the Spirit of God is expressely named so that we do 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 Trinitie we know God we beleeve in the Trinitie The Gentiles multiplied gods there were almost as many gods as men that beleeved in them and I am got out of that throng and out of that noise when I am come into the knowledge of one God but I am got above stairs got into the bed-chamber when I am come to see the Trinitie and to apprehend not onely that I am in the care of a great 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 Truely it is a sad contemplation to see Christians scratch and wound and teare one another with the ignominious invectives and uncharitable names of Heretick and Schismatick about ceremoniall and problematicall and indeed but criticall verball controversies and in the mean time the foundation of all the Trinitie undermined by those numerous those multitudinous ant-hills 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 Calvin they impute to Calvin fundamentall errour in the divinitie of the second person of the Trinitie the Sonne And they impute to Luther a detestation of the word Trinitie and an expunction thereof in all places of the Liturgie where the Church had received that word They knew well if that slander could prevail against those persons nothing that they could say could prevail upon any good Christians But though in our Doctrine we keep up the Trinitie aright yet God knows in our Practise we do not I hope it cannot be said of any of us that he beleeves not the Trinitie but who amongst us thinks of the Trinitie considers of the Trinitie Father and Sonne do naturally imply and induce one another therefore they fall oftener 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 Trinitie nor of the holy Ghost in particular in the endowments of the Church and consecrations of the Churches and possessions in their names what a spirituall dominion in the Prayers worship of the people what a temporall dominion in the possessions of the world had the Virgin Marie Queen of heaven and Queen of earth too She was made joynt-purchaser of the Church with the Sonne and had asmuch of the worship thereof as he though she paid her Fine in milk and he in bloud And till a new sect came in her Sonnes name and in his name the name of Jesus took the Regencie so farre out of that Queen-mothers hands and sued out her sonnes liverie so farre as that though her name be used the Virgin Marie is but a Feofee in trust for them all was hers And if God oppose not these new usurpers of the world posteritie will soon see S. Ignatius worth all the Trinitie in possessions and endowments and that sumptuous and splendid foundation of his first Temple at Rome may well create a conjecture and suspicion Travell no farther Survey but this Citie and of their not one hundred Churches the Virgin Marie hath a dozen The Trinitie hath but one Christ hath but one the holy Ghost hath none But not to go into the Citie nor out of our selves which of us doth truely 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 the holy Ghost brought you hither The holy Ghost opens your eares and your hearts here Till in all your distresses you say Veni Creator Spiritus Come holy Ghost and that you feel a comfort in his coming you can never say Veni Domine Jesu 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 holy Ghost is a thousand times more fearfull This seal then this impression this notion of the Trinitie being set upon us in this first plurall word of our Text Faciamus Let us for Father Sonne and holy Ghost made man and this seal being reimprinted upon us in our second Creation or Regeneration in Baptisme man is baptized in the name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the holy Ghost this notion of the Trinitie being our distinctive character from Jew and Gentile this being our specificall form why doth not this our form this soul 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 scorn and contempt was not the least in contempt and scorn were called Nazaraei Nazarites in the mouth of the vulgar and Galilaei Galileans in the mouth of Julian Judaei Jews in the mouth of Nero when he imputed the burning of Rome his own art to them and Christiani Christians so that as Tertullian sayes they could accuse Christians of nothing but the name of Christians and yet they could not call them by their right name of Christians which was gentle quiet easie patient men made to be troden upon but they gave them divers names in scorn 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 after by common custome at Antioch Christians and after that they say by a councell which the Apostles held at the same Citie 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
Jesseans And so Philo Judaeus in that book which he writes de Jessaeis intends by his Jesseans Christians And in divers parts of the world into which Christians travell now they finde some elements some fragments some reliques of the Christian religion in the practise of some religious men whom those Countreys call Jesseans 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 scorn Nazarites Galileans Jews Christians yet they were never by custome amongst themselves never by commandment from the Church never in contempt from others called Trinitarians the profession of the Trinitie being their specifick form and distinctive character Why so Beloved the name of Christ involved all not onely because it is a name that hath a dignitie in it more then the rest for Christ is an anointed person a King a Messiah and so the profession of that name conferres 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 Trinitie 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 John 17. 3. sayes 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 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 Trinitie As he that confesseth one God is got beyond the meer naturall man And he that confesseth a Sonne of God beyond him so is neither got to the full truth till he confesse the holy Ghost too The fool sayes in his heart There is no God The fool sayes David the emphaticall fool in the highest degree of folly But though he get beyond that folly he is a fool still if he say There is no Christ for Christ is the wisdome of the Father And a fool still if he denie the holy Ghost Etiam Christiani nomen superficies est is excellently said by Tertullian The name and profession of a Christian is but a superficiall outside sprinkled upon my face in Baptisme or upon my outward profession in actions if I have not in my heart a sense of the holy Ghost that applies the mercies of the Father and the merits of the Sonne to my soul As S. Paul said Whilest you are without Christ you are without God It is an Atheisme with S. Paul to be no Christian So whilest you are without the holy Ghost you are without Christ It is Antichristian to denie 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 are we Christians that in the profession of that name of Christ we professe all the three Persons In Christ is the whole Trinitie because as the Father sent him so sent he the holy Ghost And that is our specifick form that is our distinctive character from Jew Gentile the Trinitie But then is this specifick form this distinctive character the notion of the Trinitie conveyed to us exhibited imprinted upon us in our creation in this word this plurall word in the mouth of our own God Faciamus Let Vs Vs It is here and here first This is an intimation and the first intimation of the Trinitie from the mouth of God in all the Bible It is true that though the same faith which is necessary to salvation now were alwayes 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 Trinitie yet not so explicitely nor so particularly as now now Christ calling upon God in the name of the Father sayes I have manifested thy Name unto the men which thou gavest me out of John 17. 6. the world They were men appropriated to God men exempt out of the world yet they had not a cleare manifestation of Father and Sonne the doctrine of the Trinitie till Christ manifested it to them I have manifested thy Name thy name of Father and Sonne And therefore the Jewish Rabbins say that the Septuagint the first Translatours of the Bible did disguise some places of the Scriptures in their translation lest Ptolomey for whom they translated it should be scandalized with those places And that this text was one of those places which say they though it be otherwise in the copies of the Scriptures 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 Ptolomey to think that the Jews had a plurall religion and worshipped divers gods So good an evidence do they confesse this text to be for some kinde of pluralitie in the Godhead Here then God notified the Trinitie and here first For though we accept an intimation of the Trinitie in the first line of the Bible where Moses joyned a plurall name Elohim with a singular verb 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 pluralitie of persons though we reade that in that first verse before this in the 26 yet Moses writ that which is in the beginning of this chapter more then 2000. yeares 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 begins our Catechisme here we have and here first the saving knowledge of the Trinitie For when God spake here to whom could God speak but to God Non cum rebus creandis non cum re nihili sayes Athanasius speaking of Gods first speaking when he said of the first creature Let there be light God spake not then to future things that were not When God spake first there was no creature at all to speak to when God spake of the making of man there were no creatures But
so no second birth without Baptisme no Baptisme but in the name of the Father Sonne and holy Ghost It was the entertainment of God himself 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 Trinitie as Gregorie Nazianzene and 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 look upon himself in the Sonne Numénque suum triplicique parique Luce nitens And to see the whole Godhead in a threefold and equall glorie It was Gods own delight and it must be the delight of every Christian upon particular occasions to carry his thoughts upon the severall persons of the Trinitie If I have a barre of iron that barre in that form will not nail a doore If a sow of lead that lead in that form will not stop a leak 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 coyn my gold into currant money when I apprehend God in the severall notions of the Trinitie That if I have been a prodigall son I have a Father in heaven and can go 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 my own children there is a Sonne in heaven that will do more for me then my own children of what good means or good nature soever they be can or will do If I be dejected in spirit there is a holy Spirit in heaven which shall bear witnesse to my spirit that I am a childe of God And if the ghosts of those sinners whom I made sinners haunt me after their deaths in returning to my memorie reproaching my conscience with the heavy judgements that I have brought upon them If after the death of my own sinne when my appetite is dead to some particular sinne the memorie and sinfull delight of those passed sinnes the ghosts of those sinnes haunt me again yet there is a holy Ghost in heaven that shall exorcise these and shall overshadow me The God of the whole world is God alone in the generall notion as he is so God but he is my God most especially most appliably as he is received by me in the severall notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost This is our East here we see God God in Part. II all the persons consulting concurring to the Occidens making of us But then my West presents it self that is an occasion to humble me in the next word he makes but man a man that is but Adam but Earth I remember 4. names by which man is often called in the scriptures of these foure three do absolutely carry miserie in their significations three to one against any man that he is miserable One name of man is Ish and that they derive à sonitu Man is but a voice but a sound but a noise he begins the noise himself when he comes crying into the world when he goes out perchance friends celebrate perchance enemies calumniate him with a diverse voice a diverse noise A melancholick man is but a groning a sportfull man but a song an active man but a trumpet a mighty man but a thunder-clap every man but Ish but a sound but a noyse An other name is Enosh Enosh is meer calamitie miserie depression It is indeed most properly oblivion And so the word is most elegantly used by David Quid est homo where the name of man is Enosh And so that which we translate What is man that thou art mindfull of him is indeed What is forgetfulnesse that thou shouldest remember it that thou shouldest think of that man whom all the world hath forgotten first man is but a voice but a sound but because fame honour may come within that name of a sound of a voice therefore he is overtaken with another damp man is but oblivion his fame his name shall be forgotten One name man hath that hath some taste of greatnesse and power in it Gheber and yet I that am that man sayes the Prophet for there that name of man Gheber is used I am the man that hath seen affliction by Lam. 3. 