the Sun in his strength so when his time was fully come the day that this Jewel must be made up First his Body is glorified on earth and then assum'd into Heaven and a place for this precious Gem at his own right Hand above Principalities and Powers and a Name given him above all names And now that blessed Face wherein the Jews saw no beauty yet was fairer then the sons of men which they defiled and spit upon is ador'd by Seraphims and both Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of his Glory Now God observes the self-same method in all the rest finds them out among the refuse of the world amongst flocks and herds of Nations from the first rude quarrie of the Chaos from utter vacuity and nothing assembles their attoms and smallest dust breaths in a lively spirit exalts purifies it grafts on it Knowledge Faith Love Holiness and having begun a good work of Grace never leaves it till he bring it to perfection filing away their dross and grinding out their grains and Ices and clouds of corruption till he hath refin'd them to a brightness as in St. Paul a rough stony-hearted persecutor wrought by certain scales and barks pull'd away to become a chosen vessel to bear his name among the Gentiles Act 9. A bright star on earth and now a glorious Saint in Heaven 3. Jewels then thirdly they are for that care and love which God affords them men prize their Jewels Reserve them curiously take a glory and perplacency in possessing and wearing them So God having bought them at a price inestimable purchased not with corruptible things as silver and gold but with the blood of Jesus Christ as of a Lamb undefiled and without spot then he sets his heart upon them all his delight is in the Saints that excel Those he tenders as the Apple of his eye sets them as Josiah for a seal and a Signet on his right hand hides them under the shadow of his wings and so also God glories in them and holds them out to the amazement and confusion of the world of gross and earthly souls which are as foils to their perfections and commands them to do him grace and to be an Ornament to him Let your light shine c. Again The Comparison would hold for the task is easie to pursue an Allegory for Rarity Rari quippe boni apparent rari in gurgite Vasto in a sea of froth and foam and for the place and manner of breeding and growth But I forsake the rest and chuse to insist only on Properties respecting which Righteous men are justly term'd Jewels and chiefly two of clearness and lustre first and then of firmness and solidity which are the Vrim and Thummim of a Christian 1. In the first precious stones excel being compact of the finest Atoms and this holds well for as while we admire the pure Orient Pearls the radiant and sparkling Carbuncle the serene bright Saphir the green Emerald and the like we may raise our contemplation to the beauty and clearness of the stars and Sun and so ascend to him that struck light out of darkness at the first that dwels in perfect Beauty and in light inaccessible and covers himself with Light as with a garment so in a spiritual manner that Light of Grace in his servants attracts others also to behold in them Him who is Pater Luminum the Father of all Illuminations and so that fair and pure soul which gives Light in the darkness of the Body and night of Ignorance returns with advantage to him that gave it with the gain of other souls wonne by beholding their chast and illustrious conversation They tell of Diamonds belonging to some of the house of Luxembourge and Theophrastus has it of other stones propagating their Species by turning first the circumstant ayr into water and then contracting that water into a more earthy substance like themselves But it is true of these precious and living stones who born of Gods immortal seed by a new Light shot from Heaven do likewise in Reflection and by aggregation assimilation and an ardent sympathetical combination and communion work others to the same conformity of the godly Nature inspire illumine and propagate others with a kind of Divine Generation And as that Godlike creature the child of Heaven and Gods first born Light when delivered from the womb and jaws of Darkness is able to deliver over it self without ceasing without Annibilation Fraction o◠Diminution and as Love in moral minds and true Charity in Coelestial souls not leaving its own habitation will walk the round to those spirits which are capable of its Society And as God the Son is of the Father God of God and Light of Light and Love of Love For God is Love as he is Light so are his Regenerate and Adopted children also all from him and one enlightened from another Secondly Solidity firmness constancy the Christians is a standing Credo it was wont to be so Lord I believe without distrust whether my understanding comprehend it or no without curiosity to be further confirm'd by Miracles Lastly Credo Audacter without dissembling or fear to acknowledge it This is stere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Col. 2.2 that firm and full assurance of Faith I mean in Resolution not to alter or shrink as was in couragious Joshuah I will serve the Lord and hearty David that endured much and long yet he recedes not from his Vow no I have sworn and am stedfastly purposed And Job though he dyed for 't yet it should prove no this way dissolution And for this cause God allows the Name calls it the most precious faith of his Elect and chides those Recreants that Recoil so easily O ye of little faith Those are no right Jewels of his they are but Glow-worms and Hypocrites or as glass and Sophisticate shels and vitious stones which have an inconstant and languishing shine or whose splendor is only in a morning or under a clear sky and lasts not in gusts and storms of persecution or which in age decrease in Grace and Vertues and come to lose their abilities No t is said of Gods Palms and Cedars that they flourish on and bring forth more fruit in their age And for this firmness even moral men have made strange approaches and profest the conquest of it resolv'd to retain their vertue and honour untainted maugre all the rage of bloody tyrants and either allurements or encombrances of a base and vitious world How much more Christians to endure the torture the Rack the fire that which is the Crasis of all these The Inquisition to despise that tryal of cruel mockings and resist even to blood and ready to lay down our lives rather then betray or prevaricate and shuffle in the cause and quarrel of Christ Jesus and his holy Church As no sin shall tear me from that Root of Gods Love so I am perswaded sayes the Apostle no affliction Rom. 8.
Romans and God himself confined his own people and pinned them down with Laws and still controules the rising of their cruelty by remembrance of their own condition in Egypt and for that very end the Holy Ghost proceeds here with a double Argument against such Insolency which Tremelius cals Elegantissimam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first Argument drawn saith he a Judicio Dei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Judgement of our common Lord and Master respectless of any mans person and therefore the despising either of his person or of his cause yea of such a cause as wherein he dares contend with me that am his Master even this God will not bear I must answer for this nay I shall not be able to answer it if I be guilty but of this And the second argument is taken a jure naturali in the fifteenth verse Is my mold or mettle better then my mans Is a Lords flesh and blood of a purer composition then his Grooms or his Foot-mans Did not he that made me in the womb make him And did not one fashion us in the womb or fashion us in one womb that is the common womb of our mother earth What is then the lesson hence but meekness for all to practise but specially those in upper place since none is more superior then a Master over his slave And for this purpose the Scripture presents us with two strange examples Moses so chosen to advancement by God himself So known of God as his friend Dignified by his miraculous Power in the eyes of his enemies and by the conduct of his people that never man more prompted to take state upon him and yet it is said this Moses was the meekest man alive The other is David when he danced before the Ark and Michal reprooving him he told her he would be more vile since so she called his humility and confesses the bottom of his heart Psal 131. I have behaved my self and quieted my soul even as a weaned child We find this was at least they said so in the intent of those Philosophers both Sceptique and Epicurean to arrive at Mansuetudo Tranquillus animus to clear the soul like a fair and unclouded Heaven and this was brought us by the Doctor of Heaven Christ Jesus both in precept Learn of me to be humble and meek and in patience possess your souls and in practice stooping himself not to a survey of our miseries but clad enclosed compassed with all mans infirmities sin only accepted and as unashamed as glorying in his humility he cries out tell the daughter of Sion not her Servant but her Soveraign her King the King of Kings comes nnto her meek And is it not then a miserable consideration a wretched spectacle to see a proud man and a humble God an angry impatient and a merciless man and yet a God of Love and long-suffering I look to Heaven and thence I find descending the Saviour of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is his Description in Hebrews 1.3 the brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express image of his person in shape not only of a man but of a servant He that commands Legions of Angels and whose attendants they were in the wilderness and proud of the office to serve him as his Cooks and Butlers And shall not this example work on me that am but dust and worms and keep me from insulting over Inferiors who though my servants and my meaneft Hines and Drudges are yet respecting him our Lord and Father both my fellow servants and my fellow brethren Observe the provocations to this Vertue He scorns the Scorner resists the proud but gives Grace to the humble The Meek he will guide in Judgement in his Judgement he will teach them his way Psalm 25. When he shares the world he tels us The Meek shall inberit the earth and delight themselves in abundance of peace Psalm 39 7. which he ratifieth in his blessing Mat. 5.5 â—ut this is earthly blessing is it not so in heavenly things too Hear him in his Prophet Isa 61.1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings and we know what that means To whom to the Meek His first coming was for the Meek in the same Prophet Isa 11.4 And to meet again with the Text When God shall visit when this Son of God shall stand up to judge and to cast all proud and barbarous and cruel dispositions into Hell so he will then lift up the Meek and never leave these polisht Jewels till he hath inset them in heavenly Glory For the Lord takes pleasure in his people and will beautifie the Meek with salvation Psalm 149.4 Aud therefore who is a wise man saith St. James Jam. 3.13 let him shew out of a good conversation his works in meekness of wisdom for such is heavenly wisdom at verse 17. first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy c. If we preach it must be in love and the spirit of Meekness 1 Cor. 4. ult If you hear Receive with meekness the Word Jam. 1.21 If we will both Preacher and Hearers walk worthy our Vocation it must be with all lowliness and meekness c. Ephe. 4.2 For as if in this one grace all the rest were lock'd and infolded so doth the Apostle speak there and reckoning up the several gifts of the Spirit in Gal. 5. they seem all to be but Meekness diversified to several names To end I beseech you brethren by the meekness and gentleness of Christ Be ye cloathed with humility and upon that reason which is here in my Text God visits for rigor he resists the proud but gives Grace to the humble 1 Pet. 5.5 Furthermore If cruelty exclude from Paradise and disable from standing in the day of visitation Use this for terror against all the terrible Ones upon earth all exalted and crnel Oppressors They must hear of the wrath of this Supervisor in Heaven who sees them from thence and from thence they shall in that day see him come to visite for this sin Though they can over-soar and escape all power on earth yet see what a day the Lord threatens to make in Amos 8. and joyn to that the Prophesie of Isaiah 10.1 2 3. c. and Jeremy 6.6 c. Lastly Extend this for Consolation Regum timendorum in proprios greges saith he the highest power on earth can stretch but to their Vassals but over Princes themselves is his Perogative and Dominion that here stands up in my Text and of whom Solomon saith hc is higher then they In the cause and quarrel of Christ Jesus then we must put on the resolution of those three valiant Children The God whom we serve is able to deliver us Dan. 3. but if not we will not disobey his Command for any countercommand on earth And in this all those poor Saints of God that groan under the Turkish
earth build desolate places for themselves lie still and are at rest saith Job but so did not he we know better then so what he did I believe The third day he rose again and ascended into Heaven and at that house we have toucht already but yet from none of these houses not that eternal house of our Lord comes any comfort to us till that Spirit of the Lord the Comforter come from him to us to dwell in us so putting us all into one houshold of Faith the common faith and making us all the habitation of God by the Spirit 10. And to make fit this house this Lord the blessed Carpenter was put to work it out of the rough and troubled to take to break down a Partition-wall whose more then Alpine rockiness no Hannibal but he could conquer and no fire no liquor but his heart blood could penetrate Nothing but his living-dead body raise this dead living frame of Saints built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone in whom all the building fitly framed together grows into an holy Temple in the Lord Eph. 2.20 21. There 's right Dominicum every way The house of the Lord In the Lord On the Lord By the Lord. This house then in no case to be left out nor we left out of it you know who would allow us no room in their Inn at the Popes head and by that device exclude us out of the Church which is called a great house 2 Tim. 2. and the foundation stands sure but sure it stands not all upon the cloudy Apennine This is just like private Mass that 's proper Communion a right Bull to pin down Universal in a particular corner as if to thrust twenty royal Courts into one Room like that people wise in their own conceit that to make sure of Conquest pinned and riveted the Goddess Victory to their City wals So these Reckoners go to it stilo novo the Romane Computation this and it is a good confession their fat Bishop Spalatâ— makes in all their names Ecclesians Catholicam nobiscum esse vel cogitamus vel cogimus They would fain think so and fain force us to think so but we are not much to trouble our selves at their Cogitamus God knows the thoughts of men to be but vain and the divisions of Reuben were from great thoughs of heart but from their Cogimus Libera nos Domine He hath and doth and will deliver us if we embrace our Creed and by vertue thereof belong to this house of the Catholick Church 11. Nay we our selves our souls and bodies are his Church and Temple which house we are 1 Cor. 6. wherein God remains under our roof gracing even the houses of his Saints bodies while they stand and faln watches over their Atoms while the spirits return to him and will recollect and raise them up in far greater State and Glory So that Mors shall not be ultima not the last line strectht upon this building but a linea yet more ultimate reaching from Earth to Heaven And so with much ado having so many houses to call at by the way which very calling yet hath done us some service and may do us more we are come Christo auspice to this very house in the Text and seen in a quarter of an hour this Sun pass through all those houses to this which is the last in our Zodiack The Temple which David prepared and Solomon built for the service of the Lord and in which house God hath a propriety stiled therefore by way of Excellency The house of the Lord. 12. Where the first service we can do for Domus Dominus both is to wake them meet with and meet for one another For is there not a mighty discrepance betwixt them the Temple a stately piece the Joy of the whole earth Par domus haec coelo But you know what follows will not serve his turn though as God by his Eternity transcendently and supereminently comprehends all time so by his immensity all places And Dominus here though true of Christ as we heard and may hear more anon is Jehovah and he dwell in Temples Temples plural if set altogether made with hands Heaven of Heavens cannot What house can contain him then What house will you build for me no house Lord to comprehend thee who art God incomprehensible but for thy name and an house for thy worship and service that may comprehend us But what matter if no such houses at all neither on this Mount nor yet at Jerusalem but right service in Spirit and Truth So say some haunted perchance with a worldly and dangerous spirit we deny not our best sacrifice on the heartaltar best worship in Spirit Yet if God were undelighted with a set local Worship why would the Scripture mention Hannahs motion 1 Sam. 2. And another Anna the Prophetess residing in the Temple why our Saviour dayly in the Temple and Synagogues and his Apostles Peter the chief and John the beloved of Jesus ascending at the hour of prayer Or would the Spirit of God have put it into the heart of David a man after Gods own heart to prepare him service in a Temple or his Prophet in his name so cry out upon this deserting this house of God and bring his double action of Wast vain Wast on our own ceiled houses and laying wast this house of God My house lie wast Hgg. 1. so the propriety held then and if we follow it to the spring-head we find indeed Cultus Domini before Domus Abel sacrificed and in Enos time they invocated Immolation and Invocation both in the beginning of Genesis but go on and you come to a place framed before you go out of Exodus and even in Genesis we have Noahs and Abrahams Altars and Jacobs Bethel But to clear this at once only that in Deut. 12. The reason why Cultus was not set in order because no proper Domus for this Dominus ver 8. Now you serve me as you lâ—â—â— hievery man what is right in his own eyes and why no Reformation v. 9. you are not yet come to the rest and inheritance which the Lord your God gives you but when you go over Jordan a better order then then there shall be a place which the Lord shall chuse to cause his name to dwell there So far is Dominus from dis-avowing Domus that he ordains both Domus Cultus and therefore let them remain all there as we find them here in order Cultus Domus Domini Do you not find too every precious stone and string appointed to Moses by pattern in the Mount and David had the Platform of the Temple in writing 1 Chron. 28.19 And Dominus then took possession of Domus his Glory appeared before the Tabernacle and filled the Temple at Solomons dedication yea he made his Residence in both took up his seat in the Tabernacle his Mercy seat too wherein
