and I who have opened my mouth and poured out imprecations and curses upon men and execrations and blasphemies against God upon every occasion That Lamb who was slain from the beginning and was slain by him who was a murderer from the beginning That Lamb which took away the sins of the world and I who brought more sins into the world then any sacrifice but the blood of this Lamb could take away This Lamb and I these are the Persons shall meet and mary there is the Action This is not a clandestine mariage not the private seal of Christ in the obsignation of his Spirit and yet such a clandestine mariage is a good mariage Nor it is not such a Parish mariage as when Christ maried me to himself at my Baptisme in a Church here â— and yet that mariage of a Christian soul to Christ in that Sacrament is a blessed mariage But this is a mariage in that great and glorious Congregation where all my fins shall be laid open to the eys of all the world where all the blessed Virgins shall see all my uncleannesse and all the Martyrs see all my tergiversations and all the Consessors see all my double dealings in Gods cause where Abraham shall see my faithlesnesse in Gods promises and Iob my impatience in Gods corrections and Lazarus my hardness of heart in distributing Gods blessings to the poore and those Virgins and Martyrs and Confessors and Abraham and Iob and Lazarus and all that Congregation shall look upon the Lamb and upon me and upon one another as though they would all forbid those banes and say to one another Will this Lamb have any thing to doe with this soule and yet there and then this Lamb shall mary me In aeternum for ever which is our last circumstance It is not well done to call it a circumstance for the eternity is a great part of the essence of that mariage Consider then how poore and needy a thing all the riches of this world how flat and tastlesse a thing all the pleasures of this world how pallid and faint and dilute a thing all the honours of this world are when the very Treasure and Joy and glory of heaven it self were unperfect if it were not eternall and my mariage shall be too In aeternum for ever The Angels were not maried so they incurr'd an irreparable Divorce from God and are separated for ever and I shall be maried to him in aeternum for ever The Angels fell in love when there was no object presented before any thing was created when there was nothing but God and themselves they fell in love with themselves and neglected God and so fell in aeternum for ever I shall see all the beauty and all the glory of all the Saints of God and love them all and know that the Lamb loves them too without jealousie on his part or theirs or mine and so be maried in aeternum for ever without interruption or diminution or change of affections I shall see the Sunne black as sackcloth of hair and the Moon become as blood and the Starres fall as a Figge-tree casts her untimely Figges and the heavens roll'd up together as a Scroll I shall see a divorce between Princes and their Prerogatives between nature and all her elements between the spheres and all their intelligences between matter it self and all her forms and my mariage shall be in aeternum for ever I shall see an end of faith nothing to be beleeved that I doe not know and an end of hope nothing to be wisht that I doe not enjoy but no end of that love in which I am maried to the Lamb for ever Yea I shall see an end of some of the offices of the Lamb himself Christ himself shall be no longer a Mediator an Intercessor an Advocate and yet shall continue a Husband to my soul for ever Where I shall be rich enough without Joynture for my Husband cannot die and wise enough without experience for no new thing can happen there and healthy enough without Physick for no sicknesse can enter and which is by much the highest of all safe enough without grace for no tentation that need particular grace can attempt me There where the Angels which cannot die could not live this very body which cannot choose but die shall live and live as long as that God of life that made it Lighten our darkness we beseech thee ô Lord that in thy light we may see light Illustrate our understandings kindle our affections pour oyle to our zeale that we may come to the mariage of this Lamb and that this Lamb may come quickly to this mariage And in the mean time bless these thy servants with making this secular mariage a type of the spirituall and the spirituall an earnest of that eternall which they and we by thy mercy shall have in the Kingdome which thy Son our Saviour hath purchased with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood To whom c. SERMON IV. Preached at a Christning REVEL 7. 17. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throns shalâ— gâ—vern them and shall leade them unto the lively furnteins of maters and God shall wipe away all teares from their eyes IF our conversation be in heaven as the Apostle says his was and if that conversation be as Testullian reads that place Municipatus noster our City our dwelling the place from whence onely we receive our Laws to which onely we direct our services in which onely we are capable of honours and offices where even the office of a doore-keeper was the subject of a great Kings ambition if our conversation be there even there there cannot be better company met then we may see and converse withall in this Chapter Upon those words doth the Eagle mount up at the Cominandement or make his nest on high S. Gregory says Videamus aquilam nidum sibi in arduis construentem Then we say an Eagle make his nest on high when we heard S. Petter say so Our conversation is in heaven and then doth an Eagle mount up at our commandement when our soul our devotion by such a conversation in heaven associates itself with all this blessed company that are met in this Chapter that our fellow ship may be with the Father and with his Son Iesus Christ and with all the Court and Quire of the Triumphant Church If you go to feasts if you goe to Comedies fometimes onely to meet company nay if you come to Church sometimes onely upon that errand to meet company as though the House of God were but as the presence of an earthly Prince which upon solemne Festivall days must be fill'd and furnished though they that come come to doe no service there command year Eagle to mount up and to build his nest on high command your souls to have their conversation in heaven by meditation of this Scripture and you shall meet
to be Lapis Iacob the stone that Iacob slept upon fourthly to be Lapis Davidis the stone that David flew Golih withall And lastly to be Lapis Petra such a stone as is a Rock and such a Rock as no Waters nor Stormes can remove or shake these are benefits Christ Jesus is a stone no firmnesse but in him a fundamentall stone no building but on him a corner stone no piecing nor reconciliation but in him and Iacobs stone no rest no tranquillity but in him and Davids stone no anger no revenge but in him and a rocky stone no defence against troubles and tribulations but in him And upon this stone we fall and are broken and this stone may fall on us and grinde us to powder First in the metaphor that Christ is called a stone the firmnesse is expressed Forasmuch as he loved his owne which were in the world In finem dilexit eos sayes St. Iohn He loved them to the end and not to any particular end for any use of this owne but to their end Qui erant in mundo sayes Cyrill ad distinctionem Angelorum he loved them in the world and not Angels he loved not onely them who were in a confirmed estate of mutuall loving him too but even them who were themselves conceived in sinne and then conceived all their purposes in sinne too them who could have no cleansing but in his blood and when they were cleansed in his blood their owne clothes would defile them againe them who by nature are not able to love him at all and when by grace they are brought to love him can expresse their love no other way but to be glad that he was betrayed and scourged and scorned and nayled and crucified and to be glad that if all this were not already done it might be done yet to long and wish that if Christ were not crucified he might be crucified now which is a strange manner of expressing love those men he loved and loved unto the end Men and not Angels and then men Ad distinctionem mortuorum sayes Chrysostome not onely the Patriarchs who were departed out of the world who had loved him so well as to take his word for their salvation and had lived and dyed in the faithfull contemplation of a future promise which they never saw performed but those who were partakers of the performance of all those promises those into the midst of whom he came in person those upon whom he wrought with his piercing Doctrine and his powerfull miracles those who for all this loved not him he loved Et in finem he loved them to the end It is much that he should love them in fine at their end that he should looke graciously on them at last that when their sunne sets their eyes faint his sunne of grace should arise and his East be brought to their West that then in the shadow of death the Lord of life should quicken and inanimate their hearts that when their last bell tolls and calls them to their first Judgement and first and last Judgement to this purpose is all one the passing bell and Angels trump sound all but one note Surgite qui dormitis in pulvere Arise ye that sleepe in the dust which is the voyce of the Angels and Surgite qui vigilatis in plumis Arise ye that cannot sleepe in feathers for the pangs of death which is the voyce of the bell is but one voyce for God at the generall Judgement shall never reverse any particular Judgement formerly given that God should then come to the beds side ad sibilandum populum suum as the Prophet Ezekiel speaks to hisse softly for his childe to speake comfortably in his eare to whisper gently to his departing soule and to drowne and overcome with this soft Musick of his all the danger of the Angels Trumpets all the horror of the ringing Bell all the cryes and vociferations of a distressed and distracted and scattering family yea all the accusations of his owne conscience and all the triumphant acclamations of the Devill himselfe that God should love a man thus in fine at his end and returne to him then though he had suffered him to go astray from him before it is a great testimony of an unspeakable love but his love is not onely in fine at the end but in finem to the end all the way to the end He leaves them not uncalled at first he leaves them not unaccompanied in the way he leaves them not unrecompensed at the last that God who is Almighty Alpha and Omega first and last that God is also love it selfe and therefore this love is Alpha and Omega first and last too Consider Christs proceeding with Peter in the ship in the storme first he suffered him to be in some danger but then he visites him with that strong assurance Noli timere Be not afraid it is I any testimony of his presence rectifies all This puts Peter into that spirituall knowledge and confidence Iube me venire Lord bid me come to thee he hath a desire to be with Christ but yet stayes his bidding he puts not himselfe into an unnecessary danger without a commandment Christ bids him and Peter comes but yet though Christ were in his sight and even in the actuall exercise of his love to him yet as soone as he saw a gust a storme timuit he was afraid and Christ letteth him feare and letteth him sinke and letteth him crie But he directeth his feare and his crie to the right end Domine salvum me fac Lord save me and thereupon he stretcheth out his hand and saved him God doth not raise his children to honour and great estates and then leave them and expose them to be subjects and exercises of the malice of others nor he doth not make them mightie and then leave them ut glorietur in malo qui potens est that he should thinke it a glory to be able to do harm He doth not impoverish and dishonour his children and then leave them leave them unsensible of that Doctrine that patience is as great a blessing as aboundance God giveth not his children health and then leaveth them to a boldnesse in surfetting nor beauty and leave them to a confidence of opening themselves to all sollicitations nor valour and then leaveth them to a spirit of quarrelsomnesse God maketh no patterns of his works no modells of his houses he maketh whole pieces he maketh perfect houses he putteth his children into good wayes and he directeth and protecteth them in those wayes For this is the constancy and the perseverance of the love of Christ Jesus as he is called in this Text a stone To come to the particular benefits the first is that he is lapis fundamentalis a foundation stone for other foundation can no man lay then that which is laid which is Christ Jesus Now where Saint Augustine saith as he doth in two or three places
