in the grant But I am not here to deale upon affections but consciences and but so far upon them in this point as they finde themselves in a rectified and well examined conscience to have beene enemies to the publique by having defrauded that by any meanes of that which was truly due to it And to bring that into consideration which is little considered that as it is a greater sinne to defraud the publique then to defraud any private person so doth the assisting of the publique lay a greater obligation upon us then the assisting of any other by private almes The other debt from us to men Ceremonialis and of them to Superiours and of them principally to the Soveraigne we called ceremoniall And the Apostle in that which followes in this verse referres chiefely to that in those words Feare and Honour for it consists especially in those things wherein by outward reverence we contribute to the maintenance and upholding of the dignity of the Prince and of these outward ceremoniall things hath God alwaies professed himselfe to be most jealous And if I mistake not as I may easily doe in things so far removed out of my way when in your judiciall proceedings in criminall causes you make the greatest offences to be against the Crowne and Dignity in the first the Crowne you intend the essentiall part and in the other the Dignity the ceremoniall the Honour and Reverence and Reputation of the Prince God gave his very Essence to his Son he was very God of very God But when this Son of his became man that which God sayes in generall my Honour will I give to no man reaches so far to the Son of God himselfe as that the honour due to God is not to be given to the body not to the manhood of Christ Jesus himselfe How very great a part of the Law of God was ceremoniall and how very heavy punishments were ordained for the breakers even of those Ceremonies Colos 2.17 Melancton The Sabbaths themselves S. Paul puts amongst Ceremonies And that man who assisted the Reformation of Religion with as much learning and modesty as any defines the Commandment of the Sabbath well to be Morale praeceptum de Ceremoniali That though the Commandment be morall and binde all men for ever yet that which is commanded in that morall Commandement is in it selfe Ceremoniall for indeed all that which we call by the generall name of Religion as it is the outward worship of God is Ceremoniall and there is nothing more morall then that some ceremoniall things there must be Now as these Ceremoniall things are due to God himselfe so are they to them to whom God hath imparted his name in saying they are Gods Wee shall not read in any secular or prophane story of greater humility and reverence in subjects to their Princes then in the booke of God to the Kings there What phrases of abjecting themselves in respect of the Prince can exceed Davids humble expressing of himselfe to Saul Or Daniels magnifying the King when he cals him King of Kings And certainly some of the best and most religious of Christian Emperors tooke to themselves so great Titles in their stile as can be excused no other way but because their Predecessors had done so there lay a necessity upon them to keepe this ceremoniall respect and dignity at the same heighth because upon the Ceremoniall much of the Essentiall depends too And therefore God pierces to the roote to the heart when he forbids an irreverent or unrespective thought of the Prince Eccles 10.20 for saies he Those that have wings shall declare the matter God imployes so many Informers as Angels It is not an office unworthy of the Angels of Heaven much lesse of any other Angels of the Church no not though it be delivered by way of confession to discover any disloyall purposes though in other cases by our owne Canons that seale of Confession lay justly a strong obligation upon us and God gives Angels an ability a faculty which in their nature they have not that is to know thoughts for this purpose for the discovery of such irreverent and disloyall hearts Angels doe not know thoughts naturally yet to this purpose they shall know thoughts saies God Morall men should not discover the secrets of friends we should not discover the things we receive in confession but when it comes to matter of disloyalty all morall seales and all Ecclesiasticall seales lose their obligation The foote of this account the totall summe of this Ceremoniall debt to Superiors is that due respect be given to every man in his place for when young men thinke it the onely argument of a good spirit to behave themselves fellowly and frowardly to great persons those greater persons in time take away their respect from Princes and at last for in the chain of order every link depends upon one another God loses the respect and honour due to him private men lessen their respect of Magistrates and Magistrates of Princes and Princes and all of God And therefore that which S. Chrysostome sayes of the highest rank Non putes Christian a philosophiae dignitatem laedi reaches to all sorts Let no man think that he departs from the dignity of a Christian in attributing to every man that which appertains to the dignity of his place I speak not all this as though a man should lose the substance for the ceremony that that man whose place it is to advise and counsell should be so ceremonious with his superiour as to concurre with him in the allowance of all his errors Caput meum conquassatum est it is an expostulation of S. Bernards My head is bruised corrupted putrified he speakes it of his head his superiour a Bishop Et jam sanguine ebulliente putaverim esse tegendum now my head runs downe with blood can I think to cover it Quicquid apposuero cruentabitur whatsoever I lay to it will be bloody too if I dissemble or cover his faults his blood will fall upon me and I shall have part of his sins Every wife hath a superiour at home so hath every childe and every servant and every man a superjour some where in some respect that is in a spirituall respect for so not only the King but the highest spirituall person hath a superiour for absolution And to this superiour respectively every man owes a ceremoniall respect as a debt though this debt be not so far as to accompany him or to encourage him in his ill purposes for that is too high a ceremony and too transcendent a complement to be damned for his sake by concurring with my superiour in his sins And then they whose office it is to direct even their superiours by their counsell as that office may in cases belong to a wife to a childe to a servant as Iob professes it was in his family have also a ceremoniall duty in that duty which is to doe even
there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in his spirit As then the Prophet Davids principall purpose in this Text is according to the Interpretation of S. Paul to derive all the Blessednesse of man from God so is it also to put some conditions in man comprehended in this That there be no guile in his spirit For in this repentant sinner that shall be partaker of these degrees of Blessednesse of this Forgiving of this Covering of this Not Imputing there is required Integrapoenitentia A perfect and intire repentance And to the making up of that howsoever the words and termes may have been mis-used and defamed we acknowledge that there belongs a Contrition a Confession and a Satisfaction And all these howsoever our Adversaries slander us with a Doctrine of ease and a Religion of liberty we require with more exactnesse and severity then they doe For for Contrition we doe not we dare not say as some of them That Attrition is sufficient that it is sufficient to have such a sorrow for sin as a naturall sense and fear of torment doth imprint in us without any motion of the feare of God We know no measure of sorrow great enough for the violating of the infinite Majesty of God by our transgression And then for Confession we deny not a necessity to confesse to man There may be many cases of scruple of perplexity where it were an exposing our selves to farther occasions of sin not to confesse to man And in Confession we require a particular detestation of that sin which we confesse which they require not And lastly for Satisfaction we imbrace that Rule Condigna satisfactio malè facta corrigere Our best Satisfaction is to be better in the amendment of our lives And dispositions to particular sins we correct in our bodies by Discipline and Mortifications And we teach that no man hath done truly that part of Repentance which he is bound to doe if he have not given Satisfaction that is Restitution to every person damnified by him If that which we teach for this intirenesse of Repentance be practised in Contrition and Confession and Satisfaction they cannot calumniate our Doctrine nor our practise herein And if it be not practised there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in their spirit that pretend to any part of this Blessednesse Forgiving or Covering or Not imputing without this For he that is sorry for sin onely in Contemplation of hell and not of the joyes of heaven that would not give over his sin though there were no hell rather then he would lose heaven which is that which some of them call Attrition He that confesses his sin but hath no purpose to leave it He that does leave the sin but being growne rich by that sin retaines and enjoyes those riches this man is not intire in his Repentanne but there is guile in his spirit He that is slothfull in his work Prov. 18.9 is brother to him that is a great waster He that makes half-repentances makes none Men run out of their estates as well by a negligence and a not taking account of their Officers as by their own prodigality Our salvation is as much indangered if we call not our conscience to an examination as if we repent not those sins which offer themselves to our knowledge and memory And therefore David places the consummation of his victory in that Psal 18.37 I have pursued mine enemies and overtaken them neither did I turne againe till they were consumed We require a pursuing of the enemy a search for the sin and not to stay till an Officer that is a sicknesse or any other calamity light upon that sin and so bring it before us We require an overtaking of the enemy That we be not weary in the search of our consciences And we require a consuming of the enemy not a weakning only a dislodging a dispossessing of the sin and the profit of the sin All the profit and all the pleasure of all the body of sin for he that is sorry with a godly sorrow he that confesses with a deliberate detestation he that satisfies with a full restitution for all his sins but one Dolus in spiritu There is guile in his spirit he is in no better case Berna◠then if at Sea he should stop all leaks but one and perish by that Si vis solvi solve omnes catenas If thou wilt be discharged cancel all thy Bonds one chain till that be broke holds as fast as ten And therfore suffer your consideration to turn back a little upon this object that there may be Dolus in spiritu Guile in the spirit in our pretence to all those parts of Blessednesse which David recommends to us in this Catechisme In the Forgivenesse of transgrestions In the Covering of sin In the Not imputing of iniquity First then Forgiving in this Forgiving of transgressions which is our Saviour Christs taking away the sins of the world by taking them in the punishment due to them upon himselfe there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in that mans spirit that will so farre abridge the great Volumes of the mercy of God so farre contract his generall propositions as to restrain this salvation not only in the effect but in Gods own purpose to a few a very few soules When Subjects complaine of any Prince that he is too mercifull there is Dolus in spiritu Guile and deceit in this complaint They doe but think him too mercifull to other mens faults for where they need his mercy for their own they never think him too mercifull And which of us doe not need God for all sins If we did not in our selves yet it were a new sin in us not to desire that God should be as mercifull to every other sinner as to our selves As in heaven the joy of every soule shall be my joy so the mercy of God to every soule here is a mercy to my soule By the extension of his mercies to others I argue the application of his mercy to my selfe This contracting and abridging of the mercy of God will end in despaire of our selves that that mercy reaches not to us or if we become confident perchance presumptuous of our selves we shall despaire in the behalfe of other men and think they can receive no mercy And when men come to allow an impossibility of salvation in any they will come to assigne that impossibility nay to assigne those men and pronounce for this and this sin This man cannot be saved There is a sin against the Holy Ghost and to make us afraid of all approaches towards that sin Christ hath told us that that sin is irremissible unpardonable But since that sin includes impenitiblenesse in the way and actuall impenitence in the end we can never pronounce This is that sin or This is that sinner God is his Father that can say Our Father which art in heaven And his God that can say I beleeve in God And
addition of comelinesse His aspect was cheerfull and such as gave a silent testimony of a cleere knowing soule and of a conscience at peace with it selfe His melting eye shewed he had a soft heart full of noble pity of too brave a spirit to offer injuries and too much a Christian not to pardon them in others His fancie was un-imitable high equalled by his great wit both being made usefull by a commanding judgement His mind was liberall and unwearied in the search of knowledge with which his vigorous soule is now satisfied and employed in a continuall praise of that God that first breathed it into his active body which once was a Temple of the holy Ghost and is now become a small quantity of Christian dust But I shall see it re-inanimated Iz Wa IOHANNES DONNE SAC THEOL PROFESSOR POST VARIA STUDIA QVIBUS AB ANNIS TENERRIMIS FIDELITER NEC INFELICITER INCUBUIT INSTINCTU ET IMPULSU SPIR S ti MONITU ET HORTATU REGIS IACOBI ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXUS Aº SUI JESU 1614. ET SUAE AETATIS 42. DECANATU HUJUS ECCLESIAE INDUTUS XXVII NOVEMBRIS 1621. EXUTUS MORTE ULTIMO DIE MARTII 1631. Hic licet in Occiduo Cinere Aspicit Eum Cujus Nomen est ORIENS A Table directing to the severall Texts of SCRIPTURE handled by the Author in this BOOK SERM. I. COLOS. 1.19 20. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulnesse dwell And having made peace through the bloud of his Crosse by Him to reconcile all things to himselfe by Him whether they be things in earth or things in heaven page 1 SERM. II. ESAIAH 7.14 Therefore the Lord shall give you a signe Behold a Virgin shall conceive and beare a Son and shall call his name Immanuel pa. 11 SERM. III. GALAT. 4.4 5. But when the fulnesse of time was come God sent forth his Sonne made of a woman made under the Law to redeeme them that were under the Law that we might receive the adoption of Sons pa. 20 SERM. IV. LUKE 2.29 30. Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word For mine eyes have seene thy salvation pa. 29. SERM. V. EXOD. 4.13 O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send pa. 39 SERM. VI. Lord who hath beleeved our report pa. 52 SERM. VII JOHN 10.10 I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly pa. 62 SERM. VIII MAT. 5.16 Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven pa. 77 SERM. IX ROM 13.7 Render therefore to all men their dues pa. 86 SERM. X. ROM 12.20 Therefore if thine enemie hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head pa. 96 SERM. XI MAT. 9.2 And Iesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsie My son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven thee pa. 102 SERM. XII MAT. 5.2 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God pa. 112 SERM. XIII JOB 16. ver 17 18 19. Not for any injustice in my hands Also my prayer is pure O earth cover thou not my bloud and let my cry have no place Also now behold my Witnesse is in heaven and my Record is on high pa. 127 SERM. XIV AMOS 5.18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord what have ye to doe with it the day of the Lord is darknesse and not light pa. 136 SERM. XV. 1 COR 15.26 The last Enemie that shall be destroyed is Death pa. 144 SERM. XVI JOHN 11.35 Iesus wept pa. 153 SERM. XVII MAT. 19.17 And he said unto him Why callest thou me Good There is none Good but One that is God pa. 163 SERM. XVIII ACTS 2.36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly That God hath made that same Iesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ pa. 175 SERM. XIX APOC. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection pa. 183 SERM. XX. JOHN 5.28 29. Marvell not at this for the houre is comming in the which all that are in the graves shall heare his voice And shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of life And they that have done evill unto the Resurrection of damnation pa. 192 SERM. XXI 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for dead pa. 120 SERM. XXII HEB. 11.35 Women received their dead raised to life againe And others were tortured not accepting a deliverance that they might obtaine a better Resurrection pa. 213 SERM. XXIII 1 COR. 13.12 For now we see through a glasse darkly But then face to face Now I know in part But then I shall know even as also I am knowne pa. 224 SERM. XXIV JOB 4.18 Behold he put no trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly pa. 233 SERM. XXV MAT. 28.6 He is not here for he is risen as he said Come See the place where the Lord lay pa. 242 SERM. XXVI 1 THES 4.17 Then we which are alive and remaine shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the ayre and so shall we be ever with the Lord. pa. 254 SERM. XXVII PSAL. 89.47 What man is he that liveth and shall not see death pa. 267 SERM. XXVIII XXIX JOHN 14.26 But the Comforter which is the holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you pa. 277. 286 SERM. XXX JOHN 14.20 At that day shall ye know That I am in my Father and you in me and I in you pa. 294 SERM. XXXI GEN. 1.2 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters pa. 303 SERM. XXXII 1 COR. 12.3 Also no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost p. 312 SERM. XXXIII ACTS 10.44 While Peter yet spake these words the holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the Word pa. 321 SERM. XXXIV ROM 8.16 The Spirit it selfe beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God pa. 332 SERM. XXXV MAT. 12.31 Wherefore I say unto you All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men But the Blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men pa. 341 SERM. XXXVI XXXVII JOHN 16.8 9 10 11. And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousnesse and of judgement Of sin because ye beleeve not on me Of righteousnesse because I goe to my Father and ye see me no more Of judgement because the Prince of this world is judged pa. 351. 361 SERM. XXXVIII 2 COR. 1.3 Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ
