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 John 17.3 This is life eternall 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 the world John 17.6 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 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
but took a form a pattern a modell for that work This is the North-winde that is called upon to carrie out the perfumes of the garden Cant. 4.16 to spread the goodnesse of God abroad this is that which is intended in Job Job 37.22 Fair weather cometh out of the 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 Amos 8.9 as the prophet Amos 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 I. Part. Oriens the fountain of light and life There this world began 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 dier 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 Hebr. 11.6 and there is no such exercise of faith in the knowledge of a God but that reason and nature will bring a man to it When we professe God in the Creed by way of 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 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
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 There is nothing hid from the heat thereof Psal 19.6 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 Oportet denuo nasci without a second birth no salvation And 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 II. Part. Occidens here we see God God in all the persons consulting concurring to the 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 the rod of Gods wrath Man Ish is so miserable Lam. 3.1 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 to heaven without discharging his duties to other men then without doing them to God himself Man liveth not by bread onely sayes Christ Luke 4.4 but yet he liveth by bread too every man must do the duties every man must bear the encumbrances of some calling Pulvis es Thou art earth he whom thou treadest upon is no lesse and he that treads upon thee
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 the wayes of God S. Hierom hath it Principium Job 40.19 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 Ecclus 7.36 remember the end and 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 the meer naturall man hath the image of the King of kings and therefore respect that image in thy self and exalt thy naturall faculties emulate those men and be ashamed to be outgone by those men who had no light but nature Make thine understanding and thy will and thy memorie though but naturall faculties serviceable to thy God and auxiliarie subsidiarie for thy salvation for though they be not naturally instruments of grace yet naturally they are susceptible of grace and have so much in their
nature as that by grace they may be made instruments of grace which no facultie in any creature but man can be And do not think that because a naturall man cannot do all he hath nothing to do for himself This then is the image of God in man the first way in Nature and most literally this is the intention of the text Man was this image thus and the room furnished with this image was paradise but there is a better room then that paradise for the second image the image of God in man by Grace that is the Christian Church for though for the most part this text be understood de naturalibus of our naturall faculties yet Origen and not onely such allegoricall expositours but Saint Basil and Nissen and Ambrose and others who are literall enough assigne this image of God to consist in the gifts of Gods grace exhibited to us here in the Church A Christian then in that second capacitie as a Christian and not onely as a Man hath this image of God of God first considered entirely And those expressions of this impression those representations of this image of God in a Christian by grace which the Apostles have exhibited to us that we are the sonnes of God the seed of God the off-spring of God and partakers of the divine nature which are high and glorious exaltations are enlarged and exalted by Damascen to a further height when he sayes Sicut Dens homo ità ego Deus As God is man so I am God sayes Damascen I taking in the whole mankinde for so Damascen takes it out of Nazianzen and he sayes Sicut verbum caro ità caro verbum As God was made man man may become God but especially I I as I am wrought upon by grace in Christ Jesus So a Christian is made the image of God entirely To which expression S. Cyril also comes neare when he calls a Christian Deiformem hominem man in the form of God which is a mysterious and a blessed metamorphosis and transfiguration that whereas it was the greatest trespasse of the greatest trespasser in the world Isa 14.14 the devil to say Similis ero Altissimis I will be like the Highest it would be as great a trespasse in me not to be like the Highest not to conform my self to God by the use of his grace in the Christian Church And whereas the humiliation of my Saviour is in all things to be imitated by me yet herein I am bound to depart from his humiliation Phil. 2.6 7. that whereas he being in the form of God took the form of a servant I being in the form of a servant may nay must take upon me the form of God in being Deiformis homo a man made in Christ the image of God So have I the image of God entirely in his unitie because I professe that faith which is but one faith Ephes 4.5 and under the seal of that Baptisme which is but one Baptisme And then as of this one God so I have also the image of the severall persons of the