He is an enemy who telleth me the truth he is an enemy who is not a parasite Can we look for forgiveness out of that breast which is as a troubled sea ever casting out mire and dirt Or have we read of or have we seen the man that will not be pious yet can forgive that can be so cruel to himself and yet mild and merciful to his brother No it requireth a mind well exercised and brought under crucified to the world weaned from vanity the love of which maketh us impatient of others and impatient of our selves yea such haggards as to check at every feather We must know our brother in another shape in another relation before we shall forgive him We must know him in Christ the fountain of love who brought forgiveness into the world when he brought immortality to light And then if we know him in him we shall know nothing in him which may not command our pardon We shall know him in him who purchased our pardon with his bloud we shall forgive him as we are forgiven we shall cover our brother's trespasses for his sake who hath prepared a robe of righteousness to cover ours and for his sake forgive ours brother's debts who payed down our debts to the utmost mite Then shall we feel the power of this virtue and how prevalent it is with God Then as we have manifested our selves to be his children by the performance of the Condition so will he manifest himself to be our Father in removing our transgressions from us as far as the East is from the West Now for conclusion I cannot better bespeak you then in the words of S Paul I pray you brethren in Christ's stead be reconciled unto God And that is done by acknowledgement of the forfeiture by confessing your debts There is no hinderance of it but in your selves for if you will he is presently reconciled He calleth for it he desireth it he waiteth for it and if you arise and go towards him he runneth to meet you falleth on your neck and kisseth you It is but to leave off fighting against him and he is reconciled It is but to run no further in arrears and the writing is cancelled Wash every character the least sin with your tears and Christ's bloud is shed already and floweth as fresh as from the cross to blot them out Tu agnosce Deus ignoscet Do thou acknowledge the debt and God hath forgiven it Perform the condition and the promise will apply it self nay it is applied already At what time soever a sinner repenteth And again I pray you be reconciled unto your brethren You have for that the strongest and most winning motive the Mercy of God the best Topick we can find more persuasive in it self then all the eloquence of the learned then the tongues of men and of Angels of power to ravish a soul and transport it beyond it self and leave it deaf and dead to the flattery of the flesh and to the killing musick of the world For what can move me to pardon if Pardon cannot move me What can make me if Mercy cannot make me merciful And shall my Wealth or Reputation kindle that fire within me which the bowels of God and the bloud of Christ cannot quench Bring not then hither any lurking unrepented sin but bury it in the clifts of a broken heart and in the wounds of thy Saviour Bring not a grudging mind nor the least surmise against thy brother but smother it and bury it in the land of oblivion Leave not thy sin to day to resume and embrace it to morrow nor let thy wrath so set as to rise with more horrour hereafter But destroy the whole body of sin and purge out all the leaven of maliciousness Be reconciled unto God and be reconciled to your brethren and then come and draw near to this feast of Love Take eat This is his body which was broken for you and Take drink This is the New Testament in his bloud which was shed for you and for many for the remission of sins These are the pledges of his love and withall pignora fidei the pledges of our faith to actuate and quicken it to make it more apprehensive more operative more lively Here then confirm your faith exalt your hope enlarge your charity and so declare the Lord's death till he come And when he that came to visit us in great Humility and visiteth us again and again in his Sacrament and by the sweet operation of his blessed Spirit sealeth our pardon and sealeth us up to the day of our redemption shall come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead we shall be ready to meet him as fearing no bill no indictment against us and we shall be ever with him who hath payed our ransome and he shall call us his friends his children his brethren and he shall make us partakers of that glory which he hath prepared for us from the beginning of the world To which he bring us who dyed for us Jesus Christ the righteous The Two and Twentieth SERMON PART I. PSAL. CXXII 1. I was glad when they said unto me Let us or We will go into the house of the Lord. WHether this Psalm of degrees or excellent Song as some term it were a Psalm of David or to David or delivered to the Masters of Musick by the hands of David Whether it was penned by him when the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Jerusalem and there seated as in its certain place which before had been carried up and down now to this place anon to another as several occasions and the exigence of the times required and so was fitted for the people publickly to sing when they should go up to their solemn Feasts Or whether it was penned by a prophetick spirit for those Jews who being returned out of Babylon should repair Jerusalem and build the second Temple Whether this Psalm were fitted for the Tabernacle or for the first Temple or for the second it is not much material to enquire Nor will it advantage to make diligent search where there is not so much light as that of conjecture to direct us The Psalm might well serve for all for the Tabernacle for the first Temple for the second And almost all agree that it was composed by David And he beginneth it as a Song should begin with LAETATUS SUM I was glad or I rejoyced 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the Septuagint Jucundatus sum so St. Augustine I was merry at heart as those who meet at a costly banquet I may entitle this Psalm David's Delight or his Triumph or his Jubilee Now when the heart is glad when the countenance shineth when the tongue is loud we may well think there is something more then ordinary presented to the sight For Joy when it is visible in the face when it is set to Musick is a manifest indication and a loud proclamation that there
l. 1. de Morib Eccl. c. 2. saith S. Augustine ut rationem praecedat autoritas that Authority should go before and have the preeminence of Reason that where Reason is weak Authority may come in as a supply to strengthen and settle it For what can Reason see in Bread and Wine to quicken or raise a Soul What is Bread to a wounded spirit 1 Cor. 8.8 or Wine to a sick soul For neither if we eat are we the better the more accepted nor if we eat not are we the worse saith S. Paul It is true the outward Elements are indifferent in themselves but Authority changeth and even transelementeth them giveth them virtue and efficacy a commanding power even the force of a Law He that put virtue into the Clay and Spittle to cure a bodily eye may do the same to Bread and Wine to heal our spiritual blindness He that made these a staff to our bodies may make them also a prop to our souls when they droop and sink And then if he say This do ye though our Reason should be at a stand and boggle at it as at a thing which holdeth no proportion with a Soul yet we must do it because he saith it It may be said Jam. 1.21 Is not his Word sufficient which is able to save our souls Is it not enough for me to beat down my body to pour forth my prayers to crucifie my flesh No Nothing is sufficient but what the authority of Christ hath made so Nescit judicare quisquis didicit perfectè obedire is true in matters of this nature We have no judgement of our own our wisdome is to obey and let him alone to judge what is fit who alone hath power to command Authority must not be disputed with nor can it hear Why should I do this For such a question denieth it to be Authority If it were possible that God to try our obedience should bid us sow the rocks or water a dry stick or teach a language we do not know as the Jesuites do their Novices a necessity would lie upon us and wo unto us if we did it not How much rather then should we obey when he commandeth for our advantage giveth us a law that he may give us more grace bindeth us to that which will raise us nearer to him when he spreadeth his table prepared his viands biddeth us eat and drink and then saith grace biddeth a blessing himself unto it that we may grow up in his favour and be placed amongst those great examples of eternal happiness Look not then on the Minister howsoever qualified For a brass-seal maketh the same impression which a ring of gold doth and it is not material whether the seal be of baser or purer metal so the image and character be authentick saith Nazianzene Look not on the outward Elements for of themselves they have no power at all no more than the water of Jordan had to cure a leper but their power and virtue is from above The force and virtue of a Sacrament lieth in the institution all the power it hath is from the Authour Before it was Bread but common Bread now it is Manna the Bread of strength the Bread of Angels And this truth thou maist build upon nor doth the Church of Rome deny it And though they have added five Sacraments and may add as many more as they please Quicquid arant homines navigant aedificant any thing we do may be made a Sacrament When the Phansie is working she may spin out what she please Yet they cannot deny that every Sacrament must have immediate institution from Christ himself from his own mouth or else it is of no validity and therefore they are forced to pretend it though they cannot prove it in those which themselves have added for their own advantage Think then when thou hearest these words Take eat This is my body which was broken thou hearest thy Saviour himself speaking from heaven Think not of the Minister or the meanness of the Elements but think of him who took thee out of thy blood and sanctified thee with his and by the same power is able to sanctifie these outward Elements 1 Cor. 10.16 by the virtue of whose institution the cup of blessing which we bless which he blessed first shall be to every one that cometh worthily the comunion of the bloud and the Bread which we break which he first brake the communion of the body of Christ And thus much of the Authour Let us now consider what he enjoyneth us to do The Command is to do this that is to do as he did though to another end to take Bread and to give thanks and eat it and so of the Cup to take and drink it And if this be done with an eye to the Authour and a lively faith in him this is all For this Table was spread not for the dead but for the living This I say is all But some have stretched this word beyond its proper and natural signification Others and that a multitude do rest under the shadow of the word content themselves in the outward action do do it and no more which indeed is not to do it For though this word to do be not of so large a significatton as the Church of Rome hath drawn it out in that they might build an Altar and offer up Christ again which they say is to remember him yet is it not so scant and narrow as Ignorance and Prophaneness make it Advers Const. Aug. Verba non sono sed sensu sapiunt saith Hilary We must not tie our selves to the sound but lay hold on the sense of the words And this word to do though it be less than the little cloud in the book of the Kings 1 Kings 18.44 nothing near so big as a mans hand yet if it be interpreted it will spread and be as large as Heaven it self and containeth within its sphere and compass all those stars those graces and virtues which will entitle us to bliss by fitting and qualifying of us to do it For indeed non fit quod non fit legitimè that is not done which is not done as it should be Those duties in Scripture which are shut up in a word are of a large and diffusive interpretation When God biddeth us hear he biddeth us obey When he biddeth us believe he biddeth us love When he awaketh our understanding he commandeth our Hand When he biddeth us do this he biddeth us perfect our work For Hearing is not Hearing without Obedience Faith is dead if it work not by Charity and Knowledge is but a dream without Practice and we do not that which we do not as we should To do this then is not barely to take the Bread and eat it This Judas himself might do this he doth that doth it to his own damnation And therefore though it be not now common Bread and common Wine but consecrated and set
