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
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
calling by being personally here at these exercises of Religion thou art some kinde of witnesse of this light For in how many places of the world hath Christ yet never opened such doors for his ordinary service in all these 1600. yeers And in how many places hath he shut up these doors of his true worship within these three or foure yeers Quod citaris huc That thou art brought hither within distance of his voyce within reach of his food intra sphaeram Activitatis within the spheare and latitude of his ordinary working that is into his house into his Church this is a citation a calling answerable to Iohn Baptists first calling from his fathers dead loins and his mothers barren wombe and his second citation was before he was borne in his mothers wombe When Mary came to visit Elizabeth the childe sprang in her belly as soone as Maries voice sounded in her eares And though naturally upon excesse of joy in the mother the childe may spring in her yet the Evangelist meanes to tell an extraordinary and supernaturall thing and whether it were an anticipation of reason in the childe some of the Fathers think so though St. Augustine do not that the childe understood what he did or that this were a fulfilling of that prophecy That he should be filled with the holy Ghost from his mothers wombe all agree that this was an exciting of him to this attestation of his Saviours presence whether he had any sense of it or no. Exultatio significat sayes St. Augustine This springing declared that his mother whose forerunner that childe should be was come And so both Origen and St. Cyrill refer that commendation which our Saviour gives him Inter natos Mulierum Among those that were born of women there was not a greater Prophet that is none that prophecyed before he was borne but he And such a citation beloved thou mayest have in this place and at this time A man may upon the hearing of something that strikes him that affects him feel this springing this exultation this melting and colliquation of the inwardest bowels of his soule a new affection a new passion beyond the joy ordinarily conceived upon earthly happinesses which though no naturall Philosopher can call it by a name no Anatomist assigne the place where it lyes yet I doubt not through Christ jesus but that many of you who are here now feele it and understand it this minute Citaris huc thou wast cited to come hither whether by a collaterall and oblique and occasionall motion or otherwise hither God hath brought thee and Citaris hîc here thou art cited to come neerer to him Now both these citations were before Iohn Baptist was borne both these affections to come to this place and to be affected with a delight here may be before thy regeneration which is thy spirituall birth a man is not borne not borne againe because he is at Church nor because he likes the Sermon Iohn Baptist had and thou must have a third citation which was in him from the desert into the publique into the world from contemplation to practice This was that mission that citation which most properly belongs to this Text when the word came to the voyce The word of God came to Iohn in the wildernesse and he came into all the Countrey preaching the Baptisme of repentance To that we must come to practise For in this respect an Vniversity is but a wildernesse though we gather our learning there our private meditation is but a wildernesse though we contemplate God there nay our being here is but a wildernesse though we serve God here if our service end so if we do not proceed to action and glorifie God in the publique And therefore Citaris huc thou art cited hither here thou must be and Citaris hîc thou art cited here to lay hold upon that grace which God offers in his Ordinance and Citaris hinc thou art cited from hence to embrace a calling in the world He that undertakes no course no vocation he is no part no member no limbe of the body of this world no eye to give light to others no eare to receive profit by others If he think it enough to be excrementall nayles to scratch and gripe others by his lazy usury and extortion or excrementall hayre made onely for ornament or delight of others by his wit or mirth or delightfull conversation these men have not yet felt this third citation by which they are called to glorifie God and so to witnesse for him in such publique actions as Gods cause for the present requires and comports with their calling And then Iohn Baptist had a fourth citation to bear witnesse for Christ by laying down his life for the Truth and this was that that made him a witnesse in the highest sense a Martyr God hath not served this citation upon us nor doth he threaten us with any approches towards it in the feare of persecution for religion But remember that Iohn Baptists Martyrdome was not for the fundamentall rock the body of the Christian religion but for a morall truth for matter of manners A man may be bound to suffer much for a lesse matter then the utter overthrow of the whole frame and body of religion But leaving this consideration for what causes a man is bound to lay downe his life consider we now but this that a man lays downe his life for Christ and beares witnesse of him even in death when he prefers Christ before this world when he desires to be dissolved and be with him and obeyes cheerefully that citation by the hand of death whensoever it comes and that citation must certainly be served upon you all whether this night in your beds or this houre at the doore no man knowes You who