from the tyran to cancell the covenant betweene hell and them and restore them so far to their liberty as that they might come to their first Master if they would this was Redeeming But in his other worke which is Adoption and where the persons were more particular Adoptio not all but wee Christ hath taken us to him in a straiter and more peculiar title then Redeeming For A servando Servi men who were by another mans valour saved and redeemed from the enemy or from present death they became thereby servants to him that saved and redeemed them Redemption makes us who were but subjects before for all are so by creation servants but it is but servants but Adoption makes us who are thus made servants by Redemption sons 〈◊〉 for Adoption is verbum forense though it be a word which the Holy Ghost takes yet he takes it from a civill use and signification in which it expresses in divers circumstances our Adoption into the state of Gods children First he that adopted another must by that law be a man who had no children of his owne And this was Gods case towards us Hee had no children of his owne wee were all filii irae The children of wrath not one of us could be said to bee the child of God by nature if we had not had this Adoption in Christ Secondly he who Eph. ◠by that law might Adopt must be a Man who had had or naturally might have had children for an Infant under yeares or a man who by nature was disabled from having children could not Adopt another And this was Gods case towards us too for God had had children without Adoption for by our creation in Innocence we were the sons of God till we died all in one transgression and lost all right and all life and all meanes of regaining it but by this way of Adoption in Christ Jesus Againe no man might adopt an elder man then himselfe and so our Father by Adoption is not onely Antiquus dierum The ancient of Daies but Antiquior diebus ancienter then any Daies before Time was he is as Damascene forces himselfe to expresse it Super-principale principium the Beginning and the first Beginning and before the first beginning He is saies he aeternus and prae-aeternus Eternall and elder then any eternity that we can take into our imagination So likewise no man might adopt a man of better quality then himselfe and here we are so far from comparing as that we cannot comprehend his greatnesse and his goodnesse of whom and to whom S. Augustin saies well Quid mihi es If I shall goe about to declare thy goodnesse not to the world in generall but Quid mihi es how good thou art to me Miserere ut loquar saies he I must have more of thy goodnesse to be able to tell thy former goodnesse Be mercifull unto me againe that I may bee thereby able to declare how mercifull thou wast to me before except thou speake in me I cannot declare what thou hast done for me Lastly no man might be adopted into any other degree of kindred but into the name and right of a son he could not be an adopted Brother nor cosin nor nephew And this is especially our dignity wee have the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father So that as here is a fulnesse of time in the text so there is a fulnesse of persons All and a fulnesse of the worke belonging to them Redeeming Emancipation delivering from the chaines of Satan we were his by Creation we sold our selves for nothing and he redeemed us without money that is Esa 52. without any cost of ours but because for all this generall Redemption we may turne from him and submit our selves to other services therefore he hath Adopted us drawne into his family and into his more especiall care those who are chosen by him to be his Now that Redemption reached to all there was enough for all this dispensation of that Redemption this Adoption reaches onely to us all this is done That wee might receive the Adoption of Sonnes But who are this Wee why they are the elect of God But who are they Nos who are these elect Qui timidè rogat docet negare If a man aske me with a diffidence Can I be the adopted son of God that have rebelled against him in all my affections that have troden upon his Commandements in all mine actions that have divorced my selfe from him in preferring the love of his creatures before himselfe that have murmured at his corrections and thought them too much that have undervalued his benefits and thought them too little that have abandoned and prostituted my body his Temple to all uncleannesse and my spirit to indevotion and contempt of his Ordinances can I be the adopted son of God that have done this Ne timidè roges aske me not this with a diffidence and distrust in Gods mercy as if thou thoughtst with Cain thy iniquities were greater then could be forgiven But aske me with that holy confidence which belongs to a true convert Am not I who though I am never without sinne yet am never without hearty remorce and repentance for my sinnes though the weaknesse of my flesh sometimes betray mee the strength of his Spirit still recovers me though my body be under the paw of that lion that seekes whom hee may devoure yet the lion of Judah raises againe and upholds my soule though I wound my Saviour with many sinnes yet all these bee they never so many I strive against I lament confesse and forsake as farre as I am able Am not I the child of God and his adopted son in this state Roga fidenter aske me with a holy confidence in thine and my God doces affirmare thy very question gives me mine answer to thee thou teachest me to say thou art God himselfe teaches me to say so by his Apostle The foundation of God is sure and this is the Seale God knoweth who are his and let them that call upon his name depart from all iniquity He that departs so far as to repent former sinnes and shut up the wayes which he knows in his conscience doe lead him into tentations he is of this quorum one of us one of them who are adopted by Christ to be the sonnes of God I am of this quorum if I preach the Gospell sincerely and live thereafter for hee preaches twice a day that followes his owne doctrine and does as he saies And you are of this quorum if you preach over the Sermons which you heare to your owne soules in your meditation to your families in your relation to the world in your conversation If you come to this place to meet the Spirit of God and not to meet one another If you have sate in this place with a delight in the Word of God and not in the words of any speaker If you goe out of this
be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost yet we see out of the formes of the Heretiques themselves still so farre as they conceived the Godhead to extend so farre they extended Glory in that holy acclamation those who beleeved not the Son to be God or the Holy Ghost not to be God left out Glory when they came to their Persons but to him that is God in all confessions Glory appertains Now Glory is Clara cum laude notitia sayes S. Ambrose It is an evident knowledge and acknowledgement of God by which others come to know him too which acknowledgement is well called a recognition for it is a second a ruminated a reflected knowledge Beasts doe remember but they doe not remember that they remember they doe not reflect upon it which is that that constitutes memory Every carnall and naturall man knowes God but the acknowledgement the recognition the manifestation of the greatnesse and goodnesse of God accompanied with praise of him for that this appertaines to the godly man and this constitutes glory If God have delivered me from a sicknesse and I doe not glorifie him for that that is make others know his goodnesse to me my sicknesse is but changed to a spirituall apoplexy to a lethargy to a stupefaction If God have delivered us from destruction in the bowels of the Sea in an Invasion and from destruction in the bowels of the earth in the Powder-treason and we grow faint in the publication of our thanks for this deliverance our punishment is but aggravated for we shall be destroyed both for those old sins which induced those attempts of those destructions and for this later and greater sin of forgetting those deliverances God requires nothing else but he requires that Glory and Praise And that booke of the Scriptures of which S. Basil sayes That if all the other parts of Scripture could perish yet out of that booke alone we might have enough for all uses for Catechizing for Preaching for Disputing That whole Booke which containes all subjects that appertaine to Religion is called altogether Sepher Tehillim The Booke of praises for all our Religion is Praise And of that Book every particular Psalme is appointed by the Church and continued at least for a thousand and two hundred yeares to be shut up with that humble and glorious acclamation Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost O that men would therefore praise the Lord and declare the wonderfull works that he doth for the sons of men Nil quisquam debet nisi quod turpe est non reddere sayes the Law It is Turpe an infamous and ignominious thing not to pay debt And infamous and ignominious are heavy and reproachfull words in the Law and the Gospell would adde to that Turpe Impium It is not onely an infamous but an impious an irreligious thing not to pay debts As in debts the State and the Judge is my security they undertake I shall be paid or they execute Judgement so consider our selves as Christians God is my security and he will punish where I am defrauded Either thou owest God nothing And then if thou owe him nothing from whom or from what hath shestollen that face that is faire or he that estate that is rich or that office that commands others or that learning and those orders and commission that preaches to others or they their soules that understand me now If you owe nothing from whom had you all these all this Or if thou dost owe Turpe est Impium est It is an unworthy it is an unhonest it is an irreligious thing not to pay him in that money which his owne Spirit mints and coynes in thee and of his owne bullion too praise and thanksgiving Not to pay him then when he himselfe gives thee the money that must pay him the Spirit of Thankfulnesse falls under all the reproaches that Law or Gospell can inflict in any names How many men have we seene molder and crumble away great estates and yet pay no debts It is all our cases What Poems and what Orations we make how industrious and witty we are to over-praise men and never give God his due praise Nay how often is the Pulpit it selfe made the shop and the Theatre of praise upon present men and God left out How often is that called a Sermon that speakes more of Great men Psal 148.2 then of our great God Laudate eum omnes Augeli ejus laudate eum omnes virtutes ejus David calls upon the Angels and all the Host of Heaven to praise God and in the Romane Church they will employ willingly all their praise upon the Angels and the Host of Heaven it selfe and this is not reddere debitum here is mony enough spent but no debt paid praise enough given but not to the true God Ver. 10. Laudate eum ligna fructifera universa pecora volucres pennatae sayes David there David calls upon fruits and fowle and cattle to praise God and we praise and set forth our lands and fruits and fowle and cattle with all Hyperbolicall praises and this is not reddere debitum no paiment of a debt where it is due Laudate eum juvenes senes virgines sayes David too He calls upon old men and young men and virgins to praise the Lord and we spend all our praises upon young men which are growing up in favour or upon old men who have the government in their hands or upon maidens towards whom our affections have transported us and all this is no paiment of the debt of praise Laudate eum Reges terrae Principes omnes Iudices V. 11. He calls upon Kings and Judges and Magistrates to praise God and we employ all our praise upon the actions of those persons themselves Beloved God cannot be flattered he cannot be over-praised we can speake nothing Hyperbolically of God But he cannot be mocked neither He will not be told I have praised thee in praising thy creature which is thine Image would that discharge any of my debt to a Merchant to tell him that I had bestowed as much or more mony then my debt upon his picture Though Princes and Judges and Magistrates be pictures and Images of God though beauty and riches and honour and power and favour be in a proportion so too yet as I bought not that Merchants picture because it was his or for love of him but because it was a good peece and of a good Masters hand and a good house-ornament so though I spend my nights and dayes and thoughts and spirits and words and preaching and writing upon Princes and Judges and Magistrates and persons of estimation and their praise yet my intention determines in that use which I have of their favour and respects not the glory of God in them and when I have spent my selfe to the last farthing my lungs to the last breath my wit
very hearts for only such shall see God Omnis meridies diluculum habuit as the same Father continues this Meditation The brightest non had a faint twi-light and break of day The sight of God which we shall have in heaven must have a Diluculum a break of day here If we will see his face there we must see it in some beames here And to that purpose Visus per omnes sensus recurrit as S. Augustine hath collected out of severall places of Scripture Every sense is called sight for there is Odora vide and Gusta vide Taste and See how sweet and Smell and See what a savour of life the Lord is Apoc. 1.12 Luke 24.39 So S. Iohn turned about To see a voice There Hearing was Sight And so our Saviour Christ sayes Palpate videte and there Feeling is Seeing All things concur to this Seeing and therefore in all the works of your senses and in all your other faculties See ye the Lord Heare him in his word and so see him Speak to him in your prayers and so see him Touch him in his Sacrament and so see him Present holy and religious actions unto him and so see him Davids heart was towards Absalon 2 Sam. 14. sayes that Story Ioab saw that and as every man will be forward to further persons growing in favour for so it should be done to him whom the King will honour Ioah plotted and effected Absalons return but yet Absalon saw not the Kings face in two yeares Beloved in Christ Jesus the heart of your gracious God is set upon you and we his servants have told you so and brought you thus neare him into his Court into his house into the Church but yet we cannot get you to see his face to come to that tendernesse of conscience as to remember and consider that all your most secret actions are done in his sight and his presence Caesars face and Caesars inscription you can see The face of the Prince in his coyne you can rise before the Sun to see and sit up till mid-night to see but if you do not see the face of God upon every piece of that mony too all that mony is counterfeit If Christ have not brought that fish to the hook Mat. 17.25 that brings the mony in the mouth as he did to Peter that mony is ill fished for If nourishing of suits and love of contention amongst others for your own gain have brought it 〈◊〉 12.14 〈◊〉 24.3 it is out of the way of that counsell Follow peace with all men and holinesse without which no man shall see God This is the generation of them that seeke him that seek thy face O Iacob Innocens manibus mundus corde either such an innocence as never fouled the hands or such an innocency as hath washed them cleane againe such an innocency as hath kept you from corrupt getting or such an innocency as hath restored us by restoring that which was corruptly got It is testified of Solomon 1 King 10.24 That he exceeded all the Kings of the Earth for Wisedome and for Riches and all the Earth sought the face of Solomon A greater then Solomon is here for Wisedome and Riches your wisedome is foolishnesse and your riches beggery if you see not the face of this Solomon If either you have studied or practised or judged when his back is towards you that is if you have not done all as in his presence You are in his presence now goe not out of it when you goe from hence Amor rerum terrenarum viscus pennarum spiritualium August God hath given you the wings of Doves and the eyes of Eagles to see him now in this place If in returning from this place you returne to your former wayes of pleasure or profit this is a breaking of those Doves wings and a cieling of those Eagles eyes Coge cor tuum cogitare divina compelle urge sayes that Father Here in the Church thou canst not chuse but see God and raise thy heart towards him But when thou art returned to thy severall distractions that vanities shall pull thine eyes and obtrectation and libellous defamation of others shall pull thine eares and profit shall pull thy hands then Coge compelle urge force and compell thy heart and presse even in that thrust of tentations to see God What God is in his Essence or what our sight of the Essence of God shall be in the next world dispute not too curiously determine nor too peremptorily Cogitans de Deo si finivisti Deus non est is excellently said by S. Augustine If thou begin to think what the Essence of God is and canst bring that thought to an end thou hast mistaken it whensoever thou canst say Deus est this is God or God is this non est Deus that is not God God is not that for he is more infinitely more then that But non potes dicere Deus est thou art not able to say This is God God is this Saltem dicas hoc Deus non est Be able to say This is not God God is not this The belly is not God Mammon is not God Mauzzim the God of Forces Oppression is not God Belphegor Licentiousnesse is not God Howsoever God sees me to my confusion yet I doe not see God when I am sacrificing to these which are not Gods Let us begin at that which is nearest us within us purenesse of heart and from thence receive the testimony of Gods Privy Seale the impression of his Spirit that we are Blessed and that leads us to the Great Seale the full fruition of all we shall see God there where he shall make us drink of the Rivers of his pleasures There is fulnesse plenty Psal 36.8 but lest it should be a Feast of one day or of a few as it is said they are rivers so it is added with thee is the Fountaine of life An abundant river to convay and a perpetuall spring to feed and continue that river And then wherein appeares all this In this for in thy light we shall see light In seeing God we shall see all that concernes us and see it alwayes No night to determine that day no cloud to overcast it We end all with S. Augustines devout exclamation Deus bone qui erunt illi oculi Glorious God what kinde of eyes shall they be Quam decori quam sereni How bright eyes and how well set Quam valentes quam constantes How strong eyes and how durable Quid arbitremur quid aestimemus quid loquemur What quality what value what name shall we give to those eyes Occurrunt verba quotidiana sordidata vilissimis rebus I would say something of the beauty and glory of these eyes and can finde no words but such as I my selfe have mis-used in lower things Our best expressing of it is to expresse a desire to come to it for there onely we
constitutions or onely a testimony of outward conformity which should be signaculum viaticum a seale of pardon for past sins and a provision of grace against future But he that is well prepared for this strips himselfe of all these vae desiderantibus of all these comminations that belong to carnall desires and he shall be as Daniel was vir desideriorum a man of chast and heavenly desires onely hee shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies affliction here with David Psal 119.17 Bonum est mihi quòd humiliasti me I am mended by my sicknesse enriched by my poverty and strengthened by my weaknesse and with S. Bern. desire Irascar is mihi Domine O Lord be angry with me for if thou chidest me not thou considerest me not if I taste no bitternesse I have no Physick If thou correct me not I am not thy son And he shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies the last judgement with the desire of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord ere thou execute judgement And he shall desire this day of the Lord as this day is the day of his own death with S. Pauls desire Cupio dissolvi I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ And when this day of the Lord as it is the day of the Lords resurrection shall come his soule shall be satified as with marrow and with fatnesse in the body and bloud of his Saviour and in the participation of all his merits as intirely as if all that Christ Jesus hath said and done and suffered had beene said and done and suffered for his soule alone Enlarge our daies O Lord to that blessed day prepare us before that day seale to us at that day ratifie to us after that day all the daies of our life an assurance in that Kingdome which thy Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud To which glorious Son of God c. SERMON XV. Preached at VVhite-hall March 8. 1621. 1 COR. 15.26 The last Enemie that shall be destroyed is Death THis is a Text of the Resurrection and it is not Easter yet but it is Easter Eve All Lent is but the Vigill the Eve of Easter to so long a Festivall as never shall end the Resurrection wee may well begin the Eve betimes Forty yeares long was God grieved for that Generation which he loved let us be content to humble our selves forty daies to be fitter for that glory which we expect In the Booke of God there are many Songs there is but one Lamentation And that one Song of Solomon nay some one of Davids hundred and fiftie Psalmes is longer then the whole booke of Lamentations Make way to an everlasting Easter by a short Lent to an undeterminable glory by a temporary humiliation You must weepe these teares teares of contrition teares of mortification before God will wipe all teares from your eyes You must dye this death this death of the righteous the death to sin before this last enemy Death shal be destroyed in you and you made partakers of everlasting life in soule and body too Our division shall be but a short Divisio and our whole exercise but a larger paraphrase upon the words The words imply first That the Kingdome of Christ which must be perfected must be accomplished because all things must be subdued unto him is not yet perfected not accomplished yet Why what lacks it It lacks the bodies of Men which yet lie under the dominion of another When we shall also see by that Metaphor which the Holy Ghost chooseth to expresse that in which is that there is Hostis and so Militia an enemie and a warre and therefore that Kingdome is not perfected that he places perfect happinesse and perfect glory in perfect peace But then how far is any State consisting of many men how far the state and condition of any one man in particular from this perfect peace How truly a warfare is this life if the Kingdome of Heaven it selfe have not this peace in perfection And it hath it not Quia hostis because there is an enemy though that enemy shall not overthrow it yet because it plots and workes and machinates and would overthrow it this is a defect in that peace Who then is this enemy An enemy that may thus far thinke himselfe equall to God that as no man ever saw God and lived so no man ever saw this enemy and lived for it is Death And in this may thinke himselfe in number superiour to God that many men live who shall never see God But Quis homo is Davids question which was never answered Is there any man that lives and shall not see death An enemie that is so well victualled against man as that he cannot want as long as there are men for he feeds upon man himselfe And so well armed against Man as that he cannot want Munition while there are men for he fights with our weapons our owne faculties nay our calamities yea our owne pleasures are our death And therefore he is Novissimus hostis saith the Text The last enemy We have other Enemies Satan about us sin within us but the power of both those this enemie shall destroy but when they are destroyed he shall retaine a hostile and triumphant dominion over us But Vsque quo Domine How long O Lord for ever No Abolebitur wee see this Enemy all the way and all the way we feele him but we shall see him destroyed Abolebitur But how or when At and by the resurrection of our bodies for as upon my expiration my transmigration from hence as soone as my soule enters into Heaven I shall be able to say to the Angels I am of the same stuffe as you spirit and spirit and therefore let me stand with you and looke upon the face of your God and my God so at the Resurrection of this body I shall be able to say to the Angel of the great Councell the Son of God Christ Jesus himselfe I am of the same stuffe as you Body and body Flesh and flesh and therefore let me sit downe with you at the right hand of the Father in an everlasting security from this last enemie who is now destroyed death And in these seven steps we shall passe apace and yet cleerely through this paraphrase We begin with this Vestig 1. Quia desunt Corpora That the Kingdome of Heaven hath not all that it must have to a consummate perfection till it have bodies too In those infinite millions of millions of generations in which the holy blessed and glorious Trinity enjoyed themselves one another and no more they thought not their glory so perfect but that it might receive an addition from creatures and therefore they made a world a materiall world a corporeall world they would have bodies In that noble part of that world which Moses
