compelled to come as it is expressed in the Gospell when the Master of the feast sends into the streets and to the hedges to compell blind and lame to come in to his feast A fountaine breaks out in the wildernesse but that fountaine cares not whether any Man come to fetch water or no A fresh and fit gale blowes upon the Sea but it cares not whether the Mariners hoise saile or no A rose blowes in your garden but it calls you not to smell to it Christ Jesus hath done all this abundantly he hath bought an Hospitall he hath stored it with the true balme of Palestine with his bloud which he shed there and he calls upon you all to come for it Hoe every one that thirsteth you that have no money come buy Wine and Milke without money eate that which is good and let your soules delight in fatnesse and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you even the sure mercies of David This Hospitall this way and meanes to cure spirituall diseases was all that Christ had for himselfe but he improved it he makes it a Church and a glorious Church which is our last consideration Quis sinis to what end he bestowed all this cost His end was that he might make it to himselfe a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle but that end must be in the end of all here it cannot be Cum tot a dicat ecclesia quamdiu hîc est Dimitte debita nostra non utique hîc est sine macula et ruga Since as yet the whole Church says forgive us our Trespasses the Church as yet is not without spots or wrinkles The wrinkles are the Testimonies of our age that is our sinne derived from Adam and the spots are the sinnes which we contract our selves and of these spots and wrinkles we cannot be delivered in this world And therefore the Apostle says here that Christ hath bestowed all this cost on this purchase ut sisteret sibi Ecclesiam that he might setle such a glorious and pure Church to himselfe first ut sisteret that he might setle it which can onely be done in heaven for here in Earth the Church will always have earthquakes Opartet haereses esse stormes and schismes must necessarily be the Church is in a warfare the Church is in a pilgrimage and therefore here is no setling And then he doth it ut sisteret sibi to setle it to himselfe for in the tyranny of Rome the Church was in some sort setled things were carried quietly enough for no Man durst complaine but the Church was setled all upon the Vicar and none upon the Parson the glory of the Bishop of Rome had eclipsed and extinguished the glory of Christ Iesus In other places we have seen the Church setled so as that no man hath done or spoken any thing against the government thereof but this may have been a setling by strong hand by severed discipline and heavy Lawes we see where Princes have changed the Religion the Church may be setled upon the Prince or setled upon the Prelates that is be serviceable to them and be ready to promote and further any purpose of theirs and all this while not be setled upon Christ this purpose ut sisteret sibi to setle such a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle holy to himselfe is reserved for the Triumphant time when she shall be in possession of that beauty which Christ foresaw in her long before when he said Thou art all faire my love and there is no spot in thee and when we that shall be the Children of the Mariage Chamber◠shall be glad and rejoice and give glory to him because the Mariage of the Lambe is come and his wife hath made her selfe ready that is we that are of that Church shall be so clothed as that our own clothes shall not defile us againe as Io◠complaines that they doe as long as we are in this world for though I make me never so cleane yet mine own clothes defile me againe as it is in that place But yet Beloved Christ hath not made so improvident a bargaine as to give so great a rate himselfe for a Church so farre in reversion as till the day of Judgement That he should enter into bonds for this payment from all eternity even in the eternall decree between the Father and him that he should really pay this price his precious bloud for this Church one thousand six hundred years agoe and he should receive no glory by this Church till the next world◠Here was a long lease here were many lives the lives of all the men in the world to be served before him But it is not altogether so for he gave himselfe that he might settle such a Church then a glorious and a pure Church but all this while the Church is building in heaven by continuall accesse of holy Soules which come thither and all the way he workes to that end He sanctifies it and cleanses it by the washing of water through the word as we find in our Text. He therefore stays not so long for our Sanctification but that we have meanes of being sanctified here Christ stays not so long for his glory but that he hath here a glorious Gospell his Word and mysterious Sacraments here Here then is the writing and the Seale the Word and the Sacrament and he hath given power and commandement to his Ministers to deliver both writing and Seale the Word and Baptisme to his children This Sacrament of Baptisme is the first It is the Sacrament of inchoation of Initiation The Sacrament of the Supper is not given but to them who are instructed and presum'd to understand all Christian duties and therefore the Word if we understand the Word for the Preaching of the Word may seeme more necessary at the administration of this Sacrament then at the other Some such thing seems to be intimated in the institution of the Sacraments In the institution of the Supper it is onely said Take and eate and drinke and doe that in remembrance of me and it is onely said that they sand a Pslame and s◠departed In the institution of Baptisme there is more solemnity more circumstance for first it was instituted after Christs Resurrection and then Christ proceeds to it with that majesticall preamble All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth◠and therefore upon that title he gives power to his Apostles to joine heaven and earth by preaching and by baptisme but here is more then singing of a Psalme for Christ commands them first to teach and then to baptize and then after the commandement of Baptisme he refreshes that commandement againe of teaching them whom they baptized to observe all things that he had commanded them I speake not this as though Baptisme were uneffectuall without a Sermon S. Angustines words Accedat yerbum fiat Sacramentum when the Word is
Verbum The word and his servants there talk of us here and pray to him for us They talked with him but of what They talked of hiâ— Decease says the text there which he should accomplish at Jerusalem all that they talked of was of his Passion All that we shall say and sing in heaven will be of his Passion accomplished at Jerusalem in that Hymn This Lamb hath redeemed as to God by his blood Worthy is the Lamb that was slaine to receive power and riches and wisdome and strength and honour and glory and blessing Amen Even our glory in heaven at last is not principally for our selves but to contribute to the glory of Christ Jesus If we inquire further then this into the state of our glorifyed bodies remember that in this reall Parable in this Type of the Resurrection the transfiguration of Christ it is said that even Beter himself wist not what to say and remember too That even Christ himself forbad them to say any thing at all of it till his Resurrection Till our Resurrection we cannot know clearly we should not speak boldly of the glory of the Saints of God nor of our blessed endowments in that state The summe of all is Fiducis Christianorum est resurrectio mortuorum My faith directs it self first upon that which Christ hath done he is dead he is risen and my hope directs it selfe upon that which shall bee done I shall rise again And yet says Luther Papa Cardinales primarii viri I know the Pope the Cardinals the Bishops are Iâ—genio doctrinâ ratione prudentiâ excellentes they abound in naturall parts in reading in experience in civill wisdome yet says he si tres sunt qui hunc â—â—ticulum indubitanter â—redunt If there be three amongst them that do faithfully and undoubtedly believe this article of the Resurrection of the body three are more then I look for amongst them Beloved as no things are liker one another then Court and Court the same ambitions the same underminings in one Court as in another so Church and Church is alike too All persecured Churches are religious all peaceable Churches are dissolute when Luther said that of the Church of Rome That few of them believed the Resurrection the Roman Church wall owed in all abundances and dissolutenesseâ— and scarce a man in respect opened his mouth against her otherwise then that the holy Ghost to make his continuall 〈◊〉 and to interrupt their prescription in every age raised up some to declare their impieties and usurpations But then when they bent all their thoughts entirely and prosperously upon possessing this world they thought they might spare the Resurrection well enough As hee that hath a plentifull fortune in Europe cares not much though there be no land of perfumes in the East nor of gold in the West-Indies God in our days hath given us and our Church the fat of the glory of this world too and we also neglect the other But when men of a different religion from them for they will needs call a differing from their errours a different Religion as though all their religion were errours for excepting errours we differ in no point when I say such men came to enquire into them to discover them and to induce or to attempt in divers parts of their government a reformation then they shut themselves up closer then they grew more carefull of their manners and did reform themselves somewhat though not thoroughly and are the better for that reformat on which was offered to them and wrought more effectually upon others As we say in the School that even the Devill is somewhat the better for the death of Christ so the Roman Church is somewhat the better for the Reformation Our assiduity of preaching hath brought them to another manner of frequency in preaching then before the Reformation they were accustomed to and our answers to their books have brought them to a more reserved manner of writing then they used before Let us therefore by their example make as good use of our enemies as our enemies have done of us For though we have no military enmity no hostility with any nation though we must all and doe out of a true sense of our duty to God pray ever for the continuance of peace amongst Christian Princes and to withhold the effusion of Christian blood yet to that intendment and in that capacity as they were our enemies in 88. when they provoked by their Excommunications dangerous invasions and in that capacity as they were our enemies in 603. when they bent their malice even against that place where the Laws for the maintenance of our religion were enacted so they are our enemies still if we be still of the same religion He that by Gods mercy to us leads us is as sure that the Pope is Antichrist now as he was then and we that are blessedly led by him are as sure that their doctrine is the doctrine of Devils now as we were then Let us therefore make use of those enemies and of their aery insolences and their frothy confidences as thereby to be the firmer in our selves and the carefuller of our children and servants that we send not for such a Physitian as brings a Roman Priest for his Apothecary nor entertain such a School-master as brings a Roman Priest for his Vsher nor such a Mercer as brings a Priest for his Tayler for in these shapes they have and will appear But in true faith to God true Allegiance to our Prince true obedience to the Church true dealing with all men make our selves sure of the Resurrection in the next life In carne incorruptibili in flesh that shall bee capable of no corruption by having that resurrection in this life in carne incorruptâ in devesting or correcting the corruptions which cleave to our flesh here that we bee not corrupted spiritually not disputed out of our Religion nor jeasted out nor threatened out nor bought out nor beat out of the truth of God nor corrupted carnally by the pleasures or profits of this world but that wee may conforme our selves to the purity of Christ Jesus in that measure which wee are able to attain to which is our spirituall Resurrection and constitutes our second part That Kingdome of God which flesh and blood may inherit in this life From the beginning we setled that That the primary purpose of the Apostle in these words was to establish the doctrine of the last Resurrection But in Tertullians exposition Arrabonem dedit arrabonem accepit That God hath left us the earnest of his Spirit upon earth and hath taken the earnest of our flesh into heaven it grew indifferent of which Resurrection spirituall or bodily first or last it be accepted but take Tertullian in another place upon the verse immediately preceding our Text Sicut portavimus portemus for so Tertullian reads that place and so does the Vulgate As we
purpose Can I put an Euge upon his vae a vacat upon his Fiat a Nonobstante upon his Amen God is not man not a false man that he can lie nor a weake man that he can repent Where then is the restorative the consolatory nature of these words In this beloved consists our comfort that all Gods vae's and Amens all judgments and all his executions are Conditionall There is a Crede vives Beleeve and thou shalt live there is a Fac hoc vives doe this and thou shalt live If thou have done otherwise there is a Converte vives turne unto the Lord and thou shalt live If thou have done so and fallen off there is a Revertere vives returne againe unto the Lord and thou shalt live How heavy so ever any of Gods judgements be yet there is always roome for Davids question Quis scit who can tell whether God will be gracious unto mee What better assurance could one have then David had The Prophet Nathan had told David immediately from the mouth of God this child shall surely dye and ratified it by that reason because thou hast given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme this child shall surely dye yet David fasted and wept and said who can tell whether the Lord will be gratious unto me that the child may live There is always roome for Davids question Quis scit who can tell Nay there is no roome for it as it is a question of diffidence and distrust every man may and must know that whatsoever any Prophet have denounced against any sinne of his yet there are conditions upon which the Lord will be gracious and thy soule shall live But if the first condition that is Innocency and the second that is Repentance be rebelliously broken then every man hath his vae and every vae hath his Amen the judgements are denounced against him and upon him they shall bee executed for God threatens not to fright children but the Mountains melt and Powers and Thrones and Principalities tremble at his threatning And so have you the doubled signification of the first word vae as it is vox Dolentis and as it is Vox minantis God is loath but God will infallibly execute his judgement and we proceed to the extension of this vae over all vae mundo woe unto the world and the double signification of that word I have wondred sometimes that that great Author and Bishop in the Roman Church Abulensis is so free as to confesse that some Expositors amongst them have taken this word in our Text Mundo adjectivè not to signify the world but a clean person a free man that it should be vae immuni woe unto him that is free from offences that hath had no offences perchance they mean from crosses And so though it be a most absurd and illiterate and ungrammaticall construction of the place that they make yet there is a doctrine to bee raised from thence of good use As God brought light out of darknesse and raises glory out of sin so we may raise good Divinity out of their ill Grammar for vae mundo indeed vae immuni woe be unto him that hath had no crosses There cannot be so great a crosse as to have none I lack one loaf of that dayly bread that I pray for if I have no crosse for afflictions are our spirituall nourishment I lacke one limb of that body I must grow into which is the body of Christ Jesus if I have no crosses for my conformity to Christ and that 's my being made up into his body must be accomplished in my fulfilling his sufferings in his flesh So that though our adversaries out of their ignorance mislead us in a wrong sense of the place the Holy Ghost leads us into a true and right use thereof But there is another good use of their error too another good doctrine out of their ill Grammar Take the word mundo adjectivè for an adjective and vae mundo vae immuni wo unto him that is so free from all offences as to take offence at nothing to be indifferent to any thing to any Religion to any Discipline to any form of Gods service That from a glorious Masse to a sordid Conventiâ—le all 's one to him all one to him whether that religion in which they meet and light candles at Noon or that in which they meet and put out candles at midnight what innovations what alterations what tolerations of false what extirpations of true Religion soever come it shall never trouble never offend him 'T is true Vae mundo indeed wo unto him that is so free so unsensible so unaffected with any thing in this kinde for as to bee too inquisitive into the proceedings of the State and the Church out of a jealousie and suspicion that any such alterations or tolerations in Religion are intended or prepared is a seditious disaffection to the government and a disloyall aspersion upon the persons of our Superiours to suspect without cause so not to be sensible that the Catterpillars of the Roman Church doe eat up our tender fruit that the Jesuites and other enginiers of that Church doe seduce our forwardest and best spirits not to be watchfull in our own families that our wives and children and servants be not corrupted by them for the Pastor to sâ—acken in his duty not to be earnest in the Pulpit for the Magistrate to slacken in his not to be vigilant in the execution of those Laws as are left in his power vae mundo vae immuni woe unto him that is unsensible of offences Jealously suspiciously to mis-interpret the actions of our Superiours is inexcusable but so is it also not to feel how the adversary gains upon us and not to wish that it were and not to pray that it may be otherwise vae mundo vae immuni wo to him that is un-offended unsensible thus But as I have wondred that that Bishop would so easily confesse that some of their Expositors were so very unlearned so barbarously ignorant so enormously stupid as to take this vae mundo adjective so doe I wonder more that after such confessions and acknowledgements of such ignorances and stupidities amongst them they will not remedy it in the cause but still continue so rigid so severe in the maintenance of their own Translation their Vulgate Edition as in places and cases of doubt not to admit recourse to the Originall as to the Supreme Judge nor to other Translations for by either of those ways it would have appeared that this vae mundo could not be taken adjectivè but is a cloud cast upon the whole world a woe upon all no place no person no calling free from these scandals and offences from tentations and tribulations when there was a vae Sodom that God raigned fire and brimstone upon Sodom yet there was a Zoar where Let might be safe When there was a
it should be Unto you that beleeve saith Saint Peter it is a precious stone but unto the disobedient a stone to stumble at for if a man walke in a gallery where windowes and tables and statues are all of marble yet if he walke in the darke or blindfold or carelesly he may breake his face as dangerously against that rich stone as if it were but brick So though a man walke in the true Church of God in that Jerusalem which is described in the Revelation the foundation the gates the walls all precious stone yet if a man bring a mis-belief a mis-conceipt that all this religion is but a part of civill government and order if a man be scandalized at that humility that patience that poverty that lowlinesse of spirit which the Christian Religion inclines us unto if he will say Si Rex Israel If Christ will be King let him come downe from the Crosse and then we will beleeve in him let him deliver his Church from all crosses first of doctrine and then of persecution and then we will beleeve him to be King if we will say Nolumus hunc regnare we will admit Christ but we will not admit him to reign over us to be King if he will be content with a Consulship with a Collegueship that he the world may joyn in the government that we may give the week to the world and the Sabbath to him that we may give the day of the Sabbath to him and the night to our licentiousnesse that of the day we may give the forenoon to him and the afternoon to our pleasures if this will serve Christ we are content to admit him but Nolumus regnare we will none of that absolute power that whether we eat or drink or whatsoever we doe we must be troubled to thinke on him and respect his glory in every thing If he will say Praecepit Angelis God hath given us in charge to his Angels and therefore we need not to look to our own ways He hath locked us up safely and lodged us softly under an eternall election and therefore we are sure of salvation if he will walke thus blindely violently wilfully negligently in the true Church though he walke amongst the Saphires and Pearls and Chrysolytes which are mentioned there that is in the outward communion and fellowship of Gods Saints yet he may bruise and break and batter himselfe as much against these stones as against the stone Gods of the heathen or the stone Idols of the Papists for first the place of this falling upon this stone is the true Church Qui jacet in terra he that is already upon the ground in no Church can fall no lower till he fall to hell but he whom God hath brought into his true Church if he come to a confident security that he is safe enough in these outward acts of Religion he falls though it be upon this stone he erreth though in the true Church This is the place then the true Church the falling it selfe as farre as will fall into our time of consideration now is a falling into some particular sinne but not such as quenches our faith wee fall so as we may rise againe Saint Hierome expresseth it so Qui cadit tamen credit he that falls but yet beleeves that fals and hath a sense of his fall reservatur per paenitentiam ad salutem that man is reserved by Gods purpose to come by repentance to salvation for this man that fals there fals not so desperately as that he feeles nothing between hell and him nothing to stop at nothing to check him by the way Cadit super he falls upon some thing nor he falls not upon flowers to wallow and tumble in his sinne nor upon feathers to rest and sleep in his sinne nor into a cooling river to disport and refresh and strengthen himself in his sinne but he falls upon a stone where he may receive a bruise a pain upon his fall a remorse of that sinne he is fallen into And in this fall our infirmitie appears three wayes The first is Impingere in lapidem To stumble for though he be upon the right stone in the true Religion and have light enough yet Impingimus meredie as the Prophet saith even at noon we stumble we have much more light by Christ being come then the Jewes had but we are sorry we have it when Christ hath said to us for our better understanding of the Law He that looketh and lusteth hath committed Adultery He that coveteth hath stollen He that is angry hath murdered we stumble at this and we are scandalized with it and we thinke that other Religions are gentler and that Christ hath dealt hardly with us and we had rather Christ had not said so we had rather he had left us to our libertie and discretion to looke and court and to give a way to our passions as we should finde it most conduce to our ease and to our ends And this is Impingere to stumble not to goe on in an equall and even pace not to doe the will of God cheerefully And a second degree is calcitrare to kick to spurre at this stone that is to bring some particular sinne and some particular Law into comparison To debate thus if I doe not this now I shall never have such a time if I slip this I shall never have the like opportunitie if I will be a foole now I shall be a begger all my life and for the Law of God that is against it there is but a little evill for a great deale of good and there is a great deale of time to recover and repent that little evill Now to remove a stone which was a landmarke and to hide and cover that stone was all one fault in the Law to hide the will of God from our owne Consciences with excuses and extenuatious this is calcitrare as much as we can to spurn the stone the landmarke out of the way but the fulnesse and accomplishment of this is in the third word of the Text Cadere to fall he falls as a piece of money falls into a river we heare it fall and we see it sink and by and by we see it deeper and at last we see it not at all So no man falleth at first into any sinne but he heares his own fall There is a tendernesse in every Conscience at the beginning at the entrance into a sinne and he discerneth a while the degrees of sinking too but at last he is out of his owne sight till he meete this stone this stone is Christ that is till he meete some hard reprehension some hard passage of a Sermon some hard judgement in a Prophet some crosse in the World some thing from the mouth or some thing from the hand of God that breaks him He falls upon the stone and is broken So that to be broken upon this stone is to come to this sense
