And even God himselfe who had that omni-sufficiency in himselfe conceived a conveniency for his glory to draw a Circumference about that Center Creatures about himselfe and to shed forth lines of love upon all them and not to love himselfe alone Selfe-love in man sinks deep but yet you see the Apostle in his order casts the other sin lower that is into a worse place To be without naturall affections S. Augustine extends these naturall affections to Religious affections because they are naturall to a supernaturall man to a regenerate man who naturally loves those that are of the houshold of the faithfull that professe the same truth of Religion and not to be affected with their distresses when Religion it selfe is distressed in them is impietie He extends these affections to Morall affections the love of Eminent and Heroicall vertues in any man we ought to be affected with the fall of such men And he extends them to civill affections the love of friends not to be moved in their behalfe is argument enough that we doe not much love them For our case in the Text These men whom Jesus found weeping and wept with them were none of his kindred They were Neighbours and Christ had had a conversation and contracted a friendship in that Family V. 5. He loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus saies the Storie and he would let the world see that he loved them for so the Jewes argued that saw him weepe V. 36. Behold how he loved them without outward declarations who can conclude an inward love to assure that Iesus wept To an inordinatenesse of affections it never came to a naturall tendernesse it did and so far as to teares Laerymae and then who needs be ashamed of weeping Look away far from me for I will weep bitterly sayes Hierusalem in Esay But look upon me sayes Christ in the Lamentations Behold and see if ever there were any sorrow any teares like mine Not like his in value but in the roote as they proceeded from naturall affection they were teares of imitation and we may we must weepe teares like his teares They scourged him they crowned him they nailed him they pierced him and then blood came but he shed teares voluntarily and without violence The blood came from their ill but the teares from his owne good nature The blood was drawne the teares were given We call it a childish thing to weepe and a womanish and perchance we meane worse in that then in the childish for therein we may meane falshood to be mingled with weaknesse Christ made it an argument of his being man to weepe for though the lineaments of mans bodie eyes and eares hands and feet be ascribed to God in the Scriptures though the affections of mans mind be ascribed to him even sorrow nay Repentance it selfe is attributed to God I doe not remember that ever God is said to have wept It is for man And when God shall come to that last Act in the glorifying of Man when he promises to wipe all teares from his eyes what shall God have to doe with that eye that never wept He wept out of a nuturall tendernesse in generall and he wept now out of a particular occasion What was that Quia mortuus because Lazarus was dead We stride over many steps at once waive many such considerable circumstances as these Lazarus his friend was dead therefore he wept Lazarus the staffe and sustentatio of that family was dead he upon whom his Sisters relied was dead therefore he wept But I stop onely upon this one step Quia mortuus that he was dead Now a good man is not the worse for dying that is true and capable of a good sense because he is established in a better world but yet when he is gone out of this world he is none of us he is no longer a man The stronger opinion in the Schoole is That Christ himselfe when he lay dead in the grave was no man Though the God head never departed from the Carcasse there was no divorce of that Hypostaticall union yet because the Humane soule was departed from it he was no man Hugo de S. Victor who thinks otherwise that Christ was a man then thinkes so upon a weak ground He thinkes that because the soule is the form of man the soul is man and that therefore the soul remaining the man remaines But it is not the soule but the union of the soul that makes the man The Master of the Sentences Peter Lombard that thinks so too that Christ was then a man thinkes so upon as weak a ground He thinkes that it is enough to constitute a man that there be a soul and body though that soul and body be not united but still it is the union that makes the man And therefore when he is disunited dead he is none of us he is no man and therefore we weep how well soever he be Abraham was loath to let go his wife though the King had her A man hath a naturall lothnesse to let go his friend though God take him to him S. Augustine sayes that he knew well enough that his mother was in heaven and S. Ambrose that he knew wel enough that his master Theodosius the emperor was in heaven but because they saw not in what state they were they thought that something might be asked at Gods hands in their behalf and so out of a humane and pious officiousnesse in a devotion perchance indigested uncocted and retaining yet some crudities some irresolutions they strayed into prayers for them after they were dead Lazarus his sisters made no doubt of their brothers salvation they beleeved his soul to be in a good estate And for his body they told Christ Lord we know that he shall rise at the last day And yet they wept Here in this world we who stay lack those who are gone out of it we know they shall never come to us and when we shall go to them whether we shall know them or no we dispute They who think that it conduces to the perfection of happinesse in heaven that we should know one another think piously if they think we shall For as for the maintenance of publique peace States and Churches may think diversly in points of Religion that are not fundamentall and yet both be true and Orthodoxall Churches so for the exaltation of private devotion in points that are not fundamentall divers men may think diversly and both be equally good Christians Whether we shall know them there or no is problematicall and equall that we shall not till then is dogmaticall and certain Therefore we weep I know there are Philosophers that will not let us weep nor lament the death of any And I know that in the Scriptures there are rules and that there are instructions convayed in that example that David left mourning as soon as the childe was dead And I know that there are Authors of a
a considerable thing and hath in part the nature of materials for God to worke upon That Instruction which is the subject of the whole Psalem is that saving Doctrine That there is no blessednesse but in the remission of sinnes That David establishes for his foundation in the first verse and would say nothing till he had said that But then though this remission of sinnes which onely constitutes Blessednesse proceed meerely from the goodnesse of God yet that goodnesse of God as it excites primarily so it works still upon that act of man penitent confession Notum feci I acknowledged my sinne and Dixi confitebor I prepared my selfe to confesse my sinne ver 5. and thou forgavest all This then S. Hierome delivers to be the Instruction of the Psalme Hominem Hieron non propriis meritis sed Dei gratia posse salvari si confiteatur admissa That man of himselfe is irrecoverable But yet there is a way opened to salvation in Christ Jesus But this way is onely open to them who enter by Confession And though S. Hierome and S. Augustin differ often in the exposition of the Psalmes yet here they speake almost the same words The Instruction of this Psalme is Intelligentia qua intelligitur non meritis operum August sed gratia Dei hominem liberari confitentem sua peccata That no man is saved by his owne merits That any man may bee saved by the mercy of God in the merits of Christ That no man attaines this mercy but by confession of his sinnes And that that rule In ore duorum aut trium may have the largest fulnesse adde wee a third witnesse Intellectus est Gregor This is the Instruction that David promises Nemo ante fidem Let no man presume of merits before faith But in all this they all three agree Every man must know that hee may bee saved And that by his owne merits hee cannot And lastly that the merits of Christ are applied to no man that doth nothing for himselfe Quid est Intellectus August saith he againe What is this understanding It is saith he no more but this Vt non jactes opera ante fidem Never to take confidence in works otherwise then as they are rooted in faith For as hee enlarges this Meditation if thou shouldst see a man pull at an Oare till his eye-strings and sinews and muscles broke and thou shouldst aske him whither he rowed If thou shouldst see a man runne himselfe out of breath and shouldst aske him whither hee ranne If thou shouldst see him dig till his backe broke and shouldst aske him what he sought And any of these should answer thee they could not tell wouldst not thou thinke them mad So are all Disciplines all Mortifications all whippings all starvings all works of Piety and of Charity madnesse if they have any other root then faith any other title or dignity then effects and fruits of a preceding reconciliation to God Multi pagani saith he Idem There are many Infidels that refuse to bee made Christians because they are so good already Sibi sufficiunt de sua bona vita They are the worse for being so good and they thinke they need no faith but are rich enough in their morall honesty And there are Christians that are the worse for thinking and beleeving that it is enough to Beleeve It is not faith to beleeve in grosse that I shall be saved but I must beleeve that I shall be saved by him that died for me If I consider that I cannot chuse but love him too And if I love him I shall doe his will Ama operaberis Idem whomsoever thou lovest thou wilt doe what thou canst to please him Da mihi vacantem amorem I would bee glad to see an idle love that that man that loved any thing in this world should not labour to compasse that that he loved But purga amorem saith hee I doe not forbid thee loving it is a noble affection but purge and purifie thy love Aquam fluentem in cloacam converte in hortum Turne that water which hath served thy stables and sewers before into thy gardens Turne those teares which thou hast spent upon thy love or thy losses upon thy sinnes and the displeasure of thy God and Quales impetus habebas ad mundum habebis ad Creatorem mundi Those passions which transported thee upon the creature will establish thee upon the Creator The Instruction then of the whole Psalme is peace with God in the merits of Christ declared in a holy life which being the summe of all our Christian profession is farre beyond this Vnderstanding in our Text They have no understanding but yet upon this Understanding God raises that great building and therefore wee take this faculty The Vnderstanding into a more particular consideration Here is the danger He that at ripe yeares hath no understanding hath no grace A little understanding may have much grace but he that hath none of the former can have none of this God therefore brings us to the consideration not of the greatest but of the first thing not of his superedifications but of his foundations our understanding our reason For though Animalis homo The naturall man perceiveth not the things that be of the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2.14 yet let him bee what man he will Naturall or Supernaturall hee must bee a man that must probare spiritum prove and discerne the spirit let him have as much more as you will it is requisite hee have so much reason and understanding as to perceive the maine points of Religion not that he must necessarily have a naturall explicite reason for every Article of faith but it were fit he had reason to prove that those Articles need not reason to prove them If I beleeve upon the Authority of my Teacher or of the Church or of the Scripture very expedient it were to have reason to prove to my selfe that these Authorities are certaine and irrefragable And therefore Caeteris animalibus se ignorare natura est homini vitium If a Horse or a Mule understand not it selfe it is never the worse Horse nor Mule for it is borne with that ignorance But if man having opportunities both in respect of his parts and calling to be better instructed either by a negligent and lazy and implicite relying upon the opinion of others doe but lay himselfe downe as a leafe upon the water to be carried along with the tide or by a wilfull drowsinesse and security in his sins have given over the debatement the discussing the understanding of the maine of his beliefe and of his life if either he keepe not his understanding awake or over-watch it if he doe nothing with it or employ it too busily too fervently too eagerly upon the world I would it were true of them Facti sicut you are like the Horse and the Mule but Vtinam essetis I would
occasionally instrumenta of Gods glory August sahll finde cold affection If they killed Lazarus had not Christ done enough to let them see that he could raise him againe for Caeca sevitia sialiud videtur mertuus aliud occisus It was a blinde malice if they thought that Christ could raise a man naturally dead and could not if he were violently killed This then being his greatest Miracle preparing the hardest Article of the Creed the Resurrection of the body as the Mirracle it selfe declared sufficiently his Divinity that nature so in this declaration that he was God he would declare that he was man too and therefore Iesus wept He wept as man doth weepe and he wept as a man may weepe Noninordinaté Bernard Iob 10.4 for these teares were Testes naturae non Indices diffidentiae They declared him to be true man but no distrustfull no inordinate man In Iob there is a question ask'd of God Hast thou eyes of flesh and doest thou see as man sees Let this question be directed to God manifested in Christ and Christ will weepe out an answer to that question I have eyes of flesh and I do weep as man weepes Not as sinfull man not as s man that had het fall his bridle by which he should trune his horse Not as a man that were cast from the rudder by which he should steere his Ship Not as a man that had lost his interest and power in his affections and passions Christ wept not so Christ mingt goe farther that way then any other man Christ might ungirt himselfe and give more scope and liberty to his passions then any other man both because he had no Originall sin within to drive him no inordinate love without to draw him when his affections were moved which all other men have God sayes to the Jews That they had wept in his eares God had heard them weep Numb 11.18 but for what and how they wept for flesh There was a tincture there was a deep dye of murmuring in their tears Christ goes as far in the passion in his agony and he comes to a passionate deprecation in his Tristis anima and in the Si possibile and in the Transeat calix But as all these passions were sanctified in the roote from which no bitter leafe no crooked twig could spring so they were instantly washed with his Veruntamen a present and a full submitting of all to Gods pleasure Yet not my will O Father but thine be done It will not be safe for any man to come so neare an excesse of passions as he may finde some good men in the Scriptures to have done That because he heares Moses say to God Dele me Blot my name out of the book of life Therefore he may say God damne me or I renounce God It is not safe for a man to expose himself to a tentation because he hath seen another passe through it Every man may know his own Byas and to what sin that diverts him The beauty of the person the opportunity of the place the importunity of the party being his Mistresse could not shake Iosephs constancy There is one such example of one that resisted a strong tentation But then there are in one place two men together that sinned upon their own bodies Her and Onan Gen. 46. â—2 then when no tentation was offered nay when a remedy against tentation was ministred to them Some man may be chaster in the Stews then another in the Church and some man will sin more in his dreams then another in his discourse Every man must know how much water his own vessell draws and not to think to saile over wheresoever he hath seen anothe he knows not with how much labour shove over No nor to adventure so far as he may have reason to be confident in his own strength For thugh he may be safe in himself yet he may sinin anogher if by his indiscreete and improvident example another be scandalized Christ was alwayes safe He was led of the Spirit Mat. 4.1 of what spirit his own Spirit Led willingly into the wildernesse to be tempted of the devill No other man might do that but he who was able to say to the Sun Siste sol was able to say to Satan Siste Lucifer Christ in another place gave such scope to his affections and to others interpretations of his actions that his frineds and kinsfolds thught him mad besides himself But all this while Christ had his own actions and passions and their interpretations in his own power he could do what he would Here in our Text Jesus was troubled and he groaned and vehemently and often his affections were stirred but as in a clan glasse if water be stirred and troubled though it may conceive a little light froth yet it contracts no foulenesse in that clean galsse the affections of Christ were moved but so in that holy vessell they would contract no foulenesse no declination towards inordinatenesse But then every Christian is not a Christ and therefore as he that would fast forty dayes as Christ did might starve and he that would whip Merchants out of the Temple as Christ did might be knockt downe in the Temple So he knowing his owne inclinations or but the generall ill inclination of all mankind as he is infected with Originall sin should converse so much with publicans and sinners might participate of their sins The rule is we must avoid inordinatenesse of affections but when we come to examples of that rule our selves well understood by our selves must be our owne exaples for it is not alwaies good to go too far as some good men have gone before Now though Christ were farre from both Non Apathes yet he came nearer to an excesse of passion then to an Indolencie to a senselesnesse to a privation of naturall affections Inordinatenesse of affections may sometimes make some men like some beasts but indolencie absence emptinesse privation of affections makes any man at all times like stones like dirt In novissimis saith S. Peter In the last that is in the worst dayes in the dregs and lees and tartar of sin then shall come men lovers of themselves and that is ill enough in man for that is an affection peculiar to God to love himselfe Non speciale vitium sed radix omnium vitiorum saies the Schoole in the mouth of Aquinas selfe love cannot be called a distinct sin but the roote of all sins It is true that Iustin Martyr saies Philosophanti finis est Deo assimilari The end of Christian Philosophy is to be wise like God but not in this to love our selves for the greatest sin that ever was and that upon which even the blood of Christ Jesus hath not wrought the sin of Angels was that Similis ero Altissimo to be like God To love our selves to be satisfied in our selves to finde an omni-sufficiency in our selves is an intrusion an usurpation upon God