and the Elders come to Iudith and they say to her Judith 15.8 Thou art the exaltation of Jerusalem thou art the great glory of Israel thou art the rejoycing of our Nation thou hast done all these things by thy hand And all this was true of Iudith and due to Iudith and such recognitions and such acclamations God requires of such people as have received such benefits by such instruments For as there is Treason and petty-treason so there is Sacriledge and petty-sacriledge and petty-sacriledge is to rob Princes and great persons of their just praise But then as we must confer this upon them so must they and we and all transfer all upon God for so Iudith proceeds there with her Priests and Elders Begin unto my God with Timbrels sing unto the Lord with Cymbals exalt him and call upon his name So likewise Elizabeth magnifies the blessed Virgin Mary Blessed art thou amongst women And this was true of her and due to her Luke 1.42 and she takes it to her self when she sayes there From henceforth all Generations shall call me blessed but first she had carried it higher to the highest My soule doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit doth rejoyce in God my Saviour In a word Christ forbids not this man to call him good but he directs him to know in what capacity that attribute of goodnesse belonged to him as he was God That when this man beleeved before that Christ was good and learnt from him now that none was good but God he might by a farther concoction a farther rumination a farther meditation of this come in due time to know that Christ was God And this was his Method Now this leads us into two rich and fragrant fields this sets us upon the two Hemispheares of the world the Western Hemispheare the land of Gold and Treasure and the Eastern Hemispheare the land of Spices and Perfumes for this puts us upon both these considerations first That nothing is Essentially good but God and there is the land of Gold centricall Gold viscerall Gold gremiall Gold Gold in the Matrice and womb of God that is Essentiall goodnesse in God himself and then upon this consideration too That this Essentiall goodnesse of God is so diffusive so spreading as that there is nothing in the world that doth not participate of that goodnesse and there is the land of Spices and Perfumes the dilatation of Gods goodnesse So that now both these propositions are true First That there is nothing in this world good and then this also That there is nothing ill As amongst the Fathers it is in a good sense as truly said Deus non est Ens Deus non est substantia God is no Essence God is no substance for feare of imprisoning God in a predicament as it is said by others of the Fathers that there is no other Essence no other Substance but God First then there is nothing good but God neither can I conceive any thing in God that concerns me so much as his goodnesse for by that I know him and for that I love him I know him by that for as Damascen sayes primarium Dei nomen Bonitas Gods first name that is the first way by which God notified him self to man was Goodness for out of his goodnesse he made him His name of Jehova we admire with a reverence but we cannot expresse that name not only not in the signification of it but not considently not assuredly in the sound thereof we are not sure that we should call it Jehova not sure that any man did call it Jehova a hundred yeares agoe But August ineffabili dulcedine teneor cum audio Bonus Dominus I am not transported with astonishment as at his name of Jehova but replenished with all sweetnesse established with all soundnesse when I hear of my God in that name my good God By that I know him and for that I love him For the object of my understanding is truth but the object of my love my affection my desire is goodnesse If my understanding be defective in many cases faith will supply it if I beleeve it I am as well satisfied as if I knew it but nothing supplies nor fills nor satisfies the desire of man on this side of God Every man hath something to love and desire till he determine it in God because God only hath Imminuibi lem bonitatem as they render Dyonisius the Areopagite an inexhaustible goodnesse a sea that no land can suck in a land that no sea can swallow up a forrest that no fire can waste a fire that no water can quench Aug. He is so good goodnesse so as that he is Causa bonorum quae in nos quae in nobis the cause of all good either received by us or conceived in us of all either prepared externally for us Idem or produced internally in us In a word he is Bonum caetera bona colorans amabilia reddens it is his goodnesse that gilds and enamels all the good persons or good actions in this world There is none good but God and quale bonum ille sayes that Father what kinde of goodnesse God is this doth sufficiently declare Quòd nulli ab co recedenti bene sit That no man that ever went from him went by good way or came to good end There is none good but God there is centricall viscerall gremiall gold goodnesse in the roote in the tree of goodnesse God Now Arbor bona bonos fructus sayes Christ If the tree be good the fruit is good too The tree is God What are the fruits of this tree What are the off-spring of God S. Ambr. tells us Angeli homines virtutes eorum Angels and men and the good parts and good actions of Angels and men are the fruit of this tree they grow from God Angels as they fell Adam as he fell the sins of Angels and men are not fruits of this tree they grow not radically not primarily from God Nihil in se habet Deus semi-plenum saies Damascen God is no half-god no fragmentary God he is an intire God and not made of remnants not good only so as that he hath no roome for ill in himself but good so too as that he hath no roome for any ill will towards any man no mans damnation no mans sin growes radically from this tree When God had made all sayes Tertullian he blessed all Maledicere non norat quia nec malefacere saies he God could no more meane ill then doe ill God can no more make me sin then sin himself It is the foole that saies There is no God saies David And it is the other foole sayes S. Basil that saies God produces any ill par precii scelus quia negat Deum bonum It is as impiously done to deny God to be intirely good as to deny him to be God For we see the Manichees and the Marcionites and such
shall know that I am the Lord God shall restore them to life and more to strength and more to beauty and comelinesse acceptable to himselfe in Christ Jesus Your way is Recollecting gather your selves into the Congregation and Communion of Saints in these places gather your sins into your memory and poure them out in humble confessions to that God whom they have wounded Gather the crummes under his Table lay hold upon the gracious promises which by our Ministery he lets fall upon the Congregation now and gather the seales of those promises whensoever in a rectified conscience his Spirit beares witnesse with your spirit that you may be worthy receivers of him in his Sacrament and this recollecting shall be your resurrection Beatus qui habet partem Apâ—â— 20.6 sayes S. Iohn Blessed is he that hath part in the first Resurrection for on such the second death hath no power He that rises to this Judgement of recollecting and of judging himselfe shall rise with a chearfulnesse and stand with a confidence when Christ Jesus shall come in the second Auâ— And Quando exacturus est in secundo quod dedit in primo when Christ shall call for an account in that second judgement how he hath husbanded those graces which he gave him for the first he shall make his possession of this first resurrection his title and his evidence to the second When thy body which hath been subject to all kindes of destruction here to the destruction of a Flood in Catarrhs and Rheums and Dropsies and such distillations to the destruction of a fire in Feavers and Frenzies and such conflagrations shall be removed safely and gloriously above all such distempers and malignant impressions and body and soule so united as if both were one spirit in it selfe and God so united to both as that thou shalt be the same spirit with God God began the first World but upon two Adam and Eve The second world after the Flood he began upon a greater stock upon eight reserved in the Arke But when he establishes the last and everlasting world in the last Resurrection he shall admit such a number as that none of us who are here now none that is or hath or shall be upon the face of the earth shall be denied in that Resurrection if he have truly felt this for Grace accepted is the infallible earnest of Glory SERMON XXII Preached at S. Pauls upon Easter-day 1627. HEB. 11.35 Women received their dead raised to life againe And others were tortured not accepting a deliverance that they might obtaine a better Resurrection MErcy is Gods right hand with that God gives all Faith is mans right hand with that man takes all David Psal 136. opens and enlarges this right hand of God in pouring out his blessings plentifully abundantly manifoldly there And in this Chapter the Apostle opens and enlarges this right hand of man by laying hold upon those mercies of God plentifully abundantly manifoldly by faith here There David powres downe the mercies of God in repeating and re-repeating that phrase For his mercy endureth for ever And here S. Paul carries up man to heaven by repeating and re-repeating the blessings which man hath attained by faith By faith Abel sacrificed By faith Enoch walked with God By faith Noah built an Arke c. And as in that Psalme Gods mercies are exprest two waies First in the good that God did for his servants He remembred them in their low estate Ver 23. Ver. 24. for his mercy endureth for ever And then againe He redeemed them from their enemies for his mercy endureth for ever And then also in the evill that he brought upon their enemies He slew famous Kings for his mercy endureth for ever And then He gave their land for an heritage for his mercy endureth for ever So in this Chapter the Apostle declares the benefits of faith two wayes also First how faith enriches us and accommodates us in the wayes of prosperity By faith Abraham went to a place which he received for an inheritance And so By faith Sarah received strength to conceive seed Ver. 8. Ver. 11. Ver. 34. And then how faith sustaines and establishes us in the wayes of adversity By faith they stopt the mouthes of Lions by faith they quencht the violence of fire by faith they escaped the edge of the sword in the verse immediatly before the Text. And in this verse which is our Text the Apostle hath collected both The benefits which they received by faith Women received their dead raised to life againe And then the holy courage which was infused by Faith in their persecutions Others were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might receive a better Resurrection And because both these have relation evidently pregnantly to the Resurrection for their benefit was that the Women received their dead by a Resurrection And their courage in their persecution was That they should receive a better Resurrection therefore the whole meditation is proper to this day in which wee celebrate all Resurrections in the Root in the Resurrection of the First fruits of the dead our Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus Our Parts are two How plentifully God gives to the faithfull Divisio Women receive their dead raised to life againe And how patiently the faithfull suffer Gods corrections Others were tortured not accepting c. Though they be both large considerations Benefits by Faith Patience in the Faithfull yet we shall containe our selves in those particulars which are exprest or necessarily implyed in the Text it selfe And so in the first place we shall see first The extraordinary consolation in Gods extraordinary Mercies in his miraculous Deliverances such as this Women received their dead raised to life again And secondly we shall seethe examples to which the Apostle refers here What women had had their dead restored to life againe And then lastly in that part That this affection of joy in having their dead restored to life againe being put in the weaker sexe in women onely we may argue conveniently from thence That the strength of a true and just joy lies not in that but that our virility our holy manhood our religious strength consists in a faithfull assurance that we have already a blessed communion with these Saints of God though they be dead and we alive And that we shall have hereafter a glorious Association with them in the Resurrection though we never receive our dead raised to life again in this world And in those three considerations we shall determine that first part And then in the other The Patience of the Faithfull Others were tortured c. we shall first look into the examples which the Apostle refers to who they were that were thus tortured And secondly the heighth and exaltation of their patience They would not accept a deliverance And lastly the ground upon which their Anchor was cast what established their patience That they might obtaine a better Resurrection
concealing which were the pieces that constitute our first Part in the second Part which is the time when this Legacy accrues to us is to be given us In die illo at that day At that day shall yee know c. It is the illumination the illustration of our hearts and therefore well referred to the Day The word it selfe affords cheerefulnesse For when God inflicted that great plague to kill all the first-borne in Aegypt Exod. 12. Luke 20. that was done at Midnight And when God would intimate both deaths at once spirituall and temporall he sayes O foole this night they will fetch away thy soule Against all supply of knowledge he cals him foole and against all sense of comfort in the day he threatens night It was In die Illo and In die illo in the day and at a certaine day and at a short day For after Christ had made his Will at this supper given strength to his Will by his death and proved his Will by his Resurrection and left the Church possest of his estate by his Ascension within ten dayes after that he poured out this Legacy of knowledge For though some take this day mentioned in the Text Calvin to be Tanqnam unius diei tenor à dato Spiritu ad Resurrectionem from the first giving of the Holy Ghost to the Resurrection And others take this day Osiand to bee from his Resurrection to the end of his second Conversation upon earth till his Ascension and S. Augustine referre it Ad perfectam visionem in Coelis to the perfect fruition of the sight of God in Heaven yet the most usefull and best followed acceptation is This Day of the comming of the Holy Ghost That day we celebrate this day and we can never finde the Christian Church so farre as we can judge by the evidence of Story to have been without this festivall day The reason of all Festivals in the Church was and is Ne volumine temporum ingrata subrepat oblivio August Lest after many ages involved and wrapped up in one another Gods particular benefits should bee involved and wrapped up in unthankfulnesse And the benefits received this day were such as should never be forgotten for without this day all the rest had been evacuated and uneffectuall If the Apostles by the comming of the Holy Ghost had not been established in an infallibility in themselves and in an ability to deale with all Nations by the benefit of tongues the benefit of Christs passion had not been derived upon all Nations And therefore to This day and to Easter-day all publike Baptismes in the Primitive Church were reserved None were baptized except in cases of necessity but upon one of these two dayes for as there is an Exaltation a Resurrection given us in Baptisme represented by Easter so there belongs to us a confirmation an establishing of grace and the increase thereof represented in Pentecost in the comming of the Holy Ghost As the Jews had an Easter in the memory of their deliverance from Aegypt and a Pentecost in the memory of the Law given at Mout Sinai So at Easter we celebrate the memory of that glorious Passeover when Christ passed from the grave and hell in his Resurrection and at this Feast of Pentecost we celebrate his giving of the Law to all Nations and his investing and possessing himselfe of his Kingdome the Church for this is Festum Adoptionis as S. Chrysostome cals it The cheerefull feast of our Adoption in which the Holy Ghost convaying the Son of God to us enables us to be the Sons of God and to cry Abba Father This then is that day Acts 2. when the Apostles being with one accord and in one place that is in one faith and in one profession of that faith not onely without Heresie but without Schisme too the Holy Ghost as a mighty winde filled them all and gave them utterance As a winde to note a powerfull working And he filled them to note the abundance And he gave them utterance to inferre that which we spoke of before The Communication of that knowledge which they had received to others This was that Spirit whom it concerned the Apostles so much to have as that Christ himselfe must goe from them to send him to them If I goe not away sayes Christ the Comforter will not come to you How great a comfort must this necessarily be which must so abundantly recompence the losse of such a comfort as the presence of Christ was This is that Spirit who though hee were to be sent by the Father and sent by the Son yet he comes not as a Messenger from a Superiour for hee was alwaies equall to Father and Son But the Father sent him and the Son sent him as a tree sends forth blossomes and as those blossomes send forth a sweet smell and as the Sun sends forth beames by an emanation from it selfe He is Spiritus quem nemo interpretari potest sayes S. Chrysostome hee hath him not that doth not see he hath him nor is any man without him who in a rectified conscience thinks he hath him Illo Prophetae illustrantur Illo idiotae condiuntur sayes the same Father The Prophets as high as their calling was saw nothing without this Spirit and with this Spirit a simple man understands the Prophets And therefore doth S. Basil attribute that to the Holy Ghost which seemes to be peculiar to the Son he cals him Verbum Dei because sayes he Spiritus interpres Filii sicut Filius Patris As the Son hath revealed to us the will of the Father and so is the Word of God to us so the Holy Ghost applies the promises and the merits of the Son to us and so is the Word of God to us too and enables us to come to God in that voyce of his blessed Servant S. Augustine O Deus secretissime patentissime Though nothing be more mysterious then the knowledge of God in the Trinity yet nothing is more manifest unto us then by the light of this person the Holy Ghost so much of both the other Persons as is necessary for our Salvation is Now it is not onely to the Apostles that the Holy Ghost is descended this day but as S. Chrysostom saies of the Annunciation Non ad unam tantùm animam It is not onely to one Person that the Angel said then The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and overshadow thee but sayes he that Holy Ghost hath said Super omnem Ioel 2. I will poure out my selfe upon all men so I say of this day This day if you be all in this place concentred united here in one Faith and one Religion If you be of one accord that is in perfect charity The Holy Ghost shall fill you all according to your measure and his purpose and give you utterance in your lives and conversations Qui ita vacat orationibus Origen ut dignus fiat illo
