reproof as being a sin that like a deluge hath overrun the whole World and covered the face of the whole Earth as a flood which is so much the more intolerable saith Calvin quod assuetudine ipsa pro delicto imput ari desiit That the frequent use and custom hath taken away the sense and apprehension of the sin and though there be little hope in this case of redress for as Seneca says well desinet esse remedio locus ubi quae fuerunt vitia mores sunt there is no place left for remedy when those things which were made to be vices are now become fashions and manners yet not despairing of Gods goodness and mercy unto any both for our own sakes and yours we are at least to shew you the peril and danger of so great a sin and leave the success unto him And sure there were danger enough in it though it were no sin and did we never transgress so long as we swear frequently for as St. Austin hath it Use runs into facility into custom and from the custom of swearing we easily fall into the detestable sin of Perjury and forswearing And indeed it is almost impossible that he which swears daily and hourly and almost perpetually should not sometimes swear deceitfully and falsly Neither do I think there is any if he impartially examine and observe himself that doth familiarly use the one but he will find that he hath often and easily slipt into the other for the Conscience that dares to play with the sacred name of God and continually to use it with irreverence and contempt it is likely will not stick now and then to abuse it by perjury And therefore the Counsel of the same Father is good Epist. 89 ad Hil. 2. Abstain from swearing as much as is possible melius quippe nec verum juratur quam jurandi consuetudine in perjurium saepe caditur semper perjurio propinquatur For it were better not to swear any truth than that by a custom of swearing we should often forswear our selves and ever endanger it Excellently therefore to the same purpose he concludes in another place Falsa juratio exitiosa est Vera juratio periculo sa at nulla juratio secura False swearing is damnable and exitious true swearing is dangerous but no swearing is secure which is the reason that under the name of swearing is included oftentimes perjury and forswearing the Scripture for this cause knitting and linking them both together as in the sin so in the punishment Since no Man can be subject unto that but he will be found also often guilty of this And therefore there were danger enough as I said in this unadvised custom if it were no sin but how much more then when it doth not only lead and conduce unto sin and the greatest almost of sins but also is little less sinful in self I am sure is more expresly forbidden in the Commandment which says not Thou shalt not swear falsly though that be included but thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain that is lightly and idly and David gives the reason for saith he holy and reverend is his name Now that which is holy if it be brought into common use it is prophaned And that which is reverend if it be irrespectfully handled is contemned So that it is not only a bare sin but a threefold a trebble sin and terrible compounded of irrâ—vâ—rence profanation and presumptuous contempt The least whereof were enough to plunge a rebellious Soul in the depth of eternal sorrow whereof he is now thrice worthy as being guilty of all three For what indignity must it needs be unto the Divine Majesty and how unsufferable with idle and empty supervacuous and unnecessary Oaths every moment and in causes of no moment irreligiously and contemptuously to toss and bandy if not tear in pieces that sacred name which should never be thought on but with trembling nor ever be uttered without religious adoration That Name vererable above all names so excellent and admirable in all the world how excellent is thy name in all the world saith David by way of question and none can answer it That Name which the Jews thought so sacred as they never durst utter it nor was lawful for any but the high Priest ever to carry it about him Exod xxviii so much as written who was commanded to wear it on his forehead in a leaf of Gold the very sight whereof made the greatest Monarch of the World even proud Alexander that would needs be a God himself yet to stoop and do his reverence Lastly that Name which the very Devils in Hell and spirits of darkness cannot hear without horror no nor Powers and Principalities Cherubin and Seraphin the blessed Angels of God ever mention without glory and great worship What dishonour must it needs receive to be at length thus shamefully contemned by dust and ashes thus hourly and idly to be belched out from the foul mouth of a sinful man without all esteem or respect yea or so much as ever thinking of it Rather consider those glorifyed Spirits and tremble I saw God saith the Prophet Isaiah Chap. vi sitting on his Throne high and exalted and the Cherubins and Seraphins standing round about it crying and calling unto one another and saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbath Heaven and Earth are full of thy Glory Behold saith Chrysostom with what fear and horror with what redoubling of praise and glory they make mention of his holy name I may say thrice holy that is most sacred Name And shall the Sons of men presume contemptuously to violate that which the Angels themselves when they mention do with Reverence adore Why if we say saith the same Father of one of our selves if of extraordinary vertue and worth Os lava wash or wipe your mouth before you name him And if a servant will not mention his Lord nor a subject his Prince without Titles of Respect and Honour with what fear and reverence should the name of the Lord of Lords and King of Kings the God both of men and Angels be warily pronounced Our mouths here had more need of fire than water not to be washed but with Isaias Cole from the Altar inflamed with a religious zeal when we dare to mention it Judge therefore in your selves how great is his Sin that can assume boldness not only with unhallowed and polluted lips to mention but even with idle nay rhetorical and wanton Oaths fearfully to prophane and lacerate that Name which some mens Reverence never durst utter and no Angels without terms of praise and glory will ever pronounce Now if our light trival and customary Oaths are so derogatory unto the honour of God what then may we think of intemperate passionate and cholerick Oaths the Oaths of Gamesters and others wedded unto other sports who if a Die or Dog run not to their liking or a Kite fly where they
another How did that one word of the Witch strike Saul thorough and thorough leaving him tumbling on the earth in a swoon To morrow by this time thou and thy sons shall be with me so bitter indeed is the remembrance even of bodily death unto those that have no spiritual life in their Souls But what misery may we think will there be in the enduring and suffering of that whose only expectation is so fearful Sad and fearful is the departure of the wicked though it outwardly appear not in all the comforts of my Text belong not to them as their Spirits were dead whilest they lived so they shall not live when they die Where there is no righteousness there can be no life For the Spirit c. No the righteous the righteous that is the faithful and penitent Souls these are they who as they have the true spiritual life in present so in death they shall have the true comforts of the blessed life which is to come for however God at other times brings trouble heaviness and afflictions on his best servants yet at that hour he never fails to assist them and in the midst of death to make the life of their Souls appear more clearly for righteousness sake He may seem to absent himself from them and to hide his counâ—◠〈◊〉 but then in that day of need in that last and fearful time which most requires it they shall be sure of his comforts he will not fail then to discover his face and make the light of his countenance to shine into that region of darkness and by the gracious beams thereof to chear up his people lighting and guiding their feet through that obscure Valley and shadow of death into the blessed ways of immortality and peace Believe not me look upon the holy men of God a little and see it perfomed with your Eyes Behold the Patriarch Jacob the Father of the Patriarchs he who wrestled not only that one time at the River Jabbock but all his life long with the arme of the Almighty continually afflicting him But see how contrary it fell out in the end when all the clouds of affliction being blown over a calm of contentment follows and he is gathered unto his Fathers in peace but first mark how the Lord gave him strength before he went hence and was no more seen wherewith he collects his fainting Spirits raiseth himself in his bed calls his Sons about him tells them of things to come great things to come for many generations and with an inspired Spirit ready to expire gives every one his several blessing and benediction in such a prophetical so high and Heavenly a strain and stile as if an Angel had sate on his lip and I doubt not but many Angels sate waiting in that door of the body for the coming forth of his Soul which stayed not long after to receive and convey it into the bosom of his Grand-father Abraham there to rest in everlasting peace Look upon Joshua that valiant Captain who having spent his life in travail and more than Herculean labours warring against Gyants and the Sons of Aâ—ak yet at last you may see him sitting down in peace and dividing the spoil among the Children of Jacob And in the end death drawing near see how he summons the Tribes of Israel together and in a sweet Oration recounts unto them all the mercies of God which had followed them from Terab the Father of Abraham that dwelt beyond the flood to Cheusem that had now gotten possession of the promised land within Jordan And being full of the spirit and spiritual life with such power of speech he exhorts them to the fear and service of this merciful God that the whole Congregation as if they had had but one heart and one Soul and both throughly affected joyntly cry out God forbid that we should forsake the Lord nay he is our God and we will serve him Josh the last After this manner from the flame of his own zeal having kindled a fire in the hearts of others this great Worthy and worthy Servant of the Lord lived in his death and dyed in peace See holy Samuel the Judge of Israel going to his grave as to his bed and in him consider the power and vertue of a good conscience arising from the memory of a well acted life Whose Ox or whose Ass have I taken whom have I defrauded or opprest or at whose hands have I received a bribe saith he in the publick assembly and all the people bare witness unto him saith the Text. Hoc ducit ad fâ—nus sepulturam this is it that accompanies him to his Grave and layes him in his rotten Sepulcher The like blessed savour of rest did this peace of conscience send forth in the blessed Apostle S. Paul who in that wonderful confidence was bold to deliver up his Soul in the breath of the same words as it were his Saviour had done before him a Consummatum est I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness which the Lord the just Judge shall give me in that day words worthy of a Soul so near its Heaven Lastly view the Protomartyr Steven blessed with peace in the midst of a cruel death for all torments are easy if they have answerable comforts The obstinate Jews threw the stones of death at him but he filled with the Holy Ghost looks stedfastly into Heaven where he beholds his Saviour standing at the right hand of God to whom now dying he speaks as he had done before to his Father in manus tuas into thy hands O Lord I commend my Spirit Such have been the blessed ends of these holy men of God and of many others famous in their Generations and such it shall be in all others that faithfully serve him though peradventure it is not manifest in all Their bodies are buried in the Earth but they have left a name behind them and a memory sweeter than the perfume made by the art of the Apothecary as was spoken of the good King Josiah And what is there now that can more deeply affect an honest and a good heart what can a religious mind either so much desire unto it self or behold with so great joy in another as to see a devout and penitent Soul give a peaceful farewel unto Nature and in the depth of death depart full of the comforts of immortality and life But it may be far off examples will be left too far off respects for likely those that are nearest do affect us better if so you want them not neither two among the rest more remarkable you have had of late The one not long since the other now before your eyes The Mother and the Daughter of both whom I may truly say in the words of my Text their bodies were dead while they lived and their Souls lived in the death of their bodies for righteousness sake A
