1 Thes 5.16 I may have leave to speake here hereafter more seasonably in a more Festivall time by my ordinary service This is the season of generall Compunction of generall Mortification and no man priviledged for Iesus wept In that Letter which Lentulus in said to have written to the Senate of Rome Divisiâ— in which he gives some Characters of Christ he saies That Christ was never seene to laugh but to weepe often Now in what number he limits his often or upon what testimony he grounds him number we know not We take knowledgethat he wept thrice Hee wept here when he mourned with them that mourned for Lazarus He wept againe when he drew neare to Jerusalem and looked upon that City And he wept a third time in his Passion There is but one Euangelist but this S. Iohn that tells us of these first teares the rest say nothing of them There is but one Euangelist S. Luke Luke 19.41 Hcb. 5.7 that tells us of his second teares the rest speake not of those There is no Euangelist but there is an Apostle that tells us of his third teares S. Paul saies That in the daies of his flesh be offered up prayers with strong cries and teares And those teares Expositors of all sides referre to his Passion though some to his Agony in the Garden some to his Passion on the Corsse and these in my opinion most fitly because those words of S. Paul belong to the declaration of the Priesthood and of the Sacrifice of Christ and for that function of his the Crosse was the Altar and therefore to the Crosse we fixe those third teares The first were Humane teares the second were Propheticall the third were Pontificall appertaining to the Sarifice The first were shed in a Condolency of a humane and naturall calamity fallen upon one family Lazarus was dead The second were shed in Contemplation of future calamitie upon a Nation Jerusalem was to be destroyed The third in Contemplation of sin and the everlasting punishments due to sin and to such sinners as would make no benefit of that Sacrifice which he offered in offering himselfe His friend was dead and then Jesus wept He justified naturail affectins and such offices of piety Jerusalem was tobe destroyed and then Jesus wept He commiserated publique and nationall calamities though a private person His very giving of himselfe for sin was to become to a great many ineffectuall and then Jsus wept He declared how indelible the naturall staine of sin is that not such sweat as hi such teares such blood as his could absolutely wash it out of mans nature The teares of the text are as a Spring a Well belonging to onehoushold the Sisters of Lazarus The teares over Jerusalem are as a River belonging to a whole Country The teares upon the Crosse are as the Sea belonging to all the world and though literally there fall no more into our text then the Spring yet because the Spring flowes into the River and the River into the Sea and that wheresoever we find that Jesus wept we find our Text for our Text is but that Iisus wept therefore by the leave and light of his blessed Spirit we shall looke upon those lovely those heavenly eye through this glasse of his owne teares in all these three lines as he wept here over Lazarus as he wept there over Jerusalem as he wept upon the Crosse over all us For so often Jesus wept Fitst then 1 Part. Humanitus Jesus wept Humâ—nitus he tooke a necessary occasion to shew that he was true Man He was now in hand with the greatest Miracle that ever he did the raising of Lazarus so long dead Could we but do so in our spirituall raising what a blessed harvest were that What a comfort to finde one man here to day raised from his spirituall death this day twelve-month Christ did it every yeare and every yeare he improved his Miracle Mat. 9.25 In the first yeare he raised the Governours Daughter se was newly dead and as yetin the house In the beginning of sin and whilst in the house in the house of God in the Church in a glad obedience to Gods Ordinances and Institutions there for the reparation and resuscitation of dead soules the worke is not so hard In his second yeare Luke 7.15 Christ raised the Widows Son and him he found without ready to be buried In a man growne cold and stiffe in sin impenetrable inflexible by denouncing the Judgements of God almost buried in a stupidity and insensiblenesse of his being dead there is more difficultie But in his third yeare Christ raised this Lazarus he had been long dead and buried and in probability puttrified after foure daies This Miracle Christ meant to make a pregnant proofe of the Resurrection which was his principall intention therein For the greatest arguments against the Resurrection being for the most part of this kinde when a Fish eates a man and another man eates that fish or when one man eates another how shall both these men rise againe when a body is resolv'd in the grave to the first principles or is passed into other substances the case is somewhat neere the same and therefore Christ would worke upon a body neare that state abody putrified And truly in our srirituall raising of the dead to raise a sinner putrified in his owne earth resolv'd in his owne dung especially that hath passed many transformations from shape to shape from sin to sin hi hath beene a Salamander and lived in the fire in the fire successvely in the fire of lust in his youth and in his age in the fire of Ambition and then he hath beene a Serpent a Fish and lived in the waters in the water successively in the troubled water of sedition in his youth and in his age in the cold waters of indevotion how shall we raise this Salamander and this Serpent when this Serpent and this Salamander is all one person and must have contrary musique to charme him contrary physick to cure him To raise a man resolv'd into diverse substances scattered into diverse formes of severall sinnes is the greatest worke And there fore this Miracle which implied that S. Basil calls Miraculum in Miraculo a pregnant a double Miracle For here is Mortuus redivivus A dead man lives that had been done before but Alligatus ambulat saies Basil he that is settered and manacled and tyed with many difficulties he walks And therfore as this Miracle raised him most estmation so for they ever accompany one another it raised him most envy Envy that extended beyond him to Lazarus himselfe who had done nothing Iohn 12.10 and yet The chiefe Priests consulted how they might put Lizarus to death because by reason of him many beleeved in Iesus A disease a distemper a danger which no time shall ever be free from that whereforer there is a coldnesse a disaffection to Gods Cause those who are any way
bee new every morning too and all that he did in eighty eight in the last Centutry he shall doe if we need it in twenty eight in this Century And though he may be angry with our prayers as they are but verball prayers and not accompanied with actions of obedience yet he will not be angry with us for ever but re-establish at home zeale to our present Religion and good correspondence and affections of all parts to one another and our power and our honour in forraign Nations Amen SERMON VI. Preached at S. Pauls upon Christmas Day 1628. Lord who hath beleeved our report Domine quis credidit auditui nostro I Have named to you no booke no chapter no verse where these words are written But I forbore not out of forgetfulnesse nor out of singularity but out of perplexity rather because these words are written in more then one in more then two places of the Bible In your ordinary conversation and communication with other men I am sure you have all observed that many men have certaine formes of speech certaine interjections certaine suppletory phrases which fall often upon their tongue and which they repeat almost in every sentence and for the most part impertinently and then when that phrase conduces nothing to that which they would say but rather disorders and discomposes the sentence and confounds or troubles the hearer And this which some doe out of slacknesse and in-observance and infirmity many men God knowes do out of impiety many men have certaine suppletory Oathes with which they fill up their Discourse then when they are not onely not the better beleeved but the worse understood for those blasphemous interjections Now this which you may thus observe in men sometimes out of infirmity sometimes out of impiety out of an accommodation and communicablenesse of himselfe to man out of desire and a study to shed himselfe the more familiarly and to infuse himselfe the more powerfully into man you may observe even in the holy Ghost in himselfe in the Scriptures which are the discourse and communication of God with man There are certaine idioms certaine formes of speech certaine propositions which the holy Ghost repeats severall times upon severall occasions in the Scriptures It is so in the instrumentall Authors of the particular Bookes of the Bible There are certaine formes of speech certaine characters upon which I would pronounce That 's Moses and not David that 's Iob and not Solomon that 's Esay and not Ieremy How often does Moses repeat his Vivit Dominus and Ego vivo As the Lord liveth and As I live saith the Lord How often does Solomon repeat his vanitas vanitatum All is vanity How often does our blessed Saviour repeat his Amen Amen and in another sense then others had used that word before him so often as that you may reckon it thirtie times in one Evangelist so often as that that may not inconveniently be thought some reason why S. Iohn called Christ by that name Amen Rev. 3.14 Thus saith Amen He whose name is Amen How often does S. Paul especiallly in his Epistles to Timothy and to Titus repeat that phrase Fidelis Sermo This is a true and faithfull saying And how often his juratory caution Coram Domino before the Lord As God is my witnesse And as it is thus for particular persons and particular phrases that they are often repeated so are there certaine whole sentences certaine intire propositions which the holy Ghost does often repeat in the Scripture And except we except that proposition of which S. Peick makes his use That God is no accepter of persons Act. 10.34 for that is repeated in very many places that every where upō every occasiō every man might be remembred of that that God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you presume upon your own knowledge or your actions for God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you condemne another man for an Heretique because he beleeves not just as you beleeve or for a Reprobate because he lives not just as you live for God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you relie wholly upon the outward means that you are wrapped in the covenant that you are bred in a reformed Church for God is no accepter of persons except you will except this proposition I scarce remember any other that is so often repeated in the Scriptures as this which is our Text Lord who hath beleeved our report For it is first in the Prophet Esay There the Prophet is in holy throws and pangs Esay 53.1 and agonies till he be delivered of that prophecy the comming of the Messiah the incarnation of Christ Jesus and yet is put to this exclamation Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved our report And then you have these words in the Gospell of S. Iohn John 12.38 where we are not put upon the consideration of a future Christ in prophecy but the Evangelist exhibits Christ in person actually really visibly evidently doing great works executing great judgements multiplying great Miracles and yet put to the application of this exclamation Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved this report And then you have these words also in S. Paul Rom. 10.16 where we doe not consider a prophecy of a future Christ nor a history of a present Christ but an application of that whole Christ to every soule in the fetling of a Church in that concatenation of meanes for the infusion of faith expressed in that Chapter sending and preaching and hearing and yet for all these powerfull and familiar assistances Domine quis crodidit Lord who hath beleeved that report So that now beloved you cannot say that you have a Text without a place for you have three places for this Text you have it in the great Prophet in Esay in the great Evangelist in S. Iohn and in the great Apostle in S. Paul And because in all three places the words minister usefull doctrine of edification we shall by yours and the times leave consider the words in all three places In all three the words are a sad and a serious expostulation of the Minister of God with God himselfe that his Meanes and his Ordinances powerfully committed to him being faithfully transmitted by him to the people were neverthelesse fruitlesse and ineffectuall I doe Lord as thou biddest me sayes the Prophet Esay I prophecy I foretell the comming of the Messiah the incarnation of thy Son for the salvation of the world and I know that none of them that heare me can imagine or conceive any other way for the redemption of the world by fatisfaction to thy Justice but this and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved my report I doe Lord as thou biddest me sayes Christ himselfe in S. Iohn I come in person I glorifie thy name I doe thy will I preach thy Gospell I confirm my doctrine with evident Miracles and I seale
that blessed Sermon of our Saviours which is called the Sermon of Beatitudes So that we shall make it a part apart to consider the Sermon from which this Text is taken before we dilate the Text it self into a Sermon for there will arise some usefull observations out of these three doubts first Quae concio what this Sermon it self was and then Quibus to what Auditory it was preached And lastly Quomodo in what manner Christ preached this Sermon And these three the Sermon the Auditory the disposition of the Preacher will also be three branches of this which we shall make our first part before we come to the other three of the Text it self First then there is this doubt made of this Sermon altogether 1 Part. whether this Sermon which S. Matthew records here be the same Sermon which S. Luke mentions in his sixth Chapter or whether they were preached at severall times The greater part of the ancients but yet not all take them to be severall Sermons The greater part of the later men and yet not all neither take them to be but one and the same Sermon If it be so if both be but one Sermon this may be justly considered that since S. Luke remembers but a few passages and a few parts of that Sermon in respect of S. Matthew for S. Matthews relation is large and particular and S. Lukes more briefe and summary they that come to heare Sermons and would make benefit by them by a subsequent meditation must not think themselves frustrated of their purposes if they do not understand all or not remember all the Sermon Scarce any Sermon is so preached or so intended as that all works upon all or all belongs unto all The Lord and his Spirit puts into the Preachers mouth a judgement against oppression against extortion against usury and he utters that judgement But perchance thou hast no lands to rack tenants no office to grinde suitors no mony to devoure a debtor by usury and so that passage of the Sermon bent against oppression or extortion or usury concernes not thee affects not thee But next to thee there may sit an oppressor or extortioner or usurer and he needed that and by Gods grace receives benefit by that which found nothing to work upon in thee And then thy turn comes after and God speaks to thy soul in a discovery of those sins to which thou art enclined and then he gives thy neighbour who was pinched and brought to a remorse before that refreshing which thou hadst before that is a thankfull acknowledgement that though he be subject to other sins yet God hath preserved him from that particular God directs the tongue of his Ministers as he doth his showres of rain They fall upon the face of a large compasse of earth when as all that earth did not need that rain The whole Congregation is oftentimes in common entendment conformable and well setled in all matters of Doctrine and all matters of Discipline And yet God directs us sometimes to extend our discourse perchance with a zeale and a vehemence which may seem unnecessary and impertinent because all in the Church are presumed to be of one minde in the proofe of our doctrine against Papists or of our discipline against Non-conformitans For Gods eye sees in what seat there sits or in what corner there stands some one man that wavers in matters of Doctrine and enclines to hearken after a Seducer a Jesuit or a Semi-Jesuit a practising Papist or a Sesqui-Jesuit a Jesuited Lady And Gods eye sees in what seat there sits or in what corner there stands some weak soul that is scandalized with some Ceremony or part of our Discipline and in danger of falling from the unity of the Church And for the refreshing of that one span of ground God le ts fall a whole showre of rain for the rectifying of that one soul God