use the Law lawfully Let us use our liberty of reading Scriptures according to the Law of liberty that is charitably to leave others to their liberty if they but differ from us and not differ from Fundamentall Truths Si quis quaerat ex me quid horum Moses senserit If any man ask me which of these which may be all true Moses meant Non sum sermones istiâ—â—onfessiones Lord sayes hee Ibid. This that I say is not said by way of Confession as I intend it should if I doe not freely confesse that I cannot tell which Moses meant But yet I can tell that this that I take to be his meaning is true and that is enough Let him that findes a true sense of any place rejoyce in it Let him that does not beg it of thee Vtquid mihi molest us est Why should any man presse me to give him the true sense of Moses here or of the holy Ghost in any darke place of Scripture Ego illuminem ullum hominen venientem in mundum 1.13 C. 10. saies he Is that said of me that I am the light that enlightned every man any man Iohn 1.9 that comes into this world So far I will goe saies he so far will we in his modesty and humility accompany him as still to propose Quod luce veritatis quod fruge utilitatis excellit such a sense as agrees with other Truths that are evident in other places of Scripture and such a sense as may conduce most to edisication For to those two does that heavenly Father reduce the foure Elements that make up a right exposition of Scripture which are first the glory of God such a sense as may most advance it secondly the analogie of faith such a sense as may violate no confessed Article of Religion and thirdly exaltation of devotion such a sense as may carry us most powerfully upon the apprehension of the next life and lastly extension of charity such a sense as may best hold us in peace or reconcile us if we differ from one another And within these limits wee shall containe our selves The glory of God the analogie of faith the exaltation of devotion the extension of charity In all the rest that belongs to the explication or application to the literall or spirituall sense of these words And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters to which having stopped a little upon this generall consideration the exposition of darke places we passe now Within these rules we proceed to enquire who this Spirit of God is or what it is Spiritus whether a Power or a Person The Jews who are afraid of the Truth lest they should meete evidences of the doctrine of the Trinity and so of the Messias the Son of God if they should admit any spirituall sense admit none but cleave so close to the letter as that to them the Scripture becomes Liter a occidens A killing Letter and the savour of death unto death They therefore in this Spirit of God are so far from admitting any Person that is God as they admit no extraordinary operation or vertue proceeding from God in this place but they take the word here as in many other places of Scripture it does to signifie onely a winde and then that that addition of the name of God The Spirit of God which is in their Language a denotation of a vehemency of a high degree of a superlative as when it is said of Saul Sopor Domini A sleepe of God was upon him it is intended of a deepe a dead sleepe inforces induces no more but that a very strong winde blew upon the face of the waters and so in a great part dryed them up And this opinion I should let flye away with the winde if onely the Jews had said it But Theodoret hath said it too and therefore we afford it so much answer That it is a strange anticipation that Winde which is a mixt Meteor to the making whereof divers occasions concurre with exhalations should be thus imagined before any of these causes of Winds were created or produced and that there should be an effect before a cause is somewhat irregular In Lapland the Witches are said to sell winds to all passengers but that is but to turne those windes that Nature does produce which way they will but in our case the Jews and they that follow them dreame winds before any winds or cause of winds was created The Spirit of God here cannot be the Wind. It cannot be that neither which some great men in the Christian Church have imagined it to be Operatio Dei The power of God working upon the waters so some or Efficientia Dei A power by God infused into the waters so others August And to that S. Augustine comes so neare as to say once in the negative Spiritus Dei hic res dei est sed non ipse Deut est The Spirit of God in this place is something proceeding from God but it is not God himselfe And once in the affirmative Posse esse vitalem creaturam quâ universus mundus movetur That this Spirit of God may be that universall power which sustaines and inanimates the whole world which the Platoniques have called the Soule of the world and others intend by the name of Nature and we doe well if we call The providence of God Spiritus Sanctus But there is more of God in this Action then the Instrument of God Nature or the Vice-roy of God Providence for as the person of God the Son was in the Incarnation so the person of God the Holy Ghost was in this Action though far from that manner of becomming one and the same thing with the waters which was done in the Incarnation of Christ who became therein perfect man That this word the Spirit of God is intended of the Person of the Holy Ghost in other places of Scripture is evident undeniable unquestionable and that therefore it may be so taken here Where it is said The Spirit of God shall rest upon him Esay 11.2 upon the Messiah where it is said by himselfe The Lord and his Spirit is upon me And the Lord and his Spirit hath anointed me there it is certainly and therefore here it may be probably spoken of the Holy Ghost personally It is no impossible sense it implies no contradiction It is no inconvenient sense it offends no other article it is no new sense nor can we assigne any time when it was a new sense Basil The eldest Fathers adhere to it as the ancientest interpretation Saint Basil saies not onely Constantissimè asseverandum est We must constantly maintaine that interpretation for all that might be his owne opinion not onely therefore Quia verius est for that might be but because he found it to be the common opinion of those times but Quia à majoribus nostris approbatum because it is accepted for the true
because the Son is the second and the holy Ghost the third person but the second was not before the third in time nor is above him in dignity There is processio corporalis such a bodily proceeding as that that which proceeds is utterly another thing then that from which it proceeds frogs proceed perchance of ayre and mise of dust and worms of carkasses and they resemble not that ayre that dust those carkasses that produced them There is also processio Metaphysica when thoughts proceed out of the minde but those thoughts remaine still in the mind within and have no separate subsistence in themselves And then there is processio Hyperphysica which is this which we seek and finde in our soules but not in our tongues a proceeding of the holy Ghost so from Father and Son as that he remaines a subsistence alone a distinct person of himselfe This is as far as the Schoole can reach Ortu qui relationis est non est à se Actu qui personae est per se subsistit Consider him in his proceeding so he must necessarily have a relation to another Consider him actually in his person so he subsists of himselfe And De modo for the manner of his proceeding we need we can say but this As the Son proceeds per modu intellectus so as the mind of man conceives a thought so the holy Ghost proceeds per modum voluntatis when the mind hath produced a thought that mind and that discourse and ratiocination produce a will first our understanding is setled and that understanding leads our will And nearer then this though God knows this be far off we cannot goe to the proceeding of the holy Ghost This then is The Spirit The third person in the Trinity but the first person in our Text Spiritus noster The other is our spirit The Spirit beareth witnesse with our spirit I told you before that amongst the manifold acceptations of the word spirit as it hath relation particularly to man it is either the soul it self or the vitall spirits the thin and active parts of the bloud or the superiour faculties of the soul in a regenerate man that is our spirit in this place So S. Paul distinguishes soul and spirit Heb. 4.12 The word of God pierces to the dividing asunder soule and spirit where The soule is that which inanimates the body and enables the organs of the senses to see and heare The spirit is that which enables the soule to see God and to heare his Gospel The samephrase hath the same use in another place 1 Thes 5.25 Calvin I pray God your spirit and soule and body may be preserved blamelesse Where it is not so absurdly said though a very great man call it an absurd exposition That the soule Anima is that qua animales homines as the Apostle calls them that by which men are men naturall men carnall men And the spirit is the spirit of Regeneration by which man is a new creature a spirituall man But that that Expositor himselfe hath said enough to our present purpose The soule is the seat of Affections The spirit is rectified Reason It is true this Reason is the Soveraigne these Affections are the Officers this Body is the Executioner Reason authorizes Affections command the Body executes And when we conceive in our mind desire in our heart performe in our body nothing that displeases God then have we had benefit of S. Pauls prayer That in body and soule and spirit we may be blamelesse In summe we need seek no farther for a word to expresse this spirit but that which is familiar to us The Conscience Rem 9.1 A rectified conscience is this spirit My conscience bearing me witnesse sayes the Apostle And so we have both the persons in this judiciall proceeding The Spirit is the holy Ghost Our spirit is our Conscience And now their office is to testifie to beare witnesse which is our second generall part The Spirit bears witnesse c. To be a witnesse 2 Part. is not an unworthy office for the holy Ghost himselfe Heretiques in their pestilent doctrines Tyrans in their bloody persecutions call God himselfe so often so far into question as that he needs strong and pregnant testimony to acquit him First against Heretiques we see the whole Scripture is but a Testament and Testamentum is Testatio ment is it is but an attestation a proofe what the will of God is And therefore when Tertullian deprehended himselfe to have slipped into another word and to have called the Bible Instrumentum he retracts and corrects himselfe thus Magìs usui est dicere Testamentum quà m Instrumentum It is more proper to call the Scripture a Testament then a Conveyance or Covenant All the Bible is Testament Attestation Declaration Proofe Apoc. 11.2 Evidence of the will of God to man And those two witnesses spoken of in the Revelation are very conveniently very probably interpreted to be the two Testaments And to the Scriptures Christ himselfe refers the Jews Iohn 5.39 Search them for they beare witnesse of me The word of God written by the holy Ghost is a witnesse and so the holy Ghost is a witnesse against Heretiques Against Tyrans and Persecuters the office of a witnesse is an honourable office too for that which we call more passionately and more gloriously Martyrdome is but Testimony A Martyr is nothing but a Witnesse He that pledges Christ in his own wine in his own cup in bloud He that washes away his sins in a second Baptisme and hath found a lawfull way of Re-baptizing even in bloud He that waters the Prophets ploughing and the Apostles sowing with bloud He that can be content to bleed as long as a Tyran can foame or an Executioner sweat He that is pickled nay embalmed in bloud salted with fire and preserved in his owne ashes He that to contract all nay to enlarge beyond all suffers in the Inquisition when his body is upon the rack when the rags are in his throat when the boots are upon his legs when the splinters are under his nailes if in those agonies he have the vigour to say I suffer this to shew what my Saviour suffered must yet make this difference He suffered as a Saviour I suffer but as a witnesse But yet to him that suffers as a Martyr as a witnesse a crowne is reserved It is a happy and a harmonious meeting in Stephens martyrdome Proto-martyr and Stephanus that the first Martyr for Christ should have a Crown in his name Such a blessed meeting there is in Ioash his Coronation Posuit super eum Diadema Testimonium 2 King 11.12 They put the Crowne upon his head and the Testimony that is The Law which testified That as he had the Crowne from God so he had it with a witnesse with an obligation that his Government his life and if need were his death should testifie his zeale to him
these foure links to be let downe to us and let us take hold of that linke that is next us A good life and keepe a fast and inseparable hold upon that for though in that sense of which we spoke Fides justificat sola Only faith do justifie yet it is not true in any sense Fides est sola that there is any faith where there is nothing but faith God comes downeward to us but we must go upward to God not to get above him in his unrevealed Decrees but to go up towards him in laying hold upon that lowest linke that as the holy Ghost shall reprove that is convince the world that there is no other righteousnesse but that of Christ so he may enable you to passe a judgement upon your selves and to testifie to the world that you have apprehended that righteousness Which is that that is principally intended in the third and last part That the holy Ghost 3. Part. when he comes shall reprove the World as of sin of rightcousness so of judgment After those two convictions of the World that is Jew and Gentile first that they are all under sin and so in a state of condemnation And secondly that there is no righteousnesse no justification to be had to the Jew by the Law nor to the Gentile in Nature but that there is Righteousnesse and Justification enough for all the world Jew and Gentile in Christ In the third place the Holy Ghost is to reprove that is still to convince the world to acquaint the world with this mystery That there is a means settled to convey this Righteousnesse of Christ upon the World and then an account to be taken of them who do not lay hold upon this meanes for both these are intended in this word Iudgement He shall reprove them prove to them this double signification of judgement first that there is a judgement of order of rectitude of government to which purpose he hath established the Church And then a judgement of account and of sentence and beatification upon them who did and malediction upon them who did not apply themselves to the first judgement that is to those orderly wayes and meanes of embracing Christs righteousnesse Wiâ—d 11.20 which were offered them in the Church God hath ordered all things in measure 1 Cor. 14.42 and number and waight Let all things be done decently and in order for God is the God of order and not of confusion And this order is this judgement The Court the Tribunall the Judgment seat in which all mens consciences and actions must be regulated and ordered the Church The perfectest order was Innocency that first integrity in which God made all All was disordered by sin For in sin and the author of sin Satan there is no order no conformity nothing but disorder and confusion Though the Schoole doe generally acknowledge a distinction of orders in the ministring Spirits of Heaven now Angels and Archangels and others yet they dispute and doubt and in a great part deny that this distinction of orders was before the fall of those Angels for they confesse this distribution into orders to have been upon their submission and recognition of Gods government which recognition was their very confirmation and after that they could not fall And though those fallen Angels the Devils concurre in an unan me consent to ruin us Hiâ—ron for Bellum Daemonum summa pax hominum we should agree better if devils did fall out yet this is not such a peace such an unity as gives them any peace or relaxation or intermission of anguish but as they are the Authors of our confusion so they are in a continuall confusion themselves There is no order in the Author of sin and therfore the God of order cannot directly nor indirectly positively nor consecutively be the Author of sin There is no order in sin it selfe The nature the definition of sin is disorder Dectum factum August concupitum contra legem God hath ordered a law and sin is an act if we cannot do that it is a word if we dare not do that it is a desire against that law Forma peccati deformitas we can assigne sin no other form but deformity So that our affecting of any thing as our end which God hath not proposed for our end or our affecting of true ends by any other wayes then he hath proposed this is a disordering of Gods providence as much as we can and so a sin For the Schoole resolves conveniently probably that that first sin that ever was committed that peccatum praegnans peccatum prolificum That womb and matrice of all sins that have been committed since The sin of the Angels it was a disorder an obliquity a deformity not in not going to the right end for Illud quaesiverunt ad quod pervenissent si stetissent sayes Aquinas out of S. August They desired no more then they were made for and should have come to if they had stood but their sin was in affecting a right end a wrong way in desiring to come to their appointed perfection by themselves to subsist of themselves to be independent without any farther need of God for that was their desire To be like the most High To depend upon nothing but be all-sufficient to themselves So they disordered Gods purpose and when they had once broke that chaine when they had once put that harmony out of tune then came in disorder discord confusion and that is sin Gods work is perfect How appeares that For all his wayes are Iudgement Deut. 32.4 sayes Moses in his victorious song This is Perfection That he hath established an order a judgement Which is not only that order which S. Augustine defines Ordo est August per quem omnia aguntur quae Deus constituit The order and the judgement by which God governs the world according to his purpose which judgement is Providence But as the same Father sayes in the same book it is Ordo quem si tenueris in vita perdacet ad Deum It is an order and a judgement which he hath manifested to thee for the order and judgement of his providence he doth not alwayes manifest by obedience to which order and judgement thou maist be saved The same Father speaking of this order and judgement of providence sayes Nihil ordini contrarium Nothing can be contrary to that order He is in a holy rapture transported with that consideration That even disorders are within Gods order There is in the order and judgement of his providence an admission a permission of disorders This unsearchable proceeding of God carries him to that passionate exclamation O sipossem dicere quod vellem O that I were able to expresse my self Roge ubi ubi estis verba suecurrite Where where are those words which I had wont to have at command why do ye not serve me help me now Now when I would declare this Bona
