upon thee and true that God is angry vehemently angry But Expone juststiam irae Dei deal clearly with the world and clear God and confesse it is because of thy sinne When Cain says My sin is greater then can be forgiven that word Gnavon is ambiguous it may bee sinne it may bee punishment and wee know not whether his impatience grew out of the horrour of his sinne or the weight of his punishment But here wee are directed by a word that hath no ambiguity Kata signifies sin and nothing but sinne Here the holy Ghost hath fixed thee upon a word that will not suffer thee to consider the punishment nor the cause of the punishment the anger but the cause of that anger and all the sin Wee see that the bodily sicknesse and the death of many is attributed to one kind of sinne to the negligent receiving of the Sacrament For this cause many are weak and sick amongst you and many sleep Imaginem judicii ostenderat God had given a representation of the day of Judgement in that proceeding of his for then we shall see many men condemned for sinnes for which we never suspected them so wee thinke men dye of Fevers whom we met lately at the Sacrament and God hath cut them off perhaps for that sin of their unworthy receiving the Sacrament My miseries are the fruits of this Tree Gods anger is the arms that spreads it but the root is sin My sin which is another consideration We say of a Possession Transit cum onere It passes to me with the burthen that my Father laid upon it his debt is my debt so does it with the sin too his sin by which he got that possession is my sin if I know it and perchance the punishment mine though I know not the sin Adams sin 6000 years agoe is my sin and their sin that shall sinne by occasion of any wanton writings of mine will be my sin though they come after Wofull riddle sin is but a privation and yet there is not such another positive possession sin is nothing and yet there is nothing else I sinned in the first man that ever was and but for the mercy of God in something that I have said or done might sin that is occasion sin in the last man that ever shall be But that sin that is called my sinne in this text is that that is become mine by an habituall practise or mine by a wilfull relapse into it And so my sin may kindle the anger of God though it bee but a single sinne One sinne as it is delivered here in the singular and no farther Because of my sinne Every man may find in himself Peccatum complicatum sinne wrapped up in sinne a body of sin We bring Elements of our own earth of Covetousnesse water of unsteadfastnesse ayre of putrefaction and fire of licentiousnesse and of these elements we make a body of sinne as the Apostle says of the Naturall body There are many members but one body so we may say of our sin it hath a wanton eye a griping hand an itching ear an insatiable heart and feet swift to shed blood and yet it is but one body of sin It is all â—and yet it is but One But let it be simply and singularly but One which is a miracle in sin truly I think an impossibility in sin to be single to be but One for that unclean Spirit which possessed the man that dwelt amongst the tombs carryed it at first as though he had been a single Devill and he alone in that man I I adjure thee says he to Christ and torment not me not me so far in the singular but when Christ puts him to it he confesses we are many and my name is legion So though thy sinne slightly examined may seem but One yet if thou dare presse it it will confesse a plurality a legion if it be but One yet if that One be made thine by an habituall love to it as the plague needs not the help of a Consumption to kill thee so neither does Adultery need the help of Murder to damn thee For this making of any One sin thine thine by an habituall love thereof will grow up to the last and heaviest waight intimated in that phrase which is also in this clause of the Text In facie paccati that this sin will have a face that is a confidence and a devesting of all 〈◊〉 or disguises There cannot bee a heavier punishment laid upon any sinne then Christ lays upon scandall It were better for him a mil-stone were hanged about his neck and hee drowned in the Sea If something worse then such a death belong to him surely it is eternall Death And this this eternall death is interminated by Christ in cases where there is not always sinne in the action which wee doe but if we doe any action so as that it may scandalize another or occasion sin in him we are bound to study and favour the weaknesse of other men and not to doe such things as they may think sins We must prevent the mis-interpretation yea the malice of other men for though the fire be theirs the fewell or at least the â—ellows is ours The uncharitablenesse the malice is in them but the awaking and the stirring thereof is in our carelesnesse who were not watchfull upon our actions But when an action comes to be sin indeed and not onely occasionally sin because it scandalizes another but really sin in it selfe then even the Poet tels you Maxima debetur pueris reverentia si quid Tâ—rpe paras Take heed of doing any sinne in the sight of thy Child for if we break through that wall we shall come quickly to that faciâ—m Sacerdotis non erubuerunt they will not be afraid nor ashamed in the presence of the Priest they will look him in the face nay receive at his hands and yet sin their sinne that minute in their hearts and to that also faciem seniorum non erubuerunt they will not be afraid nor ashamed of the Office of the Magistrate but sin for nothing or sin at a price bear out or buy out all their sins They sin as Sodom and bide it not is the highest charge that the Holy Ghost could lay upon the sinner When they come to say Our lips are ours who is Lord ever us They will say so of their hands and of all their bodies They are ours who shall forbid us to doe what wee will with them And what lack these open sinners of the last judgement and the condemnation therof That judgement is that men shall stand naked in the sight of one another and all their sinnes shall be made manifest to all and this open sinner does so and chuses to doe so even in this world When David prays so devoutly to be cleansed from his secret sins and Saint Paul glories so devoutly in having renounced the
