is in the midst he is in the midst of the throne though al his great glorious company be round about him one hundred and forty foure thousand Israelites innumerable multitudes of all Nations Angels and Elders yet it is the Lambe that is in the midst of them and not they that are about him that sheds down these blessings upon us And it is the Lambe that is there still in the midst of the throne not kneaded into an Agnus Dei of wax or wafer here not called down from heaven to an Altar by every Priests charme to be a witnesse of secrecy in the Sacrament for every bloudy and feditious enterprise that they undertake It is Agnus qui est in medio Throni the Lambe that is there and shall be so till he come at last as a Lion also to devoure them who have made false opinions of him to serve their mischievous purposes here This is the person then that gives the assurance that all these blessings belong to them who are ordained to be so sealed and so washed this is he that assures us and approves to us that all this shall be first Quia reget because he shall govern them secondly Quia deducet because he shall lead them to the fountaines of waters thirdly Quia absterget because he shall wipe all teares from their eyes First he shall govern them he shall establish a spiritual Kingdome for them in this world for to govern which is the word of the first translation and to feed which is in the second is all one in Scriptures Dominabitur gentium he shall be Lord of the Gentiles but Rex Israelis he shall governe his people Israel as a King by a certain and a cleare law So that as we shal have interest in the Covenant as well as the Israclites so we shal have interest in that glorious acclamation of theirs Unto what nation are their Gods come so neare unto them as the Lord our God is come near unto us what nation hath Laws and ordinances so righteous as we have for in that Paul Barnabas express the heaviest indignation of God upon the Gentiles that God suffered the Gentiles to walke in their own ways he shewed them not his ways he setled no church no kingdome amongst them he did not govern them Except one of those Eight persons whom God preserved in the Arke were here to tell us the unexpressible comfort that he conceived in his safety when he saw that flood wash away Princes from their thrones misers from their bagges lovers from their embracements Courtiers from their wardrobes no man is able to expresse that true comfort which a Christian is to take even in this That God hath taken him into his Church and not left him in that desperate and irremediable inundation of Idolatry and paganisace that overflowes all the world beside For beloved who can expresse who can conceive that strange confusion which shall overtake and oppresse those infinite multitudes of Soules which shall be changed at the last day and shall meet Christ Jesus in the clouds and shall receive an irrevocable judgment of everlasting condemnation dut of his mouth whose name they never heard of before that must be condemned by a Judge of whom they knew nothing before and who never had before any apprehension of torments of Hell till by that lamentable experience they began to learn it What blessed meanes of preparation against that fearfull day doth he afford us even in this that he governes us by his law delivered in his Church The first thing that the housholder in the parable is noted to have done for his Vineyard was Sepe circumdedit he hedged it in That God hath done for us in making us his Church he hath inlaid us he hath hedged us in But he that breaketh the hedge a Serpent shall bite him he that breaketh this hedge the peace of the Church by his Schisme the old Serpent hath bitten and poysoned him and shall bite worse hereafter and if God having thus severed us and hedged us in have expected grapes and we bring none though we breake no hedge here amongst our selves that is no Papist breaks in upon us no Separatist breakes out from us we enjoy security enough yet even for our own barrennes Godwill take away the hedge and it shall be eaten up he will breake the wall and it shall be troden down Surely says the Prohet there The Vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the Men of Indah are his pleasant plans Surely we are the Church which God hath hedged in but yet if we answer not his expectation certainly the confusion of the Gentiles at the last day when they shal say to themselves of Christ Nescivi te dost thou condemne us and we know thee not shall not be so great as out confusion shall be when we shall hear Christ say to us whom he bred in his Church Nesiciovos I know not whence you are Even this that the ill use of this mercy of having been bred in his Church shall aggravate our condemnation then shewes the great benefit which we may receive now by this Quod regit nos that he takes care of us in his Church for how many in the world would have lived ten times more christianly then we do if they had but halfe that knowledge of Christ which we have When he hath then brought us into his kingdome that we are his subjects for all the heathen are in the condition of slaves he brings us nearer into his service he gives us outward distinctions liveries badges names visible markes in Baptisme yea he incorporates us more inseparably to himself then that which they imagine to be done in the Church of Rome where their Canonists say that a Cardinall is to incorporated in the Pope he is so made one flesh and bloud with him as that he may not let bloud without his leave because he bleeds not his own but the Popes bloud But of us it is true that by this Sacramēs we are so incorporated into Christ that in all our afflictions after we fulfill the sufferings of Christ in our flesh and in all afflictions which we lay upon any of our Christian brethren our consciences hear Christ crying to us Quid me persequerts why persecutest thou me Christs body is wounded in us when we suffer Christs body is wounded by us when we violate the peace of the Church or offend the particular members thereof First then deducet he shall lead them it is not he shall force them he shall thrust them he shall compell them it implies a gentle and yet an effectuall way he shall lead them Those which come to Christianity from Iudaisme or Gentisme when they are of years of discreation he shall lead them by instruction by Catechisme by preaching of his word before they be baptized for they that are of years are baptized without the
of Saint Iohn and another by Saint Marke to the memory of Saint Peter whilest yet both Saint John and Saint Peter were alive Howsoever it is certaine that the purest and most innocent times even the infancy of the Primitive Church found this double way of expressing their devotion in this particular of building Churches first that they built them onely to the honour and glory of God without giving him any partner and then they built them for the conserving of the memory of those blessed servants of God who had sealed their profession with their bloud and at whose Tombs God had done such Miracles as these times needed for the propagation of his Church They built their Churches principally for the glory of God but yet they added the names of some of his blessed servants and Martyrs for so says he who as he was Peters successor so he is the most sensible feeler and most earnest and powerfull promover and expresser of the dignities of Saint Peter of all the Fathers speaking of Saint Peters Church Beato Petri Basilica quae uni Deo vero vivo dicata est Saint Peters Church is dedicated to the onely living God They are things compatible enough to beare the name of a Saint and yet to be dedicated to God There the bodies of the blessed Martyrs did peacefully attend their glorification There the Histories of the Martyrs were recited and proposed to the Congregation for their example and imitation There the names of the Martyrs were inserted into the publique prayers and liturgies by way of presenting the thanks of the Congregation to God for having raised so profitable men in the Church and there the Church did present their prayers to God for those Martyrs that God would hasten their glory and finall consummation in reuniting their bodies and soules in a joyfull resurrection But yet though this divers mention were made of the Saints of God in the house of God Non Martyres ipsi sed Deus â—orum nobis est Deus onely God and not those Martyrs is our God we and they serve all one Master we dwell all in one house in which God hath appointed us severall services Those who have done their days work God hath given them their wages and hath given them leave to goe to bed they have laid down their bodies in peace to sleep there till the Sunne rise againe till the Sunne of grace and glory Christ Iesus appeare in judgment we that are yet left to work and to watch we must goe forward in the services of God in his house with that moderation and that equality as that we worship onely our Master but yet despise not our fellow servants that are gone before us That we give to no person the glory of God but that we give God the more glory for having raised such servants That we acknowledge the Church to be the house onely of God and that we admit no Saint no Martyr to be a lointenant with him but yet that their memory may be an encouragement yea and a seale to us that that peace and glory which they possesse belongs also unto us in reversion and that therefore we may cheerfully gratulate their present happinesse by a devout commemoration of them with such a temper and evennesse as that we neither dishonor God by attributing to them that which is inseparably his nor dishonor them in taking away that which is theirs in removing their Names out of the Collects and prayers of the Church or their Monuments and memorialls out of the body of the Church for those respects to them the first Christian founders of Churches did admit in those pure times when Illa obsequia ornamenta memoriarum nâ—n sacrificia mortuorum when those devotions in their names were onely commemorations of the dead not sacrifices to the dead as they are made now in the Romane Church when Bellarmine will needs falsifie Chrysostome to read Adoramus monumenta in stead of Adornamus and to make that which was but an Adorning an adoring of the Tombes of the Martyrs This then was in all times a religious work an acceptable testimony of devotion to build God a house to contribute something to his outward glory The goodnesse and greatnesse of which work appears evidently and shines gloriously even in those severall names by which the Church was called and styled in the writings and monuments of the Ancient Fathers and the Ecclesiastique story It may serve to our edification at least and to the axalting of our devotion to consider some few of them First then the Church was called Ecclesia that is a company a Congregation That whereas from the time of Iohn Baptist the kingdome of heaven suffers violence and every violent Man that is every earnest and zealous and spiritually valiant Man may take hold of it we may be much more sure of doing so in the Congregation Quando agâ—â—ine factâ— Deum obsidemus when in the whole body we Muster our forces and besiege God For here in the congregation not onely the kingdome of heaven is fallen into our hands The kingdome of heaven is amongst you as Christ says but the King of heaven is fallen into our hands When two or three are gathered together in my Name I will be in the midst of you not onely in the midst of us to encourage us but in the midst of us to be taken by us to be bound by us by those hands those covenants those contracts those rich and sweet promises which he hath made and ratified unto us in his Gospell A second name of the Church 〈◊〉 in use was Dominicum The Lords possession It is absolutely it is intirely his And therefore as to shorten and contract the possession and inheritance of God the Church so much as to confine the Church onely within the obedience of Rome as the Donatists imprisoned it in Afrique or to change the Landmarks of Gods possession and inheritance which is the Church either to set up new works of outward prosperity or of personall and Locall succession of Bishops or to remove the old and true marks which are the Word and Sacraments as this is Injuria Dominico mystico a wrong to the mysticall body of Christ the Church so is it Injuria Dominico materiali an injury to the Materiall body of Christ sacrilegiously to dilapidate to despoile or to demolish the possession of the Church and so farre to remove the marks of Gods inheritance as to mingle that amongst your temporall revenues that God may never have nor ever distinguish his owne part againe And then to passe faster over these names It is called Domus Dei Gods dwelling house Now his most glorious Creatures are but vehicula Dei they are but chariots which convey God and bring him to our sight The Tabernacle it selfe was but Mobilis domus and Ecclesia portatilis a house without a foundation a running a progresse house but
one person in him My flesh shall no more be none of mine then Christ shall not be man as well as God SERMON XV. Preached at Lincolns Inne 1 COR. 15. 50. Now this I say Brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God SAint Gregory hath delivered this story That Eutychius who was Bishop of Constantinople having written a book of the Resurrection and therein maintained that errour That the body of Christ had not that our bodies in the Resurrection should not have any of the qualities of a naturall body but that those bodies were in subtilitatem redacta so rarifyed so refined so attenâ—ated and reduced to a thinnesse and subtlenesse that they were aery bodies and not bodies of flesh and blood This error made a great noise and raised a great dust till the Emperour to avoid scandall which for the most part arises out of publick conferences was pleased to hear Eutychius and Gregory dispute this point privately before himself and a small company And that upon conference the Emperour was so well satisfyed that hee commanded Eutychius his books to bee burnt That after this both Gregory and Eutychius fell sicke but Eutychius dyed and dyed with this protestation In hâc carne in this flesh taking up the flesh of his hand in the presence of them that were there in this flesh I acknowledge that I and all men shall arise at the day of Judgement Now the principall place of Scripture which in his book and in that conference Eutychius stood upon was this Text these words of Saint Paul This I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God And the directest answer that Gregory gave to it was Caro secundum culpam non regnabit sed Caro secundum naturam sinfull flesh shall not but naturall flesh that is flesh indued with all qualities of flesh all such qualities as imply no defect no corruption for there was flesh before there was sin such flesh and such blood shall inherit the Kingdome of God As there have been more Heresies about the Humanity of Christ then about his Divinity so there have been more heresies about the Resurrection of his body and consequently of ours then about any other particular article that concerns his Humiliation or Exaltation Simon Magus strook deepest at first to the root That there was no Resurrection at all The Gnosticks who took their name from knowledge as though they knew all and no body else any thing which is a pride transferr'd through all Heretickes for as that sect in the Roman Church which call themselves Ignorantes and seem to pretend to no knowledge doe yet believe that they know a better way to heaven then all other men doe so that sect amongst them which called themselves Nullanos Nothings thought themselves greater in the Kingdome of God then either of the other two sects of diminution the Minorits or the Minims did These Gnosticks acknowledged a Resurrection but they said it was of the soul onely and not of the body for they thought that the soul lay dead at least in a dead sleep till the Resurrection Those Heretickes that are called the Arabians did as the Gnosticks did affirm a temporary death of the soul as well as of the body but then they allowed a Resurrection to both soul and body after that death which the Gnostickes did not but to the soul onely Hymeneus and Philetus of whom Saint Paul speakes they restrained the Resurrection to the soule but then they restrained this Resurrection of the soule to this life and that in those who were baptized the Resurrection was accomplished already Eutychius whom wee mentioned before enlarged the Resurrection to the body as well as to the soul but enlarged the qualities of the body so far as that it was scarce a body The Armenian hereticks said that it was not onely Corpus humâ—num but Corpus masculinum That all should rise in the perfecter sex and none as women Origen allowed a Resurrection and allowed the Body to be a naturall body but the contracted the time he said that when we rose we should enjoy the benefits of the resurrection even in bodily pleasures for a thousand years and then be annihilated or absorpted and swallowed up into the nature and essence of God himselfe for it will be hard to state Origens opinion in this point Origen was not herein well understood in his owne time not doe we understand him now for the most part but by his accusers and those that have written against him Divers of these Heretiques for the maintenance of their severall heresies perverted this Scripture Flesh and bloud cannot inherit the kingdome of God and that occasioned those Fathers who opposed those heresies so diverse from one another to interpret these words diversly according to the heresie they opposed All agree that they are an argument for the resurrection though they seem at first to oppose it For this Chapter hath three generall parts first Resurrectionem esse that there shall be a Resurrection which the Apostle proves by many and various arguments to the thirty fifth verse And then Quati corpore the body shall rise but some will say How are the dead raised and with what body doe they come in that thirty fifth verse And lastly Quid de superstitibus what shall become of them who shall be found alive at the day We shall all be changed verse fifty one Now this text is the knot and corollary or all the second part concerning the qualities of the bodies in the resurrection Now says the Apostle now that I have said enough to prove that a resurrection there is now now that I have said enough what kind of bodies shall arise now I show you as much in the Negative as I have done in the Affirmative now I teach you what to avoid as well as I have done what to affect now this I say brethren that flesh and bloud cannot inherit the kingdome of God Now though those words be primarily principally intended of the last Resurrection yet in a secondary respect they are appliable in themselves and very often applied by the ancients to the first Resurrection our resurrection in this life Tertullian hath intimated and presented both together elegantly when he says of God Nobis arrhabonem spiritus reliquit arrhabonem à nobis accepit God hath given us his earnest and a pawn from him upon earth in giving us the holy Ghost and he hath received our earnest and a pawn from us into heaven by receiving our nature in the body of Christ Jesus there Flesh and bloud when it is conformed to the flesh and bloud of Christ now glorified and made like his by our resurrectien may inherite the kingdome of God in heaven Yea flesh and bloud being conformed to Christ by the sanctification of the holy Ghost here in this world may inherit the kingdome of God here upon earth for God hath a