Arts themselves are not liberal but when they make men so free and ingenuous Arithmetick and Geometry are but a kind of Legerdemain if they teach men onely metiri latifundia accommodare digitos avaritiae to measure Lordships and to tell money What need we instance in these The Word of God which bringeth salvation may bring death if it be not received with the meekness of a babe that we may grow thereby The Sacrament the blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper which hath been magnified too much and yet cannot be magnified enough was ordained as Physick to renew and revive and quicken our souls but if it be not received to that end for which it was first instituted it is not Physick but damnation Non QUID sed QUEMADMODUM vers 29. It is not the bare Doing of a thing but the Manner of doing it the driving it on to its right end which giveth it its full beauty and perfection A sincere Heart and the Glory of God set the true image of Liberality on the gift of a mite Attention and Obedience make the Word the savour of life Humility and Repentance sanctifie a fast and Shewing of the death of the Lord maketh us truly partakers of his body and bloud Our Saviour Christ hath fully decided this controversie in a word and with one breath as it were hath said enough to still the tumults of the disputers which have been as the raging of the sea and to settle all the vain and needless controversies of this age John 6.63 even in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The flesh profiteth nothing it is the Spirit that quickeneth For to say his flesh profiteth nothing is a plain declaration that he meant not to give it us to eat That which is nourishment to the body is not proportioned to the soul nor will that which reneweth a soul restore the body to a healthful temper Who would go about to recover a sick man with an Oration of Tully's or set a joynt with an axiom of Philosophy Who can restore a sick soul with bread and wine with flesh or bloud Although these two parts the Soul and the Body are knit and united rogether and do sympathize so as that which refresheth the body doth affect and please the mind and that which cheareth the mind doth strengthen the body yet both the parts receive that which is proper to them the body that which is of a corporeal nature and the soul that which is spiritual and both mutually communicate to each other the fruit and benefit of both without the least confusion of their operations and proprieties Although we see the actions of the body as Hunger and Thirst many times attributed to the soul and the functions of the soul as to Will and the like to the body Therefore we must distinguish between the Meritorious cause and the Efficiency and Application of it which are both joyntly necessary but their manner of operation is diverse It was necessary that the flesh and bloud of Christ should be separated from each other in his violent death on the cross that his most precious bloud should be poured out for remission of sins but to make it a physical potion to make it nourishment to our souls it was not necessary that his bodily substance should be taken into ours For if it should our Saviout telleth us it would profit nothing And the reason is plain Because the merit and virtue of his death which is without us is made ours not by any fleshly conjunction or union with him who merited for us by offering himself but 1. by his Will by which he in a manner maketh it over unto us and 2. by our due receiving of it which is made complete by our Consent and Faith and Giving of thanks which is the work alone of that Spirit which quickeneth and giveth life The blessed Virgin did no doubt partake of the merit of Christ but not because she conceived and bore him nine moneths in her womb but in that she conceived him by faith in her heart Luke 11.27 28. The womb was blessed that bare him and the paps that gave him suck but they rather were blessed who heard his word and kept it The Flesh and Bloud of Christ doth truly quicken us as it was offered up for us a sacrifice on the cross as a meritorious cause and as he gave it for the salvation of the world But it doth not quicken by being received into our bodies but by being received into our souls His merit was enough to save the whole world and yet his merit were nothing if not applied and that application is not wrought without but within us not by the Spirit of life but by the force and power of his death and passion the meritorious cause Rom. 8.2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death What need we hear stir this Water of life and turn it into gall and bitterness Why should this Bread be gravel between our teeth Why should Christ's love be made the matter of war and contention It is called the Body and Bloud of Christ and it is called Bread and Cup in my Text And it is a miserable servitude saith Augustine signa pro rebus accipere to take the signs of things for the things themselves and not to be able to lift up the eye of our mind a-above the corporeal creature to take in eternal light That we may lift up ours let us fix it upon the end for which Christ offered his body and bloud and upon the end for which we are to receive the Sacrament and signs of it And let one end be the measure and rule of the other Let Christ lifted upon the cross draw us after him to follow as he leadeth His body was bruised and his bloud shed to purge us from all iniquity and to make us a peculiar people unto himself That was Christ's end And our end must be proportioned to it So to receive the Sacrament of his body and bloud that it may be instrumental to that end Which cannot be by eating his flesh and bloud that flesh which was crucified and that bloud which was shed One would think it impossible that any should think our Saviour should command us that which is impossible or shew us a way which cannot lead to the end Flesh and Bloud taken down into the stomach can no more feed and quicken a Soul then it can enter into the Kingdom of heaven But his Obedience his Humility his Cross and Passion his meritorious Suffering and Satisfaction these have power and influence on the Soul These are here presented to us as Manna and better then Manna and if we take them down and digest them they will turn into good bloud and feed us to eternal life His Body and Bloud were thus given and thus we must receive them Our Saviour calleth it his
not with us in favour and mercy He seeketh after us and layeth hold on us being gone from him as far as Sin and Disobedience could carry us out of his reach It was his love it was his will to do so and in this we might rest But Divines will tell us that Man was a fitter object of mercy than the Angels quia levius est alienâ mente peccare De Angelis quibusdam suâ sponte corruptis corruptior gens Daemonum evaâ—it Tert. Apol c. 22. quà m propriâ because the Angels sin was more spontaneous wrought in them by themselves Man had importunam arborem that flattering and importuning Tree and that subtile and seducing Serpent to urge and sway him from his obedience Man had a Tempter the Angels were both the temptation and tempters to themselves Man took in death by looking abroad but the Angels reflecting upon themselves gazed so long upon their own beauty till they saw it changed into horrour and deformity And the offence is more pardonable where the motive is ab extrinseco than where it groweth up of it self Besides the Angels did not all fal but the whole lump of Mankind was leavened with the same leaven and pity it may seem that so noble a Creature made up after Gods own Image should be utterly lost These reasons with others we may admit though they may seem rather to be conjectures than reasons and we have not much light in Scripture to give them a fairer appearance Hebr. 2.16 but the Scripture is plain that he took not the Angels he did not lay his hands upon them to redeem them to liberty and strike off their bonds And we must go out of the world to find the reason and seek the true cause in the bosome of the Father nay in the bowels of his Son and there see the cause why he was delivered for us written in his heart It was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the love of God to mankind Tit. 3.4 And what was in mankind but enmity and hostility sin and deformity which are no proper motives to draw on love And yet God loved us and hated sin and made hast to deliver us from it Dilexisti me Domine plusquà m te quando mori voluisti pro me saith Augustine Lord when thou dyedst for me thou madest it manifest that my soul was dearer to thee then thy self Such a high esteem did he set upon a Soul which we scarce honour with a thought but so live as if we had none For us Men then and for us Sinners was Christ delivered The Prophet Isaiah speaketh it and he could not speak it properly of any but him Isa 53.5 He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities So that he was delivered up not only to the Cross and Shame but to our Sins which nayled him to the cross which not only crucified him in his humility but crucified him still in his glory now he sitteth at the right hand of God and put him to shame to the end of the world Falsò de Judaeis querimur Why complain we of the Jews malice or Judas's treason or Pilates injustice We we alone are they who crucified the Lord of life Our Treachery was the Judas which betrayed him our Malice the Jew which accused him our Perjury the false witness against him our Injustice the Pilate that condemned him Our Pride scorned him our Envy grinned at him our Luxury spate upon him our Covetousness sold him Our corrupt Blood was drawn out of his wounds our Swellings prickt with his thorns our Sores launced with his spear and the whole body of Sin stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life He delivered him up for us Sinners No sin there is which his blood will not wash away but final Impenitency which is not so much a sin as the sealing up of the body of sin when the measure is full For us sinners for us the progeny of an arch-traytor and as great traytors as he Take us at our worst if we repent he was delivered for us And if we do not repent yet he may be said to be delivered for us for he was delivered for us to that end that we might repent For us sinners he was delivered for us when we were without strength for us when we were ungodly Rom. 5.6.8 So we were considered in this great work of Redemption And thus high are we gone on this scale and ladder of Love There is one step more He was delivered for us all ALL not considered as Elect or Reprobate but as Men as Sinners Rom. 5.12 for that name will take in all for all have sinned And here we are taught to make a stand and not to touch too hastily and yet the way is plain and easie For all This some will not touch and yet they do touch and press it with that violence that they press it almost into nothing make the world not the world and whosoever not whosoever but some certain men and turn all into a few deduct whom they please out of all people nations and languages and out of Christendome it self leave some few with Christ upon the Cross whose persons he beareth whom they call the Elect and mean themselves So God loved the world that is the Elect say they They are the world John 3.16 where it is hard to find them for they are called out of it and the best light we have which is the Scripture discovereth them not unto us in that place If the Elect be the world which God so loved then they are such Elect as may not believe such Elect as may perish and whom God will have perish if they do not believe It is true none have benefit of Christ's death but the Elect but from hence it doth not follow that no other might have had Theirs is the kingdome but are not they shut out now who might have made it theirs God saith S. Peter 2 Pet. 3 9. would not that any should perish and God is the Saviour of all men saith S. Paul 1 Tim. 4.10 but especially of those that believe all if they believe and repent and those who are obedient to the Gospel because they do The blood of Christ is poured forth on the Believer and with it he sprinkleth his heart and is saved the wicked trample it under their foot and perish The blood of Christ is sufficient to wash away the sins of the world nay of a thousand worlds Christ paid down a ransome of so infinite a value that it might redeem all that are ' or possibly might be under captivity But none are actually redeemed but they who make him their Captain and do as he commandeth that is believe and repent or to speak in their own language none are saved but the elect In this all agree in this they are Brethren and why should they fall out when both hold up the priviledge of the Believer
