kindled Num. 11.15 there and only their doth Moses attribute even to God himself the feminine sex and speaks to God in the original language as if he should have call'd him Deam Iratam an angry she God all that is good then either in the love of man or woman is in this love for he is expressed in both sexes man and woman and all that can be ill in the love of either sex is purged away for the man is no other man then Christ Jesus and the woman no other woman then wisdom her self even the uncreated wisdom of God himself Now all this is but one person the person that professes love who is the other who is the beloved of Christ is not so easily discern'd in the love between persons in this world and of this world we are often deceived with outward signs we often mis-call and mis-judg civil respects and mutual courtesies and a delight in one anothers conversation and such other indifferent things as only malignity and curiosity and self-guiltiness makes to be misinterpretable we often call these love but neither amongst our selves much less between Christ and our selves are these outward appearances alwaies signs of love This person then this beloved soul is not every one to whom Christ sends a loving message or writs too for his letters his Scriptures are directed to all not every one he wishes well to and swears that he does so for so he doth to all As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a Sinner not every one that he sends jewels and presents to for they are often snares to corrupt as well as arguments of love not though he admit them to his table and supper for even there the Devil entred into Judas with a sop not though he receive them to a kiss for even with that familarity Judas betrayed him not though he betroth himself as he did to the Jews Osc 2.14 sponsabo te mihi in aeternum not though he make jointures in pacto salis in a covenant of salt an everlasting covenant not though he have communicated his name to them which is an act of marriage for to how many hath he said ego dixit Dii estis I have said you are Gods and yet they have been reprobates not all these outward things amount so far as to make us discern who is this beloved person for himself saies of the Israelites to whom he had made all these demonstrations of love yet after for their abominations devorc'd himself from them I have forsaken mine house Jer. 12.7 I have left mine own heritage I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies To conclude this person beloved of Christ is only that soul that loves Christ but that belongs to the third branch of this first part which is the mutual love The Affection but first having found the person we are to consider the affection it self the love of this text it is an observation of Origens that though these three words Amor Dilectio and Charitas love and affection and good will be all of one signification in the sctiptures yet saies he wheresoever there is danger of representing to the fancy a lascivious and carnal love the scripture forbears the word love and uses either affection or good will and where there is no such danger the scripture comes directly to this word love of which Origens examples are that when Isaac bent his affections upon Rebecca and Jacob upon Rachel in both places it is dilexit and not amavit Cant 5.8 and when it is said in the Cant. I charge you Daughters of Jerusalem to tell my well-beloved it is not to tel him that she was in love but to tell him quod vulneratae charitatis sum that I am wounded with an affection good will towards him but in this book of Pro. in all the passages between Christ and the beloved soul there is evermore a free use of this word Amor love because it is even in the first apprehension a pure a chast and an undefiled love Eloquia Dominis casta sayes David All the words of the Lord and all their words that love the Lord all discourses all that is spoken to or from the soul is all full of chast love and of the love of chastity Now though this love of Christ to our souls be too large to shut up or comprehend in any definition yet if we content our selves with the definition of the Schools Amare est velle alicui quod bonum est love is nothing but a desire that they whom we love should be happy we may easily discern the advantage and profit which we have by this love in the Text when he that wishes us this good by loving us is author of all good himself and may give us as much as pleases him without impairing his own infinite treasure He loves us as his ancient inheritance as the first amongst his creatures in the creation of the world which he created for us He loves us more as his purchase whom he hath bought with his blood for even man takes most pleasure in things of his own getting But he loves us most for our improvement when by his ploughing up of our hearts and the dew of his grace and the seed of his word we come to give greaâ—â—r cent in the fruit of sanctification than before And since he loves â—s thus and that in him this love is velle bonum a desire that his beloved should be happy what soul amongst us shall doubt that when God hath such an abundant and infinite treasure as the merit and passion of Christ Jesus sufficient to save millions of worlds and yet many millions in this world all the heathen excluded from any interest therein when God hath a kingdome so large as that nothing limits it and yet he hath banished many natural subjects thereof even those legions of Angels which were created in it and are fallen from it what soul amongst us shall doubt but that he that hath thus much and loves thus much will not deny her a portion in the blood of Christ or a room in the kingdome of heaven No soul can doubt it except it have been a witness to it self and be so still that it love not Christ Jesus for that 's a condition necessary And that is the third branch to which we are come now in our order that this love be mutuall I love them c. If any man loves not our Lord Jesus let him be accursed Mutual saies the Apostle Now the first part of this curse is upon the indisposition to love he that loves not at all is first accursed That stupid inconsideration which passes on drowsilie and negligently upon Gods creatures that sullen indifferency in ones disposition to love one thing no more than another not to value not to chuse not to prefer that stoniness that in humanity not to be
