in this place when it is said Christ our passover is sacrificed for us So as here is a trope or figure twice told First the lamb is the passover Secondly Christ is that paschal Lamb. You would think this now far-fetched here was a double passing over The Angels passing over the Israelites the Israelites passing out of Egypt both were acts the one of God the other of men as for the lamb it is an animal substance Yet this Lamb represents this passover This is no newes in sacramental speeches The thing signed is usually put for the sign it self My covenant shall be in your flesh that is circumcision the sign of my covenant the rock that followed them was Christ 1 Cor. 10.4 that is Christ was represented by that rock This cup is the new testament So here Christ our passover Gen. 17.13 that is Christ represented by the Paschal-lamb What an infatuation is upon the Romish party that rather then they will admit of any other then a grosse literall capernaiticall sence in the words of our Saviours sacramental supper This is my body will confound Heaven and Earth together and either by a too forceable consequence endeavour to overthrow the truth of Christs humanity or turne him into a monster a wafer a crum a nothing Whenas St. Austin hath told us plainly sacramentaliter intellectum vivificabit Take it in a sacramental sence there is infinite comfort and spiritual life in it As for his body St. Peter hath told us the heavens must contain him till the time of the restitution of all things Acts 3.21 Yea when our Saviour himself hath told us the words that I speak are spirit and life Jo. 6. Now what a marvellous mercy was this of God to Israel thus to passe over them when he slew the first-borne of Egypt There was not an house in all Egypt wherein there was not mourning and lamentation no roof but coverd a suddainly made carcasse what an unlook't for consternation was here in every Egyptian Family Only the Israelites that dwelt amongst them were free to applaud this judgment that was inflicted upon their tyrannous persecutors and for their very cause inflicted for this mercy are they beholden under God to the blood of their Paschal-lamb sprinkled upon their door-posts Surely had they eaten the lamb and not sprinkled the blood they had not escaped the stroak of the destroying Angel This was in figure In reality it is so It is by and from the blood of our redeemer sprinkled upon our souls that we are freed from the vengeance of the Almighty Had not he dyed for us were not the benefit of his precious blood applyed to us we should lye open to all the fearful judgments of God and as to the upshot of all eternall death of body and soul As then the Israelites were never to eat the Paschal-lamb but they were recalled to the memory of that saving preterition of the Angel and Gods merciful deliverance from the fiery furnaces of the Egyptians so neither may we ever behold this sacramental representation of the death of our blessed Saviour but we should bethink our selves of the infinite mercy of our good God in saving us from everlasting death and rescuing us from the power of hell This is the first figure That the Lamb is the Passover The se-second followes That Christ is that Paschal-Lamb Christ then being the end of the Law it is no marvell if all the ceremonies of the Law served to prefigure and set him forth to Gods people but none did so clearly and fully resemble him as this of the paschal Lambe whether we regard 1. the choyce 2. the preparation 3. the eating of it The choice whether in respect of the nature or the quality of it the nature ye know this creature is noted for innocent meek gentle profitable such was Christ our Saviour His fore-runner pointed at him under this stile Behold the Lamb of God what perfect innocence was here No guile found in his mouth Hell it self could finde nothing ro quarrel at in so absolute integrity What admirable meekness He is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so opened be not his mouth Esay 53.7 Doth his own treacherous servant betray him to the death Friend wherefore art thou come Mat. 26.50 Do the cruel tormentors tenter out his pretious limmes and nail his hands and feet to the tree of shame and curse Father forgive them for they know not what they do Oh patience and meeknesse incident into none but an infinite sufferer 2ly The quality Every Lamb would not serve the turne it must be agnus immaculatus A lamb without blemish that must be paschal Exod. 12.5 Neither doth it hinder ought that leave is there given to a promiscuous use either of lamb or kid for the sacramental supper of the passover For that was only allowed in a case of necessity as Theodoret rightly and as learned Junius well in the confusion of that first institution wherein certainly a lamb could not be gotten on the suddain by every Israelitish house-keeper to serve six hundred thousand men and so many there were Exod. 12.37 This liberty then was only for the first turne as divers other of those ceremonious circumstances of the passover were namely the four daies preparation the sprinkling of the blood upon the door-cheeks eating with girded loines and staves in their hands which were not afterward required or practised The lamb then must represent a most holy and perfectly sin-less Saviour could he have been capable of the least sin even in thought he had been so far from ransoming the World that he could not have saved himself Now his exquisite holinesse is such as that by the perfection of his merits he can and doth present his whole Church to himself glorious not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing as holy and without blemish Ephes 5.27 Canst thou therefore accuse thy self for a sinful wretch a soul blemished with many foul imperfections Look up man lo thou hast a Saviour that hath holinesse enough for himself and thee and all the World of beleevers close with him and thou art holy and happy Behold the immaculate lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world thine Therefore if thou canst lay hold on him by a lively faith and make him thine This for the choice the preparation followes so Christ is the paschal lamb in a threefold respect in resemblance of his killing sprinkling his blood and roasting 1. This Lamb to make a true passover must be slain So was there a necessity that our Jesus should dye for us The two Disciples in their walk to Emaus hear this not without a round reproof from the mouth of their risen Saviour Oh fooles and slow of heart to beleeve all that the Prophets have spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory Luc. 24.26 Ought not there is
excellent the Person so much more hainous is the offence done to him As to offend an Officer is in the eye of the Law more then to offend a private Subject a Magistrate more then an inferiour Officer a Peere more then a Magistrate for that is Scandalum Magnatum a Prince more then a Peere a Monarch more then a Prince Now in very nature a Spirit is more excellent then a Body I could send you higher but if we do but look into our own breasts we shall finde the difference There is a Spirit in Man saith Elihu Job 32.8 The Spirit of Man is as the Candle of the Lord saith Wise Solomon Prov. 20.27 without which the whole House is all dark and confused Now what comparison is there betwixt the Soul which is a Spirit and the Body which is Flesh even this which Wise Solomon instanceth in may serve for all The Spirit of a Man sustains his infirmities but a wounded Spirit who can hear Lo the Body helps to breed infirmities and the Spirit bears them out to which add the Body without the Spirit is dead the Spirit without the Body lives more It is a sad word of David when he complaines My bones are vexed Ps 6.2 and cleaves to my skin Psal 102.5 yet all this is tolerable in respect of that My Spirit faileth me My Spirit is overwhelmed within me my heart within me is desolate Psal 143.4 they were sore strokes that fetcht blood of our blessed Saviour but they were nothing to these inward torments that wrung from him the bloody sweat in his Agony when he said my soul is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heavy unto the Death could we conceive that the Body could be capable of pain without the Spirit as indeed it is not since the Body feeles only by the Spirit that pain were painlesse but this we are sure of that the Spirit feels more exquisite pain without the Body in the state of separation from it then it could feel in the former conjunction with it and the wrong that is done to the Soul is more haynous then that which can be inflicted on the Body By how much then more pure simple perfect excellent the Spirit is whom we offend by so much more grievous is the offence to offend the Spirit of any good Man one of Christs little ones is so hainous that it were better for a man to have a milstone hanged about his neck and to be cast into the bottom of the Sea Mat. 18.6 To offend an Angel which is an higher degree of spirituality is more then to vex the Spirit of the best man Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy Flesh to sin neither say before the Angel that it was an errour Eccles 5.6 Hence St. Paul heightens his adjuration to Timothy I charge thee before the Elect Angels 1 Tim. 5.21 And giving order for the decent demeanure of the Corinthian Women in the Congregation requires That they should have power on their head because of the Angels 1 Cor. 11.10 To offend therefore the God of Spirits the Father of these spirituall Lights must needs be an infinite aggravation of the sin even so much more as He is above those his best Creatures and there cannot be so much distance betwixt the poorest worme that crawles on the Earth and the most glorious Archangel of Heaven as there is betwixt him and his Creator One would think now there could be no step higher then this yet there is our Saviour hath so taught us to distinguish of sins that he tells us All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven Matth. 12.31 and Marc. 3.29 Not that we can sin against one Person and not offend another for their essence is but one but this sin is singled out for a special obstruction of forgivenesse for that it is done against the illumination and Influence of that Grace whereof the Holy Ghost is the immediate giver and worker in the Soul who is therfore called the Spirit of Grace hereupon is Stevens challenge to the stiff-necked Jews Act. 7.51 Ye do alwayes resist the holy Ghost And his charge to Ananias Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost Act. 5.3 Ye see then how this charge riseth and what force is put into it by the condition of the Person A Spirit the holy Spirit the holy Spirit of God enough to make way for the consideration of the Act inhibited Grieve not the holy Spirit of God Grieve not c. How incompatible are the termes of this charge That which makes the sin as it is set forth more sinfull may seem to make it impossible If a Spirit how is it capable of passion and if it be impassible how can it be grieved Alas we weak mortalls are subject to be hurried about with every blast of passion The Almighty is above all the reach of these unquiet perturbations Lo that God which mercifully condescended because his infinite glory transcends our weaknesse to speak unto us men by man and by Angels in the forme of Men speaks to us men in the style and language of Men Two wayes then may the Spirit of God be said to be grieved in Himself in his Saints in himself by an Anthropopathie as we call it In his Saints by a Sympathie the former is by way of Allusion to humane passion and carriage so doth the Spirit of God upon occasion of mens sins as we do when we are grieved with some great wrong or unkindnesse And what do we then First we conceive an high dislike of and displeasure at the Act Secondly we withdraw our countenance and favour from the offender Thirdly we inflict some punishment upon the offence and these are all of them dreadfull expressions of the grieving of Gods Spirit even these three displeasure aversion punishment For the first Esay expresseth it by vexation Esay 63.10 A place so much more worthy of observation for that some judicious interpreters as Reverend Calvin Zanchius Pagnine and Cornelius a Lapide think very probably that this text is borrowed from thence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And they rebelled and vexed the Spirit of his holinesse Where such an Act is intimated as compriseth both grief and Anger surely we do not think it safe to irritate the great and if it be but a man a little bigger then our selves we are ready to deprecate his displeasure but if it be a man that is both great and dear to us with whom we are faln out how unquiet are we if we have any good nature in us till we have recovered his lost favour do ye not see with what importunity good David seeks to appease the wrath of his incensed Father in Law none of the best men and causelesly provoked Let my Lord the King hear the words of his Servant If the Lord have stirred thee up against me let him accept an offering but if they
we finde the face of God clouded from us let our souls refuse comfort till we have recovered his favour which is better then life do we find our selves upon our sound repentance received to grace and favour of the Almighty and that he is well pleased with our persons and with our poor obediences and that he smiles upon us in Heaven courage dear Brethren in spight of all the frowns and menaces of the World we are safe and shall be happy here is comfort for us in all tribulation 2 Cor. 1.4 with that chosen vessel we are troubled on every side yet not distressed â—e are perplexed but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken 2. Cor. 4.8 cast down but not destroyed for which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish 16. yet the inward man is renewed day by day for our light Affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us 18. a farr more exceeding and eternall weight of glory to the full possession whereof the God that hath ordained us graciously bring us for the sake of the Son of his love Jesus Christ the righteous To whom with the Father and the holy Ghost three persons and one glorious God be given all praise honour glory and dominion now and for evermore A Second SERMON In prosecution of the same Text PREACHT AT St. GREGORIES CHURCH IN NORWICH July 21. 1644. By JOS. B. of N. EPHES. 4.30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed to the day of Redemption WE have done with the Dehortation it self and therein with the Act forbidden Grieve not and with the title of the Subject the Holy Spirit of God We descend to the inforcement of the Dehortation by the great merit of the Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed to the day of Redemption Those that are great and good we would not willingly offend though meer strangers to us but if they be besides our great friends and liberal Benefactors men that have deserved highly of us we justly hold it a foul shame and abominable ingratitude wilfully to do ought that might affront them It is therefore added for a strong disswasive from Grieving the Spirit of God that by him we are sealed to the day of redemption All the world shall in vain strive to do for us what our great Friend in Heaven hath done our loathness therefore to grieve him must be according to the depth of our obligation to him Cast your eyes then a little upon the wonderful Benefit here specified and see First what this day of Redemption is Secondly what is the sealing of us to this day and Thirdly why the sealing of us to this day should be a sufficient motive to withhold us from grieving the Holy Spirit of God These three must be the limits of my Speech and your Atrention Redemption signifies as much as a Ransome A Ransome implies a Captivity or Servitude There is a threefold Captivity from which we are freed Of Sin of Misery of Death For the first We are sold under sin saith our Apostle No Slave in Argier is more truly sold in the Market under a Turkish Pyrate then we are naturally sold under the Tyranny of sin by whom we are bound hand and foot and can stir neither of them towards God and dungeon'd up in the darkness of our ignorance without any Glimpse of the vision of God For the second the very name of Captivity implyes Misery enough what outward evil is incident into a man which bondage doth not bring with it Wo is me there was never so much captivity in this land since it was a Nation nor so woful a Captivity as this of brethren to brethren Complaints there are good store on both sides of restraint want ill-lodging hard and scant diet Irons insultations scornes and extremities of ill usage of all kindes and what other is to be found in the whole course of this wretched life of ours the best whereof is vanity and the worst infinite vexations But Thirdly if some men have been so externally happy as to avoid some of these miseries for all men smart not alike yet never man did or can avoid the third which is obnoxiousness to death By the offence of one saith the Apostle judgment came upon all men to condemnation Rom. 5.18 Sin hath raigned unto death Ps 21. It is more then an Ordinance a statute law in Heaven Statutum est c. It is enacted to all men once to dye Heb. 9.27 This then is our bondage or captivity now comes our redemption from all these at once when upon our happy dissolution we are freed from sin from misery from death and enter into the possession of glory thus our Saviour Lift up your heads for the day of your redemption draweth nigh thus saith St. Paul The creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption unto the glorious liberty of the Sons of God Rom. 8.21 It is the same condition of the members of Christ which was of the head that they overcome death by dying when therefore the bands of death are loosed and we are fully freed from the dominion of the first death and danger of the second and therein from all the capacity not only of the rule and power of sin but of the life and in-dwelling of it and from all the miseries both bodily and spirituall that attend it and when in the same instant our soul takes possession of that glory which shall once in the consociation of it's glorious partner the body be perfectly consummated Then and not till then is the day of our redemption Is there any of us therefore that complaines of his sad and hard condition here in the world paines of body grief of mind agonies of soul crosses in estate discontentments in his families suffering in his good name let him bethink himself where he is this is the time of his captivity and what other can be expected in this case Can we think there is no difference betwixt liberty bondage Can the slave think to be as free as his Patron Ease rest liberty must be lookt for elsewhere but whiles we are here we must make no account of other then these varieties of misery our redemption shall free us from them all But now perhaps some of you are ready to say of the Redemption as they did of the Resurrection that it is past already and so indeed it is one way in respect of the price laid out by the Son of God the invaluable price of his blood for the redemption of man but so that it must be taken out by and applied to every soul inparticular if we will have the benefit redound to us It is his Redemption before it is now only our Redemption when it is brought home to us Oh then the dear and happy day of this our finall redemption wherein we shall be absolutely freed from all the miserable sorrowes paines cares fears
