not that the just shall feel no worldly misery but that that misery shall not make them miserable how evill so ever it be in it self it shall not be evill to them but Omnia in bonum All things work together for good to them that love God Who is he that will harme you if you be followers of God says Saint Peter The wicked will not follow you in that strange Country their conversation is not in heaven if yours be they will not follow you thither They will doe as he whose instruments they are do the Devill and Resist the Devill and he will flee from you A religious constancy blunts the edge of any sword dampes the spirits of any counsel benums the strength of any arme opens the corners of any Labyrinth and brings the subtilest plots against God and his servants not onely to an invalidnesse an ineffectualnesse but to a derision not onely to a Dimicatum de coelis that the world shall see that the Lord fights for his servants from heaven but to an Irridebit in coelis that he that sits in heaven shall laugh them to scorn he shall ruine them and ruine them in contempt That prayer that David makes Libera me Domine ab homine malo deliver me O Lord from the evill man is a large an extensive an indefinite prayer for there is an evill man occasion of tentation in every man in every woman in every action there is Coluber in via a snake in every path danger in every calling But Saint Augustine contracts that prayer and fixes it Liberet te Deus à temes noli tibi esse malius God blesse me from my selfe that I be not that evill man to my selfe that I lead not my selfe into tentation and nothing shall scandalize me To which purpose it concerns us to devest that naturall but corrupt easinesse of uncharitable mis-construing that which other men doe especially those whom God hath placed in his own place for government over us that we doe not come to think that there is nothing done if all bee not done that no abuses are corrected if all be not removed that there 's an end of all Protestants if any Papists bee left in the world Upon those words of our Saviour speaking of the last day of Judgement The son of man shall send forth his Angels and they shall gather out of his Kingdome Omnia scandala All things that might offend Calvin says learnedly and wisely Qui ad extirpandum quicquid displicet praepostere festinant They that make too much haste to mend all at once antevertunt Christi judicium ereptum Angelis officium sibi temereusurpant They prevent Christs judgment and rashly and sacrilegiously they usurp the Angels office Christ hath reserved the cleansing and removing of all scandals all offences to the last day the Angels of the Church the Minister the Angels of the State the Magistrate cannot doe it not the Angels of heaven themselves till the day of judgement All scandals cannot be removed in this life but a great many more might be then are if men were not so apt to suspect and mis-constru and imprint the name of scandall upon every action of which they see not the end nor the way for from this jealousie and suspicion and misconstruction of the Angels of Church and State our Superiours in those sphears wee shall become jealous and suspicious of God himselfe that he hath neglected us abandoned us if he do not deliver us and establish us at those times and by those means which we prescribe him we shall come to argue thus against God himselfe Surely if God meant any good to us he would not put us into their hands who doe us no good Reduce all to the precious mediocrity To be unsensible of any declination of any diminution of the glory of God or his true worship and religion is an irreligious stupidity But to bee so ombragious so startling so apprehensive so suspicious as to think every thing that is done is done to that end this is a seditious jealousie a Satyr in the heart and an unwritten Libell and God hath a Star-chamber to punish unwritten Libels before they are published Libels against that Law Curse not or speak not ill of the King no not in thy thought Not to mourn under the sense of evils that may fall upon us is a stony disposition Nay the hardest stone marble will weep towards foul weather But to make all Possible things Necessary this may fall upon us therefore it must fall upon us and to make contingent and accidentall things to be the effects of counsels this is fallen upon us therefore it is fallen by their practise that have the government in their hands this is a vexation of spirit in our selves and a defacing a casting of durt in the face of Gods image of that representation and resemblance of God which he hath imprinted in them of whom hee hath sayd They are Gods In divine matters there is principally exercise of our faith That which we understand not we beleeve In civill affairs that are above us matters of State there is exercise of our Hope Those ways which we see not wee hope are directed to good ends In Civill actions amongst our selves there is exercise of our Charity Those hearts which we see not let us charitably beleeve to bee disposed to Gods service That when as Christ hath shut up his wâ—e onely in those two Va quia fâ—rtes illusiones Wâ—e because scandals and offences are so strong in their nature and Va quia infirmivos wâ—e because you are so weak in yours we doe not create a third Woe Va quia praevaricatores in an uncharitable jealousie and mis-interpretation of him that we are not in his care nor of his Ministers that they doe not execute his purposes nor of one another that when as God hath placed us in a Land where there are no wâ—lfes we doe not think Hominem homini Lupum imagine every man to be a wolf to us or to intend our destruction But as in the Arke there were Lions but the Lion shut his mouth and clincht his paw the Lion hurt nothing in the Arke and in the Arke there were Vipers and Scorpions but the Viper shewed no teeth nor the Scorpion no taile the Viper bit none the Scorpion stung none in the Arke for if they had occasioned any disorder there their escape could have been but into the Sea into irreparable ruine so in every State though that State be an Arke of peace and preservation there will be some kind of oppression in some Lions some that will abuse their power but Vae si scandalizemur woe unto us if we be scandalized with that and seditiously lay aspersions upon the State and Government because there are some such in every Church though that Church bee an Arke for integrity and sincerity there will bee some Vipers Vipers that will gnaw at their Mothers
a fair latitude Between the opinion of the Manichean hereticks that thought women to be made by the Devil and your Colliridian hereticks that sacrificed to a women 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 your Pepution hereticks did is a faire way for a moderate man to walk in To make them Gods is ungodly and to make them Devils is devillish 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 your Roman Church they dissolved mariage in naturall kindred in degrees where God forbids it not when they dissolve mariage upon spitituall kindred because my Grandfather Christned that womans Father when they dissolve mariage upon legall kindred because my Grandfather adopted that womans Father they separate those whom God hath joyned so as to give leave to joyn in lawfull mariage When men have made vows to abstain from mariage I would they would they would be content to try a little longer then they doe whether they could keep that vow or no And when men have consecrated themselves to the service of God in his Church I would they would be content to try a little farther then they doe whether they could abstain or no But to dissolve mariage made after such a Vow or after Orders is still to separate those whom God hath not separated The Persons are he and she man and woman they must be so much he must be a man she must be a woman And they must be no more not a brother and a sister not an unckle and aneece Adduxit od eum was the cause between Adam and Eve God brought them together God will not bring me a precontracted person he will not have me defraud another nor God will not bring me a mis-beleeving a superstitious person he will not have me drawn from himself But let them be persons that God hath made man and woman and persons that God hath brought together that is not put asounder by any Law of his and all such persons are capable of this first this secular mariage In which our second Consideration is the Action Sponsabe where the Active is a kinde of Passive I will mary thee is I will be maried unto thee for we mary not our selves They are somewhat hard driven in the Roman Church when making mariage a Sacrament and being prest by us with this question If it be a Sacrament who administers it who is the Priest They are fain to answer the Bridegroom and the Bride he and she are the Priest in that Sacrament As mariage is a civill Contract it must be done so in publick as that it may have the testimony of men As mariage is a religious Contract it must be so done as that it may have the benediction of the Priest In a mariage without testimony of men they cannot claim any benefit of the Law In a mariage without the benediction of the Priest they cannot claim any benefit of the Church for how Matrimonially foever such persons as have maried themselves may pretend to love and live together yet all that love and all that life is but a regulated Adultery it is not mariage Now this institution of mariage had three objects first In ustionem it was given for a remedy against burning And then In prolem for propagation for children And lastly In adjutorium for mutuall help As we consider it the first way In ustionem every heating is not a burning every naturall concupiscence does not require a mariage may every flaming is not a burning though a man continue under the flame of carnall tentation as long as S. Paul did yet it needs not come presently to a Sponsabo I will mary God gave S. Paul other Physick Gratia mea sufficit grace to stand under that tentation And S. Paul gave himself other Physick Contundo corpus convenient disciplines to tame his body These will keepa man from burning for Vriest desideriis vinci desideria pati illustris est perfecti To be overcome by our concupiscences that is to burn but to quench the fire by religious ways that is a noble that is a perfect work When God at the first institution of mariage had this first use of mariage in his contemplation that it should be a remedy against burning God gave man the remedy before he had the disease for mariage was instituted in the state of innocency when there was no inordinatenesse in the affections of man and so no burning But as God created Reubarb in the world whose quality is to purge choler before there was any choler to purge so God according to his abundant forwardnesse to doe us good created a remedy before the disease which he foresaw comming was come upon us Let him then that takes a wife in this first and lowest sense In medicinam but as his Physick yet make her his cordiall Physick take her to his heart and fill his heart with her let her dwell there and dwell there alone and so they will be mutuall Antidotes and Preservatives one to another against all forein tentations And with this blessing blesse thou ô Lord these whom thou hast brought hither for this blessing make all the days of their life like this day unto them and as thy mercies are new every morning make them so to one another And if they may not die together sustain thou the survivor of them in that sad hour with this comfort That he that died for them both will bring them together again in his everlastingnesse The second use of mariage was In prolificationem for children And therefore as S. August puts the case To contract before that they will have no children makes it no mariage but an adultery To deny themselves to another is as much against mariage as to give themselves to another To hinder it by Physick or any other practise nay to hinder it so far as by a deliberate wish or prayer against children consists not well with this second use of mariage And yet in this second use we dòe not so much consider generation as regeneration not so much procreation as education nor propagation as transportation of children For this world might be filled full enough of children though there were no mariage but heaven could not be filled nor the places of the fallen Angels supplied without that care of childrens religious education which from Parents in lawfull mariage they are likeliest to receive How infinite and how miserable a circle of sin doe we make if as we sinned in our Parents loins before we were born so we sin in our childrens actions when we are dead by having given them either example or liberty of sinning We have a fearfull commination from God upon a good man upon Eli
