pleasing but deceitfull contemplation of faith he speaks no other language but do this and exalts charity to the higher place that their vain boasting of faith might not be heard for faith saith he hath no tongue nay no life without her and thus in appearance he takes from the one to establish the other and sets up a throne for charity not without some shew and semblance of prejudice to faith For last of all to give you one reason more Faith indeed is naturally productive of good works For what madnesse is it to see the way to eternity of blisse and not to walk in it Each article of our Creed points out as with â—e finger to some vertue to be wrought out in the minde and publisht in the outward man If I beleeve that Christ is God it will follow I must worship him If he died for sinne the consequence is plain enough we must die to it If he so loved vs the Apostle concludes we must love one another charity is the proper effect of faith and upon faith and charity we build up our hope if we beleeve the promises and perform the condition if we beleeve him that loved us and love him and keep his commandments we are in heaven already But yet we may observe that the corruption of our hearts findes somthing in faith it self to abate and weaken her force and power and to take off her activity and so makes the very object of faith an encouragement to evil and which is a sad speculation the mercy of God a kinde of temptation to sinne Mercy is a pretious oyntment and mercy breaks our head mercy blots out sin and mercy revives it mercy is our hope and mercy is made our confusion we should sin no more but we sin more and more because his mercy endureth for ever we turn the grace of God into wantonness and make this Queen of his glorious attributes to wait on our lust of a Covering a purging a Healing a saving I tremble to speak it we make it a damning mercy for had we not abused it had we not relied upon it too much had we not laid upon it all our uncleannesse our impenitency and wilfull obstinacy in sinne it would have upheld us and lifted us up as high as Heaven but our bold presumption layes hold of it and it flings us off and we fall from it into the bottomlesse pit This then we may take for a sufficient reason why our Apostle puts not faith into his description of Pure Religion and in the next place as he doth not mention faith so he passeth by in silence rather then forgets those other excellent duties of prayer and hearing the word For these two whatsoever high esteem we put upon them howsoever we magnifie them till they are nothing till our selves are worse than nothing worse than the beasts that perish yet are they not the end and their end is perdition who make them so and think that to aske a blessing is to have it when they put it from them or to hear of God is to love him to hear of that happinesse which he hath laid up is to be in Paradise The perfection of the creature saith the Philosopher is ad naturae suae sinem pervenire to attain to the end for which he was made and the end of the Christian is to be like unto Christ that where he is He may be also that is his end that is his perfection Now to draw this home these two to Hear and to Pray do not make us like unto him but are sufficient means to renew the image of God in us that so we may resemble him they are not the haven to which we are bound but are as prosperous and advantagious windes to carry us to it Quod per se bonum est semper est bonum that which is good in it self and for it self is alwayes good as true piety true Religion but those duties which tend to it have their reward or punishment as they reach or misse of that end what is hearing if it beget not obedience what are prayers if they be but the calves of our lips Oh 't is a sad question to be ask't when we shall see Christians full of malice and deceit Have they not heard they have heard that malice shall destroy the wicked that deceit is an abomination that oppression shall eat them up yet will be such monsters as if they never heard oh 't is a sad expostulation to the wicked Have they not heard and as sad a return may be made to our prayers we may stretch out our hands and God may hide his eyes from us we may make many prayers and he not hear we may lift up our hands and vocie unto Heaven and our minde stay below wallowing in the mire of foul pollutions mixt and ingendering with the vanities of the world for as we may fast to strife and debate so we may pray to strife and debate as there may be a politick Fast so our prayer may have more in it of craft than devotion we may make it a trade a craft an occupation and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stoutly labor and holdout not to take the kingdom of Heaven but to devour widows houses make this Key of the Gates of Heaven a picklock to open Chests and so debase it to these vile offices which is a sin cujus non audeo dicere nomen for which I have no name bad enough to give it and what is Prayer then what are the means if we rest in them as in the end what are they if we draw and force them to a bad end what are they if we make no use of them at all or make this sad and fatall use of them if our Prayers bring down a curse our hearing flatter us in our disobedience if we Hear and Pray and Perish These two and what else of this nature have their worth and efficacy from Religion from charity to our selves others which are as the two wings on which our prayers ascend and mount to the presence of God to bring down a blessing from thence These sanctifie our fasts these open the ears of the deaf that hearing they may hear and understand These consecrate our Pulpets and are the best panegyricks on our Sermons and make them indeed the word of God powerfull in operation and without these our prayers are but babling and the Sermons which we hear but so many libels against us or as so many knells and sad indications that they that hear them are condemned and dead already For again to visit the fatherlesse and widows in affliction that is to be full of good works and to renounce and abstain from the pleasures of the world for those pleasures we dote on those riches we sweat for are those that bespot us is a far harder task then to say a hundred pater no sters or to continue our prayers as Saint Paul did his preaching
and power from him from his promises and from his precepts from his life and from his passion and death from what he did and from what he suffered as there did to the woman which touched the hem of his garment that healed her bloody issue a power by which he sweetly and secretly and powerfully characterizeth our hearts and writes his minde in our minds and so takes possession of them and draws them into him self in the eighth to the Rom. 11. v. the Apostle tells us he dwelleth in us by his spirit and that we are led by the spirit in the whole course of our life in the second to the Ephes the last v. we are said to be the habitation of God through the spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his tabernacle his temple which he consecrates and sets apart to his own use and service there is no doubt a power comes from him but I am almost afraid to say it there having been such ill use made of it For though it become already for the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation yet is it still expected expected indeed rather then hoped for for when it doth come we shut the door and set up our will against it and then look faintly after it and perswade our selves it will come at last once for all There is power in his preceâ—ts for our reason subscribes and signes them for true there is power in his promises they shine in glory Rom. 1.16 these are the power of Christ to every one that beleeveth and how can we be Christians if we beleeve not but this is his ordinary power which like the Sun in commune profertur is shewn on all at once There yet goes a more immediate power and virtue from him John 3. â— we denie it not which like the winde works wonderful effects but we see not whence it cometh nor whither it goes neither the beginning nor the end of it which is in another World For the operations of the spirit by reason they are of another condition then any other thought or working in us whatsoever are very difficult and obscure as Scotus observes upon the prologue to the sentences for the manner not to be perceived no not by that soul wherein they are wrought profuisse deprehendas quomodo prefuerunt non deprehendes as Seneca in another case that they have wrought you shall find but the secret and retired passages by which they wrought are impossible to be brought to demonstration But though we cannot discerne the maner of his working yet we may observe that in his actions and operations on the soul of man he holds the course even of natural agents in this respect that they strive to bring in their similitude and likenesse into those things on which they work by a kinde of force driving out one contrary with another to make way for their own form so Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac Jacob and every creature according to its own kinde as Plato said of Sacrates wise sayings that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the children of his minde so resembling him that you might see all Socrates in them So it is with Christ where he dwells he worketh by his spirit something like unto himself he alters the whole frame of the heart 2 Cor. 10. drives out all that is contrary to him all imaginations which axalt themselves against him never leaves purging and fashioning us Cal. 4. till a new creature like himself till Christ be fully formed in us So it is with every one in whom Christ dwelleth And this he doth by the power of his spirit 1. By quickning our knowledge by shewing us the riches of his Gospel his Beauty and Majesty the glory and order of his house and that with that convincing evidence that we are forced to fall down and worship by filling our soul with the glory of it as God filled the tabernacle with his Exod. 40. that all the powers and saculties of the soul are ravisnt with the sight and come willingly as the Psalmist speaks fall down willingly before him by moving our soul as our soul doth our body that when he sayes go we go and when he sayes do this we do it and so it is in every one in whom Christ dwelleth Secondly he dwells in us by quickning and enlivening our faith so dwells in our hearts by faith Eph. 3.17 that we are rooted and grounded in love for we read of a dead faith Jâ—m 2.20 which moves no more in the wayes of righteousnesse then a dead man sealed up in his grave and if the Son of man should come he would finde enough of this faith in the World For from hence from this that our faith is not enlivened that the Gospel is not throughly beleeved but faintly received cam formidine contrarit with fear or rather a hope that the contrary is true from hence proceed all the errours of our lives from hence ariseth that irregularity those contradictions those inconsequences in the lives of men even from hence that we have faith but so as we should have the World we have it as if we had it not and so use it as if we used it not or which is worse abuse it not beleeve and be saved but beleeve and be damned and we are vain men saith Saint James if we think otherwise if we think that a dead faith can work any thing or any thing but death but when it is quickned and made a working faith when Christ dwells in our hearts by faith then it works wonders Heb. 11.33 2 Cor. 2,11 for we read of its valour that it subdues kingdoms and stoppeth the mouthes of Lions we read of its policy that it discovers the devils enterprises or devices of its medicinal vertue that it purifieth the heart and we read too furta fidei the thefts and pious depredations of faith stealing virtue from Christ and taking Heaven by violence and such a wonderful power it hath in that soul in which Christ dwelleth it worketh out our corruption and stampeth his image upon us it worketh obedience in us which is called the obedience of faith that is that obedience Rom. 1.5 which is due to faith and to which faith naturally tendeth and would bring us to it if we did not dull and dead and hinder it And 1. he worketh in us a universal and equal obedience for if he dwell in us every room is his For there are saith Parisiensis particulares voluntates particular wills or rather particular inclinations and dispositions to this virtue and not to another to be liberal and not temperate sober but not chasT to fast and hear and pray but not to do acts of mercy which are virtues but in appearance and proceed from rotten unsound principles from a false spring but not from Christ and so make up a spiritual Hermaphrodite a good speaker and a bad live a Jew and a Christian Deus in
and Attire Clothed he was with a garment down to the foot which was the Garment of the High Priest and his was an unchangeable Priesthood Heb. 7.24 and he had a golden Girdle or Belt as a King v. 13. for he is a King for ever and of his kingdome there shall be no end Righteousnesse shall be the girdle of his loynes and Faithfulnesse he girdle of his reines Es 11.5 His head and his haires were white as wooll v. 14. and as white as snow his Judgement pure and uncorrupt not byassed by outward respects not tainted or corrupted by any turbulent affection but smooth even as waters are when no wind troubles them His eys as a flame of fire piercing the inward man searching the secrets of the heart nor is there any action word or thought which is not manifest in his sight His feet like unto fine brasse sincere and constant like unto himself in all his proceedings in every part of his Oeconomy his voyce as many waters v. 15. declaring his fathers will with power and authority sounding out the Gospel of peace to all the world and last of all out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword v. 16. not onely dividing asunder the soul and the spirit but discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart and taking vengeance on those who persecute his Church His Majesty dazled every mortall eye his Countenance was as the Sun shining in his strength and now of him who walks in the midst of his Church whose Mercy is a large Robe reaching down to the feet who is girt with Power who is clothed with Justice whose Wisdom pierceth even into darknesse it self whose Word is heard from one end of the world to the other whose Majesty displayes its beams through every corner of it we cannot but confesse with Peter This is Christ the Sonne of the living God And can the Saviour of the world the desire of the Nations the glory of his Father can Beauty it self appeare in such a shape of Terrour shall we draw out a mercifull Redeemer with a warriours Belt with eyes of Fire with feet of Brasse with a voyce of Terrour with a sharp two-edged Sword in his mouth Yes such a High Priest became us who is not onely mercifull but just not onely meek but powerfull not onely fair but terrible not onely clothed with the darknesse of Humility but with the shining robes of Majesty who can dye and can live again and live for evermore who suffered himself to be judged and condemned and shall judge and condemne the world it self S. John indeed was troubled at this sight and fell down as dead but Christ rouzeth him up and bids him shake off this feare for he is terrible to none but those who make him so to Hereticks and Hypocrites and Persecutors of his Church to those who would have him neither wise nor just nor powerfull non accepimus iratum sed fecimus he is not angry till we force him 't is rather our sins that turn back again upon us as furies than his wrath that makes him clothe himself with vengeance and draw his sword To S. John to those that bow before him he is all Sweetnesse all Grace all Salvation and upon these as upon St. John he layes his right hand quickens and rouzeth them up Feare not neither my girdle of Justice nor my eyes of fire nor my feet of brasse nor my mighty voice nor my two-edged sword for my Wisdom shall guide you my power shall defend you my Majesty shall uphold you and my Mercy shall crown you Fear not I am the first and the last more humble than any more powerfull than any scorned whipped crucified and now highly exalted and Lord of all the world I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I live for evermore c. Which words I may call as Tertullian doth the Lords Prayer breviarium Evangelii the breviary or summe of the whole Gospel or with Austin symbolnm abbreviatum the Epitome and abridgement of our Creed and such a short Creed we find in Tertullian which he calls Regulam veram immobilem irreformabilem the sole immutable unalterable rule of Faith and then The articles or parts will be these 1. The Death of Christ I was dead 2. The Resurrection of Christ with the effect and power of it I am he that liveth 3. The duration and continuance of his life which is to all eternity I live for evermore 4. Power of Christ which he purchased by his death the power of the keyes I have the keyes of Hell and of Death And these 1. Are ushered in with an Ecce Behold that we may consider it 2. Sealed ratified with an Amen that we may believe it That there be not in any of us as the Apostle speaks an unbelieving heart to depart from the living God I am he that liveth and was dead And of the death of Christ we spake the last day Par 1. we shall onely now look upon it in reference to the Resurrection consider it as past for it is fui mortuus I was dead and in this we may see the method and proceeding of our Saviour which he drew out in his blood which must sprinkle those who are to be saved and make them nigh unto him to follow in the same method à morte ad vitam Luke 24.25 Heb. 2.20 from suffering to glory from death to life Tota ecclesia cum Christo computatur ut una persona Christ and his Church are in computations but one person he ought to suffer and we ought to suffer they suffer in him and he in hem to the end of the world nor is any other method either answerable to his infinite Wisdome and Justice which hath set it down in indelible characters nor to our mortall and frail condition which must be bruised before it can be healed must be levelled with the ground before it can be raised up quicquid Deo convenit Tetuil homini prodest that which is convenient for Christ is profitable for us that which becometh him we must wear as an ornament of grace unto our head there is an oportet set upon both he ought and we ought first to suffer and then to enter into glory to die first that we may rise again And first it cannot consist with the wisdome of God that Christ should suffer and die and we live as we please and the reign with him and so pass à deliciis in delicias from one paradise to another that he should overcome the Divel for those who will be his vassals that he should foile him in his proud temptations for those who will not be humble beat off his sullen temptation for those who will distrust and murmure that he should make his victorious death commeatum delinquendi a licence and charter for all generations to fling away their weapons and not strike a stroke If he should have done this
