pieces and slackens the band of the Christian faith which faith is That Christ consisting of two natures in one person suffered for the salvation of man So then not onely to take from Jesus one of his natures God or man but to adde to him another person this addition is a Diminution a dissolution an annihilation of Jesus So also to adde to the Gospel to adde to the Scriptures to adde to the articles of faith this addition is a Diminution a Dissolution an Annihilation of those Scriptures that Gospel that faith and the Author and finisher thereof Iesus grew in stature says the Gospel But he grew not to his lifes end we know to how many feet he grew So the Scriptures grew to the number of the books grew But they grow not to the worlds end we know to how many bookes they grew The body of man and the vessels thereof have a certain and a limited capacity what nourishment they can receive and digest and so a certaine measure and stature to extend to The soul and soul of the soul Faith and her faculties hath a certain capacity too and certain proportions of spirituall nourishments exhibited to it in certaine vessels certaine measures so many these Bookes of Scriptures And therefore as Christ saies Which of you can adde one Cubit to your stature how plentifully and how delicately soever you feed how discreetly and how providently soever you exercise you cannot doe that so may he say to them who pretend the greatest power in the Church Which of you can adde another booke to the Scriptures A Codicill to either of my Testaments The curse in the Revelation fals as heavy upon them that adde to the booke of God as upon them that take from it Nay it is easie to observe that in all those places of Scripture which forbid the taking away or the adding to the Book of God still the commandment that they shall not and still the malediction if they do is first placed upon the adding and after upon the taking away So it is in that former place Plagues upon him that takes away but first Plagues upon him that addes so in Deut. you shall not diminish but first you shall not adde So again in that Book whatsoever I command you observe to do it Thou shalt not diminish from it but first Thou shalt not adde to it And when the same commandment seems to be given in the Proverbs there is nothing at all said of taking away but onely of adding as though the danger to Gods Church consisted especially in that Every word of God is pure saith Solomon there Adde thou not unto his word lest thou be reproved and found a lyer For though heretofore some Heretiques have offered at that way to clip Gods coin in taking away some book of Scripture yet for many blessed Ages the Church hath enjoyed her peace in that point None of the Books are denied by any church there is no substraction offered But for addition of Apocryphal Books to Canonicall the Church of God is still in her Militant state and cannot triumph and though she have victory in all the Reasons the cannot have peace You see Christs way to them that came to heare him Audiistis and Audiistis This and that you have heard others say Egâ— autem dico your Rule is what I say for Christ spoke Scripture Christ was Scripture As we say of great and universall Scholars that they are viventes Bibliothecae living walking speaking Libraries so Christ was lâ—quens Scriptura living speaking Scripture Our Sermons are Text and Discourse Christ Sermons were all Text Christ was the Word not onely the Essentiall Word which was alwayes with God but the very written word too Christ was the Scripture and therefore when he refers them to himselfe he refers them to the Scriptures for though here he seem onely to call upon them to hearken to that which he spoke yet it is in a word of a deeper impression for it is Videte See what you hear Before you preach any thing for my word see it see it written see it in the body of the Scriptures Here then lies the double obligation upon the Apostles The salvation of the whole world lies upon your preaching of that of All That of onely That which you hear from me now And therefore take heed what you hear And farther we carry not your consideration upon this first acceptation of the words as they are spoken personally to the Apostles but passe to the second as by reflexion they are spoken to us the Ministers of the Gospel In this consideration we take in also our Adversaries for we all pretend to be successors of the Apostles though not we as they in the Apostolicall yet they as well as we in the Evangelicall and Ministeriall function for as that which Christ said to Saint Peter he said in him to all the Apostles Vpon this Rock will I build my Church so in this which he saith to all the Apostles he saith to all us also Take heed what you heare Be this then the issue between them of the Roman distemper and us whether they or we do best perform this commandment Take heed what you heare conceal nothing of that which you have heard obtrude nothing but that which you have heard Whether they or we do best apply our practise to this rule Preach all the Truth preach nothing but the Truth be this lis contestata the issue joyned between us and it will require no long pleading for matter of evidence first our Saviour saith Man liveth by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God And this Christ saith from Moses also so that in the mouth of two unreproachable witnesses Moses and Christ the Law and the Gospel we have this established Mans life is the Word of God the Word is the Scripture And then our Saviour saith further The Holy Ghost shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance and here is the Latitude the Totality the Integrality of the meanes of salvation you shall have Scriptures delivered to you by them the Holy Ghost shall teach you all things and then you shall be remembred of all by the explication and application of those Scriptures at Church where lies the principall operation of the Holy Ghost Now is this done in the Roman Church Are the Scriptures delivered and explicated to them To much of the Scriptures as is read to them in their Lessons and Epistles and Gospels is not understood when it is read for it is in an unknown language so that that way the Holy Ghost teaches them nothing Neither are all the Scriptures distributed into these Lessons and Epistles and Gospels which are read so that if they did understand all they heard yet they did not heare all they were bound to understand And for remembring them by the way of preaching though it be true that the
that thou art now and when thou shalt be nothing againe thou shalt be made better then thou art yet And Redderationem quâ factus es ego reddam rationem quâ fies Doe thou tell me how thou wast made then and I will tell thee how thou shalt be made hereafter And yet as Solomon sends us to creatures to creatures of a low rank station to Ants Spiders for instruction so Saint Gregory sends us to creatures to learne the Resurrection Lux quotidie moritur quotidie resurgit That glorious creature that first creature the light dyes every day and every day hath a resurrection In arbustis folia resurrectione erumpunt from the Cedar of Libanus to the Hyssop upon the wall every leafe dyes every yeare and every yeare hath a Resurrection Vbi in brevitate seminis tam immensa arbor latuit as he pursues that meditation If thou hadst seen the bodies of men rise our of the grave at Christs Resurrection could that be a stranger thing to thee then if thou hadst never seen nor hard not imagined it before to see an Oake that spreads so farre rise out of an Akorne Or if Churchyards did vent themselves every spring and that there were such a Resurrection of bodies every yeare when thou hadst seen as many Resurrections as years the Resurrection would be no stranger to thee then the spring is And thus this and many other good and reverend men and so the holy Ghost himselfe sends us to Reason and to the Creature for the doctrine of the Resurrection Saint Paul allowes him not the reason of a man that proceeds not so Thou fool says he that which thou sowest is not quickned except it dye but then it is It is truly harder to conceive a translation of the body into heaven then a Resurrection of the body from the earth Num in hominibus terra degenerat quae omnia regenerare consuevit Doe all kinds of earth regenerate and shall onely the Churchyard degenerate Is there a yearely Resurrection of every other thing and never of men Omnia pereunde servantur All other things are preserved and continued by dying Tu homo solus ad hoc morieris ut pereas And canst thou O man suspect of thy selfe that the end of thy dying is an end of thee Fall as low as thou canst corrupt and putresie as desperately as thou canst sis nihil thinke thy selfe nothing Ejus est nihilum ipsum cujus est totum even that nothing is as much in his power as the world which he made of nothing And as he called thee when thou wast not as if thou hadst been so will he call thee againe when thou art ignorant of that being which thou hast in the grave and give thee againe thy former and glorifie it with a better being The Iews then if they had no other helpes might have as naturall men may preparations a Priore and illustrations a Posteriore for the doctrine of the Resurrection The Iews had seen resuscitations from the dead in particular persons and they had seen miraculous cures done by their Prophets And Gregory Nyssen says well that those miraculous cures which Christ wrought with a Tolle grabatum and an Este sanus and no more they were praeludia resurrectionis halfe-resurrections prologues and inducements to the doctrine of the resurrection which shall be transacted with a Surgite mortui and no more So these naturall helps in the consideration of the creature are praeludia resurrectionis they are halfe-resurrections and these naturall resurrections carry us halfe way to the miraculous resurrection But certainely the Iews who had that which the Gentiles wanted The Scriptures had from them a generall though not an explicite knowledge of the resurrection That they had it we see by that practise of Iudas the Maccabee in gathering a contribution to send to Ierusalem which is therefore commended because he was therein mindefull of the Resurrection Neither doth Christ find any that opposed the doctrine of the Resurrection but those who though they were tolerated in the State because they were otherwise great persons were absolute Heretiques even amongst the Iews The Sadduces And Saint Paul when finding himselfe to bee oppressed in Judgement hee used his Christian wisedome and to draw a strong party to himselfe protested himselfe to bee of the sect of the Pharisees and that as they and all the rest in generall did he maintained the Resurrection he knew it would seem a strange injury and an oppression to be called in question for that that they all beleeved Though therefore our Saviour Christ who disputed then onely against the Sadduces argued for the doctrine of the Resurrection onely from that place of the Scripture which those Sadduces acknowledged to be Scripture for they denied all but the bookes of Moses and so insisted upon those words I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob yet certainely the Iews had established that doctrine upon other places too though to the Sadduces who accepted Moses onely Moses were the best evidence It is evident enough in that particular place of Daniel Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt And in Daniel that word many must not be restrained to lesse then all Daniel intends by that many that how many soever they are they shall all arise as Saint Paul does when he says By one mans disobedience many were made sinners that is All for death passed over all men for all have sinned And Christ doth but paraphrase that place of Daniel who says Multi many when he says Omnes all All that are in the grave shall heare his voyce and shall come forth They that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evill to the resurrection of damnation This then being thus far settled that the Iews understood the resurrection and more then that they beleeved it and therefore as they had light in nature they had assurance in Scripture come we now to that which was our last purpose in this first part whether in this text in these words of Iob though after my skin wormes destroy my body there be any such light of the Resurrection given It is true that in the new Testament where the doctrine of the resurrection is more evidently more liquidly delivered then in the old though it be delivered in the old too there is no place cited out of the book of Iob for the resurrection and so this is not But it is no marvaile both upon that reason which we noted before that they who were to be convinced were such as received onely the books of Moses and therefore all citations from this booke of Iob or any other had been impertinently and frivolously employed and because in the new Testament
there is but one place of this booke of Iob cited at all To the Corinthians the Apostle makes use of those words in Iob God taketh the wise in their owne craft And more then this one place is not I thinke cited out of this booke of Iob in the new Testament But the authority of Iob is established in another place you have heard of the patience of Iob and you have seen the end of the Lord says Saint Iames. As you have seen this so you have heard that seen and heard one way out of the Scripture you have hard that out of the booke of Iob you have seen this out of the Gospell And further then this there is no naming of Iobs person or his booke in the new Testament Saint Hierome confesses that both the Greeke and Latine Copies of this booke were so defective in his time that seven or eight hundred verses of the originall were wanting in the booke And for the originall it selfe he says Obliquus totus liber fertur lubricus it is an uncertaine and slippery book But this is onely for the sense of some places of the book And that made the authority of this book to be longer suspended in the Church and oftner called into question by particular men then any other book of the Bible But in those who have for many ages received this book for Canonicall there is an unanime acknowledgement at least tacitely that this peece of it this text When after my skin wormes shall destroy my body yet in my flesh I shall see God does establish the Resurrection Divide the expositors into three branches for so the world will needs divide them The first the Roman Church will call theirs though they have no other title to them but that they received the same translation that they doe And all they use this text for the resurrection Verba viri in gentilitate positi erubescamus It is a shame for us who have the word of God it selfe which Iob had not and have had such a commentary such an exposition upon al the former word of God as the reall and actuall and visible resurrection of Christ himselfe Erubescamus verba viri in gentilitate positi let us be ashamed and confounded if Iob a person that lived not within the light of the covenant saw the resurrection more clearly and professed it more constantly then we doe And as this Gregory of Rome so Gregory Nyssen understood Iob too For he considers Iobs case thus God promised Iob twofold of all that he had lost And in his sheep and camels and oxen and asses which were utterly destroyed and brought to nothing God performes it punctually he had all in a double proportion But Iob had seven sonnes and three daughters before and God gives him but seven sonnes and three daughters againe And yet Iob had twofold of these too for Postnati cum prioribus numerantur quia omnes deo vivunt Those which were gone and those which were new given lived all one life because they lived all in God Necquicquam aliud est mors nisi viti ositatis expiatio Death is nothing else but a devesting of those defects which made us lesse fit for God And therefore agreeably to this purpose says Saint Cyprian Scimus non amitti sed praemitti thy dead are not lost but lent Non recedere sed praecedere They are not gone into any other wombe then we shall follow them into nec acquirendae atrae vestes pro iis qui albis induuntur neither should we put on blacks for them that are clothed in white nor mourne for them that are entred into their Masters