to be angry for this 4. 3. and after about the Gourd dost thou well to be angry for that he replies I do well to be angry even unto death How much worse a death then death is this life which so good men would so often change for death But if my case be St. Pauls case Quotidie morior 1 Cor. 15.31 that I die dayly that something heavier then death fall upon me every day If my case be Davids case Tota die mortificamur psa 44.22 all the day long we are killed that not only every day but every hour of the day something heavier then death fals upon me though that be true of me conceptus in peccatis I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me 51. 5. There I died one death though that be true of me natus filius irae I was born not only the child of sin but the child of the wrath of God for sin which is a heavier death yet Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis with God the Lord are the issues of death and after a Job and a Joseph and a Jeremy and a Daniel I cannot doubt of a deliverance and if no other deliverance conduce more to his glory and my good yet He hath the keyes of death Apo. 1.18 and he can let me out at that dore that is deliver me from the manifold deaths of this world the omni die and the tota die the every daies death and every hours death by that one death the final disolution of body and soul the end of all But then is that the end of all Exitus a morte Incinerationis is that dissolution of body and soul the last death that the body shall suffer for of spiritual deaths we speak not now it is not Though this be exitus a morte it is introitus in mortem though it be an issue from the manifold deaths of this world yet it is an entrance into the death of corruption and putrifaction and vermiculation and incineration and dispersion in and from the grave in which every dead man dies over again It was a prerogative peculiar to Christ not to die this death not to see corruption What gave him this privilege not Josephs great proportions of gums and spices that might have preserved his body from corruption and incineration longer then he needed it longer then three daies but yet would not have done it for ever What preserv'd him then did his exemption and freedome from original sin preserve him from this corruption and incineration 'T is true that original sin hath induc'd this corruption and incineration upon us 1 Câ—â— 15.33 If we had not sinn'd in Adam mortality had not put on immortality as the Apostle speaks nor corruption had not put on incorruption but we had had our transmigration from this to the other world without any mortality any corruption at all But yet since Christ took sin upon him so far as made him mortal he had it so far too as might have made him see this corruption and incineration though he had no original sin in himself What preserv'd him then did the hypostatical union of both natures God and man preserve his flesh from this corruption this incineration 't is true that this was a most powerful embalming To be embalm'd with the divine nature it self to be embalm'd with eternity was able to preserve him from corruption and incineration for ever And he was embalm'd so embalm'd with the divine nature even in his body as well as in his soul for the Godhead the divine nature did not depart but remain still united to his dead body in the grave But yet for all this powerful imbalming this hypostatical union of both natures we see Christ did die and for all this union which made him God and man he became no man for the union of body and soul makes the man and he whose soul and body are seperated by death as long as that state lasts is properly no man And therefore as in him the dissolution of body and soul was no dissolution of the hypostatical union so is there nothing that constrains us to say that though the flesh of Christ had seen corruption and incineration in the grave this had been any dissolving of the hypostatical union for the divine nature the Godhead might have remain'd with all the elements and principles of Christs body as well as it did with the two constitutive parts of his person his body and soul This incorruption then was not in Josephs gums and spices nor was it in Christs innocency and exemption from original sin nor was it that is it is not necessary to say it was in the Hypostatical union But this incorruptibleness of his flesh Psa 16 10. is most conveniently plac d in that non dabis Thou wilt not suffer thy holy one to see corruption We look no farther for causes or reasons in the mysteries of our religion but to the will and pleasure of God Mat. 11.26 Christ himself limited his inquisition in that Ita est even so father for so it seemed good in thy sight Christs body did not see corruption therefore because God had decreed that it should not The humble soul and only the humble soul is the religions soul rests himself upon Gods purposes and his decrees but then it is upon those purposes and decrees of God which he hath declared and manifested not such as are conceiv'd and imagin'd in our selves though upon some probability some verisimilitude So in our present case Act. 2.31.13.35 Peter proceeded in his sermon at Jerusalem and so Paul in his at Antioch they preached Christ to be risen without having seen corruption not only because God had decreed it but because he had manifested that decree in his Prophet Therefore does St. Paul cite by special number the second Psalme for that decree and therefore both St. Peter and St. Paul cite for that place in the 16. Psal for v. 10. when God declares his decree and purpose in the express word of his Prophet or when he declares it in the real execution of the decree then he makes it ours then he manifests it to us And therefore as the mysteries of our religion are not the objects of our reason but by faith we rest in Gods decree and purpose it is so O God because it is thy will it should be so so Gods decrees are ever to be considered in the manifestation thereof All manifestation is either in the word of God or in the execution of the decree and when these two concur and meet it is the strongest demonstration that can be when therefore I find those marks of Adoption and spiritual filiation which are delivered in the word of God to be upon me when I find that real execution of his good purpose upon me as that actually I do live under the obedience and under the conditions which are
8. and bearing of our sicknesses Or to be no richer or no more provident then so To sell all and give it away Luc. 12. and make a treasure in Heaven and all this for fear of Theeves and Rust and Canker and Moths here That which is not allowable in Courts of Justice in criminal Causes To hear Evidence against the King we will admit against God we will hear Evidence against God we will hear what mans reason can say in favor of the Delinquent why he should be condemned why God should punish the soul eternally for the momentany pleasures of the body Nay we suborn witnesses against God and we make Philosophy and Reason speak against Religion and against God though indeed Omne verum omni vero consentiens whatsoever is true in Philosophy is true in Divinity too howsoever we distort it and wrest it to the contrary We hear Witnesses and we suborn Witnesses against God and we do more we proceed by Recriminations and a cross Bill with a Quia Deus because God does as he does we may do as we do Because God does not punish Sinners we need not forbear sins whilst we sin strongly by oppressing others that are weaker or craftily by circumventing others that are simple This is but Leoninum and Vulpinum that tincture of the Lyon and of the Fox that brutal nature that is in us But when we come to sin upon reason and upon discourse upon Meditation and upon plot This is Humanum to become the Man of Sin to surrender that which is the Form and Essence of man Reason and understanding to the service of sin When we come to sin wisely and learnedly to sin logically by a Quia and an Ergo that Because God does thus we may do as we do we shall come to sin through all the Arts and all our knowledge To sin Grammatically to tie sins together in construction in a Syntaxis in a chaine and dependance and coherence upon one another And to sin Historically to sin over sins of other men again to sin by precedent and to practice that which we had read And we come to sin Rhetorically perswasively powerfully and as we have found examples for our sins in History so we become examples to others by our sins to lead and encourage them in theirs when we come to employ upon sin that which is the essence of man Reason and discourse we will also employ upon it those which are the properties of man onely which are To speak and to laugh we will come to speak and talk and to boast of our