kingdome here and there is a Communion in Armes as well as a communion in Triumph Leaving then that acceptation of flesh and bloud which many thinke to be intended in this text that is Animalis caro flesh and bloud that must be maintained by eating and drinking and preserved by propagation and generation that flesh and that bloud cannot inherit heaven where there is no marying nor giving in mariage but Erimus sicut Angeli we shall be as the Angels though such a heaven in part Mahomet hath proposed to his followers a heaven that should abound with worldly delights and such a heaven the Disciples of Origen and the Millenarians that look for one thousand years of all temporall felicity proposed to themselves And though amongst our latter men Cajetan doe thinke that the Apostle in this text bent himselfe upon that doctrine non caro non Animalis caro flesh and bloud that is no carnall no worldly delights are to be looked for in heaven leaving that sense as too narrow and too shallow for the holy Ghost in this place in which he hath a higher reach we shall determine our selves at this time in these too acceptations of this phrase of speech first non caro that is non caro corrupta flesh and bloud cannot sinfull flesh corrupt flesh flesh not discharged of sinfull corruption here by repentance and Sanctification and the operation of Gods spirit such flesh cannot inherit the kingdome of God here Secondly noncar◠is non car◠corruptibilis flesh and bloud cannot that is flesh that is yet subject to corruption and dissolution and naturall passions and impressions tending to defectivenesse flesh that is still subject to any punishment that God lays upon flesh for sinne such flesh cannot inherit the kingdome of God hereafter for our present possession of the kingdome of God here our corrupt flesh must be purged by Sanctification here for the future kingdome our naturall Corruptiblenesse must be purged by glorification there We will make the last part first as this flesh and this bloud by devesting the corruptiblenesse it suffers here by that glorification shall inherit that kingdome and not stay long upon it neither For of that we have spoken conveniently before of the resurrection it selfe Now we shall looke a little into the qualities of bodies in the resurrection and that not in the intricacies and subtilties of the Schoole but onely in that one patterne which hath been given us of that glory upon earth which is the Transfiguration of Christ for that Transfiguration of his was a representation of a glorified body in a glorified state And then in the second place we shall come to our first part what that flesh and bloud is that is denied to be capable of the inheritance of that kingdome here that is that earnest of heaven and that inchoation of heaven which may be had in this world and in that part we shall see what this inheritance what this title to heaven here and what this kingdome of God that heaven which is proposed to us here is First then for the first acceptation which is of the later resurrection no man denies that which Melancthon hath collected and established to be the summe of this text Statuit resurrectionem in corpore sed non quale jam corpus est The Apostle establishes a resurrection of the body but yet not such a body as this is It is the same body and yet not such a body which is a mysterious consideration that it is the same body and yet not such as it selfe nor like any other body of the same substance But what kind of body then We content ourselves with that Transfiguratio specimen appositissimum Resurrectionis the Transfiguration of Christ is the best glasse to see this resurrection and state of glory in But how was that transfiguration wrought We content our selves with Saint Hieromes expressing of it non pristinam amisit veritatem vel formam corporis Christ had still the same ture and reall body and he had the same forme and proportion and lineaments and dimensions of his body in it selfe Transfiguratio non faciem subtraxit sed splendorem ad didit sayes he It gave him not another face but it super-immitted such a light such an illustration upon him as by that irradiation that coruscation the beames of their eys were scattered and disgregated dissipated so as that they could not collect them as at other times nor constantly and confidently discerne him Moses had a measure a proportion of this but yet when Moses came down with his shining face though they were not able to looke long upon him they knew him to be Moses When Christ was transfigured in the presence of Peter Iames and Iohn yet they knew him to be Christ. Transfiguration did not so change him nor shall glorification so change us as that we shall not be known There is nothing to convince a man of error nothing in nature nothing in Scriptures if he beleeve that he shall know those persons in heaven whom he knew upon earth and if he conceive soberly that it were a lesse degree of blessednesse not to know them then to know them he is bound to beleeve that he shall know them for he is bound to beleeve that all that conduces to blessednes shall be given him The School resolves that at the Judgement all the sins of all shall be manifested to all even those secret sinfull thoughts that never came out of the heart And when any in the School differs or departs from this cōmon opinion they say onely that those sins which have been in particular repented shall not be manifested all others shall And therefore it is a deep uncharitablenes to reproach any man of sins formerly repented and a deep uncharitablenesse not to beleeve that he whom thou seest at the Communion hath repented his former sins Reproach no man after thou hast seen him receive with last years sins except thou have good evidence of his Hypocrisie then or of his Relapsing after For in those two cases a man remaines or becomes againe guilty of his former sinnes Now if in heaven they shall know the hearts of one another whose faces they never knew before there is lesse difficulty in knowing them whom we did know before From this transfiguration of Christ in which the mortall eye of the Apostles did see that representation of the glory of Christ the Schooles make a good argument that in heaven we shall doe it much more And though in this case of the Transfiguration in which the eyes of mortall men could have no proportion with that glory of heaven this may bee well said to have been done either Moderando lumen that God abated that light of glory or Confortando visum that God exalted their sense of seeing supernaturally no such distinctions or modifications will bee needfull in heaven because how highly soever the body of my
have born the image of the earthly so let us beare the Image of the heavenly there from Tertullian it must necessarily be referred to the first Resurrection the Resurrection by grace in this life for says he there Non refertur ad substantiam resurrectionis sed ad prâ—â—sentis temporis disciplinam the Apostle does not speak of our glorious resurrection at last but of our religious resurrection now Portemus non portabimus Let us bear his image says the Apostle Let us now not that we shall bear it at the last day Praeceptive dictum non promissive The Apostle delivers it as a duty that we must not as a reward that wee shall bear that image And therefore in Tertulliâ—â— construction it is not onely indifferent and probable but necessary to refer this Text to the first Resurrection in this life where it will be fittest to pursue that order which we proposed at first first to consider Quid regnum what Kingdome it is that is pretended to And then Quid haeredetas what estate and term is to be had in it It is an Inheritance And lastly Quid care sanguis what flesh and blood it is that is excluded out of this Kingdome Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God First for this kingdome of God in this world let us be glad that it is a kingdome that it is so much that the government is taken out of the hands of Saints and Angels and re-united re-annexed to the Crown restoted to God to whom we may come immediately and be accepted Let us be glad that it is a kingdome so much and let us be glad that it is but a kingdome and no more not a Tyranny That we come not to a God that will damâ—e us because he will damâ—e us but a God that proposes Conditions and enables us to performe those conditions in such a measure as he will vouchsafe to accept from us A God that governs us by his word for in his word is truth and by his law for in his law is clearnesse Will you aske what this kingdome of God is What did you take it to be or what did you mean by it when even now you said with me in the Lords prayer Thy kingdome come Did you deliberately and determinately pray for the day of Judgment and for his comming in the kingdome of glory then Were you all ready for that when you said so Purae conscientiae grandis audaciae est It is a very great confidence and if it be not grounded upon a very pure conscience it must have a worse name Regnum Dei postul are judicium non timeâ—â— To call upon God for the day of Judgment upon confidence of our own righteousnesse is a shrewd distemper To say Vâ—ni Domine Iesu come Lord Iesuâ— come and take us as thou findst us is a dangerous issue But Adveniat regnum and then veniat Rex let his kingdome of grace come upon us in this life and then let himselfe come too in his good time and when his good pleasure shall be in the kingdome of Glory Sive velimus sive nolimus regnum Dei utique veniet what need we hasten him provoke him says Saint Augustine whether we will or no his kingdome his Judgment will come Nay before we called for it even his kingdome of grace was come Christ said to the Scribe Non longè Thou art not far from the kingdome of God And to the Pharisees themselves he said Intra vos the kingdome of God is among you within you But where there is a whole Hospitall of three hundred blinde men together as there is at Paris there is as much light amongst them there as amongst us here and yet all they have no light so this kingdome of God is amongst us all and yet God knows whether we see it or no. And therefore Adveniat ut manifestetâ—r Deus says S. Augustine his kingdom come that we may discerne it is come that we may see that God offers it to us and Adveniat regnum ut manefestemur Deo his kingdome come so that he may discernus in our reception of that Kingdom and our obedience to it He comes when we see him and he comes again when we receive him Quid est Regnum ejus veniat quà m ut nos bonos inveniat Then his Kingdome comes when he finds us willing to be Subjects to that Kingdome God is a King in his own right By Creation by Redemption by many titles and many undoubted claimes But Aliud est Regem esse aliud regnare It is one thing to be a King another to have Subjects in obedience A King is not the lesse a King for a Rebellion But Verè justum regnum est says that Father quando Rex vult homines habere sub se cupiunt homines esse sub â—o when the King would wish no other Subjects nor the Subjects other King then is that Kingdom come come to a durable and happy state When God hath shewed himself in calling us and wee have shewed our willingnesse to come when God shewes his desire to preserve us and we adhere onely to him when there is a Dominus regnat Latetur terra When our whole Land is in possession of peace and plenty and the whole Church in possession of the Word and Sacraments when the Land rejoyces because the Lord reigns and when there is a Dominus regnat Laetentur Insulae Because the Lord reigneth every Island doth rejoice that is every man that every man that is encompassed within a Sea of calamities in his estate with a Sea of diseases in his body with a Sea of scruples in his understanding with a Sea of transgressions in his conscience with a Sea of sinking and swallowing in the sadnesse of spirit may yet open his eyes above water and find a place in the Arke above all these a recourse to God and joy in him in the Ordinances of a well established and well governed Church this is truly Regnum Dei the Kingdome of God here God is willing to be present with us that he declares in the preservation of his Church And we are sensible of his presence and residence with us and that wee declare in our frequent recourses to him hither and in our practise of those things which we have learnt here when we are gone hence This then is the blessed state that wee pretend to in the Kingdome of God in this life Peace in the State peace in the Church peace in our Conscience In this that wee answer the motions of his blessed Spirit here in his Ordinance and endevour a conformity to him in our life and conversation In this hee is our King and wee are his Subjects and this is this Kingdome of God the Kingdome of Grace Now the title by which we make claim to this Kingdome is in our text Inheritance Who can and who
cannot inherit this Kingdome of God I cannot have it by purchase by mine own merits and good works It is neither my former good disposition nor Gods fore-sight of my future cooperation with him that is the cause of his giving mee his grace I cannot have this by Covenant or by the gift or bequeathing of another by works of Supererogation that a Martyr of the primitive Church should send mee a violl of his blood a splinter of his bone a Collop of his flesh wrapped up in a halfe sheet of paper in an imaginary six-penny Indulgence from Rome and bid mee receive grace and peace of Conscience in that I cannot have it by purchase I cannot have it by gift I cannot have it by Curtesie in the right of my wife That if I will let her live in the obedience of the Roman Church and let her bring up my children so for my selfe I may have leave to try a Court or a worldly fortune and bee secure in that that I have a Catholique wife or a Catholique child to pray and merit for mee I have no title to this Kingdome of God but Inheritance whence growes mine Inheritance Ex semine Dei because I am propagated of the seed of God I inherit this peace Whosoever is born of God doth not commit finne for his seed remaineth in him and hee cannot sinne because hee is born of God That is hee cannot desire to sinne Hee cannot antidate a sinne by delighting in the hope of a future sin and sin in a praefruition of his sinne before the act Hee cannot post-date a sinne delight in the memory of a pastsinne and sin it over againe in a post-fruition of that sinne Hee cannot boast himself of sinne much lesse bely himself in glorying in sinnes never done Hee cannot take sinnes dyet therefore that hee may bee able to sinne againe next Spring Hee cannot hunger and thirst and then digest and sleepe quietly after a sinne and to this purpose and in this sense Saint Bernard says Praedestinati non possunt peccare That the Elect cannot sinne And in this also That when the sinnes of the Elect are brought to tryall and to judgement there their sinnes are no sinnes not because they are none in themselves but because the blood of Jesus covering them they are none in the eyes of God I am Heir then as I am the Son of God born of the seed of God But what is that seed Verbum Dei the seed is the word of God Of his own will beg at he us says that Apostle with the word of truth And our Saviour himselfe speaks very clearly in expounding the Parable The seed is the word of God We have this Kingdome of God as we have an inheritance as we are Heirs we are Heirs as we are Sons we are Sons as we have the seed and the seed is the Word So that all ends in this We inherit not this Kingdome if we possesse not the preaching of the Word if we professe not the true â—ligion still for the word of this text which we translate to inherit for the most part in the translation of the Septuagint answers the Hebrew word Nachal and Nachal is Haereditas cum possessione not an inheritance in reversion but in possession Take us O Lord for thine inheritance says Moses Et possideas nos as Saint Hâ—erome translates that very place Inherit us and Possesse us Et erimus tibi whatsoever we are we will bee thine says the Septuagint You see then how much goes to the making up of this Inheritance of the Kingdome of God in this world First Vt habeamus verbum That we have this seed of God his word In the Roman Church they have it not not that that Church hath it not not that it is not there but they the people that have it not and then Vt possideamus That we possesse it or rather that it possesse us that we make the Word the onely rule of our faith and of our actions In the Roman Church they do not so they have not pure wheat but mestlin other things joyned with this good seed the word of God and lastly Vt simus Deo That we be his that we be so still that we doe not begin with God and give over but that this seed of God of which we are born may as Saint Peter says be incorruptible and abide for ever that wee may be his so entirely and so constantly as that we had rather have no beeing then for any time of suspension or for any part of his fundamentall truth be without it and this the Roman Church cannot be said to do that expunges and interlines articles of faith upon Reason of State and emergent occasions God hath made you one says the Prophet who bee the parties whom God hath maryed together and made One in that place you and your religion as our expositors interpret that place And why One says the Prophet there That God might have a godly seed says he that is a continuation a propagation a race a posterity of the same religion Therefore says he Let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth Let none divorce himself from that religion and that worship of God which God put into his armes and which he embraced in his Baptism Except there be errour in fundamentall points such as make that Church no Church let no man depart from that Church and that religion in which he delivered himself to the service of God at first Wo be unto us if we deliver not over our religion to our posterity in the same sincerity and the same totality in which our Fathers have delivered it us for that that continuation is that that makes it an inheritance for to conclude this every man hath an inheritance in the Law and yet if he be hanged he is hanged by the Law in which hee had his inheritance so wee have our inheritance in the Word of God and yet if wee bee damned we are damned by that Word If thy heart turn away so as that thou worship other Gods I denounce unto you this day that you shall surely perish So then wee have an inheritance in this Kingdome if we preserve it and we incurre a forfeiture of it if wee have not this seed The Word the truth of Religion so as that we possesse it that is conform our selves to him whose Word it is by it and possesse it so as that we persevere in the true profession of it to our end for Perseverance as well as Possession enters into our title and inheritance to this Kingdome You see then what this Kingdome of God is It is when he comes and his welcome when he comes in his Sacraments and speaks in his Word when he speaks and is answered knocks and is received he knocks in his Ordinances and is received in our Obedience to them he knocks in his example and most holy
conversation and is received in our conformity and imitation So have you seen what the Inheritance of this Kingdome is it is a Having and Holding of the Gospel a present and a permanent possession a holding fast lest another another Nation another Church take our Crown There remains onely that you see upon whom the exclusion fals and for the clearing of that This I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God It is fully express'd by Saint Paul The carnall mind is enmity against God It is not a coldnesse a slacknesse an omission a preterition of some duties towards God but it is Enmity and that 's an exclusion out of the Kingdome for says the Apostle there it is not subject to the Law of God and no subjection no Kingdome it is not says hee neither can it be It is not that excludes the present It cannot be that excludes the future so that it is onely this incorrigible this desperate state that constitutes this flesh and blood that cannot inherit the Kingdome of God for this implies impenitablenesse which is the sin against the holy Ghost Take the word flesh so literally as that it be either the adorning of my flesh in pride or the polluting of my flesh in wantonnes whether it be a pampering of my flesh with voluptuous provocations or a withering a shriveling of my flesh with superstitious and meritorious fastings or other macerations and lacerations by inhumane violence upon my body Take the word Bloud so literally as that it be either an admiring and adoring of honourable blood in a servile flattering of great persons or an insinuating of false and adulterous blood in a bastardizing a race by supposititious children whether it bee the inflaming the blood of young persons by lascivious discourse or shedding the blood of another in a murderous quarrell whether it be in blaspheming the blood of my Saviour in execrable oathes or the prophaning of his blood in an unworthy receiving thereof all these ways and all such doth this flesh and blood exclude from the Kingdome of God It is summarily all those works which proceed meerly out of the nature of man without the regeneration of the Spirit of God all that is flesh and blood and enmity against God says the Apostle in that place But in another place that Apostle leads us into other considerations to the Galatians he says The works of the flesh are manifest And amongst those manifest works of the flesh he reckons not onely sins of wantonnesse and sins of anger not onely sins in concupiscibili and in irascibili but in intelligibili sins and errours in the understanding particularly Heresie and Idolatry are works of the flesh in Saint Pauls inventory in that place Heresie and Idolatry are that flesh and blood which shall not inherit the Kingdome of God Bring wee this consideration home to our selves The Church of Rome does not charge us with affirming any Heresie nor does she charge us with any Idolatry in our practise So far we are discharged from the works of the flesh If they charge us with Doctrine of flesh and blood because we prefer Mariage before Chastity it is a charge ill laid for Mariage and Chastity consist well together The bed undefiled is chastity If they charge us that wee prefer Mariage before Continency they charge us unjustly for we do not so Let them contain that can and blesse God for that heavenly gift of Continency and let them that cannot mary and serve God and blesse him for affording them that Physick for that infirmity As Mariage was ordained at first for those two uses Procreation of children and mutuall assistance of man and wife so Continency was not preferr'd before Mariage As there was a third use of Mariage added after the fall by way of Remedy so Mariage may well be said to be inferiour to continency as physick is in respect of health If they charge us with it because our Priests mary they doe it frivolously and impertinently because they deny that wee are Priests We charge them with Heresie in the whole new Creed of the Councell of Trent for if all the particular doctrines be not Hereticall yet the doctrine of inducing new Articles of faith is Hereticall and that doctrine runs through all the Articles for else they could not be Articles And we charge them with Idolatry in the peoples practise and that practise is never controld by them in the greatest mystery of all their Religion in the Adoration of the Sacrament And Heresie and Idolatry are manifest works of the flesh Our Kingdome is the Gospel our Inheritance is our holding that our exclusion is flesh and blood Heresie and Idolatry And therefore let us be able to say with the Apostle when God had called us and separated us immediately we conferred not with flesh and blood Since God hath brought us into a fair prospect let us have no retrospect back In Canaan let us not look towards Aegypt nor towards Sodom being got to the Mountain since God hath setled us in a true Church let us have no kind of byas and declination towards a false for that is one of Saint Pauls manifest works of the flesh and I shall lose all the benefit of the flesh and bloud of Christ Jesus if I doe so for flesh and bloud cannot inherite the kingdome of God We have done Adde we but this by way of recollecting this which hath been said now upon these words and that which hath been formerly said upon those words of Iob which may seem to differ from these In my flesh I shall see God Omne verum omni vero consentiens whatsoever is true in it selfe agrees with every other truth Because that which Iob says and that which Saint Paul says agree with the truth they agree with one another For as Saint Paul says Non omniâ— caro eadem caro there is one flesh of man another of beasts so there is one flesh of Iob another of Saint Paul And Iobs flesh can see God and Pauls cannot because the flesh that Iob speakes of hath overcome the destruction of skin and body by wormes in the grave and so is mellowed and prepared for the sight of God in heaven And Pauls flesh is overcome by the world Iobs flesh triumphes over Satan and hath made a victorious use of Gods corrections Pauls flesh is still subject to tentations and carnalities Iobs argument is but this some flesh shall see God Mortified men here Glorified men there shall Pauls argument is this All flesh shall not see God Carnall men here Impenitent men there shall not And therefore that as our texts answer one another so your resurrections may answer one another too as at the last resurrection all that heare the sound of the Trumpet shall rise in one instant though they have passed thousands of years between their burialls so doe all ye who are now called by a lower and
the Trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise This citation is not served by a bell that tolls to bring you hither not by a man that speaks to instruct you here not by a law that compells you to live orderly in the world not by a bell that rings out to lay thee in thy grave but by the great shout of the Lord descending from heaven with the voyce of the Archangel and with the Trump of God to raise the dead in Christ. It is not the Apeperire fores That the Levites have charge to open these doores every day to you that you may come in that is your first citation hither it is not the Domine labia mea aperies That God opens our mouth the mouth of the Preacher to worke upon you that is your second citation here it is not that aperuimus saccos The opening of your sack of Corne and finding that and your money too that is your trading in this world in a calling that is your third citation from hence nor it is not the Aperuit terra os situm That the earth opens her mouth and swallowes all in the grave that is your fourth citation from thence it is none of these Apertions these openings but it is the Aperta monumenta The grave it self shall be open againe and Aperti coeli The heavens shall be open and I shall see the Sonne of man the Sonne of God and not see him at that distance that Stephen saw him there but see him and sit down with him I shall rise from the dead from the darke station from the prostration from the prosternation of death and never misse the sunne which shall then be put out for I shall see the Sonne of God the Sunne of glory and shine my self as that sunne shines I shall rise from the grave and never misse this City which shall be no where for I shall see the City of God the new Ierusalem I shall looke up and never wonder when it will be day for the Angell will tell me that time shall be no more and I shall see and see cheerefully that last day the day of judgement which shall have no night never end and be united to the Antient of dayes to God himselfe who had no morning never began There I shall beare witnesse for Christ in ascribing the salvation of the whole world to him that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb and Christ shall bear witnesse for me in ascribing his righteousnesse unto me and in delivering me into his Fathers hands with the same tendernesse as he delivered up his owne soule and in making me who am a greater sinner then they who crucified him on earth for me as innocent and as righteous as his glorious selfe in the Kingdome of heaven And these occasions of advancing your devotion and edification from these two branches of this part first the fitnesse of Iohn Baptist to be sent and then his actuall sending by so divers callings and citations in him appliable as you have seene to us More will be ministred in due time out of the last part and the two branches of that first why this light required any witnesse and then what witnesse Iohn Baptist gave to this light But those because they leade us not to the celebration of any particular Festivall as these two former parts have done to Christmas and Midsommer I may have leave to present to you at any other time At this time let us onely beg of God a blessing upon this that hath been said c. SERMON XXXVIII Preached at Saint Pauls 13. Octob. 1622. JOHN 1. 8. He was not that light but was sent to beare witnesse of that light THis is the third time that I have entertained you in a businesse of this nature intended for Gods service and your edification I must not say troubled you with this Text. I begun it at Christmas and in that darke time of the yeer told you who and what was this light which Iohn Baptist is denied to be I pursued it at Midsommer and upon his owne day insisted upon the person of Iohn Baptist who though he were not this light was sent to beare witnesse of this light And the third consideration which as I told you then was not tied nor affected to any particular Festivall you shall by Gods grace have now the office of Iohn Baptist his testimony and in that these two parts first a problematicall part why so evident a thing as light and such a light that light required testimony of man and then a dogmaticall part what testimony this man gives of this light And in the first of these we shall make these two steps first why any testimony at all then why after so many others this of Iohn First then God made light first ut innotescerent omnia that man might glorifie God in seeing the creature and him in it for frustra fecisset says the same Father it had been to no purpose to have a world and no light But though light discover and manifest every thing else to us and it selfe too if all be well disposed yet in the fifth verse of this chapter there is reason enough given why this light in our text requires testimony that is the light shines in darknesse and the darknesse comprehends it not and therefore Propter non intelligentes propter incredulos propter inâ—rmos Sol lucernas quaerit for their sakes that are weak in their understanding and not enlightned in that faculty the Gentiles for their sakes who are weake in their faith that come and heare and receive light but beleeve not for their sakes that are perverse in their manners and course of life that heare and beleeve but practise not sol lucernas quaerit this light requires testimony There may be light then and we not know it because we are asleep and asleep so as Iairus daughter was of whom Christ says the maid is not dead but asleep The maide was absolutely dead but because he meant forthwith to raise her he calls it a sleep The Gentiles in their ignorance are dead we in our corrupt nature dead as dead as they we cannot heare the voice we cannot see the light without Gods subsequent grace the Christian can no more proceed then the Gentile can beginne without his preventing grace But because amongst us he hath established the Gospell and in the ministery and dispensation thereof ordinary meanes for the conveyance of his farther grace we noware but asleep and may wake A sodain light brought into a room doth awaken some men but yet a noise does it better and a shaking and a pinching The exalting of naturall faculties and good morall life inward inspirations and private meditations conferences reading and the life doe awaken some but the testimony of the messenger of God the preacher crying according to Gods ordinance shaking the soule troubling the
their places A declination in the Kingdome of the Jewes in the body of the Kingdome in the soul of the State in the form of Government was such an Earth-quake as could leave nothing standing Of all things that are there was an Idea in God there was a modell a platform an examplar of every thing which God produced and created in Time in the mind and purpose of God before Of all things God had and Idea a preconception but of Monarchy of Kingdome God who is but one is the Idea God himselfe in his Unity â—s the Modell He is the Type of Monarchy He made but one World for this and the next are not two Worlds This is but the Morning and that the everlasting Noon of one and the same Day which shall have no Night They are not two Houses This is the Gallery and that the Bed-chamber of one and the same Palace which shall feel no ruine He made this one World but one Eye The Sunne The Moone is not another Eye but a Glasse upon which the Sunne reflects He made this one World but one Eare The Church He tells not us that he heares by a left Eare by Saints but by that right Eare the Church he doth There is One God One Faith One Baptisme and these lead us to the love of one Soveraign of Monarchy of Kingdome In that Name God hath convayed to us the state of Grace and the state of Glory too and he hath promised both in injoining that Petition Adveniat Regnum Thy Kingdome come Thy Kingdome of Grace here Thy Kingdome of Glory hereafter All forms of Government have one and the same Soul that is Soveraignty That resides somewhere in every form and this Soveraignty is in them all from one and the same Root from the Lord of Lords from God himself for all Power is of God But yet this form of a Monarchy of a Kingdome is a more lively and a more masculin Organe and Instrument of this Soul of Soveraigntie then the other forms are Wee are sure Women have Soules as well as Men but yet it is not so expressed that God breathed a Soule into Woman as hee did into Man All formes of Government have this Soule but yet God infuseth it more manifestly and more effectually in that forme in a Kingdome All places are alike neare to Heaven yet Christ would take a Hill for his Ascension All governments may justly represent God to mee who is the God of Order and fountaine of all government but yet I am more eased and more accustomed to the contemplation of Heaven in that notion as Heaven is a kingdome by having been borne and bred in a Monarchy God is a Type of that and that is a Type of Heaven This form then in nature the noblest in use the profitablest of all others God always intended to his best-beloved people God always meant that the Jews should have a King though he prepared them in other forms before As hee meant them peace at last though he exercised them in Warre and meant them the land of promise though he led them through the Wildernesse so he meant them a King though he prepared them by Iudges God intended it in himselfe and he declared it to them 400 yeares before he have them a King he instructed them what kinde of King they should set over them when they came to that kinde of government And long before that he made a promise by Iacob to Iudah of a Kingdome and that the Scepter should not depart from him till Siloh came And when God came neare the time in which he intended to them that government in the time of Samuel who was the immediate predecessor to their first King Saul God made way for a Monarchy for Samuel had a much more absolute authority in that State then any of the Judges had Samuel judged them and in their petition for a King they ask but that Make us a King to judge us Samuel was little lesse then a King and Sauls reign and his are reckoned both in one number and made as the reign of one man when it is said in the Acts that Saul reigned 40 yeares Samuels time is included in that number for all the yeares from the death of Eli â— to the beginning of David are but 40 years God meant them a Kingdome in himselfe promised them a kingdome in Iudah made Laws for their kingdome in Deuteronomy made way for the kingdome in Samuel and why then was God displeased with their petition for a Kingdome It was a greater fault in them then it could have been in any other people to ask a King not that it was not the most desirable form of government but that God governed them so immediately so presentially himselfe as that it was an ingratefull intemperance in them to turn upon any other meanes God had ever performed that which he promised them in that which comprehended all Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people And therefore Iosephus hath expressed it well All other people are under the forme of Democratiâ— or Aristocratiâ— or such other formes composed of men Sed noster Legislator Theocratiam instituit The Jews were onely under a Theocratiâ— an immediate government of God he judged them himselfe and hee himselfe fought their battels And therefore God says to Samuel They have not rejected thee Thou wast not King But they have rejected mee I was To bee weary of God is it enough to call it a levity But if they did onely compare forme with forme and not God himselfe with any forme if they did onely thinke Monarchy best and beleeve that God intended a Monarchy to them yet yet to limit God his time and to make God performe his promise before his day was a fault and inexcusable Daniel saw that the Messiah should come within seventy weekes Daniel did not say Lord let it bee within fifty weekes or let it bee this weeke The Martyrs under the Altar cry Vsqueque Domine How long Lord but then they leave it there Even as long as pleaseth thee Their petition should have been Adveniat regnum â—wordsâ— Let us have that Kingdome which because thou knowest it is good for us thou hast promised to us But yet Fiat voluntas tua Let us have it then when thy Wisdome sees it best for us You said to mee says Samuel by way of Reproofe and Increpation You said Nay but a King shall reigne over us Now that was not their fault but that which followes The unseasonablesse and inconsideration of their clamorous Petition You said a King shall reigne over us when the Lord your God was your King They would not trust Gods meanes there was their first fault And then though they desired a thing good in it selfe and a good intended to them yet they fixed God his time and they would not stay his leisure And either of these To aske other things then
God would give or at other times then God would give them is displeasing to him Use his meanes and stay his leisure But yet though God were displeased with them he executed his own purpose he was angry with their manner of asking a King but yet he gave them a King Howsoever God be displeased with them who prevaricate in his cause who should sustaine it and doe not Gods cause shall be sustained though they doe it not We may distinguish the period of the Jewish State well enough thus that they had Infantiam or pueritiam their infancy their minority in Adam and the first Patriarchs till the flood that they had Adolescentiam A growing time from Noah through the other Patriarchs till Moses and that they had Iuventuâ—em a youth and strength from Moses through the Judges to Saul but then they had Virilitatom virilem atatem their established vigor under their Kings and after them they fell in sâ—nectutem into a wretched and miserable decay of old age and decrepitnesse their kingdome was their best State and so much God in the Prophet intimates pregnantly when refreshing to their memories in a particular Inventory and Catalogue all his former benefits to them how he clothed Ierusalem how he fed her how he adorned her he summed up all in this one profecisti in regnum I have advanced thee to be a kingdome there was the Tropique there was the Solstice farther then that in this world we know not how God could goe a kingdome was really the best State upon Earth and Symbolically the best figure and Type of Heaven And therefore when the Prophet Ieremy historically beheld the declination of this kingdome in the death of Iâ—osiah and prophetically foresaw the ruines thereof in the transportition of Zedekiah or if he had seen that historically too yet prophetically he foresaw the utter devastation and depopulation and extermination which scattered that nation soon after Christ to this day and God and no man knows for how long when they who were a kingdome are now no where a village and they who had such Kings have now no where a Constable of their owne historically prophetically Ieremy had just cause of lamentation for the danger of that kingdome We had so also for this our kingdome this day God hath given us a kingdome not as other kingdomes made up of divers Cities but of divers kingdomes and all those kingdomes were destined to desolation in one minute It was not onely the destruction of the persons present but of the kingdomâ— for to submit the kingdome to the government of a forein Prelate was to destroy the Monarchy to annihilate the Supremacy to ruine the very forme of a kingdome a kingdome under another head besides the King is not a kingdome as ours is The oath that the Emperour takes to the Pope is by their authours called Iuramentum Sidelitatis an oath of Allegiance and if they had brought our Kings to take an oath of Allegiance so this were no kingdome Pope Nicolas the second went about to create two kingdomes that of Tuscan and that of Lombardy his successors have gone about to destroy more for to make it depend upon him were to destroy our kingdome That they have attempted historically and as long as these Axiomes and Aphorismes remaine in their Authors that one shall say that De jurs by right all Christian kingdomes doe hold of the Pope and De facto are forfeited to the Hope and another shall say that Christendome would be better governed if the Pope would take the forfeiture and so bring all these Royall farmes into his owne demesne we see also their propheticall desire their propheticall intention against this kingdome what they would doe In their Actions we have their history in their Axioms we have their prophecy Ieremy lamented the desolation of the kingdome but that expressed in the death and destruction of the King Hee did not divide the King and the kingdome as if the kingdome could do well and the King in distresse Umnipotentia Dei Asylum haeresicâ—rum it is well said by more then one of the ancients that the Omnipotence of God is the Sanctuary of Heretiques when they would establish any heresie they flye to Gods Almightinesse God can doe All therefore he can doe this So in the Roman Church they establish their heresie of Transubstantiation And so their deliverance of soules not from Purgatory onely but from Hell it selfe They think to stop all mouths with that God can do it no man dares deny that when as if that were granted which in such things as naturally imply contradiction in themselves or contradiction to Gods word cannot be granted for God cannot do that God cannot lye yet though God can do it concludes not that God will do it or hath done it Omnipotentiâ— Dei Asylum haereticorum The omnipotency of God is the Sanctuary of Heretiques and so Salus Regni is Asylum proditorum Greater Treasons and Seditions and Rebellions have never been set on foote then upon colour and pretence of a care of the State and of the good of the Kingdome Every where the King is Sponsus Regni the husband of the Kingdome and to make love to the Kings wife and undervalue him must necessarily make any King jealous The King is Anima Regni The soule of the Kingdome and to provide for the health of the body with the detriment of the soule is perverse physick The King is Caput Regni The head of the Kingdome and to cure a Member by cutting off the head is ill surgery Man and wife soule and body head and members God hath joyned and those whom God hath joyned let no man sever Salus Regni Asylum Proditorum To pretend to uphold the Kingdome and overthrow the King hath ever been the tentation before and the excuse after in the greatest Treasons In that action of the Iews which we insisted upon before in their pressing for a King The Elders of Israel were gathered together and so far they were in their way for this was no popular no seditious Assembly of light and turbulent men but The Elders And then they came to Samuel And so farre they were in their right way too for they held no counsels apart but came to the right place for redresse of grievances to their then highest Governour to Samuel When they were thus lawfully met they forbeare not to lay open unto him the injustice of his greatest Officers though it concerned the very Sonnes of Samuel and thus farre they kept within their convenient limits But when they would presse Samuel to a new way of remedy to an inconvenient way to a present way to their own way and referre nothing to him what care soever they pretended of the good of the State it is evident that they had no good opinion of Samuel himself and even that displeased God That they were ill affected to that person whom he had set over