Wilt thou not by him and by thy own sins and miseries which drew from him tears of blood learn to pity thy self Wilt thou still rejoyce in that iniquity that troubled his spirit and shed his blood which he was willing should gush out of his heart so it might melt thine and work but this in thee pity to thy self We talk of a first Conversion and a second and I know not what Cycles and Epicycles we have found out to salve our irregular motion in our wayes to bliss If we could once have compassion on our selves the work were done And When were you converted or How were you converted were no such hard questions to be answered For I may be sure I am converted if I be sure that I truly pity my self Shall Christ only have compassion on thy soul But then again shall he shed his blood for his Church that it may be one with him and at unity in it self and canst thou not drop a tear when thou seest this his body thus rent in pieces as it is at this day When thou seest the World the Love of the world break in and make such havock in the Church oh it is a sad contemplation will none but Christ weep over Jerusalem Luk. 19.41 Secondly let us look upon him living and not take our eye from off him to fill and feed and delight it with the vanities of this world with that which hath neither life nor spirit with that which is so neer to nothing with that which is but an idole Behold he liveth that which thou so dotest on hath no life nor can it prolong thy life a moment Who would not cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils Isa 2.22 and then what madness is it to trust in that which hath no breath at all Shall Christ present himself alive to us and for us and shall we lay hold on Corruption and Rottenness And when Heaven openeth it self to receive us shall we run from it into a Charnel-house and so into Hell it self In the third place Behold he liveth for evermore and let us not bound and imprison our thoughts within a span and when immortality is offered affect no other life but that which is a vapour Jam. 4.14 Let us not raise that swarm of thoughts which must perish but build up those works upon our everliving Saviour which may follow us follow us through the huge and unconceivable tract of eternity Doth our Saviour live for evermore and shall we have no spirit in us but that which delighteth to walk about the earth and is content to vanish with it Eternity is a powerful motive to those who never have such pensive thoughts as when they remember their frailty and are sick even of health it self and in a manner dead with life when they consider it as that blessing which shall have an end Eternity is in our desire though it be beyond our apprehension What he said of Time is truer of Eternity If you do not ask what it is we know but if you ask we are not able to answer and resolve you or tell you what it is When we call it an infinite duration we do but give it another name two words for one a short Paraphrase but we do not define what it is And indeed our first conceptions of it are the fairest For when they are doubled and redoubled they are lost in themselves and the further they extend â—hemselves the more weary they are and at greater loss in every proffer and must end and rest at last in this poor and unsatisfying thought That we cannot think what it is Yet there is in us a wild presage an unhandsome acknowledgment of it for we phansie it in those objects which vanish out of fight whilst we look upon them we set it up in every desire for our desires never have an end Every purpose of ours every action we do is Aeternitati sacrum and we do it to eternity Prov. 23.5 Psal 49.11 We look upon Riches as if they had no wings and think our habitations shall endure for ever We look upon Honour as if it were not air but some Angel confirmed a thing bound up in eternity We look upon Beauty and it is our heaven and we are fixt and dwell on it as if it would never shrivel and be gathered together as a scroul and so in a manner make Mortality it self eternal And therefore since our desires do so enlarge themselves and our thoughts so multiply that they never have an end since we look after that which we cannot see and reach after that which we cannot grasp God hath set up that for an object to look on which is eternal indeed in the highest Heavens and as he hath made us in his own image so in Christ who came to renew it in us he hath shewed us a more excellent way unto it and taught us to work out eternity even in this world in this common shop of change to work it out of that in which it is not which is neer to nothing which shall be nothing to work it out of Riches by not trusting them out of Honour by contemning it out of the Pleasures of this world by loathing them out of the Flesh by crucifying it out of the World by overcoming it and out of the Devil himself by treading him under our feet For this is to be in Christ and to be in Christ is to be for evermore Christ is the eternal Son of God and he was dead and liveth and liveth for evermore that we may dye and live for evermore and not only attain to the Resurrection of the dead but to eternity Last of all let us look upon the keyes in his hand and knock hard that he may open to us and deliver our soul from hell and make our grave not a prison but a bed to rise from to eternal life If we be still shut in we our selves have turned the key against our selves Christ is ready with his Keyes to open to us and we have our Keyes too our key of Knowledge to discern between life and Death and our key of Repentance and when we use these Christ is ready to put his even into our hands and will derive a power unto us mortals unto us sinners over Hell and Death And then in the last place we shall be able to set on the Seal the AMEN and be confirmed in the certainty of his Resurrection and Power by which we may raise those thoughts and promote those actions which may look beyond our threescore years and ten Psal 90.10 through all successive generations to immortality and that glory which shall never have an end This is to shew and publish our faith by our works as S. James speaketh Jam. 2.18 this is with the heart to believe as S. Paul Rom. 10.10 For he that believeth from the heart cannot but be obedient to the Gospel unless we
of those profitable and honourable evils which we have set up as our mark but cannot so fairly reach to if we stand in open defiance to all Religion And therefore when that will not joyn with us but looketh a contrary way to that which we are pressing toward with so much eagerness we content our selves with some part of it with the weakest and poorest and beggerlyest part of it and make use of it to go along with us and countenance and secure us in the doing of that which is opposit to it and with which it cannot subsist And so well and feelingly we act our parts that we take our selves to be great favourites and in high grace with him whose laws we break and so procure some rest and ease from those continual clamours which our guiltiness would otherwise raise within us and walk on with delight and boasting and through this seeming and feigned paradise post on securely to the gates of Death In what triumphant measures doth a Pharisee go from the Altar What a harmless thing is a cheat after a Sermon What a sweet morsel is a widows house after long Prayers What a piece of justice is Oppression after a fast After so much Ceremony the blood of Abel himself of the justest man alive hath no voice For 3. These outward performances and this formality in Religion have the same spring and motive with our greatest and foulest sins The same cause produceth them the same considerations promote them and they are carried to their end on the same wings of our carnal desires Do you not wonder that I should say The formality and outward presentments of our Devotion may have the same beginnings with our sins may have their birth from the same womb that they draw the same breasts and like twins James 3.11 are born and nurst and grow up together Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter No it cannot But both these are salt and brinish our Sacrifice as ill smelling as our Oppression our Fast as displeasing as our Sacrilege and our Hearing and Prayers cry as loud for vengeance as our Oppression We sacrifice that we may oppress we fast that we may spoil our God and we pray that we may devour our brethren Ezek. 16.44 Like mother like daughter saith the Prophet They have the same evil beginning and they are both evil Ambition was the cause of Absaloms Rebellion 2 Sam. 15. 1 Kings 21. Gen. 34. and Ambition sent him to Hebron to pay his vow Covetousness made Ahab and Jezebel murderers and Covetousness proclaimed their fast Lust made Shechem the Son of Hamor a ravisher and Lust made him a Proselyte and circumcised him Covetousness made the Pharisee a ravening Wolf and Covetousness clothed him in a Lambs skin Covetousness made his Corban and Covetousness did disfigure his face and placed him praying in the Synagogues and in the corners of the streets Ex his causam accipiunt quibus probantur saith Tertullian They have both the same cause for the same motives arise and shew them both The same reason maketh the same man both devout and wicked both abstemious and greedy both meek and bloody a seeming Saint and a raging Devil a Lamb to the eye and a roaring Lion Scit enim diabolus alios continentiâ alios libidine occidere saith the same Father The Devil hath an art to destroy us with the appearance of virtue assoon as with the poyson of sin For 4. This formality in Religion standeth in no opposition with him or his designs but rather advanceth his kingdome and enlargeth his dominion For how many Sacrificers how many attentive Hearers how many Beadsmen how many Professours are his vassals How many call upon God Abba Father who are the Devils Children How many openly renounce him Ex malitia ingenium habet Tertull. de Idololat and yet love his wiles delight in his craft which is his Malice How many never think themselves at liberty but when they are in his snare And doth not a fair pretense make the fact fouler Doth not Sacrifice raise the voice of our Oppression that it cryeth louder Doth not a form of Godliness make Sin yet more sinful When we talk of heaven and love the world are we not then most earthly most sensual most devilish Is the Devil ever more Devil then when he is transformed into an angel of light And therefore the Devil himself is a great promoter of this art of pargetting and painting and maketh use of that which we call Religion to make men more wicked loveth this foul and monstrous mixture of a Sacrificer and an Oppressor of a Christian and a Deceiver of a Faster and a Blood thirsty man And as he was most enraged and impatient as Tertullian telleth us to see the works of God brought into subjection under Man who was made according to Gods image so is it his pride and glory to see Man and Religion it self brought under these transitory things and even made servants and slaves unto them Oh to this hater of God and Man it is a kind of heaven in hell it self and in the midst of all his torment to see this Man whom God created and redeemed do him the greatest service in Christs livery to see him promote his interest in the name of Christ and Religion to see him under his power and dominion most when he waiteh most diligently and officiously at the altar of God The Pharisee was his beloved disciple when he was on his knees with a disfigured face These Jews here were his disciples who did run to the Altar but not from their evil waies who offered up the blood of beasts to God and of the innocent to him He that fasteth and oppresseth is his disciple for he giveth God his body and the Devil his soul He that prayeth much and cozeneth more is his disciple for he flattreth God but serveth the enemy speaketh to the God of truth with his lips but hearkneth to the Father of lyes and deceit I may say the Devil is the great Alchymist of the world he transelementeth the worst things to make them more passable and to add a kind of esteem and glory to them We do not meet with counterfeit Iron or Copper but Gold and Pretious stones these we sophisticate and when we cannot dig them out of the mine or take them from the rock we strive to work them by art out of Iron or Copper or Glass and call them Gold and Diamonds Thus doth the Devil raise and sublime the greatest Impiety and gild it over with a Sacrifice with a Fast with Devotion that it may appear in glory and deceive if it were possible the very elect We see too many deceived with it who having no Religion themselves are yet ready to bow down to its Image wheresoever they see it and so fix their eye and devotion upon it that they see not the Thief the Oppressour the
esse debet ager quà m agricola The farm must not be too great for the husbandman but what he may be well able to manure and dress And the reason is good Quia si fundus praevaleat colliditur dominus Because if he prevail not if he cannot manage it he must needs be at great loss And it is so in the speculations and works of the mind Those inquiries are most fruitful and yield a more plentiful increase which we are able to bring unto the end which is truly to resolve our selves Thus it is as a little plot of ground well tilled will yield a fairer crop and harvest then many acres which we cannot husband for the Understanding doth not more foully miscarry when it is deceived with false appearances and sophismes then when it looketh upon and would apprehend unnecessary and unprofitable objects and such as are set out of sight Res frugi est sapientia Spiritual Wisdome is a frugal and thrifty thing sparing of her time which she doth not wantonly wast to purchase all knowledge whatsoever but that which may adorn and beautifie the mind which was made to receive Virtue and Wisdome and God himself To know that which profiteth not is next to ignorance But to be ambitious of impertinent speculations carrieth with it the reproch of folly Hom. 29. adv calumn 8. Trin. What is it then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil speaketh to seek with such diligence for that which is past finding out And first the knowledge of the hour of Christ's coming is most impertinent Acts 1.7 Psal 31.15 and concerneth us not It is not for us to know the times As our dayes so the times are in God's hand and he disposeth and dispenseth them as it pleaseth him fitteth a time to every thing which all the wisdome of the world cannot do Thou wouldst know when he would take the yoke from off thy neck It is not for thee to know That which concerneth thee is to possess thy soul with patience which will make thy yoke easie Thou wouldst know when he will break the teeth of the ungodly and wrest the sword out of the hand of them that delight in blood It is not for thee to know Thy task is to learn to suffer and rejoyce and to make a blessing of persecution Thou wouldst know when the world shall be dissolved Why shouldst thou desire to know it Thy labour must be to dissolve the body of sin and set an end and period to thy transgressions Thou wouldst know what hour this Lord will come It is not for thee to know but to work in this thy hour and be ready and prepared for his coming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The present the present time that is thine and thou must fill it up with thy obedience That which is to come of what aspect so ever it be thou must onely look upon and consider as an help and