within a span and when immortality is offer'd affect no other life but that which is a vapour Let us not rayse that swarme of thoughts which must perish Colos 3.3 but build up those works upon our everliving Saviour which may follow us follow us through the huge and unconceivable tract of eternity Doth our Saviour live for evermore and shall we have no spirit in us but that which delights to walk about the earth and is content to vanish with it Eternity is a powerfull motive to those who never have such pensive thoughts as when they remember their frailty and are sick even of health it self and in a manner dead with life when they consider it as that blessing which shall have an end Eternity is in our desire though it be beyond our apprehension what he said of time is truer of eternity if you doe not ask what it is we know but if you ask we are not able to answer and resolve you or tell you what it is when we call it an infinite duration we doe but give it another name two words for one a short Paraphrase but we doe not define what it is And indeed our first conceptions of it are the fairest for when they are doubled and redoubled they are lost in themselves and the further they extend themselves the more weary they are and at greater losse in every proffer and must end and rest at last in this poore unsatisfying thought that we cannot think what it is Yet there is in us a wild presage an unhandsome acknowledgment of it for we fancy it in those objects which vanish out of sight whilst we look upon them we set it up in every desire for our desires never have an end Every purpose of ours every action we doe is Aeternitati sacrum and we doe it to eternity we look upon riches as if they had no wings and think our habitations shall endure for ever we look upon honour as if it were not Aire but some Angel confirm'd a thing bound up in eternity we look upon beauty and it is our heaven and we are fixt and dwell on it as if it would never shrivel nor be gathered together as a scroule and so in a manner make mortality it self eternall And therefore since our desires doe so far enlarge themselves and our thoughts doe so multiply that they never have an end since we look after that which we cannot see and reach after that which we cannot graspe God hath set up that for an object to look on which is eternall indeed in the highest Heavens and as he hath made us in his own image so in Christ who came to renew it in us he hath shewed us a more excellent way unto it taught us to work out eternity even in this world in this common shop of change to work it out of that in which it is not which is neer to nothing which shall be nothing to work it out of riches by not trusting them out of honour by contemning it out of the pleasures of this world by loathing them out of the flesh by crucifying it out of the world by overcoming it and out of the Divell himself by treading him under our feet For this is to be in Christ and to be in Christ is to be for evermore Christ is the eternall Sonne of God and he was dead and lives and lives for evermore that we may dye and live for evermore and not onely attaine to the Resurrection of the dead but to eternity Last of all let us look upon the keys in his hand and knock hard that he may open to us and deliver our soule from hell and make our grave not a prison but a Bed to rise from to eternall life or if we be still shut in we our selves have turn'd the key against our selves for Christ is ready with his keyes to open to us and we have our keys too our key of knowledge to discerne between Life and Death and our key of Repentance and when we use these Christ is ready to put his even into our hands and will derive a power unto us mortalls unto us sinners over hell and death And then in the last place we shall be able to set on the Seal the Amen be confirmed in the certainty of his Resurrection and power by which we may raise those thoughts and promote those actions which may look beyond our threescore yeares and ten through all successive generations to immortality and that glory which shall never have an end This is to shew and publish our faith by our works as S. James speaks this is from the heart to believe it as S. Paul for he that thus believes it from the heart cannot but be obedient to the Gospel unless we can imagine there could be any man that should so hate himself as thus deliberately to cast himself into and to run from happinesse when it appeares in so much glory He cannot say Amen to life who kills himself for that which leaves as soul in the grave is not faith but fancy when we are told that honour cometh towards us that some golden shower is ready to fall into our laps that content and pleasure will ever be neer and wait upon us how loud and hearty is our Amen how do we set up an Assurance-office to our selves and yet that which seemes to make its approch towards us is as uncertain as uncertainty it self and when we have it passeth from us and as the ruder people say of the Devil leaves a noysome and unsavoury scent behind it and we look after it and can see it no more but when we are told that Christ liveth for evermore and is coming is certainly coming with reward and punishment vox fancibus haeret we can scarce say Amen so be it To the world and pomp thereof we can say Amen but to Heaven and Hell to eternity we cannot say Amen or if we do we do but say it For conclusion then The best way is to draw the Ecce and the Amen the Behold and our assurance together so to study the death and life the eternall life and the power of our Saviour that we may be such proficients as to be able with S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to meet the Resurrection Phil. 3.11 to look for and hasten the coming of the Lord when his Life and Eternity and Power shall shine gloriously to the terrour of those who persecute his Church and to the comfort of those who suffer for Righteousnesse sake when that Head which was a forge of mischief and cruelty that Hand which touched the Lords Anointed and did his Prophets harm shall burn in hell for ever when that Eye which would not look on vanity shall be filled with glory that Eare which hearkned to his voice shall heare nothing but Hallebujahs and the musick of Angels and that Head which was ready to be laid down for this living everliving
which is set to not of men or by men but divinâ manu by the hand of God Himself which drew the first copy and pattern For this is true Religion apud Deum patrem with God and the Father and as he gave witnesse to his Son from Heaven This is my beloved Son so doth he also to Christiain Religion of which he was the Author and Finisher Haec est This is it and in this I am well pleased Pure Religion and undefiled before God c. Let us now in order view these and these two To do Good and abstain from Evil our charity to others in the one and our charity to our selves in the last in being as those Dii benefici those Tutelar Gods to the Widows and Fatherlesse and those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to keep all evil from our selves I call the effentiall parts of Religion without which it can no more subsist then a man without a soul For as the body without the spirit is dead even so faith without works is dead also Not that we exclude Faith or Prayer or Hearing of the Word for without faith religion is but an empty name and it comes by hearing and is increased by devotion Faith is a foundation upon a Foundation for as Truth is the foundation of faith Amb. in Psal 118. so is faith the Foundation of an Holy Conversation in this we edifie our selves and in this we sustain and uphold others in this we stand and in this we raise up others From faith are the issues of life from this as from a fountain flow those waters of comfort which refresh the widow and fatherlesse and that water of separation Num. 31.23 which purifies us keeps us unspotted as white as snow But our Apostle mentions none of these and I will give you some reason at least a fair conjecture why he did not And first not Faith we see here where he tells us what Pure Religion is he doth not so much as name it for indeed it is the ground of the whole draught and portrayture of Religion and as we observe it in Pictures it is in shadow not exprest out yet seen supposed by Saint James writing not to Insiders but to those who had already given up their names unto Christ And it is like those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Mathematicks which Tully calls Iuitia Mathematicorum the beginnings and principles of that science which if we grant not we can make no further progresse in that science In the sixth to the Hebrews Saint Paul calls it a principle of the Doctrine of Christ and what necessity was there for my Apostle to commend that unto them which they already embraced to direct them in that in which they were perfect to urge that which they could not deny not deny nay of which they made their boast all the day long No Saint James is for Ostende mihi he doth not once doubt of their faith but is very carnest to force it out that it may evaporate and shew it self in their works of piety Then faith is a starre 2 Tim. 1.19 and when it streams out light and the beams are the works of charity Then faith is as a ship when Pure Religion is the rudder to steer and guide it that it dash not on a rock and ship-wrack Then faith is the soul of the soul when by its quickning and enlivening power we run the wayes of Christs commandments pure creduat pure ergo loquantur faith the Father Their belief is right therefore let their conversation be sincere no other conclusion can naturally be deduced from faith and of it self it can yeeld no other and this it will yeeld if you do not in a manner destroy it and spoyle it of its power and efficacy for what an unnaturall inconsequence is this I beleeve that Christ hath taught me to be mercifull as my heavenly Father is mercifull That charity hath the promise of the world to come Therefore I will shut up my bowels this I am sure is one part of our belief if it be not our Creed is most imperfect and yet such practicall conclusions doth our avarice and luxury draw Our faith is spread about the world but our charity is as a candle under a bushell the great errour and folly of this our age which can shew us multitudes of men and women which as the Apstle speaks are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth which have con'd their Creed by heart but have little skill or forgot their skill they have in the royall Law who cry up faith as the Jews did the Temple of the Lord and are very zealous for it yet suffer it to decay and waste till it be dead as my Apostle speaks cat out the very heart of it by a carelesse and prophane conversation as the Jews with their own hands did set fire on that Temple which they so much adored And this may be a second reason why he mentions not faith in his character of Religion for having every where preacht up the power and efficacy of faith men carnally minded did so fill their thoughts with the contemplation of that fundamentall vertue that they left no roomfor other vertues not so efficacious indeed to justifie a sinner yet as necessary as faith it self did commend extol the power of faith when it had none at all in them nay which is the most fatall miscarriage of all did make it an occasion Rom. 6.6 through which sinne revived which should have destroyed in them the whole body and juncture of sin it being common to men at last to fix and fettle their minds upon that object which is most often presented to their mindes as the Countrey peasant having heard much talk of the City of Rome began at last to think there was no other City but that If we look forward to the second Chapter of this Epistle we shall think this more then a conjecture for there he seems to take away from faith its saving attribute Numquid fides potest salvmn sacere Can faith save a man What an Heretick what a Papist would he be that should but put up this question in these our dayes wherein the sola justificat hath left faith alone in the work of our salvation and yet the question may be put up and the resolve on the negative may be true It cannot save him certainly that saith he hath faith and hath not works And thus though he dispute indeed against Simon the sorcerer and others as we may gather out of Irenaeus yet in appearance he levels his discourse against Paul the Apostle for not by works but by saith faith Saint Paul not by faith but by works saith Saint James and yet both are true the one speaking to the Jews who were all for the Law the other to those who were all for faith and to them who had buried all thought of good works in the
be who have subscribed to the venturus est that the Lord will come who have little reason to hope for his coming How many beleeve hee will come and bring his reward with him and yet strike off their own Charriot wheels and drive but heavily towards it how many beleeve there is a Judge to come and wish there were none Faith Saving Faith Hope Hope that will not make ashamed cannot dwell in the heart till Charity hath taken up a roome but when she is diffusa in cordibus shed and spread abroad in our Hearts then they are in Conjunction and meet together and kisse each other Faith is a Foundation and on it our love raiseth it self as high as heaven in all the severall branches and parts of it Because I beleeve I love and when my love is reall and perfect my hope springs up and blooms and flourishes my Faith sees the object my Love imbraceth it and the means unto it and my Hope layes hold of it and even takes possession of it And therefore this venturus est This coming of the Lord is a Threat and not a promise if they meet not If Faith work not by Love and both together raise not a Hope venturus est he will come is a Thunder-bolt And thus as it lookes upon Faith and Hope so it calls for our Charity For whether we will or no whether we beleeve or no whether we hope or no veniet he will certainly come but when we love him then we love also his appearance and his coming and our Love is a subscription to his Promise 2 Tim. 4.8 by which we truly Testify our consent and sympathize with him and say Amen to his Promise That he will come we eccho it back againe unto him Even so come Lord Jesus For that of Faith may be in a manner forc'd That of Hope may be groundless but this of Love is a free and voluntary subscription Though I I know he will come yet I shall be unwilling he should come upon me as an Enemy that he should come to me when I sit in the Chair of the Scornfull or lie in the bed of Lust or am wallowing in the mire or weltring in my own blood or washing my feet in the blood of my Brethren for can any condemned person hope for the day of Execution But when I love him and bow before him when I have improv'd his Talent and brought my self to that Temper and Constitution that I am of the same mind with this Lord and partaker of his divine Nature then Faith openeth and displayeth her self and Hope towreth up as high as the right Hand of God and would bring him down never at rest never at an end but panting after him till he doe come crying out with the soules under the Altar How long Lord How long How long is the very breathing and language of Hope Then Substantia mea apud te Psal 62.5 as the vulgar reads that of the Psalmist my expectation my substance my being is with the Lord and I doe not onely subscribe to the veniet to his coming because he hath Decreed and resolved upon it but because I can make an hearty Acknowledgement that the will of the Lord is just and good and I assent not of Necessity but of a willing mind and I am not onely willing but long for it and as he Testifies these Things and confirmes this Article of his coming with this last word etiam venio surely I come so shall I be able truely to Answer Even so come Lord Jesus come quickly The End of his Coming And now venturus est the Lord will come and you may see the Necessity of his coming in the End of his coming for qualis Dominus talis adventus as his Dominion is such is his Coming his Kingdome spirituall and his coming to punish sinne and reward Obedience to make us either Prisoners in Darkness or Kings and Priests to reigne with him and offer up spirituall Sacrifices for evermore He comes not to answer the Disciples question to restore the Kingdom to Israel for his Kingdome is not such a one as they dreamt of nor to place the Mother of Zebedees Children the one at his right Hand and the other at his left nor to bring the Lawyer to his Table to eat bread with him in his Kingdome These carnall conceits might suite well with the Synagogue which lookt upon nothing but the Basket and yet to bring in this Error the Jews as they killed the Prophets so must they also abolish their Prophecies which speak plainely of a King of no shape or beauty Esai 53.2 Zech. 9.9 Isa 9.6 of his first coming in lowlinesse and poverty of a Prince of Peace and not of warr of the Increase of whose Government there shall be no end Nor doth he come to lead the Chiliast the Dreamer of a Thousand yeares of Temporall Happiness on Earth into a Mahometicall Paradise of all Corporall Contentments That after the Resurrection the Elect and even a Reprobate may think or callhim self so may reigne with Christ a thousand years in all state and Pomp and in the Affluence of all those Pleasures which this Lord hath taught them to renounce A conceit which ill becomes Christians who must look for a better and more enduring substance who are strangers and Pilgrims Heb. 10.34 Heb. 11.13 and not Kings on earth whose Conversation is in heaven and whose whole life must be a going out of the World why should we be commanded and that upon paine of eternall separation from this our Lord to weane our selves from the World and every thing in the World if the same Lord Think these flatteries of our worser part these pleasures which we must loath a fitt and proportionable reward for the labour of our Faith and Charity which is done in the Inward man can he forbid us to touch and Tast these Things and then glut us with them because we did not Touch them and can it now change its Nature and be made a Recompence of those Virtues which were as the wings on which we did fly away and so kept our selves untoucht unspotted of this Evill But they urge Scripture for it and so they soon may for it is soon misunderstood soon misapplyed It is written they say in the 20. of the Revel at the 6. v. that the Saints shall reign with Christ a thousand yeers shall reign with Christ is evidence faire enough to raise those spirits which are too high or rather too low already 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no sooner is the word read but the crown is on To let passe the divers interpretations of that place some making the number to be definite some to be indefinite some beginning the thousand yeers with the persecution of Christ and ending it in Antichrist others beginning it with the reign of Constantine when Christianity did most flourish and ending it at the first rising of the
