tryal of that fire which will prove whether they are Gold or Stubble or else dispure them so calmly as neither peace be disturbed nor charity destroyed according si non sententiis saltem animis if not in opinion yet in love and affection And for these regards and many more indeed any but that of imputation is justly termed his Righteousness the Righteousness of God It is that Image of the Father the chief lineaments of that similitude of God wherein we were at the first formed and whereunto we are still created Created unto good works that we might walk in them Eph. ii 10. It is the end and purpose of the Sons Redemption That we being delivered from the hands of our enemies might serve him in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our lives The intent and effect of the Spirits vocation for we are called not to uncleanness but to holiness and that not outwardly only by the word but inwardly by the power of the Holy Ghost cleansing from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit that he may purge unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works yea it is I say not the form that doth justify in it self but the quality that only can qualifie for justification and entitle unto it as it is taken for remission of sins in Christ. Blessed are they that do his Commandments that they may have right unto the tree of life Revel xxii That tree of life is Christ in whom without Righteousness no Man hath any right who came by water and blood saith the same St. John elsewhere first cleansing and then pardoning For as he doth sanctifie as well as justifie so I take it he doth first sanctifie before he justifie and no longer justifie than he doth sanctifie Lastly it is the direct and unavoidable means though not merit of glorification without holiness no man shall see God nor any enter into the Kingdom of God So many ways is it the Righteousness of God and so many ways no less necessary for Man as being indeed All in All the fulness of the Law the full effect of the Gospel the substance of Gods revealed will in both This is the will of God even your sanctification But what then becomes of Faith for this seems to be altogether work Is that nothing unto the way that leads unto the Kingdome Surely yes much every way but yet without Righteousness not any thing For Faith is not opposite to Righteousness but a part of it the very fountain or root from whence it is immediately derived For true Faith is ever that of the Heart not of the Brain and with the heart man believeth unto righteousness It is neither Faith nor Works apart and severed that can do us good but Fides operans a working faith faith working by love and love is the fulfilling of the law saith the Apostle This is that active Faith so much magnified in the xi to the Hebrews by the power whereof those Worthies there of whom the world was nor worthy besides many other great things especially wrought righteousness and gained the promises v. 33. And to these and the like Worthies it is that that Angel points in the Revel Hi sunt These are they that keep the Commandments of God and the faith of Iesus To shew that none keep his faith as they should that do not keep his Commandments Revel xiv 12. Indeed it is the keeping not the believing of the Faith that is available I have kept the faith saith St. Paul henceforth is laid up for me Corona Justitiae a Crown of righteousness Faith kept is Righteousness and such faithful righteousness only it is that shall be crowned at last Righteousness therefore the only way unto the Kingdom and so by all those that would come thither of all things else and in all regards most especially to be sought for with their best strength and utmost endeavour For it is not quaerite but primum quaerite not seek only but seek ye first The last point but must be briefly handled though indeed it hath two points As First hath a double signification for it either respects time or earnestness of intention And in both regards for time and intention of travel we are to seek and first to seek the righteousness of God if we desire to enter the Kingdom of God The actions of Piety and Righteousness are the highest and noblest operations of the Soul and therefore of more worth They run cross and counter to the bent of our corrupt affections and so of more difficulty than may be lightly and easily archieved Indeed facilis descensus averni it is a descent down the hill the swing of our own corruptions can carry us headlong thither but the way of life is on high said King Solomon Virtue must upwards and hale the heavy body after it climb Hills and craggy Mountains hic labor hoc opus this is not without sweat and difficulty But notwithstanding all difficulties virtus aut inveniet aut faciet viam The spirit of God by the power of that almighty faith to which all things are possible will and must break through them all To do good and suffer evil to deny our selveâ— and take up the Cross to â—ubdue lusts and root out affections and the like till it come to that point these are justitiae culmina the heights and steps of righteousness and up we must though like Ionathan and his Armoâ—bearer we creep on all four hands and knees for it on the knees of humble and fervent prayer but using the hands too faithful and diligent endeavour And therefore it is not every cold and careless seeking that will be sufficient The way is narrow and the gate strait contendite intrare strive saith our Saviour for many shall seek seek negligently and shall not be able to enter Nay more than strive and struggle too I press hard saith the Apostle for the price of the high calling which is in Christ Iesus He well knew that though no Man be Crowned unless he strive for it yet that every striving doth not presently gain the Crown nisi legitimè certaverit unless he strive as he ought And therefore he fought not as those that beat the air but as he that means to conquer for even this Kingdom is not gained but by conquest The Kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force In this point we need not fear offending in excess Modus amandi Deum est sine modo amare the measure of loving God is to love him without measure In opinions indeed and disputes that have their extreams moderation may be good and commendable disputants in heat and passion supposing they are never far enough asunder till both be equally sundred from the truth and then in this case to halt as they say between two opinions may be to walk most uprightly but no such here to halt between two Masters between God and Mammon God and
1 Cor. xi 28. But let a Man examine himself and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. SERMON IX X XI On Christmass day fol. 268 295 324. I. on Luke ii 10 11. And the Angel said unto them Fear not for behold I bring you tydings of great joy which shall be to all people For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. II. on Gal. iv 4 5. When the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law That he might redeem them that are under the Law that we might receive the adoption of Sons III. on Esay liii 8. And who shall declare his Generation SERMON XII XIII Two Funeral Sermons fol. 356 384. I. For the Mother on Psal. cxlii verse ult Bring my Soul out of Prison that I may give thanks unto thy Name which thing if thou wilt grant me then shall the Righteous resort unto my Company II. For the Daughter on Rom viii 10. And if Christ be in you the Body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is life because of Righteousness A DISCOURSE OF OATHS SERMON I. Upon JER iv 2. And thou shalt swear The Lord liveth in Truth in Judgment and in Righteousness THough all Sins be dangerous unto the Soul of man and none so small as may be neglected since a man may be choaked under a heap of Sand as well as crushed to death by the fall of a Tower yet the greater a sin is and the more general it is grown the greater danger and more inevitable destruction doth attend it And therefore it doth require our chief labour and diligence both to avoid such in our selves and to give the best notice we can unto others of the peril By negligence the least Leak may drown the Ship but the Pilot's special care is of the Rock on which if his Vessel fall it certainly splits Now of all the Sins whereunto the Corruption of man is subject I think there is scarce any so great and so common so great in it self and so common in the world so injurious unto the Majesty of God and so frequent amongst the Sons of men as the sin of Swearing The vain and irreverent using rather abusing of that Sacred Name in our ordinary speech which if well considered we should tremble but to think on A sin which the Wise man tells us will bring a Curse upon the house where it is used and it is no less likely to bring a Curse upon a whole Land and Nation where it is universal So that this impiety of all other as it brings with it a greater and more general danger so it calls for from all especially from all us whom it most concerns a great and universal care All endeavours should run forth to the quenching of a common fire It is indeed often galled and sharply taxed from such places as these obviously and by the way But the point contains much and will require a set discourse of that and nothing else for we cannot be too industrious against a publick mischief For which reason I have now made it the subject of my discourse as it is of this Verse Wherein you have the whole Nature and full doctrine of an Oath and how prepared it may be wholesome which otherwise used is deadly poison For an Oath is not simply and utterly unlawful my Text says Thou shalt swear but then it must be qualifyed with the due form and matter and manner The form must be As the Lord liveth that is in the Name of the living Lord The matter Truth and Righteousness the manner or modification Judgment Thou shalt c. But before you may fully apprehend the division of the Text it will be requisite that I shew you some divisions of an Oath for there are divers sorts There is a bare and simple Oath and there is an Oath mixt with a Curse and execration The bare and simple Oath is only a plain and naked contestation wherein we call God to witness of what we say The execratory is when we bind over and oblige either our selves or something dear unto us unto some notorious punishment if so be that be not true which we say as when one swears by his Life Soul Salvation and the like Again there is an Oath wherein there is a manifest and express assumption of the Name of God which needs no instance we know it too well by daily and fearful example And there is an Oath wherein God is called to record tacitly and implicitly under the Name of those Creatures wherein his Glory doth especially shine and appear So he that sweareth by heaven sweareth both by heaven and by him that dwelleth therein And lastly which is specially material There is an Oath Assertory and an Oath Obligatory Assertory when we affirm or deny any thing past or present Obligatory when we promise or threaten something to come Which being observed you may easily make a fit Application of the three terms in my Text Truth Judgment and Righteousness Truth unto an assertory Oath Righteousness unto a promissory Judgment and discretion unto both For which cause it is placed in the midst between both For an Assertory oath must be True lest we swear falsly A Promissory Righteous lest we swear to do unjustly and both with discretion and judgment lest we swear lightly and rashly Thou shalt swear c. So then we may in some case swear but the Oath must have the right form it must be made in the name of the Lord And the due matter in Truth if Assertory in Righteousness if Promissory And then in a discreet manner with premeditation and judgment in both Wherein you see how we may swear and how we may not swear In Truth Judgment and Righteousness we may swear but falsly unjustly and rashly and vainly we may not swear Of these points in their order beginning with the first The Lawfulness of an Oath and that in case a man may swear Thou shalt c. 1. There are not wanting some and those even amongst the Fathers themselves who have censured all Oaths though permitted by the Law yet as condemned by the Gospel which contains they say a Doctrine of more than legal perfection of this opinion were St. Basil and Theophylact and it is the error of the Anabaptist unto this day Others have thought that an Oath may be lawful under the Gospel but then only before a Magistrate and when it is required by such as have authority thereunto But the common and more general opinion both of the Antient Fathers and Modern Divines is that it is not simply unlawful for a private man to swear and in a private action when some urgent cause either the honour and Glory of God or some great good and benefit of our Neighbour doth call for it at our hands since it is not the use of an Oath but
deserve thy frequent cogitations and prayers and tears to consider and bewail it thoroughly crying out with him in the Gospel Lord I believe help my unbelief And never think it helped till thou findest it reforming thy affections and lusts not led and ruled by them till thou perceivest it working powerfully in all the thoughts of thy heart and actions of thy hands and the whole course of thy life For this is the true test and tryal and to these marks our Saviour himself sends thee to make full proof of it These are the signs saith he that shall follow them that believe In my name shall they cast out devils they shall speak with new tongues they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them and when they lay their hands on the sâ—â—k they shall be healed If those signs follow not thy Faith it is vain and thou art yet in thy sins But thou wilt say the time of Miracles is past and these days require them not Neither do I require them as then neither then and in those times were they common unto all Believers But the saying of our Saviour is universal and in the spiritual sence is ever true that these signs follow them and all them that unâ—â—ignedly believe For every Man naturally hath Devils enough within him to be thrown forth and unless thy Faith have power and virtue enough to dispossess and cast out the impure spirits of luxury and avarice of envy wrath malice and hypocrisie and the like foul Fiends wherewith our nature is full unless it be able to give thee a new tongue and a new language and cleansing thy mouth of all oaths and blasphemies of slanders and reproaches of deceit and scurrility can teach thee to speak the words of sobriety and sanctity and of truth every Man unto his Neighbour unless it can embolden thee to take up Serpents to receive and lovingly embrace thy mortal enemies and make treacle of them too drinking up all the deadly venome which their poysoned stomachs can disgorge against thee not only without hurt but even as thy physick that so lifting up pure and innocent hands upon them with prayers and benedictions though they revile and curse they may yet at length be won from it and cured of the malice wherewith they were sick and others also by thy example of their several diseases who seeing thy good works may glorify thy Father which is in Heaven Until I say thy Faith hath power to work these things unless our Saviours signs be false it is never current and effectual If you say these things are too high and hard for us we cannot attain unto them you do withal say and confess that you do not truly believe For true Faith is not dead or droâ—zy but powerful and operative working even wonders unto flesh and blood which St. Paul proves by a full cloud of witnesses in the 11. to the Hebâ— producing a whole Catalogue of the antient Wâ—â—thies who all through Faith aspiring to the promises were mighty and marvellous in their actions overthrowing Kingdoms working righteousness and doing such great things as we cannot consider without admiration And whence all this but because their Faith was stirring and active not lazy and languishing like ours which is only a Carkass of belief without any soul of life and vigor in it otherwise we should soon find in our selves what the same Author elsewhere affirms