advantage to thee in thy work The Lord will come speaketh no more to me then this To labour and sweat in his vineyard till he come All the daies of my appointed time will I wait Job 14.14 saith Job There is a time and an appointed time and appointed by a God of eternity and I do not study to calculate or find out the last minute of it but I will wait which is but a syllable but of a large and spreading signification and taketh in the whole duty of man For what is the life of a Christian but expectation of and waiting for the coming of the Lord David indeed desireth to know his end and the measure of his dayes Psal 39.4 but he doth not mean so to calculate them as Arithmeticians do to know a certain and determined number of them so to number them as to tell them at his fingers ends and say This will be the last but himself interpreteth himself and hath well explained his own meaning in the last words Let me know the measure of my dayes that I may know how frail I am know not exactly how many but how few they be let me so measure them that I may know and consider that they are but few that in this little time I may strive forward and make a way to eternity This was the Arithmetick he desired to have skill in It may seem a paradox but there is much truth in it few men are so fully resolved of their mortality as to know their dayes are few We can say indeed that we are but shadows but the dreams of shadows but bubbles but vapours that we began to die before we were born and in the womb did move and strive forward towards the gates of Death and we think it no disparagement because we speak to men of the same mold who will say the same of themselves and lay to heart as little as we But should we pass over Methusalem's age a thousand times yet when we were drawing even towards our end we should be ready to conceive a possibility of a longer race and hope like the Sun to run the same compass again And though we die every day yet we are not so fully confirmed in this that we shall ever die Egregia res est condiscere mortem saith Seneca The best art is the knowledge of our frailty and he must needs live well who hath well learnt to die And egregia res est condiscere adventum Domini Ep. 26. It is a most useful thing to have learnt and well digested the coming of the Lord. For we cannot take out this as we should but we must be also perfect in those lessons which may make us fit to meet him when he cometh The hour of his coming is lockt up in the treasury of his Wisdome and he hath left us no key to open it that we might not so much as hope to find it and so mispend our thoughts in that which they cannot lay hold on and which should be fastened on the other to advance and promote our duty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fix that well which is present here lay out all thy store all the powers of thy soul Whilest it is time whilest it is day whilest it is thy day make ready for his coming For secondly though it be in the future tense VENIET he will come though it lie hid as it were in the womb of Time and we know not when it will be brought to birth yet at this distance it looketh upon us and hath force enough in it self to work that fear and caution in us which the knowledge of the very hour peradventure might not do We say we believe it and that is enough And some have given Faith the preeminence above Knowledge and count the evidence we have by Faith clearer and more convincing then that we have by Demonstration But if it were not yet even that which is but probable in other things doth prevail with us and is as it were principium motus the
Body and his Bloud and S. Paul calleth it the Bread and the Cup Nor is S. Paul contrary to Christ but determineth and reconcileth all in the end both of Christ's suffering and our receiving in the words of my Text As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew or shew ye the Lord's death till he come In which words the Death of the Lord of life is presented to us and we called to look up upon him whom our sins have pierced through to behold him wounded for our transgressions ex cujus latere aqua sanguis Isa 53.5 utriusque lavacri paratura manavit as Tertullian out of whose side came water and bloud to wash and purge us which make the two Sacraments Baptism and the Lord's Supper And the effect of both is our Obedience in life and conversation that we should serve him with the whole heart who hath bought us at so dear a price that we should wash off all our spots and stains and foul pollutions in the laver of this Water and the laver of this Bloud And therefore as he offered himself for us on the Cross so he offereth himself to us in the Sacrament his Body in the Bread and his Bloud in the Cup that we may eat and drink and feed upon him and taste how gracious he is Which is the sum and complement and blessed effect of the duty here in the Text to shew the Lord's death till he come For he that sheweth it not manducans non manducat eating doth not as Ambrose doth eat the Bread but not feed on Christ But he that fully acquitteth himself in this shall be fed to eternal life Let us then take the words asunder And there we find What we are to do and How long we are to do it the Duty and the Continuation of it the Duty We must shew forth Christ's death the Continuation of it We must do it till he come again to judgment In the Duty we consider first an Object what it is we must shew the death of the Lord Secondly an Act what it is to shew and declare it The death of the Lord a sad but comfortable a bloudy but saving spectacle And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew a word of as large a compass as Christianity it self And the duration and continuation of it till he come that is to the end of the world Of these in their order The object is in nature first and first to be handled the death of the Lord. And this is most proper for us to consider For by his stripes we are healed and by his death we live And in this he hath not onely expressed his Love but made himself an example that we may take it out and so shew forth his death First it is his Love which joyned these two words together Death and the Lord which are farther removed then Heaven is from the Earth For can the Lord of life die Yes Amor de coelo demisit Dominum That Love which brought him down from his throne to his footstool that united the Godhead and Manhood in one Person hath also made these two terms Death and the Lord compatible and fastned the Son of God to the Cross hath exprest it self not onely in Beneficence but also in Patience not onely in Power but also in Humility and is most lively and visible in his Death the true authentick instrument of his Love He that is our Steward to provide for us who supplieth us out of his rich treasur◠who ripeneth the fruit on the trees and the corn in the fields who draweth us wine out of the vine and spinneth us garments out of the bowels of the worm and the fleece of the flock will also empty himself and pour forth his bloud He who giveth us balm for our bodies will give us physick for our souls will give up his ghost to give us breath and life And here his love is in its Zenith and vertical point and in a direct line casteth the rayes of comfort on his lost creature This Lord cometh not naked but clothed with blessings cometh not empty but with the rich treasuries of heaven cometh not alone but with troops of Angels with troops of promises and blessings Bonitas foecunda sui Goodness is fruitful and generative of it self gaineth by spending it self swelleth by overflowing and is increased by profusion When she poureth forth her self and breatheth forth that sweet exhalation she conveyeth it not poor and naked and solitary but with a troop and authority with ornament and pomp For Love bringeth with it whatsoever Goodness can imagine munera officia gifts and offices doth not onely give us the Lord but giveth us his sufferings his passion his death not onely his death but the virtue and power of it to raise us from the lethargy and death of Sin that we may be quick and active to shew and express it in our selves Olim morbo nunc remedio laboramus The remedy is so wonderful it confoundeth the patient and maketh health it self appear but fabulous Shall the Lord of Life die why may not Man whose breath is in his nostrils be immortal Yes he shall and for this reason Because it pleased the Lord of Life to die We need not adopt one in his place or substitute a creature a phantasm as did Arius and Marcion in his office For he took our sins and he will take the office himself Isa 63.3 he will tread the wine press alone and will admit none with him Nor doth this Humility impair his Majesty but rather exalt it Though he die yet he is the Lord still The Father will tell us that they who denied this for fear were worse then those who denied it out of stomach and the pretense of his honour is more dangerous then perversness For this is to confine and limit this Lord to shorten his hand palos terminales figere to set up bounds and limits against his infinite Love and absolute Will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shape and frame him out to their own phansie and indeed to blaspheme him with reverence to take from him his heavenly power and put into his hand a sceptre of reed His Love and his Will quiet all jealousies and answer all arguments whatsoeever It was his will to die and he that resteth in God's Will doth best acknowledge his Majesty For all even Majesty it self doth vail to his Will and is commanded by it What the Lord of life equal to the Father by whom all things were made shall he die Yes quia voluit because he would For as at the Creation he might have made Man as he made other creatures by his Word alone yet would not but wrought him out of the clay and fashioned him with his own hands so in the great work of our Redemption he did not send an Angel one of the Seraphim or Cherubim or any finite creature which he might have done
not dare so oft to offend and which is most strange had not Christ so loved us we had not persecuted him had he not been a sacrifice we had been more willing to have made him an ensample For we hope his Love that nailed him to the cross will be ready to meet and succour and embrace us in any posture in any temper whatsoever though we come towards him clothed with vengeance Zeph. 1.8 in anger and fury with strange apparel in wantonness and lust polluted and spotted with the world Thus doth the sophistry of our Sensual part prevail against the demonstrations of Reason which doth bring Christ in as dead for our sins but withall as a Lord to help us to destroy Sin by the power of his death For both these are friendly linked together in the Lord's Death his Love and his Ensample Et magnum nobis quà m parvo constat exemplum And this great example how little doth it cost us Not to be spit upon and buffeted and crucified not to suffer and die It is no more then this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew it forth in our selves till he come Which is the Act here required and my next Part. And this we must do if we will be fitted for this Feast and be welcome guests at the Lord's Table Divines have told us of a threefold manner of feeding on the flesh of Christ a Sacramental alone a Spiritual alone and a Sacramental and Spiritual both Which distinction may not be rejected if it be rightly understood 1. They that come to this Table and receive the Sacrament without faith and devotion may be said indeed to eat the Body of Christ as that name is usually given to the Sacrament and sign and the Sacrament of the body of Christ after a manner is the Body of Christ and yet that of S. Augustine is true He that sheweth not forth his death eateth not his flesh but is guilty of the body and bloud of Christ a Communicant and no Communicant an enemy and not a guest fitter to be dragged to the bar then to be placed at his Table And what a morsel is that with which we take down Death and the Devil together 2. Some there be whom not contempt and neglect but necessity the great patroness of humane infirmitie keepeth from the Lord's Table and Sacrament and yet they shew his death look up upon his cross draw it out in their heart in bleeding characters apply it by faith and make it their meditation day and night And these though they feed not on him Sacramentally yet spiritually are partakers of his body and bloud and so made heirs of salvation though they eat not this bread nor drink of this cup. For what cannot be done cannot bind Some Actions are counted as done though they be never brought forth into act If the heart be ready though the tongue be silent as a viol on the wall yet we sing and give praise Persecution may shut up the Church-doors yet I may love the place where God's honour dwelleth Persecution may seal up the Priest's lips shut me up in prison and feed me with no other bread then that of affliction yet even in the lowest dungeon I may feed on this Bread of life I may be valiant and not strike a blow I may be liberal and not give a mite hospital when I have not a hole to hide my head in He that taketh my purse from me doth not rob me of my piety he that sequestereth my estate yet leaveth me my charity and he that debarreth me the Table cannot keep me from Christ As I told you out of Ambrose Manducans non manducat I may eat the Bread and not be partaker of the Body so Non Manducans manducat Though I take not down the outward elements yet I may feed on Christ But happy yea thrice happy is their condition who can do both so receive panem Domini the Lord's bread that they may receive also pane 〈◊〉 Dominum be partakers