to bear any slavish yoak had a tyrannical meaning in his words But in this Text as in one of those Tables in which by changing the station and the line you use to see two pictures you have a good picture of a good King and of a good subject for in one line you see such a subject as Loves pureness of heart and hath grace in his lips In the other line you see the King gracious yea friendly to such a subject He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend The sum of the words is that God will make an honest man acceptable to the King for some ability which he shall employ to the publike Him that proceeds sincerely in a lawful calling God will bless and prosper and he will seal this blessing to him even with that which is his own seal his own image the favor of the King He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend We will not be curious in placing these two pictures nor considering which to consider first As he that would vow a fast till he had found in nature whether the Egge or the Hen were first in the world might perchance starve himself so that King or that subject which would forbear to do their several duties Serm. 24. till they had found which of them were most necessary to one another might starve one another for King and subjects are Relatives and cannot be considered in execution of their duties but together The greatest Mystery in Earth or Heaven which is the Trinity is conveyed to our understanding no other way then so as they have reference to one another by Relation as we say in the Schools for God could not be a father without a Son nor the Holy Ghost Spiratus sine spirante As in Divinity so in Humanity too Relations constitute one another King and subject come at once and together into consideration Neither is it so pertinent a consideration which of them was made for others sake as that they were both made for Gods sake and equally bound to advance his glory Here in our Text we finde the subjects picture first Divisio And his Marks are two first Pureness of Heart That he be an honest Man And then Grace of lips that he be good for something for by this phrase Grace of lips is expressed every ability to do any office of society for the Publike good The first of these Pureness of heart he must love The other that is Grace of lips that is other Abilities he must have but he must not be in love with them nor over-value them In the Kings picture the principal marke is That he shall be friendly and gracious but gracious to him that hath this Grace of lips to him that hath endeavored in some way to be of use to the Publike And not to him neither for all the grace of his lips for all his good parts except he also love pureness of heart but He that loveth pureness of heart There 's the foundation for the grace of his lips There 's the upper-building the King shall be his friend In the first then which is this Pureness of heart we are to consider Rem sedem Modum what this Pureness is Part. 1. Puritas Then where it is to be lodged and fixed In the heart and after that the way and means by which this Pureness of heart is acquired and preserved which is implyed and notified in that Affection wherewith this pureness of heart is to be embraced and entertained which is love For Love is so noble so soveraign an Affection as that it is due to very few things and very few things worthy of it Love is a Possessory Affection it delivers over him that loves into the possession of that that he loves it is a transmutatory Affection it changes him that loves into the very nature of that that he loves and he is nothing else For the first Pureness it self It is carried to a great heighth Res. for our imitation God knows too great for our imitation when Christ bids us be perfect Mat. 5.48 even as our father which is in heaven is perfect As though it had not been perfectness enough to be perfect as the Son upon earth was perfect he carries us higher Be perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect The Son upon Earth Christ Jesus had all our infirmities and imperfections upon him hunger and weariness and hearty sorrow to death and that which alone is All Mortality Death it self And though he were Innocence it self and knew no sin yet there was no sin that he knew not for all our sins were his He was not onely made Man and by taking by Admitting though not by Committing our sins as well as our nature sinful Man but he was made sin for our sakes And therefore though he say of himself sicut ego John 15.10 Keep my Commandements even as I have kept my fathers Commandements yet still he refers all originally to the Father and because he was under our infirmities and our iniquities he never says though he might well have said so sicut ego Be pure be perfect as I am perfect and pure but sicut Pater be pure as your Father in heaven is pure Hand to hand with the Father Christ disclaims himself Mat. 26.39 disavows himself Non sicut ego Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt O Father We are not referr'd for the pattern of our purity though we might be safely to him that came from heaven The Son but to him which is in heaven The Father Nor to the Sun which is in heaven the Sun that is the pure fountain of all natural light nor to the Angels which are in heaven though they be pure in their Nature and refined by a continual emanation of the beams of glory upon them from the face of God but the Father which is in heaven is made the pattern of our purity That so when we see the exact purity which we should aim at and labor for we might the more seriously lament and the more studiously endeavor the amendment of that extreme and enormous fouleness and impurity in which we who should be pure as our Father which is in heaven is pure exceed the dog that turns to his own vomit again 2 Pet. 2.22 and the Sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire Yet there is no foulness so foul so inexcusable in the eys of God nor that shall so much aggravate our condemnation as a false affectation and an hypocritical counterfeiting of this Purity There is a Pureness a cleanness imagin'd rather dream't of in the Romane Church by which as their words are the soul is abstracted not onely à Passionibus but â Phantasmatibus not onely from passions and perturbations but from the ordinary way of coming to
that which we intend by his being justified a spiritu suo by his own spirit is not by the testimony that he gave of himself but by that Spirit that God-head that dwelt bodily in him and declared him and justified him in that high power and practise of Miracles When Christ came into this world as if he had come a day before any day a day before Moses his in principio before there was any creature for when Christ came there was creatures that could exercise any natural faculty in opposition to his purposes when Nature his Vicegerent gave up her sword to his hands when the Sea shut up her selfe like Marble and bore him and the Earth opened her selfe like a book to deliver out her dead to wait upon him when the winds in the midst of their own roaring could heare his voyce and Death it self in putrid and corrupt carkases could heare his voice when his own body whom his own soul had left abandoned was not abandoned by this Spirit by this Godhead for the Deity departed not from the dead body of Christ then was Christ especially justified by this Spirit in whose power he raised himself from the dead he was justified in Spiritu Sancto and in spiritu suo two witnesses were enough for him Adde a third for thy self justificetur in Spiritu tuo let him be justified in thy spirit God is safe enough in himself and yet it was a good declaratory addition that the Publicans justified God Luke 7.29 Mat. 2.19 Wisdom is safe enough of her self and yet Wisdome is justified of her children Christ is sufficiently justified but justificetur in Spiritu tuo in thy spirit To say If I consider the Talmud Christ may as well be the Messias as any whom the Jews place their marks upon if I consider the Alchoran Christ is like enough to be a better Prophet then Mahomet if I consider the Arguments of the Arrians Christ may be the Son of God for all that if I consider the Church of Rome and ours he is as likely to manifest himself in his own Word here as there in their word to say but so Christ may be God for any thing I know this is but to baile him not to justifie him not to quit him but to put him over to the Sessions to the great Sessions where he shall justifie himself but none of them who do not justifie him testifie for him in spiritu suo sincerely in their souls nay that 's not enough to justifie is an act of declaration 1 Cor. 2.2 and no man knowes what is in man but the spirit of man and therefore he that leaves any outward thing undone that belongs to his calling for Christ is so far from having justified Christ as that at the last day he shall meet his voice with them that cried Crucifie him and with theirs that cried Not Christ but Barabbas if thou doubt in thy heart if thou disguise in thine actions non justificatur in spiritu tuo Christ is not justified in thy spirit and that 's it which concernes thee most Christ had all this testimony more Visus ab Angelis Visus ab Angelis he was seen of Angels which is not onely visited by Angels serv'd by Angels waited upon by Angels so he was and he was so in every passage in every step An Angel told his mother that he should be born and an Angel told the Shepherd that he was born and that which directed the wise men of the East where to finde him when he was born is also believed by some of the Ancients to have been an Angel in the likeness of a Star When he was tempted by the Devil Angels came and ministred to him Mat. 4.2 but the Devil had left him before his own power Luke 22.43 had dissipated his In his Agony in the Garden an Angel came from heaven to strengthen him but he had recovered before and was come to his Veruntamen Not my will but thine be done He told Peter Mat. 26.53 he could have more then twelve legions of Angels to assist him but he would not have the assistance of his own sword he denies not that which the Devil sayes that the Angels had in charge that he should not dash his foot against a stone Mat. 4.6 but they had an easie service of it for his foot never dasht never stumbled never tripp'd in any way As soon as any stone lay in his way an Angel removed it Mat. 28.2 He rolled away the stone from the sepulchre There the Angel testified to the women that sought him not onely that he was not there that was a poor comfort but where he was He is gone into Galilee and there you shall finde him There also the Angel testified to the men of Galilee that look'd after him not onely that he was gone up that was but a poor comfort but that he should come again Acts 1.2 The same Jesus shall so come as he went There in Heaven they perform that service whilest he stayes there Heb. 1.6 which they are call'd upon to do Let all the Angels of God worship him and in judgement when the Son of man shall come in his glory all the holy Angels shall be with him in every point of that great compass in every arch in every section of that great circle of which no man knowes the Diameter how long it shall be from Christs first coming to his second visus ab Angelis he was seen he was visited he was waited upon by the Angels But there is more intended in this then so Christ was seen of the Angels otherwise now then ever before something was reveal'd to the Angels themselves concerning Christ which they knew not before at least not so as they knew it now For all the Angels do not alwayes know all things if they had there would have been no dissention no strife no difference between the two Angels Dan. 10. the Angel of Persia would not have withstood the other Angel 21 dayes neither would have resisted Gods purpose if both had known it S. Dionyse who considers the names and natures and places and apprehensions of Angels most of any observes of the highest orders of Angels Ordin supremi ad Jesu aspectum haesitabant the highest of the highest orders of Angels were amaz'd at Christs coming up in the Flesh it was a new and unexpected thing to see Christ come thither in that manner There they say with amazement Quis iste Isa 63.1 Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah And Christ answers there Ego it is I I that speak in righteousness I that am mighty to save The Angels reply Wherefore are thy garments red like him that treadeth the wine-press and Christ gives them satisfaction calcavi You mistake not the matter I have trodden the wine-press and calcavi solus I have trodden the wine-press alone and of
8. and bearing of our sicknesses Or to be no richer or no more provident then so To sell all and give it away Luc. 12. and make a treasure in Heaven and all this for fear of Theeves and Rust and Canker and Moths here That which is not allowable in Courts of Justice in criminal Causes To hear Evidence against the King we will admit against God we will hear Evidence against God we will hear what mans reason can say in favor of the Delinquent why he should be condemned why God should punish the soul eternally for the momentany pleasures of the body Nay we suborn witnesses against God and we make Philosophy and Reason speak against Religion and against God though indeed Omne verum omni vero consentiens whatsoever is true in Philosophy is true in Divinity too howsoever we distort it and wrest it to the contrary We hear Witnesses and we suborn Witnesses against God and we do more we proceed by Recriminations and a cross Bill with a Quia Deus because God does as he does we may do as we do Because God does not punish Sinners we need not forbear sins whilst we sin strongly by oppressing others that are weaker or craftily by circumventing others that are simple This is but Leoninum and Vulpinum that tincture of the Lyon and of the Fox that brutal nature that is in us But when we come to sin upon reason and upon discourse upon Meditation and upon plot This is Humanum to become the Man of Sin to surrender that which is the Form and Essence of man Reason and understanding to the service of sin When we come to sin wisely and learnedly to sin logically by a Quia and an Ergo that Because God does thus we may do as we do we shall come to sin through all the Arts and all our knowledge To sin Grammatically to tie sins together in construction in a Syntaxis in a chaine and dependance and coherence upon one another And to sin Historically to sin over sins of other men again to sin by precedent and to practice that which we had read And we come to sin Rhetorically perswasively powerfully and as we have found examples for our sins in History so we become examples to others by our sins to lead and encourage them in theirs when we come to employ upon sin that which is the essence of man Reason and discourse we will also employ upon it those which are the properties of man onely which are To speak and to laugh we will come to speak and talk and to boast of our sins and at last to laugh and jest at our sins and as we have made sin a Recreation so we will make a jest of our condemnation And this is the dangerous slipperiness of sin to slide by Thoughts and Actions and Habits to contemptuous obduration Part II. Now amongst the manifold perversnesses and incongruities of this artificial sinning of sinning upon Reason upon a quia and an ergo of arguing a cause for our sin this is one That we never assigne the right cause we impute our sin to our Youth to our Constitution to our Complexion and so we make our sin our Nature we impute it to our Station to our Calling to our Course of life and so we make our sin our Occupation we impute it to Necessity to Perplexity that we must necessarily do that or a worse sin and so we make our sin our Direction We see the whole world is Ecclesia malignantium Psal 26.5 a Synagogue a Church of wicked men and we