also Negatively Dewâ— 5. â—7 Not kill nor cozomit adultery nor steal and so the Apostle Be not dsceived Neither fornicators nor Idolaters nor covetous nor drunkards c. 1 Cor. 6.9 Not yet to shew you further of this in that new eapanfure and firmament of his Grates under the New â— estament till I come to the consummation I intend â—or the conclusion But by the way even this connexion of comforts may awake our consideration and raise our admiration and by that call up and address and enlarge our thankfulness St. Beraard wonders as well he may at those Dual junâ—toes of God and man and of maid and mother and then that admirable conjuncture in man of faith and reason mixing their auxiliary forces and mutual assistances to comprehend and believe this Mystery How can our souls then escape an extasie of comfort when we light upon those conjunctive precious Promises God will give grace and glory and no good thing will be withhold Glory and Honor and Immortality on every soul that does well and on the contrary the Remembrance of the Law of God given in conjunction should make us tremble to sever what God has so joyn'd and entender our consciences to avoid every wickedness not abhorring Iâ—ols and committing sacriledge not pretending to fear God and yet dishonor the King and yet hope to escape the chain-shot of Gods Judgements which come in conjunctions too and for them that treasure up sin he treasures up wrath against the day of wrath he hath treasures of hail and stormy tempests stor'd up for the ungodly plagues of famine and sword and diseases tribulation and anguish temporal and spiritual and Eternal 3. A third Material is the Expansion the extension of this golden Ingor The spreading and dilatation of this comfort of our being Gods peculiar before we look upon it Refin'd in Christ in the state and trial of adversity For if thou beest of those that in corrupt times canst fear before the Lord and think upon his Name which are the qualifications of these Jewels of God in the Text in what blessed Ark and Repository then art thou How safe dost thou dwell under the shadow of those wings that are never nipt never lose any long feathers wings that are a tent in time of peace in time of war a Pavilion and a strong tower of defençe and protection Let then the world hate disclaim on thee Caesar frown Princes persecute the whole world against thee as it was once said of Athanasius yet as Athanasius entitles one Psalm the 62. Psal Adversus omnes Insidiantes all enemies of state fame body and soul so mayst thou write over this Text and make hither thy appeal and hence derive thy Cordial and Restorative in this that thou art Gods own the Lord of Hosts is with thee the God of Jacob is thy Refuge All the Sentences of Scripture containing gracious Promises are as St. Jerome told Paâ—la fences for the brest of a Christian How is this then able to hoop it round with steel and keep it up from sinking in despair be the affliction never so forcible to press it down Though thou wert humbled with all Davids miseries that thou couldst take up all his complaints at once Though the proud rise and assemblies of the terrible seek after thy soul and thou bear in thy bosome the Reproaches of all the mighty though thou art left as a sparrow or as a Pelican in the desert a brother of Dâ—agons and companion of Owls thy Lovers and friends put far from thee and thy acquaintance into darkness and though thy bones are burnt up as an harth and sorrow hath dryed up thy strength that thy bread is ashes mingled with weeping though thy soul melt thy spirit ore-whelm'd and thy heart within thee be desolate though the terrours of death compass thee and the pains of Hell get hold upon thee or were thy wretchedness equal to that of holy Job Broken with a tempest and fill'd with bitterness the venom drinking up thy spirit thy reins clâ—ven asunder and thy gall poured out upon the ground thy face foul with weeping and thy eye-lids in the shadow of death Or in thy Reputation like him made a by-word and tabret for drunkards or like St. Paul the spectacle of disgrace a fool the scum and off-scouring of all things Yet all this fire is quencht in one drop of his mercy whose thou art and who is thy keeper and Defender Thou shalt be mine sayes God mine for all this the sooner for this I will look upon thee respect remember thee own thee raise thee lift thee up visit mark thee seal thee and make thee up a Jewel for my self 4. This was the Expansure and Dilatation next is the complication of our comfort as it is wrapt up here in Dominus Exercituuâ— the Lord of Hosts Indeed the arresting and conserving of all joyes is in him that weares that Name by a right Excellency And this Title falls fitly in our way to be tryed before we can make a full extraction For though the Emphasis be in They as we shall see anon and the comfort enclosed in â—â— ine yet would this Mine prove but heavy leaden Ruff. Verbum frigidum as St. Cbrysostome calls moum tuum were it pronounced by the greatest Monarch upon earth The life of it is in that the living God hath spoken it For shall not the Judge of all the world do right and hath the Lord spoken and will not perform it That Lord whose Attributes of Power and Mercy both are specified in this Appellation of Dominus Exercituums The pith and strength of all lies in this For though this Name seem incidental here and by way of Perenthesis yet is it axis cardo the hinge on which the whole hope of the Righteous turns and it would break the sence of the whole sentence to leave out this The sence I am sure of the blessing not so full nay none at all if he were not Dominus Exercituum The School makes three Degrees of perceiving God by Names both in nature and Scripture First Negationis remotionis He is not the Sun not finite mutable Secondly Perfectionis affirmationis when what is most excellent in things create we apply to God by way of Analogy and Resemblance so we call him Just Merciful High Glorious Thirdly Names of Excellence and Supereminence as this Title here for to seek him amongst the Hosts of his Creatures yea in the highest things we know is Ridiculous but to determine him there is impious Vltra altra quarendus cryes St. Bernard And yet though it be an impotent hope and impudent attempt to imprison God in Names yet as God every way incomprehensible to make some impression of his Nature to Moses gave himself a Name so we find the man after Gods own heart and by his own inspiration say the Lord is a man of war The Lord of Hosts is his Name By which conjuncture of War and
course both the Baptist Christ Jesus come preaching the Kingdom of Heaven upon our conversion to God It is observable that as God hath bound himself to a perpetual Revolution of Winter and Summer that Spring and Harvest in Autumn shall never fail So his whole will Word is a miscellany of Law and Gospel and such lightsome and comfortable Texts as this found in Isay many and in David many very many Evidences Evangelical and we in that respect to attend this hour to the Gospel of St. Malachy For not a Prophet of God not the least or last but hath an Inlay of mercy wrought up with Judgement and sweet and gracious Promises mingled with comminations They bring us down to discontent by the waters of Marab and Babylon to bitter weeping in the Valley of Tears to persecution of a red Sea the biting of fiery serpents and a killing letter of the Law But they leave us not without discovery of a Brazen serpent to cure us and many precious assurances that God will put all our tears in his bottle and wâ—pâ— away all tears from our eyes That he will take us out of many waters and bring his own again from the deep of the sea and revive us by the glad tidings of the Gospel of Peace and Reconciliation And experimentally Gods servants shall find it so in his actual dealing with them that look how God hath not left himself without witness in his general Providence showring down on earth his balmy Influences from Heaven so in his secret impartments of hidden Manna and in his open appliances to his holy Ones in those celestial dews of mercy which sall only on the fleeces of his Pasture-sheep when t is dry upon all the ground beside we find this exemplified in the head of his Church who as in himself he is a Light shining in darkness so as the darkness comprehends it not so his whole life and death was like light in a Lanthorn or lightnings from summer clouds pauses of sorrow and dejection with various glimpses and coruscations of his glory mixt and interweav'd For crucified dead and buried our Creed assists us with a glorious Resurrection and Ascension and Exaltation of that same crucified dead and buried Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus So to present you with several members of his mystical Body in their interchangeable Robes of sackcloth and tissue their Coronets of thornes and Roses were an easie task I name but two the Father of the faithful and the man after Gods own heart whom one while we find in fear horrour and great darkness and an horrible dread hath overwhelmed them another while rejoycing in hope and assurance of Gods All-sufficiency and with hearts dancing for joy as that sweet singer expresses it and how could I make this truth notorious but without a sailing over to the prime Apostles in the New Testament which I purposely reserve for a new and latter discovery when we come to close with the consummation of this Consolation mean time in this very first opening of the Mine you see enough discovered to consute such as think there is no Golden Vine nor branch of comfort in Gods service but seduced by Satan pretend an inequality a rugged unevenness in the wayes of God which God himself disclaims and imputes it to our wayes It is not the Religion of God that is unprofitable or vain as those foolish people in this Chapter openly profess'd nor does his service incline men inevitably to sadness and melancholy A second Material from this Mine is the connection and combination of this comfort in that God chains this mercy to a preceding mercy He begins here with a conjunction and they shall be mine and then couples it to a succeeding mercy and I will spare them c. Comfort past and present and to come Many feathers of Gods Wing many showers of Manna and of Quailes The whole srame and pile of comfort from the beginning of the sixteenth to the end of the seventeenth ver is pitcht as a Tabernacle of Joy with courtains coverings with loops and taches of consolations in conjunction God is and ever was a God of conjunction and communion a God of Order and combination Discord and dis-union are from the Devil God in Essence from before all beginning was unsolitary God that in wisdom saw it was not fit for man to be alone in his wisdom saw it was not good for God to be alone He is God alone that is there is no other But I am not alone sayes Christ never was so that is without the Father and the Holy Ghost All the three blessed and glorious persons as co-essential so co-eternal and coequal which makes for us we better apprehend and better apply God in the Trinity of persons so branching and reaching out more fruit to us then the contemplation of the Unity And as in Essence so in works of God which respecting us externally are all co-operations of all three Persons we find in nature first all things produc'd in number weight and measure and all things in connexion still One brother holds another by the heel