proceedings by the benefit of those helps shall but aggravate our condemnation Alpha and Omega make up the Name of Christ and between Alpha and Omega are all the letters of the Alphabet included A Christian is made up of Alpha and Omega and all between He must begin well imbrace the true Church and live well according to the profession of that true Church and die well according to that former holy life and practise Truth in the beginning Zeale all the way and Constancie in the end make up a Christian. Otherwise for all this filiation children may be disinherited or submitted to such calamities as these which are interminated upon the children of Israel which constitute our second part They shall be without a King and without a Prince and without a Sacrifice and without an Ephod and without a Teraphim Disobedient children are not cast off but yet disobedience is not left uncorrected Be mercifull but mercifull so as your Father in Heaven is mercifull Be not so mercifull upon any private respect as to be thereby cruell to the publique And be Iust but just as your Father in Heaven is just Hate not the vice of a man so as thereby to hate the man himself God hath promised to be an enemy to our enemies an adversary to our adversaries but God is no irreconciliable enemy no implacable no inexorable Adversary For that hatred which David calls Odium perfectum I have hated them with a perfect hatred is not onely a vehement hatred but as Saint Hilary calls it Odium religiosum a hatred that may consist with religion That I hate not another man for his religion so as that I lose all religion in my self by such a hating of him And Saint Augustine calls it Odium Charitativum a hate that may consist with Charitie that I hate no man for his peremptory uncharitablenesse towards my religion so as to lose mine own Charity for I am come to one point of his religion if I come to be as uncharitable as he God and Kings are at a near distance All gods Magistrates and inferiour persons are at a near distance all dust As God proceeds with a King with Iehosaphat in that temper that moderation Shouldst thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord So men with men Magistrates with inferiour men learned men with ignorant men should proceed with Saint Pauls moderation If any man obey not but be refractary unconformable note that man saith the Apostle and have no company with him but yet count him not as an enemy The union of the two Natures in Christ give us a faire example that Divinity and Humanity may consist together No Religion induces Inhumanity no Piety no Zeal destroyes nature and since there is a time to hate and a time to love then is love most seasonable when other civill contracts civill alliances civill concurrences have soupled and intenerated the dispositions of persons or nations formerly farther asunder to a better possibility to a fairer probability to a nearer propinquity of hearkning to one another That Christ might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Crosse having slain the enmity thereby Civill Offices may worke upon religions too and where that may follow That our mildnesse in civill things may prevail upon their obduration in religion there is the time to love But in cases where civill peace and religious foundations are both shaked that the State and the Church as they are both in one bottome so they are chased by one Pirate I hate not with a perfect hatred not perfect towards God except I declare and urge and presse home the truth of God against their errours in my Ministery nor perfect towards man except I advance in my place the execution of those Lawes against their practises without which they are inabled nay incouraged nay perswaded nay intreated to goe forward in those practises God himself proceeds against his own children so farre and dearer then those children were to God can no friends be to us no allies to any Prince That they should be without King without Prince without Sacrifice without Image without Ephod without Teraphim that is without Temporall without Ecclesiasticall Government First then we presume we presuppose and that necessarily every peece of this part of our Text to fall under the Commination they were threatned with the losse of every particular and therefore they were the worse for every particular losse Not the worse onely because they thought themselves the worse because they had fixed their love and their delight upon these things but because they were really the better for having them it was really a curse a Commination that they should lose them as well that they should lose their Ephod and their Image and their Teraphim as that they should lose their Sacrifices But first though that other fall also within the Commination that they should be without a setled form of Religion without Sacrifice and Ephod and the rest the first thing that the Commination falls upon is That they should be without a Civill form of government without King and without Prince For though our Religion prepare us to our Bene esse our well-being our everlasting happinesse yet it is the State the civill and peaceable government which preserves our very Esse our very Being and there cannot be a Bene esse without an Esse a well and a happy Being except there be first a Being established It is the State the Law that constitutes Families and Cities and Propriety and Magistracy and Jurisdiction The State the Law preserves and distingâ—â—shes not onely the Meum Tuum the Possessions of men but the Me Te the very persons of men The Law tels me not onely whose land I must call every Acre but whose son I must call every man Therefore God made the Body before the Soule Therefore there is in man a vegetative and a sensitive soule before an immortall and reasonable soule enter Therefore also in this place God proposes first the Civil State the temporall Government what it is to have a King and a Prince before he proposes the happinesse of a Church and a Religion not but that our Religion conduces to the greater happinesse but that our Religion cannot be conserved except the Civil State and temporall Government be conserved too The first thing then that the Commination fals upon is the losse of their Temporall State But the Commination doth not fall so fully upon the exclusion of all formes of Government as upon the exclusion of Monarchy It does not so expresly threaten an Anâ—â—chy that they should have no Government no Governours It is not sine Regimine but sine Rege If they had any they should not have the best They should be without a King Now if with S. Hierome and others that accompany him in that interpretation we take the Prophecy of this Text to be fulfilled
from their blasphemous over-boldnesse who constitute a propitiatory Sacrifice in the Church of Rome as from their over-tendernesse who startle at the name of Sacrifice We doe not as at Rome first invest the power of God and make our selves able to make a Christ and then invest the malice of the Jews and kill that Christ whom we have made for Sacrifice Immolation taken so properly and literally as they take it is a killing But the whole body of Christs actions and passions we sacrifice wee represent wee offer to God Calvin alone hath said enough Non possumus except we be assisted with outward things wee cannot fixe our selves upon God Therefore is it part of the malediction here that they shall be sine Sacrificio without Sacrifice so is it also in inferiour helps sine Ephod they shall be without an Ephod The Ephod amongst the Jews was a garment which did not onely distinguish times for it was worne onely in time of divine Service but even in time of divine Service it distinguished persons too For we have a Pontificall Ephod peculiar onely to the high Priest And we have a Leviticall Ephod belonging to all the Levites Samuel ministred before the Lord being a child girded with a linnen Ephod And wee have a common Ephod which any man that assisted in the service of God might weare That linnen Ephod which David put on in that Procession when he daunced before the Ark. But all these Ephods were bound under certain Laws to be worn by such men and at such times Christs garment was not divided nay the Soldiers were not divided about it but agreed in one way And shall wee the Body of Christ bee divided about the garment that is vary in the garment by denying a conformity to that Decency which is prescribed When Christ devested or supprest the Majesty of his outward appearance at his Resurrection Mary Magdalen took him but for a Gardiner Ecclesiasticall persons in secular habits lose their respect Though the very habit bee but a Ceremony yet the distinction of habits is rooted in nature and in morality And when the particular habit is enjoyned by lawfull Authority obedience is rooted in nature and in morality too In a Watch the string moves nothing but yet it conserves the regularity of the motion of all Rituall and Ceremoniall things move not God but they exalt that Devotion and they conserve that Order which does move him Therefore is it also made a part of the Commination that they shall be sine Ephod without these outward Rituall and Ceremoniall solemnities of a Church first without Sacrifices which are more substantiall and essentiall parts of Religion as wee consider Religion to be the outward worship of God and then without Ephod without those other assistances which though they be not of Gods Revenue yet they are of his Subsidies and though they be not the soule yet are the breath of Religion And so also is it of things of a more inferiour nature then Sacrifice or Ephod that is of Image and Teraphim which is our next and last Consideration Both these words that which is translated and called Image and that which is not translated but kept in the originall word Teraphim have sometimes a good sometimes a bad sense in the Scriptures In the First Image there is no difficulty good and bad significations of that word are obvious every where And for the other though when Rachel stole her fathers Teraphim Images though when the King of Babylon consulted with Teraphim Images the word Teraphim have an ill sense yet when Michal Davids wife put an Image into his bed to elude the fury of Saul there the word hath no ill sense Accept the words in an Idolatrous sense yet because they fall under the commination and that God threatens it as a part of their calamity that they should bee without their Idols it hath beene not inconveniently argued from this place that even a Religion mixt with some Idolatry and superstition is better then none as in Civill Government a Tyranny is better then an Anarchy And therefore we must not bring the same indisposition the same disaffection towards a person mis-led and soured with some leaven of Idolatry as towards a person possest with Atheisme And yet how ordinarily wee see zealous men start and affected and troubled at the presence of a Papist and never moved never forbeare the society and conversation of an Atheist Which is an argument too evident that wee consider our selves more then God and that peace which the Papist endangers more then the Atheist which is the peace of the State and a quiet enjoying our ease above the glory of God which the Atheist wounds and violates more then the Papist The Papist withdraws some of the glory of God in ascribing it to the Saints to themselves and their own merits but the Atheist leaves no God to be glorified And this use we have of these words Images and Teraphim if they should have an ill sense in this place and signifie Idols But Saint Hierome and others with him take these words in a good sense to bee the Cherubim and Palmes and such other representations as God himselfe had ordained in their Temple and that the Commination falls upon this That in some cases it may bee some want to bee without some Pictures in the Church So farre as they may conduce to a reverend adoring of the place so farre as they may conduce to a familiar instructing of unlettered people it may be a losse to lack them For so much Calvin out of his religious wisdome is content to acknowledge Fateor ut res se habet hodiè c. I confesse as the case stands now says hee speaking of the beginning of the Reformation there are many that could not bee without those Bookes as hee calls those Pictures because then they had no other way of Instruction but that that might bee supplied if those things which were delivered in picture to their eyes were delivered in Sermons to their eares And this is true that where there is a frequent preaching there is no necessity of pictures but will not every man adde this That if the true use of Pictures bee preached unto them there is no danger of an abuse and so as Remembrancers of that which hath been taught in the Pulpit they may be retained And that was one office of the Holy Ghost himselfe That he should bring to their remembrance those things which had been formerly taught them And since by being taught the right use of these pictures in our preaching no man amongst us is any more enclined or endangered to worship a picture in a Wall or Window of the Church then if he saw it in a Gallery were it onely for a reverent adorning of the place they may bee retained here as they are in the greatest part of the Reformed Church and in all that that is
Wives They were preferred before all that liv'd unmaryed but not before maryed persons This fortification and rampart of the World Mariage hath the Devill battered with most artillery opposed with most instruments for as an Army composed of many Nations more sects of Heretiks have concurr'd in the condemning of Mariage then in any one Heresie The Adamites the Tatians and those whom Irenaeus cals the Encratites all within two thousand years after Christ and more after And yet God kept such a hook in the nostril of this Leviathan such a bridle in the jaws of these sects of Heretiks as that never any of them so opposed Mariage as that they justifyed Incontinency or various lust or Indifferency or Community in that kinde Now as in the Pelagian Heresie those that came to modify and mollify that Heresie and to be Semi-Pelagians were in some points worse then those that were full Pelagians as truly in many Cases the half-papist may doe more harme and be more dangerous then the whole Papist that declares himself so the Semi-Adamites the Semi-Tatians and Semi-Encratites of the Romane Church who though they doe not as those whole Heretiks did condemn mariage intirely yet they condemn it in Certaine persons and in so many as constitute a great part of the Body of mankinde that is in all their Clergy exceed those very heretiks in favour of incontinency and fornication and various lusts which those Heretiks who absolutely condemned Mariage condemned too as absolutely whereas in the Roman Church a Jesuit tels us that there are divers Catholiks of that opinion That it is not Heresie to say that Fornication is no deadly sinne And yet it is Heresie to say that Mariage in some persons onely disabled by their Canons is not deadly sinne And when they erect and justify their Academies of Incontinency and various lust various even in the sex if some Authors among themselves have not injur'd them when they maintaine publik stews and maintaine their dignity by them and make that a part of the Revenue of the Church what Advocate of theirs can deny but that these Semi-Adamites Semi-Tatians Semi-Encratites are worse then those Heretiks themselves that did absolutely oppose Mariage We depart absolutely from those old Heretiks who did absolutely condemn Mariage and from those latter men who though they be but Semi-Heretiks in respect of them because they limit their forbidding of Mariage to certaine persons yet they are sequi-Heretiks in this that they countenance Incontinency and Fornication which those very heretiks abhorred And wee must have leave too which we are alwaies loath to doe to depart from the rigidness of some of those blessed Fathers of the Primitive Church who found some necessities in their times to speak so very highly in praise of Continency and Chastity as reflected somewhat upon mariage it selfe and may seem to emply some under-valuation of that Many such things were so said by Tertullian many by S. Hierome as being crudely and nudely taken not decocted and boyl'd up with the circumstances of those times not invested with the knowledge of those persons to whom they were written might diminish and dishonor mariage But Tertullian in his most vehement perswasion of Continency writes to his own wife and S. Hierome for the most part to those Ladies whom he had taken into his own discipline and with one of which he had so near a conversation as that as himself saies the world was scandaliz'd with it and that the world thought him fit to have been made Pope but for that misconstruction which had been made of that his conversation with that Lady Tertullian writing to his Wife S. Hierome to those Ladies may either have had particular reasons of this vehement proceeding of theirs in advancing Continency or they may have conceived that way of persuasion of continency to those persons to have been a fit way to convey down to posterity the love thereof As Dionysius the Areopagite sayes That the Church in those times at funerals did convey their thankes to God for the party deceased by way of Prayer they seemed to pray that those dead persons might be sav'd and indeed they did but praise God that they were sav'd So Tertullian and S. Hierome when they seem to perswade Continency to those persons they do but tell us how continent those persons were But howsoever it be for that no such magnifying of Virginity before as should diminish the honour and dignity of Mariage no such magnifying of Continency after as should frustrate the purpose of Mariage after or the returning to a second Mariage after a true dissolution of the first can subvert or contract the Apostles Nubant in Domino Let them mary in the Lord where the In Domino in the Lord is not to mary for matter of Title and place nor In Domino In the Lord is not to mary for matter of Lordships and possessions and worldly preferment nor In Domino In the Lord is not in hope to exercise a Dominion and a Lordship over the other party but In the Lord is in the feare of the Lord In the love of the Lord In the Law that is in the true Religion of the Lord for this is that that makes the mariages of Christians Contracts of another kinde then the mariages of other people are with all people of the world mariage is as fully the same Reall and Civill and Morall Contract as with us Christians The same Obligations of mutuall help of fidelity and loyalty to one another and of communication of all their possessions lies upon mariage in Turky or China as with us But for Mariage amongst Christians Sacramentum hoc magnum est saies the Apostle This is a great secret a great mystery Not that it is therefore a Sacrament as Baptisme and the Lords Supper are Sacraments For if they will make mariage such a sacrament because it is expressed there in that word Magnum sacramentum they may come to give us an eight sacrament after their seven They may translate that name which is upon the mother of Harlots and abominations of the earth sacrament if they will for it is the same word in that place of the Revelation which they translate Sacrament in the other place to the Ephesians And in the next verse but one they doe translate it so there I will tell thee saies the Angel Sacramentum mulieris the Sacrament of Babylon Now if all the mysteries and secrets of Antichrist all the confused practises of that Babylon all the emergent and occasionall articles of that Church and that state-State-religion shall become Sacraments we shall have a Sacrament of Equivocation a Sacrament of Invasion a Sacrament of Powder a Sacrament of dissolving allegeance sacraments in the Element of Baptism in the water in navies and Sacraments in the Elements of the Eucharist in Blood in the sacred blood of Kings But Mariage amongst Christians is herein Magnum mysterium A Sacrament in such
a sense a mysterious signification of the union of the soule with Christ when both persons professe the Christian Religion in generall there arises some signification of that spirituall union But when they both professe Christ in one forme in one Church in one Religion and that the right then as by the Civill Contract there is an union of their estates and persons so as that they two are made one so by this Sacramentall this mysterious union these two thus made one between themselves are also made one with Christ himself by the Civill union common to all people they are made Eadem caro The same flesh with one another By this mysterious this Sacramentall this significative union they are made Idem Spiritus cum Domino The same Spirit with the Lord. And therefore though in the Resurrection they shall not mary because then all the severall uses of mariage cease yet till the Resurrection that is as long as this world lasts for the sustentation of the world which is one Body and Mariage the food and aliment thereof for the reparation of the world which is one Building and Mariage the supply thereof to maintaine a second eternity in the succession of children and to illustrate this union of our soules to Christ we may and in some Cases must marry We are come in our order proposed at first to our second Part Erimus sicut Angeli we shall be as the Angels of God in heaven where we consider first what we are compared to those Angels And then in what that Comparison lies wherein we shall be like those Angels And lastly the Proposition that flowes out of this proposition In the Resurrection we shall be like them Till the Resurrection we shall not and therefore in the meane time we must not looke for Angelicall perfections but beare with one anothers infirmities Now when we would tell you what those Angels of God in heaven to which we are compared are we can come no nearer telling you that then by telling you we cannot tell The Angels may be content with that Negative expressing since we can express God himselfe in no clearer termes nor in termes expressing more Dignity then in saying we cannot expresse him Onely the Angels themselves know one another and one good point in which we shall be like them then shall be that then we shall know what they are we know they are Spirits in Nature but what the nature of a spirit is we know not we know they are Angels in office appointed to execute Gods will upon us but How a spirit should execute those bodily actions that Angels doe in their owne motion and in the transportation of other things we know not we know they are Creatures but whether created with this world as all our later men incline to think or long before as all the Greeke and some of the Latin Fathers thought we know not we know that for their number ◠and for their faculties also there may be one Angel for every man but whether there be so or no because not onely amongst the Fathers but even in the Reformed Churches in both sub-divisions Lutheran and Calvinist great men deny it and as great affirme it we know not we know the Angels know they understand but whether by that way which we call in the Schoole Cognitionem Matutinam by seeing all in God or that which we call Verspertinam by a clearer manifestation of the species of things to them then to us we know not we know they are distinguished into Orders the Apostle tells us so but what or how many their Orders are since S. Gregory and S. Bernard differ from that Designe of their nine orders which S. Denis the Areopagite had given before in placing of those nine and Athanasius addes more to those nine we know not But we are content to say with S. Augustine Esse firmissimè credo quaenam sint nescio that there are distinct orders of Angels assuredly I beleeve but what they are I cannot tell Dicant qui possunt si tamen probare possunt quod dicunt saies that Father Let them tell you that can so they be able to prove that they tell you true They are Creatures that have not so much of a Body as flesh is as froth is as a vapor is as a sigh is and yet with a touch they shall molder a rocke into lesse Atomes then the sand that it stands upon and a milstone into smaller flower then it grinds They are Creatures made and yet not a minute elder now then when they were first made if they were made before all measure of time began nor if they were made in the beginning of Time and be now six thousand yeares old have they one wrinckle of Age in their face or one sobbe of wearinesse in their lungs They are primogeniti Dei Gods eldest sonnes They are super-elementary meteors they hang between the nature of God and the nature of man and are of middle Condition And if we may offencelessely expresse it so they are anigmata Divina The Riddles of Heaven and the perplexities of speculation But this is but till the Resurrection Then we shall be like them and know them by that assimilation We end this branch with this consideration If by being like the Angels we shall know the Angels we are more then like ourselves we are our selves why doe we not know our selves Why did not Adam know that he had a Body that might have been preserved in an immortality and yet submitted his body and mine and thine and theirs who by this union are to be made one and all that by Gods goodnesse shall be derived from them to certaine to inevitable Death Why doe not we know our owne Immortality that dwells in us still for all Adams fall and ours in him that immortality which we cannot devest but must live for ever whether we will or no To know this immortality is to make this immortality which otherwise is the heaviest part of our Curse a Blessing unto us by providing to live in Immortall happinesse whereas now we doe so little know our selves as that if my soule could aske one of those Wormes which my dead body shall produce Will you change with me that worme would say No for you are like to live eternally in torment for my part I can live no longer then the putrid moisture of your body will give me leave and therefore I will not change nay would the Devill himselfe change with a damned soule I cannot tell As we argue conveniently that the Devil is tormented more then man because the Devill fel from God without any other Tempter then himselfe but man had a Tempter so may it be not inconveniently argued too that man may be more tormented then he because man continued and relapsed in his rebellions to God after so many pardons offered and accepted which the Devill never had Howsoever otherwise their torments