teach valour yes And nothing but feare True feare As Moses his Serpents devoured the false serpents so doth true fear all false fear There is nothing so contrary to God as false fear neither in his own nature nor in his love to us Therefore Gods first Name in the Bible and the Name which he sticks to in all the worke of the Creation is his Name of Power Elohim El is fortis Deus The God of Power and it is that Name in the plurall multiplied power All Power And what can he feare God descends to many other humane affections you shall read that God was Angry and sory and weary But non timuit Deus God was never afraid Neither would God that man should be So his first blessing upon man was to fill the earth and to subdue the creatures and to rule over them and to eat what he would upon the earth All Acts of Power and of Confidence As soon as hee had offended God the first impotency that he found in himself was fear I heard thy voice and I was afraid says he He had heard the voice of Lions and was not afraid There is not a greater commination of a curse then that They shall be in a great fear where no fear is Which is more vehemently expressed in another place I will set my face against you and yu shall flye when none pursues you I will send a faintnesse into their hearts and the sound of a shaken leafe shall chase them as a sword Flase feare is a fearfull curfe To feare that all favours and all preferments will goe the wrong way and that therefore I must clap on a byasse and goe that way too this inordinate fear is the curse of God Davids last counsail to Solomon but reflecting upon us all was Be thou strong therefore and show thy selfe a man E Culmine corruens ad gyrum laboris venit The Davill fell from his place in heaven and now is put to compasse the earth The fearfull man that fals from his morall and his Christian constancy from the fundamentall rules of his religion fals into labyrinths of incertitudes and impertinencies and ambiguities and anxieties irresolutions Militia vita our whole life is a warfare God would not chuse Cowards hee lad rather we were valiant in the fighting of his battels for battels and exercise of valour we are sure to have God sent a Cain into the world before an Abel An Enemy before a Champion Abel non suspicor qui non habet Cain Gregor we never heare of an Abel but there is a Cain too And therefore think it not strange concerning the fiery triall as though some strange thing happened unto you Make account that this world is your Scene your Theater and that god himself sits to see the combat the wrestling Vetuit Deus mortem Iob Iob was Gods Champion and God forbad Satan the taking away of Iobs life for if he die sayes God in the mouth of that Father Theatrum nobis non amplius plaeudetar My Theater will ring with no more Plaudites I shall bee no more glorified in the valour and constancy of my Saints my Champions God delights in the constant and valiant man and therefore a various a timorous man frustrates disappoints God My errand then is to teach you valour and must my way be to intimidate you to teach you feare yes still there is no other fortitude but the fear of the Lord. We told you before sadnesse and fear differ but in the present and future And as for the present Nihil aliud triste quà m Deum offendere There is no just cause of sadnesse but to have sinned against God for sudden sadnesse arising in a good Conscience is a sparke of fire in the Sea it must goe out so there is no just cause of fear but in Gods displeasure Mens in timore Domini constituta non invenit extra quod metuat God is all and if I be established in him what thing can I fear when there is nothing without him nothing simply at least nothing that can hurt me Quae sunt in mundo non nocentiis qui extra mundum sunt This world cannot hurt him that made it nor them that are laid up in him Ionas did but change his vessell his ship when he entred the Whale he was not shipwracked God was his Pilot there as well as in the ship and therefore he as confident there It is meant of Christ which is spoken in the person in Wisdome Who so hearkneth unto me shall dwell safely and be quiet from the feare of evill And therefore when you heare of warres and commotions be not terrified these things must come to passe but the end is not by and by Imaginations and tentations and alienations and tribulations must come But this is not the end the end that God lookes for is that by the benefit of his fear we should stand out all these So thē to teach you the fear of the Lord is to teach you what it doth that you may love it and what it is that you may know it That w ch it doth is that it makes you a constant a confident a valiant man That which God who is alwayes the same loves How doth it that Thus. As he that is falne into tha Kings hand for debt to him is safe from other creditors so is he that fears the Lord form other fears He that loves the Lord loves him witl all his love he that fears the Lord fears him withall his fear too God takes no half affections Upon those words Be not high-minded but fear Clement of Alexandria hath another reading super-time over-feare that is carry thy fear to the highest place place thy fear there where it may be above all other fears In the multitude of dreams there are divers vanities but feare thou the Lord. All fearfull things passe away as dreams as vanities to him that fears the Lord They offer at him but in vain if he be established with that fear In Christ there was no bone broken In him that feares the Lord no constant purpose is ever shaken Of Iob it is said that he was perfect and upright That is a rare wonder but the wonder is qualified in the addition He feared God So are they put together in Simeon Iustus timoratus he was a just man how should he be otherwise He feared God Consider your enemies and be not deceived with an imagination of their power but see whether they be worthy of your feare if you feare God The World is your enemy sed vicit mundum be of good cheare for I have overcome the world saith Christ. If it were not so yet we are none of it ye are not of the world for I have chosen you out of the that world Howsoever the world would doe us no harm the world would be good
enough of it self but that the Prince of the world the Devill is anima mundi the soul of this lower world he inanimates he actuates he exalts the malignity of the world against us and he is our second enemy It was not the Apple but the Serpent that tempted Eve no doubt had looked upon the fruit before and yet did not long But even this enemy is not so dangerous as he is conceived In the life of St. Basil we have a story that the Devil appeared to a penitent sinner at his praiers and told him If you will let me alone I will let you alone meddle not with me and I will not meddle with you He found that by this good souls prayers to God God had weakned his power not onely upon that man the prayed but upon others too and therefore he was content to come to a cessation of armes with him that he might turn his forces another way Truely he might say to many of us in a worse sense Let me alone and I will let you alone tempt not me I will not tempt you Our idlenes our high diet our wanton discours our exposing our selves to occasion of sin provoke and call in the Devill when he seeks not us The Devill possesses the world and we possesse the Devill But then if the fear of the Lord possesse us our owne Concupiscencies though they be indeed our greatest enemies because the warre that they maintain is a civill warre shall doe us no harm for as the Septuagins in their Translation diminish the power of the Devill in that name â—wordsâ— a disproportioned Creature made up of a Lion and an Ant because as St. Gregory saith upon that place formicis â—eoest volatilibus formica The Devill is a Lion to Ants dasheth whole hills of them with his paw that creep under him but he is but an Ant to birds they prey upon him that flie above him If wee feare the Lord our concupiscencies our carnall affections our selves may prove our best friends because as the fire in the furnace did not burn the men but it burnt off those bands that fettered and manacled them for they were loose and walked in the furnace so our concupiscencies if we resist them shall burn off themselves and file off their own rust and our salvation shall be surer by occasion of temptations We may prevent mortem mortificatione everlasting death by a disciplinary life Mori ne moriamur is his rule too To die to the fires of lust here lest wee die in unquenchable fires hereafter to die daily as S. Paul speaks of himself lest we die at the last day To end this this is the working of the fear of the Lord it devours all other fears God will have no half-affections God will have no partners He that fears God fears nothing else This then is the operation of the feare of the Lord this is his working remaines onely to consider what this feare of the Lord is And beloved in him be not afraid of it for this fear of God is the love of God And howsoever there may be some amongst us whom the heighth of birth or of place or of spirit hath kept from fear They never feared any thing yet I think there is none that never loved any thing Obligations of Matrimony or of friendship or of blood or of alliance or of conversation hath given every one of us no doubt some sense in our selves what it is to love and to enjoy that which we doe love And the fear of God is the love of God The love of the Lord passeth all things saith the Wise man The love what is that to fear It follows The fear of the Lord is the beginning of his love As they that build Arches place centers under the Arch to beare up the work till it bee dried and setled but after all is Arch and there is no more center no more support so to lie at the Lords feet a while delivers us into his arms to accustome our selves to his fear establishes us in his love Be content to stop a little even at the lowest fear the fear of hell When Saul was upon an expedition and did not finde himself well followed he took a yoke of Oxen and hewed them in pieces and proclaimed that whosoever came not to the supply all his Oxen should be so served and upon this says the Text there The fear of the Lord fell upon all the people and they came out as one man three hundred and thirty thousand If Sauls threatning of their worldly goods wrought so let Gods threatning of thy selfe thine inwardest self thy soul with hell make thee to stop even upon thy fear of the Lord the fear of Torment Stop upon the second fear too the fear of privation and losse of the sight of God in heaven That when all wee have disputed with a modest boldnesse and wondred with a holy wonder what kinde of sight of God we shall have in heaven then when thou shouldst come to an end and to an answer of all these doubts in an experimentall triall how he shall be seen seen thus thou shalt see then that thou shalt never see him After thou hast used to hear all thy life blessednesse summed up into that one act We shall see God thou shalt never come nearer to that knowledge thou shalt never see him fear the Lord therefore in this second fear fear of privation And fear him in a third fear the fear of the losse of his grace here in this world though thou have it now S. Chrysostome serves himself and us with an ordinary comparison A Tyler is upon the top of the house but he looks to his footing he is afraid of falling A righteous man is in a high place in Gods favour but hee may lose that place Who is higher then Adam higher then the Angels and whither fell they Make not thou then thy assurance of standing our of their arguments that say it is impossible for the righteous to fall The sins of the righteous are no sins in the sight of God but built thy assurance upon the testimony of a good conscience that thou usest all diligence and holy industry that thou maist continue in Gods favour and fearest to lose it for hee that hath no fear of losing hath no care of keeping Accustome thy self to these fears and these fears will flow into a love As love and jealousie may bee the same thing so the feare and love of God will be all one for jealousie is but a fear of losing Brevissima differentia Testamentorum Timor Amor This distinguishes the two Testaments The Old is a Testament of fear the New of love yet in this they grow all one That we determine the Old Testament in the New and that we prove the New Testament by the Old for but by the Old we should not know that there was to bee a New nor but
for the New that there was an Old so the two testaments grow one Bible so in these two Affections if there were not a jealousie a fear of losing God we could not love him nor can we fear to lose him except we doe love him Place the affection by what name soever upon the right object God and I have in some measure done that which this Text directed Taught you the fear of the Lord if I send you away in either disposition Timorous or amorous possessed with either the fear or the love of God for this fear is inchoative love and this love is consummative fear The love of God begins in fear and the fear of God ends in love and that love can never end for God is love SERMON XLVII An Anniversary Sermon preached at St. Dunstans upon the commemoration of a Parishioner a Benefactor to that Parish GEN. 3. 24. And dust shalt thou eat all the dayes of thy life THis is Gods malediction upon the Serpent in Paradise There in the Region in the Store-house of all plenty he must starve This is the Serpents perpetuall fast his everlasting Lent Dust shalt thou eat all the dayes of thy life There is a generation derived from this Serpent Progenies viperarum a generation of Vipers that will needs in a great and unnecessary measure keep this Serpents Lent and binde themselves to performe his fact for the Carthusian will eat no flesh and yet I never saw better bodied men men of better habitudes and constitution howsoever they recompense their abstinence from flesh and the Fueillans will eat neither flesh nor fish but roots and fallets and yet amongst them amongst men so enfeebled by roots was bred up that man who was both malicious courage and bodily strength to kill the last King who was killed amongst them They will be above others in their fasts Fish and Roots will they eat all the dayes of their life but their Master will be above them in his fast Dust must he eat all the dayes of his life It is Luthers observation upon this place That in all Moses his Books God never spoke so long so much together as here upon this occasion Indeed the occasion was great It was the arraignment of all the world and more of mankinde and of Angels too of Adam and Eve and there were no more of them and then of the Serpent and of Satan in that and of all the fallen Angels in him For the sentence which God as Judge gave upon them upon all these Malefactors of that part which fell upon the woman all our mothers are experimentall witnesses they brought forth us in sorrow and in travaile Of that part of the sentence which fell upon man every one of us is an experimentall witnesse for in every calling in the sweat of our face we eat our bread And of that part of the Judgement which was inflicted upon the Serpent and Satan in him this dead brother of ours who lyes in this consecrated earth is an experimentall witnesse who being by death reduced to the state of dust for so much of him as is dust that is for his dead body and then for so long time as he is to remaine in that state of dust is in the portion and jurisdiction and possession of the Serpent that is in the state which the Serpent hath induced upon man and dust must he eat all the dayes of his life In passing thorough these words we shall make but these two steps first What the Serpent lost by this judgement inflicted upon him and secondly What man gained by it for these two considerations imbrace much involve much first That Gods anger is so intensive and so extensive so spreading and so vehement as that in his Justice he would not spare the Serpent who had no voluntary no innate no naturall ill disposition