and as our eyes enwrapt in several tunicles each under other so are those films and skins of sphears imaginary nothing but the vaultages and enwombings and enwrapings and swathings of the constellations and coverings ore those conjoyned Elements which are lodg'd in one anothers laps and inlaid and mortis'd into one anothers bosomes And so in his mornings and evenings dole and distribution in his daily providence and Dispensation all is done in order and by a set conjuncture of his Officers The Heavens appointed to hear the earth the earth to hear the corn and wine and oyl and they to hear us Hos 2.22 Such a chain of causes in things natural while the Cause of causes and the God of all these conjunctures hath the upmost link fastened to his Divine will in heaven But all the Links let down are wrapt about his beloved creature man in mercies that compass him round and embrace him on every side In midst whereof guarded by Angels that pitcht their tents about him man takes Repose and sleeps to the musick of the hollow murmuring winds and waters which seem to whisper in his ears a memento of his service to that Lord for whose sake they are yet in service to man But secondly in works of Grace is God observable to be a God of conjunction In his first gracing of his chosen Israel to enable them for a great and wise people he gave them a Law from heaven Deut. 4.6 which was a Law conjunctive both affirmative Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul and with all thy strength and thy neighbour as thy self Two tables joynd by Gods own hands and a Rejoinder by our Saviour This is the first and great Commandement and the second is like unto it keep both or neither he that fails in any one is guilty of all and
may undo thee nor can it redeem or preserve thee or thou it For Fool thy soul may be suddainly snatcht away And then whose shall those things be But if made a man indeed made for ever thou must be melted and refined and new made the Son of God in Christ Thirdly If long life be a blessing desireable Think all thy possessing here of all those dreams of the-shapes of pleasures shaddows can endure but for a vapory moment saith St Janes but he that believes in the Son of God hath everlasling Life saith St. John haves it in full and quiet possession by the power of his faith and having named everlasting life there need no addition of pleasure Food Rayment yet all these in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even in this life fulness of joy as full as humane nature can hold yea overflowing exceedingly abounding with all joy and peace in believing which Graces and replenishing of his Saints bosomes are therefore in the old resembled by saturity marrow fatness and in the new by manna hid and living fountains of water which mixt and cuited by the bleeding balm which drops from those holes of the Rock the peirced side of our Saviour becomes a cordial and soveraign Receipt against venom of sin and poison of the Serpent And lastly If felicity consist in knowledge or as he puts it Sapere fari with sapience like believing with the heart What Eloquence so puissant and clear like confessing with the mouth to salvation What learning to that Cross which makes Philosophy a fool suspends pales the sages and Disputers of this word Angels desire to prie into it and he that was full of Revelations desired to know nothing else 6. But take another view of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the two usual notions of the word Honour and Power Honour first It is so thin and aerie a thing as who can tell you what it is Something derivable from the prince the fountain of Honour yet he only alike to direct us where to lay and place the Title and the Ornaments He can bow no mans heart to any performance for it is a thing wholly in honorante in him that will do us honour if he lift and when he lift And what are the materials and the dress Reckond they are Esd 13. Thirdly Clothed in Purple and fine linnen eat in gold sleep on gold a Chariot with bridles of Gold Now usurpt by vulgars and then to sit next the King and to be called his Cousin Glories well worth the wearing when purchased by a long descent of noble blood and vertue mingled or by that vertue singular Yet how uncertain is the Possession In times of Peace how oft hath Glory vanisht all honour been laid in the dust and still attended on beside the shade of envy with those two certain Ravishers extream old age and death and in times of war or danger how subject to the pillage and affront of every Ruffin But here 's an honorable addition with a perpetuity enough if our hearts were filled with ambitious fires to give satisfaction and acquiescence Sons of the most high which stile though some on earth may wear yet God their Father wears it with a difference Some most high among men in their morning and meridian Glory may be full low before the evening But thy Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom Thou O Lord art most high for evermore With cordial water it is that the Church sprinckles all our hearts when she teaches us to pray O Lord whose Kingdom is everlasting and Power infinite To be Son then to him is a Title which anoints us in Grace as Christ in nature above all our fellows of mankind and in a sort above Angels For to which of the Angels said God at any time Thou art my Son A Title wherein all Titles imperial are appaled impoverisht lost or far exceeded For I can ask as great or I can think beyond all honour ever worn by mortal But this Gods tells me is above Demand and Cogitation above all that we are able to ask or think Secondly In the notion of Power as it is here rendred What a formidable army doth the people present and oppose to the militant Christian Eph. 6.14 Principalities and Powers and then the vantage ground in high places enough to daunt the courage of the stoutest flesh and blood to encounter Legions of such spirits yet mark his oration to the soldiour verse 11. My Brethren Be strong in the Lord and in the Power of his might There is a compleat armour beaten out in Heaven and we fight under him who hath blood and spirit ready to run into and fill our veins to make us stand and standing fight and fighting conquer more then Conquerors for we are made to triumph in Christ who triumpht over all those powers for us And if there be more Troopers in the way of our Salvation as there is a world of enemies yet this is your victory whereby you overcome the world even your faith and against all the treasons and rebellions of the flesh the servant of God hath no other rescue granted him upon his instant petition but my Grace shall be sufficient for thee and my power shall be made â—erfect in Weakness PARTICVLAR 3. 7. I Have done with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and am come to Torcular the Wine-press of Application By which I promised first to draw a cup of consolation which is soon done by contemplating the Grace and Mercy of God in Christ Jesus His abundant manifold Grace and the multitude of his Mercies his sweet and tender mercies differenced from mens first in being sure then in their eternity The Lord is gracious and his mercy is everlasting And lastly mercy mingled of pardoning and rewarding both together which no man uses to a riotous Son or refractory servant yet our case was more desperate and behold God sets forth his love to us being enemies and in defiance Then he sent again his only Son that whosoever believes might not perish Is not that enough No But might have everlasting life The solemnity of this fulness of delight in the enjoying of Gods mercy thus in Christ makes it up a wedding Hos 2. and in the Gospel And the Saints said to rejoice in their beds The spouse in Thalamo And all that Psalm of David Ps 45. and all Solomons Song are nothing but Epithalamions at these nuptials wherein the Bride though bare and poor and naked and miserable before is now by the rich Dowry and Joynture of her Grace in Christ stated and possest and enobled and arayed and adorned above her wish and to her everlasting consolation but for we are too apt too easily to let such Comforts issue from such Texts as this therefore I told you this cup must awhile be set by till we have tasted first a Cup of sober consideration for a cooler Be sober and suspitious was the Heathens and Christians rule alike is Be
he and I say it were unfit and monstrous it should be It may pass for a Chymera No I do not press the very precept of the Apossle Gal. 6.6 Let him that is instructed in the faith make his Instructer Partaker of all his goods or good things which you please Much less will I fright you with that of our Saviour worse then for Sodom and Gomorrah at the day of Judgement then for such as receive us not Nor urge to be received as in some places St. Paul was where people were ready to pull out their own eyes to do him good and received him as an Angel of God as Jesus Christ himself and his scholler Titus received with fear and trembling I will go less with you then your receiving men of other proâ—essions such as look to the state of your land or state of your bodies What a mighty Covenant seems to be driven with some of these almost in terms of Matrimony for better or worse in Sickness and in Health what and keep you only to them too and are the Jurisconsults of Gods Law and Physitians of the soul persons of no value Lastly Is it not a world of wonder to consider how all Regard runs down and streams in bounteous manner on both sides of us and leaves us drie in the middle between those two extreams The Stately Jesuit how is he received even to the adoration of his Fatherhoods venerable slipper and what is his errand to seduce you from the bosom of a Grave and Modest Matron your Mother who hath bred and fed you with the Milk of the Word and Blood of your Redeemer and cause you to embrace that painted Gentlewoman on the seven hills who if she be not she is yet as like the whore of Babylon as she can look on the other side the factious creeping Sectary is admired and applauded by too many as if he were a vessel of some burden when indeed he is but an empty frigat and not able to endure a grapling Mean space the plain down right Protestant that keeps the higher road the King of Heavens high way to truth and maintains that only Doctrine and Discipline which for 1600 years by just devolution is descended lineally from the Apostles and Apostolick men and is able to demonstrate and make it good in the face of both those adversaries is not received but misconceived and abased and abused by vulgar spirits But I hope yea I know better things by you and such as accompany Salvation of whom I know also I shall obtain a gratious pardon for this long Invective for alas the time is fully come for us to take up that prayer and complaint of the Princely Prophet Have mercy upon us O Lord have mercy upon us for we are utterly despised Our soul is filled with the scornful Rebuke and with the despightfulness both of the proud and ignorant 3. I dare not leave out the King who is a main Receiver of Christ Rex is in Vitis per me nay in me Reges too and Christ our Supream Monarch conveighs both our piety and our peace through earthly Kings Prayer for them first of all for in that prayer all others are included that we under them may lead a godly and a quiet life And as Rex is in the vine so he is a fruitful vine too and a main spreading tree like that Pliny mentions in Tacape