the Sun in his strength so when his time was fully come the day that this Jewel must be made up First his Body is glorified on earth and then assum'd into Heaven and a place for this precious Gem at his own right Hand above Principalities and Powers and a Name given him above all names And now that blessed Face wherein the Jews saw no beauty yet was fairer then the sons of men which they defiled and spit upon is ador'd by Seraphims and both Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of his Glory Now God observes the self-same method in all the rest finds them out among the refuse of the world amongst flocks and herds of Nations from the first rude quarrie of the Chaos from utter vacuity and nothing assembles their attoms and smallest dust breaths in a lively spirit exalts purifies it grafts on it Knowledge Faith Love Holiness and having begun a good work of Grace never leaves it till he bring it to perfection filing away their dross and grinding out their grains and Ices and clouds of corruption till he hath refin'd them to a brightness as in St. Paul a rough stony-hearted persecutor wrought by certain scales and barks pull'd away to become a chosen vessel to bear his name among the Gentiles Act 9. A bright star on earth and now a glorious Saint in Heaven 3. Jewels then thirdly they are for that care and love which God affords them men prize their Jewels Reserve them curiously take a glory and perplacency in possessing and wearing them So God having bought them at a price inestimable purchased not with corruptible things as silver and gold but with the blood of Jesus Christ as of a Lamb undefiled and without spot then he sets his heart upon them all his delight is in the Saints that excel Those he tenders as the Apple of his eye sets them as Josiah for a seal and a Signet on his right hand hides them under the shadow of his wings and so also God glories in them and holds them out to the amazement and confusion of the world of gross and earthly souls which are as foils to their perfections and commands them to do him grace and to be an Ornament to him Let your light shine c. Again The Comparison would hold for the task is easie to pursue an Allegory for Rarity Rari quippe boni apparent rari in gurgite Vasto in a sea of froth and foam and for the place and manner of breeding and growth But I forsake the rest and chuse to insist only on Properties respecting which Righteous men are justly term'd Jewels and chiefly two of clearness and lustre first and then of firmness and solidity which are the Vrim and Thummim of a Christian 1. In the first precious stones excel being compact of the finest Atoms and this holds well for as while we admire the pure Orient Pearls the radiant and sparkling Carbuncle the serene bright Saphir the green Emerald and the like we may raise our contemplation to the beauty and clearness of the stars and Sun and so ascend to him that struck light out of darkness at the first that dwels in perfect Beauty and in light inaccessible and covers himself with Light as with a garment so in a spiritual manner that Light of Grace in his servants attracts others also to behold in them Him who is Pater Luminum the Father of all Illuminations and so that fair and pure soul which gives Light in the darkness of the Body and night of Ignorance returns with advantage to him that gave it with the gain of other souls wonne by beholding their chast and illustrious conversation They tell of Diamonds belonging to some of the house of Luxembourge and Theophrastus has it of other stones propagating their Species by turning first the circumstant ayr into water and then contracting that water into a more earthy substance like themselves But it is true of these precious and living stones who born of Gods immortal seed by a new Light shot from Heaven do likewise in Reflection and by aggregation assimilation and an ardent sympathetical combination and communion work others to the same conformity of the godly Nature inspire illumine and propagate others with a kind of Divine Generation And as that Godlike creature the child of Heaven and Gods first born Light when delivered from the womb and jaws of Darkness is able to deliver over it self without ceasing without Annibilation Fraction o◠Diminution and as Love in moral minds and true Charity in Coelestial souls not leaving its own habitation will walk the round to those spirits which are capable of its Society And as God the Son is of the Father God of God and Light of Light and Love of Love For God is Love as he is Light so are his Regenerate and Adopted children also all from him and one enlightened from another Secondly Solidity firmness constancy the Christians is a standing Credo it was wont to be so Lord I believe without distrust whether my understanding comprehend it or no without curiosity to be further confirm'd by Miracles Lastly Credo Audacter without dissembling or fear to acknowledge it This is stere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Col. 2.2 that firm and full assurance of Faith I mean in Resolution not to alter or shrink as was in couragious Joshuah I will serve the Lord and hearty David that endured much and long yet he recedes not from his Vow no I have sworn and am stedfastly purposed And Job though he dyed for 't yet it should prove no this way dissolution And for this cause God allows the Name calls it the most precious faith of his Elect and chides those Recreants that Recoil so easily O ye of little faith Those are no right Jewels of his they are but Glow-worms and Hypocrites or as glass and Sophisticate shels and vitious stones which have an inconstant and languishing shine or whose splendor is only in a morning or under a clear sky and lasts not in gusts and storms of persecution or which in age decrease in Grace and Vertues and come to lose their abilities No t is said of Gods Palms and Cedars that they flourish on and bring forth more fruit in their age And for this firmness even moral men have made strange approaches and profest the conquest of it resolv'd to retain their vertue and honour untainted maugre all the rage of bloody tyrants and either allurements or encombrances of a base and vitious world How much more Christians to endure the torture the Rack the fire that which is the Crasis of all these The Inquisition to despise that tryal of cruel mockings and resist even to blood and ready to lay down our lives rather then betray or prevaricate and shuffle in the cause and quarrel of Christ Jesus and his holy Church As no sin shall tear me from that Root of Gods Love so I am perswaded sayes the Apostle no affliction Rom. 8.
in due season to such souls as are weary And first to clear up that misty Objection of ignorance Know for a certain that salvation's no matter of wit but as St. Austin in that known speech of his The faithful soul is safe in the sim plicity of his believing and not in the vivacity of understanding and as Nazâ—anzene hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Nothing could be more unequal then that our faith and so the way to salvation should be a thing only incident to learned bra ns Remember thy belief is like thy love he that commanâ—'s both gives both and having given a first spark blows it to a flame and if smal and weak yet if right and hearty good enough The best schollar of them all hath no better a Receipt then thou and God will firm thy Reed to support thee all the way to Heaven and as for dejection and aptness to despair I will take again that Cup of consolation in hand and strive to brew it so as it may relish on the palate of the weakest Christian and afford him a complacency at least an allay to all thought of impossibity or difficulty wont to prevail with such as taste themselves and consider not the puâ—ssance of Vitis and Racemus the power of God For our errour proceeds both wayes not knowing the Scriptures or not observing the power of God My Ingredients shall be but two and taken from two Comparisons 1. First compare this act of Regeneration with the worlds Creation there for the consolation of the darker and weaker spirit we find it vain to enquire what was before the frame so it is not clear what shall be after the dissolution so in Recreation what goes before of the destinating is a Depth and what the state of glory shall be is not clear it appears not yet what we shal be 1 Joh. 3. But this appears the Grace of God appears and his free act is evident in both The creature can contribute nothing at first and then though a double cover on the earth of darkness and the deep yet that released by his power infinite and then having removed the waters also by virtue of his Producat he made the land appear and suddenly disappear invested in a robe of numerous plants and flowers Just so in this work of thy new birth Darkness is first all over thee and t is Gods method first darkness and then light Our imaginations dark and our foolish heart full of darkness and all that men can do in that state of nature deeds and works of darkness But then comes oriens ex alto with his marvellous Light till the day dawn and Day-star rise in our hearts Those hearts that were all dark before all was a Chaos till light pin'd to the Sun stream'd to remotest angles And so it was with that Apostle St. Thomas deepsy cover'd in infidelity till the powerful light let in through his sense upon his soul Then see how soon he sees and startles up and fervently rises in that cry of Domine Deus my Lord and my God! and the spirit speaks the same comfort evidently to all Arise thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead and Christ shall give thee Light for he hath it and he is it He is the true Light in both those main properties of Light First Light makes things discernable in night great stones and blocks So to blind nature gross sins lie undiscovered till Light of Grace infuse a tenderness and scrupulosity and a discretion and ability both to observe the surprizes of and ask pardon for the least offences Then secondly The other Property of Light Irradiation it not shews alone but beautifies and gnilds and enamels where it lights so doth that Grace of Gratum faciens His embracing Grace upon thy soul rendring it gracious and precious in the eyes of thy heavenly Father Lastly I forget not that second Cover of the deep That inland Gulf of Corruption inborn and bred up with us respecting which we all must crie with David de profundis Out of the deeps But then remember one deep calls upon another There is a deep of Mercy answers the depth of all our misery and to top this Consolation if the waves of ungodliness make us afraid and roar horribly or after a sense of Mercy and Forgiveness we fear the reflux and revalescency of our prevailing sins upon us Remember his bow is in the clouds his gracious promise in his holy Word to make his Power perfect in weakness and he hath given to the Sea a Law and said to wickedness Hitherto shalt thou come and no further and here stay thy proud waves 2. Our secondingredient is from Resemblance of our Saviours incarnation First In Virgo his birth of a pure Virgin Mary so is thine of a pure heavenly Grace distilled from God without mans contribution or assistance When the Angel came to salute her when Christ came to Nicodemus one with tidings of her conceiving the Son of God the other with strange news of a man being born again and so become the Son of God both wondred alike both ask in effect the self same question How can these things be How can a man be born again and take notice the answer is the same to both for there is no other The holy Ghost shall come upon thee the Power of the most High shall do this in an act of as great freed om as the blowing of the wind so is every one that is born of the Spirit A second considerable comfort is that of infinite distance God the simplest essence to stoop and marry with mans body of all other the most compounded substance This hindred not the day-spring from on high to visit us why then dismaid to look down upon our own spirit wherein is summamalitia when we know in his sacred spirit there is summa bonitas and for all the distance and for all the deadness of our souls womb to conceive a thought that is holy of our selves yet he descends that Spirit which is the Comforter and applies unto us in an union so high and heavenly as all words forsake us in the expression Thirdly Another Consolation yet in plenè administravit when God descended to us but staid at her Full of Grace not abhorring to be there enclosed who yet fills and even then filled Heaven and earth wherein then and before and since he fully hath the administrations so it must be no dismay to thy own soul that God descends and shines into many others having abundance of spirit and of such a diffusive Power as the Sun which though received whole in the light and graces here yet shines elsewhere and think if a word spoken by us can pass to a whole audience and if our discursive Spirit can so suddainly shoot and subtilly pass to things distant and manifold What Energie is in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Power in his Spirit differenced from ours both
with those three Children of Light then walk on to fire unquenchable and utter darkness Then know O King that though our God will not deliver us yet will not we transgress the bounds of his Law to worship the Image that thou hast set up But then in this case we must look to our evidence that it be clear and sull Light nor streightned nor enlarged by our own or other mens false expositions For allow him but the ordinary gloss and every sinner will excuse his grossest crimes Is not the prohibition plain enough Thou shalt not commit Aultery Fornication Let it not be once naned yet all this with a Roman wash of venial sin or their rule of Caute si non caste will easily perswade some of their Novices or she Prosylite that there may be a kind of witty fornication tolerable or moderate Adultery So that Command Thou shall not steal Let the High-way thief or Highland Plunderer interpret he will tell you It s true unless you be under an invincible necessity or else promise to restore or accompt one day though you intend the day of Doom and such glosses men allow themselves in the main Articles of the Creed I believe the Catholick Church Ask the Anabaptist what it is It is a company whereof he is a prime man illumined needing no Scripture-rule but the Law of love and liberty Ask the Papist And he saith 't is nothing but a fine man at Rome with a triple Crown and a number of Fellows in red hats like Minstrels attending on him while with his foot he kicks off the Crowns of Kings and treading on the necks of Emperors cries super Aspidem Basiliscum c. Or briefer thus The Catholick Church in our Creed is Ecclesia Catholica Romana which though it be a Bull and infold a contradiction yet it serves for a Charm and the poor seduced Papist on whose brest it is hung is therewith stupified and dare not stir out of that Circle if he do the Devill will take him for God hath no deer out of that Pale that 's the Ark and out of the Popes Parish there is Salvation So then it must be no false or new-devised but old and full Light from Scripture that shall guide us And it can never become any Child of Light to cast his conscience into cloudy and raw and scrupulous fetters and startle and flie out of a Christian course or from a Christian Church upon conceited or imaginary Tropicks much less when the world or Devil would draw us to disorder our ways by their Cancer and Capricorn the griping claws of earthly Profit or the goatish Delights of sensual and carnal Pleasure Secondly And above all our Saviours Light is our best Direction And observe that Sun of Righteousness ere he rose a clear Light comes forth of Promises and Prophesies then a Day-star then in fulness of time he breaks the East discloses and he shines on in Wisdom at twelve years old grows in stature in Grace and Favour with God and man After his Baptism and taking on him the Ministry He goes about Preaching Healing doing good and suffering evil till he die rises ascends sends the Holy Ghost intercedes in Heaven for us and on earth is with us by his Spirit and Word to the end and in the end his final Reâ—olution and Revisitation to bring us to those joyes â—hat have no end This was and is his course Vade tu fae similiter Go thou and do like him How can we Why Be followers of God The Child may follow though non passibus aequis In his action he said I have given you an example and of his Passion the Scriptures saith He suffered leaving us an example Children learn to write and sew by Copies and Samplers so must we and so shall we if once our hearts be toucht with an Adamant if once tramed on by the Epiphany of such a star Then like those Eastern Magi we shall rejoyce to follow it yea content to take up our Cross and follow him content to be down and dark and despairing so we may rise to Light and stradiation and enabling Grace pursuing him through Ignorance Error and Death who is the Way the Truth and the Life And never giving over our Revolution and Resolution till we come to set where we rose born back with endless and impatient desires to enjoy Jesus the Author and Finisher of our saith and the end of our faith the salvation of our souls I have done with the explication of my Text There remains a word of Application to our selves first so had we best or it will be done to out hands with Medice cura te ipsum May I have leave then once more to look upon the Light and apply it first to the Learning and then to the Life 's of clergie men Wherein if I shall seem to teach any of these my Reverend Fathers or of my Learned Brethren it is with this protestation of primo meipsum 1. Our Learning first must be Lux in Demino we are Seers eyes to the Mystick body of Christ Jesus Dark Ignorance then to us should be a thing most horrible as t is to that sense in nature A foule and fearfull sight if those holes in our faces were empty and those bals of living fire pluckt from our fronts What is it when me want filling for so large a Sphere as our profession is A wofull Spectacle to see a blinking Glow-worm where a star of Magnitude should shine We are Gods Lawyers and Physitians with truth of Direction and severity of observance in our cures And is it not scandalous and dangerous an Ignoramus an Emperick or Montebank in our Calling unless as Circe and AEsculapius were both accounted Apollo's off-spring so Mediocrity and Excellency make no difference in Profit or Repute which makes so many take up with Atalanta Declinat cursus aurumy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But God would have us workmen able Ministers dividing the Word of Truth arighe And is noe Learning a mighty wedge and wrest in that Affair Aristole handles the affections in his Rhetoricks and sure I am that all our Rhetorick hath edge little enough to pierce into the wooden and stony affections of our common hearers Orpheus it had need to be in Sylvis to draw Beasts and Blocks And what shall we do in learned Audience They will soon perceive upon whose wheels our motions are such as can taft every vein of water and tell which savours Sulphur Vitriol or Steel but worst of all in convincing the Adversary What will become of our empty Frigats grapling with a man of war or a Jehu Jesuit thaâ— charges furiously when he finds a wak Adversary We must walk then to the Heaven of Scripture and stars of Interpreters no casting off those Beam without a self-illuminating and to get us work mens tools for sharp and flat peirce not alike though there be the like percussion We are Gods Smiths and