need not the Scriptures reason will evict it forceibly enough against all the world but when I come beyond all Philosophy that for Adams fault six thousand year agoe I should be condemned now because that fault is naturally in me I must find reason before I beleeve this and my reason is because I find it in the Scrpiture Nascimur filii Irae and therefore nifi renatus we are borne children of wrath and therefore must be borne againe That a Messias should come to deliver Mankind from this sinne and all other fins my reason is the Semen mulieris the seed of the woman for the promise and the Ecce agnus Dei Behold the Lambe of God for the performance That he should come I reft in that The seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head And that he is come I rest in this that Iohn Baptist shewed the Lambs of God that taketh away the sinnes of the world That this merit of his should be applied to certaine Men my reason is in the Semini two Gods Covenant to Abraham and to his seed That we are of that number included in that Covenant to Abraham my reason is in spiritu adoptionis the spirit of adoption hath ingraffed us inserted us into the same Covenant When my reason tells me that the Seale of that Covenant Circumcision is gone I am not circumcised and therefore might doubt my reason tells me too that in the Scriptures there is a new Seals Baptisme when my reason tells mee that after that regeneration I have degenerated againe I have fallen from those graces which I received in Baptisme my reason leades mee againe to those places of Scripture where God hath established a Church for the remession and absolution of sinnes If I have been negligent of all these helpes and now my reason beginnes to worke to my prejudice that I beginne to gather and heape up all those places of the Law and Prophets and Gospell which threaten certaine condemnation unto such sinners as I find my selfe to bee yet if my reason can see light at the Nolo mortem peccatoris at the Quandocunque resipiscct That God would not the death of any sinner That no time is unseasonable for repentance That scatters the clands of witnesses againe and to till my reason can tell me which it can never doe that it hath found places in Scripture of a measure and finitenesse in God that his mercy can goe no farther and then of an infinitenesse in Man that his finne can goe beyond God my reason will defend me from desperation I meane the reason that is grounded upon the Scripture still I shall find there that Quia which David delighted in so much as that he repears it almost thirty times in one Psalm For his mercy endureth for ever God leaves no way of satisfaction unperformed unto us sometimes he workes upon the phantasie of Man as in those often â—isions which he presented to his Prophets in dreames sometimes he workes upon the senses by preparing objects for them So he filled the Mountaine round about with horses and chariots in defense of Elisha but alwayes he workes upon our reason he bids us feare no judgment he bids us hope for no mercy except it have a Quia a reason a foundation in the Scriptures For God is Logos speech and reasone He declares his will by his Word and he proved it he confirmes it he is Logos and he proceeds Logically It is true that we have a Sophistry which as farre as concerns our owne destruction frustrates his Logique If Peter make a Quia a reason why his fellowes could not bee drunke Because it was but nine a Clocke wee can find Men that can overthrow that reason and rise drunke out of their beds If Christ make a Quia a reason against fashionall and Circumstantiall christians that doe sometimes some offices of religion out of custome or company or neighborhood or necessity because no man peecethan old garment with new cloth nor puts new wine into old vessells yet since S. Augustine says well Carnalitas vetustas gratia novitas our carnall delights are our old garments and those degrees and beames of grace which are shed upon us are the new we do peece this old with this new that is long habits of sin with short repentances flames of concupiscence with little sparks of remorse and into old vessells our sin-worne bodies we put in once a year some drops of new wine of the bloud of our Saviour Christ Iesus in the Sacrament when we come to his table as to a vintage because of the season and we receive by the Almanack because it is Easter and this new wine so taken in breakes the vessells as Christ speakes in that similitude And his breaking shall be as the breaking of a Potters pot which is broken without pity and in the breaking thereof is not found a shard to take fire at the hearth nor to take water out of the pit No way in the Church of God to repaire that Man because he hath made either a Mockery or at best but a Civil action of Gods institution in the Church To conclude this all sin is but fallacy and Sophistry Religion is reason and Logique The devill hides and deludes Almighty God demonstrates and proves That fashion of his goes through all his precepts through all his promises which is in Esay Come now and let us reason together that which was in Iob is a bundantly in God That he did not contemne the judgment of his servant nor of his maid when they did contend with him Nec decet Dei judicium quicquid habere affine tyrannidi we may not think that here is any thing in God like a Tyran and it is a Tyrannicall proceeding as to give no reason of his cruelties so to give no assurance of his benefits and therefore God seales his promises with a Quia a reason an assurance Now much of the strength of the assurance consists in the person whose seale it is and therefore as Christ did we aske next Cujus inscriptio whose Image whose inscription is upon his seale who gives this assurance And it is the Lambe that is in the midst of the throne If it werethe Lion the Lion of the tribe of Iuda is able to perform his promises but there are more then Christ out of this world that beare the Lion The devill is a Lion too that seeketh whom he may devoure but he never seales with that Lambe with any impression of humility to a Lambe he is never compared in the likenesse of a lambe he is never noted to have appeared in all the Legends It is the Lambe that is in the midst thereby disposed to shed and dispense his spirituall benefits on all sides The Lambe is not immured in Rome not coffined up in the ruines and tubbidge of old wals nor thrust into a corner in Conventicles The Lambe
It was then his Deed and it was his gift it was his Deed of gift and it hath all the formalities and circumstances that belong to that for here is a seale in his blood and here is a delivering pregnantly implied in this word which is not onely Dedit he gave but Tradidit he delivered First Dedit he gave himselfe for us to his Father in that eternall Decree by which he was Agnus occisus ab origine mundi The Lamb slain from the beginning of the world And then Tradidit he delivered possession of himselfe to Death and to all humane infirmities when he took our Nature upon him and became one of us Yea this word implies a further operativenesse and working upon himself then all this for the word which the Apostle uses here for Christ giving of himselfe is the same word which the Evangelists use still for Iudas betraying of him so that Christ did not onely give himselfe to the will of the Father in the eternall Decree nor onely deliver himselfe to the power of death in his Incarnation but he offered he exhibited he exposed we may say he betrayed himselfe to his enemies and all this for worse enemies to the Iewes that Crucified him once for us that make finne our sport and so make the Crucifying of the Lord of life a Recreation It was a gift then free and absolute Hee keeps us not in fear of Resumption of ever taking himselfe from the Church again nay he hath left himself no power of Revocation I am with you sayes he to the end of the world To particular men he comes he knocks and he enters and he stays and hesups and yet for their unworthinesse goes away again but with the Church he is usque ad consummationem till the end It is a permanent gift Dedit and Dedit seipsum It was he that did it That which he did was to give and that which he gave was himselfe Now since the Holy Ghost that is the God of unity and peace hath told us at once that the satisfaction for our sins is Christ himselfe and hath told us no more Christ entirely Christ altogether let us not divide and mangle Christ or tear his Church in pieces by froward and frivolous difputations whether Christ gave his divinity for us or his humanity whether the divine Nature or the humane Nature redeemed us for neither his divinity nor his humanity is Ipse He himselfe and Dedit seipsum He gave himselfe Let us not subdivide him into lesse pieces then those God and Man and enquire contentiously whether he suffered in soul as well as in body the pains of Hâ—ll as well as the sting of Death the Holy-Ghost hath presented him unite and knit together For neither soul nor body was Ipse He himselfe and Dedit seipsum He gave himselfe let us least of all shred Christ Iesus into lesse scruples and atoms then these Soul and body and dispute whether consisting of both it were his active or his passive obedience that redeemed us whether it were his death and passion onely or his innocency and fulfilling of the Law too let us onely take Christ himselfe for onely that is said he gave himselfe It must be an Innocent person and this Innocent person must die for us seperate the Innocency and the Death and it is not Ipse it is not Christ himselfe and Dedit seipsum it was himselfe Let us abstain from all such curiosities which are all but forc'd dishes of hot brains and not sound meat that is from all perverse wranglings whether God or Man redeemed us and then whether this God and Man suffered in soule or in body and then whether this person consisting of soule and body redeemed us by his action or by his passion onely for as there are spirituall wickednesses so there are spirituall wantonnesses and unlawfull and dangerous dallyings with mysteries of Divinity Money that is changed into small pieces is easily lost gold that is beat out into leaf-gold cannot be coyned nor made currant money we know the Heathens lost the true God in a thrust they made so many false gods of every particular quality and attribute of God that they scattered him and evacuated him to an utter vanishing so doth true and sound and nourishing Divinity vanish away in those impertinent Questions All that the wit of Man adds to the Word of God is all quicksilver and it evaporates easily Beloved Custodi Depositum sayes the Apostle keep that which God hath revealed to thee for that God himselfe cals thy Talent it hath weight and substance in it Depart not from thy old gold leave not thy Catechism-divinity for all the School-divinity in the world when we have all what would we have more if we know that Christ hath given himselfe for us that we are redeemed and not redeemed with corruptible things but with the precious blood of Christ Jesus we care for no other knowledge but that Christ and Christ crucified for us for this is another and a more peculiar and profitable giving of himselfe for thee when he gives himselfe to thee that is when he gives thee a sense and apprehension and application of the gift to thy self that Christ hath given himselfe to thy selfe We are come now to his exchange what Christ had for himselfe when he gave himselfe And he had a Church So this Apostle which in this place writes to the Ephesians when he preached personally to the Ephesians he told them so too The Church is that Quam acquisivit sanguine suo which he purchased with his bloud Here Christ bought a Church but I would there were no worse Simony then this Christ received no profit from the Church and yet he gave himselfe for it and he stayes with it to the end of the world Here is no such Non-residency as that the Church is left unserved other men give enough for their Church but they withraw themselves and necessary provision And if we consider this Church that Christ bought and paid so dearly for it was rather an Hospitall then a Church A place where the blind might recover sight that is Men borne in Paganisme or Superstition might see the true God truly worshipped and where the lame might be established that is those that Halted between two Religions might be rectified in the truth where the Deaf might receive so quicke a hearing as that they might discerne Musique in his Thunder in all his fearefull threatnings that is mercy in his Judgments which are still accompanied with conditions of repentance and they might finde Thunder in his Musique in all his promises that is threatnings of Judgements in our misuse of his mercies Where the hereditary Leper the new borne Child into whose marrow his fathers transgression cleaves in originall sinne and he that hath enwrapped Implicatos morbos one disease in another in Actuall sinnes might not onely come if he would but be intreated to come yea
was come and gone for so much as belonged to the accomplishing of the types of the old law then Christ came againe to us by water and bloud in that wound which he received upon his side from which there flowed out miraculously true water true bloud This wound Saint Augustine calls Ianuam utriusque Sacramenti the doore of both sacraments where we see he acknowledges but two and both presented in this water and bloud and so certainely doe most of the fathers make this wound if not the foundation yet at least a sacrament of both the sacraments And to this water and bloud doth the Apostle here without doubt aime principally which he onely of all the Evangelists hath recorded and with so great asseveration and assurednesse in the recording thereof He that saw it bare record and his record is true and he knoweth that he saith truth that yee might beleeve it Here then is the matter which these six witnesses must be beleeved in here is Integritas Iesu quae non solvenda the intirenesse of Christ Jesus which must not be broken That a Saviour which is Iesus appointed to that office that is Christ figured in the law by ablutions of water and sacrifices of bloud is come and hath perfected all those figures in water and bloud too and then that he remaines still with us in water and bloud by meanes instituted in his Church to wash away our uncleannesses and to purge away our iniquities and to apply his worke unto our Soules this is Integritas Iesu Iesus the sonne of God in heaven Jesus the Redeemer of man upon earth Jesus the head of a Church to apply that to the end this is Integritas Iesu all that is to be beleeved of him Take thus much more that when thou comest to hearken what these witnesses shall say to this purpose thou must finde something in their testimony to prove him to be come not onely into the world but into thee He is a mighty prince and hath a great traine millions of ministring spirits attend him and the whole army of Martyrs follow the Lambe wheresoever he goes Though the whole world be his Court thy soule is his bedchamber there thou maist contract him there thou maist lodge and entertaine Integrum Iesum thy whole Saviour And never trouble thy selfe how another shall have him if thou have him all leave him and his Church to that make thou sure thine owne salvation When he comes to thee he comes by water and by bloud If thy heart and bowels have not yet melted in compassion of his passion for thy soule if thine eyes have not yet melted in tears of repentancâ— and contrition he is not yet come by water into thee If thou have suffered nothing for sinne nor found in thy selfe a chearfull disposition to suffer if thou have found no wresting in thy selfe no resistance of Concupiscences he that comes not to set peace but to kindle this war is not yet come into thee by bloud Christ can come by land by purchases by Revenues by temporall blessings for so he did still convey himselfe to the Jewes by the blessing of the land of promise but here he comes by water by his owne passion by his sacraments by thy tears Christ can come in a mariage and in Musique for so he delivers himselfe to the spouse in the Canticles but here he comes in bloud which comming in water and bloud that is in meanes for the salvation of our soules here in the militant Church is the comming that he stands upon and which includes all the Christian Religion and therefore he proves that comming to them by these three great witnesses in heaven and three in earth For there are three which beare record in heaven The Father the word and the holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three which bear record in the earth The spirit and the water and the bloud and these three agree in one By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be confirmed says Christ out of the law That 's as much as can be required in any Civill or Criminall businesse and yet Christ gives more testimony of himselfe for here he produces not Duos testes but Duas Classes two rankes of witnesses and the fullest number of each not two but three in heaven and three in earth And such witnesses upon earth as are omni exceptione majores without all exception It is not the testimony of earthly men for when Saint Paul produces them in abundance The Patriarch the Iudges the Prophets the elders of the old times of whom he exhibits an exact Catalogue yet he calls all them but Nubes testium cloudes of witnesses for though they be cloudes in Saint Chrysostomes sense that they invest us and enwrap us and so defend us from all diffidence in God we have their witnesse what God did for them why should we doubt of the like though they be cloudes in Athanasius sense they being in heaven showre downe by their prayers the dew of Gods grace upon the Church Though they be cloudes they are but cloudes some darkenesse mingled in them some controversies arising from them but his witnesses here are Lux inaccessibilis that light that no eye can attaine to and Pater Luminum the father of lights from whom all these testimonies are derived When God imployed a man to be the witnesse of Christ because men might doubt of his testimony God was content to assigne him his Compurgators when Iohn Baptist must preach that the kingdome of God was at hand God fortifies the testimony of his witnesse then Hic enim est for this is he of whom that is spoken by the prophet Esay and lest one were not enough he multiplies them as it is written in the prophets Iohn Baptist might be thought to testifie as a man and therefore men must testifie for him but these witnesses are of a higher nature these of heaven are the Trinity and those of earth are the sacraments and seales of the Church The prophets were full of favor with God Abraham full of faith Stephen full of the Holy Ghost many full of grace and Iohn Baptist a prophet and more then a prophet yet never any prophet never any man how much soever interessed in the favor of Almighty God was such an instrument of grace as a sacrament or as Gods seales and institutions in his Church and the least of these six witnesses is of that nature and therefore might be beleeved without more witnesses To speake then first of the three first the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost it was but a poore plot of the devill to goe about to rob us of their testimony for as long as we have the three last the spirit the water and bloud we have testimony enough of Christ because God is involved in his ordinance and though he be not tyed to the worke of the
cannot inherit this Kingdome of God I cannot have it by purchase by mine own merits and good works It is neither my former good disposition nor Gods fore-sight of my future cooperation with him that is the cause of his giving mee his grace I cannot have this by Covenant or by the gift or bequeathing of another by works of Supererogation that a Martyr of the primitive Church should send mee a violl of his blood a splinter of his bone a Collop of his flesh wrapped up in a halfe sheet of paper in an imaginary six-penny Indulgence from Rome and bid mee receive grace and peace of Conscience in that I cannot have it by purchase I cannot have it by gift I cannot have it by Curtesie in the right of my wife That if I will let her live in the obedience of the Roman Church and let her bring up my children so for my selfe I may have leave to try a Court or a worldly fortune and bee secure in that that I have a Catholique wife or a Catholique child to pray and merit for mee I have no title to this Kingdome of God but Inheritance whence growes mine Inheritance Ex semine Dei because I am propagated of the seed of God I inherit this peace Whosoever is born of God doth not commit finne for his seed remaineth in him and hee cannot sinne because hee is born of God That is hee cannot desire to sinne Hee cannot antidate a sinne by delighting in the hope of a future sin and sin in a praefruition of his sinne before the act Hee cannot post-date a sinne delight in the memory of a pastsinne and sin it over againe in a post-fruition of that sinne Hee cannot boast himself of sinne much lesse bely himself in glorying in sinnes never done Hee cannot take sinnes dyet therefore that hee may bee able to sinne againe next Spring Hee cannot hunger and thirst and then digest and sleepe quietly after a sinne and to this purpose and in this sense Saint Bernard says Praedestinati non possunt peccare That the Elect cannot sinne And in this also That when the sinnes of the Elect are brought to tryall and to judgement there their sinnes are no sinnes not because they are none in themselves but because the blood of Jesus covering them they are none in the eyes of God I am Heir then as I am the Son of God born of the seed of God But what is that seed Verbum Dei the seed is the word of God Of his own will beg at he us says that Apostle with the word of truth And our Saviour himselfe speaks very clearly in expounding the Parable The seed is the word of God We have this Kingdome of God as we have an inheritance as we are Heirs we are Heirs as we are Sons we are Sons as we have the seed and the seed is the Word So that all ends in this We inherit not this Kingdome if we possesse not the preaching of the Word if we professe not the true â—ligion still for the word of this text which we translate to inherit for the most part in the translation of the Septuagint answers the Hebrew word Nachal and Nachal is Haereditas cum possessione not an inheritance in reversion but in possession Take us O Lord for thine inheritance says Moses Et possideas nos as Saint Hâ—erome translates that very place Inherit us and Possesse us Et erimus tibi whatsoever we are we will bee thine says the Septuagint You see then how much goes to the making up of this Inheritance of the Kingdome of God in this world First Vt habeamus verbum That we have this seed of God his word In the Roman Church they have it not not that that Church hath it not not that it is not there but they the people that have it not and then Vt possideamus That we possesse it or rather that it possesse us that we make the Word the onely rule of our faith and of our actions In the Roman Church they do not so they have not pure wheat but mestlin other things joyned with this good seed the word of God and lastly Vt simus Deo That we be his that we be so still that we doe not begin with God and give over but that this seed of God of which we are born may as Saint Peter says be incorruptible and abide for ever that wee may be his so entirely and so constantly as that we had rather have no beeing then for any time of suspension or for any part of his fundamentall truth be without it and this the Roman Church cannot be said to do that expunges and interlines articles of faith upon Reason of State and emergent occasions God hath made you one says the Prophet who bee the parties whom God hath maryed together and made One in that place you and your religion as our expositors interpret that place And why One says the Prophet there That God might have a godly seed says he that is a continuation a propagation a race a posterity of the same religion Therefore says he Let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth Let none divorce himself from that religion and that worship of God which God put into his armes and which he embraced in his Baptism Except there be errour in fundamentall points such as make that Church no Church let no man depart from that Church and that religion in which he delivered himself to the service of God at first Wo be unto us if we deliver not over our religion to our posterity in the same sincerity and the same totality in which our Fathers have delivered it us for that that continuation is that that makes it an inheritance for to conclude this every man hath an inheritance in the Law and yet if he be hanged he is hanged by the Law in which hee had his inheritance so wee have our inheritance in the Word of God and yet if wee bee damned we are damned by that Word If thy heart turn away so as that thou worship other Gods I denounce unto you this day that you shall surely perish So then wee have an inheritance in this Kingdome if we preserve it and we incurre a forfeiture of it if wee have not this seed The Word the truth of Religion so as that we possesse it that is conform our selves to him whose Word it is by it and possesse it so as that we persevere in the true profession of it to our end for Perseverance as well as Possession enters into our title and inheritance to this Kingdome You see then what this Kingdome of God is It is when he comes and his welcome when he comes in his Sacraments and speaks in his Word when he speaks and is answered knocks and is received he knocks in his Ordinances and is received in our Obedience to them he knocks in his example and most holy