here visiting looking to the wayes of Man that Man might look up to him Briefly not to reflect yet on the Coherence at which I shall touch anon in place convenient enough The Text delivers us two parts First Gods office Secondly Mans office His to visit Mans to debate and answer 1 God is the Visitor The School makes these degrees of perceiving God in names First Negationis Remotionis What God is not not the Sun Moon not finite mutable Secondly Perfectionis Affirmationis when what is most excellent in things create we apply to him by way of Analogie and Resemblance so we call him just Mercifull High Glorious Thirdly Of Supereminence such as this of a Visitor gathered from his action here and joyn'd with the Emphasis of my Text When he shall visit Men are Visitors but they more easily answered their place and power but Derivatives from this Primitive He He the grand Visier Altissimus most High So that to Gods absolute power everywhere presence this attribute and this transcendent Ability of an holy Watcher a Supervisor is proper 'T is proper Blazon and Title sutable denoting throughout these words not height alone and Power and Superiority when he shall stand up but Majesty and Terror too What shall I answer him We have found his Office but will God perform it 'T is a Question of mens performing their offices and a Question too of false gods They had an Idol in Egypt cal'd by such a name Baal-Zephon Dominus speculae Lord of the Watch-tower to fright their fugitives but when Moses and the people of Israel past that way and pitched the Camp there this god was asleep but he that keepeth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps He kept his Israel then and since he made good the Title then and since and dare we question it now But how doth God visit Search the Scriptures they testifie of him those books are moral to teach Man his office the whole duty of Man to make the Man of God perfect to every good work but they are Historical too and Prophetical too instructing us what God hath done and what God will do Look then to those Records and we shall find what and when and how in his several Visitations His Visitations are his actions Action is from intrinsique vertue Vertue there is none such in God as supposes Infirmity or Imperfection as Faith Hope c. but such as argues Perfection Mercy Justice Wisdom Bounty Power According with these we find his Visits First In general then with reference to men both wayes their persons in mercy sin upon their persons in Justice 1. In general in all places and over all things above Heaven is his Throne where he overlooks the Orders and royal Armies of his Angels ascending descending in the material Heaven disposing that numberless variety of those glorious stars calling them all by their names in the airie Heaven amidst those flocks of Fowl his Providence extending to the fall of every little sparrow If we go down to the sea amongst those infinite shoals and innumerable fishes there we see his Wonders in the Deep or if we go deeper if we descend to hell He is there also binding the fury of infernal spirits And for the Earth it is his footstool unmov'd he sits in midst of Heaven and yet they be the eyes of the Lord that run to and fro through the whole earth Zach. 4.10 raigning above yet containing and upholding all below compassing all about yet piercing all within But applyed to Men they are the eyes of God which behold and his eye lids which trye the Children of Men. But first the persons in mercy as we use the word in our visitation of friends or of the sick And of this kind as well pleased therewith is that where God doubles it Visitans visitavi Exod. 3.16 Visites and remembers visites and restores Jer. 17. ult This is called the face the beauty of his Holiness when he causes the light of his countenance to arise Then secondly Sins upon the persons and this changeth the aspect He frowns and bends the Brows sets his face against them visiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth generation Num. 14.18 first or last on them or theirs by no means clearing the guilty Then he is described to visit in Thunder and Earth-quake in Storm and Tempest Isa 29.6 And in this sense the word is used among the Prophets promiscuously for Recompensing Punishing Avenging and even this threatned on his own people tender as the Apple of his eye and his chief Treasure above all Nations Hos 1.4 12.2 Jer. 11. Isa 10.3 We may not omit his mercifull Visitation should it not shew like a piece of ingratitude not to touch here first though our voyage be to that of final Judgement And the first particular of his mercifull visitation wherein is his delight is confiderable as man is a body God then did visit him in the house of dust as his last work will be joyning and refining the same dust again in Glory and what might be said of his visitation in the womb Thou sawest my substance being yet imperfect c. What of all those wheels and wyers within the body that Mill and Clock of his contriving of his winding up at thought of which David speaks with a kind of strange shuddering O Lord I am fearfully and wonderfully made What of mans Shape Speech Beauty and how largely spred might this Web be if we took in all those threds and quils of his Providence by which he conveighs a thousand influences of his Bounty even loading Man with his benefits Psal 68. and renewing them every morning Lam. 3. Light after Darkness Spring after Winter as now we see that Grant in his course stealing an ascent over us and subduing the cold giving rain and fruitfull seasons c. What addition to this above all this from the Nature and Fabrique and Faculties of our soul in substance nobler then the stars able not only to give Being to the body like other forms but capable of eternal Felicity Secondly As Man is a Christian by means of the Revelation of Jesus that Orient ex Alto The day-spring from on High hath visited Luke 1. that Sun which riseth with healing in his wings And this was and is a blessed Visitation for thus it runs Visited and Redeemed his people Himself did visite and his servants did it in his name rising early for early visitation and since his ascension he send by his Apostles Pastors and Teachers that heavenly Treasure in their earthen vessels this Manna this Light the glory of his people Israel and because that had not concerned us it is also a Light revealed to the Gentiles this revives us when he is said To visit the Gentiles also to take of them a people to his Name Acts 15.14 But not that word of Grace though the Word of Life and Power and Mighty in operation Not
our self-guiltiness Quae in alto quaeris intus in visceribus haerent Thou O man saith the Apostle that condemnest another dost the same things thy self or if not the self same as bad or worse Thou abhorrest a sin it may be some sin thou dost not practise some sin will not yield thee any profit or no surther profit some sin will do thee no pleasure now Thou abhorrest Idols or thou dost not commit Adultery but thou committest Sacrilege Is there not a Vbi tu for thee Will there not be a calling to Judgement one day for that and then where art thou And so against all fig-leaves against all pretences and excuses here 's nothing in this Vbi in this place but bare and naked Tu. Thou mayest condemn the Serpents envy and thy wive solicitation thou mayst as well lay thy gluttony unto the Cook or to thy friend inviting thee God singles out his Dear and shoots this ungaged arrow deep into our several brests but yet such wounds from his hand are better then the kisses of an enemy All flattering all false inflations of the Serpent will but make us Pharisees With Lord I am not like other men But such a touch of this would take out that venom make us all strike on our proper bosoms and every man answer God Where art thou with Lord Here I am But Lord be mercifull to me a sinner and so Lord be mercifull to us all miserable sinners Be mercifull O Lord to us not for ours but for his sake who was made sin for us the second Adam that bore all our sins in his body on the Tree even Jesns Christ the Righteons to whom c. S. D. G. THE THIRD SERMON ON THIS TEXT GEN 3.9 The Lord God called unto the man and said Adam where art thou THIS is now the third Entrance on this Entrance of Gods Judgement upon man after his Lapse which is the first of all the three pieces of Divinity And this Third this our new consideration of this Judgement and Gods Method in proceeding may open by his assistance another door of utterance and so we may make another and another Method of proceeding with this or any other Text of Scripture For as there is little reason for that Painter who uses to inscribe his pieces to bind all other Work-men to his device So though it is impossible for any man dividing the Truth aright and speaking out of the pure Word of God things consentaneous thereunto for instruction of Gods people to avoid Doctrine or for any but grraceless Hearers not to suffer the Word of Exhortation of Reproof of Consolation to have a gracious use in their hearts and hands for Religion should be hearted first and handed after in their Understanding first and then in their Life and Conversation Yet I never found in the Sermons of the Lord Jesus himself nor in those of his Apostles nor in their Successors the Primitive Fathers of the first well-formed Churches nor in those of the now deformed Church of Rome nor in those of the first Reformed Churches that they confin'd themselves much less bound over all others on pain of sin or absurdity to one and such only form and way of Teaching which beside the violence offered to mens spirits is to my Understanding a kind of Restraint put upon the free Spirit of that God which works all in all yet deals by a diversity of gifts and distributes in variety of those gifts to every mans necessity and Capacity So that in this for the Divine that rule of the Moralist will hold Nullius addictus c. tied to none nor ever to a mans own Methode witness this attempt of mine in this farther process upon this very Text as it includes a Judgement and the Method of that Judgement These are now our two and all our parts 1. For the first When the story hath told us of Man and Womans Disobedience it shews us after their sin their shame for that 's the first born issue of sin Now they saw and knew themselves every way outwardly and inwardly in bodies and souls naked despoil'd and destitute They run from God and would hide themselves then both from him and themselves Arguments ever of guilty minds fore casting cruel things and then enters the Text with Judgement but what is here begun spreads as far as v. 20. before the sentence be ended 2. Whence the point of Doctrine on easie Inference may be that our Judgement shall certainly overtake and come upon us Hath the Senate condemned me to die saith he Why so Hath Nature condemned them to die too So hath God called me to sit and judge other men perchance those other men might better sit upon me and peradventure they shall yet ere I die If that be unexampled it is not impossible but it is impossible to escape the Judgement of God There is a Prevision of that and of the Conflagration and of the Consternation which shall be then all as old as the visions of Daniel chap. 9. verse 9. When the Thrones were cast down and the Antient of days did sit A fiery stream issued and came forth before him Thousands of thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him the Judgement was set and the Books were opened And another vision of that as new and as late as the last piece of all Gods Revealed Will to men in Rev. 20.11 12 13. verses I saw a white Throne saith St. John and him that sat thereon from whose face the earth and the heaven fied away and there was found no place for them and I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works and the sea gave up his dead and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them and they were judged every man according to their works And these proofs these large allegations from the old and new Testament we may use instead of larger reasons for if those reasons men speak so much of rise clearly from the fountain Truth of Gods eternal Word they are worthy of some higher and nobler names then Reasons but if not taken from clear Scripture Grounds or if they flow from other principles then to the clearing of divine Truth what reasons are they Two things only then I would gladly print on every soul and from this double vision which opens and closes up this Instruction 1. Put you first in mind of St. Pauls Caveat Rom. 14.10 where the Doctrine is not to judge Not to set at nought our Brother and this is made the reason We shall all stand before the Judgement-seat of Christ and every one of us give account of himself to God 2. The other is St. Judes Induction remembring us of Gods constant course preceding in destruction
since the print was dark and we sin-blind His Word became the mirror of his mind And as the Eternal Father on the Son His form engrav'd before all worlds begun So what he is what God in him to us The spirit of both doth in this Book discuss Clear spring of wisdom Truths eternal mine The whole a Temple and each leaf a shrine And as on clouds on mountains and on streams The Sun lets beauties fall in golden beams But with his own pure Light the stars inspires And through their bodies thrusts his living fires So other holy books can but reflect Those Raies which here are native and direct Which apt to dazle and confound the wise Are yet a gentle light to Childrens eyes And you bright Maid whose name if I reherse I shall a Rubrique make and not a Verse And were such gold found in Italian Mines They would have twenty new St. Katharines As little ones in Gardens take delight Here gather fruits for tast and flowrs for sight The flower of Jesse that fresh and lasting Rose The fruit of knowledge and of life here grows On babes as tender Virgins love to look Behold that blessed babe within this book Pure fair adorn'd with perfect white and red A Crown of Radiant stars about his head If you be sick if head or heart do ake On Jesus name call and the pain will slake Read it when first you rise and goe to bed Under your Pillow let it bear your head All books in one all Learning lies in this This your first A B C and best Primer is Whence having throughly learnt the Christ-cross Row You may with comfort to our Father go Who will you to that highest lesson bring Which Seraphims instruct his Saints to sing A SERMON Preached to the KING AT OATLANDS 1638. JOHN 1.12 But as many as received him to them gave he Power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on his Name WE Country Ministers preaching at Court are first confined to matter finishable in one hour being like the Virgins in the Court of Ahasuerus She that came once must come no more except she pleas'd the King and were call'd for by name For which I shall chuse to insist on few particulars And then we are fearfull to displease Such are the winds of Information One breaths that good wise Caveat of King James of ever blessed memory Not to soar aloft or muster up our own readings Another whispers Touch not State nor Discipline nor Controversies At length I threw down all fear of displeasing by choice of this Text which plainly preaches Christ Jesus but Christ in Excellency excellent things are here spoken of him and of his powerfull Grace and excellent things said to be done to us by him and his gracious Power And if wondrous things will take it is a Text replete with wonders and yet no wonder containing him who wears that title among and above all those in Isaiah of a Prince peaceable and wonderfull No wonder if an earthly King be and by his own neglected when the King of Kings that came down from Heaven in triple light and evidence of his own stupendious Miracles his Fathers acknowledgment and the fiends own confessing to see how hardly the beams of Truth are let in on envy-poisond souls came thus furnisht among his own and yet his own received him not No longer wonder that a gracious King retains a sweet and mercifull disposition even to disaffected Subjects taught by this King here the Messiah who as anointed with Grace above all so sheds Grace and Mercy over all offers it to all even to those that would none These Builders here that threw him by he would have built them upon himself as on a stone elect and precious and so have raised them up into a new Jerusalem Miracle of Mercy To urge and press the gift of his Grace yea of his blood on those that despis'd it counted it an unholy thing and to remember them for his Cross in his prayer and for his death in that Commission after Go preach the Gospel to them Let them have glad tidings of Peace and Salvation Go take in them that would not take in me Receive them to Mercy that received me not And go first to them first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and beginning at Jerusalem Nor cease these wonders here for now not the Jewish Church alone not she his only beloved though even in this sense nor Rome nor Antioch but Jerusalem is the mother Church the mother of us all But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle The diminution of the Jew is become the riches of the Gentiles and in the place where it was said They are no people of mine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there they shall be called the Sons of God And that there is Here The Church of England a Church of Gentiles and this place the Represent and Lantskep of that If we will receive Christ What then I cannot tell you what Some mighty thing it is certain 'T is bundled up in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here which is a Right and Interest or Priviledge and Prerogative and a Dignity and Power no less then to become the Sons of God As many as received him c. Three parts I shall make of the Text First Vitis The Vine therein discoveting the root on which this fruit grows that is so copious clearing to us the Prime and other branching causes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est Racemus The bunch of Grapes that hangs upon this vine which who so puls and presses by a lively faith shall extract an Honor and Preheminence and Power quodcuunque velis A large trail of blessing unexpressable Our last part is Torcular The Wine-press whereby I shall first attempt to draw from Vitis and Raecemus a cup of Consolation as Calpar and Inferius but being so the too lushious issues of the Grape must a while be set by till we have tasted of a second cup of consideration for a cooler and then a third of Conformity and Concordance with Christ And then is that first to be resum'd and brew'd with some ingredients that may make it relish upon the Palate of the meekest Christians That done it will remain to urge the health of all three so mingled both for conveniency and necessity absolute and respective Last of all to make tryal by your patience of our receiving Christ in receiving his Receivers Those that are deputed to receive our homage and take our regard in his stead I shall name but three and reckon them upwards The Poor the Priest the Prince of his People Of these plainly and honestly And first of Vitis that is Christ Jesus to him we would but none can find that way till drawn and no way to be drawn up but our laying hold on the chain of Grace let down◠and nothing will do that but Prayer
