the people what a temporall dominion in the possessions of the world had the Virgin Mary Queen of heaven and Queen of earth too She was made joint purchaser of the Church with her Sonne and had as much of the worship thereof as he though she paid her fine in milke and he in bloud And till a new Sect came in her Sonnes name and in his name the name of Jesus tooke the regency so farre out of that Queen Mothers hands and sued out her Sonnes Livery so farre as that though her name be used the Virgin Mary is but a feoffee in trust for them all was hers And if God oppose not these new usurpers of the world posterity will soon see Saint Ignatius worth all the Trinity in possessions and endowments as that sumptuous and splendid foundation of his first Temple at Rome may well create a conjecture and suspicion Travaile no farther Survay but this City And of their not one hundred Churches the Virgin Mary hath a dozen The Trinity hath but one Christ hath but one The holy Ghost hath none But not to goe into the City nor out of our selves which of us doth truly and considerately ascribe the comforts that he receives in dangers or in distresses to that God of all comfort the comforter the holy Ghost We know who procured us our Presentation and our dispensation you know who procured you your offices and your honours Shall I ever forget who gave me my comfort in sicknesse Who gave me my comfort in the troubles and perplexities and diffidencies of my conscience The holy Ghost brought you hither The holy Ghost opens your eares and your hearts here Till in all your distresses you can say Veni Creator Spiritus come holy Ghost and that you feel a comfort in his comming you can never say Veni Domine Iesu come Lord Jesus come to Judgement Never to consider the day of Judgement is a fearfull thing But to consider the day of Judgement without the comfort of the holy Ghost is a thousand times more fearfull This Seale then this impression this notion of the Trinity being set upon us in the first Creation in this first plurall word of our text Faciamus Let us for Father Sonne and holy Ghost made man and this seale being re-imprinted upon us in our second Creation our Regeneration in Baptisme Man is Baptized In the name of the Father of the Sonne and of the holy Ghost This notion of the Trinity being our distinctive Character from Iew and Gentile This being our specifique forme why does not this our forme this soule of our Religion denominate us why are we not called Trinitarians a name that would embrace the profession of all the Persons but onely Christians which limits and determines us upon one The first Christians amongst whose manifold Persecutions scorne and contempt was not the least in contempt and scorne were called Nazarai Nazarites in the mouth of the Vulgar and Galilâ—i Galilaeans in the mouth of Iulian and Iudaei Iews in the mouth of Nero when he imputed the burning of Rome his owne act to them and Christiani as Tertullian says that they could accuse Christians of nothing but the name of Christians and yet they could not call them by their right name but Chrestians which was gentle quiet easie patient men made to be troden upon They gave them divers names in scorne yet never called them Trinitarians Christians themselves amongst themselves were called by divers names in the Primitive Church for distinction Fideles the faithfull and Fratres the Brethren and Discipuli Disciples And after by common custome at Antioch Christians And after that they say by a councell which the Apostles held at the same city at Antioch there passed an expresse Canon of the Church that they should be called so Christians And before they had this name at Antioch first by common usage after by a determinate Canon to be called Christians from Christ at Alexandria they were called most likely from the name of Jesus Iesseans And so Philo Iudaeus in that book which he writes De Iessenis intends by his Iessenis Christians and in divers parts of the world into which Christians travell now they find some elements some fragments some reliques of the Christian Religion in the practice of some religious Men whom those Countreys call Iesseans doubtlesly derived and continued from the name of Jesus So that the Christians took many names to themselves for distinction Brethren Disciples faithfull And they had many names put upon them in scorne Nazarites Galilaeans Iews Chrestians and yet they were never never by Custome amongst themselves never by commandement from the Church never in contempt from others called Trinitarians the profession of the Trinity being their specifique forme and distinctive Character why so Beloved the name of Christ involv'd all not onely because it is a name that hath a dignity in it more then the rest for Christ is an anointed person a King a Messiah and so the profession of that Name conferrs an Unction a regall and a holy Unction upon us for we are thereby a royall Priesthood but because in the profession of Christ the whole Trinity is professed How often doth the Sonne say that the Father sent him And how often that the Father will and that he will send the Holy Ghost This is life eternall says he to know thee the onely true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent And sent with all power in heaven and in earth This must be professed Father and Sonne And then no man can professe this no man can call Jesus the Lord but by the holy Ghost So that as in the persecutions in the primitive Church the Martyrs which were hurried to tumultuary executions and could not be heard for noise in excusing themselves of Treason and sedition and crimes imputed to them to make their cause odious did use in the sight of the people who might see a gesture though they could not heare a protestation to signe themselves with the signe of the Crosse to let them know for what profession they died so that the signe of the Crosse in that use thereof in that time was an abridgement and a Catechisme of the whole Christian Religion so is the professing of the name of Christ the professing of the whole Trinity As he that confesses one God is got beyond the meer naturall man And he that confesses a Sonne of God beyond him So is neither got to the full truth till he confesse the holy Ghost too The foole sayes in his heart there is no God The foole says David The emphaticall foole in the highest degree of folly But though he get beyond that folly he is a foole still if he say there is no Christ For Christ is the wisdome of the Father And a foole still if he deny the holy Ghost for who shall apply Christ to him but the holy Ghost Etiam Christiani Nomen superficies est
Fifty SERMONS PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE JOHN DONNE D r IN DIVINITY Late Deane of the Cathedrall Church of S. PAULS London The Second Volume LONDON Printed by Ia. Flesher for M. F. I. Marriot and R. Royston MDCXLIX TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE BASIL EARLE OF DENBY My very good Lord and Patron My Lord IN a season so tempestuous it is a great encouragement to see your Lordship called to the Helme who in your publique negociations having spent so many yeares in that so famed Common-wealth of Venice must of necessity have brought home such excellent Principles of Government that if our Fate doe not withstand your Directions we may reasonably at last expect to see our new Brittish Lady excell that ancient Adriatique Queene Neither can I offend much against the State in begging your Patronage and perusall of this Book knowing that your Lordship first mastered all the Learning of Padoa before you did adventure upon that wise Senate who amongst all her other greatnesses has ever had a principall care that Learning might not be diminished When these Sermons were preached they were terminated within the compasse of an houre but your acceptance may make them outlive the very Churches that they were preached in and give them such a perpetuity that Nec Jovis Ira nec Amor edacior multò poterit abolere For though a fiery zeale in succeeding ages hath often both ruined the Temples and casheired the gods that were worshipped in them Yet such sacrifices as these have beemy laies kept unburnt and we are suffered to know those religions that we are not allowed to practice Nor can I expect any greater advantage for the paines I have taken in publishing this Book then that posterity may know I did it when I had the favor and protection of your Lordship and was allowed to stile my selfe Your Lordships most humble Servant JO. DONNE FOR THE RIGHT HONOURABLE BOLSTRED WHITLOCK RICHARD KEEBLE 〈◊〉 JOHN LEILE Lords Commissioners of the Great Seale THe reward that many yeares since was proposed for the publishing these Sermons having been lately conferred upon me under the authority of the Great Seale I thought my selfe in gratitude bound to deliver them to the world under your Lordships protection both to show how carefull you are in dispensing that part of the Churches treasure that is committed to your disposing and to encourage all men to proceed in their industry when they are sure to find so just and equall Patrons whose fame and memory must certainely last longer then Bookes can find so noble Readers and whose present favors doe not onely keep the Living alive but the Dead from dying Your Lordships most humble Servant JO. DONNE A Table directing to the severall Texts of SCRIPTURE handled in this Book Sermons preached at Mariages Sermon I. Preached at the Earl of Bridgwaters house in London on MATTH 22. 30. For in the Resurrection they neither mary nor are given in Mariage but are as the Angels of God in heaven p. 1. Serm ' II. GEN. 2. 18. And the Lord God said It is not good that the man should be alone I will make him a Help meet for him p. 9. Serm. III. HOSEA 2. 19. And I will mary thee unto me for ever p. 15 Sermons preached at Christnings Serm. IV. REVEL 7. 17. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall governe them and shall leade them unto the lively fountaines of waters and God shall wipe away all teares from their eyes p. 23 Serm. V. EPHES. 5. 25 26 27. Husbands love your wives even at Christ loved the Church and gave himselfe for it that he might sanctifie it and cleanse it by the washing of water through the Word That he might make it unto himselfe a glorious Church not having spot or wrinckle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blame p. 31 Serm. VI. 1 JOH 5. 7 8. For there are three which beare record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three which beare record in the Earth The Spirit and the water and the blood and these three agree in one p. 39 Serm. VII GAL. 3. 27. For all yee that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. p. 50. Sermons preached at Churchings Serm. VIII CANT 5. 3. I have washed my feet how shall I defile them p. 59. Serm. IX MICAH 2. 10. Arise and depart for this is not your rest p. 67. Serm. X. A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 74. Sermons preached at Lincolns-Inne Serm. XI GEN. 28. 16 17. Then Iacob awoke out of his sleep and said Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware And he was afraid and said How fearefull is this place This is none other but the House of God and this is the gate of Heaven p. 83 Serm. XII JOH 5. 22. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Sonne p. 94. Serm. XIII JOH 8. 15. I judge no man p. 101. Serm. XIIII JOB 19. 26. And though after my skin wormes destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God p. 106. Serm. XV. 1 COR. 15. 50. Now this I say Brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God p. 118. Serm. XVI COLOS. 1. 24. Who now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his bodies sake which is the Church p. 128. Serm. XVII MAT. 18. 7. Wo unto the world because of offences p. 136. Serm. XVIII A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 142 Serm. XIX PSAL. 38. 2. For thine arrowes stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore p. 158. Serm. XX. PSA 38. 3. There is no soundnesse in my flesh because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sinne p. 162. Serm. XXI PSAL. 38. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me p. 174. Serm. XXII A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 186. Serm. XXIII A third Serm. on the same Text. p. 192. Sermons preached at White-Hall Serm. XXIV EZEK 34. 19. And as for my flocke they eate that which ye have trodden with your feet and they drink that which yee have fouled with your feet 199. Serm. XXV A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 208. Serm. XXVI ESAI 65. 20. For the childe shall die a hundred yeers old but the sinner being a hundred yeers old shall be accursed p. 218 Serm. XXVII MARK 4. 24. Take heed what you hear p. 228 Serm. XXVIII GEN. 1. 26. And God said Let us make man in our own Image after our likenesse p. 239. Serm. XXIX A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 250 Sermons preached to the Nobility Serm. XXX JOB 13. 15. Loe though he slay me yet will I trust in him p. 262. Serm. XXXI JOB 36.
Sacrament yet he is always present in it Yet this plot the devill had upon the Church And whereas this first Epistle of Saint Iohn was never doubted to be Canonicall whereas both the other have been called into some question yet in this first Epistle the first verse of this text was for a long time removed or expung'd whether by malice of Heretiques or negligence of transcribers The first Translation of the new testament which was into Syriaque hath not this verse That which was first called Vulgata editio had it not neither hath Luther it in his Germane translation very many of the Latine Fathers have it not and some very ancient Greeke Fathers want it though more ancient then they have it for Athanasius in the Councell of Nice cites it and makes use of it and Cyprian beheaded before that Councell hath it too But now he that is one of the witnesses himselfe the Holy Ghost hath assured the Church that this verse belongs to the Scripture and therefore it becomes us to consider thankfully and reverently this first ranke of witnesses the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost The Father then hath testified De integritate Christi of this intirenesse that Christ should be all this and doe all this which we have spoken of abundantly he begunne before Christ was borne in giving his name Thou shalt call his name Iesus for he shall save his people from sin Well how shall this person be capable to doe this office of saving his people from sinne Why in him say God the father in the representation of an Angell shall be fulfilled that prophecy A virgin shall beare a Sonne and they shall call his name Emanuel which is by interpretation God with us This seemes somewhat an incertaine testimony of a Man with an Alià s dictus with two names God says he shall be called Iesus that the prophecy may be fulfilled which says he shall be called Emanuel but therein consists Integritas Christi this intirenesse he could not be Jesus not a Saviour except he were Emanuel God with us God in our nature Here then is Jesus a Saviour a Saviour that is God and Man but where is the Testimony De Christo that he was anointed and prepared for this sacrifice that this worke of his was contracted between the Father and him and acceptable to him It is twice testified by the Father both in Christs act of humiliation when he would be Baptized by Iohn when he would accept an ablution who had no uncleannesse then God says This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased he was well pleased in his person and he was well pleased in his act in his office And he testifies it againe in his first act of glory in his transfiguration where the Father repeates the same words with an addition Heare him God is pleased in him and would have Men pleased in him too He testified first onely for Iosephs sak that had entertained and lodged some scrupulous suspition against his wife the Blessed Virgine His second testimony at the baptisme had a farther extent for that was for the confirmation of Iohn Baptist of the preacher himselfe who was to convey his doctrine to many others His third testimony in the transfiguration was larger then the Baptisme for that satisfied three and three such as were to carry it farre Peter and Iames and Iohn All which no doubt made the same use of his testimony as we see Peter did who preached out of the strength of his manifestation we followed not deceivable fables but with our owne eyes we saw his Majesty for he received of God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the Excellent glory This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased But yet the Father gave a more free a more liberall testimony of him then this at his Conception or Baptisme or Transfiguration when upon Christs prayer Father glorifie thy Name there came a voice from heaven I have both glorified it and will glorifie it againe For this all the people apprehended some imputed it to Thunder some to an Angel but all heard it and all heard Christs comment upon it That that voice came not for him but for their sakes so that when the Father had testified of a Iesus a Saviour and a Christ a Saviour sent to that purpose and a Sonne in whom he is pleased and whom we must heare when it is said of him moreover Gratificavit â—â—s in Dilectâ— he hath made us accepted in his beloved this is his way of comming in water and bloud that is in the sacraments of the Church by which we have assurance of being accepted by him and this is this Integritas Christi the intirenesse of Christ testified by our first witnesse that bears record in heaven The father The second witnesse in heaven is verâ—um The Word and that is a welcome message for it is Christ himselfe It is not so when the Lord sends a word The Lord sent a word unto Iacob and it lighted upon Israelâ— there the word is a judgement and an execution of the Judgement for that word that signifies 2 word there in the same letters exactly signifies a pestilence a Calamity It is a word and a blow but the word here is verbum cara that Word which for our sakes was made our selves The word then in this place is the second person in the Trinity Christ Iesus who in this Court of heaven where there is no corruption no falsification no passion but fair and just proceeding is admitted to be a witnesse in his owne cause It is Iesus that testifies for Iesus now when he was upon earth and said If I should beare witnesse of my selfe my witnesse were not true whether we take those words to be spoken per Coâ—nlventiam by an allowance and concession It is not true that is I am content that you should not beleeve my witnesse of my selfe to be true as Saint Cyrill understand them or whether we take them Humana mare that Christ as a man acknowledged truely and as he thought that inlegall proceeding a mans owne testimony ought not to be beleeved in his owne behalfe as Athanâ—â—ius and Saint Ambrose understand them yet Christ might safely say as he did Though I beare a record of my selfe yet my record is true why because I know whence I come and whither I goe Christ could not be Singularis â—â—stis a single witnesseâ— He was alwayes more then one witnesse because he had alwayes more then 〈◊〉 God and man and therefore Christ instructing Nicodemus speakes plurally we speake that 〈◊〉 know we testifie that we have seene and you receive not Testimoniâ—â— nâ—strum our witnesseâ— he does not say my witnesse but ours because although a singular yet he was a plurall person too His testimony then was credible but how did he testifie Integritatem this intirenesse
all that belonged to our faithâ— All consists in this that he was Iesus capable in his nature to be a Saviour that he was Christus ordained and sent for that office and then Quod venit that be was come and come in aqus sanguine in water and bloud in sacraments which might apply him to us That he was Iesus a person capable his miracles testified aloud and frequently that he was Christ anointed and sent for that his reference of all his actions to his Father testified both these were enwrapped in that that he was the Sonne of God and that he professed himselfe upon the earth to be so for so it appeares plainely that he had plainely done We have a law say the Jews to Pilate and by our law he ought to die because he made himselfe the Sonne of God And for the last part that he came In aqua sanguine in water and bloud in such meanes as were to continue in the Church for our spirituall reparation and sustentation he testified that in preaching so piercing Sermons in instituting so powerfull Sacraments in assuring us that the love of God expressed to mankind in him extended to all persons and all times God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Sonne that whoseever beleeveth in him should not perish but have life everlasting And so the words beare record De Integritate of this Intirenesse of the whole worke of our Redemption and therefore Christ is not onely truely called a Martyr in that sense as Martyr signifies a witnesse but he is truly called a Martyr in that sense as we use the word ordinarily for he testified this truth and suffered for the testimony of it and therefore he is called Jesus Christ Martyr a faithfull witnesse And there is Martyrium a Martyrdome attributed to him where it is said Jesus Christ under Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession so he was a speaking and a doing and a suffering witnesse Now for the third witnesse in heaven which is the holy Ghost we may contract our selves in that for the whole work was his Before Ioseph and Mary came together she was found with Child of the holy Ghost which if we take it as Saint Basil and divers others of the Fathers doe that Ioseph found it by the holy Ghost that is the holy Ghost informed him of it then here the holy Ghost was a witnesse to Ioseph of this Conception but we rather take it as it is most ordinarily taken that the Angell intimated this to Ioseph That that which was conceived in her was of the holy Ghost and then the holy Ghost did so primarily testifie this decree of God to send a Iesus and a Christ for our Redemption that himselfe was a blessed and bountifull actor in that Conception he was conceived by him by his overshadowing So that the holy Ghost did not onely testifie his comming but he brought him And then for his comming in Aqua sanguine in water and bloud that is in Sacraments in meanes by which he might be able to make his comming usefull and appliable to us first the holy Ghost was a pregnant witnesse of that at his Baptisme for the holy Ghost had told Iohn Baptist before-hand That upon whomsoever he should descend and tarry still that should be he that should baptize with the holy Ghost and then according to those Markes he did descend and tarry still upon Christ Iesus in his baptisme And after this falling upon him and tarrying upon him which testified his power in all his life expressed in his doctrine and in his Sermons after his death and Resurrection and Ascension the holy Ghost gave a new testimony when he fell upon the Apostles in Cloventongues and made them spirituall channells in which this water and bloud the meanes of applying Christ to us should be convey'd to all Nations and thus also the third witnesse in heaven testified De integritate of this intirenesse of Iesus Of these three witnesses then which are of heaven we shall need to adde no more but that which the text addes that is That these three are one that is not onely one in Consent they all testifie of one point they all speake to one Intergatory Ad integritatem Christi to prove this intirenesse of Christ but they are Vnum Essentia The Father the Sonne and the holy Ghost are all one Godhead and so meant and intended to be in this place And therefore as Saint Hierome complained when some Copies were without this seventh verse that thereby we had lost a good argument for the unity of the three Persons because this verse said plainely that the three witnesses were all one so I am sorry when I see any of our later expositors deny that in this place there is any proofe of such an unity but that this Vnum sunt They are one is onely an unity of consent and not of essence It is an unthrifty prodigality howsoever we be abundantly provided with arguments from other places of Scriptures to prove this Vnity in Trinity to cast away so strong an argument against Iew and Turke as is in these words for that and for the consubstantiality of Christ which was the Tempest and the Earthquake of the Primitive Church raised by Arius and his followers then and God knowes not extinguished yet Thus much I adde of these three witnesses that though they be in heaven their testimony is upon the earth for they need not to testifie to one another this matter of Jesus The Father heares of it every day by the continuall intercession of Christ Jesus The Sonne feeles it every day in his new crucifying by our sinnes and in the perfecution of his Mysticall body here The holy Ghost hath a bitter sense of it in our sinnes against the holy Ghost and he hath a loving sense of it in those abundant seas of graces which flow continually from him upon us They need no witnesses in heaven but these three witnesses testifie all this to our Consciences And therefore the first author that is observed to have read and made use of this seventh verse which was one of the first Bishops of Rome he reads the words thus Tres in nobis there are three in us which beare witnesse in heaven they testifie for our sakes and to establish our assurance De Integritate Iesu that Jesus is come and come with meanes to save the world and to save us And therefore upon these words Saint Bernard collects thus much more that there are other witnesses in heaven which restifie this worke of our Redemption Angels and Saints all the Court all the Quire of heaven testifie it but catera nobis occults says he what all they doe we know not but according to the best dispositions here in this world we acquaint our selves and we choose to keep company with the best and so not onely the poore Church s the earth
acclamation which he received from his Royall servant Salomon at the Consecration of his great Temple when he said Is it true indeed that God will dwell on the earth Behold the heavens and the heaven of heavens are not able to contain thee how much more unable shall this house bee that we intend to build But have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant and to his supplication O Lord my God to hear the cry the prayer that thy servant shall make before thee that day That thine eye may bee open towards that house night and day that thou mayst heare the supplications of thy servants and of thy people which shall pray in that place and that thou mayst hear them in the place of thy habitation even in heaven and when thou hearest mayst have mercy Amen SERMON XII Preached at Lincolns Inne JOHN 5. 22. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Sonne When our Saviour forbids us to cast pearl before swine we understand ordinarily in that place that by pearl are understood the Scriptures and when we consider the naturall generation and production of Pearl that they grow bigger and bigger by a continuall succession and devolution of dew and other glutinous moysture that fals upon them and there condenses and hardens so that a pearl is but a body of many shels many crusts many films many coats enwrapped upon one another To this Scripture which we have in hand doth that Metaphor of pearl very properly appertain because our Saviour Christ in this Chapter undertaking to prove his own Divinity and God-head to the Jews who acknowledged and confessed the Father to be God but denyed it of him he folds and wraps up reason upon reason argument upon argument that all things are common between the Father and him That whatsoever the Father does he does whatsoever the Father is he is for first he says he is a partner a cooperator with the Father in the present administration and government of the world My Father worketh hitherto and I work well if the Father do ease himself upon instruments now yet was it so from the beginning had he a part in the Creation Yes What things soever the Father doth those also doth the Son likewise But doe those extend to the work properly and naturally belonging to God to the remission to the effusion of grace to the spirituall resurrection of them that are dead in their iniquities Yes even to that too For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickneth them even to the Son quickneth whom he will But hath not this power of his a determination or expiration shall it not end at least when the world ends no not then for God hath given him authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of man Is there then no Supersedeas upon this commission Is the Sonne equall with the Father in our eternall election in our creation in the meanes of our salvation in the last judgement in all In all Omne judicium God hath committed all judgement to the Son And here is a pearl made up the dew of Gods grace sprinkled upon your souls the beams of Gods Spirit shed upon your soules that effectuall and working knowledge That he who dyed for your salvation is perfect God as well as perfect man fit as willing to accomplish that salvation In handling then this Iudgement which is a word that embraces and comprehends all All from our Election where no merit or future actions of ours were considered by God to our fruition and possession of that election where all our actions shall be considered and recompensed by him we shall see first that Judgment belongs properly to God And secondly that God the Father whom we consider to be the root and foundation of the Deity can no more devest his Judgment then he can his Godhead and therefore in the third place we consider what that committing of Judgment which is mentioned here imports and then to whom it is committed To the Sonne and lastly the largnesse of that which is committed Omne all Judgment so that we cannot carry our thoughts so high or so farre backwards as to think of any Judgment given upon us in Gods purpose or decree without relation to Christ Nor so far forward as to think that there shall be a Judgment given upon us according to our good morall dispositions or actions but according to our apprehension and imitation of Christ. Judgment is a proper and inseparable Character of God that 's first the Father cannot devest himself of that that 's next The third is that he hath committed it to another And then the person that is his delegate is his onely Sonne and lastly his power is everlasting And that Judgment day that belongs to him hath and shall last from our first Election through the participation of the meanes prepared by him in his Church to our association and union with him in glory and so the whole circle of time and before time was and when time shall be no more makes up but one Judgment day to him to whom the Father who judgeth no man hath committed all Judgment First then Judgment appertaines to God It is his in Criminall causes â— Vindicta mihi Vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord It is so in civill things too for God himself is proprietary of all Domini est terra et plenitudo ejus The earth is the Lords and all that is in and on the earth Your silver is mine and your gold is mine says the Prophet and the beasts on a Thousand hills are mine says David you are usuâ—â—ructuaries of them but I am proprietary No attribute of God is so often iterated in the Scriptures no state of God so often incultated as this Judge and Judgment no word concerning God so often repeated but it is brought to the height where in that place of the Psalm where we read God judgeth among the Gods the Latine Church ever read it Deus dijudicat Deâ—s God judgeth the Gods themselves for though God say of Judges and Magistrats Ego dixi dii estis I have said ye are Gods and if God say it who shall gainsay it yet he says too Moriemini sicut homines The greatest Gods upon earth shall die like men And if that be not humiliation enough there is more threatned in that which follows yee shall fall like one of the Princes for the fall of a Prince involves the ruine of many others too and it fills the world with horror for the present and ominous discourse for the future but the farthest of all is Deus dijudicat Deos even these Judges must come to Judgment and therefore that Psalme which begins so is concluded thus Surge Domine arise ô God and judge the earth If he have power to judge the earth he is God and even in God himselfe it is expressed as a kind
whole Trinity judges In the first judgement before all times which was Gods Judiciary separating of vessels of honour from vessels of dishonour in our Election and Reprobation In his second judgement which is in execution now which is Gods judiciary separating of servants from enemies in the seales and in the administration of the Christian Church and in the last judgement which shall be Gods Judiciary separating of sheep from goats to everlasting glory or condemnation in all these three judgements all the three Persons of the Trinity are Judges Consider God altogether and so in all outward works all the Trinity concurres because all are but one God but consider God in relation in distinct Persons and so the severall Persons do something in which the other Persons are not interessed The Sonne hath not a generation from himself so as he had from the Father and from the holy Ghost as a distinct person he had none at all the holy Ghost had a proceeding from the Father and Son but from the Sonne as a person who had his generation from another but not so from the Father Not to stray into clouds or perplexities in this contemplation God that is the whole Trinity judges still but so as the Sonne judgeth the Father judgeth not for that Judgment he hath committed That we may husband our hour well and reserve as much as we can for our two last considerations the Cui Quid to whom and that 's to the Sonne and what he hath committed and that 's all Iudgement we will not stand much upon this more needs not then this That God in his wisdome foreseeing that man for his weaknesse would not be able to settle himself upon God and his judgments as they are meerly heavenly and spirituall out of his abundant goodnesse hath established a judgement and ordained a Judge upon earth like himself and like our selves too That as no man hath seen God so no man should goe about to see his unsearchable decrees and judgements but rest in those sensible and visible meanes which he hath afforded that is Christ Jesus speaking in his Church and applying his blood unto us in the Sacraments to the worlds end God might have suffered Abraham to rest in the first generall promise Semen mulieris the Seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head but he would bring it neerer to a visible to a personall Covenant In semine tuo In thy Seed shall all nations be blessed he might well have let him rest in that appropriation of the promise to his race but he would proceed farther and seal it with a sensible seal in his flesh with Circumcision he might have let him rest in that ratification that a Messias should come by that way but he would continue it by a continuall succession of Prophets till that Messias should come and now that he is come and gone still God pursues the same way How should they believe except they hear and therefore God evermore supplies his Church with visible and sensible meanes and knowing the naturall inclination of man when he cannot have or cannot comprehend the originall and prototype to satisfie and refresh himself with a picture or representation So though God hath forbidden us that slippery and frivolous and dangerous use of graven Images yet hee hath afforded us his Sonne who is the image of the invisible God and so more proportionall unto us more apprehensible by us And so this committing is no more but that God in another form then that of God hath manifested his power of judging and this committing this manifestation is in Filio in his Son But in the entrance into the handling of this we aske onely this question Cui filio to which Sonne of God is this commission given Not that God hath more Sons then one but because that Sonne is his Sonne by a two-fold filiation by an eternall and inexpressible generation and by a temporary but miraculous incarnation in which of these rights is this commission derived upon him doth he judge as he is the Son of God or as he is the Son of man I am not ordinarily bold in determining points especially if they were fundamentall wherein I find the Fathers among themselves and the School in it selfe and the reverend Divines of the Reformation amongst themselves to differ But yet neither am I willing to raise doubts and leave the auditory unsatisfyed and unsetled we are not upon a Lecture but upon a Sermon and therefore we will not multiply variety of opinions summe up the Fathers upon one side in Saint Ambrose mouth and they will say with him Huic dedit ubique generundo non largiendo God gave his Sonne this commission then and when was that then then when he begot him and then he must have it by his eternall generation as the Son of God sum up the Fathers on the other side in Saint Augustines mouth and there they will say with him that it is so clear and so certain that whatsoever is said in the Scripture to be committed and given to Christ belongs to Christ as the Son of man and not as the Son of God as that th' other opinion cannot be maintained and at this distance we shall never bring them to meet but take in this rule Iudicium convenit ei ut homo causa ut Deus God hath given Christ this commission as man but Christ had not been capable of this commission if he had not been God too and so it is easily reconcil'd If we shall hold simply to the letter of the text Pater dedit then it will seem to have been committed to him in his eternall generation because that was a work of the Fathers onely and in that generation the holy Ghost had no part But since in this judgement which is now committed to him the holy Ghost hath a part for as we said before the Judgement is an act of the whole Trinity we must look for a commission from the whole Trinity and that is as he is man for tota Trinitas univit humanitatem The hypostaticall union of God and man in the person of Christ was a work of the whole Trinity Taking it then so setled that the capacity of this Judgment and if we may say so the future title to it was given to him as God by his essence in his eternall generation by which non vitae particeps sed vitae naturaliter est we cannot say that Christ hath life but that he is life for whatsoever the Father is he is excepting onely the name and relation of Father the capacity the ability is in him eternally before any imaginable any possible consideration of time But the power of the actuall execution of this Judgement which is given and is committed is in him as man because as the same Father says Ad heminem dicitur Quid habes quod non accepisti When Saint Past says What hast thou
him let us finde and lament all these numbers and all these weights of sin Here we are all born to a patrimony to an inheritance an inheritance a patrimony of sin and we are all good husbands and thrive too fast upon that stock upon the encrease of sin even to the treasuring up of sin and the wrath of God for sin How naked soever we came out of our mothers wombe otherwise thus we came all apparell'd apparell'd and invested in sin And we multiply this wardrobe with new habits habits of customary sins every day Every man hath an answer to that question of the Apostle What hast thou that thou hast not received from God Every man must say I have pride in my heart wantonnesse in mine eyes oppression in my hands and that I never receiv'd from God Our sins are our own and we have a covetousnesse of more a way to make other mens sins ours too by drawing them to a fellowship in our sins I must be beholden to the loyalty and honesty of my wife whether my children be mine own or no for he whose eye waiteth for the evening the adulterer may rob me of that propriety I must be beholden to the protection of the Law whether my goods shall be mine or no A potent adversary a corrupt Judge may rob me of that propriety I must be beholden to my Physician whether my health and strength shal be mine or no A garment negligently left off a disorderly meal may rob me of that propriâ—ty But without asking any man leave my sins will be mine own When the presumptuous men say Our lips are our own and our tongues are our own the Lord threatens to cut off those lips and those tongues But except we doe come to say Our sins are our own God will never cut up that root in us God will never blot out the memory in himself of those sins Nothing can make them none of ours but the avowing of them the confessing of them to be ours Onely in this way I am a holy lier and in this the God of truth will reward my lie for if I say my sins are mine own they are none of mine but by that confessing and appropriating of those sins to my selfe they are made the sins of him who hath suffered enough for all my blessed Lord and Saviour Christ Iesâ—s Therefore that servant of God S. August confesses those sins which he never did to be his sins and to have been forgiven him Peccata mihi dimissa a fateâ—r quae med sponte feci quae te duce non feci Those sins which I have done and those which but for thy grace I should have done are all my sins Alas I may die here and die under an everlasting condemnation of fornication with that woman that lives and dies a Virgin and be damn'd for a murderer of that man that out-lives me and for a robbery and oppression where no man is damnified nor any penny lost The sin that I have done the sin that I would have done is my sin We must not therefore transfer our sins upon any other Wee must not think to discharge our selves upon a Peccata Patris To come to say My father thriv'd well in this course why should not I proceed in it My father was of this Religion why should not I continue in it How often is it said in the Scriptures of evill Kings he did evill in the sight of the Lord and walk'd in via Patris in the way of his father father in the singular It is never said plurally In via Patrum in the way of his fathers Gods blessings in this world are express'd so in the plurall thou gavest this land patribus to their fathers says Solomon in the dedication of the Temple And thou brought'st Patres our Fathers out of Egypt And again Be with us Lord as thou wast with our Fathers So in Ezekiel where your Fathers dwelt you their children shall dwell too and your children and their childrens children for ever His blessings upon his Saints his holy ones in this world are expressed so plurally and so is the transmigration of his Saints out of this world also Thou shalt sleep cum patribus with thy fathers says God to Moses And David slept cum patribus with his fathers And Iacob had that care of himselfe as of that in which consisted or in which was testified the blessing of God I will lie cum patribus with my fathers and be buried in their burying place says Iacob to his son Ioseph Good ways and good ends are in the plurall and have many examples else they are not good but sins are in the singular He walk'd in the way of his father is in an ill way But carry our manners or carry our Religion high enough and we shall finde a good rule in our fathers Stand in the way says God in Ieremy and ask for the old way which is the good way We must put off veterem hominem but not antiqâ—â—m Wee may put off that Religion which we think old because it is a little elder then our selves and not rely upon that it was the Religion of my Father But Antiquissimum dieâ—um Him whose name is He that is and was and is for ever and so involves and enwraps in himself all the Fathers him we must put on Be that our issue with our adversaries at Rome By the Fathers the Fathers in the plurall when those fathers unanimely deliver any thing dogmatically for matter of faith we are content to be tried by the Fathers the Fathers in that plurall But by that 〈◊〉 Father who begers his children not upon the true mother the Church but upon the Court and so produces articles of faith according as State businesses and civill occasions invite him by that father we must refuse to be tried for to limit it in particular to my father we must say with Nehemiah Ege domus patris mei If I make my fathers house my Church my father my Bishop I and my fathers house have sinned says he and with Mordecai to Esther Thou and thy fathers house shall be destroyed They are not 〈◊〉 a patris I cannot excuse my sins upon the example of my father nor are they 〈◊〉 Tempâ—ris I cannot discharge my sins upon the Times and upon the present ill disposition that reigns in men now and doe ill because every body else does so To say there is a rot and therefore the sheep must perish Corruptions in Religion are crept in and work in every cornet and therefore Gods sheep simple souls must be content to admit the infection of this rot That there is a murrain and therefore cattell must die superstition practis'd in many places and therefore the strong servants of God must come to sacrifice their obedience to it or their bloud for it Then no such rot no such murrain no such corruption of times
to descend from heaven yet it did first ascend from the earth and retains still some such earthly parts as sheep cannot digest So howsoever these Revelations and Inspirations seem to fall upon us from heaven they arise from the earth from our selves from our own melancholy and pride or our too much homelinesse and familiarity in our accesses and conversation with God or a facility in beleeving or an often dreaming the same thing And with these Dews of Apparitions and Revelations did the Romane Church make our fathers drunk and giddy And against these does S. Augustine devoutly pray and praise God that he had delivered him from the curiosity of sipping these dews of hearkning after these apparitions and revelations But so ordinary were these apparitions then as that any son or nephew or friend could discern his fathers or uncles or companions soul ascending out of Purgatory into heaven and know them as distinctly as if they kept the same haire and beard and bodily lineaments as they had upon earth And as a ship which hath struck Sail will yet goe on with the winde it had before for a while so now when themselves are come to acknowledge That it was the unanime opinion of the Fathers that the souls of the dead did not appeare after death but that it was still the Devil howsoever sometimes that that he proposed were holy religious yet we see a great Author of theirs attribute so much to these apparitions and revelations that when he pretends to prove all controversies by the Fathers of the Church he every where intermingles that reverend Book of Brigids Revelations that they might also have some Mothers of the Church too which is not disproportionall in that Church if they have had a woman Pope to have Mothers of the Church too I speak not this as though God might not or did not manifest his will by women The great mystery of the Resurrection of Christ was revealed to women before men and to the sinfullest woman of company first But I speak of that bold injury done to the mysteries of the Christian Religion by pouring out that dew upon the grasse the Revelations of S. Brigid upon the controversies of Religion A book of so much blasphemy and impertinency and incredibility that if a Heathen were to be converted he would sooner be brought to beleeve Ovids Metamorphoses then Brigids Revelations to conduce to Religion And this is also another conformity between the two Babylons the Chaldean and the Italian Babylon that we could not receive our grasse pure but infected and dewed with these frivolous nay pernicious apparitions and Revelations But press we a little closer to the very steps metaphor of the holy Ghost who here lays the corrupting of the sheeps grasse in this That the shepheards had troden it down And this treading down will be pertinently considered two ways Tertullian in his Book De habitu muliebri notes two excesses in womens dressing One he cals Ornatum the other cultum One mundum muliebrem the other according to the liberty that he takes in making words Immundum muliebrem the first is a superfluous diligence in their dressing but the other an unnaturall addition to their complexion the first he pronounces to be always ad ambitionem for pride but the other ad prostitutionem for a worse for the worst purpose These two sorts of Excesses doe note these two kindes of treading down the grasse which we intend of which one is the mingling of too much humane ornament and secular learning in preaching in presenting the word of God which word is our grasse The other is of mingling humane Traditions as of things of equall value and obligation with the Commandements of God For the first humane ornament if in those pastures which are ordain'd for sheep you either plant rare and curious flowers delightfull onely to the eye or fragrant and odoriferous hearbs delightfull onely to the smell nay be they medicinall hearbs usefull and behovefull for the preservation and restitution of the health of man yet if these specious and glorious flowers and fragrant and medicinall hearbs be not proper nourishment for sheep this is a treading down of the grasse a pestering and a suppressing of that which appertained to them So if in your spirituall food our preaching of the Word you exact of us more secular ornament then may serve as Saint Augustine says Ad ancillationem to convey and usher the true word of life into your understandings and affections for both those must necessarily be wrought upon more then may serve ad vehiculum for a chariot for the word of God to enter and triumph in you this is a treading down of the grasse a filling of that ground which was ordained for sheep with things improper and impertinent to them If you furnish a Gallery with stuffe proper for a Gallery with Hangings and Chairs and Couches and Pictures it gives you all the conveniencies of a Gallery walks and prospect and ease but if you pester it with improper and impertinent furniture with Beds and Tables you lose the use and the name of a Gallery and you have made it a Wardrobe so if your curiosity extort more then convenient ornament in delivery of the word of God you may have a good Oration a good Panegyrique a good Encomiastique but not so good a Sermon It is true that Saint Paul applies sentences of secular Authors even in matters of greatest importance but then it is to persons that were accustomed to those authors and affected with them and not conversant not acquainted at all with the phrase and language of Scripture amongst us now almost every man God be blessed for it is so accustomed to the text of Scripture as that he is more affected with the name of David or Saint Paul then with any Seneca or Plutarch I am far from forbidding secular ornament in divine exercises especially in some Auditories acquainted with such learnings I have heard men preach against witty preaching and doe it with as much wit as they have and against learned preaching with as much learning as they could compasse If you should place that beast which makes the Bezoar stone in a pasture of pure but onely grasse it is likely that out of his naturall faculty he would petrifie the juyce of that grasse and make it a stone but not such a medicinall stone as he makes out of those herbes which he feeds upon Let all things concur in the name of God to the advancing of his purpose in his ordinance which is to make his will acceptable to you by his word onely avoid excesse in the manner of doing it Saint Augustines is an excellent rule when after in his book De Doctrina Christiana he had taught a use of all Arts in Divinity he allows them onely thus far ut cum ingenia his reddantur exercitatiora cavendum ne reddantur maligniora that when a man by
