need not the Scriptures reason will evict it forceibly enough against all the world but when I come beyond all Philosophy that for Adams fault six thousand year agoe I should be condemned now because that fault is naturally in me I must find reason before I beleeve this and my reason is because I find it in the Scrpiture Nascimur filii Irae and therefore nifi renatus we are borne children of wrath and therefore must be borne againe That a Messias should come to deliver Mankind from this sinne and all other fins my reason is the Semen mulieris the seed of the woman for the promise and the Ecce agnus Dei Behold the Lambe of God for the performance That he should come I reft in that The seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head And that he is come I rest in this that Iohn Baptist shewed the Lambs of God that taketh away the sinnes of the world That this merit of his should be applied to certaine Men my reason is in the Semini two Gods Covenant to Abraham and to his seed That we are of that number included in that Covenant to Abraham my reason is in spiritu adoptionis the spirit of adoption hath ingraffed us inserted us into the same Covenant When my reason tells me that the Seale of that Covenant Circumcision is gone I am not circumcised and therefore might doubt my reason tells me too that in the Scriptures there is a new Seals Baptisme when my reason tells mee that after that regeneration I have degenerated againe I have fallen from those graces which I received in Baptisme my reason leades mee againe to those places of Scripture where God hath established a Church for the remession and absolution of sinnes If I have been negligent of all these helpes and now my reason beginnes to worke to my prejudice that I beginne to gather and heape up all those places of the Law and Prophets and Gospell which threaten certaine condemnation unto such sinners as I find my selfe to bee yet if my reason can see light at the Nolo mortem peccatoris at the Quandocunque resipiscct That God would not the death of any sinner That no time is unseasonable for repentance That scatters the clands of witnesses againe and to till my reason can tell me which it can never doe that it hath found places in Scripture of a measure and finitenesse in God that his mercy can goe no farther and then of an infinitenesse in Man that his finne can goe beyond God my reason will defend me from desperation I meane the reason that is grounded upon the Scripture still I shall find there that Quia which David delighted in so much as that he repears it almost thirty times in one Psalm For his mercy endureth for ever God leaves no way of satisfaction unperformed unto us sometimes he workes upon the phantasie of Man as in those often â—isions which he presented to his Prophets in dreames sometimes he workes upon the senses by preparing objects for them So he filled the Mountaine round about with horses and chariots in defense of Elisha but alwayes he workes upon our reason he bids us feare no judgment he bids us hope for no mercy except it have a Quia a reason a foundation in the Scriptures For God is Logos speech and reasone He declares his will by his Word and he proved it he confirmes it he is Logos and he proceeds Logically It is true that we have a Sophistry which as farre as concerns our owne destruction frustrates his Logique If Peter make a Quia a reason why his fellowes could not bee drunke Because it was but nine a Clocke wee can find Men that can overthrow that reason and rise drunke out of their beds If Christ make a Quia a reason against fashionall and Circumstantiall christians that doe sometimes some offices of religion out of custome or company or neighborhood or necessity because no man peecethan old garment with new cloth nor puts new wine into old vessells yet since S. Augustine says well Carnalitas vetustas gratia novitas our carnall delights are our old garments and those degrees and beames of grace which are shed upon us are the new we do peece this old with this new that is long habits of sin with short repentances flames of concupiscence with little sparks of remorse and into old vessells our sin-worne bodies we put in once a year some drops of new wine of the bloud of our Saviour Christ Iesus in the Sacrament when we come to his table as to a vintage because of the season and we receive by the Almanack because it is Easter and this new wine so taken in breakes the vessells as Christ speakes in that similitude And his breaking shall be as the breaking of a Potters pot which is broken without pity and in the breaking thereof is not found a shard to take fire at the hearth nor to take water out of the pit No way in the Church of God to repaire that Man because he hath made either a Mockery or at best but a Civil action of Gods institution in the Church To conclude this all sin is but fallacy and Sophistry Religion is reason and Logique The devill hides and deludes Almighty God demonstrates and proves That fashion of his goes through all his precepts through all his promises which is in Esay Come now and let us reason together that which was in Iob is a bundantly in God That he did not contemne the judgment of his servant nor of his maid when they did contend with him Nec decet Dei judicium quicquid habere affine tyrannidi we may not think that here is any thing in God like a Tyran and it is a Tyrannicall proceeding as to give no reason of his cruelties so to give no assurance of his benefits and therefore God seales his promises with a Quia a reason an assurance Now much of the strength of the assurance consists in the person whose seale it is and therefore as Christ did we aske next Cujus inscriptio whose Image whose inscription is upon his seale who gives this assurance And it is the Lambe that is in the midst of the throne If it werethe Lion the Lion of the tribe of Iuda is able to perform his promises but there are more then Christ out of this world that beare the Lion The devill is a Lion too that seeketh whom he may devoure but he never seales with that Lambe with any impression of humility to a Lambe he is never compared in the likenesse of a lambe he is never noted to have appeared in all the Legends It is the Lambe that is in the midst thereby disposed to shed and dispense his spirituall benefits on all sides The Lambe is not immured in Rome not coffined up in the ruines and tubbidge of old wals nor thrust into a corner in Conventicles The Lambe
Sacrament yet he is always present in it Yet this plot the devill had upon the Church And whereas this first Epistle of Saint Iohn was never doubted to be Canonicall whereas both the other have been called into some question yet in this first Epistle the first verse of this text was for a long time removed or expung'd whether by malice of Heretiques or negligence of transcribers The first Translation of the new testament which was into Syriaque hath not this verse That which was first called Vulgata editio had it not neither hath Luther it in his Germane translation very many of the Latine Fathers have it not and some very ancient Greeke Fathers want it though more ancient then they have it for Athanasius in the Councell of Nice cites it and makes use of it and Cyprian beheaded before that Councell hath it too But now he that is one of the witnesses himselfe the Holy Ghost hath assured the Church that this verse belongs to the Scripture and therefore it becomes us to consider thankfully and reverently this first ranke of witnesses the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost The Father then hath testified De integritate Christi of this intirenesse that Christ should be all this and doe all this which we have spoken of abundantly he begunne before Christ was borne in giving his name Thou shalt call his name Iesus for he shall save his people from sin Well how shall this person be capable to doe this office of saving his people from sinne Why in him say God the father in the representation of an Angell shall be fulfilled that prophecy A virgin shall beare a Sonne and they shall call his name Emanuel which is by interpretation God with us This seemes somewhat an incertaine testimony of a Man with an Alià s dictus with two names God says he shall be called Iesus that the prophecy may be fulfilled which says he shall be called Emanuel but therein consists Integritas Christi this intirenesse he could not be Jesus not a Saviour except he were Emanuel God with us God in our nature Here then is Jesus a Saviour a Saviour that is God and Man but where is the Testimony De Christo that he was anointed and prepared for this sacrifice that this worke of his was contracted between the Father and him and acceptable to him It is twice testified by the Father both in Christs act of humiliation when he would be Baptized by Iohn when he would accept an ablution who had no uncleannesse then God says This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased he was well pleased in his person and he was well pleased in his act in his office And he testifies it againe in his first act of glory in his transfiguration where the Father repeates the same words with an addition Heare him God is pleased in him and would have Men pleased in him too He testified first onely for Iosephs sak that had entertained and lodged some scrupulous suspition against his wife the Blessed Virgine His second testimony at the baptisme had a farther extent for that was for the confirmation of Iohn Baptist of the preacher himselfe who was to convey his doctrine to many others His third testimony in the transfiguration was larger then the Baptisme for that satisfied three and three such as were to carry it farre Peter and Iames and Iohn All which no doubt made the same use of his testimony as we see Peter did who preached out of the strength of his manifestation we followed not deceivable fables but with our owne eyes we saw his Majesty for he received of God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the Excellent glory This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased But yet the Father gave a more free a more liberall testimony of him then this at his Conception or Baptisme or Transfiguration when upon Christs prayer Father glorifie thy Name there came a voice from heaven I have both glorified it and will glorifie it againe For this all the people apprehended some imputed it to Thunder some to an Angel but all heard it and all heard Christs comment upon it That that voice came not for him but for their sakes so that when the Father had testified of a Iesus a Saviour and a Christ a Saviour sent to that purpose and a Sonne in whom he is pleased and whom we must heare when it is said of him moreover Gratificavit â—â—s in Dilectâ— he hath made us accepted in his beloved this is his way of comming in water and bloud that is in the sacraments of the Church by which we have assurance of being accepted by him and this is this Integritas Christi the intirenesse of Christ testified by our first witnesse that bears record in heaven The father The second witnesse in heaven is verâ—um The Word and that is a welcome message for it is Christ himselfe It is not so when the Lord sends a word The Lord sent a word unto Iacob and it lighted upon Israelâ— there the word is a judgement and an execution of the Judgement for that word that signifies 2 word there in the same letters exactly signifies a pestilence a Calamity It is a word and a blow but the word here is verbum cara that Word which for our sakes was made our selves The word then in this place is the second person in the Trinity Christ Iesus who in this Court of heaven where there is no corruption no falsification no passion but fair and just proceeding is admitted to be a witnesse in his owne cause It is Iesus that testifies for Iesus now when he was upon earth and said If I should beare witnesse of my selfe my witnesse were not true whether we take those words to be spoken per Coâ—nlventiam by an allowance and concession It is not true that is I am content that you should not beleeve my witnesse of my selfe to be true as Saint Cyrill understand them or whether we take them Humana mare that Christ as a man acknowledged truely and as he thought that inlegall proceeding a mans owne testimony ought not to be beleeved in his owne behalfe as Athanâ—â—ius and Saint Ambrose understand them yet Christ might safely say as he did Though I beare a record of my selfe yet my record is true why because I know whence I come and whither I goe Christ could not be Singularis â—â—stis a single witnesseâ— He was alwayes more then one witnesse because he had alwayes more then 〈◊〉 God and man and therefore Christ instructing Nicodemus speakes plurally we speake that 〈◊〉 know we testifie that we have seene and you receive not Testimoniâ—â— nâ—strum our witnesseâ— he does not say my witnesse but ours because although a singular yet he was a plurall person too His testimony then was credible but how did he testifie Integritatem this intirenesse
purpose Can I put an Euge upon his vae a vacat upon his Fiat a Nonobstante upon his Amen God is not man not a false man that he can lie nor a weake man that he can repent Where then is the restorative the consolatory nature of these words In this beloved consists our comfort that all Gods vae's and Amens all judgments and all his executions are Conditionall There is a Crede vives Beleeve and thou shalt live there is a Fac hoc vives doe this and thou shalt live If thou have done otherwise there is a Converte vives turne unto the Lord and thou shalt live If thou have done so and fallen off there is a Revertere vives returne againe unto the Lord and thou shalt live How heavy so ever any of Gods judgements be yet there is always roome for Davids question Quis scit who can tell whether God will be gracious unto mee What better assurance could one have then David had The Prophet Nathan had told David immediately from the mouth of God this child shall surely dye and ratified it by that reason because thou hast given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme this child shall surely dye yet David fasted and wept and said who can tell whether the Lord will be gratious unto me that the child may live There is always roome for Davids question Quis scit who can tell Nay there is no roome for it as it is a question of diffidence and distrust every man may and must know that whatsoever any Prophet have denounced against any sinne of his yet there are conditions upon which the Lord will be gracious and thy soule shall live But if the first condition that is Innocency and the second that is Repentance be rebelliously broken then every man hath his vae and every vae hath his Amen the judgements are denounced against him and upon him they shall bee executed for God threatens not to fright children but the Mountains melt and Powers and Thrones and Principalities tremble at his threatning And so have you the doubled signification of the first word vae as it is vox Dolentis and as it is Vox minantis God is loath but God will infallibly execute his judgement and we proceed to the extension of this vae over all vae mundo woe unto the world and the double signification of that word I have wondred sometimes that that great Author and Bishop in the Roman Church Abulensis is so free as to confesse that some Expositors amongst them have taken this word in our Text Mundo adjectivè not to signify the world but a clean person a free man that it should be vae immuni woe unto him that is free from offences that hath had no offences perchance they mean from crosses And so though it be a most absurd and illiterate and ungrammaticall construction of the place that they make yet there is a doctrine to bee raised from thence of good use As God brought light out of darknesse and raises glory out of sin so we may raise good Divinity out of their ill Grammar for vae mundo indeed vae immuni woe be unto him that hath had no crosses There cannot be so great a crosse as to have none I lack one loaf of that dayly bread that I pray for if I have no crosse for afflictions are our spirituall nourishment I lacke one limb of that body I must grow into which is the body of Christ Jesus if I have no crosses for my conformity to Christ and that 's my being made up into his body must be accomplished in my fulfilling his sufferings in his flesh So that though our adversaries out of their ignorance mislead us in a wrong sense of the place the Holy Ghost leads us into a true and right use thereof But there is another good use of their error too another good doctrine out of their ill Grammar Take the word mundo adjectivè for an adjective and vae mundo vae immuni wo unto him that is so free from all offences as to take offence at nothing to be indifferent to any thing to any Religion to any Discipline to any form of Gods service That from a glorious Masse to a sordid Conventiâ—le all 's one to him all one to him whether that religion in which they meet and light candles at Noon or that in which they meet and put out candles at midnight what innovations what alterations what tolerations of false what extirpations of true Religion soever come it shall never trouble never offend him 'T is true Vae mundo indeed wo unto him that is so free so unsensible so unaffected with any thing in this kinde for as to bee too inquisitive into the proceedings of the State and the Church out of a jealousie and suspicion that any such alterations or tolerations in Religion are intended or prepared is a seditious disaffection to the government and a disloyall aspersion upon the persons of our Superiours to suspect without cause so not to be sensible that the Catterpillars of the Roman Church doe eat up our tender fruit that the Jesuites and other enginiers of that Church doe seduce our forwardest and best spirits not to be watchfull in our own families that our wives and children and servants be not corrupted by them for the Pastor to sâ—acken in his duty not to be earnest in the Pulpit for the Magistrate to slacken in his not to be vigilant in the execution of those Laws as are left in his power vae mundo vae immuni woe unto him that is unsensible of offences Jealously suspiciously to mis-interpret the actions of our Superiours is inexcusable but so is it also not to feel how the adversary gains upon us and not to wish that it were and not to pray that it may be otherwise vae mundo vae immuni wo to him that is un-offended unsensible thus But as I have wondred that that Bishop would so easily confesse that some of their Expositors were so very unlearned so barbarously ignorant so enormously stupid as to take this vae mundo adjective so doe I wonder more that after such confessions and acknowledgements of such ignorances and stupidities amongst them they will not remedy it in the cause but still continue so rigid so severe in the maintenance of their own Translation their Vulgate Edition as in places and cases of doubt not to admit recourse to the Originall as to the Supreme Judge nor to other Translations for by either of those ways it would have appeared that this vae mundo could not be taken adjectivè but is a cloud cast upon the whole world a woe upon all no place no person no calling free from these scandals and offences from tentations and tribulations when there was a vae Sodom that God raigned fire and brimstone upon Sodom yet there was a Zoar where Let might be safe When there was a
