not harbouring for not visiting The sum of all is that this is the overflowing goodnesse of God that he deales with man by the sonne of man and that hee hath so given all judgement to the Sonne as that if you would be tryed by the first judgement are you elected or no The issue is doe you believe in Christ Jesus or no If you would be tryed by the second judgement are you justified or no The issue is doe you find comfort in the application of the Word and Sacraments of Christ Jesus or no If you would be tryed by the third Judgement do you expect a Glorification or no The issue is Are you so reconcil'd to Christ Jesus now by hearty repentance for sinnes past and by detestation of occasion of future sin that you durst welcome that Angel which should come at this time and sweare that time should be no more that your transmigration out of this world should be this minute and that this minute you might say unfeignedly and effectually Veni Domine Iesu come quickly come now if this be your state then are you partakers of all that blessednesse which the Father intended to you when for your sake he committed all Judgment to the Son SERMON XIII Preached at Lincolns Inne JOHN 8. 15. I judge no man THe Rivers of Paradise did not all run one way and yet they flow'd from one head the sentences of the Scripture flow all from one head from the holy Ghost and yet they seem to present divers senses and to admit divers interpretations In such an appearance doth this Text differ from that which I handled in the forenoon and as heretofore I found it a usefull and acceptable labour to employ our Evening exercises upon the vindicating of some such places of Scripture as our adversaries of the Roman Church had detorted in some point of controversie between them and us and restoring those places to their true sense which course I held constantly for one whole year so I think it a usefull and acceptable labour now to employ for a time those Evening exercises to reconcile some such places of Scripture as may at first sight seem to differ from one another In the morning we saw how Christ judged all now we are to see how he judges none I judge no man To come then to these present words here we have the same person Christ Jesus and hath not he the same Office Is not he Judge certainly though he retain'd all his other Offices though he be the Redeemer and have shed his blood in value satisfactory for all our sins though he be our Advocate and plead for us in heaven and present our evidence to that Kingdome written in his blood seal'd in his wounds yet if hee bee not our Judge wee cannot stand in judgement shall hee bee our Judge and is hee not our Judge yet Long before wee were hee was our Judge at the separation of the Elect and Reprobate in Gods eternall Decree Was he our Judge then and is hee not so still still he is present in his Church and cleares us in all scruples rectifies us in all errors erects us in all dejections of spirit pronounces peace and reconciliation in all apprehensions of his Judgements by his Word and by his Sacraments was hee and is he and shall he not be our Judge still I am sure my Redeemer liveth and he shall stand the last on earth So that Christ Jesus is the same to day and yesterday and for ever before the world begun and world without end Sicut erat in principio as he was in the beginning he is and shall be ever our Judge So that then these words are not De tempâ—re but De modo there was never any time when Christ was not Judge but there were some manner of Judgements which Christ did never exercise and Christ had no commission which he did not execute for hee did all his Fathers will 1. In secularibus in civill or criminall businesses which belong meerly to the Judicatures and cognisance of this world Iudicat neminem Christ judges no man 2. Secundum carnem so as they to whom Christ spake this who judged as himself says here according to fleshly affections Iudicat neminem he judges no man and 3. Ad internecionem so as that upon that Judgement a man should despair of any reconciliation any redintegration with God again and be without hope of pardon and remission of sins in this world Iudicat neminem he judges no man 1. Christ usurps upon no mans Jurisdiction that were against justice 2. Christ imputes no false things to any man that were against charity 3. Christ induces no man to desperation that were against faith and against Justice against charity against faith Iudicat neminem First then Christ judgeth not in secular judgements and we note his abstinence therein first in civill matters when one of the company said to him Master bid my brother divide the inheritance with me as Saint Augustine says the Plaintiffe thought his cause to be just and hee thought Christ to bee a competent Judge in the cause and yet Christ declines the judgement disavows the authority and he answers Homo quis me constituit Iudicem Man who made me a Judge between you To that Generall which we had in the morning Omne judicium the Son hath all judgement here is an exception of the same Judges own making for in secular judgements Nemo constituit he had no commission and therefore Iudicat neminem he judges no man he forbore in criminall matters too for when the woman taken in adultery was brought before him he condemned her not It is true he absolv'd her not the evidence was pregnant against her but he condemned her not he undertook no office of a Judge but of a sweet and spirituall Counsellor Go and sinne no more for this was his Element his Tribunall When then Christ says of himself with such a pregnant negative Quis me constituit Iudicem may not we say so too to his pretended Vicar the Bishop of Rome Quiâ—te Who made you Judge of Kings that you should depose them in criminall causes Or who made you proprietary of Kingdomes that you should dispose of them as of civill inheritances when to countenance such a pretence they detort places of Scripture not onely perversly but senselesly blasphemously ridiculously as ridicolously as in their pasquils wheÌ„ in an undiscreet shamlesnes to make their power greater then it is they make their fault greater then it is too fil their histories with examples of Kings deposed by Popes which in truth were not depos'd by them for in that they are more innocent then they will confesse themselves to be when some of their Authors say that the Primitive Church abstain'd from deposing Emperors onely because she was not strong enough to do it when some of them say That all Christian Kingdomes of the earth may fall into
that the Gospel of Saint Iohn containes all Divinity this Chapter all the Gospell and this Text all the Chapter Therefore it is too large to goe through at this time at this time we shall insist upon such branches as arise out of that consideration what and who this light is for we shall finde it to be both a personall light it is some body and otherwise too a reall light it is some thing therefore we inquire what this light is what thing and who this light is what person which Iohn Baptist is denied to be Hereafter we shall consider the Testimony which is given of this light in which part in due time we shall handle the person of the witnesse Iohn Baptist in whom we shall finde many considerable and extraordinary circumstances and then his Citation and calling to this testimony and thirdly the testimony it selfe that he gave and lastly why any testimony was requisite to so evident a thing as light But the first part who and what this light is belongs most properly to this day and will fill that portion of the day which is afforded us for this exercise Proceed we therefore to that Iohn Baptist was not that light who was what was Though most expositors as well ancient as modern agree with one generall and unanime consent that light in this verse is intended and meant of Christ Christ is this light yet in some precedent and subsequent passages in this Chapter I see other senses have been admitted of this word light then perchance those places will beare certainly other then those places need particularly in the fourth verse In it was life and that life was the light of men there they understand life to be nothing but this naturall life which we breath and light to be onely that naturall life naturall reason which distinguishes us men from other creatures Now it is true that they may have a pretence for some ground of this interpretation in antiquity it selfe for so says Saint Cyrill Filius Dei Creativè illuminat Christ doth enlighten us in creating us And so some others of the Fathers and some of the Schooles understand by that light naturall Reason and that life conservation in life But this interpretation seemes to me subject to both these dangers that it goes so farre and yet reaches not home So far in wresting in divers senses into a word which needs but one and is of it selfe cleare enough that is light and yet reaches not home for it reaches not to the essentiall light which is Christ Iesus nor to the supernaturall light which is Faith and Grace which seemes to have been the Evangelists principall scope to declare the comming of Christ who is the essentiall light and his purpose in comming to raise and establish a Church by Faith and Grace which is the supernaturall light For as the holy Ghost himselfe interprets life to be meant of Christ He that hath the Sonne hath life so we may justly doe of light too he that sees the Sonne the Sonne of God hath light For light is never to my remembrance found in any place of the Scripture where it must necessarily signifie the light of nature naturall reason but wheresoever it is transferred from the naturall to a figurative sense it takes a higher signification then that either it signifies Essentiall light Christ Jesus which answers our first question Quis lux who is this light it is Christ personally or it signifies the supernaturall light of Faith and Grace which answers our second question Quid lux what is this light for it is the working of Christ by his Spirit in his Church in the infusion of Faith and Grace for beliefe and manners And therefore though it be ever lawfull and often times very usefull for the raising and exaltation of our devotion and to present the plenty and abundance of the holy Ghost in the Scriptures who satisfies us as with marrow and with fatnesse to induce the diverse senses that the Scriptures doe admit yet this may not be admitted if there may be danger thereby to neglect or weaken the literall sense it selfe For there is no necessity of that spirituall wantonnesse of finding more then necessary senses for the more lights there are the more shadows are also cast by those many lights And as it is true in religious duties so is it in interpretation of matters of Religion Necessarium Satis convertuntur when you have done that you ought to doe in your calling you have done enough there are no such Evangelicall counsailes as should raise workes of supererogation more then you are bound to doe so when you have the necessary sense that is the meaning of the holy Ghost in that place you have senses enow and not till then though you have never so many and never so delightfull Light therefore is in all this Chapter fitliest understood of Christ who is noted here with that distinctive article Illa lux that light For non sic dicitur lux sicut lapis Christ is not so called Light as he is called a Rock or a Cornerstone not by a metaphore but truly and properly It is true that the Apostles are said to be light and that with an article the light but yet with a limitation and restriction the light of the world that is set up to convey light to the world It is true that Iohn Baptist himselfe was called light and with large additions Lucerna ardens a burning and a shining lampe to denote both his owne burning zeale and the communicating of this his light to others It is true that all the faithfull are said to be light in the Lord but all this is but to signifie that they had been in darknesse before they had been beclouded but were now illustrated they were light but light by reflexion by illustration of a greater light And as in the first creation vesper mane dies unus The evening and the morning made the day evening before morning darknesse before light so in our regeneration when wee are made new Creatures the Spirit of God findes us in naturall darknesse and by him we are made light in the Lord. But Christ himselfe and hee onely is Illa lux vera lux that light the true light Not so opposed to those other lights as though the Apostles or Iohn Baptist or the faithfull who are called lights were false lights but that they were weake lights But Christ was fons lucis the fountaine of all their light light so as no body else was so so as that hee was nothing but light Now neither the Apostles nor Iohn Baptist nor the Elect no nor the virgin Mary though wee should allow all that the Roman Church aske in her behalfe for the Roman Church is not yet come to that searednesse that obduratenesse that impudency as to pronounce that the virgin Mary was without originall sinne though they have done many
quia innumeris curis distraheris Busie man belongeth it not to thee to study the Scriptures because thou art oppressed with worldly businesse Imòmagis tuum est saith he therefore thou hadst the more need to study the Scriptures Illi non tam egent c. They that are not disquieted nor disordered in their passions with the cares of this world doe not so much need that supply from the Scriptures as you that are doe It is an Authour that lived in the obedience of the Romane Church that saith the Councell of Nice did decree That every man should have the Bible in his house But another Authour in that Church saith now Consilium Chrysostomi Ecclesiae nunc non arridet The Church doth not now like Chrysostomes counsell for this generall reading of the Scriptures Quia etsi ille locutus ad plebem plebs tunc non erat haeretica Though Saint Chrysostome spoke that to the people the people in his time were not an Hereticall people And are the people in the Roman Church now an Hereticall people If not why may not they pursue Saint Chrystomes counsel and reade the Scriptures Because they are dark It is true in some places they are dark purposely left so by the Holy Ghost ne semel lectas fastidiremus lest we should think we had done when we had read them once so saith S. Gregory too In plain places fami occurrit he presents meat for every stomach In hard and dark places fastidia detergit he sharpens the appetite Margarita est undique perforari potest the Scripture is a Pearl and might be bored through every where Not every where by thy self there may be many places which thou of thy self canst not understand not every where by any other man no not by them who have warrant to search Commission from God by their calling to interpret the Scriptures not every where by the whole Church God hath reserved the understanding of some places of Scripture till the time come for the fulfilling of those Prophecies as many places of the Old Testament were not understood till Christ came in whom they were fulfilled If therefore thou wilt needs know whether when Saint Paul took his information of the behaviour of the Corinthians from those of Chloe whether this Chloe were a woman or a place the Fathers cannot satisfie thee the latter Writers cannot satisfie thee there is not Testimonium ab homine no such humane Arguments as can determine thee or give thee an Acquittance the greatest pillars whom God hath raised in his Church cannot give a satisfaction to thy curiosity But if the Doctrine of the place will satisfie thee which Doctrine is that S. Paul did not give credit to light rumors against the Corinthians nor to clandestine whisperers but tells them who accused them and yet as well as he loved them he did not stop his eares against competent witnesses for he tells them they stood accused and by whom then thou maist bore this pearle thorough and make it fit for thy use and wearing in knowing so much of Saint Pauls purpose therein as concerns thy edification though thou never know whether Chloe were a Woman or a Place Tantum veritati obstrepit adulter sensus quam corruptor stylus a false interpretation may doe thee as much harme as a false translation a false Commentary as a false copy And therefore forbearing to make any interpretation at all upon dark places of Scripture especially those whose understanding depends upon the future fulfilling of prophecies in places that are clear evident thou maist be thine own interpreter In places that are more obscure goe to those men whom God hath set over thee and either they shall give thee that sense of the place which shall satisfie thee by having the sense thereof or that must satisfie you that there is enough for your salvation though that remaine uninterpreted And let this Testimonium ab homine this testimony of man establish thee for the Scripture that there is a Scripture a certaine book that is the word and the revealed will of God That these books which we receive for Canonicall make up that book And then that this and this is the true sense of every place which the holy Ghost hath opened to the present understanding of his Church We said before that a Christian being a Common-wealth to himselfe the Scripture was his law and for that law that Scripture he was to have Testimonium ab homine the testimony of man And then his Conscience is his Iudge and for that he is to have the same testimony too Thou must not rest upon the testimony and suggestions of thine owne conscience Nec illud de trivio paratum habere thou must not rest in that vulgar saying sufficit mihi c. As long as mine owne Conscience stands right I care not what all the world say Thou must care what the world says and study to have the approbation and testimony of good men Every man is enough defamed in the generall depravation of our whole natureÌ„ Adam hath cast an infamy upon us all And when a man is defamed it is not enough that he purge himselfe by oath but he must have compurgators too other men must sweare that they beleeve he sweares a truth Thine owne conscience is not enough but thou must â—atisfie the world and have Testimonium ab homine good men must thinke thee good A conscience that admits no search from others is cauterizata burnt with a hot Iron not cured but seared not at peace but stupefied And when in the verse immediately before our text it is said That Iohn came to beare witnesse of that light it is added that through him that is through that man through Iohn not through it through that light that through him all men beleeve For though it be efficiently the operation of the light it selfe that is Christ himselfe that all men beleeve yet the holy Ghost directs us to that that is nearest us to this testimony of man that instrumentally ministerially works this beliefe in men If then for thy faith thou must have testimonium ab homine the testimony of men and maist not beleeve as no man but thy selfe beleeves much more for thy manners and conversation Thinke it not enough to satisfie thy self but satisfie good men nay weake men nay malicious men till it come so far as that for the desire of satisfying man thou leave God unsatisfied endeavour to satisfie all God must waigh down all thy selfe and others but as long as thy selfe onely art in one balance and other men in the other let this preponderate let the opinion of other men waigh downe thine owne opinion of thy selfe 'T is true but many men flatter themselves too far with this truth that it is a sin to do any thing in Conscientiâ dubiâ when a man doubts whether he may doe it or no and in
