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
He was afraid and then he spoke againe that he might have an increase of grace The earth stands still and earthly Men may be content to doe so but he whose conversation is in heaven is as the heavens are in continuall progresse For Inter profectum defectum defectum medium in hac vita non datur A Christian is always in a proficiency or deficiency If he goe not forward he goes backward Nemo dicat satis est sic manere volâ— Let no man say I have done enough I have made my profession already I have been catechiz'd I have been thought fit to receive the Communion sufficit mihi esse sicut heri nudiustertius though he be in the way in the Church yet he sleeps in the way he is got no farther in the way then his godfathers carried him in their armes to engraffe him in the Church by Baptisme for this man says he In via residet in scala subsistit quod nemo angelorum fecit he stands still upon the ladder and so did none of the Angels Christ himself increased in wildome and in stature and in favour with God and Man so must a Christian also labour to grow and to encrease by speaking and speaking again by asking more and more questions and by farther and farther informing his understanding and enlightening his faith per transiit benefaciendo sanavit omnes says Saint Peter of Christ He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the Devill and it was prophesied of him Exultavit ut Gigas ad currendam vim He went forth as a Gyant to run a race If it be Christs pace it must be a Christians pace too Currentem non apprehendit nisi qui pariter currit There is no overtaking of him that runnes without running too Quid prodest Christum sequi si non consequamur and to what purpose do we follow Christ if not to overtake him and lay hold upon him Sic currite ut comprehendatis fige Christiane cursus profectus metam ubi Christus suum runne so as ye may obtain and if thou beest a Christian propose the same end of thy course as Christ did factus est obediens usque ad mortem and the end of his course was to be obedient unto death Speak then and talke continually of the name and the goodnesse of God speak again and again It is no tautology no babling to speak and â—terate his prayses Who accuses Saint Paul for repeating the sweet name of Jesus so very many times in his Epistles Who accuses David for repeating the same phrase the same sentence for his mercy endureth for ever so many times as he doth in his Psalms nay the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm is scarce any thing else then an often repetition of the same thing Thou spokest assoon as thou wast awake as soon as thou wast born thou spokest in Baptism So proceed to the farther knowledge of Religion and the mysteries of Gods service in his house and conceive a fearfull reverence of them in their institution and speak again enquire what they mean what they signify what they exhibit to thee Conceive a reverence of them first out of the authority that hath instituted them and then speak and inform thy self of them God spent a whole week in speaking for thy good Dixit Deus God spake that there might be light Dixit Deus God spâ—ke that there might be a firmament for immediately upon Gods speaking the work follow'd Dixit factum he spake the word and the world was created As God did a godly man shall do If he delight to talk of God to mention often upon all occasions the greatnesse and goodnesse of God to prefer that discourse before obscene and scurrile and licentious and profane and defamatory and ridiculous and frivolous talke If he delight in professing God with his tongue out of the abundance of his heart his works shall follow his words he will do as he says If God had given over when he had spake of Light and a Firmament and Earth and Sea and had not continued speaking till the last day when he made thee what hadst thou got by all that what hadst thou been at all for all that If thou canst speak when thou awakest when thou beginnest to have an apprehension of Gods presence in a remorse if then that presence and Majesty of God make thee afraid with the horrour and greatnesse of thy sinnes if thou canst not speak again then not goe forward with thy repentance thy former speech is forgotten by God and unprofitable to thee Iacob at first speaking confessed God to be in that place but so he might be every where but he conceived a reverentiall fear at his presence and then he came to speak the second time to professe that that was none other but the house of God and the gate of heaven that there was an entrance for him in particular a fit place for him to testifie and exercise his Devotion he came to see what it was fit for him to doe towards the advancing of Gods house Now whensoever a man is proceeded so far with Iacob first to sleep to be at peace with God and then to wake to doe something for the good of others and then to speak to make profession to publish his sense of Gods presence and then to attribute all this onely to the Light of God himself by which light he grows from faith to faith and from grace to grace whosoever is in this disposition he may say in all places and in all his actions This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of