are all heads upon the same string fastened with our faith in Vitis here for our principal Jewel which if any of these fall loose is lost for ever and then all our preaching and ministring and your hearing and receiving vain and we be stript of our whole Creed even from God the Father Almighty maker of Heaven and earth along to Christ crucified and on to life everlasting But we have not so weakly learned Christ to be shaken from our botome with such wind and waves of wicked Disputants Let us take heed of infection from a second sort such as in deeds deny him having a shew but no power of godliness such as may be tract like the snail by their unclean and slimy passages and yet dare resolve it in the Imparative Let us leave some Tokens of our wantoness so of our prophaness blasphemie drunkenness in every place This is a large field and a common place but for I am upon an health suffer me to single him out and say a coolword or two this morning next his heart unto the drunkard such especially as in a more then barbarous custom for in Est 1. no man might compell by forcing healths make it yet a more sickly and disorderly drunkenness First I commend to their consideration St. Pauls Epiphany where the Grace of God comes it appears saith he and how teaching us to denie ungodliness c. and to live soberly So then where sobrieey is not learnt the Grace of Christ hath appeared in vain Then that Caveat of our Saviour which he gave even to his own Apostles Take heed lest your hearts be overcome with surfeiting and drunkenness Why What 's the danger and so that day come upon you unwares My next is that Redoubt and Barricado rather of St. Peter wherewith he makes out the enemie the Lion At one end he plants the great Ordinance of Faith Whom resist stedfast in the faith At the other he makes it sure and sets good guard Be sober and watch as if all our faith without sobriety would not keep out the devil that roaring Adversary who can out-roar these roars and devour these Devourers of drink My close shall be that terrible sentence of the great Judge of heaven and earth gone out against them That they shall never inherit the Kingdom of heaven It now remains I should press for faith in the foundation and furnishing a Believer with reasons of his faith against the Aâ—heist Jew and Mahumetan and then for the super structure of Good works But these are fitter for large Treatises in books then short notes in a Sermon Let us come then to the last trial how we receive Christ by receiving his Receivers Persons deputed to take our homage and receive our reward in his stead 1. AND first The Poor With him I shall deal as usually men do dispatch him briefly Yet such are near and dear unto the Vine and sent as Leiger-Embassadours and à Latere too cut like another Eve out of his own bleeding side Members of that mistical Body whereof he is supream Head and whoever wrongs oppresses grinds or pares them to the blood He cries in Heaven Non cruor hic de stipite manat I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou persecutest It will come all to one in the end In as much as you have done it to them you have done it to me On the other side Do them good relieve them and he will reward it and make them able to requite it in proportion Receive them to harbour and those friends shall stand at heaven-gate to receive you into everlasting habitations 2. The Priest would be received too For Is not he in Vitis He that receives you receives me And is not our Ministry Vitis laetificans chearing God and man Did not the first Preachers receive largely for themselves and you when they received the holy Ghost and received power from on high at Christs ascension and gifts for men and were not the Apostles an odour of a sweet smelling savour to God and to men that received it even the savour of life unto life And is there not a Botrus of Blessing still received in receiving our Ministry If it be saith which is receiving Christ it is the word of God which we preach Nay May we not in a sober sense ask What have you that you have not received if it concern your spiritual state Christendom matriculation ablution from sin at one Receipt in baptism The body and blood and spirit of your Saviour by frequent receivings of the Eucharist which by the way now let me tell you in a word in verbo Sacerdotis if you should change for the mass it would lessen your receipts for whereas no lay-person hath a drop of the chalice allowed yet they have a Missale case that if any of the Consecrate-wine fall on the floore or pavement in that case a lay body may be permitted to lick it up left the dog should A fair reward it will be for such as decline to that Religion that Religion which hides away and denies the use of the word it self which is the power and wisedom of God to mans salvation But to fall back to our reckoning and Receipts is there nothing else Remember at night when you go to bed what is she if any be that sleeps in your bosome if you have not received her at the hand of some ordered and lawful Minister And when you shall go to your latest bed the Grave what difference from brute animals if we assist not to make it an honest and honourable Sepulture strange that mankind cannot well come in nor well stay nor well go out of this world without us and yet the world hates us Doth not this deserve a Torcular And I need not here press the cup of Comfort all apt enough to receive that benefits of Light and Salt and few so sensless but perceive it would be a very dark and a flash unsavoury dwelling here without the Gospel even stony ground will take in the Seed and gladly But where 's the Consideration of what is due to us And here I spare you I will not press that in the old Testament of Honouring God with your substance and first fruits and tithe of all that you possess I know the evasion you would turn over a new leaf and turn me to the new Priesthood in the New Testament yet take heed what you do for what is the news there How soon in that primitive Church do you meet with fellers of Possessions and laying all at the Apostles feet that 's a Torcular indeed and puts me in mind of a pretty passage in Tannerns a Jesuit who wishes withall his heart that all the Kings in Christendom would come and bring in all that ever they have and put it in their Churches treasury and henceforth be ruled by her but his Conclusion I like best Hoc in aeternum nunquaâ—fiet this will never be while the world stands saith
good a man a man â—â—er Gods own heart so gracious a King that 〈◊〉 his people with a faithful and true heart and rul'd them prudently with all his power anointed by God with his holy oil and appointed by him to be Head over all the Tribes assured from God â—hat his holy hand arm and all should hold him faâ—â— and strengthen him against the violence of his enemies and yet to see this Head over the people 〈◊〉 surrounded with evil members such a roar about him of populorum multorum maximorum for so Tremellius reads it and so we translate iâ— Of all the mighty and the word will bear botâ— multitude and magnitude from all these in steâ—â— of Magnificat and Benedictus which were due ouâ— flie Reproaches blasphemies slanders thick a hail at every step he takes Vestigia it is hereâ— That may be all the prints and tracts of his wordâ— and actions defac'd and blur'd They found Erraâ—â— in them all in all he said or did they dayly mistaâ—â—â— my words is gone before Ps 56.5 And here theâ—â— slander my actions the footsteps of thy Anointed Is this all No the Kings enemies here are Goâ—â— enemies too Slandering David the Lords servant blaspheming Jehova Davids Lord. No wondeâ— then at Recordare Domine in the top here more woâ—der at Benedictus in the bottom Notwithstandingâ— this Rebuke and slander and blasphemy nay 〈◊〉 all this for all these Praised be the Lord for eveâ— more Amen 3. Less then two Parts we cannot make David Supplication and his Consolation or let the fâ—â—â— Part be his Malady and the second his Remeâ—â— First the Malady we shall see will draw to it all 〈◊〉 matter of the Supplication and take in all the pâ—â—sons as well those affected to it as those infeâ—â—â— by it and then the Remedy will heal up and make a fair hand of all when we have discovered it throughout the Text from Recordare down to Benedictus 4. This Malady then for the name we may call it here Opprobrium Reproachful or disgraceful language It hath other names here of Rebuke Slander Blasphemy three Channels all drain'd into one sink of Opprobrium That is the Monster the Bawling Cerberus foaming with Aconitum a strong poison working and drenching through all and if it light upon a King you see it obstructs his Pectoral parts sits near his very heart gestare in sinu doth not signifie nothing 5. But what causeth this Maladie whence comes fit not desuper not from the Father of Light from him none but good and perfect Gifts nor from his Son whose wisdom is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated who when he was reviled reviled not again nor comes it from that Spirit which proceeds from them both which came down in shape of a Dove it comes the other way then de subter from the fowl unclean spirit from the Prince of Darkness A dire and dreadful vapour it is from Hell that blasts the day and all the children of light But yet so welcome is this spirit to the spirit of a meer natural man while it lusteth after envy and lies soakt in flesh and blood that the carnal man loves it as his own flesh and blood nourishes and cherishes it till wonted once and grown familiar it goes from man to man and from house to house crescit eundo grows a foggy ugly unweldly and monstruous thing and that it fall among a crew of Populorum and gathers still upon multorum maximorum then it soon poisons and putrifies it condenses and putrifies the very air hurls rotten and killing slanders round about the earth and shoots up blasphemies as high as heaven 6. We may go another way to work and seek these blatant beasts Infamy and Blasphemy Slander and Reproach and find them all concentred in St. James his world of wickedness and a fitter Centre can never be for as in this great world we have infinite atomes feathers and dust flying aloft but massie and drossie things sink downward to the centre of the earth So in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have store of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 light and vain and foolish words upon the wing but still the most filthy the mineral and visceral and intestine the basest and heaviest dregs and lees and tartar the drossiest and lowest stuff even as low as the bottomless pit that which showes man likest and draws him nearest to the Devil is this Devilish part and price of opprobrium 7. Thus having fixt upon this Centre see if the Text will furnish out a Circumference and here are choice materials for of whom speaks the Prophet this of himself or of some other of himself and very many other We are told this Psalm and the former were made by two Brothers Ethan and Heman and by them cast as two Molds of Prayer both in private difficulties for which the former and in publike affliction or subversion of the Republike in which this Psalm is the pattern both prepared to warn and arm Gods people of and against dangers and both applicatory to Christ and his Church in all ages I told you Opprobrium would draw to it all the matter and take in all the persons in the Text and more it seems then I conceived to be therein contained at first for now we may include all the Lords servants at large and then all his Chiefs David and every anointed of the Lord and then the Lord Christ Jesus himself and God in his unspeakable name of Jehovah too this Circumference will embelish our skeme and yet as high and holy and heavenly as these persons are they may be vext and endangered by this malady all infested or offended from this Center 8. Not possible Is this in the power of Populorum What Sling What Engine What Ordinance have they to shoot as high as Heaven The Sun can dart a raie down through the bowels of the earth The Dog-star fling pernitious defluxions But these Caniculars that grin like a Dog and run through the City can they from a throat like an open Sepulcher vent such a steam such a ravenous and destructive vapour as will kill at that distance Should Earth swell out into 10000 Tenariffs they could not bore the moon Earths shadows run into nothing before they reach the Sun What earth born people then so malignant to produce a plague so powerfull You have heard of a people sowen in the dust and which grew up from a Dragons teeth 't is thus far true The race of Populorum maximorum and all came from the Dust which is the Serpents food and we are all the worse to this day for the Serpents tooth in the forbidden fruit and worst of all for the Serpents tongue in the first tentation for there and thence this spreading poison was instilled As he was a Murderer so a Lier and Slanderer from the beginning even Inimicus tuus Domine Satan The Arch-enimy that blasted and disordered
out of dust and bals of living fire fiâ—xt in our eye-brow what work makes this heavenly Potter even with that clay in white red blew after all his polishing forced to take it down and like China earth hiding some for many 1000 years will shew his Power in their raising far fairer then before and yet able to dispatch the same effect on others in a moment in the twinckling of an eye changed and not die by a suddain dissolution and a suddain re-union But far rarer Workmanship is the Recreation of our souls washt brighter in his blood and heightned by his Spirit We need but two things for our souls Grace Truth and both came by Jesus Christ from his fulness we receive both by whose service and Ministry we are made New Creatures invested in a Robe and admitted to an Order past the Fleece and Garter the Right Order of the holy Ghost Brag not vain man O run not up into some beastly figure if guilding like a snail or tracing the way of thy preferment by thy blood or match thou be mounted to a local state of Wealth and Honor for these can add no new substantial forms But this access of Spirit from this Lord is right enobling and superinduces a new soul which like fire devours and takes up all within thee and winding in one Coelestial flame and embracing Understanding Will Affections wings and lifts up all to Heaven 12. Lastly In this very house where we assemble for the Worship and Service of the Lord it is the Lord himself that does the Service to the whole Assembly So that a non nobis Domine is fixable upon the porch of this and every house of God For first he invites us hither Come I Call upon me Seek you my face The skie of Scripture hung round with provocations calling us to service and being entered who executes the parts of our Divine Service in this house of Prayer And is it not he that prays for us in us with us before us and teaches us to pray and say after him Our Father and as once by himself in Prayers and strong cries so here assists our dulness and deadness of Spirit by his own quickning Spirit inditing our Prayers and raising our Devotion with sighs and groans that cannot be exprest It is secondly a house of preaching and we indeed preach Jesus and our selves your servants for Jesus sake nay him a Servant for your sakes But if we speak him right it is he that speaks the word of the Lord heavenly Treasure from our earthen vessels that the excellency might be of God and not of us 'T is he that first did write the word which is his Power and Wisdom to our salvation and 't is he that spels the Gospel and reads and speaks to us in his Word and he that laies out and distributes sentences to several bosoms as every man hath need and he alone that follows the Sermon home and saies it all over again to our hearts Finally his House is a House of Communion for the Saints and Churches of God for the due receiving of his holy Sacraments And as in the Baptistery it is he that receives the Infants in his arms and washes their Souls in his blood and makes the water there a Laver of Regeneration So in the Supper of the Lord it is the same Lord who first shed those primordial purple drops at his Circumcision the first fruits of his all powerfull blood to begin the work of our Salvation and ever since at every holy Communion gives both body and blood the food of faithfull and repentant Spirits and makes those sad sweet drops fall again to the anguish first and then the healing of our souls For such a different office hath this blessed Sacrament that it serves both to discover our sins and to seal our Pardons Wherein while faithfully we receive him he really receives us into him and we him into us So all of us become one body and one Spirit and all by the service of one and the same for ever Jesus Christ to whom c. S. D. G. A SERMON Preached at YORK 1640. AT The Council of King and Lords EPHE 5.8 For you were once darkness but are now Light in the Lord. Walk as Children of Light IN the Skie of Scripture shines the Sun of Divinity And all Divinity all that Sun is shed in these thee Radii The Lapse the Restoring the Duty These are a perfect Catechism And a sum of these is the Epistle to the Romans injust Methode and this Text a methodical Brâ—â—iat of that Epistle indeed an Epitome of all the Book of God for here we have the Creation the World struck out of Chaos or what is more mysterious It could not chuse but please the Angels then to see the LIGHT rise out of darkness by a powerfull FIAT and the earth anon to emulate heaven by vertue of a Producat But this This Rare Work the Angels desire to prie into 1 Pet. 1.12 And if we pace along we shall find here Enoch walking with God Abraham called out of VR to another VR a purer Light The deliverance from Egypt the Red Sea the Rock the Mannae the Ark the Mercy-seat And here are all the Sacrifices the Life and Substance of them all with the Fulness and Light of all the Promises and Prophesies and here is the new Testament The Star appears Behold we bring you glad tidings Run Shepherds and see the great Shepherd of all our Souls whiles yet an Infant Loe He is wrapt here in the Swadling bands of this Text. He is the Word and this his Comment his Paraphrase and Explication You were once c. These words are a Tree laden with fruit most precious the very shell the rind is precious But if we open this Onyx this Pearl Cabinet it contains rare Food and Medicine and Wine and Balsam a Quintessence an Extraction beyond the Spirits of Oyl and Wine and Spices For what Chymist can draw Light Is not that that thing my sterious in Job 38. which way saith he is the Light parted yet here is more the Sun the Spring of Light here is that Sun of Righteousness and the Father of Light and the Spirit of Illuminations All All the holy blessed and glorious TRINITY unfolded here we may with Moses in a pious sense see him that is invisible Behold that rare workman tasking himself in his main project busie in dispatch of all his Miracles at once The Leper is cleansed the Lame walk the Blind receive their sight the dead are raised Nay Majus opus moveo The earth raised up to Heaven Flesh wrought up to Spirit Nature changed to Grace and dust advanced to he Partaker of Divine Nature For you were once Darkness c. A Comprehensive Text it is will take in all persons Speak I to a King or Lords Will they not all be glad at heart to be enlightned by this Dominus in the