Reformation by way of example though not by Doctrine have so much prevailed upon them as that they have now twenty Sermons in that Church for one that they had before Luther yet if a man could heare six Sermons a day all the days of his life he might die without having heard all the Scriptures explicated in Sermons But when men have a Christian liberty afforded to them to read the Scriptures at home and then are remembred of those things at Church and there taught to use that liberty modestly to establish their faith upon places of Scripture that are plain and to suspend their judgment upon obscurer places till they may by due meanes preaching or conference receive farther satisfaction therein from them who are thereunto authorized by God in his Church there certainly is this Rule of our Saviours Take heed what you hear preach all that you have received from me likelyer to be observed then there where the body of the conveyance the Scripture it self is locked up from us and the soule of the conveyance the sense and interpretation of the Scriptures is locked into one mans brest and the Great Seal of that conveyance the Sacrament of our Reconciliation is broken and mutilated and given us but by halfe But they do not onely stray on that hand in not giving all that the Scripture gives They doe not give the liberty of meates nor the liberty of mariage which the Scripture gives Nay they doe not give the liberty of trying whether the Scripture give it or no for they doe not give the liberty of reading the Scriptures But on the other hand they stray too and further That they deliver more then the Scriptures doe and make other Rules and Canons equall to Scriptures In which excesse they doe not onely make the Apocryphall Books Books that have alwaies had a favourable aspect and benigne countenance from the Church of God equall to Canonicall Scriptures But they make their decretall Epistles of their Popes and of their Extravagants as they call them and their occasionall Bulls nay their Bull-baitings their Buls fighting and crossing and contradicting one another equall to Canonicall Scripture So that these men have put the salvation of the world upon another science upon another profession It is not the Divine that is the Minister of salvation but the Canonist I must not determine my beleef in the Apostles Creed nor in Athanasius nor in that of the Nicen Fathers not onely not the Scriptures but not the Councels nor Fathers must give the Materials and Elements of my faith but the Canon law for so they rule it Gratian that hath collected the sentences of Fathers and Councels and digested them into heads of Divinity he is no rule of our beleef because say they he is no part of the body of the Canon law But they that first compiled the Decretals and the Extravagants and they who have since recompiled more Decretals and more Extravagants the Clementins and the Sextins and of late yeares the Septims with those of Iohn the 22. these make up the body of the Canon law and these must be our Rule what to beleeve How long Till they fall out with some State with whom they are friends yet or grown friends with some State that they are fallen out with now and then upon a new Decretall a new Extravagant I must contract a new or enlarge or restrain my old beleef Certainly as in naturall things the assiduity takes off the admiration The rising and the setting of the sunne would be a miracle to him that should see it but once and as in civill things the profusenesse and the communication and the indifferency takes off the Dignity for as gold is gold still the heaviest metall of all yet if it be beat into leaf gold I can blow it away so Honour is honour still the worthyest object of the worthyest spirits and the noblest reward of the greatest Princes yet the more have it the lesse every one hath of it So in the Roman Church they have not found a better way to justify their blasphemy of the insufficiency of the Scriptures then by making contemptible writings as sufficient as Scriptures equall to Scripture If they could make me beleeve the Scriptures were no more sufficient then their Decretals and Extravagants I should easily confesse there were no Scriptures sufficient for salvation And farther we presse not this evidence how farre they depart from this rule Take heed what you heare How much lesse and how much more then Christ gave they give but passe to the third acceptation of these words as in a fair accommodation they are spoken to you who are now as the Apostles were then Hearers Take heed what you heare And into this part I enter with such a protestation as perchance may not become me That this is the first time in all my life I date my life from my Ministery for I received mercy as I received the ministery as the Apostle speaks this is the first time that in the exercise of my Ministery I wished the King away That ever I had any kinde of loathnesse that the King should hear all that I sayd Here for a little while it will be a little otherwise because in this branch I am led to speak of some particular duties of subjects and in my poor way I have thought it somewhat an Eccentrique motion and off of the naturall Poles to speake of the Duties of subjects before the King or of the duties of Kings in publike and popular Congregations As every man is a world in himself so every man hath a Church in himself and as Christ referred the Church for hearing to the Scriptures so every man hath Scriptures in his own heart to hearken to Obedience to Superiours and charity to others are In-nate Scriptures Obedience and Charity are the Naturall mans the Civill mans the Morall mans Old and New Testament Take heed that is observe what you heare from them and they will direct you well And first Take heed what you heare is take heed that you hear That you do hearken to them whom you should hear Our Saviour saith He that is of God heareth his words ye therefore hear them not because you are not his Transferre this to a civill application to obedience to Superiors Christ makes account that he hath argued safely so If you heare him not you are none of his If you heare him not in his Lawes heare him not in his Proclamations heare him not in the Declarations of his wants and necessities you are none of his that is you had rather you were none of his There is a Nolumus hunc regnare smothered in our breasts if we will not hear and we had rather we might devest our Allegeance rather we might be no subjects By the Law he that was willing to continue in the service of his Master was willing to bee boared in the eare willing to testify a
that in some visible in some permanent manner in writing and that that writing is Scripture if we had not these testimonies these necessary consequences derived even from the naturall reason of man to convince men how should we convince them since our way is not to create Faith but to satisfie reason And therefore let us rest in this testimony of men that all Christian men nay Iewes and Turkes too have ever beleeved that there are certain Scriptures which are the revealed will of God and that God hath manifested to us in those Scriptures all that he requires at our hands for Faith or Manners Now which are those Scriptures As for the whole body intirely together so for the particular limbs and members of this body the severall books of the Bible we must accept testimonium ab homine humane Arguments and the testimony of men At first the Jewes were the Depositaries of Gods Oracles and therefore the first Christians were to aske the Jewes which books were those Scriptures Since the Church of God is the Master of those Rolls no doubt but the Church hath Testimonium à Deo The Spirit of God to direct her in declaring what Books make up the Scripture but yet even the Church which is to deal upon men proceedeth also per testimonium ab homine by humane Arguments such as may work upon the reason of man in declaring the Scriptures of God For the New Testament there is no question made of any Book but in Conventicles of Anabaptists and for the Old it is testimony enough that we receive all that the Jews received This is but the testimony of man but such as prevails upon every man It is somewhat boldly said not to permit to our selves any severer or more bitter animadversion upon him by a great man in the Romam Church that perchance the book of Enoch which S. Iude cites in his Epistle was not an Apocryphal book but Canonicall Scripture in the time of the Iews As though the holy Ghost were a time-server and would sometimes issue some things for present satisfaction which he would not avow nor stand to after as though the holy Ghost had but a Lease for certain years a determinable estate in the Scriptures which might expire and he be put from his evidence that that book might become none of his which was his before We therefore in receiving these books for Canonicall which we do and in post-posing the Apochryphall into an inferior place have testimonium ab homine testimony from the People of God who were and are the most competent and unreproachable witnesses herein and we have Testimonium ab inimico testimony from our adversary himself Perniciosius est Ecclesiae librum recipere pro sacro qui non est quà m sacrum rejicere It is a more pernicious danger to the Church to admit a book for Canonicall which is not so then to reject one that is so And therefore ne turberis novitie saith another great Author of theirs Let no young student in Divinity be troubled si alicubi repererit libros istos supputari inter Canonicos if he finde at any time any of these books reckned amongst the Canonical nam ad Hiero. limam verba Doctorum Concilio rum reducenda for saith he Hieroms file must passe over the Doctors and over the Councels too and they must be understood and interpreted according to S. Hier. now this is but testimonium ab homine S. Hier. testimony that prevailed upon Cajetan and it was but testimonium ab homine the testimony of the Iews that prevailed upon S. Hierom himself It is so for the whole body The bible it is so for all the limbs of this body every particular book of the Bible and it is so for the soul of this body the true sense of every place of very book thereof for for that the sense of the place we must have testimonium ab homine the testimony that is the interpretation of other men Thou must not rest upon thy self nor upon any private man Iohn was a witnesse that had witnesses the Prophets had prophesied of Iohn Baptist. The men from whom we are to receive testimony of the sense of the Scriptures must be men that have witnesses that is a visible and outward calling in the Church of God That no sense be ever admitted that derogateth from God that makes him a false or an impotent or a cruell God That every contradiction and departing from the Analogy of Faith doth derogate from God and divers such grounds and such inferences as every man confesses and acknowledges to be naturally and necessarily consequent these are Testimonia ab homine Testimonies that passe like currant money from man to man obvious to every man suspicious to none Thus it is in the generall but then when it is deduced to a more particular triall what is the sense of such or such a place when Christ saith Scrutamini Scripturas search the Scriptures non mittit ad simplicem lectionem sed ad scrutationem exquisitam It is not a bare reading but a diligent searching that is enjoyned us Now they that will search must have a warrant to search they upon whom thou must rely for the sense of the Scriptures must be sent of God by his Church Thou art robbed of all devested of all if the Scriptures be taken from thee Thou hast no where to search blesse God therefore that hath kept thee in possession of that sacred Treasure the Scriptures and then if any part of that treasure ly out of thy reach or ly in the dark so as that thou understandest not the place search that is apply thy self to them that have warrant to search and thou shalt lack no light necessary for thee Either thou shalt understand that place or the not understanding of it shall not be imputed to thee nor thy salvation hindred by that Ignorance It is but to a woman that Saint Hierome saith Ama Scripturas amabit te Sapientia Love the Scriptures and Wisdome will love thee The weaknesse of her Sex must not avert her from reading the Scriptures It is instruction for a Childe and for a Girle that the same Father giveth Septem annorum discat memoriter Psalterium As soone as she is seaven yeares old let her learn all the Psalmes without book the tendernesse of her age must not avert her from the Scriptures It is to the whole Congregation consisting of all sorts and sexes that Saint Chrysostome saith Hortor hortari non desinam I alwayes doe and alwayes will exhort you ut cum domi fueritis assiduae lectioni Scripturarum vacetis that at home in your owne houses you accustome your selves to a dayly reading of the Scriptures And after to such men as found or forced excuses for reading them he saith with compassion and indignation too O homo non est tuum Scripturas evolvere
Christ which is Baptistrisum the font the Sea into which God flings all their sinnes who rightly and effectually receive that Sacrament These fountaines of waters then in the text are the waters of baptisime and if we should take them also in that sense that waters signifie tribulations and afflictions it is true too that in baptisme that is in the profession of Christ we are delivered over to many tribulations The rule is generall Castigat omnes he chastiseth all The example the precedent is peremptory Opertuit pati Christ ought to suffer and so enter into glory but howsoever waters be affictions they are waters of life too says the text Though baptisme imprint a crosse upon us that we should not be ashamed of Christ crosse that we should not be afraid of our owne crosses yet by all these waters by all these Crosse ways we goe directly to the eternall life the kingdome of heaven for they are lively fountaines fountaines of life And this is intended and promised in the last words Absterget omnem Lachrymam God shall wipe all teares from our eyes God shall give us a joyfull apprehension of heaven here in his Church in this life But is this a way to wipe teares from the childes face to sprinkle water upon it Is this a wiping away to powre more on It is the powerfull and wonderfull way of his working for as his red bloud makes our red soules white that his rednesse gives our rednesse a candor so his water his baptisime and the powerfull effect thereof shall dry up and wipe away Omnem â—achrymam all teares from our Eyes howsoever occasioned This water shall dry them up Christ had many occassion of teares we have more some of our owne which he had not we must weep because we are not so good as we should be we cannot performe the law We must weepe because we are not so good as we could be our free will is lost but yet every Man findes he might be better if he would but the sharpest and saltest and smartest occasion of our teares is from this that we must not be so good as we would be that the prosanenesse of the Libertine the reproachfull slanders the contumelious scandalls the seornfull names that the wicked lay upon those who in their measure desire to expresse their zeale to Gods glory makes us afraid to professe our selves so religious as we could find in our hearts to be and could truly be if we might Christ went often in contemplation of others foreseeing the calamities of Ierualem he wept over the City comming to the grave of Lazarus he wept with them but in his owne Agony in the garden it is not said that he weps If we could stop the stood of teares in our afflictions yet there belongs an excessive griefe to this that the ungodly disposion of other Men is slacking of our godlinesse of our sanctification too Christ Jesus for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse we for the joy of this promise that God will wipe all teares from our eyes must suffer all this whether they be teares of Compunction or teares of Compassion teares for our selves or teares for others whether they be Magdalens teares or Peters teares teares for sinnes of infirmity of the flesh or teares for weaknesse of our faith whether they be teares for thy parents because they are improvident towards thee or teares for thy children because they are disobedient to thee whether they be teares for Church because our Sermons or our Censures pinch you or teares for the State that penall laws pecuniary or bloudy lie heavy upon you Deus absterget omneni lachryman here 's your comfort that as he hath promised inestimable blessings to them that are sealed and washed in him so he hath given you security that these blessings belong to you for if you find that he hath govened you bred you in his visible Church and led you to his fountaine of the water of lifein baptisme you may be sure that he will in his due time wipe all teares from your eyes establish the kingdome of heaven upon you in this life in a holy and modest infallibility SERMON V. Preached at a Christning EPHES. 5. 25 26 27. Husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the Church and gave himselfe for it that he might sanctisie it and cleanse it by the washing of water through the Word That he might make it unto himselfe a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle on any such thing but that it should be holy and without blame ALmighty God ever loved unity but he never loved singularity God was always alone in heaven there were no other Gods but he but he was never singular there was never any time when there were not three persons in heaven Pater ego unum summi The father and I are one says Christ one in Esseuct and one in Consent our substance is the same and our will is the same but yet Tecum fui ab initio says Christ in the person of Wisdome I was with thee disposing all things at the Creation As then God seemes to have been eternally delighted with this eternall generation with persons that had ever a relation to one another Father and Sonne so when he came to the Creation of this lower world he came presently to those three relations of which the whole frame of this world consists of which because the principall foundation and preservation of all States that are to continue is power the first relation was between Prince and Subject when God said to Man Subjecite dominamini subdue and govern all Creatures The second relation was between husband and wife when Adam said This now is house of my bone and flesh of my flesh And the third relation was between parents and children when Eve said that she had obtained a Man by the Lord that by the plentifull favour of God she had conceived and borne a sonne from that time to the dissolution of that frame from that beginning to the end of the world these three relations of Master and Servant Mans and Wife Father and Children have been and ever shall be the materialls and the elements of all society of families and of Cities and of Kingdomes And therefore it is a large and a subtill philosophy which S. Paul professes in this place to shew all the qualities and properties of these several Elements that is all the duties of these severall callings but in this text he handles onely the mutuall duties of the second couple Man and Wife and in that consideration shall we determine this exercise because a great part of that concernes the education of Children which especially occasions our meeting now The generall duty that goes through all these three relations is expressed Subditi estate invicevs Submit your selves to one another in the feare of God for God hath given no Master such imperiousnesse