when Epaphras had declrared unto him their love and when upon so good testimony of their disposition he had a desire that they might be fulfilled with knowledge of Gods will in all wisdome and spirituall understanding as he says verse 9. when he knew how farre they had proceeded in mysteries of the Christian Religion and that they had a spirituall hunger of more then it was seasonable to present to them this great point that Christ had suffered throughly sufficiently aboundantly for the reconciliation of the whole world and yet that there remained some sufferings and those of Christ too to be fulfilled by us That all was done and yet there remained more to be done that after Christs consummatum est which was all the text there should be an Adimplendum est interlined that after Christ had fulfilled the Law and the Prophets by his sufferings Saint Paul must fulfill the residue of Christs sufferings was a doctrin unseasonably taught till they had learnt much and shewed a desire to learn more In the Primitive Church men of ripe understandings were content to think two or three yeares well spent in learning of Catechisms and rudiments of Christian Religion and the greatest Bishops were content to think that they discharged their duties well if they caâ—echized ignorant men in such rudiments for we know from Gennaâ—dius an Ecclesiasticall author that the Bishops of Greece and of the Eastern Church did use to con S. Cyrils sermons made at Easter and some other Festivals without book and preached over those Sermons of his making to Congregations of strong understanding and so had more time for their Caâ—echizing of others Optatus thinks that when Saint Paul says Ego plantavi Apollos rigavit I planted the faith and Apollos watered he intended in those words Ego de pagano feci catechumenum ille de catechumeno Christianum That Saint Paul took ignorant persons into his charge to catechize them at first and when they were instructed by him Apollos watered them with the water of Baptism Tertullian thought hee did young beginners in Christianity no wrong when he called them catulos infantiae reâ—entis nec perfectis luminibus reptantes Young whelps which are not yet come to a perfect use of their eyes in the mysteries of Religion Now God hath delivered us in a great measure from this weaknesse in seeing because we are catechized from our craâ—â—â—s and from this penury in preaching we need not preach others Sermons nor feed upon cold meat in Homilies but wee are fallen upon such times too as that men doe not thinke themselves Christians except they can tell what God meant to doe with them before he meant they should bee Christians for we can be intended to be Christians but from Christ and wee must needs seek a Predestination without any relation to Christ a decree in God for salvation and damnation before any decree for the reparation of mankind by Christ every Common-placer will adventure to â—each and every artificer will pretend to understand the purpose yea and the order too and method of Gods eternall and unrevealed decree Saint Paul required a great deal more knowledge then these men use to bring before he presented to them a great deal a lesse point of Doctrin then these men use to aske This was then the Nunc illis their season when they had humbly received so much of the knowledge of the fundamentall points of Religion Saint Paul was willing to communicate more and more stronger and stronger meat unto them That which he presents here is that which may seem least to appertain to a Christian that is loy because a Christian is a person that hath surrendred himself over to a sad and serious and a severe examination of all his actions that all bee done to the glory of God but for all this this joy true joy is truly properly onely belonging to a Christian because this joy is the Testimony of a good conscience that wee have received God so as God hath manifested himself in Christ and worshipt God so God hath ordained In a true Church there are many tesserae externae outward badges and marks by which others may judge and pronounce mee to bee a true Christian But the tessera internaâ— the inward badge and marke by which I know this in my selfe is joy The blessednesse of heaven it selfe Salvation and the fruits of Paradise that Paradise which cannot be expressed cannot be comprehended have yet got no other name in the subtilty of the Schools nor in the fulnesse of the Scriptures but to be called the joys of heaven Essentiall blessednesse is called so Enter into thy Masters joy that is into the Kingdome of heaven and accidentall happinesse added to that essentiall happinesse is called so too There is joy in heaven at the conversion of a sinner and so in the Revelaâ—ion Rejoyce ye heavens and yee that dwell in them for the aâ—câ—ser of our brethren is cast downâ— There is now joy even in heaven which was not there before Certainly as that man shall never see the Father of Lights after this to whom the day never breaks in this life As that man must never look to walk with the Lamb wheresoever he goes in heaven that ranne away from the Lamb whensoever he came towards him in this life so he shall never possesse the joyes of heaven hereafter that feels no joy here There must be joy here which Tanquam Cellulae mellis as Saint Bernard says in his mellifluous language as the honey-comb walles in and prepares and preserves the honey and is as a shell to that kernell so there must bee a joy here which must prepare and preserve the joys of heaven it self and be as a shell of those joys For heaven and salvation is not a Creation but a Multiplication it begins not when wee dye but it increases and dilates it self infinitely then Christ himself when he was pleased to feed all that people in the wildernesse he asks first Quot panes habetis how many loafes have you and then multiplyed them abundantly as conduced most to his glory but some there was before When thou goest to eat that bread of which whosoever eates shall never dye the bread of life in the Land of life Christ shall consider what joy thou broughtest with thee out of this world and he shall extend and multiply that joy unexpressibly but if thou carry none from hence thou shalt find none there Hee that were to travell into a far country would study before somewhat the map and the manners and the language of the Country Hee that looks for the fulnesse of the joyes of heaven hereafter will have a taste an insight in them before he goe And as it is not enough for him that would travail to study any language indifferently were it not an impertinent thing for him that went to lye in France to study Dutch So if wee pretend to make the joys
nor that melancholy that dampes me in a jealousie and suspicion a diffidence and distrust in God The Devill had no hand in composing me in my constitution But the Devill knows which of these govern and prevail in me and ministers such tentations as are most acceptable to me and this is Scandalum amoris the scandall of Love So have ye then the Name and Nature and extent of the Active Scandall against which the inhibition given in this Text is generall wee are forbidden to scandalize any person by any of these ways The scandall of Example or the scandall of Perswasion The scandall of Fear or the scandall of Love For there is scarce any so free to himselfe so entirely his own so independent upon others but that Example or Perswasion or Fear or Love may scandalize him that is Lead him into tentation and make him doe some things against his own mind Our Saviour Christ had spoken De pusillis of little children of weak persons easie to be scandalized before this Text and he returns ad pusillos to the consideration of little children persons easie to bee scandalized again this Text is not of them or not of them onely but of all say not thou of any man aetatem habet he is old enough let him look to himselfe he hath reason as other men have he hath had a learned and a religious education ill example can doe him no harm but give no ill example to any study the setling and the establishing of all for scarce is there any so strong but may bee shaked by some of these scandals Example Perswasion Fear or Love And hee that employs his gift of wit and Counsell to seduce and mislead men or his gift of Power and Authority to intimidate and affright men or his gift of other graces lovelinesse of person agreeablenesse of Conversation powerfulnesse of speech to ensnare and entangle men by any of these scandals may draw others into perdition but he falls also with them and shall not be left out by God in the punishments inflicted upon them that fall by his occasion The Commandement is generall scandalize none scarce any but may bee overthrown by some of these ways And then the Apostles practise was generall too we give no occasion of offence in any thing As he requires that wee should eat and drinke to the glory of God so hee would have us study to avoid scandalizing of others even in our eating and drinking If meat make my brother to offend offend either in eating against his own conscience or offend in an uncharitable mis-interpretation of my eating In aeternum says the Apostle there I will eat no flesh while the world standeth Nor destroy my brother with my meat for whom Christ dyed That 's the Apostles tendernesse in things He would give no occasion of offence in any thing And it is as generall in contemplation of persons he would have no offence given neither to the Iew nor to the Grecian nor to the Church of God He was as carefull not to scandalize not to give just occasion of offence to Jew not Gentile as not to the Church of God so must we be towards them of a superstitions religion amongst us as carefull as towards one another not to give any scandall any just cause of offence But what is to be called a just cause of offence towards those men Good ends and good ways plain and direct and manifest proceedings these can be called no scandall no just cause of offence to Jew nor Gentile to Turk nor Papist nor does Saint Paul intend that we should forbear essentiall and necessary things for fear of displeasing perverse and peevish men To maintain the doctrinall truths of our religion by conferences by disputations by writing by preaching to avow and to prove our religion to be the same that Christ Jesus and his Apostles proposed at beginning the same that the generall Councels established after the same that the blessed Fathers of those times unanimely and dogmatically delivered the same that those glorious Martyrs quickned by their death and carryed over all the world in the rivers in the seas of their blood to avow our religion by writing and preaching to be the same religion an then to preserve and protect that religion which God hath put into our hearts by all such meanes as hee hath put into our hands in the due execution of just Laws this is no scandall no just cause of offence to Jew not Gentile Turke nor Papists But when leaving fundamentall things and necessary truths we wrangle uncharitably about Collaterall impertinencies when wee will refuse to doe such things as conduce to the exaltation of Devotion or to the order and peace of the Church not for any harme in the things but onely therefore because the Papists doe them when because they kneel in the worship of the bread in the Sacrament wee will not kneel in Thanksgiving to God for the Sacrament when because they pray to Saints we will reproach the Saints or not name the Saints when because they abuse the Crosse we will abhor the Crosse This is that that Saint Paul protests against and in that protestation Catechizes us that as he would give no just occasion of offence to the true Church of God so neither would hee doe it to a false or infirme Church He would not scandalize the true Church of God by any modifications any inclinations towards the false nor hee would not scandalize the false and infirme Church by refusing to communicate with them in the practise of such things as might exalt our Devotion and did not endanger nor shake any foundation of religion which was the wisdome of our Church in the beginning of the Reformation when the Injuctions of our Princes forbad us to call one another by the odious names of Papist or Papisticall Heretique or Schismatique or Sacramentary or such convitions as the word of the Injunction is and reprâ—achfull names but cleaving always intirely and inseparably to the fundamentall truths of our own religion as farre as it is possible we should live peaceably with all men Saint Paul would give no offence to the true Church of God he would not prevaricate nor to the Jew nor Gentile neither he would not exasperate And this may bee enough to have been said of the active scandallâ— and passe we now in our order to the Passive It is no wonder to see them who put all the world into differences the Jesuits to differ sometimes amongst themselves And therefore though the Jesuit Maldonat say of this Text That Christ did not here intend to warne or to arm his Disciples against scandals as scandals occasions of sin but onely from offering injury to one another That scandall in this text is nothing but wrong yet another Jesuit Vincemius Rhegius is not onely of another opinion himselfe but thinks that opinion as he calls it absurd It is absurd says he
that That if his feet were washed all was clean And as in his own person he admitted nails in his feet as wel as in his hands so crucifie thy hands abstain froÌ„ unjust actions but crucifie thy feet too make not one step towards the way of Idolaters or other sinners If we watch not the ingressus sum we shall be insensible of the supergressae sunt If we look not to a sin when it comes towards us we shal not be able to look towards it when it is got over us for if a man come to walk in the counsel of the ungodly he wil come to fit in the seat of the scornful for that 's the sinners progress in the first warning that David gives in the beginning of his 1 t Psal. If he give himself leave to enter into sinful ways he wil sit sin at ease make a jest of sin he that loveth danger shal perish therein So have you then the nature of sin it was sin it was sin that oppressed him and the propriety of sin it was his sin actuall sin and the plurality of sin habituall customary sin and the victory of sin they had been long climing and were now got up to a height and this height exaltation of theirs is expressed thus super caput Mine iniquities are got above my head S. Augustine who truly had either never true copy of the Bible or else cited sometimes as the words were in his memory and not as they were in the Text he reads not these words so supergressae super caput but thus sustulerunt caput And so he interprets the words not that his sins had got over his head and depressed his head subdued and subjugated his head but that they had extoll'd his head made him life his head high and say Who is the Lord Sursum tellitur says he upon this place cui erigitur caput contra Deum his head is exalted who is set against God And certainly that 's a desperate state in sin when a man thinks himself the wiser or the better or the more powerfull for his sin That he can the better stand upon his own legs or the lesse needs the assistance of God because he hath prosper'd in the world by the ways of sin S. August is an useful mistaking but it is a mistaking But to pursue the right word and the true meaning of this metaphoricall expressing supergressae caput My sins are got above my head sin may be got to our foot yet not to the eye A man may stray into company of tentations yet not be tempted A man may make a covenant with his eye that he will not see a maid Sin may come to the eye yet the hand be above water we may look lust yet by Gods watchfull goodnes studious mercy escape action But if it be above our head then the brain is drown'd that is our reason and understanding which should dispute against it and make us asham'd of it or afraid of it And our memory is drown'd we have forgot that there belongs a repentance to our sins perchance forgot that there is such a sin in us forgot that those actions are sins forgot that we have done those actions and forgot that there is a law even in our own hearts by which we might try whether our actions were sins or no. If they be above our heads they are so in many dangerous acceptations Of which the first is that they cover our heads sicut tectum sicut fornix as a roof as an arch as a separation between God and us Your iniquities have separated between you and your God says the Prophet A wall of separation between man and man even in the service of God there was always a wall of Gods making that is the Ceremoniall Law by which God enclos'd the Iews from the Gentiles But this was but a side wall and Christ threw it down He is our peace says the Apostle and hath made of both one and hath broken the stop of the partition wall This he did when he opened the Gentiles a way into his religion This wall was the distinction between the Iew Gentile when the Iew call'd the ignominiously Incircumcisos uncircumcised and they call'd the Iews with as much scorn Recutitos Apellas when the Iew wondred at the Gentises eating of unclean things and the Gentiles wondred to hear them call things of as good nourishment as their clean meats uncleane when the Iew placed his holinesse in singularity and ceremonies of distinction and the Gentiles call'd that but a pride in them and a scornefull detestation of their neighbours And truly it is a lamentable thing when ceremoniall things in matter of discipline or problematicall things in matter of doctrine come so farre as to separate us from one another in giving ill names to one another Zeal is directed upon God and charity upon our brethren but God will not be seen but by that spectacle not accept any thing for an act of zeal to himself that violates charity towards our brethren by the way Neither should we call any man Lutheran or Calvinist or by any other name ignominiously but for such things as had been condemned in Luther or Calvin and condemned by such as are competent Judges between them and us that is by the universall or by our own Church This wall then between the Iew and Gentile as it was the ceremony it self and not the abuse of it God built and Christ threw downe There are outward things Ceremoniall things in the worship of God that are temporary and they did serve God that brought them in and they doe serve God also that have driven them out of the Church because their undeniable abuse had clog'd them with an impossibility of being restor'd to that good use which they were at first ordained for of which the brazen serpent is evidence enough God set up a wall which God himself meant should be demolish'd again Such another wal as well as the Devil can imitate Gods workmanship the Devil hath built now in the Christian Church and hath morter'd it in the brains bloud of men in the sharp and virulent contentions arisen and fomented in matters of Religion But yet says the Spouse My well belâ—ved stands behind the wall shewing himself through the grates he may be seen on both sides For all this separation Christ Jesus is amongst us all and in his time will break downe this wall too these differences amongst Christians make us all glad of that name the name of Christians without affecting in our selves or inflicting upon others other names of envy and subdivision But besides this wall of Gods making the Ceremoniall law this wall of the Devils making dissention in Christian Churches there is a wall of our own making a roof an arch above our heads by which our continuall sins have separated God and us God had
