observed in their Publication whereby those that are called to the service of private Churches and have not the convenience of Publick Libraries might have made more use of them for I have seen many great Edifices many noble Palaces erected without one stone taken out of the Quarry but so neer an Age where Holy Confusion is prescribed to the Preacher a little disorder I hope Gentle Reader may be pardoned in the Publisher JO. DONNE Postscript BY the Dates of these Sermons the Reader may easily collect that although they are the last that are published they were the first that were Preached and I did purposely select these from amongst all the rest for being to finish this Monument which I was to erect to his Memory I ought to reserve those materials that were set forth with the best Polish The Impression consists onely of Five hundred which will somewhat advance the Price but the buyer being at liberty he can receive no prejudice Upon the sending the First Volume of these SERMONS to the Right Reverend Father in God the Bishop of Peterborough then my Diocesan I received this Letter SIR YOu have sent me a Treasure and I would not share time to tell you so till I had somewhat satisfied the thirst I had to drink down many of those Excellent Sermons which I have so long desired And by this I have the advantage that I can know what I thank you for though I could presumptuously value them by the rest of his which I have heard and read formerly for I think I have all those that in the Press did foreran these yet by this time I can sensibly acknowledge to you how great cause so many of us have to thank you How well may your Parishioners pardon your silence to them for a while since by it you have Preached to them and their Childrens children and to all our English Parishes for ever For certainly many ages hence when they shall be made good or confirmed in goedness by studying your Father they shall account these times Primitive in which he Preached and you will then if not now be in danger to lose your propriety in him he will be called a Father of the Church Sir Though this Book with his former Printed Sermons be a great Stock to the Church from one man yet if you shall please to perform the trust of a good Executor there is I presume a great remainder of his Legacy which when you have taken breath we must call you to account for in a Court of Equity though you may think this will abundantly satisfie yet believe it Sir it will but increase our appetite We shall give you time Sir but no general release yet his God and yours assist you to whose blessing I commend you and am Sir Your very Friend in Christ Jesus Jo. Peterborough Peterborough July 20. 1640. THE CONTENTS SERMON I. A Lent Sermon Preached at White-hall February 20. 1617. Luc. 23.40 Fearest thou not God being under the same condemnation Page 1 SERMON II. A Lent Sermon Preached at White-hall February 12. 1618. Ezek. 33.32 And lo thou art unto them as a very lovely Song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an Instrument for they hear thy words but they do them not p. 15 SERMON III. A Lent Sermon Preached at White-hall February 20. 1628. James 2.12 So speakye and so Do as they that shall be judged by the law of Liberty p. 28 SERMON IV. A Lent Sermon Preached before the King at White-hall February 16. 1620. 1 Tim. 3.16 And without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness God was manifest in the flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the world received up into Glory p. 45 SERMON V. A Lent Sermon Preached to the King at White-hall February 12. 1629. Mat. 6.21 For where your Treasure is there will your heart be also p. 61 SERMON VI. A Sermon Preached at White-hall April 21. 1616. Eccles 8.11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the children of men is fully set in them to do evil p. 75 SERMON VII A Sermon Preached at White-hall Novemb 2. 1617. Psal 55.19 Because they have no changes therefore they fear not God p. 89 SERMON VIII A Sermon Preached to the Houshold at White-hall April 30. 1626. Mat. 9.13 I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance p. 101 SERMON X. A Sermon Preached at White-hall April 2. 1620. Eccles 5. There is an evil sickness that I have seen under the Sun Riches reserved to the owners thereof for their evil And these riches perish by evil travail and he begetteth a Son and in his hand is nothing Ver. 12. 13. in Edit 1. In alia 13. 14. p. 129 SERMON XI A Sermon Preached at Greenwich April 30. 1615. Esa 52.3 Ye have sold your selves for nought and ye shall be redeemed without money p. 153 SERMON XII A Sermon Preached at White-hall April 12. 1618. Gen. 32.10 I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies and of all the truth which thou hast shewed unto thy servant for with my staffe I passed over this Jordan and now I am become two bands p. 169 SERMON XIII A Sermon Preached at White-hall April 19. 1618. 1 Tim. 1.15 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation That Christ Jesus came into the World to save sinners of which I am the chiefest p. 177 SERMON XIV A Second Sermon Preached at White-hall April 2. 1621. 1 Tim. 1.15 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation That Christ Jesus came into the World to save sinners of which I am the chiefest p. 190 SERMON XV. A Sermon Preached at White-hall February 29. 1627. Acts 7.60 And when he had said this he fell asleep p. 205 SERMON XVI A Sermon Preached at White-hall February 22. 1629. Mat. 6.21 For where your Treasure is there will your heart be also p. 220 SERMON XVII James 2.12 So speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the Law of Liberty p. 241 SERMON XVIII A Sermon Preached to Queen Anne at Denmark-house Decemb. 14. 1617. Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me and they that seek me early shall finde me p. 257 SERMON XIX A Sermon of Valediction at my going into Germany at Lincolns-Inne April 18. 1619. Eccles 12.1 Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth p. 269 SERMON XX. Two Sermons to the Prince and Princess Palatine the Lady Elizabeth at Heydelberg when I was commanded by the King to wait upon my L. of Doncaster in his Embassage to Germany First Sermon as we went out June 16. 1619. Rom. 13.11 For now is our Salvation nearer then when we believed p. 281 SERMON XXI A Sermon Preached at St. Dunstans January 15. 1625. The first Sermon after our dispersion by the Sickness Exod. 12.30 For there was not a house