heaven He shall see heaven open and dwell with him in all his undertakings and particularly and principally in his expressing of a care and respect both to Christs Mysticall and to his materiall body both to the sustentation of the poor and to the building up of Gods house In both which kinds of Piety and Devotion non nobis Domine non nobis sed nomini tuo da gloriam Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name be given the glory As to the confusion of those shamelesse slanderers who place their salvation in works and accuse us to avert men from good works there have been in this Kingdome since the blessed reformation of Religion more publick charitable works perform'd more Hospitals and Celleges erected and endowed in threescore then in some hundreds of years of superstition before so may God be pleased to adde one example more amongst us that here in this place we may have some occasion to say of a house erected and dedicated to his service This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of heaven and may he vouchsafe to accept at our hands in our intention and in our endevour to consummate that purpose of ours that thanksgiving that
to interpret it so for can a mans own hand or foot or eye be said to injure him And yet in this place they are often said to scandalize him to offend him The interpretation that Maldonat departs from himselfe acknowledges to be the interpretation of Saint Chrysostome of Euthymius of Theophylact of others of the Fathers and by the councell of Trent he is bound to interpret Scriptures according to the Fathers and he is angry with us if at any time we doe not so and here he departs from them where not onely his reverence to them but the frame and the evidence of the place should have kept them to him for here Christ utters his vae as it is vae Dolentis as he laments their miseries and as it is vae Minantis as he threatens his judgements not onely upon them that offend and scandalize others but upon them also that are easily scandalized by others and put from their religion and Christian constancy with every rumour Parâ—m distat scandalizare scandalizari It is almost as great a sin to be shaked by a scandall given as to give it Christ intends both in this Text the Active and the Passive scandall but the latter meliùs quadrat says a later Divine worthy to be compared to the Ancients for the exposition of Scriptures it fits the scope and purpose of Christ best to accept and interpret this vae Woe be unto the world of the Pasâ—ive scandall the scandall taken In that we consider the working of this Vae three ways first vae quia illusiones fortes woe unto the world because these scandals and offences tentations and tribulations are so strong in their nature and then vae quia infirmi vas woe because you are so weak in your nature and again vae quia Pravaricatores woe because wee prevaricate in our own case and make our selves weaker then we are and are scandalized with things which are not in their nature scandalous nor were scandalously intended The two first are woe because we shall be scandalized for scandals are truly strong and you are truly weak The other is woe because ye will bee scandalized when and where you might easily unentangle the snare and devest the â—scruple First for the vehemence the violence the unavoydablenesse and impetuousnesse of these scandals tentations and tribulations under which wee all suffer in this world it may bee enough to consider that one saying of our Saviours They shall seduce Si possibile even the elect where by the way it is not meerly not altogether as we have translated it If it were possible for that sounds as if Christ had positively and dogmatically determined that it is not possible for the elect to be seduced but Christ says onely Si possibile if it be possible as being willing to leave it in doubt and in suspense how farre in so great scandals so very great tentations even the elect might bee seduced Ista Dominici sermonis dubitatto trepidationem mentis in electis relinquit this doubtfulnesse in Christs speech makes the very elect stand in fear of falling in the midst of such tentations for howsoever the elect shall rise again the elect may fall by these scandals and though they may be reduced they may be seduced We are to consider men as they are delivered in the approbation and testimony of the Church that judges sâ—cundum allegata probata according to the evidence that she sees and heares and not as they are wrapped up in the infallible knowledge of God and so our election admits an outward tryall that is Sanctification so S. Peter writes to the strangers elect through sanctification They were strangers strangers to the Covenant and yet Elect for as all of the houshold all within the Covenant all children of the faithfull are not elect for to be born of Christian parents within the Covenant gives us a title to the Sacrament of Baptism so as that we may claim it and the Church cannot deny it us but this birth doth not give us that title to heaven which Baptisin it self does so all strangers all that are without the Covenant are not excluded in the election S. Peter admits stragers to election but yet no otherwise then through