clear and piercing and therefore it is purposely added for the further Emphasis In him is no darkenesse Oh the infinite clearnesse of the Divine knowledg to which all things lye open both past present and to come which doth not only reach in one intuition to all the actions motions events of all Creatures that have been are shall be but which is infinitely more then all these extends to the full comprehension of himself his whole Divine nature and essence to which the World though full of innumerable varieties is lesse then nothing The Sun is a goodly globe of Light The visible World hath nothing so glorious so searching and yet there are many things lye hid within the bosome of the Earth and Sea which his eye never saw never shall see Neither can it ever see more then half the World at once darkness the while enwraps the other nor indeed of any much lesser if round body And though it give light unto other Creatures yet it gives not light to it self like as our eye sees all other objects but it self it cannot see And though it enlighten this materiall Heaven both above and below it self as also this lower Air and Earth yet the Empyreal Heaven transcends the beames of it and is filled with a more glorious illumination But God the Light of whom we speak who is the Maker of that Sun sees the most hidden secrets of Earth and Hell sees all that is done in Earth and Heaven at one view sees his most glorious self and by his presence makes Heaven Most justly therefore is God Light by an eminence Now the reflection of the first quality of Light upon us must be our clear apprehension of God the World and our selves and by how much more exact knowledg we shall attain unto of all these by so much more do we conform our selves to that God who is Light and by how much less we know them so much more darkness there is in us and so much less fellowship have we with God If the eye have not an inward Light in it self let the Sun shine never so bright upon it it is nevertheless blind What are we the better for that which is in God if there be not an inward Light in our Souls to answer and receive it How should we love and adore God if we know him not How shall we hate and combat the World if we know it not How shall we value and demean our selves if we know not our selves Surely the want of this Light of knowledg is the ground of all that miserable disorder which we see daily break forth in the affections in the carriages of men I know the common word is that we are fallen into a knowing age such as wherein our speculative skill is wont to be upbraided to us in a disgracefull comparison of our unanswerable practise our forward young men out-run their years bragg that there is more weight in the down of their chins then in the gray beards of their aged Grandsires Our artificers take upon them to hold argument with and perhaps control their Teachers neither is it any newes for the shop-board to contest with the schooles every not Knight or Rook only but Pawn too can give check to a Bishop The Romish Church had lately her Shee-Preachers till Pope Urban gagg'd them and our Gossips now at home in stead of dresses can tattle of mysteries and censure the Pulpit in stead of neighbours Light call you this No these are fiery flashes of conceit that glance through vain minds to no purpose but idle ostentation and satisfaction of wild humours without stability or any available efficacy to the soul Alas we are wise in impertinencies ignorant in main truths neither doth the knowledg of too many go any deeper then the verge of their brains or the tip of their tongue I fear true solid knowledg is not much less rare then when our unlett'red Grand-fathers were wont to court God Almighty with false Latin in their devotions For did the true Light shine into the hearts of men in the knowledg of God the World themselves how could they how durst they live thus Durst the leud tongues of men rend the holy name of God in peices with oaths and blasphemies if they knew him to be so dreadfull so just as he hath revealed himself Durst the cruell oppressors of the World grind faces and cut throats and shed blood like water if they were perswaded that God is a sure revenger of their outrages Durst the goatish adulterer the swinish drunkard wallow in their beastly uncleannesse if they knew their is a God to judge them an Hell to fry in Durst the rebellious seditionary lift up his hand against the Lords Anointed and that under a colour of religion if the fool had not said in his heart There is no God Could the covetous fool so admire and adore his red and white Earth could the ambitious so dote upon a little vanishing honour as to sacrifice his soul to it if he knew the World could the proud man be so besotted with self-love as that he sees his God in his glass if he knew himself Surely then the true Light is as rare as it is precious and it is as precious as life it self yea as life eternall This is eternall life to know thee and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ What were the World without Light and what the soul without the Light of knowledg We condemne Malefactors to darkness that is one great part of the horrour of their durance Jo. 17. â— and by how much more haynous their crime is so much darker is their dungeon Darkness of understanding then is punishment enough alone as it is also the entry into hell which is described by blackness of darkness None but savage Creatures delight in darkness Man naturally abhorres it in all things If our eyes be dim we call for glasses if our houses be dark we make windows if the evening grow dark we call for lights and if those lights burn dim we call for snuffers and shall we avoid darkness in every thing except our soules which is our better and more Divine part Honourable and beloved as we love and tender those dear soules of ours let us labour to furnish them with the Light of true and saving knowledg What is this Gospell which shines thus daily and clearly in your faces but the Vehiculum lucis the carriage of that heavenly Light to the World Send forth thy Light and thy Truth saith the Psalmist Thy Word is Truth saith our Saviour that word of truth then is the body of that Light which God showes to men Oh let it not shine upon us in vain let us not trample upon the beams of it in our floore as that foolish woman that St. Austin speaks of did to those of the Sun with a Calco Manichorum Deum But now while God gives these happy opportunities let us enlarge our hearts to receive
lesse transmitted to Constantinople Set those aside and what holinesse can Tiber challenge above Rhene or Thames Let fooles be mocked with these fancies but you whom God hath indued with singular judgment and understanding in all things will easily resent the fraud and see that there is no more reason why the English Church should conform in opinion to the Romish were the Doctrines equally indifferent then the Roman Church to the English They are but the several limms of one large and universal body and if in respect of outward order there have been or may be acknowledged a precedency yet in regard of the main substance of truth we cannot admit of any dependance on any Church under Heaven Here that which is the purer from Error and corruption must take the wall maugre all the loud throats of acclaming parasites yea so far must we needs be from pinning our faith upon the sleeve of Rome as that we cannot without violence offered to our own consciences but see and say that there is no particular Church on Earth so branded by the Spirit of God in the Scriptures as Rome In so much as the best abbettors and dearest fautors of that See are glad to plead that Rome is St. Peters and St. Johns Babylon we blesse God for standing on our own feet and those feet of ours stand upon the infallible grounds of the Prophets and Apostles of Primitive Creeds Councels Fathers and therefore we can no more deceive you then they can deceive us The censure that the enemies of our Church cast upon it is not untruth but defect they dare not but grant what we say is true but they blame us for not saying all is true which they say now that which we say was enough to serve those antient Christians which lived before those lately devised additions the refusal whereof is made haynous and deadly to us how safe how happy is this erring Let my soul be with those blessed Martyrs Confessors Fathers Christians which never lived to hear of those new Articles of the new Roman faith and I dare say you will not wish yours any other where there can be no danger in old truths there can be nothing but danger in new obtrusions But I finde how apt my pen is to over-run the bounds of a letter my zeal of your safety carries me into this length the errors into which these seducers would lead you are deadly especially upon a revolt your very ingenuity I hope besides grace will suggest better things to you Hold that which you have that no man take your crown My Soul for yours you go right so sure as there is a heaven this way will lead you thither go on confidently and cheerfully in it let me never be happy if you be not you will pardon my holy importunity which shall be ever seconded with my hearty prayers to the God of truth that he will stablish your heart in that eternal truth of his Gospel which you have received and both work and crown your happy perseverance such shall be the fervent apprecations of Your much devoted Friend Jos Exon. RESOLUTIONS FOR RELIGION WHereas there are many loud quarrels and brabbles about matter of Religion this is my firme and steadfast Resolution wherein I finde peace with God and my own Soul as being undoubtedly certain in it self and holily charitable to others and that in which I constantly purpose God willing as to Live so to Dye 1. I do believe and know that there is but one way to Heaven even the True and Living way Jesus Christ God and Man the Saviour of the World 2. I believe and know that this way however it is a narrow and straight way in respect of the World yet hath much Latitude in it self So as those that truely believe in this Son of God their Saviour though they may be mis-led into many by-pathes of small errors yet by the mercy of God are acknowledged not to be out of the main high way to eternal life 3. I believe and know that the Canonical Scriptures of God are the true and unfailing Rule of our Faith so as whatsoever is therein contain'd is the infallible Truth of God and whatsoever is necessary to be believed to eternal Salvation is therein expresly or by clear and undoubted consequence contein'd and so set forth as it neither needeth farther explication nor admits of any probable Contradiction 4. I believe and know that God hath ever since the creation of Mankinde had a Church upon Earth and so shall have to the end of the World which is a Society or Communion of Faithful men professing his Name against which the gates of Hell shall never be able to prevail for the failing thereof 5. I believe and know that the consenting voice of the successions and present universality of faithful Men in all times and places is worthy of great authority both for our Confirmation in all truths and for our direction in all the circumstantial points of Gods service so as it cannot be opposed or sever'd from without just offence to God 6. I believe and know that besides those necessary truths contain'd in the Holy Scriptures and Seconded by the Consent and Profession of all Gods faithful ones there may be and ever have been certain collateral and not-mainly importing verities wherein it is not unlawful for several particular Churches to maintain their own Tenets and to dissent from other and the several members of those particular Churches are bound so far to tender the common Peace as not to oppose such publiquely received truths 7. I do confidently believe that if all the particular Churches through the whole Christian World should meet together and determine these secondary and unimporting truthes to be believed upon necessity of Salvation and shall enact Damnation to all those which shall deny their assent thereunto they should go beyond the Commission which God hath given them and do an act which God hath never undertaken to warrant Since there can be no new Principles of Christian Religion however there may be an application of some formerly received Divine truthes to some emergent occasions and a clearer explication of some obscure verities 8. I do confidently believe that God hath never confin'd the determination of his will in all questions and matters pertaining to Salvation or whatsoever controversies of Religion to the breast of any one Man or to a particular Church or to a correspondence of some particular Churches so as they shall not possibly err in their Definitions and Decrees 9. I do confidently believe that the Church of Rome comprehending both the head and those her adherents and dependance being but particular Churches have highly offended God in arrogating to themselves the priviledg of infallibility which was never given them and in ordaining new Articles of faith and excluding from the bosome of Gods Church and the Gates of Heaven all those which differ from her in the refusal of her late bred
consider first the miseries of war and then the benefits and comforts of peace The former of these may be talk't of but can never be thoroughly conceived by any but those that have felt them I could tell you of sieging and famishing sacking and spoiling and killing and ravishing and burning of weltring in blood and a thousand such tragicall calamities of war but I had rather the spirit of God should describe them in his own expressions These Sword without terrour within shall destroy both the Young-man and the Virgin the suckling also with the Man of gray haires Deut. 32.25 And Jeremy Every battle of the warriour is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood but this shall be with burning and with fenell of fire Jer. 9.5 Not to presse those passionate descriptions of Esay and Nahum that one of the Prophet Azariah the Son of Obed shall shut up all Chro. 15.6 In those times there was no peace to them that went out nor to him that came in but great vexations were upon all the Inhabitants of the Countreys and Nation was destroyed of Nation and City of City for God did vex them with all adversity Mark but the foot of this report upon the mention of war straight it followes God did vex them with all adâ—ersity surely there is no adversity incident unto a Creature which doth not inevitably attend a war and as all wars are thus wofull and hideous so much more the intestine and domesticall those that are raised out of our own bowels these are beyond all conceit dreadfull and horrible As therefore we do in our ordinary prayers put all these together which are the effects and concomitants of war From plague pestilence and famine from battail and murder and from suddain death good Lord deliver us so good reason have we to put them into the tenor of our hearty thanksgiving that God hath graciously delivered us from the fury of all these in that he caused wars to cease to the ends of our Earth As for the benefits of peace if we were not cloyed with them by their long continuance we could not but be heartily sensible of them and know that all the comforts we enjoy either for Earth or for Heaven we owe to this unspeakable blessing of Peace whereto if we add the late accession of further strength by the union of our Warlick neighbours and the force of a strong and inviolable league for the perpetuation of our peace and unity there will need no further incitements to a celebration of this day and to our hearty thankfulness unto the God of peace who whiles he hath made wofull desolations in all the Earth besides yet hath caused wars to cease unto our ultima the ends of our Earth and hath broken the bow and cut the spear in sunder Oh then prayse the Lord O Jerusalem prayse thy God of Sion for he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates and blessed thy children within thee Ps 147.12.13 He maketh peace within thy borders and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat To that good God of all glory peace and comfort Father Son Holy Ghost one infinite God in three most glorious persons be given all praise honour and glory as is due from Heaven and Earth from Angels and Men from this time forth and for evermore Amen THE MISCHIEFE OF FACTION And the REMEDIE of it Laid forth in a SESMON Before his MAJESTY In the COURT-YARD AT WHITE-HALL On the Second Sunday in Lent 1641. By JOS. EXON PSALM 60.2 Thou hast made the Earth to tremble thou hast broken it heal the breaches thereof for it shaketh MY text is a complaint and a suit a complaint of an evill and a suit for a remedy An evill deplored and an implored redresse The evill complained of is double the concussion or unsettlement of the state of Israel and the division of it For it hath been the manner of the prophets when they would speak high to expresse spirituall things by the height of naturall allusions fetcht from those great bodies of Heaven Sea Earth the most conspicuous and noted pieces of Gods Almighty workmanship It were to no purpose to exemplifie where the instances are numberlesse Open your Bibles where you will in all the Sapienciall or Propheticall books your eyes cannot look beside them And thus it is here I suppose no man can be so weak as to think David intends here a philosophicall history of Earthquakes although these dreadfull events in their due times and places are worthy of no lesse then a prophets either notice or admiration But here it is not in his way It is an Analogicall morall or politicall Earth-quake that David hear speaks of and so our usuall and ancient Psalter Translation takes it well whiles for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Earth it reads the Land by a just Synecdoche and for making the Earth to tremble reads moving the Land and for broken reads divided and for breaches sores so as by comparing of both translations The Earth is the Land the tremblings are the violent motions of it whether by way of action or passion the divisions thereof are breaches and those breaches sores which the hand of God both makes and heals Shortly then here is first an Earth-quake such as it is 2ly The effects of that Earth-quake breaches or sores 3ly The authour of both Thou hast made the Earth to tremble thou hast broken it 4ly The remedy of both with the authour of it Heal thou the Sores or breaches and Lastly the motive of the remedy for it shaketh The Text falls into these parts so naturally that there is none of you who hear me this day but were able to divide it for me which I shall desire to follow with all perspicuous brevity and profitable enforcement And first hear and consider that the motions of the distempers or publick calamities of States are Earthquakes either or both For this Earthquake is either out of a feare or sense of judgment or out of the strife of contrary affectations the one we may call a passive the other an active Earth-quake Earth-quakes we know are strange and unnaturall things There is no part of all Gods great Creation save the Earth that is ordained for rest and stability The waters are in perpetuall agitation of flux and refluxes even when no wind stirs they have their neap and spring tides The air cannot stand still whiles the Heavens whirle about The Heavens or any part of them never stood still but once since they were made but the Earth was made for fixednesse and stability Hence ye find so oft mention of the foundations of the Earth and the stile of it is nescia moveri the Earth that cannot be moved and that stands fast for ever And therefore for the Earth to move it is no lesse prodigie then for the Heavens to stand still Neither is it more rare then formidable If we should see the Heavens stand still but one houre