the hazard of their own soules and of that which should be as deare to them the peace of the Church Be not then too inquisitive to find out the manner of this union for the holy Father seales up thy lips that thou mayst not once think of Asking the question Just Mart. and tells thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that thou art not like to meet with an answer and what greater folly can there be then to attempt to do that which cannot be done or to search for that which is past finding out or to be ever a beginning and never make an end Search the scriptures for they are they that testifie of him testifie that he was God blessed for evermore that that word which was Godw as also made flesh that he was the Son of God and the Sonne of man the manner how the two Natures are united is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil ib. unsearchable unfoordable and the knowledge of it if our narrow understandings could receive it would not adde one haire to our stature and growth in Grace that he is God and man that the two Natures are united in one person who is thy Saviour and mediator is enough for thee to know and to rayse thy nature up to him Take the words as they lye in their Native purity and simplicity and not as they are hammered and beat out and stampt by every hand by those who will be Fathers not Interpreters of Scripture and beget what sense they please and present it not as their own but as a child of God Then Lo here is Christ and there is Christ this is Christ and that is Christ thou shalt see many images and characters of him but not one that is like him an imperfect Christ a half Christ a created Christ a fancied Christ a Christ that is not the Son of God and a Christ that is not the Son of Man and thus be rowled up and down in uncertainties and left to the poore and miserable comfort of Conjecture in that which so far as it concerns us is so plain and easie to be known Doe thoughts arise in thy heart do doubts and difficulties beset thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Justin Martyr thy Faith is the solution and will soon quit thee of them and cast them by thy Faith not assumed or insinuated into thee or brought in as thy vices may be by thy education but raised upon a holy hill a sure foundation the plain and expresse Word of God and upheld and strengthned by the Spirit Christian dost thou believe Thou hast then seen thy God in the Flesh from Eternity yet born Invisible yet seen Immense and circumscribed Immortall yet dying the Lord of life and Crucified God and man Christ Jesus Amaze not thy self with an inordinate feare of undervaluing thy Saviour wrong not his love and call it thy Reverence why should thoughts arise in thy Heart his power is not the lesse because his mercy is great nor doth his infinite love shadow or detract from his Majesty for see He counts it no disparagement to be seen in our flesh nor to be at any losse by being thus like us our Apostle tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there was a Decorum in it and it behoved him to be like unto his Brethren Debuit It behoved him That Christ was made like unto us is the joy of this Feast but that he ought to be is the wonder and extasy of our joy that he would descend is mercy but that he must is our astonishment Oportet and Debet are binding termes and words of Duty Had our Apostle said It behoved us that he should be made like unto us it had found an easy belief the debuit had been placed in loco suo in its proper place on a sweating brow on dust and putrefaction on the face of a captive All will say it Behoved us much but to put a Debet upon the Son of God to make it a Decorum a beseeming thing for him to become Flesh to be made like unto us to set a Rubie in Clay a Diamond in Brasse a Chrysolet in baser Metall and say it is placed well there to worry the Lambs for the Wolf to take the Master by the throat for the Debt of a Prodigall and with an Oportet to say it should be so to give a gift and call it a Debt is not out usuall language on earth on Earth it is not but in Heaven it is the proper Dialect fixed up in Capitall letters on the Mercy Seat the joy of this Feast the Angels Antheme Salvator Natus a Saviour is born and if he will be a Saviour an Undertaker a Surety such is the Nature of Fidejussion and Suretiship debet he must it behoveth him as deeply engaged as the party whose surety he is And let us look on the aptnesse of the meanes and we shall soon find that this Foolishnesse of God as the Apostle calls it is wiser than men and this weaknesse of God is stronger than men 1 Cor. 1.25 that the oportet is right set For medio existente conjunguntur extrema if you will have extremes to meet you must have a middle line to draw them together and behold here they meet and are made unum one Ephes 2.14 saith the Apostle the proprieties of either Nature being entire and yet meeting and concentring themselves as it were in one person Majesty puts on Humility Power Infirmity Eternity Mortality by the one he dyes for us by the other he riseth again by the one he suffers as Man by the other he conquers as God in them both he perfects and consummates the great work of our redemption And this Debuit reacheth home to each part of my Text to Christ as God The same hand that made the vessell when it was broken and so broken that there was not one sherd left to fetch water at any pit to repaire and set it together again that it may receive and contain the water of life ut qui fecit nos reficeret that our Creation and Salvation should be wrought by the same hand and turned about upon the same wheele Next we may set the debuit upon his person and he is media persona a middle person and the office will best fit him even the office of a Mediator and then as he is the Son of God who is the Image of the Father and most proper it may seem to him to repair that Image which was defaced and well neere lost in us For we had not onely blemished this Image but set the Devils face and superscription upon Gods coyne for Righteousnesse there was Sin for Purity Pollution for Beauty Deformity for Rectitude Perversenesse for the Man a Beast scarce any thing left by which he might know us venit filius ut iterum signet the Son comes and with his blood revives again the first character marks us with his owne signature imprints the Graces of
forsake him when he hung upon the Crosse did he not see the joy which was set before him Yes he did but not to comfort but rather torment him Altissimo Divinitatis consilio actum est ut gloria militaret in paenam saith Leo. By the counsell of the Godhead it was set down and determined that his Glory should adde to his Punishment that his Knowledge which was more clear than a Seraphins should increase his Grief his Glory his Shame his Happinesse his Misery that there should not onely be Vinegar in his Drink and Gall in his Honey and Mirrhe with his Spices but that his Drink should be Vinegar his Honey Gall and all his Spices as bitter as Mirrhe that his Flowers should be Thorns and his Triumph Shame This could sin do and can we love it This could the love and the wrath of God do his love to his Creature and his wrath against sin And what a delivery what a desertion is this which did not deprive him of strength but enfeeble him with strength which did not leave him in the dark but punish him with light what a strange delivery was that which delivered him up without comfort nay which betrayed and delivered up his comforts themselves what misery equall to that which makes Strength a Tormenter Knowledge a Vexation and makes Joy Glory a Persecution There now hangs his sacred Body on the Cross not so much afflicted with his passion as his Soul was wounded with compassion with compassion on his Mother with compassion on his Disciples with compassion on the Jewes who pierced him for whom he prayes Tantam patienteam nemo unquam perpetravit Tert. de Patientia when they mock him which did manifest his Divinity as much as his miracles with compassion on the Temple which was shortly to be levelled with the ground with compassion on all Mankind bearing the burden of all dropping his pity and his blood together upon them feeling in himself the torments of the blessed Martyrs the reproch of his Saints the wounds of every broken heart the poverty diseases afflictions of all his Brethren to the end of the world delivered to a sense of their sins who feel them not and to a sense of theirs who grone under them delivered up to all the miseries and sorrowes not onely which he then felt but which any men which all men have felt or shall feel to the time the Trump shall found and he shall come again in Glory The last delivery was of his soul which was indeed traditio an yielding it up a voluntary emission or delivering it up into his Fathers hands praevento carnificis officio saith the Father he prevents the spear and the hand of the Executioner Tert. A pol. and gives up the Ghost What should I say or where should I end who can fathome this depth The Angels stand amazed the Heavens are hung with black the Earth opens her mouth and the Grave hers and yields up her dead the veyl of the Temple rends asunder the Earth trembles and the rocks are cleft but neither Art nor Nature can reach the depth of this wisdom and love no tongue neither of the living nor of the dead neither of men or Angels are able to express it The most powerfull Eloquence is the Threnody of a broken heart for there his death speaks it self and the vertue and power of it reflects back again upon him and reacheth him at the right hand of God where his wounds are open his merits vocal interceding for us to the end of the world We have now past two steps and degrees of this scale of love with wonder and astonishment and I hope with grief and love Tradidit pro nobis For us sinners passed through a field of Blood to the top of mount Calvarie where the Son of God the Saviour of the World was nailed to the Crosse and being thus lifted up upon his Crosse he looketh down upon us to draw us after him Look then back upon him who looks upon us whom our sins have pierced and behold his blood trickling down upon us which is one ascent more and brings in the persons for whom he was delivered First for us Secondly for us all Now this pro nobis that he should be delivered for us is a contemplation full of delight and comfort but not so easie to digest for if we reflect upon our selves and there see nothing but confusion and horrour we shall soon ask our selves the question why for us why not for the lapsed Angels who fell from their estate as we did They glorious Spirits we vile Bodies they heavenly Spirits we of the earth earthly ready to sink to the earth from whence we came they immortall Spirits we as the Grasse withered before we grow yet he spared not his Son to spare us but the Angels that fell he cast into Hell and chained them up in everlasting darknesse 2 Pet. 2.4 We may think that this was munus honorarium that Christ was delivered for us for some worth or excellency in us no it was munus eleemosynarium a gift bestowed upon us in meere compassion of our wants With them he deales in rigour and relents not with us in favour and mercy and seeks after us and layes hold on us when we were gone from him as far as sin and disobedience could carry us out of his reach It was his love it was his will to doe so and in this we might rest but Divines will tell us that man was a ritter object of mercy than they quia levius est alienâ mente peccare quam propriâ because the Angels sin was more spontaneous De Angelis quibusdam suâ sponte corruptis corruptio◠gens Daemonum evasit Tert. Apol. c. 22. wrought in them by themselves man had importunam arhorem that flattering and importuning Tree and that subtill and seducing Serpent to urge and sway him from his obedience Man had a Tempter the Angels were both the temptation and tempters to themselves Man took in Death by looking abroad but the Angels by reflecting upon themselves gazed so long upon their own Beauty till they saw it changed into horrour and deformity and the offence is more pardonable where the motive is ab extrinseco from some outward assoile than where it grows up of it self Besides the Angels did not all fall but the whole lump of mankind was leavend with the same leaven and pity it may seem that so noble a Creature made up after Gods own Image should be utterly lost These reasons with others we may admit though they may seem rather to be conjectures than reasons and we have not much light in Scripture to give them a fairer appearance but the Scripture is plain that he took not the Angels Heb. 2.16 he did not lay his hands upon them to redeem them to liberty and strike off their Bonds and we must goe out of the world to find out the reason and seek
the true cause in the bosome of the Father nay in the bowels of his Son and there see the cause why he was delivered for us written in his Heart it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 3.4 the love of God to mankind and what was in mankind but enmity and hostility sinne and deformity which are no proper motives to draw on his love and yet he loved us and hated sinne and made haste to deliver us from it Dilexisti me domine plusquam te quando mori voluisti pro me saith Aust Lord when thou dyedst for me thou madest it manifest that my soule was dearer to thee then thy self such a high esteeme did he set upon a Soule which we scarce honour with a thought but so live as if we had none For us men then and For us Sinners was he delivered the Prophet Esay speaks it and he could not speake it so properly of any but him He was wounded for our transgressions and broken for our Iniquities So that he was delivered up not onely to the crosse E◠53. and shame but to our sinnes which nayled him to the crosse which crucified him not onely in his Humility but in his glory now he sits at the right hand of God and puts him to shame to the end of the world Falsò de Judaeis querimur why complain we of the Jewes malice or Judas's treason of Pilates injustice we we alone are they who crucifyed the Lord of life Our Treachery was the Judas which betrayed him Our malice the Jew which accused him our perjury the false witnesse against him our Injustice the Pilate that condemned him our pride scorned him our envy grinned at him our luxury spet upon him our covetousnesse sold him our corrupt bloud was drawn out of his wounds our swellings prickt with his Thornes our sores launced with his speare and the whole Body of sinne stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life Tradidit pro nobis he delivered him up for us sinners no sinne there is which his bloud will not wash away but finall impenitency which is not so much a sinne as the sealing up of the body of sinne when the measure is full pro nobis for us sinners for us for us the progeny of an arch-traytor and as great traytors as he take us at our worst if we repent he was delivered for us and if we do not repent yet he may be said to be delivered for us for he was delivered for us to that end that we might repent Pro nobis Pro nobis omnibus so us all for us men and for us sinners he was deliver'd pro infirmis for us when we were without strength pro impiis for us when we were ungodly pro peccatoribus for sinners Rom. 5.6,7 for so we were consider'd in this great work of our Redemption and thus high are we gone on this scale and ladder of love There is one step more pro nobis omnibus he was deliver'd for us all all not consider'd as elect or reprobate but as men as smners for that name will take in all for all have sinned And here we are taught to make a stand and not to touch too hastily and yet the way is plaine and easie pro omnibus for all this some will not touch and yet they doe touch and presse it with that violence that they presse it almost into nothing make the world not the world and whosoever not whosoever but some certaine men and turne all into a few deduct whom they please out of all people Nations and Languages and out of Christendome it self and leave some few with Christ upon the Crosse whose persons he beares whom they call the elect and meane themselves sic Deus dilexit mundum so God loved the world that is the Elect say they John 3.16 they are the world where t is hard to find them for they are called out of it and the best light we have which is of Scripture discovers them not unto us in that place and if the Elect be this world which God so loved then they are such Elect which may not believe and such elect as may perish and whom God will have perish if they doe not believe T is true none have benefit of Christs death but the Elect but from hence it doth not follow that no other might have had theirs is the kingdome of heaven but are not they shut out now who might have made it theirs God saith Saint Peter would not that any should perish 2 Pet. 3.8 and God is the Saviour of all men saith Saint Paul but especially of those that believe 1 Tim. 4.10 all if they believe and repent and those who are obedient to the Gospel because they doe the bloud of Christ is powred forth on the Believer and with it he sprinkles his heart and is saved the wicked trample it under their foot and perish That the bloud of Christ is sufficient to wash away the sinnes of the world nay of a thousand worlds that Christ paid down a ransome of so infinite a value that it might redeeme all that are or possibly might be under that Captivity that none are actually redeemed but they who make him their Captaine and doe as he commands that is believe and repent or to speak in their own language none are saved but the elect In this all agree in this they are Brethren and why should they fall out when both hold up the priviledge of the believer and leave the rod of the stubborne Impenitent to fall upon him The death of Christ is not applyed to all say some It is not for all say others the virtue of Christs meritorious passion is not made use of by all say some it was never intended that it should say others and the event is the same for if it be not made use of and applyed it is as if it were not as if it had never been obtain'd onely the unbeliever is left under the greater condemnation who turned away from Christ who spake unto him not onely from heaven but from his crosse and refused that grace which was offer'd him which could not befall him if there had never been any such overture made for how can he refuse that which never concern'd him how can he forfeit that pardon which was never seal'd how can he despise that spirit of grace which never breathed towards him They who are so tender and jealous of Christs bloud that no drop must fall but where they direct it doe but veritatem veritate concutere undermine and shake one truth with another set up the particular love of God to believers to overthrow his generall love to Mankind confound the virtue of Christs passion with the effect and draw them together within the same narrow compasse bring it under a Decree that it can save no more then it doth because it hath its bounds set hitherto it shall go and no further and was ordained to quicken