vestruâ—â— it is not for you to know times and seasons Before in his state of mortality 〈…〉 ignor antibus he pretended to know no more of this then they that knew nothing After when he had invested immortality per sui exceptionem says that Father he excepts none but himselfe all the rest even the Apostles were left ignorant thereof For this non est vestrum it is not for you is part of the last sentence that ever Christ spake to them If it be a convenient answer to say Christ knew it not as man how bold is that man that will pretend to know it And if it be a convenient interpretation of Christs words that he knew it not that is knew it not so as that he might tell it them how indiscreet are they who though they may seem to know it will publish it For thereby they fill other men with scruples and vexations and they open themselves to scorne and reproach when their predictions prove false as Saint Augustine observed in his time and every age hath given examples since of confident men that have failed in these conjectures It is a poore pretence to say this intimation this impression of a certaine time prepares men with better dispositions For they have so often been found false that it rather weakens the credit of the thing it selfe In the old world they knew exactly the time of the destruction of the world that there should be an hundred twenty years before the flood came And yet upon how few did that prediction though from the mouth of God himselfe work to repentance Naâ—â— found grace in Gods eyes but it was not because he mended his life upon that prediction but he was grations in Gods sight before At the day of our death we write Pridiâ—râ—surrâ—ctioniâ— the day before the resurrection It is Vigilia resurectionis Our Easter Eve Adveniat regnum tuum possesse my soule of thy kingdome then And Fiâ—â— voluntas tua my body shall arise after but how soon after or how late after thy will bee done then by thy selfe and thy will bee knowne till then to thy selfe We passe on As in Massa damnata the whole lump of mankind is under the condemnation of Adams sinne and yet the good purpose of God severs some men from that condemnation so at the resurrection all shall rise but not all to glory But amongst them that doe Ego says Iob I shall I as I am the same man made up of the samebody and the same soule Shall I imagine a difficulty in my body because I have lost an Arme in the East and a leg in the West because I have left some bloud in the North and some bones in the South Doe but remember with what ease you have sate in the chaire casting an account and made a shilling on one hand a pound on the other or five shillings below ten above because all these lay easily within your reach Consider how much lesse all this earth is to him that sits in heaven and spans all this world and reunites in an instant armes and legs bloud and bones in what corners so ever they be scattered The greater work may seem to be in reducing the soul That that soule which sped so ill in that body last time it came to it as that it contracted Originall sinne then and was put to the slavery to serve that body and to serve it in the ways of sinne not for an Apprentiship of seven but seventy years after that that soul after it hath once got loose by death and liv'd God knows how many thousands of years free from that body that abus'd it so before and in the sight and fruition of that God where it was in no danger should willingly nay desirously ambitiously seek this scuttered body this Eastern and Western and Northern and Southern body this is the most inconsiderable consideration and yet Ego I I the same body and the same soul shall be recompact again and be identically numerically individually the same man The same integrity of body and soul and the same integrity in the Organs of my body and in the faculties of my soul too I shall be all there my body and my soul all my body all my soul I am not all here I am here now preaching upon this text and I am at home in my Library considering whether S. Gregory or S. Hierome have said best of this text before I am here speaking to you and yet I consider by the way in the same instant what it is likely you will say to one another when I have done you are not all here neither you are here now hearing me and yet you are thinking that you have heard a better Sermon somewhere else of this text before you are here and yet you think you could have heard some other doctrine of down-right Predestinations and Reprobation roundly delivered somewhere else with more edification to youâ— you are here and you remember your selves that now yee think of it This had been the fittest time now when every body else is at Church to have made such and such a private visit and because you would bee there you are there I cannot say you cannot say so perfectly so entirely now as at the Resurrection Ego I am here I body and soul I soul and faculties as Christ sayd to Peter Noli timere Ego sum Fear nothing it is I so I say to my selfe Noli timere My soul why art thou so sad my body why dost thou languish Ego I body and soul soul and faculties shall say to Christ Jesus Ego sum Lord it is I and hee shall not say Nescio te I know thee not but avow me and place me at his right hand Ego sum I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath Ego sum and I the same man shall receive the crown of glory which shall not fade Ego I the same person Ego videbo I shall see I have had no looking-glasse in my grave to see how my body looks in the dissolution I know not how I have had no houre-glasse in my grave to see how my time passes I know not when for when my eylids are closed in my death-bed the Angel hath said to me that time shall be no more Till I see eternity the ancient of days I shall see no more but then I shall Now why is Iob gladder of the use of this sense of seeing then of any of the other He is not He is glad of seeing but not of the sense but of the Object It is true that is said in the School Viciniùs se habent potentiae sensitivae ad animam quà m corpus Our sensitive faculties have more relation to the soul then to the body but yet to some purpose and in some measure all the senses shall be in our glorifyed bodies In actu or in potentiâ
infirmer voice rise together in this resurrection of grace Let him that hath been buried sixty years forty years twenty years in covetousnesse in uncleannesse in indevotion rise now now this minute and then as Adam that dyed five thousand before shall be no sooner in heaven in his body then you so Abel that dyed for God so long before you shall be no better that is no fuller of the glory of heaven then you that dye in God when it shall be his pleasure to take you to him SERMON XVI Preached at Lincolns Inne COLOS. 1. 24. Who now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his bodies sake which is the Church WE are now to enter into the handling of the doctrine of Evangelicall counsailes And these words have been ordinarily used by the writers of the Roman Church for the defence of a point in controversie between them and us which is a preparatory to that which hereafter is to be more fully handled upon another Text. Out of these words they labour to establish works of supererogation in which they say men doe or suffer more then was necessary for their owne salvation and then the superfluity of those accrues to the Treasury of the Church and by the Stewardship and dispensation of the Church may be applied to other men living here or suffering in Purgatory by way of satisfaction to Gods justice But this is a doctrine which I have had occasion heretofore in this place to handle And a doctrine which indeed deserves not the dignity to be too diligently disputed against And as we will not stop upon the disproving of the doctrine so we need not stay long nor insist upon the vindicating of these words from that wresting and detortion of theirs in using them for the proofe of that doctrine Because though at first they presented them with great eagernesse and vehemence and assurance Quicquid haeretici obstrepunt illustris hic locus say the Heretiques what they can this is a clear and evident place for that doctrine yet another after him is a little more cautelous and reserv'd Negari non potest quin ita expeni possint it cannot be denied but that these words may admit such an exposition And then another more modified then both says Primò propriè non id intendit Apostolus the Apostle had no such purpose in his first and proper intention to prove that doctrine in these words Sed innuitur ille sensus qui et si non genuinus tamen à pari deduci potest some such sense says that author may be implied and intimated because though it be not the true and naturall sense yet by way of comparison and convenience such a meaning may be deduced Generally their difference in having any patronage for that corrupt doctrine out of these words appeares best in this that if we consider their authors who have written in controversies we shall see that most of them have laid hold upon these words for this doctrine because they are destitute of all Scriptures and glad of any that appear to any any whit that way inclinable But if we consider those authors who by way of commentary and exposition either before or since the controversies have been stirred have handled these words we shall find none of their owne authors of that kind which by way of exposition of these words doth deliver this to be the meaning of them that satisfaction may be made to the justice of God by the works of supererogation one man for another To come then to the words themselves in their true sense and interpretation we shall find in them two generall considerations First that to him that is become a new creature a true Christian all old things are done away and all things are made new As he hath a new birth as he hath put on a new man as he is going towards a new Ierusalem so hath he a new Philosophy a new production and generation of effects out of other causes then before he finds light out of darknesse fire out of water life out of death joy out of afflictions Nunc gaâ—deâ— now I rejoyce in my sufferings c. And then in a second consideration he finds that this is not by miracle that he should hope for it but once but he finds an expresse and certaine and constant reason why it must necessarily be so because I still up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ c. It is strange that I should conceive joy out of affliction but when I come to see the reason that by that affliction I fill up the sufferings of Christ c. it is not strange it cannot chuse but be so The parts then will be but two a proposition and a reason But in the first part it will be sit to consider first the person not meerely who it is but in what capacity the Apostle conceives this joy And secondly the season Now for joy is not always seasonable there is a time of mourning but now rejoycing And then in a third place we shall come to the affection it selfe Joy which when it is true and truly placed is the nearest representation of heaven it selfe to this world From thence we shall descend to the production of this joy from whence it is derived and that is out of sufferings for this phrase in passionibus in my sufferings is not in the middest oâ— my sufferings it is not that I have joy and comfort though I suffer but in passionibus is so in suffering as that the very suffering is the subject of my joy I had no joy no occasion of joy if I did not suffer But then these sufferings which must occasion this joy are thus conditioned thus qualified in our text That first it be passio mea my suffering and not a suffering cast by my occasion upon the whole Church or upon other men mea it is determined and limited in my selfe and mea but not prome not for my selfe not for mine owne transgressions and violating of the law but it is for others pro vobis says the Apostle for out of that root springs the whole second part why there appertaines a joy to such sufferings which is that the suffering of Christ being yet not unperfect but unperfected Christ having not yet suffered all which he is to suffer to this purpose for the gathering of his Church I fill up that which remaines undone And that in Carne not onely in spirit and disposition but really in my flesh And all this not only for making sure of mine own salvation but for the establishing and edifying a Church but yet his Church for men seduced and seducers of men have their Churches too and suffer for those Churches but this is for his Church and that Church of his which is properly his body and that is the visible Church and
imploys the hand of sicknesse the hand of poverty the hand of justice the hand of malice still it is his hand that breakes the vessell and this vessell which is his own for can any such vessell have a propriety in it selfe or bee any other bodies primarily then his from whom it hath the beeing To recollect these if I will have joy in suffering it must be mine mine and not borrowed out of an imaginary treasure of the Church from the works of others Supererogation mine and not stollen or enforced by exasperating the Magistrate to a persecution mine by good title and not by suffering for breach of the Law mine in particular and not a generall persecution upon the Church by my occasion And mine by a stranger title then all this mine by resignation mine by disavowing it mine by confessing that it is none of mine Till I acknowledge that all my sufferings are even for Gods glory are his works and none of mine they are none of mine and by that humility they become mine and then I may rejoyce in my sufferings Through all our sufferings then there must passe an acknowledgement that we are unprofitable servants towards God utterly unprofitable So unprofitable to our selves as that we can merit nothing by our sufferings but still we may and must have a purpose to profit others by our constancy it is Pro vobis that Saint Paul says hee suffers for them for their souls I will most gladly bestow and be bestowed for your soules says he But Numquid Paulus crucifixus pro vobis was Paul crucified for you is his own question as he suffered for them here so we may be bold to say he was crucified for them that is that by his crucifying and suffering the benefit of Christs sufferings and crucifying might be the more cheerfully embraced by them and the more effectually applyed to them Pro vobis is Pro vestro commodo for your advantage and to make you the more active in making sure your own salvation We are afflicted says he for your consolation that 's first that you might take comfort and spirituall courage by our example that God will no more forsake you then he hath done us and then hee addes salvation too for your consolation and salvation for our sufferings beget this consolation and then this consolation facilitates your salvation and then when Saint Paul had that testimony in his own conscience that his purpose in his sufferings was Pro illis to advantage Gods children and then saw in his experience so good effect of it as that it wrought and begot faith in them then the more his sufferings encreast the more his joys encreast Though says he I be offered up upon the service and sacrifice of your faith I am glad and rejoyce with you all And therefore hee calls the Philippians who were converted by him Gaudium Coronam his Joy and his Crown not onely a Crown in that sense as an auditory a congregation that compasses the Preacher was ordinarily called a Crown Corâ—na In which sense that Martyr Cornelius answered the Judge when he was charged to have held intelligence and to have received Letters from Saint Cyprian against the State Ego de Corona Domini says he from Gods Church 't is true I have but Contra Rempublicam against the State I have received no Letters But not onely in this sense Saint Paul calls those whom he had converted his Crown his Crown that is his Church but he cals them his Crown in heaven What is our hope our joy our Crown of rejoycing are not even you it and where even in the presence of our Lord Iesus Christ at his coming says the Apostle And therefore not to stand upon that contemplation of Saint Gregories that at the Resurrection Peter shall lead up his converted Jewes and Paul his converted Nations and every Apostle his own Church Since you to whom God sends us doe as well make up our Crown as we doe yours since your being wrought upon and our working upon you conduce to both our Crowns call you the labour and diligence of your Pastors for that 's all the suffering they are called to till our sins together call in a persecution call you their painfulnesse your Crown and we shall call your applyablenesse to the Gospel which we preach our Crown for both conduce to both but especially childrens children are the Crown of the Elders says Solomon If when we have begot you in Christ by our preaching you also beget others by your holy life and conversation you have added another generation unto us and you have preached over our Sermons again as fruitfully as we our selves you shall be our Crown and they shall be your Crowns and Christ Jesus a Crown of everlasting glory to us all Amen SERMON XVII Preached at Lincolns Inne MATTH 18. 7. We unto the world because of offences THe Man Moses was very meeke above all the men which were upon the face of the Earth The man Moses was so but the Child Iesus was meeker then he Compare Moses with men and Moses will scarce be parallel'd Compare him with him who being so much more then man as that he was God too was made so much lesse then man as that he was a worme and no man and Moses will not be admitted If you consider Moses his highest expression what he would have parted with for his brethren in his Dele me Pardon them or blot my name out of thy book yet Saint Pauls zeale will enter into the balance and come into comparison with Moses in his Anathema pro fratribus in that he wished himselfe to be separated from Christ rather then his brethren should be But what comparison hath a sodaine a passionate and indigested vehemence of love expressed in a phrase that tasts of zeale but is not done Moses was not blotted out of the book of life nor Saint Paul was not separated from Christ for his brethren what comparison hath such a love that was but said and perchance should not have been said for we can scarce excuse Moses or Saint Paul of all excesse and inordinatenesse in that that they said with a deliberate and an eternall purpose in Christ Jesus conceived as soon as we can conceive God to have knowen that Adam would fall to come into this world dye for man and then actually and really in the fulnesse of time to do so he did come and he did dye The man Moses was very meeke the child Jesus meeker then hee Moses his meeknesse had a determination at least an interruption a discontinuance when hee revenged the wrong of another upon that Egyptian whom he slew But a bruised reed might have stood unbroken and smoking flax might have lien unquenched for ever for all Christ. And therefore though Christ send his Disciples to School to the Scribes and Pharisees because they sate in Moses seat for other lessons yet for