the people what a temporall dominion in the possessions of the world had the Virgin Mary Queen of heaven and Queen of earth too She was made joint purchaser of the Church with her Sonne and had as much of the worship thereof as he though she paid her fine in milke and he in bloud And till a new Sect came in her Sonnes name and in his name the name of Jesus tooke the regency so farre out of that Queen Mothers hands and sued out her Sonnes Livery so farre as that though her name be used the Virgin Mary is but a feoffee in trust for them all was hers And if God oppose not these new usurpers of the world posterity will soon see Saint Ignatius worth all the Trinity in possessions and endowments as that sumptuous and splendid foundation of his first Temple at Rome may well create a conjecture and suspicion Travaile no farther Survay but this City And of their not one hundred Churches the Virgin Mary hath a dozen The Trinity hath but one Christ hath but one The holy Ghost hath none But not to goe into the City nor out of our selves which of us doth truly and considerately ascribe the comforts that he receives in dangers or in distresses to that God of all comfort the comforter the holy Ghost We know who procured us our Presentation and our dispensation you know who procured you your offices and your honours Shall I ever forget who gave me my comfort in sicknesse Who gave me my comfort in the troubles and perplexities and diffidencies of my conscience The holy Ghost brought you hither The holy Ghost opens your eares and your hearts here Till in all your distresses you can say Veni Creator Spiritus come holy Ghost and that you feel a comfort in his comming you can never say Veni Domine Iesu come Lord Jesus come to Judgement Never to consider the day of Judgement is a fearfull thing But to consider the day of Judgement without the comfort of the holy Ghost is a thousand times more fearfull This Seale then this impression this notion of the Trinity being set upon us in the first Creation in this first plurall word of our text Faciamus Let us for Father Sonne and holy Ghost made man and this seale being re-imprinted upon us in our second Creation our Regeneration in Baptisme Man is Baptized In the name of the Father of the Sonne and of the holy Ghost This notion of the Trinity being our distinctive Character from Iew and Gentile This being our specifique forme why does not this our forme this soule of our Religion denominate us why are we not called Trinitarians a name that would embrace the profession of all the Persons but onely Christians which limits and determines us upon one The first Christians amongst whose manifold Persecutions scorne and contempt was not the least in contempt and scorne were called Nazarai Nazarites in the mouth of the Vulgar and Galilâ—i Galilaeans in the mouth of Iulian and Iudaei Iews in the mouth of Nero when he imputed the burning of Rome his owne act to them and Christiani as Tertullian says that they could accuse Christians of nothing but the name of Christians and yet they could not call them by their right name but Chrestians which was gentle quiet easie patient men made to be troden upon They gave them divers names in scorne yet never called them Trinitarians Christians themselves amongst themselves were called by divers names in the Primitive Church for distinction Fideles the faithfull and Fratres the Brethren and Discipuli Disciples And after by common custome at Antioch Christians And after that they say by a councell which the Apostles held at the same city at Antioch there passed an expresse Canon of the Church that they should be called so Christians And before they had this name at Antioch first by common usage after by a determinate Canon to be called Christians from Christ at Alexandria they were called most likely from the name of Jesus Iesseans And so Philo Iudaeus in that book which he writes De Iessenis intends by his Iessenis Christians and in divers parts of the world into which Christians travell now they find some elements some fragments some reliques of the Christian Religion in the practice of some religious Men whom those Countreys call Iesseans doubtlesly derived and continued from the name of Jesus So that the Christians took many names to themselves for distinction Brethren Disciples faithfull And they had many names put upon them in scorne Nazarites Galilaeans Iews Chrestians and yet they were never never by Custome amongst themselves never by commandement from the Church never in contempt from others called Trinitarians the profession of the Trinity being their specifique forme and distinctive Character why so Beloved the name of Christ involv'd all not onely because it is a name that hath a dignity in it more then the rest for Christ is an anointed person a King a Messiah and so the profession of that Name conferrs an Unction a regall and a holy Unction upon us for we are thereby a royall Priesthood but because in the profession of Christ the whole Trinity is professed How often doth the Sonne say that the Father sent him And how often that the Father will and that he will send the Holy Ghost This is life eternall says he to know thee the onely true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent And sent with all power in heaven and in earth This must be professed Father and Sonne And then no man can professe this no man can call Jesus the Lord but by the holy Ghost So that as in the persecutions in the primitive Church the Martyrs which were hurried to tumultuary executions and could not be heard for noise in excusing themselves of Treason and sedition and crimes imputed to them to make their cause odious did use in the sight of the people who might see a gesture though they could not heare a protestation to signe themselves with the signe of the Crosse to let them know for what profession they died so that the signe of the Crosse in that use thereof in that time was an abridgement and a Catechisme of the whole Christian Religion so is the professing of the name of Christ the professing of the whole Trinity As he that confesses one God is got beyond the meer naturall man And he that confesses a Sonne of God beyond him So is neither got to the full truth till he confesse the holy Ghost too The foole sayes in his heart there is no God The foole says David The emphaticall foole in the highest degree of folly But though he get beyond that folly he is a foole still if he say there is no Christ For Christ is the wisdome of the Father And a foole still if he deny the holy Ghost for who shall apply Christ to him but the holy Ghost Etiam Christiani Nomen superficies est
shall feare the Lord and his goodnesse in the later dayes And beyond this land there is no more Sea beyond this mercy no more Judgement for with this mercy the Chapter ends Consider our text then as a whole Globe as an intire Spheare and then our two Hemispheares of this Globe our two parts of this text will bee First that no perversnesse of ours no rebellion no disobedience puts God beyond his mercy nor extinguishes his love still hee calls Israel rebellious Israel his Children nay his owne anger his owne Judgements then when hee is in the exercise thereof in the execution thereof puts him not beyond his mercy extinguishes not his love hee hides not his face from them then hee leaves them not then in the darke hee accompanies their calamity with a light hee makes that time though cloudy though overcast yet a day unto them the Children of Israel shall abide many days in this case But then as no disobedience removes God from himself for he is love and mercy so no interest of ours in God doth so priviledge us but that hee will execute his Judgements upon his Children too even the Children of Israel shall fall into these Calamities And from this first part wee shall passe to the second from these generall considerations That no punishments should make us desperate that no favours should make us secure we shall passe to the particular commination and judgements upon the children of Israel in this text without King without Prince c. In our first part we stop first upon this declaration of his mercy in this fatherly appellation Children the children of Israel He does not call them children of Israel as though hee disavowed them and put them off to another Father but therefore because they are the Children of Israel they are his Children for hee had maried Israel and maried her to himselfe for ever Many of us are Fathers and from God here may learne tendernesse towards children All of us are children of some parents and therefore should hearken after the name of Father which is nomen pietatis potestatis a name that argues their power over us and our piety towards them and so concernes many of us in a double capacity as we are children and parents too but all of us in one capacity as we are children derived from other parents God is the Father of man otherwise then he is of other creatures He is the Father of all Creatures so Philo calls all Creatures sorâ—res suas his sisters but then all those sisters of man all those daughters of God are not alike maried God hath placed his Creatures in divers rankes and in divers conditions neither must any man thinke that he hath not done the duty of a Father if he have not placed all his Sonnes or not matched all his daughters in a condition equall to himselfe or not equall to one another God hath placed creatures in the heavens and creatures in the earth and creatures in the sea and yet all these creatures are his children and when he looked upon them all in their divers stations he saw omnia valde bora that all was very well And that Father that imploies one Sonne in learning another to husbandry another to Merchandise pursues Gods example in disposing his children his creatures diversly and all well Such creatures as the Raine though it may seem but an imperfect and ignoble creature fallen from the wombe of a cloud have God for their Father God is the Father of the Raine And such creatures as light have but God for their Father God is Pater lâ—minum the Father of lights Whether we take lights there to be the Angels created with the light some take it so or to be the severall lights set up in the heavens Sun and Moon and Stars some take it so or to be the light of Grace in infusion by the Spirit or the light of the Church in manifestation by the word for all these acceptations have convenient Authors and worthy to be followed God is the Father of lights of all lights but so he is of raine and clouds too And God is the Father of glory as Saint Paul styles him of all glory whether of those beames of glory which he sheds upon us here in the blessings and preferments of this life or that waight of glory which he reserves for us in the life to come From that inglorious drop of raine that falls into the dust and rises no more to those glorious Saints who shall rise from the dust and fall no more but as they arise at once to the fulnesse of Essentiall joy so arise daily in accidentiall joyes all are the children of God and all alike of kin to us And therefore let us not measure our avowing or our countenancing of our kindred by their measure of honour or place or riches in the world but let us looke how fast they grow in the root that is in the same worship of the same God who is ours and their Father too He is nearest of kin to me that is of the same religion with me as they are creatures they are of kin to me by the Father but as they are of the same Church and religion by Father and mother too Philo calls all creatures his sisters but all men are his brothers God is the Father of man in a stronger and more peculiar and more masculine sense then of other Creatures Filius particeps con-dominus cum patre as the law calls the Sonne the partner of the Father and fellow-Lord joint-Lord with the Father of all the possession that is to descend so God hath made man his partner and fellow-Lord of all his other creatures in Moses his Dominamini when he gives man a power to rule over them and in Davids Omnia subjecisti when he imprints there a naturall disposition in the creature to the obedience of man So high so very high a filiation hath God given man as that having another Sonne by another filiation a higher filiation then this by an eternall generation yet he was content that that Sonne should become this Sonne that the Sonne of God should become the Sonne of Man God is the Father of all of man otherwise then of all the rest but then of the children of Israel otherwise then of all other men For he bought them and is not be thy Father that hath bought thee says God by Moses Not to speake of that purchase which he made by the death of his Sonne for that belongs to all the world he bought the Jews in particular at such a price such silver and such gold such temporall and such spirituall benefits such a Land and such a Church such a Law and such a Religion as certainly he might have had all the world at that price If God would have manifested himselfe poured out himselfe to the Nations as hee did to
the Sacrament and that hath this effect ut sensum minuat in minimis toliat consensum in magnis peccatis That grace that God gives in the Sacrament makes us lesse sensible of small tentations they move us not and it makes us resist and not yeild to the greatest tentations since I am in this state Quomodo inquinubo How shall I defile them The difference will be of whom thou askest this question If thou aske the world the world will tell thee well enough Quomodo How It will tell thee that it is a Melancholy thing to sit thinking upon thy sinnes That it is an unsociable thing to seeke him who cannot be seen an invisible God That it is poore company to passe thy time with a Priest Thou maiest defile thy selfe againe by forgetting thy sinnes and so doing them over againe And thou maist defile thy selfe againe by remembring thy sins and so sinne over thy sinnes againe in a sinfull delight of thy passed sinnes and a desire that thou couldst commit them againe There are answers enough to this Quomodo How how should I defile them if thou aske the world but aske thy Saviour and he shall tell thee That whosoever hath this water shall never thirst more but that water shall be in him an everlasting spring that is he shall find meanes to keep himselfe in that cleannesse to which he is come and neither things present nor things to come shall separate him from the love of God Thus the voice of this religious indignation Quomodo is how is it possible but it is also Quomodo how that is why should I The first is how should I be so base the other how should I be so bold Though I have my pardon written in the bloud of my Saviour sealed to me in his Sacrament brought home to me in the testimony of the holy Ghost pleaded for me at the tribunall of the Father yet as Princes pardons have so Gods pardons have too this clause It a quod se bene gerat He that is pardoned must continue of good behaviour for whensoever he breakes the peace he forfeits his pardon When I returne to my repented sinnes againe I am under the burden of all my former sinnes and my very repentance contracts the nature of a sinne and therefore Quomodo how should I that is why should I defile them To restore you to your liberty and to send you away with the meditation which concernes you most consider what an astonishment this would be that when Christ Jesus shall lay open the great volumes of all your sinnes to your sight who had forgot them and to their sight from whom you had disguised them at the last judgement when you shall heare all the wantonnesses of your youth all the Ambitions of your middle years all the covetous desires of your age published in that presence and thinke then this is the worst that can be said or laid to my charge this is the last indictment and the last evidence there shall follow your very repentances in the list of your sinnes and it shall be told you and all the world then Here and here you deluded that God that forbore to inflict his Judgements upon new vowes new contracts new promises between you and him even your repentances shall bind up that booke and tye your old sinnes and new relapses into one body And let this meditation bring you ad vocem gratulantis to rejoyce once againe in this Lavi pedes that you have now washed your feet in a present sorrow and ad vocem indignantis to a stronger indignation and faster resolution then heretofore you have had never to defile them againe SERMON IX Preached at a Churching MICAH 2. 10. Arise and depart for this is not your Rest. ALL that God asks of us is that we love him with all our heart All that he promises us is that he will give us rest round about us Judah sought the Lord with a whole desire and he gave her rest round about her Now a Man might think himselfe well disposed for Rest when he lies down I will lay me down and sleep in peace sayes David but it is otherwise here Arise and depart for here that is in lying and sleeping is not your Rest sayes this Prophet These words have a three-fold acceptation and admit a three-fold exposition for first they are a Commination the Prophet threatens the Jewes Secondly they are a Commonition the Prophet instructs all future ages Thirdly they areâ—a Consolation which hath reference to the Consummation of all to the rising at the generall Judgement First he foretels the Jewes of their imminent captivity Howsoever you build upon the pactum salis the Covenant of salt the everlasting Covenant that God will be your God and this land your land yet since that confidence sears you up in your sins Arise and depart for this is not your rest your Ierusalem must be chang'd into Babylon there 's the Commination Secondly he warns us who are bedded and bedrid in our sins howsoever you say to your selves Soule take thy rest enjoy the honors the pleasures the abundances of this world Tush the Lord sees it not The Master will not come we may ly still safely and rest in the fruition of this Happinesse yet this Rest will betray you this rest will deliver you over to eternall disquiet And therefore arise and depart for this is not your Rest and that 's the Commonition And in the third acceptation of the words as they may have relation to the Resurrection they may well admit a little inversion Howsoever you feel a Resurrection by grace from the works of death and darknesse in this life yet in this life there is no assurednesse that he that is risen and thinks he stands shall not fall here you arise and depart that is rise from your sins and depart from your sinfull purposes but you arise and depart so too that you fall and depart again into your sinfull purposes after you have risen and therefore Depart and arise for here is not your rest till you depart altogether out of this world and rise to Judgement you can have no such rest as can admit no disquiet no perturbation but then you shall and that 's the Consolation First then as the words concern the Iewes Here is first an increpation a rebuke that they are fallen from their station and their dignity implied in the first word Arise for then they were fallen Secondly here is a demonstration in the same word That though they lik'd that state into which they were fallen which was a security and stubbornnesse in their sins yet they should not enjoy even that security and that stubbornnesse that fall of theirs but they should lose that though it were but a false contentment yet they should be rouâ—'d out of that Arise first arise because you are fallen and then arise though you think your selves at easeâ— by that fall And