25. Every man may see it man may behold it afar off p. 271. Serm. XXXII APOC. 7 9. After this I beheld and loe a great multitude which no man could number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the throne and before the Lambe clothed with white robes and Palmes in their hands p. 279. Serm. XXXIII CANT 3. 11. Go forth ye daughters of Sion and behold King Solomon with the Crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladnesse of his heart p. 288. Serm. XXXIIII LUKE 23. 34. Father forgive them for they know not what they doe p. 304. Serm. XXXV MAT. 21. 44. Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but on whosoever it shall fall it will grinde him to powder p. 311. Sermons preached at S. Pauls Sermon XXXVI JOH 1. 8. He was not that Light but was sent to beare witnesse of that Light p. 320. Serm. XXXVII A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 334. Serm. XXXVIII A third Ser. on the the same Text. p. 343. Serm. XXXIX PHIL. 3. 2. Beware of the Concision p. 356. Serm. XL. 2 COR. 5. 20. We pray yee in Christs stead Be ye reconciled to God p. 364. XLI HOSEA 3. 4. For the Children of Israel shall abide many dayes without a King and without a Prince and without a Sacrifice and without an Image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim p. 375. Serm. XLII PROV 14. 31. He that oppresseth the poor reprocheth his Maker but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the 〈◊〉 p. 385. Serm. XLIII LAMENT 4. 20. The breath of our nostrils the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits p. 396. Serm. XLIV MAT. 11. 6. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me p. 411. Sermons preached at S. Dunstans Serm. XLV DEUT. 25. 5. If brethren dwell together and one of them dye and have no childe the Wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger her husbands brother shall goe in unto her and take her to him to wife and performe the duty of an husbands brother unto her p. 422. Serm. XLVI PSAL. 34. 11. Come ye children Hearken unto me I will teach you the feare of the Lord. p. 430. Ser. XLVII GEN. 3. 24. And dust shalt thou eate all the dayes of thy life p. 439. Ser. XLVIII LAMENT 3. 1. I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath p. 445. Serm. XLIX GEN. 7. 24. Abraham himself was ninety nine yeeres old when the foreskin of his flesh was Circumcised p. 456. Serm. L. 1 THES 5. 16. Rejoyce evermore p. 466. A SERMON PREACHED At the Earl of Bridgewaters house in London at the mariage of his daughter the Lady Mary to the eldest sonne of the L. Herbert of Castle-iland Novemb. 19. 1627. The Prayer before the Sermon O Eternall and most gracious God who hast promised to hearken to the prayers of thy people when they pray towards thy house though they be absent from it worke more effectually upon us who are personally met in this thy house in this place consecrated to thy worship Enable us O Lord so to see thee in all thy Glasses in all thy representations of thy selfe to us here as that hereafter we may see thee face to face and as thou art in thy self in thy kingdome of glory Of which Glasses wherein we may see thee Thee in thine Unity as thou art One God Thee in thy Plurality as thou art More Persons we receive this thy Institution of Mariage to be one In thy first work the Creation the last seale of thy whole work was a Mariage In thy Sonnes great work the Redemption the first seale of that whole work was a miracle at a Mariage In the work of thy blessed Spirit our Sanctification he refreshes to us that promise in one Prophet That thou wilt mary thy selfe to us for ever and more in another That thou hast maryed thy selfe unto us from the beginning Thou hast maryed Mercy and Iustice in thy selfe maryed God and Man in thy Sonne maryed Increpation and Consolation in the Holy Ghost mary in us also O Lord a Love and a Fear of thee And as thou hast maryed in us two natures mortall and immortall mary in us also the knowledge and the practise of all duties belonging to both conditions that so this world may be our Gallery to the next And mary in us the Spirit of Thankfulnesse for all thy benefits already bestowed upon us and the Spirit of prayer for the continuance and enlargement of them Continue and enlarge them O'God upon thine universall Church c. SERM. I. MATTH 22. 30. For in the Resurrection they neither mary nor are given in Mariage but are as the Angels of God in heaven OF all Commentaries upon the Scriptures Good Examples are the best and the livelyest and of all Examples those that are nearest and most present and most familiar unto us and our most familiar Examples are those of our owne families and in families the Masters of families the fathers of families are most conspicuous most appliable most considerable Now in exercises upon such occasions as this ordinarily the instruction is to bee directed especially upon those persons who especially give the occasion of the exercise that is upon the persons to bee united in holy wedlock for as that 's a difference betweene Sermons and Lectures that a Sermon intends Exhortation principally and Edification and a holy stirring of religious affections and then matters of Doctrine and points of Divinity occasionally secondarily as the words of the text may invite them But Lectures intend principally Doctrinall points and matter of Divinity and matter of Exhortation but occasionally and as in a second place so that 's a difference between Christening sermons and Mariage sermons that the first at Christnings are especially directed upon the Congregation and not upon the persons who are to be christened and these at mariages especially upon the parties that are to be united and upon the congregation but by reflexion When therefore to these persons of noble extraction I am to say something of the Duties and something of the Blessing of Mariage what God Commands and what God promises in that state in his Scriptures I lay open to them the best exposition the best Commentaries upon those Scriptures that is Example and the neerest example that is example in their own family when with the Prophet Esay I direct them To look upon the Rock from whence they are hewen to propose to themselves their own parents and to consider there the performance of the duties of mariage imposed by God in S. Paul and the blessings proposed by God in David Thy Wife shall be a fruitfull Vine by the sides of thy House The children like olive plants round about the table For to this purpose of edifying children by example such as are truly religious fathers
Christ which is Baptistrisum the font the Sea into which God flings all their sinnes who rightly and effectually receive that Sacrament These fountaines of waters then in the text are the waters of baptisime and if we should take them also in that sense that waters signifie tribulations and afflictions it is true too that in baptisme that is in the profession of Christ we are delivered over to many tribulations The rule is generall Castigat omnes he chastiseth all The example the precedent is peremptory Opertuit pati Christ ought to suffer and so enter into glory but howsoever waters be affictions they are waters of life too says the text Though baptisme imprint a crosse upon us that we should not be ashamed of Christ crosse that we should not be afraid of our owne crosses yet by all these waters by all these Crosse ways we goe directly to the eternall life the kingdome of heaven for they are lively fountaines fountaines of life And this is intended and promised in the last words Absterget omnem Lachrymam God shall wipe all teares from our eyes God shall give us a joyfull apprehension of heaven here in his Church in this life But is this a way to wipe teares from the childes face to sprinkle water upon it Is this a wiping away to powre more on It is the powerfull and wonderfull way of his working for as his red bloud makes our red soules white that his rednesse gives our rednesse a candor so his water his baptisime and the powerfull effect thereof shall dry up and wipe away Omnem â—achrymam all teares from our Eyes howsoever occasioned This water shall dry them up Christ had many occassion of teares we have more some of our owne which he had not we must weep because we are not so good as we should be we cannot performe the law We must weepe because we are not so good as we could be our free will is lost but yet every Man findes he might be better if he would but the sharpest and saltest and smartest occasion of our teares is from this that we must not be so good as we would be that the prosanenesse of the Libertine the reproachfull slanders the contumelious scandalls the seornfull names that the wicked lay upon those who in their measure desire to expresse their zeale to Gods glory makes us afraid to professe our selves so religious as we could find in our hearts to be and could truly be if we might Christ went often in contemplation of others foreseeing the calamities of Ierualem he wept over the City comming to the grave of Lazarus he wept with them but in his owne Agony in the garden it is not said that he weps If we could stop the stood of teares in our afflictions yet there belongs an excessive griefe to this that the ungodly disposion of other Men is slacking of our godlinesse of our sanctification too Christ Jesus for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse we for the joy of this promise that God will wipe all teares from our eyes must suffer all this whether they be teares of Compunction or teares of Compassion teares for our selves or teares for others whether they be Magdalens teares or Peters teares teares for sinnes of infirmity of the flesh or teares for weaknesse of our faith whether they be teares for thy parents because they are improvident towards thee or teares for thy children because they are disobedient to thee whether they be teares for Church because our Sermons or our Censures pinch you or teares for the State that penall laws pecuniary or bloudy lie heavy upon you Deus absterget omneni lachryman here 's your comfort that as he hath promised inestimable blessings to them that are sealed and washed in him so he hath given you security that these blessings belong to you for if you find that he hath govened you bred you in his visible Church and led you to his fountaine of the water of lifein baptisme you may be sure that he will in his due time wipe all teares from your eyes establish the kingdome of heaven upon you in this life in a holy and modest infallibility SERMON V. Preached at a Christning EPHES. 5. 25 26 27. Husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the Church and gave himselfe for it that he might sanctisie it and cleanse it by the washing of water through the Word That he might make it unto himselfe a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle on any such thing but that it should be holy and without blame ALmighty God ever loved unity but he never loved singularity God was always alone in heaven there were no other Gods but he but he was never singular there was never any time when there were not three persons in heaven Pater ego unum summi The father and I are one says Christ one in Esseuct and one in Consent our substance is the same and our will is the same but yet Tecum fui ab initio says Christ in the person of Wisdome I was with thee disposing all things at the Creation As then God seemes to have been eternally delighted with this eternall generation with persons that had ever a relation to one another Father and Sonne so when he came to the Creation of this lower world he came presently to those three relations of which the whole frame of this world consists of which because the principall foundation and preservation of all States that are to continue is power the first relation was between Prince and Subject when God said to Man Subjecite dominamini subdue and govern all Creatures The second relation was between husband and wife when Adam said This now is house of my bone and flesh of my flesh And the third relation was between parents and children when Eve said that she had obtained a Man by the Lord that by the plentifull favour of God she had conceived and borne a sonne from that time to the dissolution of that frame from that beginning to the end of the world these three relations of Master and Servant Mans and Wife Father and Children have been and ever shall be the materialls and the elements of all society of families and of Cities and of Kingdomes And therefore it is a large and a subtill philosophy which S. Paul professes in this place to shew all the qualities and properties of these several Elements that is all the duties of these severall callings but in this text he handles onely the mutuall duties of the second couple Man and Wife and in that consideration shall we determine this exercise because a great part of that concernes the education of Children which especially occasions our meeting now The generall duty that goes through all these three relations is expressed Subditi estate invicevs Submit your selves to one another in the feare of God for God hath given no Master such imperiousnesse
not harbouring for not visiting The sum of all is that this is the overflowing goodnesse of God that he deales with man by the sonne of man and that hee hath so given all judgement to the Sonne as that if you would be tryed by the first judgement are you elected or no The issue is doe you believe in Christ Jesus or no If you would be tryed by the second judgement are you justified or no The issue is doe you find comfort in the application of the Word and Sacraments of Christ Jesus or no If you would be tryed by the third Judgement do you expect a Glorification or no The issue is Are you so reconcil'd to Christ Jesus now by hearty repentance for sinnes past and by detestation of occasion of future sin that you durst welcome that Angel which should come at this time and sweare that time should be no more that your transmigration out of this world should be this minute and that this minute you might say unfeignedly and effectually Veni Domine Iesu come quickly come now if this be your state then are you partakers of all that blessednesse which the Father intended to you when for your sake he committed all Judgment to the Son SERMON XIII Preached at Lincolns Inne JOHN 8. 15. I judge no man THe Rivers of Paradise did not all run one way and yet they flow'd from one head the sentences of the Scripture flow all from one head from the holy Ghost and yet they seem to present divers senses and to admit divers interpretations In such an appearance doth this Text differ from that which I handled in the forenoon and as heretofore I found it a usefull and acceptable labour to employ our Evening exercises upon the vindicating of some such places of Scripture as our adversaries of the Roman Church had detorted in some point of controversie between them and us and restoring those places to their true sense which course I held constantly for one whole year so I think it a usefull and acceptable labour now to employ for a time those Evening exercises to reconcile some such places of Scripture as may at first sight seem to differ from one another In the morning we saw how Christ judged all now we are to see how he judges none I judge no man To come then to these present words here we have the same person Christ Jesus and hath not he the same Office Is not he Judge certainly though he retain'd all his other Offices though he be the Redeemer and have shed his blood in value satisfactory for all our sins though he be our Advocate and plead for us in heaven and present our evidence to that Kingdome written in his blood seal'd in his wounds yet if hee bee not our Judge wee cannot stand in judgement shall hee bee our Judge and is hee not our Judge yet Long before wee were hee was our Judge at the separation of the Elect and Reprobate in Gods eternall Decree Was he our Judge then and is hee not so still still he is present in his Church and cleares us in all scruples rectifies us in all errors erects us in all dejections of spirit pronounces peace and reconciliation in all apprehensions of his Judgements by his Word and by his Sacraments was hee and is he and shall he not be our Judge still I am sure my Redeemer liveth and he shall stand the last on earth So that Christ Jesus is the same to day and yesterday and for ever before the world begun and world without end Sicut erat in principio as he was in the beginning he is and shall be ever our Judge So that then these words are not De tempâ—re but De modo there was never any time when Christ was not Judge but there were some manner of Judgements which Christ did never exercise and Christ had no commission which he did not execute for hee did all his Fathers will 1. In secularibus in civill or criminall businesses which belong meerly to the Judicatures and cognisance of this world Iudicat neminem Christ judges no man 2. Secundum carnem so as they to whom Christ spake this who judged as himself says here according to fleshly affections Iudicat neminem he judges no man and 3. Ad internecionem so as that upon that Judgement a man should despair of any reconciliation any redintegration with God again and be without hope of pardon and remission of sins in this world Iudicat neminem he judges no man 1. Christ usurps upon no mans Jurisdiction that were against justice 2. Christ imputes no false things to any man that were against charity 3. Christ induces no man to desperation that were against faith and against Justice against charity against faith Iudicat neminem First then Christ judgeth not in secular judgements and we note his abstinence therein first in civill matters when one of the company said to him Master bid my brother divide the inheritance with me as Saint Augustine says the Plaintiffe thought his cause to be just and hee thought Christ to bee a competent Judge in the cause and yet Christ declines the judgement disavows the authority and he answers Homo quis me constituit Iudicem Man who made me a Judge between you To that Generall which we had in the morning Omne judicium the Son hath all judgement here is an exception of the same Judges own making for in secular judgements Nemo constituit he had no commission and therefore Iudicat neminem he judges no man he forbore in criminall matters too for when the woman taken in adultery was brought before him he condemned her not It is true he absolv'd her not the evidence was pregnant against her but he condemned her not he undertook no office of a Judge but of a sweet and spirituall Counsellor Go and sinne no more for this was his Element his Tribunall When then Christ says of himself with such a pregnant negative Quis me constituit Iudicem may not we say so too to his pretended Vicar the Bishop of Rome Quiâ—te Who made you Judge of Kings that you should depose them in criminall causes Or who made you proprietary of Kingdomes that you should dispose of them as of civill inheritances when to countenance such a pretence they detort places of Scripture not onely perversly but senselesly blasphemously ridiculously as ridicolously as in their pasquils wheÌ„ in an undiscreet shamlesnes to make their power greater then it is they make their fault greater then it is too fil their histories with examples of Kings deposed by Popes which in truth were not depos'd by them for in that they are more innocent then they will confesse themselves to be when some of their Authors say that the Primitive Church abstain'd from deposing Emperors onely because she was not strong enough to do it when some of them say That all Christian Kingdomes of the earth may fall into