one house at once nothing to be reserved or carried out For the first you finde it not so in any other cookery or provision of this kind many a Lamb did the Jewes eat in all the year besides these were halved and quartered as occasion served but for the paschal Lamb it must be set on all whole the very entrayles must be washed and put into the roast and brought to the board in an entire dish whosoever would partake of Christ aright must take whole Christ not think to go away with a limme and leave the rest that he should dividere mendacio Christum as that Father speaks as in Gods demands of us he will have all or none so in his grant to us he will give all or none He would not have so much as his coat divided much lesse will he abide himself shall There have been hereticks and I would there were not so still that will be sharing and quartering of Christ one will allow of his humanity not his eternal deity another will allow his humane body but not his soul that must be supplyed by the deity another will allow a divine soul with a fantastick body One will allow Christ to be a Prophet or a Priest but will not admit of him as a King In vain do all these wretched mis-belevers pretend to partake of Christ the passover whiles they do thus set him on by peecemeal They are their own monstrous fancies which they do thus set before themselves not the true paschal Lamb whom we do most sacrilegiously violate instead of receiving if our faith do not represent him to us wholy God and Man soul and body King Priest and Prophet here he is so exhibited to us and if we do thus beleeve in him and thus apply him to our souls we do truly receive him and with him eternal salvation Two particulars follow yet more in the manner then the persons allowed to this banquet no uncircumcised might eat thereof Then in the next place we should descend to the second head of our discourse that Christ is our Passover Then that he is our Passover sacrificed and sacrificed for us Ye see what a World of matter yet remains and offers it self as in a thronge to our meditations but the long business of the ensuing Sacrament forbids our further discourse and calls us from speaking of Christ our Passover to partaking of him For which he prepare our soules that hath dearly bought them and hath given himself to be our true passover To whom with the Father and the blessed Spirit one infinite and incomprehensible God be all Praise Honour and Glory now and for ever Amen A SERMON Preacht at HIGHAM NEAR NORWICH ON SUNDAY July 1. 1655. By JOS. HALL B. N. The first Epistle of the Holy Apostle Peter the first Chapter and the 17th verse If ye call on the Father who without respect of persons judgeth according to every mans work pass the time of your sojourning here in fear WHen our blessed Saviour called Peter and Andrew his Brother to their disciple-ship he did it in these termes Follow me Math. 4.17 and I will make you Fishers of Men And indeed this was their trade and professio◠which they practised constantly John 19.11 and effectually Neither doubt I to say that the great draught of Fish which Peter took up when he cast forth his net at the command of Christ after his resurrection was a type and embleme of that great Capture of souls which he should make soon after Act. 2.41 when at one Sermon he drew up no less then three thousand Souls every exhortation that he made was an Angle or a casting net to take some hearers but these two holy Epistles are as some scene or large drag-net to enclose whole Shoales of believers and this Text which I have read unto you is as a rowe of meshes knit together and depending upon each other First you have here that our life is a sojourning on Earth Secondly this sojourning hath a time Thirdly this time must be passed Fourthly this passage must be in fear Fifthly this fear must be of a Father Sixthly he is so a Father that he is our Judge Lastly his judgment is unpartiall for he judgeth without respect of persons according to every mans work all which may well be reduced to these two heads A charge and an enforcement a duty and a motive to perform it The charge or duty is To pass the time of their sojourning in fear the motive or enforcement If we call on the Father c. The duty though last in place yet is first in nature and shall be accordingly meditated of First therefore our life is but a sojourning here our former translation turnes it a dwelling not so properly the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to dwell as a stranger or sojourner so the French hath it seiour temporel so near together is the signification of words of this nature that in the Hebrew one word signifies both a dweller and a stranger I suppose to imply that even the indweller is but a stranger at home But this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here doth both imply an home and opposes it The condition of every living soul especially of every Christian is to be peregrinus as out of his own Country and Hospes as in anothers Think not this was the case of St. Peter onely who by the exigence of his Apostleship was to travell up and down the World for both it is apparent that Peter after the shifts of our Jesuiticall interpreters had an house of his own to reside in Matth. 8.14 and that he writes this to his Country-men the Jewes amongst whom notwithstanding their dispersion there were doubtless many rich owners as there are still in many parts of the World after all their disgracefull eliminations the Father of the faithfull was so Hebr. 11.13 and the Sons of that Father were so after him Jacob speaks of the dayes of his Pilgrimage David was a great King yet he confesses himself a stranger upon Earth and that this was hereditary to him for he adds as were my Fathers He had more Land then they They had some few fields in Bethlehem he ruled from Dan to Beersheba yet a professed stranger wherein as he was a type of Christ so an example of all Christians as strangers and pilgrims saith the Apostle abstain from fleshly lusts The faithfull man is according to that of Bernard the Lords servant his neighbours fellow and the Worlds Master All things are yours saith the Apostle yet is he the while but a sojourner upon his own inheritance no worldly respects can free-denison a Christian here and of peregrinus make him civis No it is out of the power of all earthly commodities to naturalize him for neither can his abiding be here if he should love the earth never so well neither shall he finde any true rest or contentment here
Angels present and the people shout out their Amen and shall our piety this way be lesse than theirs Surely the Angels of God are inseparably with us yea whole cohorts yea whole Legions of those heavenly soldiery are now viewing guarding us in these holy meetings and we acknowledg them not we yeild not to them such reverent and awful respects as even flesh and blood like our own will expect from us Did we think the Angels of God were with us here durst those of us which dare not be covered at home as if the freedom of this holy place gave them priviledge of a loose and wild licentiousness affect all saucy postures and strive to be more unmannerly then their Masters Did we consider that the Angels of God are witnesses of our demeanour in Gods house durst we stumble in here with no other reverence then we would do into our Barne or Stable and sit down with no other care then we would in an ale-house or Theater Did we finde our selves in an assembly of Angels durst we give our eyes leave to rove abroad in wanton glances our tongues to walk in idle and unseasonable chat our ears to be taken up with frivolous discourse Durst we set our selves to take those naps here whereof we failed on our pillow at home certainly my beloved all these do manifestly convince us of a palpable unrespect to the blessed Angels of God our invisible consorts in these holy services However then it hath been with us hitherto let us now begin to take up other resolutions and settle in our hearts an holy aw of that presence wherein we are Even at thy home address thy self for the Church prepare to come before a dreadful Majesty of God and his powerful Angels thou seest them not no more did Elishaes servant till his eyes were opened It is thine ignorant and grosse infidelity that hath filmed up thine eyes that thou canst discerne no spiritual object were they but anointed with the eye-salve of faith thou shouldest see Gods house full of heavenly glory and shouldest check thy self with holy Jacob when he awaked from his divine vision Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not how dreadfull is this place this is no other but the house of God and this is the gate of Heaven Gen. 28.16 17. Oh then when thou settest thy foot over the threshold of Gods Temple tremble to think who is there lift up thine awfull eyes and bow thine humble knees and raise up thy devout and faithful soul to a religious reverence and fear of those mighty and Majestical Spirits that are there and of that great God of Spirits whose both they and thou art and study in all thy carriage to be approved of so glorious witnesses and overseeres That so at the last those blessed Spirits with whom we have had an invisible conversation here may carry up our departing soules into the heaven of heavens into the presence of that infinite and incomprehensibly-glorious God both theirs and ours there to live and raign with them in the participation of their unconceivable blisse and glory To the fruition whereof he that hath ordained us graciously bring us by the mediation and for the sake of his blessed Son Jesus To whom with thee O Father of Heaven and thy co-eternall Spirit three persons in one God be given all praise honor immortality now and for ever HOLY DECENCY IN THE WORSHIP of GOD. By J. H. B. N. I Know that a clean heart and a right spirit is that which God mainly regards For as he is a Spirit so he will be served in Spirit but withall John 4.24 as he hath made the body and hath made it a partner with the Soul so he justly expects that it should be also wholly devoted to him so as the Apostle upon good reason prayes for his Thessalonians that their whole Spirit and Soul 1 Thes 5.23 and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and beseeches his Romans by the mercies of God that they present their bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God Rom. 12.1 Now as the body is capable of a double uncleanness the one morall when it is made an instrument and agent in sin the other naturall when it is polluted with outward filthiness so both of these are fit to be avoided in our addresses to the pure and holy God the former out of Gods absolute command who hath charged us to cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of the flesh and Spirit the latter out of the just grounds of Decency 2 Cor. 7.1 and expedience for though there be no sinfull turpitude in those bodily uncleanenesses wherein we offer our selves to appear before the Lord our God yet there is so deep an unbeseemingness in them as places them in the next door to sin Perhaps Gods ancient people the Jewes were too superstitiously scrupulous in these externall observations whos 's Talmud tells us of one of their great Rabbies that would rather suffer under extremity of hunger and thirst then tast of ought with unwashen hands as counting that neglect equall to lying with an harlot and who have raised a great question whether if any of their poultry have but dipped their beak in the bowle the water may be allowed to wash in forbidding to void the urine standing except it be upon a descent of ground lest any drop should recoyle upon the feet and in case of the other evacuation beside the paddle-staffe and other ceremonies in uncovering the feet injoyning to turn the face to the South not to the East or West because those coasts had their faces directed towards them in their devotions what should I speak of their extreme curiosity in their outward observances concerning the Law which no man might be allowed to read whiles he was but walking towards the unloading of nature or to the Bathe or near to any place of annoyance no Man might so much as spit in the Temple or before that sacred Volumn or stretch forth his feet towards it or turn his back upon it or receive it with the left hand no Man might presume to write it but upon the parchment made of the skin of a clean beast nor to write or give a bill of divorce but by the side of a running stream yea the very Turks as they have borrowed our circumcision so also religious niceties from these Jewes not allowing their Alcoran to be touched by a person that is unclean But surely I fear these men are not more faulty in the one extreme then many Christians are in the other who place a kinde of holinesse in a slovenly neglect and so order themselves as if they thought a nasty carelessenesse in Gods services were most acceptable to him Hence it is that they affect homely places for his worship abandoning all magnificence and cost in all the acts and apendances of their devotion clay and sticks please
and feet the blasphemer wounds him to the heart wo is me what an heavy case are these men in we cannot but think those that offered this bodily violence to the Son of God were highly impious Oh thou sayest I would not have been one of them that should have done such a fact for all the world but O man know thou that if thou be a wilfull sinner against God in these kindes thou art worse then they He that prayed for his first crucifiers curseth his second they crucified him in his weaknesse these in his glory they fetcht him from the garden to his crosse these pull him out of heaven surely they cannot be more enemies to the crosse of Christ then Christ is to them who by him shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power 2 Thessal 1.9 as it also followes in my Text whose end is destruction A wofull condition beyond all thoughts like unto that Hell wherein it is accomplished whereof there is no bottom had the Apostle said only whose end is death the doom had been heavy but that is the common point whereat all creatures touch in their last passage either way and is indeed the easiest piece of this vengeance it were well for wilful sinners if they might dye or if they might but dye Even earthly distresses send men to sue for death how much more the infernal there are those that have smiled in death never any but gnashed in torments that distinction is very remarkable which our Saviour makes betwixt killing and destroying Matth. 10.28 Killing the body destroying body and soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men may kill God only can destroy there are gradations even in the last act of execution expressed in the Greek which our language doth not so fully distinguish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to kill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implyes violence in killing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cruelty in that violence but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an absoluteness and eternity of torment Killing is nothing to destroying the body is but meer rubbish to the soul and therefore to put these together killing the body is nothing to destruction of the soul Alas here is every circumstance that may add horrour and misery to a condition suddainnesse of seizure degree of extremity impossibility of release suddainness They shall soon be cut down as the grasse saith David Ps 37.2 yea yet sooner then so as the fire licks up the straw Esa 5.24 and more suddainly yet as the Whrilewind passeth so is the wicked no more Prov. 10.25 Shortly they are brought to desolation in a moment Psal 73.19 As for the degree of extremity it is far beyond all expressions all conceptions of the creature the wrath of God is as himself infinite as the glory of his Saints is such as St. Paul that saw it tells us that it transcends all conceit and cannot come out of the mouth cannot enter into the heart so the vengeance prepared for his enemies is equally incomprehensible the Rack the Wheel the Gibbet the Fire are fearfull things but these fall within our thoughts wo unto that soul that must suffer what it is not capable to conceive Even what we men can devise and do apprehend is terrible those very torments that men prepare for men are such as we shrink at the mention of tearing fleying broaching broyling c. what shall those be which an angry God hath prepared for his enemies But though the torment were extream for the time yet if at last it might have an end there were some possibility of comfort alas we shrug at the thought of burning though in a quick fire but to think of mans being a whole hour in the flame we abhorr to imagine but to be a whole day in that state how horrible doth it seem Oh then what shall we say to those everlasting burnings To be not dayes or moneths or years but thousands of millions of years and millions of millions after that and after that for all eternity still in the height of these unconceivable tortures without intermission without relaxation Oh the grosse Atheisme of carnall men that do not believe these dreadful vengeances Oh the desperate security of those men who profess to believe them and yet dare run into those sins which may and will plunge them into this damnation Is sin sweet Yea but is it so sweet as Hell fire is grievous Is it profitable But can it countervail the loss of the beatifical vision of God Oh mad sinners that for a little momentany contentment cast themselves into everlasting perdition let the drink be never so delicate and well-spiced yet if we hear there is poyson in it we hold off let Gold be offered us yet if we hear it is red hot we draw back our hands and touch it not Oh then why will we be so desperately foolish as when a little poor unsatisfying pleasure is offered us though sauced with a woful damnation for ever and ever we should dare to entertain it at so dear a rate Have mercy upon your own souls my dear brethren and when the motions of evill are made to you check them with the danger of this fearfull damnation from which the God of all mercies graciously deliver us all for the sake of the dear Son of his love Jesus Christ the righteous to whom c. CHRISTIAN LIBERTY Laid forth in a SERMON Preacht to his late MAJESTY at WHITE-HALL In the time of the Parliament holden anno 1628. By JOS. B. of EXON Gal. 5.1 Stand fast therefore in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free AS if my tongue and your ears could not easily be diswonted from our late Parliamentary language you have here in this text Liberty Prerogative the maintenance of both Liberty of Subjects that are freed Prerogative of the King of glory that hath freed them maintenance of that liberty which the power of that great prerogative hath atchieved Christian liberty Christs liberation our persistence Stand fast in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free Liberty is a sweet word the thing it self is much sweeter and mens apprehensions make it yet sweeter then it is Certainly if liberty and life were competitors it is a great question whether would carry it sure I am if there be a life without it yet it is not vital Man restrained is like a wild bird shut up in a cage that offers at every of the grates to get out and growes sullen when it can finde no evasion and till stark famine urge it will not so much as feed for anger to be confined Neither is the word more sweet then large There are as many liberties as restraints and as many restraints as there are limitations of superiour commands and there are so many limits of commands as there are either duties to be done or sentences to be undergone There is a liberty of
