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
that in some visible in some permanent manner in writing and that that writing is Scripture if we had not these testimonies these necessary consequences derived even from the naturall reason of man to convince men how should we convince them since our way is not to create Faith but to satisfie reason And therefore let us rest in this testimony of men that all Christian men nay Iewes and Turkes too have ever beleeved that there are certain Scriptures which are the revealed will of God and that God hath manifested to us in those Scriptures all that he requires at our hands for Faith or Manners Now which are those Scriptures As for the whole body intirely together so for the particular limbs and members of this body the severall books of the Bible we must accept testimonium ab homine humane Arguments and the testimony of men At first the Jewes were the Depositaries of Gods Oracles and therefore the first Christians were to aske the Jewes which books were those Scriptures Since the Church of God is the Master of those Rolls no doubt but the Church hath Testimonium à Deo The Spirit of God to direct her in declaring what Books make up the Scripture but yet even the Church which is to deal upon men proceedeth also per testimonium ab homine by humane Arguments such as may work upon the reason of man in declaring the Scriptures of God For the New Testament there is no question made of any Book but in Conventicles of Anabaptists and for the Old it is testimony enough that we receive all that the Jews received This is but the testimony of man but such as prevails upon every man It is somewhat boldly said not to permit to our selves any severer or more bitter animadversion upon him by a great man in the Romam Church that perchance the book of Enoch which S. Iude cites in his Epistle was not an Apocryphal book but Canonicall Scripture in the time of the Iews As though the holy Ghost were a time-server and would sometimes issue some things for present satisfaction which he would not avow nor stand to after as though the holy Ghost had but a Lease for certain years a determinable estate in the Scriptures which might expire and he be put from his evidence that that book might become none of his which was his before We therefore in receiving these books for Canonicall which we do and in post-posing the Apochryphall into an inferior place have testimonium ab homine testimony from the People of God who were and are the most competent and unreproachable witnesses herein and we have Testimonium ab inimico testimony from our adversary himself Perniciosius est Ecclesiae librum recipere pro sacro qui non est quà m sacrum rejicere It is a more pernicious danger to the Church to admit a book for Canonicall which is not so then to reject one that is so And therefore ne turberis novitie saith another great Author of theirs Let no young student in Divinity be troubled si alicubi repererit libros istos supputari inter Canonicos if he finde at any time any of these books reckned amongst the Canonical nam ad Hiero. limam verba Doctorum Concilio rum reducenda for saith he Hieroms file must passe over the Doctors and over the Councels too and they must be understood and interpreted according to S. Hier. now this is but testimonium ab homine S. Hier. testimony that prevailed upon Cajetan and it was but testimonium ab homine the testimony of the Iews that prevailed upon S. Hierom himself It is so for the whole body The bible it is so for all the limbs of this body every particular book of the Bible and it is so for the soul of this body the true sense of every place of very book thereof for for that the sense of the place we must have testimonium ab homine the testimony that is the interpretation of other men Thou must not rest upon thy self nor upon any private man Iohn was a witnesse that had witnesses the Prophets had prophesied of Iohn Baptist. The men from whom we are to receive testimony of the sense of the Scriptures must be men that have witnesses that is a visible and outward calling in the Church of God That no sense be ever admitted that derogateth from God that makes him a false or an impotent or a cruell God That every contradiction and departing from the Analogy of Faith doth derogate from God and divers such grounds and such inferences as every man confesses and acknowledges to be naturally and necessarily consequent these are Testimonia ab homine Testimonies that passe like currant money from man to man obvious to every man suspicious to none Thus it is in the generall but then when it is deduced to a more particular triall what is the sense of such or such a place when Christ saith Scrutamini Scripturas search the Scriptures non mittit ad simplicem lectionem sed ad scrutationem exquisitam It is not a bare reading but a diligent searching that is enjoyned us Now they that will search must have a warrant to search they upon whom thou must rely for the sense