may undo thee nor can it redeem or preserve thee or thou it For Fool thy soul may be suddainly snatcht away And then whose shall those things be But if made a man indeed made for ever thou must be melted and refined and new made the Son of God in Christ Thirdly If long life be a blessing desireable Think all thy possessing here of all those dreams of the-shapes of pleasures shaddows can endure but for a vapory moment saith St Janes but he that believes in the Son of God hath everlasling Life saith St. John haves it in full and quiet possession by the power of his faith and having named everlasting life there need no addition of pleasure Food Rayment yet all these in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even in this life fulness of joy as full as humane nature can hold yea overflowing exceedingly abounding with all joy and peace in believing which Graces and replenishing of his Saints bosomes are therefore in the old resembled by saturity marrow fatness and in the new by manna hid and living fountains of water which mixt and cuited by the bleeding balm which drops from those holes of the Rock the peirced side of our Saviour becomes a cordial and soveraign Receipt against venom of sin and poison of the Serpent And lastly If felicity consist in knowledge or as he puts it Sapere fari with sapience like believing with the heart What Eloquence so puissant and clear like confessing with the mouth to salvation What learning to that Cross which makes Philosophy a fool suspends pales the sages and Disputers of this word Angels desire to prie into it and he that was full of Revelations desired to know nothing else 6. But take another view of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the two usual notions of the word Honour and Power Honour first It is so thin and aerie a thing as who can tell you what it is Something derivable from the prince the fountain of Honour yet he only alike to direct us where to lay and place the Title and the Ornaments He can bow no mans heart to any performance for it is a thing wholly in honorante in him that will do us honour if he lift and when he lift And what are the materials and the dress Reckond they are Esd 13. Thirdly Clothed in Purple and fine linnen eat in gold sleep on gold a Chariot with bridles of Gold Now usurpt by vulgars and then to sit next the King and to be called his Cousin Glories well worth the wearing when purchased by a long descent of noble blood and vertue mingled or by that vertue singular Yet how uncertain is the Possession In times of Peace how oft hath Glory vanisht all honour been laid in the dust and still attended on beside the shade of envy with those two certain Ravishers extream old age and death and in times of war or danger how subject to the pillage and affront of every Ruffin But here 's an honorable addition with a perpetuity enough if our hearts were filled with ambitious fires to give satisfaction and acquiescence Sons of the most high which stile though some on earth may wear yet God their Father wears it with a difference Some most high among men in their morning and meridian Glory may be full low before the evening But thy Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom Thou O Lord art most high for evermore With cordial water it is that the Church sprinckles all our hearts when she teaches us to pray O Lord whose Kingdom is everlasting and Power infinite To be Son then to him is a Title which anoints us in Grace as Christ in nature above all our fellows of mankind and in a sort above Angels For to which of the Angels said God at any time Thou art my Son A Title wherein all Titles imperial are appaled impoverisht lost or far exceeded For I can ask as great or I can think beyond all honour ever worn by mortal But this Gods tells me is above Demand and Cogitation above all that we are able to ask or think Secondly In the notion of Power as it is here rendred What a formidable army doth the people present and oppose to the militant Christian Eph. 6.14 Principalities and Powers and then the vantage ground in high places enough to daunt the courage of the stoutest flesh and blood to encounter Legions of such spirits yet mark his oration to the soldiour verse 11. My Brethren Be strong in the Lord and in the Power of his might There is a compleat armour beaten out in Heaven and we fight under him who hath blood and spirit ready to run into and fill our veins to make us stand and standing fight and fighting conquer more then Conquerors for we are made to triumph in Christ who triumpht over all those powers for us And if there be more Troopers in the way of our Salvation as there is a world of enemies yet this is your victory whereby you overcome the world even your faith and against all the treasons and rebellions of the flesh the servant of God hath no other rescue granted him upon his instant petition but my Grace shall be sufficient for thee and my power shall be made â—erfect in Weakness PARTICVLAR 3. 7. I Have done with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and am come to Torcular the Wine-press of Application By which I promised first to draw a cup of consolation which is soon done by contemplating the Grace and Mercy of God in Christ Jesus His abundant manifold Grace and the multitude of his Mercies his sweet and tender mercies differenced from mens first in being sure then in their eternity The Lord is gracious and his mercy is everlasting And lastly mercy mingled of pardoning and rewarding both together which no man uses to a riotous Son or refractory servant yet our case was more desperate and behold God sets forth his love to us being enemies and in defiance Then he sent again his only Son that whosoever believes might not perish Is not that enough No But might have everlasting life The solemnity of this fulness of delight in the enjoying of Gods mercy thus in Christ makes it up a wedding Hos 2. and in the Gospel And the Saints said to rejoice in their beds The spouse in Thalamo And all that Psalm of David Ps 45. and all Solomons Song are nothing but Epithalamions at these nuptials wherein the Bride though bare and poor and naked and miserable before is now by the rich Dowry and Joynture of her Grace in Christ stated and possest and enobled and arayed and adorned above her wish and to her everlasting consolation but for we are too apt too easily to let such Comforts issue from such Texts as this therefore I told you this cup must awhile be set by till we have tasted first a Cup of sober consideration for a cooler Be sober and suspitious was the Heathens and Christians rule alike is Be
are all heads upon the same string fastened with our faith in Vitis here for our principal Jewel which if any of these fall loose is lost for ever and then all our preaching and ministring and your hearing and receiving vain and we be stript of our whole Creed even from God the Father Almighty maker of Heaven and earth along to Christ crucified and on to life everlasting But we have not so weakly learned Christ to be shaken from our botome with such wind and waves of wicked Disputants Let us take heed of infection from a second sort such as in deeds deny him having a shew but no power of godliness such as may be tract like the snail by their unclean and slimy passages and yet dare resolve it in the Imparative Let us leave some Tokens of our wantoness so of our prophaness blasphemie drunkenness in every place This is a large field and a common place but for I am upon an health suffer me to single him out and say a coolword or two this morning next his heart unto the drunkard such especially as in a more then barbarous custom for in Est 1. no man might compell by forcing healths make it yet a more sickly and disorderly drunkenness First I commend to their consideration St. Pauls Epiphany where the Grace of God comes it appears saith he and how teaching us to denie ungodliness c. and to live soberly So then where sobrieey is not learnt the Grace of Christ hath appeared in vain Then that Caveat of our Saviour which he gave even to his own Apostles Take heed lest your hearts be overcome with surfeiting and drunkenness Why What 's the danger and so that day come upon you unwares My next is that Redoubt and Barricado rather of St. Peter wherewith he makes out the enemie the Lion At one end he plants the great Ordinance of Faith Whom resist stedfast in the faith At the other he makes it sure and sets good guard Be sober and watch as if all our faith without sobriety would not keep out the devil that roaring Adversary who can out-roar these roars and devour these Devourers of drink My close shall be that terrible sentence of the great Judge of heaven and earth gone out against them That they shall never inherit the Kingdom of heaven It now remains I should press for faith in the foundation and furnishing a Believer with reasons of his faith against the Aâ—heist Jew and Mahumetan and then for the super structure of Good works But these are fitter for large Treatises in books then short notes in a Sermon Let us come then to the last trial how we receive Christ by receiving his Receivers Persons deputed to take our homage and receive our reward in his stead 1. AND first The Poor With him I shall deal as usually men do dispatch him briefly Yet such are near and dear unto the Vine and sent as Leiger-Embassadours and à Latere too cut like another Eve out of his own bleeding side Members of that mistical Body whereof he is supream Head and whoever wrongs oppresses grinds or pares them to the blood He cries in Heaven Non cruor hic de stipite manat I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou persecutest It will come all to one in the end In as much as you have done it to them you have done it to me On the other side Do them good relieve them and he will reward it and make them able to requite it in proportion Receive them to harbour and those friends shall stand at heaven-gate to receive you into everlasting habitations 2. The Priest would be received too For Is not he in Vitis He that receives you receives me And is not our Ministry Vitis laetificans chearing God and man Did not the first Preachers receive largely for themselves and you when they received the holy Ghost and received power from on high at Christs ascension and gifts for men and were not the Apostles an odour of a sweet smelling savour to God and to men that received it even the savour of life unto life And is there not a Botrus of Blessing still received in receiving our Ministry If it be saith which is receiving Christ it is the word of God which we preach Nay May we not in a sober sense ask What have you that you have not received if it concern your spiritual state Christendom matriculation ablution from sin at one Receipt in baptism The body and blood and spirit of your Saviour by frequent receivings of the Eucharist which by the way now let me tell you in a word in verbo Sacerdotis if you should change for the mass it would lessen your receipts for whereas no lay-person hath a drop of the chalice allowed yet they have a Missale case that if any of the Consecrate-wine fall on the floore or pavement in that case a lay body may be permitted to lick it up left the dog should A fair reward it will be for such as decline to that Religion that Religion which hides away and denies the use of the word it self which is the power and wisedom of God to mans salvation But to fall back to our reckoning and Receipts is there nothing else Remember at night when you go to bed what is she if any be that sleeps in your bosome if you have not received her at the hand of some ordered and lawful Minister And when you shall go to your latest bed the Grave what difference from brute animals if we assist not to make it an honest and honourable Sepulture strange that mankind cannot well come in nor well stay nor well go out of this world without us and yet the world hates us Doth not this deserve a Torcular And I need not here press the cup of Comfort all apt enough to receive that benefits of Light and Salt and few so sensless but perceive it would be a very dark and a flash unsavoury dwelling here without the Gospel even stony ground will take in the Seed and gladly But where 's the Consideration of what is due to us And here I spare you I will not press that in the old Testament of Honouring God with your substance and first fruits and tithe of all that you possess I know the evasion you would turn over a new leaf and turn me to the new Priesthood in the New Testament yet take heed what you do for what is the news there How soon in that primitive Church do you meet with fellers of Possessions and laying all at the Apostles feet that 's a Torcular indeed and puts me in mind of a pretty passage in Tannerns a Jesuit who wishes withall his heart that all the Kings in Christendom would come and bring in all that ever they have and put it in their Churches treasury and henceforth be ruled by her but his Conclusion I like best Hoc in aeternum nunquaâ—fiet this will never be while the world stands saith
Division and Confusion These are the winds Euroclydon and Boreas and his brethren that lift up the waves of popular Tumults and none but Jehovah can still this Tempest 14. Especially if Maximi mingle in the mass of Populorum and run with them to the same excess of riot in Opprobrium which God forbid True Nobles and great ones worthy the name of the Worthies of Israel will consider the base alloy to be ingloriously harded with vulgar spirits and wise men will not easily be blown up or hurried away with every wind of Doctrine but be and do like those nobler Bereans that is search if those things men preach be so or no. They will read and believe the Scripture which tels them that the Lords anointed who raised them to be Majores Maximi made them suscipere magìs maximè The fountain of all honour is ordained of God to be Caput Head over all the Tribes in the Old and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 supream in the new Testament â—ud so set on the Throne and in the place of God that the Kings enemie is Gods enemie Every Opprobrium cast at him reviles Jehovah here renâ—ers the Rebuker of David a Blasphemer of the Lord. And therefore for the Lords sake since â—o parting him and Caesar every Maximus will â—arn what every Minimus every Christian that hath a soul as Saint Paul saith most learn that 〈◊〉 to be as Jehovah made them subject and that or conscience sake to God conscience of sinning against God blaspheming God and the King go together and the sin is done against Heaven and that Father there which is committed against Paâ—â—rem patriae here To cut a lap from the Kings to be made honest Davids heart smite him and those hearts are but dull and heavy stuff that can endure Detraction to disrobe or expose to disgrace the spiritual Fathers of the Church and especially that Father whom in Oaths and Prayers we stile next and immediately under God over all persons 15. Thus are we something onward to a remedy if either Populus would be reclaimed or Maximi disclaim their associaton but if neither our next Remedy is here explicite Gest are in sinu that is Patience Gods own remedy he is patient and he is provoked every day and Christus Domini bids us Learn of him and Christus Domini David did so in the case of Shimei Let him alone it may be the Lord will look on my affliction and that the Lord will requite good for his cursing this day and so servi Domini enform us St Paul and St. James You have need of Patience and let patience have her perfect work Take the Prophets for examples of suffering affliction and of Patience so this Medicine is Catholicon and hath Gods Probatum affixt The patient abiding of the week shall not perish for ever 16. The last Remedy is in Recordare benedictum which make a whole prayer and first 1. Prayer in general it is the invention of Gods people from the beginning Tents and Iron-works from Cain and His but Invocation from Enos and his royal Progeny and God would have it so Ever since he kept house on earth it must be called an House of Prayer for all Nations all that would be of the houshold of faith and fellowship of the Saints If that honour then this work which pleases God above incense and doth him more honour then all burnt Sacrifice But what good to his servants all the good our hearts can desire for would we do Wonders drie up Seas cleave Rocks stop the Sun or the Lions rage quench the violence of fire subdue Armies Kingdoms or over-power created and increated Nature bind down the hands of God himself Prayer hath done this and more with that Prayer of Bow the heavens and come down the Church of God brought down that Jesus at whose name we bow who bows the Spirit of God to us into us and fills us full of Grace and Truth of Faith and Hope and Love and Joy and all those Graces which serve to bring us in Grace and to reconcile us though sinners and enemies to the Father through the Son as he proclaims the Peace himself In quo acquiesco 2. Secondly Here is Christus Domini at prayer Iexhort that first of all Prayers and Supplications be made for Kings that 's well but I shew you amore excellent way Kings to make Prayers Supplications for themselves an appeal lies to and here from for Caesar too at this Throne of Grace before this Mercy seat of God who is the only Ruler of Princes And in this Davids zeal exemplary I was glad saith he when they said unto me Let us go up to the house of God Our feet shall stand in thy Gates O Jerusalem And in trouble and trouble of enemies let others seek what remedy take what course they please but I take my self nay I give my self unto Prayer 3. Thirdly Prayer in distress the proper Remedy because God erected the Court of Requests in Heaven for the grievances of his Houshold This the pool with several Porches and Parishes where if we wait in right season we may be cured be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never so noisom what disease soever it be Should the enemies of Christus Domini conspire and continue to drie up that oyl of heavenly Power which pours it self from the head for the preservation of the members or the state it self grow sick of a Tympany or false conception or shake and totter with the palsie or we have just cause to complain in the Church and pray God to deliver u from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is I think such as regard no Topicks fetch their Arguments from no common place of old Reason or Religion evil and absurd men 2 Thess 3.2 O yet here 's our refuge The weapons of our Militia are our our Prayers to him that cals upon us to call upon him in time of trouble and he will deliver us 4. Fourthly Speciaily Prayer is prevalent in this particular textual disease and malady of Opprobrium Our Litany with Libora nos Domine is the best Ditany to throw off this arrow to return and repay and requite it into their bosom that annoy us is but Lutum luto purgare No though it be a case which nearly concerns us and an offence of an high nature yet our best way is to remove it to the highest court of audience in Heaven before the Judge of all the world where we have advocatum Regium and the darling and favorite of that court to plead our cause which is his own and who took this course himself reviled not again but commited it to him that judges righteously The Apostle indeed Eph. 6. arms and prepares the Souldier of Christ with an Helmet and a shield a sword too of the Spirit and fits him with an whole Armoury beaten our in Heaven for him But how concludes he praying always with all