poures out the Meditations of the Preacher into such a subject as perchance doth little concern the rest of the Congregation S. Matthew relates Christs Sermon at large and S. Luke but briefly and yet S. Luke remembers some things that S. Matthew had left out If thou remember not all that was presented to thy faith all the Citations of places of Scriptures nor all that was presented to thy reason all the deducements and inferences of the Schooles nor all that was presented to thy spirituall delight all the sentences of ornament produced out of the Fathers yet if thou remember that which concerned thy sin and thy soul if thou meditate upon that apply that thou hast brought away all the Sermon all that was intended by the Holy Ghost to be preached to thee And if thou have done so as at a donative at a Coronation or other solemnity when mony is throwne among the people though thou light but upon one shilling of that money thou canst not think that all the rest is lost but that some others are the richer for it though thou beest not so if thou remember or apply or understand but one part of the Sermon doe not think all the rest to have been idly or unnecessarily or impertinently spoken for thou broughtest a feaver and hast had thy Julips another brought a fainting and a diffident spirit and must have his Cordials Thus then if S. Lukes Sermon be the same that S. Matthews was we see by S. Lukes manner of repeating it That a Sermon may be well remembred and well applyed though all the parts thereof be not so And then if these were divers Sermons and so preached by Christ at severall times there arises also this consideration That Christ did not and therefore we need not forbeare to preach the same particular Doctrines or to handle the same particular points which we or others in that place have handled before A preachers end is not a gathering of fame to himselfe but a gathering of soules to God and his way is not novelty but edification If we consider the Sermon in Saint Matthew and the Sermon in S. Luke the purpose and the scope of both the matter and the forme of both the body and the parts of both the phrase and the language of both is for the most part the same and yet Christ forbore not to preach it twice This excuses no mans ignorance that is not able to preach seasonably and to break and distribute the bread of life according to the emergent necessities of that Congregation at that time Nor it excuses no mans lazinesse that will not employ his whole time upon his calling Nor any mans vain-glory and ostentation who having made a Pye of Plums without meat offers it to sale in every Market and having made an Oration of Flowres and Figures and Phrases without strength sings it over in every Pulpit It excuses no mans ignorance nor lazinesse nor vain-glory but yet it reproaches their itching and curious eares to whom any repetition of the same things is irk some and
nor reconcile after he shall have made up that account with his Son and told him These be all you dyed for these be all you purchased these be all whom I am bound to save for your sake for the rest their portion is everlasting destruction Under this law under this evidence under this sentence vae desiderantibus woe to them that pretend to desire this day of the Lord as though by their owne outward righteousnesse they could stand upright in this judgement Woe to them that say Let God come when he will it shall goe hard but he shall finde me at Church I heare three or foure Sermons a week he shall finde me in my Discipline and Mortification I fast twice a week he shall finde me in my Stewardship and Dispensation I give tithes of all that I possesse When Ezechias shewed the Ambassadors of Babylon all his Treasure and his Armour the malediction of the Prophet fell upon it that all that Treasure and Armour which he had so gloriously shewed should be transported to them to whom he had shewed it into Babylon He that publishes his good works to the world they are carried into the world and that is his reward Not that there is not a good use of letting our light shine before men too for when S. Paul sayes If I yet please men Gal. 1.10 I should not be the servant of Christ and when he saith I doe please all men in all things S. Austine found no difficulty in reconciling those two Navem quaero sayes he sed patriam When I goe to the Haven to hire a Ship it is for the love I have to my Country When I declare my faith by my works to men it is for the love I beare to the glory of God but if I desire the Lords day upon confidence in these works vae scirpo as Iob expresses it woe unto me poore rush Job 8.16 for sayes he the rush is greene till the Sun come that is sayes Gregory upon that place donec divina districtio in judicio candeat till the fire of the judgement examine our works they may have some verdure some colour but vae desiderantibus wo unto them that put themselves unto that judgement for their works sake For ut quid vobis to what end is it for you If your hypocriticall security could hold out to the last if you could delude the world at the last gasp if those that stand about you then could be brought to say he went away like a Lambe alas the Lambe of God went not away so the Lamb of God had his colluctations disputations expostulations apprehensions of Gods indignation upon him then This security call it by a worse name stupidity is not a lying down like a Lamb but a lying down like Issachers Asse between two burdens for two greater burdens cannot be then sin and the senslesnesse of sin Vt quid vobis what will ye doe at that day which shall be darknesse and not light God dwels in luce inaccessibili 1 Tim. 6.16 in such light as no man by the light of nature can comprehend here but when that light of grace which was shed upon thee here should have brought thee at last to that inaccessible light then thou must be cast in tenebras exteriores Mat. 8.12 into darknesse and darknesse without the Kingdome of heaven And if the darknesse of this world which was but a darknesse of our making could not comprehend the light when Christ in his person brought the light and offered repentance certainly in that outward darknesse of the next world the darknesse which God hath made for punishment they shall see nothing neither intramittendo nor extramittendo neither by receiving offer of grace from heaven nor in the disposition to pray for grace in hell For as at our inanimation in our Mothers womb our immortall soule when it comes swallowes up the other soules of vegetation and of sense which were in us before so at this our regeneration in the next world the light of glory shall swallow up the light of grace To as many as shall be within there will need no grace to supply defects nor eschew dangers because there we shall have neither defects nor dangers There shall be no night no need of candle Apoc. 22.5 nor of Sun for the Lord shall give them light and they shall raigne for ever and ever There shall be no such light of grace as shall work repentance to them that are in the light of glory neither could they that are in outward darknesse comprehend the light of grace if it could flow out upon them First you did the works of darknesse sayes the Apostle Rom. 13.12 and then that custome that practice brought you to love darknesse better then light and then as the Prince of darknesse delights to transforme himselfe into an Angell of light Iohn 3. so by your hypocrisie you pretend a light of grace when you are darknesse it selfe and therefore at quid vobis what will you get by that day which is darknesse and not light Now as this Woe and commination of our Prophet had one aime 3. Part. to beat down their scorne which derided the judgements of God in this world and a second aime to beat downe their confidence that thought themselves of themselves able to stand in Gods judgements in the next world so it hath a third mark better then these two it hath an aime upon them in whom a wearinesse of this life when Gods corrections are upon them or some other mistaking of their owne estate and case works an over-hasty and impatient desire of death and in this sense and acceptation the day of the Lord is the day of our death and transmigration out of this world and the darknesse is still everlasting darknesse Now for this we take our lesson in Iob Iob. 7.1 Vita militia mans life is a warfare man might have lived at peace Greg. he himselfe chose a rebellious warre and now quod volens expetiit nolens portat that warre which he willingly embarked himselfe in at first though it be against his will now he must goe through with In Iob we have our lesson and in S. Paul we have our Law Eph 63. Take ye the whole armour of God that ye may be able having done all to stand that is that having overcome one temptation you may stand in battle against the next for it is not adoloscentia militia but vita that we should think to triumph if we had overcome the heat and intemperance of youth but we must fight it out to our lives end And then we have the reward of this lesson and of this law limited nemo coronatur no man is crowned except he fight according to this law that is 2 Tim. 2.5 he persever to the end And as we have our lesson in Iob our rule and reward in the Apostle who were both great Commanders
Congregation will I blesse the Lord But yet I finde the highest exaltations and the noblest elevations of my devotion Psal 35.18 when I give thanks in the great Congregation and praise him among much people for so me thinks I come nearer and nearer to the Communion of Saints in Heaven Apoc. 21.22 Where it is therefore said that there is no Temple I saw no Temple in Heaven because all Heaven is a Temple And because the Lord God Almighty and the Lambe who fill all Heaven are Obviam Domino as S. Iohn sayes there the Temple thereof So far towards that as into the Ayre this text carries us Obviam Domino To meet the Lord. The Lord requires no more not so much at our hands as he does for us When he is come from the right hand of his Father in heaven into the ayre to meet us he is come farther then we are to go from the grave to meet him But we have met the Lord in many a lower place in many unclean actions have we met the Lord in our owne hearts and said to our selves Surely the Lord is here and sees us Gen. â—9 9 and with Ioseph How then can I doe this great wickednesse and sin against my God and yet have proceeded gone forward in the accomplishment of that sin But there it was Obviam Iesu Obviam Christo We met a Iesus We met a Christ a God of mercy who forgave us those sins Here in our text it is Obviam Domino We must meet the Lord He invests here no other name but that He hath laid aside his Christ and his Iesus names of Mercy and Redemption and Salvation and comes only in the name of power The Lord The Judge of quick and dead In which Judgement he shews no mercy All his mercy is exercised in this life and he that hath not received his portion of that mercy before his death shall never receive any There he judges only by our workes Whom hast thou fed whom hast thou clothed Then in judgement we meet the Lord the Lord of power and the last time that ever we shall meet a Iesus a Christ a God of mercy is upon our death-bed but there we shall meet him so as that when we meet him in another name The Lord in the ayre yet by the benefit of the former mercy received from Iesus We shall be with the Lord for ever First Erimus We shall Bee we shall have a Beeing Erimus There is nothing more contrary to God and his proceedings then annihilation to Bee nothing Do nothing Think nothing It is not so high a step to raise the poore out of the dust Psal 113.7 and to lift the needy from the dunghill and set him with Princes To make a King of a Beggar is not so much as to make a Worm of nothing Whatsoever God hath made thee since yet his greatest work upon thee was that he made thee and howsoever he extend his bounty in preferring thee yet his greatest largenesse is in preserving thee in thy Beeing And therefore his own name of Majesty is Jehovah which denotes his Essence his Beeing And it is usefully moved and safely resolved in the School that the devill himself cannot deliberately wish himselfe nothing Suddenly a man may wish himself nothing because that seemes to deliver him from the sense of his present misery but deliberately he cannot because whatsoever a man wishes must be something better then he hath yet and whatsoever is better is not nothing Nihil contrarium Deo August There is nothing truly contrary to God To do nothing is contrary to his working but contrary to his nature contrary to his Essence there is nothing For whatsoever is any thing even in that Beeing and therefore because it is hath a conformity to God and an affinity with God who is Beeing Essence it self In him we have our Beeing sayes the Apostle Act. 17.28 But here it is more then so not only In illo but Cum illo not only In him but With him not only in his Providence but in his Presence The Hypocrite hath a Beeing and in God but it is not with God Cum illc Esay 29.13 Qua cor longe With his lips he honours God but removes his heart far from him And God sends him after his heart that he may keep him at that distance as S. Gregory reads and interprets that place of Esay Redite praevaricatores ad cor Return O sinners follow your own heart Esay 46.8 and then I am sure you and I shall never meet Our Saviour Christ delivers this distance plainly Discedite à me Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire Mat. 25.42 Where the first part of the sentence is incomparably the heaviest the departing worse then the fire the intensnesse of that fire the ayre of that brimstone the anguish of that worm the discord of that howling and gnashing of teeth is no comparable no considerable part of the torment in respect of the privation of the sight of God the banishment from the presence of God an absolute hopelesnesse an utter impossibility of ever comming to that which sustaines the miserable in this world that though I see no Sun here I shall see the Son of God there The Hypocrite shall not do so we shall Bee and Bee with him and Bee with him for ever which is the last thing that doth fall under ours or can fall under any consideration Of S. Hierome S. Augustine sayes Quae Hicronymus neseivit Semper nullus hominum unquam seivit That that S. Hierome knew not no man ever knew And S. Cyril to whom S. Augustine said that said also to S. Augustine in magnifying of S. Hierome That when a Catholique Priest disputed with an Heretique and cited a passage of S. Hierome and the Heretique said Hierome lyed instantly he was struck dumb yet of this last and everlasting joy and glory of heaven in the fruition of God S. Hierome would adventure to say nothing no not then when he was devested of his mortall body dead for as soon as he dyed at Bethlem he came instantly to Hippo S. Augustines Bishoprick and though he told him Hieronymi anima sum I am the soule of that Hierome to whom thou art now writing about the joyes and glory of heaven yet he said no more of that but this Quid quaeris brevi immittere vasculo totum mare Canst thou hope to poure the whole Sea into a thimble or to take the whole world into thy hand And yet that is easier then to comprehend the joy and the glory of heaven in this life Nor is there any thing that makes this more incomprehensible then this Semper in our text the Eternity thereof That we shall be with him for ever For this Eternity this Everlastingnesse is not only incomprehensible to us in this life but even in heaven we can never know it experimentally and