receiving an inestimable benefit at the hands of God which was the first reason of kneeling then And because the Priest is then in the act of prayer in their behalfe that that may preserve them in body and soule unto eternall life But they are suffered to go one in kneeling in adoration of that bread which they take to be God We deny not that there are Traditions nor that there must be ceremonies but that matters of faith should depend of these or be made of these that we deny and that they should be made equall to Scriptures for with that especially doth Tertullian reproch the Heretiques that being pressed with Scriptures they fled to Traditions as things equall or superiour to the word of God I am loth to depart from Tertullian both because he is every where a Patheticall expresser of himselfe and in this point above himselfe Nobis curiositate opus non est post Iesum Christum nec Inquisitione post Evangelium Have we seen that face of Christ Jesus here upon earth which Angels desired to see and would we see a better face Traditions perfecter then the word Have we read the four Evangelists and would we have a better Library Traditions fuller then the word Cum credimusâ— nihil desideramus ultra credere when I beleeve God in Christ dead and risen againe according to the Scriptures I have nothing else to beleeve Hoc enim prius credimus non esse quod ultra credere debeamus This is the first Article of my Faith that I am bound to beleeve nothing but articles of faith in an equall necessity to them Will we be content to be well and thank God when we are well Hilary tells us when we are well Bene habet quod iis quae scripta sunt contentus sis then thou art well when thou satisfiest thy self with those things which God hath vouchsafed to manifest in the Scriptures Si aliquis aliis verbis quà m quibus à Deo dictum est demonstrare velit if any man will speake a new language otherwise then God hath spoken and present new Scriptures as he does that makes traditions equall to them Aut ipse non intelligit aut legentibus non intelligendum relinquit either he understands not himself or I may very well be content not to understand him if I understand God without him The Fathers abound in this opposing of Traditions when out of those traditions our adversaries argue an insufficiency in the Scriptures Solus Christus audiendus says Saint Cyprian we hearken to none but Christ nec debemus attendere quid aliquis ante nos faciendum putarit neither are we to consider what any man before us thought fit to be done sed quid qui ante emnes est fecerit but what he who is before all them did Christ Iesus and his Apostles who were not onely the primitive but the pre-primitive Church did and appointed to be done In this treading down of our grasse then in the Roman Church first by their supine Ignorance and barbarisme and then by traditions of which some are pestilently iufectious and destroy good words some cover it so as that not being declared to the people in their signification they are uselesse to them no Babylon could exceed the Italian Babylon Rome in treading down their grasse Their oppression was as great in the other In troubling their water My sheep drink that which you have troubled When the Lord is our shepherd he leadeth us ad aquas quietudinum to the waters of rest of quietnesse of these in the plurall quietudinum quietness of body and quietness of Conscience too The endowments of heaven are Ioy and Glory joy and glory are the two Elements the two Hemispheres of Heaven And of this Joy and this Glory of heaven we have the best earnest that this world can give if we have rest satisfaction and acquiescence in our religion for our beleefe and for our life and actions peace of Conscience And where the Lord is our shepherd he leads us and ad aquas quietudinum to the waters of rest multiplyed rest all kind of rest But the shepherds in our text troubled the waters and more then so for we have just cause to note the double signification of this word which we translate Trouble and to transfer the two significations to the two Sacraments as they are exhibited in the Roman Babylon The word is Mirpas and it denotes not onely Conturbationem a troubling a mudding but Obturationem too an interception a stopping as the Septuagint translates it Prov. 35. and in these two significations of the word a troubling and a stopping of the waters hath the Roman Church exercised her tyranny and her malignity in the two Sacraments For in the Sacrament of Baptisme they had troubled the water with additions of Oile and salt and spittle and exorcismes But in the other Sacrament of they came Ad obturationem to a stopping to an intercision to an interruption of the water the water of life Aquae quietudinum the water of rest to our souls and peace to our consciences in withholding the Cup of salvation the bloud of Christ Jesus from us So that if thou come to Davids holy expostulation Quid retribuam what shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me And pursue it to Davids holy resolution Accipiam Calicem I will take the Cup of salvation you shall be told Sir you must take Orders first or you cannot take that Cup. But water is as common as Aire And as that Element Aire in our spirituall food that is preaching which is Spiritus Domini the breath of God is common to all Iâ—e praedicate omni Creaturae goe preach the Gospell to every Creature so is this water of life in the Sacrament common to all Bibite ex eo omnes Drink yee all of this and thereby doe the names of Communion and participation accrew to it because all have an interest in it This is that bloud of which Saint Chrysostome says Hic sanguis facit ut Imago Dei in nobis floreat That we have the Image of God in our souls we have by the benefit of the same nature by which we have our souls There cannot be a humane soule without the Image of God in it But ut floreat that this Image appear to us and be continually refreshed in us ut non Languescat animae nobilitas that this holy noblenesse of the soule doe not languish not degenerate in us we have by the benefit of this bloud of Christ Iesus the seale of our absolution in that blessed and glorious Sacrament And that bloud they deny us This is that bloud of which they can make as much as they will with a thought with an intention so as they pretend a power of changing a whole vintage at once all the wine of all the nations in the world into the bloud of Christ if the Priest have an intention to