1. the rod of Gods wrath Man Ish is so miserable as that he afflicts himself cries and whines out his own time and man Enosh so miserable as that others afflict him and bury him in ignominious oblivion and man that is Gheber the greatest powerfullest of men is yet but that man that may possibly that may justly see affliction by the rod of Gods wrath And from Gheber he made Adam which is the fourth name of man indeed the first name of man the name in this text and the name to which every man must be called and referre himself and call himself by earth and red earth Now God did not say of man as of other creatures Let us or let the earth bring forth herbs and fruits and trees as upon the third day Now let the earth bring forth cattell and worms as upō the sixth day the same day that he made man Non imperiali verbo sed familiari manu sayes Tertullian God calls not man out with an imperious command but he leads him out with a familiar with his own hand And it is not Fiat homo but Faciamus not Let there be but Let us make man Man is but an earthen vessell It is true but when we are upon that consideration God is the potter if God will be that I am well content to be this let me be any thing so that that I am be from my God I am as well content to be a sheep as a lion so God will be my shepherd and the Lord is my shepherd to be a cottage as a castle the house as a citie so God will be the builder and the Lord builds and watches the citie the house this house this citie me to be rye as wheat so God will be the husbandman and the Lord plants me and waters and weeds and gives the increase and to be clothed in leather as well as in silk so God will be the merchant and he clothed me in Adam and assures me of clothing in clothing the lilies of the field and is fitting the robe of Christs righteousnesse to me now this minute Adam is as good to me as Gheber a clod of earth as a hill of earth so God be the potter God made man of earth not of aire not of fire Man hath many offices that appertain to this world and whilest he is here must not withdraw himself from those offices of mutuall societie upon pretence of zeal or better serving God in a retired life A ship will no more come to the harbour without ballast then without sails A man will no more get
is this perpetuitie 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 sayes A King built a citie and erected his statue in the middest of that citie that is God made man and imprinted his image in his soul How will this King take it sayes that Father to have this statue thrown down Every man doth so if he do not exalt his naturall faculties if he do not hearken to the law written in his heart if he do not run as Plato or as Socrates in the wayes of vertuous actions he throws down the statue of this King he defaces the image of God How would this King take it sayes he if any other statue especially the statue of his enemie should be set up in his place Every man doth 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 Job is intended but of the naturall man There speaking of Behemoth that is of the greatest of creatures he sayes in our Translation that He is the chief of Job 40. 19. the wayes of God S. Hierom hath it Principium and others before him Initium viarum Dei that when God went the progresse over the world in the creation thereof he did but begin 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 sayes the School In them we may see where God hath gone for all being is from God and so every thing that hath a being hath filiationem vestigii a testimonie of Gods having passed that way and called in there but man hath filiationem imaginis an expression of his image and doth the office of an image or picture to bring him whom it represents the more lively to our memories Gods abridgement of the whole world was man reabridge man into his least volume in pura naturalia as he is but meer man and so he hath the image of God in his soul He hath it as God is considered in his unitie for as God is the soul of man is indivisibly impartibly one entire And he hath it also as God is notified to us in a Trinitie for as there are three persons in the essence of God so are there three faculties in the soul of man The attributes and some kinde of speculation of the persons in the Trinitie are power to the Father wisdome to the Sonne and goodnesse to the holy Ghost And the three faculties of the soul have the images of these three the Vnderstanding is the image of the Father that is Power for no man exercises power no man can govern well without understanding the natures dispositions of them whom he governs 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 natae sunt sayes S. Ambrose the lion the bear the elephant have forgot what they were born to Induuntur quod jubentur they invest and put on such a disposition and such a nature as we enjoyn them appoint them Serviunt ut famuli as that Father pursues it elegantly and Verberantur ut timidi they wait 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 the horn of the bull in the heels of the horse and Adjuvantur ut infirmi they counterfeit a weaknesse that they might be beholding to us for help and they are content to thank us if we afford them rest or any food who if they understood us as well as we do them might tear our meat out of our throats nay tear out our throats for their meat So then in this first naturall facultie of the soul the Vnderstanding stands the image of the first person the Father Power And in the second facultie 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 go out of himself nor beyond his own legend and the historie of his own actions for examples of that That many times we know better and choose ill wayes Wisdome is in choosing or assenting And then in the third facultie of the soul the Memorie 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 farre as to do them to crown them with action that is true goodnesse The office that Christ assignes to the holy Ghost and the goodnesse which he promiseth in his behalf is this that he shall bring former things to our remembrance John 14. 26. The wise man places all goodnesse in this facultie the Memorie properly nothing can fall into the Memorie but that which is past and yet he sayes Whatsoever thou takest in hand remember the end and Ecclus 7. 36. thou shalt never do amisse The end cannot be yet come and yet we are bid to remember that Visus per omnes sensus recurrit sayes S. Augustine as all senses are called sight in the Scriptures for there is Gustate Dominum and Audite and Palpate Taste the Lord and Heare the Lord and Feel 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 himself would think somewhat better of himself and others would be the lesse apt to put scorns 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 Councel the image of his goodnesse the Clergie 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
man Is there then no Supersedeas upon the commission is the Sonne equall with the Father in our eternall election in the means of our salvation in the last judgement in all In all Omne judicium God hath committed all judgement to the Sonne and here is the pearl made up the dew of Gods grace sprinkle upon your souls the beams of Gods Spirit shed upon your souls that effectuall and working knowledge that he who died for your salvation is perfect God aswell as perfect man fit and willing to accomplish that salvation In handling then this judgement which is a word that embraces and comprehends all all from our election where no merit no future actions of ours were considered by God to our fruition and possession of that election where all our accounts shall be considered and recompensed by him we shall see first that judgement belongs properly to God and secondly that God the Father whom we consider to be the root and fountain of the Deitie can no more divest his judgement then he can his godhead and therefore in the third place we consider what that committing of judgement which is mentioned here imports and then to whom it is committed to the Sonne and lastly the largenesse of that commission Omne All judgement so that we cannot carrie our thoughts so high or so farre backwards as to think of any judgement given upon us in Gods purpose or decree without relation to Christ nor so farre forwards as to think there shall be a judgement given upon us according to our good morall dispositions or actions but according to our apprehension and imitation of Christ Judgement is a proper and inseparable character of God that is first the Father cannot divest himself of that that is next the third is that he hath committed it to another and then the person and that is his delegate his onely Sonne and lastly his power is everlasting and that judgement-day that belongs to him hath and shall last from our first election through the participation of the means prepared by him in his Church to our association and union with him in glorie and so the whole circle of time and before time was and when time shall be no more makes up but one judgement-day to him to whom the Father who judgeth no man hath committed all judgement First then judgement appertains to God it is Part. I his in criminall causes Vindicta mihi Vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord. It is so in civil things too for God himself is proprietarie of all Domini est terra plenitudo ejus The earth is the Lords and all that is in and on the earth your silver mine and your gold mine sayes the Prophet and the beasts upon a thousand mountains are mine sayes David you are the usufructuaries of them but I am proprietarie No attribute of God is so often iterated in the Scriptures no act of God so often inculcated as this judge and judgement no word concerning God so often repeated but it is brought to the height in that place of the Psalme where we reade God judgeth among the gods the Psal 82. 1. Latine Church ever read it Deus dijudicat deos God judgeth the gods themselves for though God say of judges and magistrates Ego dixi Dii estis I have said You are gods and if God say it who shall gainsay it yet he sayes too Moriemini sicut homines the greatest gods upon earth die like men and if that be not humiliation enough there is more threatned in that which follows Ye 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 horrour for the present and dominions with discourse for the future but the farthest of all is Deus dijudicabit deos even these judges must come to judgement and therefore that Psalme which begins so is concluded thus Surge Domine Arise O God and judge the earth if he have power to judge the earth he is God and even in God himself it is expressed as a kinde of rising as some exaltation of his power that he is to judge And that place in the beginning of the Psalme many of the Ancients reade in the future Dijudicabit God shall judge the gods because the frame of the Psalme seems to referre it to the last judgement Tertullian read it Dijudicavit as a thing past God hath judged in all times and the letter of the text requires it to be in the present Dijudicat Collect all and judgement is so essentiall to God as that it is coeternall with him he hath he doth and he will judge the world and the judges of the world Other judges die like men weakly and they fall that is worse ignominiously and they fall like princes that is worse fearfully and scornfully and when they are dead and fallen they rise no more to execute judgement but to have judgement executed upon them the Lord dies not he falls not and if he seem to slumber the martyrs under the altar awake him with their Vsque quò Domine How long O Lord before thou execute judgement and he will arise and judge the world for judgement is his God putteth down one and setteth up another sayes David where hath he that power why God is the Judge not a judge but the Judge and in that right he putteth down one and setteth up another Now for this judgement which we place in God we must consider in God three notions three apprehensions three kindes of judgements First God hath Judicium detestationis God doth naturally know and therefore naturally detest all evil for no man in the extreamest corruption of nature is yet fallen so farre as to love or approve evil at the same time that he knows and acknowledges it to be evil But we are so blinde in the knowledge of evil that we needed that great supplement and assistance of the Law it self to make us know what was evil Moses magnifies and justly the Law Non appropinquavit sayes Moses God came not so neare to any nation as to the Jews Non taliter fecit God dealt not so well with any nation as with the Jews and wherein because he had given them a Law and yet we see the greatest dignitie of this Law to be that by the Law is the Rom. 3. 20. knowledge of sinne for though by the law of nature written in our hearts there be some condemnation of some sinnes yet to know that every sinne was treason against God to know that every sinne hath the reward of death and eternall death annexed to it this knowledge we have onely by the Law now if man will pretend to be a judge what an exact knowledge of the Law is required at his hands for some things are sinnes to one nation which are not so to another and where the just authorite of the lawfull Magistrate changes the nature of the thing