And then lastly by way of condoling and of instructing we shall make it appear to our weak brethren that our departing from Rome can be no example no justification of their departing from us Our branches then from whence we are to gather our fruit being thus many it is time to lay hold upon the first which is Manebant Though these sheep were thus ill fed yet they did stay Optimis ovibus pedes breves The best sheep have-shortest leggs Their commendation is not to make hast in straying away He that hasteth with his feet sinneth that is from the station in which God hath placed him Si innumera bona fecerimus If we have abounded in good works and done God never so good service Non minores Poenas dabimus quà m qui Christi corpus proscindebant si integritatem Ecclesiarum discerpserimus we are as guilty in the eies of God as they that crucifyed the Lord of life himselfe if we violate his spouse or rent the intirenesse of his Church Vir quidam sanctus dixit says the same father of another Chrysostome of Cyprian A certaine holy man hath ventured to say Quod audaciùs sapere videtur attamen dixit That which perchance may seem bodily sayd but yet he sayd it what was it This peccatum istud nec martyrio deleri That this sin of schisme of renting the unity of the Church cannot be expiated no not by Martyrdome it self When God had made but a hedge about Iob yet that hedge was such a â—ence as the Devill could not break in when God hath carryed Murum aeneum a wall of brasse nay Murum igneum a wall of fire about his Church wilt thou break out through that wall that brasse that fire Paradise was not walled nor hedged and there were serpents in Paradise too yet Adam offered not to goe out of Paradise till God drove him out and God saw that he would have come in againe if the Cherubims and the flaming sword had not been placed by God to hinder him Charme the Charmer never so wisely as David speaks he cannot utter a sweeter nor a more powerfull charme â—hen that Ego te baptizo I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost And Nos admittimus we receive this child into the congregation of Christs slock There is a sweet and a powerfull charm in the Ego te absolvo I absolve thee from all thy sins But this blessed charm I may heare from another if I stray into another Church But the Ego te baptizo I can heare but once and to depart from that Church in which I have received my baptism and in which I have made my Contracts and my stipulations with God and pledged and engaged my sureties there deserve a mature consideration for I may mistake the reasons upon which I goe and I may finde after that there are more true errours in the Church I goe to then there were imaginary in that that I left Truly I have been sorry to see some persons converted from the Roman Church to ours because I have known that onely temporall respects have moved them and they have lived after rather in a nullity or indifferency to either religion then in a true and established zeale Of which kinde I cannot forbeare to report to you so much of the story of a French gentleman who though he were of good parts and learned yet were not worthy to be mentioned in this place but that he soar'd so high as to write against the learnedst King that any age hath produc'd our incomparable King Iames. This man who was turned from the Reformed to the Roman religion being asked halfe in jest Sir which is the best religion you must needs know that have been of both answered Certainely the religion I left the reformed religion must needs be the best religion for when I changed I had this religion the Romans religion for it and three hundred Crowns a year to boot which was a pension given him upon his conversion Neither truely doth any thing more loosen a mans footing nor slacken his hold upon that Church in which he was baptized nor open him more to an undervaluation of all Churches then when he gives himselfe leave to thinke irreverently slightly negligently of the Sacraments as of things at best indifferent and many times impertinent I should thinke I had no bowels if they had not earn'd and melted when I heard a Lady whose child of five or sixe daies being ready to die every minute she being mov'd often that the child might be christened answered That if it were Gods will that the child should live to the Sabbath that it might be baptized in the Congregation she should be content otherwise Gods will be done upon it for God needs no Sacrament With what sorrow with what holy indignation did I heare the Sonne of my friend who brought me to that place to minister the Sacrament to him then upon his death-bed and almost at his last gaspe when my service was offered him in that kinde answer his Father Father I thanke God I have not lived so in the sight of my God as that I need a Sacrament I name a few of these because our times abound with such persons as undervalue not onely all rituall and ceremoniall assistances of devotion which the wisdome and the piety of the Church hath induced but even the Sacraments themselves of Christs owne immediate institution and are alwaies open to solicitations to passe to another Church upon their own surmises of errours in their own Whereas there belongs much consideration and a well grounded assurance of fundamentall errours in one Church and that those errours are repayred and no other as great as those admitted in the other Church before upon any collaterall pretences we abandon that Church in which God hath sealed us to himselfe in Baptisme Our Fathers stayd in Rome Manebant They stayd and Edebant they eat that grasse and they drunke that water which was troden and troubled Alasse what should they have eaten what should they have drunke should a man strangle himselse rather then take in an ill ayre Or forbear a good table because his stomach cannot digest every dish We doe not call money base money till the Allay exceed the pure metall and if it doe so yet it may be currant and serve to many offices Those that are skilfull in that art know how to sever the base from the pure the good parts of the religion from the bad and those that are not will not cast it away for all the corrupt mixture It is true they had been better to have stayd at home and served God in private then to have communicated in a superstitious service Domum vestram Christi Ecclesian deputamus I shall never doubt to call your House the Church of Christ. But this was not permitted to our Fathers to
and our North and South at another tyde and another gale First then we looke towards our East the fountaine of light and of life There this world beganne the Creation was in the east And there our next world beganne too There the gates of heaven opened to us and opened to us in the gates of death for our heaven is the death of our Saviour and there he lived and dyed there and there he looked into our west from the east from his Terasse from his Pinacle from his exaltation as himselfe calls it the Crosse. The light which arises to us in this east the knowledge which we receive in this first word of our text Faciamus Let us where God speaking of himselfe speakes in the Plurall is the manifestation of the Trinity the Trinity which is the first letter in his Alphabet that ever thinks to read his name in the book of life The first note in his Gammut that ever thinks to sing his part in the Quire of the Triumphant Church Let him him have done as much as all the Worthies and suffered as much as all Natures Martyrs the penurious Philosophers let him have known as much as they that pretend to know Omne scibile all that can be known nay and in-intelligibilia In-investigabilia as Turtullian speakes un-understandable things unrevealed decrees of God Let him have writ as much as Aristotle writ or as is written upon Aristotle which is multiplication enough yet he hath not learnt to spel that hath not learnt the Trinity not learnt to pronounce the first word that cannot bring three Persons into one God The subject of naturall philosophy are the foure elements which God made the Subject of supernaturall philosophy Divinity are the three elements which God is and if we may so speake which make God that is constitute God notifie God to us Father Sonne and holy Ghost The naturall man that hearkens to his owne heart and the law written there may produce Actions that are good good in the nature and matter and substance of the worke He may relieve the poore he may defend the oppressed But yet he is but as an open field and though he be not absolutely barren he bears but grasse The godly man he that hath taken in the knowledge of a great and a powerfull God and enclosed and hedged in himselfe with the feare of God may produce actions better then the meere naturall man because he referres his actions to the glory of his imagined God But yet this man though he be more fruitfull then the former more then a grassy field yet he is but a ploughed field and he bears but corne and corne God knowes choaked with weeds But that man who hath taken hold of God by those handles by which God hath delivered and manifested himselfe in the notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost he is no field but a garden a Garden of Gods planting a Paradise in which grow all things good to eate and good to see spirituall resection and spirituall recreation too and all things good to cure He hath his beeing and his diet and his physique there in the knowledge of the Trinity his beeing in the mercy of the Father his physique in the merits of the Sonne his diet his daily bread in the daily visitations of the holy Ghost God is not pleased not satisfied with our bare knowledge that there is a God For it is impossible to please God without faith and there is no such exercise of faith in the knowledge of a God but that reason and nature will bring a man to it When we professe God in the Creed by way of beleefe Credo in Deum I beleeve in God in the same article we professe him to be a Father too I beleeve in God the father Almighty And that notion the Father necessarily implies a second Person a Sonne And then we professe him to be maker of heaven and earth And in the Creation the holy Ghost the Spirit of God is expresly named So that we doe but exercise reason and nature in directing our selves upon God We exercise not faith and without faith it is impossible to please God till we come to that which is above nature till we apprehend a Trinity We know God we beleeve in the Trinity The Gentiles multiplyed Gods There were almost as many Gods as men that beleeved in them And I am got out of that thrust and out of that noise when I am come into the knowledge of one God But I am got above staires got in the Bedchamber when I am come to see the Trinity and to apprehend not onely that I am in the care of a great and a powerfull God but that there is a Father that made me a Sonne that Redeemed me a holy Ghost that applies this good purpose of the Father and Sonne upon me to me The root of all is God But it is not the way to receive fruits to dig to the root but to reach to the boughs I reach for my Creation to the Father for my Redemption to the Sonne for my sanctification to the holy Ghost and so I make the knowledge of God a Tree of life unto me and not otherwise Truly it is a sad Contemplation to see Christians scratch and wound teare one another with the ignominious invectives and uncharitable names of of Heretique and Schismatique about Ceremoniall and Problematicall and indeed but Criticall verball controversies and in the meane time the foundation of all the Trinity undermined by those numerous those multitudinous Anthills of Socinians that overflow some parts of the Christian world and multiply every where And therefore the Adversaries of the Reformation were wise in their generation when to supplant the credit of both those great assistants of the Reformation Luther and Calvin they impute to Calvin fundamentall error in the Divinity of the second Person of the Trinity the Sonne And they impute to Luther a detestation of the very word Trinity and an expunction thereof in all places of the Liturgy where the Church had received that word They knew well if that slander could prevaile against those persons nothing that they could say could prevaile upon any good Christians But though in our doctrine we keep up the Trinity aright yet God knowes in our practice we doe not I hope it cannot be said of any of us that he beleeves not the Trinity but who amongst us thinkes of the Trinity considers the Trinity Father and Sonne doe naturally imply and induce one another and therefore they fall oftner into our consideration But for the holy Ghost who feels him when he feels him Who takes knowledge of his working when he works Indeed our Fathers provided not well enough for the worship of the whole Trinity nor of the holy Ghost in particular in the endowments of the Church and Consecrations of Churches and possessions in their names What a spirituall dominion in the prayers and worship of
is excellently said by Tertullian the name and profession of a Christian is but a superficiall outside sprinckled upon my face in Baptisme or upon mine outward profession in actions if I have not in my heart a sense of the holy Ghost that he applies the mercies of the Father and the merits of the Sonne to my soule As Saint Paul said Whilest you are without Christ you are without God It is an Atheisme with Saint Paul to be no Christian. So whilest you are without the holy Ghost you are without Christ. It is Antichristian to deny or not to confesse the holy Ghost For as Christ is the manifestation of the Father so the holy Ghost is the application of the Sonne Therein onely are we Christians that in the profession of that name of Christ we professe all the three Persons In Christ is the whole Trinity because as the Father sent him so he sent the holy Ghost And that 's our specifique forme that 's our distinctive Character from Iew and Gentile the Trinity But then is this specifique forme this distinctive Character the notion of the Trinity conveied to us exhibited imprinted upon us in our Creation in this word this plurall word in the mouth of our one God Faciamus Let us us It is here and here first This is an intimation and the first intimation of the Trinity from the mouth of God in all the Bible It is true that though the same faith which is necessary to salvation now were always necessary and so in the old Testament they were bound to beleeve in Christ as well as in the new and consequently in the whole Trinity yet not so explicitly nor so particularly as now Christ calling upon God in the name of Father says I have manifested thy name unto the men thou gavest me out of the world They were men appropriated to God men exempt out of the world yet they had not a cleer manifestation of Father and Sonne the doctrine of the Trinity till Christ manifested it to them I have manifested thy name thy name of Father And therefore the Jewish Rabbins say that the Septuagint the first translators of the Bible did disguise some places of the Scriptures in their translation lest Ptolomee for whom they translated it should be scandalized w h those places that this textwasone of those places which say they though it be otherwise in the Copies of the Septuagint which we have now they translated Faciam and not Faciamus that God said here I will make in the singular and not Let us make man in the plurall lest that plurall word might have misled King Ptâ—lomee to thinke that the Iews had a plurall Religion and worshipped divers Gods So good an evidence doe they confesse this text to be for some kinde of plurality in the Godhead Here then God notified the Trinity and here first for though we accept an intimation of the Trinity in the first line of the Bible where Moses joynes a plurall name Elohim with a singular Verbe Bara and so in construction it is Creavit Dii Gods created heaven and earth yet besides that that is rather a mysterious collection then an evident conclusion of a plurality of Persons though we read that in that first verse before this in the twenty sixth yet Moses writ that which is in the beginning of this chapter more then two thousand years after God spake this that is in our text So long was Gods plurall before Moses his plurall Gods Faciamus before Moses Bara Elohim So that in this text beginnes our Catechisme Here we have and here first the saving knowledge of the Trinity For when God spake here to whom could God speake but to God Non cum rebus Creandis nox cum re nihili says Athanasius speaking of Gods first speaking when he said of the first creature Let there be light God spake not then to future things to things that were not When God spake first there was no creature at all to speake to When God spake of the making of man there were creatures But were there any creatures able to create or able to assist him in the creation of man Who Angels Some had thought so in Saint Basils time and to them Saint Basil says Súntne Illi God says let us make man to our Image And could he say so to Angels Are Angels and God all one Or is that that is like an Angell therefore like God It was Sua Ratio Suum verbum Sua sapientia says that Father God spake to his own word and wisdome to his own purpose and goodnesse And the Sonne is the word and wisdome of God and the holy Ghost is the goodnesse and the purpose of God that is the administration the dispensation of his purposes 'T is true that when God speakes this over againe in his Church as he does every day now this minute then God speakes it to Angels to the Angels of the Church to his Ministers he says Faciamus Let us us both together you and we make a man join mine Ordinance your preaching with my Spirit says God to us and so make man Preach the oppressor and preach the wanton and preach the calumniator into another nature Make the ravening Wolfe a Man that licentious Goate a man that insinuating Serpent a man by thy preaching To day if you will heare his voice heare us For here he calls upon us to joine with him for the making of man But for his first Faciamus which is in our text it is excellently said Dictum in senatu soliloquio It was spoken in a Senat and yet in a solitarinesse spoken in private and yet publiquely spoken spoken where there were divers and yet but one one God and three Persons If there were no more intended in this plurall expression us but as some have conceived that God spake here in the person of a Prince and Soveraigne Lord and therefore spake as Princes doe in the plurall We command and We forbid yet Saint Gregories caution would justly fall upon it Reverenter pensandum est it requires a reverend consideration if it be but so For God speakes so like a King in the plurall but seldome but five times in my account in all the Scriptures and in all five in cases of important consequence In this text first where God creates man whom he constitutes his Viceroy in the World here he speakes in his royall plurall And then in the next Chapter where he extends mans terme in his Vicegerency to the end of the world in providing man meanes of succession Faciamus Let us us make him a helper There he speakes in his royall plurall And then also in the third Chapter in declaring the hainousnesse of mans fault and arraigning him and all us in him God says Sicut unus ex nobis Man is become as one of us not content to be our Viceroy but our selves There 's his royall
plurall too And againe in that declaration of his Justice in the confusion of the builders of Babel Descendamus confundamus Let us doe it And then lastly in that great worke of mingling mercy with justice which if we may so speake is Gods master-peece when he says Quis ex nobis who will goe for us and publish this In these places and these onely and not all these neither if we take it exactly according to the originall for in the Second the making of Eve though the Vulgat have it in the plurall it is indeed but singular in the Hebrew God speakes as a King in his royall plurall still And when it is but so Reverenter pensandum est says that Father it behoves us to hearken reverently to him for Kings are Images of God such Images of God as have eares and can heare and hands and can strike But I would aske no more premeditation at your hands when you come to speake to God in this place then if you sued to speake with the King no more fear of God here then if you went to the King under the conscience of a guiltinesse towards him and a knowledge that he knew it And that 's your case here Sinners and manifest sinners For even midnight is noone in the sight of God and when your candles are put out his Sunne shines still Nec quid absconditum à calcre ejus says David there is nothing hid from the heate thereof not onely no sinne hid from the light thereof from the sight of God but not from the heate therof not from the wrath indignation of God If God speak plurally onely in the Majesty of a soveraign Prince still Reverenter pensandum that calls for reverence What reverence There are nationall differences in outward worships and reverences Some worship Princes and Parents and Masters in one some in another fashion Children kneele to aske blessing of Parents in England but where else Servants attend not with the same reverence upon Masters in other nations as with us Accesses to their Princes are not with the same difficulty nor the same solemnity in France as in Turkey But this rule goes thorough all nations that in that disposition and posture and action of the body which in that place is esteemed most humble and reverend God is to be worshipped Doe so then here God is your Father aske blessing upon your knees pray in that posture God is your King worship him with that worship which is highest in our use and estimation We have no Grandees that stand covered to the King where there are such though they stand covered in the Kings presence they doe not speake to him for matters of Grace they doe not sue to him so ancient Canons make differences of Persons in the presence of God where and how these and these shall dispose of themselves in the Church dignity and age and infirmity will induce differences But for prayer there is no difference one humiliation is required of all As when the King comes in here howsoever they sate diversly before all returne to one manner of expressing their acknowledgement of his presence So at the Oremus Let us pray let us all fall down and worship and kneel before the Lord our maker So he speakes in our text not onely as the Lord our King intimating his providence and administration but as the Lord our maker and then a maker so as that he made us in a councell Faciamus Let us and that that he speakes as in councell is another argument for reverence For what interest or freedome soever I have by his favour with any Counseller of State yet I should surely use another manner of behaviour towards him at the Councell Table then at his owne Table So does there belong another manner of consideration to this plurality in God to this meeting in Councell to this intimation of a Trinity then to those other actions in which God is presented to us singly as one God for so he is presented to the naturall man as well as to us And here enters the necessity of this knowledge Oportet denuo nasci without a second birth no salvation And no second birth without Baptisme no Baptisme but in the name of Father Sonne and holy Ghost It was the entertainment of God himselfe his delight his contemplation for those infinite millions of generations when he was without a world without Creatures to joy in one another in the Trinity as Gregory Nazianz a Poet as well as a Father as most of the Fathers were expresses it ille suae splendorem cernere formae Gaudebat It was the Fathers delight to looke upon himselfe in the Sonne Numenque suum triplicique parique Luce nitens and to see the whole Godhead in a threefold and an equall glory It was Gods owne delight and it must be the delight of every Christian upon particular occasions to carry his thoughts upon the severall persons of the Trinity If I have a bar of Iron that bar in that forme will not naile a doore If a Sow of Lead that Lead in that forme will not stop a leake If a wedge of Gold that wedge will not buy my bread The generall notion of a mighty God may lesse fit my particular purposes But I coine my gold into currant money when I apprehend God in the severall notions of the Trinity That if I have been a prodigall Sonne I have a Father in heaven and can goe to him and say Father I have sinned and be received by him That if I be a decayed Father and need the sustentation of mine own children there is a Sonne in heaven that will doe more for me then mine own of what good meanes or what good nature so ever they be can or will doe If I be dejected in spirit there is a holy Spirit in heaven which shall beare witnesse to my spirit that I am the child of God And if the ghosts of those sinners whom I made sinners haunt me after their deaths in returning to my memory and reproaching to my conscience the heavy judgements that I have brought upon them If after the death of mine own sinne when my appetite is dead to some particular sinne the memory and sinfull delight of passed sinnes the ghosts of those sinnes haunt me againe yet there is a holy Ghost in heaven that shall exorcise these and shall overshadow me the God of all Comfort and Consolation God is the God of the whole world in the generall notion as he is so God but he is my God most especially and most applyably as he receives me in the severall notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost This is our East here we see God God in all the persons consulting concurring to the making of us But then my West presents it selfe that is an occasion to humble me in the next words He makes but Man A man that is but Adam but Earth
of the Persons of the Trinity are Power to the Father Wisedome to the Sonne and Goodnesse to the holy Ghost And the three faculties of the Soule have the Images of these three The Understanding is the Image of the Father that is Power For no man can exercise power no man can governe well without understanding the natures and dispositions of them whom he governes And therefore in this consists the power which man hath over the creature that man understands the nature of every creature For so Adam did when he named every creature according to the nature thereof And by this advantage of our understanding them and comprehending them we master them and so obliviscuntur quod nata sunt says Saint Ambrose the Lion the Beare the Elephant have forgot what they were borne to Induuntur quod jubentur they invest and put on such a disposition and such a nature as we enjoine them and appoint to them Serviunt ut famuli as that Father pursues it elegantly and verberantur ut timidi they waite upon us as servants who if they understood us as well as we understand them might be our Masters and they receive correction from us as though they were afraid of us when if they understood us they would know that we were not able to stand in the teeth of the Lion in the horne of the Bull in the heels of the Horse And adjuvantur ut infirmi they counterfeit a weakenesse that they might be beholden to us for help and they are content to thanke us if we afford them any rest or any food who if they understood us as well as we doe them might teare our meate out of our throates nay teare out our throats for their meat So then in this first naturall faculty of the soule the Understanding stands the Image of the first Person the Father Power and in the second faculty which is the Will is the Image the Attribute of the second Person the Sonne which is Wisdome for wisdome is not so much in knowing in understanding as in electing in choosing in assenting No man needs goe out of himselfe nor beyond his owne legend and the history of his owne actions for examples of that that many times we know better and choose ill wayes Wisdome is in choosing in Assenting And then in the third faculty of the soule the Memory is the Image of the third person the holy Ghost that is Goodnesse For to remember to recollect our former understanding and our former assenting so far as to doe them to Crowne them with action that 's true goodnesse The office that Christ assignes to the holy Ghost and the goodnesse which he promises in his behalfe is this that he shall bring former things to our remembrance The wiseman places all goodnesse in this faculty the memory properly nothing can fall into the memory but that which is past and yet he says Whatsoever thou takest in hand remember the end and thou shalt never doe amisse The end cannot be yet come and yet we are bid to remember that Visus per omnes sensus recurrit says Saint Augustine As all senses are called fight in the Scriptures for there is Gustate Dominum and Audite and Palpate Taste the Lord and heare the Lord and feele the Lord and still the Videte is added taste and see the Lord so all goodnesse is in remembring all goodnesse which is the Image of the holy Ghost is in bringing our understanding and our assenting into action Certainly beloved if a man were like the King but in countenance and in proportion he himselfe would thinke somewhat better of himselfe and others would be the lesse apt to put scornes or injuries upon him then if he had a Vulgar and course aspect With those who have the Image of the Kings power the Magistrate the Image of his Wisdome the Counsell the Image of his Goodnesse the Clergy it should be so too There is a respect due to the Image of the King in all that have it Now in all these respects man the meer naturall man hath the Image of the King of Kings And therefore respect that Image in thy selfe and exalt thy naturall faculties Aemulate those men and be ashamed to be outgone by those men who had no light but nature Make thine understanding and thy will and thy memory though but naturall faculties serviceable to thy God and auxiliary and subsidiary for thy salvation For though they be not naturally instruments of grace yet naturally they are susceptible of grace and have so much in their nature as that by grace they may be made instruments of grace which no faculty in any creature but man can be And doe not thinke that because a naturall man cannot doe all therefore he hath nothing to doe for himselfe This then is the Image of God in man the first way in nature and most literally this is the intention of the text Man was this Image thus and the roome furnished with this Image was Paradise But there is a better roome then that Paradise for the second Image the Image of God in man by grace that is the Christian Church For though for the most part this text be understood De naturalibus of our naturall faculties yet Origen and not onely such Allegoricall Expositors but Saint Basill and Nyssen and Ambrose and others who are literall enough assigne this Image of God to consist in the gifts of Gods grace exhibited to us here in the Church A Christian then in that second capacity as a Christian and not onely as a man hath this Image of God of God first considered intirely And those expressions of this impression those representations of this Image of God in a Christian by grace which the Apostles have exhibited to us that we are the sonnes of God the feed of God the off-spring of God and partakers of the divine nature which are high and glorious exaltations are enlarged and exalted by Damascen to a farther height when he says Sicut Deus homo it a ego Deus As God is man so I am God says Damascen I taken in the whole mankinde for so Damascen takes it out of Nazianzen and he says Sicut verbum caro ita caro verbum as God was made man man may become God but especially I I as I am wrought upon by grace in Christ Jesus So a Christian is made the Image of God intirely To which expression Saint Cyrill also comes neare when he calls a Christian Deiformem hominem man in the forme of God which is a mysterious and a blessed metamorphosis and transfiguration that whereas it was the greatest trespasse of the greatest trespasser in the world the Devill to say Similis ero Altissimo I will be like the Highest it would be as great a trespasle in me not to be like the Highest not to conforme my selfe to God by the use of his grace in the Christian Church
many and very good grammarians amongst the Hebrews have thought and said that that name by which God notifies himself to the world in the very beginning of Genesis which is Elohim as it is a plurall word there so it hath no singular they say we cannot name God but plurally so sociable so communicable so extensive so derivative of himself is God and so manifold are the beames and the emanations that flow out from him It is a garden worthy of your walking in it Come into it but by the gate of nature The naturall man had much to do to conceive God a God that should be but one God and therefore scattered his thoughts upon a multiplicity of Gods and he found it as he thought reasonable to think that there should be a God of Iustice a God of Wisedome a God of Power and so made the severall Attributes of God severall Gods and thought that one God might have enough to do with the matters of Iustice another with the causes that belonged to power and so also with the courts of Wisedome the naturall man as he cannot conceive a vacuity that any thing should be empty so he cannot conceive that any one thing though that be a God should fill all things and therefore strays upon a pluralty of Gods upon many Gods though in truth as Athanasius expresses it ex multitudine numinum nullitas numinum he that constitutes many Gods destroys all God for no God can be God if he be not all-sufficient yet naturally I mean in such nature as our nature is a man does not easily conceive God to be alone to be but one he thinks there should be company in the Godhead Bring it farther then so A man that lies in the dregs of obscured and vitiated nature does not easily discern unicum Deum a God that should be alone a God that should be but one God Reason rectified rectified by the word of God can discern this this one God But when by that means of the Scripture he does apprehend Deum unicum one God does he finde that God alone are there not three Persons though there be but one God 'T is true the RomaÌ„s mis-took infinitely in making 300 Iupiters Varro mis-took infinitely in making Deos terrestres and Deos câ—lesâ—es sub-lunary and super-lunary heavenly and earthly Gods and Deus marinos and fluviatiles Sea Gods and River Gods salt and fresh-water Gods and Deos mares and faeminas he Gods and she Gods and that he might be sure to take in all Deos certos incertos Gods which they were sure were Gods Gods w ch might be Gods for any thing they knew to the contrary There is but one God but yet was that one God ever alone There were more generations infinitely infinite before the world was made then there have been minutes since it was made all that while there were no creasures but yet was God alone any one minute of al this was there not alwais a Father and a Son a holy Ghost And had not they always an acquiescence in one another an exercise of Affection as we may so say a love a delight and a complacency towards one another So as that the Father could not be without the Son and the holy Ghost so as neither Sonne nor holy Ghost could be without the Father nor without one another God was from all eternity collected into one God yet from all eternity he derived himselfe into three persons God could not be so alone but that there have been three persons as long as there hath been one God Had God company enough of himselfe was he satisfied in the three Persons We see he proceeded further he came to a Creation And as soon as he had made light which was his first Creature he took a pleasure in it he said it was good he was glad of it glad of the Sea glad of the Earth glad of the Sunne and Moone and Starres and he said of every one It is good But when he had made All peopled the whole world brought all creatures together then he was very glad and then he said not onely that it was good but that it was very good God was so far from being alone as that he found not the fulnesse of being well till all was made till all Creatures met together in an Host as Moses calls it then the good was extended into very good Did God satisfie himselfe with this visible and discernible world with all on earth and all between that and him were those foure Monarchies the foure Elements and all the subjects of those foure Monarchies if all the foure Elements have Creatures company enough for God was that Heptarchie the seven kingdomes of the seven Planets conversation enough for him Let every Starre in the firmament be so some take them to be a severall world was all this enough we see God drew persons nearer to him then Sunne or Moon or Starres or any thing which is visible and discernible to us he created Angels How many how great Arithmetique lacks numbers to to expresse them proportion lacks Dimensions to figure them so far was God from being alone And yet God had not shed himselfe far enough he had the Leviathan the Whale in the Sea and Behemoth and the Elephant upon the land and all these great heavenly bodies in the way and Angels in their infinite numbers and manifold offices in heaven But because Angels could not propagate nor make more Angels he enlarged his love in making man that so he might enjoy all natures at once and have the nature of Angels and the nature of earthly Creatures in one Person God would not be without man nor he would not come single not alone to the making of man but it is Faciamas hominem Let us us make man God in his whole counsail in his whole Colledge in his whole society in the whole Trinity makes man in whom the whole nature of all the world should meet And still our large and our Communicable God affected this association so as that having three Persons in himselfe and having Creatures of divers natures and having collected all natures in man who consisted of a spirituall nature as well as a bodily he would have one liker himselfe then man was And therefore he made Christ God and Man in one person Creature and Creator together One greater then the Seraphim and yet lesse then a worme Soveraigne to all nature and yet subject to naturall infirmities Lord of life life it selfe and yet prisoner to Death Before and beyond all measures of Time Born at so many moneths yet Circumcised at so many days Crucified at so many years Rose againe at so many Houres How sure did God make himselfe of a companion in Christ who united himselfe in his godhead so inseparably to him as that that godhead left not that body then when it lay dead in the grave but
conscience and pinching the bowells by denouncing of Gods Judgements these beare witnesse of the light when otherwise men would sleep it out and so propter non intelligentes for those that lye in the suddes of nature and cannot or of negligence and will not come to heare sol lucernas this light requires testimony These testimonies Gods ordinances may have wakened a man yet he may winke and covet darknesse and grow weary of instruction and angry at increpation And as the eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight so the eare of this fastidious and impatient man longeth for the end of the Sermon or the end of that point in the Sermon which is a thorne to his conscience But as if a man wink in a cleare day he shall for all that discerne light thorough his eylids but not light enough to keep him from stumbling so the most perverse man that is either in faith or manners that winkes against the light of nature or light of the law or light of grace exhibited in the Christian Church the most determined Atheist that is discernes through all his stubbornnesse though not light enough to rectifie him to save him yet enough to condemne him though not enough to enable him to reade his owne name in the book of life yet so much as makes him afraid to read his own story by and to make up his owne Audit and account with God And doth not this light to this man need testimony That as he does see it is a light so he might see that there is warmth and nourishment in this light and so as well see the way to God by that light as to see by it that there is a God and this he may if he doe not sleep nor winke that is not forbeare comming hither nor resist the grace of God always offred here when he is here Propter incredulos for their sakes who though they doe heare heare not to beleeve sol lucernas this light requires testimony and it does so too propter infirmos for their sakes who though they doe heare and beleeue yet doe not Practise If he neither sleep nor wink neither forbeare nor resist yet how often may you surprise and deprehend a man whom you thinke directly to look upon such an object yet if you aske him the quality or colour of it he will tell you he saw it not That man sees as little with staring as the other with winking His eye hath seen but it hath returned nothing to the common sense We may pore upon books stare upon preachers yet if we reflect nothing nothing upon our conversation we shall still remaine under the increpation and malediction of Saint Paul out of Esay Seeing yee shall see and shall not perceive seeing and hearing shall but aggravate our condemnation and it shall be easier at the day of Judgement for the deaf and the blinde that never saw Sacrament never heard Sermon then for us who have frequented both propter infirmos for their sakes whose strength though it serve to bring them hither and to beleeve here doth not serve them to proceed to practise sol lucernas this light requires testimony Yet if we be neither dead nor asleep nor winke nor looke negligently but doe come to some degrees of holinesse in practise for a time yet if at any time we put our selves in such a position and distance from this light as that we suffer dark thick bodies to interpose and eclipse it that is sadnesse and dejection of spirit for worldly losses nay if we admit inordinate sadnesse for sinne it selfe to eclipse this light of comfort from us or if we suffer such other lights as by the corrupt estimation of the world have a greater splendour to come in As the light of Knowledge and Learning the light of Honour and Glory of popular Applause and Acclamation so that this light which we speake of the light of former Grace be darkned by the accesse of other lights worldly lights then also you shall finde that you need more and more Testimony of this light God is light in the Creature in nature yet the naturall Man stumbles and falls and lies in that ignorance Christ bears witnesse of this light in establishing a Chrishian Church yet many Christians fall into Idolatry and Superstition and lie and die in it The Holy Ghost hath born further witnesse of this light and if we may take so low a Metaphore in so high a Mystery hath snuffed this candle mended this light in the Reformation of Religion and yet there is a damp or a cloud of uncharitablenesse of neglecting of defaming one another we deprave even the fiery the claven tongues of the Holy Ghost Our tongues are fiery onely to the consuming of another and they are cloven onely in speaking things contrary to one another So that still there need more witnesses more testimonies of this light God the Father is Pater Luminum the Father of all Lights God the Sonne is Lumen de lumine Light of light of the Father God the Holy Ghost is Lumen de luminibus Light of lights proceeding both from the Father and the Sonne and this light the Holy Ghost kindles more lights in the Church and drops a coale from the Altar upon every lamp he lets fall beams of his Spirit upon every man that comes in the name of God into this place and he sends you one man to day which beareth witnesse of this light ad ignaros that bends his preaching to the convincing of the naturall man the ignorant soul and works upon him And another another day that bears witnesse ad incredulos that fixeth the promises of the Gospell and the merits of Christ Jesus upon that startling and timorous soul upon that jealous and suspicious soul that cannot beleeve that those promises or those merits appertain to him and so bends all the power of his Sermon to the binding up of such broken hearts and faint beleevers He sendeth another to bear witnesse ad infirmos to them who though they have shaked off their sicknesse yet are too weake to walke to them who though they doe beleeve are intercepted by tentations from preaching and his Sermon reduces them from their ill manners who thinke it enough to come to hear to beleeve And then he sendeth another ad Relapsos to bear witnesse of this light to them who have relapsed into former sinnes that the merits of Christ are inexhaustible and the mercies of God in him indefatigable As God cannot be deceived with a false repentance so he cannot resist a true nor be weary of multiplying his mercies in that case And therefore thinke not that thou hast heard witnesses enow of this light Sermons enow if thou have heard all the points preached upon which concerne thy salvation But because new Clouds of Ignorance of Incredulitie of Infirmitie of Relapsing rise every day and call this light in question
by a generall forbearance on all sides rather then victory by wrangling and uncharitablenesse And let our right hand forget her cunning let us never set pen to paper to write Let our tongue cleave to the roofe of our mouth let us never open our mouth to speake of those things in which Silence was an Act of Discretion and Charity before but now is also an Act of Obedience and of Allegiance and Loyaltie But that which David said to the Lord Psalme 65. 1. Let us also accommodate to the Lords anointed Tibi laus silentium our best sacrifice to both is to be silent in those things So then this is Concisio corporis that Concision of the body which you are to beware in Doctrinall things first non solvere Iesum not to dissolve not to break Jesus in pieces not to depart in any respect with any fundamentall Article of faith for that is a skin that covers the whole body an obligation that lies upon the whole Church and then for that particular Church in which you have your station first to conform your self to all that in which she had evidently declared herself and then not to impute to her not to call such articles hers as she never avowd And our next consideration is Concisio vestis the tearing of the garment matter of discipline and government To a Circumcision of the garment that is to a paâ—ing and taking away such Ceremonies as were superstitious or superfluous of an ill use or of no use our Church came in the beginning of the Reformation To a CircuÌ„cision we came but those Churches that came to a Concision of the garment to an absolute taking away of all ceremonies neither provided so safely for the Church it self in the substance thereof nor for the exaltation of Devotion in the Church Divide the law of the Iews into 2 halfs and the Ceremoniall will be the greater we cannot cal the Morall law the Iews law that was ours as wel as their peculiar to none but of that law w ch is peculiar to the Jews judicial Ceremonial the Ceremonial is far the greater part So great a care had God of those thing which though they be not of the revenue of Religion yet are of the subsidy of Religion and though they be not the soule of the Church yet are they those Spirits that unite soule and body together H's man did but shave the beards of Davids servants he did not cut off their heads He did not cut their clothes so as that he stripped them naked Yet for that that he did says that story he stanke in Davids sight which is a phrase of high indignation in that language and so much as that it cost him forty thousand of his horsemen in one battell And therefore as this Apostle enters this Caveat in another place If yee bite one another cavete take heed yee be not consumed of one another so cavete take heed of this concision of the garment lest if the garment be torne off the body wither and perish A shadow is nothing yet if the rising or falling Sunne shine out and there be no shadow I will pronounce there is no body in that place neither Ceremonies are nothing but where there are no Ceremonies order and uniformity and obedience and at last and quickely Religion it selfe will vanish And therefore videte concisionem beware of tearing the body or of tearing the garment which will induce the other and both will induce the third concisionem spiritus the tearing of thine owne spirit from that rest which it should receive in God for when thou hast lost thy hold of all those handles which God reaches out to thee in the Ministery of his Church and that thou hast no means to apply the promises of God in Christ to thy soule which are onely applied by Gods Ordinances in his Church when anything falls upon thee that overcomes thy morall constancy which morall constancy God knowes is soon spent if we have lost our recourse to God thou wilt soon sinke into an irrecoverable desperation which is the fearfullest concision of all and videte beware of this concision When God hath made himselfe one body with me by his assuming this nature and made me one spirit with himselfe and that by so high a way as making me partaker of the divine nature so that now in Christ Iesus he and I are one this were solutio Iesus a tearing in peeces a dissolving of Jesus in the worst kinde that could be imagined if I should teare my selfe from Jesus or by any jealousie or suspicion of his mercy or any horror in my own sinnes come to thinke my selfe to be none of his none of him Who ever comes into a Church to denounce an excommunication against himselfe And shall any sad soule come hither to gather arguments from our preaching to excommunicate it selfe or to pronounce an impossibility upon her owne salvation God did a new thing Says Moses a strange thing a thing never done before when the earth opened her mouth and Dathan and Abiram went downe quicke into the pit Wilt thou doe a stranger thing then that To teare open the jawes of Earth and Hell and cast thy self actually and really into it out of mis-imagination that God hath cast thee into it before Wilt thou force God to second thy irreligious melancholy and to condemne thee at last because thou hadst precondemned thy selfe and renounced his mercy Wilt thou say with Cain My sinne is greater then can be pardoned This is Concisio potestatis a cutting off the power of God and Treason against the Father whose Attribute is Power Wilt thou say God never meant to save me this is Concisio Sapientiae a cutting off the Wisdome of God to thinke that God intended himselfe glory in a kingdome and would not have that kingdome peopled and this is Treason against the Son whose Attribute is wisdoms Wilt thou say I shall never finde comfort in Praying in Preaching in Receiving This is Concisio consolationis the cutting off consolation and treason against the holy Ghost whose office is comfort No man violates the Power of the Father the Wisedome of the Sonne the Goodnesse of the holy Ghost so much as he who thinkes himselfe out of their reach or the latitude of their working Rachel wept for her children and would not be comforted but why Because they were not If her children had been but gone for a time from her or but sicke with her Rachel would have been comforted but they were not Is that thy case Is not thy soule a soule still It may have gone from thee in sins of inconsideration it may be sicke within thee in sins of habit and custome but is not thy soul a soul still And hath God made any species larger then himself is there more soul then there is God more sin then mercy Truly Origen was more excusable more pardonable if he