though all these be testimonies of Gods love to us yet all these bring but a winters day a short day and a cold day and a dark day for except we love too God doth not love with an everlasting love God will not suffer his love to be idle and since it profits him nothing if it profits us nothing neither Ambrose he will withdraw it Amor Dei ut lumen ignis ut splendor solis ut odor lucis non praebenti proficit sed utenti The sun hath no benefit by his own light nor the fire by his own heat nor a perfume by the sweetness thereof but only they who make their use and enjoy this heat and fragrancy And this brings us to our other part to pass from loving to enjoying 2 Part. Tulerunt Dominum meum They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him this was one strain of Mary Magdalens lamentation when she found not her Saviour in the monument It is a lamentable case to be fain to cry so Tulerunt They have taken other men have taken away Christ by a dark and corrupt education which was the state of our Fathers to the Roman captivity But when the abjecerunt Dominum which is so often complained of by God in the Prophets is pronounced against thee when thou hast had Christ offered to thee by the motions of his grace and seal'd to thee by his Sacraments and yet wilt cast him so far from thee that thou knowest not where to find him when thou hast poured him out at thine eyes in prophane and counterfeit tears which should be thy souls rebaptization for thy sins when thou hast blown him away in corrupt and ill intended sighs which should be gemitus columbae the voice of the Turtle to sound thy peace and reconciliation with thy God yea when thou hast spit him out of thy mouth in execrable and blaphemous oathes when thou hast not only cast him so far as that thou knowest not where to find him but hast made so ordinary and so indifferent a thing of sin as thou knowest not when thou didst lose him no nor dost not remember that ever thou hadst him no nor dost not know that there is any such man as Dominus tuus a Jesus that is thy Lord. The Tulerunt is dangerous when others hide Christ from thee but the abjecerunt is desperate when thou thy self doest cast him away To lose Christ may befall the most righteous man that is but then he knows where he left him he knows at what sin he lost his way and where to seek it again even Christs imagin'd Father and his true mother Joseph and Mary lost him and lost him in the holy City at Jerusalem they lost him and knew it not they lost him and went a dayes journy without him and thought him to be in the company but as soon as they deprehended their error they sought and they found him when as his mother told him his father and she had sought with a heavy heart Alas we may lose him at Jerusalem even in his own house even at this present whilst we pretend to doe him service we may lose him by suffering our though â—s to look back with pleasure upon the sins which we have committed or to look forward with greedines upon some sin that is now in our purpose prosecution we may lose him at Jerusalem how much more if our dwelling be a Rome of Superstition and Idolatry or if it be a Babylon in confusion and mingling God and the world together or if it be a Sodome a wanton and intemperate misuse of Gods benefits to us we may think him in the company when he is not we may mistake his house we may take a Conventicle for a Church we may mistake his apparrel that is the outward form of his worship we may mistake the person that is associate our selves to such as are no members of his body But if we doe not return to our diligence to seek him and seek him and seek him with a heavy heart though we begun with a Tulerunt other men other tentations took him away yet we end in an abjecerunt we our selves cast him away since we have been told where to find him and have not sought him And let no man be afraid to seek or find him for fear of the loss of good company Religion is no sullen thing it is not a melancholly there is not so sociable a thing as the love of Christ Jesus It was the first word which he who first found Christ of all the Apostles Saint Andrew is noted to have said Invenimus Messiam we have found the Messias and it is the first act that he is noted to have done after he had found him to seek his brother Peter Jo. 1.34 duxit ad Jesum so communicable a thing is the love of Jesus when we have found him But when are we likeliest to find him It is said by Moses Deut. 30.11 of the words and precepts of God They are not hid from thee neither are far off Not in heaven that thou shouldst say Who shall goe up to heaven for us to bring them down nor beyond the Seas that thou shouldst go over the Sea for them but the word is very neer thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart and so neer thee is Christ Jesus or thou shalt never find him Thou must not so think him in heaven as that thou canst not have immediate accesse to him without intercession of others nor so beyond Sea as to seek him in a forrein Church either where the Church is but an Antiquaries Cabinet full of rags and fragments of antiquity but nothing fit for that use for which it was first made or where it is so new a built house with bare walls that it is yet unfurnished of such Ceremonies as should make it comly and reverend Christ is at home with thee he is at home within thee and there is the neerest way to find him It is true that Christ in the beginning of this chapter shadow'd under the name of wisdom when he discovers where he may be found speaks in the person of humane wisdom as well as divine Doth not wisdome cry and understanding utter her voice wher those two words Wisdom and Understanding signifie Sapientiam and Prudentiam That wisdom whose object is God and that which concerns our conversation in this world for Christ hath not taken so narrow a dwelling as that he may be found but one way or in one profession for in all professions in all Nations in all vocations when all our actions in our severall courses are directed principally upon his glory Christ is eminent and may easily be found To that purpose in that place Christ in the person of wisdom offers himselfe to be found in the tops of high places and in the gates of Cities to shew that this Christ and this wisdom