earth build desolate places for themselves lie still and are at rest saith Job but so did not he we know better then so what he did I believe The third day he rose again and ascended into Heaven and at that house we have toucht already but yet from none of these houses not that eternal house of our Lord comes any comfort to us till that Spirit of the Lord the Comforter come from him to us to dwell in us so putting us all into one houshold of Faith the common faith and making us all the habitation of God by the Spirit 10. And to make fit this house this Lord the blessed Carpenter was put to work it out of the rough and troubled to take to break down a Partition-wall whose more then Alpine rockiness no Hannibal but he could conquer and no fire no liquor but his heart blood could penetrate Nothing but his living-dead body raise this dead living frame of Saints built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone in whom all the building fitly framed together grows into an holy Temple in the Lord Eph. 2.20 21. There 's right Dominicum every way The house of the Lord In the Lord On the Lord By the Lord. This house then in no case to be left out nor we left out of it you know who would allow us no room in their Inn at the Popes head and by that device exclude us out of the Church which is called a great house 2 Tim. 2. and the foundation stands sure but sure it stands not all upon the cloudy Apennine This is just like private Mass that 's proper Communion a right Bull to pin down Universal in a particular corner as if to thrust twenty royal Courts into one Room like that people wise in their own conceit that to make sure of Conquest pinned and riveted the Goddess Victory to their City wals So these Reckoners go to it stilo novo the Romane Computation this and it is a good confession their fat Bishop Spalatâ— makes in all their names Ecclesians Catholicam nobiscum esse vel cogitamus vel cogimus They would fain think so and fain force us to think so but we are not much to trouble our selves at their Cogitamus God knows the thoughts of men to be but vain and the divisions of Reuben were from great thoughs of heart but from their Cogimus Libera nos Domine He hath and doth and will deliver us if we embrace our Creed and by vertue thereof belong to this house of the Catholick Church 11. Nay we our selves our souls and bodies are his Church and Temple which house we are 1 Cor. 6. wherein God remains under our roof gracing even the houses of his Saints bodies while they stand and faln watches over their Atoms while the spirits return to him and will recollect and raise them up in far greater State and Glory So that Mors shall not be ultima not the last line strectht upon this building but a linea yet more ultimate reaching from Earth to Heaven And so with much ado having so many houses to call at by the way which very calling yet hath done us some service and may do us more we are come Christo auspice to this very house in the Text and seen in a quarter of an hour this Sun pass through all those houses to this which is the last in our Zodiack The Temple which David prepared and Solomon built for the service of the Lord and in which house God hath a propriety stiled therefore by way of Excellency The house of the Lord. 12. Where the first service we can do for Domus Dominus both is to wake them meet with and meet for one another For is there not a mighty discrepance betwixt them the Temple a stately piece the Joy of the whole earth Par domus haec coelo But you know what follows will not serve his turn though as God by his Eternity transcendently and supereminently comprehends all time so by his immensity all places And Dominus here though true of Christ as we heard and may hear more anon is Jehovah and he dwell in Temples Temples plural if set altogether made with hands Heaven of Heavens cannot What house can contain him then What house will you build for me no house Lord to comprehend thee who art God incomprehensible but for thy name and an house for thy worship and service that may comprehend us But what matter if no such houses at all neither on this Mount nor yet at Jerusalem but right service in Spirit and Truth So say some haunted perchance with a worldly and dangerous spirit we deny not our best sacrifice on the heartaltar best worship in Spirit Yet if God were undelighted with a set local Worship why would the Scripture mention Hannahs motion 1 Sam. 2. And another Anna the Prophetess residing in the Temple why our Saviour dayly in the Temple and Synagogues and his Apostles Peter the chief and John the beloved of Jesus ascending at the hour of prayer Or would the Spirit of God have put it into the heart of David a man after Gods own heart to prepare him service in a Temple or his Prophet in his name so cry out upon this deserting this house of God and bring his double action of Wast vain Wast on our own ceiled houses and laying wast this house of God My house lie wast Hgg. 1. so the propriety held then and if we follow it to the spring-head we find indeed Cultus Domini before Domus Abel sacrificed and in Enos time they invocated Immolation and Invocation both in the beginning of Genesis but go on and you come to a place framed before you go out of Exodus and even in Genesis we have Noahs and Abrahams Altars and Jacobs Bethel But to clear this at once only that in Deut. 12. The reason why Cultus was not set in order because no proper Domus for this Dominus ver 8. Now you serve me as you lâ—â—â— hievery man what is right in his own eyes and why no Reformation v. 9. you are not yet come to the rest and inheritance which the Lord your God gives you but when you go over Jordan a better order then then there shall be a place which the Lord shall chuse to cause his name to dwell there So far is Dominus from dis-avowing Domus that he ordains both Domus Cultus and therefore let them remain all there as we find them here in order Cultus Domus Domini Do you not find too every precious stone and string appointed to Moses by pattern in the Mount and David had the Platform of the Temple in writing 1 Chron. 28.19 And Dominus then took possession of Domus his Glory appeared before the Tabernacle and filled the Temple at Solomons dedication yea he made his Residence in both took up his seat in the Tabernacle his Mercy seat too wherein
he most delights to shew and shine forth in perfect beauty and majesty and of the Temple he saith Mine eyes and my heart shall be there continually This is my rest for ever Here I will dwell The place where his honor dwels which he owns My house and gives it a name An house of Prayer and our Saviour confirms it in the New Testament too it shall be so My Fathers house shall be so called and therefore I pray you in Gods name let him have it so The house of the Lord let it be Let him rest and dwell in this house for ever but a thousand pities he should dwell alone no body to attend him What! The Courts of the Lords house and no Courtiers Are there no Places no Pensions no Offices in this Court where are then the servants of his Majesty I hope they be even here even all the true and loyal and faithfull servants of the earthly majesty will rejoyce and be glad by the benign Influence of a royal example to become faithful and obedient Worshippers of the Majesty in Heaven PART 3. THis comes in right and puts us on Cultus our next particular Service 't is no domineering word an humble expression this and must be co nomine therefore exalted for it is indeed the word in the Text most predominant in a sense above Dominus and all for take out Dominus and what becomes of Domus Domus and Rus may then be likewise used that is as Rustically as Rudely as you will Well! Take out Cultus and I am sure Dominus will never abide it All staies or goes with this Cultus the main and mainly to be insisted on and Cultus absolute is due to Dominus first In Equiparence to his other houses and service in them all why this house far worse then all the rest as many as we called at in all Gods houses before I told you they might do us more service yet 1. First In the Maorocosm all things serve this their Lord up at Matins of Prayer seeking their meat at God at Vespers of Laws with the Anthem 1. It is He that hath made us and not We our selves 2. In Heaven his Angels ministring Spirits with Holy Holy Holy and a great voice of much people Rev. 19. saying Hâ—lelujahs Salvation and Glory and Honor and Power unto the Lord. 3. And in the womb of the blessed Virgin the house is aired and consecrated for his Conception by the holy Ghost And when he first brings in his first begotten Son into the world and Let all the Angels of of God worship him The Baptist did him service then unborn springing in the womb for joy and his own blessed mother Mary sings her service to to him while yet in her body My soul doth magnifie the Lord my Spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour In one and the same little house and Chappel royal of her great and mighty Lord the first St. Maries that ever was at once conceiving and containing him and her Devotion 4. And as for the house of flesh and Bethlems manger put them both together not all those clouds and swadling clouts of obscurity could dim the Light of the world nor hide this glorious Lord from the attendance of an host of Heavenly Courtiers and Souldiers running down the hill of Heaven to salute him Imperator with an Hymn of Gloria Deo in excelsis nor conceal him from those Kings some say wise men we are sure that came from the East to worship this Oriens who fell down before him opened their Treasures and presented him They could not hide him from old Simeons eyes after in the Temple for he then saw clearly the presence of the Lord in him that was there presented to the Lord even the Lords Christ whom he served with gladness and carolled out a blessing on him in his arms 5. Nor was this worship wanting in the very dwelling and banqueting houses of his servants 6. Simeon entertains him Levi makes him a great Feast and even there was Wisdom justified of her children One example above all in the house of that Simon the Pharisee that which went beyond his banquet and all the service there was the poor sinners service from her box of precious oyntment and her more precious tears serving to wash his feet 7. Next apply to him on shipboard and behold him not only heard with reverence by the shore-audience but St. Peter down at his knees with his Depart from me for I am a sinful man O Lord. 8. But in or at his grave no service That house so ill and low situate that none obliged to pay or tender service there 9. That 's the desolate house even of Kings saith Job the train forsakes them there Yet behold even in that house as Joseph and Nicodemus spare no coft of linnen cloaths and spices with a mixture of Myrrhe and Aloes of an hundred weight so the two Maries faild not with their oyntment and early visitation at the Sepulchre But as it was Johns eager spirit that out-ran Peter so Magdalen her loving spirit out-went them all in a constant service and devotion for when left alone she stood she wept she stoopt she lookt into the Sepulchre and there at length she lights on other fellow-servants of her Lord even two Angels in white sitting at the head and feet that is where those blessed head and feet of their Lord where the body of Jesus had layn John 20.12 10. As for service in his next house the Catholick Church we know as in the Jewish he was the only Lord of Israel and Moses and David wear that name of his servants So in the Christian Church What stile take Peter and Paul but servants of Jesus Christ and even the weaker sex behold the lowliness of his hand-maid an humblâ— Maid-servant at 16. and a blessed woddow-servant Anna in her great Climackterick Luke 2. That departed not from the Temple but served the Lord with fasting and prayer night and day 11. Lastly Our own souls and bodies what are they if rightly used but Organs and living Oratories and when here assembled a Box or Nest of little temples in His Temple which houses all his Saints and servants are carefull to possess in honor and keep them clean not for Bacchus or Venus but the pure and sacred Spirit of the Lord to keep out the Tempter to escape the pollutions of the world For if God be well served in these inner Temples the service of this house of the Lord would be the better set in order and that 's the last in our Zodiack There we are now again at service in this very place proper to Divine service this very place inclining as the cell to study the grove to Contemplation a Church or Chappel to Devotion ever this the house of the Lord both by way of excellency and propriety But remember I am upon Cultus absolute due to Dominus upon another double ground first Qua
Dominus and then qua Servus 1. As Dominus For we may ask Pharoahs question but not with Pharoahs mind Whois the Lord and nothing but Jehovah will answer that in excellency which takes in all the three persons of the glorious Trinity but yet as we are forbidden by the Christian verity to say there be three but one Lord so observing both old and new Testament the second person by joynt assent of both the other is made made both Lord and Christ Lord every way Lord by Creation 〈◊〉 him were all things made Lord by preservation The Government upon his shoulder who is the mighty Lord and all things upheld by him who is the mighty word Lord by Redemption too The Lord our Righteousness made unto us Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption 1 Cor. 1.20 So to him all Power and Dominion is given in Heaven and Earth and at his exaltation his Coronation confirmed The homage of knees and tongues That Jesus is the Lord is was and is to come yesterday to day and the same for ever so goes our hope He shall come to judge so begins our Christian Creed In Jesus Christ our Lord so end our prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord so every Christian with St. Thomas makes a glad profession My Lord and my God If our eyes be not held that we shall not know him if once out of weakness we be made strong in the Lord if once out of darkness we be made light in the Lord if anointed with the eye-salve of the Sanctuary we then in him in whom the eye of Judas the worlds eye the Jews eye could see no beauty in that Worm they trod and spit upon that slave they scourged that Malefactor they crucified shall clearly find to our everlasting comfort both a gracious man and a glorious God breaking through all those clouds darting majestick raies contracting all our sight and uniting and fixing all our eyes on that only lovely Object who after all the Eclipses and shadows of the earth and hell gone over him shines forth in perfect beauty crowned with the Sun and under his feet a Moon with deaths pale head and a red Dragon upòn his thigh his name inscribed Dominus Dominorum Men and Brethren what shall we do What manner of men ought we to be in holiness and fear What think you Is not our obedience due in reason a reasonable service to this Lord above others Other Lords have ruled over us Satan and our vices have been Lords of Misrule But there goes vertue still out of this Dominus and vertue there is in Dominus a magnetick intrinsique vertue to draw even Ironhearts to his service Stands not Dominus over Domus here and so over every Church and Chappel like the herald star to beckon us to invite all that are wise to salvation O come let us worship and fall down before the Lord. Down O down with every high thing and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ Jesus our Lord This qua Dominus 2. And then qua servus still more reasonable service if such a Dominus stoop to Servus strange if all those houses you heard of prove our houses another while and he 'l do us service in them all first in the great house of the round world it is so both in the Mechaniks and Oeconomicks In the beginning of his book we find him as a Carpenter at work by the week making partitions measuring and figuring with his Elements in square and skies in circle stricking up Lights and pinning them to the body of the Sun then mixing other mysteries of Gardiner and Painter limming to the life his pieces this our Lords doing all Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation the work of thy hands Heb. 1.10 And for whose sake so fair a frame for Birds or Beasts the Heathen could tell you no 〈◊〉 Sanctius his Man made Lord to name his vassals at his pleasure and when God gives him possession the very word is Dominamini all at his service So in Occonomy as built so all upheld for us Habendum Tenendum by his Manu-tenency kept in repair from crumbling out to Atoms and not an empty house that would do us no service but herein by 10000 hidden providential quils distils and works out food and rayment by whole loads saith David Psal 68. and changes fresh every morning saith Jeremie Lam. 3.22 And therein descending past Offices of Stateâ—eward Treasurer Chamberlane to the meanest of Baker Cook and Butler with his bottles of Heaven clouds droping fatness finest wheat and liquor of the Grape so low in this great Domus is this greatest Dominus diminisht doing his servants all these Services 2. Secondly As Terram dedit so Coelum dabit His upper house shall be ours after one life that but a span long 'T is his by nature ours by conquest we come in with the Conqueror therefore we look at it still in hope as Travellers going home that abiding City whose Builder and Maker he is and where he is still at work for us preparing a place many Mansions Crescit sub principe Coelum where he keeps possession for us in our name and in our nature and whence he sends to us continually his holy Angels to serve us and thence will come with all those Angels to fetch us up to his last supper and there again serve us himself while we sit down with Abraham Jsaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven 3. Thirdly In the womb of the blessed Virgin he was an humble servant abased himself in not abhorring that whereon we dare not stay our trembling thoughts so many minutes as he endured it moneths and this service only for us for us men and for our salvation he was incarnate to burn out our stains and corrosive the leprosie of our nature For he by the holy Ghost which at first moving on the Chaos created a world of beauty being there conceived was thereby filled with Grace in out Nature which Grace in our measure was from him to be spread and shed in our hearts by the same holy Ghost which is given us Rom. 5. So was he our servant there and Factor for us and therefore stript of all that might unfit him for that Ministry 4. In the fourth house of our flesh he comes lowly with love I come to do service in the form of a servant to minister to serve the curt of souls and bodies too See the great Arch-Prelate Primate of Heaven and Earth Lord and Bishop of our souls whose Sea is from sea to sea and from the River to the worlds end to whom we may give all Bellarmines fifteen great names and all too little is yet content and that not in jest but in Deed and in Truth with servus servorum Domini who though he served his foes for a mocking-stock and never was man so shamefully served yet despising the shame he served out his time and counted it his