of spirit though it were Wine in the beginning it is lees and tartar in the end Inordinate sorrow growes into sinfull melancholy and that melancholy into an irrecoverable desperation The Wise-men of the East by a lesse light found a greater by a Star they found the Son of glory Christ Jesus But by darknesse nothing By the beames of comfort in this life we come to the body of the Sun by the Rivers to the Ocean by the cheerefulnesse of heart here to the brightnesse to the fulnesse of joy hereafter For beloved Salvation it selfe being so often presented to us in the names of Glory and of Joy we cannot thinke that the way to that glory is a sordid life affected here an obscure a beggarly a negligent abandoning of all wayes of preferment or riches or estimation in this World for the glory of Heaven shines downe in these beames hither Neither can men thinke that the way to the joyes of Heaven is a joylesse severenesse a rigid austerity for as God loves a cheerefull giver so he loves a cheerefull taker that takes hold of his mercies and his comforts with a cheerefull heart not onely without grudging that they are no more but without jealousie and suspition that they are not so much or not enough But they must be his comforts that we take in Deus Gods comforts For to this purpose the Apostle varies the phrase It was The Father of mercies To represent to us gentlenesse kindnesse favour it was enough to bring it in the name of Father But this Comfort a power to erect and settle a tottering a dejected soule an overthrowne a bruised a broken a troden a ground a battered an evaporated an annihilated spirit this is an act of such might as requires the assurance the presence of God God knows all men receive not comforts when other men think they do nor are all things comforts to them which we present and meane should be so Your Father may leave you his inheritance and little knowes he the little comfort you have in this because it is not left to you but to those Creditors to whom you have engaged it Your Wife is officious to you in your sicknesse and little knowes she that even that officiousnesse of hers then and that kindnesse aggravates that discomfort which lyes upon thy soul for those injuries which thou hadst formerly multiplied against her in the bosome of strange women Except the God of comfort give it in that seale in peace of conscience Nec intus nec subtus nec circa te occurrit consolatio sayes S. Bernard Non subtus not from below thee from the reverence and acclamation of thy inferiours Non circa not from about thee when all places all preferments are within thy reach so that thou maist lay thy hand and set thy foote where thou wilt Non intus not from within thee though thou have an inward testimony of a morall constancy in all afflictions that can fall yet not from below thee not from about thee not from within thee but from above must come thy comfort or it is mistaken S. Chrysostome notes and Areopagita had noted it before him Ex beneficiis acceptis nomina Deo affingimus We give God names according to the nature of the benefits which he hath given us So when God had given David victory in the wars by the exercise of his power then Fortitudo mea Psal 18.2 Psal 27.1 and firmamentum The Lord is my Rock and my Castle When God discovered the plots and practises of his enemies to him then Dominus illuminatio The Lord is my light and my salvation So whensoever thou takest in any comfort be sure that thou have it from him that can give it for this God is Deus totius consolationis The God of all comfort Preciosa divina consolatio nec omnino tribuitur admittentibus alienam Totius Bernardâ— The comforts of God are of a precious nature and they lose their value by being mingled with baser comforts as gold does with allay Sometimes we make up a summe of gold with silver but does any man binde up farthing tokens with a bag of gold Spirituall comforts which have alwayes Gods stampe upon them are his gold and temporall comforts when they have his stampe upon them are his silver but comforts of our owne coyning are counterfait are copper Because I am weary of solitarinesse I will seeke company and my company shall be to make my body the body of a harlot Because I am drousie I will be kept awake with the obscenities and scurrilities of a Comedy or the drums and ejulations of a Tragedy I will smother and suffocate sorrow with hill upon hill course after course at a voluptuous feast and drown sorrow in excesse of Wine and call that sickness health and all this is no comfort for God is the God of all comfort and this is not of God We cannot say with any colour as Esau said to Iacob Hast thou but one blessing my Father Gen. 17.38 for he is the God of all blessings and hath given every one of us many more then one But yet Christ hath given us an abridgement Vnum est necessarium Luke 10.42 there is but one onely thing necessary And David in Christ tooke knowledge of that before when he said Vnum petii One thing have I desired of the Lord What is that one thing All in one Psal 27.4 That I may dwell in the house ef the Lord not be a stranger from his Covenant all the dayes of my life not disseised not excommunicate out of that house To behold the beauty of the Lord not the beauty of the place only but to inquire in his Temple by the advancement and advantage of outward things to finde out him And so I shall have true comforts outward and inward because in both I shall finde him who is the God of all comfort Iacob thought he had lost Ioseph his Son And all his Sons Gen. 37.35 and all his Daughters rose up to comfort him Et noluit consolationem sayes the Text He would not be comforted because he thought him dead Rachel wept for her children and would not be comforted Mat. 2.18 because they were not But what aylest thou Is there any thing of which thou canst say It is not perchance it is but thou hast it not If thou hast him that hath it thou hast it Hast thou not wealth but poverty rather not honour but contempt rather not health but daily summons of Death rather yet Non omnia possidet cui omnia cooperantur in bonum Bernard If thy poverty thy disgrace thy sicknesse have brought thee the nearer to God thou hast all those things which thou thinkest thou wantest because thou hast the best use of them 1 Cor. 3.23 All things are yours sayes the Apostle why by what title For you are Christs and Christ is Gods Carry back your comfort to the
not good to take knowledge of enemies Manifestat inimicos many times that is better forborne yet in all cases it is good to know them Especially in our case in the Text Eph. 6.12 because our enemies intended here are of themselves Princes of darknesse They can multiply clouds and disguisings their kingdome is in the darknesse Sagittant in obscuro Psal 11.2 Psal 143.3 They shoot in the darke I am wounded with a tentation as with the plague and I know not whence the arrow came Collocavit me in obscuris The enemy hath made my dwelling darknesse I have no window that lets in light but then this Angel of light shews me who they are But then Inimici Angeli if we were left to our selves it were but a little advantage to know who our enemies were when we knew those enemies to be Angels persons so far above our resistance Eph. 6.12 For but that S. Paul mollifies and eases it with a milder word Est nobis colluctatio That we wrestle with enemies that thereby we might see our danger is but to take a fall not a deadly wound if we look seriously to our worke we cannot avoyd falling into sins of infirmity but the death of habituall sin we may Quare moriemini domus Israel He does not say why would ye fall but why will ye die ye house of Israel it were a consideration inough to make us desperate of victory to heare him say that this though it be but a wrestling is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and spirituall wickednesses in high places None of us hath got the victory over flesh and blood and yet we have greater enemies then flesh and blood are Some disciplines some mortifications we have against flesh and blood we have S. Pauls probatum est his medicine if we will use it Castigo corpus 1 Cor. 9.27 I keep under my body and bring it into subjection for that we have some assistance Even our enemies become our friends poverty or sicknesse will fight for us against flesh and blood against our carnall lusts but for these powers and principalities I know not where to watch them how to encounter them I passe my time sociably and merrily in cheerful conversation in musique in feasting in Comedies in wantonnesse and I never heare all this while of any power or principality my Conscience spies no such enemy in all this And then alone between God and me at midnight some beam of his grace shines out upon me and by that light I see this Prince of darknesse and then I finde that I have been the subject the slave of these powers and principalities when I thought not of them Well I see them and I try then to dispossesse my selfe of them and I make my recourse to the powerfullest exorcisme that is I turne to hearty and earnest prayer to God and I fix my thoughts strongly as I thinke upon him and before I have perfected one petition one period of my prayer a power and principality is got into me againe Esay 29.10 Spiritus soporis The spirit of slumber closes mine eyes and I pray drousily Esa 19.14 Or spiritus vertiginis the spirit of deviation and vaine repetition and I pray giddily and circularly and returne againe and againe to that I have said before Luk. 9.55 and perceive not that I do so and nescio cujus spiritus sim as our Saviour said rebuking his Disciples who were so vehement for the burning of the Samaritans you know not of what spirit you are I pray and know not of what spirit I am I consider not mine own purpose in prayer And by this advantage this doore of inconsideration enters spiritus erroris 1 Tim. 4.1 The seducing spirit the spirit of error and I pray not onely negligently but erroniously dangerously for such things as disconduce to the glory of God and my true happinesse Hosea 4.12.5.4 if they were granted Nay even the Prophet Hosea's spiritus fornicationum enters into me The spirit of fornication that is some remembrance of the wantonnesse of my youth some mis-interpretation of a word in my prayer that may beare an ill sense some unclean spirit some power or principality hath depraved my prayer and slackned my zeale And this is my greatest misery of all that when that which fights for me and fights against me too sicknesse hath laid me upon my last bed then in my weakest estate these powers and principalities shall be in their full practise against me And therefore it is one great advancement of thy deliverance to be brought by this Angel that is by the Ministery of the Gospel of Christ to know that thou hast Angels to thine enemies And then another is to know their number and so the strength of their confederacy for in the verse before the Text they are expressed to be foure I saw foure Angels c. Foure legions of Angels foure millions nay Quatuor Angeli foure Creations of Angels could do no more harme then is intended in these foure for as it is said in the former verse They stood upon the foure corners of the earth they bestrid they cantoned the whole world Thou hast opposite Angels enow to batter thee every where and to cut off and defeat all succours all supplies that thou canst procure or propose to thy selfe absolute enemies to one another will meet and joyne to thy ruine and even presumption will induce desperation We need not be so literall in this as S. Hierome who indeed in that followed Origen to thinke that there is a particular evill Angel over every sin That because we finde that mention of the spirit of error and the spirit of slumber and the spirit of fornication we should therefore thinke that Christ meant by Mammon Mat. 6.24 a particular spirit of Covetousnesse and that there be severall princes over severall sins This needs not when thou art tempted never aske that Spirits name his name is legio for he is many Mar. 5.9 Take thy selfe at the largest as thou art a world there are foure Angels at thy foure corners Let thy foure corners be thy worldly profession thy calling and another thy bodily refection thy eating and drinking and sleeping and a third thy honest and allowable recreations and a fourth thy religious service of God in this place which two last that is recreation and religion God hath been pleased to joyn together in the Sabbath in which he intended his own glory in our service of him and then the rest of the Creature too let these foure thy calling thy sleeping thy recreation thy religion be the foure corners of thy world and thou shalt find an Angel of tentation at every corner even in thy sleep even in this house of God thou hast met them The Devill is no Recusant he will come to Church and he will lay his snares there When that day
holinesse of life and fast and pray and submit my selfe to discreet and medicinall mortifications for the subduing of my body any man will say this is Papisticall Papists doe this it is a blessed Protestation and no man is the lesse a Protestant nor the worse a Protestant for making it Men and brethren I am a Papist that is I will fast and pray as much as any Papist and enable my selfe for the service of my God as seriously as sedulously as laboriously as any Papist So if when I startle and am affected at a blasphemous oath as at a wound upon my Saviour if when I avoyd the conversation of those men that prophane the Lords day any other will say to me This is Puritanicall Puritans do this It is a blessed Protestation and no man is the lesse a Protestant nor the worse a Protestant for making it Men and Brethren I am a Puritan that is I wil endeavour to be pure as my Father in heaven is pure as far as any Puritan Now of these Pharisees who were by these means so popular Sadducaei the numbers were very great The Sadduces who also were of an exemplary holinesse in some things but in many and important things of different opinions even in matter of Religion from all other men were not so many in number but they were men of better quality and place in the State then for the most part the Pharisees were And as they were more potent and able to do more mischiefe so had they more declared themselves to be bent against the Apostles then the Pharisees had done In the fourth Chapter of this Booke Ver. 1. The Priests and the Sadduces no mention of Pharisees came upon Peter and Iohn being grieved that they preached thorough Iesus the resurrection of the dead And so againe Act. 5.17 The high Priest rose up and all they that were with him which is sayes that Text expresly the sect of the Sadduces and were filled with indignation And some collect out of a place in Eusebius that this Ananias who was high Priest at this time and had declared his ill affection to S. Paul as you heard before was a Sadduce But I thinke those words of Eusebius will not beare at least not enforce that nor be well applied to this Ananias Howsoever S. Paul had just cause to come to this protestation I am a Pharisee and in so doing he can be obnoxious to nothing if he be as safe in his other protestation all is well for the hope and resurrection of the dead am I called in question consider we that It is true that he was not at this time called in question Resurrectio Act. 21.23 directly and expresly for the Resurrection you may see where he was apprehended that it was for teaching against that people and against that law and against that Temple So that he was endited upon pretense of sedition and prophanation of the Temple And therefore when S. Paul sayes here I am called in question for preaching the Resurrection he means this If I had not preached the Resurrection I should never have been called in question nor should be if I would forbeare preaching the Resurrection No man persecutes me no man appeares against me but onely they that deny the Resurrection The Sadduces did deny it The Pharisees did beleeve it and therefore this was a likely and a lawfull way to divide them and to gaine time with such a purpose so far as David had when he prayed O Lord Psal 55.9 divide their tongues For it is not alwayes unlawfull to sowe discord and to kindle dissention amongst men for men may agree too well to ill purposes So have yee then seen That though it be not safe to conclude S. Paul or any holy man did this therefore I may do it which was our first part yet in this which S. Paul did here there was nothing that may not be justified in him and imitated by us which was our second part Remains onely the third which is the accommodation of this to our present times and the appropriation thereof to our selves and making it our own case The world is full of Sadduces and Pharisees and the true Church of God arraigned by both The Sadduces were the greater men the Pharisees were the greater number 3 Part. Sadducaei so they are still The Sadduces denied the Resurrection and Angels and Spirits So they do still For those Sadduces whom we consider now in this part are meere carnall men men that have not onely no Spirit of God in them but no soule no spirit of their owne meere Atheists And this Carnality this Atheisme this Sadducisme is seene in some Countries to prevaile most upon great persons the Sadduces were great persons upon persons that abound in the possessions and offices and honours of this world for they that have most of this world for the most part think least of the next These are our present Sadduces Pharisaei and then the Pharisee hath his name from Pharas which is Division Separation But Calvin derives the name not inconveniently from Pharash which is Exposition Explication We embrace both extractions and acceptations of the word both Separation and Exposition for the Pharisee whom we consider now in this part is he that is separated from us there it is Pharas separation and separated by following private Expositions there it is Pharash Exposition with a contempt of all Antiquity and not only an undervaluation but a detestation of all opinions but his owne and his whom he hath set up for his Idol And as the Sadduce our great and worldly man is all carnall all body and beleeves no spirit so our Pharisee is so superspirituall as that he beleeves that is considers no body He imagines such a Purification such an Angelification such a Deification in this life as though the heavenly Jerusalem were descended already or that God had given man but that one commandement Love God above all and not a second too Love thy neighbour as thy selfe Our Sadduces will have all body our Pharisees all soule and God hath made us of both and given us offices proper to each Now of both these Duplex Sadducaus the present Sadduce the carnall Atheist and the present Pharisee the Separatist that overvalues himself and bids us stand farther off there are two kinds For for the Atheist there is Davids Atheist and S. Pauls Atheist Davids that ascribes all to nature Psal 14.2 and sayes in his heart There is no God That will call no sudden death nor extraordinary punishment upon any enormous sinner a judgement of God nor any such deliverance of his servants a miracle from God but all is Nature or all is Accident and would have been so though there had been no God This is Natures Sadduce Davids Atheist And then S. Pauls Atheist is he who though he doe beleeve in God yet doth not beleeve God in