of mercy to the poore and breaking off his sinnes And after all this hee had a yeares space to consider himselfe Dan 26. before the judgement was executed upon him But now beloved Voluntas perversa all that we have said or can be said to this purpose conduces but to this That though this reproof which the Holy Ghost leads us to be rather in convincing the understanding by argument and other perswasions then by extending our power to the destruction of the person yet this hath a modification how it must be and a determination where it must end for there are cases in which we may we must go farther For for the understanding we know how to worke upon that we know what arguments have prevayled upon us with what arguments we have prevailed upon others and those we can use so far Vt nihil habeant contra si non assentiantur That though they will not be of our minde yet they shall have nothing to say against it So far we can go upon that faculty the understanding But the will of man is so irregular so unlimited a thing as that no man hath a bridle upon anothers will no man can undertake nor promise for that no Creature hath that faculty but man yet no man understands that faculty It hath beene the exercise of a thousand wits it hath beene the subject yea the knot and perplexity of a thousand disputations to find out what it is that determines that concludes the will of man so as that it assents thereunto For if that were absolutely true which some have said and yet perchance that is as far as any have gone that Vltimus actus intellectus est voluntas That the last act of the Understanding is the Will then all our labour were still to worke upon the Understanding and when that were rectified the Will must follow But it is not so As we feele in our selves that we doe many sins which our understanding and the soule of our understanding our conscience tels us we should not doe so we see many others persist in errors after manifest convincing after all reproofe which can be directed upon the understanding When therefore those errors which are to be reproved are in that faculty which is not subject to this reproofe by argument in a perverted will because this wilfull stubbornnesse is alwaies accompanied with pride with singularity with faction with schisme with sedition we must remember the way which the Holy Ghost hath directed us in Eccles 10.16 If the iron be blunt we must either put to more strength or whet the edge Now when the fault is in the perversenesse of the will we can put to no more strength no argument serves to overcome that And therefore the holy Ghost hath admitted another way To whet the iron Gal. 5.12 And in that way does the Apostle say Vtinam abscindantur I would they were even cut off which trouble you There is an incorrigibility in which when the reproofe cannot lead the will it must draw blood which is where pretences of Religion are made and Treasons and Rebellions and Invasions and Massacres of people and Assasinates of Princes practised And this is a reproofe which as we shall see of the rest in the following branches is from the Holy Ghost in his function in this text as he is a Comforter This therefore is our comfort That our Church was never negligent in reproving the Adversary but hath from time to time strenuously and confidently maintained her truths against all oppositions to the satisfying of any understanding though not to the reducing of some perverse wils So Gregor de Valentia professes of our arguments I confesse these reasons would conclude my understanding Nisi didicissem captivare intellectum meum ad intellectum Ecclesiae But that I have learnt to captivate my understanding to the understanding of the Church and say what they will to beleeve as the Church of Rome beleeves which is Maldonats profession too upon divers of Calvins arguments This argument would prevaile upon me but that he was an Heretique that found it So that here is our comfort we have gone so far in this way of Reproofe Vt nihil habeant contra etsi nobiscum non sentiant This is our comfort that as some of the greatest Divines in forraine parts so also in our Church at home some of the greatest Prelates who have beene traduced to favour Rome have written the most solidly and effectually against the heresies of Rome of any other But it must be a comfort upon them that are reproved And this is their comfort that the State never drew drop of blood for Religion But then this is our comfort still that where their perversnesse shall endanger either Church or State both the State and Church may by the holy Ghosts direction and will return to those means which God allows them for their preservation that is To whet the edge of the Iron in execution of the laws And so we passe from our second consideration The Action Reproofe to the subject of Reproofe The world He shall reprove the world It is no wonder that this word Mundus should have a larger signification then other words for it containes all embraces comprehends all But there is no word in Scripture Mundus that hath not only not so large but so diverse a signification for it signifies things contrary to one another It signifies commonly and primarily the whole frame of the world and more particularly all mankinde and oftentimes only wicked men and sometimes only good men As Dilexit mundum God loved the world John 3.16 John 4.42 Rom. 11.15 And Hic est verè salvator mundi This is the Christ the Saviour of the world And Reconciliatio mundi The casting away of the Iews is the reconciliation of the world The Jews were a part of the world but not of this world Now in every sense the world may well be said to bee subject to the reproofe of God as reproof is a rebuke for He rebuked the winde Luk. 8.14 Psal 106.17 Gen. 3.17 Psal 105.14 and it was quiet And He rebuked the red Sea and it was dryed up He rebuked the earth bitterly in that Maledicta terra for Adams punishment Cursed be the ground for thy sake And for the noblest part of earth man and the noblest part of men Kings He rebuked even Kings for their sakes and said Touch not mine anointed But this is not the rebuke of our Text for ours is a rebuke of comfort even to them that are rebuked Whereas the angry rebuke of God carries heavy effects with it Increpat fugiunt Esay 17.13 God shall rebuke them and they shall flie far off He shall chide them out of his presence and they shall never return to it Increpasti superbos maledicti isti Thou hast rebuked the proud Psal 119.21 and thy rebuke hath wrought upon them as a
Malediction not physick but poyson As it is in another Psalme Increpasti periit Thou hast rebuked them and they perished Psal 9.6 In these cases there is a working of the holy Ghost and that as the holy Ghost is a Comforter for it is a comfort to them for whose deliverances God executes these judgements upon others that they are executed but we consider a rebuke a reproofe that ministers comfort even to them upon whom it fals and so in that sense we shall see that this Comforter reproves the world in all those significations of the world which wee named before As the world is the whole frame of the world God hath put into it a reproofe Mundus magnus a rebuke lest it should seem eternall which is a sensible decay and age in the whole frame of the world and every piece thereof The seasons of the yeare irregular and distempered the Sun fainter and languishing men lesse in stature and shorter-lived No addition but only every yeare new sorts new species of wormes and flies and sicknesses which argue more and more putrefaction of which they are engendred And the Angels of heaven which did so familiarly converse with men in the beginning of the world though they may not be doubted to perform to us still their ministeriall assistances yet they seem so far to have deserted this world as that they do not appeare to us as they did to those our Fathers S. Cyprian observed this in his time when writing to Demetrianus Cyprian who imputed all those calamities which afflicted the world then to the impiety of the Christians who would not joyne with them in the worship of their gods Cyprian went no farther for the cause of these calamities but Ad senescentem mundum To the age and impotency of the whole world And therefore sayes he Imputent senes Christianis quòd minùs valeant in senectutem Old men were best accuse Christians that they are more sickly in their age then they were in their youth Is the fault in our religion or in their decay Canos in pueris videmus nec aetas in senectute desinit sed incipit à senectute We see gray haires in children and we do not die old and yet we are borne old Lest the world as the world signifies the whole frame of the world should glorifie it selfe or flatter and abuse us with an opinion of eternity we may admit usefully though we do not conclude peremptorily this observation to be true that there is a reproofe a rebuke born in it a sensible decay and mortality of the whole world But is this a reproofe agreeable to our Text A reproofe that carries comfort with it Consolatio Rom. 8.19 Comfort to the world it selfe that it is not eternall Truly it is As S. Paul hath most pathetically expressed it The creature that is the world is in anearnest expectation The creature waiteth The whole creation groaneth and travelleth in pain Therefore the creature that is the world receives a perfect comfort in being delivered at last and an inchoative comfort in knowing now that it shall be delivered From what From subjection to vanity Ver. 20. 21. from the bondage of corruption That whereas the world is now subject to mutability and corruption at the Resurrection it shall no longer be so but in that measure and in that degree which it is capable of Ver. 21. It shall enter into the glorious liberty of the children of God that is be as free from corruption or change in that state wherein it shall be glorified Esay 30.26 2 Pet. 3.13 as the Saints shall be in the glory of their state for The light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold And there shall be new heavens and new earth Which is a state that this world could not attaine to if it were eternally to last in that condition in which it is now a condition subject to vanity impotency corruption and therefore there is a comfort in this reproofe even to this world That it is not eternall This world is the happier for that As the world Mundus homines Mat. 18.7 in a second sense signifies all the men of the world so it is Wo unto the world because of offences There is a reproofe born in every man which reproofe is an uncontrollable sense and an unresistible remorse and chiding of himselfe inwardly when he is about to sin and a horrour of the Majesty of God whom when he is alone he is forced and forced by himselfe to feare and to beleeve though he would fain make the world beleeve that he did not beleeve in God but lived at peace and subsisted of himselfe without being beholding to God For as in nature heavy things will ascend and light descend rather then admit a vacuity so in religion the devill will get into Gods roome rather then the heart of man shall be without the opinion of God There is no Atheist They that oppose the true do yet worship a false god and hee that sayes there is no God doth for all that set up some God to himselfe Every man hath this reproofe borne in him that he doth ill that he offends a God that he breaks a law when he sins Consolatio And this reproofe is a reproofe within our Text for it hath this comfort with it That howsoever some men labour to overcome the naturall tendernesse of the conscience and so triumph over their own ruine and rejoyce when they can sleep and wake again without any noise in their conscience or sense of sin yet in truth this candle cannot be blowne out this remorse cannot be overcome But were it not a greater comfort to me if I could overcome it No. For though this remorse which is but a naturall impression and common to all men be not grace yet this remorse which is the naturall reproofe of the soule is that that grace works upon Grace doth not ordinarily work upon the stifnesse of the soule upon the silence upon the frowardnesse upon the aversnesse of the soule but when the soule is soupled and mellowed and feels this reproofe this remorse in it self that reproofe that remorse becomes as the matter and grace enters as the form that becomes the body and grace becomes the soule and that is the comfort of this naturall reproofe of the world that is of every man First that it will not be quenched in it selfe and then that ordinarily it induces a nobler light then it selfe which is effectuall and true Repentance As the world in a third sense Mundus mali Heb. 11.7 2 Pet. 2.5 signifies only the wicked world so it is Noah in preparing an Ark condemned the world And so God spared not the old world That world the world of the wicked suffer many reproofes many rebukes in their hearts which they will not discover because they
envy God that glory We reade of divers great actors in the first persecutions of the Christians who being fearefully tormented in body and soule at their deaths took care only that the Christians might not know what they suffered lest they should receive comfort and their God glory therein Certainly Herod would have been more affected if he had thought that we should have knowne how his pride was punished with those sudden wormes Acts 12.23 then with the punishment it selfe This is a self-reproofe even in this though he will not suffer it to break out to the edification of others there is some kinde of chiding himself for some thing mis-done But is there any comfort in this reproofe Consolatio Truly beloved I can hardly speak comfortably of such a man after he is dead that dyes in such a dis-affection loath that God should receive glory or his servants edification by these judgements But even with such a man if I assisted at his death-bed I would proceed with a hope to infuse comfort even from that dis-affection of his As long as I saw him in any acknowledgement though a negligent nay though a malignant a despitefull acknowledgement of God as long as I found him loath that God should receive glory even from that loathnesse from that reproofe from that acknowledgement That there is a God to whom glory is due I would hope to draw him to glorifie that God before his last gasp My zeale should last as long as his wives officiousnesse or his childrens or friends or servants obsequiousnesse or the solicitude of his Physitians should as long as there were breath they would minister some help as long as there were any sense of God I would hope to do some good And so much comfort may arise even out of this reproofe of the world as the world is only the wicked world In the last sense the world signifies the Saints the Elect the good men of the world Mundus sancti John 14.31 John 17.21 beleeving and persevering men Of those Christ sayes The world shall know that I love the Father And That the world may beleeve that thou hast sent me And this world that is the godliest of this world have many reproofes many corrections upon them That outwardly they are the prey of the wicked and inwardly have that Stimulum carnis which is the devils Solicitor and round about them they see nothing but profanation of his word mis-imployment of his works his creatures mis-constructions of his actions his judgements blasphemy of his name negligence and under-valuation of his Sacraments violation of his Sabbaths and holy convocations O what a bitter reproofe what a manifest evidence of the infirmity nay of the malignity of man is this if it be put home and throughly considered That even the goodnesse of man gets to no higher a degree but to have been the occasion of the greatest ill the greatest cruelty that ever was done the crucifying of the Lord of life The better a man is the more he concurred towards being the cause of Christs death which is a strange but a true and a pious consideration Dilexit mundum He loved the world and he came to save the world That is most especially and effectually those that should beleeve in him in the world and live according to that beliefe and die according to that life If there had been no such Christ had not died never been crucified So that impenitent men mis-beleeving men have not put Christ to death but it is we we whom he loves we that love him that have crucified him In what rank then of opposition against Christ shall we place our sins since even our faith and good works have been so farre the cause why Christ died that but for the salvation of such men Beleevers Workers Perseverers Christ had not died This then is the reproofe of the world that is of the Saints of God in the world Psal 84.10 that though I had rather be a doore-keeper in the house of my God I must dwell in the tents of wickednesse That though my zeale consume me because mine enemies have forgotten thy words Psal 119.138 I must stay amongst them that have forgotten thy words But this and all other reproofes that arise in the godly that we may still keep up that consideration that he that reproves us is The Comforter have this comfort in them that these faults that I indure in others God hath either pardoned in me or kept from me and that though this world be wicked yet when I shall come to the next world I shall finde Noah that had been drunk and Lot Gen. 9.21 Gen. 19.33 Numb 11.11 that had been incestuous and Moses that murmured at Gods proceedings and Iob and Ieremy and Ionas impatient even to imprecations against themselves Christs owne Disciples ambitious of worldly preferment his Apostles forsaking him his great Apostle forswearing him And Mary Magdalen that had been I know not what sinner and David that had been all I leave none so ill in this world but I may carry one that was or finde some that had been as ill as they in heaven and that blood of Christ Jesus which hath brought them thither is offered to them that are here who may be successors in their repentance as they are in their sins And so have you all intended for the Person the Comforter and the Action Reproofe and the Subject the World remaines only that for which there remaines but a little time the Time Cum venerit When the Comforter comes he will proceed thus We use to note three Advents three commings of Christ Cum venerit An Advent of Humiliation when he came in the flesh an Advent of glory when he shall come to judgement and between these an Advent of grace in his gracious working in us in this life and this middlemost Advent of Christ is the Advent of the Holy Ghost in this text when Christ works in us the Holy Ghost comes to us And so powerfull is his comming that whereas he that sent him Christ Jesus himself Came unto his own and his own received him not John 1.11 The Holy Ghost never comes to his owne but they receive him for onely by receiving him they are his owne for besides his title of Creation by which we are all his with the Father and the Son as there is a particular title accrewed to the Son by Redemption so is there to the Holy Ghost of certaine persons upon whom he sheds the comfort of his application The Holy Ghost picks out and chooses whom he will Spirat ubi vult perchance me that speake perchance him that heares perchance him that shut his eyes yester-night and opened them this morning in the guiltinesse of sin and repents it now perchance him that hath been in the meditation of an usurious contract of an ambitious supplantation of a licentious solicitation since he came hither into Gods
