Judge too I shall not be tried by an arbitrary Court where it may be wisdome enough to follow a wise leader and think as he thinks I shall not be tried by a Jury that had rather I suffered then they fasted rather I lost my life then they lost a meale Nor tryed by Peeres where Honour shall be the Bible But I shall be tryed by the King himselfe then which no man can propose a Nobler tryall and that King shall be the King of Kings too for He V. 5. who in the first of the Revelation is called The faithfull Witnesse is in the same place called The Prince of the Kings of the earth and as he is there produced as a Witnesse so Acts 10 42. Iohn 5.22 He is ordained to be the Iudge of the quick and the dedd and so All Iudgement is committed to him He that is my Witnesse is my Judge and the same person is my Jesus my Saviour my Redeemer He that hath taken my nature He that hath given me his blood So that he is my Witnesse in his owne cause and my Judge but of his owne Title and will in me preserve himselfe He will not let that nature that he hath invested perish nor that treasure which he hath poured out for me his blood be ineffectuall My Witnesse is in Heaven my Judge is in Heaven my Redeemer is in Heaven and in them who are but One I have not onely a constant hope that I shall be there too but an evident assurance that I am there already in his Person Go then in this peace That you alwaies study to preserve this testification of the Spirit of God by outward evidences of Sanctification You are naturally composed of foure Elements and three of those foure are evident and unquestioned The fourth Element the element of Fire is a more litigious element more problematicall more disputable Every good man every true Christian in his Metaphysicks for in a regenerate man all is Metaphysicall supernaturall hath foure Elements also and three of those foure are declared in this text First a good Name the good opinion of good men for honest dealing in the world and religious discharge of duties towards God That there be no injustice in our hands Also that our prayer be pure A second Element is a good conscience in my selfe That either a holy warinesse before or a holy repentance after settle me so in God as that I care not though all the world knew all my faults And a third element is my Hope in God that my Witnesse which is in Heaven will testifie for me as a witnesse in my behalfe here or acquit me as a mercifull Judge hereafter Now there may be a fourth Element an Infallibility of finall perseverance grounded upon the eternall knowledge of God but this is as the Element of fire which may be but is not at least is not so discernable so demonstrable as the rest And therefore as men argue of the Element of fire that whereas the other elements produce creatures in such abundance The Earth such heards of Cattell the Waters such shoales of Fish the Aire such flocks of Birds it is no unreasonable thing to stop upon this consideration whether there should be an element of fire more spacious and comprehensive then all the rest and yet produce no Creatures so if thy pretended Element of Infallibility produce no creatures no good works no holy actions thou maist justly doubt there is no such element in thee In all doubts that arise in thee still it will be a good rule to choose that now which thou wouldst choose upon thy death-bed If a tentation to Beauty to Riches to Honour be proposed to thee upon such and such conditions consider whether thou wouldst accept that upon those conditions upon thy death-bed when thou must part with them in a few minutes So when thou doubtest in what thou shouldst place thy assurance in God thinke seriously whether thou shalt not have more comfort then upon thy death-bed in being able to say I have finished my course I have fought a good fight I have fulfilled the sufferings of Christ in my flesh I have cloathed him when he was naked and fed him when he was poore then in any other thing that thou maiest conceive God to have done for thee And doe all the way as thou wouldst do then prove thy element of fire by the creatures it produces prove thine election by thy sanctification for that is the right method and shall deliver thee over infallibly to everlasting glory at last Amen SERMON XIV Preached at VVhite-hall March 3. 1619. AMOS 5.18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord what have yee to doe with it the day of the Lord is darknesse and not light FOr the presenting of the woes and judgements of God denounced by the Prophets against Judah and Israel and the extending and applying them to others involved in the same sins as Judah and Israel were Solomon seemes to have given us somewhat a cleare direction Prov. 9.8 Reprove not a scorner lest he hate thee Rebuke a wise man and he will love thee But how if the wiseman and this scorner bee all in one man all one person If the wiseman of this world bee come to take S. Paul so literally at his word as to thinke scornefully that preaching is indeed but the foolishnesse of preaching and that as the Church is within the State so preaching is a part of State government flexible to the present occasions of time appliable to the present dispositions of men This fell upon this Prophet in this prophecie Amos 7.10 Amasias the Priest of Bethel informed the King that Amos medled with matters of State and that the Land was not able to beare his words and to Amos himselfe he saies Eate thy bread in someother place but prophecy here no more for this is the Kings Chappell Amos 23. and the Kings Court Amos replies I was no Prophet nor the son of a Prophet but in an other course and the Lord tooke me and said unto me Goe and Prophecie to my People Though we finde no Amasiah no mis-interpreting Priest here wee are farre from that because we are far from having a Ieroboam to our King as he had easie to give eare easie to give credit to false informations yet every man that comes with Gods Message hither brings a little Amasiah of his owne in his owne bosome a little wisperer in his owne heart that tels him This is the Kings Chappell and it is the Kings Court and these woes and judgements and the denouncers and proclaimers of them are not so acceptable here But we must have our owne Amos aswell as our Amasias this answer to this suggestion I was no Prophet and the Lord tooke me and bad me prophecy What shall I doe And besides since the woe in this Text is not S. Iohns wo his iterated his multiplied wo Vae vae
the ordinary and outward meanes of our salvation When the anger of the Body the Church is thus heavy what is the anger of the Head of Christ himselfe who is Judge in his owne cause When an unjust judgement was executed upon him how was the frame of nature shaked in Eclipses in Earth-quakes in renting of the Temple and cleaving the Monuments of the dead When his pleasure is to execute a just judgement upon a Nation upon a Church upon a Man in the infatuation of Princes in the recidivation of the Clergy in the consternation of particular consciences Quis stabit who shall be able to stand in that Judgement Kisse the Son lest he be angry But when he is angry he will not kisse you nor be kissed by you but throw you into unquenchable fire if you be cold and if you be luke-warme spit you out of his mouth remove you from the benefit and comfort of his Word This is the anger of God that reaches to all the world and the anger of the Son Osculum amovet that comes home to us and all this is removed with this holy and spirituall kisse Osculamini Filium Kisse the Son lest he be angry implies this If ye kisse him he will not bee angry What this kisse is we have seene all the way It is to hang at his lips for the Rule of our life To depend upon his Word for our Religion and to succour our selves by the promises of his Gospel in all our calamities and not to provoke him to farther judgements by a perverse and froward use of those judgements which he hath laid upon us As it is in this point towards man it is towards God too Nihil mansuetudine violentius There is not so violent a thing as gentlenesse so forcible so powerfull upon man Chrysost or upon God This is such a saying as one would think he that said it should be ready to retract by the multiplicity of examples to the contrary every day Such Rules as this He that puts up one wrong invites and calls for another will shake Chrysostomes Rule shrewdly Nihil mansuetudine violentius That no battery is so strong against an enemy as gentlenesse Say if you will Nihilmelius There is no better thing then gentlenesse and we can make up that with a Comment that is nothing better for some purposes Say if you will Nihil frugalius There is not a thriftier thing then gentlenesse It saves charges to suffer It is a more expensive thing to revenge then to suffer whether we consider expense of soule or body or fortune And by the way that which we use to adde in this account opinion reputation that which we call Honour is none of the Elements of which man is made It may be the ayre that the Bird flies in It may be the water that the Fish swimmes in but it is none of the Elements that man is made of for those are onely soule and body and fortune Say also if you will Nihil accommodatius Nothing conformes us more to our great patterne Christ Jesus then mildnesse then gentlenesse for that is our lesson from him Discite à me quiamitis Learne of me for I am meeke All this Chrysostome might say but will he say Nihil violentius There is not so violent so forcible a thing as mildnesse That there is no such Bullet as a Pillow no such Action as Passion no such revenge as suffering an injury Yet even this is true Nothing defeats an anger so much as patience nothing reproaches a chiding so much as silence Reprehendis iratum accusas indignationem sayes that Father Art thou sorry to see a man angry Cur magis irasci vis Why dost thou adde thy anger to his Why dost thou fuell his anger with thine Quodigni aqua hoc irae mansuetudo As water works upon fire so would thy patience upon his anger S. Ambrose hath expressed it well too Haec sunt armajusti ut cedendo vincat This is the warre of the righteous man to conquer by yeelding Esay 36.21 It was Ezechiahs way when Rabshakeh reviled They held their peace where the very phrase affords us this note That silence is called holding of our peace we continue our peace best by silence They held their peace sayes that text and answered him not a word for the King had commanded them not to answer Why S. Hierom tels us why Ne ad majores blasphemias provocaret Lest the multiplying of cholerique words amongst men should have occasioned more blasphemies against God And as it is thus with man with God it is thus too Nothing spends his judgements and his corrections so soone as our patience nothing kindles them exasperates them so much as our frowardnesse and murmuring Kisse the Son and he will not be angry If he be kisse the rod and he will be angry no longer love him lest hee be feare him when hee is angry The preservative is easie and so is the restorative too The Balsamum of this kisse is all To suck spirituall milke out of the left breast as well as out of the right To finde mercy in his judgements reparation in his ruines feasts in his Lents joy in his anger But yet we have reserved it for our last Consideration what will make him angry what sins are especially directed upon the second Person the Sonne of God and then wee have done all Though those three Attributes of God Sapientia Power and Wisdome and Goodnesse he all three in all the three Persons of the Trinity for they are all as we say in the Schoole Co-omnipotentes they have all a joynt-Almightinesse a joynt-Wisdome and a joynt-Goodnesse yet because the Father is Principium The roote of all Independent not proceeding from any other as both the other Persons do and Power and Soveraignty best resembles that Independency therefore we attribute Power to the Father And because the Son proceeds Per modum intellectus which is the phrase that passes through the Fathers and the Schoole That as our understanding proceeds from our reasonable soule so the second Person the Son proceeds from the Father therefore we attribute Wisdome to the Son And then because the Holy Ghost is said to proceed Per modum voluntatis That as our soule as the roote and our understanding proceeding from that soule produce our will and the object of our will is evermore Bonum that which is good in our apprehension therefore we attribute to the Holy Ghost Goodnesse And therefore David formes his prayer Psal 51. in that manner plurally Miserere mei Elohim Be mercifull unto me all because in his sin upon Vriah which he laments in that Psalme he had transgressed against all the three Persons in all their Attributes against the Power and the Wisdome and the Goodnesse of God That then which we consider principally in the Son is Wisdome And truly those very many things which are spoken of Wisdome in the Proverbs of