he be put to give judgement upon a particular man that stands before him at the bar according to that Law That that man that stands there that day must that day be no man that that breath breathed in by God to glorify him must be suffocated and strangled with a halter or evaporated with an Axe he must be hanged or beheaded that those limbs which make up a Cabinet for that precious Jewell the image of God to be kept in must be cut into quarters or torne with horses that that body which is a consecrated Temple of the Holy Ghost must be chained to a stake and burnt to ashes hee that is not affected in giving such a judgment upon such a man hath no part in the bowels of Christ Jesus that melt in cōpassion when our sinnes draw and extort his Judgements upon us in the mouth of those Prophets those men whom God sends it is so and it is so in the mouth of God himself that sends them Heu vindicabor says God Alas I will revenge mee of mine enemies Alas I will is Alas I must his glory compels him to doe it the good of his Church and the sustentation of his Saints compell him to it and yet he comes to it with a condolency with a compassion Heu vindicabor Alas I will revenge mee of mine enemies so also in another Prophet Heu abominationes Alas for all the evill abominations of the house of Israel for as it is added there they shall fall that is they will fall by the sword by famine by pestilence and as it follows I will accomplish my fury upon them Though it were come to that height fury and accomplishment consummation of fury yet it comes with a condolency and compassion Heu abominationes Alas for all the evill abominations of the house of Israel I would they were not so ill that I might be better to them Men sent by God do so so does God that sends those men he that is both God and man Christ Jesus does so too We have but two clear records in the Scriptures of Christs weeping and both in compassion for others when Mary wept for her dead brother Lazarus and the Jews that were with her wept too Iesus also wept and he groan'd in the spirit and was troubled This was but for the discomfort of one family it was not a mortality over the whole Country It was but for one person in that family it was not a contagion that had swept or did threaten the whole house it was but for such a person in that family as he meant forthwith to restore to life again and yet Iesus wept groaned in the Spirits was trobled he would not lose that opportunity of shewing his tendernesse and compassion in the behalf of others How vehement how passionate then must we beleeve his other weeping to have been when hee had his glorious and beloved City Jerusalem in his sight and wept over that City and with that stream of tears powred out that Sea that tempestuous Sea those heavy judgements which though he wept in doing it he denounced upon that City that glorious that beloved City which City though Christ charge to have stoned them that were sent to her and to bee guilty of all the righteous blood shed upon the earth the holy Ghost cals the holy City for all that not onely at the beginning of Christs appearance The Devill took him up into the holy City for at that time she was not the unholyer for any thing that shee had done upon the person of Christ but when they had exercised all their cruelty even to death the death of the Crosse upon Christ himselfe the Holy Ghost calls still the holy City Many bodies of Saints which slept arose and went into the holy City When the Fathers take into their contemplation and discourse that passionate exclamation of our Saviour upon the Crosse My God my God why hast thou forsaken me those blessed Fathers that never thought of any such sense of that place that Christ was at that time actually in the reall torments of hell assign no fitter sense of those words then that the foresight of those insupportable and inevitable and imminent judgements upon his City and his people occasioned that passionate exclamation My God my God why hast thou forsaken me That as after he was ascended into heaven he said to Saul Cur me persequeris He called Sauls persecuting of his Church a persecuting of him so when hee considered that God had forsaken his people his Citie his Jerusalem he cryed out that God had forsaken him God that sent the Prophets the Prophets that were sent Christ who was both the person sent and the sender came to the inflicting and denouncing of judgements with this Vae dolentis a heart and voice of condoling and lamentation Grieve not then the holy Spirit of God says the Apostle extort not from him those Judgements which he cannot in justice forbear and yet is grieved to inflict How often doe we use that motive to divert young men from some ill actions and ill courses How will this trouble your friends how will this grieve your Mother this will kill your Father The Angels of heaven who are of a friendship and family with us as they rejoyce at our conversion so are they sorry and troubled at our aversion from God Our sins have grieved our Mother that is made the Church ashamed and blush that he hath washed us and clothed us in the whitenesse and innocency of Christ Jesus in our baptisme and given us his bloud to drinke in the other Sacrament Our sins have made our mother the Church ashamed in her selfe we have scandalized and offended the Congregation and our sinnes have defamed and dishonoured our mother abroad that is imprinted an opinion in others that that cannot be a good Church in which we live so dissolutely so falsely to our first faith and contract and stipulation with God in Baptisme Wee have grieved our brethren the Angels our mother the Church and we have killed our Father God is the father of us all and we have killed him for God hath purchased a Church with his bloud says Saint Paul And oh how much more is God grieved now that we will make no benefit of that bloud which is shed for us then he was for the very shedding of that bloud We take it not so ill pardon solow a comparison in so high a mystery for since our blessed Saviour was pleased to assume that metaphor and to call his passion a Cup and his death a drinking we may be admitted to that Comparison of drinking too we take it not so ill that a man go down into our Cellar and draw and drinke his fill as that he goe in and pierce the vessells and let them runne out in a wastfull wantonneste To satisfie the thirst of our soules there was a
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
covered himself with a cloud so that prayer could not passe thorough That was the misery of Ierusalem But in the acts and habits of sin we cover our selves with a roof with an arch which nothing can shake nor remove but Thunder and Earthquakes that is the execution of Gods fiercest judgments And whether in that fall of the roof that is in the weight of Gods judgments upon us the stones shall not brain us overwhelm and smother and bury us God only knows How his Thunders and his Earthquakes when we put him to that will work upon us he onely knows whether to our amendment or to our destruction But whil'st we are in the consideration of this arch this roof of separation between God and us by sin there may be use in imparting to you an observation a passage of mine own Lying at Aiâ— at Aquisgrane a well known Town in Germany and fixing there some time for the benefit of those Baths I found my self in a house which was divided into many families indeed so large as it might have been a little Parish or at least a great lim of a great one But it was of no Parish for when I ask'd who lay over my head they told me a family of Anabaptists And who over theirs Another family of Anabaptists and another family of Anabaptists over theirs and the whole house was a nest of these boxes severall artificers all Anabaptists I ask'd in what room they met for the exercise of their Religion I was told they never met for though they were all Anabaptists yet for some collaterall differences they detested one another and though many of them were near in bloud alliance to one another yet the son would excommunicate the father in the room above him and the Nephew the Uncle As S. Iohn is said to have quitted that Bath into which Cerinthus the Heretique came so did I this house I remembred that Hezekiah in his sicknesse turn'd himself in his bed to pray towards that wall that look'd to Ierusalem And that Daniel in Babylon when he pray'd in his chamber opened those windows that look'd towards Ierusalem for in the first dedication of the Temple at Ierusalem there is a promise annext to the prayers made towards the Temple And I began to think how many roofs how many floores of separation were made between God and my prayers in that house And such is this multiplicity of sins which we consider to be got over us as a roof as an arch many arches many roofs for though these habituall sins be so of kin as that they grow from one another and yet for all this kindred excommunicate one another for covetousnesse will not be in the same roome with prodigality yet it is but going up another stair and there 's the tother Anabaptist it is but living a few years and then the prodigall becomes covetous All the way they separate us from God as a roof as an arch then an arch will bear any weight An habituall sin got over our head as an arch will stand under any sicknesse any dishonour any judgement of God and never sink towards any humiliation They are above our heads sicus tectum as a roofe as an arch and they are so toe sicut clamor as a voice ascending not stopping till they come to God O my God I am confounded and ashamed to lift up mine eyes to ther O my God why not thine eyes there is a cloud a clamour in the way for as it follows Our iniquities are encreased over our heads and our trespasse is grown up to the heaven I think to retain a learned man of my counsell and one that is sute to be heard in the Court and when I come to instruct him I finde mine adversaries name in his book before and he is all ready for the other party I think to finde an Advocate in heaven when I will and my sin is in heaven before mee The voice of Abels bloud and so of Cains sin was there The voice of Sodomes transgression was there Bring down that sin again from heaven to earth Bring that voice that cries in heaven to speake to Christ here in his Church upon earth by way of confession bring that clamorous sin to his bloud to be washed in the Sacrament for as long as thy sin cries in heaven thy prayers cannot be heard there Bring thy sinne under Christs feet there when hee walks amongst the Candlesticks in the light and power of his Ordinances in the Church and then thine absolution will be upon thy head in those seals which he hath instituted and ordained there and thy cry will be silenced Till then supergrâ—sse caput thine iniquities will be over thy head as a roof as a cry and in the next place sicut aqua as the overflowing of waters We consider this plurality this multiplicity of habituall sinnes to bee got over our heads as waters especially in this that they have stupefied us and taken from us all sense of reparation of our sinfull condition The Organ that God hath given the naturall man is the eye he sees God in the creature The Organ that God hath given the Christian is the ear he hears God in his Word But when we are under water both senses both Organs are vitiated and depraved if not defeaâ—ed The habituall and manifold sinner sees nothing aright Hee sees a judgement and cals it an accident He hears nothing aright He hears the Ordinance of Preaching for salvation in the next world and he cals it an invention of the State for subjection in this world And as under water every thing seems distorted and crooked to man so does man himself to God who sees not his own Image in that man in that form as he made it When man hath drunk iniquity like water then The flouds of wickadnesse shall make him afraid The water that he hath swum in the sin that he hath delighted in shall appear with horrour unto him As God threatens the pride of Tyrus I shall bring the deep upon thee and great waters shall cover thee That God will execute upon this sinner And then upon every drop of that water upon every affliction every tribulation he shall come to that fearfulnesse Waters flowed over my head then said I I am câ—â— off Either he shall see nothing or see no remedy no deliverance from desperation Keep low these waters as waters signifie sin and God shall keep them low as they signifie punishments And his Dove shall return to the Ark with an Olive leaf to shew thee that the waters are abated he shall give thee a testimony of the return of his love in his Oyle and Wine and Milk and Honey in the temporall abundances of this life And si impleat Hydrias aqua if he doe fill all your vessels with water with water of bitternesse that is fill and exercise all your patience and
Though mine iniquities be got over my head as a wall of separation yet in Christo omnia possum In Christ I can doe all things Mine iniquities are got over my head but my head is Christ and in him I can doe whatsoever hee hath done by applying his sufferings to my soule for all my sins are his and all his merit is mine And all my sins shall no more hinder my ascending into heaven nor my sitting at the right hand of God in mine own person then they hindered him who bore them all in his person mine onely Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus blessed for ever SERMON XXIV Preached at White-Hall EZEK 34. 19. And as for my flock they eate that which yee have troen with your feet and they drink that which yee have foulded with your feet THose four Prophets whom the Church hath called the great Prophets Esay and Ieremy Ezekiel and Daniel are not onely therefore called great because they writ more then the lesser Prophets did for Zecbary who is amongst the lesser writ more then Daniel who is amongst the greater but because their Prophecies are of a larger comprehension and extent and for the most part speake more of the comming of Christ and the establishing of the Christian Church then the lesser Prophets doe who were more conversant about the temporall deliverance of Israel from Babylon though there be aspersions of Christ and his future government in those Prophets too though more thinly shed Amongst the four great ones our Prophet Ezekiel is the greatest I compare not their extraction and race for though Ezekiel were de genere sacerdotali of the Leviticall and Priestly race And as Philo Iudâ—us notes all nations having some markes of Gentry some calling that ennobled the professors thereof in some Armes and Merchandize in some and the Arts in others amongst the Iews that was Priesthood Priesthood was Gentry though Ezekiel were of this race Esay was of a higher for he was of the extraction of their Kings of the bloud royall But the extraordinary greatnesse of Ezekiel is in his extraordinary depth and mysteriousnesse for this is one of those parts of Scripture as the beginning of Genesis and the Canticles of Solomon also are which are forbid to be read amongst the Iews till they come to be thirty years old which was the Canonicall age to be made Priests In so much that Saint Gregory says when he comes to expound any part of this Prophet Noctunum iter ago that he travelled by night and did but ghesse at his way But besides that many of the obscure places of the Prophets are more open to us then they were to the ancients because many of those prophecies are now fulfilled and so that which was Prophecy to them is History to us in this place which we have now undertaken there never was darknesse not difficulty neither in the first emanation of the light thereof nor in the reflection neither in the Literall nor in the Figurative sense thereof for the literall sense is plainly that that amongst the manifold oppressions under which the Children of Israel languished in Babylon this was the heaviest that their own Priests joyned with the State against them and infused pestilent doctrines into them that so themselves might enjoy the favour of the State and the people committed to their charge might slacken their obedience to God and surrender themselves to all commandements of all men This was their oppression the Church joyned with the Court to oppresse them Their own Priests gave these sheep grasse which they had troden with their feet doctrines not as God gave them to them but as they had tampered