parts of this text and to all that the Holy Ghost is to do upon the world for howsoever he may rebuke the world of sin he cannot be said to rebuke it of righteousnesse and of judgement according to S. Augustines later interpretation of these words for in one place of his workes he takes this word Reproofe in the harder sense for rebuke but in another in the milder we have and must pursue the second signification of the word That the Holy Ghost shall reprove the world of sin of righteousnesse of judgement by convincing the world by making the world confesse and acknowledge all that that the Holy Ghost intends in all these And this manifestation and this conviction in these three will be our parts In the first of which That the Holy Ghost shall Reprove that is convince the world of sin we shall first looke how all the world is under sin and then whether the Holy Ghost being come have convinced all the world made all the world see that it is so and in these two inquisitions we shall determine that first branch For the first for of the other two we shall reach you the boughes anon 1 Part. Mundus sub peccato when you come to gather the fruit and lay open the particulars then when we come to handle them That all the world is under sin and knowes it not for this Reproofe Elenchus is sayes the Philosopher Syllogismus contra contraria opinantem An argument against him that is of a contrary opinion we condole first the misery of this Ignorance for August Quid miserius misero non miser ante seipsum What misery can be so great as to be ignorant insensible of our owne misery Every act done in such an ignorance as we might overcome is a new sin And it is not onely a new practise from the Devill but it is a new punishment from God August Iussisti Domine sic est ut poena sit sibi omnis inordinatus animus Every sinner is an Executioner upon himselfe and he is so by Gods appointment who punishes former sins with future This then is the miserable state of the world It might know and does not that it is wholly under an inundation a deluge of sin For sin is a transgression of some Law which he that sins may know himselfe to be bound by For if any man could be exempt from all Law he were impeccable he could not sin And if he could not possibly have any knowledge of the Law it were no Law to him Now under the transgression of what Law lyes all the World Lex Humana For the positive Laws of the States in which we live a man may keepe them according to the intention of them that made those Laws which is all that is required in any humane Law to keepe it if not according to the letter yet according to the intention of the Law-maker Nay it is not onely possible Seneca but easie to do so Angusta innocentia ad legem bonum esse sayes the morall mans holy Ghost Seneca It is but a narrow and a shallow honesty to be no honester then the Law forces him to be Thus then in violating the Laws of the State all the World is not under sin If we passe from Laws meerely humane Ceremonialia though in truth scarce any just Law is so meerely humane for God that commands obedience to humane Laws hath a hand in the making of them to those ceremoniall and judiciall Laws which the Jews received immediately from God in which respect they may be called divine Laws though they were but locall and but temporary which were in such a number as that though penall Laws in some States be so many and so heavy as that they serve onely for snares and springes upon the people yet they are no where equall to the ceremoniall and judiciall Laws Psal â— 6 which lay upon the Jews yet even for these Laws S. Paul sayes of himselfe That touching that righteousnesse which is in the Law he was blamelesse Thus therefore in violating ceremoniall or judiciall Laws all the World is not under sin both because all the World was not bound by that Law and some in the World did keepe it But in two other respects it is Lex Naturae first That there is a Law of Nature that passes through all the World a Law in the heart and of the breach of this no man can be alwayes ignorant As every man hath a devill in himselfe Chrysost Spontaneum Daemonem A Devill of his owne making some particular sin that transports him so every man hath a kinde of God in himselfe such a conscience as sometimes reproves him Carry we this consideration a little higher and we may see herein some verification at least some usefull application of Origens extreme error Origen He thought that at last after infinite revolutions as all other substances should be even the Devill himselfe should be as it were sucked and swallowed into God and there should remaine nothing at last as there was nothing else at first but onely God not by an annihilation of the Creature that any thing should come to nothing but by this absorption by a transmigration of all Creatures into God that God should be all and all should be God So in our case That which is the sinners devill becomes his God That very sin which hath possessed him by the excesse of that sin or by some losse or paine or shame following that sin occasions that reproofe and remorse that withdraws him from that sin So all the world is under sin because they have a Law in themselves and a light in themselves And it is so in a second respect Originale peecatum Esay 1.4 Wisd 2.23 That all being derived from Adam Adams sin is derived upon all Onely that one man that was not naturally deduced from Adam Christ Jesus was guilty of no sin All others are subject to that malediction Vae genti peccatrici Wo to this sinfull World God made man Inexterminabilem sayes the Wiseman undisseisible unexpellible such as he could not be thrust out of his Immortality whether he would or no August for that was mans first immortality Posse non mori That he needed not have dyed When man killed himselfe and threw upon all his posterity the morte morieris that we must dye and that Death is Stipendium peccati The wages of sin and that Anima quae peccaverit Ezech. 18.4 ipsa morietur that That soule and onely that soule that sins shall dye Since we see the punishment fall upon all we are sure the fault cleaves to all too all do dye therefore all do sin And though this Originall sin that over-flowes us all may in some sense be called peccatum involuntarium a sin without any elicite act of the Will for so it must needs be in Children and so properly no sin yet as
these foure links to be let downe to us and let us take hold of that linke that is next us A good life and keepe a fast and inseparable hold upon that for though in that sense of which we spoke Fides justificat sola Only faith do justifie yet it is not true in any sense Fides est sola that there is any faith where there is nothing but faith God comes downeward to us but we must go upward to God not to get above him in his unrevealed Decrees but to go up towards him in laying hold upon that lowest linke that as the holy Ghost shall reprove that is convince the world that there is no other righteousnesse but that of Christ so he may enable you to passe a judgement upon your selves and to testifie to the world that you have apprehended that righteousness Which is that that is principally intended in the third and last part That the holy Ghost 3. Part. when he comes shall reprove the World as of sin of rightcousness so of judgment After those two convictions of the World that is Jew and Gentile first that they are all under sin and so in a state of condemnation And secondly that there is no righteousnesse no justification to be had to the Jew by the Law nor to the Gentile in Nature but that there is Righteousnesse and Justification enough for all the world Jew and Gentile in Christ In the third place the Holy Ghost is to reprove that is still to convince the world to acquaint the world with this mystery That there is a means settled to convey this Righteousnesse of Christ upon the World and then an account to be taken of them who do not lay hold upon this meanes for both these are intended in this word Iudgement He shall reprove them prove to them this double signification of judgement first that there is a judgement of order of rectitude of government to which purpose he hath established the Church And then a judgement of account and of sentence and beatification upon them who did and malediction upon them who did not apply themselves to the first judgement that is to those orderly wayes and meanes of embracing Christs righteousnesse Wiâ—d 11.20 which were offered them in the Church God hath ordered all things in measure 1 Cor. 14.42 and number and waight Let all things be done decently and in order for God is the God of order and not of confusion And this order is this judgement The Court the Tribunall the Judgment seat in which all mens consciences and actions must be regulated and ordered the Church The perfectest order was Innocency that first integrity in which God made all All was disordered by sin For in sin and the author of sin Satan there is no order no conformity nothing but disorder and confusion Though the Schoole doe generally acknowledge a distinction of orders in the ministring Spirits of Heaven now Angels and Archangels and others yet they dispute and doubt and in a great part deny that this distinction of orders was before the fall of those Angels for they confesse this distribution into orders to have been upon their submission and recognition of Gods government which recognition was their very confirmation and after that they could not fall And though those fallen Angels the Devils concurre in an unan me consent to ruin us Hiâ—ron for Bellum Daemonum summa pax hominum we should agree better if devils did fall out yet this is not such a peace such an unity as gives them any peace or relaxation or intermission of anguish but as they are the Authors of our confusion so they are in a continuall confusion themselves There is no order in the Author of sin and therfore the God of order cannot directly nor indirectly positively nor consecutively be the Author of sin There is no order in sin it selfe The nature the definition of sin is disorder Dectum factum August concupitum contra legem God hath ordered a law and sin is an act if we cannot do that it is a word if we dare not do that it is a desire against that law Forma peccati deformitas we can assigne sin no other form but deformity So that our affecting of any thing as our end which God hath not proposed for our end or our affecting of true ends by any other wayes then he hath proposed this is a disordering of Gods providence as much as we can and so a sin For the Schoole resolves conveniently probably that that first sin that ever was committed that peccatum praegnans peccatum prolificum That womb and matrice of all sins that have been committed since The sin of the Angels it was a disorder an obliquity a deformity not in not going to the right end for Illud quaesiverunt ad quod pervenissent si stetissent sayes Aquinas out of S. August They desired no more then they were made for and should have come to if they had stood but their sin was in affecting a right end a wrong way in desiring to come to their appointed perfection by themselves to subsist of themselves to be independent without any farther need of God for that was their desire To be like the most High To depend upon nothing but be all-sufficient to themselves So they disordered Gods purpose and when they had once broke that chaine when they had once put that harmony out of tune then came in disorder discord confusion and that is sin Gods work is perfect How appeares that For all his wayes are Iudgement Deut. 32.4 sayes Moses in his victorious song This is Perfection That he hath established an order a judgement Which is not only that order which S. Augustine defines Ordo est August per quem omnia aguntur quae Deus constituit The order and the judgement by which God governs the world according to his purpose which judgement is Providence But as the same Father sayes in the same book it is Ordo quem si tenueris in vita perdacet ad Deum It is an order and a judgement which he hath manifested to thee for the order and judgement of his providence he doth not alwayes manifest by obedience to which order and judgement thou maist be saved The same Father speaking of this order and judgement of providence sayes Nihil ordini contrarium Nothing can be contrary to that order He is in a holy rapture transported with that consideration That even disorders are within Gods order There is in the order and judgement of his providence an admission a permission of disorders This unsearchable proceeding of God carries him to that passionate exclamation O sipossem dicere quod vellem O that I were able to expresse my self Roge ubi ubi estis verba suecurrite Where where are those words which I had wont to have at command why do ye not serve me help me now Now when I would declare this Bona
mala sunt in ordine That even disorders are done in order that even our sins some way or other fall within the providence of God But that is not the order nor judgement which the holy Ghost is sent to manifest to the world The holy Ghost works best upon them which search least into Gods secret judgements and proceedings But the order and judgement we speak of is an order a judgement-seate established by which every man howsoever oppressed with the burden of sin may in the application of the promises of the Gospel by the Ordinance of preaching and in the seales thereof in the participation of the Sacraments be assured that he hath received his Absolution his Remission his Pardon and is restored to the innocency of his Baptisme nay to the integrity which Adam had before the fall nay to the righteousnesse of Christ Jesus himselfe In the creation God took red earth and then breathed a soule into it When Christ came to a second creation to make a Church he took earth men red earth men made partakers of his blood for Ecclesiam quaesivit acquisivit Bernard Hee desired a Church and he purchased a Church but by a blessed way of Simony Adde medium acquisitionis Sanguine acquisivit Acts 20.28 He purchased a Church with his own blood And when he had made this body in calling his Apostles then he breathed the soule into them his Spirit and that made up all Quod insufflavit Dominus Apostolis dixit August Accipite Spiritum sanctum Ecclesiae potestas collata est Then when Christ breathed that Spirit into them he constituted the Church And this power of Remission of sins is that order and that judgement which Christ himselfe calls by the name of the most orderly frame in this or the next world A Kingdome Dispono vobis regnum Luk. 22.29 I appoint unto you a Kingdome as my Father hath appointed unto me Now Faciunt favos vespa faciunt Ecclesias Marcionitae As Waspes make combs Tertul. but empty ones so do Heretiques Churches but frivolous ones ineffectuall ones And as we told you before That errors and disorders are as well in wayes as inends so may we deprive our selves of the benefit of this judgement The Church as well in circumstances as in substances as well in opposing discipline as doctrine The holy Ghost reprovcâ—thee convinces thee of judgement that is offers thee the knowledge that such a Church there is A Jordan to wash thine originall leprosie in Baptisme A City upon a mountaine to enlighten thee in the works of darknesse a continuall application of all that Christ Jesus said and did and suffered to thee Let no soule say she can have all this at Gods hands immediatly and never trouble the Church That she can passe her pardon between God and her without all these formalities by a secret repentance It is true beloved a true repentance is never frustrate But yet if thou wilt think thy selfe a little Church a Church to thy selfe because thou hast heard it said That thou art a little world a world in thy selfe that figurative that metaphoricall representation shall not save thee Though thou beest a world to thy self yet if thou have no more corn nor oyle nor milk then growes