last motive Iosh 7.19 must be the glory of God Therefore Ioshuah sayes to Achan My Son give I pray thee glory unto the Lord God of Israel and make Confession unto him Now the glory of God arises not out of the Confessing but because every true Confessing is accompanied with a detestation of the sin as it hath separated me from God and a sense of my re-union and redintegration with God in the abjuration of my former sins for to tell my sin by way of a good tale or by boasting in it though it be a revealing a manifesting is not a Confession in every true confession God hath glory because he hath a straid soule re-united to his Kingdome And to advance this Glory David confesses Peccata sins which is our next Consideration I said I will confesse my sins unto the Lord. First he resents his state All is not well Then he examines himselfe Peccata vera Thus and thus it stands with me Then he considers then he resolves then he executes He confesses so far we are gone and now he confesses sins For the Pharisees though he pretended a Confession was rather an exprobration how much God had beene beholden to him for his Sabbaths for his Almes for his Tithes for his Fasting David confesses sins first such things as were truly sins For as the element of Ayre that lyes betweene the Water and the Fire is sometimes condensed into water sometimes rarified into fire So lyes the conscience of man betweene two operations of the Devill sometimes he rarifies it evaporates it that it apprehends nothing feeles nothing to be sin sometimes he condenses it that every thing falls and sticks upon it in the nature and takes the waight of sin and he mis-interprets the indifferent actions of others and of his owne and destroyes all use of Christian liberty all conversation all recreation and out of a false feare of being undutifull to God is unjust to all the world and to his owne soule and consequently to God himselfe who of all notions would not be received in the notion of a Cruell or Tyrannicall God In an obdurate conscience that feeles no sin the Devill glories most but in the over-tender conscience he practises most That is his triumphant but this is his militant Church That is his Sabbath but this is his six dayes labour In the obdurate he hath induced a security in the scriptures which the Holy Ghost hath exprest in so many names as Sin Sin Wickednesse Iniquity Transgressions Offences Many many more And all this that thereby we might reflect upon our selves often and see if our particular actions fell not under some of those names But then lest this should over-intimidate us there are as many names given by the Holy Ghost to the Law of God Law Statutes Ordinances Covenants Testimony Precept and all the rest of which there is some one at least repeated in every verse of the hundred and nineteenth Psalme that thereby we might still have a Rule to measure and try our actions by whether they be sins or no. For as the Apostle sayes He had not knowne sinne if he had not knowne the Law So there had beene no sin if there had beene no Law And therefore that soule that feeles it selfe oppressed under the burden of a Vow must have recourse to the Law of God and see whether that Vow fall under the Rule of that Law For as an over-tender conscience may call things sins that are not and so be afraid of things that never were so may it also of things that were but are not now of such sins as were truly sins and fearfull sins but are now dead dead by a true repentance and buried in the Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus and sealed up in that Monument under the seale of Reconciliation the blessed Sacrament and yet rise sometimes in this tender conscience in a suspition and jealousie that God hath not truly not fully forgiven them And as a Ghost which we thinke we see afrights us more then an army that we doe see So these apparitions of sins of things that are not against any Law of God and so are not sins or sins that are dead in a true repentance and so have no being at all by the Devils practise worke dangerously upon a distempered conscience for as God hath given the Soule an Imagination and a Fancy as well as an Understanding So the Devill imprints in the conscience a false Imagination as well as a fearefull sense of true sin David confesses sins sins that were truly sins But the more ordinary danger is Omniae in our not calling those things which are truly sins by that name For as sometimes when the Baptisme of a Child is deferred for State the Child dyes unbaptized So the sinner defers the Baptisme of his sin in his teares and in the blood of his Saviour offered in the blessed Sacrament till he dye namelesse namelesse in the booke of Life It is a Character that one of the ancientest Poets gives of a well-bred and well-governed Gentleman That he would not tell such lyes as were like truths not probable lyes nor such truths as were like lyes not wonderfull not incredible truths It is the constancy of a rectified Christian not to call his indifferent actions sins for that is to slander God as a cruell God nor to call sins indifferent actions for that is to undervalue God as a negligent God God doth not keepe the Conscience of man upon the wrack in a continuall torture and stretching But God doth not stupifie the conscience with an Opiate in an insensiblenesse of any sin The law of God is the balance and the Criterium By that try thine actions and then confesse David did so Peccata he confessed sinnes nothing that was not so as such neither omitted he any thing that was so And then they were Peccata sua His sins I said I will confesse my sins unto the Lord. First Sua. Sua His sinnes that is à se perpetrata sins which he confesses to have been of his voluntary committing He might and did not avoyd them When Adam said by way of alienation and transferring his fault The woman whom thou gavest me And the woman said Gen. 3.12 The Serpent deceived me God tooke this by way of Information to finde out the Principall but not by way of extenuation or alleviation of their faults Every Adam eats with as much sweat of his browes and every Eve brings forth her Children with as much paine in her travaile as if there had been no Serpent in the case If a man sin against God who shall plead for him If a man lay his sins upon the Serpent upon the Devill it is no plea but if he lay them upon God it is blasphemy Iob finds some ground of a pious Expostulation with God in that My flesh is not brasse nor my strength stones And such as I am thou hast made me
we thought the Sunne had moved I need not that helpe that the Earth it selfe is in Motion to prove this That nothing upon Earth is permanent The Assertion will stand of it selfe till some man assigne me some instance something that a man may relie upon and find permanent Consider the greatest Bodies upon Earth The Monarchies Objects which one would thinke Destiny might stand and stare at but not shake Consider the smallest bodies upon Earth The haires of our head Objects which one would thinke Destiny would not observe or could not discerne And yet Destiny to speak to a naturall man And God to speake to a Christian is no more troubled to make a Monarchy ruinous then to make a haire gray Nay nothing needs be done to either by God or Destiny A Monarchy will ruine as a haire will grow gray of it selfe In the Elements themselves of which all sub-elementary things are composed there is no acquiescence but a vicissitudinary transmutation into one another Ayre condensed becomes water a more solid body And Ayre rarified becomes fire a body more disputable and in-apparant It is so in the Conditions of men too A Merchant condensed kneaded and packed up in a great estate becomes a Lord And a Merchant rarified blown up by a perfidious Factor or by a riotous Sonne evaporates into ayre into nothing and is not seen And if there were any thing permanent and durable in this world yet we got nothing by it because howsoever that might last in it selfe yet we could not last to enjoy it If our goods were not amongst Moveables yet we our selves are if they could stay with us yet we cannot stay with them which is another Consideration in this part The world is a great Volume and man the Index of that Booke Corpus hominis Even in the body of man you may turne to the whole world This body is an Illustration of all Nature Gods recapitulation of all that he had said before in his Fiat lux and Fiat firmamentum and in all the rest said or done in all the six dayes Propose this body to thy consideration in the highest exaltation thereof as it is the Temple of the Holy Ghost Nay not in a Metaphor or comparison of a Temple or any other similitudinary thing but as it was really and truly the very body of God in the person of Christ and yet this body must wither must decay must languish must perish When Goliah had armed and fortified this body And Iezabel had painted and perfumed this body And Dives had pampered and larded this body As God said to Ezekiel when he brought him to the dry bones Fili hominis Sonne of Man doest thou thinke these bones can live They said in their hearts to all the world Can these bodies die And they are dead Iezabels dust is not Ambar nor Goliahs dust Terra sigillata Medicinall nor does the Serpent whose meat they are both finde any better rellish in Dives dust then in Lazarus But as in our former part where our foundation was That in nothing no spirituall thing there was any perfectnesse which we illustrated in the weaknesses of Knowledge and Faith and Hope and Charity yet we concluded that for all those defects God accepted those their religious services So in this part where our foundation is That nothing in temporall things is permanent as we have illustrated that by the decay of that which is Gods noblest piece in Nature The body of man so we shall also conclude