out of dust and bals of living fire fiâ—xt in our eye-brow what work makes this heavenly Potter even with that clay in white red blew after all his polishing forced to take it down and like China earth hiding some for many 1000 years will shew his Power in their raising far fairer then before and yet able to dispatch the same effect on others in a moment in the twinckling of an eye changed and not die by a suddain dissolution and a suddain re-union But far rarer Workmanship is the Recreation of our souls washt brighter in his blood and heightned by his Spirit We need but two things for our souls Grace Truth and both came by Jesus Christ from his fulness we receive both by whose service and Ministry we are made New Creatures invested in a Robe and admitted to an Order past the Fleece and Garter the Right Order of the holy Ghost Brag not vain man O run not up into some beastly figure if guilding like a snail or tracing the way of thy preferment by thy blood or match thou be mounted to a local state of Wealth and Honor for these can add no new substantial forms But this access of Spirit from this Lord is right enobling and superinduces a new soul which like fire devours and takes up all within thee and winding in one Coelestial flame and embracing Understanding Will Affections wings and lifts up all to Heaven 12. Lastly In this very house where we assemble for the Worship and Service of the Lord it is the Lord himself that does the Service to the whole Assembly So that a non nobis Domine is fixable upon the porch of this and every house of God For first he invites us hither Come I Call upon me Seek you my face The skie of Scripture hung round with provocations calling us to service and being entered who executes the parts of our Divine Service in this house of Prayer And is it not he that prays for us in us with us before us and teaches us to pray and say after him Our Father and as once by himself in Prayers and strong cries so here assists our dulness and deadness of Spirit by his own quickning Spirit inditing our Prayers and raising our Devotion with sighs and groans that cannot be exprest It is secondly a house of preaching and we indeed preach Jesus and our selves your servants for Jesus sake nay him a Servant for your sakes But if we speak him right it is he that speaks the word of the Lord heavenly Treasure from our earthen vessels that the excellency might be of God and not of us 'T is he that first did write the word which is his Power and Wisdom to our salvation and 't is he that spels the Gospel and reads and speaks to us in his Word and he that laies out and distributes sentences to several bosoms as every man hath need and he alone that follows the Sermon home and saies it all over again to our hearts Finally his House is a House of Communion for the Saints and Churches of God for the due receiving of his holy Sacraments And as in the Baptistery it is he that receives the Infants in his arms and washes their Souls in his blood and makes the water there a Laver of Regeneration So in the Supper of the Lord it is the same Lord who first shed those primordial purple drops at his Circumcision the first fruits of his all powerfull blood to begin the work of our Salvation and ever since at every holy Communion gives both body and blood the food of faithfull and repentant Spirits and makes those sad sweet drops fall again to the anguish first and then the healing of our souls For such a different office hath this blessed Sacrament that it serves both to discover our sins and to seal our Pardons Wherein while faithfully we receive him he really receives us into him and we him into us So all of us become one body and one Spirit and all by the service of one and the same for ever Jesus Christ to whom c. S. D. G. A SERMON Preached at YORK 1640. AT The Council of King and Lords EPHE 5.8 For you were once darkness but are now Light in the Lord. Walk as Children of Light IN the Skie of Scripture shines the Sun of Divinity And all Divinity all that Sun is shed in these thee Radii The Lapse the Restoring the Duty These are a perfect Catechism And a sum of these is the Epistle to the Romans injust Methode and this Text a methodical Brâ—â—iat of that Epistle indeed an Epitome of all the Book of God for here we have the Creation the World struck out of Chaos or what is more mysterious It could not chuse but please the Angels then to see the LIGHT rise out of darkness by a powerfull FIAT and the earth anon to emulate heaven by vertue of a Producat But this This Rare Work the Angels desire to prie into 1 Pet. 1.12 And if we pace along we shall find here Enoch walking with God Abraham called out of VR to another VR a purer Light The deliverance from Egypt the Red Sea the Rock the Mannae the Ark the Mercy-seat And here are all the Sacrifices the Life and Substance of them all with the Fulness and Light of all the Promises and Prophesies and here is the new Testament The Star appears Behold we bring you glad tidings Run Shepherds and see the great Shepherd of all our Souls whiles yet an Infant Loe He is wrapt here in the Swadling bands of this Text. He is the Word and this his Comment his Paraphrase and Explication You were once c. These words are a Tree laden with fruit most precious the very shell the rind is precious But if we open this Onyx this Pearl Cabinet it contains rare Food and Medicine and Wine and Balsam a Quintessence an Extraction beyond the Spirits of Oyl and Wine and Spices For what Chymist can draw Light Is not that that thing my sterious in Job 38. which way saith he is the Light parted yet here is more the Sun the Spring of Light here is that Sun of Righteousness and the Father of Light and the Spirit of Illuminations All All the holy blessed and glorious TRINITY unfolded here we may with Moses in a pious sense see him that is invisible Behold that rare workman tasking himself in his main project busie in dispatch of all his Miracles at once The Leper is cleansed the Lame walk the Blind receive their sight the dead are raised Nay Majus opus moveo The earth raised up to Heaven Flesh wrought up to Spirit Nature changed to Grace and dust advanced to he Partaker of Divine Nature For you were once Darkness c. A Comprehensive Text it is will take in all persons Speak I to a King or Lords Will they not all be glad at heart to be enlightned by this Dominus in the
who by his beams currents it out and delivers it over to all others 'T is in him universally and totally not now Light and now Darkness and exemplarily For all Light uniformly and causally prae-exists in him as in the simple and supernatural cause of all Lastly In him is Light in all the Powers of Light Expansion Renovation Nutrition Conciliation and in this power he vouchsafes it us though thus to make it ours it cost him more then making Light at first then he spake the Word only but here he suffered Multa tulit Sudavit alsit But blessed be the Lord God of Israel he hath raised a mighty Salvation for us in him Two ways as we are in Domino by Justification and then as Dominus in nobis by Sanctifications See already for our comfort Darkness of the first Adam taken off by a double Light in the Second Plus addidit medicina Christi ad salutem quam infirmitas detraxit sanitati saith St. Ambrose on the 12. cap. of the second of the Coriuthians And St. Paul agrees the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Gift of free Grace far to exceed the loss Rom. 5. and calls this dealing of our Saviour The exceeding Riches of his Grace Eph. 2.5 Call it the Miracle and the grand Mysterie no words will reach it Call it the Height it s above all the Depth there is no founding it nor Length nor Breadth imaginable by our weak spirits can span it Call it the Incomprehensibleness Numen the Deity of his Mercy to restore Light and Ability that we might have Life and have it more abundantly 1. A Sun and a Moon for day and night it is so Justification a Sun a prime a Spring original purity absolute in him and we in it and under the imputed Raies thereof our whole persons made bright and gâ—â—tious and acceptable Adam was brave in his native Integrity but this above humane perfection the Righteousness of God preserved too by him that it may never be lost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now that is nor man nor Devils able to take them out of his hands those that are thus made Lux in Domino that is justified by faith working by love This is that white Robe which as it hath no spot so it will admit no mixture in the Act and Energie of justifying Our merits wrought up with his are like Musk and Ambergreece in a Perfume faith Gomesius a Papist and thinks he makes a fine composition but is it not rather an odious comparison Yea we are to renounce all those devices of Congruity Configuration Conformity c. if supposed to contain any vertue in themselves toward the Act of Justification only that true Hercules sailing in the frail vessel of his flesh comes to unrivet us from the Caucasus of despair to which mankind was fastened by a knot inexplicable and inextricable God is just and man unrighteous a sinner and must die and for sin is in darkness and shall not see Light Christ Jesus stoops to untie this knot denies the Minor makes the sinner righteous justifies the ungodly makes Darkness Light in Domino and then there is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus 2. The second Light is Sanctification and that 's the striking the raies not upon us only but into us The first is in him only and ours by imputation God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself pleases himself in that but this second is inherent Righteousness in our hearts called Holiness without which we shall never see nor please God You will say these are high and glorious sounds and these Graces with their distinct or united natures and times have exercised the wits of men but since they are Donatives in the hand of our heavenly Father How are these things made over to us Clear that passage make this part of your discourse this Point of Divinity lightsom to our Capacities Tell us how shall these things be So said the blessed Virgin to the Angel when she was to conceive Christ in her body and for this Conception this Perception of the Lord in thy soul the same Answer must serve The holy Ghost shall come upon thee The Power of the most high can do this by his Spirit and how oft is that repeated Habitat he dwells in us by his Spirit and if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his that 's the surest mark and a man cannot say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Spirit which is therefore called the finger and hand of God the vertue and Power of Christ who tells us in Joh. 14. I will not leave you Orphans I will come to you there 's his visitation and abide with you there 's his Residence and erecting of a Court and adds I will be your Teacher Comforter Remembrancer and all these in his Spirit who is all these to us these are his Offices and operations And must not he needs have Heaven at hand that hath the God of Heaven in his heart John lean'd upon his bosom but Christ rests in thy bosom by his Spirit opening thy dim eyes and opening them twice saith St. Austin giving a double Light in the Lord First to see thy sin and guiltiness and blenching at the horror thereof opens them again to see thy Saviour in his blood and the Spirit of his Grace But all this I have said you will say still is meer speculation But tell us what heavenly Magick or Mastick can combine or which way shall these two spirits meet How Gods Spirit and mans comes thus to match and marry in Domino Quae ferramenta qui vectes said the curious Enquirers into the Creation And have not we some as curions in this Reparation States have their Arcana Imperii their Ragioni di stato which is Jus Dominationis and every Trade is called a Mysterie But God must shew us all the jointures and Inlay of his Work and Will Take heed of pressing into Light lest we be opprest with the Glory Poor man What discernest thou in the workings of those Spirits that are but Creatures and vassals to the Creator yet have their methods Eph. 6. Inventions Circumventions and are exalted above thy reach in high places have the vantage ground of Pigmee mankind Nay What seest thou of thy own spirit Who saw it come in or go forth In the Air we all breath in the wind that fans that air which are but a little kin to spirits what do we understand yet God is so indulgent to our nature and weakness as to take in for us auxiliary Light of comparison for the clearing of that which in the downright act is indeprehensible Here 's a stir indeed saith the poor blind-born man in Joh. 9. With what and how which way Well! I cannot tell you all but one thing I am sure of I was blind born blind and now I see And our Saviour John 3. Thou bearest the sound of wind and
knowest it is wind by that but knowest not whence nor whither So is every one that is born of the Spirit The cause and course is secret but the effect discernable As in Creation our soul and body meet by breathing so here the mystick work is Inspiration and infusion of manifold graces but those graces have activities and such whereby you shall easily perceive that you were once darkness but are now Light in the Lord. These Graces then will give us further Light whose excellencies are laid out in those expressions of Water Floods Fountains and Fire and Milk and Manna and Oyntment and their Efficacies in those names of Seal and Evidence and Earnest and Witness and Joy and Consolation And are there not fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. Fruits that grow not up from the bitter Root of corrupted nature but from another Principle and which in their bloom and freshness render a man not like those Ethnick Graces only facile and sweet in conversation though they do that too but gracious in Gods aspect and glorious too shining as a Light in the midst of a crooked and perverse Generation If we shall taft a fruit or two in specialty I will only trie to do it in this notion here and under this Capacity of Light 1. Knowledge even that of nature is a Light and mans soul still is the Lamp of God saith Solomon and a Wisdom residing therein that Recedes as far from folly as Light ftom Darkness and this was all those great Philosophers Animalia Gloriae had which puft them up so For this hath some tincture of the Serpent and soon inflates yet alas Mans salvation is that Grove and Mysterie Nulli penetrabilis astro not pervious nor peirceable by the star-light of Reason There must come a supernatural Light from Heaven which as in the Giver it is called a Sun of Righteousness rising with healing in his wings the day-spring from on high and the True Light so in the Receiver it is called a great and marvellous Light of which Will you hear St. Paul I count all loss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the supereminence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord this indeed is all for in this is all This is Eternal life to know Thee and him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ to know him for my Jesus to apprehend him for my Justifier by a second Grace by a true and lively Faith 2. Faith then is another Light of the sanctifying Spirit superinduced on the Light of Reason to raise and perfect it for it is not in stones or beasts God can from stones raise up Children unto Abraham but if so the work must first be done by Infusion of a rational soul and the golden Key of this Grace then fitted to the prepared wards of reasonable Nature It is not amiss to compare it to Sybillaes golden bough which grew to and upon the Trce and as he adds Auri per Ramos aura refulsit So this superstructure out-shines the utmost endeavours and perfections of Nature and Reason and resembled it is by some as the Seal to Wax It is not naked and meer reason as Air is Fire but Faith is rather printed reason and there joined Light if we wilfully exstinguish not their flames will yield the bearer fair Direction and Confidence and Consolation There may be there will be a coarctation a compression of this flame in the act of Faith a damp upon the alacrity thereof yet if there be not in us an evil heart desirous nay wilfully set to depart from the living God If you abide in me saith our Saviour then certainly as his Father and he with the sacred Spirit joyntly made Light at first and pin'd it to that Sun which was never wholly darkned since and as he the true Light breaking from the clouds of the blessed Virgins body and joyned to mans nature retains that nature still now glorified so the Spirit of this Grace possessing thy spirit loves never to part again but grieves when we offer to quench his coelestial fires O then learn not to despair of Mercy and Assistance Clouds and Eclipses obscure and wandring and wicked thoughts self-accusings and self-condemnings and Satans suggestions may trouble and affright us But if we abide in him and be strong in the Lord and in the Power of his Might and resist the Devill he will flie from us and our hope in Christ and the Power of his Resurrection like a rising Morn will scatter all the delusions and rebellions of the Night and remember his gracious Promise Hell-gates shall not prevail against a Faith of Adherence All the Powers of Darkness let loose upon St. Paul yet he was safe I know in whom I have believed I live saith he no not I but Ckrist lives in me and it is his Spirit only that can give assurance that whereas I was darkness my Faith in him makes me light in the Lord. 3. As for Love another Grace the Grace of Graces the bond of perfection and especially of that coelestial Armor and Ardor of the soul to God What might we say Whatdo they feel into whose breasts is shot this right coelestial flame and there shed abroad by the holy Ghost which is given them Away then with all wanton fires of earthly Love or ambition set them but by this and they will appear poor and wan discolour'd pale and drousie things and like meretritious females shewn with modest and noble Matrons dasht all out of countenance 4. Lastly for I am not too long to insist on these Graces so perceptible to the Possessors if we would have true and lasting joy Where shall we seek it Is it to be found among those Pangs and Convulsions and Palpitations of an earthly sensuall mind Mala mentis gaudia as the heathen Poet calls them and plac'd by him far within the Porch of hell Meteors of imperfect mixture Scansory and seeming to mine and aim at lightsomness and height of Spirit But having crackt awhile and blaz'd down they slide again and resolve into their first earth and drossiness But he that hath tasted of the heavenly gift the joy in the Holy Ghost wherein the Kingdom of Heaven on earth doth principally consist can tell you of a joy that is full a joy unspeakable and glorious consisting in a dispersion of all that is dark and desolate and a true Light that is Lux in Domine Light in the Lord. Thus have we trac'd this Oriens ex alto and thus far described that Method that Lucidus Ordo of Gods procedure in descent of his Spirit and defluence of his Graces Thus far we are come to meet with this great Bishop of all our souls this blessed Visitor and have observed his way of baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with enthean fire and confirming his People with the manifold Graces of his Spirit But yet since he is in Heaven and that Spirit is to descend on us we are not satisfied till we