shedding of it which was purposely shed to cleanse them from the guilt of their sins if instead of sealing salvation to their own Souls they do but eat damnation to themselves for not discerning the body of their Lord. For did they discern it did they understand and conceive it to be there they could not but approach unto it with greater reverence with much more heed and awful regard When it was at the worst and lowest estate the malicious Jews could bring it to bereaved of all form and beauty yea and of that blessed Soul which dwelt within it and now remained only a dead and crucified Carkase all over gaping with wounds and gored with blood yet even then with what care and reverent respect was it handled by the good Arimathean It was wrapt up in fine and clean Linnen imbalmed with sweet Oyntmens and perfumes and laid in a new Sepulcher hewen out of the Rock How then and with what high esteem should we we that are to be made not Sepulchers but Shrines and Temples not of his ignominious but glorified body not of his body only but of his whole person of his body and blood and Soul and Divinity and all how I say and with what diligent preparation should we see that all things be pure and clean and sweet and new where such a guest is to be entertained where he is not to be lodged for a night or two but to inhabit where he is not to lye a while as in the grave but to dwell and live for ever This were something to the purpose and we should then shew we discerned the Lords body which now we seem not at all to regard eating and drinking of his flesh and blood with no more reverence and respect than if we were at an ordinary Table of Bread and Wine Nay I assure my self many of us make more preparation being but to dine with some Neighbour than they do to come to the great Kings supper They can with all diligence apparel and trim up the outward man against every ordinary feast in the mean time neglecting the inward man of the Soul little regarding how foul and slovenly that comes to the holy Banquet But let such careless men in time take heed the wrath of the Lord hath never shown it self more terribly than on the profaners of holy things especially his own holy presence Many and fearful are the examples in this kind The great King of Babel no sooner polluted the Sanctified Vessels but even whilst he is carrouzing in the bowls of the Temple a strange hand from heaven writes his doom on the wall before him the terror whereof looseth the joints of his loyns and makes his knees knock one against another which was but a forerunner of his ruine who that night lost at once both his Kingdom and his life But how dreadful was that judgment in the 1 of Sam. vi where fifty thousand Souls are suddenly struck dead for but looking irreverently into the holy Ark and Uzzah instantly smitten with the like vengeance for but touching it with profane hands though with a good intent to hold it up when in his judgment it was like to fall And shall we who are permitted I say not to touch or to look into the moveable but to walk into the standing Ark the Temple of the Lord yea to enter in within the Vail and approach up even to the Mercy-seat and eat of the holy shew bread that stands before the Lord if we continue to pollute that sacred place and banquet with our unwasht feet unclean and impure affections shall we think to escape alone without wrath from Heaven Let no Soul flatter it self with such a bold and mad presumption The divine indignation that in former times was wont ever almost to follow such profanations at the heels though in these later ages the great day of final accounts drawing on it seem to slacken the pace yet it will certainly overtake them one time or other if not here in this world yet infallibly in that other hereafter though oftentimes even in this also Even at this instant when the Apostle wrote this very Chapter the Lord had sent a fearful sickness amongst the Corinthians and that for this very cause their profaning of the Sacrament as you may read the words immediately following my Text. For this cause saith he some are even now sick others weak and many amongst you fallen asleep that is taken away by bodily death But however it go with us now yet at that day when the great King shall come to take a particular view of his guests he will not fail to find out all those careless people that have presumed to sit down at his table without their wedding garments and pronounce upon them that heavy doom in the Gospel take them bind them hand and foot and cast them into utter darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth So necessary is this duty of reverent preparation and so great the necessity urged upon the high terms of no less than plagues and punishments here and destruction for ever hereafter So true is that of our Apostle he that eateth unworthily doth but eat judgment unto himself so the word imports judgment temporal though he repent and without repentance damnation eternal and that in so heinous a manner as if he were guilty of the very body and blood of the Lord no less than the cruel Jews that shed the one and crucified the other or treacherous Judas that betrayed both Well then necessary it is and highly But to come to the second point let us now see what the preparation is that is so necessary wherein it consists and how far it extends that must denominate and make a worthy Receiver Surely though no Man living be absolute worthy in himself or can by any means attain unto that entire and compleat worth which is fully answerable unto the dignity and holiness of those sacred mysteries yet it pleaseth God of his grace to accept of him for a worthy Receiver of them that doth truly and faithfully endeavour to receive them with a competent measure of that reverence and those qualifications which he hath prescribed in his word amongst which Knowledge Faith Repentance Love and Charity Love to God and Charity to our Brethren I suppose are the chief if not all And these sure at least are simply necessary by them we must examine and with them we must prepare our selves whosoever will be worthy Receivers First with Knowledge an honest degree of knowledge what the mysteries are what they signifie and exhibite for what purpose they were ordained of God and are received by our selves Thus much seems requisite in the meanest capacity for so long as we are ignorant of the substantial parts and fundamental doctrine of the Sacrament so long as we neither know nor consider the main ends and purposes for which it was instituted how can we possibly prepare our selves worthily to
dispel the darkness of errour that covered our Souls by the beams of his gracious countenance without which a Winter of perpetual coldness and an everlasting night of ignorance would for ever hang upon this little world of Man So fit every way and full was this time A time when the world was at full age and fulness of peace was spread upon it when a full Monarchy had general dominion and the Sun the measure of time arrived at his full period on the Solstice the fulness of the annual and on the Meridian the fulness of the diurnal revolution the one making the depth of Winter the other of night A time therefore every way full but fuller yet by that which it now received even him that was filled with all the fulness of God and from whose fulness we all receive whatsoever grace or goodness we have who was the substance of all those shadows the body of all those figures the accomplishment of all prophecies and the fulfilling or filling full of all the promises that belong unto our happiness and in this regard it is tempus plenitudinis a time of fulness as in the other respects it is plenitudo temporis the fulness of time And the fulness of time it is and so the very institution of this feast doth shew it to be for look how many months there are in the year so many days we have given to the feast for every month a several day that as the year is a full abridgment of all time so this time a full recapitulation of the whole year that as it is in it self so in our own observance we might acknowledge it to be the fulness of time But it is time to pass from this fulness to another from the fulness of time to the fulness of the Fathers love that was now shown in it who now not only sent as at other times but sent his Son when the fulness of time c. And sure as it is the first so it is not the least degree of his love that he vouchsafed to send at all Do but consider what he is that sent or what we are to whom he sent and we shall soon with our shame acknowledge it For what is he but the Lord of glory what we but vile worms of the earth he a gracious Creator emptying forth his goodness upon us we his Creatures and yet rebelling against him by pride and disobedience In this case for him to have sate still in the Throne of his Majesty and suffered himself to be sent and sued unto by us had been a great favour and happy we if our humble requests might be but received at his hands But now when he a person so infinitely above us and so mightily provoked and offended by us not once so much as looked after but still neglected with the same pride by which he was at the first contemned That he now instead of hurling down upon our heads deserved vengeance and destruction should condescend so low as to send and sue unto us for peace and reconciliation must needs argue an infinite love and bowels filled with yearning compassion on our miserable estate Erubescat ergo confundatur humana superbia O how should the pride of Mans heart blush and be confounded when the offended God first seeks unto sinful Men and yet wretched Men stand upon terms one with another think themselves dishonoured in seeking peace and chuse rather to die in enmity than admit of reconciliation unless first sued unto and not always then neither But God you see doth otherwise and thinks it no disparagement neither to send and send first first and first unto us Mark well I pray you what one of his Messengers says We are Embassadors for Christ Jesus and in his stead obsecramus vos we beseech you to be reconciled unto God 2 Cor.v. God esteemed it no dishonour to send Embassadors unto Men with terms of begging and beseeching reconciliation at their hands and yet perverse Man holds himself dishonoured any way to seek it at the hands of his Brother Our cogitations sure are carnal and worldly and our selves full of secular arrogance otherwise we should esteem it our