think it a Schismatical thing to separate our selves from that Church and we are loth to be excommunicated in that Church and so we apply our selves to that we do as they do with the wicked we are wicked and so we make our sin our Civility And though it be some degree of injustice to impute all our particular sins to the devil himself after a habit of sin hath made us spontaneos daemones Chrysost devils to our selves yet we do come too near an imputing our sins to God himself when we place such an impossibility in his Commandments as makes us lazie that because we cannot do all therefore we will do nothing or such a manifestation and infallibility in his Decree as makes us either secure or desperate and say The Decree hath sav'd me therefore I can take no harm or The Decree hath damn'd me therefore I can do no good No man can assigne a reason in the Sun why his body casts a shadow why all the place round about him is illumin'd by the Sun the reason is in the Sun but of his shadow there is no other reason but the grosness of his own body why there is any beam of light any spark of life in my soul he that is the Lord of light and life and would not have me die in darkness is the onely cause but of the shadow of death wherein I sit there is no cause but mine own corruption And this is the cause why I do sin but why I should sin there is none at all Yet in this Text the Sinner assignes a cause and it is Quia non mutationes Because they have no Changes God hath appointed that earth which he hath given to the sons of men to rest and stand still and that heaven which he reserves for those sons of men who are also the sons of God he hath appointed to stand still too All that is between heaven and earth is in perpetual motion and vicissitude but all that is appointed for man mans possession here mans reversion hereafter earth and heaven is appointed for rest and stands still and therefore God proceeds in his own way and declares his love most where there are fewest Changes This rest of heaven he hath expressed often by the name of a Kingdom as in that Petition Thy kingdom come And that rest which is to be derived upon us here in earth he expresses in the same phrase too when having presented to the children of Israel an Inventary and Catalogue of all his former blessings he concludes all includes all in this one Et prosperata es in regnum I have advanced thee to be a kingdom which form God hath not onely still preserv'd to us but hath also united Kingdoms together and to give us a stronger body and safer from all Changes whereas he hath made up other Kingdoms of Towns and Cities he hath made us a Kingdom of Kingdoms and given us as many Kingdoms to our Kingdom as he hath done Cities to some other Gods gracious purpose then to man being Rest and a contented Reposedness in the works of their several Callings and his purpose being declared upon us in the establishing and preserving of such a Kingdom as hath the best Body best united in it self and knit together and the best Legs to stand upon Peace and Plenty and the best Soul to inanimate and direct it Truth
Declaration of an inward purpose by execution of that purpose that his Dixit his saying R. Moses It is sufficiently expressed by Rab Moses In Creatione Dicta sunt voluntates In the act of Creation the Will of GOD was the Word of God his Will that it should be was his saying Let it be Of which it is a convenient example which is in the Prophet Jonah 2.10 The Lord spake unto the Fish and it vomited Jonah upon the dry Land that is God would have the Fish to do it and it did it God spake then in the Creation but he spake Ineffabiliter says St. Aug. August without uttering any sound He spake but he spake Intemporaliter says that Father too without spending any time in distinction of syllables But yet when he spoke Aliquis ad fuit as Athanasius presses it Athan. surely there was some body with him there was says he VVho Verbum ejus ad fuit ad fuit Spiritus ejus says he truly the second Person in the Trinity his Eternal VVord and the third Person the Holy Ghost were both there at the Creation and to them he spoke For By the Word of the Lord were the heavens framed and all the host of them Spiritu oris ejus Job 33.4 by that Spirit that proceeded from him says David The Spirit of God hath made me 26. 13. and By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens So that in one word thou who wast nothing hast employed and set on work the heart and hand of all the three Perâ—ons in the blessed and glorious Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost to the making of thee and then what oughtest thou to be and to do in retribution and not to make thee that which thou art now a Christian but even to make thee that wherein 〈◊〉 wast equal to a worm to a grain of dust Hast thou put the whole Trinity to busie themselves upon thee and therefore what shouldst thou be towards them But here in this branch we consider not so much not his noblest Creature Man but his first Creature Light He commanded and he commanded Light And of Light we say no more in this place but this that in all the Scriptures in which the word Light is very often metaphorically applyed it is never applyed in an ill sence Christ is called a Lyon but there is an ill Lyon too that seeks whom he may devour Christ is the serpent that was exalted but there is an ill serpent that did devour us all at once But Christ is the light of the world and no ill thing is call'd light Light was Gods signature by which he set his hand to the Creation and therefore as Princes signe above the Letter and not below God made light first in that first Creature he declared his presence his Majesty the more in that he commanded light out of darkness There was Lumen de Lumine before light of light very God of very God an eternal Son of an eternal Father before But light out of darkness is Musick out of silence It was one distinct plague of Egypt darkness above and one distinct blessing that the children of Israel had light in their dwellings But for some spiritual Applications of light and darkness we shall have room again when after we shall have spoken of our second part our Vocation as God hath shin'd in our hearts positively we shall come to speak of that shining comparatively That God hath so shin'd in our hearts as he commanded light out of darkness And to those two Branches of our second part the positive and comparative Consideration of that shining we are in order come now In the first part we were made in this second we are mended Part II. in the first we were brought into this world in this second we are led through it in the first we are Creatures in this we are Christians God hath shin'd in our hearts In this part Divisio we shall have two Branches a positive and a comparative consideration of the words First the matter it self what this shining is and it is the conversion of Man to God by the ministry of the Gospel and secondly how this manner of expressing it answers the comparison As God commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts And in the first the positive we shall pass by these few and short steps first Gods action Illuxit he shine it is evidence Manifestation And then the time when this day breaks when this Sun rises Illuxit he hath shin'd he hath done enough already Thirdly the place the sphere in which he shines the Orb which he hath illumin'd in Cordibus if he shine he shines in the heart And lastly the persons upon whom he casts his beams in Cordibus nostris in our hearts And having past these four in the positive part we shall descend to the comparative as God commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts 1. Lucet First then for Gods action his working in the Christian Church which is our Vocation we consider man to be all to be all Creatures Mar. 16.15 according to that expression of our Saviour's Go preach the Gospel to every Creature and agreeable to that largeness in which he receiv'd it Colos 1.23 the Apostle delivers it The Gospel is preached to every Creature under heaven The properties the qualities of every Creature are in man the Essence the Existence of every Creature is for man so man is every Creature And therefore the Philosopher draws man into too narrow a table when he says he is Microcosmos an Abridgement of the world in little Nazianzen gives him but his due when he calls him Mundum Magnum a world to which all the rest of the world is but subordinate For all the world besides is but Gods Foot-stool Man sits down upon his right hand and howsoever God be in all the world yet how did God dwell in man in the assumption of that nature and what care did GOD take of that dwelling that when that house was demolished would yet dwell in the ruines thereof for the Godhead did not depart from the dead body of Christ Jesus in the Grave And then how much more gloriously then before did he re-edifie that house in raising it again to Glory Man therefore is Cura Divini ingenii Tertul. a creature upon whom not onely the greatness and the goodness but even the study and diligence of God is employed And being thus a greater world then the other he must be greater in all his parts and so in his lights and so he is for instead of this light which the world had at first Man hath a nobler light an immortal a discerning soul the light of reason Instead of the many stars which this world hath man hath had the light of the Law and the succession of the Prophets And instead of that Sun which
ask that Judge and it will be so and it will be so if you ask the Counsel on the other side Ask the Council of Trent it self and the Idolaters of that Council will not say that our Church affirmes any Errour neither can they say that we leave any truth unaffirmed which the Primitive Church affirm'd to be necessary to salvation For those things which the Schoole hath drawn into disputation since as their form is in the beginning of every question to say Videtur quod non one would think it were otherwise if when they have said all I return to the beginning again Videtur quod non I think it is otherwise still Must I be damned The evidence for my salvation is my Credo not their Probo And if I must get Heaven by a Syllogism John 10.29 my Major is Credo in Deum patrem I believe in God the Father for Pater major the Father is greater then all And my Minor shall be Credo in Deum Filium I believe in God the Son Qui exivit de patre he came from God And my Conclusion which must proceed from Major Minor shall be Credo in Spiritum Sanctum I believe in the Holy Ghost who proceeds from Father and Son And this Syllogisme brought me into the Militant Church in my Baptisme and this will carry me into the Triumphant in my Transmigration for doctrine of Salvation is matter without controversie Myster But yet as clear as it is it is a Mystery a Secret not that I cannot see it but that I cannot see it with any eyes that I can bring Mat. 16.16 not with the eye of Nature Flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee sayes Christ to Peter not with the eye of Learning Thou hast hid these things from the wise sayes Christ to his Father not with the eye of State that wheresoever I see a good Government I should presume a good Religion for we do not admit the Church of Rome and yet we doe admire the Court of Rome nor with the eye of a private sence 2 Pet. 1.20 for no prophecy of any Scripture for Quod non nisi instinctu Dei scitur prophetia est that which I cannot understand by reason but by especiall assistance from God all that is Prophecy No Scripture is of private interpretation I see not this mystery by the eye of Nature of Learning of State of mine own private sence but I see it by the eye of the Church by the light of Faith that 's true but yet organically instrumentally by the eye of the Church And this Church is that which proposes to me all that is necessay to my salvation in the Word and seals all to me in the Sacraments If another man see or think he sees more then I if by the help of his Optick glasses or perchance but by his imagination he see a star or two more in any constellation then I do yet that starre becomes none of the constellation it addes no limb no member to the constellation that was perfect before so if other men see that some additional and traditional things may adde to the dignity of the Church let them say it conduces to the well-being not to the very being to the existence not to the essence of the Church for that 's onely things necessary to salvation And this mystery is Faith in a pure conscience 1 Tim. 3.9 for that 's the same thing that is called Godliness in this text and it is to profess the Gospel of Christ Jesus sincerely and intirely to have a conscience testifying to himself that he hath contributed nothing to the diminution of it that he labours to live by it that he hopes to die in it that he feares not to die for it This is Mysterium opertum apertum 2 Cor. 4.3 Col. 1.26 hid from those that are lost but manifested to his Saints It is a Mystery a great Mystery that 's next not that there is not a greater Magnum for the Mystery of Iniquity is greater then the Mystery of Godliness Compare Creeds to Creeds and the new Creed of the Trent Council is greater by many Articles then the Apostles Creed is Compare Oathes to Oathes and Berengarians old Oath in the Roman Church that he must sweare to the Frangitur teritur that he broke the flesh of Christ with his teeth and ground it with his jawes and the new Oath of the Council of Trent that he must sweare that all those subtill Schoole-points determined there in which a man might have believed the contrary a few dayes before and yet have been a good Roman Catholick too are true and true de fide so true as that he cannot be saved now except he believe them to be so the Berengarians Oath and the Trent-oath have much more difficulty in them then to swear that K. James is lawful King in all his Dominions therefore exempt from all forreign jurisdiction over him There is a Mystery of Iniquity declared in a Creed of Iniquity in an Oath of Iniquity greater then the Mystery of Godliness but yet this is great that is great enough he needs no more that hath this saith with a pure conscience he need not go up to heaven for more not to a Vice-god to an infallible Bishop of Rome Deut. 30.12 he need not go over-sea for more sayes Moses there not to the hills beyond-sea nor to the lake beyond-sea for God hath given him his station in a Church where this Mystery is sufficiently declared and explicated The Mystery of Iniquity may be great for it hath wrought a great while 2 Thes 2.7 Jam operatur sayes the Apostle in his time the Mystery of iniquity doth already work and it is likely to work still It is but a little while since we saw it work under ground in the vault But if as hath been lately royally and religiously intimated to us all their insolency have so far infatuated them In Parliam as to think themselves at an end of their work and promise themselves a holy-day our assurance is in this Pater operatur adhuc ego operor Joh. 5.17 sayes Christ My Father works yet and I work and if amongst us the Father work and the Son work for all the vain hopes of some and the vain feares of others the Mystery of godliness will stand and grow Part II. Now how far this Mystery this great Mystery this Mystery without controversie is revealed in this Text we are to look by the severall beames thereof of which the first is Manifestatus in carne God was manifested in the flesh Coeli enarrant sayes David The heavens declare the glory of God Psal 19.2 and that should be the harmony of the Spheares Invisibilia conspiciuntur sayes Saint Paul Invisible things of God are seen in the visible Rom. 1.20 and that should be the prospect of this world