God hath taken at our thus Grieving of him his Indearments our Ingagements his Expectation were we a people that God had no whit promerited by his favours that he had done nothing for us more then for the savage Nations of the World surely the God of Heaven had not taken it so deeply to heart but now that he hath been more kind to us then to any Nation under Heaven how doth he call Heaven and Earth to record of the justnesse of his high regret Hear O Heaven and hearken O Earth for the Lord himself hath spoken I have nourished and brought up Children and they have rebelled against me Esa 1.2 and excellently Jerem. 2.31 O generation see the word of the Lord have I been a wilderness to Israel a land of darkness therefore it followes Behold I will plead with thee ver 35. Neither are his indearments of us more then our ingagements to him for what Nation in all the World hath made a more glorious profession of the name of God then this of ours What Church under the cope of Heaven hath been more famous and flourishing Had we not pretended to holiness and purity of religion even beyond others the unkindness had been the lesse now our unanswerablenesse calls God to the highest protestation of his offence Be astonished O Heavens and be horribly afraid be ye very desolate saith the Lord for my people have committed two evils they have forsaken me the Fountain of living waters and have hewen them out Cisternes broken Cisternes that can hold no water Jer. 2.11 And who is so blind as my servant Esa 42.19 Now according to his Indearments and our Ingagements hath been his just expectation of an answerable carriage of us towards him the Husbandman looks not for a crop in the wild desart but where he hath Gooded and plowed and Eared and Sowne why should not he look for an harvest And this disappointment is a just heightner of his griefe what could I have done more for my Vineyard that I have not done I looked for grapes and it brought forth wild grapes And now I will tell you what I will do to my Vineyard I will take away the hedge thereof and I will lay it wast Esa 5.4 5. Wo is me we do not hear but feel God making his fearfull word good upon us I need not tell you what we suffer the word of Esay is fulfilled here It shall be a vexation onely to understand the report Esa 28.19 Alas we know it too well what rivers of blood what piles of Carcasses are to be seen on all sides would God I could as easily tell you of the Remedy and why can I not do so Doubtlesse there is a remedy no lesse certain then our suffering if we had but the grace to use it too long alas too long have we driven off the applying of our redress yet even still there is Balme in Gilead still there is hope yea assurance of help if we will not be wanting to our selves we have grieved our God to the height Oh that we could resolve to make our peace with our provoked God at the last Excellent is that of Esay 27.5 Let him take hold of my strength and make Peace with me and he shall make peace with with me Oh that we could take hold of our strong Helper who is mighty to save that we would lay hold on the strength of his marvellous mercies Oh that we could take Benhadads course here as they said of the King of Israel much more may I say of the God of Israel He is a merciful God let us put sackcloth upon our loynes and ropes upon our heads and go to the God of Israel and say Thy servants say I pray thee let us live 1 K. 20.31 Oh that it could greive us thoroughly that we have greived so good a God that we could by a sound and serious humiliation and hearty Repentance reconcile our selves to that offended Majesty we should yet live to praise him for his mercifull deliverance and for the happy restauration of our peace which God for his mercies sake vouchsafe to graunt us Thus much for the grieving of the holy Spirit in himself by way of allusion to humane affection Now followes that grievance which by way of Sympathy he feels in his Saints Anselme Aquinas Estius and other latter Interpreters have justly construed one branch of this offence of the Holy Spirit to be when through our leud despightful words or actions we grieve and scandalize those Saints and Servants of God in whom that Holy Spirit dwells It is true as Zanchius observes well that it is no thank to a wicked man that the Spirit of God is not grieved by him even in person he doth what he can to vex him the Impossibility is in the Impassiblenesse of the Spirit of God not in the Will of the Agent But although not in himself yet in his faithful Ones he may and doth grieve him They are the Receptacles of the Holy Ghost which he so possesses and takes up that the injuries and affronts done to them are felt and acknowledged by him As when an enemy offers to burn or pull down or strip plunder the house the Master or Owner takes the violence as done to himself We are the Temples the Houses wherein it pleaseth the Spirit of God to dwell what is done to us is done to him in us He challengeth as our Actions The Spirit of God prayes in us Rom. 8.26 so our Passions also he is grieved in our grief such an interest hath God in his that as Christ the second person in the Trinity could say to Saul why persecutest thou me So the Holy Ghost appropriates our injuries to himself If ye be reproached for the Name of Christ happy are ye saith S. Peter for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you on their part he is evil spoken of but on your part he is glorified 1 Pet. 4.14 Lo the Holy Spirit is glorified by our sufferings and is evil spoken of in our reproaches the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is blasphemed so as it is a fearful thing to think of to speak contumelious words against Gods children is by the Apostles own determination no better then a kinde of blaspheming the Holy Ghost See then consider ye malicious uncharitable men your wrongs reach further then ye are aware of ye suffer your tongues to run ryot in bitter Scoffs in spightful slanders in injurious raylings against those that are truly conscionable ye think ye gall none but men worse then your selves but ye shall finde that ye have opened your mouthes against Heaven I speak not for those that are meer outsides visors of Christianity making a shew of Godliness and denving the power of it in their lives I take no protection of them God shall give them their portion with Hypocrites But if he be a true childe of God one that hath the true fear
a motive for God to give largely unto us as that we give freely unto God 2 Sam. 11 16. David did but intend to build God an house and now in a gratious retribution God tells him by Nathan The Lord will build thee an house and will establish thine house and thy kingdome for ever before thee and contrarily in this it holds as in all other pious bequests 2 Cor. 9.6 He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly if some particular wayes of the conveighance of our bounty were anciently ceremonial Prov. 3.9 yet we are sure this charge is perpetual Honour the Lord with thy substance Had our blessed Saviour been of the mind of these drye and pinching Devotionists he had surely chid Mary Magdalene for the needlesse wast of that her pretious ointment and have agreed with Judas how much better it migh have been employed for the relief of many poor soules that wanted bread then in such a complement of unnecessary delicacy Mat. 26.13 but how kindly this seasonable expence was taken by our Lord Jesus appears in that the memorial of this beneficence is ordained by him to have no narrower bounds of Time or Place then this blessed Gospel it self Shortly as the honest and learned Gerson long since distingushed in matter of Doctrine so must we learn to distingush in matter of practise some things are of the necessity of devotion others of the piety of devotion and yet further in this second ranke some things are essential to the piety of devotion without which it cannot be at all others are accidental without which it cannot be so well under this latter sort expedience and decency both of cleanliness and cost challenge a due place and cannot justly be denyed it As it is in our own case some things are requisite out of the necessity of nature without which we cannot subsist other things are requisite for the convenience of our estate without which we cannot maintain a well being He that hath Bread and Drinke and Cloathes may live but he that hath not his Linnen washed and his meat cleanly dressed and change of warme suits will hardly live with comfort To the great marriage of the Kings son in the Gospel all comers are invited yea the guests are fetcht from the very high waies Mat. 22.9.10 and hedges where there could be no probability of any choice Wardrobe yet when the King comes in and finds a man without his wedding garment he in displeasure asks Friend how camest thou in hither sufficienty intimating that even comlinesse of fashion and meet complement are worthily expected in the solemn entertainments of God To conclude if we have rightly apprehended the dreadful and glorious Majesty of the great God we shall never think we can come with reverence enough into his holy presence and it is no small appendance of reverence to have our very bodies decently composed before him and if we have well weighed the absolute soveraignty of this great King of Glory and the infinite largess of our munificent God who hath given us our selves and all that we have or are or hope for that hath not grudged us ought in earth or heaven no not the dear son of his love and eternal essence but hath sent him out of his bosome for our redemption we cannot think all our little enough to consecrate to his blessed name and service and shall hold that evil eye worthy to be pulled out which shall grudg the fattest of his flocks and heards to the altar of the Almighty Now the appâ—ication of this whole discourse I leave to the thoughts of every reader who cannot but easily finde how too much need there is of a monitor in this kind whiles the examples of a profane indecency so abound every where to the great shame of the Gospel and scandall of all ingenious mindes I forbear to particularize a volume would be too straight for this complaint It is not the blushing of my Nation the derision of Foraigners the advantage of adversaries that I drive at in these seasonable lines it is the reformation of those foul abuses gross neglects outward indignities notorious pollutions which have helpt to expose the face of this famous Church late the glory of Christendom to the scorne of the nations round about us who now change their former envy at her unmatchable beauty into a kinde of insulting pity of her miserable deformity Returne dear brethren returne to that comly order and decency which won honour and reverence to your goodly forefathers After the main care of the substance of divine worship which must be ever holy spiritual answerable to the unfailing and exact rule of the eternal word of God let the outwatd carriage of Gods sacred affairs be what may be sutable to that pure and dreadful Majesty whose they are let his now neglected houses be decently repaired Nequid pâ—ofanum Templo Dei insâ—ratur â—oâ—feâ—sus sedâ—m quâ—m inhabitat deâ—eâ—inquat Cyprian de habitâ— virg neatly kept reverently regarded for the owners sake and inviolably reserved for those sacred uses to which they are dedicated let his holy table be comly spread attended with awful devotion let them be clean both within and without that bear the vessels of the Lord let the maintenance of his altar be free liberal chearful let Gods chair the pulpit be climb'd into by his chosen servants with trembling and gravity briefly let his whole service and worship be celebrated with all holy reverence this is the way to the acceptation of God and to honour with men Good Security A Comfortable DISCOURSE OF The Christians Assurance of Heaven Grounded upon 2 Pet. 1.10 Give diligence to make your Calling and Election sure IT shall be my onely drift and endeavour in this discourse to settle the hearts of those who profess the name of Christ in a main case of Christian resolution concerning their present and final estate the mean whereof is no lesse comfortable and useful then the extremes miserably dangerous whiles one is causelesly confident and dyes presuming another is wilfully careless and perisheth through neglect both fearfully mis-carry and help to fill up hell I shall desire to guide the wise Christian in a midway between both these and teach him how to be resolute without presumption and to be awful without distrust how to labour for an holy security and modest confidence Ere we descend to the matter Three termes require a little clearing what this calling is What election What the sure-making of both As to the first this cannot be taken of an outward calling For we are sure enough of that wheresoever the Gospel is preached we are called outwardly neither are we much the nearer to be sure of that for many are called few chosen yea certainly this not answered shall aggravate our damnation It is therefore an inward and effectuall calling that we must endeavour to make sure a call not by the sound of the word only
in hand without which there can be no firm peace no constant and solid comfort to the Soul of Man Three things then call us to the indeavor of this assurance our duty our advantage our danger We must do it out of duty because our God bids us Gods commands like the Prerogatives of Princes must not be too strictly scanned should he require ought that might be losse-full or prejudiciall to us our blindfold obedience must undertake it with cherefulnesse how much more then when he calls for that from us then which nothing can be imagined of more or equall behoof to the Soul It is enough therefore that God by his Apostle commands us to Give diligence to make our calling and election sure Our Heavenly Father bids us what sons are we if we obey him not Our blessed Master bids us what Servants are we if we set not our selves to observe his charge our glorious and immortall King bids us what subjects are we if we stick at his injunction out of mere duty therefore we must indeavour to make our calling and election sure Even where we owe no duty oftentimes advantage drawes us on yea many times across those duties which we owe to God and Man how much more where our duty is seconded with such an advantage as is not parallelable in all the World beside What lesse what other followes upon this assurance truly attained but peace of conscience and joy in the holy Ghost in one word the begining of Heaven in the soul What a contentment doth the heart of Man find in the securing of any whatsoever good what a coyle do mony-Masters keep for security of the summes they put forth and when that is taken to their mind are ready to say with the rich Man in the Gospel Soul take thy ease Great venturers at Sea how willingly do they part with no small part of their hoped gain to be assured of the rest How well was Ezekiah appaid when he was assured but of fifteene years added to his life How doth Babylon applaud her own happiness to her self when she can say I sit as a Queen I shall not be a widdow I shall know no sorrow It must needs follow therefore that in the best things assured there must be the greatest of all possible contentments And surely if the heart have once attained to this that upon good grounds it can resolve God is my Father Christ Jesus is my Elder Brother the Angels are my Guardians Heaven is my undoubted patrimony how must it needs be lift up and filled with a joy unspeakable and glorious What bold defiances can it bid to all the troupes of worldly evils to all the powers of Hell with what unconceiveable sweetness must it needs injoy God and it self how comfortably and resolutely must it needs welcome death with that triumphant champion of Christ I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith and now from henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness c. 2. Tim. 4.7 8. Out of the just advantage therefore of this assurance we must endeavour to make our calling and election sure Neither is the advantage more in the performance hereof then there is danger in the neglect In all uncertainties there is a kinde of afflictive fear and troublesome mis-doubt Let a man walk in the dark because he cannot be confident where safely to set his steps he is troubled with a continual suspicion of a suddain mis-cariage and therefore goes in pain what can there be but discomfort in that soul which knowes not in what termes it stands with God Yet whiles there is life there may be hope of better But if that soul be surprised with an unexpected death and hurried away with some suddain judgment in this state of irresolution in how deplored a condition is it beyond all expression I cannot but therefore lament the woful plight of those poor souls that live die under the Roman discipline who when they have most need of comfort in the very act of their dissolution are left pitifully disconsolate and given up by their teachers to either horror or suspence Even the most Saint-like of them except his soul fly up in Martyrdom like Gedeons Angel in the Smoke of his incense may not make account of a speedy ascent to heaven insomuch as Cardinal Bellarmine himself of whom our Coffin dares write that his life was not stayned with mortal sin pag. 27. He that could call heaven Casamia and whose canonization the Cardinals thought fit to be talked of in his sickness when Cardinal Aldobrandino desired him that when he came to heaven he would pray for him answered To go to heaven so soon is a matter too great for me men do not use to come thither in such hast and for me I shall think it no small favour to be sure of purgatory and there to remain a good while pag. 42. which yet himself can say differs not much for the time in respect of the extremity of it from hell it self and to be a good while there O terror past all reach of our thoughts And if the righteous be thus saved where shall the sinners appear For ought they can or may know hell may but purgatory must be their portion heaven may not be thought of without too high presumption Certainly if many despair under those uncomfortable hands I wonder that no more since they are bidden to doubt and beaten off from any possibility of the confidence of rest and happinesse But whiles I urge this danger of utter discomfort in our irresolution I hear our adversaries talke of a double danger of the contrary certitude A danger of pride and a danger of sloth The supposed certainty of our graces breeds pride saith their Cardinal The assurance of our election sloth saith their Alphonsus a Castro out of Gregory And indeed if this cordial doctrine be not well given well taken well digested it may through our pravity and heedlesness turne to both these noxious humors as the highest feeding soonest causeth a dangerous Plethory in the body How have we heard some bold ungrounded Christians brag of their assurance of glory as if they had carried the keyes of heaven at their Girdle How have we seen even sensual men flatter themselves with a confident opinion of their undoubted safety unfailable right to happiness How have we known presumptuous Spirits that have thought themselves carried with a plerophory of faith when their sailes have been swelled only with the winde of their own self-love how many ignorant soules from the mis-prision of Gods infallible election have argued the needlessnesse of their indeavours and the safety of their ease and neg-lect As ye love your selves sail warily betwixt these rocks and sands on either side But if these mischiefs follow upon the abuse of a sound and wholsome doctrine God forbid they should be imputed to the truth it self as if that God who