that nothing is available like Faith when it is working working by love which is ever impatient and restless till it attains what it desires Who then or what power is able to resist it not the power of the whole world this is it that overcometh the world even your faith John v. 3. no nor the power of any thing else credenti omnia sunt possibilia to him that believes all things are possible saith our Saviour And therefore if ever these things be impossible to thee if thy Faâ—th be so weak that it cannot dispossess thee of thy wicked spirits and work those spiritual miracles on thy Soul it is a greater miracle if ever it save thy Soul For true Faith purifies the heart and cleanseth the very reins and is assuredly dead if it do not work powerful effects within us If of unclean and covetous of malitious envious and deceitful persons it doth not make us pure and temperate mild and merciful upright and just in our actions it is unprofitable and shall never justify with God In whose account whatsoever you think none are taken for believers any farther than they are practisers of his word He that says he knows God and hateth his brother is a lyer saith St. John and sure he that says he believes in God and yet forsaketh not his sins lyes as loudly and doth but abuse his own Soul vainly dreaming of Faith when he hath but the shadow of it without truth or substance and will be found at last but in that poor Mans case who dreamt all night of treasure and in the morning when he awoke was not worth a farthing With that Church in the Revelation they have a name that they live and conceit they are rich whenas there it is said they are blind and poor and naked and miserable and shall so understand themselves in the end for however now we please our selves for a while with the vain opinion of our imaginary Faith yet when we have slept our sleep and dreamt our dreams in the morning when we shall all awake from our graves and come unto Judgment it will be found far otherwise than we conceived When the son of man cometh saith our Saviour himself shall he sind faith upon the earth surely yes such as ours for the most part is Faith enough such a speculative fancy that floats only in the brain never affecting the heart such a presumptuous confidence that can seize on mercies neglecting commands lay hold on the passion and death of a Saviour but neither obey his precepts nor imitate his life of such Faith we doubt the Christian world will be then and now is full as it can hold he shall every where find it But of that true and real Faith rooting out sinful affections of that high and mighty Faith inthroned in the very heart of the Soul and from thence commanding all the powers and faculties which it hath of that prevalent and victorious Faith conquering Sin and Satan and treading under foot the glory and vanity of the whole world of this solid and substantial Faith which only deserveth the name of Faith and he only looks for of this he shall then find but little in the world as indeed there is very little now Some scattered sparks of it only there are in a few of our bosoms but raked up in a great deal of embers and if we take not heed like enough to be stifled ere we are aware O preserve and collect them carefully blow upon them with thy
thence drops on the very skirts of his rayment even the rest of the Creatures who have all some interest in his body and therefore in his glory Whereby we are given to consider not only the greatness but the large extent of the Almighty's goodness in this Act of his Incarnation For bonum est sui diffusivum goodness is diffusive and loves to communicate it self and that of God the supream good most of all other And indeed whatsoever we every where see whatsoever any where is or hath any being it is nothing else but a Communication of the Divine goodness from whence they have all that they have whatsoever they are But now in this mystery God did communicate a new goodness and a greater than ever before not only unto man but in a sort unto all his Creatures which all have some title in his person and shall in their time receive a benediction from it for man as he was Supremum Creationis colophon the last and supream work of the Creation so was he the sum and recapitulation of all that was created before him and all that was so created was but either spiritual as the Angels or corporeal as the rest of the world and in man who hath a material body with the one and an immaterial Soul sutable to the other both were bound up together in one Creature A Creature which hath being with the Elements whereof he is compounded life and vegetation with plants sense with beasts reason and spiritual existence with the Angels and therefore a little but compleat world within himself Nexus vinculum totius creaturae the very knot and band that holds together the whole Creation And therefore the whole world being united in man and man unto God every Creature of the world cannot but have some interest in the union who have a part in the Nature that was united Had he assumed the nature of Angels the rest of his works that are corporeal had been excluded Had he taken unto him a Celestial body and made his Tabernacle in the Sun the Creatures that have life and sense had lain unregarded and should any of these have been honoured with it those that are intelligent and spiritual men and Angels had been left out under contempt for ever Man therefore was the only creature in whom he could interest and honour all the rest as being both corporeal and spiritual and having in him being life sense intellect and whatsoever the rest have and are And mansnature therefore he only assumed ut dum una assumitur in qua reliquarum gradus continentur in una reliquae omnes quoad suos gradus assumerentur That so assuming the one wherein the degrees of all the rest were contained all the rest in that one according to their degrees might be assumed Wherefore that Cardinal Schoolman Cajetan said not amiss Incarnatio est elevatio totius universi in divinam personam the Incarnation is an exaltation of the whole Universe into the Divine Person Since by it man in whom all things are knit together is himself knit and united unto God that as man is all in one so God might be all in all And all from God receive not only elevation and honour but blessing and benediction in Christ Jesus the Son of God who is therefore the head both of men and Angels to them a Conserver to us a Redeemer and not unto us only but unto all other Creatures that were made for our use and become subject unto vanity through our sin that as they suffered by mans transgression so in man they might partake of mans Redemption And therefore the whole Creation saith St. Paul travaileth in pain together with us and together with us shall be delivered into the glorious liberty of the sons of God and therefore waiteth until they shall be revealed For which reason our blessed Lord fully is as he is termed Saelvator mundi the Saviour not of man alone but of the whole aspectable world and whatsoever is in it Thy truth reacheth unto the Heavens saith David of him and thy faithfulness unto the Clouds how excellent is thy name in all the World thou Lord shalt save both man and beast and what name is that which is so excellent in all the world but the name of a Saviour thou Lord shalt save both man and beast And therefore the prophet Esay calls unto Heaven and Earth the Forest and all the Trees that are in it that is the whole world and whatsoever dwelleth therein to sing and rejoyce together for this Redemption Sing O Heavens for the Lord hath done it shout ye lower parts of the Earth break forth into singing ye Mountains O Forest and every Tree therein for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob and glorified himself in Israel Esay xliv 22. And St. Paul gives the reason which is the same we have hitherto given because in this Redeemer all things in Heaven and Earth were collected and gathered together in one even in Christ Eph. x. 10. And not only gathered and collected but restored in him and renewed For nova jam facta sunt omnia all things are now made new saith the same Apostle Most worthily therefore at the name of Jesus the knee of every Creature both in Heaven and Earth and under the Earth is injoyned to bow and give glory as being by that name glorified in a sort and restored to more excellent perfection So great so universal is the goodness declared in this Act Yet this is not all But as it is great unto man and universal unto the Creature so is it the highest Communication of goodness in it self and the best demonstration of the intrinsick goodness of the Creator the highest in it self because in this he communicates himself which is not goodness but goodness it self Besides this there are but three degrees of communication Nature Grace and Glory but this fourth of hypostatical union infinitely exceeds them all on which all acknowledge their dependance for it restores Nature gives Grace purchaseth Glory Nature indeed and natural properties are a great communication of Gods goodness unto natural things supernatural Grace unto the Soul of man in this life a greater Divine glory unto body and Soul in the life to come greatest of all yet the best goes not farther than a Created quality for though being glorified we shall see God see his Essence and be blessed in seeing it yet we shall see it but per speciem by a Divine indeed but a created light but in this of Incarnation he doth not exhibit any shews or similitudes he doth not bestow any created gift whether of natural or supernatural order but he gives and bestows himself immediately unto his Creature who doth as immediately see and injoy him in himself being the self-same Person with him a communication of goodness wonderful above all other and not to be conceived had it not been revealed And as the highest in it self so is it the greatest
glory unto him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb for evermore Who now shall mourn who shall weep for such a Soul none can sorrow for her unless they envy her happiness foelix illa anima imitationem desiderat nâ—n planctum that blessed Soul is no subject of grief but a pattern for imitation And therefore if any weep in her death they must be tears of joy not of sorrow and if they be of sorrow they must not be for her but for our selves and our own loss This indeed is great and invaluable and when you think on it weep a Gods name Quis natum in funere matris flere vetat he were barbarous that would forbid it you yet you shall not have all to your selves we 'll bear you company for she was a publick loss Such a Wife such a Mother such a Friend such a Mistriss such a Neighbour such and so good a Woman and so great an example of Virtue cannot should not go to the grave with dry eyes in whose loss so many have interest I would praise her if I could to make you weep more but she is beyond my commendations A Woman of her Wisdom and Judgment of her Wit and discourse so free and liberal and yet so prudent and provident withal for she was so in her self though misfortunes befel her so sweet so kind so mild so loving and respective to all and withal so charitable to the poor a Chirurgeon to the hurt and a Physician to the sick she eat not her morsels alone and their loins were warmed with her wooll as Job speaks such a Woman so well born and bred and of such a strain beyond ordinary as she seemed with the blood to inherit too the virtues of all her Ancestors so upright and clear and innocent in her whole course that the eye of envy nay were all the malice of the world infused into one eye it could not find any just stain to fasten on her such a one so every way compleat surely no Man unless he had her own or the wit and tongue of an Angel can sufficiently commend neither can we if we regard our own loss sufficiently bewail But the truth is she is not lost non amissa sed praemissa sent before she is lost she is not And therefore you whom it most concerns though you mourn mourn not as those without hope It is but a short separation and the time will come when you shall see her again though not with these earthly affections Pay the due tribute unto nature but then shut up the sluces for graces sake And the God of all grace give you comfort the Holy Ghost the Comforter himself replenish your heart with consolations And the blood of Jesus Christ wash us all from all our sins and strengthen us with the power of his might that we may so live whilst we remain here in this Prison of the Body that when it shall be dissolved we may obtain mercy from him to lead forth our Souls To lead them with his grace and then as he hath done to this blessed Saint receive them unto glory There with her and all the company of righteous spirits that are gone before us to sing praise and honour unto his holy name for evermore To this God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost c. Laus Deo in aeternum THE Second FUNERAL SERMON FOR THE DAUGHTER SERMON XIII Upon ROM viii 10. And if Christ be in you the Body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is life because of Righteousness MAN of all Gods Creatures is the strangest compounded the most marvellous mixture that ever was a very fardel of contrarieties wonderfully united and wrapt up in one bundle Heaven and Earth light and darkness Christ and Belial may seem to dwell together and man the house of their habitation what can be more directly opposite than Flesh and Spirit Life and Death Sin and Righteousness and lo all of them united here in one verse nay in one man For the Text is but the Anatomy of man and must therefore be composed of and divided into the same parts man himself is As his body is composed of contrary Elements heat and cold fire and water So his person is composed of contrary Natures Corporal and Spiritual Body and Soul His Natures again of contrary qualities Life and Death the Body is dead the Soul lives and lastly these qualities issuing from contrary causes sin and righteousness death from sin and life from righteousness The Body c. And though the sin by which the body dies is our own yet that we may know that the righteousness whereby the Soul lives is not of our selves but received from our Saviour there is a caution given in the entrance of the verse If Christ be in you So then here are three couples a Body and a Soul Sin and Righteousness Life and Death The body with her two attendants sin and death the Soul with her two endowments righteousness and life The former is universal and common to all the Sons of Adam according to the flesh the latter particular and proper only to the Children of the second Adam begotten by the Spirit If Christ c. I begin with the first part which is a meditation of death and our chief Christian comforts against death But yet before the Apostle brings in his consolations he premises a conditon If Christ be in you To teach us that the comforts of God belong not indifferently to all men He that is a stranger from Christ hath nothing to do with them What hast thou to do to take my Covenant into thy mouth so long as thou hatest to be reformed saith God in the Psalm I. When our Saviour commanded his Disciples to proclaim peace unto every house they came to he foretold them it should rest only on the Sons of peace He forbad them in like manner to give those things which were holy unto doggs or to cast pearls before Swine This stands a perpetual Law to all his messengers that they presume not to proclaim peace to the impenitent and unbelieving but as Jehu said unto Jehoram's horsman what hast thou to do with peace so are we to tell the wicked who walk on still in their sins that they have nothing to do with the peace or promises or priviledges of the Gospel If Christ be in you c. Secondly if we compare the verse immediately precedent or that which is subsequent with this between both you shall easily perceive after what manner Christ dwells in his Children Sometimes we are said to be in Christ and sometimes Christ is said again to be in us and both in effect come to one we are in Christ by faith and Christ is in us by his Spirit For so it follows If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies It is