joy We can enlarge our selfes no farther in this consideration of the first branch of expositors but that all the ancients tooke occasion from this text to argue for the resurrection Take into your Consideration the other two branches of moderne expositors whom others sometimes contumeliously and themselves sometimes perversly have call'd Lutherans and Calvinists and you may know that in the first ranke Osiander and with him all his interpret these words so And in the other ranke Tremellius and Pellicanus heretofore Polanus lately and Piscator for the present All these and all the Translators into the vulgar tongues of all our neighbours of Europe do all establish the doctrine of the Resurrection by these words this place of Iob. And therefore though one and truly for any thing I know but one though one to whom we all owe much for the interpretation of the Scriptures do think that Iob intends no other resurrection in this place but that when he shall be reduc'd to the miserablest estate that can bee in this life still he will look upon God and trust in him for his restitution and reparation in this life let us with the whole Christian Church embrace and magnifie this Holy and Heroicall Spirit of Iob Scio says he I know it which is more in him then the Credo is in us more to know it then in that state then to believe it now after it hath been so evidently declar'd not onely to be a certain truth but to be an article of faith Scio Redemptorem says he I know not onely a Creator but a Redeemer And Redemptorem meum My Redeemer which implies a confidence and a personall application of that Redemption to himself Scio vivere says he I know that he lives I know that hee begunne not in his Incarnation I know he ended not in his death but it always was and is now and shall for ever be true Vivit that he lives still And then Scio venturum says he too I know hee shall stand at the last day to Judge me and all the world And after that and after my skinne and body is destroyed by worms yet in my flesh I shall see God And so have you as much as we proposed for our first part That the Jews do now that they always did believe a Resurrection That as naturall men and by naturall reason they might know it both in the possibility of the thing and in the purpose of God that they had better helpes then naturall reason for they had divers places of their Scripture and that this place of Scripture which is our text hath evermore been received for a proof of the Resurrection Proceed we now to those particulars which constitute our second part such instructions concerning the Resurrection as arise out of these words Though after my skinne worms destroy my body yet in my flesh I shall see God In this second part the first thing that was propos'd was That the Saints of God are not priviledg'd from this which fell upon Iob This Death this dissolution after death Upon the Morte morieris that double death interminated by God upon Adam there is a Non obstante Revertere turn to God and thou shalt not dy the death not the second
death But upon that part of the sentence In pulverem reverteris To dust thou shalt return there is no Non obstante though thou turn to God thou must turn into the grave for hee that redeem'd thee from the other death redeem'd not himself from this Carry this consideration to the last minute of the world when we that remain shall bee caught up in the clouds yet even that last fire may be our fever those clouds our winding sheets that rapture our dissolution and so with Saint Augustine most of the ancients most of the latter men think that there shall be a sudden dissolution of body and soul which is death and a sudden re-uniting of both which is resurrection in that instant Quis Homeo is Davids question What man is he that liveth and shall not see death Let us adde Quis Deoram What god is he amongst the Gentiles that hath not seen death Which of their three hundred Iupiters which of their thousands of other gods have not seen death Mortibus morjuntur we may adde to that double death in Gods mouth another death The gods of the Gentiles have dyed thrice In body in soul and in fame for though they have been glorified with a Deification nor one of all those old gods is at this day worshipt in any part of the world but all those temporary and transitory Gods are worn out and dead in all senses Those gods who were but men fall under Davids question Quis Home And that man who was truly God fals under it too Christ Jesus He saw death though he saw not the death of this text Corruption And if we consider the effusion of his precious blood the contusion of his sacred flesh the extention of those sinews and ligaments which tyed heaven and earth together in a reconciliation the departing of that Intelligence from that sphear of that high Priest from that Temple of that Dove from that Arke of that soul from that body that dissolution which as an ordinary man he should have had in the grave but that the decree of God declar'd in the infallibility of the manifold prophesies preserv'd him from it had been but a slumber in respect of these tortures which he did suffer The Godhead staid with him in the grave and so he did not corrupt but though our souls be gone up to God our bodies shall Corruption in the skin says Iob In the outward beauty These be the Records of velim these be the parchmins the endictments and the evidences that shall condemn many of us at the last day our own skins we have the book of God the Law written in our own hearts we have the image of God imprinted in our own souls wee have the character and seal of God stamped in us in our baptism and all this is bound up in this velim in this parchmin in this skin of ours and we neglect book and image and character and feal and all for the covering It is not a clear case if we consider the originall words properly That Iesabel did paint and yet all translators and expositors have taken a just occasion out of the ambiguity of those words to cry down that abomination of painting It is not a clear case if we consider the propriety of the words That Absolon was hanged by the hair of the head and yet the Fathers and others have made use of that indifferency and verisimilitude to explode that abomination of cherishing and curling haire to the enveagling and ensnaring and entangling of others Iudicium patietur aeternum says Saint Hierome Thou art guilty of a murder though no body die Quia vinum attulisti si faisset qui bibisset Thou hast poyson'd a cup if any would drink thou hast prepar'd a tentation if any would swallow it Tertullian thought he had done enough when he had writ his book De Habitu muliâ—bri against the excesse of women in clothes but he was fain to adde another with more vehemence De cultu foeminarum that went beyond their clothes to their skin And he concludes Illud ambitionis crimen there 's vain-glory in their excesse of clothes but Hoc prostitutionis there 's prostitution in drawing the eye to the skin Pliny says that when their thin silke stuffes were first invented at Rome Excogitatum ad faeminas denudandas It was but an invention that women might go naked in clothes for their skins might bee seen through those clothes those thinne stuffes Our women are not so carefull but they expose their nakednesse professedly and paint it to cast bird-lime for the passengers eye Beloved good dyet makes the best Complexion and a good Conscience is a continuall feast A cheerfull heart makes the best blood and peace with God is the true cheerfulnesse of heart Thy Saviour neglected his skin so much as that at last hee scarse had any all was torn with the whips and scourges and thy skin shall come to that absolute corruption as that though a hundred years after thou art buryed one may find thy bones and say this was a tall man this was a strong man yet we shall soon be past saying upon any relique of thy skinne This was a fair man Corruption seises the skinne all outward beauty quickly and so it does the body the whole frame and constitution which is another consideration After my skinne my Body If the whole body were an eye or an ear where were the body says Saint Paul but when of the whole body there is neither eye nor ear nor any member left where is the body And what should an eye do there where there is nothing to be seen but loathsomnesse or a nose there where there is nothing to be smelt but putrefaction or an ear where in the grave they doe not praise God Doth not that body that boasted but yesterday of that priviledge above all creatures that it onely could goe upright lie to day as flat upon the earth as the body of a horse or of a dogge And doth it not to morrow lose his other priviledge of looking up to heaven Is it not farther remov'd from the eye of heaven the Sunne then any dogge or horse by being cover'd with the earth which they are not Painters have presented to us with some horrour the sâ—cleton the frame of the bones of a mans body but the state of a body in the dissolution of the grave no pencil can present to us Between that excrementall jelly that thy body is made of at first and that jelly which thy body dissolves to at last there is not so noysome so putrid a thing in nature This skinne this outward beauty this body this whole constitution must be destroy'd says Iobâ— in the next place The word is well chosen by which all this is expressed in this text Nakaph which is a word of as heavy a signification to expresse an utter abolition and annihilation as perchance can be
one person in him My flesh shall no more be none of mine then Christ shall not be man as well as God SERMON XV. Preached at Lincolns Inne 1 COR. 15. 50. Now this I say Brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God SAint Gregory hath delivered this story That Eutychius who was Bishop of Constantinople having written a book of the Resurrection and therein maintained that errour That the body of Christ had not that our bodies in the Resurrection should not have any of the qualities of a naturall body but that those bodies were in subtilitatem redacta so rarifyed so refined so attenâ—ated and reduced to a thinnesse and subtlenesse that they were aery bodies and not bodies of flesh and blood This error made a great noise and raised a great dust till the Emperour to avoid scandall which for the most part arises out of publick conferences was pleased to hear Eutychius and Gregory dispute this point privately before himself and a small company And that upon conference the Emperour was so well satisfyed that hee commanded Eutychius his books to bee burnt That after this both Gregory and Eutychius fell sicke but Eutychius dyed and dyed with this protestation In hâc carne in this flesh taking up the flesh of his hand in the presence of them that were there in this flesh I acknowledge that I and all men shall arise at the day of Judgement Now the principall place of Scripture which in his book and in that conference Eutychius stood upon was this Text these words of Saint Paul This I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God And the directest answer that Gregory gave to it was Caro secundum culpam non regnabit sed Caro secundum naturam sinfull flesh shall not but naturall flesh that is flesh indued with all qualities of flesh all such qualities as imply no defect no corruption for there was flesh before there was sin such flesh and such blood shall inherit the Kingdome of God As there have been more Heresies about the Humanity of Christ then about his Divinity so there have been more heresies about the Resurrection of his body and consequently of ours then about any other particular article that concerns his Humiliation or Exaltation Simon Magus strook deepest at first to the root That there was no Resurrection at all The Gnosticks who took their name from knowledge as though they knew all and no body else any thing which is a pride transferr'd through all Heretickes for as that sect in the Roman Church which call themselves Ignorantes and seem to pretend to no knowledge doe yet believe that they know a better way to heaven then all other men doe so that sect amongst them which called themselves Nullanos Nothings thought themselves greater in the Kingdome of God then either of the other two sects of diminution the Minorits or the Minims did These Gnosticks acknowledged a Resurrection but they said it was of the soul onely and not of the body for they thought that the soul lay dead at least in a dead sleep till the Resurrection Those Heretickes that are called the Arabians did as the Gnosticks did affirm a temporary death of the soul as well as of the body but then they allowed a Resurrection to both soul and body after that death which the Gnostickes did not but to the soul onely Hymeneus and Philetus of whom Saint Paul speakes they restrained the Resurrection to the soule but then they restrained this Resurrection of the soule to this life and that in those who were baptized the Resurrection was accomplished already Eutychius whom wee mentioned before enlarged the Resurrection to the body as well as to the soul but enlarged the qualities of the body so far as that it was scarce a body The Armenian hereticks said that it was not onely Corpus humâ—num but Corpus masculinum That all should rise in the perfecter sex and none as women Origen allowed a Resurrection and allowed the Body to be a naturall body but the contracted the time he said that when we rose we should enjoy the benefits of the resurrection even in bodily pleasures for a thousand years and then be annihilated or absorpted and swallowed up into the nature and essence of God himselfe for it will be hard to state Origens opinion in this point Origen was not herein well understood in his owne time not doe we understand him now for the most part but by his accusers and those that have written against him Divers of these Heretiques for the maintenance of their severall heresies perverted this Scripture Flesh and bloud cannot inherit the kingdome of God and that occasioned those Fathers who opposed those heresies so diverse from one another to interpret these words diversly according to the heresie they opposed All agree that they are an argument for the resurrection though they seem at first to oppose it For this Chapter hath three generall parts first Resurrectionem esse that there shall be a Resurrection which the Apostle proves by many and various arguments to the thirty fifth verse And then Quati corpore the body shall rise but some will say How are the dead raised and with what body doe they come in that thirty fifth verse And lastly Quid de superstitibus what shall become of them who shall be found alive at the day We shall all be changed verse fifty one Now this text is the knot and corollary or all the second part concerning the qualities of the bodies in the resurrection Now says the Apostle now that I have said enough to prove that a resurrection there is now now that I have said enough what kind of bodies shall arise now I show you as much in the Negative as I have done in the Affirmative now I teach you what to avoid as well as I have done what to affect now this I say brethren that flesh and bloud cannot inherit the kingdome of God Now though those words be primarily principally intended of the last Resurrection yet in a secondary respect they are appliable in themselves and very often applied by the ancients to the first Resurrection our resurrection in this life Tertullian hath intimated and presented both together elegantly when he says of God Nobis arrhabonem spiritus reliquit arrhabonem à nobis accepit God hath given us his earnest and a pawn from him upon earth in giving us the holy Ghost and he hath received our earnest and a pawn from us into heaven by receiving our nature in the body of Christ Jesus there Flesh and bloud when it is conformed to the flesh and bloud of Christ now glorified and made like his by our resurrectien may inherite the kingdome of God in heaven Yea flesh and bloud being conformed to Christ by the sanctification of the holy Ghost here in this world may inherit the kingdome of God here upon earth for God hath a