but only of the cost of the Founder and skill of the Mason what toting and piping upon the destroyed Organ pipes and what a hideous triumph on the Market day before all the Countrey when in a kind of Sacrilegious and profane procession all the Organ pipes Vestments both Copes and Surplices together with the Leaden Crosse which had been newly sawne down from over the Green-Yard Pulpit and the Service books and singing books that could be had were carried to the fire in the publick Market place A leud wretch walking before the Train in his Cope trailing in the dirt with a Service book in his hand imitating in an inpious scorne the tune and usurping the words of the Letany used formerly in the Church Neer the publick Crosse all these monuments of Idolatry must be sacrificed to the fire not without much Ostentation of a zealous joy in discharging ordinance to the cost of some who professed how much they had long'd to see that Day Neither was it any newes upon this Guild-day to have the Cathedrall now open on all sides to be filled with Muskatiers wayting for the Majors returne drinking and tobacconing as freely as if it had turn'd Alehouse Still yet I remained in my Palace though with but a poor retinue and means but the house was held too good for Me Many messages were sent by Mr. Corbet to remove me thence The first pretence was that the Committee who now vvas at charge for an House to sit in might make their dayly Session there being a place both more publick roomy and chargelesse The Committee after many consultations resolved it covenient to remove thither though many overtures and offers were made to the contrary Mr. Corbet was impatient of my stay there and procures and sends peremptory messages for my present dislodging we desired to have some time allowed for providing some other Mansion if we must needs be cast out of this which my wife was so willing to hold that she offered if the charge of the present Committee house were the things stood upon she would be content to defray the summe of the rent of that house of her fifth part but that might not be yielded out we must and that in three weeks warning by Midsommerday then approching so as we might have lyen in the street for ought I know had not the Providence of God so ordered it that a Neighbour in the Close one Mr. Gostlin a Widower was content to void his House for us This hath been my measure wherefore I know not Lord thou knowest who only canst remedy and end and forgive or avenge this horrible Oppression Scripsi May 29. 1647. JOS. NORVIC A SERMON Preacht at HAMPTON-COURT TO KING JAMES In Ordinary attendance in September 1624. By JOS. HALL Dean of VVorcester Philip. 3.18 18. For many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even Weeping that they are the crosse of Christ 19. Whose end is destruction c. MY Text you see is but a Parenthesis yet necessary and essential though not to the sentence foregoing yet to Christian warning and instruction It is enclosed like some good Garden for singular use a Garden wherein there are both Flowers and Weeds Flowers of Apostolical vertue and Weeds of Philippian wickednesse For I know not whether these words bewray more worth in the true Apostle then unworthinesse in the false this censure of his doth no lesse grace himself then it branded them so we have met with some pictures which if you look one way show us a comely face if another way an Owle or an Ape or some deformed visage Look first at the Apostles gracious carriage in the managing of this sharp reproof and ye whom it concerns imitate it and then turne your eyes to the view of the damnable courses of these Philippian Seducers and learn to abhorre their wayes and fear their hell The fidelity of the Apostle is commended by his warning by the frequence by the passion of it His warning I have told you The frequence I have told you often The passion I now tell you weeping To begin with the first As wisdom hath eyes to note evils so faithfulness hath a tongue to notifie them We are by our profession the Seers of God in respect of our Eyes and we are the Prophets of God in respect of our tongues it must be our care to make use of both titles we are blinde guides if we see not we are dumb Dogs if we give not warning of what we see as good no eyes as no tongue There was in the North part of Jerusalem the Tower of the Furnaces Nehem. 3.11 wherein it seems there was continual fire kept for the Way-mark of Travellers that flame was both vocal and real admonishing the passenger of his errours and guiding him in his course such we either are or should be like to John Baptist who was a Burning and a Shining light Burning for his own zeal Shining for the Direction of others direction as in example of life so in precepts of Doctrine we should not be like Dyals on a wall or Watches in our pockets to teach the eye but like clocks and larums to ring in the ear Aaron must wear Bells as well as Pomegranates Yea louder then so the Prophets voyce must be a Trumpet whose sound may be heard farr off Hos 8.1 God will never thank us for keeping his counsel he will thank us for divulging it and that St. Paul knew well enough when in his farewel to the Elders of Ephesus he appealed to their Consciences that he had kept back nothing that was profitable unto them but had declared unto them all the counsels of God Act. 20.20 and 27. Our Saviour therefore bids us not to run into corners and whisper his messages but to get us unto the house top and to make the highest roof and battlements our Pulpit Woe therefore to those Sigalion-like statues who taking up a room in Gods Church sit there with their fingers upon their mouthes making a trade of either wilful or lazy silence smothering in their breasts the sins and dangers of Gods people It is a witty and good observation of Gregory that the Prophet prayes set a door before my lips a door not a wall he would not have his tongue mur'd up for all occasions but so locked that it may be seasonably let loose and free when the convenience or necessity of his own Soul or others require it The neglect or restraint of which liberty shall lye heavy upon many a Soul Surely the blood of all those souls that have miscarried through their unfaithful silence cryes loud to Heaven against them and shall one day be required at their hands If I shall see a blind man walking towards some deep pit or deadly precipice if I do not warn him of it and prevent his fall I am not much lesse guilty of his death then if I had thrust him down It is a clear
spirits of his by the title of Angeli lucis Angels of Light not only hath the Son of God God and man justified himself Lux mundi the Light of the World but God absolutely and indistinctâ—y in respect of persons vouchsafeth to make himself known to us by this name That God is Light Hereupon it is that even in this sense the children of God are called the Sons of Light because he is Light whose Sons they are But that of the Athanasian Creed is most pregnant that the eternal Son of God God the Son is God of God Light of Light Neither doth our Apostle here say God is resembled by Light But as our Saviour said of God God is a Spirit so here our Apostle God is Light How then is God Light Far be it from us that according to the stupidity of the Manichees we should take this literally of a sensible and materiall Light that is but a creature though indeed the first and exceeding glorious but yet a creature and therefore infinitely below the purity and perfection of the Creator but sure God would have us by this to be led to the conceit of the transcendent glory of his incomprehensible Deity and would have us when we think of him to be put in mind of admiring an increated immateriall super-intelligible uprightnesse of a glory so much above all spiritual natures as the Light is above the bodily and visible whereupon it is that when the spirit of God by his Apostle describes the habitation of God he doth it in these termes that he dwells in a Light that none can approach unto and when he describes the Heaven of the elect 1 Tim. 6.16 he calls it the inheritance of the Saints in Light so as when that place of blisse and the God whose presence makes it such come into our thoughts Coloss 1.12 we must elevate our thoughts above this dark sphere of mortality and represent unto our selves a glorious lightsomnesse as much above this materiall Light as Light is above Darknesse abandoning that gloomie and base opacity of conceit wherewith our earthly mindes are commonly wont to be over-clouded for surely it is easie and familiar to observe that the higher we go the more Light we shall find In the center of the Earth there is nothing but perfect darknesse nearer the upper region of that great body where any overture is made there is a kind of imperfect twilight In this lower air there is a better Light but mixed with foggs and Vapors In the higher regions there are lesse mists and more clearnesse yet not without some dimness of exhalations In the starry Heavens a purer Light yet not without some eclipses In the empyreall nothing but pure and perfect Light justly therefore are our hearts lift up with our eyes to a contemplation of a Light above those Heavens more pure and excellent then theirs Away then with all dull and darksome imaginations when we addresse our selves to the throne of Grace and let us adore an infinite Spirit dwelling in an unaccessible Light attended with millions of Angels of Light and glorified spirits of his Saints in a Light unspeakable and glorious this shall be the first glimpse of our inlightned understanding when we would comfortably appear before God In which regard I fear many of us Christians are much defective in our holy devotions speaking unto God and thinking of him sullenly and sadly as shut up in some remote and unknown darknesse on the other side of the World or at least without the lively apprehension of that wonderfull radiance of glory wherewith he is invested misconceiving herein of that Deity whom we implore who hath revealed himself unto us by the name of Light And surely as none but an Eagle can look upon the Light of the Sun so none but the confirmed eyes of an illuminated Christian can behold God in this notion of his celestiall splendor which we must so labour to attain unto and settle in our minds as that we should no more think of the blessed Deity without the conceit of an infinite resplendence then we can open our eyes at noon-day without an incurrence and admission of an outward Light But this how ever requisite to be conceived and done is not the main drift of our Apostle who goes not about here so much to make any description of God or prescription of the wayes of our understanding or representation of his glorious presence as to lay the grounds of our holy disposition and pure and Heavenly carriage before him For so is the Light here affirmed of God as the darkness is disavowed of him and both of them are mentioned with an intention of drawing in an exhortation to that purity which we should affect and the avoydance of all the state and works of spirituall darkness which we should abhorre God then is Light as in himself so in relation to us and this predication of Light serves to inferre our conformity to God in this behalf It is not for us therefore to inquire so much into those absolute termes wherein God stands with himself as what he is in pattern unto us Thus is he Light either qualitatively or causatively The Light hath a quality for it matters not to search into the essence of it and indeed it is more then we can do to find it out of clearnesse of purity Of clearness for the use of manifestation Of purity and untaintedness in respect of any mixture of corruption In both these is God Light Causatively in that he is the Authour of all Light communicating it to his Creatures in what kind soever not without reference to the diffusive quality of Light in the illuminating of this vast body and dilating it self to all the World in an instant In these three regards therefore is God Light here 1. Of absolute clearness in his infinite knowledg and wisdom 2. Of exact purity in the perfect rectitude of his will 3. Of gracious diffusion in the communicating of himself to his Creatures and to us in speciall so as to inlighten us with competent knowledg in our understanding and sincere disposition of our will and affections And because God is thus Light all that will claim to partake of him must be in their measure clear in understanding pure in will and affections diffusive of their knowledg and graces to others These three qualities of clearness purity diffusion together with three answerable reflections upon us shall be the matter of our following discourse and challenge your best attention Those things which whether in nature or art are wont to pass for the carriages of Light have in them sometimes at least in respect of our sight some kind of dimness and opacity The candle hath his snuffe the fire his smoke and blackness of indigestion the Moon her spots the very Sun it self his Eclipses Neither is it said that God is lightsome but light it self in the abstract then which nothing can be convinced more
and indeavours to the holding of the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and labour and study not how to widen or gall and ranckle but how to salve and heal these unhappy sores of the Church and State by confineing our desires within the due bounds free from incroachments from innovations by a discreet moderation in all our prosecutions by a meek relenting even in due challenges by a fair and charitable construction of each others acts and intentions and lastly by our fervent perswasions and prayers and so many as are thus minded peace be upon them and upon the whole Israel of God this day and for ever Amen A SERMON Preacht at the TOWER March 20. 1641. By JOS. NORVIC JAMES 4.8 Draw nigh unto God and he will draw nigh to you Cleanse your hands ye sinners and purge your hearts ye double minded 9. Be afflicted and mourne and weep c. I Have pitch't upon this Text as fit for both the time and the season both of them sad and penitentiall and such as call us to devotion and humiliation both which are the subjects of this Scripture There is no estate so happy if it could be obtained as that of perfect obedience but since that cannot be had partly through the weaknesse and partly through the wickednesse of our nature for there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an impossibility upon it Rom. 3. the next to it is that of true repentance which is no other then an hearty turning from our evill wayes and an indeavour of better obedience and this estate is here recommended to us under a double Alegory the one of our drawing nigh to God the other of our cleansing and purging In the former whereof the sinner is represented to us in a remote distance from God in the other as foul and nasty both in his heart and his hands and the remedy is prescribed for both of his remotenesse drawing nigh to God of his foulnesse Cleansing and purging the former is enough to take up our thoughts at this time Wherein ye have a duty injoyned and an inducement urged the Duty draw nigh to God the Inducement God will draw nigh to you To begin with the former the duty of drawing nigh implies something and requires something it implies a distance and requires an act of approach It implies a distance for we cannot be said to draw near if we were not afar off The sinner therefore is in a remote distance from God and that in respect of both termes both as of God and as of the sinner Of God first the sinner then is aloof off from God not from the presence of his essence and power so he would be afar off and cannot Whether shall I go from thy presence or whether shall I flee from thy Spirit If I go up to Heaven thou art there and if as our new Translation hath it I make my bed in hell an uneasy bed God knowes that is made there yet there thou art also Ye the Devills themselves could not have their being but from God for their being is good though themselves be wicked that they are spirits they have from God that they are evil Spirits and so Devils is from themselves And their companions the wofull reprobate soules would fain be further off from God if they could They shall in vain call to the Rocks and Mountains to cover them from his presence he cannot be excluded from any place that fills and comprehends all things How then is the sinner aloof off from God From the holinesse of God from the grace and mercy of God from the glory of God From the holinesse of God he is no lesse distant then evill is from good which is no lesse then infinitely There is no locall distance but is capable of a measure for an actuall infinite magnitude is but an atheous paradoxe in philosophy If it be to the Antipodes themselves on the other side of the earth we can have a scale of miles that can reach them yea of furlongs of paces of feet of barley cornes but betwixt good and evil there is no possible no imaginable proportion and as from the holinesse of God so from the grace and mercy of God he is no lesse distant then guilt is from remission which is also no lesse then infinitely for the sinner as he is and continues such is utterly uncapable of remission It is true that Gods mercy is over all his works but the sinner is none of them By him were made all things that were made John 1. but God never made the sinner God made the man but it is the Devil and mans free-will that made the sinner indeed sin is nothing else but the marring of that which God hath made sin therefore without repentance may never hope for remission when repentance comes in place it ceaseth in Gods imputation to be it self but without it there is no place for mercy Many sorrows saith the Psalmist shall be to the wicked Psal 32.10 but he that trusteth in the Lord mercy shall compasse him about Lo sorrowes and torment are for the wicked mercy only for the penitent and faithfull The sinner may flatter himself as our nature is apt to do Mens sibi saepe mentitur with a vaine hope of better but he that is truth it self hath said it There is no peace saith my God to the wicked tribulation and anguish on every soul that doth evill he that hardens his heart shall fall into evill And as he is a aloof off from Grace as the way so from Glory as the end here is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great gulfe and unmeasurable betwixt the Sinner and Heaven One is not so much as within the ken of the other without holiness there is no seeing of God saith St· Paul Hebr. 12.14 no not so much as afar off unlesse it be for an aggravation of torment Much lesse may any unclean thing enter there Look as impossible as it is for a man that hath this clogg of flesh about him to leap into the Skie so impossible it is for the soul that is clogged with sin ever to come within the verge within the view of the third Heaven which is the presence of the Lord of Glory This for the distance in respect of God will ye see it in respect of the sinner himself He is aloof off from God in his thoughts in his affections in his carriage and actions In his thoughts first which are onely evill continually He never thinks of God but when he feels him punishing and then not without a murmuring kind of regret Psal 10.4 and indignation no not even whiles he sweares by him doth he think of him God is not in all his thoughts saith the Psalmist that is by an usuall Hebraisme God is not at all in his thoughts for otherwise unlesse it be virtually and reductively there is no man whose thoughts are altogether taken up with the Almighty the
