since the print was dark and we sin-blind His Word became the mirror of his mind And as the Eternal Father on the Son His form engrav'd before all worlds begun So what he is what God in him to us The spirit of both doth in this Book discuss Clear spring of wisdom Truths eternal mine The whole a Temple and each leaf a shrine And as on clouds on mountains and on streams The Sun lets beauties fall in golden beams But with his own pure Light the stars inspires And through their bodies thrusts his living fires So other holy books can but reflect Those Raies which here are native and direct Which apt to dazle and confound the wise Are yet a gentle light to Childrens eyes And you bright Maid whose name if I reherse I shall a Rubrique make and not a Verse And were such gold found in Italian Mines They would have twenty new St. Katharines As little ones in Gardens take delight Here gather fruits for tast and flowrs for sight The flower of Jesse that fresh and lasting Rose The fruit of knowledge and of life here grows On babes as tender Virgins love to look Behold that blessed babe within this book Pure fair adorn'd with perfect white and red A Crown of Radiant stars about his head If you be sick if head or heart do ake On Jesus name call and the pain will slake Read it when first you rise and goe to bed Under your Pillow let it bear your head All books in one all Learning lies in this This your first A B C and best Primer is Whence having throughly learnt the Christ-cross Row You may with comfort to our Father go Who will you to that highest lesson bring Which Seraphims instruct his Saints to sing A SERMON Preached to the KING AT OATLANDS 1638. JOHN 1.12 But as many as received him to them gave he Power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on his Name WE Country Ministers preaching at Court are first confined to matter finishable in one hour being like the Virgins in the Court of Ahasuerus She that came once must come no more except she pleas'd the King and were call'd for by name For which I shall chuse to insist on few particulars And then we are fearfull to displease Such are the winds of Information One breaths that good wise Caveat of King James of ever blessed memory Not to soar aloft or muster up our own readings Another whispers Touch not State nor Discipline nor Controversies At length I threw down all fear of displeasing by choice of this Text which plainly preaches Christ Jesus but Christ in Excellency excellent things are here spoken of him and of his powerfull Grace and excellent things said to be done to us by him and his gracious Power And if wondrous things will take it is a Text replete with wonders and yet no wonder containing him who wears that title among and above all those in Isaiah of a Prince peaceable and wonderfull No wonder if an earthly King be and by his own neglected when the King of Kings that came down from Heaven in triple light and evidence of his own stupendious Miracles his Fathers acknowledgment and the fiends own confessing to see how hardly the beams of Truth are let in on envy-poisond souls came thus furnisht among his own and yet his own received him not No longer wonder that a gracious King retains a sweet and mercifull disposition even to disaffected Subjects taught by this King here the Messiah who as anointed with Grace above all so sheds Grace and Mercy over all offers it to all even to those that would none These Builders here that threw him by he would have built them upon himself as on a stone elect and precious and so have raised them up into a new Jerusalem Miracle of Mercy To urge and press the gift of his Grace yea of his blood on those that despis'd it counted it an unholy thing and to remember them for his Cross in his prayer and for his death in that Commission after Go preach the Gospel to them Let them have glad tidings of Peace and Salvation Go take in them that would not take in me Receive them to Mercy that received me not And go first to them first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and beginning at Jerusalem Nor cease these wonders here for now not the Jewish Church alone not she his only beloved though even in this sense nor Rome nor Antioch but Jerusalem is the mother Church the mother of us all But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle The diminution of the Jew is become the riches of the Gentiles and in the place where it was said They are no people of mine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there they shall be called the Sons of God And that there is Here The Church of England a Church of Gentiles and this place the Represent and Lantskep of that If we will receive Christ What then I cannot tell you what Some mighty thing it is certain 'T is bundled up in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here which is a Right and Interest or Priviledge and Prerogative and a Dignity and Power no less then to become the Sons of God As many as received him c. Three parts I shall make of the Text First Vitis The Vine therein discoveting the root on which this fruit grows that is so copious clearing to us the Prime and other branching causes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est Racemus The bunch of Grapes that hangs upon this vine which who so puls and presses by a lively faith shall extract an Honor and Preheminence and Power quodcuunque velis A large trail of blessing unexpressable Our last part is Torcular The Wine-press whereby I shall first attempt to draw from Vitis and Raecemus a cup of Consolation as Calpar and Inferius but being so the too lushious issues of the Grape must a while be set by till we have tasted of a second cup of consideration for a cooler and then a third of Conformity and Concordance with Christ And then is that first to be resum'd and brew'd with some ingredients that may make it relish upon the Palate of the meekest Christians That done it will remain to urge the health of all three so mingled both for conveniency and necessity absolute and respective Last of all to make tryal by your patience of our receiving Christ in receiving his Receivers Those that are deputed to receive our homage and take our regard in his stead I shall name but three and reckon them upwards The Poor the Priest the Prince of his People Of these plainly and honestly And first of Vitis that is Christ Jesus to him we would but none can find that way till drawn and no way to be drawn up but our laying hold on the chain of Grace let down◠and nothing will do that but Prayer
Division and Confusion These are the winds Euroclydon and Boreas and his brethren that lift up the waves of popular Tumults and none but Jehovah can still this Tempest 14. Especially if Maximi mingle in the mass of Populorum and run with them to the same excess of riot in Opprobrium which God forbid True Nobles and great ones worthy the name of the Worthies of Israel will consider the base alloy to be ingloriously harded with vulgar spirits and wise men will not easily be blown up or hurried away with every wind of Doctrine but be and do like those nobler Bereans that is search if those things men preach be so or no. They will read and believe the Scripture which tels them that the Lords anointed who raised them to be Majores Maximi made them suscipere magìs maximè The fountain of all honour is ordained of God to be Caput Head over all the Tribes in the Old and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 supream in the new Testament â—ud so set on the Throne and in the place of God that the Kings enemie is Gods enemie Every Opprobrium cast at him reviles Jehovah here renâ—ers the Rebuker of David a Blasphemer of the Lord. And therefore for the Lords sake since â—o parting him and Caesar every Maximus will â—arn what every Minimus every Christian that hath a soul as Saint Paul saith most learn that 〈◊〉 to be as Jehovah made them subject and that or conscience sake to God conscience of sinning against God blaspheming God and the King go together and the sin is done against Heaven and that Father there which is committed against Paâ—â—rem patriae here To cut a lap from the Kings to be made honest Davids heart smite him and those hearts are but dull and heavy stuff that can endure Detraction to disrobe or expose to disgrace the spiritual Fathers of the Church and especially that Father whom in Oaths and Prayers we stile next and immediately under God over all persons 15. Thus are we something onward to a remedy if either Populus would be reclaimed or Maximi disclaim their associaton but if neither our next Remedy is here explicite Gest are in sinu that is Patience Gods own remedy he is patient and he is provoked every day and Christus Domini bids us Learn of him and Christus Domini David did so in the case of Shimei Let him alone it may be the Lord will look on my affliction and that the Lord will requite good for his cursing this day and so servi Domini enform us St Paul and St. James You have need of Patience and let patience have her perfect work Take the Prophets for examples of suffering affliction and of Patience so this Medicine is Catholicon and hath Gods Probatum affixt The patient abiding of the week shall not perish for ever 16. The last Remedy is in Recordare benedictum which make a whole prayer and first 1. Prayer in general it is the invention of Gods people from the beginning Tents and Iron-works from Cain and His but Invocation from Enos and his royal Progeny and God would have it so Ever since he kept house on earth it must be called an House of Prayer for all Nations all that would be of the houshold of faith and fellowship of the Saints If that honour then this work which pleases God above incense and doth him more honour then all burnt Sacrifice