attribute being more proper and essentiall unto God then any whatsoever That Tyrian proved the wisest in the end who having concluded in the Evening with his fellowes that he which could first in the next morning behold the Sun which they worshipped as a God should be King looked not toward the East where he riseth but towards the western mountains where his rayes did first appear We will follow his Example and seeing we cannot seek into the fountain at which the Cherubs did cover their faces let us behold it in the mountains that is the Prophets and Apostles as Jerome expounds the word or the mountains that is the creatures and works of God in all which it doth most clearly shine there is no work of God in which there do not appear such manifest Characters of his mercy that he which runneth may read them Those benefits intended towards his children as namely Election before all time creation in the beginning of time Vocation Redemption Justification in the fulnesse of time Glorification after all time c. To prove them to be so many rivers of the bottomlesse Ocean of Gods never dying mercy it were but to busie my self about a principle which I hope none of you will call into question Gods almighty power is manifested unto us in that he hath created the world of nothing and made all the hoast of heaven by the breath of his mouth and it is a property in describing of which Gods Secretaries do strive to be eloquent Job to shew it faith that hee spreadeth out the heavens like a Canopie and walketh upon the height of the Sea that he maketh the starres Arcturu and Orion and Pleiades and the climates of the South Elihu sets it forth under Behemoth whose taile is like a Cedar and his bones like staves of brasse yet the Lord leadeth him whither soever he will and under Leviathan which makes the depth to boile like a pot and the sea like a pot of ointment and yet the Lord can put a hoâ—k in his nose and pierce his jawes with an Angle David to shew it faith that he maketh the mountains to skippe like Rammes and the little hils like young sheep Esay to expresse it saith that all nations before him are as a droppe of a bucket and are counted as the dust of the ballance that hee taketh away the Isles as a little dust that he hath measured the waters in his fist and counted heaven with a span comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in a weight and the hils in a ballance and yet his mercy goeth beyond his power in that his omnipotency hath made nothing but what his mercy moved him to create and it comes after too in preserving and guiding and protecting by his heavenly providence a branch of his mercy whatsoever his powerfull hand hath made if he should but once stop the influence of his mercy all the works of his hands should presently be annihilated The earth is full of the mercies of the Lord saith the Psalmist hee saith not the heavens saith Austen Quia non indigent misericordia ubi est nulla miseria they needed no mercy where there is no misery and yet in another place hee addeth the heavens too thy truth an other of his attributes goeth unto the clouds there it stayeth but thy mercy goeth further it reacheth unto the heavens in fewer words It is over all his works But my text leads me to entreat of his mercy as it hath reference unto his justice where you shall finde that of two infinites one doth infinitely surpasse an other to bee called a mercifull God and the father of mercy is a title wherein God especially delighteth but he is almost never called the God of judgement here how hee proclaimeth himself The Lord the Lord strong there is one Epithete of his power merciful gracious slow to anger abundant in goodnesse and truth reserving mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin there are six of his mercy Then comes his justice in punishing of offences not making the wicked innocent visiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation there he confines his justice hee saith unto it as he doth unto the seas in Job Hither shalt thou goe and thou shalt go no further here shalt thou stay thy raging waves it shall not passe the fourth generation and that is more then Ordinary if it come so farre it is but as a high spring upon such as hate him but his mercy flowes like a boundlesse Ocean upon thousands of those that love him Nay the Prophet tels us that to punish is with God a rare and extraordinary work The Lord saith he shall stand as in mount Perazim hee shall be angry as in the valley of Gibeon that hee may do his work his strange act This is an act of judgement where you see that to punish with him is an uncouth and strange work an act indeed unto which without compulsion of justice hee could not be drawn he is more loath to put out his hand for to inflict a judgement then ever was Octavius to subscribe his name to the execution of any publike offender whose usuall speech was this Vtinam nescirem literas I would to God I could not write How oft doth miserable man offend against his maker surely if the just man fall seven times then the wicked falleth seventy times seven times and yet he maketh his Sunne to shine upon them both he makes his rain to fall upon them both still almost he containeth the sword of his justice within the sheath of his mercy If in case he be enforced to draw it he is as it were touched with a feeling of that which the wicked suffer hear himself speak Therefore thus saith the Lord of hoasts the holy one of Israel ah I will ease me of mine adversaries and avenge me of mine enemies it is a kinde of ease to be avenged of thine enemie and therefore God when the Jews continue still to provoke him to his face will ease himself by inflicting his judgements upon them I will ease me of mine enemies but it comes with an ah or alas it is pain and grief to him he is wounded to the very heart his bowels are rolled and turned within him a few tears might have made him sheath his sword and deferre his punishments the history of Ahab will prove as much who was one that had sold himself to work wickednesse that provoked the Lord more then all the Kings of Israel that were before him then Baasha then Omri then Jeroboam the son of Nebat that made Israel to sin therefore the Lords sends unto him the Prophet Eliah telling him that in the field where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth they should lick his blood also and that he would wipe
that the sex doth daily converse with children which is a meanes of encreasing love but also by a naturall sympathy between them Can a woman forget the child of her owne womb She loves others but much more that which is neerest of her blood a part of her selfe whom she loved before she either knew either name or sexe Can a woman forget the child of her wombe It s almost impossible but because such Monsters have been heard of in the world Saevus amor docuit natorum sanguine matrem Commaculare manus Therefore he adds Though she should yet I will never forget thee His love to his is more then a womans to her owne child He respects us as a member of his body to speak after the manner of men Nay as his dearest member as his eye nay as the chiefe part of his eye As the apple of his eye Zach. 2. 8. And though Baal as Elias mocked may perhaps be weary or be in pursuit of his Enemies or asleep and would be awaked Yet he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep Witnesse the wonderfull preservation of his Church against the persecutions and cruelties of Pharaoh Haman Antiochus Sennacherib Decius Dioclesian and other Pagans Valeâ—s and other Hereticks of old and many other both of former and last times whose names I will not now repeat because I may not load your eares with such harsh stuffe If I might presume upon your attention in this kind I had rather instance in this little Israel of ours since she fled out of the dark Aegypt of Poperie through the red Sea of Queen Maries Reign What curses hath the Romish Babylon intended Nay what hath he not intended against her He hath sent his fierce Buls to push her down to trample her honour in the dust He hath thundred out his Canons charged with bullets of Anathemaes against her He hath set open Hel gates for to this three-crowned Cerberus is given the key of the bottomlesse pit and sent out locusts to annoy her He hath used base flatterie open hostility cunning practises secret conspiracies dangerous treasons hellish deviles to overthrow her But behold the watchfull eye of God our heavenly Father over his Children His Bulls which in former times have seemed so wilde that scarce some hundreds met together in a Provinciall Synod duâ—st baite them have proved such cowardly Dastards that every single Curre hath been able to lugge them proving much like to the counterfeit shews of Semiramis when she was to fight with the Indian King which afar off seemed to be Dromedaries and Elephants but when they came to tryal proved nothing but Oxen hides stuffed and bumbasted with straw His Canons troll like Domitians thunder a noise heard but no bullet felt His locusts hurt none but such as had not the Seale of God in their foreheads His plots and devises against Queen Elizabeth and King Iames so defeated and brought to nought that maugre the beards of all Romish Traytors and in despight of all the Devils of Hell they were both brought unto their graves in peace Give me leave before I make use and application of this proposition to put you in mind of two deliverances which as they are never to be forgotten but to be written with pens of iron and the point of a Diamond in the tables of our hearts So do they give evident testimonie of the care which our heavenly Father beareth over his Chosen The one was in 88. when our Enemies were purposed to swallow us up quick they were so wrathfully displeased with us Then the Kings of the earth stood up and the Rulers Mâ—â—rulers Baâ—lac and Balaam the Spaniardâ— and the Pope tooke counsell together against the Lord and against his Anointed saying Come and let us root them out that they be no more a people and that the name of England may be no more in remembrance But what followed He that dwells in Heaven laughed them to scorne the Lord had them in derision He spake unto them in his wrath and did vex them in his sore displeasure He put a book in their noses and a bridle in their lips and carryed them back againe not the same way they came as he did Sennacherib but a strange and unknown way to the Spaniard for all his sayling through the cold Northern Seas and the boysterous Western Ocean Whence after Leviathan had taken his full of them and the Sea which then faught for England was glutted with the multitude of dead corps a few weather-beaten Souldiers returned home in torne and tattered Ships to carry their Master word that it was hard for him to prevaile where God was his enemie Pretty were those verses of Claudian spoken to Theodosius the first when hee prevailed against his Enemies by help of the wind which blew dust in their faces applyed to Queen Elizabeth O nimium dilecte deo cui militat aether Et conjur ati veniunt in praelia venti Turned thus to Queen Elizabeth O nimium dilecta deo cui militat aequor Et conjur ati veniunt in classica venti Neither is the Zelanders invention to be forgotten who upon this occasion in a new coine of silver stamped a Ship sinking with this motto Venit ivit fuit and in a coine of Gold Homâ— propouit Deus disponit 1588. This though of it selfe great may find examples parallel to it but the other which happened Novemb. 5. 1605. which is such that a man would scarcely beleive that the Devil himselfe though he be a subtle Serpent could invent so wicked a plot or he and all his Angels though they be murtherers from the beginning would not tremble to put in execution so cruel a device if wee shall turne over all Histories of ancient and later times we shall not finde one to match it What shall I say unto you by way of Preface but as Isaiah begins his Prophesie Hear heavns and hearken O earth Or with Ioel Heare ye this O yee Elders and hearken all ye Inhabitants of this land whether ever such a thing hath been in your dayes or in the days of your fathers or in the dayes of your fore-fathers Tell ye your children of it and let your children tell their children and their children tell another generation When Balaams servants did not onely wish as once that Barbarian did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor as Nero added when he set Rome on fire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when I am living let the whole World burne with fire but had almost put in execution their cruell intendments Nor as Tarquin in Livie and Periander in Herodotus to cut off the chiefe heads that there might be a paritie Cousin german to confusion amongst the rest but to cut off head and tayle branch and rush in one day To make the body of this Kingdome like dead Priamus in the Poet Avulsum humeris caput fine nomine corpus When that place which was ordained for the establishing
am vox clamantis a Cryer or Summoner sent unto you from the great God of Heaven Earth who with a mighty hand and out-stretched Arme brought your Fore-Fathers out of the Land of Aegypt and gave them this fruitfull Land which you now possesse who being almighty is able to defend you if you shall cleave unto him and to punish you if you shall neglect his word whose name is JEHOVAH I am yesterday and to day and the same for ever which was and which is and which is to come without change or shadow of change that which I have received from him I deliver unto you Thus saith the Lord Execute Judgement and Righteousnesse As then Judges in their Circuite in the severall Counties where they sit to heare and determine Causes first cause their Commission to be read then give the charge to the Inquest So our Prophet first shewes his Commission Thus saith the Lord and then gives his Charge Execute Judgment And these be the two Branches into which my Text divideth it selfe In the Commission I note that a Prophet and consequently a Minister who in the new Testament is also called a Prophet is an Embassadour sent from God unto the Sonnes of men So saith the Apostle Wee are Embassadours from Christ as though God did beseech you through us we pray you in Christs stead that yee be reconciled unto God 2 Cor. 5. 20. Let a man so think of us as of the Ministers of Christ and disposes of the secrets of God 1 Cor. 4. 1. This shewes the Dignity of this Calling a Calling whether you respect the Author or the Subject or the end as far exceeding all others as Saul in length of body did the rest of the Israelites And surely if the Philosopher could call the Stones happy of which the Altar was builded because they were had in honour when others were troden under feet then much more may they be termed happy whom the Lord hath separated from their Brethren and taken neer unto himselfe to minister unto him if they shall be found faithfull and diligent in so high a calling But here I may justly take up the Prophets Complaint Who will beleive our report If I should dilate on this Subject my words would seem to many as Lots did to his Sonnes in Law when he spoke of the destruction of Sodome who seemed to speake as if he had mocked I appeale to your consciences whether the Vocation of a Priest so the prophane Gulls of this World call it in disgrace be not by many reputed the most base and contemptible Calling in the Land that which the Apostle speakes of our generall calling to Christianity is at this day verified of this particular Vocation not many mighty not many noble are called 1 Cor. 1. The poor and the halt and the lame and such as are good for nothing else are thought sufficient for these things though the Apostle could ask 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is sufficient do not many with the foolish woers in the Poet Penelopâ—n relinquere ad ancillas confugere leave the Mistresse and become Suiters to her Maids and chuse rather to be of any calling nay of no calling to be idle Hunters riotous Gamesters loose livers to be any thing rather then to be imployed in this great and weighty businesse of being an Embassadour from God unto the Sonnes of men But it s no matter Philosophy suffers no great disgrace because Agrippina will not have her Son young Nero to study it and a Pearle is not a straw the worse because Esops Cock cares not for it Rauca reful gentem contemnit noctua Phoebum Non crimen Phoebus noctua crimen habet The Owle cannot abide the Sun the fault is not in the Sunne but in the Owles eyes that cannot behold it The very Heathen shall in the day of judgement arise against these men and condemn them amongst whom this Calling hath alwayes been honoured for the best Amongst the Phoenicians they wore a crowne of gold Amongst the Athenians none were admitted King that had not been of this Order It was not scorned by the best Senatour of Rome insomuch that Gellius having set down four properties of Crassus which he calls Rerum humanarum maxima praecipua the greatest things amongst the sons of men Quod esset ditissimus quod nobilissimus quod eloquentissimus quod jurisconsultissimus that he was the richest and the noblest and the most eloquent and the best Lawyer that Rome had He adds in the last place as it were a specificall forme restraining all the rest Quod pontifex maximus that he was the chiefe Bishop and Virgil had no intendment to disgrace Amus when he called him a King and a Priest Rex Amus rex idem hominum Phoebique sacerdos And the custome of the old Aegyptians is well enough known unto Schollers Qui ex philosophis sacerdotes and Ex sacerdotibus probatissimum in regem elegerunt who from Philosophers chose Priests and from Priests Kings whereupon their Hermes had the name of Trismegistus thrice greatest the greatest Philosopher the greatest Priest and the greatest King Such an one was Moses the Prince and chiefe of all the Prophets who did not preach to Pharaoh and the Israelites till first instructed by the Lord what he should say Such were the Priests of the Law or at least such they should have been and therefore the Lord saith That the Priests lips should preserve knowledge and That they should seeke the law at his mouth The reason is added because he is the Angel or Embassadour of the Lord of Hosts Such was Ezekiel whom the Lord tells that he had made a watch-man over the house of Israel and that hee should heare the word at his mouth and give the people warning from him Such was Jeremiah who prophesied not to the Jewes till the Lord had touched his tongue and put words into his mouth Finally such were all the Prophets before the coming of the Messias who had this law giuen them that they should teach no more then he had given them in charge Hence be these and the like speeches Thus saith the Lord. The word of the Lord. The burden of the Lord. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it Come to the New Testament and look upon the Apostles and Evangelists surely very excellent things were spoken of them they were called the salt of the Earth the light of the World the friends of Christ they had the keyes of Heaven gates given unto them That whatsoever they bound on earth should be bound in heaven and whatsoever they loosed on earth should be loosed in heaven They were sent to preach to all Nations but not what they would but what they had in commission from Christ Teach to observe all things which I have commanded Mat. 28. 20. Nay Christ Jesus the Son of God the Privy Counsellor of the Father the only Master and Teacher of his Church