sins and at last to laugh and jest at our sins and as we have made sin a Recreation so we will make a jest of our condemnation And this is the dangerous slipperiness of sin to slide by Thoughts and Actions and Habits to contemptuous obduration Part II. Now amongst the manifold perversnesses and incongruities of this artificial sinning of sinning upon Reason upon a quia and an ergo of arguing a cause for our sin this is one That we never assigne the right cause we impute our sin to our Youth to our Constitution to our Complexion and so we make our sin our Nature we impute it to our Station to our Calling to our Course of life and so we make our sin our Occupation we impute it to Necessity to Perplexity that we must necessarily do that or a worse sin and so we make our sin our Direction We see the whole world is Ecclesia malignantium Psal 26.5 a Synagogue a Church of wicked men and we think it a Schismatical thing to separate our selves from that Church and we are loth to be excommunicated in that Church and so we apply our selves to that we do as they do with the wicked we are wicked and so we make our sin our Civility And though it be some degree of injustice to impute all our particular sins to the devil himself after a habit of sin hath made us spontaneos daemones Chrysost devils to our selves yet we do come too near an imputing our sins to God himself when we place such an impossibility in his Commandments as makes us lazie that because we cannot do all therefore we will do nothing or such a manifestation and infallibility in his Decree as makes us either secure or desperate and say The Decree hath sav'd me therefore I can take no harm or The Decree hath damn'd me therefore I can do no good No man can assigne a reason in the Sun why his body casts a shadow why all the place round about him is illumin'd by the Sun the reason is in the Sun but of his shadow there is no other reason but the grosness of his own body why there is any beam of light any spark of life in my soul he that is the Lord of light and life and would not have me die in darkness is the onely cause but of the shadow of death wherein I sit there is no cause but mine own corruption And this is the cause why I do sin but why I should sin there is none at all Yet in this Text the Sinner assignes a cause and it is Quia non mutationes Because they have no Changes God hath appointed that earth which he hath given to the sons of men to rest and stand still and that heaven which he reserves for those sons of men who are also the sons of God he hath appointed to stand still too All that is between heaven and earth is in perpetual motion and vicissitude but all that is appointed for man mans possession here mans reversion hereafter earth and heaven is appointed for rest and stands still and therefore God proceeds in his own way and declares his love most where there are fewest Changes This rest of heaven he hath expressed often by the name of a Kingdom as in that Petition Thy kingdom come And that rest which is to be derived upon us here in earth he expresses in the same phrase too when having presented to the children of Israel an Inventary and Catalogue of all his former blessings he concludes all includes all in this one Et prosperata es in regnum I have advanced thee to be a kingdom which form God hath not onely still preserv'd to us but hath also united Kingdoms together and to give us a stronger body and safer from all Changes whereas he hath made up other Kingdoms of Towns and Cities he hath made us a Kingdom of Kingdoms and given us as many Kingdoms to our Kingdom as he hath done Cities to some other Gods gracious purpose then to man being Rest and a contented Reposedness in the works of their several Callings and his purpose being declared upon us in the establishing and preserving of such a Kingdom as hath the best Body best united in it self and knit together and the best Legs to stand upon Peace and Plenty and the best Soul to inanimate and direct it Truth
The Incarnation of God and then the death and Crucifying of that God so Incarnate could never have fallen within the desire nor wish of any man neither would any man oâ— himself ever have conceived That the Sacraments of the Church poor and naked things of themselves for all that the wit of man could imagine in them or allow to them should be such means to sâ—al and convey the graces which accompany this Redemption of our souls to our souls Divisio So then Having thus represented unto you a model and designe of the miserable condition of man and the abundant mercy of our Redeemer so far as those words which the Holy Ghost hath chosen in this text hath invited and led us That we may look better upon some pieces of it that we may take such a sight of this Redeemer here as that we may know Him when we meet Him at home at our house in our private meditations at His house in the last judgment I shall onely offer you two considerations Exprobrationem and Consolaâ—ionem First an exprobration or increpation from God to us And then a consolation or consolidation of the same God upon us And in the exprobration God reproches to us first our Prodigality that we would sell a reversion our possibility our expectance of an inheritance in heaven And then our cheapness that we would sell that for nothing Prodigality First then Prodigality is a sin that destroys even the means of liberality If a man wast so as that he becomes unable to releive others by this wast this is a sinful prodigality but much more if he wast so as that he is not able to subsist and maintain himself and this is our case who have even annihilated our selves by our proâ—useness For it is his mercy that we are not consumed It is a sin and a viperous sin it eats out his own womb The Prodigal consumes that that should maintain his Prodigality It is peccatum Biathana ton a sin that murders it self Now as in civil Prodigalities in a wastfulness of our temporal estate the Laws inflicts three kinds of punishment three incommodities upon him that is a Prodigal so have the same punishments a proportion and somethings that answer them in this spiritual prodigality of the soul by sin The first is bonis suis interdicitur He that is a Prodigall in the Law cannot dispose of his own Estate whatsoever he gives or sells or leases all is void as of a mad-man or of an Infant And such is the condition of a man in sin He hath no interest in his own natural faculties He cannot think he cannot wish he cannot do any thing of himself the venem and the malignity of his sin goes through all his actions and he cannot purge it The second incommodity is Testamentum non facit The Prodigal person hath no power allowed him by the Law to make a will at his death And this also doth an habitual sinner suffer For when he comes to his end he may dictate to a Notary and he may bid him write Imprimis I give my Soul to God my Body to such a Church my Goods to such and such persons But if those Goods be lâ—able to other debts â—he Legâ—tarie shall have no profit If the person be under excommunication he shall not lye in that Church If his soul be under the weight of unrepented sins God will do the devil no wrong he will not take a soul that is sold to him before The third Incommodity that a Prodigal incurrs by the Law is Exhaeredatus creditur He is presum'd to be disinherited by his father that whereas by that Law if the father in his Will leave out any of his childrens names and never mention him yet that child which is pretermitted shall come in for a childs part except the father have assigned a particular reason why he left him out If this childe were a Prodigal there needs no other reason to be assigned but Exhaeredatus Creditur He is presum'd to be disinherited And so also if we have seen a man prodigal of his own soul and run on in a course of sin all his life except there appear very evident signs of resumption into Gods grace at his end Exhaeredatus Creditur we have just reason to be afraid that he is disinherited If any such sinner seem to thee to repent at his end Faâ—eor vobis non negamus quod petit saith St. Augustin I confess we ought not to deny him any help that he desires in that late extremity Sed non praesumimus quia bene exit I dare not assure you that that man dyes in a good state he adds that vehemence non praesumo non vos fallo non praesumo I should but deceive you if I should assure you that such a man dyed well There was one good and happy Thief that stole a Salvation at the crucifying of Christ but in him that was throughly true which is proverbially spoken Occasio facit furem the oppotunity made him a thief and when there is such another opportunity there may be such another theif when Christ is to dye again we may presume of mercy upon such a late repentance