free man neither hath any man free-will to good but he Be ambitious of this happy condition O all ye noble and generous spirits and do not think ye live till ye have attained to this true liberty The liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free So from the liberty we descend to the perogative Christs liberation Here is the glorious prerogative of the Son of God to be the deliverer or redeemer of his people They could not free themselves the Angels of heaven might pitty could not redeem them yea alas who could or who did redeem those of their rank which of lightsome celestiall spirits are become foul Devils Only Christ could free us whose ransome was infinite only Christ did free us whose love is infinite and how hath he wrought our liberty By force by purchase By force in that he hath conquer'd him whose captives we were by purchase in that he hath pay'd the full price of our ransom to that supream hand whereto we were forfeited I have heard Lawers say there are in civill Corporations three wayes of freedom by Birth by Service by Redemption By Birth as St. Paul was free of Rome by Service as Apprentises upon expiration of their years by Redemption as the the Centurion with a great sum purchased I this freedom Two of these are barred from all utter possibility in our spiritual freedom for by Birth we are the sons of wrath by service we are naturally the vassals of Satan It is only the precious redemption of the Son of God that hath freed us Whereas freedom then hath respect to bondage there are seven Egyptian Masters from whose slavery Christ hath freed us Sin an accusing Conscience danger of Gods wrath tyranny of Satan the curse of the Law Mosaicall Ceremenies humane Ordinances see our servitude to and our freedom from all these by the powerfull liberation of Christ 1. It was a true word of that Pythagorean Quot vitia tot domini sin is an hard master A master Yea a tyrant let not sin reign in your mortall bodies Rom. 6 14. and so the sinner is not only servus corruptitiae a drudge of corruptions 2 Pet. 2.19 but a very slave sold under sin Rom. 7.14 So necessitated to evill by his own inward corruption that he cannot but grind in this Mill he cannot but row in this Gally For as posse peccare is the condition of the greatest Saint upon earth and Non posse peccare is the condition of the least Saint above so non posse non peccare is the condition of the least sinful unregenerate as the prisoner may shift his feet but not his fetters or as the snail cannot but leave a slime track behind it which way soever it goes Here is our bondage where is our liberty Ubi spriritus domini ibi libertas where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty 2 Cor. 3.7 Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death I thank my God through Jesus Christ So then Christ hath freed us from the bondage of sin An accusing conscience is a true task-master of Egypt it will be sure to whip us for what we have done for what we have not done Horrour of sin like a sleeping Mastive lyes at our door Gen. 4.7 when it awakes it will fly on our throat No closer doth the shaddow follow the body then the revenge of self-accusation followes sin walk Eastward in the morning the shadow starts behind thee soon after it is upon thy left side at noon it is under thy feet lye down it coucheth under thee towards even it leaps before thee thou canst not be rid of it whiles thou hast a body and the Sun light no more can thy soul quit the conscience of evil This is to thee instead of an Hell of Fiends that shall ever be shaking fire brands at thee ever torturing thee with affrights of more paines then thy nature can comprehend Soeva conturbata conscientia Wisd 17.11 If thou look to the punishment of loss it shall say as Lysimachus did how much felicity have I lost for how little pleasure If to the punishment of sense it shall say to thee as the Tyrant dream'd his heart said to him out of the boiling caldron 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am the cause of all this misery Here is our bondage where is the liberty Having our hearts sprinkled from an evill Conscience Heb. 10.22 Sprinkled with what Even with the blood of Jesus vers 19. This this only is it that can free us It is with the unquiet heart as with the troubled Sea of Tiberias the Winds rise the Waters swell the billowes roar the ship is tossed Heaven and Earth threat to meet Christ doth but speak the word all is calme so Christ hath freed us Secondly from the bondage of an accusing conscience The conscience is but Gods Bayliff It is the displeasure of the Lord of Heaven and Earth that is the utmost of all terribles the fear of Gods wrath is that strong winde that stirrs these billowes from the bottom set aside the danger of divine displeasure and the clamoâ—rs of conscience were harmless this alone makes an Hell in the bosome The aversion of Gods face is confusion the least bending of his brow is perdition Ps 2. ult but his totus aestus his whole fury as Ps 78.38 is the utter absorption of the creature excandescentia ejus funditur sicut ignis His wrath is poured out like fire the rocks are rent before it Nahum 1.6 whence there is nothing but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fearfull expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries Heb. 10.27 Here is the bondage where is the liberty Being just fyed by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then Christ hath freed us thridly from the bondage of the wrath of God As every wicked man is a Tyrant according to the Philosophers position and every Tirant is a Devil among men so the Devil is the Arch-tyrant of the creatures he makes all his Subjects errand vassals yea chained slaves 2 Tim. 2. ult That they may recover themselves from the snare of the Devil who are taken captive by him at his will lo here is will snares captivity perfect tyranny Nahash the Ammonite was a notable Tyrant he would have the right eyes of the Israelites put out as an eminent mark of servitude so doth this infernal Nahash blind the right eye of our understanding yea with the spightful Philistim he puts out both the eyes of our apprehension and judgment that he may gyre us about in the Mill of unprofitable wickednesse and cruelly insult upon our remedilesse misery And when he hath done the fairest end is death yea death without end Oh the impotency of earthly tyranny to this the greatest blood-suckers could but kill and livor post fata as the old word is but here is an homicida ab initio and a fine
too ever killing with an ever-living death for a perpetual fruition of our torment Here is the bondage where is the liberty Christ hath spoiled principalities and powers and made a show of them openly triumphing over them in the same cross Colos 2.15 By his death he destroyed him that hath the power of death tke Devil Heb. 2.14 So then Christ hath freed us fourthly from the bondage of Satans tyranny At the best the law is but a hard Master impossible to please 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Paul but at the worst a cruell one The very courtesie of the law was jugum an unsupportable yoke but the spight of the law is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a curse Cursed is every one that continues not in all that is written in the book of the law to do it Gal. 3.10 Do you not remember an unmercifull steward in the Gospell that catcheth his bankrupt fellow by the throat and saies Pay me that thou owest me so doth the law to us we should pay and cannot and because we cannot pay we forfeit our selves so as every mothers son is the child of death Here is our bondage where is our liberty Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us Oh blessed redemption that frees us from the curse Oh blessed redeemer that would become a curse for us that the curse of the law might not light upon us so Christ hath freed us fifthly from the bondage of the law Moses was a meek man but a severe Master His face did not more shine in Gods aspect upon him then it lowred in his aspect to men His ceremonies were hard impositions Many for number costly for charge painfull for execution He that led Israel out of one bondage carryed them into another From the bondage of Egypt to the bondage of Sinai this held till the vail of the Temple rent yea till the vail of that better Temple his sacred body his very heart-strings did crack a sunder with a consummatum est And now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ is the end of the law Rom. 10.4 Now the law of the spirit of life hath freed us Rom. 8.2 You hear now no more newes of the ceremonies of prefiguration they are dead with Christ ceremonies of decency may and must live let no man now have his ear bored thorough to Moses his post Christ hath freed us sixtly from the law of ceremonies Our last Master is humane Ordinances the case of our exemption where from is not so clear concerning which I finde a double extream of opinion The one that ascribes too much to them as equalling them with the law of God the other that ascribes too little to them as if they were no tie to our obedience The one holding them to bind the conscience no less then the positive laws of God the other either sleighting their obligation or extending it only to the outward man not the inward we must learn to walk a mid-way betwixt both and know that the good lawes of our superiours whether civill or ecclesiastical do in a sort reach to the very conscience though not primarily and immediately as theirs yet mediately and secondarily as they stand in reference to the law of God with our obedience to his instituted authority and therefore they tie us in some sort besides the case whether of scandall or contempt Where no man can witness there is no scandall where is no intention of an affront to the commanding power there is no contempt and yet willingly to break good Iaws without all witness without all purpose of affront is therfore sin because disobedience For example I dine fully alone out of wantonnesse upon a day sequestred by authority to a publick fast I dine alone therefore without scandall out of wantonnesse therefore not out of contempt yet I offend against him that seeth in secret notwithstanding my solitarinesse and my wantonnesse is by him construed as a contempt to the ordainer of authority But when both scandall and contempt are met to aggravate the violation now the breach of humane lawes binds the conscience to a fearfull guilt Not to flatter the times as I hope I shall never be blurred with this crimination I must needs say this is too shamefully unregarded Never age was more lawlesse Our fore-fathers were taught to be superstitiously scrupulous in observing the lawes of the Church above Gods like those Christians of whom Socrates the historian speaks of which held fornication as a thing indifferent de diebus festis tanquam de vita decertant but strive for an holy day as for their life we are leapt into a licentious neglect of civill or sacred lawes as if it were piety to be disobedient Doth the law command a Friday fast no day is so selected for feasting let a schismaticall or popish book be prohibited this very prohibition endears it let wholsome lawes be enacted against drunkennesse idlenesse exactions unlawfull transportations excesse of diet of apparell or what ever noted abuse commands do not so much whet our desires as forbiddances what is this but to baffle and affront that sacred power which is entrusted to government and to professe our selves not Libertines but licentiate of disorder Farr farr is it from the intentions of the God of order under the stile of liberty to give scope to these unruly humors of men the issue whereof can be no other then utter confusion But if any power besides divine in Heaven or Earth shall challenge to it self this priviledg to put a primary or immediate tie upon the conscience so as it should be a sin to disobey that ordinance because 't is without relation to the command of the highest let it be anathema our hearts have reason to be free in spight of any such Antichristian usurpation whiles the owner of them hath charged us not to be thus the servants of men 1 Cor. 7.23 so Christ hath lastly freed us from the bondage of humane ordinances Lo now ye have seen our liberation from a whole heptarchy of spirituall tyranny Stand still now awhile Honourable and beloved and look back with wondring and thankfull eyes upon the infinite mercy of our deliverer sin beguiles us conscience accuseth us Gods wrath is bent against us Satan tyrannizes over us the law condemnes us insolent superstition inthralls us and now from all these Christ hath made us free How should we now erect altars to our dear Redeemer and inscribe them Christo liberatori how should we from the altars of our devoted hearts send up the holy sacrifices of our best obediences the sweet incense of our perpetuall prayers Oh blessed Saviour how should we how can we enough magnifie thee no not though those celestiall Choristers of thine should return to bear a part with us in renewing their gloria in excelsis glory to God on high Our bodies our souls are too little for thee Oh take thine own from us and give it
we should as we well might expect a dissolution of all things neither hath it lesse horrour in it to feel the Earth stagger under us Whose hair doth not start up at this trepidation and the more a man knowes the more is his astonishment He hangeth the Earth upon nothing saith Job Job 26.7 For a man to feel the Earth that hangs upon nothing but as some vast ball in the midst of a thin yielding air totter under him how can his soul choose but be possessed with a secret fright and confusion Me thinks I tremble but to think of such a trembling Such are the distempers and publick calamities of States though even of particular Kingdoms but so much more as they are more universall they are both unnaturall and dreadfull They are politickly unnaturall For as the end of all motion is rest so the end of all civill and spirituall agitations is peace and settlednesse The very name of a State implies so much which is we know a stando from standing and not from moving The man riding upon the red Horse which stood upon the myrtle trees Zachar. 1.11 describes the condicion of a peacefull government Behold all the Earth sitteth still and is at rest and Micah They shall sit still every man under his vine and figtree Micah 4.4 and none shall make them afraid Particular mens affayres are like the Clouds publick government is as the Earth The Clouds are alwayes in motion it were strange for any of them to stand still in one point of the air so it were to see private mens occasions void of some movings of quarrells or change the publick State is or should be as the Earth a great and solid body whose chief praise is settlednesse and consistence Now therefore when publick stirs and tumults arise in a well ordered Church or Common-wealth the State is out of the socket or when common calamities of war famine pestilence seize upon it then the hearts of men quake and shiver within them then is our prophets Earth-quake which is here spoken of Thou hast made the Earth to tremble To begin with the passive motions of publick calamities they are the shakings of our Earth So God intends them so must we account them and make use of them accordingly what are we I mean all the visible part of us but a peece of Earth besides therefore that magneticall vertue which is operative upon all the parts of it why should or can a piece stand still when the whole moveth Denominations are wont to be not from the greater but the better part and the best part of this Earthen World is man and therefore when men are moved we say the Earth is so and when the Earth in a generality is thus moved good reason we should be so also we must tremble therefore when God makes the Earth to do so What shall we say then to those obdured hearts which are nowhit affected with publick evils Surely he were a bold man that could sleep whiles the Earth rocks him and so were he that could give himself to a stupid security when he feels any vehement concussations of government or publick hand of Gods afflictive judgment But it falls out too usually that as the Philosopher said in matter of affaires so it is in matter of calamities Communia negliguntur Men are like Jonas in the storm sleep it out though it mainly concern them surely besides that we are men bound up each in his own skin we are limbs of a community and that body is no lesse intire and consistent of all his members then this naturall and no lesse sensible should we be of any evill that afflicts it If but the least toe do ache the head feels it but if the whole body be in pain much more do both head and feet feele it Tell me can it be that in a common Earth-quake any house can be free or is the danger lesse because the neighbours roofes rattle also Yet too many men because they suffer not alone neither are singled out for Vengeance are insensible of Gods hand Surely such men as cannot be shaken with Gods judgment are fit for the center the lowest parts of the Earth where there is a constant and eternall unrest not for the surface of it which looks towards an Heaven where are interchanges of good and evill It is notable and pregnant which the prophet Esay hath hear it all ye secure hearts and tremble In that day did the Lord of Hosts call to weeping and mourning and baldnesse and girding with sackcloth and behold joy and gladnesse slaying of Oxen and killing of Sheep eating Flesh and drinking Wine And what of that Surely this iniquity shall not be purged till you die saith the Lord God of Hosts What shall we say to this honourable and beloved wherefore hath God given us his good creatures but that we should injoy them Doth not Solomon tell us there is nothing better then that a man should Eat and Drink and make his soule injoy good in his labour Eccles. 2.24 And why is God so incensed against Israel for doing what he allowes them Know then that it is not the act but the time that God stands upon Very unseasonableness is criminall here and now comforts are sins to be joviall when God calls to mourning to glut our maw when he calls to fasting to glitter when he would have us sackcloth'd and squalid he hates it to the death here we may say with Solomon Of laughter thou art mad and of mirth what is this thou doest He grudges not our moderate and seasonable jolities there is an Ope-tyde by his allowance as well as a Lent Go thy wayes Eat thy Bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart for now God accepteth thy work Lo Gods acceptation is warrant enough for our mirth Now may his saints rejoyce and sing but there is a time to mourne and a time to daunce It was a strange word that God had to the Prophet Ezekiel that he would take away from him his wife the comfort of his life and yet he must not mourne but surely when he but threats to take away from us the publick comforts of our peace and common welfare he would have us weep out our eyes and doth no lesse hate that our hearts should be quiet within us then he hates that we should give him so just cause of our disquiet Here the Prophet can cry out Quis dabit capiti meo aquas And how doth the mournfull prophet now pour out himself into Lamentations How hath the Lord covered the doughter of Sion with a cloud in his anger and cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel Lament 2.1 Oh that our hearts could rive in sunder at but the dangers of those publick Judgments which we have too well deserved and be lesse sensible of our private concernments then should we make a right use of that dreadfull hand of God of