habet all our time that is past death hath seised on it and so much of our life is consumed Let me then warn you and stir up your meditations of your mortality in the words of Moses Deut. xxxii 29. O that men were wise then would they understand this then would they consider their latter end Sure we are unwise that we consider not the things past the evil we have committed the good we have omitted the benefits of God we have abused the time we have mispent and yet we grieve not because we think not yet whether we shall die More unwise are we not to consider the things present the deadness of our Body and uncertainty of our death the difficulty of Salvation and the small number of such as shall be saved and yet we shame not because we think we shall not yet die But most unwise are we that we consider not the things to come Death Judgment Hell all to come and yet we fear not because we think we shall never die But O that we were wise then should we understand then should we consider our latter end and considering it we should both prepare for it now and more cheerfully entertain it when it comes memorare novissims remember thy end saith the Wiseman in aeternum non peccabis and thou shalt never offend never do amiss Ecclus vii 36. So universal is the goodness of this consideration and therefore I have stayed the longer on it But now I pass from mortality to the cause of it from death to sin that first brought it into the world The body is dead because of sin Sin it is and only sin which is as the cause of all our dolours and calamities so of death it self that follows them without this there never had been there never could have been any death in the world Death were not death had it not a sting to kill but the sting of death is sin as the strength of sin is the law saith our Apostle The cursed apple of disobedience which our first Parents would needs eat sticks still in all our teeth it was poyson unto his nature and infected his blood and he hath derived the contagion to all his posterity who still continuing to feed on forbidden fruit as he did do perpetually strengthen the original Disease and draw death upon themselves more hastily and violently than either that sin procured or the prime corruption of nature for it doth inforce Hence then we may perceive first how foolish they are who living still in sin yet never consider that they are the Butchers and Murtherers of themselves according to that of the Psalmist The malice of the wicked shall slay themselves xxxiv 21 his own sin which he hath conceived brought forth and nourished shall be his destruction Every Man judgeth Saul miserable that died upon his own Sword but what better are other wretched Men whose sins and iniquities are the cruel instruments of death wherewith they slay themselves Souls and Bodies too Thus are they twice miserable first that they must die and secondly that they are guilty of their own death O the lamentable blindness of Men who albeit in their life they fear nothing more than death yet do they entertain nothing more willingly than sin which causeth their death In bodily diseases Men are content to abstain even from ordinary food when they are informed it will but nourish their sickness and this they do to eschew death only herein they are so ignorant that notwithstanding they abhor death yet they take pleasure in unrighteousness that brings it upon them And secondly which shall be the last use we will make of this point Since sin it is that did first bring and doth still hasten on death upon wicked Men what marvel is it if in these last and worst days the Lord strike the bodies of Men with sundry sorts of diseases and sundry kinds of death seeing Man by sundry sorts of sins doth not cease to provoke him unto anger He frameth his Judgments proportionable to our iniquities if ye walk stubbornly against me and will not obey me I will then bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins Levit. xxvi 25. He hath a famine to punish intemperance and the abuse of his creatures if the memory of our own corrupt and putrifying bodies cannot do it he hath a devouring sword to bring down the pride of our hearts If we have fiery and unclean affections he doth not need burning Fevers and loathsome diseases to punish them And now if the Lord after that he hath stricken us with such a dreadful pestilence shall renew his Plague amongst us or go on to finish that former destruction with the Sword of our enemies what shall we say but the despising of his former fatherly corrections or our stubborn walking against the Lord our God hath procured it justly unto our selves Quid mirum in poenas generis humani crescere ir am Dei cùm crescat quotidie quod puniatur what marvel that the wrath of God increase every day to punish Man when that doth daily increase which deserves that God should punish it But enough of this part it is now time to pass on to the second and most worthy part as of Man so of my Text from the Body to the Soul from the memory of death to the comforts against death for though the body be dead yet it is but the body the spirit which is the highest consolation of a Christian is yet alive Mans life it self But the spirit is life I cannot now stand to discourse of the excellent Nature of Mans Spirit and the wonderful union of it with flesh and blood for Man you see is no simple creature but compounded of both both a Body and a Spirit He is the abstract and brief compendium of all the creatures of God The world was corporeal the Angels spiritual and both were united in Man and made as it were into one creature A creature which hath being with the elements life with plants sense with beasts reason and spiritual existence with Angels that so the Almighty God first uniting all his creatures in Man and then uniting Man unto himself in the person of Christ might in some sort through Man communicate himself to all his creatures Worthily therefore did the Naturalists term him a little world and as worthily did St. Austin say of him that of all the miracles that were ever wrought amongst Men Man himself is the greatest miracle and that not only in regard of his two substances but especially in regard of their marvellous union that a mass of clay should be quickened by a spirit of life and both united into one person That as God himself hath diverse persons in one Nature so man hath diverse and those contrary natures in one person Commonly says Bernard the honourable agrees not with the ignoble the strong overgoes the weak the living and the dead dwell not together
Non sic in opere tuo domine non sic in commixtione tua not so in thy work O Lord not so in thy commixtion here the living and the dead dwell both together The body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life Here then are the high consolations of a Christian against death briefly comprised and they are three That his death is neither total nor final but his life is perpetual His death is not total it is only of the body for the spirit lives it is not final for the spirit is not said only to live but that it is life and that in two respects first because it shall give life again unto the body and that secondly an everlasting life and therefore it is not barely the spirit shall live but in the abstract the spirit is life So you may perceive the reason why the Apostle varies his manner of speech he said not the body is death as he says the spirit is life neither saith he the spirit is alive as he said the body is dead but the body is dead and the spirit is life the body is dead and not death because it shall live again and the spirit is not alive but life because by the virtue of the spirit it is that it shall live and live for ever The spirit c. So our life is perpetuate our death but short and not total Amidst these comforts what hath death in it that shall greatly trouble or distress the faithful Soul why should it not stand erect in the midst of all the panick terrors thereof so long as there is begun in us a life which no death shall ever be able to extinguish Albeit death invade the natural and vital powers of our bodies and suppress them one after another yea though at the length he break in upon this lodging of clay and demolish it to the ground yet the inner Man and spiritual that dwells in the body shall escape with his life The Tabernacle is cast down that 's the most our enemy can do but he who dwells in it removes unto a better The dissolving of the body to him is but the breaking up of the prison wherein he hath been so long detained that he may thenceforth be delivered into a glorious liberty For as the Bird escapes out of the snare of the Fowler so the Soul in death mounts up and flies away wiâ— joy into the rest of her Maker The Apostle knew this well and therefore desired to be dissolved that he might be with Christ. As in the battle between our Saviour and Satan Satans head was bruised but he did no more than tread on our Saviours heel so shall it be in the conflict of all his members with Satan by the power of our Lord Jesus we shall be more than conquerors For the God of peace shall tread him under our feet Rom. xvi While he is there let him nibble about the feet it is no great matter yet 't is all he can do and let him do it Manducet terram meam dentem carni infigat let him bite the dust saith Ambrose it was his original curse let him eat that part of me which is earth let him bruise my body all this is still but to tread upon my heel my comfort is there is a seed of immortal life in my Soul which no power of the enemy is able to approach much less to overcome and extinguish for the spirit doth not only live but is life life eternal The spirit is life c. But yet that we may more fully understand to whom these consolations belong and what spirits they are that can live in death and injoy the comforts of life when their bodies can live no longer it is added because of righteousness The spirit is life because of righteousness or for righteousness sake The righteous then these are they to whom it belongs these only are the holy Spirits that shall revive in the midst of life and live in death as they died while they lived whilst the body lived they died unto sin and when the body dies they shall live unto God For as the life of the Soul is the comfort of the heart so the spirit of righteousness is the life of the Soul And therefore deceive not thy self in a matter of such moment in the business of thine everlasting welfare but be most assured that so far forth thou dost live as thou art sanctified and no farther As health is to the body so is holiness to the spirit A body without health falls out of one pain into another till it die and a Soul without holiness is polluted with one lust after another till it perish eternally As the Moon hath light more or less as it is in aspect with the Sun so the Soul enjoys life less or more as it is turned or averted to or from the Lord of life whose righteousness only can give life as this life peace and joy unto the Soul Miserable are those wicked ones that want both they are as St. Jude speaks bis mortui twice dead that is dead both in body and Soul Their Souls indeed do live and shall live eternally a natural life but there is a life of Grace as well as of Nature by the one the Soul lives for ever by the other it lives for ever in happiness This life they do not they shall not ever live and as for the natural the Spirit of God accounts that but a death whilst they live in the body he saith they are dead in sins and when they go out of the body though they live yet he calls their life and justly an eternal death Immortality seems to be added rather to their sorrow than to their Souls Since their Souls are only kept immortal that their punishment might be everlasting It is true that so long as Men enjoy this natural life in health of body and prosperity of fortune the loss that comes by want of the spiritual life is not so safely discerned no more than the defects of a ruinous house are known in time of fair weather but when the storm of affliction when the tempest of death shall come pouring down upon him then the decaies and breaches will manifest themselves How woful then must his condition needs be that hath now no other life but a natural and must now part with that and he knows not whither In this estate he cannot but die either uncertain of comfort or rather most certain of Condemnation And therefore it is not much to be marvelled they are so loth to think or so much as to hear of that final and fatal time O death how bitter is thy remembrance unto such saith the Wiseman How doth the only apprehension thereof even chill the blood in his veins kill the very marrow in his bones Belshazzar's doom is no sooner written upon the wall but the joints of his loins are loosed and his knees smite one against
as thy soul liveth so frequent amongst the holy men under the Law is to be received for they sware not by the soul alone but by that God whose image and likness it is for so it is to be understood As thy soul liveth by the power and providence of him that first made it to his likeness and doth still preseve it by his mercy The Third and last is when a man names a Creature in an Oath not as swearing by it but as exposing it by way of imprecation unto the judgment of that God who is the true witness of his speech which is the execratory Oath touched in the beginning so when a man swears by his own Soul it is not meant as if that were called to the record of that he speaks but as pledging and pawning unto God the welfare and Salvation of it upon the truth of his speech And therefore he that swears by his Soul doth in abbrevation say no other than what St. Paul did in plain and full terms I call God to record upon my Soul for that is the meaning of it and both the meaning and example are strong proofs that it cannot be simply understood Now that other of Joseph by the life of Pharaoh may be understood both these ways for either he calls that God to witness whose judgment by the ministry of Pharaoh was executed upon Earth or else by way of imprecation he doth upon the truth of the speech appignorate unto God the health and safety of Pharaoh as a thing of all other most dear unto him The Master of the Sentences is for the first and others for the latter both may be good but this in the Text the more probable So then there may be divers forms wherein the Creature is named and yet the Oath made only by the Creator for he doth still swear by him that swears by any excellent work or mercy of his with reference to him in which sort he that says as thy Soul liveth doth at the same time and in the same words swear as my Text requires At the Lord liveth for the full sense and meaning is as the Lord liveth by whom thy Soul hath life And though peradventure it may be better when just occasion doth require an Oath to make it clearly and expressly in the Name of the Lord yet the interpretation of our Saviour and the examples of so many holy men do forbid us utterly to condemn all such as do but implicitely call him to record under his Creatures And sure if they want not other necessary conditions of an Oath they will hardly be believed for this the form will free it self if they want not the right manner and matter if they be performed in truth judgment and righteousness the qualities and inseparable companions of a lawful Oath which now come to be considered in their order and first of the first Jurabis in Veritate Thou shalt swear The Lord liveth in Truth From the Form we come unto the Matter and having seen in whose Name an Oath is to be made we are now to consider with what Conditions it is to be qualified And they are but three in all whereof Truth hath the first place and most deservedly since nothing is so opposite to the very nature and essence of an Oath as falshood for the Person whose name in an Oath is assumed is the God of truth the end for which an Oath it self was ordained is the confirmation of truth and the perjurer by dishonouring that and frustrating this abuseth both oftentimes to the hurt and damage of his Neighbour but ever unto the great prejudice of his Creator And therefore the Egyptians saith Diodorus Siculus did ever punish the perjurer with death whereof they esteemed him twice worthy ut qui pietatem in deos violaret fidem inter homines tolleret maximum Societatis vinculum as one that did both violate his piety to God and his faith to men the greatest bond of Society But to omit these injurious effects of a false Oath unto man as depriving him sometimes of his Credit good name and reputation and sometimes even of his Goods and Life too do but only see and consider how impious it is against God and how infinitely he sins that shall call him who is not only true but truth it self to testify his falshoods and so as far as in him is make him a Lyar like himself for as Estius says in lib. 2. sent dist 39. 