where there was not one dead p. 285 SERMON XXII A Sermon Preached at the Temple Esther 4.16 Go and assemble all the Jews that are found in Shushan and fast ye for me and eat not nor drink in three days day nor night I also and my Maids will fast likewise and so I will go in to the King which is not according to the Law And if I perish I perish p. 298 SERMON XXIII A Sermon Preached at Lincolns-Inne Ascension-day 1622. Deut. 12.30 Take heed to thy self that thou be not snared by following them after they be destroyed from before thee and that thou inquire not after their gods saying How did these Nations serve their gods Even so will I do likewise p. 311 SERMON XXIV A Sermon Preached at Pauls Cross to the Lords of the Council and other Honorable Persons 24 Mart. 1616. It being the Anniversary of the Kings coming to the Crown and his Majesty being then gone into Scotland Prov. 22.11 He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend p. 322 SERMON XXV A Sermon Preached at the Spittle upon Easter-Monday 1622. 2 Cor. 4.6 For God who commanded light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ P. 357 SERMON XXVI Psal 68.20 And unto God the Lord belong the issues of Death from Death P. 397 A Lent-SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL February 20. 1617. SERMON I. Serm. 1. Luc. 23.40 Fearest not thou God being under the same condemnation THe Text it self is a Christning-Sermon and a Funeral-Sermon and a Sermon at a Consecration and a Sermon at the Canonization of himself that makes it This Thief whose words they are is Baptized in his blood there 's his Christning He dyes in that profession there 's his Funeral His Diocess is his Cross and he takes care of his soul who is crucified with him and to him he is a Bishop there 's his Consecration and he is translated to heaven there 's his Canonization We have sometimes mention in Moses his book of Exodus according to the Romane Translation Operis Plumarii of a kind of subtle and various workmanship imployed upon the Tabernacle for which it is hard to finde a proper word now we translate it sometimes Embroidery sometimes Needle-work sometimes otherwise It is evident enough that it was Opus variegatum a work compact of divers pieces curiously inlaid and varied for the making up of some figure some representation and likelyest to be that which in sumptuous buildings we use to call now Mosaick work for that very word originally signifies to vary to mingle to diversifie As the Tabernacle of God was so the Scriptures of God are of this Mosaick work The body of the Scriptures hath in it limbs taken from other bodies and in the word of God are the words of other men other authors inlaid inserted But this work is onely where the Holy Ghost is the Workman It is not for man to insert to inlay other words into the word of God It is a gross piece of Mosaick work to insert whole Apocryphal books into the Scriptures It is a sacrilegious defacing of this Mosaick work to take out of Moses Tables such a stone as the second Commandment and to take out of the Lords Prayer such a stone as is the foundation-stone the reason of the prayer Quia Tuum For thine is the kingdom c. It is a counterfeit piece of Mosaick work when having made up a body of their Canon-Law of the raggs and fragments torne from the body of the Fathers they attribute to every particular sentence in that book not that authority which that sentence had in that Father from whom it is taken but that authority which the Canonization as they call it of that sentence gives it by which Canonization and placing it in that book it is made equal to the word of God Thesaurus Catholicus It is a strange piece of Mosaick work when one of their greatest authors pretending to present a body of proofs for all controverted points from the Scriptures and Councels and Fathers for he makes no mention in his promise of the Mothers of the Church doth yet fill up that body with sentences from women and obtrude to us the Revelations of Brigid and of Katherine and such She-fathers as those But when the Holy Ghost is the workman in the true Scriptures we have a glorious sight of this Mosaick this various this mingled work where the words of the Serpent in seducing our first parents The words of Balaams Ass in instructing the rider himself The words of prophane Poets in the writings and use of the Apostle The words of Caiaphas prophesying that it was expedient that one should dye for all The words of the Divel himself Jesus I know and Paul I know And here in this text the words of a Thief executed for the breach of the Law do all concur to the making up of the Scriptures of the word of God Now though these words were not spoken at this time when we do but begin to celebrate by a poor and weak imitation the fasting of our Saviour Jesus Christ but were spoken at the day of the crucifying of the Lord of life and glory yet as I would be loath to think that you never fast but in Lent so I would be loath to think that you never fulfill the sufferings of Christ Jesus in your flesh but upon Goodfriday never meditate upon the passion but upon that day As the Church celebrates an Advent a preparation to the Incarnation of Christ to his coming in the flesh in humiliation so may this humiliation of ours in the text be an Advent a preparation to his Resurrection and coming in glory And as the whole life of Christ was a passion so should the whole life especially the humiliation of a Christian be a continual meditation upon that Christ began with some drops of blood in his infancy in his Circumcision though he drowned the sins of all mankinde in those several channels of Blood which the whips and nailes and spear cut out of his body in the day of his passion So though the effects of his passion be to be presented more fully to you at the day of his passion yet it is not unseasonable now to contemplate thus far the working of it upon this condemned wretch whose words this text is Division as to consider in them First the infallibility and the dispatch of the grace of God upon them whom his gracious purpose hath ordained to salvation how powerfully he works how instantly they obey This condemned person who had been a thief execrable amongst men and a blasphemer execrating God was suddainly a Convertite suddainly a Confessor suddainly a Martyr suddainly a Doctor to preach to others In a second consideration we shall see what doctrine he preaches not curiosities
that it comes to the Sickness but not to the physick In small diseases saith St. Basil we go to the Physitians house in greater diseases we send for the Physitian to our house but in violent diseases in the stupefaction of an Apoplexy in the damp of a leturgy in the furnace of a Pleurisie we have no sence no desire of a Physitian at all When this inordinate love of Riches begins in us we have some tenderness of Conscience and we consult with Gods Ministers After we admit the reprehensions of Gods Ministers when they speak to our Consciences but at last the habit of our sin hath seared us up and we never find that it is we that the Preacher means we find that he touches others but not us Our wit and our malice is awake but our conscience is asleep we can make a Sermon a libel against others and cannot find a Sermon in a Sermon to our selves It is a sickness and an evil sickness Visibilis Now this is not such a sickness as we have onely read of and no more It concernes us not onely so as the memory of the sweat of which we do rather wounder at the report then consider the manner or the remedies against it Those divers plagues which God inflicted upon Pharoah for withholding his people That devouring Pestilence which God stroke Davids kingdom with for numbring his people That destruction which God kindled in Sennacheribs army for oppressing his people These because God hath represented them in so clear and so true a glass as his word we do in a manner see them Things in other stories we do but hear things in the Scriptures we see The Scriptures