know further of this Divine Method which is the Aquaeduct the Ventiduct the Luciduct which way still doth Christ in his Spirit conveigh this Holy water this gentle Air this blessed Light to our Spirits I confess this is one of the most necessary important and most usefull Queries we can make and which being clearly resolved will shame both Papists that hide away as much as they can and other Hereticks that blaspheme the Scriptures and pretend to a Spirit enthusiastick which is nothing but the Devil of delusion and spirit of Giddiness And therefore for our best Resolve upon this question Let us do as our Saviour in the point of marriage enquire how it was in the Beginning Look back then to the Creation consider how came Light at first At first the Spirit moves and broods over that which is in it self a confusion a depth and a darkness and then his mighty Word Fiat Lux. He spake and it was Light then Then when all was dark he made material Light and Christ Jesus is the WORD 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For as Speech is the Image of the mind so he the brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express Image of his person Heb. 1.3 The immaterial Light that was never made and the Spirit of the true God in declaring the true Way of his Worship and mans true way thereby to obtain eternal life as the very heathen trusted to the false gods fained Oracles which of necessity must be revealed before man could find or follow it goes that way still that is by the WORD His Word wherein is his Will revealed from Heaven both makes and is our Light This world is Gods Book wherein as in a Glass of wonders we discern him but that print being Dim to us that are sin-blind it pleased him by lively Oracles to make a Mirror far more clearly revealing his mind And as God engraved his form on his Son before all worlds so what that Son is and what the Father is to us in him the Spirit proceeding from both delivers in the Scriptures of both Testaments And as the Sun guilds and enamels clouds and streams and hill Tops with his raies but thrusts his own pure Light his own living sire through the bodies of the stars so other Authors can but yield a faint reflexion of that beam which is direct and native in his book where the very Law he stiles a flaming Light The Prophecies a more sure Word then any Eye-evidences of the Apostles to which we do well to look saith St. Peter himself as to a Light shining in a dark place till the day dawn the day-star rise in our hearts But then the Gospel written and spread by his Evangelists and held out by his spouse the Catholick Church is his marvellous Light He brought life and immortality to Light by the Gospel 2 Tim 1.10 and in Acts 26. 16. I have appeared to thee saith our Saviour to that choice vessel of his Grace and name to make thee a Minister and a witness c. And now behold I will send thee to the Gentiles to what end A glorious end to open their eyes and to turn them from Darkness to Light from the power of Satan unto God and accordingly we find it 2 Cor. 4.3 4. If our Gospel be hid it is hid in them that perish in whom the god of this world hath blinded their unfaithfull minds that the Light of the Gospel of the Glory of Christ who is the Image of God should not shine unto them And in the sixth verse he shews the Walk and Circuit of this Light God who commanded Light to shine out of Darkness hath shined in our hearts there first and then the casting of the beam to give light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ O then you have the means of Light and Grace among you Ministers you are the Light and Salt of the earth and who shall question that truth which the Truth himself hath testified And would it not be a very dark and desolate and a very flash and unsavory world without a publique Ministry of the Word and Sacraments The Clergie however despised are all out Spiritual Fathers Propter quos hanc suavissimam Lucem aspeximus But yet you and they both must know how they have it and the Apostle tells us that too in the next words We have this Treasure in our earthen vessels that the excellency of the Power might be of God and not of us You are not sent to a Means and Medicine of our preparing or any humane but to Gods Divine Ordinance that which is his Power and Wisdom to Salvation to every one that believes And therefore this may be enough to give all humble Christians satisfaction and acquiescence Speak then thy Word O Lord and thy servant shall be healed shall be undarkened and though like Bartimeus though sin-blind have my eyes opened with a word Mar. 10.12 St. Peter spake but words unto Cornelius but words whereby he and his house should be saved words so richly blest that the Text saith while Peter spake these words the holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word Did not our hearts burn within us said those Disciples Luke 24. to whom our Saviour opened the Scriptures And the Apostles hearers prickt at their Hearts cried Men and Brethren What shall we do to be saved And what a large field of the Fathers testimonies do I here forsake to break by your patience into an Inclosure or two of the very Papists our enemies and the enemies of the Scripture Yet see the excellency of Gods word even those enemies being Judges Cardinal Bellarmine himself is in his superlatives Certissima tutissima regula credendi lib. 1. de verb. Dei ca. 20. and need we any more after so full a witness I 'le name but another but one Instar omnium 'T is he that in a traiterous itch of wit took on him purposely the abuse of Scripture that by mis appliance and prophane wresting he might so abuse our Princes and our Church Mark yet what he is forc'd to say and sure 't is worth our observation if I diminish him not in my English There is in Scripture sayes he an invisible Majesty an hidden splendour a Glory unperishable a wisdom in-exhaustible The solace of humane and the beginning of a Divine life made by the holy Spirit making our spirits holy compat'd with which the Egyptian sages will look pale and poor the Chaldee impure the Grecians blockish Plato no body and Philosophy it self a fool 'T is the print of Heaven on earth and if any where the Joy of Paradise or at least a brave Resemblance of Divine Light be shewed 't is in Scripture containing all that is severed from the actual Vision of God himself Again The paper burns me not yet am I all inflamed in reading it 'T is no composure no artificial tread the Scripture uses
to the three Inducements first Quia Filii because you are Children to Dominus here So it is not improper if we take the Light here for Christ the second person for he being the Wisdom of God is his Son from all Eternity and yet a joint-Parent as Eve is Adams daughter and yet trne mother of all that call him Father Walking then is our filial obedience in Faith in Fear in Love as dutifull Children else the Heathen will shame the Christian with his Morals and our Religion in the Practicks is but moral vertue explicated There is by it no third part added to our soul and body The Dr. of Heaven tels us he came adimplere to fill up the Law by supply where it was too narrow in the precepts And therefore the explication and enlargement being his it should excite and enlarge our obedience specially considering whom we call Father the same is our Lord here And shall the Creatutes shame us The Sun will stand still or back his fierie steeds as in the time of Joshuab and Ezekiah the stormy Winds and Tempests fulfilling his Word And is it enough for us to take that name into our mouths to crie only Lord Lord. Cuiresnomini subject a negatur nomine illuditur saith Tertullian And take heed saith the Apostle God is not that is God will not be mocked If Children then be ye followers of God as dear Children And this puts us in mind of our Fathers presence and of our due observance in this place a subject to a proclamation though it be but to fill his head will use a reverent gesture A Son will address and prepare for his Fathers presence especially if then and there to ask his blessing more if he be to hear his Fathers Will read and opened in what 〈◊〉 concerns his Portion most of all will be hearâ—en attentively if the Father he then to pass the Inâ—eritance No so graceless child as will be then and there disorderly or that at parting thence will preâ—ently fall fowle and revile his Father All this might â—e particularly applied but I dare not ask some â—earers how they prepared themselves for this place â—â—st night or this morning in Word and Deed. 〈◊〉 would we had no cause to fear what they will reâ—urn to say and do as soon as gone from hence from â—he presence of him in his Ordinance whom there â—hey called Father and pretended they came to â—â—ave his blessing as we all ought to do quia Filii 2 A second pully or Incentive to our duty is Etiâ—msi Though but children Let not the name dismay Best of all if we feel our selves to be but children For there are the same steps of Seducement in humane and Divine Learnings Men cannot abide to be children we all affect a Magisterium A Christian course is like a line drawn through but drawn with a trembling hand 'T is a salvation wrought but but wrought with fear and trembling And a â—hild will crie and yet follow if led by a stronger hand and we are in the Lords hand here In domino Remember then who leads who bids us follow He leads the way that is the way that makes the way for us and opens an access not by his Fathers acceptation only but his own intrinsique Vertue Power Office We are weak but that weakness inâ—ites his Might and Mercy thy weakness is from â—â—ture which hath her stint and measure but thy strength in Domino who as he possesses so distributes infinitely As in Creation when he had made he left not things to themselves There is a maâ—â— tenency else all would crumble back into their Atoms So in this Recreation Dominus suppoâ—â— manum rude and poor Lumps of our selves no seet no wings but born on his Eagles wings as on a seatherbed we are soft and secure and kept aloft faâ— and free from danger 'T is hard for weakness and child-hood to bear a yoak But his bearing with us and his Spirit assisting us makes the yoak easie and the burden light 'T is the saying of the sons of Beltal His wayes are alwayes grievous Hearken to our Apostle Our conversation is in Heaven Maria ibi non erat ubi erat Children of Light are where they would be It is but three steps with Gods help saith he and he saith it to these Ephesians cap. 2. ver 5. He hath quickned us with Christ raised us with him and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus So sure of possession if we be his Children so sure to hear that voice meet us from the clouds Come ye Children of my Father c. 3. Lastly As Children of Light using the Light for direction and example and this exemplary Light is double First The Suns course is imitable And Secondly The Sun of Righteonsness is our highest and chiefeit Pattern For the first Look how David dresses the Sun Psal 19. In a Tabernacle and presents him as a Bride-groom coming out of his Chamber and as a Gyant rejoycing to run his course So may we find St. Paul in this and the like places sets forth a Son of God a child of Light embraved like another Mordecay O far beyond all Fayorites of the highest Kings or Potentates in a Robe of Righteousness In Domino and in the inner man not outward splend or with Introsum turpis made bright and pure from sin by Sanctification of the Spirit proceeding to a darling and confounding beauty of Holiness shining in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation and the more for their perverseness by an Antiperistasis Learning of the Sun which is not retrograde for winds or clouds nor weary of his luminous operations after so many thousand years of Circuit sets him not down but moves still in a circular in a coelestial and communicable motion which motion if any dare traduce and call it a Pad-way ot dispute it into terms of false inconstant or serpentine as they use the Sun let the Persian or the Indian adore or curse so let the unclean worldings or churlish hel-hounds bark the child of Light will like the Sun cut a clear passage through all and smiling rise from out the liquid snares and jaws of gyant clouds unhurt uncaught and like a Sun-beam saith Seneca though forced to shine on dung hils converse with base and wicked company yet comes off untainted Et hoeret origini suae still cleaves inseparably to the first spring of Light There is yet a second observation in the race of the Sun he is tropickt and kept to his Zodiack and Ecliptick line and so are we confined Gods Will and Word are circle-wise put about us as Popilius served Antiochus and God hath set out the boundures of our walk which we must not pass When the Sun perceives the Tropick he will advance no further so what ever full evidence of Gods revealed Will restrains where his prohibition lies there 's the Barrier Then better walking in a fiery furnace
invest us with a Light yet inaccessible will also place another Crown of Glory inaccessible And so in the allusion the contemplation of those joyes that go before the entrance into our Masters Joy and those that follow after in fruition will easily stir and fire our souls to cry or sing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to this son of David Blessed be he that comes thus in the name of the Lord and is the Lord that comes thus from the Father and God Totius of all consolation anointed to his great Office and Design of binding up the broken hearted by the Holy Ghost the Comforter Luke 1. and is himself by way of Excellency stil'd the consolation of Israel And thus this first glad priviledge of Gods fearful and faithful servant is refin'd and wrought up to perfection from this Mine in Malachy the last of the Prophets to that Mine of St. John the last and liveliest of the Evangelists or rather that Mine of our Lords own discovery in Iohn 17.10 Thine they are and all mine are thine and thine are mine Mine But who is he All our comfort even now was complicated and conserv'd in Dominus Exercituum And is he so That stile indeed wears out in the New Testament but is abundantly recompenc'd in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The only Potentate the Lord of Life and Glory Most of all in that name above all names which all tongues must confess and at which all knees should bow that sweet and powerful that gracious and glorious Name of Jesus a Saviour and able to save to the utmost in whom all fulness dwels and in whose hand is all power in heaven and earth And had not their eyes been held down and the Jews hearts vaild over they would have perceived and received him for the true Messiah in this very notion and nature of a Lord of Hosts For in him were all their Moses's Joshuales all their Captains and Saviours their Baraks and Gideons and Sampsons and Davids and Macchabees all reviv'd and restor'd to the world But they knew not the manner of their King and to mistake a King may be a world of misery nor of his Kingdom nor the force of his Artillery in the dreadful Canon and Ordinance of his Word Spirit Nor that the Scepter of his new Law should prove the Iron Rod to break and subdue both men and Devils They considered not his stupendious Miracles proving him the Lord of Hosts in commanding over the whole frame of Heaven and Earth and Seas and all the host of them and bowing whole created nature to his obedience To rebuke tempestuous winds roaring waves as a Nurse her child with Peace and be still nay suspend and silence and deprive Devils of their possessions with a word To lay his command on Death it self and force him to let go his hold after four dayes seisure in the grave Will Iews or Jewish hearts attend my voice that would not hear the thunder of those Miracles But for support of the true Catholick faith and for the consummation of all our consolation King and people Christ Jesus is become our Dominus Exercituum Christo auspice regno regnabo too and his bloody Cross a braver badge then that of Castor and Pollux This is polleus lux ipsa For is it not he alone destroyes our raging lusts and nails them to his cross and he alone that ' gainst a world of opposition and all the opposition of this evil world cryes to his host be of good comfort I have overcome the world He alone that came to dissolve destroy the works the strong holds of Satan and to vanquish powers and Principalities in high places that had the vantage ground over us He that breaks in on death and sin and hell and like a Conquerer in the triumphal Chariot of his Cross made a shew of them openly and as Triumphers us'd to do when he ascended up on high and led captivity captive he gave gifts unto men But yet more to prove him the Lord of Hosts by being more then that name can imply for this Name is observed to be too yong for the ancient of Dayes that is a Name taken up since and from the Creation A Name indeed that draws and scatters on us all we can look for from our Maker and Preserver But all his powers and mercies are resolved and melted into this Name of Christ Jesus Without Christ without God sayes the Apostle in the world we are but meer pieces of the masse nay far worse is our condition born children of wrath and in state of enimies and so the Lord of Hosts is against us and all the hosts of Heaven and spirits of Hell and all the creatures and our selves against our selves And when there was no Name under heaven to save and deliver us from present and wrath to come then came this Prince of peace and became our Peace pledg'd himself for us gave his life a Ransome so making peace So prevailing over the Lord of Hosts binding his Almighty hands and God content to accept terms of peace may we not say so Came not that Voyce from Heaven This is my beloved Son in quo acquiesco in whom I am at peace with all the world If all this prove him not a Lord of Hosts he will one day to the further consolation of all that love his appearing appear to the consternation of all his Despisers in flaming fire to render vengeance And as in the dayes of his flesh then unglorified and compast about with all mans infirmities he could have been encompast with more then twelve Legions of Angels so then he will meet those two Hosts those droves and flocks of sheep and goats with another Army of his Saints and Angels from Heaven with whom we shall be caught up to meet that Lord in the ayr and so shall be ever with the Lord. If we desire yet higher to raise this Crown of consummate consolation in Christ I will come to Visions and Revelations I will open that of St. Steven Acts 7.56 I see heaven opened and the son of man set on the right hand of God which place being further opened by St. John makes us see him on a Throne of Glory covered with light as with a garment under his feet Deaths pale head and a red Dragon and all his enemies about him stand the Armies of his Angels and of mankind a greater number then any man can number of all Nations Languages On his thigh that Name written Rex Regum Dominus Dominorum The Elders casting down their Crowns adore him that has many Crowns upon his head And we may safely add this Title to those Crowns of Dominus Exercituum and rejoyce to think how those Crowns are encinctur'd and enchas'd with precious stones for the twelve Tribes of Israel and with manifold unions of God and man of grace and glory for the consolation of the Gentiles also thereby fully made perfect