within whose wide embrace a number of other trees were imbosom'd and received their fostering and education So under the Labels and Infules of the Crown as under a Canopy sits every man arbourd and sheltered enjoying his own vine and branches round about him with a spacious trail and bunch of blessings for which I must refer you to two places of Scripture 2 Sam. 23. and Esai 32.2 What might be added here of blessings by Land in our peaceable protection hitherto by means of Judex and Vindex twixt plea and plea twixt blood and blood without which what would become of the Possessions and Priviledge the Right and Property of the Subject and blessings by water in those winged Mercuries and well armed Martial Counsellors should the enemy forraign speak in defyance our best and ablest Agents to break off the Treaty And doth not all this deserve a Torcular to press this Racemus yielding such a fat full of blessings Indeed for the cup of Consolation the happiness enjoyed under Monarchical Government every man can open his mouth wide and swallow the profits and the pleasures of and under it But where 's our cup of Conformity to the Rulers Justice and Temperance and Goodness and Chast beams and sweet indulgent gracious and merciful Disposition But I forgot the cup of Consideration and so we are apt all to do the Consideration of our Duty We mark well that part of the prayer that the King knowing whose Minister he is c. but quite forget the other part That we duly considering whose authority he hath may faithfully serve honour and humbly obey him Hath not God joyned those Duties Fear God Honour the King so close there is no pause nor breath betwixt them And what God hath so joined will any vain man blow asunder Nor think this a drie and dull piece of Divinity because every bird in the painted cloth hath this in his mouth and every sign of the Bell can say as much for I could wish we had more birds taught to sing this note of Ave Caesar and that all our Bells specially all Aarons bells would leave their janglings and agree to ring this Peal in all mens ears for wheresoever those words are written they are written for our Instruction and ought to be written as the Law of God upon all our foreheads and in the Palms of all Subjects hands for the admonition and tempering of their hearts both when they lie down and when they rise up I will end in Vote and Prayer for Royal Charilaus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Grace of Kings and Joy of all good hearts beseeching God to bless us all with faithful souls to our God and his Christ in heaven and so to his Deputy here on earth that by approving our faithfulness and obedience to both our daies may be long in the Land which the Lord our God hath given us S. D. G. PSAL. 89. ult Remember O Lord the Rebuke of thy Servant and how I hear in my besome the Rebukes of many People wherewith thy enemies have blasphemed thee and slandered the foot-steps of thy Annointed Blessed be the Lord for evermore Amen Amen A Very Passionate peice and the last of a long-lasting Lamentation of David shall I say in the Name of David I am sure in a weak and woful condition beside the Contents that is the Disâ—â—ntents exprest in this Text all along if we surâ—â—igh the Pile the ruin rather of his misery and â—â—mself under the heap covered with dishonour â—â—r 44. 2. A wonderful thing so
knowest it is wind by that but knowest not whence nor whither So is every one that is born of the Spirit The cause and course is secret but the effect discernable As in Creation our soul and body meet by breathing so here the mystick work is Inspiration and infusion of manifold graces but those graces have activities and such whereby you shall easily perceive that you were once darkness but are now Light in the Lord. These Graces then will give us further Light whose excellencies are laid out in those expressions of Water Floods Fountains and Fire and Milk and Manna and Oyntment and their Efficacies in those names of Seal and Evidence and Earnest and Witness and Joy and Consolation And are there not fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. Fruits that grow not up from the bitter Root of corrupted nature but from another Principle and which in their bloom and freshness render a man not like those Ethnick Graces only facile and sweet in conversation though they do that too but gracious in Gods aspect and glorious too shining as a Light in the midst of a crooked and perverse Generation If we shall taft a fruit or two in specialty I will only trie to do it in this notion here and under this Capacity of Light 1. Knowledge even that of nature is a Light and mans soul still is the Lamp of God saith Solomon and a Wisdom residing therein that Recedes as far from folly as Light ftom Darkness and this was all those great Philosophers Animalia Gloriae had which puft them up so For this hath some tincture of the Serpent and soon inflates yet alas Mans salvation is that Grove and Mysterie Nulli penetrabilis astro not pervious nor peirceable by the star-light of Reason There must come a supernatural Light from Heaven which as in the Giver it is called a Sun of Righteousness rising with healing in his wings the day-spring from on high and the True Light so in the Receiver it is called a great and marvellous Light of which Will you hear St. Paul I count all loss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the supereminence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord this indeed is all for in this is all This is Eternal life to know Thee and him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ to know him for my Jesus to apprehend him for my Justifier by a second Grace by a true and lively Faith 2. Faith then is another Light of the sanctifying Spirit superinduced on the Light of Reason to raise and perfect it for it is not in stones or beasts God can from stones raise up Children unto Abraham but if so the work must first be done by Infusion of a rational soul and the golden Key of this Grace then fitted to the prepared wards of reasonable Nature It is not amiss to compare it to Sybillaes golden bough which grew to and upon the Trce and as he adds Auri per Ramos aura refulsit So this superstructure out-shines the utmost endeavours and perfections of Nature and Reason and resembled it is by some as the Seal to Wax It is not naked and meer reason as Air is Fire but Faith is rather printed reason and there joined Light if we wilfully exstinguish not their flames will yield the bearer fair Direction and Confidence and Consolation There may be there will be a coarctation a compression of this flame in the act of Faith a damp upon the alacrity thereof yet if there be not in us an evil heart desirous nay wilfully set to depart from the living God If you abide in me saith our Saviour then certainly as his Father and he with the sacred Spirit joyntly made Light at first and pin'd it to that Sun which was never wholly darkned since and as he the true Light breaking from the clouds of the blessed Virgins body and joyned to mans nature retains that nature still now glorified so the Spirit of this Grace possessing thy spirit loves never to part again but grieves when we offer to quench his coelestial fires O then learn not to despair of Mercy and Assistance Clouds and Eclipses obscure and wandring and wicked thoughts self-accusings and self-condemnings and Satans suggestions may trouble and affright us But if we abide in him and be strong in the Lord and in the Power of his Might and resist the Devill he will flie from us and our hope in Christ and the Power of his Resurrection like a rising Morn will scatter all the delusions and rebellions of the Night and remember his gracious Promise Hell-gates shall not prevail against a Faith of Adherence All the Powers of Darkness let loose upon St. Paul yet he was safe I know in whom I have believed I live saith he no not I but Ckrist lives in me and it is his Spirit only that can give assurance that whereas I was darkness my Faith in him makes me light in the Lord. 3. As for Love another Grace the Grace of Graces the bond of perfection and especially of that coelestial Armor and Ardor of the soul to God What might we say Whatdo they feel into whose breasts is shot this right coelestial flame and there shed abroad by the holy Ghost which is given them Away then with all wanton fires of earthly Love or ambition set them but by this and they will appear poor and wan discolour'd pale and drousie things and like meretritious females shewn with modest and noble Matrons dasht all out of countenance 4. Lastly for I am not too long to insist on these Graces so perceptible to the Possessors if we would have true and lasting joy Where shall we seek it Is it to be found among those Pangs and Convulsions and Palpitations of an earthly sensuall mind Mala mentis gaudia as the heathen Poet calls them and plac'd by him far within the Porch of hell Meteors of imperfect mixture Scansory and seeming to mine and aim at lightsomness and height of Spirit But having crackt awhile and blaz'd down they slide again and resolve into their first earth and drossiness But he that hath tasted of the heavenly gift the joy in the Holy Ghost wherein the Kingdom of Heaven on earth doth principally consist can tell you of a joy that is full a joy unspeakable and glorious consisting in a dispersion of all that is dark and desolate and a true Light that is Lux in Domine Light in the Lord. Thus have we trac'd this Oriens ex alto and thus far described that Method that Lucidus Ordo of Gods procedure in descent of his Spirit and defluence of his Graces Thus far we are come to meet with this great Bishop of all our souls this blessed Visitor and have observed his way of baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with enthean fire and confirming his People with the manifold Graces of his Spirit But yet since he is in Heaven and that Spirit is to descend on us we are not satisfied till we