chiefest honour to imitate the love of our heavenly Father and to prevent others rather than be prevented in virtue and goodness So then a love there is in it and a love that hath fulness far beyond the empty affection of the insolent world even in the very sending that such a sender should once send unto such persons an offended Creator unto offending creatures this love hath fulness but in that which follows is the fulness of love for he not only sent but he sent his Son When the fulness of time was come God sent his Son The Lord had many times heretofore sent unto the sinful world sometimes by the ministry of Patriarchs and Prophets sometimes by the ministring Spirits the holy Angels of Heaven yet both are but his ordinary Messengers and therefore declare no more than his ordinary love But now he sent one that was never sent before one infinitely above either Prophet or Angel or whatsoever creature else is or may be an unusual and extraordinary person And therefore if we rightly estimate as we should do the love of the sender by the excellency of that which is sent especially being sent not as the former only in a message but as a gift unto the world then since there is nothing so great and excellent as his Son his only begotten and only beloved Son in whom is the fulness of his own Godhead and brightness of his own glory As in sending him he sent the greatest the best and the fullest thing he had so it must needs argue the greatest the best the fullest affection that may be imagined There is not a sending of his but hath ecce charâ—tas in it behold the love of God but this ecce quantam charitatem ostendit Deus behold how great love God hath shown unto us 1 Iohn iii. 1. In every one of the other sendings there is a dilexit Deus God loved the world but now it is sic Deus dilexit God so loved the world as he gave his only begotten Son It was not therefore any thing but love and no empty love neither that he sent at any time and by the ministry of any to such as we but now sure it is full and the fulness of love when he sent unto us him whom he most loved his only beloved Son And sure it is well for us that he sent such a Messenger no other that had been but a meer creature could have been sent in his errand or at least if he had been sent could ever have returned with his dispatch Were there nothing in his business more than the conquest of Satan I doubt not some other creature strengthened by God and the power of his might might easily have been enabled to tread down that evil spirit under our feet
Father and this Father now became the Son of Man and made himself our Brother The Antient of days that sate on the throne in the 7. of Dan. whose garment was white as snow and the hairs of his head as pure wooll to shadow his eternity who hath neither beginning of days nor end of life This is he that is this day born a young and tender child even that mighty and Almighty God now a weak and swadled Infant This sure is new and marvellous rightly therefore still do his titles begin with wonderful whose person and birth may well be admired cannot be expressed for Quis enarrabit And yet this is not all the wonder that is in him strange and very strange it is that he should be the Son of Man and Mans everlasting Father that is God and Man but yet it is another new thing and little less strange that this God should be perfect Man and yet have no Humane Person A Humane Nature he had but a Humane Person he had not And therefore non solum actus est novus sed is qui nascitur est homo novus it is not only a new birth but he that is born is a new kind of Man the like whereof was never known having a Humane Nature but a Divine Person Nestorius indeed after the manner of other Hereticks not content to leave this mystery unto his Faith but seeking to comprehend it with his reason was so blinded with gazing upon a light too strong for his eyes as he would not acknowledge the thing because his weakness could not conceive who it should be how a Humane Nature should be and subsist without a created and Humane Person and therefore he impiously formed unto himself a double Person in Christ and so in effect two Christs one that had a Humane another that had a Divine both Nature and Person a great errour and pernicious For were it so were they not several Natures but two distinct persons the actions or passions of the one could not properly be attributed to the other since the one is not the other Christ the God could not be Man and Christ the Man could not be God but one God alone the other Man alone and so neither could have redeemed the world for God could not suffer nor Man satisfy Christ Jesus therefore our blessed Lord is but one one substance and hypostasis that hath two Natures Divine and Humane both knit and united in one and the self-same Person and therefore justly and truly may be said to be and is both God and Man and because Man could die because God could add an infinite price unto his death and so reconcile both God and Man But you will say how is it possible that a Humane Nature should subsist in a person and hypostasis not her own who may conceive who can apprehend it neither do I say you should but that you should believe it Had we reason to demonstrate it it were not wonderful had we example it were not singular But now when besides and above the whole order of created Nature a new Man and after a new manner with so great a miracle is born and brought forth having a created and Humane Nature subsisting in a Divine and uncreated Person we may truly say quis enarrabit And this for the person who or what he is that is born Now if we shall remove our consideration unto her of whom he was born peradventure we shall find neither less nor fewer marvels and miracles in this than in that other For certainly that God should become Man is very much but that he should be born of a Woman is yet much more For he might have created a Humane Nature out of the Earth as he did the first Man and had it pleased him assumed it in an instant and therefore needed not have lain nine months in the womb after that manner as we shame to imagine and is altogether unfit we should speak there is horror in the very conceipt of it and therefore well saith the Hymn thou didst not abhor the Virgins womb This would be very strange indeed could we apprehend the infinite Majesty of that God who was pleased for our sakes to descend so low That that sublime and excellent glory in presence whereof the holy Angels themselves cover their faces with their wings that Almighty Lord which sate on the circle of the Heavens and in comparison of whom the inhabitants of the Earth are but as Grashoppers and all the Nations of the World but as the dropping of a bucket that such and so great a God for our good and that we might have nearer affinity with him should disrobe himself of all his honour and be wrapped in films and skins instead of a Garment leave that circle of the Heavens and cast himself into the Dungeon of the womb not abhorring that dark place which we our selves abhor but to think on Astonishment may well seise the mind that shall truly meditate on it If it do not kindle your affection and devotion it cannot at the least but raise up admiration enforcing us to cry out with the Prophet Quis enarrabit Neither is this all the strangeness that God was born of a Woman who by this means was advanced into a strange affinity with her Maker becoming at once both the Mother of her Father and Daughter of her own Son It is strange too and a miracle in Nature that he was born of none but a Woman that he who before had a Father and no Mother should now have a Mother and no Father Three sorts of Generation or rather Production had passed before The first without Man or Woman so Adam The second of Man without Woman so Eve The third of both Man and Woman so we all their posterity But now to make all compleat and never till now the fourth is added of a Woman without a Man that so a Fatherless Son and a Virgin Mother might double the wonder this is it which my Prophet intimates in the first entrance of this Chapter he shall grow up as a pleasant plant and as a root out of a dry ground as a root springing of its own accord from that virgin earth untill'd unsown and unmanured by the hand of Man So sprang he from the maiden loins of his Mother and had no Mans assistance living for a Father who then shall declare c. And as he was begotten without a Father so that we may touch upon the manner was he born as it is likely without pain or hurt unto his Mother It is true a punishment it was and from the beginning and from the beginning until now hath it ever prevailed all Women naturally bringing forth in sorrow But our Saviour was no natural Man All things in him you see are miraculous and supernatural And why not this in his birth as well as so many things else why not born without sorrow as well as conceived without pleasure It is
us seek his face while he may be found and make our prayers in an acceptable time So shall our petitions be heard and we in all our tribulations in the hour of death and in the day of judgment as we desire be most assuredly delivered finding comfort in our life and life in our last end And what is all the wealth and honour pomp and glory of the world in comparison of this They may yield discontents enough as being gotten with travel kept with care and lost with grief but can never give any true satisfaction to the Soul especially in that last and perillous time which most requires it Surely every Mans thought is a secret watch unto his own heart let him then ask his own Soul and it will tell him versa reversa in tergum in latera in ventrem dura sunt omnia Christus solus requies muse and forecast toss and turn all the night long from side to side still still no true ease nor true contentment no perfect joy to be found but in the sweet peace of a good Conscience sprinkled and washed with the blood of Jesus Christ the Prince of peace All other things fail us at our death and therefore are unworthy of our care whilst we live No no Thoughts of remorse and joyes of sorrow silent moans and melting tears an heart truly humbled and a Spirit ever setled chearfully to live and willing to die in the loving arms of a gracious Redeemer this is the prize this is the Crown we should contend for and this is the way now to live a Saint on Earth and ever hereafter to injoy an exceeding and an eternal weight of glory in the highest Heavens Which the Lord of all glory grant unto us for and in the meritorious Passion of his Son Christ Jesus our Lord. To whom with the blessed Spirit c. Laus Deo in aeternum Amen FINIS * Antiquitates Univers Oxon L. ii p. 109. * â— x. Instit C. 2. * Better known perhâ—ps by the name of Mercurius Rusticus an 1647. Psal. cxi 2â— Ecclus. i. 16 Ecclus. i. 18 1 Joh. iv 18. Ecclus. i. 12 Psal. xix 10 Rom. viii Matt. x. Job xxxi Psalm xliii Jon. i. Gen. xxxi 53. Deut. vi Matt. iv Isa. viii 12. Rev Matâ— Job xxviii 28. Rom. 8. Matt. 7. 24. Rom. 4. Rom. 8. Gen. viii 4. Exod. xxiv 16. Josh. vi 16. Matt. 25. Heb. 1. Matt. 25. Prov. xxiv 12. Heb. ix 8. Heb. â—i 40. slev vi 10 Verse 6. Jam. iii. Rev. xx 10. Rev. xx 14. 2 Tim. Job xxix Rom. i. Rom. v. â—2 Acts xi 48. Gen. xvii Rom. v. 18. Rom. i. 2 Cor. v. 10. Mat. xxvâ— Aristot. De fide operibus Galat. i. 19. Mark xi 40. 1 Pet. 2. 11. Rom. 6. 2 Sam. 2. Judg. v. 23. James iii. 15. Jam. iii. 16. 2 Tim. iv 3. Matt. V. Gen. iii. 12. verse 14. 1 Cor. xv 55. Ber. de Con. ad Cleric Abbot in praesat Exercitat de gratia perseverant De bono Persev cap. 14. Rom. ix Phil. i. 2. John xv 16 Rom. ix Epist. 103. Aug. Enchirid cap. 98. De sp lit c. 34. Lib. 12. â—â—iâ—it Del cap. 9. Wisd. i. 13. Gen. Lib. 3. contra Julian cap. 13. Aug. lib. de Orat c. 22. Ad Moni lib. 1. c. 22. Suit cap. 61. Lib. advers mort sibi falso imp ad artic 10 Inst. lib. 3. cap. 23. Moral lib. 26. cap. 10. 2 Per. ii 1. Retract lib. 1. cap. 11. Isai. v. Lib. 4. cap. 71. Matt. xxiv Luk. ix 33. 2 Cor. xii 4. Exod. xii 48. xxii 6. Knowledge Faith Repentance Love Jer. xxx 24. 〈◊〉 Gen. xlix 10. Esa. vii 14 Jer. xxiii 5. Dan ix 25. Zaâ— vi 12 Hag. ii 8. Psal. lxxi lvi xxxv