be the Children of men cursed be they before the Lord And even Josephs Brethren though so ill-natur'd that they could eat and drink whilst their Brother was crying in their pit yet at last as doubtlesse they had done ere then they come with humble prostrations and passionate Supplications to their Brother Gen. ult we pray thee forgive the trespasse of the Servants of thy Fathers God what speak I of these Even Absolom himself though he soon after carried a Traitor in his bosome how earnestly he sued for his restoring to his fathers long denyed presence and out of his impatience caused Joab to pay dear for the delay Oh then how should we be affected with the sence of the displeasure of the holy Spirit of our good God who as he is our best friend so he is a most powerful avenger of wickednesse Surely we do so vex and sadden him with our grievous provocations that he cryes out and makes moan of his insufferable wrong this way Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins and wearied me with thine iniquities Esa 43.24 and Amos 1.13 Behold I am pressed under you as a cart is pressed that is full of Sheaves even so full that the Axeltree creaks and bends and cracks again It must needs be a great weight that the Almighty complaines of and surely so it is could our offences be terminated in men and not strike God thorough them we might well say that all the outrages and affronts that we could put upon a world of men were nothing to the least violation of the infinite Majestie of God and so doth the God against whom they are committed take them by how much more tender the part is so much more painfull is the blow the least wipe of the eye troubles us more then a hard stroak upon the back it is easy to observe that the more holy the person is the more he is afflicted with his own and with others sin Lot vexed his righteous Soul with the unclean conversation of the Sodomites Davids eyes gusht out rivers of waters because men kept not the Law how much more then shall the holy God from whom these good men receive these touches of Godly indignation be vexed to see and hear our profanations of his name and dayes our contempt of his Servants and ordinances our debauched lives our malicious and oppressive practises our wilfull disobediences our shamefull excesses and uncleanesses our uncharitable censures of each other and all that World of wickednesse that we are overborne withall grief is never but an unpleasive passion the rest have some life and contentment in them Not only love and joy which useth to dilate and chear the heart but even hatred it self to a rancorous stomack hath a kinde of wicked pleasure in it but grief is ever harsh and tedious one of St. Augustins two tormentors of Mankinde Dolor et Timor And shall our hearts tell us That we have grieved the good Spirit of God by our sins and shall not we be grieved at our selves that we have grieved him How can there be any true sense of heavenly love and gratitude in us if we be not thoroughly humbled and vexed within our selves to think that we have angred so good a God How can we choose but roar out in the unquietnesse of our soules with the holy Psalmist There is no soundnesse in my flesh because of thine Anger neither is there any rest in my Bones because of my sin for mine iniquities are gone over my head as an heavy burden they are to heavy for me to bear Ps 38.3 4. Certainly it is a signe of a gracelesse Soul to be secure and cheerfull under a known sin that Man that can sleep soundly after a murder that can give merry checks to his Conscience after an act of adultery or theft or any such grievous crimes hath an heart insensible of goodnesse and may prove a fit brand for hell This is that whereof Esay speaks In that Day did the Lord of Hosts call to weeping and to mourning and to baldnesse and to girding with sackcloth and behold joy and gladnesse slaying of Oxen and killing of Sheep eating Flesh and drinking Wine Esa 22.12 13. But it followes next Surely this iniquity shall not be purged till ye die vers 14. these are they that say we have made a covenant with death and with hell we are at an agreement but it followes soon after Their covenant with death shall soon be disanulled and their agreement with hell shall not stand Esa 28.15.18 Far far be this disposition from us that professe to love the Lord let it be with us as with some good natur'd Children whom I have seen even after their whippings unquiet till with their continued tears and importunities they have made their peace with their offended parent And thus much for the displeasure which is in this grieving of the Spirit of God which never goes alone but is attended by those two other consequent effects Aversion and Punishment As those therefore which scent an unsavory breath turne their heads aside and those great and good guests who finde themselves ill used change their Inn so doth the holy Spirit of God upon occasion of our wilfull sins turne away his face and withdraw his presence In a little wrath I hid my face from thee saith God Esa 54.8 This good David found and complained of Thou turnedst away thy face and I was troubled Psal 30.7 And again as if he feard lest God would be quite gone upon those his horrible sins of Adultery and Murder he cryes out passionatly O cast me not away from from thy Presence and take not thine holy Spirit from me Psal 51.11 This is that which Divines call spirituall desertion A course which God takes not seldome when he finds a kind of restiveness and neglect in his Servants or passage given to some haynous sin against the checks of conscience where he intends correction quickning and reclamation the Spouse in the Canticles because she opened not instantly to her Beloved findes her self disappointed I opened to my Beloved but my Beloved had withdrawen himself and was gone and my Soul failed me Cant. 5.6 This is no other then we must make account of and which if we have any acquaintance with God and our selves in our daily experience we have found and shall find if we have given way to any willing sin in that very Act the Spirit is grieved and in that Act of griefe subduced neither can we ever expect comfort in the sense of his return or hope to have his face shine upon us again till we have won him to us and recovered his favour by an unfained Repentance Is there any of us therefore that hath grieved and estranged the holy Spirit from us by any known offence it must cost us warme water ere we can recover him and the light of his countenance upon us neither let us be sparing of our Tears to this
of God planted in his heart and one that desires to be approved to God in all his wayes though perhaps he differ in judgment and be of another profession from thee in some collateral matters as the God of Heaven stands not upon such points let him I say be one of Gods dear and secret ones whom thou revilest and persecutest the Spirit of God feels the Indignities that are offered to such a one and will let thee feel that he feels them make as slight as you will of scandalizing and wronging a good man there is a good God that will pay you for it What an heavy complaint is that which the Apostle makes to his Corinthians concerning himself and his fellowes I think saith he that God hath set forth us the Apostles last as it were appointed to death for we are made a spectacle to the World and to Angels and to Men 1 Cor. 4.9 and verse the 13. We are made as the filth of the world the off-scouring of all things unto this day Alas if this were the condicion of the blessed Apostles to be thus vilified why should it seem strange to us their unworthy successours and Disciples if we be thought fit for nothing but to be cast upon the dunghill but these reproaches however we may take coolly and calmly as that Stoick Philosopher did who whilst he was discoursing of being free from passions it being the doctrine of that sect that a wise man should be impassionate a rude fellow spat purposely in his face and when he was asked whether he were not angry answered no truly I am not angry but I doubt whether I should not be angry at such an abuse but there is a God that will not put up our contumelies so we strike his servants on Earth and he feels it in Heaven It is very emphaticall which the Apostle hath to this purpose Coloss 1.24 I fill up that which is behind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Asterings of the Afflictions of Christ in my flesh Intimating that there is one intire body as it were of Christs sufferings part whereof he indured in his own person and part he still sustaines in his members so as he cannot be free whiles they suffer inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of my brethren ye did it unto me Mat. 15.40 As the soul feels what is done to the body the Iron entred into his Soul saith the Psalmist so what is done to the faithfull soul God is sensible of and will revenge it accordingly what shall be done to thee thou false Tongue saith the Psalmist even mighty and sharp Arrowes with hot burning Coales Psal 102.3 Thou hast shot thine Arrowes even bitter words against Gods chosen ones and God shall send thee sharper arrowes of his vengeance singing into thy bosome thy tongue hath been set on fire with contention and hath helpt to kindle it in others and now God shall fill thy mouth with hotter coales of that fire which shall never be quenched Oh then as we tender our own safety let us binde our Tongues and hands to the good behaviour and resolve with the holy Apostle To give none offence neither to the Jewes nor to the Gentiles nor to the Church of God 1. Cor. 10.32 Now as the holy Spirit of God both in himself and in his Children is grieved with our leud speeches and offensive carriage so contrarily God and his holy Spirit are joyed in our gracious speeches and holy conversation Luc. 15.10 I say unto you there is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner that repenteth Lo this is Gods joy and the Angels witnesse it it is the owner that hath found the lost Groate and that saith Rejoyce with me how doth conscionable and godly behaviour and holy Communication make Musick in Heaven We have known many that have thought their time well bestowed if they could make a great Man smile Principibus placuisse c. And perhaps their facetious urbanity hath not passed unrewarded Oh what shall we think of moving true delight to the King of glory It was no small incouragement to the Colossians that the Apostle professes he was with them rejoycing and beholding their Order Coloss 2.5 What a comfort then must it needs be that the great God of Heaven is with us and takes notice of our carriage and contentment in it Revel 2.2 I know thy works and thy labour and thy patience saith the Spirit of God to the Angel or Bishop of the Church of Ephesus and Videndo vidi saith God to Moses concerning the Israelites I have seen the afflictions of my people it is said of Anthony the Hermite Let no man bogle at this that I mention an Hermite to this Congregation those first Eremites that went aside into the Wildernesse to avoid those primitive persecutions were holy men great Saints and of a quite different alloy from those of the present Romish Church Mera Nominum Crepitacula that when he was set upon by Divells and buffeted by them as St. Paul was 2 Cor. 12. according to learned Cameran his interpretation after the conflict he cryed out O bone Jesu ubi eras O Lord Jesu where wast thou and received answer juxta te eram c. I was by thee and lookt how thou wouldst demean thy self in thy combat who would not fight valiantly when he fights in the eye of his Prince It is the highest consideration in the World this how doth God rellish my actions and me The common rule of the World is what will men say what will my neighbours what will my superiours what will posterity and according to their conceits we are willing to regulate our carriage but a true Christian looks higher and for every thing he sayes or does inquires after the censure or allowance of God himself still caring that the words of his mouth and the meditations of his heart may be accepted of his God and if his heart tell him that God frownes at his actions all the World cannot chear him up but he will go mourning all the day long till he have made his peace and set even termes between God and his Soul but if that tell him all is well nothing in the world can deject and dishearten him but he takes up that resolution which Solomon gives for advice Let thy Garments be white and let no Oyle be wanting to thine head go thy way Eat thy bread with joy and drink thy Wine with a merry heart for now God accepteth thy works Eccles 9.7 8. And this consideration as it never can be unseasonable so is a most fit cordiall for every honest and good heart in these dismall times we are in a sad condicion and perhaps in expectation of worse the sword is either devouring or threatning we are ready to be swallowed up with grief or fear what should we now do Dear Christians let every one of us look in what termes he stands with his God do
of stripes but the ingenuous disposition of Gods dear ones is wrought upon by the tender respect to the goodness and mercy of that God who hath so infinitely blessed it It is an emphaticall expression that of St. Paul For the love of Christ constraineth us 2. Cor. 5.14 Lo here is a kind of force and violence offered to the soul but it is the force of love then which nothing can be more pleasing neither will God offer any other it can be no will that is forced God will not break in upon the soul but wins it with those sweet solicitations that are more powerfull then those of fear Men commonly run in a full carere towards Hell it were happy that any thing in the world could stay them but are there any of us that find a restraint upon our selves in the midst of our evill wayes so as we make a stop in this pernicious course of our sining whence is it Is it out of a meer fear of the pains of Hell of those eternall torments that abide for sinners This is little thank to them Nature even in brute Creatures will teach them to affect their own preservation and to avoid those things which will necessarily draw on their destruction Balaams asse seeing the Angels sword will strive to decline it every slave will tugg hard to escape the lash but is it in a sweet sense of the mercies of God who hath done so much for thy soul is it out of a conscience not to offend so holy and munificent a God who hath purchased thee so dear and sealed thee up to the day of Redemption now thou hast in thee a true generosity of spirit this argues thee to have the proper affections of a true child of God for every child of God is spiritually good natur'd It is not so with our natural children A stomackfull Esau knowes that his good Father cannot but be displeased with his Pagan matches yet he takes him wives of the Daughters of Heth Gen. 26.35 And an ambitious Absalom dares rise up in rebellion against his tenderly-loving Father but grace hath other effects the spirituall generation of Gods faithfull ones are dearly affectionate to their Father in Heaven and apply themselves to all obedience out of meer love and duty The Son and the slave are both injoyned one work God be thanked we can have no instance in this kind that vassalage is happily and justly extinguished as unfit to be of use amongst Christians but where it obtaineth still the Son and the slave do one work but out of different grounds the Son to please his Father the slave that he may avoid the stripes of an imperious Master therefore the one doth it cheerfully and willingly the other grudgingly and repiningly the one of Love and Gratitude the other out of fear This is a point worthy of our serious consideration as that which mainly imports our souls what are the grounds of our either actions or forbearances we indevour some good duties we refrain from some sins out of what principles Some there are that can bragg of their immunity from gross sins with the proud Pharisee I am no fornicator no drunkard no murtherer no lyer no slanderer no oppressour And I would to God every one of you that hear me this day could in sincerity of heart say so But what is the ground of this their pretended inoffensiveness If it be only a fear of Hell and of the wrathful indignation of that just Judge thou canst reap smal comfort to thy Soul in this condition for this is out of meer selfe-love and desire to escape pain and misery which is incident into the worst of creatures Even the evil Spirits themselves are afraid of tormenting and deprecate the sending them back to their chains But if it be out of a gracious and tender love to God out of a filial fear of the displeasure of a God that hath done so much for thee this argues the disposition of a true child of God and may justly administer comfort to thy Soul in the time of thy trial Oh that we could every one of us lay before our eyes the sweet mercies of our God especially his spiritual favours how freely he hath loved us how dearly he hath redeemed us even with the most precious blood of the Son of his love how graciously he hath sealed us up to the day of our redeemption and that we could make this use of it to be a strong retractive from any even of our dearest and gainfullest sins Carry this home with you dear brethren I beseech you and fail not to think of it upon all occasions when ever you shall finde your selves tempted to any sin whatsoever of lust of excesse of covetous desires have this Antidote ready in your bosomes which good Joseph had How shall I do this great evill and sin against God As good Polycarpus that holy Martyr when for the preservation of his life he was urged to renounce Christ said Fourscore and six years have I been his servant and he never did me hurt and shall I deny my Soverain King that hath so graciously preserved me If out of these grounds thou canst check thy sins and canst say Lord I have been carefull not to grieve thy good spirit because thou in thine eternal love hast sealed me thereby to the day of my redemption be confident that thy redemption is sealed in Heaven and shall in due time be manifested to thine investiture with the eternall glory and happiness which God hath prepared for all his To the participation whereof that God who hath ordained us in his good time mercifully bring us for the sake of the Son of his love Jesus Christ the just to whom with the Father and the blessed Spirit one infinite and incomprehensible God be given all prayse honour and glory now and for evermore Amen A SERMON Preacht on WHITSUNDAY IN THE PARISH-CHURCH OF HIGHAM In the Year 1652. ROM 8.14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God THis only day is wont to be consecrated to the Celebration of the descent of the holy Spirit and therefore deserves to be as it is named the true Dominica in albis Whit-sunday white is the colour of Innocence and joy in respect of the first this together with the feast of Easter was wont in the primitive times to be the solemn season of Baptism and sacramentall Regeneration in respect of the second it was the season of the just Triumph and exultation of the Church which was as this day graced confirmed and refreshed with the miraculous descent of the promised comforter in both regards every Christian challenges an interest in it as these who claim to be the Sons of God by Baptism the Sacrament of Regeneration and to be indued and furnished with the sanctifying gifts of that blessed Spirit whose wonderfull descent we this day celebrate which how can we do better then by inquiring