away his posterity as one wipeth a dish when it is wiped and turned upside down Ahab hath no sooner rented his clothes at the Prophets words then God repenteth him of what he had threatned Seest thou how Ahab is humbled before me a simple humiliation God wot only in outward shew and yet shall suffice to revoke part of Gods judgements against him because he submitteth himself before me I will not bring that evil in his dayes upon his house Nineve had multiplyed her transgressions as the sand upon the sea shore she had by her sins blown upon the coals of Gods anger against her but yet he will not come upon her as a thief in the night to destroy her she shall have fourtie dayes warning and if in the mean time she will turn her playing into praying and her feasting into fasting and by covering her self with sack cloth hide from his eyes her broad sails of pride he will make it known unto her that he was not so ready before to lend a left ear of justice to her crying sins as he is now to afford a right ear of mercie to the cry of her sinners he will repent of the evil that he had denounced against her and will not do it The old world had so defiled the earth with her cruelties and the smoak of her sins did so fume up to Heaven into the Nostrils of God that he was sorry in his heart that ever he had made man yet he will not presently destroy this wicked generation there shall be an hundred and twenty years for repentance before he will purge this Augaeum stabulum with a deluge of waters Nay such is the never drying stream of his mercies that for the righteous sake the wicked though they do not repent shall fare the better God is not like to the Emperour Theodosius who for the offence of a few put all the Thessalonians to the sword but rather if without offence the Potter may be compared to the clay like to that Persian General who spared Delos because that Apollo was born there or Caesar who made the Cnidians free men for Theopompus his sake it was an opinion of the Heathen that for one evil mans sake many good men were put to the worse Pallas exurere Gentem Argivûm atque ipsos voluit submergere ponto Pallas overthrew the whole navie of the Argives Vnius ob noxam furias Ajacis Oilei for the sin of one man by name Ajax the son of Oileus and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God punisheth a whole City for one mans sin and sends upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 famine and plague for the sin of some particular it is not so God never punisheth one man for anothers offences if thou object unto me that the Israelites were plagued for Davids trespasse I answer Davids sin did occasion that punishment which the Israelites did justly deserve for their own iniquities for howsoever David in respect of himself who deserved more called them sheep yet indeed they were Wolves in sheep-skins and verily in this particular we have an evident demonstration of his mercies for first of three several punishments he gives him leave to chuse which of them he would When David had chosen the Pestilence for three dayes indeed he sent his destroying Angel but before his sword was half drawn he puts it up again and repenteth him of the evil and abridgeth the time Now we know that every substraction from his judgements is a multiplication of his mercies and how far he is from punishing the righteous with the wicked let Sodom witnesse a sink of the filthiest sins a cage of the uncleanest birds a den of the wickedest theeves that ever the earth bred yet he will not rashly come upon her but first he will go down and see whether they have done altogether according unto that cry which was come unto him and if there can but fifty righteous men be found in five Cities which was but for every City ten nay if but fourty nay if but thirty nay if but twenty nay if but ten can bee found amongst them all which was but for every City two he will not destroy the Citie for those mens sake when none can be found save just Lot he will not subvert Sodom before he be brought out of the City nay he will spare the whole City of Zoar for Lots sake if good Paul be in the ship all that are with him even the barbarous Souldiers shall for his sake come safe to land But of all others that I may end this point where I began it Jerusalem in my Text is most famous whom the Lord doth so tenderly compassionate that if within her spatious walls amongst so many millions of souls one righteous man could have been found either among the Nobles or Magistrates or Priests or people he would have spared Jerusalem for that mans sake And is this true be not then dismayed thou fainting and drooping soul whom the burden of thy sins hath pressed down to the brink of hell is there such a thunder-threatning Cloud of Gods justice set before thine eyes that thou thinkest it impossible that the Sun of his favour should pierce through it into thine heart deceive not thy self where sin aboundeth there grace super-aboundeth thou aâ—t a fit Subject for God to work upon where should the Physitian shew his skill but where the greatest maladies do reign and where can God better shew his mercie then where is the greatest aboundance of mans misery the desperatest diseases that can befall the soul of man dead Apoplexies unclean Leprosies dangerous Lethargies remedilesse Consumptions whatsoever they be God can as easily cure them as the smallest infection and as he is able so is he most willing to do it because his mercy as I have already proved is his chiefest attribute and every attribute of God is the Essence of God so that he can no more cease from his works of mercy then the eye being well disposed from seeing or the fire from heating or the Heaven from moving or the Sun from shining he that denyeth this is a Traytor to the King of Heaven because he gain-sayeth that stile wherein God especially delighteth There is no sin of it self 〈◊〉 but God can wipe it away he will forgive 〈…〉 as welâ— as righteous Abraham ten thousand talents aâ— one peny Suppose that all the sins that ever were committed from the murther of Cain to the treason of Judas laid upon thy shoulders there is no more proportion between them and Gods mercie then between stillam muriae mare Aegaeum betwixt a drop of brine and the Aegean nay the great Ocean the snuff of the Candle and the light of the day or a mote in the Sun and the Globe of the high Heaven Flie unto the throne of grace and though thy sins were bloody like Scarlet he will make them as Wool and
fellowes Come and bring wine and wee will fill our selves with strong drink and to morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant But few or none will say with those good professors Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob and he will teach us his lawes and we will walk in his paths I think I cannot truly say with Hosea that the Lord hath a controversie with the inhabitants of this land because there is no knowledge of God in the land For our heads are not so sick as our hearts are heavie I mean our heads are not so void of knowledge as our hearts are of obedience but I dare boldly say that which followeth By swearing and lying and killing and stealing and wâ—oâ—ing they break forth and bloud toucheth bloud Will you heare the judgements annexed in the subsequent words Therefore shall the land mourne and every one that dwelleth therein shall be cut off This is a terrible curse and he that dwelleth in heaven still avert it from u but yet it is a conclusion which the Lord useth to inferre upon such premises Give me leave to repeat a paâ—able unto you My beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitfull hill and he hedged it and gathered the stones out of it and he planted it with the best plants and hee built a Tower in the midst and made a winepresse therein The Prophet in that place applieth it to the land of Judah Surely the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the land of Israel and the men of Judah are his pleasant plants me thinks I may not unfitly apply it unto this Island Surely the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the land of Britaine and the men of this land are his pleasant plants Now therefore O ye inhabitants of this land judge I pray you between him and his vineyard what could hee have done unto it that he hath not done He hath planted it with his own right hand he hath so hedged it about with his heavenly providence that the wilde boare out of the woods cannot root it up nor they that go by pull off his grapes He hath watered it most abundantly with the dew of heaven he hath gathered the stones of Popery and superstition out of it hee hath set the winepresse of his word therein hee hath given it a Tower even a king as a strong tower against his enemies whose raigne the Lord continue over us if it be his pleasure as long as the moon knoweth her course and the sun his going down and let all that love the peace of Britaine say Amen Now he hath long expected that it should bring forth grapes but behold it bringeth forth wild grapes Hee looked for judgement but behold oppression for righteousnesse but loâ— a crying These were the sinnes of Jerusalem and you know her judgements hee that was Jerusalems God is Britaines God too and therefore if shee parallel Jerusalem in her iniquities let her take heed shee taste not of her plagues God though he hath not yet begun to punish her in his fury yet hath he sundry times shaked his rod of correction over her if this will not worke amendment her judgement must be the greater Fearfull was the case of Samaria whom Gods punishments could not move to repentance I have given you cleannesse of teeth in all your Cities and scarcenesse of Bread in all your places yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord God I have withholden the raine from you when there was yet three moneths to the harvest and I caused it to raine upon one City and brought a drought upon another yet have yee not returned unto me saith the Lord. Pestilence have I sent amongst you after the manner of Egypt and yet ye have not returned unto me saith the Lord. I have smitten you with blasting and mildew c. yet ye have not returned unto mee saith the Lord God The Lord hath not hitherto dealt with us after our sinnes nor plagued us according to the multitude of our iniquities yet he hath made it manifest that he is displeased with us His mercy hath pulled back his hand from drawing his sword of vengeance against us yet he hath left us sundry tokens that he is angred with our sinnes It is not long since that the heavens were made as brasse and the Earth as yron nay the very waters became as yron or as brasse so that neither the heavens from above nor the earth or water from below did afford comforts for the service of man This extraordinary cold distemperature of the ayre might by an Antiperistasis have kindled some heat of zeal and devotion in our breasts when it had not the expected effect then he Called for a dearth upon the land and destroyed our provision of bread even such a famine that if we were not relieved from forrain countreys Ten women might bake their bread in one Oven as the Lord speaketh Levit. 26. 26. But all this hath not brought us upon our knees nor humbled our soules before our God therefore once againe hee hath put life in his messenger of death and set him on foot which hertofore of late years hath raged in this city like a man of warre and like a gyant refreshed with wine and bestirred himselfe though not with the like violence almost in every part of this kingdom I mean the pestilence that walketh in the darknesse and the sicknesse that hath killed many thousands at noon day all these are infallible tokens that he is offended with our sinnes Howbeit he is so mercifull that he will not suffer his whole displeasure as yet to arise Horum si singula duras Flectere non possunt poterint tamen omnia mentes If each of these by themselves cannot prevaile with us yet if they be all put together they may serve as a threefold cord to draw us unto repentance If these be not of force but still we continue to blow up the coales of his anger then let us know for a certainty that they are the forewarners of a greater evill as the cracking of the house is a forewarning of his fall these be but the flashing lightnings the thunder bolt will come after The cloud that is long in gathering will make the greater storme he is all this while in setting his stroke that hee may give the sorer blow Eurum ad se Zephirumque vocat hee is in bringing the windes out of his treasures that hee may rain upon our heads a showre of vengeance which shall be the portion of all the ungodly to drink I began like a Barnabas I will not end like Boanerges my song had an Exordium of mercy I am loath to bring for an Epilogue a thunderclap of judgement Wherefore my beloved Brethren now that you see the true causes of the ruines of every common-wealth and the judgement that
be afraid to commit any sinne so that he may be rewarded for his pains And how can it be otherwise for hee is like an hunger-starved man which will do any thing so that he may satiate his appetite Covetousnesse like the pit of hell is never satisfied and like the barren wombe it never saith I have enough Quo plus sunt potae plus sitiuntur aquae the more bloud the two daughters of the horsleech shall suck the more eagerly they cry out give give This barren and dâ—y earth is never satisfied with water nec sitim pellit nisi causa morbi Nothing will content this dropsie but that which more augmenteth the disease as nothing wil satisfie the fire but that which more augmenteth the flame He is like unto him that hath the Caninus appetitus the more he eateth the more he hungreth Some Physitians say that gold is good for him that is in a consumption but I never read that it is good against a surfeit But experience proves it true that a gold-hungring man doth not onely long for this metall when hee is in a consumption but farre more when he hath taken a surfeit through abundance congesto pauper in auro est The richer the poorer his mind hungereth as much for gold as Dionysius his belly hungred for flesh who used to stand all the day in the shambles quod emere non potuerat oculis devorabat That which he could not buy with his penny he devoured with his eyes And here that comes in my mind which Herodotus recordeth of Alcmaeon the Athenian who because he had kindly entertained the messengers which Croesus sent to the oracle of Delphos Croesus sent for him and offered him asmuch gold as at one time hee could bear out of his treasure house Alcmaeon not a little glad of the offer prepared a large doublet with wide sleeves a paire of breeches reaching down to his heeles both of them fitter for Hercules then for himselfe This done he went to Croesus his coffers and first filled his breeches as full as he could stuffe them then his sleeves and bosome then glued as much as he could to the haires of his head and beard and then lastly stuffed his mouth with as much as he could thrust in it and so with much adoe crept out of the treasure house This sinne as of all men it is to be avoided so especially of magistrates which sit at the stern to direct our ship in this glassie sea and which are the pillars of justice to support her battered fabrick Yee must not give it the least welcome in your hearts but like the wise traveller stoppe your ears at the songs of this Syren and not give it the least attention though it charm never so cunningly You should have eyes like unto Lynceus to dive into the bottome of the most deep and abstruse controversies Now hope of reward blindeth the eyes of the wise so that as a blind man which hath a pearle upon his eyes cannot see his way but stumbleth at every block and falleth headlong into every pit right so if you shall have this rich pearle this pearle of riches before your eyes you can never tread right in the way of truth The eye or any faculty of the sensuall or intellectual part if it be busied about any one object neglecteth the rest and if your eyes be exercised about this object it will make you negligent in publike affaires Intùs apparens prohibet alienum if the species of gold possesse your hearts there will be no room for justice to lodge in them For these two be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non benè conveniunt nec in unâ sede morantur They can no more lodge within the same breast then light with darknesse the arke with Dagon God with Mammon It was Caesars saying borrowed from Euripides in his Phoenissa If justice must be broken it must be for raigning But he might more truly have said for gaining For gold could never away with justice and therefore the Poets faine that when gold first began to be digged out of the earth justice durst tarry no longer but presently fled into heaven Therefore jethro describing the quality of a good judge saith that he must deal justly or truly and then he addes as it were by way of explication for the better understanding of the former word that he must hate covetousnesse as if he had said if he be a covetous and gold-thirsting man he cannot be a true and just dealer And to this purpose David prayeth Psal 119. that the Lord would encline his heart to his testimonies and not to covetousnesse 7. Now as this insatiable desire of gaine is not to sit on the bench with the judge so is it not to plead at the barre with the counsellor which with the key of knowledge is to unlock the secrets of the law and with as skilful and expert hand to untie the knots of hard and difficult questions It will make him Pharisee-like to straine a Gnat and to swallow a Camel to tith the mint and cummin and to let passe judgement and fidelity it will make his tongue play fast and loose with justice at its pleasure A golden key commonly opens a wrong lock Auro loquente nihil pollet quaevis oratio When Pluto speaks Plato may hold his hand on his mouth like Harpocrates the Egyptian God and say nothing It is a great commendation which Tullie gives unto a Lawyer The mouth of a Lawyer is an oracle for the whole city But if this mouth be once corrupted with gold it will prove like the oracle of Delphos of which Demosthenes complained in his time that it did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speak nothing but what Philip which gave it a fee would have it to say And such an oracle Demosthenes himself sometime proved who being feed to plead a cause and immedatly after receiving a large summe of money of the other party for holding his peace the next day comes into the court in a rugge-gowne having his neck and jawes all muffled with furres and warm cloathes and told the Judges he was troubled with a squinancie that he could not speak Whereupon one that perceived his disease said that it was not a cold but gold that hindered his speech 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Oxe I warrant you was in his tongue The Athenian coyne which was stamped with the forme of an Oxe had bunged up his mouth no marvel if hee was speechlesse 8. But especially this sin is to be avoided of you that are witnesses and jurors which are the one by testifying the other by examining the truth to make a finall decision of controversies If you shall entertain any such thought as to say with Judas What will yee give me yee shall be sure to find some Simon Magus ready to say What shall I give you Falsity and lying have ever been