joyned to the element or to the Action then there is a true Sacrament are ill understood by two sorts of Menâ— first by them that say that it is not verbum Deprecatorium nor verbum Conciâ—natâ—riuâ— not the word of Prayer nor the word of preaching but verbum Consecratorium and verbum Sacramentale that very phrase and forme of words by which the water is sanctified and enabled of it selfe to cleanse our Soules and secondly these words are ill understood by them who had rather their children dyed unbaptized then have them baptized without a Sermon whereas the use of preaching at baptisme is to raise the whole Congregation to a consideration what they promised by others in their baptisme and to raise the Father and the Sureties to a consideration what they undertake for the childe whom they present then to be baptized for therefore says Saint Augustine Acoedaâ— verbum there is a necessity of the word Non quâ—a dicitur sed quia creditur not because the word is prâ—ached but because it is beleeved and That Beleese faith belongs not at all to the incapacity of the child but to the disposition of the rest A Sermon is usefull for the congregation not necessary for the child and the accomplishment of the Sacrament From hence then arises a convenience little lesse then necessary in a kind that this administration of the Sacrament be accompanied with preaching but yet they that would evict an absolute necessity of it out of these words force them too much for here the direct meaning of the Apostle is That the Church is cleansed by water through the word when the promises of God expressed in his word are sealed to us by this Sacrament of Baptisme for so Saint Augustine answers himselfe in that objection which he makes to himselfe Cum per Baptisâ—â—â— fundati sint quare sermoni tribuit radicem He answers In Sermone intelligendus Baptismusâ— Quia sine Sermone non perficitur It is rooted it is grounded in the word and therefore true Baptisme though it be administred without the word that is without the word preached yet it is never without the word because the whole Sacrament and the power thereof is rooted in the word in the Gospell And therefore since this Sacrament belongs to the Church as it is said here that Christ doth cleanse his Church by Baptisme as it is argued with a strong probability That because the Apostles did baptize whole families therefore they did baptize some children so we argue with an invincible certainty that because this Sacrament belongs generally to the Church as the initiatory Sacrament it belongs to children who are a part and for the most part the most innocent part of the Church To conclude As all those Virgins which were beautifull were brought into Susan Ad domum mulierum to be anointed and persumed and prepared there for Assuerus delight and pleasure though Assuerus tooke not delight and pleasure in them all so we admit all those children which are within the Covenant made by God to the elect and their seed In domum Sanctorum into the houshold of the faithfull into the communion of Saints whom he chooseth for his Mariage day that is for that Church which he will settle upon himselfe in heaven we know not but we know that he hath not promised to take any into that glory but those upon whom he hath first shed these fainter beames of glory and sanctification exhibited in this Sacrament Neither hath he threatned to exclude any but for sinne after And therefore when this blessed child derived from faithfull parents and presented by sureties within the obedience of the Church shall have been so cleansed by the washing of water through the word it is presently sealed to the possession of that part of Christs purchase for which he gave himselfe which are the meanes of preparing his Church in this life with a faithfull assurance I may say of it and to it Iam mundus es Now you are cleanâ— through the word which Christ hath spoken unto you The Seale of the promises of his Gospell hath sanctified and cleansed you but yet Mandatus mundandus says Saint Augustine upon that place It is so sanctified by the Sacrament here that it may be farther sanctified by the growth of his graces and be at last a member of that glorious Church which he shall settle upon himselfe without spot or wrinkle which was the principall and final purpose of that great love of his whereby he gave himselfe for us and made that love first a patterne of Mens loves to their wives here and then a meanes to bring Man and wife and child to the kingdome of heaven Amen SERMON VI. Preached at a Christning 1 JOHN 5. 7 8. For there are three which beare record in heaven The Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three which beare record in the Earth The Spirit and the water and the bloud and these three agree in one IN great and enormous offences we find that the law in a well governed State expressed the punishment upon such a delinquent in that form in that curse Igni aqua interdicitor let him have no use of fire and water that is no use of any thing necessary for the sustentation of life Beloved such is the miserable condition of wretched Man as that we come all into the world under the burden of that curse Aqua igni interdicimâ—r we have nothing to doe naturally with the spirituall water of life with the fiery beames of the holy Ghost till he that hath wrought our restitution from this banishment restore us to this water by powring out his owne bloud and to this lively fire by laying himselfe a cold and bloudlesse carcasse in the bowels of the Earth till he who haptized none with waâ—er direct his Church to doe that office towards us and he without whom none was baptized with fire perfect that Ministeriall worke of his Church with the effectuall seales of his grace for this is his testimony the witnesse of his love Yea that law in cases of such great offences expressed it selfe in another Malediction upon such offenders appliable also to us Intestabiles sunte let them be Intestable Now this was a sentence a Condemnation so pregnant so full of so many heavy afflictions as that he who by the law was made intestable was all these ways intestable First he was able to make no Testament of his owne he had lost all his interest in his owne estate and in his owne will Secondly he could receive no profit by any testament of any other Man he had lost all the effects of the love and good disposition of other Men to him Thirdly he was Intestable so as that he could not testifie he should not be beleeved in the behalfe of another and lastly the testimony of another could doe him no good no Man could be admitted to