upon us and to the mountains to cover and hide us from the wrathfull judgement of God He is Judge then Sine appellatione Without any appeal from him he is so too Sine judiciis Without any evidence from us Now if I be warie in my actions here incarnate devils detractours and informers cannot accuse me if my sinne come not into action but lie onely in my heart the devil himself who is the Accuser of the brethren hath no evidence against me But God knows the heart Doth not he that pondereth the heart understand Prov. 24. 12 it where it is not in that faint word which the vulgar edition hath expressed it in Suspector cordium that God sees the heart but the word is Fochen that is every where to weigh to number to search to examine as the word is used by Solomon again The Lord weigheth the spirits and Prov. 16. 2. it must be a steadie hand and exact scales that shall weigh spirits so though neither man nor devil nay nor my self give evidence against me yea though I know nothing by my self I am not thereby justified Why where is the further danger in this which follows there in S. Paul He that judgeth 1. Cor. 4. 4. me is the Lord and the Lord hath means to know my heart better then my self And therefore S. Augustine makes use of those words Abyssus Psal 42. 9. abyssum invocat One depth calls up another the infinite depth of my sinnes must call upon the infinite depth of Gods mercie for if God who is a Judge in all these respects Judicio detestationis he knows and abhorres evil and Judicio discretionis he discerns every evil person and every evil action and Judicio retributionis he can and will recompense evil with evil and all these Sine appellatione we cannot appeal from him and Sine judiciis he needs no evidence from us if this Judge enter into judgement with me not onely not I but not the most righteous man nay nor the Church whom he hath washed in his bloud that she might be without spot or wrinkle shall appeare righteous in his sight This then being thus that judgement is an inseparable Part. II character of God and God the Father being Fons deitatis the root and spring of the whole deitie how is it said that the Father judgeth no man not that we should conceive a wearinesse or retiring in the Father or a discharging of himself upon the shoulders and labours of another in the administration and judging of this world for as it is truely said that God rested the seventh day that is he rested from working in that kinde from creating so it is true that Christ sayes here My Father worketh yet and I work and so it is truely said here The Father judgeth no man it is truely John 8. 5. said by Christ too of the Father I seek not mine own glorie there is one that seeketh and judgeth still it is true that God hath Judicium detestationis Thy eyes are pure eyes O Lord and cannot behold iniquitie sayes the Prophet still it is true that he hath Judicium discretionis Because they committed Jer. 29. 23. Villanie in Israel even I know it saith the Lord still it is true that he hath Judicium retributionis The Lord killeth and maketh alive he bringeth 1. Sam. 2. 6. down to the grave and bringeth up still it is true that he hath all these Sine appellatione for go to the sea or earth or hell as David makes the distribution and God is there and he hath them Sine judiciis for our witnesse is in heaven and our record on high All this is undeniably true and besides this that great name of God by which he is first called in the Scriptures ELOHIM is not inconveniently derived from Elah which is jurare to swear God is able as a Judge to minister an oath unto us and to draw evidence from our own consciences against our selves so that then the Father judgeth still but he judges as God and not as the Father In the three great judgements of God the whole Trinitie judges In the first judgement before all times which was Gods judiciarie 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 judiciarie separating of servants from enemies in the seals and in the administration of the Christian Church And in the last judgement which shall be Gods judiciarie separating sheep from goats to everlasting glorie or condemnation In all these three judgements all the three persons of the Trinitie are Judges Consider God all together and so in all outward works all the Trinitie concurres because all are but one God but consider God in relation in distinct persons and so the severall persons of the Trinitie do some things which the other persons of the Trinitie are not interessed in the Sonne had not generation from himself so as he had from the Father and the holy Ghost as a distinct person had none at all the holy Ghost had a proceeding from the Father and the Sonne but from the Sonne a person who had his generation from another but not so from the Father Not to stray into clouds or perplexities in the contemplation God that is the whole Trinitie judges still but so as the Sonne judgeth the Father judgeth not for that judgement he hath committed That we may husband our houre as well and rescribe as much as we can for our two last considerations the Cui and the Quid To whom and that is to the Sonne and what he hath committed and that is all judgement we will not stand much upon this more needs not then this that God in his wisdome foreseeing that man by his weaknesse would not be able to settle himself upon the consideration of God and his judgements as they are meerly spirituall and heavenly 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 go about to see his unsearchable decrees judgements but rest in those sensible and visible means which he hath afforded that is Christ Jesus speaking in his Church and applying his bloud unto us in the sacraments unto 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 nearer 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 his promise to his race but he would proceed further 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 refresh it by a
clouds Ad imaginem similitudinem that we are made according to a pattern to an image to a likenesse which God proposed to himself for the making of man This consideration that God did not rest in that preexistent matter out of which he made all other creatures and produced their forms out of their matter for the making of man but took a form a pattern a modell for that work This is the North-winde that is called upon to carrie Cant. 4. 16. out the perfumes of the garden to spread the goodnesse of God abroad this is that which is intended in Job Fair weather cometh out of the Job 37. 22. North. Our West our declination is in this that we are but earth our North our dissipation of that darknesse is in this that we are not all earth though we be of that matter we have on another form another image another likenesse And then whose image and likenesse it is is our Meridionall height our Noon our South-point our highest elevation In imagine nostra Let us make man in our image Though our sunne set at noon as the prophet Amos Amos 8. 9. speaks though we die in our youth or fall in our height yet even in that sunne-set we shall have a noon for this image of God shall never depart from our soul no not when that soul departs from our bodie And that is our South our Meridionall height and glory And when we have thus seen this East in the Faciamus that I am the workmanship and care of the whole Trinitie and this West in the Hominem that for all this my matter my substance is but earth But then a North a power of overcoming that law and miserable state In imagine that though in my matter the earth I must die yet in my form in that image which I am made by I cannot die And after all a South a knowledge that this image is not the image of angels themselves to whom we shall be like but it is by the same life by which those angels themselves were made the image of God himself when I have gone over this East and West and North South here in this world I should be sorie as Alexander was if there were no more worlds But there is another world which these considerations will discover and leade us to in which our joy and our glorie shall be to see that God essentially and face to face after whose image and likenesse we were made before But as that Pilot which hath harboured his ship so farre within land as that he must have change of windes in all the points of the compasse to bring her out cannot hope to bring her out in one day so being to transport you by occasion of these words from this world to the next and in this world through all the compasse all the foure quarters thereof I cannot hope to make all this voyage to day To day we shall consider our longitude our East and West and our North and South at another tide and another gale First then we look towards our East the fountain Part. 1 of light and life There this world began Oriens The creation was in the East and there our next world began 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 died there and there he looked into our West from the East from his terrasse from his pinacle from his exaltation as himself 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 himself speaks in the plurall is the manifestation of the Trinitie The Trinitie which is the first letter in his Alphabet that ever thinks to reade his name in the Book of life the first note in his Gammut that ever thinks to sing his part in the Triumphant Church Let him have done as much as all the worthies and suffer as much as all natures martyrs the penurious Philosophers let him have known as much as they pretend to know Omne scibile all that can be known nay and In-intelligibilia In-investigabilia as Tertullian speaks 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 learned to spell that hath not learned the Trinitie he hath not learned to pronounce the first word that cannot bring three persons into one God The subject of naturall Philosophers are the foure elements which God made the subject of supernaturall Philosophie Divinitie are the three elements which God is and if we may so speak which make God that is constitute God notifie God to us Father Sonne and holy Ghost The naturall man that hearkens to his own heart and the law written there may produce actions that are good good in the nature and matter and substance of the work 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 powerfull God and inclosed and hedged in himself with the fear of God may produce actions better then the meer nature of man because he referres his actions to the glorie of an imagined God but yet this man though he be more fruitfull then the former more then a grassie field is but a ploughed field and bears but corn and corn God knows choked with weeds But the man that hath taken hold of God by those handles by which God hath delivered and manifested himself in the notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost he is no field but a garden a garden of Gods planting paradise in which grow all things good to eat and good to see spirituall refection and spirituall recreation too and all things good to cure he hath his being and his diet and his physick there in the knowledge of the Trinitie his being in the mercie of the Father his physick in the merits of his 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 Hebr. 11. 6. 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 belief 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 Almightie 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
were there any creatures able to create or able to assist him in the creation of man who Angels some had thought so in S. Basils time and to them S. Basil sayes Súntne illi God sayes 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 Angel therefore like God It was sua ratio suum verbum sua sapientia sayes 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 Church It is true that when God speaks this over again in the Church as he doth every day now this minute then God speaks to his Angels to the Angels of the Church to his Ministers he sayes Faciamus Let Vs Vs both together you and we make a man joyn mine ordinance your preaching with my Spirit sayes God to us and so make man Preach the oppressour and preach the wanton and preach the calumniatour into an other nature make that ravening wolf a man that licentious goat 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 joyn with him for the making of man But for his first Faciamus which is in our text it is excellently said Dictum in senatu Rupertus soliloquio It was spoken in a senate and yet in 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 Vs but as some have conceived that God spake here in the person of a Prince and Soveraigne Lord and therefore spake as Princes do in the plurall We command and we forbid yet S. Gregories caution would justly fall upon it Reverenter pensandum est It requires reverent consideration if it be but so for God speaks so like a King in the plurall but seldome but five times in my accompt 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 vice-Roy in the world here he speaks in his Royall plurall And then in the next Chapter where he exempts mans term in this vice-regencie to the end of the world in propounding man means of succession Faciamus Let us make him a helper there he speaks in his Royall plurall And also in the third Chapter in declaring the hainousnesse of mans fault arraigning him and all us in him God sayes Sicut unus ex nobis Man is become as one of us not content to be our vice-Roy but our selves there is his Royall plurall too And again in that declaration of his justice in that confusion of the builders of Babylon Descendamus Confundamus Let us do it And then lastly in that great work of mingling mercy with justice which if we may so speak is Gods master-piece when he sayes Quis ex nobis Who will go for us and publish this In these places 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 vulgar have it in the plurall it is indeed but singular in the Hebrew God speaks as a King in his Royall plurall still And when it is but so Reverenter pensandum est sayes 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 ask no more premeditation at your hands when you come to speak to God in this place then if you sued to speak with the King to speak with 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 is your case here sinners and even manifest sinners for even midnight is noon in the sight of God and when your candles are put out his sunne shines still Nec quid absconditum à calore ejus sayes David Psal 19. 