I am not justified I doe not discharge a good conscience unless I should admonish you of these things that if any be guilty of that which I have spoken he may learne to amend it if not he may do his indeavour to avoid it 22. If I should speake unto you R. H. and offer to instruct you in the particular duties of a Judge I might perchance be judged by many with Megabizus to discourse of the Art of painting before the schollars of Zeuxis To say nothing that my Text gives me no fit occasion to discourse of this subject notwithstanding I beseech you in one word give me leave to move you to that which yee both know and are ready I am sure to put in practise You know the saying of the Poet Qui rogat ut facias quod jam facis ipse rogando Laudat hortatu comprobat acta suo The object of your office is either life or living About both these it is requisite you have three properties An Eagles eye a Ladies hand and a Lyons hsart An eagles eye to dive into the bottome of such matters as shall come before you for the wound is never soundly cured unlesse the bottome be first searched A ladies hand to deale softly and gently with your Patients A lyons heart to be couragious and resolute when there is no place for lenity Herein ye must imitate a good Chyrurgion who cuts the wound though his patient weep never so sore Ploratsecandus secatur plorat urendus uritur The sick weepes and yet the Chyrurgion cuts the sick laments and yet the Chyrurgion seareth Is this cruelty in the Chyrurgion none at all For savit in vulnus ut homo sanetur quia si vulnus palpetur homo perditur Where there is hope of cure without searing or cutting use there a Ladies hand in this case a plaster is better then a knife But where the Member is incurable and incorrigible and like to indanger the whole cut it off Melius est ut pereat unus quam unitas And. immedicabile vulnus Ense recidendum ne pars sincera trahatur But yet Cuncta prius tentanda fire must be the last medicine All gentle meanes must be first tryed and even in this act of justice ye must not altogether exclude mercy When many of the Lacedemonians were drunke with wine Lycurgus gave charge that the Vines should be cut downe but Plato's counsell was better who willed that the fountaines should be caused to runne among the Vines and that the rage of Bacchus should be tempered with the soberness of Neptune that is that the water should be mingled with the wine Though the extremity of juice make some desperate as did Draco's lawes which for their severity are said to be written in blood yet must it not therefore be taken away but rather the rigour of justice must be mixed with clemency as his counsell was that the rage of wine should be asswaged with the coolenesse of the water For justice with out mercy is bloody cruelty mercy without justice is foolish pity but justice with mercy is perfect Christianitie Oh then those which God would have joyned together do not you put asunder But let them both be so linked together that yee may verifie that of the Psalmist Mercy and truth are met together righteousnesse and peace have kissed each other To this purpose in all your consultations and actions set God before your eyes let him be on your right hands and so yee shall not greatly fall A Poet when he is to bring a person upon the Stage will have this care that the action and speech be agreeable to the person Inter erit multum Davusne loquatur an Heros Id histrio videbit Scena quod non saepiens in vità shall a stage-player observe that decorum on the theater which a wise man will not looke to in his life The world is stage and every man acteth his part upon this stage You R. H. doe act the part of God himselfe The more warie ought ye to be in your actions Ever waiting whether God if he were in your places would doe thus or thus Remember likewise that though ye be Gods yet ye must die as a man The greatest Judge of the earth must one day hold up his hand at the barre and answer for himselfe when the Judge of the world shall sit on the bench This do and when it shall please God to call you hence ye shall be advanced to a higher Court the Court of Heaven where for your scarlet garments ye shall be invested in long white robes your bench shall be the Throne your attendants the Angels the parties ye shall judge the world your sentence an Hallelujah Amen praise and glory and wisedom and thankes and honour and power and might be unto our God for evermore Amen MAT. 27. 3. 4. Then Judas which betrayed him saw that he was condemned repented himselfe and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief Priests and Elders saying I have sinned betraying the innocent bloud But they said what is that to us see thou to that and when he had cast down the silver pieces in the Temple c. THese words contain in them part of an history of some things which hapned unto Judas after he had betrayed his master together with the answer of the High Priests and Elders at such time when he being sorrowful for the fact confessed his fault and restored the money They prettily excuse themselves what is that to us O Hypocrites what is that to us did not you hire Judas to betray him did not you incense Pilate to condemn him did you not all crie with one voyce crucifie him and what is that to us O generation of vipers how can ye escape the damnation of hell but my speech at this time shall be about the history of Judas wherein observe three things 1. His condemnation by the virdict of his owne guilty conscience then Judas when he saw that he was condemned 2. His mortification or imperfect repentance he repented c. 3. His desperation he departed and went c. let us begin with the first then Judas when hee saw that he was condemned they may be understood two wayes either thus when he saw that his master was condemned for though Christ in this chapter comes after yet that is not material For the Evangelists do not observe a strict order of time in setting down the story but sometimes by way of Anticipation set them down before and sometimes by way of recapitulation bring them after or thus when he saw that himselfe was condemned take them whether way you will and they afford us this doctrine there is no man so wicked but his conscience will at one time or other upon one occasion or other convict and condemn him for his sins He that shall a little look upon Judas before this time would think that all
a dead letter It is like a sword in the warres without a souldier to draw it Many make no more account of transgressing it then Remus did of going over the furrow which Romulus had caused to be drawn Or the frogs in the fable of skipping over the Lion when he was fast a sleep Therefore God hath added the Magistate as the life and soule of the law as a Captain to manage this sword Him he hath made if I may so speak the summum genus of the common-wealth by two generical differences of poena and praemium to coarct and keep his inferiours in their several ranks that as Jehu and Jehonadab went hand in hand together for the rooting out of Ahabs posterity and destruction of Baals Priests so the Magistrate being as Aristotle cals him a living law and the law being a mute and dead Magistrate should joyn hand in hand and proceed valorously to the rooting out of sinne the suppression of Idolatry the protection of justice and maintenance of true religion 4. Now that they have this authority only from God it is a point which I hope in this place I shall not need long to insist upon For if every good and perfect gift be from above even from the father of lights much more this excellent and supereminent gift of governing Gods people must proceed from this fountain And to think otherwise is but with the Epicures to be of opinion that though God made the world yet the government thereof he leaveth to fortunes discretion to be directed by her One of the stiles wherewith God is invested is this that he is the authour of order and not of confusion if of order then of Civil government seeing that an Anarchie is the cause of all disorder and confusion in the state Insomuch that the reason of all the sinnes that were committed in Israel is often in the book of Judges ascribed unto this that they wanted a Magistrate There was at that time no king in Israel Judg. 17. 6. 18. 1. 19. 1. 21. 25. It is a miserable life to live under a tyrant where nothing is lawfull but farre worse to live in an Anarchie where nothing is unlawfull But I shall not need to trouble my self or to tire out your attention by heaping up multitudes of reasons for proving of this point seeing it is a conclusion so plainly averred by the holy Ghost by me kings reign sath the wisdome of God by the mouth of Solomon and Princes decree justice by me Princes rule and the nobles and all judges of the earth As if he had said it is not by the wit and policie of man that the governments of states is committed unto kings and other inferiour Magistrates it is effected by the wisdome and providence of God With which the Apostle agreeth when he tels us that there is no power but of God and the powers that be are ordained of God It was sometime said of Nebuchadnezzar that great king of Babylon that whom hee would he pulled down and whom he would he set up But it is alwayes true of the king of heaven who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the King of Kings and Lord of Lords he pulleth down one and setteth up an other he disposeth of their rooms at his pleasure For if the hearts of kings much more their kingdomes are at his disposition This is a truth to which the very heathen themselves have subscribed It was God alone that did exalt Solomon unto the throne of his father David so the Queen of the South affirmed that did exalt Cyrus to the kingdomes of the earth so he himself confessed Agreeing with that of the prophet David Promotion comes not from the East nor from the West no nor yet from the South And why God is the judge he putteth down one and setteth up another 5. And is this true Here then first the Anabaptists come to be censured which withdraw their necks from the yoke of civil government and condemn it as not beseeming the liberty of a Christian man A lesson which they never learned from the prophet Esay who foretold that in the time of the gospel an assertion which they cannot away with for though they graunt that the Jewes at Gods appointment had their Magistrates yet they think it not fit for a Christian to be subject to such slavery in the time I say of the Gospel he will appoint kings to be patrons and propugnators of his Church Kings shall be thy nursing fathers and Queens shall be thy nurses Nor from our Saviour Christ who though he told his disciples when they strove for superiority amongst themselves that one of them should not domineer over another as did the kings of the nations yet it was never his meaning to withdraw them from obedience to superiour governours but that Caesar should have that which did belong to Caesar Nor from Peter who commands us to honour the King Nor from Paul who commands us to pray for Kings and all that are in authority and that to this end that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godlinesse and honesty God knowes better what is meet for Christians then the Anabaptists do Hee knowes that wee are strangers on earth and not angels in heaven And being strangers and pilgrims stand in as great need of these helps as of fire of water of aire of apparel of any thing which is necessary for the sustentation of our lives seeing that they are not onely the means that we are partakers of all these while they effect that we may live together in civil society but also the promoters of true religion the advancers of vertue the rewarders of piety the punishers of sin the destroyers of Idolatry superstition and all misdemeanours amongst Christians So that as God said unto Samuel concerning the Jewes when they dislâ—ked their present government they have not cast thee away but they have cast me away that I should not reign over them so I may say of these fanatical spirits it is not the Magistrate but God himself whom they have rejected that he should not reign over them 6. There is an other sort of men who though not directly with the Anabaptists yet indirectly and by a consequent crosse my proposition I mean the Papists These do not altogether take away the civil Magistrate but they tie his thums and abridge his authority It must be only in temporalibus for spiritual matters he must have no more dâ—alings with them then Vzza had to touch the arke of God This they willingly grant that the Magistartes are Gods but as the Aramits said of the Israelites that their Gods were Gods of the mountains and not Gods of the vallies so say they the civil Magistrates are Gods of the montains and not Gods of the vallies they are Gods of the Laity but not of the Clergy This
is naught in respect of that which followeth For whereas God challengeth this as a prerogative unto himself to bestow kingdomes on whomsoever he wil and placeth the Princes of the earth in authority next unto himselfe this they have perforce taken from God and bestowed it upon him that sitteth in the temple of God and advanceth himself above all that are called Gods It is he to whom if ye will believe him and his parasites all power is committed both in heaven and in earth He is that King of Kings and Lord of Lords by whom Princes rule and on whom the right of Kings dependeth all nations must fall down before him and all kingdomes must do him homage The greatest Monarch of the earth must prostrat himselfe before him and kisse his holy feet The Emperour if he be present when he taketh horse must hold the bridle when he lighteth he must hold the right stirrup when he walketh he must bear up his train when he washeth he must hold the bason when he would be born he must be one of the four that must carry him upon their shoulders in a golden chair 7. And as he takes upon him to give kingdomes to whomsoever he will like the Devil who told our Saviour Christ that all the kingdomes of the world were his and he gave them to whomsoever he would whereupon saith an ancient father mentitur diabolus quia cujus jussu homines creantur hujus jussu reges constituuntur the devil is a liar for by whose authority men were created by his are kings appointed as he takes upon him I say to give kingdomes at his pleasure so will he take them away when he listeth So farre is he from that obedience and reverence which every soul should give to the higher power Who knoweth not that Leo Isaurus for putting in execution a decree of a Councill held at Constantinople in his time touching the taking away of Images was first excommunicated and then deprived of all his revenues in Italy That Pope Zacharie deposed Childerick the French king that he might gratifie Carolus Mertellus and his son Pipin That the proud Venetian pedler Paul the second by a publike edict deprived of crown and kingdome George the king of Bohemia because he was an Hâ—ssite and stirred up Mathias the king of Hungary his son in law to warre against him What shall I tell you of the indignities offered in our own land against Henry the second and John king of England or of the buls of Pius Quintus sent against Queen Elizabeth of never dying memory whereby he hath excommunicated her absolved her subjects from their oaths of allegiance stirred up rebellions in these middle parts of Britain and taken upon him to bestow the regal diademe upon strangers God be thanked he that dwels in heaven and of right challengeth the authority of disposing the kingdomes of this world to himselfe laughed all their devises to scorn So that his Canons though they made a terrible noise yet no bullet was felt And his Buls which sometimes had such a terrible aspect that a whole provincial Synod durst scarse venture to bait them proved such cowardly dastards that every single adversary hath been ready to tugge them Much resembling the counterfeit shews of Semiramis when she warred against the king of India which a farre off seemed to be Elephants and Dromedaries but when they were throughly tried proved nothing but Oxen hides stuffed with straw Even so Lord God Almighty true and righteous are thy judgements That I may cut off this first branch of my Text my third and last inference shall concerne you R. H. whom the Lord hath placed at the seate of judgement Have Magistrates their authothority from God this concerns you in your places as well as the greatest potentate of the earth And therefore as on the one side it should be incouragement unto you to hold on in all godly courses ye have begun so on the other side it should worke in you an humble and thankfull acknowledgment of so rare a benefit Say not then within your selves that it was not your owne deserts the excellency of your wits the ripenesse of your judgements of so rare a benefit Say not then within your selves that it was your own deserts the excellency of your wits the ripeness of your judgements the deepnesse of your knowledge in the lawes the integrity of your persons that did advance you unto those roomes If these were meanes of your preferment yet have yee nothing whereof ye can justly boast because ye have all from him For Dei dona sunt quaecunque bona sunt Use then your places as received from him acknowledge God to be authour of your advancement and say with Mary in her Song he that is mighty hath done great things for us and holy is his name And so much of the first proposition The second followeth Magistrates are Gods Deputies 8 God as he is jealous of his honour so is he of his name too He will not give it unto any other but only so far as hath he some resemblance with him I find onely three in Gods booke to say nothing of that eternall essence to which it principally agreeth which have this name given them The first is Satan who by reason of his great and almost unlimited power which he hath for a time here on earth by ruling raigning in the hearts of the children of disobedience is called a God The God of this world 2 Cor. 2. 4. The second are the blessed Angels those yeomen of the guard in the Court of Heaven which wait about the throne of God These by reason of their supereminent offices are called Gods Thou hast made him a little inferiour to the Gods Psalm 8. 5. which the Apostle following the Septuagint transâ—â—teth Angels Heb. 2. 7 The third is the Magistrate who both in this Psalm and sundry other places of Scripture is called a God His master shall bring him to the Gods Exod. 21. 6. Thou shalt not rayle upon the Gods Exod. 22. 28. that is the Judges implying thus much that as they have a commandment and authority from God so they have in some sense the authority of God and do supply his room Therefore said Moses unto the Judges which he appointed in every city ye shall not fear the face of man for the judgement is Gods And Jehosaphat to those Judges which which he had set in the strong cities of Judah take heed what you do for ye execute not the judgement of man but of the Lord. 9. Now then if Magistrates be Gods deputies what reverence it behoveth each private person to exhibit unto them I appeal to the conscience of every particular There be many at this day who howsoever in common civility they will seem to give an outward reverence unto the Magistrate yet in heart they scorn and contemn sundry of them as perchance
