harshness and rashness but Zwinglius answered In alijs Epist ad Servet mansuetus ero in blasphemijs in Christum non ita a Injuriam contra me patienter â—ult contra Christum ferre non potui I can beare any wrong done to my selfe but against Christ I am not able saith Jerome b Invâ—niar sane superbus modo impij sidentij noâ— arguar dum dominus patitur Luth. Epist ad Staup. Let me be accounted proud and passionate so I be not found guilty of sinfull silonce when the cause of Christ suffers Luther Sometimes to be dumb in Christs cause is as bad as at sometimes to deny Christs cause yea indeed dumbness is deniall and they know what sad consequences will follow thereupon Matth. 10. 33. Inform. 4. It renders the reason why the godly so little weigh and value the judgements of men because tbey eye the judgement of Christ What cares Joseph though he be accounted incontinent Naboth a blasphemer Job an hypocrite Michaiah the troubler of Israel Paul a pestilent fellow Luther the Trumpeter of rebellion they and all other believers doe say in Pauls words With us it is a very Jusii non humana judicia sed aeterm judicis examen aspiciunt et ideo cum Paulo derogantium verba despiciunt Ans Acts Mon. small thing that we should be judged of mans judgement he that judgeth us is the Lord 1 Cor. 4. 3 4. They well know how erroneous the men of the world are in their judgement they call white blacke and account cyphers figures and figures cyphers Thou art an hereticke said Woodrosse the Sheriffe to Mr Rogers the Protomartyr in Q. Maries dayes That shall be knowne said he at the day of Judgement Rom. 2. 2. We know Gods judgement is according to truth Inform. 5. What good ground all persons have to get into favour with Jesus Christ who is to sit Judge upon the life and death of their bodies and soules for all eternity Pro. 29. 26. Many seeke the Rulers favour how do men desire to ingratiate themselves into the favour of the Judge though but of Nisi prius if they have but an action of the case to try what suings sollicitations presents how much more to this Judge who when he hath killed the body is able to cast soule and body into hell-fire Matth. 10. 28. Inform. 6. How to demeane our selves under all wrongs either nationall from publique Magistrates or particular from private persons patiently waite upon this righteous Judge Eccles 5. 8. If thou seest the oppression of the poore and violent perverting of judgement in a Province marvell not murmure not at the matter For he that is higher than the highest regardeth yea so regardeth that he will right and revenge all thy unjust and injurious sentences James 5. 6 7. You have condemned and killed the just and he doth not resist you be patient therefore brethren untill the coming of the Lord. Oh remember John Husse Jerome of Prague with many other sufferers and sustainers of injuries and indignities who did not appellare Caesarem but Christum Inform. 7. It shewes us how greatly and greivously they offend who ascend Christs judgement-seate arraigne men at their barre passe sentence of death on all those that are not of their way opinion party side judgement many judge themselves the greatest Christians because they are the greatest Criticks to judge others I shall endeavour to cleere this that he or she that is the greatest censurer is ever the greatest sinner the more criticall ever the more hypocriticall 1. The rash judging of thy mouth is a trumpet to proclaime the reall jugling of thy minde Marke 14. 70 Thou art a Galilaan thy speech agreeth thereto Stinking breaths argue rotten lungs and rash judging rotten hearts Matth. 12. 34. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh Such water as is in the pipe such is in the spring the mettall of the bell is knowne by the clapper Aera puto nosci tinnitu pectora verbis Sic est namque id sunt utraque quale sonant 2. Christ calls thee and the Scripture accounts thee an hypocrite 1. Christ calls thee so Thou hypocrite plucke first the Matth. 7 5. beame out of thine owne eye he that sees strawes in other mens eyes and hath beames in his owne is an hypocrite he that sayes and sees all things are yellow in others it is sure his owne eyes are troubled with the jaundise 2. The Scripture accounts thee so James 1. 26. If any man among you seeme to be religious and bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his own heart this mans religion is vaine that religion which layes and leaves the reines loose to the tongue to slander men for their present state and to censure them for their finall it is but a videtur quod sic a dissembling counterfeite religion for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies Prov. 26. 23. Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a potsheard covered with silver drosse Os maledictum cor malum Luth. A censorious mouth and a corrupt minde are like a potsheard covered with silver drosse which shew and shine faire to the eye yet the one is but earth and the other is but drosse Burning lips of mens persons in hell shew their tongue is set on fire from the hell of their owne hearts James 3. 6. 