kingdome here and there is a Communion in Armes as well as a communion in Triumph Leaving then that acceptation of flesh and bloud which many thinke to be intended in this text that is Animalis caro flesh and bloud that must be maintained by eating and drinking and preserved by propagation and generation that flesh and that bloud cannot inherit heaven where there is no marying nor giving in mariage but Erimus sicut Angeli we shall be as the Angels though such a heaven in part Mahomet hath proposed to his followers a heaven that should abound with worldly delights and such a heaven the Disciples of Origen and the Millenarians that look for one thousand years of all temporall felicity proposed to themselves And though amongst our latter men Cajetan doe thinke that the Apostle in this text bent himselfe upon that doctrine non caro non Animalis caro flesh and bloud that is no carnall no worldly delights are to be looked for in heaven leaving that sense as too narrow and too shallow for the holy Ghost in this place in which he hath a higher reach we shall determine our selves at this time in these too acceptations of this phrase of speech first non caro that is non caro corrupta flesh and bloud cannot sinfull flesh corrupt flesh flesh not discharged of sinfull corruption here by repentance and Sanctification and the operation of Gods spirit such flesh cannot inherit the kingdome of God here Secondly noncar◠is non car◠corruptibilis flesh and bloud cannot that is flesh that is yet subject to corruption and dissolution and naturall passions and impressions tending to defectivenesse flesh that is still subject to any punishment that God lays upon flesh for sinne such flesh cannot inherit the kingdome of God hereafter for our present possession of the kingdome of God here our corrupt flesh must be purged by Sanctification here for the future kingdome our naturall Corruptiblenesse must be purged by glorification there We will make the last part first as this flesh and this bloud by devesting the corruptiblenesse it suffers here by that glorification shall inherit that kingdome and not stay long upon it neither For of that we have spoken conveniently before of the resurrection it selfe Now we shall looke a little into the qualities of bodies in the resurrection and that not in the intricacies and subtilties of the Schoole but onely in that one patterne which hath been given us of that glory upon earth which is the Transfiguration of Christ for that Transfiguration of his was a representation of a glorified body in a glorified state And then in the second place we shall come to our first part what that flesh and bloud is that is denied to be capable of the inheritance of that kingdome here that is that earnest of heaven and that inchoation of heaven which may be had in this world and in that part we shall see what this inheritance what this title to heaven here and what this kingdome of God that heaven which is proposed to us here is First then for the first acceptation which is of the later resurrection no man denies that which Melancthon hath collected and established to be the summe of this text Statuit resurrectionem in corpore sed non quale jam corpus est The Apostle establishes a resurrection of the body but yet not such a body as this is It is the same body and yet not such a body which is a mysterious consideration that it is the same body and yet not such as it selfe nor like any other body of the same substance But what kind of body then We content ourselves with that Transfiguratio specimen appositissimum Resurrectionis the Transfiguration of Christ is the best glasse to see this resurrection and state of glory in But how was that transfiguration wrought We content our selves with Saint Hieromes expressing of it non pristinam amisit veritatem vel formam corporis Christ had still the same ture and reall body and he had the same forme and proportion and lineaments and dimensions of his body in it selfe Transfiguratio non faciem subtraxit sed splendorem ad didit sayes he It gave him not another face but it super-immitted such a light such an illustration upon him as by that irradiation that coruscation the beames of their eys were scattered and disgregated dissipated so as that they could not collect them as at other times nor constantly and confidently discerne him Moses had a measure a proportion of this but yet when Moses came down with his shining face though they were not able to looke long upon him they knew him to be Moses When Christ was transfigured in the presence of Peter Iames and Iohn yet they knew him to be Christ. Transfiguration did not so change him nor shall glorification so change us as that we shall not be known There is nothing to convince a man of error nothing in nature nothing in Scriptures if he beleeve that he shall know those persons in heaven whom he knew upon earth and if he conceive soberly that it were a lesse degree of blessednesse not to know them then to know them he is bound to beleeve that he shall know them for he is bound to beleeve that all that conduces to blessednes shall be given him The School resolves that at the Judgement all the sins of all shall be manifested to all even those secret sinfull thoughts that never came out of the heart And when any in the School differs or departs from this cōmon opinion they say onely that those sins which have been in particular repented shall not be manifested all others shall And therefore it is a deep uncharitablenes to reproach any man of sins formerly repented and a deep uncharitablenesse not to beleeve that he whom thou seest at the Communion hath repented his former sins Reproach no man after thou hast seen him receive with last years sins except thou have good evidence of his Hypocrisie then or of his Relapsing after For in those two cases a man remaines or becomes againe guilty of his former sinnes Now if in heaven they shall know the hearts of one another whose faces they never knew before there is lesse difficulty in knowing them whom we did know before From this transfiguration of Christ in which the mortall eye of the Apostles did see that representation of the glory of Christ the Schooles make a good argument that in heaven we shall doe it much more And though in this case of the Transfiguration in which the eyes of mortall men could have no proportion with that glory of heaven this may bee well said to have been done either Moderando lumen that God abated that light of glory or Confortando visum that God exalted their sense of seeing supernaturally no such distinctions or modifications will bee needfull in heaven because how highly soever the body of my
heart Let a man be zealous and fervent in reprehension of sin and there flies out an arrow that gives him the wound of a Puritan Let a man be zealous of the house of God and say any thing by way of moderation for the repairing of the ruines of that house and making up the differences of the Church of God and there flies out an arrow that gives him the wound of a Papist One shoots East and another West but both these arrows meet in him that means well to defame him And this is the first misery in these arrows these tentations Quia alienae they are shot from others they are not in our own quiver not in our own government Another quality that tentations receive from the holy Ghosts Metaphore of arrows is Quia veloces because this captivity to sin comes so swiftly so impetuously upon us Consider it first in our making In the generation of our parents we were conceiv'd in sin that is they sinn'd in that action so we were conceiv'd in sinne in their sin And in our selves we were submitted to sin in that very act of generation because then we became in part the subject of Originall sin Yet there was no arrow shot into us then there was no sinne in that substance of which we were made for if there had been sin in that substance that substance might be damn'd though God should never infuse a soul into it and that cannot be said well then God whose goodnesse and wisdome will have that substance to become a Man he creates a soul for it or creates a soul in it I dispute not that he sends a light or hee kindles a light in that lanthorn and here 's no arrow shot neither here 's no sin in that soul that God creates for there God should create something that were evill and that cannot be said Here 's no arrow shot from the body no sin in the body alone None from the soul no sin in the soul alone And yet the union of this soul and body is so accompanied with Gods malediction for our first transgression that in the instant of that union of life as certainly as that body must die so certainly the whole Man must be guilty of Originall sin No man can tell me out of what Quiver yet here is an arrow comes so swiftly as that in the very first minute of our life in our quickning in our mothers womb wee become guilty of Adams sin done 6000 years before and subject to all those arrows Hunger Labour Grief Sicknesse and Death which have been shot after it This is the fearfull swiftnesse of this arrow that God himself cannot get before it In the first minute that my soul is infus'd the Image of God is imprinted in my soul so forward is God in my behalf and so early does he visit me But yet Originall sin is there as soon as that Image of God is there My soul is capable of God as soon as it is capable of sin and though sin doe not get the start of God God does not get the start of sin neither Powers that dwell so far asunder as Heaven and Hell God and the Devill meet in an instant in my soul in the minute of my quickning and the Image of God and the Image of Adam Originall sin enter into me at once in one and the same act So swift is this arrow Originall sin from which all arrows of subsequent tentations are shot as that God who comes to my first minute of life cannot come before death And then a third and last danger which we noted in our tentations as they are represented by the holy Ghost in this Metaphore of arrows is that they are vix visibiles hardly discernible 'T is true that tentations doe not light upon us as bullets that we cannot see them till we feel them An arrow comes not altogether so but an arrow comes so as that it is not discern'd except we consider which way it comes and watch it all the way An arrow that findes a man asleep does not wake him first and wound him after A tentation that findes a man negligent possesses him before be sees it In gravtssimis criminibus confinia virtutum ladunt This is it that undoes us that vertues and vices are contiguous and borderers upon one another and very often we can hardly tell to which action the name of vice and to which the name of vertue appertains Many times that which comes within an inch of a noble action fals under the infamy of an odious treason At many executions half the company will call a man an Heretique and half a Martyr How often an excesse makes a naturall affection an unnaturall disorder Vtinam aut sororem non amasset Hamon aut non vindicasset Absolon Hamon lov'd his sister Tamar but a little too well Absolon hated his brothers incest but a little too ill Though love be good and hate be good respectively yet says S. Ambrose I would neither that love nor that hate had gone so far The contract between Ionathan and David was If I say The arrow on this side of thee all is wel If I say The arrow is beyond thee thou art in an ill case If the arrow the tentation be yet on this side of thee if it have not lighted upon thee thou art well God hath directed thy face to it and thou may'st if thou wilt continue thy diligence watch it and avoid it But if the arrow be beyond thee and thou have cast it at thy back in a forgetfulnesse in a security of thy sin thy case is dangerous In all these respects are these arrows these infirmities deriv'd from the sin of Adam dangerous as they are alienae in the hand of others as they are veloces swift in seising us and as they are vix visibiles hardly discern'd to be such And these considerations fell within this first branch of this second part Thine arrows tentations as they are arrows stick fast in me These dangers are in them as they are sagittae arrows and would be so if they were but single arrows any one tentation would endanger us any one tribulation would encumber us but they are plurall arrows and many arrows A man is not safe because one arrow hath mist him nor though he be free from one sin In the execution of Achan all Israel threw stones at him and stoned him If Achan had had some brother or cousin amongst them that would have flung over or short or weakly what good had that done him when he must stand the mark for all the rest All Israel must stone him A little disposition towards some one vertue may keep thee from some one tentation Thou mayst think it pity to corrupt a chast soul and forbear soliciting her pity to oppresse a submitting wretch and forbear to vex him and yet practise and that with hunger and thirst other sins or