that with this goodnesse of God that for all this dissolution and putrefaction he affords this Body a Resurrection The Gentils Resurrectio and their Poets describe the sad state of Death so Nox una obeunda That it is one everlasting Night To them a Night But to a Christian it is Dies Mortis and Dies Resurrectionis The day of Death and The day of Resurrection We die in the light in the sight of Gods presence and we rise in the light in the sight of his very Essence Nay Gods corrections and judgements upon us in this life are still expressed so Dies visitationis still it is a Day though a Day of visitation and still we may discerne God to be in the action Gen. 2. The Lord of Life was the first that named Death Morte morieris sayes God Thou shalt die the Death I doe the lesse feare or abhorre Death because I finde it in his mouth Even a malediction hath a sweetnesse in his mouth for there is a blessing wrapped up in it a mercy in every correction a Resurrection upon every Death When Iezabels beauty exalted to that height which it had by art or higher then that to that height which it had in her own opinion shall be infinitely multiplied upon every Body And as God shall know no man from his own Sonne so as not to see the very righteousnesse of his own Sonne upon that man So the Angels shall know no man from Christ so as not to desire to looke upon that mans face because the most deformed wretch that is there shall have the very beauty of Christ himselfe So shall Goliahs armour and Dives fulnesse be doubled and redoubled upon us And every thing that we can call good shall first be infinitely exalted in the goodnesse and then infinitely multiplied in the proportion and againe infinitely extended in the duration And since we are in an action of preparing this dead Brother of ours to that state for the Funerall is the Easter-eve The Buriall is the depositing of that man for the Resurrection As we have held you with Doctrine of Mortification by extending the Text from Martha to this occasion so shall we dismisse you with Consolation by a like occasionall inverting the Text from passion in Martha's mouth Lord if thou hadst been here my Brother had not dyed to joy in ours Lord because thou wast here our Brother is not dead The Lord was with him in all these steps In vita with him in his life with him in his death He is with him in his funerals and he shall be with him in his Resurrection and therefore because the Lord was with him our Brother is not dead He was with him in the beginning of his life in this manifestation That though he were of Parents of a good of a great Estate yet his possibility and his expectation from them did not slacken his own industry which is a Canker that eats into nay that hath eat up many a family in this City that relying wholly upon what the Father hath done the Sonne does nothing for himselfe And truly it falls out too often that he that labours not for more does not keepe his own God imprinted in him an industrious disposition though such hopes from such parents might have excused some slacknesse and God prospered his industry so as that when his Fathers estate came to a distribution by death he needed it not God was with
incorruptionem sicut anima per fidem Because our bodie shall be regenerated by glory there as our soules are by faith here Therefore Tertul. cals the Resurrection Exemplum spei nostrae The Originall out of which we copy out our hope and Clavem sepulchrorū nostrorum How hard soever my grave be locked yet with that key with the application of the Resurrection of Christ Jesus it will open And they are all names which expresse this well which Tertullian gives Christ Vadem obsidem fidejussorem resurrectionis nostrae That he is the pledge the hostage the surety of our Resurrection So doth that also which is said in the Schoole Sicut Adam forma morientium Theoph. it a Christus forma resurgentium Without Adam there had beene no such thing as death without Christ no such thing as a Resurrection But ascendit ille effractor as the Prophet speaks The breaker is gone up before and they have passed through the gate that is assuredly Mich. 2.13 infallibly they shall passe But what needs all this heat all this animosity all this vehemence about the Resurrection May not man be happy enough in heaven though his body never come thither upon what will ye ground the Resurrection upon the Omnipotence of God Asylum haereticorum est Omnipotentia Dei which was well said and often repeated amongst the Ancients The Omnipotence of God hath alwaies been the Sanctuary of Heretiques that is alwaies their refuge in all their incredible doctrines God is able to do it can do it You confesse the Resurrection is a miracle And miracles are not to be multiplied nor imagined without necessity and what necessity of bodies in Heaven Beloved we make the ground and foundation of the Resurrection to be not meerely the Omnipotency of God for God will not doe all that he can doe but the ground is Omnipotens voluntas Dei revelata The Almighty will of God revealed by him to us And therefore Christ joynes both these together Erratis Ye erre Mat. 22.29 not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God that is not considering the power of God as it is revealed in the Scriptures for there is our foundation of this Doctrine we know out of the Omnipotence of God it may be and we know out of the Scriptures it must be That works upon our faith this upon our reason That it is man that must be saved man that must be damned and to constitute a man there must be a body as well as a soule Nay the Immortality of the soule will not so well lie in proofe without a resuming of the body For upon those words of the Apostle If there were no Resurrection we were the miserablest of all men the Schoole reasons reasonably Naturally the soule and body are united when they are separated by Death it is contrary to nature which nature still affects this union and consequently the soule is the lesse perfect for this separation and it is not likely that the perfect naturall state of the soule which is to be united to the body should last but three or foure score yeares and in most much lesse and the unperfect state that in the separation should last eternally for ever so that either the body must be beleeved to live againe or the soule beleeved to die Never therefore dispute against thine own happinesse never say God asks the heart that is the soule and therefore rewards the soule or punishes the soule and hath no respect to the body Nec auferamus cogitationes a collegio carnis saies Tertullian Never go about to separate the thoughts of the heart from the colledge from the fellowship of the body Siquidem in carne cum carne per carnem agitur quicquid ab anima agitur All that the soule does it does in and with and by the body And therefore saies he also Caro abluitur ut anima emaculetur The body is washed in baptisme but it is that the soule might be made cleane Caro ungitur ut anima consecretur In all unctions whether that which was then in use in Baptisme or that which was in use at our transmigration and passage out of this world the body was anointed that the soule might be consecrated Caro signatur saies Tertullian still ut anima muniatur The body is signed with the Crosse that the soule might be armed against tentations And againe Caro de Corpore Christi vescitur ut anima de Deo saginetur My body received the body of Christ that my soule might partake of his merits He extends it into many particulars and summes up all thus Non possunt in mercede separari quae opera conjungunt These two Body and Soule cannot be separated for ever which whilst they are together concurre in all that either of them doe Never thinke it presumption saies S. Gregory Sperare in te quod in se exhibuit Deus homo To hope for that in thy selfe which God admitted when he tooke thy nature upon him And God hath made it saies he more easie then so for thee to beleeve it because not onely Christ himselfe but such men as thou art did rise at the Resurrection of Christ And therefore when our bodies are dissolved and liquefied in the Sea putrified in the earth resolv'd to ashes in the fire macerated in the ayre Velut in vasa sua transfunditur caro nostra Tertul. make account that all the world is Gods cabinet and water and earth and fire and ayre are the proper boxes in which God laies up our bodies for the Resurrection Curiously to dispute against our owne Resurrection is seditiously to dispute against the dominion of Jesus who is not made Lord by the Resurrection if he have no subjects to follow him in the same way Wee beleeve him to be Lord therefore let us beleeve his and our Resurrection This blessed day Ille Iohn 2.19 Iohn 10.17 which we celebrate now he rose he rose so as none before did none after ever shall rise He rose others are but raised Destroy this Temple saies he and I will raise it I without imploying any other Architect I lay downe my life saies he the Jewes could not have killed him when he was alive If he were alive here now the Jesuits could not kill him here now except his being made Christ and Lord an anointed King have made him more open to them I have a power to lay it downe saies he and I have a power to take it up againe This day Nos Iohn 2.3 we celebrate his Resurrection this day let us celebrate our owne Our own not our one Resurrection for we need many Upon those words of our Saviour to Nicodemus Oportet denuo nasci speaking of the necessity of Baptisme Non solum denuo sed tertiò nasci oportet saies S. Bernard He must be born againe and againe againe by baptisme for Originall sin and for actuall sin againe by repentance Infoelix homo ego
the annointing Oyle and powre it upon his head The Mitre as you may see there was upon his head then but then there was a Crowne upon the Mitre There is a power above the Priest the regall power not above the function of the Priest but above the person of the Priest 1 Sam. 10.1 24. But Unction was the Consecration of Kings too Samuel saluted Saul with a kisse and all the people shouted and sayd God save the King but Is it not sayes Samuel because the Lord hath annointed thee to be captaine over his inheritance Kings were above Priests and in extraordinary cases God raysed Prophets above Kings for there is no ordinary power above them But Unction was the Consecration of these Prophets too Elisha was annointed to be Prophet in Elias roome and such a Prophet as should have use of the Sword 1 Reg. 19.16 17. Him that scapes the Sword of Hazael Hazael was King of Syria shall the Sword of Iehu slay and him that scapes the Sword of Iehu Iehu was King of Israel shall the Sword of Elisha slay In all these in Priests who were above the people in Kings who in matter of Government were above the Priests in Prophets who in those limited cases expressed by God and for that time wherein God gave them that extraordinary employment were above Kings The Unction imprinted their Consecration they were all Christs and in them all thereby was that Nuncupatio potestatis which Lactantius mentions Unction Annointing was an addition and title of honour Psal 109. Psal 2.6 Deut. 18. Much more in our Christ who alone was all three A Priest after the Order of Melchizedek A King set upon the holy hill of Sion And a Prophet The Lord thy God will rayse up a Prophet unto him shall yee harken And besides all this