not give my glory unto another says God in Isaiah 48.11 We finde great Titles attributed to and assumed by Princes both Spiritual and Temporal Celsitudo vestra vestra Majestas is daily given and duly given amongst us and Sanctitas vestra vestra beatitudo is given amongst others Aben-Ezra and some other Rabbins mistake this matter so much as to deny that any person in the old Testament ever speakes of himself in the plural number Nos We 1 Reg. 12.9 22.3 2 Chro. 10.9 That 's mistaken by them for there are Examples But it is more mistaken in practise by the Generals nay Provincials of some Orders of Fryars In libros Porret in Mat. c. when they sign and subscribe in form and stile of Princes Nos Frater We Fryar N. c. It is not hard to name some that have taken to themselves the addition of Divus in their life-time a stile so high as that Bellarmine denies that it appertains to any Saint in heaven and yet these men have canoniz'd themselves without the consent of Rome and yet remain'd good Sons of that Mother too We shall finde in ancient stiles that high addition Eternitas nostra Our Eternity and not onely in ancient but in our own days another equal to that given to a particular Cardinal Numen Vestrum Your Godhead We find a Letter in Baronius to a Pope from a King of Britain and so Baronius leaves it and does not tell us which Britain he could have been content to have had it thought ours but he that hath abridg'd his Book hath abridg'd his Britain too there it is Britania minor Spondamus But he was a King and therefore had power if he fill'd his place and wisdom too if he answered his name for his name was Solomon and this King we finde reduc'd to this lowness as that he writes to that Bishop Adrian 2. in that stile Precor omnipotentiam Dignitatis vestrae he gives him the Title of God Almighty But two or three years before he was far from it then when he writ he plac'd his own name above the Popes but it is a slippery declination if it be not a precipitation to come at all under him great Titles have been taken Ambition goes far and great given Flattery goes as far greater then this in the Text perchance have but it hath not fallen within my narrow reading and observation that ever Prince took that ever subject gave this Title Gloria nostra or vestra May it please your Glory or It hath seem'd good to our Glory Glory be to God on high and glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost and no more As long as that scurff that leprosie sticks to every thing in this world Vanitas Vanitatum that all is vanity can any glory in any thing of this world be other then vain-glory What Title of Honour hath any man had in any State in Court that some prison in that State hath not had men of that Title in it Nay what Title hath any Heraulds Book that Lucifers Book hath not Or who can be so great in this World but that as great as he have perished in the next As it is not good for men to eat much honey Prov. 25.27 so for men to search their own glory is not glory Crowns are the Emblems of Glory and Kings out of their abundant Greatness and Goodness derive and distribute Crowns to Persons of Title and by those Crowns and those Titles they are Consanguinei Regis the Kings Cousins Christ Jesus is crowned with glory in Heaven and he sheds down Coronets upon you Honour and Blessings here that you might be Consanguinei Regis contract a spiritual Kindred with that King and be idem Spiritus cum Domino as inseparable from his Father as he himself is The glory of Gods Saints in Heaven is not so much to have a Crown as to lay down that Crown at the Feet of the Lamb. The glory of good men here upon earth is not so much to have Honour and Favour and Fortune as to employ those Beams of Glory to his glory that gave them In our poor calling God hath given us grace but grace for grace as the Apostle saies that is grace to derive and convey and seal grace to you To those of higher Rank God hath given glory and glory for glory glory therefore to glorifie him in a care of his glory And because he dwells in luce inaccessibili in a glorious light which you cannot see here glorifie him in that wherein you may see him in that wherein he hath manifested himself glorifie him in his glorious Gospel employ your Beams of Glory Honour Favour Fortune in transmitting his Gospel in the same glory to your Children as you receiv'd it from your Fathers for in this consists this Mystery of Godliness which is Faith with a pure Conscience And in this lies your best Evidence That you are already co-assumed with Christ Jesus into glory by having so laid an unremoveable hold upon that Kingdom which he hath purchased for you with the inestimable price of his incorruptible Blood To which glorious Son of God c. A Lent-SERMON Preached to the KING Serm. 5. At WHITE-HALL February 12. 1629. SERMON V. MAT. 6.21 For where your Treasure is there will your Heart be also I Have seen Minute-glasses Glasses so short-liv'd If I were to preach upon this Text to such a glass it were enough for half the Sermon enough to show the worldly man his Treasure and the Object of his heart for where your Treasure is there will your Heart be also to call his eye to that Minute-glass and to tell him There flows there flies your Treasure and your Heart with it But if I had a Secular Glass a Glass that would run an age if the two Hemispheres of the World were composed in the form of such a Glass and all the World calcin'd and burnt to ashes and all the ashes and sands and atoms of the World put into that Glass it would not be enough to tell the godly man what his Treasure and the Object of his Heart is A Parrot or a Stare docile Birds and of pregnant imitation will sooner be brought to relate to us the wisdom of a Council Table then any Ambrose or any Chrysostome Men that have Gold and Honey in their Names shall tell us what the Sweetness what the Treasure of Heaven is and what that mans peace that hath set his Heart upon that Treasure As Nature hath given us certain Elements and all Bodies are compos'd of them and Art hath given us a certain Alphabet of Letters and all Words are compos'd of them so our blessed Saviour in these three Chapters of this Gospel hath given us a Sermon of Texts of which all our Sermons may be compos'd All the Articles of our Religion all the Canons of our Church all the Injunctions of our
Glorification Manna putrified if it were kept by any man but a day but in the Ark it never putrified That treasure which is as Manna from Heaven Grace and Peace yet here hath a brackish taste when Grace and Peace shall become Joy and Glory in Heaven there it will be sincere Sordescit quod inferiori miscetur naturae August etsi in suo genere non sordidetur Though in the nature thereof that with which a purer Metal is mix'd be not base yet it abases the purer Metal He puts his Example in Silver and Gold Though Silver be a precious Metal yet it abases Gold Grace and Peace and Faith are precious parts of our Treasure here yet if we mingle them that is compare them with the Joys and Glory of Heaven if we come to think That our Grace and Peace and Faith here can no more be lost then our Joy and Glory there we abase and over-allay those Joys and that Glory The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a Treasure says our Saviour Matth. 13.44 But is that all Is any Treasure like unto it None For to end where we begun Treasure is Depositum in Crastinum Provision for to morrow The treasure of the worldly man is not so He is not sure of any thing to morrow Nay the treasure of the Godly man is not so in this world He is not sure that this dayes Grace and Peace and Faith shall be his to morrow When I have Joy and Glory in Heaven I shall be sure of that to morrow And that 's a term long enough for before a to morrow there must be a night And shall there ever be a night in Heaven No more then day in Hell Apoc. 21.23 There shall be no Sun in Heaven therefore no danger of a Sun-set And for the treasure it self when the Holy Ghost hath told us 18. That the Walls and Streets of the City are pure Gold That the Foundations thereof are all precious Stones and every Gate of an intire Pearl what hath the Holy Ghost himself left to denote unto us what the treasure it self within is The Treasure it self is the Holy Ghost himself and Joy in him As the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son but I know not how so there shall something proceed from Father Son and Holy Ghost and fall upon me but I know not what Nay not fall upon me neither but enwrap me embrace me for I shall not be below them so as that I shall not to be upon the same seat with the Son at the right hand of the Father in the Union of the Holy Ghost Rectified by the Power of the Father and feel no weakness Enlightned by the Wisdom of the Son and feel no scruple Established by the Joy of the Holy Ghost and feel no jealousie Where I shall finde the Fathers of the first Age dead five thousand years before me Serm. 6. and they shall not be able to say they were there a minute before me Where I shall finde the blessed and glorious Martyrs who went not per viam lacteam but per viam sanguineam not by the milky way of an Innocent Life but by the bloody way of a Violent Death and they shall not contend with me for precedency in their own Right or say VVe came in by Purchase and you but by Pardon VVhere I shall finde the Virgins and not be despised by them for not being so but hear that Redintegration which I shall receive in Christ Jesus call'd Virginity and Intireness VVhere all tears shall be wip'd from mine Eyes not onely tears of Compunction for my self and tears of Compassion for others but even tears of Joy too for there shall be no sudden joy no joy unexperienced there There I shall have all joys altogether always There Abraham shall not be gladder of his own Salvation then of mine nor I surer of the Everlastingness of my God then of my Everlastingness in Him This is that Treasure of which the God of this Treasure give us those Spangles and that single Money which this Mint can coin this VVorld can receive that is Prosperity and a good use thereof in worldly things and Grace and Peace and Faith in spiritual And then reserve for us the Exaltation of this Treasure in the Joy and Glory of Heaven in the Mediation of his Son Christ Jesus and by the Operation of his Blessed Spirit AMEN A SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL April 21. 1616. SERMON VI. ECCLES 8.11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily Therefore the heart of the children of men is fully set in them to do evil WE cannot take into our Meditation a better Rule then that of the Stoick Nihil infaelicius faelicitate peccantium Seneca There is no such unhappiness to a sinner as to be happy no such cross as to have no crosses nor can we take a better Example of that Rule then Constantius the Arrian Emperour in whose time first of all the Crosse of Christ suffer'd that profanation as to be an Ensign of War between Christian and Christian When Magnentius by being an usurping Tyrant and Constantius by being an Arrian Heretick had forfeited their interest in the Cross of Christ which is the Ensign of the universal Peace of this world and the means of the eternal Peace of the next both brought the Cross to cross the Cross to be an Ensign of War and of Hostility both made that Cross when the Father accepted for all mankinde the blood of Christ Jesus to be an instrument for the sinful effusion of the blood of Christians But when this Heretical Emperour had a Victory over this usurping Tyrant this unhappy happiness transported him to a greater sin a greater insolence to approach so near to God himself as to call himself Eternum principem The eternal Emperour and to take into his stile and Rescripts this addition Eternitatem nostram Thus and thus it hath pleased our Eternity to proceed Yea and to bring his Arrian followers who would never acknowledge an eternity in Christ nor confess him to be the eternal Son of God to salute himself by that name Eternum Caesarem The eternal Emperour so venimous so deadly is the prosperity of the wicked to their own souls that even from the mercy of God they take occasion of sinning not onely Thereby but even Therefore They do not only make that their excuse when they do sin but their Reason why they may sin as we see in these words Because sentence against an evil work is not excuted speedily c. Divisio In which words we shall consider first The general perversness of a natural man who by custom in sin comes to assign a Reason why he may sin intimated in the first word Because And secondly The particular perversness of the men in this Text who assign the patience of God to be the Reason of their continuance in sin Because sentence is not executed speedily And
been scandaliz'd and led into tentation by them till his law have been evacuated that that use of the law which is to shew sin to our consciences be annihilated in us till such a Cry come up to him by our often and professed sinning that it concerns him in his Honour which he will give to none and in his Care of his Churches which he hath promis'd to be till the end of all to take knowledge of them Yea though this Cry be come up to his Ears though it be a lowd Cry either by the nature of the sin as heavie things make a great noise in the moving or by reason of the number of the sins and the often doing thereof for as many children will make as great a noise as a loud Cryer so will the custome of small sins Cry as loud as those which are called peccata clamantia Crying sins Though this cry be encreased by this liberty and professed sinning that as the Prophet sayes Esa 3.9 They declare their sins and hide them not as Sodom did Though the cry of the sin be increased by the cry of them that suffer oppression by that sin as well as by the sin it self as the voice of Abel's bloud cryed from earth to heaven yea Gen. 4.10 though this cry ring about Gods ears in his own bed-chamber under the Altar it self in that Usquequo Domine when the Martyrs cry out with a loud voice How long Lord holy and true Revel 6.10 dost thou not judge and avenge our bloud yet God would fain forbear his Revenge he would fain have those Martyrs rest for a little space till their fellow servants and their brethren were fulfilled God would try what Cain would say to that Interrogatory Where is thy brother Abel And though the cry of Sodom were great and their sin exceeding grievous yet says God I will go down and see whether they have done altogether according unto that cry and if not I may know God would have been glad to have found Errour in their Inditement and when he could not yet if Fifty Fourty five Thirty Twenty Ten had been found righteous he had pardoned all Adeo malum Gregory quasi cum difficultate credidit cum audivit so loth is God to believe ill of man when he doth hear it This then is his patience Sententia But why is his patience made a reason of their continuance in sins Is it because there is no sentence denounced against sin These busie and subtile Extractors of Reasons that can distil and draw Poyson out of Manna Occasions of sin out of Gods Patience will not say so That there is no sentence denounced The word that is here used Pithgam is not truly an Hebrew word And though in the Book of Job and in some other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures we finde sometimes some forreign and out-landish word deriv'd from other Nations yet in Solomons writing very rarely neither doth Solomon himself nor any other Author of any part of the Hebrew Bible use this word in any other place then this one The word is a Chaldee word and hath amongst them the same signification and largeness as Dabar in Hebrew and that includes all A verbo ad legem from a word suddenly and slightly spoken to words digested and consolidated into a Law So that though the Septuagint translate this place Quia non est facta contradictio as though the reason of this sinners obduration might have been That God had not forbidden sin and though the