and tempered them and accommodated them to serve turnes and fit their ends whose servants they had made themselves more then Gods And they gave them water to drink which they had troubled with their feet that is doctrines mudded with other ends then the glory of God And that therefore God would take his sheep into his own care and reduce them from that double oppression of that Court and that Church those Tyrannous officers and those over-obsequious Priests This is the literall sense of our text and context evident enough in the letter thereof And then the figurative and Mysticall sense is of the same oppressions and the same deliverance over againe in the times of Christ and of the Christian Church for that 's more then figurative fully literall soon after the Text I will set up one shepheard my servant David And I will raise up for them a plant of renoune which is the same that Esay had called A rod out of the stem of Iesse and Ieremy had called A righteous brâ—nch a King thus should raigne and prosper This prophecy then comprehending the kingdome of Christ it comprehends the whole kingdome of Christ not onely the oppressions and deliverances of our forefathers from the Heathen and the Heretiques in the Primitive Church but that also which touches us more nearly the oppressions and deliverance of our Fathers in the Reformation of Religion and the shaking off of the yoak of Rome that Italian Babylon as heavy as the Chaldâ—an We shall therefore at this time fix our meditations upon that accommodation of the Text the oppression that the Israel of God was under then when he delivered them by that way the Reformation of Religion and consider how these metaphors of the holy Ghost The treading with their feet the grasse that the sheep were to eae and the troubling with their feet the water that the sheep were to drink doe answer and set out the oppressions of the Roman Church then as lively as they did in the other Babylon And so having said enough of the primary sense of these words as they concern Gods Israel in the first Babylon and something by way of commemoration and thankfulnesse for Gods deliverance of his Israel from the persecutions in the Primitive Church insist we now upon the severall metaphors of the Text as the holy Ghost continues them to the whole reigne of Christ and so to the Reformation First the greatest calamity of those sheep in Babylon was that their own shepherds concurred to their oppression In Babylon they were a part but in Rome they were all In Babylon they joyned with the State but in Rome they were the State Saint Hierome notes out of a Tradition of the Iews that those loafes which their priests were to offer to the Lord were to be of such corne as those Priests had sowed and reaped and threshed and ground and baked all with their own hands But they were so farre from that at Babylon and at Rome as that they ploughed iniquity and sowed wickednesse and reaped the same and as God himselfe complaines trod his portion under foot That is first neglected his people for Gods people are his portion And then whatsoever pious men had given to the Church is his portion too and that portion
January 7. 1620. JOB 13. 15. Loe though he slay me yet will I trust in him THe name by which God notified himselfe to all the world at first was Qui sum I am this was his style in the Commission that he gave to Moses to Pharaoh say that he whose name is I am hath sent thee forthere God would have it made known that all Essence all Beeing all things that fall out in any time past or present or future had their dependece upon him their derivation from him their subsistence in him But then when God contracts himselfe into a narrower consideration not to be considered as God which implies the whole Trinity but as Christ which is onely the second Person and when he does not so much notifie himselfe to the whole world as to the Christian Church then he contracts his name too from that spacious and extensive Qui sum I am which includes all time to Alpha and Omega first and last which are peeces of time as we see in severall places of the Revelation he styles himselfe when God speakes to the whole world his name is Qui sum I am that all the world may confesse that all that is is nothing but with relation to him when he speakes to a Christian his name is Alpha and Omega first and last that a Christian may in the very name of God fixe his thoughts upon his beginning and upon his end and ever remember that as a few years since in his Cradle he had no sense of that honour those riches those pleasures which possesses his time now so God knowes how few days hence in his grave he shall have no sense no memory of them Our whole life is but a parenthesis our receiving of our soule and delivering it back againe makes up the perfect sentence Christ is Alpha and Omega and our Alpha and Omega is all we are to consider Now for all the letters in this Alphabet of our life that is for all the various accidents in the course thereof we cannot study a better booke then the person of Iob. His first letter his Alpha we know not we know not his Birth His last letter his Omega we know not we know not his Death But all his other letters His Children and his riches we read over and over againe How he had them how he lost them and how he recovered them By which though it appeare that those temporall things doe also belong to the care and provision of a godly man yet it appears too that neither his first care nor his last care appertaines to the things of this world but that there is a Primùm quaerite something to be sought for before The kingdome of God And there is a Memorare novissima something to be thought on after The Ioyes of heaven And then Catera adjicientur says Christ All other cares are allowable by way of Accessary but not as principall And therefore though this History of Iob may seeme to spend it selfe upon the relation of Iobs temporall passages of his wealth and poverty of his sicknesse and recovery yet if we consider the Alpha and Omega of the booke it selfe the first beginning and the later end thereof we shall see in both places a care of the Holy ghost to shew us first Iobs righteousnesse and then his riches first his Goodnesse and then his Goods in both places there is a Catechisme a Confession of his faith before and then an Inventory and Catalogue of his wealth for in the first place it is sayd He was an upright and just man and feared God and eschewed evill and then his Children and his substance follow And in the last place it is said That Iob was accepted by God and that he prayed for those friends which had vext him and then it is that his former substance was doubled unto him This world then is but an Occasionall world a world onely to be us'd and that but so as though we us'd it not The next world is the world to be enjoy'd and that so as that we may joy in nothing by the way but as it directs and conduces to that end Nay though we have no Joy at al though God deny us all conveniencies here Etiamsi occiderit though he end a weary life with a painefull death as there is no other hope but in him so there needs no other for that alone is both abundant and infallible in it selfe Now as no History is more various then Iobs fortune so is no phrase no style more ambiguous then that in which Iobs history is written very many words so expressed very many phrases so conceived as that they admit a diverse a contrary sense for such an ambiguity in a single word there is an example in the beginning in Iobs wife we know not from the word it selfe whether it be Benedicas or maledicas whether she sayd Blesse God and die or Curse God And for such an ambiguity in an intire sentence the words of this text are a pregnant and evident example for they may be directly and properly thus rendered out of the Hebrew Behold he will kill me I will not hope and this seemes to differ much from our reading Behold though he kill me yet will I trust in him And therefore to make up that sense which our translation hath which is truely the true sense of the place we must first make this paraphrase Behold he will kill me I make account he will kill me I looke not for life at his hands his will be done upon me for that And then the rest of the sentence I will not hope as we read it in the Hebrew must be supplyed or rectified rather with an Interrogation which that language wants and the translators use to add it where they see the sense require it And so reading it with an Interrogation the Originall and our translation will constitute one and the same thing It will be all one sense to say with the Originall Behold he will kill me that is let him kill me yet shall not I hope in him and to say with our translation Behold though he kill me yet will I hope in him And this sense of the words both the Chaldee paraphrase and all translations excepting onely the Septuagint do unanimously establish So then the sense of the words being thus fixed we shall not distract your understandings or load your memories with more then two parts Those for your ease and to make the better impression we will call propositum and praepositum first the purpose the resolution of a godly man which is to rely upon God and then the consideration the inducement the debatement of this beforehand That no Danger can present it selfe which he had not thought of before He hath carried his thoughts to the last period he hath stirred the potion to the last scruple of Rheuharb and Wormewod which is in it he hath digested the worst he hath considered Death
Evangelists that that voice added Hear him for after that Declaration that he who was visibly and personally come amongst them was the Sonne of God there was no reason to doubt of mens willingnesse to hear him who went forth in person to preach unto them in this world As long as he was to stay with them it was not likely that they should need provocation to hear him therefore that was not added at his Baptisme and entrance into his personall ministery But when Christ came to his Transfiguration which was a manifestation of his glory in the next world and an intimation of the approaching of the time of his going away to the possession of that glory out of this world there that voyce from heaven sayes This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased heare him When he was gone out of this world men needed a more particular solicitation to heare him for how and where and in whom should they heare him when he was gone In the Church for the same testimony that God gave of Christ to authorize and justifie his preaching hath Christ given of the Church to justifie her power The holy Ghost fell upon Christ at his Baptism and the holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles who were the representative Church at Whitsontide The holy Ghost tarried upon Christ then and the holy Ghost shall tarry with the Church usque ad consummationem till the end of the world And therefore as we have that institution from Christ Dic Ecclesiae when men are refractary and perverse to complaine to the Church so have they who are complained of to the Church that institution from Christ also Audi Ecclesiam Hearken to the voyce of God in the Church and they have from him that commination If you disobey them you disobey God in what fetters soever they binde you you shall rise bound in those fetters and as he who is excommunicated in one Diocese should not be received in another so let no man presume of a better state in the Triumphant Church then he holds in the Militant or hope for communion there that despises excommunication here That which the Scripture says God sayes says St. Augustine for the Scripture is his word and that which the Church says the Scriptures say for she is their word they speak in her they authorize her and she explicates them The Spirit of God inanimates the Scriptures and makes them his Scriptures the Church actuates the Scriptures and makes them our Scriptures Nihil salubrius says the same Father There is not so wholsome a thing no soule can live in so good an aire and in so good a diet Quà m ut Rationem praecedat authoritas Then still to submit a mans owne particular reason to the authority of the Church expressed in the Scriptures For certainly it is very truly as it is very usefully said by Calvin Semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa A frowardnesse and an aptnesse to quarrell at the proceedings of the Church and to be delivered from the obligations and constitutions of the Church is ever accompanied with an ambitious pride that they might enjoy a licentious liberty It is not because the Church doth truly take too much power but because they would be under none it is an ambition to have all government in their own hands and to be absolute Emperors of themselves that makes them refractary But if they will pretend to believe in God they must believe in God so as God hath manifested himself to them they must believe in Christ so if they will pretend to heare Christ they must heare him there where he hath promised to speake they must heare him in the Church The first reason then in this Trinity the person that directs is the Church the Trumpet in which God sounds his Iudgements and the Organ in which he delivers his mercy And then the persons of the second place the persons to whom the Church speakes here are Filiae Sion The daughters of Sion her owne daughters We are not called Filii Ecclesiae sonnes of the Church The name of sonnes may imply more virility more manhood more sense of our owne strength then becomes them who professe an obedience to the Church Therefore as by a name importing more facility more supplenesse more application more tractablenesse she calls her children Daughters But then being a mother and having the dignity of a Parent upon her she does not proceed supplicatorily she does not pray them nor intreat them she does not say I would you would go forth and I would you would looke out but it is Egredimini videte imperatively authoritatively Do it you must do it So that she showes what in important and necessary cases the power of the Church is though her ordinary proceedings by us and our Ministery be To pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God In your baptisme your soules became daughters of the Church and they must continue so as long as they continue in you you cannot devest your allegiance to the Church though you would no more then you can to the State to whom you cannot say ◠will be no subject A father may dis-inherit his son upon reasons but even that dis-inherited childe cannot renounce his father That Church which conceived thee in the Covenant of God made to Christians and their seed and brought thee forth in baptisme and brought thee up in catechizing and preaching may yet for thy misdemeanor to God in her separate thee à Mensa Toro from bed and board from that sanctuary of the soule the Communion Table and from that Sanctuary of the body Christian buriall and even that Christian buriall gives a man a good rise a good helpe a good advantage even at the last resurrection to be laid down in expectation of the Resurrection in holy ground and in a place accustomed to Gods presence and to have been found worthy of that Communion of Saints in the very body is some earnest and some kinde of first-fruits of the joyfull resurrection which we attend God can call our dead bodies from the sea and from the fire and from the ayre for every element is his but consecrated ground is our element And therefore you daughters of Sion holy and religious souls for to them onely this indulgent mother speaks here hearken ever to her voice quarrell not your mothers honor nor her discretion Despise not her person nor her apparell Doe not say she is not the same woman she was heretofore nor that she is not so well dressed as she was then Dispute not her Doctrine Despise not her Discipline that as you sucked her breasts in your Baptism in the other Sacrament when you entred and whilst you stayd in this life so you may lie in her bosome when you goe out of it Hear her a good part of that which you are to hear from her is envolv'd inwrapped in that w ch we have propos'd