with his Grace if we will receive it which will make his commands which are now grievous easie his Promises which are rich profitable which may carry us on in a regular and peaceable course of piety and obedience which is our Angel which is our God and we call it Grace All these things we have with Christ and the Apostle doth not onely tell us that God doth give us them but to put it out of doubt puts up a quomodo non challenges as it were the whole world to shew how it should be otherwise How will he not with him give us all things And this question addes energy and weight and emphasis and makes the position more positive the affirmation more strong and the truth of it more perswasive and convincing shall he not give us all things It is impossible but he should more possible for a City upon a hill to be hid than for him to hide his favour from us more possible for Heaven to sink into Hell or Hell to raise it self up to his Mercy-seat than for him to with-hold any thing from them to whom he hath given his Son Impossible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as most inconvenient as that which is against his Wisdome Naz. Or. 36. his Justice his Goodnesse and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as abhorrent to his will to deny us any thing In brief if the Earth be not as Iron the Heavens cannot be as Brasse God cannot but give when we are fit to receive and in Christ we are made capable and when he is given all things are given with him nay more than all things more than we can desire more than we can conceive when he descends Mercy descends with him in a ful shower of Blessings to make our Souls as the Paradise of God to quicken our Faith to rouze up our Hope and in this Light in this Assurance in this Heaven we are bold with S. Paul to put up the question against all Doubts all Feares all Temptations that may assault us He that sparede not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him give us all things The Conclusion And now we have passed up every step and degree of this scale and ladder of love and seen Christ delivered and nailed to the Crosse and from thence he looks down and speaks to us to the end of the world Crux patientis fuit Cathedra docentis the Crosse on which he suffered was the Chaire of his profession and from this Chair we are taught Humility constant Patience and perfect Obedience an exact art and method of living well drawn out in severall lines so that what was ambitiously said of Homer that if all Sciences were lost they may be found in him may most truly be said of his Crosse and Passion that if all the characters of Innocency Humility Obedience Love had been lost they might here be found in libro vitae agni in the Book of the Life nay of the Death of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World yet now nailed to the Crosse Let us then with Love and Reverence look upon him whothus looks upon us put on our Crucified Jesus that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrys every Vertue his Humility his Patience his Obedience and so bear about with us the dying of our Lord and draw the picture of a Crucified Saviour in our selves To this end was he delivered up for us to this end we must receive him that we may glorifie God as he hath glorified him on earth for Gods Glory and our Salvation are twisted together and wrought as it were in the same thred are linked together in the same bond of Peace I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me Thus it runs and it runs on evenly in a stream of love Oh how must it needs delight him to see his Gift prosper in our hands to see us delivering up our selves to him who was thus delivered for us to see his purchase those who were bought with this price made his peculiar people Lift then up the gates of your souls that this King of Glory may come in If you seek Salvation you must seek the glory of God and if you seek the glory of God you shall find it in your Salvation Thou may'st cry loe here it is or loe there it is but here it is found The Jew may seek salvation in the Law the Superstitious in Ceremony and bodily exercise the Zelot in the Fire and in the Whirlwind the phantastick lazy Christian in a Thought in a Dream and the profane Libertine in Hell it self Then then alone we find it when we meet it in conjunction with the glory of God which shines most gloriously in a Crucified Christ and an Obedient Christian made conformable to him and so bearing about in him the markes of the LORD JESUS To conclude then Since God hath delivered up his Son for us all and with him given us all things let us open our hearts and receive him that is Believe in his name that is be faithfull to him that is love him and keep his Commandements which is our conformity to his Death and then he will give us what will he give us he will heap gift upon gift give us power to become the Sons of God Let us receive him take in Christ take him in his Shame in his Sorrow in his Agony take him hanging on the Crosse take him and take a pattern by him that as he was so we may be troubled for our sins that we may mingle our Teares with his Blood drag our Sin to the Bar accuse and condemn it revile and spit in its Face at the fairest presentment it can make and then naile it to the Crosse that it may languish and faint by degrees and give up the Ghost and die in us and then lye down in peace in his Grave and expect a glorious Resurrection to eternall life where we shall receive Christ not in Humility but in Glory and with him all his Riches and Abundance all his glorious Promises even Glory and Immortality and Eternall life HONI â—…T QVI MAL Y PENSE A SERMON Preached on Easter-Day REV. 1.18 I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I live for evermore Amen and have the keyes of Hell and of Death WE do not ask of whom speaketh S. John this or who is he that speaks it for we have his character drawn out in lively colours in the verses going before my Text. The Divine calls him a voyce ver 12. when he meanes the man who spake it I turned to see the voyce that spoke with me and in the next verse tells us he was like to the Son of man in the midst of the seven golden Candlesticks governing his Church setting his Tabernacle amongst men not abhorring to walk amongst them and to be their God Leâ— 26.11,12 that they might be his people Will ye see his Robes
we could not have taken him for our Captaine and if we will not enter the lists he will not take us for his Souldiers non novimus Christum si non credimus we do not know Christ if we believe him not to be such a one as he is a Captaine that leads us as Moses did the children of Israel through the Wildernesse full of fiery Serpents into Canaan through the valley of death into life Nor is it expedient for us who are not born but made Christians and a Christian is not made with a thought whose lifting up supposes some dungeon or prison in which we formerly were whose rising looks back into some grave Tolle certamen ne virtus quidem quicquam erit take away his combat with our spiritual enemies with afflictions and tentations Religion it self were but a bare name and Christianity as Leo the tenth is said to have called it a fable What were my Patience if no misery did look towards it what were my Faith if there were no doubt to assoile it what were my Hope if there were no scruple to shake it what were my Charity if there were no misery to urge it no malice to oppose it what were my Day if I had no Night or what were my Resurrection if I were never dead Fui mortuus I was dead saith the Lord of life and it is directed to us who do but think we live but are in our graves entombed in this world which we so love compassed about with enemies covered with disgraces raked up as it were in those evils which are those locusts which come out of the smoke of the bottomlesse pit when we hear this voice by the vertue and power of it look upon these and make a way through them we rise with Christ our hope is lively and our faith is that victory which overcometh the world Nor need this Method seeme grievous unto us for these very words Fui mortuus I was dead may put life and light into it and commend it not onely as the truest but as a plaine and easie method For by his Death we must understand all those fore-running miseries all that he suffer'd before his death which were as the Traine and Ceremony as the officers of the High priest to lead him to it as poverty scorne and contempt the burden of our sinnes his Agony and bloudy sweat which we must look upon as the principles of this Heavenly science by which our best master learned to succour us in our sufferings to lift us up out of our graves and to rayse us from the dead There is life in his death and comfort in his sufferings for we have not such an High priest who will not help us but which is one and a chief end of his suffering and death who is touch'd with the feeling of our Infirmities and is mercifull and faithfull Heb. 2.17 hath not onely power for that he may have and not shew it but a will and propension a desire and diligent care to hold up them who are ready to fall and to bring them back who were even brought to the Gates of death Indeed mercy without power can beget but a good wish Saint James his complementall charity Be ye warmed and be ye filled and be ye comforted which leaves us cold and empty and comfortlesse and Power without mercy will neither strengthen a weak knee nor heale a broken heart may as well strike us dead as revive us but Mercy and Power when they meet and kisse each other will work a miracle will uphold us when we fall and rayse us from the dead will give eyes to the blind and strength to the weak will make a fiery furnace a Bath a Rack a Bed and persecution a Blessing will call those sorrowes that are as if they were not such a virtue and force such life there is in these three words I was dead For though his compassion and mercy were coeternall with him as God yet as man didicit he learnt it He came into the world as into a Schoole and there learnt it by his sufferings and death Heb. 5.8 For the way to be sensible of anothers misery is first to feele it in our selves it must be ours or if it be not ours we must make it ours before our heart will melt I must take my brother into my self I must make my self as him before I help him I must be that Lazar that beggs of me and then I give I must be that wounded man by the way side and then I powre my oyle and wine into his wounds and take care of him I must feele the Hell of sinne in my self before I can snatch my Brother out of the fire Compassion is first learnt at home and then it walks abroad and is eyes to the blind and feet to the lame and heales two at once both the miserable and him that comforts him for they were both under the same disease one as sick as the other I was dead and I suffer'd are the maine strength of our Salvation For though Christ could no more forget to be mercifull then he could leave off to be the sonne of God yet before he emptyed himself and took upon him the forme of a servant sicut miseriam expertus non era ita nec miscricordiam experimento novit saith Hilary as he had no experience of sorrow so had he no experimentall knowledge of mercy and compassion his own hunger moved him to work that miracle of the loaves for it is said in the Text He had compassion on the multitude his poverty made him an Crator for the poore and he begs with them to the end of the world He had not a hole to hide his head and his compassion melted into tears at the sight of Jerusalem When he became a man of sorrowes he became also a man of compassion And yet his experience of sorrow in truth added nothing to his knowledge but rayseth up a confidence in us to approach neer unto him who by his miserable experience is brought so neer unto us and hath reconciled us in the Body of his flesh Coloss 1.21 for he that suffer'd for us hath compassion on us and suffers and is tempted with us even to the end of the world on the Crosse with Saint Peter on the Block with S. Paul in the fire with the Martyrs destitute afflicted tormented would you take a view of Christ looking towards us with a melting eye you may see him in your own soules take him in a groane mark him in your sorrow behold him walking in the clefts of a broken heart bleeding in the gashes of a wounded spirit or to make him an object more sensible you may see him every day begging in your streets when he tells you He was dead he tells you as much In as much as the children were partakers of flesh and Bloud he also himself took part of the same and in our flesh was a
of the Pharisees believe in him we might ask Did any of his Disciples believe in him Christ himself calls them Fools and slow of heart to believe what the Prophets had foretold their Feare had sullied the evidence that they could not see it the Text sayes they forsook him and fled And the reason of this is plain For though faith be an act of the understanding yet it depends upon the will and men are incredulous not for want of those meanes which may raise a faith but for want of will to follow that light which leads unto it do not believe because they will not and so bear themselves strongly upon opinion preconceived beyond the strength of all evidence whatsoever when our affections and lusts are high and stand out against it the evidence is put by and forgot and the object which calls for our eye and faith begins to disappear and vanish and at last is nothing quot voluntates tot fides so many wills Hilary so many Creeds for there is no man that believes more than he will To make this good we may appeale to men of the slendrest observation least experience we may appeale to our very eye which cannot but see those uncertain and uneven motions in which men are carried on in the course of their life For what else is that that turnes us about like the hand of a Diall from one point to another from one perswasion to a contrary How comes it to pass that I now embrace what anon I tremble at what is the reason that our Belief shifts so many Scenes and presents it self in so many severall shapes now in the indifferency of a Laodicaean anon in the violence of a Zelot now in the gaudiness of Superstition anon in the proud scornful slovenry of factious Profaneness that they make so painfull a peregrination through so many modes and forms of Religion and at last end in Atheist what reason is there there can be none but this the prevalency and victory of our sensitive part over our reason and the mutability yea and stubbornesse of our will which cleaves to that which it will soon forsake but is strongly set against the truth which brings with it the fairest evidence but not so pleasing to the sense This is it which makes so many impressions in the mind Self-love and the love of the world these frame our Creeds these plant and build these root and pull down build up a Faith and then beat it to the ground and then set up another in its place A double-minded man saith S. James is unstable in all his wayes Remember 2 Tim. 2.8 saith S. Paul that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised up from the dead according to my Gospel that is a sure foundation for our faith to build on and there we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fair and certain pledges of it which are as a Commentary upon ego vivo I live or as so many beams of light to make it open and manifest to every eye which give up so fair an evidence that the malice of the Jew cannot avoid it Let them say his Disciples stole him away whilest their stout watchmen slept what stole him away and whilest they slept it is a dream and yet it is not a dream it is a studied lye and doth so little shake that it confirmes our faith so transparent that through it we may behold more clearly the face of truth which never shines brighter than when a lye is drawn before it to vaile and shadow it He is not here he is risen if an Angel had not spoken it yet the Earthquake the Clothes the clothes so diligently wrapt up the Grave it self did speak it and where such strange impossibilities are brought in to colour and promote a lye they help to confute it id negant quod ostendunt they deny what they affirm and malice it self is made an argument for the truth For it we have a better verdict given by Cephas and the twelve 1 Cor. 12.15 We have a cloud of witnesses five hundred brethren at once who would not make themselves the Fathers of a lye to propagate that Gospel which either makes our yea yea and nay nay or damnes us nor did they publish it to raise themselves in wealth and honour for that teacheth them to contemn them and makes poverty a beatitude and shewes them a sword and persecution which they were sure to meet with and did afterwards in the prosecution of their office and publication of that faith nor could they take any delight in such a lye which would gather so many clouds over their heads and would at last dissolve in that bitternesse which would make life it self a punishment and at last take it away and how could they hope that men would ever believe that which themselves knew to be a lie These witnesses then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are many and beyond exception We have the blood too the testimony of the Martyrs who took their death on 't and when they could not live to publish it laid down their life and sealed it with their blood And therefore we on whom the ends of the world are come have no reason to complain of distance or that we are removed so many ages from the time wherein it was done for now Christ risen is become a more obvious object than before the diversity of mediums have increased multiplied it we see him in his word we see him through the blood of Martyrs we see him with the eye of faith Christ is risen alive secundum scripturas saith S. Paul and he repeats it twice in the same chapter Offenderunt Judaei in Christum lapidem it is S. Austins let it passe for his sake when the Jew stumbled at him he presented but the bignesse of a stone but our infidelity will find no excuse if we see him not now when he appears as visible as a mountain Vivo Vivo that is vivifico I give life saith Christ I am alive there is more in this vivo than a bare rising to life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he liveth is as much as he giveth life there is virtue and power in his Resurrection a power to abolish Death 2 Tim. 1.10 and to bring life and immortality to light a power to raise our vile bodies and a power to raise our viler souls shall raise them nay he hath done it already conresuscitati we are risen together with him and we live with him for we cannot think that he that made such haste out of his own Grave can be willing to see us rotting in ours From this vivo it is that though we dye yet we shall live again Christs living breathes life into us and in his Resurrection he cast the modell of ours Idea est eorum quae fiunt exemplar aeternum saith Seneca and this is such a one an eternall pattern for ours Plato's Idea or common
Samuel told Eli every whit and kept nothing from him And He said It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him Good THe words are the words of old Eli the Priest and have reference to that message which yong Samuel brought him from the Lord such a message as did make both the ears of every one that heard it tingle ver 11. Come see the work of sin what desolation it makes upon the Earth Ophni and Phinehas the two prophane and adulterous Sons must die old Eli the indulgent Father the High Priest must die Thirty four thousand Israelites must fall by the sword of the Philistines The Arke the glory of Israel must be taken and be delivered up in triumph unto Dagon this was the word of the Lord which he spake by the mouth of the child Samuel and not a word of his did fall to the ground at the 19. verse for what God foretells is done already with him that calleth the things that are not as if they were as the Prophet speaks there is no difference of times Nothing past Nothing to come all is present So that old Eli did see this bloody Tragedy acted before it was done saw it done before the signal to Battle was given did see his Sons slain whilst the Fleshook was yet in their hands himself fall whilst he stood with Samuel the Israelites slain before they came into the field the Arke taken whilst it was yet in the Tabernacle a fad and killing presentment whether we consider him as a Father or a High Priest a Father looking upon his Sons falling before the Ark which they stood up and fought for as a High Priest beholding the people slain and vanquisht and the Ark the Glory of God the Glory of Israel in the hands of Philistines But the word of the Lord is gone out and will not return empty and void for what he sayes shall be done and what he binds with an oath is irreversible and must come to pass and it is not much material whether it be accomplisht to morrow or next day or now instantly and follow as an Eccho to the Prediction nam una est scientia Futurorum Hier. ad Pammach adversus errores Joann Hierosol saith S. Hierome for the knowledge of things to come is one and the same And now it will be good to look upon these heavie Judgments and by the terror of them fly from the wrath to come as the Israelites were cured by looking on the Serpent in the Wilderness For even the Justice of God when it speaks in thunder makes a kinde of melody when it toucheth and striketh upon an humble submissive yeelding heart Behold old Eli an High Priest to teach you who being now within the full march and shew of the Enemy and of those judgments which came apace towards him like an Armed man not to be resisted or avoided and hearing that from God which shook all the powers of his soul settles and composes his troubled minde with his consideration That is was the Lord in this silences all murmur slumbers all impatience buries all disdain looks upon the hand that strikes bows and kisseth it and being now ready to fall raiseth himself up upon this pious and Heavenly resolution Dominus est It is the Lord Though the people of Israel fly and the Philistines triumph though Ophni and Phinehas fall Though himself fall backward and break his neck Though the Ark be taken yet Dominus est It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good Which words are a Rhetorical Enthymeme perswading to humility and a submissive acquiescience under the Hand the mighty Hand of God by his power his justice his wisdom which all meet and are concentred in this Dominus est It is the Lord. He is omnipotent and who hath withstood his power He is just and will bring no evil without good cause He is wise whatsoever evil he brings he can draw it to a good end and therefore Faciat quod bonum in oculis let him do what seemeth him good Or you may observe first a judicious discovery from whence all evils come Dominus est It is the Lord. Secondly a well-grounded resolution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to behave our selves decently and fittingly as under the power and justice and wisdom of God Let him do what seemeth him good The first is a Theologicall Axiome Dominus est It is the Lord There is no evil in a City Which he doth not do The second a conclusion as necessary as in any Demonstration most necessary I am sure for weaknesse to bow to Omnipotency In a word The Doctrine most certain Dominus est It is the Lord ... All these evils of punishment are from him and the resolution which is as the use and application of it most safe Faciat quod bonum in oculis Let him do what seemeth him good Of these we shall speak in their order and in the prosecution of the first for we shall but touch upon and conclude with the last that you may follow me with more ease we will draw the lines by which we are to passe and confine our selves to these four particnlars which are most eminent and remarkeable in the story First that Gods people the true professors may be delivered up to punishment for sinne Secondly that in these general judgements upon a people the good many times are involved with the evil and fall with them Thirdly that Gods people may be delivered up into the hands of Philistines and Aliens men worse then themselves Fourthly that the Ark The glory of their profession may be taken away These four and then fix up this inscription Dominus est It is the Lord and when we have acquitted his Justice and wisdom in these particulars cast an eye back upon the inscription and see what beams of light it will cast forth for our direction Dominus est it is the Lord c. And in the first place of Ophni and Phineas the Text tels us That they hearkened not unto the voice of their Father because the Lord would destroy them which word Quia is not casuall but illative 2 Ch. v. 25. and implyes not the cause of their sinne but of their punishment they did not therefore sin because God would punish them but they hearkened not to the voice of their Father therefore the Lord destroyed them as we use to say the Sun is risen because it is day for the day is not the cause of the Suns rising but the Sun rising makes it day They were sons of Belial vessels already fitted for wrath as we may see by their many fowl enormities and therefore were left to themselves and their sinnes and to wrath which at last devoured them Gods Decree whatsoever it be is immanent in himself and therefore could not because of that disobedience and wickednesse which was extrameous and contrary to him nor could there be any action of Gods either positive or negative
