one after another Every minute is like the bodrags in the heart and braine of a man that are still accrewing fearefull shewes and signes of evill So that I protest by the rejoycing I have in the Lord Iesus I dye daily 2 Part. The Proofe Now I come to the second poynt which is the proofe of this For there is no man that would beleeve it because flesh and bloud cannot understand how a man should be dead and yet alive As the Poet saith As long as a man liveth whatsoever happen to him he is well breake a hand or a foot of him breake his bones and let him have life he is indifferent well But the children of God doe not judge so of these things For life is not to live meerely but to be in a good estate to be in a healthy condition therefore seeing the Apostle lived and had his being among men he being not now layd in his grave but conversing in our common element why then doth he say hee died daily Why even because of troubles and of cares It is true but because men would not beleeve how he should have such cares 1 By way of an Oath and how they should be the cut-throat of his life therefore now he interposeth his bond and it is a firme bond his oath which though it be but an imperfect argument yet is it taken of godly men for the strongest argument that is in Rebus humanis For things that are uncertaine are determined by the oath of an honest man and men take it for the most certaine truth that can be because an oath is a bond that gives testimony to the truth So the Apostle in this and in other places useth a strange kinde of reasoning drawn from the contrary and we are to beleeve him upon his Word It is true his friends and those that are sanctified will easily beleeve him but those that are without that are yet to bee wonne they are hardly to be perswaded Therefore for their infirmity and for the weakenesse of the Corinthians he puts his oath to it and sweares it is true I protest by the reioycing I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I dye daily Now you see the nature of the argument and if we consider it well it will appeare that the wisedome of God in the state of his children which is so farre above mans reach and reason that the Angels themselves can scarcely make a delivery of it For marke he had said before I dye daily and now he proves it by another thing cleane contrary by his rejoycing daily By the reioycing that I have in Christ Iesus continually by that reioycing that is alway with me by that reioycing I dye daily A strange thing that a man should have feare and care and yet be ioyfull too at the same time to dye and yet to reioyce or boast at the same instant for so the word signifieth to boast in the apprehension of a good thing to ioy in a singular measure for Ioy is the apprehension of a singular good in a singular measure that these two should be put together to say I reioyce daily and I dye daily this is a wonder which the Lord hath hid from flesh and bloud which he hath not manifested to the great ones of the world but to his little despicable ones even those that take delight in the kingdome of Christ By the reioycing I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I dye daily There is some variety in the reading of these words Some reade it by your reioycing and so that which I must honour our last translation hath it in the Margine by your reioycing some reade it or reioycing But there is no great difference for the sence comes all to one So Saint Ierome Saint Augustine Saint Chrysostome and Theophilact they read it by your reioycing But then on the other side there are a number of the Fathers that reade it our reioycing as Basile upon Psal 14. Athanasius and of later Writers Luther and Calvin Onely Beza holds with the Ancients and saith your reioycing making notwithstanding no difference in the Text or in the sence for saith he the Apostles meaning is by the reioycing that I have of you and by the reioycing that you have of me and saith Saint Chrysostome he calleth the proficiency of the Corinthians his reioycing as he saith 1 Thes 2. What is our crowne 1 Thes 2.19 and our reioycing and our glory are not ye And he answers his owne question and saith yes Ye are our crowne and our reioycing in the day of the Lord. This I take to be the more fitte and the more lively and fuller our reioycing rather than to reade it yours although it bee true it is the common Reioycing of Gods children they have all the same spirit and the same joyes yet a man may not lawfully sweare by that which is in another man but a man may sweare for himselfe Thus Saint Paul although he knew that the Corinthians were forward and full of the gifts of the holy Ghost and of ioy yet he had no reason to be so confident in them as to sweare by their reioycing Because a man knowes not what is in his neighbour he is not certaine he may iudge the best but he knowes nothing certainly and he were a mad man therefore that would sweare for that which he knowes not therefore the Apostle makes this oath not of the ioy or gloriation or boasting that was in the Corinthians but the boasting and gloriation of his owne spirit in the presence of Christ Iesus This I take to be the sence although it be true that the Apostle gloried much in his passions and sufferings at Corinth and he gloryed too for the preaching and successe of the Gospell this was matter of great gloriation and boasting yet it was the inward comfort and testimony of his conscience that made him sweare by his reioycing in Christ Others goe about to put it off with a kinde of Asseveration onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Bezae Annotat in locum that is another reading which Saint Ambrose followes and the vulgar Bibles and so the common translations at this day though they touch upon this and in a manner are weary of the other As if the Apostle should say for your glory sake But those that know the Greeke tongue they know that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being not written with letters but like a halfe circle it is easily brought to be like the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so the Scripture may be read promiscuously with eyther of them in this place But this is against the tenent of all the Fathers of the Church which have still thought this to be an oath As Saint Austin writing to Hillary in his 89. Aug ad Hilla ep 89. Et lib. 3. de Trin. Epistle he proves it lawfull for a Christian man to sweare because the Apostle writes by an oath And
when he came to David Now what the minde of this man should be that moves this question whether he came with a minde to cavill or whether hee came as one that would faine be instructed in the mysteries of Religion as one that would faine understand this mystery to the full this we cannot easily determine It may well bee taken either way But I thinke it fittest to take it in the best sence to judge the best of a thing that is doubtfull If he came as one to cavill then he was such one as the Sadduces that came to Christ Matth. 22. they inveyed against this point of our faith Matth. 22.28 the Resurrection and they brought an argument against it from a woman that had seven husbands and they aske him whose wife she should be in the resurrection for seven had her to wife Such kinde of grosse cavils served the turne to blinde their eyes because they could not understand the glorious state of the Saints at the Resurrection Act. 17.32 So the like wee have Acts 17. when the Apostle comes to the Philosophers at Athens and tels them of the doctrine of the Resurrection they begin presently to laugh it out as a thing meerly absurd and that could not be any way beleeved As Saint Basil Basil saith to this day saith he and hee lived foure hundred yeares after Christ when I preach to the Grecians the doctrine of the Resurrection they cast forth a broad and loud laughter because it seemes to them a matter altogether incredible So that if the partie whom the Apostle supposeth here came with the minde of a caviller we must know that the world was never free from them Yet these must not dismay but strengthen us for the finding out of answers and arguments to stop the mouthes of such cavilling spirits as those are But I rather follow the other that they are the words of a man that was simple and ignorant and would faine be instructed and see how these things were And then this teacheth us further Vse that we ought still to make our doctrine and the Articles of our faith so plaine as we can that if it be possible the manner it selfe may be declared It is true it is a dangerous thing to aske questions where God hath set no resolution Zacharie was stricken dumbe for asking how he could be the father of Iohn Baptist Luk 1.18 because he and his wife were stricken in age And yet sometimes it is not unlawfull so to question as Nicodemus asketh Christ saying How can these things be Joh 3 4. being desirous to be informed And the Virgin Mary when the Angel Gabriel tels her shee should bee the mother of God the Saviour of the world she desires to know the manner How can these things bee Luk. 1.34 seeing I know not a man So that if men come with a conscience that desires to know the truth and come not in mockery to disgrace the word of God to cast mists on it that so they may make it incredible to other people as it is to themselves I say if they come with humble mindes it is lawfull to aske questions even concerning the manner how these things shall be For although the Apostle call him foole for his labour yet the reason is not simplie because he askes the question but because he askes it with a kinde of doubting and distrust because he thought it impossible that it could not be and therefore he askes in a kinde of gybing As Sarah when the Angel tels her she should have a childe shee laughs and saith How shall my lord and I fall to lust that are old Gen 18.12 So jesting out that which was spoken Now because there was such a smacke of ingratitude and infidelitie in this question therefore the Apostle finds fault with him and returns him the foole for his labour 2. Part. The matter of the question But now for the matter that is moved The question propounded is first about the generality of the Resurrection and the possibility thereof And secondly about the qualitie of the bodies that shall rise These are the two questions here moved 1 The generality and pâ—ssibility of the Resurrection Concerning the first It hath alway beene the maine and principall project of the devill so to blunder our faith in this point as to make it to bee thought a meere dreame and fable even the glorious Resurrection And to that purpose he hath heaped up a number of questions one upon another even to overwhelme the clearnesse of this truth and to make us runne wilde in this labyrinth there being such diversities of questions in it and so intricate as that men might make no evasion out of it There is nothing that hath beene more loaded with questions then this point As how the dead shall rise In what place they shall rise Râ—ndezvâ—uâ— where their randevouse shall be where they shall all meete together in what time they shall come in what time of the world in whâ—t yeare of the world how long this Resurrection shaâ—l be in the accomplishing whether many dayes or in one day or in the twinckling of an eye as the Scripture speakes to what purpose it shall be done after what manner men shall live when they are risen In what sexe they shall rise These and such like questions the Schoolmen themselves have beene too too busie to treate upon and Sathan hath by this meanes entred into the understandings and consciences of many men to make them either deny or very deeply to doubt whether these things shall be so or no. Therefore it must bee a warning to us Vse not to meddle nor to be asking questions in those things that are not revealed but to rest in those things that God hath opened unto us For it is impossible for us in any great measure to know the things here that are reserved for a better life 1. Cor. 2 9. Those things that eye hath not seene nor eare hath heard nor hath ever entred into the heart of man to conceive Can any man tell how he lived in his mothers wombe Can any man tell how he lived the first yeare when he was a babe in the world he may see and judge of it by the experience that he takes from others but to speake it of his owne person it is impossible So much more impossible is it for a man to reach to those things that are above A man goes beyond himselfe and beside himselfe and turnes foole when he looks into those things that God would keepe secret that he would never have us see till we come to that life of vision till we come to see face to face It is enough that the Lord hath said there shall be a life but what kinde of life it shall bee or what actions wee shall be imployed in other then the praising and glorifying of God we cannot determine Therefore let us learne
whose Name he makes profession Adversarii multi the adversaries bee many adversaries without any cause adversaries to them that bee their friends this is the case of the Gospel as our Lord Christ saith I am come to save you I come to heale you I come to redeeme you from all misery and you seeke to kill me a man that hath done good to you And St. Paul saith Am I therefore your enemy because I tell you the truth Such grosse and senslesse adversaries the Gospel must looke for absurd men 2. Thess 2. 2 Thess 2. I beseech you brethren pray to God for us that wee may bee delivered from absurd men senslesse men that will not know their owne good men that know not who comes to doe them service strange adversaries that will fight against their benefactors such are the adversaries of the Gospel I paid that which I never tooke they rewarded me evill for good saith David to the great discomfort of my heart but the servant is not above his Master if our Lord have beene served thus we must not thinke much to taste of the same cup of which he hath drunke before us Againe this must teach all men that travaile in the cause of Christ to have the world in no estimation but to account it as an inraged beast that speaks and doth and kicks as a child that hath no wit nor sense that scratcheth the Nurses duggs from which it receives milkc Wee must thinke to be in the middest of Lions as our Lord Iesus saith in the middest of Wolves Behold I send you forth as Lambs in the middest of Wolves be yee therefore wise as Serpents and simple as Doves And here there are two sorts of men greatly to be blamed First those of former times that could not indure opposition but when the adversaries began to rise they would fall into the Wildernesse and live like Hermits men of great gifts and of excellent perfections yet they could not indure opposition being tender hearted and of weake spirits they could not beare the malice of the multitude but would keepe themselves away and would leave the places wherein they might have done great good they left them to be invaded by Foxes and Wolves to destroy the vineyard of the Lord. This I say was culpable in them because they came short of the spirit of St. Paul that was not daunted with the multitude of adversaries but he would goe so much the rather by how much the adversaries were greater and more in number for there bee many things in the world in the aboundant company of the adversaries which are so far from affrighting as that they give greater incouragement As the Poet saith the Shepheard speaking there of the cold Winter and of the North-wind hee saith that hee feared them as little as the Wolfe feares a number of sheepe or as the Land-flood doth feare the banks in a river So it was in the high and gracious spirit of the Apostle and those that were like unto him for St. Paul was called comparatively the Wolfe of Benjamin and in a good sense because the sacrifices were offered in the Tribe of Benjamin the Temple being in the Tribe of Benjamin it was called a ravening Wolfe because it devoured the bodies of the beasts that were offered in sacrifice So St. Paul that was of the Tribe of Benjamin was compared to a Wolfe as Gregory Gregory Augustine and Austin give the reason because he did eate up the sacrifices of the Heathen people as St. Peter in the vision was bid to Arise kill and eate this was the power that the Apostle had in the Church to devoure the wickednesse of the people and to change and digest it into their owne stomacks Now as the Wolfe cares not how many sheepe there be in a fold for when hee comes to steale if the shepherd and his dog be away hee takes more comfort in a great many then to see a handfull of sheepe he knowes that if their were ten times so many they could doe him no harme being fearefull creatures therefore he rejoyceth So the children of God are compared to Wolves to Lions to creatures that are victorious and conquering they are so farre from a sheepish and fearefull and base and cowardly disposition for the faculties and abilities of their adversaries that they take the more delight to see the adversaries many And as the great floods when the snow is melted upon the mountaines or when there hath beene a great Land-flood when it fâ—lls from the hills it scornes to be compassed in within banks but it overflowes and over-runnes all and makes new conduits new sourses and new channels where there was never any before So the mighty streame of the Gospel by the Apostles it could not bee contained within the banks and common limits that the Philosophers and naturall men could afford but it over-ranne all with a mighty current and flood upon the world with the sacred influence of it the hearts and mindes of them were watered that were never possessed of it before That kind of Monasticall Heremiticall life it is nothing agreeable to the profession of St. Paul in this place that for feare of danger will convey themselves into woods into caves and cells and alienate themselves from their worke and labour because they are afraid of opposition the spirit of St. Paul riseth the greater As the Palme-tree the more weight is laid upon it so much the more it strives and heaves against it so the Spirit of God in this Apostle and in all true Christians it is never so frolick nor they are never so high-spirited as when they see the malice of their adversaries most pregnant and most furious against them Secondly it blames those men much more 2 Sort blamed that in the time of prosperity when there are many adversaries yet they will not shew themselves but lie on their pillowes of pleasure and seeke to bee quiet they will have no man speake against them they will incurre no mans hatred or ill-will but they will hold the truth of God to themselves in the bosome of their owne conscience and never open it or stand for it These men are farre worse then the former for indeed the former had some good pretence because there was way-laying lying in wait for their lives and conspiracy against them to take them away from the earth therefore they thought it fittest to yeeld to the time and to reserve themselves unto a better occasion But when men shall live in their prosperity and have peace round about them and shall see the adversaries come and creep in craftily and sow false doctrine hereticall doctrine and things that savour of the old dregs and reliques of Antichristianisme and they themselves have excellent gifts and meanes to refute and confound these things and yet because they will not abridge themselves of their pleasure they will set some young novice in the place that is able to