acclamation which he received from his Royall servant Salomon at the Consecration of his great Temple when he said Is it true indeed that God will dwell on the earth Behold the heavens and the heaven of heavens are not able to contain thee how much more unable shall this house bee that we intend to build But have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant and to his supplication O Lord my God to hear the cry the prayer that thy servant shall make before thee that day That thine eye may bee open towards that house night and day that thou mayst heare the supplications of thy servants and of thy people which shall pray in that place and that thou mayst hear them in the place of thy habitation even in heaven and when thou hearest mayst have mercy Amen SERMON XII Preached at Lincolns Inne JOHN 5. 22. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Sonne When our Saviour forbids us to cast pearl before swine we understand ordinarily in that place that by pearl are understood the Scriptures and when we consider the naturall generation and production of Pearl that they grow bigger and bigger by a continuall succession and devolution of dew and other glutinous moysture that fals upon them and there condenses and hardens so that a pearl is but a body of many shels many crusts many films many coats enwrapped upon one another To this Scripture which we have in hand doth that Metaphor of pearl very properly appertain because our Saviour Christ in this Chapter undertaking to prove his own Divinity and God-head to the Jews who acknowledged and confessed the Father to be God but denyed it of him he folds and wraps up reason upon reason argument upon argument that all things are common between the Father and him That whatsoever the Father does he does whatsoever the Father is he is for first he says he is a partner a cooperator with the Father in the present administration and government of the world My Father worketh hitherto and I work well if the Father do ease himself upon instruments now yet was it so from the beginning had he a part in the Creation Yes What things soever the Father doth those also doth the Son likewise But doe those extend to the work properly and naturally belonging to God to the remission to the effusion of grace to the spirituall resurrection of them that are dead in their iniquities Yes even to that too For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickneth them even to the Son quickneth whom he will But hath not this power of his a determination or expiration shall it not end at least when the world ends no not then for God hath given him authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of man Is there then no Supersedeas upon this commission Is the Sonne equall with the Father in our eternall election in our creation in the meanes of our salvation in the last judgement in all In all Omne judicium God hath committed all judgement to the Son And here is a pearl made up the dew of Gods grace sprinkled upon your souls the beams of Gods Spirit shed upon your soules that effectuall and working knowledge That he who dyed for your salvation is perfect God as well as perfect man fit as willing to accomplish that salvation In handling then this Iudgement which is a word that embraces and comprehends all All from our Election where no merit or future actions of ours were considered by God to our fruition and possession of that election where all our actions shall be considered and recompensed by him we shall see first that Judgment belongs properly to God And secondly that God the Father whom we consider to be the root and foundation of the Deity can no more devest his Judgment then he can his Godhead and therefore in the third place we consider what that committing of Judgment which is mentioned here imports and then to whom it is committed To the Sonne and lastly the largnesse of that which is committed Omne all Judgment so that we cannot carry our thoughts so high or so farre backwards as to think of any Judgment given upon us in Gods purpose or decree without relation to Christ Nor so far forward as to think that there shall be a Judgment given upon us according to our good morall dispositions or actions but according to our apprehension and imitation of Christ. Judgment is a proper and inseparable Character of God that 's first the Father cannot devest himself of that that 's next The third is that he hath committed it to another And then the person that is his delegate is his onely Sonne and lastly his power is everlasting And that Judgment day that belongs to him hath and shall last from our first Election through the participation of the meanes prepared by him in his Church to our association and union with him in glory and so the whole circle of time and before time was and when time shall be no more makes up but one Judgment day to him to whom the Father who judgeth no man hath committed all Judgment First then Judgment appertaines to God It is his in Criminall causes â— Vindicta mihi Vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord It is so in civill things too for God himself is proprietary of all Domini est terra et plenitudo ejus The earth is the Lords and all that is in and on the earth Your silver is mine and your gold is mine says the Prophet and the beasts on a Thousand hills are mine says David you are usuâ—â—ructuaries of them but I am proprietary No attribute of God is so often iterated in the Scriptures no state of God so often incultated as this Judge and Judgment no word concerning God so often repeated but it is brought to the height where in that place of the Psalm where we read God judgeth among the Gods the Latine Church ever read it Deus dijudicat Deâ—s God judgeth the Gods themselves for though God say of Judges and Magistrats Ego dixi dii estis I have said ye are Gods and if God say it who shall gainsay it yet he says too Moriemini sicut homines The greatest Gods upon earth shall die like men And if that be not humiliation enough there is more threatned in that which follows yee shall fall like one of the Princes for the fall of a Prince involves the ruine of many others too and it fills the world with horror for the present and ominous discourse for the future but the farthest of all is Deus dijudicat Deos even these Judges must come to Judgment and therefore that Psalme which begins so is concluded thus Surge Domine arise ô God and judge the earth If he have power to judge the earth he is God and even in God himselfe it is expressed as a kind
of rising as some exaltation of his power that he is to Judge And that place in the beginning of that Psalme many of the antients read in the future Dijudicabit God shall judge the Gods because the frame of the Psalme seems to referre it to the last Judgment Turtullian reads it Dijudicavit as a thing past God hath judged in all times and the letter of the text requires it to be in the present Dijudicat Collect all and Judgment is so essentiall to God as that it is coeternall with him he hath he doth and he will judge the world and the Judges of the world other Judges die likemen weakely and they fall that 's worse ignominiously and they fall like Princes that 's worst fearfully and yet scornfully and when they are dead and faln they rise no more to execute Judgment but have Judgment executed upon them the Lord dyes not nor he falls not and if he seem to slumber the Martyrs under the Altar awake him with their Vsque quo Domine how long O Lord before thou execute Iudgment And he will arise and Judge the world for Judgment is his God putteth downe one and setteth up another says David where hath he that power Why God is the Judge not a Judge but the Judge and in that right he putteth downe one and setteth up another Now for this Judgment which we place in God we must consider in God three notions three apprehensions three kinds of Judgment First God hath Iudicium detestationis God doth naturally know and therefore naturally detest evill for no man in the extreamest corruption of nature is yet fallen so far as to love or approve evill at the same time that he knows and acknowledges it to be evill But we are so blind in the knowledge of evill that we needed that great supplement and assistance of the law it self to make us know what was evill Moses magnifies and justly the law Non appropinquâ—vit says Moses God came not so neare to any nation as to the Iews Non taliter fecit God dealt not so well with any nation as with the Iews and wherein because he had given them a law and yet we see the greatest dignity of this law to be That by the law is the knowledge of sinne for though by the law of nature written in our hearts there be some condemnation of some sinnes yet to know that every sinne was Treason against God to know that every sinne hath the reward of death and eternall death annexed to it this knowledge we have onely by the law Now if man will pretend to be a Judge what an exact knowledge of the law is required at his hand for some things are sinne to one nation which are not to another as where the just authority of the lawfull Magistrate changes the nature of the thing and makes a thing naturally indifferent necessary to them who are under his obedience some things are sinnes at one time which are not at another as all the ceremoniall law created new sinnes which were not sinnes before the law was given nor since it expir'd some things are sinnes in a man now which will not be sinnes in the same man to morrow as when a man hath contracted a just scruple against any particular action it is a sinne to doe it during the scruple and it may be sinne in him to omit it when he hath devested the scruple onely God hath Iudicium detestationis he knows and therefore detests evill and therefore flatter not thy self with a Tush God sees it not or Tush God cares not Doth it disquiet him or trouble his rest in heaven that I breake his Sabbath here Doth it wound his body or draw his bloud there that I swear by his body and bloud here Doth it corrupt any of his virgins there that I sollicit the chastity of a woman here Are his Martyrs withdrawn from their Allegeance or retarded in their service to him there because I dare not defend his cause nor speake for him nor fight for him here Beloved it is a degree of superstition and an effect of an undiscreet zeale perchance to be too forward in making indifferent things necessary and so to imprint the nature and sting of sin where naturally it is not so certainly it a more slippery and irreligious thing to be too apt to call things meerely indifferent and to forget that even in eating and drinking waking and sleeping the glory of God is intermingled as if we knew exactly the prescience and foreknowledge of God there could be nothing contingent or casuall for though there be a contingency in the nature of the thing yet it is certain to God so if we considered duly wherein the glory of God might be promov'd in every action of ours there could scarce by any action so indifferent but that the glory of God would turne the scale and make it necessary to me at that time but then private interests and private respects create a new indifferency to my apprehension and calls me to consider that thing as it is in nature and not as it is considered with that circumstance of the glory of God and so I lose that Iudicium detestationis which onely God hath absolutely and perfectly to know and therefore to detest evill and so he is a Judge And as he is a Judge so Iudicat rem he judges the nature of the thing he is so too as he hath Iudicium discretionis and so Iudicat personam he knows what is evill and he discernes when thou committest that evill Here you are fain to supply defects of laws that things done in one County may be tryed in another And that in offences of high nature transmarine offences may be inquir'd and tryed here But as the Prophet says Who measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or meted 〈◊〉 the heavens with a span who comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure or weighed the mountains in a scale So I say who hath divided heaven into shires or parishes or limited the territories and Jurisdictions there that God should not have Iudicium discretionis the power of discerning all actions in all places When there was no more to be seen or considered upon the whole earth but the garden of Paradise for from the beginning Deliciae ejus esse cum filiis hominum Gods delight was to be with the sons of men and man was only there shal we not deminish God nor speak too vulgarly of him to say that he hovered like a Falcon over Paradise and that from that height of heaven the piercing eye of God saw so little a thing as the forbidden fruit and what became of that and the reaching â—are of God heard the hissing of the Serpent and the whispering of the woman and what was concluded upon that Shall we think it little to have seen to have things done in Paradise when there was nothing else to divert
not harbouring for not visiting The sum of all is that this is the overflowing goodnesse of God that he deales with man by the sonne of man and that hee hath so given all judgement to the Sonne as that if you would be tryed by the first judgement are you elected or no The issue is doe you believe in Christ Jesus or no If you would be tryed by the second judgement are you justified or no The issue is doe you find comfort in the application of the Word and Sacraments of Christ Jesus or no If you would be tryed by the third Judgement do you expect a Glorification or no The issue is Are you so reconcil'd to Christ Jesus now by hearty repentance for sinnes past and by detestation of occasion of future sin that you durst welcome that Angel which should come at this time and sweare that time should be no more that your transmigration out of this world should be this minute and that this minute you might say unfeignedly and effectually Veni Domine Iesu come quickly come now if this be your state then are you partakers of all that blessednesse which the Father intended to you when for your sake he committed all Judgment to the Son SERMON XIII Preached at Lincolns Inne JOHN 8. 15. I judge no man THe Rivers of Paradise did not all run one way and yet they flow'd from one head the sentences of the Scripture flow all from one head from the holy Ghost and yet they seem to present divers senses and to admit divers interpretations In such an appearance doth this Text differ from that which I handled in the forenoon and as heretofore I found it a usefull and acceptable labour to employ our Evening exercises upon the vindicating of some such places of Scripture as our adversaries of the Roman Church had detorted in some point of controversie between them and us and restoring those places to their true sense which course I held constantly for one whole year so I think it a usefull and acceptable labour now to employ for a time those Evening exercises to reconcile some such places of Scripture as may at first sight seem to differ from one another In the morning we saw how Christ judged all now we are to see how he judges none I judge no man To come then to these present words here we have the same person Christ Jesus and hath not he the same Office Is not he Judge certainly though he retain'd all his other Offices though he be the Redeemer and have shed his blood in value satisfactory for all our sins though he be our Advocate and plead for us in heaven and present our evidence to that Kingdome written in his blood seal'd in his wounds yet if hee bee not our Judge wee cannot stand in judgement shall hee bee our Judge and is hee not our Judge yet Long before wee were hee was our Judge at the separation of the Elect and Reprobate in Gods eternall Decree Was he our Judge then and is hee not so still still he is present in his Church and cleares us in all scruples rectifies us in all errors erects us in all dejections of spirit pronounces peace and reconciliation in all apprehensions of his Judgements by his Word and by his Sacraments was hee and is he and shall he not be our Judge still I am sure my Redeemer liveth and he shall stand the last on earth So that Christ Jesus is the same to day and yesterday and for ever before the world begun and world without end Sicut erat in principio as he was in the beginning he is and shall be ever our Judge So that then these words are not De tempâ—re but De modo there was never any time when Christ was not Judge but there were some manner of Judgements which Christ did never exercise and Christ had no commission which he did not execute for hee did all his Fathers will 1. In secularibus in civill or criminall businesses which belong meerly to the Judicatures and cognisance of this world Iudicat neminem Christ judges no man 2. Secundum carnem so as they to whom Christ spake this who judged as himself says here according to fleshly affections Iudicat neminem he judges no man and 3. Ad internecionem so as that upon that Judgement a man should despair of any reconciliation any redintegration with God again and be without hope of pardon and remission of sins in this world Iudicat neminem he judges no man 1. Christ usurps upon no mans Jurisdiction that were against justice 2. Christ imputes no false things to any man that were against charity 3. Christ induces no man to desperation that were against faith and against Justice against charity against faith Iudicat neminem First then Christ judgeth not in secular judgements and we note his abstinence therein first in civill matters when one of the company said to him Master bid my brother divide the inheritance with me as Saint Augustine says the Plaintiffe thought his cause to be just and hee thought Christ to bee a competent Judge in the cause and yet Christ declines the judgement disavows the authority and he answers Homo quis me constituit Iudicem Man who made me a Judge between you To that Generall which we had in the morning Omne judicium the Son hath all judgement here is an exception of the same Judges own making for in secular judgements Nemo constituit he had no commission and therefore Iudicat neminem he judges no man he forbore in criminall matters too for when the woman taken in adultery was brought before him he condemned her not It is true he absolv'd her not the evidence was pregnant against her but he condemned her not he undertook no office of a Judge but of a sweet and spirituall Counsellor Go and sinne no more for this was his Element his Tribunall When then Christ says of himself with such a pregnant negative Quis me constituit Iudicem may not we say so too to his pretended Vicar the Bishop of Rome Quiâ—te Who made you Judge of Kings that you should depose them in criminall causes Or who made you proprietary of Kingdomes that you should dispose of them as of civill inheritances when to countenance such a pretence they detort places of Scripture not onely perversly but senselesly blasphemously ridiculously as ridicolously as in their pasquils wheÌ„ in an undiscreet shamlesnes to make their power greater then it is they make their fault greater then it is too fil their histories with examples of Kings deposed by Popes which in truth were not depos'd by them for in that they are more innocent then they will confesse themselves to be when some of their Authors say that the Primitive Church abstain'd from deposing Emperors onely because she was not strong enough to do it when some of them say That all Christian Kingdomes of the earth may fall into