riding on his horse of wood over all the surges that devoured the world of the ungodly So in the time of Ahab and in the time of Queen Mary in our own land when the waves of persecution rouled high and raged horribly God reserved many Prophets in a cave by means of Obadiah and many thousands that bowed not the knee to Baal or were won to crouch to the Romish superstition or shrink from the Reformed Religion This is the mercy of God that when sometimes the wicked are swept away as the house of a Spider when the arrow flies by day and terror by night then comes out the Indulgence and Dispensation Touch not mine Anointed a thousand shall fall before thee and ten thousand at thy right hand Psalm 91.7 Or if God do not ever in publique calamity give his own a temporal deliverance for Cadit Ripheus yet he promises to redeem their soul from deceit and violence and precious shall their death be in his sight Psalm 72.14 Secondly The day of making up these Jewels is understood by some of the time of powerfull preaching of the Gospel principally when Christ himself and his fore-runner the Baptist entered on the office of converting the world so much also is intended here of that Sun of Rightcousness rising with healing in his wings his day-star coming in the Spirit of Eliah cap. 4.2 And we find indeed the time of our Saviour called the time of Reformation surely by that powerable Instrument of his Word it is that his Jewels are made up John prepared the Way and cleansed the people by baptism to repentance Christ wrought up many by himself more by his Apostles after St. Peter at one Sermon three thousand at another five thousand souls And in that time of our Saviour those Jewels were made bright and manifest even to their Despisers See Anna Elizabath Zachary Simeon whom the curious Pharisees reckoned among the base vulgar that knew not the Law but they then were known for Jewels and the other for a generation of Vipers Thus when the World in the Wisdom thereof knew not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe and to make what the world accounts weakness his Power to salvation For to this is ascribed first the birth and breeding of these Jewels For to which of the Angels said God at any time This day I have begotten thee But as that speech hath a natural Interpretation of Christ our elder Brother so applyed to us in a supernatural Of his own Will begat he us by the Word of Truth Jam. 1.18 which is therefore stil'd the uncorruptible seed 1 Pet. 2.12 God makes thee as he made this All a work of power but in recreating in producing Light of Christianity uses his Word and Wisdom to give thee form so in the New Testament his Word precedes his Miracles and the Donative to the Apostles first was Fieri Vehicula scientiae such as enliven the Receivers For man lives not by bread only and for this cause the Saints are called living stones built on the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ himself the chief Corner-stone Again The word as it breeds and gives life so Light Grace and Lustre We cannot with the waxen wings of sense or reason flie up to the Deity not as revealed in Christ and ripeness and perfection and rectifying of meer Reason gains us nothing It loses rather and builds downward disclosing the earthly Globe and shutting up Heaven Only God is able by the power of his word to take hold of our souls and like so many keyes apply the graces of Faith and Hope and Love to the wards of prepared rational Nature For the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is that which by original Purity and perfect obedience and satisfaction in his death he hath acquired to and for all his members But the noble Instrument to work that Grace a way into our souls is the declaration of his Gospel in use and Ministry of his Word Yea the Scripture informs us of Illumination by this same means in the very Angels Eph. 3. But the purest Saints are all in darkness till this flaming light be held from heaven no previous disposition in the soul no Platonick Recordation would ever bring us to the least glympse of salvation were it not for this dew of Grace which from the Word we drink into our understanding and thereby direct our Wills and even in their imaginations find it powerfull against all those starts and exorbitancies reducing and bringing into Carptivity every thought to the obedience of Christ Jesus For as health is the absence of sickness and serenity nothing but the avoidance of clouds and shadows so the Word where it comes hath an innate and genuine property to dispel sin like Davids harp driving out Sauls devil You are clean saith our Saviour propter Sermonem by reason of the Word therefore resembled to rain medicines fonntains Such an eager and piercing operation and opposition as it penetrates the closest sin and is a Discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart so Magdalens whoredom and nest of Devils dislodged Zacheus swoln to a Camels grosseness abated to the smalness of a thred fit to be drawn through the eye of a Needle fit to enter into the kingdom of Heaven with this was Lydia's heart opened all other appliances but charms or holy water This mighty word of stones able to raise up children unto Abraham this the double edged sword of the spirit this the fire and the hammer and file to frame and work out Gods Jewels from the rough till piece by piece God thereby hath removed those ruines which through Adams fall opprest all humane nature and hid away the primitive beauty and perfection of our souls Lastly 'T is this that transforms from Prophaness Rebellion Hypocrisie and purges the most dissolute Were with shall a young man reform of all other the most difficult by taking heed according to thy Word and then this Word it is which adorns and teaches how to hang about the neck and ears of Gods holy ones all those shinning graces of precious Faith and Hope and Charity and Meekndss and heavenly-Mindedness c. And therefore in our passage are we not to take notice of this I say we both Preachers and people we first as Jewellers to sever the precious from the vile if speak to speak as the words of God and yet to furnish themselves with all helps of learning the better to insinuate by Similes and riches of discourse and so to raise the imagination and fill the understandings of their hearers but above all it points directly at the curiosity of our pains and carefull industry to be work-men needing not to be ashamed They must be work-men indeed that dcal with Jewels specially with cuting them to the life and perfect beauty and fashioning them in all their points that the man of God may be
all those gracious Promises those Letters of Love indited by the Holy Ghost in Prose and Verse which cry unto us to turn and look upon and accept the salvation profered that salvation which our blessed Saviour wrought for us by strong cryes and by the effusion of that blood which yet cryes and intercedes freshly for us not all these availab letill the third visitation of his Spirit which is therefore called the Comforter Coming as Jobs friends in visitation both to mourn and comfort him Nay what Visitant what Physitian what Confessor what Wise of thy bosom what Friend who is as thine own soul would so attend for he abides for ever So minister for he helps Vna sublevat for the Greek better expresses it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 assists in lifting against our Infirmities so pray and groan for us with sighs and groans that cannot be exprest against all our faintings and despairs our sick fits of fear and distrust giving us Evidence Earnest broad Seal of Heaven untill the day of our full Redemption And this is that comfortable Visitation of the sacred Spirit respectively to the means of Grace when he will not trust me with the Bible alone the story of his Birth and Death not the Sermon alone the Exposition and Application of that Story but comes after both and sees how they work nay makes them work in me and enables me in some good measure to work by them Mans office in regard of this mercifull visitation it to debate and answer Debate first Think what we were before he visited Lost Captives Enemies Dead in sins and trespasses He then to drop his Blood and Grace his manifold Grace preventing exciting guiding confirming softly pierceing even into stony hearts which is described by many a sweet and amorous Metaphor These are his Flaggons and Apples and our state a Marriage above that too there 's una Caro one flesh But this Union so high and holy no words reach it Per â—undem Spiritum by one and the same Spirit But what shall we do First Believe else we make God a lyar and there 's the quarrel when we trample upon despise and count the blood of this Covenant as an unholy thing and if we tremble to contemn him shall we dare to think it nothing Shall we take a solemn Pride in despising his servants Et eo nomine even therefore hold a man despicable because a Minister Remember it is observed as the height and Precipice of all iniquity as far as people could do or God could suffer when God rising early by them was mockt in them the Text saith then there was no remedy 2 Chron. ult cap. But again Debate What shall we do and the Apostle meets this Consultation Make your Calling and Election sure and this to be done in Gods Method Enquire after our Calling first and not begin at the wrong end Hearken to that cry of the Spirit within thy soul the Kingdom of Heaven is within you and not too fondly spend the time in searching those rouls of Gods predestination and take heed of sinking thy soul toward a despair in his Mercy or to a self-condemnation For the Spirit of God speaking peace darest thou still proclaim a War Or if God have no bill against thee shall thy timerous Conscience be framing vain and carnal Answers Doth not God ask by way of Indignation Where is the bill of thy mothers divorce or to which of my Creditors have I sold thee Isaiah 50.1 If so Then what shall I answer answer God in obedience all the Creatures preach this Answer there is in all a Correspondency The Corn and Wine and Oyl hear us and the Earth hears them and the Heavens hear it but all hear him even the most unruly Creatures are our Rule the stormy wind and Tempest obeying his voice So we his Voyce without in his Word and his Voyce too within by his Spirit speaking to our hearts not then drown those motions or bury them in company and wine and worldly cares or pleasures lest so we quench grieve or do despight to the Spirit of grace and obey him actually not in professory Religion only but walk in light and bring forth fruits worthy amendment of life Lastly quid retribuam what answer but a grateful admiration as he that spake after a full apprehension O Lord what is man that thou dost so visit him This sacrifice as he counts it an Honour so t is all we can offer all we can offer him on earth and when all things here have end endless thanks shall have their beginning in Heaven As that Church in triumph there all those Angels and all those Virgins Prophets Apostles Martyrs with their loud clarious and Trumpets and Harps of Gold and Ivory strike nothing sing nothing but Hallelujah So we that are parts of the Church Militant should exalt our voyces and joyn in full Chorus We praise thee GOD we acknowledge c. Heaven and Earth shall thus be full of his glory 2. Gods second Visitation is in Judgement and for sin general When we find him coming forth of his Treasury his store-house of plagues War Famine wild beasts Pestilence and particular of crosses sickness loss But t is the great visitation here chiefly meant in the day of Judgement For Job was under temporal calamity now already at the pronouncing of this Text yet as we are viatores in our way to take notice of this especially as it reaches his servants his choisest though with limitation with that distinction ever ad correctionem non aâ—ruinam and yet they fall thick in the morning saith Job in the night saith David nay visiteth him every morning and trieth him every moment Job 7.18 For is there not a swarm an hydra and wheel of troubles in our whole life per caput circa saliunt latus saith he when rose the Sun so fair but ere his fall some clouds have seiz'd on them if not on him some grief some nay many many perturbations enough I 'le warrant thee for I have Gods own testimony enough for the day is the evil thereof Upon this Visitation when it drops when it falls when it pours on us what shall we do Why first debate stand and consider as Job if all should go Naked came I out of my mothers womb and naked must I return Is it the height the depth of any grievous affliction What is it more then that of my Saviour O but he was more then man is it more then theirs in Heb. 11. rackt sawn asunder c. Hast thou yet resisted to blood or is it come to the fiery tryal And then in affliction at least after it ask thy soul is it not good for thee Heb. 11.2 as the Apostle speaks of strangers may not a man this way receive Angels unawares as Gen. 28.16 Jacob on his journey at Bethel when he wak'd and said surely God is in this place so God is in this Visitation and I was
Pharisees by Christs own Testimony religious and yet wicked People may draw near with their lips and their hearts far enough off If thou hast Faith saith St. James let us see it Let your Light shine How why in action shine or else to bare Profession our Saviour threats a round and proportional Answer At that day I will profess to you I know you not Objection But will the weak soul say May I trust to these Answers I may I first trust to my Repentance I feel indeed the weight of sin and finding the offence of an infinite Justice I am horribly afraid dejected like David when he asked his sad soul Why art thou so heavy I am so so wounded pierced struck thorow and my heart rebounds into my eyes I weep and I crie mightily for Mercy but can I hope it Is not sin a Serpent a Sea a Fire a Poison Was I not stung by this Serpent drowned in this sea miserably schorcht by this fire envenomed in the whole Mass of my nature with this corruption before I was born And since alas I have added to this Ocean put fewel to this fire help to infix this sting and work into my heart the contagion and then am I able to resolve against sin to deny ungodliness to reject the Tempter to give my lusts their final answer I find indeed natural men moral men when they will compound an happy man put inthis one ingredient Responsare cupidinibus sibi imperiosus enabling him to check and controul to command and subdue rebellious Passions by the dictates of rectified Reason and their several answers to diverse corrupt affections are enough to shame me and all that profess themselves Christians But were they able to keep their own rules or am I able What to hate sin so as I ought with a perfect hatred I flie some enormous vices for fear of Laws But Tolle periclum Jam vaga prosiliet c. And though I know there is death in the Pot the wages of sin is no better though I pull the fruit and taste it and prove it to be nought but Gall and Bitterness nay barrenness and shame yet such is my madness to pursue a new shame and seek death in the error of life falling like a Bird or a Beast Nay no brid no beast would so oft fall into the same snare same pit into the same sin whereof I have again and again repented me What then shall I do Shall I rely on my second answer and trust in my own righteousness Some bold men dare do so and dare teach others so dare boast a stock and treasure of mercy and satisfaction But Lord I find the language of Canaan thy holy Word and the cries of thy holy servants far otherwise I find thy Bernard say Nolo Horreo meritum Thy David O Lord If thou enter into judgement no flesh shall be justified and thy blessed St Paul I find another Law haling me c. Rom. 7. and therefore I hear him crying ripe to say O miserable man who shall deliver me These are yet the Ejaculations of an humble soul asking seeking knocking at the gate of heaven and this very debating is a fruit of the Spirit growing on to a perfect answer In mens consultings and resolvings for worldly affairs they may they do usually mis-count miscarry fortune choaks their artillery But in these holy provisions the end is ever gracious success glorious If the Jailor in the Acts and St. Peters Hearers come but to a wounded conscience to be prickt at their hearts and cry What shall I do Mark what follows and how fast it follows Believe Repent be baptized and saved Saved How by Believing in him that is able to frame a sufficient Answer He that made them wonder at his gracious answers and to whom no man was able to answer a word Who was that and where is he to be had If any man sin any man that finds himself a sinner Let him put his answer to this Advocate for we have him saith St. John we have an Advocate Jesus Christ the righteous He is the Propitiation for our sins Take then thy shield of faith and quench all the fiery darts of the devil This is the new and living way of answering God by his Son by the blood of Jesus Hebrews 10. May not then the Christian Believer have access with boldness For shall both bleed for sin or shall he bleed in vain Peccavi peccatum grande saith he I have committed an hainous sin yet on my Faith and Repentance I will go to God and say Lord thou canst have but Blood Merit Sacrifice Satisfaction exact Obedience Take then thy Son Jesus He is all these and all these to me for he is mine I receive him by faith and I find comfort hope lively hope full assurance in him I will not therefore flie with Cain and cry with him My sin is greater No thy mercy rejoyces against sin and now therefore there is no condemnation to them that be in Christ Jesus My answer then to thy Bill is it was torn when his body was torn it is cancelled and was nailed to his Cross My debt was great but is paid to the utmost farthing Thy wrath let it be a cup he hath drunk it of Let it be more a whole Wine-press he hath trode it alone I will then put on my Lord Jesus and come in the rayment of my elder Brother and be roab'd in his innocency and canst thou then deny me No thou canst not thou mayest as well deny thy self For if I have it fair to shew under thy own hand Every gracious Promise in thy Gospel is such yea this was thine own Act in my salvation For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself But may I not prodigally and presumptuously fling away my soul in a vain confidence of Mercy Yes many do so that will do nothing themselves not when they have the assistance and proffer of help from Heaven Therefore I will compound and put all these answers together I will trust to my Saviours merit But I will repent too and pray too and work too and so work out mine own salvation with fear and trembling And though I have no Holiness of mine own and without it no seeing thee at the Day of Judgement yet thou the God of my peace wilt sanctifie me against that day 1 Thess 5. O blessed and full answer now and O blessed condition of such happy souls so far from affrightment at thought of the Judges coming that they shall then rejoyce and lift up their faces and in the mean time are of the number and communion of those Saints that love his appearing looking for and hasting to the comming of their Lord in glory calling and crying Bow the Heavens and come down and Lord how long And come Lord Jesus come quickly I have done with the explication of my Text. There is a fourfold application First In general to