at our death The preventing grace of God made him lay violent hands upon heaven But when thou art a Prodigal of thy soul will God be a prodigal too for thy sake and betray and prostitute the kingdome of Heaven for a sigh or a groan in which thy pain may have a greater part than thy repentance God can raise up children out of the stones of the street and therefore he might be as liberal as he would of his people and suffer them to be sold for old shoes but Christ will not sell his birth-right for a messe or pottage the kingdome of Heaven for the dole at a Funeral Heaven is not to be had in exchange for an Hospital or a Chantry or a Colledge erected in thy last will It is not onely the selling all we have that must buy that pearl which represents the kingdome of Heaven The giving of all that we have to the poor at our death will not do it the pearl must be sought and found before in an even and constant course of Sanctification we must be thrifty all our life or we shall be to poor for that purchase It is then an unthrifty a perplexed bargain when both the buyer and the seller loose our losse is plain enough for we loose our souls And certainly howsoever the devil be expressed to take some joy at the winning of a sinner howsoever his kingdome be thereby enlarged yet Almighty God suffers not his treason his undermining of man to be unpunished but afflicts him with more and more accidental torments even for that as a licencious man takes pleasure in the victory of having corrupted a woman by his solicitation but yet insensibly overthrows his constitution by his sin so the withdrawing of Gods Subjects from
only in the earth nature and naturall reason do not produce grace but yet grace can take root in no other thing but in the nature and reason of man whether we consider Gods subsequent graces which grow out of his first grace formerly given to us and well employed by us or his first grace which works upon our natural faculties and grows there still this salvation that is this grace is near us for it is within us then the third term believing is either quando credidistis primum when you began to believe either in an imputative belief of others in your baptism or a faint belief upon your first Catechisings and Instrustions or quando credidistis tantum when you only professed a belief or faith and did nothing in declaration of that faith to the edification of others Salus First then salvation in this second sense is the internal operation of the holy Ghost in infusing grace for therefore doth St. Basil call the holy Ghost verbum Dei the word of God which is the name properly peculiar to the Son quia interpres filii sicut filius patris that as the Father had revealed his will in the Prophets and then the Son comes and interprets all that actually this prophecy is meant of my coming this of my dying and so makes a real comment and an actual interpretation of all the prophecies for he does come and he does die accordingly so the holy Ghost comes and comments upon this comment interprets this interpretation and tels thy soul that all this that the Father had promised and the Son had performed was intended by them and by the working of their spirit is now appropriated to thy particular soul In the constitution and making of a natural man the body is not the man nor the soul is not the man but the union of these two makes up the man the spirits in a man which are the thin and active part of the blood and so are of a kind of middle nature between soul and body those spirits are able to doe and they doe the office to unite and apply the faculties of the soul to the organs of the body and so there is a man so in a regenerate man a Christian man his being born of Christian Parents that gives him a body that makes him of the body of the Covenant it gives him a title an interest in the Covenant which is jus ad rem thereby he may make his claim to the seal of the Covenant to baptism and it cannot be denied him and then in his baptism that Sacrament gives him a soul a spiritual seal jus in re an actual possession of Grace but yet as there are spirits in us which unite body and soul so there must be subsequent acts and works of the blessed spirit that must unite and confirm all and make up this spiritual man in the wayes of sanctification for without that his body that is his being born within the Covenant and his soul that is his having received Grace in baptism do not make him up This Grace is this Salvation and when this Grace works powerfully in thee in the wayes of sanctification then is this Salvation neer thee which is our second term in this second acceptation propè neer This neerness which is the effectuall working of Grace Prope Heb. 4.12 the Apostle expresses fully That it pierceth to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit for though properly the soul and spirit of a man be all one yet divers faculties and operations give them somtimes divers names in the Scriptures Anima quia animat sayes St. Ambrose and spiritus quia spirat The quickning of the body is the soul but the quickning of the soul is the spirit If this Salvation be brought to this neerness that is this grace to this powerfulness thou shalt find it in anima in thy soul in those organs wherein thy soul uses thy body in thy senses and in the sensible things ordain'd by God in his Church Sacraments and Ceremonies and thou shalt find it neerer in spiritu as the spirit of God hath seal'd it to thy spirit invisibly inexpressibly It shall be neer to thee so as that thy reason shall apprehend it and neerer then that thy faith shall establish it and neerer then all this it shall create in thee a modest and sober but yet an infallible assurance that thy salvation shall never depart from thee Magnificabit anima tua Dominum as the B. Virgin speaks Thy soul shall magnifie the Lord all thy natural faculties shall be employed upon an assent to the Gospel thou shalt be able to prove it to thy self and to prove it to others to be the Gospel of Salvation And then Exultabit spiritus Thy spirit shall rejoyce in God thy Saviour because by the farther seal of sanctification thy spirit shall receive testimony from the spirit that as Christ is Idem homo cum te the same man that thou art so thou art Idem spiritus cum Domino the same spirit that he is so far as that as a spirit cannot be separated in it self so neither canst thou be separated from God in Christ And this this exaltation of Grace when it thus growes up to this height of sanctification is that neerness which brings Salvation farther than our believing does and that 's the last term in this part Believing Credidistis Now neerer then Believing neerer than Faith a man might well think nothing can bring Salvation for Faith is the hand that reaches it and takes hold of it But yet as though our bodily hand reach to our temporal food yet the mouth and the stomach must do their office too and so that meat must be distributed into all parts of the body and assimilated to them so though our faith draw this salvation neer us yet when our mouth is imployed that we have a delight to glorifie God in our discourses and to declare his wonderfull works to the sons of men in our thankfulness And when this faith of ours is distributed over all the body that the body of Christs Church is edified and alienated by our good life and sanctification then is this Salvation neerer us that is safelier seal'd to us then when we believed only Either then this quando credidistis when you believed may be refer'd to Infants or to the first faith and the first degrees thereof in men In Infants when that seminall faith or potentiall faith which is by some conceived to be in the Infants of Christian parents at their baptism or that actuall faith which from their parents or from the Church is thought to be applyed to them accepted in their behalf in that Sacrament when this faith growes up after by this new comming of Christ in the power of his Grace and his Spirit to be a lively faith expressed in charity then Salus proprior then is Salvation neerer than when they believed whether this belief were their