we finde the face of God clouded from us let our souls refuse comfort till we have recovered his favour which is better then life do we find our selves upon our sound repentance received to grace and favour of the Almighty and that he is well pleased with our persons and with our poor obediences and that he smiles upon us in Heaven courage dear Brethren in spight of all the frowns and menaces of the World we are safe and shall be happy here is comfort for us in all tribulation 2 Cor. 1.4 with that chosen vessel we are troubled on every side yet not distressed â—e are perplexed but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken 2. Cor. 4.8 cast down but not destroyed for which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish 16. yet the inward man is renewed day by day for our light Affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us 18. a farr more exceeding and eternall weight of glory to the full possession whereof the God that hath ordained us graciously bring us for the sake of the Son of his love Jesus Christ the righteous To whom with the Father and the holy Ghost three persons and one glorious God be given all praise honour glory and dominion now and for evermore A Second SERMON In prosecution of the same Text PREACHT AT St. GREGORIES CHURCH IN NORWICH July 21. 1644. By JOS. B. of N. EPHES. 4.30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed to the day of Redemption WE have done with the Dehortation it self and therein with the Act forbidden Grieve not and with the title of the Subject the Holy Spirit of God We descend to the inforcement of the Dehortation by the great merit of the Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed to the day of Redemption Those that are great and good we would not willingly offend though meer strangers to us but if they be besides our great friends and liberal Benefactors men that have deserved highly of us we justly hold it a foul shame and abominable ingratitude wilfully to do ought that might affront them It is therefore added for a strong disswasive from Grieving the Spirit of God that by him we are sealed to the day of redemption All the world shall in vain strive to do for us what our great Friend in Heaven hath done our loathness therefore to grieve him must be according to the depth of our obligation to him Cast your eyes then a little upon the wonderful Benefit here specified and see First what this day of Redemption is Secondly what is the sealing of us to this day and Thirdly why the sealing of us to this day should be a sufficient motive to withhold us from grieving the Holy Spirit of God These three must be the limits of my Speech and your Atrention Redemption signifies as much as a Ransome A Ransome implies a Captivity or Servitude There is a threefold Captivity from which we are freed Of Sin of Misery of Death For the first We are sold under sin saith our Apostle No Slave in Argier is more truly sold in the Market under a Turkish Pyrate then we are naturally sold under the Tyranny of sin by whom we are bound hand and foot and can stir neither of them towards God and dungeon'd up in the darkness of our ignorance without any Glimpse of the vision of God For the second the very name of Captivity implyes Misery enough what outward evil is incident into a man which bondage doth not bring with it Wo is me there was never so much captivity in this land since it was a Nation nor so woful a Captivity as this of brethren to brethren Complaints there are good store on both sides of restraint want ill-lodging hard and scant diet Irons insultations scornes and extremities of ill usage of all kindes and what other is to be found in the whole course of this wretched life of ours the best whereof is vanity and the worst infinite vexations But Thirdly if some men have been so externally happy as to avoid some of these miseries for all men smart not alike yet never man did or can avoid the third which is obnoxiousness to death By the offence of one saith the Apostle judgment came upon all men to condemnation Rom. 5.18 Sin hath raigned unto death Ps 21. It is more then an Ordinance a statute law in Heaven Statutum est c. It is enacted to all men once to dye Heb. 9.27 This then is our bondage or captivity now comes our redemption from all these at once when upon our happy dissolution we are freed from sin from misery from death and enter into the possession of glory thus our Saviour Lift up your heads for the day of your redemption draweth nigh thus saith St. Paul The creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption unto the glorious liberty of the Sons of God Rom. 8.21 It is the same condition of the members of Christ which was of the head that they overcome death by dying when therefore the bands of death are loosed and we are fully freed from the dominion of the first death and danger of the second and therein from all the capacity not only of the rule and power of sin but of the life and in-dwelling of it and from all the miseries both bodily and spirituall that attend it and when in the same instant our soul takes possession of that glory which shall once in the consociation of it's glorious partner the body be perfectly consummated Then and not till then is the day of our redemption Is there any of us therefore that complaines of his sad and hard condition here in the world paines of body grief of mind agonies of soul crosses in estate discontentments in his families suffering in his good name let him bethink himself where he is this is the time of his captivity and what other can be expected in this case Can we think there is no difference betwixt liberty bondage Can the slave think to be as free as his Patron Ease rest liberty must be lookt for elsewhere but whiles we are here we must make no account of other then these varieties of misery our redemption shall free us from them all But now perhaps some of you are ready to say of the Redemption as they did of the Resurrection that it is past already and so indeed it is one way in respect of the price laid out by the Son of God the invaluable price of his blood for the redemption of man but so that it must be taken out by and applied to every soul inparticular if we will have the benefit redound to us It is his Redemption before it is now only our Redemption when it is brought home to us Oh then the dear and happy day of this our finall redemption wherein we shall be absolutely freed from all the miserable sorrowes paines cares fears
sure having this seal The Lord knoweth who are his The Lord knoweth and none but he neither Man nor Angel It is sealed on purpose that it may be concealed and reserved only in the counsel of the most High It is therefore a most high and dangerous presumption in any man to passe a judgment upon the final estate of another especially to the worse part This is no other then to rush into the Closet of the Highest and to break open his cabinet and to tear up the privy Seal of Heaven an insolence that God will not passe over unrevenged It was a good answer that the Servant gave in the story who carrying a covered dish through the Street and being asked what it was answered It is therefore covered that thou mayest not know and so it is here the final estate of every Soul is sealed that it may be known only to the God of Heaven and if any man dare to pry into this Ark of God with the men of Bethshemesh let him fear to be struck dead as they were 1 Sam. 6. The Romanists have taken too much boldnesse this way there is one of their Saints St. Matilda or St. Maude a Prophetesse of theirs which in her Revelations professeth that she would needs know of God what became of the Souls of four men Sampson Solomon whom I must tell you the greatest part of the Romish Doctors give out for a cast away very injuriously and uncharitably since that besides his being a type of Christ and a pen-man of some part of holy Scripture his Ecclesiastes is a plain publication to all the World of his penance for his former miscarriages Origen and Trajane and received this answer What my pitty hath done with Sampson I will not have known that men may not be incouraged to take revenge on their enemies what my mercy hath done with Solomon I will not have known lest men should take too much liberty to carnal sins What my bounty hath done with Origen I would not have known lest men should put too much confidence in their knowledg What my liberality hath done with Trajan I would not have known for the advancement of the Catholick faith lest men should sleight the Sacrament of Baptism a presumptious question and an answer answerable So they have not stuck to tell us that the same day that their St. Thomas Becket dyed there dyed in all the World three thousand thirty and three whereof 3000. went to Hell thirty to Purgatory and three whereof their Saint was one to Heaven sure I think much alike I will not weary you with their frenzies of this kind they have bragg'd of some of their Saints who have had this deep insight into the hearts of men and counsels of God that they could tell by the view who should be saved who condemned and some fanatick Spirits in our Church have gone so farr as to take upon them as some vain Palmesters by the sight of the hand to judge of fortunes by the face and words and garbe and carriage of men to passe sentence of reprobation upon other mens souls what an horrible insolence is this in any creature under Heaven or in it There may be perhaps grounds to judg of a mans present condition God doth not call any man to stupidity or unreasonablenesse If I see a man live debauchedly in drunkennesse in whoring in professed profanesse If I hear him in his ordinary speeches to tear Gods name in pieces with oaths and bsasphemies I may safely say that man is in a damnable condition and must demean my self to him accordingly forbearing an entire conversation with him with such a one eat not saith the Apostle but if I shall presume to judg of his finall estate I may incur my own condemnation in pronouncing his Judg not that ye be not judged Perhaps that man whom thou sentencest is in the secret counsel of God sealed to life and shall go before thee to Heaven who that had seen Manasses revelling in his Idolatry Magick Murder worshiping all the hoast of Heaven polluting the house of God with his abominable altars using sorceries and inchantments filling the streets of Jerusalem with innocent blood 2 Kings 21. would not have said there is a cast-away Yet howsoever the history of the Kings leaves him in his sin and dishonor yet in the 2 Chron. 33. You find his conversion his acceptation his prayer and how God was entreated of him vers 19. So as for ought we know he lived a Devil and dyed a Saint Who that had seen and heard Soul breathing out threatnings and executing his bloody cruelties upon the Church of God dragging poor Christians to their judgments and executions would not have given him for a man branded for hell yet behold him a chosen vessel the most glorious instrument of Gods name that hath been since Christ left the earth as thou lovest thy Soul therefore meddle not with Gods seal leave that to himself Thou mayest read the superscription of a man if thou wilt and judge of his outside but take heed of going deeper look well to the seal that God hath set upon thine own soul look for that new name which none can read but he that hath it this is worth thine enquiry into and God hath given thee the Characters whereby to decipher it whom he did predestinate them also he called and whom he called them also he justifyed and whom he justified them also he glorified that is they are as sure to be glorified as if they were glorified already Rom. 8.30 Read thine own name in the book of life and thou art happy as for others let thy rule be the judgment of charity and let Gods seal alone Secret things belong to God and things revealed to us and our children but if thou wilt needs be searching into Gods counsel remember that of Solomon as the Vulgar reads it Prov. 25.27 Scrutator Majestatis opprimetur a gloria He that pries into Majesty shall be overwhelmed with glory Now that from the Secrecy we may descend to the Peculiarity of Designation You know it in common practise in your trades and merchandise that when a man hath bought a parcel of commodities he sets his marke upon them to distinguish them from the rest in the warehouse so doth our God he sets a mark upon his own whereby they are plainly differenced from others And this mark besides the stampe of his eternal decree is true sanctification By this then it is that we are known from the World As upon some large plain where there are severall flocks and heards feeding together every one knows his own by his mark So the man with the writers inkhorne set a mark upon those which mourned for their own sins and the sins of their people Ezek. 9. It is therefore so farr from truth that our sanctification is no certain proof of our son-ship and of our interest in the covenant of grace as that there is no other
God our Heavenly Father toward us is no less then infinite Psal 103.13 what return do we make of love to him again we can perhaps talk largely of our love to God but where is the proof of it Did we love our Father in Heaven as children could we strange our selves from his interest Could we indure to see him wronged in all his concernments to hear his sacred and dread name blasphemed to see his Ordinances trampled upon his messengers contemptuously used his house and his day prophaned would we not spit at that son that would put up such indignities offered to his carnal Father And why will we lay claim to a son-ship of God if we can swallow such spiritual affronts put upon our God Thirdly every not ill-natur'd and ungracious son as God hath none such bears a kind of awfull respect to his Father both in what he doth and in what he suffers For his actions he dares not to do any thing wilfully that may work his Fathers displeasure and even those things which he would not stick to do before a stranger yet before his Father he reverentially forbeares to do If I be a Father where is my honour Malac. 1.6 If then we be not awfully affected to the presence of God If we dare boldly sin God in the face it argues strongly that we have no filial relation to him For his sufferings A child will receive that correction from the hand of a Father which he would never abide from a stranger He that would be ready to repay blowes to another man takes stripes from a Father and answers them onely with tears Thus if we be the Sons of God we do submissely undergo from his hand what fatherly chastisment he shall be pleased to lay upon us but if we be ready to struggle and groyningly repine at his correction it showes we do not acknowledge him for our Father Lastly a son as he is wholly at his parents disposing so he depends upon his Fathers provision expecting such patrimony as his Father shall bestow upon him and waiting with patience for such childes-part as he can have no hope of from a stranger If we do so to our Heavenly Father leading the life of faith with him casting our selves upon his gracious providence for all good things of either World and fixing our eyes upon that glorious inheritance which he hath purchased for us above we do evidently show our selves to be the sons of God but what need we any other evidence of this blessed condition then what is here expresly laid down to our hands in my Text So many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God What is it then to be led by the Spirit of God The originall is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word which every Grammarian knowes to signifie both agi and duci to be led or driven so where it is said by one Evangelist that Christ was led into the Wilderness to be temped Mat. 4.1 Of another it is read that he was driven Mark 1.12 And though the vulgar reads it here qui aguntur yet our Rhemists turn it Those that are led noteing in the margin out of St. Augustines true explication that Gods children are not violently compelled against their wills but sweetly drawn moved and induced to do good So as this word then implies both an act of Gods Spirit working in us and our complying with that act in an obedient and ready conformity thereunto For wherever the Spirit of God is it is not idle and ineffectuall but it is still directing and inclining unto good and whosoever is led by that Spirit yields himself to the motions and guidance Acti agimus as the old word is In all leading therefore and so in this there must be an hand to guide and a foot to follow good motions on Gods part and motions in good on ours both these must go together else there is no leading by the Spirit of God It is not enough that good thoughts are injected into us by the holy Spirit yea it is so farr from availing us as that a man is so much the worse for those good motions he entertaines not as the motions are more excellent and divine But those good injections must be received imbraced delighted in and followed home in a constant and habituall practise with a resolute rejection and detestation of the contrary Besides that spirit of our mind Ephes 4.23 which lodgeth in every brest every man is led by some spirit or other One is led by a spirit of Errour 1 Tim. 4.1 and seduction in matter of understanding Another by the spirit of giddiness Esa 19.14 into wild fancies and brainsick imaginations another is led by the Spirit of bondage to slavish fears and afflictive horrours as in the next verse to my Text another by the spirit of the World 1 Cor. 2.12 Another and indeed all these by the unclean Spirit as he is usually styled in the Gospell others which are all the regenerate are led by the Spirit of God when our Saviour said to his too fiery Disciples Ye know not of what Spirit ye are he implies that of some spirit they must needs be now there are those that pretend to be led by the spirit of God and are not St. Paul could upon good warrant say I trust I have the Spirit of God that trust was however he modestly expresses it no lesse then a certain knowledg but a Zidkijah on the other side in a false presumption can say Which way went the Spirit of God from me to speak to thee I remember in the history of the Anabaptists of Munster one of those illuminated companions of John Becold and Onipperdoling is said to have kill'd his own naturall Brother in the face of his parents and professed to do it upon a revelation from the Spirit the night before And what heresies and prodigious opinions have been set on foot and maintained to the death under pretence of the dictation and warrant of Gods Spirit who can be ignorant Let us therefore enquire how a man may know whether he be truly led by the Spirit of God First then the Spirit of God leads no man but in a right way and what is that but the way of Gods Commandements All other wayes are wayes of our own oblique and crooked as deviating from the straight line of righteousnesse In them either we lead our selves or Satan leads us If any man be tempted let him not say that he is tempted of God God moves to holy duties to just and charitable actions and none but them for he cannot be contrary to himself Is there any of us therefore that is carried on in a course of uncleannesse excess disobedience oppression or any other sin whatsoever Alas we are led by a contrary spirit in the dark wayes that lead to death and Hell It were blasphemy to father these sinfull mis-leadings upon the holy Spirit of God Secondly Gods