threefold Unction Humanitas uncta Divinitate He had all the unctions that all the other had and this which none other had In him the Humanity was Consecrated anointed with the Divinity it selfe So then Nazian Cyrill Psal 95.7 unio unctio The hypostaticall union of the Godhead to the humane nature is his Conception made him Christ for oleo laetitia perfusus in unione Then in that union of the two natures did God annoint him with the oyle of gladnes above his fellows There was an addition something gained something to be glad of and to him as he was God The Lord so nothing could be added If he were glad above his fellows it was in that respect wherein he had fellows and as God as The Lord he had none so that still as he was made Man he became this Christ In which his being made Man if we should not consider the last and principall purpose which was to redeem man if we leave out his part yet it were object inough for our wonder and subject inough for our praise and thankesgiving to consider the dignity that the nature of man received in that union wherin this Lord was thus made this Christ for the Godhead did not swallow up the manhood but man that nature remained still The greater kingdom did not swallow the lesse but the lesse had that great addition which it had not before and retained the dignities and priviledges which it had before too Damasc Christus est nomen personae non naturae The name of Christ denotes one person but not one nature neither is Christ so composed of those two natures as a man is composed of Elements for man is thereby made a third thing and is not now any of those Elements you cannot call mans body fire or ayre or earth or water though all foure be in his composition But Christ is so made of God and Man as that he is Man still for all the glory of the Deity and God still for all the infirmity of the manhood Idem Divinum miraculis lucet humanum contumeliis afficitur In this one Christ both appear The Godhead bursts out as the Sun out of a cloud and shines forth gloriously in miracles even the raysing of the dead and the humane nature is submitted to contempt and to torment even to the admitting of death in his own bosome sed tamen ipsius sunt tum miraculae Idem tum supplicia but still both he that rayses the dead and he that dyes himself is one Christ his is the glory of the Miracles and the contempt and torment is his too This is that mysterious person who is singularis and yet not individuus singularis There never was never shall be any such but we cannot call him Individuall Idem as every other particular man is because Christitatis non est Genus there is no genus nor species of Christs it is not a name which so as the name belongs to our Christ that is by being annointed with the divine nature can be communicated to any other as the name of Man may to every Individuall Man Christ is not that Spectrum that Damascene speaks of nor that Electrum that Tertullian speakes of not Spectrum so as that the two natures should but imaginarily be united and only to amaze and astonish us that we could not tell what to call it what to make of it a spectre an apparition a phantasma for he was a Reall person Neither was he Tertullians Electrum a third metall made of two other metals but a person so made of God and Man as that in that person God and Man are in their natures still distinguished He is Germen Davidis Iere. 23.5 Isa 4.2 in one Prophet The branch the Off-spring of David And he is Germen Iehovae The Branch the Off-spring of God of the Lord in another When this Germen Davidis the Sonne of Man would do miracles then he was Germen Iehovae he reflected to that stock into which the Humanity was engrafted to his Godhead And when this Germen Iehovae the Son of God would indure humane miseries he reflected to that stock to that humanity in which he had invested and incorporated himself This person 1 Cor. 15.3 Tertul. this Christ dyed for our sins says S. Paul but says he He dyed according to the Scriptures Non sine onere pronunciat Christum mortuum The Apostle thought it a hard a heavy an incredible thing to say that this person this Christ this Man and God was dead And therefore Vt duritiam molliret scandalum auditoris everteret That he might mollifie the hardnes of that saying and defend the hearer from being scandalized with that saying Adjecit secundùm scripturas He adds this Christ is dead according to the Scriptures If the Scriptures had not told us that Christ should die and told us againe that Christ did die it were hard to conceive how this person in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily should be submitted to death But therein principally is he Christus as he was capable of dying As he was Verbum naturale and innatum
to call it Peace in the Church and peace in the State when Gods enemies though they be not rooted out though they be not disposed to a hearty Allegeance and just Obedience yet they must be subject they must submit themselves whether they wil or no and though they wil wish no good yet they shall be able to doe no harme For the Holy Ghost declares this to be an exercise of power of Gods power of the greatnesse of Gods power that his enemies submit themselves though with a fained obedience SERMONS Preached at COURT AND ELSE-VVHERE VPON Severall Occasions SERM. LXX Preached at VVhite-hall April 8. 1621. PROV 25.16 Hast thou found honey eat so much as is sufficient for thee lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it THere is a temporall unsatiablenesse of riches and there is a spirituall unsatiablenesse of sin The first Covetousnesse that of riches the Apostle cals The roote of all evill but the second Covetousnesse that of sin is the fruit of all evill for that is The treasure of Gods wrath as the Apostle speaks when he makes our former sins the mother of future sins and then our future sins the punishments of former As though this World were too little to satisfie man men are come to discover or imagine new worlds severall worlds in every Planet and as though our Fathers heretofore and we our selves too had beene but dull and ignorant sinners we thinke it belongs to us to perfect old inventions and to sin in another height and excellency then former times did as though sin had had but a minority and an infancy till now Though the pride of the Prince of Tyrus were ever in some Tyrans who sayes there I am a god and sit in the seat of God in the midst of the Seas Ezek. 28.2 and am wiser then Daniel Yet there is a Sea above these seas a power above this power a spirituall pride above this temporall pride one so much wiser then Daniel as that he is as wise as the Holy Ghost The world hath ever had levities and inconstancies Ecclus. 27.11 and the foole hath changed as the Moone the same men that have cryed Hosanna are ready to cry Crucifige but as in Iobs Wife in the same mouth the same word was ambiguous whether it were blesse God or curse God out of the word we cannot tell so are the actions of men so ambiguous as that we cannot conclude upon them men come to our Prayers here and pray in their hearts here in this place that God would induce another manner of Prayer into this place and so pray in the Congregation that God would not heare the prayers of the Congregation There hath alwaies beene ambiguity and equivocation in words but now in actions and almost every action will admit a diverse sense And it was the Prophets complaint of old You have multiplied your fornications Ezek. 16. and yet are not satisfied but we wonder why the Prophet should wonder at that for the more we multiplie temporally or spiritually the lesse we are satisfied Others have thought that our soules sinned before they came into the world and that therefore they are here as in a prison but they are rather here as in a Schoole for if they had studied sin in another world before they practise it here If they have practised it before they teach it now they lead and induce others into sin But this consideration of our insatiablenesse in sin in my purpose I seposed for the end of this houre But who knowes whether your patience that you will heare or who knowes whether yours or my life that you can heare shall last to the end of this houre and therefore it is an excusable anticipation to have begun with this spirituall covetousnesse of sin though our first paiment be to be made in the literall sense of the text A reprehension and in it a Counsaile against our generall insatiablenesse of the temporall things of this world Hast thou found honey eat so much as is sufficient for thee lest thou bee filled therewith and vomit it In which words Divisio there being first a particular Compellation Tu hast thou found it it remembers thee that there be a great many that have not found it but lack that which thou aboundest in And Invenisti thou hast not inherited it nor merited it thou hast but found it and for that which thou hast found it is Honey sweetness but it is but Honey which easily becomes choler and gall and bitternesse Such as it is Comede thou maist eat it and eat it safely it is not unwholesome but Comede sufficientiam eat no more then is sufficient And in that let not the servant measure himselfe by his Master nor the subject by the King nor the private man by the Magistrate but Comede sufficientiam tuam eat that which is sufficient for thee for more then that will fill thee over-fill thee perchance not so full as thou wouldst bee yet certainly so full as that there will bee no roome in thee for better things and then thou wilt vomit nay perchance thou must vomit the malice and plots of others shall give thee a vomit And such a vomit shall bee Evacuans an exinanition leave thee empty and Immundum an uncleannesse leave thee in scorne and contempt and Periculosum a danger breake a veine a veine at the heart breake thy heart it selfe that thou shalt never recover it Hast thou found honey eat so much as is sufficient for thee lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it First then Tu. for that Compellation Tu hast thou found it It is a word first of familiarity and then a word of particularity It is a degree of familiarity that God hath notified himselfe to us in severall Persons that hee hath come so neere to our comprehension as to be considered not onely as an universall and infinite God but as a Father and as a Sonne and opened himselfe unto us in these Notions Tu Pater Tu Fili Thou O Father and Thou O Sonne have mercy upon us A Constable or Beadle will not bee spoke to so to be thou'd and any Person in the Trinity the whole Trinity together is content with it Psal 92.8 Take God altogether and at highest Tu altissimus Thou Lord art most high for evermore Psal 93.2 Take him from before any beginning Tu à seculo Thy throue is established of old and thou art from everlasting Take him from beyond all ending Tu autem permanes Psal 102.27 Thou art the same and thy yeares shall have no end In which we goe not about to condemne or correct the civill manner of giving different titles to different ranks of men but to note the slipperiness of our times where titles flow into one another and lose their distinctions when as the Elements are condensed into one another ayre condensed into water and that into earth so an obsequious
