1 Cor. xi 28. But let a Man examine himself and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. SERMON IX X XI On Christmass day fol. 268 295 324. I. on Luke ii 10 11. And the Angel said unto them Fear not for behold I bring you tydings of great joy which shall be to all people For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. II. on Gal. iv 4 5. When the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law That he might redeem them that are under the Law that we might receive the adoption of Sons III. on Esay liii 8. And who shall declare his Generation SERMON XII XIII Two Funeral Sermons fol. 356 384. I. For the Mother on Psal. cxlii verse ult Bring my Soul out of Prison that I may give thanks unto thy Name which thing if thou wilt grant me then shall the Righteous resort unto my Company II. For the Daughter on Rom viii 10. And if Christ be in you the Body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is life because of Righteousness A DISCOURSE OF OATHS SERMON I. Upon JER iv 2. And thou shalt swear The Lord liveth in Truth in Judgment and in Righteousness THough all Sins be dangerous unto the Soul of man and none so small as may be neglected since a man may be choaked under a heap of Sand as well as crushed to death by the fall of a Tower yet the greater a sin is and the more general it is grown the greater danger and more inevitable destruction doth attend it And therefore it doth require our chief labour and diligence both to avoid such in our selves and to give the best notice we can unto others of the peril By negligence the least Leak may drown the Ship but the Pilot's special care is of the Rock on which if his Vessel fall it certainly splits Now of all the Sins whereunto the Corruption of man is subject I think there is scarce any so great and so common so great in it self and so common in the world so injurious unto the Majesty of God and so frequent amongst the Sons of men as the sin of Swearing The vain and irreverent using rather abusing of that Sacred Name in our ordinary speech which if well considered we should tremble but to think on A sin which the Wise man tells us will bring a Curse upon the house where it is used and it is no less likely to bring a Curse upon a whole Land and Nation where it is universal So that this impiety of all other as it brings with it a greater and more general danger so it calls for from all especially from all us whom it most concerns a great and universal care All endeavours should run forth to the quenching of a common fire It is indeed often galled and sharply taxed from such places as these obviously and by the way But the point contains much and will require a set discourse of that and nothing else for we cannot be too industrious against a publick mischief For which reason I have now made it the subject of my discourse as it is of this Verse Wherein you have the whole Nature and full doctrine of an Oath and how prepared it may be wholesome which otherwise used is deadly poison For an Oath is not simply and utterly unlawful my Text says Thou shalt swear but then it must be qualifyed with the due form and matter and manner The form must be As the Lord liveth that is in the Name of the living Lord The matter Truth and Righteousness the manner or modification Judgment Thou shalt c. But before you may fully apprehend the division of the Text it will be requisite that I shew you some divisions of an Oath for there are divers sorts There is a bare and simple Oath and there is an Oath mixt with a Curse and execration The bare and simple Oath is only a plain and naked contestation wherein we call God to witness of what we say The execratory is when we bind over and oblige either our selves or something dear unto us unto some notorious punishment if so be that be not true which we say as when one swears by his Life Soul Salvation and the like Again there is an Oath wherein there is a manifest and express assumption of the Name of God which needs no instance we know it too well by daily and fearful example And there is an Oath wherein God is called to record tacitly and implicitly under the Name of those Creatures wherein his Glory doth especially shine and appear So he that sweareth by heaven sweareth both by heaven and by him that dwelleth therein And lastly which is specially material There is an Oath Assertory and an Oath Obligatory Assertory when we affirm or deny any thing past or present Obligatory when we promise or threaten something to come Which being observed you may easily make a fit Application of the three terms in my Text Truth Judgment and Righteousness Truth unto an assertory Oath Righteousness unto a promissory Judgment and discretion unto both For which cause it is placed in the midst between both For an Assertory oath must be True lest we swear falsly A Promissory Righteous lest we swear to do unjustly and both with discretion and judgment lest we swear lightly and rashly Thou shalt swear c. So then we may in some case swear but the Oath must have the right form it must be made in the name of the Lord And the due matter in Truth if Assertory in Righteousness if Promissory And then in a discreet manner with premeditation and judgment in both Wherein you see how we may swear and how we may not swear In Truth Judgment and Righteousness we may swear but falsly unjustly and rashly and vainly we may not swear Of these points in their order beginning with the first The Lawfulness of an Oath and that in case a man may swear Thou shalt c. 1. There are not wanting some and those even amongst the Fathers themselves who have censured all Oaths though permitted by the Law yet as condemned by the Gospel which contains they say a Doctrine of more than legal perfection of this opinion were St. Basil and Theophylact and it is the error of the Anabaptist unto this day Others have thought that an Oath may be lawful under the Gospel but then only before a Magistrate and when it is required by such as have authority thereunto But the common and more general opinion both of the Antient Fathers and Modern Divines is that it is not simply unlawful for a private man to swear and in a private action when some urgent cause either the honour and Glory of God or some great good and benefit of our Neighbour doth call for it at our hands since it is not the use of an Oath but
glory unto him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb for evermore Who now shall mourn who shall weep for such a Soul none can sorrow for her unless they envy her happiness foelix illa anima imitationem desiderat nâ—n planctum that blessed Soul is no subject of grief but a pattern for imitation And therefore if any weep in her death they must be tears of joy not of sorrow and if they be of sorrow they must not be for her but for our selves and our own loss This indeed is great and invaluable and when you think on it weep a Gods name Quis natum in funere matris flere vetat he were barbarous that would forbid it you yet you shall not have all to your selves we 'll bear you company for she was a publick loss Such a Wife such a Mother such a Friend such a Mistriss such a Neighbour such and so good a Woman and so great an example of Virtue cannot should not go to the grave with dry eyes in whose loss so many have interest I would praise her if I could to make you weep more but she is beyond my commendations A Woman of her Wisdom and Judgment of her Wit and discourse so free and liberal and yet so prudent and provident withal for she was so in her self though misfortunes befel her so sweet so kind so mild so loving and respective to all and withal so charitable to the poor a Chirurgeon to the hurt and a Physician to the sick she eat not her morsels alone and their loins were warmed with her wooll as Job speaks such a Woman so well born and bred and of such a strain beyond ordinary as she seemed with the blood to inherit too the virtues of all her Ancestors so upright and clear and innocent in her whole course that the eye of envy nay were all the malice of the world infused into one eye it could not find any just stain to fasten on her such a one so every way compleat surely no Man unless he had her own or the wit and tongue of an Angel can sufficiently commend neither can we if we regard our own loss sufficiently bewail But the truth is she is not lost non amissa sed praemissa sent before she is lost she is not And therefore you whom it most concerns though you mourn mourn not as those without hope It is but a short separation and the time will come when you shall see her again though not with these earthly affections Pay the due tribute unto nature but then shut up the sluces for graces sake And the God of all grace give you comfort the Holy Ghost the Comforter himself replenish your heart with consolations And the blood of Jesus Christ wash us all from all our sins and strengthen us with the power of his might that we may so live whilst we remain here in this Prison of the Body that when it shall be dissolved we may obtain mercy from him to lead forth our Souls To lead them with his grace and then as he hath done to this blessed Saint receive them unto glory There with her and all the company of righteous spirits that are gone before us to sing praise and honour unto his holy name for evermore To this God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost c. Laus Deo in aeternum THE Second FUNERAL SERMON FOR THE DAUGHTER SERMON XIII Upon ROM viii 10. And if Christ be in you the Body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is life because of Righteousness MAN of all Gods Creatures is the strangest compounded the most marvellous mixture that ever was a very fardel of contrarieties wonderfully united and wrapt up in one bundle Heaven and Earth light and darkness Christ and Belial may seem to dwell together and man the house of their habitation what can be more directly opposite than Flesh and Spirit Life and Death Sin and Righteousness and lo all of them united here in one verse nay in one man For the Text is but the Anatomy of man and must therefore be composed of and divided into the same parts man himself is As his body is composed of contrary Elements heat and cold fire and water So his person is composed of contrary Natures Corporal and Spiritual Body and Soul His Natures again of contrary qualities Life and Death the Body is dead the Soul lives and lastly these qualities issuing from contrary causes sin and righteousness death from sin and life from righteousness The Body c. And though the sin by which the body dies is our own yet that we may know that the righteousness whereby the Soul lives is not of our selves but received from our Saviour there is a caution given in the entrance of the verse If Christ be in you So then here are three couples a Body and a Soul Sin and Righteousness Life and Death The body with her two attendants sin and death the Soul with her two endowments righteousness and life The former is universal and common to all the Sons of Adam according to the flesh the latter particular and proper only to the Children of the second Adam begotten by the Spirit If Christ c. I begin with the first part which is a meditation of death and our chief Christian comforts against death But yet before the Apostle brings in his consolations he premises a conditon If Christ be in you To teach us that the comforts of God belong not indifferently to all men He that is a stranger from Christ hath nothing to do with them What hast thou to do to take my Covenant into thy mouth so long as thou hatest to be reformed saith God in the Psalm I. When our Saviour commanded his Disciples to proclaim peace unto every house they came to he foretold them it should rest only on the Sons of peace He forbad them in like manner to give those things which were holy unto doggs or to cast pearls before Swine This stands a perpetual Law to all his messengers that they presume not to proclaim peace to the impenitent and unbelieving but as Jehu said unto Jehoram's horsman what hast thou to do with peace so are we to tell the wicked who walk on still in their sins that they have nothing to do with the peace or promises or priviledges of the Gospel If Christ be in you c. Secondly if we compare the verse immediately precedent or that which is subsequent with this between both you shall easily perceive after what manner Christ dwells in his Children Sometimes we are said to be in Christ and sometimes Christ is said again to be in us and both in effect come to one we are in Christ by faith and Christ is in us by his Spirit For so it follows If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies It is
Non sic in opere tuo domine non sic in commixtione tua not so in thy work O Lord not so in thy commixtion here the living and the dead dwell both together The body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life Here then are the high consolations of a Christian against death briefly comprised and they are three That his death is neither total nor final but his life is perpetual His death is not total it is only of the body for the spirit lives it is not final for the spirit is not said only to live but that it is life and that in two respects first because it shall give life again unto the body and that secondly an everlasting life and therefore it is not barely the spirit shall live but in the abstract the spirit is life So you may perceive the reason why the Apostle varies his manner of speech he said not the body is death as he says the spirit is life neither saith he the spirit is alive as he said the body is dead but the body is dead and the spirit is life the body is dead and not death because it shall live again and the spirit is not alive but life because by the virtue of the spirit it is that it shall live and live for ever The spirit c. So our life is perpetuate our death but short and not total Amidst these comforts what hath death in it that shall greatly trouble or distress the faithful Soul why should it not stand erect in the midst of all the panick terrors thereof so long as there is begun in us a life which no death shall ever be able to extinguish Albeit death invade the natural and vital powers of our bodies and suppress them one after another yea though at the length he break in upon this lodging of clay and demolish it to the ground yet the inner Man and spiritual that dwells in the body shall escape with his life The Tabernacle is cast down that 's the most our enemy can do but he who dwells in it removes unto a better The dissolving of the body to him is but the breaking up of the prison wherein he hath been so long detained that he may thenceforth be delivered into a glorious liberty For as the Bird escapes out of the snare of the Fowler so the Soul in death mounts up and flies away wiâ— joy into the rest of her Maker The Apostle knew this well and therefore desired to be dissolved that he might be with Christ. As in the battle between our Saviour and Satan Satans head was bruised but he did no more than tread on our Saviours heel so shall it be in the conflict of all his members with Satan by the power of our Lord Jesus we shall be more than conquerors For the God of peace shall tread him under our feet Rom. xvi While he is there let him nibble about the feet it is no great matter yet 't is all he can do and let him do it Manducet terram meam dentem carni infigat let him bite the dust saith Ambrose it was his original curse let him eat that part of me which is earth let him bruise my body all this is still but to tread upon my heel my comfort is there is a seed of immortal life in my Soul which no power of the enemy is able to approach much less to overcome and extinguish for the spirit doth not only live but is life life eternal The spirit is life c. But yet that we may more fully understand to whom these consolations belong and what spirits they are that can live in death and injoy the comforts of life when their bodies can live no longer it is added because of righteousness The spirit is life because of righteousness or for righteousness sake The righteous then these are they to whom it belongs these only are the holy Spirits that shall revive in the midst of life and live in death as they died while they lived whilst the body lived they died unto sin and when the body dies they shall live unto God For as the life of the Soul is the comfort of the heart so the spirit of righteousness is the life of the Soul And therefore deceive not thy self in a matter of such moment in the business of thine everlasting welfare but be most assured that so far forth thou dost live as thou art sanctified and no farther As health is to the body so is holiness to the spirit A body without health falls out of one pain into another till it die and a Soul without holiness is polluted with one lust after another till it perish eternally As the Moon hath light more or less as it is in aspect with the Sun so the Soul enjoys life less or more as it is turned or averted to or from the Lord of life whose righteousness only can give life as this life peace and joy unto the Soul Miserable are those wicked ones that want both they are as St. Jude speaks bis mortui twice dead that is dead both in body and Soul Their Souls indeed do live and shall live eternally a natural life but there is a life of Grace as well as of Nature by the one the Soul lives for ever by the other it lives for ever in happiness This life they do not they shall not ever live and as for the natural the Spirit of God accounts that but a death whilst they live in the body he saith they are dead in sins and when they go out of the body though they live yet he calls their life and justly an eternal death Immortality seems to be added rather to their sorrow than to their Souls Since their Souls are only kept immortal that their punishment might be everlasting It is true that so long as Men enjoy this natural life in health of body and prosperity of fortune the loss that comes by want of the spiritual life is not so safely discerned no more than the defects of a ruinous house are known in time of fair weather but when the storm of affliction when the tempest of death shall come pouring down upon him then the decaies and breaches will manifest themselves How woful then must his condition needs be that hath now no other life but a natural and must now part with that and he knows not whither In this estate he cannot but die either uncertain of comfort or rather most certain of Condemnation And therefore it is not much to be marvelled they are so loth to think or so much as to hear of that final and fatal time O death how bitter is thy remembrance unto such saith the Wiseman How doth the only apprehension thereof even chill the blood in his veins kill the very marrow in his bones Belshazzar's doom is no sooner written upon the wall but the joints of his loins are loosed and his knees smite one against
another How did that one word of the Witch strike Saul thorough and thorough leaving him tumbling on the earth in a swoon To morrow by this time thou and thy sons shall be with me so bitter indeed is the remembrance even of bodily death unto those that have no spiritual life in their Souls But what misery may we think will there be in the enduring and suffering of that whose only expectation is so fearful Sad and fearful is the departure of the wicked though it outwardly appear not in all the comforts of my Text belong not to them as their Spirits were dead whilest they lived so they shall not live when they die Where there is no righteousness there can be no life For the Spirit c. No the righteous the righteous that is the faithful and penitent Souls these are they who as they have the true spiritual life in present so in death they shall have the true comforts of the blessed life which is to come for however God at other times brings trouble heaviness and afflictions on his best servants yet at that hour he never fails to assist them and in the midst of death to make the life of their Souls appear more clearly for righteousness sake He may seem to absent himself from them and to hide his counâ—◠〈◊〉 but then in that day of need in that last and fearful time which most requires it they shall be sure of his comforts he will not fail then to discover his face and make the light of his countenance to shine into that region of darkness and by the gracious beams thereof to chear up his people lighting and guiding their feet through that obscure Valley and shadow of death into the blessed ways of immortality and peace Believe not me look upon the holy men of God a little and see it perfomed with your Eyes Behold the Patriarch Jacob the Father of the Patriarchs he who wrestled not only that one time at the River Jabbock but all his life long with the arme of the Almighty continually afflicting him But see how contrary it fell out in the end when all the clouds of affliction being blown over a calm of contentment follows and he is gathered unto his Fathers in peace but first mark how the Lord gave him strength before he went hence and was no more seen wherewith he collects his fainting Spirits raiseth himself in his bed calls his Sons about him tells them of things to come great things to come for many generations and with an inspired Spirit ready to expire gives every one his several blessing and benediction in such a prophetical so high and Heavenly a strain and stile as if an Angel had sate on his lip and I doubt not but many Angels sate waiting in that door of the body for the coming forth of his Soul which stayed not long after to receive and convey it into the bosom of his Grand-father Abraham there to rest in everlasting peace Look upon Joshua that valiant Captain who having spent his life in travail and more than Herculean labours warring against Gyants and the Sons of Aâ—ak yet at last you may see him sitting down in peace and dividing the spoil among the Children of Jacob And in the end death drawing near see how he summons the Tribes of Israel together and in a sweet Oration recounts unto them all the mercies of God which had followed them from Terab the Father of Abraham that dwelt beyond the flood to Cheusem that had now gotten possession of the promised land within Jordan And being full of the spirit and spiritual life with such power of speech he exhorts them to the fear and service of this merciful God that the whole Congregation as if they had had but one heart and one Soul and both throughly affected joyntly cry out God forbid that we should forsake the Lord nay he is our God and we will serve him Josh the last After this manner from the flame of his own zeal having kindled a fire in the hearts of others this great Worthy and worthy Servant of the Lord lived in his death and dyed in peace See holy Samuel the Judge of Israel going to his grave as to his bed and in him consider the power and vertue of a good conscience arising from the memory of a well acted life Whose Ox or whose Ass have I taken whom have I defrauded or opprest or at whose hands have I received a bribe saith he in the publick assembly and all the people bare witness unto him saith the Text. Hoc ducit ad fâ—nus sepulturam this is it that accompanies him to his Grave and layes him in his rotten Sepulcher The like blessed savour of rest did this peace of conscience send forth in the blessed Apostle S. Paul who in that wonderful confidence was bold to deliver up his Soul in the breath of the same words as it were his Saviour had done before him a Consummatum est I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness which the Lord the just Judge shall give me in that day words worthy of a Soul so near its Heaven Lastly view the Protomartyr Steven blessed with peace in the midst of a cruel death for all torments are easy if they have answerable comforts The obstinate Jews threw the stones of death at him but he filled with the Holy Ghost looks stedfastly into Heaven where he beholds his Saviour standing at the right hand of God to whom now dying he speaks as he had done before to his Father in manus tuas into thy hands O Lord I commend my Spirit Such have been the blessed ends of these holy men of God and of many others famous in their Generations and such it shall be in all others that faithfully serve him though peradventure it is not manifest in all Their bodies are buried in the Earth but they have left a name behind them and a memory sweeter than the perfume made by the art of the Apothecary as was spoken of the good King Josiah And what is there now that can more deeply affect an honest and a good heart what can a religious mind either so much desire unto it self or behold with so great joy in another as to see a devout and penitent Soul give a peaceful farewel unto Nature and in the depth of death depart full of the comforts of immortality and life But it may be far off examples will be left too far off respects for likely those that are nearest do affect us better if so you want them not neither two among the rest more remarkable you have had of late The one not long since the other now before your eyes The Mother and the Daughter of both whom I may truly say in the words of my Text their bodies were dead while they lived and their Souls lived in the death of their bodies for righteousness sake A
memorable and exemplary couple I may well join them in my speech they were so many ways joined in themselves They were joined in affinity and alliance they were joined in affection and love they were joined in the quality and nature of their Disease and would not be severed till death did it in the time of their sickness they were joined in the comforts of death and now they are joined in the glory of an everlasting life But the formers rites are passed yet they might not be now passed over I cannot but give her a touch she desired it from me and I am sure she deserved it For the latter here now in your sight I shall not speak much because I can hardly speak enough with her former times I have had no acquaintance and therefore can make no relation of it only I assure my self that she who was so patient and penitent in her sickness so devout and cheerful in her death could not but be well and religiously disposed in the course of her life But for the latter part of her days them I have known and in them been an eye-witness of the expression of more goodness than I have often seen or from a Woman of her quality could have expected The things of note which I especially observed in her and shall commend unto you are principally these her willingness to entertain death and her deadness unto the world and worldly affairs her joy in spiritual discourses and her frequency and fervency in devout prayer For the first if we consider the impediments it was much she should do it so cheerfully she was but young and entring upon the prime of her years She had small and tender Infants of her own that went near her she was well bestowed where she found both youth and love and means too wanted nothing nor was likely to want haec sunt quae faciunt homines invitos mori and these are the things that make Men unwilling to die could the Philosopher say Yet notwithstanding all these she gently submitted her self unto it she resolutely went forth to meet it and lest he should miss her she call'd it unto her Come gentle death and even held forth her arms to receive and embrace it For the second I was with her often yet never heard a word of worldly matter or secular affair so much as fall from her tongue Her heart was bent on Heaven which made it delight so much in heavenly contemplations they came down upon her as the Scripture speaks like rain into a fleece of wooll and as a shower upon a thirsty land With what an open and greedy ear did she suck in celestial comforts which she shortly after vented out again in devout supplications wherein the mercy of the Lord did not forsake her even to the last gasp And then at last when her hands forsook her tongue and her tongue had almost forsaken her heart yet her heart did still adhere unto God in uncessant prayer and therefore she intreated others to hold her fainting hands that her tongue failing they at least might testify that her Soul did commune with her Maker It calls to mind the story of Moses having Aaron and Hur to support his arms for whilst he prayed Amalek fled and Joshua conquered Sure I am whilst she did in like manner the true Joshua conquered all the spiritual Amalekites and enemies of her Soul who only could batter down the prison of her body that her spirit being loose and at liberty might freely clear the air and mount up to the desired place of everlasting rest where she now is and where may she still in peace remain till another day shall invest both Body and Soul with unspeakable glory Who can now mourn who can weep for such a Soul if ye do they must be tears of joy not of sorrow at least they must be for your selves not for her You may bewail your own loss you cannot grieve at her death unless you envy her happiness foelix iss a anima imitationem desiderat non planctum that happy Soul is no subject of sorrow but a pattern of imitation And therefore I now leave the dead and conclude to the living that their Spirits may live in death as hers hath shown them the example For this should be the chief endeavour this should be the principal care of a Christian in his whole life that when his life shall end yet the life of his Soul may not end with the death of his body It little matters how it fares with us in the rest of our time so it go well with us here when if wrath overtake us it shall eleave unto us for ever but if peace end our days our days afterwards of peace shall never end For as the tree falleth there it shall lie Wretched Men that can willingly think of any thing save this that infinitely concerns them above all things else that can wish with Balaam let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his but never endeavour themselves in the works of righteousness whereby they may procure it as if they might be like them in their death whom they refused to imitate in their actions But they may wish like Solomons fool till their tongue cleave to their gums for so long as they live the life of Balaam loving the wages of iniquity they shall never die the death of the righteous nor have their last end like his whom they are nothing like in conversation No if the Soul then live it must be as my Text hath it for righteousness sake Set thy self therefore to it seriously and speedily Wise Princes make many days preparation for a field that must be fought in one Beloved let us be wise too and lay up something every day for the last when we shall wrestle with death If we win that skirmish we have enough but where or when or how soon we shall be called to the conflict who can tell be not secure therefore and presume not on the last hour it may come suddenly upon thee flatter not thy self and thy sins and frame not delay unto thine own Soul Send not Religion before thee unto thine old age whither peradventure thou shalt never come or else come hardned through the deceitfulness of sin Give not thy youth and strength unto Satan and then when thou art low drawn and upon the lees think to present God with the dregs of thy life What a folly were it for thee to adventure thy surest thy everlasting weal or wo making or marring on so sandy and sinking a foundation how much better were it for thee to remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth before the evil day come and thou say I have no delight herein that thy Creator may not forget thee in thine old age when strength faileth and Man returneth to his long home Sure in these great water-floods we shall hardly come nigh him and therefore let