are as a room wainscotted with looking-glass we see all at once But this evil sickness of reserving riches to our own evil is plainer to be seen because it is daily round about us dayly within us in our consciences experiences There are sins that are not evident not easily discerned therefore David annexes a Scedule to his prayer after all Ab occultis meis mundame saith David There are sins which the difference of religion makes a sin or no sin we know it to be a sin to abstain from coming to Church our adversaries are made beleeve it is a time to come There are middle-men that when our Church appoints coming and receiving and anoother Church forbids both they will do half of both they will come and not receive and so be friends with both There are sins recorded in the Scriptures in which it is hard for any to find the name the nature what the sin was how doth the School vex it self to find out what was the nature of the sin of the Angels or what was the name of the sin of Adam There are actions recorded in the Scriptures in which by Gods subsequent punishment there appears sin to have been committed and yet to have considered the action alone without the testimony of Gods displeasure upon it a natural man would not easily find out a sin Numb 22. Balaam was solicited to come and curse Gods people he refused he consulted with God God bids him go but follow such instructions as he should give him after And yet the wrath of God was kindled because he went Numb 20. Moses seems to have pursued Gods commandement exactly in drawing water out of the Rock and yet God sayes Because you believed me not you shall not bring this congregation into that land of promise There are sins hard to be seen out of the nature of Man because Man naturally is not watchful upon his particular actions for if he were so he would escape great sins when we see sand we are not much afraid of a stone when a Man sees his small sins there is not so much danger of great But some sins we see not out of a natural blindness in our selves some we see not out of a natural dimness in the sin it self But this sickly sin this sinful sickness of gathering Riches is so obvious so manifest to every mans apprehension as that the books of Moral men and Philosophers are as full of it as the Bible But yet the Holy Ghost as he doth alwaies even in moral Counsels exceeds the Philosophers for whereas they place this sickness in gathering unnecessary riches injuriously the Holy Ghost in this place extends iâ— further to a reserving of those riches that when we have sinn'd in the getting of them we sin still in the not restoring of them But to thee who shouldest repent the ill getting Veniet tempus quo non dispensasse poenetebit there will come a time when thou shalt repent the having kept them Hoc certum est Ego sum sponsor Basil of this I dare be the surety saith St. Basil But we can leave St Basil out of the bond we have a better surety and undertaker the Holy Ghost in Solomon So that this evil sickness may be easily seen it is made manifest enough to us all by precedent from God by example of others by experience in our selves Solomon To see this then is an easie a natural thing but to see it so as to condemn it and avoid it this is a wisemans slight this was Solomons slight The wiseman seeth the plague Psal 50.18 and shunneth it therein consists the wisedome But for the fool when he sees a theif he runneth with him when he sees others thrive by ill getting and ill keeping he runs with them he takes the same course as they do Beloved It is not intended that true and heavenly wisedome may not consist with riches Iob and the Patriarchs abounded with both And our pattern in this place Solomon himself saith of himself That he was great Eccles 2.9 and increased above all that were before him in Ierusalem and yet his wisdome remained with him The poor man and the rich are in heaven together and to show us how the rich should use the poor Lazarus is in Abrahams bosome The rich should succour and releive and defend the poor in their bosomes But when our Saviour declares a wisedome belonging to Riches as in the parable of the unjust Steward he places not this wisedome Luk. 16. in the getting nor in the holding of Riches but onely in the using of them make you friends of your Riches that they may receive you into everlasting habitations There 's no Simony in heaven that a man can buy so much as a door-keepers place in the Triumphant Church There 's no bribery there to see Ushers for accesse Gen. 28. But God holds that ladder there whose foot stands upon the earth here and all those good works which are put upon the lowest step of that Ladder here that is that are done in contemplation of him they ascend to him and descend again to us Heaven and earth are as a musical Instrument if you touch a string below the motion goes to the top any
vow is included all the service that he could exhibite or retribute to God Now his staffe is become a sword a strong Army his one staff now is multiplyed his wives are given for staffes to assist him and his children given also for staffes to his age His own staffe is become the greatest and best part of Labans wealth In such plenty as that he could spare a present to Esau of at least five hundred head of cattell The fathers make Morall expositions of this That his two bands are his Temporall blessings and his spirituall And St. Augustin findes a tipicall allusion in it of Christ Aug. Baculo Crucis Christus apprehendit mundum cum duabus turmis duobus populis ad patrem rediit Christ by his staffe his Cross muster'd two bands that is Jews and Gentiles We finde enough for our purpose in taking it literally as we see it in the Text That he divided all his company and all his cattell into two troups that if Esau come and smite one the other might scape For then onely is a fortune full when there is somthing for Leakage for wast when a Man though he may justly fear that this shall be taken from him yet he may justly presume that this shall be left to him though he lose much yet he shall have enough And this was Jacobs increase and height and from this lowness from one staff to two bands And therefore since in God we can consider but one state Semper idem immutable since in the Devil we can consider but two states Quomodo cecidit filius Orientis that he was the son of the Morning but is and shall ever be for ever the child of everlasting death since in Jacob and in our selves we can consider first that God made man righteous secondly that man betooke himself to his one staff and his own staff The imaginations of his own heart Thirdly That by the word of God manifested by his Angels he returns with two bands Body and Soul to his heavenly father againe let us attribute all to his goodness and confesse to him and the world That we are not worthy of the least of all his Mercies and of all the Truth which he hath shewed unto his Servant for with my staff I passed over this Jordan and now I am become two bands A SERMON Preached at White-hall Serm. 13. April 19. 