be and be acknowledged the sons of God Let us put on as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercy kindnesse humblenesse of mind meeknesse long-suffering forbearing one another forgiving one another if we have a quarrell against any even as Christ forgave us and above all these things put on charity which is the bond of perfectnesse Colos 3.12 13 14. And lastly forsaking the mis-guidance of Satan the World and our corrupt nature which will lead us down to the chambers of death and eternal destruction let us yield up our selves to be led by the holy Spirit of God in all the wayes of righteousnesse and holynesse of piety justice charity and all manner of gracious conversation that we may thereby approve our selves the sons and daughters of God and may be feoffed in that blessed inheritance which he hath laid up for all his to the possession whereof may he happily bring us who hath dearly bought us Jesus Christ the righteous to whom with the Father and the blessed spirit one infinite God be given all praise honour and glory now and for ever Amen THE MOURNER IN SION ECCLESIASTES 3.4 There is a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance I Need not tell you that Solomon was a wise man his wisdom as it was in an extraordinary measure put into him by him that is wisdom it self so was it in a more then ordinary way improved by his diligent observation his observation was Universal of times things persons actions events neither did he look his experiments up in the closet of his own brest but by the direction of Gods Spirit laid them forth to the World in this divine sermon which not as a King but as a Prophet he preach't to all posterity Every sentence here therefore is a dictate of the holy Ghost it is not Solomon then but a greater then Solomon even the holy Spirit of the great God that tells you there is not a time onely but a season too for every thing and for every purpose under Heaven that is as I hope you can take it no otherwise for every good thing or indifferent as for evill things or actions if men find a time yet sure God allowes no season those are alwayes damnably-unseasonable abuses of times and of our selves not to meddle with other particulars our thoughts are now by the divine providence pitch't upon a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance or rather onely upon the time to weep and mourn for our time of laughing and dancing is past already and perhaps we have had too much of that in our former times which makes the causes and degrees of our now weeping and mourning as more uncouth so more intensive we must be so much deeper in our mourning by how much we have been more wild and wanton in our laughter and dancing To fall right down therefore upon our intended discourse without any previous circumlocutions There is a threefold time of just mourning 1. When a man is sensible of his punishments 2. Of his sins 3. Of his dangers Of his punishments first or rather which is more general of his afflictions for all afflictions are not intended for punishments some are fatherly chastisments onely for our good whereas all punishments are afflictive when we are whip't then when we smart with the rod we have cause to weep and if in this case we shed no tears it is a sign of a gracelesse heart It is time therefore to mourn when we are pressed by sufferings whether from the immediate hand of God or mediately by the hands of men whether by private or publique calamities are we smitten in our bodies by some painfull and incurable diseases Doth the pestilence rage in our streets Hath God forbidden us the influence of Heaven and curst the Earth with barrennesse Hath he broken the staffe of bread and sent leannesse into our souls Hath he humbled us with the fearfull casualties of fire or water by wracks at Sea by lightnings and tempests by land hath he sent murrain amongst our cattle and destroying vermine into our barnes and fields now God tells us it is a time to mourn are we disquieted in our minds by some over-mastering passions of griefe for the miscarriages of children for the secret discontents of domesticall jars for unjust calumnies cast upon our good name are we molested in our mindes and spirits with impetuous and no lesse importune then hatefull Temptations now it is a time to mourn do we find in our souls a decay and languishment of grace a prevalence of those corruptions which we thought abated in us Do we find our selves deeply soul-sick with our sinfull indispositions Shortly do we find the face of our God for the time withdrawn from us Now now it is a time to mourn If we turn our eyes to those evils which are cast upon us by the hands of men Do men find themselves despoyled of their estates restrained of their Liberties tortured in their bodies Do they find the wofull miseries of an intestine war killings burnings depopulations do they find fire and sword raging in the bosom of out Land now it is a time to mourn Were these evils confined to some few persons to some special families they were worthy of the tears of our compassion for it is our duty to weep with them that weep but where they are universal and spread over the whole face of any Nation there cannot be found tears enough to lament them Punishments then are a just cause of our sorrow and mourning but to a good heart sin is so much greater cause of mourning by how much a moral evil is more then a natural and by how much the displeasure of an Almighty God is worthy of more regard then our own smart Doth thine heart then tell thee that thou hast offended the Majesty of God by some grievous sin now is thy time to weep and mourne as thou wouldest for thy only son Zechar. 12.10 now it is time for thee to be in bitternesse as one that is in bitternesse for his first borne Thy soul is foul wash and rince it with the tears of thy repentance go forth with Peter and weep bitterly Dost thou finde in the place where thou livest that sin like some furious torrent bears down all before it now it is time for thee to mourne for the sins of thy people and to say as the holy Psalmist did Psal 119 136. Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because men keep not thy law Lastly as our sufferings and our sins make up a due time for our mourning so do our dangers also for fear is no lesse afflictive then pain yea I know not whether there can be a greater pain then the expectation of imminent mischiefs Do we therefore see extremities of judgments hovering over our heads ready to fall down like Sodoms fire and
in this place when it is said Christ our passover is sacrificed for us So as here is a trope or figure twice told First the lamb is the passover Secondly Christ is that paschal Lamb. You would think this now far-fetched here was a double passing over The Angels passing over the Israelites the Israelites passing out of Egypt both were acts the one of God the other of men as for the lamb it is an animal substance Yet this Lamb represents this passover This is no newes in sacramental speeches The thing signed is usually put for the sign it self My covenant shall be in your flesh that is circumcision the sign of my covenant the rock that followed them was Christ 1 Cor. 10.4 that is Christ was represented by that rock This cup is the new testament So here Christ our passover Gen. 17.13 that is Christ represented by the Paschal-lamb What an infatuation is upon the Romish party that rather then they will admit of any other then a grosse literall capernaiticall sence in the words of our Saviours sacramental supper This is my body will confound Heaven and Earth together and either by a too forceable consequence endeavour to overthrow the truth of Christs humanity or turne him into a monster a wafer a crum a nothing Whenas St. Austin hath told us plainly sacramentaliter intellectum vivificabit Take it in a sacramental sence there is infinite comfort and spiritual life in it As for his body St. Peter hath told us the heavens must contain him till the time of the restitution of all things Acts 3.21 Yea when our Saviour himself hath told us the words that I speak are spirit and life Jo. 6. Now what a marvellous mercy was this of God to Israel thus to passe over them when he slew the first-borne of Egypt There was not an house in all Egypt wherein there was not mourning and lamentation no roof but coverd a suddainly made carcasse what an unlook't for consternation was here in every Egyptian Family Only the Israelites that dwelt amongst them were free to applaud this judgment that was inflicted upon their tyrannous persecutors and for their very cause inflicted for this mercy are they beholden under God to the blood of their Paschal-lamb sprinkled upon their door-posts Surely had they eaten the lamb and not sprinkled the blood they had not escaped the stroak of the destroying Angel This was in figure In reality it is so It is by and from the blood of our redeemer sprinkled upon our souls that we are freed from the vengeance of the Almighty Had not he dyed for us were not the benefit of his precious blood applyed to us we should lye open to all the fearful judgments of God and as to the upshot of all eternall death of body and soul As then the Israelites were never to eat the Paschal-lamb but they were recalled to the memory of that saving preterition of the Angel and Gods merciful deliverance from the fiery furnaces of the Egyptians so neither may we ever behold this sacramental representation of the death of our blessed Saviour but we should bethink our selves of the infinite mercy of our good God in saving us from everlasting death and rescuing us from the power of hell This is the first figure That the Lamb is the Passover The se-second followes That Christ is that Paschal-Lamb Christ then being the end of the Law it is no marvell if all the ceremonies of the Law served to prefigure and set him forth to Gods people but none did so clearly and fully resemble him as this of the paschal Lambe whether we regard 1. the choyce 2. the preparation 3. the eating of it The choice whether in respect of the nature or the quality of it the nature ye know this creature is noted for innocent meek gentle profitable such was Christ our Saviour His fore-runner pointed at him under this stile Behold the Lamb of God what perfect innocence was here No guile found in his mouth Hell it self could finde nothing ro quarrel at in so absolute integrity What admirable meekness He is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so opened be not his mouth Esay 53.7 Doth his own treacherous servant betray him to the death Friend wherefore art thou come Mat. 26.50 Do the cruel tormentors tenter out his pretious limmes and nail his hands and feet to the tree of shame and curse Father forgive them for they know not what they do Oh patience and meeknesse incident into none but an infinite sufferer 2ly The quality Every Lamb would not serve the turne it must be agnus immaculatus A lamb without blemish that must be paschal Exod. 12.5 Neither doth it hinder ought that leave is there given to a promiscuous use either of lamb or kid for the sacramental supper of the passover For that was only allowed in a case of necessity as Theodoret rightly and as learned Junius well in the confusion of that first institution wherein certainly a lamb could not be gotten on the suddain by every Israelitish house-keeper to serve six hundred thousand men and so many there were Exod. 12.37 This liberty then was only for the first turne as divers other of those ceremonious circumstances of the passover were namely the four daies preparation the sprinkling of the blood upon the door-cheeks eating with girded loines and staves in their hands which were not afterward required or practised The lamb then must represent a most holy and perfectly sin-less Saviour could he have been capable of the least sin even in thought he had been so far from ransoming the World that he could not have saved himself Now his exquisite holinesse is such as that by the perfection of his merits he can and doth present his whole Church to himself glorious not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing as holy and without blemish Ephes 5.27 Canst thou therefore accuse thy self for a sinful wretch a soul blemished with many foul imperfections Look up man lo thou hast a Saviour that hath holinesse enough for himself and thee and all the World of beleevers close with him and thou art holy and happy Behold the immaculate lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world thine Therefore if thou canst lay hold on him by a lively faith and make him thine This for the choice the preparation followes so Christ is the paschal lamb in a threefold respect in resemblance of his killing sprinkling his blood and roasting 1. This Lamb to make a true passover must be slain So was there a necessity that our Jesus should dye for us The two Disciples in their walk to Emaus hear this not without a round reproof from the mouth of their risen Saviour Oh fooles and slow of heart to beleeve all that the Prophets have spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory Luc. 24.26 Ought not there is
so much as give an occasion to an adversary 1 Tim. 5.14 wether of calumny or of Triumph oh that we could be fearful of doing any unfit thing because of the evil Angels we shall be sure to hear of it again to our cost even the most carelesse boyes will be affraid to offend in the face of the monitor such are the evill Angels to us Be sure every unbeseeming and unlawfull act that passeth from us is upon their file and shall once be urged against us to our shame and conviction My Brethren we would be loath to come under the power of their torment as we would avoid this fearfull issue let us be jealous of their suggestions and our carriage and not dare to do ought that may be scandalous Because of the Angels Good use may be made you see even of this sense but I take it our Apostle intended here to intimate the presence of and respect to the good Angels It is no a lesse comfortable then well-grounded point of Divinity That none of Gods Children upon Earth want the assidence and Ministration of those blessed spirits we have it from him that cannot fail us Matth. 18.10 and the sweet singer of Israel had warbled out this Heavenly note before him The Angels of the Lord encamp about those that fear him Ps 34.7 And he that was rapt up into the third Heaven and saw those wonderfull Orders of Angels can tell us they are all ministring Spirits sent forth to Minister for them who shall be heirs of Salvation Heb. 1.14 Now these as they guard and attend every of Gods elect ones when they are singled and sequestred in the greatest solitariness so we can not think they leave their whether common or severall charges when they assemble together for the exercises of piety and devotion so as the publique meetings of Gods Saints can be no other then filled with whole troupes of Angels This as it is a truth so it was the received opinion of the Jewes as Capellus pregnantly cites it out of the Sedar Tephilloth of the Portugall Jewes in his learned Spicelegium Coronam dant tibi Domine Deus noster Angeli turba illa superna cum populo tuo Israel hic inferne Congregato O Lord our God the Angels give glory to thee even those Heavenly troupes that are assembled with thy Israel here below Out of the reverend and awfull respect therefore that is due to these glorious though invisible beholders there may no unseemly thing be done or admitted in the Church of God and therefore The Women ought to have power on their Heads because of the Angels and surely my beloved were we fully perswaded that now at this present there is within these walls a greater Congregation of Angels then of Men and Women I suppose it could not but strike such an awe into us as to make us at once holily mannerly and fervently devout It is a great fault in us Christians that we think of nothing but what we see whereas that spirituall and intelligible World which is past the apprehension of these Earthly senses is far greater farr more noble and excellent then all visible and materiall substances Certainly there is not one Angel in Heaven that hath not more glory then all this sensible World can be capable of what should I tell you of the excellency of their nature the height of their offices the Majesty of their persons their power able to confound a World their nearness both of place and of essence to that infinite deity their tender love and care of man-kind any of which were able and worthy to take up a whole lives meditation And if there be so much perfection in one how unconceiveable is the concurrent lustre and glory of many had we eyes to see these invisible supervisors of our behaviour we could not we durst no let fall any so much as indecent gesture before such a presence Quicken then I beseech you and sharpen your eyes dear and beloved Christians to see your selves seen even of them whom ye cannot see and let your whole carriage be thereafter he is not worthy to claim more priveledge then of a beast that can see nothing but sensible objects brute Creatures can see us if we see nothing but our selves and then wherefore serves our understanding wherefore our faith and if we see invisible beholders why are we not affected accordingly certainly it were better for us not to see then than seeing to neglect their presence What is then the honor what the respect that we must give to the Angels of God who are present in our holy assemblies I must have leave to complain of two extremities this way There are some that give them too much veneration there are others that give them no regard at all In the first are those within the Roman Clientele who are so over-curteous as that they give them no lesse then the honor of adoration of invocation reviving herein the erroneous opinion and practise of them which Theodoret held confuted by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians It is the praise that Franciscus de Sales Bishop of Genua gives to Petrus Faber one of the first associates of Ignatius Loiola that his manner was whensoever he came to any place he still made suit to the Tutelar Angels that presided there for their aid of converting the people from heresie and found great successe in it This imploration and worship is ordinary wherein they do that to the Angels which the Angels themselves have forbidden to be done and yet I must needs say if any creature could be capable of a religious worship it is they and if any creature were fit to be prayed unto it is they rather then the highest Saints of Heaven for whereas it is the just ground of our refusing to pray to the Saints that we cannot be sure of their presence and notice sure rather of the contrary and therefore cannot pray in faith that ground is here justly removed we are sure that the Angels of God are present with us we are sure that they hear us pray but this is an honor reserved as peculiar to the God of Angels and to that one mediator betwixt God and man Jesus Christ those Spirits hate to be made rivals to their maker neither have we learned that unreasonable modesty to sue to wayters when we are called up to supplicate the King The other extreme is of carelesse christians that do no more think of Angels then if there were none suffering their bodily eyes to be taken up with the sight of their assembled neighbours but never raising their spirituall eyes to behold those spiritual essences which are no lesse present and certainly I fear we are all much to blame this way and may justly tax our selves of an unthankful dull irreligious neglect of these glorious Spirits I finde that the Mahometan Preists in their Morning and Evening prayer still end their devotion with Macree Kichoon Be