6. There is nothing hid from the heat thereof not onely no sin hid from the light thereof from the sight of God but not from the heat thereof not from the wrath and indignation of God If God speak plurally onely in the majestie of a soveraigne Prince still Reverenter pensandum that calls for reverence What reverence There are nationall differēces in outward reverence and worships some worship princes and parents and masters in one some in another fashion children kneel to ask 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 difficultie nor the same solemnitie in France as in Turkie But this rule goes through all nations that in that disposition and posture and action of the bodie which in that place is esteemed most humble and reverent God is to be worshipped Do so then here God is your Father ask blessing upon your knees pray in that posture God is your King worship him with that worship which is highest in our use estimation We have no Grandes that stand covered to the King where there are such though they stand covered in the Kings presence they do not speak to him for matters of grace they do not sue to him so ancient Canons make difference of persons in the presence of God where and how this and this shall dispose of themselves in the Church of God dignitie and age and infirmitie 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 sat diversly before all return 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 speaks 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 he speaks as in councel is an other argument for reverence For what trust or freedome soever I have by his favour with any Counsellour of state yet I should surely use another manner of consideration to this pluralitie in God to this meeting in Councel to this intimation of a Trinitie 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 necessitie of this knowledge O portet denuo nasci without a second birth no salvation And
in the merit so of all people there was none with me without me so as to be excluded by me without their own fault from the benefit of the merit This rednesse he carried up to heaven for by the bloud of his crosse came peace both to the things in heaven and the Col. 1. 21. things on earth For the peccabilitie that possibilitie of sinning which is in the nature of the angels of heaven would break out into sinne but for that confirmation which those angels have received in the bloud of Christ This rednesse he carried to heaven and this rednesse he hath left upon earth that all we miserable clods of earth might be tempered with his bloud that in his bloud exhibited in his holy blessed Sacrament our long robes might be made white in the bloud of the Lambe that though our sinnes be robes habits of long continuance in sinne yet through that rednesse which our sinnes have cast upon him we might come to participate of that whitenesse that righteousnesse which is his own We that is all we for as to take us in who are of low condition and obscure station a cloud is made white by his sitting upon it He sat upon a white cloud so to let the highest see that they have no whitenesse but from him he makes the throne white by sitting upon it He sat upon a great white throne It had been great if it had not been white white is the colour of dilatatiō Goodnesse enlarges the throne It had not been white if he had not sat upon it That goodnesse onely which consists in glorifying God and God in Christ and Christ in the sinceritie of the truth is true whitenesse God hath no rednesse in himself no anger towards us till he considers us as sinners God casts no rednesse upon us inflicts no necessitie no constraint of sinning upon us we have died our selves in sinnes as red as scarlet we have drowned our selves in such a red sea But as a garment that was washed in the Red sea would come out white so wonderfull works hath God Psal 106. 22. done at the Red sea sayes David so doth his whitenesse work through our red and makes this Adam this red earth Calculum candidum that white stone that receives a new name not Ish not Enosh not Gheber no name that tasts of miserie nor of vanitie but that name renewed and manifested which was imprinted upon us in our elections the sonnes of God the irremoveable the undisinheritable sonnes of God Be pleased to receive this note at parting that there is Macula alba a spot and yet white as well as a red spot a whitenesse that is an indication of a leprosie as well as a rednesse It is whole-Pelagianisme to think nature alone sufficient half-Pelagianisme to think grace once received to be sufficient super-Pelagianisme to think our actions can bring God in debt to us by merit and supererogation Catharisme imaginarie puritie 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 ficûs albi rami that Joel 1. 7. the fig-tree shall be barked and the boughs thereof left white To be left white without bark was an indication of a speedy withering Ostensa candescunt arescunt sayes S. Gregorie of that place the bough that lies open without bark looks white but perisheth The good works that are done openly to please men have their reward sayes Christ that is shall never have reward To pretend to do good and not mean it to do things good in themselves but not to good ends to go towards good ends but not by good wayes to make the deceiving of men thine end or the praise of men thine end all this may have a whitenesse a colour of good but all this is a barking of the bough and an indication of a mischievous leprosie There is no good whitenesse but a reflexion from Christ Jesus in an humble acknowledgement that we have none of our own and in a confident 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 pattern in another likenesse then our own Faciamus hominem So farre we are gone East and West which is half our compasse and all this dayes voyage for we are struck upon the sand and must stay another tide and another gale for our North and South FINIS THE SECOND SERMON PREACHED BEFORE KING CHARLES Upon the xxvi verse of the first Chapter of GENESIS By Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAVLS ¶ Printed by the Printers to the Vniversitie of CAMBRIDGE MDCXXXIIII Genesis 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 launching forth in this world to his anchoring in the next from his hoysing sail here to his striking sail there in which compasse we designed to you his foure quarters first his East where he must begin the fundamentall knowledge of the Trinitie for that we found to be the specification 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 S. Paul that it was an Atheisme to be no Christian Without God sayes 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 Trinitie 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 make man and we found that doctrine to be here and here first of any place in the Bible and finding God to speak 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 claymed in Gods behalf the same reverence to him that men would demean themselves here when God is spoken to in prayer as reverently as when they speak to the King But afterwards we found God to speak here not onely
after convenient instruction before the man be an heretick But how excusable soever Tertullian be herein in S. Augustines charitie there was a whole sect of hereticks an hundred yeares 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 bodie 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 took knowledge of them calls but schismaticks not hereticks so loth is charitie to say the worst of any Yet we must remember them of the Romane perswasion that they come too neare giving God a bodie in their pictures of God the Father and they bring the bodie of God that bodie which God the Sonne hath assumed the bodie of Christ too neare in their Transsubstantiation not too neare our faith for so it cannot be brought too neare to our sense so it is as really there as we are there not too neare in the ubi for so it is there there that is in that place to which the Sacrament extends it self 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 complain that they make religion too bodily a thing Our Saviour Christ corrected Marie Magdalenes zeal where she flew to him in a personall devotion and said Touch me not for I am not yet ascended John 20. 17. 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 bodie as to lose reall charitie for imaginarie zeal nor enlarge your selves so farre in the pictures and images of his bodie as to worship them more then him As Damascen sayes of God that he is Superprincipale principium A beginning before any beginning we can conceive and praeterea aeternitas an eternitie infinitely elder then any eternity we can imagine so he is superspiritualis Spiritus such a Superspirit as that the soul of man and the substance of angels is but a bodie compared to this Spirit God hath no bodie 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 bodie as God yet in the creation did assume that form which man hath now and so made man in his image that is in that form which he had then assumed Some of the ancients thought so and some other men of great estimation in the Romane Church have thought so too In particular Oleaster a great officer in the Inquisition of Spain But great inquirers into other men are easie neglecters of themselves The image of God is not in mans bodie this way Nor that third way which others have imagined that is that when God said Let us make man after our likenesse God had respect to that form which in the fulnesse of time his Sonne was to take upon him upon earth Let us make him now sayes God at first like that which I intend hereafter my Sonne shall be for though this were spoken before the fall of man and so before any occasion of decreeing the sending of Christ yet in the School a great part of great men adhere to that opinion That God from all eternitie had a purpose that his Sonne should become man in this world though Adam had not fallen Non ut medicus sed ut Dominus ad nobilitandum genus humanum say they Though Christ had not come as a Redeemer if man had not needed him by sinne but had kept his first state yet as a Prince that desired to heap honour upon him whom he loves to do man an honour by his assuming that nature Christ say they should have come and to that image that form which he was to take then was man made in this text say these imaginers But alas how much better were wit and learning bestowed to prove to the Gentiles that a Christ must come that they beleeve not to prove to the Jews that the Christ is come that they beleeve not to prove to our own consciences that the same Christ may come again this minute to judgement we live as though we beleeved not that then to have filled the world and torn the Church with frivolous disputations Whether Christ should have come if Adam had not fallen Wo unto fomentours of frivolous disputations None of these wayes not because God hath a bodie not because God assumed a bodie not because it was intended that Christ should be born before it was intended that man should be made is this image of God in the bodie of man nor hath it in any other relation respect to the bodie but as we say in the School arguitivè and significativé that because God hath given man a bodie of a nobler form then any other creature we inferre and argue and conclude from thence that God is otherwise represented in man then in any other creature and so farre is this image of God in the bodie above that in the creatures that as you see some pictures to which the very tables are jewels some watches to which the very cases are jewels and therefore they have outward cases too and so the picture and the watch are in that outward case of what meaner stuff soever that be so is this image in this bodie as in an outward case so as that you may not injure nor enfeeble this bodie neither by sinfull intemperance and licentiousnesse nor by inordinate fastings or other disciplines of imaginarie merits while the bodie is alive for the image of God is in it nor defraud the body of decent buriall and due solemnities after death for the image of God is to return to it But yet the bodie is but the outward case and God looks not for the gilding or enamelling or painting of that but requires the labour and cost therein to be bestowed upon the table it self in which this image is immediately that is the soul and that is truely the ubi the place where this image is And there remains onely now the operation thereof how this image of God in the soul of man works The sphere then of this Intelligence the gallerie for this picture the arch for this statue the table and frame and shrine for this image of God is inwardly and immediately the soul of man not immediately so as that the soul of man is a part of the essence of God for so essentially Christ onely is the image of God S. Augustine at first thought so Putabam te Deus corpus lucidum me