5 6. Qui falsum jurat quantum in se est Deum facit vel mendacem vel ignorantem he that swears falsly as much as in him lies makes God either ignorant or a liar Falshood is ever vile and odious in it self but when it is fastened upon God when we teach our own Inventions those spurious brats and bastards of our own Brain to call him Father it must needs be detestable For we cloath him with the Attribute of the Devil who is properly a liar and the Father of lies Job viii And therefore even we our selves though we be all liars yet we cannot endure to hear it and when we do nothing can satisfie but his blood that tells us so though never so truly How then may we think and with what indignation will God receive it when they are so unjustly pinned and stuck upon him who hates a lie more than we can love our selves And with what severity may we imagin he will revenge it what reward will he give unto such a false Tongue but sharp Arrows and hot burning Coles at the least even those Arrows in Job the Arrows of Gods wrath the venom whereof drink up the spirits of him in whom they stick and those Coles or rather Flames of St. John for all liars saith he shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone Rev. xxi 8. And if all Liars have a part then how great a portion will be assigned to the Perjurers for if God will not hold him guiltless that useth his holy Name but vainly how shall his guilt multiply and his Sin become exceeding sinful that doth abuse it falsly and if he will destroy those that do but speak out their lies as it is in the v. Psalm Thou shalt destroy those that speak Leasing how great shall their destruction be that fear not to swear them out and uphold them by the holiness of his name Certainly so great as I think the depth and bottom of Hell doth not know any greater for I assure my self that neither the Idolatrous Gentile nor the unbelieving A theist shall lie lower in that Pit of everlasting horror than the contemptuous Perjurer for the one doth worship no God the other a false God but this makes a false witness of the true God his Sin is Infidelity the others Idolatry but this man's is not without blasphemy which is worse than either for it may worthily be esteemed a less Crime to acknowledge any thing for God
out of the hands of corruption into liberty which is glorious Justice because he hath offered up himself a Sacrifice for sin but Sanctification because he hath given us his Spirit Christ therefore unto us is all these but yet not all these by imputation for then his Wisdom should be imputed too yea and even the redemption of our bodies from the grave imputative also Indeed we can dream willingly of nothing but imputation All seems nothing worth unless Christ did so do all for us as we may not have any thing to do for our selves I doubt we may come in time to conceive that he did believe and repent for us too for these are his Commandments and so believe only this that neither Faith nor Repentance are in our persons necessary For if Christ as a surety hath absolutely undertaken any thing for us we like the scape-Goat must go free upon his performance The same debt may not with justice be required of the surety and principal too if so then do what we list all things are done to our hands already O this were to be a gracious Saviour to purpose if we might take our pleasure ryot in Intemperance and Luxury and withal have his Abstinence and Moderation imputed to us be beheld of God at the time as no less Temperate and Chaste than Christ himself Were it not glad tidings a Gospel indeed that we might be Feasting Carousing Swearing Drinking and yet under the eye of God at the same instant as if we were Watching Fasting Praying Weeping even with Christ himself in the Garden As though God beheld Men through Christ as Men do other things by a perspective which representeth them to the Eye not in their own colours but in the colour of the glass they pass through No God is not deceived with shadows neither doth Christ cast any such He takes not good for evil nor yet evil no not for Christs sake ever for good And let not us be deceived with vain shews neither The truth is it is well that upon our Repentance we are justified by imputation we shall be too putative if we conceipt an imputed sanctification too for two such imputations will not well agree together one of them will be needless ever or impossible for justification that is remission of sins is it self sufficient without imputation of farther sanctity because as St. Austin hath it Omnia ut fact a deputantur quando quod factum non est ignoscitur And perfect sanctification imputed on the other side will leave no room for remission or imputative justification so Christs death might have been spared since we should then be saved by his life for what use may there be of his blood for Remission so long as beheld in his righteousness that never sinned If no sinner he needs no pardon if he need a pardon he must of necessity be beheld as a sinner and therefore Remission of sins and perfect Righteousness are opposite forms that cannot at the same time possibly be imputed unto the same person for they expel and shut out one another Let it suffice then that our blessed Lord vouchsafed to shed his blood for our sins let us not therefore suppose that we are not bound to forsake them ourselves that were to shed his blood afresh and crucifie him again as the Apostle speaks But as he did that for us which if we neglect it not will prove our justification so we through his assistance must do this for our selves otherwise we shall want our sanctification and wanting it want the other also That indeed is the meer act of God but on those that are qualified for it This proceeds from God and his grace but is the true duty of man and which gives him his qualification and in man therefore it must inhere for the righteousness of justification is perfect but not inherent but the righteousness of sanctification now inherent but not perfect hereafter in that glory whither it leads us it will be both perfect and inherent yea inherent perfect and perpetual also Rightly therefore to conclude all this righteousness of the Commandments the duty of man still and since Faith is included in it as being now commanded as rightly the whole duty of man That duty which doth accomplish his election for if any man purge him self from these things he shall be a vessel unto honour fulfils the end of his Creation created unto good works that we might walk therein makes effectual the Divine Vocation for we are called unto holiness is it self our sanctification for the Commandment is holy and just and good procures our justification they wrought righteousness and gained the promises and lastly leads into Glory for they that have their fruit in holiness have their end everlasting life That fruit here this blessed end hereafter the God of Glory grant unto us all in his Kingdom even for Jesus Christ his sake the righteous To whom with the Father and the holy Spirit c. Amen A SERMON OF CHRIST'S Coming to JUDGMENT SERMON III. Upon MATT. XVi. 27. For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels And then he shall reward every man according to his works I Left untouched in my former Text the second reason wherewith Solomon ends his Book and confirms his Conclusion of Fear God and keep his Commandments which is this For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil And now for variety sake I have chosen to prosecute the same subject not in Solomons words but in our Saviour's for these are infer'd unto the same end and much too after the same manner In the verses precedent What shall it profit a man saith Christ to gain the whole world and lose his own sâ—ulâ— or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul As if he had said Gain any man what he list or what he can be it never so much for the world indeed runs all after gain and never enough yet if by this means he come at last to lose his own Soul there is no profit in it He will still be a loser by his gain Or on the other side lose in this life whatsoever he hath or may lose Pleasures Profits Honours or any thing else even Life it self yet if in the loss of all other things he may preserve and gain his own Soul he will be a winner even in his losings To keep his Soul he can part with nothing that is too dear or if he would part with his Soul he can receive nothing that is dear enough for what can either way be of sufficient value to make a just exchange for the Soul But yet so it is small things are given in exchange for great and according to the momentany works and behaviour of men here so shall their Souls be gained or lost eternally hereafter For the son of man c. The words deliver
ambitions If the greater Peers among the people instead of being Gods and common Fathers unto their Country prove Wolves unto their brethren and like Pikes grow great and vast by eating up the Fry that is round about them donec Serpens serpentem devorans fiat Draco If instead of benign and benevolent Stars they shall be of a sowr and Saturnian Aspect only blasting whatsoever comes within the sphere of their activity or else but of a Mercurian concurring influence good with the good and bad with the bad not as justice but as affection and faction shall lead them then no marvel if mighty men come at length to be mightily tormented But if these Noble Persons shall be truly Noble indeed and as God hath termed them Gods and Fathers unto their Country If like Job they shall deliver the poor and such as have none to help from those that are too mighty for them break the jawes of the wicked and pluck the spoil out of their teeth until the blessing of them that are ready to perish come upon them for it If the Prince that is supream be not a disturber like Nimrod but rather as Solomon Princeps pacis a King of peace nourishing his people like David with a perfect and upright heart and ruling them prudently with all his power If his moderation be known unto all and his Piety unto God and goodness no less exemplary than his Virtue then undoubtedly both he and they and all such Mighty men in this great day shall be as mightily honoured when he that hath made you Rulers of his people set you here in the seats of Justice as on the throne of David shall then advance you higher take you up even upon his own throne in the Clouds as being in the number of those Saints that shall be Assessors there and with Christ as the Apostle tells us to judge the world whilst those mighty and glorious Monarchs that once so much troubled the earth and other Princes Great men and Favorites of the world shall now stand like poor worms beneath you at the Bar nudo latere palpitantes sententian◠aeternae mortis expectantes naked and quaking as St. Hierome speaks under the sentence of eternal death Where now are all their Dignities and Titles their Pomp and former Splendor how is it vanished Alas all these things accompany none any farther than the grave but their works these follow after unto judgment where according to their works they shall be now rewarded which is our last point And then be shall reward every man secundùm opera sua according to his works This as it is the latter part of my Text so is it the most substantial but withal the most troublesome for here we seem to meet with nothing but difficulties There are but three words in it And whether we look on the opera which is the main or the sua that adheres or the secundùm that hath reference unto both Objections we shall find and some of them difficult enough even in all three Set the Accent first upon the opera for that as I said is the main and we shall no sooner do it but the objection is instantly emergent for if Men shall be now judged with precise respect unto their works since none are so wicked but have some good deeds nor any so righteous but have many sins how should it come to pass that either any should escape Condemnation or if some do why should not all escape it for all are sinners But this knot may well be dissolved without any great labour For though works at that day shall be judged of as good or evil precisely according unto that Law which they have transgressed yet the men whose they are shall be sentenced for these works not according to the law but with reference and respect unto the conditions of the Gospel for God shall then judge the secrets of all hearts saith St. Paul secundùm evangelium meum according to my Gospel And according to the Gospel the same works are not always of the same condition with reference to reward and punishment but according to the repentance of the person or his falling from it do receive ever a new qualification The Schools therefore do accordingly distinguish of opera mortua and mortifera viva and mortificata and rediviva too of dead works and deadly of living and mortified and reviviscent also Works morally good but not done with any Pious or Spiritual intention they account dead works as lyable neither to reward nor punishment Works morally and mortally evil these are mortisera deadly Works that draw death and destruction after them works of Faith and Charity in the converted Soul these are opera viva living works and such as have title unto life everlasting but both these latter may be mortified and both after mortification revive again when the sinner repents him of his Sins all his former wickedness is forgotten and when the penitent man returns again to his Sins none of his former righteousness shall then be remembred And as men do ebb or flow in their true repentance so their sins or their good deeds do either revive or mortifie and the mortification of the one is the reviving ever of the other And for this reason saith our Saviour in the Revelation Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to render unto every man not as his works but in the singular as his work shall be For according unto this one work of repentance either his sin or his righteousness hath the predominance and shall be accordingly rewarded by him who will now reward every man in this sence according to his works But yet since this Judgment proceeds in mercy and according to the Gospel why are we not said to be rewarded according to our Faith rather than according to our works As though works where the Gospel is revealed were of any validity without Faith or Faith any way rewardable farther than it is operative and fruitful in works But besides this is a day of universal reckoning not confined within the precise latitude of that revelation every man without exception must now come to his account and what every one is bound to account for according to that and to that only he shall be sentenced New the Gospel of Christ hath not been revealed unto all but the notions of good and evil are implanted in Nature and men are to be judged of and accepted too according to what they have not according to what they have not as our Saviour speaketh And therefore the Faith of the Jew was not required of the Gentile neither yet the Faith of the Christian at the hands of the Jew The Law of Nature indeed binds all but positive Laws those only to whom they are given And thus much seems to be both Law and Gospel That no man give an account but for the Talents that were delivered him For God is no such