properly Protestant And though the Injunctions of our Church declare the sense of those times concerning Images yet they are wisely and godly conceived for the second is That they shall not extoll Images which is not that they shall not set them up but as it followeth They shall declare the abuse thereof And when in the 23 Injunction it is said That they shall utterly extinct and destroy amongst other things pictures yet it is limited to such things and such pictures as are monuments of feigned miracles and that Injuction reaches as well to pictures in private houses as in Churches and forbids nothing in the Church that might be retained in the house For those pernicious Errors which the Romane Church hath multiplied in this point not onely to make Images of men which never were but to make those Images of men very men to make their Images speak and move and weep and bleed to make Images of God who was never seen and to make those Images of God very gods to make their Images doe daily miracles to transferre the honour due to God to the Image and then to encumber themselves with such ridiculous riddles and scornfull distinctions as they doe for justifying unjustifiable unexcusable uncolourable enormities Va Idololatris woe to such advancers of Images as would throw down Christ rather then his Image But Vae Iconeclastis too woe to such peremptory abhorrers of Pictures and to such uncharitable condemners of all those who admit any use of them as had rather throw down a Church then let a Picture stand Laying hold upon S. Hieromes exposition that fals within the Vae the Commination of this Text to be without those Sacrifices those Ephods those Images as they are outward helps of devotion And laying hold not upon S. Hierome but upon Christ himselfe who is the God of love and peace and unity yet fals under a heavy and insupportable Vae to violate the peace of the Church for things which concern it not fundamentally Problematicall things are our silver but fundamentall our gold problematicall out sweat but fundamentall our blood If our Adversaries would be bought in with our silver with our sweat we should not be difficult in meeting them halfe way in things in their nature indifferent But if we must pay our Gold our Blood our fundamentall points of Religion for their friendship A Fortune a Liberty a Wife a Childe a Father a Friend a Master a Neighbour a Benefactor a Kingdome a Church a World is not worth a dramme of this Gold a drop of this Blood Neither will that man who is truly rooted in this foundation redeeme an Empoverishing an Emprisoning a Dis-inheriting a Confining an Excommunicating a Deposing with a dramme of this Gold with a drop of this Blood the fundamentall Articles of our Religion Blessed be that God who as he is without change or colour of change hath kept us without change or colour of change in all our foundations And he in his time bring our Adversaries to such a moderation as becomes them who doe truly desire that the Church may bee truly Catholique one stock in one fold under one Shepherd though not all of one colour of one practise in all outward and disciplinarian points Amen SERMON XLII A Sermon Preached in Saint Pauls in the Evening November 23. 1628. PROV 14. 31. He that oppresseth the poore reprocheth his Maker but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poore Part of the first Lesson for that Evening Prayer THese are such words as if we were to consider the words onely might make a Grammar Lecture and a Logick Lecture and a Rhetorick and Ethick a Philosophy Lecture too And of these foure Elements might a better Sermon then you are like to heare now be well made Indeed they are words of a large of an extensive comprehension And because all the words of the Word of God are in a great measure so that invites me to stop a little as upon a short first part before the rest or as upon a long entrie into the rest to consider not onely the powerfulnesse of the matter but the sweetnesse and elegancy of the words of the Word of God in generall before I descend to the particular words of this Text He that oppresseth the poore c. We may justly accommodate those words of Moses to God the Father What God is there in Heaven or in Earth that can doe according to thy workes And those words of Ieremie to God the Sonne Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow And those to the Holy Ghost which are in Esay Loquimini ad Cor speake to the heart speake comfortably to my People And those of Saint Iohn too A voyce of Thunder and after A voyce of seaven Thunders talking with me for who can doe like the Father who can suffer like the Sonne who can speake like the Holy Ghost Eloquia Domini eloquia casta saith David The words of the Lord are chaste words sincere pure words no drosse no profanenesse no such allay mingled with them for as it followeth there They are as silver tried and purified seaven times in the fire They are as that silver that is so tried and they are as that fire that trieth it It is Castum a Pure Word in it self and then it is powerfull upon the Hearer too Ignitum Eloquium tuum vehementer saith he Thy word hath the vehement operation of fire and therefore thy servant loveth it well as it followeth there Therefore because it pierces But therefore especially because it carrieth a sweetnesse with it For the sting of the Serpent pierces and the toothe of the Viper pierces but they carry venenosam salivam a venimous and mischievous liquour with them But Dulcia faucibus super Mel Thy words are sweeter to my mouth then Hony then Hony it selfe For verba composita saith Solomon chosen words studied premeditated words pleasing words so we translate it are as a Hony-combe Now in the Hony combe the Hony is collected and gathered and dispensed and distributed from the Hony-combe And of this Hony-combe is wax wax apt for sealing derived too The distribution of this Hony to the Congregation The sealing of this Hony to the Conscience is in the outward Ordinance of God and in the labour of the Minister and his conscionable fitting of himselfe for so great a service But the Hony-Combe is not the Hony The gifts of the man is not the Holy Ghost Iacob laid this blessing upon his sonne Naphtali Dabit Eloquia pulchritudinis That he should be a well-spoken and a perswasive man For of a defect in this kinde Moses complained and so did Esay and Ieremie did so too when they were to be imployed in Gods service Moses that he was of uncircumcised Esay that he was of unclean lips and Ieremie that he was a Childe and could not speak and therefore this was a Blessing upon
had something to work upon But God in the Creation had nothing at all He called us when we were not as though we had been Now here is this world we make our selves that is we make one another Kings make Iudges and Iudges make Officers Bishops make Parsons and Parsons make Curats But when wee consider our Creation It is he that hath made us and not we our selves we did not onely not doe any thing but we could not doe so much as wish any thing to be done towards our Creation till wee were created In the Application of that great worke The Redemption of mankinde that is in the conversion of a sinner and the first act of that conversion though the grace of God work all yet there is a faculty in man a will in man which is in no creature but man for that grace of God to worke upon But in the Creation there was nothing at all I honour my Physician upon the reasons that the Wise man assignes because he assists my health and my well-beeing But I honour not my Physician with the same honour as my Father who gave me my very Beeing I honour my God in all those notions in which he hath vouchsafed to manifest himselfe to me Every particular blessing of his is a Remembrancer but my Creation is a holy wonder and a mysterious amazement And therefore as David the Father wraps up all stubborn ignorance of God in that The fool hath said in his heart there is no God so Solomon the Son wraps up all knowledge of God in that Remember thy Creator still contemplate God in that notion as he made thee of nothing for upon that all his other additions depend And when thou comest to any post-Creations any after-makings in this world to be made rich made wise made great Praise thou the Lord blesse him and magnifie him for ever for those Additions and blesse him for having made thee capable of those Additions by something conferred upon thee before That he gave thee a patrimony from thy parents and thine industry working upon that made thee rich That he raised thee to Riches and the Eye of the State looking upon that made thee Honourable But still return to thy first making thy Creation as thou wast made of nothing nothing so low as that not sin it self not sin against the holy Ghost himselfe can cast thee so low again nothing can make thee nothing nothing that thou canst doe here nothing that thou canst suffer hereafter can reduce thee to nothing And in this notion this supreme and Majesticall notion does this oppressor of the poor reproach God He reproaches the Maker But then whose Maker for that is also another branch another Disquisition Here we accept willingly and entertain usefully their doubt that will not resolve whether our Gnoshehu in the Text be Factorē Ejus or Factorē Suum whether this oppressor of the poor be said here to reproach his Maker that is made poor or his own Maker Let them enjoy their doubt Be it either Be it both First let it be the poor Mans Maker And then does this oppressor consider that it is God that hath made that poor man or that hath made that man poor and will he oppresse him then If a man of those times had heard a song of Nero's making had been told that it was his as that Emperour delighted in compositions of that kind he would not he durst not have said that it was a harsh an untunable song If a man saw a Clock or a Picture of his Princes making as some Princes have delighted themselves with such manufactures hee would not he durst not say it was a disorderly Clock or a disproportioned picture Wise Fathers have foolish children and beautifull deformed yet we doe not oppresse nor despise those children if we loved their parents nor will we any poor man if we truly love that God that made him poor And if his poverty be not of Gods making but of the Devils induced by his riot and wastfulnesse howsoever the poverty may be the Devils still the Man is of Gods making Probris afficit factorem ejus He reproaches Him that made that man poore and Probris afficit factorem suum Hee reproaches that God who made him rich his owne Maker Now doth he consider that the Devill hath super-induced a half-lycantropy upon him The Devill hath made him half a wolfe so much a wolfe as that he would tear all that fall into his power And half a spider so much a spider as that hee would entangle all that come near him And half a Viper so much a Viper as that he would envenome all that any way provoke him Does hee consider that the Devill hath made him half a wolfe halfe a spider half a viper and doth hee not consider that that God that is his Maker could have made him a whole Wolfe a whole Spider a whole Viper and left him in that rank of ignoble and contemptible and mischievous creatures Does he not consider that that God that made him richer then others can make him a prey to others raise up enemies that shall bring him to confusion though he had no other crimes Therefore because he is so rich God can make his very riches the occasion of his ruine here and the occasion of his everlasting ruine hereafter by making those riches snares and occasions of sin God who hath made him could have left him unmade or made him what he would and he reproaches God as though God could have done nothing lesse for him then he hath done nor could not undone him now But before we depart from this branch consider we wherein this offender this oppressor sins so very hainously as to deserve so high an increpation as to be said to Reproach and to Reproach God and God in that supream Notion A Maker His Maker and his own Maker If his fault be but neglecting or oppressing a poor man why should it deserve all this In all these respects First The poor are immediately in Gods protection Rich and poore are in Gods administration in his government in his providence But the poor are immediately in his protection Tibi derelictus est pauper says David The poor commits himself unto thee They are Orphans Wards delivered over to his tuition to his protection Princes have a care of all their Allies but a more especiall care of those that are in their protection And the poor are such And therefore God more sensible in their behalfe And so hee that oppresses the poor Reproaches God God in his Orphans Again rich and poor are Images Pictures of God but as Clement of Alexandria says wittily and strongly The poor is Nuda Imago a naked picture of God a picture without any drapery any clothes about it And it is much a harder thing there is much more art showed in making a naked picture then in
all the rich attire that can be put upon it And howsoever the rich man that is invested in Power and Greatnesse may be a better picture of God of God considered in himself who is all Greatnes all Power yet of God considered in Christ which is the contemplation that concerns us most the poor man is the better picture and most resembles Christ who liv'd in continual poverty And so he that oppresses the poor reproaches God God in his Orphans God in his Picture Saint Augustine carries this consideration farther then that the poore is more immediately Gods Orphan and more perfectly his picture That he is more properly a member of himself of his body For contemplating that head which was not so much crowned as hedged with thorns that head of which he whose it was sayes The Sonne of man hath not where to lay his head Saint Augustine sayes Ecce caput Panperum Behold that head to which the poore make up the body Ob eam tantùm causam venerabiles sayes that Father Therefore venerable therefore honourable because they are members sutable to that head And so all that place where the Apostle sayes That upon those members of the body which we think to be lesse honourable we bestow most honour that Father applies to the poore that therefore most respect and honour should be given to them because the poore are more sutable members to their head Christ Jesus then the rich are And so also he that oppresses the poore reproaches God God in his Orphans God in his Image God in the Members of his owne body Saint Chrysostome carries this consideration farther then this of Saint Augustine That whereas every creature hath filiationem vestigii that because God hath imparted a being an essence from himselfe who is the roote and the fountaine of all essence and all being therefore every creature hath a filiation from God and is the Sonne of God so as we read in Iob God is the father of the raine and whereas every man hath filiationem imaginis as well Pagan as Christian hath the Image of God imprinted in his soule and so hath a filiation from God and is the Sonne of God as he is made in his likenesse and whereas every Christian hath filiationem Pacti by being taken into the Covenant made by God with the Elect and with their seed he hath a filiation from God and is the Sonne of God as he is incorporated into his Sonne Christ Jesus by the Seals of the Christian Church besides these filiations of being in all creatures of the Image in all men of the Covenant in all Christians The poore sayes that Father are not onely filii but Haeredes and Primogeniti Sonnes and eldest Sonnes Sonnes and Sonnes and Heires And to that purpose he makes use of those words in St. Iames Hearken my beloved brethren hath not God chosen the poore of this world rich in faith and Heirs of that Kingdome Heirs for Ipsorum est sayes Christ himself Theirs is the Kingdome of heaven And upon those words of Christ Saint Chrysostome comments thus Divites ejus regnitantum habent quantum à pauperibus eleemosynis coemerunt The rich have no more of that Kingdome of heaven then they have purchased of the poore by their almes and other erogations to pious uses And so he that oppresses the poore reproaches God God in his Orphans God in his Image God in the Members of his own Body God in his Sonnes and Heires of his Kingdome But then Christ himself carries his consideration beyond all these resemblances and conformities not to a proximity onely but to an identity The poore are He. In as much as you did it unto these you did it unto me and In as much as you did it not unto these you did it not unto me And after his ascension and establishing in glory still he avowed them not onely to be his but to be He Saul Saul why persecutest thou me The poore are He He is the poore And so he that oppresseth the poore reproaches God God in his Orphans God in his Image God in the Members of his owne Body God in the Heirs of his Kingdome God in himself in his own person And so we have done with all those peeces which constitute our first part the hainousnesse of the fault in the elegancy of the words chosen by the holy Ghost in which you have seen The fault it self Oppression and the qualification thereof by the marks Violence Deceit and Scorne And then the specification of the persons The poore as he is the Ebâ—onite the very vocall begger and as the word is Dalal a decayed an aged a sickly man And in that branch you have also had that Probleme Whether aemulation of higher or oppression of lower be the greater sinne And then the aggravation of this sinne in those weights That it is a reproach a reproach of God of God as The Maker as His Maker whom he oppresses and as his own Maker And lastly in what respects especially this increpation is laid upon him And farther we have no occasion to carry that first part the fault In passing from that first part the fault to the duty and the celebration thereof in those words of choice elegancy He that hath mercy on the poore honours God though we be to looke upon the persons the poore and the act shewing mercy to the poore and the benefit honouring of God yet of the persons who are still the same poore poore made poore by God rather then by themselves more needs not be said then hath been said already And of the act showing of mercy to the poore onely thus much more needs be said that the word in which the holy Ghost expresses this act here is the very same word in which he expresses the free mercy of God himself Miserebor cujus miserebor I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy So that God hath made the charitable man partaker with himself in his own greatest attribute his power of showing mercy And then left any man should thinke that he had no interest in this great dignity that God had given him no meanes to partake of this attribute of God this power of shewing mercy to the poor because he had left him poor too and given him nothing to give the same word which the holy Ghost uses in this text and in Exodus for mercy which is Canan he uses in other places particularly in the dedication of the Temple for prayer So that he who being destitute of other meanes to relieve the poore prayes for the poore is thereby made partaker of this great attribute of Gods this power of showing mercy He hath showed mercy to the poore if having nothing to give he have given mild and confortable words and have prayed to his abundant and inexhaustible God to relieve that poor
dead without children as Tertullian expresses it in his particular elegancy Illiberis that is content to be his brother in that sense in that capacity to claime no children no spirituall children of his own begetting not to attribute to himself that holy generation of the Saints of God as though his learning or his wit or his labour had saved them but to content himselfe to have been the foster father and to have nursed those children whom the Spirit of God by over-shadowing the Church hath begot upon her for though it be with the word of truth in our preaching yet of his own will begot he us though by the word says the Apostle Saint Paul might say to the Corinthians Though you have tenne thousand instructors in Christ yet have yee not many fathers for in Christ Iesus I have begotten you through the Gospel And hee might say of his spirituall sonne Onesimus That he begot him in his bonds Those to whom he first of any presented the Gospel That had not heard of a Christ nor a holy Ghost before They into whom he infused a new religion new to them might well enough bee called his children and hee their father But we have no new doctrine to present no new opinion to infuse or miracles to amaze as in the Romane Church they are full of all these wee have no children to beget of our own Paul was not crucified for you nor were you baptized in the name of Paul sayes Paul himself as he sayes again who is Paul but a Minister by whom ye beleeved and that also not by him but as the Lord gave to every man Not as Paul preached to every man for he preached alike to every man but as the Lord gave to every man I have planted says he it is true but he that planteth is nothing says he also Only they that proceed as they proceed in the Romane Church Ex opere operato to tye the grace of God to the action of the man will venter to call Gods children their children in that sense My prayer shal be against that commination That God will not give us a miscarrying womb nor dry breasts that you may always suck pure milk from us and then not cast it up but digest it to your spirituall growth And I shall call upon God with a holy passion as vehement as Rachels to Iacob Da mihi liberos give me children or I die That God would give me children but his children that he by his Spirit may give you an inward regeneration as I by his ordinance shall present to you the outward means that so being begot by himselfe the father of life and of light you may be nursed and brought up in his service by me That so not attributing the work to any man but to Gods Ordinances you doe not tye the power of God nor the breath of life to any one mans lips as though there were no regeneration no begetting but by him but acknowledging the other to be but an instrument and the weakest to be that you may remember also That though a man can cut deeper with an Axe then with a knife with a heavy then with a lighter instrument yet God can pierce as far into a conscience by a plain as by an exquisite speaker Now this widow being thus maried This Church thus undertaken He must perform the duty of a husbands brother First it is a personall office he must doe it himself When Christ shall say at the Judgement I was naked and ye cloathed me not sick and ye visited me not it shall be no excuse to say When saw we thee naked when saw we thee sick for wee might have seen it wee should have seen it When we shall come to our accompt and see them whose salvation was committed to us perish because they were uninstructed and ignorant dare we say then we never saw them show their ignorance wee never heard of it That is the greatest part of our fault the heaviest weight upon our condemnation that we saw so little heard so little conversed so little amongst them because we were made watchmen and bound to see and bound to hear and bound to be heard not by others but by our selves My sheep may be saved by others but I save them not that are save so nor shall I my self be saved by their labour where mine was necessarily required The office is personall I must doe it and it is perpetuall I must perform it sayes the text goe through with it Lots wife looked backe and God never gave her leave to look forward again That man who hath put his hand to the plow and looks back Christ disables him for the kingdome of God The Galatians who had begun in the spirit and then relapsed before whose eyes Christ Iesus had been evidently set forth as the Apostle speaks fall under that reproach of the Apostle to bee called and called againe fooles and men bewitched If I beginne to preach amongst you and proceed not I shall fall under that heavy increpation from my God you beganne that you might for your owne glory shew that you were in some measure able to serve the Church and when you had done enough for your own glory you gave over my glory and the salvation of their souls to whom I sent you God hath set our eyes in our foreheads to look forward not backward not to be proud of that which we have done but diligent in that which we are to doe In the Creation if God had given over his worke the third or fift day where had man been If I give over my prayers due to the Church of God as long as God enables me to doe it service I lose my thanks nay I lose the testimony of mine own conscience for all My office is personall and it is perpetuall and then it is a duty He must perform the duty of a husbands brother unto her It is not of curtesie that we preach but it is a duty it is not a bounty given but it is a debt paid for though I preach the Gospel I have nothing to glory of for a necessity is laid upon me sayes Saint Paul himself It is true that as there is Vae si non Wo be unto mee if I doe not preach the Gospel so there is an Euge bone serve Well done good and faithfull servant to them that doe But the Vae is of Iustice the Euge is of Mercy If doe it not I deserve condemnation from God but if I doe it I deserve not thanks from him Nay it is a debt not onely to God but to Gods people to you and indeed there is more due to you then you can claime or can take knowledge of For the people can claime but according to the laws of that State and the Canons of that Church in which God hath placed them such preaching as those Laws and
which God made of all that he had made still he gives the testimony that he saw all was good excepting onely in his Second dayes worke and in his making of Man He forbore it in the making of the firmament because the firmament was to divide between waters and waters it was an embleme of division of disunion He forbore it also in the making of man because though man was to be an embleme of Gods union to his Church yet because this embleme and this representation could not be in man alone till the woman were made too God does not pronounce upon the making of man that the work was good but upon Gods contemplation that it was not good that man should be alone there arose a goodnesse in having a companion And from that time if we seeke bonum quia licitum if we will call that good which is lawfull mariage is that If thou takest a wife thou sinnest not sayes God by the Apostle If we seeke bonum quia bonus autor if we call that good whose author is good mariage is that Adduxit ad Adam God brought her to man If we seek such a goodnesse as hath good witness good testimony mariage is that Christ was present at a mariage and honoured it with his first miracle If we seek such a goodnesse as is a constant and not a temporary an occasionall goodnesse Christ hath put such a cement upon mariage What God hath joined let no man put as under If we seek such a goodnesse as no man that is no sort nor degree of men is the worse for having accepted we see the holiecst of all the High Priest in the old Testament is onely limited what woman he shall not mary but not that he shall not mary and the Bishop in the new Testament what kinde of husband he must have been but not that he must have been no husband To contract this as mariage in good in having the best author God the best witnesse Christ the logest terme Life the largest extent even to the highest persons Priests and Bishops as it is all these wayes Positively good so it is good in Comparison of that which justly seemes the best state that is Virginity in S. Augustines opinion Non impar meritum Iohannis Abrahae If we could consider merit in man the merit of Abraham the father of nations and the merit of Iohn who was no father at all is equall But that wherein we consider the goodnesse of it here is that God proposed this way to receive glory from the sonnes of men here upon earth and to give glory to the sonnes of men in heaven But what glory can God receive from man that he should be so carefull of his propagation what glory more from man then from the Sunne and Moon and Stars which have no propagation why this that S. Augustine observes Musca Soli praeferenda quia vivit A Fly is a nobler creature then the Sunne because a fly hath life and the Sunne hath not for the degrees of dignity in the creature are esse vivere and intelligere to have a beeing to have life and to have understanding and therefore man who hath all three is much more able to glorify God then any other creature is because he onely can chuse whether he will glorify God or no the glory that the others give they must give but man is able to offer to God a reasonable sacrifice When ye were Gentiles saies the Apostle ye were caryed away unto dumb Idols even as ye were led This is reasonable service out of Reason to understand and out of our willingnesse to doe God service Now when God had spent infinite millions of millions of generations from all un-imaginable eternity in contemplating one another in the Trinity and then to speake humanly of God which God in his Scriptures abhors not out of a satiety in that contemplation would create a world for his glory and when he had wrought the first day and created all the matter and substance of the future creatures and wrought foure dayes after and a great part of the sixth and yet nothing produced which could give him any glory for glory is rationabile obsequium reasonable service and nothing could give that but a creature that understood it and would give it at last as the knot of all created man then to perpetuate his glory he must perpetuate man and to that purpose non bonum it was not good for man to be alone as without man God could not have been glorified so without woman man could not have been propagated But as there is a place cited by S. Paul out of David which hath some perplexity in it we cannot tell whether Christ be said to have received gifts from men or for men or to have given gifts to men for so S. Paul hath it so it is not easse for us to discern whether God had a care to propagate man that he might receive glory from man or that he might give glory to man When God had taken it into his purpose to people heaven again depopulated in the fall of Angels by the substitution of man in their places when God had a purpose to spend as much time with man in heaven after as he had done with himself before for our perpetuity after the Resurrection shall no more have an end then his Eternity before the Creation had a beginning And when God to prevent that time of the Resurrection as it were to make sure of man before would send down his own Son to assume our nature here and as not sure enough so would take us up to him and set us in his Son at his own right hand whereas he never did nor shall say to any of the Angels Sit thou there That God might not be frustrated of this great and gracious and glorious purpose of his non bonum it was not good that man should be alone for without man God could not give this glory and without woman there could be no propagation of man And so though it might have been Bonum homini man might have done well enough alone and Bonum hunc hominem some men may doe better alone yet God who ever for our example prefers the publique before the private because it conduced not to his generall end of Having and of Giving glory saw and said Non bonum hominem it was not good that man should be alone And so we have done with the branches of our first part We are come now to our second generall part In which as we saw in the former that God studies man and all things necessary for man we shall also see that wherein soever man is defective his onely supply and reparation is from God Faciam I will doe it Saul wanted counsell he was in a perplexity and he sought to the Witch of Endor and not to God and what is the issue he Hears of his
and I who have opened my mouth and poured out imprecations and curses upon men and execrations and blasphemies against God upon every occasion That Lamb who was slain from the beginning and was slain by him who was a murderer from the beginning That Lamb which took away the sins of the world and I who brought more sins into the world then any sacrifice but the blood of this Lamb could take away This Lamb and I these are the Persons shall meet and mary there is the Action This is not a clandestine mariage not the private seal of Christ in the obsignation of his Spirit and yet such a clandestine mariage is a good mariage Nor it is not such a Parish mariage as when Christ maried me to himself at my Baptisme in a Church here â— and yet that mariage of a Christian soul to Christ in that Sacrament is a blessed mariage But this is a mariage in that great and glorious Congregation where all my fins shall be laid open to the eys of all the world where all the blessed Virgins shall see all my uncleannesse and all the Martyrs see all my tergiversations and all the Consessors see all my double dealings in Gods cause where Abraham shall see my faithlesnesse in Gods promises and Iob my impatience in Gods corrections and Lazarus my hardness of heart in distributing Gods blessings to the poore and those Virgins and Martyrs and Confessors and Abraham and Iob and Lazarus and all that Congregation shall look upon the Lamb and upon me and upon one another as though they would all forbid those banes and say to one another Will this Lamb have any thing to doe with this soule and yet there and then this Lamb shall mary me In aeternum for ever which is our last circumstance It is not well done to call it a circumstance for the eternity is a great part of the essence of that mariage Consider then how poore and needy a thing all the riches of this world how flat and tastlesse a thing all the pleasures of this world how pallid and faint and dilute a thing all the honours of this world are when the very Treasure and Joy and glory of heaven it self were unperfect if it were not eternall and my mariage shall be too In aeternum for ever The Angels were not maried so they incurr'd an irreparable Divorce from God and are separated for ever and I shall be maried to him in aeternum for ever The Angels fell in love when there was no object presented before any thing was created when there was nothing but God and themselves they fell in love with themselves and neglected God and so fell in aeternum for ever I shall see all the beauty and all the glory of all the Saints of God and love them all and know that the Lamb loves them too without jealousie on his part or theirs or mine and so be maried in aeternum for ever without interruption or diminution or change of affections I shall see the Sunne black as sackcloth of hair and the Moon become as blood and the Starres fall as a Figge-tree casts her untimely Figges and the heavens roll'd up together as a Scroll I shall see a divorce between Princes and their Prerogatives between nature and all her elements between the spheres and all their intelligences between matter it self and all her forms and my mariage shall be in aeternum for ever I shall see an end of faith nothing to be beleeved that I doe not know and an end of hope nothing to be wisht that I doe not enjoy but no end of that love in which I am maried to the Lamb for ever Yea I shall see an end of some of the offices of the Lamb himself Christ himself shall be no longer a Mediator an Intercessor an Advocate and yet shall continue a Husband to my soul for ever Where I shall be rich enough without Joynture for my Husband cannot die and wise enough without experience for no new thing can happen there and healthy enough without Physick for no sicknesse can enter and which is by much the highest of all safe enough without grace for no tentation that need particular grace can attempt me There where the Angels which cannot die could not live this very body which cannot choose but die shall live and live as long as that God of life that made it Lighten our darkness we beseech thee ô Lord that in thy light we may see light Illustrate our understandings kindle our affections pour oyle to our zeale that we may come to the mariage of this Lamb and that this Lamb may come quickly to this mariage And in the mean time bless these thy servants with making this secular mariage a type of the spirituall and the spirituall an earnest of that eternall which they and we by thy mercy shall have in the Kingdome which thy Son our Saviour hath purchased with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood To whom c. SERMON IV. Preached at a Christning REVEL 7. 17. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throns shalâ— gâ—vern them and shall leade them unto the lively furnteins of maters and God shall wipe away all teares from their eyes IF our conversation be in heaven as the Apostle says his was and if that conversation be as Testullian reads that place Municipatus noster our City our dwelling the place from whence onely we receive our Laws to which onely we direct our services in which onely we are capable of honours and offices where even the office of a doore-keeper was the subject of a great Kings ambition if our conversation be there even there there cannot be better company met then we may see and converse withall in this Chapter Upon those words doth the Eagle mount up at the Cominandement or make his nest on high S. Gregory says Videamus aquilam nidum sibi in arduis construentem Then we say an Eagle make his nest on high when we heard S. Petter say so Our conversation is in heaven and then doth an Eagle mount up at our commandement when our soul our devotion by such a conversation in heaven associates itself with all this blessed company that are met in this Chapter that our fellow ship may be with the Father and with his Son Iesus Christ and with all the Court and Quire of the Triumphant Church If you go to feasts if you goe to Comedies fometimes onely to meet company nay if you come to Church sometimes onely upon that errand to meet company as though the House of God were but as the presence of an earthly Prince which upon solemne Festivall days must be fill'd and furnished though they that come come to doe no service there command year Eagle to mount up and to build his nest on high command your souls to have their conversation in heaven by meditation of this Scripture and you shall meet
word that is without understanding or considering the institution vertue of baptisime expressed in Gods word and so receive baptisme onely for temporall and naturall respects they are not led to the waters but they fall into them and so as a Man may be drowned in a wholsome bath so such a Man may perish eternally in baptisme if he take it for satisfaction of the State or any other by respect to which that Sacrament is not ordained in the word of God He shall lead Men of years by Instruction and he shall lead young children in good company and with a strong guard he shall lead them by the faith of his Church by the faith of their Parents by the faith of their sureties and undertakers He shall lead them and then when he hath taken them into his government for first it is Reget he shall govern them and then Deducet that is he shall lead them in his Church and therefore they that are led to baptisme any other way then by the Church they are misled nay they are miscarried misdriven Spiritu vertiginis with the spirit of giddinesse They that joyne any in commission with the Trinity though but as an asstsant for so they say in the Church of Rome baptisme may be administred in the name of the Father Sonne and holy Ghost and the virgin Mary they follow not as Christ led in his Church Non fuit sic ab initio it was not so from the beginning for quod extra hos tres est totum Conservum est though much dignity belong to the memory of the Saints of God yet whosoever is none of the three Persons Conservus est he is our fellow-servant though his service lie above staires and ours below his in the triumphant ours in the militant Church Conservus est yet he or she is in that respect but our fellow-servant and not Christs fellow-redeemer So also if we be led to Marah to the waters of bitternesse that we bring a bitter taste of those institutions of the Church for the decency and signification in Sacramentall things things belonging to Baptisme if we bring a misinterpretation of them an indisposition to them an aversnesse from them and so nourish a bitternes and uncharitablenesse towards one another for these Ceremonies if we had rather crosse one another and crosse the Church then crosse the child as God shewed Moses a tree which made those waters in the wildernesse sweet when it was cast in so remember that there is the tree of life the crosse of Christ Iesus and his Merits in this water of baptisme when we all agree in that that all the vertue proceeds from the crosse of Christ the God of unity and peace and concord let us admit any representation of Christs crosse rather then admit the true crosse of the devill which is a bitter and schismaticall crossing of Christ in his Church for it is there in his Church that he leads us to these waters Well then they to whom these waters belong have Christ in his Church to lead them and therefore they need not stay till they can come alone till they be of age and years of discretion as the Anabaptists say for it is Deducet and Deducet cos generally universally all that are of this government all that are appointed for the Seal all the one hundred and forty foure thousand all the Innumerable multitudes of all Nations Christ leads them all Be Baptized every one of you in the name of Iesus Christ for the remission of sinnes for the promise is made unto you and your children Now all promises of God are sealed in the holy Ghost To whom soever any promise of God belongs he hath the holy Ghost and therefore Nunquid aquam quis prohibere potest Can any Man forbid water that these should not be baptized which havereceived the holy Ghost as well as we says S. Peter And therfore the Children of the Covenant which have the promise have the holy Ghost all they are in this Regiment Deducet cos Christ shall lead them all But whither unto the lively says our first edition unto the living says our last edition fountaines of waters In the originall unto the fountaines of the water of life now in the Scriptures nothing is more ordianry then by the name of waters to designe and meane tribulations so amongst many other God says of the City of Tyre that he would make it a desolate City and bring the deep upon it and great waters should cover it But then there is some such addition as leads to that sense either they are called Aqua multae great waters or Profunda aquarum deep waters or Absorbebit aqua whirlepooles of waters or Tempestas aquae tempestuous waters or Aqua Fellis bitter water God bath mingled gall in our water but we shall never read fontes aquarum fountaines of waters but it hath a gratious sense and presents Gods benefits So they have forsaken me the fountaine of living waters So the water that I shall give shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life and so every where else when we are brought to the fountaines to this water in the fountaine in the institution howsover we puddle it with impertinent questions in disputation however we soule it with our finnes and all conversation the fountaine is pure Baptisme presents and offers grace and remission of sinnes to all Nay not onely this fountaine of water but the greatest water of all the flood it selfe Saint Basil understands and applies to Baptisme as the Apostle himselfe does Baptisme was a figure of the flood and the Arke for upon that place The Lord sitseth upon the flood and the Lord doth remaine King for ever he says Baptismi gratiam Diluvium nominat nam deles purgat David calls Baptisme the flood because it destroyes all that was sinfull in us and so also he referrs to Baptisme those words when David had confessed his sinnes I thought I would confesse against my selfe my wickednesse unto the Lord and when it is added Surely in the flood of great waters they shall not come near him peccato non appropinquabunt says he originall sinne shall not come neare him that is truly baptized nay all the actuall sinnes in his future life shall be drowned in this baptisme as often as he doth religiously and repentantly consider that in Baptisme when the merit of Christ was communicated to him he received an Antidote against all poyson against all sinne if he applied them together sinne and the merit of Christ for so also he says of that place God will subdue all our iniquities and cast our sinnes into the bottome of the Sea Hoc est in mare Baptismi says Basil into the Sea of Baptisme There was a Brasen Sea in the Temple and there is a golden Sea in the Church of
Christ which is Baptistrisum the font the Sea into which God flings all their sinnes who rightly and effectually receive that Sacrament These fountaines of waters then in the text are the waters of baptisime and if we should take them also in that sense that waters signifie tribulations and afflictions it is true too that in baptisme that is in the profession of Christ we are delivered over to many tribulations The rule is generall Castigat omnes he chastiseth all The example the precedent is peremptory Opertuit pati Christ ought to suffer and so enter into glory but howsoever waters be affictions they are waters of life too says the text Though baptisme imprint a crosse upon us that we should not be ashamed of Christ crosse that we should not be afraid of our owne crosses yet by all these waters by all these Crosse ways we goe directly to the eternall life the kingdome of heaven for they are lively fountaines fountaines of life And this is intended and promised in the last words Absterget omnem Lachrymam God shall wipe all teares from our eyes God shall give us a joyfull apprehension of heaven here in his Church in this life But is this a way to wipe teares from the childes face to sprinkle water upon it Is this a wiping away to powre more on It is the powerfull and wonderfull way of his working for as his red bloud makes our red soules white that his rednesse gives our rednesse a candor so his water his baptisime and the powerfull effect thereof shall dry up and wipe away Omnem â—achrymam all teares from our Eyes howsoever occasioned This water shall dry them up Christ had many occassion of teares we have more some of our owne which he had not we must weep because we are not so good as we should be we cannot performe the law We must weepe because we are not so good as we could be our free will is lost but yet every Man findes he might be better if he would but the sharpest and saltest and smartest occasion of our teares is from this that we must not be so good as we would be that the prosanenesse of the Libertine the reproachfull slanders the contumelious scandalls the seornfull names that the wicked lay upon those who in their measure desire to expresse their zeale to Gods glory makes us afraid to professe our selves so religious as we could find in our hearts to be and could truly be if we might Christ went often in contemplation of others foreseeing the calamities of Ierualem he wept over the City comming to the grave of Lazarus he wept with them but in his owne Agony in the garden it is not said that he weps If we could stop the stood of teares in our afflictions yet there belongs an excessive griefe to this that the ungodly disposion of other Men is slacking of our godlinesse of our sanctification too Christ Jesus for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse we for the joy of this promise that God will wipe all teares from our eyes must suffer all this whether they be teares of Compunction or teares of Compassion teares for our selves or teares for others whether they be Magdalens teares or Peters teares teares for sinnes of infirmity of the flesh or teares for weaknesse of our faith whether they be teares for thy parents because they are improvident towards thee or teares for thy children because they are disobedient to thee whether they be teares for Church because our Sermons or our Censures pinch you or teares for the State that penall laws pecuniary or bloudy lie heavy upon you Deus absterget omneni lachryman here 's your comfort that as he hath promised inestimable blessings to them that are sealed and washed in him so he hath given you security that these blessings belong to you for if you find that he hath govened you bred you in his visible Church and led you to his fountaine of the water of lifein baptisme you may be sure that he will in his due time wipe all teares from your eyes establish the kingdome of heaven upon you in this life in a holy and modest infallibility SERMON V. Preached at a Christning EPHES. 5. 25 26 27. Husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the Church and gave himselfe for it that he might sanctisie it and cleanse it by the washing of water through the Word That he might make it unto himselfe a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle on any such thing but that it should be holy and without blame ALmighty God ever loved unity but he never loved singularity God was always alone in heaven there were no other Gods but he but he was never singular there was never any time when there were not three persons in heaven Pater ego unum summi The father and I are one says Christ one in Esseuct and one in Consent our substance is the same and our will is the same but yet Tecum fui ab initio says Christ in the person of Wisdome I was with thee disposing all things at the Creation As then God seemes to have been eternally delighted with this eternall generation with persons that had ever a relation to one another Father and Sonne so when he came to the Creation of this lower world he came presently to those three relations of which the whole frame of this world consists of which because the principall foundation and preservation of all States that are to continue is power the first relation was between Prince and Subject when God said to Man Subjecite dominamini subdue and govern all Creatures The second relation was between husband and wife when Adam said This now is house of my bone and flesh of my flesh And the third relation was between parents and children when Eve said that she had obtained a Man by the Lord that by the plentifull favour of God she had conceived and borne a sonne from that time to the dissolution of that frame from that beginning to the end of the world these three relations of Master and Servant Mans and Wife Father and Children have been and ever shall be the materialls and the elements of all society of families and of Cities and of Kingdomes And therefore it is a large and a subtill philosophy which S. Paul professes in this place to shew all the qualities and properties of these several Elements that is all the duties of these severall callings but in this text he handles onely the mutuall duties of the second couple Man and Wife and in that consideration shall we determine this exercise because a great part of that concernes the education of Children which especially occasions our meeting now The generall duty that goes through all these three relations is expressed Subditi estate invicevs Submit your selves to one another in the feare of God for God hath given no Master such imperiousnesse
no husband such a superiority no father such a soverainty but that there lies a burden upon them too to consider with a compassionate sensiblenesse the grievances that oppresse the other part which is coupled to them For if the servant the wife the sonne be oppressed worne out annihilated there is no such thing left as a Master or a husband or a father They depend upon one another and therefore he that hath not care of his fellow destroys himselfe The wife is to submit herselfe and so is the husband too They have a burden both There is a greater subjection lies upon her then upon the Man in respect of her transgression towards her husband at first Eyen before there was any Man in the world to sollicite or tempt her chastity she could sinde another way to be salfe and treacherous to her husband both the husband and the wife offended against God but the husband offended not towards his wife but rather eate the Apple Ne contristaretur delicias suas as S. Hierome assignes the cause left by refusing to cate when she had done so he should deject her into a desperate sense of her sinne And for this fault of hers her Subjection was so much aggravated Thy desire shall be subject to thy husband and he shall rule over thee But if she had not committed that fault yet there would have been a mutuall subjection between them as there is even in Nature between both the other couples for if Man had continued in innocency yet it is most probably thought that as there would certainly have been Mariage and so children so also there would have been Magistracy and propriety and authority and so a mutuall submitting a mutuall assisting of one another in all these three relations Now that submitting of which the Apostle speakes of here is a submitting to one another a bearing of one anothers burthens what this submission is on the wives part is expressed in the two former verses And I forbeare that because husbands at home are likely enough to remember them of it but in the duty in the submitting of the husband we shall consider first what that submitting is and that is love Husbands love your wives Even the love of the husband to the wife is a burthen a submitting a descent and secondly the patterne and example of this love Even as Christ loved his Church In which second part as sometimes the accessory is greater then the principall the Symptome the accident is greater then the disease so that from which the comparison is drawn in this place is greater then that which is illustrated by it the love of Christ to his Church requires more consideration then the love of the husband to the wife and therefore it will become us to spend most of our thoughts upon that and to consider in that Quod factum and Quis sinis what Christ did for his Church and that was a bounty which could not be exceeded seipsum tradidit he gave he delivered himselfe for it And then secondly what he intended that should worke and that was first that he might make it to himselfe a glorious Church and without spot and wrinkle in the Triumphant state of the Church at last And then that whilst it continues in a Militant state upon Earth it might have preparations to that glory by being sanctified and cleansed by the washing of water through his Word he provides the Church meanes of sanctification here by his Word and Sacraments First then De Amoremaritali of this contracting a Mans love to the person of a wife of one woman as we find an often exclamation in the Prophets Onus visionis The burden of my prophecy upon Nineveh and Onus verbi Domini The burden of the word of God upon Israel so there is Onus amoris a burden of love when a Man is appointed whom he shall love When Onan was appointed by his father Iudah to goe in to his brothers widow and to doe the office of a kinsman to her he conceived such an unwillingnesse to doe so when he was bid as that he came to that detestable act for which God slew him And therefore the Panegyrique that raised his wit as high as he could to praise the Emperour Constantine and would expresse it in praising his continence and chastity he expressed it by saying that he waried young that as soon as his years endangered him formavit animum maritalem nihil de concessu atati voluptatibus admittens he was content to be a husband and accepted not that freedome of pleasure which his years might have excused He concludes it thus Novum jam tum miraculum Iuvenis â—xorius Behold a miracle such a young Man limiting his affections in a wife At first the heates and lusts of youth overflow all as the waters overflowed all at the beginning and when they did so the Earth was not onely barren there were no Creatures no herbs produced in that but even the waters themselves that did overflow all were barren too there were no fishes no fowls produced out of that as long as a Mans affections are scattered there is nothing but accursed barrennesse but when God says and is heard and obeyed in it Let the waters be gathered into one place let all thy affections be setled upon one wife then the earth and the waters became fruitfull then God gives us a type and figure of the eternity of the joyes of heaven in the succession and propagation of children here upon the earth It is true this contracting of our affections is a burden it is a submitting of our selves All States that made Lawes and proposed rewards for maried Men conceived it so that naturally they would be loth to doe it God maried his first couple as soone as he made them he dignified the state of Mariage by so many Allegories and figures to which he compares the uniting of Christ to his Church and the uniting of our soules to Christ and by directing the first Miracle of Christ to be done at a Mariage Many things must concurre to the dignifying of Mariage because in our corrupt nature the apprehension is generall that it is burdenous and a submitting and a descending thing to mary And therefore Saint Hierome argues truly out of these words Husbands love your Wifes Audiant Episcopi audiant presbyteri audiant doctores subjectis suis se esse subjectos let Bishops and Priests and Doctors learne in this that when they have maried themselves to a charge They are become subject to their Subjects For by being a husband I become subject to that sex which is naturally subject to Man though this subjection be no more in this place but to love that one woman Love then when it is limited by a law is a subjection but it is a subjection commanded by God Nihil majus à te subjecti animo factum est quam quod imper are coepistiâ— A Prince