Rule Whensoever thou enter prisest any action says he consider what Socrates what Plato that is what a wise and religious man would have done in that case and do thou so This way our Saviour directs us Ja. 13.15 I have given you an example It is not only Mandatum novum but exemplum Novum That ye should do even as I have done unto you And this is the way that the Apostle directs us to Phil. 3.13 Brethren be followers of me and because he could not be always with them he adds Look on them which walk so as you have us for an example Love the Legends the Lives the Actions and love the sayings the Apopththegms of good men In all tentations like Josephs tentations Gen. 39.9 love Josephs words How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God In all tentations like Jobs tentations love the words of Job Job 2.10 Shall we receive good at the hands of God and shall we not receive evil In all tentations like to Shidrachs and his fellow-Confessors Dan 3.17 love their words Our God is able to deliver us and he will deliver us but if not we will not serve thy god nor worship thine image Certainly without the practise it is scarce to be discern'd what ease and what profit there is in proposing certain and good Examples to our selves And when you have made up your profit that way rectified your self by that course then as your Sons write by Copies and your Daughters work by Samplars be every Father a Copy to his Son every Mother a Samplar to her Daughter and every house will be an University O in how blessed a nearness to their Direction is that Child and that Servant and that Parishioner who when they shall say to Almighty God by way of Prayer What shall I do to get eternal life shall hear God answer to them by his Spirit Do but as thou seest thy Father do do as thou seest thy Master do do as thou seest thy Pastor do To become a precedent govern thy self by precedent first which is all the Doctrine that I intended to deduce out of this second Proposition Sicut Deus As God commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts God did as he had done before and so we pass from the Idem Deus and the Sicut Deus to the Quid Deus What that is which God hath done here He commanded light out of darkness Quid Deus The drowning of the first world and the repairing that again the burning of this world and establishing another in heaven do not so much strain a mans Reason as the Creation a Creation of all out of nothing For for the repairing of the world after the Flood compared to the Creation it was eight to nothing eight persons to begin a world upon then but in the Creation none And for the glory which we receive in the next world it is in some sort as the stamping of a print upon a Coyn the metal is there already a body and a soul to receive glory but at the Creation there was no soul to receive glory no body to receive a soul no stuff no matter to make a body of The less any thing is the less we know it how invisible how intelligible a thing then is this Nothing We say in the School Deus cognoscibilior Angelis We have better means to know the nature of God then of Angels because God hath appeared and manifested himself more in actions then Angels have done we know what they are by knowing what they have done and it is very little that is related to us what Angels have done what then is there that can bring this Nothing to our understanding what hath that done A Leviathan a Whale from a grain of Spawn an Oke from a buried Akehorn is a great but a great world from nothing is a strange improvement We wonder to see a man rise from nothing to a great Estate but that Nothing is but nothing in comparison but absolutely nothing meerly nothing is more incomprehensible then any thing then all things together It is a state if a man may call it a state that the Devil himself in the midst of his torments cannot wish No man can the Devil himself cannot advisedly deliberately wish himself to be nothing It is truely and safely said in the School That whatsoever can be the subject of a wish if I can desire it wish it it must necessarily be better at least in my opinion then that which I have and whatsoever is better is not nothing whithout doubt it must necessarily produce more thankfulness in me towards God that I am a Christian but certainly more wonder that I am a Creature it is vehemently spoken but yet needs no excuse which Justin Marter says Ne ipsi quidem Domino fidem haberem c. I should scarce believe God himself if he should tell me that any but himself created this world of nothing so infallible and so inseparable a work and so distinctive a Character is it of the Godhead to produce any thing from nothing and that God did when he commanded light out of darkness Moses stands not long upon the Creation in the description thereof no more will we When there went but a word to the making it self why should we make many words in the description thereof We will therefore onely declare the three terms in this Proposition and so proceed first God commanded then he commanded light and light out of darkness For the first that which we translate here commanded is in St. Pauls mouth the same that is Moses Dixit and no more God said it But then if he said it Cui dixit to whom did he say it Procopius asks the Question and he answers himself Dixit Angelis He said it to the Angels For Procopius being of that opinion which very many were of besides himself that God had made the Angels some time before he came to the Creation of particular Creatures he thinks that when he came to that he call'd the Angels that they by seeing of what all other Creatures were made might know also of what stuff themselves were made of the common and general nothing Some others had said that God said this to the Creature it self which was now in fieri as we say in the School in the production ready to be brought forth Athanasius But then says Athanasius God would have said Sis Lux and not Sit Lux He would have said Be thou O Light or appear and come forth O Light and not Let there be Light But what needs all this vexation in Procopius or Athanasius When as Dicere Dei est intelligere ejus practicum Dionysius Carthus when God would produce his Idaea his pre-conception into action that action that production was his Dixit his saying It is as we say in School Actus indicativus practici intellectus Gods outward
Lord of the world but that is in the person of Infidells and we are none of that world Though we have to do with Principallities and spiritual wickedness Ephes yet St Paul motions it thus much Est nobis Colluctatio He arms us at all points in that chapter fit to indure any violent or any long attempt and yet he tells us that all that we have to do with the Devil is but Colluctatio but a wrastling we may be throwen but we cannot be slain So also is the same state of the saints of Gods described That the Devil labours to Devoure That he walks about and seeks Those who are without the pale without the Church and these that are Rebellious and refractary within it these he may devoure without any resistance they fall into his mouth but for us who are embraced by thy Redemtion he is put to his labour and to lose his labour too He is put to seek and put to miss too He was put to sue out a Commission for Jobs good till then he conâ—essed to God Thou hast put a hedge about him He was put to renew this commision for his person Touch his bones but further he durst not ask He hath a Kingdom but no body knowes where I would we might still dispute whether it were in the Earth or in the Ayre and not finde this Kingdome in our owne hearts Expell him thence and Gods spirit is as the Air that admits no vacuity no emptiness destroy this kingdome of Satan in your selves and God will establish his God will be content with his place Himselfe you cannot see that 's one degree of his tiranny to Reserve him selfe and not be seen for his deformities would make ye hate him but in his glases in the riches in the vanities of this world you see him and know him not you see him and know him and embrace him St. Chrysost hath convinced you in all that can be sayd for the love of this world If thou wilt says he that I must therfore look after worldly things because they are necessary E regione respendeo says he Therefore thou needest not look after them because they are necessary Si essent superflua non deberes confidere quia sunt necessaria non debes ambigere for that which is more than necessary thou shouldest not labour and for that which is necessary thou shoudst not doubt for whatsoever God does not give thee he knows was not necessary for thee for he can make thee happy without these temporal things as his way in this text is to redeem without money which is our last circumstance Sine Argento In delivering his people out of Egypt he gave no money for them nay he made them get money and Jewels at their coming away In delivering them out of Babylon he brought them away rich Here in this redemption it had been bribery to have given in so good a cause and it had been a new kind of Simony never heard of to give money for the exercise of their own grace He gave no money then not because he had it not Amos 3. for Domini est terra The earth and all in it is his ye have taken my silver and my gold says God in one Prophet Agg. 2. and he makes his continual claim in another The silver is mine and the gold is mine But it was God and not the devil that