dependance or relation to any faculty in man or man himselfe have some concurrence and co-operation therein There we found that in the first creation God wrought otherwise for the production of creatures then he does now At first he did it immediatly intirely by himselfe Now he hath delegated and substituted nature and imprinted a naturall power in every thing to produce the like So in the first act of mans Conversion God may be conceived to work otherwise then in his subsequent holy actions for in the first man cannot be conceived to doe any thing in the rest he may not that in the rest God does not all but that God findes a better disposition and souplenesse and maturity and mellowing to concurre with his motion in that man who hath formerly been accustomed to a sense and good use of his former graces then in him who in his first conversion receives but then the first motions of his grace But yet even in the first creation the Spirit of God did not move upon that nothing which was before God made heaven and earth But he moved upon the waters though those waters had nothing in themselves to answer his motion yet he had waters to move upon Though our faculties have nothing in themselves to answer the motions of the Spirit of God yet upon our faculties the Spirit of God works And as out of those waters those creatures did proceed though not from those waters so out of our faculties though not from our faculties doe our good actions proceed too All in all is from the love of God but there is something for God to love There is a man there is a soul in that man there is a will in that soul and God is in love with this man and this soul and this will Aug. would have it Non amor ita egenus indigus ut rebus quas diligit subjiciatur sayes S. Aug. excellently The love of God to us is not so poore a love as our love to one another that his love to us should make him subject to us as ours does to them whom we love but Superfertur sayes that Father and our Text he moves above us He loves us but with a Powerfull a Majesticall an Imperiall a Commanding love He offers those whom he makes his his grace but so as he sometimes will not be denyed So the Spirit moves spiritually upon the waters He comes to the waters to our naturall faculties but he moves above those waters He inclines he governes he commands those faculties And this his motion upon those waters we may usefully consider in some divers applications and assimilations of water to man and the divers uses thereof towards man We will name but a few Baptisme and Sin and Tribulation and Death are called in the Scripture by that name Waters and we shall onely illustrate that consideration how this Spirit of God moves upon these Waters Baptisme Sin Tribulation and Death and we have done The water of Baptisme is the water that runs through all the Fathers Baptismus All the Fathers that had occasion to dive or dip in these waters to say any thing of them make these first waters in the Creation the figure of baptisme Tertul. There Tertullian makes the water Primam sedem Spiritus Sancti The progresse and the setled house The voyage and the harbour The circumference and the centre of the Holy Ghost And therefore S. Hierome calls these waters Matrem Mundi The Mother of the World Hieron and this in the figure of Baptisme Nascentem Mundum in figura Baptismi parturiebat The waters brought forth the whole World were delivered of the whole World as a Mother is delivered of a childe and this In figura Baptismi To fore-shew that the waters also should bring forth the Church That the Church of God should be borne of the Sacrament of Baptisme So sayes Damascen Damase Basil And he establishes it with better authority then his owne Hoc Divinus asseruit Basilius sayes he This Divine Basil said Hoc factum quia per Spiritum Sanctum aquam voluit renovare hominem The Spirit of God wrought upon the waters in the Creation because he meant to doe so after in the regeneration of man And therefore Pristinam sedem recognoscens conquiescit Terrul Till the Holy Ghost have moved upon our children in Baptisme let us not think all done that belongs to those children And when the Holy Ghost hath moved upon those waters so in Baptisme let us not doubt of his power and effect upon all those children that dye so We know no meanes how those waters could have produced a Menow a Shrimp without the Spirit of God had moved upon them and by this motion of the Spirit of God we know they produce Whales and Leviathans We know no ordinary meanes of any saving grace for a child but Baptisme neither are we to doubt of the fulnesse of salvation in them that have received it And for our selves Mergimur emergimus Aug. In Baptisme we are sunk under water and then raised above the water againe which was the manner of baptizing in the Christian Church by immersion and not by aspersion till of late times Affectus ameres sayes he our corrupt affections Idem and our inordinate love of this world is that that is to be drowned in us Amor securitatis A love of peace and holy assurance and acquiescence in Gods Ordinance is that that lifts us above water Therefore that Father puts all upon the due consideration of our Baptisme And as S. Hierome sayes Hier. Certainly he that thinks upon the last Judgement advisedly cannot sin then Aug. So he that sayes with S. Augustine Procede in confessionc fides mea Let me make every day to God this confession Domine Deus meus Sancte Sancte Sancte Domine Deus meus O Lord my God O Holy Holy Holy Lord my God In nomine tuo Baptizatus sum I consider that I was baptized in thy name and what thou promisedst me and what I promised thee then and can I sin this sin can this sin stand with those conditions those stipulations which passed between us then The Spirit of God is motion the Spirit of God is rest too And in the due consideration of Baptisme a true Christian is moved and setled too moved to a sense of the breach of his conditions setled in the sense of the Mercy of his God in the Merits of his Christ upon his godly sorrow So these waters are the waters of Baptisme Sin also is called by that name in the Scriptures Aquae peccatum Water The great whore sitteth upon many waters she sits upon them as upon Egges and hatches Cockatrices venomous and stinging sins Apoc. 17. Aqum and yet pleasing though venomous which is the worst of sin that it destroyes and yet delights for though they be called waters yet that is
kisse before he kissed his Master and so betrayed him Homo sum inter homines vivo sayes S. Augustine I am but a man my selfe and I look but for men to live amongst Nec mihi arrogare audeo meliorem domum meam quam Arca Noah I cannot hope to have my house clearer than Noahs Arke and there in eight there was one ill nor then Iacobs house and there the Sonne went up to the Fathers bed nor then Davids and there the brother forced the sister nor then Christs and there Iudas betrayed his Master and with a kisse which alone does so aggravate the fact as that for the atrocity and hainousnesse thereof three of the Evangelists remember that circumstance That he betrayed him with a kisse and as though it might seeme impossible incredible to man that it could be so S. Iohn pretermits that circumstance That it was done with a kisse In Ioabs treachery in Iudas treason is the kisse defamed and in the carnall and licentious abuse of it it is every day depraved They mistake the matter much that thinke all adultery is below the girdle A man darrs out an adultery with his eye in a wanton look and he wraps up adultery with his fingers in a wanton letter and he breaths in an adultery with his lips in a wanton kisse But though this act of love be so defamed both wayes by treachery by licentiousnes yet God chooses this Metaphore he bids us kisse the Sonne It is a true and an usefull Rule That ill men have been Types of Christ Hieron Ep. 131. G. Sanctius 2 Sam. 11. n. 29. and ill actions figures of good Much more may things not ill in themselves though deflected and detorted to ill be restored to good againe and therfore doth God in more then this one place expect our love in a kisse for if we be truly in love with him it will be a holy and an acceptable Metaphore unto us els it will have a carnall and a fastidious taste Frustra ad legendum amoris carmen qui non amat accedit Bernar. He that comes to read Solomons Love song and loves not him upon whom that Song is directed will rather endanger then profit himselfe by that reading Non capit ignitum eloquium frigidum pectus Idem A heart frozen and congealed with the love of this world is not capable not sensible of the fires of the holy Ghost Idem Graecè loquentes non intelligit qui Graecè non novit lingua amoris ei qui non amat barbara As Greek it selfe is barbarous to him that understands not Greek so is the language of love and the kisse which the holy Ghost speaks of here to him that alwayes groveleth and holds his face upon the earth Treachery often but licentiousnesse more hath depraved this seale of love and yet Vt nos ad amplexus sacri amoris accendat Gregor usque ad turpis amoris nostri verba se inclinat God stoops even to the words of our foule and unchast love that thereby he might raise us to the heavenly love of himselfe Idem and his Son Cavendum ne machina quae ponitur ut levet ipsa aggrevet Take thou heed that that ladder or that engine which God hath given to raise thee doe not load thee oppresse thee cast thee downe Take heed lest those phrases of love and kisses which should raise thee to him do not bury thee in the memory and contemplation of sinfull love Idem and of licentious kisses Palea tegit frumentum palea jumentorum frumentum hominum There is corne under the chaffe and though the chaffe and straw be for cattell there is corne for men too There is a heavenly love under these ordinary phrases the ordinary phrase belongs to ordinary men the heavenly love and the spirituall kisse to them who affect an union to God and him whom he sent his Son Christ Jesus S. Paul abhors not good and applyable sentences because some secular Poets had said them before nor hath the Christian Church abhorred the Temples of the Gentiles because they were profaned before with idolatrous sacrifices I do not conceive how that Jesuit Serarius should conceive any such great joy In Jos 6. q. 40. as he sayes he did when he came to a Church-porch and saw an old statue of Iupiter and another of Hercules holding two basins of holy water when Iupiter and Hercules were made to doe Christians such services the Jesuit is over-joyed His Iupiter and his Hercules might well enough have been spared in the Christian Church but why some such things as have beene abused in the Roman Church may not be preserved in or reduced to their right use here I conceive not as well as in a proportion this outward testimony of inward love though defamed by treachery though depraved by licentiousnesse is exacted at our hands by God himselfe towards his Son Kisse the Son lest he be angry For all Ioabs and Iudas treason Propinquitas and carnall lovers licentiousnesse kisse thou the Sonne and be glad that the Sonne hath brought thee in the Christian Church within that distance as that thou mayest kisse him The nearest that the Synagogue or that the Spouse of Christ not yet married came to Cant. 11.1 was Osculetur me Let him kisse me with the kisses of his mouth It was but a kissing of his hand when he reached them out their spirituall food by others It was a mariage but a mariage by a proxie The personall mariage the consummation of the mariage was in the comming of Christ in establishing a reall presence of himselfe in the Church Praecepta Dei oscula sunt sayes Gregory In every thing that God sayes to us he kisses us Sed per Prophetas Ministros alieno ore nos osculatur He kissed us by another mans mouth when he spoke by the mouth of the Prophets but now that he speaks by his owne Son Exod. 6.12 it is by himselfe Even his servant Moses himself was of uncircumcised lips and with the uncircumcised there was no mariage Even his servant Esay was of uncleane lips Esay 6.5 Jer. 1.6 and with the uncleane there was no mariage Even his servant Ieremie was oris infantilis he was a child and could not speake and with children in infancie there is no mariage But in Christ God hath abundantly performed that supply promised to Moses there Aaron thy brother shall be thy Prophet Christ himselfe shall come and speake to thee and returne and speak for thee In Christ the Seraphim hath brought that live coale from the Altar and touched Esayes lips and so spoken lively and clearly to our soules In Christ God hath done that which he said to Ieremy Feare not I am with thee for in this Immanuel God and man Christ Jesus God is with us In Eschines mouth when he repeated them they say even Demosthenes Orations were flat and
may drive him from us Pray we therefore our Lord of everlasting goodnesse That he will be our Hiding-place That hee will protect us from tentations incident to our severall Callings That hee will preserve us from troubles preserve us from them or preserve us in them preserve us that they come not or preserve us that they overcome not And that hee will compasse us so as no enemy find overture unto us and compasse us with songs with a joyfull sense of our perseverance but yet with cries too with a solicitous feare that that multiplicity and hainousnesse of our sins may weary even the incessant and indefatigable Spirit of comfort himselfe and chase him from us SERM. LXI Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.8 I will Instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt goe I will guide thee with mine eye THis verse more then any other in the Psalme answers the Title of the Psalme The title is Davids Instruction and here in the Text it is said I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way thou shalt goe There are eleven Psalmes that have that Title Psalmes of Instruction The whole booke is Sepher Tehillim The booke of prayses and it is a good way of praysing God to receive Instruction Instruction how to praise him Therefore doth the holy Ghost returne so often to this Catechisticall way Instruction Institution as to propose so many Psalmes expresly under that Title purposely to that use In one of those The manner how Instruction should be given is expressed also Psal 45. Bernard It must be in a loving maner for the Title is Canticum Amorum A song of love for Instruction For Absque prudentia benevolentia non sunt perfecta consilia True Instruction is a making love to the Congregation and to every soule in it but it is but to the soule And so when S. Paul said He was mad for their sakes Insanivit Amatoriam insaniam sayes Theophylact S. Paul was mad for love of them to whom he writ his holy love-letters his Epistles And thereupon doe the Rabbins call this Psalme Leb David Cor Davidis The opening and powring out of Davids heart to them whom he instructs Wee have no way into your hearts but by sending our hearts The Poets counsell is Vt ameris ama If thou wouldst be truely loved doe thou love truely The holy Ghosts precept upon us is Vt credaris crede That if we would have you beleeve wee beleeve our selves It is not to our Eloquence that God promises a blessing but to our sincerity not to our tongue but to our heart All our hope of bringing you to love God is in a loving and hearty maner to propose Gods love to you The height of the Spouses love to Christ came but to that Cant. 2.5 I am sicke of love The love of Christ went farther To die for love Love is as strong as death Cant. 8.6 but nothing else is as strong as either and both Love and Death met in Christ How strong and powerfull upon you then should that Instruction be that comes to you from both these The Love and Death of Christ Jesus and such an Instruction doth this text exhibite I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way in which thou shalt goe I will guide thee with mine eye God so loved the world as that he sent his Sonne to die The Sonne being dead so loved the world as that he returned to that world againe and being ascended sent the holy Ghost to establish a Church and in that Church Vsque ad consummationem till the end of the world shall that holy Spirit execute this Catechisticall Office He shall instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt goe He shall guide thee with his eye Though then some later Expositors have doubted of the person who doth this Office Divisio To Instruct who this I in our Text is because the Hebrew word Le David is as well Davidis as Davidi An Instruction from David as an Instruction to David and so the Catechist may seeme to be David and no more yet since this Criticisme upon the word Le David argues but a possibility that it may and not a necessity that it must be so wee accompany S. Hierome and indeed the whole body of the Fathers in accepting this Instruction from God himselfe it is no other then God himselfe that sayes I will instruct thee c. No other then God himselfe can undertake so much as is promised in this text For here is first a rectifying of the understanding I will instruct thee and in the Originall there is somewhat more then our Translation reaches to It is there Intelligere faciam te I will moke thee understand Man can instruct God onely can make us understand And then it is Faciam te I will make Thee Thee understand The worke is the Lords The understanding is the mans for God does not worke in man as the Devill did in Idols and In Pythonissis and In Ventriloquis in possest persons who had no voluntary concurrence with the action of the Devill but were meerely Passive God works so in man as that he makes man worke too Faciam Te I will make Thee understand That that shall be done shall be done by mee but in Thee the Power that rectifies the act is Gods the Act is mans Faciam te sayes God I will make thee thee every particular person for that arises out of this singular and distributive word Thee which threatens no exception no exclusion I wil make every person to whom I present Instruction capable of that Instruction and if he receive it not it is onely his and not my fault And so this first part is an Instruction De credendis of such things as by Gods rectifying of our understanding we are bound to beleeve And then in a second part there followes a more particular Instructing Docebo I will teach thee And that In via In the way It is not onely De via To teach thee which is the way that thou maiest finde it but In via How to keepe the way when thou art in it He will teach thee not onely Vt gradiaris That thou maiest walke in it and not sleepe but Quo modo gradieris How thou mayest walke in it and not stray And so this second part is an Institution De agendis of those things which thine understanding being formerly rectified and deduced into a beliefe thou art bound to do And then in the last words of the text I will guide thee with mine eye there is a third part an establishment a confirmation by an incessant watchfulnesse in God He will consider consult upon us for so much the Originall word imports He will not leave us to Contingencies to Fortune no nor to his owne generall Providence by which all Creatures are universally in his protection and administration but he will ponder us