any thing that shall be said before lessen but rather enlarge your devotion to that which shall be said of his Passion at the time of the due solemnization thereof Christ bled not a drop the lesse at last for having bled at his Circumcision before nor will you shed a teare the lesse then if you shed some now And therefore be now content to consider with me how to this God the Lord belong'd the issues of Death That God the Lord The Lord of Life could die is a strange contemplation That the red-Sea could be dry Potuisse Mori Exod. 14.21 That the Sun could stand still Jos 10.12 That an Oven could be seven times heat and not burn That Lyons could be hungry and not bite is strange miraculously strange But super-miraculous That God could die But that God would die is an exaltation of that But even of that also it is a super-exaltation that God should die must die and non exitus saith Saint Augustin God the Lord had no issue but by death and oportuit pati saith Christ himself all this Christ ought to suffer was bound to suffer Psal 94.1 Voluisse Mori Deus ultionum Deus saith David God is the God of Revenges He would not passe over the sin of man unrevenged unpunished But then Deus ultionum libere egit sayes that place The God of Revenges works freely he punishes he spares whom he will and would he not spare himself He would not Dilectio fortis ut Mors Can. 8.6 Love is as strong as Death stronger it drew in Death that naturally was not welcome Si possibile saith Christ If it be possible let this Cup passe when his Love expressed in a former Decree with his Father had made it impossible Many waters quench not Love Christ tryed many He was baptized out of his Love v. 7. and his love determin'd not there He wept over Jerusalem out of his love and his love determined not there He mingled blood with water in his Agony and that determined not his love He wept pure blood all his blood at all his eyes at all his pores in his flagellations and thornes to the Lord our God belonged the issues of blood and these expressed but these did not quench his love Oportuisse Mori He would not spare nay he would not spare himself There was nothing more free more voluntary more spontaneous then the death of Christ 'T is true libere egit he died voluntarily But yet when we consider the contract that had passed between his Father and him there was an Oportuit a kinde of necessity upon him All this Christ ought to suffer And when shall we date this obligation this Oportuit this necessity when shall we say it begun Certainly this Decree by which Christ was to suffer all this was an eternall Decree and was there any thing before that that was eternall Infiâ—ite love eternall love be pleased to follow this home and to consider it seriously that what liberty soever we can conceive in Christ to dy or not to dy this necessity of dying this Decree is as eternall as that Liberty and yet how small a matter made he of this Necessity and this dying Gen. 3.15 His Father calls it but a Bruise and but a bruising of his heele The Serpent shall bruise his heele and yet that was that the Serpent should practise and compasse his death Himself calls it but a Baptism as though he were to be the better for it I have a Baptism to be baptized with Luk. 12.50 and he was in paine till it was accomplished and yet this Baptism was his death The holy-Ghost calls it Joy For the joy which was set before him he endured the Crosse which was not a joy of his reward after his passion Heb. 12.2 but a joy that filled him even in the middest of those torments and arose from them When Christ cals his passion Calicem a cup and no worse Can ye drink of my cup He speaks not odiously not with detestation of it indeed it was a cup salus mundo Mat. 20.22 A health to all the world and quid retribuem saies David Psal 116.12 What shall I render unto the Lord Answer you with David Accipiam Calicom I will take the cup of salvation Take that that cup of salvation his passion if not into your present imitation yet into your present contemplation and behold how that Lord who was God yet could die would die must die for your salvation That Moses and Elias talked with Christ in the transfiguration both St. Matthew and St. Mark tel us but what they talked of Mat 17.3 Mat. 9.4 Luc. 9.31 only St. Luke Dicebant excessum ejus saies he they talked of his decease of his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem The word is of his Exodus the very word of our Text Exitus his issue by death Moses who in his Exodus had prefigured this issue of our Lord and in passing Israel out of Egypt through the red sea had foretold in that actual prophecy Christs passing of mankind through the sea of his blood and Elias whose Exodus and issue out of this world was a figure of Christs ascension had no doubt a great satisfaction in talking with our blessed Lord De excessu ejus of the full consummation of all this in his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem Our meditation of his death should be more viseral and affect us more because it is of a thing already done The ancient Romans had a certain tenderness and detestation of the name of death they would not name death no not in their wils there they would not say Si mori contingat but Si quid humanitas contingat not if or when I die but when the course of nature is accomplished upon me To us that speak daily of the death of Christ He was crucified dead and buried can the memory or the mention of our death be irksome or bitter There are in these latter times amongst us that name death freely enough and the death of God but in blasphemous oaths and execrations Miserable men who shall therefore be said never to have named Jesus because they have named him too often and therefore hear Jesus say Nescive vos I never knew you because they made themselves too familiar with him Moses and Elias talked with Christ of his death only in a holy and joyful sence of the benefit which they and all the world were to receive by it Discourses of religion should not be out of curiosity but edification And then they talked with Christ of his death at that time when he was at the greatest heighth of glory that ever he admitted in this world that is his transfiguration And we are afraid to speak to the great men of this world of their death but nourish in them a vain imagination of immortallity and immutability But bonum est