was to be satisfied In devillish trading there is no passing without money in the Temple it self there were In the Church and Church affaires there are buyers and sellers too if there were no buyers there would be no sellers but there was a third sort that was whiped out too which were Changers But in oure case it was God that was to be satisfied and therefore we were not redeemed with corruptable things as silver and gold 1 Pet. 1. but with the precious blood of Christ Now this blood of Christ Iesus was not within the Compass of this word which is here translated Money though as I noted at the begining this word Casaph includes all that the heart can wish or desire for though the Application of the blood of Christ now that is shed is to be wished by every sinner to his own soul Though the sheding of that blood might have been wished by the patriarchs to whom God had revealed that in the fullness of time it should be shed at the second coming of Christ and the Resurrection may be wished for by us now yet if we take Rem integram if we take the matter at first without any such revealing of Gods purpose as he in his Scripture hath afforded us so no man might have wished or prayed without a greater sin in that wish and in that prayer than all his former sins that the Son of God might come down and dye for his sins If it could possibly have fallen into his imagination that this might have been a way for his redemption yet he ought not to have wished that way neither might it neither certainly did it ever fall within the desire of any desparing sinner that thought that the death of Christ appertaind not to him to wish that God the father or God the Holy Ghost would come down and become man and shed his blood for him Th blood of Christ by which we are redeemed was not this Casaph it was not Res appetibilis a thing that a sinner might or could desire to be shed for him though being shed he must desire that it may be applied to him And hence it is that some of the fathers argue that when the Devill began to tempt Christ he knew him not to be the Son of God for even to the devil himself the blood of Christ could not be Res appetibilis a thing that deliberately he could have desired should have been shed If the devil had considered that the shedding of that blood would have redeemed us would he have hastned the shedding of that blood He redeemed us then without money And as he bought so he sells He paid no money he asks no money but he proclaims freely to all Esa 55. Ho every one that thirsteth come to the waters and ye that have no silver come buy and eat come I say buy wine and milk without silver and without money But you must come and you must come to the market to the Magazine of his graces his Church And you must buy though you have no money he paid obedience and he asks obedience to himself and his Church at your hands And then as Joseph did to his brethren he will give you your corn and your money again he will give you grace and temporal blessings too he will refresh and re-establish your natural faculties and give you supernatural He hath already done enough for all even in his mercy he was just just to the Devil himself for as we had done so he did he gave himself both to the
though all these be testimonies of Gods love to us yet all these bring but a winters day a short day and a cold day and a dark day for except we love too God doth not love with an everlasting love God will not suffer his love to be idle and since it profits him nothing if it profits us nothing neither Ambrose he will withdraw it Amor Dei ut lumen ignis ut splendor solis ut odor lucis non praebenti proficit sed utenti The sun hath no benefit by his own light nor the fire by his own heat nor a perfume by the sweetness thereof but only they who make their use and enjoy this heat and fragrancy And this brings us to our other part to pass from loving to enjoying 2 Part. Tulerunt Dominum meum They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him this was one strain of Mary Magdalens lamentation when she found not her Saviour in the monument It is a lamentable case to be fain to cry so Tulerunt They have taken other men have taken away Christ by a dark and corrupt education which was the state of our Fathers to the Roman captivity But when the abjecerunt Dominum which is so often complained of by God in the Prophets is pronounced against thee when thou hast had Christ offered to thee by the motions of his grace and seal'd to thee by his Sacraments and yet wilt cast him so far from thee that thou knowest not where to find him when thou hast poured him out at thine eyes in prophane and counterfeit tears which should be thy souls rebaptization for thy sins when thou hast blown him away in corrupt and ill intended sighs which should be gemitus columbae the voice of the Turtle to sound thy peace and reconciliation with thy God yea when thou hast spit him out of thy mouth in execrable and blaphemous oathes when thou hast not only cast him so far as that thou knowest not where to find him but hast made so ordinary and so indifferent a thing of sin as thou knowest not when thou didst lose him no nor dost not remember that ever thou hadst him no nor dost not know that there is any such man as Dominus tuus a Jesus that is thy Lord. The Tulerunt is dangerous when others hide Christ from thee but the abjecerunt is desperate when thou thy self doest cast him away To lose Christ may befall the most righteous man that is but then he knows where he left him he knows at what sin he lost his way and where to seek it again even Christs imagin'd Father and his true mother Joseph and Mary lost him and lost him in the holy City at Jerusalem they lost him and knew it not they lost him and went a dayes journy without him and thought him to be in the company but as soon as they deprehended their error they sought and they found him when as his mother told him his father and she had sought with a heavy heart Alas we may lose him at Jerusalem even in his own house even at this present whilst we pretend to doe him service we may lose him by suffering our though â—s to look back with pleasure upon the sins which we have committed or to look forward with greedines upon some sin that is now in our purpose prosecution we may lose him at Jerusalem how much more if our dwelling be a Rome of Superstition and Idolatry or if it be a Babylon in confusion and mingling God and the world together or if it be a Sodome a wanton and intemperate misuse of Gods benefits to us we may think him in the company when he is not we may mistake his house we may take a Conventicle for a Church we may mistake his apparrel that is the outward form of his worship we may mistake the person that is associate our selves to such as are no members of his body But if we doe not return to our diligence to seek him and seek him and seek him with a heavy heart though we begun with a Tulerunt other men other tentations took him away yet we end in an abjecerunt we our selves cast him away since we have been told where to find him and have not sought him And let no man be afraid to seek or find him for fear of the loss of good company Religion is no sullen thing it is not a melancholly there is not so sociable a thing as the love of Christ Jesus It was the first word which he who first found Christ of all the Apostles Saint Andrew is noted to have said Invenimus Messiam we have found the Messias and it is the first act that he is noted to have done after he had found him to seek his brother Peter Jo. 1.34 duxit ad Jesum so communicable a thing is the love of Jesus when we have found him But when are we likeliest to find him It is said by Moses Deut. 30.11 of the words and precepts of God They are not hid from thee neither are far off Not in heaven that thou shouldst say Who shall goe up to heaven for us to bring them down nor beyond the Seas that thou shouldst go over the Sea for them but the word is very neer thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart and so neer thee is Christ Jesus or thou shalt never find him Thou must not so think him in heaven as that thou canst not have immediate accesse to him without intercession of others nor so beyond Sea as to seek him in a forrein Church either where the Church is but an Antiquaries Cabinet full of rags and fragments of antiquity but nothing fit for that use for which it was first made or where it is so new a built house with bare walls that it is yet unfurnished of such Ceremonies as should make it comly and reverend Christ is at home with thee he is at home within thee and there is the neerest way to find him It is true that Christ in the beginning of this chapter shadow'd under the name of wisdom when he discovers where he may be found speaks in the person of humane wisdom as well as divine Doth not wisdome cry and understanding utter her voice wher those two words Wisdom and Understanding signifie Sapientiam and Prudentiam That wisdom whose object is God and that which concerns our conversation in this world for Christ hath not taken so narrow a dwelling as that he may be found but one way or in one profession for in all professions in all Nations in all vocations when all our actions in our severall courses are directed principally upon his glory Christ is eminent and may easily be found To that purpose in that place Christ in the person of wisdom offers himselfe to be found in the tops of high places and in the gates of Cities to shew that this Christ and this wisdom