in thy self or flowes from thy self thou wilt starve Though thou be a Church in thy fancy if thou have no more seales of grace no more absolution of sin Grego then thou canst give thy self thou wilt perish Per solam Ecclesiam sacrificium libenter accipit Deus Thou maist be a Sacrifice in thy chamber but God receives a Sacrifice more cheerefully at Church Sola quae pro errantibus fiducialiter intercedit Only the Church hath the nature of a surety Howsoever God may take thine own word at home yet he accepts the Church in thy behalfe as better security Joyne therefore ever with the Communion of Saints August Et cum membrum sis ejus corporis quod loquitur omnibus linguis crede te omnibus linguis loqui Whilst thou art a member of that Congregation that speaks to God with a thousand tongues beleeve that thou speakest to God with all those tongues And though thou know thine own prayers unworthy to come up to God because thou liftest up to him an eye which is but now withdrawne from a licentious glancing and hands which are guilty yet of unrepented uncleannesses a tongue that hath but lately blasphemed God a heart which even now breaks the walls of this house of God and steps home or runs abroad upon the memory or upon the new plotting of pleasurable or profitable purposes though this make thee thinke thine own prayers uneffectuall yet beleeve that some honester man then thy selfe stands by thee and that when he prayes with thee he prayes for thee and that if there be one righteous man in the Congregation thou art made the more acceptable to God by his prayers and make that benefit of this reproofe this conviction of the holy Ghost That he convinces thee De judicio assures thee of an orderly Church established for thy reliefe and that the application of thy self to this judgement The Church shall enable thee to stand upright in that other judgement the last judgement which is also enwrapped in the signification of this word of our Text Iudgement and is the conclusion for this day As God begun all with judgement Iudicium finale Sap. 11. for he made all things in measure number and waight as he proceeded with judgement in erecting a judiciall seat for our direction and correction the Church so he shall end all with judgement The finall and generall judgement at the Resurrection which he that beleeves not beleeves nothing not God for Heb. 11.6 He that commeth to God that makes any step towards him must beleeve Deum remuner atorem God and God in that notion as he is a Rewarder Therefore there is judgement But was this work left for the Holy Ghost Did not the naturall man that knew no Holy Ghost know this Truly all their fabulous Divinity all their Mythology their Minos and their Rhadamanthus tasted of such a notion as a judgement And yet the first planters of the Christian Religion found it hardest to fixe this roote of all other articles That Christ should come againe to judgement Miserable and froward men They would beleeve it in their fables and would not beleeve it in the Scriptures They would beleeve it in the nine Muses and would not beleeve it in the twelve Apostles They would beleeve it by Apollo and they would not beleeve it by the Holy Ghost They would be saved Poetically and fantastically and would not reasonably and spiritually By Copies and not by Originals by counterfeit things at first deduced by their Authors out of our Scriptures Tertul. and yet not by the word of God himself Which Tertullian apprehends and reprehends in his time when he
sayes Praescribimus adulteris nostris Wee prescribe above them which counterfeit our doctrine for we had it before them and they have but rags and those torn from us Fabulae immissae quae fidem infirmarent veritatis They have brought part of our Scriptures into their Fables that all the rest might seem but Fables too Gehennam praedicantes iudicium ridemur decachinnamur They laugh at us when we preach of hell and judgement Et tamen Elysii campi fidem praeoccupaverunt And yet they will needs be beleeved when they talk of their Elysian fields Fideliora nostra quorum imagines fidem inveniunt Is it not safer trusting to our substance then their shadows To our doctrine of the judgement in the Scriptures then their allusions in their Poets So far Tertullian considers this But to say the truth and all the truth Howsoever the Gentiles had some glimmering of a judgement that is an account to be made of our actions after this life yet of this judgement which we speak of now which is a generall Judgement of all together And that judgement to be executed by Christ and to be accompanied with a Resurrection of the body of this the Gentiles had no intimation this was left wholly for the holy Ghost to manifest And of this all the world hath received a full convincing from him because he hath delivered to the world those Scriptures which do so abundantly so irrefragably establish it And therfore Ecclus. 7.36 Bernard Memorare novissima non peccabis Remember the end and thou shalt never do amisse Non dicitur memorare primordia aut media If thou remember the first reproofe that all are under sin that may give occasion of excusing or extenuating How could I avoid that that all men do If thou remember the second reproofe That there is a righteousnesse communicable to all that sin that may occasion so bold a confidence Since I may have so easie a pardon what haste of giving over yet But Memorare novissima consider that there is a judgement and that that judgement is the last thing that God hath to doe with man consider this and thou wilt not sin not love sin not doe the same sins to morrow thou didst yester-day as though this judgement were never the nearer but that as a thousand yeares are as one day with God so thy threescore yeares should be as one night with thee one continuall sleep in the practise of thy beloved sin Thou wilt not think so if thou remember this judgement Now in respect of the time after this judgement which is Eternity the time between this and it cannot be a minute and therefore think thy self at that Tribunall that judgement now Where thou shalt not onely â—â—are all thy sinfull workes and words and thoughts repeated which thou thy selfe hadst utterly forgot but thou shalt heare thy good works thine almes thy comming to Church thy hearing of Sermons given in evidence against thee because they had hypocrisie mingled in them yea thou shalt finde even thy repentance to condemne thee because thou madest that but a doore to a relapse There thou shalt see to thine inexpressible terror some others cast downe into hell for thy sins for those sins which they would not have done but upon thy provocation There thou shalt see some that occasioned thy sins and accompanied thee in them and sinned them in a greater measure then thou didst taken up into heaven because in the way they remembred the end and thou shalt sink under a lesse waight because thou never lookedst towards him that would have eased thee of it Bernard Quis non cogitans haec in desperationis rotetur abyssum Who can once thinke of this and not be tumbled into desperation But who can think of it twice maturely and by the Holy Ghost and not finde comfort in it when the same light that shewes mee the judgement shewes me the Judge too Knowing therefore the terrors of the Lord we perswade men 1 Cor. 5.15 but knowing the comforts too we importune men to this consideration That as God preceeds with judgement in this world to give the issue with the tentation and competent strength with the affliction as the Wiseman expresses it Wisd 12.21 That God punishes his enemies with deliberation and requesting as our former Translation had it and then with how great circumspection will he judge his children So he gives us a holy hope That as he hath accepted us in this first judgement the Church and made us partakers of the Word and Sacraments there So he will bring us with comfort to that place which no tongue but the tongue of S. Paul and that moved by the Holy Ghost could describe and which he does describe so gloriously and so pathetically You are come unto Mount Sion Heb. 12.22 and to the City of the living God The heavenly Ierusalem And to an innumerable company of Angels To the generall Assembly and Church of the first borne which are written in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things then the blood of Abel And into this blessed and inseparable society The Father of lights and God of all comfort give you an admission now and an irremoveable possession hereafter for his onely Sons onely sake and by the working of his blessed Spirit whom he sends to work in you This reproofe of Sin of Righteousnesse and of Iudgement Amen SERMONS Preached upon Trinity-Sunday SERM. XXXVIII Preached upon Trinity-Sunday 2 COR. 1.3 Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort THere was never Army composed of so many severall Nations the Towre of Babel it self in the confusion of tongues gave not so many severall sounds as are uttered and mustered against God and his Religion The Atheist denies God for though David call it a foolish thing to do so The foole hath said it in his heart And though David speake it in the singular number The foole as though there were not many so very fooles as to say and to say in their heart There is no God yet some such fooles there are that say it in their very heart and have made shift to think so indeed But for such fools as say it in their actions that is that live as though there were no God Stultorum plena sunt omnia We have seen fooles in the Court and fooles in the Cloister fooles that take no calling and fooles in all callings that can be taken fooles that heare and fooles that preach fooles at generall Councells and fooles at Councell-tables Stultorum plena sunt omnia such fooles as deny God so far as to leave him out are not in Davids singular number but super-abound in every profession So that Davids manner of expressing it is not so much singular as though there were but
root and bring that comfort to the fruit and confesse that God who is both is the God of all comfort Follow God in the execution of this good purpose upon thee to thy Vocation and heare him who hath left East and West and North and South in their dimnesse and dumnesse and deafnesse and hath called thee to a participation of himselfe in his Church Go on with him to thy justification That when in the congregation one sits at thy right hand and beleeves but historically It may be as true which is said of Christ as of William the Conquerour and as of Iulius Caesar and another at thy left hand and beleeves Christ but civilly It was a Religion well invented and keeps people well in order and thou betweene them beleevest it to salvation in an applying faith proceed a step farther to feele this fire burning out thy faith declared in works thy justification growne into sanctification And then thou wilt be upon the last staire of all That great day of thy glorification will breake out even in this life and either in the possessing of the good things of this world thou shalt see the glory and in possessing the comforts of this World see the joy of Heaven or else which is another of his wayes in the want of all these thou shalt have more comfort then others have or perchance then thou shouldest have in the possessing of them for he is the God of all comfort and of all the wayes of comfort And therefore Blessed be God even the Father c. SERM. XXXIX Preached upon Trinity-Sunday 1 PET. 1.17 And if ye call on the Father who without respect of persons judgeth according to every mans works passe the time of your sojourning here in feare YOu may remember that I proposed to exercise your devotions and religious meditations in these exercises with words which might present to you first the severall persons in the Trinity and the benefits which we receive in receiving God in those distinct notions of Father Son and holy Ghost And then with other words which might present those sins and the danger of those sins which are most particularly opposed against those severall persons Of the first concerning the person of the Father we spoke last and of the other concerning sins against the Father these words will occasion us to speak now It is well noted upon those words of David Psal 51.1 Have mercy upon me O God that the word is Elohim which is Gods in the plurall Have mercy upon me O Gods for David though he conceived not divers Gods yet he knew three divers persons in that one God and he knew that by that sin which he lamented in that Psalme that peccatum complicatum that manifold sin that sin that enwrapped so many sins he had offended all those three persons For whereas we consider principally in the Father Potestatem Power and in the Son Sapientiam Wisdome and in the holy Ghost Bonitatem Goodnesse David had sinned against the Father in his notion In potestate in abusing his power and kingly authority to a mischievous and bloody end in the murder of Vriah And he had sinned against the Son in his notion In sapientia in depraving and detorting true wisdome into craft and treachery And he had sinned against the holy Ghost in his notion In bonitate when he would not be content with the goodnesse and piety of Vriah who refused to take the eases of his owne house and the pleasure of his wifes bosome as long as God himselfe in his army lodged in Tents and stood in the face of the Enemy Sins against the Father then we consider especially to be such as are In potestate Either in a neglect of Gods Power over us or in an abuse of that power which we have from God over others and of one branch of that power particularly of Judgement is this Text principally intended If ye call on the Father who without respect of persons judgeth c. In the words we shall insist but upon two parts Divisio First A Counsaile which in the Apostles mouth is a commandement And then a Reason an inducement which in the Apostles mouth is a forcible an unresistible argument The Counsell that is The commandement is If ye call on the Father feare him stand in feare of him And the reason that is the Argument is The name of Father implyes a great power over you therefore feare him And amongst other powers a power of judging you of calling you to an account therefore feare him In which Judgement this Judge accepts no persons but judges his sons as his servants and therefore feare him And then he judges not upon words outward professions but upon works actions according to every mans works and therefore feare him And then as on his part he shall certainly call you to judgement when you goe hence so on your part certainly it cannot be long before you goe hence for your time is but a sojourning here it is not a dwelling And yet it is a sojourning here it is not a posting a gliding through the world but such a stay as upon it our everlasting dwelling depends And therefore that we may make up this circle and end as we begun with the feare of God passe that time that is all that time in fear In fear of neglecting and undervaluing or of over-tempting that great power which is in the Father And in feare of abusing those limnes and branches and beames of that power which he hath communicated to thee in giving thee power and authority any way over others for these To neglect the power of the Father or To abuse that power which the Father hath given thee over others are sinnes against the Father who is power If ye call on the Father c. First then for the first part the Counsell Si invocatis If ye call on the Father In timore 1. Part. Doe it in feare The Counsell hath not a voluntary Condition and arbitrary in our selves annexed to it If you call then feare does not import If you doe not call you need not feare It does not import That if you professe a particular forme of Religion you are bound to obey that Church but if you doe not but have fancied a religion to your selfe without precedent Or a way to salvation without any particular religion Or a way out of the world without any salvation or damnation but a going out like a candle if you can think thus you need not feare This is not the meaning of this If in this place If you call on the Father c. But this If implyes a wonder an impossibility that any man should deny God to be the Father If the author the inventer of any thing usefull for this life be called the father of that invention by the holy Ghost himselfe Gen. 4.20 Iabal was the father of such as dwell in Tents and Tubal his brother