upon thee and true that God is angry vehemently angry But Expone juststiam irae Dei deal clearly with the world and clear God and confesse it is because of thy sinne When Cain says My sin is greater then can be forgiven that word Gnavon is ambiguous it may bee sinne it may bee punishment and wee know not whether his impatience grew out of the horrour of his sinne or the weight of his punishment But here wee are directed by a word that hath no ambiguity Kata signifies sin and nothing but sinne Here the holy Ghost hath fixed thee upon a word that will not suffer thee to consider the punishment nor the cause of the punishment the anger but the cause of that anger and all the sin Wee see that the bodily sicknesse and the death of many is attributed to one kind of sinne to the negligent receiving of the Sacrament For this cause many are weak and sick amongst you and many sleep Imaginem judicii ostenderat God had given a representation of the day of Judgement in that proceeding of his for then we shall see many men condemned for sinnes for which we never suspected them so wee thinke men dye of Fevers whom we met lately at the Sacrament and God hath cut them off perhaps for that sin of their unworthy receiving the Sacrament My miseries are the fruits of this Tree Gods anger is the arms that spreads it but the root is sin My sin which is another consideration We say of a Possession Transit cum onere It passes to me with the burthen that my Father laid upon it his debt is my debt so does it with the sin too his sin by which he got that possession is my sin if I know it and perchance the punishment mine though I know not the sin Adams sin 6000 years agoe is my sin and their sin that shall sinne by occasion of any wanton writings of mine will be my sin though they come after Wofull riddle sin is but a privation and yet there is not such another positive possession sin is nothing and yet there is nothing else I sinned in the first man that ever was and but for the mercy of God in something that I have said or done might sin that is occasion sin in the last man that ever shall be But that sin that is called my sinne in this text is that that is become mine by an habituall practise or mine by a wilfull relapse into it And so my sin may kindle the anger of God though it bee but a single sinne One sinne as it is delivered here in the singular and no farther Because of my sinne Every man may find in himself Peccatum complicatum sinne wrapped up in sinne a body of sin We bring Elements of our own earth of Covetousnesse water of unsteadfastnesse ayre of putrefaction and fire of licentiousnesse and of these elements we make a body of sinne as the Apostle says of the Naturall body There are many members but one body so we may say of our sin it hath a wanton eye a griping hand an itching ear an insatiable heart and feet swift to shed blood and yet it is but one body of sin It is all â—and yet it is but One But let it be simply and singularly but One which is a miracle in sin truly I think an impossibility in sin to be single to be but One for that unclean Spirit which possessed the man that dwelt amongst the tombs carryed it at first as though he had been a single Devill and he alone in that man I I adjure thee says he to Christ and torment not me not me so far in the singular but when Christ puts him to it he confesses we are many and my name is legion So though thy sinne slightly examined may seem but One yet if thou dare presse it it will confesse a plurality a legion if it be but One yet if that One be made thine by an habituall love to it as the plague needs not the help of a Consumption to kill thee so neither does Adultery need the help of Murder to damn thee For this making of any One sin thine thine by an habituall love thereof will grow up to the last and heaviest waight intimated in that phrase which is also in this clause of the Text In facie paccati that this sin will have a face that is a confidence and a devesting of all 〈◊〉 or disguises There cannot bee a heavier punishment laid upon any sinne then Christ lays upon scandall It were better for him a mil-stone were hanged about his neck and hee drowned in the Sea If something worse then such a death belong to him surely it is eternall Death And this this eternall death is interminated by Christ in cases where there is not always sinne in the action which wee doe but if we doe any action so as that it may scandalize another or occasion sin in him we are bound to study and favour the weaknesse of other men and not to doe such things as they may think sins We must prevent the mis-interpretation yea the malice of other men for though the fire be theirs the fewell or at least the â—ellows is ours The uncharitablenesse the malice is in them but the awaking and the stirring thereof is in our carelesnesse who were not watchfull upon our actions But when an action comes to be sin indeed and not onely occasionally sin because it scandalizes another but really sin in it selfe then even the Poet tels you Maxima debetur pueris reverentia si quid Tâ—rpe paras Take heed of doing any sinne in the sight of thy Child for if we break through that wall we shall come quickly to that faciâ—m Sacerdotis non erubuerunt they will not be afraid nor ashamed in the presence of the Priest they will look him in the face nay receive at his hands and yet sin their sinne that minute in their hearts and to that also faciem seniorum non erubuerunt they will not be afraid nor ashamed of the Office of the Magistrate but sin for nothing or sin at a price bear out or buy out all their sins They sin as Sodom and bide it not is the highest charge that the Holy Ghost could lay upon the sinner When they come to say Our lips are ours who is Lord ever us They will say so of their hands and of all their bodies They are ours who shall forbid us to doe what wee will with them And what lack these open sinners of the last judgement and the condemnation therof That judgement is that men shall stand naked in the sight of one another and all their sinnes shall be made manifest to all and this open sinner does so and chuses to doe so even in this world When David prays so devoutly to be cleansed from his secret sins and Saint Paul glories so devoutly in having renounced the
insupportable so inexpressible so in-imaginable as the curse and malediction of God And therefore let not us by our works provoke nor by our words teach God to curse Lest if with the same tongue that we blesse God we curse Men that is seem to be in Charity in our Prayers here and carry a ranckerous heart and venemous tongue home with us God come to say and Gods saying is doing As he loved cursing so let it come unto him as he clothed himself with cursing as with a garment so let it be as a girdle wherewith he is girded continually When a man curses out of Levity and makes a loose habit of that sinne God shall so gird it to him as he shall never devest it The Devils grammar is Applicare Activa Passivis to apply Actives to Passives where he sees an inclination to subminister a temptation where he seeth a froward choler to blow in a curse And Gods grammar is to change Actives into Passives where a man delights in cursing to make that man accursed And if God do this to them who do but curse men will he do lesse to them who blaspheme himself where man wears out Aeternum suum as Saint Gregory speaketh his own eternity his own hundred yeares that is his whole life in cursing and blaspheming God shall also extend his curse In aeterno suo in his eternity that is for ever Which is that that falls to the bottome as the heaviest of all and is our last consideration that all the rest that there is a curse deposited in the Scriptures denounced by the Church avowed by God reduced to execution and that insupportable in this life is infinitely aggravated by this that he shall be accursed for ever This is the Anathema Maran-atha accursed till the Lord come and when the Lord cometh he cometh not to reverse nor to alleviate but to ratifie and aggravate that curse As soon as Christ curst the fig-tree it withered and it never recovered for saith that Gospell he curst it Inaeternum for ever In the course of our sinne the Holy Ghost hath put here a number of yeares a hundred yeares We sinne long as long as we can but yet sinne hath an end But in this curse of God in the Text there is no number it is an indefinite future He shall be accursed A mile of cyphers or figures added to the former hundred would not make up a minute of this eternity Men have calculated how many particular graines of sand would fill up all the vast space butween the Earth and the Firmament and we find that a few lines of cyphers will designe and expresse that number But if every grain of sand were that number and multiplied again by that number yet all that all that inexpressible inconsiderable number made not up one minute of this eternity neither would this curse be a minute the shorter for having been indured so many Generations as there were grains of sand in that number Our Esse our Being is from Gods saying Dixit facti God spoke and we were made our Bene esse our well-being is from Gods saying too Bene-dicit God blesses us in speaking gratiously to us Even our ill-being our condemnation is from Gods saying also for Malediction is Damnation So far God hath gone with us that way as that our Being our well-being our ill-being is from his saying But God shall never come to a Non esse God shall never say to us Be nothing God shall never succour us with an annihilation nor give us the ease of resolving into nothing for this curse flowes on into an everlasting future He shall be accurst he shall be so for ever In a true sense we may say that Gods fore-knowledge growes lesse and lesse every day for his fore-knowledge is of future things and many things which were future heretofore are past or present now and therefore cannot fall under his fore-knowledge His fore-knowledge in that sense growes lesse and decaieth But his eternity decayeth in no sense and as long as his eternity lasts as long as God is God God shall never see that soul whom he hath accurst delivered from that curse or eased in it But we are now in the work of an houre and no more If there be a minute of sand left There is not If there be a minute of patience left heare me say This minute that is left is that eternitie which we speake of upon this minute dependeth that eternity And this minute God is in this Congregation and puts his eare to every one of your hearts and hearkens what you will bid him say to your selves whether he shall blesse you for your acceptation or curse you for your refusall of him this minute for this minute makes up your Century your hundred yeares your eternity because it may be your last minute We need not call that a Fable but a Parable where we heare That a Mother to still her froward childe told him she would cast him to the Wolf the Wolf should have him and the Wolf which was at the doore and within hearing waited and hoped he should have the childe indeed but the childe being still'd and the Mother pleased then she saith so shall we kill the Wolf the Wolf shall have none of my childe and then the Wolf stole away No metaphor no comparison is too high none too low too triviall to imprint in you a sense of Gods everlasting goodnesse towards you God bids your Mother the Church and us her Servants for your Souls to denounce his judgements upon your sinnes and we do it and the executioner Satan beleeves us before you beleeve us and is ready on his part Be you also ready on your part to lay hold upon those conditions which are annext to all Gods maledictions Repentance of former preclusion against future sinnes and we shall be alwayes ready on our part to assist you with the Power of our Intercession to deliver you with the Keies of our Absolution and to establish you with the seales of Reconciliation and so disappoint that Wolf that roaring Lion that seeks whom he may devour Go in Peace and be this your Peace to know this Maledictus qui pendet in Cruce God hath laid the whole curse belonging to us upon him that hangs upon the Crosse But Benedictus qui pendet in pendentem To all them that hang upon him that hangeth there God offereth now all those blessings which he that hangeth there hath purchased with the inestimable price of his Incorruptible blood And to this glorious Sonne of God who hath suffered all this and to the most Almighty Father who hath done all this and to the blessed Spirit of God who offereth now to apply all this be ascribed by us and by the whole Church All power praise might majesty glory and dominion now and for evermore Amen SERMON XXVII Preached to the King at White-Hall the first of April 1627. MARK 4.