be and be acknowledged the sons of God Let us put on as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercy kindnesse humblenesse of mind meeknesse long-suffering forbearing one another forgiving one another if we have a quarrell against any even as Christ forgave us and above all these things put on charity which is the bond of perfectnesse Colos 3.12 13 14. And lastly forsaking the mis-guidance of Satan the World and our corrupt nature which will lead us down to the chambers of death and eternal destruction let us yield up our selves to be led by the holy Spirit of God in all the wayes of righteousnesse and holynesse of piety justice charity and all manner of gracious conversation that we may thereby approve our selves the sons and daughters of God and may be feoffed in that blessed inheritance which he hath laid up for all his to the possession whereof may he happily bring us who hath dearly bought us Jesus Christ the righteous to whom with the Father and the blessed spirit one infinite God be given all praise honour and glory now and for ever Amen THE MOURNER IN SION ECCLESIASTES 3.4 There is a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance I Need not tell you that Solomon was a wise man his wisdom as it was in an extraordinary measure put into him by him that is wisdom it self so was it in a more then ordinary way improved by his diligent observation his observation was Universal of times things persons actions events neither did he look his experiments up in the closet of his own brest but by the direction of Gods Spirit laid them forth to the World in this divine sermon which not as a King but as a Prophet he preach't to all posterity Every sentence here therefore is a dictate of the holy Ghost it is not Solomon then but a greater then Solomon even the holy Spirit of the great God that tells you there is not a time onely but a season too for every thing and for every purpose under Heaven that is as I hope you can take it no otherwise for every good thing or indifferent as for evill things or actions if men find a time yet sure God allowes no season those are alwayes damnably-unseasonable abuses of times and of our selves not to meddle with other particulars our thoughts are now by the divine providence pitch't upon a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance or rather onely upon the time to weep and mourn for our time of laughing and dancing is past already and perhaps we have had too much of that in our former times which makes the causes and degrees of our now weeping and mourning as more uncouth so more intensive we must be so much deeper in our mourning by how much we have been more wild and wanton in our laughter and dancing To fall right down therefore upon our intended discourse without any previous circumlocutions There is a threefold time of just mourning 1. When a man is sensible of his punishments 2. Of his sins 3. Of his dangers Of his punishments first or rather which is more general of his afflictions for all afflictions are not intended for punishments some are fatherly chastisments onely for our good whereas all punishments are afflictive when we are whip't then when we smart with the rod we have cause to weep and if in this case we shed no tears it is a sign of a gracelesse heart It is time therefore to mourn when we are pressed by sufferings whether from the immediate hand of God or mediately by the hands of men whether by private or publique calamities are we smitten in our bodies by some painfull and incurable diseases Doth the pestilence rage in our streets Hath God forbidden us the influence of Heaven and curst the Earth with barrennesse Hath he broken the staffe of bread and sent leannesse into our souls Hath he humbled us with the fearfull casualties of fire or water by wracks at Sea by lightnings and tempests by land hath he sent murrain amongst our cattle and destroying vermine into our barnes and fields now God tells us it is a time to mourn are we disquieted in our minds by some over-mastering passions of griefe for the miscarriages of children for the secret discontents of domesticall jars for unjust calumnies cast upon our good name are we molested in our mindes and spirits with impetuous and no lesse importune then hatefull Temptations now it is a time to mourn do we find in our souls a decay and languishment of grace a prevalence of those corruptions which we thought abated in us Do we find our selves deeply soul-sick with our sinfull indispositions Shortly do we find the face of our God for the time withdrawn from us Now now it is a time to mourn If we turn our eyes to those evils which are cast upon us by the hands of men Do men find themselves despoyled of their estates restrained of their Liberties tortured in their bodies Do they find the wofull miseries of an intestine war killings burnings depopulations do they find fire and sword raging in the bosom of out Land now it is a time to mourn Were these evils confined to some few persons to some special families they were worthy of the tears of our compassion for it is our duty to weep with them that weep but where they are universal and spread over the whole face of any Nation there cannot be found tears enough to lament them Punishments then are a just cause of our sorrow and mourning but to a good heart sin is so much greater cause of mourning by how much a moral evil is more then a natural and by how much the displeasure of an Almighty God is worthy of more regard then our own smart Doth thine heart then tell thee that thou hast offended the Majesty of God by some grievous sin now is thy time to weep and mourne as thou wouldest for thy only son Zechar. 12.10 now it is time for thee to be in bitternesse as one that is in bitternesse for his first borne Thy soul is foul wash and rince it with the tears of thy repentance go forth with Peter and weep bitterly Dost thou finde in the place where thou livest that sin like some furious torrent bears down all before it now it is time for thee to mourne for the sins of thy people and to say as the holy Psalmist did Psal 119 136. Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because men keep not thy law Lastly as our sufferings and our sins make up a due time for our mourning so do our dangers also for fear is no lesse afflictive then pain yea I know not whether there can be a greater pain then the expectation of imminent mischiefs Do we therefore see extremities of judgments hovering over our heads ready to fall down like Sodoms fire and
double providence of the Almighty One that God was pleased to fetch them out of Egypt in an happy suddainnesse even when they had no leasure to make up their bach The other that he sustained them with this unleavened dough till he sent them Manna in the Wildernesse The one was the bread of the poor the other the bread of Angels As therefore he would have a pot of Manna kept in the Ark for a Monument of that miraculous food wherewith he fed them in the desert so he thought good to ordain this observation of unleavened bread for a perpetuall memoriall of their provision preceding it And this was not onely a charge but a sanction under the severe penalty whether of excommunication or death or both both for the authority of the Commander and for the weight of the institution whereby God meant both to rub up their memory of a temporall benefit past and to quicken their faith in a greater spirituall favour of their future Redemption from sin and death by the blood of that true paschall lamb which should be sacrificed for them This is the ground of this institution Now let us if you please inquire a little into the ground of this alâ—usion to the leaven the nature and signification of this implyed comparison here mentioned and we shall easily find that leaven hath first a diffusive faculty so it is taken both in the good part and the evill in good Mat. 1â— 33. so the Kingdom of Heaven is compared to leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavned Lo these same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were more then a bushel of our measure and one morsel of leaven seasons it all In evill so here immediately before my Text in an ordinary Jewish proverb A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump Secondly it hath in it self a displeasing sowerness in which regard it is an ill construction attributed both to false doctrine and to evill manners To false doctrine Mat. 16.6 Take heed saith our Saviour of the leaven of the Pharises To ill manners so in the next words ye have the leaven of malice and wickedness So then here the very inference offers us these two necessary heads of our discourse 1. That sin or the sinner for it may be taken of either or both is spirituall leaven 2. That this leaven must be purged out because Christ is our passover and sacrificed for us For the first sin hath the true qualities of leaven both in respect of the offensive sowreness and of the diffusion In the former nothing can be so distastfull unto God as sin Indeed nothing can displease but it as nothing is so sweet and pleasing to him as the obedience of his faithfull ones If any edible thing could be more offensive to the palate Sin would be likened to it As indeed it is still resembled by whatsoever may be most abhorring to all the senses To the sight so it is compared to filth Esa 4.4 Psal 14.3 to beastly excrements 2 Pet. 2.22 to spots and blemishes 2. Pet. 2.13 to menstruous and polluted blood Ezec. 16.6 To the smell so to a corrupted ointment to the stench of a dead carcass what should I instance in the rest How should it be other then highly offensive to the Majesty of God when it is professedly opposite to divine justice since all sin is the transgression of the royall law even the conscience which is Gods taster finds it abominably loathsome how much more that God who is greater then the conscience who so abhors it that as we are wont to do to the potsherd which hath held poysonous liquor he throwes away and breaks the very vessel wherein it was as he that findes an hair or a coal in the daintiest bit spits it out all Did God find sin in his Angels he tumbles them down out of Heaven Doth he find sin in our first parents he hurles them out of Paradise Yea did he find our sins laid upon the blessed Son of his love of his nature he spares him not awhit but laies load upon him till he roars out in the anguish of his Soul Lo he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisements of our peace were upon him and by his stripes we are healed Esa 53.5 And to whom should we rather conform our selves then to the most holy God what diet should we affect but his who is the rule of all perfection How then should we utterly abhorr every evill way how should we hate our sins with a perfect hatred And surely the more ill savour and loathlinesse we can find in our bosom sins the nearer we come to the purity of that holy one of Israel our blessed Redeemer whose stile it is Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness Ps 45.7 Oh then be we perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect Cleanse your hands ye sinners and purge your hearts ye double minded What shall we say then to the disposition of those men that can find no savour in any thing but their sins No morsell goes down sweetly merrily with them but this wo is me how do they chear themselves with the hope of injoying their sinfull pleasures how do they recreate themselves with the memory of their fore-passed filthiness how do they glory in that licentious liberty which they indulge unto themselves how do they even when they are grown old and past beastly action tickle themselves with the wanton remembrances of their younger bestialities yea so hath the delight in sin most wofully besotted them that they respect not friends estate children health body soul in comparison of the bewitching contentment they find in their sins Oh poor miserable souls Oh the wretchedest of all creatures not men but beasts let me not seem either unmannerly or uncharitable to speak from the mouth of Gods Spirit you know the word Canis ad vomitum The dog to his vomit The swine to it's mire And if they will needs be dogs how can they look for any other but dogs intertainment Foris Canes without shall be dogs Revel 22.15 But for us dear Christians let me take up that obtestation of the Psalmist Oh all ye that love the Lord hate the thing which is sin Psal 97.10 let us hate even the garment spotted with the flesh yea let us hate our selves that we can hate our sins no more And if at any time through the frailty of our wretched nature and the violence of tentation we be drawn into a sinfull action yet let us take heed of being leavened with wickedness Purge out the old leaven for Christ our passover is sacrificed for us Now as sin is leaven in respect of the sowring quality of it so also in respect of the diffusive It began with one Angel and infected Legions It began with one Woman it infected all the Generation of Mankind let it take hold of one faculty it infecteth the whole
soul and body let it seize upon one person in a family it corrupts the whole house from thence it spreads over the neighbourhood and taints whole Towns Cities Regions as it is with certain contagious diseases that have not been bounded with mountaines or Seas It is very pregnant which St. Paul speaks of Hymeneus and Philetus whose word saith he will eat as doth a canker or a gangrene 2 Tim. 2.17 ye see how a gangrene even from the least toe soon strikes the heart and the canker from a scarce sensible begining consumes the gummes eats through the cheek eats down the nose and will admit of no limits but deformity and death thus it is with sin whether intellectuall or morall Arianisme began in a family spread over the World And Antinomianisme began in one Minister of this diocesse and how much it is spread I had rather lament then speak I doubt not but many of you who hear me this day have had lamentable proofs of this truth let there be but a drunkard or a swearer in a family how soon hath this scabbed sheep tainted the whole flock Grace and Godliness is not so easily propagated sin hath the advantage of the proclivity of our wicked nature It hath the wind and tyde both with it goodness hath both against it health doth not use to be taken from others but sickness doth Since your wickednesse is of so spreading a nature how carefull should we be to prevent and resist the very first beginnings of sin It is a 1000. times more easy to keep the flood-gates shut then to drain the lower grounds when they are once over-flown 2ly How shy and weary should we be of joyning societies with the infectious whether in opinion or in manners A man that is an heretick reject saith St. Paul Tit. 3.10 If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetuous or a railer or an idolater or a drunkard with such a one eat not 1 Cor. 5.11 withdraw your selves from the tents of these men c. into their secret c. 3ly How much doth it concern all publick persons whether ecclesiastical or civil to improve their authority to the utmost for the timely preventing of the spreading of vice and for the severe censure and expurgation of those whom the Psalmist as the original word signifies calls leavened persons Ps 71.4 The palpable neglect whereof hath been a shamefull eyesore to the conscientious beholders a soul blemish to the Gospel and a just scandal upon the Church And though another mans sin cannot infect me unlesse I do partake with him in it yet a true Lot will vex his righteous soul with the unclean conversation of the Sodomites and even others sins may help to draw down judgments upon the community wherein they live good reason that all care should be taken for purging out the old leaven that so the old leaven being purged out the whole lump may be holy So much of the first point that sin is leaven the second followes that this leaven must be purged out if we would have any interest in Christ our passover which is sacrificed for us The inference you see doth necessarily imply so much In vain should any Jew talk of keeping a passover to God if he would eat the Lambe with Leavened bread in vain should any Christian talk of applying Christ to his soul whiles his heart willingly retains the leaven of any known sin Certainly this is a common and a dangerous cozenage whereby millions of souls cheat themselves into hell they fondly think they may hold fair quarter with Christ and yet give secret intertainment to their sins Demas thinks he may embrace the present world and yet need not leave his hold of Christ Ananias and Sapphira will closely harbour an hypocriticall sacriledg and yet will be as good professors as the best A Simon Magus will be baptized Christian yet a sorcerer still and many a one still thinks he may drink and swear and debauch and profane Gods ordinances and rob Gods house and resist lawfull authority and lie and plunder or slander his neighbour and yet hold good termes with a forward profession Yea there are those that will be countenancing their sins with their christianity as if they were priviledged to sin because they are in Christ Then which there can not be a more injurious and blasphemous fancy Certainly their sins are so much more abominable to God and men by how much more interest they challenge in a Christian profession yea if but a bare intertainment of a known sin it is enough to bar them out from any plea in Christ Vain fools now grosly do these men delude their own souls whiles they imagine they can please God with a leavened passover this is the way to make them and their sacrifices abominable to the Almighty It is to them that God speaks as in thunder and fire What doest thou taking my covenant into thy mouth seeing thou hatest to be reformed and hast cast my words behinde thee Psal 50.16 17. To them it is that he speaks by his Prophet Esay 66.3 He that killeth an ox as if he slew a man he that sacrificeth a Lambe as if he cut off a dogs-neck Shortly then my brethren since we are now addressing our selves to this Evangelical passover if ever we think to partake of this Heavenly feast with true comfort to our souls Let us see that we have clearly abandoned all the sowre leaven of our sins let us come with clear and untainted souls to this blessed feast and say and do with holy David I will wash my hands in innocency O Lord and so will I go to thine altar Ps 26.6 Thus long we have necessarily dwelt upon the inference and contexture of this scripture we now come to scan this divine proposition as it stands alone in it self wherein our meditation hath four heads to passe thorough 1. That Christ is a passover 2. Our Passover 3. Our Passover sacrificed 4. sacrificed for us To begin with the first The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we find is derived not from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to suffer as some of the Latine fathers out of their ignorance of Language have conceived but from the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a transition well turned by our language into Passe-over For here was a double passover to be celebrated 1. The Angel's passing over the houses of the Israelites when he smote all the first born of Egypt and 2ly Israels passing out of Egypt The word admits of many senses sometimes it is taken for the time of this solemnity Act. 12.4 sometimes for the sacrifices offered in this solemnity Deut. 16.4 sometimes for the representation of the act of Gods transition Exod. 12.11 Sometimes for the Lamb that was then to be offered and eaten 2 Chron. 35.11 They killed the passover and the Priests sprinkled the blood from their hands Thus is it taken