of the Lord himself who is the Bread of life Blessed is he that thus eateth Bread with him at his Table For he feedeth on him Sacramentally and spiritually both Here he findeth those gracious advantages his Faith actuated his Hope exalted his Charity dilated the Covenant renewed the Promises and Love of Christ sealed and ratified to him with his bloud And this we shall do this comfort and joy we shall find even a new heaven in our souls if we shew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 preach and publish his death Which we may look upon at first as a duty of quick dispatch but if we look upon it again well weigh and consider it we shall find that it calleth for and requireth our greatest care and industry For it is not to turn the story of Christ's passion into a Tragedy to make a scenical representation of his death with all the art and colours of Rhetorick to declaim against the Jews malice or Judas's treason or Pilate's in justice but rather to declaim preach against our selves to hate and abhor crucifie our selves Nos nos homicidae We we alone are the murtherers Our Treachery was the Judas that betrayed him our Malice the Jew which accused him our Perjury the false witness against him our Injustice the Pilate that condemned him Our Pride scorned him our Envy grinned at him our Luxury â—pit upon him our Covetousness sold him Our corrupt bloud was drawn out of his wounds our swellings pricked with his thorns our sores lanced with his spear and the whole body of Sin stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life This indeed doth shew his death This consideration doth present the Passion but in a rude and imperfect piece The death of the Lord is shewn almost by every man and every day Some shew it but withal shew their vanity and make it manifest to all men Some shew it by shewing the Cross by signing themselves with the sign of it Some to shew it shew a Body which cannot be seen being hid under the accidents of Bread and Wine Some shew their wit instead of Christ's Passion lift it up as he was upon the cross shew it with ostentation Some shew their rancour and malice about a feast of Love and so draw out Christ with the claw of a Devil Phil. 1.15 Some preach it as S Paul speaketh out of envy and strife and some also of good will Some preach it and preach against it Some draw out Christ's Passion and their Religion together and all is but a picture and then sound a trumpet make a great cry as the painter who had drawn a Souldier with a sword in his hand did sound an alarm that he might seem to fight But this doth not shew the Lord's death but as Tertullian speaketh id negat quod ostendit denieth what it sheweth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew to preach the death of the Lord is more We may observe that
of the world cannot receive a poor Christ The Pride of life cannot receive an humble Christ The Lust of the flesh cannot receive a chaste Christ The sinner who confesseth and crucifieth him cannot receive him Those Antichrists cannot receive Christ no though they knock and knock again though they cry and cry aloud though they fast and pray and sequester themselves at some set times Then onely we are fit to receive him when we are Christi-formes made conformable to him The humble and obedient heart is his house his Temple and he will dwell in it for he taketh a delight therein Sequester then your selves draw your thoughts and apply them to this great benefit fast and pray and commune with your selves but do not then say We have done all that thou commandest us but let all these begin and end in obedience and holiness Let that be on the top the chief mark you aim at Tie it to you as an ornament of grace upon your head as a chain about your neck all the dayes of your life This will make you fit for Christ fit to receive his Body and Bloud and all the benefits of his Cross and his love will stream forth in the bloud which he shed and feed and nourish your souls to eternal life This I conceive to be the full compass of this duty of Examining of our selves And as it is necessary at all times so ought we especielly at this time to use it when we are to approch the Table of the Lord to make it our preparation before the receiving of the Sacrament He that neglected the Passeover was to be cut off from among his people And he that eateth and drinketh unworthily without examination of himself eateth and drinketh his own damnation because he discerneth not that is neglecteth the Lord's body Here at this Table thou dost as it were renew thy Covenant and here thou must renew thy Examination and see what failings and defects thou hast had and what diligence thou hast used in keeping of thy Covenant and bewail the one and increase and advance the other Consider whose Body and Bloud it is thou art to receive and in what habitude and relation thou art unto him and try thy Repentance thy Faith thy Charity For these unite thee to Christ bring thee so near as to dwell in him transform thee after his image and so give thee right and title to him and to all the riches and wisdom which are hidden in him Examine first your Repentance therefore Whether it be true and unfeigned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that circumcision made without hands Col. 2.11 Whether it be moved and carried on by a true spring hatred of sin and love of Christ Whether it be constant and uniform and universal consisting not in a head hanging down and a heart lifted up in to-day's sorrow and to-morrow's relapse in the detestation of idolatry and the love of sacrilege For this is as Luther saith poenitere simul non poenitere satis to repent and not repent to rise and fall and fall and rise This is not to repent but prevaricate to forsake our own cause and promote the Devil's No that Repentance which must place us at this Table must devote and consecrate us wholly to him whose Table it is And as our sins crucified him so must our repentance crucifie us and offer us up unto him as a holocaust or whole-burnt-offering who offered up himself a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world In the next place the Apostle exhorteth us to examine our selves whether we be in the Faith or no 2 Cor. 13.5 to prove our selves whether Christ be in us Without Faith there is no true Repentance There may be some distaste some regret some sorrow but not according to God Some distaste even those have had who never heard of Christ But it will not raise and improve it self not draw on a constant and serious resolution to shake off that which distasteth us to lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us till Faith possesseth our hearts and a firm persuasion that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself 2 Cor. 5.19 I believed and therefore I spake saith David We believe and therefore we examine our selves and take a strict survey of our souls we grone under our burthen and desire ease we find our selves sick and run to the Physician we find our selves dead in sin and flie to the Fountain of life Faith is the salt which seasoneth all our actions Nor will Christ admit us to his Table without it nor give himself to those who do not believe in him Faith is the mouth of the soul and with it we receive Christ To come unto him and receive him and believe in him are one and the same thing As the Word preached did not profit them that heard it Hebr. 4.2 not being mixed with faith not having this salt so the Sacraments are but bare signs and signifie nothing to them that believe not Accedens Verbum ad elementum facit Sacramentum non quia dicitur sed quia creditur saith Augustine The Word added to the Element maketh a Sacrament not because it is spoken but because it is believed That is without faith it profiteth nothing in respect of us although by Divine institution it hath force and power and ought to quicken and enliven us By the eye of Faith alone we follow Christ through every passage and period of his blessed oeconomy we behold him in the manger in his swadling-cloths and worship him we follow him in the streets going about and doing good and imitate him we behold him in his agonie and are nailed with him to his cross we see him rising and ascending and behold the heavens open and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God and lastly we behold him here in the Sacrament and lift up our hearts above these visible Elements to those things which are spiritual and invisible we see in them Christ's body lifted up upon the cross as the Serpent was in the wilderness and by this sight by this Faith we are cured Here in the Sacrament our Saviour again presenteth himself unto us openeth his wounds sheweth us his hands and his side speaketh to us as he did to Thomas Reach hither your fingers and behold my hands and reach hither your hands and thrust them into my side Take eat This is my body and be not faithless but believing Here shake off that chilness that restiveness that weariness and faintness of your faith here warm and actuate and quicken it Here God doth not shew us his face his extraordinary glory and majesty which no mortal can behold and live but we see him as it were in his back-parts and in these outward Elements Here he exhibiteth and giveth us his Son who is the brightness of his glory and the express image of his Person in whom he hath
the grim visage of Anger and the horrour of Cruelty Pleasure boweth the Covetous for he loveth to look upon his wealth It lifteth up the head of the Proud for he is his own paradise and walketh in the contemplation of himself as in the palace which he hath made It whetteth the sword of the Revenger for his delight is in bloud It grindeth the teeth of the Oppressour for the poor are his bread It is the first mover I may say the form of every sin From hence arise those motions contrary to Reason which dâ—stroy all sanctified thoughts which do as the Philosopher speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rob us of consultation oppress and put out the light of the soul and leave us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were fighting in the dark in the midst of Ignorance and Confusion Like those Egyptian thieves they first embrace and then strangle us The Sun now affordeth no light the heaven is not spangled with stars but filled and veiled with clouds And as Diomedes could not see the Goddess in the cloud no more can we see the face of Truth and beauty of Virtue in this darkness and confusion And can we now expect comfort from those whose very comforts are mortal which please with hurting and hurt with pleasing and their end is desolation and mourning Occidua res est omnis voluptas All sensual delight even when it riseth is in its setting and going down and then casteth a long shadow which is nothing but grief And as when the Sun setteth the shadows increase and the shadow of an infant presenteth a giant-like shape so the least pleasure when it declineth portendeth a sorrow far greater and larger then it self Besides this sorrow not onely followeth at the heels of pleasure but keepeth pace with her For every pleasure resisteth it self is impatient of it self and when it increaseth it self it destroyeth it self becometh offensive and maketh men weak and impotent in their embraces and so turneth enemy unto it self We read in Epiphanius that the Egyptians having put into one vessel many serpents together and shut them up close to try the event in time one stronger then his fellows having consumed all the rest when now no more remained began to eat up himself So Pleasure is a serpent to deceive us and a serpent to destroy it self For when we have spent our time and spirits in luxury and riot to please our sensual and brutish part at last Pleasure reflecteth upon it self and wasteth it self For it is not onely true that Tully saith Liberalitas liberalitatem exhaurit that Liberality indiscreetly used destroyeth and exhausteth it self but we find it as true Voluptas voluptatem exhaurit Pleasures immoderately taken consume themselves and return upon us nothing but pain and misery and voluptas voluptate perit by Pleasure Pleasure dieth We will now leave this theatre of Pleasure whereon whosoever acteth faileth and is thrown off and for a while walk amongst the tombs I called it Pleasure but it deserveth not that name which being lost leaveth an eternal loss behind it For who would so affect a feast as to forfeit his health and appetite but to tast it and for one dram for go all gust and delicacy Let us then enter the house of Mourning and see what glorious effects it doth produce And we shall find it a friend to virtue the guard of our life and a kind of Angel to guide us in all our wayes And in this respect God may seem to have preferred us before the Angels in that he hath built us up of flesh and bloud in that he hath given us so many senses and so many powers of our souls as so many crosses For an Angel cannot mourn cannot fast cannot suffer persecution but the soul of man being united to the body is carried up by those to an Angelical estate I know S. Paul brandeth worldly sorrow and maketh the effect of it no better then death 2 Cor. 7.10 And a better effect it cannot have whilst it is worldly and sensual Grief for a disgrace received may make me dishonour my self more to speak and do those things which are not seemly Sorrow for the loss of my goods may distract me leave me miserable but scarce a man The loss of a friend may draw on the loss of my life For when we find nothing but misery in misery we are willing to run from it though we run out of this life and this whilst our sorrow is fixed upon that evil that raised