sanctification when we are come to that hill to sanctification we have a fair prospect to see our election in so God hath elected you to salvation says S. Paul to the Thes. but how To salvation through sanctification that 's your hill there opens your prospect Agreeably to these two great Astles says the beloved Apostle the Elder unto the elect Lady and her children but still how elect as he tels you elect if she walk in the Commandements of God elect if she lose not her former good works that she may receive a full reward elect if she abide in the doctrine of Christ. Always from that mount of sanctification arises our prospect to election and sanctification were glorification if it were impossible to fall from it If a tentation of mony made Iudas an Apostle fall from his Master how easily will such a tentation make men fall with their Master that is run into dangerous and ruinous actions with them How easily will our children our servants our tenants fall form the truth of God if they have both the example of their superiors to countenance them and their purse to reward them for it That scandal that tentation is a Giant and an armed Gyant a Goliah and a Goliah with a speare like a weavers beame that marches upon those two leggs Example to doe it and Preferment for doing it This is the vae in the consideration of the passive scandal as it arises out of the vehemence of the scandal and tentation Quia illusiones fortes because they are so strong in themselves It arises also out of our weaknesse Quia infirmi nos because we are so weak even the strongest of us And for this it may also be enough to consider those words of our Saviour That a man may receive the word and receive it with joy and yet Temporalis est says Christ it may bee but for a while hee may be but a time-server for assoon as persecution comes Illico continuò scandalizatur by and by instantly forthwith hee is scandalized and shaked Hee stays not to give God his leasure whether God will succour his cause to morrow though not to day Hee stays not to give men their Law to give Princes and States time to consider whether it may not be fit for them to come to leagues and alliances and declarations for the assistance of the Cause of Religion next year though not this But continuò scandalizatur as soon as a Catholique army hath given a blow and got a victory of any of our forces or friends or as soon as a crafty Iesuit hath forged a Relation that that Army hath given such a blow or that such
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
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
Conscientiâ scrupulosâ when the conscience hath received any single scruple or suspicion to the contrary and so too in conscientiâ opinante in a conscience that hath conceived but an opinion which is far from a debated and deliberate determination yea in conscientiâ errante though the conscience be in an error yet it is sin to do aright against the conscience but then as it is a sin to do against the conscience labouring under any of these infirmities so is it a greater sin not to labour to recover the conscience and devest it of those scruples by their advise whom God hath indued with knowledg and power for that purpose For as it is in civill Iudicature God refers causes to them and according to their reports Gods ordinary way is to decree the cause to loose where they loose to binde where they binde Their imperfections or their corruptions God knowes how to punish in them but thou shalt have the recompense of thy humility and thy obedience to his ordinance in hearkning to them whom he hath set over thee for the rectifying of thy conscience Neither is this to erect a parochiall popacy to make every minister a Pope in his own parish or to re-enthrall you to a necessity of communicating all your sinnes or all your doubtfull actions to him God forbid God of his goodnesse hath delivered us from that bondage and butchery of the conscience which our Fathers suffered from Rome and Anathema and Anathema Maran-atha cursed be he till the Lord comes and cursed when the Lord comes that should go about to bring us in a relapse in an eddy in a whirlepoole into that disconsolate estate or into any of the pestilent errors of that Church But since you think it no diminution to you to consult with a Physician for the state of your body or with a Lawyer for your Lands since you are not borne nor grown good Physicians and good Lawyers why should you think your selves born or grown so good Divines that you need no counsell in doubtfull cases from other men And therefore as for the Law that governs us that is the Scripture we go the way that Christ did to receive the testimony of man both for the body that Scriptures there are and for the limbs of that body that these books make up those Scriptures and for the soule of this body that this is the sense of the holy Ghost in that place so for our Iudge which is the conscience let that be directed before hand by their advise whom God hath set over us and setled and quieted in us by their testimony who are the witnesses of our conversation And so we have done with our Problematicall part we have asked and answered both these questions Why this light requires any