and fault withall and a Feare which feares no punishment at all I know Aquinas puts a difference between servile feare and the servility of feare as if he would take the soul from Socrates and yet leave him a man Senec ep These are niceties more subtill then solid in quibus ludit animus magis quam proficit which may occasion discourse but not instruct our understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As neer as we can let us take things as they are in themselves and not as they are beat out and fashion'd by the work and business of our witts and then it will be plaine that though we be sonnes yet we may feare feare that Evill which the Father presents before us to fright us from it that we may make the feare of Death an Argument to Turne us and a strong motive to confirme us in the course of our Obedience that it is no servility to perform some part of Christs service upon those termes which he himself allows and hath prescribed to us Leet us call it by what name we please for indeed we have miscalled it and brought it in as slavish and servile and so branded the command of Christ himself yet we shall find it a blessed Instrument to safeguard and improve our Piety we shall find that the best way to escape the Judgements of God is to draw them neere even to our Eyes For Hell is a part of our Creed as well as Heaven his threatnings are as loud as his promises and could we once feare Hell as we should we should not feare it For I ask may we serve God sub intuitu mercedis with respect unto the reward it is agreed upon on all sides that we may for Moses had respect unto the recompence of the reward and Christ himself did look upon the Joy that was set before him Heb. 11.26 Heb. 12.2 why then not sub intuitu vindictae upopn the fear of punishment will God accept that service which is begun and wrought out by the virtue and influence of the reward and will he cast off that servant which had an eye upon his hand and observed him as a Lord why then hath God propounded both these both reward and punishment and bid us work on in his Vineyard with an eye on them both if we may not as well feare him when he threatens as run to meet him when he comes towards us and his reward with him let us then have recourse to his Mercy-seat but let us tremble also and fall downe before his Tribunal and behold his Glory and Majesty in both But it may be said and some have thought it their duty to say it that this belongs to the wicked to the Goates to feare but when Christ speaks to his Disciples to his Flock the language is Nolite timere feare not little flock Luke 12.32 for it is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdome 'T is true it is your Fathers will to give it you and you have no reason to feare or mistrust him but this doth not exclude the feare of the wrath of God nor the use of those meanes which the Father himself hath put into our hands not that Feare which may be one help and Advance towards that violence which must take it For our Saviour doth not argue thus It is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdome Therefore persevere not for any fear of punishment but the Feare which Christ forbids is the Feare of distrustfulness when we feare as Peter did upon the Waters when he was ready to sinke and had therefore a check and Rebuke from our Saviour why fearest thou oh thou of little Faith so that fear not little Flock is nothing else but a disswasion from infidelity A Souldier that puts no Confidence in himself yet may in his Captaine if he be a Hannibal or a Caesar for an Army of Harts may conquer said Iphicrates if a Lion be the leader so though we may something doubt and mistrust because we may see much wanting to the perefection of our Actions yet we must raise our diffidence with this perswasion that the promise is most certaine and that the power of Heaven and Hell cannot infringe or null it We may mistrust our selves for of our selves we are Nothing but not the Promises of CHRIST for they are yea and Amen But they are ready to reply that the Apostle St. Paul is yet more plaine Rom. 8.15 where he tells us That we have not received the spirit of Bondage to feare again but the Spirit of Adoption by which we cry Abba Father And it is most true that we have not received that Spirit for we are not under the Law but under Grace we are not Jews but Christians nor doe we feare againe as the Jews feared whose eye was upon the basket and the sword who were curb'd and restrain'd by the fear of present punishment and whose greatest motives to Obedience were drawn from Temporall respects and Interests who did feare the Plague Captivity the Philistim the Catterpillar ad Palmerworme and so did many times forbeare that which their lusts 2 Cor. 4.18 and irregular Appetites were ready to joyn with we have not received such a spirit for the Gospel directs our look not to those things which are seene but to those things which are not seen and shews us yet a more excellent way But we have received the Spirit of Adoption we are received into that Family where little care is taken for the meat that perisheth where the world is made an Enemy where we must leave the morrow to care for it self and work out our Salvation with feare and trembling where we must not feare what man but what God can doe unto us observe his hand as that hand which can raise us up as high as Heaven and throw us down to the lowest Pit love him as a Father and feare to offend him love and kisse the Sonne lest he be angry serve him without feare of any evill that can befall us here in our way of any Enemy that can hurt us and yet feare him as our Lord and King for in this his grant of liberty he did not let us loose against himself nor put off his Majesty that we should be so bold with him as not to serve but to disobey him without feare nor doth this cut off our Filiation our relation to him for a good sonne may feare the wrath of God and yet cry Abba Father But then againe we are told in Saint Iohn In caritate non est timor that there is no feare in love 1 John 4.18 but perfect love casteth out all feare and when he saith All feare he excepteth none no not the feare of punishment l. de fugâ in persecutione I know Tertullian Interpreting this Text makes this feare to be nothing else but that lazy Feare which is begot by a vain and unnecessary contemplation of Difficulties the feare of
Pharaohs heart was hardned 3. God hardned Pharaohs heart and now let us Judge whether it be safer to interpret Gods induration by Pharaohs or Pharaohs by Gods for if God did actually and immediately harden Pharaohs heart then Pharaoh was a meer patient nor was it in his power to let the people go and so God sent Moses to bid him do that which he could not and which he could not because God had hardned him but if Pharaoh did actually harden his own heart as 't is plain enough he did then Gods Induration can be no more then a just permission and suffering him to be hardned which in his wisdom and the course he ordinarily takes he would not and therefore could not hinder sufficit unus Huic operi one is enough for this work of induration and we need not take in God for to keep to the letter in the former hakes a main principle of truth that God is in no degree Author of sin but to keep to the letter in the latter cleeres all doubts prevents all objections and opens a wide and effectual door to let as in to a cleer sight of the meaning of the former For that man doth harden his owne heart is undeniably true But that God doth harden the heart is denied by most is spoken darkly and doubtfully by some nor is it possible that any Christian should speak it plainly or present it in this hideous monstrous shape but must be forced to stick and dresse it up with some far fetcht and impertinent limitation or distinction For lastly I cannot see how God can positively be said to do that which is done already to his hand For induration is the proper and natural effect of sin and to bring in God alone is to leave nothing for the devil or man to do but to make Satan of a Serpent a very flie indeed and the soul of man nothing else but a forge and shop to work those sins in which may burn and consume it everlastingly God and nature speak the same thing many times Aristot l. 7. Eth. c. 1. though the phrase be different that wihch the Philosopher calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ferity and brutishnesse of nature that in Scripture is called hardnesse of heart for every man is shaped and formed and configured saith Basil to the actions of his life whither they be good or evil one sin draws on another and a second a third and at last we are carried 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our own accord and as it were by the force of a natural inclination till we are brought to that extremity of sin which the Philosopher calls Ferity a shaking of all that is man about us and the holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reprobate minde And such a minde had Pharaoh 1 Rom. 2.8 who was more and more enraged by every sin which he had committed as the Wolf is most fierce and cruel when he hath drawn and tasted blood For it is impossible that any should accustome themselves to sin and not fall into this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this hardesse of heart and indisposition to all goodnesse and therefore we cannot conceive that God hath any hand in our death if we die and that dereliction Incrassation excaecation hardnesse of heart are not from God further then that he hath placed things in that order that when we accustome our selves to sin and contemn his grace blindnesse and hardnesse of heart will necessarily follow but have no relation to any will of his but that of permission and then this expostulation is real and serious Quare moriemini Why will ye die And now to conclude I have not been so particular as the point in Hand may seem to require nor could I be in this measure of Time but onely in Generall stood up in defence of the Goodness and Justice of God for shall not the Judge of all the Earth doe right shall he necessitate men to be evill and then bind them by a Law to be good shall he exhort beseech them to live when they are dead already shall his Absolute Dominion be set up so high from thence to ruine his Justice This indeed some have made their Helena but 't is an ugly and ill-favoured one for this they fight unto Death even for the Book of life till they have blotted out their names with the Blood of their Brethren This is Drest out unto them as savoury meat set for their palate who had rather be carried up to heaven in Elias fiery Charriot then to pace it thither with Trouble and paine That GOD hath absolutely Decreed the salvation of some particular men and passed sentence of Death upon others is as Musick to some eares like Davids Harpe to refresh them and drive away the Evill Spirit Et qui amant sibi somnia fingunt mens desires doe easily raise a belief and when they are told of such a Decree they dreame themselves to Heaven for if we observe it they still chuse the better part and place themselves with the sheep at the right Hand and when the Controverly of the Inheritance of Heaven is on foot to whom it belongs they do as the Romanes did who when two Cities contending about a piece of Ground made them their Judge to determine whose it was fairly gave sentence on their own behalf and took it to themselves because they read of Election elect themselves which is more indeed then any man can deny and more I am sure then themselves can prove And now Oh Death where is thy sting The sting of Death is sin but it cannot reach them and the strength of sinne is the Law but it cannot bind them for sinne it self shall Turne to the good of these Elect and Chosen Vessels and we have some reason to suspect that in the strength of this Doctrine and a groundless conceit that they are these particular men they walk on all the daies of their life in fraud and malice in Hypocrisy and disobedience in all that uncleannes and pollution of sinne which is enough to wipe out any name out of the Book of Life Hoc saxum defendit Manlius Sen. Controv. hic excidit For this they rowse up all their Forces this is their rock their fundamentall Doctrine their very Capitol and from this we may feare many thousands of soules have been Tumbled down into the pit of Destruction at this rock many such Elect Vessells have been cast away Again others miscarry as fatally on the other hand for when we speak of an absolute Decree upon particulars unto the vulgar sort who have not Cor in Corde as Austin speaks who have their Judgement not in their Heart but in their sense they soon conceive a fatall necessity and one there is that called it so Fatum Christianum the Christian mans Destiny they think themselves in chaines and shackles that they cannot Turne when they cannot be predestinate not to Turne but
hairy scalp of wilful offenders who loath the means despise prophecy quench the spirit and so hinder it in its operation of men who are as stubborn against Grace as they are loud in its commendations as active to resist as to extol it For this is to cast it away and nullifie it this is to make it nothing by making it greater nay to turn it into wantonnesse But it may be said that when we are fallen from God we are not able to rise again of our selves we willingly grant it that we have therefore need of new strength and new power to be given us which may raise us up we denie it not and then Thirdly that not onely the power but the very act of our recovery is from God ingratitude it self cannot denie it and then that man can no more withstand the power of that grace which God is ready to supply us with then an infant can his birth or the dead their Resurrection that we are turned whether we will or no is a conclusion which these premises will not yeeld This flint will yeeld no such fire though you strike never so oft we are indeed sometimes said to sleep and sometimes to be Dead in sin but it is ill building conclusions upon no better Basis then a figure or because we are said to be dead in sin infer a necessity of rising when we are called nor is our obedience to Gods inward call of the same nature with the obedience of the Creature to the voice and command of the Creator for the Creature hath neither reason nor will as man hath nor doth his power work after the same manner in the one as in the other How many Fiats of God have been frustrate in this kinde how often he hath he smote our stony and rocky hearts and no water flowed out how often hath he said Fiat lux let there be light when we remained in darknesse for we are free agents and he made us so when he made us men and our actions when his power is mighty in us are not necessary but voluntary not doth his power work according to the working of our Fancy nor lies within the level of our carnal Imaginations to do what they appoint but is accompanied and directed by that wisdom which he is and he doth nothing can do nothing but what is agreeable to it As it was said of Caesar in Lucan though in another sense Velle putant quodcunque potest We think that God can do whatsoever he can but we must know that as he is powerful and can do all things so he is wise and sweetly disposeth all things as he will and he will not save us against our will for to necessitate us to goodnesse were not to try our obedience but to force it quod necessitas praestat depretiat ipsa Necessity takes of the price and value of that it works and makes it of no worth at all And then God doth not voluntarily take his grace from any but if the power of it defend us not from sin and death it is because we abuse and neglect it and will not work with it which is ready to work with us For Grace is not blinde as Fortune nec cultores praeterit nec haeret contemptoribus she will neither passe by them who will receive her nor dwell with those persons which contemn her nor save those who will destroy themselves To conclude this He is most unworthy to receive Grace who in the least degree detracts from the power of it and he is as unworthy who magnifies and rejects it and makes his lise an argument against his Doctrine sayes he cannot be resisted and resists it every day he that denies the power of it is a scarse a Christian and he is the worst of Christians who will not gird up his loins and work out his salvation but loiters and stands idle all the day long shadows and pleaseth himself under the expectation of what he will do and so Turns it into wantonnesse Let us not abuse the Grace of God and then we cannot magnifie it enough but he that will not set his hand to work upon a fancy that he wants Grace he that will not hearken after Grace though she knock and knock again as Fortune was said to have done at Galbas gate till she be weary hath already despised the Grace of God and cannot plead the want of that for any excuse which he might have had but put it off nay which he had but so used it as if it had been no grace at all They that have grace offered and repell it they that have Antidotes against death and will not use them can never answer the expostlation Why will ye die The third pretence And certainly he that is so liberal of his grace hath given us knowledge enough to see the danger of those wayes which lead to death and therefore in the next place ignorance of our wayes doth not minuere voluntarium doth not make our sin lesse wilfull but rather aggrandize it For first we may know if we will know every duty that tends to life and every sin that bringeth forth death we may know the Devils enterprises saith saint Paul 2 Cor. 2.11 and the ignorance of this findes no excuse when we have power and faculty light and understanding when the Gospel shines brightly upon us to dispel those mists which may be placed between the truth and us Sub silentiae faâ—ultate nesâ—ire repudiatae magis quà m non com pertae veritatis est reatus Hil. in Psal 1.8 then if we walk in darknesse and in the shadow of death we shall be found guilty and not so much of not finding out the truth as of refusing it as Hilary speaks of a strange contempt in not attaining that which is so easily atchieved and which is so necessary for our preservation I know every man hath not the same quicknesse of apprehension nor can every man make a Divine and it were to be wisht every man would know it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not for him that thresheth out the corn to resolve controversies or State-questions but Saint Peter requires that every man should be able to give an answer 1 Pet. 3.15 a reason of his faith and if he can do that he that knows the will of God is well armed and prepared against death and may cope with him and destroy him if he will And this is no perplext nor intricate study but fitted and proportioned to the meanest capacity he that cannot be a Seraphical Divine may be a Christian he that cannot be a Rabbi may be an honest man and if men were as diligent in the pursuit of the truth as they are in managing their own temporal affaires if men would try as many conclusions for knowledge as they do for wealth and were as ambitious to be good as they are to be rich and great if they were as much