against the holy Ghost for this is the nearest step thou hast made to it to think that thou hast done it walke in that large field of the Scriptures of God and from the first flower at thy entrance the flower of Paradise Semen mulieris the generall promise of the seed of the woman should bruise the Serpents head to the last word of that Messias upon the Crosse Consummatum est that all that was promised for us is now performed and from the first to the last thou shalt find the savour of life unto life in all those flowers walke over the same alley againe and consider the first man Adam in the beginning who involv'd thee in originall sinne and the thiefe upon the Crosse who had continued in actuall sinnes all his life and sealed all with the sinne of reviling Christ himselfe a little before his expiration and yet he recovered Paradise and Paradise that day and see if thou canst make any shift to exclude thy selfe receive the fragrancy of all these Cordialls Vivit Dominâ—â— as the Lord liveth I would not the death of a sinner Quandocunque At what time soever a sinner repenteth and of this text Neminem judieat Christ judgeth no man to destruction here and if thou find after all these Antidotes a suspitious ayre a suspicious working in that Impossibiâ—e est that it is impossible for them who were once inlightened if they fall away to renew them againe by repentance sprinkle upon that worme wood of Impossibile est that Manna of Quorum remiseritis whose sinnes yee remit are remitted and then it will have another tast to thee and thon wilt see that that impossibility lies upon them onely who are utterly fallen away into an absolute Apostasie and infidelity that make a mocke of Christ and crucifie him againe as it is expressed there who undervalue and despise the Church of God those means which Christ Jesus hath instituted in his Church for renewing such as are fallen To such it is impossible because there are no other ordinary meanes possible but that 's not thy case thy case is onely a doubt that those meanes that are shaâ—â— not be applied to thee and even that is a slippery state to doubt of the mercy of God to thee in particular this goes so neare making thy sinne greater then Gods mercy as that it makes thy sinne greater then daily adulteries daily murthers daily blasphemies daily prophanings of the Sabbath could have done and though thou canst never make that true in this life that thy sinnes are greater then God can forgive yet this is a way to make them greater then God will forgive Now to collect both our Exercises and to connexe both Texts Christ judgeth all men and Christ judgeth no man he claimes all judgment and he disavows all judgement and they consist well together he was at our creation but that was not his first sense the Arians who say Erat quando non erat there was a time when Christ was not intimating that he had a beginning and therefore was a creature yet they will allow that he was created before the generall creation and so assisted at ours but he was infinite generations before that in the bosome of his Father at our election and there in him was executed the first judgment of separating those who were his the elect from the reprobate and then he knows who are his by that first Judgment And so comes to his second Judgment to seale all those in the visible Church with the outward mark of his baptisme and the inward marke of his Spirit and those whom he calls so he justifies and sanctifies and brings them to his third Judgment to an established and perpetuall glory And so all Judgment is his But then to judge out of humane affections and passions by detraction and calumny as they did to whom he spoke at this time so he judges no man so he denies judgment To usurpe upon the jurisdiction of others or to exercise any other judgment then was his commission as his pretended Vicar doth so he judges no man so he disavows all judgment To judge so as that our condemnation should be irremediable in this life so he judges no man so he forswears all judgment As I live saith the Lord of hosts and as I have died saith the Lord Jesus so I judge none Acknowledge his first Judgment thy election in him Christ his second Judgment thy justification by him breath and pant after his third Judgement thy Crown of glory for him intrude not upon the right of other men which is the first defame not calumniate not other men which is the second lay not the name of reprobate in this life upon any man which is the third Judgement that Christ disavows here and then thou shalt have well understood and well practised both these texts The Father hath committed all Iudgment to the Sonne and yet The Sonne judges no man SERMON XIIII Preached at Lincolns Inne JOB 19. 26. And though after my skin wormes destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God AMongst those Articles in which our Church hath explain'd and declar'd her faith this is the eight Article that the three Creeds that of the councell of Nice that of Athanasius and that which is commonly known by the name of the Apostles Creed ought throughly to be received and embrac'd The meaning of the Church is not that onely that should be beleev'd in which those three Creeds agree for the Nicen Creed mentions no Article after that of the holy Ghost not the Catholique Church not the Communion of Saints not the Resurrection of the flesh Athanasius his Creed does mention the Resurrection but not the Catholique Church nor the communion of Saints but that all should be beleev'd which is in any of them all which is summ'd up in the Apostles Creed Now the reason expressed in that Article of our Church why all this is to be beleeved is Because all this may be prov'd by most certaine warrants of holy Scriptures The Article does not insist upon particular places of Scripture not so much as point to them But they who have enlarged the Articles by way of explanation have done that And when they come to cite those places of Scripture which prove the Article of the Resurrection I observe that amongst those places they forbeare this text so that it may seem that in their opinion this Scripture doth not concerne the Resurrection It will not therefore be impertinent to make it a first part of this exercise whether this Scripture be to be understood of the Resurrection or no And then to make the particular handling of the words a second part In the first we shall see that the Iews always had and have still a persuasion of the Resurrection We shall look after by what light they saw that whether by the light of naturall reason And if not by that by what light given in other places
one person in him My flesh shall no more be none of mine then Christ shall not be man as well as God SERMON XV. Preached at Lincolns Inne 1 COR. 15. 50. Now this I say Brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God SAint Gregory hath delivered this story That Eutychius who was Bishop of Constantinople having written a book of the Resurrection and therein maintained that errour That the body of Christ had not that our bodies in the Resurrection should not have any of the qualities of a naturall body but that those bodies were in subtilitatem redacta so rarifyed so refined so attenâ—ated and reduced to a thinnesse and subtlenesse that they were aery bodies and not bodies of flesh and blood This error made a great noise and raised a great dust till the Emperour to avoid scandall which for the most part arises out of publick conferences was pleased to hear Eutychius and Gregory dispute this point privately before himself and a small company And that upon conference the Emperour was so well satisfyed that hee commanded Eutychius his books to bee burnt That after this both Gregory and Eutychius fell sicke but Eutychius dyed and dyed with this protestation In hâc carne in this flesh taking up the flesh of his hand in the presence of them that were there in this flesh I acknowledge that I and all men shall arise at the day of Judgement Now the principall place of Scripture which in his book and in that conference Eutychius stood upon was this Text these words of Saint Paul This I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God And the directest answer that Gregory gave to it was Caro secundum culpam non regnabit sed Caro secundum naturam sinfull flesh shall not but naturall flesh that is flesh indued with all qualities of flesh all such qualities as imply no defect no corruption for there was flesh before there was sin such flesh and such blood shall inherit the Kingdome of God As there have been more Heresies about the Humanity of Christ then about his Divinity so there have been more heresies about the Resurrection of his body and consequently of ours then about any other particular article that concerns his Humiliation or Exaltation Simon Magus strook deepest at first to the root That there was no Resurrection at all The Gnosticks who took their name from knowledge as though they knew all and no body else any thing which is a pride transferr'd through all Heretickes for as that sect in the Roman Church which call themselves Ignorantes and seem to pretend to no knowledge doe yet believe that they know a better way to heaven then all other men doe so that sect amongst them which called themselves Nullanos Nothings thought themselves greater in the Kingdome of God then either of the other two sects of diminution the Minorits or the Minims did These Gnosticks acknowledged a Resurrection but they said it was of the soul onely and not of the body for they thought that the soul lay dead at least in a dead sleep till the Resurrection Those Heretickes that are called the Arabians did as the Gnosticks did affirm a temporary death of the soul as well as of the body but then they allowed a Resurrection to both soul and body after that death which the Gnostickes did not but to the soul onely Hymeneus and Philetus of whom Saint Paul speakes they restrained the Resurrection to the soule but then they restrained this Resurrection of the soule to this life and that in those who were baptized the Resurrection was accomplished already Eutychius whom wee mentioned before enlarged the Resurrection to the body as well as to the soul but enlarged the qualities of the body so far as that it was scarce a body The Armenian hereticks said that it was not onely Corpus humâ—num but Corpus masculinum That all should rise in the perfecter sex and none as women Origen allowed a Resurrection and allowed the Body to be a naturall body but the contracted the time he said that when we rose we should enjoy the benefits of the resurrection even in bodily pleasures for a thousand years and then be annihilated or absorpted and swallowed up into the nature and essence of God himselfe for it will be hard to state Origens opinion in this point Origen was not herein well understood in his owne time not doe we understand him now for the most part but by his accusers and those that have written against him Divers of these Heretiques for the maintenance of their severall heresies perverted this Scripture Flesh and bloud cannot inherit the kingdome of God and that occasioned those Fathers who opposed those heresies so diverse from one another to interpret these words diversly according to the heresie they opposed All agree that they are an argument for the resurrection though they seem at first to oppose it For this Chapter hath three generall parts first Resurrectionem esse that there shall be a Resurrection which the Apostle proves by many and various arguments to the thirty fifth verse And then Quati corpore the body shall rise but some will say How are the dead raised and with what body doe they come in that thirty fifth verse And lastly Quid de superstitibus what shall become of them who shall be found alive at the day We shall all be changed verse fifty one Now this text is the knot and corollary or all the second part concerning the qualities of the bodies in the resurrection Now says the Apostle now that I have said enough to prove that a resurrection there is now now that I have said enough what kind of bodies shall arise now I show you as much in the Negative as I have done in the Affirmative now I teach you what to avoid as well as I have done what to affect now this I say brethren that flesh and bloud cannot inherit the kingdome of God Now though those words be primarily principally intended of the last Resurrection yet in a secondary respect they are appliable in themselves and very often applied by the ancients to the first Resurrection our resurrection in this life Tertullian hath intimated and presented both together elegantly when he says of God Nobis arrhabonem spiritus reliquit arrhabonem à nobis accepit God hath given us his earnest and a pawn from him upon earth in giving us the holy Ghost and he hath received our earnest and a pawn from us into heaven by receiving our nature in the body of Christ Jesus there Flesh and bloud when it is conformed to the flesh and bloud of Christ now glorified and made like his by our resurrectien may inherite the kingdome of God in heaven Yea flesh and bloud being conformed to Christ by the sanctification of the holy Ghost here in this world may inherit the kingdome of God here upon earth for God hath a
have born the image of the earthly so let us beare the Image of the heavenly there from Tertullian it must necessarily be referred to the first Resurrection the Resurrection by grace in this life for says he there Non refertur ad substantiam resurrectionis sed ad prâ—â—sentis temporis disciplinam the Apostle does not speak of our glorious resurrection at last but of our religious resurrection now Portemus non portabimus Let us bear his image says the Apostle Let us now not that we shall bear it at the last day Praeceptive dictum non promissive The Apostle delivers it as a duty that we must not as a reward that wee shall bear that image And therefore in Tertulliâ—â— construction it is not onely indifferent and probable but necessary to refer this Text to the first Resurrection in this life where it will be fittest to pursue that order which we proposed at first first to consider Quid regnum what Kingdome it is that is pretended to And then Quid haeredetas what estate and term is to be had in it It is an Inheritance And lastly Quid care sanguis what flesh and blood it is that is excluded out of this Kingdome Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God First for this kingdome of God in this world let us be glad that it is a kingdome that it is so much that the government is taken out of the hands of Saints and Angels and re-united re-annexed to the Crown restoted to God to whom we may come immediately and be accepted Let us be glad that it is a kingdome so much and let us be glad that it is but a kingdome and no more not a Tyranny That we come not to a God that will damâ—e us because he will damâ—e us but a God that proposes Conditions and enables us to performe those conditions in such a measure as he will vouchsafe to accept from us A God that governs us by his word for in his word is truth and by his law for in his law is clearnesse Will you aske what this kingdome of God is What did you take it to be or what did you mean by it when even now you said with me in the Lords prayer Thy kingdome come Did you deliberately and determinately pray for the day of Judgment and for his comming in the kingdome of glory then Were you all ready for that when you said so Purae conscientiae grandis audaciae est It is a very great confidence and if it be not grounded upon a very pure conscience it must have a worse name Regnum Dei postul are judicium non timeâ—â— To call upon God for the day of Judgment upon confidence of our own righteousnesse is a shrewd distemper To say Vâ—ni Domine Iesu come Lord Iesuâ— come and take us as thou findst us is a dangerous issue But Adveniat regnum and then veniat Rex let his kingdome of grace come upon us in this life and then let himselfe come too in his good time and when his good pleasure shall be in the kingdome of Glory Sive velimus sive nolimus regnum Dei utique veniet what need we hasten him provoke him says Saint Augustine whether we will or no his kingdome his Judgment will come Nay before we called for it even his kingdome of grace was come Christ said to the Scribe Non longè Thou art not far from the kingdome of God And to the Pharisees themselves he said Intra vos the kingdome of God is among you within you But where there is a whole Hospitall of three hundred blinde men together as there is at Paris there is as much light amongst them there as amongst us here and yet all they have no light so this kingdome of God is amongst us all and yet God knows whether we see it or no. And therefore Adveniat ut manifestetâ—r Deus says S. Augustine his kingdom come that we may discerne it is come that we may see that God offers it to us and Adveniat regnum ut manefestemur Deo his kingdome come so that he may discernus in our reception of that Kingdom and our obedience to it He comes when we see him and he comes again when we receive him Quid est Regnum ejus veniat quà m ut nos bonos inveniat Then his Kingdome comes when he finds us willing to be Subjects to that Kingdome God is a King in his own right By Creation by Redemption by many titles and many undoubted claimes But Aliud est Regem esse aliud regnare It is one thing to be a King another to have Subjects in obedience A King is not the lesse a King for a Rebellion But Verè justum regnum est says that Father quando Rex vult homines habere sub se cupiunt homines esse sub â—o when the King would wish no other Subjects nor the Subjects other King then is that Kingdom come come to a durable and happy state When God hath shewed himself in calling us and wee have shewed our willingnesse to come when God shewes his desire to preserve us and we adhere onely to him when there is a Dominus regnat Latetur terra When our whole Land is in possession of peace and plenty and the whole Church in possession of the Word and Sacraments when the Land rejoyces because the Lord reigns and when there is a Dominus regnat Laetentur Insulae Because the Lord reigneth every Island doth rejoice that is every man that every man that is encompassed within a Sea of calamities in his estate with a Sea of diseases in his body with a Sea of scruples in his understanding with a Sea of transgressions in his conscience with a Sea of sinking and swallowing in the sadnesse of spirit may yet open his eyes above water and find a place in the Arke above all these a recourse to God and joy in him in the Ordinances of a well established and well governed Church this is truly Regnum Dei the Kingdome of God here God is willing to be present with us that he declares in the preservation of his Church And we are sensible of his presence and residence with us and that wee declare in our frequent recourses to him hither and in our practise of those things which we have learnt here when we are gone hence This then is the blessed state that wee pretend to in the Kingdome of God in this life Peace in the State peace in the Church peace in our Conscience In this that wee answer the motions of his blessed Spirit here in his Ordinance and endevour a conformity to him in our life and conversation In this hee is our King and wee are his Subjects and this is this Kingdome of God the Kingdome of Grace Now the title by which we make claim to this Kingdome is in our text Inheritance Who can and who