He puts thee not to prevaile by Angels nor Archangels But lest any thing might hinder thee from coming into his presence his presence comes into thee And lest Majesty should dazell thee thou art to speake but to thy Father Of which word Abba the root is To will from which root the fruit also must be willingnesse and propensenesse to grant God is the Father of Christ by that mysticall and eternall unexpressible generation which never began nor ended Of which incomprehensible mystery Moses and the ancient Prophets spake so little and so indirectly that till the dawning of the day of Christ after Esdras time those places seem not to be intended of the Trinity Nay a good while after Christ they were but tenderly applyed to that sense And at this day the most of the writers in the reformed Churches considering that we need not such farre fetcht and such forced helps and withall weighing how well the Jews of these times are provided with other expositions of those places are very sparing in using them but content themselves modestly herein with the testimonies of the New Testament Truly this mystery is rather the object of faith then reason and it is enough that we believe Christ to have ever been the Son of God by such generation and our selves his sonnes by adoption So that God is Father to all but yet so that though Christ say Iohn 10. My Father is greater then all he addes I and my Father are all one to shew his eternall interest and Iohn 20. Hee seemes to put a difference I goe to my Father and your Father my God and your God The Roman stories have that when Claudius saw it conduce to his ends to get the tribuneship of which he was incapable because a Patrician he suffered himself to be adopted But against this Adoption two exceptions were found one that he was adopted by a man of lower ranke a Plebeian which was unnaturall and by a younger man then himselfe which took away the presentation of a Father But our Adoption is regular For first we are made the sonnes of the Most High and of the ancient of daies there was no one word by which he could so nobly have maintained his Dignity kept his station justified his cause and withall expressed his humility and charity as this Father They crucifyed him for saying himself to be the Sonne of God And in the midst of torment he both professes the same still and lets them see that they have no other way of forgivenesse but that he is the Sonne of that Father For no man cometh to the Father but by the Son And at this voice Father O most blessed Saviour thy Father which is so fully thine that for thy sake he is ours too which is so wholly thine that he is thy selfe which is all mercy yet will not spare thee all justice yet will not destroy us And that glorious Army of Angels which hitherto by their own integrity maintained their first and pure condition and by this worke of thine now neare the Consummatum est attend a confirmation and infallibility of ever remaining so And that faithfull company of departed Saints to whom thy merit must open a more inward and familiar room in thy Fathers Kingdome stand all attentive to heare what thou wilt aske of this Father And what shall they hear what doest thou aske Forgive them forgive them Must murderers be forgiven Must the offended aske it And must a Father grant it And must he be solicited and remembred by the name of Father to doe it Was not thy passion enough but thou must have compassion And is thy mercy so violent that thou wilt have a fellow-feeling of their imminent afflictions before they have any feeling The Angels might expect a present employment for their destruction the Saints might be out of feare that they should be assumed or mingled in their fellowship But thou wilt have them pardoned And yet doest not out of thine own fulnesse pardon them as thou didst the theef upon the Crosse because he did already confesse thee but thou tellest them that they may be forgiven but at thy request and if they acknowledge their Advocate to be the Son of God Father forgive them I that cannot revenge thy quarrell cannot forgive them I that could not be saved but by their offence cannot forgive them And must a Father Almighty and well pleased in thee forgive them Thou art more charitable towards them then by thy direction wee may be to our selvs We must pray for our selvs limitedly forgive us as we forgive But thou wilt have their forgivenes illimited and unconditioned Thou seemest not so much as to presume a repentance which is so essentiall and necessary in all transgressions as where by mans fault the actions of God are diverted from his appointed ends God himself is content to repent the doing of them As he repented first the making of man and then the making of a King But God will have them within the armes of his generall pardon And we are all delivered from our Debts for God hath given his word his co-essential word for us all And though as in other prodigall debts the Interest exceed the Principall our Actuall sinnes exceed Originall yet God by giving his word for us hath acquitted all But the Affections of our Saviour are not inordinate nor irregular He hath a For for his Prayer Forgive them for c. And where he hath not this For as in his Praier in his agony he quickly interrupts the violence of his request with a But Father let this cup passe but not my will In that form of Prayer which himself taught us he hath appointed a for on Gods part which is ever the same unchangeable For thine is the Kingdome Therefore supplications belong to thee The power Thou openest thy hand and fillest every living thing The Glory for thy Name is glorified in thy grants But because on our part the occasions are variable he hath left our for to our religious discretion For when it is said James 4. You lust and have not because you aske not it followeth presently You aske and misse because you aske amisse It is not a fit for for every private man to aske much means for he would doe much good I must not pray Lord put into my hands the strength of Christian Kings for out of my zeale I will imploy thy benefits to thine advantage thy Souldiers against thine enemies and be a bank against that Deluge wherewith thine enemy the Turk threatens to overflow thy people I must not pray Lord fill my heart with knowledge and understanding for I would compose the Schismes in thy Church and reduce thy garment to the first continuall and seemlesse integrity and redresse the deafnesses and oppressions of Judges and Officers But he gave us a convenient scantling for our fo rs who prayed Give me enough for I may else despair give me not
though they be never done without Reason yet their principall scope and marke is the glory of God and though they seeme but Morall or Civill or domestique yet they have a deeper tincture a heavenly nature a relation to God in them The light in our Text then is essentially and personally Christ himself from him flowes the supernaturall light of faith and grace here also intended and because this light of faith and grace flowing from that fountaine of light Christ Jesus works upon the light of nature and reason it may conduce to the raising of your devotions if we do without any long insisting upon the severall parts thereof present to you some of those many and divers lights which are in this world and admit an application to this light in our Text the essentiall light Christ Iesus and the supernaturall light faith and grace Of these lights we shall consider some few couples and the first payre Lux Essentiae and Lux Gloriae the light of the Essence of God and the light of the glory of his Saints And though the first of these be that essentiall light by which we shall see God face to face as he is and the effluence and emanation of beams from the face of God which make that place Heaven of which light it is said That God who onely hath Immortality dwels in luce inaccessibili in the light that none can attaine to yet by the light of faith and grace in sanctification we may come to such a participation of that light of Essence or such a reflection of it in this world that it shall be true of us which was said of those Ephesians You were once darknesse but now are light in the Lord he does not say enlightned nor lightsome but light it self light essentially for our conversation is in heaven And as God sayes of Ierusalem and his blessings here in this world Calceavit Ianthino I have shod thee with Badgers skinne some translate it which the Antients take for some precious stuffe that is I have enabled thee to tread upon all the most estimable things of this world for as the Church it self is presented so every true member of the Church is endowed Luna sub pedibus the Moone and all under the Moone is under our feet we tread upon this world even when we are trodden upon in it so the precieus promises of Christ make us partakers of the Divine Nature and the light of faith makes us the same Spirit with the Lord And this is our participation of the light of essence in this life The next is the light of glory This is that Glorification which we shall have at the last day of which glory we consider a great part to be in that Denudation that manifestation of all to all as in this world a great part of our inglorious servitude is in those disguises and palliations those colours and pretences of publique good with which men of power and authority apparell their oppressions of the poore In this are we the more miserable that we cannot see their ends that there is none of this denudation this laying open of ourselves to one another which shall accompany that state of glory where we shall see one anothers bodies and soules actions and thoughts And therefore as if this place were now that Tribunall of Christ Jesus and this that day of Judgement and denudation we must be here as we shall be there content to stand naked before him content that there be a discovery a revealing a manifestation of all our sinnes wrought upon us at least to our owne consciences though not to the congregation If we will have glory we must have this denudation We must not be glad when our sins scape the Preacher We must not say as though there were a comfort in that though he have hit such a mans Adultery and anothers Ambition and anothers extortion yet for all his diligence he hath missed my sinne for if thou wouldest faine have it mist thou wouldest faine hold it still And then why camest thou hither What camest thou for to Church or to the Sacrament Why doest thou delude God with this complementall visit to come to his house if thou bring not with thee a disposition to his honour and his service Camest thou onely to try whether God knew thy sinne and could tell thee of it by the Preacher Alas he knowes it infallibly And if he take no knowledge of his knowing it to thy conscience by the words of the Preacher thy state is the more desperate God sends us to preach forgivenesse of sinnes where wee finde no sinne we have no Commission to execute How shall we finde your sinnes In the old sacrifices of the law the Priest did not fetch the sacrifice from the herd but he received it from him that brought it and so sacrificed it for him Doe thou therefore prevent the Preacher Accuse thyselfe before he accuse thee offer up thy sinne thy selfe Bring it to the top of thy memory and thy conscience that he finding it there may sacrifice it for thee Tune the instrument and it is the fitter for his hand Remember thou thine own sins first and then every word that fals from the preachers lipsshall be a drop of the dew of heaven a dram of the balme of Gilead a portion of the bloud of thy Saviour to wash away that sinne so presented by thee to be so sacrificed by him for if thou onely of all the congregation finde that the preacher hath not touched thee nor hit thy sinnes know then that thou wast not in his Commission for the Remission of sinnes and be afraid that thy conscience is either gangrend and unsensible of all incisions and cauterizations that can be made by denouncing the Iudgements of God which is as far as the preacher can goe or that thy whole constitution thy complexion thy composition is sinne the preacher cannot hit thy particular sinne because thy whole life and the whole body of thy actions is one continuall sin As long as a man is alive if there appeare any offence in his breath the physician will assigne it to some one corrupt place his lungs or teeth or stomach and thereupon apply convenient remedy thereunto But if he be dead and putrefied no man askes from whence that ill aire and offence comes because it proceeds from thy whole carcasse So as long as there is in you a sense of your sinnes as long as we can touch the offended and wounded part and be felt by you you are not desperate though you be froward and impatient of our increpations But when you feele nothing whatsoever wee say your soule is in an Hectique fever where the distemper is not in any one humor but in the whole substance nay your soule it selfe is become a carcasse This then is our first couple of these lights by our Conversation in heaven here that is a
into shreds and fragments such as the Prophet speaks of The breaking of a Potters vessell that cannot be made up again Concision is at best Solutio Continui The severing of that which should be kept intire In the State the aliening of the head from the body or of the body from the head is Concision and videte it is a fearefull thing to be guilty of that In the Church which Church is not a Monarchy otherwise then as she is united in her head Christ Jesus to constitute a Monarchy an universall head of the Church to the dis-inherison and to the tearing of the Crownes of Princes who are heads of the Churches in their Dominions this is Concision and videte it is a fearefull thing to be guilty of that to advance a forein Prelate In the family where God hath made man and wife one to divide with others is Concision and videte it is a fearefull thing to be guilty of that Generally the tearing of that in peeces which God intended should be kept intire is this Concision and falls under this Commonefaction which implies an increpation videte beware But because thus Concision would receive a concision into infinite branches we determined this consideration at first into these three first Concisio Corporis the concision of the body dis-union in Doctrinall things and Concisio vestis the Concision of the garment dis-union in Ceremoniall things and then Concisio Spiritus the Concision of the Spirit dis-union irresolution unsetlednesse diffidence and distrust in thine owne minde and conscience First for this Concision of the body of the body of Divinity in Doctrinall things since still Concision is Solutio continui the breaking of that which should be intire consider we first what this Continuum this that should be kept intire is and it is sayes the Apostle Iesus himself Omnis spiritus qui solvit Iesum so the Antients reade that place Every spirit which dissolveth Iesus that breakes Jesus in peeces that makes Religion serve turnes that admits so much Gospell as may promove and advance present businesses every such spirit is not of God Not to professe the whole Gospell Totum Iesum not to beleeve all the Articles of faith this is Solutio continui a breaking of that which should be intire and this is truly concision Now with concision in this kinde our greatest adversaries they of the Romane heresie and mis-perswasion do not charge us They do not charge us that we deny any article of any antient Creed nor may they deny that there is not enough for salvation in those antient Creeds This is Continuitas universalis a continuity an intirenesse that goes through the whole Church a skin that covers the whole body the whole Church is bound to beleeve all the articles of faith But then there is Continuitas particularis Continuitas modi a continuity a harmony an intirenesse that does not go through the whole Church the whole Church does not alwaies agree in the manner of explication of all the articles of faith but this may be a skin that covers some particular limbe of the body and not another one Church may expound an article thus and some other some other way as in particular the Lutheran Church expounds the article of Christs descent into hell one way and the Calvinist another Now in cases where neither exposition destroyes the article in the substance thereof it is Concision that is Solutio continui a breaking of that which should be kept intire for any man to breake the peace of that Church in which he hath received his baptisme and hath his station by advancing the exposition of any other Church in that And as this is Concision Solutio continui a breaking of that which is intire to break the peace of the Church where we were baptized by teaching otherwise then that Church teaches in these things De modo of the manner of expounding such or such articles of faith so is there another dangerous Concision too For to inoculate a forein bud or to engraffe a forein bough is concision as well as the cutting off an arme from the tree to inoculate cleaves the rinde the bark and to engraffe cleaves the tree it severs that which should be entire So when a particular Church in a holy and discreet modesty hath abstained from declaring her self in the exposition of some particular Articles or of some Doctrines by faire consequence deducible from those Articles and contented her self with those generall things which are necessary to salvation As the Church of England hath in the Article of Christs descent into Hell it is Concision it is solution Continui a breaking of that which should be intire to inoculate a new sense or engraffe a new exposition which howsoever it may be true in it selfe it cannot be truly said to be the sense of that Church not perchance because that Church was not of that mind but because that Church finding the thing it self to be no fundamentall thing thought it unnecessary to descend to particular declarations when as in such declarations she must have departed from some other Church of the Reformation that thought otherwise and in keeping her self within those generall termes that were necessary and sufficient with a good conscience she conserved peace and unity with all David in the person of every member of the Church submits himself to that increpation Let my right hand forget her cunning and let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I prefer not Ierusalem before my chiefest joy Our chiefest joy is for the most part our own opinions especially when they concur with other learned and good men too But then Ierusalem is our love of the peace of the Church and in such things as do not violate foundations let us prefer Ierusalem before our chiefest Joy love of peace before our own opinions though concurrent with others For this is that that hath misled many men that the common opinion in the Church is necessarily the opinion of the Church It is not so not so in the Romane Church There the cōmon opinion is That the blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without originall sin But cannot be said to be the opinion of that Church nor may it be safely concluded in any Church Most Writers in the Church have declared themselves this way therefore the Church hath declared her self for the declarations of the Church are done publiquely orderly and at once And when a Church hath declared her self so in all things necessary and sufficient let us possess our souls in peace and not say that that Church hath or presse that that Church would proceed to further declarations in lesse necessary particulars When we are sure we have beleeved practised all that the Church hath recōmended to us in these generals then and not till then let us call for more declarations but in the mean time prefer Ierusalem before our chiefest joy love of peace
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