were cited hither to heare and cited here to consider and cited hence to worke in a calling in the world must be cited from thence too from the face to the bosome of the earth from treading upon other mens to a lying downe in your owne graves And yet that is not your last citation there is fifth In the grave Iohn Baptist does and we must attend a fifth citation from the grave to a Iudgement The first citation hither to Church was served by Example of other men you saw them come and came The second citation here in the Church was served by the Preacher you heard him and beleeved The third from hence is served by the law and by the Magistrate they binde you to embrace a profession and a calling and you do so The fourth which is from thence from this to the next world is served by nature in death he touches you and you sinke This fifth to Iudgement shall be by an Angell by an Archangell by the Lord himself The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voyce of the Archangell and with
Jesus before whose face I stand now and before whose face I shall not be able to stand amongst the righteous at the last day if I lie now and make this Pulpit my Shop to vent sophisticate Wares In the presence of you a holy part I hope of the Militant Church of which I am In the presence of the whole Triumphant Church of which by him by whom I am that I am I hope to bee In the presence of the Head of the whole Church who is All in all I and I thinke I have the Spirit of God I am sure I have not resisted it in this point I and I may bee allowed to know something in Civill affaires I am sure I have not been stupefied in this point doe deliver that which upon the truth of a Morall man and a Christian man and a Church man beleeve to be true That hee who is the Breath of our nostrils is in his heart as farre from submitting us to that Idolatry and superstition which did heretofore oppresse us as his immediate Predecessor whose memory is justly precious to you was Their wayes may bee divers and yet their end the same that is The glory of God And to a higher Comparison then to her I know not how to carry it As then the Breath of our nostrils our breath is his that is our speech first in containing it not to speak in his diminution then in uttering it amongst men to interpret fairly and loially his proceedings and then in uttering it to God in such prayers for the continuing thereof as imply a thankfull acknowledgement of the present blessings spirituall and temporall which we enjoy now by him So farre Breath is speech but Breath is life too and so our life is his How willingly his Subjects would give their lives for him I make no doubt but hee doubts not This is argument enough for their propensenesse and readinesse to give their lives for his honour or for the possessions of his children That though not contra voluntatem not against his will yet Praeter voluntatem without any Declaration of his will or pleasure by any Command they have been as ready voluntarily as if a Presse had commanded them But these ways which his wisdome hath chosen for the procuring of peace have kept off much occasion of triall of that how willingly his Subjects would have given their lives for him Yet their lives are his who is the breath of their nostrils And therefore though they doe not leave them for him let them lead them for him though they bee not called to die for him let them live so as that may bee for him to live peaceably to live honestly to live industriously is to live for him for the sinnes of the people endanger the Prince as much as his owne When that shall bee required at your hand then die for him In the meane time live for him live so as your living doe not kindle Gods anger against him and that is a good Confession and acknowledgement That hee is the breath of your nostrils That your life is his As then the breath of our nostrils is expressed by this word in this Text Ruach spiritus speech and life so it is his When the breath of life was first breathed into man there is called by another word Neshamah and that is the soule the immortall soule And is the King the breath of that life Is hee the soule of his Subjects so as that their soules are his so as that they must sinne towards men in doing unjust actions or sinne towards God in forsaking and dishonouring him if the King will have them If I had the honour to aske this question in his royall presence I know he would bee the first man that would say No No your souls are not mine so And as hee is a most perfect Text-man in the Booke of God and by the way I should not easily feare his being a Papist that is a good Text-man I know hee would cite Daniel saying Though our God doe not deliver us yet know O King that we will not worship thy Gods And I know hee would cite S. Peter We ought to obey God rather then men And he would cite Christ himself Feare not them for the soule that cannot hurt the soule He claimes not your souls so It is Ruach here it is not Neshamah your life is his your soule is not his in that sense But yet beloved these two words are promiscuously used in the Scriptures Ruach is often the soule Neshamah is often the temporall life And thus farre the one as well as the other is the Kings That hee must answer for your soules so they are his for hee is not a King of bodies but a King of men bodies and soules nor a King of men onely but of Christian men so your Religion so your soules are his his that is appertaining to his care and his account And therefore though you owe no obedience to any power under heaven so as to decline you from the true God or the true worship of that