of the Scriptures must be sent of God by his Church Thou art robbed of all devested of all if the Scriptures be taken from thee Thou hast no where to search blesse God therefore that hath kept thee in possession of that sacred Treasure the Scriptures and then if any part of that treasure ly out of thy reach or ly in the dark so as that thou understandest not the place search that is apply thy self to them that have warrant to search and thou shalt lack no light necessary for thee Either thou shalt understand that place or the not understanding of it shall not be imputed to thee nor thy salvation hindred by that Ignorance It is but to a woman that Saint Hierome saith Ama Scripturas amabit te Sapientia Love the Scriptures and Wisdome will love thee The weaknesse of her Sex must not avert her from reading the Scriptures It is instruction for a Childe and for a Girle that the same Father giveth Septem annorum discat memoriter Psalterium As soone as she is seaven yeares old let her learn all the Psalmes without book the tendernesse of her age must not avert her from the Scriptures It is to the whole Congregation consisting of all sorts and sexes that Saint Chrysostome saith Hortor hortari non desinam I alwayes doe and alwayes will exhort you ut cum domi fueritis assiduae lectioni Scripturarum vacetis that at home in your owne houses you accustome your selves to a dayly reading of the Scriptures And after to such men as found or forced excuses for reading them he saith with compassion and indignation too O homo non est tuum Scripturas evolvere
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
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
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
Oppresse not that soule by violence by Fraud nor by Scorne which was the other signification of this word Oppression Hoc nos perdit quod divina quoque eloquia in facetias in dicteria vertamus Damnation is a serious thing and this aggravates it that we slight and make jests at that which should save us the Scriptures and the Ordinances of God For by this oppression of thy poore soule by this Violence this Fraud this Scorne thou wilt come to Reproach thy Maker to impute that losse of thy soule which thou hast incurred by often breach of Lawes evidently manifested to thee to his secret purpose and un-revealed will then which thou canst not put a greater Reproach a greater Contumely a greater Blasphemy upon God For God cannot bee God if hee bee not innocent nor innocent if hee draw bloud of mee for his owne Act. But if thou show mercy to this soule mercy in that signification of the word as it denotes an actuall performance of those things that are necessary for the making sure of thy salvation or if thou canst not yet attaine to those degrees of Sanctification mercy in that signification of the word as the word denotes hearty and earnest Prayer that thou couldest Lord I beleeve Lord help mine unbeliefe Lord I stand yet yet Lord raise mee when I fall Honorabis Deum thou shalt honour God in the sense of the word in this Text thou shalt enlarge God amplifie dilate God that is the Body of God the Church both here and hereafter For thou shalt adde a figure to the number of his Saints and there shall bee a Saint the more for thee Thou shalt adde a Theme of Joy to the Exultation of the Angels They shall have one occasion of rejoycing the more from thee Thou shalt adde a pause a stop to that Vsquequo of the Martyrs under the Altar who solicite God for the Resurrection for Thou shalt adde a step to the Resurrection it selfe by having brought it so much nearer as to have done thy part for the filling up of the number of the Saints upon which fulnesse the Resurrection shall follow And thou shalt adde a Voyce to that Old and ever-new Song that Catholique Hymne in which both Churches Militant and Triumphant shall joyne Blessing Honour Glory and Power bee unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lambe for ever and ever Amen SERMON XLIII A Sermon upon the fist of Novemb. 1622. being the Anniversary celebration of our Deliverance from the Powder Treason Intended for Pauls Crosse but by reason of the weather Preached in the Church LAMENT 4. 20. The breath of our nostrils the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits The Prayer before the Sermon O LORD open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise for thou O Lord didst make haste to help us Thou O Lord didst make speed to save us Thou that sittest in heaven didst not onely looke down to see what was done upon the Earth but what was done in the Earth and when the bowels of the Earth were with a key of fire ready to open and swallow us the bowels of thy compassion were with a key of love opened to succour us This is the day and these are the houres wherein that should have been acted In this our Day and in these houres We praise thee O God we acknowledge thee to bee the Lord All our Earth doth worship thee The holy Church throughout