must be velle fortiter integre no cold and faint desire but a strong a total and a resolute will The sluggard may be willing to rise and yet for all that lie still in his warm Bed but it is not a Will that he hath but only a Velleity or willingness for when he will he riseth yea when he wills he cannot possibly choose but rise for the body doth naturally obey the mind so easily and readily ut vix à servitio discernatur imperium that the wit of man saith St. Austin can hardly discern between the command of the one and the execution of the other And therefore to will is to do and he that doth not do did never will he that doth not do what is possible for him to do did never will since if he will such things it is impossible for him not to do So that rightly in this Velle sufficit there is nothing required but thy Will yet thy full and total Will not a saint and lazy Velleity but a resolved Will that is ever accompanied with watchful and diligent endeavour which the Tongue of all other doth especially require of us as the same Father elsewhere speaks Lingua facilitatem habet motûs in udo posita est facile labitur in lubrico The Tongue hath a great facility in motion and is seated in a moist and slippery place where it is easy to slide of it self but much more through Custom And therefore quanto illa cilius movetur tanto tu adversus illam fixus esto The more movable the Tongue is the more immovable and fixt must be thy resolution and Care and the longer the Custom the greater thine intention to break it For vigilance will conquer it and the fear of God will beget vigilance and the meditation that thou art a Christian that must render an account of all at the last day is able to instil the fear of God into thy heart saith the same St. Austin who doth also incourage us not only by his exhortation but even by his own example who seems to have been as deeply engaged in this evil habit as another but how freed he himself Timendo Deum Jurationem abstulimus de ore nostro The fear of God saith he stripped it from my Tongue Luctatus sum c. For I wrestled with the evil use and wrestling I called upon God and Gods assistance delivered me from the Custom And now nihil mihi facilius quam non jurare there is nothing so easy to me as not to swear Beloved let us imitate the holy Father and we shall also as easily vanquish he hath beaten out a straight and plain path to victory and we need only to tread in his steps And therefore with him Let us cast up our eyes upon that sacred and dreadful Majesty which we offend and then fear and fearing wrestle and wrestling call and calling we shall certainly receive assistance undoubtedly to conquer yea and to insult over it conquered with a Nihil mihi facilius nothing is now so easy unto me as not to swear And sure the fear of God is ever the beginning of Wisdom especially here where the sin is the direct opposite to it as being a presumptuous irreverence in the very face and against the very honour of the Almighty which cannot possibly consist with his fear which is the surest bank and bulwork against all ungodliness And therefore when that like a Flood-hatch is plucked up and cast aside no marvel if dishonour be presently poured forth upon God and men become filled and overflown with Iniquity And as little marvel that the Lord for both respects as well for our benefit and good as for the fear and reverence of his own Name injoineth this as the very first thing we should beg of him in our prayers Sanctificetur Nomen tuum hallowed be thy Name and as the first thing inhibited with a special note of revenge for he will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain and as a prime instruction of the first Sermon that ever he preached I say unto you swear not at all That which he was so careful as to make the Instruction of his first Sermon the first petition in his prayer and the first revenge in the Decalogue cannot be thought a matter of light importance but must needs argue it a sin no less odious unto himself than pernicious unto man for which reason St. James seems worthily to inlarge our Saviour's instruction swear not at all with an Ante omnia above all things my brethren swear not at all To whose exhortation we may all yet well add another Ante omnia of Prayer above all things O Lord plant thy fear in our hearts that we swear not at all If the awful fear of thy Majesty may not deter us at least let the dreadful fear of thy Judgments terrify us from this presumptuous sin that it get not the dominion over us So shall we be innocent from the great offence and freed from the great malediction Thy curse upon our selves and houses whilest we live and destruction of Body and Soul in everlasting sorrow when we die Which the Lord of his infinite mercy avert and instead thereof grant unto us so to Reverence his holy Name now as we may be admitted with Saints and Angels everlastingly to magnify and adore it in thy Eternal Kingdom hereafter Whereunto God of the same infinite Goodness c. Amen A SERMON OF THE DUTY of MAN SERMON II. Upon ECCLES xii 13. Let us hear the Conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandments For this is the whole Duty of Man For God c. THIS whole Book is nothing else but a Search and Enquiry of King Solomon into that grand and famous Question de Summo Bono what may be the chief Wisdom and happiness of Man in this Mortality And this Verse with that other which follows as they close up the Book so they contain the Conclusion of the point a full discovery and resolution of that which in the former Chapters was but fearched after and enquired into whereunto his answer is short and plain but thus Fear God and keep his Commandments This only the whole matter of his Conclusion and that we may take it for full satisfaction to the Question he assures us that it is the Conclusion too of the whole matter Let us hear c. A Conclusion then we may be bold to term it for so it is and so it terms it self A Conclusion that hath two parts Fear God and keep his Commandments And both backt with two Reasons He will not beg the Conclusion but prove it For this is the duty the whole duty not of the Priest or some of the People but universally of Man Every Mans Duty and the whole Duty of every Man That is the first Reason There is a second in the next Verse and I may mention it though at this time not meddle
which as St. John saith hath pain in it as curbing men in their desires and we may add imperfection too as not able to sanctify their Persons yet is it as the Son of Syrach speaks the beginning of wisdom and leads unto that which is perfect for by constant forbearance of evil though out of terrour men may come at length to love and delight in goodness and then every degree of such love casteth out a degree of that fear till perfect love at last casteth out all fear all that is painful but withal induceth another fear of another both name and nature Timor castus filialis a chast and filial fear the fear of offence not of punishment a fear not only good in it self but such as makes the subject good too wherein it resides And this fear hath two Eyes with the one it beholds God as the supream and Soveraign good not only in himself but of all those that adhere unto him and then loving him as such they cannot but withal fear to offend or lose that God and goodness which above all things they love But the other Eye fastens it self on God as no less great than good and contemplating as well as it may or as far as it dares the Sanctity Power and Immensity the infinite Majesty and glory of the divine Essence or Deity is strucken with admiration and adoration too of so great and inconceivable Excellence from whence it takes another denomination and is stiled Timor reverentialis a devout and reverential fear It is true that the time will come when even this filial fear shall lose one of these lights and be no whit the less comely and beautiful for that neither for as the filial fear throws out that which is servile so fruition will cast out the first part of that which is filial For being confirmed in goodness there is no room for the fear when there is no danger of offending or losing that God which we enjoy But this reverential fear is never thrown out by any thing else but is that fear whereof David spake The fear of the Lord is clean and endureth for ever It attends not on this life only but runs it self into immortality the fear of blessed Angels now and shall be the fear of all holy Saints as here so in that blessedness for ever hereafter And then indeed it will be the fulness of wisom and the Crown both of it and that fulness also But as on these several fears so are we to look on men too and their several conditions otherwise our discourse will not be so real as rational But yet though these fears abstractedly considered have their several forms whereby they are differenced and are in supream degrees some of them incompatible yet in the concrete as they subsist in their subjects they are not usually in this life so intense and pure but that though one be predominant they are all three mixed for the most part and compounded together Whence it is that holy men even the greatest Saints and Servants of God whose fear therefore filial and founded in love yet because liable through this body of death unto frailties and sometimes unto falls are now and then found to be sensible also of his wrath Even David himself whose Confidence otherwhiles can carry him through the valley of death without fear yet at other seasons is driven to cry out A Judiciis tuis timui I was afraid of thy judgments yea from my youth up thy terrours have I suffered with a troubled mind Holy Job though a perfect and upright man by the mouth of God himself yet not so perfect in all his ways and upright but that we may sometimes read these sad complaints The Arrows of the Almighty stick fast within me the venont whereof drink up my Spirits and Quid faciam cum surrexerit ad judicandum Deus And if it thus befal the green Trees how shall it fare with the dry If such Worthies so complain and cry out under the terrour of divine judgment how shall we that are worse dare to reject it as servile Certainly he that doth so doth withal take himself for perfect in love since perfect love alone it is that can cast out all fear that is painful Presuâ—mption indeed can do the like cast it out too for a time but will undoubtedly bring great fears upon them in the end And therefore for such as grow high through the favours of God and more consident than their behaviour under them can warrant the Scriptures want not corrosives to beat down the proud flesh and abate the presumptuous Spirit Be not high minded but fear yea work out your Salvation with fear and trembling also But on the other side where this fear and trembling hath taken hold and the humbled Soul steeping it self in the sense and sorrow of her sins comes to labour under its own grief in this Case there wants not Balm in Gilead neither Lenitives nor Cordials for the wounded Spirit Ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear but the Spirit of Adoption that cryes Abha Pater and what is your Fathers will why fear not little Flock it is your Fathers will to give such for their sorrow now a Kingdom of joy hereafter to wit in sensu composito if they run not back again into those sins for which they are so sorrowful Thus the Scriptures are not contradictory only they suit divers fears with different properties and contrary dispositions with as opposite exhortations as is but just and reasonable To scatter the proud in their imaginations but to bind up and strengthen the broken-hearted Now as these fears more or less at one time or other pertain unto all but to our gries if not shame of Christianity are scarce truly to be found in any so are they all here in my Text not all generally only and in gross under the name of fear but with special intimations of all and each of them in several For first here is the worldly fear but forbidden as negatives are ever under their affirmatives Fear God not the world or worldly evils which press only the body but that God which can cast both Body and Soul into everlasting fire Secondly the very mention of duty in the first reason implies a superiority and that ever requires Reverence another of the Fears And when duties are performed formally on that manner because duties and such as in the breach whereof we know the God whom we love is offended it is the fear then of offence not of punishment and both these make up the entire filial fear But yet the fear of punishment is not left out neither as good in it self though materially servile for that is a motive too and as the least so the last of all For God will bring every work into judgment c. as it is in the next verse So they are all joyned here in the text and when they are
be subject to the higher powers But however this Spiritual power be not collateral simply but subordinate unto the Royal yet is it in regard of its original and derivation clearly independent as being not derivable into the Priesthood from any Prince or Potentate upon earth but immediately from him who hath it written on his Garment and on his Thigh The Lord of Lords and King of Kings And being thus distinct without derivation it is not possible the censures of the one should come forth in the name of the other but only indeed in Christs name and in their own persons who in this are the Ministers not of the King but of Christ as exercising no part of the power belonging to the Sword but only of those Keys that properly are their own and underivable too from any upon earth but those of their own Order However therefore these powers are subordinate yet two distinct powers they are and both as was said immediately from God and both therefore to be feared of men And sure this latter though the lesser yet not a little to be feared neither for though the Kings Laws bind the Conscience yet his revenge for the breaches of them cannot reach home unto the Soul His Sword is material and can but lash the Body though so lash it as sometimes to divide it from the Soul but St. Pauls Sword is spiritual and reacheth directly to the spirit dividing the Soul not indeed from its own Body but from the Church the Body of Christ and so from Christ too the head of the Body a power therefore in it self no way contemptible it is Christs own and he the more careful to vindicate it from contempt yea not it only but the power and person too of the meanest Priest amongst us for that of his concerns all He that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me But yet all this were not that other Royal Power propitious upon earth I think would be of little force in these days to preserve them from contempt or confusion crushing confusion For did not the Sword of the Prince defend the Keys of the Priest they might well put them under their girdle if not under the door and be gone But blessed be God he that is the defender of the Faith and Doctrine of the Church in his Piety and Princely Goodness is pleased to be the Defender also of her Jurisdiction and Discipline Et defensoribus istis tempus eget for otherwise the Antihierarchical of these times and indeed Antimonarchical too as not well affecting any either Power or Prerogative but their own were it not for this would soon level all by their own Rule that is level with the ground lay all Power Ecclesiastick and Honour too like Davids in the dust if not rubbish even Monasterial But then they may do well to think of another dust too the dust of our heels which if but justly shaken there is one that assures us the sorrows of such Contemners will prove more insufferable than those of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of Judgment It is but right therefore and well too that the Regal Power is the Superior that so as it is the Moderator and Governour of the temporal it might be also the Protector of the spiritual causing that fear and reverence which is due unto both to be paid also respectively unto either Neither in requiring this unto them do we divert from the right object of fear in my Text for it is but fear God still For God himself hath in a sort Deified Authority He hath given them of his own power and imparted his very Name unto their Persons I have said ye are Gods and ye are all sons of the most high And Gods indeed not only by appellation but in effect also for the great and universal benefit which they bring unto mankind For were not Man thus made a God unto Man Men would soon become Wolves unto themselves and devour one another And therefore to fear such Men is not to fear Men but God since the fear is not so much exhibited unto their naked persons as unto those beams and participations of the Divinity wherewith they are clothed And in this sort it is not amiss to say that God and not any thing else is to be feared And indeed he that thus fears God he only fears nothing else though the waves of the Sea rage horribly and though the Hills of the Earth be carried into the midst of the Sea nay as the Poet Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinae though the whole world should disjoint and fall he would be buried in the ruines of it without fear for he fears none but God and the offending of that God whom he fears That indeed he doth as desirous to obey him too as well as fear him and so we must all it is our Duty also for so it follows Fear God and keep his Commandments the second Part of our Conclusion keep his Commandments These two are inseparable ever and it is but just that they are not here only but so often joined together in Scripture The fear of the Lord saith David is the beginning of Wisdom and he subjoins but a good understanding have all they that do thereafter So God himself as Job testifies And unto man he said as if it were the product and total of all that is or may be said unto him the fear of the Lord that is wisdom and to depart from evil that is understanding The self same in substance with Solomon here Fear God and keep his Commandments Neither may it possibly be otherwise Nature hath linked them as close as Scripture for no man departs or can depart from the one the Law of God that doth not first depart from the other the Fear of God The soul and body of man have not a stricter union than these two the one the body the other the very soul of the new and interiour man And therefore the original hath it col ha adam for this is not the whole duty but the whole man the whole spiritual man indeed The outward works of the Law are wrought by the body and such righteousness of the body is but the body of righteousness but the fear of the Lord sanctifies the soul and the righteousness of the soul is the very soul of righteousness And the spiritual man created in holiness and true righteousness must have both these parts as well as the animal a soul and a body too Some mens righteousness indeed is all body do many things good and commanded but for ends upon by and vitious respects here is a Carcase of holiness but no soul to inform it only hypocrisy inhabits and gives it motion as the Devil sometimes they say doth the body of a dead man Others will be altogether Soul Fear God as much as you will every man likes it well and thinks he doth it
it could be the intuition of no other Riches but these that could make King David a Prince of such mighty wealth as the Treasure he left behind can at this day hardly be calculated yet amidst them all to cry out Ego vero pauper egenus but I am poor and needy but the Lord careth for me See where his Riches lay in that God which may not be enjoyed but in this Kingdom 4. The last things of moment attending on the Kingdoms of this world are Pleasures and delights whereof indeed they afford great variety but wherein little satisfaction For as their Gold hath much dross so their little pleasure is mixed with travel and trouble not a little Only the Kingdom of God the Paradise of true delight is it that hath liquid pleasures and pure from all mixtures of sorrow Revelâ— iiiâ— 3. We that are immersed drowned in flesh and blood can hardly think there are any other pleasures but these of the body though our own Reason if consulted cannot but inform us that this corâ—â—ptible earth is not more inferiour unto the immortal Spirit that informs it than the delights of that Spirit are excellent and Divine above all the gross and brute pleasures of the perishing body Though here are all and all sorts of delights all that are immixed and pure from imperfection both for body and Soul The senses of the one the powers and faculties of the other shall be all satisfied to the full and satiated with their highest and diviness objectâ— with their 〈◊〉 and closest 〈◊〉 with them to the utmost of their enlarged and glorified 〈◊〉 cities It is the Feast of the great King wherein he means to set forth all his magnificence like Ahasuerus unto his Princes The marriage-feast of the Lamb and write saith the Angel Blessed are they that are invited to the supper of the Lambs Marriage Revel xix How blessed then are they that shall at that time be married themselves unto the Lamb The Body indeed is invited to the feast but the Soul is it that shall be married unto the great King as it is in the Prophet Hosea I will marry thee to my self in everlasting kindness Quales Thalami illius amplexus Who can possibly conceive the joys then of the Bride-chamber or the pleasures of the Bride-grooms embracement when God and the Soul shall be so closely knit and closed together as they become but one Spirit as by this marriage here two are made one flesh 1 Cor. vi 17. A strange and marvellous union that as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father so all blessed Spirits shall be in both and all but one in both as both they are but one A true marriage this and a through on all sides Souls knit unto Souls and all unto God A union divine like the union of God the effect of it therefore a joy divine no less like the joy of God So like as in Scripture it is said to be the same Intra in gaudium Domini Enter into the joy of thy Lord even into that joy wherewith the Lord himself rejoyceth and is everlastingly blessed who perfectly apprehending his own infinite worth and goodness doth as perfectly enjoy it in himself And such shall be your joy who shall not only pierce the inmost verity of all other things and clearly know the truth of whatsoever is doubtfully disputed here but shall be enabled to behold and contemplate with open face all the excellence and beauty of the Divinity it self by the understanding and enjoy it too by embracing and cleaving unto it with the will and affections though not comprehensibly and commensurably as God doth yet fully every one according to his capacity and as a Creature may Totum Dei but not totaliter seeing and enjoying all of God though not in that alsufficient and supereminent manner as God doth This is intrare in gaudium Domini to enter into the joy of the Lord and that is to be filled as the Apostle speaks with all the fulness of God which since it is the most we can it shall be the last we will at this time say of it only adding thus much that though we may put an end to the speech of it there shall be no end of the joy At his right hand are pleasures for evermore A Kingdom then it is and in all respects the Kingdom of God In regard and so seeing be made like unto him and that is participation of the glory of God In regard of wealth and riches we shall be Rulers over all his goods and that is a full possession of the Treasures of God And lastly in regard of pleasures and delights we shall enter into the Lords joy and that is no other than the joy of God Joy Wealth Honour Dominion all Divine and a Kingdom of all and therefore the Kingdom of God that is an everlasting Kingdom for Regni ejus non erit finis of his Kingdom there shall be no end Luk. iii But we must end the point wherein if I have stayed the longer you may please to remember what St. Peter said when he saw but a shadow of it Bonum est esse hîc it is good to be here A subject so pleasing that once entred a man can hardly be drawn off with that Apostle from building Tabernacles there and dwelling on it for ever But yet we are not so to contemplate the happiness of this Kingdom as we forget to consider what we are to do that we may attain unto it for something is to be done though not much seek it we must at least if we mean to have it the second Point Seek the Kingdom of God 2. And sure it is little worth that is not worth the seeking not any thing not so much as our daily bread but must be sought and that in sudore vultûs in the sweat of thy brow And shall the Kingdom of Heaven so far above all things be valued at a lower rate than any thing else for there is not any thing but misery on earth and Hell beneath it the just reward of sloth that may be purchased without travel Those idle people in the Market-place whom our Saviour questions in the Parable with a quid hîc statis otiosi had yet some rational plea for their idleness no man hath hired us we have none such see a Kingdom even the everlasting Kingdom of God is your hire He that is now idle is idle without pretence and let him be miserable without pity And yet two sorts of Men there are that trespass in this particular The one seeks but without all respect of the Kingdom the other would gladly be invested in the Kingdom but will by no means seek it he scorns to work for hire this no hire can set a work that relies too much on divine attraction this aims too much at supposed perfection but seek the Kingdom of God convinceth both The first to touch first on
in both and how short we have been of that due Reverence and regard those Sacred Mysteries require Shall I ask you then for so he must do that will examine what time you have taken from your earthly affairs to bestow on this holy imployment nay ask but your own hearts and they will quickly answer you for have you afforded your selves I say not a month or a week but a day or two or some hours of them to call your Souls to a strict account to strip your hearts of worldly cares and vanities and recal your wandering thoughts to those severe and serious cogitations as may become your own sanctification and the high and holy institution of your Saviour Consider well whether with David you have entred into the Chambers of your own bosoms and faithfully communed with your own Souls whether you have tryed out your hearts and reins and your spirit hath made diligent search as he both did and requires Observe heedfully whether casting off all masks and visors of Hypocrisy all Fig-leaves of diminution and excuse how thou hast exposed thy self and thy Soul naked unto the view of thy searching Conscience whether thy mortified heart beginning to thaw with remorse hath freely opened her pleits and folds wherein she hid her iniquity and presented thee with her sins in their true shape that thou mightest as truly detest and abhor them If it be so it is well if not take heed labour and strive weep cry pray do not cease be not satisfied till it be so for then it will never be right thy preparation will lack of his due and thy examination will be lame But I examine this examination no farther It is a secret act known only to their own reins and the searcher of them to whom therefore I remit it and pass on to the qualities and vertues wherewith you are to prepare and wherein I may more freely examine and evict your Souls as having outward and sensible effects whereby they may be judged And the first of these to omit knowledge whereof we have spoken sufficiently already is Faith but here examination thou thinkest altogether needless for thou art most sure and certain thou believest Yet what if one should tell thee thou didst not believe like enough thou wouldst tell him againâ— thou dost not believe him in that for thou wilt still say thou knowest nothing better than that thou believest why and I know it too and know more that the very Devils believe and tremble which is something farther and their Faith peradventure something better than thine who believest and dost not tremble which yet thou well mightest didst thou understand thy self or believe in God aright and as thou oughtest But the truth is most mens Faith as we shewed but now of the understanding follows their affections believing little more than what they desire Should a Man preach and maintain that the goods of this world ought not to be ingrossed into private and particular hands but that all things as it was in the primitive Church amongst Christians should be common who think you would believe this soonest the Rich or the Poor The Poor indeed would quickly embrace it because beneficient to them but the Rich that should be losers by it would hardly or never assent In like manner should we urge that precept under the Law that money should be lent freely to our brethren that want and not be put out to interest or inforce that Divine Precept of the Gospel to lend and look for nothing again Matth. vi the poor Creditor you may be sure will entertain this for his relief but the griping â—surer is deaf on that side and can easily find out shifts and distinctions to avoid his own inconvenience Search now and examine thy self narrowly and see if thy Faith doth not deal thus with God in the chief Articles of it scarce ever believing any thing but what it likes The object of Divine Faith is the word of God wherein besides Histories the chief things it proposeth to believe are but three Precepts Comminations and Promises Precepts of duty Comminations of punishments and Promises of reward to the observers or neglecters of them And all those equally to be assented unto because delivered by the word of the same God otherwise thy Faith is defective and maimed See then and consider truly whether thou dost adhere unto the one as to the other whether thy Faith doth not rest only upon the promises neglecting the duties and yet slighting the threatnings against those that neglect them The promises of Mercy indeed are sweet and comfortable who doth not willingly and gladly believe them but comminations and duties are terrible and troublesome and few will give them faithful entertainment That Christ suffered on the Cross and shed his blood for the sins of the whole world and every mans in particular is a pleasant and grateful Doctrine how doth our Faith hug and embrace it as if there were nothing else to be believed But should we once thunder out that of St. Paul That notwithstanding this blood no Lyer no Drunkard no Adulterer no covetous or unclean Person shall enter into the Kingdom of God here our Faith is at a stand and will be sure either not to believe it or never to acknowledge that themselves are such Again blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin saith David yea marry blessed be that tongue for ever I believe it with all my heart nay read a little farther and in whose spirit there is no guile how now why dost thou stagger pish 't is impossible this seems to have crept into the Text no body knows how St. Paul when he cited it left it out and weare not bound to believe it or any thing else we cannot away with There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus saith St. Paul a gracious promise and aâ—very cordial to the Soul every Man is ready to lay hold of it before it be out of his mouth but to whom doth it appertain To them as it follows which walk not after the flesh but after the spirit This is a severe duty on our part and a very corrosive to the flesh which will hardly be brought in subjection to the law of God and therefore will not easily believe it should or possibly may be Thus thy fruitless and preposterous Faith is ever strong to lay hold on the promises though weak and of no power to work obedience to the commands or believe the judgments denounced against disobeyers For didst thou so truly thy belief would teach thee to tremble for which cause I told thee thy Faith which in this case is only a carnal confidence falls short of that which the Scripture tells us is found in Devils that believe and tremble Nay if we search and examine a little farther we shall find thy Faith failing even in the very promises For though in spiritual promises that concern mercy and remission of