said also That the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine Ver. 2. Sin is wine at first so farre as to allure to intoxicate It is water at last so farre as to suffocate to strangle Christ Jesus way is to change water into wine sorrow into joy The Devils way is to change wine into water pleasure and but false pleasure neither into true bitternesse The watrish wine which is spoken of there and called fornication is idolatry and the like And in such a respect Jer. 2.18 God sayes to his people What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt In the way of Egypt we cannot chuse but have something to doe some conversation with men of an Idolatrous religion we must needs have But yet What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt to drinke of the waters of Sihor Or what hast thou to doe in the wayes of Assyria to drink the waters of the River Though we be bound to a peaceable conversation with men of an Idolatrous perswasion we are not bound to take in to drink to taste their errours For this facility and this indifferency to accompany men of divers religions in the acts of their religion Ver. 13. this multiplicity will end in a nullity and we shall hew to our selves Cisternes broken Cisternes that can hold no water We shall scatter one religion into many and those many shall vanish into none Praise we God therefore that the Spirit of God hath so moved upon these waters these sinfull waters of superstition and idolatry wherein our fore-Fathers were overwhelmed that they have not swelled over us Ecclus. 43.20 For then the cold North-winde blowes and the water is congealed into Ice Affliction overtakes us damps us stupifies us and we finde no Religion to comfort us Affliction is as often expressed in this word Tribulatio Esay 43.2 Waters as sin When thou passest through waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee But then the Spirit of God moves upon these waters too and grace against sin and deliverance from affliction is as often expressed in waters as either Where God takes another Metaphore for judgement Ezek. 36.5 Ver. 25. yet he continues that of water for his mercy In the fire of my jealousie have I spoken against them speaking of enemies but then speaking of Israel I will sprinkle cleane water upon you and you shall be cleane This is his way and this is his measure He sprinkles enough at first to make us cleane even the sprinkling of Baptisme cleanses us from originall sin but then he sets open the windowes of heaven and he inlarges his Flood-gates Esay 44.3 I will poure out water upon the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground To them that thirst after him he gives grace for grace that is present grace for an earnest of future grace of subsequent grace and concomitant grace and auxiliant grace and effectuall grace grace in more formes more notions and in more operations then the Schoole it selfe can tell how to name Thus the Spirit of God moves upon our waters Mat. 14. By faith Peter walked upon the waters so we prevent occasions of tentation to sin and sinke not in them but walke above them By godly exercises we swim through waters so the Centurion commanded that they that could swim Acts 27.43 should cast themselves into the sea Men exercised in holinesse can meet a tentation or tribulation in the face and not be shaked with it weaker men men that cannot swim must be more wary of exposing themselves to dangers of tentation A Court does some man no harme when another finds tentation in a Hermitage By repentance we saile through waters by the assistance of Gods ordinances in his Church which Church is the Arke we attaine the harbour peace of conscience after a sin But this Arke this helpe of the Church we must have God can save from dangers though a man went to Sea without art Sine rate saies the Vulgat without a Ship Wisd 14.4 But God would not that the worke of his Wisedome should be idle God hath given man Prudentiam navifactivam saies our Holkot upon that place and he would have that wisdome exercised God can save without Preaching and Absolution and Sacraments but he would not have his Ordinance neglected To end all with the end of all Death comes to us in the name Mors. 2 Sam. 14.14 and notion of waters too in the Scriptures The Widow of Tekoah said to David in the behalfe of Absalon by the Counsaile of Ioab The water of death overslowes all We must needs dye saies she and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up againe yet God devises meanes that his banished be not expelled from him So the Spirit of God moves upon the face of these waters the Spirit of life upon the danger of death Consider the love more then love the study more then study the diligence of God he devises meanes that his banished those whom sins or death had banished be not expelled from him I sinned upon the strength of my youth and God devised a meanes to reclaime me an enfeebling sicknesse I relapsed after my recovery and God devised a meanes an irrecoverable a helpless Consumption to reclaime me That affliction grew heavy upon me and weighed me down even to a diffidence in Gods mercy and God devised a meanes the comfort of the Angel of his Church his Minister The comfort of the Angel of the great Counsell the body and blood of his Son Christ Jesus at my transmigration Yet he lets his correction proceed to death I doe dye of that sicknesse and God devises a meanes that I though banished banished into the grave shall not be expelled from him a glorious Resurrection We must needs dye and be as water spilt upon the ground but yet God devises meanes that his banished shall not be expelled from him And this is the motion and this is the Rest of the Spirit of God upon those waters in this spirituall sense of these words He brings us to a desire of Baptisme he settles us in the sense of the obligation first and then of the benefits of Baptisme He suffers us to goe into the way of tentations for Coluber in via and every calling hath particular tentations and then he settles us by his preventing or his subsequent grace He moves in submitting us to tribulation he settles us in finding that our tribulations do best of all conforme us to his Son Christ Jesus He moves in removing us by the hand of Death and he settles us in an assurance That it is he that now lets his Servants depart in peace And he who as he doth presently lay our soules in that safe Cabinet the Bosome of Abraham so he keepes an eye upon every graine and atome of our dust whither soever it be blowne and keepes a
necessity of being borne againe of Water and the Spirit The holy sense of our naturall wretchednesse is his For It is he that reproves the world of Sin of Righteousnesse of Iudgement The sense oftrue comfort is his Acts 9.31 The Churches were multiplied in the comforts of the Holy Ghost All from the Creation to the Resurrection and the Resurrection it selfe is his Rom. 8.11 The Spirit of him that raised Iesus from the dead shall quicken your mortall bodies by the same Spirit 2 Cor. 1.22 Eph. 1.13 Iohn 4.14 Mat. 3.11 Zach. 12.10 Heb. 1.9 Rom. 8.26 He is Arrha The earnest that God gives to them now to whom he will give all hereafter He is Sigillum that seale of our evidence You are sealed with that holy Spirit of promise He is the water which whosoever drinks shall never thirst when Christ hath given it And he is that fire with which Christ baptizes who baptizes with fire and with the Holy Ghost He is Spiritus precum The Spirit of grace and supplication And he is Oleum laetitiae The oyle of gladnesse that anoints us when we have prayed He is our Advocate He maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered And when our groanings under the calamities of this world are uttered without remedy he is that Paracletus Iohn 16.7 The Comforter who when Christ himselfe seemes to be gone from us comes to us who is as Tertullian expresses it elegantly enough but not largely enough Dei Villicus Vicaria vis Christi The Vice-gerent of Christ and the Steward of God but he is more much more infinitely more for he is God himselfe All that which S. Iohn intends in the seaven Spirits which are about the Throne is in this One in this onely Spirit August 1 Cor. 12.4 who is Vnicus septiformis solus multiplex One and yet seaven that is infinite for Though there be diversity of gifts yet there is but one Spirit He is God because the essentiall name of God is his Therefore let us call upon his name And because the Attributes of God are his Therefore let us attribute to him All Might Majesty Dominion Power and Glory And he is God because the Works of God are his 1 Cor. 6.17 Therefore let us co-operate and work with this Spirit and we shall be the same Spirit with him He is God Persona That was our first step and our second is that he is a distinct Person in the God-head He is not Virtus à Deo in homine exaltata Not the highest and powerfullest working of God in man Not Afflatus Divinus The breathing of God into the soule of man These are low expressions for they are all but Dona Charismata The gifts of the Holy Ghost not the Holy Ghost himselfe But he is a distinct person as the taking of the shape of a Dove and the shape of fiery tongues doe declare which are acts of a distinct person It is not the Power of the King that signes a pardon but his Person When the power of the Government was in two Persons in the two Consuls at Rome yet the severall acts were done by their severall Persons Wilt thou ask me What needs these three Persons Is there any thing in the three Persons that is not in the one God Yes The Father the Son the Holy Ghost fals not in the bare consideration of that one God Wilt thou say What if they doe not What lack we if we have one Almighty God Though that God had no Son nor they two no Holy Ghost We lacked our redemption we lacked all our direction wee lacked the revealed will of God the Scriptures we have not God if we have him not as he hath delivered himselfe and he hath done that in the Scriptures and we imbrace him as we finde him there and we finde him there to be one God in three Persons and the Holy Ghost to bee one of those three and in them we rest He is one Ex filio but one that proceeds from two from the Father and from the Son Some in the Greek Church in later times denied the proceeding of the Holy Ghost from the Son but this was especially a jealousie in termes They thought that to make him proceed from two were to make duo principia two roots two beginnings from whence the Holy Ghost should proceed and that might not be admitted for the Father and the Son are but one cause of the Holy Ghost if we may use that word Cause in this my stery And therefore it is as suspiciously and as dangerously said by the Master of the Sentences and by the later Schoole That the Holy Ghost proceeds Minùs Principaliter Not so radically from the Son as from the Father for in this action The Father and the Son are but one roote and the Holy Ghost equally from both In the generation of the Son the Father is in order before the Son but in the procession of the holy Ghost he is not so He is from both for where he is first named he is called Spiritus Elohim The Spirit of Gods in the plurall In this Chapter in the ninth verse Gen. 1.2 he is the Spirit of the Son If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his And so in the Apostle God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts God sent him and Christ sent him Gal. 4.6 Iohn 16.17 Iohn 20.22 If I depart I will send the Comforter unto you He sent him after he went and he gave him when he was here He breathed upon his Apostles and said Receive ye the holy Ghost So he is of both But by what manner comes he from them By proceeding Processio That is a very generall word for Creation is proceeding and so is Generation too Creatures proceed from God and so doth God the Son proceed from God the Father what is this proceeding of the holy Ghost that is not Creation nor Generation Nazianz. Exponant cur quomodo Spiritus pulsat in arteriis tum in processionem Spiritus sancti inquirant When they are able clearly and with full satisfaction to tell themselves how and from whence that spirit proceeds which beats in their pulse let them inquire how this Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Sonne And let them think till they be mad and speak till they behoarce and reade till they be blind and write till they be lame they must end with S. Augustine Distinguere inter Processioncm Generationem nescio non valeo non sufficio I cannot distinguish I cannot assigne a difference between this Generation and this Proceeding We use to say they differ principio That the Son is from the Father alone the holy Ghost from both but when this is said that must be said too That both Father and Son are but one beginning We use to say They differ ordine