the Church of Rome by faults in those Princes when some of them say that De facto the Pope hath already a good title to every Christian Kingdome when some of them say that the world will never he well governed till the Pope put himself into possession of all all which severall propositions are in severall Authors of good credit amongst them will be not endure Christs own question Quis te constituit Who made you Judge of all this If they say Christ did did he it in his Doctrine It is hard to pretend that for such an institution as that must have very cleer very pregnant words the carry in did he doe it by his example and practice wee see hee abstain'd in criminall causes when they come to their last shift that is that Christ did exercise Judiciary Authority when he whipped Merchants out of the Temple when he curs'd the fig-tree and damnified the owner thereof and when he destroyed the Heard of Swine for there say they the Devill was but the Executioner Christ was the Judge to all these and such as these it is enough to say All these were miraculous and not ordinary and though it might seem half a miracle how that should exercise so much authority as he hath done over the world yet when we look neerer and see his means that he hath done all this by Massacres of millions by withdrawing Subjects from their Allegiance by assasinating and murthering of Princes when we know that miracles are without meanes and we see the means of his proceedings the miracle ceases howsoever that Bishop as Christs Vicar can claim no other power then was ordinary in Christ and so exercis'd by Christ and so Iudicavit neminem In secular judgement Christ judges no man and therefore that Bishop as his Vicar should not Secondly Christ judges no man by calumny by imputing or laying false aspersions upon him nor truths extrajudicially for that 's a degree of calumny We enter into a large field when we go about to speak against calumny and slander and detractiâ—on so large a field as that we may fight out the last drop of our bloud preach out the last gaspe of our breath before we overcome it those to whom Christ spake here were such as gave perverse judgments caluminiating censures upon him and so he judges no man we need not insist upon that for it is manifestè verum but that we may see our danger and our duty what calumny is and so how to avoid it actively and how to beare it passively I must by your leave stop a little upon it When then we would present unto you that monster Slander and Calumny though it be hard to bring it within any compasse of a division yet to take the largenesse of the schoole and say that every calumny is either direct or indirect that will comprehend all and then a direct calumny will have three branches either to lay a false and unjust imputation or else to aggravate a just imputation with unnecessary but heavy circumstances or thirdly to reveale of fault which in it selfe was secret and I by no duty bound to discover it and then the indirect calumny will have three branches too either to deny expressly some good that is in another or to smother it in silence when my testimony were due to him and might advantage him or lastly to diminish his good parts and say they are well but not such as you would esteeme them to be collect then again for that 's all that we shall be able to doe that he is a calumniator directly that imputes a false crime that aggravates a true crime that discovers any crime extrajudicially That he is an indirect calumniator that denies another mans sufficiencies that conceales them that diminishes them Take in some of Saint Bernards examples of these rules that it is a calumny to say Doles vehementer I am sorry at the heart for such a man because I love him but I could never draw him from such and such a vice or to say per me nunquam innotuisset I would never have spoken of it yet since all the world talkes of it the truth must not be disguised and so take occasion to discover a fault which no body knew before and thereby as the same Father says cum gravitate et tarditate aggredi maledictionem to cut a mans throat gravely and soberly and so much the more perswasively because he seems and pretends to do it all against his will This being the rule and this the exumple who amongst us is free from the passive calumny Who amongst us hath not some other man calumniated Nay who is free from the active part Which of us in some of these degrees hath not calumniated some other But those to whom Christ makes his exception here that he judges no man as they judge were such calumniators as David speaks of Sedeâ— adversus fratrem tuum loque baâ—is Then sittest and speakest against thy neighbour as Saint Augastin notes upon that place Non transitoriè non surreptionis passione sed quasi ad hoc vacans not by chance unawares not in passion because he had offended thee not for company because thou wouldest be of their minds but as though thy profession would beare thee out in it to leave the cause and lay aspersion upon the person so thou art a calumniator They up 〈◊〉 my people as bread as David says in Gods person And upon those words of the same Prophet says the same Father De caeteris when we eate of any thing else we taste of this dish and we tast of that non semper hoc â—lus says he we doe not always eate one sallet one meate one kinde of fruit sed semper panem whatsoever we eate else wee always eate bread howsoever they implored their thoughts or their wits otherways it was always one exercise of them to calumniate Christ Jesus and in that kinde of calumny which is the bitterest of all they abounded most which is in scorne and derision David and Iob who were slander proofe in a good measure yet every where complaine passionately that they were made a scorne that the wits made libells that drunkards sung songs that fooles and the children of fooles derided them And when Saul was in his last and worst agony and had abandoned himselfe to a present death and prayed his armourbearer to kill him it was not because the uncircumcised should not kill him for he desired death and he had their deadly arrowes already in his bosome but it was as it is expressed there lest the uncircumcised should come and abuse him he was afraid of scorne when he had but a few minutes of life Since then Christ judges no man as they did secundum carnem ejus according to the outward appearance for they thought no better of Christ then he seemed to be as Fathers take that phrase nor secundum carnem suam according
hidden things of dishonesty how great a burthen is there in these open and avowed sins sins that have put on so brasen a face as to out-face the Minister and out-face the Magistrate and call the very Power and Justice of God in question whether he do hate or can punish a sinne for they doe what they can to remove that opinion out of mens hearts Truly as an Hypocrite at Church may doe more good then a devout man in his Chamber at home be cause the Hypocrites outward piety though counterfeit imprints a good example upon them who doe not know it to bee counterfeit and wee cannot know that he that is absent from Church now is now at his prayers in his Chamber so a lesser sinne done with an open avowment and confidence may more prejudice the Kingdome of God then greater in secret And this is that which may be principally intended or atleast usefully raised our of this phrase of the Holy Ghost in David A facie peccati that the habituall sinner comes to sin not onely with a negligence who know it but with a glorious desire that all the world might know it and with a shame that any such Iudge as feared not God nor regarded man should be more feareless of God or regardless of man then he But now beloved when we have laid man thus low Miserable because Man and then Diseased and that all over without any soundnesse even in his whole substance in his flesh and in the height of this disease Restlesse too and Restlesse even in his bones diffident in his strongest assurances And when we have laid him lower then that made him see the Cause of all this misery to be the Anger of God the inevitable anger of an incensed God and such an anger of God as hath a face a manifestation a reality and not that God was angry with him in a Decree before he shewed man his face in the Law and saw Mans face in the transgression of the law And laid him lower then that too made him see the cause of this anger as it is sinne so to be his sinne sinne made his by an habituall love thereof which though it may be but one yet is become an out-facing sinne a sinne in Contempt and confidence when we have laid Man laid you thus low in your own eyes we returne to the Canon and rule of that Physician whom they call Evangelist aâ—â— medicinae the Evangelist of Physique Sit intentio prima in omni medicina comfâ—rtare whether the physician purge or lance or sear his principall care and his end is to comfort and strengthen so though we have insisted upon Humane misery and the cause of that the anger of God and the cause of that anger sinne in that excesse yet we shall dismisse you with that Consolation which was first in our intention and shall be our conclusion that as this Text hath a personall aspect upon David alone and therefore we gave you hit case and then a generall retrospect upon Adam and all in him and therefore we gave you your own case so it hath also an Evangelicall prospect upon Christ and therefore for your comfort and as a bundle of Myrrhe in your bosomes we shall give you his case too to whom these words belong as well as to Adam or David or you There is no soundnesse in my flesh because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sinne If you will see the miseries of Man in their exaltation and in their accumulation too in their weight and in their number take them in the Ecce home when Christ was presented from Pilate scourged and scorned Ecce home behold man in that man in the Prophets They have reproched the feetsteps of thine Anointed says David slandred his actions and conversation He hath no form nor comlinesse nor beauty that we should desire to see him says Esay Despised rejected of men A man of sorrows and acquainted with griefes And Ecce homo behold man in that man in the whole history of the Gospell That which is said of us of sinfull men is true in him the salvation of men from the sole of the foot even unto the Head there is no soundnesse but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores That question will never receive answer which Christ askes Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow Never was never will there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow because there can never be such a person to suffer sorrow Affliction was upon him and upon all him for His soule was heavy unto death Even upon his Bones fire was sent into his bones and it prevailed against him And the highest cause of this affliction was upon him the anger of God The Lord had afflicted him in the day of his fierce anger The height of Gods anger is Dereliction and he was brought to his Vt quid dereliquisti My God my God why hast thou forsaken me We did esteem him striken of the Lord says Esay And we were not deceived in it Percutiam pastorem says Christ himselfe of himselfe out of the Prophet I will smite the shepheard and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered And then the cause of this anger sinne was so upon him as that though in one consideration the raine was upon all the world and onely this fleece of Gedeon dry all the world surrounded with sinne and onely He innocent yet in another line we finde all the world dry and onely Gedeons fleece wet all the world innoceâ— and onely Christ guilty But as there is a Verè tulit and a Verè portavit surely he bore those griefes and surely he carried those sorrows so they were Verè nostri surely he hath borne our griefes and carried our sorrows he was wounded for our transgressioâ—â— and bruised for our iniquitles The Chastisement of our peace was upon him 〈◊〉 â—efore it must necessarily follow as it does follow there with his stripes wee 〈◊〉 for God will not exact a debt twice of Christ for me and of me too 〈◊〉 therefore Quare moriemini Domus Israel since I have made ye of the houshold â— of Israel why will ye die since ye are recovered of your former sicknesses why will die of a new disease of a suspicion or jealousie that this recovery this redemption in Christ Iesus belongs not to you Will ye say It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands Dei viventis of the living God 'T is so a fearfull thing But if Deâ—s mortuus the God of life bee but dead for mee be fallen into my hands applied to mee made mine it is no fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Non sat is est medicum fecisse suum officium nisi agrotus adstantes sua It is not enough for Christ Jesus to have prepared you the balm of his bloud
serve God at home to Church they must come and there all their grasse was troden and all their water troubled What should they doe God never brings us to a perplexity so as that we must necessarily do one sinne to avoyd another Neverâ— It seemes that the Apostles had been traduced and insimulated of teaching this Doctrine That in some cases evill might be done that good might follow and therefore doth S. Paul with so much diligence discharge himself of it And yet long after this when those men who attempted the Reformation whom they called Pauperes de Lugduno taught that Doctrine That no lesse sinne might he done to escape a greater this was imputed to them then by the Roman Church for an Heresie That that was Orthodox in Saint Paul was Heresie in them that â—studyed a Reformation But the Doctrine stands like a rocke against all waves That nothing that is naturally ill intrinsecally sinne may upon any pretence be done not though our lifes nor the lifes of all the Princes in the world though the frame and beeing of the whole world though the salvation of our souls lay upon it no sinne naturally intrinsecally sinne might be done for any respect Christus peccatum factus est sed non fesit peccatum Though Christ pursued our redemption with hunger and thirst yet he would have left us unredeemed rather then have committed any sinne Of this kinde therefore naturally intrinsecally sinne and so known to be to them that did it certainely our Fathers coming to the superstitious service in the Church of Rome was not for had it been naturally sinne and so known to them when they did it they could not have been saved otherwise then by repentance after which we cannot presume in their behalfe for there are not testimonies of it If any of them had invested at any time a scruple a doubt whether they did well or no alasse how should they devest and overcome that scruple To whom durst they communicate that doubt They were under an invincible ignorance and sometimes under an indevestible scruple They had heard that Christ commanded to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadduces and so of the Herodians that is of the doctrines of those particular sects of affirming Fate and Destiny and Stoicall necessity with the Pharisees of denying Spirits and Resurrection with the Sadduces of mis-applying the prophesies concerning the Messias to the person of Herod or any earthly King But yet after all this he commands them to observe and performe the doctrine of the Pharisees because they sate in Moses chaire Though with much vehemence and bitternesse he call them Hypocrites though with many ingeminations upon every occasion he reiterate that name though he aggravate that name with other names of equall reproach Fools blinde guides painted tombes and the like yet he commands to obey them and which is most remarkable this is sayd not onely to the common sort but even to his own disciples too Christ had begunne his work of establishing a Church which should empty their Synagogues but because that worke was not yet perfected he would not withdraw the people from their Synagogues for there wrought Gods Ordinance though corrupted by the workmen which Ordinance was that the law should be publiquely expounded to the people and so it was there There God was present And though the Devill by their corruption were there too yet the Devill came in at the window God at the dore the Devill by stealth God by his declared Ordinance and Covenant And this was the case of our Fathers in the Roman Church They must know that all that hath passed between God and man hath passed Ex pacto by way of contact and covenant The best works of the best man have no proportion with the kingdome of heaven for I give God but his own But I have it Ex pacto God hath covenanted so Fac hoc vives Doe this and thou shalt live and at the last judgement Christ shall ground his Venite benedicti Come ye blessed and his Ite maledicti Goe ye accursed upon the Quia and upon the Quia non Because you have and Because you have not done this and this Faith that is of infinite value above works hath yet no proportion to the kingdome of heaven Faith saves mee as my hand feeds mee It reaches the food but it is not the food but faith saves Ex pacto by vertue of that Covenant which Christ hath made Tantummodo crede Onely beleeve To carry it to the highest the merit of Christ Iesus himselfe though it bee infinite so as that it might have redeemed infinite worlds yet the working thereof is safeliest considered in the School to be Ex pacto by vertue of that contract which had passed between the Father and him that all things should thus and thus be transacted by Christ and so man should be saved for if we shall place it meerely onely in the infinitenesse of the merit Christs death would not have needed for his first drops of bloud in his Circumcision nay his very Incarnation that God was made man and every act of his humiliation after being taken singly yet in that person God and man were of infinite merit and also if it wrought meerly by the infinitnesse of the merit it must have wrought not onely upon all men but to the salvation of the Devill for certainely there is more merit in Christ then there is sinne in the Devill But the proceeding was Ex pacto according to the contract made and to the conditions given Ipse conteret caput tuum That the Messias should bruise the Serpents head for us included our redemption That the Serpents head should be bruised excluded the Serpent himselfe This contract then between God and man as it was able to put the nature of a great fault in a small offence if we consider onely the eating of an apple and so to make even a Trespass High-Treason because it was so contracted so does this contract the Ordinance of God infuse a great vertue efficacie in the instruments of our reconciliation how mean in gifts or how corrupt in manners soever they be Circumcision in it self a low thing yea obscene subject to mis-interpretation yet by reason of the covenant He that is not circumcised that person shall be cut off from my people So also Baptism considered in it selfe a vulgar and a familiar thing yet except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven The Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ a domestique a dayly thing if we consider onely the breaking of the bread and participation of the Cup but if we ascend up to the contract in the institution it is to every worthy receiver the seale and the Conduit of all the merits of Christ to his soule God threw down the walls of Jericho with
And whereas the humiliation of my Saviour is in all things to be imitated by me yet herein I am bound to depart from his humiliation that whereas he being in the forme of God tooke the forme of a servant I being in the forme of a servant may nay must take upon me the forme of God in being Deiformis homo a man made in Christ the Image of God So have I the Image of God intirely in his unity because I professe that faith which is but one faith and under the seale of the Baptisme which is but one Baptisme And then as of this one God so I have also the Image of the severall persons of the Trinity in this capacity as I am a Christian more then in my naturall faculties The Attributes of the first Person the Father is Power and none but a Christian hath power over those great Tyrants of the world Sinne Satan Death and Hell For thus my Power accrues and growes unto me First Possum Iudicare I have a Power to Judge a judiciary a discretive power a power to discerne between a naturall accident and a Judgement of God and will never call a Judgement an accident and between an ordinary occasion of conversation and atentation of Satan Possum judicare and then Possum resistere which is another act of power When I finde it to be a tentation I am able to resist it and Possum stare which is another I am able not onley to withstand but to stand out this battell of tentations to the end And then Possum capere that which Christ proposes for a tryall of his Disciples Let him that is able to receive it receive it I shall have power to receive the gift of continency against all tentations of that kinde Bring it to the highest act of power that with which Christ tryed his strongest Apostles Possum bibere calicem I shall be able to drinke of Christs Cup even to drinke his bloud and be the more innocent for that and to powre out my bloud and be the stronger for that In Christo omnia possum there 's the fulnesse of Power in Christ I can doe all things I can want or I can abound I can live or I can die And yet there is an extension of Power beyond all this in this Non possum peccare being borne of God in Christ I cannot sinne This that seemes to have a name of impotence Non possum I cannot is the fullest omnipotence of all I cannot sinne not sinne to death not sinne with a desire to sinne not sinne with a delight in sinne but that tentation that overthrowes another I can resist or that sinne which being done casts another into desperation I can repent And so I have the Image of the first Person the Father in Power The Image of the second Person whose Attribute is Wisdome I have in this that Wisdome being the knowledge of this world and the next I embrace nothing in this world but as it leads me to the next For thus my wisdome my knowledge growes First Scio cui credidi I know whom I have beleeved in I have not mislaid my foundation my foundation is Christ and then Scio non moriturum my foundation cannot sinke I know that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more againe Scio quod desideret Spiritus I know what my spirit enlightned by the Spirit of God desires I I am not transported with illusions and singularities of private spirits And as in the Attribute of Power we found an omnipotence in a Christian so in this there is an omniscience Scimus quia omnem Scientiam habemus there 's all together we know that we have all knowledge for all Saint Pauls universall knowledge was but this Iesum Crucifixum I determine not to know any thing save Jesus Christ and him Crucified and then the way by which he would proceed and take degrees in this Wisdome was Sultitia praedicandi the way that God had ordained when the world by Wisedome knew not God it pleased God by the foolishnesse of preaching to save them that beleeve These then are the steps of Christian Wisedome my foundation is Christ of Christ I enquire no more but fundamentall doctrines him Crucified and this I apply to my selfe by his ordinace of Preaching And in this wisdome I have the Image of the second Person And then of the third also in this that his Attribute beeing Goodnesse I as a true Christian call nothing good that conduces not to the glory of God in Christ Jesus nor any thing ill that drawes me not from him Thus I have an expresse Image of his Goodnesse that Omnia cooperantur in bonum all things worke together for my good if I love God I shall thanke my fever blesse my poverty praise my oppressor nay thanke and blesse and praise even some sinne of mine which by the consequences of that sinne which may be shame or losse or weaknesse may bring me to a happy sense of all my former sinnes and shall finde it to have been a good fever a good poverty a good oppression yea a good sinne Vertit in bonum says Ioseph to his brethren you thought evill but God meant it unto good and I shall have the benefit of my sinne according to his transmutation that is though I meant ill in that sinne I shall have the good that God meant in it There is no evill in the City but the Lord does it But if the Lord doe it it cannot be evill to me I beleeve that I shall see Bona Dei the goodnesse of the Lord in the land of the living that 's in heaven but David speakes also of Signum in bonum shew me a token of good and God will shew me a present token of future good an inward infallibility that this very calamity shall be beneficiall and advantageous unto me And so as in Nature I have the Image of God in my whole soule and of all the three Persons in the three faculties thereof the Understanding the Will and the Memory so in Grace in the Christian Church I have the same Images of the Power of the Father of the Wisedome of the Sonne of the Goodnesse of the holy Ghost in my Christian profession And all this we shall have in a better place then Paradise where we considered it in nature and a better place then the Church as it is Militant where we considered it in grace that is in the kingdome of heaven where we consider this Image in glory which is our last word There we shall have this Image of God in perfection for if Origen could lodge such a conceit that in heaven at last all things should ebbe backe into God as all things flowed from him at first and so there should be no other Essence but God all should be God even the Devill himselfe