frustum de illo corpore I took thee O God sayes that Father to be a globe of fire and my soul to be a spark of that fire thee to be a bodie of light and my soul to be a beam of that light But S. Augustine doth not onely retract that in himself but dispute against it in the Manichees But this image is in our soul as the soul is the wax and this image the seal The comparison is S. Cyrils and he addes well that no seal but that which printed the wax at first can fit that wax and fill that impression after no image but the image of God can fit our soul every other seal is too narrow too shallow for it The magistrate is sealed with the Lion the Wolf will not fit that seal the magistrate hath a power in his hand but not oppression Princes are sealed with the Crown the Mitre will not fit that seal Powerfully and graciously they protect the Church and are supream heads of the Church but they minister not the Sacraments of the Church they give preferments but they give not the capacitie of preferments they give order who shall have but they have not Orders by which they are enabled to have that they have Men of inferiour and laborious callings in the world are sealed with the Crosse a Rose or a bunch of Grapes will not answer that seal ease and plentie in age must not be looked for without crosses and labour and industrie in youth All men Prince and people Clergie and Magistrate are sealed with the image of God with a conformitie to him and worldly seals will not answer that nor fill up that seal We should wonder to see a mother in the midst of many sweet children passing her time in making babies and puppets for her own delight We should wonder to see a man whose chambers and galleries were full of curious master-pieces thrust in a village-fayre to look upon sixpenie pictures three-farthing prints We have all the image of God at home and we all make babies fancies of honour in our ambitions The master-piece is our own in our own bosome and we thrust in countrey-fayres that is we endure the distempers of any unseasonable weather in night-journeys and watchings we endure the oppositions and scorns and triumphs of a rivall and competitour that seeks with us and shares with us We endure the guiltinesse and reproach of having deceived the trust which a confident friend reposes in us and solicite his wife or daughter We endure the decay of fortune of bodie of soul of honour to possesse lovers pictures pictures that are not originals not made by that hand of God Nature but artificiall beauties and for that bodie we give a soul and for that drug which might have been bought where they bought it for a shilling we give an estate The image of God is more worth then all substances and we give it for colours for dreams for shadows But 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 soul for whether this image be in those faculties which we have in Nature or in those qualifications which we have in Grace or in those super-illustrations which the blessed shall have in Glorie hath exercised the contemplation of many Properly this image is in nature in the naturall reason and other faculties of the immortall soul of man for thereupon doth S. Bernard say Imago Dei uri potest in gehenna non exuri till the soul be burnt to ashes to nothing which cannot be done no not in hell the image of God cannot be burnt out of the soul for it is radically primarily in the very soul it self and whether that soul be infused into the elect or reprobate that image is in that soul as farre as he hath a soul by nature he hath the image of God by nature in it But then the seal 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 wayes Man had this image in Nature and doth deface it he hath it also in Grace here and so doth refresh it and he shall have it in Glorie hereafter and that shall fix it establish it And in every of these three in this Trinitie in man Nature Grace and Glorie man hath not onely the image of God but the image of all the persons of the Trinitie in every of his 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 these in glorie too How all these are in all I cannot hope to handle particularly not though I were upon the first grain 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 Trinitie are in their image in every branch of this humane Trinitie in man may at least must suffice In nature then man that is the soul of man hath this image of God of God considered in his unitie entirely altogether in this that this soul is made of nothing proceeds of nothing All other creatures are made of that preexistent matter which God had made before so were our bodies too but our souls of nothing now not to be made at all is to be God himself onely God himself 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 God this is to be the image of God for this is nearest to God himself 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 steps which we consider are foure First Esse Being for some things have onely a being 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 being and life and sense and so is in a nearer station to God then any creature and a livelier image of him who is the root of being then all they because man onely hath all the declarations of beings Nay if we consider Gods eternitie the soul of man hath such an image of that as that though man had a beginning which the originall the eternall God himself had not yet man shall no more have an end then the originall the eternall God himself shall have And this image of eternitie this post-meridian this after-noon eternitie that
thing save Jesus Christ and him crucified And then the way by which he would proceed and take degrees in this wisdome was stultitia praedicandi 1. Cor. 1. 21. the way that God had ordained When the world by wisdome knew not God it pleased God by the foolishnesse of preaching to save them that beleeve These then are the steps of Christian wisdome my foundation is Christ of Christ I enquire no more but fundamentall doctrines him crucified and this I apply to my self by his ordinance 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 being goodnesse I as a true Christian call nothing good that conduceth not to the glorie of God in Christ Jesus nor any thing ill that draws me not from him Thus I have an expresse image of his goodnesse that Omnia cooperantur in bonum Rom. 8. 28. all things work together for my good if I love God I shall thank my fever blesse my povertie praise my oppressour nay thank 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 happie sense of all my former sinnes and shall finde it to have been a good fever a good povertie a good oppression yea a good sinne Vertit in bonum sayes Joseph to his brethren You thought evil but Gen. 50. 20 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 evil in the Amos 3. 6. citie but the Lord doth it but if the Lord do it it cannot be evil to me I beleeve that I shall see bona Dei the goodnesse of the Lord in the land of the living Psal 27. 13. that is in heaven but David speaks also of signum in bonum Shew me a token of good and God will shew me a present token of future good an inward infallibilitie that this very calamitie shall be beneficiall and advantageous unto me and so as in nature I have the image of God in my whole soul and of all the three persons in the three faculties thereof the understanding the will and the memorie so in grace in the Christian Church I have the same images of the power of the Father of the wisdome 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 considered this image in glorie 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 back 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 devil himself how much more may we conceive an unexpressible association that is too farre off an assimilation that is not neare enough an identification the School would venture to say so with God in that state of glorie Whereas the sunne by shining upon the moon makes the moon a planet a starre as well as it self which otherwise would be but the thickest and darkest part of that sphere so those beams of glorie which shall issue from my God and fall upon me shall make me otherwise a clod of earth and worse a dark soul a spirit of darknesse an angel of light a starre of glorie 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 go about to think now what I shall be there I shall be so like God as that the devil himself shall not know me from God so farre as to finde any more place to fasten a temptation 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 shall not be immortall as God yet I shall be as immortall as God And there is my image of God of God considered all together and in his unitie in the state of grace I shall have also then the image of all the three persons of the Trinitie 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 prevail there they shall not be So Wisdome is the image of the Sonne and there I shall have better wisdome the spirituall wisdome it self is here for here our best wisdome is but to go towards our end there it is to rest in our end here it is to seek to be glorified by God there it is that God may be everlastingly glorified by me The image of the holy Ghost is Goodnesse Here our goodnesse is mixt with some ill faith mixt with scruples good works mixt with a love of praise and hope of better mixt with fear 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 companie as no impertinent no importune person shall disorder it so full a goodnesse as no evil of sinne no evil of punishment for former sins can enter so good a God as shall no more keep us in fear of his anger nor in need of his mercie but shall fill us first and establish us in that fulnesse in the same instant and give us a satietie that we can wish no more and an infallibilitie that we can lose none of that and both at once Whereas 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 JEHOVAH in their numerall letters are equall so I would have leave to expresse that inexpressible state so farre as to say that if there can be other world 's imagined besides this that is under our moon and if there could be other Gods imagined of those worlds besides this God to whose image we are made in Nature in Grace in Glorie I had rather be one of these Saints in this heaven then one 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 bodie The holy noblenesse and religious ambition that I would imprint in you for attaining of this
glorie makes me dismisse you with this note for the fear of missing that glorie that as we have taken just occasion to magnifie the goodnesse of God towards us in that he speaks plurally Faciamus Let Vs all Vs do this so poures out the blessings of the whole Trinitie upon us in this image of himself in every person of the three and in all these three wayes which we have considered so when the anger of God is justly kindled against us God collects himself summons himself assembles himself musters himself and threatens plurally too for of those foure places in Scripture in which onely as we noted before God speaks of himself in a royall plurall God speaks in anger and in a preparation to destruction in one of those foure entirely as entirely he speaks of mercie but in one of them in this text here he sayes meerly out of mercie Faciamus Let Vs Vs all Vs make man and in the same pluralitie the same universalitie he sayes after Descendamus confundamus Gen. 11. 7. Let Vs Vs all Vs go down to them and confound them as meerly out of indignation and anger as here out of mercie And in the other two places where God speaks plurally he speaks not meerly in mercie nor meerly in justice in neither but in both he mingles both so that God carries himself so equally herein as that no soul no Church no State may any more promise it self patience in God if it provoke him then suspect anger in God if we conform 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 enfatuated in our counsels 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 himself 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 concurrences with Antichrist in them who were born and baptized and catechized blessed in the profession of his truth That God who hath hitherto delivered us from all cause or colour of jealousies or suspicions thereof in them whom he hath placed over us so conform us to his image in a holy life that sinnes continued and multiplied by us against him do not so provoke him against us that those two great helps the assiduitie of preaching and the personall and exemplarie pietie constancie in our Princes be not by our sinnes made unprofitable unto us for that is the height of Gods malediction upon a nation when the assiduitie of preaching and the example of a religious Prince doth them no good but aggravates their fault FINIS A SERMON Upon the xix verse of the ii Chapter of HOSEA By Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAVLS ¶ Printed by the Printers to the Vniversitie of CAMBRIDGE MDCXXXIIII Hosea 2. 19. And I will marrie thee unto me for ever THe word which is the hinge upon which all this text turns is Erash and Erash signifies not onely a betrothing as our later translation hath it but a marrying and so it is used by David Deliver me my wife Michal whom I 2. Sam. 3. 