towards man but was onely made the instrument of Satan in the overthrow of man And then that Gods mercy is so large so overflowing so super-abundant as that even in his Judgement upon the Serpent he would provide mercy for man For as it is a great waight of judgement upon the Serpent that the Serpent must eat dust so is it a great degree of mercy to man that the Serpent must eate but dust because mans best part is not subject to be served in at his table the soule cannot become dust and dust must he eate all the dayes of his life O in what little sinne though but a sinne of omission though but a sinne of ignorance in what circumstance of sinne may I hope to scape Judgement if God punished the Serpent who was violently and involuntarily transported in this action And in what depth in what height in what hainousnesse in what multiplicity of sin can I doubt of the mercy of my God who makes judgement it self the instrument the engin the Chariot of his mercy What room is there left for presumption if the Serpent the passive Serpent were punished What room for desperation if in the punishment there be a manifestation of mercy The Serpent must eate dust that is his condemnation but he shall eate no better meat he shall eate but dust there is mans consolation First then as it is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God so is it an impossible thing to scape it God is not ashamed of being jealous he does not onely pronounce that he is a jealous God but he desires to be known by none other name The Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God so jealous as that he will not have his name uttered in vaine not onely not blasphemed not sworne by but not used indifferently transitorily not Proverbially occasionally not in vaine And if it be what then Even for this he will visite to the third and fourth generation and three and foure are seven and seven is infinite So jealous as that in the case of the Angels not for looking upon any other Creatures or trusting in them for when they fell as it is ordinarily received there were no other creatures made but for not looking immedidiately directly upon God but reflecting upon themselves and trusting in their own naturall parts God threw those Angels into so irrecoverable and bottomelesse a depth as that the merits of Christ Jesus though of infinite super-infinite value doe not boye them up so jealous a God is God so jealous as that in Adams case for over-loving his own wife for his over tender compassion of her foreating the forbidden fruit ne contristaretur delicias suas as Saint Hierome layes his fault left he should deject her into an inordinate and desperate malancholy and so make her incapable of Gods mercy God threw the first man and in him all out of Paradise out of both Paradises out of that of rest and plenty here and that of Joy and Glory hereafter Consider Balaams sin about cursing Gods people or Moses sinne
it all the yeare and all the yeares of an Everlasting life and of infinite generations Amen SERMON L. A Sermon Preached in Saint Dunstans 1 THES 5. 16. Rejoyce evermore WE reade in the naturall Story of some floating Islands that swim and move from place to place and in them a Man may sowe in one place and reape in another This case is so farre ours as that in another place we have sowed in teares and by his promise in whose teares we sowed then when we handled those two words Iesus wept we shall reape in Joy That harvest is not yet it is reserved to the last Resurrection But the Corne is above ground in the Resurrection of our head the first fruits of the Dead Christ Jesus and that being the first visible steppe of his exaltation begins our exultation who in him are to rejoyce evermore The heart knoweth his owne bitternesse he and none but he others feele it not retaine it not pity it not and therefore saies the Text A Stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy He shall have a Joy which no stranger not he himselfe whilest he was a stranger to God and to himselfe could conceive If we aske as Christs Disciples asked of him Quod signum what shall be the signe of thy comming of this Joy in the midst of thy bitternesse Ipsae lachrymae laetitiae testes nuncii The tears themselves shall be the sign the tears shall be Ambassadours of Joy a present gladnesse shall consecrate your sorrow and teares shall baptize and give a new name to your passion for your Wormwood shall be Manna even then when it is Wormwood it shall be Manna for Gaâ—debitis semper you shall Rejoyce evermore But our Text does more then imply a promise to us for it laies a precept upon us It is not Gaudebitis you shall Rejoyce by way of Comfort but it is Gaudete Rejoyce see that you doe Rejoyce by way of Commandement and that shall be our first part Cadit sub praecepto It hath the nature of a commandement Angels passe not from extreame to extreame but by the way betweene Man passes not from the miseries of this life to the joyes of Heaven but by joy in this life too for he that feeles no joy here shall finde none hereafter And when we passe from the substance of the precept to the extent thereof which will be our second part from the first word Rejoyce to the other Rejoyce alwaies we shall cleave that into two periods Gaudete in bonis Rejoyce in your prosperitie and Gaudete in malis Rejoyce in your adversitie too But because it is in sempiternum that must be in sempiterno because it is alway it must be in him who is alwaies yesterday and to day and the same for ever Joy in God Joy in the Holy Ghost which will be another branch in that second part of which Joy though there be a preparatory and inchoative participation and possession in this life yet the consummation being reserved to our entrance into our Masters Joy not onely the Joy which he gives that 's here but the Joy which he is that 's onely there we shall end in that beyond which none can goe no not in his thoughts in some dimme contemplation and in some faint representation of the Joyes of Heaven and in that Contemplation we shall dismisse you First then it is presented in the nature of a Commandement and laies an Obligation upon all at all times to procure to our selves and to cherish in our selves this Joy this Rejoycing What is Joy Comparatur ad desiderium sic ut quies admotum As Rest in the end of motion every thing moves therefore that it may rest so Joy is the end of our desires whatsoever we place our desires our affections upon it is therefore that we may enjoy it and therefore Quod est in brutis in parte sensitiva Delectatio in hominibus in parte intellectiva est gaudium Beasts and carnall men who determine all their desires in the sensuall parts come no farther then to a delight but men who are truly men and carry them to the intellectuall part they and onely they come to Joy And therefore saies Solomon It is the joy of the just to doe judgment to have lyen still and done no wrong occasions is not this Joy Joy is not such a Rest as the Rest of the Earth that never mov'd but as the Sunne rejoyceth to runne his race and his circuit is unto the end of heaven so this Joy is the rest and testimony of a good conscience that we have done those things which belong to our calling that we have mov'd in our Sphere For if men of our profession whose Function it is to attend the service of God delight our selves in having gathered much in this world if a Souldier shall have delighted himselfe in giving rules of Agriculture or a Architecture if a Counsellour of State who should assist with his counsell upon present emergencies delight himself in writing Books of good counsell for posterity all this occasions not this joy because though there have been motion and though there be Rest yet that is not Rest after the Motion proper to them A Man that hath been out of his way all the day may be glad to find a good Inne at night but yet 't is not properly Joy because he is never the neerer home Joy is peace for having done that which we ought to have done And therefore it is well expressed Optima conjectura an homo sit in gratia est gaudere The best evidence that a Man is at peace and in favour with God is that he can rejoyce To trie whether I be able by Argument and disputation to prove all that I believe or to convince the Adversary this is Academia animae the soules University where some are Graduats and all are not To trie whether I be able to endure Martyrdome for my beliefe this is Gehenna animae the rack the torture of the Soule and some are able to hold it out and all are not But to trie whether I can rejoyce in the peace which I have with God this is but Catechismus animae the Catechisme of the Soule and every Man may examine him selfe and every Man must for it is a Commandement Gaudete semper Rejoyce evermore It is we cannot say the Office but the Essence of God to doe good and when he does that he is said to rejoyce The Lord thy God will make thee plenteous there is his goodnesse and he will Rejoyce again over thee for good as he rejoyced over thy Fathers The Lord will love thee there is his goodnesse and rejoyce in thee and he will rest in his love Such a joy as is a rest a complacency in that good which he hath done we see is placed in God himselfe It is in Angels too Their office is to minister to Men for
25. Every man may see it man may behold it afar off p. 271. Serm. XXXII APOC. 7 9. After this I beheld and loe a great multitude which no man could number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the throne and before the Lambe clothed with white robes and Palmes in their hands p. 279. Serm. XXXIII CANT 3. 11. Go forth ye daughters of Sion and behold King Solomon with the Crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladnesse of his heart p. 288. Serm. XXXIIII LUKE 23. 34. Father forgive them for they know not what they doe p. 304. Serm. XXXV MAT. 21. 44. Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but on whosoever it shall fall it will grinde him to powder p. 311. Sermons preached at S. Pauls Sermon XXXVI JOH 1. 8. He was not that Light but was sent to beare witnesse of that Light p. 320. Serm. XXXVII A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 334. Serm. XXXVIII A third Ser. on the the same Text. p. 343. Serm. XXXIX PHIL. 3. 2. Beware of the Concision p. 356. Serm. XL. 2 COR. 5. 20. We pray yee in Christs stead Be ye reconciled to God p. 364. XLI HOSEA 3. 4. For the Children of Israel shall abide many dayes without a King and without a Prince and without a Sacrifice and without an Image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim p. 375. Serm. XLII PROV 14. 31. He that oppresseth the poor reprocheth his Maker but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the 〈◊〉 p. 385. Serm. XLIII LAMENT 4. 20. The breath of our nostrils the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits p. 396. Serm. XLIV MAT. 11. 6. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me p. 411. Sermons preached at S. Dunstans Serm. XLV DEUT. 25. 5. If brethren dwell together and one of them dye and have no childe the Wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger her husbands brother shall goe in unto her and take her to him to wife and performe the duty of an husbands brother unto her p. 422. Serm. XLVI PSAL. 34. 11. Come ye children Hearken unto me I will teach you the feare of the Lord. p. 430. Ser. XLVII GEN. 3. 24. And dust shalt thou eate all the dayes of thy life p. 439. Ser. XLVIII LAMENT 3. 1. I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath p. 445. Serm. XLIX GEN. 7. 24. Abraham himself was ninety nine yeeres old when the foreskin of his flesh was Circumcised p. 456. Serm. L. 1 THES 5. 16. Rejoyce evermore p. 466. A SERMON PREACHED At the Earl of Bridgewaters house in London at the mariage of his daughter the Lady Mary to the eldest sonne of the L. Herbert of Castle-iland Novemb. 19. 1627. The Prayer before the Sermon O Eternall and most gracious God who hast promised to hearken to the prayers of thy people when they pray towards thy house though they be absent from it worke more effectually upon us who are personally met in this thy house in this place consecrated to thy worship Enable us O Lord so to see thee in all thy Glasses in all thy representations of thy selfe to us here as that hereafter we may see thee face to face and as thou art in thy self in thy kingdome of glory Of which Glasses wherein we may see thee Thee in thine Unity as thou art One God Thee in thy Plurality as thou art More Persons we receive this thy Institution of Mariage to be one In thy first work the Creation the last seale of thy whole work was a Mariage In thy Sonnes great work the Redemption the first seale of that whole work was a miracle at a Mariage In the work of thy blessed Spirit our Sanctification he refreshes to us that promise in one Prophet That thou wilt mary thy selfe to us for ever and more in another That thou hast maryed thy selfe unto us from the beginning Thou hast maryed Mercy and Iustice in thy selfe maryed God and Man in thy Sonne maryed Increpation and Consolation in the Holy Ghost mary in us also O Lord a Love and a Fear of thee And as thou hast maryed in us two natures mortall and immortall mary in us also the knowledge and the practise of all duties belonging to both conditions that so this world may be our Gallery to the next And mary in us the Spirit of Thankfulnesse for all thy benefits already bestowed upon us and the Spirit of prayer for the continuance and enlargement of them Continue and enlarge them O'God upon thine universall Church c. SERM. I. MATTH 22. 30. For in the Resurrection they neither mary nor are given in Mariage but are as the Angels of God in heaven OF all Commentaries upon the Scriptures Good Examples are the best and the livelyest and of all Examples those that are nearest and most present and most familiar unto us and our most familiar Examples are those of our owne families and in families the Masters of families the fathers of families are most conspicuous most appliable most considerable Now in exercises upon such occasions as this ordinarily the instruction is to bee directed especially upon those persons who especially give the occasion of the exercise that is upon the persons to bee united in holy wedlock for as that 's a difference betweene Sermons and Lectures that a Sermon intends Exhortation principally and Edification and a holy stirring of religious affections and then matters of Doctrine and points of Divinity occasionally secondarily as the words of the text may invite them But Lectures intend principally Doctrinall points and matter of Divinity and matter of Exhortation but occasionally and as in a second place so that 's a difference between Christening sermons and Mariage sermons that the first at Christnings are especially directed upon the Congregation and not upon the persons who are to be christened and these at mariages especially upon the parties that are to be united and upon the congregation but by reflexion When therefore to these persons of noble extraction I am to say something of the Duties and something of the Blessing of Mariage what God Commands and what God promises in that state in his Scriptures I lay open to them the best exposition the best Commentaries upon those Scriptures that is Example and the neerest example that is example in their own family when with the Prophet Esay I direct them To look upon the Rock from whence they are hewen to propose to themselves their own parents and to consider there the performance of the duties of mariage imposed by God in S. Paul and the blessings proposed by God in David Thy Wife shall be a fruitfull Vine by the sides of thy House The children like olive plants round about the table For to this purpose of edifying children by example such as are truly religious fathers