Lastly As it is implyed that our Saviours victory on the Cross was his purchase of the Gentiles Rev. 2.26 27. and Phil. 2. His stooping even to the Cross precedes his exaltation and then a Genuflexion and universal Acclamation All tongues to confess him c. So the mission of his Apostles to the Gentiles was after his passion and a little before it we find in John 12.24 some Greeks desired to see him and he answers in a Riddle If the grain of wheat die it will bring forth much fruit which was meant of himself saith St. Austin He was to die by the unbelief of the Jews and then to be multiplyed in the faith of all Nations as we see it come to pass But that faith saith St. Paul Rom. 10. it grows not in nature comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God And this hath brought us a little on our way in the understanding of our second part which we now pursue Lux in Domino Light That 's the matter here and the manner is in Domino or the other way for the matter indeed is in Domino and the manner by way of Illumination For what is meant surely that great work of God Mans restoring is meant included in a second great work Illumination of our minds and that in a third great work The light of the Sun in our eyes How rare and choice a fruit must that be which hath such curious Coverings The very Metaphor or rather Box and Nest of Metaphors is observable Is God a Metaphorical God saith one D. D. And he answers himself In a pious and humble meaning respecting the Scriptures heights and Excellencies in Allegories not only sinews in the Milk of Gods Word and things in his Words but spreadings and strange Rhetorical passages and curtains of figures flowing into figures Where are those Sophisters and Grand Seniors and grave Rabbies with their old dissembled Ensigns of Ignorance the Beard the Habit and the Title that will allow men no use of humane Learning in disclosing Divine Mysteries Is the Grape therefore harsh because such Strainers cannot reach it Theology shall remain the crowned Queen of Sciences but will admit her Hand-maids to carry keys to her Cabinets But ere we look in here be pleased to arrest your consideration on the covering of this Ark that is the Light of Heaven And as before in Darkness so here again we are blind with dazling How many are the opinions of those rowling Torches of Heaven the Sun and Moon St. Austin and in his old age too for it is in his Euchir ad Lauren. knew not whether he might account them to the Angels And for the Light Who shall tell us what it is When it comes to our doors and beats upon our eves we know not whether it have a real Being in the Air or an Intentional The first the second both and neither of both are defended Look into the Microcosm and Fiat Lux else all invisible no form no distinction and all inglorious nor use nor beauty 'T is Plenitudo the filling of all the Creatures and gives them Cognition Life Motion View the Microcosm the Light of the Body is the eye and not the Organ so much as the visive Power the light within that sits behind those Glass-windows with a balance and a file and weighs and works upon the shapes of things that enter But both these Lights are Darkness if the Medium be not illuminated if the Air be dark and searching the Scripture though we find not what it is yet we find a world of wonders in it Five things imparted yet remain entire Knowledge Vertue Happiness Joy and Light and this the Embleme of them all No good thing but Light takes it in by comparison all good things but never any ill Wisdom Health Beauty Food Joy and Reputation All the Graces of God Knowledge Faith Love Hope Joy Consolation yea the very Glory to come all our Joy and endless Bliss in that vision of Light And if God should ask us What house we would make him or to what compare him Should we offend in saying LIGHT though nothing resemble God exactly yet something better shews how far he is beyond all resmblance and by that Light his Creatures afford our admiration of his Incomprehensibleness may be raised higher and higher and with it so raised our longing after him enlarged And sure as in the works of Grace none liker God then LOVE So in the works of Nature Light as it is the eldest so the amiablest and the likest to the Father and what the Fathers affection is to it we may see by his first giving Light to the Chaos It could yield him no delight who was the double Parent so long as it lay in Night and Darkness and so deep in too that nothing yet was day What stood thus blindly could not be pleasing in his eye who is all eye But when it saw the Text saith God saw that all was good Doth he not dwell in Light and cover himself with Light as with a Garment May we not say his House and Robe and Eternal Essence are all one boundless christal Globe of Light Doth not he say so God is Light the Father the Father of Lights and the Son is God of God and Light of Light and the Holy Spirit as in this wide Engine of the world it is an inward eye which moves and rowls Spiritus in us alit So in our Souls it is the Spirit of Illuminations directing us to that place where in his Light we shall see Light even see God face to face and know him even as we are known I had not staid so long on this this cover here but that I conceived it might be in our way to discover what remains remembring my Promise to pass this part in explanation so demonstrating in an Orb where every part gives Light unto one another Here by the way might be inferred the usefulness of our sight and how we are bound to bless God that enjoy that Comfort And secondly How to compassionate the blind that sit in darkness considering there is no perfect joy on earth without it no nor in Heaven it being one of the torments in hell Darkness and contrary to the Inheritance of the Saints in Light And thirdly Applying to such times as these Rejoyce in this favour of Heaven that earthly men cannot restrain or excise the comforts of the Air and Light c. But we pass to our fruit it self the meaning of this Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in our restoring veil'd here under this God-like Creature of Light That illumination which we receive from him by his Spirit relieving us from our state of corruption and bondage of darkness and translating us into his marvelous Light and glorious liberty of the Sons of God For you were c. In Domino In Domino For he is Light in the abstract others by participation He the true Light the cause efficient
who by his beams currents it out and delivers it over to all others 'T is in him universally and totally not now Light and now Darkness and exemplarily For all Light uniformly and causally prae-exists in him as in the simple and supernatural cause of all Lastly In him is Light in all the Powers of Light Expansion Renovation Nutrition Conciliation and in this power he vouchsafes it us though thus to make it ours it cost him more then making Light at first then he spake the Word only but here he suffered Multa tulit Sudavit alsit But blessed be the Lord God of Israel he hath raised a mighty Salvation for us in him Two ways as we are in Domino by Justification and then as Dominus in nobis by Sanctifications See already for our comfort Darkness of the first Adam taken off by a double Light in the Second Plus addidit medicina Christi ad salutem quam infirmitas detraxit sanitati saith St. Ambrose on the 12. cap. of the second of the Coriuthians And St. Paul agrees the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Gift of free Grace far to exceed the loss Rom. 5. and calls this dealing of our Saviour The exceeding Riches of his Grace Eph. 2.5 Call it the Miracle and the grand Mysterie no words will reach it Call it the Height it s above all the Depth there is no founding it nor Length nor Breadth imaginable by our weak spirits can span it Call it the Incomprehensibleness Numen the Deity of his Mercy to restore Light and Ability that we might have Life and have it more abundantly 1. A Sun and a Moon for day and night it is so Justification a Sun a prime a Spring original purity absolute in him and we in it and under the imputed Raies thereof our whole persons made bright and gâ—â—tious and acceptable Adam was brave in his native Integrity but this above humane perfection the Righteousness of God preserved too by him that it may never be lost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now that is nor man nor Devils able to take them out of his hands those that are thus made Lux in Domino that is justified by faith working by love This is that white Robe which as it hath no spot so it will admit no mixture in the Act and Energie of justifying Our merits wrought up with his are like Musk and Ambergreece in a Perfume faith Gomesius a Papist and thinks he makes a fine composition but is it not rather an odious comparison Yea we are to renounce all those devices of Congruity Configuration Conformity c. if supposed to contain any vertue in themselves toward the Act of Justification only that true Hercules sailing in the frail vessel of his flesh comes to unrivet us from the Caucasus of despair to which mankind was fastened by a knot inexplicable and inextricable God is just and man unrighteous a sinner and must die and for sin is in darkness and shall not see Light Christ Jesus stoops to untie this knot denies the Minor makes the sinner righteous justifies the ungodly makes Darkness Light in Domino and then there is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus 2. The second Light is Sanctification and that 's the striking the raies not upon us only but into us The first is in him only and ours by imputation God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself pleases himself in that but this second is inherent Righteousness in our hearts called Holiness without which we shall never see nor please God You will say these are high and glorious sounds and these Graces with their distinct or united natures and times have exercised the wits of men but since they are Donatives in the hand of our heavenly Father How are these things made over to us Clear that passage make this part of your discourse this Point of Divinity lightsom to our Capacities Tell us how shall these things be So said the blessed Virgin to the Angel when she was to conceive Christ in her body and for this Conception this Perception of the Lord in thy soul the same Answer must serve The holy Ghost shall come upon thee The Power of the most high can do this by his Spirit and how oft is that repeated Habitat he dwells in us by his Spirit and if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his that 's the surest mark and a man cannot say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Spirit which is therefore called the finger and hand of God the vertue and Power of Christ who tells us in Joh. 14. I will not leave you Orphans I will come to you there 's his visitation and abide with you there 's his Residence and erecting of a Court and adds I will be your Teacher Comforter Remembrancer and all these in his Spirit who is all these to us these are his Offices and operations And must not he needs have Heaven at hand that hath the God of Heaven in his heart John lean'd upon his bosom but Christ rests in thy bosom by his Spirit opening thy dim eyes and opening them twice saith St. Austin giving a double Light in the Lord First to see thy sin and guiltiness and blenching at the horror thereof opens them again to see thy Saviour in his blood and the Spirit of his Grace But all this I have said you will say still is meer speculation But tell us what heavenly Magick or Mastick can combine or which way shall these two spirits meet How Gods Spirit and mans comes thus to match and marry in Domino Quae ferramenta qui vectes said the curious Enquirers into the Creation And have not we some as curions in this Reparation States have their Arcana Imperii their Ragioni di stato which is Jus Dominationis and every Trade is called a Mysterie But God must shew us all the jointures and Inlay of his Work and Will Take heed of pressing into Light lest we be opprest with the Glory Poor man What discernest thou in the workings of those Spirits that are but Creatures and vassals to the Creator yet have their methods Eph. 6. Inventions Circumventions and are exalted above thy reach in high places have the vantage ground of Pigmee mankind Nay What seest thou of thy own spirit Who saw it come in or go forth In the Air we all breath in the wind that fans that air which are but a little kin to spirits what do we understand yet God is so indulgent to our nature and weakness as to take in for us auxiliary Light of comparison for the clearing of that which in the downright act is indeprehensible Here 's a stir indeed saith the poor blind-born man in Joh. 9. With what and how which way Well! I cannot tell you all but one thing I am sure of I was blind born blind and now I see And our Saviour John 3. Thou bearest the sound of wind and
knowest it is wind by that but knowest not whence nor whither So is every one that is born of the Spirit The cause and course is secret but the effect discernable As in Creation our soul and body meet by breathing so here the mystick work is Inspiration and infusion of manifold graces but those graces have activities and such whereby you shall easily perceive that you were once darkness but are now Light in the Lord. These Graces then will give us further Light whose excellencies are laid out in those expressions of Water Floods Fountains and Fire and Milk and Manna and Oyntment and their Efficacies in those names of Seal and Evidence and Earnest and Witness and Joy and Consolation And are there not fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. Fruits that grow not up from the bitter Root of corrupted nature but from another Principle and which in their bloom and freshness render a man not like those Ethnick Graces only facile and sweet in conversation though they do that too but gracious in Gods aspect and glorious too shining as a Light in the midst of a crooked and perverse Generation If we shall taft a fruit or two in specialty I will only trie to do it in this notion here and under this Capacity of Light 1. Knowledge even that of nature is a Light and mans soul still is the Lamp of God saith Solomon and a Wisdom residing therein that Recedes as far from folly as Light ftom Darkness and this was all those great Philosophers Animalia Gloriae had which puft them up so For this hath some tincture of the Serpent and soon inflates yet alas Mans salvation is that Grove and Mysterie Nulli penetrabilis astro not pervious nor peirceable by the star-light of Reason There must come a supernatural Light from Heaven which as in the Giver it is called a Sun of Righteousness rising with healing in his wings the day-spring from on high and the True Light so in the Receiver it is called a great and marvellous Light of which Will you hear St. Paul I count all loss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the supereminence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord this indeed is all for in this is all This is Eternal life to know Thee and him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ to know him for my Jesus to apprehend him for my Justifier by a second Grace by a true and lively Faith 2. Faith then is another Light of the sanctifying Spirit superinduced on the Light of Reason to raise and perfect it for it is not in stones or beasts God can from stones raise up Children unto Abraham but if so the work must first be done by Infusion of a rational soul and the golden Key of this Grace then fitted to the prepared wards of reasonable Nature It is not amiss to compare it to Sybillaes golden bough which grew to and upon the Trce and as he adds Auri per Ramos aura refulsit So this superstructure out-shines the utmost endeavours and perfections of Nature and Reason and resembled it is by some as the Seal to Wax It is not naked and meer reason as Air is Fire but Faith is rather printed reason and there joined Light if we wilfully exstinguish not their flames will yield the bearer fair Direction and Confidence and Consolation There may be there will be a coarctation a compression of this flame in the act of Faith a damp upon the alacrity thereof yet if there be not in us an evil heart desirous nay wilfully set to depart from the living God If you abide in me saith our Saviour then certainly as his Father and he with the sacred Spirit joyntly made Light at first and pin'd it to that Sun which was never wholly darkned since and as he the true Light breaking from the clouds of the blessed Virgins body and joyned to mans nature retains that nature still now glorified so the Spirit of this Grace possessing thy spirit loves never to part again but grieves when we offer to quench his coelestial fires O then learn not to despair of Mercy and Assistance Clouds and Eclipses obscure and wandring and wicked thoughts self-accusings and self-condemnings and Satans suggestions may trouble and affright us But if we abide in him and be strong in the Lord and in the Power of his Might and resist the Devill he will flie from us and our hope in Christ and the Power of his Resurrection like a rising Morn will scatter all the delusions and rebellions of the Night and remember his gracious Promise Hell-gates shall not prevail against a Faith of Adherence All the Powers of Darkness let loose upon St. Paul yet he was safe I know in whom I have believed I live saith he no not I but Ckrist lives in me and it is his Spirit only that can give assurance that whereas I was darkness my Faith in him makes me light in the Lord. 3. As for Love another Grace the Grace of Graces the bond of perfection and especially of that coelestial Armor and Ardor of the soul to God What might we say Whatdo they feel into whose breasts is shot this right coelestial flame and there shed abroad by the holy Ghost which is given them Away then with all wanton fires of earthly Love or ambition set them but by this and they will appear poor and wan discolour'd pale and drousie things and like meretritious females shewn with modest and noble Matrons dasht all out of countenance 4. Lastly for I am not too long to insist on these Graces so perceptible to the Possessors if we would have true and lasting joy Where shall we seek it Is it to be found among those Pangs and Convulsions and Palpitations of an earthly sensuall mind Mala mentis gaudia as the heathen Poet calls them and plac'd by him far within the Porch of hell Meteors of imperfect mixture Scansory and seeming to mine and aim at lightsomness and height of Spirit But having crackt awhile and blaz'd down they slide again and resolve into their first earth and drossiness But he that hath tasted of the heavenly gift the joy in the Holy Ghost wherein the Kingdom of Heaven on earth doth principally consist can tell you of a joy that is full a joy unspeakable and glorious consisting in a dispersion of all that is dark and desolate and a true Light that is Lux in Domine Light in the Lord. Thus have we trac'd this Oriens ex alto and thus far described that Method that Lucidus Ordo of Gods procedure in descent of his Spirit and defluence of his Graces Thus far we are come to meet with this great Bishop of all our souls this blessed Visitor and have observed his way of baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with enthean fire and confirming his People with the manifold Graces of his Spirit But yet since he is in Heaven and that Spirit is to descend on us we are not satisfied till we