God and the fundamentall things thereof yet in those things which are in their nature but circumstantiall and may therefore according to times and places and persons admit alterations in those things though they bee things appertaining to Religion submit your selves to his directions for here the two words meet Ruach and Neshamah your lives are his and your souls are his too His end being to advance Gods truth he is to be trusted much in matters of indifferent nature by the way He is the word of our Text Spiritus as Spiritus is the Holy Ghost so farre by accommodation as that he is Gods instrument to convey blessings upon us and as spiritus is our breath of speech and as it is our life and as it is our soule too so farre as that in those temporall things which concern spirituall as Times of meeting and much of the manner of proceeding when we are met we are to receive directions from him So he is the breath of our nostrils our speech our lives our soules in that limited sense are his But then did those subjects of his And I charge none but his subjects with this plot for I judge not them who are without from whom God deliverd us this day did they think so of him That he was the breath of our nostrils If the breath be soure if it bee tainted and corrupt as they would needs thinke in this case is it good Physick for an ill breath to cut off the head or to suffocate it to smother to strangle to murder that man Hee is the breath of their nostrils They owe him their speech their thanks their prayers and how have these children of fooles made him their song and their by-word How have these Drunkards men drunke with the Babylonian Cup made Libels against him How have those Seminatores verborum word-scatterers defamed him even with
then thirdly here is a continuation of Gods anger when they are risen for they are not rais'd to their former state and dignity from which they were fallen they are not rais'd to be established but it is arise and depart And in all this which is a fourth Consideration God precludes them from any hope by solicitation he reveales his purpose his Decree and consequently his inexorablenesse evidently in that word for never murmur never dispute never intreat you must depart For it is determined it is resolved and here is not your Rest In which also the Commination is yet more and more aggravated first in that they lose their Rest which God hath sold them so dearly by so many battailes and so many afflictions and which God had sworn to them so solemnly by so many ratifications they must lose their Rest they must have no Rest Here not there not in the Land of Promise it selfe And then lastly as they are denied all rest there There where was the wombe and Center of their Rest so there is no intimation no hope given that they should have rest any where else for as they were to rise onely to depart so they were to depart into Captivity The first is an increpation they were fallen but from whence It was once said Qui jacet in terra non habet unde cadat but he that is earth it selfe whither can he fall whither can Man derived from earth before his life enamored of the earth embracing it and maried to it in his life destined to the earth betrothed to it for a second mariage after this life whither can he fall It is true of us all I shall say to corruption Thou art my father and to the worme Thou art my Mother and my sister and can we fall into worse company contract an alliance with a more base and beggerly kindred then this Not if we were left there then we could not but when we consider a nation of whom God hath said sponsabo te mihi I will mary thee without any respect of disparagement in thy lownesse I will not refuse thee for it I will not upbraid thee with it I will mary thee for ever and without any purpose of divorce sponsabo in aeternum of this nation thus assum'd thus contracted thus endowed thus assured why may not we wonder as vehemently as the Prophet did of the fallen Angels Quomodo cecidisti de caelo Lucifer filius Orientis how did this nation fall out of Gods armes out of Gods bosome Himselfe tells us how what he had done to exalt them what they had done to devest his favours for their naturall lownes he says In thy nativity when thou wast born thy Navell was not cut thou wast not washed thou wast not salted thou wast not swadled No eye pitied thee but thou wast cast into the open fields in contempt I passed by and saw thee in thy bloud and said thou shalt live I sware unto thee and entred into a covenant with thee and thou becamest mine I washed thee anointed thee and adorned thee and thou wast perfect through my beauty which I set upon thee well then in this state Quomodo cecidisti de caelo how fell she out of Gods armes out of his bosome thus Thou didst trust in thine owne beauty because of thy renowne and so playedst the harlor When that nation was in massa damnata a loafe of Adams dow through all which the infectious leaven of sin had passed without difference when that nation had no more title nor pretence to Gods mercy then any of their fellow wormes when God had heaped and accumulated his tempor all blessings upon them and above all dwelt with them in the alliance and in the familiarity of a particular Religion which contracted God and them and left out all the world beside when God had imprinted this beauty in them and that they had a renowne and reputation for that they trusted to their owne beauty to worship whom they would and how they would they followed their own invention yea they trusted in beauty which was not their owne in borrowed beauty in painted beauty and so tooke in