testimony and that is because exhalations and damps and vapours arise first from our ignorance then from our incredulity after from our negligence in practising and lastly from our slipperinesse in relapsing and therefore we need more and more attestations and remembrances of this light and the other question Why after so many other testimonies from himself from his Father from the Angell from the Star from the Magi from Simeon from Anna from many many very many more he required this testimony of Iohn and that is because all those other witnesses had testified long before and because God in all matters belonging to Religion here or to salvation hereafter refers us to man but to man sent and ordained by God for our direction that we may do well and to the testimony of good men that we have done well And so we passe to our dogmaticall part what his testimony was what Iohn Baptist and his successors in preaching and preparing the ways of Christ are sent to do he was sent to beare witnesse of that light Princes which send Ambassadors use to give them a Commission containing the generall scope of the businesse committed to them and then Instructions for the fittest way to bring that businesse to effect And upon due contemplation of both these his Commission and his Instructions arises the use of the Ambassadors judgement and discretion in making his Commission and his Instructions which do not always agree in all points but are often various and perplext serve most advantagiously towards the ends of his negotiation Iohn Baptist had both therefore they minister three considerations unto us first his Commission what that was and then his Instructions what they were and lastly the execution how he proceeded therein His Commission was drawn up and written in Esa◠and recorded and entred into Gods Rolls by the Evangelists It was To prepare the way of the Lord to make streight his paths that therefore every valley should be exalted every mountaine made law and all this he was to cry out to make them inexcusable who contemne the outward Ministery and relie upon private inspirations This Commission lasts during Gods pleasure and Gods pleasure is that it should last to the end of the world Therefore are we also joyned in Commission with Iohn and we cry out still to you to all those purposes First that you prepare the way of the Lord. But when we bid you do so we do not meane that this preparing or pre-disposing of your selves is in your selves that you can prevent Gods preventing grace or mellow or supple or fit your selves for the entrance of that grace by any naturall faculty in your selves When we speak of a co-operation a joint working with the grace of God or of a post-operation an after working upon the virtue of a former grace this co-operation this post-operation must be mollified with a good concurrent cause with that grace So there is a good sense of co-operation and post-operation but praeoperation that we should work before God work upon us can admit no good interpretation I could as soon beleeve that I had a being before God was as that I had a will to good before God moved it But then God having made his way into you by his preventing grace prepare that way not your way but his way sayes our Commission that is that way that he hath made in you prepare that by forbearing and avoiding to cast new hinderances in that way In sadnesse and dejections of spirit seek not your comfort in drinke in musique in comedies in conversation for this is but a preparing a way of your owne To prepare the Lords way is to look and consider what way the Lord hath taken in the like cases in the like distresses with other servants of his and to prepare that way in thy self and to assure thy selfe that God hath but practised upon others that he might be perfect when he comes to thee and that he intends to thee in these thy tribulations all that he hath promised to all all that he hath already performed to any one Prepare his way apply that way in which he hath gone
them To sever the King and the Kingdome and pretend the weale of the one without the other is to shake and discompose Gods building Historically this was the Jewes case when Ieremy lamented here if he lamented the declination of the State in the death of the King Iosiah And if he lamented the transportation of Zedekiah and that that crosse were not yet come upon them Or if he lamented the future devastation of that Nation occasioned by the death of the King of Kings Christ Jesus when he came into the world this was their case prophetically Either way historically or prophetically Ieremy looks upon the Kingdome but yet through that glasse through the King The duty of the Day and the order of the Text invites us to an application of this branch too Our adversaries did not come to say to themselves Nolumus Regnum hoc we will not have this Kingdome stand the materiall Kingdome the plenty of the Land they would have been content to have but the formall Kingdome that is This forme of Government by a Soveraigne King that depends upon none but God they would not have So that they came implicitely 〈◊〉 Nolumus Regnum hoc we will not have this Kingdome governed thus and they came explicitely to a Nolumus Regem hunc as