consider the two termes in which it is expressed what this is which is translated Transgression and then what this Forgiving imports The Originall word is Pashang and that signifies sin in all extensions The highest the deepest the waightiest sin It is a malicious and a forcible opposition to God It is when this Herod and this Pilat this Body and this soule of ours are made friends and agreed that they may concurre to the Crucifying of Christ When not onely the members of our bodies but the faculties of our soul our will and understanding are bent upon sin when we doe not only sin strongly and hungerly and thirstily which appertain to the body but we sin rationally we finde reasons and those reasons even in Gods long patience why we should sin We sin wittily we invent new sins and we thinke it an ignorant a dull and an unsociable thing not to sin yea we sin wisely and make our sin our way to preferment Then is this word used by the Holy Ghost when he expresses both the vehemence and the waight and the largenesse and the continuance all extensions all dimensions of the sins of Damascus Amos 1.3 Thus saith the Lord for three transgressions of Damascus and for foure I will not turne to it because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of Iron So then we consider sin here not as a staine such as Originall sin may be nor as a wound such as every actuall sin may be but as a burden a complication a packing up of many sins in an habituall practise thereof This is that waight that sunke the whole world under water in the first floud and shall presse downe the fire it selfe to consume it a second time It is a waight that stupifies and benums him that beares it August so as that the sinner feeles not the oppression of his owne sins Et quid miserius miscro non miserante seipsum What misery can be greater then when a miserable man hath not sense to commiserate his owne misery Our first errors are out of Levity and S. Augustin hath taught us a proper ballast and waight for that Amor Dei pondus animae The love of God would carry us evenly and steadily if we would embarke that But as in great tradings they come to ballast with Merchandise ballast and fraight is al one so in this habituall sinner all is sin plots and preparations before the act gladnesse and glory in the act sometimes disguises sometimes justifications after the act make up one body one fraight of sin So then Transgression in this place in the naturall signification of the word is a waight a burden and carrying it as the word requires to the greatest extension it is the sin of the whole World And that sinne is forgiven which is the second Terme The Prophet does not say here Forgiven Blessed is that man that hath no transgression for that were to say Blessed is that man that is no man All people all Nations did ever in Nature acknowledge not onely a guiltinesse of sin but some meanes of reconciliation to their Gods in the Remission of sins for they had all some formall and Ceremoniall Sacrifices and Expiations and Lustrations by which they thought their sins to be purged and washed away Whosoever acknowledges a God acknowledges a Remission of sins and whosoever acknowledges a Remission of sins acknowledges a God And therefore in this first place David does not mention God at all he does not say Blessed is he whose transgression the Lord hath forgiven for he presumes it to be an impossible tentation to take hold of any man that there can be any Remission of sin from any other person or by any other meanes then from and by God himselfe and therefore Remission of sins includes an Act of God But what kinde of Act is more particularly designed in the Originall word which is Nasa then our word forgiving reaches to for the word does not onely signifie Auferre but ferre not onely to take away sin by way of pardon but to take the sin upon himselfe and so to beare the sin and the punishment of the sin in his owne person And so Christ is the Lambe of God Qui tollit not onely that takes away Esay 53.4 but that takes upon himselfe the sins of the world Tulit portavit Surely he hath borne our griefes and carried our sorrowes Those griefes those sorrowes which we should he hath borne and carried in his owne person So that as it is all one never to have come in debt and to have discharged the debt So the whole world all mankinde considered in Christ is as innocent as if Adam had never sinned And so this is the first beame of Blessednesse that shines upon my soule That I beleeve that the justice of God is fully satisfied in the death of Christ and that there is enough given and accepted in the treasure of his blood for the Remission of all Transgressions And then the second beame of this Blessednesse is in The covering of sins Now to benefit our selves by this part of Davids Catechisme Sinne. we must as we did before consider the two termes of which this part of this Blessednesse consists sin and covering Sin in this place is not so heavy a word as Transgression was in the former for that was sin in all extensions sinne in all formes all sin of all men of all times of all places the sin of all the world upon the shoulders of the Saviour of the world In this place the word is Catah and by the derivation thereof from Nata which is to Decline to step aside or to be withdrawne and Kut which is filum a thread or a line that which we call sin here signifies Transilire lineam To depart or by any tentation to be withdrawne from the direct duties and the exact straightnesse which is required of us in this world for the attaining of the next So that the word imports sins of infirmity such sins as doe fall upon Gods best servants such sins as rather induce a cofession of our weaknesse and an acknowledgement of our continuall need of pardon for some thing passed and strength against future invasions then that induce any devastation or obduration of the conscience which Transgression in the former branch implied For so this word Catah hath that signification as in many other places there where it is said Iudg â—â— 16 That there were seven hundred left-handed Benjamits which would sling stones at a haires breadth and not faile that is not misse the marke a haires breadth And therefore when this word Catah sin is used in Scripture to expresse any weighty hainous enormous sin it hath an addition Peccatum magnum peccaverunt sayes Moses Exod. 32.31 when the people were become Idolaters These people have sinned a great sin otherwise it signifies such sin as destroyes not the foundation such as in the nature
or of remporall blessings doe but destroy us But God begun the new world the Christian Church with water too with the Sacrament of Baptisme Pursue his Example begin thy Regeneration with teares If thou have frozen eyes thou hast a frozen heart too If the fires of the Holy Ghost cannot thaw thee in his promises the fire of hell will doe it much lesse which is a fire of obduration not of liquefaction and does not melt a soule to poure it out into a new and better form but hardens it nails it confirmes it in the old Christ bids you take heed Mat. 24.20 that your flight be not in winter That your transgmigration out of this world be not in cold dayes of Indevotion nor in short dayes of a late repentance Take heed too that your flight be not in such a summer as this That your transmigration out of this world be not in such a drought of summer as David speaks of here that the soule have lost her Humidum radicale all her tendernesse or all expressing of that tendernesse in the sense of her transgressions So did David see himselfe so did he more fore-see in others that should farther incurre Gods displeasure then he by Gods good nesse had done this exsiccatian this incineration of body and soule sinne burnes and turnes body and soule to a Cinder but not such a Cinder but that they can and shall both burne againe and againe and for ever And the dangerous effect of this silence and roaring Ossa Naturalia Drut 29.5 David expresses in another phrase too Inveter averunt ossa That his bones were waxen old and consumed for so that word Balah signifies Your Clothes are not waxed old upon you nor your shooes waxed old upon your feet In the Consuming of these Bones as our former Translation hath it the vehemence of the Affliction is presented and in the waxing old the continuance Here the Rule fayls Si longa levis sigravis brevis Calamities that last long are light and if they be heavy they are short both wayes there is some intimation of some ease But God suffers not this sinner to injoy that ease God will lay inough upon his body to kill another in a weeke and yet he shall pant many yeares under it As the way of his Blessing is Apprehendet tritura vindemiam Lâ—vit 26. Your vintage shall reach to your threshing and your threshing to your sowing So in an impenitent sinner his fever shall reach to a frenzy his frenzy to a consumption his consumption to a penury and his penury to a wearying and tyring out of all that are about him and all the sins of his youth shall meet in the anguish of his body But that is not all Ossa Spiricualia Etiam animae membra sunt sayes S. Basil The soule hath her Bones too And those are our best actions Those which if they had been well done might have been called Good works and might have met us in heaven But when a man continues his beloved sinne when he is in doloso spiritu and deals with God in false measures and false waights makes deceitfull Confessions to God his good works shall doe him no good his Bones are consumed not able to beare him upright in the sight of God This David sees in himselfe and foresees in others and he sees the true reason of all this Quia aggravata manus Because the hand of God lyes heavy upon him which is another branch of his Confession It was the safety of the Spouse Aggravata manus Câ—at 2.6 Gregor That his left hand was under her head and that his right hand embraced her And it might well be her safety for Per laevam vita pr aesens per dextram aeterna designatur sayes S. Gregory His left hand denotes this and his right the other life