Chaldee Paraphrast express this place thus Quia non est factum verbum ultionis As though this sinner made himself believe that God had never spoken word of revenge against sinners yet this sinner makes not that his reason That there is no Law no Judgement no Sentence given for every Book of the Bible every Chapter every Verse almost is a particular Deuteronomy a particular renewing of the Law from Gods mouth Morte Morieris Thou shalt die the death and of that Sentence from Moses mouth Pereundo peribitis You shall surely perish and of that Judgement from the Prophets mouth Non est Pax impiis There is no peace to the wicked And if this obdurate sinner could be such a Goth and Vandal as to destroy all Records all written Laws if he could evacuate and exterminate the whole Bible yet he would finde this Law in his own heart this Sentence pronounced by his own Conscience Stipendium peccati Mors est Treason is Death and sin is Treason His reason is not That there is no Law he sees it nor that he knows no Law his heart tells it him nor that he hath kept that Law his Conscience gives judgement against him nor that he hath a Pardon for breaking that Law for he never ask'd it and besides those Pardons have in them that clause Ita quod se bene gerat Every Pardon bindes a man to the good behaviour and by Relapses into sin we forfeit our Pardons for former sins All their Reason all their Comfort is onely a Reprieve and a Respite of Execution August Distulit Securim attulit Securitatem God hath taken the Ax from their necks and they have taken Security into their hearts Sentence is not executed Executed Execution is the life of the Law but then it is the death of the Man And therefore whosoever makes quarrels against God or arguments of Obduration out of this respite of Execution would he be better pleased with God if God came to a speedy Execution But let that be true Where there is no Execution there is no reverence to the Law there is truly and in effect no Law The Law is no more a Law without Execution then a Carcase is a Man And so much certainly the word which is here rendred sententia facta doth properly signifie A Judgement perfected executed Gen. 25.25 When Esau was born hairy and so in the likeness of a grown and perfect man he was call'd by the word of this text Gnesau Esau factus perfectus And so when God had perfected all his works Gen. 1. ult that is said then that he saw that all was good that he had made where there is the same word That he had perfected So that if the judgements of God had been still without execution if all those Curses Deut. 28.15 Cursed shalt thou be in the town and cursed in the field cursed in the fruit of thy body and in the fruit of thy land and in the fruit of thy cattel cursed when thou comest in and when thou goest out The Lord shall send thee cursings and trouble and shame in all thou setst thy hand to The Lord shall make a pestilence cleave to thee and a consumption and a fever The Lord shall make the heavens above as brass and the earth under thee as iron with all those Curses and Maledictions which he flings and slings and stings the soul of
that it comes to the Sickness but not to the physick In small diseases saith St. Basil we go to the Physitians house in greater diseases we send for the Physitian to our house but in violent diseases in the stupefaction of an Apoplexy in the damp of a leturgy in the furnace of a Pleurisie we have no sence no desire of a Physitian at all When this inordinate love of Riches begins in us we have some tenderness of Conscience and we consult with Gods Ministers After we admit the reprehensions of Gods Ministers when they speak to our Consciences but at last the habit of our sin hath seared us up and we never find that it is we that the Preacher means we find that he touches others but not us Our wit and our malice is awake but our conscience is asleep we can make a Sermon a libel against others and cannot find a Sermon in a Sermon to our selves It is a sickness and an evil sickness Visibilis Now this is not such a sickness as we have onely read of and no more It concernes us not onely so as the memory of the sweat of which we do rather wounder at the report then consider the manner or the remedies against it Those divers plagues which God inflicted upon Pharoah for withholding his people That devouring Pestilence which God stroke Davids kingdom with for numbring his people That destruction which God kindled in Sennacheribs army for oppressing his people These because God hath represented them in so clear and so true a glass as his word we do in a manner see them Things in other stories we do but hear things in the Scriptures we see The Scriptures are as a room wainscotted with looking-glass we see all at once But this evil sickness of reserving riches to our own evil is plainer to be seen because it is daily round about us dayly within us in our consciences experiences There are sins that are not evident not easily discerned therefore David annexes a Scedule to his prayer after all Ab occultis meis mundame saith David There are sins which the difference of religion makes a sin or no sin we know it to be a sin to abstain from coming to Church our adversaries are made beleeve it is a time to come There are middle-men that when our Church appoints coming and receiving and anoother Church forbids both they will do half of both they will come and not receive and so be friends with both There are sins recorded in the Scriptures in which it is hard for any to find the name the nature what the sin was how doth the School vex it self to find out what was the nature of the sin of the Angels or what was the name of the sin of Adam There are actions recorded in the Scriptures in which by Gods subsequent punishment there appears sin to have been committed and yet to have considered the action alone without the testimony of Gods displeasure upon it a natural man would not easily find out a sin Numb 22. Balaam was solicited to come and curse Gods people he refused he consulted with God God bids him go but follow such instructions as he should give him after And yet the wrath of God was kindled because he went Numb 20. Moses seems to have pursued Gods commandement exactly in drawing water out of the Rock and yet God sayes Because you believed me not you shall not bring this congregation into that land of promise There are sins hard to be seen out of the nature of Man because Man naturally is not watchful upon his particular actions for if he were so he would escape great sins when we see sand we are not much afraid of a stone when a Man sees his small sins there is not so much danger of great But some sins we see not out of a natural blindness in our selves some we see not out of a natural dimness in the sin it self But this sickly sin this sinful sickness of gathering Riches is so obvious so manifest to every mans apprehension as that the books of Moral men and Philosophers are as full of it as the Bible But yet the Holy Ghost as he doth alwaies even in moral Counsels exceeds the Philosophers for whereas they place this sickness in gathering unnecessary riches injuriously the Holy Ghost in this place extends iâ— further to a reserving of those riches that when we have sinn'd in the getting of them we sin still in the not restoring of them But to thee who shouldest repent the ill getting Veniet tempus quo non dispensasse poenetebit there will come a time when thou shalt repent the having kept them Hoc certum est Ego sum sponsor Basil of this I dare be the surety saith St. Basil But we can leave St Basil out of the bond we have a better surety and undertaker the Holy Ghost in Solomon So that this evil sickness may be easily seen it is made manifest enough to us all by precedent from God by example of others by experience in our selves Solomon To see this then is an easie a natural thing but to see it so as to condemn it and avoid it this is a wisemans slight this was Solomons slight The wiseman seeth the plague Psal 50.18 and shunneth it therein consists the wisedome But for the fool when he sees a theif he runneth with him when he sees others thrive by ill getting and ill keeping he runs with them he takes the same course as they do Beloved It is not intended that true and heavenly wisedome may not consist with riches Iob and the Patriarchs abounded with both And our pattern in this place Solomon himself saith of himself That he was great Eccles 2.9 and increased above all that were before him in Ierusalem and yet his wisdome remained with him The poor man and the rich are in heaven together and to show us how the rich should use the poor Lazarus is in Abrahams bosome The rich should succour and releive and defend the poor in their bosomes But when our Saviour declares a wisedome belonging to Riches as in the parable of the unjust Steward he places not this wisedome Luk. 16. in the getting nor in the holding of Riches but onely in the using of them make you friends of your Riches that they may receive you into everlasting habitations There 's no Simony in heaven that a man can buy so much as a door-keepers place in the Triumphant Church There 's no bribery there to see Ushers for accesse Gen. 28. But God holds that ladder there whose foot stands upon the earth here and all those good works which are put upon the lowest step of that Ladder here that is that are done in contemplation of him they ascend to him and descend again to us Heaven and earth are as a musical Instrument if you touch a string below the motion goes to the top any
good done to Christs poor members upon earth affects him in heaven And as he said Quid me per sequeris Saul Saul why persecutest thou me So he will say Veniâ—e benedicti pavistis me visitastis me This is the wisedome of their use but the wisedome of their getting and keeping is to see that it is an evil sickness to get too laboriously or to reserve too gripingly things which tend naturally to the owners evil For therefore in that parable doth Christ call all their Riches generaly universally Mammonas iniquitatis Riches of iniquity not that all that they had was ill got that 's not likely in so great a company but that whatsoever and howsoever they had got it and were become true owners of it yet they were Riches of iniquity because that is one iniquity to possess much and not distribute to the poor and it is another iniquity to call those things riches which are onely temporal and so to defraud heavenly graces and spiritual treasure of that name that belongs onely to them And the greatest iniquity of all is towards our selves To take those riches to our heart which Christ calls the thornes that choak the good seeds Mat. 13.22 and the Apostles calls tentations and snares and foolish and noysome lusts which drown men in perdition and in destruction 1. Tim. 6.9 and which the wise man hath seen and hath shewed us here to be reserved to the owners for their evil To return to our beginning make an end Heaven is a feast and Heaven is a treasure If ye prepare not for his feast by being worthy guests at his table if you embrace not his treasure by being such Merchants as give all for his pearl another feast and another treasure are expressed and heightned in two such words as never any tongue of any Author but the Holy Ghost himself spoke Inebriabit absinthio there 's the feast you shall be drunk with wormwood you shall tast nothing but bitter affliction and that shall make you reel for you shall find in your affliction no rest for your souls And for the treasure Thesaurizabis iram dei you shall treasure up wrath against the day of wrath Rom. 2.5 and this will be an exchequor ever open and never exhausted But use the creatures of God as creatures and not as God with a confidence in them and you shall find juge convivium in a good conscience and Thesauros absconditos all the hid treasures of wisedome and knowledge Col. 29.3 you shall know how to be rich in this world by an honest getting of riches and how to be rich in the next world by a christianly use of those riches here THE SECOND SERMON Preached at VVHITE-HALL Upon ECCLES 5.12 13. There is an evil sickness that I have seen under the Sun Riches reserved to the owners thereof for their evill And these riches perish by evil travail and he begetteth a son and in his hand is nothing THat then which was intended in the former verse That Riches were hurtful even to the owners St. Augustin hath well and fully expressed Aug. in Psal 131. Eris proeda hominum qui jam es diaboli The devil hath preyed upon thee already by knowing what thou wouldst have and great Men will prey upon thee hereafter by knowing what thou hast But because the rich man thinks himself hard enough for both for the devil and for great men if he may keep his riches therefore here is that which seems to him a greater calamity inflicted first his riches shall perish Divisio and secondly those riches those which he hath laboured and travailed for And thirdly they shall perish in travail and labor and affliction And then not onely all his present comfort shall perish but that which was his future hope The son which he hath begot shall have nothing in his hand 2 Part. Perish Prov. 28.8 He that increaseth his riches by usury and interest gathereth them for him that will be merciful to the poor says Solomon Is there a discomfort in this There is It is presented there for an affliction and vexation to a rich Man to be told that his money shall be imployed in any other way not onely then he gathered it for but then he gathered it by It would grieve him to know that his heir would purchase land or buy an office with his money for all other means of profit then himself hath tried he esteems unthriftiness casuall and hazardous difference of seasons may change the value of his land affections of Men may change the value of an office but whether the year be good or bad a year it must be and nothing can lengthen or shorten his two harvests in the year from six moneths to six Always but his own displease him in his heir but if his heir will be giving to the poor as Solomon says then here are two mischiefs met together that he could never abide the poor and giving and therefore such a contemplation is a double vexation to him but much more must it be so to hear that his riches shall perish that they shall come to nothing for though if we consider it aright it is truly all one whether a covetous mans wealth do perish or no for so much as he hoards up and hides and puts to no use it is all one whether that thousand pound be in his chest or no if he never see it yet since he hath made his gold his God he hath so much devilish Religion in him as to be loath that his God should perish And this that is threatned here is an absolute perishing an absolute annihilation It is the same word by which David expresses the abolition and perishing of the wicked The way of the wicked shall perish Psal 1.6 and which Moses repeats with vehemency twice together pereunao peribitis I pronounce unto you this day you shall surly perish So Judas Deut. 30.18 and his mony perished The mony that Judas had taken he was weary of keeping it and they who had given it would none of it neither Se primum mulctavit pecunia deinde vita Aug. First he fin'd himselfe and then he hang'd himselfe first he cast back the mony and then he cast himselfe head-long and burst often times the mony perishes and the man too yea it is not here only that they shall perish in the future that were a repreive it were a stalling of a debt but as both our Translations have it they do perish they are always melting yea as the Original hath it vadit et periit They are already perished they were born dead ill gotten riches bring with them from the beginning a Contagion that works upon themselves and their Masters The riches shall perish though they be his though his title to them be good if he put his trust in them And those riches those which he hath got by his travail Those which