have I heard our Church condemned abroad for opinions which our Church never held And how often have I heard forein Churches exalted and magnified at home for some things in the observation of the Sabbath and in the administration of the Sacrament which indeed those Churches doe not hold nor practise Take heed what you heare And that ill which you heare of your own Church at home by Gods abundant goodnesse to it is not true And I would all that good which you heare of Churches abroad were true but I must but wish that it were so and pray that it may be so and praise God for those good degrees towards it which they have attained But no Church in the world gives us occasion of emulation towards them or of undervaluing Gods blessings upon ours And therefore as to us who pretend an ambassage from him if we make our selves unworthy of that employment God shall say What hast thou to doe to declare my statutes or that thou shouldest take my Covenant into thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee So to them that hearken greedily after defamations of the persons and actions of his Church God shall say Why takest thou mine Ordinance into thy construction or my servants into thy consideration since thou hatest my yoake and proposest to thy selfe no other end in defaming others then a licentious liberty and an uncontrolled impunity in thy selfe As you are Christians God hath given you a Royall Priesthood be so Noble be so Holy as to take heed what you heare of State and Church and of those persons whom God hath called Gods in both those firmaments And for conclusion of all Take heed what you heare of yourselves Men speake to you and God speakes to you and the Devill does speake to you too Take heed what you hear of all three In all three the words look two ways for in them there is both a Videte and a Cavete first see that you doe heare them and then take heed what you heare from them Men will speake and they will speake of you Men will discourse and you must be their subject Men will declame and you must be their Theme And truely you should desire to be so As onely man can speake so onely man can desire to be spoken of If gold could speake if gold could wish gold would not be content to lie in the darke in the mine but would desire to come abroad to entertain Armies or to erect or endow Civill or Ecclesiasticall buildings He that desires to Print a book should much more desire to be a book to do some such exemplar things as men might read and relate and profit by He that hath done nothing worth the speaking of hath not kept the world in reparations for his Tenement and his Terme Videte see that you doe hear That you doe give occasion to be spoken of that you doe deserve the praise the thankes the testimony the approbation of the good men of your own times for that shall deliver you over fairely to posterity But then Cavete Take heed what you hear that you suffer not these approbations to swerve or swell into flattery for it is better to hear the Rebuke of the wise then to heare the songs of fools says the wise King And when the flatterer speaks thee faire says he beleeve him not for there are seven abominations in his heart And by the way the Holy Ghost at any time had as lieve say seventy millions as seven for seven is the holy Ghosts Cyphar of infinite There are infinite abominations in the flatterers heart And of these flatterers these waspes that swarme in all sweet and warme places and have a better outside◠then the Bee the Waspe hath a better shape and a better shape and a better appearance then the Bee but a sharper and a stronger sting and at last no hony of these no authors of any books of the Bible have warned us so much and armed us so well as those two Royall Authors those two great Kings David and Solomon In likelyhood because they as such had been most offered at by them and could best give a true character of them as David does Their words are smoother then butter but warre is in their hearts and softer then oile and yet they are naked swords Videte Cavete see that you do hear that you give good men occasion to speak well of you But take heed what you hear that you encourage not a flatterer by your over easie acceptation of his praises Man speakes and God speakes too and first Videte see that you do heare him for as he that fears God fears nothing else so he that hears God hears nothing else that can terrifie him Ab Auditione mala non timebit says David a good man shall not be afraid of evill tydings for his heart is fixed trusting in the Lord. A rumor shall come one year says Ieremy and next year another rumor new inventions from Satan for new intimidations but still he is at home for he dwells in God Videte see that you heare him But then Cavete take heed what you heare even from God himself that you mistake not what God says for as all Gods pardons have an Ita quòd se bene gerat He whom God pardons for that that is past is bound to the good behaviour for the future so all Gods promises have a Si audiertis si volueritis if I hearken if I obey I shall eat the good things of the land otherwise I shall sterve body and soule There is a Vives proposed to me I may conceive justly an infallibility of eternall life but still it is fac hoc vives this I must doe and then I shall live otherwise moriar and morte moriar I shall dy both ways body and soule There is not much asked of Ioshua but something there is It is but a Tantummodo hoc onely this but a Tantummodo hoc an onely this there is Onely be thou valiant and of a good courage forsake not the cause of God and God will never forsake thee There is not much asked of Iairus for the resuscitation of his dead daughter but something there is it is Tantummodo hoc but onely this but an onely this there is Tantummodo crede non metuas doe not mistrust Christ doe not disable Christ from doing a miracle in thy behalfe by not beleeving as in one place where he came it is said that Christ could not doe much by reason of their unbeleefe Heare God there where God speaks to thee and then thou shalt heare that that he speakes to thee Above in heaven in his decrees he speakes to himselfe to the Trinity In the Church and in the execution of those decrees he speakes to thee Climbe not up to the search of unsearchable things to the finding out of investigable things as Tertullian speakes
And at the judgement you shall stand but stand at the barre But when you stand before the Throne you stand as it is also added in this place before the Lamb who having not opened his mouth to save his owne fleece when he was in the shearers hand nor to save his own life when he was in the slaughterers hand will much lesse open his mouth to any repentant sinners condemnation or upbrayd you with your former crucifyings of him in this world after he hath nailed those sinnes to that crosse to which those sinnes nayled him You shall stand amicti stolis for so it follows covered with Robes that is covered all over not with Adams fragmentary raggs of fig-leafes nor with the halfe-garments of Davids servants Though you have often offered God halfe-confessions and halfe-repentances yet if you come at last to stand before the Lambe his fleece covers all hee shall not cover the sinnes of your youth and leave the sinnes of your age open to his justice nor cover your sinfull actions and leave your sinfull words and thoughts open to justice nor cover your own personall sinnes and leave the sinnes of your Fathers before you or the sinnes of others whose sins your tentations produced and begot open to justice but as he hath enwrapped the whole world in one garment the firmament so cloathed that part of the earth which is under our feet as gloriously as this which we live and build upon so those sinnes which we have hidden from the world and from our own consciences and utterly forgotten either his grace shall enable us to recollect and to repent in particular or we having used that holy diligence to examine our consciences so he shall wrap up even those sinnes which we have forgot and cover all with that garment of his own righteousnesse which leaves no foulnesse no nakednesse open You shall be covered with Robes All over and with white Robes That as the Angels wondred at Christ coming into heaven in his Ascension Wherefore art thou red in thine Apparell and thy garments like him that treadeth the wine fat They wondred how innocence it selfe should become red so shall those Angels wonder at thy coming thither and say Wherefore art thou white in thine apparell they shall wonder how sinne it selfe shall be clothed in innocence And in thy hand shall be a palm which is the last of the endowments specifyed here After the waters of bitternesse they came to seventy to innumerable palmes even the bitter waters were sweetned with another wood cast in The wood of the Crosse of Christ Jesus refreshes all teares and sweetnes all bitternesse even in this life but after these bitter waters which God shall wipe from all our eies we come to the seventy to the seventy thousand palms infinite seales infinite testimonies infinite extensions infinite durations of infinite glory Go in beloved and raise your own contemplations to a height worthy of this glory and chide me for so lame an expressing of so perfect a state and when the abundant spirit of God hath given you some measure of conceiving that glory here Almighty God give you and me and all a reall expressing of it by making us actuall possessors of that Kingdome which his Sonne our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen SERMON XXXIII Preached at Denmark house some few days before the body of King Iames was removed from thence to his buriall Apr. 26. 1625. CANT 3. 11. Goe forth ye Daughters of Sion and behold King Solomon with the Crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladnesse of his heart IN the Creation of man in that one word Faciamus let Vs make man God gave such an intimation of the Trinity as that we may well enlarge and spread and paraphrase that one word so farre as to heare therein a councell of all the three Persons agreeing in this gracious designe upon Man faciamus let us make him make and him mend him and make him sure I the Father will make him by my power if he should fall Thou the Sonne shalt repayr him re-edify him redeem him if he should distrust that this Redemption belonged not to him Thou the Holy Ghost shalt apply to his particular soule and conscience this mercy of mine and this merit of the Sonnes and so let us make him In our Text there is an intimation of another Trinity The words are spoken but by one but the persons in the text are Three For first The speaker the Director of all is the Church the spouse of Christ she says Goe forth ye daughters of Sion And then the persons that are called up are as you see The Daughters of Sion the obedient children of the Church that hearken to her voice And then lastly the persons upon whom they are directed is Solomon crowned That is Christ invested with the royall dignity of being Head of the Church And in this especially is this applyable to the occasion of our present meeting All our meetings now are to confesse to the glory of God and the rectifying of our own consciences and manners the uncertainty of the prosperity and the assurednesse of the adversity of this world That this Crown of Solomons in the text will appear to be Christs crown of Thornes his Humiliation his Passion and so these words will dismisse us in this blessed consolation That then we are nearest to our crown of Glory when we are in tribulation in this world and then enter into full possession of it when we come to our dissolution and transmigration out of this world And these three persons The Church that calls The children that hearken and Christ in his Humiliation to whom they are sent will be the three parts in which we shall determine this Exercise First then the person that directs us is The Church no man hath seen God and lives but no man lives till he have heard God for God spake to him in his Baptisme and called him by his name then Now as it were a contempt in the Kings house for any servant to refuse any thing except he might heare the King in person command it when the King hath already so established the government of his house as that his commandements are to be signifyed by his great Officers so neither are we to look that God should speak to us mouth to mouth spirit to spirit by Inspiration by Revelation for it is a large mercy that he hath constituted an Office and established a Church in which we should heare him When Christ was baptized by Iohn it is sayd by all those three Evangelists that report that story in particular circumstances that there was a voice heard from heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased and it is not added in any of those three