Wives They were preferred before all that liv'd unmaryed but not before maryed persons This fortification and rampart of the World Mariage hath the Devill battered with most artillery opposed with most instruments for as an Army composed of many Nations more sects of Heretiks have concurr'd in the condemning of Mariage then in any one Heresie The Adamites the Tatians and those whom Irenaeus cals the Encratites all within two thousand years after Christ and more after And yet God kept such a hook in the nostril of this Leviathan such a bridle in the jaws of these sects of Heretiks as that never any of them so opposed Mariage as that they justifyed Incontinency or various lust or Indifferency or Community in that kinde Now as in the Pelagian Heresie those that came to modify and mollify that Heresie and to be Semi-Pelagians were in some points worse then those that were full Pelagians as truly in many Cases the half-papist may doe more harme and be more dangerous then the whole Papist that declares himself so the Semi-Adamites the Semi-Tatians and Semi-Encratites of the Romane Church who though they doe not as those whole Heretiks did condemn mariage intirely yet they condemn it in Certaine persons and in so many as constitute a great part of the Body of mankinde that is in all their Clergy exceed those very heretiks in favour of incontinency and fornication and various lusts which those Heretiks who absolutely condemned Mariage condemned too as absolutely whereas in the Roman Church a Jesuit tels us that there are divers Catholiks of that opinion That it is not Heresie to say that Fornication is no deadly sinne And yet it is Heresie to say that Mariage in some persons onely disabled by their Canons is not deadly sinne And when they erect and justify their Academies of Incontinency and various lust various even in the sex if some Authors among themselves have not injur'd them when they maintaine publik stews and maintaine their dignity by them and make that a part of the Revenue of the Church what Advocate of theirs can deny but that these Semi-Adamites Semi-Tatians Semi-Encratites are worse then those Heretiks themselves that did absolutely oppose Mariage We depart absolutely from those old Heretiks who did absolutely condemn Mariage and from those latter men who though they be but Semi-Heretiks in respect of them because they limit their forbidding of Mariage to certaine persons yet they are sequi-Heretiks in this that they countenance Incontinency and Fornication which those very heretiks abhorred And wee must have leave too which we are alwaies loath to doe to depart from the rigidness of some of those blessed Fathers of the Primitive Church who found some necessities in their times to speak so very highly in praise of Continency and Chastity as reflected somewhat upon mariage it selfe and may seem to emply some under-valuation of that Many such things were so said by Tertullian many by S. Hierome as being crudely and nudely taken not decocted and boyl'd up with the circumstances of those times not invested with the knowledge of those persons to whom they were written might diminish and dishonor mariage But Tertullian in his most vehement perswasion of Continency writes to his own wife and S. Hierome for the most part to those Ladies whom he had taken into his own discipline and with one of which he had so near a conversation as that as himself saies the world was scandaliz'd with it and that the world thought him fit to have been made Pope but for that misconstruction which had been made of that his conversation with that Lady Tertullian writing to his Wife S. Hierome to those Ladies may either have had particular reasons of this vehement proceeding of theirs in advancing Continency or they may have conceived that way of persuasion of continency to those persons to have been a fit way to convey down to posterity the love thereof As Dionysius the Areopagite sayes That the Church in those times at funerals did convey their thankes to God for the party deceased by way of Prayer they seemed to pray that those dead persons might be sav'd and indeed they did but praise God that they were sav'd So Tertullian and S. Hierome when they seem to perswade Continency to those persons they do but tell us how continent those persons were But howsoever it be for that no such magnifying of Virginity before as should diminish the honour and dignity of Mariage no such magnifying of Continency after as should frustrate the purpose of Mariage after or the returning to a second Mariage after a true dissolution of the first can subvert or contract the Apostles Nubant in Domino Let them mary in the Lord where the In Domino in the Lord is not to mary for matter of Title and place nor In Domino In the Lord is not to mary for matter of Lordships and possessions and worldly preferment nor In Domino In the Lord is not in hope to exercise a Dominion and a Lordship over the other party but In the Lord is in the feare of the Lord In the love of the Lord In the Law that is in the true Religion of the Lord for this is that that makes the mariages of Christians Contracts of another kinde then the mariages of other people are with all people of the world mariage is as fully the same Reall and Civill and Morall Contract as with us Christians The same Obligations of mutuall help of fidelity and loyalty to one another and of communication of all their possessions lies upon mariage in Turky or China as with us But for Mariage amongst Christians Sacramentum hoc magnum est saies the Apostle This is a great secret a great mystery Not that it is therefore a Sacrament as Baptisme and the Lords Supper are Sacraments For if they will make mariage such a sacrament because it is expressed there in that word Magnum sacramentum they may come to give us an eight sacrament after their seven They may translate that name which is upon the mother of Harlots and abominations of the earth sacrament if they will for it is the same word in that place of the Revelation which they translate Sacrament in the other place to the Ephesians And in the next verse but one they doe translate it so there I will tell thee saies the Angel Sacramentum mulieris the Sacrament of Babylon Now if all the mysteries and secrets of Antichrist all the confused practises of that Babylon all the emergent and occasionall articles of that Church and that State-religion shall become Sacraments we shall have a Sacrament of Equivocation a Sacrament of Invasion a Sacrament of Powder a Sacrament of dissolving allegeance sacraments in the Element of Baptism in the water in navies and Sacraments in the Elements of the Eucharist in Blood in the sacred blood of Kings But Mariage amongst Christians is herein Magnum mysterium A Sacrament in such
may be equall as the Devill is a Spirit and a condemned soule a spirit yet that soule shall have a Body too to be tormented with it which the Devill shall not How little we know our selves which is the end of all knowledge But we hast to the next branch In the Resurrection we shall be like to the Angels of God in Heaven But in what lies this likenesse In how many other things soever this likenesse may ly yet in this Text and in our present purpose it lies onely in this Non nubent In the Resurrection they shall not mary But did Angels never mary or as good or at least as ill as mary How many of the ancients take those words That the sonnes of God saw the daughters of Men that they were faire and they tooke them wives of all which they chose to be intended of Angels They offer to tell us how many these maried Angels were Origen saies sixty or seventy They offer to tell us some of their names Aza was one of these maried Angels and Azael was another But then all those who doe understand these words The sonnes of God to be intended of Angels who being sent downe to protect Men fell in love with Women and maried them all I say agree that those Angels that did so never returned to God againe but fell with the first fallen under everlasting Condemnation So that still the Angels of God in Heaven those Angels to whom we shall be like in the Resurrection doe not mary not so much as in any such mistaking they doe not because they need not they need not because they need no second Eternity by the continuation of children for says S. Luke they cannot die Adams first immortality was but this Posse non mori that he needed not to have died he should not have died The Angels immortality and ours when we shall be like them in the Resurrection is Non posse mori that we cannot die for whosoever dies is Homicida sui sayes Tertullian he kills himselfe and sinne is his sword In heaven there shall no such sword be drawn we need not say that the Angels in heaven have that we when we shall be like them in the Resurrection shall so invest an immortality in our nature as that God could not inflict Death upon them or us there if we sinned But because no sinne shall enter there no Death shall enter there neither for Death is the wages of sinne Not that no sinne could enter there if we were left to our selves for in that place Angels did sinne And fatendum est Angelos natura mutabiles saies S. Augustine Howsoever Angels be changed in their Condition they retaine still the same nature and by nature they are mutable But that God hath added another prerogative by way of Confirmation to that state so as that that Grace which he gives us here which is that nothing shall put a necessity of sinning upon us or that we must needs sinne God multiplies upon us so there as that we can conceive no inclination to sinne Therein we shall be like the Angels that we cannot die And the nearer we come to that state in this life the liker we are to those Angels here Now beloved onely he that is Dead already cannot die He that in a holy mortification is Dead the Death of the righteous dead to sinne he lives shall we dare to say so yes we may he lives a blessed Death for such a Death is true life And by such a heavenly Death Death of the righteous Death to sinne he is in possession of a heavenly life here in an inchoation though the consummation and perfection be reserved for the next world which is our last circumstance and the Conclusion of all At the Resurrection we shall be like the Angels Till then we shall not and therefore must not looke for Angelicall perfections here but beare one anothers infirmities It is as yet but in Petition fiat voluntas Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven And as long as there is an Earth it will be but in Petition His will will not be done in Earth as it is in Heaven when all is Heaven to his Saints all will be well but not all till then In the meane time remember all especially you whose Sacramentall that is Mysterious and significative union now is a Type of your union with God in as neare and as fast a band as that of Angels for you shall be as the Angels of God in Heaven That the office of the Angels in this world is to Assist and to supply Defects You are both of noble extraction there 's no defect in that you need not supply one another with Honour you are both of religious Education there 's no defect in that you need not supply one another with fundamentall instructions Both have your parts in that testimony which S. Gregory gave of your Nation at Rome Angli Angeli you have a lovelinesse fit for one another But though I cannot Name no nor Thinke any thing wherein I should wish that Angelicall disposition of supporting or supplying defects yet when I consider that even he that said Ego pater unum sumus I and the Father are one yet had a time to say utquid dereliquisti My God my God why hast thou forsaken me I consider thereby that no two can be so made one in this world but that that unity may be though not Dissolved no nor Rent no nor Endangered yet shaked sometimes by domestique occasions by Matrimoniall encumbrances by perversnesse of servants by impertinencies of Children by private whisperings and calumnies of Strangers And therefore to speake not Prophetically that any such thing shall fall but Provisionally if any such thing should fall my love and my duty and my Text bids me tell you that perfect happinesse is to be staid for till you be as the Angels of God in heaven here it is a faire portion of that Angelicall happinesse if you be alwaies ready to support and supply one another in any such occasionall weaknesses The God of Heaven multiply the present joy of your parents by that way of making you joyfull parents also and recompense your obedience to parents by that way of giving you obedient Children too The God of heaven so joine you now as that you may be glad of one another all your life and when he who hath joined you shall separate you againe establish you with an assurance that he hath but borrowed one of you for a time to make both your joies the more perfect in the Resurrection The God of Heaven make you alwaies of one will and that will alwaies conformable to his conserve you in the sincere truth of his Religion feast you with the best feast Peace of conscience and carry you through the good opinion and love of his Saints in this world to the association of his Saints and Angels and one