speake for him After that first and heavy curse of Almighty God upon Man Morte morieris If thou eate thou shalt die and die twice thou shall die a bodily thou shalt die a spirituall death a punishment which no sentence of any law or law-maker could ever equall to deterre Men from offending by threatning to take away their lives twice and by inflicting a spirituall death eternally upon the Soule after we have all incurred that malediction Morte moriemur we shall die both death we cannot thinke to scape any lesse malediction of any law and therefore we are all Intestabiles we are all intestable in all these senses and apprehensions which we have touched upon We can make no testament of our owne we have no good thing in us to dispose we have no good inclination no good disposition in our Will we can make no use of anothers testament not of the double testaments of Almighty God for in the Old testament he gives promises of a Messias but we bring into the world no Faith to apprehend those promises and in the New testament he gives a performance the Messias is come but he is communicable to us no way but by baptisme and we cannot baptize our selves we can profit no body else by our testimony we are not able to endure persecution for the testimony of Christ to the edification of others we are not able to doe such workes as may shine before Men to the glorifying of our God Neither doth the testimony of others doe us any good for neither the Martyrdome of so many Millions in the primitive Church nor the execution of so many judgments of God in our owne times doe restifie any thing to our Consciences neither at the last day when those Saints of God whom we have accompanied in the outward worship of God here in the visible Church shall be called to the right hand and we detruded to the left shall they dare to open their mouthes for us or to testifie of us or to say Why Lord these Men when they were in the world did as we did appeared and served thee in thy house as we did they seem'd to goe the same way that we did upon Earth why goe they a sinister way now in heaven We are utterly intestable we can give nothing we can take nothing nothing will be beleeved from us who are all falshood it selfe nor can we be releeved by any thing that any other will say for us As long as we are considered under the penalty of that law this is our case Interdicti intestabiles we are accursed and so as that we are intestable Now as this great malediction Morte marieris in volves all other punishments upon whom that falls all fall so when our Saviour Christ Jesus hath a purpose to take away that or the most dangerous part of that the spirituall death when he will reverse that judgment Aqua igni interdicitur to make us capable of his water and his fire when he will reverse the intestabiles the inteâ—â—ability and make us able to receive his graces by faith and declare them by works then as he that will reedifie a demolished house begins not at the top but at the bottome so Christ Jesus when he will make this great preparation this great reedification of mankind he beginnes at the lowest step which is that we may have use of the testimony of others in our behalfe and he proceeds strongly and effectually he produces three witnesses from heaven so powerfull that they will be heard they will be beleeved and three witnesses on earth so neare us so familiar so domestique as that they will not be denied they will not be discredited Three are three that beare Record in heaven and three that beare record in earth Since then Christ Jesus makes us all our owne Iury able to conceive and judge upon the Evidence and testimony of these three heavenly and three earthly witnesses let us draw neare and hearken to the evidence and consider three things Testimonium esse Quid sit and Qui testes That God descends to meanes proportionable to Man he affords him witnesse and secondly the matter of the proofe what all these six witnesses testifie what they establish Thirdly the quality and value of the witnesses and whether the matter be to be beleeved for their sakes and for their reasons God requires nothing of us but Testimony for Martyrdome is but that A Martyr is but a witnesse God offers us nothing without testimony for his Testament is but a witnesse Teste ipso is shrewd evidence when God says I will speake and I will testifie against thee I am God even thy God when the voice of God testifies against me in mine owne conscience It is more pregnant evidence then this when his voice testifies against me in his word in his Scriptures The Lord testified against Israel by all the Prophets and by all the Seers When I can never be alone but that God speakes in me but speakes against me when I can never open his booke but the first sentence mine eye is upon is a witnesse against me this is fearfull evidence But in this text we are not in that storme for he hath made us Testabiles that is ready to testifie for him to the effusion of our bloud and Testabiles that is fit to take benefit by the testament that hee hath made for us The effusion of his bloud which is our second branch what is testified for us what these witnesses establish First then that which a sinner must be brought to understand and beleeve by the strength of these witnesses is Integritas Christi not the Integrity as it signifies the Innocency of Christ but integrity as it signifies Intireness not as it is Integer vitae but Integra vita not as he kept an integrity in his life but as he onely is intirely our life That Christ was a person composed of those two Natures divine and humane whereby he was a fit and a full satisfaction for all our sinnes and by death could be our life for when the Apostle writ this Epistle it seemes there had been a schisme not about the Mysticall body of Christ the Church but even about the Naturall that is to say in the person of Christ there had been a schisme a separation of his two natures for as we see certainly before the death of this Apostle that the Heresie of Ebion and of Cerinthus which denied the divine nature of Christ was set on foot for against them purposely was the Gospell of Saint Iohn written so by Epiphanius his ranking of the Heresies as they arose where he makes Basilides his Heresie which denied that Christ had any naturall body to be the fourth herefie and Ebions to be the tenth it seemes that they denied his humanity before they denied his Divinity And therefore it is well collected that this Epistle of Saint Iohn being written long