course both the Baptist Christ Jesus come preaching the Kingdom of Heaven upon our conversion to God It is observable that as God hath bound himself to a perpetual Revolution of Winter and Summer that Spring and Harvest in Autumn shall never fail So his whole will Word is a miscellany of Law and Gospel and such lightsome and comfortable Texts as this found in Isay many and in David many very many Evidences Evangelical and we in that respect to attend this hour to the Gospel of St. Malachy For not a Prophet of God not the least or last but hath an Inlay of mercy wrought up with Judgement and sweet and gracious Promises mingled with comminations They bring us down to discontent by the waters of Marab and Babylon to bitter weeping in the Valley of Tears to persecution of a red Sea the biting of fiery serpents and a killing letter of the Law But they leave us not without discovery of a Brazen serpent to cure us and many precious assurances that God will put all our tears in his bottle and wâ—pâ— away all tears from our eyes That he will take us out of many waters and bring his own again from the deep of the sea and revive us by the glad tidings of the Gospel of Peace and Reconciliation And experimentally Gods servants shall find it so in his actual dealing with them that look how God hath not left himself without witness in his general Providence showring down on earth his balmy Influences from Heaven so in his secret impartments of hidden Manna and in his open appliances to his holy Ones in those celestial dews of mercy which sall only on the fleeces of his Pasture-sheep when t is dry upon all the ground beside we find this exemplified in the head of his Church who as in himself he is a Light shining in darkness so as the darkness comprehends it not so his whole life and death was like light in a Lanthorn or lightnings from summer clouds pauses of sorrow and dejection with various glimpses and coruscations of his glory mixt and interweav'd For crucified dead and buried our Creed assists us with a glorious Resurrection and Ascension and Exaltation of that same crucified dead and buried Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus So to present you with several members of his mystical Body in their interchangeable Robes of sackcloth and tissue their Coronets of thornes and Roses were an easie task I name but two the Father of the faithful and the man after Gods own heart whom one while we find in fear horrour and great darkness and an horrible dread hath overwhelmed them another while rejoycing in hope and assurance of Gods All-sufficiency and with hearts dancing for joy as that sweet singer expresses it and how could I make this truth notorious but without a sailing over to the prime Apostles in the New Testament which I purposely reserve for a new and latter discovery when we come to close with the consummation of this Consolation mean time in this very first opening of the Mine you see enough discovered to consute such as think there is no Golden Vine nor branch of comfort in Gods service but seduced by Satan pretend an inequality a rugged unevenness in the wayes of God which God himself disclaims and imputes it to our wayes It is not the Religion of God that is unprofitable or vain as those foolish people in this Chapter openly profess'd nor does his service incline men inevitably to sadness and melancholy A second Material from this Mine is the connection and combination of this comfort in that God chains this mercy to a preceding mercy He begins here with a conjunction and they shall be mine and then couples it to a succeeding mercy and I will spare them c. Comfort past and present and to come Many feathers of Gods Wing many showers of Manna and of Quailes The whole srame and pile of comfort from the beginning of the sixteenth to the end of the seventeenth ver is pitcht as a Tabernacle of Joy with courtains coverings with loops and taches of consolations in conjunction God is and ever was a God of conjunction and communion a God of Order and combination Discord and dis-union are from the Devil God in Essence from before all beginning was unsolitary God that in wisdom saw it was not fit for man to be alone in his wisdom saw it was not good for God to be alone He is God alone that is there is no other But I am not alone sayes Christ never was so that is without the Father and the Holy Ghost All the three blessed and glorious persons as co-essential so co-eternal and coequal which makes for us we better apprehend and better apply God in the Trinity of persons so branching and reaching out more fruit to us then the contemplation of the Unity And as in Essence so in works of God which respecting us externally are all co-operations of all three Persons we find in nature first all things produc'd in number weight and measure and all things in connexion still One brother holds another by the heel and as our eyes enwrapt in several tunicles each under other so are those films and skins of sphears imaginary nothing but the vaultages and enwombings and enwrapings and swathings of the constellations and coverings ore those conjoyned Elements which are lodg'd in one anothers laps and inlaid and mortis'd into one anothers bosomes And so in his mornings and evenings dole and distribution in his daily providence and Dispensation all is done in order and by a set conjuncture of his Officers The Heavens appointed to hear the earth the earth to hear the corn and wine and oyl and they to hear us Hos 2.22 Such a chain of causes in things natural while the Cause of causes and the God of all these conjunctures hath the upmost link fastened to his Divine will in heaven But all the Links let down are wrapt about his beloved creature man in mercies that compass him round and embrace him on every side In midst whereof guarded by Angels that pitcht their tents about him man takes Repose and sleeps to the musick of the hollow murmuring winds and waters which seem to whisper in his ears a memento of his service to that Lord for whose sake they are yet in service to man But secondly in works of Grace is God observable to be a God of conjunction In his first gracing of his chosen Israel to enable them for a great and wise people he gave them a Law from heaven Deut. 4.6 which was a Law conjunctive both affirmative Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul and with all thy strength and thy neighbour as thy self Two tables joynd by Gods own hands and a Rejoinder by our Saviour This is the first and great Commandement and the second is like unto it keep both or neither he that fails in any one is guilty of all and
Hosts in that Psalm we may first consider God in this Name as a Warriour and as the Lord Generalissimo of the War but not so as men receive that Name for their Command over one and their own Army but as Commander over all Armies and all wars Offensive or Defensive that have been are or shall be in the world For it is not only in spiritual Furn ture that Isay dresses God and arms him Cap à pee but the Prophets ost in the literal sense as if God took a special complacency in the stile and none more frequently then David so present him In Psalm 46.8 9. he calls us to behold his Mirabilia and addâ— a special proof of all by Gods not Warring but doing a greater work then that in making wars to cease in all the world O were it once so his great and gracious work in this our orbis Divisus our little world of great Britain He breaks the how and knaps the spear in sunder and burns the Chariots in the fire But when he will war and shew how dreadfully he can come on the Text tells us he looks but on the earth and it trembles but touches the mountains and they smoak And even Nebuchadnezzâ—r will in the end acknowledge as much to his glory that all the Inhabitants of the earth are reputed before him not only as Grashoppers but as meer nothing and he does what he will in the Army of Heaven and him that walks in pride he is able to abase And therefore an horse is counted but a vain thing to save a man from this God of Battails No King can be sase by the multitude of his Host 'T is this Lord incline the Victory as he pleases Secondly whereas other names of God in Scripture are less luminous in reference to his servants succour and protection such as shield and fortress and Desence like particular refulgent stars in the Firmament of his Power and Providence This as the Sun wherein he shines forth more Illustriously more diffusively more manifoldly This a whole Heaven a circling and enwrapping skye with all the Constellations and affluences of his own Essential and immediate with those of the Angels and other Creotures co-assistances So that a gracious and a glorious a full and clear and constant consolation is derivable from the fulness of this Name and every souldier and servant of his may sing and say with the Prophet and the Apostle The Lord is my light and my salvation the Lord of Hosts is with us And if that Lord be with us no matter how many Lords and earthly Kings be against us Diogenes could boast deride and chuse all Tragick fortune upon that conceit that he was a friend of Jupiters and the Jesuit Serarius sayes even the flames of Purgatory are not dreadful respecting the assistance of the Patients good Angel How much more and on what better ground may we build and raise a foot of comfort and erect a lively hope from the true Jupiter Opt. max. the God of those good spirits and whose Charriors are two hundred thousand even thousands of his victorious Angels What wars or rumors of wars what numbers of enemies can dismay the man of God when Eliahs boy can espy these battalias in the clouds of Heaven whereof one alone in one night without hoft or Cannon or sword or spear or noise is able to slaughter 180000 thousand of Assyrians And as great Chiefs are vigilant to take places of advantage and so to dispose their troopes as one may give Relief unto another so this Soveraign Commander for the succor of his poor Infantry here below hath lodg'd those Legions and bright squadrons of winged spirits above to be in readiness and in whose aid that man of God sayes he will be confident and so he may and so may every Dauid for God himself hath plac'd that Guard while himself is pleas'd to attend the watch and go the round and designs and emploies those flaming Ministers in their Ranks and Orders for the service of his Elect. Is it not so Art they not all ministring spirits sent out for the good of all them that shall be heirs of Salvation Thus far the Materials of comfort drawn from this Mine both in the radiant mixture and connexion and expansion of those diffusive joyes whose nature is to supple and sustain them in adversity and all this again complicated and arrested upon the contemplation and proof of their Lords being Dominus Exercituum And now lastly to keep promise I shall trie to superinduce a Roof and Crown of pure Gold over all these Materials which is the Consummation of the Saints Consolation as God becomes ours and we His in the only Mediator Christ Jesus which before we can well discern it is requisite we discover to the bottom of this Mine and find the first foundation of Gods people laid upon the only love of God in making choice of them at first for his Peculiar For to be his in general is the common lot of all his Creatures The Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof Again His delight was ever with the sons of men Acts 17. and he made of one blood all mankind to dwell on all the face of the earth All live and move and are in Him and His Off-spring and Generation and he provides for all Light and Influences and showers of fatning rain to fill their hearts with food and gladness But in Exodus 19.5 where we find this very word in the Text denoting Singularity and Choiceness God tells his Israel whom he had derived from Abraham the father of the faithfull that if they would obey his words indeed and keep his Covenant then they should be a peculiar Treasure to him above all people For all the earth saith God is mine but not so mine as You for he goes on You shall be a kingdom of Priests and an holy Nation Only the Lord there laies down the Corner-stone of this building and discovers the bottom reason of his electing them which was not saith he your multitude for you were the fewest nor your inclination to my service for you were an obstinate and stiff-necked people but only he had a delight in their Fathers so we have it Deut. 10. to love them above all people Which love of God as it drew on his first calling them so it occasioned his preserving them from all the world when planting this Vine in Aegypt where it was pincht and straitned he made room for it and transplanted it to grow and flourish in the vast and barren Wilderness and on the sandy botome of the sea till removing Nations greater and mightier then they he made that people possess the gates of their enemies and his Blessings and Protections still eminent and imminent still over their heads even then when they provoke him to send them into captivity from whence yet he gathered them again and as that daughter of Sion that Church through the four
invest us with a Light yet inaccessible will also place another Crown of Glory inaccessible And so in the allusion the contemplation of those joyes that go before the entrance into our Masters Joy and those that follow after in fruition will easily stir and fire our souls to cry or sing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to this son of David Blessed be he that comes thus in the name of the Lord and is the Lord that comes thus from the Father and God Totius of all consolation anointed to his great Office and Design of binding up the broken hearted by the Holy Ghost the Comforter Luke 1. and is himself by way of Excellency stil'd the consolation of Israel And thus this first glad priviledge of Gods fearful and faithful servant is refin'd and wrought up to perfection from this Mine in Malachy the last of the Prophets to that Mine of St. John the last and liveliest of the Evangelists or rather that Mine of our Lords own discovery in Iohn 17.10 Thine they are and all mine are thine and thine are mine Mine But who is he All our comfort even now was complicated and conserv'd in Dominus Exercituum And is he so That stile indeed wears out in the New Testament but is abundantly recompenc'd in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The only Potentate the Lord of Life and Glory Most of all in that name above all names which all tongues must confess and at which all knees should bow that sweet and powerful that gracious and glorious Name of Jesus a Saviour and able to save to the utmost in whom all fulness dwels and in whose hand is all power in heaven and earth And had not their eyes been held down and the Jews hearts vaild over they would have perceived and received him for the true Messiah in this very notion and nature of a Lord of Hosts For in him were all their Moses's Joshuales all their Captains and Saviours their Baraks and Gideons and Sampsons and Davids and Macchabees all reviv'd and restor'd to the world But they knew not the manner of their King and to mistake a King may be a world of misery nor of his Kingdom nor the force of his Artillery in the dreadful Canon and Ordinance of his Word Spirit Nor that the Scepter of his new Law should prove the Iron Rod to break and subdue both men and Devils They considered not his stupendious Miracles proving him the Lord of Hosts in commanding over the whole frame of Heaven and Earth and Seas and all the host of them and bowing whole created nature to his obedience To rebuke tempestuous winds roaring waves as a Nurse her child with Peace and be still nay suspend and silence and deprive Devils of their possessions with a word To lay his command on Death it self and force him to let go his hold after four dayes seisure in the grave Will Iews or Jewish hearts attend my voice that would not hear the thunder of those Miracles But for support of the true Catholick faith and for the consummation of all our consolation King and people Christ Jesus is become our Dominus Exercituum Christo auspice regno regnabo too and his bloody Cross a braver badge then that of Castor and Pollux This is polleus lux ipsa For is it not he alone destroyes our raging lusts and nails them to his cross and he alone that ' gainst a world of opposition and all the opposition of this evil world cryes to his host be of good comfort I have overcome the world He alone that came to dissolve destroy the works the strong holds of Satan and to vanquish powers and Principalities in high places that had the vantage ground over us He that breaks in on death and sin and hell and like a Conquerer in the triumphal Chariot of his Cross made a shew of them openly and as Triumphers us'd to do when he ascended up on high and led captivity captive he gave gifts unto men But yet more to prove him the Lord of Hosts by being more then that name can imply for this Name is observed to be too yong for the ancient of Dayes that is a Name taken up since and from the Creation A Name indeed that draws and scatters on us all we can look for from our Maker and Preserver But all his powers and mercies are resolved and melted into this Name of Christ Jesus Without Christ without God sayes the Apostle in the world we are but meer pieces of the masse nay far worse is our condition born children of wrath and in state of enimies and so the Lord of Hosts is against us and all the hosts of Heaven and spirits of Hell and all the creatures and our selves against our selves And when there was no Name under heaven to save and deliver us from present and wrath to come then came this Prince of peace and became our Peace pledg'd himself for us gave his life a Ransome so making peace So prevailing over the Lord of Hosts binding his Almighty hands and God content to accept terms of peace may we not say so Came not that Voyce from Heaven This is my beloved Son in quo acquiesco in whom I am at peace with all the world If all this prove him not a Lord of Hosts he will one day to the further consolation of all that love his appearing appear to the consternation of all his Despisers in flaming fire to render vengeance And as in the dayes of his flesh then unglorified and compast about with all mans infirmities he could have been encompast with more then twelve Legions of Angels so then he will meet those two Hosts those droves and flocks of sheep and goats with another Army of his Saints and Angels from Heaven with whom we shall be caught up to meet that Lord in the ayr and so shall be ever with the Lord. If we desire yet higher to raise this Crown of consummate consolation in Christ I will come to Visions and Revelations I will open that of St. Steven Acts 7.56 I see heaven opened and the son of man set on the right hand of God which place being further opened by St. John makes us see him on a Throne of Glory covered with light as with a garment under his feet Deaths pale head and a red Dragon and all his enemies about him stand the Armies of his Angels and of mankind a greater number then any man can number of all Nations Languages On his thigh that Name written Rex Regum Dominus Dominorum The Elders casting down their Crowns adore him that has many Crowns upon his head And we may safely add this Title to those Crowns of Dominus Exercituum and rejoyce to think how those Crowns are encinctur'd and enchas'd with precious stones for the twelve Tribes of Israel and with manifold unions of God and man of grace and glory for the consolation of the Gentiles also thereby fully made perfect