that we may bound our discourse within certain lines and limits this generation of our Lord and Saviour is not simple and of one sort but various and manifold As his Person is compounded of divers things so hath he accordingly several generations In the blessed Trinity there are three Persons and but one Substance In Christ Jesus three Substances and but one Person he hath but two Natures indeed Divinity and Humanity but the Humanity again is compounded of two several Essences corporal and spiritual a body and a Soul so in all there are these three a body a Spirit and the Divinity whereunto both are united And according to these three we shall consider a threefold generation Divine Humane and Spiritual For Christ was born from all Eternity and still is in heaven without a Mother on earth he had in due time a humane birth without a Father and in the minds and Souls of men he is spiritually born without Father or Mother of a Mother without a Father he was born once without Father or Mother he is born often of a Father without a Mother he is born always and perpetually Lastly of his Father in Heaven he is born God of a Mother on Earth he was born man without Father or Mother in the Souls of men he is born God and man As there are three Substances therefore in our Lord and Saviour so hath he three births or generations which we shall consider in their order Divine Humane and Spiritual all three so hid and full of admiration inutterable as the Prophet and we with him may well say of them all Generationem c. To begin then with the First his Divine generation whereof we shall say but little because indeed we can say nothing worthily and as we should say For how shall frail man say what no man can possibly conceive since he cannot fully say and enunciate what he doth conceive That there are several persons in the God-head is the high yea highest Act of our faith no subject for our expression That God hath a Son we are bound to believe but how he begat him we are bound not to inquire because he hath not revealed nor will reveal peradventure may not but to the glorified eye Then indeed and then only when we shall see him as he is we shall see his generation and be happy in seeing it it is the eternal and everlasting blessedness of the Father to beget him for it is his inmost natural Act and essential and it shall be our perpetual happiness hereafter to behold it which we shall then but behold comprehend it we may not but know it we shall And this is life everlasting to know thee and him whom thou hast sent In the mean time till that life everlasting come whilest we are Pilgrims and lead a life temporary here upon earth wherein we know and prophesie but in part it is not our least wisdom to know such high mysteries are no part of our knowledge It is enough for us with holy Moses to see the back-parts of the Lord to see him in his effects his word and outward works to see him in his glory in his Essence and inmost operations we cannot and live And they who will attempt it with those Bethshemites that would needs pry into the Ark shall assuedly die Such aspiring Spirits that with the bold Schoolmen do pierce into the hidden secrets of Divinity what do they but like foolish flyes flutter about the light till they are at length singed with the flame For qui scrutatur majestatem opprimetur à gloria he that searcheth into the majesty of God shall assuredly be opprest with his glory And therefore it is docta ignorantia a learned ignorance as St. Austin hath it not to know what may not be understood and it were much better piously to profess it than rashly to arrogate science For that may deserve pardon but this shall never want punishment saith the same Father Serm. 15. For which reason well said the great St. Basil of this high Point when he came to treat of it mysterium hoc silentio potiùs quà m oratione colendum it is a mystery to be adored in silence not exprest by words Homil. de Nat. Domini The Prophet Esay himself was not able to do it and which is more he knew that none else could And therefore quis enarrabit who shall declare it for his Interrogation hath the force of a Negation who shall that is none can who shall declare c. There is indeed in it self nothing so light and clear and evident as this Divine generation wherein light of light and very God of very God is produced and begotten but withal unto us nothing more hidden secret and obscure Not that there is any obscurity in God in quo tenebrae non sunt ullae in whom there is no darkness saith the Scripture but that he dwells in unaccessible light and is cloathed with Majesty inapproachable as with a garment aciem oculorum vincens non solùm hominum sed etiam Angelorum darking and blinding the sight both of men and Angels And therefore how is it possible to behold the light of his generation who is the brightness and very splendor of his Fathers glory mens deficit vox silet non mea tantùm sed etiam Angelorum the eye of the mind fails and the tongue of every Creature becomes mute and dumb not mine alone saith St. Cyprian but of the bâ—lessed Angels also Therefore Quis enarrabit Before ever the world was or any foundation of it laid Ibi non tempus non seculum intercessit nemo spectator adsuit when as yet saith St. Basil neither time nor age was formed nor any spectator by to witness or report it but God alone injoying and embracing himself from all eternity in himself and of himself he begot his only Son who is none other but himself no other God though another person And who then shall declare Again the Father begets a Son and yet the Son is not younger than the Father nor the Father any antienter than the Son he begets him by communicating his Essence unto him and he communicates not any part for it is indivisible but his whole and intire Essence unto his Son and yet parts with none himself who hath heard or may conceive such things who therefore shall declare Yet once more the Son of God is perfect and compleat within himself and so hath been from everlasting intire and wanting nothing and yet which is strange as continually produced and begotten for not as in the beginning God made the Heavens so in the beginning he begot his Son who in the beginning both was and was begotten the Heaven was made once but the Son is begotten for ever and who c. Lastly to omit many things the eternal word is truly the Son of God and is truly born of him and yet notwithstanding hath no Mother that ever bare him but which hath
shall perceive the better and receive too the sooner for though it be powerful all do not always receive it if we be observant of the circumstances of this spiritual in the mind which for the quality of time place and person doth much resemble that other humane birth in the flesh For as then he was born in the night so still is he usually begotten in the nightly and silent meditations of the Soul When all things were in quiet silence and the night in her swift course then the Almighty word left the Royal Throne and leapt down from Heaven saith the Author in the book of Wisdom And sure then especially when all things are quiet and silent when the works and toils cares and labours of the day are laid aside and the Soul in sweet contemplation of the vanity of all her travel under the Sun then I say especially is Divine Wisdom preparing the place for the Son of God who though he leave not Heaven and his throne there yet by his spirit doth he vouchsafe to descend and live and dwell in this earth of ours for ever And as in the deep of night so for the most part is he born still in the depth of Winter For in the Summer and sun-shine of prosperity we are all apt to forget God and regard but little what he speaks unto us but in the cold and bitter storms of Winter when our Bark is tossed in a tempestuous Sea of afflictions then like other Mariners we can quickly pour out vows leave our canns and carouses and betake our selves to Supplication and Prayers and can attentively hearken also what the Lord God will say concerning our Souls Only take heed of the 3d. circumstance in this point and though he came in the last age of the world yet be sure not to defer thy entertaining of him till the last age of thy life For however he be sometimes and it may be usually as yet born spiritually in that point of Mans days as he was then of the world yet it cannot be safe yet it must be more than foolish to presume of it For we well know how frail we are and God knows how suddenly we shall be swept away in our sins when we would give the whole world if we had it for but one hour of that time we so foolishly neglected and may not have Remember therefore thy Creator in the days of thy youth before the eveil day come and give attentive consideration to the counsel of the Wiseman Defer not to do well and put not off from day to day for suddenly shall the wrath of the Lord come forth and in security thou shalt be destroyed But lastly and above all be most assured that as then so he will still be born in no other time but a time of peace Peace there was in the whole world when he was born in it and we must cease from wars and envies and hatreds and have peace every one with his Brother or he will never be born in us It was the Song and Anthem at his birth sung by Angels Glory be to God on high in earth peace good will towards men He is the great peacemaker that came of purpose to establish an everlasting peace between God and Man but on this condition that Man shall first be at peace with Man otherwise not to expect it from God of whom he may not so much as beg mercy for his offences but as himself remits the trespasses of others O take heed therefore flatter not thy self but search narrowly and be sure to strip all wrath and revenge from thine heart or be most assured Christ will never dwell and inhabit there who cannot but hate the very place where such odious and hateful sins make their abode Sins that bind all the rest of our iniquities on our Souls yea make whatsoever else is good sinful unto us Whereof so long as thou art guilty thou dost but curse thy self when thou prayest and damn thy own Soul when thou receivest This for the time see now how well the other circumstances agree which concern the place of his birth and especially the person of whom he was born For born he was not of any ordinary Woman at a venture but of a pure and chast Virgin and so will he still be both born and bred in a clean and unpolluted Soul Into a defiled heart full of noisom lusts and sordid affections he will not enter they must be first purged out and all the stains and pollutions of them washed away and cleansed in a bath of penitential tears then he will descend thither be born there and instead of those natural corruptions fill the place with all divine and supernatural Graces and so not find but make the Soul a Virgin by being begotten in it A Virgin full of virtue which he will espouse and marry unto himself for ever But yet of all virtues he most affects humility in her the first and laft of virtues the first begining and last consummation of whatsoever is virtuous For without it the Soul is not capable of virtue and had she never so many would spoil all by growing proud of the virtues which she hath And therefore as he was born of a Virgin so would he be born in no other but a Stable the meanest place and lowest in the house to shew us the condition of the mind the humility and lowliness of the spirit where he still is and ever will be spiritually brought forth For as the covetous Soul is but a Barn the Epicure's a Kitchen the Drunkard 's a Cellar the Ambitious a Chamber of State so the low and regardless Stable may well signify the humble spirit that both is and esteems it self a wretched sinner Not then in the Barn of Misers nor in the Kitchin of Belly-gods not in the Cellar of Winebibbers not in the great Chamber of Pride and Prodigals but in the despised Stable of humble and dejected spirits there is he there will he and no where else ever be born And every Soul wherein he is so born may be bold to say with the blessed Virgin that first saw him for thou regardest the lowliness of thy hand-maiden But yet humility is not more acceptable to him than worldly cares and covetousness displeasing than which nothing can more hinder his conception and generation in our Souls For God and Mammon cannot dwell together And for this cause as in a Stable so he would be born in an Inn For an Inn is domus populi free and open unto all comers and so must the Soul be wherein he will be the second time born free and generous holding nothing as it were in private and proper to it self but open and ready to communicate all things to those that want and are distressed and no less freely than the other for money And the sooner because he knows the world it self is but an Inn where we do not inhabit but lodge for a
season and who is so mad as to build and plant garnish and make great provision in an Inn in his passage and upon the way being to depart ere long peradventure the next morning For here we have no abiding place no permanent City but as strangers and pilgrims we look for one which hath a foundation And in such a Soul which is in it self as an Inn and esteems the world for no other and therefore void of all scraping and wretched desires the Son of God is ever most infallibly born and will as certainly bear it where are true riches and everlasting Now these three pleasure profit and pride that is the flesh the world and the Devil are the three heads whereunto all sins are reducible and as Christ cuts them all off in his birth so must we cut them off in our selves or he will never be born in us Carnal pleasure must depart he will be born of a Virgin Devilish pride abandoned he is born in a Stable worldly cares and covetous desires utterly discharged he is born in an Inn. And when the Soul is thus prepared by being truly cleansed from all these the time is at hand and then let him make hast and go up with confidence unto Bethlem for there he will be born that is the last and general place of his nativity born in Bethlem And Bethlem is domus panis so the name signifies the house of bread and never so truly as now when the bread of life was born in it And as then so will be still be born in Bethlem in the house of bread Of bread not corporal but spiritual and such as can nourish the Soul and what house think you is that surely Bethlem is nothing but Bethel the house of bread none other but the house of God Where Men eat Angels food and that bread of life is freely dispensed not only panis verbi but panis verbum the bread of the word but the bread which is the word the eternal word of God panis de Coelo bread from Heaven of which whosoever eateth shall never die And this is that house ecce and behold there is that heavenly bread indeed not so much bread as the body of thy Redeemer the bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Lords body the Communion sure of his body and blood too of himself and all that he did or suffered yea or purchased either For all are communicated in these the same Symbols of all and Conduits by which all are conveyed to us And therefore Christ Jesus himself is under this bread and comes down to thee as from Heaven in this shape that he might be at once both received in thy mouth and conceived in thy heart conceived and born live and inhabit therefor ever So justly was Bethlem the seat of his Nativity and therefore as Jacob said when he awoke out of sleep in that place where some suppose the Temple was afterwards built how fearful saith he is this place the Lord was in it and I was not aware this is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven if he said so of the Temple the house of that bread how much more justly may we say of the bread of this house How fearful is this bread the Lord is in it and much more especially than in the Temple and wo unto them that are not aware of it that discern it not for they do but eat damnation to themselves because they discern not the Lords body Take heed therefore above all things unto thy self when thou comest to this fearful twice fearful place this double Temple the Temple of his worship and Temple of his Body and so that thou make thy approach with due regard and diligent preparation with that deep sorrow as becometh thy sins that low reverence as becometh thy Saviour And so in the end think on the night wherein he was to be born and betake thee to thy sweet and silent meditations consider the deep of Winter and embrace thine afflictions Look upon the days of peace and let go wrath view the Stable and down with thy pride see the Inn and contemn the World contemplate the Virgin and cleanse thy self from all pollutions of the flesh so shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty and thy Virgin Soul come up safely into Bethlem and take of the bread of life freely and with it the blessed Lord of life himself who will make thy spirit another spiritual Bethlem or house for this living bread an habitation for this living Lord to be born and live in so long as thou livest and give thee everlasting life when thou canst live no longer Which God of his infinite mercy c. To whom c. Laus Deo in aeternum TWO FUNERAL SERMONS The FIRST for the MOTHER SERMON XII Upon PSAL. cxlii verse ult Bring my Soul out of Prison that I may give thanks unto thy Name which thing if thou wilt grant me then shall the Righteous resort unto my Company DO not marvel the Text may be fitter than you imagine or I could have made choice of for it is not I but another it was not taken but given me She that is now gone and at rest and may she rest for ever in peace she whose dissolved Tabernacle the prison of whose blessed Soul lies here before your eyes as a spectacle of mortality as a document of the frailty of our humane condition which I would if I might so wish it had this day appeared by some other example She this worthy and honoured Lady now glorious Saint in Heaven to whom we are at this time to perform our last office and Christian duty She it is who as she made it her frequent praise in her life so she desired it might be commended to your meditations in her death And you will anon perceive how justly when you shall see how well it sorted with the one and how fully it is now accomplished in the other But for this you must stay a little First therefore of her Theam then of her self Bring my Soul c. The whole Psalm is a prayer of Davids pursued by Saul and shut up in a Cave as appears by the Title but whether that of Adullam in the xxii of Samuel as Haimo and Remigius or else of the other of Engedi in the xxiv of the same book as Ambrose and Athanasius suppose is uncertain nor is it material to enquire In one of them it was and in this distress he flees unto the Lord for sucour in this whole Psalm the sum and substance of whose devout prayer you have in this last verse Bring my Soul c. This is the Historical truth and the literal sence of the Text which ariseth from thence is manifest Deliver my Soul out of Prison Espelunca out of this Cave and not so only not out of the Cave alone for so he might have fallen into the hands of Saul from whom it
these four Afflictions the World or worldly cares sin and this body of sin and death And under any of these we may say and pray with David here Bring my Soul out of prison The first to take them in order are afflictions sorrows and distresses and that these imprison the Soul and are here specially meant and intended there is no question all agree tribulatio angustia are inseparable companions Tribulation and anguish upon every Soul that hath done evil saith the Apostle and Anguish is nothing else but the English of Angustia for streights and pressure there are in all tribulations Prosperity and Joy do dilate the spirits and draw forth the Soul but stricken with grief and sorrow like a prickt Snail she shrinks into her shell and is instantly straitned But yet of all the Prisons this is the most necessary It is the Bridewel of the world and without it we should quickly grow Bedlam and run mad in excess and wanton delights For all sins are frenzies and such sinners seldom recover their wits any where else The wild Prodigal whilst free and in prosperity runs on in his course and never perceives his own distraction till shut up here and well whipt a while redit ad se then he comes to himself and can say surgam ibo ad patrem I will arise and go unto my Father For tribulatio id habet proprium ut hominem revocet reducat ad se it is the very nature and property of affliction to call home and reduce Men again unto their senses Neither doth it only give them their wits but sets them on work affording them matter whereon they may exercise themselves and all the Christian virtues Faith Hope Patience Meekness Humility and the rest which otherwise would languish and vitiate if not exhale for want of imployment This Prison therefore is of excellent use But why then if it be so profitable should we pray to be freed of it why absolutely we do not but with limitation if God shall think it expedient for us who when the cure is perfected it may be will dismiss us or if he keep us there longer he will make us large recompence for it hereafter Our Saviours Prayer is our rule in this point because all afflictions are grievous for the present we may say with him if it be possible transeat calix ista let this cup pass but still with submission to his good pleasure not mine but thy will be done And thus much though not always exprest is ever reserved and understood whensoever in this case we shall say here with David Bring my Soul out of prison The second is the world or rather worldly cares that â—log and fetter the Souls of most Men nailing them fast unto the Earth that they cannot stir a foot nor move a thought towards Heaven and heavenly meditations This is a large prison wherein every one hath seen restraint more or less as they have learnt that high precept of the Apostle to use the world as if they used it not but satisfying nature only account the rest that belongs to pomp and superfluity nothing near at that high rate as they are bought and sold for in this Market of Fools quanti venduntur emuntur in nundinis stultorum These indeed have some freedom and though they are in a sort prisoners yet they are prisoners at large and have liberty as large as the Prison wherein they have elbow room enough not to be straitned But those miserable wretches that admiring the wealth and honour of the present world have inthralled and wrapt their Souls in terrene and base solitudes how close are they shut up and how miserable a servitude do they indure No Gally-slave can be tied in stronger chains than the Ambitious and Covetous Man like those condemned to the Mines he digs under earth and sweats for Ore all his life long and when he dies hath his mouth stopt only with a handful of gravel And here every one may freely pray and without any restriction at all Out of this Prison O Lord deliver my Soul The Third of these Prisons and worst of all is Sin the Third indeed it is in order but first in time that gives power and strength unto both the other Had not that in the beginning seised on our Souls and fast bound them to their hands they could never have touched us The world instead of a Prison had been a Paradise and the men in it subject neither to Cares nor afflictions But now being fast tyed by this we have a thousand Chains cast on us besides and are become prisoners almost to every thing else This therefore is the head and fountain of our misery and as the first so the worst straitest and closest prison of all other a common Jayl indeed rather than a Prison and the very hole of the Jayl wherein millions of men lie fast bound indeed in misery and Iron putrifying and stinking in their corruption like Lazarus in his Grave the very emblem both of the Prison and Prisoners And unless that Son of God who came down himself from Heaven to open this Prison and preach liberty unto the Captives unless he graciously call unto us yea cry aloud as in the Gospel he did even groaning in his Spirit to shew how difficult a thing it is to dissolve these bonds wherewith custom and habit hath tyed us as with cords unless he I say by the power of his holy voice cry unto us all as lie did unto him Lazare veni foras Lazarus come forth we shall all perish in our captivity for ever and never see light For this sink of sin wherein the longer we lie the deeper indeed we sink doth at length empty it self into Hell the bottomless Pit and Prison of everlasting sorrow But blessed be his name the barrs are smitten asunder and the doors thrown open by his death And he still calls unto us by the voice of his Ministers yea and Spirit too to come forth and unless we be enamoured of our own misery and like Beasts delight to lie in our own filth till we perish in that nethermost Gulf let us hearken unto his calls and rouse up our selves betimes answering his voice with another call of our own calling and crying with all our might and without ever ceasing all of us From this Prison good Lord deliver our Souls But yet call and cry as long and as loud as we can our Souls shall never be clearly freed either from this Prison of sin or those others of Cares and Sorrows so long as they are still inclosed in this of the corruptible body Which is the Fourth and last Prison of the Soul and here intended by David according to the exposition of many Fathers whose words I cannot now stand to recite And therefore Laurentius Justinianus said well of this Prayer Verba sunt peregrinationis suae miserias meditantis c they are the words saith he of one
neither comfort himself nor receive any from the rest of the world shall he for his last refuge as thousands of others have done cry Lord Lord be thou my help and comfort and bring my Soul out of Prison But alas unto what purpose and upon what acquaintance He that gave his Soul unto sin and Satan in his life time why should he think God in his death will embrace and entertain it No no Either give up thy Soul unto God when he calls for it in his word in the provocations of his love in the holy motions of his Spirit unto thine or else when thou wouldest give it he will none of it unless as an angry Judge to deliver it over to the tormentor And in these streights what remains but that he either take up the ditty of that dying Emperour heu quae nunc abibis in loca fearfully part with his Soul he knows not whither or else embrace the counsel of Jobs wife desperately curse God and die Either way he comes to his deserved end and he whose whole life was as the way of a snail not a step but leaving filth behind at the last dies like a Candles end in the Socket boyling and burning in the flame of his own distressed and distracted Soul till he go out in a suff and leave an ill savour behind him amongst all good people Such is oftentimes the fearful departure of those whom God for their former wicked lives shall refuse to lead out of their Prisons when they die No this favour belongs not unto them it is reserved for those faithful Souls that with holy David have throughly sorrowed for their sins for they only shall partake of Davids Prayer that imitate Davids repentance And these however he may seem to absent himself for a while and hide his countenance from them yet in that day of need in that last and Fearful time that most requires it they shall be sure of his comforts He will not fail then to discover his face and make the light of his countenance shine into that region of darkness and by the beams thereof chear up his people leading and lighting them through all the dark and winding Alleys of death until they arrive in the glorious Kingdom of immortality and peace Believe not me but behold the holy man of God and see it performed with your Eyes Look upon Jacob the Patriarch and Father of the Patriarchs he that wrestled not only that one time at the River Jabbock but all his life long with the arm of the Almighty continually afflicting him yet in the end all these storms are blown over and he is gathered unto his Fathers in a calm of content and peace But first mark how the Lord gave him strength before he went hence and was no more seen wherewith he collects his fainting Spirits raiseth himself up in his bed calls his Sons about him gives every one his several blessing and benediction in such a high and Prophetical strain as if an Angel had sate on his lips and I think many Angels sate waiting in that door of his body for the coming forth of his Soul which stayed not long after to convey it into the bosom of his Grand-father Abraham there to rest in everlasting peace Look upon Joshua the Captain of Israel after all his Wars and Battles past at length he sits him down and divides the spoil among the Tribes of Jacob and death drawing near see how he summons the whole people together and with such power of speech exhorts them to the fear and service of God which had dealt so mercifully with them that the whole Congregation as if it had but one heart and one tongue and both throughly affected joynt ly cry out unto him God forbid that we should forsake the Lord nay but we will serve him for he is our God Thus out of the flame of his own zeal having kindled a fire in the breast of others this great Worthy was led forth from his Prison in peace See Samuel the Judge of Israel going to his grave as to his bed and in him consider the power and vertue of a good Conscience arising from the memory of a well acted life Whose Oxe or whose Ass have I taken whom have I defrauded or at whose hands have I received a bribe saith he unto the Congregation as all bear him Record saith the Text hoc ducit ad funus sepulturam This is it which accompanies him to his grave and laies him in his rotten Sepulchre Lastly consider St. Paul and his marvellous confidence even before his death that made him bold to deliver up his Soul almost like his Saviour with a consummatum est I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the just Judge shall give me at that day words worthy of a Soul so near unto its Heaven such have been the blessed ends of these holy Men of God and many more famous in their generations and such it is and shall be in all others that faithfully serve him though it be not ever manifest in all And what is there now that can more deeply affect a good heart what can a religious mind so much desire unto it self or behold with so great delight in another as to see a devout and penitent Soul give a peaceful farewel unto Nature and in the midst of death depart full of comforts of immortality and life as those Souls only do whom God shall vouchsafe to lead out of their corruptible prisons with the sweet consolations of his spirit But peradventure far off examples will be left too far off respects Usually those that are nearest do affect us most if so this sad occasion will afford you a worthy one for I have done with her Text and must speak as I promised and you expect of her person that made choice of the Text and by this time you cannot but perceive how justly She delighted in prayer and praise while she lived and she left this behind her written with her own hand that it might testify so much for her even after her death and that by it she might in a sort lest her thankfulness being private should die with her self publickly praise the name of God amidst the company of the righteous the congregation of good men here on earth even then when she her self freed from her prison should be singing honour and glory with Saints and Angels in Heaven Yet this was not all the reason of her choice It sorted well with her condition whilst she was in the body and she knew it would be fully accomplished when she should be led out of it For she had her part of afflictions and they prest sore upon her too even straitned her Soul Her branches she saw were rent away branch after branch and to so loving a nature they could not but go off as limbs from her body What Bernard