done great things for them so he requireth much at their hands But alas it often falleth out that those which owe God the most pay him the least and those who of all others should be most careful of their places of all others make the least conscience of their wayes Tacitus reporteth of Claudius that he was a good subject but an ill Emperour of Titus that he was an ill subject but a good Emperour Where one proves like Titus two prove like Claudius Honours change manners And those goodly blossomes which did appear in many when they were private men when they come in Gods-place like frost-eaten buds wither away and prove like thunder-blasted fruit not worth the touching much lesse the tasting It is noted of Aeneas Sylvius that when once he became Pope and got his name changed into Pius secundus he condemned divers of those things which he had written when he was a private man Whereupon upon one came over him with this quippe quod Aeneas probavit Pius damnavit that which Aeneas commended Pius condemned A fault to which men of eminent place are too much subject to condemne and dislike those good things when they are in authority which they approved when they were privat men Quod Aeneas probavit Pius damnabit Thus those whom God cals Elohim change their natures and prove Elilim idols and vanities The heathen persecuters as some writers have recorded in the place where Christ was crucified had placed the image of Venus a heathen idol that if any should worship Christ he might seem to adore Venus This is the devils practise to set an idol in Gods room sometimes a Venus or a Cupid that use their authority for the enjoying of their own carnal pleasures sometimes a Mars using his power to bloud and revenge fometâ—mes a â—aturn that eateth up his children that is his inferiours which he should affect as a father doth his own children as if they weâ—e bread sometimes a Mercurie who is eloquent in speaking but withall nimble in fingring having a smooth tongue lie Jacob but rough hands like Esau nay Eagle clawes like Nabuchadnezzar to scrape and scratch together whatsoever comes in his way using his place only for his own advantage Here is the undoing of all for besides that Gods place is polluted and the people wronged there is an evil president given to privat men to follow the wicked example of their Governours For as the lower spheres follow the motion of the higher so in the common-wealth those that are of an inferiour ranke are ready to follow the practise of those that are set over them When a shrub or bramble falleth they hurt none but themselves but when a Cedar of Lebanon or an oake of Basan falleth down goes all the underwood that growes about them It is the nature of the plague to infect upwards from a lower to a higher room but the plague of sinne is more forcible in effecting downwards from an higher to a lower room It descends from the top to the toe and from the head to the skirts of the clothing If Herod be troubled about the birth of Christ all Jerusalem will be in an uproar with him And if Jeroboam be an idolater componitur orbis Regis ad exemplum all Israel will go a whoring after him And hereupon it is that ye shall seldome meet with his name in the book of kings but you shall find him branded in the forehead with this mark that he made Israel to sinne 13. God be thanked we have no great occasion of complaint at this day especially in our chief Magistrates and I wish I might without check of conscience say as much of those that are of an inferiour ranke The Lord hath set over us his name for ever be blessed for it a most godly and religious King of whom as Tacitus saith of Trajane and Cocceius Nerva a man may think what he will and speak what he thinks God hath given him as he did unto a Solomon a large heart as the sand that is upon the sea shoar to judge his people according to right and to b discern beween good and bad Whose princely care is to observe the practise of the old Romanes c to set Honours temple close on the backside of Vertues temple and not wittingly to suffer any to come into the Temple of Honour which have not first done their devotion in the Temple of Vertue not to make his Judges and chiefe Magistrates like Jeroboams Priests of the basest and lowest of the people but such as Moses at Jethro's perswasion made Judges over Israel men of courage fearing God men dealing truly and hating covetousnesse 14. And such R. H. you have by good demonstrations evidently proved your selves to be So that to make any large discourse before you of your particular duties may peradventure seem unto some as needlesse a piece of work as it was for Phormio to make a military discourse before Annibal or for Plotin to read a lecture in Philosophie in the presence of Origen Yet because it comes within the limits of my text I beseech you that you will with patience hear me while I shall say somewhat of that dutie which God requires at your hands in that he hath seated you in those high rooms Many will tell you of the greatnesse of your places but not so many will truly acquaint you with that which God requires for the discharging of those places For my part me thinks I may say unto you as Lucius Posthumius sometimes said unto the Senatours of Rome Noâ— sum Patres-conscripti adeò vestrae dignitatis memor ut obliviscar me esse Consulem I am not so mindful of the greatnesse of your places that I should in the mean time forget mine own how that God hath made me his Ambassadour and commanded me to acquaint you with some part of his will 15. It is our parts and duties to give you that reverence and honour which is due unto men of your place But yet as the people said unto the Asse that carried the image of Isis when the beast seemed to be proud because the people bowed as it went along the streets as if the honour had been given unto it and not unto the image religioni non tibi said they it is not thee but the goddesse whom we worship So it is not to you as ye are men but as you are in Gods place and do bear and resemble his person that we exhibit this reverence You are Gods but ye are Gods on earth and Gods of earth as we shall hear anon Mathematitians tell us that the whole earth is but a point in respect of the highest moveable it is no more in respect of that heaven which is Gods throne then Alcibiades his lands were in that mappe of Greece that Socrates shewed unto him The greatest Judge in the world if his circuit should extend
disgorge and cast up whatsoever lies on his stomach I doubt not but their apish tricks will in time move the heart and stomach of our gracious and merciful Coeur de Lion and other Magistrates in their places to cast up and shew such tokens of their inward grief as they shall have just occasion to conceive against them and to purge the body politick from these noxious humours wherewith it is endangered And without this there is no assurance of peace For as Jehu said unto Jehoram when he went against the house of Ahab is it peace Jehu said Jehoram What peace said the other while the whoredoms of thy mother Jezabel and her witchcrafts are in great number So say I what peace can be expected as long the whoredoms of the Romish Iezabel and her witchcrafts and inchanting cups wherewith she withdraweth the people from their obedience to their Soveraign and stealeth their hearts from him as did Absolon the hearts of the Israelites from David his father are in great number As long as the Pope can set any foot-hold in Britain he will bestir himself to molest the peace of our Sion Et si non aliquâ nocuisset mortuus esset But enough if not too much of this subject It is a point which I vowed to handle not out of any spleen to any particular person whosoever he that seeth the thoughts of my heart knowes that I lie not but for the love of the truth the zeal of Gods glory the integrity of my conscience and the discharge of my duty And herein liberavi animam meam look ye unto it The third proposition followeth 23 Ye shall die What mettal other creatures were made of whether immediately of nothing or of some preexistent matter I finde no expresse mention in Gods book This I finde that man was made of a matter and that not gold nor silver pearl or pretious stones but of earth the basest and vilest of all the elements yea of the dust of the earth even of dry dust which is good for nothing that if he shall with proud Phaeton in the Poet boast that Apollo God is his father he might presently call to mind that poor Clymene the earth is his mother that he was made of dust that he is but dust and that he shall return to dust And yet I know not how it comes to passe but I am sure it is true that many in authority resemble the dust in no property better then one that as the dry dust in the streets is with every blast of winde blown aloft into the air so are their hearts blown aloft and swelled up with a windie tympanie of their own greatnesse But let them climbe as high as they can God will one day send a shower and lay this dust They are but natural men and the threed of nature as a Poet feigneth is tyed unto the foot of Jupiters chair he can loose it when it shall please him Though Adams wit was such that he could give names unto every creature according to their natures yet he forgot his own name He did not remember that he was called Adam homo ab humo by reason of that affinity that was between him and the earth These sons of Adam are very like their old grand-father they are witty in seeking out the names and properties of other creatures but they forget their own names and their natures too And this is the cause why they be so holden with pride and overwhelmed with cruelties They will with Nebuchadnezzar strive to advance themselves above the stars of God and to match their old grand-father the first Adam who though he was made of earth yet with the wings of pride and arrogancie would needs soar up into heaven and care little for resembling their elder brother the second Adam who took upon him our weaknesse that we might be strengthened our poverty that we might be inriched our nakednesse that we might be clothed our basenesse that we might be exalted our mortality that we might be invested in the robe of immortality and was contented to descend from heaven to earth that he might make a way for us to ascend from earth to heaven But let them secure themselves as much as they will their hour-glasse is continually running the tide of death will tarry no man Our father hath eaten a sowre grape and his childrens teeth are set on edge Our grand-father for eating of the forbidden tree had this sentence denounced against him that he should return to dust And his children are liable unto it till heaven and earth be renewed and there be no more death Those great and mighty Gods of the earth which clothe themselves in purple and fine linnen and dwell in houses of Cedar and adde house to house and land to land as if the way to heaven layd all by land have a time appointed them when their insatiable desires shall be contented with a Golgotha a place of dead mens skulls a little portion of the great potters field as much as will serve to hide and cover a dead carkasse in it You which sit on the seat of judgement whom the Lord hath so highly extolled as to be called Gods you have your dayes numbred your moneths determined your bounds appointed which ye cannot passe It is not the ripenesse of your wits nor the dignity of your places nor the excellency of your learning nor the largenesse of your commission that can adde one inch unto the threed of your dayes Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regúmque turres Deaths arrow will as quickly pierce through the strong castle of a King as the muddie wall of a countrey swain Were ye wiser then Solomon stronger then Samson richer then Iob mightier then the greatest Monarch of the earth faithfuller in your places then Samuel that faithful Judge of Israel Ire tamen restat Numa quò devenit Ancus This must be the conclusion Ye must die as men and yeeld your bodies to deaths Serjeant to be kept prisoners in the dungeon of the earth till the great and general assizes that shall be holden by our Saviour Christ in the clouds of the skie at the last day The conclusion is most certain howsoever the premises be fallible and doubtful Alexander when by his followers he was called a God forgot that he was to die as a man till by a poysoned arrow he was put in minde of his mortality and then he confessed the truth Vos me Deum esse dixistis sed jam me hominem esse sentio You said that I was a God but now I perceive I am but a man And shortly after he perceived it with a witnesse when he was poysoned by Antipater and then inclosed in a small parcel of ground whose aspiring mind the whole world could not fil Cui satis ad votum non essent omnia terrae Climata terra modò sufficit
octo pedum He whom the whole earth could not content was at length contented with a parcel of ground of eight yea of six foot long Herod when upon a day he was arrayed in royal apparel and sate on the bench and gave such an excellent charge that the people cried non vox hominem sonat It is the voyce of God and not of man immediatly after proved neither God nor man For he was eaten up of wormes and gave up the Ghost Rare examples for the Gods of the earth to look down into their own bosomes and to remember that they must die as men It is a good custome of the Emperour of the Abyssenes Prester John to have every meal for the first dish that comes on his table a dead mans skull to put him in mind of his mortality So was that which was used by Philip namely to have a boy every day to put him in mind that he was to die as a man Not much unlike was the old practise of the Egyptians who when their Princes went to banquet used to beare before them the picture of a dead man to put them in mind of their mortality 24. Seeing then that ye must die study to have your accounts in readinesse that whensoever the Lord shall call you hence hee may finde you provided Be faithfull in those high rooms wherein God hath placed you Ye execute not the judgements of man but of the Lord. Aske counsel therefore of God and weigh your proceedings in the ballance of the sanctuary Do nothing but what God commands you and the testimony of a good conscience will warrant to be lawful remembring that ye must one day God knowes how soon that day will come be summoned to appear before the common Judge of all flesh who is a burning and consuming fire who is not blinded with secret closenesse nor corrupted with bribes nor moved with friends nor allured by flatterers nor perswaded by the importunity of intreaters to depart anâ— haires breadth from the course of justice no though these three men Noah Daniel and Job should stand before him and make intercession in your behalf These things remember and do and ye shall have comfort in your lives comfort at your deaths And when your souls shall be removed from those earthly cottages wherein they now dwell they shall be translated into everlasting habitations and received with this joyful and comfortable welcome it is well done good servants and faithful ye have been faithful in a little I will make you rulers over much enter into your masters joy 25. Like men It is implied in the conclusion of my text that it is the lot and condition of all men to die And therefore as it concernes magistrates so it concerns all others to provide themselves for their end because as the tree fals so it lies that is as the day of death shall leave them so the day of judgement shall finde them Remember this yee that are to be witnesses for giving testimony unto the truth and jurers for giving a verdict according to the truth And as you love and reverence the truth it selfe as ye desire the benefit of your Christian brethren which ye should love as your selves as ye wish the glory of God which ye should tender more then your selves let it be a forcible motive unto you to deal uprightly in every cause with every man without declining to the right hand or to the left then shall ye sanctifie the name of God by whom ye do swear to speak truly to deal truly ye shall give occasion to good men to praise God for you and ye shall not need to be ashamed to meet God in the face when he shall call you to a reckoning for your doings But on the other side if rewards shall blind you or fear enforce you or pitty move you or partiality sway you or any respect whatsoever draw you to smother the truth and favour an evil cause yee pearce your selves through with many darts For first you are false witnesses against your neighbour secondly ye are thieves ye rob him of his right thirdly ye are murtherers ye kill him in his body or in his name or in his maintenance fourthly and which is worst of all ye take the name of your God in vain yea as much as in you lieth ye take his godhead from him and make him who is the truth from everlasting to be all one with the devil who is a lyar from the beginning If ye must be countable unto God when he shall call you hence for every idle word that goes out of your mouthes and if the least ungodly thought of your hearts in the rigour of Gods justice deserve eternal death how shall ye be able to stand in judgement under this ponderous Chaos of so many crying sins I cannot prosecute this point only for conclusion I say with Moses behold this day have I set before you life and death blessing and cursing choose life and ye shall live If not I pronounce unto you this day ye shall surely perish The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it 26. You whose profession is to open the causes in controversie and by your knowledge in the laws to distinguish between right and wrong truth and falshood remember that ye must die And therefore I beseech you in the fear of God to study to make the cause of your clients sure as that ye do not in the mean time forget S. Peters counsel to make your own election sure I urge this the rather because absit reverentia vero I will speak the truth in despite of all scoffes and I hope such as are ingenious will bear with my plainnesse if as Philip said of the Macedonians I call a boat a boat and a spade a spade because it seemeth to be much neglected by many of your profession who with Martha trouble themselves about many businesses but anum necessariâ—m to meet Christ and talk with him they scarce remember it I remember the saying of Demades touching the Athenians when they refused to make Alexander one of their Gods and Cassander who was his successour threatned that unlesse they would do it he would presently overthrow their city the Athenians said Demades have reason to look to themselves lest while they are too curious about heaven they lose the earth But these men have need to look to themselves lest while they trouble themselves too much about the earth they lose heaven by whose means especially it is effected that our courts do too much resemble the Lyons den which howsoever other beasts in simplicity went flocking on heaps unto yet the fox that found by experience how others sped durst not come near it Quia me vestigia terrent said she Omnia te adversum spectantia nulla retrorsum All comes to them little from them they have as attractive a force for silver as the loadstone