the abuse that makes it evil for that it is both lawful and good in it self in its own nature and kind is evident if we consider either the original from whence it springs or the end for which it was ordained The original is from Faith and a faith of the knowledge omniscience and power of God for it is grounded upon a persuasion that God understands and knows whether we speak the Truth and is able to take revenge of us it we speak otherwise an oath being nothing else but the calling of God for a witness of our speech and a Judge against us if we speak untruly for a further Confirmation of such things as have no other humane witnesses or proofs And the End is no less profitable than the Original Religious for it is ordained to no other purpose but to give an assurance of the Truth in question and so to determine dissentions and controversies among men as the Author to the Hebrews testifies for an Oath saith he is an end of all strife Heb. vi 16. For which reasons especially the first it is that an Oath wherein God is confessed and acknowledged as an immutable and infallible Truth in himself so a Judge and revenger of falsehood in others as being the only searcher of the heart that alone can bring to light the secrets that lie hid in the Closets thereof for this cause I say it is that an Oath if rightly performed both is and in Scripture is often accounted as a part of the very service and worship of God And therefore in the vi of Deut. 13. it is set down side by side with the fear and service of the Lord wherewith it is made but one Commandment Thou shalt fear the Lord and serve him and swear by his Name So Esay prophesying of the Vocations of the Assyrians and Egyptians unto the same Covenant and worship of God with Israel expresseth it in these terms They shall all speak the language of Canaan and swear in the Name of the Lord as if the swearing in his Name were a sufficient professing of the Religion he commands Esa. xix 18. yea the very Heathen themselves did acknowledge it an honour due only unto the Gods Praesens Divus habebitur Augustus c. we honour thee Augustus when thou art present as a God erecting Altars whereon we swear by thy Name So that an Oath is not only good in it self but a special Act of Religion and therefore cannot be evil unless irreligiously used And though this religious use be more evident and solemn in Oaths that are publick yet it may be no less truly though not so manifestly in others that are private if performed with a due respect unto God and out of a Charity to our Neighbour which is then done when reverent respect unto God in him that makes the Oath and the utility of him whose infirmity requires it do meet together And though the other have a stronger foundation by precept yet this wants not evidence in Scripture and frequency of example for if the Oath between Abraham and Abimeleck were publick as is pretended and is likely yet that between Jacob and Laban was certainly private Boas was a private man and yet he confirms the promise of Marriage unto Ruth with an Oath Ruth iii. 13. Obadiah was a private man yet a just man and one that feared the Lord as the Text hath it yet he spared not to strengthen his speech even unto the great Prophet Elias with an Oath As thy Soul liveth c. 1 King xviii 10. Again in the 2 King v. 16. the holy Prophet Elisha himself swears in the 1 Cor. xv and in divers other places the holy Apostle St. Paul swears In the x. Apoc. an Angel of heaven swears yea and in many places God himself swears and yet none of them required unto it by a Superior that had authority over them And it hath as well evidence in Scripture as example For there is no sufficient reason why that testimony of St. Paul unto the Hebrews should be restrained unto publick Oaths And it cannot be but that my Text must extend it self unto such as are private and if it did not yet that in the xv Psalm is without question where he that swears unto his Neighbour and disappoints him not is said to be the man that shall dwell in the Tabernacle of God which no man can doubt to be spoken of a private oath But leaving those that acknowledge publick Oaths and deny private let us come unto those that condemn both both publick and private the use whereof they confess was tolerated under the Law which now they conceive as wholly abolished by the coming of the Gospel The foundation and only strength of which opinion is grounded wholly upon that speech of our Saviour Matth. v. You have heard it hath been said by them of old Thou shalt not forswear thy self but shalt perform unto the Lord thine Oath But I say unto you swear not at all neither by Heaven for it is Gods throne neither by the Earth for it is his footstool c. But let your communication be yea yea nay nay for whatsoever is more than these cometh of Evil from whence they infer a double Argument the one from the Inhibition the other from the reason of it The inhibition is general Non jurabis omnino swear not at all and the reason is as universal laying the stain of evil upon all others equally without difference or distinction of any for whatsoever is more than yea and nay cometh of evil The place seems to be very strong for them and sure is not without some difficulty from which that we may the easilier free it we must speak something of both But first of the Inhibition and then of the reason And first we are to consider that there are many passages of Scripture set down in general and universal terms which notwithstanding have not simply and absolutely an universal sence but universal in a certain kind What can be more generally pronounced than that in the Psalms God looked down from Heaven upon the Sons of men to see if there were any that would seek after him and behold they were all gone astray they were altogether become abominable there was none that did good no not one And yet notwithstanding in the same Psalm we find another sort of people clean opposite unto these whom God terms his own people because they faithfully served him a people therefore whom those wicked ones could not endure but sought to destroy and utterly devour eating up my people as it were bread So that the former passage cannot be understood simply of all the Sons of men whatsoever but only of all in a certain kind of all the Sons of men who were only the sons of men and not by the spirit of Regeneration become also the Sons of God In which sence the Apostle St. Paul in the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans ere
too as well as any man but bring them to the Commandments to the corporal works either of Charity to the distressed or of bounty for the publick honour and worship of that God whom they pretend to fear and then they leave you This they begin to doubt whether it may be any part of their duty or no But however the soul of the old and outward man may be immortal though severed from the body yet is it not so with the new man Sever the fear of God from the observance of his Commandments and it will instantly cease to be fear As St. John of love so may we say of this fear that includes it He that saith he feareth God and keeps not his Commandments is a liar Again observe the Commandments but not in the true fear of God and it will be not observance but dissimulation A Liar this of all Liars whose hypocrisy can make the very spirit of wickedness to inform and actuate the comely limbs and members of true holiness A prodigious conjunction and therefore a Monster detestable both to God and man It is but right then and as it should be that these two here make but one whole conclusion one whole duty one whole matter one whole man They may be distinguished they may not be divided God hath joined them together and let no man seek to put them asunder but he that fears God let him keep his Commandments also Keep his Commandments durus est hic sermo this is an hard saying and the world sure will be hardly brought to this part of the conclusion yea it were something well if those that seem purest amongst us did not conclude clean contrary That the Commandments were not given to be kept yea that there is no possibility for any man though under the state of grace at any time or in any action to keep without violation even the least Commandment But two things there are that seem especially to deceive men in this point First an erroneous opinion that a spiritual action cannot be good so long as it may be bettered as having so much of sin as it wants of absolute perfection which they suppose the Law under the high terms of eternal death doth require at every mans hands But this is apparently mistaken for evident it is that the Law under the penalty enforceth only essential goodness not so that which is gradual otherwise the holy Angels may now sin in Heaven for they excel one another as in nature so in their zeal and operations yea he that is holier than the Angels Christ himself would be endangered of whom the Scriptures do plainly affirm that he prayed at one time more earnestly than at another And rightly for goodness is not seated in puncto in any precise nick or indivisible Center but hath its just latitude and is capable of degrees of comparison in the Concrete bonus melior optimus So Priscian will instruct them with this opinion not admitting it hath false Latin in it and false Divinity both at once This the first The Second thing is another supposal too and little less erroneous than the former That in every good and divine action the flesh lusting against the spirit doth by that malignant influence corrupt and vitiate even with sin the whole operation But what if the lusting flesh do not always move and in every action What if when it moves it doth not yet enter into composition with that act that subdues and quells it as indeed it doth not what if the vertue of such conquering acts be the greater by the opposition as indeed it is ever the more excellent by how much it breaks through stronger resistance according to that of our Saviour virtus mea in infirmitate perficitur Lastly what if every act of lust it self be not in true propriety a Sin As if it be meerly natural great Clerks conceive it is not because sin is ever voluntary and moral They take it for a true Rule â—Lex datur non appetitui sed voluntati and so they conceive our Saviour doth interpret it when he makes not every one whose flesh lusteth but him only that lusteth in his heart that is with his will to be an Adulterer St. Paul they suppose follows his Masters interpretation and though no man doth define lust more than he yet he doth it with caution as the sin not of the person a subject properly not capable of sin but of the flesh I know that in me but with correction that is in my flesh there is no good thing It is no more I that do it but sin that dwelleth in me And that we take it not for such a sin as transgresseth the Law he is bold to say that the righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in those that walk not after the flesh not that have no carnal motions but after the Spirit St. Austin therefore they conceive said well that when the appetite doth lust but the will doth not like it is as when Eve had eaten but not Adam And as we sinned at the first not in Eve but in Adam so is it still for unless Adam eat as well as Eve the will consent as well as the appetite water the fall is not finished The lusts therefore and appetites of Nature if they arise immediately out of the Body and be not raised by our unhappy fancy which the Will sets on work or by some act or custom of Sin which the Will hath already wrought they are not in their opinion sinful unless we will make God the Author of Sin who is the creator of nature and natural appetites yea and Christ too the subject of sin that was not without a natural inclination directly opposite to the known will of God otherwise he could never have said as he doth not my will but thy will be done No doubt but by the lustings of the flesh humane frailties and imperfections more than enough may and do too often cleave like moles and stains unto the divinest actions of the most spiritual men but a mole of frailty is one thing and the corruption of mortal-sin another One thing claudicare in via to go on though halting sometimes and interfering in the way to Heaven and another to cross out of it run counter directly towards Hell And therefore from such surreptitious and involuntary defects to conclude that no man can love God with all his heart clean contrary to the testimonies of the Scripture That the just man falleth seven times a day to wit into sin though that Scripture intend no such matter that all his righteousness is but a defiled rag and the divinest action in the eye of the Law but a mortal and deadly Sin is an exaggeration that doth but rack and tenter a truth until it burst into two errors and dangerous ones both in Gods regard and mans As if men were bound unto meer impossibilities and God that hard man in the Gospel reaping where