departs from that posture which God in nature gave him that is erect to look upward for his eye is always down upon them that lie in the dust under his feet Certainly he that seares up himselfe and makes himselfe insensible of the cries and curses of the poor here in this world does but prepare himselfe for the howlings gnashings of teeth in the world to come It is the Serpents taste the Serpents diet Dust shalt thou eate all the days of thy life and he feeds but on dust that oppresses the poor And as there is evidently more inhumanity more violation of nature in this oppression then in emulation so may there well seem to be more impiety and more violation of God himselfe by that word which the holy Ghost chooses in the next place which is Reproach He that oppresses the poor reproaches his Maker This word which we translate to Reproach Theodotion translates to Blaspheme And blasphemy is an odious thing even towards men For men may be blasphemed The servant of God Moses is blasphemed as well as God And Goliah blasphemed the Israel of God as well as the God of Israel and for the most part where we read Reviling the word is Blaspheming Our word here that we may still pursue our first way a reverent consideration of the elegancy of the Scriptures in the origination of the words is Charak and this word Iob uses as it is used in our text for reproach My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live And this this reproaching of the heart is in many cases a Blaspheming and a strange one a self-blaspheming When I have had by the goodnesse of Gods Spirit a true sense of my sinnes a true remorse and repentance of those sinnes true Absolution from those sinnes true seales of reconciliation after those sinnes true diligence and preclusion of occasions of relapsing into those sinnes still to suspect my state in Gods favour and my full redintegration with him still to deny my selfe that peace which his Spirit by these meanes offers me still to call my repentance imperfect and the Sacramentall seales ineffectuall still to accuse my selfe of sinnes thus devested thus repented this is to reproach this is to to blaspheme mine owne soule If I will say with Iob My heart shall reproach me of nothing this is not that I will accuse my selfe of no sinne or say the elect of God cannot sinne no nor that God sees not the sinnes of the elect nor that God is not affected or angry with those sinnes and those sinners as long as they remaine unrepented but after I have accused my selfe of those sinnes and brought them into Judgement by way of Confession and received my pardon under seale in the Sacrament and pleaded that pardon to the Church by a subsequent amendment of life then I reproach my selfe of nothing for this were a self-blaspheming and a reproaching of mine owne soule Now the word of our text in the root thereof Charak is manifestare prostituere It is to publish the fault or to prostitute the fame of any man extrajudicially not in a right forme of Judgement and amongst those men who are not to be his Judges So to fill itching eares with rumours and whisperings so to minister matter and fuell to fiery tongues so to lay imputations and aspersions upon men though that which we say of those men be true is a libelling is a calumny is a blaspheming and a reproach in the word of this text for it is manifestare prostituere to publish a mans faults and to prostitute a mans fame there where his faults can receive no remedy if they be true nor his fame Reparation if they be false It is properly to speake ill of a man and not before a competent Judge And in such a sense a man may reproach God himselfe But is there then a Judge between God and man Shall not the Iudge of all the earth doe right is Abrahams question but there that Judge of all the earth is God himself But is there a Judge of heaven too A Judge between God and man for Gods proceeding there There is The Scripture is a Judge by which God himself will be tryed As the Law is our Judge and the Judge does but declare what is Law so the Scripture is our Judge and God proceeds with us according to those promises and Judgements which he hath laid down in the Scripture When God says in Esay Iudge betweene me and my Vineyard certainly God means that there is something extant some contract some covenant something that hath the nature of a Law some visible some legible thing to judge by And Christ tels us what that is Search the Scriptures says hee for by them wee must bee tryed for our lives So then if I come to thinke that God will call me in question for my life for my eternall life by any way that hath not the Nature of a Law And by the way it is of the Nature and Essence of a Law before it come to bind that it be published if I think that God will condemn me by any unrevealed will any reserved purpose in himself this is to reproach God in the word of this Text for it is prostituere to prostitute to exhibit God otherwise then he hath exhibited himselfe and to charge God with a proceeding upon secret and unrevealed purposes and not rest in his Scriptures God will try us at last God himself will be tryed all the way by his Scriptures And to charge God with the damnation of men otherwise then by his Tantummodo Crede I have commanded thee to beleeve and thou hast not done that And by his Fac hoc vives I have commanded thee to live well and thou hast not done that which are conditions evidently laid downe in the Scriptures and not grounded upon any secret purpose is a reproaching of God in the word of this Text. This this Oppressor of the poor is said to doe here He reproaches the Maker God in that notion as he is the Creator Now this is the clearest notion and fastest apprehension and first handle that God puts out to man to lay hold upon him by as hee is The Creator For though God did elect mee before hee did actually create mee yet God did not mean to elect mee before hee meant to create mee when his purpose was upon me to elect me surely his purpose had passed upon me to create mee for when he elected me I was I. So that this is our first notion of God towards us as he is The Creator The School will receive a pregnant child from his parents and work upon him The Vniversity will receive a grounded Scholar from the School and work upon him The State or the Church will receive a qualified person from the University and worke by him But still the State and the Church and the University and the first School it self
they their beeing their ever-lasting well-beeing for their service You will scarce receive a servant that is come from another man without testimony If you put your selves out of Gods service whither will ye goe In his service and his onely is perfect freedome And therefore as you love freedome and liberty bee his servants and call the freedome of the Gospel the best freedome and come to the Preaching of that He cals you children as you are servants filii familiares and he cals you children as you are Alumni nurse-children filii mammillares as he requires the humility and simplicity of little children in you For Cum simplicibus sermocinatio ejus as the vulgat reads that place Gods secret discourse is with the single heart The first that ever came to Christ so as he came to us in blood they that came to him so before he came so to us that died for him before he died for them were such sucking children those whom Herod slew As Christ thought himself bound to thank his Father for that way of proceeding I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth that thou hast revealed these things unto babes so Christ himself pursues the same way Suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me for of such is the Kingdome of heaven Of such not onely of those who were truly literally children children in age but of such as those Talium est regnum coelorum such as come in such a disposition in the humility in the simplicity in the singlenesse of heart as children do An habituall sinner is always in minority always an Infant an Infant to this purpose All his acts all the bands of an Infant are void all the outward religious actions even the band and contract of Baptism in an habituall sinner is void and ineffectuall He that is in the house and favour of God though he be a child a child to this purpose simple supple tractable single-hearted is as Adam was in the state of Innocency a man the first minute able to stand upright in the sight of God And out of one place of Esay our Expositors have drawn conveniently enough both these conclusions A child shall die 100 years old says the Prophet that is say some a sinner though he live 100 years yet he dies a child in ignorance And then say others and both truly He that comes willingly when God cals though he die a child in age he hath the wisdome of 100 years upon him There is not a graver thing then to be such a child to conform his will to the will of God Whether you consider temporall or spirituall things you are Gods children For for temporall if God should take off his hand withdraw his hand of sustentation all those things which assist us temporally would relapse to the first feeble and childish estate and come to their first nothing Armies would be but Hospitals without all strength Councell-tables but Bedlams without all sense and Schools and Universities but the wrangling of children if God and his Spirit did not inanimate our Schools and Armies and Councels His adoption makes us men therefore because it makes us his children But we are his children in this consideration especially as we are his spirituall children as he hath nursed us fed us with his word In which sense the Apostle speaks of those who had embraced the true Religion in the same words that the Prophet had spoken before Behold I and the children that God hath given me And in the same sense the same Prophet in the same place says of them who had fallen away from the true Religion They please themselves in the children of strangers In those men who have derived their Orders and their Doctrine from a forein Jurisdiction In that State where Adoptions were so frequent in old Rome a Plebeian could not adopt a Patrician a Yeoman could not adopt a Gentleman nor a young man could not adopt an old In the new Rome that endevours to adopt all in an imaginary filiation you that have the perfect freedome of Gods service be not adopted into the slavery and bondage of mens traditions you that are in possession of the ancient Religion of Christ and his Apostles be not adopted into a yonger Religion Religio à religando That is Religion that binds that binds that is necessary to salvation That which we affirm our adversaries deny not that which we professe they confesse was always necessary to salvation They will not say that all that they say now was always necessary That a man could not be saved without beleeving the Articles of the Councell of Trent a week before that Councell shut up You are his children as children are servants and If he be your Lord where is his fear you are his children as he hath nursed you with the milk of his word and if he be your Father so your foster Father where is his love But he is your Father otherwise you are not onely Filii familiares children because servants nor onely Filii mammillares children because noursed by him but you are also Filii viscerales children of his bowells For we are otherwise allied to Christ then we can be to any of his instruments though Angels of the Church Prophets or Apostles and yet his Apostle says of one whom he loved of Onesimus Receive him that is mine owne bowells my Sonne says he whom I have begotten in my hands How much more art thou bound to receive and refresh those bowells from which thou art derived Christ Iesus himselfe Receive him Refresh him Carry that which the wiseman hath said Miserere animae tuae bee mercifull to thine owne soule higher then so and Miserere salvatoris tui have mercy upon thine owne Saviour put on the bowells of mercy and put them on even towards Christ Iesus himselfe who needs thy mercy by beeing so tome and mangled and embowelled by blasphemous oaths and execrations For beloved it is not so absurd a prayer as it is conceived if Luther did say upon his death bed Oremus pro Domino nostro Iesu Christo Let us pray for out Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ. Had we not need pray for him If he complaine that Saul persecutes him had we not need pray for him It is a seditious affection in civill things to divide the King and the kingdome to pray to fight for the one and leave out the other is seditiously done If the kingdome of Christ need thy prayers and thy assistance Christ needs it If the Body need it the Head needs it If thou must pray for his Gospell thou must pray for him Nay thou canst not pray for thy selfe but thou must pray for him for thou art his bowells when thou in thy forefathers the first Christians in the Primitive Church wast persecuted Christ cryed out why persecutest thou me Christ made thy case his because thou wast of his
enough of it self but that the Prince of the world the Devill is anima mundi the soul of this lower world he inanimates he actuates he exalts the malignity of the world against us and he is our second enemy It was not the Apple but the Serpent that tempted Eve no doubt had looked upon the fruit before and yet did not long But even this enemy is not so dangerous as he is conceived In the life of St. Basil we have a story that the Devil appeared to a penitent sinner at his praiers and told him If you will let me alone I will let you alone meddle not with me and I will not meddle with you He found that by this good souls prayers to God God had weakned his power not onely upon that man the prayed but upon others too and therefore he was content to come to a cessation of armes with him that he might turn his forces another way Truely he might say to many of us in a worse sense Let me alone and I will let you alone tempt not me I will not tempt you Our idlenes our high diet our wanton discours our exposing our selves to occasion of sin provoke and call in the Devill when he seeks not us The Devill possesses the world and we possesse the Devill But then if the fear of the Lord possesse us our owne Concupiscencies though they be indeed our greatest enemies because the warre that they maintain is a civill warre shall doe us no harm for as the Septuagins in their Translation diminish the power of the Devill in that name â—wordsâ— a disproportioned Creature made up of a Lion and an Ant because as St. Gregory saith upon that place formicis â—eoest volatilibus formica The Devill is a Lion to Ants dasheth whole hills of them with his paw that creep under him but he is but an Ant to birds they prey upon him that flie above him If wee feare the Lord our concupiscencies our carnall affections our selves may prove our best friends because as the fire in the furnace did not burn the men but it burnt off those bands that fettered and manacled them for they were loose and walked in the furnace so our concupiscencies if we resist them shall burn off themselves and file off their own rust and our salvation shall be surer by occasion of temptations We may prevent mortem mortificatione everlasting death by a disciplinary life Mori ne moriamur is his rule too To die to the fires of lust here lest wee die in unquenchable fires hereafter to die daily as S. Paul speaks of himself lest we die at the last day To end this this is the working of the fear of the Lord it devours all other fears God will have no half-affections God will have no partners He that fears God fears nothing else This then is the operation of the feare of the Lord this is his working remaines onely to consider what this feare of the Lord is And beloved in him be not afraid of it for this fear of God is the love of God And howsoever there may be some amongst us whom the heighth of birth or of place or of spirit hath kept from fear They never feared any thing yet I think there is none that never loved any thing Obligations of Matrimony or of friendship or of blood or of alliance or of conversation hath given every one of us no doubt some sense in our selves what it is to love and to enjoy that which we doe love And the fear of God is the love of God The love of the Lord passeth all things saith the Wise man The love what is that to fear It follows The fear of the Lord is the beginning of his love As they that build Arches place centers under the Arch to beare up the work till it bee dried and setled but after all is Arch and there is no more center no more support so to lie at the Lords feet a while delivers us into his arms to accustome our selves to his fear establishes us in his love Be content to stop a little even at the lowest fear the fear of hell When Saul was upon an expedition and did not finde himself well followed he took a yoke of Oxen and hewed them in pieces and proclaimed that whosoever came not to the supply all his Oxen should be so served and upon this says the Text there The fear of the Lord fell upon all the people and they came out as one man three hundred and thirty thousand If Sauls threatning of their worldly goods wrought so let Gods threatning of thy selfe thine inwardest self thy soul with hell make thee to stop even upon thy fear of the Lord the fear of Torment Stop upon the second fear too the fear of privation and losse of the sight of God in heaven That when all wee have disputed with a modest boldnesse and wondred with a holy wonder what kinde of sight of God we shall have in heaven then when thou shouldst come to an end and to an answer of all these doubts in an experimentall triall how he shall be seen seen thus thou shalt see then that thou shalt never see him After thou hast used to hear all thy life blessednesse summed up into that one act We shall see God thou shalt never come nearer to that knowledge thou shalt never see him fear the Lord therefore in this second fear fear of privation And fear him in a third fear the fear of the losse of his grace here in this world though thou have it now S. Chrysostome serves himself and us with an ordinary comparison A Tyler is upon the top of the house but he looks to his footing he is afraid of falling A righteous man is in a high place in Gods favour but hee may lose that place Who is higher then Adam higher then the Angels and whither fell they Make not thou then thy assurance of standing our of their arguments that say it is impossible for the righteous to fall The sins of the righteous are no sins in the sight of God but built thy assurance upon the testimony of a good conscience that thou usest all diligence and holy industry that thou maist continue in Gods favour and fearest to lose it for hee that hath no fear of losing hath no care of keeping Accustome thy self to these fears and these fears will flow into a love As love and jealousie may bee the same thing so the feare and love of God will be all one for jealousie is but a fear of losing Brevissima differentia Testamentorum Timor Amor This distinguishes the two Testaments The Old is a Testament of fear the New of love yet in this they grow all one That we determine the Old Testament in the New and that we prove the New Testament by the Old for but by the Old we should not know that there was to bee a New nor but