Our happinesse in this our assurance of the next consists in this that we are in the hands of God But here in our Text Gods hand was heavy upon him and that is an action of pushing away and keeping downe And then when we see the great power and the great indignation of God upon the Egyptians Exed 8.19 is expressed but so Digitus Dei the finger of God is in it how heavy an affliction must this of David be esteemed Quando aggravata manus when his whole hand was and was heavy upon him Here then is one lesson for all men and another peculiar to the children of God This appertains to all That when they are in silentio in a seared and stupid forgetting of their sinnes or in Doloso spiritu in half-Confessions half-abjurations half-detestations of their sinnes The hand of God will grow heavy upon them Tell you your children of it sayes the Prophet and let your children tell their children and let their children tell another generation for this belongs to all That which is left of the Palmer worme the Grashopper shall eat and that that he leaves the Canker worme shall eat and the residue of the Canker worme the Caterpiller The hand of God shall grow heavy upon a silent sinner in his body in his health and if he conceive a comfort that for all his sicknesse he is rich and therefore cannot fayle of helpe and attendance there comes another worme and devours that faithlesnesse in persons trusted by him oppressions in persons that have trusted him facility in undertaking for others corrupt Judges heavy adversaries tempests and Pirats at Sea unseasonable or ill Markets at land costly and expensive ambitions at Court one worme or other shall devoure his riches that he eased himselfe upon If he take up another Comfort that though health and wealth decay though he be poore and weake yet he hath learning and philosophy and morall constancy and he can content himselfe with himselfe he can make his study a Court and a few Books shall supply to him the society and the conversation of many friends there is another worme to devoure this too the hand of divine Justice shall grow heavy upon him in a sense of an unprofitable retirednesse in a disconsolate melancholy and at last in a stupidity tending to desperation This belongs to all to all Non-confitents That thinke not of confessing their sinnes at all To all Semi-confitents that confesse them to halfs without purpose of amendment Aggravabitur manus The hand of God will grow heavy upon them every way and stop every issue every posterne every saly every means of escape But that which is peculiar to the Children of God is That when the hand of God is upon them they shall know it to be the hand of God and take hold even of that oppressing hand and not let it goe till they have received a Blessing from it that is raysed themselves even by that heavy and oppressing hand of his even in that affliction Psal 82. Psal 77. Habak 3.16 That when God shall fill their faces with shame yet they
uncleannesses from which if they neglected to cleanse themselves by those ceremonies which were appropriated to them then those uncleannesses became sins and they were put to their sacrifices before they could be discharged of them Many levities many omissions many acts of infirmity might be prevented by consideration before or cleansed by consideration now if we did truly value the present grace that is alwayes offered us in these the Ordinances of God What sin can I be guilty of that is without example of mercy in that Gospel which is preached to me here But if you will not accept it when God offers it you can never have it so good cheape because hereafter you shall have this present sin of refusing that offer of grace added to your burthen Ezek. 24.13 Because I have purged thee thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged any more til I have caused my fury to light upon thee But shall we be purged then Then when his fury in any calamity hath lighted upon us Is not this donec this untill such a donec as donec faciam Till I make thine cnemies thy footstoole Such a donec as the donec peperit shee was a Virgin Till shee brought forth her first sonne Is it not an everlasting donec That we shall not be purged till Gods Judgements fall upon us nor then neither Physicke may be ministred too late to worke and Judgements may fall too late to souple or entender the soule For as wee may die with that Physick in our stomach so may we be carried to the last Judgement with that former Judgement upon our shoulders And therefore our later Translation hath expressed it more fully Not that that fury shall light but shall rest upon us This cleansing therefore is that disposition which God by his grace infuses into us That we stand in the congregation and Communion of Saints capable of those mercies which God hath by his Ordinance annexed to these meetings That we may so feele at all times when we come hither such a working of his Hyssop such a benefit of his Ordinance as that we beleeve all our former sins to be so forgiven as that if God should translate us now this minute to another life this Dosis of this purging Hyssop received now had so wrought as that we should be assuredly translated into the Kingdome of heaven This cleansing applies to us those words of our Saviour My sonne be of good cheare thy sinnes are forgiven thee But yet there is a farther degree of cleanenesse expressed in Christs following words Goe and sin no more And that grace against relapses the gift of sanctification and perseverance is that that David askes in his other Petition Lava me Wash me and I shall be whiter then snow Here we proposed first the action Lava Wash me This is more then a sprinkling Lava A totall and intire washing More then being an ordinary partaker of the outward meanes The Word and Sacraments more then a temporary feeling of the benefit thereof in a present sense for it is a building up of habits of religious actions visible to others and it is a holy and firme confidence created in us by the Spirit of God that we shall keepe that building in reparation and goe forward with it to our lives end It is a washing like Naamans in Jordan to be iterated seaven times seaventy seaven times daily hourly all our life A washing begun in Baptisme pursued in sweat in the industry of a lawfull calling continued in teares for our deficiencies in the workes of our calling and perchance to bee consummated in blood at our deaths Not such a washing as the Washes have which are those sands that are overflowed with the Sea at every Tide and then lie dry but such a washing as the bottome of the Sea hath that is alwayes equally wet It is not a stillicidium a spout a showre a bucket powred out upon us when we come to Church a Sabbath-sanctification and no more but a water that enters into every office of our house and washes every action proceeding from every faculty of the soule And this is the washing A continuall succession of Grace working effectually to present Habits of religious acts and constituting a holy purpose of persevering in them that induces the Whitenesse the Candor the Dealbation that David begs here Lava Dealbabor The purging with Hyssope which we spoke of before Dealbabor which is the benefit which we have by being bred in a true Church delivers us from that rednesse which is in the earth of which wee are made from that guiltinesse which is by our naturall derivation from our Parents imprinted in us Baptisme doth much upon that but that that is not Red is not therefore White But this is our case Our first colour was white God made man righteous Our rednesse is from Adam and the more that rednesse is washed off 2 Cor. 7.1 the more we returne to our first whitenesse And this which is petitioned here is a washing of such perfection as cleanses us Ab omni inquinamento from all filthinesse of flesh and spirit Those inquinamenta which are ordinary are first in the flesh Concupiscence and Carnality Gal. 5.19 and those other of which the Apostle sayes The works of the flesh are manifest And in the spirit they are Murmuring Diffidence in God and such others But besides these as an over-diligent cleansing of the Body and additionall beauty of the Body is inquinamentum carnis one of S. Pauls filthinesses upon the flesh so an over purifying of the spirit in an uncharitable undervaluing of other men and in a schismaticall departing from the unity of the Church is Inquinamentum spiritus False beauties are a foulnesse of the body false purity is a foulnesse of the spirit But the washing that wee seeke cleanses us Ab omni inquinamento from all foulnesse of flesh and spirit All waters will not cleanse us nor all fires dry us so as wee may be cleane smoaky fires will not doe that I will poure cleane water upon you Ezek. 36.25 and you shall be cleane The Sunne produces sweat upon us and it dries us too Zeale cleanses us but it must be zeale impermixt as the Sun not mingled with our smoaky sooty factious affections Some Grammarians have noted the word Washing here to be derived from a word that signifies a Lambe we must be washed in the blood of the Lambe and we must be brought to the whitenesse the candor the simplicity of the Lambe no man is pure that thinks no man pure but himselfe And this whitenesse which is Sanctification in our selves and charitable interpretation of other men is exalted here to that Superlative Super Nivem Wash me and I shall be whiter then Snow Though your sins be as Scarlet Super nivem Esay 1.18 they shall be as white as snow Esay was an Euangelicall Prophet a propheticall Euangelist and speaks still
of the state of the Christian Church There by the ordinary meanes exhibited there our Scarlet sins are made as white as Snow And the whitenesse of Snow is a whitenesse that no art of man can reach to So Christs garments in his Transfiguration are expressed to have beene as white as Snow Marke 9.3 so as no Fuller on earth could white them Nothing in this world can send me home in such a whitenesse no morall counsaile no morall comfort no morall constancy as Gods Absolution by his Minister as the profitable hearing of a Sermon the worthy receiving of the Sacrament do This is to be as white as snow In a good state for the present But David begs a whitenesse above Snow for Snow melts and then it is not white our present Sanctification withers and we lose that cheereful verdure the testimony of an upright conscience And Snow melted Snow water is the coldest water of all Devout men departed from their former fervor are the coldest and the most irreducible to true zeale true holinesse Therefore David who was metall tried seven times in the fire and desired to be such gold as might be laid up in Gods Treasury might consider that in transmutation of metals it is not enough to come to a calcination or a liquefaction of the metall that must be done nor to an Ablution to sever drosse from pure nor to a Transmutation to make it a better metall but there must be a Fixion a fettling thereof so that it shall not evaporate into nothing nor returne to his former nature Therefore he saw that he needed not only a liquefaction a melting into teares nor only an Ablution a Transmutation those he had by this purging and this washing this station in the Church of God and this present Sanctification there but he needed Fixionem an establishment which the comparison of Snow afforded not That as he had purged him with