gloria Patris Our third Point The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father For though the time of his coming be concealed yet not so the manner of it That indeed is plainly exprest and revealed unto all but in such and so high terms as mortal man can no way worthily speak of no nor rightly in any degree conceive in his thoughts until he shall come to see and behold it with his Eyes Then indeed and then only he shall know what it is to come in gloria Patris in the glory of the Father He came once already in the days of his humiliation and then he came Filius hominis the Son of Man emptying himself of his Divine Honour and vailing it up in the cloud of our mortality when he was content to suffer himself to be contemned scorn'd and derided reviled spit upon and buffeted scourged with whips and crowned with thorns until he became a worm and no Man having neither form nor beauty why we should desire him and last of all crucified on a Tree But now the scene comes to be altered the face of things utterly changed That was dies hominis Mans day indeed and the hour of the powers of darkness They did then what they list and he was pleased to suffer whatsoever they list to do Now comes dies Domini and the Lord shall have his day too He will now be active and men another while must be content to suffer every one according to his deservings This poor despised filius hominis this worm without form or beauty to be desired will now appear in the strength of his Glory as the Sun breaking out of a Cloud or the Lightning out of the East striking all eyes even with astonishment at his beauty and brightness yea and make all faces all faces of the wicked gather blackness too to behold it For as every hand hath wounded him so every eye shall see him whom they have pierced but not every eye endure the sight of such overawing and dreadful Majesty as shall draw them to embrace Rocks and cry unto deaf Mountains to cover them from the presence of the Lamb and him that sitteth on the Throne for he now comes in gloria Patris But why in the Glory of the Father Indeed at his first appearance it was Ecce Rex tuus venit mitis Behold thy King cometh unto thee meek sitting on an Ass and the foal of an Ass. Now it is Ecce Judex tuus venit terribilis Behold thy Judge cometh with terrour flying upon the wings of the wind and riding upon Cherubins as the Psalmist speaks yea many Cherubins and Seraphins millions and myriads of holy Angels attending on his Glorious Majesty when the whole Earth and Heavens too shall be filled with the Majesty of his Glory Because he endured the Cross and despised the shame valued not his life but humbled and bowed down his Soul even unto death therefore God now exalts him sets him on high yea gives him a name above all names whereat the knees that now are so stiff shall then will they nill they bow and bend and the tongue of every one confess laudando as he speaks vel ululando that Jesus is the Lord to the Glory of the Father for he now comes in gloria Patris in the Fathers Glory He comes at this time for Judgment and that originally belongs unto the Father Vengeance is mine I will recompence saith the Lord. But yet the Father judgeth no man saith Christ but hath referred all judgment to the Son even filio hominis to this Son of man to whom as man he hath given all power both in Heaven and Earth The son indeed himself even as the son of God is a Receiver from the Father even of the Glory which he hath for glory he receives from him from whom he receives his Essence the fountain of glory as having his very being not of himself but of the Father Fons Deitatis the fountain that communicates the Deity immediately to the other persons solely unto the Son who is therefore Deus de Deo God of God and light of light Yet having received it from eternity it is his own even his Fathers both essence and glory and so though God of God and light of light yet because the same both God and light he is in Majesty equal in Glory coeternal equal without robbery saith the Apostle and though not without reception yet without any duty of gratitude for the receipt as receiving it not by a free and voluntary but by a generation no less natural and simply necessary than absolutely eternal For which reasons he is elsewhere said to come not in gloria Patris but in gloria sua even in his own glory when the Son of Man shall come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his own glory as he doth here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with his own Angels In the glory of the Father and with his Angels And his Angels sure they are whom they are commanded to adore and worship Worship him all ye Angels of his All of them must worship and all attend on him now even the whole Quire and Court of Heaven not an Angel left behind for he shall come with all the Angels No marvel if Daniel said thousand thousands shall minister unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand shall stand before him in that day what a presence of state indeed will this be how full and every way Majestick But yet these are not only for State and Majesty at this time but for ministration also Thousand thousands shall minister unto him for the time is now come when that of the Apostle out of David is to be fulfilled He shall make his ministers a flaming fire at least to minister to those flames that shall never be quenched for the great Harvest of the world is now come and their imployment in it is set down before-hand The Angels must be the Reapers These are they that must separate the Sheep from the Goats sever the Tares from the Wheat We may be too forward in plucking them up now indanger the good Corn 't were best let this alone for them whose proper office it is and will do it exactly gather the Tares in fasciculos into bundles as the Text hath it bind them up too and cast them into everlasting fires Bind them in bundles indeed to tell us that sinners in the same kind shall be sure to participate in the same punishment The profest and merciless Mamonist with all his brokers and bribing ministers that assist his incestuous money to engender on it self in one bundle bound up now and presently burning in bands of their own parchments The tatter'd young Prodigal whom they undo with his Tapsters and Drawers and the whole knot of Roarers and Ranters about him taken all as in a net and bound up in another bundle The Adulterer and his Mistris the Adulteress with the Chamber Attendant
it hath not wanted manuring and culture sepsi elapidavi I enclosed hedged it in and threw the stones and weeds out after all I built a Tower and a Vine-press therein expecting Grapes fecit mibi labrùscas and it brought forth wild grapes now judge I pray you Quid amplius debui facere vineae meae what I ought more to have done unto my Vine This was enough to convince them but these times are more acute Had some Men of our Israel been made Judges they would quickly have stopt the mouth of this Plantiff Why you have withheld the first and the latter rain the dew of Grace and the influence of Heaven no marvel if your Plants thrive not if you would needs plainly know this you ought not to have done if you would have expected grapes Give but that blessing and your earth will bring forth its encrease As if in the enumeration of some few particulars those that these speak of and whatsoever else is simply necessary for this rational Vine were not virtually included Surely the Lords Vineyard was not planted upon those cursed Mountains of Gilboa on which there fell neither dew nor rain for certainly the influence of Heaven hath not been restrained the Sun of righteousness hath risen and shined upon this Vine but it hath loved darkness more than light the dew of Divine Grace was not wanting to the branches thereof but they have turned his grace into wantonness quenching and grieving his holy Spirit And therefore a little before the utter rooting up and casting out these degenerate Plants St. Stephen frames the Inditement unto their just destruction why ye are a stiff-necked people and a stubborn generation as your Fathers did so do ye ye have always resisted the Holy Ghost And this leads us unto the third and last point That God reprobates none but after the often abuse of his grace for as they were cut and cast off so are all other also rejected and reprobated for first rejecting and resisting the same Holy Ghost My people would not bearken unto my voice and Israel would none of me saith the Lord So I gave them up unto their own hearts lufts and they walked in their own counsels Psal. 81. 