invest us with a Light yet inaccessible will also place another Crown of Glory inaccessible And so in the allusion the contemplation of those joyes that go before the entrance into our Masters Joy and those that follow after in fruition will easily stir and fire our souls to cry or sing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to this son of David Blessed be he that comes thus in the name of the Lord and is the Lord that comes thus from the Father and God Totius of all consolation anointed to his great Office and Design of binding up the broken hearted by the Holy Ghost the Comforter Luke 1. and is himself by way of Excellency stil'd the consolation of Israel And thus this first glad priviledge of Gods fearful and faithful servant is refin'd and wrought up to perfection from this Mine in Malachy the last of the Prophets to that Mine of St. John the last and liveliest of the Evangelists or rather that Mine of our Lords own discovery in Iohn 17.10 Thine they are and all mine are thine and thine are mine Mine But who is he All our comfort even now was complicated and conserv'd in Dominus Exercituum And is he so That stile indeed wears out in the New Testament but is abundantly recompenc'd in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The only Potentate the Lord of Life and Glory Most of all in that name above all names which all tongues must confess and at which all knees should bow that sweet and powerful that gracious and glorious Name of Jesus a Saviour and able to save to the utmost in whom all fulness dwels and in whose hand is all power in heaven and earth And had not their eyes been held down and the Jews hearts vaild over they would have perceived and received him for the true Messiah in this very notion and nature of a Lord of Hosts For in him were all their Moses's Joshuales all their Captains and Saviours their Baraks and Gideons and Sampsons and Davids and Macchabees all reviv'd and restor'd to the world But they knew not the manner of their King and to mistake a King may be a world of misery nor of his Kingdom nor the force of his Artillery in the dreadful Canon and Ordinance of his Word Spirit Nor that the Scepter of his new Law should prove the Iron Rod to break and subdue both men and Devils They considered not his stupendious Miracles proving him the Lord of Hosts in commanding over the whole frame of Heaven and Earth and Seas and all the host of them and bowing whole created nature to his obedience To rebuke tempestuous winds roaring waves as a Nurse her child with Peace and be still nay suspend and silence and deprive Devils of their possessions with a word To lay his command on Death it self and force him to let go his hold after four dayes seisure in the grave Will Iews or Jewish hearts attend my voice that would not hear the thunder of those Miracles But for support of the true Catholick faith and for the consummation of all our consolation King and people Christ Jesus is become our Dominus Exercituum Christo auspice regno regnabo too and his bloody Cross a braver badge then that of Castor and Pollux This is polleus lux ipsa For is it not he alone destroyes our raging lusts and nails them to his cross and he alone that ' gainst a world of opposition and all the opposition of this evil world cryes to his host be of good comfort I have overcome the world He alone that came to dissolve destroy the works the strong holds of Satan and to vanquish powers and Principalities in high places that had the vantage ground over us He that breaks in on death and sin and hell and like a Conquerer in the triumphal Chariot of his Cross made a shew of them openly and as Triumphers us'd to do when he ascended up on high and led captivity captive he gave gifts unto men But yet more to prove him the Lord of Hosts by being more then that name can imply for this Name is observed to be too yong for the ancient of Dayes that is a Name taken up since and from the Creation A Name indeed that draws and scatters on us all we can look for from our Maker and Preserver But all his powers and mercies are resolved and melted into this Name of Christ Jesus Without Christ without God sayes the Apostle in the world we are but meer pieces of the masse nay far worse is our condition born children of wrath and in state of enimies and so the Lord of Hosts is against us and all the hosts of Heaven and spirits of Hell and all the creatures and our selves against our selves And when there was no Name under heaven to save and deliver us from present and wrath to come then came this Prince of peace and became our Peace pledg'd himself for us gave his life a Ransome so making peace So prevailing over the Lord of Hosts binding his Almighty hands and God content to accept terms of peace may we not say so Came not that Voyce from Heaven This is my beloved Son in quo acquiesco in whom I am at peace with all the world If all this prove him not a Lord of Hosts he will one day to the further consolation of all that love his appearing appear to the consternation of all his Despisers in flaming fire to render vengeance And as in the dayes of his flesh then unglorified and compast about with all mans infirmities he could have been encompast with more then twelve Legions of Angels so then he will meet those two Hosts those droves and flocks of sheep and goats with another Army of his Saints and Angels from Heaven with whom we shall be caught up to meet that Lord in the ayr and so shall be ever with the Lord. If we desire yet higher to raise this Crown of consummate consolation in Christ I will come to Visions and Revelations I will open that of St. Steven Acts 7.56 I see heaven opened and the son of man set on the right hand of God which place being further opened by St. John makes us see him on a Throne of Glory covered with light as with a garment under his feet Deaths pale head and a red Dragon and all his enemies about him stand the Armies of his Angels and of mankind a greater number then any man can number of all Nations Languages On his thigh that Name written Rex Regum Dominus Dominorum The Elders casting down their Crowns adore him that has many Crowns upon his head And we may safely add this Title to those Crowns of Dominus Exercituum and rejoyce to think how those Crowns are encinctur'd and enchas'd with precious stones for the twelve Tribes of Israel and with manifold unions of God and man of grace and glory for the consolation of the Gentiles also thereby fully made perfect
and partakers of the divine Nature and all these Unions contracted in the blood red shining Summit of his cross by the power whereof that Throne and Robe and all those Crowns are become ours and we become one with him in an union most high and holy even as he and his Father are one and higher we need not we cannot go nor well so high for that it should be thus we scarce dare ask but how it should be thus is above all that we are able to ask or think Thus far the first priviledge of Gods servants in being his Peculiar The second now should follow of being his Jewels with the usefull application of them both together with the Assignation of those several Dayes wherein these Jewels are to be made up all which I believe will make up a second and a third Exercise For this time I proceed no further but to beg the Blessing of God upon what we now have heard P.R. S.D.G. THE SECOND SERMON September 1643. MALAC. 3.17 And they shall be mine said the Lord of Hosts in that day when I make up my Jewels THE Word of God saith St Paul is not bound nor we that preach it bound to Formalities and courtly Decencies or much to care whether our Hearers be in good humor or no t is true nor are we to be Time-servers as we have been charged nor Men-pleasers in any ill sense yet since we are at liberty throughout the Garden of the Scripture to cull a Posie such as seemes best to us affording us a pleasure why may we not be thought therein also to preserve our just Devotion to God together with an intention for the complacency of good men too For which cause I blush not to acknowledge my respective choice or rather my recollection of this Text whereon I have preacht in royal audience before because though it look back upon vicious times and most ungodly men yet it will allow us for the present a Prospect as I verily belive upon some choice spirits and Gods gracious servants yet by his Reserve and special Mercy left alive while they are yet alive and I alive to apply this Scripture to them in special which in general suits with the condition of this time As men the sons of Time so Times themselves have their Parallels As the days of Noah were saith our Saviour Mat. 24. so shall also the coming of the son of man be eating drinking marrying till the day that Noah entered into the Ark and knew not till the flood came and tooke them all away so it shall be in the last times and so it is And we have no livelier proof that these are the last times then such our usages and in them such our security The Scripture foretels a soul and dangerous Sea of corruption that should prove rough and swell run high and the waves thereof rage horribly toward the end of the world when men should be more then imbrutished void of natural affection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implacable traiterous heady high minded lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God pretending the Spirit but being sensual and bringing in damnable Heresies having a show of godliness but denying the power thereof pretending to Piety and Law and Order but reviling Dignities which God hath ordained with Balaam greedily loving the wages of unrighteousness and perishing in the contradiction of Core But alas We have undone both Prophesie and Description put down both History and Poetry Examples and Imagination too even those Gyants before the flood are now not monstrous for we have defiled and made the earth more corrupt filled it with a bloodier cruelty and violence provoking the holy one of heaven to hurle down hils of miseries on our heads and hearts and to let in Torrents of his fierce wrath mingled wiih Christian blood in every street and a surrounding universal Scourge and Deluge to overwhelm three whole flourishing Kingdoms at once from end to end and burie them in endless desolation while senseless sinners we seem to contemn the Power of Gods wrath by letting loose the reins to all licenciousness when he is pouring down the vials of his anger and tumbling delightfully in our own tear up the wounds of our Saviour betrampling the sacred Blood that redeemed us and counting the blood of his Covenant a Covenant of Mercy and Peace an unholy thing crucifying again to our selves the Lord of Life and Glory and making a mock of him by grieving quenching and doing despight to the Spirit of his Grace So that our condition is worse then of this people here in this Prophet though in very many things resembling us for in the first chapter we read of their Unkindness Irreligiousness Profaness snuffing at the Table of the Lord and holding it contemptible In the second we find their Idolatry Adultery Infidelity In this third Sorcery false Swearing Oppression Sacriledge and at last it breaks into open rebellion and defiance of God voting down all divine service and decreeing it vain and no profit to walk longer in his Ordinances and then this was a brave time it must needs be so for proud and wicked people which were lift up like a skum over the face of clear and wholsom waters only such saith our Prophet were built to Wealth and Honor. And yet for all this sorrow there is a comfort comes up close at the sixteenth verse of use and advantage now for us Gods people still remained though secret not altogether silent they spake one to another admonished exhorted comforted one another mutually and these their Colloquies and Consultations were frequent and succesfull God came into their Assembly sate President in this Council and a book of Remembrance was written before him for all them that â—eared before him and thought upon his name and after all comes out his gracious Proclamation of Peace and Love The Patent under seal Teste meiâ—so and they shall be mine saith the Lord of Hosts in that day when I make up my Jewels Which words afford a double priviledge of Gods servants be the times what they will in reference to their Owner described by his high and stately stile of Dominus Exercituum First His own they are his peculiar Secondly Esteemed of him at a high rate for they are his Jewels There is a third part The day or time set for the making up of these Jewels admitting a four-fold Interpretation 1. Either the day of punishing the ungodly or 2. The day of powerfull preaching the Word 3. The day of death and 4. The last day the day of final Judgement In all these days God will manifest his Mercy and his Power both enwrapt in Dominus exercituum here and then the Specification the Verification the real and actual spreading of both in this that God in his holiness hath spoken it It shall certainly be so for so saith the Lord of Hosts The first priviledge is laid down in this plain conclusion They that in a