1618. SERMON XIII 1 Tim. 1.15 This is a faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation That Christ Jesus came into the World to save Sinners of which I am the chiefest THE greatest part of the body of the old-Testament is Prophecy and that is especially of future things The greatest part of the new-Testament if wee number the peeces is Epistles Relations of things past for instruction of the present They erre not much that call the whol new-Testament Epistle For even the Gospells are Evangelia good Messages and that 's proper to an Epistle and the booke of the Acts of the Apostles is superscrib'd by Saint Luke to one Person to Theophilus and that 's proper to an Epistle and so is the last booke the booke of Revelation to the severall Churches and of the rest there is no question An Epistle is collucutio scripta saies Saint Ambrose Though it be written far off and sent yet it is a Conference and seperatos copulat sayes hee by this meanes wee overcome distances we deceive absences and wee are together even then when wee are asunder And therefore in this kinde of conveying spirituall comfort to their friends have the ancient Fathers been more exercised then in any other former almost all of them have written Epistles One of them Isidorus him whom wee call Peluciotes Saint Chrysostom's schollar is noted to have written Myriades Nicephor and in those Epistles to have interpreted the whole Scriptures St. Paul gave them the example he writ nothing but in this kind and in this exceeded all his fellow Apostles pateretur Paulus quod Saulus seceret saies St. Austin That as he had asked Letters of Commission of the State to persecute Christians so by these Letters of Consolation hee might recompence that Church againe which hee had so much damnified before As the Hebrew Rabbins say That Rahab did let down Jofuah's spies out of her house with the same cord with which she had used formerly to draw up her adultrous lovers into her house Now the holy-Ghost was in all the Authors of all the books of the Bible but in Saint Paul's Epistles there is sayes Irenaeus Impetus Spiritus Sancti The vehemence the force of the holy-Ghost And as that vehemence is in all his Epistles so amplius habent quae e vinculis as Saint Chrysostome makes the observation Those Epistles which were written in Prison have most of this holy vehemence and this as that Father notes also is one of them And of all them we may justly conceive this to be the most vehement and forcible in which he undertakes to instruct a Bishop in his Episcopall function which is to propagate the Gospell for he is but an ill Bishop that leaves Christ where he found him in whose time the Gospell is yet no farther then it was how much worse is he in whose time the Gospell loses ground who leaves not the Gospell in so good state as he found it Now of this Gospell here recommended by Paul to Timothie this is the Summe That Christ Jesus came into the World to save Sinners c. Division Here then we shall have these three Parts First Radicem The Roote of the Gospell from whence it springs it is fidelis sermo a faithfull Word which cannot erre And secondly we have Arborem Corpus the Tree the Body the substance of the Gospell That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners And then lastly fructum Evangelii the fruit of the Gospell Humility that it brings them who embrace it to acknowledg themselves to be the greatest sinners And in the first of these the Roote it selfe wee shall passe by these steps First that it is Sermo the Word That the Gospell hath as good a ground as the Law the new-Testament as well founded as the Old It is the word of God And then it is fidelis Sermo a faithfull Word now both Old and New are so and equally so but in this the Gospell is fidelior the more faithfull and the more sure because that word the Law hath had a determination an expiration but the Gospell shall never have that And againe It is Sermo omni acceptatione dignus Worthy of all acceptation not only worthy to bee received by our Faith but even by our Reason too our Reason cannot hold out against the proofes of Christians for their Gospell And as the word imports it deserves omnem acceptationem and omnem approbationem all approbation and therefore as wee should not dispute against it and so are bound to accept it to receive it not to
just occasion to exercise the same affection piously and religiously which had before so sinfully transported and possest it A covetous person who is now truly converted to God he will exercise a spiritual covetousness still he will desire to have him all he will have good security the seal and assurance of the holy Ghost and he will have his security often renewed by new testimonies and increases of those graces in him he will have witnesses enough he will have the testimonie of all the world by his good life and conversation he will gain every way at Gods hand he will have wages of God for he will be his servant he will have a portion from God for he will be his Son he will have a reversion he will be sure that his name is in the book of life he will have pawns the seals of the Sacraments nay he will have a present possession all that God hath promised all that Christ hath purchased all that the holy Ghost hath the stewardship and dispensation of he will have all in present by the appropriation and investiture of an actual and applying faith a covetous person converted will be spiritually covetous still So will a voluptuous man who is turned to God find plenty and deliciousnes enough in him to feed his soul as with marrow and with fatness as David expresses it and so an angry and passionate man will find zeal enough in the house of God to eat him up All affections which are common to all men and those to which in particular particular men have been adicted to shall not only be justly employed upon God but also securely employed because we cannot exceed nor go too far in imploying them upon him According to this Rule Col. 1. St. Paul who had been so vehement a persecutor had ever his thoughts exercised upon that and thereupon after his conversion he fulfils the rest of the sufferings of Christ in his flesh he suffers most he makes most mention of his suffering of any of the Apostles And according to this Rule too Salomon whose disposition was amorous and excessive in the love of women when he turn'd to God he departed not utterly from his old phrase and language but having put a new and a spiritual tincture and form and habit in all his thoughts and words he conveyes all his loving approaches and applications to God and all Gods gracious answers to his amorous soul into songs and Epithalamians and meditations upon contracts and marriages between God and his Church and between God and his soul as we see so evidently in all his other writings and particularly in this text I love them c. August In which words is expressed all that belongs to love all which is to desire and to enjoy for to desire without fruition is a rage and to enjoy without desire is a stupidity In the first alone we think of nothing but that which we then would have and in the second alone we are not for that when we have it in the first we are without it in the second we were as good we were for we have no pleasure in it nothing then can give us satisfaction but where those two concurr amare and frui to love and to enjoy In sensual love it is so Quid erat quod me delectabat nisi amare