to come to that light and that glory How then hath God doubled his mercies upon those persons to whom he hath afforded two great lights a Sunne to rule their day honour and prosperity and a Moone to rule their night humiliation and adversity to whom he hath given both Types in themselves to see this future glory by that is Titles and places of honour in this world and spectacles in themselves to see this glory by afflictions and crosses in this world And therefore since God gives both these no where so plentifully as in Courts the place of Honour and the place of Crosses too the place of rising and the place of falling too you you especially who by having your station there in the Court it selfe are in the Court exemplified and copied in your owne noble house you that have seen God characterized in his Types in titles of greatnesse you that have beheld God presented in his spectacle of Crosses and afflictions the daily bread of Courts Blesse ye the Lord praise him and magnifie him for ever and declare the wondrous workes that he hath done for the Sonnes of men for certainly many woes and invincible darknesse attend those to whom neither the hand of God in his works nor the hand of God upon themselves neither the greatnesse of this world nor the crâ—sses of this world can manifest God for what picture of God would they have that will neither have him in great nor litle SERMON XXXII Preached to the Earl of Exeter and his company in his Chappell at Saint Iohns 13. Iun. 1624. APOC. 7. 9. After this I beheld and loe a great Multitude which no man could number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the Throne and before the Lambe clothed with white robes and Palmes in their hands WE shall have occasion by and by to say something of the danger of Curiosity and something of the danger of the broad way in which too many walk we will not therefore fall into either of these faults at first we will not be over curious nor we will not stray nor cast our selves into that broad and boundlesse way by entring into those various and manifold senses which Expositors have multiplyed in the handling of this place and this part of this book but we take the plainest way and that in which the best meet and concur that these words are spoken of the Ioyes and Glory reserved for them who overcome the fraud and the fury the allurements and the violences of Antichrist in whom in that name and person of Antichrist we consider all supplanters and all seducers all opposers of the kingdome of Christ in us for as every man hath spontaneum daemonem as S. Chrysostome speakes a devill of his own making which is some customary and habituall sin in him so every man hath spontaneuÌ„ Antichristum an Antichrist of his own making some objections in the weakness of his faith some oppositions in the perverseness of his manners against the kingdom of Christ in himself as if God would suspend the devill or slumber the devill a day I am afraid we should be as ill that day as if the devill were awake and in action so if those disputed problematical Antichrists Eastern Western Antichrist Antichrist of Rome and Antichrist of Constantinople Turk and Pope were removed out of the world we should not for all that be delivered of Antichrist that is of that opposition to the kingdome of Christ which is in our selvs This part of the book of the Revelation is literally and primarily the glorious victory of them who in the later end of the world having stood out the persecutions of the Antichrist enter into the triumph of heaven And it extends it self to all by way of fair accommodation who after a battel with their own Antichrists and victory over their owne enemies are also made partakers of those triumphs those joyes those glories of which S. Iohn in this propheticall glasse in this perspective of visions saw A great multitude which no man could number of all nations c. We are then upon the contemplation of the joyes of heaven which are everlasting must we wring them into the discourse of an houre of the glory of heaven which is intire and must we divide it into parts we must we will we doe into two parts first the number the great number of those that shall be saved And then the glorious qualities which shall be imprinted on them who are saved first that salvation is a more extensive thing more communicable then sullen cloystrall that have walled salvation in a monastery or in an ermitage take it to be or then the over-valuers of their own purity and righteousnesse which have determined salvation in themselves take it to be for It is a great multitude which no man can number of all nations c. And then in the second place salvation is the possession of such endowments as naturally invite all to the prosecution of that which is exposed and offered to all that we all labour here that we may all stand hereafter before the Throne and before the Lambe clothed in white robes c. In the first of these we shall passe by these steps first we shall consider the sociablenesse the communicablenesse of God himself who gives us the earth and offers us heaven and desires to have his kingdome well peopled he would have many he would have all he would have every one of them have all And then the first word of the text After this will carry us to the consideration of that which was done before which was first that they which were of this number were sealed and then they which were so sealed before were a great number one hundred forty four thousand but they who were made partakers of all this after were innumerable After this I beheld a great multitude which no man could number And therefore we shall shut up that first part with this consideration what sense what interpretation may belong unto those places where Christ says that the way to heaven is narrow and the gate straight of these peeces we shall make up our first part And for the particulars belonging to the second we shall fitliest open them then when we come to the handling of them Our first step then in this first part is the sociablenesse the communicablenesse of God He loves holy meetings he loves the communion of Saints the houshold of the faithfull Deliciae ejus says Solomon his delight is to be with the Sons of men and that the Sons of men should be with him Religion is not a melancholy the spirit of God is not a dampe the Church is not a grave it is a fold it is an Arke it is a net it is a city it is a kingdome not onely a house but a house that hath many mansions in it still it is a plurall thing consisting of
many and very good grammarians amongst the Hebrews have thought and said that that name by which God notifies himself to the world in the very beginning of Genesis which is Elohim as it is a plurall word there so it hath no singular they say we cannot name God but plurally so sociable so communicable so extensive so derivative of himself is God and so manifold are the beames and the emanations that flow out from him It is a garden worthy of your walking in it Come into it but by the gate of nature The naturall man had much to do to conceive God a God that should be but one God and therefore scattered his thoughts upon a multiplicity of Gods and he found it as he thought reasonable to think that there should be a God of Iustice a God of Wisedome a God of Power and so made the severall Attributes of God severall Gods and thought that one God might have enough to do with the matters of Iustice another with the causes that belonged to power and so also with the courts of Wisedome the naturall man as he cannot conceive a vacuity that any thing should be empty so he cannot conceive that any one thing though that be a God should fill all things and therefore strays upon a pluralty of Gods upon many Gods though in truth as Athanasius expresses it ex multitudine numinum nullitas numinum he that constitutes many Gods destroys all God for no God can be God if he be not all-sufficient yet naturally I mean in such nature as our nature is a man does not easily conceive God to be alone to be but one he thinks there should be company in the Godhead Bring it farther then so A man that lies in the dregs of obscured and vitiated nature does not easily discern unicum Deum a God that should be alone a God that should be but one God Reason rectified rectified by the word of God can discern this this one God But when by that means of the Scripture he does apprehend Deum unicum one God does he finde that God alone are there not three Persons though there be but one God 'T is true the RomaÌ„s mis-took infinitely in making 300 Iupiters Varro mis-took infinitely in making Deos terrestres and Deos câ—lesâ—es sub-lunary and super-lunary heavenly and earthly Gods and Deus marinos and fluviatiles Sea Gods and River Gods salt and fresh-water Gods and Deos mares and faeminas he Gods and she Gods and that he might be sure to take in all Deos certos incertos Gods which they were sure were Gods Gods w ch might be Gods for any thing they knew to the contrary There is but one God but yet was that one God ever alone There were more generations infinitely infinite before the world was made then there have been minutes since it was made all that while there were no creasures but yet was God alone any one minute of al this was there not alwais a Father and a Son a holy Ghost And had not they always an acquiescence in one another an exercise of Affection as we may so say a love a delight and a complacency towards one another So as that the Father could not be without the Son and the holy Ghost so as neither Sonne nor holy Ghost could be without the Father nor without one another God was from all eternity collected into one God yet from all eternity he derived himselfe into three persons God could not be so alone but that there have been three persons as long as there hath been one God Had God company enough of himselfe was he satisfied in the three Persons We see he proceeded further he came to a Creation And as soon as he had made light which was his first Creature he took a pleasure in it he said it was good he was glad of it glad of the Sea glad of the Earth glad of the Sunne and Moone and Starres and he said of every one It is good But when he had made All peopled the whole world brought all creatures together then he was very glad and then he said not onely that it was good but that it was very good God was so far from being alone as that he found not the fulnesse of being well till all was made till all Creatures met together in an Host as Moses calls it then the good was extended into very good Did God satisfie himselfe with this visible and discernible world with all on earth and all between that and him were those foure Monarchies the foure Elements and all the subjects of those foure Monarchies if all the foure Elements have Creatures company enough for God was that Heptarchie the seven kingdomes of the seven Planets conversation enough for him Let every Starre in the firmament be so some take them to be a severall world was all this enough we see God drew persons nearer to him then Sunne or Moon or Starres or any thing which is visible and discernible to us he created Angels How many how great Arithmetique lacks numbers to to expresse them proportion lacks Dimensions to figure them so far was God from being alone And yet God had not shed himselfe far enough he had the Leviathan the Whale in the Sea and Behemoth and the Elephant upon the land and all these great heavenly bodies in the way and Angels in their infinite numbers and manifold offices in heaven But because Angels could not propagate nor make more Angels he enlarged his love in making man that so he might enjoy all natures at once and have the nature of Angels and the nature of earthly Creatures in one Person God would not be without man nor he would not come single not alone to the making of man but it is Faciamas hominem Let us us make man God in his whole counsail in his whole Colledge in his whole society in the whole Trinity makes man in whom the whole nature of all the world should meet And still our large and our Communicable God affected this association so as that having three Persons in himselfe and having Creatures of divers natures and having collected all natures in man who consisted of a spirituall nature as well as a bodily he would have one liker himselfe then man was And therefore he made Christ God and Man in one person Creature and Creator together One greater then the Seraphim and yet lesse then a worme Soveraigne to all nature and yet subject to naturall infirmities Lord of life life it selfe and yet prisoner to Death Before and beyond all measures of Time Born at so many moneths yet Circumcised at so many days Crucified at so many years Rose againe at so many Houres How sure did God make himselfe of a companion in Christ who united himselfe in his godhead so inseparably to him as that that godhead left not that body then when it lay dead in the grave but
Lord Lord why hast thou forsaken me of a suffering hell in his soule or of a departing of the Father from him for Ioh. 16. it is I am not alone for the Father is with me offer no exposition of those words more convenient then that the foresight of the Jewes imminent calamities expressed and drew those words from him In their Afflictions were all kindes and all degrees of Miserie So that as one writer of the Roman Story saith elegantly He that considereth the Acts of Rome considereth not the Acts of one People but of Mankinde I may truly of the Jewes Afflictions he that knoweth them is ignorant of nothing that this world can threaten For to that which the present authority of the Romanes inflicted upon them our Schools have added upon their posterities that they are â—laves to Christians and their goods subject to spoile if the Lawes of the Princes where they live did not out of indulgency defend them Did he then aske and was not heard God forbid A man is heard when that is given which his will desired and our will is ever understood to be a will rectified and concurrent with God This is Voluntas a discoursed and examined will That which is upon the first sight of the object is Velleit as a willingnesse which we resist not onely because we thought not of it And such a willingnesse had Christ when suddenly he wished that the cup might passe but quickly conformed his will to his Fathers But in this Prayer his will was present therefore fulfilled Briefly then in this Prayer he commended not all the Jewes for he knew the chief to sin knowingly and so out of the reach of his reason for they know not Nor any except they repented after for it is not ignorance but repentance which deriveth to us the benefit of Gods pardon For he that sinnes of Ignorance may be pardoned if he repent but he that sinnes against his Conscience and is thereby impenitible cannot be pardoned And this is all which I will say of these words Father forgive them for they know not what they do O eternall God look down from thy Throne to thy footstoole from thy blessed Company of Angels and Saints to us by our own faults made more wretched and contemptible then the wormes which shall eat us or the dust which we were and shall be O Lord under the weight of thy Iustice we cannot stand Nor had any other title to thy mercie but the Name of Father and that we have forfeited That name of Sonnes of God thou gavest to us all at once in Adam and he gave it away from us all by his sinne And thou hast given it again to every one of us in our regeneration by Baptisme and we have lost it again by our transgressions And yet thou was not weary of being mercifull but diddest choose one of us to be a fit and worthy ransome for us all and by the death of thy Christ our Iesus gavest us again the title and priviledge of thy Sonnes but with conditions which though easie we have broke and with a yoke which though light and sweet we have cast off How shall we then dare to call thee Father Or to beg that thou wilt make one triall more of us These hearts are accustomed to rebellions and hopelesse But O God create in us new hearts hearts capable of the love and feare due to a Father And then we shall dare to say Father and to say Father forgive us Forgive us O Father and all which are engaged and accountable to thee for us forgive our Parents and those which undertooke for us in Baptisme Forgive the civill Magistrate and the Minister Forgive them their negligences and us our stubbornnesses And give us the grace that we may ever sincerely say both this Prayer of Example and Counsell Forgive our enemies and that other of Precept Our Father which art in Heaven c. SERMON XXXV Preached February 21. 1611. MATTHEVV 21. 44. Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grinde him to powder ALmighty God made us for his glory and his glory is not the glory of a Tyrant to destroy us but his glory is in our happinesse He put us in a faire way towards that happinesse in nature in our creation that way would have brought us to heaven but then we fell and if we consider our selves onely irrecoverably He put us after into another way over thorny hedges and ploughed Lands through the difficulties and incumbrances of all the Ceremoniall Law there was no way to heaven then but that after that he brought us a crosse way by the Crosse of Jesus Christ and the application of his Gospell and that is our way now If we compare the way of nature and our way we went out of the way at the Townes end as soone as we were in it we were out of it Adam dyed as soone as he lived and fell as soone as he was set on foote If we compare the way of the Law and ours the Jewes and the Christians their Synagogue was but as Gods farme our Church is as his dwelling house to them locavit vineam he let out his Vine to husbandmen and then peregrè profectus he went into a farre Countrey he promised a Messias but deferred his coming a long time but to us Dabitur Regnum a Kingdome is given the Vineyard is changed into a Kingdome here is a good improvement and the Lease into an absolute deed of gift here is a good inlargement of the Terme He gives therefore he will not take away againe He gives a Kingdome therefore there is a fulnesse and all-sufficiency in the gift and he does not go into any farre Countrey but stayes with us to governe us usque ad consummationem till the end of the world here therefore God takes all into his owne hands and he comes to dwell upon us himself to which purpose he ploughs up our hearts and he builds upon us Vos Dei agricultura Dei aedificium Ye are Gods husbandry and Gods building Now of this this husbandry God speaks familiarly and parabolicaly many times in Scriptures of this building particularly and principally in this place where having intimated unto us the severall benefits we have received from Christ Jesus in that appellation as he is a stone he tells us also our dangers in mis-behaving our selves towards it Whosoever shall fall on this c. Christ then is a stone and we may run into two dangers first we may fall upon this stone and then this stone may fall upon us but yet we have a great deale of comfort presented to us in that Christ is presented to us as a stone for there we shall finde him first to be the foundation stone nothing can stand which is not built upon Christ Secondly to be Lapis Angularis a corner stone that unites things most dis-united and then