from others upon whom we may depend to admit any dramms of the dregs of a superstitious Religion for it is a miserable extremity when we must take a little poyson for physick And so having made the right use of Gods corrections we shall enjoy the comfort of this phrase in this House our selves our first-born our Zeal was dead it was but it is not Lastly in this fourth House the House where we stand now the House of God and of his Saints God affords us a fair beam of this consolation in the phrase of this Text also They were dead How appliable to you in this place is that which God said to Moses Put off thy shoes for thou treadest on holy ground put off all confidence all standing all relying upon worldly assurances and consider upon what ground you tread upon ground so holy as that all the ground is made of the bodies of Christians and therein hath received a second consecration Every puff of wind within these walls may blow the father into the sons eys or the wife into her husbands or his into hers or both into their childrens or their childrens into both Every grain of dust that flies here is a piece of a Christian you need not distinguish your Pews by figures you need not say I sit within so many of such a neighbour but I sit within so many inches of my husbands or wives or childes or friends grave Ambitious men never made more shift for places in Court then dead men for graves in Churches and as in our later times we have seen two and two almost in every Place and Office so almost every Grave is oppressed with twins and as at Christs resurrection some of the dead arose out of their graves that were buried again so in this lamentable calamity the dead were buried and thrown up again before they were resolved to dust to make room for more But are all these dead They were says the Text they were in your eys and therefore we forbid not that office of the eye that holy tenderness to weep for them that are so dead But there was a part in every one of them that could not die which the God of life who breathed it into them from his own mouth hath suck'd into his own bosome And in that part which could die They were dead but they are not The soul of man is not safer wrapt up in the bosome of God then the body of man is wrapt up in the Contract and in the eternal Decree of the Resurrection As soon shall God tear a leaf out of the Book of Life and cast so many of the Elect into Hell fire as leave the body of any of his Saints in corruption for ever To what body shall Christ Jesus be loth to put to his hand to raise it from the grave then that put to his very God-head the Divinity it self to assume all our bodies when in one person he put on all mankinde in his Incarnation As when my true repentance hath re-ingraffed me in my God and re-incorporated me in my Savior no man may reproach me and say Thou wast a sinner So since all these dead bodies shall be restored by the power and are kept alive in the purpose of Almighty God we cannot say They are scarce that they were dead When time shall be no more when death shall be no more they shall renew or rather continue their being But yet beloved for this state of their grave for it becomes us to call it a state it is not an annihilation no part of Gods Saints can come to nothing as this state of theirs is not to be lamented as though they had lost any thing which might have conduced to their good by departing out of this world so neither is it a state to be joyed in so as that we should expose our selves to dangers unnecessarily in thinking that we want any thing conducing to our good which the dead enjoy As between two men of equal age if one sleep and the other wake all night yet they rise both of an equal age in the morning so they who shall have slept out a long night of many ages in the grave and they who shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord Jesus in the aire at the last day shall enter all at once in their bodies into Heaven No antiquity no seniority for their bodies neither can their souls who went before be said to have been there a minute before ours because we shall all be in a place that reckons not by minutes Clocks and Sun-dials were but a late invention upon earth but the Sun it self and the earth it self was but a late invention in heaven God had been an infinite a super-infinite an unimaginable space millions of millions of unimaginable spaces in heaven before the Creation And our afternoon shall be as long as Gods forenoon for as God never saw beginning so we shall never see end but they whom we tread upon now and we whom others shall tread upon hereafter shall meet at once where though we were dead dead in our several houses dead in a sinful Egypt dead in our family dead in our selves dead in the Grave yet we shall be received with that consolation and glorious consolation you were dead but are alive Enter ye blessed into the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning Amen A SERMON Preached at the Temple SERMON XXII Esther 4.16 Go and assemble all the Jews that are found in Shushan and fast ye for me and eat not nor drink in three days day nor night I also and my Maids will fast likewise and so I will go in to the King which is not according to the Law And if I perish I perish NExt to the eternal and coessential Word of God Christ Jesus the written Word of God the Scriptures concern us most and therefore next to the person of Christ and his Offices the Devil hath troubled the Church with most questions about the certainty of Scriptures and the Canon thereof It was late before the Spirit of God setled and established an unanime and general consent in his Church for the accepting of this Book of Esther For not onely the holy Bishop Melito who defended the Christians by an Apology to the Emperor removed this Book from the Canon of the Scripture One hundred and fifty years after Christ but Athanasius also Three hundred and forty years after Christ refused it too Yea Gregory Nazianzen though he deserved and had the stile and title of Theologus The Divine and though he came to clearer times living almost Four hundred years after Christ did not yet submit himself to an acceptation of this Book But a long time there hath been no doubt of it and it is certainly part of that Scripture which is profitable to teach 2 Tim. 3.16 to reprove to correct and to instruct in righteousness To which purpose we shall see what is afforded
her ruine might have saved her Country but in her case if she had perished they were likely to perish too But she is safer then in that for first she had hope out of the words of the Law out of the dignity of her place out of the Justice of the King out of the preparation which she had made by Prayer which Prayer Josephus either out of tradition or out of conjecture and likelihood Records to have been That God would make both her Language and her Beauty acceptable to the King that day Out of all these she had hope of good success and howsoever if she failed of her purpose she was under two Laws of which it was necessary to obey that which concerned the glory of God And therefore Daniels confidence and Daniels words became her well Behold our God is able to deliver me and he will deliver me but if he will not I must not forsake his honor nor abandon his service And therefore Si peream peream If I perish I perish It is not always a Christian resolution Si peream peream to say If I perish I perish I care not whether I perish or no To admit to invite to tempt tentations and occasions of sin and so to put our selves to the hazard of a spiritual perishing to give fire to concupiscencies with licentious Meditations either of sinful pleasures past or of that which we have then in our purpose and pursuit to fewel this fire with meats of curiosity and provocation to blow this fire with lascivious discourses and Letters and Protestations this admits no such condition Si pereas If thou perish but periisti thou art perished already thou didst then perish when thou didst so desperately cast thy self into the