pitch of excellencie and perfection till the Apostles times Therefore to conclude this point We may learne here that the Apostle is not vain-glorious to take all the praise to himselfe but he communicates the glory with his brethren and saith and we also It is true that he boasts of his owne afflictions 2 Cor. 11.23 c. 2 Cor. 11. where he speakes of perils among false brethren of perils by sea of perils by land and of innumerable dangers greater than other men had because then he was driven to it his enemies forced him by their detraction But when he is left to himselfe he communicates the glory of his passion to his fellow Apostles and saith in the plurall number We also suffex This should teach all men humility to thinke when they conceit highest of themselves that there are other men as great as they As the Poet saith there are a kinde of men that will be Domine fac totum the chiefe in all matters such men that take to themselves the glory and praise of businesse the whole act must be theirs though there be no such matter As though they had trod the Wine-presse alone and not Christ as though they had borne the burden in the heate of the sunne by day and in the cold by night These the Apostle speakes of when he saith they measure themselves by themselves 2 Cor. 10. 2 Cor. 10.12 These kinde of Bragadocio's are confronted by the spirit of God in every place What art thou beside a member of Christ and What hast thou that thou hast not received and what canst thou doe more than another man and why is not another man as good as thou Let men be ashamed to take the glory of things to themselves but let them communicate it with the Church and say in the plurall number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And we also The Apostle although he best deserve to take the glory to himselfe single yet he will not exclude the other he takes in his Collegians all of that livery with him and saith We also are in danger Lastly for this point in that he saith and we also we must labour to prove this by our owne lives and examine how this comes to us The Saints before suffered for the profession of Christ we must looke to put our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to it to make our selves participants and to say and we also But how doe we participate with them we see they suffered afflictions for Christ but we are voluptuous riotous and wicked Here is a faire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and we too They gave their lives from the world to God and for other things they cared not We care for nothing but this life present and the pampering of our bellies the very source of damnation Here is a goodly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a goodly imitation Yet we must imitate them if we will be saved our fore-elders were honest pure and sincere a man might trust them upon their word but we are false and fraudulent cozening creatures here is a goody 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and we too Our forefathers were given to hospitality to doe good but the men of our times coop themselves up in corners and keepe all to themselves to spend upon their bellies and upon their backes Here is a faire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and we too We imitate well this is a left-hand imitation Our fathers scorned to give any thing for Church-livings or Ecclesiasticall promotions they tooke it to be as it is a monstrous and mortall sinne But men now care not which way they come by any thing whether by God or the divell it is no matter so they have it Here is a goodly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and we too Let us either labour to be sonnes of the faithfull in our sufferings and in the manner of our conversations or we shall never come to the happinesse of their condition It is to no purpose for men to dreame of a stately seate in heaven when they live damnable and base lives upon earth So much for that point the subject of the proposition 3 The Predicate Now for the predicate We are in danger The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greeke is very elegant to move sorrow and griefe For so certainly all danger and jeopardy doth as the Poet saith Death it selfe is not so terrible as the feare in the staying and long delaying of it The apprehension of danger moves continuall feare and continuall feare must needs make a continuall slavery As the Poet saith It is impossible for a man to live in freedome in liberty and in feare too for that is a part of servitude and of slavery Now therefore this jeopardy the Apostle speakes of it was the apprehension of danger from false brethren from persecutors from the tyrants of the time of perill from the sea of perill from the land Whatsoever could hold him in matter of feare this is the danger he speakes of that he was in ieopardy of c. For a man to have his life hang before him Deut. 28.66 as the Lord saith Deut. 28. If you will not obey my will and commandements I will make your lives hang in doubt before you that is you shall be in suspence you shall not know when you shall live and when you shall dye thus God threatneth the wicked but when the godly in a voluntary profession take this anxious life to hang alwaies in suspence we must imagine what a mighty perturbation it is There is no persecution in the world like that when a man is prolonged in the feare of another when he is held still in doubting and suspence A man were better to fall at once than alway to hang thus he had better be dispatched than to live still in trouble in misery and torment and there is no such hanging to the soule as feare still representing the evill and no end of the evill Behold the state of the primitive children of God The Church of God upon earth is still in jeopardie there is nothing safe and secure although they have indeed a security from God that is better than all the security of conscience the peace and quiet of heart and minde yet in respect of the world there is nothing secure but they are ever moving The children of darkenesse are alway working against the issue of light to make their lives nothing but a meere jeopardy What these perils were the Apostle in another place explaines I cannot now insist upon them but come to the extent which is the next part which followes They were without intermission 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4 The Extent Every houre this is that which makes it more miserable In all the diseases and troubles of this life there be some lucida intervalla some kinde of good fits some tempers that doe comfort and make up some kinde of strength to nature for those breaches which the distemper afterwards
sinfull man had spoken this it had beene no newes but that it should come from a most sanctified vessell of the holy Ghost a chosen vessell one that for his life was unblameable and for all learning and the graces of the spirit incomparable that he should utter this it is a very strange mervaile Indeed a reprobate a man that followes his owne lusts that lives not to God but to himselfe he may truely say I dye daily For the Lord makes his life to be hanged before him as a perpetuall signe of death that as the children of God are said to have the earnest of the spirit and of the kingdome of heaven so the servants of sinne may be said to receive the earnest of hell So many passages of his life as there be they are as so many flakes of hell burning before him and doe assure him that at the last he shall be tumbled and divolved into the damnation of the divell and his Angels That gnawing worrne of conscience makes his life a continuall death But that the Saints of God should be thus troubled too it is this that moves the wonder And yet the Apostle here saith nay and sweares it too that not onely wicked men are troubled and galled with the conscience of sinne that they are alway in death because they are the sonnes of death and study that which tends to death but he that had the fruit of life he that had the spirit of God and of Christ in him Gal. 2.20 nay that had Christ himselfe as he saith It is no longer I that live but Christ liveth in me that he should he subject to this death and to this frequencie of death that there was never a day came over his head but a new death was presented to him It seemeth strange The reason of this we must fetch out of the rest of his writings for there he hath set downe the summe of every thing that we are to conceive of this mystery The first reason or meanes of this death it was that he carried the divell about him as Gregory Nazianzen saith in his 32. Nazianzen Orat. 32. Oration to the Bishops at Constantinople when he was to leave the place Saith he Even as it was with Paul 2 Cor. 12.7 so doe I carry the divell about me alluding to that place 2 Cor. 12. where the Apostle complaines of the messenger and instrument of Sathan that was sent to buffet him continually that he could not be at peace and quiet for him and he prayed to the Lord thrice against it but the Lord answered him My grace is sufficient for thee Rom. 7 23. This was it that made him to say I protest by the rejoycing that I have in our Lord Iesus Christ I dye daily For my life is such a kinde of condition as wherein the flesh and the spirit are continually conflicting together good and evill righteousnesse and sinne are alway countermanding one another A good conscience and an evill conscience sorrow and joy heaven and hell God and the divell are continually in an agony and combate This conflict that I sustaine betweene the flesh and the spirit is that which makes me dye daily and makes me cry out Oh wretched and miserable man that I am Rom. 7.24 who shall deliver me from this body of death that is from the sting of the law in my members whereby I am carryed in contradiction to the good spirit of God And so as Nazianzen saith he did carry Sathan about him nay within him also For the reliques of sinne which he cals the messenger of Sathan the instrument of the divell the remainders of corruption were in him yea and are in all the sonnes of God For there was none ever without them but that Sonne of God that came to take away the sinnes of the world The second reason why the Apostle said he dyed daily was because the divell bare him outwardly by envy and trouble and persecution he carried him on his shoulders he was the beast that he was set on And no marvell for if the divell could make our Lord sit on his backe Math. 4. Mat. 4. and that our Lord Iesus rode upon the divell as a man would ride upon a horse if he were so impudent as to set himselâ—fe under our Lord and carry him about to the pinacle of the Temple and to the mountaine then well may he come to the shoulders nay to the very bowels of his members If he did so to the head he will doe to the members much more Acts 17.4.12 Thus he still carried Paul wheresoever he came by the envy of the world by the malice of the Iewes and Gentiles as upon the occasion of those devout and religious womens beleeving whereupon they raised persecution against him and that wheresoever he came there was eyther stoning or fire and faggot or banishment some mischiefe intended Treason by false brethren treason by his opposers or treason of those that were best trusted of him every where he was inclosed with perill This was the divell without him as some of the Fathers imagine 2 Cor. 12 7. from that place 2 Cor. 12. that messenger of Sathan there sent to buffet him They say it was not so much any inward thing he speakes of But I yeeld not to this for I suppose it was somewhat inward Rom. 7.23 But the Fathers say he meanes another matter he speakes of men and of the malice of men that would not suffer the Gospell to passe in the world and that for this he saith he dyed daily by the perpetuall hand of those murtherers I cannot goe any where but the malice of men persecutes and followes me so that I cannot rest and if they could trap me once in their snare and make a prey of me I were surely theirs and then I were gone the feare of this makes me dye daily Thirdly another cause that made the Apostle dye daily was the opposition that hee had by Idolaters wheresoever he came Idolaters still laboured to put downe the Gospell As we see at Athens Acts 17. Acts 17.16 The Text saith His spirit was sore troubled when hee saw the City given to idolatry And so likewise when he came to Ephesus they cry Acts 19.28 Great is Diana of the Ephesians Diana the Idoll of Ephesus had like to have cost him his life Therefore the vexation of his spirit to see men fall down to stocks and stones and to forget that loyalty they ought to God Rom. 1.25 To worship the creature in stead of the Creator This made him teare his cloathes and ready to teare his flesh for the vexation of his spirit to see whole Cities so given over Fourthly another cause of this daily death of the Apostle it was the opposition that he had by Witches and Sorcerers wheresoever he came almost the divell would still set some Witch in the place so in Acts 16.17 Acts
in the Apostles place that they would Vse 1 follow his steps to have their reioycing in this one Lord and master to have no ioy in the world or in men in goods and profits in pleasures honours or in preferments which the world usually buyes and sels To have no reioycing in these but as they bee men that belong to God so let them reioyce onely in God And there is all the poynt of gloriation Therefore let not the rich man boast in his riches Ier. 9.23 or the strong man in his strength but let him that reioyceth reioyce in the Lord for it is he that executes iudgement and iustice and that sheweth mercy to those that reioyce in him as the Lord speakes Vse 2 Againe this must teach us to mingle these two together as the holy Apostle doth Reioycing and death we must labour by the study of pleasing Almighty God to keepe this sweet temper in us Wee are sure of the one but we must labour for the other I wonder not when I heare thee say as the Apostle doth here I dye daily for every man doth so there is not the most sensuall man but he hath a touch of death every day eyther by sensible misery or by the touch of conscience by bringing of his sinnes to his view That is incident to nature and a consequent of sinne to dye But what is thy reioycing what comfort hast thou in Christ This is that we should desire and call upon God continually for even to make this temper and mixture in us for the one is as necessarie as the other and God is as ready to give the one as our nature is ready to draw the other upon it selfe And this must be by this one meanes the making Iesus Christ thy Lord knowing no other Lord besides him no nor none against him nor none with him but that he may have the preheminence and be all in all as he is to his children in the world and shall be for ever in another world So thou must make him all thy ayme all that thou desirest all thy gloriation because thou must or canst desire nothing but it is seated in him To conclude with the time here is a modell of a christian mans estate death and life sorrow and ioy he is composed of such strange differences as the understanding of man cannot attaine unto But yet assuredly the Lord is never so heavy to him in iudgment but he is withall rich in mercy sorrow of heart shall never so surround him but he shall have the ioy of the holy Ghost to survive him As Saint Augustine Augustine saith upon that place of Paul Redeeme the time because the dayes are evill I saith he it is true the time in this world is evill but all the dayes that are in Christ are good dayes all the dayes of the Lord are good all the dayes of sinne are evill Let us sell them then he that redeemes parts with one thing to get another Let us sell these evill dayes in this world that we may get those good dayes in the grace of Christ And as Saint Gregory Gregory saith Good Iesus hee that hath thee looseth nothing and though he be in the midst of death yet he shall be recompenced with life although hee be in the midst and swallowed up with sorrow and deepe pangs of conscience yet thy spirit is there to remove that sorrow for though sorrow indureth for a night yet ioy commeth in the morning Psal 30. Psal 30.5 And in thy light wee shall see light thy wrath indures for the twinckling of an eye but in thy pleasure there is life for evermore This is the blessed state that every Christian is called unto and the Lord make it every one of our portions for Iesus Christs sake Amen FINIS 1 COR. 15.32 If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men what doth it availe me if there be no resurrection from the dead THis is now the conclusion of that argument which Saint Paul draws from his owne person For drawing his principall argument from the sufferings of the Church to prove the resurrection of the dead he begins first with the generall and then he descends to the particular and last of all he comes to the personall First the generall was verse 29. What shall they doe that are baptised for the dead Then in the next verse he comes to the Colledge of the Apostles and saith We also are in ieopardy every day And for his owne particular he protests he dyes daily in the verse before the Text. And now he comes to explaine this how it should be taken saith he If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men Because he had spoken of a thing unlikely and unusuall and unwonted and therefore it might be offensive to Atticke eares such as were at Corinth to say that he lived and yet was dead therefore now he tempers his speech and mitigates it by this exposition when he saith He received the sentence of death against himselfe for hee was cast to beasts to fight with them eyther indeed according to the letter as it was a kinde of punishment and torment that the Pagan persecutors assigned the Christians unto or by way of metaphore as many and most of the Fathers of the Church interpret it But how ever the force of the argument is all one For whether he were cast to beasts and suffered to take his weapons and to defend himselfe and so by the mercy of God to escape without hurt from them or whether he meane by fighting with beasts beastly minded men as the phrase of Scripture often insinuates the strength of the argument is all one For often times a man were better bee cast unto beasts then to men there being more mercy and lesse fury in the pawes of the very beasts than in the working braines of men and the malicious conveyances that they have in the world So whether wee take it for beasts literally or for men that were beasts metaphorically the force of the argument is equall For saith he if there were no hope of the Resurrection then I would doe as the world doth and I would say as they say I would accommodate my selfe to all mens humours I would be so farre from casting my selfe into such dangers as to sight with beasts or with beastly men as that I would seeke to recover my owne which I had once being a Pharisie I would live a quiet and peaceable life among my brethren as I did then when I was rather ready to doe others hurt than to suffer any I would much rather choose that state of life than thus to be plagued and plunged and drowned in misery if there were not a hope of a Resurrection but the vigour and life of that hope duls all the pangs in this world and sweetens the cup of affliction which else would eate out my very intrayles If