speake against it so neither should wee doe any thing against it as wee are bound to receive it by acknowledgment so wee are bound to approve it by conforming our selves unto it our consent to it shewes our acceptation our life our approbation and so much is in the first Part the Roote This is a faithfull Word and worthy of all acceptation And in the Second the Tree the Body the substance of the Gospell That Jesus Christ is come into the World to save Sinners First here is an Advent a coming of a new Person into the World who was not here before venit in mundum hee came into the World And secondly hee that came is first Christ a mixt Person God and Man and thereby capable of that Office able to reconcile God and Man And Christus so to a person anoynted appointed and sent for that purpose to reconcile God and Man And then hee is Jesus one did actually and really doe the office of a Saviour hee did reconcile God and Man for there wee see also the Reason why hee came Hee came to Save and whom hee came to Save to save Sinners And these will bee the branches and lymbs of this Body And then lastly when wee come to consider the fruit which is indeede the seede and kernell and soul of all virtues Humility then wee shall meete the Apostle confessing himselfe to bee the greatest Sinner not only with a fui that hee was so whilest he was a Persecutor but with a present sum that even now after hee had received the faithfull Word the light of the Gospell yet hee was still the greatest Sinner of which Sinners I though an Apostle am am still the chiefest First then the Gospell is founded and rooted in sermone Part 1. in verbo in the Word it cannot deserve omnem acceptationem if it bee not Gospell and it is not Gospell if it be not in sermone rooted in the Word Christ himselfe as he hath an eternall Generation is verbum Dei Himselfe is the Word of God And as he hath a humane Generation he is subjectum verbi Dei the subject of the Word of God of all the Scriptures of all that was shadowed in the Types and figur'd in the Ceremonies and prepared in the preventions of the Law of all that was foretold by the Prophets of all that the Soule of man rejoyced in and congratulated with the Spirit of God in the Psalms and in the Canticles and in the cheerefull parts of spirituall joy and exultation which we have in the Scriptures Christ is the foundation of all those Scriptures Christ is the burden of all those Songs Christ was in sermone then then he was in the Word The joy of those holy Persons which are noted in the Scriptures to have expressed their joy at the byrth of Christ in such spirituall Hymns and Songs is expressed so as that we may see their joy was in this That that was now in actu that was performed that was done which was before in sermone in the Promise in the Word in the Covenant of God They rejoyced that Christ was borne but principally that all was done so sicut locutus as God had spoken before that all should be done done of the seede of a Woman as God had said in Paradice done by a Virgin as God had said by Esai done at Bethlehem as he had said by Micheas and done at that time as he had said by Daniel Sicut locutus est sayes Zacharie in his exultation All is performed as he hath spoke by the mouth of the Prophets which have beene since the World began There in the Word the Gospell begins and there and there only it shall continue for ever as long as there is any spirituall seed of Abraham any men willing to embrace it and apply it as the blessed Virgin expresses it when her Soul magnifies the Lord and her Spirit rejoyces in God her Saviour sicut locutus as God hath spoken to our Fathers to Abraham and his seed for ever so then there never was there never must be any other Gospel then is in sermone in the written word of God in the Scriptures The particular comfort that a Christian conceives as it is determined and contracted in himself is principally in this that Christ is come his comfort is in this that he is now saved by him and he might have this comfort though Christ had never been in sermone though he had never been prophesied never spoken of before But yet the proof and ground of this comfort to himself that is the assurance that he hath That this was that Christ that was to save us and then the munition and artillery by which he is to overthrow the forces of the enemy the arguments and objections of Jews Gentils and Hereticks who deny this Christ in whose salvation he trusts to have then any such Saviour And then the Band of the Church the Communion of Saints by which we should prove That the Patriarchs and the Apostles our Fathers in the old and new Testament doe belong all to one Church this assurance in our self this ability to prove it to others this joyning of these two walls to make up the houshold of the faithfull This is not only that that the summe of the Gospel is risen in that Christ is come but in this that he is come sicut locutus est as God had spoken of him and promised him by the mouth of his Prophets from the beginning as he was in sermone in the word In the first Creation when God made heaven and earth that making was not in sermone for that could not be prophesied before because there was no being before neither is it said that at that Creation God said any thing but only creavit God made heaven and earth and no men so that that which was made sine sermone without speaking was only matter without form heaven without light and earth without any productive virtue or disposition to bring forth and to nourish creatures But when God came to those specifique formes and to those creatures wherein he would be sensibly glorified after they were made in sermone by his word Dixit facta sunt God spake and so all things were made Light and Firmament Land and Sea Plants and Beasts and Fishes and Fowls were made all in sermone by his word But when God came to the best of his creatures to Man Man was not only made in verbo as the rest were by speaking a word but by a Consultation by a Conference by a Counsell faciamus hominem let us make Man there is a more expresse manifestation of divers persons speaking together of a concurrence of the Trinity and not of a saying only but a mutuall saying not of a Proposition only but of a Dialogue in the making of Man The making of matter alone was sine verbo without any word at all the making of lesser creatures was in verbo
the tying and fitting of that rope which is offered and let down to them to draw them God saves us by a calling and he saves us by drawing but he cals them that hearken to him and he draws them that follow upon his drawing He saves us who acknowledg that we could not be saved without him and desire and that with a faithful assurance to be saved by him which is that which is intended in the next word peccatores he came to savesinners Peccatores He came not to call the righteous but sinners Is that intended of all effectually all have sinned and all are deprived of the glory of God Rom. 2.23 But sinners here are those sinners who ackowledg themselves to be sinners for saies he I came to call them to repentance and that 's the meaning of that exclusion of the righteous He came not to call the Righteous not to call them who call themselves Righteous and thought themselves so but sinners not all whom he knew to be sinners but all who would be brought to know themselves to be so Them he came to call by the power of Miracles when he lived upon earth and them he staies to call by the power of his word now he is ascended into heaven for as a furnace needs not the same measure and proportion of fire to keep it boiling as it did to heat it but yet it doth need the same fire that is fire of the same nature for the heat of the Sun will not keep it boiling how hot soever so the Church of God needs not miracles now it is established but still there is the same fire the working of the same spirit to save sinners for that was the end of miracles and it is the end of preaching to make men capable of salvation by acknowledging themselves to be sinners And this hath brought us to the last part of this text that which at first we called the fruit of the Gospel Humility Third part This brought St. Paul to be of that Quorum Quorum ego maximus not only to discern and confess himself to be a sinner but the cheifest and greatest sinner of all Nihil humilitate sublimius it is excellently but strangely said by St. Hierome He might rather and more credibly have us'd any word then that He might have been easily believed if he had said nihil sapientius there is no wiser thing then humility for he that is low in his own shall be high in the eyes of others and to have said nihil perfective there is not so direct a way to perfection as humility But nihil sublimius must needs seem strangely said there is nothing higher then lowness no such exaltation as dejection no such revenge as patience and yet all this is truly and safely said with that limitation which St. Hierome gives it there apud Deum in the sight of God there is no such exaltation as humiliation We must not coast and cross the nearest way and so think to meet Christ in his end which was glory but we must go after him in all his steps in the way of humiliation for Christs very descent was a degree of exaltation and by that name he called his crucifying a lifting up an exaltation The Doctrine of this world goes for the most part otherwise here we say lay hold upon something get up one step in all want of sufficiency in all defection of friends in all changes yet the place which you hold which raise you to better In the way to heaven the lower you go the nearer the highest and best end you are Duo nobis necessaria saies St. August Ut cognoscamus quales ad malum quales ad bonum There are but two things necessary to us to know how ill we are and how good we may be where nature hath left us and whether Grace would carry us And Abraham saies that Father expresses this two fold knowledg when he said to God Loquar ad Dominum qui pulvis sum cinis I know I am but dust and ashes Gen. 18. saies Abraham and there is his first knowledg Qualis ad molum how ill a condition naturally he is in but then Loquar ad Dominum for all this though I be but dust and ashes I have access to my God and may speak to him ther 's his improvement and his dignity Vere pulvis omnis homo saies he truly every man is truly dust for as dust is blown from one to another corner by the wind and lies dead there till another wind remove it from that corners so are we hurried from sin to sin and have no motion in our selves but as a new sin imprints it in us so vere pulvis for our disposition to evil we are truly dust and vere cinis we are truly dry ashes for ashes produceth no seed of it self nor gives growth to any seed that is cast into it so we have no good in us naturally neither can we nourish any good that is insus'd by God into us except the same Grace that sow'd it water it and weed it and cherish it and so ment it after To know that we have no strength of our selves and to know that we can lack none if we ask it of God these are St. Augustines two Arts and Sciences and this is the humility of the Gospel in general Quo umprimus To come to St. Paul's more particular expressing of his humility here Quorum ego primus of which sinners I am the cheifest as it is true veritas non nititur mendatio no truth needs the support or assistance of any lie a man must not belie himself nor accuse himself against his own conscience so also Humilitas non nititur stupiditati An undiscerning stupidity is not humility for humility it self implies and requires discretion for humiliation is not precipitation when the Devil inticed the Jesuit at his midnight studies and the Jesuit rose and offered him his chair because howsoever he were a Devil yet he was his better this was no regulated humility and therefore this which St. Paul saies of himself that he was the greatest sinner was true in his own heart and true in a convenient sense and so neither falsly nor inconsiderately spoken How then was this true As there is nothing so fantastical and so absurd but that some Hereticks have held it Dogmatically so Aquinas notes here that there were Hereticks that held that the very soul of Adam was by a long circuit and transmigration come at last into Paul and so Paul was the same man in his principal part in the soul as Adam was and in that sense it was literally true that he said he was primus peccatorum the first of all sinners because he was the first man Adam but this is an heretical fancy â—â— a Pythagorean bubble Great Divines have refer'd this Quorum ad salvandos that Christ came to save sinners of which sinners that are saved
is not sure of any thing to morrow Nay the treasure of the godly man is not so in this world he is not sure that this dayes grace and peace and faith shall be his to morrow when I have joy glory in heaven I shall be sure of that to morrow And that 's a term long enough for before to morrow there must be a night and shall there ever be night in heaven no more then day in hell there shall be no Sun in heaven Apoc 21.23 therefore no danger of Sun-set And for the treasure it self when the holy Ghost hath told us that the wals streets of that City are pure gold that the foundations thereof are all pretious stones and every gate of an intire pearl what hath the Holy Ghost himself left to denote unto us what the treasure it self within is the treasure it self is the Holy Ghost himself and joy in him As the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Sonne but I know not how so there shall something proceed from Father Sonne and Holy Ghost and fall upon me but I know not what nay not fall upon me neither but enwrap me embrace me for I shall be below them so as that I shall not be upon the same seat with the Son at the right hand of the Father in the union of the holy Ghost rectified by the power of the Father and feel no weakness enlightned by the wisdom of the Son and feel no scruple established by the joy of the holy Ghost and feel no jealousie Where I shall find the Fathers of the first ages dead 5000 years before me and they shall not be able to say they were there a minute before me Where I shall find the blessed and glorious Martyrs who went not Per viam lacteam but per viam sanguineam not by the milky way of an innocent life but by the bloody way of a violent death and they shall not contend with me for precedency in their own right or say we came in by Purchase and you but by pardon Where I shall find the Virgins and not be despised by them for not being so but hear that redintegration which I shall receive in Jesus Christ call'd Virginity and Intireness Where all tears shall be wip'd from my eyes not only tears of compunction for my self and tears of compassion for others but even tears of joy too for there shall be no sudden joy no joy unexperienced there there I shall have all joyes altogether alwaies There Abraham shall not be gladder of his own salvation then of mine nor I surer of the everlastingness of my God then of my everlastingness in him This is that treasure of which the God of this treasure gives us those spangles and that single money which this minute can coin this world can receive that is Prosperity and a good use thereof in worldly things and grace and peace and faith in spiritual and then reserve for us the exaltation of this treasure in the joy and glory of heaven in the mediation of his Son Christ Jesus and by the operation of his blessed Spirit Amen A SERMON Serm. 17. SERMON XVII James 2.12 So speak ye and so doe as they that shall be judged by the Law of Liberty THis is one of those seaven Epistles which Athanasius and Origen called Catholique that is universall perchance because they are not directed to any one Church as some others are but to all the Christian World and Saint Hierome called