it But the devout School man will tell us Luctus sensualis trahit perâ—ccidens in luctum bonum that this grief may draw on also repentance unto salvation not to be repented of that is a repentance that will comfort us For comfort may be brought to us in a stream of bitterness The rod of God is a rod of iron to bruise us to pieces till we hearken to it and obey it But when I understand its language and discipline when I see the plague of my heart in the distemper of my body my lust in a fever and my intemperance in a dropsie when I discover greater evils then those I mourn for then I devert my grief upon these where it may be laid out with more advantage then this rod is no more a rod but a staff to comfort me Thus we may be drowned and we may be washed and refreshed in our tears and the house of Mourning may be our prison and it may be our school and by the help of that Spirit who is the Comforter we may work comfort out of that grief which was ready to swallow us up Our own experience will teach us that one of the greatest provocations to sin is not to feel the wrath of God in those outward calamities which produce this mourning The Pythagoreans where they speak of the Affections call them virtues and do thus distinguish them Some they say are virtutes animi purgati signs and indications of a mind clensed and renewed already Hope and Joy cannot be but in a virtuous soul For as where health is there is chearfulness where youth is there is comliness where Musick is there is an exsultancy so where goodness is there is joy Others are virtutes animi purgatrices virtues which purge and clense the soul as Fear and Grief For like Physick by degrees these purge out ill humours raise the soul to a kind of health and make it at length a mansion for Joy and Comfort As we see clothes deeply stained will not let go their spots without the loss of some part of their substance so when those maculae peccati as the Schools call them the spots and pollutions of sin have sunk down far and deeply stained and fullied us they will hardly be washed out without some loss and impairing of our selves without these purgatives of Grief and Mourning which bring leanness into our souls Haud levioribus remediis restinguendus est animus quà m
bring him forward to that end for which the miracle was wrought Therefore the same providence and mercy which raised him up at the pool's side found him out in the Temple to make yet deeper impressions in him to open his understanding that he might know what he was yet ignorant of who it was that had made him whole and so believe in him and be saved For indeed we are too ready to gaze so long on the miracle till we forget the hand that wrought it to delight our selves so much in health as not to think of the Physician and to lose a benefit by our enjoying of it Christ must therefore appear a second time again and again and find us out or we shall lose him and our selves for ever Christ will find them will be found of them that seek him not that they may learn to seek him His love is never weary and yet never resteth but in its end He worketh miracles and can he do more Yes give light to the miracle and make it a lesson to instruct us even sow his miracles that we may reap the fruit of them cure our eyes that our understandings may be opened to know him give us ears that we may hearken to his word restore our limbs that we may take up our cross and follow him that the diseases of our bodies being cured may be to us as the serpent in the wilderness was to the Israelites to be looked upon that we may be healed that our former deafness may make us more ready to hear what God will say our former blindness may make us more delight to behold the wonders of his Law our former palsie may teach us not to be wavering or double-minded but to move regularly in the wayes of God and to persevere therein unto the end The miracle is even cast away if it have no further operation then on our bodies Christ's love is cast away if we take his loaves and feed not on him if we behold his miracles and not believe if he give us sight and we see him not if he give us life and we be dead to him if he give us health and we make our strength the law of unrighteousness if we draw not down his miracles to that end for which he wrought them Rise saith he take up thy bed and walk The lame impotent man doth so and goeth his way but Christ followeth him as if the miracle were yet nothing followeth him to the Temple and then beginneth his cure when the man was whole Mark 8. When he first put his hands upon the blind man he saw men walking as trees This was miraculous but not a miracle But Christ again put his hands upon his eyes and then he looked up and saw every man clearly Christ ever worketh to perfeâ—â—â—on He came into the world that they that see not may see and that they that are lame may go but he doth not leave them when they but see men walk like trees in a weak and uncertain knowledge of him he doth not begin and desist but followeth his cure presseth upon us giveth us daily visits leaveth no means unassayed no way untroden nothing unattempted which his wisdom thinketh fit His end is to drive up every thing to the end to make his miracles his benefits his miraculous birth his glorious oeconomy his victorious death and passion powerful to attain their end to wit the glory of his Father and the salvation of our souls If I do not love the Creatouâ—â—â—â—t is all the beauty of the Universe If I do not repent what are a◠〈◊〉 glories of the Gospel If I do but walk and go and rejoyce in my health what is the miracle of curing How should this love of Christ affect and ravish our souls how should this fire kindled in our flesh inflame and incite us to cooperate with him and to help him to his end Nor will he take it as a disparagement if when he hath wrought what he pleased we put to our hand and work what we ought if when he hath wrought a miracle we do our duty if when he hath made us whole we flye that sin as a serpent which first bit us and struck us lame if when he hath provided us materials to our hand and taught us to be workmen we build up our selves in our most holy Faith Oh it is a foul and sad ingratitude to defeat Christ of his end and when he would finish his work to hinder him when he maketh his benefits a reason why we should sin no more to be so unreasonable as to sin more and more to look no further then the miracle which is done then the benefit we receive to feel our blood dancing in our veins to see our garners full to have our bodies cured and our estates cured and then think all is done Behold Christ still followeth after us to find us out nor will he leave us so For most true it is he would not work miracles but for this end Where he saw unbelief ready to step in between the miracles and the end he would not do them Matth. 13.58 He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief No whatsoever he did whatsoever he spake was for us men and for our salvation As he said of the voice of the Angel which was heard as thunder from heaven Joh. 12.29 30. This voice came not for me but for your sakes so all his miracles all his benefits even the Creation it self are for our sakes He made not the world for himself For his happiness is in himself Patuit coelum antè quà m via saith the Father He made heaven for Man and then shevved him the way to enter into it and take possession of it Whatsoever he doth in heaven and in earth tendeth to dravv us nearer to him He vvould not thunder but to make us melt he would not come towards us in a tempest but to teach us to bow to his power and so make it a buckler to defend us he would not shine upon us but to draw us to the true light he would not have sent his Prophets he would not have sent his Son to vvork vvonders amongst us but to dravv us vvith these cords of love to himself and that we might believe God to be the onely true God and him whom he hath sent Jesus Christ For this end Christ found this man and for this end he seeketh out us that all his miracles and benefits and promises may have their end And why then should he still suffer such contradiction of sinners Why do we then rejoyce at our health and be afraid of his precepts be willing to be raised and yet stiâ—â— carry that enemy about with us which first cast us down rise and walk and then sin again This is to defeat the miracle to abuse the mercy and to resist the power of Christ that though it work what we wonder at yet it shall
Therefore in the third place if we consider the Church which is at her best nothing else but a collection and a body of righteous men we shall find that whilest she is on the earth she is Militant And no other title doth so fully express her For do we say she is Visible The best and truest parts of her are not so 2 Tim. 2.19 For the Lord onely knoweth who are his Do we call her Catholick and Vniversal She is so when her number is but small she was so when Christ first built her as an house upon a rock open to all though not many rich not many noble entred Shall we give her the high and proud Title of Infallible Although she be so in many things without which she cannot be a Church yet in many things we erre all But when we draw her in her own bloud when we call her Militant when we bring her in fighting not onely against Flesh and Bloud against Men but against all the Powers of Darkness then we shew and describe her as she is To say she is the body of Christ filled with him who filleth all things is to set her up as a mark for the World and the Devil to shoot at and thus to set her up is to build her up into a Church So that though Persecution come forth with more or less horrour yet to say the Church is ever free from all persecution is as full of absurdity as to say a man may live without a Soul But now take it with all its terrour accompanied with whips and scorpions with fire and sword with banishment and with death it self yet is it so far from destroying this body of the righteous which we call the Church that it rather establisheth enlargeth and adorneth it For this is the Kingdom of Christ And Christ's Kingdom is not of this world but culled and chosen out of the world John 18.35 And in this the Kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of Christ differ That which doth ruine the one doth build up the other The sword and fire and persecution demolish the Kingdomes of this world but these evermore enlarge the Church and stretch forth the curtains of her habitation Those may perish and have their fatal period but this is everlasting as his love is that built it and shall stand fast for ever Those are worn out by time but this is but melted and purged in it and shall then be most glorious when Time shall be no more Therefore I may be bold to present you with a speculation which may seem a paradox but being well examined will be found a truth and it is this That persecution is so far from ruining the righteous that it is to them as peace For if Peace signifie the integrity and whole perfection of ones good estate as it doth in Scripture often then may Persecution well deserve that name which bringeth the righteous out of the shadow into the sun setteth them on the stage there to act their parts spectantibus Angelis Archangelis before God and Angels and men maketh them more glorious putteth them to their whole armoury their whole strength the whole substance of their faith as Tertullian calleth it that they may suffer and conquer which is indeed to build them up into a Church And therefore Nazianzene calleth it the mystery of persecution where one thing is seen and another done where glory lieth hid in disgrace increase in diminution and life in death it self ecclesiae in attonito the righteous stirring and moving in their place in the midst of all these amazements and terrours of the world And thus some analogy and resemblance there is between the persecution of the righteous and the peace of the world For as in times of peace we every one sit under his own vine and fig-tree every one walketh in his own calling the merchant trafficketh the trades-man selleth the husbandman tilleth and ploweth the ground and the scholar studieth so the time of persecution though it breatheth nothing but terrour is by God's grace made the accepted time to the godly and the day of salvation a day for them to work in their calling when they sit under the shadow of God's wings when they study patience and Christian resolution when they plough up their fallow ground and sowe the seeds of righteousness when they traffick for the rich pearl and buy it with their bloud when every one in his place acteth by the virtue and to the honour and glory of the Head who himself was consecrate and made perfect by sufferings We may demonstrate this to the very eye For never did the branches of the true Vine more flourish then when they were lopped and pruned never did they more multiply then when they were diminished Constantine we are told brought in the outword peace of the Church but it is plain and evident that Christianity did spread it self in Asia Africk and Europe in far greater proportion in three hundred years before that Emperour then it did many hundred years after For Persecution occasioneth dispersion and dispersion spreadeth the Gospel It is S. Hierom's observation in the life of Malchus That the Church of Christ was sub tyrannis aurea that under tyrants it was as gold tried in the fire giving forth the lustre of pure doctrine and faith Sed postquam coepit habere Christianos Imperatores but when the Emperours themselves were Christians she grew up in favour and outward state but fell short in piety and righteousness and as Cassander professeth of the Church of Rome Crescentibus divitiis decrevit pietas what she got in wealth and pomp she lost in devotion and at last grew rich in all things but good works In time of persecution and dispersion how many children were begot unto the Church When persecution was loudest then the righteous did grow up and flourish When tyrants forbad men to speak in the name of Christ then totius mundi vox una Christus then was Christ as the same Father speaketh become the voice and language of the whole world Plures efficimur quoties metimur saith Tertullian When the righteous are drove about the world and when they are drove out of the world then they multiply To conclude this So far as righteousness or the Graces of the Spirit from bringing any privilege to exempt men from persecution that through the malice of Satan and the corruption of men they are rather provocations to raise one and make Persecution it self a privilege For in the last place it cometh not by chance that the righteous are persecuted What hath Chance to do in the school of Providence No Persecution is brought towards the righteous by the providence and wisdome of a loving Father Tam pater nemo tam sapiens nemo No such Father and none so provident I say by the providence and wisdome of God which consisteth in well ordering and bringing every thing to its right end by