I have fought with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men what avayleth it if the dead rise not Why should I cast my selfe into these dangers why should I indure them any longer why should I not at the first grapling with the troubles of this life betake my selfe to that more sure and easie condition But because the Church before mee hath done thus therefore I follow her steps I see what Iohn Baptist hath suffered I see what Iames the brother of Iohn hath indured I see what the Innocents have undergone I see what the blessed Martyr Stephen hath suffered All these in great tranquillity of spirit have yeelded their soules to God And the Prophets in former time I see they have suffered for the same profession that I now have taken upon me for their doctrine was the same they all poynted to Christ they all preached the doctrine of the Resurrection therfore as the Church in generall hath gone before and all the Colledge of Apostles in particular have traced after I also will personally insist in their steps 2 Tim. 1.12 and follow too I know whom I have beleeved I have laid up my trust in his hand that will not deceive me therefore I am assured there shall be a Resurrection of this flesh of this body that hath suffered so many torments for the cause of Christ it shall be againe invested with so many notes of glory and happinesse as it hath indured miseries and torments and that according to the multitude of my sorrowes so shall my consolations abound in Christ This I take to be the summe and sence of this Text. But it is intricate to consider the many sences that are given of it which notwithstanding we may not neglect any of them for then wee shall slight the grace of God which hath alway beene various in his Church We ought therefore to view every thing to prove all things as the Apostle saith 1 Thes 5.21 and keepe that which is best and most firme and sollid Augustne As Saint Austin saith God would have his Scriptures to bee hard and difficult and full of divers sences because hee would have no idle fellowes to come unto it because he would rouse up the diligence of his children The Lord doth not take away the proper sence of the Scriptures from them that are studious and diligent and carefull but onely hee shuts up the sence from negligent and carelesse men but he opens it againe to those that knocke as Christ saith Knocke and it shall be opened unto you Therefore first we are to consider the great and maine difficulty of the Text in the interpreting of those two words which are diversly taken Exposition of the words First what it is the Apostle meanes when he saith He fought with beasts Secondly what it is hee saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after men or after the manner of men And though the divers editions and translations have reconciled them to our hand yet there is nothing so authenticall but a man may give another exposition as good and as full of authority as that And then after the exposition we are to come to The description of this trouble Division 1 What it was and 2 Where it was What it was that it was such a kinde of trouble as was to death and to very destruction in the judgment of man as it appeares plainely by this and by that in 2 Cor. 1.8 where the Apostle makes a relation of it 2 Cor. 1.8 And then where it was at Ephesus the most ingenious place in the world where the divell had set his throne in the greatest triumph As it is said Rev. 2 I know thy dwelling Apoc. 2.13 where Sathans throne is there was Dyana's temple the most famous Idoll in the world the throne of Sathan Acts 19.35 was there more conspicuously then any where else therefore it was most likely that there should be the greatest persecution where men were most of all corrupted and infected with Idolatry And then lastly to gather the force of the argument if there be no Resurrection what doth it profit me that I have fought with beasts at Ephesus As if he should have said he is a mad man and a foole that will cast himselfe into danger without profit The great adventurers of the world they still propose to themselves ends of profit to what good to what end things may be it is that which sets all mens wits on worke it is that which commands the lives and labours of men to farre and forraine Countries and he that workes without an end without apparant profit he is of all men the most franticke therfore so must I be saith the Apostle if there be no Resurrection To what profit is it that I have fought with beasts If there be not some profit but that I have exposed my selfe to danger onely to get me a name I were of all others the most furious and mad but God forbid that the Church before me or the Apostles with me or I my selfe should bee thus deluded to throw our selves into hazard to have no profit to have no meanes to comfort our selves after our trouble to have nothing for our labour God forbid we should be so insensate Therefore because we doe thus and are assured of Gods promise that we shall have a reward and an abundant recompence therefore as sure as God liveth we shall not loose our labour there shall be a Resurrection for so the Apostles argument is framed If there be no Resurrection then why doe I take this paines and if I take this paines for no profit then I and the rest of the faithfull that suffer are mad and furious men but we are not mad nor furious but are indued with the spirit of God and we know what we doe wee know whom we have trusted 2 Tim. 1.12 and therefore wee are certaine of an abundant recompence This is the summe and ground of the argument and these are the branches of the Text. Of these in order as the spirit of God shall assist me And first for that the Apostle saith If I have fought with beasts A great many sound Divines hold it true in the letter that Saint Paul was obiected to beasts and was constrained to fight with them for the saving of his life You shall understand that among the severall torments the Church of God was subject unto by persecutors this was one kinde to make the people sport by setting two or three of the Saints of God upon a stage where there were so many Panthers Leopards Lyons or Beares and there they were to tugge for their lives We see in the Churches History this hath beene alway one kinde of their persecution We see it also of ancient time In the time of Daniel King Darius Dan. 6.16 upon the instigation of his Lords cast Daniel into the Denne and it is said the Lyons were famished a long time
before that they should devoure him suddenly as they iudged but we know the issue of it the Lyons by the mercy of God were so couchant to Daniel that he had no harme But when his accusers came they were so rampant as that they crushed the bones of them their wives and children before they came to the ground Ignatius Epist 12 ad Romanos Saint Ignatius when hee heard the voyce of the Leopard that was to devoure him in the height of his spirit he gave God thanks Now saith he I shall be ground as fine flowre by the teeth of the Leopard that I may become fine manchet for God I shall become bread for Gods owne Table Sylvanus Bishop of Emesa Nicephorus Hist l. 7. c. 16. and divers others of Gods Saints have passed this way into heaven even by being objected unto beasts But Saint Paul certainly was not in this manner to bee cast naked and bound as a prey unto the beasts for that was for condemned men but Saint Paul was not cast as a condemned man to death to be torne in pieces but as a man condemned onely to tryall ad certamen to make sport to the people So there were certaine mercenary fellowes hirelings that for money would adventure their skinnes and lives and tugge with the Beares as there was of late amongst us So the Court of persecutors when they had sitten against any of the Saints of God as it came in their minde to make them a spectacle and to give sport to the people they appoynted such a one to be cast to the beasts not to bee bound hand and foot and torne in pieces without resistance but to make use of his weapon and of the cunning he had and if it were possible to make an evasion In this sort they say Paul was cast and objected to the beasts We see also in Tertullians time Tertul. it was the common exclamation still against the Christians If the yeere were too hot or if it were too dry or if there were barrennesse or any inundation upon the ground they put it still upon Christians and their word was Cast the Christians to the Lyons Christianum ad Leones This may well be this interpretation may well stand that Saint Paul in this kinde was objected to the very beasts to fight for his life He was not cast to them as one bound and naked to be torne in pieces of them but as one that was put to a venture ad certamen either by miracle to bee delivered by his fortitude and skill or else to be devoured Thus we reade of divers in former time Q. Curtius Alexander the great caused Lysimachus his deare friend to be cast to the Lyon and he by his valour overcame the Lyon and slew him and made himselfe after a free man and better accepted into favour with Alexander In this sort some imagine that Saint Paul was rescued and delivered by the power of God Almighty from the mouth of the Lyon As he saith 2 Tim. 4. 2 Tim 4.17 God hath delivered me from the mouth of the Lyon even the Lyon literally to whom he was exposed at his abode at Ephesus for he was there almost three yeeres This exposition no man can possibly finde fault with it being naturall and easie and as long as the literall sence is easie and without absurdity may be admitted we ought not to flye to metaphors But yet there is some thing that the contrary side of Divines hold against it Obiect 1 As first if there had beene such a thing that Paul had beene cast to beasts at Ephesus to fight for his life Saint Luke the great Chronicler of Pauls actions would not have omitted it but hee speakes nothing of it therefore there was no such thing For it seemes that he that takes upon him to write the History of a man must of necessity set down the chiefe and most rare and eminent passages of his life and what greater and more glorious relation could there be than that Saint Paul should fight for his life at Ephesus even with beasts and that he should by the mercy of God be delivered as Daniel was from the Lyons in the denne Therefore seeing Saint Luke hath buried it in deepe silence and mentions nothing lesse therefore it argueth it must not bee thus understood that Saint Paul was thus cast unto beasts Answ But this is easily put off For wee know that Saint Luke although he were a diligent writer of the actions of Saint Paul yet hee pretermits many things which Saint Paul himselfe in the Catalogue of his owne passions relates 2 Cor. 11.24.25 2 Cor. 11. for we have not in Luke many passages that are there As his being a day and a night in the deepe sea with some others but onely a briefe and short narration so that this may well be among those things that Saint Luke left unwritten as referring us more fully to the narration of Saint Paul himselfe who was the best witnesse of his owne travailes Another obiection Beza hath surely saith hee Obiect 2 Saint Paul was not cast naked â—eza and bound as a prey to the beasts for then saith he it had beene unlawfull for Saint Luke not to have taken notice of such a wondrous miracle as that Therefore if hee were cast to them it must be as a man to fight for his life and surely saith he he came not there to fight with beasts for that would have taken from his reputation hee would have beene thought to bee a sword-player to venture and expose his life to fight with beasts to please and satisfie men For this exercise was called venation and condemned by the Cannon law A man may not for money or for pleasing of the people come upon a Stage to encounter with beasts but to account it as a bloudy furious and barbarous spectacle to be abhord and abstained But this also hath no weight in it Answ For a man cannot say that Saint Paul came unto it with his will but he was thrust on and forced to it and I cannot imagine why a man should be lesse reputed of or how it should bring any shame to his profession when he suffers wrong Indeed when he offers wrong and thrusts himselfe into such actions then it is true but when he is thrust upon it that he cannot avoyd it in this there is no matter of disreputation The last objection against this opinion is of them Obiect 3 that say that those that were objected to beasts were alway cast to them for a prey But that is not so For all Civilians agree Answ that there were two sorts of them that were cast to beasts There were some that were condemned according to the quality of their offence as they thought to be torne in pieces and in that sort Saint Paul was not cast to the beasts Some againe were cast to them to try masteries and so they say Paul was
he must stand up and do the actions of an holy life It is true saith S. Austin I see thou are rowsed and wakened but yet thou art drowsie thou art rubbing thine eyes thou hast not yet quite overcome and mastred thy sleepe but I tell thee God will have thee shake off all this sleepe and drowsinesse and so to awaken as Christ awakened from death he once left the grave never to return and come there any more For in that he dyed hee dyed once for sinne but in that he liveth he liveth ever to God Then therefore a man is risen justly when there is no part of drowsinesse remaines in him when he is not like those sleepie creatures that rise in their sleepe and go about their businesse and go to bed againe and when they have done all know not of it There is a kinde of kell or skinne wanting in the braine wherein memory should be retentive therefore they do many things in their sleepe But God would have men so waken as that there should no portion of this drowsinesse rest in them This doctrine is very necessarie For there is much sleepe carries them away that are most watchfull there is infinite heavinesse and slumber waits upon them God is in his children in one part and the devill in another part that they now speake well anon they do ill many make profession of the Gospell and yet shew no pittie to the poore nor exercise charitie where they see occasion These men are awaked and they be doing and stirring but it is not justly as God would have them When once a man leaves that way and habite which hee had before and hath a new spirit of life put into him he is then all for action and for working in the wayes of God Now I come to the Exposition Exposition And sinne not Here the Apostle expounds what he meanes by waking Where first the Apostle gives us to understand that the cause of all foolish and idle speech and communication as those hee speakes of before Let us eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye the cause of these idle discourses it is meerly an inherent habite of sinne so that corruption is the plague that causeth evill speeches and behaviour and the one as a pestilent serpent brings forth the other It is sinne that breeds monstrous opinions it is sinne that breeds all the heresies in the world they have no other mother As Saint Ambrose Ambrose saith those that make shipwracke of a good life it is no marvell if they make shipwracke of a good faith They that give themselves to base manners they are given over by the judgement of God to erronious opinions For as Saint Chrysostome saith Chrysost a wicked life is a corrupt fountaine from whence comes nothing but mud and dirt and froth Aâ—g and as Saint Austin saith well A man having knowledge once to do the will of God and yet will not do it according to his knowledge it is impossible he should retaine his knowledge he that knows what is acceptable in the sight of God and yet from a stubbornnesse of minde will not follow his knowledge the Lord shall bring that judgement upon him that he shall lose that power that he shall not be able to know what is right and what is wrong Take the talent from that unprofitable servant Mat. 25.28 and give it to him that hath ten talents Matth. 6.23 If the light in a man be darknesse how great is that darknesse from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath It is a fearfull and terrible sentence let us all tremble under the blast of it for it concernes every man As long as he lives in sinne it is the greatest miracle in the world that he is not drowned in it To keepe a true faith with a bad life it is meerly impossible Therefore sinne not For that there is all this false and idle communication that there is this base conversation these evill speeches these distrustfull languages concerning God and concerning the Resurrection the cause of it is this inveterate sinfulnesse If God punish men with giddinesse of braine and blinde their understandings that the light in him be darknesse it is a fearfull stroke yet this comes from sinne therefore he joynes both together and injoynes them saying Sinne not But how saith the Apostle sinne not Ob. Doth he not know they were men would he have them of Angelicall natures Doth not the Apostle Saint Iohn say If we that is if we that are Apostles 1. Joh. 1.8 if we say that wee have no sinne we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us And if the Physitian require of his Patient a thing that he cannot possibly do as to tell him that is diseased that hee must fetch such an hearbe from the East-Indies to cure him it were a meere trouble and delusion and the way to make him desperate Therefore what doth the Apostle meane when he saith Sinne not Why all men are sinners and stand in need of the glory of God and a man must pray as duly for the forgivenesse of his sinnes as for his daily bread they follow both as necessarily the one upon the other as it is possible two benefits can do Answ But to sinne in Scripture is taken in these sences chiefly First men are said to sinne that study sinne that hunt after sinne that seeke it many men are so given to the devill in the world that if hee do not seeke them they will seeke him The Apostle bids us take heed of that it is a terrible thing when a man hath a carefull minde to serve Sathan and to leave and forsake the living God The nature of Gods children may be overtaken with infirmities but they do not study for it Secondly they are said to sinne that go on in sinne so Saint Iohn saith the childe of God doth not sinne because they premise it not before hand and they call themselves to account and to judgement for it after they judge themselves for their sinne There is no man nor no barre in the world can devise that punishment for the childe of God that he doth inflict upon himselfe he is his owne judge and his owne executioner Therefore he makes no profession of his sinne but is ashamed and hides his head upon every remembrance of his sinne Therefore he is said nor to sinne by the speciall grace of God that covers his sinne because he cannot indure it As Saint Basil Basil saith If thy sinne please thee not it shall never hurâ— thee Lastly they are said to sin that sin to desperatioÌ„ thaâ— care not for pardon that disclaime the mercy of God that say their sinne is so great that it cannot bee forgiven like Cain and Iudas that will none of Gods compassion that reject his favour and will not subject themselves to his censure but are ready to say thus
to extend this point as in all other things to come with modesty For if men will still be moving of questions and never make an end the Apostle calls it doting about questions 1 Tim. 6.4 He that is not content saith he with these things but will teach other things he is sicke about questions he labours of a great sicknesse the sicknesse of the soule which is the greatest sicknesse that can be And so about the matter of Baptisme that we are now to celebrate the devill doth plie doubting spirits with many questions As how is it possible that water should wash away sinne That a tincture and touch of water should do this what is the grace that God conferres in Baptisme whether it be an inherent thing in the soule whether it be a habite that can be removed or not removed whether it be necessarily effected by the collation of Baptisme or no Such things should not trouble us but we ought to follow the ordinance of God and to know that hee that hath promised is able to performe it hee that became a sacrifice for mankinde and was a sweet smelling savour unto God for the sinne of man he alone was able and had power and authoritie to ordaine a Sacrament and to blesse it with all those gracious appendices to make it a passage unto life the seale of glory And therefore he hath given us his Word and we cannot seeke further We know that a Prince can make a Knight of the Garter by sending his George though it bee a Prince in France or in another Countrey and he never saw the man nor came neare him yet by sending his Garter he is invested into that Order So much more the great God of heaven and earth when he sends us these badges and symbols even the two Sacraments Baptisme and the Lords Supper These are the seales and signes of our investing into this holy order and we cannot miscarrie in our faith in this we are sure these signes are never frustrate but they put us into that honour and they possesse us of that order which our Prince hath sent unto us And as a Prince that sends a pardon to a malefactour or that sends a letter of grace and honour and advancement we know that those letters are still efficacious and have their worke upon the person to whom they are sent Much more is the letter of Baptisme powerfull which is sent from God which is turned from a letter to a working instrument It is not idle and fruitlesse but is alwayes working to eternall life and it puts them into honour that he that was a meane man before is now advanced to high dignitie it follows upon him he is as sure of it in his person by meanes of that letter and conveyance as men are of any possessions in the world So that this honour that God gives to Christians by Baptisme it is true and permanent it is inherent it is really conferred upon him Therefore we are not to move doubts and questions upon it but in our holy faith to follow our holy God and to know that he is able to do whatsoever hee will Psal 135.6 both in heaven and earth and in the sea and in all deepe places And for the conferring of grace it is certaine that by the prayers of the people by the faith of the Church and the faith of the parents there is a measure of grace conferred in Baptisme too That is those three Cardinall vertues those three principall stems faith hope and charitie though they do not yet worke and appeare in the childe because it is weake and must come to age first yet as reason lyes hidde in the childe for divers moneths and perhaps for divers yeares before it shew it selfe by speech and conversing so these graces are actually and really in the childe although they do not worke till God give them their fulnesse and growth as the Lord hath appointed to every thing it s owne time and operation So much for the first question that is about the Resurrection in generall 2 The quaâ—ities of the resurrection The second is concerning the qualities of the bodies raised And herein the nature of man troubleth it selfe more then in all the rest So curious and so sickish to know what correspondence there sh ll be betweene man and man to know in what kinde of stature they shall rise in what colour they shall have what imployment they shall be ra sed for whether a childe shall rise as a childe whether an old man shall râ—se in his old age whether crooked and deformed men shall rise crooked and deformed whether a Prince shall rise in the qualitie of a Prince and a prâ—vate man as a private man S ch foolâ—sh things the weake minde of man doats upon The qualitie and manner being of all other things the most hard to be conceived It is an easier matter to perswade a man of the substance of the thing that there shall be a Resurrection then to perswade him of the difference and of the qualities of men at the Resurrection What sexes againe male and female and so as the Sadduces thought man and w fe and consequently a new love and concordance and generation of the world Thus the foolish heart of man conceives To this then let us give that answer to our selves and to all others that dare meddle with these hidden matters which the Apostle gives for wee can give no better Foole thou thinkest it is a great part of wit to devise these things but they are such as languish the soule they are fearfull decayes and defacings of the image of God Chrysost For saith Saint Chrysostome such a desire of questioning shall never be stayed any where it multiplies and rebounds still on a man and at last overwhelmes him Therefore the onely wisedome is for men to betake them to principles and fundamentall doctrines which are the â—nely things that God would have us to build on As for these curiosities they shall once appeare but not yet God hath kept them for another world We see the Lord is marvellous in concealing of his works in materiall corporall things What a while was it before America was found out and when Plato Plato said there was another world as bigge as Affrica the world laught at him And when other Philosophers affirmed it still they were laught at for their labour And Pope Vitellius deposed a Bishop because in his conference he said there were such a people as the Antipodes We see then how long the world was in grosse ignorance in things that are created in things that are obvious and common to sence We know by experience that it is but the other day since halfe the world was found out nay it is certaine that some part of the world lyes still hidde So secret doth God keepe his riches that when men have gotten all they can that they should know that there is