11. And this is the first external act of Reprobation when God gives Men up unto a Reprobate sense withdrawing his abused Grace and leaving them unto the counsels and lusts of their own hearts A Judgment never denounced in Scripture but for contempt of Mercy Now by the external act Man must judge of the internal and eternal decree for what God in time doth that before all time he did decree to do for they that imagine that difference between the decree and the execution of the decree that the one hath respect unto Sin but the other none must either make a decree that is never executed or an execution that varies from the decree as if God did ordain one thing and do another And therefore if he doth now give up and reject a people for their obstinate sins for the same cause in his Eternal Reprobation he did order so to reject them And as it is in rejection from Grace so it fares in exclusion from Glory from which no Man is irrecoverably abdicated but for long and wilful grieving of that God who would have brought them to it Forty years long was I grieved with this generation and then I sware they should not enter into my rest Than which I know no sentence that doth so clearly represent and express the true nature of Reprobation for what is it but Gods eternal oath of rejecting wicked Men from his Glory into that destruction they have deserved And this he doth not suddenly in a passion of choler upon every light occasion but in his wrath his wrath urged and provoked by a long Rebellion even forty years long was he grieved and then he sware in his wrath he resolutely determined they should not enter into his rest A decree that seems not to proceed but when by extremity of injury it is as it were violently extorted so loth and unwilling he is to be brought unto it as he doth not so much as think or speak of it without passionate interjections of sorrow O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self And upon these exhibitions of Gods mercies and goodness unto the Reprobate depends the verity and truth and justice of this complaint against them for they that never received any means of Salvation can by no means ever be termed the authors of their destruction But now since God and his favours have not been wanting unto them but they unto God since they have wilfully forsaken his mercy they can rightly blame none but themselves for their own misery for as the antient Father Irenaeus hath it Judicium justum recipient quoniam non sunt operati bonum cum possent operari illud The judgment of God is just which they shall receive because they did not do well when they might have done it Whereunto Clemens Alexandrinus doth agree All impenitents saith he shall be judged aliqui quidem quod cum possent noluerunt Deo credere alii vero quod cum vellent non elaboraverunt ut fierent fideles Some because when they might believe they would not others because when they would yet they did not labour truly to become what they desired And it were easie that no man might conceive the Doctrine to be new to shew the like out of the Fathers yea generally out of all both before the Pelagian heresy and after but left the time should fail me to those already mentioned I will only add the Judgment of the third Synod of Arles assemblged for the defining of these very questions wherein what you have now heard is not only affirmed but a Curse and an Anathema laid upon those that shall think the contrary Anathema illi qui dixerit quòd Christus non pro omnibus mortius sit Cursed be he that says that Christ died not for all And Anathema illi qui dixerit illum qui periit non accepisse ut salvus esse posset Cursed be he that says he that perished did not receive means whereby he might be saved But unto this and whatsoever else in this kind may be said that in the ix to the Romans of Jacob and Esau before ever they had done good or evil that the purpose of God might stand according to Election it was said The elder shall serve the younger according to that of the Prophet I have loved Jacob but Esau have I hated like Medusa's head is ever objected though seldome or never understood But that it may be besides theirs of absolute Reprobation I will first shew you the several interpretations of others The ancient Fathers both Greek and Latin before St. Austin yea and St. Austin for a while until the Pelagian heresy arose interpret these words of the Election of some unto salvation upon prevision of their future faith and
shall perceive the better and receive too the sooner for though it be powerful all do not always receive it if we be observant of the circumstances of this spiritual in the mind which for the quality of time place and person doth much resemble that other humane birth in the flesh For as then he was born in the night so still is he usually begotten in the nightly and silent meditations of the Soul When all things were in quiet silence and the night in her swift course then the Almighty word left the Royal Throne and leapt down from Heaven saith the Author in the book of Wisdom And sure then especially when all things are quiet and silent when the works and toils cares and labours of the day are laid aside and the Soul in sweet contemplation of the vanity of all her travel under the Sun then I say especially is Divine Wisdom preparing the place for the Son of God who though he leave not Heaven and his throne there yet by his spirit doth he vouchsafe to descend and live and dwell in this earth of ours for ever And as in the deep of night so for the most part is he born still in the depth of Winter For in the Summer and sun-shine of prosperity we are all apt to forget God and regard but little what he speaks unto us but in the cold and bitter storms of Winter when our Bark is tossed in a tempestuous Sea of afflictions then like other Mariners we can quickly pour out vows leave our canns and carouses and betake our selves to Supplication and Prayers and can attentively hearken also what the Lord God will say concerning our Souls Only take heed of the 3d. circumstance in this point and though he came in the last age of the world yet be sure not to defer thy entertaining of him till the last age of thy life For however he be sometimes and it may be usually as yet born spiritually in that point of Mans days as he was then of the world yet it cannot be safe yet it must be more than foolish to presume of it For we well know how frail we are and God knows how suddenly we shall be swept away in our sins when we would give the whole world if we had it for but one hour of that time we so foolishly neglected and may not have Remember therefore thy Creator in the days of thy youth before the eveil day come and give attentive consideration to the counsel of the Wiseman Defer not to do well and put not off from day to day for suddenly shall the wrath of the Lord come forth and in security thou shalt be destroyed But lastly and above all be most assured that as then so he will still be born in no other time but a time of peace Peace there was in the whole world when he was born in it and we must cease from wars and envies and hatreds and have peace every one with his Brother or he will never be born in us It was the Song and Anthem at his birth sung by Angels Glory be to God on high in earth peace good will towards men He is the great peacemaker that came of purpose to establish an everlasting peace between God and Man but on this condition that Man shall first be at peace with Man otherwise not to expect it from God of whom he may not so much as beg mercy for his offences but as himself remits the trespasses of others O take heed therefore flatter not thy self but search narrowly and be sure to strip all wrath and revenge from thine heart or be most assured Christ will never dwell and inhabit there who cannot but hate the very place where such odious and hateful sins make their abode Sins that bind all the rest of our iniquities on our Souls yea make whatsoever else is good sinful unto us Whereof so long as thou art guilty thou dost but curse thy self when thou prayest and damn thy own Soul when thou receivest This for the time see now how well the other circumstances agree which concern the place of his birth and especially the person of whom he was born For born he was not of any ordinary Woman at a venture but of a pure and chast Virgin and so will he still be both born and bred in a clean and unpolluted Soul Into a defiled heart full of noisom lusts and sordid affections he will not enter they must be first purged out and all the stains and pollutions of them washed away and cleansed in a bath of penitential tears then he will descend thither be born there and instead of those natural corruptions fill the place with all divine and supernatural Graces and so not find but make the Soul a Virgin by being begotten in it A Virgin full of virtue which he will espouse and marry unto himself for ever But yet of all virtues he most affects humility in her the first and laft of virtues the first begining and last consummation of whatsoever is virtuous For without it the Soul is not capable of virtue and had she never so many would spoil all by growing proud of the virtues which she hath And therefore as he was born of a Virgin so would he be born in no other but a Stable the meanest place and lowest in the house to shew us the condition of the mind the humility and lowliness of the spirit where he still is and ever will be spiritually brought forth For as the covetous Soul is but a Barn the Epicure's a Kitchen the Drunkard 's a Cellar the Ambitious a Chamber of State so the low and regardless Stable may well signify the humble spirit that both is and esteems it self a wretched sinner Not then in the Barn of Misers nor in the Kitchin of Belly-gods not in the Cellar of Winebibbers not in the great Chamber of Pride and Prodigals but in the despised Stable of humble and dejected spirits there is he there will he and no where else ever be born And every Soul wherein he is so born may be bold to say with the blessed Virgin that first saw him for thou regardest the lowliness of thy hand-maiden But yet humility is not more acceptable to him than worldly cares and covetousness displeasing than which nothing can more hinder his conception and generation in our Souls For God and Mammon cannot dwell together And for this cause as in a Stable so he would be born in an Inn For an Inn is domus populi free and open unto all comers and so must the Soul be wherein he will be the second time born free and generous holding nothing as it were in private and proper to it self but open and ready to communicate all things to those that want and are distressed and no less freely than the other for money And the sooner because he knows the world it self is but an Inn where we do not inhabit but lodge for a
therefore in Gods account not right but even dissemblers in what they truly intended because they falsly forsook it Hypocrites then they are and with hypocrites they shall have their portion Consider therefore faithfully what thy lips spake when thy heart was in trouble and be sure that thy hand perform it when thou art released And yet if your lips spake nothing if you have no vow upon you thanksgiving is due without it pay that at least with cheerfulness No such Monster in the world not the Hypocrite himself as the unthankful Man he that hath said Ungrateful hath said all and the worst he can say And therefoer above all things if there be no vows to pay yet offer unto God thanksgiving next to that of a broken heart it is the best sacrifice thou canst offer him This shall please the Lord better than a bullock that hath horns and hoofes Psal. lxix 31. Nay not all those Hecatombs and millions of Sheep and Oxen which Solomon offered at the dedication of the Temple no nor thousands of Rams and Rivers of Oyl as Micah speaks can so glad the Altars of God as these Calves of our lips the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving but then it must be made a burnt-offering that is kindled with the fire of zeal and true devotion sing praises lustily saith our Prophet and with a good courage And as he gives us the instruction so let him be our example that you may know he did not promise more in this place than he was glad and willing to perform afterwards See how lustily and with what a good courage he doth perform it he doth not go about it drowsily but his very preparation to it is hasty even beyond expression by any Mans words but his own My heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed awake up my â—uâ—e and glory â— my self wâ—â— awake right early My lips will be fain when I sing unto thee and so will my soul which thou hast redeemed nay my mouth shall be satisfied as it were with marrow and fatness when I shall praise thee with joyful lips words that have vigour and life and shew a good courage indeed but all this is but preparative for when he comes to performance see how he stirs up all the parts of his body and powers of his Soul to concur with him in the work Praise the Lord O my Soul and whatsoever is within me praise his holy name And yet it is not enough himself and all his faculties are