and applied themselves to all the spirituall fornications to all the Idolatries of the nations about them some that were too absurd to be hearkned to some too obscene and foule to be named now by us though the Prophets to their farther reproach and confusion have named them some too ridiculous to fall into any Mans consideration that could seriously thinke of a Majesty in a God which should be worshipped yet all these absurd and obscene and ridiculous Idolatries they prostituted them selves unto Take them in their lowness for any disposition towards the next world and this was their state Their navell was not cut that is they were still incorporated into their mother to earth and to sinne and they were not one step higher then all the world beside in Iacobs ladder whose top is in heaven Take them in their dignity in this world and then we finde them in Egypt where they were not Personae but Res they were not their Masters Men but their Masters goods they were their cattell to vex and wear out with their labours spent upon the delights of others They must goe farre for straw a great labour for a little matter and they must burne it when they had brought it they must make bricke but others must build houses with their materialls and they perish in the fields they must beget children but onely for the slaughter and to be murdred as sooneâ—â— they were borne what nation what Man what beast what worme what weed if it could have understood their state would have changed with them then This was their dejection their exinanition in Egypt if we shall beginne there to consider what he did for them As after in the Christian Church he made the bloud of the Martyrs the seed of the Church so in Egypt he propagated and multiplied his Children in the midst of their cruell oppressions and slaughters as though their bloud had been seed to encrease by under the weight of their depressions he gave them growth and stature and strength as though their wounds had been playsters and their vexations cordials when he had made Egypt as a Hell by kindling all his plagues in her bosome yet Non dereliquit in Inferno he left not his beloved in this Hell he paled in a Paradise in this Hell a Goshen in Egypt and gave his servants security briefly those whom the sword should have lessen'd whom labour should have creepled whom contempt should have begger'd he brought out numerous and in multitudes strong and in courage rich and in abundance and he opened the Red-sea as he should have opened the booke of life to shew them their Names their security and he shut the sea as that book upon the Egyptians to shew them their irrecoverable exclusion If we consider what he did
for them what he suffered from them in their way the battailes that he fought for them in an out-stretched arm the battails that they fought against him in the stifnesse of their necks and their murmuring we must to their confusion acknowledge that at a great deale a lesse price then he paid for them he might have gained all the people of the earth all the Nations of the earth in appâ—arance would have come in to his subjection upon the thousand part of that which he did for the Israelites in their way But for that which he did for them at home when he had planted them in the Land of Promise as it were an ungratefull thing not to remember those blessings so it is some degree of ingratitude to think them possible to be numbred Consider the narrownesse of the Land scarce equall to three of our shires and their innumerable armies consider the barrennesse of many parts of that Countrey and their innumerable sacrifices of Cattell consider their little trade in respect and their innumerable treasures but consider especially what God had done for their soules in promising and ratifying so often a Messias unto them and giving them Law and Prophers in the mean time and there you see their true height and then consider the abominations and Idolatries in which they had plung'd and buried themselves and there you see their lownesse how far they were fallen This then was their descent and as Saint Paul sayes when he describes this descent of the Jewes into all manner of abominations one step of this stayre of this descent is unnaturall affection they were unnaturall to themselves that is not sensible of their own misery but were proud of their fall and thought themselves at ease in their ruine and another stayre in this fall is that God had delivered them up to a reprobate mind to suffer them to think so still And then for their farther vexation God would take from them even that false that imaginary comfort of theirs Surgite sayes God since you have made that perverse shift to take comfort in your fall Arise from that from that security from that stupidity for you shall not chuse but see your misery when all the people were descended to that basenesse as nothing is more base then to court the world and the Devill for poore and wretched delights when we may have plentifull and rich abundance in our confidence in God when the people were all of one mind and one voice omnes unius labii their hearts and tongues spoke all one language and populus tanto deterior quanto in deterioribus concors Men are the worse the more they are and the more unanime and constant they are in ill purposes when they were all come to that Venite comburamus Come and let us burn brick and trust in our own work and Venite aedificemus Come and let us build a tower and provide a safety for our selves since they would descend from their dignity which dignity consists in the service of God whose service is perfect freedome God would