habet all our time that is past death hath seised on it and so much of our life is consumed Let me then warn you and stir up your meditations of your mortality in the words of Moses Deut. xxxii 29. O that men were wise then would they understand this then would they consider their latter end Sure we are unwise that we consider not the things past the evil we have committed the good we have omitted the benefits of God we have abused the time we have mispent and yet we grieve not because we think not yet whether we shall die More unwise are we not to consider the things present the deadness of our Body and uncertainty of our death the difficulty of Salvation and the small number of such as shall be saved and yet we shame not because we think we shall not yet die But most unwise are we that we consider not the things to come Death Judgment Hell all to come and yet we fear not because we think we shall never die But O that we were wise then should we understand then should we consider our latter end and considering it we should both prepare for it now and more cheerfully entertain it when it comes memorare novissims remember thy end saith the Wiseman in aeternum non peccabis and thou shalt never offend never do amiss Ecclus vii 36. So universal is the goodness of this consideration and therefore I have stayed the longer on it But now I pass from mortality to the cause of it from death to sin that first brought it into the world The body is dead because of sin Sin it is and only sin which is as the cause of all our dolours and calamities so of death it self that follows them without this there never had been there never could have been any death in the world Death were not death had it not a sting to kill but the sting of death is sin as the strength of sin is the law saith our Apostle The cursed apple of disobedience which our first Parents would needs eat sticks still in all our teeth it was poyson unto his nature and infected his blood and he hath derived the contagion to all his posterity who still continuing to feed on forbidden fruit as he did do perpetually strengthen the original Disease and draw death upon themselves more hastily and violently than either that sin procured or the prime corruption of nature for it doth inforce Hence then we may perceive first how foolish they are who living still in sin yet never consider that they are the Butchers and Murtherers of themselves according to that of the Psalmist The malice of the wicked shall slay themselves xxxiv 21 his own sin which he hath conceived brought forth and nourished shall be his destruction Every Man judgeth Saul miserable that died upon his own Sword but what better are other wretched Men whose sins and iniquities are the cruel instruments of death wherewith they slay themselves Souls and Bodies too Thus are they twice miserable first that they must die and secondly that they are guilty of their own death O the lamentable blindness of Men who albeit in their life they fear nothing more than death yet do they entertain nothing more willingly than sin which causeth their death In bodily diseases Men are content to abstain even from ordinary food when they are informed it will but nourish their sickness and this they do to eschew death only herein they are so ignorant that notwithstanding they abhor death yet they take pleasure in unrighteousness that brings it upon them And secondly which shall be the last use we will make of this point Since sin it is that did first bring and doth still hasten on death upon wicked Men what marvel is it if in these last and worst days the Lord strike the bodies of Men with sundry sorts of diseases and sundry kinds of death seeing Man by sundry sorts of sins doth not cease to provoke him unto anger He frameth his Judgments proportionable to our iniquities if ye walk stubbornly against me and will not obey me I will then bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins Levit. xxvi 25. He hath a famine to punish intemperance and the abuse of his creatures if the memory of our own corrupt and putrifying bodies cannot do it he hath a devouring sword to bring down the pride of our hearts If we have fiery and unclean affections he doth not need burning Fevers and loathsome diseases to punish them And now if the Lord after that he hath stricken us with such a dreadful pestilence shall renew his Plague amongst us or go on to finish that former destruction with the Sword of our enemies what shall we say but the despising of his former fatherly corrections or our stubborn walking against the Lord our God hath procured it justly unto our selves Quid mirum in poenas generis humani crescere ir am Dei cùm crescat quotidie quod puniatur what marvel that the wrath of God increase every day to punish Man when that doth daily increase which deserves that God should punish it But enough of this part it is now time to pass on to the second and most worthy part as of Man so of my Text from the Body to the Soul from the memory of death to the comforts against death for though the body be dead yet it is but the body the spirit which is the highest consolation of a Christian is yet alive Mans life it self But the spirit is life I cannot now stand to discourse of the excellent Nature of Mans Spirit and the wonderful union of it with flesh and blood for Man you see is no simple creature but compounded of both both a Body and a Spirit He is the abstract and brief compendium of all the creatures of God The world was corporeal the Angels spiritual and both were united in Man and made as it were into one creature A creature which hath being with the elements life with plants sense with beasts reason and spiritual existence with Angels that so the Almighty God first uniting all his creatures in Man and then uniting Man unto himself in the person of Christ might in some sort through Man communicate himself to all his creatures Worthily therefore did the Naturalists term him a little world and as worthily did St. Austin say of him that of all the miracles that were ever wrought amongst Men Man himself is the greatest miracle and that not only in regard of his two substances but especially in regard of their marvellous union that a mass of clay should be quickened by a spirit of life and both united into one person That as God himself hath diverse persons in one Nature so man hath diverse and those contrary natures in one person Commonly says Bernard the honourable agrees not with the ignoble the strong overgoes the weak the living and the dead dwell not together
Jurabis Thou shalt swear c. Well then sometimes it may be Lawful for us to swear but yet as we may not swear in all cases so neither under all forms But thou shalt swear The Lord liveth that is only in the Name of the living Lord And the reason of it is evident by that which hath been said already for since an Oath is an Act of religious worship as containing in it a tacit acknowledgment of the infallibility and verity omnisciency and omnipotency of him whom we make the witness and the Judge of the otherwise unknown Truth and falshood of our speeches it must needs be an honour due only unto the alseeing and ever-living God to whom alone those Attributes are proper And cannot but be direct and gross Idolatry to communicate it unto any thing else And so God himself doth ever interpret it as a manifest defection from himself Filii tui dereliquerunt me Your sons have forsaken me saith God in the Prophet and they swear in the Name of those that are not Gods Jer. v. 7. The greatness of which crime he doth elsewhere aggravate by declaring the punishment Perdam eos I will destroy them that swear in the name of the Lord and of Malcham Zephany i. 5. But this point the swearing in the name of false Gods is so gross in it self and so frequently forbid in the scripture as we shall not need to discourse any farther of it Only I will note two things out of St. Austin and so pass from thence unto swearing by the Creature The first is that it is not simply unlawful to receive an Oath of him that swears in the name of false Gods if just necessity doth exact it and he acknowledge not the true God of whom it is exacted as when a Christian King confirms a League or Peace or any other business of high importance with a Prince that is an Infidel This St. Austin doth expressly affirm in his 154 Epistle where he doth not doubt neither but it might be confirmed by examples out of the Scripture as by those Covenants which Isaac and Jacob made with Abimelech and Laban who were Idolaters and that by an Oath on either side given and received though I see not how these may justify the point for though Abimelech and Laban were Idolaters yet they acknowledged the true God and in those Covenants seem to swear by his Name And therefore I rather think that of Judas Maccabeus with the Romans might be more pertinent to the matter The second is That they which swear falsly by false Gods notwithstanding both are and are taken and punished too for Perjurers by the true God whether it be done by those that do not acknowledge him or others that do for even some Christians of the Primitive times when they meant to deceive the unbelievers with whom they lived that they might the better do it and with the less sin would swear by their Gods as taking it for nothing to swear falsly by those Idols which they knew to be nothing whom St. Austin Epist. 154. doth finely refell shewing that instead of lessening the sin they double the crime bis ulique peccat for such a one saith he sins twice Quia juravit per quos non debuit contra pollicitam fecit fidem quod non debuit first in swearing by that which he ought not to worship and then in breaking his faith which he ought to have kept And God will assuredly punish both Non audit te Lapis loquentem sed punit te Deus fallentem for the stone doth not hear thee by whom thou swearest yet that God will take vengeance of thee who sees thy deceit saith the same Father And he seems to have learnt both out of the Wisdom of Solomon who says the same of gross Idolaters that swear by the Idols which they worship for saith the Author of that Book In as much as their trust is in Idols that have no life though they swear falsly yet they look not to be hurt but for both causes shall they be justly punished both because they thought not well of God giving head unto Idols and also unjustly sware in deceit despising holiness Wisdom xiv 28 29 30. But I leave the false Gods and come unto Works and Creatures of the living God for though there be no doubt but the Oaths made in the name of them are sinful and Idolatrous yet it is much questioned whether a man may lawfully swear by these and there want not great and learned men that affirm and maintain it too and I assure my self very rightly for he should assume too much boldness and reserve too little Charity to himself that durst censure and condemn others for irreligious even all those holy men of God whom we find in the Scripture to have sworn by his Creatures both before under and after the Law Before the Law Jacob sware by the fear of his Father Isaac which if it may be taken objectivè for the God whom he feared yet that of Joseph cannot who swore by the life of Pharaâ—h Under the Law examples are many As thy soul liveth saith devout Anna unto Eli the Priest So said Obadiah unto Elias the Prophet and so Elisha the same unto the same Prophet and that three times in one Chapter for failing And I protest by your or our râ—jâ—â—ing as some read it I die daily saith St. Paul under the Gospel I Cor. xv and many good Christians even unto this day swear by the Evangel body of Christ their own faith soul and the like and it were hard to condemn them all as some do which had they but observed that distinction of Aquinas and other Schoolmen they would not have done for an Oath saith he made in the Name of a Creature may have a threefold respect The first is when a Creature is called for a witness simply considered as it is in it self without any further relation unto the Creator and this is ever sinful and Idolatrous as attibuting a Divinity unto that which hath it not The second is when the Creature is called upon not as considered in it self but with a respect and reference unto that God whose goodness or glory is manifested in it which though it be in all Creatures yet it is more conspicuous and eminent in some and this may be done without any sin for though the Creature be only named yet thus taken it is not the Creature but that God whose favour or power we honour in it that is called for the witness as the Master of the Sentences doth interpret it nay as our Saviour himself doth expound who for this very reason in the xxiii of Matthew doth plainly affirm that whosoever sweareth by the Temple sweareth both by it and by him that dwelleth therein and whosoever sweareth by heaven sweareth by the Throne of God and by him that sitteth thereon And after the self same manner that Oath by the soul of another
the punishment and it is no less than all which a Sinner may receive the punishment of loss and the punishment of sense the loss of all good in the exclusion from Heaven and the suffering of all evil in the torments of Hell This exprest in Scripture by an unquenchable fire that by a gnawing and never dying worm Divines contending which is worst when either is insufferably bad but both joined together make a double death and destruction which none can conceive And therefore the Son of Syrach 23. 12. doth well term it a sin that is arrayed and apparelled with death there is a word saith he and it is clothed about with death God grant it be not found in the heritage of Jacob and that you may know what the word is which he means he presently infers use not thy mouth to intemperate swearing for there is the word the word of sin clothed about with death and I pray God it may not be found in the heritage of Jacob neither in our Jacob nor his heritage his Son or Subject neither himself nor any of his Kingdom And this were punishment enough it should seem were there no other yet this is not all for this general and universal destruction of the world to come is common to all sins and sinners but the special threat and commination in that precept against this sin seems to relate unto some special revenge that God will take of it even in the life of this world here before they depart unto the sorrows of another for neither in that or this shall they ever be held guiltless but receive a just reward and recompence in both Concerning this later what and how grievous it is you may read in the 23. of Eccles. before cited It is briefly thus and I beseech you mark it Vir multùm jurans a man that useth much swearing shall be filled with iniquity and a plague or curse shall never depart from his house How terrible and dreadful is this himself shall be filled with iniquity and the curse of God shall be upon his house nay which is worse Shall never depart from his house his Spirit will forsake the one that being given up unto a reprobate sense he may fill up the measure of his sins and fat himself against the day of slaughter be shall be filled with iniquity and his blessing will leave the other unto the waste and spoil of a consuming malediction until ruine eat it up and wholly root it out the curse shall never depart from his house Gods judgments for other sins are great yet they seem to extend themselves but to the third or fourth Generation at the farthest how deadly then is this iniquity and how heavy the revenge that staies not there but runs through all Generations Shall never depart from the house until the house it self depart and be no more A bitter curse indeed that wasts and spoils wheresoever it comes but utterly ruines the House where it remains nay leaves not so much as any ruines to remain neither Stone nor Timber for it eats up both as you may read in the Prophet Zechariah where you shall find the curse written in a Role a large curse as it should seem for the Role hath room enough for more curses than ever the Spirit of God hath registred for it was twenty Cubits long and ten Cubits broad a great and flying Role which when that Prophet beheld in a Vision the Angel which gave the interpretation said This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth according unto which the swearer shall be cut off for it shall enter into his house and remain in the midst of his house and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof Zech. 5. 4. A strange remaining wherein nothing not so much as Timber and Stone shall remain and a heavy malediction when a Man shall be emptied of all his goods and filled only with his own Sins He shall be filled with iniquity How many deaths and destructions do attend and inviron this accursed Sin the death of his estate and substance which shall be consumed the death of Sin or rather of Grace through Sin wherewith he shall be filled and the everlasting death of Body and Soul in a lake of burning brimstone wherein he shall be perpetually tormented So true is that of Syracides before mentioned but never enough repeated it is a word cloathed about with death and we can never enough repeat his prayer God grant it be not found in the heritage of Jacob. Consider these things now and then say It is a Custom and I cannot leave it shall it excuse the Malefactor if he say to the Judge I take no pleasure in Theft only my fingers have been inured to it from my youth and I cannot now forsake the habit and yet the Thief who notwithstanding hath his Curse written also in the other side of Zecharies flying Role may be the better excused of the two for though he take no pleasure yet there may be profit in the sin But the Custom whether without or upon pretence shall never excuse either till both forsake the Custom It is this only through which we shall be held guiltless and by which alone we may remove this Curse of God both from our selves and our houses And why can it not be done what should hinder that we may not forsake it where lies the labour or wherein doth the difficulty consist that it should be so invincible Why what saith Chrysostom Homil. 17. on Mat. Nunquid pecuniarum opus est impensa Nunquid aerumnis sudore perficitur is it a business that requires the expence of any great sums of our money or else of our spirits in sweat and painful labour to atchieve it Tantummodo Velle sufficit totum quod jubetur impletum est No such thing only will that is bend thy mind and thy will to it and the thing required is presently fulfilled As use hath bred a custom so disuse must destroy it and a contrary use beget a contrary Custom And sure the Will of man cannot think of a Custom so easy to be disused as this all others are deeply rooted in natural Affections and therefore hard to be plucked up but this hath no hold in Nature not one Appetite in the infirmity of man that gapes and waters after it it can neither quench the Thirst nor kill the Hunger of any desire whereunto our Corruption is subject but is only an external a naked and a bare Custom which only use hath begotten and doth still nourisn and disuse without any great difficulty can again starve and strangle Tantummodo velle sufficit only set thy will to it and the business is ended for as St. Austin hath it lib. 8. Conses In the ways of God Ire pervenire is nothing but Velle ire to walk is only to will and whosoever wills cannot but walk but then it
obedience and if they fear not God yet at least that they would honour the King reverence the Church and keep the Commandments of both for this is their duty too and this indeed would be to some purpose that so they might be at leisure to set their working heads about some more pertinent questions not about a Cap or a Surplice or the like but rather about such as are solid such as that in the Gospel Quid faciendum What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life and pursue it home not leaving until they have brought it to Solomons Conclusion here Fear God and keep his Commandments For this is the Conclusion of every material question not only of the matter but the matter too of all Conclusions that are material For it is the Conclusion totius materiae which is our last degree and the highest as universal as material of the whole matter But of what whole matter of the matter of this whole book Yes of this and of all Books else all Divine Books else whatsoever and so much we have here expresly in the inference of it of making many Books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh the verse immediately precedent And therefore that we might have all in little he infers this as briefly including the whole matter not only of this and those books that were already written but of all such also as should be ever written hereafter And sure all our discourses are but vain and empty if not impious at least they will conclude nothing to the purpose unless they draw all at length unto this Conclusion which is every way total whether we regard knowledge or action For when we have imbroiled and wearied our selves in the pursuit of the things of this world it will be to no purpose no though they succeed according to our desires For what shall it profit a Man to gain the whole World and enjoy it too for a season if when he hath done he lose his own Soul afterwards for ever After all his vain labour spent he will find this is the only business and profitable imployment he must set himself down unto in the end When we have entangled our selves in all those fine and delicate webs of the Seraphical Doctors which when once we come within Ken of the Port of Death whither all winds serve to drive us will be swept away in an instant like those of the Spider when I say all these aerial disputes are ended this will be found the only solid Conclusion whereunto our meditations must betake themselves at the last as being the last and utmost issue end and upshot of all Conclusions speculative or practick to be done or to be studied Fear God and keep his Commandments It is the whole duty of Man rightly therefore the Conclusion of the whole matter So much doth Solomon magnify his plain and despised text that if it may not be received upon his authority request and example it might yet be entertained for its own worth as being rightly drawn material and universal that so the plainness of it might be recompenced with the importance This then for the urging of attention is but right and just and therefore Audiamus Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter We can do no less and that we may do so hear it indeed we will now pass from the Preface to the Conclusion it self from the Conclusion of the matter to the matter of the Conclusion Fear God and keep his Commandments but we must begin with the first Deum time fear God and then keep his Commandments And well do we begin here at which all Religion Piety and true Wisdom doth begin So saith our own Solomon and so David his Father before him The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom But the Son of Syrach goes farther and makes it to begin and finish it too unto the full for the fear of the Lord saith he is the fulness of wisdom yea not only begins and fulfils but crowns it also The fear of the Lord is the crown of wisdom Indeed I scarce know any thing whereof more contrarieties seem to be delivered than of this fear of the Lord Fear hath pain in it and he that feareth is not perfect in love saith St. John But what saith Siracides The fear of the Lord maketh a merry heart and giveth joy and gladness Perfect love casteth out fear saith the same St. John in that place Nay not so The fear of the Lord is clean and endureth for ever saith David Again Work out your salvation with fear and trembling saith St. Paul unto the Philippians Tou have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear saith the same Apostle unto the Romans what is this but fear and fear not yea what else saith our Saviour Fear not little Flock for it is your Fathers pleasure to give you a Kingdom And yet fear him that can cast body and Soul into Hell fire saith our Saviour again unto the same Flock If assured of the Kingdom what need they fear the fire of Hell and if they may fear that how assured of the Kingdom Of necessity therefore to reconcile these seeming contradictions Divines have been driven to distinguish of fears and persons too unto whom they are appliable For indeed all fear is not of one sort but is divers according to the diversity of objects which it respecteth if it look upon secular and worldly evils for generally Timor est expectatio mali and through too much apprehension run into excess it then takes the name of Timor mundanus a worldly and secular fear when men fear men more than God temporary and corporal evils more than ghostly and eternal And this fear is always evil and so are they ever in whom it hath dominion and when it hath not dominion yet because it hath undoubtedly in all that are not perfect in love some greater hold than it should have that of our Saviour is but just and for the most part seasonable unto all Fear not those that can kill the body but fear him that can cast both body and soul into Hell fire Again if it look upon God and that Hell which in his justice he hath prepared for sinners as our Saviour here commands the fear indeed is then good because as you see commanded and besides is an act of faith and restrains from evil And therefore they that simply condemn it do but cut the banks and pluck up hatches the better to make way for a deluge of wickedness But yet if it rest there and look no farther if our obedience have no better motive than this though the fear be good it is not yet so good as it should be for the man is still evil and his fear therefore so long but slavish and so it is termed Timor servilis an illiberal and servile fear And this is that fear
joyned too in man their subject the ywill make up that compleat fear which indeed is the full and compleat worship internal worship and service of God And therefore in the Scripture it is usually taken even for our whole Religion Piety and Adoration of the Divinity according to that of David O come hither and I will teach you the fear of the Lord that is the worship of the Lord. So Jonah unto the Mariners that enquired of him I am an Hebrew saith he and I fear the God of heaven and that made the Sea and the dry land So Jacob in like manner when he sware unto Laban he swore by the fear of his Father Isaac to wit by that God whom his Father Isaac feared that is worshiped and served Whence it is that what Moses terms fear Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God that the Septuagint and our Saviour himself renders by worship Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve And therefore we shall not need to scruple much at the enquiry why the Text saith not Believe or Love or the like but rather Fear God and keep his Commndments for he that hath said Fear hath said all no word can go beyond this It includes both faith and hope and love and all yea something more than all Not the meanest of these fears the fear of punishment but implies faith and the fear of offence both faith and hope and love also but the reverential fear is love and something more than love even Veneration too as acknowledging the love to be not like that of ordinary friendships inter Pares between Companions but at a distance and such an infinite distance on Gods part as requires the lowest Reverence and Adoration from all that love him For though it hath pleased his goodness to make and stile us his friends yet I hope we do not cease to be his servants nor he to be our Lord every way our Supream and Soveraign Lord So indeed our Lips stile him at every word and by that stile and Title too he himself requires his fear at our hands if I be your Lord ubi Timor meus where is my fear Where indeed his fear of Reverence for he is Lord of Majesty and Glory Where the fear of offence for he is the Lord no less good than glorious and as terrible as either to his contemners where then the fear of his wrath And sure the question is pertinent enough and it is but right that he demands where it is or what may become of it It seems to be fled with Astraea to Heaven sure I am it may trouble a man to find it out any where upon earth His judgments are far off as David speaks even out of our sight at least they seem yet to be beheld with such security as a Man would think most Men were in a league with death and at a Covenant with Hell as the Prophet speaks so little fear is there of his revenge And sure they that fear not punishment will hardly be restrained by any filial the fear of offence Indeed it were something well if we did not offend with less trouble than any thing else And as for the other the fear of reverence and that principally in the holy place where his special presence hath made it especially due that is so far from regard as it seems to have gotten an ill name of late we are grown some of us into such a familiarity with God as the reverence of his Sanctuary or of him in it or any decency or dignity that may serve thereunto is suspected now a days for an out-work of Popery God grant we do not make it Idolatry too to reverence even God himself in his Temple Is not the question just then in these times also ubi timor meus where is his fear indeed where any of his fears sure they have all left this world and it seems left in it little but worldly fear behind them That indeed and that alone runs through the world and only prevails For her we duck like Die-dappers at every Pebble that is thrown at us by a powerful hand and yet can stand up sturdily like Capaneus upon the walls of Thebes against the Thunderbolts of the Almighty we are become as he said well Gyants yea even Gods against God but Slaves unto Men whose Bodies and Consciences are sometimes equally rotten The revenge of the Law and shame of the world is for the most part all our fear so we may avoid these save our goods from loss our names from disgrace our skin from hurt our bodies from death we can sin on merrily it little matters for him that can cast both body and soul into Hell fire This is the whole of most mens fears but fear not ye their fear neither be afraid but sanctify the Lord himself Is metus vester is pavor esto let him be your fear let him be your dread But what then is God only to be feared and nothing besides surely yes God and not any thing else if any thing shall stand in competition or opposition with God but yet under God and in subordination unto him we are to fear God and others too for Gods sake And all the people feared exceedingly God and his servant Moses So the Apostle fear to whom fear and honour to whom honour appertaineth and both sure appertain to all Superiors but eminently above all to him that is Supream Reverential fear for he hath a character of the Divinity upon him Fear obediential and filial fear too for he is Pater Patriae And fear of his wrath also for he is Gods Minister for vengeance And therefore fear the King for he carrieth not the sword in vain Yea and I must tell you fear the Church too and those in the Church that have power over us also another kind of power indeed but yet such as renders them Gods Ministers in like manner and your Ghostly Fathers and therefore will require in their degree obedience and reverence too yea and fear of their wrath also for they want it not for the wicked when occasions serve and therefore fear these too for they carry not the Keys in vain The Powers that are they are all of God and he that resisteth the power whether Temporal or Spiritual resisteth the ordinance of God and receiveth damnation unto himself It is true these are two distinct powers yet is it as true also they are not simply collateral but subordinate ever subordinate when the Prince is Christian as having though not all power in himself yet a Princely dominion over all Persons and that in all Causes whatsoever neither is more claimed and less cannot be denied For two Supremacies in a Kingdom are no less inconsistent than two Omnipotencies in the world And therefore the Apostle gives unto him universal subjection and conscientious too Let every one yea omnis anima let every soul