when Epaphras had declrared unto him their love and when upon so good testimony of their disposition he had a desire that they might be fulfilled with knowledge of Gods will in all wisdome and spirituall understanding as he says verse 9. when he knew how farre they had proceeded in mysteries of the Christian Religion and that they had a spirituall hunger of more then it was seasonable to present to them this great point that Christ had suffered throughly sufficiently aboundantly for the reconciliation of the whole world and yet that there remained some sufferings and those of Christ too to be fulfilled by us That all was done and yet there remained more to be done that after Christs consummatum est which was all the text there should be an Adimplendum est interlined that after Christ had fulfilled the Law and the Prophets by his sufferings Saint Paul must fulfill the residue of Christs sufferings was a doctrin unseasonably taught till they had learnt much and shewed a desire to learn more In the Primitive Church men of ripe understandings were content to think two or three yeares well spent in learning of Catechisms and rudiments of Christian Religion and the greatest Bishops were content to think that they discharged their duties well if they caâ—echized ignorant men in such rudiments for we know from Gennaâ—dius an Ecclesiasticall author that the Bishops of Greece and of the Eastern Church did use to con S. Cyrils sermons made at Easter and some other Festivals without book and preached over those Sermons of his making to Congregations of strong understanding and so had more time for their Caâ—echizing of others Optatus thinks that when Saint Paul says Ego plantavi Apollos rigavit I planted the faith and Apollos watered he intended in those words Ego de pagano feci catechumenum ille de catechumeno Christianum That Saint Paul took ignorant persons into his charge to catechize them at first and when they were instructed by him Apollos watered them with the water of Baptism Tertullian thought hee did young beginners in Christianity no wrong when he called them catulos infantiae reâ—entis nec perfectis luminibus reptantes Young whelps which are not yet come to a perfect use of their eyes in the mysteries of Religion Now God hath delivered us in a great measure from this weaknesse in seeing because we are catechized from our craâ—â—â—s and from this penury in preaching we need not preach others Sermons nor feed upon cold meat in Homilies but wee are fallen upon such times too as that men doe not thinke themselves Christians except they can tell what God meant to doe with them before he meant they should bee Christians for we can be intended to be Christians but from Christ and wee must needs seek a Predestination without any relation to Christ a decree in God for salvation and damnation before any decree for the reparation of mankind by Christ every Common-placer will adventure to â—each and every artificer will pretend to understand the purpose yea and the order too and method of Gods eternall and unrevealed decree Saint Paul required a great deal more knowledge then these men use to bring before he presented to them a great deal a lesse point of Doctrin then these men use to aske This was then the Nunc illis their season when they had humbly received so much of the knowledge of the fundamentall points of Religion Saint Paul was willing to communicate more and more stronger and stronger meat unto them That which he presents here is that which may seem least to appertain to a Christian that is loy because a Christian is a person that hath surrendred himself over to a sad and serious and a severe examination of all his actions that all bee done to the glory of God but for all this this joy true joy is truly properly onely belonging to a Christian because this joy is the Testimony of a good conscience that wee have received God so as God hath manifested himself in Christ and worshipt God so God hath ordained In a true Church there are many tesserae externae outward badges and marks by which others may judge and pronounce mee to bee a true Christian But the tessera internaâ— the inward badge and marke by which I know this in my selfe is joy The blessednesse of heaven it selfe Salvation and the fruits of Paradise that Paradise which cannot be expressed cannot be comprehended have yet got no other name in the subtilty of the Schools nor in the fulnesse of the Scriptures but to be called the joys of heaven Essentiall blessednesse is called so Enter into thy Masters joy that is into the Kingdome of heaven and accidentall happinesse added to that essentiall happinesse is called so too There is joy in heaven at the conversion of a sinner and so in the Revelaâ—ion Rejoyce ye heavens and yee that dwell in them for the aâ—câ—ser of our brethren is cast downâ— There is now joy even in heaven which was not there before Certainly as that man shall never see the Father of Lights after this to whom the day never breaks in this life As that man must never look to walk with the Lamb wheresoever he goes in heaven that ranne away from the Lamb whensoever he came towards him in this life so he shall never possesse the joyes of heaven hereafter that feels no joy here There must be joy here which Tanquam Cellulae mellis as Saint Bernard says in his mellifluous language as the honey-comb walles in and prepares and preserves the honey and is as a shell to that kernell so there must bee a joy here which must prepare and preserve the joys of heaven it self and be as a shell of those joys For heaven and salvation is not a Creation but a Multiplication it begins not when wee dye but it increases and dilates it self infinitely then Christ himself when he was pleased to feed all that people in the wildernesse he asks first Quot panes habetis how many loafes have you and then multiplyed them abundantly as conduced most to his glory but some there was before When thou goest to eat that bread of which whosoever eates shall never dye the bread of life in the Land of life Christ shall consider what joy thou broughtest with thee out of this world and he shall extend and multiply that joy unexpressibly but if thou carry none from hence thou shalt find none there Hee that were to travell into a far country would study before somewhat the map and the manners and the language of the Country Hee that looks for the fulnesse of the joyes of heaven hereafter will have a taste an insight in them before he goe And as it is not enough for him that would travail to study any language indifferently were it not an impertinent thing for him that went to lye in France to study Dutch So if wee pretend to make the joys
to descend from heaven yet it did first ascend from the earth and retains still some such earthly parts as sheep cannot digest So howsoever these Revelations and Inspirations seem to fall upon us from heaven they arise from the earth from our selves from our own melancholy and pride or our too much homelinesse and familiarity in our accesses and conversation with God or a facility in beleeving or an often dreaming the same thing And with these Dews of Apparitions and Revelations did the Romane Church make our fathers drunk and giddy And against these does S. Augustine devoutly pray and praise God that he had delivered him from the curiosity of sipping these dews of hearkning after these apparitions and revelations But so ordinary were these apparitions then as that any son or nephew or friend could discern his fathers or uncles or companions soul ascending out of Purgatory into heaven and know them as distinctly as if they kept the same haire and beard and bodily lineaments as they had upon earth And as a ship which hath struck Sail will yet goe on with the winde it had before for a while so now when themselves are come to acknowledge That it was the unanime opinion of the Fathers that the souls of the dead did not appeare after death but that it was still the Devil howsoever sometimes that that he proposed were holy religious yet we see a great Author of theirs attribute so much to these apparitions and revelations that when he pretends to prove all controversies by the Fathers of the Church he every where intermingles that reverend Book of Brigids Revelations that they might also have some Mothers of the Church too which is not disproportionall in that Church if they have had a woman Pope to have Mothers of the Church too I speak not this as though God might not or did not manifest his will by women The great mystery of the Resurrection of Christ was revealed to women before men and to the sinfullest woman of company first But I speak of that bold injury done to the mysteries of the Christian Religion by pouring out that dew upon the grasse the Revelations of S. Brigid upon the controversies of Religion A book of so much blasphemy and impertinency and incredibility that if a Heathen were to be converted he would sooner be brought to beleeve Ovids Metamorphoses then Brigids Revelations to conduce to Religion And this is also another conformity between the two Babylons the Chaldean and the Italian Babylon that we could not receive our grasse pure but infected and dewed with these frivolous nay pernicious apparitions and Revelations But press we a little closer to the very steps metaphor of the holy Ghost who here lays the corrupting of the sheeps grasse in this That the shepheards had troden it down And this treading down will be pertinently considered two ways Tertullian in his Book De habitu muliebri notes two excesses in womens dressing One he cals Ornatum the other cultum One mundum muliebrem the other according to the liberty that he takes in making words Immundum muliebrem the first is a superfluous diligence in their dressing but the other an unnaturall addition to their complexion the first he pronounces to be always ad ambitionem for pride but the other ad prostitutionem for a worse for the worst purpose These two sorts of Excesses doe note these two kindes of treading down the grasse which we intend of which one is the mingling of too much humane ornament and secular learning in preaching in presenting the word of God which word is our grasse The other is of mingling humane Traditions as of things of equall value and obligation with the Commandements of God For the first humane ornament if in those pastures which are ordain'd for sheep you either plant rare and curious flowers delightfull onely to the eye or fragrant and odoriferous hearbs delightfull onely to the smell nay be they medicinall hearbs usefull and behovefull for the preservation and restitution of the health of man yet if these specious and glorious flowers and fragrant and medicinall hearbs be not proper nourishment for sheep this is a treading down of the grasse a pestering and a suppressing of that which appertained to them So if in your spirituall food our preaching of the Word you exact of us more secular ornament then may serve as Saint Augustine says Ad ancillationem to convey and usher the true word of life into your understandings and affections for both those must necessarily be wrought upon more then may serve ad vehiculum for a chariot for the word of God to enter and triumph in you this is a treading down of the grasse a filling of that ground which was ordained for sheep with things improper and impertinent to them If you furnish a Gallery with stuffe proper for a Gallery with Hangings and Chairs and Couches and Pictures it gives you all the conveniencies of a Gallery walks and prospect and ease but if you pester it with improper and impertinent furniture with Beds and Tables you lose the use and the name of a Gallery and you have made it a Wardrobe so if your curiosity extort more then convenient ornament in delivery of the word of God you may have a good Oration a good Panegyrique a good Encomiastique but not so good a Sermon It is true that Saint Paul applies sentences of secular Authors even in matters of greatest importance but then it is to persons that were accustomed to those authors and affected with them and not conversant not acquainted at all with the phrase and language of Scripture amongst us now almost every man God be blessed for it is so accustomed to the text of Scripture as that he is more affected with the name of David or Saint Paul then with any Seneca or Plutarch I am far from forbidding secular ornament in divine exercises especially in some Auditories acquainted with such learnings I have heard men preach against witty preaching and doe it with as much wit as they have and against learned preaching with as much learning as they could compasse If you should place that beast which makes the Bezoar stone in a pasture of pure but onely grasse it is likely that out of his naturall faculty he would petrifie the juyce of that grasse and make it a stone but not such a medicinall stone as he makes out of those herbes which he feeds upon Let all things concur in the name of God to the advancing of his purpose in his ordinance which is to make his will acceptable to you by his word onely avoid excesse in the manner of doing it Saint Augustines is an excellent rule when after in his book De Doctrina Christiana he had taught a use of all Arts in Divinity he allows them onely thus far ut cum ingenia his reddantur exercitatiora cavendum ne reddantur maligniora that when a man by
the strength of that Grace which God gave me heretofore But as God infuseth a Soul into every man and that Soul elicites a new Act in it self before that man produce any action so God infuses a particular Grace into every good work of mine and so prevents me before I co-operate with him For as Nature in her highest exaltation in the best Morall man that is cannot flow into Grace Nature cannot become Grace so neither doth former Grace flow into future Grace but I need a distinct influence of God a particular Grace for every good work I do for every good word I speak for every good thought I conceive When God gives me accesse into his Library leave to consider his proceedings with man I find the first book of Gods making to be the Book of Life The Book where all their names are written that are elect to Glory But I find no such Book of Death All that are not written in the Book of Life are certainly the sonnes of Death To be pretermitted there there to be left out wraps them up at least leaves them wrapt up in death But God hath not wrought so positively nor in so primary a consideration in a book of Death as in the Book of Life As the aftertimes made a Book of Wisdome out of the Proverbs of Salomon and out of his Ecclesiastes but yet it is not the same Book nor of the same certainty so there is a Book of Life â—ere but that is not the same book that is in Heaven nor of the same certainty For in this Book of Life which is the Declaration and Testimony which the Church gives of our Election by those marks of the Elect which she seeth in the Scriptures and believeth that she seeth in us a man may be Blotted out of the Book of the living as David speaketh and as it is added there Not written with the Righteous Intimating that in some cases and in some Book of Life a man may have been written in and blotted out and written in again The Book of Life in the Church The Testimony of our Election here admits such expunctions and such redintegrations but Gods first Book his Book of Mercy for this Book in the Church is but his Book of Evidence is inviolable in it self and all the names of that Book indelible In Gods first Book the Book of Life Mercy hath so much a precedency and primogeniture as that there is nothing in it but Mercy In Gods other Book his Book of Scripture in which he is put often to denounce judgements as well as to exhibite mercies still the Tide sets that way still the Biass leads on that hand still his method directs us ad Primogenitum to his first-born to his Mercy So he began in that Book He made man to his Image and then he blest him Here is no malediction no intermination mingled in Gods first Act in Gods first purpose upon man In Paradise there is That if he eat the forbidden fruit if he will not forbear that that one Tree He shall die But God begins not there before that he had said of every tree in the Garden thou maist freely eat neither is there more vehemency in the punishment then in the libertie For as in the punishment there is an ingemination Morte morieris Dying thou shalt die that is thou shalt surely die so in the liberty there was an ingemination too Comedendo comedes Eating thou shalt eat that is thou maist