descend with them Venite descendamus sayes God but what to doe Descendamus ut confundamus let us goe down to confound their language and to scatter them upon the earth Ascensio mendax descensio crudelis sayes holy Bernard A false ascending is a cruell descending when we lye weltring in our bloud secure in our sins and can flatter our selves that we are well and where we would be this deceitfull ascension is a cruell descent into hell we lye still we feel no pain but it is because we have broke our necks we doe not grone we doe not sigh but it is because our breath is gone the spirit of God is departed from us They were descended to a flatnesse of tast Egyptian Onions had a better savor then the Manna of heaven They were descended to a new-fanglednesse in Civill government they liked the form of government amongst their neighbours better then that of Iudges which God had established for them then They were descended to a newfanglednesse in matter of Religion to the embracing of a foraine and a frivolous and an Idolatrous worship of God but then being in their descent when they delighted in it as Sea-sick men who had rather be troden upon then rise up then God frustrate that false joy and false ease of theirs he rouses them from all that which they had proposed to themselves Surgite arise arise from this security because you are fallen you should rise but because you love your misery you shall rise you shall come to a sense and knowledge of it you shall not enjoy the ease of an ignorance But he raised them not to reestablish them to restore them to their former dignity there was no comfort in that Surgite which was accompanied with an Ite arise and depart and depart into captivity If we compare the captivity which they were going into that of Babylon with the other bondage which they had been delivered from that of Egypt it is true there were many and reall and important differences That of Egypt was Ergastulum a prison and it was fornax ferrea an Iron fornace but in Babylon they were not slaves as they were in Egypt but they were such a kind of prisoners as onely had not liberty to returne to their owne countrey But yet if we consider their state in Egypt in their roote in Iacob and in his sonnes they came for food thither in a time of necessity and consider them in that branch that overshadowed and refreshed them in Ioseph he came thither as a bondman in a servile condition So that they were but few persons and not so great as that their pressures could be aggravated or taste much more the bitterly by comparing it with any greatnesse which they had before Though they were fallen into great misery they were not fallen from any remarkeable greatnesse But between the two captivities of Egypt and Babylon they were come to that greatnesse and reputation as that they had the testimony of all the world Onely this people is wise and of understanding and a great nation Now wherein In that which followes what nation is so great as to have the Lord come so neare unto them so great as to have Lawes and Ordinances so righteous as they had Now this peculiar greatnesse they lost in this captivity whether they lost absolutely the bookes of the Law or not and that they were reinspired and redictated againe by the holy Ghost to Esdras or whether Esdras did but recollect them and recompile them Saint Hierome will not determine He will not say whether Moses or Esdras be author of the first five bookes of the Bible but it is cleare enough that they were out of that ordinary use wherein they had been before and though they kept their Circumcision and their Sabbaths in Babylon yet being cast thither for their sinnes they had
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
it selfe and therefore his resolution stands unshak'd Etiamsi occiderit Though he dy for it yet he will trust in God In the first then The Resolution the purpose it selfe we shall consider Quem and Quid The Person and the Affection To whom Iob will beare so great and so reverent a respect and then what this respect is I will trust in him I would not stay you upon the first branch upon the person as upon a particular consideration though even that The person upon whom in all cases we are to rely be entertainement sufficient for the meditation of our whole life but that there arises an usefull observation out of that name by which Iob delivers that person to us in this place Iob says though He kill me yet he will trust in him but he tells us not in this verse who this He is And though we know by the frame and context that this is God yet we must have recourse to the third verse to see in what apprehension and what notion in what Character and what Contemplation in what name and what nature what Attribute and what Capacity Iob conceived and proposed God to himselfe when he fix'd his resolution so intirely to rely upon him for as God is a jealous God I am sure I have given him occasion of jealousy and suspicion I have multiplied my fornications and yet am not satisfied as the prophet speakes As God is a Consuming fire I have made my selfe fuell for the fire and I have brought the fires of lust and of ambition to kindle that fire As God visits the sinnes of fathers upon Children I know not what sinnes my fathers and grandfathers have layd up in the treasure of Gods indignation As God comes to my notion in these formes Horrendum it were a fearefull thing to flesh and bloud to deliver ones selfe over to him as he is a jealous God and a Consuming fire But in that third verse Iob sets before him that God whom he conceives to be Shaddai that is Omnipotens Allmighty I will