and blind like those Pharisees out of pride or some other Lust will needs say and believe too that they see And then such guides and their blinder followers how suddenly are they both in the ditch plunged over head and ears in errour ere they are aware Ignorance therefore never causeth errour and dissention unless one Lust or other doth first cause the ignorance so St. Peter tells us somethings are hard to be understood in St. Pauls Epistles which yet hurts none but unlearned and unstable Men Men carried about it seems with diverse Lusts like empty Clouds with several winds who therefore pervert such difficult places to their own destruction and let it ever be their own blame not the Scriptures which are most unwillingly wrested to the adulterating of that very truth which themselves do deliver But the holy Scripture is not composed only of difficulies it hath shallows in it and Fords where the Lamb may wade as well as Pools and Pits where the Elephant may swim yea and drown too As there are exquisite rarities to depel satiety so is there solid food enough too to satisfy hunger And in these that are universally necessary unto life the Scriptures are so clear and free from difficulty as there is no room for ignorance did not Men look on them through the false Spectacles of their deceitful affections For if the Gospel be hid it is hid unto those that perish to those whole Eyes the God of this world hath blinded saith St. Paul plainly neither doth the God of this world otherwise blind them but by exhaling the vapours of worldly Lusts that darken and pervert the judgment Whether therefore we recur either to the difficulty of the Scripture or ignorance of Men we are still brought back in conclusion according to St. James here to the lusts of their members as the true and proper causes from whence such bitter contentions in the Church have been raised nourished and with such violence prosecuted for are they not hence And hence indeed they are so much the very demand doth import but 't is not enough to say so we must shew it too as well as say it And that may not well be done unless we condescend unto some particulars take a short view of these several Lusts and see a little what several errours they have begotten and with them what contentions in the Church Love and Hatred if misapplied are the two radical Lusts that both found and foster all others Those that proceed from Love the concupiscible part of the Soul are either from the immoderate Love of Pleasure or of Profit or Honour which the beloved Disciple terms the lusts of the flesh the lusts of the Eye and the pride of Life and these are all either worldly or sensual But those that issue from Hatred the irascible part whether from the hatred of peace or of truth are more directly Devilish And therefore our St. James a little before reduceth them all unto three heads But if there be bitter emulation and strife among you this wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual and devilish To begin the instance with that terrene and worldly affection of Pride and Vain-glory though this hath something of Devil in it too what a fruitful Mother hath it ever been of dissentions in Religion and how many ways hath she hatched and brought forth her deformed issue Sometimes by an itching desire of knowing all things which boldly searching into hidden secrets leaves nothing unransacked whereby it may appear more learned And then what such men conceive their profound speculations with much travel have drawn up out of the depth of night and darkness lest they should lose the price of their labour they obtrude upon others as necessary to be believed It was most rightly said Never Heretick yet that racked the bowels of the Church but his pretence was for truth and Men do usually fall so deeply in love with the conceited truth of their own invention as all their pains seems to be lost unless they may press it too upon the Conscience of every Man else And then when probable conceipts come to be published for necessary truths and speculations of fancy are once turned into Articles of Faith as we see it hath fallen out as in many others so in the new Platform of Presbyterial Purity at first conceived but for a convenient Regiment yet afterwards men becoming more enamour'd with their own conceptions came to be urged at length for the necessary discipline of Christ clearly commanded in Scripture as the Scepter upon Earth and very Kingdom of our Saviour no marvel then I say if contentions be not only raised but eagerly and obstinately pursued also which yet are rendred the more violent by a second elation of mind that can well away with no superiority And those that by other mundane desires are driven to endure it yet how Heavenly do they do it How do they mumur against the power of their Superintendents like Corah Dathan and Abiram Ye take too much upon you ye Sons of Aaron and much ado they have not to say so of Moses too Doubtless the cry in their hearts is but that Conspiracy in the Psalmist Let us break their bonds asunder and cast their cords from us Sometimes again by an higher degree of ambition that will admit of no equality that as the former would be subject unto none so this would have all subject unto himself Nec ferre potest Caesarve priorem Pompeiusve parem The one like Caesar the other like Pompey That can endure no Superiour nor This brook any Equal And on this ground it was that the Greek Church first brake with the Roman whose Bishop against right and reason the rule of Christ and decree of the Fathers as she justly taxed him did arrogate unto himself a plenitude of power And from the same fountain have issued those Waters of strife which do at this day overflow and almost drown all Christendom Lastly by an ambitious desire of Secular Rule and Empire For there are not wanting examples in story sacred and prophane of such as have brought in new Religions or fitted the old unto the Palate of the People by this means to retain their own or gain unto themselves the Territories and Dominions of others To this end Jeroboam first made an alteration in the Church of Israel setting up his Altars in Daâ— and Bethel lest the ten Tribes by going up yearly unto Jerusalem to sacrifice as they were commanded should chance to return in time unto the house of David from whence they were rent And I could with such secular and politick respects had no power among any of our selves I say not out of any fear lest the ten parts should return again unto the house of Levi or rather of God from whence they are rent it were pretty well if they could rest contented there but rather that such regards might not prevail with them in the
so the clashing of Truth and Errour indeed truth and truth errour and errour being silenced Righteousness and peace may meet and kiss each other the more freely And that sure will be found the right and best way too at the last For most assuredly when all contestations are terminated when all these Sophismes and subtilties of the Schools Subtilitates ultramundanae plusquam Chrysippeae Subtilties as he said beyond the Moon and such as Chrysippus never dreamt on shall vanish into air leave and forsake us utterly it will be righteousness only that shall do us good in the end this righteousness of God and our faithful endeavour in it that shall be able to give peace and comfort to the Soul in death and through death lead and light it into immortality and life No way in the world no Righteousness thither but this only the good way the way which the Prophet Samuel long since discovered I will shew you the good and the right way fear the Lord and serve him in truth and consider how great things he hath done for you A good and a right and therefore a right good way Not that every way which is good is presently right some may have the zeal of God but not according to knowledge but than undoubtedly it cannot be right unless it be good Whatsoever way it be if it cross or part with goodness it will in the same place certainly part with verity where it leaves rightousness we may be sure it leaves truth the true Doctrine being always as the Apostle testifies of it Doctrinâ— secundum pietatem a doctrine according unto piety I Tim. So Rectum est index sui obliqui That which is right doth both discover it self and other things that are crooked But be the doctrine never so right and righteous yet if the man be not so to what purpose is it Had he all truth and were endued with the knowledge of all mysteries yet if he detain that truth in unrighteousness it should profit him nothing but to augment that wrath of God which saith the Apostle is already revealed from Heaven against him When on the other side did he know nothing else nothing but Christ and him crucified as St. Paul desired to know no more yet walking faithfully in that path of Righteousness which he hath taught and â—rodden out before him his ignorance of other controvertible truths or suspension either I think would hurt him but little For Righteousness naturally doth lead into truth and unless men did first forsake it they could hardly run into dangerous errour For were not the Soul depraved with unrighteous lusts and the judgment of the mind perverted by corrupt affections it could not easily resist apparent truth or not discern manifest falshood But when the will gives it self over to be ruled by the appetite no marvel if the intellect naturally subject unto the willâ— be as easily wrapt in errour Ambition and Avarice and desire of sinning with sting of Conscience having once seized upon the Scribes and Pharisees of old what strange leaven were they soon brought to mingle with the bread of life And how mightily have the same affections since wrought in many more Hence as from the Trojan Horse so many impious but profitable deceits and devices have issued forth upon ignorant people on the one side dispensing with them for their own sins and dispensing to them other mens merits the imaginary treasure of the Church that the Church might be filled with real Hence what strange positions and unto Piety most dangerous have been formed on the other side establishing justification even in the loss of sanctification presumptuously cloathing themselves and their disciples with the righteousness of another even then when they are wilfully unrighteous in themselves And so not content upon repentance to be justified by imputation but have found out even then whilst they sin an imputative indeed a meer putative sanctification that by this means amidst the works of darkness in the paradise of conceit they may still remain Children of light But be not deceived saith St. John he that doth righteousness is righteous All which though spisse and palpable hallucinatious on both parts yet so long as the eye is not single as our Saviour speaks but blear'd with mists of profits and pleasures they may not easily be deceived less easily redressed in either They may term themselves as they please but so long as impure desires are seated in the Soul nothing shall be able to tie them to the purity of that truth which opposeth or withhold them from contending for such falshoods as sute with those desires Itching ears and lusts in the spirits neither will nor can endure sound Doctrine saith the Apostle But rather than fail will raise up unto themselves Teachers after their own lusts and at their own charge raise preserments for them too that so their hired tongues may tickle their ears when they itch smooth or smother their sins In this case who shall prevail or what shall give Men light if in favour of their evil ways they love darkness more than light It is only the search and study of Righteousness that can bring us into the way of truth and dissolve errours and their controversies by taking away their causes by removing those gross and earthly affections that like Foggs at noon darken and benight the judgment The pure and cleansed heart shall see God saith our Saviour see him perfectly hereafter see of him and his truth more clearly in the present as he doth elsewhere assure us If any man doth the will of my Father he shall know of my doctrine But besides the nature of Righteousness leading into truth the protection and providence divine seems specially to assist and direct it The very secrets of the Lord saith King David are upon them that fear him who himself having respect unto the Commandment became wiser than his Teachers But however secrets yet light enough sure shall ever spring up unto the righteous who have undoubted interest in the promise of that Comforter which unto the worlds end shall lead into all truth all that is necessary for the leading of them when this world ends into the glory of a better yea and teach them mildness in truths of less consequence for the present For did we follow righteousness and not pride and passion we should easily learn to enter on mysteries warily and to maintain our opinions soberly And when the strife is peradventure but about a crackt pane in the Window or a loose tyle in the Roof as he said well not to raise such stirs and outcryes as if the Foundation were presently endangered It is only the judgment which Righteousness hath cleared from perturbations that can discern the necessity of points and direct our prosecution accordingly instructing us not to call every problematical question by the name of necessary and infallible truth but agreeing in fundamentals either to leave superedifications to the
the third place unto the act whereby that preparation is made and these qualifications are best attained unto and that is a diligent search and examination of our selves and ways Let a Man examine himself For certainly the readiest way and directest unto due preparation is the true and faithful knowledge of the right temper and disposition of our own Souls And therefore next unto the book of God Man himself is the best book he can study since the knowledge of himself as the very heathen Philosophers could acknowledge is the beginning and fountain of all both Wisdom and Goodness of Wisdom because as himself is a microcosm and compendiary sum of all creatures so the knowledge of himself cannot but be the sum and brief abstract of all sciences and of goodness because he is evil without remedy that doth not understand how evil he is for of necessity he must know his own corruption before he can cleanse and purge it which is the reason that evil Men who though they love not evil as evil yet love the pleasure of it are so nice to enter into their own Souls and fearful to make too strict a search into the pollutions of their hearts lest they should be driven to abandon and forsake them when they cannot retain without too much trouble to their own Conscience Rightly therefore Seneca Mali ubique sunt praeterquam secum wicked Men are willingly every where else rather than at home they are still gadding abroad and the less they can abide to look on themselves the more they delight to be curious examiners of other men how securely will they pry into all their actions how narrowly can they observe every defect and imperfection the least mote in their Brothers eye that will not behold beams in their own within blinder than Moles without quicker sighted than Serpents And Plutarch though but a Philosopher can give you the reason of both for the guilty Soul saith he which in it self is but as an unclean cage a very sink of Sin and iniquity metuens ca quae intus sunt exibit foras fearing that foulness and ugliness which is within quickly flyes out of doors and like a Fly flutters up and down till it light on a gal'd back sucking and feeding upon other mens vices that he may the better lessen and excuse his own or dare to attempt greater himself It is happened unto such saith the same Author as unto those that have sooty houses or curst Wives they are never well longer than abroad Like Satan in Job their Souls compass the earth and walk through the world wandering stars they are to whom the blackness of darkness is reserved saith St. Jude at whose doors though our Saviour himself stand and knock never so long never so loud he cannot hope for admission there is no body within to answer or open and let him in their Spirits are gone forth and it is impossible they should hear what is done at home their cogitations are so deeply busied abroad