all this Land doth knowledge thee with commemorations of that great mercy now in these houres Now in these houres it is thus commemorated in the Kings House where the Head and Members praise thee Thus in that place where it should have been perpetrated where the Reverend Judges of the Land doe now praise thee Thus in the Universities where the tender youth of this Land is brought up to praise thee in a detestation of their Doctrines that plotted this Thus it is commemorated in many severall Societies in many severall Parishes and thus here in this Mother Church in this great Congregation of thy Children where all of all sorts from the Lievtenant of thy Lievtenant to the meanest sonne of thy sonne in this Assembly come with hearts and lippes full of thankesgiving Thou Lord openest their lippes that their mouth may shew forth thy prayse for Thou O Lord diddest make haste to helpe them Thou diddest make speede to save them Accept O Lord this Sacrifice to which thy Spirit giveth fire This of Praise for thy great Mercies already afforded to us and this of Prayer for the continuance and enlargement of them upon the Catholick Church by them who pretend themselves the onely sonnes thereof dishonoured this Day upon these Churches of England Scotland and Ireland shaked and threatned dangerously this Day upon thy servant our Soveraigne for his Defence of the true Faith designed to ruine this day upon the Prince and others derived from the same roote some but Infants some not yet Infants enwrapped in dust and annihilation this day upon all the deliberations of the Counsell That in all their Consultations they may have before their eyes the Record and Registers of this Day upon all the Clergie That all their Preaching and their Governement may preclude in their severall Iurisdictions all re-entrances of that Religion which by the Confession of the Actours themselves was the onely ground of the Treason of this day upon the whole Nobilitie and Commons all involved in one Common Destruction this Day upon both our Universities which though they lacke no Arguments out of thy Word against the Enemies of thy Truth shall never leave out this Argument out of thy Works The Historie of this Day And upon all those who are any wayes afflicted That our afflictions bee not multiplyed upon us by seeing them multiplyed amongst us who would have diminished thee and annihilated us this Day And lastly upon this Auditory assembled here That till they turne to ashes in the Grave they may remember that thou tookest them as fire-brands out of the fire this Day Heare us O Lord and hearken to us Receive our Prayers and returne them with Effect for his sake in whose Name and words wee make them Our Father which art c. The SERMON OF the Authour of this Booke I thinke there was never doubt made but yet that is scarce safely done which the Councell of Trent doth in that Canon which numbers the Books of Canonicall Scriptures to leave out this Book of Lamentations For though I make no doubt but that they had a purpose to comprehend and involve it in the name of Ieremy yet that was not enough for so they might have comprehended and involved Genesis and Deuteronomie and all between those two in one name of Moses and so they might have comprehended and involved the Apocalypse and some Epistles in the name of Iohn and have left out the Book it selfe in the number But one of their
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
nor over-mourne for that which as we have induced it upon our selves so God shall deliver us from at last that is both death and corruption after death and captivity in that comfortlesse state but for the resurection For so long we are to be dust and so long lasts the Serpents life Satans power over man dust must he eate all the days of his life In the meane time for our comfort in the way when this Serpent becomes a Lyon yet there is a Lyon of the Tribe of Iudah that is too strong for him so if he who is Serpens serpens humi the Serpent condemned to creep upon the ground doe transforme himselfe into a flying Serpent and attempt our nobler faculties there is Serpens exaltatus a Serpent lifted up in the wildernesse to recover all them that are stung and feel that they are stung with this Serpent this flying Serpent that is these high and continued sinnes The creeping Serpent the groveling Serpent is Craft the exalted Serpent the crucified Serpent is Wisdome All you worldly cares all your crafty bargaines all your subtill matches all your diggings into other means estates all your hedgings in of debts all your planting of children in great allyances all these diggings and hedgings and plantings savour of the earth and of the craft of that Serpent that creeps upon the earth But crucifie this craft of yours bring all your worldly subtilty under the Crosse of Christ Jesus husband your farmes so as you may give a good account to him presse your debts so as you would be pressed by him market and bargaine so as