wherein Sin and Satan have laid us For this is the end of both For this end Christ suffered and for this end he rose again For this end he payed down a price even his bloud to strike off those chains and bring us back into the glorious liberty of the sons of God to gain a title in us to have a right to our souls to guide them and a right to our bodies to command them as he pleaseth But though the price be payed yet we may be prisoners still if we love our fetters and will not shake them off if we count our prison a paradise and had rather sport out our span here in the wayes of darkness then dwell for ever in the light Christ hath done whatsoever belongeth to a Redeemer but there is something required at their hands who are redeemed namely when he knocketh at our graves and biddeth us come forth to fling off our grave-clothes and follow him not to stay in our enemy's hands and love our captivity but to present our selves before our Captain and shew him his own purchase a soul that is his and a body that is his a soul purged and renewed and a body obedient and instrumental to the soul both chearful and active in setting forth his glory This is the conclusion of the whole matter this is the end of all not onely of our Creation which the Apostle doth not mention here although even by that God hath the right of dominion over us but also of our Redemption which is later and more special and more glorious as one star differeth from another in glory Take all the Articles of the Creed take Christ's Birth his Death his Resurrection his Glory is the Amen to all Take all God's Precepts all his Promises and let them stand as they are for the Premisses and no other Conclusion can be so properly drawn from them as this That we should glorifie God The Premisses are drawn together within the compass of the first words of my Text EMPTI ESTIS PRETIO Ye are bought with a price and the Conclusâ—â—n in the last ERGO GLORIFICATE Therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are God's So the Parts you see are as the Persons are the Redeemer and the Redeemed two 1. a Benefit declared Ye are bought with a price 2. a Duty enjoyned Therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are God's The first remembreth us what God hath done for us the second calleth upon us to remember what we are to do for him to give unto God those things which are God's to glorifie him in our body and in our spirit which are God's These are the parts and of these we shall speak in their order First of the Benefit Ye are bought with a price This Purchase this Redeeming us supposeth we were alienated from Christ and in our enemy's hand and power 2 Tim 2.26 in the snare of the Devil and taken captive by him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken by him as it were in war And indeed till Christ bought us his we were even made servants to him as servants use to be venditione by sale and jure belli by right of war We had sold our selves as S. Paul speaketh unto him sold our birth-right for a mess of pottage sold our selves for that which is not bread for that Pleasure which is but a shadow for those Riches which are but dung for that Honour which is but air Every toy was the price of our bloud He opened his false wares and we pawned and prostituted our souls and gave up our hope of eternity for his pianted vanities and a glittering death His was but a profer and we might have refused it But we believed that Father of lies and so gave up our selves into his power and his we were by bargain and sale And as we were his by sale so we were his in a manner by right of war For he set upon us and overcame us not so much by valour as by stratagem by his wiles and devices as S. Paul calleth them For not onely the Sword but those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Polybius speaketh deceits and thefts of war work out a way to victory And he that faileth in the battel is as truly a captive when art and cunning as when force and violence maketh him bow the knee and yield This our enemy setteth upon a soul as a soul with forces proportioned to a soul which cannot be taken by force no though he were ten times more a Lion more roaring then he is He hath indeed rectas manus some blows he giveth directly striking at our very face And he hath aversas tectásque others he giveth cunningly and in secret But when we see the wounds and ulcers which he maketh we cannot be ignorant whose hand it is that smote us He is that great invisible Sophister of the world saith Basil He mingleth himself with our humour and inclination and so casteth a mist before us and cloudeth our understanding that we may be willing to lay hold of Falshood for Truth of Evil for Good and by a kind of legerdemain he maketh Vertue it self promote sin and Truth errour And as there so in his wiles and enterprises ipsa fallacia delectat we are willing to be deceived and taken because the sleights themselves are delightful to us The Devil's Temptations are in this like his Oracles full of ambiguities And as Demosthenes said of Apollo's Oracle that it did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speak too much to the desire and mind of Philip so do these flatter each humour and inclination in us and at last persuade us that that which we would have true is true indeed And thus do we give up all into the Enemies hands and are taken captive and brought under the yoke sub reatu peccati under the guilt of sin which as a poisoned dart sticketh in our sides and galleth and troubleth us wheresoever we go I canâ—ot better call a bad conscience then flagellum Diaboli the Devil's whip with which he tormenteth his captives and maketh large furrows in their soul As the Roman lords did over their slaves in terga cervices saevire imprint marks and characters and as the Comedian speaketh letters on their backs so doth this laniatus ictus wounds and swellings and ulcers He is not so much a slave that is chained to an oar as he that liveth under a bad conscience Now empti estis From this slavery we are redeemed by Christ For being justified by faith we have peace with God and the noise of the whip is heard no more Next we were sub dominio peccati we were under the power and dominion of Sin so that it was a Tyrant and reigned in us If it did say Go we did go even in slippery places and dangerous precipices upon the point of the sword and death it self Like that evil spirit in the Gospel it rendeth and teareth us
jurisdiction something or other will have the command of us either the World or the Flesh or Jesus Therefore we ought to consider what it is that beareth most sway in our hearts what it is we are most unwilling to lose and afraid to depart from Whether we had rather dwell in the world with all its pomp and pageantry in the flesh in a Mahumetical paradise of all sensual delights or with Jesus the Lord though it be with persecutions Suppose the Devil should make an overture to thee as he did to our Saviour of all the Kingdoms of the world and the Flesh should plead for her self as she will be putting in for her share and shew thee Pleasure and Honour and Power and all that a heart of flesh can desire in those Kingdomes and on the other side Jesus the Lord should check thee as he doth in his Gospel and pull thee back and tell thee that all this is but a false shew that this present shew will rob thee of future realities that the pleasures which are but for a season are not to be compared to that eternal weight of glory that in this terrestriall Paradise thou shalt meet with the sword and wrath of God and from this seeming painted heaven fall into hell it self Here now is thy trial here thou art put to thy choice If thy heart can now truly say I will have none of these if thou canst say to thy Flesh Who gave thee authority over me What hast thou to doe with me if thou canst say with thy Jesus Avoid Satan and then bow to Jesus and acknowledge no power in heaven or in earth no Dominion but his then thou hast learned this holy language perfectly and mayst truly say JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. And now to apply it in a word Is it not pity nay a great shame that Man who was created to holiness who was made for this Lord as this Lord was made man for him whose perfect liberty is his service whose greatest honour is to be under his Dominion and whose crown of glory it is to have Jesus to be his King should wait and serve under the World which passeth away should be a parasite to the Flesh which hath no better kin then Rottenness and Corruption should yield and comply with the Devil who seeketh to devour him and fling off the service of Christ as the most loathsome painful detestable thing on earth who is a Jesus to save him and a Lord that hath purchased him with his bloud Is Jesus the Lord Nay but the World is the Lord and the Flesh is the Lord and the Devil is the Lord. This is Vox populi the language of the world And therefore Saint Cyprian bringeth in the Devil thus bragging against this Jesus and magnifying his power above his and laughing us to scorn whom he hath filled with shame Ego pro istis sanguinem non fudi I have not spent one drop of bloud for these I gave them wine to mock them I presented them beauty to burn them I made riches my snare to take them I flattered them to kill them All my study was to bring them to death and everlasting destruction Tuos tales demonstra mihi Jesu Thou that openedst thy bowels and pouredst forth thy bloud for them shew me so many servants of thine so ready so officious so ambitious to serve thee And what a shame is this to all that bear the name of Christ and call him both their Jesus and their Lord that the malice of an enemy should win us and the love of a Saviour harden us that a Murtherer should draw us after him and a Redeemer drive us from him that Satan an Adversary and the Devil an Accuser should more prevail then Jesus the Lord Lacrymis magìs opus est quà m verbis Here let us drop our tears and lay our hands upon our mouths and abhor our selves in dust and ashes go into the house of mourning the school of Repentance and there learn this blessed dialect learn it and believe it and speak it truly JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. For conclusion Ye that approch the Table of the Lord to receive the Sacrament of his Body and Bloud consider well whose Body and Bloud it is Draw near for it is Jesus but draw near with reverence for it is the Lord. And as he was once offered upon the Cross so in these outward elements he now offereth himself unto you with all the benefits of his death For here is comprehended not onely Panis Domini but Panis Dominus not onely the bread of the Lord John 6. but also the Lord himself who is that living Bread which came down from heaven And how will ye appear before your Jesus but with love and gratitude and with that new song of the Saints and Angels Rev. 5.12 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing And how will ye appear before your Lord but with humility and reverence with broken hearts for your neglect and strong and well-made resolutions to fall down and worship and serve him all the dayes of your life For if the ancient Christians out of their high esteem of the Sacrament were scrupulous and careful that not one part of the consecrated Bread nor one drop of the consecrated Wine should fall to the ground but thought it a sin though it were but a chance or misfortune quanti piaculi erit Deminum negligere what an unexpiable crime will it be to neglect the Lord himself If the Sacrament hath been thought worthy of such honour what honour is due to Jesus the Lord Bring then your offerings and oblations and offer them here as he offered himself upon the cross your Gold and Frankincense and Myrrh your Temporal goods your Prayers your Mortification that this Lord may hold forth his golden sceptre to you that you may touch the top of it and be received into favour For what else doth the Eucharist signifie We call the Sacraments the signs and seals of the Covenant of Grace But they are also saith Contarene the protestations of our Faith by which we believe not onely the articles of our Creed but the Divine Promise and Institution And Faith is vocal and will awake our Viol and Harp our Tongue and all the powers and faculties of our soul and breathe it self forth in songs of thanksgiving And they are the protestations of our Repentance also which will speak in sighs and grones unutterable And they also are the protestations of our Hope which is ever looking for and rejoycing in and talking of that which is laid up And they are the protestations of our Charity which maketh the tongue and hand as the pen of a ready writer whose words are more sweet whose language is more delightful then that which is uttered by the tongues of men and of Angels And if ye thus