that we may farther distinguish the diverse kinds of either And two sorts sure there are apparently Verbal Wars and Violent so the Orator doth divide duo sunt genera decertandi â—num per vim alterum per disceptationem There are two sorts of war and contention the one by force the other by dispute and contestation that proper unto Beast this unto Men yet Men may fly unto that faith he when this latter may not be used or hath been used to no purpose For in case of injuries between States or Princes that have no Superiour Judges if reason may not prevail for right or restitution the Sword of necessity must dispute the cause and be bold to carve out its own satisfaction But then what large satisfaction men do usually cut out to themselves that are their own Carvers and Judges in their own causes backed with Caesars Maxime of War in the Poet Omnia dat qui justa negat what bitter revenges they take of their brethren what sorrows and calamities what slaughter and effusion of blood and confusion they bring upon the world until the whole earth doth groan and mourn if not totter and reel like a drunkard under the burthen is an argument fitter for tears than discourses for prayers unto God than declamations unto Men that little regard them But such are the conditions of the former sort violent and bloody The second are of a milder nature disceptive onlay and verbal In which kind I shall not now meddle with the pleas and pleadings between right and wrong bellum forense These are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 private brabbles between person and person founded in meum tuum frigida illa verba saith St. Chrysostome quae innumera genuere bella c. but only with 〈◊〉 those disceptations and disputes which concern verum falsum Truth and Error even in Faith and things pertaining unto God bellum Ecclesiasticum a war publick too as that other between States and Kingdoms so this between Churchmen and Churches as the war most especially intended in the Text and that we be not much offended at it ever and in all ages permitted by the Divine Dispensation for great reasons more or less to exercise the Church of God And these wars it were yet something well had they contained themselves within their proper sphere of disceptation and dispute though even thus such contention it self and the bitter fruits which it produceth is cause sufficient to bring sorrow enough on the heat of every true Son of the Church for whose heart smarteth not to consider the divisions I say not now of Reuben but of Levi and their great thoughts of heart to behold the parts and parcels divisions and subdivisions factions and fractions whereinto they have broken and even crumbled themselves To see the Coat of Christ that should be without seam not only rent in pieces but torn even unto rags until Religion Christian Religion seem to suffer the same fate with that Lady in Plutarch quam cum procorum singuli possidere nequirent integram in partes direpserunt obtinuit nemo omnium But have these contentions stayed here Have they not thrown aside the Pen and drawn forth the Sword lest chiding and fallen to blows words have bred exasperation and exasperation hatred more than Vatinians mortal or rather immortal hatred not content to spend it self on the goods the bodies the lives of the living but to rage on the Memory the Bones and the very Ashes and Sepulchres of the dead yea on the very Souls as far as they might of both how many such Souls of our late Predecessors whole blood in most Savage manner poured forth and spilt is yet even almost warm are there now lying under that Altar in the Revel and crying unto God with an usquequo how long Lord merciful and true And how well may we cry out and admire too with that Poet Tantum Relligio potuit suadere malorum For certainly there is neither of these contentions whether by disceptation or violence whether they be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 publick Wars or private Fightings of either sort but will well deserve an unde of admiration and inquisition too but first of admiration in regard of the inter vos the parties contending which is the second point whence c. And sure were the vos here only but men it were not without marvel since such violent and bloody contention as the Orator said well is proper to Beasts to Beasts that are of divers kinds and several natures as full of passion as void of understanding not unto Men that are rational of the same blood and descended from the loins of the same Parent in whom the lines of their several Pedegrees do all meet and center themselves in unity original that so in their running on from thence there might be continued a fraternity perpetual Beasts indeed come forth armed and in their several kinds well appointed for war into the world but Man is sent out without Tooth or Talon horn or hoof from the womb tanquam animal sociale ad pacem colendam natum as a civil and sociable creature designed and born unto peace Is it not strange that such notwithstanding should become belluis ipsis magis belluini more full of beastly ferity than beasts themselves That this sociable Animal should justifie the madness of the most Savage and intractable creatures steel their affections with more cruelty and barbarity than Bears and Lions can learn in the Wilderness As if they had sucked Tygers in the desert rather than the Daughters of Men or were a Cadmean generation born not of Women but terrae filii sprung up out of the earth sown with the teeth of Serpents for just so we destroy one another pereunt per mutua vulnera fratres like the young men that played before Joab and Abner every man thrusting his Sword in his Brothers side This cannot be without marvel But yet this is not it there is something more in the vos than this St. James directs his speech not meerly unto Men to animal Men and Infidels but unto Christian Men to Men whose Badge and Cognizance yea whose very form and essence is mutual Love and Charity unde inter vos It is but a just admiration this whence are wars amongst such That divers and several Religions should strive even unto death that the Jew and the Christian contending the Gentile should fall upon both as in the primitive times is no great matter but that one and the same should nourish intestine war that the Children of the same Mother should struggle and fight like Jacob and Esau in the very womb that bears them that is it that is marvellous indeed For we may not conceive that Christianity infolds within it several Religions As far as the World is Christian it is but one in which indeed there may be and are Factions and Parts some Schisms and
Israel words of great compassion and learn to condemn our selves and our own sins in the evil we suffer when it doth strike Thou hast destroyed thy self And to bless and adore God for all the good we either do or receive when in special mercy it doth not strike but in me is thy help O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but c. But Israel is a word that wants not ambiguities for all are not Israel that are of Israel There are Israelites of the seed and Israelites of the Faith of Abraham There are Sons of flesh and Sons of the promise and Israel is the Church of God the womb that conceives and bears both Duoe Gentes in utero It is Rebekahs womb in which Jacob and Esau and in them two mighty Nations do contend and strive It is the Net in the Gospel that contains things both good and bad The Fold that hath Sheep and Goats The Field that hath Tares and Wheat The Barn-floor that hath Wheat and Chaff So then to collect the sum and substance of those points which this Scripture doth especially present unto consideration Here are first two sorts of people the Good and the Bad Elect and Reprobate implied in Israel Secondly the two several Ends of those two sorts Life and Death Destruction and Salvation for the help here may be none other than help from destruction and that can be nothing else than Salvation and so some Translations render it And lastly the two several causes of those ends God and Man God of life Man of death God the cause of Salvation unto the Elect and the Reprobate the cause of destruction unto themselves whereby neither those that are saved may sacrifice unto their own Nets nor they which perish lay any blame on his decrees these being no less deprived of all excuse than those bereaved of all boasting O Israel thou hast c. That these words may have a true and litteral understanding of Calamities and Deliverances incident unto this present life that which immediately goes before in the precedent verse I will meet them as a Bear bereaved of her whelps c. will not suffer any Man to doubt But that they are only and principally meant of such and not of eternal destruction and Salvation in them that which follows will permit no man to believe I will ransome them from the power of the grave I will redeem them from death O death I will be thy plague O grave I will be thy destruction words that do not carry a sound of momentany affliction And therefore this illustrious promise or Prophecy or both by the Apostle to the Corinthians is repeated and worthily appropriated unto him who is the Saviour of Body and Soul and hath redeemed us from first and second both Corporal and Eternal death The more deservedly is Pâ—scator otherwise a Learned and Industrious Pastor to be blamed who in a late and negligent tract of Predestination having so ordered the state of Reprobation as he saw God thereby must needs become the first Author and Procurer of his Creatures endless destruction lest this place here Oh Israel thou hast destroyed thy self should cross his intent or hinder his building replies that it is meant of such destruction only as pertains unto the present World as if there were not one and the same cause of destruction in both nay as if it were more prejudicial unto God and his Justice to be the absolute cause of slight and short troubles here than of perpetual and everlasting sorrows in Hell hereafter It is strange he should rather seek an answer than acknowledge the truth of so excellent a sentence A sentence that is indeed the very line and level whereby himself and every one else must direct and square all his propositions that concern those eternal appointments and decrees of a just and merciful God It is the best if not the only Star and Card and Compass too on which the weak age of reason must continually fix it self whilst it Steers in this dangerous Navigation in this immense and bottomless Sea of Predestination in which Abyssus Abyssum invocat one Deep calls upon another Deep upon Deep and Rock upon Rock so thick that in seeking to avoid the one unless this Golden Rule be our direction we shall be sure to strike and split upon the other as many that have sailed before us have done whose Bark and burthen should never have perished had this notable Saying sate Pilot at the Helm by whose shipwrack we may learn wisdom to beware For some of the first and best Reformers of the Roman Superstition justly displeased at the Pelagian freedom of the Papist whereby Man is made the first mover unto his own good striving with all their might to bear up from this Charybdis fell foul upon Sylla on the other side and instead of Pelagian liberty brought in more than Manichean necessity whereby God is as far intitled unto Mans ill Both in extreams and both extreamly to be blamed the former being not able fully to say In thee is our Salvation unto God the latter Thou hast destroyed thy self unto Man Arminius of late an Acute Dutchman steps forth to reform these Reformers whose main Errour notwithstanding which he should have condemned especially he is found especially to imitate fleying where he should but sheer and flying from one extream to another when the truth lies between both For as they upon a worthy dislike of a conditional Election upon foreseen merits through heat or ignorance come to maintain an absolute Reprobation so he out of his as worthy dislike of this Iron and Adamantine decree of absolute Reprobation without demerits fell back again unto conditional Election In both both of them equally erring the truth lying equally distant from both so as it is not easie to judge Election upon good works being derogatory to the freeness of Gods mercy and Reprobation without evil unto the Truth of his Justice whether contains the greater impiety The one gives too much unto Man in the work of Salvation The other too much unto God in the means of damnation My Text convinceth both the former in the latter part and the latter in the former O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thy help And as in Errours so are their portions not much unequal in Truth For Arminius election upon foresight and his Adversaries absolute reprobation are not more false than their absolute Election and his Reprobation upon foresight are as I conceive it apparently true which is not the least reason that they which are brethren and friends in all other points sweetly conspiring against the common Enemy should with such violent affections enter into this Civil War amongst themselves For there is no stronger nourishment unto mutual perswasion than when either side shall behold some demonstrative truths in his own and as gross and palpable errours in the others opinion It can hardly chuse but beget prejudice and
entring into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it For even those Jews had a promise of Canaan and in it of the eternal rest whose Carcasses notwithstanding for their disobedience fell short of it in the desert and God sware in his wrath they should not enter into his rest And therefore though the passion and death of Christ be absolute and in it self belonging to all yet there may be but a few to whom the good and benefit of it shall redound For remission of sins doth not immediately flow from his blood without intercedent obedience in us the next effect of it is not presently Salvation but a way and means whereby non obstante justitiâ without any impeachment to his justice we may now attain unto Salvation It doth not instantly convey us again into Paradise but only gives us the word whereby we may if we will safely and without impeachment pass the Angel and his flaming Sword that guards the entrance thither so that by it non solvitur omnibus captivitas sed solvitur omnibus captivitati necessitas though all be not actually loosed from Captivity yet all are loosed from the necessity of Captivity as the late and learned Writer of the Pelagian Story The gates of Brass and bars of Iron are smitten in sunder and so a way opened unto the Captives who notwithstanding if they be so far enamoured with their misery and captivity may for all that lie still in their Prison It is a potion for the good of all that are sick sed si non bibitur non medetur if it be not faithfully drank it shall never effectually cure saith◠Prosper And therefore we need not be anxious or doubtful on Gods behalf but only careful and solicitous for our selves what he hath promised in Baptism that he for his part will not be wanting sure he will never break in his Supper He will not fail to perform his promise if we but seriously bewail the breach of ours It is a Spiritual Banquet whereunto there never came any sorrowful and hungry Soul that ever departed empty And therefore let us draw near in full assurance of Faith no way wavering for he is faithful that hath promised saith St. Paul And as he is faithful that hath promised yet because he promiseth nothing here but to the faithful we must bring this with us though it be not of us a living Faith that only can work Repentance from dead works not to be repented of And this Faith only once thoroughly rooted begets that other confidence and fullness of Faith the Apostle speaks of which if it hath any other Parent is illegitimate ill born and falsly termed Faith when the true Father's name is Presumption And for this cause those that the Apostle exhorts to draw near with full assurance of Faith he thus qualifies having a true heart an heart sprinkled from an evil Conscience Then we go on rightly and orderly when we come not to the confident faith but by the penitent and as we go from faith to faith here so we shall appear before the God of Gods in Sion hereafter if therefore our heart within be true an upright within us if by a deep and entire Repentance it be sprinkled from an evil Conscience let us draw near in full assurance of faith as being most confident that our lips do not more truly drink the fruit of the Vine than our Souls do the blood of our Saviour the effect and merit of his blood whereby that which before was but sprinkled shall now be drenched and thoroughly cleansed from all the stains and impurities of Sin Our heart is ready O God our heart is ready only come thou and dwell in our hearts purge them and cleanse them wholly with thy blood and being cleansed keep and preserve them by thy Spirit spotless and blameless until the day of thy second coming in the Clouds with Glory That we who receive thee with fulness of faith now may stand before thee with the same confidence then and be received by thee and with thee into those eternal habitations at the right hand of God where is fulness of joy an pleasure for evermore To whom with thee and the Holy Ghost three Persons c. Amen Laus Deo in aeternum THE WAY TO HAPPINESS SERMON VII Upon MAT. vi 33. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you IT is a part of our Saviours Sermon in the Mount and the conclusion of a larger discourse in the precedent Verses whereto it refers And indeed it is or should be the Conclusion of all our discourses For all are little material and to no purpose unless they tend unto this issue The Kingdom of God and his righteousness Let us hear the Conclusion of all saith Solomon of all not only discourses but humane endeavours upon Earth Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of man The second Solomon infinitely wiser than that first strikes here but on the same string though by his double touch it receives an air and relisheth more evangelical Unto the Righteousness of God adding the reward of it the Kingdom of God That so the works which the Law requires might be rightly wrought in the hope and faith of that immortality and glory which the Gospel proposeth However then we busy our selves about many things this is that unum necessarium the one thing that is necessary able to resolve Parmenides his Riddle Unum omnia one thing necessary wherein all necessaries are included whatsoever is necessary for the body or the soul whatsoever concerns either imployment here or felicity Eternal hereafter the whole perfection of man and the whole goodness of God If these things be all all these are enclosed in this one this one little exhortation Seek ye first c. The communication of divine goodness besides that of hypostatical union particular and supereminent hath generally but three degrees of participation Nature Grace and Glory And here they are all three either in their utmost extent or in their highest exaltations First all the necessaries of Nature pertaining to the body but slightly indeed inferred as deserving our least and slightest care These things shall be added unto you but though slightly yet fully All these things all that are requisite shall be added Secondly the utmost improvement of Grace that cannot farther adorn and beautify the Soul than with the righteousness of God His Righteousness And lastly the highest degree of glory nothing can be higher than participation with God in his own Kingdom The Kingdom of God The less marvel therefore that our search and travel for these these latter yea our utmost industry and endeavour be so carefully called led upon and inculcated with a Quaerite and a Primum quaerite seek and first seek Seek ye first the Kingdom of God c. Wherein the division is as plain as the
so the clashing of Truth and Errour indeed truth and truth errour and errour being silenced Righteousness and peace may meet and kiss each other the more freely And that sure will be found the right and best way too at the last For most assuredly when all contestations are terminated when all these Sophismes and subtilties of the Schools Subtilitates ultramundanae plusquam Chrysippeae Subtilties as he said beyond the Moon and such as Chrysippus never dreamt on shall vanish into air leave and forsake us utterly it will be righteousness only that shall do us good in the end this righteousness of God and our faithful endeavour in it that shall be able to give peace and comfort to the Soul in death and through death lead and light it into immortality and life No way in the world no Righteousness thither but this only the good way the way which the Prophet Samuel long since discovered I will shew you the good and the right way fear the Lord and serve him in truth and consider how great things he hath done for you A good and a right and therefore a right good way Not that every way which is good is presently right some may have the zeal of God but not according to knowledge but than undoubtedly it cannot be right unless it be good Whatsoever way it be if it cross or part with goodness it will in the same place certainly part with verity where it leaves rightousness we may be sure it leaves truth the true Doctrine being always as the Apostle testifies of it Doctrinâ— secundum pietatem a doctrine according unto piety I Tim. So Rectum est index sui obliqui That which is right doth both discover it self and other things that are crooked But be the doctrine never so right and righteous yet if the man be not so to what purpose is it Had he all truth and were endued with the knowledge of all mysteries yet if he detain that truth in unrighteousness it should profit him nothing but to augment that wrath of God which saith the Apostle is already revealed from Heaven against him When on the other side did he know nothing else nothing but Christ and him crucified as St. Paul desired to know no more yet walking faithfully in that path of Righteousness which he hath taught and â—rodden out before him his ignorance of other controvertible truths or suspension either I think would hurt him but little For Righteousness naturally doth lead into truth and unless men did first forsake it they could hardly run into dangerous errour For were not the Soul depraved with unrighteous lusts and the judgment of the mind perverted by corrupt affections it could not easily resist apparent truth or not discern manifest falshood But when the will gives it self over to be ruled by the appetite no marvel if the intellect naturally subject unto the willâ— be as easily wrapt in errour Ambition and Avarice and desire of sinning with sting of Conscience having once seized upon the Scribes and Pharisees of old what strange leaven were they soon brought to mingle with the bread of life And how mightily have the same affections since wrought in many more Hence as from the Trojan Horse so many impious but profitable deceits and devices have issued forth upon ignorant people on the one side dispensing with them for their own sins and dispensing to them other mens merits the imaginary treasure of the Church that the Church might be filled with real Hence what strange positions and unto Piety most dangerous have been formed on the other side establishing justification even in the loss of sanctification presumptuously cloathing themselves and their disciples with the righteousness of another even then when they are wilfully unrighteous in themselves And so not content upon repentance to be justified by imputation but have found out even then whilst they sin an imputative indeed a meer putative sanctification that by this means amidst the works of darkness in the paradise of conceit they may still remain Children of light But be not deceived saith St. John he that doth righteousness is righteous All which though spisse and palpable hallucinatious on both parts yet so long as the eye is not single as our Saviour speaks but blear'd with mists of profits and pleasures they may not easily be deceived less easily redressed in either They may term themselves as they please but so long as impure desires are seated in the Soul nothing shall be able to tie them to the purity of that truth which opposeth or withhold them from contending for such falshoods as sute with those desires Itching ears and lusts in the spirits neither will nor can endure sound Doctrine saith the Apostle But rather than fail will raise up unto themselves Teachers after their own lusts and at their own charge raise preserments for them too that so their hired tongues may tickle their ears when they itch smooth or smother their sins In this case who shall prevail or what shall give Men light if in favour of their evil ways they love darkness more than light It is only the search and study of Righteousness that can bring us into the way of truth and dissolve errours and their controversies by taking away their causes by removing those gross and earthly affections that like Foggs at noon darken and benight the judgment The pure and cleansed heart shall see God saith our Saviour see him perfectly hereafter see of him and his truth more clearly in the present as he doth elsewhere assure us If any man doth the will of my Father he shall know of my doctrine But besides the nature of Righteousness leading into truth the protection and providence divine seems specially to assist and direct it The very secrets of the Lord saith King David are upon them that fear him who himself having respect unto the Commandment became wiser than his Teachers But however secrets yet light enough sure shall ever spring up unto the righteous who have undoubted interest in the promise of that Comforter which unto the worlds end shall lead into all truth all that is necessary for the leading of them when this world ends into the glory of a better yea and teach them mildness in truths of less consequence for the present For did we follow righteousness and not pride and passion we should easily learn to enter on mysteries warily and to maintain our opinions soberly And when the strife is peradventure but about a crackt pane in the Window or a loose tyle in the Roof as he said well not to raise such stirs and outcryes as if the Foundation were presently endangered It is only the judgment which Righteousness hath cleared from perturbations that can discern the necessity of points and direct our prosecution accordingly instructing us not to call every problematical question by the name of necessary and infallible truth but agreeing in fundamentals either to leave superedifications to the