or if peradventure they now and then hear him at their better leisure they consider it but little as supposing they have not much need of him They have been so long taken up in the view of other mens sins as they forget their own they have so constantly fixed their eyes on the crimes of their brethren as they begin to think themselves innocent In this case now is it possible they should duly prepare or deeply repent whilst they judge of their own goodness by others evil and suppose themselves well enough already because peradventure they are more wicked But could we observe the Apostles rule let other Men alone and examine our selves could we as diligently observe our own defects and imperfections to give them no worse name as we do other Mens and other Men do ours taking estimate of our selves by what we truly are in our selves not what we seem opposed to others we should quickly discover at least the corruption and hypocrisie of our own hearts we should soon find how rotten we are at the core how desperately sick and what great need we have of the Physician And still the longer we look the wickeder shall we appear the more narrowly we search and the deeper we dig into these impure vaults the more ever shall we abhorr our selves with Job till we cry out with the Prophet O that my head were full of water and mine eyes a fountain of tears that all the day long I might bewail my sins and iniquities in the bitterness of my Soul What else was it but this serious consideration of himself that made holy David so afflict his body with sackcloath and his head with ashes what was it that made his eyes so often to water his couch and his bed to swim with perpetual tears but that in the 51. Psalm I acknowledge my iniquity and my sin is ever before me And sure did we carefully look into our selves did we faithfully and frequently set our sins before us as that Prophet did we should soon acknowledge and bewail them with that true and hearty sorrow that he hath done So directly doth the contemplation and knowledge of our selves lead unto true repentance the sum of our preparation But this knowledge of our selves especially of our sins is not so easily attained as we imagine and it is not presently gained upon the first view every Man hath not such clear eyes as Adam at first sight to discover his own nakedness or if he have he can quickly find out fig-leaves subtle shifts and excuses to cover it as well as he And therefore it is not a slight view but a strict examination that must eye it Let a Man examine himself It is strange that himself should be driven to examine himself doth not the Soul understand the Soul cannot the spirit of man understand what is in man without searching it out by examination surely no the heart of man saith the Prophet is deceitful above all things and wicked who can know it and because wicked therefore deceitful and cunning not only to deceive others but even it self The understanding indeed hath eyes clear and bright enough to search into the dark corners of the Soul and discover the windings and turnings all the obscure Alleys and Labyrinths that are in it did not the heart send forth a thick fogg of gross and earthy affections to muffle up and blind them lest they pry too far into her secrets For the will wherein the affections reside hath taught the intellective power which is under her command being Mistris of the Soul either not to look at all or look very favourbly â—on that which she likes and instead of judging of the goodness which is the proper office of the understanding practick she diverts her imployment wholly to the seeking of cunning devices and finding out of false colours and disguises to cover the foulness of the evil which pleasure or profit moves her to affect And then how
grief like day and night take their turns in this life and mutually ever expel one another They are clean contrary yet like twins they are bred in the same bowels wherein though they sometimes struggle as Jacob and Esau did who shall first come forth yet the advantage of precedence is but little when the latter is not so far behind but he hath ever hold of the formers heel like Actors in a Tragedy so they play their parts on the Stage of this world when one goes off the other enters and though joy begin the Prologue the Catastrophe ever shuts up in sorrow All our pleasures though never so sweet in the mouth proving as the Wiseman speaks but gall and wormwood in the belly and sometimes rottenness in the bones It is therefore gaudium quod est only a joy that is but shall quickly cease to be a joy which like the winter Sun may rise gloriously but is soon overcast with clouds of discontent and must set ere long in a night of sorrow a long night unto some that shall never see morning Only Christs joy the joy which the Angel here brings Christmas and Christian Joy is gaudium quod erit a joy which is and which shall be which is begun here and shall be perfected and accomplished for ever hereafter when we shall sit down at the right hand of God where are pleasures for evermore So now you have all unto the full great joy publick joy permanent and perpetual joy nothing more can be added to make it fuller or greater it hath already all the dimensions of greatness height length breadth and depth As deep as Hell from whence it delivers as high as the highest Heavens whither it will bring us broad as the whole Earth spreading unto all people that have or do inhabit it or ever shall and long as eternity can make it whereinto it runs joy which shall be for evermore Well did it deserve that Ecce of admiration set up in the top of it as a burning Beacon to draw all eyes and affections towards it Behold I bring you c. But this is but the Preface proceed we now unto that wherein all this Joy doth consist and whereof it is spoken the message or sermon it self whose whole subject is the blessed birth of our Lord and Saviour we this day Celebrate For unto you c. Wherein there are three Circumstances of the birth where when and for whom Unto you is born this day in the City of David And three Titles or Attributes of the Person born a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. The Circumstances are first placed but the parts of substance must be first handled both because they are more worthy in themselves and also have nearer reference unto the joy precedent and the three degrees of exaltations of it whereunto these three titles do fitly answer and correspond the joy was great publick permanent and now we see the reason Great Joy for a Saviour is born publick joy for that Saviour is Christ permanent and perpetual joy for that Christ is the Lord the Lord of eternity that only can give eternity to our Joy And briefly of them all but first of the first Attribute of him which is a Saviour 1. And sure if ever any this is tydings of great Joy tydings of a Saviour no joy in the world to the joy of a man saved We our selves acknowledge it in other matters If it concerns the saving of our skin of our goods of our life or the like how do we rejoyce in such Saviours Let a man under the Law in case of a lost man cast and condemned expecting nothing but execution and then let a Saviour come to him with a pardon and see if it be not a welcome message if he think it not the joyfullest tydings that he ever heard But beloved we have Souls too and they are our better parts by far and the sorrows of that death they are subject to great and more lasting And if the saving of a perishing transitory life or living be so precious unto us how full of Joy would the birth of a Saviour be for them that otherwise must die for ever in perpetual torments O when it concerns the loss of Heaven and danger of Hell when the Soul is at stake and the well doing or undoing of it for ever Consider it right and in this case sure no joy to the joy of a Saviour But we do not consider it at least not throughly and that is the reason it affects us so little To spiritual things we are dull and dead but quick and sensible in carnal and as it seems more apprehensive of our sickness than our sins of the saving of our goods and bodies than of the loss of God or perishing of our Souls Otherwise the preserver of those wishes would not be welcomed with such joy and the Saviour of these which are infinitely better so coldly esteemed Certainly could we but see our sins in the true shape and behold with our eyes the sorrows they deserve and our souls must suffer for them were we permitted a while to look into that fearful pit whereunto we are condemned and take a view of the horror that is in it A Saviour from them and from thence would be something better regarded But however we esteem it not now when the destruction is too far off us to affect us yet the time will come when it shall In novissimo intelligetis planè in the end saith Jeremy ye shall clearly â—nderstand In the end indeed in that sad and fearful day when the destruction shall approach and the destroyer shall come when tribulation and anguish shall be upon every Soul that hath done evil when they shall cry unto the Rocks and Mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the presence of the Lord and the wrath to come then indeed when we shall find the want of a Saviour we shall plainly understand this and value the benefit and joy of it as we ought and know and find that there is no joy in the earth to the joy of a Saviour A Saviour that is the first the Angel addeth for a difference which is Christ to distinguish him from all other Saviours For others there were many born and sent unto them at divers and several times to deliver them from particular and several distresses As Moses Joshua Gideon Jephta Shamgar Sampson and the rest in the Book of the Judges which indeed is nothing else but a Catalogue of Saviours which the Lord at sundry times raised up to free and avenge them of their enemies These were Saviours all in their kind and joy there was in them and great joy too in their times and to that Nation but no universal joy they were but petty and particular Saviours One there was yet behind that was worth them all one that should save his people from their sins save not their bodies for a time but
shall perceive the better and receive too the sooner for though it be powerful all do not always receive it if we be observant of the circumstances of this spiritual in the mind which for the quality of time place and person doth much resemble that other humane birth in the flesh For as then he was born in the night so still is he usually begotten in the nightly and silent meditations of the Soul When all things were in quiet silence and the night in her swift course then the Almighty word left the Royal Throne and leapt down from Heaven saith the Author in the book of Wisdom And sure then especially when all things are quiet and silent when the works and toils cares and labours of the day are laid aside and the Soul in sweet contemplation of the vanity of all her travel under the Sun then I say especially is Divine Wisdom preparing the place for the Son of God who though he leave not Heaven and his throne there yet by his spirit doth he vouchsafe to descend and live and dwell in this earth of ours for ever And as in the deep of night so for the most part is he born still in the depth of Winter For in the Summer and sun-shine of prosperity we are all apt to forget God and regard but little what he speaks unto us but in the cold and bitter storms of Winter when our Bark is tossed in a tempestuous Sea of afflictions then like other Mariners we can quickly pour out vows leave our canns and carouses and betake our selves to Supplication and Prayers and can attentively hearken also what the Lord God will say concerning our Souls Only take heed of the 3d. circumstance in this point and though he came in the last age of the world yet be sure not to defer thy entertaining of him till the last age of thy life For however he be sometimes and it may be usually as yet born spiritually in that point of Mans days as he was then of the world yet it cannot be safe yet it must be more than foolish to presume of it For we well know how frail we are and God knows how suddenly we shall be swept away in our sins when we would give the whole world if we had it for but one hour of that time we so foolishly neglected and may not have Remember therefore thy Creator in the days of thy youth before the eveil day come and give attentive consideration to the counsel of the Wiseman Defer not to do well and put not off from day to day for suddenly shall the wrath of the Lord come forth and in security thou shalt be destroyed But lastly and above all be most assured that as then so he will still be born in no other time but a time of peace Peace there was in the whole world when he was born in it and we must cease from wars and envies and hatreds and have peace every one with his Brother or he will never be born in us It was the Song and Anthem at his birth sung by Angels Glory be to God on high in earth peace good will towards men He is the great peacemaker that came of purpose to establish an everlasting peace between God and Man but on this condition that Man shall first be at peace with Man otherwise not to expect it from God of whom he may not so much as beg mercy for his offences but as himself remits the trespasses of others O take heed therefore flatter not thy self but search narrowly and be sure to strip all wrath and revenge from thine heart or be most assured Christ will never dwell and inhabit there who cannot but hate the very place where such odious and hateful sins make their abode Sins that bind all the rest of our iniquities on our Souls yea make whatsoever else is good sinful unto us Whereof so long as thou art guilty thou dost but curse thy self when thou prayest and damn thy own Soul when thou receivest This for the time see now how well the other circumstances agree which concern the place of his birth and especially the person of whom he was born For born he was not of any ordinary Woman at a venture but of a pure and chast Virgin and so will he still be both born and bred in a clean and unpolluted Soul Into a defiled heart full of noisom lusts and sordid affections he will not enter they must be first purged out and all the stains and pollutions of them washed away and cleansed in a bath of penitential tears then he will descend thither be born there and instead of those natural corruptions fill the place with all divine and supernatural Graces and so not find but make the Soul a Virgin by being begotten in it A Virgin full of virtue which he will espouse and marry unto himself for ever But yet of all virtues he most affects humility in her the first and laft of virtues the first begining and last consummation of whatsoever is virtuous For without it the Soul is not capable of virtue and had she never so many would spoil all by growing proud of the virtues which she hath And therefore as he was born of a Virgin so would he be born in no other but a Stable the meanest place and lowest in the house to shew us the condition of the mind the humility and lowliness of the spirit where he still is and ever will be spiritually brought forth For as the covetous Soul is but a Barn the Epicure's a Kitchen the Drunkard 's a Cellar the Ambitious a Chamber of State so the low and regardless Stable may well signify the humble spirit that both is and esteems it self a wretched sinner Not then in the Barn of Misers nor in the Kitchin of Belly-gods not in the Cellar of Winebibbers not in the great Chamber of Pride and Prodigals but in the despised Stable of humble and dejected spirits there is he there will he and no where else ever be born And every Soul wherein he is so born may be bold to say with the blessed Virgin that first saw him for thou regardest the lowliness of thy hand-maiden But yet humility is not more acceptable to him than worldly cares and covetousness displeasing than which nothing can more hinder his conception and generation in our Souls For God and Mammon cannot dwell together And for this cause as in a Stable so he would be born in an Inn For an Inn is domus populi free and open unto all comers and so must the Soul be wherein he will be the second time born free and generous holding nothing as it were in private and proper to it self but open and ready to communicate all things to those that want and are distressed and no less freely than the other for money And the sooner because he knows the world it self is but an Inn where we do not inhabit but lodge for a