speake to the Allmighty and I desire to dispute with God Now if we propose God to our selves in that name as he is Shaddai we shall find that word in so many significations in the scriptures as that no misery or calamity no prosperity or happinesse can fall upon us but we shall still see it of what kinde so ever it be descend from God in this acceptation as God is Shaddai For first this word signifies Dishoner as the Septuagint translate it in the Proverbs He that Dishonoreth his parents is a shamelesse child There 's this word Shaddai is the name of God and yet Shaddai signifies Dishonor In the prophet Esay it signifies Depredation a forcible and violent taking away of our goods vae praedanti says God in that place woe to thee that spoyledst and wast not spoyled Shaddai is the name of God and yet Shaddai is spoyle and violence and depredation In the prophet Ieremy the word is carried farther there it signifies Destruction and an utter Dâ—vastation Dâ—vastati sumus says he we unto us for we are Destroy'd The word is Shaddai and is Destruction though Shaddai be the name of God yea the word reaches to a more spirituall affection it extends to the understanding and error in that and to the Conscience and sinne in that for so the Septuagint makes use of this word in the Proverbs To deceive and to ly and in one place of the Psalmes they interpret the word of the Devil himselfe So that recollecting all these heavy significations of the word Dishonor and Disreputation force and Depredation Ruine and Devastation Error and Illusion the Devill and his Tentations are presented to us in the same word as the name and power of God is that when so ever any of these doe fall upon us in the same instant when we see and consider the name and quality of this calamity that falls we may see and consider the power and the purpose of God which inflicts that Calamity I cannot call the calamity by a name but in that name I name God I cannot feel an affliction but in that very affliction I feel the hand and if I will the medicinall hand of my God If therefore our Honour and Reputation decay all honor was a beame of him and if he have sucked that beame into himselfe let us follow it home let us labor to be honorable in him glorified in him and our honor is not extinguished in this world but growne too glorious for this world to comprehend If spoyle and Depredation come upon us that we be covered with wrath and persecuted slaine and not spared That those that fed delicately perish in the streets and they that were brought up in scarlet embrace the Dunghill and that the hands of pitifull women have sodden their owne children as the prophet complains in the Lamentations if there be such an irreparable Devastation upon us as that we be broken as an Earthern vessell in the breaking whereof there remaines not a sheard to fetch fire from the hearth nor water from the pit That our estate be ruined so as that there is nothing left not onely for future posterity but not for the present family yet still God and the calamity are together God does not send it but bring it he is there as soone as the calamity is there and calling that calamity by his owne name Shaddai he would make that very calamity a candle to thee by which thou mightst see him that if thou wert not so puffed up before as that thou forgotst to say Dominus dedit It was the Lord that gave all thou shouldst not be so dejected so rebellious now as not to say Dominus tulit It is the Lord that hath taken and committed to some better steward those treasures of his which he saw thou dost employ to thine owne danger Yea if those spirituall afflictions which reach to the understanding and are intimated and involved in this word in this name of God doe fall upon us That we call for our lovers and they deceive us as we told you the word did signifie deceit that is we come to see how much we mistooke the matter when we fell in love with wordly things as certainely once in our lives though it be but upon our Death beds we doe come to discover that deceit yea when the deceit is so spirituall as that it reaches not onely to the understanding but to the Conscience that that have been deceived either with security at one time or with anxieties and unnecessary scruples and impertinent perplexities at another if this spirituall deceit have gone so high as that wee came to thinke our selves to be amongst them of whom the prophet sayes Ah Lord God surely thou hast deceived thy people and Ierusalem that we come to suspect that God hath misled us in a false religion all this while and that there is
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
without a pope they have made a problematicall a disputable matter and some of their Authours have diverted towards an affirmation of it but Aufleribilitas potestatis to imagine a King without Kingly Soveraignty never came into probleme into disputation We all lamented and bitterly and justly the losse of our Deborah though then we saw a Iosiah succeeding but if they had removed our Iosiah and his Royall children and so this form of government where or who or what had been an object of Consolation to us The cause of lamentation in the losse of a good King is certainly great and so it was if Ieremy lamented Iosiah but if it were but for zedekiah an ill King as the greater part of Expositors take it yet the lamentation you see is the same How ill a King was Zedekiah As ill as Iosiah was good that 's his measure He did evill in the sight of the Lord according to all that Iehoiakim had done Here is his sinne sinne by precedent and what had Iehoiakim done He had done