wardrobe not to make an Inventory of it but to finde in it something fit for thy wearing Iohn Baptist was not the light he was not Christ but he bore witnesse of him The light of faith in the highest exaltation that can be had in the Elect here is not that very beatificall vision which we shall have in heaven but it beares witnesse of that light The light of nature in the highest exaltation is not faith but it beares witnesse of it The lights of faith and of nature are subordinate Iohn Baptists faith beares me witnesse that I have Christ and the light of nature that is the exalting of my naturall faculties towards religious uses beares me witnesse that I have faith Onely that man whose conscience testifies to himself and whose actions testifie to the world that he does what he can can beleeve himself or be beleeved by others that he hath the true light of faith And therefore as the Apostle saith Quench not the Spirit I say too Quench not the light of Nature suffer not that light to goe out study your naturall faculties husband and improve them and love the outward acts of Religion though an Hypocrite and though a naturall man may doe them Certainly he that loves not the Militant Church hath but a faint faith in his interest in the Triumphant He that cares not though the materiall Church fall I am afraid is falling from the spirituall For can a man be sure to have his money or his plate if his house be burnt or to preserve his faith if the outward exercises of Religion faile He that undervalues outward things in the religious service of God though he begin at ceremoniall and rituall things will come quickly to call Sacraments but outward things and Sermons and publique prayers but outward things in contempt As some Platonique Philosophers did so over-refine Religion and devotion as to say that nothing but the first thoughts and ebullitions of a devout heart were fit to serve God in If it came to any outward action of the body kneeling or lifting up of hands if it came to be but invested in our words and so made a Prayer nay if it passed but a revolving a turning in our inward thoughts and thereby were mingled with our affections though pious affections yet say they it is not pure enough for a service to God nothing but the first motions of the heart is for him Beloved outward things apparell God and since God was content to take a body let not us leave him naked nor ragged but as you will bestow not onely some cost but some thoughts some study how you will clothe your children and how you will clothe your servants so bestow both cost and thoughts thinke seriously execute cheerfully in outward declarations that which becomes the dignity of him who evacuated himselfe for you The zeale of his house needs not eat you up no nor eat you out of house and home God asks not that at your hands But if you eat one dish the lesse at your feasts for his house sake if you spare somewhat for his reliefe and his glory you will not be the leaner nor the weaker for that abstinence Iohn Baptist bore witnesse of the light outward things beare witnesse of your faith the exalting of our naturall faculties beare witnesse of the supernaturall We do not compare the master and the servant and yet we thank that servant that brings us to his master We make a great difference between the treasure in the chest and the key that opens it yet we are glad to have that key in our hands The bell that cals me to Church does not catechise me nor preach to me yet I observe the sound of that bell because it brings me to him that does those offices to me The light of nature is far from being enough but as a candle may kindle a torch so into the faculties of nature well imployed God infuses faith And this is our second couple of lights the subordination of the light of nature and the light of faith And a third payre of lights of attestation that beare witnesse to the light of our Text is Lux aeternorum Corporum that light which the Sunne and Moone and those glorious bodies give from heaven and lux incensionum that light which those things that are naturally combustible and apt to take fire doe give upon earth both these beare witnesse of this light that is admit an application to it For in the first of these the glorious lights of heaven we must take nothing for stars that are not stars nor make Astrological and fixed conclusions out of meteors that are but transitory they may be Comets and blazing starres and so portend much mischiefe but they are none of those aeterna corpora they are not fixed stars not stars of heaven So is it also in the Christian Church which is the proper spheare in which the light of our text That light the essentiall light Christ Jesus moves by that supernaturall light of faith and grace which is truly the Intelligence of that spheare the Christian Chruch As in the heavens the stars were created at once with one Fiat and then being so made stars doe not beget new stars so the Christian doctrine necessary to salvation was delivered at once that is intirely in one spheare in the body of the Scriptures And then as stars doe not beget stars Articles of faith doe not beget Articles of faith so as that the Councell of Trent should be brought to bed of a new Creed not conceived before by the holy Ghost in the Scriptures and which is a monstrous birth the child greater then the Father as soon as it is borne the new Creed of the Councell of Trent to containe more Articles then the old Creed of the Apostles did Saint Iude writing of the common salvation as he calls it for Saint Iude it seems knew no such particular salvation as that it was impossible for any man to have salvation is common salvation exhorts them to contend earnestly for that faith which was once delivered unto the Saints Semel once that is at once semel simul once altogether For this is also Tertullians note that the rule of faith is that it be una immobilis irreformabilis it must not be deformed it cannot be Reformed it must not be mard it cannot be mended whatsoever needs mending and reformation cannot be the rule of faith says Tertullian Other foundation can no man lay then Christ not onely no better but no other what other things soever are added by men enter not into the nature and condition of a foundation The additions and traditions and superedifications of the Roman Church they are not lux aeternorum corporum they are not fixed bodies they are not stars to direct us they may be meteors and so exercise our discourse and Argumentation they may raise controversies And they may be Comets and so
then other men The souldiers likewise came to him and said What shall we doe This his working upon all sorts of men the blessing that accompanied his labours was a subsequent argument of his Mission that he was sent by God God himself argues against them that were not sent so They were not sent for they have done no good I have not sent those Prophets saith the Lord yet they ran I have not spoken to them and yet they prophecied but if they had stood in my counsell then they should have turned the people from their evill wayes and from the wickednesse of their inventions This note God layes upon them to whom he affords this vocation of his internall Spirit that though others which come without any calling may gather men in corners and in Conventicles and work upon their affections and passions to singularity to schisme to sedition and though others which come with an outward and ordinary calling onely may advance their own Fortunes and increate their estimation and draw their Auditory to an outward reverence of their Persons and to a delight in hearing them rather then other men yet those onely who have a true inward Calling from the Spirit shall turn the people from their evill wayes and from the wickednesse of their inventions To such mens planting and watering God gives an increase when as others which come to declame and not to preach and to vent their own gifts or the purposes of great men for their gifts have onely a proportionable reward winde for winde Acclamation for Declamation popular praise for popular eloquence for if they doe not truly beleeve themselves why should they looke that others should believe them Qui loquitur ad cor loquatur ex corde he that will speake to the heart of another must finde that that he saith in his own heart first Whether the Mission of the Church of Rome of Priests and Jesuites hither be sufficient to satisfie their consciences who are so sent and sent in intendment of the Law to inevitable losse of life here hath been laboriously enough debated and safely enough concluded that such a Mission cannot satisfie a rectified conscience What are they sent for To defend the Immunities of the Church that is to take away the inherent right of the Crown the supremacy of the King What seconds them what assures them That which is their generall Tenent that into what place so ever the Pope may send Priests he may send Armies for the security of those Priests and as another expresses it in all Cases where the Pope may injoyne any thing he may lawfully proceed by way of Warre against any that hinder the execution thereof That these Missions from the Bishop of Rome are unlawfull is safely enough concluded A priori in the very nature of the commandement and Mission For it is to a place in which he that sends hath no power for it is into the Dominions of another absolute King and it is of Persons in whom he hath no interest for they are the subjects of another Prince and my neighbours setting his mark upon my sheep doth not make my sheep his Now beloved if that which they cannot make lawfull A priori in the Nature of the thing you will make lawfull in their behalf A posteriori in the effect and working thereof that is if when these men are thus sent hither you will run after them to their Masses though you pretend it be but to meet company and to see who comes and to hear a Church-Comedy if though you abstain your self you will lend them a wife or a childe or a servant to be present there A posteriori by this effect by this their working upon you you justifie their unjust Mission and make them thinke their sending and coming lawfull So also to return to our former consideration If you depart not from your evill wayes and from the wickednesse of your own inventions If for all our preaching you proceed in your sinnes you will make us afraid that our Mission our Calling is not warrantable for thereby you take away that