too little this is still but private praise he must have it publick too and so it is to the purpose you may see him summon up not only righteous Men as here but all the creatures of Heaven and Earth to bear a part with him Angels Sun Moon Stars Fire Hail Snow Vapour Storm and Tempest too praise ye the name of the Lord. And as yet not satisfied he calls for all the Instruments of Musick Trumpets Psaltery Harp Timbrel Cymbals and the high tuned Cymbals to express and set it forth the more solemnly Neither is it a passionate flash like fire in Flax as quickly out as kindled but a constant and parmanent affection Whilst I live I will praise the Lord and as long as I have any being I will sing praises unto my God Ps. cxlvi How mightily doth this upbraid the dead and cold devotion of the present world scarce a spark of this holy fire to warm it can now be found in one bosom of a thousand we think we have performed a worthy sacrifice if with a barren and a dry heart we can only say with the Pharisee I thank thee O Lord that thou hast not made me like other men Superficial we are and perfunctory in all our service forward in nothing but to run on the point of that curse of the Prophet Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently And the reason is â—or that it all things do not run according to our desires we are insensible of the goodness of God in other matters and seldom meditate on it thoroughly But had we apprehensive spirits and could duly weigh and seriously consider the mercies of God not only to Man in general but every Man his special favours unto himself in particular a thousand ways when a thousand ways he deserved destruction he would soon find his breast straitned and too narrow for his swelling affections till he breath them out in our Prophets double expostulation of love not only Domine quid est Homo Lord what is Man that thou art so mindful of him but Domine quid sum ego what am I what is my Fathers house that thou so regardest me Let such meditations blow on the little fire that lies raked up in our embers and they will soon kindle into a flame wherein our devotions may ascend into Heaven like that Angel which went up playing in the flames of Manoabs sacrifice Judg. xiii And this shall suffice for this part for the thankfulness the Prophet promiseth both private and publick within himself and in the resort and company of the Righteous I now leave his praise and come to his prayer Bring my soul out of prison O Lord c. And being in prison in streights and pressures what should a good Soul do but pray If any man be merry let him sing if he be afflicted let him pray saith St. James For prayer it is the Souls Herald sent forth in extremity to parly and intreat for comfort And as nothing can relieve our distress better than prayer so nothing can again assist our prayer better than distresses They inflame our zeal and set an edge upon our devotions the cries of our own will are weak and feeble as cooled with success in respect of those which grief doth utter Sorrow is ingenious to pray and in an instant formeth the slowest tongues to an holy eloquence and furnisheth them with sighs and groans which cannot be expressed And sure those are the best and most piercing prayers of all other fidelis oratio plus gemitibus constat quà m sermonibus plus fletu quà m afflatu faithful prayers indeed consist rather of Tears and silent groans than many words And such a prayer is this to speak on it is but a groan very short but very pithy few words but fervent and full of substance including in it as an abstract of all prayer whatsoever conditions may seem necessary to a holy and devout supplication if you consider the object the manner and the matter of it The object the Lord so some Texts have it here but it is evident in the former verses I cried unto the Lord. The manner vehement by way of crying out as himself in the same Psalm testifies I cried unto the Lord. The matter or extent larger than we imagine even no less than deliverance from all evil that may any way inthral the Soul as will appear when we come to open this Prison from which he
these four Afflictions the World or worldly cares sin and this body of sin and death And under any of these we may say and pray with David here Bring my Soul out of prison The first to take them in order are afflictions sorrows and distresses and that these imprison the Soul and are here specially meant and intended there is no question all agree tribulatio angustia are inseparable companions Tribulation and anguish upon every Soul that hath done evil saith the Apostle and Anguish is nothing else but the English of Angustia for streights and pressure there are in all tribulations Prosperity and Joy do dilate the spirits and draw forth the Soul but stricken with grief and sorrow like a prickt Snail she shrinks into her shell and is instantly straitned But yet of all the Prisons this is the most necessary It is the Bridewel of the world and without it we should quickly grow Bedlam and run mad in excess and wanton delights For all sins are frenzies and such sinners seldom recover their wits any where else The wild Prodigal whilst free and in prosperity runs on in his course and never perceives his own distraction till shut up here and well whipt a while redit ad se then he comes to himself and can say surgam ibo ad patrem I will arise and go unto my Father For tribulatio id habet proprium ut hominem revocet reducat ad se it is the very nature and property of affliction to call home and reduce Men again unto their senses Neither doth it only give them their wits but sets them on work affording them matter whereon they may exercise themselves and all the Christian virtues Faith Hope Patience Meekness Humility and the rest which otherwise would languish and vitiate if not exhale for want of imployment This Prison therefore is of excellent use But why then if it be so profitable should we pray to be freed of it why absolutely we do not but with limitation if God shall think it expedient for us who when the cure is perfected it may be will dismiss us or if he keep us there longer he will make us large recompence for it hereafter Our Saviours Prayer is our rule in this point because all afflictions are grievous for the present we may say with him if it be possible transeat calix ista let this cup pass but still with submission to his good pleasure not mine but thy will be done And thus much though not always exprest is ever reserved and understood whensoever in this case we shall say here with David Bring my Soul out of prison The second is the world or rather worldly cares that â—log and fetter the Souls of most Men nailing them fast unto the Earth that they cannot stir a foot nor move a thought towards Heaven and heavenly meditations This is a large prison wherein every one hath seen restraint more or less as they have learnt that high precept of the Apostle to use the world as if they used it not but satisfying nature only account the rest that belongs to pomp and superfluity nothing near at that high rate as they are bought and sold for in this Market of Fools quanti venduntur emuntur in nundinis stultorum These indeed have some freedom and though they are in a sort prisoners yet they are prisoners at large and have liberty as large as the Prison wherein they have elbow room enough not to be straitned But those miserable wretches that admiring the wealth and honour of the present world have inthralled and wrapt their Souls in terrene and base solitudes how close are they shut up and how miserable a servitude do they indure No Gally-slave can be tied in stronger chains than the Ambitious and Covetous Man like those condemned to the Mines he digs under earth and sweats for Ore all his life long and when he dies hath his mouth stopt only with a handful of gravel And here every one may freely pray and without any restriction at all Out of this Prison O Lord deliver my Soul The Third of these Prisons and worst of all is Sin the Third indeed it is in order but first in time that gives power and strength unto both the other Had not that in the beginning seised on our Souls and fast bound them to their hands they could never have touched us The world instead of a Prison had been a Paradise and the men in it subject neither to Cares nor afflictions But now being fast tyed by this we have a thousand Chains cast on us besides and are become prisoners almost to every thing else This therefore is the head and fountain of our misery and as the first so the worst straitest and closest prison of all other a common Jayl indeed rather than a Prison and the very hole of the Jayl wherein millions of men lie fast bound indeed in misery and Iron putrifying and stinking in their corruption like Lazarus in his Grave the very emblem both of the Prison and Prisoners And unless that Son of God who came down himself from Heaven to open this Prison and preach liberty unto the Captives unless he graciously call unto us yea cry aloud as in the Gospel he did even groaning in his Spirit to shew how difficult a thing it is to dissolve these bonds wherewith custom and habit hath tyed us as with cords unless he I say by the power of his holy voice cry unto us all as lie did unto him Lazare veni foras Lazarus come forth we shall all perish in our captivity for ever and never see light For this sink of sin wherein the longer we lie the deeper indeed we sink doth at length empty it self into Hell the bottomless Pit and Prison of everlasting sorrow But blessed be his name the barrs are smitten asunder and the doors thrown open by his death And he still calls unto us by the voice of his Ministers yea and Spirit too to come forth and unless we be enamoured of our own misery and like Beasts delight to lie in our own filth till we perish in that nethermost Gulf let us hearken unto his calls and rouse up our selves betimes answering his voice with another call of our own calling and crying with all our might and without ever ceasing all of us From this Prison good Lord deliver our Souls But yet call and cry as long and as loud as we can our Souls shall never be clearly freed either from this Prison of sin or those others of Cares and Sorrows so long as they are still inclosed in this of the corruptible body Which is the Fourth and last Prison of the Soul and here intended by David according to the exposition of many Fathers whose words I cannot now stand to recite And therefore Laurentius Justinianus said well of this Prayer Verba sunt peregrinationis suae miserias meditantis c they are the words saith he of one