that you would give all to buy that field in which his treasure and his pearle is hid and then you have changed the Serpent from the Serpent of perdition creeping upon the earth to the Serpent of salvation exalted in the wildernesse Creeping wisedome that still looks downward is but craft Crucified wisedome that looks upward is truly wisedome Between you and that ground Serpent God hath kindled a war and the nearer you come to a peace with him the farther ye go from God and the more ye exaspetate the Lord of Hosts and you whet his sword against your own souls A truce with that Serpent is too near a peace to condition with your conscience for a time that you may continue in such a sin till you have paid for such a purchase married such a daughter bought such an annuity undermined and eaten out such an unthrift this truce though you mean to end it before you die is too near a peace with that Serpent between whom and you God hath kindled an everlasting war A cessation of Arms that is not to watch all his attempts and tentations not to examine all your particular actions A Treaty of Peace that is to dispute and debate in the behalf and favour of a sin to palliate to disguise to extenuate that sin this is too near a peace with this Serpent this creeping Serpent But in the other Serpent the crucified Serpent God hath reconciled to himself all things in heaven and earth and hell You have peace in the assistance of the Angels of heaven Peace in the contribution of the powerfull prayers and of the holy examples of the Saints upon earth peace in the victory and triumph over the power of hell peace from sins towards men peace of affections in your selves peace of conscience towards God From your childhood you have been called upon to hold your peace To be content is to hold your peace murmure not at God in any corrections of his and you doe hold this peace That creeping Serpent Satan is war and should be so The crucified Serpent Christ Jesus is peace and shall be so for ever The creeping Serpent eats our dust the strength of our bodies in sicknesses and our glory in the dust of the grave The crucified Serpent hath taken our flesh and our blood and given us his flesh and his blood for it And therefore as David when he was thought base for his holy freedome in dancing before the Ark said he would be more base so since we are all made of red earth let him that is red be more red Let him that is red with the blood of his own soul be red again in blushing for that rednesse and more red in the Communion of the blood of Christ Jesus whom we shall eat all the days of our life and be mystically and mysteriously and spiritually and Sacramentally united to him in this life and gloriously in the next In this state of dust and so in the territory of the Serpent the Tyrant of the dead lies this dead brother of ours and hath lien some years who occasions our meeting now and yearly upon this day and whose soul we doubt not is in the hands of God who is the God of the living And having gathered a good Gomer of Manna a good measure of temporall blessings in this life and derived a fair measure thereof upon them whom nature and law directed it upon and in whom we beseech God to blesse it hath also distributed something to the poor of this Parish yearly this day and something to a meeting for the conserving of neighbourly love and something for this exercise In which no doubt his intention was not so much to be yearly remembred himself as that his posterity and his neighbours might be yearly remembred to doe as he had done For this is truly to glorifie God in his Saints to sanctifie our selves in their examples To celebrate them is to imitate them For as it is probably conceived and agreeably to Gods Justice that they that write wanton books or make wanton pictures have additions of torment as often as other men are corrupted with their books or their pictures so may they who have left permanent examples of good works well be beleeved to receive additions of glory and joy when others are led by that to do the like And so they who are extracted and derived from him and they who dwelt about him may assist their own happiness and enlarge his by following his good example in good proportions Amen SERMON XLVIII Preached at St. Dunstans LAMENT 3. 1. I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath YOU remember in the history of the Passion of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus there was an Ecce homo a shewing an exhibiting of that man in whom we are all blessed Pilat presented him to the Jews so with that Ecce homo Behold the man That man upon whom the wormwood and the gall of all the ancient Prophecies and the venome and malignity of all the cruell instruments thereof was now poured out That man who was left as a tender plant and as a roote out of a dry ground without forme or beauty or comelinesse that wee should desire to see him as the Prophet Esay exhibits him That man who upon the brightnesse of