such a subjection as is a love and such a love as is upon a Reason for love is not alwayes so This is Quiauxor because our wife and that implies these three uses God hath given Man a wife Ad adjutorium ad sobolem ad medicinam for a Help for Children and for a Remedy and Physick Now the first Society and encrease we love naturally we would not be banish'd we would not be robb'd we would not be alone we would not be poor Society and encrease every Man loves but doth any Man love Physick he takes it for necessity but does he love it Husbands therefore are to love wives Ad Sobolem as the Mothers of their Children Ad adjutorium as the comforters of their lives but for that which is Ad medicinam for physick to avoid burning to avoid fornication that 's not the subject of our love our love is not to be placed upon that for so it is a love Quia mulier because she is a woman and not Quia uxor because she is my wife A Man may be a drunkard at home with his own wine and never goe out to Taverns A man may be an adulâ—erer in his wives bosome though he seek not strange women We come now to the other part the pattern of this love which is Christ Jesus we are commanded to be holy and pure as our Father is holy and pure but that 's a proportion of which we are incapable And therefore we have another Commandement from Christ Discite à me learn of me there is no more looked for but that we should still be Scholars and learners how to love we can never love so much as he hath lov'd It is still Discite still something to be learnt and added and this something is Quia mitis learn of me make me your pattern because I am meek and gentle not suspitious not forward not hard to be reconcil'd not apt to discomfort my spouse my Church not with a sullen silence for I speak to her alwayes in my Word not apt to leave her unprovided of apparell and decent ornaments for I have allow'd her such Ceremonies as conduce to edification not apt to pinch her in her diet she hath her two Courses the first and the second Sacrament And whensoever she comes to a spirituall hunger and thirst under the heat and weight of sin she knowes how and where there is plentifull refreshing and satisfaction to be had in the absolution of sinne Herein consists the substance of the Comparison Husbands love your wives as Christ did his Church that is expresse your loves in a gentle behaviour towards them and in a carefull providence of Conveniencies for them The comparison goes no farther but the love of Christ to his Church goes farther In which we consider first Quid factum what Christ did for his spouse for his Church It were pity to make too much hast in considering so delightfull a thing as the expressing of the love of Christ Jesus to his Church It were pity to ride away so fast from so pleasant so various a prospect where we may behold our Saviour in the Act of his liberality Giving in the matter of his liberality Giving himselfe and in the poor exchange that he took a few Contrite hearts a few broken spirits a few lame and blind and leprous sinners to make to himselfe and his Spirit a Church a house to dwell in no more but these and glad if he can get these First then Ille dedit He gave it was his own act as it was he that gave up the ghost he that laid down his soule and he that took it again for no power of Man had the power or disposition of his life It was an insolent and arrogant question in Pilate to Christ Nescis quia potestatem habcâ— Knowest not thou that I have power to Crucifie thee and have power to loose thee If Pilate thought that his power extended to Christ yet Tua damnaris sententia qui potestate latroneâ— absâ—lvis autorem vitae interficis His own words and actions condemned him when having power to condemn and absolve he would condemn the Innocent and absolve the guilty A good Judge does nothing sayes he Doâ—â—estice proposito voluntatis according to a resolution taken at home Nihil meditatum deme defert he brings not his judgement from his chamber to the bench but he takes it there according to the Evidence If pilate thought he had power his Conscience told him he misused that power but Christ tels him he could have none Nisi datum desuper Except it had been given him from above that is except Christ had given him power over himselfe for Christ speaks not in that place of Pilates generall power and Jurisdiction for so also all power is Desuper from above but for this particular power that Pilate boasts to have over him Christ tels him that he could have none over him except himselfe had submitted himselfe to it So before this passage with Pilat Iudâ—s had delivered Christ and there arose a sect of Heretiques Iudaists that magnified this act of Iudes and said that we were beholden to him for the hastning of our salvation because when he was come to the knowledge that God had decreed the Crucifying of Christ for Mankind Iudas took compassion of Mankind and hastned their Redemption by delivering up of Christ to the Iewes But Iudas had no such good purpose in his hast though our Iesus permitted Iudas to doe it and to doe it quickly when he said Quod facis fac citò For out of that ground in the Schooles Missia in divinis â—st movâ— operacio in Creatura When any person of the Trinity is said to be sent that onely denotes an extraordinary manner of working of that person Saint Augustine sayes truly that as Christ Misit seipsum he sent himself and Sanitificavit seipsum he sanctified himselfe so tradidit seipsum Iudas could not have given him if he had not given himselfe Pilate could not give him Iudas could not give him nay if we could consider severall wils in the severall Persons of the Trinity we might be bold to say That the Father could not have given him if he had not given himselfe We consider the unexpressible mercy of the Father in that he would accept any satisfaction at all for all our Sinnes We consider the unexpressible working of the Holy Ghost that brings this satisfaction and our soules together for without that without the application of the Holy Ghost we are as far from Christ's love now as we were from the Father 's before Christ suffered But the unexpressible and unconceiveable love of Christ is in this that there was in him a willingnesse a propensnesse a forwardnesse to give himselfe to make this great peace and reconciliation between God and Man It was himselfe that gave himselfe Nothing enclined him nothing wrought upon him but his own goodnesse
before his Gospell was written principally and purposely against the opposers of Christs humanity but occasionally also in defence of his divine nature too Because there is Solutio Iesu a dissolving of Jesus a taking of Jesus in peeces a dividing of his Natures or of his Offices which overthrowes all the testimonies of these six great witnesses when Christ said Solvite templum hoc destroy dissolve this temple and in three dayes I will raise it he spoke that but of his naturall body there was Solutio corporis Christs body and soule were parted but there was not Solutio Iesu the divine nature parted not from the humane no not in death but adhered to and accompanied the soule even in hell and accompanied the body in the grave And therefore says the Apostle Omnis spiritus qui solvit Iesum ex deo non est for so Irenaeus and Saint Augustine and Saint Cyrill with the Grecians read those words That spirit which receives not Jesus intirely which dissolves Jesus and breakes him in peeces that spirit is not of God All this then is the subject of this testimony first that Christ Jesus is come in the flesh there is a Recognition of his humane nature And then that this Jesus is the sonne of God there is a subscription to his divine nature he that separates these and thereby makes him not able or not willing to satisfie for Man he that separates his Nature or he that separates the worke of the Redemption and says Christ suffered for us onely as Man and not as God or he that separates the manner of the worke and says that the passive obedience of Christ onely redeemed us without any respect at all to his active obedience onely as he died and nothing as he died innocently or he that separates the perfection and consummation of the worke from his worke and findes something to be done by Man himselfe meritorious to salvation or he that separates the Prince and the Subject Christ and his members by nourishing Controversies in Religion when they might be well reconciled or he that separates himselfe from the body of the Church and from the communion of Saints for the fashion of the garments for the variety of indifferent Ceremonies all these do Solvere Iesum they slacken they dissolve that Jesus whose bones God provided for that they should not be broken whose flesh God provided for that it should not see Corruption and whose garments God provided that they should not bee divided There are other luxations other dislocations of Jesus when we displace him for any worldly respect and prefer preforment before him there are other woundings of Jesus in blasphemous oathes and exerations there are other maimings of Jesus in pretending to serve him intirely and yet retaine one particular beloved sinne still there are other rackings and extendings of Jesus when we delay him and his patience to our death-bed when we stretch the string so farre that it cracks there that is appoint him to come then and he comes not there are other dissolutions of Jesus when men will melt him and powre him out and mold him up in a waser Cake or a peece of bread there are other annihilations of Jesus when Men will make him and his Sacraments to be nothing but bare signes but all these will be avoided by us if we be gained by the testimony of these six witnesses to hold fast that integrity that intirensse of Jesus which is here delivered to us by this Apostle In which we beleeve first Iâ—sum a Saviour which implies his love and his will to save us and then we beleeve Christum the anointed that is God and man able and willing to doe this great worke and that he is anointed and sealed for that purpose and this implies the decree the contract and bargaine of acceptation by the Father that Pactum salis that eternall covenant which seasons all by which that which he meant to doe as he was Iesus should be done as he was Christ. And then as the intirenesse of Jesus is expressed in the verse before the text we beleeve Quod venit that as all this might be done if the Father and Sonne would agree as all this must be done because they had agreed it so all this was done Quâ—a venit because this Jesus is already come and that for the father intirenesse for the perfection and consummation and declaration of all venit per aquam sanguinem He came by water and bloud Which words Saint Bernard understands to imply but a difference between the comming of Christ and the comming of Moses who was drawen out of the water and therefore called by that name of Moses But before Moses came to be a leader of the people he passed through bloud too through the bloud of the Egyptian whom he slew and much more when he established all their bloudy sacrifices so that Mases came not onely by water Neither was the first Testament ordained without bloud Others understand the words onely to put a difference between Iohn Baptist and Christ because Iohn Baptist is still said to baptize with waterâ— Because he should be declared to Israel therefore am I come baptizing with water but yet Iohn Baptists baptisme had not onely a relation to bloud but a demonstration of it when still he pointed to the Lambe Ecce Agnus for that Lambe was slâ—ine from the beginning of the world So that Christ which was this Lambe came by water and bloud when he came in the risuall types and figures of Moses and when he came in the baptisme of Iohn for in the Law of Moses there was so frequent use of water as that we reckon above fifty severall Immunditi as uncleannesses which might receive their expiation by washing without being put to their bloudy sacrifies for them And then there was so frequent use of bloud that almost all things are by the Law purged with bloud and without shedding of bloud is no Remission But this was such water and such bloud as could not perfect the worke but therefore was to be renewed every day The water that Jesus comes by is such a water as he that arinketh of it shall thirst no more nay there shall spring up in him a well of water that is his example shall worke to the satisfaction of others we doe not say to a satisfaction for others And then this is that bloud that perfected the whole worke at once By his own bloud entred he once into the holy place and obtained eternall Redemption for us So that Christ came by water and bloud according to the old ablutions and old sacrifices when he wept when he sweat when he powred out bloud pretious incorruptible inestimable bloud at so many channels as he did all the while that he was upon the altar sacrificing himselfe in his passion But after the immolation of this sacrifice after his Consummatum est when Christ
cover us all over that is all our life because it is not in our power if we put it off by new sinnes to put it on againe when we will I have put off my coate how shall I put it on was the doubt of the spouse in the Canticles even when Christ had called her So hard a thing is it if we devest the righteousnesse of Christ after we have put it on to cloth our selves againe in that garment As then this word Induere to put on to be clothed signifies a largenesse and an abundance according to that The pastures are clothed with sheep and the vallies with corne So is this garment Christ Jesus such a garment as is alone so all sufficient as that if we doe put on that we need no other Put yee on the Lord Iesus Christ and take no thought for the flesh if ye have put on that you are clothed and armed and adorned sufficiently In the first creation in the Faciamus hominem ad Imaginem nostrûm when God seems to have held a consultation about the making of Man man put on all the Trinity all God in the redemption God put on all Man not onely all the nature of Mankind in generall but in particular every Man But as the spirit of God is said to have put on a particular Man Spiritus Domini induit Gedeon the spirit of the Lord clothed or put on Gedeon when he selected him for his service so must the spirit of every particular Man put on Christ he must not be content to be under the generall cover either under his general providence because he is a Creature or a member of his Mysticall body because he adheres to a visible Church he must not say I am as warm clothed as another I have as much of Christ in me as a great many that doe well enough in the world but he must so inwrap himselfe in Christ and in his Merits as to make all that to be his owne No man may take the frame of Christs merit in peeces no Man may take his forty days fasting and put on that and say Christ hath fasted for me and therefore I may surfeit No man may take his Agony and pensivenesse and put on that and say Christ hath been sad for me and therefore I may be merry He that puts on Christ must put him on allâ— and not onely find that Christ hath dyed nor onely that he hath died for him but that he also hath died in Christ and that whatsoever Christ suffered he suffered in Christ. For as Christs merit and satisfaction is not too narrow for all the world so is it not too large for any one Man Infinite worlds might have been saved by it if infinite worlds had been created And if there were no more Names in the book of life but thine all the Merit of Christ were but enough to save thy one sinfull soule which could not have been redeemed though alone at any lesse price then his death All that Christ did and suffered he did and suffered for thee as thee not onely â—s Man but as that particular Man which bears such or such a name and rather then any of those whom he loves should appeare naked before his Father and so discover to his confusion those scarres and deformities which his sinnes have imprinted upon him as his love is devoutly and plously extended by the Schooles and some contemplative Men Christ would be content to doe and suffer as much as he hath done for any one particular Man yet But beyond Infinite there is no degree and his merit was infinite both because an infinite Majesty resided in his person and because an infinte Majesty accepted his sacrifice for infinite But this act of Christ this redemption makes us onely servants servi à servandâ— we are servants to him that preserved and saved us is the derivation of the Law But the application of this redemption which is the putting on of Christ makes us sâ—ns for we are not to put on Christ onely as a Livery to be distinguished by externall marks of Christianity but so as the sonne puts on his father that we may be of the same nature and substance as he and that God may be in us Non tanquam in denario not as the King is in a peece of coine or a medall but tanquam in filio as he is in his sonne in whom the same nature both humane and Royall doth reside There is then a double Induere a twofold clothing we may 〈◊〉 1. Vestem put on a garment 2. Personam put on a person We may put on Christ so as we shall be his and we may put him on so as we shall be He. And even to put him on as a garment is also twofold The first is to take onely the outward name and profession of Christians upon us and this doâ—h us no good yee cloth ye but are not warme says the Prophet of this kind of putting on of Christ. For this may be done onely to delude others which practise God discovered and threatned in the false Prophets The Prophets shall not weare a rough garment to deceive As God himselfe cannot be deluded so for the encouragement of his Church he will take off this garment of the Hypocrite and discover his nakednesse and expose him to the open shame of the world He shall not weare arough garment to deceive For this is such an affront and scorne to Christ as Hanâ—â— cutting off of Davids servants clothes at the middle was we make this garment of what stuffe and what fashion we list As Hanun did we cut it off in the middle we will be Christians till noone in the outward acts of Religion and Libertiâ—es in the after-noone in putting off that garment againe we will be Christians all day and returne to wantoâ—nesse and licentiousnesse at night we do that which Christ says no Man doth that is no Man should doe we put new peeces to an old garment and to that habite of sinne which covers us as a garment we put a few new patches of Religion a few flashes of repentance a few shreds of a Sermoâ— but we put not on that intire and feamlesse garment Christ Jesus And can we hope that these disguises these halfe coates these imperfect services will be acceptable to God when we our selves would not admit this at our children or at our servants hands It is the argument by which the Prophet convinces the Israelites about their uncleane sacrifices offer this now unto the Prince will he be conteâ—t with thee and accept thy person If thou shouldest weare the princes Livery in a scantler proportion or in a different fashion or in a courset stuffe then belongs to thy place would he accept it at thy hands No more will Christ if thou put him on that is take his profession upon thee either in a coâ—â—ser stuffe Traditions of Men in stead
of his word or in scantler measure not to be always a Christian but then when thou hast use of being one or in a different fashion to be singular and Schisâ—aticall in thy opinion for this is one but an ill manner of putting on of Christ as a garment The second and the good way is to put on his righteousnesse and his innocency by imitation and conforming our selves to him Now when we goe about earnestly to make our selves Temples and Altars and to dedicate our selves to God we must change our clothes As when God bad Iacob to goe up to Bethel to make an Altar he commanded all his family to change their clothes In which work we have two things to doe first we must put off those clothes which we had and appeare naked before God without presenting any thing of our owne for when the Spirit of God came upon Saul and that he prophecyed his first act was to strip himselfe naked And then sâ—condly we come to our transfiguration and to have those garments of Christ communicated to us which were as white as the light and we shall be admitted into that little number of which it is said Thou hast a few Namees in Sardis which have not defiled their garments and they shall walke with â—e in white And from this which is Induere vestem from this putting on Christ as a garment we shall grow up to that perfection as that we shall Inâ—â—ere personam put on hiâ— his person That is we shall so appeare before the Father as that he shall take us for his owne Christ we shall beare his name and person and we shall every one be so accepted as if every one of us were all Mankind yea as if we were he himselfe He shall find in all our bodies his woundes in all our mindes his 〈◊〉 in all our hearts and actions his obedience And as he shall doe this by impâ—tation so really in all our Agonies he shall send his Angels to minister unto us as he did to Eliâ—s In all our tentations he shall furnish us with his Scriptures to confoâ—â—d the Tempter as be in person did in his tentation and in our heaviest tribulation which may exâ—â—â—â— from us the voice of diffidence My God My God why hast 〈◊〉 forsaken me He shall give us the assurance to say In manus tuas câ— Into thy â—ands O Lord have I coâ—â—â—â—nded my spirit and there I am safe He shall use us in all things as his sonne and we shall find restored in us the Image of the whole Trinity imprinted at our creation for by this Regeneration we are adopted by the Father in the bloud of the Sonne by the sanctification of the holy Ghost Now this putting on of Christ whereby we stand in his place at Gods Tribunall implies as I said both our Election and our sanctification both the eternall purpose of God upon us and his execution of that purpose in us And because by the first by our Election we are members of Christ in Gods purpose before baptisme and the second which is sanctification is expressed after baptisme in our lives and conversation therefore Baptisme intervenes and comes between both as a seale of the first of Election and as an instrument and conduit of the second Sanctification Now Abscendita Dominâ— Dea nostro quae manifesta suâ—s nobis let no Man be too curiously busie to search what God does in his hedchamber we have all enough to answer for that which we have done in our bedchamber For Gods eternall decree himselfe is master of those Rolls but out of those Rolls he doth exemplifie those decrees in the Sacrament of baptisme by which Copy and exemplification of his invisible and unsearchable decree we plead to the Church that we are Gods children we plead to our owne consciences that we have the Spirit of adoption and we plead to God himselfe the obligation of his own promise that we have a right to this garment Christ Iesus and to those graces which must sanctifie us for from thence comes the reason of this text for all yeâ— that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. As we cannot see the Essence of God but must see him in his glasses in his Images in his Creatures so we cannot see the decrees of God but must see them in their duplicats in their exemplification in the sacraments As it would doe him no good that were condemned of treason that a Bedchamber man should come to the Judge and swear he saw the king signe the prisoners pardon except he had it to pleade so what assurance soever what priâ—y marke soever those men which pretend to be so well acquainted and so familiar with the decrees of God to give thee to know that thou art elect to eternall salvation yea if an Angel from heaven comedowne and tell thee that he saw thy name in the booke of life if thou have not this Exemplification of the decree this seale this Sacrament if thou beest not baptized never delude thy selfe with those imaginary assurances This Baptisme then is so necessary that first as Baptisme in a large acceptation signifies our dying and buriall with Christ and all the acts of our regeneration so in that large sense our whole life is a baptisme But the very sacrament of Baptismeâ— the actuall administration and receiving thereof was held so necessary that even for legall and Civill uses as in the law that child that dyed without circumcision had no interest in the family no participation of the honor nor name thereof So that we see in the reckning of the Genealogy and pedegree of David that first sonne of his which he had by Bathshebae which dyed without circumcision is never mentioned nor toucht upon So also since the time of Mâ—ses law in the Imperiall law by which law a posthume child borne after the fathers death is equall with the rest in division of the state yet if that child dye before he be baptized no person which should derive a right from him as the mother might if he dyed can have any title by him because he is not considered to have been at all if he dye unbaptized And if the State will not beleeve him to be a full Man shall the Church beleeve him to be a full Christian before baptisme Yea the apprehension of the necessity of this Sacrament was so common and so generall even in the beginning of the Christian Church that out of an excessive advancing of that trnth they came also to a falshoodâ— to an error That even they that dyed without baptisme might have the benefit of baptisme if another were baptized in their name after their deathâ— And so out of a mistaking of those words Else what shall they doe Qui baptizantur pro mortuis which is that are ready to dye when they are baptized the Marcionites induc'd a custome to lay one under the dead bodyes
bed that he in the name of the dead man might answer to all the questions usually asked in administring of Baptisme But this was a corrupt effect of pure and sincere doctrine which doctrine is That Baptisme is so necessary as that God hath placed no other ordinary scale nor conveyance of his graces in his Church to them that have not received that then buptisme And they who doe not provide duly for the Baptisme of their children if their children die have a heavier accompt to make to God for that child then if they had not provided a Nurse and suffered the child to starve God can preserve the child without Milke and he can save the child without a sacrament but as that mother that throwes out and forsakes her child in the field or wood is guilty before God of the Temporall murder of that child though the child die not so are those parents of a spirituall murder if their children by their fault die unbaptized though God preserve that child out of his abundant and miraculous mercy from spirituall destruction When the custome of the Christian Church was to baptize but twice in the year at Easter and Whiâ—sontide for the greater solemnity of that action yea when that ill custome was grown as it was even in the Primitive Church that upon an opinion that all sins were absolutely forgiven in Baptisme Men did defer their Baptisme till their death-bed as we see the Ecclesiasticall histories full of such examples even in some of the Christian Emperors and according to this ill custome we see Tertullian chides away young children for comming so soon to Baptisme quid festinat innocens aetas ad remâ—ssionem peccatorum why should this child that as yet hath done no sinne make such hast to be washed from sinnce which opinion had got so much strength that Saint Basil was faine to oppose it in the Easterne Church and both the Gregories Nazianzen and Nissen and Saint Ambrose in the Western yet in the height of both their customes of seldome baptizing and of late baptizing the case of insants that might be in danger of dying without baptisme was ever excepted So that none of those old customes though some of them were extreamly ill went ever so farre as to an opinion that it were all one whether the child were baptized or no. I speake not this as though the state of children that died without baptisme were desperate God forbid for who shall shorten the Arme of the Lord God is able to raine downe Manna and Quailes into the soules of these children though negligent parents turne them out into the wildernesse and put God to that extraordinary work They may have Manna and Quailes but they have not the Milke and Hony of the Land of promise They may have salvation from God but they have not those graces so sealed and so testified to them as God hath promised they should be in his Sacraments When God in spirituall offences makes Inquisition of bloud he proceeds not as Man proceeds for we till there appear a Man to be dead never inquire who killed him but in the spirituall Murder of an unbaptized child though there be no child spiritually dead though Gods mercy have preserved the child from that yet God imputes this as such a murder to them who endangered the child as farre as they could by neglecting his ordinance of baptisme This is then the necessity of this Sacrament not absolutely necessary but necessary by Gods ordinary institution and as it is always necessary so is it always certaine whosoever is baptized according to Christs institution receives the Sacrament of baptisme and the truth is always infallibly annexed with the signe Nec fieri potest visio hominis ut non sit Sacramentum quod figurat Though the wicked may feele no working by the Sacrament yet the Sacrament doth offer and present grace as well to the unworthy as to the worthy Receiver Nec fallaciter promittit The wicked may be a cause that the Sacrament shall doe them no good but that the Sacrament become no Sacrament or that God should be false in his promises and offer no grace where he pretends to offer it this the wicked cannot doe baptisme doth truly and without collusion offer grace to all and nothing but baptisme by an ordinary institution and as an ordinary meanes doth so for when baptisme is called a figure yet both that figure is said there to save us The figure that now saveth us baptisme and it is a figure of the Arke it hath relation to it to that Arke which did save the world when it is called a figure So it may be a figure but if we speake of reall salvation by it baptisme is more then a figure Now as our putting on of Christ was double by faith and by sanctification so by this Sacrament also we are baptized in Nomen Christi into the Name of Christ and in mortem Christi into the death of Christ we are not therefore baptized into his Name because names are imposed upon us in our baptisme for that was not always permanently accustomed in the Christian Church to give a name at baptisme To men who were of years and well known in the world already by their nameâ— if they were converted to the Christian faith the Church did not use to give new names at their baptisme neither to Children alwayes but sometimes as an indifferent thing they left them to the custome of that country or of that family from which they were derived When Saint Augustine sayes that he came to Milan to S. Ambrose at that time quâ— dari nomina oportuit when Names were to be given it is true that he speaks of a time when Baptisme was to be administred but that phrase of Giving of Names was not a receiving of Names at Baptisme for neither Ambrose nor Augustine received any new name at their Baptisme but it was a giving up of their Names a Registring a Matriculating of their Names in the book of the profession of the Christian Religion and a publique declaration of that profession To be baptized therefore into the name of Christ is to be translated into his Family by this spirituall adoption in which adoption when it was legall as they that were adopted had also the name of the family into which they were adopted as of octavius Octavianus and the rest so are we so baptized into his name that we are of Christus Christiani and therefore to become truly Christians to live Christianly this is truly to be baptized into his name No other name is given under heaven whereby we can be saved nor must any other name accompany the name of God in our Baptisme When therefore they teach in the Romane Church that it is a good Baptisme which is administred in this forme I baptize thee in the name of the Father and Sonne and holy Ghost and the virgin Mary if he which baptizes so
the Sacrament and that hath this effect ut sensum minuat in minimis toliat consensum in magnis peccatis That grace that God gives in the Sacrament makes us lesse sensible of small tentations they move us not and it makes us resist and not yeild to the greatest tentations since I am in this state Quomodo inquinubo How shall I defile them The difference will be of whom thou askest this question If thou aske the world the world will tell thee well enough Quomodo How It will tell thee that it is a Melancholy thing to sit thinking upon thy sinnes That it is an unsociable thing to seeke him who cannot be seen an invisible God That it is poore company to passe thy time with a Priest Thou maiest defile thy selfe againe by forgetting thy sinnes and so doing them over againe And thou maist defile thy selfe againe by remembring thy sins and so sinne over thy sinnes againe in a sinfull delight of thy passed sinnes and a desire that thou couldst commit them againe There are answers enough to this Quomodo How how should I defile them if thou aske the world but aske thy Saviour and he shall tell thee That whosoever hath this water shall never thirst more but that water shall be in him an everlasting spring that is he shall find meanes to keep himselfe in that cleannesse to which he is come and neither things present nor things to come shall separate him from the love of God Thus the voice of this religious indignation Quomodo is how is it possible but it is also Quomodo how that is why should I The first is how should I be so base the other how should I be so bold Though I have my pardon written in the bloud of my Saviour sealed to me in his Sacrament brought home to me in the testimony of the holy Ghost pleaded for me at the tribunall of the Father yet as Princes pardons have so Gods pardons have too this clause It a quod se bene gerat He that is pardoned must continue of good behaviour for whensoever he breakes the peace he forfeits his pardon When I returne to my repented sinnes againe I am under the burden of all my former sinnes and my very repentance contracts the nature of a sinne and therefore Quomodo how should I that is why should I defile them To restore you to your liberty and to send you away with the meditation which concernes you most consider what an astonishment this would be that when Christ Jesus shall lay open the great volumes of all your sinnes to your sight who had forgot them and to their sight from whom you had disguised them at the last judgement when you shall heare all the wantonnesses of your youth all the Ambitions of your middle years all the covetous desires of your age published in that presence and thinke then this is the worst that can be said or laid to my charge this is the last indictment and the last evidence there shall follow your very repentances in the list of your sinnes and it shall be told you and all the world then Here and here you deluded that God that forbore to inflict his Judgements upon new vowes new contracts new promises between you and him even your repentances shall bind up that booke and tye your old sinnes and new relapses into one body And let this meditation bring you ad vocem gratulantis to rejoyce once againe in this Lavi pedes that you have now washed your feet in a present sorrow and ad vocem indignantis to a stronger indignation and faster resolution then heretofore you have had never to defile them againe SERMON IX Preached at a Churching MICAH 2. 10. Arise and depart for this is not your Rest. ALL that God asks of us is that we love him with all our heart All that he promises us is that he will give us rest round about us Judah sought the Lord with a whole desire and he gave her rest round about her Now a Man might think himselfe well disposed for Rest when he lies down I will lay me down and sleep in peace sayes David but it is otherwise here Arise and depart for here that is in lying and sleeping is not your Rest sayes this Prophet These words have a three-fold acceptation and admit a three-fold exposition for first they are a Commination the Prophet threatens the Jewes Secondly they are a Commonition the Prophet instructs all future ages Thirdly they areâ—a Consolation which hath reference to the Consummation of all to the rising at the generall Judgement First he foretels the Jewes of their imminent captivity Howsoever you build upon the pactum salis the Covenant of salt the everlasting Covenant that God will be your God and this land your land yet since that confidence sears you up in your sins Arise and depart for this is not your rest your Ierusalem must be chang'd into Babylon there 's the Commination Secondly he warns us who are bedded and bedrid in our sins howsoever you say to your selves Soule take thy rest enjoy the honors the pleasures the abundances of this world Tush the Lord sees it not The Master will not come we may ly still safely and rest in the fruition of this Happinesse yet this Rest will betray you this rest will deliver you over to eternall disquiet And therefore arise and depart for this is not your Rest and that 's the Commonition And in the third acceptation of the words as they may have relation to the Resurrection they may well admit a little inversion Howsoever you feel a Resurrection by grace from the works of death and darknesse in this life yet in this life there is no assurednesse that he that is risen and thinks he stands shall not fall here you arise and depart that is rise from your sins and depart from your sinfull purposes but you arise and depart so too that you fall and depart again into your sinfull purposes after you have risen and therefore Depart and arise for here is not your rest till you depart altogether out of this world and rise to Judgement you can have no such rest as can admit no disquiet no perturbation but then you shall and that 's the Consolation First then as the words concern the Iewes Here is first an increpation a rebuke that they are fallen from their station and their dignity implied in the first word Arise for then they were fallen Secondly here is a demonstration in the same word That though they lik'd that state into which they were fallen which was a security and stubbornnesse in their sins yet they should not enjoy even that security and that stubbornnesse that fall of theirs but they should lose that though it were but a false contentment yet they should be rouâ—'d out of that Arise first arise because you are fallen and then arise though you think your selves at easeâ— by that fall And
and fetch it againe And then it was rotten and good for nothing for says he as the girdle cleaveth to the loines so have I tyed to me the house of Israel and Iudah that they might be my people that they might have a name and a praise and a glory but they would not heare Therefore say unto them Every bottle shall be filled with wine Here was a promise of plenty and they shall say unto thee Doe not we know that every bottle shall be filled with wineâ— that God is bound to give us this plenty because he hath tyed himselfe by oath and covenunt and promise But behold I fill all the inhabitants with drunkennesse since they trust in their plenty that shall be an occasion of sinne to them and I will dash them against one another even the father and sonnes together I will not spare I will not pity I will not have compassion but destroy them God could not promise more then he did in this place at first he could not depart farther from that promise then by their occasion he came to at last Gods promise goes no farther with Moses himselfe My presence shall goe with thee and I will give thee rest If we will steale out of Gods presence into darke and sinfull corners there is no rest promised Receive my words says Solomon and the years of thy life shall be many Trust in the Lord says David and doe good performe both stand upon those two leggs faith and works not that they are alike there is a right and a left legge but stand upon both upon one in the sight of God upon the other in the sight of Man Trust in the Lord and doe good and then shall dwell in the land and be fed assuredly That paradise that peace of Conscience which God establishes in thee by faith hath a condition of growth and encrease from faith to faith heaven it selfe in which the Angells were had a condition they might they did fall from thence The land of Canaan was their own land and the rest of that land their Rest by Gods oath and covenant and yet here was not their rest not here nor for any thing expressed or intimated in the word any where else Here was a Nunc dimittis but not in pace The Lord lets them depart and makes them depart but not in peace for their eyes saw no salvation they were sent away to a heavy captivity Beloved we may have had a Canaan an inheritance a comfortable assurance in our bosomes in our consciences and yet heare that voice after that here is not our rest except as Gods goodnesse at first moved him to make one oath unto us of a conditionall rest as our sins have put God to his second oath that he sware we should not have his rest so our repentance bring him to a third oath as I live I would not the death of a sinner that so he doe not onely make a new contract with us but give us withall an ability to performe the conditions which he requires SERMON X. Preached at the Churching of the Countesse of Bridgewater MICAH 2â— 10. second Sermon THus far we have proceeded in the first acceptation of these words according to their principall and literall sense as they appertain'd to the Iewes and their staâ—e so they were a Commination As they appertain to all succeeding Ages and to us so they are a Commonition an alarm to raise us from the sleep and death of sin And then in a third acceptation they are a Consolation that at last we shall have a rising and a departing into such a state in the Resurrection as we shall no more need this voice Arise and depart because we shall be no more in danger of falling no more in danger of departing from the presence and contemplation and service and fruition of God And in both these latter senses the words admit a just accommodation to this present occasion God having rais'd his honorable servant and hand-maid here present to a sense of the Curse that lyes upon women for the transgression of the first woman which is painfull and dangerous Child-birth and given her also a sense of the last glorious resurrection in having rais'd her from that Bed of weaknesse to the ability of coming into his presence here in his house First then to consider them in the first of these two latter senses as a Commonition to them that are in the state of sin first there is an increpation implied in this word Arise when we are bid arise we are told that we are faln sin is an unworthy descent and an ignoble fall Secondly we are bid to doe something and therefore we are able to doe something God commands nothing impossible so as that that degree of performance which he will accept should be impossible to the man whom his grace hath affected That which God will accept is possible to the godly And thirdly that which he commands here is deriv'd into two branches We are bidden to riseâ— that is to leave our bed our habit of sin and then not to be idle when we are up but to depart not onely to depart from the Customâ— but from tentations of Recidiâ—ation and not onely that but to depart into another way a habit of Actions contrary to our former Sins And then all this is press'd and urged upon us by a Reason The Holy Ghost appears not like a ghost in one sodain glance or glimmering but he testifies his presence and he presses the businesse that he comes for And the reason that he uses here is Quia non requies because otherwise we lose the Pondus animae the weight the ballast of our soule rest and peace of Conscience for howâ—ever there may be some rest some such shew of Rest as may serve a carnall man a little while yet sayes our Text it is not your Rest it conduces not to that Rest which God hath ordained for you whom he would direct to a better Rest. That Rest your Rest is not here not in that which is spoken of here not in your lying still you must rise from it not in your standing still you must depart from it your Rest is not here but yet since God sends us away because our Rest is not here he does tacitly direct â—s thereby where there is Rest And that will be the third acceptation of these words to which we shall come anone For that then which rises first the increpation of our fall implied in the word Arise there is nothing in which that which is the mother of all vertues discretion is more tryed then in the conveying and imprinting profitably a rebuke an increpation a knowledge and sense of sinne in the conscience of another The rebuke of sin is like the fishing of Whales the Marke is great enough one can scarse misse hitting but if there be not sea room and line enough a dexterity in
nor Land is our surety but our surety is one who is already crown'd with that Resurrection Num in hominibus terrae legeneraâ— quae omnia regenerat sayes Saint Ambrose will the earth that gives a new life to all Creatures faile in us and hold us in an everlasting winter without a spring and a Resurrection Certainly no but if we be content so to depart into the wombe of the Earth our grave as that we know that to be but the Entry into glory as we depart contentedly so we shall arise gloriously to that place where our eternall Rest shall be though here there be not our Rest for he that shoots an arrow at a mark yet means to put that arrow into his Quiver again and God that glorifies himselfe in laying down our bodies in the grave means also to glorifie them in reaffirming them to himselfe at the last day SERMON XI Preached at Lincolns Inne preparing them to build their Chappell Gâ—N 28. 16 17. Then Iacob awâ—ke out of his sleep and said Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware And he was afraid and said Now fearfull us this place This is none other but the House of God and this is the gate of Heaven IN these verses Iacob is a Surveyor he considers a fit place for the house of God and in the very next verse he is a Builder he erects Bethel the house of God it selfe All was but a drowsinesse but a sleep till he came to this Consideration as soon as he awoke he took knowledge of a fit place as soon as he found the place he went about the work But to that we shall not come yet But this Text being a preparation for the building of a house to God though such a house as Iacob built then require no contribution yet because such Churches as we build now doe we shall first say a little of that great vertue of Charity and then somewhat of that vertue as it is exercis'd by advancing the house of God and his outward worship And thirdly we shall consider Iacob's steps and proceedings in this action of his This vertue then Charity is it that conducts its in this life and accompanies us in the next In heaven where we shall know God there may be no use of faith In heaven where we shall see God there may be no use of hope but in heaven where God the Father and the Son love one another in the Holy Ghost the bond of charity shall everlastingly unite us together But Charitas in patria and Charitas in via differ m this That there we shall love one another because we shall not need one another for we shall all be fullâ— Here the exercise of our charity is because we doe stand in need of one another Dives pauper duo sunt sibi contraria sed iterum duo sunt sibi necessaria Rich and poor are contrary to one another but yet both necessary to one another They are both necessary to one another but the poor man is the more necessary because though one man might be rich though no man were poor yet he could have no exercise of his charity he could send none of his riches to heaven to help him there except there were some poor here He that is too fat would fain devest some of that though he could give that to no other man that lack'd it And shall not he that is wantonly pampered nay who is heavily laden and encombred with temporall abundances be content to discharge himself of some of that wherewith he is over-straighted upon those poor souls whom God hath not made poor for any sin of theirs or of their fathers but onely to present rich men exercise of their charity and occasions of testifying their love to Christ who having given himselfe to convey salvation upon thee if that conveyance may be sealed to thee by giving a little of thine own is it not an easie purchase When a poore wretch beggs of thee and thou givest thou dost but justice it is his But when he begs of God for thee and God gives thee this is mercy this was none of thine When we shall come to our Redde rationem villicationis to give an accompt of our Stewardship when we shall not measure our inheritance by Acres but all heaven shall be ours and we shall follow the Lamb wheresoever he goes when our estate and term shall not be limited by years and lives but as we shall be in the presence of the Ancient of dayes so our dayes shall be so far equall to his as that they shall be without end Then will our great Merchants great practisers great purchasers great Contracters find another language another style then they have been accustom'd to here There no man shall be call'd a prodigall but onely the Covetous man Onely he that hath been too diligent a keeper shall appear to have been an unthrift and to have wasted his best treasure the price of the bloud of Christ Iesue his own soule There no man shall be call'd good security but he that hath made sure his salvation No man shall be call'd a Subsidy man but he that hath relieved Christ Jesus in his sick and hungry Members No man shall be call'd a wise Steward but he that hath made friends of the wicked Mammon Nor provident Merchant but he that sold all to buy the pearle Nor a great officer but he that desires to be a dore-keeper in the kingdome of Heaven Now every man hath a key to this dore of heaven Every man hath some means to open it every man hath an oyle to anoint this key and make it turn easily he may goe with more case to Heaven then he doth to Hell Every man hath some means to pour this oile of gladnesse and comfort into anothers heart No man can say Quid retribuam tibi Domine Lord what have I to give thee for every man hath something to give God Money or labor or counsail or prayers Every man can give and he gives to God who gives to them that need it for his sake Come not to that expostulation When did we see thee hungry or sick or imprisoned and did not minister Nor to that Quid retribuam What can I give that lack my selfe lest God come also to that silence and wearinesse of asking at thy hands to say as he sayes in the Psalme If I be hungry I will not tell thee That though he have given thee abundance though he lack himselfe in his children yet he will not tell thee he will not ask at thy hands he will not enlighten thine understanding he will not awaken thy charity he will not give thee any occasion of doing good with that which he hath given thee But God hath given thee a key yea as he sayes to the Church of Philadelphia Behold I set before thee an open dore and no man can shut it Thou hast a