Though mine iniquities be got over my head as a wall of separation yet in Christo omnia possum In Christ I can doe all things Mine iniquities are got over my head but my head is Christ and in him I can doe whatsoever hee hath done by applying his sufferings to my soule for all my sins are his and all his merit is mine And all my sins shall no more hinder my ascending into heaven nor my sitting at the right hand of God in mine own person then they hindered him who bore them all in his person mine onely Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus blessed for ever SERMON XXIV Preached at White-Hall EZEK 34. 19. And as for my flock they eate that which yee have troen with your feet and they drink that which yee have foulded with your feet THose four Prophets whom the Church hath called the great Prophets Esay and Ieremy Ezekiel and Daniel are not onely therefore called great because they writ more then the lesser Prophets did for Zecbary who is amongst the lesser writ more then Daniel who is amongst the greater but because their Prophecies are of a larger comprehension and extent and for the most part speake more of the comming of Christ and the establishing of the Christian Church then the lesser Prophets doe who were more conversant about the temporall deliverance of Israel from Babylon though there be aspersions of Christ and his future government in those Prophets too though more thinly shed Amongst the four great ones our Prophet Ezekiel is the greatest I compare not their extraction and race for though Ezekiel were de genere sacerdotali of the Leviticall and Priestly race And as Philo Iudâ—us notes all nations having some markes of Gentry some calling that ennobled the professors thereof in some Armes and Merchandize in some and the Arts in others amongst the Iews that was Priesthood Priesthood was Gentry though Ezekiel were of this race Esay was of a higher for he was of the extraction of their Kings of the bloud royall But the extraordinary greatnesse of Ezekiel is in his extraordinary depth and mysteriousnesse for this is one of those parts of Scripture as the beginning of Genesis and the Canticles of Solomon also are which are forbid to be read amongst the Iews till they come to be thirty years old which was the Canonicall age to be made Priests In so much that Saint Gregory says when he comes to expound any part of this Prophet Noctunum iter ago that he travelled by night and did but ghesse at his way But besides that many of the obscure places of the Prophets are more open to us then they were to the ancients because many of those prophecies are now fulfilled and so that which was Prophecy to them is History to us in this place which we have now undertaken there never was darknesse not difficulty neither in the first emanation of the light thereof nor in the reflection neither in the Literall nor in the Figurative sense thereof for the literall sense is plainly that that amongst the manifold oppressions under which the Children of Israel languished in Babylon this was the heaviest that their own Priests joyned with the State against them and infused pestilent doctrines into them that so themselves might enjoy the favour of the State and the people committed to their charge might slacken their obedience to God and surrender themselves to all commandements of all men This was their oppression the Church joyned with the Court to oppresse them Their own Priests gave these sheep grasse which they had troden with their feet doctrines not as God gave them to them but as they had tampered and tempered them and accommodated them to serve turnes and fit their ends whose servants they had made themselves more then Gods And they gave them water to drink which they had troubled with their feet that is doctrines mudded with other ends then the glory of God And that therefore God would take his sheep into his own care and reduce them from that double oppression of that Court and that Church those Tyrannous officers and those over-obsequious Priests This is the literall sense of our text and context evident enough in the letter thereof And then the figurative and Mysticall sense is of the same oppressions and the same deliverance over againe in the times of Christ and of the Christian Church for that 's more then figurative fully literall soon after the Text I will set up one shepheard my servant David And I will raise up for them a plant of renoune which is the same that Esay had called A rod out of the stem of Iesse and Ieremy had called A righteous brâ—nch a King thus should raigne and prosper This prophecy then comprehending the kingdome of Christ it comprehends the whole kingdome of Christ not onely the oppressions and deliverances of our forefathers from the Heathen and the Heretiques in the Primitive Church but that also which touches us more nearly the oppressions and deliverance of our Fathers in the Reformation of Religion and the shaking off of the yoak of Rome that Italian Babylon as heavy as the Chaldâ—an We shall therefore at this time fix our meditations upon that accommodation of the Text the oppression that the Israel of God was under then when he delivered them by that way the Reformation of Religion and consider how these metaphors of the holy Ghost The treading with their feet the grasse that the sheep were to eae and the troubling with their feet the water that the sheep were to drink doe answer and set out the oppressions of the Roman Church then as lively as they did in the other Babylon And so having said enough of the primary sense of these words as they concern Gods Israel in the first Babylon and something by way of commemoration and thankfulnesse for Gods deliverance of his Israel from the persecutions in the Primitive Church insist we now upon the severall metaphors of the Text as the holy Ghost continues them to the whole reigne of Christ and so to the Reformation First the greatest calamity of those sheep in Babylon was that their own shepherds concurred to their oppression In Babylon they were a part but in Rome they were all In Babylon they joyned with the State but in Rome they were the State Saint Hierome notes out of a Tradition of the Iews that those loafes which their priests were to offer to the Lord were to be of such corne as those Priests had sowed and reaped and threshed and ground and baked all with their own hands But they were so farre from that at Babylon and at Rome as that they ploughed iniquity and sowed wickednesse and reaped the same and as God himselfe complaines trod his portion under foot That is first neglected his people for Gods people are his portion And then whatsoever pious men had given to the Church is his portion too and that portion
And then lastly by way of condoling and of instructing we shall make it appear to our weak brethren that our departing from Rome can be no example no justification of their departing from us Our branches then from whence we are to gather our fruit being thus many it is time to lay hold upon the first which is Manebant Though these sheep were thus ill fed yet they did stay Optimis ovibus pedes breves The best sheep have-shortest leggs Their commendation is not to make hast in straying away He that hasteth with his feet sinneth that is from the station in which God hath placed him Si innumera bona fecerimus If we have abounded in good works and done God never so good service Non minores Poenas dabimus quà m qui Christi corpus proscindebant si integritatem Ecclesiarum discerpserimus we are as guilty in the eies of God as they that crucifyed the Lord of life himselfe if we violate his spouse or rent the intirenesse of his Church Vir quidam sanctus dixit says the same father of another Chrysostome of Cyprian A certaine holy man hath ventured to say Quod audaciùs sapere videtur attamen dixit That which perchance may seem bodily sayd but yet he sayd it what was it This peccatum istud nec martyrio deleri That this sin of schisme of renting the unity of the Church cannot be expiated no not by Martyrdome it self When God had made but a hedge about Iob yet that hedge was such a â—ence as the Devill could not break in when God hath carryed Murum aeneum a wall of brasse nay Murum igneum a wall of fire about his Church wilt thou break out through that wall that brasse that fire Paradise was not walled nor hedged and there were serpents in Paradise too yet Adam offered not to goe out of Paradise till God drove him out and God saw that he would have come in againe if the Cherubims and the flaming sword had not been placed by God to hinder him Charme the Charmer never so wisely as David speaks he cannot utter a sweeter nor a more powerfull charme â—hen that Ego te baptizo I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost And Nos admittimus we receive this child into the congregation of Christs slock There is a sweet and a powerfull charm in the Ego te absolvo I absolve thee from all thy sins But this blessed charm I may heare from another if I stray into another Church But the Ego te baptizo I can heare but once and to depart from that Church in which I have received my baptism and in which I have made my Contracts and my stipulations with God and pledged and engaged my sureties there deserve a mature consideration for I may mistake the reasons upon which I goe and I may finde after that there are more true errours in the Church I goe to then there were imaginary in that that I left Truly I have been sorry to see some persons converted from the Roman Church to ours because I have known that onely temporall respects have moved them and they have lived after rather in a nullity or indifferency to either religion then in a true and established zeale Of which kinde I cannot forbeare to report to you so much of the story of a French gentleman who though he were of good parts and learned yet were not worthy to be mentioned in this place but that he soar'd so high as to write against the learnedst King that any age hath produc'd our incomparable King Iames. This man who was turned from the Reformed to the Roman religion being asked halfe in jest Sir which is the best religion you must needs know that have been of both answered Certainely the religion I left the reformed religion must needs be the best religion for when I changed I had this religion the Romans religion for it and three hundred Crowns a year to boot which was a pension given him upon his conversion Neither truely doth any thing more loosen a mans footing nor slacken his hold upon that Church in which he was baptized nor open him more to an undervaluation of all Churches then when he gives himselfe leave to thinke irreverently slightly negligently of the Sacraments as of things at best indifferent and many times impertinent I should thinke I had no bowels if they had not earn'd and melted when I heard a Lady whose child of five or sixe daies being ready to die every minute she being mov'd often that the child might be christened answered That if it were Gods will that the child should live to the Sabbath that it might be baptized in the Congregation she should be content otherwise Gods will be done upon it for God needs no Sacrament With what sorrow with what holy indignation did I heare the Sonne of my friend who brought me to that place to minister the Sacrament to him then upon his death-bed and almost at his last gaspe when my service was offered him in that kinde answer his Father Father I thanke God I have not lived so in the sight of my God as that I need a Sacrament I name a few of these because our times abound with such persons as undervalue not onely all rituall and ceremoniall assistances of devotion which the wisdome and the piety of the Church hath induced but even the Sacraments themselves of Christs owne immediate institution and are alwaies open to solicitations to passe to another Church upon their own surmises of errours in their own Whereas there belongs much consideration and a well grounded assurance of fundamentall errours in one Church and that those errours are repayred and no other as great as those admitted in the other Church before upon any collaterall pretences we abandon that Church in which God hath sealed us to himselfe in Baptisme Our Fathers stayd in Rome Manebant They stayd and Edebant they eat that grasse and they drunke that water which was troden and troubled Alasse what should they have eaten what should they have drunke should a man strangle himselse rather then take in an ill ayre Or forbear a good table because his stomach cannot digest every dish We doe not call money base money till the Allay exceed the pure metall and if it doe so yet it may be currant and serve to many offices Those that are skilfull in that art know how to sever the base from the pure the good parts of the religion from the bad and those that are not will not cast it away for all the corrupt mixture It is true they had been better to have stayd at home and served God in private then to have communicated in a superstitious service Domum vestram Christi Ecclesian deputamus I shall never doubt to call your House the Church of Christ. But this was not permitted to our Fathers to
ancestors which was a licentious kind of Carnavall If any amongst us have fallen into that disease to cast stones or dirt at his friends it is an infection from his own distemper not from our doctrine for if any man list to be contentious we have no such custome neither the Church of God We departed not from them then till it was come to a hot plague in a necessity of professing old opinions to be new articles of Faith not till we were driven by them and drawn by the voice of God in the learnedest men of all nations when they could not discharge themselves by the distinction of the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome because if the abuses had been but in the Court it was the greatest abuse of all for that Church which is so much above that Court not to mend it Nor can they require Miracles at our hands who doe none themselves and yet need them because they induce new articles of Religion neither can they reproach to us our Dissentions amongst our selves because they are neither in so fundamentall points nor pursued with so much uncharitablenesse as theirs So we justifie our secession from them but all this justifies in no part the secession of those distempered men who have separated themselves from us which is our next and our last consideration When the Apostle says study to be quiet 1 Thes. 4. 11. me thinks he intimates something towards this that the lesse we study for our Sermons the more danger is there to disquiet the auditory extemporall unpremeditated Sermons that serve the popular care vent for the most part doctrines that disquiet the Church Study for them and they will be quiet consider ancient and fundamentall doctrines and this will quiet and settle the understanding and the Conscience Many of these extemporall men have gone away from us and vainly said that they have as good cause to separate from us as we from Rome But can they call our Church a Babylon Confusion disorder All that offends them is that we have too much order too much regularity too much binding to the orderly and uniforme service of God in Church It affects all the body when any member is cut off Cum dolore amputatur etiam quae putruit pars corporis and they cut off themselves and feel it not when we lose but a mysticall limbe and they lose a spirituall life we feel it and they doe not When that is pronounced sit tibi sicut ethnicus if he hear not the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen gravius est quà m si gladio feriretur flammis absumeretur feris subigeretur it is a heavier sentence then to be beheaded to be burnt or devoured with wild beasts and yet these men before any such sentence pronounced by us excommunicate themselves Of all distempers Calvin falls oftenest upon the reproof of that which he calls Morositatem a certain peevish frowardnesse which as he calls in one place deterrimam pestem the most infectious pestilence that can fall upon a man so in another he gives the reason why it is so semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa that this peevish frowardnesse is always accompanied with a pride and a singularity and an ambition to have his opinions preferred before all other men and to condemn all that differ from him A civill man will depart with his opinion at a Table at a Councell table rather then hold up an argument to the vexation of the Company so will a peaceable man doe in the Church in questions that are not fundamentall That reverend man whom we mentioned before who did so much in the establishing of Geneva professes that it was his own opinion that the Sacrament might be administred in prisons and in private houses but because he found the Church of Geneva of another opinion and another practise before he came he applied himself to them and departed in practise from his own opinion even in so important a point as the ministration of the Sacrament Which I present to consideration the rather both because thereby it appears that greater matters then are now thought fundamentall were then thought but indifferent and arbitrary for surely if Calvin had thought this a fundamentall thing he would never have suffered any custome to have prevailed against his conscience and also because divers of those men who trouble the Church now about things of lesse importance and this of private Sacraments in particular will needs make themselves beleeve that they are his Disciples and always conclude that whatsoever is practised at Geneva was Calvins opinion Saint Augustine saith excellently and appliably to a holy Virgin who was ready to leave the Church for the ill life of Church-men Christus nobis imperavit Congregationem sibi servavit separationem Christ Jesus hath commanded us to gather together and recommended to us the Congregation as for the separation he hath reserved it to himself to declare at the last day who are Sheep and who are Goats And hee wrought that separation which our Fathers made from Rome by his expresse written Word and by that which is one word of God too Vox populi The invitation and acclamation of Doctors and People and Princes but have our Separatists any such publique and concurrent authorising of that which they doe since of all that part from us scarse a dozen meet together in one confession When you have heard the Prophet say Can two walke togeâ—her except they be agreed when you have heard the Apostle say I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Iesus Christ that ye all speake the same things and that there be no divisions among you for if preachers speake one one way another another there will be divisions among the people And then it is not onely that in obedience to authority they speake the same things But Be perfectly joyned in the same mind and in the same judgement you had need make haste to this union this pacification for when we are come thither to agree among our selves we are not come to our journeys end Our life is a warfare other wars in a great part end in mariages Ours in a divorce in a divorce of body and soule in death Till then though God have brought us from the First Babylon the darknesse of the Gentiles and from the Second Babylon the superstitions of Rome and from the third Babylon the confusion of tongues in bitter speaking against one another after all this every man shall finde a fourth Babylon enough to exercise all his forces The civill warre the rebellious disorder the intestine confusion of his own Concupiscencies This is a transmigration a transportation layd upon us all by Adams rebellion from Jerusalem to Babylon from our innocent State in our Creation to this confusion of our corrupt nature God would have his children first brought to Babylon before he would be glorifyed in
company in the reformation of Religion A miracle scarce lesse then the first propagation thereof in the primitive Church In how few yeares did God make the number of learned â—riters the number of persons of all qualities the number of Kings in whose Dominions the reformed Religion was exercised equall to the number of them who adhered to the Roman Church And yet thou must not depart from this contemplation till thou have made thy self an argument of all this till thou have concluded out of this that God hath made love to thy soule thy weake soule thy sick and foule and sinfull soule That he hath written to thee in all his Scriptures sent Ambassage to thee in all his preachers presented thee in all his temporall and spirituall blessings That he hath come to thee even in actions of uncle annesse in actions of unfaithfulnesse towards men in actions of distrustfulnesse towards God and hath checked thy conscience and delivered thee from some sins even then when thou wast ready to commit them as all the rest That that God who is but one in himselfe is yet three persons That those three who were all-sufficient to themselves would yet make more make Angels make man make a Christ make him a Spouse a Church and first propagate that by so weake men in so hard a doctrine and in so short a space over all the world and then reforme that Church againe so soone to such a heighth as these I say are to all the world so be thou thy self and Gods exceeding goodnesse to thee an argument That that God who hath shewed himself so loath to lose thee is certainly loath to lose any other soule but as he communicates himself to us all here so he would have us all partake of his joy and glory hereafter he that fils his Militant Church thus would not have his Triumphant Church empty So far we consider the accessiblenesse the communicablenesse the conversation of our good and gracious God to us in the generall There is a more speciall manner intimated even in the first word of our Text After this After what After he had seene the servants of God sealed sealed This seale seales the contract betweene God and Man And then consider how generall this seale is First God sealed us in imprinting his Image in our soules and in the powers thereof at our creation and so every man hath this seale and he hath it as soone as he hath a soule The wax the matter is in his conception the seale the forme is in his quickning in his inanimation as in Adam the waxe was that red earth which he was made of the seale was that soule that breath of life which God breathed into him Where the Organs of the body are so indisposed as that this soule cannot exercise her faculties in that man as in naturall Idiots or otherwise there there is a curtaine drawn over this Image but yet there this Image is the Image of God is in the most naturall Idiot as well as in the wisest of men worldly men draw other pictures over this picture other images over this image The wanton man may paint beauty the ambitious may paint honour the covetous wealth and so deface this image but yet there this image is and even in hell it selfe it will be in him that goes down into hell uri potest in gehenna non exuri sayes St. Bernard The image of God may burne in hell but as long as the soule remaines that image remaines there too And then thou who wouldest not burne their picture that loved thee wilt thou betray the picture of the Maker thy Saviour thy Sanctifier to the torments of hell Amongst the manifold and perpetuall interpretations of that article He descended into hell this is a new one that thou senâ—est him to hell in thy soule Christ had his Consummatum est from the Iewes he was able to say at last All is finished concerning them shall he never have a Consummatum est from thee never be at an end with thee Never if his Image must burne eternally in thy soule when thou art dead for everlasting generations Thus then we were sealed all sealed all had his image in our creation in the faculties of our soules But then we were all sealed againe sealed in our very flesh our mortall flesh when the image of the invisible God Christ Iesus the onely Sonne of God tooke our nature for as the Tyrant wished that all mankinde were but one body that he might behead all mankinde at a blow so God tooke into his mercie all mankinde in one person As intirely as all mankinde was in Adam all mankinde was in Christ and as the seale of the Serpent is in all by originall sinne so the seale of God Christ Iesus is on us all by his assuming our nature Christ Jesus tooke our souls and our bodies our whole nature and as no Leper no person how infectiously soever he be diseased in his body can say surely Christ never tooke this body this Leprosie this pestilence this rottennesse so no Leprous soule must say Christ never tooke this pride this adultery this murder upon himself he sealed us all in soule and body when he tooke both and though both dye the soule in sin daily the body in sicknesse perchance this day yet he shall afford a resurrection to both to the soule here to the body hereafter for his seale is upon both These two seales then hath God set upon us all his Image in our soules at our making his Image that is his Sonne upon our bodies and soules in his incarnation And both these seales he hath set upon us then when neither we our selves nor any body else knew of it He sets another seale upon us when though we know not of it yet the world the congregation does in the Sacrament of Baptisme when the seale of his Crosse is a testimony not that Christ was borne as the former seale was but that also he dyed for us there we receive that seale upon the forehead that we should conforme our selves to him who is so sealed to us And after all these seales he offers us another and another seale Set me as a seale upon thy heart and as a seale upon thine arme says Christ to all us in the person of the spouse in the Heart by a constant faith in the Arme by a declaratory works for then are we sealed and delivered and witnessed that 's our full evidence then have we made sure our salvation when the works of a holy life doe daily refresh the contract made with God there at our Baptisme and testifie to the Church that we doe carefully remember what the Church promised in our behalfe at that time for otherwise beloved without this seale upon the arme that is a stedfast proceeding in the works of a holy life we may have received many of the other seales and yet deface