for his not restraining the licentiousnesse of his sons I will doe a thing in Israel says God there at which every mans eares that heares it shall single And it was executed Eli fell down and broke his neck We have also a consolation to women for children She shall be saved in Child-bearing says the Apostle but as Chrysostome and others of the Ancients observe and interpret that place which interpretation arises out of the very letter it is Si permanserint not if she but if they if the children continue in faith in charity in holinesse and sobriety The salvation of the Parents hath so much relation to the childrens goodnesse as that if they be ill by the Parents example or indulgence the Parents are as guilty as the children Art thou afraid thy childe should be stung with a Snake and wilt thou let him play with the old Serpent in opening himself to all tentations Art thou afraid to let him walk in an ill aire and art thou content to let him stand in that pestilent aire that is made of nothing but oaths and execrations of blasphemous mouths round about him It is S. Chrysostomes complaint Perditionem magno pretio emunt Salutem nec done accipere volunt we pay dear for our childrens damnation by paying at first for all their childish vanities and then for their sinfull insolencies at any rate and we might have them saved and our selves to the bargain which were a frugall way and a debt well hedg'd in for much lesse then ours and their damnation stands us in If you have a desire says that blessed Father to leave them certainly rich Deumiis relinque Debitorem Doe some such thing for Gods service as you may leave God in their debt He cannot break his estate is inexhaustible he will not break promise nor break day He will shew mercy unto thousands in them that love him and keep his Commandements And here also may another showre of his benedictions fall upon them whom he hath prepared and presented here Let the wife be as a fruitfull Vine and their children like Olive plants To thy glory let the Parents expresse the love of Parents and the children to thy glory the obedience of children till they both loose that secular name of Parents and Children and meet all alike in one new name all Saints in thy Kingdome and fellow servants there The third and last use in this institution of secular mariage was In adjutorium for mutuall help There is no state no man in any state that needs not the help of others Subjects need Kings and if Kings doe not need their Subjects they need alliances abroad and they need Counsell at home Even in Paradise where the earth produced all things for life without labour and the beasts submitted themselves to man so that he had no outward enemy And in the state of innocency in Paradise where in man all the affections submitted themselves to reason so that he had no inward enemy yet God in this abundant Paradise and in this secure innocency of Paradise even in the survey of his own work saw that though all that he had made was good yet he had not made all good he found thus much defect in his own work that man lacked a helper Every body needs the help of others and every good body does give some kinde of help to others Even into the Ark it self where God blessed them all with a powerfull and an immediate protection God admitted onely such as were fitted to help one another couples In the Ark which was the Type of our best condition in this life there was not a single person Christ saved once one theef at the last gasp to shew that there may be late repentances but in the Ark he saved none but maried persons to shew that he eases himself in making them helpers to one another And therefore when we come to the Pâ—sui Deum adjutorium meum to rely upon God primarily for our Help God comes to the faciam tibi adjutorium I will make thee a help like thy self not always like in complexion nor like in years nor like in fortune nor like in birth but like in minde like in disposition like in the love of God and of one another or else there is no helper It was no kinde of help that Davids wife gave him when she spoke by way of counsell but in truth in scorn and derision to draw him from a religious act as the dancing before the Ark at that time was It is no help for any respect to slacken the husband in his Religion It was but a poor help that Nabals wife was fain to give him by telling David Al as my husband is but a foole like his name and what will you look for at a fools hand It is the worst help of all to raise a husband by dejecting her self to help her husband forward in this world by forfeiting sinfully and dishonourably her own interest in the next The husband in the Helper in the nature of a foundation to sustain and uphold all The wife in the nature of the roof to cover imperfections and weaknesses The husband in the nature of the head from whom all the sinews flow The wife in the nature of the hands into which those sinews flow and enable them to doe their offices The husband helps as legges to her she moves by his motion The wife helps as a staffe to him he moves the better by her assistance And let this mutuall help be a part of our present benediction too In all the ways of fortune let his industry help her and in all the crosses of fortune let her patience help him and in all emergent occasions and dangers spirituall or temporall O God make speed to save them O Lord make haste to help them We have spoken of the persons man and woman him and her And of the action first as it is Physick but cordiall Physick and then for children but children to be made the children of God and lastly for help but true help and mutuall help There remains yet in this secular mariage the Term how long for ever I will mary thee for ever Now though there be properly no eternity in this secular mariage nor in any thing in this world for eternity is that onely which never had â—eginning nor ever shall have end yet we may consider a kind of eternity a kind of circle without beginning without end even in this secular mariage for first mariage should have no beginning before mariage no half-mariage no lending away of the minde in conditionall precontracts before no lending away of the body in unchaste wantonnesse before The body is the temple of the Holy Ghost and when two bodies by mariage are to be made one temple the wife is not as the Chancell reserv'd and shut up and the man as the walks below indifferent and at liberty for every passenger God in
reuniting of body and soule in a blessed Resurrection Ite Surgite depart so as you may desire to rise Depart with an In manus tuas and with a Veni Domiâ—e Iesu with a willing surrendring of your soules and a cheerfull meeting of the Lord Jesus For else all hope of profit and permanent Rest is lost for as Saint Hierome interprets these very words Here we are taught that there is no rest in this life Sed quasiâ—â—â— mortuis resurgentes ad sublime tendere ambulare post Daminum Iesum we depart when we depart from sin and we rise when we raise our selves to a conformity with Christ And not onely after his example but after his person that is to hasten thither whither he is gone to prepare us a Room For this Rest in the Text though it may be understood of the Land of Promise and of the Church and of the Arke and of the Sabbath for if we had time to pursue them we might make good use of all these acceptations yet we accept Chrysostâ—me's acceptation best Requies est ipse Christus our rest is Christ himselfe Not onely that rest that is in Christ peace of conscience in him but that Rest that Christ is in eternall rest in his kingdome There remaineth a Rest to the people of God besides that inchoation of Rest which the godly have here there remains a fuller Rest. Iesus is entred into his Rest sayes the Apostle there his Rest was not here in this world and Let us study to enter into thatâ— Rest sayes he for no other can accomplish our peace It is righteousnesse with God is recompence tribulation to them that trouble you and to you which are troubled Rest but when in this world no when the Lord Iesus shall sheâ— himselfe from heaven with his mighty Angels then comes your Rest for for the grave the body lies still but it is not a Rest because it is not sensible of that lying still In heaven the body shall rest rest in the sense of that glory This Rest then is not here Not onely not Here at this Here was taken in the first interpretation Here in the Earth but not Here in the second interpretation not in Repentance it selfe for all the Rest of this life even the spirituall Rest is rather a Truce then a peace rather a Cessation then an end of the war For when these words I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians Every one shall fight against his brother and every one against his neighbour City against City and Kingdome against Kingdome may be interpreted and are so interpreted of the time of the Gospell of Christ Jesus when Christ himselfe says Nolite putare quod venerim mittere pacem in terrâ Never think that I came to settle peace or Rest in this world Nay when Christ sayes None of them that were bidden shall come to his supper and that may be verified of any Congregation none of us that are call'd now shall come to that Rest a Man may be at a security in an opinion of Rest and be far from it A man may be neerer Rest in a troubled Conscience then in a secure Here we have often Resurrections that is purposes to depart from sin but they are such Resurrections as were at the time of Christs Resurrection when as the strongest opinion is Resurrexerunt iterum morituri Many of the dead rose but they died again we rise from our sins here but here we fall again Monumenta aperta sunt it is Saint Hierome's note The graves were opened presently upon Christs death but yet the bodies did not arise till Christs Resurrection The godly have an opening of their graves they see some light some of their weight some of their Earth is taken from them but a Resurrection to enter into the City to follow the Lamb to come into an established security that they have not till they be united to Christ in heaven Here we are still subject to relapses and to looking back Memento uxoris Lâ—t Ipsa in loco manet transeuntes monet Shee is fixed to a place that she might settle those that are not fix'd Vt quid in statuam salis conversa si non homines ut sapiant condiat to teach us the danger of looking back till we be fix'd she is fix'd When the Prophetâ— Eliahâ— was at the dore of Desperation an Angell touch'd him and said Vp and eat and there was bread and water provided and he did eat but he slept again and we have some of these excitations and we come and eat and drink even the body and bloud of Christ but we sleep again we doe not perfect the work Our Rest Here then is never without a fear of losing it This is our best state To fear leâ—t at any time by forsaking the promise of entring into his rest we should seem to be depriv'd The Apostle disputes not neither doe I whether we can be depriv'd or no but he assures us that we may fall back so far as that to the Church and to our own Consciences we may seem to be depriv'd and that 's argument enough that here is no Rest. To end all though there be no Rest in all this world no not in our sanctification here yet this being a Consolation there must be rest some where And it is In superna Civitate unde amicus non exit quâ inimicus non intrat In that City in that Hierusalem where there shall never enter any man whom we doe not love nor any goe from us whom we doe love Which though we have not yet yet we shall have for upon those words because I live ye shall live also Saint Augustine sayes that because his Resurrection was to follow so soon Christ takes the present word because I doe live But because their life was not to be had here he says Vivetis you shall live in heaven not Vivitis for here we doe not live So as in Adam we all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive says the Apostle All our deaths are here present now now we dy our quickning is reserv'd for heaven that 's future And therefore let us attend that Rest as patiently as we doe the things of this world and not doubt of it therefore because we see it not yet even in this world we consider invisible things more then visible Vidimus pelagus non autem mercedem The Merchant sees the tempestuous Sea when he does not see the commodities which he goes for Videmus terram non autem messem The Husbandman sees the Earth and his labour when he sees no harvest and for these hopes that there will be a gain to the Merchant and a harvest to the Labourer Naturae fidimus we rely upon Creatures for our Resurrection fide usâ—orem habemus Coranatum Not Nature not Sea