build the Church in Peter and Andrew brethren The principall fraternity and brotherhood that God respects is spirituall Brethren in the profession of the same true Religion But Peter and Andrew whom he called here to the true Religion and so gave them that second fraternity and brotherhood which is spirituall were naturall brethren before And that God loves that a naturall a secular a civill fraternity and a spirituall fraternity should be joyned together when those that professe the same Religion should desire to contract their alliances in marrying their Children and to have their other dealings in the world as much as they can with men that professe the same true Religion that they do That so not medling nor disputing the proceedings of States who in some cases go by other rules then private men do we doe not make it an equall an indifferent thing whether we marry our selves or our children or make our bargaines or our conversation with persons of a different Religion when as our Adversaries amongst us will not goe to a Lawyer nor call a Physitian no nor scarce a Taylor or other Tradesman of another Religion then their owne if they can possibly avoid it God saw a better likelihood of avoyding Schisme and dissention when those whom hee called to a new spirituall brotherhood in one Religion were naturall brothers too and tied in civill bands as well as spirituall And as Christ began so he proceeded Non cognati for the persons whom he called were Catechisticall instructive persons persons from whose very persons we receive instruction The next whom he called which is in the next verse were two too and brethren too Iohn and Iames but yet his owne kinsmen in the flesh But as he chose two together to avoid singularity and two brethren to avoid Schisme so he preferred two strangers before his own kindred to avoid partiality and respect of persons Certainly every man is bound to do good to those that are neare him by nature The obligation of doing good to others lies for the most part thus Let us do good to all men Gal. 6.10 but especially unto them which are of the houshold of the faithfull They of our owne Religion are of the Quorum Now when all are so of the houshold of the faithfull of our owne Religion the obligation looks home and lie thus He that provideth not for his own denieth the faith 1 Tim. 5.8 and is worse then an Infidel Christ would therefore leave no example nor justification of that perverse distemper to leave his kindred out nor of their disposition who had rather buy new friends at any rate then relieve or cherish the old But yet when Christ knew how far his stock would reach that no liberality howsoever placed could exhaust that but that he was able to provide for all he would leave no example nor justification of that perverse distemper to heape up preferments upon our owne kindred without any consideration how Gods glory might be more advanced by doing good to others too But finding in these men a fit disposition to be good labourers in his harvest and to agree in the service of the Church as they did in the band of nature he calls Peter and Andrew otherwise strangers before he called his Consins Iames and Iohn These Circumstances we proposed to be considered in these persons before Continuò sequuti and at their being called The first after their calling is their chearfull readinesse in obeying Continuò sequuti They were bid follow and forthwith they followed Which present obedience of theirs is exalted in this that this was freshly upon the imprisonment of Iohn Baptist whose Disciple Andrew had been And it might easily have deterred and averted a man in his case to consider that it was well for him that he was got out of Iohn Baptists schoole and company before that storme the displeasure of the state fell upon him and that it behoved him to be wary to apply himselfe to any such new Master as might draw him into as much trouble which Christs service was very like to doe But the contemplation of future persecutions that may fall the example of persecutions past that have falne the apprehension of imminent persecutions that are now falling the sense of present persecutions that are now upon us retard not those upon whom the love of Christ Jesus works effectually They followed for all that And they followed when there was no more perswasion used to them no more words said to them but Sequere me Follow me And therefore how easie soever Iulian the Apostate might make it for Christ to work upon so weake men as these were yet to worke upon any men by so weake means onely by one Sequere me Follow me and no more cannot be thought easie The way of Rhetorique in working upon weake men is first to trouble the understanding to displace and discompose and disorder the judgement to smother and bury in it or to empty it of former apprehensions and opinions and to shake that beliefe with which it had possessed it self before and then when it is thus melted to powre it into new molds when it is thus mollified to stamp and imprint new formes new images new opinions in it But here in our case there was none of this fire none of this practise none of this battery of eloquence none of this verball violence onely a bare Sequere me Follow me and they followed No eloquence enclined them no terrors declined them No dangers withdrew them no preferment drew them they knew Christ and his kindred and his means August they loved him himselfe and not any thing they expected from him Minùs te amat qui aliquid tuum amat quod non propter te amat That man loves thee but a little that begins his love at that which thou hast and not at thy selfe It is a weake love that is divided between Christ and the world especially if God come after the world as many times he does even in them who thinke they love him well that first they love the riches of this world and then they love God that gave them But that is a false Method in this art of love The true is radically to love God for himselfe and other things for his sake so far as he may receive glory in our having and using them This Peter and Andrew declared abundantly Relictia retibus they did as much as they were bid they were bid follow and they followed but it seemes they did more they were not bid leave their nets and yet they left their nets and followed him But for this they did not no man can doe more in the service of God then is enjoyned him commanded him There is no supererogation no making of God beholden to us no bringing of God into our debt Every man is commanded to love God with all his heart and all his power and a heart above a
Fundamentals every man is bound to have but not of the superstructure and superedification 807. B How Imperfect all our Knowledge is in Arts and Sciences 818. A Knowledge against over-much curiosity in attaining to it 63. E. 308. C. 319. A. B Whether wee shall Know one another in the next world 157. C Of sobriety in Knowledge 270. C. 701. A Knowing of our selves how hard a thing it is 563. C Knowing of God foure ordinary wayes of it in the Schooles 229. B L LAbour three-fold Labour in the Scripture 538. B Law and the Gospell of the severall state of either 284. E. 285. A Of the Law of Nature under which every man is 362. C How the Law is said to shew what is sinne 687. B Lawes of Temporall Princes whether or no they binde the conscience of the Subject wherefore never stated by the Pope or by any Councell 741. B Liberality and Bounty Civill and Spirituall what 759. E Liberality a vertue that begets a vertue ibid. The true body and true soule of Liberalitie what it is 760. C Life the excellencie of it 69. D. E. 70. A All that is good included in it 70. A Light the first creature 759. D Literae Formatae in the Primitive Church their Institution and use 415. A Lord whether God could be called the Lord before there were any creatures a disputable thing 757. A The Judgement of Tertullian and S. Augustine either way ibid. B Love the first Act of the Will 225. D How we may love the creatures 398. E 598. B Against the Love of the things of this world 187. C. 399. C Against loving of God for the Temporall blessings he bestowes upon us 750. C Loving our enemies six degrees observed in it 97. B Lust and Licentiousnesse the burdens that it makes men under goe 623. D Lying whether it be lawfull before one that is no competent Judge 491. B M Macchabees their torture and patience 221. E. 222. A. B. C. c. Man what Man is 64. D. E. 65. A. c. The dignitie and honour of Man 655. C. D Hee cannot deliberately wish himselfe an Angel for he should lose thereby ibid. E Of those helps and assistances which Man affords to Man 656. D. E. c. Man is called every creature in Scripture and why 770. C. D Mary the Crownes of England Scotland Denmark and Hungary much about one time fell upon women whose name was Mary 243. E It is a noble and a comprehensive name and why 244. A Marriage of second Marriages 216. D. E. c Masters of that esteeme and regard is to bee had to such as have taught us or have beene our Masters 288. E. 289. A why called Patres-familias 388. B Mediocrity of Estate the commendation of it 661. A. B. c. 685. D Orders in the Church of Rome from both extremes but not one from the Meane 661. B. What is a Mediocrity to one is not nor ought to be to another 714. C Memory the Holy Ghosts pulpit oftner than the Vnderstanding 290. B. C Of the sinfull Memory of past sins how dangerous it is 542. D Mercie of God how much above his judgements 12. B. 67. A. 71. A How full God is of it C Occasionall Mercies what and how many D The Devils capable of Mercy in the judgement of many Fathers 66. A. 262. D The proper difference betweene Mercy and Truth 530. D Against those that abridge the great volume of Gods Mercies 568. E Of severall Mercies and refreshments which are none of Gods 810. E. 811. A God can doe nothing but in Mercy 811. C Merits foreseene no cause of Graces in us 5. A Millenarii their errour what and how generall almost all the Fathers tainted with it 261. C Miracles against multiplying of them in the Roman Chuch 36. D Mirabilis or the man that workes Miracles the first of those great names given to Christ by the Prophet Esay 58. C Nothing dearer to God than a Miracle 215. A They are his owne Prerogative ibid. B It is more to change Nature by Miracles than to make Nature 394. E No man to ground his Faith upon a Miracle as it seemes to him 429. A How to judge of Miracles whether they bee true or false 429. B Dangerous putting of God to a Miracle in saving us 456. B What is properly a Miracle 683. D The Creation it selfe none ibid. Monuments not in Churches in the Primitive times 730 D Mortification outward Mortification and austerity a specious thing 492. E Mortification to be generall of all the parts and not of one onely 541. B Mosselim a kind of Doctors amongst the Jewes that taught the people by parables and obscure sayings 690. E The Multitude of their levity judgement and changing of opinions 482. B. D Against Murmuring at Gods blessings if they be not as great as we desire 576. C Mute against standing Mute at examinations 491. C Mysteries of two kinds in the Schooles 203. D Every Religion under heaven hath had her Mysteries and some things in-intelligible of all sorts of men 690. D N NAmes and Titles nothing puffeth men up more 734. D The Heathen never called their Tutelar Gods by their Names and why 608. A Of getting a good Name amongst men and against those that neglect it 680. A. E Of mens retaining those Names that are most acceptable 285. B Of the Name of Christian and when it was given and how 426. B Adam named all creatures but himselfe and why 563. B Natalitia Martyrum their dayes of suffering so called and why 268. C. 461. C Nativities three Nativities to every Christian and which they are 424. E Nature of that sight which wee have of God even by the light of Nature 227. B. 686. E Of that power which some of the Fathers attribute to Nature without Grace 314. C Men doe not halfe so much against sin as even by the power of Nature they are able to doe 315. B. C Of the testimony which a Naturall soule gives unto it selfe of it selfe 337. B Nature not equivalent to Grace 649 A Nature not our owne ibid. Nature and Grace how they co-operate ibid. D Neighbour-hood and evill Neighbour-hood and communicating with evill men 420. C Noctambulones men that walk in their sleep wake if they be called by their Names 467. A Nothing there is nothing more contrary to God than to be to doe or to thinke Nothing 265. B The Devill himselfe cannot wish himselfe deliberately to be nothing C An Order of Friars in the Roman Church that in humilitie called themselves Nullanos or Nothings 731. C Of the Numberlesse number of Gods benefits to Man 765. A O OCcasionall instruments of Gods glory what cold affections they meet with in the world amongst men disaffected to Gods cause 154. E Occasionall mercies offered what and how many 12. D Occasionall Convertites who 461. C God no Occasionall God and why 586. B Devotion no Occasionall thing and why 244. E A great
employment to which his education had apted him yet the King denied their requests and having a discerning spirit replyed I know M. Donne is a learned man an excellent Divine and will prove a powerfull Preacher After that as he professeth * In his Devotions Expost 8. the King descended almost to a solicitation of him to enter into sacred Orders which though he denied not he deferred for the space of three yeares All which time he applyed himselfe to an incessant study of Textuall Divinity and attained a greater perfection in the learned Languages Greek and Hebrew Forwardnesse and inconsideration could not in him as in many others argue an insufficiencie for he considered long and had many strifes within himselfe concerning the strictnesse of life and competencie of learning required in such as enter into sacred Orders And doubtlesse considering his owne demerits did with meek Moses humbly aske God Who am I And if he had consulted with flesh and bloud he had not put his hand to that holy plough But God who is able to prevaile wrastled with him as the Angel did with Iacob Gen. 32. and marked him for his owne marked him with a blessing a blessing of obedience to the motions of his blessed Spirit And then as he had formerly asked God humbly with Moses Who am I So now being inspired with the apprehension of Gods mercies he did ask King Davids thankfull question Lord who am I that thou art so mindfull of me So mindfull of me as to lead me for more then forty years through a wildernesse of the many temptations and various turnings of a dangerous life So mindfull as to move the learnedst of Kings to descend to move me to serve at thine Altar So merciful to me as to move my heart to embrace this holy motion Thy motions I will embrace take the cup of salvation call upon thy Name and preach thy Gospell Such strifes as these S. Augustine had when S. Ambrose indeavoured his conversion to Christianity with which he confesseth he acquainted his deare friend Alippius Our learned Author a man fit to write after no meane Copy did the like and declaring his intentions to his deare friend D. King the then worthy Bishop of London who was Chaplaine to the Lord Chancellor in the time of his being his Lordships Secretary That Reverend Bishop most gladly received the newes and with all convenient speed ordained him Deacon and Priest Now the English Church had gained a second S. Augustine for I think none was so like him before his conversion none so like S. Ambrose after it And if his youth had the infirmities of the one Father his age had the excellencies of the other the learning and holinesse of both Now all his studies which were occasionally diffused were concentred in Divinity Now he had a new calling new thoughts new imployment for his wit and eloquence Now all his earthly affections were changed into divine love and all the faculties of his soule were ingaged in the conversion of others in preaching glad tidings remission to repenting sinners and peace to each troubled soule To this he applyed himselfe with all care and diligence and such a change was wrought in him Psal 84. that he was gladder to be a doore-keeper in the house of God then to enjoy any temporall employment Presently after he entred into his holy Profession the King made him his Chaplaine in Ordinary and gave him other incouragements promising to take a particular care of him And though his long familiarity with persons of greatest quality was such as might have given some men boldnesse enough to have preached to any eminent Auditory yet his modesty was such that he could not be perswaded to it but went usually to preach in some private Churches in Villages neere London till his Majestie appointed him a day to preach to him And though his Majestie and others expected much from him yet he was so happy which few are as to satisfie and exceed their expectations preaching the Word so as shewed he was possest with those joyes that he laboured to distill into others A Preacher in earnest weeping sometimes for his Auditory sometimes with them alwayes preaching to himselfe like an Angel from a cloud though in none carrying some as S. Paul was to heaven in holy raptures enticing others by a sacred art and courtship to amend their lives and all this with a most particular grace and un-imitable fashion of speaking That Summer the same month in which he was ordained Priest and made the Kings Chaplaine his Majestie going his Progresse was intreated to receive an entertainment in the University of Cambridge and M. Donne attending his Majestie there his Majestie was pleased to recommend him to be made Doctor in Divinity Doctor Harsnet after Archbishop of York being then their Vice-Chancellour who knowing him to be the Author of the Pseudo-Martyr did propose it to the University and they presently granted it expressing a gladnesse they had an occasion to entitle and write him Theits His abilities and industry in his profession were so eminent and he so much loved by many persons of quality that within one yeare after his entrance into Sacred Orders he had fourteen Advowsons of severall Benefices sent unto him but they being in the Countrey could not draw him from his long loved friends and London to which he had a naturall inclination having received his birth and breeding in it desiring rather some preferment that might fixe him to an employment in that place Immediately after his returne from Cambridge his wife died leaving him a man of an unsetled estate And having buried five the carefull father of seven children then living to whom he made a voluntary promise being then but forty two years of age never to bring them under the subjection of a Step-mother which promise he most faithfully kept burying with his teares all his sublunary joyes in his most deare and deserving Wives grave living a most retired and solitary life In this retirednesse he was importuned by the grave Benchers of Lincolns Inne once the friends of his youth to accept of their Lecture which by reason of M. Gatakers removall was then void of which he accepted being glad to renew his intermitted friendship with them whom he so much loved and where he had been a Saul not so far as to persecute Christianity yet in his irregular youth to neglect the practise of it to become a Paul and preach salvation to his brethren Nor did he preach onely but as S. Paul advised his Corinthians to be followers of him as he was of Christ so he also was an ocular direction to them by a holy and harmlesse conversation Their love to him was exprest many wayes for besides the faire lodgings that were provided and furnisht for him other curtesies were daily accumulated so many and so freely as though they meant their gratitude if possible should exceed or at least equall his merit In