colour of that exclude necessary things Howsoever you have delivered your selves to the mercy of God and he hath delivered a seale of his mercy to you inwardly in his Spirit outwardly in his Sacrament yet there are Amarae sagittae ex dulci manu Dei Nazian as Nazianzen calls afflictions after repentance Sharp arrowes out of the sweet hand of God Corrections by which God intends to establish us in that spirituall health to which our repentance by his grace hath brought us Remember still that this which David did for the present and that which he promised be would doe for the future both together made up the reason of his prayer to God by which he desired God in the former verses to returne to him to deliver his soule and to save him He had had no reason no ground of his prayer though he had done something already if he had not proposed to himselfe something more to be done There is a preparation before and there is a preservation after required at our hands if wee studie a perfect recovery and cure of our soules Gregor And as S. Gregory notes well there is a great deale of force in Davids Possessive in his word of appropriation Meus lectus meus and Oculus meus It is his bed that he washed and they are his eyes that washed it He bore the affliction himselfe and trusted not to that which others had suffered by way of Supererogation Sometimes when the children of great persons offend at Schoole another person is whipped for them and that affects them and works upon a good nature but if that person should take Physick for them in a sicknesse it would doe them no good Gods corrections upon others may worke by way of example upon thee but because thou art sick for physicke take it thy selfe Trust not to the treasure of the Church neither the imaginary treasure of the Church of Rome which pretends an inexhaustible mine of the works of other men to distribute and bestow No nor to the true treasure of the true Church that is Absolution upon Confession and Repentance No trust not to the merits of Christ himselfe in their application to thee without a Lectus tuus and an Oculus tuus except thou remember thy sins in thy bed and poure out thy teares from thine eyes and fulfill the sufferings of Christ in thy selfe Nothing can be added to Christs merits that is true but something must be added to thee a disposition in thee for the application of that which is his Not that thou canst begin this disposition in thy selfe till God offer it but that thou maist resist it now it is offered and reject it againe after it is received Trust not in others not in the Church nor in Christ himselfe so as to doe nothing for thy selfe Nor trust not in that which thou doest for thy selfe so as at any time to thinke thou hast done enough and needest do no more But when thou hast past the signet that thou hast found the signature of Gods hand and seale in a manifestation that the marks of his Grace are upon thee when thou hast past his privy Seale That his Spirit beares witnesse with thy spirit that thy repentance hath beene accepted by him When thou hast past the great Seale in the holy and blessed Sacrament publiquely administred doe not suspect the goodnesse of God as though all were not done that were necessary for thy salvation if thou wert to have thy transmigration out of this world this houre but yet as long as thou continuest in the vale of tentations continue in the vale of teares too and though thou have the seale of Reconciliation plead that seale to the Church which is Gods Tribunall and judgement seat upon earth in a holy life and works of example to others and looke daylie looke hourely upon the Ita quod of that pardon upon the Covenants and Conditions with which it is given That if by neglecting those medicinall helps those auxiliary forces those subsidies of the kingdome of Heaven those after-afflictions chuse whether you will call them by the name of Penance or no you relapse into former sins your present repentance and your present seale of that Repentance the Sacrament shall rise up against you at the last day and to that sentence you did not feed you did not cloathe you did not harbour me in the poore shall this be added as the aggravation of all you did Repent and you did receive the Seale but you did not pursue that repentance nor performe the conditions required at your hands But we are here met by Gods gracious goodnesse in a better disposition with a sincere repentance of all our former sinnes and with a deliberate purpose as those Israelites made their powring out of water a testimony of dissolving themselves into holy teares to make this fast from bodily sustenance an inchoation of a spirituall fast in abstinence from all that may exasperate our God against us That so though not for that yet thereby our prayers may be the more acceptable to our glorious God in our gracious Saviour To him that sits upon the throne and to the Lambe first that as he is the King of Kings he will establish and prosper that Crowne which he hath set upon the head of his Anointed over us here and hereafter Crowne that Crowne with another Crowne a better Crowne a Crowne of immarcescible glory in the Kingdome of Heaven and in the meane time make him his Bulwarke and his Rampart against all those powers which seeke to multiply Miters or Crownes to the disquiet and prejudice of Christendome And then That as he is the Lord of Lords he will inspire them to whom he hath given Lordship over others in this world with a due consideration that they also have a Lord over them even in this world and that he and they and we have one Lord over us all in the other world That as he is the Bishop and high Priest over our Souls he vouchsafe to continue in our Bishops a holy will and a competent power to super-intend faithfully over his Church that they for their parts when they depart from hence may deliver it back into his hands in the same forme and frame in which his blessed Spirit delivered it into their hands in their predecessors in the Primitive institution thereof That as he is the Angel of the great Counsayle he vouchsafe to direct the great Counsayle of this Kingdome to consider still that as he works in this world by meanes So it concernes his glory that they expedite the supply of such meanes as may doe his worke and may carry home the testimony of good Consciences now and in their posterity have the thanks of posterity for their behaviour in this Parliament That as he is the God of peace he will restore peace to Christendome That as he is the Lord of Hosts he will fight our battayls who have no other end
the principall arguments against Confessions by Letter which some went about to set up in the Romane Church that that took away one of the greatest evidences and testimonies of their repentance which is this Erubescence this blushing this shame after sin if they should not be put to speak it face to face but to write it that would remove the shame which is a part of the repentance But that soule that goes not to confession to it selfe that hath not an internall blushing after a sin committed is a pale soule even in the palenesse of death and senslesnesse and a red soule red in the defiance of God And that whitenesse to avoid approaches to sin and that rednesse to blush upon a sin which does attempt us is the complexion of the soule which God loves and which the Holy Ghost testifies when he sayes Cant. 5.12 My Beloved is white and ruddy And when these men that David speaks of here had lost that whitenesse their innocency for David to wish that they might come to a rednesse a shame a blushing a remorse a sense of sin may have been no such great malediction or imprecation in the mouth of David but that a man may wish it to his best friend which should be his own soule and say Erubescam not let mine enemies but let me be ashamed with such a shame In the second word Conturbentur Let them be sore vexed he wishes his enemies no worse then himselfe had been For he had used the same word of himselfe before Ossa turbata My bones are vexed Ver. 2. 3. and Anima turbata My soule is vexed and considering that David had found this vexation to be his way to God it was no malicious imprecation to wish that enemy the same Physick that he had taken who was more sick of the same disease then he was For this is like a troubled Sea after a tempest the danger is past but yet the billow is great still The danger was in the calme in the security or in the tempest by mis-interpreting Gods corrections to our obduration and to a remorselesse stupefaction but when a man is come to this holy vexation to be troubled to be shaken with a sense of the indignation of God the storme is past and the indignation of God is blowne over That soule is in a faire and neare way of being restored to a calmnesse and to reposed security of conscience that is come to this holy vexation In a flat Map there goes no more to make West East though they be distant in an extremity but to paste that flat Map upon a round body and then West and East are all one In a flat soule in a dejected conscience in a troubled spirit there goes no more to the making of that trouble peace then to apply that trouble to the body of the Merits to the body of the Gospel of Christ Jesus and conforme thee to him and thy West is East Zoch 6.12 thy Trouble of spirit is Tranquillity of spirit The name of Christ is Oriens The East Esay 14.12 And yet Lucifer himselfe is called Filius Orientis The Son of the East If thou beest fallen by Lucifer fallen to Lucifer and not fallen as Lucifer to a senslesnesse of thy fall and an impenitiblenesse therein but to a troubled spirit still thy Prospect is the East still thy Climate is heaven still thy Haven is Jerusalem for in our lowest dejection of all even in the dust of the grave we are so composed so layed down as that we look to the East If I could beleeve that Trajan or Tecla could look East-ward that is towards Christ in hell I could beleeve with them of Rome that Trajan and Tecla were redeemed by prayer out of hell God had accepted sacrifices before but no sacrifice is call Odor quiet is Gen. 8.21 It is not said That God smelt a savor of rest in any sacrifice but that which Noah offered after hee had beene variously tossed and tumbled in the long hulling of the Arke upon the waters A troublesome spirit and a quiet spirit are farre asunder But a troubled spirit and a quiet spirit are neare neighbours And therefore David meanes them no great harme when hee sayes Let them be troubled For Let the winde be as high as it will so I sayle before the winde Let the trouble of my soule be as great as it will so it direct me upon God and I have calme enough And this peace Convertantur this calme is implyed in the next word Convertantur which is not Let them be overthrowne but Let them returne let them be forced to returne he prayes that God would do something to crosse their purposes because as they are against God so they are against their owne soules In that way where they are he sees there is no remedy and therefore he desires that they might be Turned into another way What is that way This. Turne us O Lord and we shall be turned That is turned the right way Towards God And as there was a promise from God to heare his people not onely when they came to him in the Temple but when they turned towards that Temple in what distance soever they were so it is alwaies accompanied with a blessing occasionally to turne towards God But this prayer Turne us that we may be turned is that we may be that is remaine turned that we may continue fixed in that posture Lots Wife turned her selfe and remained an everlasting monument of Gods anger God so turne us alwaies into right wayes as that we be not able to turne our selves out of them For God hath Viam rectam bonam as himselfe speakes in the Prophet A right way and then a good way which yet is not the right way that is not the way which God of himselfe would go For his right way is that we should still keepe in his way His good way is to beat us into his right way againe by his medicinall corrections when we put our selves out of his right way And that and that onely David wishes and we wish That you may Turne and Be turned stand in that holy posture all the yeare all the yeares of your lives That your Christmas may be as holy as your Easter even your Recreations as innocent as your Devotions and every roome in the house as free free from prophanenesse as the Sanctuary And this he ends as he begun with another Erubescant Let them be ashamed and that Valde volociter Suddenly for David saw that if a sinner came not to a shame of sin quickly he would quickly come to a shamelesnesse to an impudence to a searednesse to an obduration in it Now beloved this is the worst curse that comes out of a holy mans mouth even towards his enemie that God would correct him to his amendment And this is the worst harme that we meane to you when we denounce the judgements of
so you have all that belongs to the Master and his manner of teaching David Catechising And all that belongs to the Doctrine and the Catechisme Blessednesse That is Reconciliation to God notified in those three acts of his mercy And all that belongs to the Disciple that is to be Catechized A docile an humble a sincere heart In whose spirit there is no guile And to these particulars in their order thus proposed we shall now passe That then which constitutes our first part is this That David 1. Part. Catechismus then whom this world never had a greater Master for the next amongst the sonnes of men delivers himselfe by way of Catechising of fundamentall and easie teaching As we say justly and confidently That of all Rhetoricall and Poeticall figures that fall into any Art we are able to produce higher straines and livelier examples out of the Scriptures then out of all the Orators and Poets in the world yet we reade not we preach not the Scriptures for that use to magnifie their Eloquence So in Davids Psalmes we finde abundant impressions and testimonies of his knowledge in all arts and all kinds of learning but that is not it which he proposes to us Davids last words are and in that Davids holy glory was placed That he was not onely the sweet Psalmist That he had an harmonious a melodious 2 Sam. 23.1 a charming a powerfull way of entring into the soule and working upon the affections of men but he was the sweet Psalmist of Israel He employed his faculties for the conveying of the God of Israel into the Israel of God Ver. 2. The spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was in my tongue Not the spirit of Rhetorique nor the spirit of Poetry Ver. 3. nor the spirit of Mathematiques and Demonstration But The spirit of the Lord the Rock of Israel spake by me sayes he He boasts not that he had delivered himselfe in strong or deepe or mysterious Arts that was not his Rock but his Rock was the Rock of Israel His way was to establish the Church of God upon fundamentall Doctrines Moses was learned in all the wisedome of the Egyptians sayes Stephen Likely to be so Act. 7.22 because being adopted by the Kings daughter he had an extraordinary education Exod. 2.10 And likely also because he brought so good naturall faculties for his Masters to worke upon Vt Reminisci potiùs videretur quà m discere Philo. That whatsoever any Master proposed unto him he rather seemed to remember it then then to learne it but then And yet in Moses books we meet no great testimonies or deepe impressions of these learnings in Moses He had as S. Ambrose notes well more occasions to speak of Naturall philosophy in the Creation of the world and of the more secret and reserved and remote corners of Nature in those counterfeitings of Miracles in Pharaohs Court then he hath laid hold of So Nebuchadnezzar appointed his Officers that they should furnish his Court Dan. 1.4 with some young Gentlemen of good bloud and families of the Jews And as it is added there well favoured youths in whom there was no blemish skilfull in all wisedome and cunning in knowledge and understanding science And then farther To be taught the tongue and the learning of the Chaldeans And Daniel was one of these and no doubt a great Proficient in all these and yet Daniel seemes not to make any great shew of these learnings in his writings S. Paul was in a higher Pedagogy and another manner of University then all this Caught up into the third heavens into Paradise as he sayes 2 Cor. 12.2 and there he learnt much but as he sayes too such things as it was not lawfull to utter That is It fell not within the lawes of preaching to publish them So that not onely some learning in humanity as in Moses and Daniels case but some points of Divinity as in S. Pauls case may be unfit to be preached Not that a Divine should be ignorant of either either ornaments of humane or mysteries of divine knowledge For sayes S. Augustine Every man that comes from Egypt must bring some of the Egyptians goods with him Quanto auro exivit suffarcinatus Cyprianus sayes he How much of the Egyptian gold and goods brought Cyprian and Lactantius and Optatus and Hilary out of Egypt That is what a treasure of learning gathered when they were of the Gentils brought they from thence to the advancing of Christianity when they applied themselves to it S. Augustine confesses that the reading of Cicero's Hortensius Mutavit affectum meum L. 3. c. 4. began in him a Conversion from the world Et ad teipsum Domine mutavit preces meas That booke sayes he converted me to more fervent prayers to thee my God Et surgere jam coeperam ut ad te redirem By that help I rose and came towards thee And so Iustin Martyr had his Initiation and beginning of his Conversion from reading some passages in Plato S. Basil expresses it well They that will dye a perfect colour dip it in some lesse perfect colour before To be a good Divine requires humane knowledge and so does it of all the Mysteries of Divinity too because as there are Devils that will not be cast out but by Fasting and Prayer so there are humours that undervalue men that lacke these helps But our Congregations are not made of such persons not of meere naturall men that must be converted out of Aristotle and by Cicero's words nor of Arians that require new proofes for the Trinity nor Pelagians that must be pressed with new discoveries of Gods Predestination but persons imbracing with a thankfull acquiescence therein Doctrines necessary for the salvation of their soules in the world to come and the exaltation of their Devotion in this This way David calls his a Catechisme And let not the greatest Doctor think it unworthy of him to Catechize thus nor the learnedest hearer to be thus catechized Christ enwraps the greatest Doctors in his Person and in his practise when he sayes Sinite parvulos Suffer little children to come unto me and we do not suffer them to come unto us if when they come we doe not speak to their understanding and to their edification for that is but an absent presence when they heare and profit not And Christ enwraps the learnedest hearers in the persons of his owne Disciples when he sayes Except yee become as these little children yee cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven Except you nourish your selves with Catechisticall and Fundamentall Doctrines you are not in a wholesome diet Now in this Catechisme the first stone that David layes and that that supports all the first object that David presents and that that directs to all is Blessednesse Davids Catechisme Blessed is the man Philosophers could never bring us to the knowledge 2 Part. Beatitudo what this
the face of the whole Church of God even to the end of the world for so long these Records are to last he proposes himselfe for an Exemplary sinner for a sinfull Example and for a subject of Gods Indignation whilst he remained so When I kept silence and yet roared Thy hand lay heavy upon me and my moysture was turned into the drought of Summer And so we are come to our third Part He teaches by Example He proposes himselfe for the Example and of himselfe he confesses those particulars which constitute our Text. Three things he confesses in this Example 3 Part. First that it was he himselfe that was in doloso spiritu that had deceit in his spirit Quia tacuit because he held his tongue he disguised his sins he did not confesse them And yet in the midst of this silence of his God brought him Ad Rugitum to voyces of Roaring of Exclamation To a sense of paine or shame or losse so farre he had a voyce But still he was in silence for any matter of repentance Secondly he confesses a lamentable effect of this silence and this roaring Inveteraverunt ossa His bones were consumed waxen old and his moisture dried up and then he takes knowledge of the cause of all this calamity the waight of Gods heavy hand upon him And to this Confession he sets to that seale which is intended in the last word Selah First then David confesses his silence therefore it was a fault And he confesses it Silentium as an instance as an example of his being In doloso spiritu That there was deceit in his spirit as long as he was silent he thought to delude God to deceive God and this was the greatest fault If I be afraid of Gods power because I consider that he can destroy a sinner yet I have his will for my Buckler I remember that he would not the death of a sinner If I be afraid that his will may be otherwise bent for what can I tell whether it may not be his will to glorifie himselfe in surprizing me in my sins I have his Word for my Buckler Miserationes ejus super omnia opera ejus God does nothing but that his Mercy is supereminent in that work whatsoever But if I think to scape his knowledge by hiding my sins from him by my silence I am In doloso spiritu if I think to deceive God I deceive my selfe and there is no truth in me When we are to deale with fooles we must or we must not answer Christi Prov. 26.4.5 as they may receive profit or inconvenience by our answer or our silence Answer not a foole according to his foolishnesse lest thou be like him But yet in the next verse Answer a foole according to his foolishnesse lest he be wise in his own conceit But answer God alwaies Though he speak in the foolishnesse of preaching as himselfe calls it yet he speaks wisedome that is Peace to thy soule We are sure that there is a good silence for we have a Rule for it from Christ whose Actions are more then Examples for his Actions are Rules His patience wrought so that he would not speak his afflictions wrought so that he could not He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter and he was dumb Esay 59. Psal 22.15 There he would not speake My strength is dried up like a potsheard and my tongue cleaveth to my jawes and thou hast brought me into the dust of death sayes David in the Person of Christ and here he could not speak Here is a good silence in our Rule So is there also in Examples derived from that Rule Reverentiae Hab. 2. ult There is Silentium reverentiae A silence of reverence for respect of the presence The Lord is in his holy Temple let all the world keep silence before him When the Lord is working in his Temple in his Ordinances and Institutions let not the wisdome of all the world dispute why God instituted those Ordinances the foolishnesse of preaching or the simplicity of Sacraments in his Church Let not the wisedome of private men dispute why those whom God hath accepted as the representation of the Church those of whom Christ sayes Dic Ecclesiae Tell the Church have ordained these or these Ceremonies for Decency and Uniformity and advancing of Gods glory and mens Devotion in the Church Let all the earth be silent In Sacramentis The whole Church may change no Sacraments nor Articles of faith and let particular men be silent In Sacramentalibus in those things which the Church hath ordained for the better conveying and imprinting and advancing of those fundamentall mysteries for this silence of reverence which is an acquiescence in those things which God hath ordained immediately as Sacraments or Ministerially as other Rituall things in the Church David would not have complained of nor repented And to this may well be referred Silentium subjectionis Subjectionis 1 Cor. 14.34 1 Tim. 2.11 That silence which is a recognition a testimony of subjection Let the women keep silence in the Church for they ought to be subject And Let the women learne in silence with all subjection As farre as any just Commandement either expresly or tacitly reaches in injoyning silence we are bound to be silent In Morall seales of secrets not to discover those things which others upon confidence or for our counsell have trusted us withall In charitable seales not to discover those sins of others which are come to our particular knowledge but not by a judiciall way In religious seales not to discover those things which are delivered us in Confession except in cases excepted in that Canon In secrets delivered under these seales of Nature of Law of Ecclesiasticall Canons we are bound to be silent for this is Silentium subjectionis An evidence of our subjection to Superiours But since God hath made man with that distinctive property that he can speak and no other creature since God made the first man able to speak as soone as he was in the world since in the order of the Nazarites instituted in the old Testament though they forbore wine and outward care of their comelinesse in cutting their haire and otherwise yet they bound not themselves to any silence since in the other sects which grew up amongst the Jews Pharisees and Sadduces and Esseans amongst all their superfluous and superstitious austerities there was no inhibition of speaking and Communication since in the twilight between the Old and New Testament Luk. 1.20 that dumbnesse which was cast upon Zacharic was inflicted for a punishment upon him because hee beleeved not that that the Angel had said unto him we may be bold to say That if not that silence which is enjoyned in the Romane Church yet that silence which is practised amongst them for the concealing of Treasons and those silences which are imposed upon some of their Orders That the Carthusians may never speake