3. Thou art an impudent and audacious hypocrite thou pretendest faire to Christ and yet thou puttest him by his chaire robbest him of his royalty to be Judge of mens finall estate is Christs prerogative The Pope is a notorious hypocrite he pretends himselfe to be Christs Vicar yet he thrusts Christ by all his royalties he pardons sins enjoynes penances pilgrimages dispences with Christs Injunctions disposes of Kings and Kingdoms and blasphemously affirms Per me reges regnant Qui judicat fratrem tantum crimen clationis incurrit ut cui tribunal assumit ejus judicium praevenit Ans What art thou but another usurping Pope jostling Christ from his royall tribunall and sets downe thy selfe acting his part and exercising his power summoning and sentencing by thy Bulls people to eternall death and destruction Would it not be an impudent part for any private man to summon in the Country to sit in the Judges place to act his part to passe sentence of death much more is this 4. Thou art an obstinate and obdurate hypocrite thou perseverest in this sin against the cleere light of Scripture charging and commanding to forbeare all such rash and irreligious judging Matth. 7. 1. Judge not i. e. rashly or rigidly actions or persons for their finall state Bern. Noli esse alienae vitae temerarius judex Rom. 14. 10. But why doest thou judge and why doest thou set at naught thy brother A chiding and checking Apostrophe in an Interrogation 1 Cor. 4. 5. Let us judge nothing before the time it is very dangerous to antidate and anticipate judgement
over Kingdomes the basest of men God gives the kingdomes of the earth to them he never intends to give the Kingdom of heaven To conclude this truth with that message which godly Mr. Buchanon sent to King James when he lay a dying Remember me to him and tell him I am going to a place where few Kings come Kings are as rare meat in heaven as Venison in poor mens kitchins as it is in the Dutch Proverb 3. Judges how few of them that find others not judgement-proof will be found judgement-proof themselves they are Kings creatures who as their masters and makers are usually bad so they are seldome good Zeph 3. 3. Her Princes within her are roaring Lions her Judges are evening Wolves Where Princes are Lions for their power and roaring for their prey there likewise are the Judges Wolves crudelium emblemata they fleece they flaw they feed they feast themselves upon the poor Clients as Wolves do upon sheep and Lambs and they are evening Wolves that have had no prey very ravening and rapacious Luke 18. 2. Our Saviour tells us there was in a Citie a Judge that feared not God nor regarded man Oh how happy had the world been if there had been but one Judge thus corrupted and one Citie thus abused but alas how have all Kingdomes Cities Counties been pestered with multitudes of such Judges as have neither piety towards God nor pitie towards man Divine writ humane Histories yea our own Chronicles abound with Exempli gratia's of them Psalm 82. 2 3 4 5. How long will yee judge unjustly and accept the persons of the wicked Defend the poor and fatherless do justice to the afflicted and needy deliver the poor and needy rid them out of the hand of the wicked They know not neither will they understand they walk on in darkness all the foundations of the earth are out of course What should I trouble you with them who troubled others while they lived with injustice oppression as Felix who looked for a bribe of Paul Acts 24. 25 26 27. Ananias who commanded Paul to be smitten Acts 23. 2 3. Gallio who suffered Paul to be beaten and cared not for it Acts 18. 17. But especially above all the Lord chief Justice of unjust Judges Pilate who was warned of his wife knew that out of malice the Jewes had delivered Christ professed upon all he heard and had examined he found no fault in him yea he had terrors of conscience upon him that made him afraid and yet to continue Caesars friend he is an enemy to Christ justice and his own soul John 19. 6 Matth. 27. 18 19. 8 12 13 14 15. As for humane Histories Surely Persia was pestred with multitudes of such Judges that Cambyses their King was forced to put Silanes to death and command his skin to be pluckt off and to be nailed to the Tribunall and put Olanes his son to be set on his Fathers Throne that both he and all other Judges might ever after be afraid to be unrighteous Judges Surely Rome was much infected that Alexander was forced according to his Sur-name to be Severus Lamprid. in Sever. to smother Taurinus a corrupt Judge with smoak commanding the Praeco to cry Fumo pereat qui fumum vendidit But our histories afford us too too many instances of the bribery injustice partiality of Judges I shall read their charge in the words of the Author Britannia habet Judices Gild. de excid Brit. orth pag. 1010. protegentes c. Britain hath Judges protecting but to wit protecting the guilty robbers adulterers swearers forswearers I am loath ulcus refricare else I could easily prove that one of the greatest causes of our late miseries was the corruption of our Judges But dis-gratias a Writ of ease is issued out against such Judges 4. Lawyers how few of them that truly plead the causes of their Clients without fraud or falshood How few of them do as Pericles did to his gods pray to the Lord to set a watch before their mouth and to keep the door of their lips How do they make the Law which is the Wall to fence off the people propriety a broken bowing bending Wall sometime to this side sometime to that to this sense and that sense as it will at that time best fit their turns How few but make Candida de nigris de candentibus atra Evill good and good evill make darkness light and light Isai 5. 