consolation which is one seale of our Mission when we see a good effect of our preaching in your lives It lyes much in you to convince them and to establish us by that way which is Gods own way of arguing à posteriori by the effect by our working upon you If you say God is God we are sent if you say Baal is God you justifie their sending Missus est Iohn Baptist was sent it appeared by the effect of his preaching but it appeares too by a divers and manifold citation which he had received upon some of which there may be good use to insist a little First he was cited called before he was at all and called againe before he was borne called a third time out of the desert into the world and called lastly out of this world into the next and by all these callings these citations these missions he was a competent witnesse His first citation was before he was any thing before his conception Out of the dead embers of Zacharies aged loins and Elizabeths double obstacle age and barrennesse when it was almost as great a worke as a creation to produce a childe out of the corners and inwardest bowels of all possibility and with so many degrees of improbability as that Zachary who is said to have been just before God and to have walked in all his commandments without reproofe and had without doubt often considered the like promise of such a childe made and performed to Abraham was yet incredulous of it and asked how he should know it Out of this nothing or nothing naturally disposed to be such a thing a childe did God excite and cite this Io. Baptist to beare witnesse of this light and so made the sonne of him who for his incredulity was strooke with dumbnesse all voyce And beloved such a citation as this when thou wast meerly nothing hast thou had too to beare witnesse of this light that is to do something for the glory of God When thy free will is as impotent and as dead as Zacharies loins when thou art under Elizabeths double obstacle of age and barrennesse barrennesse in good works age in ill then when thou thinkest not of God then when thou art walking for ayre or sitting at a feast or slumbring in a bed God opens these doors he rings a bell he showes thee an example in the concourse of people hither and here he sets up a man to present the prayer of the Congregation to him and to deliver his messages to them and whether curiosity or custome or company or a loathnesse to incurre the penalties of Lawes or the censures and observations of neighbours bring thee hither though thou hadst nothing to do with God in comming hither God hath something to do with thee now thou art here even this is a citation a
conscience and pinching the bowells by denouncing of Gods Judgements these beare witnesse of the light when otherwise men would sleep it out and so propter non intelligentes for those that lye in the suddes of nature and cannot or of negligence and will not come to heare sol lucernas this light requires testimony These testimonies Gods ordinances may have wakened a man yet he may winke and covet darknesse and grow weary of instruction and angry at increpation And as the eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight so the eare of this fastidious and impatient man longeth for the end of the Sermon or the end of that point in the Sermon which is a thorne to his conscience But as if a man wink in a cleare day he shall for all that discerne light thorough his eylids but not light enough to keep him from stumbling so the most perverse man that is either in faith or manners that winkes against the light of nature or light of the law or light of grace exhibited in the Christian Church the most determined Atheist that is discernes through all his stubbornnesse though not light enough to rectifie him to save him yet enough to condemne him though not enough to enable him to reade his owne name in the book of life yet so much as makes him afraid to read his own story by and to make up his owne Audit and account with God And doth not this light to this man need testimony That as he does see it is a light so he might see that there is warmth and nourishment in this light and so as well see the way to God by that light as to see by it that there is a God and this he may if he doe not sleep nor winke that is not forbeare comming hither nor resist the grace of God always offred here when he is here Propter incredulos for their sakes who though they doe heare heare not to beleeve sol lucernas this light requires testimony and it does so too propter infirmos for their sakes who though they doe heare and beleeue yet doe not Practise If he neither sleep nor wink neither forbeare nor resist yet how often may you surprise and deprehend a man whom you thinke directly to look upon such an object yet if you aske him the quality or colour of it he will tell you he saw it not That man sees as little with staring as the other with winking His eye hath seen but it hath returned nothing to the common sense We may pore upon books stare upon preachers yet if we reflect nothing nothing upon our conversation we shall still remaine under the increpation and malediction of Saint Paul out of Esay Seeing yee shall see and shall not perceive seeing and hearing shall but aggravate our condemnation and it shall be easier at the day of Judgement for the deaf and the blinde that never saw Sacrament never heard Sermon then for us who have frequented both propter infirmos for their sakes whose strength though it serve to bring them hither and to beleeve here doth not serve them to proceed to practise sol lucernas this light requires testimony Yet if we be neither dead nor asleep nor winke nor looke negligently but doe come to some degrees of holinesse in practise for a time yet if at any time we put our selves in such a position and distance from this light as that we suffer dark thick bodies to interpose and eclipse it that is sadnesse and dejection of spirit for worldly losses nay if we admit inordinate sadnesse for sinne it selfe to eclipse this light of comfort from us or if we suffer such other lights as by the corrupt estimation of the world have a greater splendour to come in As the light of Knowledge and Learning the light of Honour and Glory of popular Applause and Acclamation so that this light which we speake of the light of former Grace be darkned by the accesse of other lights worldly lights then also you shall finde that you need more and more Testimony of this light God is light in the Creature in nature yet the naturall Man stumbles and falls and lies in that ignorance Christ bears witnesse of this light in establishing a Chrishian Church yet many Christians fall into Idolatry and Superstition and lie and die in it The Holy Ghost hath born further witnesse of this light and if we may take so low a Metaphore in so high a Mystery hath snuffed this candle mended this light in the Reformation of Religion and yet there is a damp or a cloud of uncharitablenesse of neglecting of defaming one another we deprave even the fiery the claven tongues of the Holy Ghost Our tongues are fiery onely to the consuming of another and they are cloven onely in speaking things contrary to one another So that still there need more witnesses more testimonies of this light God the Father is Pater Luminum the Father of all Lights God the Sonne is Lumen de lumine Light of light of the Father God the Holy Ghost is Lumen de luminibus Light of lights proceeding both from the Father and the Sonne and this light the Holy Ghost kindles more lights in the Church and drops a coale from the Altar upon every lamp he lets fall beams of his Spirit upon every man that comes in the name of God into this place and he sends you one man to day which beareth witnesse of this light ad ignaros that bends his preaching to the convincing of the naturall man the ignorant soul and works upon him And another another day that bears witnesse ad incredulos that fixeth the promises of the Gospell and the merits of Christ Jesus upon that startling and timorous soul upon that jealous and suspicious soul that cannot beleeve that those promises or those merits appertain to him and so bends all the power of his Sermon to the binding up of such broken hearts and faint beleevers He sendeth another to bear witnesse ad infirmos to them who though they have shaked off their sicknesse yet are too weake to walke to them who though they doe beleeve are intercepted by tentations from preaching and his Sermon reduces them from their ill manners who thinke it enough to come to hear to beleeve And then he sendeth another ad Relapsos to bear witnesse of this light to them who have relapsed into former sinnes that the merits of Christ are inexhaustible and the mercies of God in him indefatigable As God cannot be deceived with a false repentance so he cannot resist a true nor be weary of multiplying his mercies in that case And therefore thinke not that thou hast heard witnesses enow of this light Sermons enow if thou have heard all the points preached upon which concerne thy salvation But because new Clouds of Ignorance of Incredulitie of Infirmitie of Relapsing rise every day and call this light in question
Jesus before whose face I stand now and before whose face I shall not be able to stand amongst the righteous at the last day if I lie now and make this Pulpit my Shop to vent sophisticate Wares In the presence of you a holy part I hope of the Militant Church of which I am In the presence of the whole Triumphant Church of which by him by whom I am that I am I hope to bee In the presence of the Head of the whole Church who is All in all I and I thinke I have the Spirit of God I am sure I have not resisted it in this point I and I may bee allowed to know something in Civill affaires I am sure I have not been stupefied in this point doe deliver that which upon the truth of a Morall man and a Christian man and a Church man beleeve to be true That hee who is the Breath of our nostrils is in his heart as farre from submitting us to that Idolatry and superstition which did heretofore oppresse us as his immediate Predecessor whose memory is justly precious to you was Their wayes may bee divers and yet their end the same that is The glory of God And to a higher Comparison then to her I know not how to carry it As then the Breath of our nostrils our breath is his that is our speech first in containing it not to speak in his diminution then in uttering it amongst men to interpret fairly and loially his proceedings and then in uttering it to God in such prayers for the continuing thereof as imply a thankfull acknowledgement of the present blessings spirituall and temporall which we enjoy now by him So farre Breath is speech but Breath is life too and so our life is his How willingly his Subjects would give their lives for him I make no doubt but hee doubts not This is argument enough for their propensenesse and readinesse to give their lives for his honour or for the possessions of his children That though not contra voluntatem not against his will yet Praeter voluntatem without any Declaration of his will or pleasure by any Command they have been as ready voluntarily as if a Presse had commanded them But these ways which his wisdome hath chosen for the procuring of peace have kept off much occasion of triall of that how willingly his Subjects would have given their lives for him Yet their lives are his who is the breath of their nostrils And therefore though they doe not leave them for him let them lead them for him though they bee not called to die for him let them live so as that may bee for him to live peaceably to live honestly to live industriously is to