that thou hast not received he asks that question of a man that which is received is received as man For as Bellarmine in a place where he disposes himself to quarrell at some few words of Calvins though he confesse the matter to be true and as he cals it there Catholique says Essentiam genitam negamus we confesse that Christ hath not his essence from his Father by generation the relation the filiation he hath from his Father he hath the name of Son but he hath not this execution of this judgement by that relation by that filiation still as the Son of God he hath the capacity as the Sonne of man he hath the execution And therefore Prosper that follows S. Augustine limits perchance too narrowly to the very flesh to the humanity Ipsa not Ipsae â—rit Iudex quae sub Iudice stetit and ipsa judicabit quae judicatae est where he places not this Judgement upon the mixt person which is the safest way of God and man but upon man alone God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousnesse But by whom By that man whom he hath ordained God will judge still but still in Christ and therefore says S. Augustine upon those words Arise O Lord and judge the earth Cui Deo dicitur surge nisi ei qui dormivit What God doth David call upon to arise but that God who lay down to sleep in the grave as though he should say says August Dormivisti judicatus à terra surge judâ—ca terram So that to collect all though judgement be such a character of God as he cannot devest yet the Father hath committed such a Judgement to the Sonne as none but he can execute And what is that Omne judicium all judgement that is omne imperium omnem potestatem It is presented in the name of Judgement but it involves all It is literally and particularly Judgement in S. Iohn The Father hath given him authority to execute judgement It is extended unto power in Saint Matthew All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth And it is enlarg'd as far farther as can be expressed or conceived in another place of Saint Matthew All things are deliver'd to me of my Father Now all things our Saviour Christ Jesus exercises either per carnem or at least in carne whatsoever the Father does the Sonne does too In carne because now there is an unseparable union betwixt God and the humane nature The Father creates new souls every day in the inanimation of Children and the Sonne creates them with him The Father concurs with all second causes as the first moving cause of all naturall things and all this the Sonne does too but all this in carne Though he be in our humane flesh he is not the lesse able to doe the acts belonging to the Godhead but per carnem by the flesh instrumentally visibly he executes judgement because he is the Son of man God hath been so indulgent to man as that there should be no judgement given upon man but man should give it Christ then having all Judgment we refresh to your memory those three Judgements which we toucht upon before first the Judgement of our Election severing of vessels of honour and dishonor next the Judgement of our Justification here severing of friends from enemies and then the Judgment of our Glorification severing sheep from goats and for the first of our Election As if I were under the condemnation of the Law for some capitall offence and going to execution and the Kings mercy expressed in a sealed pardon were presented me I should not stand to enquire what mov'd the King to doe it what hee said to any body else what any body else said to him what hee saw in mee or what hee look't for at my hands but embrace that mercy cheerfully and thankfully and attribute it onely to his abundant goodnesse So when I consider my selfe to have been let fall into this world in massa Damnata under the generall condemnation of mankind and yet by the working of Gods Spirit I find at first a desire and after a modest assurance that I am delivered from that condemnation I enquire not what God did in his bed-chamber in his cabinet counsell in his eternall decree I know that hee hath made Iudicium electionis in Christ Jesus And therefore that I may know whether I doe not deceive my selfe in presuming my self to be of that number I come down and examine my selfe whether I can truly tell my conscience that Christ Jesus dyed for mee which I cannot doe if I have not a desire and an endevour to conform my self to him And if I do that there I finde my Predestination I am a Christian and I will not offer to goe before my Master Christ Jesus I cannot be sav'd before there was a Saviour In Christ Jesus is Omne judicium all judgement and therefore the judgment of Election the first separation of vessels of honour and dishonour in Election and Reprobation was in Christ Jesus Much more evidently is the second judgement of our Justification by means ordain'd in the Christian Church the Judgement of Christ it is the Gospel of Christ which is preacht to you there There is no name given under heaven whereby you should be saved there are no other means wherby salvation should be applyed in his name given but those which he hath instituted in his Church So that when I come to the second â—udgement to try whether I stand justifyed in the sight of Christ or no I come for that Judgement to Christ in his Church Doe I remember what I contracted with Christ Jesus when I took the name of a Christian at my entrance into his Church by Baptism Doe I find I have endevoured to perform those Conditions Doe I find a remorse when I have not performed them Doe I feele the remission of those sinnes applyed to me when I hear the gracious promises of the Gospel shed upon repentant sinners by the mouth of his Minister Have I a true and solid consolation without shift or disguise or flattering of my conscience when I receive the seal of his pardon in the Sacrament Beloved not in any morall integrity not in keeping the conscience of an honest man in generall but in using well the meanes ordain'd by Christ in the Christian Church am I justified And therefore this Judgement of Justification is his too And then the third and last judgement which is the judgment of Glorification that 's easily agreed by all to appertain unto Christ Idem Iesus The same Iesus that ascended shall come to judgement Videbunt quem pupugerant Every eye shall see him and they also which pierc't him Then the Son of man shall come in glory and he as man shall give the judgement for things done or omitted towards him as man for not feeding for not clothing for
not harbouring for not visiting The sum of all is that this is the overflowing goodnesse of God that he deales with man by the sonne of man and that hee hath so given all judgement to the Sonne as that if you would be tryed by the first judgement are you elected or no The issue is doe you believe in Christ Jesus or no If you would be tryed by the second judgement are you justified or no The issue is doe you find comfort in the application of the Word and Sacraments of Christ Jesus or no If you would be tryed by the third Judgement do you expect a Glorification or no The issue is Are you so reconcil'd to Christ Jesus now by hearty repentance for sinnes past and by detestation of occasion of future sin that you durst welcome that Angel which should come at this time and sweare that time should be no more that your transmigration out of this world should be this minute and that this minute you might say unfeignedly and effectually Veni Domine Iesu come quickly come now if this be your state then are you partakers of all that blessednesse which the Father intended to you when for your sake he committed all Judgment to the Son SERMON XIII Preached at Lincolns Inne JOHN 8. 15. I judge no man THe Rivers of Paradise did not all run one way and yet they flow'd from one head the sentences of the Scripture flow all from one head from the holy Ghost and yet they seem to present divers senses and to admit divers interpretations In such an appearance doth this Text differ from that which I handled in the forenoon and as heretofore I found it a usefull and acceptable labour to employ our Evening exercises upon the vindicating of some such places of Scripture as our adversaries of the Roman Church had detorted in some point of controversie between them and us and restoring those places to their true sense which course I held constantly for one whole year so I think it a usefull and acceptable labour now to employ for a time those Evening exercises to reconcile some such places of Scripture as may at first sight seem to differ from one another In the morning we saw how Christ judged all now we are to see how he judges none I judge no man To come then to these present words here we have the same person Christ Jesus and hath not he the same Office Is not he Judge certainly though he retain'd all his other Offices though he be the Redeemer and have shed his blood in value satisfactory for all our sins though he be our Advocate and plead for us in heaven and present our evidence to that Kingdome written in his blood seal'd in his wounds yet if hee bee not our Judge wee cannot stand in judgement shall hee bee our Judge and is hee not our Judge yet Long before wee were hee was our Judge at the separation of the Elect and Reprobate in Gods eternall Decree Was he our Judge then and is hee not so still still he is present in his Church and cleares us in all scruples rectifies us in all errors erects us in all dejections of spirit pronounces peace and reconciliation in all apprehensions of his Judgements by his Word and by his Sacraments was hee and is he and shall he not be our Judge still I am sure my Redeemer liveth and he shall stand the last on earth So that Christ Jesus is the same to day and yesterday and for ever before the world begun and world without end Sicut erat in principio as he was in the beginning he is and shall be ever our Judge So that then these words are not De tempâ—re but De modo there was never any time when Christ was not Judge but there were some manner of Judgements which Christ did never exercise and Christ had no commission which he did not execute for hee did all his Fathers will 1. In secularibus in civill or criminall businesses which belong meerly to the Judicatures and cognisance of this world Iudicat neminem Christ judges no man 2. Secundum carnem so as they to whom Christ spake this who judged as himself says here according to fleshly affections Iudicat neminem he judges no man and 3. Ad internecionem so as that upon that Judgement a man should despair of any reconciliation any redintegration with God again and be without hope of pardon and remission of sins in this world Iudicat neminem he judges no man 1. Christ usurps upon no mans Jurisdiction that were against justice 2. Christ imputes no false things to any man that were against charity 3. Christ induces no man to desperation that were against faith and against Justice against charity against faith Iudicat neminem First then Christ judgeth not in secular judgements and we note his abstinence therein first in civill matters when one of the company said to him Master bid my brother divide the inheritance with me as Saint Augustine says the Plaintiffe thought his cause to be just and hee thought Christ to bee a competent Judge in the cause and yet Christ declines the judgement disavows the authority and he answers Homo quis me constituit Iudicem Man who made me a Judge between you To that Generall which we had in the morning Omne judicium the Son hath all judgement here is an exception of the same Judges own making for in secular judgements Nemo constituit he had no commission and therefore Iudicat neminem he judges no man he forbore in criminall matters too for when the woman taken in adultery was brought before him he condemned her not It is true he absolv'd her not the evidence was pregnant against her but he condemned her not he undertook no office of a Judge but of a sweet and spirituall Counsellor Go and sinne no more for this was his Element his Tribunall When then Christ says of himself with such a pregnant negative Quis me constituit Iudicem may not we say so too to his pretended Vicar the Bishop of Rome Quiâ—te Who made you Judge of Kings that you should depose them in criminall causes Or who made you proprietary of Kingdomes that you should dispose of them as of civill inheritances when to countenance such a pretence they detort places of Scripture not onely perversly but senselesly blasphemously ridiculously as ridicolously as in their pasquils wheÌ„ in an undiscreet shamlesnes to make their power greater then it is they make their fault greater then it is too fil their histories with examples of Kings deposed by Popes which in truth were not depos'd by them for in that they are more innocent then they will confesse themselves to be when some of their Authors say that the Primitive Church abstain'd from deposing Emperors onely because she was not strong enough to do it when some of them say That all Christian Kingdomes of the earth may fall into
against the holy Ghost for this is the nearest step thou hast made to it to think that thou hast done it walke in that large field of the Scriptures of God and from the first flower at thy entrance the flower of Paradise Semen mulieris the generall promise of the seed of the woman should bruise the Serpents head to the last word of that Messias upon the Crosse Consummatum est that all that was promised for us is now performed and from the first to the last thou shalt find the savour of life unto life in all those flowers walke over the same alley againe and consider the first man Adam in the beginning who involv'd thee in originall sinne and the thiefe upon the Crosse who had continued in actuall sinnes all his life and sealed all with the sinne of reviling Christ himselfe a little before his expiration and yet he recovered Paradise and Paradise that day and see if thou canst make any shift to exclude thy selfe receive the fragrancy of all these Cordialls Vivit Dominâ—â— as the Lord liveth I would not the death of a sinner Quandocunque At what time soever a sinner repenteth and of this text Neminem judieat Christ judgeth no man to destruction here and if thou find after all these Antidotes a suspitious ayre a suspicious working in that Impossibiâ—e est that it is impossible for them who were once inlightened if they fall away to renew them againe by repentance sprinkle upon that worme wood of Impossibile est that Manna of Quorum remiseritis whose sinnes yee remit are remitted and then it will have another tast to thee and thon wilt see that that impossibility lies upon them onely who are utterly fallen away into an absolute Apostasie and infidelity that make a mocke of Christ and crucifie him againe as it is expressed there who undervalue and despise the Church of God those means which Christ Jesus hath instituted in his Church for renewing such as are fallen To such it is impossible because there are no other ordinary meanes possible but that 's not thy case thy case is onely a doubt that those meanes that are shaâ—â— not be applied to thee and even that is a slippery state to doubt of the mercy of God to thee in particular this goes so neare making thy sinne greater then Gods mercy as that it makes thy sinne greater then daily adulteries daily murthers daily blasphemies daily prophanings of the Sabbath could have done and though thou canst never make that true in this life that thy sinnes are greater then God can forgive yet this is a way to make them greater then God will forgive Now to collect both our Exercises and to connexe both Texts Christ judgeth all men and Christ judgeth no man he claimes all judgment and he disavows all judgement and they consist well together he was at our creation but that was not his first sense the Arians who say Erat quando non erat there was a time when Christ was not intimating that he had a beginning and therefore was a creature yet they will allow that he was created before the generall creation and so assisted at ours but he was infinite generations before that in the bosome of his Father at our election and there in him was executed the first judgment of separating those who were his the elect from the reprobate and then he knows who are his by that first Judgment And so comes to his second Judgment to seale all those in the visible Church with the outward mark of his baptisme and the inward marke of his Spirit and those whom he calls so he justifies and sanctifies and brings them to his third Judgment to an established and perpetuall glory And so all Judgment is his But then to judge out of humane affections and passions by detraction and calumny as they did to whom he spoke at this time so he judges no man so he denies judgment To usurpe upon the jurisdiction of others or to exercise any other judgment then was his commission as his pretended Vicar doth so he judges no man so he disavows all judgment To judge so as that our condemnation should be irremediable in this life so he judges no man so he forswears all judgment As I live saith the Lord of hosts and as I have died saith the Lord Jesus so I judge none Acknowledge his first Judgment thy election in him Christ his second Judgment thy justification by him breath and pant after his third Judgement thy Crown of glory for him intrude not upon the right of other men which is the first defame not calumniate not other men which is the second lay not the name of reprobate in this life upon any man which is the third Judgement that Christ disavows here and then thou shalt have well understood and well practised both these texts The Father hath committed all Iudgment to the Sonne and yet The Sonne judges no man SERMON XIIII Preached at Lincolns Inne JOB 19. 26. And though after my skin wormes destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God AMongst those Articles in which our Church hath explain'd and declar'd her faith this is the eight Article that the three Creeds that of the councell of Nice that of Athanasius and that which is commonly known by the name of the Apostles Creed ought throughly to be received and embrac'd The meaning of the Church is not that onely that should be beleev'd in which those three Creeds agree for the Nicen Creed mentions no Article after that of the holy Ghost not the Catholique Church not the Communion of Saints not the Resurrection of the flesh Athanasius his Creed does mention the Resurrection but not the Catholique Church nor the communion of Saints but that all should be beleev'd which is in any of them all which is summ'd up in the Apostles Creed Now the reason expressed in that Article of our Church why all this is to be beleeved is Because all this may be prov'd by most certaine warrants of holy Scriptures The Article does not insist upon particular places of Scripture not so much as point to them But they who have enlarged the Articles by way of explanation have done that And when they come to cite those places of Scripture which prove the Article of the Resurrection I observe that amongst those places they forbeare this text so that it may seem that in their opinion this Scripture doth not concerne the Resurrection It will not therefore be impertinent to make it a first part of this exercise whether this Scripture be to be understood of the Resurrection or no And then to make the particular handling of the words a second part In the first we shall see that the Iews always had and have still a persuasion of the Resurrection We shall look after by what light they saw that whether by the light of naturall reason And if not by that by what light given in other places
Father or of my friend shall bee glorifyed there mine eyes shall be glorifyed as much and we are both kept in the same proportion there as wee had towards one another here here my naturall eye could see his naturall face and there mine eye is as much mended as his body is and my sense as much exalted as mine object And as well as I may know that I am I I may know that He is He for I shall not know my selfe nor that state of glory which I am then in by any light of Nature which I brought thither but by that light of Glory which I shall receive there When therefore a man finds that this consideration does him good in his conversation and retards him towards some sinnes how shall I stand then when all the world shall see that my solicitation hath brought such a woman to the stews to the Hospitall to hell who had scap'd all this if I had not corrupted her at first which no man in the world knew before and all shall know then Or that my whispering and my calumny hath overthrown such a man in his place in his reputation in his fortune which he himself knew not before and all shall know then Or that my counsell or my example hath been a furtherance to any mans spirituall edification here He that in rectified reason and a rectified conscience finds this in Gods name let him beleeve yea for Gods sake let him take heed of not beleeving that we shall know one another Actions and Persons in the Resurrection as the Apostles did know Christ at the Transfiguration which was a Type of it This Transfiguration then upon earth was the same glory which Christ had after in heaven Qualis venturus talis apparuit such as all eyes shall see him to be when he comes in glory at last those Apostles saw him then but of the particular circumstances even of this transfiguration upon earth there is but little said to us Let us modestly take that which is expressed in it and not search over-curiously farther into that which is signifyed and represented by it which is the state of glory in the Resurrection First his face shin'd as the Sunne says that Gospell he could not take a higher comparison for our Information and for our admiration in this world then the Sunne And then the Saints of God in their glorifyed state are admitted to the same comparison The righteous shall shine out as the Sunne in the Kingdome of the Father the Sunne of the firmament which should be their comparison will be gone But the Sun of grace and of glory the Son of God shall remain and they shall shine as he that is in his righteousnesse In this transfiguration his clothes were white says the text but how white the holy Ghost does not tell us at once as white as snow says Saint Mark as white as light says Saint Matthew Let the garments of the glorifyed Saints of God be their bodies and then their bodies are as white as snow as snow that fall's from heaven and hath touâ—ht no pollution of the earth For though our bodies have been upon earth and have touched pitch and have been defiled yet that will not lye in proof not be given in evidence Though he that drew me and I that was drawen too know in what unclean places and what unclean actions this body of mine hath been yet it lyes not in proof it shall not be given in evidence for Accusator fratrum The accuser of the brethren is cast down the Devill shall find nothing against me And if I had spontaneum Daemonem as Saint Chrysostome speaks a bosome Devill and could tempt my self though there had been no other tempter in this world so I have spontanâ—um Demonem a bosome accuser a conscience that would accuse me there if I accuse my self there I reproach the mercy of God who hath seal'd my pardon and made even my body what sins soever had discoloured it as white as snow As white as snow and as white as light says that Gospel Light implies an active power Light is operative and works upon others The bodies of the Saints of God shall receive all impressions of glory in themselves and they shall doe all that is to bee done for the glory of God there There they shall stand in his service and they shall kneel in his worship and they shall fall in his reverence and they shall sing in his glory they shall glorifie him in all positions of the body They shall be glorified in themselves passively and they shall glorifie God actively sicut Nix sicut Lux their beeing their doing shall be all for him Thus they shall shine as the Sun Thus their garments shall be white white as snow in being glorified in their own bodies white as light in glorifying God in all the actions of those bodies Now there is thus much more considerable and applyable to our present purpose in this tranfiguration of Christ that there was company with them Be not apt to think heaven in an Ermitage or a Monastery or the way to heaven a sullen melancholy Heaven and the way to it is a Communion of Saints in a holy cheerfulnesse Get thou thither make sure thine own salvation but be not too hasty to think that no body gets thither except he go thy way in all opinions and all actions There was company in the transfiguration but no other company then Moses and Elias and Christ and the Apostles none but they to whom God had manifested himself otherwise then to a meer naturall man otherwise then as a generall God For in the Law and in the Padagogie and Schoolmastership and instruction thereof God had manifested himself particularly by Moses In Elias and the Prophets whom God sent in a continuall succession to refresh that manifestation which he had given of himself in the Law before in the example of these rules in him who was the consummation of the Law and the Prophets Christ Iesus And then in the Application of all this by the Apostles and by the Church established by them God had more particularly manifested himself then to naturall men Moses Elias Christ and the Apostles make up the houshold of the faithfull and none have interest in the Resurrection but in and by these These to whom and by whom God hath exhibited himself to his Church by other notions then as one universall God For nothing will save a man but to believe in God so as God hath proposed himself in his Son in his Scriptures in his Christ. These were with him in the transfiguration and they talked with him says that text As there is a Communion of Saints so there is a Communication of Saints Think not heaven a Charter-house where men who onely of all creatures are enabled by God to speak must not speak to one another The Lord of heaven is
he be put to give judgement upon a particular man that stands before him at the bar according to that Law That that man that stands there that day must that day be no man that that breath breathed in by God to glorify him must be suffocated and strangled with a halter or evaporated with an Axe he must be hanged or beheaded that those limbs which make up a Cabinet for that precious Jewell the image of God to be kept in must be cut into quarters or torne with horses that that body which is a consecrated Temple of the Holy Ghost must be chained to a stake and burnt to ashes hee that is not affected in giving such a judgment upon such a man hath no part in the bowels of Christ Jesus that melt in cōpassion when our sinnes draw and extort his Judgements upon us in the mouth of those Prophets those men whom God sends it is so and it is so in the mouth of God himself that sends them Heu vindicabor says God Alas I will revenge mee of mine enemies Alas I will is Alas I must his glory compels him to doe it the good of his Church and the sustentation of his Saints compell him to it and yet he comes to it with a condolency with a compassion Heu vindicabor Alas I will revenge mee of mine enemies so also in another Prophet Heu abominationes Alas for all the evill abominations of the house of Israel for as it is added there they shall fall that is they will fall by the sword by famine by pestilence and as it follows I will accomplish my fury upon them Though it were come to that height fury and accomplishment consummation of fury yet it comes with a condolency and compassion Heu abominationes Alas for all the evill abominations of the house of Israel I would they were not so ill that I might be better to them Men sent by God do so so does God that sends those men he that is both God and man Christ Jesus does so too We have but two clear records in the Scriptures of Christs weeping and both in compassion for others when Mary wept for her dead brother Lazarus and the Jews that were with her wept too Iesus also wept and he groan'd in the spirit and was troubled This was but for the discomfort of one family it was not a mortality over the whole Country It was but for one person in that family it was not a contagion that had swept or did threaten the whole house it was but for such a person in that family as he meant forthwith to restore to life again and yet Iesus wept groaned in the Spirits was trobled he would not lose that opportunity of shewing his tendernesse and compassion in the behalf of others How vehement how passionate then must we beleeve his other weeping to have been when hee had his glorious and beloved City Jerusalem in his sight and wept over that City and with that stream of tears powred out that Sea that tempestuous Sea those heavy judgements which though he wept in doing it he denounced upon that City that glorious that beloved City which City though Christ charge to have stoned them that were sent to her and to bee guilty of all the righteous blood shed upon the earth the holy Ghost cals the holy City for all that not onely at the beginning of Christs appearance The Devill took him up into the holy City for at that time she was not the unholyer for any thing that shee had done upon the person of Christ but when they had exercised all their cruelty even to death the death of the Crosse upon Christ himselfe the Holy Ghost calls still the holy City Many bodies of Saints which slept arose and went into the holy City When the Fathers take into their contemplation and discourse that passionate exclamation of our Saviour upon the Crosse My God my God why hast thou forsaken me those blessed Fathers that never thought of any such sense of that place that Christ was at that time actually in the reall torments of hell assign no fitter sense of those words then that the foresight of those insupportable and inevitable and imminent judgements upon his City and his people occasioned that passionate exclamation My God my God why hast thou forsaken me That as after he was ascended into heaven he said to Saul Cur me persequeris He called Sauls persecuting of his Church a persecuting of him so when hee considered that God had forsaken his people his Citie his Jerusalem he cryed out that God had forsaken him God that sent the Prophets the Prophets that were sent Christ who was both the person sent and the sender came to the inflicting and denouncing of judgements with this Vae dolentis a heart and voice of condoling and lamentation Grieve not then the holy Spirit of God says the Apostle extort not from him those Judgements which he cannot in justice forbear and yet is grieved to inflict How often doe we use that motive to divert young men from some ill actions and ill courses How will this trouble your friends how will this grieve your Mother this will kill your Father The Angels of heaven who are of a friendship and family with us as they rejoyce at our conversion so are they sorry and troubled at our aversion from God Our sins have grieved our Mother that is made the Church ashamed and blush that he hath washed us and clothed us in the whitenesse and innocency of Christ Jesus in our baptisme and given us his bloud to drinke in the other Sacrament Our sins have made our mother the Church ashamed in her selfe we have scandalized and offended the Congregation and our sinnes have defamed and dishonoured our mother abroad that is imprinted an opinion in others that that cannot be a good Church in which we live so dissolutely so falsely to our first faith and contract and stipulation with God in Baptisme Wee have grieved our brethren the Angels our mother the Church and we have killed our Father God is the father of us all and we have killed him for God hath purchased a Church with his bloud says Saint Paul And oh how much more is God grieved now that we will make no benefit of that bloud which is shed for us then he was for the very shedding of that bloud We take it not so ill pardon solow a comparison in so high a mystery for since our blessed Saviour was pleased to assume that metaphor and to call his passion a Cup and his death a drinking we may be admitted to that Comparison of drinking too we take it not so ill that a man go down into our Cellar and draw and drinke his fill as that he goe in and pierce the vessells and let them runne out in a wastfull wantonneste To satisfie the thirst of our soules there was a
those sins upon other persons But all Israel stones thee arrows flie from every corner and thy measure is not to thank God that thou art not as the Publican as some other man but thy measure is to be pure and holy as thy father in heaven is pure and holy and to conform thy self in some measure to thy pattern Christ Jesus Against him it is noted that the Jews took up stones twice to stone him Once wheÌ„ they did it He went away and hid himself Our way to scape these arrows these tentations is to goe out of the way to abandon all occasions and conversation that may lead into tentation In the other place Christ stands to it and disputes it out with them and puts them from it by the scriptum est and that 's our safe shield since we must necessarily live in the way of tentations for coluber in via there is a snake in every path tentation in every calling still to receive all these arrowes upon the shield of faith still to oppose the scriptum est the faithfull promises of God that he will give us the issue with the tentation when we cannot avoid the tentation it self Otherwise these arrows are so many as would tire and wear out all the diligence and all the constancy of the best morall man Wee finde many mentions in the Scriptures of filling of quivers and emptying of quivers and arrows and arrows still in the plurall many arrows But in all the Bible I think we finde not this word as it signifies tentation or tribulation in the singular one arrow any where but once where David cals it The arrow that flies by day And is seen that is known by every man for for that the Fathers and Ancients runne upon that Exposition that that one arrow common to all that day-arrow visible to all is the naturall death so the Chalde paraphrase calls it there expresly Sagitta mâ—rtis The arrow of death which every man knows to belong to every man for as clearly as he sees the Sunne set he sees his death before his eyes Therefore it is such an arrow as the Prophet does not say Thou shalt not feel but Thou shalt not feare the arrow that flies by day The arrow the singular arrow that flies by day is that arrow that fals upon every man death But every where in the Scriptures but this one place they are plurall many so many as that we know not whence nor what they are Nor ever does any man receive one arrow alone any one tentation but that he receives another tentation to hide that though with another and another sin And the use of arrows in the war was not so much to kill as to rout and disorder a battail and upon that routing followed execution Every tentation every tribulation is not deadly But their multiplicity disorders us discomposes us unseâ—â—les us and so hazards us Not onely every periodicall variation of our years youth and age but every day hath a divers arrow every houre of the day a divers tentation An old man wonders then how an arrow from an eye could wound him when he was young and how love could make him doe those things which hee did then And an arrow from the tongue of inferiour people that which we make shift to call honour wounds him deeper now and ambition makes him doe as strange things now as love did then A fair day shoots arrows of visits and comedies and conversation and so wee goe abroad and a foul day shoots arrows of gaming or chambering and wantonnesse and so we stay at home Nay the same sin shoots arrows of presumption in God before it be committed and of distrust and diffidence in God after we doe not fear before and we cannot hope after And this is that misery from this plurality and multiplacity of these arrows these manifold tentations which David intends here and as often as he speaks in the same phrase of plurality vituli multi many buls canes multi many dogs and bellantes multi many warlike enemies and aquaeâ— multae many deep waters compasse me For as it is said of the spirit of wisdome that it is unicus multiplex manifoldly one plurally singular so the spirit of tentation in every soul is unicus multiplex singularly plurall rooted in some one beloved sin but derived into infinite branches of tentation And then these arrows stick in us the raine fals but that cold sweat hangs not upon us Hail beats us but it leaves no pock-holes in our skin These arrows doe not so fall about us as that they misse us nor so hit us as they rebound back without hurting us But we complain with Ieremy The sons of his quiver are entred into our reins The Roman Translation reads that filias The daughters of his quiver If it were but so daughters we might limit these arrows in the signification of tentations by the many occasions of tentation arising from that sex But the Originall hath it filios the sons of his quiver and therefore we consider these arrows in a stronger signification tribulations as well as tentations They stick in us Consider it but in one kinde diseases sicknesses They stick to us so as that we are not sure that any old diseases mentioned in Physicians books are worn out but that every year produces new of which they have no mention we are sure We can scarce expresse the number scarce sound the names of the diseases of mans body 6000 year hath scarce taught us what they are how they affect us how they shall be cur'd in us nothing on this side the Resurrection can teach us They stick to us so as that they passe by inheritance and last more generations in families then the inheritance it self does and when no land no Manor when no title no honour descends upon the heir the stone or the gout descends upon him And as though our bodies had not naturally diseases and infirmities enow we contract more inflict more and that out of necessity too in mortifications and macerations and Disciplines of this rebellious flesh I must have this body with me to heaven or else salvation it self is not perfect And yet I cannot have this body thither except as S. Paul did his I beat down this body attenuate this body by mortification Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death I have not body enough for my body and I have too much body for my soul not body enough not bloud enough not strength enough to sustain my self in health and yet body enough to destroy my soul and frustrate the grace of God in that miserable perplexed riddling condition of man sin makes the body of man miserable and the remedy of sin mortification makes it miserable too If we enjoy the good things of this world Duriorem carcerem praeparamus wee doe but carry an other wall about our
the sound of Horns not of Trumpets A homely sound yet it did the worke so neither is the weaknesse no nor the corruptnesse of the instruments always to be considered in the Church of God Our Fathers knew there had passed a contract between God and man A Church there should be Ad consummationem to the end of the world therefore they might safely make their recourse thither and Porta Inferi the gates of hell should not prevaile against it therefore they might confidently dwell there They knew there was a Dic Ecclesiae a bill to be exhibited to the Church upon any disorder and a Si noluerit an excommunication upon disobedience If he neglect to heare the Church let him be unto thee as a heathen man and as a Publican This Church they saw and Gods contract upon them sealed in Baptism they knew God had revealed no other Church nor contract to them And therefore though they did not eat their troden grasse with that ridiculous tentation as the Fryar is boasted to have eaten a Toad which was set upon the Table because he had read whatsoever is set before you eat Nor as their Dorotheus who when his man had reachd him rats-bane in stead of honey which he called for refused it not because sayd he If Gods will had been that I should have had honey he would have directed thy hand to the honey but being under an invi ciblenignorance and indevestible scruples and having this contract and this Church to give them some satisfaction and acquiescence they were partakers of that blessing That though Serpents and Scorpions lurked in their grasse they had power to tread on scorpions and on serpents and nothing could hurt them and That if they drinke any deadly thing it shall doe them no harme And so our Fathers with a good conscience Manebant stayd there and Edebant they eat troden grasse and drunke troubled water and yet Manebantoves they continued sheep still Sheep that is without Barking or biting Some faint and humble bleatings there were alwaies in the daies of our Fathers In every age there arose some men who did modestly and devoutly but yet couragiously and confidently appear and complaine against those treadings and those troublings Every age every nation had some such bleatings some men who by writing or preaching against those abuses interrupted the tyrannicall prescriptions of that Church and made their continuall claime to their Christian liberty But still they continued sheep without denying either their fleece or their throats to those Pastors We read in Naturall story of divers pastures and divers waters which will change the colour of cattell or sheep but none that changes the forme and makes them no such cattell or no sheep Some waters change sheep of any colour to white And these troubled waters temporall or spirituall afflictions may bring Gods children to a faint and leane and languishing palenesse If it doe as Daniel and his fellows appeared fairer and fatter in flesh with their pults and water which they desired rather then the Kings polluted delicates then others that sed voluptuously so the hearts of Gods children shall be filled as with marrow and with fatnesse when others shall have all their hearts desire but leannesse in their soules There are waters that change all coloured sheep to black So may these troubled waters afflictions effect that upon Gods children The enemy shall come and before him all faces shall gather blacknesse as Jerusalem complains That their faces were blacker then coals If it doe yet as long as they stay and continue sheep members of the body as long as they partake of the body they shall partake of the complexion of the Church who saies of her selfe I am black O daughters of Ierusalem but comely acceptable in the sight of my Christ and that shall be verifyed in them which Salomon says By the sadnesse of the countenance the heart is made better that is by the occasion of the sadnesse Gods correction But the strangest change is that some waters change sheep into red the most unlikely most extraordinary most unproper colour for sheep of any other Yet there is one rednesse naturall to our sheep in the Text the rednesse of blushing and modesty and selfe-accusing And there is another rednesse which is not improper the rednesse of zeale and godly anger The worst rednesse that can befall them is the rednesse of sinne and yet lest that should deject them God proceeds familiarly with them Come now and let us reason together Though your sinnes be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow though they be red like Crimson they shall be as wooll Yea to shew that where sinne abounds grace also may abound to shew that that whitenesse of Gods mercy doth pursue and overtake this rednesse of sinne it pleases the Holy Ghost to use such a phrase as expresses a rednesse in whitenesse it self He says that the religious men of the Jewes before that time were whiter then milke and redder then pearle Mippeninim is the originall word which the Rabbins translate pearle And the Vulgate Edition hath it Rubicundiores ebore antiquo redder then the oldest yvory which is the whitest thing that can be presented Perchance to intimate thus much that there is neither in the holiest actions of the holiest man any such degree of whitenesse but that it is always accompanied with some rednes some tincture some aspersion of sin nor any such deep rednesse in sin any sin so often and deeply died in grain but that it is capable of whitenesse in the application of the candor and purenesse and innocency of Christ Jesus Therefore may the Holy Ghost have wrapped up this whitenesse in rednesse redder then Pearl Our Fathers were not discouraged when they were discolored what palenesse what blacknesse what rednesse soever these troubled waters induced upon them still they were sheep They become not Foxes to delude the State with equivocations nor Wolves to join with the State to the oppression of the rest nor Horses to suffer themselves to be ridden by others and so made instruments of their passions no nor Vnicorns to think to purge and purifie the waters for all the forest to think to reforme all abuses in State and Church at once but they continued sheep opened not their mouthes in biting nor barking in murmuring or reproaching the present government So our Fathers staid Manebant so they eat that grasse so they continued sheep and as it followes next Oves Dei Gods sheep my sheep have eaten my sheep have drunken Gods sheep for nature hath her sheep some men by naturall constitution are lazy drowsie frivolous unactive sheepish men And States have their sheep timorous men following men speechlesse men men who because they abound in a plentifull State are loth to stire Nay the Devill hath his sheep too Men whom he possesses so entirely that as the Law
1000 The infection grew hotter and hotter in Rome their may came to a must those things which were done before de facto came at last to be articles of Faith and de jure must be beleeved and practised upon salvation They chide us for going away and they drove us away If we abstained from communicating with their poysons being now growen to that height they excommunicated us They gave us no room amongst them but the fire and they were so forward to burne Heretiques that they called it heresie not to stay to be burnt Yet we went not upon their driving but upon Gods calling As the whole prophecy of the deliverance of Israel from Babylon belongs to the Christian Church both to the Primitive Church at first and to the Reformed since so doth that voice spoken to them reach unto us Egredimini de Babylone Goe ye out of Babylon with a voice of singing declare show to the ends of the earth that the Lord hath redeemed his servant Iacob For that Rome is not Babylon they have but that one half-comfort that one of their own authors hath ministred that Romae regulariter male agitur that Babylon is Confusion disorder but at Rome all sinnes are committed in order by the book and they know the price and therefore Rome is not Babylon And since that many of their authors confesse that Rome was Babylon in the time of the persecuting Emperours and that Rome shall be Babylon againe in the time of Antichrist how they will hedge in a Ierusalem a holy City between these two Babylons is a cunning peece of Architecture From this Babylon then were our Fathers called by God not onely by that whispering sibilation of the holy Ghost sibilabâ— populum I will hisse for my people and so gather them for I have redeemed them and they shall increase not onely by private inspirations but by generall acclamations every where principall writers and preachers and Princes too as much as could stand with their safety crying out against them before Luther howsoever they will needs doe him that honour to have been the first mover in this blessed revolution They reproach to us our going from them when they drove us and God drew us and they discharge themselves for all by this one evasion That all that we complain of is the fault of the Court of Rome and not of the Church of the extortion in the practise of their Officers not of error in the doctrine of their Teachers Let that be true as in a great part it is for almost all their errors proceed from their covetousness and love of money this is that that we complain most of and in this especially lies the conformity of the Iewish Priests in the Chaldean Babylon and these Prelates in the Roman Babylon that the Court and the Church joined in the oppression But since the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome are united in one head I see no use of this distinction Court and Church If the Church of Rome be above the Court the Church is able to amend these corruptions in the Court If the Court be got above the Church the Church hath lost or sold away her supremacy To oppresse us and ease themselves now when we are gone from them they require Miracles at out hands when indeed it was miracle enough how we got from them But magnum charitatis argumentum credere absque pignoribus miraculorum He loves God but a little that will not beleeve him without a miracle Miracles are for the establishing of new religions All the miracles of and from Christ and his Apostles are ours because their Religion is ours Indeed it behooves our adversaries to provide new miracles every day because they make new articles of Faith every day As Esop therefore answered in the Market when he that sold him was asked what he could do that he could do nothing because his fellow had said that he could do all so we say we can do no miracles because they do all all ordinary cures of Agues and tooth-ach being done by miracle amongst them We confesse that we have no such tye upon the Triumphant Church to make the Saints there do those anniversary miracles which they do by their reliques here upon their own holy days ten days sooner every year then they did before the new computation We pretend not to raise the dead but to cure the sick and that but by the ordinary Physique the Word and Sacraments and therefore need no miracles And we remember them of their own authors who do not onely say that themselves do no miracles in these latter times but assigne diligently strong reasons why it is that they doe none If all this will not serve we must tell them that we have a greater miracle then any that they produce that is that in so few years they that forsook Rome were become equall even in number to them that adhered to her We say with Saint Augustine That if we had no other miracle hoc unum stupendum potentissimum miraculum esse that this alone were the most powerfull and most a mazing miracle ad hanc religionem totius orbis amplitudinem sine miraculis subjugatam that so great a part of the Christian world should become Protestants of Papists without any miracles They pursue us still being departed from them and they aske us How can ye pretend to have left Babylon confusion Dissention when you have such dissentions confusions amongst your selves But neither are our differences in so fundamental points as theirs are for a principall author of their own who was employed by Clement the eight to reconcile the differences between the Iesuits and the Dominicans about the concurrence of the grace of God and the free will of man confesses that the principall articles and foundations of faith were shaken between them between the Iesuits and Dominicans neither shall we finde such heat and animosity and passion between any persons amongst us as between the greatest amongst them The succeeding Pope mangling the body of his predecessor casting them into the river for buriall disannulling all their decrees and ordinations their Ordinations so that no man could be sure who was a Priest nor whether he had truely received any Sacrament or no. Howsoever as in the narrowest way there is most justling the Roman Church going that broad way to beleeve as the Church beleeves may scape some particular differences which we that goe the narrower way to try every thing by the exact word of God may fall into Saint Augustine tells us of a City in Mauritania Caesarea in which they had a custome that in one day in the year not onely Citizens of other parishes but even neighbours yea brethren yea Fathers did fling stones dangerously and furiously at one another in the streets and this they so solemnized as a custome received from their