necessity the doom was in paradise upon mans disobedience morte morieris thou shalt dye the death Man sinned man must die The first Adam sinned and we in him the second Adam must by death expiate the sin Had not Christ dyed mankind must had not he dyed the first death we had all dyed both the first and second without shedding of blood there is no remission Heb. 9.22 Hereby therefore are we freed from the sence of the second death and the sting of the first to the unfailing comfort of our soules hereupon it is that our Saviour is so carefull to have his death and passion so fully represented to us in both his sacraments the water is his blood in the first Sacrament the Wine is his blood in the second In this he is sensiby crucify'd before our eyes the bread that is his body broken the wine his blood poured out And if these acts and objects do not carry our hearts to a lively apprehension of Christ our true passover we shall offer to him no other then the sacrifice of fools Lo here then a soveraign antidote against the first death and a preservative against the second the Lamb slain from the beginning of the World why should we be discomforted with the expectation of that death which Christ hath suffered why should we be dismayed with the fear of that death which our all-sufficient Redeemer hath fully expiated 2ly In the first institution of this passover The blood of the lamb was to be sprinkled upon the posts and lintells of the doores of every Israelite so if ever we look for any benefit from Christ our Passover there must be a particular application of his blood to the believing soul even very Papists can say that unless our merits or holy actions be dyed or tinctured in the blood of Christ they can avail us nothing but this consideration will meet with us more seasonably upon the fourth head 3ly This passover must be roasted home not stewed not parboild So did the true paschall lamb undergo the flames of his Fathers wrath for our sins here was not a scorching and blistering but a vehement and full torrefaction It was an ardent heat that could fetch drops of blood from him in the garden but it was the hottest of flames that he felt upon the cross when he cryed out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Oh who can without horrour and amazement hear so wosull a word fall from the mouth of the Son of God Had he not said My Father this strain had sunk us into utter despair but now in this very torment is comfort He knew he could not be forsaken of him of whom he saith I and my Father are one he could not be forsaken by a sublation of union though he seemed so by a substraction of vision as Leo well the sense of comfort was clouded for a while from his humanity his deity was ever glorious his faith firme and supplyed that strong consolation which his present sense failed of and therefore you soon hear him in a full concurrence of all Heavenly and victorious powers of a confident Saviour say Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit In the mean while even in the height of this suffering there is our ease for certainly the more the Son of God indured for us the more sure we are of an happy acquittance from the Tribunall of Heaven the justice of God never punished the same sin twise over By his stripes we are healed by his payment we are discharged by his torments we are assured of peace and glory Thus much of the preparation The eating of it followes in the appendances the manner the persons The appendances It must be eaten with unleavned bread and with sour or bitter herbs Of the unleavened bread we have spoken enough before For the herbs that nothing might be wanting the same God that appointed meat appointed the sauce too and that was a sallad of not pleasing but bitter herbs herein providing not so much for the palate of the body as of the soul to teach us that we may not hope to partake of Christ without sensible disrelishes of nature without outward afflictions without a true contrition of Spirit It is the condition that our Saviour makes with us in admitting us to the profession of Christianity he shall receive an 100. fold with persecutions those to boot that for his sake and the Gospells forsake all Mark 10.30 Sit down therefore O man and count what it will cost thee to be a true Christian through many tribulations c. Neither can we receive this evangelicall passover without a true contrition of soul for our sins past think not my beloved that there is nothing but jollity to be look't for at Gods table Ye may frolick it ye that feast with the World but if ye will sit with Christ and feed on him ye must eat him with bitter herbs here must be a sound compunction of heart after a due self examination for all our sins wherewith we have offended our good God Thou wouldst be eating the paschal lamb but with sugar-sops or some pleasing sauce it may not be so here must be a bitternesse of soul or no passover It is true that there is a kind of holy mixture of affections in all our holy services a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rejoyce in him with trembling saith the Psalmist It is and should be our joy that we have this lamb of God to be ours but it is our just sorrow to finde our own wretched unworthiness of so great a mercy Godly sorrow must make way for solid joy and comfort if there be any of you therefore that harbours in your breast a secret love of and complacency in your known and resolved sins procul O procul let him keep off from this holy Table let him bewail his sinfull mis-disposition and not dare to put forth his hand to this passover till he have gathered the bitter herbs of a sorrowful remorse for his hated offences And where should he gather these but in the low grounds of the Law there they grow plenteously lay the law then home to thy soul that shall show thee thy sins and thy judgment School thee Yea dear Christians how can any of us see the body of our blessed Saviour broken and his blood poured out and withall think and know that his own sins are guilty of this tort offered to the son of God the Lord of life and not feel his heart touched with a sad and passionate apprehension of his own vilenesse and an indignation at his own wickednesse that hath deserved and done this these are the bitter herbs wherewith if we shall eat this passover we shall finde it most wholesome and nourishable unto us to eternall life The manner of the eating of it followes in three particulars 1. The whole lamb must be eaten not a part of it 2. Not a bone of it must be broken 3. In
but by the efficacy of the Spirit The soul hath an ear as well as the body when the ear of the soul hears the operative motions of Gods spirit as well as the ear of the body hears the external sound of the Gospel then are we called by God when true faith is wrought in the Soul as well as outward conformity in our life when we are made true Christians as well as outward professors then and not till then have we this calling from God Such then is our calling the election is answerable to it Not a temporal and external to some special office or dignity whereof our Saviour Have not I chosen you twelve John 6.70 and Moses his chosen Psal 106. Not a singling out from the most to an outward profession of Christ whereof perhaps the Apostle 1 Thes 1.4 Knowing beloved that ye are elect of God and the Psalmist Blessed is he whom thou choosest and causest to dwell in thy courts Psal 65.5 For notwithstanding this noble and happy priviledge little would it availe us to be sure of this and no more no profession no dignity can secure us from being perfectly miserable but an eternal election to glory whereof St. Paul Ephes 1.4 God hath chosen us in Christ before the foundations of the World that we might be holy and blamlesse before him in love and to his Colossians As the elect of God holy and beloved such as to whom saving Faith is appropriated the style whereof is Fidus electorum the faith of the Elect Tit. 1.1 Such then is our calling and elction Now this calling this election must be made sure or firme as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies sure and firme not on Gods part who we know is unchangble in his nature in his counsels So as in that regard our election if it be at all is most sure and surer cannot be but on ours not only in respect of the object which is the truth and immutability of the thing it self but in respect of the subject too the soul that apprehends it so sure that it cannot be falsified cannot be disappointed It is not for us to expect such a certainty of knowledg in this point as there is of Principles of Arts or of those things whereof common sence assures us Our Schoolmen make distinction of a certainty evident and inevident Evident which ariseth out of the clearness of the object it self and the necessary connection of the termes as that the whole is greater then a part Inevident which arises not so much out of the intrinsecal truth of the proposition it self as out of the veracity and infallibleness of the party that affirmes it So both Divine and Humane faith receive their assurance from the Divine or Humane authority whereon it is grounded and this inevident assurance may be so certain as to expel all prevailing doubt though not all troubling doubt Neither need there any other for the Articles of our creed which we take upon the infallible trust of him who is the truth it self and can no more deceive us then not be This latter is the certainty which we must labour to attain unto In the grant whereof our Romish Divines are generally too straight-laced yielding yet a Theological certainty which goes farr but not home although some of them are more liberal as Catharinus Vega Ruardus Tapperus and Pererius following them which grant that some holy men out of the feeling and experience of the power of Gods Spirit in them may without any speciall revelation grow to a great height of assurance if not so as that they may swear they are assured of this happy estate of grace yet so as that they may be as confident of it as that there is a Rome or Constantinople which one would think were enough but the rest are commonly too sparing in the inching out of the possibilitie of our assurance by nice distinctions Cardinal Bellarmine makes six kindes or degrees of certainty whereof three are clear three obscure the three first are the certainty of understanding the certainty of knowledg the certainty of experience The first of them is of plain principles which upon meer hearing are yielded to be most true without any traverse of thoughts The second is of conclusions evidently deduced from those principles The third is of the matters of sense about which the eye or eare is not deceived The three latter certainties which are more obscure are those of Faith or Beleefe and the degrees thereof The first whereof is the certainty of the Catholick or Divine faith which depending upon Gods authority cannot deceive us The second is the certainty of humane faith so depending upon Mans authority and in such matters as shut out all fear of falshood or disappointment in believing them as that there was an Augustus Caesar a Rome a Jerusalem The third is the certainty of a well grounded conceit which he pleaseth to call conjecturall raised upon such undoubted signes and proofs as may make a Man secure of what he holdeth and excludes all anxiety yet cannot utterly free him from all fear This last he can be content to yield us and indeed in his stating the question stands onely upon the deniall of the certainty of a Divine faith in this great affair we are ready to take what he gives so as then here may be a certainty in the heart of a regenerate Man of his calling and election and such a one as shall render him holily secure and free from anxiety Let the distinguisher weary himself with the thoughts of reconciling certitude with conjectures security with fear let us have the security and let him take the fear to himself Shortly then whiles the Schools make much ado of what kind of certainty this must be taken whether of faith or of hope or of confidence surely if it be such an hope and confidence as makes not ashamed by disappointing us both are equally safe It is enough if it be such a fiduciall perswasion as cannot deceive us nor be liable to falshood But how far then reaches this assecuration So far as to exclude all fears all doubting and hesitation Neither of these Not all kind of fear for we are bidden to work out our salvation with fear and trembling Philip. 2. and to spend the time of our pilgrimage in fear 1 Pet. 1. Not doubting which the counsell of Trent would seem to cast upon our opinion we cannot be so senseless as not in the conscience of our infirmities and manifold indispositions find our selves put to many plunges but yet so as that by the power of our faith which is the victory that overcomes the World at last we do happily recover and find our selves freed by a comfortable and joyfull â—â—uctation If any Man could be so fond as to think we stand so sure that we shall never shake or move he grosly misconceives our condition but if so sure that we shall never be turned up by the roots never
in hand without which there can be no firm peace no constant and solid comfort to the Soul of Man Three things then call us to the indeavor of this assurance our duty our advantage our danger We must do it out of duty because our God bids us Gods commands like the Prerogatives of Princes must not be too strictly scanned should he require ought that might be losse-full or prejudiciall to us our blindfold obedience must undertake it with cherefulnesse how much more then when he calls for that from us then which nothing can be imagined of more or equall behoof to the Soul It is enough therefore that God by his Apostle commands us to Give diligence to make our calling and election sure Our Heavenly Father bids us what sons are we if we obey him not Our blessed Master bids us what Servants are we if we set not our selves to observe his charge our glorious and immortall King bids us what subjects are we if we stick at his injunction out of mere duty therefore we must indeavour to make our calling and election sure Even where we owe no duty oftentimes advantage drawes us on yea many times across those duties which we owe to God and Man how much more where our duty is seconded with such an advantage as is not parallelable in all the World beside What lesse what other followes upon this assurance truly attained but peace of conscience and joy in the holy Ghost in one word the begining of Heaven in the soul What a contentment doth the heart of Man find in the securing of any whatsoever good what a coyle do mony-Masters keep for security of the summes they put forth and when that is taken to their mind are ready to say with the rich Man in the Gospel Soul take thy ease Great venturers at Sea how willingly do they part with no small part of their hoped gain to be assured of the rest How well was Ezekiah appaid when he was assured but of fifteene years added to his life How doth Babylon applaud her own happiness to her self when she can say I sit as a Queen I shall not be a widdow I shall know no sorrow It must needs follow therefore that in the best things assured there must be the greatest of all possible contentments And surely if the heart have once attained to this that upon good grounds it can resolve God is my Father Christ Jesus is my Elder Brother the Angels are my Guardians Heaven is my undoubted patrimony how must it needs be lift up and filled with a joy unspeakable and glorious What bold defiances can it bid to all the troupes of worldly evils to all the powers of Hell with what unconceiveable sweetness must it needs injoy God and it self how comfortably and resolutely must it needs welcome death with that triumphant champion of Christ I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith and now from henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness c. 2. Tim. 4.7 8. Out of the just advantage therefore of this assurance we must endeavour to make our calling and election sure Neither is the advantage more in the performance hereof then there is danger in the neglect In all uncertainties there is a kinde of afflictive fear and troublesome mis-doubt Let a man walk in the dark because he cannot be confident where safely to set his steps he is troubled with a continual suspicion of a suddain mis-cariage and therefore goes in pain what can there be but discomfort in that soul which knowes not in what termes it stands with God Yet whiles there is life there may be hope of better But if that soul be surprised with an unexpected death and hurried away with some suddain judgment in this state of irresolution in how deplored a condition is it beyond all expression I cannot but therefore lament the woful plight of those poor souls that live die under the Roman discipline who when they have most need of comfort in the very act of their dissolution are left pitifully disconsolate and given up by their teachers to either horror or suspence Even the most Saint-like of them except his soul fly up in Martyrdom like Gedeons Angel in the Smoke of his incense may not make account of a speedy ascent to heaven insomuch as Cardinal Bellarmine himself of whom our Coffin dares write that his life was not stayned with mortal sin pag. 27. He that could call heaven Casamia and whose canonization the Cardinals thought fit to be talked of in his sickness when Cardinal Aldobrandino desired him that when he came to heaven he would pray for him answered To go to heaven so soon is a matter too great for me men do not use to come thither in such hast and for me I shall think it no small favour to be sure of purgatory and there to remain a good while pag. 42. which yet himself can say differs not much for the time in respect of the extremity of it from hell it self and to be a good while there O terror past all reach of our thoughts And if the righteous be thus saved where shall the sinners appear For ought they can or may know hell may but purgatory must be their portion heaven may not be thought of without too high presumption Certainly if many despair under those uncomfortable hands I wonder that no more since they are bidden to doubt and beaten off from any possibility of the confidence of rest and happinesse But whiles I urge this danger of utter discomfort in our irresolution I hear our adversaries talke of a double danger of the contrary certitude A danger of pride and a danger of sloth The supposed certainty of our graces breeds pride saith their Cardinal The assurance of our election sloth saith their Alphonsus a Castro out of Gregory And indeed if this cordial doctrine be not well given well taken well digested it may through our pravity and heedlesness turne to both these noxious humors as the highest feeding soonest causeth a dangerous Plethory in the body How have we heard some bold ungrounded Christians brag of their assurance of glory as if they had carried the keyes of heaven at their Girdle How have we seen even sensual men flatter themselves with a confident opinion of their undoubted safety unfailable right to happiness How have we known presumptuous Spirits that have thought themselves carried with a plerophory of faith when their sailes have been swelled only with the winde of their own self-love how many ignorant soules from the mis-prision of Gods infallible election have argued the needlessnesse of their indeavours and the safety of their ease and neg-lect As ye love your selves sail warily betwixt these rocks and sands on either side But if these mischiefs follow upon the abuse of a sound and wholsome doctrine God forbid they should be imputed to the truth it self as if that God who