But what good to his servants all the good our hearts can desire for would we do Wonders drie up Seas cleave Rocks stop the Sun or the Lions rage quench the violence of fire subdue Armies Kingdoms or over-power created and increated Nature bind down the hands of God himself Prayer hath done this and more with that Prayer of Bow the heavens and come down the Church of God brought down that Jesus at whose name we bow who bows the Spirit of God to us into us and fills us full of Grace and Truth of Faith and Hope and Love and Joy and all those Graces which serve to bring us in Grace and to reconcile us though sinners and enemies to the Father through the Son as he proclaims the Peace himself In quo acquiesco 2. Secondly Here is Christus Domini at prayer Iexhort that first of all Prayers and Supplications be made for Kings that 's well but I shew you amore excellent way Kings to make Prayers Supplications for themselves an appeal lies to and here from for Caesar too at this Throne of Grace before this Mercy seat of God who is the only Ruler of Princes And in this Davids zeal exemplary I was glad saith he when they said unto me Let us go up to the house of God Our feet shall stand in thy Gates O Jerusalem And in trouble and trouble of enemies let others seek what remedy take what course they please but I take my self nay I give my self unto Prayer 3. Thirdly Prayer in distress the proper Remedy because God erected the Court of Requests in Heaven for the grievances of his Houshold This the pool with several Porches and Parishes where if we wait in right season we may be cured be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never so noisom what disease soever it be Should the enemies of Christus Domini conspire and continue to drie up that oyl of heavenly Power which pours it self from the head for the preservation of the members or the state it self grow sick of a Tympany or false conception or shake and totter with the palsie or we have just cause to complain in the Church and pray God to deliver u from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is I think such as regard no Topicks fetch their Arguments from no common place of old Reason or Religion evil and absurd men 2 Thess 3.2 O yet here 's our refuge The weapons of our Militia are our our Prayers to him that cals upon us to call upon him in time of trouble and he will deliver us 4. Fourthly Speciaily Prayer is prevalent in this particular textual disease and malady of Opprobrium Our Litany with Libora nos Domine is the best Ditany to throw off this arrow to return and repay and requite it into their bosom that annoy us is but Lutum luto purgare No though it be a case which nearly concerns us and an offence of an high nature yet our best way is to remove it to the highest court of audience in Heaven before the Judge of all the world where we have advocatum Regium and the darling and favorite of that court to plead our cause which is his own and who took this course himself reviled not again but commited it to him that judges righteously The Apostle indeed Eph. 6. arms and prepares the Souldier of Christ with an Helmet and a shield a sword too of the Spirit and fits him with an whole Armoury beaten our in Heaven for him But how concludes he praying always with all
done in every body The Judge is of pure and fiery eyes sees down through darkness to our hearts and reins no casting of mists no deluding of this Judge and then no need of long proceedings frequent siftings and tedions Cribrations of the cause for all things are naked and bare in his sight all evident and clear before this Lord for this Lord is God The Lord God is his name 7. Now the names of God are referred to two heads 1. Simple and absolute or 2. In Relation to us Of the first sort Some respect his Essence or Nature as that name which we know not certainly how but we are taught to pronounce Jehovah Some respect that which we call but yet in tender sense dare scarce call it so his Personality as the names of Father Son and Spirit And some his Attributes Essential as Just Holy c. The second kind of relative names are such as King Governor Preserver and this of Dominus here the Lord 8. First for the Name and so the Nature of God it is an Ocean too immense and boundless for our discovery An Abyss for the sounding of our light and frail reason to propound And concerning this Title Lord I will not enter though my Text lie near the Creation into that curious dispute which yet amused Tertullian and St. Austin afterwards whether this stile then only and properly began in the worlds beginning and could not be attributed to God before Such speculation is but drie and useless stuff I will rather tell you what the School tells us of all Gods Names in relation that is such Names are not really in God but in the Creature So as God is called Summum Bonum not because God cannot admit a composition of those two or any pieces but because his Bonitas as comprehensive of all other and diffusive to all so supereminently above all And because all that retains the name of Good as derivative from him so in it self defective and to us deficient in compare with him saith Aquinas and yet even in affecting and accepting such names God delivers himself to us in a gracious way of endearment For where men aspire to Honor and ascend to titular additions therefore that the swelling vapor of a Longa Pagina as he calls it may lift them like a Pageant high in the air and hal'd from the community of baser earth God in a wonderfull descending still vouchsafes rather to honor his servants and Clients by sometimes assuming names of particular and individual reference as the God of Abrabam the fear of Isaac sometimes of general appliance to all the Israel of God as is the large extended and branching Tree the spreading Sun in an Expansion Dilatation Emanation Communication Consolation to all his servants in this full and chearfull name of Dominus the Lord. 9. Which name in the strict and proper acceptation they say can belong of right to none but God by reason it includes these two conditions First He that is exactly Dominus may at his pleasure use the thing whereof he is Lord enlarge diminish change annihilate that is as far as the nature of the thing will bear And who is so supream on earth Secondly The absolute Lord stands in need of nothing but is endued with a proper innate and self-sufficiency Aad who can boast himself to be so absolute Vnxi te in Regem in caput are notes of humane eminence in the Old and as plain is that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New One from Samuels testimony a Seer and a chief Prophet of God and the other from St. Peter a prime Apostle both instructed in the Will of the Lord here And yet no Saul nor Roman Emperor nor any supream Head and Governor on earth since those times can ever say and say truly so much as to the foot of his body Politick I have no need of you much less then can the feet or legs the sides or arms or bulk of the body though never so big say to the head mistaking it for a Perruke say We have no need of thee 10. It was as is imaginable for this Energie in the restrained sense of the word that the Septuagint everywhere render Jehovah by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord and some such reverence to the name made Augustus sure so respective and nice as not to endure it and Suetonius reproves Domitian of incredible arrogance for not disclaiming that usual acclamation in the Amphitheatre of Dominofoeliciter Well might his Poet then recant and repent his Inscription of Dominus Deusque noster And yet we know what he that sits in that Emperors Throne the triple miter'd man of sin or if not so yet surely sinfull man doth dully and damnably retain and blushes not to this day to wear and hear from his Poets and Parasites in Print of Dominus Deus noster our Lord God the Pope And yet for the term of Dominus alone as in our language t is cheap enough The words Lord and Sir being very near allied in sense so in the Latine now and all those crums and drops of Spanish French Italian Eloquence into which the Latine is broken and dissolved it signifies no more it confers no more in usual phrase And in the very Greek of the New Testament so near Augustus dayes it is evident enough that their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was but equivalent to our Sir for it is observed that Mary Magdaleus gives it there to our blessed Saviour and at the same time envies it not but affords her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir to the very Gardiner 11. But a more usefull Note from both these Names together we may make out of St. Bernards rule Omne nomen Dei in Scripturis c. Every Name of God in Scripture sounds of Mercy or of Justice and both these are in this judicatorie to shew that Adam had now provoked not only a glorious God holy and just but his Lord Gracious and full of kindness to him This raises the wind into a foul storm swels a brook of disobedience to a Sea when man the master-piece the favorite turns against his God that had made him a kind of under-god given him dominion too For the Habendum enters with a Dominamini It was my Lord Adam from the beginning a Lord Lieutenant under the Lord of Hosts in three great Counties of the earth and air and Seas and of all things therein with power of life and death Ingratefull man to make offence against his maked the creature rise against his Creaâ—our that rais'd him from the dust sustain'd planted pleasur'd him with infinite varieties of sure and â—al favours This on the Remorse was it that cut David to the heart Against thee O Lord against thee have I â—inned and done this evill in thy sight No wonder if traiterous man on this recognition of the Judge offended hid himself and sought for shelter among the trees and even there remained startling