for the breach of the Law For let it once be granted what cannot be denied that we are all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 guilty and culpable before God that all have sinned Rom. 3.19 and are come short of the glory of God then all that noise the Church of Rome hath filled the world with concerning Merits and Satisfaction and inherent Righteousness will vanish as a mist before the Sun and Justification and Remission of sins will appear in its brightness in that form and shape in which Christ first left it to his Church Bring in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Patriarchs and Prophets and Apostles and deck them with all those vertues which made them glorious but yet they sinned Bring in the noble army of Martyrs who shed their bloud for Christ but yet they sinned They were stoned they were sawen asunder they were slain with the sword but yet they sinned and he that sinneth is presently the servant of sin obnoxious to it for ever and cannot be redeemed by his own bloud because he sinned but by the bloud of him in whom there was no sin to be found JUSTIFICATIO IMPII This one form of speech of justifying a sinner doth plainly exclude the Law and the works of it and may serve as an axe or hammer to beat down all their carved work and those Anticks which are fastned to the building which may perhaps take a wandering or gadding phansie but will never enter the heart of a man of understanding We do not find that beauty in their forced and artificial inventions that we do in the simple and native Truth neither are those effects which are as radiations and resultances from Forgiveness of sins so visible in their Justification by Faith and Works as in that free Remission which is by Faith alone The urging of our Merits is of no force to make our peace with God They may indeed make us gracious in his eyes after Remission but have as much power to remove our sins as our breath hath to remove a mountain or put out the fire of hell For every sin is as Seneca speaketh of that of Alexander's in killing Callisthenes crimen aeternum an eternal crime which no vertue of our own can redeem As often as any man shall say He slew many thousands of Persians it will be replied He did so but he killed Callisthenes also He slew Darius but he slew Callisthenes too And as often as we shall swell our minds and fill them with the conceit of our good deeds our Conscience will reply But we have sinned Let me adde my Passions to my Actions my Imprisonment to my Alms let me suffer for Christ let me dye for Christ But yet I have sinned Let us outgo all the ancient examples of piety and sanctity But yet we have sinned And none of all our acts can make so much for our glory and comfort as our sin doth for our reproch Our sins may obscure and darken our vertues but our vertues cannot abolish our sins For what peace so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel as our sins be so many Ot what ease can a myriad of vertues do him who is under arrest under a curse who if Mercy come not in between is condemned already And therefore we may observe those Justitiaries who will not build upon Remission or Not-imputation of sins how their complexion altereth how their colour goeth and cometh how they are not the same men in their Controversies and Commentaries that they are in their Devotions and Meditations Nothing but Merit in their ruff and jollity and nothing but Mercy on their death-beds nothing but the bloud of Martyrs then and nothing but Christ's now nothing but their own Satisfaction all their lives and nothing but Christ's at their last gasp Before magìs honorificum it was more honourable to bring in something of our own towards the Forgiveness of our sins but now for the uncertainty of our own Righteousness which were no whit available to a guilty person if it were certain because there is no harbour here Christ's Righteousness is called in with a Tutissimum est as the best shelter And here they will abide till the storm be over-past To conclude then Remission of sins hath no relation or dependence on any thing which is in man is not drawn on or furthered by any merit of ours but is an act of the Mercy and Providence of God by which he is pleased to restore us to his favour who were under his wrath to count us righteous who were guilty of death and in Christ to reconcile us unto himself and though he have a record of our sin yet not to use it as an indictment against us but so to deal with us as if his book were rased and so to look upon us as if we had not sinned at all Et merebimur admitti jam exclusi And we who were formerly shut out for our sin shall be led into the land of the living by a merciful and perfect and all-sufficient Mediatour It is his Mercy alone that must save us This is as the Sanctuary to the Legal offendor This is as mount Ararat to Noah's tossed Ark as Noah's hand to his weary Dove as Ahasuerus his golden sceptre to the humble penitent Come then put on your royal apparel your wedding garment and touch the top of it But touch it with reverence Bring not a wavering and doubtful heart an unrepented sin a rebellious thought with thee For canst thou touch this Sceprre in thy lust or anger canst thou touch it with hands full of bloud Such a bold irreverent touch will turn this Sceptre into a Sword to pierce thee through For nothing woundeth deeper then abused Mercy Behold God holdeth it forth to thee in his Word Come unto him all ye that are heavy laden and touch it and you are eased He holdeth it forth in his Sacrament first in the flesh of his Son and then in the signs and representations of it and here to touch it unworthily is to touch nay to embrace Death it self The woman in the Gospel came behind Christ and did but touch the hem of his garment and was healed Most wretched we saith the Father who touch him nay feed on him so oft in his Sacrament and our issue of bloud runneth still we are still in our sins our Pride as swelling our Malice as deadly our Appetite as keen our Love of the world as great as before and all because we do not touch it with reverence nor discern the Lord's body which must not be touched by every rude and unclean hand Wash you then make you clean and then as your Sins are pardoned so here your Pardon is sealed with the bloud of the Lamb. Here thou dost see thy ransome Onely believe and come with a heart fit to receive him The best enterteinment and welcome thou canst give him is a broken contrite and reverent heart a a heart
Our Sins were they that crucified Christ 29. The Gospel is the sharpest curb of Sin 1065. Of Speculative Sins and Sinners 172. Sincerity necessary in all our actions 369. Slavery None comparable to that under Satan and Sin 740 741. v. Redemtion Sluggards awakened 220. Sobriety to be observed in our diet and Modestie in our attire 639. 1101 1102. Socrates how jeered by Aristophanes 372. Solitary Whether the solitary Retiredness of Monks be as they count it Perfection 1089. Solomon how painted 1069. Of his ECCLESIASTES 534. SON The Son of all the three Persons fittest to be our Mediatour 4. 13. God hath four sorts of Sons 4. Sophocles reproched Euripides 372. He thanked his Old age for freeing him from Lust 593. Sorrow good and bad 338. Worldly S. worketh death 564. Sometimes it ushereth-in Repentance and Comfort 564. Soul v. Body The Soul should be set on heavenly not earthly things 646 c. The Scripture commandeth so 646. The Soul is too noble to mind the earth 647. Nothing below proportionable to it nothing satisfactory 648 c. Every man ought to take care of his brother's Soul 576. The Soul is far more excellent then the Body and therefore chiefly to be cared for 886. Its riches and ornament what 78 79. It s original hard to know 94. Souldiers What S. should do what not 920 Speach The manner of ouâ— Speach varieth with our mind 385. Out of the abundance of the Heart the Mouth speaketh 976. Many speak fair and mean foul 764 c. It is a shame to pretend Religion and to be ashamed to speak out 981 982. v. Confess Spirit That the SPIRIT worketh is evident but the manner of his working cannot be discerned 315. Some presume the Sp. teacheth them immediately without yea against the Word 683 684. What it is to Glorifie God in the Sp. 744. 748. A pretense of the Sp. and a pretended Zele the two grand impostures of the world 528. Many laying claim to the S. we are to try them by the Scripture 527 529. v. H. Ghost Spirits cannot be defiled by intermingling with bodies 166. The fight between the Spirit and the Flesh described 159. 312. 632. 707. Spiritual things far transcend temporal 884 c. 887 895. Stimula a Goddess among the Romans 341. Stoicks condemned for choosing Death rather then Miserie 1011. Strangers We all are but Strangers on earth 530 c. The Word of God is our best supply in this condition 531. That we are S. here proved by Scripture 536. and by reason drawn from the Insufficiency of all things here to satisfie Man's mind 537. Yet few believe the point 538 539. Our Enemies in this our Pilgrimage 539. Our provision and our defense 540. How we should behave our selves as S. 540. We ought to look on all things in the world with the suspicious and jealous ey of a Stranger 541. Strength Attempt nothing above thy Strength 249. 250. Student The Student's calling not so easy as other men think 223. SUB the Preposition much descanted upon 637 c. Subjection we like not but must yield it 637 c. Subordination necessary in Bodies natural Civile Ecclesiastical 640. Success many make an argument to prove themselves and their wayes good 684. But good or ill Success is not an argument of God's love or dislike 712. Sudden surprisalls what effect they have upon us 254. Sufferings for Christ's sake most comfortable 568. Suffering for Righteousness is the highest pitch of a Christian 695. One may suffer for one virtue neglect the rest 704 c. One may suffer for Pleasure for Profit for Humour for Fear for Honour and yet be no Martyr 705 706. v. Martyrdom What shall he do who having not yet repented of his grievous sins must either suffer present death or deny the Truth he believeth 707 c. Superiours v. Obedience Superstition what 462. We must not cry it down in others and cherish it in our selves 462. Many for fear of S. shipwreck on Profaneness 982. But we must shun them both 758. Supper the LORD's Supper not absolutely necessary 81. not to be given to Infants nor to the Dead 81. How slight a preparation serveth many mens turn 81. It is ridiculously abused by the Papists and very grosly by others 449. 462. In this Sacrament we must look I. on the Authour Christ 450. and not be offended at the meanness either of the Minister or of the Elements 451. II. on the Command of Christ 451. which must be so observed as not to rest in the outward action 452. Motives to invite us to the Lord's S. 452. This holy Sacrament fitteth our present condition 452. The manifold and great benefits we receive by it 453. 473. 490. 493. 495. The heavenly joy it putteth into our hearts 453 It is necessary for us to come and that often to the Lord's Table 454. How oft the primitive Christians did receive how oft we should now 454 455. Excuses for not communicating removed 456. He that loveth his sin and will live in it sinneth if he come and sinneth if he come not 456. Every Penitent is a fit Communicant 456. and so is every true Believer 456. Not onely great Proficients but even Beginners in Christ's School whatever some say to the contrary may yea ought to come to the holy Table 458. A conceit of our own Infirmity should not keep us away 456-459 463. Neither should a conceit of the high Dignity of the Sacrament do it 459 c. 476. They who abstein out of reverence seem to condemn them that are more forward 461. and their refraining may keep others away 462. How we ought to remember Christ at his Table 463 c. 473 c. Then especially is our Faith to be actuated 465. 475 489. Then we must examin and renew our Repentance 465. 476. 489. This Sacrament if received to a wrong end is not food nor physick but poison 467. Christ's Body and Bloud are not received corporally but spiritually 468. To receive Christ's flesh corporally would profit us nothing 468. Three manners of eating Christ's Body Sacramental Spiritual Sacramental Spiritual 473. We must come with Faith Hope Love Repentance Reverence 475 c. 489 Preparation necessary 478. 487. How negligently and inconsiderately many come to this Sacrament 479. 487. v. Examination What our Preparation should be 485 c. 834. This Sacrament is a feast of Love â—92 and none but they that are in Charity should come to it 490 c. 834. whether some should be set apart to examin others before admission to the Lord's Supper 494. With what reverence the antient Christians received 768. Wretched we if feeding so oft on Christ in the Sacram. we continue in our sins 813. Coming to the Lord's Table is a protestation of Faith and Repentance 769. 814. What kind of Protestants then are they who neither repent nor believe 814. We should at the H. Table be like unto men on their death-beds 814. Suspicion We