2. darkness How few but parget over rotten causes with the made mortar of the Law whereby they appear white and sound I have often admired why the Lawyer in behalf of his fraternity took distaste at our Saviours reproving the Scribes and Pharisees for being graves that which appears not and the men that walk over them are not aware of them and all that satisfies me is that his conscience flew in his face and accused him that he and they were those graves that with flourish't words as with grasse did cover rotten and stinking carcasses and Causes of which Juries were not aware they care not what cause they plead in nor who the Client is they plead for nor who the party they Acts 24. 12. plead against Aperi bursam ego aperiam buccam If the client will open his purse mouth wide for his Lawyer his Lawyer wil open his mouth wide for his Client and so make good that sad and strange saying of that famous Lawyer Nevessan He that will not venture his body will never be valiant and he that will not venture his soul will never be wealthy 5. Souldiers how degenerated are they from the first Army of believers that was raised as we read of in the Scripture Gen. 14. 14. Abraham Captain General of all those forces that rescued Lot Where take notice of two particulars 1. The Generall doth not detain nor suffer to be detained any of Lots or of the King of Sodoms goods It 's a Martiall law made since Abrahams time that goods of their own party taken by the enemy and retaken by their own forces should lose their propriety See v. 16. 2. He doth not plead nor pretend an absolute conquest he would have smiled at such a Riddle yea hist at such a paradox that those who went out with him in their persons or staid at home and sent to him their purses and sent up to heaven for him their prayers should be accounted a conquered nation Caesar wished he had such Souldiers as were in Alexanders dayes we may say oh that we had such Souldiers as were in Abrahams dayes But we find the Poet a Prophet Nulla fides pietasque viris qui castra sequuntur Lucan lib. 10. Bell. civil Venalesque manus ibi fas ubi maxima merces Luke 3. 14. When the Souldiers had some desire to know of John Baptist what to do that they might be saved he tells them that they must do violence to no man neither accuse any falsly
5. Thou art a cruell and bloody hypocrite Prov. 11. 9. A hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbour it shews thy nature to be brutish and bloody to judge mens soules to eternall ruine and destruction and to have no thoughts of pitty towards them Didst thou ever see a Judge passe sentence upon a poore malefactor for the death of his body without teares or sorrow how canst thou so readily and rejoycingly passe sentence on their soules But to drive home this naile to the head and heart the persons thou judgest either are Elect or Reprobate 1. Elect wilt thou condemne them whom God hath not will not condemne Rom. 8. 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus v. 34 Who is he that condemneth The glove is cast downe by way of a challenge and thou darest to take it up Our Saviour when he saw no man condemned the woman in adultery would John 8. 11. not condemne her But now God hath not condemned his Elect yet thou O vaine man wilt condemne them Who art thou that judgest another James 4. 12. 2. Reprobate persons thou condemnest them before their time 1 Cor. 4. 5. Let us judge nothing before the time There is a time for every purpose under heaven Eccles 3. 1. Now to meddle with any thing before that time as it is unseasonable so it is unsafe Our Saviour would not torment the Devils before their time and wilt thou condemne thine own flesh before its time Oh grutch them not an inch of time they are shortly to be tormented eternally in hell Be not so cruell a hangman as to hasten a malefactor that is to suffer within an houre 6. Thou shalt have the hypocrites portion Hell is the hypocrites Fee simple Matth. 24. 51. And appoint him his portion with hypocrites Hypocrites are Free-holders of hell others are but terants Judas that grand hypocrite Acts 1. 25. He went to his owne place Christ will be as forward to send them to hell as they have been forward to send others Matth. 7. 2. With what judgement you judge you shall be judged and with what measure you mete it shall be measured to you againe My brethren be not many Masters knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation James 3. 1. All that a man gets by such judgement is greater judgement thou provokest Christ as Lot did the Sodomites to deale worse with thee then with them Thus the Pharisees those eminent hypocrites are threatned with greater condemnation Math. 23. 14. God heats the Furnace of hell as Nebuchadnezzar did his Furnace for the Dan. 3. 19. three Children seven times hotter for hypocrites than for other sinners Inform. 