glory unto him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb for evermore Who now shall mourn who shall weep for such a Soul none can sorrow for her unless they envy her happiness foelix illa anima imitationem desiderat nâ—n planctum that blessed Soul is no subject of grief but a pattern for imitation And therefore if any weep in her death they must be tears of joy not of sorrow and if they be of sorrow they must not be for her but for our selves and our own loss This indeed is great and invaluable and when you think on it weep a Gods name Quis natum in funere matris flere vetat he were barbarous that would forbid it you yet you shall not have all to your selves we 'll bear you company for she was a publick loss Such a Wife such a Mother such a Friend such a Mistriss such a Neighbour such and so good a Woman and so great an example of Virtue cannot should not go to the grave with dry eyes in whose loss so many have interest I would praise her if I could to make you weep more but she is beyond my commendations A Woman of her Wisdom and Judgment of her Wit and discourse so free and liberal and yet so prudent and provident withal for she was so in her self though misfortunes befel her so sweet so kind so mild so loving and respective to all and withal so charitable to the poor a Chirurgeon to the hurt and a Physician to the sick she eat not her morsels alone and their loins were warmed with her wooll as Job speaks such a Woman so well born and bred and of such a strain beyond ordinary as she seemed with the blood to inherit too the virtues of all her Ancestors so upright and clear and innocent in her whole course that the eye of envy nay were all the malice of the world infused into one eye it could not find any just stain to fasten on her such a one so every way compleat surely no Man unless he had her own or the wit and tongue of an Angel can sufficiently commend neither can we if we regard our own loss sufficiently bewail But the truth is she is not lost non amissa sed praemissa sent before she is lost she is not And therefore you whom it most concerns though you mourn mourn not as those without hope It is but a short separation and the time will come when you shall see her again though not with these earthly affections Pay the due tribute unto nature but then shut up the sluces for graces sake And the God of all grace give you comfort the Holy Ghost the Comforter himself replenish your heart with consolations And the blood of Jesus Christ wash us all from all our sins and strengthen us with the power of his might that we may so live whilst we remain here in this Prison of the Body that when it shall be dissolved we may obtain mercy from him to lead forth our Souls To lead them with his grace and then as he hath done to this blessed Saint receive them unto glory There with her and all the company of righteous spirits that are gone before us to sing praise and honour unto his holy name for evermore To this God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost c. Laus Deo in aeternum THE Second FUNERAL SERMON FOR THE DAUGHTER SERMON XIII Upon ROM viii 10. And if Christ be in you the Body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is life because of Righteousness MAN of all Gods Creatures is the strangest compounded the most marvellous mixture that ever was a very fardel of contrarieties wonderfully united and wrapt up in one bundle Heaven and Earth light and darkness Christ and Belial may seem to dwell together and man the house of their habitation what can be more directly opposite than Flesh and Spirit Life and Death Sin and Righteousness and lo all of them united here in one verse nay in one man For the Text is but the Anatomy of man and must therefore be composed of and divided into the same parts man himself is As his body is composed of contrary Elements heat and cold fire and water So his person is composed of contrary Natures Corporal and Spiritual Body and Soul His Natures again of contrary qualities Life and Death the Body is dead the Soul lives and lastly these qualities issuing from contrary causes sin and righteousness death from sin and life from righteousness The Body c. And though the sin by which the body dies is our own yet that we may know that the righteousness whereby the Soul lives is not of our selves but received from our Saviour there is a caution given in the entrance of the verse If Christ be in you So then here are three couples a Body and a Soul Sin and Righteousness Life and Death The body with her two attendants sin and death the Soul with her two endowments righteousness and life The former is universal and common to all the Sons of Adam according to the flesh the latter particular and proper only to the Children of the second Adam begotten by the Spirit If Christ c. I begin with the first part which is a meditation of death and our chief Christian comforts against death But yet before the Apostle brings in his consolations he premises a conditon If Christ be in you To teach us that the comforts of God belong not indifferently to all men He that is a stranger from Christ hath nothing to do with them What hast thou to do to take my Covenant into thy mouth so long as thou hatest to be reformed saith God in the Psalm I. When our Saviour commanded his Disciples to proclaim peace unto every house they came to he foretold them it should rest only on the Sons of peace He forbad them in like manner to give those things which were holy unto doggs or to cast pearls before Swine This stands a perpetual Law to all his messengers that they presume not to proclaim peace to the impenitent and unbelieving but as Jehu said unto Jehoram's horsman what hast thou to do with peace so are we to tell the wicked who walk on still in their sins that they have nothing to do with the peace or promises or priviledges of the Gospel If Christ be in you c. Secondly if we compare the verse immediately precedent or that which is subsequent with this between both you shall easily perceive after what manner Christ dwells in his Children Sometimes we are said to be in Christ and sometimes Christ is said again to be in us and both in effect come to one we are in Christ by faith and Christ is in us by his Spirit For so it follows If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies It is
not then a Carnal presence but a Spiritual that doth link and associate unto Christ. To make up our union with him it is not needful that his humane nature should be drawn down from Heaven or that his body should be every where present on Earth as the Ubiquitaries affirm or that the Bread in the Sacrament should be transubstantiate into his body as the Papists imagin His dwelling in us is by his Spirit and his union with us is spiritual So himself in the same place where he speaks of eating his flesh and drinking his blood doth interpret himself the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speak are spirit and life And his Spirit it is not his body that shall give life unto the Spirit when the body shall perish If Christ c. This touch shall suffice for the condition I proceed to the substance of the Text. The Body is dead It contains as I said an admonition of our frailty corruption and death and comforts against death It is but the body that is dead the Spirit is life First of our corruption and frailry The body is dead That we all tend unto death we all know but the Apostle's speech is more remarkable he says not the body is subject to death but by a more significant phrase of speech he presseth it homer The body is dead There is a difference between a mortal body and a dead body Adams body before the fall was mortal in some sort that is subject to a possibility of dying but now after the fall our bodies are so mortal as they are subject to a necessity of dying yea if we'll here with the Apostle esteem of death by the beginning and seisure of it they are dead already The forerunners and harbingers of death dolours infirmities and heavy diseases have seised already on our bodies and marked them out as lodgings which shortly must be the habitation of their Master But how near this manner of speech draws unto true propriety they best conceive who best understand how that malediction of God and curse of the Law The day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death was fulfilled If God spared not the Angels when they waxed proud will he spare thee who art but a putrifying worm Ille intumuit in coelo erga in sterquilinio he was puft up in Heaven and therefore was cast down from the place of his habitation and if I wax proud lying on a dunghil shall I not be cast down into Hell So often therefore as corrupt nature stirreth up the heart to pride because of youth and health beauty and strength and the like perfections of the body let this consideration humble thee that though these are fair and beauti ful flowers yet they cannot but suddenly wither because the root from whence they sprung is corrupt and rotten and even dead already Neither is it more available to the cutting down of arrogance and pride than to teach us Temperance and sobriety What availeth it to pamper that Carcase of thine with excess of delicate feeding which is possessed by death already If Men took the tenth part of that care to present their spirit holy and without blame unto the Lord which they take to make their bodies fair and beautiful in the eyes of Men they might in short time make a greater improvement in Religion and Virtue than they have done But herein is their folly they make fat the flesh with precious things which within few days the worms shall devour but never care to beautify the Soul with holy and virtuous actions which shortly is to be presented to God Let us therefore refrain from the immoderate cherishing this proud and dead flesh meats are ordained for the belly and the belly for meats but God will destroy them both 1 Cor. vi 13. I might inlarge this point almost infinitely for the benefit of this consideration is not confined unto Humility Sobriety and Temperance or any particular virtues but it 's universal restraining from all evil and inciting powerfully unto all virtue and goodness Nihil sic revocat bominem à peccato quà m frequens mortis meditatio saith St. Aug. nothing can so recall a Man from his evil ways as the frequent meditation of death especially if he consider as the certainty of death so the uncertain time of his death and the unchangeable estate of everlasting misery if he die in his sins Would to God we were wise thoroughly to apprehend and apply this unto our own Souls It is strange that there is nothing so well known nothing of greater benefit and yet nothing so little regarded What a Prodigy is it that sinful Men should carry about their death in their bosoms and in every vein of their Bodies and yet scarce admit a thought of their mortality into their minds but live here as if they verily thought they should never die If we had no Religion yet reason would teach us that our strength is not the strength of stones and yet them even the drops of water weareth nor our sinews of Brass and Iron as Job speaks and yet these the rust and canker consumeth but a vapour but a smoak which the Sun soon drieth or the wind driveth away It was wittily said of Epictetus the Philosopher who going forth one day and seeing a Woman weeping that had broken her Pitcher and the next day meeting another Woman that had lost her Son Heri vidi fragilem frangi hodie video mortalem mori Yesterday saith he I saw a brittle thing broken and to day I see a mortal Man die And what difference of frailty between these two surely none unless Man be the frailer of the two For as St. Austin hath it Take the brittlest veslel of earth or glass and keep it safe from outward violence and it may last many thousand of years but take a Man of the most pure complexion of the strongest constitution and keep him as safe as thou canst he hath that within his own bowels and bones that will bring him to his end Nay I hear some say saith the same Father that such a one hath the Plague or the Pleurisie and therefore sure he will die but we may rather say such a one liveth and therefore sure he will die for diverse have had these Diseases and did not die of them but never any Man lived that did not die The Consumption of the Liver is the messenger of Death the Consumption of the Lungs the Minister of Death the Consumption of the marrow and moisture the very Mother of Death and yet many have had these Diseases and not died of them But there is another kind of Consumption which could never yet be cured it is the Consumption of the days the common Disease of all Mankind David saw it and spake of it when he said my days are consumed like smoke Psal. cii yea the Philosopher saw it and could say of it quicquid praeteritum est temporis mors