SERMONS AND DEVOTIONS OLD and NEW Revived and publisht as an Oblation of gratitude to all such of the Nobility Gentry and Clergy as retain the noble conscience of having ministred to the weak Condition of the Author now aged 73. The SERMONS at Court were before the War brake forth betwixt King and Parliament Also a Discourse of DUELS being a Collection and Transtation of other mens Opinions with some Addition of his own And this in special dedicated for their Use To the Right Honourable THOMAS LORD VISCOVNT BEAVMONT of Coleorton and Mr. ROBERT SVTTON Heir to Mr. Rich. Sutton of Tongue in Leicestershire By THOMAS PESTEL the meanest amongst his late Majesties Chaplains in ordinary Nonumque premantur in annum Hor. LONDON Printed for Nathaniel Ekins at the Gun in Pauls Charch-yard 1659. DEVOTIONS ON Certain Anniversary FEASTS and other Occasions First on Ascension Day 1625. TO day white Saints and holy Angels sing To that pure Lamb some new triumphant thing Whereat the whole frame of the world ascends Each Bird on wings across his Journeys bends Upright and from the most exalted twist His voioe proclaims his Joyes above consist Earth swels to rise and heaves her Issue fair In swift perfumes to latch the mounting Air. Rise then my soul and every power awake Can wals of Dust so strong Resistance make Lo Thy Redeemer that brave Eagle flies With Cage and all breaking the marble skies His way to climb was fitst to be deprest Lay then his bloody Cross upon thy brest Which will be such a load as birds wings are To bear thee where his pleading wounds prepare A Crown of Glory made by conquest thine Was his by Nature where he will refine Thee and thy case of clay bright as his own When join'd in Glory both ascend one Throne The Relief on EASTER EVE LIke an Hart the live-long day That in thorns and thickets lay Rouse thee soul thy flesh forsake Got to relief from thy brake Shuddring I would have thee part And at every motion start Look behind thee still to see If thy frailties follow thee Deep in silence of the night Take a sweet and stoln delight Graze on Clover by this calm Precious spring of bleeding Balm Thou remembrest how it ran From his side that 's God and man Taste the pleasures of this stream Thou wilt think thy fâ—â—sh a dream Nightly this Repast go take Got to Relief from thy brake On WHITSUNDAY or God is Light GOD is all Light All eye who first gave sight To the dark Caos yielding no delight To him the double Parent whiles it lay So deep in night that nothing yet was day Wherein nought pleas'd his eye that blindly stood But when it saw He saw that all was good He whose eternal Essence House and Robe Are all one Light one boundless Christal Globe Fathers of Lights whose Son is from on high The day-spring and whose spirit an inward eye Which through this worlds wide Engine moves and rouls But dwels in us illumining our souls To search and find that whole and only Bliss Which of all three in one the Vision is Expostulation on the loss of a noble Gentlemans eye Mr. H. Ha. 1634. THou dreadfull Potter may thy humble clay Ask if Deformities or Darkness may Be pleasing in thy sight or why we find So many born so many striken blind Troops of diseases Change of chance to marr Thy work and leave a cloud where was a star If sin still made thy wrath thus heavy fall Alas thou mightst rain Darkness on us all If sins excess their pride that have their eyes Would all exceed for they would all despise But what on sins slaves as a plague is thrown Like manna fals and mercy to thine own The Sodomites were blind so Tobie was It fell on Paul as well as Elymas And to thy book thy glass when we repair Where as all scruples all solutions are That blind-born man so pos'd and quarrel'd there His parents too by thine own doom are clear And opening his thou giv'st us eyes to see That Natures Blemish may thy Glory be So canst thou blend these things and make us wealth Of Poverty and of a sickness health Want teaches Plenties use were night away We should grow wanton-weary of the day Blows Bruises Blindness ere thy work be done May into Medcine Balm and Eye-salve run God that through Darkness se'st down through my Rains And knowst how close this grief my heart constrains How this blow striks my eyes still that to weep I find them apter then to look or sleep Thou know'st the Muse was no phantastick fit Brought forth this verse I am not sick of wit But these disordered lines like Amraes deep Fetcht srom my soul in lowly murmur creep Up to thy Throne of Grace The rest is lost On New-years Day a New-years Gift Out of Gal. 4.4 God sent his Son made of a woman made under the Law First God sent his Sone GOD sent his Son to make mans joy begun From first to last in endless circle run Without Beginning God who never ends From boundless Being mans Beginning sends Mans double guard of Sun and stars we see Angels unseen all of his sending be A foodfull Garden after food came rest Then woman came of Visibles the best Her seed in Promise then in Gods intent Before all worlds into the world was sent But till all other sendings fail and fade The Blood that seal'd this mission was unmade Man first was sent to Reasons goodly Lamp Which dul'd he found and dim'd in sinful damp Then Sacrifice and Prayer which heard he saw New Light down sent him in a flaming Law Wild sinners scourge But School and Guide to those That tir'd by sin by Faith on him repose To make whose joyes in endless circle run From first to last Behold God sent his Son Made of a Woman MAde of a woman Heark you Race Of men no more this Sex disgrace The Lord of Glory leaves his place To Bour with Mary full of Grace God above all that 's great or good Is made of womans flesh and blood How rare a Vivary was this Our Lord within our Lady is O look Amazed Angels look But cannot read this my stick Book Till that Babes blood unclose the seal And so himself himself reveal The woman first that wrought our wo Remember first from man did grow Here all by Virgins blood was done Gods only Partner in his Son Made of a woman Heark you Race Of men no more this Sex disgrace Made under the Law UNder the Law He that the Ground-work laid Of Earth and gave the seas a Law was made Who gives the charge to this Eternal Word Supream-and-sole-law-giving mighty Lord. Proud slime and worms God bows our yoak to bear Put on in love to put us out of fear To service homage vassalage descends * Jan. 1. To day and first fruit of his blood he spends What Feind Eccentrick then shall force our souls
Let us then lift up our hearts together with our hands to Go◠in the Heavens 1. OUR first part is Vitis and that is Christ we way take his own word John 15. 1. I am the true Vine Poor hedge and harth wine you may wring from natural knowledge and from moral Books and dull muddy stuff the world affords mingled with Mandragoras whose effect is betwixt sleep and poison But would you that above the spirit of Cecub or Falernian wine The Vine which breeds a liquor potent and mighty in operation Quod cum spe divite manet in Venas A cup of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that fills with holy Raptures and Extasies and lifts your Spirit up to become Partaker of the divine Nature Then come to me saith he He all alone at this He and none but He can give this Grace Search the Vineyards the Scriptures They testifie of him Those Cherubins the Old and New Testament clap all their wings together for the enclosing him who is A. and Ω. the same Rock and Mannae Jesus Christ yesterday and to day and the same for ever The Book of God is Paradise everywhere Trees of knowledge bowing their eminent tops But Christ Jesus the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden The Fruit and Kernel of which Fruit is here in Vitis Objection 1. 2. But in 1 Pet. 1.3 we find this made the Act of God the Father Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath begotten us again c. and ascribable to him as an Act of Power and Wonder first above that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And secondly As an Act of Love of which he is the Fountain While not as a Father alone but as a Mother too he conceives in the womb of Predestion brings forth in Vocation tenders and bears in arms and on his wings of Providence and hath Viscera misericordiarum in the plural And again this is made the work of the holy Ghost Tit. 3.8 By the washing of the new birth and renewing of the Holy Ghost c. And so much seems implied in that Commission Receive you the holy Ghost and then Whose sins you remit c. For answer hereto briefly we learn from the school that though in the sacred Trinity be order yet no Degree and in their Acts ad extra they all blessedly conspire as in this particular the Apostle informs us 1 Cor. 6. By the Grace of God the Father through the blood of his Son are we raised as so many Temples of the holy Ghost And as the Son is in at Creation by him were all things made he being the power and wisdom of the Father so the Spirit is called his Gift too whom I will send you from the Father and in the Galatians it is stild the Spirit of Christ All build then this holy frame But he lies down as the Foundation as that precious corner-stone on whom his Saints relie by vertue of their precious Faith and partake all these precious Promises in him Yea and Amen He that Olive of whose fatness and Vine from whose root live all the Branches which he performs in special too by a double distillation of his Grace and blood while the blood of that Vine is made ours and we through it and him made Sons of God and most properly in this Filiation here mentioned his Act who is in nature Filius He by generation to make us so by Regeneration Thus have we endeavoured to dig and discover this to the root indeed that root ineffable of three in one God the Father as Author and Fountain the Son as means and merit the Spirit forming cherishing and preserving the new Creature A Grace flowing from the Father by the Son in the Power and Operation of the holy Ghost Objection 2. 