from the vanity of this flower of the world that passeth see that your life is but a wind and that death shall shortly pull to ground and reduce to nothing this terrestrial and miserable masse And therefore seek while you are here below the spiritual goods of your souls that may follow you toward the Heavens And forasmuch as the light of the Gospel discovers move clearly to you then the Fathers could see under the shadows of the Law Love them therefore more ardently pursue them more constantly And since we are regenerate into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead to obtain the incorruptible inheritance which cannot be contaminate nor withered but is reserved in the Heaâ—en for us Let us make lighter of the World and of her goods of these bodies and of these delights and esteem it a great gain to have lost them that we may gain Jesus Christ And that being found in him having not our own justice which is of the Law but his which is by faith we may also in him and by him obtain this good which eye hath not seen nor ear hath heard nor hath entred into the heart of man and which God hath prepared for those that love him 1 Cor. 2.9 To which God the Father the Son and Holy Ghost be honour and glory from henceforth and for evermore Amen ZION in Sack-cloath AND HER SAINTS in Tears In the 137 Psalm the first verse it is thus written By the waters of Babylon we sate down and wept when we remembred thee O Zion A Sad Text in a sadder time SERM. VII in which the rivers of Babylon swelled not so high with inundation of water in the letter as the waters in the Metaphor out-swelling and breaking down their banks have overflown both our Church and State The waies of Zion mourn and her children are set to a task of weeping whilest they behold the ruine of their Mother by the Caledonean Boars on th' one side and the mixt but wilder Herd then those of Africa the Foxes busily undermining the vineyard whilest the fowls of the air th' Atheists as did the fowls on Abrahams divided sacrifice seize on the divided Church she in the mean while doubtful to which as most powerful though alike pernicious she should yield up her life Religion for a prey And who is there now if not a stranger in Israel whose fears have not taught his eyes acquaintance with his heart to pour out water before the Lord with them at Mizpeth 1 Sam. 7.6 or whose heart hath not borrowed from his eye compassion with Jeremy Mine eye affecteth my heart because of the slain of the daughter of my people Lam. 3.5 and if so how shall not our better devotion hallow so pious an expence by sending them both up in an humble importunity of prayer to work an atonement with Heaven that we may recover the departed glory of Israel and the Ark of the Lord now captiv'd by the Philistins may be brought back to us though but upon the necks of the scarce yoked beasts Happy are those tears that are made the rich tribute of the Churches ransom happy those passionate groans that hasten to prevent a Jeremies reiterated lamentation a Jerusalems once total final expiring happy those childrens prevailing prayers that make their mother a debtor for that life she gave their offerers who as they live at her breasts so how shall they not expire in her blood if either tainted by corruption or let out by cruelty It is 't is true our unfortunate and deplorable condition to see these sad times of distraction and persecution which as they are for the tryal of our patience who are called to suffering and for the exercise of their wisdom to be honoured with publick counsel so they are for the actuating of all our devotions whose hearts would faint did not our eyes wait and our hands knock for a speedy composure and expected deliverance from the gates of Heaven And those that feel not great strivings of heart for the division of Ruben those whose bowels are restrained whose souls bleed not within themselves by compassion do with the actor of a mischief contract a guilt and by their own neutrality appropriate to themselves a curse Curse ye Merosh yea curse yea bitterly because they came not forth to help the Lord to help the Lord against the mighty Judges 5.13 a Text however sacrilegiously inverted by irreligious religious interpreters yet God does expect our help and we help
the waters of faithfulness to carry them they sit by the rivers side and weep that their floating tears might at last greet their Country from her weeping worshippers whilest they mean while weep again in remembrance of thee O Zion Etiam atque etiam flevimus say Junius and Tremellius they wept and they wept again 1. As Patientes Sufferers they wept for themselves and for their children Weep not for me O ye daughters of Jerusalem but weep for your selves and for your children for your houses shall be left unto you desolate Luk. 23.28 No affliction is joyous but grievous The presence of dolorous and dreadful objects even in minds most perfect may as clouds overcast all sensible joy and dissolve into showres of tears 2. As Compatientes fellow-feeling members of others miseries we wept again for thee O Zion Mine eye runneth with rivers of waters for the destruction of the daughter of my people mine eye trickleth down and ceaseth not without intermission Lam. 3.48 When Christ wept for Lazarus behold how he loved him said the Jews these were teares as of love of her good so of compassion of her misery How shall