imploys the hand of sicknesse the hand of poverty the hand of justice the hand of malice still it is his hand that breakes the vessell and this vessell which is his own for can any such vessell have a propriety in it selfe or bee any other bodies primarily then his from whom it hath the beeing To recollect these if I will have joy in suffering it must be mine mine and not borrowed out of an imaginary treasure of the Church from the works of others Supererogation mine and not stollen or enforced by exasperating the Magistrate to a persecution mine by good title and not by suffering for breach of the Law mine in particular and not a generall persecution upon the Church by my occasion And mine by a stranger title then all this mine by resignation mine by disavowing it mine by confessing that it is none of mine Till I acknowledge that all my sufferings are even for Gods glory are his works and none of mine they are none of mine and by that humility they become mine and then I may rejoyce in my sufferings Through all our sufferings then there must passe an acknowledgement that we are unprofitable servants towards God utterly unprofitable So unprofitable to our selves as that we can merit nothing by our sufferings but still we may and must have a purpose to profit others by our constancy it is Pro vobis that Saint Paul says hee suffers for them for their souls I will most gladly bestow and be bestowed for your soules says he But Numquid Paulus crucifixus pro vobis was Paul crucified for you is his own question as he suffered for them here so we may be bold to say he was crucified for them that is that by his crucifying and suffering the benefit of Christs sufferings and crucifying might be the more cheerfully embraced by them and the more effectually applyed to them Pro vobis is Pro vestro commodo for your advantage and to make you the more active in making sure your own salvation We are afflicted says he for your consolation that 's first that you might take comfort and spirituall courage by our example that God will no more forsake you then he hath done us and then hee addes salvation too for your consolation and salvation for our sufferings beget this consolation and then this consolation facilitates your salvation and then when Saint Paul had that testimony in his own conscience that his purpose in his sufferings was Pro illis to advantage Gods children and then saw in his experience so good effect of it as that it wrought and begot faith in them then the more his sufferings encreast the more his joys encreast Though says he I be offered up upon the service and sacrifice of your faith I am glad and rejoyce with you all And therefore hee calls the Philippians who were converted by him Gaudium Coronam his Joy and his Crown not onely a Crown in that sense as an auditory a congregation that compasses the Preacher was ordinarily called a Crown Corâ—na In which sense that Martyr Cornelius answered the Judge when he was charged to have held intelligence and to have received Letters from Saint Cyprian against the State Ego de Corona Domini says he from Gods Church 't is true I have but Contra Rempublicam against the State I have received no Letters But not onely in this sense Saint Paul calls those whom he had converted his Crown his Crown that is his Church but he cals them his Crown in heaven What is our hope our joy our Crown of rejoycing are not even you it and where even in the presence of our Lord Iesus Christ at his coming says the Apostle And therefore not to stand upon that contemplation of Saint Gregories that at the Resurrection Peter shall lead up his converted Jewes and Paul his converted Nations and every Apostle his own Church Since you to whom God sends us doe as well make up our Crown as we doe yours since your being wrought upon and our working upon you conduce to both our Crowns call you the labour and diligence of your Pastors for that 's all the suffering they are called to till our sins together call in a persecution call you their painfulnesse your Crown and we shall call your applyablenesse to the Gospel which we preach our Crown for both conduce to both but especially childrens children are the Crown of the Elders says Solomon If when we have begot you in Christ by our preaching you also beget others by your holy life and conversation you have added another generation unto us and you have preached over our Sermons again as fruitfully as we our selves you shall be our Crown and they shall be your Crowns and Christ Jesus a Crown of everlasting glory to us all Amen SERMON XVII Preached at Lincolns Inne MATTH 18. 7. We unto the world because of offences THe Man Moses was very meeke above all the men which were upon the face of the Earth The man Moses was so but the Child Iesus was meeker then he Compare Moses with men and Moses will scarce be parallel'd Compare him with him who being so much more then man as that he was God too was made so much lesse then man as that he was a worme and no man and Moses will not be admitted If you consider Moses his highest expression what he would have parted with for his brethren in his Dele me Pardon them or blot my name out of thy book yet Saint Pauls zeale will enter into the balance and come into comparison with Moses in his Anathema pro fratribus in that he wished himselfe to be separated from Christ rather then his brethren should be But what comparison hath a sodaine a passionate and indigested vehemence of love expressed in a phrase that tasts of zeale but is not done Moses was not blotted out of the book of life nor Saint Paul was not separated from Christ for his brethren what comparison hath such a love that was but said and perchance should not have been said for we can scarce excuse Moses or Saint Paul of all excesse and inordinatenesse in that that they said with a deliberate and an eternall purpose in Christ Jesus conceived as soon as we can conceive God to have knowen that Adam would fall to come into this world dye for man and then actually and really in the fulnesse of time to do so he did come and he did dye The man Moses was very meeke the child Jesus meeker then hee Moses his meeknesse had a determination at least an interruption a discontinuance when hee revenged the wrong of another upon that Egyptian whom he slew But a bruised reed might have stood unbroken and smoking flax might have lien unquenched for ever for all Christ. And therefore though Christ send his Disciples to School to the Scribes and Pharisees because they sate in Moses seat for other lessons yet for
not that the just shall feel no worldly misery but that that misery shall not make them miserable how evill so ever it be in it self it shall not be evill to them but Omnia in bonum All things work together for good to them that love God Who is he that will harme you if you be followers of God says Saint Peter The wicked will not follow you in that strange Country their conversation is not in heaven if yours be they will not follow you thither They will doe as he whose instruments they are do the Devill and Resist the Devill and he will flee from you A religious constancy blunts the edge of any sword dampes the spirits of any counsel benums the strength of any arme opens the corners of any Labyrinth and brings the subtilest plots against God and his servants not onely to an invalidnesse an ineffectualnesse but to a derision not onely to a Dimicatum de coelis that the world shall see that the Lord fights for his servants from heaven but to an Irridebit in coelis that he that sits in heaven shall laugh them to scorn he shall ruine them and ruine them in contempt That prayer that David makes Libera me Domine ab homine malo deliver me O Lord from the evill man is a large an extensive an indefinite prayer for there is an evill man occasion of tentation in every man in every woman in every action there is Coluber in via a snake in every path danger in every calling But Saint Augustine contracts that prayer and fixes it Liberet te Deus à temes noli tibi esse malius God blesse me from my selfe that I be not that evill man to my selfe that I lead not my selfe into tentation and nothing shall scandalize me To which purpose it concerns us to devest that naturall but corrupt easinesse of uncharitable mis-construing that which other men doe especially those whom God hath placed in his own place for government over us that we doe not come to think that there is nothing done if all bee not done that no abuses are corrected if all be not removed that there 's an end of all Protestants if any Papists bee left in the world Upon those words of our Saviour speaking of the last day of Judgement The son of man shall send forth his Angels and they shall gather out of his Kingdome Omnia scandala All things that might offend Calvin says learnedly and wisely Qui ad extirpandum quicquid displicet praepostere festinant They that make too much haste to mend all at once antevertunt Christi judicium ereptum Angelis officium sibi temereusurpant They prevent Christs judgment and rashly and sacrilegiously they usurp the Angels office Christ hath reserved the cleansing and removing of all scandals all offences to the last day the Angels of the Church the Minister the Angels of the State the Magistrate cannot doe it not the Angels of heaven themselves till the day of judgement All scandals cannot be removed in this life but a great many more might be then are if men were not so apt to suspect and mis-constru and imprint the name of scandall upon every action of which they see not the end nor the way for from this jealousie and suspicion and misconstruction of the Angels of Church and State our Superiours in those sphears wee shall become jealous and suspicious of God himselfe that he hath neglected us abandoned us if he do not deliver us and establish us at those times and by those means which we prescribe him we shall come to argue thus against God himselfe Surely if God meant any good to us he would not put us into their hands who doe us no good Reduce all to the precious mediocrity To be unsensible of any declination of any diminution of the glory of God or his true worship and religion is an irreligious stupidity But to bee so ombragious so startling so apprehensive so suspicious as to think every thing that is done is done to that end this is a seditious jealousie a Satyr in the heart and an unwritten Libell and God hath a Star-chamber to punish unwritten Libels before they are published Libels against that Law Curse not or speak not ill of the King no not in thy thought Not to mourn under the sense of evils that may fall upon us is a stony disposition Nay the hardest stone marble will weep towards foul weather But to make all Possible things Necessary this may fall upon us therefore it must fall upon us and to make contingent and accidentall things to be the effects of counsels this is fallen upon us therefore it is fallen by their practise that have the government in their hands this is a vexation of spirit in our selves and a defacing a casting of durt in the face of Gods image of that representation and resemblance of God which he hath imprinted in them of whom hee hath sayd They are Gods In divine matters there is principally exercise of our faith That which we understand not we beleeve In civill affairs that are above us matters of State there is exercise of our Hope Those ways which we see not wee hope are directed to good ends In Civill actions amongst our selves there is exercise of our Charity Those hearts which we see not let us charitably beleeve to bee disposed to Gods service That when as Christ hath shut up his wâ—e onely in those two Va quia fâ—rtes illusiones Wâ—e because scandals and offences are so strong in their nature and Va quia infirmivos wâ—e because you are so weak in yours we doe not create a third Woe Va quia praevaricatores in an uncharitable jealousie and mis-interpretation of him that we are not in his care nor of his Ministers that they doe not execute his purposes nor of one another that when as God hath placed us in a Land where there are no wâ—lfes we doe not think Hominem homini Lupum imagine every man to be a wolf to us or to intend our destruction But as in the Arke there were Lions but the Lion shut his mouth and clincht his paw the Lion hurt nothing in the Arke and in the Arke there were Vipers and Scorpions but the Viper shewed no teeth nor the Scorpion no taile the Viper bit none the Scorpion stung none in the Arke for if they had occasioned any disorder there their escape could have been but into the Sea into irreparable ruine so in every State though that State be an Arke of peace and preservation there will be some kind of oppression in some Lions some that will abuse their power but Vae si scandalizemur woe unto us if we be scandalized with that and seditiously lay aspersions upon the State and Government because there are some such in every Church though that Church bee an Arke for integrity and sincerity there will bee some Vipers Vipers that will gnaw at their Mothers
belly men that will shake the articles of Religion But Vae si scandalizemur woe if we be so scandalized at that as to defame that Church or separate our selves from that Church which hath given us our Baptism for that It is the chasing of the Lion and the stirring of the Viper that aggravates the danger The first blow makes the wrong but the second makes the fray and they that will endure no kind of abuse in State or Church are many times more dangerous then that abuse w ch they oppose It was only Christ Jesus himself that could say to the Tempest Tace â—bâ—utesce peace be still not a blast not a sob more onely he could becalm a Tempest at once It is well with us if we can ride out a storm at anchour that is lie still and expect and surrender ourselves to God and anchor in that confidence till the storm blow over It is well for us if we can beat out a storm at sea with boarding to and again that is maintain and preserve our present condition in Church and State though we encrease not that though we gain no way yet wee lose no way whilst the storm lasts It is well for us if though we be put to take in our sayls and to take down our masts yet we can hull it out that is if in storms of contradiction or persecution the Church or State though they be put to accept worse conditions then before and to depart with some of their outward splendor be yet able to subsist and swimme above water and reserve it selfe for Gods farther glory after the storme is past onely Christ could becalm the storme He is a good Christian that can ride out or board out or hull out a storme that by industry as long as he can and by patience when he can do no more over-lives a storm and does not forsake his ship for it that is not scandalized with that State nor that Church of which he is a member for those abuses that are in it The Arke is peace peace is good dispositions to one another good intepretations of one another for if our impatience put us from our peace and so out of the Arke all without the Arke is sea The bottomlesse and boundlesse Sea of Rome will hope to swallow us if we dis-unite our selves in uncharitable mis-interpretations of one another The peace of God is the peace that passeth all understanding That men should subdue and captivate even their understanding to the love of this peace that when in their understanding they see no reason why this or this thing should be thus or thus done or so and so suffered the peace of God that is charity may passe their understanding and goe above it for howsoever the affections of men or the vicissitudes and changes of affairs may vary or apply those two great axiomes and aphorisms of ancient Rome Salus populi suprema lex estâ—â— The good of the people is above all Law and then Quod Principi places lex esto The pleasure of the Prince is above all Law howsoever I say various occasions may vary their Laws adhere we to that Rule of the Law which the Apostle prescribes that we always make Finem praâ—cepti charitâ—tem The end of the Commandement charity for no Commandement no not those of the first Table is kept if upon pretence of keeping that Commandement or of the service of God I come to an uncharitable opinion of other men That so first Fundemur radicâ—mur in charitate that wee be planted and take root in that ground in charity so wee are by being planted in that Church that thinks charitably even of that Church that uncharitably condemns us And then Vt â—ultipliceâ—ur That Grace and peace may be multiplyed in us so it is if to our outward peace God adde the inward peace of conscience in our own bosomes and lastly Vt abundemus that we may not onely encrease as the Apostle says there but as he adds abound in charity towards one another and towards all men for this abundant and overflowing charity as long as we can to beleeve well for the present and where we cannot do so to hope well of the future is the best preservative and antidote against the woe of this Text Woe unto the world because of scandals and offences which though it be spoken of the Active is more especially intended of the Passive scandal and though it be pressed upon us first Quia Illusiones fortes because those scandals are so strong and then Quia inferâ—â— nos because we are so weak doe yet endanger us most in that respect Quia prâ—varicatores because we open ourselves nay offer our selves to the vexation of scandals by an easie a jealous a suspicious an uncharitable interpreting of others SERMON XIX Preached at Lincolns Inne PSAL. 38. 