and partakers of the divine Nature and all these Unions contracted in the blood red shining Summit of his cross by the power whereof that Throne and Robe and all those Crowns are become ours and we become one with him in an union most high and holy even as he and his Father are one and higher we need not we cannot go nor well so high for that it should be thus we scarce dare ask but how it should be thus is above all that we are able to ask or think Thus far the first priviledge of Gods servants in being his Peculiar The second now should follow of being his Jewels with the usefull application of them both together with the Assignation of those several Dayes wherein these Jewels are to be made up all which I believe will make up a second and a third Exercise For this time I proceed no further but to beg the Blessing of God upon what we now have heard P.R. S.D.G. THE SECOND SERMON September 1643. MALAC. 3.17 And they shall be mine said the Lord of Hosts in that day when I make up my Jewels THE Word of God saith St Paul is not bound nor we that preach it bound to Formalities and courtly Decencies or much to care whether our Hearers be in good humor or no t is true nor are we to be Time-servers as we have been charged nor Men-pleasers in any ill sense yet since we are at liberty throughout the Garden of the Scripture to cull a Posie such as seemes best to us affording us a pleasure why may we not be thought therein also to preserve our just Devotion to God together with an intention for the complacency of good men too For which cause I blush not to acknowledge my respective choice or rather my recollection of this Text whereon I have preacht in royal audience before because though it look back upon vicious times and most ungodly men yet it will allow us for the present a Prospect as I verily belive upon some choice spirits and Gods gracious servants yet by his Reserve and special Mercy left alive while they are yet alive and I alive to apply this Scripture to them in special which in general suits with the condition of this time As men the sons of Time so Times themselves have their Parallels As the days of Noah were saith our Saviour Mat. 24. so shall also the coming of the son of man be eating drinking marrying till the day that Noah entered into the Ark and knew not till the flood came and tooke them all away so it shall be in the last times and so it is And we have no livelier proof that these are the last times then such our usages and in them such our security The Scripture foretels a soul and dangerous Sea of corruption that should prove rough and swell run high and the waves thereof rage horribly toward the end of the world when men should be more then imbrutished void of natural affection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implacable traiterous heady high minded lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God pretending the Spirit but being sensual and bringing in damnable Heresies having a show of godliness but denying the power thereof pretending to Piety and Law and Order but reviling Dignities which God hath ordained with Balaam greedily loving the wages of unrighteousness and perishing in the contradiction of Core But alas We have undone both Prophesie and Description put down both History and Poetry Examples and Imagination too even those Gyants before the flood are now not monstrous for we have defiled and made the earth more corrupt filled it with a bloodier cruelty and violence provoking the holy one of heaven to hurle down hils of miseries on our heads and hearts and to let in Torrents of his fierce wrath mingled wiih Christian blood in every street and a surrounding universal Scourge and Deluge to overwhelm three whole flourishing Kingdoms at once from end to end and burie them in endless desolation while senseless sinners we seem to contemn the Power of Gods wrath by letting loose the reins to all licenciousness when he is pouring down the vials of his anger and tumbling delightfully in our own tear up the wounds of our Saviour betrampling the sacred Blood that redeemed us and counting the blood of his Covenant a Covenant of Mercy and Peace an unholy thing crucifying again to our selves the Lord of Life and Glory and making a mock of him by grieving quenching and doing despight to the Spirit of his Grace So that our condition is worse then of this people here in this Prophet though in very many things resembling us for in the first chapter we read of their Unkindness Irreligiousness Profaness snuffing at the Table of the Lord and holding it contemptible In the second we find their Idolatry Adultery Infidelity In this third Sorcery false Swearing Oppression Sacriledge and at last it breaks into open rebellion and defiance of God voting down all divine service and decreeing it vain and no profit to walk longer in his Ordinances and then this was a brave time it must needs be so for proud and wicked people which were lift up like a skum over the face of clear and wholsom waters only such saith our Prophet were built to Wealth and Honor. And yet for all this sorrow there is a comfort comes up close at the sixteenth verse of use and advantage now for us Gods people still remained though secret not altogether silent they spake one to another admonished exhorted comforted one another mutually and these their Colloquies and Consultations were frequent and succesfull God came into their Assembly sate President in this Council and a book of Remembrance was written before him for all them that â—eared before him and thought upon his name and after all comes out his gracious Proclamation of Peace and Love The Patent under seal Teste meiâ—so and they shall be mine saith the Lord of Hosts in that day when I make up my Jewels Which words afford a double priviledge of Gods servants be the times what they will in reference to their Owner described by his high and stately stile of Dominus Exercituum First His own they are his peculiar Secondly Esteemed of him at a high rate for they are his Jewels There is a third part The day or time set for the making up of these Jewels admitting a four-fold Interpretation 1. Either the day of punishing the ungodly or 2. The day of powerfull preaching the Word 3. The day of death and 4. The last day the day of final Judgement In all these days God will manifest his Mercy and his Power both enwrapt in Dominus exercituum here and then the Specification the Verification the real and actual spreading of both in this that God in his holiness hath spoken it It shall certainly be so for so saith the Lord of Hosts The first priviledge is laid down in this plain conclusion They that in a
all those gracious Promises those Letters of Love indited by the Holy Ghost in Prose and Verse which cry unto us to turn and look upon and accept the salvation profered that salvation which our blessed Saviour wrought for us by strong cryes and by the effusion of that blood which yet cryes and intercedes freshly for us not all these availab letill the third visitation of his Spirit which is therefore called the Comforter Coming as Jobs friends in visitation both to mourn and comfort him Nay what Visitant what Physitian what Confessor what Wise of thy bosom what Friend who is as thine own soul would so attend for he abides for ever So minister for he helps Vna sublevat for the Greek better expresses it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 assists in lifting against our Infirmities so pray and groan for us with sighs and groans that cannot be exprest against all our faintings and despairs our sick fits of fear and distrust giving us Evidence Earnest broad Seal of Heaven untill the day of our full Redemption And this is that comfortable Visitation of the sacred Spirit respectively to the means of Grace when he will not trust me with the Bible alone the story of his Birth and Death not the Sermon alone the Exposition and Application of that Story but comes after both and sees how they work nay makes them work in me and enables me in some good measure to work by them Mans office in regard of this mercifull visitation it to debate and answer Debate first Think what we were before he visited Lost Captives Enemies Dead in sins and trespasses He then to drop his Blood and Grace his manifold Grace preventing exciting guiding confirming softly pierceing even into stony hearts which is described by many a sweet and amorous Metaphor These are his Flaggons and Apples and our state a Marriage above that too there 's una Caro one flesh But this Union so high and holy no words reach it Per â—undem Spiritum by one and the same Spirit But what shall we do First Believe else we make God a lyar and there 's the quarrel when we trample upon despise and count the blood of this Covenant as an unholy thing and if we tremble to contemn him shall we dare to think it nothing Shall we take a solemn Pride in despising his servants Et eo nomine even therefore hold a man despicable because a Minister Remember it is observed as the height and Precipice of all iniquity as far as people could do or God could suffer when God rising early by them was mockt in them the Text saith then there was no remedy 2 Chron. ult cap. But again Debate What shall we do and the Apostle meets this Consultation Make your Calling and Election sure and this to be done in Gods Method Enquire after our Calling first and not begin at the wrong end Hearken to that cry of the Spirit within thy soul the Kingdom of Heaven is within you and not too fondly spend the time in searching those rouls of Gods predestination and take heed of sinking thy soul toward a despair in his Mercy or to a self-condemnation For the Spirit of God speaking peace darest thou still proclaim a War Or if God have no bill against thee shall thy timerous Conscience be framing vain and carnal Answers Doth not God ask by way of Indignation Where is the bill of thy mothers divorce or to which of my Creditors have I sold thee Isaiah 50.1 If so Then what shall I answer answer God in obedience all the Creatures preach this Answer there is in all a Correspondency The Corn and Wine and Oyl hear us and the Earth hears them and the Heavens hear it but all hear him even the most unruly Creatures are our Rule the stormy wind and Tempest obeying his voice So we his Voyce without in his Word and his Voyce too within by his Spirit speaking to our hearts not then drown those motions or bury them in company and wine and worldly cares or pleasures lest so we quench grieve or do despight to the Spirit of grace and obey him actually not in professory Religion only but walk in light and bring forth fruits worthy amendment of life Lastly quid retribuam what answer but a grateful admiration as he that spake after a full apprehension O Lord what is man that thou dost so visit him This sacrifice as he counts it an Honour so t is all we can offer all we can offer him on earth and when all things here have end endless thanks shall have their beginning in Heaven As that Church in triumph there all those Angels and all those Virgins Prophets Apostles Martyrs with their loud clarious and Trumpets and Harps of Gold and Ivory strike nothing sing nothing but Hallelujah So we that are parts of the Church Militant should exalt our voyces and joyn in full Chorus We praise thee GOD we acknowledge c. Heaven and Earth shall thus be full of his glory 2. Gods second Visitation is in Judgement and for sin general When we find him coming forth of his Treasury his store-house of plagues War Famine wild beasts Pestilence and particular of crosses sickness loss But t is the great visitation here chiefly meant in the day of Judgement For Job was under temporal calamity now already at the pronouncing of this Text yet as we are viatores in our way to take notice of this especially as it reaches his servants his choisest though with limitation with that distinction ever ad correctionem non aâ—ruinam and yet they fall thick in the morning saith Job in the night saith David nay visiteth him every morning and trieth him every moment Job 7.18 For is there not a swarm an hydra and wheel of troubles in our whole life per caput circa saliunt latus saith he when rose the Sun so fair but ere his fall some clouds have seiz'd on them if not on him some grief some nay many many perturbations enough I 'le warrant thee for I have Gods own testimony enough for the day is the evil thereof Upon this Visitation when it drops when it falls when it pours on us what shall we do Why first debate stand and consider as Job if all should go Naked came I out of my mothers womb and naked must I return Is it the height the depth of any grievous affliction What is it more then that of my Saviour O but he was more then man is it more then theirs in Heb. 11. rackt sawn asunder c. Hast thou yet resisted to blood or is it come to the fiery tryal And then in affliction at least after it ask thy soul is it not good for thee Heb. 11.2 as the Apostle speaks of strangers may not a man this way receive Angels unawares as Gen. 28.16 Jacob on his journey at Bethel when he wak'd and said surely God is in this place so God is in this Visitation and I was
not aware I took at first no notice of his Fatherly corrections which are indeed his compassions and consolations Thy Rod and thy staff comfort me Psalm 23. But now I feel his coming to visit me is like his visiting the earth which he visits and enriches Psalm 65. like a Physitians visiting an Hospital to cure for if I am sure it is the hand of my God I am sure also that it is in Love for God is Love t is his Essence immutable No reason then his visitation should prove to an irreligious sadness or a melancholy a dejection a jealousie a diffidence So long as the work is his though he purge or cut so he give me not over so he cast me not out of his hands so I hear not that voyce which is more dreadfull then ten thousand thunders Depart from me c. Thus far I am to debate what I am to answer in affliction Surely the best answer is no answer at all Tacui Domine and my soul kept silence not as unaffected remorseless but as subdued by faith repentance obedience working me to a blessed patience captivating and bringing into subjection every exorbitant every wild and wandring imagination Once have I spoken saith holy Job but I will no more or if my heart will vent I have forms and molds ready wherein to cast my words that of Ely It is the Lord c. and David behold here am Is let him do unto me as it seems good in his own eyes and I will confess too to his glory the fruit and the root I find that thou O Lord of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled Psalm 119. and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit Job 10.12 And to draw this into practice in each particular affliction for every one is Gods Embassadour and none to be dismiss'd unanswered The application is a world of matter which I cannot look at now only for that I find my self in a Seminary in a Colledge of Divines I may have the liberty the recreation too to make for you and my self one particular application For we my Brethren that are or should be pars indocili melior grege if your pulse beat like mine are certainly so much infested with no worldly calamity as when saevit malignum ignobile vulgus as when we find our selves disgrac'd counted the seum of those that are indeed the scum of the world when all we can say or do which way soever we frame our doctrine or conversation it is as water spilt upon the ground For though we pipe unto them they will not dance though we mourn they will not weep Let a mans behaviour be like Iohn the Baptist rough austere they cry he hath a Devil or if enlarged in freedom of conversation like our Saviour away with him a glatton a wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and sinners So that the ground of the quarrel rests not in being thus or thus affected or qualified or endowed but they hate us for our very calling But what answer have we I could tell you one a harsh one of the Cynical Philosopher who being demanded How it happened that the great and wealthy people affected rather to be liberal in rewarding Fools and Players and Jesters and beggers then men of his profession answered for that they might perchance have some hope of proving such themselves but no hope of turning Scholars This was bitter But we have learn'd a better of the Apostle I pass not to be judged by you and a better yet of a better master Let not your hearts be troubled they called our Master Belzebub and shall not I drink of the cup which my father gives me saith he so shall we not drink the potion which our Lord hath begun to us which by tasting first he hath sweetened for us Is the Disciple greater so is he daintier then his Master Were we like the Apostles persecuted whipt imprison'd that consideration would make us march on in all these dificulties and like hardy souldiers non gementes sequi Imperatorem But rather rejoycing that we were counted worthy to suffer any thing for his name sake and if it came to death we know our Answer Christ t s to me life and death is to me advantage But I forget my self for I am bound to a further Port to that which is appointed after death for after that to Judgement When God shall visit c. Of this final Judgement the Text informs us two Things It shall be and it shall be most dreadfull therefore needs debating and casting for our Answer First it shall be He will visit Even the Heathen had an Apprehension an expectance of such a day a time quo Mare quo Tellus correptaque regia Coeli Ardeat mundi moles operosa laboret All this frame unling'd unpin'd and burnt And the new-discovered world have discovered this too though who discovered it to them is hard to determine But I speak to Christians who as fully as we believe God in Heaven believe from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead But Where When What Where I know not about Mount Olivet and they think they argue it fairly and probably from what we find in the Prophet of the valley of Jehosophat Joel 3.2 and that of the Angels This Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come again as you have seen him go into Heaven Act. 1.11 However that sure we are of this his Elect by his Angels from the four winds from one end of Heaven to the other shall be gathered into one place Mat. 24.31 When tell us when shall these things be You know who ask'd that question and you know our Saviours Answer Take heed that no man deceive you and when wicked Mockers ask'd it the Apostle sets no day he durst not he could not Job was resolved in the Article he shall stand the last upon earth Job 19. but no time limited The Prophecy father'd on Elias tels us of two thousand yeers Inane two thousand Lex two thousand Dies Messiae and then the Conflagration But our Saviour controuls all over-rules all Of that day and hour knows no man nor Angel nor the Son kimself Only by many signs accomplished by the Apostles calling those the last days then what may we imagine now if but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then a Tantillum then that span of time is now contracted to an inch and he that shall come will come and will not tarry But what what will he come for he will come to visite such a Session Visitation as none before it No Star-chamber no high Commission no Parliament-Bar no Council-table no Inquisition so formidable Why who comes the Circuit the LORD the LORD-Chief-Justice Judge of all the world Wise Incorrupt with Power and great Glory with such a Train all his Saints and his Holy Angels and this is that day the day the day the great day of his wrath Zeph. 1.