evill in the sight of the Lord according to all that his Fathers had done It is a great and a dangerous wickednesse which is done upon pretext of Antiquity The Religion of our Fathers the Church of our Fathers the Worship of our Fathers is a pretext that colours a great deale of Superstition He did evill as his Fathers there was his comparative evill And his positive evill I meane his particular sinne was That he humbled not himself to Gods Prophets to Ieremy speaking from the mouth of the Lord there was irreligiousnesse And then He broke the Oath which he had sworne by God there was perâ—idiousnesse faithlesnsse And lastly He stiffned his neck and hardned his heart from turning to the Lord of Israel there was impenitiblenesse Thus evill was Zedekiah irreligious to God treacherous to man impenitible to himself and yet the State and men truly religious in the State the Prophet lamented him not his spirituall defections by sinne for they did not make themselves Judges of that but they lamented the calamities of the Kingdome in the losse even of an evill King That man must have a large comprehension that shall adventure to say of any King He is an ill King he must know his Office well and his actions well and the actions of other Princes too who have correspondence with him before he can say so When Christ sayes Let your communication be yea yea and nay nay for whatsoever is more then this that is when it comes to swearing that cometh of evill Saint Augustine does not understand that of the evill disposition of that man that sweares but of them who will not beleeve him without wearing Many times a Prince departs from the exact rule of his duty not out of his own indisposition to truth and clearnesse but to countermine underminers That which David sayes in the eighteenth Psalme David speaks not of man but of God himself Cum perverso perveriêris With the froward thou wilt show thy self froward God who is of no froward nêature may be made froward with crafty neighbours a Prince will be crafty and perchance false with the false Alas to looke into no other profession but our owne how often do we excuse Dispensations and pluralities and non-residencies with an Omnes faciunt I do but as other men of my profession do Allow a King but that That he does but as other Kings do Nay but this He does but as other Kings put him to a necessity to do and you will not hastily call a King an ill King When God gives his people for old shoes and sells them for nothing and at the same time gives his and their enemies abundance when God commands Abraham to sacrifice his own and onely Sonne and his enemies have Children at their pleasure as David speaks To give your selves the liberty of humane affection you would think God an ill God but yet for all this his children are to him a Royall Priesthood and a holy Nation and all their tears are in his bottles and registred in his booke for all this When Princes pretermit in some things the present benefit of their Subjects and confer favours upon others give your selves the liberty to judge of Princes actions with the affections of private men and you may think a King an ill King But yet we are to him as David sayes His brethren his bone his flesh and so reputed by him God himselfe cannot stand upright in a naturall mans interpretation nor any King in a private mans But then how soone our adversaries come to call Kings ill Kings we see historically when they boast of having deposed Kings Quia minus utiles Because some other hath seemed to them fitter for the Government and we see it prophetically by their allowing those Indictments and Attainders of Kings which stand in their books De Syndicatu That that King which neglects the duties of his place and they must prescribe the duty and judge the negligence too That King that exercises his Prerogative without just cause and they must prescribe the Prerogative and judge the cause That that King that vexes his Subjects That that King that gives himselfe to intemperate hunting for in that very particular they instance that in such cases and they multiply these cases infinitely Kings are in their mercy and subject to their censures and corrections We proceed not so in censuring the actions of Kings we say with St. Cyrill Impium est dicere Regi Iniquè agis It is an impious thing in him who is onely a private man and hath no other obligations upon him to say to the King or of the King He governs not as a King is bound to do we remit the judgement of those their actions which are secret to God and when they are evident and bad yet we must endevour to preserve their persons for there is a danger in the losse and a lamentation due to the losse even of Zedekiah for even such are uniti Domini The anoynted of the Lord and the breath of our nostrils First as it lies in our Text The King is spiritus narium the breath of our uostrills First Spiritus is a name most peculiarly belonging to that blessed Person of the glorious Trinity whose Office it is to convay to insinuate to apply to us the Mercies of the Father and the Merits of the Sonne He is called by this Name by the word of this Text Ruach even in the beginning of the Creation God had created Heaven and Earth and then The Spirit of God susâ—labat saith Pagnins translation and so saith the Chalde Paraphrase too it breathed upon the waters and so induced or deduced particular formes So God hath made us a little World of our own This Iland He hath given us Heaven and Earth The truth of his Gospel which is our earnest of Heaven and the abundance of the Earth a
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