2. For thine arrâ—wes stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore ALmost every man hath his Appetite and his tast disposed to some kind of meates rather then others He knows what dish he would choose for his first and for his second course We have often the same disposition in our spirituall Diet a man may have a particular love towards such or such a book of Scripture and in such an affection I acknowledge that my spirituall appetite carries me still upon the Psalms of David for a first course for the Scriptures of the Old Testament and upon the Epistles of Saint Paul for a second course for the New and my meditations even for these publike exercises to Gods Church returne oftnest to these two For as a hearty entertainer offers to others the meat which he loves best himself so doe I oftnest present to Gods people in these Congregations the meditations which I feed upon at home in those two Scriptures If a man be asked a reason why he loves one meat better then another where all are equally good as the books of Scripture are he will at least finde a reason in some good example that he sees some man of good tast and temperate withall so do And for my Diet I have Saint Augustines protestation that he loved the Book of Psalms and Saint Chrysostomes that he loved Saint Pauls Epistles with a particular devotion I may have another more particular reason because they are Scriptures written in such forms as I have been most accustomed to Saint Pauls being Letters and Davids being Poems for God gives us not onely that which is meerly necessary but that which is convenient too He does not onely feed us but feed us with marrow and with fatnesse he gives us our instruction in cheerfull forms not in a sowre and sullen and angry and unacceptable way but cheerfully in Psalms which is also a limited and a restrained form Not in an Oration not in Prose but in Psalms which is such a from as is both curious aud requires diligence in the making and then when
against us but yet with our ten thousand we may meet their twenty thousand if we have put on Christ and be armed with him and his holy patience and constancy but from whom may we derive an assurance that we shall have that armor that patience that constancy First a Christian must purpose to Doe and then in cases of necessity to suffer And give me leave to make this short note by the way no man shall suffer like a Christian that hath done nothing like a Christian God shall thanke no man for dying for him and his glory that contributed nothing to his glory in the actions of his life very hardly shall that man be a Martyr in a persecution that did not what he could to keep off persecution Thus then Iob comes first to the Si occiderit If he should kill me If Gods anger should proceed so far as so far it may proceed Let no man say in a sicknesse or in any temporall calamity this is the worst for a worse thing then that may fall five and thirty years sicknesse may fall upon thee and as it is in that Gospell a worse thing then that Distraction and desperation may fall upon thee let no Church no State in any distress say this is the worst for onely God knowes what is the worst that God can doe to us Iob does not deny here but that this Si occiderit if it come to a matter of life it were another manner of triall then either the si irruerent Sabaei if the Sabaeans should come and drive his Cattell and slay his servants more then the si ignis caderet if the fire of God should fall from heaven and devoute all more then the si ventus concuteret if the winde of the wildernesse should shake downe his house and kill and all his children The Devill in his malice saw that if it came to matter of life Iob was like enough to be shaked in his faith Skin for skin and all that ever a man hath will he give for his life God foresaw that in his gracious providence too and therefore he took that clause out of Satans Commission and inserted his veruntamen animam ejus servae medle not with his life The love of this life which is naturall to us and imprinted by God in us is not sinfull Few and evill have the days of my pilgrimage been says lacob to Pharaeoh though they had been evill which makes our days seem long and though he were no young man when he said so yet the days which he had past he thought few and desired more When Eliah was fled into the wildernesse and that in passion and vehemence he said to God Sufficit Domine tolle animam meam It is enough O Lord now take away my life if he had been heartily thoroughly weary of his life he needed not to have fled from Iesabel for he fled but to save his life The Apostle had a Cupie dissolvi a desire to be dissolved but yet a love to his brethren corrected that desire and made him finde that it was far better for him to live Our Saviour himselfe when it came to the pinch and to the agony had a Transeat Calix a naturall declining of death The naturall love of our naturall life is not ill It is ill in many cases not to love this life to expose it to unnecessary dangers is alwayes ill and there are overtures to as great sinnes in hating this life as in loving it and therefore Iobs first consideration is si occideret if he should kill me if I thought he would kill me this were enough to put me from trusting in any But Iobs consideration went farther then to the si occideret Though he should kill me for it comes to an absolute assurance that God will kill him for so it is in the Originall Ecce occidet Behold I see he will kill me I have I can have no hope of life at his hands T is all our cases Adam might have liv'd if he would but I cannot God hath placed an Ecce a marke of my death upon every thing living that I can set mine eye upon every thing is a remembrancer every thing is a Judge upon me and pronounces I must dye The whole frame of the world is mortall Heaven and Earth passe away and upon us all there is an irrecoverable Decree past statutum est It is appointed to all men that they shall once dye But when quickly If thou looke up into the aire remember that thy life is but a winde If thou see a cloud in the aire aske St. Iames his question what is your life and give St. Iames his answer It is a vapour that appeareth and vanisheth away If thou behold a Tree then Iob gives thee a comparison of thy selfe A Tree is an embleme of thy selfe nay a Tree is the originall thou art but the copy thou art not so good as it for There is hope of a tree as you reade there if the roote wax old if the stock be dead if it be cut down yet by the sent of the waters it will bud but man is sick and dyeth and where is he he shall not wake againe till heaven be no more Looke upon the water and we are as that and as that spilt upon the ground Looke to the earth and we are not like that but we are earth it self At our Tables we feed upon the dead and in the Temple we tread upon the dead and when we meet in a Church God hath made many echoes many testimonies of our death in the walls and in the windowes and he onely knowes whether he will not make another testimony of our mortality of the youngest amongst us before we part and make the very place of our buriall our deathbed Iobs contemplation went so far not onely to a Si occideret to a possibility that he might dye but to an Ecce occidet to an assurance that he must dye I know there is an infalliblenesse in the Decree an inevitablenesse in nature an inexorablenesse in God I must dye And the word beares a third interpretation beyond this for si occiderit is not onely if he should kill me as he maâ— if he will and it may be he will nor onely that I am sure he will kill me I know I must dye but the word may very well be also though he have killed me So that Iobs resolution that he will trust in God is grounded upon all these considerations That there is exercise of our hope in God before death in the agony of death and after death First in our good dayes and in the time of health Memorare novissima sayes the wise man we must remember our end our death But that we cannot forget every thing presents that to us But his counsell there is in omnibus operibus In all thine undertakings in all thine actions remember thine end when thou art in any worldly
they their beeing their ever-lasting well-beeing for their service You will scarce receive a servant that is come from another man without testimony If you put your selves out of Gods service whither will ye goe In his service and his onely is perfect freedome And therefore as you love freedome and liberty bee his servants and call the freedome of the Gospel the best freedome and come to the Preaching of that He cals you children as you are servants filii familiares and he cals you children as you are Alumni nurse-children filii mammillares as he requires the humility and simplicity of little children in you For Cum simplicibus sermocinatio ejus as the vulgat reads that place Gods secret discourse is with the single heart The first that ever came to Christ so as he came to us in blood they that came to him so before he came so to us that died for him before he died for them were such sucking children those whom Herod slew As Christ thought himself bound to thank his Father for that way of proceeding I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth that thou hast revealed these things unto babes so Christ himself pursues the same way Suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me for of such is the Kingdome of heaven Of such not onely of those who were truly literally children children in age but of such as those Talium est regnum coelorum such as come in such a disposition in the humility in the simplicity in the singlenesse of heart as children do An habituall sinner is always in minority always an Infant an Infant to this purpose All his acts all the bands of an Infant are void all the outward religious actions even the band and contract of Baptism in an habituall sinner is void and ineffectuall He that is in the house and favour of God though he be a child a child to this purpose simple supple tractable single-hearted is as Adam was in the state of Innocency a man the first minute able to stand upright in the sight of God And out of one place of Esay our Expositors have drawn conveniently enough both these conclusions A child shall die 100 years old says the Prophet that is say some a sinner though he live 100 years yet he dies a child in ignorance And then say others and both truly He that comes willingly when God cals though he die a child in age he hath the wisdome of 100 years upon him There is not a graver thing then to be such a child to conform his will to the will of God Whether you consider temporall or spirituall things you are Gods children For for temporall if God should take off his hand withdraw his hand of sustentation all those things which assist us temporally would relapse to the first feeble and childish estate and come to their first nothing Armies would be but Hospitals without all strength Councell-tables but Bedlams without all sense and Schools and Universities but the wrangling of children if God and his Spirit did not inanimate our Schools and Armies and Councels His adoption makes us men therefore because it makes us his children But we are his children in this consideration especially as we are his spirituall children as he hath nursed us fed us with his word In which sense the Apostle speaks of those who had embraced the true Religion in the same words that the Prophet had spoken before Behold I and the children that God hath given me And in the same sense the same Prophet in the same place says of them who had fallen away from the true Religion They please themselves in the children of strangers In those men who have derived their Orders and their Doctrine from a forein Jurisdiction In that State where Adoptions were so frequent in old Rome a Plebeian could not adopt a Patrician a Yeoman could not adopt a Gentleman nor a young man could not adopt an old In the new Rome that endevours to adopt all in an imaginary filiation you that have the perfect freedome of Gods service be not adopted into the slavery and bondage of mens traditions you that are in possession of the ancient Religion of Christ and his Apostles be not adopted into a yonger Religion Religio à religando That is Religion that binds that binds that is necessary to salvation That which we affirm our adversaries deny not that which we professe they confesse was always necessary to salvation They will not say that all that they say now was always necessary That a man could not be saved without beleeving the Articles of the Councell of Trent a week before that Councell shut up You are his children as children are servants and If he be your Lord where is his fear you are his children as he hath nursed you with the milk of his word and if he be your Father so your foster Father where is his love But he is your Father otherwise you are not onely Filii familiares children because servants nor onely Filii mammillares children because noursed by him but you are also Filii viscerales children of his bowells For we are otherwise allied to Christ then we can be to any of his instruments though Angels of the Church Prophets or Apostles and yet his Apostle says of one whom he loved of Onesimus Receive him that is mine owne bowells my Sonne says he whom I have begotten in my hands How much more art thou bound to receive and refresh those bowells from which thou art derived Christ Iesus himselfe Receive him Refresh him Carry that which the wiseman hath said Miserere animae tuae bee mercifull to thine owne soule higher then so and Miserere salvatoris tui have mercy upon thine owne Saviour put on the bowells of mercy and put them on even towards Christ Iesus himselfe who needs thy mercy by beeing so tome and mangled and embowelled by blasphemous oaths and execrations For beloved it is not so absurd a prayer as it is conceived if Luther did say upon his death bed Oremus pro Domino nostro Iesu Christo Let us pray for out Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ. Had we not need pray for him If he complaine that Saul persecutes him had we not need pray for him It is a seditious affection in civill things to divide the King and the kingdome to pray to fight for the one and leave out the other is seditiously done If the kingdome of Christ need thy prayers and thy assistance Christ needs it If the Body need it the Head needs it If thou must pray for his Gospell thou must pray for him Nay thou canst not pray for thy selfe but thou must pray for him for thou art his bowells when thou in thy forefathers the first Christians in the Primitive Church wast persecuted Christ cryed out why persecutest thou me Christ made thy case his because thou wast of his