and umbragious being chas'd away by the fiery indignation of a powerfull God especially with this co-consideration that his treason had been committed against a Lord so gracious But whether this Gracious and great Lord God was the second Person the Lord of Glory our blessed Redeemer Christ Jesus as some will have it conceivd both of this and other apparitions in the old Testament I stay not to determine nor to enquire But thus far only this Note will easily fall upon and into our consciences if we resist not if we despight not the Spirit of this Grace Namely that we should bear an infinite derestation to sin which procured at first and hath that malignant properte intrinsick and everlasting in all successive sin and sinners to provoke still the anger and offence of a most gracious Lord and if so then to think further of that infinite Grace and Love and goodness which even after sin committed could procure that Lord to compassion and could draw so deep a descent of Mercy as to submit himself to his most bitter Passion whereby he gives every wounded soul a clear assurance in an open pardon sealed in his own blood and also in this very Name leaves an Intimation that all our disobedience all our foul and many and weighty sins fall yet within the measure and compass and cannot sink us past or beneath the mercies of a gracious Lord God And therefore we to raise our souls upon this double Name as on a pair of powerfull wings oversoaring despair and flying up into his bosom who is our hope and life our dread and Love our Judge indeed but yet our Advocate that calls to us Come to me and whose blood cryes for us and we therefore to cry to him with that Disciple newly awakened to that frightfull and that delightfull double sight at once both of his sin and his salvation in Christ which made him so resolutely and so cheerfully take and wreath these Names together with Mâ—us in the appliance Dominus Deus meus my Lord and my God 12. This instruction I know and so you will apprehend it fits far better with the â—exts of the new and yet is no stranger in the old Testament For even Isay and Malaâ—hy in their clear and frequent forementions of our Lord retain as well the Relishes of Evangelists as Prophets and David openly sings and playes him on his Harp as Evidently as Elegantly Nay not so vail'd in Moses but that this very place of Genesis so early in the worlds infancy reveals some think the very person sure we are the Office of our Lord and Saviour whose after-manifestation and coming to destroy the works the Devil had made is promised within six verses and call'd a bruising of the Serpents head 13. But let us pursue this same consideration another way that a gracious and so a glorious Lord and God is offended and by sin drawn to an opposition to an enmity with his beloved creature man The vileness of sin is many wayes discovered in the language of the Holy Ghost It is to a main height of expression when God descends to so low a comparison as that in Amos I am prest under your sins as a Care is prest under many sheafs My Rebellion my stubbornness is a dangerous sin done against my Prince or Pastor or Parents And my violences my cruelties are heavy sins because in them I oppress my brother as a good man it may be better in his eye that made us both then my self But did I ever understand till now that I may oppress him that is optimus maximus my God also Is it not enough to weary men sayes the Prophet but shall I dare to vex and weary my God also and afflict and grieve my gracious Lord and his Holy Spirit No wonder we find David complaining My sins are a sore burden too heavy for me to bear when Davids Lord tunes his voice to the same key Your sins are a sore burden too heavy for me to hear Dost thou not see O vain man by this the vileness the odiousness of thy sin which makes him impotent that is Omnipotent As also in that term of Abomination How frequent is the use thereof in holy Scripture to cause us to write this lesson into all our souls from thence Nothing makes us so ugly spectacles to that Lord our God as sin which causes him to turn his face away in displeasure not able to abide us in his sight nay forced to deny his own workmanship Depart I know you not thus making him ignorant that is Omniscient And yet above and beyond and beneath all these we may collect the height and breadth and depth of a sinners dangerous and fearfull condition by those speeches of anger and provocation The wrath of a King is as Messengers of death the Wise man tells us and he that provokes him to anger sins against his own soul What is it when we provoke the holy one of Israel to anger O Lord rebuke me not in thy anger if in that mood I be called into Judgement O Lord who is able to abide it And this is doubtless one of the depths of Satan one of his main aims in provoking us to sin that thereby God being provoked to anger may declare himself our enemy What shall we then say Men and Brethren What will we then do May we not then say justly that other Lords have unjustly reigned over us Infoelix Lolium steriles dominantur our base and barren lusts and pleasures have indeed justly by Gods permission and by way of punishment had dominion over us by our willing submission of our souls to their sway and tyranny And will we still do so continue in sin still make a mock of gross and grievous sins never startle or admit the least umbrage of remorse at open blasphemies and often Adulteries drunkennesses Are not such mens Souls and Bodies States and Children in a fearfull manner engaged to the wrath of God which they hourly provoke by these abominations Alas poor wretched man or woman however titled Preacher or Hearer Lawyer or Courtier Lord or Lady every wickedness every known sin I dwell and delight in and resolve on is not only a touching pitch whence inevitable defilement nor a carrying fire in my bosom impossible to escape detriment but is an opposition a rebellious outstanding and sleighting of my God enmity for the wrath of God is manifoldly proclaimed from Heaven and Wisdom cries it in the streets Gods Declaration we are not ignorant of and dare we then despise If I be a Lord where 's my fear What earthly Monarch the anointed of the Lord unless super-anointed with the spirit of patience and meekness above mortals can endure his lawfull Commands to be vilified And can we look for less then suddain execution of that wrath which is drawn out and ready to fall on sinners and hath been the sinners case from the beginning Adam was our first Father
that found it so and we his sinfull issue on whom the ends of the world are come do and ever shall find it so till the consummation for the perpetuating of this proceeding in God is made manifest by that of the Apostle where he shews us plainly and as if he saw the arrow falling or the lightning blaze of Gods revengesull fire seizsing on and cingeing the sinners hairie scalp that goes on still in his wickedness For such things sake saith he look about you Behold the wrath of God cometh upon the Children of disobedience 14. Methinks I see some Bravo now some scornfull fool as Solomen blazons the witless and wilfull sinners coat turn his half-face and flearing and swearing urge me with a Why Sir Is God so dreadfull an enemy Yes even thou shalt find and believe him so at last if not too late Thou that in youth and in thy strength and wealth art loth to believe him so these seven yeers yet For observe in God those two properties which make an enemy formidable 1. Power unlimited carries not the third part of the world as he said of Scipio on his neck but holds up or casts down all at will pleasure ruling over all as Almighty doth what he will in the Armies of Heaven and him that walks in pride he is able to abase on earth blasting beauty and youth and strength and riches and wit and all thy growing hopes and fortunes with the very breath of his displeasure And sure this very first consideration of Gods infinite Power will shudder every meer humane make every undevilisht bosom tremble It was a King that said it and a man after Gods own heart and no doubt felt it in his own heart Stand in aw and sin not In aw Of whom shall Lords and Kings stand in aw of him that is King of Kings and Lord of Lords The Lord God I say unto you Fear him Fear him that is able to destroy Dominion and Regality able to reverse all victories confound all earthly glory with disgrace and compound all worldly honor with the dust that is the Lord God here in my Text. Set not light by him that is able to hurt or help was Ethick advice of the Ethnick Preacher Aristotle but it was a divine sentence in the lips of the King before the royal Preacher to Gods own darling people Israel Contend not with one stronger then thou And the famous Preacher of the Gospel to the Gentiles St. Paul opens all sinners eyes and ears to apprehend this ensuing danger in that applicatory question Do we provoke the Lord to jealonsie to anger Are we stronger then he 1 Cor. 10.22 Tush this is needless now saith my Gallant Who knows not this stronger then God Who ever opened his mouth to say so But yet there is an intestine there is a visceral Blasphemy as well as oral and as ill every whit The fool that saith in his heart There is no God or else a blind a drowsie or an impotent God either he cannot or he will not regard all such secret thoughts are as open Blasphemies though not so infectious And therefore I beseech thee whoever thou art for Gods sake if not for thy own souls sake to take notice and to beware For dost not thou conceive that every hard hearted every unrelenting soul feels some such susurration in the secret silence of her own Closet and Cloister some such carnal inspiration while she resolves not to repent but to continue in known sins and saith in effect I have heard much of Gods Power and the Preacher would make me belive that the Word of God is a Wisdom divine and Gods heavenly Power to my salvation But sure I find that Word let them read it preach urge it never so forcibly is yet too weak and all their ghostly Councils and Exhortations of no value I am sure I never yet found them prevalent with me but that I am able during the very Sermon-time to sleep and find that I am not only proof against all their perswasions but perswaded that neither this man though well voyc'd nor that though cryed up for a powerfull Speaker nor the whole Tribe indeed shall ever be able to prevail over me 'T is true indeed that God only can break in upon mans soul and the Word we preach which is but improperly called his Word and is so no surther then we are carefull to separate the precious Truth of Heaven from earthly inventions or conjunctions Yet take heed of despising the meanest Instrument that God sends upon this Embassie and resolve that all Resolvings against the charming Power of Gods are from the suggestion of the foul spirit And if any of this audience should be infected I say if this should be so though Beloved in Christ Jesus this ought not so to be and though I fully hope for better things of you yet for fear it may be so by reason of our common frailty and if this qualification of Omnipotency in God shake us nothing yet let this that follows trie to disimprove and prevent or infeeble all the Charms of the Serpent and dismantle all the strong holds and sorts of Satan in our hearts which would put us on Gods Comminatory Morieris That there is a second property in God I might naâ—◠〈◊〉 more which makes an enemy terrible and that is The affection of Hate My enemies are many and mighty saith David and yet we do not hear the worst and they hear a tyrannous hatred against me there 's the bottom And though such an hate in God is not nor ever can be towards man or any other creature for he hates nothing that he hath made yet sin is a thing that he never made a thing begot betwixt the devil and our own corruption and that the Lord is said to hate with a perfect hatred and it must be so for the righteous Lord love Righteousness with a perfect love and this hate in perfection spreads to the whole Tribe of sinners for sins sake All the Workers of Iniquity and while they live in their sin it mars and makes odious their most exquisite Actions The predominant venom of sin turns the nature of their best performances and makes the most acceptable Sacrifice abominable Their very prayers shall be turned into sin And when they are dead as their names rot and corrupt the very Air so their souls are sent to endure those exquisite torments prepared for the Devil and his Angels I have done with the first 15. OUR second part is the second Party appearing in this Judgement Man the Delinquent I told you God was an Ocean souldless fathomless and when I find St. John telling me that Christ who is God need not that any man should tell him what is in man for he knew it leaves a little of the knowledge of man behind it namely this That man is a thing not or not well known to any but God not to another not
to himself And when I hear his servants Job and David put that Query What is man they both put it to God himself to answer and in those very answers which they make by Gods own inspirations we find and know still that man cannot be found and known and that there are corners and Incognita's in this Microcosm that are not laid out fully in any Chart but left only to the discovery of him that is the searcher of hearts But yet for our present purpose and suddain apprehension of man I will turn you but to two books if I do that for there is much reason I 'le be brief if for nothing else yet a little to quit and recompence my former being too long And the first book shall be this of the Creation this very book of Genesis and but one place in the book Chapter 2. verse 7. The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into him into his Nostrils the breath of life and man became a living foul Soire we say is per causas and here they are at least here we may ground our selves upon the ground-work of all that is in our bodies All that gentle noble royal blood in mens veins and all the matter of the Merchants of the Divines of the Councellors or Courtiers or States-mens very brains all our pride and honor if we be proud of any materials in blood or brain or face or hand or foot we may soon find all our pride and honor in the dust with a double mention and Inculcatiou of Dust and dust upon all mankind God at first beats down all Supremacies still amongst men in compare with God all right or wrong Honorable and so all right or wrong Reverend too Here we have ventured at this instant to make an Assembly of our selves in the presence of God and in the Courts of his own house male and female with differing faces differing out-sides too or cloathed in Purple and fine linnen with hanging on of Gold or costly Array or clad in skins of beasts over our own hides and with girdles of skins as John the Baptist but yet with far more differing insides full of youthfull or wanton fires some and some with fierce and cruel or treacherous and bloody thoughts some perchance willing Hearers and some glad only to be here at this time if for nothing else yet out of an hope to catch something from the Preacher if he should be so silly as to flow into distempered and partial Invectives and anon sad to find their malice deluded Nay we may well suppose that some Papist may drop in upon us now or Separatist at other times afford his company and sneak into the Church to hear what News and then hit his very heart against this supposition But I will enlarge my self in a comprehensive Note for all this Audience whatsoere we are what use soever ye mean to make of the Preacher and the Sermon being both plain homely stuff and will serve perchance at dinner to fill out discourse and help to hold comparisons However God deprehend us now or apply himself to us here or we to him and his Vicegerent in our affections or intentions good or bad Once however we differ yet one primordial and finall sentence is past upon us all one Law gone out and over all mankind that arrests and enwraps takes in all Prince and people and layes up all together Dust thou art be sure and as sure to dust thou shalt return Every son of man like the first from the earth earthy A good touch this is by the way to humble us even in our most exalted imaginations 16. And though we hearken to the rest of mans Description with more alacrity which tells us so man became a living soul yet if thou do not become that soul but spoil'd it in the wearing nay if that soul serve thee only for salt to keep thy flesh from putrefaction if that soul become not a new soul though man be a living soul yet better he had had neither soul nor life unless the new man the second Adam the Lord from heaven heavenly become the life of thy soul and thou lead a new life by the power of the Son of God if the quickening Grace of his mighty Spirit if the same hand of the Lord God here that formed do not reform thee We talk of Reformation and Reformation in State and Church I am not able to look to those things of my self but I am able by Gods gracious assistance to look to this reformation of my self And certainly as families make towns and they make Common-wealths and Churches so private and particular persons are the roots and springs of all and their several Reformations are the roots and springs of all Reformation too But yet as in Reforming States I doubt not but Statesmen and the most stately of them had need to be instant in prayer to God or else without his blessing all may prove but a shock and conflict of wits nay worse for Bella horrida Bella may ensue except he bless unless the Lord God keep us Builders and Watchmen shall do all in vain So is it manifest in the reforming of our souls for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works Eph. 2.10 And this discerning the work of God in his own brest is that other book to which I would refer man for discovery of himself The book of conscience it is which lies open and layes man open to himself if he read there and find digitum Dei the Hand-writing of God both of Law and Gospel in his heart ingrav'd in that Table then it is another a second book of Genesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a new beginning of new Light struck up and a new Birth of a new world of Beauty and harmony struck from his old chaos of corrupt Nature and a new Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The book of his Regeneration Gods spirit bearing witness with his spirit that he is the child of God and a Volume a tome a piece of Gods works nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 2 10. A Poem a masterpiece of Gods own workmanship in Christ Jesus Reformed review'd view'd and corrected by the Author and purged from infinite errors is in Lucem editus Reprinted and comes forth into the Light multò auctior locupletior that is Emendatior in this new and second Edition But how shall I know this Indeed that Question is turned into a tormenting scruple by some evil Informers but the knowledge is easie to them that will observe the alteration Even as we know an A B C from a Testament by the contents and augmentation And even as certainly and as sensibly as I find my self past Genesis when I am in Exodus For this Genesis doth ever resolve into an Exodus that is a going out of Aegypt in a Deliverance evidenced to his soul from the thraldom of sin and tyranny