Salvation and I come to feel and know this of a certainty by Gods Power made perfect in my weakness which I discern in finding his Holy fear rooted in my heart and so fixt that no stout words of prophane nor incursions nor invasious nor seas of overwhelming Corruptions in the examples of godless men about me can prevail over me to abandon my Religion which is bottomed on my holy fear and reverend thinking on his blessed Name For as I have said the mercy of our indulgent Father appears not only in tying this amulet to our own bosom that every man is sav'd by his own faith and not another mans bnt also in the manner of this ancorage 'T is his special Grace that my being Gods own is made descernable in the Light imparted to my own soul from his Word and Spirit whereby I perceive the Covenant sealed betwixt God and me in Christ Jesus But this is more wonderfull mercy still that my assurance and modest infallibility of salvation is fastened by his Almighty Power and so surely fastened to so slender a cordage so weak and tender and bruised reeds as my Faith and fear are for these two are to our purpose terms convertible This fear in my Text hath Gold and Treasure in it and contains the precious nature of faith too and discovers the same Efficacy and Properties of lively faith so that he who possesses or is bereft of it is so of God himself See for this Jer. 2.19 This is an evil and bitter thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God and that my fear is not in thee saith the Lord God of Hosts So he puts Fear for our whole Religion So rare a Builder is that Lord of Heaven that as he made the Heavens themselves and the earth of nothing and hung saith Job the earth in the midst of the air upon just nothing So in this mighty work of Grace when I am afraid of not being fast enough his goodness makes that very fear the means of fastning and confirmation and anchors my assurance to my fear Behold the unsearchable and unspeakable riches of his mercy in this that he forsakes not man therefore because he finds not in flesh and blood the Pority of Angels but as it s said to Levi Mal. 2.5 My Covenant was with him of life and Peace and Life and Peace include all Blessings and I gave them to him For what Observe it well The free Grace of God in this exchange I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me and was afraid before my name and just such is the Appliance here of all this consolation for God hears and hearkens at verse 16. and a book of Remembrance is written before him for whom now all this and sor what For them that feared the Lord and thought upon his name and they shall be mine for that I will love them for that inward testimony and qualification and that inward Testimony and Qualification shall assure them of my love Is not this enough to make every one of us say at parting hence Well! I shall think the better of the fear of God as long as I live for this Sermon Do so in the name of God and take this further resolution with us Never to listen to the harsh and cruel doctrine of the Romish which a man would think were enough to throw down all the rest of their building in unstable soules if those souls would but seriously stay to think upon it if they would not like unclean beasts still swallow and never chew the cud and yet since it is fallen from them they must their Priests must by the oath ex officio all desperately maintain it as if they were told openly by one of their own Doctors at the Council of Trent and that is this That God will never be so assured never so contracted and espoused to believers hearts in everlasting love but even after all their Merits and Satisfactions and Penances and Pilgrimages and Supererogations too Is it not strange considering how wide they open their Ark at first and assure all clean and unclean beasts that will come in of never perishing Nay after all Pardons under the swelling seal and all plenary Indulgences Is it not a miserable case The wretched fluctuating Penitent after ablution extream Unction Absolution and all must be content to die in discontent and fall with horror and perplexity of Conscience and all his comfort in a little faint hope that it is not wholly impossible for him to get through long and dreadfull purging flames at length to the joyes of heaven But let us in Gods name still continue to repose our souls on Christ and resting on this ground of comfort in this appropriation we shall find no reason to conceive hardly of him who is the Father of Mercies and God of all consolation or impute a rigidness and tetrical sowerness or rather a tyrannous enwrapping us in inevitable damnation To admit no such jealousies and fears and suspitions of our Lord here but wisely learn to compound and keep close in conjunction that which God hath mixt and and put together That is a rejoycing in the Lord with trembling a worship joined with godly fear and joy in the holy Ghost and so we may return from his service as the women returned from his Sepulchre with fear and great joy PART 2. WE are come to our second part the Prospect the day of our deliverance and making up amongst Gods Jewels which day is fore-fold 1. The day of punishing the ungodly such a day as some think is described here at cap. 4.1 In such burning days the trial shall be made and then God will resolve this scruple here at verse 17. twixt them that serve him and such as serve him not and his Jewels in that day he will save spare as a man spares his own son as men incline to favour their peculiar and their Jewels and Treasure above all their stuff of less value as men in danger of shipwrack reserve a Jewel though forced to unlade the ship of all her other burden or as they catch away in times of war or fire or thieves some precious thing above all other goods And this renews the former consolation that to these Saints which excel in vertue these precious Jewels whose saith is precious sastned on the most precious blood of Christ belong all those precious Promises of compassing hiding embracing covering relieving defending comforting setting his eye heart soul upon them of opening his ears and hearkning to their cries of drawing near helping respecting assisting establishing blessing delivering by Protection Exaltation Coronation and this no empty but a real comfort including all time He hath and doth and will deliver us saith St. Paul He hath done it to his servants in the evil day in all their evil days of sorrow Sickness War Plague Famine Prison Deluge of waters or of ungodliness So Noah was boxed up in his ark
here visiting looking to the wayes of Man that Man might look up to him Briefly not to reflect yet on the Coherence at which I shall touch anon in place convenient enough The Text delivers us two parts First Gods office Secondly Mans office His to visit Mans to debate and answer 1 God is the Visitor The School makes these degrees of perceiving God in names First Negationis Remotionis What God is not not the Sun Moon not finite mutable Secondly Perfectionis Affirmationis when what is most excellent in things create we apply to him by way of Analogie and Resemblance so we call him just Mercifull High Glorious Thirdly Of Supereminence such as this of a Visitor gathered from his action here and joyn'd with the Emphasis of my Text When he shall visit Men are Visitors but they more easily answered their place and power but Derivatives from this Primitive He He the grand Visier Altissimus most High So that to Gods absolute power everywhere presence this attribute and this transcendent Ability of an holy Watcher a Supervisor is proper 'T is proper Blazon and Title sutable denoting throughout these words not height alone and Power and Superiority when he shall stand up but Majesty and Terror too What shall I answer him We have found his Office but will God perform it 'T is a Question of mens performing their offices and a Question too of false gods They had an Idol in Egypt cal'd by such a name Baal-Zephon Dominus speculae Lord of the Watch-tower to fright their fugitives but when Moses and the people of Israel past that way and pitched the Camp there this god was asleep but he that keepeth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps He kept his Israel then and since he made good the Title then and since and dare we question it now But how doth God visit Search the Scriptures they testifie of him those books are moral to teach Man his office the whole duty of Man to make the Man of God perfect to every good work but they are Historical too and Prophetical too instructing us what God hath done and what God will do Look then to those Records and we shall find what and when and how in his several Visitations His Visitations are his actions Action is from intrinsique vertue Vertue there is none such in God as supposes Infirmity or Imperfection as Faith Hope c. but such as argues Perfection Mercy Justice Wisdom Bounty Power According with these we find his Visits First In general then with reference to men both wayes their persons in mercy sin upon their persons in Justice 1. In general in all places and over all things above Heaven is his Throne where he overlooks the Orders and royal Armies of his Angels ascending descending in the material Heaven disposing that numberless variety of those glorious stars calling them all by their names in the airie Heaven amidst those flocks of Fowl his Providence extending to the fall of every little sparrow If we go down to the sea amongst those infinite shoals and innumerable fishes there we see his Wonders in the Deep or if we go deeper if we descend to hell He is there also binding the fury of infernal spirits And for the Earth it is his footstool unmov'd he sits in midst of Heaven and yet they be the eyes of the Lord that run to and fro through the whole earth Zach. 4.10 raigning above yet containing and upholding all below compassing all about yet piercing all within But applyed to Men they are the eyes of God which behold and his eye lids which trye the Children of Men. But first the persons in mercy as we use the word in our visitation of friends or of the sick And of this kind as well pleased therewith is that where God doubles it Visitans visitavi Exod. 3.16 Visites and remembers visites and restores Jer. 17. ult This is called the face the beauty of his Holiness when he causes the light of his countenance to arise Then secondly Sins upon the persons and this changeth the aspect He frowns and bends the Brows sets his face against them visiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth generation Num. 14.18 first or last on them or theirs by no means clearing the guilty Then he is described to visit in Thunder and Earth-quake in Storm and Tempest Isa 29.6 And in this sense the word is used among the Prophets promiscuously for Recompensing Punishing Avenging and even this threatned on his own people tender as the Apple of his eye and his chief Treasure above all Nations Hos 1.4 12.2 Jer. 11. Isa 10.3 We may not omit his mercifull Visitation should it not shew like a piece of ingratitude not to touch here first though our voyage be to that of final Judgement And the first particular of his mercifull