et amari I take no joy in this world but in loving and in being beloved in sensual love it is so but in sensual love when we are come so far there is no satisfaction in that the same Father confesseth more of himself then any Commission any oath would have put him to Amatus sum et perveni occulte ad fruendum I had all I desir'd and I had it with that advantage of having it secretly but what got I by all that Ut caederer virgis ardentibus ferreis zeli suspicionis et rixarum nothing but to be scourg'd with burning iron rods rods of jealousie of suspition and of quarrels but in the love and enjoying of this text there is no room for Jealousie nor suspition nor quarrelsome complaining Devisio In this text then you may be pleased to consider these two things Quid amare quid frui what the affection of this love is what is the blessedness of this enjoying but in the first of these we must first consider the persons who are the lovers in this text for there are persons that are incredible though they say they love because they are accustomed to falshood and there are persons which are unrequitable though they be believed to love because they love not where as they should When we have found the persons in a second consideration we shall look upon the affection it self what is the love in this text and then after that upon the bond and union and condition of this love that it is mutual I love them that love me and having passed those three branches of the first part we shall in the second which is enjoying consider first that this enjoying is expressed in the word finding and then that this finding requires two conditions a seeking and an early seeking And they that seek me early shall find me The Person that professes love in this place is wisdom her self First part The Person as appears at the beginning of the Chapter so that sapere et amare to be wise to love which perchance never met before nor since are met in this text but whether this wisdom so frequently mentioned in this book of Proverbs be sapientia creata or increat whether it be the wisdom or the root of wisdom Christ Jesus hath been diversly debated the occasion grew in that great Councel of Nice where the Catholick Fathers understood this wisdom to be intended of Christ himself and then the Arrian hereticks pressed some places of this book where such things seemed to them to be spoken of wisdom as could not be applyable to any but to a Creature and that therefore if Christ were this wisdom Christ must necessarily be a Creature and not God We will not dispute those things over again now they are clearly enough largely enough set down in that Councel but since there is nothing said of wisdom in all this book which hath not been by good expositors applied to Christ much more may we presume the lover in this text though presented in the name of wisdom to be Christ himself and so we do To shew the constancy and durableness of this love the lover is a he that is Christ to shew the vehemency and earnestness of it the lover is a shee that is wisdom as it is often expressed in this Chapter she crieth she uttereth her voice yea in one place of the Bible and only in that one place I think where Moses would express an extraordinary and vehement and passionate indignation in God against his people when as it is in that text his wrath was kindled and grievously
our family We have in the use of our Church a short and a larger Catechism both instruct the same things the same Religion but some capacities require the one and some the other God would catechise us in the knowledge of our mortality since we have devested our immortality he would have us understand our mortality since we have induced death upon our selves God would raise such a benefit to us out of death as that by the continual meditation thereof death might the less terrifie us and the less damnifie us First His Law alone does that office even his Common Law Morte morieris and stipendium peccati Mors est All have sinned and all must die And so his Statute Law too Heb. 9.27 Statutum est It is enacted it is appointed to man once to die And then as a Comment upon that Law he presents to us either his great Catechisms Isai 37.36 Sennacheribs Catechism in which we see almost Two hundred thousand Soldiers more by many then both sides arm and pay in these noiseful Wars of our Neighbors slain in one night 2 Chro. 13. or Jeroboams Catechism where Twelve hundred thousand being presented in the field more by many then all the Kings of Christendom arm and pay Five hundred thousand men chosen men and men of mighty valor as the Text qualifies them were slain upon one side in one day or Davids Catechism 2 Sam. 24. where Threescore and ten thousand were devoured of the Pestilence we know not in how few hours or this Egyptian Catechism of which we can make no conjecture because we know no number of their houses and there was not a house in which there was not one dead or God presents us his Catechism in the Primitive Church where every day may be written in Red Ink every day the Church celebrated Five hundred in some Copies Five thousand Martyrs every day that had writ down their names in their own blood for the Gospel of Christ Jesus or God presents us his Catechism in the later Roman Church where upon our attempt of the Reformation they boast to have slain in one day Seventy Millions in another Two hundred Millions of them that attempted and assisted the Reformation or else Gods presents his lesser Catechisms the several Funerals of our particular Friends in the Congregation or he abridges this Catechism of the Congregation to a less volume then that to the consideration of every particular peece of our own Family at home For so there is not a house in which there is not one dead Prov. 19.18 Have you not left a dead son at home whom you should have chastned whilest there was hope and have not Whom you should have beaten with the rod 23.13 to deliver his soul from Hell and have not Whom you should have made an Abel a Keeper of Sheep Gen. 4.2 or a Cain a Tiller of the Ground that is bestowed him bound him to some Occupation or Profession or Calling and have not You may believe God without an oath 1 Sam 3.13 but God hath sworn That because Eli restrained not the insolencies of his sons no sacrifice should purge his house for ever And scarce shall you finde in the whole Book of God any so vehement an intermination any judgment so vehemently imprinted as that upon Eli for not restraining the insolencies of his sons For in that case God says I will do a thing in Israel at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle That is he would inflict a sudden death upon the Father for his indulgence to his sons Have ye not left such a dead son dead in contumacy and in disobedience at home Have you not left a dead daughter at home A daughter whom you should have kept at home and have not but suffered with Dinah to go out to see the daughters of the land and so expose her self to dangerous tentations as Dinah did Have ye not left a dead servant at home Gen. 34.1 whom ye have made so perfect in deceiving of others as that now he is able to take out a new lesson of himself and deceive you Have you left no dead Inmates dead Sojourners dead Lodgers