that assurance which his blessed Spirit imprints in me now of the salvation of the one and of the resurrection of the other And for that constant and cheerfull resolution which the same Spirit established in me to live and die in the Religion now professed in the Church of England In expectation of that Resurrection I desire my body may be buried in the most private manner that may be in that place of S. Pauls Church London that the now Residentiaries have at my request assigned for that purpose c. And this my last Will and Testament made in the feare of God whose merit I humbly beg and constantly rely upon in Iesus Christ and in perfect love and charity with all the world whose pardon I aske from the lowest of my servants to the highest of my Superiours Written all with mine owne hand and my name subscribed to every Page being five in number Nor was his charity exprest onely at his death but in his life by a cheerfull and frequent visitation of friends whose minds were dejected or fortunes necessitous And he redeemed many out of Prison that lay for small debts or for their fees He was a continuall giver to poore Scholars both of this and forraigne Nations besides what he gave with his owne hand he usually sent a servant to all the Prisons in London to distribute his charity at all festivall times in the yeare He gave 100. l. at one time to a Gentleman that he had formerly knowne live plentifully and was then decayed in his estate He was a happy Reconciler of of differences in many Families of his friends and kindred who had such faith in his judgement and impartiality that he scarce ever advised them to any thing in vaine He was even to her death a most dutifull son to his Mother carefull to provide for her supportation of which she had been destitute but that God raised him up to prevent her necessities who having suckt in the Religion of the Romane Church with her mothers milk or presently after it spent her estate in forraigne Countries to enjoy a liberty in it and died in his house but three moneths before him And to the end it may appeare how just a Steward he was of his Lord and Masters Revenue I have thought fit to let the Reader know that after his entrance into his Deanry as he numbred his yeares and at the foot of a private account to which God and Angels onely were witnesses with him computed first his Revenue then his expences then what was given to the poore and pious uses lastly what rested for him and for his he blest each yeares poore remainder with a thankfull Prayer which for that they discover a more then common devotion the Reader shall partake some of them in his owne words 1624. So all is that remains of these two years 1625. So all is that remains of these two years Deo Opt. Max. benigno Largitori à me ab iis quibus haec à me reservantur gloria gratia in aeternum Amen 1626. So that this yeare God hath blessed me and mine with Multiplicatae sunt super nos misericordiae tuae Domine Da Domine ut quae ex immensa bonitate tua nobis elargiri dignatus sis in quorumcunque manus devenerint in tuam semper cedant gloriam Amen 1628. In fine horum sex annorum manet 1629. Quid habeo quod non accepi à Domino Largiatur etiam ut quae largitus est sua iterum fiant bono eorum usu ut quemadmodum nec officiis hujus mundi nec loci in quo me posuit dignitati nec servis nec egenis in toto hujus anni curriculo mihi conscius sum me defuisse ita ut libert quibus quae supersunt supersunt grato animo ea accipiant beneficum Authorem recognoscant Amen But I returne from my digression We left the Author sick in Essex where he was forced to spend most of that Winter by reason of his disability to remove from thence And having never during almost twenty yeares omitted his personall attendance on his Majestie in his monthly service Nor being ever left out of the number of Lent Preachers And in January following there being a generall report that he was dead that report occasioned this Letter to a familiar friend SIR THis advantage you and my other friends have by my frequent feavers that I am so much the oftner at the gates of heaven And this advantage by the solitude and close imprisonment that they reduce me to after that I am so much the oftner at my Prayers in which I shall never leave out your happinesse And I doubt not but amongst his other blessings God will adde some one to you for my Prayers A man would be almost content to die if there were no other benefit in death to heare of so much sorrow and so much good testimony from good men as I God be blessed for it did upon the report of my death Yet I perceive it went not through all For one writ to me that some and he said of my friends conceived I was not so ill as I pretended but withdrew my selfe to live at ease discharged of preaching It is an unfriendly and God knowes an ungrounded interpretation for I have alwayes been sorrier when I could not preach then any could be they could not hear me It hath been my desire and God may be pleased to grant it that I might die in the Pulpit If not that yet that I might take my death in the Pulpit that is die the sooner by occasion of those labours Sir I hope to see you presently after Candlemas about which time will fall my Lent Sermon at Court except my Lord Chamberlaine beleeve me to be dead and leave me out For as long as I live and am not speechlesse I would not willingly decline that service I have better leasure to write then you to reade yet I would not willingly oppresse you with too much Letter God blesse you and your son as I wish January 7. 1630. Your poore friend and servant in Christ Jesus Iohn Donne Before that month ended he was appointed to preach upon his old constant day the first Friday in Lent he had notice of it and having in his sicknesse prepared for the employment as he had long thirsted for it So resolving his weaknesse should not hinder his journey he came to London some few dayes before his day appointed Being come many of his friends who with sorrow saw his sicknesse had left him onely so much flesh as did cover his bones doubted his strength to performe that taske And therefore perswaded him from undertaking it assuring him however it was like to shorten his dayes But he passionately denyed their requests saying He would not doubt that God who in many weaknesses had assisted him with an unexpected strength would now withdraw it in his last employment professing a holy ambition to
those that were under the law that is all but to Adopt those whom he had chosen us And those are the persons the subjects that he works upon by his comming First then to begin with the persons those of the first kinde Sub lege those that were under the Law for them as we told you before the law must not be so narrowly restrained here as to be intended onely of Moses Law for Christs purpose was not onely upon the Jews for else Naaman the Syrian by whom God fought great battailes 2 Reg. 5. before he was cured of his leprosie and who when he was cured was so zealous of the worship of the true God that he would needs carry holy earth to make Altars of from the place where the Prophet dwelt And else Iob who though he were of the land of Hus hath good testimony of being an upright and just man and one that feared God And else the Widow of Sarepta 1. Reg. 17. whose meale and oyle God preserved unwasted and whose dead sonne God raised againe at the prayer of Eliah All these and all others whom the searching Spirit of God seales to his service in all the corners of the earth because they are strangers in the land of Israel should not be under the Law and so should have no profit by Christs being made under the Law if the Law should be understood onely of the Law of Moses And therefore to be under the Law signifies here thus much To be a debter to the law of nature to have a testimony in our hearts and consciences that there lyes a law upon us which we have no power in our selves to performe that to those lawes To love God with all our powers and to love our neighbour as our selves and to doe as we would be done to we finde our selves naturally bound and yet wee finde our selves naturally unable to performe them and so to need the assistance of another which must be Christ Jesus to performe them for us And so all men Jews and Gentiles are under the Law because naturally they feele a law upon them which they breake And therefore wheresoever our power becomes defective in the performance of this law if our will be not defective too if we come not to say God hath given us an impossible Law and therefore it is lost labour to goe about to performe it or God hath given us another to performe this Law for us and therefore nothing is required at our hands If we abstaine from these quarrels to the law and these murmurings at our owne infirmity wee shall finde that the fulnesse of time is this day come this day Christ is come to all that are under the Law that is to all mankinde to all because all are unable to performe that Law which they all see by the light of nature to lye upon them These then be the persons of the first kinde Redemit All all the world Dilexit mundum God so loved the world that he gave his Son for it for all the world And accordingly venit salvare mundum the obedience of the Son was as large as the love of the Father Hee came to save all the world and he did save all the world God would have all men and Christ did save all men It is therefore fearefully and scarce allowably said that Christ did contrary to his Fathers will when he called those to grace of whom he knew his Fathers pleasure to bee that they should have no grace It is fearefully and dangerously said Absurdum non esse Deum interdum falsa loqui falsum loquenti credendum that it is not absurd to say that is that it may truly be said that God does sometimes speake untruly and that we are bound to beleeve God when he does so for if we consider the soveraigne balme of our soules the blood of Christ Jesus there is enough for all the world if we consider the application of this physick by the Ministers of Christ Jesus in the Church hee hath given us that spreading Commission To goe and preach to every creature we are bid to offer to apply to minister this to all the world Christ hath excommunicated no Nation no shire no house no man Hee gives none of his Ministers leave to say to any man thou art not Redeemed he gives no wounded nor afflicted conscience leave to say to it selfe I am not Redeemed There may be meat enough brought into the house for all the house though some be so weake as they cannot which is the case of the Gentiles some so stubborne as they will not eate which is the case of the carnall man though in the Christian Church He came to all There are the persons and to Redeeme all there is his errand but how to Redeeme S. Hierome saies Gentes non Redimuntur sed emuntur The Gentiles saies hee are not properly Christs by way of Redeeming but by an absolute purchase To which purpose those words are also applied which the Apostle saies to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 6.20 Ye are bought with a price S. Hieroms meaning therein is that if we compare the Jews and the Gentiles though God permitted the Jews in punishment of their rebellions to bee captivated by the devill in Idolatries yet the Jews were but as in a mortgage for they had beene Gods peculiar people before But the Gentiles were as the devils inheritance for God had never claimed them nor owned them for his and therefore God sayes to Christ Ps 2.8 Postula à me Aske of me and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance as though they were not his yet or not his by that title as the Jews were So that in S. Hieromes construction the Jewes which were Gods people before were properly Redeemed the Gentiles to whom God made no title before are rather bought then redeemed But Nullum tempus occurrit Regi against the King of Kings there runnes no prescription no man can devest his Allegeance to his Prince and say he will be subject no longer And therefore since the Gentiles were his by his first title of Creation for it is he that hath made us and not we our selves nor the devill neither when all we by our generall revolt and prevarication as we were all collectively in Adams loynes came to be under that law morte morieris Thou shalt dye the death when Christ came in the fulnesse of time and delivered us from the sharpest and heaviest clause of that Law which is the second death then he Redeemed us properly because though not by the same title of Covenant as the Jews were yet we were his and sold over to his enemy These then were the persons All none can say that he did not need him none can say that he may not have him And this was his first worke to Redeeme to vindicate them from the usurper to deliver them from the intruder to emancipate them
from the tyran to cancell the covenant betweene hell and them and restore them so far to their liberty as that they might come to their first Master if they would this was Redeeming But in his other worke which is Adoption and where the persons were more particular Adoptio not all but wee Christ hath taken us to him in a straiter and more peculiar title then Redeeming For A servando Servi men who were by another mans valour saved and redeemed from the enemy or from present death they became thereby servants to him that saved and redeemed them Redemption makes us who were but subjects before for all are so by creation servants but it is but servants but Adoption makes us who are thus made servants by Redemption sons 〈◊〉 for Adoption is verbum forense though it be a word which the Holy Ghost takes yet he takes it from a civill use and signification in which it expresses in divers circumstances our Adoption into the state of Gods children First he that adopted another must by that law be a man who had no children of his owne And this was Gods case towards us Hee had no children of his owne wee were all filii irae The children of wrath not one of us could be said to bee the child of God by nature if we had not had this Adoption in Christ Secondly he who Eph. ◠by that law might Adopt must be a Man who had had or naturally might have had children for an Infant under yeares or a man who by nature was disabled from having children could not Adopt another And this was Gods case towards us too for God had had children without Adoption for by our creation in Innocence we were the sons of God till we died all in one transgression and lost all right and all life and all meanes of regaining it but by this way of Adoption in Christ Jesus Againe no man might adopt an elder man then himselfe and so our Father by Adoption is not onely Antiquus dierum The ancient of Daies but Antiquior diebus ancienter then any Daies before Time was he is as Damascene forces himselfe to expresse it Super-principale principium the Beginning and the first Beginning and before the first beginning He is saies he aeternus and prae-aeternus Eternall and elder then any eternity that we can take into our imagination So likewise no man might adopt a man of better quality then himselfe and here we are so far from comparing as that we cannot comprehend his greatnesse and his goodnesse of whom and to whom S. Augustin saies well Quid mihi es If I shall goe about to declare thy goodnesse not to the world in generall but Quid mihi es how good thou art to me Miserere ut loquar saies he I must have more of thy goodnesse to be able to tell thy former goodnesse Be mercifull unto me againe that I may bee thereby able to declare how mercifull thou wast to me before except thou speake in me I cannot declare what thou hast done for me Lastly no man might be adopted into any other degree of kindred but into the name and right of a son he could not be an adopted Brother nor cosin nor nephew And this is especially our dignity wee have the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father So that as here is a fulnesse of time in the text so there is a fulnesse of persons All and a fulnesse of the worke belonging to them Redeeming Emancipation delivering from the chaines of Satan we were his by Creation we sold our selves for nothing and he redeemed us without money that is Esa 52. without any cost of ours but because for all this generall Redemption we may turne from him and submit our selves to other services therefore he hath Adopted us drawne into his family and into his more especiall care those who are chosen by him to be his Now that Redemption reached to all there was enough for all this dispensation of that Redemption this Adoption reaches onely to us all this is done That wee might receive the Adoption of Sonnes But who are this Wee why they are the elect of God But who are they Nos who are these elect Qui timidè rogat docet negare If a man aske me with a diffidence Can I be the adopted son of God that have rebelled against him in all my affections that have troden upon his Commandements in all mine actions that have divorced my selfe from him in preferring the love of his creatures before himselfe that have murmured at his corrections and thought them too much that have undervalued his benefits and thought them too little that have abandoned and prostituted my body his Temple to all uncleannesse and my spirit to indevotion and contempt of his Ordinances can I be the adopted son of God that have done this Ne timidè roges aske me not this with a diffidence and distrust in Gods mercy as if thou thoughtst with Cain thy iniquities were greater then could be forgiven But aske me with that holy confidence which belongs to a true convert Am not I who though I am never without sinne yet am never without hearty remorce and repentance for my sinnes though the weaknesse of my flesh sometimes betray mee the strength of his Spirit still recovers me though my body be under the paw of that lion that seekes whom hee may devoure yet the lion of Judah raises againe and upholds my soule though I wound my Saviour with many sinnes yet all these bee they never so many I strive against I lament confesse and forsake as farre as I am able Am not I the child of God and his adopted son in this state Roga fidenter aske me with a holy confidence in thine and my God doces affirmare thy very question gives me mine answer to thee thou teachest me to say thou art God himselfe teaches me to say so by his Apostle The foundation of God is sure and this is the Seale God knoweth who are his and let them that call upon his name depart from all iniquity He that departs so far as to repent former sinnes and shut up the wayes which he knows in his conscience doe lead him into tentations he is of this quorum one of us one of them who are adopted by Christ to be the sonnes of God I am of this quorum if I preach the Gospell sincerely and live thereafter for hee preaches twice a day that followes his owne doctrine and does as he saies And you are of this quorum if you preach over the Sermons which you heare to your owne soules in your meditation to your families in your relation to the world in your conversation If you come to this place to meet the Spirit of God and not to meet one another If you have sate in this place with a delight in the Word of God and not in the words of any speaker If you goe out of this