live for him for the sinnes of the people endanger the Prince as much as his owne When that shall bee required at your hand then die for him In the meane time live for him live so as your living doe not kindle Gods anger against him and that is a good Confession and acknowledgement That hee is the breath of your nostrils That your life is his As then the breath of our nostrils is expressed by this word in this Text Ruach spiritus speech and life so it is his When the breath of life was first breathed into man there is called by another word Neshamah and that is the soule the immortall soule And is the King the breath of that life Is hee the soule of his Subjects so as that their soules are his so as that they must sinne towards men in doing unjust actions or sinne towards God in forsaking and dishonouring him if the King will have them If I had the honour to aske this question in his royall presence I know he would bee the first man that would say No No your souls are not mine so And as hee is a most perfect Text-man in the Booke of God and by the way I should not easily feare his being a Papist that is a good Text-man I know hee would cite Daniel saying Though our God doe not deliver us yet know O King that we will not worship thy Gods And I know hee would cite S. Peter We ought to obey God rather then men And he would cite Christ himself Feare not them for the soule that cannot hurt the soule He claimes not your souls so It is Ruach here it is not Neshamah your life is his your soule is not his in that sense But yet beloved these two words are promiscuously used in the Scriptures Ruach is often the soule Neshamah is often the temporall life And thus farre the one as well as the other is the Kings That hee must answer for your soules so they are his for hee is not a King of bodies but a King of men bodies and soules nor a King of men onely but of Christian men so your Religion so your soules are his his that is appertaining to his care and his account And therefore though you owe no obedience to any power under heaven so as to decline you from the true God or the true worship of that God and the fundamentall things thereof yet in those things which are in their nature but circumstantiall and may therefore according to times and places and persons admit alterations in those things though they bee things appertaining to Religion submit your selves to his directions for here the two words meet Ruach and Neshamah your lives are his and your souls are his too His end being to advance Gods truth he is to be trusted much in matters of indifferent nature by the way He is the word of our Text Spiritus as Spiritus is the Holy Ghost so farre by accommodation as that he is Gods instrument to convey blessings upon us and as spiritus is our breath of speech and as it is our life and as it is our soule too so farre as that in those temporall things which concern spirituall as Times of meeting and much of the manner of proceeding when we are met we are to receive directions from him So he is the breath of our nostrils our speech our lives our soules in that limited sense are his But then did those subjects of his And I charge none but his subjects with this plot for I judge not them who are without from whom God deliverd us this day did they think so of him That he was the breath of our nostrils If the breath be soure if it bee tainted and corrupt as they would needs thinke in this case is it good Physick for an ill breath to cut off the head or to suffocate it to smother to strangle to murder that man Hee is the breath of their nostrils They owe him their speech their thanks their prayers and how have these children of fooles made him their song and their by-word How have these Drunkards men drunke with the Babylonian Cup made Libels against him How have those Seminatores verborum word-scatterers defamed him even with
body of story But these Psalmes were made not onely to vent Davids present holy passion but to serve the Church of God to the worlds end And therefore change the person and wee shall finde a whole quiver of arrows Extend this Man to all Mankind carry Davids History up to Adams History and consider us in that state which wee inherit from him and we shall see arrows fly about our ears A Deo prosequente the anger of God hanging over our heads in a cloud of arrows and à conscientia remordente our own consciences shooting poisoned arrows of desperation into our souls and ab Homine Contemnente Men multiplying arrows of Detraction and Calumny and Contumely upon our good name and estimation Briefly in that wound as wee were all shot in Adam we bled out Impassibilitatem and we sucked in Impossibilitatem There we lost our Immortality our Impassibility our assurance of Paradise and then we lost Possibilitatem boni says S. August all possibility of recovering any of this by our selves So that these arrows which are lamented here are all those miseries which sinne hath cast upon us Labor and the childe of that Sicknesse and the off-spring of that Death And the security of conscience and the terrour of conscience the searing of the conscience and the over-tendernesse of the conscience Gods quiver and the Devils quiver and our own quiver and our neighbours quiver afford and furnish arrows to gall and wound us These arrows then in our Text proceeding from sin and sin proceeding from tentations and inducing tribulations it shall advance your spirituall edification most to fixe your consideration upon those fiery darts as they are tentations and as they are tribulations Origen says he would wish no more for the recovery of any soul but that she were able to see Cicatrices suas those scars which these fiery darts have left in her the deformity which every sinne imprints upon the soul and Contritiones suas the attenuating and wearing out and consumption of the soul by a continuall succession of more and men wound â— upon the same place An ugly thing in a Consumption were a fearfull spectacle And such Origen imagins a soul to be if she could see Cicatrices and Contritiones her ill-favourednesse and her leannesse in the deformity and consumption of sin How provident how diligent a patience did our blessed Saviour bring to his Passion who foreseeing that that would be our case our sicknesse to be first wounded with single tentations and then to have even the wounds of our soul wounded again by a daily reiterating of tentations in the same kinde would provide us physick agreeable to our Disease Chyrurgery conformable to our wound first to be scourged so as that his holy body was torn with wounds and then to have those wounded again and often with more violatings So then these arrows are those tentations and those tribulations which are accompanied with these qualities of arrows shot at us that they are alienae shot from others not in our power And veloces swift and sudden soon upon us And vix visibiles not discernible in their coming but by an exact diligence First then these tentations are dangerous arrows as they are alienae shot from others and not in our own power It was the Embleme and Inscription which Darius took for his coin Insculpere sagittarium to shew his greatnesse that he could wound afar off as an Archer does And it was the way by which God declared the deliverance of Israel from Syria Elisha bids the King open the window East-ward and shoot an arrow out The King does shoot And the Prophet says Sagitta salutis Domini The arrow of the Lords deliverance He would deliver Israel by shooting vengeance into Syria One danger in our arrows as they are tentations is that they come unsuspectedly they come we know not from whence from others that 's a danger But in our tentations there is a greater danger then that for a man cannot shoot an arrow at himself but we can direct tentations upon our selves If we were in a wildernesse we could sin and where we are we tempt temptations and wake the Devil when for any thing that appears he would sleep A certain man drew a bow at a venture says that story He had no determinate mark no expresse aime upon any one man He drew his bow at a venture and he hit and he flew the King Ahab A woman of tentation Tendit areum in incertum as that story speaks shee paints she curls she sings she gazes and is gazed upon There 's an arrow shot at randon shee aim'd at no particular mark And thou puttest thy self within shot and meetest the arrow Thou soughtest the tentation the tentation sought not thee A man is able to oppresse others Et glâ—riatur in malâ— quia potens He boasts himselfe because he is able to doe mischief and tendit arcum in incertum he shoots his arrow at randon he lets it be known that he can prefer them that second his purposes and thou putt'st thy self within shot and meet'st the arrow and mak'st thy self his instrument Thou sought'st the tentation the tentation sought not thee when we expose our selves to tentations tentations hit us that were not expresly directed nor meant to us And even then when we begin to flie from tentations the arrow overtakes us Iehoram fled from Iehu and Iehu shot after him and shot him through the heart But this was after Iehoram had talk'd with him After wee have parâ—ed with a tentation debated whether we should embrace it or no and entertain'd some discourse with it though some tendernesse some remorse make us turn our back upon it and depart a little from it yet the arrow overtakes us some reclinations some retrospects we have a little of Lots wife is in us a little sociablenesse and conversation a little point of honour not to be false to former promises a little false gratitude and thankfulnesse in respect of former obligations a little of the compassion and charity of Hell that another should not be miserable for want of us a little of this which is but the good nature of the Devill arrests us stops us fixes us till the arrow the tentation shoot us in the back even when wee had a purpose of departing from that sin and kils us over again Thus it is when we meet a tentation and put our selves in the arrows way And thus it is when we fly not fast enough nor farre enough from a tentation But when we doe all that and provide as safely as we can to get and doe get quickly out of distance yet The wicked bend their bowes that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart In occulto It is a work of Darknesse Detraction and they can shoot in the dark they can wound and not be known They can whisper Thunder and passe an arrow through another mans eare into mine