season and who is so mad as to build and plant garnish and make great provision in an Inn in his passage and upon the way being to depart ere long peradventure the next morning For here we have no abiding place no permanent City but as strangers and pilgrims we look for one which hath a foundation And in such a Soul which is in it self as an Inn and esteems the world for no other and therefore void of all scraping and wretched desires the Son of God is ever most infallibly born and will as certainly bear it where are true riches and everlasting Now these three pleasure profit and pride that is the flesh the world and the Devil are the three heads whereunto all sins are reducible and as Christ cuts them all off in his birth so must we cut them off in our selves or he will never be born in us Carnal pleasure must depart he will be born of a Virgin Devilish pride abandoned he is born in a Stable worldly cares and covetous desires utterly discharged he is born in an Inn. And when the Soul is thus prepared by being truly cleansed from all these the time is at hand and then let him make hast and go up with confidence unto Bethlem for there he will be born that is the last and general place of his nativity born in Bethlem And Bethlem is domus panis so the name signifies the house of bread and never so truly as now when the bread of life was born in it And as then so will be still be born in Bethlem in the house of bread Of bread not corporal but spiritual and such as can nourish the Soul and what house think you is that surely Bethlem is nothing but Bethel the house of bread none other but the house of God Where Men eat Angels food and that bread of life is freely dispensed not only panis verbi but panis verbum the bread of the word but the bread which is the word the eternal word of God panis de Coelo bread from Heaven of which whosoever eateth shall never die And this is that house ecce and behold there is that heavenly bread indeed not so much bread as the body of thy Redeemer the bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Lords body the Communion sure of his body and blood too of himself and all that he did or suffered yea or purchased either For all are communicated in these the same Symbols of all and Conduits by which all are conveyed to us And therefore Christ Jesus himself is under this bread and comes down to thee as from Heaven in this shape that he might be at once both received in thy mouth and conceived in thy heart conceived and born live and inhabit therefor ever So justly was Bethlem the seat of his Nativity and therefore as Jacob said when he awoke out of sleep in that place where some suppose the Temple was afterwards built how fearful saith he is this place the Lord was in it and I was not aware this is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven if he said so of the Temple the house of that bread how much more justly may we say of the bread of this house How fearful is this bread the Lord is in it and much more especially than in the Temple and wo unto them that are not aware of it that discern it not for they do but eat damnation to themselves because they discern not the Lords body Take heed therefore above all things unto thy self when thou comest to this fearful twice fearful place this double Temple the Temple of his worship and Temple of his Body and so that thou make thy approach with due regard and diligent preparation with that deep sorrow as becometh thy sins that low reverence as becometh thy Saviour And so in the end think on the night wherein he was to be born and betake thee to thy sweet and silent meditations consider the deep of Winter and embrace thine afflictions Look upon the days of peace and let go wrath view the Stable and down with thy pride see the Inn and contemn the World contemplate the Virgin and cleanse thy self from all pollutions of the flesh so shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty and thy Virgin Soul come up safely into Bethlem and take of the bread of life freely and with it the blessed Lord of life himself who will make thy spirit another spiritual Bethlem or house for this living bread an habitation for this living Lord to be born and live in so long as thou livest and give thee everlasting life when thou canst live no longer Which God of his infinite mercy c. To whom c. Laus Deo in aeternum TWO FUNERAL SERMONS The FIRST for the MOTHER SERMON XII Upon PSAL. cxlii verse ult Bring my Soul out of Prison that I may give thanks unto thy Name which thing if thou wilt grant me then shall the Righteous resort unto my Company DO not marvel the Text may be fitter than you imagine or I could have made choice of for it is not I but another it was not taken but given me She that is now gone and at rest and may she rest for ever in peace she whose dissolved Tabernacle the prison of whose blessed Soul lies here before your eyes as a spectacle of mortality as a document of the frailty of our humane condition which I would if I might so wish it had this day appeared by some other example She this worthy and honoured Lady now glorious Saint in Heaven to whom we are at this time to perform our last office and Christian duty She it is who as she made it her frequent praise in her life so she desired it might be commended to your meditations in her death And you will anon perceive how justly when you shall see how well it sorted with the one and how fully it is now accomplished in the other But for this you must stay a little First therefore of her Theam then of her self Bring my Soul c. The whole Psalm is a prayer of Davids pursued by Saul and shut up in a Cave as appears by the Title but whether that of Adullam in the xxii of Samuel as Haimo and Remigius or else of the other of Engedi in the xxiv of the same book as Ambrose and Athanasius suppose is uncertain nor is it material to enquire In one of them it was and in this distress he flees unto the Lord for sucour in this whole Psalm the sum and substance of whose devout prayer you have in this last verse Bring my Soul c. This is the Historical truth and the literal sence of the Text which ariseth from thence is manifest Deliver my Soul out of Prison Espelunca out of this Cave and not so only not out of the Cave alone for so he might have fallen into the hands of Saul from whom it
therefore in Gods account not right but even dissemblers in what they truly intended because they falsly forsook it Hypocrites then they are and with hypocrites they shall have their portion Consider therefore faithfully what thy lips spake when thy heart was in trouble and be sure that thy hand perform it when thou art released And yet if your lips spake nothing if you have no vow upon you thanksgiving is due without it pay that at least with cheerfulness No such Monster in the world not the Hypocrite himself as the unthankful Man he that hath said Ungrateful hath said all and the worst he can say And therefoer above all things if there be no vows to pay yet offer unto God thanksgiving next to that of a broken heart it is the best sacrifice thou canst offer him This shall please the Lord better than a bullock that hath horns and hoofes Psal. lxix 31. Nay not all those Hecatombs and millions of Sheep and Oxen which Solomon offered at the dedication of the Temple no nor thousands of Rams and Rivers of Oyl as Micah speaks can so glad the Altars of God as these Calves of our lips the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving but then it must be made a burnt-offering that is kindled with the fire of zeal and true devotion sing praises lustily saith our Prophet and with a good courage And as he gives us the instruction so let him be our example that you may know he did not promise more in this place than he was glad and willing to perform afterwards See how lustily and with what a good courage he doth perform it he doth not go about it drowsily but his very preparation to it is hasty even beyond expression by any Mans words but his own My heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed awake up my â—uâ—e and glory â— my self wâ—â— awake right early My lips will be fain when I sing unto thee and so will my soul which thou hast redeemed nay my mouth shall be satisfied as it were with marrow and fatness when I shall praise thee with joyful lips words that have vigour and life and shew a good courage indeed but all this is but preparative for when he comes to performance see how he stirs up all the parts of his body and powers of his Soul to concur with him in the work Praise the Lord O my Soul and whatsoever is within me praise his holy name And yet it is not enough himself and all his faculties are too little this is still but private praise he must have it publick too and so it is to the purpose you may see him summon up not only righteous Men as here but all the creatures of Heaven and Earth to bear a part with him Angels Sun Moon Stars Fire Hail Snow Vapour Storm and Tempest too praise ye the name of the Lord. And as yet not satisfied he calls for all the Instruments of Musick Trumpets Psaltery Harp Timbrel Cymbals and the high tuned Cymbals to express and set it forth the more solemnly Neither is it a passionate flash like fire in Flax as quickly out as kindled but a constant and parmanent affection Whilst I live I will praise the Lord and as long as I have any being I will sing praises unto my God Ps. cxlvi How mightily doth this upbraid the dead and cold devotion of the present world scarce a spark of this holy fire to warm it can now be found in one bosom of a thousand we think we have performed a worthy sacrifice if with a barren and a dry heart we can only say with the Pharisee I thank thee O Lord that thou hast not made me like other men Superficial we are and perfunctory in all our service forward in nothing but to run on the point of that curse of the Prophet Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently And the reason is â—or that it all things do not run according to our desires we are insensible of the goodness of God in other matters and seldom meditate on it thoroughly But had we apprehensive spirits and could duly weigh and seriously consider the mercies of God not only to Man in general but every Man his special favours unto himself in particular a thousand ways when a thousand ways he deserved destruction he would soon find his breast straitned and too narrow for his swelling affections till he breath them out in our Prophets double expostulation of love not only Domine quid est Homo Lord what is Man that thou art so mindful of him but Domine quid sum ego what am I what is my Fathers house that thou so regardest me Let such meditations blow on the little fire that lies raked up in our embers and they will soon kindle into a flame wherein our devotions may ascend into Heaven like that Angel which went up playing in the flames of Manoabs sacrifice Judg. xiii And this shall suffice for this part for the thankfulness the Prophet promiseth both private and publick within himself and in the resort and company of the Righteous I now leave his praise and come to his prayer Bring my soul out of prison O Lord c. And being in prison in streights and pressures what should a good Soul do but pray If any man be merry let him sing if he be afflicted let him pray saith St. James For prayer it is the Souls Herald sent forth in extremity to parly and intreat for comfort And as nothing can relieve our distress better than prayer so nothing can again assist our prayer better than distresses They inflame our zeal and set an edge upon our devotions the cries of our own will are weak and feeble as cooled with success in respect of those which grief doth utter Sorrow is ingenious to pray and in an instant formeth the slowest tongues to an holy eloquence and furnisheth them with sighs and groans which cannot be expressed And sure those are the best and most piercing prayers of all other fidelis oratio plus gemitibus constat quà m sermonibus plus fletu quà m afflatu faithful prayers indeed consist rather of Tears and silent groans than many words And such a prayer is this to speak on it is but a groan very short but very pithy few words but fervent and full of substance including in it as an abstract of all prayer whatsoever conditions may seem necessary to a holy and devout supplication if you consider the object the manner and the matter of it The object the Lord so some Texts have it here but it is evident in the former verses I cried unto the Lord. The manner vehement by way of crying out as himself in the same Psalm testifies I cried unto the Lord. The matter or extent larger than we imagine even no less than deliverance from all evil that may any way inthral the Soul as will appear when we come to open this Prison from which he
these four Afflictions the World or worldly cares sin and this body of sin and death And under any of these we may say and pray with David here Bring my Soul out of prison The first to take them in order are afflictions sorrows and distresses and that these imprison the Soul and are here specially meant and intended there is no question all agree tribulatio angustia are inseparable companions Tribulation and anguish upon every Soul that hath done evil saith the Apostle and Anguish is nothing else but the English of Angustia for streights and pressure there are in all tribulations Prosperity and Joy do dilate the spirits and draw forth the Soul but stricken with grief and sorrow like a prickt Snail she shrinks into her shell and is instantly straitned But yet of all the Prisons this is the most necessary It is the Bridewel of the world and without it we should quickly grow Bedlam and run mad in excess and wanton delights For all sins are frenzies and such sinners seldom recover their wits any where else The wild Prodigal whilst free and in prosperity runs on in his course and never perceives his own distraction till shut up here and well whipt a while redit ad se then he comes to himself and can say surgam ibo ad patrem I will arise and go unto my Father For tribulatio id habet proprium ut hominem revocet reducat ad se it is the very nature and property of affliction to call home and reduce Men again unto their senses Neither doth it only give them their wits but sets them on work affording them matter whereon they may exercise themselves and all the Christian virtues Faith Hope Patience Meekness Humility and the rest which otherwise would languish and vitiate if not exhale for want of imployment This Prison therefore is of excellent use But why then if it be so profitable should we pray to be freed of it why absolutely we do not but with limitation if God shall think it expedient for us who when the cure is perfected it may be will dismiss us or if he keep us there longer he will make us large recompence for it hereafter Our Saviours Prayer is our rule in this point because all afflictions are grievous for the present we may say with him if it be possible transeat calix ista let this cup pass but still with submission to his good pleasure not mine but thy will be done And thus much though not always exprest is ever reserved and understood whensoever in this case we shall say here with David Bring my Soul out of prison The second is the world or rather worldly cares that â—log and fetter the Souls of most Men nailing them fast unto the Earth that they cannot stir a foot nor move a thought towards Heaven and heavenly meditations This is a large prison wherein every one hath seen restraint more or less as they have learnt that high precept of the Apostle to use the world as if they used it not but satisfying nature only account the rest that belongs to pomp and superfluity nothing near at that high rate as they are bought and sold for in this Market of Fools quanti venduntur emuntur