still it was a future thing Christ is often called the Expectation of the world but it was all that while but an Expectation but a reversion of a future thing So God fed that old world with expectation of future things as that that very name by which God notified himself most to that people Exod. 3.14 in his commission by Moses to Pharaoh was a future name howsoever our Translations and Expositions run upon the present as though God had said Qui sum my name is I am yet in truth it is Qui ero my name is I shall be They had evidences enow that God was but God was pleased to establish in them an assurance that he would be so still and not only be so still as he was then but that hee would be so with them hereafter as he was never yet he would be Immanuel God with us so as that God and man should be one person It was then a faire assurance and a blessed comfort which the children of Israel had in that of Zechary Zech. 9.9 Ecce venit rex Rejoyce ye daughters of Sion and shout ye daughters of Ierusalem Behold thy King commeth riding unto thee upon an Asse But yet this assurance though delivered as in the present produced not those acclamations Mat. 21.9 and recognitions and Hosannaes and Hosanna in the highest to the Son of David as his personall and actuall and visible riding into Jerusalem upon Palme-Sunday did Amougst the Jews there was light enough to discern this future blessing this comming of Christ but they durst not open it nor publish it to others We see the Jews would dye in defence of any part of their Law were it but the Ceremoniall were it but for the not eating of Swines flesh what unsufferable torments suffered the seven brothers in the Maccabees for that But yet we never finde that any of them dyed or exposed themselves to the danger or to the dignity of Martyrdome for this Doctrine of the Messias this future comming of Christ Nay we finde that the Septuagint who first translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek for King Ptolome disguised divers places thereof and departed from the Originall rather then propose this future comming of the Son of God to the interpretation of the world A little Candle they had for themselves but they durst not light anothers Candle at it So also some of the more speculative Philosophers had got some beames of this light but because they saw it would not be beleeved De verarelg cap. 4. they let it alone they said little of it Hence is it that S. Augustine sayes si Platonici reviviscerent if Plato and his Disciples should rise from the dead and come now into our streets and see those great Congregations which thrust and throng every Sabbath and every day of holy convocation to the worship of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus Hoc fortasse dicerent This it is likely they would say sayes he Haec sunt quae populis persuadere non ausi consaetudini cessimus This is that religion which because it consisted so much in future things we durst not propose to the people but were fain to leave them to those present and sensible and visible things to which they had been accustomed before lest when we had shaked them in their old religion we should not be able to settle and establish them in the new And as in civill government a Tyranny is better then an Anarchy a hard King better then none so when we consider religions Idolatry is better then Atheisme and superstition better then profanenesse Not that the Idolater shall any more be saved then the Atheist but that the Idolater having been accustomed to some sense and worship of God of God in his estimation is therefore apter to receive religious impressions then the Atheist is In this then consists this second act of Christs mercy to us in this word veni I am actually really personally presentially come that those types and figures and sacrifices which represented Christ to the old world were not more visible to the eye more palpable to the hand more obvious to the very bodily senses that Christ himself hath been since to us Therefore S. Iohn does not only rest in that That which was from the beginning 1 John 1.1 Christ was alwayes in purpose in prophecy in promise nor in that That which we have heard the world heard of Christ long before they saw him but he proceeds to that That which we have seen and looked upon with our eyes and handled with our hands that declare we unto you So that we are now delivered from that jealousie that possessed those Septuagint those Translators that they durst not speak plain and delivered from that suspition that possessed Plato and his disciples that the people were incapable of that doctrine Wee know that Christ is come and we avow it and we preach it and we affirm that it is not onely as impious and irreligious a thing but as senslesse and as absurd a thing to deny that the Son of God hath redeemed the world as to deny that God hath created the world and that he is as formally and as gloriously a Martyr that dyes for this Article The Son of God is come as he that dyes for this There is a God And these two acts of his mercy enwrapped in this one word veni I came first that he who is alwayes present out of an abundant love to man studied a new way of comming and then that he who was but betrothed to the old world by way of promise is married to us by an actuall comming will be farther explicated to us in that which only remaines and constitutes our third and last part the end and purpose of his comming That they might have life and might have it more abundantly And though this last part put forth many handles wee can but take them by the hand and shake them by the hand that is open them and so leave them First then in this last part we consider the gift it self the treasure Life 3. Part. Vita That they might have life Now life is the character by which Christ specificates and denominates himselfe Life is his very name and that name by which he consummates all his other names I am the Way the Truth and the Life John 14.6 And therefore does Peter justly and bitterly upbraid the Jews with that Ye desired a murderer an enemy to life to be granted unto you and killed the Prince of Life Acts 3.14 It is an honour to any thing that it may be sworn by by vulgar and triviall things men might not sweare Jer. 5.7 How shall I pardon them this sayes God They have sworn by things that are not gods And therefore God who in so many places professes to sweare by himself and of whom the Apostle sayes Heb. 6.13 That because he could sweare by no greater he
when wee cannot stay it from passing away wee passe away with it To mourne passionately for the love of this world which is decrepit and upon the deathbed or imoderately for the death of any that is passed out of this world is not the right use of teares That hath good use which Chrysologus notes that when Christ was told of Lazarus death he said he was glad when he came to raise him to life then hee wept for though his Disciples gained by it they were confirmed by a Miracle though the family gained by it they had their Lazarus againe yet Lazarus himselfe lost by it by being re-imprisoned re-committed re-submitted to the manifold incommodities of this world When our Saviour Christ forbad the women to weepe for him it was becausethere was nothing in him for teares to worke upon no sin Ordinem flendi docuit saies S. Bernard Christ did not absolutely forbid teares but regulate and order their teares that they might weepe in the right place first for sin David wept for Absolon He might imagine that he died in sin he wept not for the Child by Bathsheba he could not suspect so much danger in that Exitus aquarum saies David Rivers of waters ran downe from mine eyes why Quia illi Because they who are they not other men Psal 119.136 as it is ordinarily taken but Quia illi Because mine owne eyes so Hilary and Ambrose and August take it have not kept thy Lawes As the calamities of others so the sins of others may but our owne sins must be the object of our sorrow Thou shalt offer to me saies God Exod. 22.19 the first of thy ripe fruits and of thy liquors as our Translation hath it The word in the Originall ginall is Vedingnacha lachrymarum and of thy teares Thy first teares must be to God for sin The second and third may be to nature and civility and such secular offices But Liquore ad lippitudinem apto quisquamne ad pedes lavandos abutetur It is S. Chrysostomes exclamation and admiration will and wash his feet in water for sore eyes will any man embalme the Carcasse of the world which he treads under foote with those teares which should embalme his soule Did Ioseph of Arimathea bestow any of his perfumes though he brought a superfluous quantity a hundred pound waight for one body yet did he bestow any upon the body of either of the Thieves Teares are true sorrow that you heard before True sorrow is for sin that you have heard now All that remaines is how this sorrow works what is does The Fathers have infinitely delighted themselves in this descant the blessed effect of holy teares Quid operantur He amongst them that reemembers us that in the old Law all Sacrifices were washed he meanes That our best sacrifice even prayer it selfe receives an improvement a dignity by being washed in teares He that remembers us that if any roome of out house be on fire we run for water meanes that in all tentations we should have recourse to teares He that tels us that money being put into a bason is seene at a farther distance if there be water in the bason then if it be emptie meanes also that our most pretious devotions receive an addition a multiplication by holy teares S. Bernard meanes all that they all meane in that Cor lachrymas nesciens durum impurum A hard heart is a foule heart Would you shut up the devill in his owne channell his channell of brimstone and make that worse S. hierom tels the way Plus tua lachryma c. Thy teares torment him more then the fires of hell will you needs have holy water truly true teares are the holiest water Mend eza in 1. Sam. And for Purgatory it is liberally confessed by a Jesuit Non minùs efficax c. One teare will doe thee as much good as all the flames of Purgatory We have said more then once that man is a spunge And in Codice scripta all our sins are written in Gods Booke saies S. ChrysOstome If there I can fill my spunge with teares and so wipe out all my sins out of that Book it is a blessed use of the Spunge I might stand upon this the manifold benefits of godly teares long so long as till you wept and wept for sin and that might be very long I contract all to this one which is all To how many blessednesses must these teares this godly sorrow reach by the way when as it reaches to the very extreme to that which is opposed to it to Joy for godlie sorrow is Joy Iob 10.20 The words in Iob are in the Vulgat Dimitte meut plang am dolorem meum Lord spare me a while that I may lament my lamentable estate and so ordinarily the Expositors that follow that Translation make their use of them But yet it is in the Originall Lord spare me a while that I may take comfort That which one cals lamenting the other calls rejoycing To conceive true sorrow and true joy are things not onely contiguous but continuall they doe not onely touch and follow one another in a certaine succession Joy assuredly after sorrow but they consist together they are all one Joy and Sorrow My teares have beene my meat day and night Psal 42.3 saies David not that he had no other meate but that none relisht so well Mendoza It is a Grammaticall note of a Jesuit I doe not tell you it is true I have almost tole you that it is not true by telling you whose it is but that it is but a Grammaticall note That when it is said Tempus cantus The time offinging is come it might as well be rendred out of the Hebrew Cant. 2.12 Tempus plorationis The time of weeping is come 2 Sam. 22.50 And when it is said Nomini tuo cantabo Lord I will sing unto thy Name it might be as well rendred out of the Hebrew Plorabo I will weepe I will sacrifice my teares unto thy Name So equall so indifferent a thing is it when we come to godly sorrow whether we call it sorrow or joy weeping or singing To end all to weep for sin is not a damp of melancholy to sigh for sin is not a vapour of the spleene but as Monicaes Confessor said still unto her in the behalfe of her Son S. Augustine filius istarum lachrymarum the son of these teares cnnot perish so wash thy selfe in these three examplar bathes of Christs teares in his humane teares and be tenderly affected with humane accidents in his Propheticall teares and avert as much as in thee lieth the calamities imminent upon others but especially in his pontificall teares teares for sin and I am thy Confessor non ego sed Dominus not I but the spirit of God himself is thy Confessor and he absolves thee filius istarum lachrymarum the soule bathed in these teares cannot perish for this is
and the Elders come to Iudith and they say to her Judith 15.8 Thou art the exaltation of Jerusalem thou art the great glory of Israel thou art the rejoycing of our Nation thou hast done all these things by thy hand And all this was true of Iudith and due to Iudith and such recognitions and such acclamations God requires of such people as have received such benefits by such instruments For as there is Treason and petty-treason so there is Sacriledge and petty-sacriledge and petty-sacriledge is to rob Princes and great persons of their just praise But then as we must confer this upon them so must they and we and all transfer all upon God for so Iudith proceeds there with her Priests and Elders Begin unto my God with Timbrels sing unto the Lord with Cymbals exalt him and call upon his name So likewise Elizabeth magnifies the blessed Virgin Mary Blessed art thou amongst women And this was true of her and due to her Luke 1.42 and she takes it to her self when she sayes there From henceforth all Generations shall call me blessed but first she had carried it higher to the highest My soule doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit doth rejoyce in God my Saviour In a word Christ forbids not this man to call him good but he directs him to know in what capacity that attribute of goodnesse belonged to him as he was God That when this man beleeved before that Christ was good and learnt from him now that none was good but God he might by a farther concoction a farther rumination a farther meditation of this come in due time to know that Christ was God And this was his Method Now this leads us into two rich and fragrant fields this sets us upon the two Hemispheares of the world the Western Hemispheare the land of Gold and Treasure and the Eastern Hemispheare the land of Spices and Perfumes for this puts us upon both these considerations first That nothing is Essentially good but God and there is the land of Gold centricall Gold viscerall Gold gremiall Gold Gold in the Matrice and womb of God that is Essentiall goodnesse in God himself and then upon this consideration too That this Essentiall goodnesse of God is so diffusive so spreading as that there is nothing in the world that doth not participate of that goodnesse and there is the land of Spices and Perfumes the dilatation of Gods goodnesse So that now both these propositions are true First That there is nothing in this world good and then this also That there is nothing ill As amongst the Fathers it is in a good sense as truly said Deus non est Ens Deus non est substantia God is no Essence God is no substance for feare of imprisoning God in a predicament as it is said by others of the Fathers that there is no other Essence no other Substance but God First then there is nothing good but God neither can I conceive any thing in God that concerns me so much as his goodnesse for by that I know him and for that I love him I know him by that for as Damascen sayes primarium Dei nomen Bonitas Gods first name that is the first way by which God notified him self to man was Goodness for out of his goodnesse he made him His name of Jehova we admire with a reverence but we cannot expresse that name not only not in the signification of it but not considently not assuredly in the sound thereof we are not sure that we should call it Jehova not sure that any man did call it Jehova a hundred yeares agoe But August ineffabili dulcedine teneor cum audio Bonus Dominus I am not transported with astonishment as at his name of Jehova but replenished with all sweetnesse established with all soundnesse when I hear of my God in that name my good God By that I know him and for that I love him For the object of my understanding is truth but the object of my love my affection my desire is goodnesse If my understanding be defective in many cases faith will supply it if I beleeve it I am as well satisfied as if I knew it but nothing supplies nor fills nor satisfies the desire of man on this side of God Every man hath something to love and desire till he determine it in God because God only hath Imminuibi lem bonitatem as they render Dyonisius the Areopagite an inexhaustible goodnesse a sea that no land can suck in a land that no sea can swallow up a forrest that no fire can waste a fire that no water can quench Aug. He is so good goodnesse so as that he is Causa bonorum quae in nos quae in nobis the cause of all good either received by us or conceived in us of all either prepared externally for us Idem or produced internally in us In a word he is Bonum caetera bona colorans amabilia reddens it is his goodnesse that gilds and enamels all the good persons or good actions in this world There is none good but God and quale bonum ille sayes that Father what kinde of goodnesse God is this doth sufficiently declare Quòd nulli ab co recedenti bene sit That no man that ever went from him went by good way or came to good end There is none good but God there is centricall viscerall gremiall gold goodnesse in the roote in the tree of goodnesse God Now Arbor bona bonos fructus sayes Christ If the tree be good the fruit is good too The tree is God What are the fruits of this tree What are the off-spring of God S. Ambr. tells us Angeli homines virtutes eorum Angels and men and the good parts and good actions of Angels and men are the fruit of this tree they grow from God Angels as they fell Adam as he fell the sins of Angels and men are not fruits of this tree they grow not radically not primarily from God Nihil in se habet Deus semi-plenum saies Damascen God is no half-god no fragmentary God he is an intire God and not made of remnants not good only so as that he hath no roome for ill in himself but good so too as that he hath no roome for any ill will towards any man no mans damnation no mans sin growes radically from this tree When God had made all sayes Tertullian he blessed all Maledicere non norat quia nec malefacere saies he God could no more meane ill then doe ill God can no more make me sin then sin himself It is the foole that saies There is no God saies David And it is the other foole sayes S. Basil that saies God produces any ill par precii scelus quia negat Deum bonum It is as impiously done to deny God to be intirely good as to deny him to be God For we see the Manichees and the Marcionites and such