grosse heresies for which he is said to deny the Resurrection notwithstanding hee denyed it not but he had a conceit that the bodies of men and women should rise and then after that they should dye againe and another Resurrection should come after that and another after that and in every Resurrection they should bee lesse and lesse untill they were brought to nothing Thus in effect he denyed it But the truth is by the doctrine of the Scriptures and of the Apostles that the Resurrection shall make our bodies nothing lesser but greater and it is certaine that the stature and proportion of those that shall be raised to glory in the life to come shall bee infinitely more great then that which they have now Numb 13.33 they shall be like gyants in respect of grassehoppers according to their speech that went to spie out the land of Promise We see now in this small stature that we have in this world what a goodly sight it is to see a tall proper man they be as it were the gyants of the earth the glory of the world they be the chiefe copies of Gods great and wondrous power and there is that state and majestie in their bodies which is not to be found in the persons of little men As also we see that those countries which naturally bring forth such tall and mighty men they have great priviledges and presidents of honour given unto them that God hath done by them mighty and marvellous works in the world Therefore the glory of manhood consists now in a strait and tall procerity in a goodly proportion of limbes and bignesse of body In which regard Saul was commended that hee was higher then all the people by the head and shoulders And so in Homer 1. Sam. 9.1 Homer great men have still this commendation they are men that are eminent above their fellows that are of such a proportion I say then if it be the glory of humanity if it be the glory of manhood not to be dwarfish and small but to bee of a goodly stature in this world we must imagine that God will bring us to all perfection in the other world he will bring all his Saints to a goodly bignesse to a comely tallnesse and proportion as a little corne of wheat brings a goodly tall and beautifull eare of corne out of a small graine that is cast into the ground Therefore there is no diminution to bee imagined as if the body should grow lesse and lesse till it come to nothing but there shall bee a great ampliation the Lord extending and driving out the body drawing it to the full lineaments and to the perfect length So the Apostles similitude inferres against Origen and those that maintained his opinion Now these things are very plaine in the open experience of nature but because we see not the things signified by them which we are to beleeve therefore they are held to flesh and bloud incredible to a man that is not acquainted with the field that is not seene and experimented in this kinde he would think it impossible that out of such a poore principle as a graine of corne there should come such a deale of grace and beauty as that verdure of colour and such a flower and leafe of grasse as the flagge of it that there should come so much straw to support it and that there should be such a structure in the knops of it that there should be such abundance in the treasure of it We should thinke these things meerly impossible but that common use and experience makes us cease to wonder And if we could see that which is spirituall as we do this that is outward we should as well be induced to subscribe and consent to it But in the outward thing in the world we see the sowing and the mowing we see the sowing and the reaping the seed time and the harvest Therefore by much experience we are taught to beleeve it without doubting But for that which is spirituall for the Resurrection we see onely the time of sowing but wee cannot live to see the time of mowing in this world For the bodies are sowne and the seed lyes rotting in the ground some five thousand yeares some lesse but all a long time yet it pleaseth God to bring as it were the dew of heaven upon them to raise them from their graves unto the harvest Then that truth which we now beleeve shall appeare as plainly as that which we apprehend by sence The thing which the Apostle would teach us here I will but summarily touch at because all this spâ—ech except it were better uttered is meerly unprofitable * In regard of his extream cold and unpleasant also I will therefore cut off all superfluity and onely touch that which is meerly necessary and elementarily pointed at First the Apostle tels us what is mans part And then what is Gods part in the matter of sowing and so we must apply it to the Resurrection For that is the Apostles purpose as being a parabolicall doctrine from a similitude and therefore he rests not in the outward letter but referres and reduceth us to the purpose and intent of it which is to prove the truth of the Resurrection Now the part that man doth he speaks of it Division into 1. Mans Part. 2. Gods Part. first negatively what he doth not sowe And then affirmatively what is sowne Negatively what he doth not sowe he soweth not that that shall be And then he shews affirmatively what he doth sowe a bare graine a bare corne devoyd of such ornaments as God afterwards gives unto it Then in the next part what God doth he gives it a body to every seed the same body The same body in essence and substance but so changed and bettered and altered that a man would thinke it were impossible to bring out of such a foundation such a kinde of conclusion And because the Lord is wondrous in all his works therefore he gives to every seed it s owne peculiar body although there bee many changes and differences yet it comes to it selfe againe to that it was before and it runnes as it were in a kinde of a circle he gives it its owne body And the way and manner and reason of all this is As he pleaseth For he doth whatsoever it pleaseth him in all the works of nature and in all the works of grace 1. Part. Mans part handled first negatively 2. Affirmatively Concerning the first point it is said the sower soweth not that body that shall be Which wee know to be true for hee soweth neither an eare nor hee soweth not a flagge neither soweth he a hawne nor a straw nor a knot in the straw hee soweth none of these 1 Negatively what man sows not Not that body that shall be yet notwithstanding hee soweth that which hath all these in it potentially in the power of it by the blessing
it is impossible for the body shall never grow worse and worse by degeneration but it shall bee brought by the power of God to that high perfection that it shall still be infinitely better and yet still it selfe it shall still be the selfe same in essence though not in qualities It shall be the same in substance and nature but not the same in eminencie of grace and glory It shall be the same in being but not the same in seeming or in circumstance And so Saint Chrysostome saith It is the same and not the same it is the same as touching the fundamentall essence of it and it is not the same concerning the augmentation and the rare qualities that God shall impose upon it and invest it withall And so I say it is that comfortable doctrine to this flesh of ours that there shall not be any other flesh glorified for it but that this flesh that hath suffered martyrdome this flesh that hath suffered hunger and thirst sicknesse and persecution in the world this flesh that hath suffered for Christ this flesh and no other but this shall receive the crowne of glory according to the manifold evils it hath indured Otherwise there could be no true consolation in this life seeing the spirit also shall have larger indowments The soule of man the wit shall be greater and the memory greater and all the parts and faculties shall be more excellent in the soule Now these being not visible parts therefore they are not that which shall rise For it is that which is visible which belongs to the Resurrection the glory of the soule cannot be manifest it is still hidden and inherent in the inner-man But this glory that shall be at the Resurrection it shall be manifest and there is no manifestation made but to the eye and the outward sences Therefore here comes the comfort to every poore distressed body that the same that suffers and is miserable afflicted and tormented in this world the very same body shall receive abundance of joy and comfort and glory and beautie in the day of the Lord. The poore creple that goes double that moves every mans heart to pittie to see him in the streets he shall rise with a glorious and goodly body being incorporate into Christ by faith he shall receive a body full of ample complements and blessed perfections To every seed his owne body If it be the same body how then is it a new body Ob. and how then in the Scripture is it called a glorious body which makes it different This I told you shall be by addition of certaine accidents of glory that shall acrew unto it Ans which cannot be separated as accidents may be from their subject but they indure with it continually And that consists 1. Partly in that goodly proportion that I spake of before wherein all men shall be raised in one size Not as they are now where there is great difference but all shall be of one stature and perfection And therein they shall more resemble the Image of God then if they should be made in greater variety 2. Secondly another qualitie wherewith they shall be indowed is the clearnesse and brightnesse of those bodies For although they shall not be transparent and translucent which is no property of a true body yet they shall be so full of light and gloriousnesse as the Lord Iesus his body were when he was transfigured in mount Tabor his garments did so shine that no Dyer or Fuller in the earth was able to make such a tincture or to give such a colour and glosse Mat. 17. as the garments of our Lord had Much more then was his countenance glorious and shining And if in the old Law Exod. 34.30.33 the glory of Moses face were so great that the Iewes could not endure to looke upon him but he was faine to take a veile and cover his face when hee read the Law that so they might heare what he spake without astonishment much more shall the glory of the bodies of the Saints be at that day They shall be all lightsome they shall shine like the starres in the firmament they being often compared in the Scriptures to the starres which cannot be numbred Thirdly another qualitie wherein they shall be like unto the corne The corne that seemed to bee a dead graine yet after comes to have an excellent greene colour and live so these bodies shall exceed in proportion of beauty There is great difference now some are faire and some are foule creatures and those that are the faire ones of the world they thinke themselves onely happie and those that are deformed they thinke they had better beene unborne then to live in the world Indeed it is a matter of great dejection and scorne to a naturall man to have a poore deformed body Therefore the Lord shall so alter all things in that day that every man shall have equall beauty The glorious Saints in heaven their perfection is one and the same perfection they shall have a common perfection like the Angels that waite before the Lord and the Seraphins that have the selfe same perfection and beautie shining upon them all although it be not sensible to us but is seene onely among themselves Fourthly all this glosse stature and goodlinesse that they shall have except it have also strength and vigour it is little worth Therefore God shall give them that too That as the corne riseth with an high stalke to a goodly stemme and hath knops to underproppe and support and keepe it up whereupon it is builded so the Lord saith Rev. 3.12 he that heares the word of God he will make him a pillar in the house of his Father that is he shall have the strength and glory and the fortitude of the great men of God that hee shall be able to do any thing that God shall assigne him to with great dexterity And all this with a further grace of incorruption for the seed that is sowne although it come up with a faire glosse for a time yet it presently corrupts and is brought unto a drie straw and stubble and that which is greene now to morrow it is cast into the fire But the Lord shall give unto this glorious glosse whereunto he shall bring the bodies of his Saints he shall give them an incorruptible crowne 1. Pet. 1.18 It is a crowne that is incorruptible an inheritance immortall that never hath any change The best beauty in this worldly glory a fit of an Ague will change it and long sicknesse will turne the fairest rose into an ashy coale there is nothing so subject to change and alteration as the glosse of beauty But that strength and beauty and goodlinesse of the creature after the resurrection shall be supported by that ever mighty power of Almighty God so that there shall bee no old age to draw wrinckles in the face of his Saints there shall be no sicknesse to
to its owne condition and so it comes from better to worse and from thence to nothing at all to dust and ashes But there by reason that the Lord shall shew his mercy and by reason of the infinite delight that man shall take in God againe there shall be a continuall application of God to man by a continuall influence as the Schools speak So as it is impossible to think of any entrance of corruption as that place where the Sun shines continually can never be darke and that plot of ground which hath a sweet well ever pouring into it can never be dry nor thirsty So it must needs be where God is alwaies slowing in his light and love and grace it is impossible there should be any pressing in or any suspition of corruption to come againe Therefore concerning these things the Scripture tells us Psal 36. Psal 36 9. With thee saith the Prophet is the well of life As if he should have said thy waters run alway sweet Psal 87.7 and abundantly all fresh springs are in thee Psal 23.1 therefore we shall not lack nor die for thirst because we shall have the well of life Psal 36.8 And Psal 36. Thou feedest them with the fulnesse of thy house and thou givest them pleasures as out of a river And for this purpose also even for that we should be assured of this the Scripture tels us that we shall have in stead of sorrow fulnesse of joy in stead of darknesse in this life we shall have eternall light in stead of sicknesse we shall have his saving health in stead of death we shall have life everlasting And so wee see what this incorruptibility is it consists in impassibility that the body shall not be able to suffer from any thing because God shall be alway flowing into it his goodnesse and love in Christ Iesus It shall not be able to suffer from a tempting devill it shall not suffer from it selfe nor from any other created nature it shall not suffer from sicknesse nor from time the teeth of time which devoureth all things shall not be able to set its fangs upon the bodies of the children of God They shall not suffer from hell nor from death there shall be no matter of feare in any thing they shall not suffer from the flames of fire it shall not be able to consume those glorious bodies nor the sharpest sword shall not pierce the least haire of them but as we see God preserved the three children in the fiery furnace Dan. 3.27 when it was extraordinary hot that there was not so much as the smell of the singeing of the fire upon their garments The blessed God that is able to doe this in these corrupt bodies much more will hee doe it in that incorruptible condition when hee shall advance them to that glory which himselfe will give them who is the prime author and patterne of impassibility And if the Lions were not able with their teeth when they were so famished Dan. 6. to seize upon the body of Daniel when hee was cast into the dungeon much lesse shall infirmities have power or any other violence be able to touch the bodies of those that shal be glorified in the day of Iesus Christ It shall rise in incorruption I see the time is past I will but touch the next point and leave the rest It is sowne in dishonour it is raised againe in honour The greatest griefe that a man conceives in his death is the dishonorable condition that doth accompany him that though he were never so beautifull and beloved before yet his best and dearest friends will be readie to quit him now yea they cannot indure his company so that he must be removed out of sight as being an odious spectacle to looke upon as an intolerable neighbour that is not to be come neere as one that will infect all the society where he is as a pestilent creature that must be shunned and avoided that must be shut up close within the ground where hee may doe no harme nor be noysome and offensive to those that are above ground This is the strange dishonour to our nature that the great Lords and Ladies which have slept before upon their beds of Ivorie Amos 6.4 which had their goodly Curtaines and Canopies and singular arts to give them pleasure and contentment now being dead they must be outted from their palaces and their goodly-roomes and be thrust in the bowels of the earth they must be accounted such kinde of creatures as with whom there is no cohabitation Even Abraham himselfe although he loved Sarah dearly as his owne heart yet he could not endure her when she was dead but after a certaine season when he had mourned for her he was faine to be a sutor to the sonnes of Heth to sell him as much ground as to bury his dead in Gen. 23.4 to remove her out of his sight The best and the mightiest Monarchs in the world cannot secure themselves from this dishonour If they die on the sea they must be cast over-board or if they die on land they must suffer themselves to enter into this common misfortune and although art and imbalming and curiosity may doe much yet divers parts of them must of necessity be taken committed to the ground lest all about them be pestred by them This is the wofull stroak of nature the dishonour and deformity the beastly-figure of death which makes a man terrible to all the beholders so that that goodly countenance should be turned to a gastly skeleton that those faire cheeks should come to be pale ashes or as a black charcoale that those sparkling blazing eyes should become nothing but as a dim and dark peble and that which is the most fragrant piece of all the mouth to become the most ugly and odious of all The Lord hath drawne the pattern of sin in the face of a dead man and hath made it more sinfull and more ugly in that one spectacle then in any thing in the world besides Thus he that would not rest in the beauty of his creation that would not maintain the glory of his countenance and the image of God that hee had imprinted upon him hee shall now undergoe the most foule image and figure that could be devised There being no beast no creature that is halfe so ugly nothing falling so from it self nothing so unlike it selfe there being nothing traversed with such contrary passions and with such figures and lines of misery as the face of a dead man It is so with all men and although it appeare lesse in some then in others yet leave them a certaine time and they all at the last become so gastly that a man that hath a constant minde and can indure many things yet he loathes to behold a dead man This is the dishonour of sinfull flesh such a basenesse and contempt that a mans best friends shall run