which is a true joy but common to all Christians is that assurance which they have in their tribulations that God will give them the issue with the temptation not that they pretend not to feel that calamity so the Philosophers did but that it shall not swallow them this is naturall to a Christian he is not a Christian without this Thinke it not strange says the Apostle as though some strange thing were come unto you for we must accustome our selves to the expectation of tribulation but rejoyce says he and when his glory shall appeare yee shall be made glad and rejoyce He bids us rejoyce and yet all that he promises is but rejoycing at last he bids us rejoyce all the way though the consummate aud determinable joy come not till the end yet God hath set bounds to our tribulations as to the sea and they shall not overflow us But this perfect joy to speake of such degrees of perfection as may be had in this life this third joy the joy of this text is not a collaterall joy that stands by us in the tribulation and sustaines us but it is a fundamentall joy a radicall joy a viscerall a gremiall joy that arises out of the bosome and wombe and bowels of the tribulation it selfe It is not that I rejoyce though I be afflicted but I rejoyce because I am afflicted It is not because I shall not sink in my calamity and be buried in that valley but because my calamity raises me and makes my valley a hill and gives me an eminency and brings God and me nearer to one another then without that calamity I should have been when I can depart rejoycing and that therefore because I am worthy to suffer rebuke for the name of Christ as the Apostles did when I can feel that pattern proposed to my joy and to my tribulation which Christ gives Rejoyce and be glad for so persecuted they the Prophets when I can find that seale printed upon me by my tribulation If ye be railed on for the name of Christ blessed are ye for the spirit of God and of glory resteth on you that is that affliction fixes the holy Ghost upon me which in prosperity falls upon me but as Sun-beames Briefly if my soule have had that conference that discourse with God that he hath declared to me his purpose in all my calamities as he told Ananias that he had done to Paul he is a chosen vessell unto me for I will shew him how many things he must suffer for my sake If the light of Gods Spirit shew us the number the force the intent of our tribulations then is our soule come to that highest joy which she is capable of in this life when as cold and dead water when it comes to the fire hath a motion and dilatation and a bubling and a kind of dancing in the vessell so my soule that lay asleep in prosperity hath by this fire of Tribulation a motion a joy an exaltation This is the highest degree of suffering but this suffering hath this condition here that it be passio mea And this too that it be mea and not pro me but pro aliis that it be mine and no bodies else by my occasion That it be mine without any fault of mine that I be no cause that it fell upon me and that I be no occasion that it fall upon others And first it is not mine if I borrow it I can have no joy in the sufferings of Martyrs and other Saints of God by way of applying their sufferings to me by way of imitation and example I may by way of application and satisfaction I cannot borrowed sufferings are not my sufferings They are not mine neither if I steale them if I force them If my intemperate and scandalous zeal or pretence of zeal extort a chastisement from the State if I exasperate the Magistrate and draw an affliction upon my self this stoln suffering this forced suffering is not passio mea it is not mine if it should not be mine Natura cujusque rei est quam Deus indidit That onely is the nature of every thing which God hath imprinted in it That affliction onely is mine which God hath appointed for me and what he hath appointed we may see by his exclusions Let none of you suffer as a murtherer or as a thief or as an evill doer or as a busie-body in other mens matters and that reaches far I am not possessâ—r bonae fidei I come not to this suffering by a good title I cannot call it mine I may finde joy in it that is in the middest of it I may finde comfort in the mercy of Christ though I suffer as a malefactor But there is no joy in the suffering it self for it is not mine it is not I but my sinne my breach of the law my disobedience that suffers It is not mine again if it be not mine in particular mine and limited in me To those sufferings that fall upon me for my conscience or for the discharge of my duty there belongs a joy but when the whole Church is in persecution and by my occasion especially or at all woe unto them by whom the first offence comes this is no joyfull matter and therefore vae illis per quos scandalum they who by their ambition of preferment or indulgence to their present case or indifferency how things fall out or presumptuous confidence in Gods care for looking well enough to his own how little soever they doe give way to the beginnings of superstition in the times of persecution when persecutions come either they shall have no sufferings that is God shall suffer them to fall away and refuse their testimony in his cause or they shall have no joy in their sufferings because they shall see this persecution is not theirs it is not limited in them but induced by their prevarication upon the whole Church And lastly this suffering is not mine if I stretch it too far if I over-value it it is not mine A man forfeits his priviledge by exceeding it There is no joy belongs to my suffering if I place a merit in it Meum non est cujus nomine nulla mihi superest actiâ— says the Law That 's none of mine for which I can bring no action and what actioâ— can I bring against God for a reward of my merit Have I given him any thing of mine Quid habeo quod non accepi what have I that I received not from him Have I given him all his own how came I to abound then and see him starve in the streets in his distressed members Hath he changed his blessings unto me in single mony Hath he made me rich by half pence and farthings and yet have I done so much as that for him Have I suffered for his glory Am not I vas figuli a potters vessell and that Potters vessel and whose hand soever he