3. But where 's the Text then How do we receive it by Faith Our Saviour Answers it in the fifteenth of St. John This is done by insition as we by it receive him that is abide in him and that cannot be without assenting and obeying both By both which we begin to live and draw sap and conrinuating strength of spiritual Life The life I now live I live by the power of the Son of God 'T is his Act and Gift in the first Light and Influence and first Attraction and bowing our will to receive him and in obediential performaces too asubsequent and concurrent Grace yet a Nostrality too so far as a non fugere saith St. Austin nay as a Sequi too and an Agere a co-working with the work of him that works all in all and all our works in us And the manifest of this Insition by believing and so receiving him is a plain and easie Decision of that drie and tedious Jangle which infects the mysterie of Godliness For nor Faith nor works alone Nor they without their root Nor it without his fruits Poscit opem conjurat amice Faith working by Love Objection 3. 4. But which way How can these things be Which way is the Light parted saith Job c. Where comes our divine Light of Reason to clasp and Grace it self under that noble and ampler Lamp of Faith The Answer is prepard by St. Peter who tells us where it grows the immortal seed of his his Word called therefore the Word of Life and the Word of his Grace and this very Grace the Word of Faith to which is ever annext the use and blessing of those Sacraments of the one whereof our Saviour tells us Except a man be born again and of the other Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood no life is in you no kingdom of Heaven for you PARTICVLAR 2. 5. THus far of Vitis Our second Particular is Racemus The bunch of Grapes 'T is rendred here by Power but is understood in an Excellency Power cum Priviledgio This indeed intended as Caput Votorum For as he saith Quid voveat dulci alumno So what is it that thy soul desires Is it Beauty Belive there are no such Roses and Lilies in their Midsummer as Gods Sons in their early Spring That being true of every member which is spoken of the body in general Thou art all fair No deformity not that of sickness nor that of age nor spot nor wrinckle Free from all defilement of sin a brave and high victorious and insolent Beauty that pure fair white and red in his innocence and in the blood of the Lamb. Is it riches How faint and cold and poor a word to this that makes a man rich in God! And rich in faith is equivalent to that For by that is a poor wretch under all made Heir to God who is rich over all and enjoyes not these shadows of the world but those unsearchable riches of Christ not filthy lucre defiling in the acquist but fine Gold So that thy adoring Mammon is but a mockery to thy soul It cannot make thee it may marr it
good a man a man â—â—er Gods own heart so gracious a King that 〈◊〉 his people with a faithful and true heart and rul'd them prudently with all his power anointed by God with his holy oil and appointed by him to be Head over all the Tribes assured from God â—hat his holy hand arm and all should hold him faâ—â— and strengthen him against the violence of his enemies and yet to see this Head over the people 〈◊〉 surrounded with evil members such a roar about him of populorum multorum maximorum for so Tremellius reads it and so we translate iâ— Of all the mighty and the word will bear botâ— multitude and magnitude from all these in steâ—â— of Magnificat and Benedictus which were due ouâ— flie Reproaches blasphemies slanders thick a hail at every step he takes Vestigia it is hereâ— That may be all the prints and tracts of his wordâ— and actions defac'd and blur'd They found Erraâ—â— in them all in all he said or did they dayly mistaâ—â—â— my words is gone before Ps 56.5 And here theâ—â— slander my actions the footsteps of thy Anointed Is this all No the Kings enemies here are Goâ—â— enemies too Slandering David the Lords servant blaspheming Jehova Davids Lord. No wondeâ— then at Recordare Domine in the top here more woâ—der at Benedictus in the bottom Notwithstandingâ— this Rebuke and slander and blasphemy nay 〈◊〉 all this for all these Praised be the Lord for eveâ— more Amen 3. Less then two Parts we cannot make David Supplication and his Consolation or let the fâ—â—â— Part be his Malady and the second his Remeâ—â— First the Malady we shall see will draw to it all 〈◊〉 matter of the Supplication and take in all the pâ—â—sons as well those affected to it as those infeâ—â—â— by it and then the Remedy will heal up and make a fair hand of all when we have discovered it throughout the Text from Recordare down to Benedictus 4. This Malady then for the name we may call it here Opprobrium Reproachful or disgraceful language It hath other names here of Rebuke Slander Blasphemy three Channels all drain'd into one sink of Opprobrium That is the Monster the Bawling Cerberus foaming with Aconitum a strong poison working and drenching through all and if it light upon a King you see it obstructs his Pectoral parts sits near his very heart gestare in sinu doth not signifie nothing 5. But what causeth this Maladie whence comes fit not desuper not from the Father of Light from him none but good and perfect Gifts nor from his Son whose wisdom is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated who when he was reviled reviled not again nor comes it from that Spirit which proceeds from them both which came down in shape of a Dove it comes the other way then de subter from the fowl unclean spirit from the Prince of Darkness A dire and dreadful vapour it is from Hell that blasts the day and all the children of light But yet so welcome is this spirit to the spirit of a meer natural man while it lusteth after envy and lies soakt in flesh and blood that the carnal man loves it as his own flesh and blood nourishes and cherishes it till wonted once and grown familiar it goes from man to man and from house to house crescit eundo grows a foggy ugly unweldly and monstruous thing and that it fall among a crew of Populorum and gathers still upon multorum maximorum then it soon poisons and putrifies it condenses and putrifies the very air hurls rotten and killing slanders round about the earth and shoots up blasphemies as high as heaven 6. We may go another way to work and seek these blatant beasts Infamy and Blasphemy Slander and Reproach and find them all concentred in St. James his world of wickedness and a fitter Centre can never be for as in this great world we have infinite atomes feathers and dust flying aloft but massie and drossie things sink downward to the centre of the earth So in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have store of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 light and vain and foolish words upon the wing but still the most filthy the mineral and visceral and intestine the basest and heaviest dregs and lees and tartar the drossiest and lowest stuff even as low as the bottomless pit that which showes man likest and draws him nearest to the Devil is this Devilish part and price of opprobrium 7. Thus having fixt upon this Centre see if the Text will furnish out a Circumference and here are choice materials for of whom speaks the Prophet this of himself or of some other of himself and very many other We are told this Psalm and the former were made by two Brothers Ethan and Heman and by them cast as two Molds of Prayer both in private difficulties for which the former and in publike affliction or subversion of the Republike in which this Psalm is the pattern both prepared to warn and arm Gods people of and against dangers and both applicatory to Christ and his Church in all ages I told you Opprobrium would draw to it all the matter and take in all the persons in the Text and more it seems then I conceived to be therein contained at first for now we may include all the Lords servants at large and then all his Chiefs David and every anointed of the Lord and then the Lord Christ Jesus himself and God in his unspeakable name of Jehovah too this Circumference will embelish our skeme and yet as high and holy and heavenly as these persons are they may be vext and endangered by this malady all infested or offended from this Center 8. Not possible Is this in the power of Populorum What Sling What Engine What Ordinance have they to shoot as high as Heaven The Sun can dart a raie down through the bowels of the earth The Dog-star fling pernitious defluxions But these Caniculars that grin like a Dog and run through the City can they from a throat like an open Sepulcher vent such a steam such a ravenous and destructive vapour as will kill at that distance Should Earth swell out into 10000 Tenariffs they could not bore the moon Earths shadows run into nothing before they reach the Sun What earth born people then so malignant to produce a plague so powerfull You have heard of a people sowen in the dust and which grew up from a Dragons teeth 't is thus far true The race of Populorum maximorum and all came from the Dust which is the Serpents food and we are all the worse to this day for the Serpents tooth in the forbidden fruit and worst of all for the Serpents tongue in the first tentation for there and thence this spreading poison was instilled As he was a Murderer so a Lier and Slanderer from the beginning even Inimicus tuus Domine Satan The Arch-enimy that blasted and disordered