visitation wherein is his delight is confiderable as man is a body God then did visit him in the house of dust as his last work will be joyning and refining the same dust again in Glory and what might be said of his visitation in the womb Thou sawest my substance being yet imperfect c. What of all those wheels and wyers within the body that Mill and Clock of his contriving of his winding up at thought of which David speaks with a kind of strange shuddering O Lord I am fearfully and wonderfully made What of mans Shape Speech Beauty and how largely spred might this Web be if we took in all those threds and quils of his Providence by which he conveighs a thousand influences of his Bounty even loading Man with his benefits Psal 68. and renewing them every morning Lam. 3. Light after Darkness Spring after Winter as now we see that Grant in his course stealing an ascent over us and subduing the cold giving rain and fruitfull seasons c. What addition to this above all this from the Nature and Fabrique and Faculties of our soul in substance nobler then the stars able not only to give Being to the body like other forms but capable of eternal Felicity Secondly As Man is a Christian by means of the Revelation of Jesus that Orient ex Alto The day-spring from on High hath visited Luke 1. that Sun which riseth with healing in his wings And this was and is a blessed Visitation for thus it runs Visited and Redeemed his people Himself did visite and his servants did it in his name rising early for early visitation and since his ascension he send by his Apostles Pastors and Teachers that heavenly Treasure in their earthen vessels this Manna this Light the glory of his people Israel and because that had not concerned us it is also a Light revealed to the Gentiles this revives us when he is said To visit the Gentiles also to take of them a people to his Name Acts 15.14 But not that word of Grace though the Word of Life and Power and Mighty in operation Not
Pharisees by Christs own Testimony religious and yet wicked People may draw near with their lips and their hearts far enough off If thou hast Faith saith St. James let us see it Let your Light shine How why in action shine or else to bare Profession our Saviour threats a round and proportional Answer At that day I will profess to you I know you not Objection But will the weak soul say May I trust to these Answers I may I first trust to my Repentance I feel indeed the weight of sin and finding the offence of an infinite Justice I am horribly afraid dejected like David when he asked his sad soul Why art thou so heavy I am so so wounded pierced struck thorow and my heart rebounds into my eyes I weep and I crie mightily for Mercy but can I hope it Is not sin a Serpent a Sea a Fire a Poison Was I not stung by this Serpent drowned in this sea miserably schorcht by this fire envenomed in the whole Mass of my nature with this corruption before I was born And since alas I have added to this Ocean put fewel to this fire help to infix this sting and work into my heart the contagion and then am I able to resolve against sin to deny ungodliness to reject the Tempter to give my lusts their final answer I find indeed natural men moral men when they will compound an happy man put inthis one ingredient Responsare cupidinibus sibi imperiosus enabling him to check and controul to command and subdue rebellious Passions by the dictates of rectified Reason and their several answers to diverse corrupt affections are enough to shame me and all that profess themselves Christians But were they able to keep their own rules or am I able What to hate sin so as I ought with a perfect hatred I flie some enormous vices for fear of Laws But Tolle periclum Jam vaga prosiliet c. And though I know there is death in the Pot the wages of sin is no better though I pull the fruit and taste it and prove it to be nought but Gall and Bitterness nay barrenness and shame yet such is my madness to pursue a new shame and seek death in the error of life falling like a Bird or a Beast Nay no brid no beast would so oft fall into the same snare same pit into the same sin whereof I have again and again repented me What then shall I do Shall I rely on my second answer and trust in my own righteousness Some bold men dare do so and dare teach others so dare boast a stock and treasure of mercy and satisfaction But Lord I find the language of Canaan thy holy Word and the cries of thy holy servants far otherwise I find thy Bernard say Nolo Horreo meritum Thy David O Lord If thou enter into judgement no flesh shall be justified and thy blessed St Paul I find another Law haling me c. Rom. 7. and therefore I hear him crying ripe to say O miserable man who shall deliver me These are yet the Ejaculations of an humble soul asking seeking knocking at the gate of heaven and this very debating is a fruit of the Spirit growing on to a perfect answer In mens consultings and resolvings for worldly affairs they may they do usually mis-count miscarry fortune choaks their artillery But in these holy provisions the end is ever gracious success glorious If the Jailor in the Acts and St. Peters Hearers come but to a wounded conscience to be prickt at their hearts and cry What shall I do Mark what follows and how fast it follows Believe Repent be baptized and saved Saved How by Believing in him that is able to frame a sufficient Answer He that made them wonder at his gracious answers and to whom no man was able to answer a word Who was that and where is he to be had If any man sin any man that finds himself a sinner Let him put his answer to this Advocate for we have him saith St. John we have an Advocate Jesus Christ the righteous He is the Propitiation for our sins Take then thy shield of faith and quench all the fiery darts of the devil This is the new and living way of answering God by his Son by the blood of Jesus Hebrews 10. May not then the Christian Believer have access with boldness For shall both bleed for sin or shall he bleed in vain Peccavi peccatum grande saith he I have committed an hainous sin yet on my Faith and Repentance I will go to God and say Lord thou canst have but Blood Merit Sacrifice Satisfaction exact Obedience Take then thy Son Jesus He is all these and all these to me for he is mine I receive him by faith and I find comfort hope lively hope full assurance in him I will not therefore flie with Cain and cry with him My sin is greater No thy mercy rejoyces against sin and now therefore there is no condemnation to them that be in Christ Jesus My answer then to thy Bill is it was torn when his body was torn it is cancelled and was nailed to his Cross My debt was great but is paid to the utmost farthing Thy wrath let it be a cup he hath drunk it of Let it be more a whole Wine-press he hath trode it alone I will then put on my Lord Jesus and come in the rayment of my elder Brother and be roab'd in his innocency and canst thou then deny me No thou canst not thou mayest as well deny thy self For if I have it fair to shew under thy own hand Every gracious Promise in thy Gospel is such yea this was thine own Act in my salvation For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself But may I not prodigally and presumptuously fling away my soul in a vain confidence of Mercy Yes many do so that will do nothing themselves not when they have the assistance and proffer of help from Heaven Therefore I will compound and put all these answers together I will trust to my Saviours merit But I will repent too and pray too and work too and so work out mine own salvation with fear and trembling And though I have no Holiness of mine own and without it no seeing thee at the Day of Judgement yet thou the God of my peace wilt sanctifie me against that day 1 Thess 5. O blessed and full answer now and O blessed condition of such happy souls so far from affrightment at thought of the Judges coming that they shall then rejoyce and lift up their faces and in the mean time are of the number and communion of those Saints that love his appearing looking for and hasting to the comming of their Lord in glory calling and crying Bow the Heavens and come down and Lord how long And come Lord Jesus come quickly I have done with the explication of my Text. There is a fourfold application First In general to
make the Seer overseen to lose the eyes of his mind to drown his holy unction in drink and suffocate the Spirit of Grace he must be apt to teach saith the Apostle and in the same place it follows Not addict to Wine left that disqualifie his Palate and Brain and render him Ineptum unfit to teach or to be taught But I hasten to a fourth and last sort of Visitors that is all Christians in performance of that general Duty which concerns both preacher and People and is indeed a prime part of Christianity and that which St. James calls Pure Religion namely to visit the fatherless and widdows in their adversity and that which will be remembred and enquired after at the great and dreadfull visitation by the Judge of all the world who will demand not what we have preacht or heard or professed bnt what we have done And among those works of mercy that shall follow and felicitate such as die in the Lord and shall then rise in the Power of his Resurrection this is a Chief our visiting the sick and those in prison And the omission of this shall be taken as a neglect and refusing of Christ Jesus in person In as much as you have not done it to them you have not done it to me Consider what I have said and the Lord give you and me and us all Understand in all things Let us pray for a Blessing c. THE FIRST SERMON AT COVRT GEN 3.9 The Lord God called unto the man and said Adam where art thou 1. A Text antient and catholique for all times seasonable fit for all places fit for all places and persons Is it to a King that I preach I may tell him this Sermon whereof my Text is a piece was the first piece of sound Divinity and preacht to the first Monarch-Lord of all the earth yet preacht by a greater King even the King of Kings and Lord of Heaven and Earth If I were preaching to a Parliament I could tell them this was the first that ever was in which the first malignant-Party was justly sentenc'd and the two first Delinquents in mankind put to Fine and Ransom 2. Take us together without respect of persons and the Text will serve to call upon every man here that professes himself a son and a servant and yet is apt to forget the Law of the Lord his God Where art thou first for the place In whose house in whose Courts in whose presence-Chamber and even this Demand considering our usual inconsideration is enough to shiver us as it did lacob with Surely God is in this place and I was not aware And then where art thou In whose Court of Judicature and even now to be called to thy answer for the same business as Adam here The breach and violation of Gods Commandment For thou hast eaten also of the forbidden fruit for so is the committing of any thing against which Gods prohibition lies and are we like then to be found Recti in Curia Can we answer him any one thing of a thonsand so the Call will concern us and the sense of the words will penetrate to our hearts also if we refuse not if we run not away from God and seek to hide our transgressions in summ it is a Text well worthy our serious attention 3. We may call it an Introduction to a judicial proceeding of God against man after his sin For after sin comes Judgement