me my sinnes the sinnes of my youth and my present sinnes the sinne that my Parents cast upon me Originall sinne and the sinnes that I cast upon my children in an ill example Actuall sinnes sinnes which are manifest to all the world and sinnes which I have so laboured to hide from the world as that now they are hid from mine own conscience and mine own memory Forgive me my crying sins and my whispering sins sins of uncharitable hate and sinnes of unchaste love sinnes against Thee and Thee against thy Power O Almighty Father against thy Wisedome O glorious Sonne against thy Goodnesse O blessed Spirit of God and sinnes against Him and Him against Superiours and Equals and Inferiours and sinnes against Me and Me against mine own soul and against my body which I have loved better then my soul Forgive me O Lord O Lord in the merits of thy Christ and my Iesus thine Anointed and my Saviour Forgive me my sinnes all my sinnes and I will put Christ to no more cost nor thee to more trouble for any reprobation or malediction that lay upon me otherwise then as a sinner I ask but an application not an extention of that Benediction Blessed are they whose sinnes are forgiven Let me be but so blessed and I shall envy no mans Blessednesse say thou to my sad soul Sonne be of good comfort thy sinnes are forgiven thee and I shall never trouble thee with Petitions to take any other Bill off of the fyle or to reverse any other Decree by which I should be accurst before I was created or condemned by thee before thou saw'st me as a sinner For the object of malediction is but a sinner which was our first and an Inveterate sinner A sinner of a hundred yeares which is our next consideration First Quia centum annorum because he is so old so old in sinne He shall be accur sed And then Quamvis centum annorum though he be so old though God have spared him so long he shall be accursed God is not a Lion in his house nor frantick amongst his servants saith the Wiseman God doth not rore nor tear in pieces for every thing that displeaseth him But when God is prest under us as a cart is prest that is full of sheaves the Lord will grone under that burthen a while but he will cast it off at last That which is said by David is if it be well observed spoken of God himself Cum perverso pervertêris from our frowardnesse God will learn to be froward But he is not so of his own nature If you walk contrary unto me I will walk contrary unto you saith God But this is not said of one first wry step but it is a walking which implies a long and a considerate continuance And if man come to sinne so and will not walk with God God will walk with that man in his own pace and overthrow him in his own wayes Nay it is not onely in that place If you walk contrary to me In occursu as Calvin hath it ex adverso as the vulgate hath it which implies an Actuall Opposition against the wayes of God but the word is but Chevi and Chevi is but In accidente in contingente if you walk negligently inconsiderately if you leave out God pretermit and slight God if you come to call Gods Providence Fortune to call Gods Judgements Accidents or to call the Mercies of a God favours of great Persons if you walk in this neglect of God God shall proceed to a neglect of you and then though God be never the worse for your leaving him out for if it were in your power to annihilate this whole world God were no worse then before there was a World yet if God neglect you forget pretermit you it is a miserable annihilation a fearfull malediction But God begins not before sinne nor at the first sinne God did not curse Adam and Eve for their sinne it was there first and God foresaw they would not be sinners of a hundred yeares But him that was in the Serpent that inveterate sinner him who had sinned in Gods Court in Heaven before and being banished from thence fell into this transmarine treason in another land to seduce Gods other Subjects there him God accurs'd Who amongst us can say that he had a Fever upon his first excesse or a Consumption upon his first wantonnesse or a Commission put upon him for his first Briberie Till he be a sinner of a hundred yeares till he have brought age upon himself by his sinne before the time and thereby be a hundred yeares old at fourtie and so a sinner of a hundred yeares till he have a desire that he might and a hope that he shall be able to sinne to a hundred yeares and so be a sinner of a hundred yeares Till he sinne hungerly and thirstily and ambitiously and swiftly and commit the sinnes of a hundred yeares in ten and so be a sinner of a hundred yeares till he infect and poyson that age and spoile that time that he lives in by his exemplary sinnes till he be Pestis secularis the plague of that age peccator secularis the proverbiall sinner of that age and so be a sinner of a hundred yeares till in his actions he have been or in his desires be or in the fore-knowledge of God would be a sinner of a hundred yeares an inveterate an incorrigible an everlasting sinner God comes not to curse him But then Quamvis centum annorum though he have lived a hundred yeares though God have multiplied upon him Evidences and Seals and Witnesses and Possessions and Continuances and prescriptions of his favour all this hath not so riveted God to that man as that God must not depart from him God was crucified for him but will not be crucified to him still to hang upon this Crosse this perversnesse of this habituall sinner and never save himself and come down never deliver his own Honour by delivering that sinner to malediction It is true that we can have no better Title to Gods future Blessings then his Blessings formerly exhibited to us God former blessings are but his marks set up there that he may know that place and that man the better against another time when he shall be pleased to come thither again with a supply of more Blessings God gives not Blessings as payments but as obligations and becomes a debtor by giving If I can produce that Remember thy mercies of old I need ask no new for even that is a Specialty by which God hath bound himself to me for more But yet not so if I abuse his former Blessings and make them occasions of sinne How often would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens saith Christ I know not how often surely very often for many hundreds of yeares But yet how often soever God left them open to the Eagle the Romane Eagle at last God gives
another that plotted to betray thee And therefore if you can heare a good Organ at Church and have the musique of a domestique peace at home peace in thy walls peace in thy bosome never hearken after the musique of sphears never hunt after the knowledge of higher secrets then appertaine to thee But since Christ hath made you Regale Sacerdotium Kings and Priests in your proportion Take heed what you hear in derogation of either the State or the Church In declaring ill affections towards others the Holy Ghost hath imprinted these steps First he begins at home in Nature He that curseth Father or Mother shall surely be put to death and then as families grow out into Cities the Holy Ghost goes out of the house into the consideration of the State and says Thou shalt not curse the Ruler of the people no Magistrate And from thence he comes to the highest upon earth for in Samuel it comes to a cursing of the Lords Anointed and from thence to the highest in heaven Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sinne and as though both those grew out of one another The cursing of the King and the cursing of God the Prophet Esai hath joyned them together They shall be hungry says he indigent poor penurious and they shall fret be transported with ungodly passion and they shall curse their King and their God If they doe one they will doe the other The Devil remembers from what height he is fallen and therefore still clambers upward and still directs all our sinnes in his end upon God Our end in a sin may be pleasure or profit or satisfaction of affections or passions but the Devils end in all is that God may be violated and dishonoured in that sinne And therefore by casting in ill conceptions and distasts first against Parents and Masters at home and then against subordinate Magistrates abroad and so against the Supreme upon earth He brings us to ill conceptions and distasts against God himself first to thinke it liberty to bee under no Governour and then liberty to be under no God when as onely those two services of a gracious God and of a good King are perfect freedome Therefore the wise King Solomon meets with this distemper in the root at first ebullition in the heart Curse not the King no not in thy thought for that Thought hath a tongue and hath spoken and sayd Amen in the eares of God That which thy heart hath said though the Law have not though the Jury have not though the Peers have not God hath heard thee say The word which Solomon uses there is Iadung and that our Translators have in the margin called Conscience Curse not the King no not in thy conscience Doe not thou pronounce that whatsoever thou dislikest cannot consist with a good conscience never make thy private conscience the rule of publique actions for to constitute a Rectitude or an Obliquity in any publique action there enter more circumstances then can have fallen in thy knowledge But the word that Selomon takes there Iadâ—ng signifies properly all waies of acquiring knowledge and Hearing is one of them and therefore Take heed what you heare Come not so neare evill speaking as to delight to heare them that delight to speake evill of Superiours A man may have a good breath in himself and yet be deadly infected if he stand in an ill ayre a man may stand in a cloud in a mist in a fogge of blasphemers till in the sight of God himself shall be dissolved into a blasphemous wretch and in that cloud in that mist God shall not know him that endured the hearing from him that adventured the speaking of those blasphemies The ear in such cases is as the clift in the wall that receives the voice and then the Echo is below in the heart for the most part the heart affords a returne and an inclination to those things that are willingly received at the ear The Echo returnes the last syllables The heart concludes with his conclusions whom we have been willing to hearken unto We make Satyrs and we looke that the world should call that wit when God knowes that that is in a great part self-guiltinesse and we doe but reprehend those things which we our selves have done we cry out upon the illnesse of the times and we make the times ill so the calumniator whispers those things which are true no where but in himselfe But thy greater danger is that mischievous purpose which we spake of before to endanger thee by hearing and to entangle thee in that Dilemma of which an ingenuous man abhors one part as much as a conscientious man does the other That thou must be a Delinquent or an Accuser a Traitour or an Informour God hath imprinted in thee characters of a better office and of more dignity of a Royall Priesthood as you have sparks of Royaltie in your soules Take heed what you hear of State-government as you have sparks of holy fire and Priesthood in your soules Take heed what you heare of Church-government which is the other consideration The Church is the spouse of Christ Noble husbands do not easily admit defamations of their wives Very religious Kings may have had wives that may have retained some tincture some impressions of errour which they may have sucked in their infancy from another Church and yet would be loth those wives should be publikely traduced to be Heretiques or passionately proclaimed to be Idolaters for all that A Church may lacke something of exact perfection and yet that Church should not be said to be a supporter of Antichrist or a limme of the beast or a thirster after the cup of Babylon for all that From extream to extream from east to west the Angels themselves cannot come but by passing the middle way between from that extream impurity in which Antichrist had damped the Church of God to that intemerate purity in which Christ had constituted his Church the most Angelicall Reformers cannot come but by touching yea and stepping upon some things in the way He that is come to any end remembers when he was not at the middle way he was not there as soon as he set out It is the posture reserved for heaven to sit down at the right hand of God Here our consolation is that God reaches out his hand to the receiving of those who come towards him And nearer to him and to the institutions of his Christ can no Church no not of the Reformation be said to have come then ours does It is an ill nature in any man to be rather apt to conceive jealousies and to suspect his Mothers honour or his sisters chastity then a strange womans It is an irreverent unthankfulnesse to think worse of that Church which hath bred us and fed us and led us thus far towards God then of a forein Church though Reformed too and in a good degree How often
but look to that which is neare thee not so much to those Decrees which have no conditions as to be able to plead conditions performed or at least a holy sorrow that thou hast not performed them Videte Cavete see that you doe heare God else every rumor will scatter you But take heed what you heare else you may come to call conditionall things absolute And lastly since Satan will be speaking too Videte be sure you doe heare him be sure you discerne it to be his voice and know what leads you into tentation For you may hear a voice that shall say youth must have pleasures and greatnesse must have State and charge must have support And this voice may bring a young man to transfer all his wantonesse upon his years when it is the effect of high dyet or licentious discourse or wanton Images admitted and cherished in his fancy and this voice may bring great officers to transfer their inaccessiblenesse upon necessary State when it is an effect of their own lazinesse or indulgence to their pleasures and this voice may bring rich landlords to transfer all their oppression of tenants to the necessity of supporting the charge of wives and children when it is an effect of their profusenesse and prodigality Nay you may heare a voice that may call you to this place and yet be his voice which is that which Saint Augustine confesses and laments that even to these places persons come to look upon one another that can meet no where else Videte see you doe heare that you doe discerne the voice for that is never Gods voice that puts upon any man a necessity of sinning out of his years and constitution out of his calling and profession out of his place and station out of the age and times that he lives in out of the pleasure of them that he lives upon or out of the charge of them that live upon him But then Cavete take heed what you heare from him too especially then when he speakes to thee upon thy death-bed at thy last transmigration then when thine eares shall be deafe with the cryes of a distressed and a distracted family and with the found and the change of the found of thy last bell then when thou shalt heare a hollow voice in thy selfe upbraiding thee that thou hast violated all thy Makers laws worn out all thy Saviours merits frustrated all the endeavours of his blessed Spirit upon thee evacuated all thine own Repentances with relapses then when thou shalt see or seem to see his hand turning the streame of thy Saviours bloud into another channell and telling thee here 's enough for Iew and Turke but not a drop for thee then when in that multiplying glasse of Despaire which he shall present every sinfull thought shall have the proportion of an Act and every Act of a Habite when every Circumstance of every sin shall enter into the nature of the sin it selfe and vary the sinne and constitute a particular sinne and every particular sinne shall be a sinne against the holy Ghost Take heed what you heare and be but able to say to Satan then as Christ said to Peter in his name Vade retro Satan come after me Satan come after me tomorrow come a minute after my soule is departed from this body come to me where I shall be then and when thou seest me washed in the bloud of my Saviour clothed in the righteousnesse of my Saviour lodged in the bosome of my Saviour crowned with the merits of my Saviour confesse that upon my death-bed thou wast a lyer and wouldest have been a murderer and the Lord shall and I in him shall rebuke thee See that yee refuse not him that speaketh says the Apostle not any that speakes in his name but especially not him whom he names there that speakes better things then the bloud of Abel for the bloud of Abel speakes but by way of example and imitation the bloud of Christ Jesus by way of Ransome and satisfaction Heare what that bloud says for you in the eares of the Father and then no singing of the flatterer no lisping of the tempter no roaring of the accuser no thunder of the destroyer shall shake thy holy constancy Take heed what you heare remember what you have heard and the God of heaven for his Sonne Christ Jesus sake by the working of his blessed Spirit prosper and emprove both endeavours in you Amen SERMON XXVIII Preached to the King at the Court in April 1629. GEN. 1. 26. And God said Let us make man in our Image after our likenesse NEver such a frame so soon set up as this in this Chapter For for the thing it selfe there is no other thing to compare it with For it is All it is the whole world And for the time there was no other time to compare it with for this was the beginning of time In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth That Earth which in some thousands of years men could not look over nor discern what form it had for neither Lactantius almost three hundred years after Christ nor Saint Augustine more then one hundred years after him would beleeve the earth to be round that earth which no man in his person is ever said to have compassed till our age That earth which is too much for man yet for as yet a very great part of the earth is unpeopled that earth which if we will cast it all but into a Mappe costs many Months labour to grave it nay if we will cast but a peece of an acre of it into a garden costs many years labour to fashion and furnish it All that earth and then that heaven which spreads so farre as that subtile men have with some appearance of probability imagined that in that heaven in those manifold Sphears of the Planets and the Starres there are many earths many worlds as big as this which we inhabite That earth and that heaven which spent God himselfe Almighty God six days in furnishing Moses sets up in a few syllables in one line In principio in the beginning God created heaven and earth If a Livy or a Guicciardine or such extensive and voluminous authors had had this story in hand God must have made another world to have made them a Library to hold their Books of the making of this world Into what Wire would they have drawn out this earth Into what leafe-gold would they have beate out these heavens It may assist our conjecture herein to consider that amongst those men who proceed with a sober modesty and limitation in their writing and make a conscience not to clogge the world with unnecessary books yet the volumes which are written by them upon this beginning of Genesis are scarce lesse then infinite God did no more but say let this and this be done And Moses does no more but say that upon Gods saying it was done God required not nature to help him to do
Halfe-pelagianisme to thinke grace once received to be sufficient Super-pelagianisme to thinke our actions can bring God in debt to us by merit and supererogation and Catarisme imaginary purity in Canonizing our selves as present Saints and condemning all that differ from us as reprobates All these are white spots and have the colour of goodnesse but are indications of leprosie So is that that God threatens Decorticatio ficus albi rami that the figtree shall be bark'd and the boughes thereof left white to be left white without barke was an indication of a speedy withering Ostensa candescunt arescunt says Saint Gregory of that place the bough that lies open without barke looks white but perishes the good works that are done openly to please men have their reward says Christ that is shall never have reward To pretend to doe good and not meane it To doe things good in themselves but not to good ends to goe towards good ends but not by good ways to make the deceiving of men thine end or the praise of men thine end all this may have a whiteness a colour of good but all this is a barking of the bough and an indication of a mischievous leprosie There is no good whiteness but a reflection from Christ Jesus in an humble acknowledgement that wee have none of our own and in a consident assurance that in our worst estate we may be made partakers of his We are all red earth In Adam we would not since Adam we could not avoid sinne and the Concomitants thereof miseries which we have called our West our cloud our darknesse But then we have a North that scatters these clouds in the next word Ad imaginem that we are made to another patterne in another likenesse then our own Faciamus hominem so far are we gone East and West which is halfe our Compasse and all this days voiage For we are strooke upon the sand and must stay another Tyde and another gale for our North and South SERMON XXIX Preached to the King at the Court. The second Sermon on GEN. 1. 26. And God said Let us make man in our Image after our likenesse BY fair occasion from these words we proposed to you the whole Compasse of mans voyage from his lanching forth in this world to his Anchoring in the next from his hoysing sayle here to his striking sayle there In which Compasse we designed to you his foure quarters first his East where he must beginne the fundamentall knowledge of the Trinity for that we found to be the specification and distinctive Character of a Christian where though that be so we shewed you also why we were not called Trinitarians but Christians and we shewed you the advantage that man hath in laying hold upon God in these severall notions that the Prodigall sonne hath an indulgent Father that the decayed Father hath an abundant Sonne that the dejected spirit hath a Spirit of comfort to fly to in heaven And as we shewed you from Saint Paul that it was an Atheisme to be no Christian without God says he as long as without Christ so we lamented the slacknesse of Christians that they did not seriously and particularly consider the persons of the Trinity and especially the holy Ghost in their particular actions And then we came to that consideration whether this doctrine were established or directly insinuated in this plurall word of our text Faciamus Let us us make man and we found that doctrine to be here and here first of any place in the Bible And finding God to speake in the plurall we accepted for a time that interpretation which some had made thereof that God spake in the Person of a Soveraigne Prince and therefore as they do in the plurall We. And thereby having established reverence to Princes we claim'd in Gods behalfe the same reverence to him That men would demeane themselves here when God is spoken to in prayer as reverently as when they speake to the King But after this we found God to speake here not onely as our King but as our maker as God himselfe and God in Counsell Faciamus and we applied thereunto the difference of our respect to a Person of that honorable rank when we came before him at the Counsell Table and when we came to him at his own Table and thereby advanced the seriousnesse of this consideration God in the Trinity And farther we failed not with that our Eastern winde Our West we considered in the next word Hominem that though we were made by the whole Trinity yet the whole Trinity made us but men and men in this name of our text Adam and Adam is but earth and that 's our West our declination our Sunset We passed over the foure names by which man is ordinarily expressed in the Scriptures and we found necessary misery in three of them and possible nay likely misery in the fourth in the best name We insisted upon the name of our text Adam earth and had some use of these notes First that if I were but earth God was pleased to be the Potter If I but a sheep he a shepheard If I but a cottage he a builder So he worke upon me let me be what he will We noted that God made us earth not ayre not fire That man hath bodily and worldly duties to performe and is not all Spirit in this life Devotion is his soule but he hath a body of discretion and usefulnesse to invest in some calling We noted too that in being earth we are equall We tryed that equality first in the root in Adam There if any man will be nobler earth then I he must have more originall sinne then I for that was all Adams patrimony all that he could give And we tryed this equality in another furnace in the grave where there is no meanes to distinguish Royall from Plebeian nor Catholique from Hereticall dust And lastly we noted that this our earth was red earth and considered in what respect it was red even in Gods hands but found that in the bloud-rednesse of sinne God had no hand but sinne and destruction for sinne was wholly from our selves which consideration we ended with this that there was Macula alba a white spot of leprosie as well as a red and we found the over-valuation of our own purity and the uncharitable condemnation of all that differ from us to be that white spot And so far we sayled with that Western winde And are come to our third point in this our Compasse our North. In this point the North we place our first comfort The North is not always the comfortablest clime nor is the North always a type of happines in the Scriptures Many times God threatens stormes from the North. But even in those Northern stormes we consider that action that they scatter they dissipate those clouds which were gathered and so induce a serenity And so fair weather comes from the North. And
no Image no pattern to thy selfe to imitate and yet propose thy selfe for a pattern for an Image to be adored Thou wilt have singular opinions and singular ways differing from all other men and yet all that are not of thy opinion must be heretiques and all reprobates that goe not thy wayes Propose good patterns to thy selfe and thereby become a fit pattern for others God we see was the first that made Images and he was the first that forbad them He made them for imitation he forbad them in danger of adoration For Qualis dementiae est id colere quod melius est What a drowzinesse what a lazinesse what a cowardlinesse of the soule is it to worship that which does but represent a better thing then it selfe Worship belongs to the best know thou thy distance and thy period how far to goe and where to stop Dishonor not God by an Image in worshiping it and yet benefit thy selfe by it in following it There is no more danger out of a picture then out of a history if thou intend no more in either then example Though thou have a West a darke and a sad condition that thou art but earth a man of infirmities and ill counsailed in thy selfe yet thou hast herein a North that scatters and dispells these clouds that God proposes to thee in his Scriptures and otherwise Images patterns of good and holy men to goe by But beyond this North this assistance of good examples of men thou hast a South a Meridionall heighth by which thou seest thine Image they pattern to be no copy no other man but the originall it selfe God himselfe Faciamus ad nostram Let us make man in our Image after our likenesse Here we consider first where this Image is and then what it does first in what part of man God hath imprinted this his Image And then what this Image confers and derives upon man what it works in man And as when we seek God in his essence we are advised to proceed by negatives God is not mortall not passible so when we seek the Image of God in man we beginne with a negative This Image is not in his body Teriullian declined to thinke it was nay Tertullian inclined others to thinke so For he is the first that is noted to have been the author of that opinion that God had a body Yet Saint Augustine excuses Tertullian from heresie because says he Tertullian might meance that it was so sure that there is a God and that that God was a certaine though not a finite Essence that God was so far from being nothing as that he had rather a body Because it was possible to give a good interpretation of Tertullian that charitable Father Saint Augastine would excuse him of heresie I would Saint Augustines charity might prevaile with them that pretend to be Augustinianissimi and to adore him so much in the Roman Church not to cast the name of Heresie upon every probleme nor the name of Heretique upon every inquirer of Truth Saint Augustine would deliver Tertullian from heresie in a point concerning God and they will condemne us of heresie in every point that may be drawne to concerne not the Church but the Court of Rome not their doctrine but their profit Malo de Misericordia Deo rationem reddere quà m de crudelitate I shall better answer God for my mildenesse then for my severity And though anger towards a brother or a Raca or a foole will beare an action yet he shall recover lesse against me at that bar whom I have called weake or mislead as I must necessary call many in the Roman Church then he whom I have passionately and peremptorily called heretique For I dare call an opinion heresie for the matter a great while before I dare call the man that holds it an heretique For that consists much in the manner It must be matter of faith before the matter be heresie But there must be pertinacy after convenient instruction before that man be an heretique But how excusable so ever Tertullian be herein in Saint Augustines charity there was a whole sect of heretiques one hundred years after Tertullian the Audiani who over literally taking those places of Scripture where God is said to have hands and feet and eyes and eares beleeved God to have a body like ours and accordingly interpreted this text that in that Image and that likenesse a bodily likenesse consisted this Image of God in man And yet even these men these Audians Epiphanius who first takes knowledge of them calls but Schismatiques not Heretiques so loth is charity to say the worst of any Yet we must remember them of the Roman perswasion that they come too neare giving God a body in their pictures of God the Father And they bring the body of God that body which God the Sonne hath assumed the body of Christ too neare in their Transubstantiation not too near our faith for so it cannot be brought too near so it is as really there as we are there too neare to our sense not too neare in the Vbi for so it is there There that is in that place to which the Sacrament extends it selfe For the Sacrament extends as well to heaven from whence it fetches grace as to the table from whence it delivers Bread and Wine but too neare in modo For it comes not thither that way We must necessarily complaine that they make Religion too bodily a thing Our Saviour Christ corrected Mary Magdalens zeale where she flew to him in a personall devotion and he said Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father Fix your meditations upon Christ Jesus so as he is now at the right hand of his Father in heaven and entangle not your selves so with controversies about his body as to lose reall charity for imaginary zeale nor enlarge your selves so far in the pictures and Images of his body as to worship them more then him As Damdscen says of God that he is Super-principale principium a beginning before any beginning we can conceive and prae-aeterna aeternitas an eternity infinitely elder then any eternity we can imagine so he is Super-spiritualis Spiritus such a Super-spirit as that the soule of man and the substance of Angels is but a body compared to this Spirit God hath no body though Tertullian disputed it though the Audians preached it though the Papists paint it And therefore this Image of God is not in the body of man that way Nor that way neither which some others have assigned that God who hath no body as God yet in the creation did assume that forme which man hath now and so made man in his Image that is in that forme which he had then assumed Some of the Ancients thought so and some other men of great estimation in the Roman Church have thought so too In particular Oleaster a great officer in the
better to prevent the losse let us consider the having of this Image in what respect in what operation this Image is in our soule For whether this Image bee in those faculties which we have in Nature or in those qualifications which we may have in Grace or in those super-illustrations which the blessed shall have in Glory hath exercised the contemplation of many Properly this Image is in Nature in the naturall reason and other faculties of the immortall Soule of man For thereupon does Saint Bernard say Imago Dei uri potest in Gehenna non exuri Till the soule be burnt to ashes to nothing which cannot be done no not in hell the Image of God cannot be burnt out of that soule For it is radically primarily in the very soule it selfe And whether that soule be infused into the Elect or into the Reprobate that Image is in that soule and as far as he hath a soule by nature he hath the Image of God by Nature in it But then the seale is deeper cut or harder pressed or better preserved in some then in others and in some other considerations then meerly naturall Therefore we may consider Man who was made here to the Image of God and of God in three Persons to have been made so in Gods intendment three ways Man had this Image in Nature and does deface it he hath it also in Grace here and so does refresh it and he shall have it in Glory hereafter and that shall fix it establish it And in every of these three in this Trinity in man Nature Grace and Glory man hath not onely the Image of God but the Image of all the Persons of the Trinity in every of the three capacities He hath the Image of the Father the Image of the Sonne the Image of the holy Ghost in Nature and all these also in Grace and all in Glory too How all these are in all I cannot hope to handle particularly not though I were upon the first graine of our sand upon the first dram of your patience upon the first flash of my strength But a cleare repeating of these many branches that these things are thus that all the Persons of the heavenly Trinity are in their Image in every branch of this humane Trinity in man may at least must suffice In Nature then man that is the soule of man hath this Image of God of God considered in his Unity intirely altogether in this that this soule is made of nothing proceeds of nothing All other creatures are made of that pre-existent matter which God had made before so were our bodies too But our soules of nothing Now not to be made at all is to be God himselfe Onely God himselfe was never made But to be made of nothing to have no other parent but God no other element but the breath of God no other instrument but the purpose of of God this is to be the Image of God For this is nearest to God himselfe who was never made at all to be made of nothing And then man considered in nature is otherwise the nearest representation of God too For the steppes which we consider are four First Esse Beeing for some things have onely a beeing and no life as stones Secondly Vivere Living for some things have life and no sense as Plants and then thirdly Sentire Sense for some things have sense and no understanding Which understanding and reason man hath with his Beeing and Life and Sense and so is in a nearer station to God then any other creature and a livelier Image of him who is the root of Beeing then all they because man onely hath all the declarations of Beeings Nay if we consider Gods eternity the soule of man hath such an Image of that as that though man had a beginning which the originall the eternall God himselfe had not yet man shall no more have an end then the originall the eternall God himselfe shall have And this Image of eternity this past Meridian this after-noone eternity that is this Perpetuity and after everlastingnesse is in man meerly as a Naturall man without any consideration of grace For the Reprobate can no more die that is come to nothing then the Elect. It is but of the naturall man that Theodoret says a King built a City and erected his statue in the midst of the City that is God made man and imprinted his Image in his soule How will this King take it says that Father to have his statue thrown down Every man does so if he doe not exalt his naturall faculties If he doe not hearken to the law written in his heart if he doe not as much as Plato or as Socrates in the wayes of vertuous actions he throwes down the Statue of this King he defaces the Image of God How would this King take it says he if any other Statue especially the Statue of his enemy should be set up in this place Every man does so too that embraces false opinions in matter of doctrine or false appearances of happinesse in matter of conversation For these a naturall man may avoid in many cases without that addition of grace which is offered to us as Christians That comparison of other creatures to man which is intimated in Ieb is intended but of the naturall man There speaking of Behemoth that is of the greatest of Creatures he says in our translation that he is the chiefe of the ways of God Saint Hierome hath it Principium and others before him Initium viarum Dei That when God went that progresse over all the world in the Creation thereof he did but beginne he did but set out at Behemoth at the best of all such Creatures he all they were but Initium viarum the beginning of the wayes of God But Finis viarum the end of his journey and the Eve the Vespers of his Sabbath was the making of man even of the naturall man Behemoth and the other creatures were Vestigia says the Schoole in them we may see where God hath gone for all beeing is from God and so every thing that hath a beeing hath filiationem vestigii a testimony of Gods having passed that way and called in there But man hath filiationem Imaginis an expression of his Image and does the office of an Image or Picture to bring him whom it represēts the more lively to our memory Gods abridgement of the whole world was man Reabridge man into his least volume in pura naturalia as he is but meer man so he hath the Image of God in his soul. He hath it as God is considered in his Unity for as God is so the soule of man is indivisibly impartibly one intire and he hath it also as God is notified to us in a Trinity For as there are three Persons in the Essence of God so there are three faculties in the Soule of man The Attributes and some kind of specification
And whereas the humiliation of my Saviour is in all things to be imitated by me yet herein I am bound to depart from his humiliation that whereas he being in the forme of God tooke the forme of a servant I being in the forme of a servant may nay must take upon me the forme of God in being Deiformis homo a man made in Christ the Image of God So have I the Image of God intirely in his unity because I professe that faith which is but one faith and under the seale of the Baptisme which is but one Baptisme And then as of this one God so I have also the Image of the severall persons of the Trinity in this capacity as I am a Christian more then in my naturall faculties The Attributes of the first Person the Father is Power and none but a Christian hath power over those great Tyrants of the world Sinne Satan Death and Hell For thus my Power accrues and growes unto me First Possum Iudicare I have a Power to Judge a judiciary a discretive power a power to discerne between a naturall accident and a Judgement of God and will never call a Judgement an accident and between an ordinary occasion of conversation and atentation of Satan Possum judicare and then Possum resistere which is another act of power When I finde it to be a tentation I am able to resist it and Possum stare which is another I am able not onley to withstand but to stand out this battell of tentations to the end And then Possum capere that which Christ proposes for a tryall of his Disciples Let him that is able to receive it receive it I shall have power to receive the gift of continency against all tentations of that kinde Bring it to the highest act of power that with which Christ tryed his strongest Apostles Possum bibere calicem I shall be able to drinke of Christs Cup even to drinke his bloud and be the more innocent for that and to powre out my bloud and be the stronger for that In Christo omnia possum there 's the fulnesse of Power in Christ I can doe all things I can want or I can abound I can live or I can die And yet there is an extension of Power beyond all this in this Non possum peccare being borne of God in Christ I cannot sinne This that seemes to have a name of impotence Non possum I cannot is the fullest omnipotence of all I cannot sinne not sinne to death not sinne with a desire to sinne not sinne with a delight in sinne but that tentation that overthrowes another I can resist or that sinne which being done casts another into desperation I can repent And so I have the Image of the first Person the Father in Power The Image of the second Person whose Attribute is Wisdome I have in this that Wisdome being the knowledge of this world and the next I embrace nothing in this world but as it leads me to the next For thus my wisdome my knowledge growes First Scio cui credidi I know whom I have beleeved in I have not mislaid my foundation my foundation is Christ and then Scio non moriturum my foundation cannot sinke I know that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more againe Scio quod desideret Spiritus I know what my spirit enlightned by the Spirit of God desires I I am not transported with illusions and singularities of private spirits And as in the Attribute of Power we found an omnipotence in a Christian so in this there is an omniscience Scimus quia omnem Scientiam habemus there 's all together we know that we have all knowledge for all Saint Pauls universall knowledge was but this Iesum Crucifixum I determine not to know any thing save Jesus Christ and him Crucified and then the way by which he would proceed and take degrees in this Wisdome was Sultitia praedicandi the way that God had ordained when the world by Wisedome knew not God it pleased God by the foolishnesse of preaching to save them that beleeve These then are the steps of Christian Wisedome my foundation is Christ of Christ I enquire no more but fundamentall doctrines him Crucified and this I apply to my selfe by his ordinace of Preaching And in this wisdome I have the Image of the second Person And then of the third also in this that his Attribute beeing Goodnesse I as a true Christian call nothing good that conduces not to the glory of God in Christ Jesus nor any thing ill that drawes me not from him Thus I have an expresse Image of his Goodnesse that Omnia cooperantur in bonum all things worke together for my good if I love God I shall thanke my fever blesse my poverty praise my oppressor nay thanke and blesse and praise even some sinne of mine which by the consequences of that sinne which may be shame or losse or weaknesse may bring me to a happy sense of all my former sinnes and shall finde it to have been a good fever a good poverty a good oppression yea a good sinne Vertit in bonum says Ioseph to his brethren you thought evill but God meant it unto good and I shall have the benefit of my sinne according to his transmutation that is though I meant ill in that sinne I shall have the good that God meant in it There is no evill in the City but the Lord does it But if the Lord doe it it cannot be evill to me I beleeve that I shall see Bona Dei the goodnesse of the Lord in the land of the living that 's in heaven but David speakes also of Signum in bonum shew me a token of good and God will shew me a present token of future good an inward infallibility that this very calamity shall be beneficiall and advantageous unto me And so as in Nature I have the Image of God in my whole soule and of all the three Persons in the three faculties thereof the Understanding the Will and the Memory so in Grace in the Christian Church I have the same Images of the Power of the Father of the Wisedome of the Sonne of the Goodnesse of the holy Ghost in my Christian profession And all this we shall have in a better place then Paradise where we considered it in nature and a better place then the Church as it is Militant where we considered it in grace that is in the kingdome of heaven where we consider this Image in glory which is our last word There we shall have this Image of God in perfection for if Origen could lodge such a conceit that in heaven at last all things should ebbe backe into God as all things flowed from him at first and so there should be no other Essence but God all should be God even the Devill himselfe
how much more may we conceive an unexpressible association that 's too far off an assimilation that 's not neare enough an identification the Schoole would venture to say so with God in that state of glory Where as the Sunne by shining upon the Moone makes the Moone a Planet a Star as well as it selfe which otherwise would be but the thickest and darkest part of that Spheare so those beames of Glory which shall issue from my God and fall upon me shall make me otherwise a clod of earth and worse a darke Soule a Spirit of darkenesse an Angell of Light a Star of Glory a something that I cannot name now not imagine now nor to morrow nor next yeare but even in that particular I shall be like God that as he that asked a day to give a definition of God the next day asked a week and then a moneth and then a yeare so undeterminable would my imaginations be if I should goe about to thinke now what I shall be there I shall be so like God as that the Devill himselfe shall not know me from God so far as to finde any more place to fasten a tentation upon me then upon God nor to conceive any more hope of my falling from that kingdome then of Gods being driven out of it for though I shal not be immortall as God yet I shall be as immortall as God And there 's my Image of God of God considered altogether and in his unity in the state of Glory I shall have also then the Image of all the three Persons of the Trinity Power is the Fathers and a greater Power then he exercises here I shall have there here he overcomes enemies but yet here he hath enemies there there are none here they cannot prevaile there they shall not be So Wisedome is the Image of the Sonne And there I shall have better Wisdome then spirituall Wisdome it selfe is here for here our best Wisedome is but to goe towards our end there it is rest in our end here it is to seek to bee Glorified by God there it is that God may be everlastingly glorified by mee The Image of the holy Ghost is Goodnesse here our goodnesse is mixt with some ill faith mixt with scruples and good workes mixt with a love of praise and hope of better mixt with feare of worse There I shall have sincere goodnesse goodnesse impermixt intemerate and indeterminate goodnesse so good a place as no ill accident shall annoy it so good company as no impertinent no importune person shall disorder it so full a goodnesse as no evill of sinne no evill of punishment for former sinnes can enter so good a God as shall no more keep us in fear of his anger nor in need of his mercy but shall fill us first and establish us in that fulnesse in the same instant and give us a satiety that we can with no more and an infallibility that we can lose none of that and both at once Where as the Cabalists expresse our nearenesse to God in that state in that note that the name of man and the name of God Adam and Iehovah in their numerall letters are alike and equall so I would have leave to expresse that inexpressible state so far as to say that if there can be other world imagined besides this that is under our Moone and if there could be other Gods imagined of those worlds besides this God to whose Image we are thus made in Nature in Grace in Glory I had rather be one of these Saints in this heaven then of those Gods in those other worlds I shall be like the Angels in a glorified Soul and the Angels shall not be like me in a glorified body The holy noblenesse and the religious ambition that I would imprint in you for attaining of this Glory makes me medismiss you with this note for the feare of missing that Glory that as we have taken just occasion to magnifie the goodnesse of God towards us in that he speakes plurally Faciamus Let us All us do this and so powers out the blessings of the whole Trinity upon us in this Image of himselfe in every Person of the three and in all these wayes which we have considered so when the anger of God is justly kindled against us God collects himselfe summons himself assembles himselfe musters himselfe and threatens plurally too for of those foure places in Scripture in which onely as we noted before God speakes of himselfe in a Royall plurall God speakes in anger and in a preparation to destruction in one of those foure intirely as intirely he speakes of mercy but in one of them in this text here he says meerly out of mercy Faciamus Let us us all us make man and in the same plurality the same universality he says after Descendamus confundamus Let us us all us goe downe to them and confound them as meerly out of indignation and anger as here out of mercy And in the other two places where God speakes plurally he speakes not meerly in mercy nor meerly in justice in neither but in both he mingles both So that God carries himselfe so equally herein as that no Soul no Church no State may any more promise it selfe patience in God if it provoke him then suspect anger in God if we conforme our selves to him For from them that set themselves against him God shall withdraw his Image in all the Persons and all the Attributes the Father shall withdraw his Power and we shall be enfeebled in our forces the Sonne his Wisdome and we shall be infatuated in our counsailes the holy Ghost his Goodnesse and we shall be corrupted in our manners and corrupted in our Religion and be a prey to temporall and spirituall enemies and change the Image of God into the Image of the Beast and as God loves nothing more then the Image of himselfe in his Sonne and then the Image of his Sonne Christ Jesus in us so he hates nothing more then the Image of Antichrist in them in whom he had imprinted his Sonnes Image that is declinations towards Antichrist or concurrencies with Antichrist in them who were borne and baptized and catechised and blessed in that profession of his truth That God who hath hitherto delivered us from all cause or colour of jealousies or suspitions thereof in them whom he hath placed over us to conforme us to his Image in a holy life that sinnes continued and multiplyed by us against him doe not so provoke him against us that those two great helps the assiduity of Preaching and the personall and exemplary piety and constancy in our Princes be not by our sinnes made unprofitable to us For that 's the heighth of Gods malediction upon a Nation when the assiduity of preaching and the example of a Religious Prince does them no good but aggravates their fault SERMON XXX Preached to the Countesse of Bedford then at Harrington house
And at the judgement you shall stand but stand at the barre But when you stand before the Throne you stand as it is also added in this place before the Lamb who having not opened his mouth to save his owne fleece when he was in the shearers hand nor to save his own life when he was in the slaughterers hand will much lesse open his mouth to any repentant sinners condemnation or upbrayd you with your former crucifyings of him in this world after he hath nailed those sinnes to that crosse to which those sinnes nayled him You shall stand amicti stolis for so it follows covered with Robes that is covered all over not with Adams fragmentary raggs of fig-leafes nor with the halfe-garments of Davids servants Though you have often offered God halfe-confessions and halfe-repentances yet if you come at last to stand before the Lambe his fleece covers all hee shall not cover the sinnes of your youth and leave the sinnes of your age open to his justice nor cover your sinfull actions and leave your sinfull words and thoughts open to justice nor cover your own personall sinnes and leave the sinnes of your Fathers before you or the sinnes of others whose sins your tentations produced and begot open to justice but as he hath enwrapped the whole world in one garment the firmament so cloathed that part of the earth which is under our feet as gloriously as this which we live and build upon so those sinnes which we have hidden from the world and from our own consciences and utterly forgotten either his grace shall enable us to recollect and to repent in particular or we having used that holy diligence to examine our consciences so he shall wrap up even those sinnes which we have forgot and cover all with that garment of his own righteousnesse which leaves no foulnesse no nakednesse open You shall be covered with Robes All over and with white Robes That as the Angels wondred at Christ coming into heaven in his Ascension Wherefore art thou red in thine Apparell and thy garments like him that treadeth the wine fat They wondred how innocence it selfe should become red so shall those Angels wonder at thy coming thither and say Wherefore art thou white in thine apparell they shall wonder how sinne it selfe shall be clothed in innocence And in thy hand shall be a palm which is the last of the endowments specifyed here After the waters of bitternesse they came to seventy to innumerable palmes even the bitter waters were sweetned with another wood cast in The wood of the Crosse of Christ Jesus refreshes all teares and sweetnes all bitternesse even in this life but after these bitter waters which God shall wipe from all our eies we come to the seventy to the seventy thousand palms infinite seales infinite testimonies infinite extensions infinite durations of infinite glory Go in beloved and raise your own contemplations to a height worthy of this glory and chide me for so lame an expressing of so perfect a state and when the abundant spirit of God hath given you some measure of conceiving that glory here Almighty God give you and me and all a reall expressing of it by making us actuall possessors of that Kingdome which his Sonne our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen SERMON XXXIII Preached at Denmark house some few days before the body of King Iames was removed from thence to his buriall Apr. 26. 1625. CANT 3. 11. Goe forth ye Daughters of Sion and behold King Solomon with the Crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladnesse of his heart IN the Creation of man in that one word Faciamus let Vs make man God gave such an intimation of the Trinity as that we may well enlarge and spread and paraphrase that one word so farre as to heare therein a councell of all the three Persons agreeing in this gracious designe upon Man faciamus let us make him make and him mend him and make him sure I the Father will make him by my power if he should fall Thou the Sonne shalt repayr him re-edify him redeem him if he should distrust that this Redemption belonged not to him Thou the Holy Ghost shalt apply to his particular soule and conscience this mercy of mine and this merit of the Sonnes and so let us make him In our Text there is an intimation of another Trinity The words are spoken but by one but the persons in the text are Three For first The speaker the Director of all is the Church the spouse of Christ she says Goe forth ye daughters of Sion And then the persons that are called up are as you see The Daughters of Sion the obedient children of the Church that hearken to her voice And then lastly the persons upon whom they are directed is Solomon crowned That is Christ invested with the royall dignity of being Head of the Church And in this especially is this applyable to the occasion of our present meeting All our meetings now are to confesse to the glory of God and the rectifying of our own consciences and manners the uncertainty of the prosperity and the assurednesse of the adversity of this world That this Crown of Solomons in the text will appear to be Christs crown of Thornes his Humiliation his Passion and so these words will dismisse us in this blessed consolation That then we are nearest to our crown of Glory when we are in tribulation in this world and then enter into full possession of it when we come to our dissolution and transmigration out of this world And these three persons The Church that calls The children that hearken and Christ in his Humiliation to whom they are sent will be the three parts in which we shall determine this Exercise First then the person that directs us is The Church no man hath seen God and lives but no man lives till he have heard God for God spake to him in his Baptisme and called him by his name then Now as it were a contempt in the Kings house for any servant to refuse any thing except he might heare the King in person command it when the King hath already so established the government of his house as that his commandements are to be signifyed by his great Officers so neither are we to look that God should speak to us mouth to mouth spirit to spirit by Inspiration by Revelation for it is a large mercy that he hath constituted an Office and established a Church in which we should heare him When Christ was baptized by Iohn it is sayd by all those three Evangelists that report that story in particular circumstances that there was a voice heard from heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased and it is not added in any of those three