wardrobe not to make an Inventory of it but to finde in it something fit for thy wearing Iohn Baptist was not the light he was not Christ but he bore witnesse of him The light of faith in the highest exaltation that can be had in the Elect here is not that very beatificall vision which we shall have in heaven but it beares witnesse of that light The light of nature in the highest exaltation is not faith but it beares witnesse of it The lights of faith and of nature are subordinate Iohn Baptists faith beares me witnesse that I have Christ and the light of nature that is the exalting of my naturall faculties towards religious uses beares me witnesse that I have faith Onely that man whose conscience testifies to himself and whose actions testifie to the world that he does what he can can beleeve himself or be beleeved by others that he hath the true light of faith And therefore as the Apostle saith Quench not the Spirit I say too Quench not the light of Nature suffer not that light to goe out study your naturall faculties husband and improve them and love the outward acts of Religion though an Hypocrite and though a naturall man may doe them Certainly he that loves not the Militant Church hath but a faint faith in his interest in the Triumphant He that cares not though the materiall Church fall I am afraid is falling from the spirituall For can a man be sure to have his money or his plate if his house be burnt or to preserve his faith if the outward exercises of Religion faile He that undervalues outward things in the religious service of God though he begin at ceremoniall and rituall things will come quickly to call Sacraments but outward things and Sermons and publique prayers but outward things in contempt As some Platonique Philosophers did so over-refine Religion and devotion as to say that nothing but the first thoughts and ebullitions of a devout heart were fit to serve God in If it came to any outward action of the body kneeling or lifting up of hands if it came to be but invested in our words and so made a Prayer nay if it passed but a revolving a turning in our inward thoughts and thereby were mingled with our affections though pious affections yet say they it is not pure enough for a service to God nothing but the first motions of the heart is for him Beloved outward things apparell God and since God was content to take a body let not us leave him naked nor ragged but as you will bestow not onely some cost but some thoughts some study how you will clothe your children and how you will clothe your servants so bestow both cost and thoughts thinke seriously execute cheerfully in outward declarations that which becomes the dignity of him who evacuated himselfe for you The zeale of his house needs not eat you up no nor eat you out of house and home God asks not that at your hands But if you eat one dish the lesse at your feasts for his house sake if you spare somewhat for his reliefe and his glory you will not be the leaner nor the weaker for that abstinence Iohn Baptist bore witnesse of the light outward things beare witnesse of your faith the exalting of our naturall faculties beare witnesse of the supernaturall We do not compare the master and the servant and yet we thank that servant that brings us to his master We make a great difference between the treasure in the chest and the key that opens it yet we are glad to have that key in our hands The bell that cals me to Church does not catechise me nor preach to me yet I observe the sound of that bell because it brings me to him that does those offices to me The light of nature is far from being enough but as a candle may kindle a torch so into the faculties of nature well imployed God infuses faith And this is our second couple of lights the subordination of the light of nature and the light of faith And a third payre of lights of attestation that beare witnesse to the light of our Text is Lux aeternorum Corporum that light which the Sunne and Moone and those glorious bodies give from heaven and lux incensionum that light which those things that are naturally combustible and apt to take fire doe give upon earth both these beare witnesse of this light that is admit an application to it For in the first of these the glorious lights of heaven we must take nothing for stars that are not stars nor make Astrological and fixed conclusions out of meteors that are but transitory they may be Comets and blazing starres and so portend much mischiefe but they are none of those aeterna corpora they are not fixed stars not stars of heaven So is it also in the Christian Church which is the proper spheare in which the light of our text That light the essentiall light Christ Jesus moves by that supernaturall light of faith and grace which is truly the Intelligence of that spheare the Christian Chruch As in the heavens the stars were created at once with one Fiat and then being so made stars doe not beget new stars so the Christian doctrine necessary to salvation was delivered at once that is intirely in one spheare in the body of the Scriptures And then as stars doe not beget stars Articles of faith doe not beget Articles of faith so as that the Councell of Trent should be brought to bed of a new Creed not conceived before by the holy Ghost in the Scriptures and which is a monstrous birth the child greater then the Father as soon as it is borne the new Creed of the Councell of Trent to containe more Articles then the old Creed of the Apostles did Saint Iude writing of the common salvation as he calls it for Saint Iude it seems knew no such particular salvation as that it was impossible for any man to have salvation is common salvation exhorts them to contend earnestly for that faith which was once delivered unto the Saints Semel once that is at once semel simul once altogether For this is also Tertullians note that the rule of faith is that it be una immobilis irreformabilis it must not be deformed it cannot be Reformed it must not be mard it cannot be mended whatsoever needs mending and reformation cannot be the rule of faith says Tertullian Other foundation can no man lay then Christ not onely no better but no other what other things soever are added by men enter not into the nature and condition of a foundation The additions and traditions and superedifications of the Roman Church they are not lux aeternorum corporum they are not fixed bodies they are not stars to direct us they may be meteors and so exercise our discourse and Argumentation they may raise controversies And they may be Comets and so
exercise our feares and our jealousies they may raise rebellions and Treasons but they are not fixed and glorious bodies of heaven they are not stars Their non-communions for communions where there are no communicants are no communions when they admit no bread at all no wine at all all is transubstantiated are no communions their semi-communions when they admit the bread to be given but not the wine their sesqui-communions Bread and Wine to the taste and to all other trialls of bread and wine and yet that bread and wine the very body and the very bloud of Christ their quotidian miracles which destroy and contradict even the nature of the miracle to make miracles ordinary and fixed constant and certain for as that is not a miracle which nature does so that 's not a miracle which man can doe certainly constantly infallibly every day and every day every Priest can miraculously change bread into the body of Christ and besides they have certaine fixed shops and Marts of miracles in one place a shop of miracles for barrennesse in another a shop for the tooth-ache To contract this their occasionall Divinity doctrines to serve present occasions that in eighty eight an Hereticall Prince must necessarily be excommunicated and an Hereticall Prince excommunicated must necessarily be deposed but at another time it may be otherwise and conveniencies and dispensations may be admitted these and such as these traditionall occasionall Almanack Divinity they may bee Comets they may be Meteors they may raine bloud and raine fire and raine hailestones hailstones as big as Talents as it is in the Revelation milstones to grinde the world by their oppressions but they are not lux aeternorum corporum the light of the stars and other heavenly bodies for they were made at once and diminish not encrease not Fundamentall articles of faith are always the same And that 's our application of this lux aeternorum corporum the light of those heavenly bodies to the light of our Text Christ working in the Church Now for the consideration of the other light in this third couple which is lux incensionum the light of things which take and give light here upon earth if we reduce it to application and practise and contract it to one Instance it will appeare that the devotion and zeale of him that is best affected is for the most part in the disposition of a torch or a knife ordained to take fire and to give light If it have never been lightned it does not easily take light but it must be bruised and beaten first if it have been lighted and put out though it cannot take fire of it self yet it does easily conceive fire if it be presented within any convenient distance Such also is the soule of man towards the fires of the zeale of Gods glory and compassion of others misery If there be any that never tooke this fire that was never affected with either of these the glory of God the miseries of other men can I hope to kindle him It must be Gods worke to bruise and beat him with his rod of affliction before he will take fire Paulus revelatione compulsus ad fidem St. Paul was compelled to believe not the light which he saw but the power which he felt wrought upon him not because that light shined from heaven but because it strooke him to the earth Agnoscimus Christum in Paulo prius cogentem deinde docentem Christ begun not upon St. Paul with a catechisme but with a rod. If therefore here be any in Pauls case that were never kindled before Almighty God proceed the same way with them and come so neare to a friendship towards them as to be at enmity with them to be so mercifull to them as to seeme unmercifull to be so well pleased as to seeme angry that so by inflicting his medicinall afflictions he may give them comfort by discomfort and life by death and make them seeke his face by turning his face from them and not to suffer them to continue in a stupid inconsideration and lamentable senslesnesse of their miserable condition but bruise and breake them with his rod that they may take fire But for you who have taken this fire before that have been enlightned in both Sacraments and in the preaching of the word in the meanes and in some measure of practise of holinesse heretofore if in not supplying oyle to your Lamps which God by his ordinance had kindled in you you have let this light go out by negligence or inconsideration or that storms of worldly calamities have blowne it out do but now at this instant call to minde what sin of yesterday or t'other day or long ago begun and practised and prevailed upon you or what future sinne what purpose of doing a sinne to night or to morrow possesses you do but thinke seriously what sinne or what crosse hath blown out that light that grace which was formerly in you before that sinne or that crosse invaded you and turne your soul which hath been enlightned before towards this fire which Gods Spirit blowes this minute and you will conceive new fire new zeale new compassion As this Lux incensionum kindles easily when it hath been kindled before so the soule accustomed to the presence of God in holy meditations though it fall asleep in some darke corner in some sinne of infirmity a while yet upon every holy occasion it takes fire againe and the meanest Preacher in the Church shall worke more upon him then the foure Doctors of the Church should be able to do upon a person who had never been enlightned before that is never accustomed to the presence of God in his private meditations or in his outward acts of Religion And this is our third couple of lights that beares witnesse that is admit an application to the light of our Text and then the fourth and last couple which we consider is Lux Depuratarum Mixtionum the light and lustre of precious stones and then Lux Repercussionum the light of Repercussion and Reflexion when one body though it have no light in it self casts light upon other bodies In the application of the first of these lights Depuratarum Mixtionum precious stones we shall onely apply their making and their value Precious stones are first drops of the dew of heaven and then refined by the sunne of heaven When by long lying they have exhal'd and evaporated and breathed out all their grosse matter and received another concoction from the sunne then they become precious in the eye and estimation of men so those actions of ours that shall be precious or acceptable in the eye of God must at first have been conceived from heaven from the word of God and then receive another concoction by a holy deliberation before we bring those actions to execution lest we may have mistaken the roote thereof Actions precious or acceptable in Gods eye must be holy purposes
conscience and pinching the bowells by denouncing of Gods Judgements these beare witnesse of the light when otherwise men would sleep it out and so propter non intelligentes for those that lye in the suddes of nature and cannot or of negligence and will not come to heare sol lucernas this light requires testimony These testimonies Gods ordinances may have wakened a man yet he may winke and covet darknesse and grow weary of instruction and angry at increpation And as the eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight so the eare of this fastidious and impatient man longeth for the end of the Sermon or the end of that point in the Sermon which is a thorne to his conscience But as if a man wink in a cleare day he shall for all that discerne light thorough his eylids but not light enough to keep him from stumbling so the most perverse man that is either in faith or manners that winkes against the light of nature or light of the law or light of grace exhibited in the Christian Church the most determined Atheist that is discernes through all his stubbornnesse though not light enough to rectifie him to save him yet enough to condemne him though not enough to enable him to reade his owne name in the book of life yet so much as makes him afraid to read his own story by and to make up his owne Audit and account with God And doth not this light to this man need testimony That as he does see it is a light so he might see that there is warmth and nourishment in this light and so as well see the way to God by that light as to see by it that there is a God and this he may if he doe not sleep nor winke that is not forbeare comming hither nor resist the grace of God always offred here when he is here Propter incredulos for their sakes who though they doe heare heare not to beleeve sol lucernas this light requires testimony and it does so too propter infirmos for their sakes who though they doe heare and beleeue yet doe not Practise If he neither sleep nor wink neither forbeare nor resist yet how often may you surprise and deprehend a man whom you thinke directly to look upon such an object yet if you aske him the quality or colour of it he will tell you he saw it not That man sees as little with staring as the other with winking His eye hath seen but it hath returned nothing to the common sense We may pore upon books stare upon preachers yet if we reflect nothing nothing upon our conversation we shall still remaine under the increpation and malediction of Saint Paul out of Esay Seeing yee shall see and shall not perceive seeing and hearing shall but aggravate our condemnation and it shall be easier at the day of Judgement for the deaf and the blinde that never saw Sacrament never heard Sermon then for us who have frequented both propter infirmos for their sakes whose strength though it serve to bring them hither and to beleeve here doth not serve them to proceed to practise sol lucernas this light requires testimony Yet if we be neither dead nor asleep nor winke nor looke negligently but doe come to some degrees of holinesse in practise for a time yet if at any time we put our selves in such a position and distance from this light as that we suffer dark thick bodies to interpose and eclipse it that is sadnesse and dejection of spirit for worldly losses nay if we admit inordinate sadnesse for sinne it selfe to eclipse this light of comfort from us or if we suffer such other lights as by the corrupt estimation of the world have a greater splendour to come in As the light of Knowledge and Learning the light of Honour and Glory of popular Applause and Acclamation so that this light which we speake of the light of former Grace be darkned by the accesse of other lights worldly lights then also you shall finde that you need more and more Testimony of this light God is light in the Creature in nature yet the naturall Man stumbles and falls and lies in that ignorance Christ bears witnesse of this light in establishing a Chrishian Church yet many Christians fall into Idolatry and Superstition and lie and die in it The Holy Ghost hath born further witnesse of this light and if we may take so low a Metaphore in so high a Mystery hath snuffed this candle mended this light in the Reformation of Religion and yet there is a damp or a cloud of uncharitablenesse of neglecting of defaming one another we deprave even the fiery the claven tongues of the Holy Ghost Our tongues are fiery onely to the consuming of another and they are cloven onely in speaking things contrary to one another So that still there need more witnesses more testimonies of this light God the Father is Pater Luminum the Father of all Lights God the Sonne is Lumen de lumine Light of light of the Father God the Holy Ghost is Lumen de luminibus Light of lights proceeding both from the Father and the Sonne and this light the Holy Ghost kindles more lights in the Church and drops a coale from the Altar upon every lamp he lets fall beams of his Spirit upon every man that comes in the name of God into this place and he sends you one man to day which beareth witnesse of this light ad ignaros that bends his preaching to the convincing of the naturall man the ignorant soul and works upon him And another another day that bears witnesse ad incredulos that fixeth the promises of the Gospell and the merits of Christ Jesus upon that startling and timorous soul upon that jealous and suspicious soul that cannot beleeve that those promises or those merits appertain to him and so bends all the power of his Sermon to the binding up of such broken hearts and faint beleevers He sendeth another to bear witnesse ad infirmos to them who though they have shaked off their sicknesse yet are too weake to walke to them who though they doe beleeve are intercepted by tentations from preaching and his Sermon reduces them from their ill manners who thinke it enough to come to hear to beleeve And then he sendeth another ad Relapsos to bear witnesse of this light to them who have relapsed into former sinnes that the merits of Christ are inexhaustible and the mercies of God in him indefatigable As God cannot be deceived with a false repentance so he cannot resist a true nor be weary of multiplying his mercies in that case And therefore thinke not that thou hast heard witnesses enow of this light Sermons enow if thou have heard all the points preached upon which concerne thy salvation But because new Clouds of Ignorance of Incredulitie of Infirmitie of Relapsing rise every day and call this light in question
shall feare the Lord and his goodnesse in the later dayes And beyond this land there is no more Sea beyond this mercy no more Judgement for with this mercy the Chapter ends Consider our text then as a whole Globe as an intire Spheare and then our two Hemispheares of this Globe our two parts of this text will bee First that no perversnesse of ours no rebellion no disobedience puts God beyond his mercy nor extinguishes his love still hee calls Israel rebellious Israel his Children nay his owne anger his owne Judgements then when hee is in the exercise thereof in the execution thereof puts him not beyond his mercy extinguishes not his love hee hides not his face from them then hee leaves them not then in the darke hee accompanies their calamity with a light hee makes that time though cloudy though overcast yet a day unto them the Children of Israel shall abide many days in this case But then as no disobedience removes God from himself for he is love and mercy so no interest of ours in God doth so priviledge us but that hee will execute his Judgements upon his Children too even the Children of Israel shall fall into these Calamities And from this first part wee shall passe to the second from these generall considerations That no punishments should make us desperate that no favours should make us secure we shall passe to the particular commination and judgements upon the children of Israel in this text without King without Prince c. In our first part we stop first upon this declaration of his mercy in this fatherly appellation Children the children of Israel He does not call them children of Israel as though hee disavowed them and put them off to another Father but therefore because they are the Children of Israel they are his Children for hee had maried Israel and maried her to himselfe for ever Many of us are Fathers and from God here may learne tendernesse towards children All of us are children of some parents and therefore should hearken after the name of Father which is nomen pietatis potestatis a name that argues their power over us and our piety towards them and so concernes many of us in a double capacity as we are children and parents too but all of us in one capacity as we are children derived from other parents God is the Father of man otherwise then he is of other creatures He is the Father of all Creatures so Philo calls all Creatures sorâ—res suas his sisters but then all those sisters of man all those daughters of God are not alike maried God hath placed his Creatures in divers rankes and in divers conditions neither must any man thinke that he hath not done the duty of a Father if he have not placed all his Sonnes or not matched all his daughters in a condition equall to himselfe or not equall to one another God hath placed creatures in the heavens and creatures in the earth and creatures in the sea and yet all these creatures are his children and when he looked upon them all in their divers stations he saw omnia valde bora that all was very well And that Father that imploies one Sonne in learning another to husbandry another to Merchandise pursues Gods example in disposing his children his creatures diversly and all well Such creatures as the Raine though it may seem but an imperfect and ignoble creature fallen from the wombe of a cloud have God for their Father God is the Father of the Raine And such creatures as light have but God for their Father God is Pater lâ—minum the Father of lights Whether we take lights there to be the Angels created with the light some take it so or to be the severall lights set up in the heavens Sun and Moon and Stars some take it so or to be the light of Grace in infusion by the Spirit or the light of the Church in manifestation by the word for all these acceptations have convenient Authors and worthy to be followed God is the Father of lights of all lights but so he is of raine and clouds too And God is the Father of glory as Saint Paul styles him of all glory whether of those beames of glory which he sheds upon us here in the blessings and preferments of this life or that waight of glory which he reserves for us in the life to come From that inglorious drop of raine that falls into the dust and rises no more to those glorious Saints who shall rise from the dust and fall no more but as they arise at once to the fulnesse of Essentiall joy so arise daily in accidentiall joyes all are the children of God and all alike of kin to us And therefore let us not measure our avowing or our countenancing of our kindred by their measure of honour or place or riches in the world but let us looke how fast they grow in the root that is in the same worship of the same God who is ours and their Father too He is nearest of kin to me that is of the same religion with me as they are creatures they are of kin to me by the Father but as they are of the same Church and religion by Father and mother too Philo calls all creatures his sisters but all men are his brothers God is the Father of man in a stronger and more peculiar and more masculine sense then of other Creatures Filius particeps con-dominus cum patre as the law calls the Sonne the partner of the Father and fellow-Lord joint-Lord with the Father of all the possession that is to descend so God hath made man his partner and fellow-Lord of all his other creatures in Moses his Dominamini when he gives man a power to rule over them and in Davids Omnia subjecisti when he imprints there a naturall disposition in the creature to the obedience of man So high so very high a filiation hath God given man as that having another Sonne by another filiation a higher filiation then this by an eternall generation yet he was content that that Sonne should become this Sonne that the Sonne of God should become the Sonne of Man God is the Father of all of man otherwise then of all the rest but then of the children of Israel otherwise then of all other men For he bought them and is not be thy Father that hath bought thee says God by Moses Not to speake of that purchase which he made by the death of his Sonne for that belongs to all the world he bought the Jews in particular at such a price such silver and such gold such temporall and such spirituall benefits such a Land and such a Church such a Law and such a Religion as certainly he might have had all the world at that price If God would have manifested himselfe poured out himselfe to the Nations as hee did to