thus if we look up to the Hills from whence commeth our Salvation Luk. 21.28 wee shall also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Look up and lift up our Heads behave our selves as if all Things did goe as wee would have them look up and lift up our Heads as herbs peep out of the Earth when the Sunne comes neere them and Birds sing when the Spring is neere so look up as if our Redemption our Spring were neere Thus if wee Importune Him by our Prayers wait on Him by our Patience walk before him when the Tempest is loudest in the syncerity and uprightnesse of our Hearts and put our Cause into his Hands if there bee any Ismael to persecute us any Enemies to trouble us hee will cast them out either so melt and transforme them that they shall not trouble us or if they doe they shall rather advantage them then Hurt us rather improve our Devotion then coole and abate it rather increase our Patience then weaken it raise our Syncerity rather then sink it rather settle and confirme our Confidence then shake it in a word shall so cast them out as to teach us to doe it that wee may so use them as wee are Taught to use the unrighteous Mammon to cast them out by making them Friends even such Friends as may receive us into Everlasting Habitations which God Grant for His Sonne JESUS CHRISTS sake c. THE FOURTEENTH SERMON MATTH 24.42 Watch therefore For you know not what hour your Lord doth come I. PART WHich words are the words of our Blessed Saviour and a part of that Answer which he return'd to that Question which was put up by his Disciples ver 3. Tell us When shall these things be and what shall be the signe of thy comming and of the end of the world Where we may observe that he doth not satisfy their Curiosity which was measuring of Time even to the last point and moment of it when it shall be no more but resolves them in that which was fit for them to know and passeth by in silence and untoucht the other as a thing laid up and reserved in the Bosome of his Father The Time he tells them not but foretells those Fearfull signes which should be the Fore runners of the Destruction of Jerusalem and the ends of the world which two are so interweaved in the Prediction that Interpreters scarce know how to distinguish them We need not take any paines to disentangle or put them asunder At the 30. v. he presents himself in the Clouds with Power and Glory the Angels sound the Trumper at the next the two men in the Field and the two women grinding at the Mill in the Verses immediately going before my Text the one taken the other lest are a faire Evidence and seem to point out to the end of the world which will be a time of discrimination of separating the Goats from the sheep And then these words will concerne us as much as the Apostles In which he who is our Lord and King to Rule and Govern us He that was and that is Revel 1.4 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that is to come tells us of his comming opens his will and manifests his Power and as he hath given us Laws tells us he will come to require them at our bands He that is the Wisedome of his Father he that neither slumbers nor sleeps calls upon us makes this stirre and noise about us and the Alarum is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be watchfull Call it what we please an Admonition or an Exhortation it hath the necessitating and compulsive force of a Law and Christ is his own Herald and proclaims it as it were by the sound of the Trumpet for this vigilate ergo watch Therefore is tuba ante Tuham is as a Trumpet before the last and thus it sounds To you it is commanded to fling your selves off from the bed of security to set a Court of Guard upon your selves to rowze up your selves to stand as it were on a Watch-Tower looking for and expecting the comming of the Lord. I may call it a Law but it is not as the Laws of men which are many times the result of mens wills which are guided and determined by their Lusts and Affections and so Ambition makes Laws and Covetousnesse makes Lawes and private Interest makes Laws with this false Inscription Bono publico For the Publick Good but it is prefac'd and ushered in with Reason which concerns not so much the Head as the Members not the Lord as his Servants not the King as his Subjects for us men and for our salvation For him that is in the Field and him that is in the House For him that sitteth on the Throne and the woman that Grindes at the Mill for the whole Church is the warning given This Law promulg'd and every word is a Reason 1. That he is our Lord that is to come 2ly That he will come 3ly That the time of his comming is uncertaine A Lord to seal and ratify his Laws with our blood which we would not subscribe too nor make good by our Obedience and a Lord gone as it were into a farre Countrey and leaving us to Traffick till he come but after a while to come and reckon with us and last of all at an uncertain time at an Hour we know not That every hour may be unto us as the hour of his comming for he that prefixes no Hour may come the next every one of these is a Reason strong enough to enforce this Conclusion Vigilate ergo Watch therefore A Lord he is and shall we not fear him To come and shall we not expect him To come at an hour we know not and shall we not watch these are the premises and the conclusion is Logically and formally deduced primae necessitatis the most necessary conclusion that a servant or subject can draw so that in these words we have these things considerable First the person coming Dominus vester your Lord Secondly his Advent veniet he will come Thirdly the uncertainty of that hour we know not when it will be out of which will naturally follow this conclusion which may startle and awake us out of sleep vigilate ergo watch therefore Watch therefore for you know not the Hour c. We will follow that method which we have laid down and begin with the premises and first it will concern us to look upon the person for as the person is such is our expectation and could we take the Idea of him in our hearts and behold him in the full compasse and extent of his power we should unfold our armes and look about us veternum excutere shake off our sloth and drowsinesse and prepare for his coming for it is Christ our Lord. Ask of me and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance Psal 2. saith God to Christ and Christ sayes John 10.30 I and the Father are one
onely in this sense said to have an end when indeed it is in its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perfection when there will be no enemy stirring to subdue no use of Laws when the Subjects are now made perfect when this Lord shall make his subjects Kings and Crowne them with Glory and Honor for ever Here 's no weaknesse no Infirmity no abjuration no resignation of the Crowne and Power but all things are at an end his enemies in Chaines and his subjects free free from the feare of Hell or Temptations of the Devill the World or the flesh and though there be an end yet he reignes still though he be subject yet he is as high as ever he was Though he hath delivered up his Kingdome yet he hath not lost it but remaines a Lord and King for Evermore And now you have seen this Lord that is to come you have seen him sitting at the right hand of God His right and Power of Government his Laws just and Holy and wise the virtue and Power the largeness and the duration of his Government a sight fit for those to look on who love and look for the comming of this Lord for they that long to meet him in the Clouds cannot but delight to behold him at the right Hand of God Look upon him then sitting in Majesty and Power and think you now saw him moving towards you and were now descending with a shout for his very sitting there should be to us as his comming it being but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the preparation to that great Day Look upon him and think not that he there sits Idle but beholds the Children of men those that wait for him and those that Think not of him and he will come down with a shout not fall as a Timber-logge for every Frogg every wanton sinner to leap upon and croake about but come as a Lord with a Reward in one hand and a Vengeance in the other Oh 't is farre better to fall down and worship him now then not to know him to be a Lord till that time that in his wrath he shall manifest his Power and fall upon us and break us in pieces Look then upon this Lord and look upon his Lawes and write them in your hearts for the Philosopher will tell us that the strength and perfection of Law consists not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the wise and discreet framing of them but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the right and due performance of them for obedience is the best seal and Ratification of a Law He is Lord from all eternity and cannot be divested of his royal office yet he counts his kingdom most compleat when we are subject and obedient unto him when he hath taken possession of our hearts where he may walk not as he did in Paradise terrible to Adam who had forfeited his allegiance but as in a garden of pleasures to delight himself with the sons of men Behold he commands threatens beseeches calls upon us again and again and the beseechings of Lords are commands preces armatae armed prayers backt with power and therefore next consider the vertue and power of his dominion and bow before him do what he commands with fear and trembling let this power walk along with thee in all thy wayes when thou art giving an almes let it strike the trumpet out of thy hand when thou fastest let it be in capite jejunii let it begin and end it when thou art strugling with a tentation let it drive thee on that thou faint not and fall back and do the work of the Lord negligently Jer. 48.10 when thou art adding vertue to vertue let it be before they eyes that thou mayest double thy diligence and make it up compleat in every circumstance and when thou thinkest of evil let it joyn with that thought that thou mayest hate the very appearance of it and chace it away why should dust ashes more awe thee then Omnipotency why should thy eye be stronger then thy faith not onely the frown but the look of thy Superior composeth and models thee puts thee into any fashion or form thou wilt go or run or sit down thou wilt venture thy body would that were all nay thou wilt venture thy soul do any thing be any thing what his beck doth but intimate but thy faith is fearlesse as bold as blind and will venture on on the point of the sword fears what man not what this Lord can do to him fears him more that sits on the bench than him that sits at the right hand of God If we did beleeve as we professe we could not but more lay it to our hearts even lay it so as to break them for who can stand up when he is angry let us next view the largenesse and compasse of his Dominion which takes in all that will come and reacheth those who refuse to come and is not contracted in its compasse if none should come and why shouldest thou turn a Saviour into a destroyer why should'st thou die in thy Physitians armes with thy cordials about thee why shouldest thou behold him as a Lord 'till he be angry he caleth all inviteth all that come why should Publicans and sinners enter and thy disobedience shut thee out Lastly consider the duration of his Dominion which shall not end but with the world nor end then when it doth end for the vertue of it shall reach to all eternity and then think that under this Lord thou must either be eternally happy or eternally miserable and let not a flattering but a fading world thy rebellious and traiterous flesh let not the father of lies a gilded temptation an apparition a vain shadow thrust thee on his left hand for both at his right and left there is power which works to all eternity The second his Advent or coming Venit he will come And now we have walkt about this Sion and told the towers thereof shewed you Christs territories and Dominion the nature of his laws the vertue and power the largenesse and compasse the duration of his kingdom we must in the next place consider his Advent his coming consider him as now coming for we cannot imagine as was said before that he sat there idle like Epicurus his God nec sibi facessens negotium nec alteri not regarding what is done below but like true Prometheus governing and disposing the state of times and actions of men M. Sen. Contr. Divinum numen etiam qua non apparet rebus humanis intervenit his power insinuates it self and even works there where it doth not appear Though he be in heaven yet he can work at this distance for he fills the heaven and the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he beholdeth all things he heareth all things he speaks to thee and he speaks in thee he hears thee when thou speakest and he hears thee when thou speakest not in his book are
Ottoman Empire some beginning it at the yeer 73. and drawing it on to conclude in the yeer 1073. when Hildebrand began to Tyrannize in the Church To let passe these since no man is able to reconcile them we can not but wonder that so grosse an errour should spread so far in the first and best times of the Church as to finde entertainment with so many but lesse wonder that it is reviv'd and foster'd by so many in ours who have lesse learning but more art to misinterpret and wrest the Scriptures â—o their own Damnation For what can they finde in this text to make them kings no more then many of them can finde in themselves to make them Saints And here is no mention of all the Saints but of Martyrs alone who were beheaded for the witnesse of Jesus v. 4. But we may say of this book of the Revelation as Aristotle spake of his books of Physick that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it is publisht and not publisht publisht but not for every man to fasten what sense he please upon it though we cannot deny but some few of latter times and so few as but enough to make up a number have by their multiplicity of reading and subtil diligence of observation and by a dextrous comparing those particulars which are registred in story with those things which are but darkly revealed or plainly revealed to Saint John but not so plain to us have raised us such probabilities that we may look up them with favour and satisfaction 'till we see some fairer evidence appear some more happy conjectures brought forth which may impair and lessen hat credit which as yet for ought that hath been seen they well deserve But this is not every mans work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every mans eye is not so quick and piercing to see at such distance and we see since so many men have taken the courage and been bold to play the interpreters of their dark Prophesies they have shaped out what fancies they please and instead of unfolding Revelations have presented vs with nothing but dreams as so many divers moralls to one fable and fo for two witnesses we have a cloud for one Beast almost as many as be in the Forrest and for one Antichrist every man that displeaseth us But let men interpret the thousand yeers how they please Our Saviour calls it an errour an errour that strikes at the very heart of Christianity which promiseth no riches nor power nor pleasure but that which is proportioned to those vertues and spiritual duties of which it consists For in the Resurrection neither do they marry Wives nor are married we may adde neither are there high nor love neither rich nor poor but all are one in Christ Jesus and his words are plain enough Quaedam sic digna revinci ne gravitate adorentur Tert. adv Valentin John 18. my Kingdom is not of this World I should scarce have vouchsafed to mention an errour so grosse and which carries absurdity in the very face of it but that we have seen this monster drest up and brought abroad and magnified in this latter age and in our own times which as they abound with iniquity so they do with errors which to study to confute were to honor them too much who make their â—…ual appetite a key to open Revelations and to please and satisfie that are well content here to build their Tabernacle and stay on earth a thousand yeers amongst those pleasing objects which our Religion bids us to contemn and to be so long absent from that joy and peace which is past understanding Their Heaven is as their vertues are ful of drosse earth and but a poor and imperfect resemblance of that which is so indeed and their conceit as carnal as themselves which Christianity and even common reason abhors For look upon them and you shall behold them full of debate envy malice covetousnesse ambition minding earthly things and so fancy a reward like unto themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like embraceth like as mire is more pleasing to swine then the waters of Jordan and it is no wonder to hear them so loud and earnest for riches and pleasure and a temporal Kingdom who have so weak a title to and so little hope of any other But God forbid that our Lord should come and flesh and blood prescribe the manner for then in how many several shapes must he appear in he must come to the covetous and fill his cofers to the wanton and build him a Seraglio to the ambitious and crown him no his advent shal be like himself he shal come in power majesty in a form answerable to his Laws Government and as al things were gatherd together in him Eph. 1.10,22 which are in Heaven and which are in earth and God hath put all things under his feet so he shall come unto all to Angels to the Creature to men And 1. he may well be said to come unto the Angels For he is the head of all Principalitie and Power colos 2.10 as at his first coming he confirmed them in their happy estate of obedience which we beleeve as probable though we have no plain evidence of Scripture for it so at his second he shall more fully shew that to them that which they desired to look into 1 Pet. 1.17 as Saint Peter speaks give them a clearer vision of God and increase the joy of the good as he shall the torments of evil Angels For if they sang for joy at his Birth what Hosannas and Hallelujahs will they sound forth when they attend him with a shout if they were so taken with his humility how will they be ravisht with his Glory and if there by joy in Heaven for one sinner that repents how will that joy be exalted when those repentant sinners shall be made like unto the Angels when they shall be of the same Quire and sing the same song glory and honour to him that sitteth upon the Throne and to this Lord for Evermore Secondly he comes unto the Creatures to redeem them from bondage for the desire of the Creature is for this day of his coming Rom. 8.19,22 for even the whole Creation groaneth with us also but when he comes they shall be reformed into a better estate 2 Pet. 3.13 there shall be new Heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousnesse Now the Creature is subjecta vanitati subject to vanity not onely to change and mutability but to be instrumental to evil purposes to rush into the battle with us to run upon the Angels sword to be our drudges and our Parasites to be the hire of a whore and the price of blood They groan as it were and travaile in pain under these abuses and therefore desire to be deliverd not out of any rational desire but a natural inclination which is in every thing to preserve it self in its best