Evangelists that that voice added Hear him for after that Declaration that he who was visibly and personally come amongst them was the Sonne of God there was no reason to doubt of mens willingnesse to hear him who went forth in person to preach unto them in this world As long as he was to stay with them it was not likely that they should need provocation to hear him therefore that was not added at his Baptisme and entrance into his personall ministery But when Christ came to his Transfiguration which was a manifestation of his glory in the next world and an intimation of the approaching of the time of his going away to the possession of that glory out of this world there that voyce from heaven sayes This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased heare him When he was gone out of this world men needed a more particular solicitation to heare him for how and where and in whom should they heare him when he was gone In the Church for the same testimony that God gave of Christ to authorize and justifie his preaching hath Christ given of the Church to justifie her power The holy Ghost fell upon Christ at his Baptism and the holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles who were the representative Church at Whitsontide The holy Ghost tarried upon Christ then and the holy Ghost shall tarry with the Church usque ad consummationem till the end of the world And therefore as we have that institution from Christ Dic Ecclesiae when men are refractary and perverse to complaine to the Church so have they who are complained of to the Church that institution from Christ also Audi Ecclesiam Hearken to the voyce of God in the Church and they have from him that commination If you disobey them you disobey God in what fetters soever they binde you you shall rise bound in those fetters and as he who is excommunicated in one Diocese should not be received in another so let no man presume of a better state in the Triumphant Church then he holds in the Militant or hope for communion there that despises excommunication here That which the Scripture says God sayes says St. Augustine for the Scripture is his word and that which the Church says the Scriptures say for she is their word they speak in her they authorize her and she explicates them The Spirit of God inanimates the Scriptures and makes them his Scriptures the Church actuates the Scriptures and makes them our Scriptures Nihil salubrius says the same Father There is not so wholsome a thing no soule can live in so good an aire and in so good a diet Quà m ut Rationem praecedat authoritas Then still to submit a mans owne particular reason to the authority of the Church expressed in the Scriptures For certainly it is very truly as it is very usefully said by Calvin Semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa A frowardnesse and an aptnesse to quarrell at the proceedings of the Church and to be delivered from the obligations and constitutions of the Church is ever accompanied with an ambitious pride that they might enjoy a licentious liberty It is not because the Church doth truly take too much power but because they would be under none it is an ambition to have all government in their own hands and to be absolute Emperors of themselves that makes them refractary But if they will pretend to believe in God they must believe in God so as God hath manifested himself to them they must believe in Christ so if they will pretend to heare Christ they must heare him there where he hath promised to speake they must heare him in the Church The first reason then in this Trinity the person that directs is the Church the Trumpet in which God sounds his Iudgements and the Organ in which he delivers his mercy And then the persons of the second place the persons to whom the Church speakes here are Filiae Sion The daughters of Sion her owne daughters We are not called Filii Ecclesiae sonnes of the Church The name of sonnes may imply more virility more manhood more sense of our owne strength then becomes them who professe an obedience to the Church Therefore as by a name importing more facility more supplenesse more application more tractablenesse she calls her children Daughters But then being a mother and having the dignity of a Parent upon her she does not proceed supplicatorily she does not pray them nor intreat them she does not say I would you would go forth and I would you would looke out but it is Egredimini videte imperatively authoritatively Do it you must do it So that she showes what in important and necessary cases the power of the Church is though her ordinary proceedings by us and our Ministery be To pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God In your baptisme your soules became daughters of the Church and they must continue so as long as they continue in you you cannot devest your allegiance to the Church though you would no more then you can to the State to whom you cannot say ◠will be no subject A father may dis-inherit his son upon reasons but even that dis-inherited childe cannot renounce his father That Church which conceived thee in the Covenant of God made to Christians and their seed and brought thee forth in baptisme and brought thee up in catechizing and preaching may yet for thy misdemeanor to God in her separate thee à Mensa Toro from bed and board from that sanctuary of the soule the Communion Table and from that Sanctuary of the body Christian buriall and even that Christian buriall gives a man a good rise a good helpe a good advantage even at the last resurrection to be laid down in expectation of the Resurrection in holy ground and in a place accustomed to Gods presence and to have been found worthy of that Communion of Saints in the very body is some earnest and some kinde of first-fruits of the joyfull resurrection which we attend God can call our dead bodies from the sea and from the fire and from the ayre for every element is his but consecrated ground is our element And therefore you daughters of Sion holy and religious souls for to them onely this indulgent mother speaks here hearken ever to her voice quarrell not your mothers honor nor her discretion Despise not her person nor her apparell Doe not say she is not the same woman she was heretofore nor that she is not so well dressed as she was then Dispute not her Doctrine Despise not her Discipline that as you sucked her breasts in your Baptism in the other Sacrament when you entred and whilst you stayd in this life so you may lie in her bosome when you goe out of it Hear her a good part of that which you are to hear from her is envolv'd inwrapped in that w ch we have propos'd
are nearest and clearest glasses for thee to see thy self in and such is this glasse which God hath proposed to thee in this house And therefore change the word of the Text in a letter or two from Egredimini to Ingredimini never go forth to see but Go in and see a Solomon crowned with his mothers crown c. And when you shall find that hand that had signed to one of you a Patent for Title to another for Pension to another for Pardon to another for Dispensation Dead That hand that settled Possessions by his Seale in the Keeper and rectified Honours by the sword in his Marshall and distributed relief to the Poore in his Almoner and Health to the Diseased by his immediate Touch Dead That Hand that ballanced his own three Kingdomes so equally as that none of them complained of one another nor of him and carried the Keyes of all the Christian world and locked up and let out Armies in their due season Dead how poore how faint how pale how momentany how transitory how empty how frivolous how Dead things must you necessarily thinke Titles and Possessions and Favours and all when you see that Hand which was the hand of Destinie of Christian Destinie of the Almighty God lie dead It was not so hard a hand when we touched it last nor so cold a hand when we kissed it last That hand which was wont to wipe all teares from all our eyes doth now but presse and squeaze us as so many spunges filled one with one another with another cause of teares Teares that can have no other banke to bound them but the declared and manifested will of God For till our teares flow to that Heighth that they might be called a murmuring against the declared will of God it is against our Allegiance it is Disloyaltie to give our teares any stop any termination any measure It was a great part of Annaes prayse That she departed not from the Temple day nor night visit Gods Temple often in the day meet him in his owne House and depart not from his Temples The dead bodies of his Saints are his Temples still even at midnight at midnight remember them who resolve into dust and make them thy glasses to see thy self in Looke now especially upon him whom God hath presented to thee now and with as much cheerfulnesse as ever thou heardst him say Remember my Favours or remember my Commandements heare him say now with the wise man Remember my Iudgement for thine also shall be so yesterday for me and to day for thee He doth not say to morrow but to Day for thee Looke upon him as a beame of that Sunne as an abridgement of that Solomon in the Text for every Christian truely reconciled to God and signed with his hand in the Absolution and sealed with his bloud in the Sacrament and this was his case is a beame and an abridgement of Christ himselfe Behold him therefore Crowned with the Crown that his Mother gives him His Mother The Earth In anâ—ient times when they used to reward Souldiers with particular kinds of Crowns there was a great dignity in Corona graminea in a Crown of Grasse That denoted a Conquest or a Defence of that land He that hath but Coronam Gramineam a turfe of grasse in a Church yard hath a Crown from his Mother and even in that buriall taketh seisure of the Resurrection as by a turfe of grasse men give seisure of land He is crowned in the day of his Marriage for though it be a day of Divorce of us from him and of Divorce of his body from his soul yet neither of these Divorces breake the Marriage His soule is married to him that made it and his body and soul shall meet again and all we both then in that Glory where we shall acknowledge that there is no way to this Marriage but this Divorce nor to Life but by Death And lastly he is Crowned in the day of the gladnesse of his heart He leaveth that heart which was accustomed to the halfe joyes of the earth in the earth and he hath enlarged his heart to a greater capacity of Joy and Glory and God hath filled it according to that new capacity And therefore to end all with the Apostles words I would not have you to be ignorant Brethren concerning them which are asleepe that ye sorrow not as others that have no hope for if ye beleeve that Iesus died and rose again even so them also which sleepe in him will God bring with him But when you have performed this Ingredimini that you have gone in and mourned upon him and performed the Egredimini you have gone forth and laid his Sacred body in Consecrated Dust and come then to another Egredimini to a going forth in many severall wayes some to the service of their new Master and some to the enjoying of their Fortunes conferred by their old some to the raising of new Hopes â— some to the burying of old and all some to new and busie endeavours in Court some to contented retirings in the Countrey let none of us goe so farre from him or from one another in any of our wayes but that all we that have served him may meet once a day the first time we see the Sunne in the eares of almighty God with humble and hearty prayer that he will be pleased to hasten that day in which it shall be an addition even to the joy of that place as perfect as it is and as infinite as it is to see that face againe and to see those eyes open there which we have seen closed here Amen SERMON XXXIIII LUKE â—â—â—â— Father forgive them for they know not what they do THe word of God is either the co-eternall and co-essentiall Sonne our Saviour which tooke flesh Verbum Caro factum est or it is the spirit of his mouth by which we live and not by bread onely And so in a large acceptation every truth is the word of God for truth is uniforme and irrepugnant and indivisible as God Omne verum est omni vero consentiens More strictly the word of God is that which God hath uttered either in writing as twice in the Tables to Moses or by ministery of Angels or Prophets in words or by the unborne in action as in Iohn Baptists exultation within his mother or by new-borne from the mouths of babes and sucklings or by things unreasonable as in Balaams Asse or insensible as in the whole booke of such creatures The heavens declare the glory of God c. But nothing is more properly the word of God to us then that which God himself speakes in those Organs and Instruments which himself hath assumed for his chiefest worke our redemption For in creation God spoke but in redemption he did and more he suffered And of that kinde are these words God in his chosen man-hood saith Father forgive them for they know not what they do
He puts thee not to prevaile by Angels nor Archangels But lest any thing might hinder thee from coming into his presence his presence comes into thee And lest Majesty should dazell thee thou art to speake but to thy Father Of which word Abba the root is To will from which root the fruit also must be willingnesse and propensenesse to grant God is the Father of Christ by that mysticall and eternall unexpressible generation which never began nor ended Of which incomprehensible mystery Moses and the ancient Prophets spake so little and so indirectly that till the dawning of the day of Christ after Esdras time those places seem not to be intended of the Trinity Nay a good while after Christ they were but tenderly applyed to that sense And at this day the most of the writers in the reformed Churches considering that we need not such farre fetcht and such forced helps and withall weighing how well the Jews of these times are provided with other expositions of those places are very sparing in using them but content themselves modestly herein with the testimonies of the New Testament Truly this mystery is rather the object of faith then reason and it is enough that we believe Christ to have ever been the Son of God by such generation and our selves his sonnes by adoption So that God is Father to all but yet so that though Christ say Iohn 10. My Father is greater then all he addes I and my Father are all one to shew his eternall interest and Iohn 20. Hee seemes to put a difference I goe to my Father and your Father my God and your God The Roman stories have that when Claudius saw it conduce to his ends to get the tribuneship of which he was incapable because a Patrician he suffered himself to be adopted But against this Adoption two exceptions were found one that he was adopted by a man of lower ranke a Plebeian which was unnaturall and by a younger man then himselfe which took away the presentation of a Father But our Adoption is regular For first we are made the sonnes of the Most High and of the ancient of daies there was no one word by which he could so nobly have maintained his Dignity kept his station justified his cause and withall expressed his humility and charity as this Father They crucifyed him for saying himself to be the Sonne of God And in the midst of torment he both professes the same still and lets them see that they have no other way of forgivenesse but that he is the Sonne of that Father For no man cometh to the Father but by the Son And at this voice Father O most blessed Saviour thy Father which is so fully thine that for thy sake he is ours too which is so wholly thine that he is thy selfe which is all mercy yet will not spare thee all justice yet will not destroy us And that glorious Army of Angels which hitherto by their own integrity maintained their first and pure condition and by this worke of thine now neare the Consummatum est attend a confirmation and infallibility of ever remaining so And that faithfull company of departed Saints to whom thy merit must open a more inward and familiar room in thy Fathers Kingdome stand all attentive to heare what thou wilt aske of this Father And what shall they hear what doest thou aske Forgive them forgive them Must murderers be forgiven Must the offended aske it And must a Father grant it And must he be solicited and remembred by the name of Father to doe it Was not thy passion enough but thou must have compassion And is thy mercy so violent that thou wilt have a fellow-feeling of their imminent afflictions before they have any feeling The Angels might expect a present employment for their destruction the Saints might be out of feare that they should be assumed or mingled in their fellowship But thou wilt have them pardoned And yet doest not out of thine own fulnesse pardon them as thou didst the theef upon the Crosse because he did already confesse thee but thou tellest them that they may be forgiven but at thy request and if they acknowledge their Advocate to be the Son of God Father forgive them I that cannot revenge thy quarrell cannot forgive them I that could not be saved but by their offence cannot forgive them And must a Father Almighty and well pleased in thee forgive them Thou art more charitable towards them then by thy direction wee may be to our selvs We must pray for our selvs limitedly forgive us as we forgive But thou wilt have their forgivenes illimited and unconditioned Thou seemest not so much as to presume a repentance which is so essentiall and necessary in all transgressions as where by mans fault the actions of God are diverted from his appointed ends God himself is content to repent the doing of them As he repented first the making of man and then the making of a King But God will have them within the armes of his generall pardon And we are all delivered from our Debts for God hath given his word his co-essential word for us all And though as in other prodigall debts the Interest exceed the Principall our Actuall sinnes exceed Originall yet God by giving his word for us hath acquitted all But the Affections of our Saviour are not inordinate nor irregular He hath a For for his Prayer Forgive them for c. And where he hath not this For as in his Praier in his agony he quickly interrupts the violence of his request with a But Father let this cup passe but not my will In that form of Prayer which himself taught us he hath appointed a for on Gods part which is ever the same unchangeable For thine is the Kingdome Therefore supplications belong to thee The power Thou openest thy hand and fillest every living thing The Glory for thy Name is glorified in thy grants But because on our part the occasions are variable he hath left our for to our religious discretion For when it is said James 4. You lust and have not because you aske not it followeth presently You aske and misse because you aske amisse It is not a fit for for every private man to aske much means for he would doe much good I must not pray Lord put into my hands the strength of Christian Kings for out of my zeale I will imploy thy benefits to thine advantage thy Souldiers against thine enemies and be a bank against that Deluge wherewith thine enemy the Turk threatens to overflow thy people I must not pray Lord fill my heart with knowledge and understanding for I would compose the Schismes in thy Church and reduce thy garment to the first continuall and seemlesse integrity and redresse the deafnesses and oppressions of Judges and Officers But he gave us a convenient scantling for our fo rs who prayed Give me enough for I may else despair give me not
Lord Lord why hast thou forsaken me of a suffering hell in his soule or of a departing of the Father from him for Ioh. 16. it is I am not alone for the Father is with me offer no exposition of those words more convenient then that the foresight of the Jewes imminent calamities expressed and drew those words from him In their Afflictions were all kindes and all degrees of Miserie So that as one writer of the Roman Story saith elegantly He that considereth the Acts of Rome considereth not the Acts of one People but of Mankinde I may truly of the Jewes Afflictions he that knoweth them is ignorant of nothing that this world can threaten For to that which the present authority of the Romanes inflicted upon them our Schools have added upon their posterities that they are â—laves to Christians and their goods subject to spoile if the Lawes of the Princes where they live did not out of indulgency defend them Did he then aske and was not heard God forbid A man is heard when that is given which his will desired and our will is ever understood to be a will rectified and concurrent with God This is Voluntas a discoursed and examined will That which is upon the first sight of the object is Velleit as a willingnesse which we resist not onely because we thought not of it And such a willingnesse had Christ when suddenly he wished that the cup might passe but quickly conformed his will to his Fathers But in this Prayer his will was present therefore fulfilled Briefly then in this Prayer he commended not all the Jewes for he knew the chief to sin knowingly and so out of the reach of his reason for they know not Nor any except they repented after for it is not ignorance but repentance which deriveth to us the benefit of Gods pardon For he that sinnes of Ignorance may be pardoned if he repent but he that sinnes against his Conscience and is thereby impenitible cannot be pardoned And this is all which I will say of these words Father forgive them for they know not what they do O eternall God look down from thy Throne to thy footstoole from thy blessed Company of Angels and Saints to us by our own faults made more wretched and contemptible then the wormes which shall eat us or the dust which we were and shall be O Lord under the weight of thy Iustice we cannot stand Nor had any other title to thy mercie but the Name of Father and that we have forfeited That name of Sonnes of God thou gavest to us all at once in Adam and he gave it away from us all by his sinne And thou hast given it again to every one of us in our regeneration by Baptisme and we have lost it again by our transgressions And yet thou was not weary of being mercifull but diddest choose one of us to be a fit and worthy ransome for us all and by the death of thy Christ our Iesus gavest us again the title and priviledge of thy Sonnes but with conditions which though easie we have broke and with a yoke which though light and sweet we have cast off How shall we then dare to call thee Father Or to beg that thou wilt make one triall more of us These hearts are accustomed to rebellions and hopelesse But O God create in us new hearts hearts capable of the love and feare due to a Father And then we shall dare to say Father and to say Father forgive us Forgive us O Father and all which are engaged and accountable to thee for us forgive our Parents and those which undertooke for us in Baptisme Forgive the civill Magistrate and the Minister Forgive them their negligences and us our stubbornnesses And give us the grace that we may ever sincerely say both this Prayer of Example and Counsell Forgive our enemies and that other of Precept Our Father which art in Heaven c. SERMON XXXV Preached February 21. 1611. MATTHEVV 21. 44. Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grinde him to powder ALmighty God made us for his glory and his glory is not the glory of a Tyrant to destroy us but his glory is in our happinesse He put us in a faire way towards that happinesse in nature in our creation that way would have brought us to heaven but then we fell and if we consider our selves onely irrecoverably He put us after into another way over thorny hedges and ploughed Lands through the difficulties and incumbrances of all the Ceremoniall Law there was no way to heaven then but that after that he brought us a crosse way by the Crosse of Jesus Christ and the application of his Gospell and that is our way now If we compare the way of nature and our way we went out of the way at the Townes end as soone as we were in it we were out of it Adam dyed as soone as he lived and fell as soone as he was set on foote If we compare the way of the Law and ours the Jewes and the Christians their Synagogue was but as Gods farme our Church is as his dwelling house to them locavit vineam he let out his Vine to husbandmen and then peregrè profectus he went into a farre Countrey he promised a Messias but deferred his coming a long time but to us Dabitur Regnum a Kingdome is given the Vineyard is changed into a Kingdome here is a good improvement and the Lease into an absolute deed of gift here is a good inlargement of the Terme He gives therefore he will not take away againe He gives a Kingdome therefore there is a fulnesse and all-sufficiency in the gift and he does not go into any farre Countrey but stayes with us to governe us usque ad consummationem till the end of the world here therefore God takes all into his owne hands and he comes to dwell upon us himself to which purpose he ploughs up our hearts and he builds upon us Vos Dei agricultura Dei aedificium Ye are Gods husbandry and Gods building Now of this this husbandry God speaks familiarly and parabolicaly many times in Scriptures of this building particularly and principally in this place where having intimated unto us the severall benefits we have received from Christ Jesus in that appellation as he is a stone he tells us also our dangers in mis-behaving our selves towards it Whosoever shall fall on this c. Christ then is a stone and we may run into two dangers first we may fall upon this stone and then this stone may fall upon us but yet we have a great deale of comfort presented to us in that Christ is presented to us as a stone for there we shall finde him first to be the foundation stone nothing can stand which is not built upon Christ Secondly to be Lapis Angularis a corner stone that unites things most dis-united and then
that this place of Saint Pauls to the Corinthians is one of these places of which Saint Peter saith Quaedam difficilia There are some things in Saint Paul hard to be understood Saint Augustines meaning is that the difficulty is in the next words how any man should build hay or stubble upon so good a foundation as Christ how any man that pretendeth to live in Christ should live ill for in the other there can be no difficulty how Christ Jesus to a Christian should be the onely foundation And therefore to place salvation or damnation in such an absolute Decree of God as should have no relation to the fall of man or reparation in a Redeemer this is to remove this stone out of the foundation for a Christian may be well content to beginne at Christ If any man therefore have laid any other foundation to his Faith or any other foundation to his Actions possession of great places alliance in great Families strong parties in Courts obligation upon dependants acclamations of people if he have laid any other foundations for pleasure and contentment care of health and complexion appliablenesse in conversation delightfulnesse in discourses cheerefulnesse in disportings interchanging of secrets and such other small wares of Courts and Cities as these are whosoever hath laid such foundations as these must proceed as that Generall did who when he received a besieged Towne to mercy upon condition that in signe of subjection they should suffer him to take off one row of stones from their walls he tooke away the lowest row the foundation and so ruined and demolished the whole walls of the Citie So must he that hath these false foundations that is these habits divest the habite roote out the lowest stone that is the generall and radicall inclination to these disorders For he shall never be able to watch and resist every particular temptation if he trust onely to his Morall Constancy No nor if he place Christ for the roofe to cover all his sinnes when he hath done them his mercy worketh by way of pardon after not by way of Non obstante and priviledge to doe a sinne before hand but before hand we must have the foundation in our eye when we undertake any particular Action in the beginning we must looke how that will suite with the foundation with Christ for there is his first place to be Lapis fundamentalis And then after we have considered him first in the foundation as we are all Christians he growes to be Lapis Angularis the Corner stone to unite those Christians which seem to be of divers ways divers aspects divers professions together as wee consider him in the foundation there he is the root of faith As we consider him in the Corner there hee is the root of charity In Esay hee is both together A sure foundation and a Corner stone as he was in the place of Esay Lapis probatus I will lay in Sion a tryed stone and in the Psalm Lapis reprobatus a stone that the builders refused In this consideration he is Lapis approbatus a stone approved by all sides that unites all things together Consider first what divers things he unites in his own person That he should be the sonne of a woman and yet no sonne of man That the sonne of a woman should be the sonne of God that mans sinfull nature and innocency should meet together a man that should not sinne that Gods nature and mortality should meet together a God that must die Briefly that he should doe and suffer so many things impossible as man impossible as God Thus hee was a Corner stone that brought together natures naturally incompatible Thus he was Lapis Angularis a Corner stone in his Person Consider him in his Offices as a Redeemer as a Mediatour and so hee hath united God to man yea rebellious man to jealous God Hee is such a Corner stone as hath united heaven and earth Jerusalem and Babylon together Thus in his Person and thus in his Offices Consider him in his power and hee is such a Corner stone as that hee is the God of Peace and Love and Union and Concord Such a Corner stone as is able to unite and reconcile as it did in Abrahams house a Wife and a Concubine in one bed a covetous Father and a wastfull Sonne in one family a severe Magistrate and a licentious people in one City an absolute Prince and a jealous People in one Kingdome Law and Conscience in one Government Scripture and tradition in one Church If we would but make Christ Jesus and his peace the life and soule of all our actions and all our purposes if we would mingle that sweetnesse and supplenesse which he loves and which he is in all our undertakings if in all controversies booke controversies and sword controversies we would fit them to him and see how neere they would meet in him that is how neere we might come to be friends and yet both sides be good Christians then wee placed this stone in his second right place who as hee is a Corner stone reconciling God and man in his owne Person and a Corner stone in reconciling God and mankinde in his Office so hee desires to bee a Corner stone in reconciling man and man and setling peace among our selves not for worldly ends but for this respect that wee might all meet in him to love one another not because wee made a stronger party by that love not because wee made a sweeter conversation by that love but because wee met closer in the bosome of Christ Jesus where wee must at last either rest altogether eternally or bee altogether eternally throwne out or bee eternally separated and divorced from one another Having then received Christ for the foundation stone wee beleeve aright and for the Corner stone we interpret charitably the opinions and actions of other men The next is that hee bee Lapis Iacob a stone of rest and security to our selves When Iacob was in his journey hee tooke a stone and that stone was his pillow upon that hee slept all night c. resting upon that stone hee saw the Ladder that reached from heaven to earth it is much to have this egresse and regresse to God to have a sense of being gone from him and a desire and meanes of returning to him when wee doe fall into particular sinnes it is well if wee can take hold of the first step of this Ladder with that hand of David Domine respice in Testamentum O Lord consider thy Covenant if wee can remember God of his Covenant to his people and to their seed it is well it is more if wee can clamber a step higher on this ladder to a Domine labia mea aperies if we come to open our lips in a true confession of our wretched condition and of those sinnes by which we have forfeited our interest in that Covenant it is more and
that though our integrity be lost that we be no more whole and intire vessells yet there are meanes of piecing us again Though we be not vessells of Innocency for who is so and for that enter not into judgement with thy servants O Lord yet we may be vessells of repentance acceptable to God and usefull to his service for when any thing falls upon a stone the harme that it suffereth is not alwayes or not onely according to the proportion of the hardnesse of that which it fell upon but according to the heighth that it falleth from and according to that violence that it is throwne with If their fall who fall by sinnes of infirmitie should referre onely to the stone they fall upon the Majestie of God being wounded and violated in every sinne every sinner would be broken to pieces and ground to powder But if they fall not from too far a distance if they have lived within any nearnesse any consideration of God if they have not fallen with violence taken heart and force in the way grown perfect in the practise of their sinne if they fall upon this stone that is sinne and yet stoppe at Christ after the sinne this stone shall breake them that is breake their force and confidence breake their presumption and security but yet it shall leave enough in them for the Holy Ghost to unite to his Service yea even the sinne it self cooperabitur in bonum as the Apostle saith the very fall it selfe shall be an occasion of his rising And therefore though Saint Augustine seeme to venture farre it is not too farre when he saith Audeo dicere it is boldly said and yet I must say it utile est ut caderem in aliquod manifestum peccatum A sinner falleth to his advantage that falleth into some such sinne as by being manifested to the World manifesteth his owne sinnefull state to his owne sinnefull Conscience too It is well for that man that falleth so as that he may thereby looke the better to his footing ever after Dicit Domino Susceptor meus es tu sayes St. Bernard That man hath a new Title to God a new name for God all creatures as St. Bernard inlarges this meditation can say Creator meus es tu Lord thou art my Creator all living creatures can say Pastor meus es tu Thou art my shepheard Thou givest me meat in due season all men can say Redemptor meus es tu thou art my Redeemer but onely he which is fallen and fallen upon this stone can say Susceptor meus es tu only he which hath been overcome by a temptation and is restored can say Lord thou hast supported me thou hast recollected my shivers and reunited me onely to him hath this stone expressed both abilities of stone first to breake him with a sense of his sin and then to give him peace and rest upon it Now there is in this part this circumstance Quicunque cadit whosoever falleth where the quicunque is unusquisque whosoever falls that is whosoever he be he falls Quoâ—odo de coelo cecidisti Luciter says the Prophet the Prophet wonders how Lucifer could fall having nothing to tempt him for so many of the Antiens interpret that place of the fall of the Angels and when the Angels fell there were no other creatures made but Quid est homo aut filius hominis since the Father of man Adam could not how shall the sonnes of him that inherit his weaknesse and contract more and contribute their temptations to one another hope to stand Adam fell and he fell à longè farre off for he could see no stone to fall upon for when he fell there was no such Messias no such meanes of reparation proposed nor promised when he fell as now to us The blessed Virgin and the forerunner of Christ Iohn Baptist fell too but they fell propè neerer hand they fell but a little way for they had this stone Christ Jesus in a personall presence and their faith was alwaies awake in them but yet he and she and they all fell into some sinne Quicunque cadit is unusquisque cadit whosoever falls is whosoever he be he falls and whosoever falls as we said before is broken If he fall upon something and fall not to an infinite depth If he fall not upon a soft place to a delight in sinne but upon a stone and this stone no harder sharper ruggedder then this not into a diffidence or distrust in Gods mercy he that falls so and is broken so that comes to a remorsefull to a broken and a contrite heart he is broken to his advantage left to a possibility yea brought to a neerenesse of being pieced againe by the Word by the Sacraments and other medicinall institutions of Christ in his Church We must end onely with touching upon the third part upon whom this stone falls it will grinde him to powder where we shall onely tell you first Quid conteri what this grinding is and then Quid cadere what the falling of this stone is And briefly this grinding to powder is to be brought to that desperate and irrecoverable estate in sinne as that no medicinall correction from God no breaking no bowing no melting no moulding can bring him to any good fashion when God can worke no cure do no good upon us by breaking us not by breaking us in our health for we will attribute that to weaknesse of stomach to surfeit to indigestion not by breaking us in our states for we will impute that to falshood in servants to oppression of great adversaries to inquity of Judges not by breaking us in our honour for we will accuse for that factions and practises and supplantation in Court when God cannot breake us with his corrections but that we will attribute them to some naturall to some accidentall causes and never thinke of Gods judgements which are the true cause of these afflictions when God cannot breake us by breaking our backs by laying on heavy loads of calamities upon us nor by breaking our hearts by putting us into a sad and heavy and fruitlesse sorrow and melancholy for these worldly losses then he comes to breake us by breaking our necks by casting us into the bottomlesse pit and falling upon us there in this wrath and indignation Comminuam eos in pulverem sayth he I will beate them as small as dust before the winde and tread them as flat as clay in the streets the breaking thereof shall be like the breaking of a Potters vessell which is broken without any pity No pity from God no mercy neither shall any man pity them no compassion no sorrow And in the breaking thereof saith the Prophet there is not found a sheard to take fire at the hearth nor to take water at the pit that is they shall be incapable of any beam of grace in themselves from heaven or any spark of zeale in themselves not a sheard
wardrobe not to make an Inventory of it but to finde in it something fit for thy wearing Iohn Baptist was not the light he was not Christ but he bore witnesse of him The light of faith in the highest exaltation that can be had in the Elect here is not that very beatificall vision which we shall have in heaven but it beares witnesse of that light The light of nature in the highest exaltation is not faith but it beares witnesse of it The lights of faith and of nature are subordinate Iohn Baptists faith beares me witnesse that I have Christ and the light of nature that is the exalting of my naturall faculties towards religious uses beares me witnesse that I have faith Onely that man whose conscience testifies to himself and whose actions testifie to the world that he does what he can can beleeve himself or be beleeved by others that he hath the true light of faith And therefore as the Apostle saith Quench not the Spirit I say too Quench not the light of Nature suffer not that light to goe out study your naturall faculties husband and improve them and love the outward acts of Religion though an Hypocrite and though a naturall man may doe them Certainly he that loves not the Militant Church hath but a faint faith in his interest in the Triumphant He that cares not though the materiall Church fall I am afraid is falling from the spirituall For can a man be sure to have his money or his plate if his house be burnt or to preserve his faith if the outward exercises of Religion faile He that undervalues outward things in the religious service of God though he begin at ceremoniall and rituall things will come quickly to call Sacraments but outward things and Sermons and publique prayers but outward things in contempt As some Platonique Philosophers did so over-refine Religion and devotion as to say that nothing but the first thoughts and ebullitions of a devout heart were fit to serve God in If it came to any outward action of the body kneeling or lifting up of hands if it came to be but invested in our words and so made a Prayer nay if it passed but a revolving a turning in our inward thoughts and thereby were mingled with our affections though pious affections yet say they it is not pure enough for a service to God nothing but the first motions of the heart is for him Beloved outward things apparell God and since God was content to take a body let not us leave him naked nor ragged but as you will bestow not onely some cost but some thoughts some study how you will clothe your children and how you will clothe your servants so bestow both cost and thoughts thinke seriously execute cheerfully in outward declarations that which becomes the dignity of him who evacuated himselfe for you The zeale of his house needs not eat you up no nor eat you out of house and home God asks not that at your hands But if you eat one dish the lesse at your feasts for his house sake if you spare somewhat for his reliefe and his glory you will not be the leaner nor the weaker for that abstinence Iohn Baptist bore witnesse of the light outward things beare witnesse of your faith the exalting of our naturall faculties beare witnesse of the supernaturall We do not compare the master and the servant and yet we thank that servant that brings us to his master We make a great difference between the treasure in the chest and the key that opens it yet we are glad to have that key in our hands The bell that cals me to Church does not catechise me nor preach to me yet I observe the sound of that bell because it brings me to him that does those offices to me The light of nature is far from being enough but as a candle may kindle a torch so into the faculties of nature well imployed God infuses faith And this is our second couple of lights the subordination of the light of nature and the light of faith And a third payre of lights of attestation that beare witnesse to the light of our Text is Lux aeternorum Corporum that light which the Sunne and Moone and those glorious bodies give from heaven and lux incensionum that light which those things that are naturally combustible and apt to take fire doe give upon earth both these beare witnesse of this light that is admit an application to it For in the first of these the glorious lights of heaven we must take nothing for stars that are not stars nor make Astrological and fixed conclusions out of meteors that are but transitory they may be Comets and blazing starres and so portend much mischiefe but they are none of those aeterna corpora they are not fixed stars not stars of heaven So is it also in the Christian Church which is the proper spheare in which the light of our text That light the essentiall light Christ Jesus moves by that supernaturall light of faith and grace which is truly the Intelligence of that spheare the Christian Chruch As in the heavens the stars were created at once with one Fiat and then being so made stars doe not beget new stars so the Christian doctrine necessary to salvation was delivered at once that is intirely in one spheare in the body of the Scriptures And then as stars doe not beget stars Articles of faith doe not beget Articles of faith so as that the Councell of Trent should be brought to bed of a new Creed not conceived before by the holy Ghost in the Scriptures and which is a monstrous birth the child greater then the Father as soon as it is borne the new Creed of the Councell of Trent to containe more Articles then the old Creed of the Apostles did Saint Iude writing of the common salvation as he calls it for Saint Iude it seems knew no such particular salvation as that it was impossible for any man to have salvation is common salvation exhorts them to contend earnestly for that faith which was once delivered unto the Saints Semel once that is at once semel simul once altogether For this is also Tertullians note that the rule of faith is that it be una immobilis irreformabilis it must not be deformed it cannot be Reformed it must not be mard it cannot be mended whatsoever needs mending and reformation cannot be the rule of faith says Tertullian Other foundation can no man lay then Christ not onely no better but no other what other things soever are added by men enter not into the nature and condition of a foundation The additions and traditions and superedifications of the Roman Church they are not lux aeternorum corporum they are not fixed bodies they are not stars to direct us they may be meteors and so exercise our discourse and Argumentation they may raise controversies And they may be Comets and so
doe just thus cannot be a rule of Iustice but the generall doctrine that every body needs at some times some helpes some meanes is certainly true Shall the riotous the voluptuous man stay till this something bee a surfet or a fever 'T is true this surfet and this fever will subdue the body but then thou doest it not Shall a lascivious wanton stay till a consumption or such contagious diseases as shall make him unsociable and so unable to exercise his sinne subdue his body These can doe it but this is Perimere non subjugare not a subduing of the body alone but a destroying of body and soule together Moderate disciplines subdue the body as under the government of a King a father of his people that governs them by a law But when the body comes to bee subdued by paines and anguish and loathsome diseases this becomes a tyranny a conquest and he that comes in by conquest imposes what lawes hee will so that these subduings of the body brought in by sinne may worke in us an obduration we shall feel them but not discerne the hand of God in them or if his hand yet not his hand to that purpose to relieve us but to seale our condemnation to us Beloved because our Adversaries of the Romane heresie have erroneously made a pattern for their Eremiticall and Monasticall life in Iohn Baptist and coloured their idlenesse by his example some of the Reformation have bent a little too far the other way and denied that there was any such austerity in the life of St. Iohn as is ordinarily conceived They say that his conversation in the Desert may well be understood to have been but a withdrawing of himself from publique and civill businesses home to his fathers house for his father dwelt in that Desert and thither went Mary to salute Elizabeth And Ioab had his house in this Desert and in this Desert are reckoned five or fixe good Townes so that indeed it was no such savage solitude as they fancie But yet for a Sonne of such Parents an onely Sonne a Sonne so miraculously afforded them to passe on with that apparellâ— and that diet is certainly remarkable and an evidence of an extraordinary austerity and an argument of an extraordinary sanctity Especially to the Jewes it was so amongst them this austerity of life and abstaining from those things which other men imbraced procured ordinarily a great estimation We know that amongst them the Essaei a severe Sect had a high reverence They did not marry they did not eate flesh they did not ease themselves by servants but did all their own work they used no proprietie they possessed nothing called nothing their own Vicatim habitant urbes fugiunt they forsake all great Townes and dwell in Villages And yet flying the world they drew the world so much afterâ— them as that it is noted with wonder per saeculorum Milia gens aeterna in qua nemo nascitur that there was an eternall Nation that had lasted many Generations and yet never any borne amongst them I am foecunda illis aliorum vitae poenitentia for every man that was crossed or wearied in his owne course of life applied himselfe to their Sect and manner of living as the onely way to Heaven And Iosephus writing his owne life and forwardnesse and pregnancy perchance a little too favourably or gloriously in his owne behalfe to be throughly beleeved for he saith that when he was but fourteen yeares old the greatest Doctours of the Law came to him to learne penitiorem sensum juris the secretest Mysteries of the Law and their Law was Divinity thought himselfe unperfect till he had spent some time in the strictnesse of all the three Sects of the Jewes and after he had done all that he spent three yeares more with one Bannus an Ermit who lived in the wildernesse upon herbs and roots Iohn Baptists austerity of life made him a competent and credible witnesse to them who had such austeritie in estimation And truely hee that will any way bee a witnesse for Christ that is glorifie him hee must endevour even by this outward holinesse of life to bee acceptable to good men Vox Populi vox Dei the generall voyce is seldome false so also Oculi populi Oculi Dei In this case God looketh upon man as man doth Singuli decipi decipere possunt One man may deceive another be deceived by another Nemo omnes neminem omnes fefellerunt no man ever deceived all the world nor did all the world ever joyn to deceive one man The generall opinion the generall voyce is for the most part good evidence with or against a man Every one of us is ashamed of the prayse and attestation of one whom all the world besides taketh to be dishonest so will Christ be ashamed of that witnesse that seeketh not the good opinion of good men When I see a Iesuit solicite the chastity of a daughter of the house where he is harboured and after knowledge taken by the Parents upon her complaint excuse it with saying that he did it but to trie her and to be the better assured of her religious constancy when I see a Iesuit conceale and foment a powder Treason and say he had it but in Confession and then see these men to proclaim themselves to be Martyrs witnesses for Christ in the highest degree I say still the Devill may be a witnesse but I ground not my Faith upon that Testimony A competent witnesse must be an honest man This competency Iohn Baptist had the good opinion of good men And then he had the seale of all Missus est he had his Commission He was sent to bear witness of that Light Though this word Missus est He was sent be not literally in the Text here yet it is necessarily implyed and therefore providently supplyed by the Translatours in this verse and before in the sixt verse it is literally expressed There was a man sent from God whose name was John The Law saith concerning witnesses Qui se ingerunt offerunt suspecti habentur those that offer their testimony before they be cited are suspicious witnesses Therefore they must have a Mission a sending For by Saint Pauls rule How can they preach except they be sent Preach they may but how with what successe what effect what blessing So that the good successe of Iohn Bapstists preaching For the multitudes The people came to him and not light people carried about with every winde of rumour and noise and noveltie but Pharises and Sadduces men of learning of sadnesse and gravity and not onely Scholars affected with subtilties but Publicans too men intent upon the world and other men whose very profession submits them to many occasions of departing from the strict rules which regularly binde other men and therefore may be in some things which tast of injustice more excusable