fall into a grosse error which they might conceive by this doctrine of his For if it shall be raised a spirituall body why then say the heretiques Apollinarius Eunomius and such like then it is not the same For it is now a meere naturall body and what is so contrary as naturall and spirituall Animal and spirituall are clean contrary therefore the Scripture still bids us live after the spirit and distinguisheth betweene the sonnes of the flesh and the sons of the spirit there is nothing more contrary then these now it is impossible that a thing should be capable of that which is contrary Therefore they say if it shall be a spirituall body then it shall not be Idem corpus the same body Another crew say If they shall be spirituall bodies then they are not flesh and bloud and bones as these elementary bodies are that die and are committed to the ground but it shall be another thing made by God of a strange composure Against this the Apostle tells us that there is such a distinction of a naturall body and a spirituall body and yet none of these monsters follow neither For it is the pleasure of the great God to adde such excellencies to that body which was before dust and ashes and mortall and to draw such lines upon it to give it such beauty and perfection that it shall seeme rather a spirit then a body it shall be so full of quicknesse and motion and life and dexterity that it shall rather seeme a spirit then a body To speak comparatively Hence we learne That seeing the Apostle proves his distinction that it is not lawfull for any man to make of his owne head of his owne braine any generall principles or definitions or divisions or distributions concerning the doctrine of the Gospell but he must shew reason for it Then secondly what reason doth the Apostle give for it why It is also written Hee proves this his doctrine by the Scriptures and unlesse he could have proved it out of them he must have been subject to the censure of all these heretiques that all that they had passed upon him should have gone for good except he could have refuted them by the Scriptures So he tells them that It is written So that here we have a maine conclusion of our faith to hold to alwaies and to stick to that wee must beleeve no man further then the Scriptures If he will speak his own minde he may doe it for illustration or for arguments sake but to put the devices of his owne head and braine to goe for points of religion for matters of faith it is a damnable thing he must have no more credit then the Scriptures will afford him hee must make no distinctions and differences except it be found in the written word If this had been well observed the Church of God had never come to that miserable distraction that it hath been in for the space of these thousand yeares every Intruder still presuming to make his owne devices fundamentall to avert the points of religion to make distinctions such as man never saw in the Scriptures As to talk of Purgatory invocation of Saints and of other errors newly sprung up in these later times Such things as these have no kind of being in the Scriptures no nor any shew of being notwithstanding these proud imperious spirits will bring them upon the Church of God and lay a heavy yoak upon the people of God to beleeve them as if they were the very oracles of Almightie God himselfe Wee must take heed of these things Teach mee as far as thou wilt out of Gods booke but if thou teach me otherwise thou art a liar and no teacher thou art a seducer and an imposter and no pastor as St. Bernard Bernard and also Gregorie Gregorie saith Therefore this blessed Apostle he puts downe his proofe he will have them beleeve him no further then hee brings Scripture for it It is written saith he As if he should say I make not this distinction of a naturall body and a spirituall body I have it made to my hand for it is written And where is it written it is a hard thing to find that all the whole sentence is not to be found any where but the first part of it is written that the first Adam was made a living soule the other part is made up by the spirit of the Apostle understanding the difference betweene the first and the second Adam to make up the antithesis of that notable difference betweene the one and the other Some of the Fathers doe take it thus that the whole sentence may seeme to be written that oft-times in the Scripture things are said to be written and to be done which are not written nor done meaning not in their kinde but in their effects by some consequence As St. Chrysostom saith of this Chrysost from the reason and event of the thing it was written because that men did see every christian knows that Christ Iesus doth so farre passe and surmount the first Adam as God surpasseth man as the soule surpasseth the body therefore the event and consequent of the thing makes it as if it were written For God hath made it good and so hath set it as a sure writing in the world And so he gives instance from divers Scriptures in the like things As in Heb. 12.21 Heb. 12.21 the Apostle saith speaking of the terrour of Moses when he was in the mount when the Law was given the terror was so great that Moses said I feare exceedingly Now in the booke of Exodus Exod. 19. Chap. 19. where those things are related there is no such thing mentioned that Moses said any such words but the Glosse expounds it That it is certaine upon the deed upon the teror that Moses conceived he trembled It was a thing done although it were not spoken he did tremble So here also it may be said Although there be no such words as the second part of this sentence that the second Adam was made a living spirit yet de facto it is true For all the Church of God knowes and subscribes that there is a maine difference betweene them Such other places there are as that in Isay 7.14 Isay 7.14 A virgin shall conceive and bring forth a sonne and they shall call his name Emanuell Now this was never done de facto as St. Chrysostom observes Chrysost the people never called him so they called him Iesus not Emmanuel And although the Angell gave that name to the virgin yet the people used it not and yet saith St. Chrysostom though it were not done de facto yet it was done de jure it was done in right and reason for that the things themselves do send forth such a voice and testimony that he was Emmanuel God with us Therefore these Fathers think the meaning of the Apostle is this That although it were not
speciall favour of God that sanctifieth some chosen vessels and brings them to the knowledge of his grace in Iesus Christ and gives them an earnest hungring and thirsting after grace This makes the difference between man and man so that it belongs still to the Wee that is to those that are called and incorporated into the body of Christ to these it is that these great things belong Vse Therefore it teacheth us by the way onely to observe no more of it to labour to be of this holy company to be of these that the Apostle takes in the Wee For to be out of that society is to be out of all comfort out of all hope of all joy There is none that God intends these goodly things for the bearing of the stately image and glory of Christ but for those that are in Christ for those that are baptized into his holy name for those that seek to resemble him in a holy life and conversation As we have borne the image of the earthly The next thing to be considered is this that hee speakes of an Image and first that we are all borne unto an Image The great God would not make man absolute of himselfe as having reference to none but he made him to an image having respect and relation to a superiour to a better than himselfe For as for himselfe hee was made fraile and mutable he was made indifferently inclined to this or that and unlesse he were susteyned by a superiour power he was not like to have any continuance in that estate wherein he was made And therefore God of his great goodnesse made him to an Image to teach him Vse that hee must live dependently that hee must live according to the image of some superiour and better thing than himselfe to teach him that hee is not absolute in his owne power and gift to follow his owne will for as long as he followeth that perhaps he followeth the way to the destruction of his owne soule but still he must have dependence and reference to the will of a higher commander the will of him that is above him It is an argument of mans unsufficiency Vse that hee must be made to an image that he must have a patterne to follow that hee must not guide himselfe but live according to the Image and similitude of him that made him that hee may thereby assure himself of that life and blessing and favour that formerly he obtained in the Creation And what image is this Surely the best that could be for when God had thought upon all the images and similitudes in the world that could be devised hee made man after the most glorious and perfect image that could be even the image of himselfe The Image of God saith Philo Philo. is a kinde of governing power to be able to rule and governe both themselves others And to this image was man made when the Lord said Let us make man according to our image and let him rule So the ruling power is the proper act and tearme of Gods image that hee made man able to governe that little body that little world he carryeth about him and to governe all the creatures that belong unto him And this Image remaines still although it be so mightily defaced and broken in the Saints of God that they can govern and rule their affections that they can govern their exorbitant passions they can govern their families governe their children their friends and those that belong unto them A man is knowne by nothing so much to beare Gods Image as in being a good Governour to governe in the way of truth in the light of life to governe by his good example This is the true and perfect Image of the high God Quest But why are we said to be made after the Image of the earthly man if we be made according to Gods Image God is not earthly and how come we to be made after Adams Image Answ Adam was made after Gods Image and wee by the fall of Adam are made into Adams image But when he had defaced that power of government and became a slave to his own desires to choose a base and petty good in respect of the fountaine of all good to harken to the devill and the woman and to give a deafe eare unto God when Adam I say had thus deformed that prime light and image and beauty that was in him Now he came to be a forlorne creature unknowne almost unto his Maker unknowne to himselfe to be as it were a dramme of misery not able to doe that which he was borne to not able to governe any thing unable to governe himselfe but all his passions did altogether exceed reason Hee was not able to governe others but either he was too cruell or too gentle either he was too fierce and violent in prosecuting vertue or else too mild and foolish in sparing of all vice whatsoever This was the Image that was deformed in Adam and to this image we are all borne hee having lost it we lost it also in him We were made rulers especially of our selves but now through the fall we cannot governe so much as that which is within us Our anger over-tops and confounds us our fear amazeth and astonisheth us our desires burne and inflame and kindle us our appetites and whatsoever is in us puts us out of order there is no peere or regiment in the whole house of man till the grace of God make some compositions and when the grace of God is come in the disorder continues still As long as we live in this world we beare the image of the earthly that is of the earthly Adam which having once lost the fulnesse of Gods Image he left unto us the base and deformed image which he himself had contracted Those faire lives of divine perfection were obliterate and blinded in him so that no man could see the proportion of it And although there be some kind of lineaments and proportion that a man might see God in some things yet they were so obscured and blundered over as that a man could not discern the Maker onely some few steps there were in the understanding a little in the will and least in the affections and a poore remainder in his actions These indeed God of his great mercy tooke not utterly away from Adam but left some kinde of reliques in him But all these cannot help us but that still we are earthly For although wee beare some image of God still as the wickedest man in the world hath the image of God one way or another yet it is so miserably deformed that a man cannot know it to be the Image of God for he shall see such a counter-poyson of the image of the devill of vice and vanity and miserable deceit and delusion he shall see such a mingling and mixture such a deformity brought upon the image of God and such contrary colours painted upon it as
have been carelesse and negligent in his wayes before so God shall take the advantage and come upon them upon the Sabbath day and upon the Sabbath day at night when men use quietest and with greatest repose to lay themselves to rest It is the last trump And why is it called the last trump Because God will have no more messages to man When the trumpet hath sounded there shall be no more newes nor no more intercourse between God and man Till that trumpet sound there is a daily intercourse betweene heaven and earth the Lord sends us newes by his word he sends us newes by his Sacraments by his punishments and afflictions by his blessings and fatherly preservations The world is full of his gracious trumpets which are ever sounding either to make us better and to bring us from sinne or else to discourage and harden us if wee goe on in our ill doings Still there is an entercourse betweene God and man but when the last trump shall blow all such entercourse shall cease Those that have done well shall goe into life Mat. 25.46 and shall have the perfect vision of God without any more newes or message from God to them and those that have done ill shall goe into everlasting fire and shall have a continuall privation and absence of God without any hope of seeing his face any more This is called the last trump because that after the trumpet hath blowne there shall be no more change in the dealings and affaires betweene heaven and earth I see the time almost past 3 Part. What sound the trumpet shall give I come therefore to the next thing what the trumpet shall sound For if the voice shall be sensible then it must needs have some signification and must utter something that men must understand For it is not enough to say that it is a voice of a trumpet an inarticulate and generall sound and no word for it cannnot be so And though the trumpet of God shall sound it shall not be so dull but it shall have a more sweet and significant impression to teach men what they have to doe Therefore the Fathers have gone so farre as to expresse what words the Trumpet shall sound St. Ierome Jerome and some of the Fathers with him say the words that the trumpet shall sound shall be Arise ye dead and come to judgement Therefore saith hee I am so possest with this I am so possest with the assurance of this that to what place soever I goe if I goe to my study if I walke if I eate or drinke if I lie downe to sleepe whatsoever I encline my selfe to me thinks I ever heare in my eares the voice of the trumpet sounding Arise yee dead and come to judgement But the holy Father may seeme to speake rather out of a high straine of fervent zeale by allusion than of any certainty that the trumpet shall so sound Theophilact Theophilact saith the trumpet shall sound to this effect Draw neare for the Iudge is at hand the Iudge is before the doore prepare your selves As Isay saith The voice of a cryer Esay 40.3 Prepare you the way of the Lord make his paths straight This indeed is more agreeable to the Scriptures Iohn Baptist that prepared the way before Christ he was a type and figure of the Angell Gabriel that shall found the trumpet to prepare the way of the Lord and shall give a sensible and significant note what hee would have men to doe But this it is sufficient for us to point at because wee know not the certainty of it It shall be such a voice as shall give sufficient warning it shall be a voice that shall be sensibly perceived the intendment of it shall runne over all reasonable eares there is none shall be so deafe or so dull but they shall heare and apprehend the meaning of it But what word it is whether it shall be articulate or no it is not left for us to enquire after Howbeit wee honour the invention of the holy Fathers because they tend something to the rectifying of manners and for the stirring up of mens affections for this purpose 4 Part. The effect Now followes the effect and operation of it when the trumpet shall blow The dead shall rise incorruptible This is that wondrous effect that the trumpet of God hath this is the great difference between the trumpet of God and the trumpets of men For they worke death and destruction when they blow and sound to the warres but this trumpet of God shall sound to life and immortality But this shall not be in the power of the instrument but it shall have this force by the power of God and from the power of Christ unto whom God hath given all judgement and power to raise and to change the quick and the dead But what is this that he saith The dead shall rise incorruptible Some think it is onely meant of the Saints because all this discourse of the Resurrection as Beza Beza and some other Divines observe is restrained to the Saints But the former part of the Apostles discourse is more large and so also may this be taken that not onely the bodies of the Saints shall be incorrupt but also the bodies of the wicked But how Saith St. Austin they shall be in the fulnesse of perfection of the parts and members they shall all rise incorruptible they shall have bodies that shall never be obnoxious to corruption and destruction but shall last and indure in the fire for ever They shall have a braine and a wit that shall never be dissolved they shall have a memory that shall never forget their wickednesse and sinnes that they have done and the blasphemies they have committed against God and the abominable actions they have done in the tabernacle of this flesh They shall have the proportion also of men and women in their true frame and proper stature and not as being lame or blind or the like as perhaps some of them died But they shall be raised in the fulnesse and perfection of their members and parts howbeit it shall be so as it may most dispose them to eternall torments that they may be able to indure that is all the reason why God raiseth them uncorruptible that they may be able to indure the corrupting causes For those causes that seeme to corrupt any thing in the world as sorrow and feare and malice and vexation and torture of the flesh which a man would think in time would bring any thing to an end yet they shall not be able to corrupt them Therefore saith St. Austin Aug. though they shall be raised incorruptible yet after a sort they shall be corrupted by the paine and torment which they shall indure But how Not to be brought to a worstnesse or destruction but they shall have an eternall life to suffer misery Let us labour therefore Vse and desire of