freely eat In Deut. we have a fearfull Chapter of Maledictions but all the former parts of that Chapter are blessings in the same kind And he that reads that Chapter will beginne at the beginning and meet Gods first-born his Mercy first And in those very many places of that Book where God divides the condition If you obey you shall live if you rebell you shall die still the better Act and the better condition and the better reward is placed in the first place that God might give us possession In jure Primogeniti in the right of his first-born his mercy And where God pursues the same method and first dilates himself and expatiates in the way of mercy I will beat down his foes before his face and plague them that hate him when after that he is brought to say If his children forsake my Law I will visit their transgression with the rod where first he puts it off for one Generation from himself to his Children which was one Mercy And then he puts it upon a forsaking an Apostasie and not upon every sinne of infirmity which was another Mercy when it comes to a correction it is but a milde correction with the râ—d And in that he promises to visite them to manifest himself and his purpose to them in the correction all which are higher and higher degrees of Mercy yet because there is a spark of anger a tincture of judgement mingled in it God remembers his first-born his Mercy and returns where he begun Neverthelesse my Covenant will I not break nor alter the things that is gone out of my lips once have I sworn by my Holinesse that I will not lie unto David There are elder pictures in the world of Water then there are any of oyl but those of oyl have got above them and shall outlive them Water is a frequent embleme of Affliction in the Scriptures and so is oyl of Mercy If at any time in any place of Scripture God seemed to begin with water with a judgement yet the oyl will get to the top in that very judgement you may see that God had first a mercifull purpose in inflicting that medicinall judgement for his mercy is his first-born His Mercy is new every morning saith the Prophet not onely every day but as soon as it is day Trace God in thy self and thou shalt find it so If thou beest drowzie now and unattentive curious or contentious or quarrelsome now now God leaves thee in that indisposition and that is a judgement But it was his Mercy that brought thee hither before In every sinne thou hast some remorse some reluctation before thou do that sinne and that pre-reluctation and pre-remorse was Mercy If thou hadst no such remorse in thy last sinne before the sinne and hast it now this is the effect of Gods former mercy and former good purpose upon thee to let thee see that thou needest the assistance of his Minister and of his Ordinance to enable thee to lay hold on Mercy when it is offered thee Can any calamity fall upon thee in which thou shalt not be bound to say I have had blessings in a greater measure then this If thou have had losses yet thou hast more out of which God took that If all be lost perchance thou art but where thou begunst at first at nothing If thou begunst upon a good heighth and beest fallen from that and fallen low yet as God
work for advancing thy state remember thy naturall death but especially when thou art in a sinfull worke for satisfying thy lusts remember thy spirituall death Be afraid of this death and thou wilt never feare the other Thou wilt rather sigh with David My soule hath too long dwelt with him that hateth peace Thou wilt be glad when a bodily death may deliver thee from all farther danger of a spirituall death And thou wilt be ashamed of that imputation which is layd upon worldly men by St. Cyprian Ad nostros navigamus ventos contrarios optamus we pretend to be sayling homewards and yet we desire to have the winde against us we are travelling to the heavenly Ierusalem and yet we are loath to come thither Here then is the use of our hope before death that this life shall be a gallery into a better roome and deliver us over to a better Country for if in this life onely we have hope in Christ we are of all men the most miserable Secondly in the agony of death when the Sessions are come and that as a prisoner may looke from that Tower and see the Judge that must condemne him to morrow come in to night so we lye upon our death-bed and apprehend a present judgement to be given upon us when if we will not pleade to the Indictment if we will stand mute and have nothing to say to God we are condemned already condemned in our silence and if we do plead we have no plea but guilty nothing to say but to confesse all the Indictment against our selves when the flesh is too weake as that it can performe no office and yet would faine stay here when the soule is laden with more sins then she can bear and yet would faine contract more in this agony there is this use of our hope that as God shall then when our bodily eares are deaf whisper to our soules and say Memento homo Remember consider man that thou art but dust and art now returning into dust so we in our hearts when our bodily tongues are speechlesse may then say to God as it is in Iob Memento quaeso Remember thou also I beseech thee O God that it is thou that hast made me as clay and that it is thou that bringest me to that state againe and therefore come thou and looke to thine owne worke come and let thy servant depart in peace in having seen his salvation My hope before death is that this life is the way my hope at death is that my death shall be a doore into a better state Lastly the use of our hope is after death that God by his promise hath made himself my debter till he restore my body to me againe in the resurrection My body hath sinned and he hath not redeemed a sinner he hath not saved a sinner except he have redeemed and saved my body as well as my soule To those soules that lye under the Altar and solicite God for the resurrection in the Revelation God sayes That they should rest for a little season untill their fellow-servants and their brethren that should be killed even as they were were fulfilled All that while while that number is fulfilling is our hopes exercised after our death And therefore the bodies of the Saints of God which have been Temples of the Holy Ghost when the soule is gone out of them are not to be neglected as a sheath that had lost the knife as a shell that had spent the kernell but as the Godhead did not depart from the dead body of Christ Jesus then when that body lay dead in the grave so the power of God and the merit of Christ Jesus doth not depart from the body of man but his blood lives in our ashes and shall in his appointed time awaken this body againe to an everlasting glory Since therefore Iob had and we have this assurance before we dye when we dye after we are dead it is upon good reason that he did and we do trust in God though he should kill us when he doth kill us after he hath killed us Especially since it is Ille He who is spoken of before he that kills and gives life he that wounds and makes whole againe God executes by what way it pleases him condemned persons cannot chuse the manner of their death whether God kill by sicknesse by age by the hand of the law by the malice of man si ille as long as we can see that it is he he that is Shaddai Vastator Restaurator the destroyer and the repairer howsoever he kill yet he gives life too howsoever he wound yet he heales too howsoever he lock us into our graves now yet he hath the keys of hell and death and shall in his time extend that voyce to us all Lazare veni for as come forth of your putrefaction to incorruptible glory Amen SERMON XXXI Preached at Hanworth to my Lord of Carlile and his company being the Earles of Northumberland and Buckingham c. Aug. 25. 1622. JOE 36. 25. Every man may see it man may behold it afar off THe words are the words of Elihu Elihu was one of Iobs friends and a meer naturall man a man not captivated not fettered not enthralled in any particular forme of Religion as the Iewes were a man not macerated with the feare of God not infatuated with any preconceptions which Nurses or Godfathers or Parents or Church or State had infused into him not dejected not suppled not matured not entendred with crosses in this world and so made apt to receive any impressions or follow any opinions of other men a meer naturall man and in the meer use of meer naturall reason this man sayes of God in his works Every man may see it Man may behold it afar off It is the word of a naturall man and the holy Ghost having canonized it sanctified it by inserting it into the booke of God it is the word of God too Saint Paul cites sometimes the words of secular Poets and approves them and then the words of those Poets become the word of God Elihu speakes a naturall man and God speakes in canonizing his words and therefore when we speake to godly men we are sure to be believed for God sayes it if we were to speake to naturall men onely we might be believed for Elihu a naturall man and wise in his generation sayes it that for God in his works Every man may see it man may behold it afar off Be pleased to admit and charge your memories with this distribution of the words Let the parts be but two so you will be pleased to stoop and gather or at least to open your hands to receive some more I must not say flowers for things of sweetnesse and of delight grow not in my ground but simples rather and medicinall herbs of which as there enter many into good cordials so in this supreme cordiall of bringing
to come to that light and that glory How then hath God doubled his mercies upon those persons to whom he hath afforded two great lights a Sunne to rule their day honour and prosperity and a Moone to rule their night humiliation and adversity to whom he hath given both Types in themselves to see this future glory by that is Titles and places of honour in this world and spectacles in themselves to see this glory by afflictions and crosses in this world And therefore since God gives both these no where so plentifully as in Courts the place of Honour and the place of Crosses too the place of rising and the place of falling too you you especially who by having your station there in the Court it selfe are in the Court exemplified and copied in your owne noble house you that have seen God characterized in his Types in titles of greatnesse you that have beheld God presented in his spectacle of Crosses and afflictions the daily bread of Courts Blesse ye the Lord praise him and magnifie him for ever and declare the wondrous workes that he hath done for the Sonnes of men for certainly many woes and invincible darknesse attend those to whom neither the hand of God in his works nor the hand of God upon themselves neither the greatnesse of this world nor the crâ—sses of this world can manifest God for what picture of God would they have that will neither have him in great nor litle SERMON XXXII Preached to the Earl of Exeter and his company in his Chappell at Saint Iohns 13. Iun. 1624. APOC. 7. 9. After this I beheld and loe a great Multitude which no man could number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the Throne and before the Lambe clothed with white robes and Palmes in their hands WE shall have occasion by and by to say something of the danger of Curiosity and something of the danger of the broad way in which too many walk we will not therefore fall into either of these faults at first we will not be over curious nor we will not stray nor cast our selves into that broad and boundlesse way by entring into those various and manifold senses which Expositors have multiplyed in the handling of this place and this part of this book but we take the plainest way and that in which the best meet and concur that these words are spoken of the Ioyes and Glory reserved for them who overcome the fraud and the fury the allurements and the violences of Antichrist in whom in that name and person of Antichrist we consider all supplanters and all seducers all opposers of the kingdome of Christ in us for as every man hath spontaneum daemonem as S. Chrysostome speakes a devill of his own making which is some customary and habituall sin in him so every man hath spontaneuÌ„ Antichristum an Antichrist of his own making some objections in the weakness of his faith some oppositions in the perverseness of his manners against the kingdom of Christ in himself as if God would suspend the devill or slumber the devill a day I am afraid we should be as ill that day as if the devill were awake and in action so if those disputed problematical Antichrists Eastern Western Antichrist Antichrist of Rome and Antichrist of Constantinople Turk and Pope were removed out of the world we should not for all that be delivered of Antichrist that is of that opposition to the kingdome of Christ which is in our selvs This part of the book of the Revelation is literally and primarily the glorious victory of them who in the later end of the world having stood out the persecutions of the Antichrist enter into the triumph of heaven And it extends it self to all by way of fair accommodation who after a battel with their own Antichrists and victory over their owne enemies are also made partakers of those triumphs those joyes those glories of which S. Iohn in this propheticall glasse in this perspective of visions saw A great multitude which no man could number of all nations c. We are then upon the contemplation of the joyes of heaven which are everlasting must we wring them into the discourse of an houre of the glory of heaven which is intire and must we divide it into parts we must we will we doe into two parts first the number the great number of those that shall be saved And then the glorious qualities which shall be imprinted on them who are saved first that salvation is a more extensive thing more communicable then sullen cloystrall that have walled salvation in a monastery or in an ermitage take it to be or then the over-valuers of their own purity and righteousnesse which have determined salvation in themselves take it to be for It is a great multitude which no man can number of all nations c. And then in the second place salvation is the possession of such endowments as naturally invite all to the prosecution of that which is exposed and offered to all that we all labour here that we may all stand hereafter before the Throne and before the Lambe clothed in white robes c. In the first of these we shall passe by these steps first we shall consider the sociablenesse the communicablenesse of God himself who gives us the earth and offers us heaven and desires to have his kingdome well peopled he would have many he would have all he would have every one of them have all And then the first word of the text After this will carry us to the consideration of that which was done before which was first that they which were of this number were sealed and then they which were so sealed before were a great number one hundred forty four thousand but they who were made partakers of all this after were innumerable After this I beheld a great multitude which no man could number And therefore we shall shut up that first part with this consideration what sense what interpretation may belong unto those places where Christ says that the way to heaven is narrow and the gate straight of these peeces we shall make up our first part And for the particulars belonging to the second we shall fitliest open them then when we come to the handling of them Our first step then in this first part is the sociablenesse the communicablenesse of God He loves holy meetings he loves the communion of Saints the houshold of the faithfull Deliciae ejus says Solomon his delight is to be with the Sons of men and that the Sons of men should be with him Religion is not a melancholy the spirit of God is not a dampe the Church is not a grave it is a fold it is an Arke it is a net it is a city it is a kingdome not onely a house but a house that hath many mansions in it still it is a plurall thing consisting of