In thy Treasury in thine Ordinance in thy Church Thou hast it to derive it to convey it upon us Here then is the first step of Sauls cure and of ours That there was not onely a word the Word Christ himselfe a Son of God in heaven but a Voyce the word uttered and preached Christ manifested in his Ordinance He heard a voyce He heard it How often does God speake and no body heares the voyce Audivit He speaks in his Canon in Thunder and he speaks in our Canon in the rumour of warres He speaks in his musique in the harmonious promises of the Gospel and in our musique in the temporall blessings of peace and plenty And we heare a noyse in his Judgements and wee heare a sound in his mercies but we heare no voyce we doe not discern that this noyse or this sound comes from any certain person we do not feele them to be mercies nor to be judgements uttered from God but naturall accidents casuall occurrencies emergent contingencies which as an Atheist might think would fall out though there were no God or no commerce no dealing no speaking between God and Man Though Saul came not instantly to a perfect discerning who spoke yet he saw instantly it was a Person above nature and therefore speakes to him in that phrase of submission Quis es Domine Lord who art thou And after with trembling and astonishment as the Text sayes Domine quid me vis facere Lord what wilt thou have me to do Then we are truliest said to hear when we know from whence the voyce comes Princes are Gods Trumpet and the Church is Gods Organ but Christ Jesus is his voyce When he speaks in the Prince when he speaks in the Church there we are bound to heare and happy if we doe hear Man hath a natural way to come to God by the eie by the creature Rom 2. So Visible things shew the Invisible God But then God hath super-induced a supernaturall way by the eare For though hearing be naturall yet that faith in God should come by hearing a man preach is supernatural God shut up the naturall way in Saul Seeing He struck him blind But he opened the super-naturall way he inabled him to heare and to heare him God would have us beholden to grace and not to nature and to come for our salvation to his Ordinances to the preaching of his Word and not to any other meanes Though hee were blinde even that blindnesse as it was a humiliation and a diverting of his former glaring lights was a degree of mercy of preparative mercy yet there was a voyce which was another degree And a voyce that he heard which was a degree above that and so farre we are gone And he heard it saying that is distinctly and intelligibly which is our next Circumstance He heares him saying that is He heares him so as that he knowes what he sayes so Dicentem as that he understands him for he that heares the word and understands it not is subject to that which Christ sayes That the wicked one comes Mat. 13.19 and catches away that that was sowne S. Augustine puts himselfe earnestly upon the contemplation of the Creation as Moses hath delivered it he findes it hard to conceive and he sayes Si esset ante me Moses Confes l. 1. c. 3. If Moses who writ this were here Tenerem eum per te obsecrarem I would hold him fast and beg of him for thy sake O my God that he would declare this worke of the Creation more plainly unto me But then sayes that blessed Father Si Hebraea voce loqueretur If Moses should speake Hebrew to mee mine eares might heare the sound but my minde would not heare the voyce I might heare him but I should not heare what he said This was that that distinguished betweene S. Paul and those who were in his company at this time Ver. 7. Acts 22.9 S. Luke sayes in this Chapter That they heard the voyce and S. Paul relating the story againe after sayes They heard not the voyce of him that spoke to me they heard a confused sound but they distinguished it not to be the voyce of God nor discerned Gods purpose in it Ver. 28. In the twelfth of Iohn there came a voyce from Heaven from God himselfe and the people said It thundred So apt is naturall man to ascribe even Gods immediate and miraculous actions to naturall causes apt to rest and determine in Nature and leave out God The Poet chides that weaknesse as he cals it to be afraid of Gods judgements or to call naturall accidents judgements Quo morbo mentem concusse timore Deorum sayes he he sayes The Conscience may be over-tender and that such timerous men are sick of the feare of God But it is a blessed disease The feare of God and the true way to true health And though there be a morall constancy that becomes a Christian well not to bee easily shaked with the variations and revolutions of this world yet it becomes him to establish his constancy in this That God hath a good purpose in that action not that God hath no hand in that action That God will produce good out of it not that God hath nothing to doe in it The Magicians themselves were forced to confesse Digitum Dei Exod. 6.16 The finger of God in a small matter Never thinke it a weakenesse to call that a judgement of God which others determine in Nature Doe so so far as works to thy edification who seest that judgement though not so far as to argue and conclude the finall condemnation of that man upon whom that judgement is fallen Certainely we were better call twenty naturall accidents judgements of God then frustrate Gods purpose in any of his powerfull deliverances by calling it a naturall accident and suffer the thing to vanish so and God be left unglorified in it or his Church unedified by it Then we heare God when we understand what he sayes And therefore as we are bound to blesse God that he speakes to us and heares us speake to him in a language which wee understand and not in such a strange language as that a stranger who should come in and heare it 1 Cor. 14.23 would thinke the Congregation mad So also let us blesse him for that holy tendernesse to be apt to feele his hand in every accident and to discerne his presence in every thing that befals us Saul heard the voyce saying He understood what it said and by that found that it was directed to him which is also another step in this last part This is an impropriation without sacriledge Sibi and an enclosure of a Common without damage to make God mine owne to finde that all that God sayes is spoken to me and all that Christ suffered was suffered for me And as Saul found this voyce at first to be directed to him so
to stand in these tentations and tribulations Deliver thou my soule Lord thou hast delivered me againe and againe and againe and againe I fall back to my former danger and therefore O Lord save me place me where I may be safe safe in a constant hope that the Saviour of the World intended that salvation to me And these three Petitions constitute our first part in Davids postulatory Prayer And then the second part which is also within the words of this text and consists of those reasons by which David inclines God to grant his three Petitions which are two first Propter misericordiam tuam Do this O Lord for thine own mercy sake And then Quia non in morte Doe it O Lord for thine owne honours sake Because in death there is no remembrance of thee that second part will be the subject of another exercise for that which belongs to the three Petitions will imploy the time allowed for this First then the first step in this Prayer Revertere O Lord return implies first a former presence Revertere and then a present absence and also a confidence for the future Whosoever saies O Lord returne sayes all this Lord thou wast here Lord thou art departed hence but yet Lord thou maiest returne hither againe God was with us all before we were any thing at all And ever since our making hath beene with us in his generall providence And so we cannot say O Lord Returne because so he was never gone from us But as God made the earth and the fruits thereof before he made the Sun whose force was to work upon that earth and upon the naturall fruits of that earth but before he made Paradise which was to have the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge he made the Sun to doe those offices of shining upon it and returning daily to it So God makes this earth of ours that is our selves by naturall wayes and sustaines us by generall providence before any Son of particular grace be seene to shine upon us But before man can be a Paradise possest of the Tree of life and of Knowledge this Sun is made and produced the particular graces of God rise to him and worke upon him and awaken and solicite and exalt those naturall faculties which were in him This Son fils him and fits him compasses him and disposes him and does all the offices of the Sun seasonably opportunely maturely for the nourishing of his soule according to the severall necessities thereof And this is Gods returning to us in a generall apprehension After he hath made us and blest us in our nature and by his naturall meanes he returnes to make us againe to make us better first by his first preventing grace and then by a succession of his particular graces And therefore we must returne to this Returning in some more particular considerations There are beside others three significations in the Scripture of this word Shubah which is here translated to Returne appliable to our present purpose The first is the naturall and native the primary and radicall signification of the word And so Shubah To Returne is Redire ad locum suum To returne to that place to which a thing is naturally affected So heavy things returne to the Center and light things returne to the Expansion So Mans breath departeth Psal 146.4 sayes David Et redit in terr am suam He returnes into his Earth That earth which is so much his as that it is he himselfe Of earth he was and therefore to earth he returnes But can God returne in such a sense as this Can we finde an Vbi for God A place that is his place Yes And an Earth which is his earth Surely the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts Esay 5. is the house of Israel and the men of Iudah are his pleasant plant So the Church which is his Vineyard is his Vbi his place his Center to which he is naturally affected And when he calls us hither and meets us here upon his Sabbaths and sheds the promises of his Gospel upon the Congregation in his Ordinance he returnes to us here as in his Vbi as in his own place And as he hath a place of his owne here so he hath an Earth of his owne in this place Our flesh is Earth and God hath invested our flesh and in that flesh of ours which suffered death for us he returnes to us in this place as often as he maketh us partakers of his flesh and his bloud in the blessed Sacrament So then though in my dayes of sinne God have absented himselfe from me for God is absent when I doe not discerne his presence yet if to day I can heare his voyce as God is returned to day to this place as to his Vbi as to his own place so in his entring into me in his flesh and bloud he returnes to me as to his Earth that Earth which he hath made his by assuming my nature I am become his Vbi his place Delitiae ejus His delight is to be with the sonnes of men and so with me and so in the Church in the Sermon in the Sacrament he returnes to us in the first signification of this word Shubah as to that place to which he is naturally affected and disposed In a second signification this word is referred not to the place of God not to the person of God but if we may so speake to the Passion of God to the Anger of God And so the Returning of God that is of Gods Anger is the allaying the becalming the departing of his Anger and so when God returnes God stayes his Anger is returned from us Esay 5.25 but God is still with us The wrath of the Lord was kindled sayes the Prophet Esay and He smote his people so that the mountaines trembled and their carkasses were torne in the midst of the streets Here is the tempest here is the visitation here is Gods comming to them He comes but in anger and we heare of no returne nay we heare the contrary Et non redibat furor For all this his wrath his fury did not returne that is did not depart from them for as God never comes in this manner till our multiplied sinnes call him and importune him so God never returnes in this sense in withdrawing his anger and judgements from us till both our words and our works our prayers and our amendment of life joyne in a Revertere Domine O Lord Returne withdraw this judgement from us for it hath effected thy purpose upon us And so the Originall which expresses neither signification of the word for it is neither Returne to me nor Returne from me but plainely and onely Returne leaves the sense indifferent Lord thou hast withdrawne thy selfe from me therefore in mercy returne to me or else Lord thy Judgements are heavy upon me and therefore returne withdraw these Judgements from me which shewes the ductilenesse the
everlasting they have begun already here that which they shall never end there Deeis qui voluntatem Dei facere nolunt fit voluntas Dei It is Panis quotidianus A loafe of that bread which is to be distributed every day A saying of S. Augustine worthy to be repeated in every Sermon That upon them who will not doe the will of God the will of God is done And God executes his righteous sentence upon them and he executes his justice upon others also by giving them instructions from the impatience and obduration of these Fata fugiendo in fata ruant They chide and they wrangle they wrastle and they exclaime at their miseries in an intemperate sorrow and this intemperate sorrow is the heaviest part of the judgement of God upon them they are too sensible of their afflictions that is too tender too impatient and yet altogether unsensible without all sense of Gods purpose in those afflictions In hell it self they know that they are in hell And yet in this world there are Dolores inferni Sorrowes that have begun hell here and they that are under them are stupified and devested of all sense of them That sense that is bodily and carnall they abound in They feele them impatiently but of all spirituall sense they are absolutely destitute They understand not them nor Gods purpose in them at all yet they are Many and Great and Eternall For by all these heavy talents doth the Holy Ghost waigh them in these words They are Many Many Now the pride of the wicked is to conceale their sorrowes that God might receive no glory by the discovery of them And therefore if we should goe about to number their sorrowes they would have their victory still and still say to themselves yet for all his cunning he hath mist they would ever have some bosome-sorrowes which we could not light upon Yet we shall not easily misse nor leave out any if we remember those men that even this false and imaginary joy which they take in concealing their forrow and affliction is a new affliction a new cause of sorrow We shall make up the number apace if we remember these men that all their new sins and all their new shifts to put away their sorrowes are sorrowfull things and miserable comforters if their conscience doe present all their sins the number growes great And if their own conscience have forgotten them if God forget nothing that they have thought or said or done in all their lives are not their occasions of sorrow the more for their forgetting the more for Gods remembring Indgements are prepared for the scorners sayes Solomon Prov. 19.29 God foresaw their wickednesse from before all times and even then set himselfe on work To prepare judgements for them And as they are Prepared before so affliction followeth sinners Prov. 13.21 sayes the same Wise King It followes them and it knowes how to overtake them eyther by the sword of the Magistrate or by that which is nearer them Diseases in their owne bodies accelerated and complicated by their sins And then as affliction is Prepared and Followes and Overtakes so sayes that wise King still There shall be no end of plagues to the evill man We know the beginning of their plagues Prov. 24.20 they are Prepared in Gods Decree as soone as God saw their sins we know their continuance they shall Follow and they shall Overtake Their end we doe not know we cannot know for they have none Thus they are Many And if we consider farther the manifold Topiques and places from which the sorrowes of the wicked arise That every inch of their ground is overgrown with that venomous weed that every place and every part of time and every person buddes out a particular occasion of sorrow to him that he can come into no chamber but he remembers In such a place as this I finned thus That he cannot heare a Clock strike but he remembers At this hour I sinned thus That he cannot converse with few persons but he remembers With such a person I sinned thus And if he dare goe no farther then to himselfe he can look scarcely upon any limb of his body but in that he sees some infirmity or some deformity that he imputes to some sin and must say By this sin this is thus When he can open the Bible in no place but if he meet a judgement he must say Vindicta mihi This vengeance belongs to me and if he meet a mercy he must say Quid mihi What have I to doe to take this mercy into my mouth In this deluge of occasions of sorrow I must not say with God to Abraham Look up to heaven and number the Starres for this man cannot look up to heaven but I must say Continue thy dejected look and look downe to the earth thy earth and number the graines of dust there and the sorrowes of the wicked are more then they Many are the sorrowes And as the word as naturally denotes Great Great sorrowes are upon the wicked That Pill will choak one man which will slide down with another easily Great and work well That sorrow that affliction would strangle the wicked which would purge and recover the godly The coare of Adams apple is still in their throat which the blood of the Messias hath washt away in the righteous Adams disobedience works in them still and therefore Gods Physick the affliction cannot work So they are great to them as Cains punishment was to him greater then he could beare because he could not ease himselfe upon the consideration of Gods purpose in laying that punishment upon him But it is not onely their indisposition and impatience that makes their sorrowes and afflictions great They are truly so in themselves as the Holy Ghost expresses it Job 31.3 Is not destruction to the wicked and strange punishment to the workers of iniquity A punishment which we cannot tell how to measure how to waigh how to call A strange punishment Greater then former examples have presented There the greatnesse is exprest in the Word And in Esay it is exprest in the action When the scourge shall run over you Esay 28.18 and passe thorow you Eritis in conculcationem You shall be trodden to dust Which is as the Prophet cals it there Flagellum inundans An affliction that overflowes and surrounds all as a deluge a flood that shall wash away from thee even the water of thy Baptisme and all the power of that And wash away from thee the blood of thy Saviour and all his offers of grace to worthy receivers A flood that shall carry away the Ark it selfe out of thy sight and leave thee no apprehension of reparation by Gods institution in his Church A flood that shall dissolve and wash thee thy selfe into water Thy sorrowes shall scatter thee into drops into teares upon a carnall sense of thy torment And into drops into incoherent doubts and