them Canonical perchance because all Rules all Canons of holy conversation are comprised in these Epistles and Epiphanius and Oecumenius called them circular perchance because as in a circle you cannot discern which was the first point nor in which the compass began the circle so neither can we discern in these Epistles whom the Holy Ghost begins withall whom he means principally King or Subject Priest or People single or married Husband or Wife Fathers or Children Masters or Servants but universally promiscuously indifferently they give all rules for all actions to all persons at all times and in all places as in this Text in particular which is not by any precedent or subsequent relation by any connexion or coherence directed upon any company or any degree of men for the Apostle does not say ye Princes nor ye People but ye ye in generall to all So speak ye and so doe as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty so these Epistles are Catholique so they are canonicall and they are circular too But yet though in a circle we know not where the compass began we know not which was the first point yet we know that the last point of the circle returns to the first and so becomes all one and as much as we know the last we know the first point Since then the last point of that circle in which God hath created us to move is a Kingdome for it is the Kingdome of Heaven and it is a Court for it is that glorious Court which is the presence of God in the Communion of his Saints it is a fair and a pious conception for this congregation here present now in this place to believe that the first point of this circle of our Apostle here is a Court too and that the Holy Ghost in proposing these duties in his general ye does principally intend ye that live in Court ye whom God brings so near to the sight of himself and of his Court in heaven as that you have alwayes the picture of himself and the portracture of his Court in your eyes for a religious King is the Image of God and a religious Court is a copy of the Communion of Saints And therefore be you content to think that to you especially our Apostle saies here ye ye who have a neerer propinquity to God and more assiduous conversation with God by having better helps then other inferior stations do afford for though God be seen in a weed in a worm yet he is seen more clearly in the Sun so speak ye and so do as they that shall be Judged by the law of liberty Divisio Now as the first Divels were in heaven for it was not the punishment which they feel in hel but the sin which they committed in heaven which made them devils yet the falt was not in God nor in the place so if the greatest sins be committed in Courts as even in Rome where thy will needs have an innocent Church yet they cause a guilty Court the faults are personal theirs that do them and there is no higher Author of their sin The Apostle does not bid us say that it is so in Courts but least it should come to be so he bids us give these rules to Courts so speak ye and so do as they that shall be Judged by the law of liberty First then here is no express precept given no direct commandment to speak the holy Ghost saw
plura because they are more and so as the more beautiful and better proportioned a body is the more it draws the eye to look upon it so they are nearer quia potiora because they are better and so as the more evidence and light and lustre they have in themselves the easier things are discerned so they are nearer Plura quia manifestiora because they are more visible First how there should be more helps in the Christian religion then in the Jewish is not so evident at first for first if we consider the law to be salvation they had a vast multiplicity of laws scarse less then 600 several laws whereas the honor of the Christian religion is that it is verbum abbreviatum an abridgment of all into ten words as Moses cals the Commandements and then a re-abridgment of that abridgment into two love God and love thy Neighbour that is faith and works If we consider their laws to be their salvation they had more and if we consider their sacrifices to be their salvation they had more too for their Rabbins observe at least 50 several kinds of contracting uncleaness to which there were appropriated several expiations and sacrifices whereas we have only the sacrifices of prayer and of praise and of Christ in the sacrament for so it is the ordinary phrase manner of speech in the Fathers to call that a sacrifice not only as it is a commemorative sacrifice for that is amongst our selves and so every person in the congregation may sacrifice that is do that in remembrance of Christ but as it is a real sacrifice in which the Priest doth that which none but he does that is really to offer up Christ Jesus crucified to Almighty God for the sins of the people so as that that very body of Christ which offered himself for a propitiatory sacrifice upon the cross once for all that body and all that that body suffered is offered again and presented to the Father the Father is intreated that for the merits of that person so presented and offered unto him and in contemplation thereof he will be merciful to that congregation and applie those merits of his to their particular souls These are our sacrifices prayer and praise and Christ thus offered and how are these more then the Jews had they had more laws and more sacrifices and as many sacraments as we and if nearness of salvation consist in the plurality of these how is salvation nearer to us then to them quatenus plura in that first respects as the means are more as it is truly and properly said that there are more ingredients more simples more means of restoring in our dram of triacle or mithridate then in an ounce of any particular syrup in which there may be 3 or 4 in the other perchance so many hundred so in that receit of our Saviour Christ quicquid ligaveris in the absolution of the Minister that whatsoever he shall bind or loose upon earth shall be bound or loose in heaven there is more physick then in all the expiations and sacrifices of the old law There an expiation would serve to day which would not serve to morrow if it were omitted till the sun were set upon it it required a more severe expiation and so also an expiation would serve for one transgression which would not serve for another but here in the absosolution of the Minister there is a concurrence a confluence of medecines of all qualities purgative in confession and restorative in absolution corasive in the preaching of Judgments and cordial in the balm of the sacrament here is no limitation of time at what time soever a sinner repenteth nor limitation of sins whatsoever is forgiven in earth is forgiven in heaven salvation is nearer us in this respect that we have plura adminicula more outward and visible means then the Jews had because we may receive more in one action then they could in all theirs It is so also not only quia plura because we have more means Potiora but quia potiora because those means which we have are in their nature better more attractive and more winning The means as we have said before were their laws and their sacrifices and their sacraments and for their law it was lex interficiens non perficiens it was a law August that punished unrighteousness but it did not confer righteousness and their sacrifices being in blood if we remove from them their typical signification and what they prefigured which was the shedding of the blood of the lamb which takes away the sins of the world must necessarily create and excite a natural horror in man and an aversness from them Take their sacraments into comparison and then one of their sacraments Circumcision was limited to one sex it reached not to women and their other sacrament the passover was in the primary signification and institution thereof only a gratulatory commemoration of a temporal benefit of their deliverance from Egypt And therefore to constitute a judgment proportionably by the effects we see the law and the sacrifice and the sacraments of thy Jews did not much work upon foraign Nations it was salvation but salvation shut up amongst themselves whereas we see that the law of the Chrstians which is to conforme our selves to our great example and pattern Christ Jesus who if we would consider him meerly as man was the most exemplar man for all Theological vertues moral too that ever any history presented the sacrifices of Christians which are all spiritual therein more proportional to God who is all spirit and the sacraments of Christians in which though not ex opere operator not because that action is performed not because that sacrament is administred yet ex pacto and quando opus operamur by Gods covenant when soever that action is performed whensoever that sacrament is administred the grace of God is exhibited and offered nec fallaciter as Calvin saies well it is offered with a purpose on Gods part that that grace should be accepted we see I say that these laws and these sacrifices and these sacraments have gain'd upon the whole world for in their nature and in their attractiveness and in their applyableness and so in their effect they are potiora better and in that respect salvation is nearer us then it was to the Jews Manifestiora And so it is lastly quia manifestiora because they have an evidence and manifestation of themselves in themselves Now this is especially true in the sacraments because the sacraments exhibit and convey grace and grace is such a light such a torch such a beacon as where it is it is easily seen As there is a lustre in a precious stone which no mans eye or finger can limit to a certain place or point in that stone so though we do not assign in the sacrament where that is in what circumstance or part of that holy action
from others upon whom we may depend to admit any dramms of the dregs of a superstitious Religion for it is a miserable extremity when we must take a little poyson for physick And so having made the right use of Gods corrections we shall enjoy the comfort of this phrase in this House our selves our first-born our Zeal was dead it was but it is not Lastly in this fourth House the House where we stand now the House of God and of his Saints God affords us a fair beam of this consolation in the phrase of this Text also They were dead How appliable to you in this place is that which God said to Moses Put off thy shoes for thou treadest on holy ground put off all confidence all standing all relying upon worldly assurances and consider upon what ground you tread upon ground so holy as that all the ground is made of the bodies of Christians and therein hath received a second consecration Every puff of wind within these walls may blow the father into the sons eys or the wife into her husbands or his into hers or both into their childrens or their childrens into both Every grain of dust that flies here is a piece of a Christian you need not distinguish your Pews by figures you need not say I sit within so many of such a neighbour but I sit within so many inches of my husbands or wives or childes or friends grave Ambitious men never made more shift for places in Court then dead men for graves in Churches and as in our later times we have seen two and two almost in every Place and Office so almost every Grave is oppressed with twins and as at Christs resurrection some of the dead arose out of their graves that were buried again so in this lamentable calamity the dead were buried and thrown up again before they were resolved to dust to make room for more But are all these dead They were says the Text they were in your eys and therefore we forbid not that office of the eye that holy tenderness to weep for them that are so dead But there was a part in every one of them that could not die which the God of life who breathed it into them from his own mouth hath suck'd into his own bosome And in that part which could die They were dead but they are not The soul of man is not safer wrapt up in the bosome of God then the body of man is wrapt up in the Contract and in the eternal Decree of the Resurrection As soon shall God tear a leaf out of the Book of Life and cast so many of the Elect into Hell fire as leave the body of any of his Saints in corruption for ever To what body shall Christ Jesus be loth to put to his hand to raise it from the grave then that put to his very God-head the Divinity it self to assume all our bodies when in one person he put on all mankinde in his Incarnation As when my true repentance hath re-ingraffed me in my God and re-incorporated me in my Savior no man may reproach me and say Thou wast a sinner So since all these dead bodies shall be restored by the power and are kept alive in the purpose of Almighty God we cannot say They are scarce that they were dead When time shall be no more when death shall be no more they shall renew or rather continue their being But yet beloved for this state of their grave for it becomes us to call it a state it is not an annihilation no part of Gods Saints can come to nothing as this state of theirs is not to be lamented as though they had lost any thing which might have conduced to their good by departing out of this world so neither is it a state to be joyed in so as that we should expose our selves to dangers unnecessarily in thinking that we want any thing conducing to our good which the dead enjoy As between two men of equal age if one sleep and the other wake all night yet they rise both of an equal age in the morning so they who shall have slept out a long night of many ages in the grave and they who shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord Jesus in the aire at the last day shall enter all at once in their bodies into Heaven No antiquity no seniority for their bodies neither can their souls who went before be said to have been there a minute before ours because we shall all be in a place that reckons not by minutes Clocks and Sun-dials were but a late invention upon earth but the Sun it self and the earth it self was but a late invention in heaven God had been an infinite a super-infinite an unimaginable space millions of millions of unimaginable spaces in heaven before the Creation And our afternoon shall be as long as Gods forenoon for as God never saw beginning so we shall never see end but they whom we tread upon now and we whom others shall tread upon hereafter shall meet at once where though we were dead dead in our several houses dead in a sinful Egypt dead in our family dead in our selves dead in the Grave yet we shall be received with that consolation and glorious consolation you were dead but are alive Enter ye blessed into the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning Amen A SERMON Preached at the Temple SERMON XXII Esther 4.16 Go and assemble all the Jews that are found in Shushan and fast ye for me and eat not nor drink in three days day nor night I also and my Maids will fast likewise and so I will go in to the King which is not according to the Law And if I perish I perish NExt to the eternal and coessential Word of God Christ Jesus the written Word of God the Scriptures concern us most and therefore next to the person of Christ and his Offices the Devil hath troubled the Church with most questions about the certainty of Scriptures and the Canon thereof It was late before the Spirit of God setled and established an unanime and general consent in his Church for the accepting of this Book of Esther For not onely the holy Bishop Melito who defended the Christians by an Apology to the Emperor removed this Book from the Canon of the Scripture One hundred and fifty years after Christ but Athanasius also Three hundred and forty years after Christ refused it too Yea Gregory Nazianzen though he deserved and had the stile and title of Theologus The Divine and though he came to clearer times living almost Four hundred years after Christ did not yet submit himself to an acceptation of this Book But a long time there hath been no doubt of it and it is certainly part of that Scripture which is profitable to teach 2 Tim. 3.16 to reprove to correct and to instruct in righteousness To which purpose we shall see what is afforded