the Iews all the world would have swarmed to his obedience and herded in his pale God was their fatherâ— and as S. Chrysostâ—me that he might be sure to draw in all degrees of tender affection cals him Their Mother too For Matris nutrire Patris erudire It was a Mothers part to give them suck and to feed them with temporall blessings It was a Fathers part to instruct them and to feed them with spirituall things and God did both abundantly Therefore doth God submit himself to the comparison of a Mother in the Prophet Esay Can a woman forget her sucking child But then he stays not in that inferiour in that infirmer sex but returns to a stronger love then that of a Mother yes says he she may forget yet will not I forget thee And therefore when David says Blesse the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits David expresses that which we translate in a generall word Benefits in this word Gamal which signifies Ablactationes forget not that God nursed thee as a Mother and then Ablactavit we and thee and provided thee stronger food out of the care of a father In one word all creatures are Gods children man is his sonne but then Israel is his first-born son for that is the addition which God gives Israel by Moses to Pharaoh Say unto Pharaoh Israel is my son even my first-born Why God adopted Israel into this siliation into this primogeniture before all the people of the world we can assign no reason but his love only But why he did not before this Text dis-inherit this adopted son is a higher degree and exercise of his love then the Adoption it self if we consider which is a usefull consideration their manifold provocations to such an exhaeredation and what God suffered at their hands The ordinary causes of Exhaeredation for which a man might dis-inherit his son are assigned and numbred in the law to be fourteen But divers of them grow out of one root Vndutifulnesse Inofficiousnesse towards the father and as by that reason they may be extended to more so they may be contracted to sewer to two These two Ingratitude and Irreligion Vnthankfulnesse and Idolatry were ever just causes of Exhaeredation of Dis-inheriting And with these two did the Jews more provoke Almighty God then any children any father Stop we a little our Consideration upon each of these He is not always ungratefull that does not recompense a benefit but he onely that would not though he could make and though the Benefactor needed a recompense When Furnius upon whom Augustus had multiplied benefits told him that in one thing he had damnified him in one thing he had undone him Effecisti at viverem moâ—erer ingratus You have done so much for me says he that I must live and die unthankfull that is without shewing my thankfulnesse by equivalent recompenses This which he cals unthankfulnesse was thankfulnesse enough There are men says the Morall man Qui quo plus debent magis odâ—rant that hate those men most who have laid most obligations upon them Leve as alienum debitorem facit grave inimicum for a little debt he will be content to look towards me but when it is great more then he can pay or as much as he thinks he can get from me then he would be glad to be rid of me Acknowledgement is a good degree of thankfulnesse But ingratitude at the highest and the Iews ingratitude was at the highest involves even a concealing and a denying of benefits and even a hating and injuring of Benefactors And so Res peremptoria ingratiâ—udo says Bernard significantly Ingratitude is a peremptory sin it does Perimere that is destroy not onely all vertues but it destroys that is overflows all other particular Vices no vice can get a name where ingratitude is it swallows all devours all becomes all Ingratum dicas omnia dixisti If you have called a man unthankfull you have called him by all the ill names that are for this complicated this manifold this pregnant vice Ingratitude the holy language the Hebrew lacks a word The nearest root that they can draw Ingratitude into is Caphar and Caphar is but Tegere to hide to conceal a benefit but to deny a benefit or to hate or injure a Benefactor they have not a word And therefore as S. Hierome found not the word in the Hebrew so in all Saint Hieromes translation of the Old Testament or in that which is reputed his the vulgat Edition you have not that Latine word Ingratus Curious sinners subtile self-damners they could not name Ingratitude and in all the steps of Ingratitude they exceeded all men all Nations From the Ingratitude of murmuring upon which God lays that woe Woe unto him that says to his father What begettest thou or to the woman What hast thou brought forth A dogge murmures not that he is not a Lion nor a blinde-worm without eyes that he is not a Basilisk to kill with his eyes Dust murmures not that it is not Amber nor a Dunghill that it is not a Mine nor an Angel that he is not of the Seraphim and every man would be something else then God hath made him from this murmuring for that which he hath not to another degree of Ingratitude The appropriation of that which he hath to himself Vti Datis tanquam Innatis as S. Bernard speaks in his musick To attribute to our selves that which we have received from God to think our selves as strong in Nature as in Grace and as safe in our own free-will as in the love of God as God says of Ierusalem That he had given her her beauty and then she plaid the harlot as if it had been her own by these steps of Ingratitude to the highest of all which is rather then to confesse her self beholden to God to change her God and so to â—lide from Ingratitude to Idolatry Ierusalem came and over-went all the Nations upon the earth Their Ingratitude induced Idolatry in an instant As soon as they came to that ungratefull murmuring As for Moses we cannot tell what is become of him they came presently to say to Aaron Vp and make us Gods that may goe before us which is an impotency a leprosie that derives it self farre spreads farre that as soon as our sins induce any worldly crosse any clamity upon us we come to think of another Church another Religion and conclude That that cannot be a good Church in which we have lived in Now against this impious levity of facility in changing our Religion God seemes to expresse the greatest indignation when he says They sacrificed unto gods whom they knew not to new gods Men amongst us that have been baptized and catechized in the truth and in the knowledge thereof fall into ignorant falshood and embrace a Religion which they understand not nor can understand because it lies in
contrary defamations Heretofore that he persecuted their Religion when he did not now that he hath left his own Religion He is their breath they owe him their tongues and how foully do they speak and they owe him their lives and how prodigally do they give away their lives to others that they might take away His He is their breath as breath is the soule that is Accomptant for their soules and how have they raised themselves out of his Audit and withdrawne themselves from his Allegiance This they have done historically and to say prophetically what they would do first their Extenuation of this fact when they call it an enterprise of a few unfortunate Gentlemen And then their Exaltation of this fact when they make the principall person in it a Martyr this is prophecy enough that since they are not ashamed of the Originall they will not be afraid to copy it often and pursue the same practises to the same end Let it be Iosiah then let it be Zedekiah he was the Breath the life of his Subjects and that was the first attribute and he was The Anoynted of the Lord which is the other Vnction it self alwayes separated that which was anoynted from prophane and secular use unction was a religious distinction It had that signification in practise before any Law was given for it when Iacob had had that vision upon the stone which made him see that that place was the house of God and the gate of heaven then he tooke up that stone which he had stept upon and set it up for a pillar and anoynted it This was the practise in nature and then the precept in the Law was as for the Altar it self so for many other things belonging to the service of God in the Temple Thou shalt anoynt them to sanctifie them Thus it was for things and then if we consider persons we see the dignity that anoynting gave for it was given but to three sorts of persons to Kings to priests and to Prophets Kings and Priests had it to testifie their ordinary and permanent and indelible jurisdiction their power is laid on in Oyle And Prophets had it because they were extraordinarily raised to denounce and to execute Gods Judgements upon persons that were anoynted upon Priests and upon Kings too in those cases for which they were then particularly imployed Thus then it is anoynted things could not be touched but by anoynted persons and then anoynted persons could not be touched but by persons anoynted The Priest not directed but by the King The King as King not corrected but by the prophet And this was the State that they lamented so compassionately That their King thus anoynted thus exempted was taken prisoner saw his Sonnes slaine in his presence and then had his owne eyes pulled out was bound in chains and carried to Babell And lesse then this in himself and in his Sonne and in all was not intended this day against our not Zedekiah but Iosiah for death speaking in nature hath all particular miseries in it An anoynted King and many Kings anoynted there are not and he that is anoynted prae Consortibus suis above his fellow Kings for I think no other King of his Religion is anoynted The anoynted of the Lord who in this Text hath both those great names Meshiach Iehovahâ— Christus Domini as though he had been but the Bramble anoynted for King of the Trees and so made the fitter fuell for their â—ire as though as Davids lamentation is for Saul He had not been anoynted with Oyle This eye of God he by whom God looks upon us This hand of God he by whom God protects us This foote of God he by whom in his due time and Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord before that time come God shall tread downe his owne and our enemies was swallowed and devoured by them in their confidence of their owne plot and their infallible assurance of his perishing So it was historically And how it stands prophetically that is What such as they were would do for the future as long as they write not in Libels clandestinely and subreptitiously stollen out but avowed by publique Authority That our Priests are no Priests but the Priests of â—aal for so they write That the conspiracy of this day being against him who oppressed Religion was as just as that against Caesar who did but oppresse the State And that they write That those who were the actors herein are therefore saved because at their execution they submitted all to the Romane Church and were content if the Church condemned it then to repent the Fact for so they write also That the Religion of our present King is no better then the Religion of Ieroboam or of Numâ— Pompilius for so they write too that the last Queene though an Heretique yet because she was Anointed did cure that disease The Kings evill but because in scorne thereof the King refused to be anointed at his Coronation therefore hee cannot cure that disease and so non dicendus unctus Domini he is not to be called the Anointed of the Lord says that Author for all these are the words of one man and one who had no other provocation to say all this but onely the Kingsâ— Apology for the oath of Allegiance by retaining in their avowed books and by relying upon such Authors and Authorities as these which remaine for their future instruction we see their dispositions for the future and judge of them prophetically as well as historically Now the misery which is here lamented the declination of the kingdome in the person of the King is thus expressed He was taken in their pits taken and taken in pits and taken in their pits are so many staires so many descents so many gradations rather degradations in this calamity Let it bee Iosiah let it bee Zedekiah They were taken taken and never returned Let it bee our Iosiah and will it hold in that application Was hee taken Hee was plotted for but was hee Taken When hee himselfe takes publique knowledge that both at home and abroad those of the Romane persuasion assured themselves of some especiall worke for the advancement of their cause at that time when they had taken that assurance hee was so taken taken in that their assurance infallibly taken in their opinion so as this kingdome was taken in their opinion who thought their Navy invincible so this King was taken in their assurance who thought this plot infallible Hee was taken and in fovea in a pit says the Text If our first translation would serve the sorrow were the lesse for there it is he was taken in their net now a man that flattereth spreadeth a net and a Prince that discerns not a flatterer from a Counsellor is taken in a net but that 's not so desperate as in a pit In Iosiahs case it was a pit a Grave in Zedekiahs case it
a Lord meets a man that honours him makes him curtesie and curses him withall what hath his Lordship got by that Honour when popular acclamations cast him into insolent actions and into the net of the Law where is the ease the benefit the consolation of his Honour But especially if worldly Honour must be had upon those conditions here as shall hinder my eternall weight of Glory hereafter I should honour any dishonour glorifie any inglorious state embrace any Dunghill call any poverty Treasure rather then bring the Honours of this world into the Balance into competition into comparison with that eternall weight of Glory in heaven So that if the Christian Religion did oppose worldly Honour it were not to be opposed for that But it is farre from that for as no Religion imprints more honour more reverence more subjection in the hearts of men towards their Superiours of all sorts Naturall or Civill or Ecclesiasticall Parents or Magistrates or Prelates then the Christian Religion does for we binde even the conscience it self so never was there any form of Religion upon the face of the earth in which persons were capable of greater Titles and styles of dignity then in the Christian Church Never any Moscovite any Turk received such titles as the world hath and does give to the Bishop of Rome so great as that some of the greatest later Emperours have had an ambition of that dignity and endevoured to have been elected Popes too being Emperors If Religion opposed Honour that should not diminish it but it does not that nor Pleasure neither which was another thing in which the world was offended in Christ. As when we compared the Honour of this world with the Glory of Heaven we found it nothing so should we doe the Pleasures of this world if we compared them with the Joys of heaven And therefore if my religion did enwrap me in a continuall cloud damp me in a continuall vapour smoke me in a continuall sourenesse and joylesnesse in this life yet I have an abundant recompense in that Reversion which the Lord the righteous Judge hath laid up for me That I shall drink è torrente valuptatis of the Rivers of his pleasures pleasures His pleasures Rivers ever-flowing overflowing Rivers of his pleasures So that if my Religion denied me pleasure here I would not deny my Religion nor be displeased with my Religion for that But it does not that for what Christian is denied a care of his health or of a good habitude of body or the use of those things which may give a chearfulnesse to his heart or a chearfulnesse to his coâ—ntenance What Christian is denied such Garments or such Ornaments as his own rank and condition in particular requires or as the Nationall and generall custome of his times hath induced and authorised What Christian is denied Conversation or Recreation or honest Relaxation of Body or Spirit Excesse of these pleasures as well in the Heathen as in the Christian fals under Solomons Vanity and Vexation of spirit But with the right use of these pleasures the Christian hath that which none but hee hath That the Lord puts gladnesse into my heart That the Lord enables me to lay mee downe in peace and sleepe That the Lord assures mee that he will keep mee in safety If Religion excluded worldly pleasure that were no cause of scandall or offence but it does not that no nor Profit neither which is a third consideration What is a man profited says our Saviour he saw all the world was carried upon profit and he goes along with them that way What is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soule If a man have an answer to that question that question of Confusion and Consternation that Christ asks Cujue erunt foole this night they shall fetch away thy soule and then Cujuâ— erunt whose shall all those things be that thou hast provided if a man can answer Haeredis erunt They shall be mine heires mine heire shall have them Besides that though thy bell toll first his may ring out first though thou beest old and crasie and sickly Though they doe fetch away thy soule this night they may fetch away his before thine thine heir may die before thee and there 's that assurance disappointed If thine heir doe enjoy all this will all that distill one drop of cold water upon thy tongue in hell And so is he sayes Christ in the conclusion of that parable that layeth up riches for himself and is not rich towards God So that if Riches might not consist with Religion it would not hurt our cause but they may they doe Godliness hath the promise of this life and of the next of both but of this first The seed of the righteous shall be mighty upon earth and wealth and riches shall be in his house Many places of Scripture tell us that the wicked may be rich and that they are rich but in no place does God promise that they shall be rich So says Davids sonne Solomon too The Crown of the wise is their riches we all know what men Solomon means by wise men Godly men Religious men And their Crown is Riches Beloved there is an inward Ioy there is an outward dignity and reverence that accompanies Riches and the Godly the righteous man is not incapable of these Nay they belong rather to him then to the ungodly Non decent stultum divitiae as the Vulgat reades that place Riches doe not become a fool But because for all that though Riches doe not become a fool yet fools doe become rich our Translations read that place thus joy pleasure delight is not seemly for a fool Though the fool the ungodly man may bee rich yet a right joy a holy delight in riches belongs onely to the wise to the righteous The Patriarchs in the Old Testament many examples in the New are testimonies to us of the compatibility of riches and righteousnesse that they may that they have often met in one person For is fraud and circumvention so sure a way of attaining Gods blessings as industry and conscientiousnesse is Or is God so likely to concurre with the fraudulent the deceitfull man as with the laborious and religious Was not Ananias with his disguises more suddenly destroyed then Iob and more irrecoverably And cannot a Star-chamber or an Exchequer leave an ungodly man as poor as a storm at sea in a ship-wracke or a fire at land in a lightning can doe the godly Murmure not be not scandalized nor offended in him if God for reasons reserved to himselfe keep thee in poverty but know that God hath exposed the riches of this world as well rather to the godly then the wicked And so have you the second branch of this first part The scandals which for the most part were taken at Christ and his Gospel by the Philosophers that it was
a widow Nubat in Domino saith the Apostle In Gods name let her marry But the former husband must be dead The husbands absence makes not the wife a widow nor doth the necessary and lawfull absence of the Pastor make the Church vacant The sicknesse of the husband makes not a widow The bodily weaknesse nay the spirituall weaknes of the Pastor in case that his parts and abilities and faculties be grown but weak do not make his Church vacant If the Pastor be suspended or otherwise censured this is but as a separation or as a divorce and as the wife is not a widow upon a divorce so neither is the Church vacant upon such censures And therefore for them that take advantages upon the weaknesses or upon the disgrace or upon the povertie of any such incumbent and so insinuate themselves into his Church this is intrusion this is spirituall adultery for the husband is not dead though he be sick Nay if they would remove him by way of preferment yet that is a supplantation when Iacob had Esau by the heel whether he kept him in till he might be strong enough to goe out before him or whether he pushed him out before he would have gone Iacob was a supplanter Some few cases are put when a wife becomes as a widow her husband living but regularly it is by death In some few cases Churches may otherwise be vacant but regularly it is by death And then Esto vidua in Domâ— Patris saith Iudah to Thamar Remain a widow at thy fathers house Then the Church remaineth in the house in the hands of her Father the Bishop of that Diâ—ces till a new husband be lawfully tendred unto her And till that time as our Saviour Christ recommended his most blessed Mother to Saint Iohn but not as a wife so that Bishop delivers that Church to the care and administration of some other during her widowhood till by due course she become the wife of another Thus our calling is a mariage It should have honour It must have labour and it is a lawfull mariage upon a just and equitable vacancy of the place without any supplantation upon death And then it is upon death of a brother If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no childe the wife c. Aswell Saint Gregory as Saint Augustine before interpret this of our elder our eldest brother Christ Iesus That hee being dead we mary his wife the Church and become husbands to her But Christ in that capacity as he is head of the Church cannot die That to which the application of this law leads us is That predecessor and successor bee brethren of the same faith and the same profession of faith The Sadduces put a case to Christ of a woman maried successively to seven men let seven signifie infinite still those seven were brethren How often soever any wife change her husband any Church her Pastor God sends us still a succession of brethren sincere and unfeigned Preachers of the same truth sonnes of the same father Who is that father God is our Father Have we not all one Father says the Prophet Yes we have and so a worme and we are brethren by the same father and mother the same God the same Earth Hath not the raine a father The raine hath and the same that wee have More narrowly and yet very largely Christ is our father One of his names is The everlasting Father And then after these after God after Christ the King is our father See my father the skirt of thy robe in my hand says David to his King Saul Now if any husband should be offered to any widow any Pastor to any vacant Church who were not our brother by all these fathers in a right beliefe in God the Father of all men in a right profession of Christ Iesus the Father of all Christians in a right affection and allegiance to the King the Father of all Subjects Any that should incline to a forain father an imaginary universall father he of whom his Vice-fathers his Junior fathers the Iesuites for all the Jesuits are Fathers says That the Fathers of the Church are but sons and not fathers to him They that say to a stock to the Image of the beast Thou art my father who not in a sense of humiliation as Iob speaks the words but of pride say to corruption Thou art my father that is that prostrate themselves to all the corruptions of a prostitute Church If any so inclined of himself or so inclinable if occasion should invite him or rather tempt him be offered for husband to any widow for a Pastor to any vacant Church he is not within the accommodation of this law hee is not our brother by the whole bloud who hath not a brotherhood rooted in the same religion and in the allegiance to the same Soveraign He must be a brother and Frater Cohabitans a brother dwelling with the former brother As he is a brother we consider the unity of faith As he dwels in the same house we consider the unity of discipline That as he beleeves and professes the same articles of faith so by his own obedience and by his instructing of others hee establish the same government A Schismatique is no more a brother to this purpose then an Heretique If we look well we shall see that Christ provided better for his garments then for his flesh he suffered his flesh to be torn but not his seamlesse garment There may bee in many cases more mischief in disobeying the uniformity of the discipline of the Church then in mistaking in opinion some doctrine of the Church Wee see in Gods institution of his first Church whom he called brethren Those who were instructed and cunning in the songs of the Church they are called brethren To oppose the orders of the Church solemnly ordained or customarily admitted for the advancement of Gods glory and the devotion of the Congregation forfeits this brotherhood or at least discontinues the purpose and use of it for howsoever they may bee in a kinde brothers if they succeed in the profession of the same faith yet wee see where the blessednesse is settled Blessed are they that dwell in thy house And we see where the goodnesse and the pleasantnesse is settled Behold how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity So that if they be not brothers in the same faith and brothers in the same houshold of the faithfull and brothers in the same allegiance If they advance not the truth of the Church and the peace of the Church and the head of the Church fomentors of Error and of Schisme and Sedition are not husbands for these widows Pastors for these Churches Hee must bee a brother A brother dwelling in the same house of Christ and then brother to one