Lastly As it is implyed that our Saviours victory on the Cross was his purchase of the Gentiles Rev. 2.26 27. and Phil. 2. His stooping even to the Cross precedes his exaltation and then a Genuflexion and universal Acclamation All tongues to confess him c. So the mission of his Apostles to the Gentiles was after his passion and a little before it we find in John 12.24 some Greeks desired to see him and he answers in a Riddle If the grain of wheat die it will bring forth much fruit which was meant of himself saith St. Austin He was to die by the unbelief of the Jews and then to be multiplyed in the faith of all Nations as we see it come to pass But that faith saith St. Paul Rom. 10. it grows not in nature comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God And this hath brought us a little on our way in the understanding of our second part which we now pursue Lux in Domino Light That 's the matter here and the manner is in Domino or the other way for the matter indeed is in Domino and the manner by way of Illumination For what is meant surely that great work of God Mans restoring is meant included in a second great work Illumination of our minds and that in a third great work The light of the Sun in our eyes How rare and choice a fruit must that be which hath such curious Coverings The very Metaphor or rather Box and Nest of Metaphors is observable Is God a Metaphorical God saith one D. D. And he answers himself In a pious and humble meaning respecting the Scriptures heights and Excellencies in Allegories not only sinews in the Milk of Gods Word and things in his Words but spreadings and strange Rhetorical passages and curtains of figures flowing into figures Where are those Sophisters and Grand Seniors and grave Rabbies with their old dissembled Ensigns of Ignorance the Beard the Habit and the Title that will allow men no use of humane Learning in disclosing Divine Mysteries Is the Grape therefore harsh because such Strainers cannot reach it Theology shall remain the crowned Queen of Sciences but will admit her Hand-maids to carry keys to her Cabinets But ere we look in here be pleased to arrest your consideration on the covering of this Ark that is the Light of Heaven And as before in Darkness so here again we are blind with dazling How many are the opinions of those rowling Torches of Heaven the Sun and Moon St. Austin and in his old age too for it is in his Euchir ad Lauren. knew not whether he might account them to the Angels And for the Light Who shall tell us what it is When it comes to our doors and beats upon our eves we know not whether it have a real Being in the Air or an Intentional The first the second both and neither of both are defended Look into the Microcosm and Fiat Lux else all invisible no form no distinction and all inglorious nor use nor beauty 'T is Plenitudo the filling of all the Creatures and gives them Cognition Life Motion View the Microcosm the Light of the Body is the eye and not the Organ so much as the visive Power the light within that sits behind those Glass-windows with a balance and a file and weighs and works upon the shapes of things that enter But both these Lights are Darkness if the Medium be not illuminated if the Air be dark and searching the Scripture though we find not what it is yet we find a world of wonders in it Five things imparted yet remain entire Knowledge Vertue Happiness Joy and Light and this the Embleme of them all No good thing but Light takes it in by comparison all good things but never any ill Wisdom Health Beauty Food Joy and Reputation All the Graces of God Knowledge Faith Love Hope Joy Consolation yea the very Glory to come all our Joy and endless Bliss in that vision of Light And if God should ask us What house we would make him or to what compare him Should we offend in saying LIGHT though nothing resemble God exactly yet something better shews how far he is beyond all resmblance and by that Light his Creatures afford our admiration of his Incomprehensibleness may be raised higher and higher and with it so raised our longing after him enlarged And sure as in the works of Grace none liker God then LOVE So in the works of Nature Light as it is the eldest so the amiablest and the likest to the Father and what the Fathers affection is to it we may see by his first giving Light to the Chaos It could yield him no delight who was the double Parent so long as it lay in Night and Darkness and so deep in too that nothing yet was day What stood thus blindly could not be pleasing in his eye who is all eye But when it saw the Text saith God saw that all was good Doth he not dwell in Light and cover himself with Light as with a Garment May we not say his House and Robe and Eternal Essence are all one boundless christal Globe of Light Doth not he say so God is Light the Father the Father of Lights and the Son is God of God and Light of Light and the Holy Spirit as in this wide Engine of the world it is an inward eye which moves and rowls Spiritus in us alit So in our Souls it is the Spirit of Illuminations directing us to that place where in his Light we shall see Light even see God face to face and know him even as we are known I had not staid so long on this this cover here but that I conceived it might be in our way to discover what remains remembring my Promise to pass this part in explanation so demonstrating in an Orb where every part gives Light unto one another Here by the way might be inferred the usefulness of our sight and how we are bound to bless God that enjoy that Comfort And secondly How to compassionate the blind that sit in darkness considering there is no perfect joy on earth without it no nor in Heaven it being one of the torments in hell Darkness and contrary to the Inheritance of the Saints in Light And thirdly Applying to such times as these Rejoyce in this favour of Heaven that earthly men cannot restrain or excise the comforts of the Air and Light c. But we pass to our fruit it self the meaning of this Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in our restoring veil'd here under this God-like Creature of Light That illumination which we receive from him by his Spirit relieving us from our state of corruption and bondage of darkness and translating us into his marvelous Light and glorious liberty of the Sons of God For you were c. In Domino In Domino For he is Light in the abstract others by participation He the true Light the cause efficient
to the three Inducements first Quia Filii because you are Children to Dominus here So it is not improper if we take the Light here for Christ the second person for he being the Wisdom of God is his Son from all Eternity and yet a joint-Parent as Eve is Adams daughter and yet trne mother of all that call him Father Walking then is our filial obedience in Faith in Fear in Love as dutifull Children else the Heathen will shame the Christian with his Morals and our Religion in the Practicks is but moral vertue explicated There is by it no third part added to our soul and body The Dr. of Heaven tels us he came adimplere to fill up the Law by supply where it was too narrow in the precepts And therefore the explication and enlargement being his it should excite and enlarge our obedience specially considering whom we call Father the same is our Lord here And shall the Creatutes shame us The Sun will stand still or back his fierie steeds as in the time of Joshuab and Ezekiah the stormy Winds and Tempests fulfilling his Word And is it enough for us to take that name into our mouths to crie only Lord Lord. Cuiresnomini subject a negatur nomine illuditur saith Tertullian And take heed saith the Apostle God is not that is God will not be mocked If Children then be ye followers of God as dear Children And this puts us in mind of our Fathers presence and of our due observance in this place a subject to a proclamation though it be but to fill his head will use a reverent gesture A Son will address and prepare for his Fathers presence especially if then and there to ask his blessing more if he be to hear his Fathers Will read and opened in what 〈◊〉 concerns his Portion most of all will be hearâ—en attentively if the Father he then to pass the Inâ—eritance No so graceless child as will be then and there disorderly or that at parting thence will preâ—ently fall fowle and revile his Father All this might â—e particularly applied but I dare not ask some â—earers how they prepared themselves for this place â—â—st night or this morning in Word and Deed. 