charges us to do our indevour to make sure work of our calling and election did not well foresee the perills of these mis-takings and if notwithstanding the prevision of these errors his infinite wisdom hath thought fit to injoyne this task how safe how necessary is it for us to perform it Did these evils flow from the nature of the doctrine we had reason to disclaim it but now that they flow from the corruption of our nature fetching evill out of good we have reason to embrace the doctrine and to check our selves What a sclander is this Doth the known certainty of our graces breed pride Surely did we challenge these graces for our own there might be some fear of this vice but whiles we yield them to be Gods how can we be puff't up what a madnes is it in a Man to be proud of anothers glory It is a great word of the Apostle I can do all things but when he adds through him that strengthens me now the praise is all Gods and not his now he boasts all of God nothing of himself No presumption is proud but faith is humble There can be no true faith without repentance no repentance without self-dejection Yea the very proper basis of all grace whatsoever is humility much more of faith since a Man cannot so much as apprehend that he hath need of a Saviour till he be vile in his own eyes and lost in his own conceit Yea so farr is the known certainty of grace from working pride as that it is certain there can be no grace where there is pride of grace so as whiles Gregory can say Si scimus nos habere gratiam superbimus If we know we have grace we are proud I shall by a contrary inversion not fear to say Si superbimus scimus nos non habere gratiam If we be proud we know we have no grace Sloth and security is the more probable vice why may not the spirituall sluggard say If I be sure of my calling and election and Gods decree is unchangeable what need I care for more sit down soul and take thine ease ut quid perditio haec To what purpose dost thou macerate thy self with the penall works of an austere mortification what needest thou toile thy self in the busie labours of a constant devotion what need these assiduous prayers these frequent sermonings these importune communicatings thou canst be but sure of thine election thou art so already sit down now my soul and take not thy ease only but thy pleasure let thy self freely loose to those contentments wherein others seek and find felicity Be happy here since thou canst not but be so hereafter A Man might perhaps speak thus but can a believer say so Whose faith quells the very thought of this pernicious security and excites him more to a carefull indeavour of all good actions then reward can the ambitious or fear the cowardly Lo this Man will be sure to do so much more good by how much he is more sure of his election and will be more afraid of sin then another is of hell He well knows the inseparable connexion betwixt the end and the means and cannot dream of obtaining the one without the other he knows that mortification of his corruptions and the life and exercise of grace are the happy effects of his gracious and eternall election If he look to his calling he meets with that of the Apostle We are called not to uncleaneness but to holiness 1 Thes 4.7 If to his election we are chosen that we might be holy and without blame before him in love Ephes 1.3 Both calling and election call him to nothing but holiness and he will more busie himself in the duties of piety charity justice out of love then a servile nature would out of constraint and will do more good because he is elected then a mercenary disposition would do that he might be elected and will be more carefull to avoid sin because he makes account of Heaven then a slavish mind can or will be that he may avoid hell Ezekiah hath fifteen years promised to be added to his life he is sure God cannot deceive him what then doth he say though I take no sustenance I shall live let me take poyson let me run into fire or water or upon the sword of an enemy fifteen years is my stint which can no more be abridged then prolonged I will never trouble my self with Eating or Drinking I will rush fearlesly upon all dangers none of these he that knows he shall live knows he must live by means and therefore feeds moderately demeans himself no lesse carefully that he may live then any other whose life is uncertain It is for ignorant Turks to make so ill use of their predestination that because their destiny is written in their foreheads they need not regard danger but may securely sleep upon the pillow of him that died the day before of the plague wisemen know that divine providence is no exemption of our best care It cannot stand with a true favourite of Heaven to make so ill use of Gods mercies as to be evill because he is good to be secure because he is bountifull and unchangeable what remaines then but that out of our duty to the command out of our sense of the advantage out of our care to shun the danger of the neglect we should stir up our selves by all means possible to make our calling and election sure Away with our poor and petty cares wherewith our hearts are commonly taken up One cares to make his house or his coffers sure with bolts and bars another cares to make his mony sure by good bonds and Counter-bonds another his estate sure to his posterity by conveyances and Fines Another his adventure sure by a wary pre-contract Alas what sorry worthless things are these in comparison of eternity And what a slippery security is that which our utmost indeavours can procure us in these transitory and unsatisfying matters Oh our miserable sottishness if whiles we are studiously carefull for these base perishing affaires we continue willing unthrifts in the main and everlasting provision for our souls Religion gives no countenance to ill-husbandry be carefull to make your houses sure but be more carefull to make sure of your eternall mansions be carefull for your earthly wealth but be more carefull of the treasures laid up in Heaven Be carefull of your estate here but be more carefull of that glorious patrimony above Briefly be careful to live well here be more careful to live happily for ever Ye have seen that we may and that we must indeavour to make sure our calling and election Our next work is to shew how and by what means they may and must be indeavoured to be assured In some few Greek copies which Rob. Steven had seen or in two copies as Beza found it or in Aliquo codice as Mariana there is an addition of words to the text
children as such Not as men not as witty wise noble rich bountiful useful but as Christians showing it self in all real expressions These these are excellent and irrefragable proofs and evictions of your calling and election Seek for these in your hearts and hands and seek for them till ye finde them and when ye have found them make much of them as the invaluable favours of God and labour for a continual increase of them and a growth in this heavenly assurance by them What need I urge any motives to stir up your Christian care and diligence Do but look first behinde you see but how much pretious time we have already lost how have we loitered hitherto in our great work Bernards question is fit still to be asked by us of our souls Bernarde ad quid venisti Wherefore are we here upon earth To pamper our Gut To tend our hide To wallow in all voluptuous courses To scrape up the pelf of the World As if the only end of our being were carnal pleasure wordly profit Oh base and unworthy thoughts What do we with reason if we be thus prostituted It is for beasts which have no soul to be all for sense For us that have ratiocination and pretend grace we know we are here but in a thorowfare to another world and all the main task we have to do here in this life is to provide for a better Oh then let us recollect our selves at the last and redeem the time and over-looking this vain and worthless World bend all our best indeavours to make sure work for eternity Look secondly before you and see the shortness and uncertainty of this which we call a life what day is there that may not be our last what hour is there that we can make account of as certain And think how many World 's the dying Man would give in the late conscience of a careless life for but one day more to do his neglected work and shall we wilfully be prodigall of this happy leasure and liberty and knowingly hazard so wofull and irremediable a surprisall Look thirdly below you and see the horror of that dreadfull place of torment which is the unavoydable portion of careless and unreclaimable sinners consider the extremity the eternity of those tortures which in vain the secure heart sleightly hoped to avoid Look lastly above you and see whether that Heaven whose out-side we behold be not worthy of our utmost ambition of our most zealous and effectuall endeavours Do we not think there is pleasure and happiness enough in that region of glory and blessedness to make abundant amends for all our self-combats for all our tasks of dutyfull service for all our painfull exercises of mortification Oh then let us earnestly and unweariably aspire thither and think all the time lost that we imploy not in the endeavour of making sure of that blessed and eternall inheritance To the full possession whereof he that hath purchased it for us by his most precious blood in his good time happily bring us Amen A Plain and Familiar Explication OF CHRIST'S PRESENCE IN THE SACRAMENT OF HIS Body and Blood Out of the Doctrine of the Church of ENGLAND For the satisfying of a Scrupulous Friend Anno 1631. THat Christ Jesus our Lord is truly present and received in the blessed Sacrament of his body and blood is so clear and universally agreed upon that he can be no Christian that doubts it But in what manner he is both present and received is a point that hath exercised many wits and cost many thousand lives and such as some Orthodox Divines are wont to express with a kind of scruple as not daring to speak out For me as I have learn'd to lay my hand on my mouth where God and his Church have been silent and to adore those mysteries which I cannot comprehend so I think it is possible we may wrong our selves in an over-cautious fear of delivering sufficiently-revealed truths such I take this to be which we have in hand wherein as God hath not been sparing to declare himself in his word So the Church of England our dear Mother hath freely opened her self in such sort as if she meant to meet with the future scruples of an over-tender posterity Certainly there can be but two wayes wherein he can be imagined to be present and received either corporally or spiritually That he should be corporally present at once in every part of every Eucharistical Element through the World is such a Monster of opinion as utterly overthrowes the truth of his humane body destroyes the nature of a Sacrament implies a world of contradictions baffles right reason transcends all faith and in short confounds Heaven and Earth as we might easily show in all particulars if it were the drift of my discourse to meddle with those which profess themselves not ours who yet do no less then we cry down the gross and Capernaitical expression which their Pope Nicholas prescribed to Berengarius and cannot but confess that their own Card. Bellarmine advises this phrase of Christs corporall presence should be very sparingly and warily taken up in the hearing of their people but my intention only is to satisfie those Sons of the Church who disclaiming from all opinion of Transubstantiation do yet willingly imbrace a kind of irresolution in this point as holding it safest not to inquire into the manner of Christs presence What should be guilty of this nice doubtfulness I cannot conceive unless it be a misconstruction of those broad speeches which antiquity not suspecting so unlikely commentaries hath upon all occasions been wont to let fall concerning these awful mysteries For what those Oracles of the Church have divinely spoken in reverence to the Sacramental union of the signe and the thing signified in this sacred business hath been mistaken as literally and properly meant to be predicated of the outward Element hence have grown those dangerous errors and that inexplicable confusion which hath since infested the Church When all is said nothing can be more clear then that in respect of bodily presence the Heavens must contain the glorified humanity of Christ untill his return to judgment As therefore the Angel could say to the devout Maries after Christs resurrection seeking for him in his grave He is risen he is not here so they still say to us seeking for his glorious body here below He is ascended he is not here It should absolutely lose the nature of an humane body if it should not be circumscriptible Mar. 16.6 Glorification doth not bereave it of the truth of being what it is It is a true humane body and therefore can no more according to the natural being even of a body glorified be many wheres at once then according to his personal being it can be separated from that Godhead which is at once every where Let it be therefore firmly setled in our souls as an undoubted truth That the humane body of Christ
in respect of corporal presence is in Heaven whither he visibly ascended and where he sits on the right hand of the Father and whence he shall come again with glory a parcel of our Creed which the Church learn't of the Angels in Mount Olivet who taught the gazing disciples that this same Jesus which was taken up from them into Heaven shall so come in like manner as they saw him go into Heaven which was with wonderfull glory and magnificence Far be it from us then to think that the blessed humanity of the Son of God should so disparage it self as where there is neither necessity nor use of a bodily descent to steale down and conveigh himself insensibly from Heaven to Earth daily and to hide up his whole sacred body in an hundred thousand several pixes at once It is a wonder that superstition it self is not ashamed of so absurd and impossible a fancy which it is in vain for Men to think they can salve up with a pretence of omnipotence we question not the power of God but his will and do well know he cannot will absolute contradictions Deus hoc potenter non potest as one said truly That which we say of Christs presence holds no less of his reception for so do we receive him into us as he is present with us neither can we corporally receive that which is bodily absent although besides the common incongruity of opinion the corporal receiving of Christ hath in it a further prodigiousness and horrour all the Novices of the Roman Schools are now asham'd of their Popes Dentibus teritur but when their Doctors have made the best of their own Tenent they cannot avoid St. Austins flagitium videtur praecipere By how much the humane flesh is and ought to be more dear by so much more odious is the thought of eating it neither let them imagine they can escape the imputation of an hateful savageness in this act for that it is not presented to them in the form of flesh whiles they professe to know it is so howsoever it appeareth Let some skilful cook so dress mans flesh in the mixtures of his artificial hashes and tast full sauces that it cannot be discerned by the sence yet if I shall afterwards understand that I have eaten it though thus covertly conveyed I cannot but abhorr to think of so unnatural a diet Corporally then to eat if it were possible the flesh of Christ Joh. 6.63 as it could in our Saviours own word profit nothing so it could be no other then a kinde of religious Cannibalisme which both nature and grace cannot but justly rise against Since therefore the body of Christ cannot be said to be corporally present or received by us it must needs follow that there is no way of his presence or receit in the Sacrament but spiritual which the Church of England hath laboured so fully to express both in her holy Liturgie and publickly-authorized homilies that there is no one point of divine truth which she hath more punctually and plainly laid down before us What can be more evident then that which she hath said in the second exhortation before the Communion thus Dearly beloved forasmuch as our duty is to render to Almighty God our heavenly Father most hearty thanks for that he hath given his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ not only to dye for us but also to be our spiritual food and sustenance as it is declared unto us as well by Gods word as by the holy Sacraments of his blessed body and blood c. Lo Christ is in this Sacrament given to us to be our spiritual food in which regard also this sacrament is in the same exhortation called a Godly and heavenly feast whereto that we may come holy and clean we must search and examine our own consciences not our chops and mawes that we may come and be received as worthy Partakers of such an Heavenly Table But that in the following exhortation is yet more pregnant that we should diligently try and examine our faith before we presume to eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For as the benefit is great if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive that holy Sacrament for then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood then we dwel in Christ and he in us we be one with Christ and Christ with us so is the danger great if we receive the same unworthily What termes can be more expresse it is bread and wine which we come to receive that bread and that wine is sacramental It is our heart wherewith we receive that sacrament it is our faith whereby we worthily receive this receit and manducation of the flesh of Christ is spiritually done and by this spiritual receit of him we are made one with him and he with us by vertue then of the worthy receit of this sacramental bread and wine we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ spiritually and there growes hereby a reciprocal union betwixt Christ and us neither is he otherwise one with us then we are one with him which can be no otherwise then by the power of his institution and of our faith And that no man may doubt what the drift and purpose of our blessed Saviour was in the institution and recommendation of this blessed sacrament to his Church it followes in that passage And to the end that we should alway remember the exceeding great love of our master and onely Saviour Jesus Christ thus dying for us and the innumerable benefits which by his pretious blood-shedding he hath obtained to us he hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries as pledges of his love and continual remembrances of his death to our great and endlesse comfort If therefore we shall look upon and take these sacred elements as the pledges of our Saviours love to us and remembrances of his death for us we shall not need neither indeed can we require by the judgment of our Church to set any other value on them But withall that we may not sleightly conceive of those mysteries as if they had no further worth then they do outwardly show we are taught in that prayer which the Minister kneeling down at Gods board is appointed to make in the name of all the communiâ—ants before the consecration that whiles we do duly receive those blessed elements we do in the same act by the power of our faith eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ so effectual and inseparable is the sacramental union of the signes thus instituted by our blessed Lord and Saviour with the thing thereby signified for thus is he prescribed to pray Grant us therefore gratious Lord so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his blood that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our soules washed through his most pretious blood and that we may ever dwell in him and he