14 married and so our former translation had it and so we accept it and so shall handle it I will marrie thee unto me for ever The first marriage that was made God made and he made it in Paradise and of that marriage I have had the like occasion as this to speak before in the presence of many honourable persons in this companie The last marriage which shall be made God shall make too and in Paradise too in the kingdome of heaven and at that marriage I hope in him that shall make it to meet not some but all this companie The marriage in this text hath relation to both those marriages It is it self the spirituall and mysticall marriage of Christ Jesus to the Church and to every marriageable soul in the Church and it hath a retrospect it looks back to the first marriage for to that the first word carries us because from thence God takes his metaphor and comparison Sponsabo I will marrie and then it hath a prospect to the last marriage for to that we are carried in the last word In aeternum I will marrie thee unto me for ever Be pleased therefore to give me leave in this exercise to shift the Scene thrice and to present to your religious considerations three objects three subjects first a secular marriage in Paradise secondly a spirituall marriage in the Church and thirdly an eternall marriage in Heaven And in each of these three we shall present three circumstances first the persons Me and Tibi I will marrie thee and then the action Sponsabo I will marrie thee and lastly the term In aeternum I will marrie thee to me for ever In the first acceptation then in the first the secular Part. I marriage in Paradise the persons were Adam and Eve ever since they are He and She man and woman at first by reason of necessitie without any such limitation as now and now without any other limitations then such as are expressed in the law of God As the Apostles say in the first generall Councel We lay nothing upon you but things Act. 15. 28. necessarie so we call nothing necessarie but that which is commanded by God If in heaven I may have the place of a man that hath performed the commandments of God I will not change with him that thinks he hath done more then the commandments of God enjoyned him The rule of marriage for degrees and distance in bloud is the law of God but for conditions of men there is no rule at all given When God had made Adam and Eve in Paradise though there were foure rivers in Paradise God did not place Adam in a Monasterie on one side and Eve in a Nunnerie on the other and so a river between them They that build walls and cloysters to frustrate Gods institution of marriage advance the doctrine of devils in forbidding of marriage The devil hath advantages enow against us in bringing men and women together it was a strange and superdevilish invention to give him a new advantage against us by keeping men and women asunder by forbidding marriage Between the heresie of the Nicolaitans that induced a communitie of women any might take any and the heresie of the Tatians that forbad all none might take any was a fair latitude Between the opinion of the Manichaean hereticks that thought women to be made by the devil and the Colliridian
and then leave them ut glorietur in malo qui potens est that he should think it a glorie to do harm he doth not impoverish and dishonour his children and then leave them unsensible of that doctrine that patience is as great a blessing as abundance God gives not his people health and then leaves them to a boldnesse in surfeting nor beautie and then leaves them to a confidence and opening themselves to all sollicitations nor valour and then leaves them to a spirituous quarrelsomnesse God makes no patterns of his works nor models of his houses he makes whole pieces and perfect houses he puts his children into good wayes and he directs and protects them in those wayes for this is the constancie and perseverance of the love of Christ Jesus to us as he is called in this Text a stone To come to the particular benefits the first is that he is Lapis fundamentalis A foundation stone for other foundation can no man lay then that is layed 1. Cor. 3. 11 which is Jesus Christ Now when S. Augustine sayes as he doth in the 2 and 3 places that this place of S. Paul to the Corinthians is one of those places of which Peter sayes Quaedam difficilia There are some things in S. Paul hard to be understood S. Augustines meaning is that the difficultie is in the next words how any man should build stubble or hay upon such a 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 and reparation in a Redeemer this is to remove this stone out of the foundation for a Christian may well be content to begin at Christ if any man therefore have laid any other foundation to his possession of great places alliance in great families strong practise in courts obligations upon dependants acclamations of people if he have laid any other foundation for pleasure and contentment care of health and complexion delight in discourse cheerfulnesse in disportings interchange of secrets and such other small wares of court and cities as these are whosoever hath laid such foundations as these must needs do as that Generall did when he besieged a town who compounded to take it to mercie upon a condition that in signe of subjection they should suffer him to take one row of stones from their walls whereupon he took away the lowest row the foundation and so ruined and demolished the whole walls of the citie so must he that hath these foundations that is these habits divest the habit root out the lowest stone the generall and radicall inclination of these disorders for he shall never be able to watch and resist every particular temptation if he trust onely to his morall constancie no nor if he place Christ for the roof to cover his sinnes when he hath done them his mercie works by way of pardon after not by way of an Obstante and priviledge to do a sinne before-hand but beforehand he must be in the foundation in our eye when we undertake any particular action in the beginning for there he is to be in the first place Lapis fundamentalis And then after we have considered him in the foundation as we are there all Christians he grows to be Lapis angularis to unite those Christians which seem to be of divers wayes divers aspects divers professions together As we consider him in the foundation there he is the root of faith as we consider him in the corner there he is the root of charitie In Esay he is both together a sure foundation and a corner Isa 28. 16. stone as he was in that place of Esay Lapis probatus I will lay in Sion a tried stone and in the Psalme Lapis reprobatus a stone that the builders refused in this consideration he is Lapis approbatus a stone approved by all sides 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 nature and innocencie should meet together a man that should not sinne that Gods nature and mortalitie should meet together be God that must die briefly that he should do and suffer many things impossible as man impossible as God thus he 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 Redéemer as a Mediatour and so he hath united God to man rebellious men to jealous God yea such a corner stone as hath builded heaven and earth Jerusalem and Babel together thus in his person and thus in his offices Consider him in his power and he is such a corner-stone as he is the God of grace and love and union and concord such a corner-stone as is able to reconcile and unite as he did in Abrahams house a wife and a concubine in one bed a covetous father and a wastfull sonne in one familie a severe magistrate and a licentious people in one citie an absolute Prince and a jealous people in one kingdome law and conscience in one government scripture and tradition in one Church If we will but consider Christ Jesus the life and soul of all our accounts 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 our controversies book-controversies and sword-controversies we would fit them to him and see how neare they would meet in him that is how neare we could come to be friends and yet both sides good Christians then we placed this stone in the second right place who as he is a corner-stone reconciling God and man in his own person and God and man in reconciling mankinde in his office so he desires to be a corner-stone in reconciling man and man and setting peace amongst our selves not for worldly ends but for this respect that we might all meet in him to love one another not because we made a stronger partie by that love not because we made a sweeter conversation by that love but because we meet closer in the bosome of Christ Jesus where we must all at last either rest all together or else be all together eternally thrown out or be eternally separated and divorced one from another Having then received Christ as a foundation stone we beleeve aright and for the corner-stone we interpret charitably the opinions and accounts of other men the next is that he is Lapis Jacob a stone of rest and securitie to our souls When Jacob was in his journey he took a stone and that stone was his pillow when that he slept all night and rested upon the stone he 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
judgement in a Prophet some crosse in the world something from the mouth or something from the hand of God that breaks him he falls upon this stone and is broken So that to be broken upon this stone is come to this sense that though our integritie be lost that we be no more whole and entire vessels yet there are means of piecing in again though we be not vessels of innocencie for who is so and for that Enter not into judgement with thy servant yet we may be vessels of repentance acceptable to God and usefull to his service for when any thing falls upon a stone the harm which it suffers is not alwayes or not onely according to the height that it falls from and that violence that it is thrown down 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 in pieces and ground to powder But if they fall not from too farre a distance if they lived within any neernesse any consideration of God if they have not fallen with violence taken heat and force in the way grown confident in the practise of their sinnes they fall upon if this stone sink and stop at Christ this shall break them break their force and confidence break their presumption and securitie but yet it shall leave enough in them for the holy Ghost to revet to his service yea the sinne it self Cooperatur ad bonum as the Rom. 8. 28. Apostle sayes the very fall it self shall be an occasion of rising And therefore if S. Augustine seem to venture farre it is not too farre when he sayes Audeo dicere It is boldly said and yet I must say it Vtile esse cadere in aliquod manifestum peccatum A sinner falls into his advantage that falls into some such sinne as he being manifested to the world manifests his own sinfull state to his sinfull conscience too it is well for that man that falls so as that he may thereby look the better to his footing ever after Dicit Dominus Susceptor meus es tu sayes S. Bernard That man hath a new title to God a new name for God All creatures as S. Bernard sayeth enlarge this meditation can say Creator meus es tu 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 onely he who hath been overcome by a temptation and is restored can say Lord thou hast supported me thou hast recollected my shivers and reveted me onely to him hath this stone expressed both abilities of stone first to break him with a sense of his sinne and then to give him rest and peace upon it Now there is in this part this circumstance more Quicunque cadit Whosoever falls where the Quicunque is Vnusquisque Whosoever falls that is Whosoever he be he falls Quomodo cecidisti de coelo Lucifer sayes Isa 14. 12. the Prophet Isaiah the Prophet wonders how Lucifer should fall having no bodie to tempt him for so many of the Ancients 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 should the sonnes of man which inherit his weaknesse and contracting more and more contribute their temptations to another hope to stand Adam fell and he fell à longè afarre off for he could see no stone to fall upon when he fell their Messias was no such Messias no such means of reparation proposed or promised when he fell the blessed Virgin and the fore-runner of Christ John Baptist fell too but they fell propè neare hand they fell but a little way for they had this stone in a personall presence and their faith was alway awake in them but yet he and she and they all fell into some sinne Quicunque cadit is Vnusquisque cadit Whosoever falls is Whosoever he be he falls and whosoever falls too as we said before is broken if he fall upon something 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 none harder sharper raggeder then this not to a diffidence or distrust in Gods mercie he that falls so and is broken so comes to a remorsefull a broken and a contrite heart he is broken to his advantage left to a possibilitie yea brought to a nearnesse of being pieced again by the word and sacraments and other the medicinall meditations of Christ in his Church We must end onely with touching upon the III Part. third part Vpon whom this stone falls it will grinde him to powder where we shall onely tell you 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 irrevocable estate in sinne as that no medicinall correction from God no breaking no bowing no melting no mending can bring him to any good fashion when God can work no cure do no good upon us by breaking us not by breaking us in our healths for we will attribute that to weaknesse of stomack to surfet in digestion not by breaking us in our estates for we will impute that to falshood in servants to oppression of great adversaries to iniquitie of judges not by breaking us in our honours for we will accuse for that factions and practises and supplications in court when God cannot break us with his corrections but that we will attribute them to some naturall some accidentall causes and never think of Gods judgements which are the true causes of these afflictions when God cannot break us by breaking our backs by laying an heavie load of calamities upon us nor by breaking our hearts by putting us into a sad and heavie but fruitlesse sorrow and melancholie for these worldly losses then he comes to break us by breaking our necks by casting us into the bottomlesse pit and falling upon us there in his wrath and indignation Comprimam eos in pulverem sayes David I will beat them as dust before the winde and tread them as flat as the clay in the street and the breaking thereof shall be as the breaking of a potters vessell which is broken without any pitie no pitie from God nor shall any pitie them the Prophet saith further There is not found Isa 30. 14. a sheard to take fire from the hearth but uncapable of one drop of Christs bloud from heaven or of any teare of contrition in themselves not a sheard to fetch water at the pit I will break them as a potters Jer. 19. 11. vessell Quod non potest instaurari sayes God in Jeremiah There shall be