Premit comes So it was ab origine Adams case The first book-case that ever was And Judgement as St. Peter saith begins at the house and more here it begins with the Son of God for as in fulness of time he sent his only begotten Son in the similitude of sinfull flesh and to condemn sin in the flesh and though he knew no sin yet to be punished for sin being made sin for us and bearing all our sins in his body So here he comes in the beginning of time to arraign and condemn sinfull flesh in his own Son Christ is his honourable true and only Son begoten of his Father before all worlds by an everlasting generation and ineffable that none can declare But all the sons of men are his sons too by a generation declared in Ethnique Poety first and then in antient Catholique and Apostolick Divinity made of that Poety Acts 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are his Off-spring and Generation we all are so but our Forefather was so by a kind of Primogeniture as St. Luke expresly Which was the Son of Adam which was the Son of God Whence even thus early may we make application that certainly it will be then a poor and barren a silly and impotent a base and impudent hope for any son of Adam to look for Impunity Rather all must look in severals one day to hear this Call of God Where art thou Wheresoever thou shalt be or howsoever found dead among those that live in pleasures drowned and soakt in fleshly lusts or choacht in wordly cares or quick from the dead from that dispersion and resolution to watery slime and mud to earthly dust or aerie Atoms All the Mass and Collective body of mankind once made and then at once remade by his mighty Word shall hear his almighty Word that Voyce and Trump of God Return you sons of men Arise and come to Judgement Let us in Gods name and fear do so now Arise quicken our thoughts prepare for since prevent we cannot that last by considering of this first Judgement 5. Wherein the parts are four our two first parts are the two Parties appearing in and at this Judgement God the Judge and man the Delinquent Our third particular is the manner of the process Calling The Lord God called unto the man And the last is the matter of the Summons Where art thou which in the literal sense is Whether art thou fled But in the Mystick it bears a kind of secret Increpation and a touch of pitty Where art thou The glory of my Workmanship become the shame of all the Creatures Into what a miserable condition reduced that thou art ashamed of thy self Alas Adam where art thou and before we finish our Observations on the Text we may come to make use of both these Interpretations 6. The first part of this Judgement is the two persons appearing so I said there were two But yet it is not so The first person spoken of is the Judge and he is present The Lord is at hand But the guilty sinner he flies for 't Et non est inventus But it is not possible for him to escape or lie hid the sin will find him out and we must all appear Rejoyce O young man saith Ecclesiastes Eccle. 11. in th◠youth in excess of Riot Pomp Rage thou canst cover all under the fig leaves of youth but know that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgement young and old without difference every soul to answer for every thing
done in every body The Judge is of pure and fiery eyes sees down through darkness to our hearts and reins no casting of mists no deluding of this Judge and then no need of long proceedings frequent siftings and tedions Cribrations of the cause for all things are naked and bare in his sight all evident and clear before this Lord for this Lord is God The Lord God is his name 7. Now the names of God are referred to two heads 1. Simple and absolute or 2. In Relation to us Of the first sort Some respect his Essence or Nature as that name which we know not certainly how but we are taught to pronounce Jehovah Some respect that which we call but yet in tender sense dare scarce call it so his Personality as the names of Father Son and Spirit And some his Attributes Essential as Just Holy c. The second kind of relative names are such as King Governor Preserver and this of Dominus here the Lord 8. First for the Name and so the Nature of God it is an Ocean too immense and boundless for our discovery An Abyss for the sounding of our light and frail reason to propound And concerning this Title Lord I will not enter though my Text lie near the Creation into that curious dispute which yet amused Tertullian and St. Austin afterwards whether this stile then only and properly began in the worlds beginning and could not be attributed to God before Such speculation is but drie and useless stuff I will rather tell you what the School tells us of all Gods Names in relation that is such Names are not really in God but in the Creature So as God is called Summum Bonum not because God cannot admit a composition of those two or any pieces but because his Bonitas as comprehensive of all other and diffusive to all so supereminently above all And because all that retains the name of Good as derivative from him so in it self defective and to us deficient in compare with him saith Aquinas and yet even in affecting and accepting such names God delivers himself to us in a gracious way of endearment For where men aspire to Honor and ascend to titular additions therefore that the swelling vapor of a Longa Pagina as he calls it may lift them like a Pageant high in the air and hal'd from the community of baser earth God in a wonderfull descending still vouchsafes rather to honor his servants and Clients by sometimes assuming names of particular and individual reference as the God of Abrabam the fear of Isaac sometimes of general appliance to all the Israel of God as is the large extended and branching Tree the spreading Sun in an Expansion Dilatation Emanation Communication Consolation to all his servants in this full and chearfull name of Dominus the Lord. 9. Which name in the strict and proper acceptation they say can belong of right to none but God by reason it includes these two conditions First He that is exactly Dominus may at his pleasure use the thing whereof he is Lord enlarge diminish change annihilate that is as far as the nature of the thing will bear And who is so supream on earth Secondly The absolute Lord stands in need of nothing but is endued with a proper innate and self-sufficiency Aad who can boast himself to be so absolute Vnxi te in Regem in caput are notes of humane eminence in the Old and as plain is that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New One from Samuels testimony a Seer and a chief Prophet of God and the other from St. Peter a prime Apostle both instructed in the Will of the Lord here And yet no Saul nor Roman Emperor nor any supream Head and Governor on earth since those times can ever say and say truly so much as to the foot of his body Politick I have no need of you much less then can the feet or legs the sides or arms or bulk of the body though never so big say to the head mistaking it for a Perruke say We have no need of thee 10. It was as is imaginable for this Energie in the restrained sense of the word that the Septuagint everywhere render Jehovah by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord and some such reverence to the name made Augustus sure so respective and nice as not to endure it and Suetonius reproves Domitian of incredible arrogance for not disclaiming that usual acclamation in the Amphitheatre of Dominofoeliciter Well might his Poet then recant and repent his Inscription of Dominus Deusque noster And yet we know what he that sits in that Emperors Throne the triple miter'd man of sin or if not so yet surely sinfull man doth dully and damnably retain and blushes not to this day to wear and hear from his Poets and Parasites in Print of Dominus Deus noster our Lord God the Pope And yet for the term of Dominus alone as in our language t is cheap enough The words Lord and Sir being very near allied in sense so in the Latine now and all those crums and drops of Spanish French Italian Eloquence into which the Latine is broken and dissolved it signifies no more it confers no more in usual phrase And in the very Greek of the New Testament so near Augustus dayes it is evident enough that their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was but equivalent to our Sir for it is observed that Mary Magdaleus gives it there to our blessed Saviour and at the same time envies it not but affords her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir to the very Gardiner 11. But a more usefull Note from both these Names together we may make out of St. Bernards rule Omne nomen Dei in Scripturis c. Every Name of God in Scripture sounds of Mercy or of Justice and both these are in this judicatorie to shew that Adam had now provoked not only a glorious God holy and just but his Lord Gracious and full of kindness to him This raises the wind into a foul storm swels a brook of disobedience to a Sea when man the master-piece the favorite turns against his God that had made him a kind of under-god given him dominion too For the Habendum enters with a Dominamini It was my Lord Adam from the beginning a Lord Lieutenant under the Lord of Hosts in three great Counties of the earth and air and Seas and of all things therein with power of life and death Ingratefull man to make offence against his maked the creature rise against his Creaâ—our that rais'd him from the dust sustain'd planted pleasur'd him with infinite varieties of sure and â—al favours This on the Remorse was it that cut David to the heart Against thee O Lord against thee have I â—inned and done this evill in thy sight No wonder if traiterous man on this recognition of the Judge offended hid himself and sought for shelter among the trees and even there remained startling