And there wee cease not neither but still wee seeke for a new forme the matter still would have a new coate None of these content us but wee desire of God a forme that never may be changed This corruption must put on incorruption and this mortall must put on immortality The other condition of our nature is that as it cannot endure to be in the same kinde but still seeks new fashions and new formes so at length it comes to that forme that seemes to extinguish it utterly as if it had never beene which brings matter and forme and all to nothing as a man would think the goodliest temper the stateliest comely body the best and freshest countenance the best brued bloud and the sweetest colour these which are the materialls of man it brings them all at length to a handfull of dust that a man would think that now the matter had quite lost its forme and that it should never desire a further forme For it is mortalized it is brought to nothing it is brought to stench and corruption and it seemes to be drowned there there is no hope that ever it shall rise againe But yet still the appetite works for the matter works still to the God of nature and desires of him a new forme to give it a new garment And the Apostle saith that God shall heare that matter and hee shall regard the cries of it and shall graunt the petition that this dust shall make unto him and he shall give it a new vestment which shall be of such a fashion as it shall never desire any more to change and put off again For this corruption must put on incorruption and this mortall must put on immortality 6 â—art The metaphor Shall put on A sweet and blessed metaphor is this word put on It must be put on in stead of the ragges wee put off for mortality and corruption stick close to us not as a close-bodied garment sticks to the body but as the skinne and the flesh cleaves to the bones And we can never put them off and be rid of them but by the common law and necessity of dying and rotting in the grave There are only some few that shall have the prerogative which shall live at the comming of Christ they shall have a change in stead of this death But for us that must goe the common way of nature wee know our doome Now then this ragged garment and vesture that wee carrie about us by reason of Adams sinne and our corruption which wee have multiplied and added to Adams transgression it must first be shaken off by the omnipotent hand of God it must be so purely and so fully removed as that no threeds nor no tagg of it remaine And then when that is done there is time and place for the new robe to be put upon us for that blessed garment which is to come in the place of this But first these torne raggs must be cast away they must first be put off and then this blessed vestment which the Lord hath prepared even the vestment of incorruption and immortality shall succeed in the place of this So that from hence we see the truth of the former doctrine again Saith S. Austin the garment is one thing Aug. and the thing garnished and decked is another the garment is not the man but an accident to the man and it may be that hee may be here and that may be there or it may be here and he may be away and yet notwithstanding the man may be the same So likewise the bodies that the Saints have in this world they shall be still the same bodies the same in incorruption that they were in corruption the same body that it was when it was mortall the same shall it be when it is immortall the same in substance but not the same in glory and quality Tertull. For as Tertullian saith the Apostle disputes of the glory of the bodies and not of the substance of them Therefore as a man that is of any state and account in this world he hath divers suites of cloathes but he hath but one body so it is true in this case that the Lord upon one and the selfe same body shall poure multiplicity of garments and riches of the rayment which hee shall give in that blessed day The garment of beauty the garment of eternity the garment of strength of wisedome of all kinde of excellencies both of body and soule The Lord shall sit them then with many changes of apparell but still it shall be one and the selfe same body For this mortall must put on the glorious garment of immortality and this corruptible must put on incorruption So the Fathers in the Greeke Church taught their men and women in the Church to say I beleeve the resurrection of This flesh When we say the Creed wee say I beleeve the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting But still they when they came to this article they clapt their hand upon their breast and said I beleeve the resurrection of This flesh punctually pointing at themselves because the Apostle saith This corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortall must put on immortality to shew that it belongs to the person properly and peculiarly to this very subject that he makes his proposition of And this glorious garment what it is but the garment which God himselfe hath worne from all eternity Hee is incorruptible that is unchangeable and he is immortall that is it is impossible for him to grow worse For God can never change from better to worse and hee shall give that power to the bodies of his Saints that their perfection shall be so great as that it shall not possibly be made better and they shall be so singular that it is impossible they should be made worse or decline For hee shall set them in the highest pitch of perfection in the top of excellencie that they shall receive neither majus nor minus neither more nor lesse neither better nor worse they shall have no kinde of change This is that glorious apparell that God puts on The Lord is King Psal 93.1 hee hath put on his glorious apparell hee hath girded himselfe with strength and majestie This is that apparell which the Apostle S. Iames speaks of when he saith That the Lord is without any change Iam. 1.16 or shadow of changing This garment which God hath put upon himselfe from all eternity hee will vouchsafe in a degree and measure to his Saints in time they shall be eternall from the time after as he hath beene from worlds and ages to world without end himselfe one and the same for evermore Now whereas hee saith in the vinculum of this proposition that Oportet this must needs be thus Vse that it can be no other way but thus This thing the Apostle adds for our comfort and consolation both to encourage us patiently to abide
he had from God hee cast all men into the prison of death and he keepeth them there and will keep them there by the common calamity of sinne he keeps all mens bodies there to the time of the resurrection which the Lord shall cause in the fulnesse of time but therefore the Lord following the way of justice and not the way of power for God was able to take us from death otherwise by other meanes then by the death of Christ but then hee could not be just Now God would teach us that it is better to follow the way of justice then the way of power for every man can be powerfull the devils themselves have power but they have no justice therefore God then in justice would have the death of his Sonne satisfie the wrath of God and would have him to die for them that should have died that his death might be the life of many thousands that his death might be the destruction of the power of death which had a commission given for the time that at the last might have an end To conclude because I see the time past let us also learne to frame our selves to this high spirit of the Apostle to insult over death and then if wee can insult over death much more may wee insult over all the calamities of this life for what is so great a calamity as that why should poverty oppresse us why should infamy vexe us if sicknesse diseases and death it selfe cannot oppresse why should trouble of conscience for sinne oppresse us when the grand enemy himselfe is conquered and when we have a part of the conquest wee are souldiers to that great Captaine and hee communicates his victory unto us all Iohn 16. ult Aug. Be of good comfort saith Christ for I have overcome the world Saith St. Austin What dost thou meane by this Be of good comfort I have overcome the world What have we to doe to be of good comfort it belongs not to us be thou of good comfort it pertaines to thee what are we the better because thou hast overcome the world Yes saith hee oh death thou which hast been the devourer now thou art devoured thy self thou that hast swallowed up men now thou art swallowed up thy selfe by a more potent cause oh death he was wounded for me that made me and he that through his death hath swallowed up thee hee hath conquered thee for me therefore I rejoyce in him which is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone his victory is my victory therefore he saith Be of good comfort I have overcome the world And this the Lord hath taught us in many passages of his holy Booke that hee might prepare us once to this courage to this great valour For in this a man is seen more than in any thing else in the patient abiding of trouble and misery in the patient enduring of death in this present life All worldly passions are seperated as chaffe by the wind from the godly the wind blowes away the chaffe but so it cannot the good corn that falls still on the floore the chaffe is blowne away with every wind of temptation and persecution Let us therefore take notice of that singular comfort which God hath given us out of the Scripture which all resolves at last into this one point Oh death where is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory In Iosuah 10. Ioshuah 10.24 wee reade that Iosuah there the Prince and Captaine he brought out the five Kings that were closed in a Cave and a stone rolled to the mouth of it till hee should come back hee brings them forth and bade the Captaines tread upon the necks of the Kings and not feare for saith hee The Lord your God shall fight for you This was a figure of this glorious victory of the Sonne of God over death All the potentates of Hell are like to the five Kings of Canaan which oppresse all they meet as Adonibezek they thumb them hee cut off the thumbs and toes of men and set them under his Table as dogges The Lord signified this victory of Christ by the victory of Iosuah over those five Kings and Adonibezek that hee would give a spirituall conquest over death hell sinne and all the adversaries that could oppose him and he would tread upon the necks of all his opposers What is so base a part what is so base a thing as the foot of a man and what is so lofty a thing as the necke and yet the very foot of Gods children the basest part shall tread upon the necks of their enemies upon the necks of Kings themselves which are compassed and surrounded with jewels and ornaments yet they shall bee subjected to the basest parts even to the heeles of godly men so great is the comfort of Gods children And as it was done then in Iosuahs time so also the comfort remaines now So wee see again the Lord bids the people look back whē they were past the Red-sea look back upō the Egyptians and the People Miriam had a song Exod. 15.1 when they looked back saw the Egyptians floating above the water A strange thing but God would have it so because he would have his people to have Arms to have the Arms of the Egyptians to fight against Amalek It is said the people looked back and saw them those proud spirited people those braggadocioes which thought to have swallowed them up quick and followed them with their chariots and Army those which before could not bee resisted now the Lord brings them to a calme he so cooled the Nation that the least boy might insult over them Israel looked and saw them and tooke off their armour took off their rings and jewels and their costly apparrell and furnished themselves with it when they went into the wildernesse So shall the conquest of Gods children be over death although it have beene full of threatning full of terrour and blood before yet the Lord will bring it into the floud into the Red sea he will overwhelme it in the water of his Omnipotency and his children shall look back and shall see him and spoyle him that was the spoyler and destroy him that was the destroyer and they shall take his weapons from him and make use of them to their owne purposes and they shall say as the people might have said to the Egyptians Where is thy bragging that thou usedst before thou art inclosed now in thine owne net Where is thy sting oh death Oh hell where is thy victory The Lord shall turne the termes the Lord shall make the field to goe on his owne side and take away the conquest from the adverse party It hath beene an ancient Proverb That to pluck the beard of a dead Lion even for children themselves it is an easie matter a poore child that cannot indure the noise or the sight of a living Lion Chrysost as St. Chrysostome saith the boyes
I assent to that which is written in the Gospel and because I hope for a reward at the resurrection therefore I give almes to my brethren I exercise works of charity and doe good to my fellow members because that one day I hope to be proclaimed a member of the Sonne of God Upon this work therefore followes all the rest this is that great worke of the Lord which is called The worke of the Lord by way of excellency All good things be the workes of God It is true but the worke the singular worke of the Lord is this whereby hee raised his Sonne from the dead the totall of our faith and resurrection the onely thing that makes us assured of salvation Rom. 10. If thou beleeve with thine heart and confesse with thy mouth that God hath raised Christ from the dead thou shalt bee saved saith the Apostle Behold the whole worke of salvation runnes upon this and though there bee other things required for hee that beleeveth must bee conformed to the glory of God which hath raised his Sonne yet the maine and chiefe point of a mans salvation is this that hee beleeve and confesse that God hath raised his Sonne Iesus from the dead and that he shall give life unto those that are dead and those things that were conquered hee shall make them more then conquerers This is that that saves a man 2. Part the degree Abound Bee abundant alway in the worke of the Lord. It is not onely necessary for us to worke the worke of the Lord but we must bee abundant in it God doth require of us an eminency for it is true that unto him that worketh by the grace of God that he hath received there is a commendation and a testimony due unto him yet notwithstanding if hee rest satisfied with his small measure hee cannot aspire to this dignity to partake of the conquest of Christ because he doth not abound in the worke of the Lord. Abound in the worke of the Lord that is bee abundantly able to comfort thy selfe in this matter of the resurrection and to comfort others that shall come to take comfort of thee The childe of God must abound as a River that keepes not the water that is in it for it selfe but disperseth it to the dry ground so the children of God must abound in the worke that they have by the Lord in the worke of charity in the worke of beliefe and apprehension of the Articles of their faith In every thing the Lord will have them abounding creatures In the first beginning it was the blessing of the Lord increase and multiply Gen. 1.20 we see of two creatures hee made a great world by that blessing upon it And as in naturall things much more in spirituall a man must increase and multiply he must not stand at a stay but abound and goe forward Hee must abound not to supererogation as the Papists would have it a man cannot be so abundant as to have enough for himselfe and others God knows he that hath the most hath too little for himselfe for it is the merit of Christ that must doe all For this is the meaning of the Apostle where he saith Bee abundant in the worke of the Lord that is that they should not content themselves with that measure that they had received there is more before forgetting that which is behind and pressing forward So that if a man have done that which is good he must not think that he hath done enough but he must goe forward in well-doing and not bee weary Whatsoever good worke the Lord hath in him to crowne and accomplish it with perseverance it is that that makes up all the graces of God and that is it which he saith here 3. Part. The extent Alway A grievous thing it is to bee set to worke there is no man can endure labour and worke especially the work of the Lord is hard and contrary to flesh and blood which is made easie by the grace of God but when a man hath begun he thinkes he may safely with a good conscience leave off after a short time and so he falls to be cold in his profession of those good things which formerly he contented himselfe withall Hee that hath beene in the service of God from his youth a long time hee thinks he may take some respite in his old age he thinks his earnestnesse and fervour and heat of zeale in his youth may admit some kinde of allay and his former zeale may be a sufficient defence for it A man that hath given to a poore man hee thinkes hee hath beene very beneficiall when hee hath given so much and hee bids him come no more at him hee hath done so much for him already When a man prayes when hee hath done his devotion in the morning he thinks whatsoever occasion comes hee shall have no occasion to pray till night And so in the course of al holy matters we grow weary of the service of God so the Apostle cuts this sluggishnesse away tells them he would have them be as a fountaine he would have them abound never to be exhausted never to be drawne dry as the fountaine runnes alway so the fountaine of grace in Gods children it runs continually To what purpose is it to give a poore man a peny to day and see him starve to morrow hee had as good give him nothing at all hee were as good have died to day it is but a dayes respite the charity of Gods children must bee perpetuall let them give as they are able but let them give continually let them pray continually let them reade continually let them meditate on the works of God continually let them rejoice let them give thanks continually let them approve the works of God continually let them satisfie doubting consciences continually let their fountaine be alwayes running let there be no stop in the fountaine of grace when it hath once begun let it goe on in a happy streame and flow unto all the inheritance of God I beseech you beloved be alway abundant in the worke of the Lord. This worke of the Lord the resurrection bee abundant in that and in all the rest of the works of the Lord because the Lord is alway plentifull to you in mercy so be you plentifull to him in good workes to draw this mercy of God upon your owne soules Now followes the reason of all and it is indeed a sweete contentment to every Christian man Knowing that your labour is not in vaine in the Lord. There is no signe more ridiculous and frivolous then the labour in vaine for a man to wash an Ethiopian for a man to wash a brickâ— for a man to take paines for that which is not worth his labour if it be atchieved or which he cannot possibly atchieve If their labour had beene such as this then the Apostle should wish them to their losse to their great