Belial God and Baal is most insufferable yea more than the clear rejection of him Utinamcalidus esses aut frigidus I would you were hot or cold saith the Lord to some in the Revelations As if since they were not throughly hot he had rather by much they were utterly cold than in that faint temper between both fit for nought but evomition as is there threatned for the indignation of God riseth at nothing so much as when Men neither so cold as to contemn Religion nor yet so hot as to forsake their sins present him with a cooler mixture of both Better therefore be a pure Gentile or a graceless sinner than a compounded and perfunctory Christian worse than either and harder to be cured his mediocrity being grown venerable unto the world and himself under the shew and title of calmness and moderation For which cause that may be verified of these our Saviour said of others Publicans and harlots shall sooner enter the kingdom of heaven If we mean to find entrance there it may not be by the formal and falsehearted seeking seek the Lord and you shall find him but if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul otherwise instead of finding a Kingdom we may chance to fall upon a curse Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently Seek ye therefore first with all Industry and with all speed too that it may be the first thing you seek every way first in time as well as in intention Death is uncertain and delays are dangerous whilst we take farther day unto our selves enlarging our time as the rich Fool did his Barns God oftentimes derides us as he did him Stulte hac nocte Thou Fool this night shall thy soul be taken from thee And who in his own particular knows the length and date of this his day who can tell how many hours there are in it or how many of them are spent already How soon that now that henceforth of obstruction and blindness may come upon him and refusing to cleanse his Soul whilst the Spirit like that Angel in the Pool of Bethesda is moving the waters how suddenly he may fall under that fearful Sentence of the same Spirit in the Revelation He that is filthy let him be filthy still If that Fig-tree were cursed even before the time of fruit in comparison was come before the Gospel was throughly published may not those that have lived long under the bright beams and Sun-shine of it and still bring forth nought but leaves of shew and formality have just cause to fear every moment the approach and probation of that final and fatal doom Never fruit grow on thee more Whilst Men in their presumption are sporting themselves and grieving God with their sins God in his wrath in the mean while may be swearing they shall never enter into his rest Undoubtedly did the rays of true wisdom and divine pierce into the Soul had the heart any true impression of future things or of the vanity of the present did Men taste and relish the good gift of God and the powers of the world to come they would not permit any quiet to their Spirits or peace unto their Souls till their Souls had made and gained peace with their God and freed themselves from such uncertainties This is the Haven of our Rest and Heaven upon Earth and we that see it may well say unto our Souls better than he did say but saw it not O quid agis anima meâ— fortiter occupa portum what dost thou O my Soul the Port is before thee steer away before Sea and Wind manfully foul weather is behind thee make haste to escape the stormy Wind and Tempest And however there should chance not to be any for there may be room for misericordia Domini inter pontem fontem He hath not shut up life nor the gate of his mercy upon any yet it will concern wise men to fear the worst that is more likely and prevent it whilst they have time to work the work of the Lord whilst it is yet high day before that dreadful and terrible night approach wherein no man can work To defer it to the eleventh hour to the evening and twilight were a presumption too full of boldness especially since our Sun may set at noon and our light go out in the midst of our life For we are but dust as our Fathers were and the Spirit of the Lord will not always strive with us Let us therefore laying aside all delays be resolute and vigilant attending speedily to open when it pleaseth him to knock when he calls instantly to answer Lo I come when he says seek ye my face to echo immediately thy face Lord will I seek So seeking his face in holiness here you may be sure to see it in glory hereafter In the mean time that God who hath added all things else plentifully unto you all abundantly unto one continue and multiply his favours unto all but principally and above all unto that one For since it is one of the last services your Majesty before your journey is to receive from this place I would not willingly leave it without one word of apprecation For though I may not bless yet I may pray God almighty whom you seek and serve hath blessed you ever hitherto and may his faithfulness and truth be your shield and protection ever hereafter He that went with Abraham in his Journey be with you in yours Let him lead you forth in peace and to the joy of all hearts return you again in safety May he carry you from Crown unto Crown from one Kingdome to another upon earth and having ministred all things else unto you according to your hearts desire here may he at last and let that be late minister an entrance unto you also abundantly into his own Kingdom this Kingdom of God Whereunto the same God of his infinite mercy vouchsafe to bring us all for and in the meritorious blood of his dearly beloved Son and our most blessed Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen Laus Deo in aeternum A PREPARATION FOR THE Holy COMMUNION SERMON VIII Upon 1 COR. XI 28. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. THE holy but fearful Sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord as it is the highest and noblest Institution the Christian Religion hath so is it to be approached unto with the greatest reverence and regard For as it affords inestimable comfort to the worthy participant so not less danger and terrour to the unworthy Receiver He that takes it must know he takes a powerful medicine that will work one way or other either cure or kill prove wholsom Physick or deadly poyson As the patient is prepared so it works this way or that even either life or death For the blood which is received if it do not wash and cleanse it willâ— certainly stain
and dy the Soul of the Receiver which must be made partaker or shall be made guilty either partaker of the vertue or guilty of the shedding thereof to his endless destruction that receives it unworthily The guilt you have in the precedent Verse He shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. The destruction in the subsequent he eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body The exhortation in my Text lies between both that it might be the more vehemently enforced and every man might know how much it behoveth him diligently to examine himself before he eat of that bread and drink of that Cup But let a man examine c. Wherein you see there are two general parts first a preparation then an admission unto the blessed Sacrament of the body and blood of our Saviour The Admission in the latter part Let him eat and the preparation in the former but first let a man examine c. Of the holy Sacrament it self and an admission unto it hereafter at this time only of the preparation that should go before it Wherein you may consider 1. The Act wherein it consists Examination and then the object of that Act himself Let a man c. But we shall run both together and out of both draw these points which we will commend to your observation 1. Because the end of examination is to prepare our selves we will shew the necessity of this preparation 2. That we may know wherein to examine our selves we will consider the quality and extent of that preparation which is necessary for the making and constituting of a worthy Receiver 3. We will shew that the best means to attain unto this due preparationâ— or qualification is the study and knowledge of our selves and our own ways 4. Because the heart of man is deceitful above all things and we are all apt to deceive our selves in judging of our selves that it is not a superficial view but a strict examination that must give the just and true knowledge of our selves 5. And lastly we will make and practise this examination in those points we have found necessary that after it they who are approved in their own Consciences may chearfully approach unto the sacred Mysteries and eat of that bread and drink of that Cup to their endless comfort and others that are not so as I think few are may first reform themselves lest they eat and drink as the Apostle here threatens damnation to themselves So these five The necessity of preparation and what the prepation is that is so necessary That the best means to attain it is the knowledge of our selves and the best way to come to this knowledge examination which examination because it is the chief point we will strictly make in the last place that according to it we may either approve or reform our selves before we presume to come to the dreadful Sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord These 5. I say we shall at this time as God shall inable prosecute in their order but plainly as desirous to leave you rather better than more learned And first of the first the necessity of preparation But let a man examine c. The end of examination is preparation for to examine and not to prepare our selves were but to see our own foulness and refuse to cleanse it to inquire into our Lords will and neglect it when we have done and that will only make us worthy of more stripes And therefore he that commands the one doth in the same words of necessity injoin the other And indeed holy and Divine Mysteries as in reason they require an holy and sanctified preparation so in Scripture hath it ever been prescribed and exacted at their hands that shall draw near unto them yea the very Heathen Priests would not enter upon their Superstitious Ceremonies to their false Gods without first proclaiming a procul este profani all profane and unhallowed persons be ye far away And it was the use in the Primitive Church for the Minister as it is in St. Basils Liturgy or the Deacon his Assistant as Chrysostom hath it To cry with a loud voice before the Communion Sancta Sanctis holy things pertain unto holy people And for this cause it was that the Lord gave such strict command in Law that no uncircumcised person should presume to eat of the Paschal Lamb nor yet any circumcised neither under four days preparation and sanctification of themselves With what reverence then and awful regard should we draw near unto the true Passover in the blessed Sacrament which succeeds in the room of that other and exceeds it too no less than the substance doth the shadow than the body and blood of the Son of God doth the flesh and blood of a Lamb taken from the flock To shew this our Saviour himself at his last supper ariseth from the Table takes the Bason and the Towel washes and wipes his Disciples feet before he would institute his blessed Sacrament or suffer them to be Communicants at it Now by the feet in holy Scripture are meant the affections of the heart for as by the feet the body walks so by the affections the Soul moves to whatsoever it desires They are the springs and Fountains of all her vital operations and as the Fountains are such are the streams if those be troubled these will be foul if they be cleansed the other will run clear And therefore these feet these affections of the heart being once washed the meditations of the head the words of the mouth and the actions of the hand which are but rivers flowing from the abundance of the heart and the hearts affections cannot but partake of the same purity For which reason when Peter who at the first was not willing to be washt at all afterwards was desirous to have all washt his head and his hands as well as his feet our Saviour replies he that is washed needeth not to wash save his feet only for then he is clean every whit Joh. xiii 10. The feet then the affections of the Soul on whose cleanness doth depend the purity of the whole man and all his actions these are they that our Saviour by this act of his own doth instruct us carefully to wash and cleanse before they tread a step towards his holy Table How can they there expect to be partakers of him who himself in that place told Peter that without this washing he could have no part in him They frustrate the end and benefit of the holy Sacrament they prostitute the blessed mysteries themselves they dishonour both them and the Majesty of that God who is present at and in them who presume with unwasht feet unhallowed affections to enter upon the sacred Symbols sanctified with the peculiar presence of the precious body and blood of the Son of the everliving God No marvel therefore if such profaners of this blood are held as guilty of the
shedding of it which was purposely shed to cleanse them from the guilt of their sins if instead of sealing salvation to their own Souls they do but eat damnation to themselves for not discerning the body of their Lord. For did they discern it did they understand and conceive it to be there they could not but approach unto it with greater reverence with much more heed and awful regard When it was at the worst and lowest estate the malicious Jews could bring it to bereaved of all form and beauty yea and of that blessed Soul which dwelt within it and now remained only a dead and crucified Carkase all over gaping with wounds and gored with blood yet even then with what care and reverent respect was it handled by the good Arimathean It was wrapt up in fine and clean Linnen imbalmed with sweet Oyntmens and perfumes and laid in a new Sepulcher hewen out of the Rock How then and with what high esteem should we we that are to be made not Sepulchers but Shrines and Temples not of his ignominious but glorified body not of his body only but of his whole person of his body and blood and Soul and Divinity and all how I say and with what diligent preparation should we see that all things be pure and clean and sweet and new where such a guest is to be entertained where he is not to be lodged for a night or two but to inhabit where he is not to lye a while as in the grave but to dwell and live for ever This were something to the purpose and we should then shew we discerned the Lords body which now we seem not at all to regard eating and drinking of his flesh and blood with no more reverence and respect than if we were at an ordinary Table of Bread and Wine Nay I assure my self many of us make more preparation being but to dine with some Neighbour than they do to come to the great Kings supper They can with all diligence apparel and trim up the outward man against every ordinary feast in the mean time neglecting the inward man of the Soul little regarding how foul and slovenly that comes to the holy Banquet But let such careless men in time take heed the wrath of the Lord hath never shown it self more terribly than on the profaners of holy things especially his own holy presence Many and fearful are the examples in this kind The great King of Babel no sooner polluted the Sanctified Vessels but even whilst he is carrouzing in the bowls of the Temple a strange hand from heaven writes his doom on the wall before him the terror whereof looseth the joints of his loyns and makes his knees knock one against another which was but a forerunner of his ruine who that night lost at once both his Kingdom and his life But how dreadful was that judgment in the 1 of Sam. vi where fifty thousand Souls are suddenly struck dead for but looking irreverently into the holy Ark and Uzzah instantly smitten with the like vengeance for but touching it with profane hands though with a good intent to hold it up when in his judgment it was like to fall And shall we who are permitted I say not to touch or to look into the moveable but to walk into the standing Ark the Temple of the Lord yea to enter in within the Vail and approach up even to the Mercy-seat and eat of the holy shew bread that stands before the Lord if we continue to pollute that sacred place and banquet with our unwasht feet unclean and impure affections shall we think to escape alone without wrath from Heaven Let no Soul flatter it self with such a bold and mad presumption The divine indignation that in former times was wont ever almost to follow such profanations at the heels though in these later ages the great day of final accounts drawing on it seem to slacken the pace yet it will certainly overtake them one time or other if not here in this world yet infallibly in that other hereafter though oftentimes even in this also Even at this instant when the Apostle wrote this very Chapter the Lord had sent a fearful sickness amongst the Corinthians and that for this very cause their profaning of the Sacrament as you may read the words immediately following my Text. For this cause saith he some are even now sick others weak and many amongst you fallen asleep that is taken away by bodily death But however it go with us now yet at that day when the great King shall come to take a particular view of his guests he will not fail to find out all those careless people that have presumed to sit down at his table without their wedding garments and pronounce upon them that heavy doom in the Gospel take them bind them hand and foot and cast them into utter darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth So necessary is this duty of reverent preparation and so great the necessity urged upon the high terms of no less than plagues and punishments here and destruction for ever hereafter So true is that of our Apostle he that eateth unworthily doth but eat judgment unto himself so the word imports judgment temporal though he repent and without repentance damnation eternal and that in so heinous a manner as if he were guilty of the very body and blood of the Lord no less than the cruel Jews that shed the one and crucified the other or treacherous Judas that betrayed both Well then necessary it is and highly But to come to the second point let us now see what the preparation is that is so necessary wherein it consists and how far it extends that must denominate and make a worthy Receiver Surely though no Man living be absolute worthy in himself or can by any means attain unto that entire and compleat worth which is fully answerable unto the dignity and holiness of those sacred mysteries yet it pleaseth God of his grace to accept of him for a worthy Receiver of them that doth truly and faithfully endeavour to receive them with a competent measure of that reverence and those qualifications which he hath prescribed in his word amongst which Knowledge Faith Repentance Love and Charity Love to God and Charity to our Brethren I suppose are the chief if not all And these sure at least are simply necessary by them we must examine and with them we must prepare our selves whosoever will be worthy Receivers First with Knowledge an honest degree of knowledge what the mysteries are what they signifie and exhibite for what purpose they were ordained of God and are received by our selves Thus much seems requisite in the meanest capacity for so long as we are ignorant of the substantial parts and fundamental doctrine of the Sacrament so long as we neither know nor consider the main ends and purposes for which it was instituted how can we possibly prepare our selves worthily to
receive it we shall fall short for want of discerning the body of the Lord. And in this every Man ought to examine himself and many Men others too as well as themselves It is not the proper duty of the Minister of God only to Catechise every Father and Mother of a Family is or ought to be in this regard as a Minister within his own charge It is our part not to be still laying of the Foundations and Principles of the Doctrine of Christ but to lead you on towards perfection Heb. vi 1. As St. Peter the Apostle said of ministring at Tables nay as St. Paul of Baptism it self I was not sent to baptise but to preach So we may much more say of Catechizing We were not sent to Catechise but to preach the Gospel our office is to dispense the Word and Sacraments yours it is properly to prepare yours it is to teach and instruct your Children and Servants that they may be fit and capable to receive both though the sloth and ignorance of these times to your sin and shame hath cast this burden wholly upon our shoulders most Fathers for the want of willingness or knowledge deserving to be Catechised no less than the Children that are under them yea in my understanding much more having lost in their age that little which they learned in their youth The second qualification is Faith without it it is impossible to please God as in any other duties we can exhibite unto him so especially in this of the Sacrament It is the eye of the Soul by which we behold and look upon the hand by which we lay hold and apprehend the very mouth by which we eat and receive the Body and Blood of our Redeemer given and applied unto us in these mystical figures Non dentes sed fidem prepare not therefore thy teeth but thy Faith saith St. Aug. for crede manducasti believe and thou hast eaten And for this duty we suppose there needs little preparation or tryal every Man thinks he can readily assure and acquit himself in the performance but when we come to examination anon we shall find it a harder matter than we imagine to believe aright and as we ought The third of these preparatory qualifications is Repentance which though it be also generally required as precedaneous unto all sacrifices and services which we offer unto God according to that of the Apostle Let him depart front iniquity whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord yet the more holy and sacred the actions are the more especially ought we to cleanse our selves and purge our sins and corruptions before we go about them for I will be sanctified saith the Lord in those that draw near unto me And nearer well we cannot draw unto God or God unto us than in this Sacrament ordained of purpose to joyn and unite both in one But do we think his pure and precious body will vouchsafe to be received and dwell in an unclean and polluted Soul shall this bread panis de Coelo bread from Heaven the Childrens bread as it is in the Gospel and indeed the food of Angels shall it be given do we imagine unto whelps shall these precious Pearls of the Gospel shell'd up in Divine Mysteries be opened and cast unto Swine shall the cup of the Testament be given unto him that hath nothing to do with the Covenant surely no What hast thou to do saith God in the Psalms to take my Covenant in thy mouth so long as thou hatest to be reformed to take it in thy mouth so much as by naming of it how much less hast thou to do to take the blood of the Covenant in thy mouth by receiving it so long as thou refusest to reform thy self by true Repentance This therefore is the main and principal part of our qualification wherein we cannot be too diligent and careful and the other of Love is like unto it Of Love first unto God who hath shewn such marvellous Love unto us and from us should receive all Love and thankfulness again And then unto our brethren that as God hath loved us so should we also shew Love and Mercy unto one another In regard of the first this blessed Sacrament is well termed the Eucharist that is the Sacrament of thanksgiving wherein by the assistance of the blessed Spirit we do in all thankfulness and grateful return of our best affections solemnly commemorate the wonderful Love of the Son that suffered and the infinite goodness and mercy of the Father that gave him to death for the sins of the world In regard of the other the Love of our brethren it is as rightly stiled a Communion that is a common union for so it is doubly a common union of our selves amongst our selves and of all unto our Saviour But first we must be united unto one another before we be united unto him as we drink of one cup and eat of one bread so we must be knit into one body mystical by Love or we shall never be knit unto our head Christ Jesus by Faith What union canst thou expect with him so long as thou art at variance with those for whom he died His blood was shed for us all whilst we were yet enemies and shall we think we may drink it and in it remission of sins to our selves so long as we refuse to remit the sins of another can we hope or expect that mercy from God which we will not shew to our own flesh No no if without this thou thinkest to receive any favour from him or look he should receive or accept any sacrifice from thee thou deceivest thy self It is his rule in the Gospel If when thou comest to offer at his Altar thou remembrest that thy Brother hath ought against thee leave thy gift there go and first be reconciled to him then come and offer thine oblation Ecce honorem suum despicit dum in proximo charitatem requirit Behold saith Chrysost. how he preferreth thy Charity before his own honour who will not accept of any sacrifice to himself till thou hast shown love to thy neighbour And so here these four Knowledge Faith Repentance and Love are as you see the principal qualifications wherewith due preparation must of necessity adorn and beautifie the Soul they are the several parts whereof that Wedding-garment must be made up wherewith it is to be arrayed and wherein every one must appear that would be held and accepted of God for a worthy Receiver And thus much of the first points the preparation and the necessity of it drawn from the phrase and commanding force of the Text Let a man examine himself for this Let is not permissive let him do it if he will or if he will not let him chuse but mandatory and imperative let him see and be sure that he doth it and that under pain of damnation as it follows in the next verse Proceed we now in
the third place unto the act whereby that preparation is made and these qualifications are best attained unto and that is a diligent search and examination of our selves and ways Let a Man examine himself For certainly the readiest way and directest unto due preparation is the true and faithful knowledge of the right temper and disposition of our own Souls And therefore next unto the book of God Man himself is the best book he can study since the knowledge of himself as the very heathen Philosophers could acknowledge is the beginning and fountain of all both Wisdom and Goodness of Wisdom because as himself is a microcosm and compendiary sum of all creatures so the knowledge of himself cannot but be the sum and brief abstract of all sciences and of goodness because he is evil without remedy that doth not understand how evil he is for of necessity he must know his own corruption before he can cleanse and purge it which is the reason that evil Men who though they love not evil as evil yet love the pleasure of it are so nice to enter into their own Souls and fearful to make too strict a search into the pollutions of their hearts lest they should be driven to abandon and forsake them when they cannot retain without too much trouble to their own Conscience Rightly therefore Seneca Mali ubique sunt praeterquam secum wicked Men are willingly every where else rather than at home they are still gadding abroad and the less they can abide to look on themselves the more they delight to be curious examiners of other men how securely will they pry into all their actions how narrowly can they observe every defect and imperfection the least mote in their Brothers eye that will not behold beams in their own within blinder than Moles without quicker sighted than Serpents And Plutarch though but a Philosopher can give you the reason of both for the guilty Soul saith he which in it self is but as an unclean cage a very sink of Sin and iniquity metuens ca quae intus sunt exibit foras fearing that foulness and ugliness which is within quickly flyes out of doors and like a Fly flutters up and down till it light on a gal'd back sucking and feeding upon other mens vices that he may the better lessen and excuse his own or dare to attempt greater himself It is happened unto such saith the same Author as unto those that have sooty houses or curst Wives they are never well longer than abroad Like Satan in Job their Souls compass the earth and walk through the world wandering stars they are to whom the blackness of darkness is reserved saith St. Jude at whose doors though our Saviour himself stand and knock never so long never so loud he cannot hope for admission there is no body within to answer or open and let him in their Spirits are gone forth and it is impossible they should hear what is done at home their cogitations are so deeply busied abroad or if peradventure they now and then hear him at their better leisure they consider it but little as supposing they have not much need of him They have been so long taken up in the view of other mens sins as they forget their own they have so constantly fixed their eyes on the crimes of their brethren as they begin to think themselves innocent In this case now is it possible they should duly prepare or deeply repent whilst they judge of their own goodness by others evil and suppose themselves well enough already because peradventure they are more wicked But could we observe the Apostles rule let other Men alone and examine our selves could we as diligently observe our own defects and imperfections to give them no worse name as we do other Mens and other Men do ours taking estimate of our selves by what we truly are in our selves not what we seem opposed to others we should quickly discover at least the corruption and hypocrisie of our own hearts we should soon find how rotten we are at the core how desperately sick and what great need we have of the Physician And still the longer we look the wickeder shall we appear the more narrowly we search and the deeper we dig into these impure vaults the more ever shall we abhorr our selves with Job till we cry out with the Prophet O that my head were full of water and mine eyes a fountain of tears that all the day long I might bewail my sins and iniquities in the bitterness of my Soul What else was it but this serious consideration of himself that made holy David so afflict his body with sackcloath and his head with ashes what was it that made his eyes so often to water his couch and his bed to swim with perpetual tears but that in the 51. Psalm I acknowledge my iniquity and my sin is ever before me And sure did we carefully look into our selves did we faithfully and frequently set our sins before us as that Prophet did we should soon acknowledge and bewail them with that true and hearty sorrow that he hath done So directly doth the contemplation and knowledge of our selves lead unto true repentance the sum of our preparation But this knowledge of our selves especially of our sins is not so easily attained as we imagine and it is not presently gained upon the first view every Man hath not such clear eyes as Adam at first sight to discover his own nakedness or if he have he can quickly find out fig-leaves subtle shifts and excuses to cover it as well as he And therefore it is not a slight view but a strict examination that must eye it Let a Man examine himself It is strange that himself should be driven to examine himself doth not the Soul understand the Soul cannot the spirit of man understand what is in man without searching it out by examination surely no the heart of man saith the Prophet is deceitful above all things and wicked who can know it and because wicked therefore deceitful and cunning not only to deceive others but even it self The understanding indeed hath eyes clear and bright enough to search into the dark corners of the Soul and discover the windings and turnings all the obscure Alleys and Labyrinths that are in it did not the heart send forth a thick fogg of gross and earthy affections to muffle up and blind them lest they pry too far into her secrets For the will wherein the affections reside hath taught the intellective power which is under her command being Mistris of the Soul either not to look at all or look very favourbly â—on that which she likes and instead of judging of the goodness which is the proper office of the understanding practick she diverts her imployment wholly to the seeking of cunning devices and finding out of false colours and disguises to cover the foulness of the evil which pleasure or profit moves her to affect And then how