the Resurrection marvaile at nothing so much as at this nothing is so marvailous so wonderfull as this And secondly the approach of the Resurrection The houre is comming And thirdly The generality All that are in the graves And then the instrument of the resurrection The voice of Christ that shall be heard And lastly the diverse end of the resurrection They shall come forth they that have done good c. God hath a care of the Body of man that is first And he defers it not that is next And he extends it to all that is a third And a fourth is That he does that last act by him by whom he did the first The Creation and all betweene the Redemption that is by his Son by Christ And then the last is that this is an everlasting separation and divorce of the good and the bad The bad shall never be able to receive good from the Good nor to doe harme to the Good after that First then Christ saies Ne miremini Marvaile not at this Ne miremini not at your spirituall resurrection not that a Sermon should worke upon man not that a Sacrament should comfort a man make it not a miracle nor an extraordinary thing by hearing to come to repentance and so to such a resurrection For though S. Augustine say That to convert a man from sin is as great a miracle as Creation yet S. August speaks that of a mans first conversion in which the man himselfe does nothing but God all Then he is made of nothing but after God hath renewed him and proposed ordinary meanes in the Church still to worke upon him he must not looke for miraculous working but make Gods ordinary meanes ordinary to him This is Panis quotidianus The daily bread which God gives you as often as you meet here according to his Ordinances Ne miremini stand not to wonder as though you were not sure but come to enjoy Gods goodnesse in his ordinary way here But it is Hoc Ne miremini hoc Wonder not at this but yet there are things which we may wonder at Nil admirari is but the Philosophers wisdome He thinks it a weaknesse to wonder at any thing That any thing should be strange to him But Christian Philosophy that is rooted in humility tels us in the mouth of Clement of Alexand. Principium veritatis est res admirari The first step to faith is to wonder to stand and consider with a holy admiration the waies and proceedings of God with man for Admiration wonder stands as in the midst betweene knowledge and faith and hath an eye towards both If I know a thing or beleeve a thing I do no longer wonder but when I finde that I have reason to stop upon the consideration of a thing so as that I see enough to induce admiration to make me wonder I come by that step and God leads me by that hand to a knowledge if it be of a naturall or civill thing or to a faith if it be of a supernaturall and spirituall thing And therefore be content to wonder at this That God would have such a care to dignifie and to crown and to associate to his own everlasting presence the body of man God himself is a Spirit and heaven is his place my soul is a spirit and so proportioned to that place That God or Angels or our Soules which are all Spirits should be in heaven Ne miremini never wonder at that But since we wonder and justly that some late Philosophers have removed the whole earth from the Center and carried it up and placed it in one of the Spheares of heaven That this clod of earth this body of ours should be carried up to the highest heaven placed in the eye of God set down at the right hand of God Miremini hoc wonder at this That God all Spirit served with Spirits associated to Spirits should have such an affection such a love to this body this earthly body this deserves this wonder The Father was pleased to breathe into this body at first in the Creation The Son was pleased to assume this body himself after in the Redemption The Holy Ghost is pleased to consecrate this body and make it his Temple by his sanctisication In that Faciamus hominem Let us all us make man that consuitation of the whole Trinity in making man is exercised even upon this lower part of man the dignifying of his body So far as that amongst the ancient Fathers very many of them are very various and irresolved which way to pronounce and very many of them cleare in the negative in that point That the soule of man comes not to the presence of God but remaines in some out-places till the Resurrection of the body That observation that consideration of the love of God to the body of man withdrew them into that error That the soul it self should lack the glory of heaven till the body were become capable of that glory too They therefore oppose God in his purpose of dignifying the body of man first who violate and mangle this body which is the Organ in which God breathes And they also which pollute and defile this body in which Christ Jesus is apparelled and they likewise who prophane this body which the Holy Ghost as the high Priest inhabites and consecrates Trangressors in the first kinde that put Gods Organ out of tune that discompose and teare the body of man with violence are those inhumane persecutors who with racks and tortures and prisons and fires and exquisite inquisitions throw downe the bodies of the true Gods true servants to the Idolatrous worship of their imaginary Gods that torture men into hell and carry them through the inquisition into damnation S. Augustine moves a question and institutes a disputation and carries it somewhat problematically whether torture be to be admitted at all or no. That presents a faire probability which he sayes against it we presume sayes he that an innocent man should be able to hold his tongue in torture That is no part of our purpose in torture sayes he that hee that is innocent should accuse himselfe by confession in torture And if an innocent man be able to doe so why should we not thinke that a guilty man who shall save his life by holding his tongue in torture should be able to doe so And then where is the use of torture Res fragilis periculosa quaestio sayes that Lawyer who is esteemed the law alone Vlpian It is a slippery triall and uncertaine to convince by torture For many times sayes S. Augustine againe Innocens luit pro incerto scelere certissimas poenas He that is yet but questioned whether he be guilty or no before that be knowne is without all question miserably tortured And whereas many times the passion of the Judge and the covetousnesse of the Judge and the ambition of the Judge are calamities heavy enough upon a man that is
is not onely sent by God but is God Therefore does the Apostle inlarge and dilate and delight his soule upon this comfort Blessed be God 2 Cor. 1.3 even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort who comforteth us in all our tribulations that we may be able to comfort them which are in any affliction by that comfort wherewith our selves are comforted of God The Apostle was loath to depart from the word Comfort And therefore as God because he could sweare by no greater Heb. 6.13 sware by himselfe So because there is no stronger adjuration then the comfort it selfe to move you to accept this comfort as the Apostle did so we intreat you by that If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellow ship of the Spirit if any bowels Phil. 2.1 and mercie Lay hold upon this true comfort the comming of the Holy Ghost and say to all the deceitfull comforts of this world not onely Vanè consolati est is Zach. 10.2 Job 16.2 Your comforts are frivolous but Onerosi consolatores Your comforts are burdensome there is not onely a disappointing of hopes but an aggravating of sin in entertaining the comforts of this world As Barnabas that is Filius consolationis The son of consolation that he might bee capable of this comfort devested himselfe of all worldly possessions so as such sons Acts 4.36 Suck and be satisfied at the breasts of this consolation that you may milke out Esay 66.11 Ver. 13. and be delighted with the abundance of his glory And as one whom his mother comforteth so will I comfort you and you shall be comforted in Ierusalem Heaven is Glory and heaven is Joy we cannot tell which most we cannot separate them and this comfort is joy in the Holy Ghost This makes all Iobs states alike as rich in the first Chapter of his Booke where all is suddenly lost as in the last where all is abundantly restored This Consolation from the Holy Ghost makes my mid-night noone mine Executionera Physitian a stake and pile of Fagots a Bone-fire of triumph this consolation makes a Satyr and Slander and Libell against me a Panegyrique and an Elogy in my praise It makes a Tolle an Ave a Va an Euge a Crucifige an Hosanna It makes my death-bed a mariage-bed And my Passing-Bell an Epithalamion In this notion therefore we receive this Person and in this notion we consider his proceeding Ille He He the Comforter shall reprove This word that is here translated To reprove Arguere Arguet hath a double use and signification in the Scriptures First to reprehend to rebuke to correct with Authority with Severity So David Ne in furore arguas me O Lord rebuke me not in thine dnger Psal 6.1 And secondly to convince to prove to make a thing evident by undeniable inferences and necessary consequences So in the instructions of Gods Ministers the first is To reprove 2 Tiâ— and then To rebuke So that reproving is an act of a milder sense then rebuking is Auguâ—â— S. Augustine interprets these words twice in his Works and in the first place he followes the first signification of the word That the Holy Ghost should proceed when he came by power by severity against the world But though that sense will stand well with the first act of this Reproofe That he shall Reprove that is reprehend the world of sin yet it will not seeme so properly said To reprehend the world of Righteousnesse or of Judgement for how is Righteonsnesse and Judgement the subject of reprehension Therefore S. Augustine himselfe in the other place where he handles these words imbraces the second sense Hoc est arguere mundum ostendere vera esse quae non credidit This is to reprove the world to convince the world of her errours and mistakings And so scarce any excepted doe all the Ancient Expositors take it according to that All things are reproved of the light Ephes 5.13 and so made manifest The light does not reprehend them not rebuke them not chide not upbraid them but to declare them to manifest them to make the world see clearely what they are this is to reprove That reproving then Elenchus which is warrantable by the Holy Ghost is not a sharp increpation a bitter proceeding proceeding onely out of power and authority but by inlightning and informing and convincing the understanding The signification of this word which the Holy Ghost uses here for reproofe Elenchos is best deduced and manifested to us by the Philosopher who had so much use of the word who expresses it thus Elenchus est Syllogismus contra contraria opinantem A reproofe is a proofe a proofe by way of argument against another man who holds a contrary opinion All the pieces must be laid together For first it must be against an opinion and then an opinion contrary to truth and then such an opinion held insisted upon maintained and after all this the reproofe must lie in argument not in force not in violence First it must come so farre Opinio as to be an opinion which is a middle station betweene ignorance and knowledge for knowledge excludes all doubting all hesitation opinion does not so but opinion excludes indifferency and equanimity I am rather inclined to one side then another Lactant. Bernard when I am of either opinion Id opinatur quisque quod nescit A man may have an opinion that a thing is so and yet not know it S. Bernard proposes three wayes for our apprehending Divine things first understanding which relies upon reason faith which relies upon supreme Authority and opinion which relies upon probability and verisimilitude Now there may arise in some man some mistakings some mis-apprehensions of the sense of a place of Scripture there may arise some scruple in a case of conscience there may arise some inclinations to some person of whose integrity and ability I have otherwise had experience there may arise some Paradoxicall imaginations in my selfe and yet these never attaine to the setlednesse of an opinion but they float in the fancy and are but waking dreames and such imaginations and fancies and dreames receive too much honour in the things and too much favour in the persons if they be reproved or questioned or condemned or disputed against For often times even a condemnation nourishes the pride of the author of an opinion and besides begets a dangerous compassion in spectators and hearers and then from pitying his pressures and sufferings who is condemned men come out of that pity to excuse his opinions and from excusing them to incline towards them And so that which was but straw at first by being thus blown by vehement disputation sets fire upon timber and drawes men of more learning and authority to side and mingle themselves in these impertinencies Every fancy should not be so
then to make it for in the Creation there was no reluctation of the Creature for there was no Creature but to divert Nature out of her setled course is a conquest upon a resisting adversary and powerfull in a prescription The Recedat Mare Let the Sea go back and the Sistat Sol Let the Sun stand still met with some kinde of opposition in Nature but in the Fiat Mare and Fiat Sol Let there be a Sea and a Sun God met with no opposition no Nature August he met with nothing And therefore Interrogemus Miracula quid nobis de Christo loquantur Let us aske his Miracles and they will make us understand Christ Habent enim si intelligantur linguam suam If wee understand them that is If wee would understand them they speake loud enough and plaine enough In his Miraculous birth of a Virgin In his Miraculous disputation with Doctors at twelve yeares of age in his fasting in his invisibility in his walking upon the Sea in his re-assuming his body in the Resurrection Christ spoke in himselfe in the language of Miracles So also had they a loud and a plaine voyce in other men In his Miraculous curing the sick raising the dead dispossessing the Devill Christ spoke in other men in the language of Miracles And he did so also as in himselfe and in other men so in other things In the miraculous change of Water into Wine in the drying up of the Fig-tree In feeding five thousand with five loaves in shutting up the Sun in darknesse and opening the graves of the Dead to light in bringing plenty of Fish to the Net and in putting money into the mouth of a Fish at the Angle Christ spoke in all these Creatures in the language of Miracles So the Scriptures testifie of his Deity and so doe his Miracles and so doe those Conclusions which arise from thence though we consider but that one which is expressed in this part of the Text that he is the Lord If any love not the Lord c. We reason thus God gives not his glory to others Dominus and his glory is in his Essentiall Name and in his Attributes and to whomsoever he gives them because they cannot be given from God he who hath them is God Of these none is so peculiar to him as the name of Iehova the name which for reverence the Jews forbore to sound and in the room therof ever sounded Adonai and Adonai is Dominus the name of this Text The Lord Christ by being the Lord thus is Jehovah and if Jehovah God It is Tertullians observation Et ss Pater sit dicatur Dominus Filius sit dicatur Deus That though the Father be the Lord and be called the Lord and though the Son be God and be called God yet sayes he the manner of the Holy Ghost in the New Testament is to call the Father God and the Son the Lord. He is Lord with the Father as he was Con-creator his Collegue in the Creation But for that Dominion and Lordship which he hath by his Purchase by his Passion Calcavit solus I le trod the Wine-presse alone not onely no man but no Person of the Trinity redeemed us by suffering for us but he For the ordinary appellation of Lord in the New Testament which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is but a name of Civility not onely no name implying Divine worship but not implying any distinction of ranke or degree amongst men Mary Magdalen speaks of Christ and speakes to the Gardiner as she thought and both in one and the same word it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dominus Lord to both when she sayes They have taken away my Lord meaning Christ Iohn 20.15 and when she saies to the Gardiner Sir if thou hast borne him hence it is the same word too But all that reaches not to the style of this Text The Lord for here The Lord is God 1 Cor. 12.3 And no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost All that was written in the Scriptures all that was established by Miracles all that is deduced by reason conduces to this determines in this That every tongue should confesse that Iesus Christ is the Lord in which essentiall name the name of his nature he is first proposed as the object of our love Now this Lord Lord for ever is become that which he was not for ever Christus otherwise then in a secondary consideration that is Christ which implies a person prepared and sitted and anointed to a peculiar Office in this World And can the Lord the ever-living Lord the Son of God the onely Son of God God himselfe have any preferment preferment by an Office in this World Was it a preferment to Dionysius who was before in that height over men to become a schoole-master over boyes Were it a preferment to the Kings Son to be made governour over a Bee-hive or over-seer over an Ant-hill And men nay Mankinde is no more not that not a Bee-hive not an Ant-hill compared to this Person who being the Lord would become Christ As he was the Lord we considered him as God and that there is a God naturall reason can comprehend As he is Christ we consider him God and Man and such a Person naturall reason not rooted in the Scriptures not illustrated by the Scriptures cannot comprehend Man will much easilier beleeve the Lord that is God then Christ that is God and Man in one Person Christ then is the style the title of his Office Non Nomen sed Appellatio Tertul. Christ is not his Name but his Addition Vnctus significatur sayes he unctus non magis nomen quam vestitus calceatus Christ signifies but anointed and anointed is no more a Name then apparelled or shod is a name So as hee was apparelled in our flesh and his apparell dyed red in his owne blood so as he was shod to tread the Wine-presse for us So he was Christ That it is Nomen Sacramenti as S. Aug. cals it A mystery is easily agreed to for all the mysteries of all the Religions in the World are but Milke in respect of this Bone but Catechismes in respect of this Schoole-point but Alphabets in respect of this hard Style God and Man in one person That it is Nomen Sacramenti as Augustine says is easie but that it is Nuncupatio potestatis as Lactantius cals it is somewhat strange that it is an office of power a title of honour for the Creator to become a Creature and the Lord of life the object of death nay the seat of death in whom death did sojourn three dayes can Lactantius call this a declaration of power is this Nuncupatio potestatis a title of honour Beloved he does and he may for it was so for it was an Annointing Exod. 29.7 Christas is unctus and unction was the Consecration of Priests Thou shalt take