in a great measure very rich and very poore Prosperity or Adversity occasion most sinnes Though God call upon us in every leafe of the Scripture to pity the poore and relieve the poore and ground his last Judgement upon our works of mercy Mat. 25.34 Because you have fed and clothed the poore inherit the kingdome yet as the rich and the poore stand before us now as it were in Judgement as we inquire and heare evidence which statoâ—â— most obnoxious and open to most sinnes we embrace and apply to our selves that law Exod. 23.3 Levit. 19.15 Thou shalt not countenance a poore man in his cause And as it is repeated Thou shalt not respect the person of the poore in Iudgement There is then a poverty which without all question is the direct way to heaven but that is spirituall Mat. 5.3 Blessed are the poore in spirit This poverty is humility it is not beggary A rich man may have it and a beggar may be without it The Wiseman found not this poverty Ecclus 25.2 not humility in every poore man He found three sorts of men whom his soule hated And one of the three was a poore man that is proud And when the Prophet said of Jerusalem in her afflictions Esay 51.21 Paupercula es ebria Thou art poore and miserable and yet drunke though as he addes there it were not with wine which is now in our dayes an ordinary refuge of men of all sorts in all sadnesses and crosses to relieve themselves upon wine and strong drinke which are indeed strong illusions yet though Jerusalems drunkennesse were not with wine it was worse It was a staggering a vertiginousnesse an ignorance a blindnesse a not discerning the wayes to God which is the worst drunkennesse and fals often upon the poore and afflicted That their poverty and affliction staggers them and damps them in their recourse to God so far as that they know not That they are miserable and wretched and poore and blinde Revel 3.17 and raked The Holy Ghost alwaies makes the danger of the poore great as well as of the rich The rich mans wealth is his strong City There is his fault his confidence in that Pro. 10.15 But Pavor pauperum The destruction of the poore is his poverty There is his fault Desperation under it Solomon presents them as equally dangerous Give me neither poverty nor riches Pro. 30.8 Ruth 3.10 So does Booz to Ruth Blessed be thou of the Lord my daughter in as much as thou followedst not young men whether poore or rich That which Booz intended there Incontinency and all vices that arise immediately out of the corruption of nature and are not induced by other circumstances have as much inclination from poverty as from riches May we not say more I doubt we may He must be a very sanctified man whom extreame poverty and other afflictions doe not decline towards a jealousie and a suspicion and a distrusting of God And then the sins that bend towards desperation are so much more dangerous then those that bend towards presumption that he that presumes hath still mercy in his contemplation He does not thinke that he needs no mercy but that mercy is easily had He beleeves there is mercy he doubts not of that But the despairing man imagines a cruelty an unmercifulnesse in God and destroyes the very nature of God himselfe Riches is the Metaphor in which the Holy Ghost hath delighted to expresse God and Heaven to us Despise not the riches of his goodnesse sayes the Apostle And againe Rom. 2.4.11.33 Ephes 3.8 ver 16. O the depth of the riches of his wisdome And so after The unsearchable riches of Christ And for the consummation of all The riches of his Glory Gods goodnesse towards us in generall our Religion in the way his Grace here his Glory hereafter are all represented to us in Riches With poverty God ordinarily accompanies his comminations he threatens feeblenesse and warre and captivity and poverty every where but he never threatens men with riches Ordinary poverty that is a difficulty with all their labors and industry to sustaine their family and the necessary duties of their place is a shrewd and a slippery tentation But for that street-beggery which is become a Calling for Parents bring up their children to it nay they doe almost take prentises to it some expert beggers teach others what they shall say how they shall looke how they shall lie how they shall cry for these whom our lawes call Incorrigible I must say of them in a just accommodation of our Saviours words It is not meet to take the childrens bread Matt. 25.26 and to cast it to dogs It is not meet that this vermin should devoure any of that which belongs to them who are truely poore Neither is there any measure any proportion of riches that exposes man naturally to so much sin as this kinde of beggery doth Rich men forget or neglect the duties of their Baptisme but of these how many are there that were never baptized Rich men sleepe out Sermons but these never come to Church Rich men are negligent in the practise but these are ignorant in all knowledge It would require a longer disquisition then I can afford to it now whether Riches or Poverty considered in lesser proportions ordinary riches ordinary poverty open us to more and worse sins But consider them in the highest and in the lowest abundant riches beggerly poverty and it will scarce admit doubt but that the incorrigible vagabond is farther from all wayes of goodnesse then the corruptest rich man is And therefore labour wee all earnestly in the wayes of some lawfull calling that we may have our portion of this world by good meanes For first the advantages of doing good to others in a reall reliefe of their wants is in the rich onely whereas the best way of a good poore man to doe good to others is but an exemplary patience to catechize others by his suffering And then all degrees of poverty are dangerous and slippery even to a murmuring against God or an invading of the possessions and goods of other men but especially the lowest the desperate degree of beggery and then especially when we cannot say it is inflicted by the hand of God but contracted by our owne lazinesse or our owne wastfulnesse This is a problematicall a disputable case Whether riches or poverty occasion most sins And because on both sides there arise good doctrines of edification Men of low degree I have thus far willingly stopped upon that disputable consideration But now that which wee receive here upon Davids upon the Holy Ghosts security Surely it is thus It is surely so is this That we shall be deceived if we put our trust in men for what sort of men would we trust Surely men of low degree are vanity And this if it be taken of particular men needs no proving no
for him of whose present beeing in heaven he was already assured surely S. Ambrose could have given no such answer as would have implied a confession or an argument for Purgatory But S. Ambrose is likely to have said to him as he does say there Est in piis affectibus quaedam stendi voluptas In tender hearts and in good natures there is a kinde of satisfaction and more then that a holy voluptuousnesse in weeping in lamenting in deploring the losse of a friend In commemoratione amissi acquiescimus Let me alone give me leave to thinke of my lost Master some way by speaking with him by speaking of him by speaking for him any way I finde some ease some satisfaction in commemorating and celebrating of him But all this would not have amounted to an argument for Purgatory So also if a man should have found S. Augustine in his Meditations after his Mothers death August and heard him say Pro peccatis Matris meae deprecor te Lord I am a suiter now for my Mothers sinnes Exaudi Domine propter medicinam vulnerum tuorum Heare me O Lord who acknowledge no other Balsamum then that which drops out of thy wounds Dimitte Domine Domine obsecro Pardon her O Lord O Lord pardon her all her sinnes And then should have heard S. Augustine with the same breath and the same sigh say Credo quòd jam feceris quae rogo Lord I am faithfully assured that all this is already done which I pray for and then should have asked S. Augustine What he meant to pray for that which was already done S. Augustine could but have said to him as he does to God there Voluntaria oris mei accipe Domine Accept O Lord this voluntary though not necessary Devotion But if a man would have pressed either of them for a full reason of those prayers it would have been hard for him to have received it They prayed for the Dead and they meant no ill in doing so but what particular good they meant they could hardly give any farther account but that it was if not an inordinate yet an inconsiderate piety and a Devotion that did rather transport them then direct them These then prayed for the dead and yet confessed those whom they prayed for to be then in heaven S. Chrysostome prayes for others and yet beleeves them to be in Hell Chrysost Potest infideles de Gehenna dimittere sayes he sed fortè non faciet God can deliver an unbeleeving soule out of hell perchance he will not sayes he but I cannot tell and therefore I will try And yet S. Gregory absolutely forbids all prayer for the dead Gregory where they dyed in notorious sinne As generally their whole Schoole doth at this day either for such sinners as dying in impenitency are presumed to be already in Hell or such as dyed so well that they are already presumed to be in possession of as much as can be asked in their behalfe If then they will still presse and pursue us with that question What could those Fathers meane by their prayer for the Dead but Purgatory We must send them to those Fathers and I pray God they may get to them to aske what they meant So much as any of those Fathers have told us we can tell them and amongst those Fathers Areopag S. Dionyse the Areopagite hath told us most He hath told us the manner and the Ceremonies used at the funeralls of Christians and amongst them the offices and liturgies and services said and read at such funeralls and expressed them so as that we may easily see That first the Congregation made a declaration of their religious and faithfull assurance that they that die in the Lord rest in him And then a protestation in the behalfe of that dead brother that he did die in that faith and that expectation and therefore was then in possession of that rest which was promised to them who dyed so And this testimony for themselves in generall and this application thereof to that dead man sayes he the Church then expressed in the forme of prayer and so seemed to aske and beg at Gods hands that which indeed they did but acknowledge to have received before they gave that the forme of a prayer as of a future thing which was indeed but a recognition of that which was present and past That they did then and that that dead brother had before embraced that beliefe This answer to their question What could they meane but Purgatory by those prayers they may have from those of those ancient times And thus much more from daily practise That every man who prostrates himselfe in his chamber and powres out his soule in prayer to God though he have said O Lord enter not into judgement with thy servant forgive me the sinnes of my youth O Lord O Lord blot out all mine iniquities out of thy remembrance though his faith assure him that God hath granted all that he asked upon the first petition of his prayer yea before he made it for God put that petition into his heart and mouth and moved him to aske it that thereby he might be moved to grant it yet as long as the Spirit enables him he continues his prayer and he solicits and he importunes God for that which his conscience assures him God hath already granted He hath it and yet he asks it and that second asking it implies and amounts but to a thankesgiving for that mercy in which he hath granted it So those Fathers prayed for that which they assured themselves was done before and therefore though it had the forme of a prayer it might be a commemoration of Gods former benefits it might be a protestation of their present faith or an attestation in the behalfe of their dead friend whose first obsequies or yearly anniversary they did then celebrate Add to this the generall disposition in the nature of every man to wish well to the dead And the darknesse in which men were then in what kinde of state the dead were and we shall the lesse wonder that they declined to this custome in those times especially if we consider Chemnicius Exam. De purgator fo 92. b. that even in the Reformation of Religion in these clearer times Luther himselfe and after him if perchance Luther may be thought not to have been enough fined and drawn from his lees The Apology for the Confession of Auspourg which was written after all things were sufficiently debated and had siftings and cribrations and alterations enow allowes of such a forme of prayer for the dead as that of the primitive Fathers may justly seeme to have been All ends in this that neither those prayers of those Fathers nor these of these Lutherans though neither be in themselves to be justified did necessarily imply or presuppose any such Purgatory as the Romane Church hath gone about to evict or conclude out of them Men might pray for the