lose the goale of everlasting felicity but a true Christian must be constant in his course he must resemble the sunne which comes forth as a Bridegroome out of his chamber and rejoyceth as a Giant to runne his course and yet in one thing he must be unlike the sun he ascendeth above the horizon in the morning and travaileth to the meridian where he sheweth himself in his best strength at noon-day but from that hour he declineth and casteth his beams more and more obliquelie waxing faint by degrees till at length he hide himselfe under the western horizon a Christian must not be like the afternoon sunne he must still strive towards the top of Heaven he must never decline let all the powers of Hell stand in his way they shall never make him runne away perhaps they will beate him downe on his knees but then he fals to prayer if they bring him to the ground then he is humbled and so Antaeus like stronger then he was before perhaps they may violenly drive him backwards but yet he will strive against them and passe through the midst of them as our Saviour passed amongst the Jewes when they would have stoned him dangers before him honors and worldly preferments behind him riches on the right hand pleasures on the left hand all these shall not make him discontinue his course but with greater speed to flie towards Heaven as a Dove into the window he must keep a streight course like the two kine that carried the Arke from Ekron to Bethshemesh and turned neither to the right hand nor to the left Thus have we seen what a danger it is for a man to fall into such sinnes as he hath once left to drinke the deadly poyson of iniquitie after he hath once been recovered to runne into the danger of his spirituall enemies after he hath been once cured of his wounds that were inflicted upon him it may here be demanded whether a man relapsing into sinne may repent and so be again received into Gods favour Montanus the Heretick denied all hope of salvation after a relapse This Heresie was by the Novatians who for their uprightness did proudly tearm themselves Cathari Puritans The Donatists who were the right Cathari because they deemed their Church love without spot or wrinkle refused to communicate with such as they suspected to be polluted with any sinne Tertullian who was much addicted to the heresies of the Montanists insomuch that in his old age he became a Montanist granteth that a man may once repent after a relapse but no more then once And of this opinion saith B. Rhenanus were many old writers and amongst others St. Austin but Austin meaneth only that publick repentance which he calleth humilima poenitentia and Lombard and the school-men tearm poenitentia solennis which was imposed onely for such grievous offences as whereby a Citie or Common-Wealth was greatlie scandalized And the reason why it was but once granted by the Church was lest the medicine being made too common should lesse profit the sick as Austin speaks in an Epistle written to Macedonius in which Epistle he plainly averreth that a sinner relapsing after this solemne repentance and afterward repenting of his fall may obtaine a pardon at the hands of God But wee have a better witnesse of this point then Austin even God that cannot lye who by the mouth of his Prophet hath promised that Whensoever the wicked turneth from his wickednesse that he hath done and shall doe that which is lawfull and right he shall save his soule and live And therefore be not dismaied thou faint and drooping soul which hast fallen into such sinnes as were somtimes hateful in thine eyes It may be that Sathan will object the place of the Apostle before cited if wee sinne willingly c. for answer whereof thou must know that the Apostle speaketh not of every kind of backsliding But First Of that which is committed with a full consent of the Will if wee sinne willingly and this the child of God after his conversion can never commit because he is partly flesh and partly Spirit so that though the carnall part be still ready to draw him unto most hainous and grosse sinnes yet the Spirit is at his elbow ready to pull him back againe it is unto him as the Angel was to John when he was ready to worship him see thou doe it not said the Angel see thou doe it not said the Spirit or as Abigail was to David who met him in the way as he was going to kill Naball and disswaded him from that bloodie fact and though it doe not still prevaile by reason that the flesh is like an headstrong horse that can hardly be curbed yet it prevaileth thus farre that the Will giveth not his absolute consent to the committing of such sinnes and again the Apostle meaneth not every sinne wherein the Will yeildeth his full assent for without doubt the elect before their conversion fall into such sinnes but of a generall malicious and purposed revolting from the knowne truth and a proud and scornsul rejecting of the blood of Christ once offered for sinne such as was in Julian who first professed Christianitie but afterward became a most bloodie Persecutor of Christians even till his last gaspe so that when he was deadlie wounded with an Arrow and ready to yield up the Ghost he thrust his hand into the wound and threw his blood into the aire crying blasphemously against the Sonne of God Vicisti Galilee O Galilean thou hast overcome So that this place is understood of sin against the holy Ghost which shall not be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come of which also the Apostle speaketh Heb. 6. 4 5. 6. it is impossible that they which were once lightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the holy Ghost if they fall away shall be renewed by repentance In which places if every relapse were understood then who should be saved for the dearest of Gods Children have sliden backwards after their conversion Lot into incest Noah into drunkennesse David to murther and adulterie Solomon to Idolatrie Peter to forswearing his Lord and Master 2. The consideration whereof made Constantine bid Acesius a Novatian Bishop who refused to communicate with such as had fallen after baptisme set a ladder for himselfe to climbe into Heaven noting his intollerable pride as if he and his followers had guided their feet so well that they had never slid after baptisme It is very dangerous to commit such sinnes as have been once left and forsaken as hath been already proved but yet Gods Children have no particular priviledge For First their inbreâ—d corruption though it be quelled yet it is not killed And therefoâ—e it is still ready to give them the foile and carrie them captives to the Law of sin again the causes remain which may move God to give over his Children a little unto themselves and
Goliath like give him a sword for the cutting of our own throats Againe Is it so that in the regenerate so long as he remaineth in this earthly Tabernacle there remain not some few reliques but many fragments of the natural man so that there is a combat between the flesh and the spirit where then be the Papists which maintain justification by works Can a clean thing come out of that which is unclean saith Job and can our minds wils and affections wherein the flesh and the spirit are mixed together produce any effect which is not impure and imperfect and therefore farre short of that perfection and righteousnesse which is required by the Law I do not say that they are sinnes that is but a slander of the Papists but they have some degrees of sins and imperfections joyned with them the best come that groweth in our fields hath some grains blasted the best fruits that we can bring forth are in some part rotten the best gold that we can show is much mixed with dross and cannot abide the touchstone it is an easie matter I confesse for a sinfull and unregenerate cloysterer to say somewhat for the dignitie of workes in justifying a man but when we enter into an examination of our own consciences and find so many sins and imperfections lurking in every corner of our hearts it will make us crie out with Bernard meritum meum miseratio domini my merit is the Lords mercie and again sufficit ad meritum scire quod non est meritum Nay if we look up unto God and consider him not as a mans brain considereth him but as his word describeth him unto us with whose brightness the stars are darkned with whose anger the earth is shaken with whose strength the mountains melt with whose wisdom the crafty are taken in their own nets at whose pureness all seem impure in whose sight the heavens nay the very Angels are unclean we must needs confesse with Job that if we should dispute with God we could not answer him one for a thousand and confesse that he found no stedfastness in his Saints yea and when the heaven is impure in his sight much more is man abominable and filthy which drinketh iniquitie like water and therefore pray unto him with David that he will not enter into judgement with us because in his sight shall no man living be justified but I must leave this point and come unto the second All the dayes of my appointed time c. Every man hath an appointed time by God which he cannot passe Though Adams wisdome was such that he could give names to everie creature according to their nature yet he forgate his owne name because of his affinitie between him and the earth the sons of Adam are like their father they are witty enough about the creatures but they quite forget their own names and their natures too and this is the cause why they be so holden with pride and over-whelmed with crueltie they wil contend with Nebuchadnezzar in Isa to advance themselves even above the stars of God and to match their Grand-father the first Adam who though he was made of the earth would with the wings of pride soare into heaven and care little for being like their elder brother the second Adam which from Heaven came unto earth and took upon him our infirmities and miseries but let them secure themselves never so much the tide will tarrie for no man for their Father eat sowre grapes and his childrens teeth are set on edge their Father for eating a grape of the forbidden Vine had this sentence pronounced against him Unto dust thou shalt returne and his children shall be lyable to it till heaven and earth be removed and there be no more death The tender and dainty women which never adventure to set the sole of their feet upon the ground for their sofness and tenderness as Moses speakes have a day appointed when their mouthes shall be filled with mould and their faces which they will not suffer the sun of the Firmament to shine upon lest it should staine their beautie shall be slimed with that earth which they scorned to touch with the soles of their feet those rotten posts which spend themselves in whiting and painting as though they would with Medea recal their years or with the Eagle by casting their old bill renew their youth have a day set them in which deaths finger shall but touch them and they shall fall in pieces and returne to their dust those which cloth themselves with linnen and build them houses of Cedar and add house to house and and to land as though they should continue for ever or at the least as if their journy to the heavenly Canaan lay all by land and nothing by Sea have a determinate time when their unsatiable desires shall be content with a Golgotha a place of dead mens souls a little part of a potters field asmuch as will serve to hide and cover their earthen vessel Cui satis ad votum non essent omnia terrae Climata terra modo sufficit octo pedum Are not his dayes determined saith Job the number of his moneths are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds which he cannot passe it is not nobility of Parents nor wisdom nor comelinesse of person nor strength of bodie nor largenesse of dominions that can lengthen the thred of a mans dayes Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauporum tabernas regumque turres Deaths Arrow will as soon pierce the strong Castle of a King as the poor cottage of a Countrie Swain be thou more zealou then Moses or stronger then Sampson or beautifuller then Absalom or wiser then Solomon or richer then Job or faithfuller then Samuel Ire tamen restat Numa quo devenit Ancus This is the conclusion of all flesh at the time appointed thou must dye yield thy body to deaths Serjeant to be kept Prisoner in the Dungeon of the earth till the great Assises which shall be holden in the clouds at the last day the conclusion is most certain howevsr the premises be most fallible and doubtfull I say not that the time of our lives are equally lengthened or that the dayes our life consist of like houres some see but a winter day and their breath is gone some an â—quinoctial day and they live till their middle age some a long Summers day and live till old age all of them with the Beast called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be sure to dye at night the course of mans life is like the journy of the Israelites from Aegypt to Canaan some dye as soon as they are gone out of Aegypt some in the midle way some with Moses come to the edge and borders of Canaan some indeed with Caleb and Joshua enter the promised Land alive such as shall be living at the last day but this is without
and shall be sure though he be the mightiest potentate in the world to heare Nebuchadnezzars sentence against him O man to thee be it spoken not thy kingdom only but even thy life is departed from thee but to trust in him with whom the Inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing and who according to his will worketh in the inhabitants of the earth and the Army of Heaven and none can stay his hand or say unto him why dost thou so it is he that hath limited our lives and set bounds to our dayes which we cannot passe Again hath God limited our lives and given Bars to our dayes as unto the Seas saying hitherto shall ye goe and ye shall go no further then I might put you in mind to beware of two dangerous rocks upon which many unheedfull Saylers have split their Ships the first lyes on the left hand that we relye not too much on the outward meanes for that were to trust in man and contemn God the second on the right hand that because our years are determined we neglect not the ordinarie meanes for that were to tempt God we must not think that wee can keep our selves in prison when we are called to the Bar nor yet must we breake the Prison before the Goale deliverie Asa sought to Physitians and dyed Hezekiah sought not and had fifteen yeers added to his dayes the one sought to the Physitian and not to God the other to God not to the Physitian we must joyn them both together or else we shall make a fallacie or paralogisme in Christianitie which Logicians call a benè divisis ad malè conjuncta for we may with Asa use the Physitians but farre more with Hezekiah seek unto the Lord. But the third and last use is this that seeing mans death is appointed yea and that it must be shortly wee make use of this short time and not wastfully mispend this golden opportunitie it was Apelles his custom not to let any day slip without drawing of some lines with his pensil and it was Pythagoras his rule to his schollars that they should never suffer their eyes to sleep at night till they had taken a diligent survey of all their dayes labour no more should we let one day passe without using of that talent which God hath given us nor suffer our eyes to sleep nor our eye-lids to slumber nor the temples of our head to take any rest before we have taken a strict account with our selves how we have bestowed the day past alwaies waiting and expecting that day when we shall pay our Grand-mother her due which is the third note I observed Scilicet Vltima semper Expectanda dies homini est We should ever expect our last houre when we must make our account to God that whether he call us to a reckoning at evening or at morning or at mid-night we may have our accounts ready when we see a vapour drawn up by the heat of the sun when we see the smoak ascend up the Chimney when we see the Post coursing on the way when we see a glasse broken when we heare a blast of wind when we put off our clothes when we lye down to sleep when we dream a dream we should still remember the shortnesse and uncertaintie of our lives that they are like vapours quickly consumed like smoak presently vanished like a Post in a moment passed like a wind shortly ceased like a glasse presently cracked like our clothes quickly sullied like a dream in an instant perished so that it is as strange that we should not remember it as that wee should not remember the number of our fingers or with Corvinus forget our owne names but alas we see this and yet we will not see it we know it well and yet we will not consider it we are sure that death will shortly knock at our doores and yet wee will say unto our selves as Peter did unto Christ pitty thy selfe this thing shall not happen unto thee we will perswade our selves of our lives a◠the false Prophet perswaded the Jewes of the safety of their Citie when the enemie was ready to surprise it This City shall not be delivered into the hands of the King of Babel we can build our houses plant our trees sowe our fields gather our fruits into our Barns for those things we can observe a fit season but yet the ordering of our lives the salvation of our souls as though they were trifles not worthy the looking into we post them oft to our better leasure Surely the Stork in the aire knoweth her appointed times and the Turtle and the Crane and the Swallow observe the time of their comming and yet man will not remember the time when he must come to his particular judgement when he must leave these toyes which he makes his chiefest delight and say I have no pleasure in them When wee see a man dye we remember our mortality but we have no sooner pu him in the grave then we have buryed in the earth of oblivion the remembrance of our own death we are no sooner in our own houses then we return to our old sins the swearer to his blasphemie the wanton to his pleasures the Usurer to his unlawfull gaining the Drunkard to his vomit every one to his old wayes not one will think with himself that he may be the next which shall be turned out of the doores We count that rich cormorant in the Parable a right fool and so he was indeed who when his field brought forth abundance of fruit determined to pull down his barns and make them greater and then to say to his soule take thy rest not remembring that even that night his soul might be taken from him demiror te Antoni said Tullie to Anthonie quorum facta imitaris eorum exitus non perhorrescere and is it not as strange that we should imitate this Cormorant in his life and not think upon his end we sleep and secure our selves with the old world and never remember a flood which is ready to sweep us all away we remember well the former part of the Epicures sentence let us eate and drink and be merry but we forget the latter end to morrow we shall dye we do not remember that every one hath a Serjeant at his elbow ready to arrest him and to say Lusisti satis edisti satis atque bibisti Tempus abire tibi est Thou hast eaten and drunken thy pleasure thou must now be gone Beloved Christians do ye desire the salvation of your own souls I know ye desire it oh then bestow not this short time which the Lord hath lent you here in the Land of the living in chambering and wantonnesse in luxurie and riotousnesse in strife and envie in oppression and covetousness but use it to the glorie of God that when ye shall goe hence and be no more seen ye may be received into everlasting