Lord because it is to him and for his sake or else if it were in the quality of the worke it were in vaine for there is nothing in us that is good therefore it is not any thing that is inherent in that but it is in the power of God that can doe what pleaseth him and that will give liberally even for the least thing that we have done he will give a great recompence it is he that makes it fruitfull and copious and plentifull in the recompence it is the Lord that rewardeth all thus And he concludes it under scale you know that this is true you know your labour is not in vaine in the Lord. This is that great blessing of God that double grace when hee makes us know the thing that it is impregnable that it is a thing not to be resisted that it is such a thing as all the powers of hell and darknesse and contrary disputations cannot make you doubt of You know this To know is to know by reasons naturall that never faile that this shall be thus the promise of God is so therefore you know it by that you know it by the practice of the Saints you know it by the testimony of the Spirit of God you know it by the common tenent of the world so that whatsoever God hath spoken hee is willing to performe and it is done already as though it were acted at this present time It is the heavenly and blessed contentment of a Christian man that hee hath the priviledge to know his happinesse before hee hath it that man that is advanced to morrow that is a poore man to day hee may hope well and wish well but hee knoweth nothing a man that goes to the field to fight in the battaile hee knowes not whether ever he shall come againe as Ahab said He that puts on his armour let him not brag as he that puts it off When a man sets forth on a journey hee knowes not whether ever hee shall returne home or not When a man enters into traffique for viands and matters of life hee knowes not whether hee shall gaine or lose there is nothing that wee can tell in this world that it shall be thus for time will alter and change it In all the works of Philosophy there is no certainty of the time to come but in the booke of God there is a certaine knowledge blessed be God for that knowledge It is a thing without exception it is a thing without all doubt Iohn 4. Our Lord Christ said to the woman of Samaria Ye know not what ye worship we know what we worship The knowledge therefore of true religion was among the people of God so the knowledge of the promises was among them too wee know saith the Apostle 1. Cor 5.1 when this earthly Tabernacle shall be abolished we have a heavenly mansion So the Apostle saith I know whom I have believed I know whom I have trusted And in 1 Iohn 2.15 Wee know that we are translated from death to life because wee love the brethren This therefore is that excellent priviledge of a Christian that he hath above all the schollers in the world that as he is made to glorie so he knows it before he hath a taste of the Spirit the earnest of the Spirit before which makes him cry Abba Father that helps him to pray that comforts him in trouble that stands by him that leads him and guides him on that never forsakes him in the state of grace till it bring him to the state of glory To the which the Lord bring us for Christ his sake Amen FINIS CORINTHS COLLECTION FOR THE SAINTS AT IERUSALEM Seven Sermons on 1 Corinth 16. the first 9. Verses BY That Worthy and Learned Preacher of Gods Word MARTIN DAY Chaplaine in Ordinarie to his Majestie and late Rector of S. FAITHS London Heb. 13.16 To do good and communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased LONDON Printed by T.H. for Nathanael Butter and are to be sold at the signe of the Pide Bull neere Saint Austins gate 1636. 1. Cor. 16.1.2 Now concerning the collection for the Saints as I have given order to the Churches of Galatia â—ven so do yâ— â—pon the first of the Weeke Let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him that there be no gatherings when I come THis is the last head or common place of this holy Epistle which the Apostle hath therefore reserved to the last because he would have it the better in printed in the memory of his schoollars For all the rest indeed have beene matters of great concernment but this most of all it being the common office of Christianitie and a generall duty that runnes through the whole body as the life doth For the poore you shall have alway with you saith our Lord Christ and therefore your mercie to the poore shall be alway exacted so S. Chrysostome Chrysost The Apostle now saith hee goes forward to the head and principle of all good things He hath touched upon it before in Chap. 13. Chap. 13.1 speaking of charitie Though I had the tongue of men and Angels yet if I had not charitie I were nothing But that charitie is of another kinde for that intends the use of spirituall gifts that a man should forget himselfe for the common good that hee should not labour so much to shew himselfe a scholler or a Linguist as to speake to common capacities that is the charitie meant in that place But now here he speakes of another kinde of charitie not in the collation of things spirituall but of temporall wherein a man is put to his proofe more then then in the other for the conferring of sprituall things commonly as they come freely so they come easily without much paine or trouble There is no man almost but he will communicate his learning and knowledge to another gratis but for these temporall goods that we have in this world they can hardly be drawne from us and a small quantitie a poore despicable portion is exacted when we are brought to the best Therefore now the Apostle comes to that point of charitie which doth most of all discerne a Christian whereby he is best knowne the parting from his owne goods the defrauding of his owne genius of his owne belly that he may be helpfull to others And so this is the ninth and last part of this Epistle for as I told you heretofore Divines have diversly distinguished the Epistle but the best and the most neere and likely division is into nine severall points of doctrine whereof this is the last The first was of taking away the schismes and divisions which was in the Church of Christ One was of Paul another of Apollo another of Cephas another of Christ In the first second third and fourth Chapters that is the first common place of this Epistle The second was concerning the power
thousand places in this Land where there is a Church and yet there can be no collection for the Landlords the great oppressors and bloud-suckers of the whole Nation they have so improved every thing and so racked and wrung every thing to the very bloud that the poore Tennant cannot tell how to keepe and maintaine himselfe with bread and other common necessaries Therefore it is not to be looked for at their hands that which is spoken of here that there should be a superfluitie that there should be any thing collected for the poore Saints at Ierusalem for themselves perish and starve in scarsitie but for these things we may rather take delight in complaining then conceive any hope of the amending of it Another metaphor is taken as others suppose not so much from the field and from the fruit of the field as from the casting in of the shot of a company that are met together in the way of friendship to eate and drinke together upon every mans money So Cicero useth the word in his second de Oratore Cicero â— de Orator Cressus saith he because thou dealest with me as with yong men when they meete together or as other men when they meet together to eate and drinke upon their owne money and to pay the shot therefore thou thinkest I will be one of that company I will do it saith he so Tully useth the word and Beza Beza alloweth of it and it is very fit for the purpose and the argument agrees one way â—s well as another and in this it must needs bee that the second is certaine For it is true the people of God when they bee in the Church they must either understand themselves to be at a feast or else they come without a wedding garment for he that comes not to the Church of God with the people of God with an heart full of joy and delight in the holy Ghost and with a desire to heare the things in the Law and the Gospell explained and with a hungring and thirsting after it to lay it up in his heart and bring it forth in his life as occasion shall serve he that comes not thus provided is as a man without a wedding garment Now then seeing all must come as to a feast as to the feast of the great King though we be not able to set any great cheare before you yet if you bring good stomacks and appetites you will â—ccount it good cheare The prayers to God the preaching of the word the administration of the Sacraments you must account them a feast or else you are no Christians and when you are at this feast it is certaine God requires no man to pay for that which he hath Come buy milke and honey buy without money Isa 55.1.2 or money worth yet hee is accounted a simple and base fellow that being invited to any place in the world that will not give the servants some thing that will not give the doore keeper some thing and the watters at the table some thing a matter of nothing and they do it out of charitie out of love to the Inviter and the love that they beare to the company and for the grace they owe to themselves for their owne credit This the Apostle cals the shot that is to be payed when the Saints meet together in the Church at their common festivall when they are assembled there is a shot to be payed to the poore servants to the waiters Therefore in your meetings when there is any man that is so hunshing and so miserable that he will not pay his share that hee will not come off with his part that he will not respect those that attend and waite when he grumbles at it and will not shew himselfe as the rest of his neighbours you thinke such a one a hâ—rsh fellow fit to be casheered out of the company So the great God they that come to the plâ—ce of oblatâ—on they that come to his sanctuary to his Temple except they come with a free â—inde to do as much good as they are moved unto the Lord thinkes them unworthy of the place fit to be casheered and put out because they use such dodging that they will not give any thing as a testimony of their thankfulnesse to the Inviter Either of these wayes the word may bee accepted I beseech you take it which way it pleaseth you if you be fields bring forth fruit bring forth profit to God that it may be seene there is some thing abounds and remaines for the gleaning of the poore And if you be banquetants those that are invited then give something to the poore walters to the poore attenders in the Church to the Ministers of the Gospel especially to those that are destitute miserable that it may appeare that you are no such misers as have left their purses at home that make forgetfulnesse go for payment let it not be thus among you that are the free bred children of God but as the Lord hath inabled you so let your works be according to the evidence and power of the Spirit So much of that concerning the collection Now for the Object wherupon the collection must be conferred that is Vpon the Saints 2. Part. The object of the collection We must do good to all men but especially to them of the houshold of faith The Saints ought to bee the chiefe men in our estimation as they bee also in Gods Psal 16.2 Psal 16.2 My goods are nothing to thee but to the Saints that dwell in the earth in whom I delight and to them I seeke to abound which although it be otherwise expounded of other Interpreters yet the common current of the Fathers leads me and perswades me that way Therefore I say as your heavenly Father makes his raine to fall and his Sunne to shine upon the bad and upon the good as well upon the just as the unjust so every Christian man is bound in case of necessitie to supply the wants of a wicked man whom he knows to be Gods enemy and his owne enemy For so God doth and wee must be mercifull as our Father which is in heaven is mercifull But yet there must be a speciall regard there must be a double hand reserved for them that bee Saints for them of the houshold of faith for them that belong to God For from God wee receive all and to him we must returne praise and thanks and though indeed wee must cloathe our enemies when they be naked and feed them when they be hungrie and the enemies of God too when they bee in necessitie that the Lords largesse may have a certaine waste as in a Kings Court or Princes familie they spend many times waste as much as a Nobleman spends in all his house so God will have his mercie runne over he will have it runne at waste to his enemies yet the principall checkroll the goodly Court belongs to his
their good comfort but the reason is to bring them up in the discipline of warre to traine them up for souldiers to traine them as weaned children lest they should be taken away with the pleasures of the world and drowned in the vanities of this life and so forget God and their owne soules health which is most of all to be regarded Secondly â— Reason another reason why God suffers his Saints to want is because he would shew the mystery of his providence that great and wondrous mystery that having nothing the Saints possesse all things That a man should be hungry naked and thirsty and yet never disappoynted never starved that he should be so strangely preserved by the omnipotent providence of the Lord that rather then faile the fowles of the ayre should bring him meate as the Raven did to Elias The Lord would shew by this that his eye hath a regard unto his children that hee will feed them in the middest of dearth in the time of famine and though all things want Psal 34.14 though the Lyons pine and suffer hunger yet the Lords servants suffer none The Lord traines them up in the want of these things that he may fill them with greater things with those infinite blessings in the world to come And for this cause wee doe not onely finde in Scripture that Iacob was sometimes a poore man but the children of Israel was a poore nation in Deut. Deut. 26.5 26.5 I am a poore Syrian and my father was a poore Syrian when they were to come with their basket to offer their first fruits the first word a man was to say to God was this that he and his forefathers were nothing but meere beggars poore things And we see it afterwards in David for ten yeares he was a miserable poore man all the time of his persecution We see it also in Iob he was stated in great wealth yet because God would make a declaration to the world what he was able to doe in the middest of misery he divested him of all that hee had before that he might requite it with a double portion afterward And for Lazarus and the Apostles and our Lord Iesus Christ himselfe we know that he was poore the Foxes had holes and the fowles of the ayre had nests but the sonne of man had not where to lay his head he that was the head of the Church had not whereon to lay his own head Vse Comfore Therefore this must be a comfort to Gods children here in this world if they be poore The servant is not above his Master it is enough that hee be equall with his master the head hath gone before and sanctified the cup unto me 2 Observ Not to respâ—ct men according to outward meanes Secondly observe out of this in that he saith toward the Saints of God toward the holy ones that this word Saints makes amends for that he said before this word makes amends for the other word where he said Poore For though they want and stand in need of a collection yet it is enough that they are Saints and so here we are taught Not to respect men according to their outward esteeme according to the outward meanes and place that they have in this life but rather to make that estimate of them that God makes of them to see how they be esteemed in Gods bookes and so account of them The fashion is now in our times away beggar away bankrupt every man scornes a man that is behinde hand a man that is underfoot that is not able to carry his face out in the world they cannot indure his company they scorne to receive any word either of admonition or of consultation from him for every man is esteemed now by that hee hath that is in the trash and treasure that he hath in these outward and temporall things not by inward and spirituall things there is no account made of that But beloved the holy Ghost tels us that we should swallow all basenesse in this greatnesse the greatnesse of this to be a Saint to be a holy man ought to countervaile all and to cut downe all respect of basenesse in the men we have to deale with what if he be poore and base yet it may be he is holy it may be he is a Saint and it may be thou art not so and then there is infinite difference betweene him and thee and though thou account thy selfe as a great meteor above him or as the sunne in the firmament and him but as a clod of earth yet understand it is Gods esteeme that shall carry it it is Gods judgement that shall prevaile and mans judgement shall be evacuate and annihilate for he is not commendable that man commends but he that God commends he that is in the love and favour of God is greater than the most glorious Persian Prince in the world There is no such commendation as this to be a Saint to be a holy man to be accepted with the Lord. Labour therefore to be that which he is rather then that which thy selfe is and put no confidence in vaine riches which belong oft times to divels and which make no difference betweene a childe of God and a childe of darkenesse and which may soone be taken away he that is now a rich man may to morrow be a poore man but to proceed 3 Part. Now followes the manner we see the collection what it must be and for whom Now followes the manner how this must be done Where first we will speake though it be a kinde of inversion of order of that that he implyes by way of a speciall precept And then of that he prescribes by way of example from other Churches Of the first he saith that the manner and order of the collection must be this That every man must lay up by him he must put aside by himselfe something whatsoever God hath given him and inabled him to give and it must be done upon the first day of the weeke where there is First the persons Secondly the act Thirdly the measure Fourthly the time The persons Every man The act Lay by him The measure as God hath prospered him The time Vpon the first day of the weeke But I shall not be able to runne through these discourses therefore I will briefly goe on a little further and incroach upon your patience to shew a little the manner of this collection First for the persons The persons It is said Every one Let every one lay by him What shall every one lay up poor as well as rich shall the servant that hath but wages he can scarse live upon lay up something for the use of the poore Many of the Fathers and Saint Chrysostome saith in direct termes Châ—ysost that whether he be poore or rich whether he be Master or Servant he is bound and tyed to this precept and commanded to lay up something for
from both in the meane time we have our conscience to serve instead of a visitor Let it therefore do it for good for there will be a visitation if wee do not by timely repentance meet the Lord in the way and intreat for mercie and pardon if wee do not follow the counsell of Christ that saith a man that goeth forth against his enemy if he go forth with ten thousand he will sit downe and reckon whether he be able to go against him that hath 20000 or else he will send Ambassadors to intreat peace of him if he be not able to match him If we do not take the like course we shall fall into the visitation of the Lord. The Lord strengthen us and support us that whensoever that day comes wee may finde him come with comfort as one that comes to reward us with abundant recompence SERM. 5. 1 COR. 16.5 6. But I will come unto you when I shall passe through Macedonia for I passe through Macedonia and perhaps I will abide with you or else will winter with you that you may have me along to any place whither I shall goe for I will not see you now as I passe by A Man that reades these things would presently imagine that all this were true and that all had an issue according as it is here spoken but that is not certaine for that which St. Paul wished and desired it did not alway come to passe as he saith Rom. 15. Rom. 15. that he had a purpose to goe to Spaine but yet St. Paul never came there So the Prophets were uncertaine in these particulars how God would dispose of them for wee see in Acts 16. Acts 16. that when they were come to Bythinia and would have preached the Gospel the Holy Ghost would not suffer them to doe it and when they came unto Asia-Minor the same Spirit of God forbade them to preach the Gospel there and if the Spirit of God would interpose himselfe to forbid the preaching of the Gospel you may then conclude for other matters of lesse importance for this Towne or that place the Lord would much more disturbe and turne away their purpose For man purposeth but God disposeth But howsoever although St. Paul did not finish this journey according to his promise here yet the efficacy the vertue and power of it is all one for hee shewes what hee would have done if God had not turned his will by necessity in calling him another way Such things as these in the Scriptures wee oft times meet withall and whether a man should insist upon them or no it may bee a matter of disputation because the common people think that nothing is fit to bee spoken of but that which makes for morality that which tends to manners they call that onely edifying which buildeth up in matter of life whereas those that are seene in learning or that are men of sense they know that edification is as well in matters of knowledge and there is no part of the Booke of God that is written but it is written for our learning to build us up first out of our Ignorance and then secondly to build us from wickednesse to newnesse and holinesse of life for the second can never bee without the first Therefore wee must take the Scripture as it lies and although this Text afford no great matter for manners or conversation of life yet the schollers of Christ must heare his Word preached wheresoever it is and make profit by it and as long as they doe understand that either they know something which they knew not before or that they know it better and more soundly and perfectly then they did before they cannot but say they are edified by it The first thing then that wee are here to consider is this Parts of the Text. the maine bulke of the Text whether this thing was performed or no that hee saith hee would come to them when hee should passe through Macedonia Secondly wee are to come to the particulars of the Text What is Macedonia What Macedonia was and how hee made his passage thereout and how God furnished him and where he stayed him in his journey Thirdly the purpose that hee had in staying and Wintring with the Corinthians His purpose wherein wee are to consider that though the Apostles were sent to preach the Gospel of Christ yet the Lord tied them not to any ill way or to any ill weather but he gave them place of lodging when they had time and how and upon whose cost the Apostle should lodge there The fourth thing to be considered is the end of his lodgiâ—â— there The end that they might carry him along on his joâ—â—ney where there is another act in his journey which Christian common duty called them unto to bring him along on his way both to defend him and to shew him the way and also to carry him with a kinde of credite belonging to an Apostle And lastly the forme of all these things that hee knowes not whether these things shall bee so or so and therefore hee referres all to the will of God and saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by chance I will doe thus or by fortune or if the Lord permit I will doe thus Where hee shewes what hee would have done what his affection did stand to but whether the consequence of it should bee answerable or no hee leaves it to the will of God and indeed that which hee here promiseth by all likelihood it never fell out I know it is argued both wayes but I thinke they are in the better opinion that conclude that this purpose of the Apostle was never effected 1. Part. That the Apostle came not to Corinth Concerning the first part of the Text that you may the better understand it looke to 2 Cor. 1.16 17 18. And in this confidence I would have come unto you before that you might have had a second grace or benefit and I would have gone by you and passed into Macedonia and againe would have come from Macedonia to you and by you have been led along or sent along to Iudea Marke what his purpose was it was his intent to doe thus but hee could not doe this and therefore hee answers the Corinthians againe which might have said unto him What dost thou tell us that thou wilt come and dost thou faile of thy promise art thou so inconstant art thou so forgetfull of thy selfe and of us Therefore it followes in the next verse where he answers for himselfe saith he when I consulted of these things with my selfe when I purposed to doe thus did I use lightnesse did I use inconstancy or did I make it so that those things that I counsell did I counsell according to the flesh that with mee there should bee yea yea and nay nay that my yea should bee yea and my nay nay observe the meaning of this hee answers them that when hee purposed