this hee was their School-master himselfe Discite à me learne of mee for I am meek In this Chapter hee gives them three lessons in this doctrine of meeknesse Hee gives them foundations and upperbuildings The Text and a Comment all the Elements of true instruction Rule and Example First hee findes them contending for place Quis maximus who should be greatest in the kingdome of heaven The disease which they were sick of was truly an ignorance what this kingdome was For though they were never ignorant that there should bee an eternall kingdome in heaven yet they thought not that the kingdome of Christ here should onely be a spirituall kingdome but they looked for a temporall inchoation of that kingdome here That was their disease and a dangerous one But as Physitians are forced to doe sometimes to turne upon the present cure of some vehement symptome and accdient and leave the consideration of the maine disease for a time so Christ leaves the doctrine of the kingdome for the present and does not rectifie them in that yet but for this pestilent symptome this malignant accident of precedency and ambition of place he corrects that first and to that purpose gives them the example of a little child and tells them that except they become as humble as gentle as supple as simple as seely as tractable as ductile as carelesse of place as negligent of precedency as that little child they could not onely not be great but they could not at all enter into the kingdome of heaven He gives them a second lesson in this doctrine of meeknesse against scandals and offences against an easinesse in giving or an easinesse in taking offences For how well soever we may seeme to be in our selves we are not well if we forbear not that company and abstaine not from that conversation which by ill example may make us worse or if wee forbear not such things as though they bee indifferent in themselves and can do us no harme yet our example may make weaker persons then we are worse because they may come to doe as we do and not proceed upon so good ground as we doe They may sin in doing those things by our example in which we did not sinne because we knew them to be indifferent things and therefore did them and they did them though they thought them to bee sinnes And for this Doctrine Christ takes an example very near to them If thy hand or foot or eye offend thee cut it off pull it out His third lesson in this doctrine of meeknes is against hardnesse of heart against a loathnesse a wearinesse in forgiving the offences of other men against us occasioned by Peters question Quoties remittam How oft shall my brother sinne against me and I forgive him and the example in this rule Christ hath wrapped up in a parable The Master forgave his servant ten thousand Talents more money then perchance any private man is worth and that servant took his fellow by the throat and cast him into prison because he did not presently pay an hundred pence perchance fifty shillings not three pound of our money in such a proportion was Christ pleased to expresse the Masters inexhaustible largenesse and bounty which is himselfe and the servants inexcusable cruelty and penuriousnesse which is every one of us The root of all Christian duties is Humility meeknesse that 's violated in an ambitious precedency for that implyes an over-estimation of our selves and an undervalue of others And it is violated in scandals and offences for that implies an unsetlednesse and irresolution in our selves that we can bee so easily shaked or a neglecting of weaker persons of whom Christ neglected none and it is violated in an unmercifulnesse and inexâ—rablenesse for that implies an indocilenesse that we will not learn by Christs doctrine an ungratefulnesse that we will not apply his example and do to his servants as he our Master hath done to us And so have you some Paraphrase of the whole Chapter as it consists of Rules and Examples in this Doctrine of meeknes endangered by pride by scandall by uncharitablenes But of those two pride uncharitabenes though they deserve to be often spoken of I shal have no occasion from these words of my text to speak for into the second of these three parts The Doctrine of scandals our text fals and it is a Doctrine very necessary and seldome touched upon As the words of our Text are our parts must be three First that heavy word Vae woe Secondly that generall word Mundo Woe be unto the world And lastly that mischievous word A scandalis Woe bee unto the world because of scandals of offences each of these three words wil receive a twofold consideration for the first Vae is first Vox dolentis a voice of condoling and lamenting Christ laments the miseries imminent upon the world because of scandals and then it is Vox minantis a voice of threatning and intermination Christ threatens he interminates heavy judgements upon them who occasion and induce these miseries by these scandals This one Vae denotes both these sorrow and yet infallibility They always go together in God God is loath to doe it and yet God will certainly inflict these judgements The second word Mundo Woe be unto the world lookes two ways too Vae malis woe unto evill men that raise scandals vae bonis woe unto them who are otherwise good in themselves if they be so various as to be easily shaked and seduced by scandals And then upon the last word A scandalis Woe be unto the world because of scandals of offences wee must look two ways also first as it denotes Scandalum activum a scandall given by another and then as it denotes Scandalum passivum a scandal taken by another First then our first word in the firrst acceptation thereof is Vae dolentis the voice of condoling and lamentation God laments the necessity that he is reduced to and those judgements which the sinnes of men have made inevitable In the person of the Prophets which denounced the judgements of God it is expressed so Onus Babylâ—nis Onus Egypti Onus Damasci O the burthen of Damascus the burthen of Egypt the burthen of Babylon And not only so but Onus visionis Not onely that that judgment would be a heavy burthen when it fell upon that Nation but that the very pre-contemplation and pre-denunciation of that judgement upon that people was a burthen and a distastfull bitternesse to the Prophet himself that was sent upon that message In reading of an Act of Parliament or of any Law that inflicts the heaviest punishment that can be imagined upon a delinquent and transgressour of that Law a man is not often much affected because hee needs not when he does but read that law consider that any particular man is fallen under the penalty and bitternesse thereof But if upon evidence and verdict
necessity that the bloud of Christ Jesus should be shed To satisfie Christs own sitto that thirst which was upon him when he was upon the Crosse there was a necessity too that Christ should bleed to death On our part there was an absolute and a primary necessity God in his justice requiring a satisfaction nothing could redeem us by way of satisfaction but the bloud of his Sonne And though there were never act more voluntary more spontaneous then Christs dying for man nor freer from all coaction and necessity of that kind yet after Christ had submitted himselfe to that Decree and contract that passed between him and his Father that he by shedding his bloud should redeem Mankind there lay a necessity upon Christ himselfe to shed his bloud as himselfe says first to his Disciples that went with him to Emans Nonne opâ—rtuit ought not Christ to suffer all these things do ye not find by the prophets that he was bound to do it and then to his Apostles at Ierusalem Sic opertuit Thus it behoved Christ to suffer There was then an absolute necessity upon us an obedientiall necessity upon Christ that his bloud must be shed But to let him dye in a wantonnesse to let out all that precious liquor and taste no drop of it to draw out all that immaculate and unvaluable bloud and make no balsamum no antidote no plaister no fomentation in the application of that bloud to labour still under a burning fever of lust and ambition and presumption and finde no cooling julips there in the application of that bloud to labour under a cold damp of indevotion and under heartlesse desperation and find no warming Cordialls there to be still as farre under judgements and executions for finne as if there had been no Messias sent no ransome given no satisfiaction made not to apply this bloud thus shed for us by those meanes which God in his Church presents to us this puts Christ to his wofull Interjection to cast out this wo upon us which he had rather have left out wo be unto the world which though it begin in a vae dolentis a voice of condoling and lamenting yet it is also vae minantis a voice of threatning and intermination denoting the infallibility of Judgements and that 's our next consideration I thinke we find no words in Christs mouth so often as vae and Amen Each of them hath two significations as almost all Christs words and actions have consolation and commination For as this vae signifies as before a sorrow wo that is wo is me for this will fall upon you and signifies also a Judgment inevitable and infallible wo that is wo be unto you for this Judgement shall fall upon you so Amen is sometimes vox Asserentis and signifies verè verily Verily I say unto you when Christ would confirm and establish a beleefe in some doctrine or promise of his as when he says Amen Amen verily verily I say unto you he that beleeveth on me the works that I doe shall he doe also and greater works then these shall he doe so it is vox Asserentis a word of assertion and it is also vox Deserentis a word of desertion when God denounces an infallibility an unavoydablenesse an inevitablenesse in his judgements Amen dico verily I say unto thee thou shalt by no meanes come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing so this Amen signifies Fiat this shall certainly be thus done And this seale this Amen as Amen is Fiat is always set to his vae as his vae is vox minantis whensoever God threatens any Judgement he meanes to execute that Judgement as farre as he threatens it God threatens nothing in terrorem onely onely to frighten us every vae hath his Amen every Judgement denounced a purpose of execution This then is our wofull case every man may find upon record in the Scriptures a vae denounced upon that sinne which he knows to be his sinne and if there be a vae there is an Amen too if God have said it shall it shall be executed so that this is not an execution of a few condemned persons but a Massacre of all It is not a Decimation as in a rebellion to spare nine and hang the tenth but it is a washing a sweeping away of all every man may find a Judgement upon record against him It doth not acquit him that he hath not committed an adultery and yet is he sure of that He may have done that in a looke in a letter in a word in a wish It doth not acquit him that he hath not done a murder and yet is he sure of that He may have killed a man in not defending him from the oppression of another if he have power in his hand and he may have killed in not relieving if he have a plentifull fortune He may have killed in not reprehending him who was under his charge wheÌ„ he saw him kil himself in the sinful ways of death As they that write of Poysons and of those creatures that naturally maligne and would destroy man do name the Flea as well as the Viper because the Flea sucks as much bloud as he can so that man is a murderer that stabs as deep as he can though it be but with his tongue with his pen with his frowne for a man may kill with a frowne in withdrawing his countenance from that man that lives upon so low a pasture as his countenance nay he may kill with a smile with a good looke if he afford that good looke with a purpose to delude him And beloved how many dye of this disease how many dye laughing dye of a tickling how many are overjoyed with the good looks and with the familiarity of greater persons then themselves and led on by hopes of getting more wa st that they have An adultery a murder may be done in a dreame if that dreame were an effect of a murderous or an adulterous thought conceived before The Apostle says I know nothing by my selfe yet am I not thereby justified we sinne some sinnes that all the world sees and yet we see not but then how many more which none in the world sees but our selves Scarce any man scapes all degrees of any sinne scarce any man some great degree of some great sinne no man escapes so but that he may find upon record in the Scriptures a vae and an Amen a Judgment denounced and an execution sealed against him And if that be our case where is there any roome for this milder signification of these two words vae and Amen which we spoke of before as they are words of Consolation If because God hath said Stipendium peccati mors est the wages of sinne is death because I have sinned I must dye what can I doe in a Prayer can I flatter God what can I doe in an Almes Can I bribe God or frustrate his
then thou shall be a particular exception to that generall Rule the Vae mundo à scandalis shall be an Euge tibi à scandalis thou shalt see that it was well for thee that there were scandals and offences in the world for they shall have exercised thy patience they shall have occasioned thy victory they shall have assured thy triumph SERMON XVIII Preached at Lincolns Inne The second Sermon on MATTH 18. 7. Wo unto the world because of offences WEe have seen in the first word the vae as it is vox Dolentis the voice of condoling and lamenting that it is accompanyed with a Heu Gods judgements come against his will he had rather they might be forborn he had rather those easie conditions had been performed And as it is vox minantis a voice of threatning and intermination it is accompanyed with an Amen if conditions be rebelliously broken Gods judgements doe come infallibly inevitably And we have seen in the second word vae mundo and the twofold signification of that that these offences and scandals fall upon all the world the wicked embrace tentations and are glad of them and sorry when they are but weak the godly meet tentations and wrastle with them and sometimes doe overcome them and are sometimes overcome by them but all have them and yet we must not break out of the world by a retired life nor break out of the world by a violent death but take Gods ways and stay Gods leasure In this our third part we are to consider the root from which this over-spreading vae this woe proceeds A scandalis from scandals from offences and the double signification of that word first Scandalum activum the active scandall which is a malice or at least an indiscretion in giving offence and Scandalum passivum the passive scandall which is a forwardnesse at least an easinesse in taking offence To know the nature of the thing look we to the derivation the extraction the Origination of the word The word from which scandall is derived scazein signifies claudicare to halt and thence a scandall is any trap or Engin any occasion of stumbling and laming hid in the way that I must goe by another person and as it is transferred to a spirituall use appropriated to an Ecclesiasticall sense it is an occasion of sinning It hath many branches too many to bee so much as named but some fruits from some of them we shall gather and present you First in our first the Active Scandall to doe any thing that is naturally ill formally sin whereby another may be occasioned or encouraged by my example to do the like this is the active scandall most evidently and most directly and this is morbus complicatus a disease that carries another disease in it a fever exalted to a frenzy It is Peccatum pragnans peccatum gravidum a spauning sin a sin of multiplication to sinne purposely to lead another into tentation But there is a lesse degree then this and it is an active scandall too To doe any thing that in it selfe is indifferent and so no sin in mee that do it in the sight of another that thinks it not indifferent but unlawfull and yet because he hath a reall or a reverentiall dependence upon me my Son my Servant my Tenant and thinks I would be displeased if he did it not does it against his conscience by my example though the sinne be formally his radically it is mine because I gave the occasion And there is a lower degree then this and yet is an active scandall If I doe an indifferent thing in the sight and knowledge of another that thinks it unlawfull though he doe not come to doe it out of my example by any dependence upon me yet if he come to think uncharitably of me or to condemn me for doing it though this uncharitablenesse in him bee his sinne yet the root grew in me and I gave the scandall And there is a lower degree then this and yet is an Active scandall too Origen hath expressed it thus Scandalum est quo scandentium pedes offenduntur To hinder the feet of another that would goe farther or climbe higher in the ways of godlinesse but for me to say to any man What need you be so pure so devout so godly so zealous will this make you rich will this bring you to preferment this is an active scandall in me though hee that I speak to be not damnified by me Of which kind of scandall there is an evident and an illustrious example between Saint Peter and Christ Christ cals Peter a scandall unto him when Peter rebuked Christ for offering to goe up to Jerusalem in a time of danger Christ was to accomplish the work of our salvation at Jerusalem by dying and Peter disswades discounsels that journey and for this Christ lays that heavy name upon his indiscreet zeal and that heavy name upon his person Vade retro Get thee behind me Satan thou art a scandall unto me This is Scandalum oppositionis the scandall of opposing disswading discounselling discountenancing and consequently the frustrating of Gods purpose in man This is but by word and yet there is a lesse then this which is Scandalum timoris when he that hath power in his hand in a family in a parish in a City in a Court intimidates them who depend upon him though nothing bee expressely done or said that way and so slackens them in their religious duties to God and in their constancy in Religion it selfe And vae illis woe unto them that doe so and vae mundo ab illis woe unto the world because there are so many that doe so And yet there is another scandall which seems lesse then this Scandalum amoris the scandall of love as Saul gave David his daughter Michâ—l ut esset ei in scandalum that she might be a snare unto him that is that David being over-uxorious and over-indulgent to his wife might thereby lye the more open to Sauls mischievous purposes upon him and vae illis woe unto them that doe so and vae munde ab illis woe unto the world because there are so many that doe so that study the affections and dispositions and inclinations of men and then minister those things to them that affect them most which is the way of the instruments of the Roman Church to promise preferments to discontented persons and is indeed his way whose instrument the Roman Church is The Devill for this is all that the Devill is able to doe in the ways of tentation Applicare passivis activa To finde out what will work upon a man and to work by that The Devill did not create me nor bring materials to my creation The Devill did not infuse into mee that choler that makes me ignorantly and indiscreetly zealous nor that flegm that choakes mee with a stupid indevotion Hee did not infuse into mee that bloud that inflames mee in licentiousnesse