in love with her Christ Jesus hath beene seen so Quod vidimus sayes the Apostle That which we have seene with our eyes we preach to you and therefore If any man love not c. If he love him not with that love which implyes a Confession that the Lord Jesus is God Levit. 10.12 That is if he love him not with all his heart and all his power What doth the Lord thy God require of thee To love him with all thy heart and all thy soule God forbids us not a love of the Creature proportionable to the good that that creature can doe us To love fire as it warms me and meat as it feeds me and a wife as she helps me But because God does all this in all these severall instruments God alone is centrically radically directly to be loved and the creature with a love reflected and derived from him And Christ to be loved with the love due to God himselfe Mat. 10.37 He that loveth father or mother son or daughter more then me is not worthy of me sayes Christ himselfe If then we love him so as we love God intirely we confesse him to be the Lord And if we love him so as he hath loved us we confesse him to be Christ Iesus And we consider his love to us for the present in these two demonstrations of it first Dilexit in finem As he loved so he loved to the end And then Posuit animam Greater love there is not then to die for one and he did that Our Saviour Christ forsooke not Peter when Peter forsooke him In finem because he loved him he loved him to the end Love thou Christ to the end To His end and to Thy end Finem Domini vidistis sayes S. Iames You have seene the end of the Lord That is 1 〈◊〉 5.11 sayes August to what end the Lord came His way was contempt and misery and his end was shame and death Love him there Thy love is not required onely in the Hosanna's of Christ when Christ is magnified and his Gospel advanced and men preferred for loving it No nor onely in the Transfiguration of Christ when Christ appeares to thee in some particular beames and manifestation of his glory but love him in his Crucifigatur then when it is a scornfull thing to love him And love him in the Nunquid tu when thou must passe that examination Wert not thou one of them Iohn 18.25 26. And in the Nonne ego te vidi if witnesses come in against thee for the love of Christ love him when it is a suspicious thing a dangerous thing to love him And love him not onely in spirituall transfigurations when he visits thy soule with glorious consolations but even in his inward eclipses when he withholds his comforts and withdrawes his cheerfulnesse even when he makes as though he loved not thee love him Love him all the way to his end and to thy end too to the laying downe of thy life for him Love him then in the laying downe of the pleasures of this life for him Mortificatio and love him in the laying downe of the life it selfe if his love need that testimony Of the first case of crucifying himselfe to the world Epist 39. S. Augustine had occasion to say much to a young Gentleman young and noble and rich and which is not in such persons an ordinary tentation but where it is it is a shrewd one as he was young and noble and rich so he was learned in other learnings and upon that strength withdrew and kept off from Christ It was Licentius to whom S. Augustine writes his 39. Epistle He had sent to S. Augustine a handsome Elegie of his making in which Poeme he had said as much of the vanity and deceivablenesse of this world as S. Augustine could have looked for or perchance have said in a Homily And he ends his Elegy thus Hoc opus ut jubeas All this concerning this world I know already Do you but tell me doe you command me what I shall doe Iubebit Augustinus conservo suo sayes that sensible and blessed Father Shall I shall Augustine command his fellow-servant Et non plang at potiùs frustra juberc Dominum Must not Augustine rather lament that the Lord hath commanded thee and is not obeyed Wouldst thou heare me Canst thou pretend that Exaudi teipsum Durissime Immanissime Surdissime Thou that art inoxorable against the perswasions of thine owne soule Hard against the tendernesse of thine owne heart Deafe against the charmes of thine owne Verses canst thou pretend a willingnesse to be led by me Quam animam quod ingenium non licet immolare Deo nostro How well disposed a soule how high pitched a wit is taken out of my hands that I may not sacrifice that soule that I may not direct that wit upon our God because with all these good parts thou turnest upon the pleasures of this world Mentiuntur moriuntur in mortem trahunt Doe not speake out of wit nor out of a love to elegant expressions nor doe not speake in jest of the dangerous vanities of this world Mentiuntur they are false they performe not their promises Moriuntur they are transitory they stay not with thee and In mortem trahunt they dye and they dye of the infection and they transfuse the venome into thee and thou dyest with them Non dicit verum nisi veritas Christus veritas Nothing will deale truely with thee but the Truth it selfe and onely Christ Jesus is this Truth He followes it thus much farther Si calicem aureum invenisses in terrae If thou foundest a chalice of gold in the earth so good a heart as thine would say Surely this belongs to the Church and surely thou wouldst give it to the Church Accepisti à Deo ingenium spiritualiter aureum God hath given thee a wit an understanding not of the gold of Ophir but of the gold of the heavenly Jerusalem Et in illo Satanae propinas teipsum In that chalice once consecrated to God wilt thou drink a health to the devill and drink a health to him in thine owne bloud in making thy wit thy learning thy good parts advance his kingdome He ends all thus Miserearis jam mei si tibi viluisti If thou undervalue thy selfe if thou thinke not thy selfe worth hearing if thou follow not thine owne counsels yet miserearis mei Have mercy upon me me whose charge it is to bring others to heaven me who shall not bee received there if I bring no body with mee bee content to goe with me that way which by the inspiration of the holy Ghost I do shew and that way which by the conduct of the holy Ghost I would fain goe All bends to this First love Christ so far as to lay down the pleasures of this life for him and so far as to lay down the life it self for him Christ did so
whom it is hid But that is not all that is intended by the Apostle in this place It is not onely a censorious speech It is a shame for them and an inexcusable thing in them if they doe not love the Lord Jesus Christ but it is a judiciary speech thus much more since they doe not love the Lord The Lord judge them when he comes I sayes the Apostle take away none of his mercy when he comes but I will have nothing to doe with them till he comes to me he shall be Anathema Maran Atha separated from me till then then the Lord who shews mercy in minutes do his will upon him Our former Translation had it thus Let him be had in execration and excommunicated till death In death Lord have mercy upon him till death I will not live with him To end all If a man love not the Lord if he love not God which is which was and which is to come what will please him whom will he love If hee love the Lord and love not Christ and so love a God in generall but lay no hold upon a particular way of his salvation Sine Christo sine Deo sayes the Apostle to the Ephesians when ye were without Christ Eph. 2.12 ye were without God A non-Christian is an Atheist in that sense of the Apostle If any man finde a Christ a Saviour of the World but finde not a Iesus an actuall Saviour 1 Iohn 2.22 that this Jesus hath saved him Who is a lyar sayes another Apostle but he that denieth that Iesus is the Christ 1 Iohn 5.1 And as he sayes after Whosoever beleeveth that Iesus is the Christ is borne of God From the presumptuous Atheist that beleeves no God from the reserved Atheist that beleeves no God manifested in Christ from the melancholique Atheist that beleeves no Jesus applied to him from him of no Religion from him of no Christian Religion from him that erres fundamentally in the Christian Religion the Apostle enjoynes a separation not till clouds of persecution come and then joyne not till beames of preferment come and then joyne not till Lawes may have beene slumbred some yeares and then joyne not till the parties grow somewhat neare an equality and then joyne but Maran Atha donec Dominus venit till the Lord come to his declaration in judgement If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be accursed Amen SERM. XLI Preached upon Trinity-Sunday PSAL. 2.12 Kisse the Son lest he be angry WHether we shall call it a repeating againe in us of that which God had done before to Israel or call it a performing of that in us which God promised by way of Prophesie to Israel that is certainely afforded to us by God which is spoken by the Prophet of Israel Hos 11.4 God doth draw us with the cords of a man and with bands of love with the cords of a man the man Christ Jesus the Son of God and with the bands of love the band and seale of love a holy kisse Kisse the Son lest he be angry No man comes to God except the Father draw him The Father draws no man but by the Son and the Son receives none but by love and this cement and glue of a zealous and a reverentiall love a holy kisse Kisse the Son c. The parts upon which for the enlightning of your understandings Divisio and assistance of your memories we shall insist are two first our duty then our danger The first is an expression of love Kisse the Son the second is an impression of feare lest he be angry In the first we shall proceed thus we shall consider first The object of this love the Person the second Person in the Trinity The Son The rather because that consideration will cleare the Translation for in no one place of Scripture do Translations differ more then in this Text and the Roman Translation and ours differ so much as that they have but Apprehendite disciplinam Embrace knowledge where we have as you heard Kisse the Son From the Person The Son we shall passe to the act Osculamini Kisse the Son In which we shall see That since this is an act which licentious men have depraved carnal men doe it and treacherous men doe it Iudas and not onely Iudas have betrayed by a kisse and yet God commands this and expresses love in this Every thing that hath or may be abused must not therefore be abandoned the turning of a thing out of the way is not a taking of that thing away but good things deflected to ill uses by some may be by others reduced to their first goodnesse And then in a third branch of this first part we shall consider and magnifie the goodnesse of God that hath brought us into this distance that we may Kisse the Son that the expressing of this love lies in our hands and that whereas the love of the Church in the Old Testament even in the Canticle went no farther but to the Osculetur me O that he would kisse me with the kisses of his mouth now Cant. 1.1 in the Christian Church and in the visitation of a Christian soule he hath invited us enabled us to kisse him for he is presentially amongst us And this will lead us to conclude that first part with an earnest perswasion and exhortation to kisse the Son with all those affections which we shall there finde to be expressed in the Scriptures in that testimony of true love a holy kisse But then lest that perswasion by love should not be effectuall and powerfull enough to us we shall descend from that duty to the danger from love to feare Lest he be angry And therein see first that God who is love can be angry And then that this God who is angry here is the Son of God He that hath done so much for us and therefore in Justice may be angry He that is our Judge and therefore in reason we are to feare his anger And then in a third branch we shall see how easily this anger departs a kisse removes it Do it lest he be angry And then lastly we shall inquire what does anger him and there consider That as we attribute power to the Father and so sins against power the undervaluing of Gods power in the Magistrate over us or the abusing of Gods power in our selves over others were sins against the Father so wisedome being the attribute of the Sonne ignorance which is so far under wisedome and curiosity which carries us beyond wisedome will be sinnes against the Sonne Our first branch in our first part 1 Part. Persona Filius directs us upon him who is first and last and yesterday and to day and the same for ever The Son of God Osculamini filium Kisse the Sonne Where the Translations differ as much as in any one passage The Chalde paraphrase which is for the most part good evidence and the
in a peacefull unity of affections by the love and goodnesse of the holy Ghost Amen SERM. XLIX Preached on the Conversion of S. PAUL 1629. ACTS 23.6 7. But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadduces and the other Pharisees he cryed out in the Councel Men and Brethren I am a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee Of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question And when he had so said there arose a dissention between the Pharisees and the Sadduces and the multitude was divided WE consider ordinarily in the old Testament God the Father And in the Gospels God the Son And in this Book the Acts and in the Epistles and the rest God the Holy Ghost that is God in the Government and Administration of his Church as well in the ordinary Ministery and constant callings therein as in the extraordinary use of generall Councells of which we have the Modell and Platforme and precedent in the fifteenth Chapter of this Booke The Book is noted to have above twenty Sermons of the Apostles and yet the Book is not called The Sermons The Preaching of the Apostles but the Practise the Acts of the Apostles Our actions if they be good speak louder then our Sermons Our preaching is our speech our good life is our eloquence Preaching celebrates the Sabbath but a good life makes the whole week a Sabbath that is A savor of rest in the nostrils of God Gen. 8. Chrysost Hieron as it is said of Noahs Sacrifice when he came out of the Ark. The Book is called The Acts of the Apostles But sayes S. Chrysostome and S. Hierome too it might be called the Acts of S. Paul so much more is it conversant about him then all the rest In which respect at this time of the yeare and in these dayes when the Church commemorates the Conversion of S. Paul I have for divers yeares successively in this place determined my selfe upon this Book Once upon the very act of his Conversion in those words Acts 9.4 Acts 20.25 Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Once upon his valediction to his Ephesians at Miletus in those words Now I know that all ye shall see my face no more And once upon the escape from the Vipers teeth and the viperous tongues of those inconstant and clamorous beholders Acts 28.6 who first rashly cried out He is a murderer and then changed their mindes and said He is a God And now for the service of your devotions and the advancement of your edification I have laid my meditations upon this his Stratagem and just avoiding of an unjust Judgement When Paul percived that one part were Sadduces and the other Pharisees c. In handling of which words Divisio because they have occasioned a Disputation and a Probleme whether this that Paul did were well done To raise a dissention amongst his Judges we shall stop first upon that Consideration That all the actions of holy men of Apostles in the new Testament of Patriarchs in the old are not to be drawne into example and consequence for others no nor alwayes to be excused and justified in them that did them All actions of holy men are not holy that is first And secondly we shall consider this action of S. Paul in some circumstances that invest it and in some effects that it produced in our Text as dissention amongst his Judges and so a reprieving or rather a putting off of the triall for that time and these will determine our second Consideration And in a third we shall lodge all these in our selves and make it our owne case and finde that we have all Sadduces and Pharisees in our own bosomes contrary affections in our own hearts and finde an advantage in putting these home Sadduces and home Pharisees these contrary affections in our owne bosomes in colluctation and opposition against one another that they doe not combine and unite themselves to our farther disadvantage A Civill warre is in this case our way to peace when one sinfull affection crosses another we scape better then when all joyne without any resistance And in these three first the Generall How wee are to estimate all actions And then the Particular what wee are to thinke of S. Pauls Action And lastly the Individuall How wee are to direct and regulate our owne Actions wee shall determine all First then 1. Part. though it be a safer way to suspect an action to be sin that is not then to presome an action to be no sin that is so yet that rule holds better in our selves then in other men for in judging the actions of other men our suspition may soone stray into an uncharitable mis-interpretation and wee may sin in condemning that in another which was no sin in him that did it But in truth Transilire lineam To depart from the direct and straight line is sin as well on the right hand as on the left And the Devill makes his advantages upon the over-tender and scrupulous conscience as well as upon the over-confident and obdurate and many men have erred as much in justifying some actions of holy men as in calumniating or mis-condemning of others If we had not evidence in Scripture that Abraham received that Commandement from God who could justifie Abrahams proceeding with his son Isaac And therefore who shall be afraid to call Noahs Drunkennesse and his undecent lying in his Tent Or Lots Drunkennesse and his iterated Incest with his Daughters or his inconsiderate offer to prostitute his Daughters to the Sodomites Or to call Davids complicated and multiplied sin a sin When the Church celebrates Samsons death though he killed himself it is upon a tender holy supposition that he might do this not without some instinct and inspiration from the Spirit of God But howsoever the Church interprets such actions it is a dangerous and a fallacious way for any private man to argue so The Spirit of God directed this man in many actions therefore in all And dangerous to conclude an action to be good either because he that did it had a good purpose in doing it or because some good effects proceeded from it Bonum bene are the two horses that must carry us to heaven To do good things and to doe them well To propose good ends and to goe by good waies to those good ends The Mid-wives lie in the behalfe of the Israelites children was a lie and a sin howsoever God out of his own goodnesse found something in their piety to reward I should not venture to say as he said nor to say that hee said well when Moses said Dele me Forgive their finne or blot mee out of thy Booke Exod. 32.32 Rom. 9 3. Nor when S. Paul said Anathema pro fratribus I could wish that my selfe were separated from Christ for my Brethren I would not I could not without sin be content that my name should be blotted out of the Booke of