at home Of whom so they advance your profit you take no care how vicious in themselves they be or how dangerous to the State Deut. 31.12 Gather men and women and children and strangers within thy gate says God that they may all learn the Law of the Lord. If thy care spread not over all thy family whosoever is dead in thy family by thy negligence thou shalt answer the King that Subject that is the King of Heaven that Soul We have as we proposed to do surveyed this House in Egypt Part. 3. where the Text lays it and the House at home where we dwell there is a third House which we are this House of Clay and of Mud-walls our selves these bodies And is there none dead there not within us The House it self is ready to fall as soon as it is set up The next thing that we are to practise after we are born is to die The Timber of this House is but our Bones and My bones are waxen old says David and perchance not with age but as Job says His bones are full of the sins of his youth Ps 32.3 Job 20.11 Job 6.12 The lome-walls of this House are but this flesh and Our strength is not the strength of stones neither is our flesh brass and therefore Cursed is the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm Jer. 17.5 The windows of this House are but our eyes and the light of mine eyes is gone from me says David and we know not how nor how soon Esai 59.10 The foundation is but our feet and besides that Our feet stumble at noon as the Prophet complains David found them so cold as that no art nor diligence could warm them And the roof and covering of this House is but this thatch of hair and it is denounc'd by more then one of the Prophets Esai 15.23 Jer. 48.37 That upon all heads shall fall baldness The House it self is always ready to fall but is there not also always some dead in this House in our selves Is not our first-born dead Our first-born says St. Augustin are the offspring of our beloved sin for we have some Concubine-sins and some one sin that we are married to Whatsoever we have begot upon that wife whatsoever we have got by that sin that 's our first-born and that 's dead How much the better soever we make account to live by it it is dead For as it was the mischievous invention of a Persecutor in the Primitive Church to tie living men to dead bodies and let them die so so men that tie the rest of their Estate to goods ill gotten do but invent a way to ruine and destroy all But that which is truly
from others upon whom we may depend to admit any dramms of the dregs of a superstitious Religion for it is a miserable extremity when we must take a little poyson for physick And so having made the right use of Gods corrections we shall enjoy the comfort of this phrase in this House our selves our first-born our Zeal was dead it was but it is not Lastly in this fourth House the House where we stand now the House of God and of his Saints God affords us a fair beam of this consolation in the phrase of this Text also They were dead How appliable to you in this place is that which God said to Moses Put off thy shoes for thou treadest on holy ground put off all confidence all standing all relying upon worldly assurances and consider upon what ground you tread upon ground so holy as that all the ground is made of the bodies of Christians and therein hath received a second consecration Every puff of wind within these walls may blow the father into the sons eys or the wife into her husbands or his into hers or both into their childrens or their childrens into both Every grain of dust that flies here is a piece of a Christian you need not distinguish your Pews by figures you need not say I sit within so many of such a neighbour but I sit within so many inches of my husbands or wives or childes or friends grave Ambitious men never made more shift for places in Court then dead men for graves in Churches and as in our later times we have seen two and two almost in every Place and Office so almost every Grave is oppressed with twins and as at Christs resurrection some of the dead arose out of their graves that were buried again so in this lamentable calamity the dead were buried and thrown up again before they were resolved to dust to make room for more But are all these dead They were says the Text they were in your eys and therefore we forbid not that office of the eye that holy tenderness to weep for them that are so dead But there was a part in every one of them that could not die which the God of life who breathed it into them from his own mouth hath suck'd into his own bosome And in that part which could die They were dead but they are not The soul of man is not safer wrapt up in the bosome of God then the body of man is wrapt up in the Contract and in the eternal Decree of the Resurrection As soon shall God tear a leaf out of the Book of Life and cast so many of the Elect into Hell fire as leave the body of any of his Saints in corruption for ever To what body shall Christ Jesus be loth to put to his hand to raise it from the grave then that put to his very God-head the Divinity it self to assume all our bodies when in one person he put on all mankinde in his Incarnation As when my true repentance hath re-ingraffed me in my God and re-incorporated me in my Savior no man may reproach me and say Thou wast a sinner So since all these dead bodies shall be restored by the power and are kept alive in the purpose of Almighty God we cannot say They are scarce that they were dead When time shall be no more when death shall be no more they shall renew or rather continue their being But yet beloved for this state of their grave for it becomes us to call it a state it is not an annihilation no part of Gods Saints can come to nothing as this state of theirs is not to be lamented as though they had lost any thing which might have conduced to their good by departing out of this world so neither is it a state to be joyed in so as that we should expose our selves to dangers unnecessarily in thinking that we want any thing conducing to our good which the dead enjoy As between two men of equal age if one sleep and the other wake all night yet they rise both of an equal age in the morning so they who shall have slept out a long night of many ages in the grave and they who shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord Jesus in the aire at the last day shall enter all at once in their bodies into Heaven No antiquity no seniority for their bodies neither can their souls who went before be said to have been there a minute before ours because we shall all be in a place that reckons not by minutes Clocks and Sun-dials were but a late invention upon earth but the Sun it self and the earth it self was but a late invention in heaven God had been an infinite a super-infinite an unimaginable space millions of millions of unimaginable spaces in heaven before the Creation And our afternoon shall be as long as Gods forenoon for as God never saw beginning so we shall never see end but they whom we tread upon now and we whom others shall tread upon hereafter shall meet at once where though we were dead dead in our several houses dead in a sinful Egypt dead in our family dead in our selves dead in the Grave yet we shall be received with that consolation