in us Implying that so doth our mouth and stomach receive the bread and wine as that in the mean time our souls receive the flesh and the blood of Christ now the soul is not capable of receiving flesh and blood but by the power of that grace of faith which appropriates it But that we may clearly apprehend how these Sacramental acts and objects are both distinguished and united so as there may be no danger of either separation or confusion that which followeth in the consecratory prayer is most evident Hear us O merciful father we beseech thee and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christs holy institution in remembrance of his death and passion may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and gave it to his disciples saying Take eat this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me What more can be said what come we to receive outwardly The Creatures of bread and wine To what use In remembrance of Christs death and passion what do we the whiles receive inwardly we are thereby made partakers of his most blessed body and blood by what means doth this come about By virtue of our Saviours holy institution still it is bread and wine in respect of the nature and essence of it but so that in the spiritual use of it it conveyes to the faithful receiver the body and blood of Christ bread and wine is offered to my eye and hand Christ is tendred to my soul Which yet is more fully if possibly it may be expressed in the form of words prescribed in the delivery of the bread and wine to the communicant The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body soul into everlasting life and take and eat this in remembrance that Christ dyed for thee and feed on him in thine heart by faith with thanksgiving c. No gloss in the world can make the words more full and perspicuous So do we in remembrance of Christs death take and eat the sacramental bread with our mouths as that our hearts do feed upon the body of Christ by our faith And what is this feeding upon Christ but a comfortable application of Christ and his benefits to our souls Which is as the prayer next following expresses it Then do we feed on Christ when by the blessed merits and death of our blessed Saviour and through faith in his blood we do obtain remission of our sins and all other benefits of his passion and are fulfilled with his grace and heavenly benediction Or if we desire a more ample commentary upon this sacramental repast and the nourishment thereby received the prayer ensuing offers it unto us in these words We most heartily thank thee for that thou hast vouchsafed to feed us which have duely received these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ and dost assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness towards uâ— and that we be very members incorporate in thy mystical body which is the blessed company of all faithful people and be also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdome by the merits of the most precious death and passion of thy dear Son This then is to feed upon Christ Lo the meat and manducation and nourishment are all spiritual whiles the elements be bodily and sensible which the allowed homilies of the Church also have laboured in most significant termes to set forth Thou must carefully search and know saith the first sermon concerning the sacrament Tome 2. what dignities are provided for thy soul whither thou art come not to feed thy senses and belly to corruption but thy inward man to immortality and life nor to consider the earthly creatures which thou seest but the heavenly graces which thy faith beholdeth For this table is not saith Chrysostome for chattering jayes but for Eagles who fly thither where the dead body lieth And afterwards to omit some other passages most pregnantly thus It is well known the meat we seek for in this supper is spiritual food the nourishment of our soul a Heavenly refection and not earthly an invisible meat and not bodily a ghostly substance and not carnal so that to think without faith we may enjoy the eating drinking thereof or that that is the fruition of it is but to dream a gross carnal feeding basely abjecting and binding our selves to the elements and creatures whereas by the advice of the council of Nice we ought to lift up our minds by faith and leaving these inferiour and earthly things there seek it where the son of righteousness ever shineth Take this lesson O thou that art desirous of this table of Emissenus a godly father That when thou goest to the reverend communion to be satisfyed with spiritual meats thou look up with faith upon the holy body and blood of thy God thou marvel with reverence thou touch it with the mind thou receive it with the hand of thy heart and thou take it fully with the inward Man Thus that homily in the voice of the Church of England Who now shall make doubt to say that in the Sacrament of the blessed Eucharist Christ is only present and received in a spiritual manner so as nothing is objected to our senses but the Elements nothing but Christ to our faith and therefore that it is requisite we should here walk with a wary and even foot as those that must tread in the midst betwixt profaneness and superstition not affixing a deity upon the Elements on the one side nor on the other sleighting them with a common regard not adoring the Creatures not basely esteeming their relation to that Son of God whom they do really exhibit to us Let us not then think it any boldness either to inquire or to determine of the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament and confidently to say that his body is locally in Heaven spiritually offered to and received by the faith of every worthy communicant upon Earth True it is that in our Saviours speech Joh. 6. to believe in Christ is to eat his flesh and to drink his blood even besides out of the act of this Eucharistical supper so as whosoever brings Christ home to his soul by the act of his faith makes a private meal of his Saviour but the holy Sacrament superadds a further degree of our interest in the participation of Christ for now over and above our spiritual eating of him we do here eat him Sacramentally also every simple act of our faith feeds on Christ but here by virtue of that necessary union which our Saviours institution hath made betwixt the signe and the thing signified the faithfull communicant doth partake of Christ in a
more peculiar manner now his very senses help to nourish his soul and by his eyes his hands his tast Christ is spiritually conveighed into his heart to his unspeakable and everlasting consolation But to put all scruples out of the mind of any reader concerning this point Let that serve for the upshot of all which is expressely set down in the 5th Rubrick in the end of the Communion set forth as the judgment of the Church of England both in King Edwards and Queen Elizabeths time though lately upon negligence omitted in the impression In these words Least yet the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise we do declare That it is not meant thereby that any adoration is done or ought to be done either unto the sacramental bread and wine there bodily received or unto any real and essential presence there being of Christs natural flesh and blood For as concerning the sacramental bread and wine they remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithfull Christians and as concerning the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ they are in Heaven and not here for it is against the truth of Christs natural body to be in more places then one at one time c. Thus the Church of England having plainly explicated her self hath left no place for any doubt concerning this truth neither is she any changeling in her judgment however some unsteddy minds may vary in their conceits away then with those nice scruplers who for some further ends have endeavoured to keep us in an undue suspense with a non licet inquirere de modo and conclude we resolutely that there is no truth in divinity more clear then this of Christs gracious exhibition and our faithful reception of him in this blessed Sacrament Babes keep your selves from Idols Amen A LETTER FOR THE OBSERVATION OF THE FEAST OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY Sir with my Loving Remembrance IT cannot but be a great grief to any wise and moderate Christian to see zealous well meaning souls carried away after the giddy humour of their new teachers to a contempt of all holy and reverend antiquity and to an eager affectation of novel fancies even whiles they cry out most bitterly against innovations When the practise and judgment of the whole Christian world ever from the dayes of the blessed Apostles to this present age is pleaded for any form of government or laudable observation they are straight taught That old things are passed and that all things are become new making their word good by so new and unheard-of an interpretation of Scripture Whereby they may as justly argue the introducing of a new Church a new Gospel a new Religion with the annulling of the old And that they may not want an all-sufficient patronage of their fond conceit our blessed Saviour himself is brought in who in his sermon on the mount controlled the antiquity of the pharisaical glosses of the law Ye have heard that it was said by them of old thus and thus but I say unto you c as if the Son of God in checking the upstart antiquity of a mis-grounded and unreasonable tradition meant to condemn the truely-antient and commendable customes of the whole Christian Church which all sober and judicious christians are wont to look upon with meet respect and reverence And certainly whosoever shall have set down this resolution with himself to sleight those either institutions or practises which are derived to us from the Primitive times and have ever since been intertained by the whole church of Christ upon earth that man hath laid a sufficient foundation of Schisme and dangerous singularity and doth that which the most eminent of the Fathers St. Augustine chargeth with no less then most insolent madnesse For me and my friend God give us grace to take the advice which our Saviour gives to his spouse to Go forth by the footsteps of the Flock and to feed our Kids beside the Shepheards tents Cant. 1.8 and to walk in the sure paths of uncorrupt antiquity For the celebration of the solemn Feasts of our Saviours Nativity Resurrection Ascention and the comming down of the Holy Ghost which you say is cryed down by your zealous lecturer one would think there should be reason enough in those wonderful and unspeakable benefits which those dayes serve to commemorate unto us For to instance in the late feast of the Nativity when the Angel brought the newes of that blessed birth to the Jewish shepheards Behold saith he I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people for unto you is borne this day a Saviour If then the report of this blessing were the best tidings of the greatest joy that ever was or ever could be possibly incident into mankind why should not the commemoration thereof be answerable Where we conceive the greatest joy what should hinder us to expresse it in a joyfull festivity But you are taught to say the day conferred nothing to the blessing that every day we should with equal thankfulnesse remember this inestimable benefit of the incarnation of the Son of God so as a set anniversary day is altogether needless know then and consider that the all wise God who knew it fit that his People should everyday think of the great work of the creation and of the miraculous deliverance out of the Egyptian servitude and should daily give honour to the Almighty creator and deliverer yet ordained one day of seven for the more special recognition of these marvellous works as well knowing how apt we are to forget those duties wherewith we are only encharged in common without the designment of a particular rememoration Besides the same reason will hold proportionably against any monethly or annuall celebration whatsoever the Jewes should have been much to blame if they had not every day thankfully remembred the great deliverance which God wrought for them from the bloody design of cruel Haman yet it was thought requisite if not necessary that there should be two special dayes of Purim set apart for the anniversary memorial of that wonderful preservation The like may be said for the English Purim of our November it is well if besides the general tye of our thankfulness a precise day ordaind by authority can enough quicken our unthankful dulness to give God his own for so great a mercy shall we say now it is the work of the year what needs a day As therefore no day should passe over our head without a grateful acknowledgment of the great mystery of God incarnate So withall the wisdome of the primitive Church no doubt by the direction of the holy Ghost hath pitched upon one special day wherein we should intirely devote our thoughts to the meditation of this work which the Angels of heaven can not enough admire But you are told that perhaps we miss of the day since the season
uncertainty still by the tradition of the Jewes either the Synagogue or the chamber is indifferently allowed to this act And why should the Sacrament of the new law be so affixed to our Churches that not necessity it self should be able to fetch these wholsom remedies home to our houses sure I am the fathers of the ancient Church were of another mind who before the fancy of opus operatum was hatched conceived such necessity of the Sacraments that Cyprian can tell you of Clinici as well as Peripateitci that others in case of extremity would have no difference made of land or water house or way bed or pavement And how is it that our liberty hath made us more strict or our straightness hath made us more free more strict for the place more free for the conceit of necessity But if privacy be so opposite to the nature of a Sacrament why may it not be avoided even in a parlour for in such a case the Church removes thither the walls you think conferr nothing the people are by the order of the Church commanded to assemble in a due frequence to the honor of either sacrament so as now I see not other difference but this Those which in the case of some private fast can be content for their preaching to change the Church into a chamber in the case of baptisme make dainty to change a chamber into a Church For geniculation in the Eucharist I am deceived if ever ceremony could complain of a more unjust displeasure or plead better desert For the Antiquity of it those that fetch it from Honorius are ill heralds They might know that Averroes an age before him could say in a misprision of the gesture Christiani adorant quod edunt and the best of the Fathers many ages before him Nemo manducat nisi prius adoraverit For the expedience what business can pass betwixt Heaven and Earth God and Man so worthy of reverence as that wherein Man receives God even the smallest gifts we receive from Princes upon our knees and now when the Prince of our peace gives himself to us shall we grudg to bow I know the old challenge Artolatry But shall others superstition make us unreverent Shall not God have our knees because Idols have had the knees of others But what do I press this to you who professed to me if I remember well your approbation hereof in our English Congregations The Sacrament is every where the same Nothing but want of use hath bred a conceit of uncouthness in that which custom would approve and commend As for confirmation by Bishops I need to say little because it little concerns you as an action appropriate to superiors neither I think do you envy it to them That the ceremony it selt is both of ancient and excellent use I know you will not deny for the one Melancton gives it the praise of Utilis ad erudiendos homines retinendos in vera agnitione Dei For the other Zuinglius can assure you Confirmationem tum fumpsisse exordium eum vulgo caeptum est infantes tingi In regard of both reverend Calvin wisheth it again restored to the Church with no small fervency all the doubt is in the restriction to Bishops wherein I will only send you to learned Bucer signum impositionis manuum etiam soli episcopi praebebant non absque ratione sive enim sit foedus Domini baptizatis confirmandum sive reconciliandi qui gravius peccaverunt sive ecclesiis ministri ordinandi haec omnia ministeria maxime decent eos quibus ecclesiarum cura demandata est This as it was done only at first by the Apostles in the case of the Samaritans so from them was by the Church derived to the Bishops as Chrysostom directs praepositis suis as Cyprian and Austin speak But what need I cite Fathers or counsels for that which worthy Calvin himself both confesses and teaches Certainly nothing but continuance and abuse hath distasted these things which if time had been their friend never wanted that which might procure them grace and respect from the World For their own sakes therefore I need not doubt to say that all these are worthy of your good intertainment much more then when they come to you with the billets of authority in their hands were they but things in the lowest ranke of indifferency the power that commands them might challenge their welcom how much more then when they have an intrinsecall worthiness to speak for them Your Letter hath well insinuated what the power of Princes is in things of middle natures whereof your Apostles rule will eternally hold not for fear but for conscience Indeed wherein is the power of royall authority if not in these things Good and evill have their set limits determined by God himself only indifferent things have a latitude allowed for the exercise of humane commands which if it might be resisted at pleasure what could follow but an utter confusion of all things This ground as it hath found just place in your own brest so were very fit to be laid by all your publick discourses in the minds of the people as that which would not a little rectifie them both in judgment and practise There is no good heart whom it would not deeply wound to hear of the least danger of the dissipation of your Church God in Heaven forbid any such mischief our prayers shall be ever for your safety but if any inconvenience should on your parts follow upon the lawfull act of authority see ye how ye can wash your hands from the guiltinesse of this evill This is I hope but your fear Love is in this sence full of suspicions and commnoly projects the worst It is Nazianzens advise Dum secundo vento navigas naufragium time tutior eris a naufragio adjutorem tibi ac sociâ—m adjungens timorem Farr farr is it from the heart of our Gratious Soveraign who holds it his chief glory to be amicus sponsae to intend ought that might be prejudiciall to your Church If his late journey his laboursome conferences his toylsome indeavours his beneficiall designes have not evinced his love to you what can do it And can any of yours think that this affection can stand with a will to hurt you I know nothing if I may except his own soul that he loves better then your Church and State and if he did not think this a fruit of his love he would be silent what shall he gain by this but that advantage which he promiseth to himself of your good in your assimilation to other churches a matter wherein I need not tell you there is both honour and strength The mention whereof drawes me towards the closure of my long letter whether to an Apology or interpretation of my self belike some captious hearers took hold of words spoken in some Sermon of mine that sounded of too much indifferency in these businesses ubi bos herbam vipera venenum