it as upon a duty in this way humbly and patiently and laboriously to walke towards him without stopping upon any thing in this world either preferments on the right or disgraces on the left hand for a Cart may stop us as well as a Coach low things as well as high with as much trouble and more anoyance Which is more especially intended in the last words of the Text Firmabo super te oculos meos I will settle my providence fixe mine eye upon thee I will guide thee with mine eye Thus farre hath our blessed Lord assured us That he will make us understand 3 Part. which is his Instruction de credendis what to Beleeve And that he will teach us to walke in his way which is his Instruction de agendis what to Doe how to avoide tentations This last is That hee will guide us with his eye which is his Instruction de sperandis what wee are to Hope for at his hand if in this way we doe stumble or fall into some sinnes of infirmities But it is but de sperandis not de praesumendis when by infirmity thou art fallen thy Hope must begin then but if the Hope begun before so as thou fellest upon hope that God would raise thee then it was presumption and there the Lords eye shuts in and guides thee no longer Otherwise he directs thee with his eye that is with his gracious and powerfull looking upon thee to the meanes of thy recovery Wee heare of no blowes wee heare of no chiding from him towards Peter but all that is said is Luke 22.65 The Lord turned back and looked upon Peter and then he remembred his case The eye of the Lord lightned his darknesse The eye of the Lord thawed those three crusts of Ice which were growne over his heart in his three denials of his Master A Candle wakes some men as well as a noyse The eye of the Lord works upon a good soule as much as his hand and hee is as much affected with this consideration The Lord sees me as with this The Lord strikes me Wee reade in Naturall story of some creatures Qui solo oculorum aspectu fovent ova Plin. l. 10. c. 9. which hatch their egges onely by looking upon them What cannot the eye of God produce and hatch in us Plus est quod probatur aspectu quà m quod sermone Ambrose A man may seeme to commend in words and yet his countenance shall dispraise His word infuses good purposes into us but if God continue his eye upon us it is a farther approbation for He is a God of pure eyes and will not looke upon the wicked Deut. 11.12 This land doth the Lord thy God care for and the eyes of the Lord are alwayes upon it from the beginning of the yeare even to the end thereof What a cheerefull spring what a fruitfull Autumne hath that soule that hath the eye of the Lord alwayes upon her The eye of the Lord upon mee makes midnight noone and S. Lucies day S. Barnabies It makes Capricorne Cancer and the Winters the Summers Solstice The eye of the Lord sanctifies nay more then sanctifies glorifies all the Eclipses of dishonour makes Melancholy cheerefulnesse diffidence assurance and turnes the jealousie of the sad soule into infallibility Upon his people his eye shined in the wildernesse his eye singled them in Egypt and in Babylon they were sustained by his eye They were and we are Ezra 5.5 Psal 33.18 The eye of their God was upon the Elders of Israel And Behold the eye of the Lord is upon all them that feare him The Proverb is not onely as old as Aristotle Oculus domini and Pes domini The eye of the Master fattens the horse and the foot of the Master marles the ground but it is as old as the Creation God saw all that he had made and so it was very good It was visio approbationis Hieron and his approbation was the exaltation thereof This guiding then with the eye we consider to be his particular care and his personall providence upon us in his Church For a man may be in the Kings presence and yet not in his eye and so he may in Gods Gods whole Ordinance in his Church is Gods face For that is the face of God by which God is manifested to us But then August that eye in that face by which he promises to guide us in this Text is that blessed Spirit of his by whose operation he makes that grace which does evermore accompany his Ordinances effectuall upon us The whole Congregation sees God face to face in the Service in the Sermon in the Sacrament but there is an eye in that face an eye in that Service an eye in that Sermon an eye in that Sacrament a piercing and an operating Spirit that lookes upon that soule and foments and cherishes that soule who by a good use of Gods former grace is become fitter for his present And this guiding us with his eye manifests it selfe in these two great effects Convertit conversion to him and union with him First his eye works upon ours His eye turnes ours to looke upon him Still it is so expressed with an Ecce Behold Psal 33.18 the eye of the Lord is upon all them that feare him His eye cals ours to behold that And then our eye cals upon his to observe our cheerefull readinesse Behold Psal 123.2 as the eye of a servant lookes to the hand of his Master so our eyes waite upon the Lord our God till he have mercy upon us Where the Donec Vntill is an everlasting Donec as the blessed Virgins was A Virgin Donec till she brought forth her first Son and a Virgin ever after So our eyes waite upon God till hee have mercy that is while he hath it and that he may continue his mercy for it was his mercifull eye that turned ours to him and it is the same mercy that we waite upon him And then when as a well made Picture doth alwaies looke upon him that lookes upon it this Image of God in our soule is turned to him by his turning to it it is impossible we should doe any foule any uncomely thing in his presence Will any man solicite a Wife or a Daughter and call the Father or Husband to looke on Will any man breake open thy house in the night and first wake thee and call thee up Can any man give his body to uncleannesse his tongue to prophanenesse his heart to covetousnesse and at the same time consider that his pure and his holy and his bountifull God hath his eye upon him Can he looke upon God in that line in that Angle upon God looking upon him and dishonour him Psal 25.15 August Upon those words of David Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord Quasi diceretur quid agitur depedibus as though it were objected Is all thy care of thine
so pay my debts with my bones and recompence the wastfulnesse of my youth with the beggery of mine age Let me wither in a spittle under sharpe and foule and in famous diseases and so recompence the wantonnesse of my youth with that loath somnesse in mine age yet if God with draw not his spirituall blessings his Grace his Patience If I can call my suffering his Doing my passion his Action All this that is temporall is but a caterpiller got into one corner of my garden but a mill-dew fallen upon one acre of my Corne The body of all the substance of all is safe as long as the soule is safe But when I shall trust to that which wee call a good spirit and God shall deject and empoverish and evacuate that spirit when I shall rely upon a morall constancy and God shall shake and enfeeble and enervate destroy and demolish that constancy when I shall think to refresh my selfe in the serenity and sweet ayre of a good conscience and God shall call up the damps and vapours of hell it selfe and spread a cloud of diffidence and an impenetrable crust of desperation upon my conscience when health shall flie from me and I shall lay hold upon riches to succour me and comfort me in my sicknesse and riches shall flie from me and I shall snatch after favour and good opinion to comfort me in my poverty when even this good opinion-shall leave me and calumnies and misinformations shall prevaile against me when I shall need peace because there is none but thou O Lord that should stand for me and then shall finde that all the wounds that I have come from thy hand all the arrowes that stick in me from thy quiver when I shall see that because I have given my selfe to my corrupt nature thou hast changed thine and because I am all evill towards thee therefore thou hast given over being good towards me When it comes to this height that the fever is not in the humors but in the spirits that mine enemy is not an imaginary enemy fortune nor a transitory enemy malice in great persons but a reall and an irresistible and an inexorable and an everlasting enemy The Lord of Hosts himselfe The Almighty God himselfe the Almighty God himselfe onely knowes the waight of this affliction and except hee put in that pondus gloriae that exceeding waight of an eternall glory with his owne hand into the other scale we are waighed downe we are swallowed up irreparably irrevocably irrecoverably irremediably This is the fearefull depth this is spirituall misery to be thus fallen from God But was this Davids case was he fallen thus farre into a diffidence in God No. But the danger the precipice the slippery sliding into that bottomlesse depth is to be excluded from the meanes of comming to God or staying with God And this is that that David laments here That by being banished and driven into the wildernesse of Judah hee had not accesse to the Sanctuary of the Lord to sacrifice his part in the praise and to receive his part in the prayers of the Congregation for Angels passe not to ends but by wayes and meanes nor men to the glory of the triumphant Church but by participation of the Communion of the Militant To this note David sets his Harpe in many many Psalms Sometimes Psal 78.60 that God had suffered his enemies to possesse his Tabernacle Hee for sooke the Tabernacle of Shiloh Hee delivered his strength into captivity and his glory into the enemies hands But most commonly he complaines that God disabled him from comming to the Sanctuary In which one thing he had summed up all his desires all his prayers One thing have I desired of the Lord Psal 27.4 that will I looke after That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the dayes of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his Temple His vehement desire of this Psal 42.2 he expresses againe My soule thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appeare before God He expresses a holy jealousie a religious envy Psal 84.3 even to the sparrows and swallows yea the sparrow hath found a house and the swallow a nest for her selfe and where she may lay her yong Even thine Altars O Lord of Host my King and my God Thou art my King and my God and yet excludest me from that Luk. 12.7 which thou affordest to sparrows And are not we of more value then many sparrows And as though David felt some false ease some half-tentation some whispering that way Psal 84.3 That God is in the wildernesse of Iudah in every place as well as in his Sanctuary there is in the Originall in that place a patheticall a vehement a broken expressing expressed O thine Altars It is true sayes David thou art here in the wildernesse and I may see thee here and serve thee here but O thine Altars O Lord of hosts my King and my God When David could not come in person to that place yet he bent towards the Temple Psal 5.7 In thy feare will I worship towards thy holy Temple Which was also Daniels devotion when he prayed Dan. 6.10 his Chamber windowes were open towards Ierusalem And so is Hezekias turning to the wall to weepe Esa 38.2 and to pray in his sick bed understood to be to that purpose to conforme and compose himselfe towards the Temple In the place consecrated for that use God by Moses fixes the service and fixes the Reward And towards that place Deut. 31.11 when they could not come to it doth Solomon direct their devotion in the Consecration of the Temple 1 King 8.44 when they are in the warres when they are in Captivity and pray towards this house doe thou heare them For as in private prayer when according to Christs command we are shut in our chamber there is exercised Modestia fidei The modesty and bashfulnesse of our faith not pressing upon God in his house so in the publique prayers of the Congregation there is exercised the fervor and holy courage of our faith Tertull. for Agmine facto obsidemus Deum It is a Mustering of our forces and a besieging of God Therefore does David so much magnifie their blessednesse that are in this house of God Blessed are they that dwell in thy house for they will be still praising thee Those that looke towards it may praise thee sometimes but those men who dwell in the Church and whose whole service lyes in the Church have certainly an advantage of all other men who are necessarily withdrawne by worldly businesses in making themselves acceptable to almighty God if they doe their duties and observe their Church-services aright Man being therefore thus subject naturally to manifold calamities Excommunicatio and spirituall calamities being incomparably heavier then temporall and the greatest danger of falling into such
Cooke The other is a Physitian and though by bitter things provides for thy future health And such is the hony of Flatterers and such is the wormewood of better Counsellors I will not shake a Proverbe not the Ad Corvos That wee were better admit the Crowes that picke out our eyes after we are dead then Flatterers that blinde us whilst we live I cast justly upon others I take willingly upon my selfe the name of wicked if I blesse the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth or any other whom he hath declared to be odious to him But making my object goodnesse in that man and taking that goodnesse in that man to be a Candle set up by God in that Candlesticke God having engaged himselfe that that good man shall be praised I will be a Subsidy man so far so far pay Gods debts as to celebrate with condigne praise the goodnesse of that man for in that I doe as I should desire to be done to And in that I pay a debt to that man And in that I succour their weaknesse who as S. Gregory sayes when they heare another praised Gregâ—r Si non amore virtutis at delectatione laudis accenduntur At first for the love of Praise but after for the love of goodnesse it selfe are drawne to bee good Phil. 4.8 For when the Apostle had directed the Philippians upon things that were True and honest and just and purc and lovely and of a good report he ends all thus If there be any vertue and if there be any praise thinke on these things In those two sayes S. Augustine he divides all Vertue and Praise Vertue in our selves that may deserve Praise Praise towards others that may advance and propagate Vertue This is the retribution which God promises to all the upright in heart Gloriabuntur Laudabuntur They shall Glory they shall have they shall give praise And then it is so far from diminishing this Glory as that it infinitely exalts our consolation that God places this Retribution in the future Gloriabuntur If they doe not yet yet certainly they shall glory And if they doe now that glory shall not goe out still they shall they shall for ever glory In the Hebrew there is no Present tense In that language wherein God spake Futurum it could not be said The upright in heart Are praised Many times they are not But God speaks in the future first that he may still keepe his Children in an expectation and dependance upon him you shall be though you be not yet And then to establish them in an infallibility because he hath said it I know you are not yet but comfort your selves I have said it and it shall be As the Hebrew hath no Superlatives because God would keepe his Children within compasse and in moderate desires to content themselves with his measures though they be not great and though they be not heaped so considering what pressures and contempts and terrors the upright in heart are subject to it is a blessed reliefe That they have a future proposed unto them That they shall be praised That they shall be redeemed out of contempt This makes even the Expectation it selfe as sweet to them as the fruition would be This makes them that when David sayes Expecta viriliter Waite upon the Lord with a good courage Waite I say Psal 27.14 upon the Lord they doe not answer with the impatience of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo How long Lord wilt thou defer it Rev. 6.10 Psal 40.1 Psal 52.9 But they answer in Davids owne words Expectans expectavi I have waited long And Expectabo nomen tuum still I will waite upon thy Name I will waite till the Lord come His kingdome come in the mean time His kingdome of Grace and Patience and for his Ease and his Deliverance and his Praise and his Glory to me let that come when he may be most glorified in the comming thereof Nay not onely the Expectation that is that that is expected shall be comfortable because it shall be infallible but that very present state that he is in shall be comfortable according to the first of our three Translations They that are true of heart shall be glad thereof Glad of that Glad that they are true of heart though their future retribution were never so far removed Nay though there were no future retribution in the case yet they shall finde comfort enough in their present Integrity Nay not onely their present state of Integrity but their present state of misery shall be comfortable to them for this very word of our Text Halal that is here translated Ioy and Glory and Praise in divers places of Scripture as Hebrew words have often such a transplantation signifies Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit Psal 75.4 Esa 44.25 Job 12.17 So that Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit may be a part of the retribution God may make Ingloriousnesse and Contempt and Dejection of spirit a greater blessing and benefit then Joy and Glory and Praise would have been and so reserve all this Glory and Praising to that time that David intends Psal 112.6 The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance Though they live and die contemptibly they shall be in an honorable remembrance even amongst men as long as men last and even when time shall be no more and men no more they shall have it in futuro aeterno where there shall be an everlasting present and an everlasting future there the upright in heart shall be praised and that for ever which is our conclusion of all If this word of our Text Halal shall signifie Ioy as the Service Booke Aeternum and the Geneva translation render it that may be somewhat towards enough which we had occasion to say of the Joyes of heaven in our Exercise upon the precedent Psalme when we say-led thorough that Hemispheare of Heaven by the breath of the Holy Ghost in handling those words Vnder the shadow of thy wings I will rejoyce So that of this signification of the word Gaudebunt in aeterno They shall rejoyce for ever we adde nothing now If the word shall signifie Glory as our last translation renders it consider with me That when that Glory which I shall receive in Heaven shall be of that exaltation as that my body shall invest the glory of a soule my body shall be like a soule like a spirit like an Angel of light in all endowments that glory it selfe can make that body capable of that body remaining still a true body when my body shall be like a soule there will be nothing left for my soule to be like but God himselfe 2 Pet. 1.4 1 Cor. 6.17 I shall be partaker of the Divine nature and the same Spirit with him Since the glory that I shall receive in body and in soule shall be such so exalted what shall that glory of God be which I shall