what ground he sayes or does or suffers that which he suffers and does and sayes Howsoever he pretend the honour of God in his testimony yet if the thing be materially false false in it self though true in his opinion or formally false true in it self but not known to be so to him that testifies it both ways he is an incompetent witnesse And this takes away the honour of having been witnesses for Christ and the consolation and style of Martyrs both from them who upon such evidence as can give no assurance that is traedi tions of men have grounded their faith in God and from them who take their light in corners and conventicles and not from the City set upon the top of a hill the Church of God Those Roman Priests who have given their lives those Separatists which have taken a voluntary banishment are not competent witnesses for the glory of God for a witnesse must know and qui testatur de scientia testetur de modo scientiae sayes the Law He that will prove any thing by his knowledge must prove how he came by that knowledge The Papist hath not the knowledge of his Doctrine from any Scripture the Separatist hath not the knowledge of his Discipline from any precedent any example in the primitive Church How farre then is that wretched and sinfull man from giving any testimony or glory to Christ in his life who never comes to the knowledge and consideration why he was sent into this life who is so farre from doing his errand that he knowes not what his errand was not whether he received any errand or no. But as though that God who for infinite millions of ages delighted himself in himself and was sufficient in himself and yet at last did bestow six dayes labour for the creation and provision of man as though that God who when man was sowr'd in the lumpe poysoned in the fountaine withered in the roote in the loins of Adam would then ingage his Sonne his beloved Sonne his onely Sonne to be man by a temporary life and to be no man by a violent and a shamefull death as though that God who when he was pleased to come to a creation might have left out thee amongst privations amongst nothings or might have shut thee up in the close prison of a bare being and no more as he hath done earth and stones or if he would have given thee life might have left thee a Toad or if he would have given thee a humane soule might have left thee a heathen without any knowledge of God or if he had afforded thee a Religion might have left thee a Iew or though he had made thee a Christian might have left thee a Papist as though that God that hath done so much more in breeding thee in his true Church had done all this for nothing thou passest thorough this world like a flash like a lightning whose beginning or end no body knowes like an Ignis fatuus in the aire which does not onely not give light for any use but not so much as portend or signifie any thing and thou passest out of the world as thy hand passes out of a basin of water which may bee somewhat the fouler for thy washing in it but retaines no other impression of thy having been there and so does the world for thy life in it When God placed Adam in the world he bad him fill it and subdue it and rule it and when he placed him in paradise he bad him dresse and keepe paradise and when he sent his children into the over-flowing Laud of promise he bad them fight and destroy the Idolaters to every body some task some errand for his glory And thou comest from him into this world as though he had said nothing unto thee but Go and do as you see cause Go and do as you see other men do Thou knowest not that is considerest not what thou wast sent to doe what thou shouldest have done but thou knowest much lesse what thou hast done The light of nature hath taught thee to hide thy sinnes from other men and thou hast been so diligent in that as that thou hast hid them from thy self and canst not finde them in thine owne conscience if at any time the Spirit of God would burne them up or the blood of Christ Jesus wash them out thou canst not finde them out so as that a Sermon or Sacrament can work upon them Perchance thou canst tell when was the first time or where was the first place that thou didst commit such or such a sinne but as a man can remember when he began to spell but not when he began to reade perfectly when he began to joyne his letters but not when he began to write perfectly so thou remembrest when thou wentest timorously and bashfully about sinne at first and now perchance art ashamed of that shamefastnesse and sorry thou beganst no sooner Poore bankrupt that hast sinned out thy soule so profusely so lavishly that thou darest not cast up thine accounts thou darest not aske thy selfe whether thou have any soule left how farre art thou from giving any testimony to Christ that darest not testifie to thy selfe nor heare thy conscience take knowledge of thy transgressions but haddest rather sleepe out thy daies or drinke out thy daies then leave one minute for compunction to lay hold on and doest not sinne alwaies for the love of that sinne but for feare of a holy sorrow if thou shouldest not fill up thy time with that sinne God cannot be mocked saith the Apostle nor God cannot be blinded He seeth all the way and at thy last gaspe he will make thee see too through the multiplying Glasse the Spectacle of Desperation Canst thou hope that that God that seeth this darke Earth through all the vaults and arches of the severall spheares of Heaven that seeth thy body through all thy stone walls and seeth thy soul through that which is darker then all those thy corrupt flesh canst thou hope that that God can be blinded with drawing a curtain between thy sinne and him when he is all eye canst thou hope to put out that eye with putting out a candle when he hath planted legions of Angels about thee canst thou hope that thou hast taken away all Intelligence if thou have corrupted or silenced or sent away a servant O bestow as much labour as thou hast done to finde corners for sin to finde out those sinnes in those corners where thou hast hid them As Princes giveâ— pardons by their own hands but send Judges to execute Justice come to him for mercy in the acknowledgement of thy sinnes and stay not till his Justice come to thee when he makes inquisition for blood and doe not think that if thou feel now at this presentâ— a little tendernesse in thy heart a little melting in thy bowels a little dew in thine eyes that if thou beest come to know that thou art a