and glorious consolation you were dead but are alive Enter ye blessed into the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning Amen A SERMON Preached at the Temple SERMON XXII Esther 4.16 Go and assemble all the Jews that are found in Shushan and fast ye for me and eat not nor drink in three days day nor night I also and my Maids will fast likewise and so I will go in to the King which is not according to the Law And if I perish I perish NExt to the eternal and coessential Word of God Christ Jesus the written Word of God the Scriptures concern us most and therefore next to the person of Christ and his Offices the Devil hath troubled the Church with most questions about the certainty of Scriptures and the Canon thereof It was late before the Spirit of God setled and established an unanime and general consent in his Church for the accepting of this Book of Esther For not onely the holy Bishop Melito who defended the Christians by an Apology to the Emperor removed this Book from the Canon of the Scripture One hundred and fifty years after Christ but Athanasius also Three hundred and forty years after Christ refused it too Yea Gregory Nazianzen though he deserved and had the stile and title of Theologus The Divine and though he came to clearer times living almost Four hundred years after Christ did not yet submit himself to an acceptation of this Book But a long time there hath been no doubt of it and it is certainly part of that Scripture which is profitable to teach 2 Tim. 3.16 to reprove to correct and to instruct in righteousness To which purpose we shall see what is afforded
those faculties by the help of the Law And he calls it Suam their righteousness because they thought none had it but they And upon this Pelagian righteousness it thought Nature sufficient without Grace or upon this righteousness of the Cathari the Puritans in the Primitive Church that thought the Grace which they had received sufficient and that upon that stock they were safe and become impeccable and therefore left out of the Lords Prayer that Petition Dimitte nobis Forgive us our trespasses upon this Pelagian righteousness and this Puritan righteousness Christ does not work He left out the righteous not that there were any such but such as thought themselves so and he took in sinners not all effectually that were simply so but such as the sense of their sins and the miserable state that that occasioned brought to an acknowledgement that they were so Non Justos sed peccatores Peccatores Here then enters our Affirmative our Inclusive Who are called peccatores for here no man asks the Question of the former Branch there we asked Whether there were any righteous and we found none here we ask not whether there were any sinners for we can finde no others no not one He came to call sinners and only sinners that is only in that capacity in that contemplation as they were sinners for of that vain and frivolous opinion that got in and got hold in the later School That Christ had come in the flesh though Adam had stood in his innocence That though Man had nor needed Christ as a Redeemer yet he would have come to have given to man the greatest Dignity that Nature might possibly receive which was to be united to the Divine Nature of this Opinion one of those Jesuites whom we named before Maldonat who oftentimes making his use of whole sentences of Calvins says in the end This is a good Exposition but that he is an Heretick that makes it He says also of this Opinion That Christ had come though Adam had stood this is an ill Opinion but that they are Catholicks that have said it He came for sinners for sinners onely else he had not come and then he came for all kind of sinners Mat. 21.31 for upon those words of our Saviours to the High Priests and Pharisees Publicans and Harlots go into the Kingdom of Heaven before you good Expositors note that in those two Notations Publicans and Harlots many sorts of sinners are implyed in the name of Publicans all such as by their very profession and calling are led into tentations and occasions of sin to which some Callings are naturally more exposed then other such as can hardly be exercised without sin and then in the Name of Harlots and prostitute Women such as cannot at all be exercised without sin whose very profession is sin and yet for these for the worst of these for all these there is a voice gone out Christ is come to call sinners onely sinners all sinners Comes he then thus for sinners What an advantage had S. Paul then to be of this Quorum and the first of them Quorum Ego Maximus That when Christ came to save sinners he should be the greatest sinner the first in that Election If we should live to see that acted Mat. 24.41 which Christ speaks of at the last day Two in the field the one taken the other left should we not wonder to see him that were left lay hold upon him that were taken and offer to go to Heaven before him therefore because he had killed more men in the field or robbed more men upon the High-way or supplanted more in the Court or oppressed more in the City to make the multiplicity of his sins his title to Heaven Or two women grinding at the Mill one taken the other left to see her that was left offer to precede the other into Heaven therefore because she had prostituted her self to more men then the other had done Is this S. Pauls Quorum his Dignity his Prudency I must be saved because I am the greatest sinner God forbid God forbid we should presume upon salvation because we are sinners or sin therefore that we may be surer of salvation S. Pauls title to Heaven was not that he was primus peccator but primus Confessor that he first accused himself came to a sense of his miserable estate for that implies that which is our last word and the effect of Christs calling That whomsoever he calls or how or whensoever it is ad Resipiscentiam Non ad satisfactionem to repentance It is not ad satisfactionem Christ does not come to call us to make satisfaction to the justice of God he call'd us to a heavy to an impossible account if he call'd us to that If the death of Christ Jesus himself be but a satisfaction for the punishment for my sins for nothing less then that could have made that satisfaction what can a temporary Purgatory of days or hours do towards a satisfaction And if the torments of Purgatory it self sustain'd by my self be nothing towards a satisfaction what can an Evenings fast or an Ave Marie from my Executor or my Assignee after I am dead do towards such a satisfaction Canst thou satisfie the justice of God for all that blood which thou hast drawn from his Son in thy blasphemous Oaths and Execrations or for all that blood of his which thou hast spilt upon the ground upon the Dunghil in thy unworthy receiving the Sacrament Canst thou satisfie his justice for having made his Blessings the occasions and the instruments of thy sins or for the Dilapidations of his Temple in having destroyed thine own body by thine incontinency and making that the same flesh with a Harlot If he will contend with thee Job 9.9 thou canst not answer him one of a thousand Nay a thousand men could not answer one sin of one man It is not then Ad satisfactionem but it is not Ad gloriam neither Non ad Gloriam Christ does not call us to an immediate possession of glory without doing any thing between Our Glorification was in his intention as soon as our Election in God who sees all things at once both entred at once but in the Execution of his Decrees here God carries us by steps he calls us to Repentance The Farmers of this imaginary satisfaction they that fell it at their own price in their Indulgencies have done well to leave out this Repentance both in this text in S. Matthew and where the same is related by S. Mark In both places they tell us that Christ came to call sinners but they do not tell us to what as though it might be enough to call them to their market to buy their Indulgencies The Holy Ghost tells us it is to repentance Are ye to learn now what that is He that cannot define Repentance he that cannot spell it may have it and he that hath