her ruine might have saved her Country but in her case if she had perished they were likely to perish too But she is safer then in that for first she had hope out of the words of the Law out of the dignity of her place out of the Justice of the King out of the preparation which she had made by Prayer which Prayer Josephus either out of tradition or out of conjecture and likelihood Records to have been That God would make both her Language and her Beauty acceptable to the King that day Out of all these she had hope of good success and howsoever if she failed of her purpose she was under two Laws of which it was necessary to obey that which concerned the glory of God And therefore Daniels confidence and Daniels words became her well Behold our God is able to deliver me and he will deliver me but if he will not I must not forsake his honor nor abandon his service And therefore Si peream peream If I perish I perish It is not always a Christian resolution Si peream peream to say If I perish I perish I care not whether I perish or no To admit to invite to tempt tentations and occasions of sin and so to put our selves to the hazard of a spiritual perishing to give fire to concupiscencies with licentious Meditations either of sinful pleasures past or of that which we have then in our purpose and pursuit to fewel this fire with meats of curiosity and provocation to blow this fire with lascivious discourses and Letters and Protestations this admits no such condition Si pereas If thou perish but periisti thou art perished already thou didst then perish when thou didst so desperately cast thy self into the danger of perishing And as he that casts himself from a steeple doth not break his neck till he touch the ground but yet he is truly said to have killed himself when he threw himself towards the ground So in those preparations and invitations to sin we perish before we perish before we commit the act the sin it self We perished then when we opened our selves to the danger of the sin so also if a man will wring out not the Club out of Hercules hands but the sword out of Gods hands if a man will usurpe upon Gods jurisdiction and become a Magistrate to himself and revenge his own quarrels and in an inordinate defence of imaginary honor expose himself to danger in duel with a si peream peream If I perish I perish that is not onely true if he perish he perishes if he perish temporally he perishes spiritually too and goes out of the world loaded with that and with all his other sins but it is also true that if he perish not he perishes he comes back loaded both with the temporal and with the spiritual death both with the blood and with the damnation of that man who perished suddenly and without repentance by his sword To contract this and conclude all If a man have nothing in his contemplation but dignity and high place if he have not Vertue and Religion and a Conscience of having deserved well of his Countrey and the love of God and godly men for his sustentation and assurance but onely to tower up after dignity as a Hawk after a prey and think that he may boldly say as an impossible supposition Si peream peream If I perish I perish as though it were impossible he should perish he shall be subject to that derision of the King of Babylon Quomodo Cecidisti Esa 14.12 How art thou faln from Heaven O Lucifer thou son of the morning How art thou cast down to the ground that didst cast lots upon the Nations But that provident and religious Soul which proceeds in all her enterprises as Esther did in her preparations which first calls an assembly of all her Country-men that is them of the houshold of the Faithful the Congregation of Christs Church and the Communion of Saints and comes to participate the benefit of publick Prayers in his house inconvenient times and then doth the same in her own house within doors she and her maids that is she and all her senses and faculties This soul may also come to Esthers resolution to go in to the King though it be not according to the Law though that Law be That neither fornicator nor adulterer nor wanton nor thief nor drunkard nor covetous nor extortioner nor railer shall have access into the Kingdom of Heaven yet this soul thus prepared shall feel a comfortable assurance that this Law was made for servants and not for sons nor for the Spouse of Christ his Church and the living Members thereof and she may boldly say Si peream peream It is all one though I perish or as it is in the Original Vecasher quomodocunque peream whether I perish in my estimation and opinion with men whether I perish in my fortunes honor or health quomodocunque it is all one Heaven and earth shall pass away but Gods word shall not pass and we have both that word of God which shall never have end and that word of God which never had beginning His Word as it is his Promise his Scriptures and his Word as it is himself Christ Jesus for our assurance and security that that Law of denying sinners access and turning his face from them is not a perpetual not an irrevocable Law but that that himself says belongs to us For a little while have I forsaken thee but with great compassion will I gather thee for a moment in mine anger I hid my face from thee for a little season but with everlasting mercy have I had compassion on thee saith the Lord Christ thy Redeemer How riotously and voluptuously soever I have surfeited upon sin heretofore yet if I fast that fast now how disobedient soever I have been to my Superiors heretofore yet if I apply my self to a conscionable humility to them now howsoever if I have neglected necessary duties in my self or neglected them in my Family that either I have not been careful to give good example or not careful that they should do according to my example and by the way it is not only the Master of a house that hath the charge of a Family but every person every servant in the house that hath a body and a soul hath a house and a Family to look to and to answer for yet if I become careful now that both I I my self will and my whole house all my family shall serve the Lord If I be thus prepar'd thus dispos'd thus matur'd thus mellow'd thus suppled thus entendred to the admitting of any impressions from the hand of my God though there seem to be a general Law spread over all an universal War an universal Famine an universal Pestilence over the whole Nation yet I shall come either to an assurance that though there fall so many thousands on this and on that
enrich him As therefore those words Vers 16. A mans gift maketh room for him and bringeth him before great men are not always understood of Gifts given in nature of Bribes or gratifications for access to great persons but also of Gifts given by God to men that those Gifts and good parts make them acceptable to great persons so is not Grace of lips to be restrained either to a plausible and harmonious speaking appliable to the humor of the hearer for that 's excluded in the first part the root and fountain of all Pureness of heart for flattery cannot consist with that nor to be restrained to the good Offices and Abilities of the tongue onely though they be many but this Grace of lips is to be enlarged to all declarations and expressings and utterings of an ability to serve the Publick All that is Grace of lips And in those words of Osea We render the Calves of our lips is neither meant as the Jews say 14.13 Those Calves which we have promised with our lips and will pay in sacrifice then when we are restor'd to our Land of promise again Nor are those Calves of our lips only restrained to the Lip-service of Praise Heb. 14.15 and Prayer though of them also St. Paul understand them but they include all the sacrifices of the New Testament and all ways by which man can do service to God so here the Grace of lips reaches to all the ways by which a man in civil functions may serve the Publick And this Grace of lips in some proportion in some measure every man is bound in conscience to procure to himself he is bound to enable himself to be useful and profitable to the Publick in some course in some vocation Since even the Angels which are all Spirit be yet administring Spirits and execute the Commissions and Ambassages of God and communicate with men should man who is not made all soul but a composed creature of body and soul exempt himself from doing the offices of mutual society and upholding that frame in which God is pleased to be glorified Since God himself who so many millions of ages contented himself with himself in Heaven yet at last made this world for his glory shall any man live so in it as to contribute nothing towards it Hath God made this World his Theatre ut exhibeatur ludus deorum Plato that man may represent God in his conversation and wilt thou play no part But think that thou only wast made to pass thy time merrily and to be the only spectator upon this Theatre Is the world a great and harmonious Organ where all parts are play'd and all play parts and must thou only sit idle and hear it Is every body else made to be a Member and to do some real office for the sustentation of this great Body this World and wilt thou only be no member of this Body Thinkest thou that thou wast made to be Cos Amoris a Mole in the Face for Ornament a Man of delight in the World Because thy wit thy fashion and some such nothing as that hath made thee a delightful and acceptable companion wilt thou therefore pass in jeast and be nothing If thou wilt be no link of Gods Chain thou must have no part in the influence and providence derived by that successively to us Since it is for thy fault that God hath cursed the Earth and that therefore it must bring forth Thorns and Thistles wilt not thou stoop down nor endanger the pricking of thy hand to weed them up Thinkest thou to eat bread and not sweat Hast thou a prerogative above the common Law of Nature Or must God insert a particular clause of exemption for thy sake Oh get thee then this grace of lips be fit to be inserted and be inserted into some society and some way of doing good to the Publick I speak not this to your selves you Senators of London but as God hath blessed you in your ways and in your Callings so put your children into ways and courses too in which God may bless them The dew of Heaven falls upon them that are abroad Gods blessings fall upon them that travel in the world The Fathers former labors shall not excuse their Sons future idleness as the Father hath so the Son must glorifie God and contribute to the world in some setled course And then as God hath blessed thee in the grace of thy lips in thy endeavors in thy self so thy sons shall grow up as the Son of God himself did in grace and favour of God and man As God hath blessed thee in the fruit of thy Cattel so he shall bless thee in the fruit of thy Body and as he hath blessed thee in the City so he shall bless thee in the Field in that Inheritance which thou shalt leave to thy Son Whereas when children are brought up in such a tenderness and wantonness at home as is too frequent amongst you in this City they never come to be of use to the State nor their own Estates of any longer use to them That Son that comes to say My Father hath laboured and therefore I may take mine ease will come to say at last My Savior hath suffered and therefore I may take my pleasure My Savior hath fasted and therefore I may riot My Savior hath wept enough and therefore I may be merry But as our Savior requires Cooperarios that we be fellow-workers with him to make sure our salvation so if your Sons be not Cooperarii Labourers in some course of life to make sure their Inheritance though you have been called wise in your generation that is rich in your own times yet you will be called fools in your generation too that is ignominious and wretched in your posterity In a word he that will be nothing in this world shall be nothing in the next nor shall he have the Communion of Saints there that will not have the Communion of good men here As much as he can he frustrates Gods Creation God produced things of nothing and he endeavours to bring all to nothing again and he despises his own immortality and glorification for since he lives the life of a beast he shews that he could be content to die so too accepit animam in vano he hath received a soul to no purpose This grace of lips then this ability to do good to the Publick we are bound to have but we are not commanded to love it as we are the pureness of heart we must love to have it but we must not be in love with it when we have it But since the holy Ghost hath chosen to express these abilities in this word Grace of lips that intimates a duty of utterance and declaration of those abilities which he hath Habere te agnoscere ex te nihil habere To let it appear in the use of them that thou hast good parts and to confess that thou
God and live in his fear to be mercinarij per laborem to be the workmen of God and labour in his Vineyard to be filij per lavacrum to be the sons of God and preserve that Inheritance which was sealed to us at first in Baptism and last of all Amici per virtutem by the good use of his gifts the King of Kings shall be our friend That which he said to his Apostles his Spirit shall say to our spirit here and seal it to us for a Covenant of Salt an everlasting John 15.14 an irrevocable Covenant Henceforth call I you not servants but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my Father have I made known unto you And the fruition of this friendship which neither slackens in all our life nor ends at our death the Lord of Life for the death of his most innocent Son afford to us all Amen A Serm. 25. SERMON Preached at the SPITTLE Vpon Easter-Munday 1662. SERMON XXV 2 Cor. 4.6 For God who commanded light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ THe first Book of the Bible begins with the beginning In principio says Moses in Genesis In the beginning God created heaven and earth and can there be any thing prius principio before the beginning Before this beginning there is The last Book of the Bible in the order as they were written the Gospel of St. John begins with the same word too In principio says St. John In the beginning was the Word and here Novissimum primum the last beginning is the first St. John's beginning before Moses Moses speaking but of the Creature and St. John of the Creator and of the Creator before he took that name before he came to the act of Creation as the Word was with God and was God from all Eternity Our present Text is an Epitome of both those beginnings of the first beginning the Creation when God commanded light to shine out of darkness and of the other beginning which is indeed the first of Him in whose face we shall have the knowledge of the glory of God Christ Jesus The first Book of the Bible is a Revelation and so is the last in the order as they stand a Revelation too To declare a production of all things out of nothing which is Moses his work that when I do not know and care not whether I know or no what so contemptible a Creature as an Ant is made of but yet would fain know what so vast and so considerable a thing as an Elephant is made of I care not for a mustard seed but I would fain know what a Cedar is made of I can leave out the consideration of the whole Earth but would be glad to know what the Heavens and the glorious bodies in the Heavens Sun Moon and Stars are made of I shall have but one answer from Moses for all that all my Elephants and Cedars and the Heavens that I consider were made of nothing that a Cloud is as nobly born as the Sun in the Heavens and a begger as nobly as the