no possible means of those means which God hath ordained in his Church to recompact them again no voice of Gods word shall draw them no threatning of Gods judgements shall drive them no censure of Gods Church shall fit them no sacrament shall cement and glue them to Christs bodie again in temporall blessings he shall be unthankfull in temporall afflictions he shall be obdurate and these two shall serve as the upper and neather milstone and so shall grinde the reprobate sinner to powder Lastly this is to be done by falling upon him and what is that I know some expositours take it to be but the falling of Gods judgements upon him in this world there is no grinding to powder All Gods judgements here for any thing we can know have the nature of physick in them and no man is here so absolutely broken in pieces but that he may be reunited We choose to follow the Ancients in this that the falling of the stone upon the reprobate is Christs last and irrevocable falling upon him in his last judgement that when he shall wish that the hills might fall and cover him this stone shall fall and grinde him to powder He shall be broken and be no more found sayes the Prophet Dan. 11. 19. Daniel yea he shall be broken and be no more sought no man shall consider him what he is now or what he was before for that stone which in Daniel was cut out without the hand which was a figure of Christ who came without ordinarie generation when that great image was to be overthrown broke not an arm or leg but the whole image in pieces and it wrought not onely upon the weak parts but it broke all the clay and the iron the brasse the silver the gold so when a stone falls thus when Christ comes to judgement he shall not onely condemne him for his clay his earthly covetous sinnes not for his iron his revengefull and oppressing and rustie sinnes nor for his brasse his shining and glistering sinnes which he hath filed and polished but he shall fall upon his silver his gold his religious his precious sinnes his hypocriticall hearing of sermons his Pharisaicall giving of alms and aswell his subtil counterfeting of religion as his Atheisticall opposing of religion this stone Christ himself shall fall upon him and a showre of other stones shall oppresse him Sicut pluit laqueos sayes David As God rained snares and springs upon them in this world abundance of temporall blessings to be occasions of sinne unto them so pluet grandinem he shall rain such hail-stones upon them as shall grinde them to powder there shall fall upon him the naturall law which was written in his heart and did rebuke him when he prepared for a sinne there shall fall upon him that written law which cried out from the mouthes of the Prophets in these places to avert them from sinne there shall fall upon him those sinnes that he hath done and those sinnes which he hath not done if nothing but want of opportunitie and means hinder him from doing them there shall fall upon him these sinnes which he hath done after anothers dehortation those which another hath done after his provocation there the stones of Nineve shall fall upon him and of as many cities as have repented with lesse proportions of mercie and grace then God afforded him there the rubbish of Sodom and Gomorrah shall fall upon him and as manie cities as their ruine might have been example to him all those stones shall fall upon him and to adde weight to these Christ Jesus himself shall fall upon his conscience with unanswerable questions and grinde his soul to powder but He that overcometh his soul Revel 2. 11 shall not be hurt by the second death He that comes to remorses early and earnestly after a sinne and seeks by ordinarie means his reconciliation to God in his Church is in the best estate that man can be in now for howsoever we can say now that repentance is as happie an estate as innocencie yet certainly every man feels more comfort and spirituall joy after a true repentance for a sinne then he had in that degree of innocencie which he had before he committed that sinne and therefore in this case also we may easily repeat those words of S. Augustine Audeo dicere I dare be bold to say that many a man hath been the better for some sinne Almightie God who hath given us civil wisdome to make use of our enemies give us also this heavenly wisdome to make that use of our particular sinnes that thereby our wretched condition in our selves and our means of reparation in Christ Jesus may be manifested unto us To whom c. FINIS A SERMON Upon the xxii verse of the v Chapter of JOHN By Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAVLS ¶ Printed by the Printers to the Vniversitie of CAMBRIDGE MDCXXXIIII John 5. 22. The Father Judgeth no man but hath committed all Judgement to the Sonne WHen our Saviour Christ forbids us to cast pearls before swine we understand Matth. 7. 6. ordinarily in that place that by pearls are understood the Scriptures and when we consider the naturall generation and production of pearls that they grow bigger and bigger by a continuall succession and devolution of dew and other glutinous moisture that falls upon them and there condenses and hardens so that a pearl is but a bodie of many shells many crusts many films many coats enwrapped upon one another to this scripture that we have in hand doth that Metaphor of pearl very properly appertain because our Saviour Christ in this chapter undertaking to prove his own divinitie and godhead to the Jews who acknowledged and confessed the Father to be God but denied 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 the Sonne is for first he sayes he is a partner a copartner with the Father in the present administration and government of the world My Father worketh hitherto John 5. 17 and I work well if the Father ease himself upon instruments now yet was it so from the beginning had he a part in the creation yes What John 5. 19 things soever the Father doth those also doth the Sonne likewise But doth this extend to the works properly and naturally belonging to God to the remission of sinnes to the infusion of grace to the spirituall resurrection of them that are dead in their iniquities yes even to that too For as the John 5. 21. Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them even so the Sonne quickeneth whom he will But hath not this power a determination and expiration shall it end at the least when the world ends no not then for God hath given him authoritie to execute John 5. 27. judgement because he is the Sonne of
continuall succession of Prophets till the Messias should come And now that he is come and gone still God pursues the same way How should they beleeve except they heare And therefore God evermore supplies his Church with visible and sensible means and knowing that the naturall inclination of man who when he cannot have or cannot comprehend the originall and prototype desires to satisfie and refresh himself with a picture and representation so though God hath forbidden us that slipperie frivolous and dangerous use of graven images yet he hath afforded us his Sonne who is the image of the invisible God and so more proportionall to 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 manifesting is In Filio In his Sonne But in our entrance into the handling of this we ask onely this question Cui Filio To which Sonne of God is this commission given not that God hath more sonnes then one but because that one Sonne is his Sonne by a twofold filiation by an internall and expressible generation and by a temporarie and miraculous incarnation in which of these rights is this commission derived upon him doth he judge as he is the Sonne of God or as he is the sonne of man I am not ordinarily bold in determining points especially if they were fundamentall wherein I finde the Fathers among themselves and the School in it self and reverend Divines of the Reformation amongst themselves to differ But yet neither am I willing to raise doubts and leave the auditorie unsatisfied and unsettled We are not upon a lecture but upon a sermon and therefore we will not multiply varietie of opinions Summe up the Fathers upon one side in S. Ambrose mouth and they will say with him Deditutique generando non largiendo God gave his Sonne this commission then and when was that then then when he begat him and then he must have it by his eternall generation as the Sonne of God Summe up the Fathers now on the other side in S. Augustines mouth and there they will say with him that it is so cleare and so certain that whatsoever is said in the Scripture to be committed or given to Christ belongs to Christ as the sonne of man and not as the Sonne of God as that the other opinion cannot be maintained and at this distance we shall never bring them to meet but take in this rule Judicium convenit ei ut homo causa ut Deus God hath given this commission to Christ as man but Christ had not been capable of this commission if he had not been God too and so it is easily to be reconciled If we shall hold simply to the letter of the text Pater dedit then it will seem to be committed unto him in his eternall generation because that was a work of the Father 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 Trinitie and that is as he is man for Tota Trinitas univit August humanitatem the hypostaticall union of God and man in the person of Christ was a work of the whole Trinitie Taking it then so settled that the capacitie of this judgement 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 vita naturaliter est We cannot say that Christ hath life but that he is Life and the Life for whatsover the Father is He is excepting onely the name and relation of Father the capacitie the abilitie 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 sayes Ad hominem dicitur Quid habes quod non accepisti when S. Paul sayes What hast thou that thou hast not received he asks that question of man that which is received is received as man For Bellarmine in a place where he disposes himself to quarrell at some form of words of Calvins though he confesse the matter to be true and as he calls it there Catholick sayes Essentiam genitam negamus We confesse that Christ hath not his essence from his Father by generation The relation and filiation he hath from his Father he hath the name of Sonne but he hath not the execution of this judgement by that relation by that filiation still as he is the Sonne of God he hath that capacitie as the sonne of man he hath the execution And therefore Prosper that follows S. Augustine limits it perchance too narrowly to the flesh to the humanitie Ipsa non ipse erit Judex quae sub judice stetit ipsa judicabit quae judicata 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 Act. 17. 31. 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 sayes S. Augustine upon those words Arise O God Psal 82. 8. 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 sayes S. Augustine Dormivisti judicatus à terra surge judica terram so that to collect all though judgement be such a character of God as God cannot divest 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. John The Father hath given him authoritie to John 5. 27. execute judgement it is extended into power in S. Matthew All power is given to me in heaven and Matt. 28. 18 in earth and it is enlarged as farre further as can be expressed in another place of S. Matthew All Matt. 11. 27 things are delivered me of my Father Now all this our Saviour Christ Jesus exercises either Per carnem or at the least In carne whatsoever the Father does the Sonne does also In carne because now there is an inseparable union between God and humane nature the Father creates new souls every day in the inanimation of children and the Sonne creates them with him The Father concurres with all second causes as the first moving cause of all in naturall things And all this the Sonne doth too but this is