hinder good herbes from growing but he does well to plant those thorns in his hedges there they keep bad neighbours from entring In many cases where there is no anger there is not much zeal David himself came to a high exaltation in this passion of anger He was ordinarily so meek as that that which we translate afflictions the Vulgat Edition translates mecknesse and patience in his afflictions Remember David and all his afflictions says our translation and Memento David omnis mansuetudinis ejus say they Remember David and all his mildness How mildly he endured Ioabs insultation Thou lovest says Ioab thine enemies and thou hatest thy friends Bitterly spoken Come out and speak comfortably says Ioab or I swear by the Lord there will not tarry a man with thee this night Seditiously spoken And David obeyed him How mildly he endured Shimei's cursing He cast stones at him and at all his servants He charges him with murder and that which is heaviest of all he cals Absolons rebellion a judgement of God and David accepts it so and says The Lord hath bidden him to curse David And yet this exemplar mild man David himself upon a scorn offered to him by Hanun in the abuse of his Ambassadours goes himself in person into a dangerous war against the Ammonites assisted with 32000 chariots of their neighbours the Aramites and there he destroys those great numbers which are mentioned in that story and after this defeat in cold blood he goes out against them that had assisted them He takes the City Rabbah and the people he cuts with Saws and with Harrows of iron and with Axes David saw that a mild man can grow angry and that a fire that is long kindling burns most vehemently That which is an Adage and Proverb now was ever true in substance Ab inimico flegmatico libera me Domine from him that is long before hee be angry for he is long before hee be reconciled again Gods goodnesse hath that disposition to bee long suffering mans ilnesse and abuse of that is able to inflame God So Davids sin had inflamed him and the fire of Gods anger produced the calamities of this text upon him which our Expositors ordinarily take to have been historically this that when David had provoked God with that sinfull confidence in numbring his people when Gods anger was executed in that devouring plague and David saw the persecuting Angel then à facie irae Domini from that face that manifestation of Gods anger he fell into that dampe and dead cold that howsoever they covered him they could never get heat in him And this was the sin say our Expositors and this was the anger and this was the manifestation and this was the disease that David complains of here And be this enough of the personall acceptation of these words There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger neither is there rest in my bones because of my sinne for in their second acceptation as they are referred to the miserable condition of all mankinde by sinne the particulars which we laid down before will fall into more particular consideration In this second part first we contemplate man as the Receptacle the Ocean of all misery Fire and Aire Water and Earth are not the Elements of man Inward decay and outward violence bodily pain and sorrow of heart may be rather styled his Elements And though he be destroyed by these yet he consists of nothing but these As the good qualities of all creatures are not for their own use for the Sun sees not his own glory nor the Rose smells not her own breath but all their good is for man so the ill conditions of the creature are not directed upon themselves the Toad poisons not it selfe nor does the Viper bite it self but all their ill powrs down upon man As though man could be a Microcosm a world in himself no other way except all the misery of the world fell upon him Adam was able to decypher the nature of every Creature in the name thereof and the Holy Ghost hath decyphered his in his name too In all those names that the Holy Ghost hath given man he hath declared him miserable for Adam by which name God calls him and Eve too signifies but Redness but a Blushing and whether we consider their low materials as it was but earth or the redness of that earth as they stained it with their own blood and the blood of all their posterity and as they drew another more precious blood the blood of the Messias upon it every way both may be Adam both may blush So God called that pair our first Parents man in that root Adam But the first name by which God called man in generall mankinde is Ish Therefore shall a man leave his Father c. And Ish is but à sonitu à rugitu Man hath his name from crying and the occasion of crying misery testified in his entrance into the world for he is born crying and our very Laws presume that if he be alive he will cry and if he be not heard cry conclude him to be born dead And where man is called Gheber as he is often which is derived from Greatness man is but great so as that word signifies It signifies a Giant an oppressour Great in power and in a delight to doe great mischiefs upon others or Great as he is a Great mark and easily hit by others But man hath a fourth name too in Scripture Enosh and that signifies nothing but misery When David says Put them in fear O Lord that the Nations may know they are but men there 's that name Enosh that they are but miserable things Adam is Blushing Ish is lamenting Geber is oppressing Enosh is all that but especially thatâ— which is especially notified for the misery in our Text Enosh is Homo aeger a man miserable in particular by the misery of sicknesse which is our next step Non sanitas There is no soundnesse no health in me God created man in health but health continued but a few hours and sicknesse hath had the Dominion 6000 years But was man impassible before the fall Had there been no sicknesse if there had been no sinne Secundum passiones perfectivas we acknowledge in the School man was passible before Every alteration is in a degree a passion a suffering and so in those things which conduced to his well-being eating and sleeping and other such man was passible that is subject to alteration But Secundum passiones destructivâ—â— to such sufferings as might frustrate the end for which he was made which was Immortality he was not subject and so not to sicknesse Now he is and put all the miseries that man is subject to together sicknesse is more then all It is the immediate sword of God Phalaris could invent a Bull and others have invented Wheels and Racks but
upon thee and true that God is angry vehemently angry But Expone juststiam irae Dei deal clearly with the world and clear God and confesse it is because of thy sinne When Cain says My sin is greater then can be forgiven that word Gnavon is ambiguous it may bee sinne it may bee punishment and wee know not whether his impatience grew out of the horrour of his sinne or the weight of his punishment But here wee are directed by a word that hath no ambiguity Kata signifies sin and nothing but sinne Here the holy Ghost hath fixed thee upon a word that will not suffer thee to consider the punishment nor the cause of the punishment the anger but the cause of that anger and all the sin Wee see that the bodily sicknesse and the death of many is attributed to one kind of sinne to the negligent receiving of the Sacrament For this cause many are weak and sick amongst you and many sleep Imaginem judicii ostenderat God had given a representation of the day of Judgement in that proceeding of his for then we shall see many men condemned for sinnes for which we never suspected them so wee thinke men dye of Fevers whom we met lately at the Sacrament and God hath cut them off perhaps for that sin of their unworthy receiving the Sacrament My miseries are the fruits of this Tree Gods anger is the arms that spreads it but the root is sin My sin which is another consideration We say of a Possession Transit cum onere It passes to me with the burthen that my Father laid upon it his debt is my debt so does it with the sin too his sin by which he got that possession is my sin if I know it and perchance the punishment mine though I know not the sin Adams sin 6000 years agoe is my sin and their sin that shall sinne by occasion of any wanton writings of mine will be my sin though they come after Wofull riddle sin is but a privation and yet there is not such another positive possession sin is nothing and yet there is nothing else I sinned in the first man that ever was and but for the mercy of God in something that I have said or done might sin that is occasion sin in the last man that ever shall be But that sin that is called my sinne in this text is that that is become mine by an habituall practise or mine by a wilfull relapse into it And so my sin may kindle the anger of God though it bee but a single sinne One sinne as it is delivered here in the singular and no farther Because of my sinne Every man may find in himself Peccatum complicatum sinne wrapped up in sinne a body of sin We bring Elements of our own earth of Covetousnesse water of unsteadfastnesse ayre of putrefaction and fire of licentiousnesse and of these elements we make a body of sinne as the Apostle says of the Naturall body There are many members but one body so we may say of our sin it hath a wanton eye a griping hand an itching ear an insatiable heart and feet swift to shed blood and yet it is but one body of sin It is all â—and yet it is but One But let it be simply and singularly but One which is a miracle in sin truly I think an impossibility in sin to be single to be but One for that unclean Spirit which possessed the man that dwelt amongst the tombs carryed it at first as though he had been a single Devill and he alone in that man I I adjure thee says he to Christ and torment not me not me so far in the singular but when Christ puts him to it he confesses we are many and my name is legion So though thy sinne slightly examined may seem but One yet if thou dare presse it it will confesse a plurality a legion if it be but One yet if that One be made thine by an habituall love to it as the plague needs not the help of a Consumption to kill thee so neither does Adultery need the help of Murder to damn thee For this making of any One sin thine thine by an habituall love thereof will grow up to the last and heaviest waight intimated in that phrase which is also in this clause of the Text In facie paccati that this sin will have a face that is a confidence and a devesting of all 〈◊〉 or disguises There cannot bee a heavier punishment laid upon any sinne then Christ lays upon scandall It were better for him a mil-stone were hanged about his neck and hee drowned in the Sea If something worse then such a death belong to him surely it is eternall Death And this this eternall death is interminated by Christ in cases where there is not always sinne in the action which wee doe but if we doe any action so as that it may scandalize another or occasion sin in him we are bound to study and favour the weaknesse of other men and not to doe such things as they may think sins We must prevent the mis-interpretation yea the malice of other men for though the fire be theirs the fewell or at least the â—ellows is ours The uncharitablenesse the malice is in them but the awaking and the stirring thereof is in our carelesnesse who were not watchfull upon our actions But when an action comes to be sin indeed and not onely occasionally sin because it scandalizes another but really sin in it selfe then even the Poet tels you Maxima debetur pueris reverentia si quid Tâ—rpe paras Take heed of doing any sinne in the sight of thy Child for if we break through that wall we shall come quickly to that faciâ—m Sacerdotis non erubuerunt they will not be afraid nor ashamed in the presence of the Priest they will look him in the face nay receive at his hands and yet sin their sinne that minute in their hearts and to that also faciem seniorum non erubuerunt they will not be afraid nor ashamed of the Office of the Magistrate but sin for nothing or sin at a price bear out or buy out all their sins They sin as Sodom and bide it not is the highest charge that the Holy Ghost could lay upon the sinner When they come to say Our lips are ours who is Lord ever us They will say so of their hands and of all their bodies They are ours who shall forbid us to doe what wee will with them And what lack these open sinners of the last judgement and the condemnation therof That judgement is that men shall stand naked in the sight of one another and all their sinnes shall be made manifest to all and this open sinner does so and chuses to doe so even in this world When David prays so devoutly to be cleansed from his secret sins and Saint Paul glories so devoutly in having renounced the
to declare the sins or to denounce the punishments of those sins upon the people to call it by this word Onus visionis Onus Babylonis Onus Ninives O the burden of Babylon the burden of Niniveh And because some of those woes those Iudgements those burdens did not always fall upon that people presently they came to mock the Prophets and say to them New what is the burden of she Lord What Burden have you to preach to us and to talke of nowâ— Say unto them says God to the Prophet there This is the Burden of the Lord I will even forsake you And as it is elegantly emphatically vehemently added Every mans word shall be his burden That which he says shall be that that shall be laid to his charge His scorning his idle questioning of the Prophet What burden now what plague what famine what warre now Is not all well for all your crying The burden of the Lord Every mans word shall be his burden the deriding of Gods Ordinance and of the denouncing of his Judgements in that Ordinance shall be their burden that is aggravate those Judgements upon them Nay there is a heavyer weight then that added Ye shall say no more says God to the Prophet the burden of the Lord that is you shall not bestow so much care upon this people as to tell them that the Lord threatens them Gods presence in anger and in punishments is a heavy but Gods absence and dereliction a much heavyer burden As if extremes will admit comparison the everlasting losse of the fight of God in hell is a greater torment then any lakes of inextinguishable Brimstone then any gnawing of the incessant worme then any gnashing of teeth can present unto us Now let no man ease himself upon that fallacy sin cannot be nor sin cannot induce such burdens as you talk of for many men are come to wealth and by that wealth to honour who if they had admitted a tendernesse in their consciences and forborn some sins had lost both for are they without burden because they have wealth and honour In the Originall language the same word that is here a burden Châ—bad signifies honour and wealth as well as a burden And therefore says the Prophet Woe unto him that loadeth himselfe with thick clay Non densantur nisi per laborem There goes much pains to the laying of it thus thick upon us The multiplying of riches is a laborious thing and then it is a new pain to bleed out those riches for a new office or a new title Et tamen lutum says that Father when all is done we are but rough-cast with durt All those Riches all those Honours are a Burden upon the just man they are buâ— a multiplying of fears that they shall lose them upon the securest man they are but a multiplying of duties obligations for the more they havet he more they have to answer and upon the unjust they are a multiplying of everlasting torments They possess months of vanity and wearisom nights are appointed them Men are as weary of the day upon Carpets and Cushions as at the plough And the labourers wearinesse is to a good end but for these men They weary themselves to commit iniquity Some doe and some doe not All doe The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them Why Because he knows not how to goe to the City He that directs not his labours to the right end the glory of God he goes not to Jerusalem the City of holy peace but his sinfull labours shall bee a burden to him and his Riches and his Office and his Honour hee shall not be able to put off then when he puts off his body in his death-bed He shall not have that happinesse which he till then thought a misery To carry nothing out of this world for his Riches his Office his Honour shall follow him into the next world and clog his soule there But we proposed this consideration of this Metaphor That sinne is a burden as there is an infinite sweetnesse and infinite latitude in every Metaphor in every elegancy of the Scripture and therefore I may have leave to be loath to depart from it in some particular inconveniences that a burden brings and it is time to come to them SERMON XXIII Preached at Lincolns Inne The third Sermon on PSAL. 38. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy Burden they are too heavy for mee AS a Torch that hath been lighted and used before is easier lighted then a new torch so are the branches and parts of this Text the easier reduced to your memory by having heard former distributions thereof But as a Torch that hath been lighted us'd before will not last so long as a new one so perchance your patience which hath already been twice exercised with the handling of these words may be too near the bottom to afford much And therefore much I have determined not to need God did his greatest work upon the last day and yet gave over work betimes In that day he made man and as the context leades us most probably to thinke he made Paradise and placed man in Paradise that day For the variety of opinions amongst our Expositors about the time when God made Paradise arises from one errour an errour in the Vulgat Edition in the translation of the Roman Church that reads it Plantaver at God had planted a garden as though God had done it before Therefore some state it before the Creation which Saint Hierome follows or at least relates without disapproving it and others place it upon the third day when the whole earth received her accomplishment but if any had looked over this place with the same ingenuity as their own great man Tyr an active man in the Councell of Trent hath done over the Book of Psalms in which one Booke he hath confessed 6000 places in which their translation differs from the Originall they would have seen this difference in this place that it is not Plantaver at but Plantavit not that God had before but that he did then then when hee had made man make a Paradise for man And yet God made an end of all this days work betimes in that day He walked in the garden in the cool of the Evening The noblest part of our work in handling this Text falls upon the conclusion reserved for this day which is the application of these words to Christ. But for that I shall be short and rather leave you to walke with God in the cool of the Evening to meditate of the sufferings of Christ when you are gone then pretend to expresse them here The Passion of Christ Jesus is rather an amazement an astonishment an extasie a consternation then an instruction Therefore though something we shall say of that anone First we pursue that which lies upon our selves the Burden in those four mischievous