that though our integrity be lost that we be no more whole and intire vessells yet there are meanes of piecing us again Though we be not vessells of Innocency for who is so and for that enter not into judgement with thy servants O Lord yet we may be vessells of repentance acceptable to God and usefull to his service for when any thing falls upon a stone the harme that it suffereth is not alwayes or not onely according to the proportion of the hardnesse of that which it fell upon but according to the heighth that it falleth from and according to that violence that it is throwne with If their fall who fall by sinnes of infirmitie should referre onely to the stone they fall upon the Majestie of God being wounded and violated in every sinne every sinner would be broken to pieces and ground to powder But if they fall not from too far a distance if they have lived within any nearnesse any consideration of God if they have not fallen with violence taken heart and force in the way grown perfect in the practise of their sinne if they fall upon this stone that is sinne and yet stoppe at Christ after the sinne this stone shall breake them that is breake their force and confidence breake their presumption and security but yet it shall leave enough in them for the Holy Ghost to unite to his Service yea even the sinne it self cooperabitur in bonum as the Apostle saith the very fall it selfe shall be an occasion of his rising And therefore though Saint Augustine seeme to venture farre it is not too farre when he saith Audeo dicere it is boldly said and yet I must say it utile est ut caderem in aliquod manifestum peccatum A sinner falleth to his advantage that falleth into some such sinne as by being manifested to the World manifesteth his owne sinnefull state to his owne sinnefull Conscience too It is well for that man that falleth so as that he may thereby looke the better to his footing ever after Dicit Domino Susceptor meus es tu sayes St. Bernard That man hath a new Title to God a new name for God all creatures as St. Bernard inlarges this meditation can say Creator meus es tu Lord thou art my Creator all living creatures can say Pastor meus es tu Thou art my shepheard Thou givest me meat in due season all men can say Redemptor meus es tu thou art my Redeemer but onely he which is fallen and fallen upon this stone can say Susceptor meus es tu only he which hath been overcome by a temptation and is restored can say Lord thou hast supported me thou hast recollected my shivers and reunited me onely to him hath this stone expressed both abilities of stone first to breake him with a sense of his sin and then to give him peace and rest upon it Now there is in this part this circumstance Quicunque cadit whosoever falleth where the quicunque is unusquisque whosoever falls that is whosoever he be he falls Quoâ—odo de coelo cecidisti Luciter says the Prophet the Prophet wonders how Lucifer could fall having nothing to tempt him for so many of the Antiens interpret that place of the fall of the Angels and when the Angels fell there were no other creatures made but Quid est homo aut filius hominis since the Father of man Adam could not how shall the sonnes of him that inherit his weaknesse and contract more and contribute their temptations to one another hope to stand Adam fell and he fell à longè farre off for he could see no stone to fall upon for when he fell there was no such Messias no such meanes of reparation proposed nor promised when he fell as now to us The blessed Virgin and the forerunner of Christ Iohn Baptist fell too but they fell propè neerer hand they fell but a little way for they had this stone Christ Jesus in a personall presence and their faith was alwaies awake in them but yet he and she and they all fell into some sinne Quicunque cadit is unusquisque cadit whosoever falls is whosoever he be he falls and whosoever falls as we said before is broken If he fall upon something and fall not to an infinite depth If he fall not upon a soft place to a delight in sinne but upon a stone and this stone no harder sharper ruggedder then this not into a diffidence or distrust in Gods mercy he that falls so and is broken so that comes to a remorsefull to a broken and a contrite heart he is broken to his advantage left to a possibility yea brought to a neerenesse of being pieced againe by the Word by the Sacraments and other medicinall institutions of Christ in his Church We must end onely with touching upon the third part upon whom this stone falls it will grinde him to powder where we shall onely tell you first Quid conteri what this grinding is and then Quid cadere what the falling of this stone is And briefly this grinding to powder is to be brought to that desperate and irrecoverable estate in sinne as that no medicinall correction from God no breaking no bowing no melting no moulding can bring him to any good fashion when God can worke no cure do no good upon us by breaking us not by breaking us in our health for we will attribute that to weaknesse of stomach to surfeit to indigestion not by breaking us in our states for we will impute that to falshood in servants to oppression of great adversaries to inquity of Judges not by breaking us in our honour for we will accuse for that factions and practises and supplantation in Court when God cannot breake us with his corrections but that we will attribute them to some naturall to some accidentall causes and never thinke of Gods judgements which are the true cause of these afflictions when God cannot breake us by breaking our backs by laying on heavy loads of calamities upon us nor by breaking our hearts by putting us into a sad and heavy and fruitlesse sorrow and melancholy for these worldly losses then he comes to breake us by breaking our necks by casting us into the bottomlesse pit and falling upon us there in this wrath and indignation Comminuam eos in pulverem sayth he I will beate them as small as dust before the winde and tread them as flat as clay in the streets the breaking thereof shall be like the breaking of a Potters vessell which is broken without any pity No pity from God no mercy neither shall any man pity them no compassion no sorrow And in the breaking thereof saith the Prophet there is not found a sheard to take fire at the hearth nor to take water at the pit that is they shall be incapable of any beam of grace in themselves from heaven or any spark of zeale in themselves not a sheard