thee and thou shalt feele him begin to storme and at first that spirit thy spirit 1 Kings 18. will say to the spirit of the Preacher Tune qui conturbas Art thou he that troublest Israel as Ahab said to Eliah Art thou he that troublest the peace of my conscience and the security of my wayes And when the Spirit of God shall search farther and farther even ad occulta to thy secretest sins and touch upon them and that that spirit of disobedience 1 King 21.20 when he feeles this powerfull Exorcisme shall say in thee and cry as Ahab also did Invenisti me Hast thou found me O mine enemy God shall answer Inveni te I have found thee and found that thou hadst sold thy selfe to worke wickednesse in the sight of the Lord And so shall bring thee to a more particular consideration of thine estate and from thy having joyned with the Church Psal 1â—2 13 in a Dominus miserebitur Sion In an assurance and acknowledgement that the Lord will arise and have mercy upon Sion that is of his whole Catholique Church Psal 67.1 And then come to a Dominus misereatur nostri God be mercifull unto us and blesse us and cause his face to shine upon us upon us that are met here according to his Ordinance and in confidence of his promise upon this Congregation of which thou makest thy selfe a part thou wilt also come to this of David here Domine miserere mei Have mercy upon me me in particular and thou shalt heare God answer thee Miserans miserebor tibi With great mercy will I have mercy upon thee upon thee For with him is plentifull Redemption Mercy for his whole Church mercy for this whole Congregation mercy for every particular soule that makes her selfe a part of the Congregation Accustome thy selfe therefore to a generall devotion to a generall application to generall ejaculations towards God upon every occasion and then as a wedge of gold that comes to be coyned into particular pieces of currant money the Lord shall stamp his Image upon all thy devotions and bring thee to particular confessions of thy sins and to particular prayers for thy particular necessities And this we may well conceive and admit to be the nature of Davids first prayer Miserere mei Have mercy upon me And then the reason upon which this first petition is grounded for so it will be fittest to handle the parts first the prayer and then the reason is Quia infirmus Have mercy upon me for I am weak First then Quia how imperfect how weak soever our prayers be yet still if it be a prayer it hath a Quia a Reason upon which it is grounded It hath in it some implied some interpretative consideration of ourselves how it becomes us to aske that which wee doe ask at Gods hand and it hath some implied and interpretative consideration of God how it conduces to Gods glory to grant it for that prayer is very farre from faith which is not made so much as with reason with a consideration of some possibility and some conveniency in it Every man that sayes Lord Lord enters not into heaven Every Lord Lord that is said enters not into heaven but vanishes in the ayre A prayer must be with a serious purpose to pray for else those fashionall and customary prayers are but false fires without shot they batter not heaven It is but an Interjection that slips in It is but a Parenthesis that might be left out whatsoever is uttered in the manner of a prayer if it have not a Quia a Reason a ground for it And therefore when our Saviour Christ gave us that forme of prayer which includes all he gave us in it a forme of the reason too Quia tuum For thine is the Kingdome c. It were not a prayer to say Adveniat Regnum Thy Kingdome come if it were not grounded upon that faithfull assurance that God hath a Kingdomehere Nor to say Sanctificetur nomen Hallowed be thy name If he desired not to be glorified by us Nor to aske daily bread nor forgivenesse of sins but for the Quia potestas Because he hath all these in his power We consider this first accesse to God Miserere mei Have mercy upon me to be but a kind of imperfect prayer but the first step but it were none at all if it had no reason and therefore it hath this Quia infirmus Because I am weake This reason of our own weaknesse is a good motive for mercy Quia infirmus Iohn 11.3 if in a desire of farther strength we come to that of Laâ—arus sisters to Christ Ecce quam amas infirmatur Behold Lord that soule that thou lovest and hast dyed for is weak and languishes Christ answered then Non est infirmitas ad mortem This weaknesse is not unto death but that the Son of God might be glorified He will say so to thee too if thou present thy weaknesse with a desire of strength from him he will say Quare moriemini domus Israel why will ye die of this disease Gratia mea sufficit you may recover for all this you may repent you may abstaine from this sin you may take this spirituall physick the Word the Sacraments if you will Tantummodo robustus esto as God sayes to Ioshuah Only be valiant and fight against it and thou shalt finde strength grow in the use thereof But for the most part De infirmitate blandimur sayes S. Bernard De gradibus humilitatis we flatter our selves with an opinion of weaknesse ut liberiùs peccemus libenter infirmamur we are glad of this naturall and corrupt weaknesse that we may impute all our licentiousnesse to our weaknesse and naturall infirmity But did that excuse Adam sayes that Father Quòd per uxorem tanquam per carnis infirmitatem peceavit That he took his occasion of sinning from his weaker part from his wife Quia infirmus That thou art weak of thy selfe is a just motive to induce God to bring thee to himselfe Qui verè portavit languores tuos who hath surely borne all thine infirmities Esay 53.4 But to leave him againe when he hath brought thee to refuse so light and easie yoake as his is not to make use of that strength which he by his grace offers thee this is not the affection of the Spouse Languor amantis when the person languishes for the love of Christ but it is Languor amoris when the love of Christ languishes in that person And therefore if you be come so far with David as to this Miserere quia infirmus that an apprehension of your owne weaknesse have brought you to him in a prayer for mercy and more strength goe forward with him still to his next Petition Sana me O Lord heale me for God is alwayes ready to build upon his owne foundations and accomplish his owne beginnings Acceptus in gratiam hilariter veni ad
of man returnes to God that gave it Eccles 12.7 As God breathed into man so man breathes unto the nostrils of God a savour of rest as it is said of Noah an acceptable sacrifice when he sighes for his sins This fighing this groaning expressed in this word Anach Gemitus is Vox Turturis Turtur gemit It is that voyce that sound which the Turtle gives Plin. li. 18. c. 28. And we learne by Authors of Naturall Story and by experience Turturis gemitus indicium veris The voyce of the Turtle is an evidence of the Spring When a sinner comes to this voyce to this sighing there is a Spring of grace begun in him Then Vox Turturis audita in terra nostra sayes Christ to his Spouse The voyce of the Turtle is heard in our Land And so he sayes to thy soule Gan. 2.12 This voyce of the Turtle these sighs of thy penitent soul are heard interra nostra in our Land in the Kingdome of heaven And when he heares this voyce of this Turtle these sighs of thy soule then he puts thy name also into that List which he gave to his Messenger in which Commission this very word of our Text Ezek. 9.4 Anach is used Signabis signum super frontibus virorum suspirantium gementium Upon all their fore heads that sigh and groane imprint my mark Which is ordinarily conceived by the Ancients to have been the letter Tau of which though Calvin assigne a usefull and a convenient reason that they were marked with this letter Tau which is the last letter of the Hebrew Alphabet in signe that though they were in estimation of the world the most abject and the out-casts thereof yet God set his mark upon them with a purpose to raise them yet S. Hierome Hieron and the Ancients for the most part assigne that for the reason why they were marked with that letter because that letter had the forme of the Crosse Not for any such use or power as the Roman Church hath ascribed to that sign but as in the Persecutions of the Primitive Church the Martyrs at the stake when a cry was raised that they dyed for Treason for Rebellion for Sedition and could not be heard for the clamour to cleare themselves used then in the sight of all who though they could not heare them could see them to signe themselves with the Crosse not to drive away devils or to strengthen themselves against tentations by that signe but by that signe to declare the cause of their death to be the profession of the Christian Religion and not Treason nor Sedition And as we in our Baptisme have that Crosse imprinted upon us not as a part of the Sacrament or any piece of that armour which we put on of spirituall strength but as a protestation whose Souldiers wee became so God imprinted upon them that sighed and mourned that Tau that letter which had the forme of the Crosse that it might be an evidence that all their crosses shall be swallowed in his Crosse their sighs in his sighs and their agonies in his And therefore Beloved these sighs are too spirituall a substance to be bestowed upon worldly matters All the love all the ambitions all the losses of this world are not worth a sigh If they were yet thou hast none to spare for all thy sighs are due to thy sins bestow them there Gemit Laboravit he sighs he groanes And then Laboravit in gemitu he laboured he travailed he grew weary he fainted with sighing Not to be curious we meet with a threefold Labour in Scriptures First there is Labor communis the Labour which no man may avoid Iob 5.7 Man is borne unto travailt as the sparks fly upward Where wee may note in the Comparison that it is not a dejection a diminution a depressing downward but a flying upward the true exaltation of a Man that he labours duly in a lawfull calling and this is Labor communis Secondly there is Labor impii The labour of the wicked for They have taught their tongues to speake lyes sayes David and take great paines to deale wickedly Iob 15.20 As it is also in Iob The wicked man travaileth with paine all his dayes And as our former Translation had it he is continually as one travailing with Child Indeed the labour is greater to doe ill then well to get hell then Heaven Heaven might be had with lesse paines then men doe bestow upon hell and this is Labor impiorum And lastly there is Labor justorum The labour of the Righteous which is To rise early to lie downe late and to eate the bread of sorrow for though in that place this seemes to be said to bee done in vaine Psal 127.2 It is in vaine to rise early in vaine to lye downe late in vaine to eate the bread of sorrow yet it is with the same exception which is there specified that is Except the Lord build it is in vaine to labour Except the Lord keepe the City it is in vaine to watch So except the Lord give rest to his beloved it is in vaine torise early In vaine to travaile except God give a blessing But when the Lord hath given thee rest in the remission of thy sins then comes this Labor justorum the labour that a righteous man is bound to that as God hath given him a good nights rest so he gives God a good dayes worke as God hath given him rest and peace of conscience for that which is past so hee take some paines for that which is to come for such was Davids case and Davids care and Davids labour Ephrem an ancient Deacon and Expositor in the Christian Church takes this labour of David Laboravi in gemitu to have beene in gemitu but in comprimendo gemitu that he laboured to conceale his penance and mortification from the sight and knowledge of others Beloved this concealing of those things which we put our selves to in the waies of godlinesse hath alwaies a good use when it is done to avoid ostentation and vaine glory and praise of men And it hath otherwise sometimes a good use to conceale our tribulations and miseries from others because the wicked often take occasion from the calamities and pressures of the godly to insult and triumph over them and to dishonour and blaspheme their God and to say Where is now your God and therefore it may sometimes concerne us to labour to hide our miseries to swallow our owne spittle as Iob speaks and to spunge up our teares in our braines and to eate and smother our sighs in our own bosomes But this was not Davids case now But as he had opened himselfe to God he opened himselfe to the world too and as he sayes in another place Come and I will tell you what God hath done for my soule So here he sayes Come and I will tell you what I have done against my God So he
without permanency we might call an intermitting ague a good day in a fever health If we could imagine a blessing of plenty without permanency we might call a full stomach and a surfet though in a time of dearth plenty If we could imagine a blessing of peace without permanency we might call a nights sleepe though in the midst of an Army peace but it is onely provision for the permanency and continuance that makes these blessings blessings To thinke of to provide against famine and sicknesse and warre that is the blessing of plenty and health and peace One of Christs principall titles was Esay 9. that he was Princeps pacis and yet this Prince of peace sayes Non veni mittere pacem I came not to bring you peace not such a peace as should bring them security against all warre If a Ship take fire though in the midst of the Sea it consumes sooner and more irrecoverably then a thatched house upon Land If God cast a fire-brand of warre upon a State accustomed to peace it burnes the more desperately by their former security But here in our Text we have a religious King David that first prayes for these blessings for the three former Verses are a prayer and then praises God in the acknowledgement of them for this Text is an acclamatory a gratulatory glorifying of God for them And when these two meet in the consideration of temporall blessings a religious care for them a religious confessing of them prayer to God for the getting praise to God for the having Blessed is that people that is Head and members Prince and subjects present and future people that are so So blessed so thankefull for their blessings We come now Ad dextram dextrae to the right blessedness 2 Part. in the right sense and interpretation of these words to spirituall blessedness to the blessedness of the soule Estne Deo cura de bobus is the Apostles question and his answer is pregnantly implied 1 Cor. 9.9 God hath care of beasts But yet God cared more for one soule then for those two thousand hogges which he suffered to perish in the Sea when that man was dispossessed Mar. 5. A dram of spirituall is worth infinite talents of temporall Here then in this spirituall blessedness as we did in the former wee shall looke first Quid beatitudo what it is and then In quibus in what it is placed here Vt Deus eorum sit Dominus That their God bee the Lord And lastly the extent of it That all the people bee made partakers of this spirituall blessedness This blessedness then you see is placed last in the Text Beatitudo not that it cannot be had till our end till the next life In this case the Nemo ante obitum failes for it is in this life that we must find our God to be the Lord or else if we know not that here we shall meet his Nescio vos he will not know us But it is placed last because it is the waightiest and the uttermost degree of blessendness which can be had To have the Lord for our God Consider the making up of a naturall man and you shall see that hee is a convenient Type of a spirituall man too First in a naturall man wee conceive there is a soule of vegetation and of growth and secondly a soule of motion and of sense and then thirdly a soule of reason and understanding an immortall soule And the two first soules of vegetation and of sense wee conceive to arise out of the temperament and good disposition of the substance of which that man is made they arise out of man himselfe But the last soule the perfect and immortall soule that is immediatly infused by God Consider the blessedness of this Text in such degrees in such proportions First God blesses a man with riches there is his soule of vegetation and growth by that hee growes in estimation and in one kinde of true ability to produce good fruits for he hath wherewithall And then God gives this rich man the blessing of understanding his riches how to employ them according to those morall and civill duties which appertaine unto him and there is his soule of sense for many rich men have not this sense many rich men understand their owne riches no more then the Oaks of the Forrest doe their owne Akorns But last of all God gives him the blessing of discerning the mercy and the purpose of God in giving him these temporall blessings and there is his immortall soule Now for the riches themselves which is his first soule he may have them ex traduce by devolution from his parents and the civill wisedome how to governe his riches where to purchase where to sell where to give where to take which is his second soule this he may have by his owne acquisition and experience and conversation But the immortall soule that is the discerning of Gods image in every piece and of the seale of Gods love in every temporall blessing this is infused from God alone and arises neither from Parents nor the wisedome of this world how worldly wise so ever wee bee in the governing of our estate And this the Prophet may very well seeme to have intimated when he saith Psal 112.1 The generation of the righteous shall be blessed Here is a permanent blessedness to the generation Wherein is it expressed thus Riches and treasure shall bee in his house and his righteousnesse endureth for ever Hee doth not say that Simony or Usury or Extortion shall bee in his house for riches got so are not treasure Nor he doth not say that Riches well got and which are truely a blessing shall endure for ever but his righteousnesse shall endure for ever The last soule the immortall soule endures for ever The blessedness of having studied and learnt and practised the knowledge of Gods purpose in temporall blessings this blessedness shall endure for ever When thou shalt turne from the left to the right side upon thy death bed from all the honours and riches of this world to breathe thy soule into his hands that gave it this righteousness this good conscience shall endure then and then accompany thee And when thine eyes are closed and in the twinckling of his eye that closed thine thy soule shall be gone an infinite way from this honour and these riches this righteousness this good conscience shall endure then and meet thee in the gates of heaven And this is so much of that righteousness as is expressed in this Text because this is the root of all That our God be the Lord. In which In quibus first wee must propose a God that there is one and then appropriate this God to our selves that he be our God and lastly be sure that we have the right God that our God be the Lord. For for the first he that enterprises any thing seeks any thing possesses any thing