sinnes unconsidered unrepented uncorrected In that glistring circle in the firmament which we call the Galaxy the milky way there is not one Star of any of the six great magnitudes which Astronomers proceed upon belonging to that circle It is a glorious circle and possesses a great part of heaven and yet is all of so little stars as have no name no knowledge taken of them So certainly are there many Saints in heaven that shine as stars and yet are not of those great magnitudes to have been Patriarchs or Prophets or Apostles or Martyrs or Doctors or Virgins but good and blessed soules that have religiously performed the duties of inferiour callings and no more And as certainly are there many soules tormented in hell that never sinned sinne of any of the great magnitudes Idolatry Adultery Murder or the like but inconsiderately have slid and insensibly continued in the practise and habite of lesser sinnes But Parva non sunt parva nothing may be thought little where the consequence may prove great When our Saviour said that we shall give an account of every Idle word in the day of Judgement what great hills of little sands will oppresse us then And if substances of sinne were removed yet what circumstances of sinne would condemne us If idle words have this weight there can be no word thought idle in the Scriptures And therefore I blame not in any I decline not in mine own practise the making use of the variety and copiousnesse of the holy Ghost who is ever abundant and yet never superfluous in expressing his purpose in change of words And so no doubt we might doe now in observing a difference between these words in our text Image and likenesse and between these two formes of expressing it in our Image and after our likenesse This might be done but that that must be done will possesse all our time that is to declare taking the two words for this time to be but a farther illustration of one another Image and likenesse to our present purpose to be all one what this Image and this likenesse imparts and how this North scatters our former cloud what our advantage is that we are made to an Image to a pattern and our obligation to set a pattern before us in all our actions God appointed Moses to make all that he made according to a pattern God himselfe made all that he made according to a pattern God had deposited and laid up in himselfe certain formes patternes Idea's of every thing that he made He made nothing of which he had not preconceived the forme and predetermined in himselfe I will make it thus And when he had made any thing he saw it was good good because it answered the pattern the Image good because it was like to that And therefore though of other creatures God pronounced they were good because they were presently like their pattern that is like that forme which was in him for them yet of man he forbore to say that he was good because his conformity to his pattern was to appeare after in his subsequent actions Now as God made man after another pattern and therefore we have a dignity above all that we had another manner of creation then the rest so have we a comfort above all that we have another manner of Administration then the rest God exercises another manner of Providence upon man then upon other creatures A Sparrow falls not without God says Christ yet no doubt God works otherwise in the fall of eminent persons then in the fall of Sparrows For yee are of more value then many Sparrows says Christ there of every man and some men single are of more value then many men God does not thanke the Ant for her industry and good-husbandry in providing for her selfe God does not reward the Foxes for concurring with Sampson in his revenge God does not fee the Lion which was the executioner upon the Prophet which had disobeyed his commandement nor those two she-Beares which slew the petulant children who had caluminated and reproached Elisha God does not fee them before nor thanke them after not take knowledge of their service But for those men that served Gods execution upon the Idolaters of the Goden Calfe it is pronounced in their behalfe that therein they consecrated themselves to God and for that service God made that tribe the tribe of Levi his portion his Clergy his consecrated Tribe So Quiae fecisti hoc says God to Abraham by my selfe I have sworn because thou hast done this thing and hast not withheld thy Sonne thine onely sonne in blessing I will blesse thee and in multiplying I will multiply thee So neither is God angry with the dog that turnes to his vomit nor with the sow that after her washing wallowes in the mire But of Man in that case he says It is impossible for those who were once enlightned if they fall away to renew them againe by repentance The creatures live under his law but a law imposed thus This they shall doe this they must doe Man lives under another manner of law This you shall doe that is this you should doe this I would have you doe And fac hoc doe this and you shall live disobey and you shall die But yet the choise is yours Choose ye this day life or death So that this is Gods administration in the Creature that he hath imprinted in them an Instinct and so he hath something to preserve in them In man his administration is this that he hath imprinted in him a faculty of will and election and so hath something to reward in him That instinct in the creature God leaves to the naturall working thereof in it selfe But the free will of man God visites and assists with his grace to doe supernaturall things When the creature does an extraordinary action above the nature thereof as when Balaams Asse spake the creature exercises no faculty no will in it selfe but God forced it to that it did When man does any thing conducing to supernaturall ends though the worke be Gods the will of man is not meerly passive The will of man is but Gods agent but still an agent it is And an agent in another manner then the tongue of the beast For the will considered as a will and grace never destroyes nature nor though it make a dead will a live will or an ill will a good will doth it make the will no will might refuse or omit that that it does So that because we are created by another pattern we are governed by another law and another providence Goe thou then the same way If God wrought by a pattern and writ by copy and proceeded by a precedent doe thou so too Never say there is no Church without error therefore I will be bound by none but frame a Church of mine owne or be a Church to my selfe What greater injustice then to propose
to be Lapis Iacob the stone that Iacob slept upon fourthly to be Lapis Davidis the stone that David flew Golih withall And lastly to be Lapis Petra such a stone as is a Rock and such a Rock as no Waters nor Stormes can remove or shake these are benefits Christ Jesus is a stone no firmnesse but in him a fundamentall stone no building but on him a corner stone no piecing nor reconciliation but in him and Iacobs stone no rest no tranquillity but in him and Davids stone no anger no revenge but in him and a rocky stone no defence against troubles and tribulations but in him And upon this stone we fall and are broken and this stone may fall on us and grinde us to powder First in the metaphor that Christ is called a stone the firmnesse is expressed Forasmuch as he loved his owne which were in the world In finem dilexit eos sayes St. Iohn He loved them to the end and not to any particular end for any use of this owne but to their end Qui erant in mundo sayes Cyrill ad distinctionem Angelorum he loved them in the world and not Angels he loved not onely them who were in a confirmed estate of mutuall loving him too but even them who were themselves conceived in sinne and then conceived all their purposes in sinne too them who could have no cleansing but in his blood and when they were cleansed in his blood their owne clothes would defile them againe them who by nature are not able to love him at all and when by grace they are brought to love him can expresse their love no other way but to be glad that he was betrayed and scourged and scorned and nayled and crucified and to be glad that if all this were not already done it might be done yet to long and wish that if Christ were not crucified he might be crucified now which is a strange manner of expressing love those men he loved and loved unto the end Men and not Angels and then men Ad distinctionem mortuorum sayes Chrysostome not onely the Patriarchs who were departed out of the world who had loved him so well as to take his word for their salvation and had lived and dyed in the faithfull contemplation of a future promise which they never saw performed but those who were partakers of the performance of all those promises those into the midst of whom he came in person those upon whom he wrought with his piercing Doctrine and his powerfull miracles those who for all this loved not him he loved Et in finem he loved them to the end It is much that he should love them in fine at their end that he should looke graciously on them at last that when their sunne sets their eyes faint his sunne of grace should arise and his East be brought to their West that then in the shadow of death the Lord of life should quicken and inanimate their hearts that when their last bell tolls and calls them to their first Judgement and first and last Judgement to this purpose is all one the passing bell and Angels trump sound all but one note Surgite qui dormitis in pulvere Arise ye that sleepe in the dust which is the voyce of the Angels and Surgite qui vigilatis in plumis Arise ye that cannot sleepe in feathers for the pangs of death which is the voyce of the bell is but one voyce for God at the generall Judgement shall never reverse any particular Judgement formerly given that God should then come to the beds side ad sibilandum populum suum as the Prophet Ezekiel speaks to hisse softly for his childe to speake comfortably in his eare to whisper gently to his departing soule and to drowne and overcome with this soft Musick of his all the danger of the Angels Trumpets all the horror of the ringing Bell all the cryes and vociferations of a distressed and distracted and scattering family yea all the accusations of his owne conscience and all the triumphant acclamations of the Devill himselfe that God should love a man thus in fine at his end and returne to him then though he had suffered him to go astray from him before it is a great testimony of an unspeakable love but his love is not onely in fine at the end but in finem to the end all the way to the end He leaves them not uncalled at first he leaves them not unaccompanied in the way he leaves them not unrecompensed at the last that God who is Almighty Alpha and Omega first and last that God is also love it selfe and therefore this love is Alpha and Omega first and last too Consider Christs proceeding with Peter in the ship in the storme first he suffered him to be in some danger but then he visites him with that strong assurance Noli timere Be not afraid it is I any testimony of his presence rectifies all This puts Peter into that spirituall knowledge and confidence Iube me venire Lord bid me come to thee he hath a desire to be with Christ but yet stayes his bidding he puts not himselfe into an unnecessary danger without a commandment Christ bids him and Peter comes but yet though Christ were in his sight and even in the actuall exercise of his love to him yet as soone as he saw a gust a storme timuit he was afraid and Christ letteth him feare and letteth him sinke and letteth him crie But he directeth his feare and his crie to the right end Domine salvum me fac Lord save me and thereupon he stretcheth out his hand and saved him God doth not raise his children to honour and great estates and then leave them and expose them to be subjects and exercises of the malice of others nor he doth not make them mightie and then leave them ut glorietur in malo qui potens est that he should thinke it a glory to be able to do harm He doth not impoverish and dishonour his children and then leave them leave them unsensible of that Doctrine that patience is as great a blessing as aboundance God giveth not his children health and then leaveth them to a boldnesse in surfetting nor beauty and leave them to a confidence of opening themselves to all sollicitations nor valour and then leaveth them to a spirit of quarrelsomnesse God maketh no patterns of his works no modells of his houses he maketh whole pieces he maketh perfect houses he putteth his children into good wayes and he directeth and protecteth them in those wayes For this is the constancy and the perseverance of the love of Christ Jesus as he is called in this Text a stone To come to the particular benefits the first is that he is lapis fundamentalis a foundation stone for other foundation can no man lay then that which is laid which is Christ Jesus Now where Saint Augustine saith as he doth in two or three places
large Commission Behold this day I have set thee over the Nations and over the Kingdomes to pluck up and to rout out to destroy and to throw down and though many of the Prophets had their Commissions drawn by that precedent we claime not that we distinguish between the extraordinary Commission of the Prophet and the ordinary Commission of the Priest we admit a great difference between them and are farre from taking upon us all that the Prophet might have done which is an errour of which the Church of Rome and some other over-zealous Congregations have been equally guilty and equally opposed Monarchy and Soveraignty by assuming to themselves in an ordinary power whatsoever God upon extraordinary occasions was pleased to give for the present to his extraordinary Instruments the Prophets our Commission is toâ— pray and to intreat you Though upon those words Ascendunt salvatores in Montem Sion there shall arise Saviours in Mount Sion in the Church of God Saint Hierom saith That as Christ being the light of the world called his Apostles the light of the world too so Ipse Salvator Apostolas voluit esse Salvatores The Saviour of the world communicates to us the name of Saviours of the world too yet howsoever instrumentally and ministerially that glorious name of Saviour may be afforded to us though to a high hill though to that Mount Sion we are led by a low way by the example of our blessed Saviour himself and since there was an Oportuit pati laid upon him there may well be an Opâ—rteâ— Obsecrare laid upon us since his way was to be dumb ours may well be to utter no other voyce but Prayers since he bled we may well sweat in his service for the salvaâ—ion of your souls If therefore our selves who are sent be under contempt or under persecution if the sword of the Tongue or the sword of the Tyrant be drawn against us against all these Arma nostra preces fletus we defend with no other shield we return with no other sword but Tears and Prayers and blessing of them that curse us Yea if he that sent us suffer in us if we see you denounce a warre against him nay triumph over him and provoke him to anger and because he showes no anger conclude our of his patience an impotency that because he doth not he cannot when you scourge him and scoffe him and spit in his face and crucifie him and practise every day all the Jews did to him once as though that were your pattern and your businesse were to exceed your pattern and crucifie your Saviour worse then they did by tearing mangling his body now glorified by your blasphemous oaths and execrable imprecations when we see all this Arma nostra preces fletus we can defend our selves nor him no other way we present to you our tears and our prayers his tears and his prayers that sent us and if you will not be reduced with these our Commission is at an end I bring not a Star-chamber with me up into the Pulpit to punish a forgery if you counterfeit a zeale in coming hither now nor an Exchequer to punish usurious contracts though made in the Church nor a high Commission to punish incontinencies if they be promoted by wanton interchange of looks in this place Onely by my prayers which he hath promised to accompany and prosper in his service I can diffuse his overshadowing Spirit over all the corners of this Congregation and pray that Publican that stands below afar off and dares not lift up his eyes to heaven to receive a chearfull confidence that his sinnes are forgiven him and pray that Pharisee that stands above and onely thanks God that he is not like other men to believe himselfe to be if not a rebellious yet an unprofitable servant I can onely tell them that neither of them is in the right way of reconciliation to God Nec qui impugnant gratiam nec qui superbè gratias agunt neither he who by a diffidence hinders the working of Gods grace nor he that thanks God in such a fashion as though all that he had received were not of meer mercy but between a debt and a benefit and that he had either merited before or paid God after in pious works for all and for more then he hath received at Gods hand Scarce any where hath the Holy Ghost taken a word of larger signification then here for as though it were hard even to him to expresse the humility which we are to use rather then lose any soul for which Christ hath dyed he hath taught us this obsecration this praying this intreating in our Text in a word by which the Septuagint the first Translators into Greek expresse divers affections and all within the compasse of this Obsecramus We pray you Some of them we shall present to you Those Translators use that word for Napal Napal is Ruere Postrare to throw down to deject our selves to admit any undervalue any exinanition any evacuation of our selves so we may advance this great work I fell down before the Lord says Moses of himself and Abraham fell upon his face says Moses of him and in no sense is this word oftner used by them then in this humiliation But yet as it signifies to need the favour of another so does it also to be favourable and mercifull to another for so also the same Translators use this word for Chanan which is to oblige and binde a man by benefits or to have compassion upon him Have pity upon me have pity upon me O ye my friends for the hand of God hath touched me there is our word repeated So that whether we professe to you that as Physicians must consider excrements so we must consider sin the leprosie the pestilence the ordure of the soule there is our dejection of our selves or make you see your poverty and indigence and that that can be no way supplied but by those means which God conveys by us both ways we are within our word Obsecramus we pray you we intreat you They use this word also for Calah and Calah is Dolere to grieve within our selves for the affliction of another But it signifies also vulnerare to wound and afflict another for so it is said in this word Saul was sore wounded So that whether we expresse our grief in the behalf of Christ that you will not be reconciled to God or whether we wound your consciences with a sense of your sins and his judgements we are still what in the word of our Commission Obsecramus we pray we intreat To contract this consideration they use this word for Cruciare to vex and for Placare too to appease to restore to rest and quiet Therefore will I make thee sick in smiting thee there it is vexation And then They sent unto the House of the Lord Placare Dominum to appease the Lord as we translate