〈◊〉 would we had no cause to fear what they will reâ—urn to say and do as soon as gone from hence from â—he presence of him in his Ordinance whom there â—hey called Father and pretended they came to â—â—ave his blessing as we all ought to do quia Filii 2 A second pully or Incentive to our duty is Etiâ—msi Though but children Let not the name dismay Best of all if we feel our selves to be but children For there are the same steps of Seducement in humane and Divine Learnings Men cannot abide to be children we all affect a Magisterium A Christian course is like a line drawn through but drawn with a trembling hand 'T is a salvation wrought but but wrought with fear and trembling And a â—hild will crie and yet follow if led by a stronger hand and we are in the Lords hand here In domino Remember then who leads who bids us follow He leads the way that is the way that makes the way for us and opens an access not by his Fathers acceptation only but his own intrinsique Vertue Power Office We are weak but that weakness inâ—ites his Might and Mercy thy weakness is from â—â—ture which hath her stint and measure but thy strength in Domino who as he possesses so distributes infinitely As in Creation when he had made he left not things to themselves There is a maâ—â— tenency else all would crumble back into their Atoms So in this Recreation Dominus suppoâ—â— manum rude and poor Lumps of our selves no seet no wings but born on his Eagles wings as on a seatherbed we are soft and secure and kept aloft faâ— and free from danger 'T is hard for weakness and child-hood to bear a yoak But his bearing with us and his Spirit assisting us makes the yoak easie and the burden light 'T is the saying of the sons of Beltal His wayes are alwayes grievous Hearken to our Apostle Our conversation is in Heaven Maria ibi non erat ubi erat Children of Light are where they would be It is but three steps with Gods help saith he and he saith it to these Ephesians cap. 2. ver 5. He hath quickned us with Christ raised us with him and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus So sure of possession if we be his Children so sure to hear that voice meet us from the clouds Come ye Children of my Father c. 3. Lastly As Children of Light using the Light for direction and example and this exemplary Light is double First The Suns course is imitable And Secondly The Sun of Righteonsness is our highest and chiefeit Pattern For the first Look how David dresses the Sun Psal 19. In a Tabernacle and presents him as a Bride-groom coming out of his Chamber and as a Gyant rejoycing to run his course So may we find St. Paul in this and the like places sets forth a Son of God a child of Light embraved like another Mordecay O far beyond all Fayorites of the highest Kings or Potentates in a Robe of Righteousness In Domino and in the inner man not outward splend or with Introsum turpis made bright and pure from sin by Sanctification of the Spirit proceeding to a darling and confounding beauty of Holiness shining in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation and the more for their perverseness by an Antiperistasis Learning of the Sun which is not retrograde for winds or clouds nor weary of his luminous operations after so many thousand years of Circuit sets him not down but moves still in a circular in a coelestial and communicable motion which motion if any dare traduce and call it a Pad-way ot dispute it into terms of false inconstant or serpentine as they use the Sun let the Persian or the Indian adore or curse so let the unclean worldings or churlish hel-hounds bark the child of Light will like the Sun cut a clear passage through all and smiling rise from out the liquid snares and jaws of gyant clouds unhurt uncaught and like a Sun-beam saith Seneca though forced to shine on dung hils converse with base and wicked company yet comes off untainted Et hoeret origini suae still cleaves inseparably to the first spring of Light There is yet a second observation in the race of the Sun he is tropickt and kept to his Zodiack and Ecliptick line and so are we confined Gods Will and Word are circle-wise put about us as Popilius served Antiochus and God hath set out the boundures of our walk which we must not pass When the Sun perceives the Tropick he will advance no further so what ever full evidence of Gods revealed Will restrains where his prohibition lies there 's the Barrier Then better walking in a fiery furnace
Judge is joyn'd in Commission with the Holy Ghost to lead us into all Truth and to bring all such that is all needful truth to our remembrance The Spirit of God bears witness but it is with our spirit and so enables us to pronounce sentence of self-clearing or self-condemnation When therefore I dare knock at that privy Chamber door at that closet and dare ask that question Am I a Divine Royalist a true Deilift a godly Christian One of Gods peculiar where then is my fear my thinking on his Name Do I serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce before him with reverence Do I indeed as one of his Royal Priesthood present my body and soul and all their children all their off-spring the actions of my hands and the Imaginations of my heart and projects of my brain as a lively sacrifice unto my God Does my justice and honesty my chastity and sobriety for even these may rise from corrupt springs flow from this only consideration Is the bottom of my conceited happiness any better then a sick mans dream or mad mans boiling fancy Do I indeed feel my confidence grounded on a modest a tender and reverential fear Doe the Larum the remembrance of this strike louder and faster in my brest then all Satans temptations with meminto Philippe Henrics Garole not that thou art but a man but that thou art no mans man nor no womans man nor no devils man taken captive to do his Will This I must thus enquire and this when I thus know then I must resolve with Joshua Let others do what they will I and my house at the least I and my heart and all that is within me will serve the Lord. Shall such a man as I that profess Christ and his Gospel shall I flie saith one Can I do this wickedness and sin against God Shall I take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot saith another of Gods fearfull and faithfull servants God forbid Do I profess to serve that Lord of Hosts who keeps a book of Remembrance whose eye is ever zenith and so pure that no iniquity can tarry in his sight and shall I not pass the time of my dwelling here in fear of his most blessed name And do we can we think then nay do they or can they say what they will can they indeed think in good earnest can they believe themselves to be Gods peculiar people and such a Priest-hood and chosen People as Christ shed his precious blood to purchase who though they dare not but fear men and tremble at the sound of some great name on earth yet have no true fear of God before their eyes such as dare curse swear pollute and blaspheme that very name in which both we and they profess to look for both Protection and Salvation Thirdly Our third and last particular in this observation about the Ground-work of all our comforts bottom'd on our fear of God is the joy and blessing the Grace and Mercy tender indulgence of God unto us in this Appropriation that God vouchsafes to tie this cordial joy fast to each single-hearted Christian so admits him under this signet to be of his cabinet Council in the inward Testimony of his Spirit assuring him his spirit that he is the â—ords own that so the Joy of his faithfull servants may as himself hath spoken it be full and that not by rejoycing in another but by finding and feeling the Ground and Principles of true Joy and Confidence in themselves For I am not therefore honest or valiant because some credulous brethren or some brethren of the Sword repute me so and would so give it under their hands No I pass not for yours or any mans Judgement saith St. Paul a silly fame is that into which a man is voted or for which he hath a Testimonial or Certificat I know saith he in whom I have believed and so every just and justified man lives by his own faith as well as he lives by that very bread which himself eats It is no trusting to Salvation implicite if I pin my soul to that great name of the Catholique Church and know no meaning of it but only him that calls himself the Head of it when he can be scarce or but at most a corrupt member or if I make a Pope of that poor private Priest that creeps in at my window If I freely resign my soul to him and say I must confide in you for so millions profess and boast themselves to do Can I tell whether this Romist will cary it to Heaven or Hell or neither in haste but make it stay in purgatory as some souls they tell me must do till the day of Judgement I cannot relish that dependance on any mans infallibility for if I could be certain of their high Priests election that all things therein had been rightly and canonically performed which is very difficult if not impossible yet for his low Priest whom he sends to me and who for his own food and maintenance brings me the Sacraments of Penance and the wafer-god to be assured of his intention on which they teach the very essence of all Popish devotion depends they must acquaint me how I shall be a Searcher of hearts which God hath reserved only to himself and therefore assuredly as some Papists have openly jeared the pretended infallibilâ—y of their Father so no doubt but his white sons the Jesuits like the Latine Augurs do laugh when they meet in secret at the open gullage of the world willing to mistake their infamous mother for the very Catholique Church in the Apostles Creed and yet our own Ladies in stead of Preserves from St. Austins boxes of Prascriptum Legis Pradicta Prophetarum which are soundly mingled with this holy sear in the Text are content to swallow their conserves of implicite faith and blind obedience and comfort their hearts with the cold consideration of an Indulgence when yet the blessed and the blasting the cordial and yet confounding Truth of God in this ponit hath wrung after a thousand wranglings that plain consession from a learned but a bitter and violent Papist that the Church by her Ministerie and Magisterie received of God doth cause us to believe yet for all that the very Reason wherefore we believe is not the Church but God speaking in us This is Stapleton in his third book of the Authority of the Scripture cap. 12. And indeed when all is said and done nothing but the Testimony of Gods own Holy Spirit is ever able to minister true consolation in believing The God of peace it is that fils us with all peace and joy in believing if we belive St. Paul ' to the Romans cap. 15. verse 13. But this is not meant of any private whisper or Enthusiasus which is deceitfull but of the spirits Testimony joyned to his Holy Word in the clear evidence thereof assuring our spirit that God is become our