that heart refrain from tears with whom love within and misery without shall plead for pity no expression so emphatical as that of weeping Tears speak that grief which no tongue is able to expresse no language so sincere as this nor yet so passionate Alas my brother was the Elegy of that lying Prophet his words might bely his dissembled mourning but tears are the Rhetorick of grief that speak the affections of a true hyperbole And let who will divide passions from the soul let who will say fear becomes not a stout heart it is a senceless heart that is not affected and a stony heart that doth not weep Nor is it any shame to confess that grief we cannot conceal Shall the hunted stagge pay a Funeral-Obsequie to his own fleeting life which now sits upon his utmost lips with a frequent distilling tear And shall not we who are pursued with such a pack of evils weep for this That he that is the soul of our soul the breath of our nostrils the life of our Zion the glory of our God is at a distance from us The Heavens weep dew at the going down of the Sun our Sun I am afraid is a setting at noon-day our glory is departing and shall not we weep David the father could weep like a child at the loss of a child O Absalom Absalom my son Absalom would God I had died for thee O Absalom my son my son And shall not thy children O Zion weep for the destruction of thee their mother the Church O daughter of Jerusalem what shall I liken unto thee O Virgin Zion wherewith shall I compare thee our eye our eye runneth down with tears we can as well dye for thee as in this deny thee By the waters of Babylon we sate down and wept when we remembred thee O Zion And so I have done with the fourth thing their affection in that posture We sate down and wept and proceed to The last thing the motive of that their affection when we remembred thee O Zion Dura satis miseris memoratio prisca bonorum the memory of a lost felicity makes misery it self more miserable There is more ease in sense of torment then in losse of happiness To be in any captivity is a calamity but to be captive to the tyranny of an uncircumcised people whose sportive pastime was in their gauling taunts of the afflicted must needs heighten the affliction Davids sufferings made him complain but the bitter reproaches he had from his foes opened a spring of grief in him which fed his tears day and night yet the remembrance of his former now lost happiness in communion with God in his house made yet deeper impressions in his soul Psalm 42.4 former favours and happiness make the soul more sensible of all impressions to the contrary we wept when we remembred thee O Zion But what was Zion that whilest they remembered it they could not forget to weep Take it barely for their native countrey for so the word means in the latitude and even so Patriae fumus igne alieno luculentior there is more pleasant warmth in the smoak of our own then in the fire of a strange country and then their loss of happiness and accesse of misery must needs bee the more great the one being a land of promise the other of captivity the one an effect of Gods favour the other of his vengeance But this is not all the hill of Zion is a fair place and the joy of the whole earth Psal 48.2 Strictly taken it was a fort in Jerusalem on the top whereof was a Tower called the City of David and so by a Synechdoche Zion is put for the Kingdom of Judea Let us then remember what it was in its glory and consider what it is in its captivity and refrain from weeping if we can First Very excellent things are spoken of thee O thou City of God The Kings of the earth marvelled to see such things shall we as David bids go round about Zion and tell the Towers thereof and mark well her Bulwarks First There is the Throne of David but woe unto us that we have sinned the Casket is without its Jewel David is not there on his Throne Secondly Tell the Towers thereof The Towers were those many Princely and Noble Families and the lesser Pinacles the Heroick Gentry who as they added a glory and ornament so they were the strength and defence of the King and his Throne But all these Towers are either levelled with the dust or led into captivity or have by an unworthy compliance basely prostituted themselves to the power of the Conquerour Thirdly Mark well her Bulwarks The Bulwarks were the numerous commonalty whose affections and loyal obedience were such strong fortifications to the Throne of Majesty as the Kings of the earth have been afraid to assault them But now all these strong holds are broken down the right hand of the enemy is set up and all the adversaries rejoyce Zions Crown is cast down to the ground and her honour laid in the dust so as she is become a scorn to her enemies and they that hate her shake their heads against her Fourthly Thither the tribes go up but now they are taken captive Fifthly There is the seat of judgment but now the chair of tyranny and oppression But secondly Zion was called the Mount of the Lord and the Holy Mount and so it includes in it the Temple the Church too and of this God himself did say This is my rest for ever here will I dwell yet O God the Heathen are come into thine inheritance thy Holy Temple have they defiled that beauty of holiness is ravish'd with Babylonish fire That excellent work at whose rearing no noise of iron was heard is broken down with axes and hammers that Heavenly Order