undique undique pontus So that it hath cost me one dayes travell already and is like to put me yet to more before I shall be able to waft it over The last time I spake in this place upon this occasion this Scripture was divided into two streames First An incouragement against all humane and mundane feares Secondly A reason For it is your Fathers c. In the first of these 1. A dehortation 2. The object of it Flock 3. The quantity Little In the second First a gift a Kingdome 2. The Donor or Grantor your Father 3. The Grantees not to all but to his children You 4. The manner of conveyance in Franck Almes He gives it 5. The cause impulsive or the consideration not Faith nor foreseen works nor any thing in man but that love wherewith from everlasting he loved them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is your Fathers good pleasure Or Your Father is well pleased I began with the object and made it the subject of my speech at that time and therein observed first the unity of Christs Church it is but one Flock Secondly the quality of the members a Flock of Sheep not a heard of Swine c. So farr already We are now to come to the second branch the quantity of Christs Church A few Matth. 7. A remnant Rom. 9. 27. A little Sister Cant. 8. 8. A little City whose inhabitants are few beleaguered by a mighty King Satan and preserved by the wisedome of a poor man Christ So Olympiodorus expounds that of Eccles 9. 13. A little Flock here in my Text Little in two respects First little in the esteeme of the World Secondly little in comparison with the World From which two respects we may gather these two propositions 1. Those that are in the sight of God the dearest are commonly in the eyes of men of meanest and basest esteeme 2. The number of true Beleevers is little being compared with the World The former of these for I must handle them severally although to a naturall man it may at the first blush rather seem a Philosophicall Paradox then a Theologicall conclusion especially seeing man naturally desires that which is good and what he desires he loves and the better any thing is the more hee loves it and the more he loves it the more he esteemes it Yet he that is acquainted with the Oracles of God and the writings of the Ancient and the practice of present times and finds what befell the Patriarcks and Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists and Martyrs and Confessors and Christ himselfe and the best in all Ages since the Serpent began to bite the heel of the Womans Seed and sees what miseries they endured what indignities they suffered in what account and estimation they were had in the World will rather take it for an undoubted principle then a disputable Probleme That which David spoke of himselfe or of Christ whereof he was a figure was true of all Prophets and Patriarchs before and in his time I am a worme and not a man a shame of men and the contempt of the people all that see me have me in derision Psal 22. 6 7. We are a reproach to our neighbours a scorne and derision to them that are round about us Psal 79. 4. Paul speaks or himselfe and the rest of the faithfull in his time Wee are made a gazing stock to the World and to Angels and to men We are fooles we are despised we are made the filth of the World and of-scouring of all things 1 Cor. 4. And that which the Pagans spoke of one they meant of all that were of his profession Bonus vir Caius Sejus sed mutus tantum quód Christianus Nomen non crimen in nobis damnatur ignotam sectam vox sola praedamnat quia nominatur non quia revincitur saith Tertullian And yet to say the truth they spared no lyes to excuse themselves and make Christians more odious to others Pliny calls Christianity a wicked and excessive superstition Christià ni per flagitia invisi saith Tacitus And againe Exitialis superstitio Christianorum the deadly superstition of Christians Christiani genus hominum novae ac maleficae superstitionis saith Suetonius These were but small crimes they were Idolaters troublers of States overthrowers of Empires Atheists with Diagoras Worshippers of the Sun with the Persians incestuous like Oedipus Man-eaters like Thyestes and what not And what marvaile that these should finde such entertainement with strangers when their Master found no better entertainement with his owne but was accounted as Isaiah long before had foretold a man forsaken and contemned of men Isa 53. A deceiver a Samaritane a Wine-bibber a freind of Publicans and Sinners nay a Witch a Sorcerer whom none of the Rulers or of the Pharisees but a few ignorant and cursed people which knew not the Law made any reckoning of John 7. 48. I dare not spinn along this thred to our times neither is it needfull I should seeing these present dayes doe sufficiently demonstrate my proposition to be true I speak not of the Beast and those that have its mark in their foreheads and right hands between whom and such as are sealed with the Seale of the living God there must needs be immortale odium nunquam sanabile vulnus a wonderfull great antipathy as between the Serpents and the Womans Seed I count little how little these account of us it is indeed a singular honour to be dishonoured by them I speake not I say of these though these do sufficiently confirme the truth of my proposed Doctrine It is well known would God I might be found a lyer that even in our English Church which is fled out of Babylon and professeth her selfe to be a follower of the Lamb whethersoever he goeth such as yet carry the most evident and apparent mark of Gods Sheepe in their foreheads are not by professed Enemies but by many thousands which in outward profession joyne with them counted the excrements of Christians and out-cast of all things and branded with the odious names of Precisians Catharists Puritanes and I wot not what odio est in hominibus innocuis nomen innocuum as Tertullian spoke of Christians in his time Mistake me not I desire to be counted a Son of our English Church and am not come to make an Apology for our Donatists that have burst the unity of Gods Net because of the bad Fish that are within it and have leapt out of Gods Fold because of the Goates and have forsaken his Field because of the Tares and his floore because of the Chaff which they finde mingled with the Wheat those that will live in no Church on Earth but such as is without spot or wrinkle must as Constantine said to Acesius a Novatian Bishop make Ladders for themselves to climbe into Heaven here is no place for them under the Sun Neither go I about to patronise such as agree with us in
which some Schoolmen make a fifth kind of feare which they call naturall which is not evill if it be kept within its bounds For to be touched somewhat with those things which be by nature terribilia and may do evill as Death Famine want of necessaries for this life is not evill Aristotle notes it as a kind of brutishnesse in the Celtae that they feared not Lightnings nor Inundations nor Earth-quakes But now to exceed in this kinde and for avoyding of mundane evills to incurre the displeasure of God with Elisha's servant to see thine Enemies but not thy Friends with Saul to be greatly afraid of Goliah and not to see the power of God in little David It proceeds from an evill root an immoderate love of this world and is joyned with a distrust to his providence who hath said I will not leave thee nor forsake thee and is here forbidden by our Saviour Feare not Janus-like it looks both back-ward and forward Backwards to the precedents of this Chapter so it contains the use which we are to make of that which hitherto hath been delivered concerning Gods providence Forward to the latter part of the verse and so it is a conclusion of an argument a majori thus Gods elect are Kings sonnes States of Paradise and heires apparent to the crown of Heaven Ergo they need not feare but he will watch over them with his fatherly provision protection and direction in his kingdome of grace Take it whether way ye will and it will afford us this proposition Such is Gods fatherly care and providence over his children that they need not be discouraged by humane nor mundane fears As the night Crow sees in the night but is blind in the day So a naturall man is quick-sighted in temporall things but blind in spirituall For as the Sun lighteneth the Earth but darkeneth the Heaven So his understanding giveth him direction about earthly things but for heavenly and spirituall them it darkneth and obscureth This as by many other things it is evident so especially by the worlds rash judgement touching Gods providence over his children while they remaine in these houses of clay for they seeing that the godly are oftentimes hunted as a Partridge upon the mountains or as a Pelican in the Wildernesse and an Owle in the Desart whereas the ungodly as Job speaks have their houses peaceable and without fear and the rod of God is not upon them they rejoyce in the sound of the Organs and spend their dayes in wealth They I say seeing these things not being able to give the true reason of them because God made them neither of his Court nor Privie Counsell and yet storning to be ignorant in any thing though they knew nothing as they ought to have known began to lye and libell against that eternall power in which they live move and have their being Some of them because they would not seem to impute any injustice unto God thought that such as they saw groaning under the heavy burden of affliction howsoever unto the worlds eye they might seem devout and righteous yet in very deed and before God which seeth not as man seeth for man looks on the outward appearance but God beholds the heart they were dissemblers and hypocrites Thus Paul when he had gathered a few sticks for the fire and a Viper came out of the heat and leapt on his hand was by the Barbarians counted a murtherer Job when the heavy hand of God was upon him was by Zophar thought to be a man forgotten of God for his iniquity Nay Christ our Saviour that immaculate Lamb who had done no wickednesse neither was there any guile found in his mouth was judged by the Jewes as a man plagued and smitten of God for his sinnes Isa 53. 5. Others not much unlike the old Thracians who as Herodotus writes when it thundered used to shoot up their arrows towards Heaven and to tell God that he cared for none but himselfe affirmed that though God had made the world yet the government thereof he committed to Fortunes wisdome and direction Others that he ruled Caelestiall bodies and those that are above the Moone but for these base creatures that are below it is against his divine Majestie to respect Scilicet is Superis labor est c. Others that hee was tyed to second causes and could work no otherwise then he found them disposed Hereupon came the fable of the three Fates sitting by Jupiter the one holding a Dâ—staff the second spinning the third cutting the thread whose decrees Jupiter cannot alter nor resist and Homer brings in Jupiter with a chain in his hand to which the whole world is tyed in certaine links of Causes Jupiter hath in his owne power the moving of the first linke but after the first like is moved then hee meddles with no more but one link draws on another The same Poet brings in Jupiter complaining upon the Fates by whose immutable decree he is hindered that hee cannot deliver Sarpedon from death And Neptune desiring to hinder Vlysses from coming into his Countrey for the hurt done to his sonne Polyphemus but cannot because the Fates are against him So Juno in Virgil complaines that she is resisted by the Fates from hindering Aeneas to come into Italie Mene incoeptodesistere victam Nec posse Italia Teucrorum avertere regem Quippe vetor fatis Nay some upon this occasion stickt not to come to that height of impiety that they adventured to deny that which with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond is written in the tables of their hearts that there is a God Marmoreo Licinus tegitur tumulo Cato parvo Pompeiâ—snullo And hereupon to make up the verse came that blasphemous speech Quis putat esse deum Yes blasphemous mouth there is a God and this God is not God of the mountaines only but he is God of the valleys too he looks not only to the things which are in Heaven his Throne but also unto the things that are on Earth his foot-stool the young Ravens are fed by him one Sparrow cannot fall unto the ground without him he numbers the haires of our heads and puts our teares into a bottle and marks our treadings and reckons our steps Hee careth for his chosen as a Shepheard doth for his Flock nay as a Master doth for his houshold nay as a Father for his own Children As a father pittieth his owne children so is the Lord mercifull to them that feare him Nay as a mother loveth the sonne of her wombe which is greater then the fathers love as Aristotle well noteth Can a woman forget the child of her womb Isa 49 Emphatically spoken a woman Women where they love love earnestly David to shew the ardency of Jonathans love towards him hyperbolically extolls it above the love of a woman Can a woman forget her child Her love to children is great not only by reason
of wholsome Lawes for the safety and peace of this Kingdome should have been made like to that old Tophet where is burning and much wood kindled as it were with a river of Brimstome Or as Aetna did of old Flammarum globos liquefactaque volvere saxa belching out flames of fire and heaps of stones not much unlike to the destructions of Sodome and the miserable desolations of dolefull Gomorrah When those true Professors which should have remained after such an overthrow should have been like a few scattered grapes after the vintage is ended and like Pellicans in the Wildernesse and could have expected for nothing but what was written in Ezechiels scrowle Lamentations and Mourning and Woes O daughter of Babylon worthy to be wasted with misery happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast deserved of us Yea blessed shall he be that taketh thy children and dasheth them against the stones Now did not he who hath said Feare not little flocke who keepeth us from the snare of the hunter keepe us from those snares which they had laid privily for us and from the traps of those wicked doers Did not he which taketh the wilie in their owne craftinesse and saveth the poore from the hand of the violent man as Eliphaz speaks in Iob Let these fall into their owne nets and let us ever escape them Yes doubtless it was the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes By this which hath been said the Doctrine is cleare let us now come to the Use Is Gods care and providence over his children such that they need not be discouraged by humane or mundane terrours and feares Oh then comfort thy selfe thou child of God whosoever thou art which art tossed with contrary winds in the tempestuous Sea and begin to say unto thy weary and distressed soule with the Kingly Prophet Why art thou so sad O my soule and why art thou so disquieted within my breast Doth he Who layes the beames of his chambers in the water and makes the clouds his chariots and walks upon the wings of the wind care for Agar and her brat and will he neglect Sarah and her sonne Doth he make his Raine to fall his Sunne to shine upon the unjust and will he suffer to famish the soule of the righteous Is he a Saviour of all men and will he forsake them that believe Doth he nonrish the roaring Lyon feed the young Raven give the little Wren her dinner provide for the poore Sparrows whereof two are sold for a farthing Mat. 10. that's too dear five for two farthings in this Chapter In a word doth he give food to all flesh and will he oversee his owne Doth his providence extend to senslesse creatures to the grasse and Lilie of the Field What will he not do for them for whose sakes these and all other creatures in the world were made Hee that hath given us his Son what will he deny us He that hath provided for us and promised us the Kingdom of Heaven will he deny us the Earth so far as it is expedient for us to have it Heaven and all creatures under it shall change their natures rather then this little Flock shall be left desolate The hungry Lion shall not touch the Lords Prophet The devouring Fire shall stay its burning The Whale shall preserve Ionas The Earth without labour shall yeeld her encrease The Sunne and Moone shall stand still The barren Wildernesse shall afford bread The raging Sea shall become dry ground and the flinty Rock shall be turned into a springing Well before the least Lamb of Christs little Flock shall be left destitute Go too then let Hell rage let fury swell let the men of this world threaten to swallow thee up quick when they are so wrathfully displeased with thee yet put thou thy trust confidence in him who hath said Fear not little flock and say In the Lord put I my trust how say ye then unto my soule that she shall flee like a bird into the hills The Lord is my strong rocke and my defence whom then shall I feare the Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I then be afraid What if the greatest Potentates of the world shall joyne their Forces against thee he who hath said Feare not little flocke and I will not leave thee nor forsake thee is able though they had sinewes of iron and necks of brasse to break them with a rod of iron and to crush them in pieces like a Potters vesselâ— so that thou mayst boldly say I will not feare what man can doe unto me What if the boysterous sea carry thee up to to the heaven and downe againe into the deep What if the waters do compasse thy soule and the weeds be wrapped about thy head as Ionah speaks of himselfe Feare not any of these things that shall come upon thee for though the waves of this troublesome Sea be mighty and rage horribly yet the Lord that dwels on high is mightier So that they shall not be able to drown thee but as Noah's flood carried the Ark above the waters so they shall carry thy head above the water floods till they bring thee to the Rock that is higher then thee Come rock come tope come evill come Devill come what can come nothing can come amisse For he that hath given the barres and hath said unto it Hither shalt thou goe thou shalt goe no further here shalt thou stay thy raging waves He that can put a hook in the lips of Leviathan and peirce his jawes with an Angle though he make the depth to boyle like a pot and the Sea like a pot of oyntment as Iob speaks hath bound Leviathan that piercing Serpent as Esay calls him and all the powers of Hell in chaines of darknesse so that they shall not move one foot to hurt thee but as he permits them and looseth out their chains The spirituall Pharaoh may be a terrour to thee as he of Aegypt was to the Israelites but he shall not hurt her For though he be not cast into the bottome of the Sea lest thou shouldst be secure yet he is dead on the shore lest thou shouldst despair The world may be to thee as the Canaanites were to the Israelites thornes in thy sides and pricks in thine eyes but it shall not overcome thee Thy wife may be as Sampsons was to him fetters and snares of Satan to entangle thee but they shall not prevaile against thee Thy children may be as Absolom was to David a wicked and a rebellious off-spring but they shall not overthrow thee Feare not for as the Angel said to Gideon The Lord is with thee thou valiant man Thou art a branch of that Vine whereof the least sprig shall never be cut off Thou art a member of that body whereof the least part shall never be corrupted Thou art a Sheep of that little flock whereof not one