Hyssop and so cleansed him that is enwrapped him in the Covenant and made him a member of the true Church and there washed him so as that he was restored to a whitenesse that is made his Ordinances so effectuall upon him as that then he durst deliver his soule into his hands at that time So he would exalt that whitenesse above the whitenesse of Snow so as nothing might melt it nothing discolour it but that under the seale of his blessed Spirit he might ever dwell in that calme in that assurance in that acquiescence that as he is in a good state this minute he shall be in no worse whensoever God shall be pleased to translate him We end all the Psalmes in our service Conclusio those of Praise and those of Prayer too with a Gloria Patri Glory be to the Father c. For our conclusion of this Prayer in this Psalme we have reserved a Gloria Patri too This consideration for the glory of God that though in the first Part The Persons the persons were varied God and man yet in our second Part where we confider the worke the whole worke is put into Gods hand and received from Gods hand Let God be true and every man a liar Let God be strong and every man infirme Let God give and man but receive What man that hath no propriety therein can take a penny out of another mans house or a roote out of his Garden but the Law will take hold of him Hath any man a propriety in Grace what had he to give for it Nature Is Nature equivalent to Grace No man does refine and exalt Nature to the height it would beare but if naturall faculties were exalted to their highest is Nature a fit exchange for Grace and if it were is Nature our owne Why should we be loath to acknowledge to have all our ability of doing good freely from God and immediately by his grace when as even those faculties of Nature by which we pretend to do the offices of Grace we have from God himselfe too For that question of the Apostle involves all What hast thou that thou hast not received Thy naturall faculties are no more thine owne then the grace of God is thine owne I would not be beholden to God for Grace and I must be as much beholden to him for Nature if Nature do supply Grace Because he hath made thee to be a man he hath given thee naturall faculties because he hath vouchsafed thee to be a Christian he hath given thee meanes of Grace But as thy body conceived in thy Mothers wombe could not claime a soule at Gods hand nor wish a soule no nor know that there was a soule to be had So neither by being a man indued with naturall faculties canst thou claime grace or wish grace nay those naturall faculties if they be not pre-tincted with some infusion of Grace before cannot make thee know what Grace is or that Grace is To a child rightly disposed in the wombe God does give a soule To a naturall man rightly disposed in his naturall faculties God does give Grace But that Soule was not due to that child nor that grace to that man Therefore as we said at first David does not bring the Hyssop and pray God to make the potion but Doe thou purge me with Hyssop All is thine owne There was no pre-existent matter in the world when God made the world There is no pre-existent merit in man when God makes him his David does not say Do thou wash me and I will perfect thy worke Give me my portion of Grace and I will trouble thee for no more but deale upon that stocke But Qui sanctificatur sanctificetur adhuc Let him that is holy be more holy but accept his Sanctification from him of whom he had his Justification and except he can think to glorifie himself because he is sanctified let him not think to sanctifie himself because he is justified God does all Yet thus argues S. Augustin upon Davids words Tuus sum Domine Lord I am thine and therefore safer then they that thinke themselves their owne Every man can and must say I was thine Thine by Creation but few can say I am thine few that have not changed their Master But how was David his so especially sayes S. Augustine Quia quaesivi justificationes tuas as it followes there Because I sought thy Righteousnesse thy Justification But where did he seeke it Hee sought it and he found it in himselfe In himselfe as himselfe there was no good thing to be found how far soever he had sought But yet he found a Justification though of Gods whole making yet in himselfe So then this is our Act of Recognition we acknowledge God and God onely to doe all But we doe not so make him Soveraigne alone as that we leave his presence naked and empty Nor so make him King alone as that we depopulate his Country and leave him without Subjects Nor so leave all to Grace as that the naturall faculties
Element of Fire Indulgences some new Philosophers have made this an argument that it is improbable and impertinent to admit an Element that produceth no Creatures A matter more subtill then all the rest and yet work upon nothing in it A region more spacious then all the rest and yet have nothing in it to worke upon All the other three Elements Earth and Water and Ayre abound with inhabitants proper to each of them onely the Fire produces nothing Here is a fire that recompences that defect The fire of the Roman Purgatory hath produced Indulgences and Indulgences are multiplied to such a number as that no heards of Cattell upon earth can equall them when they meet by millions at a Jubile no shoales no spawne of fish at Sea can equall them when they are transported in whole Tuns to the West Indies where of late yeares their best Market hath beene No flocks no flights of birds in the Ayre can equall them when as they say of S. Francis at every prayer that he made a man might have seene the Ayre as full of soules flying out of Purgatory as sparkles from a Smiths Anvill beating a hot Iron The Apostle complains of them that made Mercaturam animarum Merchandise of mens soules but these men make Ludibrium animarum a Jest of mens soules For if that sad and serious consideration that this doctrine concernes that part of man which nothing but the incorruptible blood of the Sonne of God could redeeme the soul did not cast a devout and a religious bridle upon it it were impossible to speake of these Indulgences otherwise then merrily They do make merchandise of soules and yet they make a jest of them too These then these Indulgences are the children the generation of that Viper the Salamanders of that fire Pliny Purgatory And then Inter omnia venenata sayes Pliny Of all the venemous creatures in the world the Salamander is Maximi sceleris the most mischievous for whereas others singulos feriunt as the same Author sayes they sting but one at once the Salamander destroyes whole families whole Cities together for all that eat the fruit of any tree that hee hath touched perish We need not apply this Our fathers did and our neighbours doe feele the manifold mischiefes that these mercenary Indulgences work in the world and to what desperate and bloody actions men are induced and animated by them what knives these Indulgences have whet in Courts and what Armies they have payed in the open field A cheape discharge and easie Subsidy we have seene Copper coyned and we have read of leather coyned but here they coyne paper and in an Indulgence which require but as much paper as a Ballad they send a man more salvation then the whole Bible can give them Men that will not see light or not watch by the light will not see this Men that delight to wallow still in the mire can digest this Etiam Salamandra à suibus manditur sayes Pliny As venemous as a Salamander is a Sow will eat a Salamander As the citizens of the lowest fire of hell it selfe entred into the heard of swine so these children of this other fire of Purgatory these Indulgences enter into swinish men that consider not their owne foulnesse but think themselves cleane when they have eaten a Salamander that is bought an Indulgence But though they have had a spurious generation and yet have lasted longer then spurious generations use to doe for they have spread into three generations Prayer for the dead begot Purgatory and Purgatory Indulgences yet they have had a viperous generation too for they have eaten out the wombe of their owne Mother and these Salamanders these Indulgences retaine still the nature of Plinies Salamanders Non gignunt They beget no more they proceed no farther For in this enormous excesse of Indulgences the Roman Church tooke her deaths wound from this extreme abuse of Indulgences arose the occasion of the Reformation which God advanced and prospered so miraculously in the hands of Luther upon the indignation that the world took upon these Indulgences How they rose how they grew how they fell is a historicall knowledge and not much necessary to be insisted upon here though indeed our danger be greater from these Indulgences then either from prayer for the Dead or from Purgatory though all three be equally erronious in matter of doctrine yet for matter of fact and danger Indulgences are the most pernicious because that opinion of an immediate passing to Heaven thereupon animates men to any undertakings But as the Christians in abolishing the Idolatry of the Gentiles in some places some times left some of their Idols standing lest the Gentiles should come to deny that ever they had worshipped such monsters So it hath pleased the Holy Ghost to hover over the Authors and Writers in the Roman Church so as that they have left some impressions of the iniquity of these Indulgences in their bookes From them we are able to declare That Indulgencies in the Primitive Church were nothing but relaxations moderations of those severe penances which the Canons called Penitentiall inflicted upon particular sins which Canons were for the most part the Rule of the whole Church and which penances enjoyned by those Canons every Bishop in his owne Dioces might according to his holy discretion moderate according to the bodily infirmity or the spirituall amendment of the penitent sinner That in time the Bishops of Rome drew into their hands all this power of remitting penances reserving to themselves and shedding upon other Bishops as much and as little as they were pleased That after they had extended this overflowing power over this world they enlarged it farther to the next world too to Purgatory And this not long since Postquam aliquandiu ad Purgatorium trepidatum est coepere indulgentiae Roffens sayes a good Author of theirs of our Nation that Bishop of Rochester whose service they recompensed with a Cardinals Hat but somewhat late for his head was off before his hat came After the vapours of Purgatory had blinded mens eyes after men had beene made afraid of those fires for a good while sayes that Bishop then they began to set on foote their Indulgencies This beginning was not above three hundred yeares since and within one hundred they came to that height that though in their Schooles they make the paines of Purgatory to be so violent that they say no soule is likely to remaine there above ten yeares yet they give Indulgencies for infinite thousands of yeares They give one day Plenam and the next pleniorem and after plenissimam They forgive all to day and to morrow the rest and then they finde something beyond that which was beyond all So that as Seneca sayes of the excesse in Libraries in his time That they had Bibliothecas pro Supellectile No man thought his house well furnished if he had not a Library though he understood