danger of perishing And as he that casts himself from a steeple doth not break his neck till he touch the ground but yet he is truly said to have killed himself when he threw himself towards the ground So in those preparations and invitations to sin we perish before we perish before we commit the act the sin it self We perished then when we opened our selves to the danger of the sin so also if a man will wring out not the Club out of Hercules hands but the sword out of Gods hands if a man will usurpe upon Gods jurisdiction and become a Magistrate to himself and revenge his own quarrels and in an inordinate defence of imaginary honor expose himself to danger in duel with a si peream peream If I perish I perish that is not onely true if he perish he perishes if he perish temporally he perishes spiritually too and goes out of the world loaded with that and with all his other sins but it is also true that if he perish not he perishes he comes back loaded both with the temporal and with the spiritual death both with the blood and with the damnation of that man who perished suddenly and without repentance by his sword To contract this and conclude all If a man have nothing in his contemplation but dignity and high place if he have not Vertue and Religion and a Conscience of having deserved well of his Countrey and the love of God and godly men for his sustentation and assurance but onely to tower up after dignity as a Hawk after a prey and think that he may boldly say as an impossible supposition Si peream peream If I perish I perish as though it were impossible he should perish he shall be subject to that derision of the King of Babylon Quomodo Cecidisti Esa 14.12 How art thou faln from Heaven O Lucifer thou son of the morning How art thou cast down to the ground that didst cast lots upon the Nations But that provident and religious Soul which proceeds in all her enterprises as Esther did in her preparations which first calls an assembly of all her Country-men that is them of the houshold of the Faithful the Congregation of Christs Church and the Communion of Saints and comes to participate the benefit of publick Prayers in his house inconvenient times and then doth the same in her own house within doors she and her maids that is she and all her senses and faculties This soul may also come to Esthers resolution to go in to the King though it be not according to the Law though that Law be That neither fornicator nor adulterer nor wanton nor thief nor drunkard nor covetous nor extortioner nor railer shall have access into the Kingdom of Heaven yet this soul thus prepared shall feel a comfortable assurance that this Law was made for servants and not for sons nor for the Spouse of Christ his Church and the living Members thereof and she may boldly say Si peream peream It is all one though I perish or as it is in the Original Vecasher quomodocunque peream whether I perish in my estimation and opinion with men whether I perish in my fortunes honor or health quomodocunque it is all one Heaven and earth shall pass away but Gods word shall not pass and we have both that word of God which shall never have end and that word of God which never had beginning His Word as it is his Promise his Scriptures and his Word as it is himself Christ Jesus for our assurance and security that that Law of denying sinners access and turning his face from them is not a perpetual not an irrevocable Law but that that himself says belongs to us For a little while have I forsaken thee but with great compassion will I gather thee for a moment in mine anger I hid my face from thee for a little season but with everlasting mercy have I had compassion on thee saith the Lord Christ thy Redeemer How riotously and voluptuously soever I have surfeited upon sin heretofore yet if I fast that fast now how disobedient soever I have been to my Superiors heretofore yet if I apply my self to a conscionable humility to them now howsoever if I have neglected necessary duties in my self or neglected them in my Family that either I have not been careful to give good example or not careful that they should do according to my example and by the way it is not only the Master of a house that hath the charge of a Family but every person every servant in the house that hath a body and a soul hath a house and a Family to look to and to answer for yet if I become careful now that both I I my self will and my whole house all my family shall serve the Lord If I be thus prepar'd thus dispos'd thus matur'd thus mellow'd thus suppled thus entendred to the admitting of any impressions from the hand of my God though there seem to be a general Law spread over all an universal War an universal Famine an universal Pestilence over the whole Nation yet I shall come either to an assurance that though there fall so many thousands on this and on that
may make a Prayer a Libel if upon colour of preaching or praying against toleration of Religion or persecution for Religion he would insinuate that any such tolerations are prepared for us or such persecutions threatned against us But if for speaking the mysteries of your salvation plainly sincerely inelegantly inartificially for the Gold and not for the Fashion for the Matter and not for the Form Nanciscor populi gratiam my service may be acceptable to Gods people and available to their Edification Nonne Dei donum shall not I call this a great Blessing of God Beloved in him I must I do And therefore because I presume I speak to such I take to my self that which follows there in the same Father that he that speaks to such a people does not his duty if he consider not deliberately Quibus Quando Quantum loquatur both to whom and at what time and how much he is to speak I consider the persons and I consider that the greatest part by much are persons born since the Reformation of Religion since the death of Idolatry in this Land and therefore not naturaliz'd by Conversion by Transplantation from another Religion to this but born the natural children of this Church and therefore to such persons I need not lay hold upon any points of controverted Doctrine I consider also Quando the time and I consider that it is now in these days of Easter when the greatest part of this Auditory have or will renew their Hands to Christ Jesus in the Sacrament of his Body and his Blood that they will rather loose theirs then lack his and therefore towards persons who have testified that disposition in that seal I need not depart into any vehement or passionate Exhortations to constancy and perseverance as though there were occasion to doubt it And I consider lastly Quantum how much is necessary to be spoken to such a people so disposed and therefore farther then the custom and solemnity of this day and place lays an Obligation upon me I will not extend my self to an unnecessary length especially because that which shall be said by me and by my Brethren which come after and were worthy to come before me in this place is to be said to you again by another who alone takes as much pains as all we and all you too Hears all with as much patience as all you and is to speak of all with as much and more labour then all we Much therefore for your ease somewhat for his a little for mine own with such succinctness and brevity as may consist with clearness and perspicuity in such manner and method as may best enlighten your understandings and least encumber your memories I shall open unto you that light which God commanded out of darkness and that light by which he hath shin'd in our hearts and this light by which we shall have the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus Divisio Our parts therefore in these words must necessarily be three three Lights The first shows us our Creation the second our Vocation the third our Glorification In the first We who were but but what but nothing were made Creatures In the second we who were but Gentiles were made Christians In the third we who were but men shall be made saints In the first God took us when there was no world In the second God sustains us in an ill world In the third God shall crown us in a glorious and joyful world In the first God made us in the second God mends us in the third God shall perfect us First God commanded light out of darkness that man might see the Creature then he shin'd in our hearts that man might see himself at last he shall shine so in the face of Christ Jesus that man may see God and live and live as long as that God of light and life shall live himself Every one of these Parts will have divers Branches and it is time to enter into them In the first the Creation because this Text does not purposely and primarily deliver the Doctrine of the Creation not prove it not press it not enforce it but rather