might get into that feast without his wedding garment so a man may get into the Church to bee a visible part of a Christian Congregation without this acceptation of reconciliation that is the particular apprehension and application of Christ but hee is still subject to a remove and to that question of confusion Quomodo intrasti How came you in That man in the Gospell could have answered to that question directly I came in by the invitation and conduct of thy servants I was called in I was led in So they that come hither without this wedding garment they may answer to Christs Quomodo intrasti How camest thou in I came in by faithfull parents to whom and their seed thou hast sealed a Covenant I was admitted by thy Servants and Ministers in Baptisme and have been led along by them by comming to hear them preach thy word and doing the other externall offices of a Christian. But there is more in this question Quomodo intrasti is not onely how didst thou come in but how durst thou come in If thou camest to my feast without any purpose to eate and so to discredit to accuse either my meat or the dressing of it to quarrell at the Doctrine or at the Discipline of my Church Quomodo intrasti How didst thou how durst thou come in If thou camest with a purpose to poison my meat that it might infect others with a determination to goe forward in thy sinne whatsoever the Preacher say and so to encourage others by thy example Quomodo intrasti How durst thou come in If thou camest in with thine own provision in thy pocket and didst not relie upon mine and think that thou canst be saved without Sermons or Sacraments Qvmodo intrasti How durst thou come in Him that came in there without this Wedding garment the Master of the Feast cals Friend but scornfully Friend how camest thou in But he cast him out God may call us Friends that is admit and allow us the estimation and credit of being of his Church but at one time or other hee shall minister that Interrogatory Friend how came you in and for want of that Wedding garment and for want of wearing it in the sight of men for it is not said that that man had no such Wedding garment at home in his Wardrobe but that hee had none on for want of Sanctification in a holy life God shall deliver us over to the execution of our own consciences and eternall condemnation But be ye reconciled to God embrace this reconciliation in making your use of those means and this reconciliation shall work thus it shall restore you to that state that Adam had in Paradise What would a soule oppressed with the sense of sin give that she were in that state of Innocency that she had in Baptisme Be reconciled to God and you have that and an elder Innocency then that the Innocency of Paradise Go home and if you finde an over-burden of children negligence in servants crosses in your tradings narrownesse penury in your estate yet this penurious and this encumbred house shall be your Paradise Go forth into the Country and if you finde unseasonablenesse in the weather rots in your sheep murrains in your cattell worms in your corn backwardnesse in your rents oppression in your Landlord yet this field of thorns and brambles shall be your Paradise Lock thy selfe up in thy selfe in thine own bosome and though thou finde every roome covered with the â—oot of former sins and shaked with that Devill whose name is Legion some such sin as many sins depend upon and are induced by yet this prison this rack this hell in thine own conscience shall be thy Paradise And as in Paradise Adam at first needed no Saviour so when by this reconciliation in apprehending thy Saviour thou art restored to this Paradise thou shalt need no sub-Saviour no joint-Saviour but Caetera adjicientur no other Angel but the Angel of the greas Councell no other Saint but the Holy One of Israel he who hath wrought this reconciliation for thee and brought it to thee shall establish it in thee For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled shall we be saved by his life This is the summe and the end of all That when God sends humble and laborious Pastors to souple and appliable Congregations That we pray and you receive us in Christs stead we shall not onely finde rest in God but as it is said of Noâ—hs sacrifice God shall finde the savour of rest in us God shall finde a Sabbath to himself in us and rest from his jealousies and anger towards us and we shall have a Sabbatary life here in the rest and peace of conscience and a life of one everlasting Sabbath hereafter where to our Rest there shall be added Ioy and to our Ioy Glory and this Rest and Ioy and Glory superinvested with that which crownes them all Eternity SERMON XLI Preached at Saint Pauls Crosse. 6 May. 1627. HOSEA 3. 4. For the Children of Israel shall abide many dayes without a King and without a Prince and without a Sacrifice and without an Image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim SOme Cosmographers have said That there is no land so placed in the world but that from that land a man may see other land I dispute it not I defend it not I accept it and I apply it there is scarce any mercy expressed in the Scriptures but that from that mercy you may see another mercy Christ sets up a candle now here onely to lighten that one roome but as he is lumen de lumine light of light so he would have more lights lighted at every light of his and make every former mercy an argument an earnest a conveyance of more Between land and land you may see seas and seas enraged with tempests but still say they some other land too Between mercy and mercy you may finde Comminations and Judgements but still more mercy For this discovery let this text be our Mappe First we see land we see mercy in that gracious compellation Children the Children of Israel Then we see sea then comes a Commination â— Judgement that shall last some time many days shall the Children of Israel suffer But there they may see land too another mercy even this time of Judgement shall be a day they shall not be benighted not left in darkenesse in their Judgement many dayes all the while it shall bee day Then the text opens into a deep Ocean a spreading Sea They shall bee without a King and without a Prince and without a Sacrifice and without an Image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim But even from this Sea this vast Sea this Sea of devastation wee see land for in the next verse followes another mercy The Children of Israel shall returne and shall seeke the Lord their God and David their King and
departs from that posture which God in nature gave him that is erect to look upward for his eye is always down upon them that lie in the dust under his feet Certainly he that seares up himselfe and makes himselfe insensible of the cries and curses of the poor here in this world does but prepare himselfe for the howlings gnashings of teeth in the world to come It is the Serpents taste the Serpents diet Dust shalt thou eate all the days of thy life and he feeds but on dust that oppresses the poor And as there is evidently more inhumanity more violation of nature in this oppression then in emulation so may there well seem to be more impiety and more violation of God himselfe by that word which the holy Ghost chooses in the next place which is Reproach He that oppresses the poor reproaches his Maker This word which we translate to Reproach Theodotion translates to Blaspheme And blasphemy is an odious thing even towards men For men may be blasphemed The servant of God Moses is blasphemed as well as God And Goliah blasphemed the Israel of God as well as the God of Israel and for the most part where we read Reviling the word is Blaspheming Our word here that we may still pursue our first way a reverent consideration of the elegancy of the Scriptures in the origination of the words is Charak and this word Iob uses as it is used in our text for reproach My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live And this this reproaching of the heart is in many cases a Blaspheming and a strange one a self-blaspheming When I have had by the goodnesse of Gods Spirit a true sense of my sinnes a true remorse and repentance of those sinnes true Absolution from those sinnes true seales of reconciliation after those sinnes true diligence and preclusion of occasions of relapsing into those sinnes still to suspect my state in Gods favour and my full redintegration with him still to deny my selfe that peace which his Spirit by these meanes offers me still to call my repentance imperfect and the Sacramentall seales ineffectuall still to accuse my selfe of sinnes thus devested thus repented this is to reproach this is to to blaspheme mine owne soule If I will say with Iob My heart shall reproach me of nothing this is not that I will accuse my selfe of no sinne or say the elect of God cannot sinne no nor that God sees not the sinnes of the elect nor that God is not affected or angry with those sinnes and those sinners as long as they remaine unrepented but after I have accused my selfe of those sinnes and brought them into Judgement by way of Confession and received my pardon under seale in the Sacrament and pleaded that pardon to the Church by a subsequent amendment of life then I reproach my selfe of nothing for this were a self-blaspheming and a reproaching of mine owne soule Now the word of our text in the root thereof Charak is manifestare prostituere It is to publish the fault or to prostitute the fame of any man extrajudicially not in a right forme of Judgement and amongst those men who are not to be his Judges So to fill itching eares with rumours and whisperings so to minister matter and fuell to fiery tongues so to lay imputations and aspersions upon men though that which we say of those men be true is a libelling is a calumny is a blaspheming and a reproach in the word of this text for it is manifestare prostituere to publish a mans faults and to prostitute a mans fame there where his faults can receive no remedy if they be true nor his fame Reparation if they be false It is properly to speake ill of a man and not before a competent Judge And in such a sense a man may reproach God himselfe But is there then a Judge between God and man Shall not the Iudge of all the earth doe right is Abrahams question but there that Judge of all the earth is God himself But is there a Judge of heaven too A Judge between God and man for Gods proceeding there There is The Scripture is a Judge by which God himself will be tryed As the Law is our Judge and the Judge does but declare what is Law so the Scripture is our Judge and God proceeds with us according to those promises and Judgements which he hath laid down in the Scripture When God says in Esay Iudge betweene me and my Vineyard certainly God means that there is something extant some contract some covenant something that hath the nature of a Law some visible some legible thing to judge by And Christ tels us what that is Search the Scriptures says hee for by them wee must bee tryed for our lives So then if I come to thinke that God will call me in question for my life for my eternall life by any way that hath not the Nature of a Law And by the way it is of the Nature and Essence of a Law before it come to bind that it be published if I think that God will condemn me by any unrevealed will any reserved purpose in himself this is to reproach God in the word of this Text for it is prostituere to prostitute to exhibit God otherwise then he hath exhibited himselfe and to charge God with a proceeding upon secret and unrevealed purposes and not rest in his Scriptures God will try us at last God himself will be tryed all the way by his Scriptures And to charge God with the damnation of men otherwise then by his Tantummodo Crede I have commanded thee to beleeve and thou hast not done that And by his Fac hoc vives I have commanded thee to live well and thou hast not done that which are conditions evidently laid downe in the Scriptures and not grounded upon any secret purpose is a reproaching of God in the word of this Text. This this Oppressor of the poor is said to doe here He reproaches the Maker God in that notion as he is the Creator Now this is the clearest notion and fastest apprehension and first handle that God puts out to man to lay hold upon him by as hee is The Creator For though God did elect mee before hee did actually create mee yet God did not mean to elect mee before hee meant to create mee when his purpose was upon me to elect me surely his purpose had passed upon me to create mee for when he elected me I was I. So that this is our first notion of God towards us as he is The Creator The School will receive a pregnant child from his parents and work upon him The Vniversity will receive a grounded Scholar from the School and work upon him The State or the Church will receive a qualified person from the University and worke by him But still the State and the Church and the University and the first School it self
to Damnation by being conceived in sinne as the eldest man nay he is as old a Sinner as the eldest man that is nay as the eldest man that ever was for he sinn'd in Adam and though conceived but this night sinn'd 6000 yeares agoe In young Men vanity begets excesse excesse licentiousnesse licentiousnesse envy hatred quarrels murders so that here is generation upon generation here are risen Grandfather and Great-grandfather-sinnes quickly a forward generation And then they grow suddainly to be habits and they come to prescribe in us Prescription is when there is no memory to the contrary and we cannot remember when that sinfull custome begun in us yea our sinnes come to be reverenced in us and by us our sinnes contract a majestie and a state and they grow sacred to us we dare not trouble a sinne we dare not displace it nor displease it we dare not dispute the prerogative of our sinne but we come to thinke it a kinde of sedition a kinde of innovation and a troubling of the state if we begin to question our Conscience or change that security of sinne which we sleepe in and we thinke it an easier Reformation to repent a sinne once a yeare at Easter when we must needs Receive then to watch a sinne every Day There is scarce any sinne but that in that place of the Apostle to the Galatians it comes within the name of workes of the flesh for though he names divers sinnes which are litterally and properly workes of the flesh as Adultery fornication uncleannesse wantonnesse yet those sinnes that are against a mans owne selfe as Gluttony and Drunkennesse those that are against other men as Contentions and Murders those that are directed upon new Gods as Idolatry those that are Contracts with the Devil as Witchcraft those that are offences to the Church as Heresy are all called by Saint Paul in that place workes of the flesh So that the object of this Spirituall Circumcision is all that concernes the flesh the world the Devil or God or man or the Church in every one of these we may finde somewhat to circumcise But because abundance and superfluity begets these workes of the flesh for though vve carry the Serpent about us yet he does not sting nor hisse till he be warme As long as poverty and vvretchednesse freezes our Concupiscences they are not so violent therefore spirituall Circumcision is vvell expressed by Saint Bernard Moralis Circumcisio est victum vestitum habentem esse contentum A cutting off of these superfluities is this morall that is this spirituall Circumcision Novv for some understanding of these superfluities vve must consider that sometimes a poore man that hath no superfluity in his estate is yet vvastfull in his minde and puts himselfe to superfluous expences in his diet in his apparell and in all things of outvvard shevv and ostentation And on the other side a covetous man that hath a superfluous estate yet starves him selfe and denies himselfe all conveniences for this life Here 's a superfluous confidence in the one that he cannot vvant though he throvv avvay money and here 's a superfluous feare in the other that he shall vvant if he give himselfe bread and here 's vvorke for this spirituall Circumcision on both sides But then the Circumcision is not necessarily to be applied to the riches of the rich man so as that every rich man must necessarily cast away his riches a Godly man may be rich nor necessarily applied so to all outward expences of the free and liberall minded man as that he should shut up dores and weare ragges for a Godly man may fare in his diet and appeare in his garments according to that Degree which he holds in that state But the superfluity is and consequently the Circumcision is to be in the Affection in our Confidence that whatsoever we wast by one meanes or other we shall have more or in our diffidence that if we lay not up all we shall never have enough These be the inordinate affections that must be Circumcised But how for that 's intended in this part We need enquire no farther for the meanes of this spirituall Circumcision then to the very word which the Holy Ghost hath chosen for Circumcision here which is Mul and Namal for that word hath in other places of Scripture three significations that expresse much of the manner how this Circumcision is to be wrought It signifies Purgare to purge to discharge the Conscience and that is by Confession of our sinnes It signifies Mundare to cleanse and purify the Conscience and that is by Contrition and Detestation of that sinne And it signifies Succidere to cut downe to weed and root out whatsoever remaines in our possession that is unjustly got and that is by Destitution Now for the first of these the purging the proper use and working of purging Physick is not that that Medicine pierces into those parts of the Body where the peccant humour lies and from which parts Nature of her selfe is not able to expell it the substance of the Medicine does not goe thither but the Physick lies still and draws those peccant humours together and being then so come to an unsupportable Masse and burden Nature her selfe and their owne waight expels them out Now that which Nature does in a naturall body Grace does in a regenerate soule for Grace is the nature and the life of a regenerate man As therefore the bodily Physick goes not to that part of the body that is affected we must not stay till out Spirituall Physick the Iudgements of God worke upon that particular sinne that transports us That God should weaken me with a violent sicknesse before I will purge my selfe of my licentiousnesse Or strike me with poverty and losse of my stocke before I will purge my selfe of my usury or lay me flat with disgraces and dis-favours of great Persons before I will purge my selfe of my Ambition or evict my land from me by some false title that God in his just Judgement may give way to to punish my sinnes before I will purge my selfe of my oppression and racking of Tenants But before these violent Medicines come if thou canst take Gods ordinary Physick administred in the Word and Sacraments if thou canst but endure that qualme of calling thy selfe to an account and an examination if thou canst draw all thy sinnes together and present them to thine owne Conscience then their owne waight will finde a vent and thou wilt utter them in a full and free Confession to thy God and that is Circumcision as Circumcision consists in the purging of the Conscience to be mov'd upon hearing the Word preached and the denouncing of his Iudgements in his Ordinance before those Judgements surprize thee to recollect thy sinnes in thine owne memory and poure them out in a true Confession The next step in this Circumcision as they are intimated in that word which the Holy