burden of the day there had been much more cause of complaint because there had passed a contract between them So hath there passed a contract between God and us Beleeve and thou shalt live Do this and thou shalt live And in this especially hath God expressed his love to us and his lothenesse to lose us that he hath passed such a contract with us and manifested to us a way to come to him We say every day in his owne prayer Fiat voluntas tua thy will be done that is done by us as well as done upon us But this petition presumes another the Fiat suposes a Patefiat voluntas if it must be done it must be known If man were put into this world under an obligation of doing the will of God upon damnation and had no meanes to know that will which he was bound to doe of all creatures he were the most miserable That which we read Lord what is man that thou takest knowledge of him the Vulgat edition and the Fathers following the Septuagint read thus Quia innotuisti ei Lord what is man that he should have any knowledge of thee that thou shouldest make thy selfe known to him This is the heighth of the mercy of God this innotescence this manifestation of himselfe to us Now what is this innotescence this manifestation of God to us It is say our old Expositors the law That 's that which is so often called the face of God and the light of his Countenance for facies Dei est qua nobis innotescit that 's Gods face by which God is known to us and that 's his law the declaration of his will to me and my way to him When Christ reproaches those hard-hearted men that had not fed him when he was hungry nor clothed him when he was naked and that they say Lord when did we see thee naked or see thee hungry inconsiderate men or men loth to give the penurious and narrow soule shall not see an occasion of charity when it is presented which is a heavy blindnesse and obcaecation not to see occasions of doing good yet those men doe not say when did we see thee at all as though they had never seen him The blindest man that is hath the face of God so turned towards him as that he may be seen by him even the naturall man hath so for therefore does the Apostle make him inexcusable if in the visible worke he doe not see the invisible God But all sight of God is by the benefit of a law the naturall man sees him by a law written in his heart the Iew by a law given by Moses the Christian in a clearer glasse for his law is the Gospell But there is more mercy that is more manifestation in this text then all this For besides the naturall mans seeing God in a law in the faculties of his owne nature which we consider to be the work of the whole Trinity in that Faciamus hominē Let us make man in our own Image let us shine out in him so as that he may be a glasse in which he may see us in himselfe and besides the Iews seeing of God in the law written in the stone tables which we consider to be the worke of the Father And besides the Christians seeing of God in the law written in bloud in which we consider especially the Sonne there is in this text an operation a manifestation of God proper to the holy Ghost and wrought by his holy suggestions and inspirations That God does not onely speake to us but call upon us not onely give us a Law but Proclamations upon that law that he refreshes to our memories generall duties by such particular warnings and excitations and commonefactions as in this text Videte Beware which is the last branch of this part though it be the first word of our text Videte Beware Nothing exalts Gods goodnesse towards us more then this that he multiplies the meanes of his mercy to us so as that no man can say once I remember I might have been saved once God called unto mee once hee opened mee a doore a passage into heaven but I neglected that went not in then and God never came more No doubt God hath come often to that doore since and knocked and staid at that doore And if I knew who it were that said this I should not doubt to make that suspitious soule see that God is at that doore now God hath spoken once and twice have I heard him for the foundation of all God hath spoken but once in his Scriptures Therefore doth Saint Iude call that fidem semel traditam the faith once delivered to the Saints once that is at once not at once so all at one time or in one mans age the Scriptures were not delivered so for God spoke by the mouth of the Prophets that have been since the world beganne But at once that is by one way by writing by Scriptures so as that after that was done after God had declared his whole will in the Law and the Prophets and the Gospell there was no more to bee added God hath spoken once in his Scriptures and wee have heard him twice at home in our owne readings and againe and againe here in his Ordinances This is the heighth of Gods goodnesse that he gives us his Law and a Comment upon that Law Proclamations declarations upon that Law For without these subsequent helpes even the law it selfe might be mistaken as you see it was when Christ was put to rectifie them with his Audiistis and Audiistis this you have heard and this hath been told you Ego autem dico but this I say ab initio from the beginning it was not so the foundations were not thus laid and upon the foundations laid by God in the Scriptures and not upon the superedifications of men in traditionall additions must wee build In stormes and tempests at sea men come sometimes to cut down Galleries and teare up Cabins and cast them over-board to ease the ship and sometimes to hew downe the Mast it selfe though without that Mast the ship can make no way but no soule weather can make them teare out the keele of the ship upon which the ship is built In cases of necessity the Church may forbeare her Galleries and Cabinets meanes of ease and conveniency yea and her Mast too meanes of her growth and propagation and enlarging of her selfe and be content to hull it out and consist in her present or a worse state during the storme But to the keele of the ship to the fundamentall articles of Religion may no violence in any case be offered God multiplies his mercies to us in his divers ways of speaking to us Caeli enarrant says David The heavens declare the glory of God and not onely by showing but by saying there is a language in the heavens for it is enarrant a verball
shall feare the Lord and his goodnesse in the later dayes And beyond this land there is no more Sea beyond this mercy no more Judgement for with this mercy the Chapter ends Consider our text then as a whole Globe as an intire Spheare and then our two Hemispheares of this Globe our two parts of this text will bee First that no perversnesse of ours no rebellion no disobedience puts God beyond his mercy nor extinguishes his love still hee calls Israel rebellious Israel his Children nay his owne anger his owne Judgements then when hee is in the exercise thereof in the execution thereof puts him not beyond his mercy extinguishes not his love hee hides not his face from them then hee leaves them not then in the darke hee accompanies their calamity with a light hee makes that time though cloudy though overcast yet a day unto them the Children of Israel shall abide many days in this case But then as no disobedience removes God from himself for he is love and mercy so no interest of ours in God doth so priviledge us but that hee will execute his Judgements upon his Children too even the Children of Israel shall fall into these Calamities And from this first part wee shall passe to the second from these generall considerations That no punishments should make us desperate that no favours should make us secure we shall passe to the particular commination and judgements upon the children of Israel in this text without King without Prince c. In our first part we stop first upon this declaration of his mercy in this fatherly appellation Children the children of Israel He does not call them children of Israel as though hee disavowed them and put them off to another Father but therefore because they are the Children of Israel they are his Children for hee had maried Israel and maried her to himselfe for ever Many of us are Fathers and from God here may learne tendernesse towards children All of us are children of some parents and therefore should hearken after the name of Father which is nomen pietatis potestatis a name that argues their power over us and our piety towards them and so concernes many of us in a double capacity as we are children and parents too but all of us in one capacity as we are children derived from other parents God is the Father of man otherwise then he is of other creatures He is the Father of all Creatures so Philo calls all Creatures sorâ—res suas his sisters but then all those sisters of man all those daughters of God are not alike maried God hath placed his Creatures in divers rankes and in divers conditions neither must any man thinke that he hath not done the duty of a Father if he have not placed all his Sonnes or not matched all his daughters in a condition equall to himselfe or not equall to one another God hath placed creatures in the heavens and creatures in the earth and creatures in the sea and yet all these creatures are his children and when he looked upon them all in their divers stations he saw omnia valde bora that all was very well And that Father that imploies one Sonne in learning another to husbandry another to Merchandise pursues Gods example in disposing his children his creatures diversly and all well Such creatures as the Raine though it may seem but an imperfect and ignoble creature fallen from the wombe of a cloud have God for their Father God is the Father of the Raine And such creatures as light have but God for their Father God is Pater lâ—minum the Father of lights Whether we take lights there to be the Angels created with the light some take it so or to be the severall lights set up in the heavens Sun and Moon and Stars some take it so or to be the light of Grace in infusion by the Spirit or the light of the Church in manifestation by the word for all these acceptations have convenient Authors and worthy to be followed God is the Father of lights of all lights but so he is of raine and clouds too And God is the Father of glory as Saint Paul styles him of all glory whether of those beames of glory which he sheds upon us here in the blessings and preferments of this life or that waight of glory which he reserves for us in the life to come From that inglorious drop of raine that falls into the dust and rises no more to those glorious Saints who shall rise from the dust and fall no more but as they arise at once to the fulnesse of Essentiall joy so arise daily in accidentiall joyes all are the children of God and all alike of kin to us And therefore let us not measure our avowing or our countenancing of our kindred by their measure of honour or place or riches in the world but let us looke how fast they grow in the root that is in the same worship of the same God who is ours and their Father too He is nearest of kin to me that is of the same religion with me as they are creatures they are of kin to me by the Father but as they are of the same Church and religion by Father and mother too Philo calls all creatures his sisters but all men are his brothers God is the Father of man in a stronger and more peculiar and more masculine sense then of other Creatures Filius particeps con-dominus cum patre as the law calls the Sonne the partner of the Father and fellow-Lord joint-Lord with the Father of all the possession that is to descend so God hath made man his partner and fellow-Lord of all his other creatures in Moses his Dominamini when he gives man a power to rule over them and in Davids Omnia subjecisti when he imprints there a naturall disposition in the creature to the obedience of man So high so very high a filiation hath God given man as that having another Sonne by another filiation a higher filiation then this by an eternall generation yet he was content that that Sonne should become this Sonne that the Sonne of God should become the Sonne of Man God is the Father of all of man otherwise then of all the rest but then of the children of Israel otherwise then of all other men For he bought them and is not be thy Father that hath bought thee says God by Moses Not to speake of that purchase which he made by the death of his Sonne for that belongs to all the world he bought the Jews in particular at such a price such silver and such gold such temporall and such spirituall benefits such a Land and such a Church such a Law and such a Religion as certainly he might have had all the world at that price If God would have manifested himselfe poured out himselfe to the Nations as hee did to
the Iews all the world would have swarmed to his obedience and herded in his pale God was their fatherâ— and as S. Chrysostâ—me that he might be sure to draw in all degrees of tender affection cals him Their Mother too For Matris nutrire Patris erudire It was a Mothers part to give them suck and to feed them with temporall blessings It was a Fathers part to instruct them and to feed them with spirituall things and God did both abundantly Therefore doth God submit himself to the comparison of a Mother in the Prophet Esay Can a woman forget her sucking child But then he stays not in that inferiour in that infirmer sex but returns to a stronger love then that of a Mother yes says he she may forget yet will not I forget thee And therefore when David says Blesse the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits David expresses that which we translate in a generall word Benefits in this word Gamal which signifies Ablactationes forget not that God nursed thee as a Mother and then Ablactavit we and thee and provided thee stronger food out of the care of a father In one word all creatures are Gods children man is his sonne but then Israel is his first-born son for that is the addition which God gives Israel by Moses to Pharaoh Say unto Pharaoh Israel is my son even my first-born Why God adopted Israel into this siliation into this primogeniture before all the people of the world we can assign no reason but his love only But why he did not before this Text dis-inherit this adopted son is a higher degree and exercise of his love then the Adoption it self if we consider which is a usefull consideration their manifold provocations to such an exhaeredation and what God suffered at their hands The ordinary causes of Exhaeredation for which a man might dis-inherit his son are assigned and numbred in the law to be fourteen But divers of them grow out of one root Vndutifulnesse Inofficiousnesse towards the father and as by that reason they may be extended to more so they may be contracted to sewer to two These two Ingratitude and Irreligion Vnthankfulnesse and Idolatry were ever just causes of Exhaeredation of Dis-inheriting And with these two did the Jews more provoke Almighty God then any children any father Stop we a little our Consideration upon each of these He is not always ungratefull that does not recompense a benefit but he onely that would not though he could make and though the Benefactor needed a recompense When Furnius upon whom Augustus had multiplied benefits told him that in one thing he had damnified him in one thing he had undone him Effecisti at viverem moâ—erer ingratus You have done so much for me says he that I must live and die unthankfull that is without shewing my thankfulnesse by equivalent recompenses This which he cals unthankfulnesse was thankfulnesse enough There are men says the Morall man Qui quo plus debent magis odâ—rant that hate those men most who have laid most obligations upon them Leve as alienum debitorem facit grave inimicum for a little debt he will be content to look towards me but when it is great more then he can pay or as much as he thinks he can get from me then he would be glad to be rid of me Acknowledgement is a good degree of thankfulnesse But ingratitude at the highest and the Iews ingratitude was at the highest involves even a concealing and a denying of benefits and even a hating and injuring of Benefactors And so Res peremptoria ingratiâ—udo says Bernard significantly Ingratitude is a peremptory sin it does Perimere that is destroy not onely all vertues but it destroys that is overflows all other particular Vices no vice can get a name where ingratitude is it swallows all devours all becomes all Ingratum dicas omnia dixisti If you have called a man unthankfull you have called him by all the ill names that are for this complicated this manifold this pregnant vice Ingratitude the holy language the Hebrew lacks a word The nearest root that they can draw Ingratitude into is Caphar and Caphar is but Tegere to hide to conceal a benefit but to deny a benefit or to hate or injure a Benefactor they have not a word And therefore as S. Hierome found not the word in the Hebrew so in all Saint Hieromes translation of the Old Testament or in that which is reputed his the vulgat Edition you have not that Latine word Ingratus Curious sinners subtile self-damners they could not name Ingratitude and in all the steps of Ingratitude they exceeded all men all Nations From the Ingratitude of murmuring upon which God lays that woe Woe unto him that says to his father What begettest thou or to the woman What hast thou brought forth A dogge murmures not that he is not a Lion nor a blinde-worm without eyes that he is not a Basilisk to kill with his eyes Dust murmures not that it is not Amber nor a Dunghill that it is not a Mine nor an Angel that he is not of the Seraphim and every man would be something else then God hath made him from this murmuring for that which he hath not to another degree of Ingratitude The appropriation of that which he hath to himself Vti Datis tanquam Innatis as S. Bernard speaks in his musick To attribute to our selves that which we have received from God to think our selves as strong in Nature as in Grace and as safe in our own free-will as in the love of God as God says of Ierusalem That he had given her her beauty and then she plaid the harlot as if it had been her own by these steps of Ingratitude to the highest of all which is rather then to confesse her self beholden to God to change her God and so to â—lide from Ingratitude to Idolatry Ierusalem came and over-went all the Nations upon the earth Their Ingratitude induced Idolatry in an instant As soon as they came to that ungratefull murmuring As for Moses we cannot tell what is become of him they came presently to say to Aaron Vp and make us Gods that may goe before us which is an impotency a leprosie that derives it self farre spreads farre that as soon as our sins induce any worldly crosse any clamity upon us we come to think of another Church another Religion and conclude That that cannot be a good Church in which we have lived in Now against this impious levity of facility in changing our Religion God seemes to expresse the greatest indignation when he says They sacrificed unto gods whom they knew not to new gods Men amongst us that have been baptized and catechized in the truth and in the knowledge thereof fall into ignorant falshood and embrace a Religion which they understand not nor can understand because it lies in
the breast of one man and is therefore subject to alterations They sacrifice to gods whom they know not says God and those gods new gods too The more suspicious for their newnesse and as it is added there unto gods whom their fathers feared not Men that fall from us whose fathers were of that Religion put themselves into more bondage and slavery to the Court of Rome now then their fathers did to the Church of Rome then They sacrifice to gods whom they know not and whom their fathers feared not so much as they doe But they have corrupted themselves as God charges them farther They are fallen from us whom no example of their fathers led that way fathers have left their former superstition which they were born and bred in and the sonnes which were born and bred in the truth have embraced those superstitions Their spot is not the spot of children so it follows in the same place a weaknesse that might have that excuse that they proceeded out of a reverentiall respect to their fathers and followed their example for their fathers have stood and they are fallen Their spot is not the spot of children And because Kings are pictures of God when they trun upon new gods they turn to new pictures of God too and with a forein Religion invest a forein Allegiance Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians says God and from the Ammonites and from the Amorites and Philistims from a succession of enemies at times and from a league of enemies at once Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods says God there And therefore to that resolution God comes Therefore I will deliver you no more And yet how often did God deliver them after this Ingratitude Idolatry are just causes of Exhaeredation Israel abounded in both these and yet after all these in this Text he cals them Children The Children of Israel and therefore his children God is kinde even to the unthankfull saith christ himself and himself calls Jerusalem The holy City even when she was deâ—iled with many and manifold uncleannesses because she had been holy and had the outward help of holinesse remaining in her still Christ doth not disavow not disinherit those children which gave most just cause of exheredation much lesse doth he justify by his example finall and totall disinheriting of children occasioned by single and small faults in the children and grounded in the Parents upon sudden and passionate and intemperate and imaginary vowes They have vowed to doe it therefore they will doe it for so they put a pretext of Religion upon their impiety and make God accessary to that which he dislikes and upon colour of a vow doe that which is far from a service to God as the performance of every lawfull and discreet vow is God calls them his Children which is one and then though as a Father he correct them yet he shewes them his face in that correction which is another beam of his mercy He calls their calamity their affliction Not a night but a day many dayes shall the children of Israel suffer this We finde these two words often joyned together in the Scriptures Dies visitationis The day of visitation though as it is a visitation it be a sad a dark contemplation yet as it is a day it hath alwayes a cheerfulnesse in it If it were called a night I might be afraid that this night They I am not told who would fetch away my soul but being a day I have assurance that the Sunne the Sunne of Righteousnesse will arise to me At the light of thine Arrowes they went forward saith the Prophet Habakkuk Though they be Arrowes yet they are Torches too though they burn yet they give light too though God shoot his Arrowes at me even by them I shall have light enough to see that it is God that shoots As there is a heavy commination in that of Amos I will cause the Sunne to goe down at noone and I will darken the earth in clear day so is there a gracious promise and a constant practise in God That he will as he hath done command light of darknesse and inable thee to see a clear day by his presence in the darkest night of tribulation For truly such a sense I think belongs to those words in Hosea That when God had said The dayes of visitation are come the dayes of recompence are come God adds that as an aggravating of the calamitie yea woe also to them when I depart from them as though the oppression of the affliction the peremptorinesse of the affliction were not in the affliction it self hut in Gods departing from them when he afflicted them they should be visited but see no day in their visitations afflicted from God but see no light from him receive no consolation in him In this place we take it for the exaltation of your devotion as a particular beam of his mercy That though the Children of Israel were afflicted many dayes yet still he affords them the name of Children and still their darke and cloudy dayes were accompanied with the light and presence of God still they felt the Hand of God under them the Face of God upon them the Heart of God towards them Those then which have this filiation God doth not easily disinherit because they were his Children after unnaturall disobediencies he avowes them and continues that name to them But yet this must not imprint a security a presumption for even the children here are submitted to heavie and dangerous calamities when Christ himselfe saith The children of the kingdome shall be cast into utter darknesse who can promise himselfe a perpetuall or unconditioned station we have in the Scriptures two especiall Types of the Church Paradise and the Arke But in that Type the Arke we are principally instructed what the Church in generall shall doe and in that in Paradise what particular men in the Church should do For we doe not reade that in the Arke Noah or his company did waigh any anchor hoyst any saile ship any oare steare any rudder but the Arke by the providence of God who onely was Pilot rode safe upon the face of the waters The Church it selfe figured by the Arke cannot shipwrack though men sleep though the Devill wake The gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church But in the other Type of the Church where every man is instructed in his particular duty therein Paradise Adam himself was commanded to dresse Paradise and to keep Paradise And when he did not that which he was injoyned to doe in that place he forfeited his interest in it and his benefit by it Though we be born and bred in Gods house as Children Baptized and Catechized in the true Church if we slacken our holy industry in making fare our salvation we though Children of the Kingdome may becast out and all our former helps and our
without a pope they have made a problematicall a disputable matter and some of their Authours have diverted towards an affirmation of it but Aufleribilitas potestatis to imagine a King without Kingly Soveraignty never came into probleme into disputation We all lamented and bitterly and justly the losse of our Deborah though then we saw a Iosiah succeeding but if they had removed our Iosiah and his Royall children and so this form of government where or who or what had been an object of Consolation to us The cause of lamentation in the losse of a good King is certainly great and so it was if Ieremy lamented Iosiah but if it were but for zedekiah an ill King as the greater part of Expositors take it yet the lamentation you see is the same How ill a King was Zedekiah As ill as Iosiah was good that 's his measure He did evill in the sight of the Lord according to all that Iehoiakim had done Here is his sinne sinne by precedent and what had Iehoiakim done He had done evill in the sight of the Lord according to all that his Fathers had done It is a great and a dangerous wickednesse which is done upon pretext of Antiquity The Religion of our Fathers the Church of our Fathers the Worship of our Fathers is a pretext that colours a great deale of Superstition He did evill as his Fathers there was his comparative evill And his positive evill I meane his particular sinne was That he humbled not himself to Gods Prophets to Ieremy speaking from the mouth of the Lord there was irreligiousnesse And then He broke the Oath which he had sworne by God there was perâ—idiousnesse faithlesnsse And lastly He stiffned his neck and hardned his heart from turning to the Lord of Israel there was impenitiblenesse Thus evill was Zedekiah irreligious to God treacherous to man impenitible to himself and yet the State and men truly religious in the State the Prophet lamented him not his spirituall defections by sinne for they did not make themselves Judges of that but they lamented the calamities of the Kingdome in the losse even of an evill King That man must have a large comprehension that shall adventure to say of any King He is an ill King he must know his Office well and his actions well and the actions of other Princes too who have correspondence with him before he can say so When Christ sayes Let your communication be yea yea and nay nay for whatsoever is more then this that is when it comes to swearing that cometh of evill Saint Augustine does not understand that of the evill disposition of that man that sweares but of them who will not beleeve him without wearing Many times a Prince departs from the exact rule of his duty not out of his own indisposition to truth and clearnesse but to countermine underminers That which David sayes in the eighteenth Psalme David speaks not of man but of God himself Cum perverso perveriêris With the froward thou wilt show thy self froward God who is of no froward nêature may be made froward with crafty neighbours a Prince will be crafty and perchance false with the false Alas to looke into no other profession but our owne how often do we excuse Dispensations and pluralities and non-residencies with an Omnes faciunt I do but as other men of my profession do Allow a King but that That he does but as other Kings do Nay but this He does but as other Kings put him to a necessity to do and you will not hastily call a King an ill King When God gives his people for old shoes and sells them for nothing and at the same time gives his and their enemies abundance when God commands Abraham to sacrifice his own and onely Sonne and his enemies have Children at their pleasure as David speaks To give your selves the liberty of humane affection you would think God an ill God but yet for all this his children are to him a Royall Priesthood and a holy Nation and all their tears are in his bottles and registred in his booke for all this When Princes pretermit in some things the present benefit of their Subjects and confer favours upon others give your selves the liberty to judge of Princes actions with the affections of private men and you may think a King an ill King But yet we are to him as David sayes His brethren his bone his flesh and so reputed by him God himselfe cannot stand upright in a naturall mans interpretation nor any King in a private mans But then how soone our adversaries come to call Kings ill Kings we see historically when they boast of having deposed Kings Quia minus utiles Because some other hath seemed to them fitter for the Government and we see it prophetically by their allowing those Indictments and Attainders of Kings which stand in their books De Syndicatu That that King which neglects the duties of his place and they must prescribe the duty and judge the negligence too That King that exercises his Prerogative without just cause and they must prescribe the Prerogative and judge the cause That that King that vexes his Subjects That that King that gives himselfe to intemperate hunting for in that very particular they instance that in such cases and they multiply these cases infinitely Kings are in their mercy and subject to their censures and corrections We proceed not so in censuring the actions of Kings we say with St. Cyrill Impium est dicere Regi Iniquè agis It is an impious thing in him who is onely a private man and hath no other obligations upon him to say to the King or of the King He governs not as a King is bound to do we remit the judgement of those their actions which are secret to God and when they are evident and bad yet we must endevour to preserve their persons for there is a danger in the losse and a lamentation due to the losse even of Zedekiah for even such are uniti Domini The anoynted of the Lord and the breath of our nostrils First as it lies in our Text The King is spiritus narium the breath of our uostrills First Spiritus is a name most peculiarly belonging to that blessed Person of the glorious Trinity whose Office it is to convay to insinuate to apply to us the Mercies of the Father and the Merits of the Sonne He is called by this Name by the word of this Text Ruach even in the beginning of the Creation God had created Heaven and Earth and then The Spirit of God susâ—labat saith Pagnins translation and so saith the Chalde Paraphrase too it breathed upon the waters and so induced or deduced particular formes So God hath made us a little World of our own This Iland He hath given us Heaven and Earth The truth of his Gospel which is our earnest of Heaven and the abundance of the Earth a
a widow Nubat in Domino saith the Apostle In Gods name let her marry But the former husband must be dead The husbands absence makes not the wife a widow nor doth the necessary and lawfull absence of the Pastor make the Church vacant The sicknesse of the husband makes not a widow The bodily weaknesse nay the spirituall weaknes of the Pastor in case that his parts and abilities and faculties be grown but weak do not make his Church vacant If the Pastor be suspended or otherwise censured this is but as a separation or as a divorce and as the wife is not a widow upon a divorce so neither is the Church vacant upon such censures And therefore for them that take advantages upon the weaknesses or upon the disgrace or upon the povertie of any such incumbent and so insinuate themselves into his Church this is intrusion this is spirituall adultery for the husband is not dead though he be sick Nay if they would remove him by way of preferment yet that is a supplantation when Iacob had Esau by the heel whether he kept him in till he might be strong enough to goe out before him or whether he pushed him out before he would have gone Iacob was a supplanter Some few cases are put when a wife becomes as a widow her husband living but regularly it is by death In some few cases Churches may otherwise be vacant but regularly it is by death And then Esto vidua in Domâ— Patris saith Iudah to Thamar Remain a widow at thy fathers house Then the Church remaineth in the house in the hands of her Father the Bishop of that Diâ—ces till a new husband be lawfully tendred unto her And till that time as our Saviour Christ recommended his most blessed Mother to Saint Iohn but not as a wife so that Bishop delivers that Church to the care and administration of some other during her widowhood till by due course she become the wife of another Thus our calling is a mariage It should have honour It must have labour and it is a lawfull mariage upon a just and equitable vacancy of the place without any supplantation upon death And then it is upon death of a brother If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no childe the wife c. Aswell Saint Gregory as Saint Augustine before interpret this of our elder our eldest brother Christ Iesus That hee being dead we mary his wife the Church and become husbands to her But Christ in that capacity as he is head of the Church cannot die That to which the application of this law leads us is That predecessor and successor bee brethren of the same faith and the same profession of faith The Sadduces put a case to Christ of a woman maried successively to seven men let seven signifie infinite still those seven were brethren How often soever any wife change her husband any Church her Pastor God sends us still a succession of brethren sincere and unfeigned Preachers of the same truth sonnes of the same father Who is that father God is our Father Have we not all one Father says the Prophet Yes we have and so a worme and we are brethren by the same father and mother the same God the same Earth Hath not the raine a father The raine hath and the same that wee have More narrowly and yet very largely Christ is our father One of his names is The everlasting Father And then after these after God after Christ the King is our father See my father the skirt of thy robe in my hand says David to his King Saul Now if any husband should be offered to any widow any Pastor to any vacant Church who were not our brother by all these fathers in a right beliefe in God the Father of all men in a right profession of Christ Iesus the Father of all Christians in a right affection and allegiance to the King the Father of all Subjects Any that should incline to a forain father an imaginary universall father he of whom his Vice-fathers his Junior fathers the Iesuites for all the Jesuits are Fathers says That the Fathers of the Church are but sons and not fathers to him They that say to a stock to the Image of the beast Thou art my father who not in a sense of humiliation as Iob speaks the words but of pride say to corruption Thou art my father that is that prostrate themselves to all the corruptions of a prostitute Church If any so inclined of himself or so inclinable if occasion should invite him or rather tempt him be offered for husband to any widow for a Pastor to any vacant Church he is not within the accommodation of this law hee is not our brother by the whole bloud who hath not a brotherhood rooted in the same religion and in the allegiance to the same Soveraign He must be a brother and Frater Cohabitans a brother dwelling with the former brother As he is a brother we consider the unity of faith As he dwels in the same house we consider the unity of discipline That as he beleeves and professes the same articles of faith so by his own obedience and by his instructing of others hee establish the same government A Schismatique is no more a brother to this purpose then an Heretique If we look well we shall see that Christ provided better for his garments then for his flesh he suffered his flesh to be torn but not his seamlesse garment There may bee in many cases more mischief in disobeying the uniformity of the discipline of the Church then in mistaking in opinion some doctrine of the Church Wee see in Gods institution of his first Church whom he called brethren Those who were instructed and cunning in the songs of the Church they are called brethren To oppose the orders of the Church solemnly ordained or customarily admitted for the advancement of Gods glory and the devotion of the Congregation forfeits this brotherhood or at least discontinues the purpose and use of it for howsoever they may bee in a kinde brothers if they succeed in the profession of the same faith yet wee see where the blessednesse is settled Blessed are they that dwell in thy house And we see where the goodnesse and the pleasantnesse is settled Behold how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity So that if they be not brothers in the same faith and brothers in the same houshold of the faithfull and brothers in the same allegiance If they advance not the truth of the Church and the peace of the Church and the head of the Church fomentors of Error and of Schisme and Sedition are not husbands for these widows Pastors for these Churches Hee must bee a brother A brother dwelling in the same house of Christ and then brother to one
about striking the rock and wouldst not thou be glad to change sinnes with either of them Are not thy sinnes greater heavier sinnes And yet wouldest thou not be sorry to undergoe their punishments are not thy punishments lesse Hast thou found hony says the holy Ghost in Solomon and he says it promiscuously and universally to every body eate as much as is sufficient Every man may And then Ionathan found that hony and knew not that it was forbidden by Sauls proclamation and did but taste it and that in a case of extreme necessity and Ionathan must die Any man might eate enough He did but taste and he must die If the Angels if Adam if Balaam if Moses if Ionathan did if the Serpent in the text could consider this how much cheaper God hath made sinne to thee then to them might they not have colour in the eye of a naturall man to expostulate with God Might not Ananias and Saphira who onely withheld a little of that which but a little before was all their own and now must die for that have been excusable if they had said at the last gaspe How many direct Sacrileges hath God forborne in such and such and we must die Mighty not Eâ— and Onan after their uncleane act upon themselves onely for which they died have been excusable if they had said at the last gaspe How many direct adulteries how many unnaturall incests hath God forborne in such and such and we must die How many loads of miserable wretches maist thou have seen suffer at ordinary executions when thou mightest have said with David Lord I have done wickedly but these sheep what have they done What had this Serpent done The Serpent was more subtile then any other beast It is a dangerous thing to have a capacity to doe evill to be fit to be wrought upon is a dangerous thing How many men have been drawn into danger because they were too rich How many women into solicatation and tentation because they were too beautifull Content thy selfe with such a mediocrity in these things as may make thee fit to serve God and to assist thy neighbour in a calling and be not ambitious of extraordinary excellency in any kinde It is a dangerous thing to have a capacity to do evill God would do a great work and he used the simplicity of the Asse he made Balaams Asse speak But the Devill makes use of the subtilty of the craft of the Serpent The Serpent is his Instrument no more but so but so much he is his instrument And then says S. Chrysostome Pater noster execuratur gladium as a naturall father would so our heavenly father does hate that which was the instrument of the ruine of his children Wherein hath he expressed that hate not to binde our selves to Iosephus his opinion though some of the ancients in the Christian Church have seconded that opinion too that at that time the Serpent could goe upright and speak and understand and knew what he did and so concurred actually and willingly to the temptation and destruction of man though he were but anothers instrument he became odious to God Our bodies of themselves if they had no souls have no disposition to any evill yet these bodies which are but instruments must burn in hell The earth was accursed for mans sin though the earth had not been so much as an instrument of his sin Onely because it was after to conduce to the punishment of his children it was accursed God withdrew his love from it And in the law those beasts with which men committed bestiality were to be stoned as well as the men How poor a plea will it be to say at the last day I got nothing by such an extortion to mine own purse it was for my master I made no use of that woman whom I had corrupted it was for a friend Miserable instrument of sin that hadst not the profit nor the pleasure and must have the damnation As the Prophet cals them that help us towards heaven Saviours Saviours shall come up on Mount Sion so are all that concurre instrumentally to the damnation of others Devils And at the last day we shall see many sinners saved and their instruments perish Adam and Eve both God interrogated and gave them time to meditate and to deprecate To Adam he says Where art thou and who told thee that thou wast naked And to Eve What is this that thou hast done But to the Serpent no such breathing The first words is Quia fecisti no calling for evidence whether he had done it or no but Because thou hast done it thou art accursed Sin is Treason against God and in Treason there is no Accessory The instrument is the Principall We passe from that first Part the consideration of heavy Judgements upon faults in appearance but small derived from the punishment of the Serpent though but an Instrument Let no man set a low value upon any sin let no man think it a little matter to sin some one sin and no more or that one sin but once and no oftner or that once but a little way in that sin and no father or all this to do another a pleasure though he take none in it himself as though there were charity in the society of sin and that it were an Alms to help a man to the means of sinning The least sin cost the blood of the Son of God and the least sinner may lose the benefit of it if he presume of it No man may cast himself from a Pinnacle because an Angel may support him no man may kill himself because there is a Resurrection of the body nor wound his soul to death by sin because there may be a resurrection of that by grace Here is no roome for presumption upon God but as little for desperation in God for in the punishment of the Serpent we shall see that his Mercy and Justice are inseparable that as all the Attributes of God make up but one God Goodnesse and Wisdome and Power are but one God so Mercy and Justice make up but one act they doe not onely duly suceed and second one another they doe not onely accompany one another they are not onely together but they are all one As Manna though it tasted to one man like one thing to another like another for it tasted to every man like that that that man liked best yet still was the same Manna so for Gods corrections they have a different taste in different persons and howsoever the Serpent found nothing but Judgement yet we find mercy even in that Judgement The evening and the morning make up the day says Moses as soon as he had named evening comes in morning no interposing of the mention of a dark and sad night between As soon as I hear of a Judgement I apprehend Mercy no interposing of any dark or sad suspition or diffidence
a heavy heart That heavinesse makes him uncapable of Naturall of Morall of Civill of Spirituall comforts charme the Charmer never so wisely Heli heard that the Battell was lost and that his Sonnes were slaine and admitted so much sorrow for those that when the last was added The Arke was taken by the Enemy he was too weake for that and fell down and brake his neck It was his daughter in Lawes case too shee overcharged her soul with sadnesse for her husbands death and her fathers death and when the report of the Arke came she fell into labour and died and though the women told her Feare not thou hast born a Sonne yet shee answered not Though the Arke of God the worship of his Name bee at any time transferred from where it was despaire not thou of Gods reducing it for this despairing of others may bring thee to despaire in some accident to thy self Accustome thy selfe to keepe up the consideration of Gods mercy at the highest lodge not a sad suspition in any publique in any private businesse that Gods powerfull mercy can goe but thus farre hee that determineth Gods Power and his Mercy and faith here it must end is as much an Atheist as hee that denieth it altogether The Key of David openeth and no man shutteth The Spirit of Comfort shineth upon us and would not be blown out Monasterie and Ermimitage and Anchorate and such words of singularitie are not Synonymâ— with those plurall words Concio Coetus Ecclesia Synagoga Congregatio in which words God delivereth himselfe to us A Church is a Company Religion is Religation a binding of men together in one manner of Worship and Worship is an exteriour service and that exteriour service is the Venite exultemus to come and rejoyce in the presence of God If in any of these wayes God cast a Cloud upon our former joyes yet to receive good at Gods hand and not to receive evill to rejoice in the calme and not in the storme this is to breake at least halfe of the Commandement which is Gaudete semper And so from the first part which is the substance which we have passed by these steps That this rejoycing hath the nature of a Commandement it must bee maintained And that inward joy must be outwardly expressed even to the disgrace and confusion of Gods enemies and to the upholding of a joyfull constancy in our selves We passe now to the extent of the Commandement Gaudeâ—e semper Evermore Did God mean that we should rejoyce alwayes when he made sixe dayes for labour and but one for rest Certainly he did Sixe dayes we are to labour and to doe all that we have to doe And part of that which we have to doe is to rejoyce in our labour Adam in the state of Innocency had abundant occasion of continuall rejoycing but yet even in that joyfull state he was to labour to dresse and to keep the Garden After the fall when God made the labour of man more heavie in sudore vultus that he should not eat but in the sweat of his browe yet God gave him not that penalty that occasion of sadnesse till he had first imprinted the roote of true Joy the promise of a Messias that promise he made before he came to denounce the penalty first came the Ipse conteret and then in sudore vultus upon those words Thou shalt eat the labour of thy hand Debuit dicere fructum non laborem saith Augustine David should have said he shall eate the fruit not the labour of his hands Sed ipsi labores non sunt sine gaudio but the very labours the very afflictions of good men have joy in them Si labor potest manducari jucundari manducatus fructus laboris qualis erit And if labour it self affliction it self minister Joy what a manner what a measure of joy is in the full possession thereof in Heaven And as the consideration of the words immediately after the Text hath made more then one of the Fathers say Etiam Somnia justorum preces sunt Even the sleep of the righteous is a service to God and their very Dreams are Prayers and Meditations so much more properly may wee call the sleep and the bodily rest nay the bodily torments of the righteous joye rejoycing So that neither weeke day nor Sabbath day nor night labour nor rest interrupteth this continuall Joy Wee may wee must rejoyce evermore Gaudete in bonis Rejoyce when God giveth you the good things of this world First in Temporalibus when God giveth you the good Temporall things of this world Gaudete in Terra Rejoyce that God hath placed you in so fertill in so fruitfull a Land Gaudete in pace Rejoyce that God hath afforded you peace to till the Land Gaudete de Temporibus Rejoyce that God giveth good seasons that the Earth may give her increase and that Man may ioy in the increase of the Earth And Gaudete de amicitiis Rejoyce that God giveth you friendship with such Nations as may take of your superfluities and return things necessary to you There is a joy required for Temporall things for hee that is not joyfull in a benefit is not thankefull Next to that detestable assertion as Saint Augustine calleth it That God made any man to to damn him it is the perversest assertion That God gives man temporall things to ensnare him Was that Gods primary intention in prospering Noahs Vineyard That Noah should be drunken God forbid Doth God give any man honour or place Vt glorietur in malo qui potens est that his power might be an occasion of mischief and oppression God forbid God made light at first but wee know not what that light was but God gathered all light into the Sun and all the world sees it God infuses grace and spirituall blessings into a mans heart and no man sees that but the Spirit that is in that man but the Evidence the great Seale that he pleads in the Eye of the world is Gods temporall blessings When Assuerus put the Royall Vesture and Ring and Crown upon Mordecas it was to shew that hee was in his favour in the same intention proceeds God too when he gives riches or honour or favour or command hee would have that soul rejoyce in these as in testimonies of his favour God loves hilarem datorem a cheerfull giver but he that is not a cheerfull receiver is a worse natur'd man and more dishonours nay reproaches his benefactor They then disobey this Commandment of rejoycing in temporall things that employ not their industry that use not all good means to attaine them Every man is therefore planted in the world that hee may grow in the world and as venomous hearbs delight in the shade so a sullen retiring argues a murmuring and venomous disposition To contemn Gods temporall blessings or to neglect or undervalue those instruments those persons by whom God