grief like day and night take their turns in this life and mutually ever expel one another They are clean contrary yet like twins they are bred in the same bowels wherein though they sometimes struggle as Jacob and Esau did who shall first come forth yet the advantage of precedence is but little when the latter is not so far behind but he hath ever hold of the formers heel like Actors in a Tragedy so they play their parts on the Stage of this world when one goes off the other enters and though joy begin the Prologue the Catastrophe ever shuts up in sorrow All our pleasures though never so sweet in the mouth proving as the Wiseman speaks but gall and wormwood in the belly and sometimes rottenness in the bones It is therefore gaudium quod est only a joy that is but shall quickly cease to be a joy which like the winter Sun may rise gloriously but is soon overcast with clouds of discontent and must set ere long in a night of sorrow a long night unto some that shall never see morning Only Christs joy the joy which the Angel here brings Christmas and Christian Joy is gaudium quod erit a joy which is and which shall be which is begun here and shall be perfected and accomplished for ever hereafter when we shall sit down at the right hand of God where are pleasures for evermore So now you have all unto the full great joy publick joy permanent and perpetual joy nothing more can be added to make it fuller or greater it hath already all the dimensions of greatness height length breadth and depth As deep as Hell from whence it delivers as high as the highest Heavens whither it will bring us broad as the whole Earth spreading unto all people that have or do inhabit it or ever shall and long as eternity can make it whereinto it runs joy which shall be for evermore Well did it deserve that Ecce of admiration set up in the top of it as a burning Beacon to draw all eyes and affections towards it Behold I bring you c. But this is but the Preface proceed we now unto that wherein all this Joy doth consist and whereof it is spoken the message or sermon it self whose whole subject is the blessed birth of our Lord and Saviour we this day Celebrate For unto you c. Wherein there are three Circumstances of the birth where when and for whom Unto you is born this day in the City of David And three Titles or Attributes of the Person born a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. The Circumstances are first placed but the parts of substance must be first handled both because they are more worthy in themselves and also have nearer reference unto the joy precedent and the three degrees of exaltations of it whereunto these three titles do fitly answer and correspond the joy was great publick permanent and now we see the reason Great Joy for a Saviour is born publick joy for that Saviour is Christ permanent and perpetual joy for that Christ is the Lord the Lord of eternity that only can give eternity to our Joy And briefly of them all but first of the first Attribute of him which is a Saviour 1. And sure if ever any this is tydings of great Joy tydings of a Saviour no joy in the world to the joy of a man saved We our selves acknowledge it in other matters If it concerns the saving of our skin of our goods of our life or the like how do we rejoyce in such Saviours Let a man under the Law in case of a lost man cast and condemned expecting nothing but execution and then let a Saviour come to him with a pardon and see if it be not a welcome message if he think it not the joyfullest tydings that he ever heard But beloved we have Souls too and they are our better parts by far and the sorrows of that death they are subject to great and more lasting And if the saving of a perishing transitory life or living be so precious unto us how full of Joy would the birth of a Saviour be for them that otherwise must die for ever in perpetual torments O when it concerns the loss of Heaven and danger of Hell when the Soul is at stake and the well doing or undoing of it for ever Consider it right and in this case sure no joy to the joy of a Saviour But we do not consider it at least not throughly and that is the reason it affects us so little To spiritual things we are dull and dead but quick and sensible in carnal and as it seems more apprehensive of our sickness than our sins of the saving of our goods and bodies than of the loss of God or perishing of our Souls Otherwise the preserver of those wishes would not be welcomed with such joy and the Saviour of these which are infinitely better so coldly esteemed Certainly could we but see our sins in the true shape and behold with our eyes the sorrows they deserve and our souls must suffer for them were we permitted a while to look into that fearful pit whereunto we are condemned and take a view of the horror that is in it A Saviour from them and from thence would be something better regarded But however we esteem it not now when the destruction is too far off us to affect us yet the time will come when it shall In novissimo intelligetis planè in the end saith Jeremy ye shall clearly â—nderstand In the end indeed in that sad and fearful day when the destruction shall approach and the destroyer shall come when tribulation and anguish shall be upon every Soul that hath done evil when they shall cry unto the Rocks and Mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the presence of the Lord and the wrath to come then indeed when we shall find the want of a Saviour we shall plainly understand this and value the benefit and joy of it as we ought and know and find that there is no joy in the earth to the joy of a Saviour A Saviour that is the first the Angel addeth for a difference which is Christ to distinguish him from all other Saviours For others there were many born and sent unto them at divers and several times to deliver them from particular and several distresses As Moses Joshua Gideon Jephta Shamgar Sampson and the rest in the Book of the Judges which indeed is nothing else but a Catalogue of Saviours which the Lord at sundry times raised up to free and avenge them of their enemies These were Saviours all in their kind and joy there was in them and great joy too in their times and to that Nation but no universal joy they were but petty and particular Saviours One there was yet behind that was worth them all one that should save his people from their sins save not their bodies for a time but
their Souls for ever which none of these Saviours could do And therefore a publick general and universal Saviour of whom all had need as being all sinners one much talked of and long expected the great and famous Saviour of all such a one was behind And now he is come this is he the Saviour which is Christ c. He of whom all Prophecies made mention and he the performance of them all of whom all the Types under the Law were shadows and he the substance of them all of whom all the Prophecies ran and he the fulfilling of them all he of whom all those inferiour Saviours were figures and forerunners and he the accomplishment of all that in them was wanting This is he Jacob's Shilo Esay's Emmanuel Jeremy's Branch Daniel's Messias Aggai's desideratus cunctis gentibus the desire of all the nations the desire of them then and now the joy of all nations Gaudium omni populo the joy of all people a Saviour which is Christ. And this this universality of joy is comprised in the very name for Christ signifies anointed and that is as much as S. John delivereth in other terms a Saviour sealed John vi 27. for by anointing Kings and Priests and Prophets in old time were deputed signed and sealed as it were to their several offices and received power and commission to execute those high functions So then a Saviour he is not as those others were raised up upon a sudden upon some occasion to serve the present and never heard of till they came but a Saviour in Gods forecounsel resolved on and given forth from the beginning promised and foretold and now anointed and sent with absolute commission and fulness of power to be a perfect and complete Saviour of all a Saviour which is Christ That is a Saviour ex officio whose office and very profession is to save that all may have right to repair unto him and find it at his hands not a Saviour incidently as it fell out but one ex professo anointed to that end and by vertue of his anointing appointed set forth and sent into the world of purpose to execute this function of a Saviour not to the Jews only as did the rest but to all the ends of the earth So runs his commission unto his Disciples ite in universum orbem go into the whole world and preach the Gospel omni Creaturae to every Creature so runs his own Proclamation venite ad me omnes come unto me and come all Matth. xi 28. and of them that do come I will cast none out Iohn vi 37. Servator omnium hominum the Saviour of all men 1. Tim. iv 4. and as the Samaritans said of him Servator mundi the Saviour of the world of Samaritans Jews and Gentiles of Kings and Shepherds and all And sure this is publick and universal joy gaudium omni populo joy unto all people indeed for whom there is now a saving office erected one anointed to that end a professed Saviour to whom all may resort None shall henceforth be to seek there is a name given under Heaven whereby we may be sure of Salvation and this is that name the name Christ A Saviour which is born c. Two of his Attributes then we have a Saviour which is Christ that is a Saviour and a publick Saviour but he must be a perpetual Saviour too otherwise our joy will not be full Though it be great though it be general though it be general to all people yet it will fade and perish it will not be gaudium quod erit joy which shall be lasting everlasting joy none can give that but an eternal and everlasting Saviour And he that will be such must be something more than Christ so therefore he is a great deal more Christus Dominus Christ the Lord. Not a Lord that is particular and hath reference to a private title whereof he is Lord Lord of this or that place or people and the like but the Lord which is absolute and universal without any addition you may put to it what you will Lord of Heaven and Earth of Men and Angels Dominus Christorum Dominus dominorum Lord paramount over all such was this Saviour and such it behoved him to be not only Christ that name will sort with Men yea it is his name as Man only for God cannot be anointed But he that would save the world must be more than Man and so more than Christ. Indeed Christ cannot save us he that must save us must be Christ the Lord and none but the Lord ego sum ego sum saith God himself and praeter me non est Servator it is I it is I who am the Saviour I am and besides me there is no Saviour none indeed no true Saviour but the Lord all other are short vana salus hominis Mans Salvation is vain saith the Psalmist any Salvation is vain if it be not the Lords though they be Christs as Kings and Princes are who are Gods anointed yet they cannot save Trust not in Kings and Princes for non est salus there is no salvation no no health nor help in them their breath departs and they return to the earth For though they are Christs yet they are but Christi Domini the Lord 's Christs and we shall never arrive at full and perfect Salvation till we come to Christus Dominus Christ the Lord. All the help and Salvation which those other Christs and Saviours can afford doth but concern the body that indeed they may sometimes kill or save at their pleasure but not one of them can quicken his own Soul much less give a ransome for anothers it cost more to redeem it than so and he must let that alone for ever let it alone for this Christ whose work it is Christ the Lord that only can save both Body and Soul his own and other Mens too Secondly those other Christs which are not the Lord as they save only the Body so can they save only from bodily and corporal enemies but we had need of a Saviour from ghostly adversaries from spiritual wickednesses in high places a Saviour that might wrastle with principalities and powers and triumph over them too and no Christ may do this but Christ the Lord the Lord of power and might only able to bind the strong Man in his own house and spoil him of his goods of power alone to destroy Abaddon the great destroyer of the bottomless pit Thirdly those other Christs as they save but from corporal enemies so but from worldly calamities from debts and arrests and prisons and the like penalties of their own Laws But who shall deliver us from sin and death and hell From sin the grand debt of mankind from death the universal Sergeant of all flesh and from Hell the everlasting prison of Body and Soul For these they can give no protection they are all subject unto them themselves
for breaking a higher law the eternal law of the Almighty which no other can satisfy for but a Christ as Almighty Christus Dominus Christ the Lord. Lastly all other Christs or Saviours whatsoever as they save but in few things and those only corporal and worldly so in them they save but for a little while which is but a reptieve rather than a saving for long they cannot save others that so quickly perish themselves Evermore they die they drop away still and leave their favourites and followers to seek but it is not a short rescue for a time but a permanent and perpetual Salvation that we expect for ever and for ever we might expect it at the hands of any other Christs and not find it because they cannot endure by reason of death Heb. vii 23. only this Christ because he is the Lord Dominus vitae the Lord of life indureth for ever hath an everlasting Kingdom wherein he dispenseth eternal Salvation which he purchased by his Priesthood The author of eternal Salvation to all that depend on him Heb. v. 9 and mark that well for none but the Lord can work eternal Salvation To save may agree unto men thus to save to none but Christ. To begin and to end to save Soul and Body from bodily and ghostly enemies from sin the offence and death the punishment from Hell the destruction and Satan the destroyer for a time and for ever Christ the Lord is all this and doth all this Now then we are right and never till now we have all his attributes a Saviour the word of benefit whereby he is to deliver us Christ his name of office whereby he is bound to undertake it the Lord his name of power whereby he is able to effect it Now our joy is full and never till now we have all the degrees of it whatsoever the Angel promised is here performed great joy he is a Saviour publick joy to all people a Saviour which is Christ perpetual joy joy which shall be even for ever and ever he is Christ the Lord the Lord who will not only free us from our misery and bring us to as good and better a condition as we forfeited and lost by our fall for else though we were saved we should not save by the match but that we may not be savers alone but gainers and great gainers by our Salvation estate us in all the bliss and happiness he is Lord of himself And Lord he is of life as I said Life then he will impart and he is Lord of glory 1 Cor. ii 8. and glory he will impart and he is Lord of joy Mat. xxv 21. Joy then he will impart life and glory and joy and make us Lord of them and of whatsoever is within the name and title of Lord even for ever and ever And then it will be perfect joy indeed when we shall enter into the joy of our Lord into that joy and life and glory and blessedness wherewith our Lord himself is eternally blessed Gaudium quod erit joy which shall be indeed and never cease to be everlasting for evermore So now we have all and never till now all his Attributes a Saviour Christ the Lord all our joy great publick and perpetual nay if you mark it we have yet more than this all his composition too two natures in one person his humanity in Christ his divinity in the Lord and but one Saviour of both one Saviour which is Christ the Lord and one person which is Man and God And just so it should be for of right none was to make satisfaction for Man but Man and in very deed none was able to give satisfaction to God but God So that being to satisfy God for Man he was to be God and Man and so he is A Saviour who is Christ the Lord. And so he became this day when though the Almighty God as this day he was born into the world in our nature and made Man The blessed birth of which thrice blessed person thus furnished in every point to save us throughly Body and Soul from sin and Satan the destroyers of both and that both here and for ever the blessed birth of this thrice blessed person for every word in his name is a several blessing is the very substance of this days solemnity of the Angels message and of our joy That which remains is but circumstance circumstance of persons time and place of the persons for whom of the time when and the place where yet not so light and trivial as may wholly be omitted the Angel the Holy Ghost would not leave them unmentioned and we may not pass them over untoucht yet we shall but touch them and so conclude but taking them in their order backward beginning with the place where where this Saviour was born In the City c. And where should the Son of David be born but in the City of David not in that City which David repaired and wherein he reigned that is Jerusalem a famous City indeed but in that City where David was born which is Bethlem a poor City a Village rather than a City And in this this little Town did this great Saviour this Christ the Lord vouchsafe to be born Indeed when he would die he would die at Jerusalem when he was to suffer shame and ignominy derision and disgrace and all manner of dishonour he would suffer it in the eye of the world in the great City but when he was to be born he would be born in Bethlem when he was to be glorified by Angels and receive gifts and worship from Kings and Princes he would receive it in an obscure and private place this little Village that so he might condemn the worlds pride at his first entrance into the world and teach men by his very birth the first point of Christianity to contemn honour and embrace contempt A doctrine which yet the particular place of his birth doth urge much more vehemently for it was not only in Bethlem a poor Town but in an Inn of Bethlem and a poor Inn so it seems for there was no room for them in it and not so only but in the poorest and basest part of the Inn in the Stable This was the Chamber of state for this great King instead of sweet odors perfumed with filth and hung with no other Arras but what was weaved by Spiders wherein he had only Littier for his Bed a Manger for his Cradle and an Oxe and an Ass for his attendants So low did he descend for our sakes by his own example utterly to cry down all the pomp and honour of the present life than which nothing is of more power to deprive us of the glory of the life to come What a deep humiliation hath he begun withal and how strange a disproportion is this between the titles of his person and places of his birth the Saviour Christ the Lord to be born in Bethlem in
an Inn a Stable a Saviour in Bethlem Christ in an Inn the Lord in a Stable yet so he would have it for our instruction yea and for our comfort also It is not point of doctrine only but matter of joy too for joy there is in it even that it was in Bethlem Bethlem signifies the house of bread and bread signifies all that we want to give us our daily bread is to give us whatsoever we need whatsoever we need for the body but this is spiritual bread and supplies us with whatsoever we can desire for the Soul Joy and great joy in this panis de Coelo bread from Heaven the living bread of which whosoever eats shall never die and therefore perpetual joy too joy which shall be for ever he shall never die Joy in Bethlem then nay and joy there is too in the Inn joy in the very Stable and that publick joy omni populâ— joy to all the people For an Inn is domus populi the house of the people open and free for every Man and though there may be private rooms wherein Men sort themselves in the Inn yet the Stable at least is publici juris all Men have interest in it that is common And as the place so is the benefit of his birth the dew of it is as the womb of the morning saith the Psalmist that is his birth from the womb is as the morning dew watering and refreshing not Gideons fleece alone the land of Jiery but the face of the whole Earth And this is the first the place where The second circumstance is the time when hodie this day saith the Angel for unto you is born this day And what day was this most think it was the first day of the week as this is so it will serve us right hodie as this day this very day of the week but what day was it of the year why of all days of the year upon the shortest in the depth of winter and of all hours in that day in the darkest for it was in the depth of night and so in the very point and close of the old week and beginning of the new That as he chose the worst and meanest places for his birth so the lowest periods and utmost limits of time wherein he would be born According to his own rule verè recubuit in novissimo loco he every way sate him down in the lowest rooms And every way is cause of Joy unto us for still we have joy in all joy and great joy that he came in that season in the deep of winter when all things were at the worst when all things were fruitless sapless and even dead for want of heat and comfortable influence It reflects on our spiritual estate for just so and such it was and the Sun of righteousness could never rise in a better season in a time of greater need to unthaw with his divine beams our frozen affections to give light to our minds warmth to our devotions and life to all that so we might become as Trees of the Lord full of sap growing up in Grace and Vertue and bringing forth fruit unto eternal life Joy and publick joy that he came on that very day the first day of the week it was the first too of the world and that he who was to redeem the world should be born into it on the self same day wherein the world was created what doth it argue but that the redemption was to be as universal as the Creation as the creation of this aspectable world that was made for man And therefore go into the universal world saith our Saviour and preach the Gospel unto every Creature Lastly joy and perpetual joy that he came in that precise hour in the deep and lowest bottom of the night the Sun that can then rise and in that point and shine upon us it is impossible it should ever set If our very night be turned into day that day sure can never see night unless men wilfully muffle themselves and turn their day again into night by putting out their own eyes and not to be pitied by any if they dwell in perpetual darkness ever after So we have all all the joy and all the degrees of it in this circumstance too the circumstance of time There only remains the particular application of all which indeed is all in all and you have it in the last point Vobis all is for you Unto you c. There is not a word in the Text but as you have seen hath joy in it but this word hath the joy of them all all the joy which is dispersed and scattered through the whole being collected and united in this one Before it was only as oyle or wine pressed out into several vessels but this is the pipe wherein all must be poured and tunn'd up before it will work either cheerfulness in the countenance or gladness in the heart were the joy never so much For if it be prepared for others if we shall remain as empty Casks quid ad nos what is it to us and what are we the better But now all is poured forth into our own bosoms and that we may be all filled with the fulness of it it is particularly applyed unto you and every of you For unto you c. And herein is the comfort of all not that he was born for all in general but for you in particular Omni populo to all the people is something too large and universal and the hundredth part of them shall not receive benefit by him and so it leaves us still in doubt we would gladly therefore hear it in more restrained terms in terms of some propriety that may assure us why vobis for you he is born for you Yea now you say somewhat And twice it is here said for failing in every verse once Evangelizo vobis I bring unto you good tydings in the first and now Natus vobis born unto you in this latter that ye may know the message is yours and the birth is yours therefore the message is sent unto you because the birth concerneth you So yours they be both both message and birth and joy and all whatsoever is contained in both is wholly yours Yours the Saviour yours the Christ yours his benefit his office his power his benefit to save you his office to undertake you his power to secure you Yours his salvation as Jesus his Anointing as Christ his dominion as the Lord. For if the birth be yours all that follows the birth must be yours too if he himself be yours all that is his is yours also And so it is omnâ—a ejus vestra sunt all that he hath is yours Luk xv 31 Now then since he and all that he hath is ours will it not be well done to make our Entry to take seisin of him and then to dispose all to our best benefit so shall we as Bernard wisheth us uti nostro
so now we are come to the true fulness indeed and we may not go farther not farther in our discourse it must needs stay where all words fail and every tongue of necessity is speechless Nay no farther in our desires this Adoption is the fulness of our option nay a fulness beyond our wish since we could not possibly conceive so great happiness to wish for it By this time then it is full Sea and all the banks are filled on every side It is now as Ezekiels waters that he saw flow from under the threshold of the Temple that took him first to the Ankles then to the Knees after to the Loins at last so high risen there was more no passage Ezek. iv 7. for just so it fareth here with the Text that by the like degrees runs on till at length it rise to an immensity of fulness not to be forded First from the fulness of his compassion God sent to release us Secondly from the fulness of his love he sent his Son who in the fulness of humility was content to be made and to make a full union with our nature made of a Woman and to make the union fuller yet with our sinful condition be made under the Law that we might receive a full deliverance from all evil by being redeemed and a full estate of all the joy and glory of his heavenly inheritance by being adopted Lo here is fulness of all hands And sure amidst all this fulness it were much unfit that we only should be empty for whom all was done If there be fulness of compassion in the Father if fulness of love in the Son to purchase benefits and blessings for us full above measure sure there should be in some measure at least a fulness of duty in us again to return unto them Otherwise if we neglect so great Salvation we may and shall notwithstanding this Redemption or Adoption either depart as empty of mercy as we are of goodness The Catholick Redemption is not so absolute but that many may perish for whom Christ died as the Apostle speaks The general and probationary Adoption is not so peremptory but that upon misbehaviour divers may be disinherited again Filii Regni ejicientur foras even the Sons of the Kingdom shall be cast forth saith our Saviour himself If thou then wouldst be a firm and constant partaker of these benefits being thus set free by so noble a Redeemer and at so high a price stand upon thine own worth value thy Soul at the same rate it was ransomed at do not again basely sell it and thy birthright for the poor pleasures of this world like Esau for a mess of pottage But as God is full of compassion full of mercy full of love so be thou full of Duty full of Piety full of Repentance and then Redemption and Adoption both shall be fully thine and thine for ever But yet these are but the general duties of our whole life if we would make it up full indeed we are to consider those that are special and proper to this time in particular and they are principally two Joy and Thanks that as the persons are two the Father and the Son and the benefits two Redemption and Adoption so that both might be fully answered the duties are two joyfulness and thankfulness unto the Authors from whence they proceed So these two will make up all full especially if they be in those full degrees if they be full in us in our selves And that so they shold be their very names do teach us Joyfulness and Thankfulness both ending in Fulness to shew that they may not be remiss but that we should be full and abound in them as at all other times so chiefly in this which is the fulness of time or the time of fulness chuse you whether And a time of fulness I am sure it will be in one sense of fulness of bread and fulness of bravery of fulness of mirth and pastime and so it may be and so it hath ever been a joyful time even in outward appearance only we must be careful that this outward joy eat not up evacuate not our spiritual joy proper to the feast Which then is truly spiritual when our spirits shall rejoyce not so much in external sports with the multitude as with the blessed Virgin in Domino salvatore in God our Saviour God our Redeemer as it is here And sure a Redeemer brings joy with him indeed we our selves acknowledge it in other matters if it concern the redeeming of our goods or of our momentany lives Tell an undone Man of one that will redeem his mortgaged and forfeited Land tell a lost Man cast and condemned under the Law of the Kingdom of a Redeemer that will purchase his pardon it is a welcom message the joyfullest news that ever he heard Shall those transitory things affect us thus and shall spiritual things and eternal affect us nothing Are our earthly estates so dear unto us and is the recovery of a celestial inheritance in a Kingdom of everlasting glory not worth the thinking on Are our animal and perishing lives so precious and shall the redemption of our Souls cast and condemned to the sorrow of eternal torment not be regarded Sure did we worthily conceive of it such a Redeemer would be welcomed with our best and fullest joy But however it go with us now when the destruction is not near enough to affect us sure I am the time will come when it shall In noviâ—â—imo intelligetis plane in the latter end ye shall fully understand saith the Wise-man At that day that fearful day when tribulation and anguish shall be upon every Soul that hath done evil when they shall vainly cry unto the Rocks and Mountains to cover them from the presence of the Lord then indeed ye shall understand and know that there is no joy in the world to the joy of such a Redeemer but alas then of a gracious Redeemer he will become a terrible and inflexible Judge And therefore beatus populus qui scit jubilationem blessed the people that now know how and wherein to rejoice And as we are to rejoice for the benefits we receive so we may not be unmindful of them from whence we receive them That were like swine that fat themselves on the mast but never look up to the hand that beats them down And therefore after our joyfulness or fulness of joy our fulness of thanks or thankfulness is to ensue We must sing both parts in the Christmas Carol of that blessed Woman of whom he was this day made My soul doth magnify the Lord as well as my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour To render our thanks then and to remember to do it fully to forget none to him that was sent and to him that sent sent his Son in this the Spirit of his Son in the next verse the one to procure the other to seal and assure unto us both