no inconvenience averts Christ and his Spirit from his sweet and gracious and comfortable visitations But yet this that is called here The Sea of Galile was not properly a Sea but according to the phrase of the Hebrews who call all great meetings of waters by that one name A Sea this which was indeed a lake of fresh water is called a Sea From the roote of Mount Libanus spring two Rivers Jor and Dan and those two meeting together joyning their waters joyne their names too and make that famous river Jordan a name so composed as perchance our River is Thamesis of Thame and Isis And this River Jordan falling into this flat makes this Lake of sixteene miles long and some sixe in breadth Which Lake being famous for fish though of ordinary kinds yet of an extraordinary taste and relish and then of extraordinary kinds too not found in other waters and famous because divers famous Cities did engirt it and become as a garland to it Capernaum and Chorazim and Bethsaida and Tiberias and Magdalo all celebrated in the Scriptures was yet much more famous for the often recourse which our Saviour who was of that Countrey made to it For this was the Sea where he amazed Peter with that great draught of fishes that brought him to say Exi à me Domine Depart from me O Lord for I am a sinfull man Luk. 5.8 This was the Sea where himselfe walked upon the waters Matt. 14.25.8.23 And where he rebuked the tempest And where he manifested his Almighty power many times And by this Lake this Sea dwelt Andrew and Peter and using the commodity of the place lived upon fishing in this Lake and in that act our Saviour found them and called them to his service Why them Why fishers First Christ having a greater a fairer Jerusalem to build then Davids was Cur Piscatores a greater Kingdome to establish then Juda's was a greater Temple to build then Solomons was having a greater work to raise yet he begun upon a lesse ground Hee is come from his twelve Tribes that afforded armies in swarmes to twelve persons twelve Apostles from his Iuda and Levi the foundations of State and Church to an Andrew and a Peter fisher-men sea-men and these men accustomed to that various and tempestuous Element to the Sea lesse capable of Offices of civility and sociablenesse then other men yet must be employed in religious offices to gather all Nations to one houshold of the faithfull and to constitute a Communion of Saints They were Sea-men fisher-men unlearned and indocil Why did Christ take them Not that thereby there was any scandall given or just occasion of that calumny of Iulian the Apostat That Christ found it easie to seduce and draw to his Sect such poore ignorant men as they were for Christ did receive persons eminent in learning Saul was so and of authority in the State Nicodemus was so and of wealth and ability Zacheus was so and so was Ioseph of Arimatliea But first he chose such men that when the world had considered their beginning their insufficiency then and how unproper they were for such an employment and yet seene that great work so farre and so fast advanced by so weake instruments they might ascribe all power to him and ever after come to him cheerfully upon any invitation how weake men soever he should send to them because hee had done so much by so weak instruments before To make his work in all ages after prosper the better he proceeded thus at first And then hee chose such men for another reason too To shew that how insufficient soever he received them yet he received them into such a Schoole such an University as should deliver them back into his Church made fit by him for the service thereof Christ needed not mans sufficiency he took insufficient men Christ excuses no mans insufficiency he made them sufficient His purpose then was that the worke should be ascribed to the Workman Nequid Instrumentis August not to the Instrument To himselfe not to them Nec quaesivit per Oratorem piscatorem He sent not out Orators Rhetoricians strong or faire-spoken men to work upon these fisher-men Sed de piscatore lucratus est Imperatorem By these fisher-men hee hath reduced all those Kings and Emperours and States which have embraced the Christian Religion these thousand and six hundred yeares When Samuel was sent with that generall Commission 1 Sam. 16.6 to anoint a sonne of Ishai King without any more particular instructions when hee came and Eliab was presented unto him Surely sayes Samuel 1 Sam. 30. noting the goodlinesse of his personage this is the Lords Anointed But the Lord said unto Samuel Looke not on his countenance nor the height of his stature for I have refused him for as it followeth there from Gods mouth God seeth not as man setth Man looketh on the outward appearance but the Lord beholdeth the heart And so David in apparance lesse likely was chosen But if the Lords arme be not shortned let no man impute weaknesse to the Instrument For so when David himselfe was appointed by God to pursue the Amalekites the Amalekites that had burnt Ziklag and done such spoile upon Gods people as that the people began to speak of stoning David from whom they looked for defence Ver 6. when David had no kind of intelligence no ground to settle a conjecture upon which way he must pursue the Amalekites and yet pursue them he must in the way he findes a poore young fellow a famished sicke young man derelicted of his Master and left for dead in the march and by the meanes and conduct of this wretch David recovers the enemy recovers the spoile recovers his honour and the love of his people If the Lords arme bee not shortned let no man impute weaknesse to his Instrument But yet God will alwayes have so much weaknesse appeare in the Instrument as that their strength shall not be thought to be their owne When Pete and Iohn preached in the streets Acts 4.13 The people marvelled sayes the Text why for they had understood that they were unlearned But beholding also the man that was healed standing by they had nothing to say sayes that story The insufficiency of the Instrument makes a man wonder naturally but the accomplishing of some great worke brings them to a necessary acknowledgement of a greater power working in that weake Instrument For if those Apostles that preached Acts 8.10 had beene as learned men as Simon Magus as they did in him This man is the great power of God not that he had but that he was the power of God the people would have rested in the admiration of those persons and proceeded no farther It was their working of supernaturall things that convinced the world For all Pauls learning though hee were very learned never brought any of the Conjurers to burne his bookes or to renounce
us nor great persons can advance for us nor any Prince can take from us This is the Lord in this place this is Iehova and Germen Iehovae The Lord Esay 4.2 and the off-spring of the Lord and none is the off-spring of God but God that is the Son and the Holy Ghost So that this perfect blessednesse consists in this the true knowledge and worship of the Trinity And this blessing that is the true Religion and profession of Christ Jesus Populus is to be upon all the people which is our last Confideration Blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord Psal 33.12 and the people whom he hath chosen for his Inheritance And here againe as in the former Consideration of temporall blessednesse The people includes both Prince and people and then the blessing consists in this that both Prince and people be sincerely affected to the true Religion And then the people includes all the people and so the blessing consists in this that there be an unanimitie a consent in all in matter of Religion And lastly the people includes the future people and there the blessing consists in this that our posterity may enjoy the same purity of Religion that we doe The first tentation that fell amonst the Apostles carried away one of them Iudas was transported with the tentation of money and how much For thirty peeces and in all likelihood he might have made more profit then that out of the privy purse The first tentation carried one but the first persecution carried away nine when Christ was apprehended none was left but two and of one of those two S. Hierom saies Vtinà m fugisset non negasset Christum I would Peter had fled too and not scandalized the cause more by his stay in denying his Master for a man may stay in the outward profession of the true Religion with such purposes and to such ends as he may thereby damnifie the cause more and damnifie his owne soule more then if he went away to that Religion to which his conscience though ill rectified directs him Now though when such tentations and such persecutions doe come the words of our Saviour Christ will alwayes be true Luke 12.32 Feare not little flocke for it is Gods pleasure to give you the Kingdome though God can lay up his seed-corne in any little corner yet the blessing intended here is not in that little seed-corne nor in the corner but in the plenty when all the people are blessed and the blessed Spirit blowes where he will and no doore nor window is shut against him And therefore let all us blesse God for that great blessing to us in giving us such Princes as make it their care Nebona caducasint ne mala recidiva That that blessednesse which we enjoy by them may never depart from us that those miseries which wee felt before them may never returne to us Almighty God make alwaies to us all Prince and people these temporall blessings which we enjoy now Peace and Plenty and Health seales of his spirituall blessings and that spirituall blessednesse which we enjoy now the profession of the onely true Religion a seale of it selfe and a seale of those eternall blessings which the Lord the righteous Judge hath laid up for his in that Kingdome which his Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood In which glorious Son of God c. SERM. LXXV Preached to the King at VVhite-hall April 15. 1628. ESAY 32.8 But the liberall deviseth liberall things and by liberall things he shall stand BY two wayes especially hath the Gospell beene propagated by men of letters by Epistles and by Sermons The Apostles pursued both wayes frequent in Epistles assiduous in Sermons And as they had the name of Apostles from Letters from Epistles from Missives for the Certificates and Testimonials and safe-conducts and letters of Credit which issued from Princes Courts or from Courts that held other Jurisdiction were in the formularies and termes of Law called Apostles before Christs Apostles were called Apostles so they executed the office of their Apostleship so too by Writing by Preaching This succession in the Ministery of the Gospell did so too Chrysost Therefore it is said of S. Chrysostome Vbique praedicavit quia ubique lectus He preached every where because he was read every where And he that is said to have beene S. Pelusiota Chrysostomes disciple Isidore is said to have written ten thousand Epistles and in them to have delivered a just and full Commentary upon all the Scriptures In the first age of all they scarce went any other way for writing but this by Epistles Of Clement of Ignatius of Polycarpus of Martial there is not much offered us with any probability but in the name of Epistles When Christians gathered themselves with more freedome and Churches were established with more liberty Preaching prevailed And there is no exercise that is denoted by so many names as Preaching Origen began for I thinke we have no Sermons till Origens And though hee began early early if wee consider the age of the Church a thousand foure hundred yeares since and early if wee consider his owne age for Origens preached by the commandement and in the presence of Bishops before he was a Churchman yet he suffered no Sermons of his to be copied till he was sixty yeares old Now Origen called his Homilies And the first Gregory of the same time with Origen that was Bishop of Neocesaria hath his called Sermons And so names multiplied Homilies Sermons Conciones Lectures S. Augustins Enarrations Dictiones that is Speeches Damascens and Cyrils Orations nay one excercise of Caesareus conveied in the forme of a Dialogue were all Sermons Add to these Church-exercises Homilies Sermons Lectures Orations Speeches and the rest the Declamations of Civill men in Courts of Justice the Tractates of Morall men written in their Studies nay goe backe to your our owne times when you went to Schoole or to the University and remember but your owne or your fellowes Themes or Problemes or Common-places and in all these you may see evidence of that to which the Holy Ghost himselfe hath set a Seale in this text that is the recommendation of Bountie of Munificence of Liberalitie The Liberall deviseth liberall things and by liberall things hee shall stand That which makes me draw into consideration Divisio the recommendation of this vertue in civill Authors and exercises as well as in Ecclesiasticall is this That our Expositors of all the three ranks and Classes The Fathers and Ancients The later men in the Romane Church and ours of the Reformation are very near equally divided in every of these three rankes whether this Text be intended of a morall and a civill or of a spirituall and Ecclesiasticall liberality whether this prophecy of Esay in this Chapter beginning thus Behold a King shall reigne in righteousnesse Ver. 1. and
dereliction on Gods part he cals not upon him by this name not My Father but My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Mat. 27.37 But when he would incline him to mercy mercy to others mercy to enemies he comes in that name wherein he could be denied nothing Father Father forgive them they know not what they doe He is the Lord of Hosts Luke 23.24 There hee scatters us in thunder transports us in tempests enwraps us in confusion astonishes us with stupefaction and consternation The Lord of Hosts but yet the Father of mercies There he receives us into his own bowels fills our emptinesse with the blood of his own Son and incorporates us in him The Lord of Hosts but the Father of mercy Sometimes our naturall Fathers die before they can gather any state to leave us but he is the immortall Father and all things that are as soone as they were were his Sometimes our naturall Fathers live to waste and dissipate that state which was left them to be left us but this is the Father out of whose hands and possession nothing can be removed and who gives inestimably and yet remaines inexhaustible Sometimes our naturall Fathers live to need us and to live upon us but this is that Father whom we need every minute and requires nothing of us but that poore rent of Benedictus sit Blessed praised glorified be this Father This Father of mercies of mercies in the plurall David calls God Miserationum Psal 59.17 Numb 14.19 Psal 51.1 Misericordiam suam His mercy all at once God is the God of my mercy God is all ours and all mercy Pardon this people sayes Moses Secundùm magnitudinem misericordiae According to the greatnesse of thy mercy Pardon me sayes David Have mercy upon me Secùndum multitudinem misericordiarum According to the multitude of thy mercies His mercy in largenesse in number extends over all It was his mercy that we were made and it is his mercy that we are not consumed David calls his mercy Multiplicatam and Mirificatam Psal 17.7 Psal 31.22 It is manifold and it is marvellous miraculous Shew thy marvellous loving kindnesse and therefore David in severall places carries it Super judicium above his judgements Super Coelos above the heavens Super omnia opera above all his works And for the multitude of his mercies for we are now upon the consideration of the plurality thereof Pater miserationum Father of mercies put together that which David sayes Psal 89.50 Vbi misericordiae tuae antiquae Where are thy ancient mercies His mercy is as Ancient as the Ancient of dayes who is God himselfe And that which another Prophet sayes Omni mane His mercies are new every morning And put betweene these two betweene Gods former and his future mercies his present mercy in bringing thee this minute to the consideration of them and thou hast found Multiplicatam and Mirificatam manifold and wondrous mercy But carry thy thoughts upon these three Branches of his mercy and it will be enough First that upon Adams fall and all ours in him he himselfe would think of such a way of mercy as from Adam to that man whom Christ shall finde alive at the last day no man would ever have thought of that is that to shew mercy to his enemies he would deliver his owne his onely his beloved Son to shame to torments to death That hee would plant Germen Iehovae in semine mulieris The blossome the branch of God in the seed of the woman This mercy in that first promise of that Messias was such a mercy as not onely none could have undertaken but none could have imagined but God himselfe And in this promise we were conceived In visceribus Patris In the bowels of this Father of mercies In these bowels in the womb of this promise we lay foure thousand yeares The blood with which we were fed then was the blood of the Sacrifices and the quickning which we had there was an inanimation by the often refreshing of this promise of that Messias in the Prophets But in the fulnesse of time that infallible promise came to an actuall performance Christ came in the flesh and so Venimus ad partum In his birth we were borne and that was the second mercy in the promise in the performance he is Pater miserationum Father of mercies And then there is a third mercy as great That he having sent his Son and having re-assumed him into heaven againe he hath sent his Holy Spirit to governe his Church and so becomes a Father to us in that Adoption in the application of Christ to us by the Holy Ghost and this as that which is intended in the last word Deus totius Consolationis The God of all Comfort I may know that there is a Messias promised and yet be without comfort Consolatio in a fruitlesse expectation The Jews are so in their dispersion When the Jews will still post-date the commings of Christ when some of them say There was no certaine time of his comming designed by the Prophets And others There was a time but God for their sins prorogued it And others againe God kept his word the Messiah did come when it was promised he should come but for their sins he conceales himselfe from Manifestation when the Jews will postdate his first comming and the Papists will antidate his second comming in a comming that cannot become him That he comes even to his Saints in torment before he comes in glory That when he comes to them at their dissolution at their death he comes not to take them to Heaven but to cast them into one part of hell That the best comfort which a good man can have at his death is but Purgatory Miserable comforters are they all How faire a beame of the joyes of Heaven is true comfort in this life If I know the mercies of God exhibited to others and feele them not in my self I am not of Davids Church Psal 59.1 not of his Quire I cannot sing of the mercies of God I may see them and I may sigh to see the mercies of God determined in others and not extended to me but I cannot sing of the mercies of God if I find no mercy But when I come to that Psal 94.19 Consolationes tuae laetificaverunt In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soule then the true Comforter is descended upon me and the Holy Ghost hath over-shadowed me Mat. 5.4 and all that shall be borne of me and proceed from me shall be holy Blessed are they that mourne sayes Christ But the blessednesse is not in the mourning but because they shall be comforted Blessed am I in the sense of my sins and in the sorrow for them but blessed therefore because this sorrow leads me to my reconciliation to God and the consolation of his Spirit Whereas if I sinke in this sorrow in this dejection