bodies both the Jewel and the Cabinet both which at that revealing of the Son of God when he appears shall also appear with him in glory Col. 3. Nor shall the association then of the body be as it may seem any diminution of glory to the soul For first The School resolves it that though the soul separate may seem more to resemble God and therefore happier yet joined it hath the nearer Resemblance having esse perfectius it being then more perfect As in the heart whose perfection is motion doth therefore more resemble God when moved then when quiescent though God never move as all Secondly Though vertue severed from matter be Potention and so Faelictor in absolute speech yet not so in such vertue as hath a nature and property to be in matter Thirdly Even in the Act of Understanding the glorious body shall be adjuvant to the spirit for as much as the glorified Body will cause the soul more perfectly to produce her operations and so the good redounding to the body in Glory shall instrumentally serve to the souls perfection as Anistotle saith external goods instrumentally contribute to his felicity in the action of vertue Lastly Though the soul have fulness of delight in God and so cannot receive addition by the body joyned which is but finite where God is infinite Goodness yet extensive they say it shall avail ad plus though not ad majus and Intensive too for the reason aforesaid because then the operation of the soul whereby she is born towards her enjoying of God shall be made more perfect being in her own natural state This is meant by that Apoc. 6. Lord how long and so much is arguable from proportion of pain in the damned which shall be then augmented And again Though this corruptible Body weigh down the immortal soul yet the glorious body shall be more compliant when all that shall be removed whereby there is any reluctance made to the souls actions as finally it seems most of all clear by that gracious invitement of Christ Jesus at that day Enter into thy Masters joyce So that in this day these Jewels are wholly refined and purified and beautified with Salvation as it is Psalm 149. For then as if they were made up into one chain with God and so many stones in a Bracelet God shall be all in all above all and through all and in them all When the pure Bride the wife of the Lamb shall have the Glory of God and her Light like unto a stone most precious even like a Jasper clear as Christal O how glorious things are spoken of thee thou City of God! and how great Riches hast thou reserved for them that love thee For of their very bodies the Scripture witnesseth that they shall shine as the Sun and like unto the glorious body of Christ Jesus himself And what do the Fathers and School-men comment upon the Subtilty Impassibility Agility and Clarity and Incorruptibility but for the Soul into what a glorious liberty of the sons of God she enters and exceeding that of Paradise which was posse non peccare But this Novissima this Power shall be Non posse peccare an impossibility of sinning any more for ever When there shall be no further need of working by that blessed Engine the Word of God Verbum Domini but we shall sweetly enjoy Verbum Domini that Lord who is the Eternal Word the Wisdom increated when there shall be no longer sacrifice because no expiation no more Sacraements but Res ipsae Things themselves presented us the substance and thing signified Here the Saints are fed with the leaves but there with the very fruits of that Tree of Life and all these endless in that incomprehensible Vision of the Almighty for there Felicitie begins and ends As in Philosophy they that made it consist and rest in Con templation of Forms separate do add this reason because souls do emanare do flow from thence So is God Alpha and Omega the First and the Last The beginning of our blessedness is to proceed from him to be his Off-spring and Generation and the last Resolution is that Fruition Vision Union with him an Union so high as no tongue of Man or Angel no comparison can reach it no thought of mans heart can ascend unto it For though the ocular Vision of God shall be terminate only in his Saints and in beholding the person of Christ Jesus in whom the fulness of the God-head dwels bodily yet the Intellectual Cognition shall pierce into the Essence of the Almighty For we shall see him face to face see him as he is and know even as we are known To make a delightfull Knowledge there are three things requisite 1. The sensible or understanding Faculty 2. The Object and 3. The Union And by how much apter and abler that apprehending Power is the Object more noble and the manner of uniting more inward still the more delight Now all these are here per and super-transcendent First The Understanding now not alone above sense but beyond it self in Purity and Glory Secondly The Object Goodness it self and in abstract Thirdly The way of Combination an open and clear Vision penetrating the whole mind of the Beholder If sounds and colors strike the senses even to a ravishing O what a heavenly kiss and spiritual Embrace shall that be when after a world of fears and languishings and longings incident even to this caelestial Love we come to interminable Acquiescence Satisfaction and Appetite perpetually interchangable This is to enter into our Masters very joy nay Gaudium Dei above mens or Angels joy No This is not to enter into it but to have the joy enter into Vs as unable to comprehend it to which joy c. S. D. G. GODS VISITATION JOB 31.14 What then shall I do when he riseth up And when God shall visit what shall I answer him THE Text comprehends those two notions which comprehend all God and Man For the whole world was in God before he made it and when he made it he made it all for Man and made it all over again in Man and made Man in his own Image like God And that Image defac'd and Man lost to recover him and make him new he vouchsaf'd to make himself Man God and Man in one person and the consummation of all his works which is also the consummation of all Mans hopes is to bring God and Man into to one place But this must await his time and obey his own Methode which he so frames by his powerfull hands his Understanding and his Will that as in infinite Mercy so with his Honor and his Justice too he may assume them to that place of Glory He will give Grace aad Glory Psal 84. but Grace first therefore enlightning rectifying purifying their Understanding Will Affections hewing and polishing pruning and dressing every stone in the building every branch in the Vine and in that nature we find him
make the Seer overseen to lose the eyes of his mind to drown his holy unction in drink and suffocate the Spirit of Grace he must be apt to teach saith the Apostle and in the same place it follows Not addict to Wine left that disqualifie his Palate and Brain and render him Ineptum unfit to teach or to be taught But I hasten to a fourth and last sort of Visitors that is all Christians in performance of that general Duty which concerns both preacher and People and is indeed a prime part of Christianity and that which St. James calls Pure Religion namely to visit the fatherless and widdows in their adversity and that which will be remembred and enquired after at the great and dreadfull visitation by the Judge of all the world who will demand not what we have preacht or heard or professed bnt what we have done And among those works of mercy that shall follow and felicitate such as die in the Lord and shall then rise in the Power of his Resurrection this is a Chief our visiting the sick and those in prison And the omission of this shall be taken as a neglect and refusing of Christ Jesus in person In as much as you have not done it to them you have not done it to me Consider what I have said and the Lord give you and me and us all Understand in all things Let us pray for a Blessing c. THE FIRST SERMON AT COVRT GEN 3.9 The Lord God called unto the man and said Adam where art thou 1. A Text antient and catholique for all times seasonable fit for all places fit for all places and persons Is it to a King that I preach I may tell him this Sermon whereof my Text is a piece was the first piece of sound Divinity and preacht to the first Monarch-Lord of all the earth yet preacht by a greater King even the King of Kings and Lord of Heaven and Earth If I were preaching to a Parliament I could tell them this was the first that ever was in which the first malignant-Party was justly sentenc'd and the two first Delinquents in mankind put to Fine and Ransom 2. Take us together without respect of persons and the Text will serve to call upon every man here that professes himself a son and a servant and yet is apt to forget the Law of the Lord his God Where art thou first for the place In whose house in whose Courts in whose presence-Chamber and even this Demand considering our usual inconsideration is enough to shiver us as it did lacob with Surely God is in this place and I was not aware And then where art thou In whose Court of Judicature and even now to be called to thy answer for the same business as Adam here The breach and violation of Gods Commandment For thou hast eaten also of the forbidden fruit for so is the committing of any thing against which Gods prohibition lies and are we like then to be found Recti in Curia Can we answer him any one thing of a thonsand so the Call will concern us and the sense of the words will penetrate to our hearts also if we refuse not if we run not away from God and seek to hide our transgressions in summ it is a Text well worthy our serious attention 3. We may call it an Introduction to a judicial proceeding of God against man after his sin For after sin comes Judgement Premit comes So it was ab origine