and bespeaks them with Arguments and reasons undenyable and decline to falshood by leaning rather to that which is convenient then that which is true hearkning more to earthly and sensuall motives then to the voice of God which told them This is the way Honor and Riches and love of this world make up that body of Divinity which must be a Directory for others to walk by the eye reads the Text and the eye lets in the Interpretation for the love that I delight in is urgent with me and perswades me to understand it so as it may favour and Countenance that Love Thus do Tentations both to sinne and errour creep in at these doores and inlets of the senses and like Theeves steale in by night colour'd over with the pleasures and clouded with the pomp of the world and so find easy admittance and steale away the Truth and Love of God out of our hearts whilst we sleep And if a faire Temptation doe not make entrance with a smile a bitter and grievous Temptation may force a passage with its Horror For thus according to their divers and severall aspects they worke both upon the Irascible and Concupiscible Power If an Enemy be loud against us we have a Tempest vvithin us if Jacob hath the blessing Esau hates him At the sight of Beauty if I take not heed my Love begins to kindle at the next look it Flames The approach of danger strikes me with feare nay a shadow and representation will doe it I may take a Promontory for a Navy and a field of Thistles for a body of Pikes not onely that which is true but that which is Feigned That which is but colour which is but round which is but a superficies but an apparition but a shadow being carelesly let in and entertain'd may rayse this Tumult and Sedition in the Soul a faire promising Temptation comes upon parley and treaty and conditions insinuates and winnes upon us with its smiles and flatteries but a fearfull and boy sterous Temptation playeth upon us with all its Artillery with smart and shame and poverty and Imprisonment and Death makes forward with a kind of force and violence Tâ—ll Offi. 1. Et tumultuantes de gradu dcijcit and overthrows us with some noise And as the senses conveigh the Tentations so do the Affections if we watch them not and suppresse them make sensible alterations in the heart and make themselves visible to the very Eye Ardent intenduntur humectant connivent hinc illae misericordrae Lacrymae Plin. Nat. H. l. 11. c. 37. profectò saith Pliny in oculis animus inhabitat the mind dwells in the eye there it is visible to be seen in its joy it leapeth there in its grief it languisheth in its feare it droopeth there in its Anger it threatens there in its Hope it looks out cheerfully and in its Despaire it sinks in again and leaves the living man with no more motion then a Carkasse The heart of man changeth his countenance saith the Wise man If we stand not upon our Guard the state and peace of our mind will soon be over-thrown Respexit oculis saith St. Amb. et sensum mentis evertit os libavit crimen retulit the man did but look back and his mind was shaken he did but open his eare and lost a good intention he did but lightly Touch and shadow the Object and took in a sinne he did but Touch and was on fire You see now the force and strength of the Enemy you see him in his mine and you see him in his March with his flatteries and Menacies with his glories and Terrors with his occasions and Arguments and if to these you oppose your Prudency and watchfulness your Fortitude and Christian Resolution you put him to flight or Tread him under your foot 1. For first A. Gel. Noct. Att. L. 19. c. 2. Temptations may enter the senses without sinne for to behold the Object to Touch or Tast which are called belluini sensus our more Brutish senses is not to commit sinne Tertul de Coron Mil. c. 5. because God himself hath thus ordered and framed the senses by their severall instruments and Organs auditum in auribus fodit visum in ceulis accendit gustum in ore conclusit saith the Father he hath kindled up light in the eyes he hath digged the hollow of the Eare for hearing and hath shut up the Tast in the mouth or palate and hath given man his senses very fit for the triall and reward of vertue for as he made the eye to see so he made every thing in the world to be seene Frustra ii essent si non viderentur saith Amor. they were to no End if they were not to be seen and seen they may be to our Comfort and to our perill and as Temptations may enter in at the Eye or Eare or any of the other senses so we may make them the matter of virtue as well as the occasion in a word make a Covenant with our eye bridle our Tast bind our Touch purge our eares and so sanctify and Consecrate every sense unto the Lord which is indeed to watch 2. Secondly They may enter the Thoughts and be received into the imagination and yet if we set our Watch not overcome us for as yet they are but as it were in their march bringing up their forces but have made no battery or breach into the soul For as God hath Blood and uncleanness all the foul Actions which are done in the world written in his Book and yet every leaf thereof is faire and clean as purity it self so may the mind of man mingle it self with the most polluted Objects that are and yet be a Virgin still chast and untoucht I may entertain all the Heresies that are in my thoughts and yet be Orthodox I may think of evill and with that thought destroy it 'T is not the sight of the object nor the knowledge of evill 't is not the remembrance of evill 'T is not the Contemplation of Evill that can make me Evill for if I watch over my self and it I may think of it and loath it I may remember and abhorre it For how could a Prophet denounce Judgement against sinne if he did not think of it How could I abhorre and avoid sâ—… how could I repent of it if it were not in my Thought 3. This we cannot doubt of But then Thirdly The sense and Fancy may receive the object with some delight and naturall complacency and yet without sinne if we stand upon our Guard suffer it to winne no more ground but then oppose it most when it most pleads for admittance For thus farre it will advance and as the rationall and intellectuall delight is from some Conclusion gain'd and drawn out of the principles of Discourse which is the work of reason so there is a sensible complacency which is nothing else but adulatio corporis the pleasing of
and increasing our faith that it may be more apprehensive more operative more lively that it may even spring in our hearts at the mention of Christ at this representation of his body and blood as the babe did in Elizabeths womb at the Virgin Mary's salutation For our Faith as it may have its increasings and improvements so it may have its decreasings and failings may be weakned by the daily incursions which the world and the devil make upon it by presenting objects of Terror to daunt and enfeeble it objects of delight to slumber and charm it It may be weakned by the daily avocations and common actions of our life that we may not cleave so close unto Christ not eye him with that intention not love him with that fervour not obey him with that cheerfulnesse which we should but be in a disposition ready to fall off and let go our hold of him And therefore as we must at all times stir it up and actuate it so especially in our approaches to the Lords table for in this doth our preparation to it in this doth the benefit and power of the Sacrament principally consist for here doth our Saviour as it were again present himself to us opens him wounds shewes us his hand and his side speaks to us as he did to Thomas reach hither your fingers and behold my hands and reach hither your hands and thrust them into my sides take eat this is my body and be not faithlesse but believing here shake off that chilness that restivenesse that acedie that wearinesse that faintnesse of your faith here warm and actuate and quicken it that it may be a working fighting conquering faith For thus to do it is to do this in remembrance of him Secondly It takes in repentance by which we doe most truly remember Christ remember his birth and are born againe for repentance is our new birth remember his Circumcision and circumcise our hearts for repentance is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great circumcision saith Epiphanius goe about with him doing good for repentance is our obedience remember him on his Crosse for repentance setteth up a Crosse in imitation of his and lifts us up upon it stretcheth and dilates all the powers of our soule peirceth our hearts and so crucifies the flesh and the affections and lusts thereof Our repentance if it be true is an imitation of Christs suffering a revenge upon our selves for what the Jewes did to him the proper issue and effect to his love for what Christ worketh in us he first works upon us makes us see and feele and handle his love that we may be active in those duties of love which by his command and ensample we owe to him and in him to our brethren He dyed to be a propitiation for our sinnes that is that he might make sinne to cease for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implyes gives us strength by repentance quite to extinguish and abolish sinne Thus if we repent thus if we doe we doe it in remembrance of him And this we are to doe but then especially when we prepare our selves and make our addresses to Christs Table for though repentance be the fruit of a due examination of our selves yet we may and must examine our repentance it self and the time to doe it is now now thou art to renew thy Covenant and so must also renew thy repentance In the Feast of the Atonement the Lord tells his people Lev. 23.27 you shall keep it and he that doth not afflict his soul shall be cut off This is a day for it and in this day thou must doe it This is the season to ransack thy soule to see how many graines of hypocrisie were left behind in thy former repentance what hollowness was in thy groanes what coldnesse in thy devotion to see what advantage Satan hath since taken what ground he hath won in thy soule and then in remembrance of Christs love set afresh to the work of mortification wound thy heart deeper lay on surer blowes empty thy self of thy self of all that rust and rubbish which thy self-love left behind and then stir up those graces in thee which through inadvertency and carelessnesse lye raked up as in the ashes in a word refine every vertue quicken every grace intend thy will exalt thy faith draw neerer to Christ and so renew thy Covenant and sit down at his Table and thus if thou doe it thou dost it in remembrance of him I might here take in the whole traine the whole Circle and Crown of Christian graces and virtues and draw them together and shut them within the compasse of this one word remembrance for it will comprehend them all knowledge obedience love sincerity thankfulnesse from whence the Sacrament hath its name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my last payment and peace offering for he that truly believes and repents as he is sick of sinne so is he sick of love of that love which in the Sacrament is sealed and confirmed to us is full of saving knowledge is ever bowing to Christs scepter is sincere and like himself in all his wayes will meditate of it day and night will drive it ab animo in habitum as Tertull. speaks from the mind to the motions and actions of his body from the conscience into the outward man till it appeare in liberall hands in righteous lips and in attentive eares will breath forth nothing but devotion but prayers and Hallelujahs glory honour and praise for this his love and so become as the picture and image and face of Christ reflecting all his favours and graces back upon him as a Pillar engraven with Gods lovingkindnesses a Memoriall of Gods goodnesse thankfully set up for ever and thus to doe it is to doe it in remembrance of him And to conclude thus if we doe it if we thus remember him he will also remember us remember us and set us as seales upon his heart and signets on his right hand remember us as his peculiar treasure and as our remembrance of him takes up all the duty of a Christian so doth his remembrance of us comprehend all the benefits of a Saviour our love of him and his love to us are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will be as matter and fuell to nourish and uphold this remembrance between us for ever Nazian or 17. we shall remember him in humility and obedience and he shall remember us in love and power we shall remember him on earth and he shall remember us in heaven and prepare a place for us he shall remember our affliction and uphold us he shall remember our prayers and make them effectuall our almes and make them a pleasing sacrifice he shall remember our failings and settle and establish us our teares and turn them into joy he shall remember all that we do or suffer all but our sinnes those he hath buried in his grave for ever And now we are drawing neere to his table
beggerly Elements hath in the fulnesse of time found admittance and harbour in the breasts of Christians uneer that perfect Law of Liberty in which the grace of God hath appeared unto all men I am unwilling to make the parallel it carries with it some probability that some of them had that grosse conceit of God that he fed on the flesh of bulls and drunk the blood of goates for God himself stands up and denies it in the fiftieth Psalme will I eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goates If I be hungry I will not tell thee if there were not such conceit why doth God thus expostulate And is there no symptome no indication of this disease in us do we not believe that God delights in these pageants and formalities That he better likes the devotion of the ear then of the heart do we not measure out our devotion rather by the many Sermons which we have heard then the many almes we have given or which is better the many evill thoughts which we have stifled the many unruly desires we have supprest the many passions we have subdued the many temptations which we have conquered Hath not this been our Arithmetick to cast uup our accounts not by the many good deeds we have done which may stand for figures or numbers but by the many reproches we have given to the times the many bitter Censures we have past upon men better then our selves the many Sermons we have heard which many times God knowes are no better then Cyphers and by themselves signifie no more Do we not please our selves with these thoughts and lift our selves up into the third heaven Do we not think that God is well pleased with these thoughts Do we not believe they are sacrifices of a sweet-smelling favour unto him And what is this lesse then to think that God will eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goates nay may it not seeme far worse to think that God is fed and delighted with our formalities which are but lyes and that he is in love with our hypocrisie I may be bold to say as grosse an error and as opposite to the wisdome of God as the other It is truely said multa non illicita vitiat animus That the mind and intention of man may draw an obliquity on those actions which in themselves are lawfull nay multa mandata vitiat It may make that unlawfull which is commanded O! 't is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God but how fearefull is it to have his hand fall upon us when we stan dat his Altar to see him frown and hear him thunder when we worship him in anger to question us when we are doing our duty What a dart would it be to pierce our soules through and through if God should now send a Prophet to us to tell us That our frequenting the Church and comming to his Table are distastfull to him That our fasts are not such as he hath chosen and that he hates them as much as he doth our oppression and cruelty to which they may be as the prologue that he will have none of the one because he will have none of the other and yet if we terminate Religion in these outward formalities or make them waite upon our lusts to bring them with more smoothnesse with more state and pomp and applause to their end to that which they look so earnestly upon if we thus appear before him he that shall tell us as much of our hearing and fasting and frequenting the Church shall be as a true Prophet as Micah the Morasthite was And now to conclude If you ask me wherewith shall you come before the Lord and bowe your selves before the most High Look further into the Text and there you have a full and compleat directory Do Justly Love Mercy and walk humbly with your God with these you may approach his Courts and appeare at his Altar In aram dei Justitia imponitur saith Lactantius Justice and mercy and sincerity are the best and fittest sacrifices for the Altar of God Lactanâ— de vere cultu l 6. c. 24. which is the heart of man an Altar that must not be polluted with blood Hoc qui exhibet toties sacrificat quoties bonum aliquid aut pium facit The man that is just and mercifull doth sacrifice as oft as he doth any just and mercifull act Come then and appeare before him and offer up these nor need you feare that ridiculous and ungodly imputation which presents you to the world under the name of meere morall men Beare it as your Crown of Rejoycing It is stigma Jesus Christi a mark of Christ Jesus and none will lay it upon you as a defect but they who are not patient of any losse but of their honesty who have learnt an art to joyne together in one the Saint and the deceiver who can draw down heave to them with a thought and yet supplant and overreath their brother as cunningly as the devil doth them Bonus vir Caius Seius Tertull. Apolog. Caius Seius is a good man his onely fault is that he is a Christian would the heathen say He is a good morall man but he is not of the Elect that is one of our Faction saith one Christian of another I much wonder how long a good morall man hath been such a monster What is the decalogue but an abridgement of morality what is Christs Sermon on the mount but an improvement of that and shall civil and honest conversation be the marke of a reprobate Shall nature bring forth a Regulus a Cato a Fabricius Just and Honest men and shall Grace and the Gospel of Christ bring forth nothing but zanies but plaiers and actors of Religion but Pharisees and hypocrites or was the new creature the Christian raised up to thrust the morall man out of the world Must all be election and regeneration Must all Religion be carried along in phrases and words and noise and must Justice and Mercy be exposed as monsters and flung out into a land of oblivion Or how can they be elect and regenerate who are not just and mercifull No the morall man that keeps the commandments is not far from the kingdome of God and he that is a Christian and builds up his morality Justice and Mercy upon his faith in Christ he that keeps a good conscience and doth to others what he would that others should do unto him shall enter in and have a mansion there when these speculative and Seraphick Hypocrites who decree for God and preordain there a place for themselves shall be shut out of doores Come then and appeare before him with these with Innocence and Integrity and Mercifulnesse Wash your hands in Innocency and compasse his Altar For Christ hath made us Priests unto his Father Rev. 1.6 there is our Ordination To offer up spirituall sacrifice 1 Pet. 2.5 there is our