children as such Not as men not as witty wise noble rich bountiful useful but as Christians showing it self in all real expressions These these are excellent and irrefragable proofs and evictions of your calling and election Seek for these in your hearts and hands and seek for them till ye finde them and when ye have found them make much of them as the invaluable favours of God and labour for a continual increase of them and a growth in this heavenly assurance by them What need I urge any motives to stir up your Christian care and diligence Do but look first behinde you see but how much pretious time we have already lost how have we loitered hitherto in our great work Bernards question is fit still to be asked by us of our souls Bernarde ad quid venisti Wherefore are we here upon earth To pamper our Gut To tend our hide To wallow in all voluptuous courses To scrape up the pelf of the World As if the only end of our being were carnal pleasure wordly profit Oh base and unworthy thoughts What do we with reason if we be thus prostituted It is for beasts which have no soul to be all for sense For us that have ratiocination and pretend grace we know we are here but in a thorowfare to another world and all the main task we have to do here in this life is to provide for a better Oh then let us recollect our selves at the last and redeem the time and over-looking this vain and worthless World bend all our best indeavours to make sure work for eternity Look secondly before you and see the shortness and uncertainty of this which we call a life what day is there that may not be our last what hour is there that we can make account of as certain And think how many World 's the dying Man would give in the late conscience of a careless life for but one day more to do his neglected work and shall we wilfully be prodigall of this happy leasure and liberty and knowingly hazard so wofull and irremediable a surprisall Look thirdly below you and see the horror of that dreadfull place of torment which is the unavoydable portion of careless and unreclaimable sinners consider the extremity the eternity of those tortures which in vain the secure heart sleightly hoped to avoid Look lastly above you and see whether that Heaven whose out-side we behold be not worthy of our utmost ambition of our most zealous and effectuall endeavours Do we not think there is pleasure and happiness enough in that region of glory and blessedness to make abundant amends for all our self-combats for all our tasks of dutyfull service for all our painfull exercises of mortification Oh then let us earnestly and unweariably aspire thither and think all the time lost that we imploy not in the endeavour of making sure of that blessed and eternall inheritance To the full possession whereof he that hath purchased it for us by his most precious blood in his good time happily bring us Amen A Plain and Familiar Explication OF CHRIST'S PRESENCE IN THE SACRAMENT OF HIS Body and Blood Out of the Doctrine of the Church of ENGLAND For the satisfying of a Scrupulous Friend Anno 1631. THat Christ Jesus our Lord is truly present and received in the blessed Sacrament of his body and blood is so clear and universally agreed upon that he can be no Christian that doubts it But in what manner he is both present and received is a point that hath exercised many wits and cost many thousand lives and such as some Orthodox Divines are wont to express with a kind of scruple as not daring to speak out For me as I have learn'd to lay my hand on my mouth where God and his Church have been silent and to adore those mysteries which I cannot comprehend so I think it is possible we may wrong our selves in an over-cautious fear of delivering sufficiently-revealed truths such I take this to be which we have in hand wherein as God hath not been sparing to declare himself in his word So the Church of England our dear Mother hath freely opened her self in such sort as if she meant to meet with the future scruples of an over-tender posterity Certainly there can be but two wayes wherein he can be imagined to be present and received either corporally or spiritually That he should be corporally present at once in every part of every Eucharistical Element through the World is such a Monster of opinion as utterly overthrowes the truth of his humane body destroyes the nature of a Sacrament implies a world of contradictions baffles right reason transcends all faith and in short confounds Heaven and Earth as we might easily show in all particulars if it were the drift of my discourse to meddle with those which profess themselves not ours who yet do no less then we cry down the gross and Capernaitical expression which their Pope Nicholas prescribed to Berengarius and cannot but confess that their own Card. Bellarmine advises this phrase of Christs corporall presence should be very sparingly and warily taken up in the hearing of their people but my intention only is to satisfie those Sons of the Church who disclaiming from all opinion of Transubstantiation do yet willingly imbrace a kind of irresolution in this point as holding it safest not to inquire into the manner of Christs presence What should be guilty of this nice doubtfulness I cannot conceive unless it be a misconstruction of those broad speeches which antiquity not suspecting so unlikely commentaries hath upon all occasions been wont to let fall concerning these awful mysteries For what those Oracles of the Church have divinely spoken in reverence to the Sacramental union of the signe and the thing signified in this sacred business hath been mistaken as literally and properly meant to be predicated of the outward Element hence have grown those dangerous errors and that inexplicable confusion which hath since infested the Church When all is said nothing can be more clear then that in respect of bodily presence the Heavens must contain the glorified humanity of Christ untill his return to judgment As therefore the Angel could say to the devout Maries after Christs resurrection seeking for him in his grave He is risen he is not here so they still say to us seeking for his glorious body here below He is ascended he is not here It should absolutely lose the nature of an humane body if it should not be circumscriptible Mar. 16.6 Glorification doth not bereave it of the truth of being what it is It is a true humane body and therefore can no more according to the natural being even of a body glorified be many wheres at once then according to his personal being it can be separated from that Godhead which is at once every where Let it be therefore firmly setled in our souls as an undoubted truth That the humane body of Christ
in respect of corporal presence is in Heaven whither he visibly ascended and where he sits on the right hand of the Father and whence he shall come again with glory a parcel of our Creed which the Church learn't of the Angels in Mount Olivet who taught the gazing disciples that this same Jesus which was taken up from them into Heaven shall so come in like manner as they saw him go into Heaven which was with wonderfull glory and magnificence Far be it from us then to think that the blessed humanity of the Son of God should so disparage it self as where there is neither necessity nor use of a bodily descent to steale down and conveigh himself insensibly from Heaven to Earth daily and to hide up his whole sacred body in an hundred thousand several pixes at once It is a wonder that superstition it self is not ashamed of so absurd and impossible a fancy which it is in vain for Men to think they can salve up with a pretence of omnipotence we question not the power of God but his will and do well know he cannot will absolute contradictions Deus hoc potenter non potest as one said truly That which we say of Christs presence holds no less of his reception for so do we receive him into us as he is present with us neither can we corporally receive that which is bodily absent although besides the common incongruity of opinion the corporal receiving of Christ hath in it a further prodigiousness and horrour all the Novices of the Roman Schools are now asham'd of their Popes Dentibus teritur but when their Doctors have made the best of their own Tenent they cannot avoid St. Austins flagitium videtur praecipere By how much the humane flesh is and ought to be more dear by so much more odious is the thought of eating it neither let them imagine they can escape the imputation of an hateful savageness in this act for that it is not presented to them in the form of flesh whiles they professe to know it is so howsoever it appeareth Let some skilful cook so dress mans flesh in the mixtures of his artificial hashes and tast full sauces that it cannot be discerned by the sence yet if I shall afterwards understand that I have eaten it though thus covertly conveyed I cannot but abhorr to think of so unnatural a diet Corporally then to eat if it were possible the flesh of Christ Joh. 6.63 as it could in our Saviours own word profit nothing so it could be no other then a kinde of religious Cannibalisme which both nature and grace cannot but justly rise against Since therefore the body of Christ cannot be said to be corporally present or received by us it must needs follow that there is no way of his presence or receit in the Sacrament but spiritual which the Church of England hath laboured so fully to express both in her holy Liturgie and publickly-authorized homilies that there is no one point of divine truth which she hath more punctually and plainly laid down before us What can be more evident then that which she hath said in the second exhortation before the Communion thus Dearly beloved forasmuch as our duty is to render to Almighty God our heavenly Father most hearty thanks for that he hath given his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ not only to dye for us but also to be our spiritual food and sustenance as it is declared unto us as well by Gods word as by the holy Sacraments of his blessed body and blood c. Lo Christ is in this Sacrament given to us to be our spiritual food in which regard also this sacrament is in the same exhortation called a Godly and heavenly feast whereto that we may come holy and clean we must search and examine our own consciences not our chops and mawes that we may come and be received as worthy Partakers of such an Heavenly Table But that in the following exhortation is yet more pregnant that we should diligently try and examine our faith before we presume to eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For as the benefit is great if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive that holy Sacrament for then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood then we dwel in Christ and he in us we be one with Christ and Christ with us so is the danger great if we receive the same unworthily What termes can be more expresse it is bread and wine which we come to receive that bread and that wine is sacramental It is our heart wherewith we receive that sacrament it is our faith whereby we worthily receive this receit and manducation of the flesh of Christ is spiritually done and by this spiritual receit of him we are made one with him and he with us by vertue then of the worthy receit of this sacramental bread and wine we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ spiritually and there growes hereby a reciprocal union betwixt Christ and us neither is he otherwise one with us then we are one with him which can be no otherwise then by the power of his institution and of our faith And that no man may doubt what the drift and purpose of our blessed Saviour was in the institution and recommendation of this blessed sacrament to his Church it followes in that passage And to the end that we should alway remember the exceeding great love of our master and onely Saviour Jesus Christ thus dying for us and the innumerable benefits which by his pretious blood-shedding he hath obtained to us he hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries as pledges of his love and continual remembrances of his death to our great and endlesse comfort If therefore we shall look upon and take these sacred elements as the pledges of our Saviours love to us and remembrances of his death for us we shall not need neither indeed can we require by the judgment of our Church to set any other value on them But withall that we may not sleightly conceive of those mysteries as if they had no further worth then they do outwardly show we are taught in that prayer which the Minister kneeling down at Gods board is appointed to make in the name of all the communiâ—ants before the consecration that whiles we do duly receive those blessed elements we do in the same act by the power of our faith eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ so effectual and inseparable is the sacramental union of the signes thus instituted by our blessed Lord and Saviour with the thing thereby signified for thus is he prescribed to pray Grant us therefore gratious Lord so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his blood that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our soules washed through his most pretious blood and that we may ever dwell in him and he
in us Implying that so doth our mouth and stomach receive the bread and wine as that in the mean time our souls receive the flesh and the blood of Christ now the soul is not capable of receiving flesh and blood but by the power of that grace of faith which appropriates it But that we may clearly apprehend how these Sacramental acts and objects are both distinguished and united so as there may be no danger of either separation or confusion that which followeth in the consecratory prayer is most evident Hear us O merciful father we beseech thee and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christs holy institution in remembrance of his death and passion may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and gave it to his disciples saying Take eat this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me What more can be said what come we to receive outwardly The Creatures of bread and wine To what use In remembrance of Christs death and passion what do we the whiles receive inwardly we are thereby made partakers of his most blessed body and blood by what means doth this come about By virtue of our Saviours holy institution still it is bread and wine in respect of the nature and essence of it but so that in the spiritual use of it it conveyes to the faithful receiver the body and blood of Christ bread and wine is offered to my eye and hand Christ is tendred to my soul Which yet is more fully if possibly it may be expressed in the form of words prescribed in the delivery of the bread and wine to the communicant The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body soul into everlasting life and take and eat this in remembrance that Christ dyed for thee and feed on him in thine heart by faith with thanksgiving c. No gloss in the world can make the words more full and perspicuous So do we in remembrance of Christs death take and eat the sacramental bread with our mouths as that our hearts do feed upon the body of Christ by our faith And what is this feeding upon Christ but a comfortable application of Christ and his benefits to our souls Which is as the prayer next following expresses it Then do we feed on Christ when by the blessed merits and death of our blessed Saviour and through faith in his blood we do obtain remission of our sins and all other benefits of his passion and are fulfilled with his grace and heavenly benediction Or if we desire a more ample commentary upon this sacramental repast and the nourishment thereby received the prayer ensuing offers it unto us in these words We most heartily thank thee for that thou hast vouchsafed to feed us which have duely received these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ and dost assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness towards uâ— and that we be very members incorporate in thy mystical body which is the blessed company of all faithful people and be also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdome by the merits of the most precious death and passion of thy dear Son This then is to feed upon Christ Lo the meat and manducation and nourishment are all spiritual whiles the elements be bodily and sensible which the allowed homilies of the Church also have laboured in most significant termes to set forth Thou must carefully search and know saith the first sermon concerning the sacrament Tome 2. what dignities are provided for thy soul whither thou art come not to feed thy senses and belly to corruption but thy inward man to immortality and life nor to consider the earthly creatures which thou seest but the heavenly graces which thy faith beholdeth For this table is not saith Chrysostome for chattering jayes but for Eagles who fly thither where the dead body lieth And afterwards to omit some other passages most pregnantly thus It is well known the meat we seek for in this supper is spiritual food the nourishment of our soul a Heavenly refection and not earthly an invisible meat and not bodily a ghostly substance and not carnal so that to think without faith we may enjoy the eating drinking thereof or that that is the fruition of it is but to dream a gross carnal feeding basely abjecting and binding our selves to the elements and creatures whereas by the advice of the council of Nice we ought to lift up our minds by faith and leaving these inferiour and earthly things there seek it where the son of righteousness ever shineth Take this lesson O thou that art desirous of this table of Emissenus a godly father That when thou goest to the reverend communion to be satisfyed with spiritual meats thou look up with faith upon the holy body and blood of thy God thou marvel with reverence thou touch it with the mind thou receive it with the hand of thy heart and thou take it fully with the inward Man Thus that homily in the voice of the Church of England Who now shall make doubt to say that in the Sacrament of the blessed Eucharist Christ is only present and received in a spiritual manner so as nothing is objected to our senses but the Elements nothing but Christ to our faith and therefore that it is requisite we should here walk with a wary and even foot as those that must tread in the midst betwixt profaneness and superstition not affixing a deity upon the Elements on the one side nor on the other sleighting them with a common regard not adoring the Creatures not basely esteeming their relation to that Son of God whom they do really exhibit to us Let us not then think it any boldness either to inquire or to determine of the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament and confidently to say that his body is locally in Heaven spiritually offered to and received by the faith of every worthy communicant upon Earth True it is that in our Saviours speech Joh. 6. to believe in Christ is to eat his flesh and to drink his blood even besides out of the act of this Eucharistical supper so as whosoever brings Christ home to his soul by the act of his faith makes a private meal of his Saviour but the holy Sacrament superadds a further degree of our interest in the participation of Christ for now over and above our spiritual eating of him we do here eat him Sacramentally also every simple act of our faith feeds on Christ but here by virtue of that necessary union which our Saviours institution hath made betwixt the signe and the thing signified the faithfull communicant doth partake of Christ in a