are nearest and clearest glasses for thee to see thy self in and such is this glasse which God hath proposed to thee in this house And therefore change the word of the Text in a letter or two from Egredimini to Ingredimini never go forth to see but Go in and see a Solomon crowned with his mothers crown c. And when you shall find that hand that had signed to one of you a Patent for Title to another for Pension to another for Pardon to another for Dispensation Dead That hand that settled Possessions by his Seale in the Keeper and rectified Honours by the sword in his Marshall and distributed relief to the Poore in his Almoner and Health to the Diseased by his immediate Touch Dead That Hand that ballanced his own three Kingdomes so equally as that none of them complained of one another nor of him and carried the Keyes of all the Christian world and locked up and let out Armies in their due season Dead how poore how faint how pale how momentany how transitory how empty how frivolous how Dead things must you necessarily thinke Titles and Possessions and Favours and all when you see that Hand which was the hand of Destinie of Christian Destinie of the Almighty God lie dead It was not so hard a hand when we touched it last nor so cold a hand when we kissed it last That hand which was wont to wipe all teares from all our eyes doth now but presse and squeaze us as so many spunges filled one with one another with another cause of teares Teares that can have no other banke to bound them but the declared and manifested will of God For till our teares flow to that Heighth that they might be called a murmuring against the declared will of God it is against our Allegiance it is Disloyaltie to give our teares any stop any termination any measure It was a great part of Annaes prayse That she departed not from the Temple day nor night visit Gods Temple often in the day meet him in his owne House and depart not from his Temples The dead bodies of his Saints are his Temples still even at midnight at midnight remember them who resolve into dust and make them thy glasses to see thy self in Looke now especially upon him whom God hath presented to thee now and with as much cheerfulnesse as ever thou heardst him say Remember my Favours or remember my Commandements heare him say now with the wise man Remember my Iudgement for thine also shall be so yesterday for me and to day for thee He doth not say to morrow but to Day for thee Looke upon him as a beame of that Sunne as an abridgement of that Solomon in the Text for every Christian truely reconciled to God and signed with his hand in the Absolution and sealed with his bloud in the Sacrament and this was his case is a beame and an abridgement of Christ himselfe Behold him therefore Crowned with the Crown that his Mother gives him His Mother The Earth In anâ—ient times when they used to reward Souldiers with particular kinds of Crowns there was a great dignity in Corona graminea in a Crown of Grasse That denoted a Conquest or a Defence of that land He that hath but Coronam Gramineam a turfe of grasse in a Church yard hath a Crown from his Mother and even in that buriall taketh seisure of the Resurrection as by a turfe of grasse men give seisure of land He is crowned in the day of his Marriage for though it be a day of Divorce of us from him and of Divorce of his body from his soul yet neither of these Divorces breake the Marriage His soule is married to him that made it and his body and soul shall meet again and all we both then in that Glory where we shall acknowledge that there is no way to this Marriage but this Divorce nor to Life but by Death And lastly he is Crowned in the day of the gladnesse of his heart He leaveth that heart which was accustomed to the halfe joyes of the earth in the earth and he hath enlarged his heart to a greater capacity of Joy and Glory and God hath filled it according to that new capacity And therefore to end all with the Apostles words I would not have you to be ignorant Brethren concerning them which are asleepe that ye sorrow not as others that have no hope for if ye beleeve that Iesus died and rose again even so them also which sleepe in him will God bring with him But when you have performed this Ingredimini that you have gone in and mourned upon him and performed the Egredimini you have gone forth and laid his Sacred body in Consecrated Dust and come then to another Egredimini to a going forth in many severall wayes some to the service of their new Master and some to the enjoying of their Fortunes conferred by their old some to the raising of new Hopes â— some to the burying of old and all some to new and busie endeavours in Court some to contented retirings in the Countrey let none of us goe so farre from him or from one another in any of our wayes but that all we that have served him may meet once a day the first time we see the Sunne in the eares of almighty God with humble and hearty prayer that he will be pleased to hasten that day in which it shall be an addition even to the joy of that place as perfect as it is and as infinite as it is to see that face againe and to see those eyes open there which we have seen closed here Amen SERMON XXXIIII LUKE â—â—â—â— Father forgive them for they know not what they do THe word of God is either the co-eternall and co-essentiall Sonne our Saviour which tooke flesh Verbum Caro factum est or it is the spirit of his mouth by which we live and not by bread onely And so in a large acceptation every truth is the word of God for truth is uniforme and irrepugnant and indivisible as God Omne verum est omni vero consentiens More strictly the word of God is that which God hath uttered either in writing as twice in the Tables to Moses or by ministery of Angels or Prophets in words or by the unborne in action as in Iohn Baptists exultation within his mother or by new-borne from the mouths of babes and sucklings or by things unreasonable as in Balaams Asse or insensible as in the whole booke of such creatures The heavens declare the glory of God c. But nothing is more properly the word of God to us then that which God himself speakes in those Organs and Instruments which himself hath assumed for his chiefest worke our redemption For in creation God spoke but in redemption he did and more he suffered And of that kinde are these words God in his chosen man-hood saith Father forgive them for they know not what they do
go because none stayes behinde so when the holy Spirit which had made himself as a common soule to their foure soules directed one of them to say any thing all are well understood to have said it And therefore when to that place in Matth. 27. 8. where that Evangelist cites the Prophet Ieremy for words spoken by Zachary many medicines are applyed by the Fathers as That many copies have no name That Ieremy might be binominous and have both names a thing frequent in the Bible That it might be the error of a transcriber That there was extant an Apocryph booke of Ieremy in which these words were and sometimes things of such books were vouched as Iannes and Iambres by Paul St. Augustine insists upon and teaches rather this That it is more wonderfull that all the Prophets spake by one Spirit and so agreed then if any one of them had spoken all those things And therefore he adds Singula sunt omnium omnia sunt singulorum All say what any of them say And in this sense most congruously is that of St. Hierome applyable that the foure Evangelists are Quadriga Divina That as the foure Chariot wheeles though they looke to the foure corners of the world yet they move to one end and one way so the Evangelists have both one scope and one way Yet not so precisely but that they differ in words For as their generall intention common to them all begat that consent so a private reason peculiar to each of them for the writing of their Histories at that time made those diversities which seem to be for Matthew after he had preached to the Jewes and was to be transplanted into another vineyard the Gentiles left them written in their owne tongue for permanency which he had preached transitorily by word Mark when the Gospell fructified in the West and the Church enlarged her self and grew a great body and therefore required more food out of Peters Dictates and by his approbation published his Evangile Not an Epitome of Matthewes as Saint Ierome I know why imagines but a just and intire History of our blessed Saviour And as Matthewes reason was to supply a want in the Eastern Church Markes in the Western so on the other side Lukes was to cut off an excesse and superfluitie for then many had undertaken this Story and dangerously inserted and mingled uncertainties and obnoxious improbabilities and he was more curious and more particular then the rest both because he was more learned and because he was so individuall a companion of the most learned Saint Paul and did so much write Pauls words that Eusebius thereupon mistaketh the words 2 Tim. 2. 1. Christ is raised according to my Gospell to prove that Paul was author of this Gospell attributed to Luke Iohn the Minion of Christ upon earth and survivor of the Apostles whose books rather seem fallen from Heaven and writ with the hand which ingraved the stone Tables then a mans work because the heresies of Ebion and Cerinthus were rooted who upon this true ground then evident aud fresh that Christ had spoke many things which none of the other three Evangelists had Recorded uttered many things as his which he never spoke Iohn I say more diligently then the rest handleth his Divinity and his Sermons things specially brought into question by them So therefore all writ one thing yet all have some things particular And Luke most for he writ last of three and largeliest for himselfe 1 Act. 1. saith I have made the former Treatise of all that Iesus began to doe and teach untill the Day that he was taken up which speech lest the words in the last of Iohn If all were written which Iesus did the world could not contain the Bookes should condemne Ambrose and Chrysostome interpret well out of the words themselves Scripsit de omnibus non omnia He writ of all but not all for it must have the same limitation which Paul giveth his words who saith Acts 20. in one verse I have kept nothing back but have shewed you all the counsell of God and in another I kept back nothing that was profitable It is another peculiar singularity of Lukes that he addresseth his History to one man Theophilus For it is but weakely surmised that he chose that name for all lovers of God because the interpretation of the word suffereth it since he addeth most noble Theophilus But the work doth not the lesse belong to the whole Church for that no more then his Masters Epistles doe though they be directed to particulars It is also a singularitie in him to write upon that reason because divers have written In humane knowledge to abridge or suck and then suppresse other Authors is not ever honest nor profitable We see after that vast enterprise of Iustinian who distilled all the Law into one vessell and made one Booke of 2000. suppressing all the rest Alciate wisheth he had let them alone and thinketh the Doctors of our times would better have drawn usefull things from those volumes then his Trebonian and Dorothee did And Aristotle after by the immense liberality of Alexander he had ingrossed all Authors is said to have defaced all that he might be in stead of all And therefore since they cannot rise against him he imputes to them errours which they held not vouches onely such objections from them as he is able to answer and propounds all good things in his own name which he ought to them But in this History of Lukes it is otherwise He had no authority to suppresse them nor doth he reprehend or calumniate them but writes the truth simply and leaves it to outweare falshood and so it hath Moses rod hath devoured the Conjurers rods and Lukes Story still retains the majestie of the maker and theirs are not Other singularities in Luke of form or matter I omit and end with one like this in our Text. As in the apprehending of our blessed Saviour all the Evangelists record that Peter cut off Malchus eare but onely Luke remembers the healing of it again I think because that act of curing was most present and obvious to his consideration who was a Physician so he was therefore most apt to remember this Prayer of Christ which is the Physick and Balsamum of our Soule and must be applied to us all for we doe all Crucifie him and we know not what we do And therefore Saint Hierome gave a right Character of him in his Epistle to Paulinus Fuit Medicus pariter omnia verba illius Animae languentis sunt Medicinae As he was a Physitian so all his words are Physick for a languishing soule Now let us dispatch the last consideration of the effect of this Prayer Did Christ intend the forgivenesse of the Jewes whose utter ruine God that is himselfe had fore-decreed And which he foresaw and bewaild even then hanging upon the Crosse For those Divines which reverently forbeare to interpret the words
If wee winke wee cannot chuse but see it if we stare wee know it never the better No man is yet got so neare to the knowledge of the qualities of light as to know whether light it selfe be a quality or a substance If then this naturall light be so darke to our naturall reason if wee shall offer to pierce so far into the light of this text the Essentiall light Christ Iesus in his nature or but in his offices or the supernaturall light of faith and grace how far faith may be had and yet lost and how far the freewill of man may concur and cooperate with grace and yet still remaine nothing in it selfe if wee search farther into these points then the Scripture hath opened us a way how shall wee hope to unentangle or extricate our selves They had a precious composition for lamps amongst the ancients reserved especially for Tombes which kept light for many hundreds of yeares we have had in our age experience in some casuall openings of ancient vaults of finding such lights as were kindled as appeared by their inscriptions fifteen or sixteen hundred years before but as soon as that light comes to our light it vanishes So this eternall and this supernaturall light Christ and faith enlightens warmes purges and does all the profitable offices of fire and light if we keep it in the right spheare in the proper place that is if wee consist in points necessary to salvation and revealed in the Scripture but when wee bring this light to the common light of reason to our inferences and consequencies it may be in danger to vanish it selfe and perchance extinguish our reason too we may search so far and reason so long of faith and grace as that we may lose not onely them but even our reason too and sooner become mad then good Not that we are bound to believe any thing against reason that is to believe we know not why It is but a slacke opinion it is not Beliefe that is not grounded upon reason He that should come to a Heathen man a meere naturall man uncatechized uninstructed in the rudiments of the Christian Religion and should at first without any preparation present him first with this necessitie Thou shalt burn in fire and brimstone eternally except thou believe a Trinitie of Persons in an unitie of one God Except thou believe the Incarnation of the second Person of the Trinitie the Sonne of God Except thou believe that a Virgine had a Soone and the same Sonne that God had and that God was Man too and being the immortall God yet died he should be so farre from working any spirituall cure upon this poore soule as that he should rather bring Christian Mysteries into scorne then him to a beliefe For that man if you proceed so Believe all or you burne in Hell would finde an easie an obvious way to escape all that is first not to believe Hell it selfe and then nothing could binde him to believe the rest The reason therefore of Man must first be satisfied but the way of such satisfaction must be this to make him see That this World a frame of so much harmony so much concinnitie and conveniencie and such a correspondence and subordination in the parts thereof must necessarily have had a workeman for nothing can make it selfe That no such workeman would deliver over a frame and worke of so much Majestie to be governed by Fortune casually but would still retain the Administration thereof in his owne hands That if he doe so if he made the World and sustaine it still by his watchfull Providence there belongeth a worship and service to him for doing so That therefore he hath certainly revealed to man what kinde of worship and service