it to name it is not to embrace it for all these may be in a man who hath the price in his hand but hath no heart to buy it and as the Philosopher said of those who were punisht after death in their carcasses Relicto cadavere abijt reus the body was left behind but the guilty person the Parricide was departed and gone So here is a lump of flesh but the man is gone nay dead and buried covered over with outward formalities with words and fancy This is not the man in the text and then no marvell if he cannot see this great sight The 3. is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Improbity of manners a mind immerst and drowned in all the filth and pollution of the world evil affected Acts 14.2 Corrupt Arislotle Eth. 6.5 Mâ—gnis sceleribus inâ—a naturae intereunt Sen. Cont. 2 Tim. 3.8 for wickednesse is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Philosopher and doth corrupt the very principles of nature and make that Candle as Solomon calls it which God hath lighted up in our hearts burn but dimly and as we read when the earth was without forme and void darknesse was upon the face of the deep so when the perturbations of our mind interpose themselves as the earth there is straight a darknesse over the soul An Evil eye cannot behold that which is good An eye full of Adulteries cannot discover the beauty of chastity A lustfull eye cannot see justice a Lofty eye can neither look upon mercy nor humility The love of honor makes the judgment follow it to that pitch and height which it hath set and markt out The love of money will glosse that blessing which our Saviour hath annext to poverty of spirit My factious humor will strike at the very life and heart of religion in the name of religion and God himself and destroy Christianity for the love of Christ Resist not the power In one age 't is glossed bound in with limitations and exceptions or rather let loose to run along with men of turbulent spirits against it self in another when the wind is turned 't is a plain text and needs no interpreter Bid the angry gallant bowe to his enemy he will count you a fool Bid the covetous sell all that he hath he will think you none of the wisest and pitty or scorn you Bid the wanton forsake that strumpet which he calls his mistresse and he will send you a challenge and for attempting to help him out of that deep ditch Prov. 23.27 will send you to your grave We may talk what we please of Marcion and Manes of hereticks and the devil as interpolators and corrupters of Scripture but it is the wickednesse of mens hearts that have cut and mangled it and made it what we please made it joyn and comply with that which it forbids and severely threatens Now to conclude this in the midst of so many passions and perturbations in the throng of so many vices and ill humors in this Chaos and confusion where is the man There is a body left behind inutile pondus an unweildly and unprofitable outside of a man the garment the picture or rather the shadow of a man and we may say of him as Jacob did when he saw Josephs coat It is my sonnes cout but evil beasts have devoured him Gen. 37.33 Here is the shape the garment the outside of a man but the man without doubt is rent in pieces distracted and torn asunder by the perturbations of his mind corrupted annihilated unmanned by his vices and there is nothing left but his coat his body his carcasse and the name of a man This is not the man and then no marvell if he do not see this great sight In his day whilest he was a man his reason not clouded his understanding not darkned in this his day it was shewed to him and it was faire and radiant but now all is night about him and 't is hid from his eye for if it be hid it is hid to them that perish to them that will perish 2 Cor. 4.3 He hath shewed thee O man The Good invites the man and the man cannot but look upon that which is Good Draw then thy soul out of prison take the man out of his grave draw him out of these clouds of sloth of passion of Prejudice and this good here Piety and Religion will be as the sunne when it shineth in its strength For conclusion then let us cleave fast to this good and uphold it in its native and proper purity against all externall rites Conclusion and empty formalities and in the next place against all the pomp of the world against that which we call good when it makes us evil I am almost ashamed to name this or make the comparison For what is wealth to righteousnesse what is policy to religion what is earth to heaven but I know not how men have been so vain as to attempt to draw them together and to shut up the world in this good or rather this good in the world to call down God from heaven not onely to partake of our flesh but our infirmities and sinnes and draw down that which is truely good and make it an assistant and auxiliary to that which is truely evil For how do mens countenance nay how doth their religion alter as they see or heare how the world doth go Now they are of this faction and then of that and anon of a third Now Protestants anon Brownists anon Papists anon but I cannot number the many religions and the no-religions but wheresoever they fasten they see it and say it is Good so that as it was observed of the Romans that before the corruption and decay of manners they would not entertain a servant or officer but of a perfect and goodly shape but afterwards when luxury and riot had prevailed and was in credit with them they diligently sought out and counted it a kind of elegancy and state to take into their retinue dwarfs and monsters and men of a prodigious appearance ludibria naturae those errors and mockeries of nature So hath it allso fallen out with Religion at the first â—ise and dawning of it men did lay hold on that faith alone which was once delivered to the saints and went about doing good but when this light had passed more degrees men began to play the wantons in it and to seek out divers inventions and this Good the doctrine of faith was made to give way to those sick and loathsome humors which did pollute and defile it and instead of following that which was shewed they set up something of their own to follow and countenance them in whatsoever they should undertake and then did look upon it alone and please and delight themselves in it although it was as different from the true pattern which was first shewed as a monster is from a man of perfect shape as Quintilian speaks of some professors of his art
the truth as it was first delivered and are upon that account to be received as faithfull sayings of all men other are more forced and therefore Rejectaneous and unprofitable as begetting more heat then love and raising more noise then devotion besides these there be conclusions in point of discipline and Church-Policie in the defence of which we see much dust raised by men of divided minds and apprehensions and many times both parties well-neer smothered in the buzzle For though discipline government be necessary yet the best forme that was ever drawn cannot be absolutely necessary because it cannot alwaies find place vvherein to shew it self and the holy Spirit of God never laid an absolute necessity but on those things which as the Stoicks speak are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are within our reach and power or which we may do or have when we will it is necessary to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ but it is not necessary to be under this or that discipline though the best further then in affection and desire for in the midst of the changes and chances of this world we cannot be what we would nor be governed as we please We see well enough for it is as visible as any thing under the sunne that the sword which hath no edge or point against the essentiall parts of Religion with which we may be certainly happy and without which it is most certain we cannot as it makes its way dictates and appoints what it please with a non obstante notwithstanding all contrary constitutions though never so ancient and discipline is either quite cut off or else drawn out with the same hand which did form and shape the Common-wealth We have seen what a flow of troubles and dispute in matters of this nature hath passed on and carried away with it our Peace and Religion it self and then left it as it were upon the sands to shift for it self in the breasts of some fevv vvho by divine assistance are able to raise and cherish it up to some grovvth in themselves vvithout these helps and advantages and to give it a place and povver in them even in the foulest vveather being forced to be their ovvn bishops and priests vvhen the hand of violence hath buried those their Seers either in silence or in the grave We have seen Religion made an art and craft and that vvhich vvas first set up to uphold and promote it strook at and trod upon as the onely vvorme vvhich did eat it out we have seen the axe laid to the very root of it by those sonnes of thunder and noise vvhich is heard in every coast vvhich these clouds hang over we cannot but observe vvhat art diligence hath been used vvhat fire and brimstone hath been breathed forth to cast it dovvn we needed no perspective to look through the disguise under vvhich they vvalk or to behold vvith vvhat slight and artifice they vvrought themselves into the hearts of the people vvho are never better pleased then vvhen they are led as beasts to the slaughter and do flatter and pride themselves most vvhen they are under the yoke We see it hath been the work of an age to shatter and then blow away that form of Pollicie in the Church which shewed it self to the Profit and admiration of the best in so many and was the fairest bulwark the Church had to secure her from the Incursions of Schisme Heresy and Prophanenesse of which if we had no other argument the frenzie of this present age the wild Confusion and medley of the Sects and Factions which we see may be an unquestionable evidence And now we have seen it laid levell with the ground All this we have seen but yet we do not see that discipline which did emulate and heave at it and was placed in equipage with the Gospel of Christ we do not see that which was so much extolled as yet set up in its roome Nay we scarce see any thing left but the Idea of it which they still carry with them with expectation and great hopes vvhich prophesy to them the building up of this second Temple of this new form which might it obtain would they say be far more glorious then the first All this art and endeavour hath been used to make them great and supreme on earth the one half of which might have wrought out a Crown for them in a better place For that may be had if we will and if we be faithfull to the death it will fall upon our heads But in what ground our lines will fall or how they will be drawn out is a thing so far out of our reach and power that no humane providence can design and mark it out Day unto day teacheth us and the experience of all ages hath made it good that they who like not what is but onely what they would have and propose it to themselves and others do many times open and pave a faire way to it and walk forward towards it as full of hope as desire and yet when they are come so neer as even to touch and lay hold of it may see it removed as far from them as before and their hopes in their blossome and glory to fall off may live to see themseves in umbrage under a more mild and friendly toleration and behold that past by and sunk lower which they so longed to see in that height which might amaze and awe all about them and bring them in that harvest which was already gathered in their expectation I should be unwilling to stir the blood or draw upon me the displeasure of any who have cast in their lot with those who have been earnest in such a design and I have no other end but this to shew the vanity and deceitfulnesse of such attempts and how dangerous and vexatious a thing it is to drive so furiously after that which hath come towards us so often and then turned the back which we overtake and lose at once For it is so in the world and will be so even till the end of it that which is mutable in its own nature may and will be changed nor is there any thing certain but Piety and blisse the vvay and the end And therefore those things which are not so essentiall to Religion as that she cannot stand without them and are essentiall onely when they may be had being exemplified and conveyed to us by the best hands must not take up all that labour which we owe to the heat of the day and those duties of Christianity which are the summe of all and for which the others were ordained When they may be had we must blesse God and use them to that end for which they were given and when a stronger then we comes upon us and removes them look after them with a longing eye and bleeding heart follow them with our sorrow and devotion use all lawfull and
peaceable meanes to bring them back bewaile our own ingratitude which raised up that power which took them from us and was the greatest strength they had and so presse forward in that open and known way which no power can block up in that obedience to the Gospel which the sword cannot reach which no violence can hinder For this alone can restore us to the favour of God and restore to us those advantages which we first abused then lost and now seek carefully as Esau did the blessing with teares In a word these helps which we would have and cannot alwaies have we may yet alwaies have in our remembrance and affection but we must not so seek after them as to drive down all before us and the Gospel it self in our motion and adventure towards them but fix our eye and desires upon that heaven which is presented to us in the way and in those divine rules of life from which no power on earth can absolve and disengage us and for the neglect of which no necessity can be brought in as an Apologie and thus blesse God in all things even in those which are gone from us and cleave fast to that which is most essentiall and necessary to the end which is out of reach and danger and which the power of darknesse it self cannot take away Third and now I am come to the foot of my account and to this all that I have to say is but what I can but say for this preface is swolne beyond that compasse which my first thoughts drew out and it is this that as I was carefull to presse those doctrines which I conceived to be most necessary so I did it without any affectation unlesse it were of plainnesse and perspicuity of which indeed I was most ambitious as knowing that the Majesty of divine truths is best seen in the stole and gravity of a matron and most times quite lost in the studied gaietry and light colours of a wanton I could have wished for the happinesse of Isidor the Philosopher of whom it vvas said that he spake not words but the very substance and essences of things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Damasc in excerptis Photi God CCXLII. that I might have displayed the glory and happinesse which is alwayes before true Piety and pointed out to Piety as with a finger shewing how it works towards it till they both meet and are made one in eternity And this I did endeavour though I come short of it to draw our in so plain and lively a character that he that runs might read it that the sight of it might ravish the Beholder and force him to a love of that which so visibly draws towards that end which hath no end even the vision of that God which is blessed for evermore We speak saith S. Paul the wisdome of God in a Mystery the hidden wisdome and the Gospel is the revelation of that Mystery Rom. 16.25 and if it be revealed it is no longer hidden if it be known as far as it is known it is not a Mystery and if it were yet a hidden Mystery it could not concern us because that can have no influence upon our will which yields no light at all to our understanding which is as a Counsellour to the will and should convey the light unto it The light is no more light to me then darknesse it self when 't is put under a bushel and Mysteries when they are hidden are to us as nothing I know now no Mysteries in Divinity for it is agreed on all hands that whatsoever is necessary to the end is perspicuous and naked to the understanding I may say Mysticall Divinity is an art of teaching nothing of moving and standing still of striving forward and winning no ground an art of filling men with thin and empty speculations in which they are lifted up aloft to strange sights and apparitions as they say witches are and as they themselves think when they do but dream sometimes it is made a vail to cover something which we would not have seen and we call that the Mysticall sense of Scripture which is none at all For men are too ready to draw a vail again over that which is now made manifest to obscure that which cannot be too plain nor made plainer then it is Quaerunt quod nusquam est inveniunt tamen the seek Pennae acumen dividitur in uo in toto corpore servata unitate credo propter mysterium Isid Orig. l. 6. c. 14. for that which is no where to be found and yet they find it out but as he found Juno vvho imbraced a cloud Whatsoever they see is a mysterie and yet they see it as Isidore found out a mysterie The Old and New Testament in the nose and cleft of a pen. I knovv there be in Scripture and frequently in the Nevv Testament many Metaphoricall expressions from Bread from Fire and Water from Sovving and Planting Quint. l. 8. instit c. 6. from Generation Adoption and the like vvhich vvere used not to make mysteries but to open them signandis rebus sub oculos subjiciendis to set a mark upon things and to declare and unfold them to the very eye that so they might enter vvith more light and ease into the mind vvhich as the Jevvish Rabbies vvere vvont to say vvas to find out the lost pearle vvith a candle of an half-peny and vvith these common and familiar resemblances to dive into the Cisterne of Truth and dravv it out Christ vvho came dovvn to teach us vvas the light of the World and vvhat he taught vvas as open as the Day to all but to those vvho loved darknesse more then light and it will shine in its full strength to all that will look up upon it to the end of the World Nor could it be his will who came to save us that his saving Truth should be shewn by half and dark lights or that Divines who call themselves his Ministers should be like those Philosophers who did Philosophiam ad syllabas vocare Senec. Epist LXXII as Seneca complains who drew Philosophy down to words and syllables so that at last it was shut up and lost in phrases and second notions and termes of Art which brought little improvement to the better part and made men rather Talkative then Wise For we may observe that the same noysome and pestilent wind which so withered Philosophy till it was shrunk up into a name being nothing but a body of words hath blown also upon Divinity and blasted that which was ordained to be the very life of our souls vvhich vvas more pure and plain when mens lives vvere so but is now sullied vvith much handling made much unlike it self dawbed over vvith glosses as vvith untempered morter vvrought out into Questions beat out into Distinctions and is made an Art vvhich is the Wisdome of God to Salvation The Schoolmen did feaze and draw it out and then made