Lighten our darknesse we beseech thee O Lord with all these lights that in thy light we may see light that in this Essentiall light which is Christ and in this Supernaturall light which is grace we may see all these and all other beames of light which may bring ut to thee and him and that blessed Spirit which proceeds from both Amen SERMON XXXVII Preached at St. Pauls on Midsommer day 1622. JOHN 1. 8. He was not that light but was sent to beare witnesse of that light OF him who was this light which Iohn Baptist is here denyed to be I spoke out of these words and out of this place the first time that I ascended to it upon the great Epiphany as the first Church used to call it the manifestation of Christ Iesus in the flesh Christmas day I reserved the rest of the Text which concernes Iohn Baptist himself and his office for this day in which the Church celebrates his memory who though he were not that light was sent to beare witnesse of that light We shall make our parts but two Testem and Testimonium the person and the Office first who the witnesse is and then what he witnesses In the first we shall consider first the dignity the fitnesse of the person implyed in the first word of this part of our Text but he was not that light that is true but yet he was something towards it he was nothing considered with Christ but he was much considered with any other man And then we shall see his title to his office Missus est as he was fit in himself so he was sent by him that had power to give Commission and from these two in which we shall determine our first part the consideration of his person we shall descend to the other his office and therein stop but upon two steps neither first why any testimony was required to so cleare a thing as light and such a light that light and then what kinde of testimony Iohn Baptist did give to that light So have you the designe and frame of our building and the severall partitions the roomes passe we now to a more particular survey and furnishing of them The first branch of the first part is the Idoneus that he was fit to be a witnesse If we should insist upon the nobility of his race his father and mother his father a Priest and his mother also descended of Aaron and as all Nations have some notes and marks of nobility Merchandize or Arms or Letters amongst the Jewes Priesthood was that the Priesthood enobled men in all well policed States caeteris paribus if they were not otherwise defective they have ever thought it fittest to imploy persons of good families and of noble extraction as well because in likelihood they had had the best education from their parents and the best knowledge of things that concerne the publique by having had their conversation with the best and most intelligent persons as also because they have for the most part more to lose them inferiour persons have and therefore are likelier to be carefull and vigilant in their imployment And againe because they draw a better respect from those to whom they are imployed which is of great importance in such negotiations to send persons acceptable to them to whom they are sent and yet do not lye so open to the tentations and corruptions of their Ministers as men of needy fortunes and obscure extractions do This fitnesse Iohn Baptist had he was of a good family and extraction It addes to him that as he had a noble he had a miraculous birth â— for to be born of a Virgin is but a degree more then to be borne of a barren woman A birth which onely of all others the Church celebrates for though we finde the dayes of the Martyrs still called Natalitia Martyrum their birth-dayes yet that is always intended of the dayes of their death onely in Iohn Baptist it is intended literally of his naturall birth for his spirituall birth his Martyrdome is remembred by another name Decollatio Ioannis Iohn Baptists beheading If we should enlarge all concerning him as infinitely as infinite Authors have done or contract all as summarily as Christ hath done Amongst those that are borne of women there is not a greater Prophet then Iohn the Baptist yet we should finde that Saint Augustine had done all this before Non est quod illi adjiciat homo cui Deus contulit totum What man can adde more where God said all and he hath said of Iohn Baptist Spiritu Saâ—cto replebitur He shall be filled with the holy Ghost Two things especially make a man a competent witnesse First that he have in himselfe a knowledge of the thing that he testifies else he is an incompetent witnesse And then that he have a good estimation in others that he be reputed an honest man else he is an unprofitable witnesse If he be ignorant he sayes truth but by chance if he be dishonest and say truth it is but upon designe and not for the truths sake for if those circumstances did not leade him he would not say truth Iohn Baptist had both knowledge and estimation He knew per scientiam infusam by infused knowledge as he was a Prophet for so Christ testifies that he was But all Prophets knew not all things therefore he was more then a Prophet which is also testified by Christ in his behalfe More then any former Prophet And yet the Prophet Esaiah was even in his Prophecy an Evangelist his Prophecy of Christ was so cleer so particular as that it was rather Gospell and History then Prophecy Iohn Baptist was more then that for he did not onely declare a present Christ in that Esay may seem to come neer him but he was Propheta Prophetatus A Prophet that was prophesied of even Esay himself bore witnesse of this witnesse A voyce cried in the wildernesse Prepare the way of the Lord. And the Prophet Malachi bore witnesse of this witnesse too Behold I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me So he hath the restimony of the first and last of the Prophets and of him too who was the first and the last the cause and the effect the moving and fulfilling of all prophecy of Christ himself This is he of whom it is written and so he cites those words of Malachi concerning Iohn Baptist. Iohn Baptist then had this competency by knowledge infused by God declared in former Prophecies he knew the matter which he was to testifie Which is so essentiall so substantiall a circumstance in matter of testimony in what way soever we will be witnesses to God as that no man is a competent witnesse for God not in his preaching not in his living not in his dying though he be a witnesse in the highest sense that is a Martyr if he do not know upon
what ground he sayes or does or suffers that which he suffers and does and sayes Howsoever he pretend the honour of God in his testimony yet if the thing be materially false false in it self though true in his opinion or formally false true in it self but not known to be so to him that testifies it both ways he is an incompetent witnesse And this takes away the honour of having been witnesses for Christ and the consolation and style of Martyrs both from them who upon such evidence as can give no assurance that is traedi tions of men have grounded their faith in God and from them who take their light in corners and conventicles and not from the City set upon the top of a hill the Church of God Those Roman Priests who have given their lives those Separatists which have taken a voluntary banishment are not competent witnesses for the glory of God for a witnesse must know and qui testatur de scientia testetur de modo scientiae sayes the Law He that will prove any thing by his knowledge must prove how he came by that knowledge The Papist hath not the knowledge of his Doctrine from any Scripture the Separatist hath not the knowledge of his Discipline from any precedent any example in the primitive Church How farre then is that wretched and sinfull man from giving any testimony or glory to Christ in his life who never comes to the knowledge and consideration why he was sent into this life who is so farre from doing his errand that he knowes not what his errand was not whether he received any errand or no. But as though that God who for infinite millions of ages delighted himself in himself and was sufficient in himself and yet at last did bestow six dayes labour for the creation and provision of man as though that God who when man was sowr'd in the lumpe poysoned in the fountaine withered in the roote in the loins of Adam would then ingage his Sonne his beloved Sonne his onely Sonne to be man by a temporary life and to be no man by a violent and a shamefull death as though that God who when he was pleased to come to a creation might have left out thee amongst privations amongst nothings or might have shut thee up in the close prison of a bare being and no more as he hath done earth and stones or if he would have given thee life might have left thee a Toad or if he would have given thee a humane soule might have left thee a heathen without any knowledge of God or if he had afforded thee a Religion might have left thee a Iew or though he had made thee a Christian might have left thee a Papist as though that God that hath done so much more in breeding thee in his true Church had done all this for nothing thou passest thorough this world like a flash like a lightning whose beginning or end no body knowes like an Ignis fatuus in the aire which does not onely not give light for any use but not so much as portend or signifie any thing and thou passest out of the world as thy hand passes out of a basin of water which may bee somewhat the fouler for thy washing in it but retaines no other impression of thy having been there and so does the world for thy life in it When God placed Adam in the world he bad him fill it and subdue it and rule it and when he placed him in paradise he bad him dresse and keepe paradise and when he sent his children into the over-flowing Laud of promise he bad them fight and destroy the Idolaters to every body some task some errand for his glory And thou comest from him into this world as though he had said nothing unto thee but Go and do as you see cause Go and do as you see other men do Thou knowest not that is considerest not what thou wast sent to doe what thou shouldest have done but thou knowest much lesse what thou hast done The light of nature hath taught thee to hide thy sinnes from other men and thou hast been so diligent in that as that thou hast hid them from thy self and canst not finde them in thine owne conscience if at any time the Spirit of God would burne them up or the blood of Christ Jesus wash them out thou canst not finde them out so as that a Sermon or Sacrament can work upon them Perchance thou canst tell when was the first time or where was the first place that thou didst commit such or such a sinne but as a man can remember when he began to spell but not when he began to reade perfectly when he began to joyne his letters but not when he began to write perfectly so thou remembrest when thou wentest timorously and bashfully about sinne at first and now perchance art ashamed of that shamefastnesse and sorry thou beganst no sooner Poore bankrupt that hast sinned out thy soule so profusely so lavishly that thou darest not cast up thine accounts thou darest not aske thy selfe whether thou have any soule left how farre art thou from giving any testimony to Christ that darest not testifie to thy selfe nor heare thy conscience take knowledge of thy transgressions but haddest rather sleepe out thy daies or drinke out thy daies then leave one minute for compunction to lay hold on and doest not sinne alwaies for the love of that sinne but for feare of a holy sorrow if thou shouldest not fill up thy time with that sinne God cannot be mocked saith the Apostle nor God cannot be blinded He seeth all the way and at thy last gaspe he will make thee see too through the multiplying Glasse the Spectacle of Desperation Canst thou hope that that God that seeth this darke Earth through all the vaults and arches of the severall spheares of Heaven that seeth thy body through all thy stone walls and seeth thy soul through that which is darker then all those thy corrupt flesh canst thou hope that that God can be blinded with drawing a curtain between thy sinne and him when he is all eye canst thou hope to put out that eye with putting out a candle when he hath planted legions of Angels about thee canst thou hope that thou hast taken away all Intelligence if thou have corrupted or silenced or sent away a servant O bestow as much labour as thou hast done to finde corners for sin to finde out those sinnes in those corners where thou hast hid them As Princes giveâ— pardons by their own hands but send Judges to execute Justice come to him for mercy in the acknowledgement of thy sinnes and stay not till his Justice come to thee when he makes inquisition for blood and doe not think that if thou feel now at this presentâ— a little tendernesse in thy heart a little melting in thy bowels a little dew in thine eyes that if thou beest come to know that thou art a
properly Protestant And though the Injunctions of our Church declare the sense of those times concerning Images yet they are wisely and godly conceived for the second is That they shall not extoll Images which is not that they shall not set them up but as it followeth They shall declare the abuse thereof And when in the 23 Injunction it is said That they shall utterly extinct and destroy amongst other things pictures yet it is limited to such things and such pictures as are monuments of feigned miracles and that Injuction reaches as well to pictures in private houses as in Churches and forbids nothing in the Church that might be retained in the house For those pernicious Errors which the Romane Church hath multiplied in this point not onely to make Images of men which never were but to make those Images of men very men to make their Images speak and move and weep and bleed to make Images of God who was never seen and to make those Images of God very gods to make their Images doe daily miracles to transferre the honour due to God to the Image and then to encumber themselves with such ridiculous riddles and scornfull distinctions as they doe for justifying unjustifiable unexcusable uncolourable enormities Va Idololatris woe to such advancers of Images as would throw down Christ rather then his Image But Vae Iconeclastis too woe to such peremptory abhorrers of Pictures and to such uncharitable condemners of all those who admit any use of them as had rather throw down a Church then let a Picture stand Laying hold upon S. Hieromes exposition that fals within the Vae the Commination of this Text to be without those Sacrifices those Ephods those Images as they are outward helps of devotion And laying hold not upon S. Hierome but upon Christ himselfe who is the God of love and peace and unity yet fals under a heavy and insupportable Vae to violate the peace of the Church for things which concern it not fundamentally Problematicall things are our silver but fundamentall our gold problematicall out sweat but fundamentall our blood If our Adversaries would be bought in with our silver with our sweat we should not be difficult in meeting them halfe way in things in their nature indifferent But if we must pay our Gold our Blood our fundamentall points of Religion for their friendship A Fortune a Liberty a Wife a Childe a Father a Friend a Master a Neighbour a Benefactor a Kingdome a Church a World is not worth a dramme of this Gold a drop of this Blood Neither will that man who is truly rooted in this foundation redeeme an Empoverishing an Emprisoning a Dis-inheriting a Confining an Excommunicating a Deposing with a dramme of this Gold with a drop of this Blood the fundamentall Articles of our Religion Blessed be that God who as he is without change or colour of change hath kept us without change or colour of change in all our foundations And he in his time bring our Adversaries to such a moderation as becomes them who doe truly desire that the Church may bee truly Catholique one stock in one fold under one Shepherd though not all of one colour of one practise in all outward and disciplinarian points Amen SERMON XLII A Sermon Preached in Saint Pauls in the Evening November 23. 1628. PROV 14. 31. He that oppresseth the poore reprocheth his Maker but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poore Part of the first Lesson for that Evening Prayer THese are such words as if we were to consider the words onely might make a Grammar Lecture and a Logick Lecture and a Rhetorick and Ethick a Philosophy Lecture too And of these foure Elements might a better Sermon then you are like to heare now be well made Indeed they are words of a large of an extensive comprehension And because all the words of the Word of God are in a great measure so that invites me to stop a little as upon a short first part before the rest or as upon a long entrie into the rest to consider not onely the powerfulnesse of the matter but the sweetnesse and elegancy of the words of the Word of God in generall before I descend to the particular words of this Text He that oppresseth the poore c. We may justly accommodate those words of Moses to God the Father What God is there in Heaven or in Earth that can doe according to thy workes And those words of Ieremie to God the Sonne Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow And those to the Holy Ghost which are in Esay Loquimini ad Cor speake to the heart speake comfortably to my People And those of Saint Iohn too A voyce of Thunder and after A voyce of seaven Thunders talking with me for who can doe like the Father who can suffer like the Sonne who can speake like the Holy Ghost Eloquia Domini eloquia casta saith David The words of the Lord are chaste words sincere pure words no drosse no profanenesse no such allay mingled with them for as it followeth there They are as silver tried and purified seaven times in the fire They are as that silver that is so tried and they are as that fire that trieth it It is Castum a Pure Word in it self and then it is powerfull upon the Hearer too Ignitum Eloquium tuum vehementer saith he Thy word hath the vehement operation of fire and therefore thy servant loveth it well as it followeth there Therefore because it pierces But therefore especially because it carrieth a sweetnesse with it For the sting of the Serpent pierces and the toothe of the Viper pierces but they carry venenosam salivam a venimous and mischievous liquour with them But Dulcia faucibus super Mel Thy words are sweeter to my mouth then Hony then Hony it selfe For verba composita saith Solomon chosen words studied premeditated words pleasing words so we translate it are as a Hony-combe Now in the Hony combe the Hony is collected and gathered and dispensed and distributed from the Hony-combe And of this Hony-combe is wax wax apt for sealing derived too The distribution of this Hony to the Congregation The sealing of this Hony to the Conscience is in the outward Ordinance of God and in the labour of the Minister and his conscionable fitting of himselfe for so great a service But the Hony-Combe is not the Hony The gifts of the man is not the Holy Ghost Iacob laid this blessing upon his sonne Naphtali Dabit Eloquia pulchritudinis That he should be a well-spoken and a perswasive man For of a defect in this kinde Moses complained and so did Esay and Ieremie did so too when they were to be imployed in Gods service Moses that he was of uncircumcised Esay that he was of unclean lips and Ieremie that he was a Childe and could not speak and therefore this was a Blessing upon