the breast of one man and is therefore subject to alterations They sacrifice to gods whom they know not says God and those gods new gods too The more suspicious for their newnesse and as it is added there unto gods whom their fathers feared not Men that fall from us whose fathers were of that Religion put themselves into more bondage and slavery to the Court of Rome now then their fathers did to the Church of Rome then They sacrifice to gods whom they know not and whom their fathers feared not so much as they doe But they have corrupted themselves as God charges them farther They are fallen from us whom no example of their fathers led that way fathers have left their former superstition which they were born and bred in and the sonnes which were born and bred in the truth have embraced those superstitions Their spot is not the spot of children so it follows in the same place a weaknesse that might have that excuse that they proceeded out of a reverentiall respect to their fathers and followed their example for their fathers have stood and they are fallen Their spot is not the spot of children And because Kings are pictures of God when they trun upon new gods they turn to new pictures of God too and with a forein Religion invest a forein Allegiance Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians says God and from the Ammonites and from the Amorites and Philistims from a succession of enemies at times and from a league of enemies at once Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods says God there And therefore to that resolution God comes Therefore I will deliver you no more And yet how often did God deliver them after this Ingratitude Idolatry are just causes of Exhaeredation Israel abounded in both these and yet after all these in this Text he cals them Children The Children of Israel and therefore his children God is kinde even to the unthankfull saith christ himself and himself calls Jerusalem The holy City even when she was deâ—iled with many and manifold uncleannesses because she had been holy and had the outward help of holinesse remaining in her still Christ doth not disavow not disinherit those children which gave most just cause of exheredation much lesse doth he justify by his example finall and totall disinheriting of children occasioned by single and small faults in the children and grounded in the Parents upon sudden and passionate and intemperate and imaginary vowes They have vowed to doe it therefore they will doe it for so they put a pretext of Religion upon their impiety and make God accessary to that which he dislikes and upon colour of a vow doe that which is far from a service to God as the performance of every lawfull and discreet vow is God calls them his Children which is one and then though as a Father he correct them yet he shewes them his face in that correction which is another beam of his mercy He calls their calamity their affliction Not a night but a day many dayes shall the children of Israel suffer this We finde these two words often joyned together in the Scriptures Dies visitationis The day of visitation though as it is a visitation it be a sad a dark contemplation yet as it is a day it hath alwayes a cheerfulnesse in it If it were called a night I might be afraid that this night They I am not told who would fetch away my soul but being a day I have assurance that the Sunne the Sunne of Righteousnesse will arise to me At the light of thine Arrowes they went forward saith the Prophet Habakkuk Though they be Arrowes yet they are Torches too though they burn yet they give light too though God shoot his Arrowes at me even by them I shall have light enough to see that it is God that shoots As there is a heavy commination in that of Amos I will cause the Sunne to goe down at noone and I will darken the earth in clear day so is there a gracious promise and a constant practise in God That he will as he hath done command light of darknesse and inable thee to see a clear day by his presence in the darkest night of tribulation For truly such a sense I think belongs to those words in Hosea That when God had said The dayes of visitation are come the dayes of recompence are come God adds that as an aggravating of the calamitie yea woe also to them when I depart from them as though the oppression of the affliction the peremptorinesse of the affliction were not in the affliction it self hut in Gods departing from them when he afflicted them they should be visited but see no day in their visitations afflicted from God but see no light from him receive no consolation in him In this place we take it for the exaltation of your devotion as a particular beam of his mercy That though the Children of Israel were afflicted many dayes yet still he affords them the name of Children and still their darke and cloudy dayes were accompanied with the light and presence of God still they felt the Hand of God under them the Face of God upon them the Heart of God towards them Those then which have this filiation God doth not easily disinherit because they were his Children after unnaturall disobediencies he avowes them and continues that name to them But yet this must not imprint a security a presumption for even the children here are submitted to heavie and dangerous calamities when Christ himselfe saith The children of the kingdome shall be cast into utter darknesse who can promise himselfe a perpetuall or unconditioned station we have in the Scriptures two especiall Types of the Church Paradise and the Arke But in that Type the Arke we are principally instructed what the Church in generall shall doe and in that in Paradise what particular men in the Church should do For we doe not reade that in the Arke Noah or his company did waigh any anchor hoyst any saile ship any oare steare any rudder but the Arke by the providence of God who onely was Pilot rode safe upon the face of the waters The Church it selfe figured by the Arke cannot shipwrack though men sleep though the Devill wake The gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church But in the other Type of the Church where every man is instructed in his particular duty therein Paradise Adam himself was commanded to dresse Paradise and to keep Paradise And when he did not that which he was injoyned to doe in that place he forfeited his interest in it and his benefit by it Though we be born and bred in Gods house as Children Baptized and Catechized in the true Church if we slacken our holy industry in making fare our salvation we though Children of the Kingdome may becast out and all our former helps and our
Naphtali that hee should bee a well-spoken and a perswasive man For so Moses after God had farther inabled him saith Give eare O yee Heavens and I will speake Heare O Earth the words of my mouth My mouth saith Moses The Minister of God that cometh with convenient gifts and due preparation may speak such things as Earth and Heaven it selfe may be content to heare For when Saint Paul saith That to the Principalities and Powers in Heavenly places the manifold wisdome of God is made known by the Church that is by the Ministery and Service of the Church and by that which is done here wee may congruously and piously beleeve that even those Principalities and Powers in Heavenly places The Angels of Heaven doe heare our Sermons and hearken how the glory of God is communicated and accepted and propagated through the Congregation and as they rejoyce at the conversion of a Sinner so rejoyce also at the means of their Conversion the powerfull and the congruous preaching of the Word of God And therefore let no man though an Angell of the Church though an Archangell of the Church Bishop or Archbishop refuse to heare a man of imeriour place or inferiour parts to himself neither let any man be discouraged by the fewnesse or meannesse of his Hearers For as the Apostle saith with relation to Abraham Entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained Angels unawares so preach to all and that seat that thou thinkest empty may have Angels in it To them is the manifold Wisedome of God made knowne by the Church and Angels are here here for the augmentation of their owne Ioy in their fresh knowledge of the propagation of the Kingdome of God in this Congregation and they are here for their Accusation that are not here but frivolously and causelessely absent or negligently absently present if they be here Therefore Moses might say Give eare O yee Heavens though it bee but I that speake And hee might add as he doth there My Doctrine shall droppe as the rain and my speech shall distll as the dew And why Because I will publish the Name of the Lord saith Moses there because I will deliver the Messages of my God to his People What though you doe must this be ascribed unto you no Moses claimeth not that for when hee had said Give eare O yee Heavens let no man thinke himselfe too high or too wise to heare me and called it his Doctrine and his speech because he published the Name of the Lord yet he transferreth all upon God himselfe He establisheth their attentions with that Ascribe yee Greatnesse unto our God It becommeth me to make my selfe as acceptable a messenger as I can and to infuse the Word of God into you as powerfully as I can but all that I can doe is but a small matter the greatnesse of the worke lieth in your Application and that must proceed from the Word of God it selfe quickned by his Spirit and therefore Ascribe all Greatnesse unto our God for that is the Hony whatsoever or whosoever be the Hony-combe Truely when I reade a Sermon of Chrysostome or of Chrysologus or of Ambrose Men who carry in the very signification of their Names and in their Histories the attributes of Hony mouthed and Golden-mouthed Men I finde my selfe oftentimes more affected with the very Citation and Application of some sentence of Scripture in the middest or end of one of their Sermons then with any witty or forcible passage of their owne And that is it which Saint Hierome doth especially magnifie in Saint Paul After he had said Quotiescunque lego non verba mihi videor sed tonitrua audire wheresoever I open Saint Pauls Epistles it is not a word or a sentence but a clappe of Thunder that flieth out he addeth moreover Legatis doe but use your selves to the reading of Saint Pauls Epistles Videbitis in testimoniis quae sumit ex veteri Testamento quà m Artifex sit quà m prudens you will easily see how artificially how dexterously how cunningly and how discreetly he makes his use of those places which he citeth out of the Old Testament Videntur verba Innocontis rusticani you would take them saith hee sometimes for words of some plain Country-man as some of the Prophets were no other But before Saint Paul have done with those words Fulmina sunt capiunt omne quod tangunt hee maketh you see that they are flashes of lightning and that they possesse and melt affect and dissolve every soul they touch And hence it is Beloved that I return so often at home in my private Meditations that I present so often to Gods People in these Exercises this Consideration That there are not so exquisite so elegant Bookes in the World as the Scriptures neither is any one place a more pregnant example thereof for the purity and elegancy for the force and power for the largenesse and extention of the words then these which the Holy Ghost hath taken in this Text Hee that oppresseth the poore reproaches his Master c. And so we passe from this first Consideration The power and Elegancy of the whole word of God in generall to the same consideration in these particular words The Matter which in the generall is but this That the poor must bee relieved being a Doctrine obvious to all The Manner wil rather be our object at this time How the Holy Ghost by Solomons hand hath enwrapped this Doctrine in these words How the Omission of this Duty is aggravated how the performance thereof is celebrated in this Text and in the force and elegancies thereof Mans perversenesse hath changed Gods method God made man good but in a possibility of being ill Now God findes man ill but in a possibility of being good When man was good and enabled to continue so God began with him with affirmative Commandements Commandements that implied liberty and Soveraignty such as that Subjicite Dominamini Subdue the Creature and rule over the Creature and he comes not till after to Negative to Prohibitive Commandments Commandments that imply infirmity and servility such as this Of this Tree thou shalt not eate upon thy life this life and the next thou shalt not But now because God findes man ill and prone to bee worse God is faine to change his method and to begin and stop him at first with negative and prohibitive Commandments So he does in the thirty fourth Psalm ver 14. which is also again repeated first Depart from evill and then Doe good For man brings with him something into the world now to forget and to unlearn before he can take out any new lesson Man is so farre from being good of himselfe as that he must forget himselfe devest himselfe forsake himselfe before he can be capable of any good And such is the method of our Text Because God sees a naturall declination in man to abuse his power to the
all the rich attire that can be put upon it And howsoever the rich man that is invested in Power and Greatnesse may be a better picture of God of God considered in himself who is all Greatnes all Power yet of God considered in Christ which is the contemplation that concerns us most the poor man is the better picture and most resembles Christ who liv'd in continual poverty And so he that oppresses the poor reproaches God God in his Orphans God in his Picture Saint Augustine carries this consideration farther then that the poore is more immediately Gods Orphan and more perfectly his picture That he is more properly a member of himself of his body For contemplating that head which was not so much crowned as hedged with thorns that head of which he whose it was sayes The Sonne of man hath not where to lay his head Saint Augustine sayes Ecce caput Panperum Behold that head to which the poore make up the body Ob eam tantùm causam venerabiles sayes that Father Therefore venerable therefore honourable because they are members sutable to that head And so all that place where the Apostle sayes That upon those members of the body which we think to be lesse honourable we bestow most honour that Father applies to the poore that therefore most respect and honour should be given to them because the poore are more sutable members to their head Christ Jesus then the rich are And so also he that oppresses the poore reproaches God God in his Orphans God in his Image God in the Members of his owne body Saint Chrysostome carries this consideration farther then this of Saint Augustine That whereas every creature hath filiationem vestigii that because God hath imparted a being an essence from himselfe who is the roote and the fountaine of all essence and all being therefore every creature hath a filiation from God and is the Sonne of God so as we read in Iob God is the father of the raine and whereas every man hath filiationem imaginis as well Pagan as Christian hath the Image of God imprinted in his soule and so hath a filiation from God and is the Sonne of God as he is made in his likenesse and whereas every Christian hath filiationem Pacti by being taken into the Covenant made by God with the Elect and with their seed he hath a filiation from God and is the Sonne of God as he is incorporated into his Sonne Christ Jesus by the Seals of the Christian Church besides these filiations of being in all creatures of the Image in all men of the Covenant in all Christians The poore sayes that Father are not onely filii but Haeredes and Primogeniti Sonnes and eldest Sonnes Sonnes and Sonnes and Heires And to that purpose he makes use of those words in St. Iames Hearken my beloved brethren hath not God chosen the poore of this world rich in faith and Heirs of that Kingdome Heirs for Ipsorum est sayes Christ himself Theirs is the Kingdome of heaven And upon those words of Christ Saint Chrysostome comments thus Divites ejus regnitantum habent quantum à pauperibus eleemosynis coemerunt The rich have no more of that Kingdome of heaven then they have purchased of the poore by their almes and other erogations to pious uses And so he that oppresses the poore reproaches God God in his Orphans God in his Image God in the Members of his own Body God in his Sonnes and Heires of his Kingdome But then Christ himself carries his consideration beyond all these resemblances and conformities not to a proximity onely but to an identity The poore are He. In as much as you did it unto these you did it unto me and In as much as you did it not unto these you did it not unto me And after his ascension and establishing in glory still he avowed them not onely to be his but to be He Saul Saul why persecutest thou me The poore are He He is the poore And so he that oppresseth the poore reproaches God God in his Orphans God in his Image God in the Members of his owne Body God in the Heirs of his Kingdome God in himself in his own person And so we have done with all those peeces which constitute our first part the hainousnesse of the fault in the elegancy of the words chosen by the holy Ghost in which you have seen The fault it self Oppression and the qualification thereof by the marks Violence Deceit and Scorne And then the specification of the persons The poore as he is the Ebâ—onite the very vocall begger and as the word is Dalal a decayed an aged a sickly man And in that branch you have also had that Probleme Whether aemulation of higher or oppression of lower be the greater sinne And then the aggravation of this sinne in those weights That it is a reproach a reproach of God of God as The Maker as His Maker whom he oppresses and as his own Maker And lastly in what respects especially this increpation is laid upon him And farther we have no occasion to carry that first part the fault In passing from that first part the fault to the duty and the celebration thereof in those words of choice elegancy He that hath mercy on the poore honours God though we be to looke upon the persons the poore and the act shewing mercy to the poore and the benefit honouring of God yet of the persons who are still the same poore poore made poore by God rather then by themselves more needs not be said then hath been said already And of the act showing of mercy to the poore onely thus much more needs be said that the word in which the holy Ghost expresses this act here is the very same word in which he expresses the free mercy of God himself Miserebor cujus miserebor I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy So that God hath made the charitable man partaker with himself in his own greatest attribute his power of showing mercy And then left any man should thinke that he had no interest in this great dignity that God had given him no meanes to partake of this attribute of God this power of shewing mercy to the poor because he had left him poor too and given him nothing to give the same word which the holy Ghost uses in this text and in Exodus for mercy which is Canan he uses in other places particularly in the dedication of the Temple for prayer So that he who being destitute of other meanes to relieve the poore prayes for the poore is thereby made partaker of this great attribute of Gods this power of showing mercy He hath showed mercy to the poore if having nothing to give he have given mild and confortable words and have prayed to his abundant and inexhaustible God to relieve that poor
own Iesuits though some whom in that Canon they seeme to follow make this Booke of Lamentations but an Appendix to the Prophecy of Ieremy determines for all that Canon that it is a distinct Book Indeed if it were not the first Chapter would have been called the 53 of Ieremy and not the first of the Lamentations But that which gives most assurednesse is That in divers Hebrew Bibles it is placed otherwise then wee place it and not presently and immediately after the Prophecy of Ieremy but discontinued from him though hee were never doubted to be the Author thereof The Booke is certainly the Prophet Ieremies and certainly a distinct booke But whether the Book be a history or a Prophecy whether Ieremy lament that which hee had seen or that which he foresees calamities past or future calamities things done or things to be done is a question which hath exercised and busied divers Expositors But as we say of the Parable of Dives and Lazarus that it is a Historicall parable and a Parabolicall history some such persons there were and some such things were really done but some other things were figuratively symbolically parabolically added So wee say of Ieremies Lamentation It is a Propheticall history and a Historicall prophecy Some of the sad occasions of these Lamentations were past when he writ and some were to come after for we may not despise the testimony of the Chalde Paraphrasts who were the first that illustrated the Bible in that Nation nor of S. Hierome who was much conversant with the Bible and with that Nation nor of Iosephus who had justly so much estimation in that Nation nor of those later Rabbins who were the learnedest of that Nation who are all of opinion that Ieremy writ these Lamentations after hee saw some declinations in that State in the death of Iosiah and so the Book is Historicall but when he onely foresaw their transportation into Babylon before that calamity fell upon them and so it is Propheticall Or if we take the exposition of the others That the whole Booke was written after their transportation into Babylon and to be in all parts Historicall yet it is Propheticall still for the Prophet laments a greater Desolation then that in the utter ruine and devastation of the City and Nation which was to fall upon them after the death of Christ Iesus Neither is any peece of this Booke the lesse fit to be our Text this day because it is both Historicall and Propheticall for they from whom God in his mercy gave us a Deliverance this day are our Historicall Enemies and our Propheticall Enemies historically wee know they have attempted our ruine heretofore and prophetically wee may bee sure they will doe so againe whensoever any new occasion provokes them or sufficient power enables them The Text then is as the Booke presented to Ezckiel In it are written Lamentations and Mournings and Woe and all they are written within and without says the Text there within as they concern the Iews without as they are appliable to us And they concern the Iews Historically attempts upon that State Ieremy had certainly seen and they concern them prophetically for farther attempts Ieremy did certainly foresee They are appliable to us both ways too Historically because wee have seen what they would have done And Prophetically because wee foresee what they would doe So that here is but a difference of the Computation here is stilo veteri and stilo nove here is the Iews Calendar and the Papists Calendar In the Jews Calendar one Babylon wrought upon the people of God and in the Papists Calendar another Babylon Stilo veteri in the Jews Calendar 700 yeare before Christ came there were pits made and the breath of their nostrils The anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits Stilo nove in the Papists Calendar 1600 yeare after Christ came in all fulnesse in all clearnesse There were pits made againe and The breath of our nostrils The anointed of the Lord was almost taken in those pits It is then Ieremies and it is a distinct Book It concernes the Iews and it concerns us too And it concernes us both both wages Historically and Prophetically But whether Ieremy lament here the death of a good King of Iosiah for so Saint Hierome and many of the Ancients and many of the Iewes themselves take it and thinke that those words in the Chronicles have relation to these Lamentations And Ieremy lamented for Iosiah and all the people speake of him in their Lamentations Or whether he lament the transportation and the misery of an ill King of Zedekiah as is more ordinarily and more probably held by the Expositours we argue not we dispute now we imbrace that which arises from bothâ— That both good Kings and bad Kings Iosiah and Zedekiah are the anointed of the Lord and the breath of the nostrills that is The life of the people and therefore both to be lamented when they fall into dangers and consequently both to be preserved by all means by Prayer from them who are private persons by counsell from them who have that great honour and that great charge to be near them in that kinde and by support and supplly from all of all sorts from falling into such dangers These considerations will I thinke have the better impression in you if we proceed in the handling of them thus First the main cause of the Lamentation was the Ruine or the dangerous declination of the Kingdome of that great and glorious State The Kingdome But then they did not seditiously sever the King and the Kingdome as though the Kingdome could doe well and the King ill That safe and he in danger for they see cause to lament because misery was fallen upon the Person of the King perchance upon Iosiah a good a religious King perchance but upon Zedekiah a worse King yet which soever it be they acknowledge him to be Vnctus Domini The anointed of the Lord and to be Spiritus narium The breath of their nostrills When this person therefore was fallen into the pits of the Enemy the Subject laments but this lamenting because he was fallen implies a deliverance a restitution he was fallen but he did not ly there so the Text which is as yet but of Lamentation will grow an houre hence to be of Congratulation and then we shall see That whosoever in rectified affections hath lamented a danger and then congratulated a deliverance he will provide against a relapse a falling again into that or any other danger by all means of sustaining the Kingdome and the King in safety and in honour Our first step then in this Royall progresse is That the cause of this Lamentation was the declination the diminution of the Kingdome If the Center of the world should be moved but one inch out of the place it cannot be reckoned how many miles this Island or any building in it would be thrown out of