bowells When Christ is disseised and dispossest his truth profligated and thrown out of a nation that professed it before when Christ is wounded by the blasphemies of others and crucified by thee in thy relapses to repented sinnes wilt thou not say to Them to Thy selfe in the behalfe of Christ why persecute yee me Wilt thou not make Christs case thine as hee made thine his Art not thou the bowells of Christ If not and thou art not if thou have not this sense of his suffering thou hast no interest in his death by thy Baptisme nor in his Resurrection by thy feeble halfe repentances But in the duty of a child as thou art a servant in the simplicity of a child as thou hast sucked from him in the interest and inheritance of a child as thou art the Son of his bowells in all these capacities and with all these we have done God calls thee come ye children and that is our next step the Action Come Passing thus from the Persons to the action Venite Come we must aske first what this comming is The whole mystery of our redemption is expressed by the Apostle in this word venit that Christ Iesus is come into the world All that thou hast to do is to come to and to meet him Where is he At home in his own house in the Church Which is his house which is his Church That to thee in which he hath given thee thy Baptisme if that do still afford thee as much as is necessary for thy salvation Come thither to the participation of his ordinances to the exercises of Religion there The gates of heaven shall be opened to you at last in that word Venite benedicti come ye blessed the way to those gates is opened to you now in the same word Venite filii come ye children come Christ can come and does often into thy bed-chamber in the visitation of his private Spirit but here he calls thee out into the congregation into the communion of Saints And then the Church celebrates Christs coming in the flesh a moneth before he comes in four Sundays of Advent before Christmas When thou comest to meet him in the Congregation come not occasionally come not casually not indifferently not collaterally come not as to an entertainment a show a spectacle or company come solemly with preparation with meditation He shall have the lesse profit by the prayer of the Congregation that hath not been at his private prayer before he came Much of the mystery of our Religion lay in the venturus that Christ was to come all that the law and Prophets undertooke for was that venturus that Christ was to come but the consummation of all the end of the law and the Prophets is in the venit he is come Do not clogge thy coming with future conditions and contingencies thou wilt come if thou canst wake if thou canst rise if thou canst be ready if thou like the company the weather the man We finde one man who was brought in his bed to Christ but it was but one Come come actually come earnestly come early come often and come to meet him Christ Jesus and no body else Christ is come into the world and therefore thou needest not goe out of the world to meet him He doth not call thee from thy Calling but in thy Calling The Dove went up and down from the Arke and to the Arke and yet was not disappointed of her Oliveleafe Thou maiest come to this place at due times and maiest doe the businesses of the world in other places too and still keep thy Olive thy peace of Conscience If no Hereticall recusancy thou dost like the Doctrine no schismaticall recusancy thou dost like the Discipline no lasie recusancy thou forbearest not because thou canst not sit at thine ease no proud recusancie that the company is not good enough for thee if none of these detain thee thou maist be here even when thou art not here God may accept thy desire as in many cases thou maist be away when thou art here as in particular thou art if being here thou do not hearken to that which is said here for that is added to the coming and follows in a third consideration after the capacity Children and the Action Come The disposition Hearken Come ye children hearken Upon those words of David Conturbata sunt ossa mea St. Basil faith well Habet anima ossa sua The soul hath bones as well as the body And in this Anatomy and dissection of the soul as the bones of the soul are the constant and strong resolutions thereof and as the seeing of the soul is understanding The eyes of your understanding being opened so the Hearing of the soul is hearkning in these religious exercises we doe not htar except we hearken for hearkning is the hearing of the soul. Some men draw some reasons out of some stories of some credit to imprint a belief of extasie and raptures That the body remaining upon the floore or in the bed the soul may be gone out to the contemplation of heavenly things But it were a strange and a perverse extasie that the body being here at a religious exercise and in a religious posture the soul should be gone out to the contemplation and pursuit of the pleasures or profits of this world You come hither but to your own funeralls if you bring nothing hither but your bodies you come but to be enterred to be laid in the earth if the ends of your comming be earthly respects prayse and opinion and observation of men you come to be Canonized to grow Saints if your souls be here and by grace here alwayes diffused grow up to a sanctification Bonus es Domine animae quaerenti te Thou art good O Lord to that soul that seeks thee It is St. Augustines note that it is put in the singular Animae to that soul Though many come few come to him A man may thread Sermons by half dozens a day and place his merit in the nūber a man may have been all day in the perfume and incense of preaching and yet have receivd none of the savor of life unto life Some things an Ape can do as wel as a Man some things an Hypocrite as wel as a Saint We cannot see now whether thy soul be here now or no but to morrow hereafter in the course of thy life they which are near thee know whether thy former faults be mended or no know whether thy soul use to be at Sermons as well as thy body uses to go to Sermons Faith comes by hearing saith the Apostle but it is by that hearing of the soul Hearkning Considering And then as the soul is infused by God but diffused over the whole body so there is a Man so Faith is infused from God but diffused into our works and so there is a Saint Practise is the Incarnation of Faith Faith
a heavy heart That heavinesse makes him uncapable of Naturall of Morall of Civill of Spirituall comforts charme the Charmer never so wisely Heli heard that the Battell was lost and that his Sonnes were slaine and admitted so much sorrow for those that when the last was added The Arke was taken by the Enemy he was too weake for that and fell down and brake his neck It was his daughter in Lawes case too shee overcharged her soul with sadnesse for her husbands death and her fathers death and when the report of the Arke came she fell into labour and died and though the women told her Feare not thou hast born a Sonne yet shee answered not Though the Arke of God the worship of his Name bee at any time transferred from where it was despaire not thou of Gods reducing it for this despairing of others may bring thee to despaire in some accident to thy self Accustome thy selfe to keepe up the consideration of Gods mercy at the highest lodge not a sad suspition in any publique in any private businesse that Gods powerfull mercy can goe but thus farre hee that determineth Gods Power and his Mercy and faith here it must end is as much an Atheist as hee that denieth it altogether The Key of David openeth and no man shutteth The Spirit of Comfort shineth upon us and would not be blown out Monasterie and Ermimitage and Anchorate and such words of singularitie are not Synonymâ— with those plurall words Concio Coetus Ecclesia Synagoga Congregatio in which words God delivereth himselfe to us A Church is a Company Religion is Religation a binding of men together in one manner of Worship and Worship is an exteriour service and that exteriour service is the Venite exultemus to come and rejoyce in the presence of God If in any of these wayes God cast a Cloud upon our former joyes yet to receive good at Gods hand and not to receive evill to rejoice in the calme and not in the storme this is to breake at least halfe of the Commandement which is Gaudete semper And so from the first part which is the substance which we have passed by these steps That this rejoycing hath the nature of a Commandement it must bee maintained And that inward joy must be outwardly expressed even to the disgrace and confusion of Gods enemies and to the upholding of a joyfull constancy in our selves We passe now to the extent of the Commandement Gaudeâ—e semper Evermore Did God mean that we should rejoyce alwayes when he made sixe dayes for labour and but one for rest Certainly he did Sixe dayes we are to labour and to doe all that we have to doe And part of that which we have to doe is to rejoyce in our labour Adam in the state of Innocency had abundant occasion of continuall rejoycing but yet even in that joyfull state he was to labour to dresse and to keep the Garden After the fall when God made the labour of man more heavie in sudore vultus that he should not eat but in the sweat of his browe yet God gave him not that penalty that occasion of sadnesse till he had first imprinted the roote of true Joy the promise of a Messias that promise he made before he came to denounce the penalty first came the Ipse conteret and then in sudore vultus upon those words Thou shalt eat the labour of thy hand Debuit dicere fructum non laborem saith Augustine David should have said he shall eate the fruit not the labour of his hands Sed ipsi labores non sunt sine gaudio but the very labours the very afflictions of good men have joy in them Si labor potest manducari jucundari manducatus fructus laboris qualis erit And if labour it self affliction it self minister Joy what a manner what a measure of joy is in the full possession thereof in Heaven And as the consideration of the words immediately after the Text hath made more then one of the Fathers say Etiam Somnia justorum preces sunt Even the sleep of the righteous is a service to God and their very Dreams are Prayers and Meditations so much more properly may wee call the sleep and the bodily rest nay the bodily torments of the righteous joye rejoycing So that neither weeke day nor Sabbath day nor night labour nor rest interrupteth this continuall Joy Wee may wee must rejoyce evermore Gaudete in bonis Rejoyce when God giveth you the good things of this world First in Temporalibus when God giveth you the good Temporall things of this world Gaudete in Terra Rejoyce that God hath placed you in so fertill in so fruitfull a Land Gaudete in pace Rejoyce that God hath afforded you peace to till the Land Gaudete de Temporibus Rejoyce that God giveth good seasons that the Earth may give her increase and that Man may ioy in the increase of the Earth And Gaudete de amicitiis Rejoyce that God giveth you friendship with such Nations as may take of your superfluities and return things necessary to you There is a joy required for Temporall things for hee that is not joyfull in a benefit is not thankefull Next to that detestable assertion as Saint Augustine calleth it That God made any man to to damn him it is the perversest assertion That God gives man temporall things to ensnare him Was that Gods primary intention in prospering Noahs Vineyard That Noah should be drunken God forbid Doth God give any man honour or place Vt glorietur in malo qui potens est that his power might be an occasion of mischief and oppression God forbid God made light at first but wee know not what that light was but God gathered all light into the Sun and all the world sees it God infuses grace and spirituall blessings into a mans heart and no man sees that but the Spirit that is in that man but the Evidence the great Seale that he pleads in the Eye of the world is Gods temporall blessings When Assuerus put the Royall Vesture and Ring and Crown upon Mordecas it was to shew that hee was in his favour in the same intention proceeds God too when he gives riches or honour or favour or command hee would have that soul rejoyce in these as in testimonies of his favour God loves hilarem datorem a cheerfull giver but he that is not a cheerfull receiver is a worse natur'd man and more dishonours nay reproaches his benefactor They then disobey this Commandment of rejoycing in temporall things that employ not their industry that use not all good means to attaine them Every man is therefore planted in the world that hee may grow in the world and as venomous hearbs delight in the shade so a sullen retiring argues a murmuring and venomous disposition To contemn Gods temporall blessings or to neglect or undervalue those instruments those persons by whom God
not that the just shall feel no worldly misery but that that misery shall not make them miserable how evill so ever it be in it self it shall not be evill to them but Omnia in bonum All things work together for good to them that love God Who is he that will harme you if you be followers of God says Saint Peter The wicked will not follow you in that strange Country their conversation is not in heaven if yours be they will not follow you thither They will doe as he whose instruments they are do the Devill and Resist the Devill and he will flee from you A religious constancy blunts the edge of any sword dampes the spirits of any counsel benums the strength of any arme opens the corners of any Labyrinth and brings the subtilest plots against God and his servants not onely to an invalidnesse an ineffectualnesse but to a derision not onely to a Dimicatum de coelis that the world shall see that the Lord fights for his servants from heaven but to an Irridebit in coelis that he that sits in heaven shall laugh them to scorn he shall ruine them and ruine them in contempt That prayer that David makes Libera me Domine ab homine malo deliver me O Lord from the evill man is a large an extensive an indefinite prayer for there is an evill man occasion of tentation in every man in every woman in every action there is Coluber in via a snake in every path danger in every calling But Saint Augustine contracts that prayer and fixes it Liberet te Deus à temes noli tibi esse malius God blesse me from my selfe that I be not that evill man to my selfe that I lead not my selfe into tentation and nothing shall scandalize me To which purpose it concerns us to devest that naturall but corrupt easinesse of uncharitable mis-construing that which other men doe especially those whom God hath placed in his own place for government over us that we doe not come to think that there is nothing done if all bee not done that no abuses are corrected if all be not removed that there 's an end of all Protestants if any Papists bee left in the world Upon those words of our Saviour speaking of the last day of Judgement The son of man shall send forth his Angels and they shall gather out of his Kingdome Omnia scandala All things that might offend Calvin says learnedly and wisely Qui ad extirpandum quicquid displicet praepostere festinant They that make too much haste to mend all at once antevertunt Christi judicium ereptum Angelis officium sibi temereusurpant They prevent Christs judgment and rashly and sacrilegiously they usurp the Angels office Christ hath reserved the cleansing and removing of all scandals all offences to the last day the Angels of the Church the Minister the Angels of the State the Magistrate cannot doe it not the Angels of heaven themselves till the day of judgement All scandals cannot be removed in this life but a great many more might be then are if men were not so apt to suspect and mis-constru and imprint the name of scandall upon every action of which they see not the end nor the way for from this jealousie and suspicion and misconstruction of the Angels of Church and State our Superiours in those sphears wee shall become jealous and suspicious of God himselfe that he hath neglected us abandoned us if he do not deliver us and establish us at those times and by those means which we prescribe him we shall come to argue thus against God himselfe Surely if God meant any good to us he would not put us into their hands who doe us no good Reduce all to the precious mediocrity To be unsensible of any declination of any diminution of the glory of God or his true worship and religion is an irreligious stupidity But to bee so ombragious so startling so apprehensive so suspicious as to think every thing that is done is done to that end this is a seditious jealousie a Satyr in the heart and an unwritten Libell and God hath a Star-chamber to punish unwritten Libels before they are published Libels against that Law Curse not or speak not ill of the King no not in thy thought Not to mourn under the sense of evils that may fall upon us is a stony disposition Nay the hardest stone marble will weep towards foul weather But to make all Possible things Necessary this may fall upon us therefore it must fall upon us and to make contingent and accidentall things to be the effects of counsels this is fallen upon us therefore it is fallen by their practise that have the government in their hands this is a vexation of spirit in our selves and a defacing a casting of durt in the face of Gods image of that representation and resemblance of God which he hath imprinted in them of whom hee hath sayd They are Gods In divine matters there is principally exercise of our faith That which we understand not we beleeve In civill affairs that are above us matters of State there is exercise of our Hope Those ways which we see not wee hope are directed to good ends In Civill actions amongst our selves there is exercise of our Charity Those hearts which we see not let us charitably beleeve to bee disposed to Gods service That when as Christ hath shut up his wâ—e onely in those two Va quia fâ—rtes illusiones Wâ—e because scandals and offences are so strong in their nature and Va quia infirmivos wâ—e because you are so weak in yours we doe not create a third Woe Va quia praevaricatores in an uncharitable jealousie and mis-interpretation of him that we are not in his care nor of his Ministers that they doe not execute his purposes nor of one another that when as God hath placed us in a Land where there are no wâ—lfes we doe not think Hominem homini Lupum imagine every man to be a wolf to us or to intend our destruction But as in the Arke there were Lions but the Lion shut his mouth and clincht his paw the Lion hurt nothing in the Arke and in the Arke there were Vipers and Scorpions but the Viper shewed no teeth nor the Scorpion no taile the Viper bit none the Scorpion stung none in the Arke for if they had occasioned any disorder there their escape could have been but into the Sea into irreparable ruine so in every State though that State be an Arke of peace and preservation there will be some kind of oppression in some Lions some that will abuse their power but Vae si scandalizemur woe unto us if we be scandalized with that and seditiously lay aspersions upon the State and Government because there are some such in every Church though that Church bee an Arke for integrity and sincerity there will bee some Vipers Vipers that will gnaw at their Mothers
belly men that will shake the articles of Religion But Vae si scandalizemur woe if we be so scandalized at that as to defame that Church or separate our selves from that Church which hath given us our Baptism for that It is the chasing of the Lion and the stirring of the Viper that aggravates the danger The first blow makes the wrong but the second makes the fray and they that will endure no kind of abuse in State or Church are many times more dangerous then that abuse w ch they oppose It was only Christ Jesus himself that could say to the Tempest Tace â—bâ—utesce peace be still not a blast not a sob more onely he could becalm a Tempest at once It is well with us if we can ride out a storm at anchour that is lie still and expect and surrender ourselves to God and anchor in that confidence till the storm blow over It is well for us if we can beat out a storm at sea with boarding to and again that is maintain and preserve our present condition in Church and State though we encrease not that though we gain no way yet wee lose no way whilst the storm lasts It is well for us if though we be put to take in our sayls and to take down our masts yet we can hull it out that is if in storms of contradiction or persecution the Church or State though they be put to accept worse conditions then before and to depart with some of their outward splendor be yet able to subsist and swimme above water and reserve it selfe for Gods farther glory after the storme is past onely Christ could becalm the storme He is a good Christian that can ride out or board out or hull out a storme that by industry as long as he can and by patience when he can do no more over-lives a storm and does not forsake his ship for it that is not scandalized with that State nor that Church of which he is a member for those abuses that are in it The Arke is peace peace is good dispositions to one another good intepretations of one another for if our impatience put us from our peace and so out of the Arke all without the Arke is sea The bottomlesse and boundlesse Sea of Rome will hope to swallow us if we dis-unite our selves in uncharitable mis-interpretations of one another The peace of God is the peace that passeth all understanding That men should subdue and captivate even their understanding to the love of this peace that when in their understanding they see no reason why this or this thing should be thus or thus done or so and so suffered the peace of God that is charity may passe their understanding and goe above it for howsoever the affections of men or the vicissitudes and changes of affairs may vary or apply those two great axiomes and aphorisms of ancient Rome Salus populi suprema lex estâ—â— The good of the people is above all Law and then Quod Principi places lex esto The pleasure of the Prince is above all Law howsoever I say various occasions may vary their Laws adhere we to that Rule of the Law which the Apostle prescribes that we always make Finem praâ—cepti charitâ—tem The end of the Commandement charity for no Commandement no not those of the first Table is kept if upon pretence of keeping that Commandement or of the service of God I come to an uncharitable opinion of other men That so first Fundemur radicâ—mur in charitate that wee be planted and take root in that ground in charity so wee are by being planted in that Church that thinks charitably even of that Church that uncharitably condemns us And then Vt â—ultipliceâ—ur That Grace and peace may be multiplyed in us so it is if to our outward peace God adde the inward peace of conscience in our own bosomes and lastly Vt abundemus that we may not onely encrease as the Apostle says there but as he adds abound in charity towards one another and towards all men for this abundant and overflowing charity as long as we can to beleeve well for the present and where we cannot do so to hope well of the future is the best preservative and antidote against the woe of this Text Woe unto the world because of scandals and offences which though it be spoken of the Active is more especially intended of the Passive scandal and though it be pressed upon us first Quia Illusiones fortes because those scandals are so strong and then Quia inferâ—â— nos because we are so weak doe yet endanger us most in that respect Quia prâ—varicatores because we open ourselves nay offer our selves to the vexation of scandals by an easie a jealous a suspicious an uncharitable interpreting of others SERMON XIX Preached at Lincolns Inne PSAL. 38. 2. For thine arrâ—wes stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore ALmost every man hath his Appetite and his tast disposed to some kind of meates rather then others He knows what dish he would choose for his first and for his second course We have often the same disposition in our spirituall Diet a man may have a particular love towards such or such a book of Scripture and in such an affection I acknowledge that my spirituall appetite carries me still upon the Psalms of David for a first course for the Scriptures of the Old Testament and upon the Epistles of Saint Paul for a second course for the New and my meditations even for these publike exercises to Gods Church returne oftnest to these two For as a hearty entertainer offers to others the meat which he loves best himself so doe I oftnest present to Gods people in these Congregations the meditations which I feed upon at home in those two Scriptures If a man be asked a reason why he loves one meat better then another where all are equally good as the books of Scripture are he will at least finde a reason in some good example that he sees some man of good tast and temperate withall so do And for my Diet I have Saint Augustines protestation that he loved the Book of Psalms and Saint Chrysostomes that he loved Saint Pauls Epistles with a particular devotion I may have another more particular reason because they are Scriptures written in such forms as I have been most accustomed to Saint Pauls being Letters and Davids being Poems for God gives us not onely that which is meerly necessary but that which is convenient too He does not onely feed us but feed us with marrow and with fatnesse he gives us our instruction in cheerfull forms not in a sowre and sullen and angry and unacceptable way but cheerfully in Psalms which is also a limited and a restrained form Not in an Oration not in Prose but in Psalms which is such a from as is both curious aud requires diligence in the making and then when