suppose it and then propose it by way of Example and Comparison for when the Apostles says God who commanded light out of darkness hath shin'd in our hearts he intimates therein these two Propositions first that the same God that does the one does the other too God perfects his works and then this Proposition also As God hath done the one he hath done the other God himself works by Patterns by Examples These two Propositions shall therefore be our two first Branches in this first Part. First Idem Deus the same God goes through his works and therefore let us never fear that God will be weary and then Sicut Deus as God hath done he will do again he works by pattern and so must we and then from these two we shall descend to our third Proposition Quid Deus what God is said to have done here and it is that he commanded light out of darkness In these three we shall determine this Part and for the Branches of the other two Parts our Vocation and our Glorification it will be a less burden to your memories to open them then when we come to handle the Parts themselves then altogether now Now we shall proceed in the Branches of the first Part. Part 1. Memb. 1. Idem Deus In this our first Consideration is Idem Deus the same our God goes through all Those divers Hereticks who thought there were two Gods for Cordon thought so and Marcion thought so too the Gnostiques thought so and the Maniches thought so too though they differ'd in their mistakings for errour is always manifold and multiform yet all their errours were upon this ground this root They could nor comprehend that the same God should be the God of Justice and the God of Mercy too a God that had an earnestness to punish sin and an easiness to pardon sin too Cordon who was first though he made two Gods yet he used them both reasonable well for with him Alter Bonus Alter Justus Iren. 1.28.29 one of his Gods is perfectly good merciful and the other though he be not so very good yet he is just Marcion who came after says worse because he could not discern the good purposes of God in inflicting Judgements nor the good use which good men make of his Corrections but thought all acts of his Justice to be calamitous and intolerable and naturally evil therefore with him Alter Bonus Alter Malus he that is the merciful God is his good God and he that is so just but just is an ill God Hence they came to call the God of the New Testament a good God because there was Copiosa Redemptio plentiful Redemption in the Gospel and the God of the Old Testament Malum Deum an ill God
so heavy nor so discomfortable a curse in the first as in the latter shutting not in the shutting of barrenness as in the shutting of weakness Esa 37 3. when Children are come to the birth and there is not strength to bring forth It is the exaltation of misery to fall from a near hope of happiness And in that vehement imprecation the Prophet expresses the highth of Gods anger Give them O Lord what wilt thou give them Osc 9 14. give them a mis-carrying womb Therefore as soon as we are men that is inanimated quickned in the womb though we cannot our selves our Parents have reason to say in our behalves Wretched man that he is who shall deliver him from this body of death for Ro. 7.24 even the womb is the body of death if there be no deliverer It must be he that said to Jeremy 1. 5. Before I formed thee I knew thee and before thou camest out of the womb I sanctified thee We are not sure that there was no kind of ship nor boat to fish in nor to pass by till God prescribed Noah that absolute forme of the Ark that word which the holy Ghost by Moses uses for the Ark is common to all kinds of boats Thebah and is the same word that Moses uses for the boat that he was exposed in that his mother laid him in an Ark of bullrushes Exo 2.3 But we are sure that Eve had no Midwife when she was delivered of Cain therefore she might well say Possedi virum a Domino Gen. 4.1 I have gotten a man from the Lord wholly intirely from the Lord it is the Lord that hath enabled me to conceive the Lord hath infus'd a quickning soul into that conception the Lord hath brought into the world that which himself had quickned without all this might Eve say my body had been but the house of death and Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis To God the Lord belong the issues of death But then this Exitus a morte is but Introitus in mortem this issue Exitus a moribus mundi this deliverance from that death the death of the womb is an entrance a delivering over to another death the manifold deaths of this world We have a winding sheet in our Mothers womb that grows with us from our conception and we come into the world wound up in that winding sheet for we come to seek a grave And as prisoners discharged of actions may lie for fees so when the womb hath discharged us yet we are bound to it by cords of flesh by such a string as that we cannot go thence nor stay there We celebrate our own funeral with cries even at our birth as though our threescore and ten years of life were spent in our Mothers labor and our Circle made up in the first point thereof We beg one Baptism with another a sacrament of tears and we come into a world that lasts many ages but we last not In domo patris saies our blessed Saviour speaking of heaven multae mansiones Jo. 14.2 there are many and mansions divers and durable so that if a man cannot possess a martyrs house he hath shed no blood for Christ yet he may have a confessors he hath been ready to glorifie God in the shedding of his blood And if a woman cannot possess a virgins house she hath embrac'd the holy state of marriage yet she may have a matrons house she hath brought forth and brought up children in the fear of God In domo patris In my Fathers house in heaven there are many mansions but here upon earth Mat. 8 20. The Son of man hath not where to lay his head saies he himself No terram dedit filiis hominum How then hath God given this earth to the Sons of men He hath given them earth for their materials to be made of earth and he hath given them earth for their grave and sepulture to return and resolve to earth but not for their possession Heb. 13.14 Here we havh no continuing City nay no Cottage that continues nay no we no persons no bodies that continue Whatsoever moved St. Hierome to call the journies of the Israelites in the wilderness Exo. 17.1 Mansions the word the word is nasang signifies but a journie but a peregrination even the Israel of God hath no mansions Gen. 47 9. but journies pilgrimages in this life By that measure did Jacob measure his life to Pharaoh The daies of the years of my pilgrimage And though the Apostle would not say morimer that whilst we are in the body we are dead yet he saies peregrinamur 2 Cor. 5 6. whilst we are in the body we are but in a pilgrimage and we are absent from the Lord. He might have said dead for this whole world is but an universal Church-yard but one common grave and the life and motion that the greatest persons have in it is but as the shaking of buried bodies in their graves by an earthquake That which we call life is but Hebdomada mortium a week of deaths seaven daies seaven periods of our life spent in dying a dying seaven times over and ther 's an end Our birth dies in Infancy and our infancy dies in youth and youth and the rest die in age and age also dies and determines all Nor do all these youth out of infancy or age out of youth arise so as a Phenix out of the ashes of another Phenix formerly dead but as a wasp or a serpent out of carrion or as a snake out of dung our youth is worse then our infancy and our age worse then our youth our youth is hungry and thirsty after those sins which our infancy knew not and our age is sorry and angry that it cannot pursue those sins which our youth did And besides all the way so many deaths that is so many deadly calamities accompany every condition and every period of this life as that death it self would be an ease to them that suffer them Upon this sense does Job wish 10. 18. that God had not given him an issue from the first death from the womb Wherefore hast thou brought me forth out of the womb O that I had given up the Ghost and no eye had seen me I should have been as though I had not been And not only the impatient Israelites in their murmuring would to God we had died by the hands of the Lord Ex. 16.3 in the land of Egypt but Eliah himself when he fled from Jezabel and went for his life as that Text saies under the juniper tree requested that he might die and said It is enough now O Lord take away my life 1 Reg. 19.4 So Jonah justifies his impatience nay his anger towards God himself Now O Lord take I beseech thee my life from me for it is better for me to die then to live And when God ask'd him dost thou well