King upon Earth if we consider the great Grand-father of them all to be nothing to produce light of darkness thus is a Revelation a Manifestation of that which till then was not this Moses does St. John's is a Revelation too a Manifestation of that state which shall be and be for ever after all those which were produced of nothing shall be return'd and ressolv'd to nothing again the glorious state of the everlasting Jerusalem the Kingdom of Heaven Now this Text is a Revelation of both these Revelations the first state that which Moses reveals was too dark for man to see for it was nothing The other that which St. John reveals is too bright too dazling for man to look upon for it is no one limited determined Object but all at once glory and the seat and fountain of all glory the face of Christ Jesus The Holy Ghost hath shewed us both these severally in Moses and in St. John and both together in St. Paul in this Text where as the Sun stands in the midst of the Heavens and shews us both the Creatures that are below it upon Earth and the Creatures that are above it the Stars in Heaven so St. Paul as he is made an Apostle of the Gentiles stands in the midst of this Text God hath shin'd in our hearts Ours as we are Apostolical Ministers of the Gospel and he shows us the greatness of God in the Creation which was before when God commanded light out of darkness and the goodness of God which shall be hereafter when he shall give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus So that this Text giving light by which we see light commanded by God out of darkness and the Object which we are to see the knowledge of the glory of God and this Object being brought within a convenient distance to be seen in the face of Jesus Christ And a fit and well-disposed Medium being illumin'd through which we may see it God having shin'd in our hearts established a Ministry of the Gospel for that purpose if you bring but eyes to that which this Text brings Light and Object and Distance and Means then as St. Basil said of the Book of Psalms upon an impossible supposition If all the other Books of Scripture could perish there were enough in that one for the catechising of all that did believe and for the convincing of all that did not so if all the other Writings of St. Paul could perish this Text were enough to carry us through the body of Divinity from the Cradle of the world in the Creation when God commanded light out of darkness to the Grave and beyond the Grave of the world to the last Dissolution and beyond it when we shall have fully the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus Now whilst I am to speak of all this this which is Omne scibile all and more then can fall within the comprehension of a natural man for it is the beginning of this world and it is the way to the next and it is the next world it self I comfort my self at my first setting out with that of St. Gregory Purgatas aures hominum gratiam nancisci nonne Dei donum est I take it for one of Gods great blessings to me if he have given me now an Auditory Purgatae auris of such spiritual and circumcised Ears as come not to hear that Wisdom of Words which may make the Cross of Christ of none effect much less such itching Ears as come to hear popular and seditious Calumnies and Scandals and Reproaches cast upon the present State and Government For a man may make a Sermon a Satyr he
VVord of Life hath pour'd in this water into that great and Royal Vessel the Understanding and the love of his truth into the large and religious heart of our Soveraign and he pours it out in 100 in 1000 spouts in a more plentiful preaching thereof then ever your Fathers had it in both the ways of plenty plentiful in the frequency plentiful in the learned manner of preaching Illuxit he hath shin'd upon you before you were born in the Covenant in making you the Children of the seed of Abraham of Christian Parents Illuxit he hath shin'd upon you ever since you could hear and see had any exercise of natural and supernatural faculties and Illuxit by his grace who sends treasure in earthen vessels he hath shin'd upon some of you since you came hither now Consider onely now after all this shining that a Candle is as soon blown out at an open door or an open window as in the open street If you open a door to a Supplanter an Underminer a Whisperer against your Religion if there be a broken window a woman loaden with sin as the Apostle speaks and thereby dejected into an inordinate melancholy for such a melancholy as make Witches makes Papists too if she be thereby as apt to change Religions now as Loves before and as weary of this God as of that man if there be such a door such a window a wife a child a friend a sojourner bending that way this light that hath shin'd upon thee may as absolutely go out in thy house and in thy heart as if it were put out in the whole Kingdom Leave the publick to him whose care the publick is and who no doubt prepares a good account to him to whom onely he is accountable Look then to thine own heart and thine own house for that 's thy charge And so we have done with the action shining evidence and with the time Illuxit there is enough done already and we come to the place in Corde if God shine he shines in the heart Fecit Deus Coelum terram Non lego quod requieverit In Cordibus St. Ambros says that Father God made heaven and earth but I do not read that he tested when he had done that Fecit Solem Lunam as he pursues that Meditation He made the Sun and Moon and all the host of heaven but yet he rested not Fecit hominem Requievit When God had made man then he rested for when God had made man he had made his bed the heart of man to rest in God asks nothing of man but his heart and nothing but man can give the heart to God Gen. 8.21 And therefore in that sacrifice of Noah after the flood and often in the Scriptures elsewhere sacrifice is called Odor quietis God smelt a savour of rest in that which proceeds from a religious heart God rests himself and is well pleased Loqui ad Cor Jerusalem to speak to the heart of Jerusalem is ever the Scripture phrase from God to man to speak comfortably and loquiâ—e Corde to speak from the heart is an Emphatical phrase from man to God too He that speaks from his own heart speaks to Gods heart Did not our hearts burn within us while he opened the Scriptures say those two Disciples that went with Christ to Emaus And if your hearts do not so all this while you hear but me Luc. 24.32 and alas who or what am I you hear not God But let this light the love of the ordinary means of your salvation enter into your hearts and shine there and then as the fire in your Chymney grows pale and faints and out of countenance when the Sun shines upon it so whatsoever fires of lust of anger of ambition possessed that heart before it will yeild to this and evaporate But why do I speak all this to others Is it so clear a case that the hearts in this Text are the hearts of others of them that hear and not of our selves that speak That we are to see now for that 's the next and last Branch in this part who be the persons in Cordibus nostris in our hearts Nostris Certainly this word Nostris primarily most literally most directly concerns us Us the Ministers of Gods Word and Sacraments If we take Gods Word into our mouths and pretend a Commission a Calling for the calling of others we must be sure that God hath shin'd in our hearts There is vocatio intentionalis an intentional Calling when Parents in their intention and purpose dedicates their children to this service of God the Ministry even in their Cradle And this is a good and holy intention because though it bind not in the nature of a Vow yet it makes them all the way more careful to give them such an Education as may fit them for that profession And then there is Vocatio Virtualis when having assented to that purpose of my Parents I receive that publick Seal the Imposition of hands in the Church of God but it is Vocatio radicalis the calling that is the root and foundation of all that we have this light shining in our hearts the testimony of Gods Spirit to our spirit that we have this calling from above First then it must be a light not a calling taken out of the darkness of melancholy or darkness of discontent or darkness of want and poverty or darkness of a retir'd life to avoid the mutual duties and offices of society it must be a light and a light that shines it is not enough to have knowledge and learning it must shine out and appear in preaching and it must shine in our hearts in the private testimony of the Spirit there but when it hath so shin'd there it must not go out there but shine still as a Candle in a Candlestick or the Sun in his sphere shine so as it give light to others so that this light doth not shine in our hearts except it appear in the tongue and in the hand too First in the tounge to preach opportune and importune in season and out of season 2 Tim. 4.2 August that is opportune Volentibus importune Nolentibus preaching is in season to them who are willing to hear but though they be not though they had rather the Laws would permit them to be absent or that preaching were given over yet I must preach And in that sense I may use the words of the Apostle As much as in me is I am ready to preach the Gospel to them also that are at Rome at Rome in their hearts at Rome that is of Rome Rom. 1.15 reconciled to Rome I would preach to them if they would have me if they would hear me and that were opportune in season But though we preach importune out of season to their ends and their purposes yet we must preach though they would not have it done for we are debters to all because all are
so heavy nor so discomfortable a curse in the first as in the latter shutting not in the shutting of barrenness as in the shutting of weakness Esa 37 3. when Children are come to the birth and there is not strength to bring forth It is the exaltation of misery to fall from a near hope of happiness And in that vehement imprecation the Prophet expresses the highth of Gods anger Give them O Lord what wilt thou give them Osc 9 14. give them a mis-carrying womb Therefore as soon as we are men that is inanimated quickned in the womb though we cannot our selves our Parents have reason to say in our behalves Wretched man that he is who shall deliver him from this body of death for Ro. 7.24 even the womb is the body of death if there be no deliverer It must be he that said to Jeremy 1. 5. Before I formed thee I knew thee and before thou camest out of the womb I sanctified thee We are not sure that there was no kind of ship nor boat to fish in nor to pass by till God prescribed Noah that absolute forme of the Ark that word which the holy Ghost by Moses uses for the Ark is common to all kinds of boats Thebah and is the same word that Moses uses for the boat that he was exposed in that his mother laid him in an Ark of bullrushes Exo 2.3 But we are sure that Eve had no Midwife when she was delivered of Cain therefore she might well say Possedi virum a Domino Gen. 4.1 I have gotten a man from the Lord wholly intirely from the Lord it is the Lord that hath enabled me to conceive the Lord hath infus'd a quickning soul into that conception the Lord hath brought into the world that which himself had quickned without all this might Eve say my body had been but the house of death and Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis To God the Lord belong the issues of death But then this Exitus a morte is but Introitus in mortem this issue Exitus a moribus mundi this deliverance from that death the death of the womb is an entrance a delivering over to another death the manifold deaths of this world We have a winding sheet in our Mothers womb that grows with us from our conception and we come into the world wound up in that winding sheet for we come to seek a grave And as prisoners discharged of actions may lie for fees so when the womb hath discharged us yet we are bound to it by cords of flesh by such a string as that we cannot go thence nor stay there We celebrate our own funeral with cries even at our birth as though our threescore and ten years of life were spent in our Mothers labor and our Circle made up in the first point thereof We beg one Baptism with another a sacrament of tears and we come into a world that lasts many ages but we last not In domo patris saies our blessed Saviour speaking of heaven multae mansiones Jo. 14.2 there are many and mansions divers and durable so that if a man cannot possess a martyrs house he hath shed no blood for Christ yet he may have a confessors he hath been ready to glorifie God in the shedding of his blood And if a woman cannot possess a virgins house she hath embrac'd the holy state of marriage yet she may have a matrons house she hath brought forth and brought up children in the fear of God In domo patris In my Fathers house in heaven there are many mansions but here upon earth Mat. 8 20. The Son of man hath not where to lay his head saies he himself No terram dedit filiis hominum How then hath God given this earth to the Sons of men He hath given them earth for their materials to be made of earth and he hath given them earth for their grave and sepulture to return and resolve to earth but not for their possession Heb. 13.14 Here we havh no continuing City nay no Cottage that continues nay no we no persons no bodies that continue Whatsoever moved St. Hierome to call the journies of the Israelites in the wilderness Exo. 17.1 Mansions the word the word is nasang signifies but a journie but a peregrination even the Israel of God hath no mansions Gen. 47 9. but journies pilgrimages in this life By that measure did Jacob measure his life to Pharaoh The daies of the years of my pilgrimage And though the Apostle would not say morimer that whilst we are in the body we are dead yet he saies peregrinamur 2 Cor. 5 6. whilst we are in the body we are but in a pilgrimage and we are absent from the Lord. He might have said dead for this whole world is but an universal Church-yard but one common grave and the life and motion that the greatest persons have in it is but as the shaking of buried bodies in their graves by an earthquake That which we call life is but Hebdomada mortium a week of deaths seaven daies seaven periods of our life spent in dying a dying seaven times over and ther 's an end Our birth dies in Infancy and our infancy dies in youth and youth and the rest die in age and age also dies and determines all Nor do all these youth out of infancy or age out of youth arise so as a Phenix out of the ashes of another Phenix formerly dead but as a wasp or a serpent out of carrion or as a snake out of dung our youth is worse then our infancy and our age worse then our youth our youth is hungry and thirsty after those sins which our infancy knew not and our age is sorry and angry that it cannot pursue those sins which our youth did And besides all the way so many deaths that is so many deadly calamities accompany every condition and every period of this life as that death it self would be an ease to them that suffer them Upon this sense does Job wish 10. 18. that God had not given him an issue from the first death from the womb Wherefore hast thou brought me forth out of the womb O that I had given up the Ghost and no eye had seen me I should have been as though I had not been And not only the impatient Israelites in their murmuring would to God we had died by the hands of the Lord Ex. 16.3 in the land of Egypt but Eliah himself when he fled from Jezabel and went for his life as that Text saies under the juniper tree requested that he might die and said It is enough now O Lord take away my life 1 Reg. 19.4 So Jonah justifies his impatience nay his anger towards God himself Now O Lord take I beseech thee my life from me for it is better for me to die then to live And when God ask'd him dost thou well