8. See what little cause Saints have too much and too immoderately to lament the death and departure of their deare and neare relations either by the flesh or spirit they are not lost but laid downe in a full and firme assurance of coming againe this Judge will send his Writ of Habeas Corpus to remove them from the prison of the grave See how forcibly the Apostle presses this argument on the Thessalonians 1 Ep. 4. 13. That they mourn not as those that have no hope He renders the reason v. 14. Those that sleepe in Jesus will God bring with him Every one that sleeps shall be awakened the Curtaines of the grave shall be drawn and every Lazarus shall come forth then shall that Scripture be litterally true Eph. 5. 14. Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee ligbt Lumen gloriae 2 Vse Is of examination To try our selves by this Touchstone whether we are in the number of those that do believe this truth That Christ shall shortly come to be a Judge I shall propose four Questions to be resolved by your own hearts 1. What interest have you in him 2. What influence have you from him 3. What affections beare you to him 4. What preparations make you for him 1. What interest have you in him Hath a true and lively saith entituled you to invested you with all his glorious benefits Hath a surpassing love matcht and married you to his person Doth faith make him your head Doth love make him your husband Can you not only say with Ignatius our Love is crucified but also our Love is Judge Hear the not triumphant but triumphing Spouse Cant. 6. 2. I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine Hast thou resigned up thy selfe to be his and accepted him to be thine and that by a matrimoniall Covenant Doest thou love him as a husband and not feare him as a Judge then thou expectedst him to come as a Judge 2. What influence have you from him Are you ingrafted branches in that Vine which suck all their sap John 15. 4 5. strength sweetness from it whereby you bring forth all those delightfull fruits of prayer fasting hearing meditation conference doe you doe all in the name of Christ Col. 3. 19. Are you perswaded you can do all things through Christ Phil. 4. 13. 3. What affections do you beare to him 1. To his person 2. To his people 3. To his appearing 1. To his person Is his person the feate and centre of thy affection the height and heaven of thy love Canst thou really and experimentally use the Spouses sweet Periphrasis as being ravished with his person Cant. 3. 1 2 3 4. Four times in four verses Thou whom my soule loveth Is Christ all the love of thy soule hath he the love of all thy soul do all the parts and powers of thy soul meet as the beames of the Sun in a burning Glasse in the person of Christ Then is thy love pure and pretious love such as is in those believers who shall admire the glorious coming of Christ as a Judge 2 Thess 1. 10. 2. To his people have the Saints the chiefe roome in thy heart and house as they had with Ingo King of the Draves who placed his Peeres in his hall but believers in his parlour because they were to be Peeres with him in a better Kingdome 1 John 4. 17. Herein is love made perfect with us that we may have boldnes in the day of judgement Those that truly love their brethren shall not only dwell in God here but also dwell with God hereafter Cotton in loc for the words are nothing else but an argument deduced from v. 12. on which these words have their dependance 3. To his appearing 1. Doest thou love it are the thoughts thereof delightfull would the sight thereof be joyfull 2 Tim. 4. 8. Vnto them that love his appearing the day of judgement will be a day of coronation to all them that love his appearing 2. Doest thou look for it expecting and waiting for it as the Indians do for the Sunnes rising in the morning Tit. 2. 13. Looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ 3. Doest thou labour
morning in the glasse of judgement it would cure your black pimples and cover your naked brests those two famous Ensignes of strumpets If you Hectors with your Mad-dames would perfume your beds with the muske of Judgement it would cure you of and keep you from the Noli me tangere If you drunkards would spice your morning draughts with the Nutmeg of judgement it would keep you from reeling and spuing all that day In a word if all would seriously thinke of being judged by the law of liberty it would make them so to speake and so to doe as they might hold up their heads in that time James 2. 12. Vse 6. Of consolation to all the friends and favourites of Jesus Christ out of the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah cometh better and sweeter honey then out of Sampsons Lyon Judges 14. 8. come pretious soules here you may satiate you cannot surfet your selves When this Judge comes then is the time for you to lift up your heads Luke 21. 28. Then is your time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord Acts 3. 19. Then is your marriage day Rev. 19 7. Then is your Coronation day 2 Tim. 4. 