shall be acceptable to him That this manifestation of his Will must be permanent it must be written there must be a Scripture which is his Word and his Will And that therefore from that Scripture from that Word of God all Articles of our Beliefe are to bee drawne If then his Reason confessing all this aske farther proofe how he shall know that these Scriptures accepted by the Christian Church are the true Scriptures let him bring any other Booke which pretendeth to be the Word of God into comparison with these It is true we have not a Demonstration not such an Evidence as that one and two are three to prove these to be Scriptures of God God hath not proceeded in that manner to drive our Reason into a pound and to force it by a peremptory necessitie to accept these for Scriptures for then here had been no exercise of our Will and our assent if we could not have resisted But yet these Scriptures have so orderly so sweet and so powerfull a working upon the reason and the understanding as if any third man who were utterly discharged of all preconceptions and anticipations in matter of Religion one who were altogether neutrall disinteressed unconcerned in either party nothing towards a Turke and as little toward a Christian should heare a Christian pleade for his Bible and a Turke for his Alcoran and should weigh the evidence of both the Majesty of the Style the punctuall accomplishment of the Prophecies the harmony and concurrence of the foure Evangelists the consent and unanimity of the Christian Church ever since and many other such reasons he would be drawne to such an Historicall such a Grammaticall such a Logicall beliefe of our Bible as to preferre it before any other that could be pretended to be the Word of God He would believe it and he would know why he did so For let no man thinke that God hath given him so much ease here as to save him by believing he knoweth not what or why Knowledge cannot save us but we cannot be saved without Knowledge Faith is not on this side Knowledge but beyond it we must necessarily come to Knowledge first though we must not stay at it when we are come thither For a regenerate Christian being now a new Creature hath also a new facultie of Reason and so believeth the Mysteries of Religion out of another Reason then as a meere naturall Man he believed naturall and morall things He believeth them for their own sake by Faith though he take Knowledge of them before by that common Reason and by those humane Arguments which worke upon other men in naturall or morall things Divers men may walke by the Sea side and the same beames of the Sunne giving light to them all one gathereth by the benefit of that light pebles or speckled shells for curious vanitie and another gathers precious Pearle or medicinall Ambar by the same light So the common light of reason illumins us all but one imployes this light upon the searching of impertinent vanities another by a better use of the same light finds out the Mysteries of Religion and when he hath found them loves them not for the lights sake but for the naturall and
true worth of the thing it self Some men by the benefit of this light of Reason have found out things profitable and usefull to the whole world As in particular Printing by which the learning of the whole world is communicacable to one another and our minds and our inventions our wits and compositions may trade and have commerce together and we may participate of one anothers understandings as well as of our Clothes and Wines and Oyles and other Merchandize So by the benefit of this light of reason they have found out Artillery by which warres come to quicker ends then heretofore and the great expence of bloud is avoyded for the numbers of men slain now since the invention of Artillery are much lesse then before when the sword was the executioner Others by the benefit of this light have searched and found the secret corners of gaine and profit wheresoever they lie They have found wherein the weakenesse of another man consisteth and made their profit of that by circumventing him in a bargain They have found his riotous and wastefull inclination and they have fed and fomented that disorder and kept open that leake to their advantage and the others ruine They have found where was the easiest and most accessible way to sollicite the Chastitie of a woman whether Discourse Musicke or Presents and according to that discovery they have pursued hers and their own eternall destruction By the benefit of this light men see through the darkest and most impervious places that are that is Courts of Princes and the greatest Officers in Courts and can submit themselves to second and to advance the humours of men in great place and so make their profit of the weakenesses which they have discovered in these great men All the wayes both of Wisdome and of Craft lie open to this light this light of naturall reason But when they have gone all these wayes by the benefit of this light they have got no further then to have walked by a tempestuous Sea and to have gathered pebles and speckled cockle shells Their light seems to be great out of the same reason that a Torch in a misty night seemeth greater then in a clear because it hath kindled and inflamed much thicke and grosse Ayre round about it So the light and wisedome of worldly men seemeth great because he hath kindled an admiration or an applause in Aiery flatterers not because it is so in deed But if thou canst take this light of reason that is in thee this poore snuffe that is almost out in thee thy saint and dimme knowledge of God that riseth out of this light of nature if thou canst in those embers those cold ashes finde out one small coale and wilt take the paines to kneell downe and blow that coale with thy devout Prayers and light thee a little candle a desire to read that Booke which they call the Scriptures and the Gospell and the Word of God If with that little candle thou canst creep humbly into low and poore places if thou canst finde thy Saviour in a Manger and in his swathing clouts in his humiliation and blesse God for that beginning if thou canst finde him flying into Egypt and finde in thy selfe a disposition to accompany him in a persecution in a banishment if not a bodily banishment a locall banishment yet a reall a spirituall banishment a banishment from those sinnes and that sinnefull conversation which thou hast loved more then thy Parents or Countrey or thine owne body which perchance thou hast consumed and destroyed with that sinne if thou canst finde him contenting and containing himselfe at home in his fathers house and not breaking out no not about the worke of our salvation till the due time was come when it was to be done And if according to that example thou canst contain thy selfe in that station and vocation in which God hath planted thee and not through a hasty and precipitate zeale breake out to an imaginary and intempestive and unseasonable Reformation either in Civill or Ecclesiasticall businesse which belong not to thee if with this little poore light these first degrees of Knowledge and Faith thou canst follow him into the Garden and gather up some of the droppes of his precious Bloud and sweat which he shed for thy soule if thou canst follow him to Ierusalem and pick up some of those teares which he shed upon that City and upon thy soule if thou canst follow him to the place of his scourging and to his crucifying and provide thee some of that balme which must cure thy soule if after all this thou canst turne this little light inward and canst thereby discerne where thy diseases and thy wounds and thy corruptions are and canst apply those teares and blood and balme to them all this is That if thou attend the light of naturall reason and cherish that and exalt that so that that bring thee to a love of the Scriptures and that love to a beleefe of the truth thereof and that historicall faith to a faith of application of appropriation that as all those things were certainly done so they were certainly done for thee thou shalt never envy the lustre and glory of the great lights of worldly men which are great by the infirmity of others or by their own opinion great because others think them great or because they think themselves so but thou shalt finde that howsoever they magnifie their lights their wit their learning their industry their fortune their favour and sacrifice to their owne nets yet thou shalt see that thou by thy small light hast gathered Pearle and Amber and they by their great lights nothing but shels and pebles they have determined the light of nature upon the booke of nature this world and thou hast carried the light of nature higher thy naturall reason and even humane arguments have brought thee to reade the Scriptures and to that love God hath set to the seale of faith Their light shall set at noone even in their heighth some heavy crosse shall cast a damp upon their soule and cut off all their succours and devest them of all comforts and thy light shall grow up from a faire hope to a modest assurance and infallibility that that light shall never go out nor the works of darknesse nor the Prince of darknesse ever prevaile upon thee but as thy light of reason is exalted by faith here so thy light of faith shall be exalted into the light of glory and fruition in the Kingdome of heaven Before the sunne was made there was a light which did that office of distinguishing night and day but when the sunne was created that did all the offices of the former light and moreâ— Reason is that first and primogeniall light and goes no farther in a naturall man but in a man regenerate by faith that light does all that reason did and more and all his Morall and Civill and Domestique and indifferent actions
watchfulnesse that we fall not into sinne we have lucem essentiae possession and fruition of heaven and of the light of Gods presence and then if we doe by infirmity fall into sinne yet by this denudation of our soules this manifestation of our sinnes to God by confession and to that purpose a gladnesse when we heare our sinne spoken of by the preacher we have lumen gloriae an inchoation of our glorified estate and then an other couple of these lights which we propose to be considered is lumen fidei and lumen naturae the light of faith and the light of nature Of these two lights Faith and Grace first and then Nature and Reason we said something before but never too much be cause contentious spirits have cast such clouds upon both these lights that some have said Nature doth all alone and others that Nature hath nothing to do at all but all is Grace we decline wranglings that tend not to edification we say onely to our present purpose which is the operation of these severall couples of lights that by this light of Faith to him which hath it all that is involved in Prophecies is clear and evident as in a History already done and all that is wrapped up in promises is his own already in performance That man needs not goe so high for his assurance of a Messias and Redeemer as to the first promise made to him in Adam nor for the limitation of the stock and race from whence this Messias should come so far as to the renewing of this promise in Abraham nor for the description of this Messias who he should be and of whom he should be born as to Esaias nor to Micheas for the place nor for the time when he should accomplish all this so far as to Daniel no nor so far as to the Evangelists themselves for the History and the evidence that all this that was to be done in his behalf by the Messias was done 1600. yeares since But he hath a whole Bible and an abundant Library in his own heart and there by this light of Faith which is not onely a knowing but an applying an appropriating of all to thy benefit he hath a better knowledge then all this then either Propheticall or Evangelicall for though both these be irrefragable and infallible proofs of a Messias the Propheticall that he should the Evangelicall that he is come yet both these might but concern others this light of Faith brings him home to thee How sure so ever I be that the world shall never perish by water yet I may be drowned and how sure so ever that the Lamb of God hath taken away the sinnes of the world I may perish without I have this applicatory Faith And as he needs not looke back to Esay nor Abraham nor Adam for the Messias so neither needs he to looke forward He needs not stay in expectation of the Angels Trumpets to awaken the dead he is not put to his usquequo Domine How long Lord wilt thou defer our restitution but he hath already died the death of the righteous which is to die to sinne He hath already had his buriall by being buried with Christ in Baptisme he hath had his Resurrection from sinne his Ascension to holy purposes of amendment of life and his Iudgement that is peace of Conscience sealed unto him and so by this light of applying Faith he hath already apprehended an eternall possession of Gods eternall Kingdome And the other light in this second couple is Lux naturae the light of Nature This though a fainter light directs us to the other Nature to Faith and as by the quantitie in the light of the Moone we know the position and distance of the Sunne how far or how neare the Sunne is to her so by the working of the light of Nature in us we may discern by the measure and virtue and heat of that how near to the other greater light the light of Faith we stand If we finde our naturall faculties rectified so as that that free will which we have in Morall and Civill actions be bent upon the externall duties of Religion as every naturall man may out of the use of that free will come to Church heare the Word preached and believe it to be true we may be sure the other greater light is about us If we be cold in them in actuating in exalting in using our naturall faculties so farre we shall be deprived of all light we shall not see the Invisible God in visible things which Saint Paul makes so inexcusable so unpardonable a thing we shall not see the hand of God in all our worldly crosses nor the seal of God in all our worldly blessings we shall not see the face of God in his House his presence here in the Church nor the mind of God in his Gospell that his gracious purposes upon mankinde extend so particularly or reach so far as to include us I shall heare in the Scripture his Vinite omnes come all and yet I shall thinke thatâ— his eye was not upon me that his eye did not becken me and I shall heare the Deus vult omnes salves that God would save all and yet I shall finde some perverse reason in my selfe why it is not likely that God will save me I am commanded scrutari Scripturas to search the scriptures now that is not to be able to repeat any history of the Bible without booke it is not to ruffle a Bible and upon any word to turne to the Chapter and to the verse but this is exquisit a scrutatio the true searching of the Scriptures to finde all the histories to be examples to me all the prophecies to induce a Saviour for me all the Gospell to apply Christ Jesus to me Turne over all the folds and plaits of thine owne heart and finde there the infirmities and waverings of thine owne faith and an ability to say Lord I beleeve help mine unbeleefe and then though thou have no Bible in thy hand or though thou stand in a dark corner nay though thou canst not reade a letter thou hast searched that Scripture thou hast turned to Marke 9. ver 24 Turne thine eare to God and heare him turning to thee and saying to thy soule I will marry thee to my selfe for ever and thou hast searched that Scripture and turned to Hos. 2. ver 19. Turne to thine owne histery thine owne life and if thou canst reade there that thou hast endeavoured to turne thine ignorance into knowledge and thy knowledge into Practice if thou finde thy selfe to be an example of that rule of Christs If you know these things blessed are you if you do them then thou hast searched that Scripture and turned to Io. 13. ver 14. This is Scrutari Scripturas to Search the Scriptures not as though thou wouldest make a concordance but an application as thou wouldest search a