shall ever perish Thou art a Souldier in that Camp whereof the weakest in the end shall be a Conquerour Feare not the Lord is with thee thou valiant man Neither tribulation nor anguish nor nakednesse nor sword nor death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus He whose name is Amen the faithfull and true Witnesse and therefore cannot goe back with his word hath promised to his whole Flocke his divine protection and assistance in his Kingdome of grace and will at length bring us to everlasting happinesse in his Kingdome of glory Feare not little Flocke for it is your Fathers pleasure to give you the Kingdome The Third Sermon LVKE 12. 32. For it is your Fathers good pleasure c. HAving finished the former branch the Doctrine we are now to come to the second part the Reason and herein observe 1. The granter your Father 2. The thing granted a Kingdome 3. The grantees Not all Adams sons but the Sheep of this little Flock you 4. The consideration or cause impulsive and that is nothing in Man but the love and good pleasure of Almighty God your Father is well pleased At this time only of the first the Grantor your Father He who hath one only naturall sonne God begotten from everlasting of the same substance with himselfe and in all things equall to himselfe and one only begotten sonne by grace of Conception Man made of the seed and substance of a Woman both which concur to the making of one and the same individuall person of Immanuel the Messiah is if you take the word not personally but essentially 1. A Father of all his Creatures Similitudine vestigij because there is not the meanest creature in the world wherein he hath not imprinted some characters and foot-steps of himselfe in which respect Job calls the Worm his sister and mother Job 17. 14. 2. A Father of the Angels Similitudine gloriae So they are called The sonnes of God John 1. 6. 3. A Father of all Man-kind Similitudine imaginis wherein man was created Gen. 1. 27. 4. Not of all mankind but only of a certain number whom he before the foundation of the world was laid not for any goodnesse either of faith or works which he did foresee for what did he foresee but what he decreed to bestow upon them of his free grace and love pick'd and cull'd out of that masse of corruption into which by Adams sin they were to come and in the fulnesse of time effectually calleth that is separateth from the world and admits into his houshold and familie and makes them Who by nature were dead in sinnes and trespasses living members of Christs mysticall bodie Thus he is a Father of all believers I will be a father unto you and ye shall be my sonnes and daughters saith the Lord Almighty 2 Cor. 6. 18. The spirit of adoption beareth witnesse that we are his children and bids us cry Abba Father Rom. 8. 16. In this sense our Saviour bids us Call no man father on earth because we have but one Father which is God Matth. 23. 9 and sends us in our prayers to our Father which is in Heaven Matth 6. 9. Thus is he a Father of his little flock And well may he be called Father for what doth a natural parent to his child which the Father of Spirits doth not in an infinite larger and better measure to his 1. An earthly father begets his child and is the cause of his naturall being 2. He gives him a name 3. He feeds him 4. He cloatheth him 5. He protects him from wrongs 6. He corrects him for his faults 7. According to his meanes he provides an inheritance or a portion for him God doth all these to his sonnes the Sheep of this little flock 1. He begets us Jam. 1. 18. For which cause he is styled the father of spirits Heb. 12. 9. This is a meer work of God to which the power of free-will doth no more concurre then a child is a Coadjutor to his father at his natural generation I grant that as in substantial mutations before a forme be corrupted and another educed e potentia materia there are certaine alterations or previal dispositions for making way to this change So in this supernatural mutation when a sonne of Adam is to be made a son of God God ordinarily useth certain previal dispositions The Law and the Gospel are preached the heart of man is shaken with the terrors of the law and cast down to the ground as Paul was at his conversion and touched with feare of punishment sorrow for sinne desire and hope of pardon c. But as those previal alterations are no essential parts of natural generation though preparatives thereunto Nor is there in the Matter any more then a meer passive power for receiving the substantial form so neither are these previal dispositions any essential part of our supernatural regeneration Nor is there in the wil any active but a mere passive power for receiving this supernatural being which is only wrought by the finger of God The Apostles evidences are strong for this point let us heare them we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus meaning that there is no more power in a naturall man for begetting himselfe a new then there was in that dry dust whereof Adam was made for assisting God in the creation of man A naturall man is dead in sinne Can a dead man revive himselfe Could Lazarus when he had been three dayes stinking in the grave move hand or foot till Christ had put his soule into him No more can a natural man so much as move himselfe to a supernatural and spirituall work till God regenerate him and as it were create him anew and infuse into the powers and faculties of his soule a quickning spirit He hath a heart of stone I will take the stonie heart out of their bodies a heart of stone not a heart of iron for though iron be hard yet the heate of the fire will mollifie it and the stroak of the hammer will turne it into a new forme but no heat will mollifie a stone no hammer can beate it out or bring it into a new shape but by breaking it So our hearts are by nature such that they cannot be softned or turned to that which is right till they be broken in pieces and cast in a new mould And again as no water can be drawn out of a stone so no goodnesse can be educed out of a natural mans heart We are by nature evill trees and an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit The Apostle tels us That of our selves we cannot so much as think a good thought That it is God that giveth both the will and the deed And our great Master whom we are
commanded from heaven to heare saith That without him we can do nothing That those to whom Power is given to be the sonnes of God are not borne of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God 1. They are not borne of blood that is they come not by naturall propagation for by this nativity wee are children of wrath 2. They are not of the will of the flesh This may be referred to them which are borne of faithful Parents yet begotten carnally For as the wheat is sown without chaffe but when it grows the chaffe comes up with it Or as the Hebrew Males which were circumcised begat children which were uncircumcised so the most holy and spiritual man begets a carnal sonne the reason is Quia ex hoc gignit quod adhuc vetustum tenet inter filios seculi non ex hoc quod in novitatem promovit inter filios dei as Austin He begets according to that corruption which hee retains amongst the sonnes of men not according to that perfection which he hath attained unto amongst the sons of God 3. They are not borne of the will of man That is the will of man doth not co-work with God at his regeneration to receive grace and convert himselfe Let the Papists and Pelagians and Semi-pelagians busie their braines and confederate themselves and joyne their forces against Christ and his Apostles maugre their beards it shall stand which is confessed by an honest Frier that there is not in the whole world of natural men vel mica virium so much as a dram or crum of power whereby he may convert himselfe and become a sonne of God Thus then first he is our Father not only by grace of adoption but by grace of regeneration he regenerates and begets us a new by the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the holy Ghost 2. To his children thus begotten and born anew he gives new names Thou shalt be called by a new name Isa 62. 2. To him that overcometh I will give a white stone and in the stone a new name Rev. 2. 13. I will write in it my new name Rev. 3. 12. Old things when they are renewed have new names given them So old Byzantiū renewed by Constantine was called after his name So a son of the old Adam who of himself Is a child of wrath a firebrand of hell Gods enemy and an alien from the common-wealth of Israel being renewed and regenerate and having given his name to Christ is called a Christian This is a new name received from him who after he had spoyled Principalities and Powers and like a triumphant Conqueror shewed them openly in his Chariot of triumph so Origen calls it the Crosse hath received a name above all names that are named not in this world only but also in that which is to come The name also we receive in our Baptisme when we are admitted into Christs Church is a new name and may put us in mind of our new and spirituall estate as the other which we receive from our Parents and Ancestors is a mark of our natural state we received from them So that whensoever we think of our names given us in our baptisme we should think of our new birth and be more and more renewed according to that of the Apostle Old things are past behold all things are become new Therefore as many as are in Christ let them be new creatures New names and old natures are like new wine in old vessels or like new cloath in an old garment 3. He feeds us 1. with corporall food for the sustenance of our bodies The greatest Prince of the world hath not so much de proprio as a morsell of bread to put in his mouth but what he receives from him who hath Heaven for his throne and Earth for his foot-stoole who opens his hand and gives to all creatures that wait upon him their meate in due season For which cause Christ sends us to heaven gates to begge our daily bread viz. not only the substance of bread but baculum panis as the Scripture calls it the power and strength to nourish us without whose benediction be our tables furnished with never such variety of dishes wee shall be but like Caligula's guests at his golden banquet we may well feed our eyes but not our stomacks Or like to him that eates in a dreame and when he awakes behold his soule is empty 2. He feeds us with spiritual food that which was figured by the tree of life and the waters that flowed out of the stony rock as some of the Fathers expound it the bodie and blood of Christ unto eternall life 3. He cloatheth us as the Kings daughter with a vesture of gold the robe of Christs righteousnesse which we must put on as a wedding garment that our filthy nakednesse may not appeare in his sight and withall by degrees makes us glorious within with the habite of sanctification and inherent righteousnesse 5. He protects us against all dangers as hath been already shewed 6. He corrects us for our offences as a father doth his child in whom his soule delighteth 7. He provides for us an Inheritance immortall and undefiled in the heavens For it is your fathers good pleasure to give you a kingdome The next thing that comes to be handled But let us first by way of use and inference reflect upon the point we have in hand Is God Almighty a Father of his little flock and such a father as doth not only regenerate but feedeth and cloatheth and protecteth and directeth and hath in a readinesse a Kingdom for the meanest of them that be his Here then let us take notice of the dignity and worth and happinesse of the meanest Christian above all the sonnes of Adam be they never so great swell they never so high with a conceit of their owne worth The greatest of heathen Philosophers tells us that felicity consists in a cumulation of moral vertues Others place it in worldly pleasures The common sort of men in worldly honours and preferments and the higher a man is advanced the more worthy the more happy they repute him But alas what great felicity is it for a base fellow to act a Kings part upon the Stage and when the Play is ended to be contented with a ragged coate far lesse to be a King in this world and then to be cast into Hell fire Here is the state and condition of the greatest Potentates on Earth that have not Christ for their Brother and God for their Father when they have acted their parts upon the stage of this world downe they must goe into the infernall lake The Spider thinks her selfe no base creature when she hath got her selfe into the roofe of a Princely palace and there woven her webbe and rests there secure as shee thinks from all danger but anon when
or their King or their Countrey as if they were borne to live on the Land as Leviathan in the Sea whom God hath made to take his pastime therein and that I may come to a second use superciliously scorne and contemn such as in meanes or lineage come short of them as if they were not in the same Predicament nor originally hewen out of the same Rock nor regenerate by the same Father Who art thou that contemnest a state of Paradise one of the blood-royal of heaven whom God hath adopted for his Son over whom he hath appointed the Angels to be his Protectors and Governours Psal 91. 10. Whose enemies he hath threatned to curse Gen. 12. Whose prayers hee hath promised to heare Psal 50. For whose sake he reproves Kings Psal 104. Whom he tendereth as the apple of his eye Zach. 2. The hairs of whose head he numbers the teares of whose eyes he bottles If a Kings son should come to us in Beggars attire like Codrus or lame and impotent of his feet like Mephibosheth or with any other imperfections of body or mind we would not scorn him because of his imperfections but yeild him all honour due to a Kings son Have thou the like respect to Christs little ones let their outward condition be never so mean subject to coÌ„tempt let them be poor ignorant of base parentage friendlesse servants bondslaves let them be all these or whatever else may cause contempt in the eyes of man if they believe in Christ for of these I speake they are sons to the King of Kings and consequently more noble then the Turke or Persian or the greatest Monarch of the world that is without Christ It 's not noblenesse of Parents nor Lands and Possessions nor riches nor humane wisdome nor worldly dignities that makes a man truly honourable and worthy of respect nor is it the want of these that makes a man contemptible but the want of Gods favour and adoption in Christ Stemmate si Thusco ramum Millessime ducis If thou couldst number thy Progenitors for a thousand generations if God be not in thy pedigree as I sayd thou art a bastard and no sonne Hadst thou all humane knowledg in the world and dost not know Christ crucified thou art but a foole Hadst thou all the riches in the world and wantest the great riches which the Apostle calls godlinesse thou art but a beggar Hadst thou all dignities and honours in the world and be not one of Gods houshold servants thou art base and of no respect in comparison of Christs little ones I doe not derogate from such as are well discended nor from such as are rich nor from such as excell in humane Acts and Sciences nor from such as are set over others in honours and worldly preferments God forbid I should I allow them that which of right pertains to them a civill honour because of some divine representations that are in them as of his eternity in such as can shew the antiquity of their stock of his dominion in such as are rich of his Soveraignty in such as are in authority c. But such must remember that it is no more then a civil honour that is due unto them for these And howsoever for these considerations they ought to have their due respects according to their places in the civill Regiment and to be honoured above others Yet in the spirituall Regiment the poorest Christian that believes with his heart and confesseth with his mouth that Christ died for his sinnes is their equall There is no difference saith the Apostle in the Kingdome of Heaven Saturnsâ—easts â—easts are continually kept Master and Servant are both alike There is neither Jew nor Grecian there is neither bond nor free there is neither male nor female c. Gal. 3. He that is called being a servant is the Lords free-man and he that is called being free is Christs servant All then of what state soever they be in the politicall Regiment must think of the poorest Christians as of their brethren and remember that rule given by God even unto Kings to read the book of the Law that their hearts be not lifted up above their brethren and imitate the example of holy Job who did not contemn the judgment of his servant nor of his hand-maid when they contended with him My third inference shall containe a double duty one we owe unto God as our Father the other to our Neighbours as sonnes of the same Father and consequently brethren one to another It 's the summe of Johns first Epistle and Synopsis of the whole Law and comprehended in one verse 1 John 3. 10. In this are the children of God known and the children of the Devill be that doth not righteousnesse is not of God neither he that loveth not his brother these are children of the Devill Gods are known by the practise of two affirmatives 1. Doing of righteousnesse 2. Loving of the Brethren Touching the first They that call God their Father must carry themselves as children of such a Father and without limitation obey him in whatsoever he commands A son honoureth his father If I be your Father where is mine honour saith the Lord of Hosts to the rebellious Jewes who called God their Father and neglected his precepts Many such Jewes are amongst us common Drunkards abhominable Idolaters blood-sucking Usurers prophane Atheists blasphemous Swearers filthie Whore-mongers and that hellish and damned crew of impenitent sinners that live within the bosome of the Church though they be no integrall parts of it no more then hairs and other excrements are parts of a mans bodie or dogs swine essential parts of a familie will call God their Father If God be your Father where is his honour where is that filial obedience you should perform to his commandements when the Jews told Christ that Abraham was their Father he tells them no Because it Abraham were your father yee would do the works of Abraham And when they said that God was their Father he proves it false If God were your father ye would love mee Ye are of your father the Devill and the lusts of your father yee will doe So say I to these miscreants If God were your father yee would doe the works of God If God were your father ye would love him and keepe his commandements Because ye walke in darknesse ye are of your father the Devill and the lusts of your father ye wil doe And if ye would speak aright yee should not say as Christ bids his brethren say when they pray Our Father which art in heaven But rather as Latimer speaks of such truly though somewhat plainly Our father which art in hell Beloved in Christ Behold what love the father hath shewed us that we should be called the sonnes of God Let us be followers of God as deare children and in all things study to resemble him Who hath called