in nundinis stultorum These indeed have some freedom and though they are in a sort prisoners yet they are prisoners at large and have liberty as large as the Prison wherein they have elbow room enough not to be straitned But those miserable wretches that admiring the wealth and honour of the present world have inthralled and wrapt their Souls in terrene and base solitudes how close are they shut up and how miserable a servitude do they indure No Gally-slave can be tied in stronger chains than the Ambitious and Covetous Man like those condemned to the Mines he digs under earth and sweats for Ore all his life long and when he dies hath his mouth stopt only with a handful of gravel And here every one may freely pray and without any restriction at all Out of this Prison O Lord deliver my Soul The Third of these Prisons and worst of all is Sin the Third indeed it is in order but first in time that gives power and strength unto both the other Had not that in the beginning seised on our Souls and fast bound them to their hands they could never have touched us The world instead of a Prison had been a Paradise and the men in it subject neither to Cares nor afflictions But now being fast tyed by this we have a thousand Chains cast on us besides and are become prisoners almost to every thing else This therefore is the head and fountain of our misery and as the first so the worst straitest and closest prison of all other a common Jayl indeed rather than a Prison and the very hole of the Jayl wherein millions of men lie fast bound indeed in misery and Iron putrifying and stinking in their corruption like Lazarus in his Grave the very emblem both of the Prison and Prisoners And unless that Son of God who came down himself from Heaven to open this Prison and preach liberty unto the Captives unless he graciously call unto us yea cry aloud as in the Gospel he did even groaning in his Spirit to shew how difficult a thing it is to dissolve these bonds wherewith custom and habit hath tyed us as with cords unless he I say by the power of his holy voice cry unto us all as lie did unto him Lazare veni foras Lazarus come forth we shall all perish in our captivity for ever and never see light For this sink of sin wherein the longer we lie the deeper indeed we sink doth at length empty it self into Hell the bottomless Pit and Prison of everlasting sorrow But blessed be his name the barrs are smitten asunder and the doors thrown open by his death And he still calls unto us by the voice of his Ministers yea and Spirit too to come forth and unless we be enamoured of our own misery and like Beasts delight to lie in our own filth till we perish in that nethermost Gulf let us hearken unto his calls and rouse up our selves betimes answering his voice with another call of our own calling and crying with all our might and without ever ceasing all of us From this Prison good Lord deliver our Souls But yet call and cry as long and as loud as we can our Souls shall never be clearly freed either from this Prison of sin or those others of Cares and Sorrows so long as they are still inclosed in this of the corruptible body Which is the Fourth and last Prison of the Soul and here intended by David according to the exposition of many Fathers whose words I cannot now stand to recite And therefore Laurentius Justinianus said well of this Prayer Verba sunt peregrinationis suae miserias meditantis c they are the words saith he of one
neither comfort himself nor receive any from the rest of the world shall he for his last refuge as thousands of others have done cry Lord Lord be thou my help and comfort and bring my Soul out of Prison But alas unto what purpose and upon what acquaintance He that gave his Soul unto sin and Satan in his life time why should he think God in his death will embrace and entertain it No no Either give up thy Soul unto God when he calls for it in his word in the provocations of his love in the holy motions of his Spirit unto thine or else when thou wouldest give it he will none of it unless as an angry Judge to deliver it over to the tormentor And in these streights what remains but that he either take up the ditty of that dying Emperour heu quae nunc abibis in loca fearfully part with his Soul he knows not whither or else embrace the counsel of Jobs wife desperately curse God and die Either way he comes to his deserved end and he whose whole life was as the way of a snail not a step but leaving filth behind at the last dies like a Candles end in the Socket boyling and burning in the flame of his own distressed and distracted Soul till he go out in a suff and leave an ill savour behind him amongst all good people Such is oftentimes the fearful departure of those whom God for their former wicked lives shall refuse to lead out of their Prisons when they die No this favour belongs not unto them it is reserved for those faithful Souls that with holy David have throughly sorrowed for their sins for they only shall partake of Davids Prayer that imitate Davids repentance And these however he may seem to absent himself for a while and hide his countenance from them yet in that day of need in that last and Fearful time that most requires it they shall be sure of his comforts He will not fail then to discover his face and make the light of his countenance shine into that region of darkness and by the beams thereof chear up his people leading and lighting them through all the dark and winding Alleys of death until they arrive in the glorious Kingdom of immortality and peace Believe not me but behold the holy man of God and see it performed with your Eyes Look upon Jacob the Patriarch and Father of the Patriarchs he that wrestled not only that one time at the River Jabbock but all his life long with the arm of the Almighty continually afflicting him yet in the end all these storms are blown over and he is gathered unto his Fathers in a calm of content and peace But first mark how the Lord gave him strength before he went hence and was no more seen wherewith he collects his fainting Spirits raiseth himself up in his bed calls his Sons about him gives every one his several blessing and benediction in such a high and Prophetical strain as if an Angel had sate on his lips and I think many Angels sate waiting in that door of his body for the coming forth of his Soul which stayed not long after to convey it into the bosom of his Grand-father Abraham there to rest in everlasting peace Look upon Joshua the Captain of Israel after all his Wars and Battles past at length he sits him down and divides the spoil among the Tribes of Jacob and death drawing near see how he summons the whole people together and with such power of speech exhorts them to the fear and service of God which had dealt so mercifully with them that the whole Congregation as if it had but one heart and one tongue and both throughly affected joynt ly cry out unto him God forbid that we should forsake the Lord nay but we will serve him for he is our God Thus out of the flame of his own zeal having kindled a fire in the breast of others this great Worthy was led forth from his Prison in peace See Samuel the Judge of Israel going to his grave as to his bed and in him consider the power and vertue of a good Conscience arising from the memory of a well acted life Whose Oxe or whose Ass have I taken whom have I defrauded or at whose hands have I received a bribe saith he unto the Congregation as all bear him Record saith the Text hoc ducit ad funus sepulturam This is it which accompanies him to his grave and laies him in his rotten Sepulchre Lastly consider St. Paul and his marvellous confidence even before his death that made him bold to deliver up his Soul almost like his Saviour with a consummatum est I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the just Judge shall give me at that day words worthy of a Soul so near unto its Heaven such have been the blessed ends of these holy Men of God and many more famous in their generations and such it is and shall be in all others that faithfully serve him though it be not ever manifest in all And what is there now that can more deeply affect a good heart what can a religious mind so much desire unto it self or behold with so great delight in another as to see a devout and penitent Soul give a peaceful farewel unto Nature and in the midst of death depart full of comforts of immortality and life as those Souls only do whom God shall vouchsafe to lead out of their corruptible prisons with the sweet consolations of his spirit But peradventure far off examples will be left too far off respects Usually those that are nearest do affect us most if so this sad occasion will afford you a worthy one for I have done with her Text and must speak as I promised and you expect of her person that made choice of the Text and by this time you cannot but perceive how justly She delighted in prayer and praise while she lived and she left this behind her written with her own hand that it might testify so much for her even after her death and that by it she might in a sort lest her thankfulness being private should die with her self publickly praise the name of God amidst the company of the righteous the congregation of good men here on earth even then when she her self freed from her prison should be singing honour and glory with Saints and Angels in Heaven Yet this was not all the reason of her choice It sorted well with her condition whilst she was in the body and she knew it would be fully accomplished when she should be led out of it For she had her part of afflictions and they prest sore upon her too even straitned her Soul Her branches she saw were rent away branch after branch and to so loving a nature they could not but go off as limbs from her body What Bernard
another How did that one word of the Witch strike Saul thorough and thorough leaving him tumbling on the earth in a swoon To morrow by this time thou and thy sons shall be with me so bitter indeed is the remembrance even of bodily death unto those that have no spiritual life in their Souls But what misery may we think will there be in the enduring and suffering of that whose only expectation is so fearful Sad and fearful is the departure of the wicked though it outwardly appear not in all the comforts of my Text belong not to them as their Spirits were dead whilest they lived so they shall not live when they die Where there is no righteousness there can be no life For the Spirit c. No the righteous the righteous that is the faithful and penitent Souls these are they who as they have the true spiritual life in present so in death they shall have the true comforts of the blessed life which is to come for however God at other times brings trouble heaviness and afflictions on his best servants yet at that hour he never fails to assist them and in the midst of death to make the life of their Souls appear more clearly for righteousness sake He may seem to absent himself from them and to hide his counâ—◠〈◊〉 but then in that day of need in that last and fearful time which most requires it they shall be sure of his comforts he will not fail then to discover his face and make the light of his countenance to shine into that region of darkness and by the gracious beams thereof to chear up his people lighting and guiding their feet through that obscure Valley and shadow of death into the blessed ways of immortality and peace Believe not me look upon the holy men of God a little and see it perfomed with your Eyes Behold the Patriarch Jacob the Father of the Patriarchs he who wrestled not only that one time at the River Jabbock but all his life long with the arme of the Almighty continually afflicting him But see how contrary it fell out in the end when all the clouds of affliction being blown over a calm of contentment follows and he is gathered unto his Fathers in peace but first mark how the Lord gave him strength before he went hence and was no more seen wherewith he collects his fainting Spirits raiseth himself in his bed calls his Sons about him tells them of things to come great things to come for many generations and with an inspired Spirit ready to expire gives every one his several blessing and benediction in such a prophetical so high and Heavenly a strain and stile as if an Angel had sate on his lip and I doubt not but many Angels sate waiting in that door of the body for the coming forth of his Soul which stayed not long after to receive and convey it into the bosom of his Grand-father Abraham there to rest in everlasting peace Look upon Joshua that valiant Captain who having spent his life in travail and more than Herculean labours warring against Gyants and the Sons of Aâ—ak yet at last you may see him sitting down in peace and dividing the spoil among the Children of Jacob And in the end death drawing near see how he summons the Tribes of Israel together and in a sweet Oration recounts unto them all the mercies of God which had followed them from Terab the Father of Abraham that dwelt beyond the flood to Cheusem that had now gotten possession of the promised land within Jordan And being full of the spirit and spiritual life with such power of speech he exhorts them to the fear and service of this merciful God that the whole Congregation as if they had had but one heart and one Soul and both throughly affected joyntly cry out God forbid that we should forsake the Lord nay he is our God and we will serve him Josh the last After this manner from the flame of his own zeal having kindled a fire in the hearts of others this great Worthy and worthy Servant of the Lord lived in his death and dyed in peace See holy Samuel the Judge of Israel going to his grave as to his bed and in him consider the power and vertue of a good conscience arising from the memory of a well acted life Whose Ox or whose Ass have I taken whom have I defrauded or opprest or at whose hands have I received a bribe saith he in the publick assembly and all the people bare witness unto him saith the Text. Hoc ducit ad fâ—nus sepulturam this is it that accompanies him to his Grave and layes him in his rotten Sepulcher The like blessed savour of rest did this peace of conscience send forth in the blessed Apostle S. Paul who in that wonderful confidence was bold to deliver up his Soul in the breath of the same words as it were his Saviour had done before him a Consummatum est I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness which the Lord the just Judge shall give me in that day words worthy of a Soul so near its Heaven Lastly view the Protomartyr Steven blessed with peace in the midst of a cruel death for all torments are easy if they have answerable comforts The obstinate Jews threw the stones of death at him but he filled with the Holy Ghost looks stedfastly into Heaven where he beholds his Saviour standing at the right hand of God to whom now dying he speaks as he had done before to his Father in manus tuas into thy hands O Lord I commend my Spirit Such have been the blessed ends of these holy men of God and of many others famous in their Generations and such it shall be in all others that faithfully serve him though peradventure it is not manifest in all Their bodies are buried in the Earth but they have left a name behind them and a memory sweeter than the perfume made by the art of the Apothecary as was spoken of the good King Josiah And what is there now that can more deeply affect an honest and a good heart what can a religious mind either so much desire unto it self or behold with so great joy in another as to see a devout and penitent Soul give a peaceful farewel unto Nature and in the depth of death depart full of the comforts of immortality and life But it may be far off examples will be left too far off respects for likely those that are nearest do affect us better if so you want them not neither two among the rest more remarkable you have had of late The one not long since the other now before your eyes The Mother and the Daughter of both whom I may truly say in the words of my Text their bodies were dead while they lived and their Souls lived in the death of their bodies for righteousness sake A