written whole books great Volumes of it may be without it In one word one word will not do it but in two words it is Aversio and Conversio it is a turning from our sins and a returning to our God It is both for in our Age in our Sickness in any impotencie towards a sin in any satiety of a sin we turn from our sin but we turn not to God we turn to a sinful delight in the memory of our sins and a sinful desire that we might continue in them So also in a storm at sea in any imminent calamity at land we turn to God to a Lord Lord but at the next calm and at the next deliverance we turn to our sin again He onely is the true Israelite the true penitent that hath Nathaniel's mark In quo non est dolus In whom there is no deceit For to sin and think God sees it not because we confess it not to confess it as sin and yet continue the practise of it to discontinue the practise of it and continue the possession of that which was got by that sin all this is deceit and destroys evacuates annihilates all Repentance To recollect all and to end all Christ justifies feasting he feasts you with himself And feasting in an Apostles house in his own house he feasts you often here And he admits Publicans to this feast men whose full and open life in Court must necessarily expose them to many hazards of sin and the Pharisees our adversaries calumniate us for this they say we admit men too easily to the Sacrament without confession without contrition without satisfaction God in heaven knows we do not less much less then they For Confession we require publike confession in the Congregation And in time of Sickness upon the death-bed we enjoyn private and particular Confession if the conscience be oppressed And if any man do think that that which is necessary for him upon his death-bed is necessary every time he comes to the Communion and so come to such a confession if any thing lie upon him as often as he comes to the Communion we blame not we disswade not we dis-counsel not that tenderness of conscience and that safe proceeding in that good soul For Contrition we require such a contrition as amounts to a full detestation of the sin and a full resolution not to relapse into that sin and this they do not in the Romane Church where they have soupled and mollified their Contrition into an Attrition For Satisfaction we require such a satisfaction as Man can make to Man in goods or fame and for the satisfaction due to God we require that every man with a sober and modest but yet with a confident and infallible assurance believe the satisfaction given to God by Christ for all mankinde to have been given and accepted for him in particular This Christ with joy and thanksgiving we acknowledge to be come to be come actually we expect no other after him we joyn no other to him And come freely without any necessity impos'd by any above him and without any invitation from us here Come not to meet us who were not able to rise without him but yet not to force us to save us against our wills but come to call us by his Ordinances in his Church us not as we pretend any righteousness of our own but as we confess our selves to be sinners and sinners led by this call to Repentance which Repentance is an everlasting Divorce from our beloved sin and an everlasting Marriage and super-induction of our ever-living God A SERMON Preached at VVHITE-HALL April 2. 1620. Serm. 10. SERMON X. ECCLES 5. There is an evil sickness that I have seen under the Sun Riches reserved to the owners thereof for their evill And these riches perish by evil travail and he begetteth a son and in his hand is nothing Ver. 12. 13. in Edit 1. In alia 13. 14. THe kingdom of heaven is a feast to get you a Stomach to that we have preached abstinence The kingdom of heaven is a treasure too and to make you capable of that we would bring you to a just valuation of this world He that hath his hands full of dirt cannot take up Amber if they be full of Counters he cannot take up gold This is the Book Hierm. which St. Hierome chose to expound to Blesilla at Rome when his purpose was to draw her to heaven by making her to understand this world It was the book fittest for that particular way and it is the Book which St. Ambrose calls Bonum ad omnia magistrum Ambros A good Master to correct us in this world a good Master to direct us to the next For though Solomon had asked at Gods hand onely the wisdom fit for Government yet since he had bent his wishes upon so good a thing as wisdom and in his wishes even of the best thing had been so moderate God abounded in his grant and gave him all kinds Naturall and Civil and heavenly wisdom And therefore when the Fathers and the latter Authours in the Roman Church exercise their considerations August whether Solomon were wiser then Adam then Moses then the Prophets then the Apostles they needed not to have been so tender as to except onely the Virgin Mary for though she had such a fulness of heavenly wisdom as brought her to rest in his bosome in heaven who had rested in hers upon earth yet she was never proposed for an example of natural or of civil knowledge Solomon was of all and therefore St. Austin sayes of him Prophetavit in omnibus Libris suis Solomon prophesied in all his books and though in this book his principal scope be moral and practique wisdom yet in this there are also mysteries and prophecies and many places concerning our eternal happiness after this life But because there is no third object for mans love This world and the next are all that he can consider as he hath but two eyes so he hath but two objects and then Primus actus voluntatis est Amor Aquinas Mans love is never idle it is ever directed upon somthing if our love might be drawn from this world Solomon thought it a direct way to convay it upon the next And therefore consider Solomons method and wisdom in pursuing this way because all the world together hath amazing greatness and an amazing glory in it for the order and harmony and continuance of it for if a man have many Manors he thinks himself a great Lord and if a Man have many Lords under him he is a great King and if he have Kings under him he is a great Emperor and yet what profit were it to get all the world and loose thy soule Therefore Solomon shakes the world in peeces he dissects it and cuts it up before thee that so thou mayest the better see how poor a thing that particular is whatsoever it be