uncertainty still by the tradition of the Jewes either the Synagogue or the chamber is indifferently allowed to this act And why should the Sacrament of the new law be so affixed to our Churches that not necessity it self should be able to fetch these wholsom remedies home to our houses sure I am the fathers of the ancient Church were of another mind who before the fancy of opus operatum was hatched conceived such necessity of the Sacraments that Cyprian can tell you of Clinici as well as Peripateitci that others in case of extremity would have no difference made of land or water house or way bed or pavement And how is it that our liberty hath made us more strict or our straightness hath made us more free more strict for the place more free for the conceit of necessity But if privacy be so opposite to the nature of a Sacrament why may it not be avoided even in a parlour for in such a case the Church removes thither the walls you think conferr nothing the people are by the order of the Church commanded to assemble in a due frequence to the honor of either sacrament so as now I see not other difference but this Those which in the case of some private fast can be content for their preaching to change the Church into a chamber in the case of baptisme make dainty to change a chamber into a Church For geniculation in the Eucharist I am deceived if ever ceremony could complain of a more unjust displeasure or plead better desert For the Antiquity of it those that fetch it from Honorius are ill heralds They might know that Averroes an age before him could say in a misprision of the gesture Christiani adorant quod edunt and the best of the Fathers many ages before him Nemo manducat nisi prius adoraverit For the expedience what business can pass betwixt Heaven and Earth God and Man so worthy of reverence as that wherein Man receives God even the smallest gifts we receive from Princes upon our knees and now when the Prince of our peace gives himself to us shall we grudg to bow I know the old challenge Artolatry But shall others superstition make us unreverent Shall not God have our knees because Idols have had the knees of others But what do I press this to you who professed to me if I remember well your approbation hereof in our English Congregations The Sacrament is every where the same Nothing but want of use hath bred a conceit of uncouthness in that which custom would approve and commend As for confirmation by Bishops I need to say little because it little concerns you as an action appropriate to superiors neither I think do you envy it to them That the ceremony it selt is both of ancient and excellent use I know you will not deny for the one Melancton gives it the praise of Utilis ad erudiendos homines retinendos in vera agnitione Dei For the other Zuinglius can assure you Confirmationem tum fumpsisse exordium eum vulgo caeptum est infantes tingi In regard of both reverend Calvin wisheth it again restored to the Church with no small fervency all the doubt is in the restriction to Bishops wherein I will only send you to learned Bucer signum impositionis manuum etiam soli episcopi praebebant non absque ratione sive enim sit foedus Domini baptizatis confirmandum sive reconciliandi qui gravius peccaverunt sive ecclesiis ministri ordinandi haec omnia ministeria maxime decent eos quibus ecclesiarum cura demandata est This as it was done only at first by the Apostles in the case of the Samaritans so from them was by the Church derived to the Bishops as Chrysostom directs praepositis suis as Cyprian and Austin speak But what need I cite Fathers or counsels for that which worthy Calvin himself both confesses and teaches Certainly nothing but continuance and abuse hath distasted these things which if time had been their friend never wanted that which might procure them grace and respect from the World For their own sakes therefore I need not doubt to say that all these are worthy of your good intertainment much more then when they come to you with the billets of authority in their hands were they but things in the lowest ranke of indifferency the power that commands them might challenge their welcom how much more then when they have an intrinsecall worthiness to speak for them Your Letter hath well insinuated what the power of Princes is in things of middle natures whereof your Apostles rule will eternally hold not for fear but for conscience Indeed wherein is the power of royall authority if not in these things Good and evill have their set limits determined by God himself only indifferent things have a latitude allowed for the exercise of humane commands which if it might be resisted at pleasure what could follow but an utter confusion of all things This ground as it hath found just place in your own brest so were very fit to be laid by all your publick discourses in the minds of the people as that which would not a little rectifie them both in judgment and practise There is no good heart whom it would not deeply wound to hear of the least danger of the dissipation of your Church God in Heaven forbid any such mischief our prayers shall be ever for your safety but if any inconvenience should on your parts follow upon the lawfull act of authority see ye how ye can wash your hands from the guiltinesse of this evill This is I hope but your fear Love is in this sence full of suspicions and commnoly projects the worst It is Nazianzens advise Dum secundo vento navigas naufragium time tutior eris a naufragio adjutorem tibi ac sociâ—m adjungens timorem Farr farr is it from the heart of our Gratious Soveraign who holds it his chief glory to be amicus sponsae to intend ought that might be prejudiciall to your Church If his late journey his laboursome conferences his toylsome indeavours his beneficiall designes have not evinced his love to you what can do it And can any of yours think that this affection can stand with a will to hurt you I know nothing if I may except his own soul that he loves better then your Church and State and if he did not think this a fruit of his love he would be silent what shall he gain by this but that advantage which he promiseth to himself of your good in your assimilation to other churches a matter wherein I need not tell you there is both honour and strength The mention whereof drawes me towards the closure of my long letter whether to an Apology or interpretation of my self belike some captious hearers took hold of words spoken in some Sermon of mine that sounded of too much indifferency in these businesses ubi bos herbam vipera venenum
Mother is no sooner out of sight then the Elder begins to domineer over the younger and requires her to do something in the Family which she conceives may tend to the prejudice of the common profit and crosse the Mothers intention the younger finding her self grieved with this carriage and disliking the task injoyned both forbears to do it and seriously expostulates with her Sister laying before her the inconveniencies which will follow upon such an act the Elder impatient of a contradiction not only gives sharpe language but thrusts her Sister out of doors neither will admit her to come in again except she submit her self to her authority and perform that chare which she formerly refused the Younger holds off as thinking she may not yield without wrong to herself and to her Mothers Trust The Sisters are now thus parted but where is the blame The Younger is gone away from the Elder but she doth it upon the Elders violence on the one side she had not gone if she had not been thrust out on the other side she had not been thrust out if she had not refused to do the thing required on the one side the Elder might not be so imperious nor injoyn a thing unfit on the otherside the Younger might not upon such a command voluntarily forsake the Elder but if the Elder shall unjustly challenge such authority and shall thereupon impose unmeet services and shall put the Younger out of doors for not performing them it is clear where the fault rests I appeal to God and the consciences of all just men if this be not the state of the present differences of the Romans and Reformed Churches the remedy whereof must therefore begin from those parties which have given cause of the breach if they shall remit of their undue Height and Rigour and be content with those Moderate bounds which God hath set them both for Doctrine and Government and yeild themselves but capable of error there may be possibility of Reunion and Peace But whiles they persist to challenge an infallibility of judgment and uncontrollableness of practise they do wilfully block up the way to all reconciliation and concord and stand guilty of all that Grievous Schism under which the Church of God thus long and miserably suffers And this upon full deliberation is my setled and finall Resolution concerning the main difference in Religion wherein my soul doth so confidently rest that I dare therewith boldly appear before the face of that great Judge of the Quick and Dead as knowing it infallibly warranted by his own UNDOUBTED WORD JOS. EXON A LETTER OF ANSWER TO AN UNKNOWN COMPLAINANT Concerning the Frequent Injecting of TEMPTATIONS THe case whereof you complan is not more worthy of secrecy then of pity and yet in true judgment not so haynous as you conceive it Evil motions are cast into you which yet you entertain not with consent Let me assure you these are not your sins but his that injects them You may be as you are troubled with their importunity but you are not tainted with their evil whiles you dislike and hate them and are grieved with their suggestion That bold and suttle enemy of ours durst cast temptations into the Son of God himself in whom yet he could finde nothing It were wo with us if leud motions though repelled should be imputed unto us It is only our consent that brings them home to us and makes them our sins were then these thoughts as you suppose them blasphemies yet whiles your heart goes not with them but abhorrs them and strives against them they may afflict you they cannot hurt you As Luther said in the like case Birds may fly over our heads whether we will or no but they cannot nestle in our hair unlesse we permit them Take heart therefore to your self and be not too much dejected with the wicked solicitations of a known enemy For the redresse whereof as I have not been unacquainted with the like causes of complaints let me prescribe you a double remedy Resolution and Prayer In the first place take up strong resolutions not to give heed or eare to these unreasonable motions resolve rather to scorne and contemn them upon their first intimation as not worthy of a particular answer For certainly holding chat with them and sad agitations and arguing of them as thoughts meet to receive a satisfaction drawes on their more troublesome importunity whereas if they were sleighted and disdainfully turn'd off upon their first glimpse they would go away ashamed Whensoever therefore any such suggestions offer themselves unto you think with your self I know whence this comes it is Satans let him take it whose it is I will not meddle with it say but in your Saviours words Avoid Satan and divert your thoughts to some holy and profitable subject and these temptations will by Gods grace soon vanish In the second place apply your self to the remedy of that chosen Vessel who when he was buffeted by the messenger of Satan had recourse to the throne of Grace and besought God thrise that is frequently that he might depart away from him Whensoever you shall be thus troubled do you by a suddain ejaculation raise up your heart to God and beseech him to rebuke that evil one and do not so much care to answer the Temptation as to implore the aid of him who can take off the tempter at pleasure who hath an hook in the nostrils of that Leviathan Certainly those evil thoughts cannot be more swift-winged then our prayers may be nor so prevalent to our vexation as our prayers shall be for our rescue Be therefore fervent and affidious in them and my soul for yours the enemy shall have no power to harme you As for your doubt of receiving the blessed Sacrament because of these misconceived blasphemies it falls alone by what I have already said The blasphemies if they were such are Satans not yours Why should you not do your self good because he would do you a mischief In Gods name go on to defie that evil one and let him take his wickednesse to himself and do you goe with cheerfullnesse and good courage to that Holy Table as there and thence expecting to receive new strength against all his assaults Neither doubt I but that our good God will so blesse unto you this institution of his own together with your prayers and Resolutions that you shall be soon and fully freed from these hatefull guests and Comfortably injoy him and Your self which I shall also gladly second with my prayers for you though unknown as who am Your truly Compassionate and well-wishing Friend in Christ Jos Exon. Exon. April 14 1630. A CONSOLATORY LETTER TO ONE Under Censure Sir IT is not for me to examine the Grounds of your affliction which as they shall come to be scanned by greater judgments so in the mean time have doubtlesse received both a Verdict and sentence from your own heart and if this act were in
upon your Acts and Monuments and see whether any have been more expensive either of their ink or their blood against the tyranny of Popery and superstition then the Bishops of this Church of England in so much as the reverend Dr. Du Moulin in his publick Epistle professes that the Bishops of England were they to whom this Church is beholden for the liberty and maintenance of the Protestant Religion in this Kingdom and in this present age how many of us have written and are content and ready to bleed for the sincerity of the Gospel If there be any therefore in this holy order whose lips have hang'd towards the onions and garlick and fleshpots of Egypt let them undergo just censure but let the calling and the zealous and faithfull managers of it be acquitted before God and Men. For the latter I see and mourn to see that many good souls are brought into a dislike and detestation of the common prayers of the Church of England as meer Mass and Popery wo is me that error should prevail so farr with good hearts I beseech you for Gods sake and your souls sake be rightly informed in this so materiall and important a point I see there is herein a double offence One of them which dislike the prayers because they are set forms the other that dislike them because they are such set forms For the former I beseech them to consider seriously whether they ought to think themselves wiser and perfecter then all the Churches of God that ever have been upon the Earth This I dare confidently say that since God had an established Church in the World there were set forms of devotion in the Jewish Church before and since Christ in the Christian Church of all ages and at this very day all those varieties of Christians in the large circle of Christianography they have their set forms of prayers which they do and must use and in the Reformed Churches both of the Lutherans and France and Scotland it is no otherwise yea reverend Mr. Calvin himself whose judgment had wont to sway with the forwardest Christians writing to the Protector of England Anno 1548. hath these words Quod ad formulam precum attinet rituum Ecclesiasticorum valsle probâ— ut certa illa extet a qua pastoribus discedere non liceat in functione sua c. And adding three grave and solid reasons for it concludes thus so then there ought to be a set form of Catechism a set form of administration of Sacraments and of publick prayers and why will we cast off the judgment both of him and all the Divines of the whole Christian World till Barrow and Browne in our age and remembrance contradicted it and run after a conceit that never had any being in the World till within our own memory For the latter There are those who could allow some form of set prayers but dislike this of ours as savoring of the Pope and the Mass whence they say it is derived Now I beseech you Brethren as you would avoid the danger of that wo of calling good evill and evill good inform your selves throughly of the true State of this business Know therefore that the whole Church of God both Eastern and Western as it was divided both the Greek and Latin Church under which this Iland was wont to be ranged had their forms of prayer from the begining which were then holy and Heavenly compiled by the holy Fathers of those first times Afterwards the abuses and errors of popery came in by degrees as Transubstantiation Sacrifice of the Mass prayers for the dead prayers to Saints these poysoned the Church and vitiated these holy forms whiles they continued but when Reformation came in divers worthy Protestant Divines whereof some were noble Martyrs for religion were appointed to revise that form of service to purge out all that popish leaven that had sowred them to restore them to their former purity leaving nothing in that book but that which they found consonant to godliness and pure religion If any Man will now say that our prayer book is taken out of the Mass let him know rather that the Mass was cast out of our prayer-book into which it was injuriously and impiously intruded the good of those prayers are ours in the right of Christians the evill that was in them let them take as their own And if it should have been as they imagine let them know that we have departed from the Church of Rome but in those things wherein they have departed from Christ what good thing they have is ours still That scripture which they have That Creed which they profess is ours neither will we part with it for their abuse If a peece of Gold be offerd us will we not take it because it was taken out of the channell If the Devil have given a confession of Christ and said I know who thou art even Jesus the Son of the living God shall not I make this confession because it came out of the Devils mouth Alas we shall be herein very injurious both to our selves and to God whose every holy truth is This then is the form which hath been compiled by learned and holy Divines by blessed Martyrs themselves who used it comfortably and blessed God for it But if the quicker eyes of later times have found any thing which displeases them in the phrases and manners of expression or in some rites prescribed in it Let them in Gods name await for the reforming sentence of that publick authority whereby it was framed and enacted and let not private persons presume to put their hands to the work which would introduce nothing but palpable confusion let all things be done decently and in order Shortly my Brethren let us hate Popery to the death but let us not involve within that odious name those holy forms both of administration and devotion which are both pleasing unto God and agreeable to all Christianity and Godliness A SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT My Lords I Have long held my peace and meant to have done so still but now like to Croesus his mute Son I must break silence I humbly beseech your Lordships to give me leave to take this too just occasion to move your Lordships to take into your deep and serious consideration the woful and lamentable condition of the poor Church of England your dear Mother My Lords this was not wont to be her stile we have heretofore talkt of the famous and flourishing Church of England but now your Lordships must give me leave to say that the poor Church of England humbly prostrates her self next after his sacred Majesty at your Lordships feet and humbly craves your compassion and present aid My Lords It is a foul and dangerous insolence this which is now complained of to you but it is but one of a hundred of those which have been of late done to this Church and Government The Church of England as your Lordships cannot choose