delivers himselfe to us here in the administration of his Sacraments he seals ratifies confirmes all unto us And to rest in these his seals and means of reconciliation to him this is not to be scandalised not to be offended in him and not to be offended in him not to suspect him or these meanes which he hath ordained this is our viatory our preparatory our initiatory and inchoative Blessednesse beyond which nothing can be proposed in this life And therefore as the Needle of a Sea-compasse though it shake long yet will rest at last and though it do not look directly exactly to the North Pole but have some variation yet for all that variation will rest so though thy heart have some variations some deviations some aberrations from that direct point upon which it should be bent which is an absolute conformity of thy will to the will of God yet though thou lack something of that afford thy soule rest settle thy soule in such an infallibility as this present condition can admit and beleeve that God receives glory as well in thy Repentance as in thine Innocence and that the mercy of God in Christ is as good a pillow to rest thy soule upon after a sinne as the grace of God in Christ is a shield and protection for thy soule before In a word this is our viatory our preparatory our initiatory and inchoative blessedness beyond which there can bee no blessedness proposed here first to receive a satisfaction an acquiescence that there are certaine and constant meanes ordained by Christ for our reconciliation to God in him in all cases in which a Christian soule can bee distressed that such a treasure there is deposited by him in the Church And then the testimony of a rectified Conscience that thou hast sincerely applied those generall helpes to thy particular soule Come so farre and then as the Suburbs touch the City and the Porch the Church and deliver thee into it so shall this Viatory this preparatory this initiatory and inchoative blessednesse deliver thee over to the everlasting blessednesse of the Kingdome of heaven Of which everlasting blessednesse I would ask leave not so much of you yet of you too for with you I would not be over-bold but I would aske leave of the Angels of heaven leave of the holy Ghost himself to venture to say a little of this everlasting blessednesse The tongues of Angels cannot the tongues of the holy Ghost the Authors of the books of Scripture have not told us what this blessednesse is And what then shall we say but this Blessednesse it self is God himselfe our blessednesse is our possession our union with God In what consists this A great limbe of the Schoole with their Thomas place this blessednesse this union with God In visione in this That in heaven I shall see God see God essentially God face to face God as he is We do not see one another so in this world In this world we see but outsides In heaven I shall see God and God essentially But then another great branch of the Schoole with their Scotus place this blessednesse this union with God in Amore in this that in heaven I shall love God Now love presumes knowledge for Amari nisi nota new possunt we can love nothing but that which we do or think we do understand There in heaven I shall know God so as that I shall be admitted not onely to an Adoration of God to an admiration of God to a prosternation and reverence before God but to an affection to an office of more familiarity towards God of more equality with God I shall love God But even love it selfe as noble a passion as it is is but a paine except we enjoy that we love and therefore another branch of the Schoole with their Aureolus place this blessednesse this union of our souls with God in Gaudio in our joy that is in our enjoying of God In this world we enjoy nothing enjoying presumes perpetuity and here all things are fluid transitory There I shall enjoy and possesse for ever God himself But yet every one of these to see God or to love God or to enjoy God have seemed to some too narrow to comprehend this blessednesse beyond which nothing can be proposed and therefore another limbe of the Schoole with their Bonaventure place this blessednesse in all these together And truly if any of those did exclude any of these so as that I might see God and not love him or love God and not enjoy him it could not well be called blessednesse but he that hath any one of these hath every one all And therefore the greatest part concurre and safely In visione That vision is beatification to see God as he is is that blessednesse There then in heaven I shall have continuitatem Intuendi It is not onely vision but Intuition not onely a seeing but a beholding a contemplating of God and that in Continuitate I shall have an un-interrupted an un-intermitted an un-discontinued sight of God I shall looke and never looke off not looke and looke againe as here but looke and looke still for that is Continuitas intuendi There my soule shall have Inconcussam quâ—etem we need owe Plato nothing but we may thank Plato for this expression if he meant so much by this Inconcussa quies That in heaven my soule shall sleep not onely without trouble and startling but without rocking without any other help then that peace which is in it selfe My soule shall be thoroughly awake and thoroughly asleep too still busie active diligent and yet still at rest But the Apostle will exceed the Philosopher St. Paul will exceed Plato as he does when he sayes I shall be unus spiritus cum Deo I shall be still but the servant of my God and yet I shall be the same spirit with that God When Dies quem tanquam supremum reformidas aterni natalis est sayes the Morall mans Oracle Seneca Our last day is our first day our Saturday is our Sunday our Eve is our Holyday our sun-setting is our morning the day of our death is the first day of our eternall life The next day after that which is the day of judgement Veniet dies quae me mihi revelabit comes that day that shall show me to my selfe here I never saw my selfe but in disguises There Then I shall see my selfe and see God too Totam lucem Totus lux aspiciam I shall see the whole light Here I see some parts of the ayre enlightned by the Sunne but I do not see the whole light of the Sunne There I shal see God intirely all God totam lutem and totus lax I my self shal be al light to see that light by Here I have one faculty enlightned and another left in darknesse mine uuderstanding sometimes cleared my will at the same time perverted There I shall be all light no shadow upon me my soule
invested in the light of joy and my body in the light of glory How glorious is God as he looks down upon us through the Sunne How glorious in that glasse of his How glorious is God as he looks out amongst us through the king How glorious in that Image of his How glorious is God as he calls up our eyes to him in the beauty and splendor and service of the Church How glorious in that spoufe of his But how glorious shall I conceive this light to be cum sub loco viderim when I shall see it in his owne place In that Spheare which though a Spheare is a Center too In that place which though a place is all and every where I shall see it in the face of that God who is all face all manifestration all all Innotescence to me for facies Deiest qua Deus nobis innotescit that 's Gods face to us by which God manifests himselfe to us I shall see this light in his face who is all face and yet all hand all application and communication and delivery of all himselfe to all his Saints This is Beatitudo in Auge blessednesse in the Meridionall height blessednesse in the South point in a perpetuall Sommer solstice beyond which nothing can be proposed to see God so Then There And yet the farmers of heaven and hell the merchants of soules the Romane Church make this blessednesse but an under degree but a kinde of apprentiship after they have beatified declared a man to be blessed in the fruition of God in heaven if that man in that inferiour state doe good service to that Church that they see much profit will rise by the devotion and concurrence of men to the worship of that person then they will proceed to a Canonization and so he that in his Novitiat and years of probation was but blessed Ignatius and blessed Xavier is lately become Saint Xavier aud Saint Ignatius And so they pervert the right order and method which is first to come to Sanctification and then to Beatification first to holinesse and then to blessednesse And in this method our blessed God bee pleased to proceed with us by the operation of his holy Spirit to bring us to Sanctification here and by the merits and intercession of his glorious Sonne to Beatification hereafter That so not being offended in him but resting in those meanes and seales of reconciliation which thou hast instituted in thy Church wee may have life and life more abundantly life of grace here and life of glory there in that kingdome which thy Sonne our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud Amen SERMON XLV Preached at Saint Dunstans Aprill 11. 1624. The first sermon in that Church as Vicar thereof DEUT. 25. 5. If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no Childe the Wife of the dead shall not mary without unto a stranger her husbands brother shall goe in unto her and take her to him to wife and performe the duty of an husbands brother unto her FRom the beginning God intimated a detestation a dislike of singularity of beeing Alone The first time that God himselfe is named in the Bible in the first verse of Genesis hee is named plurally Creavit Dit Gods Gods in the plurall Created Heaven and Earth God which is but one would not appeare nor bee presented so alone but that hee would also manifest more persons As the Creator was not Singular so neither were the creatures First he created heaven and earth both together which were to be the generall parents and out of which were to bee produced all other creatures and then he made all those other creatures plurally too Male and female created hee them And when he came to make him for whose sake next to his own glory he made the whole world Adam he left not Adam alone but joyned an Eve to him Now when they were maried we know but wee know not when they were divorced we heare when Eve was made but not when shee dyed The husbands death is recorded at last the wives is not at all So much detestation hath God himselfe and so little memory would hee have kept of any singularity of being alone The union of Christ to the whole Church is not expressed by any metaphore by any figure so oft in the Scripture as by this of Mariageâ— and there is in that union with Christ to the whole Church neither husband nor wife can ever die Christ is immortall as hee is himselfe and immortall as hee is the head of the Church the Husband of that wife for that wife the Church is immortall too for as a Prince is the same Prince when he fights a battaile and when hee triumphs after the victory so the militant and the triumphant Church is the same Church There can bee no widower There can bee no Dowager in that case Hee cannot shee cannot die But then this Metaphore this spirituall Mariage holds not onely betweene Christ and the whole Church in which case thee can be no Widow but in the union between Christs particular Ministers and particular Churches and there in that case the husband of that wife may die The present Minister may die and so that Church be a Widow And in that case and for provision of such Widows wee consider the accommodation of this Law If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no childe the wife of the dead shall not mary without unto a stranger c. This law was but a permissive law rather a dispensation then a law as the permitting of usury to bee taken of strangers and the permitting of divorces in so many cases were At most it was but a Iudiciall law and therefore layes no obligation upon any other nation then them to whom it was given the Iews And therefore wee enquire not the reasons of that law the reasons were determined in that people wee examine not the conveniences of the law the conveniences were determined in those times wee lay hold onely upon the Typique signification and appliablenesse of the law as that secular Mariage there spoken of may be appliable to this spirituall Mariage the Mariage of the Minister to the Church If brethren dwell together c. From these words then wee shall make our approaches and application to the present occasion by these steps First there is a mariage in the case The taking and leaving of a Church is not an indifferent an arbitrary thing It is a Mariage and Mariage implies Honour It is an honourable estate and that implies charge it is a burdensome state There is Honos and Onus Honour and labour in Mariage You must bee content to afford the honour wee must bee content to endure the labour And so in that point as our Incumbencie upon a Church is our Mariage to that Church wee shall as farre as the occasion admits see
expressed that David determined himself or declared his choice of any of the three Hee might conceive a hope that God would forbear all three As when another Prophet Nathan had told him The childe shall surely die yet David said for all that determined assurance Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live and he fasted a fast and mourned and prayed for the childes life Beloved no commination of God is unconditioned or irrevocable But in this case David intimates some kinde of election Let me fall into the hands of the Lord for his mercies are exceeding great and not into the hands of men Susanna when shee was surprised and in a straight too though of another kind she resolves that it is better for her to fall into the hands of men let men defame her let men accuse her condemn her execute her rather then sin in the sight of God and so fall into his hands So that if wee compare offences wee were better offend all the Princes of the earth then offend God because he is able to cast body and soul into hell fire But when the offence is done for the punishment which follows God forgives a treason sooner then thy neighbour will a trespasse God seales thee a Quietus est in the bloud of his Son sooner then a Creditor will renue a bond or withdraw an Action and a Scandalum magnatum will lie longer upon thee here then a blasphemâ— against God in that Court. And therefore as it is one degree of good husbandry in ill husbands to bring all their debts into one hand so doest thou husband thy afflictions well if thou put them all upon thy debts to God and leave out the consideration of Instruments And he shall deale with thee as hee did with David there that plague which was threatned for three days he will end in one In that trouble which if men had had their will upon thee would have consumed thee thou shalt stand unconsumed For if a man wound thee it is not in his power though hee be never so sorry for it whether that wound shall kill thee or no but if the Lord wound thee to death he is the life he can redeem thee from death and if hee doe not he is thy resurrection and recompenses thee with another and a better life And so lies our first comfort that it is Ejus His The Lords And a second is that it is In virga ejus In his rod. Iob would fain have come to a cessation of arms before hee came to a treaty with God Let the Lord take away his rod from me sayes he and let not his fear terrifie me Them would I speak As long as his rod was upon him and his fears terrified him it was otherwise he durst not But truly his feares should not terrifie us though his rod be upon us for herein lies our comfort That all Gods rods are bound up with that mercy which accompanied that rod that God threatned David to exercise upon his son Solemon If he commit iniquity I will chasten him with the rod of men I will let him fall into the hands of men This was heavy Therefore it is eased with that Cordiall But my mercy shall not depart away from him as I took it from Saul But for this mercy the oppressions of men were mercilesse But all Gods rods are bound up with this mercy and therein lies our comfort And for the rods of other men O my people be not afraid of the Assyrian says God Why blessed Lord shalâ— the Assyrian doe thy people no harm yes says God there He shall smite them with a rod and he shall lift up his staffe against them Some harm he shall doe He shall smite them with a rod And he shall threaten more offer at more he shall lift up his staffe where then is the peoples reliefe and comfort In this The Lord of Hosts shall stir up a scourge for him God shall appear in that notion of power The Lord of Hosts and he shall encounter his enemies and the enemies of his friends with a scourge upon them against their rod upon us Gods own rods are bound up in mercy they end in mercy And for the rods of other men God cuts them in pieces and their owners with his sword Gods owne rods even towards his owne Children are sometimes as that rod which he put into Moses hand was chang'd into Serpents Gods owne rods have sometimes a sting and a bitternesse in them but then they are chang'd from their owne nature Naturally Gods roddes towards us are gentle and harmlesse When Gods rod in Moses hand was changed to a Serpent it did no harme that did but devoure the other Serpents when Gods rods are heaviest upon us if they devoure other rods that is enable us to put off the consideration of the malice and oppression of other Men and all displeasure towards them and lay all upon God for our sinnes these serpentine rods have wrought a good effect When Moses his Rod was a Serpent yet it return'd quickly to a Rod againe how bitter so ever Gods corrections be they returne soone to their naturall sweetnesse and though the correction continue the bitternesse does not with this Rod Moses tam'd the Sea and divided that but he drowned none in that Sea but the Aegyptians Gods rod will cut and divide between thy soule and spirit but he will destroy nothing in thee not thy Morality not thy Christianity but onely thine owne Aegyptians thy Persecutors thy concupiscencies But all this while we have but deduced a comfort out of thy Word Quia Virga though that be a rod but this is a comfort Quia Virga therefore because that is a Rod for this word which is here a Rod is also in other places of Scriptures an Instrument not of correction but direction Feed thy sheep with thy Rod saies God and there it is a Pastorall Rod the direction of the Church Virga rectitudinis virgaregni tui saies David The Scepter of thy kingdome is a right Scepter and there its a royall rod the protection of the state so that all comforts that are deriv'd upon us by the direction of the Church and by the protection of the State are recommended to us and conferr'd upon us in this His Rod. Nor is it onely a Rod of comfort by implication and consequence but expresly and literally it is so Though I should walke thorough the valley of the shadow of death I will feare no evill Thy rod and thy staffe they comfort me He had not onely a comfort though he had the rod but he had not had so much comfort except he had had it we have not so good evidence of the joyes of the next life except we have the sorrowes of this The discomfort then lies not in this That the affliction is ejus his the Lords