and umbragious being chas'd away by the fiery indignation of a powerfull God especially with this co-consideration that his treason had been committed against a Lord so gracious But whether this Gracious and great Lord God was the second Person the Lord of Glory our blessed Redeemer Christ Jesus as some will have it conceivd both of this and other apparitions in the old Testament I stay not to determine nor to enquire But thus far only this Note will easily fall upon and into our consciences if we resist not if we despight not the Spirit of this Grace Namely that we should bear an infinite derestation to sin which procured at first and hath that malignant properte intrinsick and everlasting in all successive sin and sinners to provoke still the anger and offence of a most gracious Lord and if so then to think further of that infinite Grace and Love and goodness which even after sin committed could procure that Lord to compassion and could draw so deep a descent of Mercy as to submit himself to his most bitter Passion whereby he gives every wounded soul a clear assurance in an open pardon sealed in his own blood and also in this very Name leaves an Intimation that all our disobedience all our foul and many and weighty sins fall yet within the measure and compass and cannot sink us past or beneath the mercies of a gracious Lord God And therefore we to raise our souls upon this double Name as on a pair of powerfull wings oversoaring despair and flying up into his bosom who is our hope and life our dread and Love our Judge indeed but yet our Advocate that calls to us Come to me and whose blood cryes for us and we therefore to cry to him with that Disciple newly awakened to that frightfull and that delightfull double sight at once both of his sin and his salvation in Christ which made him so resolutely and so cheerfully take and wreath these Names together with Mâ—us in the appliance Dominus Deus meus my Lord and my God 12. This instruction I know and so you will apprehend it fits far better with the â—exts of the new and yet is no stranger in the old Testament For even Isay and Malaâ—hy in their clear and frequent forementions of our Lord retain as well the Relishes of Evangelists as Prophets and David openly sings and playes him on his Harp as Evidently as Elegantly Nay not so vail'd in Moses but that this very place of Genesis so early in the worlds infancy reveals some think the very person sure we are the Office of our Lord and Saviour whose after-manifestation and coming to destroy the works the Devil had made is promised within six verses and call'd a bruising of the Serpents head 13. But let us pursue this same consideration another way that a gracious and so a glorious Lord and God is offended and by sin drawn to an opposition to an enmity with his beloved creature man The vileness of sin is many wayes discovered in the language of the Holy Ghost It is to a main height of expression when God descends to so low a comparison as that in Amos I am prest under your sins as a Care is prest under many sheafs My Rebellion my stubbornness is a dangerous sin done against my Prince or Pastor or Parents And my violences my cruelties are heavy sins because in them I oppress my brother as a good man it may be better in his eye that made us both then my self But did I ever understand till now that I may oppress him that is optimus maximus my God also Is it not enough to weary men sayes the Prophet but shall I dare to vex and weary my God also and afflict and grieve my gracious Lord and his Holy Spirit No wonder we find David complaining My sins are a sore burden too heavy for me to bear when Davids Lord tunes his voice to the same key Your sins are a sore burden too heavy for me to hear Dost thou not see O vain man by this the vileness the odiousness of thy sin which makes him impotent that is Omnipotent As also in that term of Abomination How frequent is the use thereof in holy Scripture to cause us to write this lesson into all our souls from thence Nothing makes us so ugly spectacles to that Lord our God as sin which causes him to turn his face away in displeasure not able to abide us in his sight nay forced to deny his own workmanship Depart I know you not thus making him ignorant that is Omniscient And yet above and beyond and beneath all these we may collect the height and breadth and depth of a sinners dangerous and fearfull condition by those speeches of anger and provocation The wrath of a King is as Messengers of death the Wise man tells us and he that provokes him to anger sins against his own soul What is it when we provoke the holy one of Israel to anger O Lord rebuke me not in thy anger if in that mood I be called into Judgement O Lord who is able to abide it And this is doubtless one of the depths of Satan one of his main aims in provoking us to sin that thereby God being provoked to anger may declare himself our enemy What shall we then say Men and Brethren What will we then do May we not then say justly that other Lords have unjustly reigned over us Infoelix Lolium steriles dominantur our base and barren lusts and pleasures have indeed justly by Gods permission and by way of punishment had dominion over us by our willing submission of our souls to their sway and tyranny And will we still do so continue in sin still make a mock of gross and grievous sins never startle or admit the least umbrage of remorse at open blasphemies and often Adulteries drunkennesses Are not such mens Souls and Bodies States and Children in a fearfull manner engaged to the wrath of God which they hourly provoke by these abominations Alas poor wretched man or woman however titled Preacher or Hearer Lawyer or Courtier Lord or Lady every wickedness every known sin I dwell and delight in and resolve on is not only a touching pitch whence inevitable defilement nor a carrying fire in my bosom impossible to escape detriment but is an opposition a rebellious outstanding and sleighting of my God enmity for the wrath of God is manifoldly proclaimed from Heaven and Wisdom cries it in the streets Gods Declaration we are not ignorant of and dare we then despise If I be a Lord where 's my fear What earthly Monarch the anointed of the Lord unless super-anointed with the spirit of patience and meekness above mortals can endure his lawfull Commands to be vilified And can we look for less then suddain execution of that wrath which is drawn out and ready to fall on sinners and hath been the sinners case from the beginning Adam was our first Father
saies he nor so loud but like as the Trumpet of the Law began low at first but now he presses the offenders conscience where first for Gods cause that is for Gods Glory let me crave again this advertency in your discerning what it is that calls us from sin The same Spirit that began in the Creation Revisits his own work and excels himself in thy Recreation It was God which call'd Abraham out of VR which signifies a fire or light and then brought him to a sweeter clearer fire and better and purer Light even that Light which was both revealed to the Gentiles after and remain'd the glory of his people Israel All the Israel of God united both Jews and Grecians bond or free on whom nor circumcision nor uncircumcision was regardable For those are nothing saies the Apostle what then is something Nay what is it then that is all things This only To become a new creature wherewith shall a yong man that is the sot the Prodigal in the Parable that hath wasted all his stock and is mad out of his right mind how shall this man that is troubled with the Scotomy and Vertigo a youthful wildness and unstayedness in his brains how shall he recover come to himself again and from his blinded and distempered flight find the way of Returning to hir heavenly Father This is hard but may be effected by taking heed according to thy Word There is a power in Nature but the wisdom of God shining in his Word by the joynt operation of his Spirit for these two ever work together is a power indeed mighty in operation to cast down the strong holds of Satan Not as it is the Ministry of men though the Dispensation be ours no not all those Clarious of his holy Prophets that spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost to which we do well to attend saies St. Peter as a more safe Word and as to a Light shining in a dark place till the day dawn till God send the marvailous light of his Gospel And then it is not in the Instruments Not in John greater then a Prophet and a stout and plain deliverer of the Truth and not a Reed shaken with the wind and bending his Doctrines to humour his variously inclin'd Audiences Nor in Paul thas was Os orbi sufficiens as that Golden-mouth'd father calls that blessed Apostle And all his Successors in any part of the world must know that their Voyces are but still and soft Musick and a sound qui aures percutit reaching only to the ear But the inward Minister of whom we heard before instructs the heart T is Gods Ephata that can do that That alone can call from the sleep and death of sin and from the grave of corruption Qui dixit sine me non potestis cogitare bene multo magis dixit sine me non potestis credere To believe is a greater work and of greater Grace and Power then to conceive a good thought Yet both those rich streams run from one and the same Fountain 7. But this Impotency will not be believ'd to press and lie on all mankind How gladly would some men find out some way in themselves whereby they might be less beholden to the Grace of God I Ungracious to God for his Grace and would gladly forget or fain to forget that God so incessantly remembers men with his preventing exciting with his inchoative and concomitant and subsequent and persevering Graces Graces of all sorts and all seasons Bold and presumptuous men that purposely neglect to magnifie the operations of Gods Graces on them because they would derive the Magnificat and Benidictus on themselves and so sacrifice to their own nets not looking up to the prime and constant mover of all not regarding the strong God of their Salvation There is indeed a Rate and a Sect of men who will perchance be content that God shall be kind and gracious to some feeble ones that stand in need of his assistance Sick and weak people may need the Physick of that Heavenly Doctor But not such able men such Saints and perfectists as they men that are wholly taken up with the admiration of themselves and their own purity Who yet must know that if they have been kept from falling into gross sins and are therefore apt to deride mine or any other mans weaknesses who have been and do confess as much frequently overtaken and overcome yet it is still the same gracious hand that hath done the several cures on both That God whose Grace was all the while a preservative to them was to me and him that slipt a Restorative Where is boasting then it is or it ought to be excluded and exploded out of all Christian books and out of all sober and religious brains and hearts Be not high-minded but fear is a Canon that uo wise man will cry down lest he fall with it For simply in the state of nature both he and I were even that is even able to do nothing as of our selves So far from being sure of Gods Election that we were not yet under this Grace of Vocation nor Law nor Gospel-calling and so without Christ so without God in the world Therefore here the exhortation is to be renew'd of calling upon God for this call and crying ardently unto the Throne of Grace that so we may obtain Grace to help us in time of need and that is at all times while we bear about flesh and blood wherein dwells corruption 8. Secondly Take notice of the mercy enlarg'd in this double call of God and this extension of the Voyce as in that to his Spouse Return O Shullamire Return Return and that convincing Interrogatory Why will you die As I live saies the Lord I would not the death of him that dies And this course we find God ever took sending his Prophets rising up early with many sweet invitements O come and taste how gracious the Lord is Come and drink of the waters of his Mercy freely And when those Prophets had spent their strength stretched out their hands in vain and had their cries returned in Reproiches and their reward was nothing but stones and persecutions then rose the Baptist with a new crie who was more then a Prophee then any son of man before him respecting the excellency of his Office in the present assignation of the Messiab and exhibiting the long longed for Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world He redoubled his crie in the wilderness of Repent and reason for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand so at hand that he could indigitate him that was and is the King of Heaven with his Ecce Agnus ' Dei Behold him that is come to call sinners to Repentance and Remission that hath brought abundance of Grace and Truth no more in Promise or Prophesie but in Act and personal performance and yet this John the Baptist you know how rewarded they extingnished this burning