Trinitie in this capacitie as I am a Christian more then in my naturall faculties The attribute of the first person the Father is Power and none but a Christian hath power over those great tyrants of the world Sinne Satan Death and Hell For thus my power accrues and grows unto me first Possum judicare 1. Cor. 6.5 I have a power to judge a judiciarie a discretive power a power to discern between a naturall accident and a judgement of God and will never call a judgement an accident and between an ordinarie occasion of conversion a temptation of Satan Possum judicare And then Possum resistere Eph. 6.13 which is another act of power when I finde it to be a temptation I am able to resist it And Possum stare which is another I am able not onely to withstand but to stand out this battell of temptations to the end And then Possum capere that which Christ proposes for a triall of his disciples He that is able to receive it Matt. 19.12 let him receive it I shall have power to receive the gift of continencie against all temptations of that kinde Bring it to the highest act of power that with which Christ tried his strongest Apostles Possum bibere calicem Matt. 20.22 I shall be able to drink of Christs cup even to drink his bloud and be the more innocent for that and to poure out my bloud and be the stronger for that Phil. 4.13 In Christo omnia possum there is the fulnesse of power In Christ I can do all things I can want or I can abound I can live or I can die And yet there is an extension of power beyond all this in this Non possum peccare 1 John 3.9 being born of God in Christ I cannot sinne This that seems to have a name of impotence Non possum I cannot is the fullest omnipotence of all I cannot sinne not sinne to death not sinne with a desire to sinne not sinne with a delight in sinne but that temptation that overthrows another I can resist or that sinne which being done casts another into desperation I can repent And so I have the image of the first person the Father in Power The image of the second person whose attribute is Wisdome I have in this that wisdome being the knowledge of this world and the next I embrace nothing in this world but as it leads me to the next for thus my wisdome my knowledge grows first 2. Tim. 1.12 Scio cui credidi I know whom I have beleeved I have not mislayed my foundation my foundation is Christ and then Scio non moriturum my foundation cannot sink Rom. 6.9 I know that Christ being raised from the dead Rom. 8.27 dies no more again Scio quod desideret spiritus I know what my spirit enlightened by the Spirit of God desires I am not transported with illusions and singularities of private spirits And as in the attribute of Power we found an Omnipotence in a Christian so in this there is an Omniscience 1. Cor. 8.1 Scimus quia omnem scientiam habemus there is all together We know that we have all knowledge for all S. Pauls universall knowledge was but this 1. Cor. 2.2 Jesum crucisixum I determined not to know any thing save Jesus Christ and him crucisied And then the way by which he would proceed and take degrees in this wisdome 1. Cor. 1.21 was stultitia praedicandi 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
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 Psal 106.22 would come out white so wonderfull works hath God 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 Joel 1.7 Decorticatio ficûs albi rami that 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 Adimaginem 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 as our King but as our Maker as God himself and God in councel Faciamus And we applied thereunto the difference of our respect to a person of that honourable rank when we came before him at the councel-table and when we came to him at his own table and thereby advanced the seriousnesse of this consideration God in the Trinitie And farther we sailed not with our Eastern winde Our West we considered
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 John 20.17 Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father Fix your meditations upon Christ Jesus so as he is now at the right hand of his Father in heaven and entangle not your selves so with controversies about his 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 noblerform 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 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
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 Gen. 50.20 but God meant it unto good and I shall have the benefit of my sinne according to his transmutation that is though I meant ill in that sinne I shall have the good that God meant in it Amos 3.6 There is no evil in the 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 Michael 2. Sam. 3.14 whom I 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 1 Part. in the first the secular 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 Act. 15.28 We lay nothing upon you but things 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 hereticks that sacrificed to a woman as to God there is a fair distance Between the denying of them souls which S. Ambrose is charged to have done and giving them such souls as that they may be priests as the Peputian hereticks did is a fair way for a moderate man to walk in To make them gods is ungodly and to make them devils is devilish to make them mistresses is unmanly and to make them servants is unnoble to make them as God made them wives is godly and manly too When in the Romane church they dissolve marriages in naturall kindred in degrees