Of his wrath who is a consuming fire and will come so inflaming fire to render vengeance with strange effects the Sun obscur'd the Moon lost Stars fallen Powers of Heaven shaken the Heavens themselves passing away with a noyse Elements melting with fervent heat Earth and all her works burnt up 2 Pet. 3. with the great sound of a Trumpet which even the dead shall hear Graves shall fling open their marble doors and Seas vomit up Millions of drowned Carcases Hell it self shaking thereat and yet all this passing in a moment in a twinkling falling on the world as a snare stealing as a thief rowling as the flood confounding like lightning from the East Then for strictness in this Judges proceedings as for reward first wherein mens Laws are lame defective there 's a Kingdom his own thy Masters joy the same Throne Rev. 13. and then the Purity of that Bliss which Angels enjoying adore and last The Eternity in Psal 16. at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore So contrary those four conditions of hell torments for variety the most greatness insufferable for Purity unmixt with least allay of comfort or hope of mitigation and for continuance everlasting Is it not high time to debate Answer and thither we are come Consider this you that forget God that is you that would forget him that would damp out your own light you that say in your hearts that is you that wish in your hearts there were none what will you do what answer him He hath answered me already that you shall not be able to answer him not able to stand when he stands up in Judgement for the mouth of all wickedness shall be stopped your answer may be a vain cry to the hils and rocks to fall and cover you from the presence of that Judge But I preach not I hope to Atheists and Desperates But when St. Peter saith The righteous shall scarce be saved Doth he not enforce a necessity of debating Had we a tryal in law or Debts on Interest we would fall to reckoning This is more The title of our souls and eternal salvation is at trial a Debt doubled and re-doubled in sins of Youth of Age of Ignorance of Presumption and are our Purses neerer then our souls But is there no avoiding None not for the young men that are least touched with remorse He will bring thee to Judgement Eccle. 11. We must all appear There are wayes and those wayes are trodden too many go those wayes to elude the temporal Judgement of men But in Rom. 14.12 it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every one must account and every one for himself no Atturneyes no Proxies Think too think of our distance shall I speak to the Lord that am but dust and ashes What words shall I chuse saith he Job 9.15 Alas all thought of answer then will be in vain for besides that we are not able to answer him one thing of a thousand that day is his day his day of wrath the time of mercy is over past irrevocably past his day of Doom is come 't is come to sentence and therefore what shall we do Why while we have time put in our answer yet the Chancery and Court of Request is open Now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation My Text is future yet He shall come he shall visit Here is a latitude for Repentance yet he expects calls for our answer and we know to what we have his Bill his Articles Interrogatories that is his Law written and engraven in our hearts we must now frame and put in our answer What is it Repentance first For so may that of the Apostle be understood in Eph. 6. where he enjoyns the Christian souldier to have his feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace I know some take that preparation of the Gospel for a readiness to preach that Gospel which should then belong alone to us Ministers others for a promptness in profession others Evangelical Obedience and some take it to be Patience and not unlikely But may it not also endure this meaning of Repentance too considering it is made the first step in the way of Life and so the first entrance into the field against Satan by John first the day-star who rose before the Sun and came to prepare the way How Repent c. And our Saviour in the same mind upon the same Text Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven it at hand Sad sighs and prayers and tears make up the first part of Repentance and make up so the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart which God will not despise And hast thou this Is the rock cloven Come drops of warm blood in anguish from thy heart Break there floode of bitter weeping from thine eyes This is a fair piece of an answer Such tears have a voice that reaches Heaven and not from David only The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping but from Manasseth too a fearfull sinner because thou hast wept before me I have heard it 'T is Musick to the Almighties-self and raises a joy in Heaven Can the Prodigal that had wasted all his stock of Grace say but Father I have sinned See before he can came to say so God he meets him on the way and receives him to Mercy But this Answer hath a second part Take beed lest your hearts be hardened by sins deceitfulness It is a Circe a Syren we must stop our ears and resolve to be deaf to all her charms charm she never so wisely never so worldly wisely giving not a faint and cold but a peremptory final Answer with the Psalmist Away from me for I will keep the Commandments of my God Will keep them I that is I have sworn and am stedfastly purposed This is the meaning of the Apostle Tit. 3. The Grace of God hath appeared teaching us What Our Answer And how that by denying Ungodliness and worldly Lusts The best Answer is a flat denyal a round Refusal like our Head Christ Jesus who being tempted had his Answer ready And this is our first Answer in a full Repentance made up of grief and resolution 2. A second Answer is Obedience our Works for words will not carry it Not every one that saith Lord Lord And some Answers we read of shall nor serve the turn Some will answer Lord thou hast preached in our streets and we have preached in thy name Tell not me of preaching said our Saviour unless your lives have preacht too Away from me ye workers of iniquity God will have this Answer complexioned of Piety and Honesty when these are marryed they are crowned with the Grace and Blessing of God A number deceive themselves as the Jews when they cry Corban once as the Papists crack of Ecclesia Catholica Romana so these conclude all lies in being Professors zealous magnifying themselves and despising others But what were the
yoak or Spanish Inquisition all those poor Tenants and servants that live rackt and opprest and ground to powder under the merciless and rigorous Lords and Masters must advance the eye of their souls with comfort to the comming of this great and glorious Judge and Lord of Heaven for that day of his visitation shall be also the day of their full Redemption My third application is to four sorts of Visitors First You that are authorized over us you see God will discharge his Office Do you set God ever before you his Example and his Fear and first learn his first visitation in Mercy in kindness to us your brethren to do us good 'T is God we confess appoints degres of Superiority and Excellency in all Orders of Angels in Heaven in the Skie greater lesser Lights Lower still Eagles and Flies Cedars and Shrubs among the very Stones the brightest tincture given to the Ruby clearest light to the Diamond But by comparing parts of the body the Apostle proves the head cannot want the foot among uâ— specially of the Clergy no proud infulting for the Rule holds on this side the water too that the Capuchin and Cordelier the poorer part of this Tribe uphold the dignity of Priesthood ballancing with the pomp of some superior Prelates Secondly Do you visit as God ad correctionem and not hold it a vertue Laxare Disciplinam Remember the worlds entertaining Mahumetism is ascribed to three causes Pestis Arriana Manichaei furores and the third Disciplina laxata But wherein do we need your inspection in both our learning and our life First See to our insufficiency ignorance what silly things suffered not only to read but cloathing their sancies with pretext of the Spirit to preach too and then the main way of teaching in many places yet unpractis'd and that is Catechising Alas What is it to enrich the peoples ears for an hour who if they sleep not gape and praise the Sermon as they like the Tune saith Ezekiel as they do a Love-song Ezek. 33.32 Then are you over mens lives too over the Layety to curb their wolvish and fox-like shifts and cousenage in the Lords portion but chiefly in that sin whereto my Text appoints you in Gods stead for Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge he will visit doth it dayly and will then do it dreadfully In the mean time are you his Depuries Delegates Commissioners What though the scornfull fools as Solomon cals them make a mock of this sin a sport and pursue it as an Art and Trade Yet you know it is respecting a mans self unhallowing of Gods Temple a dismembring the body of Christ respecting others a defiling of the most holy and solemn Covenant on earth a kerving asunder those whom God hath joyned and therefore stands the Commandment forbidding it betwixt Thest and Murder Lastly Respecting the Land it is a fire as Job speaks here at verse 12. devouring foundations and hurling the flame round about it And are not they who have the Power of Coertion if they do it not as so many Spreaders of this fire as so many Bawds and Pandars if for Bribes they wilfully palliate or wink at this Disorder or look upon it through a false and coloured Medium And if ever there was cause to cry loud and lift up the Trumpets voyce to waken both you and the whole State is it not now when like Egypt plagu'd with Frogs the Land even stiaks of this corruption and had we no other Infection enough to bring some fearfull curse upon us all But are our lives so ciear they need no visiting need none from you No Is not a debaucht and drunken Minister within your power Drunkenness a crime hatefull in the Lay but hideous in the Clergy-man a sin in them but sacriledge in us And are not you to visit for these things and vindicate our mother from this stain But when when shall we see a great and rich Adulterer perform the open penance of the Church Or when shall I hear an Arch-deacon a Commissary a Chancellor or a Bishop rather for that 's the title of God here an Over-seer rattle and fright some of these swoln and putrid offall of the Levites these hatefull roaring Drunkards in the midst of the assembly of their brethren Remember God in his visitation on Sodom saith he will go down and see whether so or no. So should you stay to enquire and not make the Visitation as the country calls it in scorn a busie taking only or passing over us like a Vision rather then a Visitation But who should help it how can there any thing be reformed without presentment this concerns a second sort of Visitors Church-wardens And what saith your bill my Masters Some poor Rascall will not pay his levy or the piper hath got a bastard but how many hath your Land-lord gotten Alas Sir we are poor people and it would be our undoing to meddle with such But what your Minister they say he is a lewd Tosse-pot a very drunken Sot O no! Omnia bene a good Fellow a little given to company-keeping thus the best of you are content to mince it or some perhaps ready to defend him and reason why they keep the Ale-house and he 's the prime guest if it were not for him they might knock down the sign Blessed be God I am perswaded you know not many such as I describe but yet I fear there be some still within the compass of these marks And dare not you present them Nay dare you present any thing Shall men in office Visitours Wardens nay watchmen sworn thus play with their Oaths What a wretched thing is it thus to fear men and despise God that great Lord Warden of his Church who when he shall visit you for this perjury what will you answer him A third sort of Visitours are our selves Sears called in the old Testament and Over-seers in the New Acts 20. all Bishaps Phil. 1.1 Let us then learn to discharge it first by heeding and visiting our own hearts reflecting on and examining our own souls whether the God in our Books in our Sermons be such in our secret brests and whether we hear or feel our selves rather when we preach or whether our preaching run not through us like a wooden Spout like the old Riddle of Through the wood and never touch it never touch never affect the heart And then ore-look our learning and strive to mend our nets giving our selves as Tully saith recoquendos till we become workmen that need not be asham'd dividing the Word aright able to exhort and convince soundly Tit. 1.3 For this it Ars artium regimen animarum which to perform as commonly t is done flatteringly or lazily and perfunctorily is both easie and acceptable but it is too most miserable and damnable And then ore-see our lives and those exempt and defend from baseness but specially that odious sin which goes too much in black drunkenness The way to
make the Seer overseen to lose the eyes of his mind to drown his holy unction in drink and suffocate the Spirit of Grace he must be apt to teach saith the Apostle and in the same place it follows Not addict to Wine left that disqualifie his Palate and Brain and render him Ineptum unfit to teach or to be taught But I hasten to a fourth and last sort of Visitors that is all Christians in performance of that general Duty which concerns both preacher and People and is indeed a prime part of Christianity and that which St. James calls Pure Religion namely to visit the fatherless and widdows in their adversity and that which will be remembred and enquired after at the great and dreadfull visitation by the Judge of all the world who will demand not what we have preacht or heard or professed bnt what we have done And among those works of mercy that shall follow and felicitate such as die in the Lord and shall then rise in the Power of his Resurrection this is a Chief our visiting the sick and those in prison And the omission of this shall be taken as a neglect and refusing of Christ Jesus in person In as much as you have not done it to them you have not done it to me Consider what I have said and the Lord give you and me and us all Understand in all things Let us pray for a Blessing c. THE FIRST SERMON AT COVRT GEN 3.9 The Lord God called unto the man and said Adam where art thou 1. A Text antient and catholique for all times seasonable fit for all places fit for all places and persons Is it to a King that I preach I may tell him this Sermon whereof my Text is a piece was the first piece of sound Divinity and preacht to the first Monarch-Lord of all the earth yet preacht by a greater King even the King of Kings and Lord of Heaven and Earth If I were preaching to a Parliament I could tell them this was the first that ever was in which the first malignant-Party was justly sentenc'd and the two first Delinquents in mankind put to Fine and Ransom 2. Take us together without respect of persons and the Text will serve to call upon every man here that professes himself a son and a servant and yet is apt to forget the Law of the Lord his God Where art thou first for the place In whose house in whose Courts in whose presence-Chamber and even this Demand considering our usual inconsideration is enough to shiver us as it did lacob with Surely God is in this place and I was not aware And then where art thou In whose Court of Judicature and even now to be called to thy answer for the same business as Adam here The breach and violation of Gods Commandment For thou hast eaten also of the forbidden fruit for so is the committing of any thing against which Gods prohibition lies and are we like then to be found Recti in Curia Can we answer him any one thing of a thonsand so the Call will concern us and the sense of the words will penetrate to our hearts also if we refuse not if we run not away from God and seek to hide our transgressions in summ it is a Text well worthy our serious attention 3. We may call it an Introduction to a judicial proceeding of God against man after his sin For after sin comes Judgement Premit comes So it was ab