the Jewes were resolved of Christ We will not have this King to governe at all Non hunc Will you not have him you were at your Nolumus hanc long before Her whom God had set over you before him you would not have Your not Anniversary but Hebdomadary Treasons cast upon her a necessity of drawing blood often and so your Nolumus hâ—nc your desire that she were gone might have some kinde of ground or colour But for your Nolumus hunc for this King who had made no Inquisition for blood who had forborne your very pecuniary penalties who had as himself witnesses of himself made you partakers with his Subjects of his own Religion in matters of grace and in reall benefits and in Titles of Honour Quare fremuerant Why did these men rage and imagine a vaine thing What they did historically we know They made that house which is the hive of the Kingdome from whence all her honey comes that house where Iustice her self is conceived in their preparing of Laws and inanimated and quickned and borne by the Royall Assent there given they made that whole house one Murdring peece and charged that peece with Peers with People with Princes with the King and meant to discharge it upward at the face of heaven to shoot God at the face of God Him of whom God hath said Dii estis You are Gods at the face of God that had said so as though they would have reproached the God of heaven and not have been beholden to him for such a King but shoot him up to him and bid him take his King again with a nolumus hunc regnare we will not have this King to reign over us This was our case Historically and what it is Prophetically as long as that remains to bee their doctrine which he against whom that attempt was principally made found by their examination to be their doctrine That they and no Sect in the world but they did make Treason an article of Religion That their Religion bound them to those attempts so long they are never at an end Till they dis-avow those Doctrines that conduce to that prophetically they wish prophetically they hope for better successe in as ill attempts It is then the kingdome that Ieremy laments but his nearest object is the King Hee laments him First let it be as with S. Hierome many of the Ancients and with them many of the later Rabbins will have it for Josiah for a good King in whose death the honour and the strength of the kingdome took that deadly wound to become tributary to a forain Prince for to this lamentation they refer those words of the Prophet which describe a great sorrow In that day shall there be a great mourning in Ierusalem as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon which was the place where Iosiah was slain There shall be such a lamentation says the Prophet in this interpretation as was for the death of Iosiah This then was for him for a good King Wherein have we his goodnesse expressed Abundantly Hee did that which was right in Gods fight And whose Eye need he fear that is right in the Eye of God But how long did he so To the end for Nero who had his Quinquennium and was a good Emperour for his first five years was one of the worst of all Hee that is ill all the way is but a Tyran Hee that is good at first and after ill an Angels face and a Serpents taile make him a Monster Iosiah began well and persevered so He turned not aside to the right â—and nor to the left That is if we apply it to the Iosiah of our times neither to the fugitive that leaves our Church and goes to the Roman nor to the Separatist that leaves our Church and goes to none In the eighteenth year of his reign Iosiah undertook the reparation of Gods house If we apply this to the Iosiah of our times I think in that year of his reign he visited this Church and these wals and meditated and perswaded the reparation thereof In one word Like unto Iosiah there was no King before nor after And therefore there was just cause of lamentation for this King for Iosiah historically for the very loss of his person prophetically for the misery of the State after his death Our errand is to day to apply all these branches to the day Those men who intended us this cause of lamentation this day in the destruction of our Iosiah spared him not because he was so because so because he was a Iosiah because he was good no not because he was good to them his benefits to them had not mollified them towards him for that is not their way Both the French Henries were their own and good to them but did that rescue either of them from the knife And was not that Emperour whom they poisoned in the Sacrament their own and good to them and yet was that any Antidote against their poison To so reprobate a sense hath God given them over herein as that though in their Books they ly heaviest upon Princes of our Religion yet truly they have destroyed more of their own then of ours Thus it is Historically in their proceedings past And Prophetically it can be but thus since no King is good in their sense if he agree not to all points of Doctrine with them And when that is done not good yet except he agree in all points of Iurisdiction too and that no King can doe that will not be their Farmer of his Kingdome Their Authours have disputed Auferibilitatem Papae whether the Church of God might not be