thence drops on the very skirts of his rayment even the rest of the Creatures who have all some interest in his body and therefore in his glory Whereby we are given to consider not only the greatness but the large extent of the Almighty's goodness in this Act of his Incarnation For bonum est sui diffusivum goodness is diffusive and loves to communicate it self and that of God the supream good most of all other And indeed whatsoever we every where see whatsoever any where is or hath any being it is nothing else but a Communication of the Divine goodness from whence they have all that they have whatsoever they are But now in this mystery God did communicate a new goodness and a greater than ever before not only unto man but in a sort unto all his Creatures which all have some title in his person and shall in their time receive a benediction from it for man as he was Supremum Creationis colophon the last and supream work of the Creation so was he the sum and recapitulation of all that was created before him and all that was so created was but either spiritual as the Angels or corporeal as the rest of the world and in man who hath a material body with the one and an immaterial Soul sutable to the other both were bound up together in one Creature A Creature which hath being with the Elements whereof he is compounded life and vegetation with plants sense with beasts reason and spiritual existence with the Angels and therefore a little but compleat world within himself Nexus vinculum totius creaturae the very knot and band that holds together the whole Creation And therefore the whole world being united in man and man unto God every Creature of the world cannot but have some interest in the union who have a part in the Nature that was united Had he assumed the nature of Angels the rest of his works that are corporeal had been excluded Had he taken unto him a Celestial body and made his Tabernacle in the Sun the Creatures that have life and sense had lain unregarded and should any of these have been honoured with it those that are intelligent and spiritual men and Angels had been left out under contempt for ever Man therefore was the only creature in whom he could interest and honour all the rest as being both corporeal and spiritual and having in him being life sense intellect and whatsoever the rest have and are And mansnature therefore he only assumed ut dum una assumitur in qua reliquarum gradus continentur in una reliquae omnes quoad suos gradus assumerentur That so assuming the one wherein the degrees of all the rest were contained all the rest in that one according to their degrees might be assumed Wherefore that Cardinal Schoolman Cajetan said not amiss Incarnatio est elevatio totius universi in divinam personam the Incarnation is an exaltation of the whole Universe into the Divine Person Since by it man in whom all things are knit together is himself knit and united unto God that as man is all in one so God might be all in all And all from God receive not only elevation and honour but blessing and benediction in Christ Jesus the Son of God who is therefore the head both of men and Angels to them a Conserver to us a Redeemer and not unto us only but unto all other Creatures that were made for our use and become subject unto vanity through our sin that as they suffered by mans transgression so in man they might partake of mans Redemption And therefore the whole Creation saith St. Paul travaileth in pain together with us and together with us shall be delivered into the glorious liberty of the sons of God and therefore waiteth until they shall be revealed For which reason our blessed Lord fully is as he is termed Saelvator mundi the Saviour not of man alone but of the whole aspectable world and whatsoever is in it Thy truth reacheth unto the Heavens saith David of him and thy faithfulness unto the Clouds how excellent is thy name in all the World thou Lord shalt save both man and beast and what name is that which is so excellent in all the world but the name of a Saviour thou Lord shalt save both man and beast And therefore the prophet Esay calls unto Heaven and Earth the Forest and all the Trees that are in it that is the whole world and whatsoever dwelleth therein to sing and rejoyce together for this Redemption Sing O Heavens for the Lord hath done it shout ye lower parts of the Earth break forth into singing ye Mountains O Forest and every Tree therein for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob and glorified himself in Israel Esay xliv 22. And St. Paul gives the reason which is the same we have hitherto given because in this Redeemer all things in Heaven and Earth were collected and gathered together in one even in Christ Eph. x. 10. And not only gathered and collected but restored in him and renewed For nova jam facta sunt omnia all things are now made new saith the same Apostle Most worthily therefore at the name of Jesus the knee of every Creature both in Heaven and Earth and under the Earth is injoyned to bow and give glory as being by that name glorified in a sort and restored to more excellent perfection So great so universal is the goodness declared in this Act Yet this is not all But as it is great unto man and universal unto the Creature so is it the highest Communication of goodness in it self and the best demonstration of the intrinsick goodness of the Creator the highest in it self because in this he communicates himself which is not goodness but goodness it self Besides this there are but three degrees of communication Nature Grace and Glory but this fourth of hypostatical union infinitely exceeds them all on which all acknowledge their dependance for it restores Nature gives Grace purchaseth Glory Nature indeed and natural properties are a great communication of Gods goodness unto natural things supernatural Grace unto the Soul of man in this life a greater Divine glory unto body and Soul in the life to come greatest of all yet the best goes not farther than a Created quality for though being glorified we shall see God see his Essence and be blessed in seeing it yet we shall see it but per speciem by a Divine indeed but a created light but in this of Incarnation he doth not exhibit any shews or similitudes he doth not bestow any created gift whether of natural or supernatural order but he gives and bestows himself immediately unto his Creature who doth as immediately see and injoy him in himself being the self-same Person with him a communication of goodness wonderful above all other and not to be conceived had it not been revealed And as the highest in it self so is it the greatest
demonstration of the intrinsick goodness that is holiness of the Lord that vouchsafed it For if the detestation of evil be an argument of goodness how full of goodness is he who that we might know how utterly he hates and abhors all sin and wickeness rather than it should escape unrevenged would incarnate the Divinity it self that so he might punish it and severely too even in his own Son which doth not only manifest his goodness but his Justice also and together with both the greatness and grievousness of our sins How far were our Souls gone and how deadly our Iniquities that must either draw God from Heaven yea dragg him to the Cross or plunge us in an everlasting Hell And unto that our blessed Lord vouchsafed to be brought that we might be delivered from this Who then shall declare either the heinous guilt of our sin or the infinite power the manifest wisdom or infinite both goodness and justice declared in his generations Especially his goodness unto us miserable sinners which we must ever especially think on but never hope to utter O what mind what speech shall utter say or conceive the great honour he hath this day done unto our nature how many and marvellous benefits he hath in it confer'd on our persons freeing us from all that is evil sin sorrow death and Hell and investing us with whatsoever is good Grace Joy and Glory everlasting in Heaven Say we then all with Pelergus Age O Christe Dei Verbum Sapientia Well then O dear Jesus the word and wisdom of the Father what shall we poor miserable Creatures return unto thee for all thy favours Tuae enim omnia à nobis nihil cupis nisi salvari for thou hast done all things for us and requirest nothing of us again but that we would suffer our selves to be saved nay thou givest us salvation and takest it kindly at our hands yea as a benefit unto thy self if we will but receive it O infinite goodness and that we may laud and praise and worship thee worthily for it add one more mercy unto all that is past and as thou wast pleased to be born in our nature so vouchsafe to be born again by thy holy Spirit in our Persons that we may once more say Quis enarrabit c. So we pass unto our last point from his Divine birth of the Father and his Humane from the womb of the blessed Virgin unto his spiritual in the Souls of all the faithful For it is not enough that the Son of God was born for us or in our nature unless he be also born within â—us and in our particular spirits by his grace that so as he was made the Son of Man by being united unto our flesh we might become the Sons of God by being united again unto him in the spirit By wihch spiritual union and mystical are conveyed and applyed unto us all the benefits and graces purchased by the personal And it is not the meriting of Mercy but the actual conferring of it that must do us good which is never fully done until he that was born for us be reborn again in and within us till he live in our hearts by Faith and his life revive in our conversation till his patience be stamped upon our Spirits and the rest of his Divine Vertues ingraven and formed on our Souls For so speaks St. Paul of this Spiritual Generation My little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you Gal. iv 19. And formed then he is in us not before when we can shape and form our hearts in some good measure according to the pattern and precedent he hath left us truly saying with the same St. Paul Vivo jam non ego sed Christus vivit in me I live now and yet not I but Christ liveth in me A birth and formation so full of marvel and miracle as we may no less say of it than of those other Quis enarrabit c For in the first indeed God is born of God in the second God is born of a Woman but in the third many Men and Women at once both bear and are born of God because Gods formation in Man is Mans reformation unto the image of God his generation in us our regeneration in him And so by the same act in which God is born in Man in the self-same both act and instant Man is born of God as St. John speaks And that by the insensible and unsearchable working of the Spirit which works so secretly as Man himself cannot observe and discern it though it work within himself and even in his own spirit The child is not more inobservably conceived in the womb of the Mother than Christ Jesus in the Soul of the Christian. And therefore the kingdom of heaven cometh not by observation saith our Saviour that it is come we find but how it came we perceive not and what we cannot discern how should we express who then shall declare c. Neither is it more secret than strange and powerful there being nothing of greater admiration than the wonderful work of God in the conversion of a sinner How marvellous is it that the hearts of wicked Men that were for so many years before domicilia Daemonum the habitation of Devils wherein the Foxes had holes and the fowls of the air their nests that is deceipt and ambition roosted and with them Luxury and Avarice Envy Wrath and Malice Prophaneness Falshood and all manner of filthiness until it became a den of beasts a cage of unclean birds and indeed a very Hell of impure spirits that such a Stable of filth Augeaâ—'s Stable should suddenly be cleansed and a Tenent of Grace Jesus as in that of Bethlem be born in it in an instant That so dark vaults of lusts and uncleanness should presently be transformed into Temples of the Holy Ghost That so impotent and inthralled Souls should be indued with power from above and inspired with such an Almighty and miraculous Faith as is able in a moment to cast out all those Devils To teach the prophane to speak with a new tongue the wrathful and vindictive with patience to suck up all the poysoned malice venemous stomachs can disgorge against them without hurt and not only to be good in themselves but by laying their hands on the sick by their charitable works unto the distressed not only relieve them but with their very example recover others that were sick of sin unto death Who can behold such a change such and so sudden a mutation and not say with David This is the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes Sure it is digitus Dei the finger of God indeed the very power of his Spirit nay no other than another incarnation and spiritual birth of the Son of God in such a Soul And quis enarrabit A generation performed with so secret and yet so powerful an operation Which yet we
therefore in Gods account not right but even dissemblers in what they truly intended because they falsly forsook it Hypocrites then they are and with hypocrites they shall have their portion Consider therefore faithfully what thy lips spake when thy heart was in trouble and be sure that thy hand perform it when thou art released And yet if your lips spake nothing if you have no vow upon you thanksgiving is due without it pay that at least with cheerfulness No such Monster in the world not the Hypocrite himself as the unthankful Man he that hath said Ungrateful hath said all and the worst he can say And therefoer above all things if there be no vows to pay yet offer unto God thanksgiving next to that of a broken heart it is the best sacrifice thou canst offer him This shall please the Lord better than a bullock that hath horns and hoofes Psal. lxix 31. Nay not all those Hecatombs and millions of Sheep and Oxen which Solomon offered at the dedication of the Temple no nor thousands of Rams and Rivers of Oyl as Micah speaks can so glad the Altars of God as these Calves of our lips the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving but then it must be made a burnt-offering that is kindled with the fire of zeal and true devotion sing praises lustily saith our Prophet and with a good courage And as he gives us the instruction so let him be our example that you may know he did not promise more in this place than he was glad and willing to perform afterwards See how lustily and with what a good courage he doth perform it he doth not go about it drowsily but his very preparation to it is hasty even beyond expression by any Mans words but his own My heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed awake up my â—uâ—e and glory â— my self wâ—â— awake right early My lips will be fain when I sing unto thee and so will my soul which thou hast redeemed nay my mouth shall be satisfied as it were with marrow and fatness when I shall praise thee with joyful lips words that have vigour and life and shew a good courage indeed but all this is but preparative for when he comes to performance see how he stirs up all the parts of his body and powers of his Soul to concur with him in the work Praise the Lord O my Soul and whatsoever is within me praise his holy name And yet it is not enough himself and all his faculties are too little this is still but private praise he must have it publick too and so it is to the purpose you may see him summon up not only righteous Men as here but all the creatures of Heaven and Earth to bear a part with him Angels Sun Moon Stars Fire Hail Snow Vapour Storm and Tempest too praise ye the name of the Lord. And as yet not satisfied he calls for all the Instruments of Musick Trumpets Psaltery Harp Timbrel Cymbals and the high tuned Cymbals to express and set it forth the more solemnly Neither is it a passionate flash like fire in Flax as quickly out as kindled but a constant and parmanent affection Whilst I live I will praise the Lord and as long as I have any being I will sing praises unto my God Ps. cxlvi How mightily doth this upbraid the dead and cold devotion of the present world scarce a spark of this holy fire to warm it can now be found in one bosom of a thousand we think we have performed a worthy sacrifice if with a barren and a dry heart we can only say with the Pharisee I thank thee O Lord that thou hast not made me like other men Superficial we are and perfunctory in all our service forward in nothing but to run on the point of that curse of the Prophet Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently And the reason is â—or that it all things do not run according to our desires we are insensible of the goodness of God in other matters and seldom meditate on it thoroughly But had we apprehensive spirits and could duly weigh and seriously consider the mercies of God not only to Man in general but every Man his special favours unto himself in particular a thousand ways when a thousand ways he deserved destruction he would soon find his breast straitned and too narrow for his swelling affections till he breath them out in our Prophets double expostulation of love not only Domine quid est Homo Lord what is Man that thou art so mindful of him but Domine quid sum ego what am I what is my Fathers house that thou so regardest me Let such meditations blow on the little fire that lies raked up in our embers and they will soon kindle into a flame wherein our devotions may ascend into Heaven like that Angel which went up playing in the flames of Manoabs sacrifice Judg. xiii And this shall suffice for this part for the thankfulness the Prophet promiseth both private and publick within himself and in the resort and company of the Righteous I now leave his praise and come to his prayer Bring my soul out of prison O Lord c. And being in prison in streights and pressures what should a good Soul do but pray If any man be merry let him sing if he be afflicted let him pray saith St. James For prayer it is the Souls Herald sent forth in extremity to parly and intreat for comfort And as nothing can relieve our distress better than prayer so nothing can again assist our prayer better than distresses They inflame our zeal and set an edge upon our devotions the cries of our own will are weak and feeble as cooled with success in respect of those which grief doth utter Sorrow is ingenious to pray and in an instant formeth the slowest tongues to an holy eloquence and furnisheth them with sighs and groans which cannot be expressed And sure those are the best and most piercing prayers of all other fidelis oratio plus gemitibus constat quà m sermonibus plus fletu quà m afflatu faithful prayers indeed consist rather of Tears and silent groans than many words And such a prayer is this to speak on it is but a groan very short but very pithy few words but fervent and full of substance including in it as an abstract of all prayer whatsoever conditions may seem necessary to a holy and devout supplication if you consider the object the manner and the matter of it The object the Lord so some Texts have it here but it is evident in the former verses I cried unto the Lord. The manner vehement by way of crying out as himself in the same Psalm testifies I cried unto the Lord. The matter or extent larger than we imagine even no less than deliverance from all evil that may any way inthral the Soul as will appear when we come to open this Prison from which he
meditating on the miseries of his peregrination on Earth and the joyes of the celestial Jerusalem above and as it were sighing in himself that he was detained so long from praising the name of God and singing hymns of thanksgiving and honour amidst all the company of the righteous there and congregation of the first-born both Saints and Angels he grieves at his absence and groans out the ferventness of his desire in this short Prayer Bring my Soul out of Prison that I may praise thy name A desire which he doth elsewhere often express As the Hart desireth the water-brooks so longeth my Soul after thee O God When shall I appear before the presence of the Lord Blessed be they that dwell in thy house they shall be always praising of thee from generation to generation and that he might be in the midst of them praising his name his desire in this Prayer is here Bring my Soul out of Prison c. And yet if we shall suppose he did not yet others may and no question but many do The Roman Catholicks report not without Joy that their holy St. Francis died with this very sentence in his mouth and this sence of it to be his mind which he had no sooner uttered but Anima à Corpore libera evolavit in coelum his Soul according to his request freed from his body flew away into Heaven And certainly whosoever hath but so much goodness as he can grieve to be detained from Heaven or desires to be freed from the molestations of sin upon Earth cannot but esteem of the body as a Prison which hinders him in both Nay the very Philosophers that knew neither of those respects out of moral regards could both perceive and acknowledge it for such Carcer sepulchrum Animae the Prison and Sepulcher of the Soul And so may we term them too only we must be careful we avoid the error of Origen That our Souls sinned in Heaven and are condemned to bodies but as to Gallies or Prisons where they are to do penance for former transgressions But as St. Austin doth well distinguish it is not the body in it self which was first built for a house of delight though sin committed in it but the corruption of it that makes it a Prison according to that in the Book of Wisdom Corpus corruptibile aggravat animam the corruptible bod◠presseth down the Soul and ceaseth not to fight against it with many noysome lusts in regard whereof the Apostle himself was inforced to cry out as even weary of his Prison quis liberabit who shall deliver me from this body of death why Thanks be unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ this is he that shall deliver us this is the Lord to whom David did and we all must pray that desire this benefit Bring my soul out of Prison O Lord. And yet though we may lawfully make this Prayer in this sence yet it must be as before with submission of our will unto his we must wait the Lords leisure with patience to whom only belong the issues of death and therefore not seek to break through the walls or throw our selves out at the windows but stay till he shall please to open the door and lead us forth in peace for it is Educ animam we may not thrust it out our selves but he must lead it forth or we shall but thrust it out of one prison into another infinitely worse Nay it seems by that word it should be no hasty desire that he himself should do it neither it doth not sound as if we would have him presently break down and demolish the building and so sweep us away in an instant that were Eripe animam pluck forth my Soul out of prison but it is Educ lead it forth and seems to import not so much an anticipation of our time as an humble Petition that when our time is come and this Tabernacle must needs be dissolved that then amidst all the conflicts and terrours of death he would be pleased to be with us to sustain and uphold us with his grace chean up and guide forth our Souls with his comforts for this is educere animam to lead the Soul out of Prison And happy thrice happy are those Souls that are thus led and conducted in this perillous time Every one indeed prays for it but every one shall not obtain it It is Educ animam meam and we must put an accent upon that meam on Davids Soul that faithful and penitent Soul indeed was and all others without fail shall be in their due time thus led and guided out of their Prisons in peace but those that have no part in his penitence they may say if they will but they shall have no part in his Prayer As they neglected God and all his ways in their life so God again will be as far from hearing or keeping them in their death but will rather laugh in their destruction and mock when their fear cometh as it is in the first of Proverbs And then on the otherside how miserable thrice miserable shall he be that must part with his Soul at a venture without any comfort to sustain it or light of grace to lead it through the fearful passages of death Look on him and you shall then see when after all his mirth and revels you shall find him at the last laid on his groaning pillow on the bed of languishing as David speaks O consider well how woful and disconsolate his estate must needs be when after all his former pleasures being worn out with his body the Soul begins to loath the ruinous house of age and sickness when it may not stay and yet knows not whither to go at what time those sad and severe cogitations formerly beaten from him through youth and felicity return to afflict and pay him home for all his vain and wanton delights yea peradventure when the terrours of God shall fight against him and the Arrows of the Almighty stick within him the venom whereof drinks up the spirit as it is in Job In this misery of his wounded in body through sickness and distressed in conscience through sin what shall lead him forth with comfort since God refuseth to do it shall his wife his sons or his friends his honours offices or wealth why the very thought of these and whatsoever else he hath that is good doth but double his afflicton since now he must part with them for ever and may well therefore say unto them as Job did unto his three friends miserable comforters are ye all what then shall he comfort himself as some of the servants of God have done by looking back on the ways of his life why nothing can possibly torment him more he now sees that he hath but wearied himself in the ways of Iniquity and perceives though too late what before he refused to believe that such paths lead down unto the Chambers of death Since then he can
said in the loss of his friend is most true in her case Her bowels were pluckt from her and she could not but feel the wound and therefore if for nought else but her sorrow and afflictions sake she might well pray educ animam c. But other troubles she had besides and distractions in the world that often called her meditations from Heaven where they delighted wholly to converse especially in her later time wherein she so inured her Soul unto blessed contemplation as she had almost freed her self from this prison ere she was freed from the body that indeed was still in the world but her mind and affections were usually with her Maker So that those earthy cares which hang at the heels of other mens Souls like talents of lead hung at hers only but as a line that usually gave her leave to soar aloft only humane necessity that held the end of it had power now and then to draw her down to the grief and sorrow of her heart I am a witness of her complaint and of her tears too that any worldly occasions though never so necessary should trouble and interrupt her spiritual devotions and therefore I am sure in this regard it was her frequent prayer Bring my Soul out of prison And besides afflictions and cares sins she had too no question for what Soul is without them but yet so few and so far from habit as I think no man can easily tell what they were Infirmities and omissions it may be though for my part I know them not yet this I know that her goodness esteemed them as the greatest sins and bewailed them with sorrow enough to suffice one that had murdered his Father or betrayed his Country never ceasing to send forth her fervent supplications in this behalf unto the last gasp Her tongue her hands her heart all prayed this prayer her tongue as long as it could move and when that failed her hand spake and when both were gone yet questionless her heart cried this cry deliver my soul out of this prison the prison of sin But yet until the body be severed from the Soul the Soul can never utterly be severed either from sin or care or sorrow of affliction And a body she had it is now you see a carkase but sometimes was a goodly frame a well built and comeâ—y maniâ—on and even cut out of an antient Quarry but unto her whose thoughts were on another habitation above as it was in it self by reason of the corruption whereunto it was subject so she esteem'd it but a prison unto her Soul and that did at last trouble her peace with pains and delay her from those joys that are pure and know no mixture of sorrow No marvel therefore if in the desire of these she could make that her prayer which others tremble to think on deliverance from her Prison But yet there needed no earnest Prayer for this death comes fast enough on of it self without hastning it more concerns us to die well and with the comforts of God in our bosomes that may shield us from our spiritual enemies that are then busiest and guide and conduct us through the dark valley of death that is terrible in it self And therefore in this respect I rather conceive she that was so careful of her Soul could not but make it her humblest and heartiest prayer that when the time should come the Lord of his mercy would be pleased to lead it out of Prison So fit was it every way and in many regards so good a choice did she make of her prayer whilst she lived and the Lord from his holy habitation heard her cry and at last accomplisht and fulfilled it all in her death Though before he pleased to lay sorrows enough upon her yet now in the midst of them all his comforts did refresh her Soul Now he comes to it in his dearest loving kindness and leads it forth indeed with his choicest consolations and graces to make her a full recompence for all her former afflictions How doth it now rejoice others about her even in the depth of their sorrow to see her full of the Spirit and out of the abundance of it sometimes pouring down blessings on her children and childrens children and every one his several blessings like Jacob sometimes stirring up and exhorting to the fear and service of the Lord with holy Joshuâ— sometimes again solacing her self in the sweet peace of a good Conscience as blessed Samuel and lastly sometimes venting out her strong hope and stedfast confidence with St. Paul but in the words of Job I know that my Redeemer liveth and I shall see him with these eyes as she often repeated But what may be said enough of her fervent praying she was ever pious and frequent in this holy exercise through the whole course of her life thrice a day at the least at morning at noon and at night besides her times of publick prayer so five times a day she prayed and I doubt not but instantly too But now when her prison began to ruine and death to appear within ken how assiduous is she now it is not Davids seven nor twice seven times a day that can suffice but she plies it as if she had meant to fulfil the Apostles precept pray continually I told you but now her heart tongue and hand prayed to the last gasp and I think that gasp was a prayer too when her understanding failed and she could neither hear nor see others yet others might see and perceive that she prayed So perfectly had she taught her tongue to pray that when her senses were locked up it could run of it self And if such a Soul as this be not whose shall ever be led forth with comfort and peace But yet before her leading forth being remembred of it she willingly made confession of her Faith acknowledging all the Articles of her Belief and adhering only unto the blood of Christ Jesus for her hope in these she had lived and in them she would die but die in charity too forgiving and desiring to be forgiven of the whole world as at other times she did not refuse to ask it even of her own Servants when she had but uttered a word with a little more earnestness than ordinary And this solemn profession made that she might farther yet fulfil all rights she gladly makes her Son her Father and receives his absolution And not long after the God of all mercies on whom she continually called answered her gently and opening the Prison eduxit animam led forth her blessed Soul full of gracious comforts unto everlasting glory for with this all the other prisons are utterly dissolved No more afflictions now nor sin nor death for ever all tears are wiped from her eyes and sorrow from her heart all pain from her Body and sin from her Soul which now in the highest Heavens compassed about with the righteous sings the songs of praise and honour and