can teach them to distinguish betwixt callings and persons betwixt the substance of callings and the not necessary appendances of them betwixt the rules of Government and the errors of Execution those ill-raised quarrels would dye alone Da pacem Domine Amen J. E. VIA MEDIA The way of Peace IN THE FIVE BUSY ARTICLES Commonly known by the Name of ARMINIUS TOUCHING 1. Predestination 2. The Extent of Christs Death 3. Mans Free-will and corruption 4. The manner of our conversion to God 5. Perseverance Wherein is laid forth so fair an Accommodation of the different Opinions as may content both parts and procure happy accord By J. H. D. of Worcester LONDON Printed in the Year MDCLX TO THE KINGS Most Excellent MAIESTY May it please your Majestie THere needs no propheticall Spirit to discern by a small Cloud that there is a storm comming towards our Church such a one as shall not only drench our plumes but shake our peace Already do we see the Skie thicken and hear the winds whistle hollow afarr off and feel all the Presages of a Tempest which the late example of our Neighbours bids us fear It boots not to perswade your Majesty to betake your self to your Chariot to outride the showre since your gracious compassion would not be willing to put off the sense of a common evill Rather let me take boldness to implore your Majesties seasonable prevention Only the powerfull breath of your Soveraign authority can dispell these Clouds and clear our Heaven and reduce an happy Calme In the mean time give leave to your well meaning Servants to contribute their best wishes to the common Tranquillity I see every Man ready to ranke himself unto a side and to draw in the quarrel he affecteth I see no Man thrusting himself between them and either holding or joyning their hands for peace This good however thankless office I have here boldly undertaken shewing how unjustly we are divided and by what means we may be made and kept entire A project which if it may receive life and light from your gracious eyes and shall by your Royall command be drawn into speedy practise promiseth to free this noble and flourishing Church from a perilous inconvenience Let it be no disparagement to so important a motion that it falls from so mean a hand then which yet none can be more syncerely consecrated to the service of your Majesty and this Church the mutuall happiness of both which is dearer then life to Your Majesties most humble and faithful devoted Subject and Servant JOS. HALL THE First Article OF GODS PREDESTINATION 1 WHatsoever God who is the God of truth hath ingaged himself by promise to do the same he undoubtedly hath willed and will accordingly perform 2. There is no Son of Adam to whom God hath not promised that if he shall believe in Christ repent and persevere he shall be saved We must receive Gods promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scriptures and in our doings that will of God is to be followed which we have expressely declared unto us in the Word of God Artic. of the Chu 17. Est generalis conditionata voluntas seu generalis promissio Evangelica c. docens promissiones divinas fic amplectendas esse ut nobis in sacris literis generaliter propositae sunt D. Overal de 5. Artic. in Belgio controversis Art 1. 3. This generall and undoubted will of God must be equally proclaimed to all Men through the World without exception and ought to be so received and believed as it is by him published and revealed Est quidem decretum hoc annuntiativum salutis omnibus ex aequo indiscriminatim promulgandum Theol. Britan. Dordrac in Actis Synodi in Thesibus heterodox Thes 1. Gratiam communem sufficientem in mediis divinitus ordinatis si homines verbo Dei Spirituique sancto deesse noluerint c. D. Overal Artic. 1. 4. All Men within the Pale of the Church especially have from the mercy of God such common helps towards this belief and Salvation as that the neglect thereof makes any of them justly guilty of their own condemnation In Ecclesia ubi juxta promissum hoc Evangelii salus omnibus offertur ea est administratio gratiae quae sâ—fficit ad convincendos omnes impoenitentes incredulos quod sua culpa voluntaria vel neglectu vel contemptu Evangelii perierint oblatum beneficium amiserint Theol. Britan. Dordrac de Art 2. Thes 5. 5. Besides the generall will of God he hath eternally willed and decreed to give a speciall and effectuall grace to those that are predestinate according to the good pleasure of his will whereby they do actually believe obey and persevere that they may be saved so as the same God that would have all Men to be saved if they believe and be not wanting to his Spirit hath decreed to work powerfully in some whom he hath particularly chosen that they shall believe and not be wanting to his Spirit in whatsoever shall be necessary for their salvation Deinde in secundo loco ut succurreret humanae infirmitati c. voluisse addere specialem gratiam magis efficacem abundantem quibus placuerit communicandam per quam non solum possint sed etiam actu velint credant obediant perseverent D. Overal Art 1. He hath constantly decreed by his Counsel secret to us to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of Mankinde and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation as Vessels made to honour wherefore they which be called according to Gods purpose by his Spirit working in them in due season they through grace obey the calling they be justified freely they be made sons of God by adoption they be made like the image of his only begotten Son Jesus Christ they walk religiously in good works and at length by Gods mercy they attain to everlasting felicity Art of Relig. Art 17. 6. It is not the prevision of faith or any other grace or act of Man whereupon this decree of God is grounded but the meer and gracious good will and pleasure of God from all eternity appointing to save those whom he hath chosen in Christ as the head and foundation of the elect 7. This decree of Gods election is absolute and unchangeable and from everlasting 8. God doth not either actually damn or appoint any soul to damnation without the consideration and respect of sin Non ex praescientia humanae fidei aut voluntatis sed ex proposito divinae voluntatis gratiae de his quos Deus elegit in Christo liberandis salvandis D. Overal Art 1. Particulare decretum absolutum D. Overal ibid. Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God whereby before the foundations of the world were laid he hath constantly decreed c. Article of Relig. 17. Deus nominem damnat aut damnationi destinat nisi
warfares to God should not intangle himself with this world it is a sufficient and just conviction of those who would divide themselves betwixt God and the World and bestow any main part of their time upon secular affairs but it hath no operation at all upon this tenet which we have in hand that a man dedicate to God may not so much as when he is required cast a glance of his eye or some minutes of time or some motions of his tongue upon the publick business of his King and Countrey Those that expect this from us may as well and upon the same reason hold that a minister must have no family at all or if he have one must not care for it yea that he must have no body to tend but be all Spirit My Lords we are men of the same composition with others and our breeding hath been accordingly we cannot have lived in the World but we have seen it and observed it too and our long experience and conversation both in Men and in books cannot but have put something into us for the good of others and now having a double capacity qua cives qua Ecclesiastici as members of the common wealth as Ministers and Governours of the Church we are ready to do our best service in both one of them is no way incompatible with the other yea the subjects of them both are so united with the Church and Commonwealth that they cannot be severed yea so as that not the one is in the other but one is the other is both so as the services which we do upon these occasions to the Comonwealth are inseparable from our good offices to the Church so as upon this ground there is no reason of our exclusion If ye say that our sitting in Parliament takes up much time which we might have imployed in our studies or pulpits consider I beseech you that whiles you have a Parliament we must have a convocation and that our attendance upon that will call for the same expense of time which we afford to this service so as herein we have neither got nor lost But I fear it is not on some hands the tender regard of the full scope to our calling that is so much here stood upon as the conceit of too much honour that is done us in taking up the room of Peers and voting in this high Court for surely those that are averse from our votes yet could be content we should have place upon the wool-sacks and could alow us ears but not tongues If this be the matter I beseech your Lordships to consider that this honour is not done to us but our profession which what ever we be in our several persons can not easily be capable of too much respect from your Lordships Non tibi sed Isidi as he said of old Neither is this any new grace that is put upon our calling which if it were now to begin might perhaps be justly grudged to our unworthyness but it is an antient right and inheritance inherent in our station No less ancient then these walls wherein we sit yea more before ever there were Parliaments in the Magna Consilia of the Kingdome we had our places and as for my predecessors ever since the Conquerours time I can show your Lordships a just catalogue of them that have sat before me here and truely though I have just cause to be mean in mine own eyes yet why or wherein there should be more unworthiness in me then the rest that I should be stript of that priviledg which they so long injoyed though there were no law to hold me here I cannot see or confesse What respects of honour have been put upon the prime Clergy of old both by Pagans and Jewes and Christians and what are still both within Christendom and vvithout I shall not need to urge it is enough to say this of ours is not meerly arbitrary but stands so firmely established by law and custome that I hope it neither will nor can be removed except you will shake those foundations which I believe you desire to hold firme and inviolable Shortly then my Lords the church craves no new honour from you and justly hopes you will not be guilty of pulling down the old as you are the eldest sons and next under his Majesty the honourable patrons of the Church so she expects and beseeches you to receive her into your tenderest care so to order her affairs that ye leave her to posterity in no worse case then you found her It is a true word of Damasus Uti vilescit nomen episcopi omnis statua perturbatur Ecclesiae If this be suffered the misery will be the Churches the dishonour blurre of the act in future ages will be yours To shut up therefore let us be taken off from all ordinary trade of secular imployments and if you please abridge us of intermeddling with matters of common justice but leave us possessed of those places and priviledges in Parliament which our predecessors have so long and peaceably injoyed ANTHEMES FOR THE CATHEDRAL OF EXCETER LOrd what am I A worm dust vapor nothing What is my life A dream a daily dying What is my flesh My souls uneasie clothing What is my time A minute ever flying My time my flesh my life and I What are we Lord but vanity Where am I Lord downe in a vale of death What is my trade sin my dear God offending My sport sin too my stay a puffe of breath What end of sin hells horrour never ending My way my trade sport stay and place help up to make up my dolefull case Lord what art thou pure life power beauty bliss Where dwell'st thou up above in perfect light What is thy time eternity it is What state attendance of each glorious sp'rit Thy self thy place thy dayes thy state Pass all the thoughts of powers create How shall I reach thee Lord Oh soar above Ambitious soul but which way should I flie Thou Lord art way and end what wings have I Aspiring thoughts of faith of hope of love Oh let these wings that way alone Present me to thy blissfull throne ANTHEME FOR Christmas Day IMmortall babe who this dear day Didst change thine Heaven for our clay And didst with flesh thy Godhead vail Eternal Son of God All-hail Shine happy star ye Angels sing Glory on high to Heavens King Run Shepherds leave your nightly watch See Heaven come down to Bethleems cratch Worship ye Sages of the East The King of Gods in meanness drest O blessed maid smile and adore The God thy womb and armes have bore Star Angels Shepherds and wise sages Thou Virgin glory of all ages Restored frame of Heaven and Earth Joy in your dear Redeemers Birth LEave O my soul this baser World below O leave this dolefull dungeon of wo And soare aloft to that supernal rest That maketh all the Saints and Angels blest Lo there the God-heads radiant throne Like to ten thousand Suns in one Lo there thy Saviour dear in glory dight Ador'd of all the powers of Heavens bright Lo where that head that bled with thorny wound Shines ever with celestial honor crownd That hand that held the scornfull reed Makes all the fiends infernall dread That back and side that ran with bloody streams Daunt Angels eyes with their majestick beames Those feet once fastened to the cursed tree Trample on death and hell in glorious glee Those lips once drench't with gall do make With their dread doom the world to quake Behold those joyes thou never canst behold Those precious gates of pearl those Streets of gold Those streams of Life those trees of Paradise That never can be seen by mortal eyes And when thou seest this state divine Think that it is or shall be thine See there the happy troups of purest sprights That live above in endless true delights And see where once thy self shalt ranged be And look and long for immortalitie And now before-hand help to sing Allelujahs to Heavens King FINIS BOOKS printed for and to be sold by John Crook at the Sign of the Ship in St Pauls Church-yard ANnales veteris novi Testamenti Aviro Reverend Jacob Usserio Archiepisco Armachano Folio The Annals of the Old and New Testament with the Synchronismus of Heathen story to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans by James Usher D.D. Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland Folio The Antiquities of Warwikcshire illustrated beautified with Maps prospects and pourtractures by William Dugdale Folio Hymens Preludia or Loves Master piece being the 9th and 10th parts of Cleopatra Folio The History of this Iâ—on Age wherein is set down the Original of all the wars and commotions that have happened from the year of God 1500. Illustrated with the figures of the most Renowned persons of this Time Folio The History of the great and renowned Monarchy of China Fol. The holy History containing excellent observations on the Remarkable passages of the old Testament written Originally in French by N. Caussin S.I. and now rendred into English by a Person of Honour 4. Ejusdem de textus hebraici Veteris Testamenti variantibus Lectionibus ad Lodovicum Capellum Epistola Quarto Usserii de 70. Interpretum versione syntagma Quarto Montagues Miscellanea Spiritualâ—ia 4. second part A Treatise of Gavelkind both name and thing shewing the true Etymology and derivation of the one the nature antiquity and Original of the other by William Sonner Quarto The Holy Life of Mounsier de Renty a late noble man of France 8. Certain discourses viz. of Babylon the present See of Rome of laying on of hands of the old forme of words in Ordination of a set forme of prayer being the judgment of the Late Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland by N. Bernard D. D. Octavo The Character of England with reflections upon Gallus Castratus 12. The French Gardiner instructing how to cultivate all sorts of Fruit-trees with directions to dry and conserve them in their natural An accomplished peice illustrated with sculpture By whom also all manner of Books are to be sold brought from beyond the Seas
we should as we well might expect a dissolution of all things neither hath it lesse horrour in it to feel the Earth stagger under us Whose hair doth not start up at this trepidation and the more a man knowes the more is his astonishment He hangeth the Earth upon nothing saith Job Job 26.7 For a man to feel the Earth that hangs upon nothing but as some vast ball in the midst of a thin yielding air totter under him how can his soul choose but be possessed with a secret fright and confusion Me thinks I tremble but to think of such a trembling Such are the distempers and publick calamities of States though even of particular Kingdoms but so much more as they are more universall they are both unnaturall and dreadfull They are politickly unnaturall For as the end of all motion is rest so the end of all civill and spirituall agitations is peace and settlednesse The very name of a State implies so much which is we know a stando from standing and not from moving The man riding upon the red Horse which stood upon the myrtle trees Zachar. 1.11 describes the condicion of a peacefull government Behold all the Earth sitteth still and is at rest and Micah They shall sit still every man under his vine and figtree Micah 4.4 and none shall make them afraid Particular mens affayres are like the Clouds publick government is as the Earth The Clouds are alwayes in motion it were strange for any of them to stand still in one point of the air so it were to see private mens occasions void of some movings of quarrells or change the publick State is or should be as the Earth a great and solid body whose chief praise is settlednesse and consistence Now therefore when publick stirs and tumults arise in a well ordered Church or Common-wealth the State is out of the socket or when common calamities of war famine pestilence seize upon it then the hearts of men quake and shiver within them then is our prophets Earth-quake which is here spoken of Thou hast made the Earth to tremble To begin with the passive motions of publick calamities they are the shakings of our Earth So God intends them so must we account them and make use of them accordingly what are we I mean all the visible part of us but a peece of Earth besides therefore that magneticall vertue which is operative upon all the parts of it why should or can a piece stand still when the whole moveth Denominations are wont to be not from the greater but the better part and the best part of this Earthen World is man and therefore when men are moved we say the Earth is so and when the Earth in a generality is thus moved good reason we should be so also we must tremble therefore when God makes the Earth to do so What shall we say then to those obdured hearts which are nowhit affected with publick evils Surely he were a bold man that could sleep whiles the Earth rocks him and so were he that could give himself to a stupid security when he feels any vehement concussations of government or publick hand of Gods afflictive judgment But it falls out too usually that as the Philosopher said in matter of affaires so it is in matter of calamities Communia negliguntur Men are like Jonas in the storm sleep it out though it mainly concern them surely besides that we are men bound up each in his own skin we are limbs of a community and that body is no lesse intire and consistent of all his members then this naturall and no lesse sensible should we be of any evill that afflicts it If but the least toe do ache the head feels it but if the whole body be in pain much more do both head and feet feele it Tell me can it be that in a common Earth-quake any house can be free or is the danger lesse because the neighbours roofes rattle also Yet too many men because they suffer not alone neither are singled out for Vengeance are insensible of Gods hand Surely such men as cannot be shaken with Gods judgment are fit for the center the lowest parts of the Earth where there is a constant and eternall unrest not for the surface of it which looks towards an Heaven where are interchanges of good and evill It is notable and pregnant which the prophet Esay hath hear it all ye secure hearts and tremble In that day did the Lord of Hosts call to weeping and mourning and baldnesse and girding with sackcloth and behold joy and gladnesse slaying of Oxen and killing of Sheep eating Flesh and drinking Wine And what of that Surely this iniquity shall not be purged till you die saith the Lord God of Hosts What shall we say to this honourable and beloved wherefore hath God given us his good creatures but that we should injoy them Doth not Solomon tell us there is nothing better then that a man should Eat and Drink and make his soule injoy good in his labour Eccles. 2.24 And why is God so incensed against Israel for doing what he allowes them Know then that it is not the act but the time that God stands upon Very unseasonableness is criminall here and now comforts are sins to be joviall when God calls to mourning to glut our maw when he calls to fasting to glitter when he would have us sackcloth'd and squalid he hates it to the death here we may say with Solomon Of laughter thou art mad and of mirth what is this thou doest He grudges not our moderate and seasonable jolities there is an Ope-tyde by his allowance as well as a Lent Go thy wayes Eat thy Bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart for now God accepteth thy work Lo Gods acceptation is warrant enough for our mirth Now may his saints rejoyce and sing but there is a time to mourne and a time to daunce It was a strange word that God had to the Prophet Ezekiel that he would take away from him his wife the comfort of his life and yet he must not mourne but surely when he but threats to take away from us the publick comforts of our peace and common welfare he would have us weep out our eyes and doth no lesse hate that our hearts should be quiet within us then he hates that we should give him so just cause of our disquiet Here the Prophet can cry out Quis dabit capiti meo aquas And how doth the mournfull prophet now pour out himself into Lamentations How hath the Lord covered the doughter of Sion with a cloud in his anger and cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel Lament 2.1 Oh that our hearts could rive in sunder at but the dangers of those publick Judgments which we have too well deserved and be lesse sensible of our private concernments then should we make a right use of that dreadfull hand of God of