life will not produce that effect which they would do if they went hand in hand together but rather as if a man should blot with one hand that which he writes with another Our lives will doe as much harm as our Doctrine good It 's a true speech of a reverend Divine that the sins of Teachers are teachers of sinnes as in a Scriveners table when any letter wants its due proportion the Schollar that takes the Copie for his guide will imitate that as well as those which are perfectly written A bove majore discit arare minor not by doctrine but by example It 's to no purpose for the old Crab in the fable to bid her young ones goe forward when she goes backward her selfe Sivis me flere dolendum est primum ipse tibi Quod mihi praecipis cur ipse non facis Aug. de doct Christ. lib. 4. cap. 27. Gallo similis est praedicator saith Gregorie Wherein doth the comparison consist Inter tenebras praesentis vitae studet venturam lucem praedicando quasi cantando nunciare dicit enim nox praecessit c. That is true but not all and therefore others stretch the comparison further thus As the Cock claps his wings and beats and ronzeth up himselfe before he awake others so we must first give an example in our selves of that to which we exhort others otherwise they will say unto us this proverb Physitian heale thy selfe Quis coelum terra non misceat mare coelo Si fur displiceat Verri homicida Miloni That then the seed of Gods Word which we shall sow may take deeper root and more abundantly bring forth fruit in our hearers let us give example in our selves Non sic inflectere sensus Humanos edicta valent ut vita docentis Let every of us say with our Saviour Learn of mee for I am meeke Learn of me for I am thus and thus And as Gideon said to his Souldiers Learn of me and do ye likewise even as I have done so doe ye But what is either the fruit of our Ministrie or the credite of our calling in respect of Gods glory which we should so tender as that we should rather wish our selves accursed and razed out of Gods book then that by our meanes the least staine or spot of dishonour should be imputed unto him Now as God is honored by the holy life of a Preacher so nothing brings more disgrace then the wicked and scandalous conversation of him that carries the vessels of the Lord. If a stranger who belongs not unto me mis-behave himselfe and be a common drunkard a blasphemer an uncleane person c. that is no disgrace unto me but if one of my familie my sonne my friend whom I trust as my right hand fall into any of these the disgrace lights not only on him but it reflects upon me So if a stranger from God a Pagan c. shall fall into these or the like the matter is not great it shews what man is without God But if he who in outward profession is one of the houshold of faith a steward in Gods house appointed to give every one of his familie their portion of meate in due season Christs Embassadour and Vice-gerent shall miscarry and like Hophni and Phineas of sons of Eli prove a son of Belial Gods name is dishonoured and his offering abhorred O heavenly Father that thy Name may be hallowed sanctifie the Tribe of Levi whom thou hast separated from the multitude of Israel to take them neer unto thy self Let thy Vrim thy Thummim be with thy holy ones Let thy Priests be cloathed with righteousnesse that thy Saints may sing with joyfulnesse Shall many Preachers be damned as having not expressed that in their lives and conversations which they have delivered to others what then shall become of them that are called to this honour and preach not at all that cannot say so much for themselves as Iudas Lord have not I by thy name prophesied shall they not be condemned at that day upon a nihil dicit Purgatory as the authors of it confesse will then have an end Limbus Patrum is long since destroyed the Earth at that day shall be burnt up and whether there will be any room in Heaven for them that neglect the works of their particular calling I have reason to doubt Pietas honestas probitas privata bon a sunt said he in the Tragoedy nay pietas honestas probitas publica bona sunt they be generall duties which no Christian whatsoever his calling be may want He cannot be bonus civis which is not bonus vir and yet it is not sufficient for a man that would beare Office in a Corporation that he is bonus vir unlesse he be also bonus civis qualified with such particular vertues as are requisite to that Place I commend Gregory Nazianzens resolution who when they would needs chuse him Bishop fled into Pontus and having afterward accepted the Dignity and from that translated to another and then to one of the greatest Bishopricks in the World insomuch that some of his Successors contended with the Bishop of Rome for primacy did afterward voluntarily relinquish it For indeed though he was a fluent Oratour and a great Divine which got him the sur-name of Theologus and so acute a Disputant that the Arians counted great Athanasius a Childe in respect of him yet was he not fit especially in those turbulent times for Church Government If I be desirous to be resolved in some doubtfull points of Law concerning mine Inheritance and a Friend advise me to go to such a man telling me that he is a very honest man what better am I for that unlesse he be skilfull in the Lawes and able and willing to resolve me in that where I am doubtfull If I have a Garment to be made I will not go to this or that man whom I heare to beare the name of an honest man I will suppose every man to be such unlesse I know the contrary but to him that is a professed Taylor and able to do the work So for us that I may bring that which hath been spoken home to my purpose It is not sufficient for us that the World carries an opinion of us that we are good men in respect of generall vertues unlesse we be good Ministers and put in practise those Gifts which are proper to that state of life wherein our Master hath set us Now preaching is the best flower that growes in our Garden it s the very grace and ornament nay the very life and esse and specificall form of a Minister being the only ordinary meanes for ought that I know which God hath appointed for saving of Soules This was meant as some moralize it by the Bell and Pomegranet on Aarons Garment The Bell signified the preaching of the Gospell and the Pomegranet the merits of Christ implying thus much that the merits of Christ are by no other
with his own hands No lesse comfort will it be to us when we can perswade our owne soules that such trees we have planted in the Lords garden such sheep we have brought into Christs sheepfold if every of us can say to the great Arch-bishop of our souls when he shall keep his visitation Here am I and the children thou hast given me Adde last of all that Crown of righteousnesse wherewith our service shall be rewarded at the last day Those that have beene his faithfull witnesses here on earth when the earth shall be no more shall be as the Moon and as the faithfull witnesse in heaven And whereas those which follow wisdome shall shine ut expansum as that which is stretched out over our heads the Firmament those that turne many unto righteousnesse and let no painful Minister be discouraged if the fruit of his labours fall short of his expectation We are but Gods Instruments Except the Lord keep the Citie the watch-man watcheth but in vaine Except the Lord build the house their labour is but lost that build it Paul may plant and Apollos water but to no purpose unless God give an encrease Jeremiah thundered out Gods judgments against the sins of Jerusalem the space of 50. yeares and she was more obstinate in the end then at the beginning Esay preached 64. some say 74. years and profited little for all his pains Noah preached 120. years to the old World and we do not read of one person he converted Let it be our desire and studie to turne many unto righteousnesse and our reward shall be with our God He that accepteth the will for the deed will as surely reward us as if we had done the deed So then as I was about to say whereas those that follow wisdome shall be as the thinner parts of heaven or as the Lacteus Circulus which is caused of the confluence of the beames of those heavenly torches Those that turne many unto righteousnesse shall be as the thicker parts of the celestiall Orbe and shall shine as the starrs of heaven for evermore The sixth Sermon JER 22. 3. Thus saith the Lord Execute yee Judgement and Righteousnesse THREE things there were amongst the Gentiles to which they dreaming they had them from God trusting too much disadvantaged themselves and gave occasion of rejoycing to their Enemies First their twelve Ancilia or Targets one of which they say fell from Jupiter into the hands of Numa Secondly their Palladium which fell from Heaven into a certain Temple in Phrygia being then without Roofe Thirdly and the Image of Pessinuntia dea or Idaea mater the Mother of their Gods which the Romans with great cost and paines brought from Pesinuns a Town in Asia the lesse to Rome and placed in the Temple of their Goddesse Victoria as a meanes to perpetuate and eternize the felicity of that State The Jewes likewise had three things which they said and said truly they had from God The Temple and the Ark and the Law which because they looked no further into then the out-side and externall Superficies of them as if a man should busie himselfe with picking and licking the Shell of a Nut and neglect the Kernell or rest satisfied with keeping a true measure and ballance in his house and never use them or as if a Scholler should content himselfe with looking on the Cover and Strings of his Book and never open it nor learn the Contents thereof brought many Calamities upon them and at length proved their destruction as long as the Temple was in the City and the Ark in the Temple and the Law in the Ark they thought all sure they themselves were called the people of God their City the City of God in it they had the Temple of God and the Ark of God and the Law of God What was wanting verily as much as is wanting to a good Souldier when he hath his Sword hanging by his side and never offers to draw it when the Enemy assaults him or to the Office of a Judge when he sits on the Bench having the Scales painted over his head but speaks not a word Against this remisnesse not to give it a worse name the Prophet exclaimes the Law is dissolved then the Letters remain in the Book the practise is perished Judgment never goes forth Defluxit lex Hab 14. its a metaphor borrowed from the Pulse a mans bodily constitution may be known by his Pulse if it be fallen down and give over beating the man is in the pangs of Death or dead already if vehement he is in a hot Feaver if temperate he is in good health The Law is the Pulse of the Common-Wealth if it move not the Body Politick is dead if its motion be violent its sick of a hot Ague if moderate and equall it s well affected In the dayes of our Prophet the Pulses of the Law were quiet no more motion in them then in the dead Sea which neither ebbs nor flowes Judgment was fallen and Justice could not enter the faithfull City was become an Harlot her Princes Rebells and Companions of Theeves every one loved Gifts and followed after Rewards they judged not the Fatherlesse neither did the cause of the Widow come before them Isa 1. They had altogether broken the Yoke and burst the Bonds Jer. 5. 5. Whereupon the Lord sends his Prophet to the King of Judah and his Servants that is his chiefe Officers and Magistrates with this Charge that if they desired to continue their Possessions in that good Land which he had given them and to escape a miserable slavery and captivity under cruell Tyrants in a strange and Idolatrous Country into which for their sinnes he was ready to bring them they should put life into the Law that the Pulses thereof might be perceived to move Execute Judgment And because the corruption of mans nature commonly runs from one extream to another in vitium ducit culpae fuga here quires that this Judgment be not too violent but moderate and equitable Execute Judgment and righteousnesse that is righteous Judgment For the Law like a mans shooe Si pede major erit subvertit si minor urit if it be too wide it will give Liberty to the Foot to tread awry if too strait it will pinch it But what hath a private man to do in matters of State what Commission hath Jeremy a Priest to come to the Court of a mighty King and to tell him and his Nobles of their duties Surely a very strange one He who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords had set him over Nations and over Kingdomes to pluck up and to root out Jer. 1. sends him now as his Embassadour into the Kings house and gives him instruction what he shall speak Thus saith the Lord God esteem not my Message according to the quality of my person for though I be meane in place and of small reputation yet my Errant is of another nature I
giving Sentence or if Sentence be given from executing of Judgment or if Judgment be already begun from further proceeding Take one or two examples Psal 106. They joyned themselves to Baalpeor and ate the Offerings of the dead they provoked him to anger with their own inventions and the Plague brake in amongst them but when Phineas stood up executed Judgment the Plague was staied and the Lord said unto Moses Phineas the Son of Eliazer the Son of Aaron the Priest hath turned away mine anger because he was jealous for his God and hath made an Attonement for the Children of Israel Numb 25. For Achans sin God substracteth his helping hand from the Israelites they flee at the sound of Leafe shaken and turn their backs upon their Enemies the sinner is put to death and the Lord turneth from his fierce wrath See Jos 7. for Sauls bloody house and cruelty against the Gibeonites God sends cleanness of teeth in all the Cities and scarcity of Bread in all the Villages of Israel when Judgment is executed God is appeased with the Land See 2 Sam. 21. But till judgement be executed upon Sauls bloody Family let David do what he can the Lord will not be appeased toward the Land Till Achan be stoned let Joshuah and all the Elders of Israel rent their Clothes and put dust upon their heads and fall down and pray before the Ark the Lord will not turn from his fierce wrath Till Phineas execute Judgment thongh Moses and all the Congregation of Israel weep before the Door of the Tabernacle the Plague shall continue If a Land be defiled with blood do what otherwise may be done it will not be cleansed but by the blood of him that shed it Numb 25. 23. Thus then when the Gods of the Earth execute Judgment upon the transgressours of the Law they give an inhibition to the God of Heaven from further proceeding Hence be these and the like speeches so frequent in Charges given in the Law to Magistrates for punishing Offenders so shalt thou take evill away forth of the mids of thee Deut. 13. Deut 19. and in other places what evill not only malum culpae but that which is a consequent and fruit of it malum paenae too as is plain Deut. 13. 17. that the Lord may turn from his fierce wrath and shew compassion upon thee On the other side where they suffer the sword of Justice to rust and canker in the Scabberd and suffer their Inferiours as if they lived in an Anarchie to do what they lust and let the Reines loose to all licentiousnesse ut cum carceribus sese effudêre quadrigae fertur equis auriga as if there were no providence in the Almighty Then the Lord who is jealous of his honour and abhors all irregular motions awakes as one out of sleep and as a Giant refreshed with wine he unsheatheth his glittering Sword and executes vengeance both upon Prince and People and unlesse repentance follow turnes them to a perpetuall shame whereof you have many examples in the Book of Judges to which David alludeth Psal 106. The wrath of the Lord was kindled against his people insomuch that he abhorred his owne Inheritance and gave them over into the hands of the Heathen and they that hated them were Lords over them And what a fearfull Judgment did Lot his neglect of executing Judgment bring upon himselfe and Family and upon all Israel of Israel there fell by the hands of the Philistims at two Battels 3400. Hophni and Phineas were both slain with the Sword old Eli at the newes broke his neck his Daughter in Law Phineas his Wife at the hearing thereof was brought to Bed before her time and died and which had never before happened as she complained at her Death the glory departed from Israel and the Ark of God was taken This heavy curse came upon Eli and upon his house and upon all Israel for not executing of Judgment upon such as by their sinnes had kindled Gods wrath and through the whole Book of Judges how many Plagues are executed upon Israel for this sin this is meant by that which is so often repeated in that Book In those daies there was no King in Israel Judg. 17. 6. 18. 1. 21. 25. that is no ordinary Magistrate to inflict condigne punishment upon notorious Offenders As there is a neglect in executing Judgment in matters criminall So I feare in administration of Justice in matters civill Where if it be true which is commonly spoken too many frustratory and venatory delaies as Bernard calls them are used it s a generall complaint amongst those that have Law suits that expedition is a Court-Lady so nice and dainty that a common person shall hardly be able to speak with her yea that men of good rank must wait long and woe much and make Freinds and send love tokens some peradventure as costly as she used to take who gave occasion of the Proverb Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum before he can see her Face or injoy her favour thus it is with him that beginnes a Suit in any Court of Justice whether ecclesiasticall or civill I call them both so because they both should be so as with him that ventures upon the Ocean Caelum undiqueet undique pontus or with one that enters into a maze where he finds it an easie entry Sed revocare gradum hoc opus hic labor est He that is to contend with a potent and contentious adversary must as he that undertakes voyage to the East-Indies furnish himself before hand with 2. or 3. yeares provision at the least or he shall be â—nforced to put on shore for new supply before he shal be able to discover the Cape of good hope the Medicine proves worse then the Disease insomuch that if a man shall in the end prevaile against his Adversary he may peradventure give the same answer to his Neighbours that rejoyce for his successe that Pyrrhus gave his friends who came to congratulate with him after a great Victory he had got over the Romanes but with much blood-shed and losse of his best Souldiers and Captaines yea quoth he but if I shall get such another Victory I shall be for ever undone This makes some willing rather to part with their own Right then to buy it at so high a rate in those places ubi major erit expensarum sumptus quam sententiae fructus as one complained of the Popes Court. I do not I cannot I will not lay the blame upon the reverend Judges who sit to heare and determine Causes in their severall Courts the Causes that come before them are many and as in all other things so especially in matters of Judicature it s almost impossible in a short time to do much and all well Veritas latet in abdito profundo as Democritus said Truth lies hid in the bottome of a deep and dark pit they must delve and digge and seek