In carne though he be in our humane flesh he is not the lesse able to do the acts belonging to the godhead but Per carnem by the flesh instrumentally he executes judgement because he is the sonne 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 judgement or to refresh your memories those three judgements which we touched upon before first the judgement of our election severing of vessels of honour and dishonour next the judgement of justification here severing friends from enemies and then the judgement of glorification severing the sheep from the 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 mercie expressed in a sealed pardon were presented me I should not stand to enquire what moved the king to do it what he said to any bodie else what any bodie else said to him what he saw in me or what he looked for at my hands but embrace that mercie cheerfully and thankfully and attribute it onely to his abundant goodnesse so when I consider my self to have been let fall into this world In massa damnata under the generall condemnation of mankinde and yet by the working of Gods Spirit I finde 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-counsel in his eternall decree I know that he hath made Judicium electionis in Christ Jesus and therefore that I may know whether I do not deceive my self in presuming my self to be of that number I come down and examine my self whether I can truely tell my conscience that Christ Jesus died for me which I cannot do if I have not a desire and endeavour to conform my self unto him and if I do that there I finde my predestination I am a Christian and I will not offer before my master Christ Jesus I cannot be saved before there was a Saviour in Christ Jesus is omne judicium all judgement and therefore the judgement of election the first separating of vessels of honour and dishonour in election and reprobation was Jesus Christ Much more evidently is the second judgement of our justification by means ordained in the Christian Church the judgement of Christ It is the Gospel of Christ which is preached unto you there it is the bloud of Christ which is presented unto you there there is no other name given under heaven whereby you may be saved there are no other means given wherein salvation should be applied in his name but those which he hath instituted in his Church so that when I come to the second judgement to trie whether I stand justified in the sight of God or no I come for that judgement to Christ in his Church Do I remember what I contracted with Christ Jesus when I took the name of a Christian at my entrance into the Church by Baptisme do I finde that I have endeavoured to perform those conditions do I finde remorse when I have not performed them do I seek the message of remission of sinnes from the mouth of his minister have I a true and sound 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 integritie not in keeping the conscience of an honest man in generall but in using well the means ordained 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 judgement of glorification that is easily agreed by all that it appertains to Christ Idem Jesus The same Jesus that ascended shall come to judgement Videbunt quem pupugerunt Every Apoc. 1. 7. eye shall see him and they also which pierced him Then the sonne of man shall come in glorie 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 summe of all is that this is the overflowing goodnesse of God that he deals with man by the sonne of man and that he hath so given all judgement to the Sonne as that if you would be tried by the first judgement Are you elected or no the issue is do you beleeve in Christ or no if you would be tried by the second judgement Are you justified or no the issue is do you finde comfort in the application of the word and sacraments of Christ Jesus or no If you would be tried by the third judgement Do you expect a glorification or no the issue is are you so reconciled to Christ Jesus now by heartie repentance for sinnes past and by a detestation of occasions of future sinnes that you durst welcome that Angel that should come at this time and swear that time should be no more that your transmigration out of this world should be this minute and that this minute you could say unfeignedly and effectually Veni Domine Jesu Come Lord Jesus 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 sakes he committed all judgement to the Sonne FINIS A SERMON Upon the xv verse of the viii Chapter of JOHN By Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAVLS ¶ Printed by the Printers to the Vniversitie of CAMBRIDGE MDCXXXIIII John 8. 15. I Judge no man THe rivers of Paradise did not all runne one way and yet they flowed 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 the text differ from that which I handled in the morning And as heretofore I found it an usuall and acceptable labour to employ our evening exercises upon the vindicating of such places of Scripture as our adversaries of the Romane Church had detorted in some points of controversie between them and us and restoring those places to their true sense which course I held constantly for one whole yeare so I think it an usuall and acceptable labour now to employ for a time these evening exercises to reconcile some such places of Scripture as may at first sight seem to differ one from another In the morning we saw how Christ judged all now we are to see how he judgeth none I judge no man To come then to these present words here we have the same person Christ Jesus and hath he not the same office is not he Judge certainly though he retain all his other offices though he be the Redeemer and hath shed bloud in value satisfactorie for all our sinnes though he be our Advocate and plead for us in heaven and present
malum Love thinks no evil any way the charitable man 1. Cor. 13. 5. neither meditates evil against another nor beleeves easily any evil to be in another though it be told him Lastly Christ judgeth no man Ad internecionem he judges no man so in this world as to give a finall condemnation upon him here there is no errour in any of his judgements but there is an appeal from all his judgements in this world there is a verdict against every man every man may finde his case recorded and his sinne condemned in the Law and in the Prophets there is a verdict but before judgement God would have every man saved by his book by the apprehension and application of the gracious promises of the Gospel to his case and his conscience Christ judgeth no man so as that he should see no remedie but to curse God and die nor so as that he should say his sinne were greater then God could forgive For God sent not his Sonne into the world to condemne the world but that the world through him might be John 3. 17. saved Do not then give malicious evidence against thy self do not weaken the merit nor lessen the value of the bloud of thy Saviour as though thy sinne were greater then it is Doth God desire thy bloud now when he hath abundantly satisfied his justice with the bloud of his Sonne for thee what hast thou done hast thou come hypocritically to this place upon collaterall reasons and not upon the direct service of God not for love of information or reformation of thy self if that be thy case yet If a man will heare my word sayes Christ and beleeve it not I judge him not he hath one that judgeth him and who is that The word that I have spoken the same shall judge him it shall but when It shall judge him sayes Christ at the last day for till the last day the day of his death no man is past recoverie no mans salvation is impossible Hast thou gone further then this hast thou committed scruples of diffidence and distrust of Gods mercie and so tasted of the lees of desperation It is true Perpetrare flagitium est mors animae sed desperare est descensus ad inferos In every sinne thy soul dies but in desperation it descends into hell But yet Portae inferni non praevalebunt The Matt. 16. 18 gates of hell shall not prevail against thee Assist thy self argue thine own case desperation it self may be without infidelitie desperation as well as hope is rooted in the desire of happinesse Desperation proceeds out of a fear of God and horrour of sinne desperation may consist with faith thus farre that a man may have a true and faithfull opinion in the generall that there is remission of sinnes to be had in the Church and yet have a corrupt imagination in the particular that to him in this sinfull estate that he is in this remission of sinnes shall not be applied so that the resolution of the School is good Desperatio potest esse ex solo excessu boni Desperation may proceed out of excesse of that which is good in it self from any excessive over-fearing of Gods justice from an excessive over-hating thine own sinnes Et virtute quis malè utitur can any man make so ill use of so great vertues as the fear of God and hatred of sinne yes they may so forward a weed is sinne as that it can spring out of any root and therefore if it have done so in thee and thou thereby hast made thy case the harder yet know still that Objectum spei est arduum possibile The true object of hope is that which is hard to come by yet possible to come by And therefore as David said By my God have I leapt over the wall so by thy 2. Sam. 22. 30. God thou must break through the wall through this wall of obduration which thou thy self hast begun to build about thy self Feather thy wings again which even the flames of hell have touched in these beginnings of desperation feather them again with this text Neminem judicat Christ judgeth no man so as a desperate man judges himself do not make thy self beleeve that thou hast sinned against the holy Ghost for this is the nearest step thou hast made unto it to think that thou hast done it walk in that field in the Scriptures of God and from the first flower at the entrance the flower of Paradise Semen mulieris the generall promise that 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 finde the savour of life in all those flowers walk over the same alley again and consider the first man Adam in the beginning who involved thee in originall sinne and the thief upon the crosse who had continued in actuall sinnes all his life and sealed all with the sinne of reviling Christ himself and a little before his expiration and yet recovered Paradise that day and see if thou canst make any shift to exclude thy self Receive the fragrancie of all these cordialls Vivit Dominus 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 judicat Christ judgeth no man to destruction here and if thou finde after all these antidotes a suspicious aire a suspicious working in that Impossibile est that it is impossible for them who were once enlightened if they fall away to renew them again by repentance sprinkle upon that wormwood of Impossibile est that Manna of Quorum remiseritis Whose sinnes ye remit they are remitted and then it will have another taste of thee and then thou wilt see that that impossibilitie lies onely upon them who are utterly fallen away into an absolute apostasie and infidelitie that make a mock of Christ and crucifie him again as it is expressed there who undervalue and despite the Church of God and those means which Christ Jesus hath instituted in his Church for renewing of such as are fallen To such it is impossible because there are no other ordinarie means possible but that is not thy case thy case is onely a doubt that those means that are shall not be applied to thee And even that is a slipperie state to doubt of the mercie of God to thee in particular this goes so neare making thy sinne greater then Gods mercie as that it makes thy sinne greater then dayly adulteries dayly murders dayly blaspheming dayly profaning 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 conject both texts Christ judgeth all men and Christ judgeth no man he claims all judgement and he disavows all judgement they consist well together He was at our creation but that was not his first scene The Arians though they 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 judgement of separating those which were his the elect from the reprobate And then he knows who are his by that first judgement and so comes to his second judgement to seal all those in the visible Church with the outward mark of his Baptisme and the inward mark of his Spirit And those whom he calls so he justifies sanctifies and brings them to this third judgement to an established and perpetuall glory and so all judgement is his But then to judge out of humane affections and passions by detraction and calumnie as they did to whom he spake at this time so he judgeth no man so he denieth judgement To usurp upon this jurisdiction of others or to exercise any other judgement then was in his commission as his pretended Vicar does so he judges no man so he disavows all judgement to judge so as that our condemnation may be irremediable in this life so he judgeth no man so he forsweares all judgement As I live saith the Lord of hosts and As I have died saith the Lord Jesus I judge none Acknowledge his first judgement thy election in him cherish his second judgement thy justification by him breathe and pant after the third judgement thy crown of glorie for him intend 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 judgement to the Sonne and yet The Sonne judgeth no man FINIS