to fetch fire at the hearth and incapable of any drop of Christs blood from heaven or of any teare of contrition in themselves not a sheard to fetch water at the pit I will breake them as a Potters vessell quod non potest instaurari says God in Ieremy There shall be no possible meanes of those means which God hath ordained in his Church to recompact them againe no voice of Gods word to draw them no threatnings of Gods judgements shall drive them no censures of Gods Church shall fit them no Sacrament shall cement and glue them to Christs body againe In temporall blessings he shall be unthankfull in temporall afflictions he shall be obdurate And these two shall serve as the upper and nether stone of a mill to grinde this reprobate sinner to powder Lastly this is to be done by Christs falling upon him and what is that I know some Expositors take this to be but the falling of Gods judgements upon him in this world But in this world there is no grinding to powder all Gods judgements here for any thing that we can know have the nature of Physick in them may are wont to cure no man is here so absolutely broken in pieces but that he may be re-united we chuse therefore to follow the Ancients in this That the falling of this stone upon this Reprobate is Christs last irrecoverable falling upon him in his last judgment that when hee shall wish that the Hills might fall and cover him this stone shall fall grinde him to powder He shall be broken and he no more found says the Prophet yea he shall be broken and no more sought No man shall consider him what he is now nor remember him what he was before For that stone which in Daniel was cut out without hands which was a figure of Christ who came without ordinary generation when that great Image was to be overthrown broke not an arme or a leg but brake the whole Image in peeces and it wrought not onely upon the weak parts but it brake all the clay the iron the brasse the silver the gold so when this stone fals thus when Christ comes to judgement he shall not onely condemn him for his clay his earthly and covetous sinnes nor for his iron his revengefull oppressing and rustly sinnes nor for his brasse his shining and glittering sinnes which he hath filed and polished but he shall fall upon his silver and gold his religious and precious sinnes his hypocriticall hearing of Sermons his singular observing of Sabbaths his Pharisaicall giving of almes and as well his subtill counterfeiting of Religion as his Atheisticall opposing of religion this stone Christ himselfe shall fall upon him and a showre of other stones shall oppresse him too Sicut pluit laqueâ—s says David As God rained springs and snares upon them in this world abundance of temporall blessings to be occasions of sinne unto them So plues grandinem he shall raine such haile-stones upon them as shall grinde them to powder there shall fall upon him the naturall Law which was written in his heart and did rebuke him then when he prepared for a sinne there shall fall upon him the written Law which cryed out from the mouthes of the Prophets in these places to avert him from sinne there shall fall upon him those sinnes which he hath done and those sins which he hath not done if nothing but want of means opportunity hindred him from doing them there shall fall upon him those sinnes which he hath done after anothers dehortation and those which others have done after his provocation there the stones of Nineveh shall fall upon him and of as many Cities as have repented with lesse proportions of mercy and grace then God afforded him there the rubbage of Sodom and Gomorrah shall fall upon him and as many Cities as in their ruine might have been examples to him All these stones shall fall upon him and to add weight to all these Christ Jesus himselfe shall fall upon his conscience with unanswerable questions and grinde his soule to powder But hee that overcometh shall not bee hurt by the second death he that feeles his own fall upon this stone shall never feel this stone fall upon him he that comes to a remorse early and earnestly after a sinne and seeks by ordinary meanes his reconcileation to God in his Church is in the best state that man can be in now for howsoever we cannot say that repentance is as happy an estate as Innocency yet certainly every particular man feels more comfort and spirituall joy after a true repentance for a sin then he had in that degree of Innocence which he had before he committed that sinne and therefore in this case also we may safely repeat those words of Augustine Audeo dicere I dare be bold to say that many a man hath been the better for some sin Almighty God who gives that civill wisdome to make use of other mens infirmities give us also this heavenly wisdome to make use of our own particular sins that thereby our own wretched conditions in our selves and our meanes of reparation in Iesus Christ may be the more manifested unto us To whom with the blessed Spirit c. SERMON XXXVI Preached at Saint Pauls upon Christmasse day 1621. JOHN 1. 8. He was not that Light but was sent to bear witnesse of that Light IT is an injury common to all the Evangelists as Irenaeus notes that all their Gospels were severally refused by one Sect of Hereticks or other But it was proper to Saint Iohn alone to be refused by a Sect that admitted all the other three Evangelists as Epiphanius remembers and refused onely Saint Iohn These were the Alogiani a limme and branch of the Arians who being unable to looke upon the glorious Splendour the divine Glory attributed by Saint Iohn to this Logos which gave them their name of Alogiani this Word this Christ not comprehending this Mystery That this Word was so with God as that it was God they tooke a round way and often practised to condemne all that they did not understand and therefore refuse the whole Gospell Indeed his whole Gospell is comprehended in the beginning thereof In this first Chapter is contracted all that which is extensively spred and dilated through the whole Booke For here is first the Foundation of all the Divinitie of Christ to the 15. verse Secondly the Execution of all the Offices of Christ to the 35. verse And then the Effect the Working the Application of all that is who were to Preach all this to the ends of the world the calling of his Apostles to the end of the Chapter for the first Christs Divinity there is enough expressed in the very first verse alone for there is his Eternitie intimated in that word In principio in the beginning The first booke of the Bible Genesis and the last booke that is that