of his own corruptions by Gods mighty hand and out-stretched arm and a Passover by the Lambs blood sprinkled and flesh eaten with the sowr herbs of Repentance and a leaving behind him those rocky dangers and roaring wilds of sin and sea of vanity from whence when he looks back he stands still and beholding the Salvation of the Lord he fears the Lord and believes the Lord as t is in Exod. 14. ult and sings that song of Moses and the children of Israel Exod. 15. The Lord is my strength the Lord is become my salvation who is like unto thee O Lord glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders If now we should proceed from hence to fall upon the Redargution of such as mind no part of this Learning and hating to be reformed are loth to look into these books I should shew my self unmindfull of this presence and too far stretch my abusing of a Royall patience reserving therefore what may make up another exercise I conclude with prayer S. D. G. THE SECOND SERMON ON THIS TEXT AT COVRT GEN 3.9 The Lord God called unto the man and said Adam where art thou 1. IN the first opening of this Scripture which is an Introduction to Gods judicial Proceeding against Man after his sin and so the first Book-case that ever was recorded and being a loading case should therefore premonish all the sons of Adans to prevent a Second by a timely consideration of this first Judgement I made four parts the two first are the two parties appearing in this Judicature God the Judge and Man the Delinquent The other two are the manner of the Process by way of calling and the matter of the Summons Where art thou Of which the sense is double by way of Question first and then in a way of Commiseration 2. Concerning the first particular and the Judges names of Lord and God I spake fully the last time and of the dangerous nature of sin which provokes so great and then so gracious a Lord God to indignation to hate and then to punishment Finding this boundless Ocean of God his Names and Nature too profound we came to a discovery of Man our second Particular and observing how hard it is for man to search into himself for the advancement of every mans learning in this difficult point I pointed you to two books the first this book of Genesis and therein Principally the fourth Chapter verse 7. wherein is laid down by God such a description of man as will let us easily discern our wretched and earthly materials which to reform I told you of the other book the book of Conscience wherein as in a Glass a man man view himself and see of what fashion he is that is whether yet abiding in Genesis or be past over into an Exodus and escaped in some good measure the corruptions which be in nature and in the world through Lusts And now it is fit we fulfill what was promised of â—nnexing hereunto a Redargution of such proud or dull people as seem to scorn the Perusal of these two volumes full of heavenly Instruction but specially abhor to look into the last and therefore my Reproof shall chiefly intend and pitch upon that part of their Delinquency 3. Two sorts of men then there are both ignorant and arrogant that reject this book of Conscience as Apocryphal nor endure thereby to be put to their Purgation to their Clergy where the Versicle is both Greck and Latine Heathen and Christian too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Miserere mei too both irksom and unpleasant Doctrines to them The first of these is the Painted Pharisee who thinks himself and thinks he is scarce to thank God and thanks himself that he is not like other men but one per se that can predestinate elect call justifie sanctifie and glorifie himself for he can view and review and discover and relate at pleasure those Records above and find or set down there his own certain and it may be the name of a special friend of his too if he think fit in that book of life above without searching those rouls above or examining the book of his own life For as we have Mushrum Preachers Lecturing before reading and a birth before conception miraculous Fellows And I would that were the worst would it were but froth and vanity and a tedious nothing and that they did not conceive mischief and bring forth sedition So their Disciples or rather their Patrons and Matrons too can make sure work of their salvation without working it out with fear and trembling and are pefect in Heavens way by a directory of their own private spirit without book The second is the meer worldling Filius terrae earth-born and bred that comes up like a vernal flower in green and yellow a kind of Narcissus and like him becomes his own glass and book There he studies and pores and doats day and night and esteems himself a rare piece because fairly bound up in Velome with silk strings painted and guilded and embost with his Arms and Empress engraven and printed cum priviligio in a large Folio Stultitiam patiuntur opes But Quid intus He that runs may read him through In the very Frontispice and Title-page in capital Letters stand Caro and Carion and Carcase and nothing else but a few scatterred Principles and Conclusions of flesh and blood Or if Homo be there 't is sunk beneath his species and drowned in Animals in malis not beset with or set on by but set in evil in maligno positus and it is a Permalignancy like a compleat Armor from the Crown of the head saith I saiah to the sole of his foot It is not quartering nor a Party per pale but his whole Scutcheon is una litera Coat and Crest and Supporters and all He walks with a stiff neck saith the Scripture and strengthens himself in his wickedness and makes his boast that he can and will do mischief and yet this wretched thing will brag of Descent and coming in with Conquerors and Kings Alas Where art thou O vain man Here I am sure both he and we were once in Massa corrupta Our prime Ancestor you see a Rebel and the next of our kin Illud quod dicere nolo we can get no Credit by naming him And then in this miserable condition if he be a King on earth never so highly born unless he be born again he can never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven unless washt and made Kings and Priests in his blood and restored in that second Adam The meer natural man may derive himself from Belus but Gods calls every such man a son of Belial and his condition is Bellual nay worse then that of the brute beast though he be a man still And though this may anger and offend him to be told thus barely of it yet such a man but I shall hope there is no such man here must know that if
and Wresters of a Text would force them up That only I intend and yet will crave leave a little to insist upon which that question seems to others of sound Judgement to imply and is no coacted no violent expression namely the Misery and desolation of Adam and consequently of all his Race by disobedience Quanta de spe but here is more Quanta de re decidit 11. First then his condition in general notice calls to mind that Gourd of Jonas now green and flourishing and anon blasted and eaten down by that Rerum destructrix that corroding blind worm of disobedience And as on Jonas it brought the Tempest and the Whale and confounded all his joyes in the Gourd after so here it was the confusion the dispersion and dissipation of all that beauteous flock of Graces in our first Parents bosoms and their exclusion from the pleasures of the Terrestrial and danger of Deprivation o◠coelestial Paradise 12. In which consideration Let us first discipher as we may the sin and take then an account as we are able of the loss As for their sin we find the School-men anxious and perplext as indeed a little thing will trouble them to what species to what head to refer it 13. Disobedience That 's the Ocean or the sink rather into which all sin runs Though in special distribution Perjury is rankt under Sacriledge as Usurpation under this General of Theft and so of other sins marching under several Banners yet all is Disobedience and all Disobedience rises from that cursed root of Covetousness That is an inordinate Desire and Affectation of things prohibited by the Law of God And apparently this offence of our Delinquents here issued from that wild and insatiat desire But yet even that Desire that evil Covetise arises and springs from another and a deeper root and that is Pride Initium omnis peccati Superbia Ecclus 10.14 And the Devil that had tried it so himself knew that was the way to lift up mans heart against his Maker by an Infusion and Inflation of becoming like God Hearkning after false Riches and Ambition of false knowledge beggered us all and left us all in Ignorance and Darkness till a new Light and Day-spring from on high do visit us till that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do reddert diem rise in our hearts and reimplenish us from his fulness in whom all knowledge and all the Treasures of Wisdom are both hidden and as far as they can concern us are also made manifest 14. This for the sin Now secondly what the losses are Non mihi si centum and again Quis talia fando For alas Besides those natural Endowments and Abiliaments Life of the body to be perpetuated as the Angels and that plenary knowledge arguable from mans imposing apt names on all the Creatures and Gods framing of man then in perfection of all things by man acquirable there was a supernatural Influx of divine Faith in admirable clearness both of the Object and the internal Power with lucide Notions of the Trinity and of the then future Incarnation too as some great Wits have imagined because the adventurous and dazling School-men daring to flie at all and to prie into the secret Cabinet of Gods Council have thought and taught that if man had persisted in his station of integrity yet God would have dwelt in fulness in a body of derivative clay and have been manifest in the flesh both to witness his infinite Power therein that being an act of incomprehensible greatness which in all the Fabrique of Heaven and Earth and all their various furniture to those great rooms God had yet wrought no such piece as could demonstrate it and then also for the evidencing of his infinite Love unto that Creature Man to whom he desired to descend in a nearer Union then was testified by his first inspiration And even Saint Austin is of opinion that God as now to Angels did then impart to Man the science of many things in simul quae non simul fiunt in his eleventh book De Genesi ad Literam cap. 13. But above all was the choicest Jewel of Original Justice wherein rested the Image of God in a special manner mingled with a manifold linage and a numerous brood of excellencies all adorning that soul which sat enthroned in the radiance thereof without clouds of trouble or error in the pure contemplation of her Creator entirely holy yet and bridled and becalmed in those we call the Irascible and Concupiscible parts All which was ruined by admitting Satans question first which makes them here unable to sustain themselves or endure Gods question now and occasioned all their Off-spring all th sons of men to vex themselves with intricate and thorny and infinite questions and drew on man that description which every one finds true in his own trial Animal Aevibrevissimi infinitae solicitudinis 15. And now nothing hinders no man can forbid us to call this opening of the case for so is a point of Divinity in our Profession though the fee be not ever after one a Doctrine if you please so to accept it from my mouth which in effect in the matter of this question and in the present mystick sense it bears is so delivered from the mouth of God himself and dropping so as a Dew as a balmy showr and coelestial influence will if we open our Bosoms our Hearts and Understandings and Affections to receive and cherish it with care and conscienscious Devotion produce many usefull flowers But if I should now adventure on a collection or distribution of those flowers I could not but extend your patience beyond the ordinary limits and therefore shall refer them to another opportunity and now commend all we have heard thus far to the Grace and Blessing of God in Christ Jesus to whom c. S. D. G. THE FOURTH SERMON on this TEXT GEN. 3.9 The Lord God called unto the man and said Adam where art thou AT the first entrance on this Text I called it an Introduction to the judicial proceeding of God against man after his sin for after sin comes Judgement ever so aborigine Adams case the first book-case that ever was And Judgement saith St. Peter begins at the house here is more It begins at the Son of God so saith St Luke expresly of Adam which was the Son of God An impudent hope then for any son of man to look for impunity Rather all must look in several one day to hear this call of God Where art thou Wheresoever thou shalt be or howsoever found dead among those that live in pleasures drowned and soaked in fleshly lusts or choakt in worldly cares or quick from the dead from that dispersion and resolution to watety slime and mud to earthly dust or aery Atoms All the mass and collective body of mankind once made and then at once remade by his Almighty Word shall hear his Almighty Word that Voice and Trump of God Return
ye sont of men Arise and come to Judgement Let us do so Arise quicken our thoughts prepare for since prevent we cannot that last by considering of this first Judgement 2. Wherein the parts we made at first are four The two first the two parties appearing in the Judgement God the Judge and Man the Delinquent then the manner of the process by way of calling and last the matter of the process and summons Where art thou in literal sense Whither fled But in the mystick caries a secret increpation and touch of pitty as if he had said How is man the glory of my works fallen to be the shame of all my creatures And of this sense I must entreat you to be mindfull now in special because now I shall make special use of this sense only 3 Both the parties God and Mâ—n and how far the divine Nature is laid forth in these names and then how far we were enabled to take notice of mans condition by the help of two books this book of Genesis first and then another volum which we cary about us the book of Conscience I have already shewed at large as also what we are to think of and what to learn both by the manner and matter of this summons in literal sense Of all which things I will make no repetition nor will I touch any more upon that review of the Text wherein I divided it into two parts only namely a Judgement and the methode of that Judgement Nor of that Doctrine on easie inference and uses thence deducible That our Judgement shall certainly overtake and come upon us to cause us first to stand in aw and not sin against God and then yet to love the Lord for beginning a foundation of a mercy-seat where he first erected his Throne for Justice even in Paradise in that promise of the womans seed to bruise the serpents head Nor will I speak any further of the Methode of Gods proceeding first calling to the man before the woman or the Serpent Nor of the different addressing of this Judgement against the first Monarch of mankind wherein he proceeds by himself immediately and that Judgement afterwards against the two first Kings of his own people wherein he doth all by Delegates by sending his Prophets of which divers reasons are rendred by Interpreters But passing all over that hath passed in several handlings of the words come we only to reflect on that which I called the mystick sense of the last part which is the question Where art thou that is for so I find it opened Where is thy former happiness To what a miserable state art thou now by sin reduced How hath thy fall bruised the seal and defaced that glorious Image I created in thee Alas Adam where art thou From which passionate Increpation and Rebuke mixt with a gracious bemoaning of mans fall divers doctrinal points might be raised as the term is if a man should raise as some do such things as would sleep and be quiet or lie for dead if no such Raisers and Wresters would enforce them up That I only intend and yet will crave leave to insist upon is what this question seems to others to imply and is no coacted no violent expression namely the mifery and desolation of Adam and consequently of all his race by Disobedience Quanta de re decidit 4. In which consideration first the sin was disobedience from a double root of evil An inordinate Covetize of what God had prohibited and pride of heart to be as God which was the fall both of man and devil The losses by this fall which disperst the whole flock of divine Graces were life of body to be perpetuated as the Angels plenary knowledge with a supernatural influx of divine Faith in admirable clearness both of the object and the internal power with lucide notions of the Trinity and the then future incarnation But above all that choicest Jewel of original Justice And now the Doctrine from this part of the Text in this sense opened and dropping thus from the mouth of God himself will as an Influence coelestial if we open our bosoms our hearts and Understandings and Affections to receive and cherish it with care and conscientious Devotion produce many usefull flowers 5. The first flower or use if so we will call it that is the first good way to take in appliance of this Truth is to sit down like the mourning Levite in the Psalm by the waters of Babylon and looking back and remembring Sion reflecting on the pleasures of the first state in the Garden of Eden turn words to sighs and melt our brains to tears in doleful recounting our lost beatitude and sight of our deplorable condition Where first in stead of a glorious is inferred a sordid nakedness with internal turpitude and privation of all those excellencies Rebellion in the flesh and appetite drawing on black guiltiness and Deformity and a liableness to eternal damnation all sprung from that bitter root of Pride cloven into two one explicite of eating the forbidden fruit the other implicite of unthankfulness to God which was doubtless their sin of omission Ingratitude being the principle and primipile of sin then as it continues the core and bottom of all ill nature ever since 6. Secondly Weigh mans misery in that only term of Destitutus the state of dereliction whereby the appetite becomes enormous having now no guide which is a thing we are so far from missing or hating that from our youth up 't is fatally affected by us all Tandem custode remoto What then why then Cereus in vitium flecti flexible and moldable into any form of vanity or wickedness For it is just so with all the children of Adam as with a child left of his Parents and Tutors to himself which rooted inborn Pravity is bound with Iron round and close unto our souls that even Gods own reborn sons and daughters feel and bewail it in themselves So far St. Paul will witness to the whole world and gives Glory to God in that woful confession O miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from that body of sin and death And thither I must not scorn tocome and Thou and He though thou upon the ground or in a Dungeon and he as high as ever man was mounted on a Throne or in a Palace We all though admitted with open face to contemplate the joyes of heaven in the face of Jesus Christ shining in a Gospel of Peace and Salvation yet in our selves with shame and confusion of face and spirit must pronounce that Wo that Vae misero mihi to every one of our selves single and in a deep sense of our own perversness and infirmity before we can come with comfort to take up that following Antheme of our Apostle I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us then labor beloved in our Lord and Saviour to be truly humble in the sense of this our Orphan