not thus angry for one sin And again they are such sins as have been long in going and are now got over supergressae sunt they are gone gone over And then lastly for that first part supergressae Caput they are gone my head In which exaltation is intimated all this first sicut tectum sicut fornix they are over his head as a roofe as a cieling as an Arch they have made a wall of separation betwixt God and us so they are above our head And then sicut clamor they are ascended as a noise they are got up to heaven and cry to God for vengeance so they are above our head And again sicut aquae they are risen and swollen as waters they compass us they smother us they blinde us they stupefie us so they are above our head But lastly and principally sicut Dominus they are got above us as a Tyran and an usurper for so they are above our head too And in these we shall determine our first part When from thence we come to our second part in which as in this we shall have done their number we shall consider their greatnesse we finde them first heavy sinne is no light matter And then they are too heavy a little weight would but ballast us this sinkes us Too heavy for me even for a man equall to David and where is he when is that man for says our text they are as heavy Burden And the nature and incovenience of a Burden is first to Crooken and bend us downward from our naturall posture which is erect for this incurvation implies a declination in the inordinate love of the Creature Incurvat And then the nature of a burden is to Tyre us our very sinne becomes fulsome and wearisome to us fatigat and it hath this inconvenience too ut retardet it slackens our pace in our right course though we be not tried yet we cannot goe so fast as we should in any way towards godliness and lastly this is the inconvenience of a burden too ut praecipitet it makes us still apt and ready to stumble and to fall under it It crookens us it deprives us of our rectitude it tires us extinguishes our alacrity It slackens us enfeebles and intepidates our zeale It occasions our stumbling opens and submits us to every emergent tentation And these be the dangers and the mischievous inconveniences notified to us in those two Elegancies of the holy Ghost the supergressae the multiplicity of sinnes They are gone over my head and the gravatae They are a heavy burden too heavy for me First then all these things are literally spoken of David By application of us and by figure of Christ. Historically David morally we Typically Christ is the subject of this text In Davids person we shal insist no longer upon them but onely to look upon the two generall parts the multiplicity of his sinne and the weight and greatnesse thereof And that onely in the matter of Vriah as the Holy Ghost without reproching the adultery or the murder after Davids repentance vouchsafes to mollifie his manifold and his hainous sinne First he did wrong to a loyall and a faithfull servant and who can hope to be well served that does so He corrupted that woman who for ought appearing to the contrary had otherwise preserved her honour and her Conscience entire It is a sinne To runne with a theife when thou seest him or to have thy pâ—rtion with them that are adulterers already to accompany them in their sinne who have an inclination to that sinne before is a sinne but to solicite them who have no such inclination nor but for thy solicitation would have had is much more inexcusable In Davids sinne there was thus much more he defrauded some to whom his love was due in dividing himselfe with a strange woman To steale from another man though it be to give to the poor and to such poor as would otherwise sterve if that had not been stollen is injustice is a sinne To divide that heart which is intirely given to a wife in mariage with another woman is a sinne though she to whom it is so given pretend or might truly suffer much torment and anguish if it were not done Davids sinne flew up to a higher spheare He drew the enemy to blaspheme the name of God in the victory over Israel where Vriah was slaine God hates nothing more in great persons then that prevarication to pretend to assist his cause and promove his Religion and yet underhand give the enemies of that Religion way to grow greater His sinnes indeed were too many to be numbred too great too to be weighed in comparison with others Vriah was innocent towards him and faithfull in his imployment and at that time in an actuall and in a dangerous service for his person for the State for the Church Him David betrays in his letter to Ioab Him David makes the instrument of his own death by carrying those letters the warrants of his own execution And he makes Ioab a man of honour his instrument for a murder to cover an adultery Thus many sinnes and these heavy degrees of sin were in this one and how many and how weighty were in that of numbring of his people wee know not We know that Satan provoked him to doe it and we know that Ioab who seconded and accomplished his desire in the murder of Vriah did yet disswade and dis-counsell this numbring of the people and not out of reason of State but as an expresse sin Put all together and lesse then all we are sure David belied not himself His iniquities were gone over his head and as a heavy burden they were too heavy for him Though this will be a good rule for the most part in all Davids confessions and lamentations that though that be always literally true of himself for the sinne or for the punishment which he says personally David did suffer that which he complains of in the Psalms in a great measure yet David speaks prophetically as well as personally and to us who exceed him in his sins the exaltation of those miseries which we finde so often in this book are especially intended That which David relates to have been his own case he foresees will be ours too in a higher degree And that 's our second and our principall object of all those circumstances in the multiplicity and in the hainousnesse of sin And therefore to that second part these considerations in our selves we make thus much hast First then they were peccata sins iniquities And we must not think to ease our selves in that subtilty of the School Peccatum nihil That sin is nothing because sinne We are not all Davids amabiles lovely and beloved in that measure that David was men according to Gods heart But we are all Adams terrestres and lutosi earth and durty earth red and bloudy earth and therefore in our selves as deriv'd from
him let us finde and lament all these numbers and all these weights of sin Here we are all born to a patrimony to an inheritance an inheritance a patrimony of sin and we are all good husbands and thrive too fast upon that stock upon the encrease of sin even to the treasuring up of sin and the wrath of God for sin How naked soever we came out of our mothers wombe otherwise thus we came all apparell'd apparell'd and invested in sin And we multiply this wardrobe with new habits habits of customary sins every day Every man hath an answer to that question of the Apostle What hast thou that thou hast not received from God Every man must say I have pride in my heart wantonnesse in mine eyes oppression in my hands and that I never receiv'd from God Our sins are our own and we have a covetousnesse of more a way to make other mens sins ours too by drawing them to a fellowship in our sins I must be beholden to the loyalty and honesty of my wife whether my children be mine own or no for he whose eye waiteth for the evening the adulterer may rob me of that propriety I must be beholden to the protection of the Law whether my goods shall be mine or no A potent adversary a corrupt Judge may rob me of that propriety I must be beholden to my Physician whether my health and strength shal be mine or no A garment negligently left off a disorderly meal may rob me of that propriâ—ty But without asking any man leave my sins will be mine own When the presumptuous men say Our lips are our own and our tongues are our own the Lord threatens to cut off those lips and those tongues But except we doe come to say Our sins are our own God will never cut up that root in us God will never blot out the memory in himself of those sins Nothing can make them none of ours but the avowing of them the confessing of them to be ours Onely in this way I am a holy lier and in this the God of truth will reward my lie for if I say my sins are mine own they are none of mine but by that confessing and appropriating of those sins to my selfe they are made the sins of him who hath suffered enough for all my blessed Lord and Saviour Christ Iesâ—s Therefore that servant of God S. August confesses those sins which he never did to be his sins and to have been forgiven him Peccata mihi dimissa a fateâ—r quae med sponte feci quae te duce non feci Those sins which I have done and those which but for thy grace I should have done are all my sins Alas I may die here and die under an everlasting condemnation of fornication with that woman that lives and dies a Virgin and be damn'd for a murderer of that man that out-lives me and for a robbery and oppression where no man is damnified nor any penny lost The sin that I have done the sin that I would have done is my sin We must not therefore transfer our sins upon any other Wee must not think to discharge our selves upon a Peccata Patris To come to say My father thriv'd well in this course why should not I proceed in it My father was of this Religion why should not I continue in it How often is it said in the Scriptures of evill Kings he did evill in the sight of the Lord and walk'd in via Patris in the way of his father father in the singular It is never said plurally In via Patrum in the way of his fathers Gods blessings in this world are express'd so in the plurall thou gavest this land patribus to their fathers says Solomon in the dedication of the Temple And thou brought'st Patres our Fathers out of Egypt And again Be with us Lord as thou wast with our Fathers So in Ezekiel where your Fathers dwelt you their children shall dwell too and your children and their childrens children for ever His blessings upon his Saints his holy ones in this world are expressed so plurally and so is the transmigration of his Saints out of this world also Thou shalt sleep cum patribus with thy fathers says God to Moses And David slept cum patribus with his fathers And Iacob had that care of himselfe as of that in which consisted or in which was testified the blessing of God I will lie cum patribus with my fathers and be buried in their burying place says Iacob to his son Ioseph Good ways and good ends are in the plurall and have many examples else they are not good but sins are in the singular He walk'd in the way of his father is in an ill way But carry our manners or carry our Religion high enough and we shall finde a good rule in our fathers Stand in the way says God in Ieremy and ask for the old way which is the good way We must put off veterem hominem but not antiqâ—â—m Wee may put off that Religion which we think old because it is a little elder then our selves and not rely upon that it was the Religion of my Father But Antiquissimum dieâ—um Him whose name is He that is and was and is for ever and so involves and enwraps in himself all the Fathers him we must put on Be that our issue with our adversaries at Rome By the Fathers the Fathers in the plurall when those fathers unanimely deliver any thing dogmatically for matter of faith we are content to be tried by the Fathers the Fathers in that plurall But by that 〈◊〉 Father who begers his children not upon the true mother the Church but upon the Court and so produces articles of faith according as State businesses and civill occasions invite him by that father we must refuse to be tried for to limit it in particular to my father we must say with Nehemiah Ege domus patris mei If I make my fathers house my Church my father my Bishop I and my fathers house have sinned says he and with Mordecai to Esther Thou and thy fathers house shall be destroyed They are not 〈◊〉 a patris I cannot excuse my sins upon the example of my father nor are they 〈◊〉 Tempâ—ris I cannot discharge my sins upon the Times and upon the present ill disposition that reigns in men now and doe ill because every body else does so To say there is a rot and therefore the sheep must perish Corruptions in Religion are crept in and work in every cornet and therefore Gods sheep simple souls must be content to admit the infection of this rot That there is a murrain and therefore cattell must die superstition practis'd in many places and therefore the strong servants of God must come to sacrifice their obedience to it or their bloud for it Then no such rot no such murrain no such corruption of times