quia innumeris curis distraheris Busie man belongeth it not to thee to study the Scriptures because thou art oppressed with worldly businesse Imòmagis tuum est saith he therefore thou hadst the more need to study the Scriptures Illi non tam egent c. They that are not disquieted nor disordered in their passions with the cares of this world doe not so much need that supply from the Scriptures as you that are doe It is an Authour that lived in the obedience of the Romane Church that saith the Councell of Nice did decree That every man should have the Bible in his house But another Authour in that Church saith now Consilium Chrysostomi Ecclesiae nunc non arridet The Church doth not now like Chrysostomes counsell for this generall reading of the Scriptures Quia etsi ille locutus ad plebem plebs tunc non erat haeretica Though Saint Chrysostome spoke that to the people the people in his time were not an Hereticall people And are the people in the Roman Church now an Hereticall people If not why may not they pursue Saint Chrystomes counsel and reade the Scriptures Because they are dark It is true in some places they are dark purposely left so by the Holy Ghost ne semel lectas fastidiremus lest we should think we had done when we had read them once so saith S. Gregory too In plain places fami occurrit he presents meat for every stomach In hard and dark places fastidia detergit he sharpens the appetite Margarita est undique perforari potest the Scripture is a Pearl and might be bored through every where Not every where by thy self there may be many places which thou of thy self canst not understand not every where by any other man no not by them who have warrant to search Commission from God by their calling to interpret the Scriptures not every where by the whole Church God hath reserved the understanding of some places of Scripture till the time come for the fulfilling of those Prophecies as many places of the Old Testament were not understood till Christ came in whom they were fulfilled If therefore thou wilt needs know whether when Saint Paul took his information of the behaviour of the Corinthians from those of Chloe whether this Chloe were a woman or a place the Fathers cannot satisfie thee the latter Writers cannot satisfie thee there is not Testimonium ab homine no such humane Arguments as can determine thee or give thee an Acquittance the greatest pillars whom God hath raised in his Church cannot give a satisfaction to thy curiosity But if the Doctrine of the place will satisfie thee which Doctrine is that S. Paul did not give credit to light rumors against the Corinthians nor to clandestine whisperers but tells them who accused them and yet as well as he loved them he did not stop his eares against competent witnesses for he tells them they stood accused and by whom then thou maist bore this pearle thorough and make it fit for thy use and wearing in knowing so much of Saint Pauls purpose therein as concerns thy edification though thou never know whether Chloe were a Woman or a Place Tantum veritati obstrepit adulter sensus quam corruptor stylus a false interpretation may doe thee as much harme as a false translation a false Commentary as a false copy And therefore forbearing to make any interpretation at all upon dark places of Scripture especially those whose understanding depends upon the future fulfilling of prophecies in places that are clear evident thou maist be thine own interpreter In places that are more obscure goe to those men whom God hath set over thee and either they shall give thee that sense of the place which shall satisfie thee by having the sense thereof or that must satisfie you that there is enough for your salvation though that remaine uninterpreted And let this Testimonium ab homine this testimony of man establish thee for the Scripture that there is a Scripture a certaine book that is the word and the revealed will of God That these books which we receive for Canonicall make up that book And then that this and this is the true sense of every place which the holy Ghost hath opened to the present understanding of his Church We said before that a Christian being a Common-wealth to himselfe the Scripture was his law and for that law that Scripture he was to have Testimonium ab homine the testimony of man And then his Conscience is his Iudge and for that he is to have the same testimony too Thou must not rest upon the testimony and suggestions of thine owne conscience Nec illud de trivio paratum habere thou must not rest in that vulgar saying sufficit mihi c. As long as mine owne Conscience stands right I care not what all the world say Thou must care what the world says and study to have the approbation and testimony of good men Every man is enough defamed in the generall depravation of our whole natureÌ„ Adam hath cast an infamy upon us all And when a man is defamed it is not enough that he purge himselfe by oath but he must have compurgators too other men must sweare that they beleeve he sweares a truth Thine owne conscience is not enough but thou must â—atisfie the world and have Testimonium ab homine good men must thinke thee good A conscience that admits no search from others is cauterizata burnt with a hot Iron not cured but seared not at peace but stupefied And when in the verse immediately before our text it is said That Iohn came to beare witnesse of that light it is added that through him that is through that man through Iohn not through it through that light that through him all men beleeve For though it be efficiently the operation of the light it selfe that is Christ himselfe that all men beleeve yet the holy Ghost directs us to that that is nearest us to this testimony of man that instrumentally ministerially works this beliefe in men If then for thy faith thou must have testimonium ab homine the testimony of men and maist not beleeve as no man but thy selfe beleeves much more for thy manners and conversation Thinke it not enough to satisfie thy self but satisfie good men nay weake men nay malicious men till it come so far as that for the desire of satisfying man thou leave God unsatisfied endeavour to satisfie all God must waigh down all thy selfe and others but as long as thy selfe onely art in one balance and other men in the other let this preponderate let the opinion of other men waigh downe thine owne opinion of thy selfe 'T is true but many men flatter themselves too far with this truth that it is a sin to do any thing in Conscientiâ dubiâ when a man doubts whether he may doe it or no and in
Naphtali that hee should bee a well-spoken and a perswasive man For so Moses after God had farther inabled him saith Give eare O yee Heavens and I will speake Heare O Earth the words of my mouth My mouth saith Moses The Minister of God that cometh with convenient gifts and due preparation may speak such things as Earth and Heaven it selfe may be content to heare For when Saint Paul saith That to the Principalities and Powers in Heavenly places the manifold wisdome of God is made known by the Church that is by the Ministery and Service of the Church and by that which is done here wee may congruously and piously beleeve that even those Principalities and Powers in Heavenly places The Angels of Heaven doe heare our Sermons and hearken how the glory of God is communicated and accepted and propagated through the Congregation and as they rejoyce at the conversion of a Sinner so rejoyce also at the means of their Conversion the powerfull and the congruous preaching of the Word of God And therefore let no man though an Angell of the Church though an Archangell of the Church Bishop or Archbishop refuse to heare a man of imeriour place or inferiour parts to himself neither let any man be discouraged by the fewnesse or meannesse of his Hearers For as the Apostle saith with relation to Abraham Entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained Angels unawares so preach to all and that seat that thou thinkest empty may have Angels in it To them is the manifold Wisedome of God made knowne by the Church and Angels are here here for the augmentation of their owne Ioy in their fresh knowledge of the propagation of the Kingdome of God in this Congregation and they are here for their Accusation that are not here but frivolously and causelessely absent or negligently absently present if they be here Therefore Moses might say Give eare O yee Heavens though it bee but I that speake And hee might add as he doth there My Doctrine shall droppe as the rain and my speech shall distll as the dew And why Because I will publish the Name of the Lord saith Moses there because I will deliver the Messages of my God to his People What though you doe must this be ascribed unto you no Moses claimeth not that for when hee had said Give eare O yee Heavens let no man thinke himselfe too high or too wise to heare me and called it his Doctrine and his speech because he published the Name of the Lord yet he transferreth all upon God himselfe He establisheth their attentions with that Ascribe yee Greatnesse unto our God It becommeth me to make my selfe as acceptable a messenger as I can and to infuse the Word of God into you as powerfully as I can but all that I can doe is but a small matter the greatnesse of the worke lieth in your Application and that must proceed from the Word of God it selfe quickned by his Spirit and therefore Ascribe all Greatnesse unto our God for that is the Hony whatsoever or whosoever be the Hony-combe Truely when I reade a Sermon of Chrysostome or of Chrysologus or of Ambrose Men who carry in the very signification of their Names and in their Histories the attributes of Hony mouthed and Golden-mouthed Men I finde my selfe oftentimes more affected with the very Citation and Application of some sentence of Scripture in the middest or end of one of their Sermons then with any witty or forcible passage of their owne And that is it which Saint Hierome doth especially magnifie in Saint Paul After he had said Quotiescunque lego non verba mihi videor sed tonitrua audire wheresoever I open Saint Pauls Epistles it is not a word or a sentence but a clappe of Thunder that flieth out he addeth moreover Legatis doe but use your selves to the reading of Saint Pauls Epistles Videbitis in testimoniis quae sumit ex veteri Testamento quà m Artifex sit quà m prudens you will easily see how artificially how dexterously how cunningly and how discreetly he makes his use of those places which he citeth out of the Old Testament Videntur verba Innocontis rusticani you would take them saith hee sometimes for words of some plain Country-man as some of the Prophets were no other But before Saint Paul have done with those words Fulmina sunt capiunt omne quod tangunt hee maketh you see that they are flashes of lightning and that they possesse and melt affect and dissolve every soul they touch And hence it is Beloved that I return so often at home in my private Meditations that I present so often to Gods People in these Exercises this Consideration That there are not so exquisite so elegant Bookes in the World as the Scriptures neither is any one place a more pregnant example thereof for the purity and elegancy for the force and power for the largenesse and extention of the words then these which the Holy Ghost hath taken in this Text Hee that oppresseth the poore reproaches his Master c. And so we passe from this first Consideration The power and Elegancy of the whole word of God in generall to the same consideration in these particular words The Matter which in the generall is but this That the poor must bee relieved being a Doctrine obvious to all The Manner wil rather be our object at this time How the Holy Ghost by Solomons hand hath enwrapped this Doctrine in these words How the Omission of this Duty is aggravated how the performance thereof is celebrated in this Text and in the force and elegancies thereof Mans perversenesse hath changed Gods method God made man good but in a possibility of being ill Now God findes man ill but in a possibility of being good When man was good and enabled to continue so God began with him with affirmative Commandements Commandements that implied liberty and Soveraignty such as that Subjicite Dominamini Subdue the Creature and rule over the Creature and he comes not till after to Negative to Prohibitive Commandments Commandments that imply infirmity and servility such as this Of this Tree thou shalt not eate upon thy life this life and the next thou shalt not But now because God findes man ill and prone to bee worse God is faine to change his method and to begin and stop him at first with negative and prohibitive Commandments So he does in the thirty fourth Psalm ver 14. which is also again repeated first Depart from evill and then Doe good For man brings with him something into the world now to forget and to unlearn before he can take out any new lesson Man is so farre from being good of himselfe as that he must forget himselfe devest himselfe forsake himselfe before he can be capable of any good And such is the method of our Text Because God sees a naturall declination in man to abuse his power to the
our selves or in our charity towards others as to offer a scandall to others For this Vae this intermination of wo from our Saviour is bent upon us from three batteries for it is Vae quia Illusiones fortes wo because scandals are so strong in their nature as that they shall seduce if it be possible the Elect And then Vae quia infirmi vos Woe because you are so weak in your nature as that though you receive the word and receive it with joy yet Temporales estis you may be but Time servers for all that for as soon as persecution comes ilico continuò scandalizamini Instantly presently you are scandalized offended But especially Vae quia Praevaricatores Woe be unto you not because the scandals are so strong not because you are so weake but because you prevaricate against your own souls because you betray your selves and make your selves weaker than you are you open your selves too easily to a scandall you assist a scandall create a scandall by your aptnesse to mis-interpret other mens proceedings Great peace have they that love thy Law sayes David Wherein consists this great peace In this Non est illis scandalum nothing scandalises nothing offends them nothing puts them off from their Kings their Constancy in themselves their Charity towards others And therefore upon that prayer of David Liberet te Deus ab Homine malo The Lord deliver thee from the evill man Saint Augustin retires himselfe into himselfe he sends every man home into himselfe and says Liberette Deus à te ne sis tibi homo malus the Lord deliver thee from thy selfe that thou be not that evill man to thy selfe God blesse me from my selfe that I lead not my selfe into tentation by a wilfull misinterpreting of other men especially my superiours that I cast not aspersions or imputations upon the Church or the State by my mistakings And thus much being said of this generall facility of falling into the Passive scandall and being offended in others which is a great interruption of blessednesse for Blessed is he and he onely that is not so scandalised offended so passe we now to the second branch of this first part our Saviours appropriating of this more particularly to himselfe Blessed is he whosoever is not scandalised not offended in me Christ Crucified that is the Gospell of Christ is said by the Apostle to be scandalum Iudaeis a scandal a stumbling block to the Iews but Graecis stultitia to the Grecians to the Gentiles meer foolishness So that one scandall offence that was taken at Christ his Gospel was by the wisemen the learned the Philosophers of the world they thoght that Christ induced a religion improbable to Reason a silly and a foolish religion But these learned men these Philosophers were sooner convinced satisfied then others For when we have considered Iustin Martyr and Minutius Felix and Arnobius and Origen and Lactantius and some things of Theodoret perchance one or two more we have done with those Fathers that did any thing against the Gentiles and their Philosophers and may soon come to that question of the Apostle Vbi sapiens where is the wiseman where is the Philosopher where is the disputer of the world Indeed al that the Fathers writ against thē would not amount to so much as may be found at one mart of papists against Protestants or of Protestants Lutherans and Calvinists against one another The reason is Reason will be satisfied Passion will not