8. There are four things that are brests of comfort and consolation to you 1. The neare and deare relations between you and the Judge he that is Judge on the Bench was your Advocate at the barre your friend at the board your husband in the bed it is he that suffered for your sakes satisfied for your sins interceded for your prayers pleaded for your persons What made the Apostle so peremptorily to aske that question Rom. 8. 34. Who is he that condemneth it is Christ that dyed Quomodo Christus cum damnabit quem propria mors redemit Amb. lib. de Jacob. cap. 6. 2. The shortness of the time it will not be long before this Judge comes though I dare not say with Alsted in his Chronol that 1657 should be the yeare because the numerall letters are found in mundi conflagratio nor yet with Napier that 1688 shal be the year for those are Arcana coeli yet I may say with Bucanon if 1600 yeares agoe were ultimum tempus that then this is ultimum temporis I may say with Tertullian this is clausulum seculi with Austin Christ is in proximo with Cyprian he is supra caput yea I may say of some here as was said of Simeon they shall not depart this life before they shall see the Lords Christ Heb. 10. 37. For yet a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry The originall is very full and emphaticall every word hath its weight to shew not only the certainty but especially the celerity of his coming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet a little very little while 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is on his way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instabit Paraeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Att makes no delay the summe is he is on the wing he comes post he will be here before most are aware 3. What this Judge brings with him Rev. 22. 12. Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me Christ comes with his hands full of wages and rewards 1 John 3. 2. We know when he shall appeare we shall be like him 2 Thes 1. 10. He shall come to be glorified in all his Saints and to be admired in all them that beleeve It s not possible for me to expresse nor you to conceive what wages Christ brings with him it is beyond rhetorick and reading Coelum Christus non patiuntur hyperbolen Quicquid dixero minus erit Yet I shall adventure to give you a tast of the fruit of the heavenly Canaan which may suffice and satisfie you untill your blessed Josuah shall lead you into it I shall for method-sake divide these blessings into benefits for the body benefits for the soule and benefits for both 1. Benefits to the body Which are of two sorts 1. Privative 2. Positive 1. Privative there shall be a releasing our bodies 1. From all miseries 2. From all necessities 3. From all deformities 1. From all miseries 1. From penury and poverty those dura tela there shall be no beggar in that heavenly Israel 2. From toile and labour no Redit agricolis labor actus in orbem As when night of death comes no man can worke so when day of glory comes no man shall worke all holy-dayes heaven is nothing else but an eternall play day 3. From the yoak of servitude and subjection Politicall Oeconomicall Ecclesiasticall then will be the yeare of release the universall Jubilee then shall God be all in all 1 Cor. 15. 28. 4. From persecution no dogs nor devourers there the dogs shall be cast into the kennell of hell to hang and howle for ever 5. From those three arrowes of sword plague famine Rev. 21. 1. No more Sea this world is that Sea these three the billowes which breake the bones of men and backs of Kingdomes 6. From all diseases and sicknesses all pangs and paines all Doctors and Physicians Recipes will be uselesse there heaven 's a probatum est against all maladies 7. From death no crying or dying there in that Church no bell to toll the passing knell in that City no bils of mortality printed 2. From all necessities 1. From food and sustenance we shall not live with the Salamander in the fire with the Camaeleon by the aire but we shall live by the eye Rev. 7. 16 17. 2. From rayment studying marriage c. Matth. 22. 30. As the Angels of God 3. From all deformities no monsters nor mishapes in heaven that rectifies all 2. Positive benefits to our bodies 1. Our bodies shall be perfect and personable without spot or blemish better then if made of wax and alablaster no need shall our Ladies have then of Peter and Paul or black spots Phil. 3. 21. Glorious bodies 2. Immortall and incorruptible heaven hath embalming spices to keep our bodies for ever Adam had Vt scholastici a posse non mori a non posse non mori a mori non posse this last shall then be our condition 3. Spirituall and transparent like Venice glasses with water in them which shew all the parts and proportions of the things in them Corpora beatorum ita erint diaphana ut oculis intuentium appareant venae humores viscera nervi ac tota omnium partium harmonia Thom in Add q. 85. act 1. 4. Active and agile they shall sequi ad nutum animae they shall move though not in instanti yet tempore imperceptibili 5. Mighty and powerfull Luther is perswaded that the bodies of the Saints shall be of that strength that they shall be able to tosse the greatest mountaine like a ball 2. Benefits for the soul Si tanti vitrum quanti margarita if the Cabinet be thus rare what shall be the jewel surely Christ will not do as the Aegyptians build stately Temples without and have