Adams case The first book-case that ever was And Judgement as St. Peter saith begins at the house and more here it begins with the Son of God for as in fulness of time he sent his only begotten Son in the similitude of sinfull flesh and to condemn sin in the flesh and though he knew no sin yet to be punished for sin being made sin for us and bearing all our sins in his body So here he comes in the beginning of time to arraign and condemn sinfull flesh in his own Son Christ is his honourable true and only Son begoten of his Father before all worlds by an everlasting generation and ineffable that none can declare But all the sons of men are his sons too by a generation declared in Ethnique Poety first and then in antient Catholique and Apostolick Divinity made of that Poety Acts 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are his Off-spring and Generation we all are so but our Forefather was so by a kind of Primogeniture as St. Luke expresly Which was the Son of Adam which was the Son of God Whence even thus early may we make application that certainly it will be then a poor and barren a silly and impotent a base and impudent hope for any son of Adam to look for Impunity Rather all must look in severals one day to hear this Call of God Where art thou Wheresoever thou shalt be or howsoever found dead among those that live in pleasures drowned and soakt in fleshly lusts or choacht in wordly cares or quick from the dead from that dispersion and resolution to watery slime and mud to earthly dust or aerie Atoms All the Mass and Collective body of mankind once made and then at once remade by his mighty Word shall hear his almighty Word that Voyce and Trump of God Return you sons of men Arise and come to Judgement Let us in Gods name and fear do so now Arise quicken our thoughts prepare for since prevent we cannot that last by considering of this first Judgement 5. Wherein the parts are four our two first parts are the two Parties appearing in and at this Judgement God the Judge and man the Delinquent Our third particular is the manner of the process Calling The Lord God called unto the man And the last is the matter of the Summons Where art thou which in the literal sense is Whether art thou fled But in the Mystick it bears a kind of secret Increpation and a touch of pitty Where art thou The glory of my Workmanship become the shame of all the Creatures Into what a miserable condition reduced that thou art ashamed of thy self Alas Adam where art thou and before we finish our Observations on the Text we may come to make use of both these Interpretations 6. The first part of this Judgement is the two persons appearing so I said there were two But yet it is not so The first person spoken of is the Judge and he is present The Lord is at hand But the guilty sinner he flies for 't Et non est inventus But it is not possible for him to escape or lie hid the sin will find him out and we must all appear Rejoyce O young man saith Ecclesiastes Eccle. 11. in th◠youth in excess of Riot Pomp Rage thou canst cover all under the fig leaves of youth but know that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgement young and old without difference every soul to answer for every thing
saies he nor so loud but like as the Trumpet of the Law began low at first but now he presses the offenders conscience where first for Gods cause that is for Gods Glory let me crave again this advertency in your discerning what it is that calls us from sin The same Spirit that began in the Creation Revisits his own work and excels himself in thy Recreation It was God which call'd Abraham out of VR which signifies a fire or light and then brought him to a sweeter clearer fire and better and purer Light even that Light which was both revealed to the Gentiles after and remain'd the glory of his people Israel All the Israel of God united both Jews and Grecians bond or free on whom nor circumcision nor uncircumcision was regardable For those are nothing saies the Apostle what then is something Nay what is it then that is all things This only To become a new creature wherewith shall a yong man that is the sot the Prodigal in the Parable that hath wasted all his stock and is mad out of his right mind how shall this man that is troubled with the Scotomy and Vertigo a youthful wildness and unstayedness in his brains how shall he recover come to himself again and from his blinded and distempered flight find the way of Returning to hir heavenly Father This is hard but may be effected by taking heed according to thy Word There is a power in Nature but the wisdom of God shining in his Word by the joynt operation of his Spirit for these two ever work together is a power indeed mighty in operation to cast down the strong holds of Satan Not as it is the Ministry of men though the Dispensation be ours no not all those Clarious of his holy Prophets that spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost to which we do well to attend saies St. Peter as a more safe Word and as to a Light shining in a dark place till the day dawn till God send the marvailous light of his Gospel And then it is not in the Instruments Not in John greater then a Prophet and a stout and plain deliverer of the Truth and not a Reed shaken with the wind and bending his Doctrines to humour his variously inclin'd Audiences Nor in Paul thas was Os orbi sufficiens as that Golden-mouth'd father calls that blessed Apostle And all his Successors in any part of the world must know that their Voyces are but still and soft Musick and a sound qui aures percutit reaching only to the ear But the inward Minister of whom we heard before instructs the heart T is Gods Ephata that can do that That alone can call from the sleep and death of sin and from the grave of corruption Qui dixit sine me non potestis cogitare bene multo magis dixit sine me non potestis credere To believe is a greater work and of greater Grace and Power then to conceive a good thought Yet both those rich streams run from one and the same Fountain 7. But this Impotency will not be believ'd to press and lie on all mankind How gladly would some men find out some way in themselves whereby they might be less beholden to the Grace of God I Ungracious to God for his Grace and would gladly forget or fain to forget that God so incessantly remembers men with his preventing exciting with his inchoative and concomitant and subsequent and persevering Graces Graces of all sorts and all seasons Bold and presumptuous men that purposely neglect to magnifie the operations of Gods Graces on them because they would derive the Magnificat and Benidictus on themselves and so sacrifice to their own nets not looking up to the prime and constant mover of all not regarding the strong God of their Salvation There is indeed a Rate and a Sect of men who will perchance be content that God shall be kind and gracious to some feeble ones that stand in need of his assistance Sick and weak people may need the Physick of that Heavenly Doctor But not such able men such Saints and perfectists as they men that are wholly taken up with the admiration of themselves and their own purity Who yet must know that if they have been kept from falling into gross sins and are therefore apt to deride mine or any other mans weaknesses who have been and do confess as much frequently overtaken and overcome yet it is still the same gracious hand that hath done the several cures on both That God whose Grace was all the while a preservative to them was to me and him that slipt a Restorative Where is boasting then it is or it ought to be excluded and exploded out of all Christian books and out of all sober and religious brains and hearts Be not high-minded but fear is a Canon that uo wise man will cry down lest he fall with it For simply in the state of nature both he and I were even that is even able to do nothing as of our selves So far from being sure of Gods Election that we were not yet under this Grace of Vocation nor Law nor Gospel-calling and so without Christ so without God in the world Therefore here the exhortation is to be renew'd of calling upon God for this call and crying ardently unto the Throne of Grace that so we may obtain Grace to help us in time of need and that is at all times while we bear about flesh and blood wherein dwells corruption 8. Secondly Take notice of the mercy enlarg'd in this double call of God and this extension of the Voyce as in that to his Spouse Return O Shullamire Return Return and that convincing Interrogatory Why will you die As I live saies the Lord I would not the death of him that dies And this course we find God ever took sending his Prophets rising up early with many sweet invitements O come and taste how gracious the Lord is Come and drink of the waters of his Mercy freely And when those Prophets had spent their strength stretched out their hands in vain and had their cries returned in Reproiches and their reward was nothing but stones and persecutions then rose the Baptist with a new crie who was more then a Prophee then any son of man before him respecting the excellency of his Office in the present assignation of the Messiab and exhibiting the long longed for Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world He redoubled his crie in the wilderness of Repent and reason for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand so at hand that he could indigitate him that was and is the King of Heaven with his Ecce Agnus ' Dei Behold him that is come to call sinners to Repentance and Remission that hath brought abundance of Grace and Truth no more in Promise or Prophesie but in Act and personal performance and yet this John the Baptist you know how rewarded they extingnished this burning