houre is comming and now is because there are no other meanes to be hereafter instituted for the attaining of a happy Resurrection then those that now are established in the Church especially at a mans death may we very properly say Nunc est Now is the Resurrection come to him not onely because the last Judgement is involved in the first for that Judgment which passeth upon every man at his death stands for ever without Repeal or Appeal or Error but because after the death of the Body there is no more to be done with the Body till the Resurrection for as we say of an Arrow that it is over shot it is gone it is beyond the mark though it be not come to the mark yet because there is no more to be done to it till it be so we may say that he that is come to death is come to his Resurrection because he hath not another step to make another foot to goe another minute to count till he be at the Resurrection The Resurrection then being the Coronation of man his Death and lying downe in the grave is his enthroning his sitting downe in that chayre where he is to receive that Crown As then the Martyrs under the Altar though in heaven yet doe cry out for the Resurrection so let us in this miserable life submit our selves cheerfully to the hand of God in death since till that death we cannot have this Resurrection and the first thing that we shall doe after this death is to rise againe To the child that is now borne we may say Hora venit The day of his Resurrection is comming To him that is old we may say The hour is come but to him that is dead The minute is come because to him there are no more minutes till it doe come Miremini hoc Omnes Marvail at this at the descent of Gods love He loves the Body of Man And Miremini hoc Mervaile at his speed He makes haste to expresse this love Hora venit And then Miremini hoc Marvaile at the Generality it reaches to all all that are in the Grave All that are in the graves shall heare his voice c. God hath made the Body as a House for the soule till he call her out and he hath made the Grave as a House for the body till he call it up The misery and poore estate that Christ submitted himselfe unto for man Mat 8.20 was not determined in that That foxes had holes but he no where to lay his head while he lived but he had no grave that he could claime when he was dead It is some discontinuance of the Communion of Saints if I may not be buried with the Saints of God Every man that hath not devested Humanity hath a desire to have his bones lie at rest and we cannot provide for that so well any way as to bury them in Consecrated places which are in common entendment safest from prophane violences Even that respect that his bones might lye at rest seems to have mov'd one Prophet 1 King 13.31 to enjoyne his Sons to bury him in the Sepulcher where the other Prophet was buried He knew that Iosiah would burne the bones of all the other graves upon the Altar of Bethel as was prophecied and he presum'd that he would spare the bones of that Prophet and so his bones should be safe if they were mingled with the other Deut. 34.6 God expressed his love to Moses in that particular That he buried him And to deliver and remove him from the violence of any that lov'd him not and so might dishonor his memory and from the superstition of any that over-lov'd him and so might over-honour his memory God buried him in secret In more then one place doth David complaine That there was none to bury Gods Saints And the Dignity that is promised here in the Text is appropriated to them who are in the graves who are buried But then was that generall Is it simply plainly literally of them and them onely who are in graves who are buried Shall none enjoy a Resurrection that have not enjoy'd a Grave Still I say it is a comfort to a dying man it is an honour to his memory it is a discharge of a duty in his friends it is a piece of the Communion of Saints to have a consecrated grave But the word here is In monumentis All that are in Monuments that is in Receptacles of Bodies of what kind soever they be wheresoever the hand of God layes up a dead Body Psal 34.20 that place is the Receptacle so the monument so the grave of that Body God keeps all the bones of the righteous so that none of them are broken Though they be trod to dust in our sight they are intire in his because he can bid them be whole againe in an instant Some Nations burnt their dead there the fire is the grave some drowned their dead there the sea is the grave and some hung them up upon trees and there the ayre is their grave Some Nations eat their dead themselves and some maintained dogs to eat the dead Herod Strabo and as they called those dogs Canes Sepulchrales Sepulchrall dogs so those men were sepulchrall men those men and those dogs were graves Death and hell shall deliver up their dead Apâ—c 20.13 sayes S. Iohn That is the whole state and mansion of the dead shall be emptied The state of the dead is their grave and upon all that are in this state shall the testimony of Gods love to the body of man fall And that is the Generality All that are in the grave c. Our next step is Audient The Instrument the Means by which this first so speedy and then so generall love of God to man to man in his lowest part his body is accomplished unto him These All these All these that are in graves in all these kinds of graves shall heare his voice and that is the Meanes First whose voice That is expressed immediately before The Son of man In the other Resurrection in that of the dead soule ver 25. there it is said The dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God In this which is the Resurrection to Judgement it is The Son of man The former Resurrection that of a sinner to repentance by preaching is wrought by a plaine and ordinary meanes here in the Church where you doe but heare a man in a Pew read prayers and pronounce Absolution and a man in a Pulpit preach a Sermon and a man at a Table consecrate and administer a Sacrament And because all this though it be the power of life and the meanes of your spirituall resurrection is wrought by the Ministery of man who might be contemptible in your eye therefore the whole worke is referred to God and not the son of man but the Son of God is said to do it In this Resurrection of the
Text which is a Resurrection to Judgement and to an account with God that God whom we have displeased exasperated violated wounded in the whole course of our life lest we should be terrified and dejected at the presence of that God the whole worke is referred to the Son of Man which hath himselfe formerly felt all our infirmities and hath had as sad a soule at the approach of death as bitter a Cup in the forme of Death as heavy a feare of Gods forsaking him in the agony of death as we can have And for sin it self I would not I do not extenuate my sin but let me have fallen not seven times a day but seventy seven times a minute yet what are my sins to all those sins that were upon Christ The sins of all men and all women and all children the sins of all Nations all the East and West and all the North and South the sins of all times and ages of Nature of Law of Grace the sins of all natures sins of the body and sins of the mind the sins of all growth and all extentions thoughts and words and acts and habits and delight and glory and contempt and the very sin of boasting nay of our belying our selves in sin All these sins past present and future were at once upon Christ and in that depth of sin mine are but a drop to his Ocean In that treasure of sin mine are but single money to his Talent And therefore that I might come with a holy reverence to his Ordinance in this place though it be but in the Ministery of man that first Resurrection is attributed to the Son of God to give a dignity to that Ministery of man which otherwise might have beene under-valued that thereby we might have a consolation and a cheerefulnesse towards it It is He that is the Son of God and the Son of man Christ which remembers us alfo that all that belongs to the expressing of the Law of God to man must be received by us who professe our selves Christians in and by and for and through Christ We use to ascribe the Creation to the Father but the Father created by the Word and his Word is his Son Christ When he prepared the Heavens I was there saies Christ Prov. 8.27 of himselfe in the person of Wisdome and when he appointed the foundations of the earth then was I by him as one brought up with him It is not as one brought in to him or brought in by him but with him one as old that is as eternall as much God as he We use to ascribe Sanctification to the Holy Ghost But the Holy Ghost sanctifies in the Church And the Church was purchased by the blood of Christ and Christ remaines Head of the Church usque in consummationem till the end of the world I looke upon every blessing that God affords me and I consider whether it be temporall or spirituall and that distinguishes the metall the temporall is my silver and the spirituall is my Gold but then I looke againe upon the Inscription Cujus Imago whose Image whose inscription it beares and whose Name and except I have it in and for and by Christ Jesus Temporall and Spirituall things too are but imaginary but illusory shadows for God convayes himselfe to us no other way but in Christ The benefit then in our Text the Resurrection is by him but it is limited thus Christum It is by hearing him They that are in their Graves shall heare c. So it is in the other Resurrection too the spirituall resurrection v. 25. There they must heare him that will live In both resurrections That in the Church now by Grace And that in the Grave hereafter by Power it is said They shall heare him They shall which seemes to imply a necessity though not a coaction But that necessity not of equall force not equally irresistible in both In the Grave They shall Though they be dead and senslesse as the dust for they are dust it selfe though they bring no concurrence no cooperation They shall heare that is They shall not chuse but heare In the other resurrection which is in the Church by Grace in Gods Ordinance They shall heare too that is There shall be a voice uttered so as that they may heare if they will but not whether they will or no as in the other cafe in the grave Therefore when God expresses his gathering of his Church in this world it is Sibilabo congregabo I will hisse or chirpe for them Zecha 10.8 and so gather them He whispers in the voyce of the Spirit and he speaks a little louder in the voice of a man Let the man be a Boanerges a Son of thunder never so powerfull a speaker yet no thunder is heard over all the world Mat. 24.31 But for the voyce that shall be heard at the Resurrection He shall send his Angels with a great sound of a Trumpet A great sound such as may be made by a Trumpet such as an Angell all his Angels can make in a Trumpet and more then all that 1 Thes 4.16 The Lord himselfe shall descend from Heaven and that with a shout and with the voice of an Archangel that is saies S. Ambrose of Christ himselfe And in the Trumpet of God that is also Christ himselfe So then you have the Person Christ The meanes A Voyce And the powerfulnesse of that voyce in the Name of an Archangell which is named but once more in all the Scriptures And therefore let no man that hath an holy anhelation and panting after the Resurrection suspect that he shall sleepe in the dust for ever for this is a voyce that will be heard he must rise Let no man who because he hath made his course of life like a beast would therefore be content his state in death might be like a beast too hope that he shall sleepe in the dust for ever for this is a voice that must be heard And all that heare shall come forth they that have done good c. He shall come forth Procedent even he that hath done ill and would not shall come forth You may have seene morall men you may have seen impious men go in confidently enough not afrighted with death not terrified with a grave but when you shall see them come forth againe you shall see them in another complexion That man that dyed so with that confidence thought death his end It ends his seventy yeares but it begins his seventy millions of generations of torments even to his body and he never thought of that Indeed Iudicii nisi qui vitae aeternae praedestinatus est non potest reminisci saies S. Ambrose No man can no man dares thinke upon the last Judgement but he that can thinke upon it with comfort he that is predestinated to eternall life Even the best are sometimes shaked with the consideration of the Resurrection because it
much as reproved disputed against or called in question As it must not be only a fancy Contra. an imagination but an opinion in which though there be not a Certò yet there is a Potiùs Though I be not sure yet I doe rather thinke it so we consider Contraria opinantem That it must be an opinion contrary to something that we are sure of that is to some received article or to some evident religious duty contrary to religion as religion is matter of faith or as religion is matter of obedience to lawfull Authority Though fancies grow to be opinions that men come to thinke they have reasons for their opinions and to know they have other men on their side in those opinions yet as long as these are but opinions of a little too much or a little too little in matter of Ceremony and Circumstance as long as they are but deflectings and deviations upon collaterall matters no foundation shaked no corner-stone displaced as long as they are but preteritions not contradictions but omissions not usurpations they are not worthy of a reproofe of a conviction and there may be more danger then profit in bringing them into an over-vehement agitation Those men whose end is schisme and sedition and distraction are brought so neare their owne ends and the accomplishment of their owne desires if they can draw other men together by the eares As some have all they desire if they can make other men drunke so have these if they can make sober men wrangle They must be Opinions not fancies and they must have a contrariety Tenenda an opposition to certaine truths and then they must be held persisted in before it be fit to give a reproofe either by calling in question or by confutation As some men are said to have told a lye so often as that at last they beleeve it themselves so a man admits sometimes an opinion to lodge so long as that Transit in intellectum It fastens upon his understanding Bernard and that that he did but think before now he seems to himself to know it and he beleeves it And then Fides si habet haesitationem infirma est Idem As that faith that admits a scruple is weake and so without scruple he comes peremptorily to beleeve it But so Opinio si habet assertionem temeraria est When that which is but an opinion comes to be published and avowed for a certaine and a necessary truth then it becomes dangerous And that growes apace for scarcely does any man beleeve an opinion to be true but he hath a certaine appetite and itch to infuse it into others too Now when these pieces meet when these atomes make up a body a body of Error Syllogismus that it come to an Opinion a halfe-assurance and that in some thing contrary to foundations and that it be held stiffely publiquely persisted in then enters this reproofe but yet even then reproofe is but Syllogismus it is but an argument it is but convincing it is not destroying it is not an Inquisition a prison a sword an axe a halter a fire It is a syllogisme not a syllogisme whose major is this Others your Ancestors beleeved it and the minor this We that are your Superiours beleeve it Ergo you must or else be banisht or burnt With such syllogismes the Arians abounded where they prevailed in the Primitive Church and this is the Logique of the Inquisition of Rome But our syllogisme must be a syllogisme within our Authors definition when out of some things which are agreed on all sides other things that are controverted are made evident and manifest Hell is presented to us by fire but fire without light Heaven by light and light without any ill effect of fire in it Where there is nothing but an Accuser perchance not that and fire citation and excommunication here is Satan who is an Accuser but an invisible one and here is Hell it selfe a devilish and a darke proceeding But when they to whom this reproofe belongs take Christs way not to tread out smoaking flaxe that a poore soule mis-led by ignorant zeale and so easily combustible and apt to take fire be not troden downe with too much power and passion when they doe not breake a bruised reed that is not terrifie a distracted conscience which perchance a long ill conversation with schismaticall company and a spirituall melancholy and over-tender sense of sin hath cast too low before then does this reproofe worke aright when it is brought in with light before fire with convenient instruction and not hasty condemnation We may well call this Viam Christi and Viam Spiritus sancti Christs way and the Holy Ghosts way for he had need be a very good Christian and a very sanctified man that can walke in that way Perfectorum est nihil in peccatore odisse praeter peccata August He that hates nothing in an Heretique or in a Schismatique but the Schisme or the Heresie He that sets bounds to that sea and hath said to his affections and humane passions Stay there go no farther hath got far in the steps of Christian perfection The slipperinesse the precipitation is so great on the other side that commonly we begin to hate the person first and then grow glad when he growes guilty of any thing worthy our hate and we make God himselfe the Devils instrument when we pretend zeale to his service in these reproofes and corrections and serve onely our owne impotent passion and inordinate ambition For therein Plerumque cum tibi videris odisse inimicum fratrem odisti August nescis Thou thinkest or pretendâ—â—t to hate an enemy and hatest thine owne brother and knowest it not Thou knowest not considerest not that he by good usage and instruction might have beene made thy Brother a fellow-member in the Visible Church by outward conformity and in the Invisible too by inward Cyprian Etiam fictilia vasa confringere Domino soli concessum If thou be a vessell of gold or silver and that other of clay thou of a cleere and rectified he of a darke and perverted understanding yet even vessels of clay are onely in the power of that Potters hand that made them or bought them to breake and no bodies else Still as long as it is possible proceed we with the moderation of that blessed Father Sic peccata Haereticorum compesce ut sint quos poeniteat peccasse August Take not away the subject of the error the perversenesse of the man so as that thou take away the subject of repentance the man himselfe If thou require fruit leave a tree If thou wouldst have him repent take not away his life sayes he We see the leasurely pace that Gods Justice walks in Dan 4.24 When Daniel had told Nebuchadnezzar his danger yea the Decree of God upon him as hee cals it yet he told him a way how to revoke it by workes