And therefore when it came to that issue between the Christian and the Naturall man which Religion was most comfortable to Reason it soon resolved into these two whether it were more conformable to Reason to beleeve One God as the Christian does or many as the Gentiles and then being brought to the beliefe of one God whether it were more conformable to reason to beleeve three Persons in that one God as we or but one as they doe Now for the first of these the Multiplicity of Gods it involved so many so evident so ridiculous absurdities as not onely those few Fathers soon disputed them but some of themselves such as Lucian soon laughed them out of it and so reason prevailed soon for the unity of the Godhead that there is but one God and that question was not long in suspence nor agitation And for the other three persons in this one God the Trinity though we cannot so immediately prove that by Reason nor so intirely altogether yet by these steppes we can first that there is nothing in the doctrine of the Trinity against Reason the doctrine of the Trinity implies no contradiction It may be so and then that it is so if we have the word of God for it Reason it selfe will conclude that we have Reason on our side And that we have the word of God for it we proceed thus that for this Book which we call the Bible which book delivers us the Doctrine of the Trinity we have far better reasons and stronger arguments to satisfie any naturall man that this book is the word of God then the Turke or any professors of any other Religion have that those books which they pretend to be so are so So that positively for the first that there is but one God Comparatively for the other that there are three persons Reason it selfe if we were bound to submit all Religion to Reason may receive a satisfaction a calme and peaceable acquiescence And so the scandall that the Philosophers took was with no great difficulty overcome But then the scandals that worldly and carnall men tooke lasted longer They were offended in Christ that he induced an inglorious a contemptible Religion a Religion that opposed the Honours of this world and a sooty and Melancholique Religion a Religion that opposed the Pleasures and delights of this world and a fordid and beggerly Religion a Religion that opposed the Gaine and the Profit of this world But were this enough to condemne the Christian Religion if it did oppose worldly honour or pleasure or profit Or does our Religion doe that Be pleased to stop a little upon both these Problems whether that were enough to their ends if it were so and then whether there be any such thing in our Religion and begin wee with their first offence at Christ The point of Honour The Apostle speaks of an Eternall weight of Glory Glory A weight of Glory An eternall weight of Glory But where In heaven not in this world The Honours of this world are farre from being weights or fraights or ballast to carry us steady they are but light froths but leaven but fermentation that puffes and swells us up And they are as farre from being eternall for in every family we know in which father or grandfather the Honour began and wee know not how soon or how ignominiously it may end but such ends of worldly Honours we see every day When
to fetch fire at the hearth and incapable of any drop of Christs blood from heaven or of any teare of contrition in themselves not a sheard to fetch water at the pit I will breake them as a Potters vessell quod non potest instaurari says God in Ieremy There shall be no possible meanes of those means which God hath ordained in his Church to recompact them againe no voice of Gods word to draw them no threatnings of Gods judgements shall drive them no censures of Gods Church shall fit them no Sacrament shall cement and glue them to Christs body againe In temporall blessings he shall be unthankfull in temporall afflictions he shall be obdurate And these two shall serve as the upper and nether stone of a mill to grinde this reprobate sinner to powder Lastly this is to be done by Christs falling upon him and what is that I know some Expositors take this to be but the falling of Gods judgements upon him in this world But in this world there is no grinding to powder all Gods judgements here for any thing that we can know have the nature of Physick in them may are wont to cure no man is here so absolutely broken in pieces but that he may be re-united we chuse therefore to follow the Ancients in this That the falling of this stone upon this Reprobate is Christs last irrecoverable falling upon him in his last judgment that when hee shall wish that the Hills might fall and cover him this stone shall fall grinde him to powder He shall be broken and he no more found says the Prophet yea he shall be broken and no more sought No man shall consider him what he is now nor remember him what he was before For that stone which in Daniel was cut out without hands which was a figure of Christ who came without ordinary generation when that great Image was to be overthrown broke not an arme or a leg but brake the whole Image in peeces and it wrought not onely upon the weak parts but it brake all the clay the iron the brasse the silver the gold so when this stone fals thus when Christ comes to judgement he shall not onely condemn him for his clay his earthly and covetous sinnes nor for his iron his revengefull oppressing and rustly sinnes nor for his brasse his shining and glittering sinnes which he hath filed and polished but he shall fall upon his silver and gold his religious and precious sinnes his hypocriticall hearing of Sermons his singular observing of Sabbaths his Pharisaicall giving of almes and as well his subtill counterfeiting of Religion as his Atheisticall opposing of religion this stone Christ himselfe shall fall upon him and a showre of other stones shall oppresse him too Sicut pluit laqueâ—s says David As God rained springs and snares upon them in this world abundance of temporall blessings to be occasions of sinne unto them So plues grandinem he shall raine such haile-stones upon them as shall grinde them to powder there shall fall upon him the naturall Law which was written in his heart and did rebuke him then when he prepared for a sinne there shall fall upon him the written Law which cryed out from the mouthes of the Prophets in these places to avert him from sinne there shall fall upon him those sinnes which he hath done and those sins which he hath not done if nothing but want of means opportunity hindred him from doing them there shall fall upon him those sinnes which he hath done after anothers dehortation and those which others have done after his provocation there the stones of Nineveh shall fall upon him and of as many Cities as have repented with lesse proportions of mercy and grace then God afforded him there the rubbage of Sodom and Gomorrah shall fall upon him and as many Cities as in their ruine might have been examples to him All these stones shall fall upon him and to add weight to all these Christ Jesus himselfe shall fall upon his conscience with unanswerable questions and grinde his soule to powder But hee that overcometh shall not bee hurt by the second death he that feeles his own fall upon this stone shall never feel this stone fall upon him he that comes to a remorse early and earnestly after a sinne and seeks by ordinary meanes his reconcileation to God in his Church is in the best state that man can be in now for howsoever we cannot say that repentance is as happy an estate as Innocency yet certainly every particular man feels more comfort and spirituall joy after a true repentance for a sin then he had in that degree of Innocence which he had before he committed that sinne and therefore in this case also we may safely repeat those words of Augustine Audeo dicere I dare be bold to say that many a man hath been the better for some sin Almighty God who gives that civill wisdome to make use of other mens infirmities give us also this heavenly wisdome to make use of our own particular sins that thereby our own wretched conditions in our selves and our meanes of reparation in Iesus Christ may be the more manifested unto us To whom with the blessed Spirit c. SERMON XXXVI Preached at Saint Pauls upon Christmasse day 1621. JOHN 1. 8. He was not that Light but was sent to bear witnesse of that Light IT is an injury common to all the Evangelists as Irenaeus notes that all their Gospels were severally refused by one Sect of Hereticks or other But it was proper to Saint Iohn alone to be refused by a Sect that admitted all the other three Evangelists as Epiphanius remembers and refused onely Saint Iohn These were the Alogiani a limme and branch of the Arians who being unable to looke upon the glorious Splendour the divine Glory attributed by Saint Iohn to this Logos which gave them their name of Alogiani this Word this Christ not comprehending this Mystery That this Word was so with God as that it was God they tooke a round way and often practised to condemne all that they did not understand and therefore refuse the whole Gospell Indeed his whole Gospell is comprehended in the beginning thereof In this first Chapter is contracted all that which is extensively spred and dilated through the whole Booke For here is first the Foundation of all the Divinitie of Christ to the 15. verse Secondly the Execution of all the Offices of Christ to the 35. verse And then the Effect the Working the Application of all that is who were to Preach all this to the ends of the world the calling of his Apostles to the end of the Chapter for the first Christs Divinity there is enough expressed in the very first verse alone for there is his Eternitie intimated in that word In principio in the beginning The first booke of the Bible Genesis and the last booke that is that
which was last written this Gospell begin both with this word In the beginning But the last beginning was the first if Moses beginning doe onely denote the Creation which was not 6000. yeares since and Saint Iohns the Eternity of Christ which no Millions multiplied by Millions can calculate And then as his Eternitie so his distinction of Persons is also specified in this 1. verse when the Word that is Christ is said to have been apud Deum with God For therefore saith Saint Basil did the Holy Ghost rather choose to say apud Deum then in Deo with God then in God ne auferenda Hypostaseos occasionem daret lest he should give any occasion of denying the same Nature in divers Persons for it doth more clearly notifie a distinction of Persons to say he was with him then to say he was in him for the severall Attributes of God Mercy and Iustice and the rest are in God and yet they are not distinct Persons Lastly there is also expressed in this 1. verse Christs Equality with God in that it is said Verbum erat Deus and this Word was God As it was in the beginning and therefore Eternall and as it was with God and therefore a distinct Person so it was God and thereforre equall to the Father which phrase doth so vexe and anguish the Arians that being disfurnished of all other escapes they corrupted the place onely with a false interpunction and broke of the words where they admitted no such pause for they read it thus Verbum erat apud Deum so far well Et Deus erat There they made their point and then followed in another sentence Verbum hoc erat in principio c. The first part then of this Chapter and indeed of the whole Gospell is in that 1. verse the manifestation of his Divine Nature in his Eternitie in the distinction of Persons in the equalitie with the Father The second part of the Chapter layeth downe the Office of Christ his Propheticall his Priestly his Royall Office For the first the Office of a Prophet consisting in three severall exercises to manifest things past to foretell things to come and to expound thing present Christ declared himself to be a Prophet in all these three for for the first he was not onely a Verball but an Actuall manifester of former Prophecies for all the former Prophecies were accomplished in his Person and in his deeds and words in his actions and Passion For the second his foretelling of future things he foretold the state of the Church to the end of the world And for the third declaring of present things He told the Samaritan woman so exquisitely all her own History that she gave presently that attestation Sir I see that thou art a Prophet so his Propheticall Office is plainly laid down For his second Office his Priesthood that is expressed in the 36. verse Behold the Lambe of God for in this he was our Priest that he was our Sacrifice he was our Priest in that he offered himselfe for our sinnes Lastly his Royall Office was the most naturall to him of all the rest The Office of a Prophet was Naturall to none none was born a Prophet Those who are called the children of the Prophets and the sonnes of the Prophets are but the Prophets Disciples Though the Office of Priesthood by being annexed to one Tribe may in some sense be called Naturall yet in Christ it could not be so for he was not of that Tribe of Levi so that he had no interest in the legall Priesthood but was a Priest according to the Order of Melchisedec But his Title to be King was naturall by descent he was of the bloud Royall and the nearest in succession so that he and onely he had De Iure all the three unctions upon him David had two he was both a Prophet and a King he had those two capacities Melchisedec had two too he was both a King and a Priest he had two Onely Christ had all three both a Prophet and Priest and King In the third part of the Chapter which is the calling of foure of his Apostles we may observe that the first was called was not Peter but Andrew that there might be laid at first some interruption some stop to their zealous fury who will still force and heap up every action which any way concerns Saint Peter to the building up of his imaginary primacy which primacy they cared not though Peter wanted if they could convey that primacy to his Successor by any other Title for which Successours sake it is and not for Saint Peters own that they are so over diligent in advancing his prerogative But it was not Peter that was called but Andrew In Andrews present and earnest application of himself to Christ we may note and onely so divers particulars fit for use and imitation In his first question Master where dwellest thou there is not onely as Cyrill observes a reverent ascribing to him a power of instructing in that compellation Master but a desire to have more time afforded to hearken to his instructions Where dwellest thou that I may dwell with thee And as soon as ever he had taken in some good portion of knowledge himselfe he conceives presently a desire to communicate his happinesse with others and he seeks his brother Peter and tells him Invenimus Messiam we have found the Messias which is as Saint Chrysostome notes vox quaerentis In this that he rejoyces in the finding of him he testifies that he had sought him and that he had continued in the expectation of a Messias before Invenit Messiam he had found the Messias but saith the Text Duxit ad Iesum he brought his brother the glorious newes of having found a King the King of the Jewes but he led him to Iesus to a Saviour that so all kinds of happinesse temporall and spirituall might be intimated in this discovery of a King and of a Saviour What may not his servants hope for at his hands who is both those a King and a Saviour and hath worldly preferments and the Glory of Heaven in his power Now though the words of this Text He was not that light but was sent to beare witnesse of that light are placed in the first part of the Chapter that which concernes Christs Divine nature yet they belong and they have a respect to all three To his Divine nature to his Offices and to his Calling of his Apostles For first light denotes his Divine nature secondly the testimony that is given of him by Iohn Baptist of whom the words of our Text are spoken declares him to be the Messias and Messias which signifies anointed involves all his Offices are his three Offices are his three vocations and thirdly the Application of this testimony given by Iohn Baptist here by the Apostles and their Successors after intimates or brings to our memory this their first vocation in this Chapter So