nor over-mourne for that which as we have induced it upon our selves so God shall deliver us from at last that is both death and corruption after death and captivity in that comfortlesse state but for the resurection For so long we are to be dust and so long lasts the Serpents life Satans power over man dust must he eate all the days of his life In the meane time for our comfort in the way when this Serpent becomes a Lyon yet there is a Lyon of the Tribe of Iudah that is too strong for him so if he who is Serpens serpens humi the Serpent condemned to creep upon the ground doe transforme himselfe into a flying Serpent and attempt our nobler faculties there is Serpens exaltatus a Serpent lifted up in the wildernesse to recover all them that are stung and feel that they are stung with this Serpent this flying Serpent that is these high and continued sinnes The creeping Serpent the groveling Serpent is Craft the exalted Serpent the crucified Serpent is Wisdome All you worldly cares all your crafty bargaines all your subtill matches all your diggings into other means estates all your hedgings in of debts all your planting of children in great allyances all these diggings and hedgings and plantings savour of the earth and of the craft of that Serpent that creeps upon the earth But crucifie this craft of yours bring all your worldly subtilty under the Crosse of Christ Jesus husband your farmes so as you may give a good account to him presse your debts so as you would be pressed by him market and bargaine so as that you would give all to buy that field in which his treasure and his pearle is hid and then you have changed the Serpent from the Serpent of perdition creeping upon the earth to the Serpent of salvation exalted in the wildernesse Creeping wisedome that still looks downward is but craft Crucified wisedome that looks upward is truly wisedome Between you and that ground Serpent God hath kindled a war and the nearer you come to a peace with him the farther ye go from God and the more ye exaspetate the Lord of Hosts and you whet his sword against your own souls A truce with that Serpent is too near a peace to condition with your conscience for a time that you may continue in such a sin till you have paid for such a purchase married such a daughter bought such an annuity undermined and eaten out such an unthrift this truce though you mean to end it before you die is too near a peace with that Serpent between whom and you God hath kindled an everlasting war A cessation of Arms that is not to watch all his attempts and tentations not to examine all your particular actions A Treaty of Peace that is to dispute and debate in the behalf and favour of a sin to palliate to disguise to extenuate that sin this is too near a peace with this Serpent this creeping Serpent But in the other Serpent the crucified Serpent God hath reconciled to himself all things in heaven and earth and hell You have peace in the assistance of the Angels of heaven Peace in the contribution of the powerfull prayers and of the holy examples of the Saints upon earth peace in the victory and triumph over the power of hell peace from sins towards men peace of affections in your selves peace of conscience towards God From your childhood you have been called upon to hold your peace To be content is to hold your peace murmure not at God in any corrections of his and you doe hold this peace That creeping Serpent Satan is war and should be so The crucified Serpent Christ Jesus is peace and shall be so for ever The creeping Serpent eats our dust the strength of our bodies in sicknesses and our glory in the dust of the grave The crucified Serpent hath taken our flesh and our blood and given us his flesh and his blood for it And therefore as David when he was thought base for his holy freedome in dancing before the Ark said he would be more base so since we are all made of red earth let him that is red be more red Let him that is red with the blood of his own soul be red again in blushing for that rednesse and more red in the Communion of the blood of Christ Jesus whom we shall eat all the days of our life and be mystically and mysteriously and spiritually and Sacramentally united to him in this life and gloriously in the next In this state of dust and so in the territory of the Serpent the Tyrant of the dead lies this dead brother of ours and hath lien some years who occasions our meeting now and yearly upon this day and whose soul we doubt not is in the hands of God who is the God of the living And having gathered a good Gomer of Manna a good measure of temporall blessings in this life and derived a fair measure thereof upon them whom nature and law directed it upon and in whom we beseech God to blesse it hath also distributed something to the poor of this Parish yearly this day and something to a meeting for the conserving of neighbourly love and something for this exercise In which no doubt his intention was not so much to be yearly remembred himself as that his posterity and his neighbours might be yearly remembred to doe as he had done For this is truly to glorifie God in his Saints to sanctifie our selves in their examples To celebrate them is to imitate them For as it is probably conceived and agreeably to Gods Justice that they that write wanton books or make wanton pictures have additions of torment as often as other men are corrupted with their books or their pictures so may they who have left permanent examples of good works well be beleeved to receive additions of glory and joy when others are led by that to do the like And so they who are extracted and derived from him and they who dwelt about him may assist their own happiness and enlarge his by following his good example in good proportions Amen SERMON XLVIII Preached at St. Dunstans LAMENT 3. 1. I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath YOU remember in the history of the Passion of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus there was an Ecce homo a shewing an exhibiting of that man in whom we are all blessed Pilat presented him to the Jews so with that Ecce homo Behold the man That man upon whom the wormwood and the gall of all the ancient Prophecies and the venome and malignity of all the cruell instruments thereof was now poured out That man who was left as a tender plant and as a roote out of a dry ground without forme or beauty or comelinesse that wee should desire to see him as the Prophet Esay exhibits him That man who upon the brightnesse of
fear that is naturally imprinted in us We need not teach men to bee sad when a mischiefe is upon them nor to feare it is coming towards them for fear respects the future so as sadnesse does the present feal looks upon Danger and sadnesse upon Detriment fear upon a sick friend and sadnesse upon as dead And as these need not bee taught us because they are naturall so because they are naturall they need nor bee untaught us they need not be forbidden nor disswaded Our Saviour Christ had them both fear and sadnesse and that man lacks Christian wisedom who is without a provident fear of future dangers and without Christian charity who is without a compassionate sadnesse in present calamities Now this fear thought but imprinted in nature is Timor Domini Tha fear of the Lord because the Lord is the Lord of Nature He is the Nature of Narture Lord of all endowments and impressions in Nature And therefore though for this naturall feare you goe no farther then nature for it is born with you and i◠lives in you yet the right use even of this naturall fear is from Grace though in the root it be a feare◠of nature yet in the government thereof in the degrees and practise thereof it is the feare of the Lord Not onely as hee is Lord of Nature for so you have the feare it selfe from the Lord but as this naturall fear produces good or had effects as it is regulated and ordered or as it is deserted and abandoned by the Spirit of the Lord And therefore you ae called hither Come that you may learne the fear of the Lord that is the right use of naturall fear and naturall affections from the Law of God For as it is a wretched condition to be without naturall a affections so is it a dangerous dereliction if our naturall affections be left to themselves and not regulated not inanimated by the Spirit of God for then my sadnesse will sinke into Desperation and my fear will betray the succours which reason offereth This I gain by letting in the fear of the Lord into my naturall fear that whereas the naturall object of my naturall fear is malum something that I apprehend sub ratione mali as it is ill for me for if I did not conceive it to be ill I would not fear it yet when I come to thaw this Ice when I come to discusse this cloud and attenuate this damp by the light and heat of Grace and the illustration of the Spirit of God breathing in his word I change my object or at least I look upon it in another line in another angle I look not upon that evill which my naturall fear presented me of an affliction or a calamity but I look upon the glory that God receives by my Christian constancy in that afflicton but I look upon that everlasting blessednes which I should have lost if God had not laid that affliction upon me So that though fear look upon evill for affliction is malum poenae evill as it hath the nature of punishment yet when the feare of the Lord is entred into my naturall feare my feare is more conversant more exercised upon the contemplation of Good then Evill more upon the glory of God and the joys of heaven then upon the afflictions of this life how malignant how manifold soever And therefore that this feare and all your naturall affections which seem weaknesse in man and are so indeed if they bee left to themselves now in our corrupt and depraved estate may advance your salvation which is the end why God hath planted them in you Come and learn the fear of the Lord Learn from the Word of God explicated by his minister in his Ordinance upon occasions leading him thereunto the limits of this naturall fear where if may become sin if it be not regulated and inanimated by a better fear then it self There is a fear which grows out of a second nature Custome and so is half-naturall to those men that have it The custome of the palce we live in or of the times we live in or of the company we live in Topical customes of such a place Chronical customes of such an Age Personal customes of such a company The time or the place or the persons in power have advanced drawn into fashion and reputation some vices such men as depend upon them are afraid not to concur with them in their vices for amongst persons in times places that are vicious and honest man is a rebel he goes against that State that Government which is the kingdom of sin Amongst drunkards a sober man is a spy upon thē Amongst blasphemers a prayer is a libell against them And amongst dissolute and luxurious persons a chast man is a Bridewell his person his presence is a house of Correction In vicious times and companies a good man is unacceptable and cannot prosper And because as amongst Merchants men trade halfe upon stock and halfe upon credit so in all other courses because men rise according to the opinion estimation which person in power have of them as well as by reall goodnesse therefore to build up or to keep up this opinion and estimation in them upon whom they depend they are afraid to crosse the vices of the Time so far as by being vertuous in their owne paticular They are afraid it will be called a singularity and a schismaticall and seditious disposition and taken for a Reproach and a Rebuke laid upon their betters if they be not content to be as ill as those their betters are Now the fear of the Lord brings the Quo Warranto against all these priviledged sins and priviledged places and persons and overthrows all these Customes and Prescriptions The fear of the Lord is not a Topicall not a Chronicall ot a Personall but a Catholique a Canonicall a Circular an Vniversall fear It goes through all and over all and when this halfe-naturall feare this feare grown out of Custome suggests to me That if I be thus tender-conscienced if I startle at an oath if I be sick at a Health if I cannot conform my selfe to the vices of my betters I shall lose my Master my Patron my Benefactor This feare of the Lord enters and presents the infallible losse of a farre greater Master and Patron Benefactor if I comply with to other And therefore as you were called hither that is to the explication of the Word of God to learn how to regulate the naturall fear that that fear doe not deject you into a diffidence of Gods mercy so come hither ot learne the fear of God against this half-naturall fear that is bee guided by the Word of God how far you are to serve the turnes of those persons upon whom ye depend and when to leave their commandements unperformed Well what will this feare of the Lord teach us Valour fortitude feare