origine Adams case The first book-case that ever was And Judgement as St. Peter saith begins at the house and more here it begins with the Son of God for as in fulness of time he sent his only begotten Son in the similitude of sinfull flesh and to condemn sin in the flesh and though he knew no sin yet to be punished for sin being made sin for us and bearing all our sins in his body So here he comes in the beginning of time to arraign and condemn sinfull flesh in his own Son Christ is his honourable true and only Son begoten of his Father before all worlds by an everlasting generation and ineffable that none can declare But all the sons of men are his sons too by a generation declared in Ethnique Poety first and then in antient Catholique and Apostolick Divinity made of that Poety Acts 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are his Off-spring and Generation we all are so but our Forefather was so by a kind of Primogeniture as St. Luke expresly Which was the Son of Adam which was the Son of God Whence even thus early may we make application that certainly it will be then a poor and barren a silly and impotent a base and impudent hope for any son of Adam to look for Impunity Rather all must look in severals one day to hear this Call of God Where art thou Wheresoever thou shalt be or howsoever found dead among those that live in pleasures drowned and soakt in fleshly lusts or choacht in wordly cares or quick from the dead from that dispersion and resolution to watery slime and mud to earthly dust or aerie Atoms All the Mass and Collective body of mankind once made and then at once remade by his mighty Word shall hear his almighty Word that Voyce and Trump of God Return you sons of men Arise and come to Judgement Let us in Gods name and fear do so now Arise quicken our thoughts prepare for since prevent we cannot that last by considering of this first Judgement 5. Wherein the parts are four our two first parts are the two Parties appearing in and at this Judgement God the Judge and man the Delinquent Our third particular is the manner of the process Calling The Lord God called unto the man And the last is the matter of the Summons Where art thou which in the literal sense is Whether art thou fled But in the Mystick it bears a kind of secret Increpation and a touch of pitty Where art thou The glory of my Workmanship become the shame of all the Creatures Into what a miserable condition reduced that thou art ashamed of thy self Alas Adam where art thou and before we finish our Observations on the Text we may come to make use of both these Interpretations 6. The first part of this Judgement is the two persons appearing so I said there were two But yet it is not so The first person spoken of is the Judge and he is present The Lord is at hand But the guilty sinner he flies for 't Et non est inventus But it is not possible for him to escape or lie hid the sin will find him out and we must all appear Rejoyce O young man saith Ecclesiastes Eccle. 11. in th◠youth in excess of Riot Pomp Rage thou canst cover all under the fig leaves of youth but know that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgement young and old without difference every soul to answer for every thing
of his own corruptions by Gods mighty hand and out-stretched arm and a Passover by the Lambs blood sprinkled and flesh eaten with the sowr herbs of Repentance and a leaving behind him those rocky dangers and roaring wilds of sin and sea of vanity from whence when he looks back he stands still and beholding the Salvation of the Lord he fears the Lord and believes the Lord as t is in Exod. 14. ult and sings that song of Moses and the children of Israel Exod. 15. The Lord is my strength the Lord is become my salvation who is like unto thee O Lord glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders If now we should proceed from hence to fall upon the Redargution of such as mind no part of this Learning and hating to be reformed are loth to look into these books I should shew my self unmindfull of this presence and too far stretch my abusing of a Royall patience reserving therefore what may make up another exercise I conclude with prayer S. D. G. THE SECOND SERMON ON THIS TEXT AT COVRT GEN 3.9 The Lord God called unto the man and said Adam where art thou 1. IN the first opening of this Scripture which is an Introduction to Gods judicial Proceeding against Man after his sin and so the first Book-case that ever was recorded and being a loading case should therefore premonish all the sons of Adans to prevent a Second by a timely consideration of this first Judgement I made four parts the two first are the two parties appearing in this Judicature God the Judge and Man the Delinquent The other two are the manner of the Process by way of calling and the matter of the Summons Where art thou Of which the sense is double by way of Question first and then in a way of Commiseration 2. Concerning the first particular and the Judges names of Lord and God I spake fully the last time and of the dangerous nature of sin which provokes so great and then so gracious a Lord God to indignation to hate and then to punishment Finding this boundless Ocean of God his Names and Nature too profound we came to a discovery of Man our second Particular and observing how hard it is for man to search into himself for the advancement of every mans learning in this difficult point I pointed you to two books the first this book of Genesis and therein Principally the fourth Chapter verse 7. wherein is laid down by God such a description of man as will let us easily discern our wretched and earthly materials which to reform I told you of the other book the book of Conscience wherein as in a Glass a man man view himself and see of what fashion he is that is whether yet abiding in Genesis or be past over into an Exodus and escaped in some good measure the corruptions which be in nature and in the world through Lusts And now it is fit we fulfill what was promised of â—nnexing hereunto a Redargution of such proud or dull people as seem to scorn the Perusal of these two volumes full of heavenly Instruction but specially abhor to look into the last and therefore my Reproof shall chiefly intend and pitch upon that part of their Delinquency 3. Two sorts of men then there are both ignorant and arrogant that reject this book of Conscience as Apocryphal nor endure thereby to be put to their Purgation to their Clergy where the Versicle is both Greck and Latine Heathen and Christian too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Miserere mei too both irksom and unpleasant Doctrines to them The first of these is the Painted Pharisee who thinks himself and thinks he is scarce to thank God and thanks himself that he is not like other men but one per se that can predestinate elect call justifie sanctifie and glorifie himself for he can view and review and discover and relate at pleasure those Records above and find or set down there his own certain and it may be the name of a special friend of his too if he think fit in that book of life above without searching those rouls above or examining the book of his own life For as we have Mushrum Preachers Lecturing before reading and a birth before conception miraculous Fellows And I would that were the worst would it were but froth and vanity and a tedious nothing and that they did not conceive mischief and bring forth sedition So their Disciples or rather their Patrons and Matrons too can make sure work of their salvation without working it out with fear and trembling and are pefect in Heavens way by a directory of their own private spirit without book The second is the meer worldling Filius terrae earth-born and bred that comes up like a vernal flower in green and yellow a kind of Narcissus and like him becomes his own glass and book There he studies and pores and doats day and night and esteems himself a rare piece because fairly bound up in Velome with silk strings painted and guilded and embost with his Arms and Empress engraven and printed cum priviligio in a large Folio Stultitiam patiuntur opes But Quid intus He that runs may read him through In the very Frontispice and Title-page in capital Letters stand Caro and Carion and Carcase and nothing else but a few scatterred Principles and Conclusions of flesh and blood Or if Homo be there 't is sunk beneath his species and drowned in Animals in malis not beset with or set on by but set in evil in maligno positus and it is a Permalignancy like a compleat Armor from the Crown of the head saith I saiah to the sole of his foot It is not quartering nor a Party per pale but his whole Scutcheon is una litera Coat and Crest and Supporters and all He walks with a stiff neck saith the Scripture and strengthens himself in his wickedness and makes his boast that he can and will do mischief and yet this wretched thing will brag of Descent and coming in with Conquerors and Kings Alas Where art thou O vain man Here I am sure both he and we were once in Massa corrupta Our prime Ancestor you see a Rebel and the next of our kin Illud quod dicere nolo we can get no Credit by naming him And then in this miserable condition if he be a King on earth never so highly born unless he be born again he can never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven unless washt and made Kings and Priests in his blood and restored in that second Adam The meer natural man may derive himself from Belus but Gods calls every such man a son of Belial and his condition is Bellual nay worse then that of the brute beast though he be a man still And though this may anger and offend him to be told thus barely of it yet such a man but I shall hope there is no such man here must know that if
our relict condition as also of the spreading venom and malignity of original corruption Nascimur morimur that 's bad enough comes up and is cut down like a flower but this is worse Nascimur inficimur we cannot come up like a flower which lifts his pure Crown into the air and rising through unclean earth is not sullied contracts retains nothing of the saeculency and dusty soil No flower in all the garden of mankind but Jesus of Nazareth but only that one Lilly among the Thorns one Rose of Sharon one flower of Jesse that was ever growing in God from all Eternity had a Proviso put in for him that nor in birth nor life nor death he should see or know or take any Corruption But upon all mankind that is meerly so the infection works the infection of sin as it is entred here in Adam so it went over all like a deluge in as much as in one all have sinned and all rise tainted with their Fathers leprosie which is by some supposed to be the meaning of that speech in St. Peter 1 Pet. 1.18 where he tels the Saints They are redeemed from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain conversation received by tradition or by traducement from your Fathers and from this Great grand-father of all those Fathers from which taint nothing can purifie our souls but the precious incorruptible blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish But of this the Apostle plentifully in that fifth Chapter to the Romans By one mans disobedience many were made sinners but expresly verse 12. By one man sin entred and past over all These two contemplations are enough to break up the spring-head of our tears and with strong cries make us declare and deplore our misery But who believes our report or who spends his tears upon this subject We find a prophane Esau crying cut with a great and exceeding bitter crie for the loss of a blessing in the things of this life Corn and Wine and Lordship Gen. 27.34 And so I find even David werping and crying for a wicked son And the earth is full of such howling habitations for earthly grievances But who will follow the example of David Psa 51. Behold I was shapen in iniquity the warmth of my conception in the womb was sinfull O purge me wash me create in me a clean heart O God renew a right spirit in me who considers rightly the cursed radical contagion of our nature which strives even after the grafting into Christ and receipt of the Grace of sanctification in our spirit and struggles for Dominion That which we should hourly watch lest it prevail over us that shrub and bramble which would top or dwarf the Cedar of Gods Grace in us and hath force in our members to bring forth fruit unto death Rom. 7.5 Such forcible entry makes this inborn corruption that like the strong man keeping possession or as a Sheriffe that hath Posse comitatus and seises and outs the owner and bars him from the use of his goods Such rule this unruly wickedness keeps in our hearts and such a sway it bears so that it is no longer I that do it but sin saith the Apostle that raigns in me and makes me lose all power and all good even Bonum possibilitatis a loss irrecoverable irremediable and no cure for this wound in nature They talk of a natural Balsom in mans body for all bodily diseases But were it not for a spiritual bleeding balm from that anointed holy Saviour were it not for that double spring of Grace and Blood derivable to us and to be let in upon us for the reviving and refreshing of our fainting souls what would become of our salvation And though in that fountain set open for Judah for Jerusalem for sin and for transgression I may wash and be cleansed from this leprosie yet mark how that Gospel begins both in the language of the Baptist and his Master afterward Repent and then the Kingdom of heaven is at hand then the Kingdom of heaven is within you that sweet sorrow of a contrite sinner that usefull pulp of those tears we fall at the sight and feeling of our strong corruptions is best to make conserve and preserve of grace in our bearts which God and his holy Angels beholding as it is Vinum Angelorum making them rejoyce in Heaven so himself will renew his Miracle upon such souls and turn that water into the wine of consolation Thirdly After this mournfull lecture of bemoaning our loss and deprivation and depravation natural Let me speak a word in season against that solemn sin of Pride Look to the rock from whence thou art hewn Some boast of original descendings from famous Ancestors and yet too many sons are born in original debt and diseases of their Parents of whom they are so apt to brag But it is enough and more for ever to strip all sorts of men out of all vain and mad dressings and coverings of themselves under that mishapen and monstrous vice of Arrogance that here they find Illud quod dicere nolo Quod dici no lunt dici potuisse non potuisse refelli That which men cannot endure to hear or think upon we are all loth to turn and look upon our Fathers nakedness not out of modesty as Shem and Jophet but because in height and pomp and in the vaniry of high-soaring imaginations we strive to forget both God and him and our selves It is therefore that God in this Text comes still and calls after us and shews us both the Receipt and the Probatum two dusts brings Adam in his hand and presents every man to himself as in a general Glass of humane frailty And this Vbi tu is now no more a question but an Indicative and Demonstrative an Adverbial and a Proverbial a very radical Primitive and Affirmative of Egomet with Tute and Ille Ipse and brings all to Idem in Adam here and jumbles all the genders of mankind common and doubtfull or epicoene Sparrows and Eagles and all sexes and professions and degrees of mankind Princes and People and calls in that voice of the Psalm O ye sons of men How long will you love to belie your selves Quid superbis Why so goodly O thou earth and ashes Monstrons Incongruity to behold servants in the saddle saith Solomon and Princes to foot it by but an incomprehensible ugliness in the looks of a proud man when we look up to Heaven and contemplate him that came down from Heaven for us men came down indeed stript and empty of all his Glory An incarnate crucified and humble God Will neither his main Precept Learn of me learn this above all thy Learning Nor his Example Behold I have given you an example Will nothing swage the swelling of thy proud stomack Think yet there is no Grace but for the humble no sight of God and his Glory but for the meek And if thou resist that spirit of