the Text saith that they went presently as soone as they saw the vision they went forward to goe to Macedon knowing by certaine arguments that the Lord had called them there to preach the Gospel So from Troas hee went to Samothracia and from thence hee went the same day to Neapolis from thence he passed to Philippos c. Now in this first journey to Macedon the Apostle was intercepted and hindred that he could not goe through as hee purposed to doe as we finde in the story from Philippos he passed to Appolonia which were a company of people that were strangers carried and planted in a strong place in the confines betweene Thrace and Macedon From thence he came to Amphipolis from thence to Thessalonica where he stayed three weeks untill the Iewes persecuted him thence for his life and then he came to Berea which were most noble minded men which examined the Scriptures tried daily whether those things that Paul spake were the Word of God as we see Acts 19. Act. 19. From Berea the Iewes hunted him they came from Thessalonica with permission to take him wheresoever they could find him therefore the brethren conveyed him from thence to Athens and then he came to Corinth where he stayed 18. Moneths that was the first time of his being at Corinth where he conversed I say a yeare and a halfe At Macedon he was twice for the second time he went he passed almost by Dalmatia and Illiricum as he speaks in the Epistle to the Romanes and then hee came backe and thought to have gone to Corinth but newes was brought him that the Iewes would take away his life therefore he returned and could not come but hee desired the money to bee sent to him to Philippi by Titus which they did and so it was carried to Ierusalem and bestowed on the brethren But here is some difficulty Object For how could it be that their benevolence should be put off for so long a time a poore man must have reliefe quickly or else he perisheth this money that was gathered at Corinth either it must be conveyed upon the sudden or else the brethren at Ierusalem for whom it was destinate are like to lose life and state and all Answ But for this we must understand that the want was not so great it was not so urgent but that they could stay some time and so it was almost a year indeed before he dispatched his journey in going to Macedon and returning from Philippos and if he receive their benevolence and it be sent from thence there will be time sufficient for it to relieve them at Ierusalem at the time of Pentecost These things are needfull to be knowne although the common people cannot brook them because they think they edifie not yet it is no great matter as long as I follow the Text I am carelesse of all censures 2 Part. Macedonia what Now I come to the particulars of the Text hee saith hee will come to them when he shall come from Macedonia Macedonia it is a great and large country in the North of Greece it is now called Ronnelli and Albania in old time it was called Emathia and Emonia it is that country which is intimated to us by the name of Kittim Macedonia Kittim Gen. 10.4 or Kethim Gen. 10.4 The sons of Iavan were Kethim and Dodanim of Dodanim came the inhabitants of Rhodes or Rodanim and of Kethim came the inhabitants of the Isles and especially the inhabitants of Macedonia And though Macedonia be no Isle but a Continent yet it is adjacent and they were the mother of it and this word Kethim I stand upon the more because the Scripture hath many ambiguities about it In Dan. 11. Dan. 11. The ships of Kethim shall come against them that is against the Assyrian Kingdome under the Antiochees In Isay 23.1 Isay 23.1 Houle ye ships of Tarshish for Kittim shall make good this word that is Alexander the great King of Macedon shall make good this word for that which Nebuchadnezzar had done before him he did in a short time after him againe that is to the Iland of Tyre which was seperate from the sea by the span of two miles or a mile and a halfe both Nebuchadnezzar with the strong and indefatigable labour of his men and Alexander after him by his infinite high spirit brought it of an Iland to be a Continent and made themselves Lords of the place so that where he saith Houle yee ships of Tarshish for Kittim shall make good this word that is that prophesie that I give of it There shall come a man out of Kittim that is Alexander Alexander the great King of Macedon hee shall make good this that I have prophesied this is a plaine demonstration that Kittim is this Macedon And in Ezek. 27. Ezek. 27. saith he speaking of the ships of Kittim although the Iews alway understand it of Ciprus yet better judgements have and doe take it for Macedon because there was a city built there which was called Ketiem or Ketium for Livie Livius saith that Perseus Perseus the last King of Macedon hee gathered his people together at Ketium and it is an easie translation of the word as Suidas Suidas a learned man notes that from Kethim comes Macedon by appendix of the syllable Ma Makethim Makedon or Makethia so the name is very natural and agreeable with the first Originall Kethim This I note onely to shew you the congruity of these words which we meet with oft in the Scriptures I know that Kethim is more than the City of Macedon I know that the Macedons possessed Italie and built a city there and called it Kittie but it was called Kittim of that city in Macedon the Macedons I say possessed great part of Italie as all the parts about Apulea and Brundis Brundusinm which were for a long time after called Magna Grecia Great Greece This is that Macedon saith Plinie Lib. 5. Cap. 11. that was once the mistresse of the world This is that which overcame Egypt Plinâ— l. 5. c. 11. that was Lord of Asia this is that which wandred as far as India namely by the prowesse and strength of Alexander the great King of Macedon but saith hee the same Macedon is fallen to a low ebbe and shee that was the mistresse of the world by one of our valiant men Paulus Aemilius Paulus Aemilius was in one day sacked and he did sell and mortgage 72. Cities of it See saith he what great difference there is in the luck and fortunes of two men Alexander the Great and Perseus the last King of Macedon Alexander the Great won and purchased all Perseus the last King of Macedon hee lost all that was won before This is that country therefore that the Apostle purposed to goe to it was fallen from the glory of the world and now it was come to receive the glory
and Kingdome of Christ it had lost something among the nations but it found place to be a most constant Church For Paul needed nothing to doe in that Church after he had once confirmed it as we see in many passages of his Epistles It was the most glorious constant and pure Church in the world the Church of Macedon We come now to the promise that hee makes to them at Corinth they might say 3 Part. St. Pauls promise to winter at Corinth If thou goe to Macedon when wilt thou come to us for this was the great and earnest desire of the Corinthians to see their Pastor they were troubled with seducers they were troubled with a number of ravening wolves that were crept into the flock and they knew not how to keepe the body of Christ unparted Some would be of Paul some would hold with Apollo some with Cephas some with Christ some with their owne fancie therefore they desired that he would come and rectifie these disorders which he was willing to doe if the Lord permitted him Now Paul promiseth them what he intended to doe in Theory in contemplation if God would give him leave he would come to them and stay with them and perhaps winter with them I passe to Macedon but I will stay with you Macedon is a Church that needs no great reformation it is enough that I visit that and passe by it but I will stay longer with you because you want my presence to make somewhat good which is amisse And for this wintering of St. Paul the holy Ghost gives us to understand that although of necessity the Minister of the Gospell be to apply himselfe to the word of God especially in the prime plantation of it yet the Lord vouchsafes unto them a kind of Sabbath a kind of resting time It is not for a man to expose himselfe to danger at all times and in all places but that liberty which the Lord hath afforded to men in reason and common nature that liberty the preachers of the Gospell may take to themselves There is some time indeed when a man must lay downe his life when God calls him to it but otherwise except he have a speciall command for it a man is not to offer himselfe The winter is an unfit time to travaile in therefore St. Paul takes his opportunity to winter at Corinth The snow in Thracia the dangerous weather by the sea the frost and cold of those countries are extream for the time that they last these things were sufficient motives to Paul to make him take up his lodging and his station at Corinth Liberty allowed to Preachers So it doth give and afford liberty to all the Ministers of the Gospell to take those opportunities which the Lord reacheth forth unto them a man is not bound to preach when he is sick nor he is not bound to find a Preacher in his sicknesse but at the charge of the parish and those that belong unto it for there is no reason for men to trouble a sick man with whole mens businesse for the seasons must be considered the Lord bids the wind blow at one time and hee bids it cease at another he commands the raine to fall at one time at another time the doores of heaven are stopped up So he saith Isay 5. Isay 5. that the clouds shall not raine so sometimes the Preacher of the Gospell he cannot raine he cannot distill that which hee hath received for want of health or by reason of discontent or else by reason of opposition in the world and men must take these things well A man might have said to Paul What will you spend a whole winter at Corinth You should goe about your masters businesse the Lord hath sent you to preach the Gospell through the world will you take up so much time at Corinth to lie there idle so long Nay saith he the Lord hath given me this liberty I may although not give indulgence to my flesh yet I must spare my life till God call for it and then I must not when he calls for it but till then I must take the opportunities as common sense and reason shall guide me But here behold what a wintering this was What winterings S. Pauls waâ— this wintering of the Apostle it was not as other winterings be the word is borrowed from souldiers and from shipping when the souldiers cannot keepe in the field by reason of the extremity of the weather they then take up their station in some good populous towne where they may have habitation and ability against the summer and then be brought forth into the field to doe more service It is also taken from ships when the sea is shut up in the winter times the ship is pulled into the dock till the spring come that it be brought out againe after reparation from these things is this word taken but yet the wintering of St. Paul it was not like that of souldiers or the wintering of ships for they commonly be both unprofitable but the wintering of St. Paul was as profitable where he was as his travailes could have been in other places for indeed souldiers cannot sight in winter they cannot beare armes in the field by reason of the extremity of the weather and if they doe any thing at home it is some small triviall thing to keep themselves in action to raise a rampier or sconce or some such thing not like unto the dangers that are abroad in the field so the ships in the dock they doe nothing but stand meerely without any use but the wintering of St. Paul was not so but it was full of action full of profit for in Corinth where hee wintered if he had wintered there and had come to effect his will and purpose hee had been still in the Lords Vineyard hee had been still preaching and exhorting and going from house to house as the fashion was then to give comfort and consolation to those that were afflicted to confirme them against the stormes of persecution to shine before them in the example of holy and good living In this regard St. Pauls wintering was a glorious progresse when hee rested he ceased not hee ceased not from his labour but still hee was full of life and action and as the sunne in the firmament which cannot stand still but is ever running his course like a mighty giant Psal 19. Psal 19. So we see here a mighty difference between the word of God and all other actions other men whatsoever is their profession and trade they must of necessity leave when their opportunity ceaseth they can work no longer a man cannot work by night as our Lord Iesus saith The night commeth when no man can worke Although there be many that work by artificiall light yet there are some kinde of works that will not admit of any but day light And when the water is up when the weather is extreame when the water is
him that deserves it for it is neither in Paul that preacheth nor in Apollo that watereth nor in any second cause to open the doore of mens hearts being barred up by the malice of the devill and become infatuate and insensible that a man may beat aswell upon a flint stone as upon the doore of a mans heart till it please God to open it Therefore it must teach us to returne all praise to God Almighty and not to second causes And withall it teacheth us to desire of God which hath the key of David that openeth when no man shuts that it would please him to assist the passage of the gospell with the gracious assistance of his helping hand for indeed the Word is preached in many places where there is no doore open and yet it seemes that all the whole house is open When a man comes to preach the Church is open and the men present and yet there is a certaine occlusion a shutting up in the inward man in the heart that the Lord finds no entertainment there It must be begged at the hand of God therefore that as hee hath given his Word so to open the hearts of men to receive it that the doore of the heart may be open that Christ may be admitted This is that wee reade of in Acts 16. Acts 16. When the Apostles preached God opened the heart of Lidia As if he should say it was never opened till that time and then when the Lord opened her heart shee opened her hand in all liberality to the Apostles If you think me Gods child if you think mee to be Gods owne I beseech you come unto mee doe me that honour as to receive some benefit and favour for your maintenance from me And this is that which Moses saith to the people of Israel You had never your eyes open till this day nor you never had your eares open nor your hearts untill this day meaning that they were still in the middest of Gods miracles as men amazed or astonished and were not sensible they understood not what God did for them It is God that must open it is God that bores the eare as the Psalmist saith Psal 40. Psal 40. Bore my eares oh Lord saith the Prophet It is God that toucheth the heart It is God that moveth the tongue it is he that ordereth the invention it is he that must grace the elocution it is hee that works all in all Opening it comes not of man it is not of the wit of man or of the labour and toile of man but it is God that gives the increase A doore is opened A great doore Now for the quality and condition of this doore hee saith briefly that it is a great one and effectuall A great and mighty entrance makes roome for a great company It is no wicket it is no small posterne it is no little enterie it is no rist or crevice but it is a doore and that a great open doore that is the Lord hath given me such an opportunity meaning at Ierusalem as after I shall prove such a mighty doore is opened to mee at Ierusalem by reason of the concourse and assembly of the people there as that it seemes the Gospell shall be received in at broad gates all the gates and windowes shall be laid open to receive the Lord of life for where the great company of men are and where the great concourse of the world is to be seene there is also the best working for the Gospell of Christ it loves no paucities it loves not handfulls of men there is nothing more base to the Gospell than contemptible companies of people a great doore a great assembly gives incouragement to the speaker when there is a mighty number when there is a great multitude as three thousand men at Peters Sermon converted there is then a mighty doore opened when Christ shall have seaven thousand men follow him up and downe the wildernesse this is a mighty doore as for handfulls of men although God despise them not but where two or three be met together he will be present yet where there should be a doore open and there is but a wicket it is a matter of scorne and disgrace Kings doe not use to come in at wickets but at great gates and the King of Kings bids us not open a wicket but Lift up your heads ye gates Psal 24. and be ye lift up ye everlasting doores that the King of glory may come in even the Lord of Hoasts mighty and strong in battaile he is the King of glory Therefore it concernes us as much as wee may that we labour to make the company of Christ fair and full that wee make the doore large and spacious and wide that there may be roome enough for the Lord to come in Esay 40. Prepare the way of the Lord make his paths straight not strait or narrow but straight that is faire and even and there is nothing more disgracefull to the Church of God then when wee shall have the pues as many as the men and women and the walls for their auditors and chiefly that base and most wicked and ungodly fashion that is growne in Gentlemens houses they must have Sermons in their chambers at their fire sides at their boords end where a man must looke upon his auditors and can scarcely call them in the plurall number this is base and unacceptable to the Lord and these men seldome offer to open to the Lord these are they that make the course of the Gospell that it can have no prosperity that there can be no blessing upon it but rather it is turned to a shame and a curse and a meere frustration and yet the fashion is now to bring all our Churches into houses and the Patron must command the word and have it attend upon him like a dog at the table A great doore is opened But it is no matter how great it be if it be not effectuall An effectuall doore therefore saith he it was so too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Beza Beza thinks it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so hee saith the meaning is that the gate was set up to the full it was wide open it stood not askance but the word it selfe and the copies hold it as I have read it an effectuall doore Quest Why how could it be great except it were effectuall Answ Yes there may be a great passage to little purpose for the gate where there is a high way lies or a thorow-fare it may be great but men runne along they passe through and make no residence they make no stay and so it is no effectuall way so when mens eares and hearts are open to receive Christ if they have no delight to keepe Christ when he is there but let him goe out again as in a thorow-fare here is no efficacy here is no power here is no foyson here is no profit comes of